Category: Wanker

Great Google Moogly!

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It’s been too ugly for too long
H/t Calculated Risk

Remember how I said that unemployment has been stuck between about 450,000 and 480,000 initial claims a week?

Well, not any more, today’s numbers were up by 12,000 to ½ a million initial claims, with the 4 week moving average rose by 8,000 to 482,500.

Of course, since the article was written by a financial journalist, which means that they feel the need to be a cheerleader, and they are innumerate, they found someone to say that the 13 K drop, to 4.48 million, in continuing claims as, “an encouraging sign,” but later they note that the number of people on emergency benefits, “increased 260,105 to 4.75 million in the week ended July 31.” (the week prior to this one)

Let me explain this slowly for the financial journalists who might read this The people who are on continuing claims are in the 26-week window, if they go beyond that, they are no longer counter as having a continuing claim, they are counted as being on emergency benefits, so the falling number of continuing claims is not people getting jobs, it’s people being unemployed even longer.

In any case, this is really grim. The already inadequate stimulus is winding down, and job losses are once again accellerating, and we have an election in 2½ months, and if the Republicans take power, they will drive the country even further into the ditch.

Yes, a half assed stimulus, which was then watered down by the dickwads in the Senate was such a good idea.

He’s Not the Wanker of the Day……

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But only because Howard Dean gets that honor today.

Once again, it’s Chris Dodd, who continues to audition for his 7-figure lobbying gig, because after sending out signals that she was a great candidate, but not confirmable, there has been a groundswell of support that appears to be dragging the Obama administration kicking and screaming into nominating her. (I still don’t think that they will)

So now Dodd has taking a new tack, saying that he is unsure if she is qualified:

“If the president wants to name her and it goes through the hearing process, then fine, she’ll have my support,” Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) told the Hartford Courant editorial board. “But she has to tell me more than just she’s a good consumer advocate or that’s she’s got a great campaign.

“It isn’t just a question of being a consumer advocate. I want to see that she can manage something, too.”

Dude, you ran for President of the United States, and you never managed anything bigger than a a Senator’s office.

<Facepalm>

Well F%$# Me.

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Pat Buchanan taking the moral high ground
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?


Ted Olson says that Obama is Right


Howard Dean calls for the Islamic center to move

First, Pat Buchanan seizes the moral high ground, 7 words I never expected to say, when he takes Newt Gingrich to task for inappropriate Nazi references:

How do you get more attention than Sarah Palin, who’s very good at this, is to go two steps further. I mean, I think bringing the Nazis into the argument is always absurd in American politics because there is no valid comparison there. And secondly, you know, you bring that in and that’s all we start talking about.

Meanwhile, Ted Olson, Republican hatchet man, and survivor of a 911 victim, his 1st wife was on one of the planes, has said that Barack Obama was right to say that this is a matter of fundamental rights and values.

And while we are on the the matter of people taking counter-intuitive positions on this, we have Howard Dean calling for the Islamic center to move.

I’m not sure what brought on this uncharacteristic outburst of cowardice, but Dr. Dean is the individual here to whom the “wanker” tag implies.

We live in a world that resembles what The Onion would write, if they were on Bizarro World, and they dropped acid.

Big Surprise, Harry Reid Chooses Cowardice Over American Values

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He’s called for the Lower Manhattan Islamic center to move:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has now spoken out on the Muslim community center in New York — saying that while the organizers are free to construct the project, it should be moved somewhere else.

“The First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Senator Reid respects that but thinks that the mosque should be built some place else,” said a statement from Reid spokesman Jim Manley. “If the Republicans are being sincere, they would help us pass this long overdue bill to help the first responders whose health and livelihoods have been devastated because of their bravery on 911, rather than continuing to block this much-needed legislation.”

If he weren’t running against Sharron Angle, I’d be rooting for the Republican.

Of course, he is running against Sharron Angle, so I am merely ambivalent.

Of course, it’s so transparently craven that it probably hurt him more, but cowardice when it is both self-destructive and stupid appears to be a basic Democratic Party value.

