let me get out my surprised face

talking points memo: dems unprepared for gop filibuster.

job losses: bush v. obama

job losses from december 2007 to january 2010. red is bush, blue is obama.

(hat tip tpm)

taking grassley's advice

back in march, iowa senator chuck grassley quite seriously suggested folks at AIG and the like, "follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things — resign, or go commit suicide.”

on tuesday night, freddie mac's interim chief financial officer david kellermann, took grassley's advice to heart.

trimming and cutting

this line jumped out at me from obama's speech on the economy today:

"Let's not kid ourselves and suggest that we can solve this probem by trimming a few earmarks or cutting the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts."

where'd ya put that pitchfork?

hey, we burned down this guy's house last week 'cause we were so pissed. now what do we do? (or...do ya think he's full of crap, and we should go back and burn down his barn too?)

DEAR Mr. Liddy,

It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products...

what is minnesota thinking?

here's minnesota republican representative michele crazytown bachman quizzing tim geithner and fed chair ben bernanke at today’s congressional hearing investigating the aig mess. watch geithner and bernanke's faces as they realize bachmann may need to watch a few more episodes of schoolhouse rock:

one in five

wanna blame congress for aig? the four people sitting next to you disagree.

you know you're a dork when...

...you pass paul krugman on the street and you're a little awestruck.

return of the zombies

paul krugman isn't so keen on the obama administration's plan to deal with the banks ("The zombie ideas have won.") and that's putting it lightly:

"Treasury has decided that what we have is nothing but a confidence problem, which it proposes to cure by creating massive moral hazard.

...I fear that when the plan fails, as it almost surely will, the administration will have shot its bolt: it won’t be able to come back to Congress for a plan that might actually work.

What an awful mess."

maybe geithner can scramble something else together by monday, hmm?

barney's frank

when it comes to aig and employee bonuses funded by government bailout money, the massachusetts congressman says it may be time to start handing out pink slips:

"These people may have a right to their bonuses, they don't have a right to their jobs forever. The federal government now is 80% owner (of aig.) It does appear to me we're rewarding incompetence. These bonuses are going to people who screwed this thing up enormously, who made terrible decisions. Since the government now essentially owns that company, maybe it's time to fire some people."

– barney frank
chairman of the house financial services committee

when do us guys show up with pitchforks?

this story has such a familiar ring: aig, ginormous insurance conglomerate, was not doin' so well. it was gonna fail. and everybody panicked and said "no! aig is too big to fail!" too many connecting threads that would cause an utter collapse of not only our economy, but the world economy.

so we – and by we i mean you and me – loaned aig $170 billion or so dollars so they wouldn't have to declare bankruptcy and we wouldn't have to live in garbage cans. (thanks for chipping in your $85 bil, by the way. i knew you were good for it.)

not long ago, obama's treasury secretary tim geithner, found out that aig was gonna use a portion of the money we lent 'em to pay bonuses to employees (right? i know.) and not to just any employees, but to the guys who were pretty much responsible for the whole mess. secretary tim was none too happy about that, and he said "hey, aig, do not do it."

but this weekend, aig said, "excuse me mr. fancy pants secretary, these people had contracts, you see. and we are bound by these contracts to pay the bonuses, no matter how poorly these scoundrels performed, and no matter who loaned us this unbelievable wad of cash."

and it seems (now, this would be when we go running out to the garage to get the pitchforks and torches) that secretary tim said...

"okay."

so on sunday, aig started paying out the bonuses. and tomorrow, you and i are gonna meet at my house and head down to...where? the white house? 70 pine street in new york city, where aig is? maybe both. and we're gonna storm the...uh...storm the insurance giant. or...storm the white house. storm the banks. storm wall street. (we don't have a bastille in this country, right?)

cause this here ain't right.

whaddya know?

someone did notice that barack obama made the stock market go up today. and it was the wall street journal no less:

"The administration, which was criticized for it's rollout of it's financial-sector rescue last month, got a generally warmer reception for the details of the foreclosure program. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 149.82 points, or 2.2%, snapping a dismal losing streak in recent days."

thinking...thinking...

three things:

• remember back in january – during stimulus negotiations in the house – president obama told republicans "you can't just listen to rush limbaugh and get things done," and all the pundits thought he was foolish to "elevate" limbaugh?
  

• did anyone notice that barack obama made the stock market go up today?

• how much fun is it watching john mccain having a tantrum on the senate floor?! he gets all flustered and mixes up words and waves his arms around! i realized today who he reminds me of:
  

shovel? ready!

they're picking up shovels in peoria, they're getting back on the backhoes in baton rouge, and they're firing up the forklifts in fort wayne. all thanks to your friendly, neighborhood stimulus package.

show me the money

as you're driving out to bucks county this summer, or heading from cudahy to bay view on your way to your best friend from high school's backyard barbecue, look for this logo. when you see a construction project or building site stamped with this sign, you'll know it's been funded by the american recovery and reinvestment act (also known as the stimulus package every republican but three voted against.)

in the meantime, check out the transparency that is recovery.gov. do you think this is why americans trust the obama administration?

who you gonna call?

a spanking new nbc/wall street journal poll has some bad news for the party of no. right now, the country's trust lies with the party in power:



further poll results show obama's favorable ratings (68%) at an all-time high, something pollster peter hart finds extraordinary:

"What is amazing here is how much political capital Obama has spent in the first six weeks and against that, he stands at the end of this six weeks with as much or more capital in the bank. It is an amazing feat in terms of what Barack Obama has accomplished against the most difficult terrain one could imagine."

and obama's positive numbers don't end there.

54% of those surveyed say he has the right policies for the country, 57% percent support the stimulus package, 67% percent feel more hopeful thanks to his leadership, and they give him a 60% job approval rating.

on the other end of the spectrum, the country blames the previous administration (56%) and republicans in congress (41%) for the state of the economy, and gives the republican party an all-time low favorablity rating (26%.)

what grown-ups do

economist paul krugman has already spoken in fairly positive tones of obama's proposed budget. today, newsday agrees, and says we should all grow up:

"We can argue about the larger role for government that Obama envisions for the nation. And we can argue about whether high earners should pay higher taxes. But by putting his ideas into budgetary black-and-white, Obama has challenged taxpayers to make realistic choices about what they want from government - and then to pay for it.

It's what grown-ups do."

unhappy, table for two

yesterday, obama pissed off the right. today, he's pissed off the left. sounds to me like things are going along swimmingly.

santelli: waah, waah, waah

last week, cnbc's rick santelli went on a well-publicized rant on the floor of the chicago mercantile exchange, against the obama housing bill. much of santelli's rant focused on subsidizing "the loser's mortgages," bailing out your neighbor, etc. culimnating in an angry santelli basically mocking the adminstration, spouting "are you listening, president obama?" like a fussy school-boy.

agree or disagree with santelli's rant (and a great many agreed with it) he was certainly living – let's say basking in all the publicity surrounding his outburst.

until the white house news conference on friday. white house press secretary robert gibbs responded to santelli, by name, saying:

"I’ve watched Mr. Santelli on cable the past 24 hours or so. I’m not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives but the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgages, stay in their jobs, pay their bills, send their kids to school."

and gibbs went on, even inviting santelli to the white house to read the bill, offering to buy him a cup of coffee.

saturday, santelli claimed what gibbs said amounted to a "threat," and that "my kids are nervous to go to school."

on the today show this morning, matt lauer confronted santelli about it all, and santelli basically whined and curled up in a ball and said uncle:

,

hey santelli, if you're gonna step up to the plate, you gotta be in the game.