Big Fat Story
Firms that got aid must slash compensation.
After taunting “members of the financial industry” during a $30,400-a-plate fundraiser on Tuesday, the Obama administration leaked that they’re gearing up to order bailed-out banks to slash big-paycheck executives’ compensation. The seven companies that received the most from the bailout will have to cut the cash payouts to their top 25 best-paid executives by an average of about 90 percent from last year. Most companies would replace lost pay with stock, which executives would be prevented from selling at first. The plan will be released by the Treasury Department in the next few days and targets Citigroup, Bank of America, AIG, General Motors, and Chrysler, plus the financing divisions of the two car companies.
“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent.”
The White House wants to give Glenn Beck something to cry about. "The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party,” said White House Communications Director Anita Dunn on October 11. “And it is not ideological... what I think is fair to say about Fox, and the way we view it, is that it is more of a wing of the Republican Party.” Dunn ramped up her criticism in an interview with The New York Times: “We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”
Has the White House’s recent aggressiveness inspired the rest of the Democratic Party? After Republicans criticized President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, the Democratic National Committee issued an uncharacteristically angry statement: "The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists—the Taliban and Hamas this morning—in criticizing the president for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the president of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize—an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride—unless of course you are the Republican Party. The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame, and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn.”
White House Rampage
The Obama White House has been playing hardball as of late—ordering Wall Street paycuts, targeting Fox News, the Chamber of Commerce, and the health-insurance industry with uncharacteristically intense criticism. The Daily Beast picks apart Obama’s newly aggressive strategy.
President’s weekly radio address decries misinformation.
After months of negotiations, the détente between the White House and the health-insurance industry appears to have ended. “For decades, whenever we have tried to reform the system, the insurance companies have done everything in their considerable power to stop us,” Obama said in his weekly radio address over the weekend. “It's smoke and mirrors. It's bogus. And it's all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, 'Take one of these, and call us in a decade.' Well, not this time.” He went on to accuse the insurance companies of “filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads.”
When it comes to the Chamber of Commerce, the White House is closed for business. “We prefer the approach—particularly in this climate—where the actual people who are on the frontlines, running businesses, trying to create jobs, come and advise us on policy,” senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett said. To that end, the White House has been marginalizing the Chamber of Commerce—the nation’s largest business lobby—by meeting directly with the CEOs of major companies, including Pfizer and IBM. “It’s happening with the deliberate hope and intention to weaken the influence of this institute and the business community in town,” complained an official from the Chamber.
Press secretary blasts RNC chairman for his Copenhagen criticism.
Before President Obama went to Copenhagen to lobby for a Chicago Olympics in 2016, RNC Chairman Michael Steele held a press conference where he said, “If the priority is the Olympics in seven years, OK, then tell the nation that’s the priority and that’s what we should be focused on because we’ll create jobs then and we won’t worry about it between now and 2016.” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs hit back hard, asking of Steele, “Who’s he rooting for? Is he hoping to hop a plane to Brazil and catch the Olympics in Rio? Maybe it’s Madrid.”
“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent.”
The White House wants to give Glenn Beck something to cry about. "The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party,” said White House Communications Director Anita Dunn on October 11. “And it is not ideological... what I think is fair to say about Fox, and the way we view it, is that it is more of a wing of the Republican Party.” Dunn ramped up her criticism in an interview with The New York Times: “We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”
Has the White House’s recent aggressiveness inspired the rest of the Democratic Party? After Republicans criticized President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, the Democratic National Committee issued an uncharacteristically angry statement: "The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists—the Taliban and Hamas this morning—in criticizing the president for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the president of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize—an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride—unless of course you are the Republican Party. The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame, and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn.”
Accuses GOP of making sick people “die quickly.”
Perhaps the newly aggressive White House has been taking its cues from Florida Representative Alan Grayson? He caused a brouhaha a few weeks back when he said that the Republican health-care plan was to make sick people “die quickly.” After drawing criticism, he doubled down, saying that the estimated 45,000 annual deaths due to lack of insurance in America constituted a “holocaust” and then took to CNN to call Republicans “knuckle-dragging Neanderthals.” Grayson’s tirades earned him comparisons to Joe Wilson, the South Carolina Republican who yelled “You lie!” at President Obama, but Grayson says the comparison is wrong. “There's a fundamental difference: They're lying about our bill and we’re telling the truth,” Grayson told The Daily Beast.
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What a difference a day makes.
An intelligent response to the deposed. Hallelujah.
And we're already safer than we were in Bush's first year.
He embraces our enemies, but picks fights with respected members of our community, and warns them not to exercise their constitutional right to disagree with him? I am starting to believe that Beck is on to something. It looks like we have a cross between Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon as president.
