Surprisingly, another Goldman exec joins the government

Sorry, but this shit is getting old. Hearing about one more Goldman person moving over to watch over their friends is a very tired story. This explains why that company only bounces up despite requiring their own handout. (The AIG handouts continue to benefit Goldman enormously as we just witnessed.) It's not that a Wall Street insider isn't a good choice to watch over since they know the system but damn, it's always Goldman.

A Goldman Sachs executive has been named the first chief operating officer of the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division.

The market watchdog agency said Friday that Adam Storch, vice president in Goldman Sachs' Business Intelligence Group, is assuming the new position of managing executive of the SEC division.

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GOP Senator Batters Witness Over Domestic Violence Report

From Ryan Grim at Huff Post:

After the Huffington Post reported that eight states still allow insurance companies to treat domestic violence as a precondition, leaders from three of those declared that they would put an end to the practice.

North Carolina Republican Senator Richard Burr took a different approach and instead challenged the head of the organization, the National Women's Law Center, that issued the original report at a Senate hearing Thursday.

Burr's reaction was the polar opposite of Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, who told the Jackson Free Press after the story broke that he was ashamed that his state was on the list.

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Love her

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Finally, a perp walk on Wall Street

Of course what immediately jumps out is that it's an American who was born in Sri Lanka. The amount in question is pretty substantial for most of us though in the big picture, is chump change. Amazing how the authorities go after someone who isn't white skinned and working for one of the big names on Wall Street. It's always more of the same and protecting the same old crowd. Ignore the hundreds of millions the big guns paid each other on bogus business and look at the non-white guys who allegedly swindled $25 million. There's nothing quite like the old boy network and saps who believe in this rotted, corrupt system.

One of America's wealthiest men was among six hedge fund managers and corporate executives arrested Friday in a hedge fund insider trading case that prosecutors say generated more than $25 million in illegal profits and should be a wake-up call for Wall Street.

Raj Rajaratnam, a partner in Galleon Management and a portfolio manager for Galleon Group, a hedge fund with up to $7 billion in assets under management, was accused of conspiring with others to trade based on insider information about several publicly traded companies, including Google Inc.

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Nice job by the NFL this week

Not that I follow the NFL much, but great job this week. Owners and the NFL players union all rose up against Rush Limbaugh being a potential minority owner. After one owner spoke out and ripped him for being a hate-monger, the floodgates opened. They told him to take his money elsewhere. Limbaugh has gone into victim mode which has his knuckle dragging listeners in a frenzy. Nobody forced him to race bait so let him live with his words. It's nice to see people such a strong, unified push back by the NFL. Waaaaaahhhhhhhh.

Limbaugh blamed Smith, executive director of the NFLPA and an "Obama-ite," along with Sharpton and Jackson, whom he referred to as "race hustlers," for Checketts' decision to drop him. He said his sacking was an example of the political clout wielded by President Barack Obama's administration.

"What is happening to the National Football League, what is about to happen to it, has already happened to Wall Street, has already happened to the automobile business," Limbaugh said.

Limbaugh said he was victimized in the media by "misreporting, lying, repeating the lies while also saying 'Limbaugh denies,' repeating the made-up quotes, the blind hatred."

NOTE FROM JOHN: Yes, Rush Limbaugh is the most misunderstood man in America. It's simply unfathomable that anyone would find him controversial. That is, except Colin Powell, Lindsey Graham, Rod Dreiher, John McCain's mother... Read More......

iPhone spoof targets Republicans

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Obama calls anti-gay ballot measures in Maine and Washington "divisive and discriminatory"

Now that's my kind of White House. Read More......

AIG was (is?) bonus happy

At least they didn't exclusively shower money on the top of the top, but still. How is it remotely possible to justify these bonuses when you are on life support? The answer, of course, is because the US government allowed them to get away with it. They can plead ignorance all they like and yes, they were ignorant, but it's hard to believe people who should have known didn't know this would happen. You'd have to be a complete fool to believe that story. CNBC:

About 400 employees at AIG Financial Products shared more than $168 million between December 2008 and March 2009, after AIG received bailout money from the government, the newspaper reported.

That included a cash retention bonus of $7,700 for a kitchen assistant, $700 for a “file administrator,” according to the FT. Senior executives took home bonuses of up to $4 million.

