BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 01:11 PM

Life and premature death of Pax Obamicana

Asian Times Dec 24, 2009

History speaks of a Pax Romana, a Pax Britannica, and a Pax Americana - but no other namable eras of sustained peace, for the simple reason cited by Henry Kissinger: nothing maintains peace except hegemony and the balance of power. The balancing act always fails, though, as it did in Europe in 1914, and as it will in Central and South Asia precisely a century later. The result will be suppurating instability in the region during the next two years and a slow but deadly drift toward great-power animosity. Those who wanted an end to US hegemony will get what they wished for. But they won't like it.

"No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation," US President Barack Obama told the United Nations on September 23. "No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold." Having renounced hegemony as well as the balance of power, Obama by year-end chose to prop up the power balance in the region with additional American and allied soldiers in Afghanistan. Obama chose the least popular as well as the least effective alternative. The US president's apparent fecklessness reflects the gravity of the strategic problems in the region.

So much for this alleged "respect" Obama has brought to the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 25 Dec 09 - 06:58 AM

He's doing quite well on the immigration front, though. This from the Freson Bee:

FRESNO - Federal officials say the number of cases filed in Northern California against illegal immigrants with criminal records is at a 10-year high.

Authorities in the Eastern District, which covers inland areas from Bakersfield to the Oregon border, announced Wednesday that 414 illegal immigrants were prosecuted this past fiscal year. Nearly all of the cases involved illegal re-entry to the United States.

They say that's a 45-percent increase over the previous fiscal year, and a 130-percent increase over 2007.

Immigration Customs and Enforcement officials say this effort is part of a push to target suspected illegal immigrants with criminal records. Most of the defendants had previously served prison time for aggravated felonies in this country.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 11:11 AM

Janet Napolitano Dec. 27 "So the system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days"

AP: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded Monday that the aviation security system failed when a young man on a watchlist with a U.S. visa in his pocket and a powerful explosive hidden on his body was allowed to board a fight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

The Obama administration has ordered investigations into the two areas of aviation security — how travelers are placed on watch lists and how passengers are screened — as critics questioned how the 23-year-old Nigerian man charged in the airliner attack was allowed to board the Dec. 25 flight.

A day after saying the system worked, Napolitano backtracked, saying her words had been taken out of context.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 11:34 AM

Politics: the Great Divider.

It can screw up good relations between folks who would otherwise get along fine.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 02:43 PM

Works both ways, LH... It can bring folks together who wouldn't have gotten together in the first place... You know, that half full glass thing...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 03:53 PM

True. Which part do you think holds sway most of the time? And what could be done to move us more to the positive part?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Dec 09 - 04:10 PM

You come up with the answer to that one, LH, an' I'll sign up to come to Canada twice a year and wash yer windows...

But seriously, a major problem we have is that we have dumbed down the general population at the same time we have ceated systems where only the extremes are heard... In doing those things we have lost out ability to think critically and to compromise...

No, I'm not speaking of you or me, of course... It's them other folks... lol...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 12:08 PM

Obama most admired by Americans, again

For the second year in a row, President Barack Obama is the most admired man in the United States, according to a survey by USA Today and Gallup.

Obama was cited by 30 percent of respondents as the man they admired most, the third highest score by a president since Gallup began the year-end poll in 1948. ...

On the women's side, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and 2008 Republican Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin finished in a virtual dead heat, with 16 and 15 percent.

For the second year in a row, George W. Bush finished a distant second to Obama, this time with 4 percent. Former South African President Nelson Mandela finished third with 3 percent.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 01:58 PM

You can't be serious, Amos!!! What about William Shatner?

But such lists are meaningless bullshit anyway, demonstrating nothing but the fickle attention span of a media-addled public that, like domesticated farm animals, will always eat exactly what is put in the trough in front of them.

Your silly list of polls about "the most admired man in America" is as laughable and patheticically superficial and predictable and ephemeral as People Magazine's yearly poll to determine who is "the sexiest man in America". Who really gives a shit? ;-) I know I don't. Some of the past ones I can vaguely recall (I saw them while standing at the grocery checkout line) were Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, and...most recently, Johnny Depp.

I think I sort of agree in Johnny Depp's case...but I digress... ;-)

Because it's bullshit, bullshit, bullshit...delivered on a plate by the mass media who have themselves sculpted and choreographed the very phenomenon by what they themselves chose to put in the public trough and focus on obsessively until it became its own self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's like watching a room full of manatees masturbate and then congratulate themselves for it after attaining a group orgasm.

Note, Amos: I say all of the above not in anger, but with a wry smile on my face. It's damned funny watching this monkey-brained civilization go through its silly PR-generated inanities like this business of a poll to determine the "most admired man in America".

It has nothing to do with the relative value of Obama, his policies, and his performance in office. Nothing. Nada. Zippo. Zilch. It has everything to do with the mass media and a lobotomized public that eats whatever is put in its daily trough and delivers the approved Pavlovian response when the bell is rung.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 04:03 PM

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Fewer Americans than anticipated filed claims for unemployment benefits last week, pointing to an improvement in the labor market that will help sustain economic growth next year.

Initial jobless claims fell by 22,000 to 432,000 in the week ended Dec. 26, the lowest level since July 2008, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The number of people collecting unemployment insurance fell in the prior week to 4.98 million, and those receiving extended benefits jumped.

