Month: March 2009

Bush Attracts 14 Supporters to Fund Raising Lunch

Trish

The Bushes, from George H.W. to Jeb, have always had a soft spot for Northeast Florida, finding it a profitable place for them to fund raise. And what the area might now lack in quantity of adherents, it makes up in quality. Fourteen of Bush 43’s highest potential donors in these parts met with him today to be shaken down in person.

Bush supporter: “Hopefully we can talk about some of the good times during the time he was president.” What were there, like, two?

Former President George W. Bush attended a private luncheon in downtown Jacksonville Thursday to drum up support for his presidential library from a small group of supporters.

According to a Duval County Republican Party spokesman, Bush met with 14 invited guests…

Marty Fiorentino was one of the handful of longtime supporters who were invited to attend.

“I’m excited to see the president,” Fiorentino said. “I think he’s going to tell us about the library and what he’s doing post-presidency. We’re looking forward to hearing what it’s like to be back in private life and a civilian. Hopefully we can talk about some of the good times during the time he was president and campaigns and trips through Jacksonville. We’re looking forward to that.”

It can’t have taken long to cover each and every one of those “good times” from when Bush was president. What were there, like, two?

And even though everyone refers to it as a “library,” the big guy himself is calling it the George W. Bush Presidential Center. After all, “center” is so much easier to say than, “lie-berry.”

A few downtown Jacksonville folks were put out that major streets were shut down in the middle of the noon-day rush for Bush and his 14 friends. On Facebook, one non-supporter noted, “Bush has Adams [St.] blocked off at Main [St.]. The fundamentals of lunch are still strong.”

Another said, “He is here to discuss his Presidential Library, er um, the George Bush Center for Kids Who Don’t Read Good and Want to Learn to do Other Stuff Good Too.”

Presumably everyone heeded warnings to keep their shoes on.

States Rights: Feds Will No Longer Prosecute Legal Pot Shops

Jon Ponder

Attorney General Eric Holder announced yesterday that federal legal and judicial resources will no longer be deployed against legal medicinal marijuana dispensaries in California and other states.

This is a 180-degree change from the right-wing policies of the Bush administration, which had a zero-tolerance policy against cannabis use by patients suffering from cancer, chronic pain and other ailments. During their eight years in office, Bush Justice Dept. officials spent millions of federal tax dollars to investigate and arrest operators of the dispensaries, even though the enterprises were sanctioned by state laws.

Despite the massive personnel and financial resources arrayed against hundreds of legal pot shops in California by the Bush Justice Department, only four operators have been charged with crimes over the past seven years.

GOP Leader Outraged Over Lack of AIG Bonus Caps Now Opposed Caps Last Month

Jon Ponder

Just six weeks ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rushed to microphones to argue against government-imposed salary and bonus caps for executives at companies being bailed out by American taxpayers, now McConnell claims to be outraged that the government did not impose these same caps on AIG. Via ThinkProgress:

McConnell in February:

MCCONNELL: “I really don’t want the government to take over these businesses and start telling them everything about what they can do. […] We have to resist the temptation to basically dictate to these businesses how to run every aspect of their operation.” [ABC News, 2/4/09]

McConnell in March:

MCCONNELL: “Well, it is an outrageous situation. I wrote Secretary Paulson back in October complaining about the way AIG had been doing its business. … This is an outrage.” [ABC News, 3/15/09]

AIG Facts are Even Worse Than You Thought

Trish

When you hear the emerging facts on the AIG bonus pay-out, no matter how tired you are of the whole topic, you get outraged all over again. According to Attorney Gen. Andrew Cuomo’s office, as reported by Reuters:

* AIG distributed more than $160 million in retention payments to employees at its Financial Products unit, the subsidiary Cuomo says was “principally responsible for the firm’s meltdown.”

* The top AIG bonus recipient received more than $6.4 million

* The top seven bonus recipients received more than $4 million each

* Top 10 bonus recipients received a combined $42 million

* 22 individuals received bonuses of $2 million or more, and combined they received more than $72 million

* 73 people received bonuses of $1 million or more

* 11 recipients of “retention” bonuses of $1 million or more are no longer working at AIG, including one who received $4.6 million

* Employment contracts with AIG bonus recipients had required most individuals’ bonuses to be 100 percent of their 2007 bonuses “despite obvious signs that 2008 performance would be disastrous in comparison to the year before.”

My friend’s husband recently retired as a sales rep for Valic, which was taken over by AIG some years ago. Not only does he have to put up with jokes about the size of his final bonus ($0), but he has to reconcile retiring from a disgraced company after many years working for honorable ones. I think I hate AIG.

Did Bush Say He Plans ‘Authoritarian’ Book on His Presidency?

Jon Ponder

In its report on George Bush’s speech in Calgary, Canada, yesterday, the Associated Press write-up included this nugget:

Bush said that he doesn’t know what he will do in the long term but that he will write a book that will ask people to consider what they would do if they had to protect the United States as president.

He said it will be fun to write and that “it’s going to be (about) the 12 toughest decisions I had to make.”

“I’m going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there’s an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened,” Bush said.

In its version of the quote, Republican-leaning Politico.com replaced “authoritarian” with “authoritative.”

It is quite possible, of course, that Bush mistakenly believes “authoritarian” and “authoritative” are synonymous.

