Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. We bail out AIG and they use the money to make good on the credit default swaps they insured. (Although they didn’t call it insurance!) A lot of this money has gone to banks in foreign countries.
When it comes to GM, we want to force them into bankruptcy, which means a massive loss of jobs for blue and white collar workers, losses for bond holders and retirees, not to mention loss of market share.
Was Rick Wagoner, now GM’s ex-president and ex-CEO, guilty of risky practices, skirting the law, in order to make more money? No.
I’ve lived in the Detroit area for 38 years, and for as long as I can remember, the Big Three have been the favorite whipping boy of the liberal elite, with Al Gore being the number one “whipper“.
Sure, the Big Three didn’t adapt, and they and the unions negotiated contracts with big legacy costs, but ask yourself. Who suffers the most if they go under? Answer: The workers on the assembly line and automotive engineers. Not the likes of Rick Wagoner.
But hey, most of these people live in the Middle-West, which used to be America’s heartland, but is fast becoming a wasteland.
How can we be socialists if at the same time we are doing away with the proletariat?
Below is an article in the Detroit Free Press
March 17, 2009Levin, others oppose adding gas permits to budget debateBY ANDREW TAYLORASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- Michigan Democrat Carl Levin and seven of his fellow Democratic senators are opposing speedy action on President Barack Obama's bill to combat global warming, complicating prospects for the legislation and creating problems for party leaders.
The eight Democrats disapprove of using the annual budget debate to pass Obama's "cap-and-trade" bill to fight greenhouse gas emissions, a measure that divides lawmakers, environmentalists and businesses. The lawmakers' opposition makes it more difficult for Democratic leaders to move the bill without a threat of a Republican filibuster.
The budget debate is the only way to circumvent Senate rules that allow a unified GOP to stop a bill through filibusters.
"Enactment of a cap-and-trade regime is likely to influence nearly every feature of the U.S. economy," wrote the Democratic senators, mostly moderates. They were joined by 25 Republicans. "Legislation so far-reaching should be fully vetted and given appropriate time for debate."
It takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, but Democrats and allied independents currently control 58 seats.
Under a cap-and-trade system, the government would auction off permits to emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. The auctions would raise almost $650 billion over the next decade, with the cost passed to consumers as higher energy prices.
The proposal is highly controversial, especially in heavily industrialized regions where people get their electricity from coal-fired power plants. Obama's promise to use most of the revenue to award $400 tax credits to most workers hasn't quelled the controversy since the increases in utility bills could easily exceed the amount of the tax cut.
The other Democrats who signed the letter, addressed to the chairman and top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, were Robert Byrd, West Virginia; Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas; Mary Landrieu, Louisiana; Evan Bayh, Indiana; Ben Nelson, Nebraska; Bob Casey Jr., Pennsylvania, and Mark Pryor, Arkansas.
The 25 Republicans were led by Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska.
The House and Senate budget committees are slated to vote on the resolution next week, with Senate debate scheduled for the week of March 30. (end of article)
As part of the Obama “team“, I have received several emails urging me to support the President’s Budget. I do not support it in its entirety, for the reasons given in the above article. “Cap and trade” should be debated separately on its merits and not pushed through as part of the Budget bill. If it stays in, I trust that Senator Levin will vote against it, and I hope my other senator, Debbie Stabenow, and my congressman, Gary Peters will do likewise. This budget need not be swallowed whole. Long-term goals and their proper implementation should be properly debated. What’s the big rush?
Obama’s argument.
PREMISE: Reforms in healthcare, energy and education were deferred in the past in favor of short term gains.
PREMISE: Search for short term financial gains without adequate regulation, and the lack of fiscal responsibility, got us into the current crisis.
PREMISE: Reforms in healthcare, energy and education will help grow the economy.
CONCLUSION:Therefore: In addition to reviving the economy, we must push for reforms in healthcare, energy and education to help insure our long term prosperity.
Not a non sequitur, Dr. Krauthammer.
Krauthammer’s version:
The logic of Obama's address to Congress went like this:
"Our economy did not fall into decline overnight," he averred. Indeed, it all began before the housing crisis. What did we do wrong? We are paying for past sins in three principal areas: energy, health care and education -- importing too much oil and not finding new sources of energy (as in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf?), not reforming health care, and tolerating too many bad schools.
The "day of reckoning" has arrived. And because "it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament," Obama has come to redeem us with his far-seeing program of universal, heavily nationalized health care; a cap-and-trade tax on energy; and a major federalization of education with universal access to college as the goal.