Your Gibbs Update

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So, little Bobbie Gibbs has doubled down on his tantrum, refusing to offer anything beyond that he was “frustrated”, and then he went on to basically say that the liberal party base are nothing but a bunch of helpless co%$ suckers who have no where else to go, so they will show up to vote like the pathetic losers that you think that they are:

A day after the controversy over Gibbs’ remarks was seemingly been put to rest by a quick walk-back from the press secretary, Wednesday’s briefing seems likely to reignite the debate over the White House’s relationship with liberals. But if there was nervousness over base voters not heading to the polls, Gibbs didn’t show it:

“I don’t think [liberal voters won’t show up],” he said, “because I think what’s at stake in November is too important to do that.”

The translation here is, “Neener-neener you dweebs! What are you going to do, vote for Ralph Nader.“

That‘s really going to invigorate the base.

First, what The Rude Pundit said:

Finally, f%$# you, Mr. Press Secretariat, because you should be wooing the f%$# out of us. You should be trying to get in our underwear and hand job us with a smile on your face instead of treating us like a convenient punching bag because you don’t want to offend the precious “real America” or whatever bullsh%$ phrase politicians want to use to isolate and alienate us. Why? Because we’re the ones that made sure you are the Press Secretary.

(%$# mine)

And then we have Alan Grayson saying that he should be fired, and notes that he is frequently referred to as “Bozo the spokesman.”

If there is a lesson of the past 40 years in Politics, it is that dissing your base is a way to lose elections.

If this is how the Obama administration thinks it should win elections, I have no clue how the beat McCain in 2008.

*In a 110% purely heterosexual kind of way, of course, as the General would say.

I Don’t Know if Little Bobbie Gibbs Should Resign…

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But the White House press secretary certainly should go f%$# himself after this outburst:

During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

……

As a bit of fact checking, Canadian healthcare is actually a good thing, it has lower prices and better outcomes than we in the US achieve, and I can’t find anyone who supports abolishing the Pentagon, not even Dennis Kucinich, whose supporters Gibbs excoriates later in the interview.

For a senior adviser to the president, this is stupid and regrettable. For the press secretary, whose sole job is to cast administration policy in the most positive way, it is inexcusable.

This is not just beneath the behavior of a sentient being serving as press secretary, it’s beneath Dana Perino at her most addle-headed.

That being said, Paul Krugman makes a very good point, that, “What’s good for Obama is not necessarily good for his aides.” He calls it the “Principal Agent Problem,” which is economist wonk-speak for saying that people who work for someone may frequently advance their own agenda at the expense of those of their boss.

A classic case is overpaid executives who are nominally, “working for the shareholders,” when they are actually working to maximize personal gain, even at the expense of the viability of the corporation.

Obama is not really harmed by criticism from his base, but this criticism might change just who Obama listens to, so this reaction is almost certainly a reflection of his staff’s insecurities more than it is a realistic concern for Barack Obama or his agenda.

I think that Krugman sees the point clearly, but that he does miss another one: This sort of reaction is a fairly common in the Obama White House, Google, “f%$#ing retarded,” for example, and it indicates a staff that is obsessed with their own positioning at the expense of the administration and Obama’s policy agenda (whatever the f%$# that is).

So, your press secretary probably deserves to be fired, and the counter productive venom expressed by your staff indicates that the staff are not being properly managed, which says something distressing about his chief of staff.

Here’s hoping that Obama won’t hang onto Rahm the way that Bush hung onto Rumsfeld, and yeah, dumping Vilsac and Salazar might be a good idea too.

If There is the Slimmest Possibility of Making the Wrong Decision……

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Then you can be certain that soon to be former New York Governor David Paterson will be in favor of it:

Gov. David A. Paterson said Tuesday that he would consider offering state-owned property to the developers of a $100 million Muslim center and mosque if they decided to build it farther from ground zero.

The governor, wading into a fierce national debate over freedom of religion, said “there is no reason why” the center, known as Park51, should not be built as planned, two blocks from the former World Trade Center.

Well, let’s see. We have:

  • Appealing to the basest of bigoted demagogues.
  • Just how far from ground zero do you have to be?
  • Why is it OK for a strip club to be located less than a block away from the mosque sites.
  • This a blatantly unconstitutional engagement of religion by the government. It’s both a subsidy, and a ban based on a the religion of those involved.
  • OK, I’m a Jew, when does my shul get its free real estate on Manhattan?

