"I would like my life back."

The 4.5 million dollars a year you make as BP's CEO isn't enough to stop the pain: (via atrios)

(CNN) -- BP's CEO said Sunday he's sorry for the largest oil spill in U.S. history and the "massive disruption" it has caused the Gulf Coast, telling reporters the company hopes to corral most of the crude offshore.

"The first thing to say is I'm sorry," Tony Hayward said when asked what he would tell people in Louisiana, where heavy oil has already reached parts of the state's southeastern marshes.

"We're sorry for the massive disruption it's caused their lives. There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."

Your Life?

This may not be the message you're getting from the Administration that thinks you're a well meaning partner in this cleanup and doing the best you can, but from the bottom of my heart:

FUCK OFF.

That is all.

Glenn Beck's 9/11 Porn

Starting a movement to relive the way we felt on September 12, 2001?

Either Glenn Beck is a terrible actor or the craziest person in the history of television.

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Douchebag Outrage Comes to an Abrupt End with AIG Bonuses

Remember that asshole from CNBC who ranted that Obama's housing bill being a bailout for "losers"?

You know, the one that was staged in an attempt to start the Great Douchebag Revolution?

Well that all came to a screeching halt when it's about defending his douchebag friends:

SANTELLI: Now, think about it this way. Maybe I'm missing something. But the outrage seems to be about M's, millions of dollars, right? $165 million, OK?

But I would think that it should be looked at as a pretty big positive, because when you go from the M, maybe you should try to go to the B's, which is the billions of dollars, and maybe that's going to even enlighten it for the T, trillions of dollars. You know, $165 million is like worrying about 16.5 cents, while $165 maybe necessitates a little more outrage. What do you guys think?

BECKY QUICK: Hey, Rick, I think the real idea here is just the idea of rewarding bad behavior, which is something you've spoken out against in the past.

SANTELLI: No, I guess what I'm saying is it's an order of magnitude. Don't you think this dynamic that the average guy reading his newspaper is really starting to be in tune with this?

A bill that helps people pay unfair morgages vs. 73 exectutives getting several hundred million dollars of taxpayer money as a bonus for bankrupting a multi-billion dollar business?

Yeah Rick, I'm sure the "average guy" would really be in a bind over that one. Someone should probably tell him that yelling ignorant shit on the trade floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange isn't the best way to guage public opinion.

Time will only tell where the Great Douchebag Revolution goes from here. And to think... they were even forming small groups!

What John Cole Said

On Point:

This just floored me:

“When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don’t understand it,” Dimon said in his speech. “I would ask a lot of our folks in government to stop doing it because I think it’s hurting our country.”

That is Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan Chase. Yes, the vilification of corporate America is just mean-spiritedness. It has nothing to do with you clowns spending millions to have the markets deregulated and for laws to be changed to your benefit (including the Bankruptcy laws). It has nothing to do with once you got what you wanted, you guys gambled away billions of dollars on reckless bets, all the while charging exorbitant fees and padding your own pockets. It has nothing to do with the fact that last year, while running your company into a ditch, you earned were paid $55 million.

It has nothing to do with the fact that after you all had run the financial sector into the ground, you then came to the taxpayers for money to ease the credit market that you had screwed up, and then turned around and spent the money acquiring new assets. It has nothing to do with the fact that you guys took the TARP money and immediately began planning on how to spend it fighting card check. It has nothing to do with the fact that corporate America lobbied to not pay the premiums for FDIC and then didn’t for the past ten years. It has nothing to do with the fact that after receiving trillions of dollars, you and your buddies flipped a lid over a paltry sum being spent shoring up mortgages for homeowners. It has nothing to do with the fact that as soon as this mess is fixed, after trillions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted, you all will begin to fiercely lobby against any structural changes to the system.

So stop it, America. Stop picking on Jamie Dimon. Stop picking on corporate America.

Yeah, that just about sums it up.

