outrageous

Outrageous Fatcats

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Someone needs to hit these people with an industrial-strength clue-by-four:

From the WSJ:

“American International Group Inc. will pay $450 million in bonuses to employees in its financial products unit. That division was at the heart of AIG’s collapse last fall, which compelled the U.S. government to provide $173.3 billion in aid to keep it running.

Chief Executive Edward Liddy told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a letter dated Saturday that the next payments to employees of the financial products unit — whose woes caused massive losses at the giant insurer — are due on Sunday, and added “quite frankly, AIG’s hands are tied.”

Those payments are in addition to $121.5 million in incentive bonuses for 2008 that AIG will start making this month to about 6,400 of its roughly 116,000 employees. AIG, which was rescued in September as it faced potential bankruptcy, is also making over $600 million in retention payments to over 4,000 employees.

Together, the three programs could result in roughly $1.2 billion in retention and bonus payments to AIG employees.”

If you want to get really angry, consider that this division, whose members will be getting nearly half a billion dollars in bonuses for the remainder of 2008 and 2009, has about 370 employees. That’s well over a million dollars a person, to a group that lost over $40 billion (so far!), and bankrupted its parent company. Nice work if you can get it.

I’m all for letting those fuckwits try their luck in the job market just now. We don’t necessarily need the arsonists who burnt the house down to have a hand in rebuilding it. Something tells me they wouldn’t be using the latest in flame-retardant materials anyway…

And just for a little added outrage, how’s this for cluessless?

Following up on the news that AIG executives are so arrogant that they are actually going to insist that taxpayers pay their bonuses in spite of their epic failures to fulfill their fiduciary duty, this will really make your day:

Champagne corks are always popping somewhere, of course, and the high life never disappears entirely, especially in New York. But these days, a $750 magnum of Perrier-Jouët stands in striking contrast to the scene outside Bagatelle’s glass-paneled door, where the Dow has lost half its value since the fall of 2007, the recession has claimed a net total of 4.4 million jobs since it began, more than 850,000 families lost their homes to foreclosure last year, and the word “depression” is being heard in the land.

[…]

As for how he and his fellow Wall Streeters could still afford such afternoons, he said: “We all made so much money in the past five years, it doesn’t matter.”

A 29-year-old man who works for a large investment management firm and was at Bagatelle’s brunch one recent Saturday and at Merkato 55’s the next, put it another way: “If you’d asked me in October, I’d say it’d be a different situation, and I don’t think I’d be here. Then the government gave us $10 billion.”

Fitzgerald was right. They really are different from you and me. I’m not even sure they’re human.

They need to put down the champagne and pick up some history books. I’d advise them to start with the French Revolution. Specifically, what happened to the “let them eat cake” crowd.

Outrageous Fatcats
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But Of Course We Don't Torture

Dana Hunter

For years, as reports of horrible abuses came first trickling, then pouring out of places like Gitmo and Abu Gharib, pious liars in the Bush administration told us, “We don’t torture.” We merely use “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Yes, we did – and possibly still do. We have, in fact, so enhanced those techniques that they end up being torture in fact if not name:

Mark Danner has acquired a copy of the ICRC’s interviews with the fourteen “high-value” detainees who were transferred from CIA black sites to Guantanamo, and he has written about it in the NYT and (a longer version; unless noted, quotes are from this piece) in the New York Review of Books. It’s horrifying. Danner quotes George W. Bush saying: “The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values. I have not authorized it — and I will not authorize it.”

And yet, somehow, he did. From a man who had lost a leg, and who was forced to stand for two weeks, “apart [from] two or three times when I was allowed to lie down”:

“After some time being held in this position my stump began to hurt so I removed my artificial leg to relieve the pain. Of course my good leg then began to ache and soon started to give way so that I was left hanging with all my weight on my wrists. I shouted for help but at first nobody came. Finally, after about one hour a guard came and my artificial leg was given back to me and I was again placed in the standing position with my hands above my head. After that the interrogators sometimes deliberately removed my artificial leg in order to add extra stress to the position….”

