I've wondered about Rodin's famous sculpture. Is he engaged in deep thought or sitting around wasting time? And why isn't he wearing pants? I ask the same of myself. Here we comment on well, mostly politics. Or we may just sit! If you like it, tell a friend. If not, tell us, but please read the GROUND RULES before you do.
That isn't something you generally hear from me, but...
In the eyes of the archbishop of Chicago, it was an "embarrassment" for the University of Notre Dame to invite THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES to speak. Because he supports scientific research and wants government out of reproductive decision-making? What's next?
So, Cardinal George, it would only be proper for a Catholic university to entertain speakers who are not only communicants with Rome but adherents to church orthodoxy? That doesn't sound particularly collegial, does it Rev. George? Shouldn't a university community be exposed to the widest spectrum of ideas, PARTICULARLY those you disagree with? I thought universities existed to expand intellectual horizons rather than to reinforce dogma. Are you so insecure in YOUR faith, Cardinal, that you cannot hear of differing views?
And by the way, when it comes to things that are embarrassing, when looking at your little bailiwick over the last few years...people who live in these....?
President Obama gave a masterful performance at the G20 Summit. Many participants characterized it as the most important world economic parley since 1944, when the postwar financial system was remade even as WW II raged on. That summit meeting, hosting all the allied powers, was held at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, in the sleepy Preston Hollow enclave of Dallas, Texas, where the booze flowed freely since the arrival of faux President and Mrs. Laura “Pickles” Bush, No. 43 watched for any missteps by No. 44. He was also taking bets on how soon before his old buddy Berlusconi made a move on that babe, Cristina Kirchner, president of Argentina.
The President was speaking to the press:
PRESIDENT OBAMA: "There's been a lot of comparison here about Bretton Woods... you know, last time you... saw the entire international architecture being remade,'' he said. "Well, if, if it's just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy, you know, that's an easier negotiation.”
W.: “Hey Pickles! Ain’t Bretton Woods that gated community just down the road from this here Preston Hollow??? Ah didn’t know Roosevelt and Premier Churchill met for drinks over there?!”
LAURA “PICKLES”: “Ah’m not sure George, honey …”
W.: “Hell, woman, check the INTERNETS, do the GOOGLE. If OHBAHMA – he KNOWS things -- says our Dallas, Texas neighborhood’s hosted a presidential summit, we oughta have those folks over for a barbecue …"
The longest running Senate race in HISTORY has finally come to an end as Sen. NORM COLEMAN, Republican incumbent from Minnesota, reluctantly conceded defeat to comedian and author AL FRANKEN, after the Republican Party's legal options finally ran out. Republican National Clowns Chairman Michael Steele was inconsolable: "I am prepared to lead a march on Washington to prevent this Stuart Smalley character (author: I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!: Daily Affirmations With Stuart Smalley), this, this Rush Limbaugh denier (author: Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot) from being seated!"
Michael Steele: "I'll stand on the steps of the Capitol ...
Turning apopleptic, the RNC Chairman disclosed his STRATEGERY: "If necessary, I'll stand on the steps of the Capitol to prevent that COMEDIAN from walking through the door, just like my hero of old, Chris, I mean, George Wallace."
Newspapers are dying. We see it all around us. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer no longer prints its paper, the 150-year old Rocky Mountain News is no more, both major Chicago dailies are in some form of bankruptcy and the list goes on. In the Internet world, newspaper publishers have not found a workable business model, and the future does not look promising.
I LOVE newspapers. I am a print guy. I do not read newspapers as a primary source of information. Given the nature of the beast, the "news" carried in the papers no longer fits that description. I read newspapers because it is what I do. I love the feel and smell of newsprint. I am surrounded by a sea of books at home, and I can access the information I need for the day instantaneously online, but my day gets off to a VERY bad start if I don't have my paper. Computer screens mean work to me, the printed page says life. I also enjoy the conversational interaction prompted by the paper, the "did you see this" exchanges with my wife [Editor's Note: That annoys the hell out of her, but that is a different story for a different time]. When I travel, I WANT to read the local paper. You learn about a place and its people through THEIR paper, not some homogenized piece of nothingness left outside your hotel door.
Newspapers have often responded to their new world by cutting corners. The paper itself becomes smaller, they rely more on canned stories, fluff pieces and bland wire service generalities. I cannot think of a better example of penny-wise and pound foolish. By reducing or eliminating the things I buy the paper for, I am inclined to continue buying your paper why?
I do not have a solution. If I did, I would be earning far more than I am currently. However, I was intrigued by a recent piece of legislation, S. 673, introduced by Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland. Like most bills introduced, it will probably die a slow death by committee, but his idea is fascinating. He calls for newspaper companies to be allowed to treat themselves as tax-exempt non-profit organizations, which could allow for subscription charges and advertising expenses to be deductible. Newspapers would be run by people who love newspapers rather than corporate conglomerates with an eye toward the bottom line.
The ultimate question, though, is even if we embrace what is probably a pipe dream of the honorable gentleman from Maryland, does a viable market remain (or can one be resurrected) for HIGH-QUALITY and LOCAL newspapers? I for one certainly hope so, because I would truly miss my very dear old friend.
