barack obama – Page 93

Senate to discreetly shut down House AIG bill of attainder.

House to gratefully let them.

They may call it “delay,” but they mean “eliminate” – and the Washington Post is happy to assist with putting this story on the seventh page.

Senate Will Delay Action on Punitive Tax on Bonuses

Jarred by a cool reception from the White House and fears of unintended consequences across the financial world, Senate leaders are likely to delay until late next month legislation to punitively tax bonuses at banks and investment firms that receive federal aid.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced last week that the Senate would move ahead with the legislation as soon as possible, and he attempted to bring the bill to the floor Thursday night. But he revised that timetable yesterday, saying that the chamber will spend this week debating a national-service bill before turning to a long-scheduled showdown over the budget for fiscal 2010. With just two weeks to go until Congress departs for a spring recess, action on the tax measure would be unlikely before late April.

That will effectively kill the bill, because everyone in Washington is betting that a month should be enough time for the populace to have something else besides the Democrat-inspired and Democrat-encouraged AIG bonus PR fiasco to focus upon; which is not a bad bet, actually. Already people are starting to notice that the Democrats’ House bill has a good deal of faux-populist outrage associated with it; and as Glenn Reynolds over in Forbes is pointing out, the Democrats are going to be soon having to hit up the very people that they’re currently demonizing for campaign contributions. Time to let this story die, and that’s why there’s a Senate in the first place. Continue reading Senate to discreetly shut down House AIG bill of attainder.

Obama contacts DNC about Sanford request before contacting Sanford.

I had to have Protein Wisdom point out this fairly significant, and frankly insulting, thing that happened to Governor Sanford:

Last week I reached out to the president, asking for a federal waiver from restrictions on stimulus money. I got a most unusual response. Before I even received an acknowledgment of the request from the White House, I got word that the Democratic National Committee was launching campaign-style TV attack-ads against me for making it.

Just in case nobody’s ever mentioned it to the President of the United States, let me: you are a government official first, a Democrat second. That means that you take care of the former’s business before you attend to the latter’s. Doing it the other way around is inappropriate.

I can use ruder words and still be perfectly accurate, by the way.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

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?

By the way, we’re having a trade war with Mexico.

Yes, yes, I know: NAFTA’s supposed to prevent that sort of thing, but we’re having one anyway:

Ricardo Alday, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington said pressuring politicians by hitting imports from states with key Democratic leaders with tariffs of up to 90 percent “is one the main considerations,” for the action, the Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday.

The official list of products has not been released, but a draft obtained by economist Dermot Hayes at the University of Iowa suggest the tariffs will pinpoint almonds from California, sunglasses from Illinois, bowling equipment from Nevada and books from New York — the home states of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President Barack Obama, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

And before you ask: yes, it’s because of the bill that Dina Titus (D-NV) said that she read. Continue reading By the way, we’re having a trade war with Mexico.

BETAMAX WOULD HAVE BEEN COOL.

Charmingly retro.

It was even popular in England: it was only because VHS won out in the US that it died out over there. In other words, a Betamax gift would have rocked, Iowahawk.

Sorry: it turns out that the stupid jokes that we all made about how the DVDs that Obama gave Brown were the wrong region were…

Yeah. Yeah, they were. How do we know? Because the Prime Minister actually sat down to watch ’em, that’s how we know.

I never want to hear another single damned word about how intellectually incurious George W Bush was.

EVER.

Moe Lane

A recap of the AIG Bonus Blame Party.

So, let us review the bidding on the AIG bonus scandal, and who’s being blamed for it.

The Senate, in the person of Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), is blaming the executive branch, pretty explicitly.

The House, in the person of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), is likewise blaming the executive branch – but she’s also blaming the Senate.

The White House doesn’t want to blame anybody… but AIG is like a suicide bomber (H/T Hot Air), and a “senior government official” is just plain “outraged” at that awful Congress for passing this. But Obama’s not about pointing fingers about how it could be the Republican’s fault – which is good, because as Ace points out our only contribution to this mess was Senator Olympia Snowe’s (R-ME) language in the debt bill that would have prevented these bonuses in the first place (that was before Dodd/Geithner/The White House/The Easter Bunny took them out, of course). Nope. It’s all Obama’s responsibility – but not his fault!
Continue reading A recap of the AIG Bonus Blame Party.

Bill Clinton agrees that Obama should smile more.

Not in so many words, but he generally echoed something that I noted yesterday: our President is not being reassuring enough. Like all good poisoners, Clinton makes sure that the fatal dose is well-mixed with things designed to mask the taste. In this case, GOP-bashing:

Bill Clinton: Obama Should Sound More Hopeful

[snip]

Regarding Obama’s bleak warnings that “the economy could get worse before it gets better,” and that the economic stimulus program is only the beginning of the end of the economic crisis, Clinton said, “I like the fact that he didn’t come in and give us a bunch of happy talk. I’m glad he shot straight with us.”

But he added, “I just want the American people to know that he’s confident that we are gonna get out of this and he feels good about the long run.”

Clinton thinks Obama should talk to the public in greater depth about the economy.

“I like trying to educate the American people about the dimensions and scope of this economic crisis,” Clinton said. “I just would like him to end by saying that he is hopeful and completely convinced we’re gonna come through this.”

Continue reading Bill Clinton agrees that Obama should smile more.

Spokesman: Barack Obama against reviving ‘Fairness Doctrine.’

Via Glenn, it sounds very declarative:

“As the president stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated,” White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

But then, so did his stand against FISA.
And for public financing of elections.
And against the war in Iraq.
And for transparency in lawmaking.
And against torture.

I can keep going, but you get the drift. There is what we’d call a history, here.

Crossposted at RedState.

Mike Lupica thinks that we need to leave Obama alone!

This is Keith Olbermann’s greatest sin, you know.

That is, convincing sports writers that they, too, can be political pundits. Which maybe they can, but this particular example rapidly went from ‘funny’ to ‘sad’:

Naysayers in media and partisans in both parties are undermining Obama

The real wisdom on the current state of American politics comes from the great Walt Kelly, from his Earth Day poster from 1970, the one in which Pogo famously says, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Appropriately enough, the subject of the poster is pollution. There is so much of that going on around the new President these days he probably wants to wear a gas mask.

Look, I have nothing against Walt Kelly – but geez, whenever I see that quote used in a column I immediately groan. It’s a tell. It’s a whining tell. Continue reading Mike Lupica thinks that we need to leave Obama alone!

Congratulations, Democrats.

[UPDATE] Since Jim Treacher in comments here asked: “Then what are you worried about,” Chuck?

61/36, with Collins, Snowe, & Specter voting for cloture (Gregg is sitting this one out and Coleman can’t participate in this Congress yet). In other words, the Democratic Party now owns an 800 billion dollar debt plan.

They’re welcome to it, in fact.

So can we get to the final vote and the signing, already? We have midterm elections to plan for.

Moe Lane

Crossposted at RedState.