Pat Condell: Free Speech is Sacred:
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Pole Dancer - h/t Jeff:
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Change? Not so much
I didn't anticipate that Barack Obama would be all I wanted him to be. That said he has been a disappointment. There is of course the steady march into the quagmire of Afghanistan with no real plan but it's on the economic front where his inadequate response is the most troubling. I was concerned when he selected Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers as his economic team. During the Clinton years Summers was a cheer leader for the policies that got us into this mess and Geithner was Paulson's right hand man. Well I'm not the only one to notice: http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2009/03/change-not-so-much.html
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Obama wants to expand security forces in Afghanistan to 400,000 - a cost of $10-$20 billion over the next six or seven years. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/us/politics/19military.html
How long is this war going to last?
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The Real AIG Scandal - It's not the bonuses. It's that AIG's counterparties are getting paid back in full: http://slate.com/id/2213942
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AIG Offices patrolled by Armed Guards
A tidal wave of public outrage over bonus payments swamped American International Group yesterday. Hired guards stood watch outside the suburban Connecticut offices of AIG Financial Products, the division whose exotic derivatives brought the insurance giant to the brink of collapse last year. Inside, death threats and angry letters flooded e-mail inboxes. Irate callers lit up the phone lines. Senior managers submitted their resignations. Some employees didn't show up at all.
"It's a mob effect," one senior executive said. "It's putting people's lives in danger."
Politicians and the public spent yesterday demanding that AIG rescind payouts that they said rewarded recklessness and greed at a company being bailed out with $170 billion in taxpayer funds. But company officials contend that the uproar is scaring away the very employees who understand AIG Financial Products' complex trades and who are trying to dismantle the division before it further endangers the world's economy.
"It's going to blow up," said a senior Financial Products manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company. "I have a horrible, horrible, horrible feeling that this is going to end badly."
A tidal wave of public outrage over bonus payments swamped American International Group yesterday. Hired guards stood watch outside the suburban Connecticut offices of AIG Financial Products, the division whose exotic derivatives brought the insurance giant to the brink of collapse last year. Inside, death threats and angry letters flooded e-mail inboxes. Irate callers lit up the phone lines. Senior managers submitted their resignations. Some employees didn't show up at all.
"It's a mob effect," one senior executive said. "It's putting people's lives in danger."
Politicians and the public spent yesterday demanding that AIG rescind payouts that they said rewarded recklessness and greed at a company being bailed out with $170 billion in taxpayer funds. But company officials contend that the uproar is scaring away the very employees who understand AIG Financial Products' complex trades and who are trying to dismantle the division before it further endangers the world's economy.
"It's going to blow up," said a senior Financial Products manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company. "I have a horrible, horrible, horrible feeling that this is going to end badly."
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Glenn Beck crying like a baby: http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=55427
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First it was the fat stomach ads, and now this - everywhere you look:
Apparently the anti-wrinkle cream plumps up your nose and lips too.
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Getting two standing ovations at his first speech since leaving office, former President George W. Bush said that if President Obama wants help, "he can pick up the phone and call." Otherwise, Bush said: "He deserves my silence."
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The United States of God
My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.It's unfortunate for the religious right that history exists. They'd have you believe that every President of the United State spent all of their time thinking about God -- what God wanted from them, what God wanted from the country, what they could do that would please God, etc. George Washington, for example, shuffled around his office on his knees, hand clenched in constant prayer, fulfilling his duty as elected lead shaman of a new democratic republic. Every president thereafter followed Washington's lead.
-Abraham Lincoln, to Judge JS Wakefield, after Willie Lincoln's death in 1862.
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h/t Adus
Orrin Hatch, Utah's song-writing senator, is at odds with broadcasters and just about every member of the state Legislature over a bill that would require traditional radio stations to pay performers for the rights to air their music.
Note that the bill would allow educational, public or religious stations to pay a reduced royalty rate. http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_11934846
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The Stimulus for Dummies - or how the little guy makes out
As tax season heads into its home stretch, here's what is -- or could be -- coming your way:
As tax season heads into its home stretch, here's what is -- or could be -- coming your way:
• You should be getting a tax credit in your paychecks, starting April 1 at the latest. It's called the Making Work Pay Credit, and it provides up to $400 per person or $800 for couples filing jointly. If you make less than $75,000 (or less than $150,000 per couple filing jointly) you should get the full credit, an extra $10 or $20 in your pay each week. Eligible retirees and seniors can get a one-time $250 payment (in late May, probably).
WOW! That extra $10 a week in any family's only working paycheck will probably mean the difference between life or death…or whether it will go toward the 9 to 14% increase on prices at Wal-Mart this year or even higher percentages at other stores! And the really swell part of this good news is that it looks like that extra money will be taxable income!
• First-time home buyers get the biggest bonus of all, up to $8,000 in "free money," Mr. Williams said. The new home buyer's credit replaces the old one -- which was $7,500, and had to be repaid over time -- with one that doesn't have to be repaid as long as the buyer stays in the home for three or more years. The catch? You have to make less than $75,000 (or $150,000 for a couple) to receive the full credit, you mustn't have owned a home in the last three years and the home must be purchased between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1, 2009.
Well, for those of us who were stupid enough to buy a house when we were younger, say, during Carter or Ronnie's regime, instead of waiting for these bad times and are paying it off now or have it paid off, that really helps us…how?
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Wielding the paddle so I don't have to
Eli at Firedoglake has a pretty damning piece on Obama's willingness (or lack thereof) to make hard decisions: http://entequilaesverdad.blogspot.com/2009/03/wielding-paddle-so-i-dont-have-to.html
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That disingenuous turd
Of course Geithner knew about the bonuses — he fought for them.
Chris Dodd admits to writing the bonus loophole that allowed AIG to give out all of these bonuses, but uhhh the Treasury made him do it, which he wouldn't have done otherwise, but hey it still happened. Huffington Post.
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Newsweek: The next AIG scandal? http://www.newsweek.com/id/189917
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Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff who left the Bush administration in protest, has written an essay on the Washington Note slamming Cheney's fearmongering. Wilkerson calls Cheney "evil" and says his detainee policies were only "assisting" terrorists.
Wilkerson also writes that Powell and Richard Armitage "labored to ameliorate the GITMO situation from almost day one" but that Rumsfeld and Cheney were "standing resolutely" in the way and would "have none of it."
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Who are the anonymous 'three or four' senator's in Bayh's Blue Dog-Style Coalition? http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/18/bayhs-four-secret-sens/
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Republicans who opposed Wall Street salary caps, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Banking Commitee ranking member Richard Shelby (R-AL), are now flipping their positions to condemn the bonuses paid by AIG. Last night, McConnell made the rounds on cable television to misleadingly suggest that he has always favored salary caps:
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You know how the Gays are always trying to get married, for the sole purpose of ruining your hetero marriage? Well now one dictionary says they can. MORE »
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Sarah "religious right" Palin's Scientology link, and Greta Van Susteren's massive conflict of interest. What would conservative Christians think? Something like "IOKIYAR," no doubt. AmericaBlog:
So not only is a Scientologist reportedly one of Sarah Palin's top advisers, but the man is the husband of Fox News' Greta Van Susteren. And ThinkProgress says that not only did Van Susteren never reveal that her husband was a top Palin adviser, while Van Susteren was interviewing Palin on Fox during the campaign, but TP says that Van Sustern even did stories about her husband's work, without revealing her husband's involvement in it.
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4,259 soldiers killed in Iraq; 667 in Afghanistan.
Baghdad's water still undrinkable 6 years after invasion: http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090318/wl_mcclatchy/3191674
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