Thought for the day

Why are contracts sacred when they’re signed by executives but fungible when signed by unionized line workers?  And why is Obama treating the car companies so differently from the way he’s been treating the banks and finance sector?

Fear and Loathing in Anchorage

This latest news from Huffington Post should make all of us political bloggers sit up and take notice.  Apparently one of Alaska’s marginally competent Republican Congressmen took issue with being a regular feature on the now-famous Mudflats blog and decided to go on a personal crusade to reveal the identity of his tormentor.

In a recent letter to his constituents, the “Honorable” Mr. Doogan included this little missive:

The identity of the person who writes the liberal Democratic Mudflats blog has been secret since the blog began, protected by the Anchorage Daily News, among others. My own theory about the public process is you can say what you want, as long as you are willing to stand behind it using your real name. So I was interested to learn that the woman who writes the blog is Anchorage resident *name redacted*.

Best wishes,

Mike

It’s nice to know he’s got such deep thoughts about free speech and democracy in America.  What a lunatic.  He, and jackasses like him, are the reason so many of us choose to blog anonymously.  Anonymity is not a sign of cowardice, it’s a sign of prudence.  Anonymity and privacy are rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and have been a cornerstone of American politics since the Revolution.  Doogan’s actions are nothing short of political harrassment, the most anti-American thing any politician can do.  He has abused his power and position.  It’s not for Doogan to reveal the identity of anyone whose opinions he disagrees with.  If his critics choose to attack him anonymously, that’s their choice.  Obviously, based on recent events, they have their reasons.  Doogan isn’t a good American – he’s a coward and a traitor.

And that’s my anonymous 2 cents.

Citiots on Parade

In my never-to-be humble opinion, anyone who uses the phrase “second home” without referring to the one they just sold and moved away from should be covered in molasses and staked out on an anthill.  There’s no such thing as a “second home” because no one, repeat, NO ONE, has more than one home.  You may own more than one property, or possess an extra residence or two (or seven, if you’re a McCain), but calling any of the additional buildings “homes” is an outrage.

I especially hate the legions of so-called “second home owners”, wealthy Long Islanders and Manhattanites who flock north on the weekends to visit communities about which they know nothing and care less, except when said communities try and install things like wind turbines and cell phone towers on their own land.

If you live in upstate New York, especially in the Catskill region, you’re probably already familiar with these people.  Every weekend or so they migrate north, hordes of mostly white, upper middle class, SUV-driving assholes with their obnoxious accents, arrogant attitudes and insufferable little brats in tow.  Some even have weekend businesses that they pretend to operate (to varying degrees of competence) while they’re here.

They’re the reason house prices in the Catskill region are currently running at 50 to 100% above affordability.  These people started noticing the “cheap” real estate up here about 30 years ago and started buying up land and houses left and right, whether they needed them or not.  Today an area with a median family income of $34,000 has median house prices still hovering near $180,000.  That’s six times the average salary, or about twice the recommended affordability index (2.5x annual income).

And the faux-liberal New York Times has now treated us to this – an article printed yesterday all about how to keep your bored brat from trashing the back seat of your Hummer on the trip to your so-called “second home”.  Read on:

IT’S the weekend routine. Almost every Friday everyone piles into the car for the trip to the weekend house. You and your spouse or partner alternate between private thoughts, casual conversation and listening to a favorite song that has popped up on the radio.

Every 15 minutes or so your attention may turn to the back seat, and for the umpteenth time you command a smaller version of yourself to stop kicking the back of your seat. Or you deal with, again, one of childkind’s eternal questions: “How much longer?”

The drive is never going to be the best part of second-home ownership, but it doesn’t have to be two lost hours going and two lost hours returning. And, for the back-seat crowd, it doesn’t have to be endlessly boring.

The poor dears.  Their lives are so hard, spending endless hours traveling to their parents’ “weekend retreat”.  I’m sure those of you who are having trouble paying the mortgage on your first home, or perhaps wondering where next month’s rent money is going to come from, can sympathize.  The horror of it all!

It gets better.  Apparently one enterprising extra-dwelling owner (I don’t call them “second homes”, there’s no such thing) was so concerned for her children’s mental health on these long trips that she decided to start a business catering to assuaging the consciences of wealthy Citiots while simultaneously massaging their inflated egos and squeezing their wallets.  Among the more ridiculous items available at Madallie.com are:

• the “Cuppa Knitting to Go” kit, which includes a ball of yarn and some knitting needles in a convenient cup-holder sized container.  A perfectly reasonable $21.95 for items that might cost you about six clams at Wal-Mart or Target.
• the “15 Puzzle”, an upscale version of the dime-store square puzzle things that have 15 sliding blocks in a plastic square.  At just $11.95, this will run you just about ten times what you’d normally pay for similar items.  But of course, if you’ve got the money for a house on the Island and another in the Catskills that you don’t fucking need, paying 12 bucks for a 50 cent toy shouldn’t faze you.  In fact, you probably deserve to be taken for a ride.
• Travel Bingo, for $11.95.  This may actually be fairly priced, since updated travel bingo games can be hard to find.  Though I’m pretty sure my parents picked ours up at a yard sale for 25 cents each.  I never could spot that darn traffic cop…

And so on.  The article goes on to recommend other diversions such as listening to e-books or instructional CDs, or playing 20 questions with the kiddies.

Here’s a thought.  Maybe instead of imposing their odious presence on the actual residents of the Upstate counties, they could stay home for the weekend instead.  Or instead of buying real estate they don’t need and shouldn’t have, upscale downstaters could be resonsible citizens and stay in a hotel on the weekends.  If they did that instead, maybe housing prices in the Catskill region will drop to affordable levels and we all can own an adequate house, instead of home ownership being a privilege reserved for the wealthy few.  It would also stimulate the economies of the communities the hotels serve, by providing jobs and supporting local businesses.

