Funny, in what I read about the proposal, and Obama's stumping, I don't recall seeing anything about a massive, Fortress-of-Solitude-like Afghan Prison, there were no impassioned cries of "Build that Afghan prison now! ..."
As the Obama administration announced plans for hundreds of billions of dollars more in domestic budget cuts, it late last week solicited bids for the construction of a massive new prison in Bagram, Afghanistan. Posted on the aptly named FedBizOps.Gov website which it uses to announce new privatized spending projects, the administration unveiled plans for "the construction of Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP), Bagram, Afghanistan" which includes "detainee housing capability for approximately 2000 detainees."
The U.S. plans to hand over the new Bagram to the Afghan military next January, a demanding target that some think it will be unable or unwilling to meet. Afghan guards are due to start arriving this spring to be trained. This appears to be the reason, officially at least, for expanding the capacity so dramatically, from 600 prisoners at the old site to 1,000 currently and up to 2,300 when the new building is completed.
"This will be the enduring detention facility for the next 50, 60 years. It's world class," said Navy Vice Adm. Robert Harward, who's in charge of U.S. detention programs in Afghanistan and who was visiting Bagram. "For the Afghans, this means that they will immediately be able to separate the insurgents from the criminal population."
"For the next 50, 60 years?"
You mean we'll be housing, and feeding and, otherwise taking care of Afghan prisoners (some who may, or may not, be terrorists - they being held with that "Do Not Pass Go" justice system - secret evidence, no charges, no trial - from the previous war criminal administration, which means Obama has looked in the rearview mirror, at least, once), for decades to come, so, like, who's going to pay for this?
One obstacle is funding, though. It costs $5 million a year to maintain the new facility, plus an additional cost per detainee, Garrity said. That's way beyond the budget of the Afghan authorities for a single jail, so it remains unclear how the new prison will be financed.
Oh, let us count the ways ...
More, from Greenwald;
One last point: recall how many people insisted that the killing of Osama bin Laden would lead to a drawdown in the War on Terror generally and the war in Afghanistan specifically. Since then -- in just four months since bin Laden's corpse was dumped into the ocean -- the U.S. has done the following: renewed the Patriot Act for four years with no reforms; significantly escalated drone attacks in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan; tried to assassinate U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki with no due process; indicted a 24-year-old Muslim for "material support for Terrorism" for uploading an anti-American YouTube clip after he talked to the son of a Terrorist leader; pressured Iraq to keep U.S. troops in that country; argued that it has the virtually unlimited right to kill anyone it wants anywhere in the world; and now finalized plans to build a sprawling new prison in Afghanistan.
And, he finishes most wryly;
If that's winding things down, I sure would hate to see what a redoubling of the American commitment to Endless War looks like.
As Republicans and Democrats continue to work towards a compromise to the country’s debt ceiling crisis, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday that Washington now has a total operating balance of only US$73.768-billion.
Meanwhile, Apple currently boasts a cash reserve of US$75.876-billion, as of its most recent quarterly earnings report at the end of June.
If that happens, I, suppose, we'll all be mandated to purchase iPhones (which will help streamline the iLocater program), and changes will include download apps for things like Social Security Checks, Food Stamps. and such.
And Jobs can scratch the plans for building his new spaceship office, as, no doubt, he'll move straight into the White House, incorporating the Apple logo into the Presidential Seal.
House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the party’s vote counter, began his talk by showing a clip from the movie, “The Town”, trying to forge a sense of unity among the independent-minded caucus.
One character asks his friend: “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later.”
“Whose car are we gonna take,” the character says.
After showing the clip, Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), one of the most outspoken critics of leadership among the 87 freshmen, stood up to speak, according to GOP aides.
“I’m ready to drive the car,” West replied, surprising many Republicans by giving his full -throated support for the plan.
The actual line from the scene is “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later. We’re gonna hurt some people.”
I mean, he's an okay actor, and they're referring to his role in 'The Town', but, he's probably, more defined by 'Jersey Girl' than being a tough guy.
If you want a real tough guy, someone to put the fear of Jesus into you, that you gotta go with Bob Hoskins, from the very underrated 1979 gem 'The Long Good Friday'(whose cast also included the great, and gorgeous, Helen Mirren)
Note, at the very end, the unknown rookie, Pierce Bronson, playing a heavy
Actually, it might do us all better if Obama effected a little Hoskins; "I'll tell you something ... I'm glad I found out in time just what a partnership with a pair of wankers like you would have been ... A sleeping partner is one thing, but you're in a fucking coma ..."
