However corrupt Blagojevich may be, this will probably dwarf it:
Bernard L. Madoff, a legend among Wall Street traders, was arrested on Thursday morning by federal agents and charged with criminal securities fraud stemming from his company’s money management business.
The arrest and criminal complaint were confirmed just before 6 p.m. Thursday by Lev L. Dassin, the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, and Mark Mershon, the assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
According to the complaint, Mr. Madoff advised colleagues at the firm on Wednesday that his investment advisory business was “all just one big lie” that was “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme” that, by his estimate, had lost $50 billion over many years.
Related accusations were made in a lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in federal court in Manhattan. That complaint accuses Mr. Madoff of defrauding advisory clients of his firm and seeks emergency relief to protect potential victims, including an asset freeze and the appointment of a receiver for the firm.
“We are alleging a massive fraud — both in terms of scope and duration,” said Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of the S.E.C. enforcement division. “We are moving quickly and decisively to stop the fraud and protect remaining assets for investors.”
***The senior employees understood him to be saying that he had for years been paying returns to certain investors out of the principal received from other, different investors. Mr. Madoff admitted in this conversation that the firm was insolvent and had been for years, and that he estimated the losses from this fraud were at least $50 billion, according to the regulatory complaint.
Unbelievable. How many lives did this guy ruin?
And, just to save the media some time- how does this damage the Obama administration, how long has he known Madoff, will Obama release any staff contact with the guy, and will important questions about his relationship with Madoff be “censored” at change.gov? There, Halperin and Drudge and Jessica Yellin- I did your work for you.
Thoroughly Pizzled
Wow. I’m surprised that he freely admitted it, as if he wants to go to jail.
demimondian
What do you mean, John? How much of this ill-gotten loot did this guy funnel into the Obama-unamerican-president-of-america campaign?
Xenos
@demimondian: It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
El Cid
This douchebag may have lost $16 billion more than what the nation’s 3 automakers proposed they needed to save them.
But this is minor news compared to really important anecdotes about this one union guy a friend once knew who was lazy so we should just blah blah blah free market CRA liberals Jimmy Carter small government oppressive regulation let Americans keep more of their taxes entrepreneurial spirit compensation package worthy of the most talented executives the death tax as I look back on Ronald Reagan maybe Barack Obama came back with too many of them European ideas…
Joshua Norton
Now the freeptard asshats have a new schtick. They keep saying if Obama is supposed to be so innocent, why do they keep mentioning his name?
Like it hasn’t occurred to them that maybe the reason his name is being mentioned 40 or 50 times is per news cycle is because they’re talking about Blago trying to sell his Senate seat.
Off with their heads! On second thought, they wouldn’t miss something they never use for anything except as a place to keep their hairdo.
Comrade Stuck
Seems like this guy was a big dem donor, especially to the Senate Campaign Committee, but also some scattered wingnuts, D’amto and Fossella.
He also was chairman of Nasdaq at one time. Malkin will have a new bone to chew on, though Obama will still be the next Presnit.
I’m going to pull up Escape From New York on Netflix tonight, and maybe take notes and send them off to my congresscritter for consideration in dealing with Wall Street.
What a country.
Just Some Fuckhead
Obama is turning out to be the worst President-elect in history.
El Cid
Unfortunately he appears to have been a huge Democratic contributor, including $25K to the DSCC.
Sorry, posted after prev comment. Different link, though.
Jon H
By the sound of it, I’m not sure if he was defrauding people who couldn’t afford to lose the money, or people with so much money they wouldn’t miss it.
Could be, of course. But as an established, but obscure, Wall Street figure, he doesn’t seem like the retail guys you usually find working out of a condo in Orange County, or going around to churches and conning the parishoners, who find old people and take their entire life savings.
I’d bet it’s more a case of large institutional investors and mutual funds placing small portions of their holdings in accounts managed by his company. If this is the case, then the hit to any one average person is likely to be fairly small.
Ah, yes:
So I doubt this will be a case where grandpa Jones down the street lost the $400,000 he got from selling his house. It’ll suck for the people who lose money, but I doubt any client is going to be in the poorhouse.
