Tag Archives: letter

A “Good Deal” For Who?

18 Saturday Dec 2010

Posted by in budget, Congress, economy, Obama, Politics, Taxes, Unemployment

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Now that President Obama’s “good deal” has been signed, sealed, and delivered thanks to the warm and fuzzy “spirit of compromise” floating around D.C. this holiday season, let’s take a look at who got goodies in their Christmas stocking and who got a lump of coal.

Republicans went into the lame-duck session with a letter to Majority Leader Reid, signed by all 42 Republican senators, stating that “any bill brought up before votes to extend the Bush-era tax cuts and a stop-gap funding bill to keep the government operating will be filibustered.” Those were their two main objectives—tax cut extension and stop-gap funding. They went two for two. As a bonus they also got a lower than expected estate tax.

The president gave them the first, after being, ahem, “forced” into it. Just as an aside, does anyone else find it strange that the tax cut extension got more votes in a Democratic-controlled House that the original Bush tax cuts did in a Republican-controlled one in 2001, 277–-240? But I digress.

Reid gave them the second on Thursday after another episode of Lucy and the football in which Republicans (surprise, surprise) reneged on their support for the omnibus spending bill. The result will likely be a short-term continuing resolution lasting a couple of months. At which time Republicans will control the House and demand ransom for their next “hostage”—the debt ceiling limit. Dave Dayen at Firedoglake:

“Republicans will have a chance in February of next year to set spending levels…And if anyone thinks that the result will not be a slashing of vital social safety net spending, take a look at how Reid folded last night, trading other priorities. The “stimulus” from the tax cut deal is GONE. It’ll be gone by February, at least. Republicans are fulfilling the Norquistian promise of lowering taxes massively, and then using that lack of revenue as a pretext to cut social spending. That’s what’ll happen in February. And the debt limit vote provides just another opportunity.”

But, as Laura Bassett at the Huffington Post points out, the cuts to safety net spending won’t have to wait until Republicans take over the House. Along with the working poor and the 99ers, there were others stiffed by the grand compromise:

“…federal funds for the Temporary Assistance For Needy Families (TANF) program have entirely dried up for the first time since 1996, leaving states with an average of 15 percent less federal funding for the coming year to help an ever-increasing number of needy families.

TANF, the federal program that replaced welfare under the Clinton Administration, provides a lifeline for families and workers who have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits. According to a new report by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, “more homeless families will go without shelter, fewer low-wage workers will receive help with child care expenses, and fewer families involved with the child welfare system will receive preventive services” now that Congress has passed legislation that will end funding for the TANF Contingency Fund in 2011.”

Other parts of this “deal” are that the GOP will supposedly allow the passage of DADT repeal and START. Don’t be surprised if Lucy makes another appearance before that gets done. Republicans also promised to allow the confirmation of four of President Obama’s nominees to the federal bench. Four out of 38.

What shrewd traders.

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Move Along, No Racism Here

15 Thursday Jul 2010

Posted by in Racism, Tea Party

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Nah, nothing racist here:

“You’re dealing with people who are professional race-baiters, who make a very good living off this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It’s time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history,” Williams said.

That’s Mark Williams, whose own web site claims “is a founding Tea Party Patriot and spokesman for the Tea Party Express.”

Certainly nothing racist in this imaginary letter to Abraham Lincoln either. Also from the demented mind of Mark Williams:

“Dear Mr. Lincoln

We Colored People have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing.  Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards.  That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

In fact we held a big meeting and took a vote in Kansas City this week.  We voted to condemn a political revival of that old abolitionist spirit called the ‘tea party movement’.

The tea party position to “end the bailouts” for example is just silly.  Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn’t that what we want all Colored People to strive for?  What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare?  What they need to do is start handing the bail outs directly to us Colored People!  Of course, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the only responsible party that should be granted the right to disperse the funds.

