In March 2009, Chris Dodd (D-CT) acknowledged (after several denials) that he had worked behind the scenes to weaken a provision dealing with executive pay in the economic stimulus legislation at the request of the Obama administration. As USA Today reported, "The provision inserted in the bill instead expressly allowed companies that received taxpayer bailout money to pay retention bonuses that were part of employment contracts signed before Feb. 11, 2009. That would include the AIG bonuses, although Dodd has said he didn't know about the AIG bonuses at the time."
Update: Yesterday, Marc Ambinder reported that Dodd (D-CT) may be offered a job in the Obama administration.
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Bloomberg - The Federal Reserve Bank of NY, then led by Timothy Geithner, told AIG to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer's payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show.
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"Cheney's got $2 million to write about his memories, and he's trying to stay in the public eye to push his book. Who's doing the introduction to his book, ...Satan?" - Rep. Alan Grayson, always good for a quote Link
What about Dean/Grayson ticket? Or Dean/Franken?
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It's hard to understand the ignorance that would cause someone to be a climate change denier. Look no further than christian fundamentalism.
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More here.
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I'm afraid to say this is true: Ann Coulter Is Worried About "Foreskin" And "Anus" Bombing: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/ann-coulter-is-worried-about-foreskin-and-anus-bombing/
I'm guessing ol' Ann is sweating bullets because who knows what we would learn about her if she had a full-body scan.
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The right, waterboarding, and superstitious thinking
If the reaction we've seen on the right to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's crotchbomb attempt shows us anything, it's that even failed terrorist attacks work -- at least, among the cowardly. We have to start waterboarding again, some tell us. Others say we should strip search all Muslims at airports. It won't take much to get some idiot to demand we start waterboarding all Muslims at airports, just to be sure. And, when that inevitably fails to keep terrorists at bay, we'll just start waterboarding everyone.There's a certain amount of superstitious thinking when it comes to the right and the question of torture. For them, it has the talismanic power, like crosses to vampires, and waterboarding in and of itself is an anti-terror tactic -- regardless of the circumstances. In this case, they call for waterboarding Abdulmutallab, because it has the magic power of warding off other terrorists.
http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2010/01/right-waterboarding-and-superstitious.html
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Sea Shephard's hi-tech anti-whaling speedboat Ady Gil was virtually cut in half by a Japanese ship running interference for whalers this week. The Japanese Sdhonan Maru hit the speedboat during one of the confrontations at sea.
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Here's one of our fine evangelicals in action delivering his "nuclear bomb" to Uganda: http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/01/06/19081
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Byron Dorgan Should Have Lawrence Summers' Job
With millions of people suffering the consequences of the lost decade, and the economy still staggering, it's surreal that the Senator who was right is leaving, while the White House adviser who so many times was wrong is staying: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/014676.php
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Obama sides with the Senate on taxing higher cost healthcare plans: http://www.americablog.com/2010/01/obama-sides-with-senate-on-tax-on.html
Mine is "higher cost" because I'm self employed. Does this mean I'll get taxed?
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The Rude One gets it right:
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3. If we do lose our shit every time some Nigerian fries his junk, doesn't that mean that terrorists are winning? It barely needs to be said, no? That terrorism contains its purpose in its name. That the real result of 9/11 is that Osama bin Laden kicked our asses because we played his game, spending ourselves into domestic insecurity in order to deal with a ghost of a foreign threat. We've done practically everything the drama queens of al Qaeda could ask ...
Be afraid, all the time. The terrorists are winning.
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It is conservatives who are emboldening the enemy: http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2010/01/it-is-conservatives-who-are-emboldening.html
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Vapid political whore mulls run for the Senate
Encouraged by a group of influential New York Democrats, Harold Ford Jr., the former congressman from Tennessee, is weighing a bid to unseat Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand in this fall's Democratic primary, according to three people who have spoken with him.
Let me be clear about this: I'd really think hard about voting for a Republican over Harold Ford. He's completely in the pocket of the monied interests on Wall Street, which is pretty easy to see when you look at both where he works (Merrill Lynch) and who wants him to run. A telling point is he is part of the Democratic group that is pretty much made of Republicans who fell into the vat of blue dye by mistake (the DLC). Ford would care for the issues which are important to the middle class about as much as did George Bush (father and son).
About the only way I'd vote for him would be if the Republicans persuaded Sarah Palin to relocate to New York and run against him, but even then, I'd probably write in somebody else.
About the only way I'd vote for him would be if the Republicans persuaded Sarah Palin to relocate to New York and run against him, but even then, I'd probably write in somebody else.
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KABUL — Children are the biggest victims of the war in Afghanistan, with more than 1,050 people under 18 years old killed last year alone, according to an Afghan human rights watchdog.
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This ought to give the evolution-deniers something to struggle with getting their feeble little brains around Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute have discovered that prions - protein molecules totally devoid of genetic material - can evolve to forms more suitable to their environment and can even develop drug resistance. "In the study, published in the journal Science, the scientists transferred prion populations from brain cells to other cells in culture and observed the prions that adapted to the new cellular environment out-competed their brain-adapted counterparts...When returned to the brain cells, the brain-adapted prions again took over the population."
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Words people used to say with a straight face
Back when America was awesome, black people were called "Negroes." Sure, the title may have implied that black people were a separate sub-human species, but everyone was cool with that until the ACLU or ACORNS probably filed a lawsuit against it and America and the troops. Time for a comeback! And look, it's on the 2010 Census form as an option, right next to "black" and "African-American." Will "Person 1″ be forced to write in, "ALL OF THE ABOVE?" MORE »
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Didn't he know we were at war?????????
Keepin' us safer: the former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco: "Al Qaeda's resurgence in Yemen can, in no small part, be traced back to Dick Cheney himself," the asshole buddy and oil crony of the Saudis.
In 2007, Cheney personally authorized the release of 11 Saudis from Guantanamo, who then passed through a leaky Saudi halfway house terrorist rehabilitation program to rejoin Al Qaeda. Two of the 11 former detainees took the express jihadi underground railroad to rejoin Al Qaeda in Yemen.But… but… the Demoncraps are soft on terrism!!!
U.S. counterterrorism officials confirmed that one of the Cheney repats was Said Al-Shihri, who became the deputy leader of the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda, and that he was suspected of being involved in a deadly attack on the U.S. embassy in Yemen in 2007…. {snip}
As a result, America is a whole lot less safe because of Mr. Cheney's own decisions.