Elitist Pricks (Literally)

Former Bear Sterns CEO Jimmy Cayne talking about Tim Giethner:

“The audacity of that p—k in front of the American people announcing he was deciding whether or not a firm of this stature and this whatever was good enough to get a loan,” he said. “Like he was the determining factor, and it’s like a flea on his back, floating down underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, getting a h–d-on, saying, ‘Raise the bridge.’ This guy thinks he’s got a big d–k. He’s got nothing, except maybe a boyfriend. I’m not a good enemy. I’m a very bad enemy. But certain things really—that bothered me plenty. It’s just that for some clerk to make a decision based on what, your own personal feeling about whether or not they’re a good credit? Who the f–k asked you? You’re not an elected officer. You’re a clerk. Believe me, you’re a clerk. I want to open up on this f—-r, that’s all I can tell you.”

Uhh... yeah, not really sure what to add to this. By the end of the rant, I'm not sure whether he's more upset about the collapse of Bear Sterns or his repressed infatuation with Tim Geithner's dick. Too much Aqua Teen, I guess.

The Great Douchebag Rebellion Grows...

They've invaded Washington Post Chats... in small groups!

NYC: You don’t see it in the media, but there is a groundswell of public anger over the Democrats’ attempt to spend their way out of a spending crisis. There have been numerous small protests—and conservatives haven’t taken to the streets in decades. Do you think this will all go away, or does Obama have a problem?

I think this movement culminates at a Joe the Plumber rally where he denounces various things as "American government" and "welfare".

Douchebags of the World Unite!

The funniest part about this might be how excited he gets taking up the fight for elitist douchebags everywhere. Personally I feel like an appropriate response would be to punch him in the face repeatedly, but since that's not possible, Dday gave a reasoned reply:

The government is promoting bad behavior... I'll tell you what, I have an idea. The new Administration's big on computers and technology. How about this, President and new Administration, why don't you put up a Web site to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the loser's mortgages, or would we like to at least buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give them to people who might have a chance to actually prosper down the road and reward people who actually carry the water instead of drink the water...

He gets a standing ovation from the traders at that point, and then he asks them if they want to pay for their neighbor's mortgages, and they boo. Then he goes off about how Cuba used to have mansions and when they went "from the individual to the collective, they started driving '54 Chevys." It's right-wing backlash stuff at its absolute best.

Lost from this complaint is the plain fact of predatory lending, that lenders got cash rebates to put people in crappy, high-interest mortgages, that they hid terms of the agreement and denied disclosure, and that all of those hardworking folks are seeing their property values plummet as a result of millions of foreclosed homes glutting the market. To the tune of $6 trillion dollars in home value.

But I digress. The more interesting part of the video is the part where he calls his buds on the trading floor part of "the silent majority."

These guys are pretty straightforward, and my guess is, a pretty good statistical cross-section of America, the silent majority.

This is all starting to sound very familiar. Paging Rick Perlstein...

It's also obvious that traders on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade are clearly the new face of the average lunch-pail working stiff, isn't it?

The revolution has begun. These workaday stock traders are going to take back this country for the laissez-faire capitalists who are entitled to it.

Sirota frames it as market populism vs. grassroots populism:

The gap, of course, is in the portrayal. If you watch television or read op-ed pages, the Market Populists get most of the attention. Indeed, Market Populism is portrayed as the "centrist" mainstream sentiment in the United States. Just look at David Brooks' New York Times column this morning. He non-sarcastically insists that Santelli's comments were "lustily" representative of mass popular anger at "these injustices" - not the injustices on Wall Street, mind you, but the supposed injustices of people now losing their homes. Meanwhile, Grassroots Populism - ie. seething populist anger at Corporate America - is depicted as the ideology only of a tiny fringe. It's as if the media is a funhouse mirror on society - a bizzaro world where up is down, black is white, and free market fundamentalism is portrayed as a mass-based movement.

When the macroeconomy was doing well, the disconnect between the media narrative and what's going on in the real world certainly caused regular people to lose confidence in the media, but it didn't incite outrage.

Now, though, with the economy in meltdown, I'm convinced that part of why the public is so angry is because what they see on television and in their newspapers is so fundamentally at odds with how they are feeling and what they are dealing with. As Santelli shows, large swaths of the media and political Establishment actively and publicly denigrate the people who are most hard hit by the downturn. Indeed, in the multimedia presentation I gave during my book tour for The Uprising, I have a whole section on this very phenomenon, using Fred Barnes' literally laughing at the "lower class" as my example.