And the ridiculous idea of “reduce[ing] the size and intrusiveness of government.”  What kind of world would we have is I  ever  to control and be responsible for my life own?  As Colored People we must have somebody care for us otherwise we would be on our own, have to think for ourselves and make decisions and if you do not agree than there is not enough Colored in your People, as we labeled Ken Gladney.

The racist tea parties also demand that the government “stop the out of control spending.”  Again, they directly target Colored People.  That means we Colored People would have to compete for jobs like everybody else and that is just not right.

Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government “stop raising our taxes.”  That is outrageous!    Totally racist!  The tea party expects Colored People to be productive members of society, especially when our mission is to convince them that progress is impossible for them based on the color of their skin?

Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever.  We had a great gig.  Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by someone else.  Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we say that belong.

Sincerely

Ben Jealous, Tom’s Nephew  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Head Colored Person”

And nothing racist in this response to a USA TODAY/Gallup poll of Tea Party supporters:

Nearly half say blacks lag in jobs, income and housing “because most African Americans just don’t have the motivation or willpower to pull themselves up out of poverty.”

They’re just people upset about government spending. Who just happened to find their outrage after Election Day, 2008. Pure coincidence.

Sharron Angle: Jefferson “Misquoted Out of Context” on Separation of Church and State

01 Thursday Jul 2010

Posted by in Bill of Rights, Congress, Conservatives, Constitution, Politics, Republicans

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In an interview with Nevada journalist Jon Ralston, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Sharron Angle, was asked to defend a 1995 statement in which she said, “the tenet of the separation of church and state is an unconstitutional doctrine.” Angle’s response was that “Thomas Jefferson has been misquoted…out of context.” Watch:

OK, here’s Thomas Jefferson in context, from his often-quoted letter to the Danbury Baptists:

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

Jefferson repeats verbatim the text of the First Amendment, that Congress shall “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” followed his own words, “thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” Look up any definition of “thus” and you will see synonyms such as therefore, hence, and consequently. Substitute any of those words for “thus” in Jefferson’s letter and the meaning is crystal clear.

That’s Jefferson. What about the widely-acknowledged “Father of the Constitution” and the man who proposed the Bill of Rights to the first Congress—James Madison. What were his thoughts on the subject?

“Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.” (Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822).

Madison even saw the appointment of chaplains as a violation of the establishment clause:

“Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”

Ms. Angle, when it comes to matters of the Founders and the Constitution, speak not of what you know not. And don’t believe everything you read on a sign at a Tea Party.

Lucy and the Football—Again

26 Saturday Jun 2010

Posted by in Congress, Democrats, economy, Politics, Republicans

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I don’t like to get my blood pressure up this early on a Saturday morning, but this latest action by the Senate in killing the extension of unemployment benefits really pisses me off. And every time one of these lying, elitist assholes opens their mouths it pisses me off that much more.

Like Olympia Snowe, who sent a letter to Harry Reid “urging” him to bring a stand-alone extension of unemployment benefits to the floor of the Senate next week. Nowhere in the letter did she say she would vote for it. That’s because she won’t. And neither would the other Republicans and that idiot Nelson. Snowe is just playing Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown—again. Reid should tell her to take a flying f*****g leap.

When are Snowe, Nelson, and the rest of the obstructionists going to compromise on something. Ever? The bill was watered down to accommodate them–just like the stimulus, health care, and everything else—and they still voted against it. Everything but the $33 billion for unemployment extension was offset, just like they wanted. Still they voted no.

This just in, you morons. People who get unemployment checks don’t put them in the bank. They spend every dime of it on rent, or the mortgage, or food, or clothes. It’s called economic stimulus, dipshits. Get a clue.

Then there’s Diane Feinstein who, even though she voted for the extension, gives ammunition to the obstructionists when she continues to say stupid-ass things like this:

“We have 99 weeks of unemployment insurance now. The question comes, how long do you continue that before people just don’t go back to work at all?” she said…“And there isn’t a lot of documentation on this. Last night for the first time I had somebody from a company tell me they’ve offered jobs to individuals and they said well, ‘I want to not come back to work until my unemployment insurance runs out.’ So we need to start looking at these things. And, we need to start paying for it.”

