Tuesday Mashup Part One (10/5/10)

1) I give you the following recent example of “High Broderism” (here)…

The Democrats were lying in wait for John Boehner when the Republican leader of the House announced that he would address the subject of congressional reform in a speech Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute.

Before Boehner opened his mouth, Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted him in a statement charging that “Congressional Republicans and Mr. Boehner have stood in the way of Democratic reform efforts in Congress for the last four years, and now they want to take America back to the exact same failed policies of the past that put the corporate special interests ahead of the middle class.”

That is par for the course in this campaign season, and it represents the sort of reflexive partisanship that voters are understandably sick of.

Actually, what it represents is the utterly craven and pointless Republican obstruction that voters are understandably sick of.

And how does The Esteemed Beltway Journalist know what “voters are sick of” anyway? Why, he takes his periodic jaunt to a rib shack in Dubuque or a Rotary Club meeting in Fond du Lac to find some quotes from individuals who perhaps are not as well versed in the art of media spin as he is that reinforce his pre-defined narrative (i.e., Republicans know what’s best, and when they force their agenda, the Dems should respond, “Thank you, sir, may I have another?,” lest there be a breach of “bipartisanship”).

Fortunately, Bob Herbert of the New York Times is a member of the reality-based community, and he wrote the following on The Orange One today (here)…

It’s beyond astonishing to me that John Boehner has a real chance to be speaker of the House of Representatives.

I’ve always thought of Mr. Boehner as one of the especially sleazy figures in a capital seething with sleaze. I remember writing about that day back in the mid-’90s when this slick, chain-smoking, quintessential influence-peddler decided to play Santa Claus by handing out checks from tobacco lobbyists to fellow Congressional sleazes right on the floor of the House.

It was incredible, even to some Republicans. The House was in session, and here was a congressman actually distributing money on the floor. Other, more serious, representatives were engaged in debates that day on such matters as financing for foreign operations and a proposed amendment to the Constitution to outlaw desecration of the flag. Mr. Boehner was busy desecrating the House itself by doing the bidding of big tobacco.

Embarrassed members of the G.O.P. tried to hush up the matter, but I got a tip and called Mr. Boehner’s office. His chief of staff, Barry Jackson, was hardly contrite. “They were contributions from tobacco P.A.C.’s,” he said.

When I asked why the congressman would hand the money out on the floor of the House, Mr. Jackson’s answer seemed an echo of Willie Sutton’s observation about banks. “The floor,” he said, “is where the members meet with each other.”

…

The Times’s Eric Lipton, in an article last month, noted that Mr. Boehner “maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and former aides representing some of the nation’s biggest businesses, including Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R.J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS.

“They have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaigns, provided him with rides on their corporate jets, socialized with him at luxury golf resorts and waterfront bashes and are now leading fund-raising efforts for his Boehner for Speaker campaign, which is soliciting checks of up to $37,800 each, the maximum allowed.”

The hack who once handed out checks on the House floor is now a coddled, gilded flunky of the nation’s big-time corporate elite.

And let us not forget the following Boehner moment here, in which he said “Know that I have all of you in my trusted hands” to the Consumer Bankers Association, which ended up losing as a result of legislation to reform the student loan scam enacted under the happily-now-long-departed 109th Congress.

Returning to Broder, I give you the following…

What Boehner called “a cycle of gridlock” afflicts both sides of the Capitol, and has been enabled by both parties, depending on who had the majority. As he was honest enough to admit, the abuses did not start when Pelosi took the gavel, and both sides have been guilty of twisting the rules.

Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if Broder were “honest enough to admit” this?

Update 10/12/10: And in case anyone out there thought I was exaggerating, I give you this from one of Broder’s pals (h/t Atrios).

2) Next, I give you the following from former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm (here)…

(Repug U.S. House Rep “Joe” Cao of Louisiana) said he wanted to work for the benefit of his constituents, whatever that took. So when it came time earlier this year to vote on the House floor on President Obama’s massive healthcare bill, the first Republican to hold that district since 1891 became the only Republican in the entire House to vote in favor of the Democratic president’s bill.

His wasn’t the deciding vote. But, yes, that bipartisan decision caused him some grief among GOP colleagues.

Cao hoped the president might reward that bipartisanship by endorsing him in the Nov. 2 midterm election against a Democratic state legislator named Cedric Richmond. Or at least by staying out of the race, one of 435 across the country.

And this gives Malcolm an excuse in his utterly demented quest to demonize every possible thing Obama does (including stuff Malcolm imagines, like this).

