Reasons I Fucking Hate Keith Olbermann

Seeing as my I fucking hate Keith Olbermann post is the number 1 google search result for… I fucking hate Keith Olbermann, I feel that it is my duty to enumerate the reasons why I fucking hate Keith Olbermann:

#1 He is an overpaid, wanna-be progressive in the mold of the typical over-educated, under-critical New England Liberal. This can be summed up as “I want a reconfiguration of the American socio-economic landscape, as long as it doesn’t impact my privilege, challenge my own lifestyles and perspective, or induce a structural shift in the inequalities in American society that I benefit from.” These are also the same people that think Barack Obama is ‘change’.

#2 He thinks he is a real journalist. Everyday of his life seems to be a painful exercise in thinking he’s Edward Murrow. Bad news buddy, you’re the centrist version of a Fox News commentator, just spewing vitriol into the magic shiny box every night.

#3 He wins the award for douchiest quote ever, “I’m not a liberal, I’m an American.”

#4 He is a direct descendant of Pol Pot.

There you have it. All the reasons I fucking hate Keith Olbermann.

The Taxpayers Money, Goldman Sachs Record Bonuses

While you were day dreaming of a romantic trip with the balloon boy, Goldman Sachs announced record profits of $3.2 billion, “crushing Wall Street estimates for the third straight quarter.” Alas, the record profits and “the giant quarterly gain allowed Goldman to set aside $5.4 billion for employee compensation — bringing its bonus pool to $16.7 billion through September 30.”

But they couldn’t have done it with you, Joe Taxpayer:

[Goldman Sachs] was one of the nine big banks that received loans from Treasury last fall. It received $13 billion in the costly, widely questioned September 2008 rescue of insurer AIG. It has sold $22 billion in federally guaranteed debt under a plan the feds started to restore capital markets activity. And it has been a major beneficiary of the low interest rates the government has adopted in hopes of restarting the economy.

Long story short, we all own a little piece of Goldman Sachs largess — I hope my ‘Free Ride On A Goldman Executives Yacht’ voucher is in the mail! And in case you were wondering, $17.1 billion in Goldman bonuses is equal $121 dollars from every one of the 138 million taxpayers.

See Also: Goldman Can Spare You a Dime, Banker Bonuses in a Time of Crisis, The United States of Goldman Sachs, Treasury Officials Received Millions from Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs breaks record with $16.7bn bonus pot, Goldman Sachs: All Your Treasury Are Belong to Us, It’s Time to Impose WW II’s 95% Excess Profits Tax, Time for a Windfall Tax On Goldman?, and Keep your hands off Goldman’s bonuses.

[tags]goldman sachs, record bonuses, goldmen sachs, goldman sechs, record profits, taxpayer, bonuses, bail outs[/tags]

And The Award For Not Being George Bush Goes To…

You heard it first last from the on the ball folks at PBH, Barack Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize! Some of the highlights of his administration include:

* The continuation of occupation of Iraq

* The targeting of civilians in Afghanistan

* The unconditional support of systematic ethnic cleansing in Palestine

This is peace that would make from Nobel Peace Prize winner Harry Kissinger proud!

See Also: Even mainstream media stunned, skeptical over Nobel Peace prize, Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize. No, really., The Nobel, The GOP Will Whine About the Obama Nobel Peace Prize, Verbatim, Obama Nobel: But what will the wingnuts think?, and Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize.

[tags]barack obama, nobel peace prize, nobel prize, prize for peace, what peace, obama peace, barak obama, oboma, what did he win for, palestine, iraq, afghanistan, not being george bush, george bush[/tags]

Where Have You Gone, Leon Trotsky?

The Long Strange Posthumous Life of Leon Trotsky, worth reading in it’s entirety, not just for the insights on Trotsky’s legacy on the Left, but for a really disturbing look at the fractures that consumed the American left for most of the 21st century. The money shot below:

“But always and always, those who took Trotsky’s side cannot help but look back and think what the Soviet Union might have been if only Stalin had lost that fight. I’m very much among those who feel that American socialists need to look to American history — not Russian or Chinese or Cuban history — to chart our course. But no one who has looked back at the early part of the 20th century can fail to be thrilled by that moment when it seemed as if the workers were actually in control of history. It was this painful memory Trotsky carried with him as he began the first of his exiles in Turkey.

May I suggest — though my Trotskyist and Leninist friends will not hear me — that the greatest honor one could pay to Leon Trotsky would be to let him rest with the honor he earned. And, as he broke with Stalin, so let us break with all undemocratic efforts at revolution, which would make human beings merely “means to the end”. Humanity — each life — is an end in itself. As A.J. Muste said, “there is no way to peace — peace is the way”. So too, revolution begins now, as we empower ourselves to think for our own time.”

The Tax Payer Pays The Big Banks Bonuses

Every year when I pay my taxes, I always hope that government money will be used by predatory banks to enrich their executives at my expense! And it looks like my hopes finally came true:

Citigroup Inc., one of the biggest recipients of government bailout money, gave employees $5.33 billion in bonuses for 2008, New York’s attorney general said Thursday in a report detailing the payouts by nine big banks.

The report from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office focused on 2008 bonuses paid to the initial nine banks that received loans under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program last fall. Cuomo has joined other government officials in criticizing the banks for paying out big bonuses while accepting taxpayer money.

Citigroup, which is now one-third owned by the government as a result of the bailout, gave 738 of its employees bonuses of at least $1 million, even after it lost $18.7 billion during the year, Cuomo’s office said. [via AP]

Think that’s bad? Check out the full statistics below of banks that received TARP bailout funds and the bonuses they handed out:

[Graph via Rolfe Winkler]

All totaled, over $34 billion in bonuses were given out by banks during the financial crisis, or even though the banks lost over $80 billion and took over $175 billion in federal bailout funds via the TARP program. Bonuses thus constitute 20% of the bailout money received and almost half of the banks loses during this period.

Yes, you read that correctly: Banks lost over 80 billion dollars, took over 175 billion dollars in taxpayer bailouts, and yet still handed out 34 billion dollars in corporate bonuses. And to add salt in the wounds, Visa profits jumped 73% the last quarter! Who needs credit card reform or bank regulations anyway?

See Also: Big Banks Give $5.33 Billion In Bonuses, On Q2 Bank Earnings, It’s Still Good To Be A Banker, Bankers’ Bonuses, Bailouts are Bad, $33 Billion in Taxpayer Money Subsidized Wall Street Bonuses, and Bonuses exceeded profits at bailed-out firms.

[tags]bank bonuses, goldman sachs, wells fargo, citigroup, wachovia, bank of america, Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP program, corporate bonuses, executive bonuses, taxpayer, tax payer, BOA, investment banks, public money, public bailout, federal bailout, taxpayer money, federal funds, 2008, 2009, wall street[/tags]