Forget what they say this year or any after the nonsense they rolled out 2011.

American International Group Inc. (AIG)’s rescue has come to an end with the U.S. raising $7.6 billion in its final offering of the insurer’s shares, four years after a bailout that fueled resentment against Wall Street.

The Treasury Department is selling 234.2 million shares at $32.50 each in the sixth offering since the 2008 rescue. The proceeds boost the U.S. profit on the rescue that began in 2008 to $22.7 billion, according to a statement today from the Treasury, which injected capital through the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

source: U.S. Profit on AIG Climbs to $22.7 Billion on Share Sale – Businessweek.

TARP was not the issue. the lax regulation up front was.

I sincerely hope that 2nd term Obama, Elizabeth Warren and banking committee Dems can make headway on this: the cookie jar has to be watched. AIG’s investment arm shouldn’t be able to use state regulated exchanges as ATMs, bank FDIC insurance payments shouldn’t be suspended (ever) and banks and their credit products should be forced to comply with basic credit agreement law. I also hope there is some kind of Fannie/Freddie wind down or wind out. A lot of the mess was pushed on to those quasi-government companies.

What we know is when cash rich companies have violated some law, they can litigate until the cows come home. So now the DOJ has a settlement party instead of investigating fraud because they are afraid of long protracted trials where no one who was ever affected is made whole.

Grow Marijuana under state law? Raided. Launder money for drug dealers? Start a bank and launder drug money. you just have to pay a few points tax.

We’ve had decades of Attorney Generals failing to properly understand the failure inherent in a war on drugs.

i went to Japan, got back to the states & found out ACORN is still around according to just under half of Republican Voters (Instaputz):

Hilarious.

PPP’s first post election national poll finds that Republicans are taking the results pretty hard…and also declining in numbers. 49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama.

ACORN doesn’t exist.

These people are willfully invested in delusion of their own making to avoid having to say: maybe we have something wrong here. That’s not a camp I want to be in.

Sally Hemmings and her People didn’t get “it” or anything from Jefferson except oppressed. Jefferson said at once what all men deserved and then bby act and intent defined black African slaves as less than men. For all his words, he helped to establish cruel hypocrisy as rule defining human beings by skin color as only worth “3/5s of himself”. He not only helped author it, he established the practice of it in the new country he helped found.

The hypocricy is key to the credit Jefferson should get for our freedom today. As Lincoln used Jefferson to justify his emancipatory work, Jefferson could also be used as a role model of FDR who engaged in Japanese Internment while we fought the genocidal Nazi menace in Europe.

He could also be seen as a predecessor to the racist Strom Thurmond who stomped about demeaning black constituents and warning of the evils of “miscegenation” only to be lover and parent to black constituents:

The point was underscored dramatically last week when the family of Strom Thurmond, the former United States senator, dropped decades of denials and acknowledged that Mr. Thurmond, who died last summer at the age of 100, had fathered a daughter with a black maid in the family household in 1925. The daughter, a retired teacher named Essie Mae Washington-Williams, 78, had periodically denied Mr. Thurmond’s paternity for the public record but had passed on the truth to her children, who pressured her to come forward after Mr. Thurmond’s death last June.

Like most stories of its kind, this one would have died out long ago had it not been carried for nearly a century on the tongues of black South Carolinians, who recognized the story of Strom Thurmond and Essie Mae Washington-Williams’s mother as a universal story of black families across the state.

It was not, however, the official story. The biographer Nadine Cohodas dismissed it as a ”legend in the black community” a decade ago in her book ”Strom Thurmond and the Politics of Southern Change.” Another writer of the South described it as apparently without foundation — a phrase that is used all the time to dismiss the black oral tradition as apocryphal.

Thurmond probably got his strength from Jefferson as well.

“Without foundation”. What they say is without foundation. There’s no right for them to tell their story. But Thurmond probably got his strength from Jefferson to publicly say this in 1948 two years before his black daughter turned 23:

“I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there’s not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theatres into our swimming pools into our homes and into our churches.”

Those legacies exist too and Jefferson was one of the slave owning founding fathers that made it as old as the United States themselves. That’s the thing about legacies, people can take their own lessons from your legacy once you’re dead.

In the terse dismissive style of David Post: Jefferson wrote some of the most eloquent pro-rights, pro-freedom words ever. So What?

This is a mistake.

Marijuana usage is not the the end of the world. we need to stop legislating and instructing law enforcement to act like it is.

Warren and Manchin to Senate Banking Committee:
I have a feeling Manchin is going to continue to be one of those guys who every budget fight climbs in a secret fort/treehouse to team up with only the most moderate talkin’, “both sides do it!” acolytes on his committees that promptly anoint themselves a gang of #’s. These besties then get a gang of nothing done through useless compromises with each other after they become blood siblings and make s’mores all night.

