Bill Moyers’ last show is tonight. If anyone needs me I’ll be in the shower drinking a handle of cheap vodka. What? Don’t you fucking judge me. It’s how I grieve.

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Tags: Bill Moyers, Journalism Is Dead
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This made me shit my pants in anger:

Last week, White House officials quietly approached leading financial firms seeking formal letters of support for a Congressional overhaul of financial regulations. One Wall Street powerhouse was left off the list: Goldman Sachs.

Given the government’s lawsuit against Goldman, “the message,” said a financial industry executive involved in the discussions about the White House solicitation, “was that Goldman’s opinion doesn’t matter and that it would be negative if Goldman was supportive of what we were doing.”

Can you imagine White House officials approaching rapists seeking formal letters of support for tougher rape laws? What about approaching murders seeking formal letters of support for tougher murder laws? Or approaching drug users seeking formal letters of support for tougher drug laws?

Fuck no.

Then why the hell does our government feel the need to ask Wall Street for their permission to pass tougher financial laws?

Oh, I see. It all makes sense now.

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Tags: Congress, Fucking pussies, Obama, Wall Street, You Can Do Anything If You're Rich Enough
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Shocking, I know:

Senate Republicans held together Monday afternoon to block efforts by Democrats to officially begin debate on the financial industry reform bill.

No Republicans cast a “yes” vote on the procedural motion, keeping Democrats from the 60 vote threshold needed to move forward. One Democrat, Nebraska’s Ben Nelson, voted “no” outright.

[...]

Among the bill’s provisions are the creation of a system for dismantling struggling large firms, the establishment of a consumer protection agency, and a requirement that derivatives be traded openly. The House has already passed its version of the legislation.

[...]

One difference between the two sides is over a proposed Consumer Protection Agency, which Democrats say will keep Americans from being taken advantage of by predatory lenders. Republicans fear the agency could be costly and add an unnecessary and harmful layer of regulation (emphasis mine).

Could someone please give me an example of unnecessary and harmful regulation of Wall Street? Because I’m drawing a blank here. I mean, the reason why our economy went balls up was because of a lack of regulation; which gave way to the rampant fraud on Wall Street.

But then again, what the fuck do I know? I’m not a white-collar criminologist and former financial regulator. But William K. Black is. And he agrees with me:

Control fraud epidemics can arise when financial deregulation and desupervision and perverse compensation systems create a “criminogenic environment”.

Goddammit, I love it when I’m right.

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Tags: Financial Reform, Republicans love rich cock, Wall Street
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Side note: I’m willing to bet my unborn child’s reproductive organs that if tea party members were black then there would be no Tea Party.

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Tags: Crayola, I Wish I Had Enough Money To Invest In Crayola, Tea Party
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Fuck it in its educated mouth:

School districts around the country, forced to resort to drastic money-saving measures, are warning hundreds of thousands of teachers that their jobs may be eliminated in June.

The districts have no choice, they say, because their usual sources of revenue — state money and local property taxes — have been hit hard by the recession. In addition, federal stimulus money earmarked for education has been mostly used up this year.

As a result, the 2010-11 school term is shaping up as one of the most austere in the last half century. In addition to teacher layoffs, districts are planning to close schools, cut programs, enlarge classes and shorten the school day, week or year to save money.

[...]

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan estimated that state budget cuts imperiled 100,000 to 300,000 public school jobs. In an interview on Monday, he said the nation was flirting with “education catastrophe,” and urged Congress to approve additional stimulus funds to save school jobs.

“We absolutely see this as an emergency,” Mr. Duncan said.

[...]

Warning of an educational emergency, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, proposed a $23 billion school bailout bill last Wednesday that would essentially provide more education stimulus financing to stave off the looming wave of school layoffs.

“This is not something we can fix in August,” said Mr. Harkin, chairman of the Senate education committee. “We have to fix it now.”