This divide between the Market Populism people are fed through the media and people's own Grassroots Populism is a major catalyst that has turned the last two elections into backlash moments. And as bailouts and handouts now become daily news, and the Market Populists get ever more outrageous, that backlash is intensifying. Channeling it into something positive is the challenge of our time.

The elitist douchebag revolution begins! Get your hair gel and abercrombie shirts ready!

UPDATE: Santelli eviscerated by White House spokesman Robert Gibbs:

"I'm not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives in," Gibbs said during the daily briefing. "But the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgage, stay in their jobs, pay their bills to send their kids to school, and to hope that they don't get sick or somebody they care for gets sick that sends them into bankruptcy. I think we left a few months ago the adage that if it was good for a derivatives trader, that it was good for main street. I think the verdict is in on that."

Ouch. But from there it got almost more personal. Gibbs picked up a hard copy of the housing plan from the briefing room lectern and implored Santelli to "download it, hit print and begin to read it." Gibbs added: "I would be more than happy to have him come here and read it. I'd be happy to buy him a cup of coffee, decaf." The press in the room laughed.

Damn. NOT FOR THE WEAK HEARTED!

Consistency

All quotes are from the New York Times Editorial Page:
(Stolen from Moon Over Alabama)

Hugo Chávez apparently doesn’t believe Venezuelan voters, who just more than a year ago rejected his bid to eliminate the term limits that are blocking his continued rule. On Sunday, he is giving them another chance. For the sake of Venezuela’s democracy, they should again vote no on changing the nation’s constitution.
Venezuelans’ Right to Say No, NY Times, Editorial, Feb 13, 2009

---

[Mr. Chavéz] should abandon for good his push to change the Constitution so that he can run for a third term in 2013. Venezuelans deserve the chance to choose a competent government.
Hugo Chávez’s Choice, NY Times, Editorial, Nov 24, 2008

---

We supported Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s bid for the right to stand for a third term because we strongly believe that voters deserve as rich a choice as possible on Election Day — and term limits narrow that choice.
Mayor Bloomberg’s Opportunity, NY Times, Editorial, Nov 9, 2008

---

This page has always strongly opposed term limits, and we continue to oppose them. We believe they infringe a basic American right: the voters’ right to choose who they want in office. If we had our way, the Council would be voting to abolish term limits altogether.

The question of voter choice is particularly relevant now. Although a majority of New Yorkers, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll, oppose changing the term-limits rule, a majority of New Yorkers also strongly approve Mr. Bloomberg’s performance and, more to the point, say they would vote for him given the opportunity.

They should be given that opportunity.
Term Limits and the Council, NY Times, Editorial, Oct 22, 2008

---

The bedrock of American democracy is the voters’ right to choose. Though well intentioned, New York City’s term limits law severely limits that right, which is why this page has opposed term limits from the outset.
The Limits of Term Limits, NY Times, Editorial, Sep 30, 2008

---

Mr. Chávez’s approval rating has plunged since December, when he narrowly lost a referendum that would have given him even more power and allowed him to run for re-election indefinitely.
...
He must stop using the levers of the state to harass his political opposition at home. And he must stop trying to seize by decree powers that voters denied him in December’s referendum.
Hugo Chávez, New and Improved, NY Times, Editorial, Jun 15, 2008

---

An article in The Times the other day about Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s political ambitions reminded us of how little we like term limits.
...
We opposed term limits when New York City voters first approved them in 1993. (They were reaffirmed in 1996.) Term limits are undeniably seductive. They seem to promise relief from mediocre, self-perpetuating incumbents and from gridlocked legislatures in places like Albany. They also diminish democracy, arbitrarily deny choice, reduce accountability and squander experience.

The deceptive charm of term limits is that they automatically purge the system of rascally politicians. But democracy vests that power in every citizen who chooses to vote. Meanwhile, of course, term limits automatically retire excellent public servants whose instincts and experience are not easily replaced. Their future should also rest with the voters.
The Seductive Charms of Term Limits, NY Times, Editorial, Jun 9, 2008

---

[Mr. Chavéz] favorite provisions, of course, would extend the presidential term from six to seven years and remove presidential term limits.
...
Opponents are calling for a massive “no” vote. For the sake of Venezuela’s battered democracy, voters should heed the call.
Saying No to Chávez, NY Times, Editorial, Dec 1, 2007

I don't really know how I feel about term limits, I tend to lean pro, but you have to love pompous statements like "This page has always strongly opposed term limits" and then completely contradicting themselves when it's convenient.

