Archive for March, 2009
Either Tim Geithner lied under oath to Congress on March 3rd, or he lied to Americans this week
Well, another day, another lie from tax cheat and pathological embarrassment Tim Geithner.
Here’s the latest twist: on March 3rd, Tim Giethner testified before the Ways & Means Committee, under oath, where he talked about AIG’s bonuses. That means he was aware of them on or before March 3rd. We’ve established in previous posts he was aware of these bonuses in 2008, when he was Head of the New York Federal Reserve, but at the very least, his Congressional testimony proves he knew what was going on by at LEAST March 3rd.
So, why has he repeatedly lied to Americans this week, claiming he didn’t find out about AIG’s bonuses until March 10th or later?
His own testimony before Congress catches him in this stupid, stupid lie.
Try not to be distracted by the creepy-cute guy sitting behind Geithner (who looks like a poor man’s, balding Jude Law – or at least, he would, if it was closing time at Sidetrack’s on a Bailout $2 Beer Friday), who may or may not also be some sort of Orc or Elf, like Geithner himself. 45 seconds into this clip, Geithner not only clearly hears about the $165 million total for the bonuses, but he also later talks about AIG specifically (so we know he was actually listening and paying attention, and not dreaming about Jake Gyllenhaal joining the swim team, again, the way we would have been doing), all on March 3rd…a full week before Geithner and the White House claim they knew anything about what they specifically told Chris Dodd to slip into the Obama Trillion Dollar Spending Bill.
Michelle Malkin calls all this Kabuki Theater of Feigned Outrage.
We call it the worst peformance by a liar since Oprah last said she was full, Liza Minnelli claimed she wasn’t thirsty, and Rahm “Strawberry” Emanuel insisted it was perfectly appropriate to see ‘The Wrestler” on a Saturday night with an unidentified male Secret Service agent.
Hope!
Change!
Nothing to see, folks!
Is Tim Geithner the most Terrible Treasury Secretary in history?
There have been 75 Secretaries of the Treasury, all men, of varying levels of competence, incompetence, leadership, sycophancy, and combinations thereof.
Less than two months into his tenure, Tim Geithner already ranks as quite possibly the worst Treasury Secretary we have ever had, on this planet, or in all the realms of hallucinatory imagination.
If he was a book, he would have been written by Nancy Pelosi (terrible, just TERRIBLE).
If he was a Governor, he’d be Bill Richardson (TERRIBLE! TERRIBLE! And smells like Arby’s).
If he was a Senator, he’d be Claire McCaskill (TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE! And kids would bug him to do things).
If he was an elevator, he’d be the one at Harpo Studios (TERRIBLE TO THE Nth DEGREE! In other words, 4 feet by 4 feet of imitation wood paneled, Otis inspected, steel cable suspended, vertically moving, Oprah-produced flatulence).
Here are the 74 Treasury Secretaries who preceded Geithner, some of whom lasted just days as Secretary, with more than a few falling in the 6-months-or-less-on-the-job-category “wunderkid” Geithner seems destined for himself.