Bullshit. Nobody’s getting rich off unemployment, Di. The average check for one of Feinstein’s constituents in California is $450 a week. In San Francisco, where Feinstein and her rich hubby live, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1709 a month. Which leaves $91 a month for things like food, electricity, water—minor things like that.

And forgive me but “somebody” from some unnamed company who says that “they’ve” offered jobs to people who would rather stay on unemployment is bullshit too. The unemployment rate in California is 12.4%, there are 6 people for every job opening. People want to work, there just aren’t any jobs to be had. But when you’re sitting on top of a cool 40 mil, like the Feinsteins are, you have no idea what life is like in the real world where the peasants live.

I won’t even get into Nelson. The man is just a hopeless, clueless idiot with a terminal case of HUHAD (head up his ass disease). Why he doesn’t just switch parties and be done with it, I don’t know.

[End of rant]

A Crucial Week for Financial Reform

26 Monday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, Congress, economy, Financial Crisis, financial reform, financial regulation, Obama, Politics, Republicans, too big to fail, Wall Street

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In what’s shaping up as a crucial week in the quest for financial reform there are some encouraging signs, some not so encouraging, and a demonstration by the executives at “the great vampire squid” (aka Goldman Sachs) give us an example of why meaningful reform is necessary.

First, the reasons to be hopeful. There appear to be some cracks in the Republican wall of solidarity. Sen. Olympia Snowe endorsed Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s tough stance toward derivative trading passed last week by the Agriculture Committee. (Sen. Grassley, another possible defector, was the lone Republican on the committee who voted for Lincoln’s proposal). In a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, Snowe wrote:

“I believe that strong derivatives regulation goes to the heart of an effective financial reform bill and that Chairman Lincoln’s legislation is a strong step towards realizing this fundamental component to financial reform……I believe that we should err on the side of caution and finally bring full transparency to these markets once and for all and allow regulators to preemptively identify these damaged firms.

“Accordingly, I believe the Senate should start with a comprehensive, strong derivatives reform proposal and defend attempts to weaken it, not the other way around and the legislation produced by the Senate Agriculture Committee includes the strongest safeguards and most robust transparency provisions on our expansive derivatives market.

I urge the Majority Leader to incorporate these provisions into the regulatory reform bill.”

On Friday, Sen. Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, “agreed to replace his proposed restrictions on derivatives with those of the Senate Agriculture Committee, chaired by Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln.”

On This Week yesterday, Sen. Bob Corker said he intended to propose an amendment containing a “claw back” provision to the legislation “which would take away the personal earnings for the past five years of the corporate officers of failed institutions that fall under the government’s resolution authority.”

Another possible Republican defector might be the newly-elected senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown. Will someone who was elected as a sort of “man of the people” want to be painted as a defender of Wall Street? Especially when he faces re-election in 2 years? Maybe not.

Also on the positive side, “President Obama and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank have personally urged Dodd not to cut a deal with Republicans…This is a welcome sign that Obama realizes that public opinion is moving in the direction of tougher banking reform, and that he learned from the health debate that bipartisan compromise on key reform issues is a snare and a delusion.”

Sen. Dodd has shown signs of weakening the legislation in order to compromise with Republicans leaders in the Senate, Mitch McConnell and Richard Shelby, who want to use the same tactics Republicans used on health care reform—stall and delay as long as possible. Hopefully, Dodd will be emboldened by support from President Obama and not dilute reform to try and pacify those whose intentions are to maintain the status quo.

Now to the crooks at Goldman. What were they doing as the housing market was collapsing and threatening to take the entire economy with it? Having a party:

“As the U.S. housing market began its epic fall nearly three years ago, top executives at Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs cheered the large financial gains the firm stood to make on certain bets it had placed, according to newly released documents.