As noted here, Cao did vote initially for passage of health care reform, but he voted against the version that emerged from the Senate-House conference, which is a particular problem for him because one-fifth of the residents of his district don’t have health insurance. That has a lot more to do with Cao’s current electoral trouble than anything Obama could have said or done.

As noted here, though, Malcolm has been wrong about health care reform before, and I’m sure will be again; when it comes to his own particular brand of wankery, I’m afraid he is beyond hope of a cure.

3) Finally, yesterday was the ninth anniversary of the death of a Florida man from an anthrax attack; more information is available here (one of others that took place immediately after the 9/11 attacks).

And I would say that that presents a good opportunity to move, at long last (even in a potential lame duck session) on the bill to investigate the attacks sponsored by Dem U.S. House Rep Rush Holt here.

Tuesday Mashup Part One (8/31/10)

1) In response to this story, I would like to ask the following questions:

Where is the U.S. Congressional committee with subpoena power looking into the massive thievery of taxpayer funds designated for the reconstruction of Iraq (a topic that is noticeably missing in this triumphal column on the subject by BoBo today)?

Where is Attorney General Eric Holder and his arrest warrants for those allegedly responsible for this genuine scandal?

And why aren’t the members of our prior ruling cabal being called to account by our media and all of our institutions of government (and why is this story basically being ignored – yes, I know, everyone is focused on the economy, but that really isn’t an excuse, is it?).

And why isn’t this person being called to account first for the insulting stupidity of her remarks on this subject from December 2008, noted by Think Progress?

2) And speaking of investigations, look at what Fix Noise is telling us (here)…

The Veterans Affairs Administration is spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars every year to maintain hundreds of buildings – most of them vacant – that have fallen into such a state of disrepair that many of them are considered health hazards, an investigation by FoxNews.com reveals.

Exactly how much it costs to maintain the run-down and abandoned buildings is a matter of dispute. The General Accountability Office estimates that the VA has spent $175 million every year since 2007. But the VA disputes that figure, saying it spent $85 million on the buildings in 2007 and only $37 million last year.

Whatever the figure, the timing couldn’t be worse for the VA, as tens of thousands of American troops, many of whom have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, prepare to return to the U.S. and will require the expensive medical, psychological and support services it provides.

Wow, talk about being “late for the party” – by about three years in this case…

For you see, Fix Noise and their brethren basically ignored the scandal of how the VA was run when it was first reported by Anne Hull and Dana Priest of the WaPo here, including the particularly infamous “Building 18” of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, described as follows…

When (a) wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

And how did Fox and its right-wing brethren react at the time? I think Steve Young captures that pretty well here.

But of course, now that Dubya is long gone (thank God) and we have a Democrat in the White House, Fix Noise is paying attention, as well as concocting propaganda that Obama was pushing a plan to get our vets to pay more for health care (here) and encouraging them to commit suicide (here – particularly despicable even for Fox).

That, however, is very much in keeping with the “M.O.” of this bunch, as noted here.

3) Finally, we have a particularly propagandistic screed from Cal Thomas (here)…

President Obama may have experienced his Walter Cronkite moment over the economy.

Responding to Cronkite’s reporting from Vietnam four decades ago that the only way to end the war was by negotiating with the North Vietnamese, President Lyndon Johnson was reported (though never confirmed) to have said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”

Now President Obama appears to have “lost” New York Times liberal economic columnist Paul Krugman. Krugman, who enthusiastically supported the president’s redistributionist and stimulus plans, has bowed to the reality that they are not working. In a recent column titled “This is Not a Recovery,” Krugman took issue with the president and Vice President Joe Biden that we have experienced a summer of economic recovery. “Unfortunately, that’s not true,” he wrote. “This isn’t a recovery, in any sense that matters. And policymakers should be doing everything they can to change that fact.”

And of course Thomas then launches into a commercial for the RNC and its supposed economic platform, which of course is a rehash of every bad idea over the last 30 years or so that got us into this mess to begin with.

I realize that only a fool would actually expect Thomas to tell the truth, but it’s particularly galling for him to take Krugman’s statements so thoroughly out of context, given that Krugman also said the following (here)…

In the case of the Obama administration, officials seem loath to admit that the original stimulus was too small. True, it was enough to limit the depth of the slump — a recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office says unemployment would probably be well into double digits now without the stimulus — but it wasn’t big enough to bring unemployment down significantly.

