President Obama proposed Thursday a sharp increase in the taxes paid by the nation's largest financial institutions that he said would raise at least $90 billion over the next decade while constraining the industry's ability to take large risks and to collect what he described as "obscene bonuses."
The tax, which must be approved by Congress, is meant to make a splash, demonstrating to the public that the administration is now focused on reforming the financial industry after more than a year of bailout efforts. The nation's largest banks are expected to report large annual profits over the next week, along with plans to set aside billions of dollars for employee bonuses, a recovery made possible by massive federal support.
"We want our money back, and we're going to get it," Obama said Thursday. "If these companies are in good enough shape to afford massive bonuses they are surely in good enough shape to pay back every cent they received from taxpayers."
The bank industry experts are saying this will hurt the economy, because the banks will merely pass on the tax, called the Fiscal Responsibility Crisis Fee, to the consumers. I seriously doubt it will have a huge impact, because the fee is only being assessed against the mega-banks that took TARP money. Other banks will not be passing on that fee, since it won't be asssessed by them. Or as the Obama Administration says: ""Firms that raised prices would give smaller rivals a competitive advantage, creating an incentive for companies instead to swallow the cost, potentially by reducing employee pay."
The GOP will, of course, not be happy about this, but they'll have a hard time opposing it without being branded as "being in the pocket of the big bank fatcats"
After the 9/11 attacks, Robertson said liberal civil liberties groups and homosexuals were at least partly reponsible for the terror strikes that leveled New York's twin towers.
After Hurricane Katrina, Robertson again blamed Americans for invoking God's wrath.
Now, he's at it again, claiming that the catastrophe in Haiti was brought on by the Haitians themselves for "making a pact with the Devil". Watch:
PAT ROBERTSON: And, you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you will get us free from the French." True story. And so, the devil said, "OK, it's a deal."
And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God. And out of this tragedy, I'm optimistic something good may come. But right now, we're helping the suffering people, and the suffering is unimaginable.
KRISTI WATTS (co-host): Absolutely, Pat.
The Reverand Paul Raushenbush responds at the Huffington Post:
Go to Hell, Pat Robertson — and the sooner the better. Your 'theological' nonsense is revolting. Don't speak for Haiti, and don't speak for God. Haiti is suffering a catastrophe and you offer silliness at best, and racism at the worst. Haiti was the first island in the Western hemisphere to overthrow slavery and white oppression — this is what you call a pact with the Devil? God's heart is breaking with this tragedy, and ours should be too. You never had much credibility — but now it is all gone.
The "pact" that Robertson refers to is an old wive's tale. There simply is no basis for it in history. Pat is promoting the old 19th century European worldview that because the people of Haiti were slaves who revolted, they were therefore against God's order.
More factual problems with Robertson's statement: Napoleon III cam to power in the 1850's; Haiti became independent in 1804. And the Dominican Republic is prosperous and well-off? Hardly.
For its part, the Christian Broadcasting Network issued a statement, arguing that Haitians "allegedly made a famous pact with the devil," but Robertson "never stated that the earthquake was God's wrath."
No, of course not. All he said is that is Haiti agreed to "serve" Satan, became "cursed," and is now burdened by a disaster. Why would anyone draw a connection from that?
UPDATE: As always, the Rude Pundit minces no words….
By the way, if you wanna prove your God is so goddamn powerful, let him cause an earthquake somewhere that's not on a fault line, or let him whip up a hurricane in, say, the middle of the desert. Otherwise, shut the fuck up about how big and strong he is. In fact, Pat Robertson, you saggy, sick, senile fuck who needed to be ground up into soylent green about a decade ago or buried alive with Jerry Falwell's corpse, if your God is such a dick that he'd try to prove some bullshit point by flattening a country of poor, beaten down people, then fuck your God. Motherfucker oughta spend some time hanging with his son to learn how to treat the meek.
KUDOS alsoto Rush Limbaugh for saying this, while tens of thousands die, power and water is cut off, hospitals are non-existent, etc.:
I could sit here and be really cynical. I'll hold off on the cynicism for a couple hours, I'll hold off on it. I'm going to hold off on it, give the show's flow a chance to establish, 'cause it's going to be the Media Tweak of the Day.
….Yes, I think in the Haiti earthquake, ladies and gentlemen — in the words of Rahm Emanuel — we have another crisis simply too good to waste. This will play right into Obama's hands. He's humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, "credibility" with the black community — in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made-to-order for them. That's why he couldn't wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there.
Among the many things offensive and wrong with what Rush says, I wasn't aware that Obama didn't to sew up his credibility with the black community.
