Archive for March, 2009
Enough for Today
I need to take my head off and set it down somewhere.
Oh, and thanks to my friend Ellen at News Hounds for the h/t.
NBC’s Richard Engel on People Who Want to Level the Economic Playing Field: They’re Anarchists
Following on the heels of Katie Couric embracing wingnut spin tonight, Richard Engel, NBC’s “chief foreign correspondent” appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and dang if he didn’t do the same thing. (Sense a trend? And what does it take to be named, “NBC’s chief foreign correspondent?”)
Reporting from London on demonstrations that will coincide with the G-20 Summit tomorrow, Engel repeatedly referred to the potential protesters as “anarchists,” “anarchists,” “anarchists.”
Where did he get that? A Tweet from Goldman Sachs or from spending too much time in the corporate media bubble? Who exactly are the “anarchist” here? People who think the economic and financial playing field should be leveled or CEOs who destroy a company and walk away with $20 million bonuses paid for by those very same, ahem, “anarchists”?
Katie Couric Promulgates Wingnut Talking Point
Katie Couric lead the CBS Evening News tonight with a report about President Obama’s trip to the G-20 Summit. In it she wondered whether Obama would be handicapped by his “limited foreign policy experience.”
Gosh. I wonder where she got that. A Tweet from the RNC?
I mean, come on. Did we hear the same concern about W? No. And he had a far more limited sense of the world than Obama does.
Think
“It’s getting harder and harder to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone. It still brings me up short to walk by somebody who appears to be talking to themselves.”
- Bob Newhart
Prominent Companies Supporting Global Warming Deniers
Interesting: “FedEx, GM, Microsoft, Toyota, VISA and WalMart support Cato [the Cato Institute] which is buying expensive global warming denier ads attacking Obama.”
I hate thinking that part of what I pay Comcast every month is going to Cato to try and convince me that global warming is a farce and Obama’s a nut because he believes in it.
Time to Sacrifice Even More?
Obama Auto Plan: Not a Word About Protecting Autoworker Jobs, Pensions or Health Care.
This is starting to stink. I don’t like the thrust of what’s going on in terms of letting CEO’s keep $20 million retirement packages while there’s little or no talk about the urgent need to protect worker pensions and health care plans.
I know someone who has worked for the Post Office for 33 years. If he were to retire today his pension would amount to 40% – that’s right, a measly 40% – of his regular pay. After 30+ years! (And he didn’t run the company or the world economy into the ground.) Where’s the fat there? The average worker who’s lucky enough to receive a pension isn’t living in hog heaven.
Arianna Huffington on CNBC?
That has got to be a first. Man, they’re really kissing up after the Jim Cramer/Rick Santelli fiascos.
Blood Loss
Bonfils Cuts 10% of Staff, Closes Donor Centers
What if your kid needs blood? What if you do?
Wow. This illustrates, to me at least, how the blowback from the recession is seeping way down into the nooks and crannies of our society. Not good.
Check Out Resveratrol and Vitamin D3
Look into taking Resveratrol and vitamin D3 supplements. The benefits of Resveratrol, i.e., red-wine-in-a-capsule, are still being discovered but the benefits of at least 2,000 mg of vitamin D3 daily are becoming increasingly obvious.
Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor nor do I play one on the Internets.
Bush Really Was Trying to Destroy the Middle Class
Did you hear about this? Last fall, at the very moment the stock market was tanking, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation – the government agency that guarantees the pension funds of U.S. workers – “decided to pour billions of dollars into speculative investments such as stocks in emerging foreign markets, real estate, and private equity funds.”
People knew the crash was coming. Don’t tell me the Bush administration didn’t. Those guys were either (l) trying to enrich their friends on Wall Street with our money; money they had a fiduciary responsibility to protect, or (2) they were trying to prop up Wall Street to protect their sorry asses until they could get out of town.
Now the fund is down significantly at precisely the same time that We the People are looking at potential business failures that could jeopardize the pensions of tens of thousands of us. Per the article, “Currently, the agency owes more in pension obligations than it has in funds, with an $11 billion shortfall as of last Sept. 30.” Good time to switch to the stock market, huh?
My God. When January 20 came and went I was relieved that the Bushies were gone but it looks like the curtain is still being drawn on the unspeakable damage they did – damage that could potentially affect millions of us for decades to come.
Fox News Caught Splicing Video to Fit its Propaganda
Jesus. It was just a few weeks ago that Fox “News” got caught using six month old video and insinuating it was from the day before. Now they’ve been caught airing spliced video (yesterday) on their “premiere” Sunday talk show w/Chris Wallace (Mike’s boy).
They’ll probably issue an “apology” about some crony producer screwing up but we know they’ll be lyin’ their asses off when they do. This kind of thing is becoming way too regular an occurrence for it to be accidental. And besides, the damage has been done – you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube – so they don’t care.
Bad Sign
From Bloomberg: Boston’s John Hancock Tower, the tallest skyscraper in New England, may be sold to lenders led by Normandy Real Estate Partners for about half the $1.3 billion paid in 2006 by Broadway Partners, which defaulted on its loan.
The Real Agenda at the G-20 Summit
Dean Baker (another economist I trust) cuts to the quick as to what this week’s G-20 summit is all about.