Just Some Fuckhead
@El Cid: lolz
Joshua Norton
Or just plain make shit up.
Comrade Stuck
@El Cid:
Great minds think alike. :)
Keith
With $50 BILLION in losses, the real criminals are the people who should have caught that crap after $50 MILLION.
jon
Just remember how much more oversight we’d have had if our Social Security money was invested in the stock market. The GOP’s plan would have saved billions, if not trillions, and we’d be the envy of the entire World!
/mendacious
binzerator
I wonder if he knows he’ll get a Bush pardon… A Dubya pardon would be the pitch-perfect republican finisher: Party’s over, it was fun, and yeah I drank all your booze, ate all your food, won that huge poker game by cheating, and gave your girlfriend VD and broke your bed while doing it. Oh, and sooo sorry about the house fire. Later suckers.
Comrade The Other Steve
Isn’t the Stock Market technically a giant ponzi scheme?
bleh
So you admit you have connections to Obama, and you’re just posting this to try to shield him?
This totally discredits all you left-wing bloggers forever.
Comrade Stuck
@bleh:
Alright, I confess, I once ran guns for Machine Gun Mama Michelle and made plastique toys for the kids, though I swear I thought it was silly puddy. But my biggest crime was defending Obama against charges that he was playing scrabble with OBL in his cave before 9-11. It was actually Chinese Checkers.
demimondian
@Xenos: In this case, I think that it may be irresponsible not to peculate. Speculate? Yeah, not so much.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Man, I feel sorry for whoever had to clean the carpets after that meeting.
Brian J
I love The Times article where another investment banker is quoted saying how all of the other guys were wondering how he managed an 11 percent return each year, no matter what the state of the overall market, with supposedly low-risk investments. Maybe it’s because I’m not an investment banker, but that seems like one of my friends wondering how I can sit on my ass, each as many potato chips and drink as much beer as I want, andget any woman I want to give me a blowjob, all while simply smiling in their direction.
TenguPhule
If convicted, automatic death penalty. Hands down.
TenguPhule
Fortunately in this movie, he gets torn limb from limb one night at his home which is then ruled a suicide by the investigation.
TenguPhule
If any pension or retirement funds were involved, it will get very bloody for some men and women on the street.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
All the world is a toy when you’re a conscienceless crook.
LanceThruster
It’s as if the SEC is like a traffic cop that can only issue citations after a horrible collision has taken place (and still lets its connected buddies walk to boot). In the meantime, criminally reckless driving is not enough to make them look up from their donut and coffee and try to get a handle on it before someone does get killed.
How f*cked up is that? Has the government already been drowned in the bathtub as Grover Norquist wanted or just suffocated under a pile of worthless paper ($$$)?
kay
@TenguPhule:
I think it’s wild. I just can’t imagine anyone who is a Big Important Dealmaker saying that.
I love the brevity and the clarity and the complete lack of "business blather".
It’s something a 7 year old might say: "all just one big lie".
What do you think happened to him, on a personal level?
"According to the S.E.C., Mr. Madoff confessed to an F.B.I. agent that there was “no innocent explanation” for his behavior and he expected to go to jail. He had lost money on his trades, he told the agent, and had “paid investors with money that wasn’t there.”
This is how he talks, now.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Obama made him do it to distract from Blagoveich!?Eleventy
/PUMAzoid
After 7+ years of Bushido style politics this level of honesty is very strange, almost jarring. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s terminally ill.
And frankly, if he rats out every dishonest hedgefund manager*, market manipulator and naked shorter on the planet and they all wind up in jail (after being stripped of all their assets), I’d be happy to see him walk.
After few years in jail.
*Yes I realize this is rather redundant.
Comrade Kevin
Meanwhile, back at the Senate, the Republicans just fucked over the auto makers.
kay
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
The state senator, Kwame Raoul, who represents the South Side of Chicago, offered few details of his interaction with the governor’s office but said he received a call about a month ago confirming that he was under consideration. Soon afterward, however, Mr. Raoul said he ran head-on into another message: that the governor was looking for a candidate who offered something of tangible value to him.