With that said, this does fit with our "The Train of Thought has always opposed editorial pages sounding like elitist douche bags" stand we took a while back.

The Joe Buck Disgusting Act of the Week: Bill Clinton

The Joe Buck Disgusting Act of the Week is awarded to whatever event/person best deserves Joe Buck's unnecessary and over the top outrage after a 2004 Randy Moss' touchdown celebration.

Gay rights groups and Labor Groups are boycotting the Manchester Hyatt in California because it's owner gave large sums of money to support Prop 8. Bill Clinton plans on speaking there for a trade group meeting, and as a result will cross the picket line. And while that's pretty annoying, the quote is the truly disgusting act:

“He's obviously sympathetic to this cause,” Clinton spokesman Matthew McKenna said. “I don't think you can name a leader in the world who has done more to advance gay and lesbian issues.”

This comes from a man who pushed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which rather than advancing a cause, actually TOOK AWAY the rights of gay and lesbian Americans. So you can make the case that any world leader who didn't actively oppress the gay community in their country has done more for gay rights than Bill Clinton.

And forgetting the facts, to make a statement like that while explaining that you're going to ingnore their boycott is pretty amazing in itself. I guess the real news here is that even though he hasn't been in the news much recently, Bill Clinton continues to find ways to remind everyone that he's a conceited jackass.

Joe the Selfless Hero

From Think Progress:

“It’s not politically incorrect to say you’re Republican or conservative,” Joe said. “They need to dig their heels in and fight for what needs to be done.” […]

One thing that needs to be done, he said, is killing this stimulus package, because it’s just another example of “American government” — Republicans and Democrats — “kicking our butts left and right.” He also called it welfare.

When asked if he has a career in politics, Wurzelbacher said, “I don’t know if the American public deserve me, but my son definitely deserves my time now.”

To quote Craig Mack, I think Joe wants to go down in the Guiness book of world records as the dumbest motherfucker alive.

And if you're wondering what Joe's latest gig is, he's advising the House Republicans on the economic stimulus package.

And no, I'm not joking.

Fun with your money: Union Busting edition

Even for all the bullshit surrounding the bailout, this is pretty remarkable:

Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority.

Participants on the October 17 call -- including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG -- were urged to persuade their clients to send "large contributions" to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill.

Bernie Marcus, the charismatic co-founder of Home Depot, led the call along with Rick Berman, an aggressive EFCA opponent and founder of the Center for Union Facts. Over the course of an hour, the two framed the legislation as an existential threat to American capitalism, or worse.

The demise of capitalism seems pretty extreme, considering that the Employee Free Choice Act would give us labor laws similar to those in other capitalist countries, but whatever. This guy angry, we should let him keep ranting.

"This is the demise of a civilization," said Marcus. "This is how a civilization disappears. I am sitting here as an elder statesman and I'm watching this happen and I don't believe it." Donations of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars were needed, it was argued, to prevent America from turning "into France."

The end of civilization! We don't want to end up as a civilization that has met it's demise, you know, like France.

"If a retailer has not gotten involved in this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to [former Sen.] Norm Coleman and all these other guys, they should be shot. They should be thrown out their goddamn jobs," Marcus declared.

Threats of violence... this guy really knows how to fundraise. And to think, these guys are worried about union intimidation. In case threatening to shoot you didn't seal the deal, he offers a plea from Bernie Marcus, the common man:

"This bill may be one of the worst things I have ever seen in my life," he said, explaining that he could have been on "a 350-foot boat out in the Mediterranean," but felt it was more important to engage on this fight.

See, he could have been out there on his 350 foot yacht, bought with money he earned the right way, by busting Home Depot's unions. But he's so passionate about keeping workers without living wages and benefits that he's willing to forgo his millionaire lifestyle for a few months. That my friends, is commitment.