Companies are retaining staff as sales improve and production picks up. Gains in consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy, may encourage more hiring in coming months, helping to bolster the rebound from the worst recession since the 1930s.

"It's boding well for outright job growth," said Stephen Gallagher, chief U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York, who forecast claims would drop to 430,000. "It seems that some of the layoffs that took place in the early part of the year were excessive."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:57 AM

In reference to my prediction on 3 December 08 (one year and a bit ago):

"Monday, January 4, 2010; 11:11 AM

WASHINGTON -- An unexpectedly strong report on manufacturing activity Monday bolstered confidence that the nation's factories will help sustain an economic recovery.

The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said its manufacturing index read 55.9 in December after 53.6 in November. A reading above 50 indicates growth.

That is the fifth straight month of expansion and the highest reading for the index since April 2006. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected a reading of 54.3. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:30 PM

Bobert's man Hugo:

"Nobel War Prize winner walked in and out of a secret door, and that is the way capitalism and the United States Empire will end up leaving the planet, through a secret back door." So spoke Venezuela President Hugo Chavez from the plenary podium on the last afternoon, December 18, of the 12-day long Copenhagen climate conference (COP15).

"While the conference was a failure, it, at least, led to more consciousness of what the problem is for all of us. Now starts a new stage of the struggle for the salvation of humanity, and this is through socialism. Our problem is not just about climate, but about poverty, misery, unnecessary child deaths, discrimination and racism—all related to capitalism", Chavez said at the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Latin America (ALBA) press conference held at the Bella Centre immediately following Chavez' last remarks at the plenary.

Bolivia's President Evo Morales followed Chavez' remarks by saying:

    Barack Obama said a while ago -- the only delegate to walk in and out of the stage from a concealed door -- that he came here not for more words but for action. Well, then you should act by using the money you are spending for wars against the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq, for militarising Colombia with seven military bases to save lives, to save the planet our Mother Earth.

Both presidents, the only heads of state representing eight of the nine ALBA countries present at COP15,[1] denounced the failure of the Copenhagen conference in both form and content.

    Chavez: "There are no documents presented for consultation by all. The responsibility is a lack of political will by a few rich countries, including the host Denmark, headed by the US Empire."

Bolivia's President Evo Morales followed Chavez' remarks by saying:

    Barack Obama said a while ago -- the only delegate to walk in and out of the stage from a concealed door -- that he came here not for more words but for action. Well, then you should act by using the money you are spending for wars against the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq, for militarising Colombia with seven military bases to save lives, to save the planet our Mother Earth.

Both presidents, the only heads of state representing eight of the nine ALBA countries present at COP15, denounced the failure of the Copenhagen conference in both form and content.

    Chavez: "There are no documents presented for consultation by all. The responsibility is a lack of political will by a few rich countries, including the host Denmark, headed by the US Empire."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 08:47 AM

Well, Hugo will be, ahhhhhhh.... Hugo... He reminds me of Lyndon LaRouche in many ways... He can sound like he understands everything very well one minute and then go completely off the deep end in the next...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 12:08 PM

Yeah, about half of what he says is right on the mark...and then he loses himself in oratorical excess. ;-) He'd make a killer presidential candidate in the USA for either party...if he just adopted a very different core philosophy (such as: "Socialism is a satanic plot, but an unfettered and deregulated free market will lead us all straight to paradise!").

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 12:48 PM

I guess it is a case of whether what he says is half bullshit or half true.

I think I will refrain from call him the "man" unless what he says is less that 5% bullshit.

But Bobert likes to change his standards at will if it serves to bolster his tattered ego.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 12:54 PM

Wall Street Journal JANUARY 8, 2010

Employers Cut 85,000 Jobs in December

WASHINGTON -- U.S. job losses were higher than expected in December of last year and the unemployment rate remained at a lofty 10%, a sign the labor market has still some way to recover.

Although the November 2009 data was revised to show the U.S. economy added jobs for the first time since the recession began two years earlier, the December payroll number was worse than forecast.

Nonfarm payrolls fell by 85,000 last month, compared with a revised 4,000 gain in November, the Labor Department said Friday.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a payroll decrease of just 10,000. The November figure originally showed an 11,000 drop in payrolls.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 01:04 PM

Bumpy times, indeed. If Obama and his SecTreas had stiffed the big banks and let them fail on their own failures, we'd be better off. Here's a prediction: Obama will ask for the SecTreas' resignation within six months.


However, Sawz, your snarling invective is uncalled for, injudicious, purblind, histrionic, ad hominem arm-waving. Learn to think.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 01:05 PM

"job losses were higher than expected"

Ummm...by whom? What I mean is, did everyone have the same expectation as to what those job losses would be? ;-) Who sets the mark? Whose opinion is definitive? Whose expectation rules?

I'm always a bit suspicious of these general sort of statements in the media, as they are usually concocted to push a certain point of view.

Chongo tells me, for instance, that he was expecting a much higher loss of jobs in December...but no one quotes Chongo, do they??? (except me, that is)

See my point? ;-) I'm not defending Obama...I'm just saying that most of the stuff we hear from the media is already pre-cooked to push some point of view, and it's not objective....it's biased.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 01:06 PM

Amos:

Can you explain away this balance sheet?