Now, it’s arguable that even in early 2009, when President Obama was at the peak of his popularity, he couldn’t have gotten a bigger plan through the Senate. And he certainly couldn’t pass a supplemental stimulus now. So officials could, with considerable justification, place the onus for the non-recovery on Republican obstructionism. But they’ve chosen, instead, to draw smiley faces on a grim picture, convincing nobody. And the likely result in November — big gains for the obstructionists — will paralyze policy for years to come.

And besides, given this incorrigible dreck, Thomas really should stay away from any historical references whatsoever.

It’s “Iran-A-Muck Monday” With The Mittster!

In case anyone had forgotten about former Repug presidential hopeful and former Governor “Penumbra Of Angst” (here), a certain Willard Mitt Romney decided to let us know he’s still around (here)…

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Mitt Romney has a message for the Obama administration: Stop talking to Iran. Period.

“The Iranian leadership is the greatest immediate threat to the world since the fall of the Soviet Union, and before that, Nazi Germany,” Romney said in a speech Monday to the pro-Israel group AIPAC at their national summit in San Diego, according to excerpts provided to CNN.

Funny, but I would consider al Qaeda to be “the greatest immediate threat to the world,” but considering that the above analysis came from a guy who said “it’s not worth heaven and earth” to try and capture bin Laden (here), I can’t say that I’m surprised.

And I would say that Romney has no room to criticize anyone on Iran, considering that, as noted here, Romney’s one-time employer and the company he founded has links to recent Iranian business deals…

Romney joined Boston-based Bain & Co., a management consulting firm, in 1978 and worked there until 1984. He was CEO of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm, from 1984 to 1999, despite a two-year return as Bain & Co.’s chief executive officer from 1991 to 1992.

Bain & Co. Italy, described in company literature as “the Italian branch of Bain & Co.,” received a $2.3 million contract from the National Iranian Oil Co., in September 2004. Its task was to develop a master plan so NIOC — the state oil company of Iran — could become one of the world’s top oil companies, according to Iranian and U.S. news accounts of the deal.

Bain Capital, the venture capital firm that Romney started and made him a multimillionaire, teamed up with the Haier Group, a Chinese appliance maker that has a factory in Iran, in an unsuccessful 2005 buyout effort.

Also, this September 2006 story tells us that, when Romney was governor of that liberal Gomorrah Massachusetts (wink), he denied any security from his state to Mohammed Khatami, former Iranian president and a legitimate moderate who was visiting to speak at Harvard.

Now, while I do not cut Iran any slack because it is a run by a regime of criminals, I would say that it still is incumbent upon us to look for ways to initiate some kind of a dialogue with them, however slight the excuse may be; this news story tells us of a terrorist attack on Iran, quite likely originating from Pakistan, something you could definitely consider “chickens coming home to roost” given Iran’s support of Hamas. However, I still think this is an opportunity for us to remind Iran that, even though they sponsor terrorism, they have something to gain from “cleaning up their act,” especially when they face the threat from violence that other countries face.

But of course, Romney has other thoughts, being the good little Repug that he is…

“The notion that Hamas and violent jihadists are motivated by ‘shared interests’ and ‘common goals’ is naïve in the extreme and dangerous to the entire free world,”

If The Mittster really believes that, though, then doesn’t that invalidate his Now And Forever You Godless Commie Lu-bu-ruul And Just Because That Kenyan American-Pretend Pre-zee-dint O’Yours Is In Charge Don’t Think We Ain’t Comin’ Back in 2010 Global War On Terra! Terra! Terra!?

Of course, compared to whatever latest scribblings happen to appear on Just Plain Folks Sarah Palin’s Facebook page on this subject, such sentiments from Romney are positively statesman-like for his party, however wrong they may be (and if that isn’t a pathetic commentary, I don’t know what is).

Thursday Mashup (8/6/09)

From the “We Decide, Then Report” file, John Lott tells us the following from Fix Noise (here, taking an off day from compiling statistics on how much safer we would be if we all had assault rifles, no doubt)…

Only in Washington could a program that is spending money 13 times faster than was planned be labeled a “success.” The “cash-for-clunkers” program ground to a halt last week because in less than a week, a program that was supposed to last until November 1, had spent the entire $1 billion allocated to it. Let’s just hope that the government takeover of the rest of the health care industry doesn’t result in similar “success.”

Meanwhile, in the reality based community (here)…

The Obama administration’s much-maligned “cash-for-clunkers” trade-in system has made an immediate and indisputable impact on the struggling U.S. auto industry, with consumers flocking to dealerships in numbers not seen in years and auto companies posting strong sales they directly attribute to the government program.