Amazing. As an explanation of our current economic difficulties, this is total fantasy. As a cure for rapidly growing joblessness, a massive destruction of wealth, a deepening worldwide recession, this is perhaps the greatest non sequitur ever foisted upon the American people.
The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank. We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform. Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for. And though all these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.
In other words, we have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.
Well that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.
Now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jumpstart job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down.
I rest my case
Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.
Over the past couple of days, I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused. At the same time, I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you - without a doubt - that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such.
We all hold the readers of the New York Post in high regard and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the sensitivities of our community.”
I believe him. After all, the main author of the Stimulus package was Nancy Pelosi, so the chimp, in the cartoonist’s mind, was akin to one of those monkeys I referred to in my earlier post. It was too “overtly racist”, if you will, to refer to Obama. However, the key phrase in Murdoch’s statement is “sensitivities”. Old racist stereotypes die hard, and they are still alive in many people’s minds.
First, the cartoon, by Sean Delonas.
THAT CARTOON
Wednesday's Page Six cartoon - caricaturing Monday's police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut - has created considerable controversy.
It shows two police officers standing over the chimp's body: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," one officer says.
It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.
Period.
But it has been taken as something else - as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.
This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.
However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past - and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.
To them, no apology is due.
Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon - even as the opportunists seek to make it something else.
Third, my attempt to logically analyze this.
I should point out the difficulties in trying apply logic to what is written in newspapers, let alone newspaper cartoons, but here goes.
The Post said that the cartoon was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.
Surely the caption gave the strong impression that the dead chimpanzee represented in some way the writer(s) of said bill. Now there’s that old joke about if you had enough monkeys on typewriters, one would do Hamlet. By the same token, one would do the stimulus bill. Is that where the cartoonist was going? One dead chimp to a lot of (dead) monkeys?
Then there’s the Post’s disclaimer that their apology doesn’t apply to opportunists looking for payback. So their apology only applies to people who were genuinely offended, as opposed to those who are always looking for ways to be offended by the Post.
But let’s ask ourselves, who in fact wrote the Stimulus Bill. Evidently it was written by Congressional Democrats and their staffers (the monkeys?), with guidance from the White House. However, at the end of the day, if one name has to be attached to the bill, it is that of our president, Barack Obama, who just happens to be an African-American.
Enter stage right the longtime racist identification of black people with apes of various kinds. So was the chimpanzee, and a dead one at that, meant to represent our president? If so, we should bring on the Patriot Act.
End of my analysis. To paraphrase Fox News, I pontificate, you decide.
PS. I’m sure you’re dieing to know where I come down on this. I think that, subconsciously, the cartoonist associated Obama with an ape, though not a dead one. Such associations should really be banished, even from humor. They just aren’t funny, not to mention disrespectful. The New York Post has plenty of other ways to spread its venom.
The title refers to the stimulus package recently passed by Congress. Sung to the music of “Celebration”, by Kool and the Gang. Watch it here.
This is the title of a video I have posted on You Tube.
The title refers to the stimulus package now before Congress. To be sung to the music of “Celebration”, by Kool and the Gang. Karaoke style.
Barack Obama has little in common with George W. Bush, thank God, his obsessive workouts and message control notwithstanding.As we saw during primary season, our president-elect is not free of his own brand of hubris and arrogance, and sometimes it comes before a fall: “You’re likable enough, Hillary” was
You can’t blame V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop and an early Obama booster, for feeling as if he’d been slapped in the face. “I’m all for Rick Warren being at the table,” he told The Times, but “we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most-watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.” Unlike Bush, Obama has been the vocal advocate of gay civil rights he claims to be. It is over the top to assert,
(end of excerpts)
Here is the comment I posted.*
Obama tends to see the good side only, when it comes to ministers. Didn't his relationship with the Reverend Wright teach us this? To me this shows naiveté rather than cockiness. I hope this “one-sided vision” doesn’t apply to heads of state. I’m glad he’ll have Hillary as a buffer.
As for “you’re likable enough Hillary”, that has been way overblown. Watch the tape again. He was caught by surprise and had to say something. Maybe a bit sardonic, but not arrogant.
And “obsessive workouts”? Daily exercise is important, especially when one wants to relieve stress and stay in shape. With George W. Bush, on the contrary, it was clear that being a “physical trainer” was a more important role to him than being president.