Boss Limbaugh: ‘I Am All for the AIG Bonuses’ – Also Lies about Dems’ Efforts to Restrict AIG’s Corporate Pork

Jon Ponder

Just days after alleged death-squad leader Dick Cheney gave his hearty endorsement to Rush Limbaugh as the Republican Party’s new boss, Limbaugh weighed in on the controversy over $400 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses slated to be paid to derivatives traders at insurance giant AIG.

“Let me tell you something, folks. I am all for the AIG bailouts, and I am all for the AIG bonuses. Well, I’m not for the bailouts, well, in a way I’m for the bailout because I’m for the bonuses.”

On his radio rantfest yesterday, Limbaugh came out in support of corporate pork and then — after quickly retracting his support of bailouts and then just as quickly retracting the retraction — came out full force in favor of the AIG bonuses, which would use taxpayer money to reward the traders whose risky schemes crashed the world economy:

Rush Limbaugh: “Let me tell you something, folks. I am all for the AIG bailouts, and I am all for the AIG bonuses. Well, I’m not for the bailouts, well, in a way I’m for the bailout because I’m for the bonuses.”

And Rush said: “We need some perspective here. Okay, so they’ve got $170 billion in bailouts, the bonuses are $165 million. The AIG bonuses are one-tenth of 1 percent of all the bailout money, not just for AIG, but for everybody else. It’s in their contracts. What is the number-one asset any company has? It’s people. It’s employees. This $165 million in bonuses is gonna help estimate the economy. It’s going to stimulate the New York City economy, $165 million, one-tenth of 1 percent of all bailout. The populist thing to do, the popular thing to come and do here today is bang my fist and be outraged over how in the world can they use my taxpayer money this way.”

Of course, many of the traders who have received the initial $165 million in bonuses were citizens of Great Britain who worked in AIG’s London office, and so won’t be stimulating the U.S. economy. It was also revealed yesterday that after receiving these “retention bonuses,” many of the traders left AIG for greener pastures.

In this snippet from yesterday, he criticizes a senator for suggesting that AIG bonus recipients should commit suicide — conveniently omitting the fact that the senator was a Republican — and then he deliberately misstates facts about Senate Banking Chair Chris Dodd’s efforts to restrict the bonuses from being paid out:

[…]

Judge Judy Defends Gay Marriage to Larry King

Trish

Judge Judy Sheindlin on Larry King Live:

“We’ve got a lot of trouble in this country. We’ve got a lot of trouble in the world. Why the state should be interested in proscribing the word marriage from two people who love each other, who are responsible, tax-paying, productive people, who have created a family … why the state would have an interest in proscribing that kind of conduct, I don’t understand.

“I understand the anger about poverty. I understand the anger about AIG. I understand the problem about the banks. I understand the problem about Afghanistan and the Taliban and everything else. But I don’t understand the preoccupation with gays being permitted to marry.”

Cheney Says Bush Admin Is Not Responsible for the Bush Recession

Jon Ponder

Here’s another shining example of a Republican reflexively refusing to accept responsibility for his own and his party’s misdeeds and incompetence:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney says don’t blame George Bush for leaving President Obama with an economic catastrophe.

It was everyone else, and the Democrats, who brought on disaster, said Cheney, who was one of Bush’s most influential advisers over his eight years leading the country.

“There’s no question that what the economic circumstances that \[Obama\] inherited are difficult ones,” Cheney said on CNN [Sunday] morning. “I don’t think you can blame the Bush administration for the creation of those circumstances.”

Instead, Cheney suggested the current problems stem for the worsening world economy and Democratic obstruction of Bush’s attempts at reforming the government-backed mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie.

“This isn’t something that happened just in the Bush administration or just in the United States,” Cheney said. “We are in the midst of a worldwide economic period of considerable difficulty here.

“It’s important to understand that. It doesn’t do just to go back and say, well, ‘George Bush was president and that is why everything is screwed up,’ because that is simply not true,” Cheney said.

Got that? Bush and Cheney are the victims here. Riiiight.

The mortgage crisis may have lit the fuse — and Cheney conveniently omits the fact that until recently Bush used to claim the expansion of home ownership as one of his administration’s very few successes — but what caused the implosion was deregulatoin of financial institutions by GOP bank toadies like former Sen. Phil Gramm.

A Reliable Global Economic Indicator – the Baltic Dry Index – Appears to Have Found Bottom And Is Trending Up

Jon Ponder

In the ocean of bad economic news, there may be a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

On American Public Media’s Marketplace last week, economist Susan Lee suggested a better way of tracking the economy than, certainly, individual 401k accounts, and even the Conference Board’s indices — which she says have incorrectly predicted five recessions since 1959:

SUSAN LEE: I suggest you watch an index that will tell you when the world economies are starting to perk up and when trade conditions are really starting to ease. It’s called the Baltic Dry Index.

Essentially the Baltic Dry tracks the average daily price for shipping dry bulk like coal, iron ore, wheat and soybeans. There are three things that make it such a good leading indicator. One, the index looks at raw materials, so it captures activity at the very beginning of the production process. Two, it looks at ocean shipping, so it reveals what’s happening to international trade — the critical driver of global growth. And, three, the shipping business depends heavily on credit, so the Baltic Dry indicates whether credit is tight or loose.

Back in 2005, when the world’s economies were just fine and credit was abundant, the Baltic Dry looked like a powerhouse. But it peaked in May of 2008. And it’s been heading almost straight down ever since — losing about 90 percent of its value.

Since January, the Baltic Dry Index, which peaked at about 12,000 in May 2008, has drifted upward slightly, rising to around 2,000.