Ford announced on Monday that their July U.S. auto sales were up a strong 2.3% over results from one year ago, a result that company executives linked to “cash-for-clunkers.”

And as noted here, the Senate is expected to vote on authorizing $2 billion more of funding for the program today.

Yes, I’ve read that this is expected to create a mini “auto bubble” also (funny – I wish more people noting that had paid attention to the housing and dot.com “bubbles” as well), with a likely dropoff to occur when the program ends, but who knows for sure? And how can it be a bad thing when the auto industry shows signs of life?

As noted here…

If the Senate approves the additional money, it’s likely to lead automakers to increase production and bring back laid-off workers. Many automakers reported low inventories due to increased sales from the program at the end of July. Already Hyundai Motor Co. has added a day of production to its Montgomery, Ala., plant, and Ford is considering increases.

Ford’s chief financial officer, Lewis Booth, said Wednesday night the company would decide this month and make an announcement in early September.

Among states, Michigan has taken most advantage of the program, requesting more than $44 million in vehicle vouchers. California dealers had requested nearly $40 million in vouchers, and Ohio had sought nearly $38 million.

Senate passage would send the legislation to the White House for Obama’s signature and assure consumers there will be no interruption in the program that has led to packed car dealerships nationwide.

The deals are aimed at boosting auto sales, which have been at their lowest levels in two decades.

Which of course means that the program is opposed by the Repugs, including Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, a state which, to the best of my knowledge, manufactures no automobiles whatsoever (maybe armored, but that’s it).

As noted here, President Obama is going to visit Bozeman, MT next week to pitch health care reform. As this story tells us, this is the first visit of a sitting president to this area of “big sky country.”

(And gosh, J.D. Mullane of the Bucks County Courier Times actually didn’t trash health care reform today, but wrote about a “missing ape sculpture” instead…insert your snark here).

Maybe while Obama and his entourage are staying over, someone could remind Repug State Rep Michael More that introducing language in a bill that could be potentially interpreted to justify an armed insurrection against this country isn’t a good idea (here).

And the both the president and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are coming under attack for the following based on this (as if Obama doesn’t have enough to do – he’s been in An Oval Office for how long now? Six months and two weeks?)…

President Obama got lots of attention last month for his drop-in visit to Ghana after the G20 meeting in Italy, where he blasted African leaders for misruling the continent and condemning its people to poverty and backwardness. “Repression can take many forms, and too many nations, even those that have elections, are plagued by problems that condemn their people to poverty,” said Obama. “No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there. And now is the time for that style of governance to end.”

They were fine words. But not much else. Obama didn’t single out any particular leader for criticism, and he gave the speech in Ghana, one of Africa’s handful of functional democracies. In her own trip to Africa this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit bright spots like South Africa, Cape Verde, and Liberia. But she also has a perfect opportunity to name and shame the continent’s worst leaders. There’s only one problem: she’s going to blow it.

See how our corporate media cousins have moved from magnifying perceived misdeeds of the Obama Administration to now forecasting what they will do wrong instead; Newsweek must be in possession of tarot cards, tea leaves, an Ouija board, and maybe even Harry Potter’s wand…amazing!

The article specifically singles out Umaru Yar’Adua of Nigeria, Mwai Kibaki, of Kenya and Joseph Kabila of the Congo as people who are particularly bad actors. And yes, Hillary Clinton has said here that not having a USAID agency head named by the White House is “frustrating beyond words.”

But I think the following should be considered (from here)…

The Obama administration inherited a foreign aid system starved of civilian experts and burdened by a bewildering array of mandates. USAID’s full-time staff shrank by 40 percent over the past two decades, but the assistance it oversees doubled, to $13.2 billion in 2008. The agency has a skeleton crew of technical experts, with four engineers for the entire world, Clinton noted recently. Increasingly, USAID has become a conduit for money flowing to contractors, who have limited supervision from the agency.

As USAID has weakened, foreign assistance programs have proliferated across government agencies, especially the military, causing duplication and confusion. Meanwhile, aid budgets have been saddled with presidential directives, “buy America” provisions and congressional earmarks that raise the cost of aid and reduce its effectiveness, development specialists say.

“In the USAID budget, every dollar has three purposes: help build an Air Force base, support the University of Mississippi, get some country to vote our way,” said the Rev. David Beckmann, president of the aid group Bread for the World, describing the plethora of political claims attached to aid. The development program, he said, “is a mess.”