Michael J. Petrilli, who served in the Education Department under President George W. Bush, predicted that the bill could attract significant support. But even if it is approved, Mr. Petrilli said, it would leave an underlying problem unresolved.

“Is the federal government going to try to prop up states and districts forever?” he said. “If not, we’re just kicking the can down the road. Eventually, districts need to learn to live with less.”

I agree with Michael J. Petrilli. People working in government funded public education need to learn to live with less. I mean, who the hell do they think they are? Wall Street bankers? Defense industry presidents? Pentagon officials?

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Tags: But We Have Enough Money For Endless War, School Closings, Teacher Firing
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Thanks for making South Carolina look sane:

The Arizona Legislature has just stepped off the deep end of the immigration debate, passing a harsh and mean-spirited bill that would do little to stop illegal immigration. What it would do is lead to more racial profiling, hobble local law enforcement, and open government agencies to frivolous, politically driven lawsuits.

The bill is a grab bag of measures to enlist law enforcement and government at every level to expose and expel the undocumented. Opponents say it verges on a police state, which sounds overblown until you read it.

It would make not having immigration documents a new state misdemeanor, and allow officers to arrest anyone who could not immediately prove they were here legally. That means if you are brown-skinned and leave home without a wallet, you are in trouble.

[...]

The bill, passed by Arizona’s Republican-controlled House on a party-line vote, has already passed the state Senate and will soon be before Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican. She has not said whether she will sign it.

I feel bad for Arizona’s policemen. Can you imagine asking every brown person for their papers? Arizona should pass a law requiring brown people who are living in Arizona illegally to wear some kind of badge. You know, to help out the police. Then the police could round those brown people up, put them on trains, and ship them to some kind of high security detention center where they can be processed. And maybe Arizona could figure out some kind of work program at these high security detention centers where brown people could work towards gaining legal status.

Yeah, this seems like a much better idea. You know what? I’m going to call Jan Brewer toll free at 1-(800) 253-0883 and tell her my kick-ass plan. I hope she likes it.

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Tags: Arizona, Immigration, Jan Brewer is fucking nuts
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And nobody seems to care:

The global financial crisis, it is now clear, was caused not just by the bankers’ colossal mismanagement. No, it was due also to the new financial complexity offering up the opportunity for widespread, systemic fraud.

[...]

If the Securities and Exchange Commission’s case is proved – and it is aggressively rebutted by Goldman – the charge is that Goldman’s vice-president Fabrice Tourre created a dud financial instrument packed with valueless sub- prime mortgages at the instruction of hedge fund client Paulson, sold it to investors knowing it was valueless, and then allowed Paulson to profit from the dud financial instrument.

[...]

Brutally, the banks knowingly gamed the system to grow their balance sheets ever faster and with even less capital underpinning them in the full knowledge that everything rested on the bogus claim that their lending was now much less risky. That was not all they were doing. As Michael Lewis describes in The Big Short, credit default swaps had been deliberately created as an asset class by the big investment banks to allow hedge funds to speculate against collateralised debt obligations. The banks were gaming the regulators and investors alike – and they knew full well what they were doing.

[...]

Now it has all collapsed, to be bailed out by western taxpayers. The banks are resisting reform – and want to cling on to the business practices and business model that has so appallingly failed. It is obvious why: it makes them very rich. The politicians tread carefully, only proposing what the bankers say is congruent with their definition of what banking should be.

Let me repeat that last sentence for you:

The politicians tread carefully, only proposing what the bankers say is congruent with their definition of what banking should be.

That sentence is the reason why I’m not surprised at the pussified bill put forth by Chris Dodd. It’s the reason why I’m not surprised Obama sent Rahm Emanuel to New York to host a private meeting begging investors not to flee the Democratic Party. And it’s the reason why I won’t be surprised when nothing happens to Goldman Sachs.

Because our masters expect us to apologize to them for flinching when they cum on our faces.

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Tags: Goldman Sachs, Pussy Politicians, Thank Zeus It's 4/20, Wall Street
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