Looks to me like the US is plunging further in debt and Obama's solution to unemployment is to extend unemployment benefits indefinitely while he whines like a little girl about health care insurance.

And don't go blaming it on the straw man "Paulson Gang" which you are unable to define.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 01:07 PM

"If Obama and his SecTreas had stiffed the big banks and let them fail on their own failures, we'd be better off."

That's been my opinion all along.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 01:53 PM

Venezuela: Obama is worse than Bush
07 Jan 2010

Venezuelan National Assembly President Cilia Flores
Head of Venezuela's top legal body has lashed out at President Barack Obama for his undelivered vows of change in US policy.

The Venezuelan National Assembly President, Cilia Flores, strongly criticized Obama for failing to overrule former President George W. Bush's doctrines of war, adding that Obama's administration is "worse" than his predecessor's.

She slammed the US for following in Bush's 'footsteps' in "installing" military bases in South America under the pretext of combating organized crime, a reference to the recent stationing of US troops in seven Colombian military camps.

"When we thought there couldn't be anything worse than Bush," Flores noted, along came Obama "masked" as the "hero of the film" who emerged as "more of the same," the Latin American Herald Tribune quoted her as saying on Wednesday.

Obama had repeatedly spoken of major changes in US foreign diplomacy, but his failure to bring about the overhaul in America's international relations policy has drawn fire from critics worldwide.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez once referred to the improbability of significant change in Washington's policy and implied that the "young black" man, meaning Obama, would be taken over by "Washington Establishment."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 01:57 PM

"However, Sawz, your snarling invective is uncalled for, injudicious, purblind, histrionic, ad hominem arm-waving. Learn to think."


THIS from the "Lynch Bush because the NYT hates him" poster?????


I note you are not very critical of Obama when he

a. does the same thing as Bush did ( which you DID criticise).

b. has the SAME failures of intelligence ( ie, coordinating information) in his administration as Bush did ( which had you calling for impeachment).


I seem to note a double standard- you do NOT apply the same requirements to Obama that you demanded of Bush. Affirmative action? Is it that you expect so much less of him that you cut Obama such slack???

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 02:07 PM

Geithbergate:

US House Panel Seeks Geithner Testimony On AIG
CNN January 08, 2010

...."More than one year after the first Federal bailout of AIG, the American people continue to question where their tax dollars were really sent when the government rescued this company," Towns said.

The call for a hearing comes the day after new documents revealed that the New York Fed told the embattled insurers not to disclose key details of their agreements to make big payouts to banks in regulatory filings in late 2008.

Geithner was president of the New York Fed when the government first decided to bail out AIG in September 2008, and played a role in the controversial decision to make U.S. and European banks whole on $62 billion in bets on soured mortgage securities.....

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/201001081347DOWJONESDJONLINE000488_FORTUNE5.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 02:13 PM

Indeed, I must agree that you seem to detect a double standard.

Sawz, I have no intention of trying to explain away facts.

I think, however, that tracing these things to their root causes only a smallportion of our current difficulties are attributable to decisions taken in the last twelve months. The house of cards tumbled into a hellhole in the eight previous years with huge unwarranted military operations, bloated contractor costs, and a business environment that would have made a robber baron proud. Your Big Guy drove the country into a hole, and you are yelling about the balance sheet this year. National economies do not work that way.
The Bush Recession is finally showing some signs of being over, but we have a long way to go before we can call our economy sane, a large part of which comes under the heading of reform--such as, for example, divesting investment houses from banking houses, a workable method which we had under Glass-Steagal, but which Reagan eradicated under pressure from adventurous and irresponsible money men.


That said, I think the SecTreas is doomed, and Obama will have to (and will) face that fact sometime in the next six months. I also think he should have held a tougher line, and Bernanke especially should have also. But the TARP game invented by Paulson (who is not a gang, but the previous SecTreas) to try and solve the Bush collapse was already in play, and politics is an awful game.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 02:54 PM

Amos: You can add all the adjectives and smoke screens you want to your double standard but Geithnergate continues:

The Three Magi of the Meltdown

Had Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner handled Bear Stearns differently two years ago, we might have avoided Tarp, 10 percent unemployment and the Great Recession.
New York Times January 7, 2010,

Just because hindsight is 20/20 doesn’t mean we shouldn’t occasionally avail ourselves of it. The upcoming second-year anniversary of the collapse of Bear Stearns provides just such an opportunity to look back with a degree of analytical wisdom not available at the time of the firm’s shocking demise in March 2008.

The new, inescapable conclusion â€" thanks to the passage of time, of course â€" is that Wall Street and Main Street would be better off today had the power troika of Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner (at the time, Treasury secretary, Federal Reserve chairman and president of the New York Federal Reserve, respectively) let the 85-year-old firm fail outright instead of crafting their clever rescue.

By arranging for Bear’s shareholders to get a tip â€" it turned out to be $10 a share in JPMorganChase stock at the time (worth around $9 a share these days, based on JPMorgan’s recent stock price) â€" and for Bear’s creditors to get 100 cents on the dollar for what was a bankrupt company (where creditors would likely fight for years over the carcass), these three men single-handedly sent to the market a powerful message it would all too quickly misinterpret, much to our collective peril: For the first time in the history of American capitalism, the federal government would not let a big Wall Street securities firm fail.

