Archive for July, 2009
The Moral Bankruptcy Of The Republican Leadership
These days I need to actively look for reasons to be grateful that Barack Obama is our President. The things that emanate from the speech orifice of Republican congressional leaders are one continuing source. Take Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s performance on Meet the Press yesterday. (That’s the same program which was recently revealed to [...]
Funds Flow Statements By TARP Banks
This will, no doubt, come as a total surprise and a very rude shock: Many of the banks that got federal aid to support increased lending have instead used some of the money to make investments, repay debts or buy other banks, according to a new report from the special inspector general overseeing the government’s [...]
Funny Because It’s True
Kind of makes 2% on $100,000 minimum balance look good. Bookmark on DeliciousDigg this postShare on Facebookshare via RedditShare with StumblersTweet about itBookmark in BrowserTell a friend
Priorities
“Card Check” Is As Good As Dead; Binding Arbitration Lives – The Atlantic (7/17/09): As of a few months ago, labor strategists could accurately claim as many as 58 votes in the Senate, just two shy of the magic 60 needed to avoid a filibuster. But even as President Obama and Vice President Biden dutifully [...]
“Oneness Of All Things” Awards
Funny how I wrote about The Oneness of All Things yesterday, and right away there was a slew of stories about Republicans demonstrating their proficiency at appreciating The Oneness of All Things. So today we bring you three performances that seem to deserve awards. First up, the most famous OB-GYN in the land today: On [...]
Taibbi
The real price of Goldman’s giganto-profits — Taibblog (7/16/09): Last year, when Hank Paulson told us all that the planet would explode if we didn’t fork over a gazillion dollars to Wall Street immediately, the entire rationale not only for TARP but for the whole galaxy of lesser-known state crutches and safety nets quietly ushered [...]
Goldman Sachs In Takeover Talks
How’s this for very high-quality fake news: In what some on Wall Street are calling the biggest blockbuster deal in the history of the financial sector, Goldman Sachs confirmed today that it was in talks to acquire the U.S. Department of the Treasury. According to Goldman spokesperson Jonathan Hestron, the merger between Goldman and the [...]
Giving A Whole New Meaning To The Term “Newsmaker”
Yesterday, the Associated Press‘s Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar (or his editors) described the House version of the healthcare reform bill as a “$1.5 trillion plan”. Initially, the story sourced that number to an unnamed “House Democratic aide.” Since the respected Congressional Budget Office had just scored the bill’s cost at roughly $1 trillion over 10 years, Democrats [...]
The Republican Party’s Higher Plane Of Existence
I have been slow to realize (and appreciate) this, but it is now clear to me that in the last few years the Republican Party has evolved to a higher plane of existence. And, frankly, I am now embarrassed at many of my previous criticisms. For instance, I have taxed Republican leaders repeatedly with hypocrisy [...]
We Have World Enough And Time
Guess what? The President’s ardent desire for bipartisanship may have a very long half-life: President Barack Obama may rely only on Democrats to push health-care legislation through the U.S. Congress if Republican resistance doesn’t eventually give way, two of the president’s top advisers said. So even after repeatedly seeing how little interest Republicans have in [...]