Henry Paulson, Jr (2006-2009):
John Snow (2003-2006):
Somebody’s cat (2002-2003):
Paul O’Neil (2001-2002):
Lawrence Summers (1999-2001)
Robert Rubin (1995-1999)
Lloyd Bentson (1993-1994)
Nicholas Brady (1988-1993)
James Baker (1985-1988)
Donald Regan (1981-1985)
George Miller (1979-1981)
W. Michael Blumenthal (1977-1979)
William Simon (1974-1977)
George Shultz (1972-1974)
John Connally (1971-1972)
David Kennedy (1969-1971)
Joseph Barr (1968-1969)
Henry Fowler (1965-1968)
Clarence Dillion (1961-1965)
Robert Anderson (1957-1961)
George Humphrey (1953-1957)
John Snyder (1946-1953)
Frederick Vinson (1945-1946)
Henry Morgenthau (1934-1945)
William Woodlin (1933) Great Depression
Ogden Mills, Jr. (1932-1933) Great Depression
Andrew Mellon (1921-1932) Great Depression
David Houston (1920-1921)
Carter Glass (1918-1920)
William McAdoo (1913-1918)
Franklin MacVeagh (1909-1913)
George Cortelyou (1907-1909)
Leslie Shaw (1902-1907)
Lyman Gage (1897-1902)
John Carlisle (1893-1897)
Charles Foster Jr. (1891-1893)
William Windom (1889-1891)
Charles Fairchild (1887-1889)
Daniel Manning (1885-1887)
Hugh McCulloch (1884-18885)
Walter Gresham (1884) Lasted 55 days
Charles Folger (1881-1884)
William Windom (1881) Lasted 8 months
John Sherman (1877-1881)
Lot Morrill (1876-1877)
Benjamin Bristow (1874-1876)
William Richardson (1873-1874)
George Boutwell (1869-1873)
Hugh McCulloch (1865-1869)
William Fessenden (1864-1865)
Salmon Chase (1861-1864)
John Dix (1861) Lasted 50 days
Philip Thomas (1860-1861) Lasted 33 days
Howell Cobb (1857-1860)
James Guthrie (1853-1857)
Thomas Corwin (1850-1853)
William Meredith (1849-1850)
Robert Walker (1845-1849)
George Bibb (1844-1845)
John Spencer (1843-1844)
Walter Forward (1841-1843)
Thomas Ewing, Sr. (1841) Lasted 6 months
Levi Woodbury (1834-1841)
Roger Taney (1833-1834)
John Duane (1833) Lasted 4 months
Louis McLane (1831-1833)
Samuel Ingham (1829-1831)
Richard Rush (1825-1829)
William Crawford (1816-1825)
Alexander Dallas (1814-1816)
George Campbell (1814) Lasted 8 months
Albert Gallatin (1801-1814)
Samuel Dexter (1801) Lasted 5 months
Oliver Wolcott (1795-1800)
Alexander Hamilton (1789-1795)
How do you think Geithner ranks, historically, so far?
Ben Smith at POLITICO sinks to new depths of sycophancy and Kool-Aid drenched idolatry
We honestly don’t know how Ben Smith at POLITICO can look himself in the mirror each morning and call himself anything more than an Obama apologist and committed sycophant.
We thought he sunk to a new low by refusing to cover the Obamas’ thoughtless and inconsiderate treatment of Gordon and Mrs. Brown when they visited the United States in official capacity a few weeks back (while the British media excoriated Obama in the fashion the American media would have treated the same events during the Bush Administration).
But today, Ben Smith really out did himself.
He just ran this piece, where he strains so hard to brush aside Obama’s thoughtless jab at the disabled on Jay Leno yesterday that he actually claimed WHAT OBAMA REALLY MEANT TO SAY was that he was comparing the empty compliment Leno had just given him (That’s pretty good, Mr. President) to “the everyone gets a medal ethos of the Special Olympics”. Smith attributes his words to a comment left on his blog, but he very, very rarely quotes such comments directly, and in full, the way he did this bit. He notes that “a reader makes a good point” and, via the reader, explains that “(Obama) wasn’t saying he’s as bad a bowler as a Special Olympian, he was saying Leno’s encouragement was as cheerfully hollow as that of a Special Olympics organizer.”
If Obama got in a car and plowed through a crowded farmer’s market tomorrow, Smith would argue, through reader comments he’d post, that the little old ladies blissfully shopping for tomatoes and cucumbers were at fault for their own gruesome deaths because they were too focused on their farm fresh vegetables to get out of the way of Obama’s recklessly speeding car.
Smith would insist the families of these miscreants should be prosecuted for treason, as their canes and walkers, when flung into the air by Obama’s speeding Oldsmobile (borrowed, like the remnants of Camelot from the Kennedy family garage), became weaponized projectiles consistent with Secret Service threat protocols.
Ben Smith will always maintain nothing is ever Obama’s fault.
That large industrial-strength cooler at his side, forever supplied with the Purple Kool-Aid of Lethe, ensures four strange years of hero-worship from Smith, in Orwellian ways the publishers of Soviet-era Pravda and Izvestia would absolutely marvel at.
There’s no news in the truth, and no truth in the news, as far as Ben Smith and POLITICO’s ever concerned.