As painful as it may have been at that time, the Committee to Save the World, Version 2.0, could have just as easily sent a very different message, one sent to the shareholders and creditors of poorly managed companies all the time: Too bad.

You took risks you didn’t understand? Got too greedy? Took your eye off the ball? Kept in place executives and their cronies on the board of directors who should have retired or been replaced years earlier? Well, then, you are about to learn the valuable lesson of American capitalism and what it means to take stupid risks with other people’s money. You will lose your investments, your jobs and your company. Sorry about that. Stuff happens. The market understands that message loud and clear.

Instead, the message got very muddled. It is useful to remember how that happened, especially with free-market oriented Republicans like Paulson and Robert Steel, his deputy at Treasury and liaison with Wall Street. Both Paulson and Steel were former senior Goldman Sachs executives. And there is little question that before March 2008, neither man was of a mind to save a failing securities firm. Their prevailing thinking, Steel has told me, was that “depository institutions are systemically important institutions, but securities firms aren’t. A failed securities firm was not a systemic issue.â€쳌 Before March 2008, if a securities firm failed it was either liquidated or merged into a healthier business.

That view changed suddenly on the morning of March 13, after Bear Stearns’ outside counsel, H. Rodgin Cohen of the white-shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, informed Steel that Bear Stearns was having serious liquidity problems and might not be able to meet its obligations â€" of around $75 billion a day â€" when they became due. In other words, the firm was bankrupt. The night before, Cohen had given the same message to Geithner, who while not Wall Street’s primary regulator â€" that job belonged to the Securities and Exchange Commission â€" was intimately familiar with the plumbing of Wall Street and knew what it could mean if Bear Stearns went belly up.

“I think I’ve been around long enough to sense a very serious problem, and this seems like one,â€쳌 Cohen recalled telling Geithner. And at breakfast with Steel the next morning in Washington, Cohen told me later, he said, “There’s a chance we can work through this. But this is pretty unattractive.â€쳌 Steel has told me that after that breakfast he ducked into Paulson’s office and warned him about his growing fears. “We’re not going to know a lot more for a few hours,â€쳌 Steel told his boss, “but let’s get some people to start to think about various issues and ways to deal with this.â€쳌

In an understandable panic brought on by their collective concern that the rapid demise of Bear Stearns would rupture confidence in the global capital-markets system â€" since Bear was a counterparty on many thousands of trades the world over â€" they decided to have the Fed provide a $30 billion line of credit to the firm (using JPMorgan Chase as a conduit since Bear Stearns could not borrow directly from the Fed). But the market responded poorly to that drastic move, so a day later Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner arranged for the outright sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan by agreeing to have the Fed underwrite $29 billion in losses on $30 billion of Bear’s squirrelly assets that JPMorgan refused to take.

At the time, the plan seemed like a good one. Staunch the bleeding by applying a tourniquet directly to the gaping wound that was Bear Stearns, and hope the other large financial firms â€" including Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and A.I.G., the global insurer, which were nothing more than Bear Stearns on steroids â€" would somehow survive. The Band-Aid worked for six months until the patients all bled out in September 2008.

In retrospect, had Bear been allowed to fail and then been liquidated, the rest of Wall Street would have immediately come to grips with the seriousness of the situation instead of dallying for six months while thinking the Feds would step in and save them, too. Chances are Lehman rather than Bear would now be part of JPMorgan; Bank of America would likely still have bought Merrill Lynch. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs would probably have just skated by with their investments from Mitsubishi and Warren Buffett, respectively.

But the Panic of 2008 could have been largely avoided, and with it large chunks of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (the Fed’s $12 trillion â€" and counting â€" pledge to buck up the financial system), the misery of 10 percent unemployment and today’s Great Recession.

Easy to say now, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 03:00 PM

Mr. Geithner’s admonition is simply staggering:

    "Note that there should be no discussion or suggestion that AIG and the NY Fed are working to structure anything else at this point."

http://www.prisonplanet.com/tim-geithner-protects-america-from-itself-by-forcing-elimination-of-material-aig-disclosure.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 04:37 PM

Doddgate:

LA Times January 8, 2010

a provision that he inserted into the stimulus bill last year capping the compensation of executives at companies receiving taxpayer money. At the behest of Obama administration officials, Dodd modified his amendment to exclude bonuses from contracts that were signed before passage of the legislation. That allowed financial services company American International Group to dole out $165 million in bonuses to executives in a division that had played a central role in the banking system's collapse. Dodd became a focus for national outrage as a result, yet if he hadn't modified the amendment, the bill probably would have been unconstitutional.

Far more troubling was Dodd's relationship with mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, which appears to have given him a sweetheart deal on a pair of loans under a VIP program called "Friends of Angelo," named for former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. Though Dodd was cleared of wrongdoing by the Senate Ethics Committee, he should have known better than to accept special terms from a company whose regulation he oversaw. And then there was Dodd's cottage in Ireland. After buying a third of a 10-acre island property in partnership with businessman William Kessinger in 1994, he bought out Kessinger's share in 2002 for a fraction of its worth, then underreported the value of the cottage on Senate disclosure forms. This failure to properly account for what looks very much like a gift from a wealthy acquaintance is similar to the shenanigans that ended the political career of Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska.

