PUBLIC PENSION UPDATE: Corruption indictments may change the way state pension fund is run. “Hank Morris, Hevesi’s top political consultant, and David Loglisci, a former deputy controller for pensions, were charged were charged in a 123-count indictment with steering firms to pension fund business in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks.” Just remember, with all the anger at Wall Street, that it’s not like government employees are immune to corruption. . . .
Archive for 2009
March 22, 2009
WASHINGTON POST: Furor Over AIG Bonuses May Affect Dodd. “For the first time since he was elected to the Senate in 1980, he could face a serious challenge. And some of Dodd’s longtime supporters are saying they will not vote for him again. . . . Dodd, 64, is chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, and Wednesday night, he said his staff removed a provision from the recently enacted economic stimulus bill that would have blocked AIG from paying those bonuses. Dodd said he was acting at the request of Treasury Department officials, who feared the provision would prompt legal challenges. But earlier in the week, Dodd had said he did not know how the provision got removed from the bill.”
But wait, there’s more: “Dodd is also under a Senate ethics investigation involving two mortgages he received from Countrywide Financial for his homes in the District and Connecticut. Dodd in 2003 was enrolled in a Countrywide VIP program that gave him preferential treatment for those loans. Countrywide, once the country’s largest mortgage lender, was sold last year to Bank of America as its subprime mortgage portfolio began to collapse. ” And then there’s the continuing Irish “cottage” problem.
HEH: “Do any other old codgers out there in my audience remember back when $1 trillion was a noteworthy figure, rather than the minimum price needed to get people to take your policy seriously?”
FISH. BARREL. How to get Firedoglake to cover tea party protests. And mention that thousands showed up! It’s just too easy with these people . . . .
ASTROTURF: Protest Bust: Lots Of Media, Just One Bus Of Protesters.
Compare with this.
And here’s another report on ACORN’s bus tour. Excerpt:
The protest at AIG was fake and contrived. There was no authentic popular anger on display, just staged photo-ops by professional protestors from ACORN. My only surprise was that ACORN did not even attempt to pretend that this was being run by the supposed sponsor, the ACORN front group Working Families Party.
There were more media in attendance than protestors, and it was so staged and artificial that all the media wanted to do was get a few pics and get out of there before Starbucks closed.
Plus, numerous photos from the scene and an amusing parody poster.
DON SURBER: ACORN Adored, Tea Party Ignored:
Not that after 30+ years in this business that I know anything about newspapers. I mean, after all, I do not think that the most important news story in the state of Connecticut would be the agitprop theater of federally financed lefties (ACORN takes grants) protesting executive salaries.
That involved 40 people including some from Washington. This is what they do for a living. They are professionals.
AP originally reported the reporters and news crews outnumbered the Paid Protesters 2-to-1.
The Conn Post gave this item two big pictures, a main story, and a side story.
Buried inside was a story of 300 people in Ridgefield staging a Tea Party against the entire $700 billion bailout and the subsequent $787 billion stimulus.
An actual grassroots movement was brushed off with “Tea Party’ protests spending to stimulate economy.”
First they ignore you, then . . . .
MORE A.I.G. DEVELOPMENTS: AIG’s $100G donation to Democrats was unknown to Gov. Paterson, he says. “Gov. Paterson stuck to his guns Saturday, insisting he knew nothing about a $100,000 donation from AIG to the state Democratic Party days before his office helped save the insurance giant.” How convenient.
TEA PARTY UPDATE: Reader Eric Smith sends a report from Maryland: “These are shots of A Tea Party held at Solomons Island Maryland which is part of Steny Hoyer’s district. Approximately 300 people showed up and listened to speakers. Music, and some great BBQ…………”
Other sources tell me the Barbecue was from The Grill Sergeant.
I GUESS HE NEVER READ Escape From Hell. Sylvia Plath’s son commits suicide. In the book, she has regrets.
IT WAS NO TEA PARTY: 12 People Showed Up To Protest Bank Of America. But it probably got more coverage . . . .