Seriously, this guy almost makes McConnell and Boehner look good.

If They Believe It, It’s Wrong

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Because they are always wrong about everything:

The U.S. economy will improve slowly and another round of fiscal stimulus probably wouldn’t be effective, former Treasury secretaries Paul O’Neill and Robert Rubin said.

Truth be told, I haven’t followed Paul O’Neill closely, but Bob Rubin should be on trial for a long history of fraud, and should not be taken seriously since he drove Citi into the ditch.

Mo stimulus, Mo stimulus, Mo stimulus!

Seriously, these guys are the Washington Generals of finance.

Google and Verizon Hammer Nails in Net Neutrality’s Coffin

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My guess is that Google has given up on the timid Obama administration, and Obama’s timid FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, who falls over when the incumbent players say “boo”, so Google is throwing in the towel, and is negotiating with Verizon to pay extortion money to insure that it doesn’t get shut out of the telcos last mile:

Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.

The charges could be paid by companies, like YouTube, owned by Google, for example, to Verizon, one of the nation’s leading Internet service providers, to ensure that its content received priority as it made its way to consumers. The agreement could eventually lead to higher charges for Internet users.

Why is Google throwing in the towel?

Well part of it may be because Verizon is a major player in mobile phones, and they don’t want to be locked out:

People close to the negotiations who were not authorized to speak publicly about them said an agreement could be reached as soon as next week. If completed, Google, whose Android operating system powers many Verizon wireless phones, would agree not to challenge Verizon’s ability to manage its broadband Internet network as it pleased.

Or maybe it’s because all this hopey changey crap is nopey change crap:

Since the court decision, involving Comcast, in April, the F.C.C. has been trying to find a way to regulate broadband delivery, and that effort has been the subject of a series of private meetings at the agency’s headquarters in recent weeks. At the meetings, officials from the nation’s biggest Internet service and content providers, including Google and Verizon, have tried to reach a consensus on how broadband Internet service should be regulated in light of the decision. Those meetings continued this week, apart from the talks between Google and Verizon.

Yes, you have a group of people doing bad things, and destroying a public resource, and even though you have the authority to regulate, all you have to do is redefine broadband, and you are good to go, you are working to, “reach a consensus on how broadband Internet service should be regulated.”

That’s like banks trying to reach a consensus with bank robbers.

The incumbents are not valued members of the community, they are parasites who use an accident of history to attempt to act as highwaymen.

It’s not tough to reregulate this sh%$. You can’t now because a few years back, your Bushco predecessor made it so:

The F.C.C., meanwhile, favors a level playing field, but it cannot impose one as long as its authority over broadband is in legal doubt. It has proposed a solution that would reclassify broadband Internet service under the Communications Act from its current designation as an “information service,” a lightly regulated designation, to a “telecommunications service,” a category that, like telephone service, is subject to stricter regulation.

It’s very simple. Make a new finding. The old one was a payoff to the telcos for campaign bucks, warrantless wiretapping, and a failed free market ideology.

Make that ruling, and then, when you have a big stick, you can get to the rule making.

First, get a firm grip on their balls, and then negotiate.

Remember, we are dealing with The Phone Company here, and to quote Lily Tomlin, “We don’t care, we don’t have to…we’re the phone company.”

They may be essential, but they aren’t allies.

Then again, I’m being an optimist. If you look at the Obama administration’s actions, whether they be healthcare, financial reform, the Employee Free Choice Act, etc., it’s clear that their MO is to talk about reform, and then to give the malefactors what they want, so this could be by design, rather than by incompetence or cowardice.

In either case, treating the Obama Administration, and their FCC Chairman as the enemy and a bad faith player still gives activists the best policy, so I would suggest that this is what net neutrality activists do.

Avoid the veal pen conference calls, and light fires under them.

The FBI Gets Stupid

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J. Edgar Hoover can bite my shiny metal ass!