Take a few days off, and, oh boy, all kinds of things hitting the fan ...
Reading Michael Hastings' 'The Runaway General', it hard to tell if it is a good piece of journalism, or fiction, perhaps a character synopsis for some new HBO mini-series in the offing, about a cock-waving, muscle-headed military commander..
I mean, if General Stanley A. McChrystal were cast in 'Apocalypse Now', while Robert Duvall's Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore was blabbering about "I love the smell of napalm in the morning .... The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like ...victory ...", the camera would have to pan, to McChrystal, sitting on the beach, eating napalm out his helmet, and muttering what a candy-ass Kilgore was.
It is said that he will be going to his meeting with Obama today, resignation letter in-hand, and Obama is going to have to accept it (if it hasn't already been demanded), as part of the show of not being a pansy, and letting a tin-horn commander, and the Pentagon, walk all over him.
No rearview mirrors in the room today.
So, boys and girls, should McChrystal walk out of the Oval Office today, a retired muscle-headed, cock-waving, former military commander, how soon before he beelines it to Faux News, to add fresh meat to their propaganda machine?
Pretty bold title, heh, considering we tanked posting this weekend.
It was a bit busy, here on the Homefront, but it had to do with something else;
Today is our birthday!
So, we decided not to sit at the computer, very much, and indulge in some minor celebration (Thanks, Sisters!), as greetings dribbled in from family and friends.
In that light, we're going to point you to some other voices, on one of the weeks' top (remarkably), stories.
The ridiculous, collectively, panties-getting-in-a-knot reaction to the Obama -Faux News War.
We only touched on it briefly, the other night, with the ignoramus Jake Tapper, but there were truckloads and barges of pixels burned out on this story.
However, there were three that stood out, above the crowd.
Barry Crimmins had people jumping up, and waving at him to weigh in, so Barry, in his best-satirist-in-the-country-mode said "Okay, you want to hear what I have to say ... " with "Look! A shiny balloon!"
Two DeKalb County police officers have been placed on paid administrative leave after an investigation revealed they ran a background check on President Barack Obama.
A representative for the DeKalb County CEO’s office identified the officers as Ryan White and C.M. Route.
Officials said Obama’s name was typed into a computer inside a DeKalb County police car on July 20 and ran through the National Crime Information Center.
The secret service was immediately notified and contacted the DeKalb County Police Department.
A representative said both officers have been with the department less than five years.
A representative said one of the officers denied involvement.
An official investigation is being conducted by the DeKalb County Police Department’s Internal Affairs division.
It is unclear why the officers ran a check on the president.
"It is unclear why the officer ran a check on the president" ...
It's, almost, as if the DeKalb County Police representative was calling The Garlic, to point out this dynamic duo.
It such a concise, but fully explanatory, statement, close perhaps, if we actually handed out hardware to our IID's, that this could be the inscription engraved on it.
You're on leave now, so come on by, Ryan and Route, to pick up your Instant Ignorant Dolt gear.
If it had been at Bailout Park (Citi Field), there could have been charges of conflict-of-interest
What has us posting about this today (aside from the Flying Monkeys of the Right Wing Freak Show calling Obama a "sissy" for the way he threw the ball), was a Tweet discovered early this morning, from Greg Mitchell (@GregMitch);
NYT says Obama's toss tonite wasn't so hot but "he was pitching on 1,371 days’ rest." Everyone knows you need to go every 5th day.
Most amusing!
A good friend informed us that it is not a tradition to have the President make the first toss, the last time this was done for the All Star Game was in 1976, then-President Gerald Ford doing the honors (and, no, he didn’t bean himself).
For a minute there, when I first espied this headline ("Obama Meets Privately With the Dead"), I thought, "Wow, Obama is really doing things differently", and was meeting with some of the RWFS Flying Monkeys, before one of their Iced Tea gatherings.
The president welcomed all the members of The Dead, who are performing tonight at the Verizon Center in Washington, to the Oval Office just before dinner last night. They didn't talk music as much as they did history - history about the Oval Office, and the president's desk.
Apparently the band was quite taken with how tidy the president keeps his desk. And how down-to-earth he seemed, according a source who was there.
[Snip]
The entourage included the four surviving members of the Grateful Dead - Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann - plus keyboardist Jeff Chimenti (from Weir's Ratdog) and Warren Haynes, who is joining the Dead on their 2009 spring tour as lead vocalist and guitarist. Some of them had their wives in tow.