But, of course, forcing a one-legged man to stand cuffed with his arms above his head to stand for two weeks, deliberately removing his prosthetic limb to cause more pain, wasn’t considered “torture” by the last administration.

A number of detainees report some variant on this:

“Also on a daily basis during the first two weeks a collar was looped around my neck and then used to slam me against the walls of the interrogation room. It was also placed around my neck when being taken out of my cell for interrogation and was used to lead me along the corridor. It was also used to slam me against the walls of the corridor during such movements.”

Or:

“I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck, they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room.”

I can hear them now: “What’s wrong with that? You see it in movies all the time! Jack Bauer does it! We have this memo from John Yoo saying it’s legal!”

“Stress positions” don’t sound like torture until you realize just what they are and what they’re meant to do: break the mind by putting unendurable stress on the body. Sleep deprivation, assault with loud sounds and floodlights, lowering the temperature until the detainee’s practically freezing to death, sexual abuse and humiliation, threats, beatings, waterboarding… I’m sure I’m leaving plenty off the list. But you know what? We have enough.

These things are torture.

The Bush administration authorized and encouraged them.

Our CIA and military engaged in them.

The United States tortured people.

Fuck reconciliation. I want to see prosecutions. We’ll get all the truth and reconciliation we need from seeing Bush el al thrown in prison for what they’ve done.

But Of Course We Don't Torture

No Respect and No Shame

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Yesterday, I told you about Ed Brayton and Todd Heywood’s experience trying to cover the Michigan Republicon Party’s convention. The saga continues, with Michigan Cons denying the intrepid independent reporters media credentials for the second straight day. But this time, the Cons are on the record with their sorry-ass excuses:

Party officials described the denial as “a consequence” of Messenger’s coverage of the Michigan Republican Party, specifically Eartha Jane Melzer’s article from last September titled “Lose your house, lose your vote.” The story cited a GOP official in Macomb County as saying the party planned on Election Day to use foreclosure lists as the basis for challenging voter eligibility.

“It [the article] wasn’t very favorable to the party, and we just chose not to give you guys credentials,” said a man who would only give his first name, Greg, and identified himself as the new media coordinator for the party.

Party spokesperson Robert Wolfe denied that the GOP was censoring the media.

“We’re in favor of allowing media into our conventions that we feel are going to give us fair coverage. Based on our previous experiences with you, we do not feel that you are such an outlet,” he said.

Apparently, the Cons define the phrase “fair coverage” the same way they define the word “bipartisanship.” They also have a rather sad grasp of censorship. When you deny reporters credentials with which to cover you because you’re afraid they’ll write something honest, you have just censored the media. It may not be the dictionary definition, but that is the effect. And it’s anathema in a democracy.

Ed is righteously pissed:

The upshot of all this is quite simple. It’s an attempt by the Republicans to intimidate news outlets into giving them favorable coverage. The message is clear: you do a story about us that we don’t like, we’ll shut you out and you won’t get any access. This has been going on for months. We’ve gotten no response at all out of Michigan Republicans, including government officials in office, virtually since the story broke.

And the most grating thing about it: they didn’t have the courage to just tell us that up front. They didn’t return our calls all week seeking credentials for the convention. And when we got there last night, they lied right to our faces and told us that we didn’t need credentials, only to find out later that we did and that they wouldn’t allow us on the convention floor. And the media coordinator refused repeatedly to tell us who made the decision so they could be held to account for it.

Not only are they corrupt, not only do they not give a damn about freedom of the press, not only are they authoritarians who seek to punish legitimate news outlets that dare to publish true stories that make them look bad – they’re also cowards to boot.

Lying, corrupt cowards – yup. That’s the GOP in a nutshell. Ed forgot the part about them being tantrum-throwing toddlers, but I guess that goes without saying by now.

Two sound thrashings didn’t work. Looks like we’ll have to throw them in kiddie boot camp next election. Prepare to proffer political pain, my poppets. And a variety of other Con-pummelling slogans that don’t necessarily employ the letter P, but come down to one thing: the only way these sons-of-motherless-goats will ever be taught the proper respect for the press and our political system is by dealing them yet another resounding electoral defeat.