“It was open knowledge among people in and around Springfield,” Mr. Raoul said. “Legislators and lobbyists alike openly talked about the fact that the governor would want to appoint somebody who would benefit him. I can firmly say that I’ve had these conversations, that I’ve spoken with both legislators and lobbyists who felt that that would be the consideration in his appointment.”
Mr. Raoul would not specifically say what the content of the conversations were, or whom they were with, except that the initial inquiry from the governor’s office was made by Victor Roberson, deputy director for intergovernmental affairs. Interest in his candidacy died on both sides, Mr. Raoul said, adding, “Obviously, the perception was that I didn’t have anything to give other than my service.”
That sounds like what might really happen, doesn’t it?
You put yourself in the running, you get wind that this is pay to play, because it’s Blago, and everyone knows he’s a crook, and then you take yourself out. Nothing overt. No cloak and dagger. Just "perception".
Reality is intruding on the news!
Delia
Oops. Time for another eleventy trillion dollar Wall Street bailout.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Cocksuckers. Not only are a hell of a lot of Americans with automotive jobs going to suffer, but the domino effect on suppliers, and the likely desperate move of the American companies to close Canadian operations, means that we’re all fucked now.
Well, so much for my plans to keep my house. Despite my attempts to broaden my client base in the past year, 80% of my revenue still comes from a Canadian auto maker, not one of the big three, but one of the foreign owned companies that has asked our Prime Minister to do whatever he could to bail out their competitors. Because these guys are damn smart enough to know how interdependent we are, even if a bunch of fucking politicians posture away with no clue. Oh, and too bad that we DON’T EVEN HAVE A FUNCTIONING PARLIAMENT NOW AND NO BUDGET UNTIL FUCKING JANUARY.
What a bunch of useless tossers.
milo
I don’t have an accounting degree or anything, but isn’t the purpose of the profession of accounting to keep this from happening?
D. Mason
More like the whole banking system actually.
Just Some Fuckhead
According to the article Kevin linked, Republicans shitcanned the deal because some autoworkers are going to make 60K in 2010.
Xecky Gilchrist
@kommrade reproductive vigor: After 7+ years of Bushido style politics this level of honesty is very strange, almost jarring.
Yup. And after 7+ years of Bushido style politics I’m gobsmacked that the SEC still has an enforcement division.
TenguPhule
I have my pitchfork and torch ready.
Burn GOP, burn.
Comrade Stuck
It wasn’t about wages or their newfound concern about taxpayer money . They shitcanned it because they could and there was never any doubt about it. It is their last hurrah before obscurity. And the pleasure of watching America burn for the sin of rejecting their sorry asses at the voting booth, couldn’t be resisted.
Who wants to know
Guess it just proves my new theory that the new organized crime is politics. Why do you need the MOB when you have are elected officials, in charge of the largest economy in the world, that scam skim and take what they want…….
Obama, Bush, Clinton,,, they all do it… Some just turn their head (bush), others lay quite until they get out (clinton), lets see Obama, its about change, yea, like all the change in our pockets is going to be missing,,, thats a lot of CHANGE
DougJ
When a Chicago politician tries to sell a Senate seat for a few hundred grand, it’s dirty dems taking the country into the gutter.
When a securities trader steals $50 billion in a Ponzi scheme, that’s the magic of the free market.
When will you libtards ever learn?
passerby
Goody Goody Gumdrop! Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
Certainly he didn’t operate a fraud of this magnitude single handedly. The ones for whom he frauded had to know something was up. And I’m jaded enough to think there are others in the finance industry for whom this is common practice.
He could be lucky to be the first big fish caught, in that he can turn state’s evidence against others involved in the scheme.
To him I say : phtththththht! ): P
(makes popcorn)
[Speaking of popcorn, have you seen the “Hamster on a Piano, Eating Popcorn” vid on You Tube. Hope this link works.]
Edit: oops. link no work. sorry.
Comrade Stuck
If they called it a Fonzi Scheme, I would feel better with the coolness factor.
Comrade Stuck
Deleted due to authors incompetence
DougJ
I was thinking the same thing.
Off topic, Eugene Robinson just jumped on the Halperin-Smith express to Whitewaterville. Somerby was right about this douchebag.