This bit of FBI stupidity is a pretty good indication of how the current IP regime, and what people think the current IP regime is is a clusterf%$#:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken on everyone from Al Capone to John Dillinger to the Unabomber. Its latest adversary: Wikipedia.

The bureau wrote a letter in July to the Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of Wikipedia, demanding that it take down an image of the F.B.I. seal accompanying an article on the bureau, and threatened litigation: “Failure to comply may result in further legal action. We appreciate your timely attention to this matter.”

The problem, those at Wikipedia say, is that the law cited in the F.B.I.’s letter is largely about keeping people from flashing fake badges or profiting from the use of the seal, and not about posting images on noncommercial Web sites. Many sites, including the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, display the seal.

Other organizations might simply back down. But Wikipedia sent back a politely feisty response, stating that the bureau’s lawyers had misquoted the law. “While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version” that the F.B.I. had provided.

I can understand if it’s some smart ass blogger telling J. Edgar Hoover, “Bite their shiny metal ass,”* but this is a post of the seal on a damn encyclopedia.

Morons.

*Somehow, I don’t think that the G-men are coming after me, and neither does the New York Times, who also reproduced the seal.

Wanker of the Day

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Little Timmy Geithner just penned an OP/Ed today, “Welcome to the Recovery,” which is remarkably clueless.

While he admits that there is still a tough row to how, his he characterization of the recovery is positively Hooveresque.

I am surprised that he did not announce that “Prosperity is just around the corner.”

He declares, “We are on a path back to growth,” and that “The economy on the road to recovery”.

I understand the desire to paint this rosily, but it is a political loser: Americans do not respond well to claims of a robust recovery when ⅙ of the workforce (U6) is unemployed.

I think that the problem here is that Geithner does not see this unemployment level as a problem.

Why else would he suggest that at a time when there are 5 job applicants for every job opening, a record, that the problem is just that American workers need training:

The share of workers who have been unemployed for six months or more is at its highest level since 1948, when the data was first recorded, and we must do more to ensure that they have the skills they need to re-enter the 21st-century economy.

This is offensive and wrong on so many levels.

As Atrios notes:

The sentence that should have been written is:

The share of workers who have been unemployed for six months or more is at its highest level since 1948, when the data was first recorded, and we must do more to ensure that they have jobs.

But obviously that’s not what they’re thinking. Unemployment is a skills mismatch problem, unemployed losers don’t “have the skills they need to re-enter the 21st-century economy.”

We’re screwed.

Anyone who thinks that the problem is a temporary dislocation of workers, as opposed to a period of catastrophic job loss should be considered to lack the skills necessary to be employed in the 21st century economy.

Fire Tim Geithner now.

Obama is Objectively Worst than Bush

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In addition to increasing deportations of illegal aliens to a pace only dreamed of by the Bush administration, Barack Obama is looking to expand the FBI’s extrajudicial, and much abused National Security Letters beyond what Dick Cheney wanted in his most paranoid fantasies:

Today, The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration wants Congress to expand the type of data that can be gained through the use of National Security Letters:

The administration wants to add just four words — “electronic communication transactional records” — to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge’s approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user’s browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the “content” of e-mail or other Internet communication.

This is on the heels not only of the administration blocking reasonable restrictions on what has objectively been widespread misuse of NSLs, but of the FBI recently beginning to investigate whether or not “hundreds” of agents cheated on the exam meant to “ensure that they could follow aggressive investigative guidelines without intruding on Americans’ privacy rights.” That’s on top of threatening to veto the meager intelligence-oversight reforms being proposed by Congress. As Gene Healy wrote yesterday, “Our interminable war on terror sometimes seems designed to justify every bad thing libertarians have ever said about government.” Having acted irresponsibly with the surveillance power it already has, and blocked reform that would have made the government more accountable, the Obama administration now wants even more power to violate the privacy rights of American citizens. When it comes to national security, there’s nothing like failed government performance to justify giving the government more power.