As if chatting with the president in the Oval Office weren't cool enough, something remarkable happened on their way out. Just outside the Oval Office, Phil and his wife, Jill Lesh, spotted a vase full of Scarlet Begonias sitting on a table.
For the uninitiated, "Scarlet Begonias" is one of the late Grateful Dead band leader Jerry Garcia's most famous songs. (Check out a youthful looking Jerry Garcia singing "Scarlet Begonias" in this 1977 video, and be sure you have a tissue.)
After admiring the Scarlet Begonias, the band went next door to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to meet with the most prominent Deadheads in the Obama White House: senior advisors David Axelrod and Pete Rouse, and deputy chief of staff Jim Messina. All three are planning to go to tonight's one and only Dead show in Washington, we're told.
On a day where someone in the Administration (or a friendly) leaks out that "Hey, surprise, the banks are acing those Stress Tests", comes another floater that, get this, we, the public, should buy stocks and bonds of those toxic assets that the banks don't want to keep (but want to get paid for, just the same).
During World War I, Americans were exhorted to buy Liberty Bonds to help their soldiers on the front.
Now, it seems, they will be asked to come to the aid of their banks — with the added inducement of possibly making some money for themselves.
As part of its sweeping plan to purge banks of troublesome assets, the Obama administration is encouraging several large investment companies to create the financial-crisis equivalent of war bonds: bailout funds.
The idea is that these investments, akin to mutual funds that buy stocks and bonds, would give ordinary Americans a chance to profit from the bailouts that are being financed by their tax dollars. But there is another, deeply political motivation as well: to quiet accusations that all of these giant bailouts will benefit only Wall Street plutocrats.
WTF!
Is this the Summers and Geithner version of the Clean Skies Act?
And, right there is the rub.
All those billions in bailouts are benefiting only those "Wall Street plutocrats"
Christ, I mean, the whole game has been rigged for them.
Now, the Obama Team wants to go into to backwoods carny mode, telling us to "Step right here ...Have we got a deal for you"?
So, along with already giving the dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds of Wall Street our tax dollars, we are supposed to slip on the Uncle Sam suit, go all-jingoistic and start giving them our "disposable income"?
Will there be retro-Dough Boy posters, substituting soldiers, with slimy "financial instrument" sellers, extorting us to "Get into the Fight - Buy Toxic Asset Bonds"?
The embrace of smaller investors underscores the concern in Washington and on Wall Street that Americans’ anger could imperil further efforts to stimulate the economy with vast amounts of government spending. Many Americans say they believe the bailout programs — and the potentially rich profits they could yield — will benefit only a golden few, including some of the institutions that helped push the economy to the brink.
No shit, Dick Tracy!
For the investment managers, the benefits are potentially large. These big firms can charge healthy fees to investors for taking part. They will also have the marketing prestige of being the firms the government turns to at a time of crisis to help sort out the country’s financial mess.
Oh please, give me a break!
Translation here is "They will also have the marketing prestige of being the Governments' hand-picked front man"
We made reference to this once, already, but it looks more-and-more like the Obama Administration has hired the Lincoln Group to hawk their shit.
And those Bank Stress Tests ...
"Romper, bomper, stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do. Magic mirror, tell me today. Have all banks had fun at play?"
The whole point of this charade exercise was to show the big banks weren't terminal but still needed dough, and I am sure it will prove to be lots of dough before we are done. But they now have the Good Housekeeping seal, so the chump taxpayer can breathe easy that the authorities are taking prudent measures to make sure his money is being shepherded wisely.
If you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
[Snip]
How does one parse tripe like this? First, the public private partnership program, aka cash for trash, is voluntary. Banks are not being compelled to sell. The idea that the banks "have to sell" is a canard. Second, the gaming of the program has already started (notice no lecture from Geithner about that?), so there is pretty much no risk that anyone will take a loss on the values they have in their books. The best summation of how bad this will get is from Rortybomb, who expects all the old Enron tricks to be employed (notice the terms of the PPIP prohibit the fund managers from gaming the process, not the banks trading among themselves. You can drive a truck through this oversight. And the Treasury has remained silent as the banks themselves have been loading up their balance sheets with toxic sludge, paying more than private investors are willing to bid).
I'm sure all the bankers understand full well the massive disconnect between talk and action, and are dutifully following Treasury's lead in maintaining appearances.
It’s been awhile, but this is a legitimate moment of crises; Help Me Mr. Wizard!