Not that the third time’s the charm with fucktards this dense, but at least there won’t be so many of them around screwing things up.

No Respect and No Shame

Afraid of Independent Press, Are We?

Dana Hunter

I’m not sure if Ed Brayton’s experience with the Michigan Con party is more funny, pathetic, or outrageous:

On Friday night, I went with my colleague from the Michigan Messenger, Todd Heywood, to cover the Michigan Republican state convention in Lansing. We got to the convention center and stood in line at the registration desk to find out where we got our press credentials. A lady there then told us to go over to the hotel, right next door, and to a particular room.

So we go to the hotel, go to that room, and talk to the person we were told to talk to. He tells us that we don’t need any special credentials at all, we just had to sign in – so we did.

So far, so good, right? They’re in and doing what professional journalists do – i.e., acting as the watchdogs of democracy – which is where problems arise. Todd got stopped by one of Attorney General Mike Cox’s aides while trying to snap a picture for the paper.

Finally Todd asked what he was doing and the guy asked if he was media. He said yes and showed him his ID from the Michigan Messenger and the guy says no, you need a green media pass to be here. So Todd goes back to the guy who told us we didn’t need credentials and the guy told him that, in fact, he had lied to us and that the decision was made not to issue credentials to anyone from the Michigan Messenger. [emphasis exasperatedly added]

Ladies and gentlemen, the Michigan Republican Party.

Not only are they still addicted to censorship, even their minions are pathological liars. Is it any wonder I hope the Con party ends up ratfucking itself out of existence?

Afraid of Independent Press, Are We?

More States Confounded by Cons

Dana Hunter

California’s not the only state held hostage by insane Con ideology. Kansas is staring down the barrel of their guns:

According to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D), it is up in the air currently as to whether or not government employees will receive a paycheck this Friday. Due to budgetary shortfalls and unexpected expenditures, there isn’t enough money this week to make payroll.

In order to address this shortfall, legislators proposed an inter-governmental loan, a proposal blocked by the Republican majority. Sebelius called them “petty political games”, but any reader here knows that it’s just indicative of the systemic wingnuttery exhibited by Republicans across the country — locally and nationally.

For ten years, Kansas has borrowed from unencumbered funds to close its budgetary gap in that dry spell before people pay their taxes. From the way I’m reading it, it’s basically like withdrawing money from savings to keep food on the table until your bonus comes through, on which date you pay the money right back into your savings. It’s been no problem until this year, which happens to be the year in which Cons are out of power but want to prove their potency, the economy is aspiring to repeat the gory days of the Great Depression, and people are losing their jobs in droves. Now, when the pantry’s empty, the Cons want to tell Kansas to suck it up and starve.

These people are motherfucking beyond insane.

And it’s not just California and Kansas. Louisiana’s coming under fire, too:

Louisiana faces a possible $2 billion budget shortfall next year, and the state is being hit hard by unemployment. Yet Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), rumored to be a future presidential candidate, said this weekend that he may turn down the roughly $3.8 billion for the state in the economy recovery package, which is expected to create 50,000 jobs:

We’ll have to review each program, each new dollar to make sure that we understand what are the conditions, what are the strings and see whether it’s beneficial for Louisiana to use those dollars,” Jindal said.

You know what, you fucktard? I’ll bet that 50,000 jobless people would find those dollars plenty beneficial for Louisiana. I can guaranfuckingtee you that the poor people whose services you’ll slash to try to close that $2 billion gap would find those dollars beneficial. And those people in Cao’s district, y’know, the ones he said this about:

“Even though it is going to be a humongous bill, even though we will be in debt for years, I believe that more likely than not, I will vote for it because the 2nd Congressional District needs a stimulus package.” … “A lot of the provisions in the bill will be good for the district, because we need almost everything,” he said. “You name it, we need it.”

and then stabbed in the back by voting with his party rather than his conscience, I’d imagine they’d find those dollars beneficial.