Hope!
Change!
Shameless idolatry!
Friday Open Thread
What’s on your mind as we head into the weekend?
For us, we’re still trying to determine exactly how much federal money is coming into Illinois from Obama’s Trillion Dollar Spending Bill, and where that money is going.
Because cities like Chicago continue to refuse to disclose exactly what their share of the Spending Bill is being spent on, we’re having a hard time determining where all the money is going.
Our theory is that a great deal of the Spending Bill’s billions is redundant to, and overlapping with, existing budgeted infrastructure projects — which means Illinois, statewide, should not have an $11 billion deficit, but instead should have a net savings if the Spending Bill’s projects have replaced previously planned, shovel-ready items the state had already committed to.
There is, thus, no reason for Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to raise our taxes, not when billions upon billions of dollars we didn’t have several months ago have now been transferred to Springfield by way of Obama’s Spending Spree.
If that much money has been pumped into our state from Washington, then how on Earth could we have a deficit, when we should have a substantial cost savings if expensive infrastructure projects are now being footed by the feds.
Not being accountants, this will take us a few days to prove or disprove, but it’s the theory we are operating under, and what’s constantly on our minds today, and likely headed into the weekend too.
What are you wondering about, thinking about, researching today?
What's Hillary Clinton Doing Today? March 20th
830am – Delicious breakfast with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson
130pm – Meeting with American Foreign Service Association officials
Go, Hillary, Go!
Parent Trap's on Encore this morning, 630am CST
The 1998 version of The Parent Trap, starring Natasha Richardson, is on Encore1 starting at 630am CST this morning.
It seems to have been scheduled before Richardson’s tragic accident this week, and it’s worth mentioning just because it’s a reminder to us of how fleeting and precious life is.
We have a friend in New York who works in theater, and was part of the crew in 1989 when Richardson starred in Cabaret’s revival. One night, years ago, we were in New York at dinner and got him to talk about all the various stars he’d encountered on Broadway. Richardson was at the top of his list of not only the most professional, but the kindest and most fun as well.
She always reminded us a lot of Lynn Forester de Rothschild, and other warm, inviting, wonderful women we’ve met through the years.
We first heard of Richardson from our friend in New York, and first saw her in anything in that 1998 Lindsay Lohan Parent Trap film, which happens to be on right now as we eat our breakfast and get ready for our day, thinking about all the good people in our own lives who we sometimes take for granted, but whom we’d miss forever if they suddenly passed.
We hope you reach out to those you love today, and in your own way, thank them for being some of your favorite people too. We never met Richardson, but through our friend’s experience were always fond of her. Today, we’re going to take the serendipity of Parent Trap to heart and let all those we’re fond of know how happy we are to know them…because what happened to Richardson proves we don’t always have the chance to do that, since none of us are guaranteed a tomorrow to do the things we ought to do today.
Here comes the sun, and with it a fresh day in which to tell those we love how much they mean to us.
CONFIRMED: Obama's gift of DVDs to Gordon Brown won't even play in England
We suspected this was the case, because Region 2 dvds that would play in England aren’t available at Best Buy or Borders here in the US. We believed Obama’s staff bought Region 1 US-coded DVDs to give to Gordon Brown, without thinking about whether or not Brown would be able to watch the DVDs back in England. We also surmised Brown would not have an expensive multi-region DVD player, as few people in Europe buy such things. Most people just buy machines to play whatever Region-coded DVDs are for sale on their continent. There is typically no use for expensive multi-region players because people are normally thoughtful enough to (1) buy others better presents than DVDs and (2) ensure DVDs will play in that region before gifting them.
Well, Downing Street has admitted that Gordon Brown sat down to watch Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO from the DVDs Obama gave him and the disk wouldn’t play. The words WRONG REGION popped up on the screen. Brown’s office, embarrassed, called the White House for technical assistance, but no one there got back to them about what to do.
The White House still hasn’t answered the question of who on Obama’s staff bought the DVDs for Brown. Our best guess is that it was either Reggie Love, Obama’s personal assistant on the campaign trail, or someone else in a similar capacity working in the West Wing (who, in TV’s Bartlett Administration, would have been personal aide Charlie).
