Completely Misreading the National Mood, AIG Makes It Rain. AIG, the mammoth and mismanaged insurer — which incidentally holds the global financial market by the balls — is giving out $165 million in bonuses after getting $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money. Everyone is pissed. AIG said its legally obligated to pay the bonuses, which were negotiated before the bailout, and that they’ll help the company retain talent. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich calls those arguments bullshit. “Had AIG gone into chapter 11 bankruptcy or been liquidated, as it would have without government aid, no bonuses would ever be paid (they would have had a lower priority under bankruptcy law that AIG’s debts to other creditors); indeed, AIG’s executives would have long ago been on the street. And any mention of the word “talent” in the same sentence as “AIG” or “credit default swaps” would be laughable if laughing weren’t already so expensive.”
I Know That I’m Carrying On, Nevermind If I’m Showing Off… Jeff Toobin profiles (ethers?) Roland Burris in the New Yorker. “He is a conventional politician, one guided far more by cautious self-interest than by ideological passion. His self-regard may be greater than that of some of his peers; he is especially known for the words of self-celebration carved into the wall of a mausoleum that is waiting for him in a Chicago cemetery. … According to the Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson, a longtime student of Chicago politics, Burris “was a soldier, part of the machine. He’s not a distinguished politician. He’s not a powerful political thinker.” One of the most alarming tidbits is how Burris’s incompetence as attorney general almost sent an innocent man to his death — twice.
Rational Irresponsibility grandmute makes the argument that since homeownership affords people capital needed for social mobility, borrowers who took on mortgages they may have struggled with were actually making the kind of calculated risks for progress that Wall Street types do all the time. “In at least one form, shouldering “irresponsible” risk in one’s mortgage was considered by the financial establishment a reasonable investment. Viewed through the broader prism of inequality, taking on risks to become a homeowner can be construed as perfectly rational given the immense advantages which have historically accrued to homeowners and their descendants.”
We Don’t Believe You, You Need More People. AverageBro calls shenanigans on the GOP governors rejecting stimulus funds for their states on the grounds that once the money runs out they won’t be able to fund the stimulus-backed programs. ” [It’s] little more than political maneuvering for Perry, Sanford, and Jindal. If you need more proof, consider the fact that the Fed isn’t mandating that the expansion of unemployment benefits be permanent. When the money runs dry in 2 years, the states could roll back the expansion in two years. Finally, the amount each of these guys are rejecting is a mere fraction of the total amount their states are receiving. Texas alone is getting $16 Billion dollars. The amount Perry turned away is barely 3% of that.”
Fake-Retiring, Just Like a Rapper. After a bunch of high-profile missteps and facing questions about his leadership, Michael Steele says he’s going to stop his media blitz to focus on fundraising and winning elections.
Obama’s Gay Dilemma. Obama will soon have to make a choice on whether the government will provide benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees. Not that those same-sex couples will officially exist in the the 2010 Census, anyway.
Rahm Emmanuel, Defender of the Night. When he’s not being an anal retentive strategist/enforcer, Rahm Emmanuel is actually a superhero who saves the lives of random people in movie theaters and Republicans with bad hearts. (Is that last part redundant?)
Divining Her Original Intent. When Justice Ginsburg told a bunch of law students that there was going to be a opening on the Supreme Court “soon,” just who or what did she mean?
Sit Your 16-Percent-Approval-Having-Ass-Down. VoldemortDick Cheney says the Obama administration is doing things that will make America more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. “”When you go back to the law enforcement mode, which I sense is what they’re doing, closing Guantanamo and so forth … they are very much giving up that center of attention and focus that’s required, that concept of military threat that is essential if you’re going to successfully defend the nation against further attacks.”
Walking Back a Controversial Stance. A few weeks ago, Brazil’s Catholic Church excommunicated the mother of a nine-year-old girl for taking her to have an abortion after the girl was raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather. (They excommunicated the doctors, too.) But a high-ranking Vatican archbishop came out in defense of the girl , saying that the girl “should have been above all defended, embraced, treated with sweetness to make her feel that we were all on her side, all of us, without distinction.”
Do Better, Po-Po’s. I know we’ve been coming hard on the criminal justice system lately, but how can you not when cases like those of Derrick Copp, an unarmed student at Grand Valley State who was shot when his apartment was raided by police. It took six hours before his parents were contacted and told he was in the hospital, and that was done by the injured Copp and a nurse.
Do Better, Po-Po’s, Pt. 2. Prison guards in Oklahoma put a felon in a prison cell with the killer he helped put in jail with his testimony. He was beaten to death within 15 minutes. Ugh.
Stats on Suicide By Cop. A study found that 36 percent of shootings involving officers included people who were trying to be killed by police. The overwhelming majority (90%) of those people were male, and most of them had guns at the time. About half of that group was killed during the shootout.
Crime Goes Down with the Economy. Crime is down in Colorado even as the economy continues its freefall. That flies in the face of what most people, including law enforcement types, were expecting. One criminologist said its still pretty early, and a lot of things that push crime up haven’t happened — yet. The head of the state’s corrections department attributes the slide to stiffer sentencing and higher incarceration rates; the state’s prison population is roughly six times as large as it was 25 years ago.
Katrina Evacuees and Gender Violence. Our homie Leigh points to a disturbing uptick in gender-based violence among Katrina evacuees living in emergency trailers. It’s all the more unsettling because of its preventability: ” internally displaced populations follow patterns, including a tendency toward violence against women,” according to a Defense Department researcher.
Thank Jeebus. That rumor about a Rihanna-Chris Brown duet? Not true.
Cut That Shit Out. Wired has a list of the most annoying habits of geeky partners. Number one is punning. Yes. Stop that. Number eight is “looking up information while an argument/conversation is still in progress,” and I deeply resent its inclusion on this list.