The waste of billions of U.S. reconstruction dollars in Iraq and the growing role of development in the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan have given new urgency to long-running debates about reforming the aid system.

And as noted here (last year)…

…the United States currently provides economic aid and security assistance to such repressive African regimes as Swaziland, Congo, Cameroon, Togo, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Gabon, Egypt, and Tunisia. None of these countries holds free elections, and all have severely suppressed their political opposition.

Among the worst of these African tyrannies has been the regime of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea. Obiang has been in power even longer than the 28-year reign of (Robert) Mugabe and, according to a recent article in the British newspaper The Independent, makes the Zimbabwean dictator “seem stable and benign” by comparison. Obiang originally seized power in a 1979 coup by murdering his uncle, who had ruled the country since its independence from Spain in 1968. Under his rule, Equatorial Guinea nominally allowed the existence of opposition parties as a condition of receiving foreign aid in the early 1990s. But the four leading candidates withdrew from the last presidential election in December 2002 in protest of irregularities in the voting process and violence against their supporters. In that election, Obiang officially received more than 97 percent of the vote (down from 99.5 percent in the previous election.)

Though the U.S. State Department acknowledged that the election was “marred by extensive fraud and intimidation,” the Congress and the administration devoted none of the vehement condemnation that was so evident after the recent, similarly marred election process in Zimbabwe.

One major reason for the difference in response is oil. The development of vast oil reserves over the past decade has made Equatorial Guinea one of the wealthiest countries in Africa in terms of per capita gross domestic product. Virtually all of the oil revenues, however, goes to Obiang and his cronies. The dictator himself is worth an estimated $1 billion, making him the wealthiest leader in Africa; his real estate holdings include two mansions in Maryland just outside of Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the country’s population lives on only a few dollars a day, and nearly half of all children under five are malnourished. The country’s major towns and cities lack basic sanitation and potable water, while conditions in the countryside are even worse.

During his most recent visit to Washington in 2006, Obiang was warmly received by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who praised the dictator as “a good friend” of the United States. Not once during their joint appearance did she mention the words “human rights” or “democracy.” At the same press conference, Obiang praised his regime’s “extremely good relations with the United States” and his expectation that “this relationship will continue to grow in friendship and cooperation.” None of the assembled reporters raised any questions about the regime’s notorious human rights record or its lack of democracy, instead using the opportunity to ask Secretary Rice questions about the alleged threat from Iran.

Does Obama have work to do in Africa? Yes. Does our Democratic Congress? Uh huh. And our media? Bueller?

Did Dubya have work to do? Next question.

Now, Newsweek, since we’ve settled all this for now, can you just report stories like grownups again for a change?

And finally, this tells us the following…

After a period of relatively low bankruptcy filings during 2006-07, U.S. consumer bankruptcies rose sharply in 2008 and continue to climb in 2009. Consumer filings reached 126,434 in July, the highest monthly total since the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) was implemented in October 2005, and pushed the consumer total for the first seven months of 2009 past 800,000 filings.

Just to refresh our memories, here are the brave souls who opposed this horrible law (all Dems)…

Daniel Akaka
Barbara Boxer
Maria Cantwell
Jon Corzine
Mark Dayton
Christopher Dodd
Byron Dorgan
Dick Durbin
Russ Feingold
Dianne Feinstein
Tom Harkin
Ted Kennedy
John Kerry
Frank Lautenberg
Patrick Leahy
Carl Levin
Joe Lieberman
Barbara Mikulski
Patty Murray
Barack Obama
Jack Reed
Jay Rockefeller
Paul Sarbannes
Chuck Schumer
Ron Wyden

And here are the cowards who supported it (Dems are noted)…

Wayne Allard
Lamar Alexander
George Allen
Kay Bailey Hutchison
Max Baucus (d)
Evan Bayh (d)
Bob Bennett
Joe Biden (d)
Jeff Bingaman (d)
Christopher “Kit” Bond
Sam Brownback
Jim Bunning
Conrad Burns
Richard Burr
Robert Byrd (d)
Tom Carper (d)
Lincoln Chaffee
Saxby Chambliss
Tom Coburn
Thad Cochran
Norm Coleman
Susan Collins
John Cornyn
Kent Conrad (d)
Larry Craig
Mike Crapo
Jim DeMint
Mike DeWine
Elizabeth Dole
Pete Domenici
John Ensign
Mike Enzi
Bill Frist
Lindsay Graham
Charles Grassley (he sponsored it)
Judd Gregg
Chuck Hagel
Orrin Hatch
John Isakson
Jim Inhofe
Daniel Inouye (d)
Jim Jeffords (i)
Tim Johnson (d)
Herb Kohl (d)
Jon Kyl
Mary Landrieu (d)
Blanche Lincoln (d)
Trent Lott
Richard Lugar
Mel Martinez
John McCain
Mitch McConnell
Lisa Murkowski
Ben Nelson (d)
Bill Nelson (d)
Mark Pryor (d)
Harry Reid (d)
Pat Roberts
Ken Salazar (d)
Rick Santorum
Jeff Sessions
Richard Shelby
Gordon Smith
Olympia Snowe
Arlen Specter (d?)
Debbie Stabenow (d)
Ted Stevens
John Sununu
Jim Talent
Craig Thomas
John Thune
David Vitter
George Voinovich
John Warner