So how far does it go, America? How many of you are going to let the Cons con you again? How many jobs do you have to lose, how many state employees have to go without pay, how many schools and hospitals and vital services suffer, before you say enough?

Keep in mind the games they’re playing with your lives when this next election cycle rolls around. Hand them a defeat to remember.

Right now, that looks like the only way any of us will get to keep our jobs…

More States Confounded by Cons

Cons Out to Destroy California

Dana Hunter

There’s insanity, and then there’s this:

It sounds as though California is finally melting down politically:

“The state of California — its deficits ballooning, its lawmakers intransigent and its governor apparently bereft of allies or influence — appears headed off the fiscal rails.

Since the fall, when lawmakers began trying to attack the gaps in the $143 billion budget that their earlier plan had not addressed, the state has fallen into deeper financial straits, with more bad news coming daily from Sacramento. The state, nearly out of cash, has laid off scores of workers and put hundreds more on unpaid furloughs. It has stopped paying counties and issuing income tax refunds and halted thousands of infrastructure projects.

Twenty-thousand layoff notices will go out on Tuesday morning, Matt David, the communications director for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Monday night. “In the absence of a budget we need to realize this savings and the process takes six months,” Mr. David said.

After negotiating nonstop from Saturday afternoon until late Sunday night on a series of budget bills that would have closed a projected $41 billion deficit, state lawmakers failed to get enough votes to close the deal and adjourned. They returned to the Capitol on Monday morning and labored into the evening but still failed to reach a deal. They planned to reconvene at 10 a.m. Tuesday to go at it again.

California has also lost access to much of the credit markets, nearly unheard of among state municipal bond issuers. Recently, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the state’s bond rating to the lowest in the nation.

California’s woes will almost certainly leave a jagged fiscal scar on the nation’s most populous state, an outgrowth of the financial triptych of above-average unemployment, high foreclosure rates and plummeting tax revenues, and the state’s unusual budgeting practices. (…)

The roots of California’s inability to address its budget woes are statutory and political. The state, unlike most others, requires a two-thirds majority vote in the Legislature to pass budgets and tax increases. And its process for creating voter initiatives hamstrings the budget process by directing money for some programs while depriving others of cash.

In a Legislature dominated by Democrats, some of whom lean far to the left, leaders have been unable to gather enough support from Republican lawmakers, who tend on average to be more conservative than the majority of California’s Republican voters and have unequivocally opposed all tax increases.”

They need three (3) Republican votes in each house. They can’t get them. And this despite the fact that the Republicans who have been negotiating have gotten a lot, including, according to the LATimes, “tax breaks for corporations”.

Really. I am not making this up. With the state budget $41 billion in deficit, Republicans held out for corporate tax cuts, and then aren’t even supporting the resulting bill.

What the Cons are doing to California is far beyond insane. They’re holding a state hostage to their tax cut religion, and don’t doubt they would do it to the nation if Washington worked by the same outlandish rules as California. They’ve completely broken with reality. Even Reagan faced up to facts and raised taxes, first on the state of California when he was governor, and then again as President. Today’s Cons are so far round the bend they can’t even follow the lead of their hero when their state and their nation are in desperate straits.

Robert in Monterey, who has been blogging the crisis at Caltics, pulls no punches in describing what they’ve become:

The Republican Party now exhibits the logic of a terrorist organization – willing to sacrifice anyone and everyone to their ideological purity. And it’s worth noting that they themselves embrace that description, with one Republican Congressman equating their party to the Taliban. Rush Limbaugh says he wants Obama – and thus America – to fail; John and Ken and the California Republican Party are essentially saying the same thing about California.

Let the state fail, they say. Let all the schools close, all the health care workers be fired, all the buses and trains shut down, all the construction workers laid off. Let the economy collapse, because god forbid they step down from their ideological pedestals.

Republicans have become the party of no – no to economic recovery, no to fiscal stability, no to the very government they have sworn to uphold.

This is what comes of electing people who hate government and hate coastal California even more. The only question now is, what do we do to prevent them from destroying a nation?