About the only difference between the plan today, and the one Heistin' Hank Paulson was looking to run with last fall, is that Geithner has more hair on his head.
Geithner isn't Michael Brown. He's Hurricane Katrina.
Reaction today (exempting the Stock Market, of course) was mixed, many still holding on to the point-of-view that this is garbage, and will do nothing, with nationalization of the diseased banks and companies inevitable, others in the middle, saying, ehh, we gotta do something, and maybe, just maybe (perhaps this is a hint, that we should be buying stock in the companies that manufacture "Lucky Rabbit Foot" charms) it will work, and a much smaller crowd openly heralding the Obama-Geithner plans as opening the skies, so the sun can shine, and the money rain down.
And, finally, Henry Blodget, was about the only one out there, proverbially, doing the "lipstick-on-a-pig" thing, calling it like he sees it;
In short, because the plan is yet another massive, ineffective gift to banks and Wall Street. Taxpayers, of course, will take the hit.
Why does Tim Geithner keep repackaging the same trash-asset-removal plan that he has been trying to get approved since last fall?
In our opinion, because Tim Geithner formed his view of this crisis last fall, while sitting across the table from his constituents at the New York Fed: The CEOs of the big Wall Street firms. He views the crisis the same way Wall Street does--as a temporary liquidity problem--and his plans to fix it are designed with the best interests of Wall Street in mind.
If Geithner's plan to fix the banks would also fix the economy, this would be tolerable. But no smart economist we know of thinks that it will.
They should have a big, confetti-falling, band-playing, ribbon-cutting ceremony at 30 Rockefeller Center in the coming days.
Perhaps to distance themselves from their own folly, their front-row cheering of the Wall Street Meltdown, General Electric will be changing the name of its' flagship business channel, giving it a dose of "truth in advertising".
In fact, they can keep the same call letters, CNBC.
Just now, they translate to Can Not Be Credible.
For CNBC's Mark Haines to say to someone (and elected member of Congress, to boot), criticizing the Wall Street Meltdown, the naked, obscene raping of the financial system, to the point of complete ruin, that the steps to correct it are "Witch Huntery", says, in the nutshell, how in-the-tank Can Not Be Credible is, and how screwed the "media" really is (or, how screwed we really are).
"What do people on Main Street know about running a financial system?"
Well, Mister Mark Haines, we don't have to look back to sepia-colored history, to turn that question around on you, and ask "What do people on Wall Street know about running a financial system?"
A couple of years ago, it would have been hyperbole to suggest that we would all be better off if the senior executives at all our major financial firms were people picked entirely at random out of the phone book. Now, it's arguably true. People picked at random would, admittedly, be likely not to have been to business school. They might not know a lot about futures or derivatives or put options. But so what? At least they might have been more likely to know that they were clueless, and a few of them might have had the common sense to ask questions like: will housing prices really go up indefinitely?
In any case, what's the worst they could have done? Bankrupted their companies with ludicrously risky gambles that fell apart once markets went south? Destroyed trillions of dollars in value? Brought the world financial system to the brink of collapse? Left taxpayers across the globe on the hook for trillions of dollars? Bankrupted entire countries?
Oh, right.
And Now, We Come To The Sanity Clause
It may, or may not, be accidental, that news of the long-awaited Geithner-created, Obama Administration plans for the failed banks, stocked to the brim with those "toxic assets", was leaked out, just as March Madness was getting underway.
Perhaps they were looking for a "Cinderella Story" run with it, however, the early reviews coming in show it getting bounced, in the first round.
The Obama administration is now completely wedded to the idea that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the financial system — that what we’re facing is the equivalent of a run on an essentially sound bank. As Tim Duy put it, there are no bad assets, only misunderstood assets. And if we get investors to understand that toxic waste is really, truly worth much more than anyone is willing to pay for it, all our problems will be solved.
[Snip]
But it’s immediately obvious, if you think about it, that these funds will have skewed incentives. In effect, Treasury will be creating — deliberately! — the functional equivalent of Texas S&Ls in the 1980s: financial operations with very little capital but lots of government-guaranteed liabilities. For the private investors, this is an open invitation to play heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose. So sure, these investors will be ready to pay high prices for toxic waste. After all, the stuff might be worth something; and if it isn’t, that’s someone else’s problem.
Why am I so vehement about this? Because I’m afraid that this will be the administration’s only shot — that if the first bank plan is an abject failure, it won’t have the political capital for a second. So it’s just horrifying that Obama — and yes, the buck stops there — has decided to base his financial plan on the fantasy that a bit of financial hocus-pocus will turn the clock back to 2006.
