Alternative New Media for the Gulf South
Vivek Wadhwa writes a column for the WaPo on the death of Obama’s Open Government Initiative. Obama is such a fair weather sort of dude when it comes to following through with his 2008 campaign promises that this pound foolish debacle doesn’t surprise me.
The only way to reform government is to cut out the special interests. For this reason alone Ron Paul’s message holds some reasonance for me as the rats won’t stop otherwise until the country is bankrupt.
sop
The AP has picked up the story, which was then picked up by the Times Picayune. IMHO The Sun Herald’s early reporting on this topic will wear nicely with the passage of time.
sop
And this is why I’d be very careful about swimming in the sound and completely steer clear of locally caught oysters. I think right now it pays to be very selective about locally caught seafood as there is so much we still do not know about the damage being done by the submerged oil from the BP/Transocean blowout, oil that would have been skimmed in other locales but some buttheads at Teams Obama and BP made the decision to mix the oil with Corexit at the well head so it would sink to the sea bottom, effectively concealing the true extent of the oil released.
Meantime Karen Nelson at the Sun Herald checks in with 4 more dead baby dolphins on Horn Island plus another in Alabama. In advance of Lawn Mower Fumes Bryant and Boss Hogg along with their stooge Bill Walker at DMR downplaying the deaths, Nelson puts things in perspective:
Four baby dolphins lay dead in the sand on the south side of Horn Island and one on Ono Island off Orange Beach, Ala., Tuesday.
That’s more dolphins dead in one day than all the dolphins, of any age, found dead in Alabama in 2008.
My mind is open to the possibility Teams Obama and BP have endangered the lives of the public by trying to conceal how much oil spilled from the blowout so the fines BP will pay under the Oil Pollution Act are minimized. To the extent Boss Hogg and Lawn Mower Fumes Bryant have constantly downplayed the impacts of the oil they too are complicit in this IMHO.
sop
And when you read the Rolling Stones article on Wall Street being completely above the law you’ll understand why you see names like Brooksley Born, Judge Jed Rakoff, AIG and crooked CEO John Mack in our archives. And sadly, I’ve concluded Longshanks is probably right, we are becoming economic slaves to financial interests and that the sheeple are too self-absorbed and ignorant to understand that basic fact. It also explains why I have little respect for sham regulators like Jim Donelon and Mike Chaney or the rest of the corporate do bitches that populate the Republican party. The Democrats aren’t any better though their rhetoric doesn’t come across as quite so clueless.
Perhaps this is why discriminating bloggers call folks like House Speaker John Boehner a dumb fuck for talking about repealing the weak financial re-regulation bill that passed last year. Meantime the Hollow One, $tung by critici$m about being too hard in Wall Street, is now genuflecting before CEOs like John Mack $pit $hining their $kin flute$. Ain’t 2 party politics swell!
Hat tip to Editilla and Dambala.
sop
Folks, remember during the oil spill all the doomsday predictions of all the rigs leaving the gulf (causing massive unemployment) if Prez. Obama didn’t back down on his drill moratorium?
More oil drilling rigs are in Gulf of Mexico than before BP oil spill.
Now I know some of y’all pucker up when I term GOP politicos as corporate bootlickers but I offer as Exhibit A apologizing Joe Barton, the GOP bootlicking congressman that could not wait to drop and genuflect before BP’s Tony Hayward when he came calling on congress last year during the spill. Once upon a time Republicans favored the rule of law, free markets and competition over corporate handouts and bailouts from the treasury and groveling. ‘Tis is why I left the fold several years ago.
You folks reckon wind insurance price gouging would end if our political leaders exhibited the kind of sack towards insurers that Obama did in the drill moratorium with big oil?
Don’t hold yer breath waiting on the hollow one to engage insurance as Ed Rust owns him.
sop
“There doesn’t seem to be anybody in the White House who’s got any idea what it’s like to lie awake at night worried about money and worried about things slipping away,” said retiring Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D). “They’re all intellectually smart. They’ve got their numbers. But they don’t feel any of it, and I think people sense that.”
Out of touch does not begin to describe it. Obama had a chance to change the political landscape for a generation and instead he let AIG execs pay themselves a bonus with taxpayer money.
Heckuva job Barackie!
sop
New York Times columnist Frank Rich has encapsulated literally years of posts here on Slabbed regarding the financial crash of 2008 and explains why Team Obama is regarded as an utter failure by the American public. As a reader commented via email to me with the link, (this column is) “Something that you could have authorship of.” Rich lays out the case both against Team Obama and Team GOP. The bottom line is Wall Street owns the GOP 100% and the Dems about 85%. What a great choice we have as the wealthy elites continue to drain the treasury dry and run the country further in debt. Here are a few snippets:
The reasons for his failure to reap credit for any economic accomplishments are a catechism by now: the dark cloud cast by undiminished unemployment, the relentless disinformation campaign of his political opponents, and the White House’s surprising ineptitude at selling its own achievements. But the most relentless drag on a chief executive who promised change we can believe in is even more ominous. It’s the country’s fatalistic sense that the stacked economic order that gave us the Great Recession remains not just in place but more entrenched and powerful than ever.
No matter how much Obama talks about his “tough” new financial regulatory reforms or offers rote condemnations of Wall Street greed, few believe there’s been real change. That’s not just because so many have lost their jobs, their savings and their homes. It’s also because so many know that the loftiest perpetrators of this national devastation got get-out-of-jail-free cards, that too-big-to-fail banks have grown bigger and that the rich are still the only Americans getting richer.
This intractable status quo is being rubbed in our faces daily during the pre-election sprint by revelations of the latest banking industry outrage, its disregard for the rule of law as it cut every corner to process an avalanche of foreclosures. Clearly, these financial institutions have learned nothing in the few years since their contempt for fiscal and legal niceties led them to peddle these predatory mortgages (and the reckless financial “products” concocted from them) in the first place. And why should they have learned anything? They’ve often been rewarded, not punished, for bad behavior. Continue reading “From the Cerebral Wing of the Slabbed Nation: President Obama, The Peter Principle, Crooks and Liars.”
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On a slow news day – or a day when it’s not so hot – any one of these stories could take an entire post to cover. However, today is neither and without going further, here is news you can use:
Making a diagnosis of “improper influence” requires a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. Not only is it unrealistic to think we can eradicate all judicial biases, instincts, leanings or interests, however termed, but it is also unwise. We want our judges to live in the real world, so that they can bring their life experiences and common sense to the table when deciding cases. Judges must remain “partial” to some influences, therefore, like the case law, and controlling statutes, and perhaps even basic standards of decency and morality, too. As The New York Times recently cited, former Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s view on recusal was that if a justice’s mind was “a complete tabula rasa” in relevant respects, it “would be evidence of lack of qualification, not lack of bias.”
While I hope you’ll follow all the links, but by all means, read this opinion post on recusal from Law.com.
Here’s a clue – anyone reporting on the increase should start by defining “seasonal”. Continue reading “SLABBED (not exactly) Daily – August 5, 2010”
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