Today: Obama scrapes the needle off of Cheney’s chin music.
New and Improved
Rachel started us off with a burst of heartening news. Of all the many pressing issues that AIG had to deal with, you’ll be happy to know that they have tackled the most vital: AIG is now AIU. Also, they’ll be wearing suits that are charcoal gray instead of slate gray.
Rachel pronounces the new acronym “IOU,” though I prefer an extended “Eeeeww”.
How can four different PR firms be screwing this up so badly? Change the name a month after everything blows over, not three days after you made international news for being sleazy, incompetent greedballs.
In other Darkside rebranding news, toxic assets are now called “legacy” assets, which I think means you that you have to let them into your sorority even though they made the economy collapse and wore fug dresses to the fall mixer.
Party of No
Republicans are trying to reclaim the Party of Fiscal Responsibility mantle after six years of shoveling billion-dollar no-bid contracts into Halliburton’s maw.
Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) joined Rachel to point out that the Republicans are in a difficult spot, since Obama’s budget looks a lot like the Clinton budget that led to a surplus, and you have to do a lot of shouting and waving of shiny objects if you want to keep people from noticing that.
He did give credit to Republican Governors Schwarzenegger (CA) and Crist (FL) for having a more helpful attitude toward the stimulus package, though these guys sort of have to be practical. California is funding teacher salaries through door-to-door magazine subscription sales, and Florida has been plunged into an unplanned movie sequel that doesn’t even have a plane this time.
Brown astutely pointed out that we already had a deregulation warning in the late 80’s with the S&L crisis. He and Rachel agreed that we need to put firm regulations in place to last us another 60 or 70 years, which, yes, but we also need to have some sort of time capsule set to go off with a recording of millions of people screaming “Keep the banking regulations!”
Because otherwise we’ll forget and deregulate again and those damned dirty apes will take over.
One More Thing:
Governor Sarah Palin (R-Real America) is not so much rejecting the stimulus package money in the way that most people interpret the word “rejecting”. Which is fine with me, because Rachel’s Palin imitation is a hoot.
Vox Populi
In case you missed last week’s Obama TV appearances, radio appearances, Internet video, e-mail blast, and the note he passed you in history class, he’s having another press conference at 8:00 (Eastern) tonight.
Then he’s probably going to text you at like 3:00 a.m. just to see if you’re awake and feel like talking, so you may want to turn off your alert sound before you hit the sack.
Ms. Information
Prosecutors gave the judge in the Bernie Madoff trial some testimonials from the victimized, including a Congolese e-mail spammer who may be familiar to you. That guy totally ripped off my buddy, the deposed Nigerian prince.
In other not-catching-guys-like-Madoff, news, the IRS has been auditing fewer millionaires even though they are more likely to cheat about larger percentages of their incomes. I think I’m starting to get why some people find the idea of Hell satisfying.
Rachel also reported that the U.S. lost to Japan in the World Baseball Classic, which she finds to be more accurately named than the World Series just because it has a bunch of other countries in it. Don’t even get her started on the Miss Universe pageant.
(Speaking of sports, I got several terse notes about my mistaken assumption that all of Friday’s excitement was about March Hatness. My sincere apologies, and I hope my error has not in any way impaired your enjoyment of March CatFest.)
The President Strikes Back
Rachel gave us an excellent list of things Dick Cheney can shut, but I bet you can think of a few more.
Cheney has been spending a lot of time slithering around to various news outlets and muttering darkly that if we stop torturing people, all the flowers will wilt and the baby lambs will cry and the nation will disappear into a giant sinkhole in the middle of Kansas.
This weekend, Obama dropped some stern logic with a healthy dose of button your lip on him.
Which was very satisfying until Jonathan Turley of George Washington Law School showed up and pointed out that if Obama weren’t being an impediment to prosecution, Cheney would stay the hell off the airwaves and instead be forced to lawyer up and retreat to his nutrient bath suspension to wait in deathlike sleep for the Great Old Ones to return.
Taos Shalt Not Kill
Rachel welcomed Governor Bill Richardson (D-New Mexico) to talk about his state’s repeal of the death penalty. Richardson had been a longstanding proponent of the death penalty, and, wow, the guy really seems to have done some serious examining of the facts and his conscience and tried to do what was right.
Yeah, it seems odd to me too. Did he not think of keeping the death penalty but calling it something cuter?
Until next time, I wish you plenty of stimulus and cool new rebranded nicknames. Dibs on “Cannonball”.
