Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

In after Baud. Damn.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Everybody saw this coming.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Republicans do not pay their debts.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

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Archives for 2009

The AIG Money Pit

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Sources close to the company said the loss will be near $60 billion due to writedowns on a variety of assets including commercial real estate.

That massive loss is likely to spur downgrades in its insurance and credit ratings that will force AIG to raise collateral that it doesn’t have.

I’m not even going to pretend to understand what is going on, but I will say this- if I owned 80% of something, and every damned month it cost me a metric ton of money I did not have, it would not be too long before I drove that something off a cliff, hit it in the back of the head with a shovel, or shot it multiple times at close range.

Why can’t we shoot AIG and bury it in the backyard?

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The Revolution Will Be Twittered

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There is a growing anger out there, and less scrupulous folks are attempting to use that anger for their own personal benefit, but then I read things like this and want to cheer on the pitchfork brigades with their survivalist talk and tea parties:

When you talk about Twitter, you might as well be talking about the Snuggie: People around you swear that it’s actually useful, but you can’t help thinking it silly and declaring, “I just don’t get what all the buzz is about.”

But in Washington, the social networking and microblogging service is quickly becoming part of the daily media diet — and a powerful tool in the hands of those who are adept at making their points in 140 characters or fewer.

Here are the new maestros of the tweet — Washington’s 10 Most Influential Twitterers.

No doubt were Nero alive today, he would be very concerned about his status as an influential twitterer.

*** Update ***

For fun, review all the kind words you folks had for David Gregory on the day of Russert’s death.

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Say what?

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I’ve been following the Franken-Coleman legal proceedings pretty closely and everything I’ve read suggests that Franken is getting the better end of it and will be certified in the next few months. So where the hell does this come from?

Baltimore, Md.: Speaking of junior senators, do you see Al Franken being seated anytime before 2010?


Shailagh Murray: Perhaps, but it seems more and more likely that the Minnesota race will wind up as a re-vote. At this point it seems like the quickest way to resolve the situation.


Update: Murray did take this question from me, I’ll give her that at least.

Rochester, N.Y.: Shailagh, I doubt you’ll take this one but if anyone here will, it’s you!

Is there any concern that the lax standards of the editorial page (in particular, its refusal to retract false claims made in a recent George Will column) lessens the prestige of the news division at the Washington Post? Personally, the Post is my favorite paper, but this kind of thing makes it awfully hard to take anything in the paper seriously.

Thanks.

Shailagh Murray: I will post this without comment…but rest assured, all of us in the ailing newspaper business are highly receptive to ideas from readers about how we might improve.

Update #2: Murray didn’t leave the revote idea alone when corrected.

Al Franken Revote Really?: Star Tribune just published an article on the front page which discusses Coleman’s dwindling chances. The Politico last week published an article discussing Coleman’s need for a miracle. Election experts from Minnesota are discussing the math which makes a Coleman comeback extremely difficult and the higher courts taking this case an unlikely prospect. How did you arrive at this recount theory? I think the only folks advocating this are a FEW Republicans who see this as Coleman’s only realistic hope for overturning the results of November

washingtonpost.com: Rulings have diminished Coleman’s recount chances (StarTribune.com, Feb. 23)

Shailagh Murray: I don’t have a revote “theory.” I’m just wondering how long this is going to sit in the court system. If Coleman looks desperate, why not just hold another election and beat him handily?
But there’s a process in place here, and we can only assume both parties will abide by it.

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Stress Tests

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This is what will be making the headlines the next few weeks:

The Obama administration will begin taking a hard look at the financial condition of the country’s 20 biggest banks this week to judge whether they could hold up even if the downturn worsens further than policy makers already expect.

These reviews of the banks’ books, known as “stress tests,” are heightening a dilemma for Obama aides about how candid they should be about the health of banks like Citigroup and Bank of America. The tests are expected to take several weeks.

Bank shares were pummeled last week, partly because of rumors that the government might nationalize some of the banks. Officials consider many of the top 20 banks “too big to fail.”

The tests come as anxiety is building among investors and industry analysts about the Treasury Department’s broader plan to shore up the banking system. People familiar with the plan, which has been criticized by executives and analysts as vague, say its crucial details may not be ready for another few weeks.

In yet another sign of distress for the banks, Citigroup officials were in active talks with federal regulators on Sunday night about plans for the government to take a bigger ownership stake in the bank, according to a person close to the talks.

I’m not even going to bother trying to figure out what all is entailed in the stress tests, because I will never figure it out. Instead, I am just going to ask the following question- Why haven’t we been doing this all along?

And if you read the folks at naked capitalism, calculated risk, and elsewhere, most of them have been hinting for some time (or at least I have perceived them as hinting this) that many of these banks simply are insolvent and will not pass these stress tests. Then what?

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Robbing You Every Step Of The Way

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This is the sort of thing that should be forcing the Rick Santelli Brooks Brothers mob to get their silk boxers twisted in a knot:

In a letter sent to the commission last Thursday, Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, asked Mary L. Schapiro, the chairwoman of the S.E.C., whether it had followed up on allegations that were brought to its attention last spring involving a unit at Lehman Brothers. Employees in the unit, known as the Product Management Group, appear to have tipped off clients and traders about the content of the firm’s research reports before they were released, a former Lehman analyst said.

The letter does not disclose who might have received the tips, if they were made.

The insider trading allegations, and more than 4,000 e-mail messages relating to them, were presented to Linda Thomsen, the former director of enforcement at the S.E.C. last April by Ted Parmigiani, a former analyst at Lehman who followed the semiconductor industry. According to Mr. Grassley’s letter, Mr. Parmigiani spoke with high-level enforcement officials several times both on the phone and in person. An in-person meeting on April 30, 2008, lasted for six hours, the letter said.

Mr. Parmigiani, who was dismissed by the firm in June 2005 for what it said were performance issues, declined to comment.

Our noble captains of industry, our leaders of the free market, the guys who Haley Barbour thinks are the ones who should lead us back to glory and who are so delicate that the threat of a minor increase in taxes years down the road means that you should screw unemployed people today, these saints have been screwing the American people and the average investor every single step of the game. Clearly this is something that can be fixed by more deregulation and deference to the holy practice of business.

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CBS becomes even more liberal

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CBS has hired yet another prominent liberal:

Jeff Ballabon, an Orthodox Jew and political and communications consultant whom The Forward called “the architect of Bush’s 2004 re-election effort in the Orthodox community,” is the new senior vice president for communications at CBS News. He starts Monday and, according to a CBS press release, will be in charge of “all media relations and public affairs for CBS News, including strategy and planning, day-to-day publicity, internal and external communications” and coordination with the CBS News website.

….

“The key to success is the ability to be empathetic with a diversity of viewpoints,” he said, adding that his background as an Orthodox Jew has sometimes made him feel like “somewhat of an outsider in society” and thus he never thinks that he should be imposing his viewpoint on others.

And he quips that “with the current political environment, the mainstream media actually seemed like the more moderate atmosphere.”

[UPDATE: Ballabon’s self characterization doesn’t fly with Ira Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Council. Forman tells Capital J that during one forum the two participated in, Ballabon said that Democrats in Washington are evil and Republicans in Washington are good.]


He’s quite a humorist as well:

Not long ago, he hosted a fund-raiser for a Hebron settlers’ group, and at another recent gathering he introduced, with a wink, a settler friend as “a minor terrorist.”

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