Also, pictures Democrat vs. Republican house appointments might illustrate which progress is actually making more inroads with our diverse electorate

Whenever I travel, especially to or on the West Coast (as I am in the coming weeks), I try and use Virgin America which to me is superior in customer service, comfort and amenities so this brand being under Delta in any form doesn’t make me too happy.

Roger Ailes was lobbying Gen Petraeus to run for President in 2012:

“His deal with me was that I was only supposed to talk to you,” McFarland said. “And he is a little paranoid, so believe me, he doesn’t have anybody in that room.”

At the meeting, some 18 months ago, Petraeus told McFarland that he thought the CIA was “a treasure. .?.?. I think that organization is full of just heroes. Unsung heroes.” He went on to say, “We’re going to be retrenching militarily.” In contrast, the CIA and the intelligence agencies, “I think, are going to be a growth industry,” Petraeus said.

While rejecting Ailes’ advice, Petraeus said, “I love Roger. .?.?. He’s a brilliant guy.”

Petraeus said he “would love to see” Ailes on his next trip to New York, where Ailes has his office.

“Tell him if I ever ran,” Petraeus said, and then laughed, “but I won’t .?.?. but if I ever ran, I’d take him up on his offer. .?.?. He said he would quit Fox .?.?. and bankroll it.”

yet, Petraeus apologist Ricks says MSNBC is just like Fox News except not as good at it. Right.

Here is what Ailes told Petraeus:

C.) Tells Petraeus that Fox would fully back his presidential campaign, and by fully back she means:
D.) Murdoch would finance the campaign. Ailes would leave Fox to run the campaign. And Fox News itself would become the house organ of the campaign. As McFarland puts it point blank, “The big boss is bankrolling it. Roger’s going to run it. And the rest of us are going to be your in-house.”

[…]

At one point, in fact, McFarland explains why her bosses back home are so insistent on a Petraeus candidacy:

“Well, but .?.?. and here’s the thinking: that they’re nervous about.?.?. . They feel that Obama had this mandate. And the mandate — in his own mind. Obama wanted to do Obamacare. .?.?. He wanted to do environment, which is basically controlling all aspects of the economy. And education, which is the future. So he pushed for Obamacare. He got that done. They didn’t anticipate 2010 results. But he now is going to lie low and be very centrist so that they win in ’12 and they get the other two. Now, what they need — and this is not from the chiefs, this is from political people — and what they need to cement it so that it doesn’t get reversed is a third term. And that means 2016, they need to win, the Democrats need to win, and they need to win with their guy. Their kind of guy. So that then you’d have the stuff as locked in place for a generation. Nobody can come in like Reagan came in and reverse.”

Some thoughts:

1. Ailes, Murdoch and friends fear Obama is a Democratic Reagan.
2. This chatter definitely casts doubt in Petraeus’ role as a vendor of information to UN ambassador Susan Rice
3. Rupert is called “the big boss”
4. How the #(&#* is this conversation on tape? he’s the CIA director?
5. Tom Ricks thinks we needed Petraeus to stay in his post? This dude can’t keep secrets! Who needs FOIA when you have Paula Broadwell and Roger Ailes?
6. We really needed Obama to win a second term.

Andrew Sullivan really is a conservative because he has the same conservative blinders many other right of center folks do. He disagrees with Johnathan Chait’s astute observation that it’s foolish to actual not push the Republicans towards the cliff because they will never vote for Clinton era tax rates:

The fiscal scolds cling to this because the tax reform alchemy is the whole thing that makes their plan appear to work. That’s why the Peterson network proclaims that lower tax rates are a key principle for tax reform – they think this will produce Republican votes for more revenue, even though it won’t. The only way to get Republicans to agree to higher revenue was to maneuver them into a situation where they had no choice — which is what is happening now.

The trouble with this analysis, it seems to me, and with the Obama administration’s current bargaining position, is that Speaker Boehner has already conceded that he is prepared to raise revenues. So I don’t see why Chait is insisting he hasn’t.

source: Cliff Notes, Ctd. – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast.

Chait is insisting he hasn’t because Boehner and all Republicans haven’t moved from their pre-election position which is to A. leave tax rates the same and B. close loopholes as the only way to get tax revenue increases C. pray to free market messiah to create jobs and make us all house flippers again:

WALLACE: You’ve talked about the fact that the president won and you came out with a concession the day after the election. They point out that the president campaigned on raising tax rates, you know, and it was the big issue, between him and Romney. And, they say, just as he had to cave, after your victory in the 2010 midterms, now, it’s your turn to cave on tax rates.