As much easy as it is to have fun with a blowhard like Marcus, the other aspect of the call has serious implications. The companies engaged in this call on how to stop the Employee Free Choice Act include Bank of America and AIG, the same Bank of America and AIG that we just gave billions of dollars to keep in existence.

Nice to know we're helping good people stay in business, huh?

Coherent Writing FAIL

I'd be the first to admit that I'm not a great writer, but at least this is just a stupid blog, not a column in the New York Fucking Times:(Via Ezra Klein)

Over the next couple of years, two very big countries, America and China, will give birth to something very important. They’re each going to give birth to close to $1 trillion worth of economic stimulus — in the form of tax cuts, infrastructure, highways, mass transit and new energy systems. But a lot is riding on these two babies. If China and America each give birth to a pig — a big, energy-devouring, climate-spoiling stimulus hog — our kids are done for. It will be the burden of their lifetimes. If they each give birth to a gazelle — a lean, energy-efficient and innovation-friendly stimulus — it will be the opportunity of their lifetimes.

I've read this paragraph at least 10 times, I still have no clue what Thomas Friedman is attempting to say. Why is the stimulus a baby? Why beat the the baby metaphor into the ground when when it didn't really make sense to begin with? Why are China and America giving birth to livestock offspring? Why did one of our country's most reputable newspapers pay him a lot of money to write this?

It reminds me of the great Thomas Friedman take down a few years back, by one of my personal favorite writers, Matt Tiabbi:

The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays. I'll give you an example, drawn at random from The World Is Flat. On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.) Here's what he says:

I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins.

Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.

This would be a small thing were it not for the overall pattern. Thomas Friedman does not get these things right even by accident. It's not that he occasionally screws up and fails to make his metaphors and images agree. It's that he always screws it up. He has an anti-ear, and it's absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius. The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue: Friedman will have him spout it. And that's guaranteed, every single time. He never misses.

That seems about right for the man whose greatest contribution to our national discourse was explaining how we needed to go into Iraq in order to tell the middle east to "suck on this".

18 complete and utter assholes

Bob Bennett, R-UT
Richard Burr, R-NC
Saxby Chambliss, R-GA
Tom Coburn, R-OK
Norm Coleman, R-MN
Bob Corker, R-TN
John Ensign, R-NV
Chuck Grassley, R-IA
Judd Gregg, R-NH
Orrin Hatch, R-UT
Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-TX
Johnny Isakson, R-GA
John Kyl, R-AZ
Mel Martinez, R-FL
John McCain, R-AZ
Mitch McConnell, R-KY
Lisa Murkowski, R-AK
John Thune, R-SD

These 18 senators (all Republicans) are the people who voted for the 700 billion dollar no strings attached bailout to Wall Street, but voted against the plenty of strings attached 14 billion dollar loans for the auto industry that would prevent 12 million people from losing their jobs.

I understand a principled opposition to all bailouts. But to give 700 billion dollars to crooks who tanked their companies by behaving recklessly while refusing to save the jobs of 12 million people who have NOTHING to do with their industry's downfall is a level of callousness that I really can't begin to imagine.

I'm have more on the auto bailout at some point when I have more time am in less of a blind rage.

If there were instant karma, these guys would be living in UAW made cars under a bridge this Christmas.

"Obama? Fuck him!"

This should help distance Obama from the whole Blagojevich thing:

The tapes reveal a two-term governor who no longer wants his job, badly wants cash and is determined to leverage a financial benefit out of his appointment powers.

He also appears to think little of the president-elect, whom he calls a "motherf***er" at one point.

“F**k him,” Blagjoveich says of Obama during a lengthy call with top aides and his wife recorded on November 10th, “For nothing? F**k him.”

In another section of the complaint, Blagojevich expresses exasperation that Obama and his team aren't willing to offer him an inducement in exchange for appointing an aide, apparently Valerie Jarrett, to the Senate.

Blagojevich "said he knows that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 for the Senate seat but 'they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. F**k them,'" says the complaint.

What an dick. Kudos to Patrick Fitzgerald for kicking ass once again.

