Power is out :-(

We got a nasty storm in Chicago today and the power is out. So I DUI don't see anything exciting posted for a while, you know why (Chris is on his way back from the Netroots UK conference). Guess it's time to watch the final Harry Potter movie again on my iPad :-) Read the rest of this post...

JPMorgan's failed risk director retired with $21.5 million

If Washington wants to show some level of serious behavior, they need to force JPMorgan to change this. It's an insult to every American if JPMorgan is allowed to get away with this. Keep in mind that the bankers never had to pay back their years of bonus money that was based on bad deals that were wiped off of their own books.

What other industry in the world will let you lose billions and still walk away with millions in easy money? Bloomberg:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s decision to let Chief Investment Officer Ina Drew retire four days after the bank disclosed a $2 billion loss in her division allowed her to walk away with about $21.5 million in stock and options.

Drew, who resigned May 14, can keep $17.1 million in unvested restricted shares and about $4.4 million in options that she otherwise would have been required to forfeit if the New York-based bank had terminated her employment “with cause,” according to regulatory filings and estimates from consulting firm Meridian Compensation Partners LLC.

A 30-year JPMorgan veteran, Drew also had accumulated 661,000 unrestricted shares of common stock worth about $23.7 million based on the May 14 closing price, $9.7 million in deferred compensation and $2.6 million in pension pay as of Dec. 31, according to company filings. Altogether, Drew’s stock, pension and deferred pay come to about $57.5 million.

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Right wing politician in Switzerland calls for "Kristallnacht for Muslims"

At least he was removed from office, but wow.

Right-wing Swiss politician Alexander Müller is out of a party post as well as his private job after using Twitter to call for “Kristallnacht … this time for mosques.”

The Zurich man also faces a criminal investigation and police searched his home and confiscated his computer, according to media reports and his own blog.

The prosecutor’s office said Müller, 37, admitted tweeting in response to the May acquittal on hate-speech charges of a Muslim man who said it was "Sharia-compliant” for a man to beat his wife if she refused to have sex with him, the newspaper Tages Anzeiger (Daily News) and others said. Otherwise, Aziz Osmanoglu had said, the man might be unfaithful.

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Hazlitt on the Right: "If they pause it is to gain time; if they offer terms it is to break them"

I quoted this in an earlier post, but it deserves attention for itself.

It's both music (beautifully written, by one of the now-forgotten geniuses of English prose) and great political wisdom. It prefigures Lincoln's Cooper Union speech.

This is William Hazlitt, writing in the 1820, on the what it's like to deal with the right (h/t Digby for the find). I've reparagraphed this, so you can savor each sentence. Enjoy:

They never give an inch of ground that they can keep; they keep all that they can get;

they make no concessions that can redound to their own discredit; they assume all that makes for them;

if they pause it is to gain time;

if they offer terms it is to break them: they keep no faith with enemies:

if you relax in your exertions, they persevere the more: if you make new efforts, they redouble theirs.

If they pause, it is to gain time. If they offer terms, it is to break them.

See what I mean? This is the Daleks or the Borg, 150 years before either were conceived.

He doesn't rest his pen in dealing with our side. As strong as they behave, we (the left) act from weakness, from nicety:

While they give no quarter, you [the left] stand upon mere ceremony.

While they are cutting your throat, or putting the gag in your mouth, you talk of nothing but liberality, freedom of inquiry, and douce humanité [sweet humanity].

Their object is to destroy you, your object is to spare them—to treat them according to your own fancied dignity.

They have sense and spirit enough to take all advantages that will further their cause ...

It is the difference between the efficient and the inefficient; and this again resolves itself into the difference between a speculative proposition and a practical interest.

This is the enemy, my dithering brethren. While we speculate (discuss), they act in practical interest.

From Hazlitt's mouth to your sweet ear, my progressive brothers and sisters.

Rule 4: Do something. If that doesn't work, do something else. This isn't grad school, folks; it's war. There's an army in the field. Time to deal with it.

Music for a Sunday.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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The Pogues - The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

It's a sunny day here in London which is always a pleasant surprise. Apparently recent weather here has been as miserable as our recent weather back home in Paris. Yesterday's Netroots UK event was lots of fun and well done. I especially enjoyed the morning hands on tech sessions, but there were a lot of great sessions. The event wrapped up with a great speech from the young writer and activist, Owen Jones. He's young, but he's an old school firebrand and hell of a speaker. (Here's his new book, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class.) Read the rest of this post...