GOP Senator agrees to stop putting his earmarks ahead of Senate confirmations

Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby has agreed to stop blocking Senate confirmations for 70 of President Obama’s appointees.

Shelby had delayed the process for months because of a dispute over two earmark spending projects he wanted built in his state.

“The purpose of placing numerous holds was to get the White House’s attention on two issues that are critical to national security: the Air Force’s aerial refueling tanker aquesition and the FBI’s Terrorist Device Analytical Center,” Shelby’s spokesperson said Monday. 

Shelby wanted the federal government to finance both projects in his state, and held up the confirmation of most of Obama’s appointees until he would have gotten his way.  But his spokesperson said Friday that he “has agreed to release his holds on all but a few nominees directly related to the Air Force tanker aquisition.”

His spokesperson said the Senator’s intent was to ensure ”competition that delivers the best equipment to our men and women in uniform” – yet one of the confirmations he was blocking was a top Defense Department position that would oversee deployments in Afghanistan. 

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday, “If you needed one example of what’s wrong with this town, it might be that one senator can hold up 70 qualified individuals to make government better because he didn’t get his earmarks.”

Toyota punishes ABC, pulls advertising

Toyota dealers in five states have pulled their advertising from local ABC television stations because of what the dealers’ ad agency calls “excessive coverage” of Toyota safety issues.

ABC News reported that Toyota’s ad agency moved all of Toyota’s commercials to non-ABC stations in the same market “as punishment for the reporting.”

Toyota Motor Corp. stocks have dropped considerably in recent weeks after recalling more than 7 million cars due to vehicle malfunctions.  Toyota is expected to also recall its 2010 Prius, and possibly its Lexus  brand.

My Top 10: Super Bowl commercials

The Saints pulled out a solid victory over the Colts, winning 37 – 31 in Miami.  

Matt Kadel gives a nice post-game analysis on his new blog.

Here are my top 10 favorite commercials of the night, in no particular order.

GSA Chief confirmed after Missouri delays

The United States has gone more than a year without a General Services Administration Chief, until the Senate approved Martha N. Johnson’s confirmation by an overwhelming 94 – 2 majority on Thursday.

President Obama nominated her to head the GSA nearly 10 months ago; the Senate Homeland Security committee unanimously approved her soon after.

But her nomination became stuck in limbo when Missouri Republican Sen. Kit Bond used his ‘privilege’ to block any vote from taking place, as part of a dispute over a $125 million building project he wanted to bring to Kansas City, Mo. (Also known as a pork-barrel spending project)

Senators overrode his ‘privilege’ by a vote of 82 – 16; ironically after Kansas humiliated his state in college basketball by a score of 84-65.

Obama had used the delay as another example of Republicans holding up important procedures for irrelevant political reasons.  But I think this is just another example of why the United States should no longer consider Missouri a state.

Name one thing Missouri has ever done that was significant - besides burn down an entire town in the name of pro-slavery, only to be humiliated every year when that town forces Missouri to question why it even started a basketball program.

Some might say Bond’s selfishness illustrates the hypocrisy that is the modern Republican Party, but in my opinion Bond’s childish actions are exactly what I’d expect from a Fizzou.

Charges filed against Bank of America

The New York Attorney General’s Office filed civil charges against Bank of America on Thursday, saying it misled investors when it acquired Merril Lynch in 2008.

NYAG Andrew Cuomo contends that B of A understated the losses and bonuses paid at Merrill Lynch to encourage shareholders to approve the deal.  It then (allegedly) overstated the bank’s willingness to end the merger to regulators weeks later so that (allegedly) it could acquire $20 billion from the bank bailout, according to the lawsuit.

The acquisition was part of former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s last-ditch effort to rescue the economy before it collapsed.  The deal, which he helped orchestrate, needed to be finalized by midnight on Sunday, Sept. 14 (before markets opened the next day).  But in a PBS Frontline documentary posted in June 2009, officials involved in the negotiations said Merril and Bank of America delayed the deal until the early morning because top executives were arguing over how to divide up bonuses. The economy collapsed two weeks later.

Cuomo called Bank of America’s actions “egregious and reprehensible” for deceiving not only shareholders, but also the federal government.

“Bank of America and its officials defrauded the government and the taxpayers at a very difficult and sensitive time,” Cuomo said at a press conference Thursday. “I believe that Bank of America officials exploited this fear.”

Bank of America spokesman Robert Stickler called the charges “regrettable” and “totally without merit.”

