Day: April 16, 2007

Exxon Breaks All-Time U.S. Profit Record — Again

Trish

The usual suspects top the list of the most profitable companies in 2006, ranked by Fortune. Your friend and mine, Exxon Mobil, again headed the pack.

The oil giant racked up $39.5 billion in earnings last year, the largest-ever profit in U.S. history. That figure topped the previous record of $36.1 billion, also set by Exxon Mobil, in 2005. Profits were up 9.3% from the previous year, while sales rose 2.2%.

The rest of the top ten included:

2. United Airlines
3. Citigroup
4. Bank of America
5. General Electric
6. Pfizer
7. Chevron
8. Conoco Philips
9. J. P. Morgan Chase
10. AIG (American International Group) Insurance

Ann Coulter Dropped F-Bomb on Edwards a Second Time – at Christian Conference

Jon Ponder

Under-reported: Did you know that on March 3, the day after Ann Coulter called John Edwards a “faggot” at CPAC, she said the same thing when she addressed the annual talibangelist “Reclaiming America for Christ” meeting? It sounds like she bombed the second time:

On the matter of gay rights, Coulter’s contribution was to describe, from the pulpit, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards as “a faggot,” a remark that did not go over as well at Coral Ridge as it had the day before at a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C.

It’s good to know Christianists aren’t yet as craven as CPAC goons.

Virginia Tech: Most Deadly Shooting Attack in U.S. History

Jon Ponder

At least one gunman with a semi-automatic weapon went on a rampage at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg killing 31 people and wounding over a dozen more. It is the most deadly shooting attack in U.S. history. The killer is dead, possibly from a self-inflicted wound.

I just heard a former FBI agent on MSNBC call it a terrorist attack. This interesting because we are entering the season for terrorism in the United States. Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19. He chose that particular date because it was the anniversary of the fire at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas, in 1993, in which 81 people died.

Adolph Hitler’s birthday on April 20 also tends to bring out the lunies on the right, including the high school boys who shot and killed 13 of their classmates and themselves at Columbine High School on Hitler’s birthday in 1999.

Remind me again why the Second Amendment guarantees people the right to buy these weapons of war?

Update: On CNN, a witness described the shooter as an Asian male who was wearing some sort of brown uniform.

Update 2: Keith Olbermann just reported that the shooter is a 24 year old Chinese national.

Iraq Ministers Quit; Demand Timeline for Withdrawal

Trish

Iraqis want U.S. troops to come home too. Shi’ite ministers quit the al-Maliki government in protest over the lack of a timeline for American withdrawal.

The [Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s] Sadrists accused Maliki of “ignoring the will of the people” over the timetable issue and also of failing to improve basic services and security.

The Shi-ites say al-Maliki is ignoring the will of the people. Hmmm, why does that ring a bell?

Tens of thousands of Iraqis answered a call by Sadr to rally in the holy Shi’ite city of Najaf last week to protest against the presence of more than 140,000 U.S.-led forces in Iraq…

“The prime minister has to express the will of the Iraqi people. They went out in a demonstration in their millions asking for a timetable for withdrawal,” the head of the Sadrist bloc in parliament, Nassar al-Rubaie, told a news conference.

Who or What are Bush Lackeys Afraid Of?

Trish

Are they unwilling to speak out because they’re afraid of Bush? Or is it Cheney? Or Rover? Or all three?

A surprising amount of the contacts were from Bushites, saying, “Oh please, God help us!”

When Matthew Dowd, Bush’s 2004 campaign strategist, recently expressed regret for helping the Idiot in Chief get re-elected, he got mail. A lot of it was from people on the left, like us, saying “What did you expect?” A lot of it was from people on the right saying, “How could you?”

But a surprising amount of the contacts were from Bushites, saying, “Oh please, God help us!”“I got a ton of messages from people in the administration who said we totally agree with you, we just can’t say it,” he said. “I got messages from people in Congress, Republicans, saying we agree with you but can’t say that because of what would happen to us.”

Whoa. What would happen to them? Oh wait a minute, let me ask former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

At issue was an interview this month in The New York Times in which Mr. Dowd called for withdrawing troops from Iraq and criticized the president for not fulfilling his promise to bridge the partisan divide in Washington.

Once a member of the Bush campaign brain trust, Mr. Dowd found himself on the outs, roundly pilloried for speaking out. It’s a rare look at what happens after the media spotlight shines suddenly on someone in the political world.

“All those people who say, ‘Why can’t people speak their minds, why can’t people stand up to power?’ And when somebody does, there’s a whole group of people who don’t really want that on both sides, the far left and the far right,” he said.

Fair enough. I promise not to criticize former Bush insiders who now wish they hadn’t supported him if they all promise to go somewhere and shut the hell up.

Contributions to Democrats Blow Republicans Out of the Water

Trish

Democratic presidential candidates raised $27 million more than Republicans, according to their first-quarter ’07 financial filings.

And John McCain looks worse on paper than anyone guessed.

SNL-related donations: Chevy Chase gave $4,600 to Clinton. Eddie Murphy kicked in $2,300 to Obama. Adam Sandler gave $2,100 to Giuliani. Lorne Michaels dished out $1,000 to McCain.

Obama…nearly tied Clinton in total donations, having raised $25.8 million compared to Clinton’s $26 million — an astounding achievement for a political novice going up against such a veteran…

…Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who hopes to be the first Mormon elected president, received more donations from Utah, $2.8 million, than from the state he used to govern, whose residents gave him $2.3 million.

…Rudy Giuiani, the former mayor of New York, raised $14 million, but it came from fewer donors than any other major candidate, indicating access to big-money donors but not widespread support.

Writing for ABC, Jake Tapper and David Chalian analyzed the financial reports as they went along, but saved the most loaded labels for Democrats, referring to Sen. Barack Obama as an “insurgent” candidate (OMIGOD) and Sen. Hillary Clinton as the “frontrunner.” Huh?

They also spared John McCain no illusions.

One of the key indicators of whether or not a campaign is being managed efficiently is the “burn rate” — the percentage of the money raised that the campaign spent during the same time period.

McCain is the big loser in this category. His campaign hemorrhaged money by spending 64 percent of what it raised in the first quarter…and assumed a stunning amount (to the tune of $1.8 million) of debt…

McCain’s one bright spot on the GOP side is that he can boast of significantly more donors — roughly 50,000 people contributed to his campaign — than his Republican rivals, perhaps indicating a broader base of support.

Clinton also had roughly 60,000 donors and Edwards had north of 40,000.

A fascinating footnote to the first quarter filings was how people associated with NBC’s Saturday Night Live gave.

Old-school star Chevy Chase gave $4,600 to Clinton. Eddie Murphy kicked in $2,300 to Obama. Adam Sandler gave $2,100 to Giuliani. And their former boss, SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels, dished out $1,000 to McCain.

At least Michaels is as cheap as he is wrong.