(When you think of the G-20 summit, what do you think of in terms of how long it’s going to last? A day? Three days? The answer: Five freakin’ hours. What a joke.)
The UAW Must Learn How to Use the Internet
Five minutes ago I learned that GM’s CEO, Rick Wagoner, is stepping down per Barack Obama’s request. Wow.
I also learned that,
France’s biggest car maker, Peugeot Citroen, sacked its chairman Christian Streiff, citing ‘extraordinary difficulties’ in the automotive industry.
So is Obama doing a tit-for-tat kiss-up thing with the French ahead of the G-20 Summit or is he serious about firing the most recent in a string of incompetent yahoos who have run GM, Detroit, Flint, Cleveland (etc.) and tens of thousands of families into the ground?
Silly me. I thought I’d go to the UAW’s website to get their perspective. The latest news there? It’s dated March 23 – six, yes six – days ago!
Jesus Christ.
Yo, UAW. Anybody home? PLEASE, speak for your members!
A Bumber Sticker I Saw Today
God Bless the Whole World – No Exceptions.
GOP Website Still Void of any Budget Proposal Info
New day, same as the old day. On Thursday the GOP allegedly rolled out its budget proposal (which was universally mocked, as you may have noticed) but it didn’t put anything up on its own website about it. And they still haven’t. Here’s a screen shot from noon (ET) today:
Get a Life
I know, today was slow. I’m rethinking whether or not I want to have a blog.
Colorado Progressive Mag Tells Colorado Progressives to Shut Up
The Colorado Independent, which bills itself as “a center for independent media,” has, in effect, told those of us who are pissed off that Mark Udall (D-CO) is going back on his campaign promises, to shut up.
How’s that coming from a progressive media outlet? Since when are media people against people exercising their Constitutional rights? We the People can’t make our representatives do what we want them to do by buying them off, like corporations can, so what other avenue do we have other than to make noise (and vote them out) – especially when they lie to us? Unbelievable.
Are W.’s Family Members Ashamed of Their Last Name?
Lauren Bush, W.’s Niece, Debuts Fashion Label Under Different Name.
I don’t believe her.
Think
Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
- Thomas Paine
Fox News Info-Babes
Today Rush Limbaugh called two female anchors on MSNBC “info-babes.” Sounds like he’s got these sites on the brain: “The Girls of Fox News;” “Fox News Info Babes;” “Who is the Sexiest Fox News Babe?” “The Foxiest Business Anchor,” GOP Babes Rock,” and “GOP Babes.”
The GOP’s “Budget Proposal”
The GOP unveiled its version of a “budget proposal” today and, per the last 30 years, it’s the same ol’ same ol’ one-thing-will-cure-everything fix: tax cuts for the wealthy.
I’m looking for details on the GOP’s website but I guess I’ll have to dig. Here’s the front page:
Two Nations, Under God, With Liberty and Justice…
A must-read from Glenn Greenwald:
The treatment in our justice system of ordinary citizens (“a nation of jailers”) and our elites (immunity from lawbreaking) could not be more disparate. We have (and are continuing to solidify) exactly the state of affairs that political science literature and the American government itself have long self-righteously warned other countries is the prime enabler for tyrannical rot: a two-tiered system of justice which exempts the country’s elites from accountability.
Good News for We the People
We learned earlier this week that the Bush administration’s Department of Labor Corporate Protection routinely blew off workers who called to complain about being cheated out of wages and/or benefits.
In response, the Obama administration has added more investigators – 250 to be exact – for wage law enforcement.
Elections matter.
Evan Bayh Can’t Get His Story Straight
Evan Bayh, the leader of the Dempublican “Blue Dog” group that includes my senator, “Boulder liberal*,” Mark Udall (D-CO), can’t get is story straight.
By the way, I’m hearing this group of obstructionist, conservative “Democrats” referred to as “moderates” or “centrists.” Who came up with that? Republicans I bet, in order to make them look sane, compared to the fascist, socialist, real Democrats. Let’s not let that take hold folks. These Blue Dogs aren’t “moderate” Democrats. They’re more like moderate Republicans. After all, their stated goal is to “protect business interests” for God’s sake.
(* During the last election, Republican Mark Schaffer, Udall’s opponent, repeatedly referred to Udall as a “Boulder liberal.” That sounds pretty funny now.)
Hoovervilles? No. Reaganvilles
The New York Times reported yesterday that cities are dealing with a “surge in shantytowns.” It’s an “unhappy déjà vu: the arrival of modern-day Hoovervilles.”
I think progressives should get ahead of this and start calling these places Reaganvilles or Wall Streetvilles or Republicanvilles or Greedvilles. Something to point out that free market uber-capitalists who thought that letting Wall Street do whatever it wanted would bring us into the golden light of prosperity for all.
Cross My Fingers
I’m no economist and to say that I don’t understand the complexities of the financial crisis is an understatement but after having scowered the financial press for the last five years as a result of my work at News Hounds monitoring Neil Cavuto, I do know who has been telling the truth, whose projections have come to pass, and who I trust. Nouriel Roubini is one of the few and he, “finds promise in Obama’s Toxic Asset Plan.”
Guess I’ll just have to cross my fingers and hope he’s right.