(And Hillary Clinton voted Present, which I think is questionable also.)

A pox on those “Yes” voters for all time…

“Doughy Pantload” Jonah’s “Out Of Gas” Again

Jonah Goldberg at the NRO plugs a couple of columns on the G.M. bankruptcy here (by David Brooks and someone named Paul Ingrassia).

And in doing so, he tells us the following…

Read either of them and then ask yourself whether the bureaucracy at GM could be even half as bad as most of the bureaucracies in the federal government, which have never — ever — been subjected to real competition and all that entails.

So much stupid, so little time…

I’ll assume that by “competition,” Goldberg means privatization of government under prior presidential administrations.

And under former President Clinton, this tells us that he reduced the federal work force by approximately 230,000, saved $118 billion, and eliminated 16,000 pages of government regulations.

His successor, on the other hand, federalized K-12 education in this country under No Child Left Behind; concocted a Medicare prescription drug benefit that rewarded his benefactors in the health care biz at the expense of seniors; and, ultimately, added $345 billion to the budget in his first term and $287 in his second (all of this is noted here – I definitely don’t agree with the orientation of the writer, I should add, but I think he makes some valid points).

To be fair, though, I should note that, according to here, “Under President George W. Bush, annual spending on contracts rose to $423 billion in 2006 from $208 billion in 2000, according to the Obama budget unveiled this week” (and concerning Iraq, as noted here, the result was predictable).

And by the way, given the sorry financial straits of the newspaper business, it’s beyond hilarious to read BoBo preaching to another industry that it should “heal thyself” while his own suffers from the effects of overly inflated estimates of its assets; an ideological bent in its content that, while pleasing to its owners, is hopelessly out of kilter to its dwindling readership; and a complete and total inability to retool its business model to accommodate the dominance of online readership over its traditional print product (though I’ll admit that the Times has been smarter than most companies in its adjustments, as opposed to the “amateur hour” on display here).

Naomi Klein Talks About The “Banksters”

And they STILL need more dough after the results of the “stress tests” were announced here, though not all of them fortunately – meant to get to this earlier.

Pap Dunks Santelli And The Teabaggers

Would that these numbskulls had used their energy to tell their politicians to close the offshore tax loopholes noted in this video instead of staging these infantile little “parties” (or maybe a few more phone calls from them could have saved the “cramdown” that just failed).

Male Bashing At The Inky? “Y” Not?

Yes, this actually appeared on the pages of Philadelphia’s newspaper conservative house organ of record today (from here)…

Guys, if you are between 18 and 50 and work in finance, do your country a favor: Get a handle on the potential economy-killer that’s running through your veins, and have yourself tested.

We need to know if you’re a carrier of toxic testosterone.

Not all of you are financial accidents waiting to happen. But some of you are operating at levels that require serious adult supervision.

We know how you hate pain, so let me assure you that it won’t hurt. Just a simple saliva test, and we can tell if you are high-risk. I can even recommend a doctor.

See, the author is arguing here that “toxic testosterone” is behind the near-ruin of our financial markets.

Gee, silly me; I thought it was due to lax-to-non-existent government oversight, continued inflation of the housing bubble long beyond the point where any life form with more than a single cell of brain matter knew it would burst (advocated notably by our supposed financial geniuses including former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan), and buyers either obtaining home mortgages without even the slightest qualifications or borrowing relentlessly against the ever-shrinking equity of their property.

But it’s all the fault of males only because of that dreaded testosterone! A-HA!

Given that supposed revelation, I hate to break the news to Susan Antilla of Bloomberg, but here it is; women are guilty of financial indiscretions also.

