People said we shouldn't focus on the bonuses at AIG. They said there's more important things. Well, I say that sometimes we get good results.
Jake DeSantis is one of the clowns who caused the mess were in. He was, until very recently, an executive vice president at AIG's financial products unit. And his poor widdle feelings have been hurt, just hurt so badly by everyone's mean words. And he's been working for only $1 a year, taking time away from his family and everything! Except that he wasn't working for $1/year, he was taking that salary as part of a media blitz from AIG to make people think they were taking the problems they caused seriously, all the while knowing that his real compensation would come to him in a "bonus," paid without regard to performance and guaranteed by American taxpayers. Now that Americans are deciding that DeSantis and his former colleagues deserve prison sentences far more than they do bonuses, he's quitting.
So Mr. DeSantis, let me say how happy I am that you quit. I hope your former colleagues follow your example, because in rating your performance over the last few years, there are only two choices: criminal or criminally incompetent. Either way we're better off without you than with you.
If you act among your family with the same reckless disregard for others you have shown at your job, it's doubtful any of them are all that excited at the prospect of extra time with you. I hear Wal-Mart is hiring!
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Here's a list of the democrats who intend to throw a monkey-wrench into Obama's budget:
Alaska Mark Begich
Arkansas Blance Lincoln
Colorado Mark Udall, Michael Bennet
Connecticut Joe Lieberman
Delaware Tom Carper
Florida Bill Nelson
Indiana Evan Bayh
Louisiana Mary Landrieu
Missouri Claire McCaskill
Nebraska Ben Nelson
New Hampshire Jeanne Shaheen
North Carolina Kay Hagan
Virginia Mark Warner
Wisconsin Herb Kohl
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Glenn Greenwald finds comfort in liberal dissent.
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Is the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM) a secret Mormon front group?
Leaked documents detailing the formation of an anti-gay front group by the Mormon Church in Hawaii over a decade ago have prompted a call for an official investigation into the church's relationship with the National Organization for Marriage, a group formed in 2007 to promote Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage amendment, in California last year.
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/03/24/leaked-docs-mormons-set-up-anti-gay-front-group/#more-6514
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The favorite right-wing meme of late is that President Obama is incapable of speaking without a teleprompter. Are they trying to say Obama is too stupid to speak without one? A Harvard graduate who was editor of The Law Review (a highly acclaimed honor only bestowed upon the brightest and best at one of the best ivy league institutions in the world), a man who authored two books and has spoken across this great land, in Town Hall fashion, taking questions outside of The Bubble, this man is unable to speak on his own? Seriously?
Getting into the picture is Ron Fournier, the Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press (Remember him? His email exchange with Karl Rove encouraging Rove to "keep up the fight" for the McCain camp, and was even courted to join the McCain campaign), wrote a 100 word "analysis piece" on last night's speech. Five of those 100 words were "teleprompter" which begged Steve Benen to ask: "This is an "analysis" piece? From where, the Republican National Committee?" Good question, Mr. Benen.
Why might a president want to use a teleprompter? Oh, I don't know, perhaps to ensure that his facts are straight? I mean, it's not as if this president doesn't have so many plates spinning in the air that he can readily remember every fact of every disaster which was bestowed upon him.
And, honestly, it's not as if the teleprompter is new, or that a sitting president might want to make sure that they have their facts straight. What's this? Why it's Saint Ronald Reagan with a teleprompter:
Reagan is hardly the only GOPer who has used the teleprompter, as this shows.
Please let us never forget the difference between a president who is thoughtful enough to use a teleprompter versus a president who is not.
The best of Rovian politics is to attack your opponent's strongest points. Obama is a powerful speaker, one who engages people, is thoughtful and knowledgeable in his responses. And this is what the right-wing brings forth. I've also noticed that not one of these right-wingers has questioned Obama's facts. But we all know that facts have that terrible liberal bias.
Thankfully, the American people are having none of it. Obama's approval ratings continue to be strong, which is infuriating and frustrating the right. This from Erick Erickson at RedState:
I've been in a funk these past couple of weeks.
...There's something more though.
I am a bit overwhelmed. I suspect many of you are too. The information is coming fast and furious, the GOP has yet to get back in the game with a full swing, socialism is creeping upon us, and many of my friends around me have decided the best course of action is to put their heads in the sand and hope for the best. The default is to shift into the doldrums in the middle of the fight.
Sorry, fellas. You've lost this fight. Your dog don't hunt. The American people are just not that into you. You had eight years and you blew it. Now, you have to tough it out while the grown-up's try to fix what you wrought upon this country. If this is all you have, considering you have completely become The Party of No, with no ideas, no ideals, no rational thought, other than more tax breaks for corporations and the rich and their constant attempts to stop any sort of recovery efforts. If this is all the right wing has, I say: Bring. It. On.
Whigs II anyone?
Fine by me.
