Ordering the "George Hamilton" 10% more expensive thanks to socialist Obama

He can be a spokesperson for the Americans victimized by the oh so brutal tan tax. Maybe he can have a Beck type rally for leathery “skinsecure” people everywhere.

Atrios at Eschaton has been all over this for months.

First: Sherrod was ignored by her employer. Sherrod found out about the Breitbart smear from a belligerent e-mailer before the scandal erupted on 24 hour news. She alerted her HR office to the existence of this smear as she was being harassed by an e-mailer. This should have immediately alerted the USDA that they needed to get original information and debrief Sherrod on the issue as well as make sure she wasn’t at risk of being put into any immediate or future danger.

Second: Sherrod was afforded no due process. USDA Secretary Vilsack and his deputy Cheryl Cook skipped through protocol and afforded Sherrod no chance to defend or explain herself. They first told Sherrod she would be on administrative leave, then no more than 30 minutes later they demanded she resign. The trigger? Earlier in the day Fox News began smoking the race bait crack Breitbart supplied them, and they wanted her to resign before Glenn Beck got his turn at the pipe. They didn’t ask her to explain fully during the phone calls, they didn’t interview her or seek to procure the full video.

Third and most importantly: Vilsack and the White House accepted Andrew Breitbart propaganda as journalism. The majority black NAACP even fell for the same bait when they could have easily contacted the Coffee County chapter of their own organization to get the skinny on Shirley Sherrod before issuing their statement condemning her seemingly obvious racism against white farmers. Dowd may agree with Clyburn’s summation that some more of the folks in the White House and the USDA would have prevented the Sherrod fiasco, but how would they fix the lack of blackness of the NAACP? (The same NAACP which condemned Sherrod faster than the USDA terminated her employment).

The faux ACORN scandal flourished under the same type of group think rush to judgement based on a Breitbart lie. By Clyburn and Lewis’ logic, readily accepted by Dowd, 172 of their Democratic colleagues didn’t have enough black  (or black enough) aides to consult when they voted aye to defund ACORN based on Breitbart’s earlier falsified propoganda. By extension, shouldn’t the congressmen be arguing for more of their Democratic colleagues in the House of Representatives to hire some staff that is black enough and/or poor enough before they attempt to shame the West Wing for their insufficient blackness?

It wasn’t personal knowledge of Sherrod (as Rep. Lewis intimates) or black people in general (as Clyburn opines) that stymied the NAACP, the West Wing and the USDA. Sherrod’s wrongful termination and condemnation (as well as the bogus ACORN scandal) shows that the leadership inside our institutions of political and social power are still learning to competently distill reporting, factual analysis, propaganda, primary sources delivered through modern media. That is a huge problem for the Obama Administration, the US Congress and the NAACP.

It isn’t because Obama and Jarrett aren’t black enough people to care about the rest of us black enough people or haven’t employed black enough people in the West Wing. It’s because the administration they constructed wasn’t patient and media savvy enough to deal with serious and ultimately scurrilous accusations against one of their own appointees.

FT’s Alphaville says I am cranky. Jeff Matthews says I am wrong. Michelle Leder points out the settlement is a pittance relative to GS’ cash.

Here’s a news flash: All of that is irrelevant. We are a nation of laws, and that is what guides SEC prosecutions, negotiations, and settlements. Sure, I may be cranky (only fellow curmudgeon Alan Abelson agrees with me), but what I truly am is astonished at some of the uninformed commentary pinging about inter-tubes about this subject.

Spin isn’t fact, opinions aren’t laws, and having an opinion is not the same as being informed.

One might hope that various folks discussing these issues have a passing familiarity with Securities law, but apparently not. Let’s see if we can edumacate some folks who are unfamiliar with the 1933 and 1934 Security acts.

…

Based upon the evidentiary information the SEC had — emails, phone calls, sworn statements, etc. — the “Fabulous Fab” told Abacus buyers that John Paulson was long the Abacus CDO when he was in fact short it; Further, Fab omitted to mention that a short seller helped to construct the synthetic CDO that he was betting against.

That factual description is a clear violation of Rule 10b-5.

There are some folks who have argued that yes, Fab made untrue statements and omitted others — but they were not material. That is a very good, very lawyerly argument — but it is one that would be a stone cold loser in front of any jury.

Bottom line: IMO, this was a no brainer case based on these facts and the law. Unless you can show Fab never said those things, it is case closed.

THAT is why Goldman settled.

via Its the Law, Bitches! | The Big Picture.