Sarah Palin on Glenn Beck's show, explaining why George Washington is her favorite founding father:
“That is who you need to find to serve in government, in a bureaucracy,” Palin said. “Those who you know will serve for the right reasons because they’re reluctant to get out there and seek a limelight and seek the power. They’re doing it for people. That was George Washington.”
That's from Sarah Palin, folks — the woman who quit her job as governor to write a book, go on a massive book tour, and get a very lucrative deal as a contributer to Fox News.
UPDATE: I loveSteve Benen's observations about the Palin-Beck interview, which I rip off here in its entirety:
WHAT PALIN AND BART SIMPSON HAVE IN COMMON…. About 12 years ago, there was an episode of "The Simpsons" in which Bart was supposed to deliver an oral report on Libya. Bart, of course, hadn't done his homework and had no idea what to say. He stood up, cleared his throat, looked at the blank page in front of him, and winged it.
"The exports in Libya are numerous in amount," Bart said earnestly. "One thing they export is corn, or as the Indians call it, maize. Another famous Indian was Crazy Horse. In conclusion, Libya is a land of contrast. Thank you."
None of this made any sense, but Bart couldn't just stand up and say, "I have no idea what I'm talking about because I'm unprepared." He had to say something, so he made up some silliness and got the ordeal over with as quickly as possible.
Every time I hear Sarah Palin try to answer any question on any subject, it immediately reminds me of Bart's classroom presentation. Take yesterday, for example, when Glenn Beck asked Palin, "Who's your favorite Founder?"
This isn't the former half-term governor's best subject. Palin did, after all, boast not too long ago that the Founding Fathers wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. But like Bart, she couldn't just take a pass, so she told Beck, "You know, well, all of them, because they came collectively together with so much … so much diverse and so much diversity in terms of belief, but collectively they came together."
She eventually said, "And they were led by, of course George Washington." I kept waiting for her to say, "Or as the Indians called him, George Washington."
If "all of them" sounds like a familiar response, it's because Katie Couric asked Palin about which newspapers she reads. "Um, all of them," she replied.
I realize right-wing activists adore the former governor, but her conspicuous unintelligence should be obvious to anyone above the age of 4.
Sarah Palin made her first appearance as a contributor to Fox News on Bill O'Reilly's show. The whole transcript is here, and it is as you might expect.
But one particular section jumped out at me for some reason:
O'REILLY: Do you know Nancy Pelosi? Have you ever met her?
PALIN: I met her once in the Capitol building, yes.
O'REILLY: Yes? Did you have…
PALIN: She wouldn't remember me, but…
O'REILLY: She wouldn't — I think she'd remember you, Governor.
PALIN: No, no, no.
O'REILLY: But did you chat with her? Do you have any idea?
PALIN: Chatted with her a little bit, yes. She was leading a group of school children through on a tour. And I thought, well, that's nice that she has that time on her hands that she could do that.
O'REILLY: Yes, but the school children need to be led. You know that.
PALIN: Yes, that's what I'm saying. It was nice.
O'REILLY: Now, do you think that she's a kook?
PALIN: I think that she, too, is quite disconnected from what her constituents are telling her — and constituents all over the country.
O'REILLY: But she's a San Francisco liberal. But — but do you think she's actually crazy?
So Palin – a woman who quits her job as governor before her first term is out and takes a lucrative job at Fox – is mocking Speaker Pelosi who took the time to escort schoolchildren around the Capital Building. How nice.
And of course, all O'Reilly wants to know is whether that make Pelosi a crazy woman, or a kook.
The UN has stated that over 3 million people in Haiti are impacted by the devestating earthquake that hit yesterday. This raw uncut footage from CBS highlights how bad it is:
UPDATE: According to CNN, the Haiti Prime Minister is saying that the death toll could be "hundreds of thousands".
For those interested in helping immediately, simply text "HAITI" to "90999" and a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill.
Or you can go online to organizations like the Red Cross and Mercy Corps Mercy Corps to make a contribution to the disaster relief efforts.
Twitter is playing a critical role in collecting donations to help disaster victims, CNNMoney.com reports.
Apparently, the defense in the Prop 8 Trial isn't doing well. According to liveblogging reports, the opening statement by the defense included this statement:
“Racial restrictions were never a definitional feature of the institution of marriage.”
This was reportedly met with laughter from the courtroom. It is clearly not true. Even as late as the early 20th century, if women married an Asian who lived in America, she would lose her citizenship. And then, of course, there were all kinds of bans on interracial marriage until the Supreme Court struck thos bans down in the mid-1960s.
It's clear what the defense tack is going to be from another point made by the defense in its opening:
The purpose of the institution of marriage, the central purpose is to promote procreation and to channel naturally procreative sexual activity between men and women into stable enduring unions… it is the central and we would submit defining purpose of marriage.