AnneLaurie
I think that’s the quote they’re carving over the entrance to Dubya’s library, I mean, "Freepdom Institute".
Comrade Stuck
Robinson has been one of my favorites in the MSM for a long time, but I agree with your assessment on this article. I’m thinking the press is getting a relapse of Clinton fever for searching out any little tidbit of bullshit to ruminate over. It’s a goddamn sickness and the only thing I can figure is they do it because they are mostly liberal leaning people and take these liberties because it’s intra family skull fucking. So it’s ok. That’s my theory anywho.
Just Some Fuckhead
@DougJ:
Can we impeach Obama now or do we have to wait til he splooges on a fat chick?
DougJ
I don’t know why the fuck they do it. And I don’t really care.
Tonight may be the night the auto industry died in the United States. And regardless of whether one favors a bail-out/bridge loan, that’s a big fucking deal. And they waste their time on this shit. How are these guys not sociopaths?
Jim
I wonder if we really understand how totally fucked up the economy is, and I wonder if we really have the gumption to deal with another Depression or even anything remotely close. Greed and ignorance are not a good combination for lasting prosperity.
Johnny Pez
Damn you Scott Beauchamp!
(For old time’s sake.)
DougJ
The big question for me is how fucked up does the country have to get before the Villagers drop the cocktail party act? Who cares if Obama talked to someone who talked to someone who talked to Blago when there’s 1 million new lucky duckies next month and the Dow’s at 3000?
Good Lord. I never thought I’d live through this kind of bullshit.
Comrade Stuck
@DougJ:
I’ve decided that a bailout now would the best, at least after measures were included to force the auto companies to re-organize along the way. But I’m not at all sure it’s best to have the fed government overseeing that process. The bankruptcy courts are accustomed to doing this sort of thing, and when dems have Obama in the WH and bigger numbers in congress, they can provide financial help along the way.
That said, the asshat wingnuts despite their claims, are willing to sink the big 3 and cause 5 million middle class jobs to disappear for ideological reasons, and spite, Fuck them, they deserve the political wilderness that awaits.
DougJ
But everything would have been fine if they’d outlawed shorting financial stocks and repealed the capital gains tax.
DougJ
Regardless, or irregardless as the wingnuts like to say, isn’t this a bigger story than Obama’s non-ties to Blago?
All Mi T
I tell ya, From Pendegast to Blagojevich
Comrade Stuck
Without the slightest doubt!
Common Sense
Since a few people have posted concerning the auto bailout, and there’s no thread dedicated to it, I thought I would post my idea to help the automotive industry here and let you people tell me what’s wrong with it.
I think the federal government should commit to either replacing or retrofitting their entire fleet of vehicles over the next several years. Ensure that every car used by the federal government meets certain minimum MPG and pollution standards. Hell, post office trucks can and frankly should be electric — it seems to me that the vast majority of them drive in a very small radius on neighborhood streets where they never need to go over 35 MPH or so. Semis and heavy transport vehicles can run on natural gas, which we produce in abundance here. Thus you are ensuring that the federal governments’ fleet is energy independent and is efficiently run.
Then take bids from US automakers to build these cars. Rather than loaning the companies money (even with certain strings attached), simply buy these cars from whichever automaker is willing to meet the minimum standards required.
Thus, we are not "bailing" anyone out. The factories stay open and workers continue to make cars. As an added bonus, the factories in question would already be redesigned to build energy efficient autos, and the designs for engines/frames etc. would already be in place, meaning it would be cheaper for US automakers to build such cars for the general public.
Comrade grumpy realist
I also notice that the "liberal" (ahem) MSM is putting the blame on the UAW for refusing to change their payment schemes until 2011 (as opposed to 2009, which is supposedly what the Republicans were yowling for.)
Don’t know enough about the truth of this, but it seems to me that if true, the UAW may have just torpedoed their own boat. (In negotiations, when the "dead-hand" position means you go under, you’re in a very, very weak position. The only thing the other side has to do is spin out the timeline and not do anything but keep the status quo going. Sort of like a siege.)