Really would you like to name one enemy our president has sided with?
And you realise that Beck supports the bailout and his hero Thomas Paine supported the redistibution of wealth.
well lets see, chavez, castro, ahmenidjad, hamas, hezbollah, for starters, and the sad thing is they are laughing in his face. but obama is just the front man for this scam. he is incapable of formulating any policy other than having people line up in the inner cities to apply for "free" money. its the people who are pulling his strings who we need to worry about.
Bush Doctrine: If you negotiafy with an evil folks, that means you're on their side. You should just make empty threats, unless you look into their eyes and see that they have a good soul.
Substantiation of your accusations please. Otherwise, you're just sound like you're mouthing party propaganda.
well veronicaca, the evidence is everywhere beginning w/the mainstream media. no less than henry kissinger hailed obama as the leader of a new world order. the nobel prize committee sold out in order to prop barry up as a "peacemaker'. not to mention wall street, who is doing pretty well right now thanks to you know who. do you think this street lawyer is capable of orchestrating any of this? he is there because he is the perfect mouthpiece and, he's clean and articulate according to joe biden.
this president said this was the end of "red state/blue state". He said this. He said that he would unify us. He was going to be the president to transcend racial stereotypes. How are we doing with that? This country is more polarized than ever and quit blaming Bush and the Republicans for this. The Democrats have control over ALL of Washington, yet you sit there and blame Fox, Rush, Racist white people, White police officers, conservatives, and even friggin Joe Scarborough. How is this reasonable?
@Innocentcitizen: Bush's bailout was the largest one that went to Wall St actually. "The Senate passed its version of a mammoth plan to rescue the financial services industry." October 1, 2008. Google it for your favorite news source to verify.
He didn't start this recession or the bailout strategy, he stepped in time to catch the fire ball. Why he bailed out car companies, etc. though I have no idea and don't like it. Let them die and let them get run by companies that know how to please the market.
Hey I read about the Trilateral Commission when I was 12 years old, I don't generally think Presidents get there because the people want them there. It took Caroline Kennedy and Oprah to get Obama elected this time -- Trilateral, schmilateral.
Easy on the Big Guy Obama fellas. After all he is only trying to compete with Carter for the post of the worst President of all time and for trying to bring this country to it's knees faster and into one world govenment faster than Wilson. Just wait til he gets to display what he can do TO this country during the meetings in Copenhagen.
I bet Bush is your best prez ever !!
no way. Someone named "frisco" ripping on Bush.
Grundy; you are a fool like Veronicaxy. 9 months into the bush administration we were bombed. after 8 years of domestic wire taps, pillaging this country, and the disappearance of 18 billion dollars -- 12 billion in us currency -- from iraq, bush ushered in a depression, and you say Obama is in competition with Carter for the worst president. President Carter is a saint compared to bush. bush did nothing for this country or his party. that's why there's an army of people on a legacy program right now trying to white wash his blunders.
in the words of the great John Kay from the band steppenwolf; Grundy; "your mind's much to narrow and it's no surprise if you fell on a pin you'd be blind in both eyes". your mind is a closed book, nothing gets in and nothing gets out except twaddle.
no way. You are wondering where 18 billion went? Obama just lost 789 billion in a stimulus that doesn't stimulate. He took over General Motors. He took over banks citing "they're too big to fail" all the while Wall Street jack asses are getting richer and richer. This country has an unemployment rate of 9.8% and Obama's answer for this is similar to yours....blame Bush. While people are losing jobs and not able to get a job, Obama and his administration are stating that the "economy is doing better, unemployment is just a 'lagging indicator'". What a stupid thing to say to the American people. Our country is so far in the red we can't see straight, yet this president tries to fool the american people by saying his healthcare plan won't add a single penny to the defecit. Really? drkaza12, you can blame Bush all you like for his failures, but you need to pull your head out of the liberal ass and look around. Whatever Bush did that was bad, this president only continues down the same path. At least Bush spent his money on two wars in defense of the people of his country against an evil movement known as terrorism. All you can do is talk stupid politics because your a blood sucking shitbird who thinks your smarter than everyone.
Grundy, STOP listening to Beck. Your brain has turned to mush. The sky is falling, the sky is falling. Just grab your gun, bible, and birth certificate and get ready for Chavez to be appointed Engery Czar. You right wingers are just beyond stupid!
Fox can make a big deal out of Obama not respecting them, but don't expect the nation to care.