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Progressive Dems take one for the team, while conservative Dems take one for the other team

David Waldman at Daily Kos weighs in:

When it's time to pass conservative bullshit legislation "to keep the process moving," progressives are expected to take one for the team. But when it comes time to pass legislation that the majority of the caucus supports, but it's more liberal, guess what? Conservatives want progressives to take another for the team.

And everyone expects that they will, too. Even if it means going back on everything they said they would stand firm on in this bill. And all in the name of "moving the process forward."

Gosh, isn't that just so interesting how that works?

One day, if progressives want to be taken seriously in this game, it's going to have to change.

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Honey, I shrunk the US chamber...

The US Chamber of Commerce, which is basically a lobbying arm of the Republican party, has been forced to admit that it was lying when it claimed, repeatedly, that it represented a whopping 3 million members. In fact, it represents, at most, 200,000 to 300,000. And considering we at AMERICAblog get around 300,000 unique visitors a month, that means that the US Chambers' opinions on health care reform should carry about as much weight as a blog's. More on the Chamber's bad week from Josh Harkinson at Mother Jones. Read More......

Teabaggers are complicating GOP comeback efforts

The GOP empowered the true Internet fringe, and they got something out of it - they certainly scared Democrats away from President Obama's health care reform promises he made during the campaign - but now, there's a problem. Frankenstein won't go away, and he's scaring the villagers.

But these newly energized conservatives present GOP leaders with a potential problem: The party's strategy for attracting moderate voters risks alienating activists who are demanding ideological purity, who may then gravitate to other candidates or stay at home. It's a classic dilemma faced by parties in the minority -- tension between those who want a return to the party's ideological roots and those who want candidates most likely to win in their districts.

"The potential that the Republican Party puts up candidates that fail to excite the support of this movement is very real," says Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, University of Minnesota.

It's far more than that. The Teabaggers aren't simply conservatives who want to return to the party's roots. They're actually a little bit nutty, as we saw from the videos and photos of their various marchers. The Democratic Netroots, for example, would like Democrats to stand up for Democratic principles, but, in contrast to the Teabaggers, we do not run around with signs depicting Republican leaders as Hitler, we don't call for armed revolution to overthrow the government, we never favored a coup d'etat, and we don't bring guns to our rallies. The folks on the right are an entirely other animal completely. They're not just ideological purists, they're extremists. And there's a difference. Read More......

Liberals ask: Where are the new judges?

Playing nice doesn't work. The GOPers see it as weakness. And, they're manipulating the Senate, which is stunning since there are 60 Democratic Senators:

During his first nine months in office, Obama has won confirmation in the Democratic-controlled Senate for just three of his 23 nominations for federal judgeships, largely because Republicans have used anonymous holds and filibuster threats to slow the proceedings to a crawl.

But some Democrats attribute that GOP success partly to the administration's reluctance to fight, arguing that Obama's emphasis on easing partisan rancor over judgeships has backfired and only emboldened Senate Republicans.

Some Republicans contend that the White House has hurt itself by its slow pace in sending over nominations for Senate consideration. President George W. Bush sent 95 names to the Senate in the same period that Obama has forwarded 23.

"I commend the president's effort to change the tone in Washington," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "I recognize that he is extending an olive branch to Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and in the Senate overall. But so far, his efforts at reconciliation have been met with partisan hostility."

I'm sure it took a lot for Wade Henderson to go public with this criticism. But, we learned the hard way that the Obama administration only responds to pressure from its friends. The White House spends an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to assuage Republicans. And, by now, someone in the Obama brain trust should have figured out that it's not working -- and it won't work. The Republicans want him to fail. Our side actually wants him to succeed -- and to fulfill his campaign promises.

I'm just surprised there wasn't a quote in this article from an anonymous Senate Democratic aide telling us how silly we are for expecting the 60-member Democratic Senate caucus to actually confirm judges. Read More......

The AMERICAblog pet community

Chris thought it might be a neat idea to ask readers to send in pictures of their pets for Friday Cat Blogging. We figured we'd post a few on the blog, and if you guys sent in enough photos, we could post the rest in the photo box on the upper right corner of the site.

Well. I think 308+ photos counts as "enough."



Though feel free to send more if you haven't sent any yet, I think I'm going to leave the photos up in the box for the next week: ablogphotos@gmail.com Here are some of my favorites, but I had to stop after a while. The rest are in the flickr photo stream that you can see in the photo box at the top right of the page (it refreshes each time you visit the page). You can also browse all the photos on my flickr page here. Also, feel free to share your favorite pet stories in the comments, folks are already posting some - they're quite adorable and touching and funny: comment here.