“The evidence demonstrates that Bank of America and its executives, including Ken Lewis and Joe Price, at all times acted in good faith and consistent with their legal and fiduciary obligations,” Stickler said. “In fact, the SEC had access to the same evidence as the NYAG and concluded that there was no basis to enter either a charge of fraud or to charge individuals.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission recently  reached a settlement to resolve charges against B of A for similar issues.  The bank agreed to pay $150 million to shareholders to settle the charges, but it must still be approved by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Bank of America received $20 billion from the 2009 bank bailout to help offset its losses from acquiring Merril.  It paid it back in December.

PBS Frontline produced an incredibly comprehensive and thought-provoking documentary in February 2009, and another in June 2009 about how the financial meltdown and the bank bailout went down.  (Click the links to view – obviously.)

MSNBC censors Obama after he urges House Democrats to stop watching it

Almost a week after Fox News was criticized for censoring the end of Obama’s Presidential elbow drop on the GOP House, MSNBC cut away from Obama’s Q&A with Democrats when he urged members to “get out of the echo chamber” and stop watching mainstream media.

“Do you know what I think would make a difference?  If everybody here turned off your CNN, your FOX, your — just turn off the TV… MSNBC, blogs, and just go talk to folks out there instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics,” Obama said.  “Because [Americans] don’t care, frankly, about majorities and minorities and process and this and that. They just want to know: are you delivering for me?  And we’ve got to get out of the echo chamber. That was a mistake that I think I made last year was just not getting out of here enough.  And it’s helpful when you do…”

MSNBC immediately cut away to David Shuster who said the network would use its “authority” to “turn off the president’s feed for now,” and said it would cut back “as it gets more interesting.”

He then cut to a panel of political strategists yelling at one another.

If irony came in a keg, we’d all be wasted.

Spitzer: Geithner and Summers failed

The Obama Administration did not start working on a plan to regulate the major financial industry until last week, former (D-NY) Governor Elliot Spitzer said on the Colbert Report last night.

“The real problem is that the White House – until last week – had not even begun to do what was critically necessary to restructure our financial services sector,” Spitzer said.  “Many people were begging [Obama] to do it, and I will say very clearly, the team of Summers and Geitner has been, in my view, an abject failure because what they have done is take all the money and give it right back to the banks without demanding that the banks change the way they do business.”

When Colbert asked whether more government regulation would discourage Wall Street from pulling the country out of recession, Spitzer said:

“The reality is that these bankers created a system: a bubble that collapsed leaving us with no net job growth, flat medium family income, we have exported our manufacturing sector…  And the President of the United States needs to go to China like a high school student asking for his allowance.  We are borrowing from China to keep ourselves going, and this is the economy [the major investment banks] created.

“What we should do… is restrain their behavior and say, ‘If you get bailout money, if you get guaranteed access to federal credit… then you must lend that money – not get involved in proprietary trading and the casino economy.”

Spitzer served as the New York State Attorney General from 1994 to 2004.  He most notably pursued cases against companies involved in investment bank stock price inflation (Enron), predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders, fraud at American International Group (AIG), and the 2003 mutual fund scandal.   A prostitution scandal forced him to resign from NY Governor in 2008.

New poll suggests scary GOP trends

A new Daily Kos Poll illustrates an Obama paranoia from within the Republican Party.

According to the poll, 63 percent of Republicans “think Obama is a socialist.” 36 percent believe Obama was not born in the United States. 31 percent believe Obama is a racist who “hates white people.” 24 percent believe “Obama wants the terrorists to win” (33 percent are not sure). 23 percent think their state “should secede from the United States.”

According to the Daily Kos Republican Poll, these statistics were based on answers from about 2000  self-identified Republicans between January 20 and January 31, 2010.

One has to wonder where this demographic is getting its information.

Obama confronts GOP face to face

Forget the State of the Union: President Obama’s face-to-face confrontation with the GOP House last Friday was the most reassuring video I’ve seen since he was elected.

It was the Republican Party’s opportunity to confront the President  – on live television – with the accusations and criticisms they have raged about non-stop for more than a year.

But what played out was similar to the 2008 Final Four, when KU unexpectedly lit up a team of unprepared, over-confident Tarheels.

Fox News cut away 20 minutes before it was over.

Watch and see what you think.

NEW DEVELOPMENT: President Obama plans to do a similar Q&A session with Democrats on Wednesday.

more about “Obama At House Republican Retreat In …“, posted with vodpod

My Al Jazeera English Documentary

I had the opportunity to intern for Al Jazeera English during the summer of 2008.

The network’s staff let me use its equipment to film hours of footage, including interviews with senior producers, a former U.S. Ambassador for Counter Terrorism and a former special adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.

Watch this video, then watch Al Jazeera English live at english.aljazeera.NET (not .com)