As noted here, former John McCain campaign adviser (and retired eBay Executive) Meg Whitman “received a ‘package’ worth $10 million in 2007, including $787,936 for personal air travel, and still draws $1.2 million a year as a ‘special adviser’.”

OK, I’ll grant you that that doesn’t exactly qualify as a financial “indiscretion.” However, does anyone think Whitman rates a package like that given the fact that, while with eBay, she bought the Internet calling service Skype for $2.6 billion, and Skype has only made back $551 million as a result (noted here)?

The link above to the prior post concerning Whitman also tells us the tale of Carly Fiorina, another former McCain adviser and former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, whose compensation was slashed from $10 million in 2002 to $6 million in 2003 due to “poor performance,” though she still walked away with a $42 million severance package in 2005.

And this tells us of former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, who was elected in 1992 with the help of “voter suppression tactics” admitted by Ed Rollins, her campaign manager at the time. She also cut the workforce of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, resulting in Whitman earning a grade of “c minus” from “a coalition of environmental and public-policy groups” for her handling of environmental issues.

Also, upon completion of her term as governor, she formed the Whitman Strategy Group and took the chemical company FMC as her first client, which was responsible for cleaning up arsenic-contaminated soil (FMC was responsible for 136 Superfund sites across the country … and had been subject to 47 EPA enforcement actions, according to Source Watch).

(Yes, I know we’re here to talk about financial indiscretions, and these don’t directly qualify. However, I think it shows that high-profile women know how to use and abuse power at least as well as men.)

And last but certainly least, this tells us how former Bushco Interior Secretary Gale Norton bailed as soon as her financial exposure to a certain Jack Abramoff was revealed in the cold light of day.

Oh, and did I mention that, in the article, Antilla appears to endorse the idea of men taking female hormones “to tone down…aggression”?

Perhaps a bit of “toxic testosterone” was at work in some of the money market machinations Antilla is talking about. But only a bit.

Besides, toxic punditry beats that by a mile.

The WSJ Whitewashes A Cozy Cantor Caper

Kimberly A. Strassel in the Murdoch Street Journal tells us today that those nasty Democrats are ganging up on poor House Repug Eric Cantor, on orders from “Obama’s Hit Squad,” of course (here)…

And then there’s the echo chamber. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann is so obsessed with Mr. Cantor, he can barely find time to be indignant about anything else. Talking Points Memo, Huffington Post, Think Progress and other leading liberal blogs are today all-anti-Cantor-all-the-time.

Well, there has been a bit of talk about Cantor from those sites because he criticized Obama here for “distractions” such as lifting the Bush ban on government funding of embryonic stem cell research, though Cantor managed to find time to honor the American Dental Association (I guess one person’s “distraction” is another person’s last lifeline to cling to, as it were, while fighting a debilitating and possibly terminal illness).

And it’s true that Cantor has been discussed because he skipped an Obama budget press conference here to attend a Britney Spears’ concert. Also, Cantor has alleged here that Obama needs to come up with a strategy to defy “Code Pink,” a group that apparently holds sway among congressional Democrats as far as Cantor is concerned.

Oh, and did I note that the band Aerosmith told Cantor that he’d used the band’s tune “Back In The Saddle” for a campaign ad without their permission, and he should knock it off (here)?

So yes, there has been some talk about Cantor from these sites, but to allege that they are all-consumed with trying to take Cantor down is truly silly.

Back to Strassel…

But the real ugly was unleashed a few weeks ago, when the goon squad set on Mr. Cantor’s wife. An outfit called Working Families Win began running robocalls in five districts noting that Diana Cantor was a “top executive” at a bank that had received bailout funds — the clear implication being that Mr. Cantor’s vote for said bailout hinged on this fact. “In the middle of the AIG scandal, our congressman [fill in the blank] voted to make Virginia Republican, Eric Cantor, the conservative leader in Congress,” it droned (incoherently and incorrectly), before demanding voters oppose the “Cantor Family Bank bailout.”

Oh, yes, it’s so “not done” for the Journal to maliciously accuse the wife of a famous politician, right?