As for Bishop Gene Robinson’s comment that “the God that [Rick Warren] is praying to is not the God that I know.” That statement is off the mark. I guess he meant "interpreting" rather than "praying to"
As for Warren’s role at the inaugural, it bothers me too. I would have preferred a ”Billy Graham” type, one who doesn’t state that Jews don’t go to Heaven, as Warren did when asked about it at an Aspen Ideas Festival. **
Barack Obama is only human, not divine. So let’s all stay in the big tent and wait to see how he actually governs as president. We’re really not sure, but most of the early signs are positive.
(end of comment)
*This comment actually appeared. Number 938.
This is an enhanced version of my earlier post. To be sung to the tune of The “Twelve Days of Christmas“, whose lyrics are modified to apply to Obama's picks for his Cabinet and other key posts. The list is intended to be cumulative (that is, each person is picked only once). At the end I present those left out due to time constraints (Only twelve days!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWDpTKwZO-w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuUFFGbuiUo
Parody on The Twelve Days of Christmas, as applied to Obama's picks for his Cabinet and other key posts. The list is intended to be cumulative (that is, each person is picked only once). At the end I present those left out due to time constraints (Only twelve days!)
Not a business was stirring, not large corporationsTheir requests had been sent to Congress with care
In hopes that Pelosi, or Reid, would give them a share The CEO’s had their hopes set on the Fed
And visions of bonuses danced in their headsI was at home, full of hope and wonder
At the thought of big companies not going under.
Then out on the street there arose such a clatter,I looked out the window to see what was the matter.On the street was a hay wagon, making its way
Not the usual wagon, filled with bales of hay.
No, this one, (and I know this sounds funny),
Was filled instead with bales full of money.
With a very old driver, so morose and deadpan,
That I knew in a flash it was Alan Greenspan
There was a small note, stuck to each cash bale
With the name of a company too big to fail.
His wagon was drawn by eight sleek mega-bucksAnd he shouted their names as he whipped their buttocks “Now Paulson, Bernanke, Now Rubin and Volcker
On Krugman, On Samuelson, Kudlow and Cramer,To the next company’s holiday retreat! So I can deposit a bale at the revelers’ feet"And so the wagon continued on,Until the last bail-out bales were gone.Greenspan then to his team gave a whistle,And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.And as they flew way up into the sky,
Alan cried, “I must see Ayn Rand once more ‘fore I die.”And I heard him exclaim as they flew into the night"Happy bail-outs to all, and to none, oversight!"
"Sen. Joe Lieberman will keep his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee despite hard feelings over his support for GOP nominee John McCain during the presidential campaign. The Connecticut independent will lose a minor panel post as punishment for criticizing Obama this fall.
Lieberman's colleagues in the Democratic caucus voted 42-13 Tuesday on a resolution condemning statements made by Lieberman during the campaign but allowing him to keep the Homeland Security Committee gavel. He loses an Environment and Public Works panel subcommittee chairmanship, however."
(Actually, he gave up his position on the Environmental and Public Works Committee altogether. However, Lieberman is also on the Armed Services Committee, where he chairs an important subcommittee.)
The article concludes with a statement made Friday by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who opposed the move.
"To reward Senator Lieberman with a major committee chairmanship would be a slap in the face of millions of Americans who worked tirelessly for Barack Obama and who want to see real change in our country. Appointing someone to a major post who led the opposition to everything we are fighting for is not 'change we can believe in."'
I discussed Lieberman's situation in my new blog, Keep Joe Lieberman, which has now achieved its purpose. By their actions, the Senate Democrats have shown that there’s hope for them yet!It is also important to note that Lieberman caucused with the Democrats as an Independent Democrat, so he was not obliged by this to support Obama, just as Bernie Sanders could have supported
I'm glad that Obama seeks to govern rather than to seek revenge. Too bad there are so many "Democrazies" out there who aren't getting the message.
I’m finished with the Reagan Democrats of Macomb County in suburban Detroit after making a career of spotlighting their middle-class anger and frustrations about race and Democratic politicians. …
For more than 20 years, the non-college-educated white voters in Macomb County have been considered a “national political barometer.” … After Ronald Reagan won the county by a 2-to-1 margin in 1984, … I conducted focus groups that “found that these working-class whites interpreted Democratic calls for economic fairness as code for transfer payments to African-Americans.” So what do we think when Barack Obama, an African-American Democrat, wins Macomb County by eight points? …
Before the Democratic convention, barely 40 percent of Macomb County voters were “comfortable” with the idea of Mr. Obama as president, far below the number who were comfortable with a nameless Democrat. But on Election Day, nearly 60 percent said they were “comfortable” with Mr. Obama. About the same number said Mr. Obama “shares your values” and “has what it takes to be president.”