There are trolls who stop by here who keep trying to blame the State Department and Office of Protocol for the DVDs, so it’s worth taking this moment to address that. Those DVDs, just like the toy helicopters Michelle Obama gave to Gordon and Sarah Brown’s children, were purchased personally by the Obamas, with their own money. Those were not state ceremonial gifts from the United States to the people of Great Britain. The DVDs and helicopters were personal gifts from the Obamas to the Browns, charged most likely to the same household entertaining account set up for the Obama’s personal food, beverage, toiletries, and incidental purchases. State gifts are coordinated by the Protocol Office and are paid for by the government; personal gifts are at the discretion of the President, and are paid for personally by the President, via his personal aides.
The Protocol Office is comprised of career diplomats and public servants who have strict rules for state visits and gifts of historic nature from the people of the United States to foreign powers. Gordon Brown’s visit was not a state affair; the White House 100% controlled the shots on this, and the White House staff decided the gifts to be given to the Browns, from Obama to Brown on that personal level.
Brown CHOSE to present Obama with a thoughtful personal gift that Obama will most likely display in his Presidential Library and Museum in the future. As an antique, Obama will be required to pay taxes on this gift, so expect to see it listed in his 2009 taxes when filed next year. If given as a state gift, the pen set Brown provided would be given to the American government, for display in either the White House museum’s permanent collection, or in the Smithsonian or some other government-run institution.
You can learn much more about things like this at your nearest presidential library. Everything we know about gift-giving of this nature comes from the many visits we’ve taken to the Carter Center in Georgia (where a Persian rug the Shah of Iran personally gave Carter is on display) or the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Illinois (where there’s a “Treasure Room” at the center of the museum, with gifts personally given to Lincoln during his presidency).
State gifts do not belong to the President, and do not travel with him or her to Presidential Libraries after he or she leaves office. Personal gifts do leave the White House with the President, and will return to Chicago with the Obamas in 2013, most likely for installation in his Southside Presidential Library (where, interestingly enough, they will most likely be gifted to the nonprofit 501c3 foundation set up to run his Library until it is taken over by the government for maintenance as part of the National Archives and Records Administration).
Will Hillary Clinton ever run for President again?
The article above discusses Team Hillary nationwide, and its organic efforts to maintain Hillary’s Army in winter quarters while she serves as Secretary of State, in the nonpolitical realm, until such time as Clinton will need said army for another political run.
This touches on some things we’ve been wanting to express for a while, but never had an opportunity or impetus to share. Things on a personal level, nebulous, but from the heart, with healthy doses of uncertainty and speculation.
We have no idea what the future will hold, for Hillary Clinton or ourselves. There’s no guarantee any of us will even be around in 2016. In July, we had one of the greatest shocks of our lives when Stephanie Tubbs Jones died unexpectedly. Tubbs Jones was a hero of ours, from her days as a prosecutor in Cleveland. She gave the biggest and most enthusiastic hugs to us on the campaign trail, and remembered those of us from Cleveland from all those years ago. She was an absolute force of nature we’ll never forget, a rare public figure who, like Clinton herself, makes us want to get out of bed and work harder for things we believe in. We still can’t believe she’s gone.
We also have a dear friend named Lionel who’s struggling with prostate cancer, getting ready for this second operation at the end of next month, with a prognosis that’s not good. Lionel campaigned enthusiastically for Clinton all through 2008, and we can’t imagine another campaign without him, let alone all the other adventures we’ll all hopefully have from now until 2016. Life is so tough, so bitterly unfair, in so many awful ways.
Who knows where we’ll be in 2016. We give up a lot to run this site. Movies, nights out, vacations, TV time, gym visits, dinners with friends, parties, you name it. But, we keep going because we don’t see a moderate voice represented in the Kool-Aid soaked liberal media, or extreme Right on the other side of the aisle.
We also want to forever ensure there are people out there who celebrate the work of strong women like Hillary Clinton, and who always support her, and stand up for her, and make sure there’s a place where people who admire her and are moderate Democrats can express themselves. That’s something that didn’t exist before the 2008 campaign, and something we want to see move forward in the years ahead — being there not only for Clinton, but for other female candidates we support, until the day we can all turn the public tide against sexism and misogyny in the media.
