Friday, May 01, 2009
Friday funny
Over at Pajamas Media, Frank J. Fleming writes about "The Superior Moral Position on Torture."
Once again, totally unfair, and funny.
2 Comments:
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Fri May 01, 05:23:00 PM:
What's unfair about it? Delightfully and sarcastically shredding an opponent's shaky and contradictory positions is one of the better perquisites of free speech.
How else will the vaunted 'marketplace of ideas' work if the dumb ones aren't eventually eviscerated?
By 
, at
Fri May 01, 09:41:00 PM:
Once again ... by making waterboarding the issue of the week ... Obama played us. He even got Cheney to come out of his bunker -- always a good way to rile 65% of the voters.
Meanwhile, developments are slipping by under the radar. Connecting a few dots ....
A story in today's WSJ suggests that Rahm Emanuel is really running Treasury ... "White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been so involved in the workings of the Treasury that "Rahm wants it" has become an unofficial mantra among some at the Treasury, according to government officials." Little Timmy still has no appointed deputies helping him in any Treasury slot that matters -- this now looks to not be an accident as it's all being run out of the White House ... Geithner is just their overworked flunky fall guy errand boy ... the things people put up with for a good job title.
Bloomberg News had a story that included a leak from "sources close to the situation" that six banks out of 19 would get bad grades on their stress tests. If true, it could become a holy shit headline. The further delay in announcing the results is troubling -- it can't be because they're still running numbers. If it's six banks, Citi and Bank of America are probably included -- but which are the others? Interestingly, these stress tests assume a more challenging economy than Obama does for his own budget.
Presumably -- at the banks with bad grades on their stress tests -- the US would convert its TARP debt into common equity. This would make the bank's reported capital ratios look better, but have no real economic effect -- it's just reclassifying money that's already there ... but the banks would wind up with the US as a big equity holder. Once in this roach motel, they may never get out.
With all that's going on, it's easy to forget that the US is still the direct owner of Fannie and Freddie -- and thus in de facto control of the entire US mortgage industry -- with no exit plan under discussion. The US-UAW will now be the biggest player in the US auto industry -- in direct competition with Ford and Toyota. The US will soon control our health care industry. Utilities are on the list -- to be co-opted with free cap-and-trade licenses. Big companies like GE are learning to play ball to get at Obama's money -- seen an Eco-imagination ad lately?
This is looking a lot like Peron's Argentina, without the gold braid. Michelle is even becoming "beloved of the people." Like Evita, I can't wait for Congress to declare her "Spiritual Leader of the Nation." It'll make a nice story in the PAW.
Link, over