Niña, the Chihuahua, takes her nap on Charley's back every afternoon. Seriously.


Moxie from Portland, Maine.


What's that you say, you wanted the couch?


Avada kedavra!


Hey, it's Chelveston!


Cleo, the one year old sphynx cat.


Wendy writes... We just lost this guy on August 19th. My husband even cried when he died, and he was NOT a cat person when I met him 35 years ago. Ralphie was a character, as most cats are. Food was his Number One Priority - and once-upon-a-time, when we wanted just another 5 minutes of sleep on a rainy Saturday morning, he climbed very quietly onto the headboard, hesitated for a couple of seconds, then jumped (heavily) onto my husband's chest, then stalked to the foot of the bed, sat and stared. After we stopped laughing, I got up and dutifully fed Ralphie and our second cat, Waldo.


Stephen writes... Here's Beau and Iggy. I didn't pose this. Beau decided that Iggy was his buddy.


She sleeps between her two mommies like this every night


Chris writes... This is our buddy Jasper. My partner Carleton and I recently learned he has bone cancer so we're trying to make every remaining day a celebration. Appearing on AMERICAblog is a great way to celebrate!


The Macaw family photo.


Mariah in deep snow Denver, Colorado



Alicia writes... This is Mocha. She is lying by her 2nd favorite play tent (she prefers cardboard and packing paper so she can make her own enterances and exits - also so her human has to keep rebuilding it for her) and her favorite toy - a pompom. I adopted her from an animal shelter almost 4 years ago when she was 1 1/2 years old. She is a great companion and kept me company during Hurricane Ike.


Gaby writes... This picture is very dear to me. It shows my cat, Tsunami (my "baby girl") and her dog, Merlin. I had to send Tsunami over the Rainbow Bridge on August 23rd due to end-stage chronic renal failure (she was near 20 years old). "Her" dog has been rather depressed since then. This is the cat, who, despite being an only child for most of her life, eventually adopted this dog who I found on the street, beaten and starved, to the point where she would howl incessently if I so much as gave him a bath (which he hates). She is much missed, but still one of the best and brightest spots in my life. She was exceptionally intelligent and if you were sick, she would stay by your side until she knew you were well.


Juneau and Lilly Read More......

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Obama is in San Francisco this morning. Then, he's heading to Houston to do an event with former President Bush. 41, not 43. It's a "Points of Light" thing.

The pet pictures from readers, in the upper right hand corner of the site, are just amazing. Love them.

And speaking of pets, it's been raining in DC for two days. My pet, Petey, won't go out in the rain. Just won't. He's so stubborn for such a little guy. I think he's channeling his predecessor, Boomer.

Let's start threading. I'm going to try to get Petey out -- again. Read More......

Goldman joins the bonus gravy train, again

Yesterday was JP Morgan. Today it's back to Goldman. Who could have guessed such an outcome from a company so deeply embedded in the US government? How's everyone in the real world doing these days? How much has your retirement savings recovered? How's your fat bonus at work doing? How many are working in a company where the average pay is $526,814 a year after a bailout? Heck, let AIG fail and see how long Goldman rakes in these numbers. We know that would never happen which is why Goldman is on track to match their biggest bonus year ever.

It's probably cold comfort, but Goldman Sachs couldn't have done it without your help.

The New York-based investment firm turned another eye-popping profit Thursday, earning $3.2 billion in the third quarter, as revenue from trading rose fourfold from a year ago.

As Wall Street firms typically do, Goldman set almost half that sum aside to compensate its workers. Through the first nine months of 2009, the firm socked away $16.7 billion, enough to pay the average Goldmanite $526,814.

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Halliburton rape case in Iraq pushes Senate to change rules

What took so long is one point. How Halliburton has managed to avoid much negative impact is another. Despite what that company thinks by the way they act, this is extremely serious. They even tried the classic smear in such cases about her drinking and flirting. It's shocking (in a not shocking Bush years way) that Halliburton could get away with all of this. Thanks to Al Franken, things are changing.

US defence firms are to be barred from lucrative government contracts if they refuse to allow employees access to the courts, after a woman working for a Halliburton subsidiary in Iraq was prevented from taking legal action over an alleged gang rape by fellow workers.

Al Franken, the Senate's newest member, has won an amendment to the defence appropriations bill prompted by the case of Jamie Leigh Jones. She alleges that she was drugged and raped by seven American contractors in Baghdad in 2005.

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