THE HILL ON Chris Dodd, Charlie Rangel, et al.
House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) was not so lucky. Having already come under scrutiny for his role in securing a tax break for AIG while asking the company for donations to a building in Rangel’s honor, the reemergence of AIG as Public Enemy No. 1 was hardly helpful. Rangel defensively answered questions about his bill to tax AIG bonuses during a Thursday interview on CNBC, and faced yet another critical article on the subject in his hometown New York Times this weekend.
On the Senate side, Dodd was forced to answer a barrage of questions about his role in creating the bonus loophole. At first denying responsibility for the provision, and then pivoting to say the Treasury Department had requested its inclusion, Dodd has become a top target of not just his 2010 opponent Simmons, but Republicans nationwide. Along with Dodd’s numerous donations from AIG and troubling poll numbers, a series of critical headlines were hardly a boon to the Banking Committee chairman.
That’s why they’re calling him “Dodd Man Walking.”
SO MAYBE IT’S BEEN A MISTAKE TO SPEND THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS PISSING ALL OVER THEM, HUH? “U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Sunday that help from the private sector was critical to get toxic assets off banks’ balance sheets and help resolve a credit crisis.” Even on NPR they were skeptical that private investors would want to get involved, for fear that they’d wind up facing punitive taxes if they made “too much” money.
ARE WE GOING BANKRUPT? You wouldn’t know it from Congress’s spending priorities.
SOLAR, BATTERY, INVERTERS: Lots of backup power stuff on sale.
POLITICO: NYT hits Obama. “The leading liberal voices of the New York Times editorial pages all criticized—and, in some cases, clobbered—President Obama on Sunday for his handling of the economy and national security. . . . The sentiment, coming just two months after the president was sworn in, reflects elite opinion in the Washington-New York corridor that Obama is increasingly overwhelmed, and not fully appreciative of the building tsunami of populist outrage.” Well, he could start here. That won’t help the “overwhelmed” part, though.
UPDATE: CBS to Obama: “Are you punch-drunk?”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Ouch: “At this stage in 1977, even Jimmy Carter wasn’t Jimmy Carter. But, 30 days in, the horror of what they’d wrought began to dawn on Brooks, Buckley and the Obamacons. And, after a mere 60, the A-list libs are starting to figure it out, too.”
MORE: Charlie Foxtrot: I told you so.
Plus, Obama sounding like Dick Cheney?
STILL MORE: “Thoughtful Thinkers Think.”
Question: Are the people more upset by the AIG bonuses as the media and Congress are saying, or by the whole idea of bailouts?
Answer: Bailouts. The bonuses are a diversion — a snippet if you will — of the $10 trillion that our president and our Congress are borrowing.
Indeed.
NEW YORK POST: OBAMA CRACKS UP. A bit hyperbolic, but it was a bad week:
The AIG bonuses, alienating our allies, that Special Olympics crack on “The Tonight Show” there’s certainly plenty of competition, but this was probably the worst week of President Obama’s nascent administration.
The problem wasn’t just bad decisions followed by rash reactions and changing stories. The mistakes, oversights, cover-ups, and bad press of this past week all hit Obama in the most sensitive spots, undercutting the pillars on which he had built his rare transpartisan appeal.
Indeed.
I ran into an Indian businessman friend last week and he said something to me that really struck a chord: “This is the first time I’ve ever visited the United States when I feel like you’re acting like an immature democracy.”
Plus, John Kass: Chicago Way extension runs right through D.C. “These days, the Washington Way is looking just like the Chicago Way. Those of us from Illinois can see it, what with City Hall guys pulling White House strings. . . . What they’re trying to drown out with all their screaming is that the Democrats knew all about the $165 million to the AIG suits. And the Obama White House knew all about it too.”
OUCH: “They are journalists posing as bloggers, mucking up their journalism and simultaneously writing dull blogs.” From the comments: “Or maybe they are errand boys, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.”
UPDATE: Related thoughts