The much anticipated House Republican “alternative budget” was rolled out today. It had a nice blue cover and an official looking logo, which House minority leader John Boehner kept waving around like, well, Neville Chamberlain. All 19 pages of it. AND NO NUMBERS.
Things got dodgy when Boehner was asked, to paraphrase an oldie but goodie: “Where’s the BEEF?” After much harrumph-ing Boehner and his cohorts had to concede that “details are forthcoming.”
Even the Obama Administration’s Mr. Nice Guy himself, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs got in on the fun:
"I think the party of 'NO' has become the party of 'NO NEW IDEAS.' The rhetoric inside the budget seems to be a road map for the failed policies that got us into this mess ... The administration's glad that the Republicans heard the president's call to submit an alternative. We just hope that next time it will contain actual numbers so somebody can evaluate what it means."
And then he said, with a sly grin: "There's one more picture of a windmill than there are charts of numbers. And there's exactly one picture of a windmill."
OUCH! When good guy Robert Gibbs rips you a new one without even breaking a sweat, House Repugs, you’ve reached a NEW LEVEL OF LOW. As Jonathan Alter said, “the first rule of holes is to STOP DIGGING.” Keep digging, Boehner, Cantor, Pence, Gingrich, Steele, Cheney, Palin, Jindhal, Ashcroft ...
STIMULUS, REPUBLICAN-STYLE: THE PARTY OF "NO" IS ALSO THE SHOVEL-READY PARTY!
Chicago has experienced a rash of teen shootings this year, in most cases the intended and unintended carnage of gang conflicts. One reader of the Chicago Tribune came up with a BRILLIANT solution. Bernice Arndt of Elmhurst, Illinois, gave us this gem:
There are far too many high school students being killed. Let the 10 Commandments be placed in every classroom. These are the words of God and a good reminder to all.
What a great idea! Why didn't I think of that! And as a side benefit, it would also remind the kids to stop carving and worshipping idols and having other gods before Yahweh. Sounds like a win-win to me. Bernice, enjoy the convention.
Thanks to Carlos for keeping things rolling. I am BURIED in a book deadline (and as Carlos could tell you, it will be a real page turner!) and have been nonstop workthink for the last couple weeks. I promise to return to my juvenile annoying self soon.
Why haven't you enlisted the PEOPLE'S ECONOMIST, Paul Krugman, to take a prominent position in your team of minor economic luminaries?
-- Is it that Lawrence Summers and "Slim" Tim Geithner are such insiders -- Geithner under Summers with Clinton, who signed the Republican banking deregulation that got us into this mess in the first place -- that only those so contaminated by the crisis know how to get us out of it? Does anyone get this perverse logic? Perhaps you'll explain it to us tomorrow night, Mr. President, that is, if those sheep in the WH Press corps will ask the question.
-- Is it a Harvard-Princeton thing? Stupid Ivy League turf jealousies (Summers was a Harvard president) like the jerks who feel entitled to office by virtue of membership in the sexist, fascist, juvenile Yale Skull and Bones fraternity where GWB learned the virtues of alcoholism and prankish irresponsible behavior of the type that got us into the Iraq war? What happened to all that scripture stuff about "childish things" being over?
-- Or is Paul Krugman overqualified by dint of his Nobel Prize in economics?
Or maybe it's plain spiteful pettiness because Professor Krugman continues to RIPGeithner's economic schemes. Any administration with Rham Emanuel in a position of prominence could get a lot of that.
President Obama just got his first full lesson in the Byzantine ways of Washington DC politics from the toxic storm over the outrageous AIG bonuses. Not surprisingly, the President is in California, as far away from our nation’s capital as he can be, outside of his native Hawaii and Palin’s Alaska. The question is: was he student or was he teacher?
The AIG recipients of $165 million of taxpayers’ largesse, er … protection pay for not driving our economy entirely to its knees – a million here, a billion there, and a trillion everywhere, after a while it’s real money – have inflamed the torch-and-pitchfork brigades to the boiling point with a little help from Stephen Colbert (below) and Republican Senator Chuck Grassley.
Apparently a student of the art of Japanese ritual suicide, Seppuku, the usually dull Senator Grassley was unusually entertaining with this colorful language:
"I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, 'I'm sorry,' and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide."
Followed by this:
“It’s irresponsible for coporations to give bonuses at this time when they’re still sucking the tit of the taxpayer.”
The deceptively bland Senator Grassley, who once got into a shoving match with John McCain, may be a walking advertisement for campaign finance reform or one-term senators. He did not retract his words, rather, dismissed them as “rhetoric.” Way to go, Chuck!
If, as the President said, “Slim” Tim Geithner has “made all the right moves with a difficult hand,” then Slim’s cards are held very close to his vest. Lavishing praise on his embattled Treasury Secretary, President Obama noted that he’s had more challenges than any Treasury Secretary since Alexander Hamilton. Perhaps, and yet … based on current performance, chances are not good that Geithner will get his face on a U.S. bill; that is, unless all the money being printed now turns into worthless “funny” money.