Cons Out to Destroy California

Subsidizing the Rape Culture

Dana Hunter1 Comment

So, abstinence-only programs. We know they don’t work for shit, but did you know they promote a culture of rape? Indeed they do:

The Ohio program is Abstinence ‘Till Marriage, which started receiving annual CBAE grants of $600,000 in 2006 (set to run until 2011). On their “Miss the Mess” website, you can enter the “Party Room“, where you learn the story of Rochelle, Jason, Monica and Tanner. Each person tells their perspective about what happens during and after a party one night.

Rochelle tells how she drove her drunken friend Jason home after the party, and then is raped by him. Jason denies that the rape happened, saying their sex was consensual. Monica and Tanner observe that Jason was being a drunken idiot the entire night, with Monica (Jason’s ex) adding her opinion that Rochelle has a reputation for “putting out” and being a “slut”.

The site then asks the question: “Based on all accounts, whose story sounds the least credible?”

Guess who is the “correct” answer? Rochelle.

Why, you ask? Because she “made several questionable decisions”, “she had a motive to lie” and, lest we forget, “she’s been pinned reputation (sic) for being ‘loose’”

It’s hard not to overemphasize the sickness in this “correct” answer. Rochelle is not be believed. After all, she drove in a car with a boy. And she’s actually had sex before, or at least people say that she has, which is apparently the same thing and equally worthy of disbelief after you’ve been raped.

[snip]

The site then goes a step further, adding a degree of sympathy for the actions of the rapist:

“Also, alcohol makes people less inhibitive. Jason was extremely vulnerable to his circumstances”.

Vulnerable? Less inhibitive? What exactly are they saying here, that rape is a “less inhibitive” behavior? That alcohol made poor Jason “vulnerable” to being a sick rapist asshole? Seriously, I’d like to know what the hell their point is on this one.

Perhaps the sickest aspect of this organization and their website is the fact that our tax dollars are funding it. To date, they have received $1.8 million dollars, and are set to receive another $1.8 million in the next three years. Yes, we are subsidizing rape culture. And this is just one example of the many ridiculous abstinence-only until marriage sex education programs that we have wasted $1.5 billion in federal money on in the last decade.

The blame-the-victim, excuse-the-rapist mentality both amuses and horrifies me. Amuses, because it’s precisely how the fucktards who believe in abstinence until marriage think, and it’s darkly funny to see that attitude enshrined in their Q & A. So much for their superior morals.

But it’s truly, truly sick and outrageous that kids who don’t yet know any better are being taught that if you’re drunk and the girl you’re with has a reputation as a slut, it’s perfectly fine to force yourself on her.

I can see I’m going to have to start talking. In order to get the attention of the fuckwits responsible for this criminal drivel, I’d like to begin by placing their balls in a vise and ensuring it’s very snug. Then I can explain to them that the anxiety, fear, humiliation and pain they feel is but a patch on what a rape victim feels while some asshole forces himself on her.

And then, giving the vise a few more good turns, I’d explain what comes next. If the victim is strong enough to prosecute, she’s in for a hell worse for the rape. Because what happens is, you’re dragged into court, where you have to stare at the man who brutalized you while his attorney attempts to place all of the blame squarely on you. The rapist’s friends, who in a situation like the above were probably your friends as well, will spread rumors and lies and do everything they can to slander you because they can’t believe that their very own friend is a sexually violent son of a bitch. All of this gets added to your already heavy load of second-guessing, self-loathing, and terror.

The culture that these insane freaks are promoting makes that a thousand times worse. It justifies it all. It encourages the victim to shut the fuck up and put out, because everything that happens is her fault and hers alone. It lets the rapist strut around like a stud, because hey, it was the alcohol. Or the testosterone. Or it’s just what guys do. And the victim knows that in that culture, there’s nothing she can do to fight back.

This is the point at which, in order to demonstrate how it feels to be a woman in this scenario, I give the vise a final turn, with graphic results that shall not be described here but which I’m sure the male members of the audience will have no trouble imagining. And even then, I’m understating the case.