Well, here’s the issue; as noted here…

When (Cantor) was a (VA) delegate, he pushed hard for the Virginia Higher Education Tuition Trust Fund, which eventually became known as the Virginia College Savings Plan. It was a bill that, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, he “shepherded” through the legislature. And who got rewarded as executive director of that trust, an $80,000 gig? One Diana Cantor. [Richmond Times-Dispatch, A1, 7/10/96]

She left that job to take a position with the New York Private Bank & Trust, which according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch “manages assets for clients with portfolios of $50 million or more.” At the same time she was taking the position, Eric Cantor was lobbying hard to kill a proposed increase in taxes on Wall Street players, and he flatly refused to discuss the possible impact on his wife, saying, “I’m not even going to go down there. It’s inappropriate.” [Richmond Times-Dispatch, B-4, 6/30/07]

Also, Cantor voted for the 90-percent tax on the companies receiving bailout funds, which was a pretty canny move on his part I must admit, eliminating any charges of conflict of interest by supporting a measure Obama opposed anyway.

And on the matter of taxes, we have this (from here)…

At the House GOP retreat this weekend Minority Whip Eric Cantor made the following crack about (former) Health and Human Services designee, Tom Daschle.

“It’s easier for the other side to advocate for higher taxes because you know what?”… “They don’t pay ‘em!”

In 2003, Representative Cantor failed to report or pay for the expense of a fundraiser that then “super lobbyist” Jack Abramoff held for him at his D.C. restaurant. Though it was a clear violation of the federal election law, Cantor’s spokesperson referred to his oversight as “a paperwork issue” and referred to the controversy as “chicken droppings.”

And I think that description fits the type of relationship Cantor has with the head of the Repug party, as noted here (Strassel is actually correct in pointing out that Cantor doesn’t call the shots – we know who does).

To conclude, I’d like to refer once more to my post about Cantor and “Code Pink” in which he says, “You know, Congressional Democrats are nowhere near where this president is right now in terms of public opinion.”

As noted here, Eric, neither are you.

A Little-Known Danger That Truly Sucks

(Not trying to be funny – this is serious stuff…)

This story from the AP tells us that…

WASHINGTON — Unless new anti-drowning drain covers are installed, tens of thousands of public swimming pools and hot tubs could be forced to close Saturday under a sweeping law designed to prevent drain suction from trapping children under water.

The rules apply to pools and spas used by the public, including municipal pools and those at hotels, private clubs, apartment buildings and community centers.

The improved drain systems were outlined in legislation passed by Congress a year ago. Pool and spa operators had a year to comply; Friday is the deadline for installing the new equipment.

And even though the pic is a bit of a giveway, I should emphasize that, when it comes to matters involving product safety in the dark days of Bushco, the trail leads directly to Nancy Nord, who is STILL (and likely will be until 1/20/09) the “acting” chairman (person?) of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

And as you can read beginning from here, the CPSC has basically been (like just about every other agency of government under this cabal) a dumping ground for cronies and members of Dubya’s true “base” that had been subject to oversight in the past from the agencies they have been entrusted to run (as close to “the fox guarding the hen house” as I hope I ever see).

The prior post from May 2007 tells us of Michael Baroody, nominated as the CSPC head prior to Nord, who withdrew himself from consideration partly because of concerns expressed by a certain former Senator from Illinois (here). The May 2007 post also tells us of Hal Stratton, who ran the CPSC before he stepped down and created the current vacancy that has never officially been filled; Stratton’s last job prior to his appointment was chairing the campaign fundraising group Lawyers For Bush in 2000. Before his confirmation hearing, Dem Senator Ron Wyden expressed concern that Stratton “had no demonstrable record on public safety,” but he was confirmed anyway.

So we go from Stratton to Baroody (before he withdrew) to Nord (who was never confirmed), who tells us in the AP story that…

…the agency will focus initially on public baby pools and wading pools, as well as in-ground spas that have flat drain grates on the bottom and just one drain system.

“We will be focusing our initial efforts on the littlest swimmers in the littlest pools,” Nord told reporters.

Nord said, however, that Congress did not give her agency the $7 million needed to enforce the law. As a result, the federal government expects states to take on much of the enforcement responsibility.

God, this is so typical for this woman; as noted here, she blew off a congressional subcommittee investigating dangerous toys for kids – as the embedded Times editorial tells us, Nord “joined industry lobbyists in opposing a Senate bill intended to strengthen her enfeebled agency.”

And despite this, she resisted calls to step down from her “acting” position, as noted here (this is a superb take down of Nord by Rick Perlstein, by the way).

I’ve looked around to determine if Obama has nominated anyone to head the CPSC, and it appears that he has not as of yet (I even read the laughable suggestion of nominating Ralph Nader). So once more, please allow me to nominate this guy, particularly given his experience representing Valerie Lakey and her family here in a manner very much having to do with the exact type of pool safety issue noted in the AP story (which, apparently, Nancy Nord has either no or very little intention of trying to help rectify in any way whatsoever).