The Auto industry crisis as a three act play

From the some hero in the comments on John Cole's blog:

THE TRAGEDY OF THE AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY:A Play in Three Acts

Dramatis Personae

BIG THREE, a manufacturer of automobiles
UAW, Big Three’s employee
MITT ROMNEY, an idiot

ACT ONE

BIG THREE: I have plans to build automobiles, but I need labor to do so!

UAW: I will labor for you if you will pay me $40 per hour.

BIG THREE: I will not pay you $40 per hour.

UAW: But I need to save for my inevitible retirement, and any health concerns that may arise.

BIG THREE: I will pay you $30 per hour, plus a generous pension of guaranteed payments and health care upon your retirement.

UAW: Then I agree to work for you!

ACT TWO

UAW: I am building cars for you, as I have promised to do!

BIG THREE: I am designing terrible cars that few people want to buy! Also, rather than save for UAW’s inevitible retirement when I will have to pay him the generous pension of guaranteed payments and health care that I promised, I am spending that money under the dubious assumption that my future revenues will be sufficient to meet those obligations.

ACT THREE

UAW: I have fulfilled my end of the deal by building the automobiles that you have asked me to build.

BIG THREE: Oh no! I am undone! My automobiles are no longer competitive due to my years of poor planning and poor judgment!

MITT ROMNEY: This is all UAW’s fault!

Amazing. And if you're wondering why Mitt Romney, it's because of this brilliant Op-ed he put out a few weeks back.

Rep. Don Young objects to colonial justice

Rep Don Young, on the conviction of crotchety old man and (soon to be former) Senator Ted Stevens: (via DCist)

"You have to understand that this was not a jury of his peers. It was in Washington, D.C. , which most people in Washington, D.C., don't look very favorably on the Congress because we run them. I don't know why anybody didn't bring that out. They're not a self-governing city like they say they are. We actually make decisions for them. Makes us very, very suspicious."

Frankly Don, I've been wondering why no one has "brought this out" for a very long time.

In fairness, he could have just been in a bad mood. Maybe his wife got mad that the computers were making noises noise again. Or that you got her sunflower seeds when she meant pumpkin seeds. Or that you didn't open the door for him even though he didn't make it clear where he was going. Or another revelations from one of the funniest things ever leaked to the internets.

Irving Kristol, Bill Kristol, and Affirmative Action

I came across this brilliant story and thought it was worth passing on. It shows both conservative non-understanding of the word "meritocracy", and answers the age old question: "How does someone as consistently wrong and mind-numbingly stupid as Bill Kristol still have a job?"

I remember back in the late '90s when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture to an economic philosophy class I was taking. It was a great lecture, made more so by the fact that the class was only about ten or twelve students and we got got ask all kinds of questions and got a lot of great, provocative answers.

Anyhow, Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol back either during the first Bush administration. The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle's chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics. Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon's domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at The White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at UPenn and the Kennedy School of Government. With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. "I oppose it", Irving replied. "It subverts meritocracy."

Count it.

Fun with your money

Assholes.

Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.

Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in line to pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bail-out from the US government that has already prompted criticism. The government's cash has been poured in on the condition that excessive executive pay would be curbed.
...
None of the banks the Guardian contacted wished to comment on the record about their pay plans. But behind the scenes, one source said: "For a normal person the salaries are very high and the bonuses seem even higher. But in this world you get a top bonus for top performance, a medium bonus for mediocre performance and a much smaller bonus if you don't do so well."

Many critics of investment banks have questioned why firms continue to siphon off billions of dollars of bank earnings into bonus pools rather than using the funds to shore up the capital position of the crisis-stricken institutions. One source said: "That's a fair question - and it may well be that by the end of the year the banks start review the situation."

Photo Credit: Matt Stoller

Sad guys on trading floors

I'm not entirely sure where I got this link, but the idea is brilliant. It's nothing but pictures from the trading floor throughout this financial crisis. A few of my favorites:






I'm not really sure what's going on with that last picture, but I'm pretty sure the guy in the middle is about to be killed. Just a guess.

And not from that blog, but still my favorite picture from the financial crisis: (Via Stoller at Openleft)

Yeah, that just about sums it up.