Given Macomb’s history, this story helps illustrate America’s evolving relationship with race. … But focusing on the ways that Macomb County has become normal and uninteresting misses the extraordinary changes taking place next door in Oakland County — a place that played a bigger role in Mr. Obama’s success and perhaps in an emerging national Democratic ascendancy.
While Macomb County is home to the white middle class that America’s auto industry made possible, Oakland County is home to the affluent, business-oriented suburbanites of Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, some of the richest townships in America. Just a quarter of Macomb County residents have college degrees, but more than 40 percent do in Oakland. …
Oakland County has formed part of the Republican heartland in Michigan and the country. … Over the past two decades, Oakland County began to change, as an influx of teachers, lawyers and high-tech professionals began to outnumber the county’s business owners and managers. Macomb has been slow to welcome racial diversity, but almost a quarter of Oakland’s residents are members of various racial minorities.
These changes have produced a more tolerant and culturally liberal population, uncomfortable with today’s Republican Party. … On Tuesday, Oakland County voters gave Mr. Obama a 57 percent to 42 percent victory over John McCain. … That helped form one of the most important new national changes in the electorate: Mr. Obama built up striking dominance in the country’s growing, more diverse and well-educated suburbs.
So, good riddance, my Macomb barometer. Four years from now, I trust we will see the candidates rush from their conventions to Oakland County, to see the new America.
Here is the letter I sent to the NY Times.
“It’s a Time to Listen, and to Obey the Laws of Arithmetic” is the title of an article in today’s New York Times by Harvard Professor Gregory Mankiw, who was chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2003 to 2005. The article is incredibly patronizing and condescending. Here is the letter I sent to the Times.
I think it was very thoughtful of Gregory Mankiw, Harvard Professor and former Bush economic adviser, to give his patronizing little lecture to President-Elect Obama about how he should listen to his economic advisors, stating that "[t]hey will often give advice quite different from what will be coming from the Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. To make sure the views of economic advisers are heard, they should have offices close to the Oval Office. The chief of staff should invite them to all the relevant meetings."
Professor Mankiw's column leads me to ask: Where was he while George W. Bush was busy bankrupting the country? Did he give Bush any lectures about obeying the "laws of arithmetic", or were these laws suspended after 9/11, along with parts of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
(end of letter)
Talk about being an elitist! Some say Obama is one, but Mankiw certainly wasn’t talking to him “elitist to elitist” I especially liked the part about the proximity of the economic advisers’ offices to the Oval Office. Vice President Cheney’s office isn’t even in the White House, and the adviser Bush says he listens to the most is located somewhere in Heaven.
Keep Joe Lieberman
For those of you non-clickers, here is the first post.
Democrazies
Here is the petition you are urged to sign at http://liebermanmustgo.com/
"We CANNOT tolerate a leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus who supports George Bush and McCain's War in Iraq. We CANNOT tolerate a Democratic chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee who endorses and stumps for McCain. We call on the Senate Democratic Steering Committee to strip Joe Lieberman of his chairmanship and his leadership role."
This is preceded by the statement:
"Demand the Steering Committee remove Joe Lieberman's position within the Democratic Caucus in 2009."
These people are so busy foaming at the mouth that they can't even write plain English. Do they want Lieberman removed from the Caucus entirely or just as chairman of Homeland Security. What is his "leadership role", other than his chairmanship." He is not on the Steering Committee, according to them.
As for the petition itself, it is laughable. These people are clearly living in the past. The election campaign is over. Obama is President-Elect. He says he will be president of all the people, which includes Lieberman and McCain. The latter even referred to him as “My president” in his concession speech.
So this group who “cannot tolerate…” is indeed intolerant. And hypocritical as well. They refer to “George Bush and McCain’s War.” Let’s see. Those voting for it included Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and John Edwards, among others. (But not my Senator, Carl Levin, to his everlasting credit.)
This group also wants to disenfranchise the people of Connecticut, who re-elected Lieberman (running as an "Independent Democrat") in 2006. They seem indifferent to the following facts.
“The Uncabinet. A guide to key appointments Obama should resist”, was the title of a column by Timothy Noah in today’s Slate. I sent him the following email.
