NewscomaGot A Two-Pack Habit And A Motel Tan

I have no words, or at least ones that I can type in this pseudo-family blog.

First there was the $440,000 American Insurance Group Inc. spent entertaining executives days after receiving an $85 billion lifeline from the Federal Reserve, now it’s $86,000 for a hunting trip in England as the faltering company reaped another $37.8 billion in taxpayer funded loans.

News of the hunting trip emerged Wednesday as New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo ordered AIG to do away with golden parachutes for executives, golf outings and parties while taking government money to stay afloat.

“Even after the taxpayer-funded bailout of AIG, the company paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for luxurious retreats for its executives, including an overseas hunting party and a golf outing,” Cuomo wrote in a letter to the New York-based insurer.

snip

Last month, and just days after the U.S. government stepped in to save AIG with the $85 billion taxpayer-funded loan, the company picked up a $440,000 tab for a weeklong retreat at the posh St. Regis Resort in California for top-performing insurance agents.

Shameful. Absolutely shameful. As so many of us are trying to pay our bills, we read of this.

It makes me stabby.

You can’t make certain things up.

A woman seeking to become only the third woman ever to successfully bring a sexual harassment case in Russia was dealt a shocking rebuke when the judge threw out her case, ruling that sexual harassment is actually necessary for the survival of the human race:

WTF?

The judge said this:

“If we had no sexual harassment we would have no children,” the judge ruled.

Remind me not to go to Russia anytime soon. Also remind me if this judge comes to Hooterville, that I need to throw a rabid raccoon at him.

Asshat.

So, I want immunity too. If corporations don’t have to be responsible for their behavior then I don’t want to either.

First of all, if I have immunity, then I won’t ever be a “targeted American.” I don’t want to be a “targeted American.” I think that would suck. My bank account would not be frozen. There wouldn’t be “reverse targeting” on my humble, exciting life in Hooterville.

The FISA situation is not a left or right issue. This just gives Washington more control and it’s about control and money. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, all of those Presidential Executive Directives that George Bush signed, who’s going to give them up? No one. No one wants to do that.

The lead story on the news this morning was Jesse Jackson saying ugly things about Barack Obama. People say, and do, ugly things all the time. People talk behind other people’s back. If you are in Jesse Jackson’s role as someone who has a mic in front of your face all the time, he should have remembered that the mic is always hot. First rule when I was in radio. The mic is always on.

In my opinion, this is a diversion or mainstream media is out of the loop.

Jesse said the word “nuts.” So we are talking about Jesse Jackson saying something douchehattery, MSM lets Bill O’Reilly set the stage for today’s news cycle but what we should be talking about is FISA (that pesky constitution being messed with) or what the hell is happening behind the scenes in relation to Iran setting off missiles.

After Iraq, I’m not so trusting with the MSM newsfolks when it comes to this stuff.

Yeah, I want immunity.

Where is Edward R. Murrow when you need him? He would be all over these things without any of the static.

More from The Crone.

Obama voted Yes. Clinton voted No.

The Senate Wednesday approved a bill to put new rules in place for intelligence agency eavesdropping on suspected terrorists.

The bill also effectively protects telephone companies from being sued for cooperating with a government surveillance program launched in the wake of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. The White House pushed hard for the provision, with a threat to veto the bill if it did not contain protection for phone companies.

The vote was 69-28, with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois voting in favor. Republican candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona was not present for the vote.

snip

The bill, formally known as the FISA Amendments Act, updates the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It will:

Require the secret court set up to oversee FISA to review the surveillance of any targeted American whether the person is in the United States or abroad;

Provide for the FISA court to sign off on procedures for removing the name of any American inadvertently captured in a communication with a foreign target;

Prohibit reverse targeting, which is when intelligence officials eavesdrop on a foreigner’s communications overseas as a means to spy on someone in the United States.

Close a loophole by explicitly establishing the 1978 law as the exclusive means for authorizing electronic surveillance;

Set up a procedure for federal judges to determine whether a telecommunications company can be sued for providing the intelligence community access to its networks without a court order.

So, my question is, who determines who a suspected terrorist is?

Story here

Photo credit Wil Wheaton

From Xark.

He’s ‘tooning about this.

And, yes, I laughed. Go read him everyday.

UPDATE: Hell must have frozen over and the devil must be iceskating because Michelle Malkin and Daily Kos agree on this.

The only difference between the different parties so far has been tactics. Many have been supporting the call first made by TechCrunch to boycott all AP stories, yet Kos is calling for the exact opposite, telling bloggers they should be quoting more AP stories, and large chunks of AP text to force AP to test its threats in a court of law.

Is Optimus Prime a terrorist?

The folks at Heathrow don’t like his looks.

For crying out loud …

I have no idea.

I’m not that clever but the picture is hilarity at its best.

I am amazed. Seriously amazed by some people. Of course, I could be mistaken about this thong-wearing thing as I have no reference.

Sometimes news stories just write themselves:

A 58-year-old man who fed pigeons wearing only a skimpy thong which was back to front has been fined £150.

Neighbours spotted David Batchelor in his street in Perth in the underwear which left his genitals partly exposed.

skip

Mrs Kennedy added: “Asked why he did it, he replied ‘I don’t know. I was just feeding the birds and if I was wanting to do that I would just go down town and get a whore’.”

Sheriff Michael Fletcher said: “The alcohol seems to be at the root of the problem and nothing much can be done about that, given his attitude towards it.”

Drunk Logic.

As I said, these things just write themselves.

More at BBC news. 