If I'm right and the mortgages are largely trash, then the Geithner plan is a Rube Goldberg device for shifting inevitable losses from the banks to the Treasury, preserving the big banks and their incumbent management in all their dysfunctional glory. The cost will be continued vast over-capacity in banking, and a consequent weakening of the remaining, smaller, better- managed banks who didn't participate in the garbage-loan frenzy.
Publius, on Obsedian Wings, heralds that "This banking business may well be Obama’s Vietnam ...", while Frank Rich, today, slaps Obama upside the head, respectfully, but forcefully, pointing out that his "Katrina Moment" has arrived.
Digby, perhaps, got it down, on what Obama, Summers and Geithner must need, to either breath life into the plan, or themselves, with "Clap Louder".
Well, not only "Clap Louder", but yell, scream, jump up-and-down, louder, until it is a deafening roar, is, apparently what is needed.
This anti-anger consensus among our political elites is exactly wrong. The public rage we're finally seeing is long, long overdue, and appears to be the only force with both the ability and will to impose meaningful checks on continued kleptocratic pillaging and deep-seated corruption in virtually every branch of our establishment institutions. The worst possible thing that could happen now is for this collective rage to subside and for the public to return to its long-standing state of blissful ignorance over what the establishment is actually doing.
[Snip]
Atrios has been writing a version of the same key observation virtually every day for weeks -- that almost every plan to "solve" the financial crisis involves nothing more than transfers of enormous amounts of public money into the pockets of the same unchanged system and the same people who caused the collapse in the first place:
The issue is that [Geithner] and friends never distinguished between bailing out the system and bailing out the players. There was a way to do that, and they didn't do it.
[Snip]
The AIG scandal vividly reveals how corrupt and self-interested are the people who are still exerting primary control over this process, which is why our establishment class is so eager to demand that everyone look away. For months, Americans have been told that they must sacrifice and trust the Government to engage in extraordinary actions if they want to stave off another Great Depression, only to watch as hundreds of billions of dollars fly to the very people who are the prime culprits. As Jane Hamsher put it: "The 'populist rage' that the pundits find so unseemly is actually the appropriate response."
Q: This sounds very different from the headline of the Andrews, Dash, and Bowley article in the New York Times this morning: "Toxic Asset Plan Foresees Big Subsidies for Investors."
A: You are surprised, after the past decade, to see a New York Times story with a misleading headline?
Q: No.
A: The plan I have just described to you is the plan that was described to Andrews, Dash, and Bowley. They write of "coax[ing] investors to form partnerships with the government" and "taxpayers... would pay for the bulk of the purchases..."--that's the $30 billion from the private managers and the $150 billion from the TARP that makes up the equity tranche of the program. They write of "the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will set up special-purpose investment partnerships and lend about 85 percent of the money..."--that's the debt slice of the program. They write that "the government will provide the overwhelming bulk of the money — possibly more than 95 percent..."--that is true, but they don't say that the government gets 80% of the equity profits and what it is owed the FDIC on the debt tranche. That what Andrews, Dash, and Bowley say sounds different is a big problem: they did not explain the plan very well. Deborah Solomon in the Wall Street Journal does, I think, much better. David Cho in tomorrow morning's Washington Post is in the middle.
And a final point: I’m with Atrios here. If getting the prices of toxic assets “right” isn’t enough to rescue the banks, that doesn’t mean that we’re doomed; it means that we actually have to, you know, rescue the banks, Swedish style, rather than rely on fancy financial engineering to make the problem go away.
Either the economy starts its' Herculean rise, and money is flooding the streets like a summer cloudburst, or, it's Harry Lime time;
"...and don't be so gloomy. Remember what the man said: under the Borgias there was warfare, bloodshed and murder and they had Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they have brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace. And what have they produced? The cuckoo clock! ..."
"In the last six months, AIG has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasury. I've asked Secretary Geithner to use that leverage and pursue every legal avenue to block these March Madness pools and make the American taxpayers whole," Obama said.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that President Obama ordered the action late yesterday, shortly after the NCAA Basketball Tournament selection process was completed.
"We expect this will net hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars," a stern Gibbs announced, citing much it taxpayer money already given A.I.G. in the previously-released TARP fund bailout.
"The President found in unconscionable that public funds would be used in this manner."
Reaction to the move by President Obama, against A.I.G fell along party lines.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi hailed the action, saying it was "unfathomable" that A.I.G would be running March Madness pools in light of the dire circumstances facing the company.