AIG Financial Products CEO Joseph Cassano urged his top executives to donate to the man in line to become chairman of the critical Senate Banking committee. It didn’t hurt that Dodd was also home state senator for the Wilton, CT.-based unit.

---

“As he considers running for president in 2008, Senator Dodd has asked us for our support with his re-election campaign and we have offered to be supportive,â€쳌 Cassano wrote in a Nov. 17, 2006 email to his top executives, according to the Washington Times.

The executives were asked to write checks for $2,100 from themselves and their spouses. They were also supposed to pass on the message to members of their management teams, according to the Times.

Cassano’s entreaty got results: In the next few weeks, Dodd’s campaign received $160,000 from the Financial Products group. Besides Cassano, those writing checks included executive vice presidents Alan Frost, David Ackert, Douglas L. Poling, Jake DeSantis, Jon Liebergall, Robert Leary and William Kolbert.

Dodd’s relationship with the teetering insurance giant has come under increasing scrutiny since he acknowledged he had inserted the provision in recent bailout legislation that authorized the bonus payments, after initially denying he had any role. Dodd insisted, however, the Treasury Department had asked him to do it because of concerns about lawsuits.

In a subsequent statement, Dodd said he had no idea the legislation would impact AIG. “Let me be clear - I was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until I learned of them last week,â€쳌 he said.

The March payment of an estimated $165 million in bonuses to AIG executives ignited a political firestorm, spurring the House to pass a huge tax on the bonuses, and putting the career of the longtime Connecticut senator in potential jeopardy.

Dodd - who was the top recipient of AIG donations from 1989-2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics - is being hammered for being too cozy to Wall Street and faces the first significant political challenge since he was elected in 1980.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 04:49 PM

(AP:WASHINGTON) The wife of a senator playing a lead role on a national health care overhaul sits on the boards of four health care companies, one of several examples of lawmakers with ties to the medical industry. Jackie Clegg Dodd, wife of Sen. Chris Dodd, serves on the boards of Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living, and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals, a financial disclosure report the senator released Friday shows....

....Mrs. Dodd earned $79,063 in fees from Cardiome in its last fiscal year, while Brookdale Senior Living gave her $122,231 in stock awards in 2008, their SEC filings show. She earned no income from her post as a director for Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals but holds up to $15,000 in stock in Pear Tree, which describes itself as a development-stage pharmaceutical company focused on the needs of aging women.

Bryan DeAngelis, Dodd's spokesman, said, "Jackie Clegg Dodd's career is her own; absolutely independent of Senator Dodd, as it was when they married 10 years ago. The Senator has worked to reform our health care system for decades, and nothing about his wife's career is relevant at all to his leadership of that effort."

A complaint filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group, led the Senate Ethics Committee to begin looking at mortgages that Sens. Dodd and Kent Conrad, D-N.D., received from Countrywide Financial Corp.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 04:58 PM

Chavez expected Obama to be taken over by the Washington establishment once he became president? Well, so did I. I hoped it might be different than that, but my hopes were very slender ones indeed. I've seen all this before. Electing a Democrat does not end a Republican war. Electing a Republican does not end a Democratic war. The only thing that ends a war the USA is in is when that war is either decisively won (which this one simply can't be...as it has no definable boundaries and no controlling enemy government to force to surrender) or when it finally becomes completely untenable and unsustainable in the face of negative public opinion IN America itself. What the rest of the world thinks has little effect on American policy, because Americans have a fortress mentality and they don't really give a damn what the rest of the world thinks. They're sure they are "right" and represent "good" (vs evil) after all, so why would they give a damn what anyone else thinks? Matter of fact, the more the rest of the world disapproves, the more bellicose Americans (on average) seem to get.

Then there's the economic stuff... ;-) Every past American administration I can recall has played ball with the big banks and the Fed Reserve, increased the public debt and the national debt and enlarged government spending (while simultaneously, in recent decades, cutting public services and repairs to domestic infrastructure). What a deadly combination of irresponsibility! Did I expect Obama to do differently? Ha! I laugh at the notion. I might have had some tiny hopes he would do differently, but did I expect it? No sir.

Kucinich would do differently. But Kucinich would never be elected president...not if the moon turned green and took up orbit around Pluto...not if Tiger Woods got a sex change...No frikkin' possibility! Genuine progressives CANNOT be elected president in the USA. And if one was, someone would shoot him. End of story.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 04:17 PM

Federal Reserve earned $45 billion in 2009


By Neil Irwin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Wall Street firms aren't the only banks that had a banner year. The Federal Reserve made record profits in 2009, as its unconventional efforts to prop up the economy created a windfall for the government.

The Fed will return about $45 billion to the U.S. Treasury for 2009, according to calculations by The Washington Post based on public documents. That reflects the highest earnings in the 96-year history of the central bank. The Fed, unlike most government agencies, funds itself from its own operations and returns its profits to the Treasury.

The numbers are good news for the federal budget and a sign that the Fed has been successful, at least so far, in protecting taxpayers as it intervenes in the economy -- though there remains a risk of significant losses in the future if the Fed sells some of its investments or loses money on its stakes in bailed-out firms.