I’ve been a busy beaver the last few days and on top of it all, I’m on Meth Benedryl, the lovely drug that makes me somewhat of a snot-filled goddess.

Notice I said goddess. I didn’t mean it but you know, we have to keep up illusions.

But this is just so damned ridiculous I just can’t even speak and I’m late out of the gate in crying foul. As many of you know, I adore Steve Cohen. I hope he throws a stick at this whole situation.

I can’t believe that crap like this still exists but every time I think we have moved forward I’m reminded that we haven’t. If you are AGAINST a candidate, go after their policies, how they vote or how they wear bad ties. (Steve, I like your ties. Seriously. And I’ve met you and you smelled pretty good. And you were the first politician to call me Newscoma after I introduced myself which wigged me out.) Okay, I dig Cohen. I’m being transparent here.

With that said, Christian Grantham has a pretty good rundown of national media covering this. And here is the Commercial Appeal story (once again, I’m a day late and a dollar short.)

Nikki, I don’t know you from Adam. I’m sure you are kind to puppies, like a good Cafe Latte and have a good heart, but, baby, you need to condemn this immediately.

Right. Right. We all agree then, so we have that going for us.

And a little blurb isn’t going to get it and GoldnI painstakingly found but it isn’t good enough. Nikki, you need to denounce this in a big way.I mean you said “My faith teaches me to love, not hate,” said Tinker, who is Christian.” but I just don’t think that’s enough. Nice enough but not enough. Was that it? Seriously, someone tell me.

But the AP ran a story yesterday that said this:

The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement from Atlanta describing the flier as an attempt “to incite tension between the Memphis African-American and Jewish communities.”

The flier, which was also sent by mail to the Memphis Jewish Federation, included a contact name, the Rev. George Brooks, and a phone number in Murfreesboro, a town near Nashville and some 200 miles outside Cohen’s district.

A woman who would only identify herself as a friend of Brooks answered a call to the number and said he was out of town. Repeated subsequent calls went unanswered and messages were unreturned.

Now, why is a dude from Murfreesboro getting into Memphis politics? I’ve seen flyers like the one above by Fred Phelps.

Sharon Cobb had it first (sorry I’m so late on this.)

Update: Wait, I’m adding Vibinc because he said Tony Alamo and is, as usual, right.

I am very serious when I tell you that I think mandatory health insurance scares me. After reading this column by Jamie Court at the Huffington Post, there are a couple of things that bother me.

Go give it a read, I’ll wait. 

You back, good.

Now, the first thing that bothers me about the entire situation is the fact the California General Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez used law enforcement to keep a consumer advocacy group to be detained outside of the state capital. From what I read, it was just the group speaking out about mandatory health insurance, citing they were not happy with Ah-nold’s plan. The situation happened in California.

The other thing that really struck a chord with me was this graph.

The Capitol belongs to all of us, not the Speaker of the Assembly. The fact that Speaker Núñez thinks so little of the uninsured that he is willing to throw them out in the cold rather than have their voices heard in the Capitol speaks volumes about the true intent of his health care plan. It’s also a metaphor for everything that’s wrong with Nunez’s mandatory purchase plan: it polices the uninsured, not the insurance companies.

I’m none to happy with insurance companies right now. (And politicians who won’t let people comment on disagreeing with policy, I might add.) I think if you tried to have a dialogue with me about the beauty of health insurance in the next few days, I would aggressively and angrily throw a sheep at you. I don’t have a sheep, but by God, I’d find one.

The personal stories I’ve heard, and been involved with, in the past few years have made me wonder. Gas is $3 bucks a gallon, milk continues to rise, food is going up and sometimes when you have to make the decision of whether or not to buy milk for you child or fill your car to get to work, the insurance becomes secondary. Don’t get me wrong, I have health insurance, but thus far it has really been more of an issue than help. As Ron Norton, the teacher referenced in this story said, I, as well as countless other folks, have “Mack Truck” insurance where it’s really only good if you get hit by a Mack Truck.

And the sad thing about this and other countless health care situations, is that we are at a point there is little the average citizen can do.

So, they wouldn’t let Ron Norton just talk about it. Well, he did outside of the state capital, but still, Nunez called in the CHP. So a conversation is now worthy of law enforcement?

I spent a good portion of my time yesterday reading up on Cobra, self-employed health insurance and the costs of these things. But you see, where an economist could break down how to budget in health insurance, for me, it was about what more do you sacrifice if you aren’t making very much money. If you wanted to start your business, getting insurance is expensive. I spent almost a fourth of my gross income last year on insurance (all of it, not just health.) And I’m on a group policy.

So, I’ll end this rambling about health insurance with one thought. I am watching the candidates very carefully on this issue. Very carefully. My family (Big Daddy is paying an outrageous amount right now that is mind-boggling that breaks down to two and a half week’s salary that I make.) has been impacted about insurance. We’ve done ok, but what about all of those who aren’t. But what about those who are only making eight or nine bucks an hour and who are spending that money so frivolously.

Like on shelter and food, utilities and transportation to work. Yeah, crap like that they don’t need, but by God they need health insurance, which has become so selective on things that it has become a joke.

Remember, my insurance didn’t allow me a stress test in the fall.  Blood pressure running at 200 over 127. Yeah, I didn’t need that. Not at all.

Where’s the dialogue about real people ’cause I’m one of ‘em. It’s not as simple as talking trends or judging folks who are poor. It’s about making insurance affordable and accessible without it making it a criminal offense. And, it’s about insurance being available to those who really need it.

And, yeah, I’m very cranky about all of this.