"The President talks about creating, or saving jobs. Well, he just wiped out dozens of them, the people that create the squares, run around the office selling them, collecting the money, having to monitor the tournament and update the squares ... That's not change you can believe in."
Senator Richard Shelby (R-ALA) called on the President to direct General Motors, and the UAW, to downscale their March Madness office pools, to match the March Madness office pools of non-union shops.
In a scathing press release, A.I.G. Chief Edward Liddy cited he was "extremely disappointed in the President's actions" and that there may be "legal ramifications" to the seizing of A.I.G.'s March Madness office pools, citing some of the employees "may have used their own, personal funds".
When pressed by reporters, Liddy admitted that he drew in his square, University of Connecticut, to win the tournament.
This is supposed to be the era of "Change" and "Change you can believe in", yet, in the White House Press Room, it looked to be the same-old, same-old.
This is not to say, that the remarkable, breathtaking manner in which our national media gave The Bush Grindhouse a free pass, that they should push the pendulum all the way over to the other side, and bust the Obama Administration's balls.
And, it didn't help very much, that President Obama, at some point before entering the East Room, adjusted, and turned the dial, to "Long-winded Answers", allowing for just 13 questions in the span of just under an hour.
Man, you could have painted a house in the given time of his answers.
(Walter Shapiro points out, "What Obama was decidedly not Monday night was Kennedy-esque. When JFK unveiled the live presidential prime-time press conference 48 years ago, he answered 37 questions in the space of 40 minutes; Obama only half-responded to 13 questions in the space of an hour.")
After all, the Obama Team put this first Obama press conference up on a pedestal, marking it for Prime Time, having a message to deliver, which the President did, repeatedly, and often;
The Commander Guy, and the slobbering rubber stamp Republicans created this pile of shit and I am the one that has to clean it up ..."
Make no mistake about it, along with selling the Stimulus Package, Team Obama wanted to make sure everybody knew it was "them" that got us into this mess, and it will be "us" who will get us out of it.
But, for most of the conference, it was 'The King and His Court', a proverbially softball tournament, with the national media, happily, lobbing those softballs at the President.
There were the perfunctory queries about the Stimulus Package, and Obama Bipartisan quest, even a "hot" one, about A-Rod and his steroids.
Nothing for Obama to break a sweat over, nothing he couldn't handle by inhaling, and then yakking away for a few minutes on.
And you think, being in the same pot together, someone would have given Chuck Todd, of NBC, a nudge, to wake him up from his power nap, at least a few seconds before Obama called on him.
Jesus, what the hell was Todd thinking?
Our financial meltdown was the result of consumer overspending?
Uh, I don't remember about Todd receiving that Nobel Prize in economics. But here is what Paul Krugman said about the cause of the crisis:
' What lies behind the credit squeeze is the combination of reduced trust in and decimated capital at financial institutions. People and institutions, including the financial institutions, don't want to deal with anyone unless they have substantial capital to back up their promises, yet the crisis has depleted capital across the board.'
Does that sound to you like "too much consumer spending" was the problem?
C'mon there, Chuck, get a glove, get in the game!
The most pressing question came from someone that didn't get the "Lapdog" memo.
Sam Stein, of Huffington Post, pressed the Prez on whether or not he was going to prosecute the Bush Grindhouse cretins for their War Crimes, to which Obama (inhaling), gave his standard stock answer about if there were crimes, and we want to look forward not backward.
We can only hope that he is throwing a head fake, keeping his cards close to his chest, as, if he did answer affirmatively, that would set off a conflagration, and epic battle, with the Right Wing Freak Show running to unlock the weapons locker.
Helen Thomas, perhaps another slap at his predecessor, got the final question, to ask an uncomfortable one, about who had nuclear weapons in the Middle East, to which the new President answered (after inhaling) without really answering it, and survived the presser without having to answer "Israel".
J. Thomas Duffy created and lauched 'The Garlic in 2005.
Mr. Duffy is an accomplished writer, with experience as a newspaper reporter, radio writer, comedy and stand-up writer, the author of three children's books (unpublished, so far) and, and, through a good number of his writing experience, actually received payment for it.
Mr. Duffy is also a Contributing Editor on the blog, 'The Reaction' and a Contributing Writer to the blog 'The Moderate Voice.
In his spare time, Mr. Duffy likes to promulgate that is actually the dog salivating that caused Pavlov to ring the bell.
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