This turn of events comes as the banks that benefited from the Fed's actions are under the microscope. Starting at the end of the week, major banks are expected to announce significant earnings and employee bonuses. Anger in Washington is at such a high boil that the Obama administration will probably propose a fee on financial firms to recoup the cost of their bailout, officials confirmed Monday.

As it happens, the Fed's earnings for the year will dwarf those of the large banks, easily topping the expected profits of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase combined. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 07:18 PM

I hope the fed chairman is not paying himself a bonus.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 10:39 PM

The White House said the public could have confidence in those new numbers, which officials argued proved the administration was on track to keep Obama's promise that the stimulus would save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of this year. But more errors were found, with tens of thousands of problems documented in corrected counts

API Jan 13 2010

The White House has abandoned its controversial method of counting jobs under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus, making it impossible to track the number of jobs saved or created with the $787 billion in recovery money.

Despite mounting a vigorous defense of its earlier count of more than 640,000 jobs credited to the stimulus, even after numerous errors were identified, the Obama administration now is making it easier to give the stimulus credit for hiring. It's no longer about counting a job as saved or created; now it's a matter of counting jobs funded by the stimulus.

That means that any stimulus money used to cover payroll will be included in the jobs credited to the program, including pay raises for existing employees and pay for people who never were in jeopardy of losing their positions.

The new rules, quietly published last month in a memorandum to federal agencies, mark the White House's latest response to criticism about the way it counts jobs credited to the stimulus. When The Associated Press first reported flaws in the job counts in October, the White House said errors were being corrected and future counts would provide a full and correct accounting of just how many stimulus jobs were saved or created.

Numbers published later identified more than 640,000 jobs linked to stimulus projects around the country. The White House said the public could have confidence in those new numbers, which officials argued proved the administration was on track to keep Obama's promise that the stimulus would save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of this year.

But more errors were found, with tens of thousands of problems documented in corrected counts, from the substantive to the clerical. Republicans have used those flaws to attack what so far is the signature domestic policy approved during Obama's presidency.

The new rules are intended to streamline the process, said Tom Gavin, spokesman for the White House's Office of Management and Budget. They came in response to grant recipients who complained the reporting was too complicated, from lawmakers who complained the job counts were inconsistent and from watchdog groups who complained the information was unreliable, Gavin said.

"We're trying to make this as consistent and as uniform as we possibly can," he said.

The new stimulus job reports will continue to offer details about jobs and projects. But they were never expected to be the public accounting of Obama's goal to save or create 3.5 million jobs, Gavin said.

The quarterly job reports posted on the Web site for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board reflect only a fraction of the jobs created under the program and can't account for job creation stemming from other stimulus programs such as tax rebates and other federal aid, the spokesman said.

One scenario could see job counts on some projects decrease from the number that would have been reported under the old rules, if saved full-time jobs are converted into partial jobs under the new reporting rules. But other job counts for projects likely will increase, with recipients now required to add jobs under new rules that previously weren't counted because they were not in jeopardy.

The changes are in line with Government Accountability Office recommendations and "should reduce the debate around these figures," said Elizabeth Oxhorn, a spokeswoman for the White House recovery office.

But the result of the new rules will be that future claims of job creation from the stimulus will be even more misleading, said Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"It is troubling that the administration is changing the rules and further inflating the Recovery Act's impact and masking the failure of the stimulus to produce sustainable economic growth or real job creation," Issa said in a letter sent last week to the government board monitoring stimulus spending.

Recipients of recovery money no longer have to show that a job would have been lost without the stimulus help, and they no longer are required to keep an ongoing tally of jobs saved or created. The new rules allow stimulus recipients to limit the job tally to quarterly reports, making it impossible to avoid double-counting a job that was created in one quarter and continued into the next.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 10:55 PM

Obama:

I've appointed a proven and aggressive Inspector General to root out waste and fraud.
And I'm also deputizing every single American to visit a new website called recovery.gov so you can see
where your tax dollars are going and hold us accountable for results.

Note: This website IS waste and fraud. Go see for yourself: RECOVERY.GOV

ABC News' Rick Klein reports: For those concerned about stimulus spending, the General Services Administration sends word tonight that $18 million in additional funds are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov Web site.

The new Web site promises to give taxpayers more information about where their money is going than the current version of the site.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 01:55 AM

Obama March 3, 2009:

"Having inherited a trillion-dollar deficit that we're working to cut in half."

The $1.4 trillion deficit for the 2009 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, was about 10 percent of the gross domestic product.

Increasingly, even supporters are saying Mr. Obama cannot keep both his promise to bring deficits under control and his vow not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 02:45 PM

January 12, 2010, 1:50 pm

Poll: Obama's Ratings on Health Care, Economy Drop Lower

By DALIA SUSSMAN

Fewer Americans now approve of the way that President Barack Obama is handling the economy and health care, pushing his overall job rating below the crucial 50 percent mark, according to the latest CBS News poll.

The poll finds 46 percent approve of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president, while 41 percent disapprove. His approval rating is down from 50 percent in a New York Times/CBS News poll last month, and 56 percent from October, to its lowest level in Times or CBS News polls to date.