Women have fought a long, hard, bitter battle to get to a point where even a fraction of us feel that sexual violence against us is never justified, and that it’s okay to step forward, that if we cry for justice, it might just be given. I for one am not willing to return to the dark ages.

So please, with all due haste, send Obama this message today: ZERO OUT ABSTINENCE-ONLY SEX EDUCATION FUNDING.

Don’t make Dana come to your door with a vise and a story to tell.

Subsidizing the Rape Culture

We Need a New Word for Massive Corruption

Dana Hunter1 Comment

Hey, New York? Leaving Cons in control for nearly half a century may not have been such a good idea:

ALBANY — Democrats took control of the State Senate last month after more than four decades of Republican rule, then set out to determine how the Senate’s own budget of nearly $100 million and its attendant perks were being distributed.

They are still trying to figure it out.

They recently realized there are some 75 employees working at the Senate’s own printing plant, a plain brick building on the outskirts of Albany. On Long Island, they found a small television studio, which had been set up — all with public money, with two press aides on hand to help operate it — for the exclusive use of Republican senators to record cable TV shows.

Democrats also came across what they are calling the “Brunomobile,” a $50,000 specially outfitted GMC van, with six leather captain’s chairs (some swiveling), a navigation system, rearview camera and meeting table. Joseph L. Bruno, the former Senate majority leader who was recently indicted on corruption charges, traveled in the van after his use of state helicopters sparked a feud with the Spitzer administration.

Then there are the parking spots, always at a premium near the Capitol. Democrats had been given roughly one spot per senator — there were 30 Democrats last year — and guessed there were perhaps double or even triple that controlled by the majority. Instead, they have learned, there are more than 800.

And Democratic leaders must determine what to do about 45 workers toiling away in a building close to the Capitol who appear to have been engaged in quasi-political research for the Republicans.

Read the whole article. But make sure you have a soft surface for your jaw to land on. Especially when you get to the part where Cons start whining that Dems aren’t giving them enough money.

Party of fiscal responsibility and moral values, my arse.

We Need a New Word for Massive Corruption

Our Tax Dollars At Work Helping Evangelicals Stalk Military Children

Dana Hunter

While Ed Brayton was raking in the pot in Las Vegas, his guest bloggers were hard at work ensuring we were kept apprised of the burning stupid. And this post by Chris Rodda should outrage us all:

The government-funded targeting of the children of our servicemen and servicewomen by Christian religious organizations is an issue that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has been gathering information on for some time now. The countless complaints and reports from members of our armed services that we receive about this completely unconstitutional practice include everything from Christian “public service announcements” being snuck into non-religious programming on the Armed Forces Network to the complete lack of youth programs that are not Christianity-based, leaving our non-Christian military parents with the dilemma of either turning their kids over to Christian evangelists or having to explain to them why they can’t participate in all the fun and exciting activities, events, and trips with the other kids.

These youth programs, many funded by Department of Defense (DoD) contracts, are designed to target and evangelize the “unchurched” among our military youth. No comparable non-Christian youth programs exist for the children of our servicemen and servicewomen who are of other religions or non-religious.

The tactics employed by the Christian military youth ministries range from luring teenagers with irresistible events and activities to infiltrating the public middle and high schools in the communities surrounding military bases, where most children of military personnel attend school. And, with this month being the fifth annual observance of National Stalking Awareness Month, it seems quite timely to note that one of these organizations, Youth For Christ Military Youth Ministry, actually goes as far as stalking military children, following their school buses to find out where they live and what schools they go to. Even the job descriptions for DoD contracts make it clear that stalking kids is expected. One recently posted Army base position requires that the contractor target “locations and activities where youth live and spend time, such as neighborhood community centers, school and sports and recreational activities, etc.” to draw in “youth that are not regularly affiliated with established chapel congregational youth programs.”

We give these fucktards millions of dollars to do this crap. I hope Obama’s got room on his crowded to-do list to pencil in yet another housecleaning mission. Let the frothing fundies fund their own damned bullshit.

Our Tax Dollars At Work Helping Evangelicals Stalk Military Children