It might also make us feel better about being invaded every weekend by Citiots.

Richard B. Cheney, will you please go now?

See Dick Lie.

See Men Die.

See Kids Cry.

Don’t Be a Dick.

Though Richard B. Cheney, former Vice President of the United States and complete Dickhead, continues to be the second best recruiting tool the Democrats every had, he’s fast becoming a pariah among his fellow Republicans.  As reported by The Hill.com:

Rep. John Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) said, “He became so unpopular while he was in the White House that it would probably be better for us politically if he wouldn’t be so public…But he has the right to speak out since he’s a private citizen.”

Another House Republican lawmaker who requested anonymity said he wasn’t surprised that Cheney has strongly criticized Obama early in his term, but argued that it’s not helping the GOP cause.

He’s not doing the country any good, either.  He should go back to Hell where he came from and leave the country to sort out the mess he and Bush made.

Quote of the Day

“God, all this love and everything in the room — I’m horny. …” – Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, to a room full of (presumably heterosexual) conservatives at the Media Research Center

Quote of the Day

“They need to spend a little time outside of New York, … Because … if you go to North Dakota, or you go to Iowa, or you go to Arkansas, where folks would be thrilled to be making 75,000 dollars a year — without a bonus — then I think they’d get a sense of why people are frustrated.”

- President Obama, commenting today on the clueless and avaricious Wall Street executives who wrecked the economy and are fleecing the country for all they can get

They still don’t get it

Another day, another outrage in the long string of abuses from AIG.  As reported in the New York Times, the failed finance company currently on the dock for paying its least competent division $165 Million in bonuses, is now suing the federal government for return of $306 Million in taxes paid.  No, seriously.  Read on:

While the American International Group comes under fire from Congress over executive bonuses, it is quietly fighting the federal government for the return of $306 million in tax payments, some related to deals that were conducted through offshore tax havens.

A.I.G. sued the government last month in a bid to force it to return the payments, which stemmed in large part from its use of aggressive tax deals, some involving entities controlled by the company’s financial products unit in the Cayman Islands, Ireland, the Dutch Antilles and other offshore havens.

A.I.G. is effectively suing its majority owner, the government, which has an 80 percent stake and has poured nearly $200 billion into the insurer in a bid to avert its collapse and avoid troubling the global financial markets. The company is in effect asking for even more money, in the form of tax refunds. The suit also suggests that A.I.G. is spending taxpayer money to pursue its case, something it is legally entitled to do. Its initial claim was denied by the Internal Revenue Service last year.

Un-fucking-believable.  These people have been the recipients of billions of our taxpayer dollars, and they have the nerve to do this?  They’re lucky to be alive, frankly, after what they did to their company, the people whose money they destroyed and lives they ruined, and the country. In case you didn’t read the entire article, here’s the punchline:

A.I.G.’s lawyers in the case, at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, referred calls to the company. Asked about the lawsuit, Mark Herr, an A.I.G. spokesman, said Thursday that “A.I.G. is taking this action to ensure that it is not required to pay more than its fair share of taxes.”

Really?  More than their “fair share”?  Here’s a solution – how about we take back every dollar we gave them, and see how far they get after that?  Honestly, the hubris of these people is astounding.  Their arrogance and greed knows no bounds.  What’s it going to take for them to finally learn?  This latest outrage only shows they have no intention of changing their ways.

ENOUGH!

Keith Olbermann had an outstanding Special Comment last night.  I haven’t found full transcript yet, but for now here’s the video in case you missed it.

I couldn’t agree more.  These parasites, crooks and liars have gotten away with their economic rape and extortion for far too long.  They need to be brought back down to earth.

I didn’t know he could read

Word on the street is that former President Bush is currently writing a book about “…the environment in which [he] was making decisions.”

Does a cocaine-and-booze-induced haze count as an “environment”?

And wouldn’t it be just ironic if the publisher went bankrupt before he could finish it?

It’s about time

We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it any more.

When AIG revealed last week that it was planning on paying $165 Million in bonuses to the same idiots who nearly caused it to fail last year, and was using taxpayer dollars to do it, the Obama administration’s initial reaction was almost calm indifference.

Larry Summers, Obama’s senior economic advisor, went on the ABC Sunday talk show “This Week” to say, “We are a country of law. There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts.”

The New York Times reported that “the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them.”  The same article also predicted that “The payment of so much money at a company at the heart of the financial collapse that sent the broader economy into a tailspin almost certainly will fuel a popular backlash against the government’s efforts to prop up Wall Street.”

AIG’s current CEO laughably stated that “We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury.”

Do they really want to keep the same people on board who burned the fucking house down?  That’s like handing the keys to your new Jag over to the drunken teenager who just wrecked your Porsche.  AIG didn’t have “best and brightest”, it had a collection of money-grubbing, amoral, hubristic jackasses who didn’t think their actions would have consequences.  They partied as though there was no tomorrow and now that the bill is due, they want us to pay it.

Well, the people have spoken, and they’re pissed.  In a time when millions of Americans have lost their homes, their jobs, and their life’s savings, the very idea that anyone deserves millions of dollars just for showing up and ruining a company is outrageous.  The financial sector must live in Bizarro-world if it thinks anyone should be paid a “bonus” for incompetence and irresponsibly risky behavior.

Well, no more.  Yesterday the President lashed out at AIG, saying “It’s hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay.”  Exactly what the rest of the country has been saying for about 20 years. It’s just that it took a financial meltdown to get Washington to notice.

If AIG gets away with this, anyone who gets a “bonus” had better spend the money on some really good private security.  They’re going to need it.  For the past year they’ve been engaging in economic terrorism against America.  We’ve had enough.  We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it any more.