This is going to come as news to elderly people who marry, married people who are unable to procreate, and married people who choose not to procreate. There isn't a single state which inquires into procreation plans or possibilities when two people get married, so it's a little hard to argue now that procreation is THE "defining purpose" of the institution of marriage.
For more in-depth coverage of yesterday's action, and up-to-the-minute coverage of today's events:
RELATED: Nate Silver shows us that states which ban gay marriages are more likely to have higher divorce rates than states which permit gay marriages and civil unions.
The American Dialect Society (ADS) has namedgoogle – the verb – as its Word of the Decade. According to the ADS, the verb google (meaning to "search the Internet") won out over "blog", which, according to Grant Barrett, the chair of the ADS's New Word Committee, "just sounds ugly."
Tweet was named the top word of the year for 2009.
Fail – "a noun or interjection used when something is egregiously unsuccessful" – was 2009's most useful word.
To be sure, it's been fun to share a cyber-laugh with girlfriends; after a day or so of the Facebook bra color campaign, it started to get silly: One of my favorite status updates was "commando," and my aunt told me a friend of hers who recently had a baby updated her status with the quip "soaked in milk." But because of the lack of context, this latest awareness effort is nothing more than innocuous titillation. Were Facebookers thinking more about breasts or the cancer that plagues them?
Though moments of levity are important, breast cancer is still a serious disease, says Dailey. An effective awareness ad campaign recognizes this. She quotes Kairol Rosenthal, author of "Everything Changes: The Insider Guide to Cancer in Your 20s": "You can be fun, creative, and a little bit sexy, but it has to involve the impact of the disease so that there's a call to action." Otherwise, says Dailey, "it's all sex and no substance."
As a member of the all-too-exclusive club of long-term ovarian cancer survivors, let me first say I used to resent the enormous amount of attention breast cancer got over other cancers. Breast Cancer Awareness Month (also known as "pink nausea" by certain folks) seemed to begin in late July and end in late November, totally eclipsing the far more lethal (per capita) cancers of ovarian and pancreatic.
Both are valid points.
Frankly, I'm sold on the first argument. Why do we even have "Breast Cancer Awareness Month"? Is there any adult out there — male or female — that isn't aware that there is this thing called "breast cancer"? Isn't more required at this point than just promoting awareness of breast cancer? Can we move past pink M&Ms and Facebook memes and maybe put our energies into — oh, I don't know — raising money for actual research and cures?
I'm less convinced by the second argument, although I certainly sympathize. But the truth is that advances in cancer research move the ball forward for all types of cancer. Is it unfair that breast cancer seems to get top billing over ovarian, testicular, lung, brain, pancratic, and all other types of cancer? Perhaps. But to the extent that awareness of any of those cancers leads to more dollars for cancer research, all types of cancer are likely to benefit.
Finally, someone makes the argument that requiring 60 votes on every piece of legislation is not what the Framers intended. Here's the problem, in a nutshell:
So on the health care bill, as on so many other things, we now have to take what a minority of an inherently unrepresentative body will give us. Forty-one senators from our 21 smallest states — just over 10 percent of our population — can block bills dealing not just with health care but with global warming and hazards that threaten the whole planet. Individual senators now use the filibuster, or the threat of it, as a kind of personal veto, and that power seems to have warped their behavior, encouraging grandstanding and worse.
Ending filibusters require supermajorities. In effect, any bill cannot be passed if there is a filibuster standing in its way. This is clearly not what the Framers wanted:
Here’s why. First, the Constitution explicitly requires supermajorities only in a few special cases: ratifying treaties and constitutional amendments, overriding presidential vetoes, expelling members and for impeachments. With so many lawyers among them, the founders knew and operated under the maxim “expressio unius est exclusio alterius” — the express mention of one thing excludes all others. But one need not leave it at a maxim. In the Federalist Papers, every time Alexander Hamilton or John Jay defends a particular supermajority rule, he does so at length and with an obvious sense of guilt over his departure from majority rule.
References to the tone taken by Hamilton and Jay in The Federalist Papers are not particularly persuasive. However, the explicit mention of supermajorities by the Constitution does create, in my view, a negative inference that all other legislation must be passed by majority.
Second, Article I, Section 3, expressly says that the vice president as the presiding officer of the Senate should cast the deciding vote when senators are “equally divided.” The procedural filibuster does an end run around this constitutional requirement, which presumed that on the truly contested bills there would be ties. With supermajority voting, the Senate is never “equally divided” on the big, contested issues of our day, so that it is a rogue senator, and not the vice president, who casts the deciding vote.