Reverend Dennis
It may also be the night that the Republican party committed sepuku. Are those bastards batshit insane enough to believe that America is going to pat them on the back for throwing millions of people out of work? Do they think that those of us who did buy American cars are going to love the Republicans because our dealers went away, we can’t get parts and our warranties are so much asswipe? If the Big Three go down then the Republicans better grab their asses in 2010.
DougJ
From Krugman, via a link off of the track back above:
But, hey, Blowdriedovich might have bumped into Obama in Starbucks once (and what was Obama doing buying that $6 pumpkin spice venti latte anyway), so who gives a fuck that 5 million more Americans will be out of a job come April?
Am I right?
r€nato
grumpy, fuck the GOP. They are willing to destroy the Big Three in order to ratfuck the unions.
Sarcastic bloggers have stated the GOP’s attitude is, ‘fuck Michigan, they didn’t vote for us anyway.’
I don’t think that’s very far from the truth.
I cannot wait til these assholes are run out of DC next month and for the rest of my life I will do my best to make sure they never come near the levers of power again. They are rancid, malicious fucks.
Beej
Olbermann pointed out tonight that McConnell and the guy from Tennessee (I can’t remember his name) are the chief ratfuckers here. Is it coincidence that Kentucky, McConnell’s state, is the U.S. headquarters of Nissan and has just snagged a VW plant, and Tennessee is, of course, the home of the largest Toyota plant outside Japan? Apparently, they want the UAW to agree to lower their wages to the same levels as the Japanese automakers. Only one problem, the wages are nearly identical, with Toyota slightly higher! Hard to look at that and conclude anything except a desire to bust the UAW altogether. I’ll bet those Japanese automakers are scared to death the UAW is going to find its way to Kentucky and Tennessee.
matt
Whaaa? 62 comments in and nobody’s made any jokes about not investing with a guy named Madoff? Is that too obvious for this crowd?
Conservatively Liberal
When I first read this the first thought through my mind is why did they move so fast? He must have something about him that the Republican led SEC/government doesn’t like. I read to the eighth post:
Thank you for filling in the missing piece of the puzzle Ed Cid. That is what it takes to get this administration to do anything, make sure it is the fault of ‘the other side’ and point at it, loudly proclaiming that they have found the culprit! Democrats!
It is clear that the SEC completely missed this crook, just as they have missed every single crook to date. They have to have it handed to them, on a platter.
A purely distraction based prosecution, you watch.
I ain’t no market wizard Common Sense, but not a bad suggestion IMO. Something that I find amusing is that the auto companies counted on Republicans to make sure that mileage standards were kept low yet when push comes to shove, the Republicans are ready to push all three of them over the cliff. Be careful of who you support, eh?
Republicans whining about how blue collar workers are making too much (especially union represented workers) while their big campaign donors (Wall Street, Banks, finance) are basically robbing the coffers and stuffing their (and the Republican politicians) pockets as fast as they can is quite the sight to behold.
The Republicans are not bothering to hide it any more, they hate the American blue collar worker who demands a fair wage. They favor foreign auto companies (especially the ones in their states!) over domestic companies. If they think that killing the UAW is going to be a good thing, they will find out otherwise when the foreign auto companies cut wages because they will be the companies paying the highest wage in the auto industry.
Hell, they will be the auto industry because that is all we will have left (if the Republicans have their way).
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
Republicans have no problem bailing out CEO’s who piss in solid gold toilets, but they refuse to allow an auto worker who can afford a little extra meat at the family dinner table due to his union’s bargaining agreement to feed his family anymore, and for that, they’re going to start a chain reaction that is going to create havoc in the entire world financial market. Fuckers! If I didn’t hate Republicans before, I would have to say I hate them now.
Joe D
No need to speculate on how this guy pumped money into the Democratic campaign… At least for now, you can find his 25K contribution to Dems and his 5K donation to a Dem senator at Huffington. Read it before they take it down.
http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=Madoff
Conservatively Liberal
As far as I can tell, in the Republican mind (let me know if one is ever found) the perfect America is one that only consumes. It produces nothing of value, it only consumes. If you are no longer able to consume then they aren’t interested in you. You have served your purpose and they are done with you unless you find more money to spend and consume.
