Author: Moe_Lane

Obama attempting to mitigate AIG Bonus meltdown?

From Blue Crab Boulevard we see the first subtle signs of panic from the Obama administration over the likely repercussions of letting Congressional Democrats attempt to scapegoat Wall Street for their own sins.

Obama Seeks to Soften the Punitive Legislation

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration wants to soften the impact of bills speeding through Congress that would impose heavy new taxes on Wall Street bonuses. But some potential allies in the Senate are reluctant to cooperate, fearing the political consequences of watering down the legislation.

Financial-industry officials launched a campaign Friday to fight back but are finding their hands tied: Anti-Wall Street sentiment following the American International Group Inc. bonus payouts is making it difficult to reach once-friendly lawmakers to make their case. Key senators and their staffers, nervous about appearing to support the industry, are refusing all meetings, and, in some cases, turning away phone calls. “Unless you have a pitchfork and a noose nobody’s listening to you” on Capitol Hill, said one financial lobbyist.

The White House has yet to publicly criticize the bonus tax proposals. But administration officials say privately they are concerned the House and Senate bills could lead to an exodus of employees or whole companies from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, known as TARP, as well as other government-sponsored financial rescue efforts.

Continue reading Obama attempting to mitigate AIG Bonus meltdown?

More details on retail ‘Card Check’ compromise.

The Washington Times is reporting on more details of the possible retail store “Card Check” compromise that Brian Faughnan wrote of yesterday, and the details of this one are definitely more palatable than the proposal presented in the Wall Street Journal. The plan being offered by the retailers preserves more than the secret ballot:

Their compromise would reject the card check method of voting and keep secret-ballot voting as it is now practiced in most instances. The compromise would also eliminate the union-backed provision that would force the settlement of certification disputes through mandatory arbitration.

To assuage the unions, the plan would for the first time permit union organizers to press their cases at work sites and would also prevent long delays before a union certification vote must be held.

…which, as Ed Morrissey notes, is much more likely to pass the Senate than the current version.  In fact, the current version is not likely to pass the Senate at all. Continue reading More details on retail ‘Card Check’ compromise.

Obamateurism* of the Day, 03/22/2009.

This new feature comes from Ed Morrissey, and it’s pretty much in direct response to Slate’s unaccountable decision to not let go of what was never a particularly funny joke in the first place. But if Slate wants to play, hey, we can play too. With more video footage.

You can send in your tip to Ed at obamaisms@edmorrissey.com . He figures that he can make this a daily feature, and so do I. Who knows? There even might be a book or two in it – and now we know why Jacob Weisberg’s so keen to keep this thing going. You get used to income streams, know what I mean?

Moe Lane

*I’m not entirely loving the name, though.

Crossposted at RedState.

But where did he get the poodle?

I don’t know if robbery is really a realistic charge, here (H/T: Drudge):

A 14-year-old Saginaw boy has been charged with strong-arm robbery and assault in juvenile court after he pushed a woman and broke her cell phone while taking a walk naked with a large white poodle in Hart Township Monday, police say.

Lt. Craig Mast of the Oceana County Sheriff’s Office said a 14-year-old youth walked away from a youth behavioral treatment facility Monday morning, stripped down, and was with a “giant” white poodle when he approached a woman working in her yard just after 11:30 a.m. Monday in the area of Oceana Drive and Lake Road.

“The young naked man approached her with this poodle, and she immediately realized something peculiar,” Mast said.

You don’t say.

Moe Lane

PS: I guess that he technically stole the dog.

Hope Springs Eternal Watch: Serenity edition

“Why the time is right for a Serenity sequel.” (Via Fark)

I think that I’m going to be seeing articles like this come out at regular, clockwork-like intervals for the rest of my life.  Look, I own Firefly.  I went to go see Serenity as soon as it came out, and had many an adventure along the way.  The statement “I aim to misbehave” has passed my lips many a time, particularly since the night of November 4, 2008.  So I want a goram sequel to happen, OK?

It ain’t gonna happen.

National Journal reporting tie on partisan identification.

(Via Ace of Spades) All tied up at 42/42.  The important paragraph is below:

Democrats still outnumbered Republicans in terms of party identification in this poll by 6 points, 45 percent to 39 percent. Democrats also favored their own party’s congressional candidates 83 percent to 7 percent. But voters who call themselves independents gave GOP candidates the edge by 14 points, 38 percent to 24 percent. And self-identified Republicans supported their own party’s candidates 85 percent to 3 percent.

That is a meltdown, from the Democrats’ point of view: unlike Ace, I’m willing to buy that this represents a desire to swing the pendulum back.  Either that, or they just want to see some ruthlessness directed constructively for a change.  The kind we’re getting now seems sort of counter-productive.

Crossposted to RedState.

The Great CWFP AIG Intimidation Run Round-Up.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Hot Air, Instapundit, & Fausta readers. If you haven’t seen Jammie Wearing Fools’ post yet, go for it.

To review:

  • (Via Fausta, Hot Air) A group called “the Connecticut Working Families Party” planned to bus around people to visit AIG offices and their officials’ homes. This has alarmed New York Magazine sufficiently that they find themselves agreeing with Rush Limbaugh about how things are getting out of hand.
  • (Via Sweetness & Light, Instapundit)  It turns out that CWFP is yet another dummy group for ACORN.
  • ACORN was most recently in the news because of yet another call by a Congressman to investigate their role in what the Washington Times calls “in a pattern of crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style ‘protection’ racket.”  What makes this news is that the Congressman in question is the Hon. John Conyers, Jr (D-MI).  His fellow-Democrats are being slightly more hampered in pushing back on this, mostly because they can’t use the standard reply of calling Conyers a racist.
  • (Via Heritage) Lastly, ACORN was second-to-last in the news for being made a “National Partner” in the 2010 Census.  The UK Telegraph succinctly summed this up as “Foxes guarding the chicken coop.”

So, to recap: the supposed ‘grassroots’ group of protesters making a big show of attempting to gin up faux-populist hysteria turns out to be a puppet of an election fraud group so blatant that it alarms partisan Democrats… and said group was one that this administration decided to have knock on your door next year and ask you all sorts of personal information.

Other than all of that, of course, there’s nothing of concern about this story.

Moe Lane

PS: Fortunately in this specific case, the event was/is a bust: they apparently pulled out the hard core and left the idiots to have their paradigm confused in an organic food store.

Crossposted to RedState.

Yet another Star Trek TV show?

“All parties, by the way, absolutely detest answering questions on this subject, knowing any response they give will spawn headlines and inevitably get them yelled at by somebody”

The above is from this article speculating – speculating! – that the upcoming release of the new Star Trek movie could result in a reboot of the franchise for television. I don’t know what I’m grimacing more at, though: the thought of what the author called “Gossip Girl in Space”(both I and Allahpundit winced at the trailer, which makes this allegation altogether too horrifyingly believable); or the first line of the article, which claims that faster-than-light travel is theoretically possible [UPDATE: unless it doesn’t; see comments below].  I am given to understand that this is wrong in a fashion that makes physicists gibber; I look forward to testing that in the near future*.

Canceled Enterprise or no, there’s money in Star Trek.  It’ll be back.  Whether it’ll be back in the highly bizarre – if not really implausible – fashion suggested above is another story.

Moe Lane

*Yes, I know about tachyons.  That’s why the physicist is gibbering.