The documents show that the firm’s executives were celebrating earlier investments calculated to benefit if housing prices fell, a Senate investigative committee found. In an e-mail sent in the fall of 2007, for example, Goldman executive Donald Mullen predicted a windfall because credit-rating companies had downgraded mortgage-related investments, which caused losses for investors.

“Sounds like we will make some serious money,” Mullen wrote.”

To somewhat defend Goldman, what they were doing, “selling short,” (betting against certain investments) is something that happens on Wall Street every day. But, betting against instruments that they designed to fail, and which were sold to investors as AAA investments allowing Goldman to profit from on both ends, may not be illegal (although it should be) but it certainly shows that the execs at the “great vampire squid” have no interest in what’s best for the country. They have one party’s interests in mind—-their own.

Whatever It Is, They’re Against It

17 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, Congress, economy, financial reform, financial regulation, Politics, special interests, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), speaking for all 41 Senate Republicans on the prospects for reforming and regulating the financial system:

That was after Susan Collins (R-ME) became the 41st signature on McConnell’s letter to Harry Reid which reads:

“We are united in our opposition to the partisan legislation reported by the Senate Banking Committee. As currently constructed, this bill allows for endless taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street and establishes new and unlimited regulatory powers that will stifle small businesses and community banks.”

All words straight out of a Frank Luntz memo, telling Republicans how to maintain the status quo while sounding like they are in favor of reform. In other words, just repeat the Luntz-inspired tactics from the health care debate, with “endless taxpayer bailouts” replacing “death panels” as the lie du jour. And a lie is exactly what it is. What will guarantee “endless taxpayer bailouts” is doing nothing. The proposed reform calls for applying the same process to the “too big to fail” institutions that the FDIC uses every day for dealing with banks that become insolvent.

Sheila Bair, head of the FDIC, and whose word I’ll take over McConnell’s 8 days a week, said as much in an interview published at American Banker on Thursday:

Would this bill perpetuate bailouts?
SHEILA BAIR: The status quo is bailouts. That’s what we have now. If you don’t do anything, you are going to keep having bailouts.

But does this bill stop them from happening?
BAIR: It makes them impossible and it should. We worked really hard to squeeze bailout language out of this bill. The construct is you can’t bail out an individual institution – you just can’t do it.

If this had been law prior to 2008, would we have seen the bailouts that took place?
BAIR: No. You could not do an AIG, Bear Stearns, or any of that…This bill would only allow system-wide liquidity support which could not be targeted at an individual firm. You can’t do capital investments at all, period. It’s only liquidity support. No more capital investments. That’s banned under all circumstances.

Do you see any way left for the government to bail out a financial institution?
BAIR: No, and that’s the whole idea. It was too easy for institutions to come and ask for help. They aren’t going to do that. This gives us a response: “Fine, we will take all these essential services and put them in a bridge bank. We will keep them running while your shareholders and debtors take all your losses. And oh, by the way, we are getting rid of your board and you, too.”

Here’s all you need to know about the dishonesty of Senate Republicans. One provision of the bill is for a $50 billion fund to dismantle the “too big to fail” banks. The fund is made up entirely of money which comes from the big banks, not one thin dime from the taxpayers. Republicans want this provision removed. But even if it goes, will they support the remainder of the legislation? I think you can guess the answer:

“McConnell suggested it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy Republicans.

“I appreciate the Obama administrations recognition of the need to substantively improve this bill,” McConnell said. “And I hope we can work with them to close the remaining bailout loopholes that put American taxpayers on the hook for financial institutions that become too big to fail.”

Oh by the way, how did the $50 billion get into the legislation to begin with? It was the result of negotiations between Banking Committee members Mark Warner (D-VA) and Bob Corker (R-TN). Needless to say, Corker now opposes the fund he negotiated to include.

Whatever it is, they’re against it.