Our country is circling the toilet and both political parties are at fault. The Republicans because they led the way to this fiasco, and the Democrats because they meekly followed along for the ride just to save their hides and try to squeeze a few bucks for themselves.
One thing people forget (at their own peril) is that a company is not going to do right by its country. The only thing that matters to the company is the bottom line. Companies are not patriotic, they are only looking out for themselves. Nobody is looking forward to the future, the future that only matters is the next quarterly report and it better show a gain in profits. If government is involved, that usually means lower profits. So Republicans, for the right amount of cash, have sold out the people of this country to the corporate interests, national and international.
It is up to the country to make sure that business does right for the nation, but as old Grover said ‘Pay us Republicans enough cash and we will shrink government until it is small enough to drown in a bathtub’. Business liked those terms and accepted.
You are seeing the result of that buyout. My wife works in retail sales, and she said tonight that she has never seen so few customers during the holiday season in her sixteen years in retail. She said that everyone at work is avoiding talking about it except in whispers. They have cut hours and laid off people last week and if things don’t pick up that will be repeated. Usually they hire for the holidays but not this year.
Our so-called leaders are pissing in the wind, the press is pissing in the wind and Rome is aflame and burning brightly. Reality does not exist in America. Reality, like just about everything else in our country, is dead. That is what happens when you sell everything off to the highest bidder and nothing is left.
If we had a world war right now, I would not be the least surprised. I am sure that a lot of leaders (political and business) would actually breathe a sigh of relief at the distraction of death and destruction on a worldwide scale.
After all, this is all about them. Not you. You don’t matter to them anymore.
Jon H
@TenguPhule: "If any pension or retirement funds were involved, it will get very bloody for some men and women on the street."
Sure, if the fund put more than, say, 5% of their money in Madoff’s control.
Jon H
CalculatedRisk looked at the complaint documents and thinks the victims are 11 to 25 hedge funds.
John S.
Meanwhile, according to the AP, Bob Corker is a rising star in the Senate as a result of…being a Republican or something.
Comrade Stuck
From The Politorats.
The US Attorney gives Obama and his team a thoroughly clean bill of health, and Obama is conducting an internal investigation to uncover perfectly acceptable contacts with Blago about who talked to the crooked Gov, and Politico is hollering damage control and transparency–for what? (and they’re not the only ones).
Go fuck yourself Politico along with the rest of the MSM. Time for a political vacation.
Laura W
@Comrade Stuck: I love this dude.
El Cid
You gotta be impressed at the degree to which Harry Reid simply refuses to make Republican Senators uncomfortable. Collegiality ’til the Depression, b*tches!
Cyrus
@Comrade Kevin: Wow. There seems to be an important detail in the story about the failed bailout deal that everyone is missing.
People worried about a one-party state with the Democrats in Congress and the White House, or people just generally arguing for a split ticket to force bipartisan compromise, look dumber and dumber every day. Just based on those numbers, the Democrats could have been eight votes short of a party-line vote and still made it. And apparently only 87 Senators voted – who were the other 13? I haven’t been able to track down the vote breakdown more specifically than that; maybe someone more familiar with the Senate Web site than me could do it? I’ll keep trying and comment again if I find it.
This week we’re seeing both the good side and the bad side to being your own opposition party. The good side is the treatment of Blagojevich. The bad side is actually trying to get anything done.
Comrade Stuck
Dispatch from the Idiot Senator from South Carolina, (no the other one)
The only people who are currently rioting are the imaginary ones in Sen Demented’s head. And the sheer wingnuttery that reckons, since a lot of people are losing their jobs, we can’t lessen that number because, well, we can’t save them all and we’re going to have riots anyway, in addition to the imaginary ones going on now. Guatemala is lovely in winter, I hear.
Tim Fuller
I do, and if America is ready to start listening to my common sense, then they’ll likely be investing heavily in liquor, coffee and cigarettes, things that will still be valuable in eight months. Do this while folks still have a PERCEPTION their money is worth something. My New Motto:
Money. Spend it like it is going out of style.
In the end, it’s the poor man’s ultimate payback to all the ignorant wannabe yuppie bastards we’ve been suffering through for the past twenty years or so. Their shit ain’t gonna be worth any more than my shit. Welcome to the Beast bitches.