We want to support everyone who backed Clinton in the 2008 primaries as well, all the Hillary Heroes. Every elected official who went out on a limb to support Clinton in the face of the nastiness and bias of the Obama-propagandizing media. These people earned our permanent love and support, and believe us, we keep a list of all of them. Whatever we can do to help them, consider that done, to the very best of our abilities.
As for Hillary Clinton herself, we have no idea what she wants for her own future. We want her to run again for President in 2016, but have been told repeatedly by people in the know here in Chicago that she won’t ever put herself through a national campaign again. They just don’t see it happening.
That pains us, and we hope they are wrong, because Hillary Clinton would make an excellent President.
Part of why we continue to maintain this site is because we want to keep learning about politics, and to increase our individual skill sets to be ready should the naysayers be wrong and Clinton would run again — if not for President, then possibly for Governor of New York. The only thing we’re confident on when peering into the undulating and nebulous future is that Clinton will never return to Congress — her talents and skills are more suited to the executive branch, where she can have maximum impact. The Senate is a hopelessly broken and woefully impotent body. Every day, we are glad Clinton no longer has to toil thanklessly there, where seniority prevented her from taking on larger roles, and where she worked her heart out in the shadow of so many talentless and lumbering others.
The article from New York Magazine really does hit on something all of us here have been doing unconsciously, that many of you out there might also be doing without realizing it.
None of us at HillBuzz were highly involved in politics until Hillary Clinton ran for President.
Some of us volunteered here and there, and we voted of course, and we read the news regularly. But, we never put ourselves out there before. Standing behind Clinton, we all found our voices. We rose to the challenges set before us. We acquired a little bit of Hillary Clinton’s drive and moxy, and speaking for ourselves, we’re certainly better men because of it.
We were activated as committed and determined citizens by Hillary Clinton; we became activists in her shadow, inspired to stand up and fight for what we believed in by her relentless determination and courage. When she stood in front of that crowd in Pennsylvania, in the pouring rain, and campaigned herself hoarse, we looked at each other and realized THAT’S the sort of person we need in elected office, that Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the real deal, and that we’d go to absolute Hell and back for her.
For at least the next four years, there’s not much any of us can do for her, besides continuing to follow her activities at the State Department and support the people who believed in and supported her in 2008. We can keep the band together, as they say, and maintain and grow the Hillary Friendships we formed on the battlefields of Iowa, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, Indiana etc. last year. Once a month, we have Team Hillary get-togethers that continue to draw 50 or so people. On a daily basis, we remain in constant contact with Team Hillary friends. When there’s a candidate we want to support, or an issue we want to get behind, the nucleus of that action squad is always Hillary people. As we think about where we stand on issues or candidates, we look to Team Hillary leadership to determine which side we should fall into.
As we said, all of this has been very organic. There was no coordinated effort to do any of this. It just sort of happened.
And, as we get further and further away from the 2008 campaign, none of this is going anywhere. Who knows what Clinton will do after she leaves Foggy Bottom in 4-8 years. She might very well retire — and certainly she would have earned that right. The woman wakes up early every day and works her absolute heart out. Whether you love her like we do or hate her (but come to a site dedicated to her anyway, which is still so bizarre to us), you have to give credit where credit is due: we’ve never seen anyone work as hard as she does, thanklessly, in the face of more criticism and venom than any living person we’ve ever known.
Either the 45th or the 46th President of the United States will be a woman.
After that, we believe every other president or so will be female, from here on out.
We want Hillary Clinton to be the 45th or 46th President of the United States, and that is what we want to work for in the next 4-8 years. But, if it’s not meant to be, and if Clinton doesn’t want to run, we’ll have to accept that, whenever we have to cross that bridge.
But, whatever happens, we believe Team Hillary will continue to work together in the months and years ahead, long after the Obamania has faded and the rest of America sees Obama for what we’ve always known him to be. In the end, we’ll certainly see if his followers are committed to him as strongly as we’re committed to Clinton, and to moderates of all stripes in Hillary’s Army, alongside whom we intend to continue working hard for common goals indefinitely.