My sense on these matters is that there are a number of issues which are driving this:

  • Barack Obama feels that he and his administration are good people who can responsibly handle this authority, and so he, and his administration, do not need to constrained by constitutional checks and balances.
    • Which would put former adjunct Professor Obama in serious running for “Worst Constitutional Law Professor ever.”
  • Barack Obama has been successfully cowed by the professional state security apparatus in the United States, which is doubtless feeding him alarmist horror stories, and so he is giving them their wish list.
  • That, much like he is in the case of expanded deportations, and the war in Afghanistan, he sees this as a way to inoculate himself against attacks from the right in 2012.
    • If this one is true, it means that Dick Cheney has more ideological integrity than does Barack Obama, as scary as that sound.
  • Because he can, which, as former President Bill Clinton noted is the worst possible reason.

It is really remarkable how despite my low expectations, he continues to manage to disappoint.

To a large degree I blame those who protested the excesses of Bush and His Evil Minions™ who are not largely silent, because Barack Obama is the leader of their party.

Wanker of the Day

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Chris Dodd, who is saying that Elizabeth Warren is not confirmable as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Now that he is not running for reelection, I guess that he’s looking for a lobbying gig with the finance industry:

“She’s qualified, no question about that. The question is whether she’s confirmable,” Dodd added. “The issue is [if] you can’t confirm somebody, if you go six or seven months without someone in that job, you’ve got a problem.”

Progressives have been strongly pressuring the Obama administration to appoint Warren ever since the Wall Street reform bill passed in Congress. Some have argued that she be given a recess appointment if a minority of senators block her confirmation. Dodd objects to that idea.

“I think that would be a huge mistake,” Dodd said, in response to a question from TPMDC. “Recess appointments. No, no, no.”

“I think those are, you know, Republicans used to do it, I think that’s a mistake,” Dodd added. “Except in the most extreme circumstances where you need someone because of an emergency pending, but as a routine matter, I think it’s a fundamental mistake.”

Go Cheney yourself Mr. Distinguished Gentleman from Connecticut.

People Who Should Have Been Drowned at Birth

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Jeffrey Lord, writing, rather unsurprisingly, for The American Spectator, who claims that the lynching of her relative, Bobby Hall, because they beat him to death instead of hanging him.

So, according to the “white cracker inbred former Reagan White House political director” morons out there, it’s only a lynching if it involves rope.

At least ⅓ of lynchings did not involve hangings. They involved burning, shooting, and (Yes, Virginia) beating, among other methods.

Needless to say, as a result of his contemptible and brain dead rants, he is sure to be invited onto the Sunday political talk shows.

Cry Me a F%$#ing River

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The presidents of 2 of the big banks, Goldman Sachs’s Lloyd Blankfein, and Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan Chase were not invited to the signing of the financial reform bill, even though other bankers,chiefs of, “Citigroup, Bank of America, Barclays, and Morgan Stanley.”

They are reportedly fuming over this.

Considering what you folks have gotten from the taxpayers, and your vociferous opposition to any substantive reform, Mssrs. Blankfein and Diamon should count themselves lucky.

If I were President, I would have taken my inspiration from Vlad Tepes in dealing with these ingrates.

Shakespeare?

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The Sun Glasses Conceal the Tears

After using a non-existent word, “Refudiate,” in a twitter post, Sarah Palin compares herself with William Shakespeare, who she notes may have made up some words too.

In related news, it now turns out that Sarah Palin knows nothing about Alaska either, claiming that Kodiak is the largest island in the United States. (It isn’t, it’s Hawaii, aka the “Big Island,” where Palin lived briefly)

Oh for the day when she gets a few wrinkles, and fades into well deserved obscurity, so that I can put her on my list of They Who Must Not Be Named, but as she is still a political figure about which people speculate on her Presidential prospects, I do not feel comfortable putting my hands over my ears and saying, “I can’t hear you!”

And the DCCC Can Go Cheney Themselves Too

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Because the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) funds Republicans like Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, who has just come out with a campaign commercial touting her vote against healthcare reform.

You can be sure that the DCCC will be funding her heavily, because the first goal of the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional campaign committees is to protect incumbents, and their second goal it to support DINOs.

Note however, that this is throwing good money after bad this year. She is polling horribly, the TPM polling averages have her down by 9 points as an incumbent.

Do your own research, and donate to the candidates you support directly.

</RANT>