Afghanistan has cost us 140 billion a year for 8 years. We have nothing to show for it. Healthcare reform with a government run public option that would cover every American in our country would cost far less. Bush initiated the bailout, you right wingers forget that. Bush has cost our nation trillions of dollars by supporting corporate robbery of this great nation and creating a state of permanent war. Obama has quite a mess to clean up, but it is a mess created by Milton Friedman disciples high on cocaine and hookers.
Good regurgitation of talking points. What did Orwell call that? Duckspeak!
About time they started hitting back. The Republicans were punching Obama in the face every two seconds and he was just sitting there taking it. We've all seen them do this many times before to appeal to their Confederate-evangelical base, and all too often the Dems have wimped out.
They'd better not this time, because if they do, they won't get another chance to pass reforms again for a generation.
it's pretty easy smacking little sissy wusses like Democrats around 99.
Conservatives are just wipping this president. This man doesn't need Repubs to pass things, yet he still can't get it passed. Why is that? Do you think your thoughts and this president's ideas are too far off the reservation? Even some Democrats can see that we are going into a debt filled crap-hole that doesn't adequately reflect American values. I understand your an uber liberal, but I would ask you if you think your childish thoughts reflect those of your countrymen?
It was the repeal of glass steagal that is breaking our back. A trillion dollars a year for our military. That's breaking our back. Contractors that commit fraud, Haliburton, KBR, the good fellows that cleaned up Katrina for us. They are breaking our back. Paulson, ever heard of that guy? He brought us TARP, not Obama. American values? You think fraud is an American value? Health care would cost less then 100 Billion a year. You would rather see that money spent on bullets and bibles. BTW, what do you mean? Off the reservation? My grandfather was throw into an American run education camp for Native Americans. Taken from his parents and family. He never saw them again. Is this the type of traditional America of which you speak, you ignorant lap dog. We live in a debt filled crap hole and Obama just step into this filthy pile that he had nothing to do with. He is here to clean it up. And if he brings a new world order, so be it. The one we have isn't meeting up to the dream of what man is capable of.
Why blame the President for bills not getting passed? It's the damn Congress, Dems and Reps, all worried about reelection. Bush got us into a 'debt filled crap hole' and it will take some years to get us out. You're not a clearthinker, your are a dim bulb who can't see the forest for the trees. Bush is the culprit, not Obama.
This is like one of those feel-good tween movies where the bully (played by the conservatives) keeps pushing around the nerdy kid with glasses (played by the dems) until one day the mild-mannered brainiac lets loose and pops the bully in the nose, sending him home crying!
You gotta love happy endings.
Exactly! For years, starting with Lee Atwater and culminating in Karl Rove, the conservatives have been singularly perfecting the art of modern dirty politics in a mendacious manner no other party has even come close to matching. Now that the Democrats are FINALLY pushing back against the mendacious right wing agitprop and the tin horn orchestra is cynically wrapping themselves in the flag and crying about the very same first amendment rights they have so avidly sought to repress.
Everything that is mentioned above are mere words.
You can't win a gun fight when you bring a knife and you do even worse when you bring a dictionary.
Wake me up when Obama takes action instead giving another speech.
Really, the lack of incivility and violence is deplorable. What is this, a nation of laws or something?
Better yet, son of loud, why don't you solve all the problems. You seem to have all the answers.
It is about time he swung back. If you don't vigorously defend yourself, the masses will believe that you maybe the other guys are right....
The GOP has no interest in moving the country forward. They will obstruct and oppose whatever Obama wants to do so that they can say he accomplished nothing.
The sad thing is that the elected members of GOP don't seem to feel slightest obligation to make the country a better place. They believe that the only way to regain power is fight anything and everything the Obama administration is trying to accomplish.
They are starting to sound like the crazy uncle who goes off on a rant at Thanksgiving.... he ends up speaking sitting at the table by himself while everyone else begins to clean up...
He better start puting some of the Goldman MDs in jail. Or he'll go down in history as a lightweight. George Patton
I hope after this he has some energy left to take on the Democrats in Congress. They're the ones who actually matter.
I'd say that those quick to criticize through your biased eyes wait the four years and then look at was is what and where the country stands at that time. Everyone was warned that things would get worse before they got better economically. If you chose to close your eyes and ears to those warnings that is your own fault. Things will not improve as quickly as everyone wants but that is OK . It will teach all that instant gratification is not all in life. It may teach people to actually become more responsible for themselves and their finances instead of pissing away every penny they have on garbage that they never needed in the first place. Unless you already are in the top 1% of income earned you are a common person like the rest of us and need to put your energies to keeping a roof over your head and keeping a healthy body and mind. Save your money for a rainy day and educate yourself to how the world and your government actually works instead of listening to hate mongers. Look to doing things for your community and having empathy for others. Walk a mile in their shoes and follow the golden rule. Only in this will our country become a better place.