Subject: My predictions for the Cabinet, off the top of my head
State: Richard Holbrooke
Defense: Wesley Clark
AG: Hillary Clinton
Treasury: Hank Paulson (for a short term)
Energy: Al Gore
Education: Henry Gates, Jr.
HHS; Donna Shalala
Transportation: Harold Ford, Jr.
UN Ambassador: Bill Clinton
HUD Jesse Jackson, Jr.
EPA: David Axelrod
Commerce: John McCain
National Security Adviser: Colin Powell
Homeland Security: Joe Lieberman
(end of e-mail)
I didn’t have an Hispanic or an Asian. How about Bill Richardson for International Trade Rep and Tammy Duckworth for Veterans Affairs.
I forgot Labor and Social Security. How about John Sweeney and Robert Reich, respectively.
This is mostly wishful thinking on my part, but you’ve got to admit, it would be a diverse and colorful Cabinet!
“Mad about The One. The US media have been captivated by Obama, at the expense of their curiosity and scepticism.”
This is the title of an article by Harold Evans in The Guardian on November 1, 2008. He resorts to the bias he decries in his one-sided column. I have reproduced it below in its entirety, along with my annotations {…} . Phrases that I comment upon are in boldface.
It's fitting that the cynicism "vote early and vote often" is commonly attributed to Chicago's Democratic boss, mayor Richard Daley, who famously voted the graveyards in 1960 to help put John Kennedy in the White House. In this 2008 race, it's the American media that have voted very early and often. They long ago elected the star graduate of Chicago's Democratic machine, Barack Obama. {Obama is a hardly a “graduate“ of the machine. What about Harvard Law, Columbia, etc.?}
I am not talking of editorials in newspapers, though Obama has the preponderance of the endorsements over John McCain. Obama certainly deserves the credit for recruiting impressive advisers and running a more efficient campaign machine than any one in the US's political history.
What's troubling to anyone old-fashioned enough to care about standards in journalism is the news coverage in mainstream media. Forget the old notions of objectivity, fairness, thoroughness, and so on. The nastiest rumours on both sides haven't been published, but the coverage has been slavishly on the side of "the one". {“Slavish”? Evans’s description.}
http://www.youtube.com/v/l4VxGI-ni7I&hl=en&fs=1
This is a radically different version of my earlier video, for which I forgot to put in a disclaimer that I was not buying into the criticisms, but merely listing them. The same goes for this one, although it is more upbeat in tone. Here is the script:
“Confessions of a Phone Solicitor” is the title of Gail Collins’ column in today’s New York Times. Here are some excerpts.
[A] telemarketer named Ted Zoromski quit his job this week over John McCain’s message. Zoromski was prepared to interrupt people during their dinner hours to encourage them to vote Republican. But when he got the script saying “you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans,” he packed it in.“Even though I was paid to do it, I didn’t feel comfortable,” Zoromski told WKOW-TV.
This story … struck me because I once worked as a telemarketer, and it is an occupation so soul-numbing that it is hard to imagine that anything could make it worse. I woke up people on the overnight shift who had just managed to fall asleep for the first time in six days. Sometimes, when there was clearly nobody at home, I would just let the phone ring and ring in order to avoid having to call anybody else. …
So truly, if you can come up with something that would send a telemarketer over the edge, you have really overachieved on the offensiveness front.
She then goes on to give a vivid description of all the vile mud-slinging being done by McCain, Palin, et al. My issue is with the first part of the article. Here is the comment I posted.
Once again Collins has missed the mark. Telemarketers make nuisance calls. That's what advertising is all about. It is not unethical for them to do their work. No one told Collins to let the phone keep ringing when she was a phone solicitor. Ted Zoromski quit his job because he was asked to deliver a dishonest and hateful message. Now that Collins is a Times columnist, after having been a Times editor, she feels free to trash those in her earlier line of work. This is true elitism.
Collins plays fast and loose with the facts and often fails to reason properly. This is a lot more harmful than disturbing people at dinner. The Times has a Doctor Jekyll-Mr. Hyde combo (Dowd-Collins). Maureen's brilliance is matched by Gail's dalliance. Too bad more of your readers don't catch on to this. Perhaps it is because Collins’ column causes so much ringing in their ears.
Getting back to the main point of her article, here is the front page and an inside page of a recent RNC mailer.
Here is the video, Karaoke style.
Here are the lyrics.