The procedural filibuster effectively disenfranchises the vice president, eliminating as it does one of the office’s only two constitutional functions. Yet the founders very consciously intended for the vice president, as part of the checks and balances system, to play this tie-breaking role — that is why Federalist No. 68 so specifically argued against a sitting member of the Senate being the presiding officer in place of the vice president.
I find this more persuasive. The filibuster effectively denies the VP one of his constitutional duties.
Third, Article I pointedly mandates at least one rule of proceeding, namely, that a majority of senators (and House members, for that matter) will constitute a quorum. Article I, Section 5 states in part that “a majority of each shall constitute a majority to do business.” Of course, in requiring a simple majority for a quorum, the founders were concerned about no-shows for a host of reasons — not least of all because the first legislators had to travel great distances by stagecoach.
That's nice, but I don't think that really speaks to passing of legislation.
But the bigger reason for the rule was to keep a minority from walking out and thereby blocking a majority vote. In Federalist No. 75, Hamilton dismissed a supermajority rule for a quorum thus: “All provisions which require more than a majority of any body to its resolutions have a direct tendency to embarrass the operations of the government and an indirect one to subject the sense of the majority to that of the minority.”
It would be illogical for the Constitution to preclude a supermajority rule with respect to a quorum while allowing it on an ad hoc and more convenient basis any time a minority wanted to block a vote. Yet that is essentially what Senate Rule 22 achieves on any bill that used to require a majority vote.
That makes sense.
The problem is, how does this get changed? It is unlikely that the U.S. Supreme Court would dare intervene in Senate Rules — that would be one branch of government monkeying around with the internal procedural rules of another branch. Mind you, I think the Supreme Court should do that, but I'm fairly certain they won't. The author proposes another solution:
The president of the Senate, the vice president himself, could issue an opinion from the chair that the filibuster is unconstitutional. Our first vice presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, felt a serious obligation to resolve the ties and tangles of an evenly divided Senate, and they would not have shrunk from such a challenge.
That's all well and good, but once the VP does that, we find ourselves in a bit of a constitutional crisis which will have to be resolved by…. the courts. And we're back to Square One.
Miep Gies, the last survivor among Anne Frank’s protectors and the woman who preserved the diary that endures as a testament to the human spirit in the face of unfathomable evil, died Monday night, the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam said. She was 100.
Ms. Palin will not have her own regular program, one person with knowledge of the deal said, though she will host a series that will run on the network from time to time. This person would not elaborate, but the network does have a precedent for such a series.
Host a series. Presumably, with a script. Damn. I was hoping they would just let her talk.
The Washington Post has a nice preview of the federal case involving same-sex marriage, which is about to begin its trek through the federal court system. This will be the first case which attempts to argue that banning same-sex marriage violates the United States Constitution. If it succeeds, then all states (being subordinate to federal law) will have to allow and recognize same sex marriage.
The case is notable not just for the subject matter, but also because of the attorneys arguing in favor of SSM:
Theodore B. Olson, a conservative Republican, and David Boies, a famed litigator and Democrat. The two are close friends who were on opposite sides in Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court case that decided the 2000 presidential election, but they found common ground pressing for constitutional recognition of same-sex marriage.
"From a conservative standpoint, people who wish to enter into the institution of marriage wish to enter into something that is the building block of our society, and that is itself a conservative value," said Olson, who served as solicitor general under President George W. Bush.
Said Boies: "This team really sends a message that this isn't a question of anything to do with political ideology."
Also unique about this case is the fact that the court proceedings will be uploaded at regular intervals onto Youtube [UPDATE: see below].
The trial, dubbed Perry v. Schwartzenegger, challenges the constitutionality of Prop 8, which California voters passed last year, overturning the California legislature which permitted SSM. It begins today.
Some say this is a long judicial road to the inevitable end: a rejection of SSM by the U.S. Supreme Court. Most do not believe the U.S. Supreme Court will have the votes in favor of SSM. I'm a bit more optimistic than most. Having Olsen argue in favor of SSM, bring the conservative argument to the fore (which he does in Newsweekhere), will go a long way. Also, despite the fact that this court leans conservative, it is only SLIGHTLY conservative. We must remember that a conservative Supreme Court overturned Lawrence v Texas.
UPDATE: Okay, I guess the proceedings will not be on Youtube. The U.S. Supreme Court is blocking the broadcast…. they just issued an emergency injunction barraing broadcast…. for 36 hours while they decide whether broadcasts can go forward at all…
UPDATE 2: With the Youtube broadcast being 86ed, it looks like the place to follow the proceedings is this site, which is liveblogging it….
