Glenn Beck and Texas Governor Rick Perry are floating trial balloons about secession. Three months into a pretty decent looking presidency and Texas looks like they have already had enough. Any bets on who's next? Alaska? South Carolina? Louisiana? I'm starting to feel pretty good about being safely in the North.
Meanwhile, I'm watching CNN's coverage of the tea parties. Clearly these people (not that many of them) have seceded from reality on planet Earth (Andrew Sullivan has pictures). At least Wolf Blitzer is not making the tired teabagging-equals-balls-in-the-mouth jokes that were fun at first, but were quickly played out. Still, every time Wolf comes back from a break he sounds giddy, like there's a big sporting event going on instead of a bunch of losers who don't get that their taxes are lower than they used to be. In fact, Nate Sliver writes, "Even today, US tax receipts as a proportion of GDP are generally lower that other large, industrialized countries, except perhaps Japan." SadButTrue weighs in with a look at how U.S.-style tax cuts are hurting Canada.
Pandagon blogger Jesse Taylor breaks it down (h/t Sullivan):
Tea Partiers are hoping that if they mimic the energy of anti-war protests and the savvy of Obama’s new media operation, that at some point an actual movement will spawn. Getting together a bunch of pissed off middle-aged white people with no clue about how the tax system works in public areas will generate a coherent agenda designed to combat the stimulus; if it gets enough media coverage, they will DOMINATE THE AGENDA.
It’s like taping a horn to a horse and waiting for it to alight on a magic cloud of stardust and pixies.
Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks takes on Neil Cavuto's bullshit regarding Fox's coverage of high tea:
The fastest way to piss me off is to out-and-out lie to me. I mean Lie. Lie, lie, lie. Prevaricate. Say something you know to be untrue. And that's what's going on right now about these AIG bonuses and from the Obama Administration! Via Jane Hamsher at FDL:
(4) a prohibition on such TARP recipient paying or accruing any bonus, retention award, or incentive compensation during the period that the obligation is outstanding to at least the 25 most highly-compensated employees, or such higher number as the Secretary may determine is in the public interest with respect to any TARP recipient;
Also:
(a) In General- Notwithstanding any other provision of law or agreement to the contrary, no person who is an officer, director, executive, or other employee of a financial institution or other entity that receives or has received funds under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (or ‘TARP’), established under section 101 of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, may receive annual compensation in excess of the amount of compensation paid to the President of the United States.
(b) Duration- The limitation in subsection (a) shall be a condition of the receipt of assistance under the TARP, and of any modification to such assistance that was received on or before the date of enactment of this Act, and shall remain in effect with respect to each financial institution or other entity that receives such assistance or modification for the duration of the assistance or obligation provided under the TARP.
Dodd's version prohibited TARP recipients from paying out bonuses, retention awards or incentive compensation to the 25 most highly compensated employees. It also prohibited any employee of a company receiving TARP funds from making more than the President. Both provisions would have been in effect so long as a company was receiving TARP funds. Since AIG just paid out $1 million in bonuses to 73 employees, Dodd's version limiting all employees to what the President made (roughly $500,000) would have substantially nipped that in the bud.
Very Fucking Crystal Clear. Dodd inserted the "don't pay these people" language into the bill.
In fact, the Wall Street Journal makes it entirely clear. From Jane again and the WSJ:
The most stringent pay restriction bars any company receiving funds from paying top earners bonuses equal to more than one-third of their total annual compensation. That could severely crimp pay packages at big banks, where top officials commonly get relatively modest salaries but often huge bonuses.
As word spread Friday about the new and retroactive limit -- inserted by Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut -- so did consternation on Wall Street and in the Obama administration, which opposed it.
Who pushed back against Dodd, and told him to neuter the provision? The WSJ says Geithner and Summers:
The administration is concerned the rules will prompt a wave of banks to return the government's money and forgo future assistance, undermining the aid program's effectiveness. Both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, who heads the National Economic Council, had called Sen. Dodd and asked him to reconsider. [emphasis Jane's]
Jane's post documents this sequence of events without any possibility for doubt. The debate that took place over limits on executive compensation for bailout-receiving companies only occurred six weeks ago, and it is all documented in the public press. Dodd was the one fighting against the White House in order to apply the prohibition to all bonus payments, i.e., to make the compensation limits retroactive as well as prospective. As but one crystal-clear example that proves this, here is a February 14 article from the Wall St. Journal on the debate over executive compensation limits:
The most stringent pay restriction bars any company receiving funds from paying top earners bonuses equal to more than one-third of their total annual compensation. That could severely crimp pay packages at big banks, where top officials commonly get relatively modest salaries but often huge bonuses.
As word spread Friday about the new and retroactive limit -- inserted by Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut -- so did consternation on Wall Street and in the Obama administration, which opposed it.
Can that be any clearer? It was Obama officials, not Dodd, who demanded that already-vested bonus payments be exempted. And it was Dodd, not Obama officials, who wanted the prohibition applied to all compensation agreements, past and future. The provision which shielded already-promised bonus payments from the executive compensation limits ended up being inserted at the insistence of Geithner. [emphasis Glenn's]
I'll tell you what change I can believe in; the change of employees, starting with Geithner and Summers.
Obama better clean house and keep promises or we're looking at a one-term-wonder. It's this kind of shit that Republicans eat with a goddamned spoon and it's not neccessary. Obama's administration SHOULD have said "Dodd was right, and we're inserting that language going forward." Because THAT'S THE EXACT POSITION THEY FIND THEMSELVES IN!