Also, Riholtz continues and makes a great point regarding some folks anger that Goldman still walks away with tons of profits and that the fines are not enough to wipe the bums out. (emphasis his):

Penalties should be proportionate to infractions: Consider the transgression at hand: Fab lied in the sale of structured products, and his firm Goldman Sachs failed to adequately supervise him in these transactions. In the grand scheme of things, this was actually a minor transgression. Sure, it was sleazy, but it was not a billion dollar violation; It sure as hell was not an Arthur Anderson type massive firm-wide fraud deserving of the death penalty — as some of the angrier posts have demanded.

As much as many people want to blame the entire economic meltdown on the vampire squid, they deserve only a modest amount of blame. Worse still, this was not their most egregious offense.

It may be tough to swallow, but we can’t wipe out  the banksters with one, “you can’t handle the truth” civil trial moment.

As she often does, Rachel Maddow says it best.

Rolling Stone gets McChrystal to give his honest opinion of members of the Obama Administration.

Gen McChrystal also appears to joke in response to a question about the vice-president.

“Are you asking about Vice-President Biden?” McChrystal asks. “Who’s that?”

An aide then says: “Biden? Did you say: Bite Me?”

Another aide refers to a key Oval Office meeting with the president a year ago.

The aide says it was “a 10-minute photo op”, adding: “Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was… he didn’t seem very engaged. The boss was pretty disappointed.”

Gen McChrystal himself says: “I found that time painful. I was selling an unsellable position.”

Another aide refers to national security adviser, James Jones, as a “clown stuck in 1985″.

Of an e-mail from US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke, Gen McChrystal says: “Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke… I don’t even want to open it.”

Last year’s Afghan strategy review by the new president was detailed and drawn out, with Gen McChrystal finally getting an additional 30,000 US troops from Mr Obama.

Analysts say Gen McChrystal disagreed with the pledge to start bringing troops home in July 2011.

Meanwhile the US congressional report says that trucks carrying supplies to US troops allegedly pay the Afghan security firms to ensure their safe passage in dangerous areas.

The convoys are attacked if payments are not made, it is alleged.

via BBC News – US general McChrystal sorry for Rolling Stone ‘error’.

Sound familiar? Remember McChrystal’s speech in October 2009 speech in London?

An adviser to the administration said: “People aren’t sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn’t seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly.”

In London, Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda.

He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to “Chaos-istan”.

When asked whether he would support it, he said: “The short answer is: No.”

He went on to say: “Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support.”

The remarks have been seen by some in the Obama administration as a barbed reference to the slow pace of debate within the White House.

via White House angry at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan – Telegraph.

It seems the White House aide may be the naive one and McChrystal is an upstart who understands Washington politics well enough. Or maybe McChrystal is the angry guy who vents every smoke break. Either way, his disdain for the strategy he has been tasked to execute needs to be dealt with by the Administration since he cannot deal with it himself.

UPDATE: Looks like it’s being dealt with.

An angry President Obama summoned his top commander in Afghanistan to Washington on Tuesday after a magazine article portrayed the general and his staff as openly contemptuous of some senior members of the Obama administration.

An administration official said the commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, would meet with President Obama and Vice President Biden at the White House on Wednesday “to explain to the Pentagon and the commander in chief his quotes in the piece,” which appears in the July 8-22 edition of Rolling Stone. General McChrystal was scheduled to attend a monthly meeting on Afghanistan by teleconference, the official said, but was directed to return to Washington in light of the article.

via McChrystal Is Summoned to Washington Over Remarks – NYTimes.com.

Tilt the Scale Left: Hillary Clinton for SCOTUS? ( photo credit: David Boyle in DC)

Ugh… (and not because I am anti Clinton…I think she would throw herself into the job and make an excellent justice).

The Utah Republican, a high-ranking GOPer on the Senate Judiciary Committee, implied that Clinton could be a strong nominee.

“I even heard the name Hillary Clinton today, and that would be an interesting person in the mix,” Hatch said on the “Today Show.”

“I happen to like Hillary Clinton, I think she’s done agood job for the Democrat Secretary of State’s position. And I have high respect for her, and think a great deal of her.”

via Hatch mentions Clinton’s name for SCOTUS – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

I think its best that Clinton remain Secretary of State for the duration of the Obama Administration’s first term and into the beginning of a second possible term. There is too much in the world hinging on effective, cohesive US diplomatic engagement to pull a principal out of the cabinet if it can be avoided.

In addition, as moderate as the Clintons have been, nominating Secretary Clinton may just set off the right wing base and unfounded grass roots outrage into an unnecessarily protracted confirmation battle.

Obama will have the opportunity to appoint another Supreme Court justice and Republicans are signaling the same boiler plate “activist judge” opposition.

Closing one era and opening another, Justice John Paul Stevens notified President Obama on Friday that he will retire from the Court when the current Term ends, probably late in June.  Stevens made his decision public eleven days before he reached his ninetieth birthday, and about two years short of a date on which he would have become the longest serving justice in history.

via SCOTUSblog » Stevens’ era is ending.