On the flip side, “Slim” Tim can be fairly confident that Vice President Biden, mercurial though he may be, will not challenge him to a duel. Whew …
Treasury’s reluctance to come clean on AIG’s bailout is understandable. It was, after all, triggered by a letter from the French finance minister to Bush Treasury Secretary Paulson, warning that European banks were so invested with AIG that they’d collapse in a domino downfall of the European financial system should AIG go down.
The FRENCH! Oh the Humanity!
Time was when the French were good friends and allies. Lafayette was like a son to Gen. Washington. Jefferson and Franklin succumbed to the charms of Paris. Wily old Ben had his way with many a female courtesan, and Jefferson fell in love in that idyllic city. But for today’s modern-day Tories -- the Republicans -- France represents everything our country shouldn’t be: effete, promiscuous, unclean, and socialist. O.M.G.!
Here’s the cold, hard reality:
The French finance minister was correct. Owing to its global tentacles, AIG is too big to fail, all populism, demagoguery, and hypocrisy aside. The results for our economy would be catastrophic.
Seizing upon understandable popular outrage over the AIG bonuses, suddenly “populist” Republicans have cynically set their sights on two targets: Tim Geithner and Democratic Senator Chris Dodd. First, because the not-so-hidden agenda of know nothing Republicans, bereft of ideas and alternatives, is to follow GOP Party Boss Rush Limbaugh’s prescription: “I hope he (President Obama) fails.” What better way to do this than to try to take down the popular president’s point man on the economy?
Second, Senator Dodd, who is facing a tough reelection campaign in 2010 as chairman of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, is a prime target for Republicans. Fortunately for the Democratic Party, the RNC is in the grasping hands of a bumbling idiot named Michael Steele. And so the RNC this week issued a talking points memo trying to pin the AIG bonus debacle on Sen. Dodd because he acceded to administration requests to remove language from the stimulus bill that would have taxed bonuses from corporations receiving bailout funds, effectively preventing the AIG bonus debacle.
In retrospect, it would appear as if the Obama economic team’s insistence on this exception was politically tone-deaf, to say the least. Their policy, not political, arguments were cogent and, wouldn’t you know it, grown-up: Taxing corporate contracts in this way could be unconstitutional, with lawsuits that could cost taxpayers more, and, more importantly, threaten the legality of the entire stimulus bill. The Rush Limbaugh Republicans would like nothing more than to derail the President’s stimulus package by tying it up in the courts.
Senator Dodd, fortunately for us, is a grown-up. Given these concerns expressed by the President’s top economic advisers, he pulled the language from the bill and is taking his medicine, with bad publicity and charges of flip-flopping, that I predict he will overcome.
In the meantime, the very same amendment, which had been introduced by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and Republican Olympia Snowe, and passed with Senator Dodd’s approval, is being reintroduced as a standalone bill in the Senate. Senator Wyden beamed at this fortuitous development with his best all’s well that ends well TV face.
A similar measure just passed the House with a Republican vote split down the middle. Will anyone hazard a guess as to how many Republicans will vote for the Wyden-Snowe bill, the very same measure they are fist-pounding hysterically about now? Checkmate.
Somewhere Machiavelli must be smiling. Somewhere Rham Emanuel is smiling. And President Obama, well sir, as you swing through California, you’ve outdone the best legislative manipulator of all. Somewhere, President Lyndon Baines Johnson must be smiling too, and nodding his approval.
The paper formerly known as the Chicago Tribune gave us this gem from future Nobel Prize winner, Curt P. Schaller of Northbrook:
The Tribune, in part, supported President Obama's expansion of embryonic stem-cell research with the argument that unused fertility clinic embryos are usually destroyed—so why not use them for research. With this reasoning you could justify harvesting the organs of irreversibly comatose individuals. They will never recover; why let their organs waste away?
Just curious Curt--let's take those comatose patients you mention. How many of them will be incinerated unless implanted in a uterus? While you try to figure that one out:
I am assuming that since your title is "Law Department" that you must actually employ or retain "lawyers" who went to "law school." Given that assumption, I am writing about your company's statements that they are "legally obligated" to pay outrageous amounts used for hookers, greens fees, love nest hideaway apartments, whites-only club memberships, spa getaways and other boondoggles "retention bonuses."
I am also a "lawyer" who went to "law school." Like most "lawyers" who went to "law school," I took a first-year "law class" called "Contracts." Did you? If so, did you learn in said class that there are several colorable (albeit not necessarily successful) arguments that the company could make with regard to these agreements? Either in Contracts, or in a "law class" called "Remedies?" If so, you would learned that in such cases that money damages are the only remedy? After the greedy bastards claimants have carried the burden of proof as to both enforceability and damages?
In closing, esteemed colleagues, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PAY THESE BONUSES. Make the greedy bastards valued employees sue you for it. It may make them angry, and cost some legal money, but you look better and if you lose the nitwits who drove your bus off the cliff your loss is?
Note to a large portion of America, pictured below:
Do not give your baby girls cute names. No more Caylees. No more Haleighs. No more marrying your 17-year old "girlfriends" while "grieving." I am of course disturbed by how these freaks abuse and kill their children, but sadly..it is not news. Go away.
