EckerNet.Com

The big news today is that AIG is giving bonuses to executives at the same time as they are depending on public bailout funds to stay afloat.  The outrage is understandable and predictable, it sends a bad image and demonstrate a complete lack of responsibility for the plight of their company.  What\’s truly amazing, however, is where this phony bullshit outrage is coming from.

President Obama is attempting to restrict what bailout funds can be used for.  But only a short while ago, President Obama was threatening to veto any attempts to impose tougher restrictions on the use of TARP funds.

Treasury Secretary Geither, who cheated on his taxes, is now lecturing other people about personal responsibility?

Rep. Barney Frank, the same guy whose ineptitude partially caused our current recession, is now claiming we should fire AIG executives for their screwups.  Amazingly he doesn\’t include himself in that group.

Senator Dodd, seeking to tax the bonuses to recoup the money after the outrage, even though he had added an exception to the bailout legislature specifically exempting these same bonuses.

Just another example of the fact that Obama really has no idea what he\’s doing.  Which is pretty easy to have happen when you put up a man with no experience who has no central principles, other than his narcissitic nature.

UPDATE: Added reference to Dodd

House just passed the Stimulus Porkulus bill 246 – 183.  Once again there was bipartisan opposition as all Republicans and 7 Democrats voted against it.  Only Democrats voted for it.

In addition this violated Pelosi\’s promise to post a bill online for at least 48 hours before a vote.  It went online last night at 11pm.  That\’s only 10 hours before the House convened to consider the bill…..  By Democrat math, 10 = 48, which explains why they think this bill will stimulate the economy even though economist say it won\’t.  But to be fair they had to vote so that Pelosi could catch her porktastic flight to Rome…also at taxpayer expense.

Plus many members haven\’t even received a copy of the 1000+ page bill, even though lobbyists had it by early afternoon yesterday.  So you know damn well probably not a single member of the House had even read this piece of shit before voting on it….and even they admit that.

This is the bipartisan Era of Hopenchange we were waiting for…

Now it\’s up to the Senate, where it is not clear that they will get the 60 votes they\’ll need.

[Crossposted at True North]

Ok that\’s not completely true, as I\’m sure Cynthia McKinney could probably give her a run for her money.  But this clip is of Waters doing her \”your crazy drunken aunt advocating for balloon animal civil rights\” impression, while grilling banking CEOs over their use of the TARP money

There is a certain part of me that just cringes in embarrassment for her and silently wishes she\’d just stop.  But then there is the cruel part of me that\’s just eating it up, especially when she\’s calling out \”Does anyone understand what I\’m saying\” followed by blank stares and the chirping of crickets.  Eventually the fun is ended when the chairman has to give her a verbal sedative and put her back in her straight jacket.

Now there is a lot of things to be critical of the banks for, especially when it comes to handling of the TARP money.  But it\’s not entirely their fault.  It\’s a little like giving your 15-year-old son the car keys, a bottle of whiskey, and a pistol and then getting pissed when something bad happens.

Since Rep. Waters serves on the committees that should oversee these sort of matters, she shares a great deal of the blame.  Especially when she is at least partially responsible, along with Senator Dodd.  At a 2004 Congressional hearing, she helped block oversight of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, stating \”We do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and in particular at Fannie Mae\”  She went on to criticize Republicans for wanting additional regulation.  This is while she was also taking campaign donations from them.

Rep Maxine Waters, go sell crazy someplace else, thanks in part to you, we\’re broke.

Earlier this month, Senator Ted \”Drunk Driving\” Kennedy left the Judiciary Committee to concentrate on healthcare legislation.  Aside from the irony of someone who left their own secretary to die wanting to concentrate on health care, this undoubtably means that Democrats will not be pushing for \”comprehensive immigration reform\” this session.  With one of their leading Democrats essentially swearing off the immigration issue, their Republican leader (McCain) essentially neutered and the White House CoS not included immigration as one of their priority items, the immigration issue is likely to remain sidelined for the next two years at least.

That\’s good and bad.

Good because we don\’t have to worry about McCain and his merry band of Democrats essentially making Mexico the 51st state.