Why they find it necessary to pitch Dodd overboard amazes me. Connecticut ALREADY has 1 Rethug Senator named Joe LIEberman; do they want to hand CT 2 fucking senate seats?
Between the lie factor and the politics I am just amazed at the stupidity. And not a little concerned about how it's going to continue in the future. And despite all this bonus hoo-ha, Obama is still going to be painted as a SOCIALIST!
And what does this guy do? Take some of their food, and when they ask him, "Do you know the way out?" he tells them, "Hey, go back the way you came. Look, that's the way out. You see?"
And they turn on their heels and follow him.
Long story short, he's a hologram, a puppet run by the same CorporoState that Brought You Consumables!
At 7:46 - "How shall a new environment be programmed? It all happens so slowly that most men fail to realize that anything had happened at all..."
This is my long winded and weird to get to the flap between Glenn Greenwald and Keith Olberman. The thing is, is that Digby is right. Fuck this centrist bullshit. What they're not saying is that POLITICS SHOULD BE AS PARTISAN AS CONCIEVABLE OR POSSIBLE RIGHT NOW! Cheese and Rice, there is no time like NOW to repudiate the politics of the Republicans with 8 out of 10 people saying the country is going down the tubes.
Obama Ain't Gotta Play On FISA. It's as simple as that. So he should suck it up and LEAD THE FILIBUSTER!
Now Olbermann announced that he'll have a Special Comment on his Monday program about this little grange war. Fine. I hope he shoots the shit out of the target and makes Obama squirm. If Keith goes to the alleged "center " on this thing, well fuck, he turns into the next generation of the Very Wise And Serious Villagers, at which point I will vomit, as if anybody cares.
Anybody that keeps saying to me "march to the center, it's pragmatic" I feel like punching in the face. I'm no sheep. I may be a Democrat and I want to win as much as anybody eolse but I don't want to wake up in 4, 5, 10 more years and be even farther down the road to THX 1138.
What the hell would be my name? UNC - 4291?
I'll vote for this Obama person, but it's only because of the alternative. Like I said during the primaries "If the country is a car hurtling off the cliff, the Repugs are stepping on the gas, the Dems are thinking about putting on the breaks. It's up to us to stop the fucking car."
Weeeee! I was a little bit harsh on the whole CorporoState comment, but not really alltogether off. For sure, he was never a Progressive. So I'm over that. AND, I have liked how there's been a wee bit of Repug smacking down. Just a wee bit though. This whole bi-post-partisan thing escapes me. Failed ideas are failed ideas and they belong strongly and completely attached to those folks who failed to actually think and promulgated thosae shitty policies.
In Other Words: SUCK IT, DUMMIES.
So, Dear Mr. President, loving you in office and having the bully pulpit and all, but just take a deep breath and CALL BULLSHIT! Do it on the economy, and do it on that nasty and un-transparent legal position you just took regarding rendition and torture.
YES! One more blog entry on What Obama Should Do.
Not sorry. This is what participatory democracy is all about. I'm just saying my piece, so to those who say "Yeah, but what's your strategy to get it passed in Congress?" I say - DON'T CARE about YOUR needs for strategy vs. my need (not to mention RIGHT) to articulate my position. That is why after all, I do have my own blog - technorati ratings be damned.
Have you noticed that the whole "pissed-off-o-meter" level of the country is down? I am just noticing around me that since the actual Inauguration and the Farewell to Bush (oh I can't help it, you gotta see the video: listen to the background "nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey, good bye")
and Cheney out of the Capitol, that people are just overall, um, less pissed of and a wee bit nicer?
Yes, there's this whole economic gloom-and-doom going on, and people should be watching the money and the predators. But that whole level of concern is somewhat allayed, or at least not tinged by the whole "GODDAMMITYOUFUCKINGPRICKSWHATTHEHELLAREYOUDOING!?!?!"
The "house cleaning" has just reduced the this-shit-in-the-zeitgeist stuff we've been dealing with for so long. We are getting the last years of unbridled criminality Out Of Our System. It's really kinda nice that the whole frikking WORLD is giving the US another chance not to be jerks, not to be criminals, not to be pariahs. It's only been two days and while we have every opportunity to blow it, so far, so good.
“We are here as public servants, and public service is a privilege,” Obama said, addressing his White House staff and Cabinet on his first full day in office. “It’s not about advancing yourself or your corporate clients.”
I'm very fortunate. My work made several and continued efforts today about 1- MLK Day today, and 2- The Inauguration tomorrow.
I am very proud of them, my Corporate workmates. They sent two very cool MLK messages out today, one "Think About What Martin Said" then "Think About What Martin Did."
Then, they sent out support AND a directive to make sure that we would BROADCAST THE INAUGURATION and MAKE TIME FOR PEOPLE TO WATCH IT LIVE! That is frikkin awesome in my book.
So, I'm all with these efforts. I will not try to hear what I want to hear in the speech however. I will simply listen and be glad in the moment, as that seems the thing to take some Joy in.
What I want afterward though is Justice, and this guy says it pretty well. Crazy things like "Adams" "Rule of Law, not by Men" and, well, you know, generally crazy dirty fucking hippy-ness:
The Object Lesson Here: All Crime Prosecuted Have Happened "In The Past."