You are espousing empathy and compassion, virtues lost on a segment or our population that sincerely believes it has earned whatever it has without the aid of another single human being. Such narcissism is built with impenetrable bricks. Such myopia has no correction. They partake of the community that has provided so much--education, infrastructure, safety but believe they owe it nothing all so that they can have more, more, more and take without regard to how it impacts others. Noble sentiments, though.
As poorly as the Republican's governed during the George W Bush years, I thought it would be a long time before the GOP had any chance of regaining any power in Washington. But, I'm beginning to think they have a chance in 2010 and/or 2012.
I know the majority of the Beast readers won't agree with this because they really like Obama. But, just as you found W extremely divisive, believe me, we (the few :))
find O equally divisive.
Obama is obviously a populist. He governs and believes that the pie can't be grown and even if it could be grown, it would grow in an unfair way. This is what he said during the campaign if you'll recall (rejected lowering tax rates EVEN if tax revenues would increase because such a position is UNFAIR). Obama behaves as though he believes that you can strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. Thank God we have not been governed the last 200 years applying this "logic".
Only time will tell whether O's and the Dem's approach will continue to resonate with the American people. It seems to me the best thing the Dem's have going for them is the awful job the GOP did during the period 2000-2006 (change in Congess in 2006). But, I think Pelosi, Rangel, Reid, Barney Frank and O are giving the GOP a run for its money. The mid-term elections might actually be interesting.
Pelosi????? What do you mean, browny?
This idiot Beck, Hannity and his croonies at Fox, they just want to be in the news at the cost of the nation. They have no integrity whatsoever. They just practice deception ,delusional exercises all day long to earn undeserved money at Fox. Earn honesty money for once.
I sincerely wish they use all their brains instead bring benefits in the lives of the american people instead of behaving in such a deplorable fashion. For God's sake he is the President of the United States of America. If you respect him means you are respecting yourself. Why such a simple logic is not being digested by one and all.
and ...................who are his friends? be brave DB show that chart!
I want to see Beck's birth certificate. Are we sure he is an American citizen. He may be the devil, he is able to cast a spell over so many people. No wonder Headline News ran him off. And when is MSNBC going to get rid of Scarborough?
Scarborough is a conservative, not a wingnut like Beck. We may not like his views but we liberals believe in free speech.
So we invaded Iraq at the tune of 180,000,000 dollars per year to save the Iraqi people but are all twisted about propping up GM for a third of that in a one time shot? Then conservatives have the gall to complain about 10% unemployment? Which is it: save an American industry and several hundred thousand jobs or bomb the hell out of a people that have done nothing other than survive an oppressive regime only to flee in horror from us. Fact: conservatives can't stand seeing a fellow American getting a second chance and actually seem to revel in their fellow Americans suffering as some sort of divine judgment of their character and worth. That, my dear conservative countrymen, is fascism, the belief that your life is inherently worth more than anyone who disagrees with you and that you have the right to destroy it. For all their talk about "taking America back" every conservative is a coward, pretending they will rise up as one in armed insurrection yet refuse to do lift one finger to change their own world. For all their buying up of ammuniton and guns the past 9 months, I guarantee all of it will do nothing but get old and rusty. All talk and no action.
Do conservatives favor spending our treasure on war, prisons, authoritarian policies or on the space program, environmental clean up, healthcare or decent housing? Sadly, conservatives feel best when they can inflict damage or withold aid, a common response to self perceived inferiority.
Clearthinker, your name calling and obvious little snits would indicate a) that you're immature; b) that pretty much everybody commenting here IS smarter than you; and finally c) the adults in here probably have a much better understanding of what is going on both economically and politically. And since obviously you have no sense of history, let me point out that it took this country 8 YEARS to get out of the Great Depression. And the situation Bush left behind was remarkably worse than the Great Depression, even intelligent conservatives admit that.
Thank God we have O and the Dem's to save the day! How lucky we are! We have Pelosi, Charlie Rangel, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Harry Reid, Tim Geitner, all O's czars, Michelle, and O. Can you imagine how bad things could be if we didn't have this stellar group to see us through this challenge? Praise God!
Yeah, Obama is tough guy. Except, I have noticed that the following people don't seem to quake in their boots when O speaks: (a) the Chinese, (b) the Russians, (c) the North Koreans, (d) anyone else outside the U.S. Yes, it is true that his Hugo Chavez type leanings are concerning to those within the US that do not worship at his altar. But, what the heck. In the long run it won't matter cause he is going to take us through a Socialist revolution! Go Comrade O!
Thank you.
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