On the other hand, if the immigration issue is to be sidelined that means further enforcement measures are likely to get sidelined as well.  The authorization for the fence expires soon and very little of it has been built, regardless of what the Department of Homeland Security claims.  The authorization for E-Verify, one of our most effective enforcement tools, is set to expire on March 6th, 2009.  And our open borders policy, in practice if not officially, continues and the hordes continue to flood.

The economy is sliding downward and layoffs continue.  In November 533,000 jobs were lost.  So far in December we\’ve lost 115,000.  Yet in November we imported 140,000 more foreign workers.

One of the big arguments by the open borders crowd was always that we needed foreign workers because we didn\’t have enough people to fill all the jobs we have.  We had jobs Americans won\’t do.  We can\’t even employ the people we already have.  What possible reason would we have to continue to allow foreign workers to flood across our borders and take jobs from Americans?  Especially when removing those foreign workers improves working conditions for the Americans that will fill those jobs instead.

We can\’t wait for Obama and the rest of the Democrats to decide that they have time for immigration now.  Let\’s lean on them now to make a move that will help save American jobs, rather than just spend us into oblivion.

Seems every week our Congress Critters have found a new way to flush a couple hundred billion down the toilet.  Give them access to an endless (at least in their world) pile of money, they\’ll find a way to spend it.  And it\’s usually to try to force the taxpayers money to be spent on whatever THEY want, rather than what we want.  And of course they have to factor in the usual pork.

Well Texas Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert has an even better idea.  Neal Boortz explains it in detail, but basically here\’s the idea.  There is about $350 billion left in the bailout to be spent, and the government takes in roughly $167 billion in taxes each month.  So rather than have politicians give out cash to their campaign supporters, even if those companies are doomed to fail anyway, let the taxpayers do it.

Basically that $350 billion represents about two months worth of taxes, so the govt would just absorb that cash and instead stop collecting taxes for two months.  Then the taxpayers can take that extra cash and spend it on whichever companies THEY deem worthy.  As an added bonus, the extra money goes to those who are actually driving our economy by working and contributing taxes. Like I said, Neal Boortz has more details but that\’s the gist of it.

Help let our Congress Critters know you support the plan by signing on here.  Also call up your Senators and Representative and let them know they should support the Gohmert plan (HR7309).  And a very hearty thank you goes to Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who is already a co-sponsor.

You alternative is this piece of shit Automakers Bailout Bill.

[Crossposted at True North]

Pelosi and her merry band of misfits, despite continued near-record-low approval ratings, continue to pursue a bailout for the Big Three US automakers.  That despite heavy public opposition to the plan. I am somewhat encouraged that Republicans appear to be lining up to block the move.

A small group of Republican senators is threatening to filibuster any auto industry bailout deal if their concerns are not addressed in it, FOX News has learned.

A Senate Republican aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, told FOX News that the senators are \”very skeptical\” that an acceptable deal will be reached and said they were strongly considering a filibuster — which would delay any resolution.

I\’m encouraged, even though it\’s a bad move politically.

If Republicans just let it go by but vote against it, they get to spend two years pounding the war drums.  They get to hold this up as another example of out-of-control Democrat spending.  When the automakers tanks even after the bailout, they get to hold up Democrats as being incompetent.  As the economy continues to flounder even after another bailout, they get to declare Democrats as examples of horrible leadership.

On the other hand, if they actually try to block it and succeed, then Democrats get to label Republicans as obstructionists.  They get to declare that Republicans are playing politics with the nation\’s economy.  And even economic hiccup, no matter how slight, is all because Republicans blocked a bailout.

So even though I think it\’s a bad move politically, I\’d be glad to see it….too bad it won\’t happen.

Mostly because Republicans have yet to demonstrate enough of a backbone to be able to pull anything like this off.  But also because I don\’t think Republicans are prepared for the next logical step, and therefore are just going to go along with whatever the majority has.  Because if Republicans make too much noise or offer too much resistance, eventually Democrats are going to turn it on them and ask \”Ok fine, what do you have in mind??\”…and I don\’t think Republicans have any more of a clue of what to do then the Democrats do.