Enjoy.
Cyrus
Ah hah, I found it. And my math was obviously way off; I was assuming the people who had won in November were already in office. A party-line vote, plus 10 Republicans but without Illinois’ now-vacant Senate seat, would only have been 59, not enough to make it.
Still though, there’s something we can be outraged about here. Four Democrats voted against it, among them Harry Collegiality Reid. Four Democrats didn’t vote, among them Joe Biden. My math was wrong, but my point stands – no opposition party needed.
t jasper parnell
A trillion here and trillion there, why should American’s know who gets the dough?
Comrade Stuck
@Cyrus:
Harry Reid’s no vote was a procedural one that allows for a future cloture vote when the Majority Leader votes no on a failed cloture vote. from weird Senate rules.
kay
@Comrade Stuck:
I loathe Politico, but I agree with them here. More talk is better than less talk, re:scandal.
Rahm is ducking questions in Chicago. Admittedly, they were following him around at a school recital for his children, but still. He knows how this works.
It’s stupid. Answer what he can and explain why he can’t answer the rest. It has to flame out if there’s nothing there in any event. Help it along. Talk a lot.
Comrade Stuck
@kay:
Rahm was at a child parent event in Chicago when he was basically stalked and mugged by reporters. I don’t blame him. There is no story Kay. If their was any indication whatsoever in the detailed indictment, I would agree with you, But there is not. And Obama has a lot of people working for him now, and therefore it is not unreasonable that it should take some time to get a complete list of who said what to who. If they made a hasty statement and missed something, then they would be pummeled with "Why did you not tell us everything"
Laura W
@Tim Fuller:
I interpret this as a clear directive to take the $1,100 cash I sleep upon every night and spend it on a case of Ketel One Citroen and the remainder on wine, value or otherwise.
Thank you for validating the voices in my head.
DougJ
I’m not going to validate the Ketel One. I think it’s overpriced. Go with Tito’s vodka and flavor it with lemon yourself (a splash of limoncello should do the trick, for example). It’s better than Ketel One and it’s half the price.
Laura W
@DougJ: I keep forgetting to look for Tito’s at the ABC store here in NC.
I don’t do sweet booze well at all (as in spins…puke), and Danny DeVito’s celebrity endorsement of Limoncello on The View sort of took me off of it for life, anyway.
I’ll stick with my little yellow plastic squeeze bottle of the pure juice.
Cyrus
@Comrade Stuck:
Really? If so, his vote makes sense, but "weird" is right. And maybe Biden has an equally good explanation, I don’t know. And it’s not like it would have mattered and some of the other "nays" and no-shows are entirely understandable, like Kennedy. Still and all, depressing.
Hyperion
i imagine that he followed that up with "Ha Ha" a la Nelson.
binzerator
@Beej:
This is by design. Republican assholes get multiple benefits from this. One, they want a depression in our economy so they can go around saying in 4 years, as someone suggested, ‘are you better off now than 4 years ago?’. Two, these fucktards want to break the UAW. They break the UAW, they win the Gettysburg in their war on the unions. Third, McConnel thinks Kentucky and Tennessee will benefit because the American auto industry will be gone from Detroit and other blue states — and whatever non-unionized form the auto industry takes thereafter will move to Red states for the same reasons Nissan and Toyota are there. Last, these are Republicans and they are vindictive mean little fucks so of course they want to fuck over Michigan. The goopers won’t pass up a chance to put a boot in a Michigander’s junk for going Blue by double digits.
Goopers like McConnel are too fucking stupid to know they’re shitting in their own hats and too fucking vindictive to care even if they did. Their whole ideology despises the idea we are all interconnected. These are the kind of people who think all you have to do is turn up your air conditioning to deal with global warming. This is the mindset of the kind of people who try to solve the problems caused by inequalities in their community by creating their own private gated enclaves. They simply don’t understand the concept of community.
These people are the modern GOP. Selfish, greedy, hypocritical, mean, short-sighted, narrow-minded, and lacking empathy even to the point where it harms their own interests.
Or, as Renato said, they are rancid malicious fucks.
Hell no this is not a coincidence.