Tag: fucktards

Mysterious Una(ni)mi(ty)

Bernie Sanders’ “Audit the Fed” amendment passed today:

The 96-0 vote came after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) modified an earlier version of the audit legislation that was strongly opposed by the White House and Federal Reserve. They argued the amendment would compromise the independence of U.S. monetary policy.

By this margin, even noted fucktard Orrin Hatch can declare himself “satisfied” that it is “good for the country.”
Likewise Ben Nelson, who was irrevocably aboard way back at 70 votes. The era of partisan bickering must be over.

On a recent Friday night, a couple hundred [MSM media] influentials gathered for a Mardi Gras-themed birthday party for Betsy Fischer, the executive producer of “Meet the Press.” Held at the Washington home of the lobbyist Jack Quinn, the party was a classic Suck-Up City affair in which everyone seemed to be congratulating one another on some recent story, book deal, show or haircut (and, by the way, your boss is doing a swell job, and maybe we could do an interview).

Mark Leibovich, for the NYT, explaining (without trying to) why our Church of the Savvy is so irretrievably fucked up. This is why we invaded Iraq. This is why W. Bush was “elected” the first time. This is why brazen lies are treated as fact, and Meet The Press still refuses even a cursory, days-later and little noted review of the spew that emanates from its own festering maw. This is why they like shit like this and this, and hail it as the very paragon of their output. This is why Sally Quinn is merely the Mike Allen of the ‘90s, just like the execrable Mark Halperin was the Mike Allen of the Aughts. This is why the MSM just loves to write adoring articles about their own Kewl Kids, especially if same just look to the Drudge Report as their assignment editor whilst publically moping about the Liberal Bias in their industry. This is why.

Resolution 9

Mark Warner (D-Va.) discusses the early talking points surrounding the financial reform package:

If you haven’t spent time with these issues,“ Warner sighed, "it’s easy to pop off with sound-bite solutions that don’t work.”

Indeed it is. And that’s exactly what the GOP plans to do. And they’re already doing it; they have likely already won the framing war. Compare and contrast these statements from GOP fucktard in chief, Mitch McConnell

“We cannot allow endless taxpayer-funded bailouts for big Wall Street banks. And that’s why we must not pass the financial reform bill that’s about to hit the floor.”

-and-

“[The Dodd bill] gives the government a new backdoor mechanism for propping up failing or failed institutions…. We won’t solve this problem until the biggest banks are allowed to fail.”

with these (all from Warner):

“It appears that the Republican leader either doesn’t understand or chooses not to understand the basic underlying premise of what this bill puts in place.”

“Resolution will be so painful for any company. No rational management team would ever choose resolution. It means shareholders wiped out. Management wiped out. Your firm is going away. At least in bankruptcy, there was some chance that some of your equity would’ve been retained and you could come out in some form on the other side of the process. The resolution that [GOP Sen Bob] Corker and I have tried to create means the death of the company. The institution is gone.

Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Banking Committee, refers to the resolution authority as:

a "slush fund”

-and-

“the mere existence of this [slush] fund will make it all too easy to choose a bailout over bankruptcy.”

Warner counters:

“Again, it’s either that they don’t understand or they choose not to understand. There’s nobody in the financial sector who believes this. They’d laugh at the proposition that $50 billion is enough to get you through the resolution process if a couple of firms go down. What we’ve heard time and again is that the challenge in a crisis is to buy enough time to keep the lights on for a few days till you get the FDIC in here. You could make it smaller. Corker and I spoke about $25 billion. But this is funded by the industry.”

“And here’s the hypocrisy of the Republican leader’s comments, I can guarantee you that if there had not been some pre-funding, the critique would’ve been: ‘Look at these guys! They’ve left the taxpayers exposed! What’s going to keep the lights on for these few days? It’s going to be Treasury funds or Federal Reserve funds. The taxpayer will be exposed!’ ”

You are goddamned right they would. But that’s not the point. As usual, the Democrat has a nuanced, sober take on the way forward. The GOP has a short, meaningless slogan that offers no policy insight or suggestion whatever. It’s just "go die in the streets” pointed at their corporate paymasters. Of course, both parties know such an event would never be allowed to transpire, so all’s well.

What the Democrat should be saying:

The GOP wants to help these fatcats to the punchbowl. Again

The GOP is lining the pockets of the bankers and guaranteeing future bailouts

Why is the GOP against prosecuting the worst of the Wall Street offenses? Why do they want to perpetuate the boom/bust cycle that benefits only the richest few?

And etc… Rest assured you’ll hear none of those in the run-up to 2010. Attempts at financial reform will fail. The next economic meltdown will happen sooner rather than later and find an American government that’s financially unable to do anything about it. Depression II will make the current recession seem like the good old days. And will be blamed on Obama. Wait and see.

Red Reagan

Ronald Reagan’s Memoirs: [F]or the eight years I was president, I never let my dream of a nuclear-free world fade from my mind.
Rudy Giuliani, 2010: A nuclear-free world has been a 60-year dream of the Left, just like socialized health-care. This new policy, like Obama’s government-run health program, is a big step in that direction. President Obama [just like that stinking hippy Reagan] thinks we can all hold hands, sing songs, and have peace symbols.

Old McDonnell’s Farm

The previous post seems irretrievably glib and insufficient when compared to this:

[…] not only does McDonnell venerate those who took up arms against their own country, he does so without acknowledging that the institution for which they fought was the right to preserve the right to own human beings as slaves. He then papers over the horrors of reconstruction, lynching, and Jim Crow that followed.

This isn’t a coincidence. There is no place in which a frank acknowledgment of the realities of the South prior to the Civil War or immediately following can possibly coincide with a veneration of the Confederacy. So McDonnell just leaves that history out. When McDonnell talks about “all Virginians,” it becomes painfully clear that he isn’t.

(h/t jasencomstock)

Old McDonnell’s Farm

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Robert McDonnell, do hereby recognize April 2010 as CONFEDERATE HISTORY MONTH in our COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.

Robert McDonnell, governor of Virginia.
Early returns on this move have the GOP 7% whiter and 12% angrier.

A lot of people are noting that Orwell was a socialist and Gingrich doesn’t know what he’s talking about [in his CPAC address], but I’m much more appalled that Gingrich thinks a dystopic piece of fiction was “proof” that “that centralized planning inherently leads to dictatorship” and an argument against health-care reform. That’s like me saying “The Shawshank Redemption” is proof that prison walls are too weak and we should invest serious money into reinforcing them against extremely small rock picks.

Ezra Klein

The “Philosophical” Difference

Louise Slaughter (D, NY): I even have one constituent — you will not believe this, and I know you won’t, but it’s true — her sister died. This poor woman had no denture. She wore her dead sister’s teeth, which of course were uncomfortable and did not fit. Do you ever believe that in America that that’s where we would be?
Rush Limbaugh: I mean for example, well what’s wrong with using a dead person’s teeth? Aren’t the Democrats big into recycling? Save the planet? And so what? So if you don’t have any teeth, so what? What’s applesauce for? Isn’t that why they make applesauce?