The president's marks for handling the top domestic issues are even lower, according to the poll. On the economy, 41 percent approve, down 6 points in the last month to a new low. And just 36 percent approve of the way Mr. Obama is handling health care, also down 6 points to a new low. Most, 54 percent, disapprove.


The public extends its low marks for handling health care to Congress. The poll found 57 percent disapproving of the way Democrats in Congress have dealt with the issue, and 61 percent disapproving of the way Republicans have. Few are satisfied with how the changes under consideration in Congress will expand coverage, control costs, or regulate the health insurance industry. Instead, most say they will either go too far or won't go far enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jan 10 - 02:31 PM

Christ! This is almost as exciting as listening to the latest baseball or hockey scores... (yawn) Be still, my beating heart! Why don't you start keeping a big graph on the wall of the weekly (or even daily) polls on Obama's popularity and you could use it to guide your life. ;-) Maybe start a betting pool. "How low will he go next week?" "Will his percentage slide accellerate or decelerate, and how will it compare to the statistics on glacier flow in Norway and hair loss among septegenarians in Athens?"

Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 02:10 AM

Last year’s annual deficit surged to $1.42 trillion, more than three times the record of the previous year â€" an imbalance of $454.8 billion set in 2008.

The Obama administration is projecting that this year’s deficit will climb even higher, to $1.5 trillion, which would be 5.6 percent higher than the 2009 deficit. That figure will be revised when the president sends his new budget to Congress in early February.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 07:48 AM

Actually, even if Kucinich were president, which BTW would be fine with me, the realities on the ground aren't very pretty and before any responsible president could do much he or she would have to do alot of cleanup after George W's terribly irresponsible presidency...

I mean, the right is blasting away at Obama for not creating jobs and for running deficits... Well, the reality is you can fight one or you can fight the other because there is no way on earth that you can create jobs in this economy without it impacting the deficit negatively... This is basic Economics 101 and if any of you righties think differently then before you begin to spin yer solutions just keep in mind that there is a reason this thread is in the BS section... lol...

No, the deficits we are seeing were accounting time-bombs that the Bush folks left that we going to go off no matter who became president... I mean, God hisself wouldn't have been able to avoid them...

So ya'll righties gotta make up yer minds and decide which is more important between cutting the deficit and seeing a long deep depression with unemployment numbers in the teens or...

...a gradual recovery, less unemployment and deficits...

You can't have it both ways...

Ya'll pick... I gotta go to work...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 11:59 AM

"So ya'll righties gotta make up yer minds and decide which is more important between cutting the deficit and seeing a long deep depression with unemployment numbers in the teens or..."

You misunderstand their motivations, Bobert. Neither one of those things is very important at all to them compared to absolutely trashing Mr Obama's administration in every way possible, destroying his personal credibility, ruining his reputation, and thereby giving the Republicans control of Congress and the presidency again at the earliest possible opportunity! ;-)

THAT's what it's really about. It's partisan bullshit as usual.

(And I do disagree radically with much of what Obama has done....but that doesn't make me blind to the idiotic and destructive and totally self-interested tactics of most of his Republican opponents...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 01:30 PM

I know what it's about, LH... It's just that they need to be called on it at every turn and not be allowed to propagate their lies...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 02:34 PM

You misunderstood the Democrats motivations, LH. Nothing was very important at all to them compared to absolutely trashing Mr Bush's administration in every way possible, destroying his personal credibility, ruining his reputation, and thereby giving the Democrats control of Congress and the presidency again at the earliest possible opportunity!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 02:46 PM

You are so right, BB. That's why I detest both of those corrupt political parties and make fun of them ruthlessly whenever I can. To me, they are like 2 gigantic turds lying across the face of North America.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 02:49 PM

Bobert said it as well as I can:

"I know what it's about, LH... It's just that they need to be called on it at every turn and not be allowed to propagate their lies... "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 03:03 PM

Well, yeah, but stop and think for a minute...who is "they"?

In terms of this forum, "they" turns out to be a very small group of individuals on this forum such as Amos, Bobert, and perhaps a handful of other Democratic sympathizers...who bother to go to these political threads. Mostly, in fact, it's just Amos. ;-)

This entire thread is your attempt to get back at Amos for his "Bush" thread.

These efforts are quixotic, both in your case and in Amos's case. I don't think it will make a particle of difference either way if a handful of political firebrands on this forum such as you, Amos, Ron Davies, me, Don T, and whoever else in your words get..."called on it at every turn and not be allowed to propagate their lies".

So what? How many people ever hear "their lies", etc? A few people here on Mudcat. Is anyone changed by hearing them? No.

So what I'm saying here is this. You are deluding yourself in imagining that you're performing some useful service to society by challenging Amos's political assertions at every turn, and he's deluding himself in a similar manner in regards to challenging your political assertions.

What you are REALLY both doing is giving in to an irresistible impulse to express yourself, oppose someone else, and try to get the last word in against them. You can't resist not doing it. It draws you back again and again like a drug habit, but it doesn't mean diddly-squat to the political fate of America. You're merely engaging in a behavioral addiction, that's all.

And so am I. ;-) That's why I just bothered to type this post. Nothing you say here will ever significantly change anything, and nothing I say here will either. Ditto for Amos.