We implore moderate Democrats and Republicans to join together to defeat Chris Dodd in 2010
We truly implore moderate Democrats and Republicans to join together today, and commit to defeating Chris Dodd in 2010′s midterm elections.
Dodd is a poster boy for deceit and corruption. Just because he has a (D) at the end of his name doesn’t mean we have to tolerate this lying, repulsive toad of a politician. The days of blind party loyalty are over, and, thus, Dodd’s days in Congress should come to an end.
But, he’s been elected five times in Connecticut. Incumbents are re-elected 80% of the time or more. Defeating him will be difficult. On a personal level, being from the midwest, and being based in Chicago, we’re a bunch of Hillary guys in Boystown who know absolutely nothing about Connecticut or what it will take to bring Dodd down. So, we’ve got the motivation and the drive to see this happen, but we lack the on-the-ground insight and skills.
We need people in Connecticut, from both sides of the aisle, who can work together to defeat Chris Dodd in 2010. There’s actually a chance, if we work hard enough and decrease his polling considerably in the months ahead, that Dodd could retire from Congress on his own, citing the usual “family reasons”, and withdraw before the 2010 primary. This would be ideal, as we’d then not have to trust Connecticut’s voters to do the right thing and send this corpulent national embarrassment packing.
Chris Dodd in 2010. Claire McCaskill in 2012. Just two terrible Democrats we want to see out of the Senate, and will work our hearts out side-by-side with Republicans to defeat.
Now, we’re certainly not going to agree with each other on everything, but we bet a good majority of us can agree in these two instances alone. There will be a lot of races in the years ahead, so it’s going to be hard for us to focus on all of them. We’re going to have to pick and choose where to involve ourselves, or risk diluting our focus completely.
We want to hear from you, regular readers, to see where you want to go in 2010 and beyond. For us, defeating Dodd and McCaskill are priorities, as are electing Terry McAuliffe as Governor of Virginia and re-electing Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska.
That’s four races right there. We don’t know how many more will grab our attention, but McAuliffe and Palin are personal to us. We would go to Hell and back for Terry McAuliffe, for everything he did for Hillary Clinton over the years. Sarah Palin has a servant’s heart and long ago earned our constant and perpetual support and admiration.
So in 2010, we’ve already got three races we want to involve ourselves in, on both sides of the aisle. There will no doubt be more.
And as we head into summer, and the 2010 campaigns really start up, we hope you continue to express where you want to go in terms of support, and where you think we should put our efforts.
As always, we’re sure we won’t agree on everything, but want to work together in the instance in which we do agree, even if we might have to oppose one another, respectfully, here and there.
Because, we support good candidates of either party who will serve their constituents well. If they’ve got servant’s hearts, pragmatism, strong work ethics, and histories of hard work and reform, they’ve got our support.
If they are like Dodd and McCaskill, they can, frankly, go straight to Hell. Because we are sick of bad Democrats giving us a bad name, and want all bums like this tossed out of he Senate on their greedy, fat, lying, rear ends.
Will you join us and help make this happen?
Terry McAuliffe's Business Plan for Virginia
Terry McAuliffe is a phenomenal person. We met him several times during the 2008 campaign and believe in him, as a person and a politician. He is a great, great guy.
Terry’s proposing wind farms and algae-to-biodiesel programs for Virginia that are practical, affordable, and sound investments in energy independence.
The problem with most biodiesel programs is that they rely on corn produced ethanol, which is wasteful. The ideal biological source for ethanol is Brazilian sugar cane, which grows cheaply and rapidly and is harvested and processed with minimal effort and waste. Obviously, Virginia isn’t hospitable to sugar cane development (the way Hawaii, Guam, the US Marshall Islands, Midway Island, and perhaps even Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands would be). But, the tidal and marshy areas of Virginia sure would be a great place for algae biodiesel farms.
Unfortunately, Iowa’s lobbyists successfully prevent any non-corn-ethanol programs from developing on a federal level.
If anyone can change this with a successful state-based program, it is Terry.
Just one of the reasons why we believe in, and support him.
Go, Terry, Go!