Vinny Cerrato is beyond ridiculous

For the past few weeks, I've been planning a comprehensive post on my conflicting feelings when it comes to supporting the Washington Redskins. Ultimately, I'll continue to love and root for the Skins simply because it's what I've done for as long as I can remember. Still, with an insane owner who surrounds himself with yes men, not to mention the abomination that is the team's nickname, you start to feel somewhat guilty to be a Redskins fan.

When it comes to yes men, there is none more demented or powerful than Vinny Cerrato, the recently promoted EXECUTIVE vice president of football operations, which is about a hundred syllables longer than just calling him the general manager just to piss everybody off (JJ pointed out Cerrato's pretentiousness here before).  I wasn't even going to get into the idiocy of him hosting his own radio show, but in only his second segment, he took his well known feud with Washington Post Redskins beat reporter Jason La Canfora to an all-time low by accusing him of calling the NFL to charge the Redskins with tampering.

From the D.C. Sports Bog:

Cerrato: Ok, let me read the tampering rule. It says about head coaches: "During a club's playing season, no club may request permission to discuss employment with a head coach for the current or future season." Last time I checked, Frank, we do have a head coach, and there was no discussion there of anything to do with a head coach or job opportunities. All it was was discussing his opportunity with a guy from NFL Network, Adam Schefter, who that's his job is to talk about these things. And that's what we discussed, about him being fired, which will probably happen today from what everybody's reporting. And there was also mention that I read on Pro Football Talk about him possibly going to Syracuse. So I don't see why Jason La Canfora would call the league office to charge us with tampering.

Michael: Vinny, Vinny.

Cerrato: Yes George?

Michael: Let me ask you this. If it were tampering--and that is a very serious thing--if it were tampering, what would happen to the Redskins?

Cerrato: Well, this George: If we were caught tampering, we would lose draft picks and be fined heavily. Look at the New England Patriots, Minnesota Vikings, a lot of teams that have had these things happen lately. You're gonna get fined heavily. So this guy, one of the reasons I want to do this show, George, is to give my opinion on these things, so when things come up I can voice my opinion. But when a guy is trying to hurt the franchise of the Washington Redskins, I'm gonna stand up and I'm gonna defend the Washington Redskins. Because there is nothing that happened on that, this is just a guy attacking us, and I wish that he would just be professional like the rest of his colleagues that cover the Redskins. Period.

Hanrahan: Vinny, my question is how did you find out that...?

Cerrato: The NFL called.

Hanrahan: Ok, they called you? And what did they say?

Cerrato: They just thought it was kind of a joke. They were just giving us a heads-up that Jason La Canfora called and wondering....I mean, it was ridiculous, you know? Maybe he should be out at practice watching practice, George.

This is just shameful, clear evidence that Cerrato and Snyder have it out for La Canfora. The Washington Post's sports editor responded to the accusations on La Canfora's blog, the Redskins Insider:

Emilio Garcia-Ruiz asked me to share this with you:

We've had some calls and emails about statements made today by Vinny Cerrato, who said on his radio show that Post reporter Jason LaCanfora had called "the league office to charge us with tampering."

Jason did not "charge" anyone with anything. He called the NFL's public relations staff last week to ask how the league's anti-tampering rules would come into play if Vinny Cerrato answered a question during his new radio show about a player or coach under contract to another team. Sports radio hosts are often asked these sorts of questions, and we were curious whether Cerrato would be limited in the way he could respond by virtue of his position as a team GM.

Jason did not make any sort of complaint whatsoever. (In fact, reporters cannot charge teams with violations of NFL rules. Only other teams can file charges like tampering.) He referred to Cerrato's questions about Raiders coach Lane Kiffin only to provide context for the question he was asking. He did not write about the issue.

It's clear that La Canfora wasn't "charging" the Redskins of anything, as he's not even able to do so as a sportswriter (it would have to come from a fellow NFL executive or official). The Redskins brass don't like him because he writes negative things about the team. Guess what guys... that's called journalism, you idiots! He is supposed to provide an unbiased perspective of the team and I think he does that well. Having guys like this in charge of my favorite team is as infuriating as it is insulting.

How can Redskins fans defend behavior like this? The sad truth is that we can't and devoted fans are forced to root for the Skins in spite of their ownership.