We do it because we can't resist NOT doing it. Period.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 03:07 PM

LH,

Perhaps, as I stated early on, I am trying to show Amos how his thread on BUSH was what you have stated- it just seems like he can't see the parallel.

Besides, reading this thread is good for at least 15 minutes of accelerated heart rate. Exercise MUST be good for me ( though I am producing more CO2 every time, so I should insist in the name of Global Warming that everyone agree with me. 8-{E

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 04:25 PM

LOL!!! Now you're making sense!

I take great satisfaction in knowing that I am adding some precious (and relatively scarce) CO2 to the atmosphere every time I exhale, thus helping to keep the plant kingdom a little happier and healthier. I'm sure you do too. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 09:40 AM

A year into his presidency, Barack Obama faces a polarized nation and souring public assessments of his efforts to change Washington, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Nearly half of the Americans surveyed said Obama is not delivering on his major campaign promises, and a narrow majority had some or no confidence that he will make the right decisions for the country’s future.

More than a third saw the president as falling short of their expectations, about double the proportion saying so at the 100-day mark of Obama's presidency in April. At the time, 63 percent said the new president had accomplished a "great deal" or a "good amount. The percentage saying so in the recent poll dropped to 47 percent.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 10:27 AM

The Idealism:

"The people of the United States tonight have elected Barack Obama as their voice and their representative, and their President Elect.

This is an incredible moment. In it, we are seeing the beginning of a new generation of American possibility and hope."

The reality:

ABC News Poll Jan. 17, 2010:

Sixty-two percent of Americans now say the country's off on the wrong track.

For the first time more than half, 53 percent, aren't confident in Obama to make the right decisions for the country's future.

Just 41 percent say he's keeping his major campaign
promises.

And while a year ago 76 percent thought he’d bring "needed change" to Washington â€" his campaign mantra â€" far fewer, 50 percent, today say he's actually done so.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 10:47 AM

The Idealism:

"I notice she did not address what he actually said--that lobbyists would no longer set the agenda in his Administration. I notice she did not mention the fact the the Obama's rule-set for anyone who was a lobbyist prohibits them from having any direct connection with any field in which they lobbied. Seems to me that's a mess of data to leave out if you are trying to be "without Bias". "Maybe struggling to keep..." is a pretty broad and un-detailed and speculative assertion for someone dedicated to cutting through BS, wouldn't you think?"

The reality:

Promises Broken

During the run-up to the election, Obama spoke frequently about the need to purge the government of lobbyist influence. He called for new rules to make it more difficult for people to pass back and forth between public office and special interest organizations.

"This gets to a key theme during his campaign, which was that lobbyists were not going to run the Obama administration," Adair says. "But ... in Washington, the lobbyists are the people who know how the place works, and so he appointed lobbyists to some key positions and basically created loopholes in the policy for them."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 12:11 PM

Counting Conundrum

January 12, 2010

We’ve been questioning the Obama administration’s claim that the stimulus bill would "save or create more than 3.5 million jobs" since the president began saying it. In February, we pointed out that although several economists made such a projection, they all said there was a lot of uncertainty surrounding these estimates. Late last year, the administration’s effort to count actual stimulus-created (or saved) jobs was plagued by the reporting of jobs in nonexistent congressional districts. And now, it appears, we’ll never really get an accurate count of actual jobs.

As ProPublica’s Michael Grabell reports, the administration will now count any job paid for with stimulus money, regardless of whether the job would have existed in the absence of stimulus money or not. A Dec. 18 memo from Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said:

    OMB Memo: Recipients will no longer be required to make a subjective judgment on whether jobs were created or retained as a result of the Recovery Act. Instead, recipients will more easily and objectively report on jobs funded with Recovery Act dollars.

Granted, asking recipients to decide whether or not a job would have existed in some kind of parallel universe without the stimulus money is sometimes pretty subjective. All the more reason for Obama to couch his "will create" claims with a "could."

Grabell quotes Harvard University labor economist Lawrence Katz as saying the whole counting exercise is just "silly." To truly determine what jobs exist now but wouldn’t have existed without the stimulus, Katz says, there would have to be a control group â€" such as a state that doesn’t get stimulus funds, to be compared with one that does. Katz says a more accurate estimate would come from economic models â€" like the ones the White House touted early last year, the ones that are still filled with uncertainty.

In late November, the Congressional Budget Office said that the stimulus had added an additional 600,000 to 1.6 million jobs in the third quarter of 2009 than would have been the case otherwise. That large range, CBO said, "reflect[ed] the uncertainty involved in such estimates."

sub·jec·tive adj.
1.
a. Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision.
b. Particular to a given person; personal: subjective experience.
2. Moodily introspective.
3. Existing only in the mind; illusory.
4. Psychology Existing only within the experiencer's mind.
5. Medicine Of, relating to, or designating a symptom or condition perceived by the patient and not by the examiner.
6. Expressing or bringing into prominence the individuality of the artist or author.
7. Grammar Relating to or being the nominative case.
8. Relating to the real nature of something; essential.

ob·jec·tive adj.
1. Of or having to do with a material object.
2. Having actual existence or reality.
3.
a. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic. See Synonyms at fair1.
b. Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.
4. Something that actually exists.