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To all the "modern" christians who insist that their enlightened, "rational" faith should not be confused with freakazoid insanity, this is the Christian reality that you're going to have to destroy if you expect anyone to believe your claims of humanity.
PZ Myers on "a heartless faith:"
There was an appalling and tragic plane crash in Montana: 14 people were killed, 7 of them children.SNIP
Nine of them were members of one family. This was a horrifying and genuinely horrible accident; I can't begin to imagine the grief felt by the survivors, who lost children and grandchildren.
I can feel great anger, though. Here is something that will make you furious and outraged, too. Irving Feldkamp is the father of two and grandfather of five who were killed in that accident; he lost a shocking great swath of his family in that one sad afternoon. Irving Feldkamp is also the owner of Family Planning Associates - a chain of clinics that also does abortions.
You can guess what segment of the Christian community I'm about to highlight.
Choke back your gag reflex and read this hideous, evil article on Christian Newswire. Some moral cretin named Gingi Edmonds wrote a wretched story on this tragedy that makes it sound like divine retribution on Mr Feldkamp.
It begins by telling us that the plane crashed in a cemetery - a Catholic cemetery that has a "memorial to the unborn", dedicated to aborted fetuses. We are apparently supposed to feel some sense of irony at this.
All I can feel is horror at the kinds of monsters who would find grim satisfaction in the death of 6 to 10 year old children, as if it were payback for abortion. At amoral pious hypocrites who would regard this as an opportunity to assault human beings broken-hearted by pain and loss, to proselytize for the bloody-handed god of their death cult, to compound agony with accusations of guilt. There is no humanity left in these sanctimonious creatures, it's been bled out and replaced with fanaticism and dogma.
SNIP
Once again, I am confirmed in my opinion that Christianity is a breeder of evil, a cesspit in which the most hateful and inhuman commitment to lies and delusions can ferment. Don't ever preach at me about Christian morality: I've seen it, and it is empty of love for humanity, replaced with sanctimonious idolatry and commitment to dead, dumb superstition.
The article PZ is speaking of is here: http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=3277&posts=1
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Beyond pathetic: CNN's Ed Henry tries to explain his "interaction" with Obama (because only 40 million people saw it)
As Wonkette says:
" .... it is the worst article in American history, at least since yesterday when K-Lo wrote something funny about Notre Dame and abortions.
Make sure you have gone to the bathroom before reading this because you will be TOO HOOKED to take a break."
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As the operations manager of a homeless outreach center [in Freso, CA], Paul Stack is used to seeing people down on their luck. What he had never seen before was people living in tents and lean-tos on the railroad lot across from the center.Let us all hope that things aren't going to get much worse than they already are. But that may be a forlorn hope, as employment almost always lags any recovery in economic indicators.
"They just popped up about 18 months ago," Mr. Stack said. "One day it was empty. The next day, there were people living there."
AP - Bishop John M. D'Arcy, whose diocese includes the University of Notre Dame, will boycott President Obama's May 17 commencement speech there because Obama's policies on stem cell research and abortion run counter to church teaching on the sanctity of human life.
Peter Rugg, a blogger for The Pitch, a local Kansas City arts and entertainment newspaper, wrote yesterday about his experience the previous evening attending WWE's Monday Night Raw. Rugg noted that during the show, "there were two touching tributes to the military men and women serving in the Middle East," one of which came from former President Bush. And according to Rugg, once Bush appeared on the arena's television screens, he received "thunderous boos":
The mere sight of Bush elicited thunderous boos — even more jeering than the maniacal [WWE Wrestler] Randy Orton, who dropped Triple H's wife, Stephanie, on her head and kissed her while a handcuffed Triple H could only watch. Then Orton hit him with a sledgehammer. I'm going to repeat that again, just to be clear: To wrestling fans, George W. Bush is worse than a sledgehammer molester.
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Kudos to Senator Byron Dorgan: http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/03/26/kudos-to-sen-byron-dorgan/#more-38370
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Remember when Obama actually broadcast a message of respect to the Iranian people and communicated a desire to re-open diplomatic relations with their country and its government despite a mutual history of conflict and ill will that had built up between our two nations ever since the CIA helped overthrow Iran's legitimate government in the 1950's and install the Shah as a dictator? Predictably, the neoconservatives proclaimed that Obama's speech was a sign of weakness, appeasement and capitulation to the greatest Islamofascist threat in the world. That our President was as naive as Neville Chamberlain and his efforts at rapprochement were doomed to failure, and a hard line against Iran must be re-imposed. That he was Jimmy Carter redux, but this time in blackface. Why they even claimed Obama's speech showed he wasn't "manly" enough to deal with the hardliners in Iran, and that he would sell out American security if he went through with his diplomatic initiatives, even if that meant turning the US of A into the Muslim States of America.
Well, hold on to your hats, because if one simple speech elicited that sort of reaction, imagine the whirlwind of blithering vitriol and craptacular rhetoric from the neocon deadenders which this news story is likely to set off: http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/3/26/83426/4657
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