BOEHNER: Listen, what is this difference where the money comes from? We put $800 billion worth of revenue, which is what he’s asking for, out of eliminating the top two tax rates.

But, here’s the problem, Chris, when you go and increase tax rates, you make it more difficult for our economy to grow. Half of that income is the small business income. It’s going to get taxed at a higher rate. And as a result, we’re going to see slower economic growth.

We’re not going to be able to cut our way out of this problem, nor can we can just grow our way out of the problem. We have to have a balanced approach.

But what the president wants to do will slow or economy at a time when he says he wants the economy to grow and create jobs.

WALLACE: Well, the White House says that while you have given this kind of talk, about, well, let’s close loopholes, let’s limit deductions, you haven’t offered any specifics, have you.

BOEHNER: We have laid it all out for them, a dozen different ways you can raise the revenue from the richest Americans, as the president would describe them, without raising tax rates.

WALLACE: What’s the biggest proposal you put on the table since the election in terms of raising revenue from closing loopholes and deductions?

BOEHNER: Well, you can cap — there are a lot of different ways to get there. But you can cap deductions at a percent of income. It’d be one way to get there. You can eliminate certain deductions for those — the wealthiest in our country. You could do all of that.

WALLACE: Let me ask you a couple of specifics, would you eliminate or lower the home mortgage deduction?

BOEHNER: Listen, there are lots of ways to get out there. Now, I’m not going to debate his or negotiate with you. But if you can sign the bill into law, I’d be happy to.

WALLACE: We’re trying to get those powers, but we haven’t yet.

BOEHNER: I understand.

WALLACE: Charitable deductions, would you be willing — I mean, you are a big charity guy.

BOEHNER: Listen, the president has seen a lot of the options from us. There are a lot of them put on the table, and I’m hopeful that the conversations will continue.

WALLACE: OK. But, let’s talk about your proposal, because, the president — and I’m sure this has driven you nuts — likes to say, the math tends not to work.

Let’s look at your math. The White House says a realistic cap — and I’ll explain what that means — of $25,000 on people making more than $250,000, a cap on their deductions, you can only take $25,000 in itemized deductions and exempting things like charitable deduction, which is pretty unlikely that you’re going to do away with that, would only bring in $450 billion, not the $800 billion you are talking about, not the trillion — $450 billion.

They say the math tends not to work.

BOEHNER: No, the White House knows that the math will work — to put the kind of revenue on the table that we’ve been talking about. It won’t work if we’re trying to get the $1.6 trillion. I’ll guarantee you that.

But you can put — we’ve put the revenue on the table. And, again a dozen different ways to get there without raising tax rates.

All analysis shows this inane tax loophole freeze tag won’t raise anywhere near enough revenue to start paying down the national debt or even bridge the yearly budget deficit so Chait is insisting Boehner hasn’t offered to raise revenue because what Boehner has trotted out as revenue increases to satisfy won’t be enough.

And Boehner pretends that Obama pulled 1.6 trillion over 6 years out of his ass after he ate the old proposal for thanksgiving instead of Cobbler and Gobbler. It’s the revenue that repealing the Bush tax cuts, raising estate taxes and limiting deductions for the wealthiest Americans will produce. It is the proposal Obama ran on and it’s on the record: (last updated October 25 2012 by the Tax Policy Center):

Relative to that baseline, the president’s proposals would raise an additional $1.7 trillion in revenue (net of outlays for refundable credits) over the coming decade.

That revenue gain is composed of two kinds of tax change: about $400 billion in revenue lost to a variety of tax reductions and $2.1 trillion in added revenue from tax increases (table 2). About $160 billion of the tax cuts would result from making permanent provisions in the 2009 stimulus act mostly for low- and middle-income households and another $160 billion would be due to various business tax cuts.

The remaining $100 billion of cuts would fund, among other things, the last three months of the 2012 payroll tax reduction and extension of various expiring provisions. On the revenue-increase side, about 40 percent of additional revenues would result from not extending the 2001-03 tax cuts for highincome households, about 28 percent from limiting the value of itemized deductions to 28 percent (affecting only high-income taxpayers), about 18 percent from various income tax increases on businesses, and the balance from miscellaneous tax increases.

In fact save for a few Republicans, they’ve had a big kabuki show of saying “I don’t care about Grover” but they are only signaling smaller tax loophole grab bag in place of the bigger tax loophole grab bag as the only revenue adjustments they are willing to undergo. This is their position since prior to November 6th 2012. Here is Boehner on October 12, 2012:

That requires reform of both the tax code and the way the federal government spends taxpayers’ money. Instead of raising tax rates on small businesses, we need an overhaul of the tax code that supports growth by closing loopholes and lowering taxes instead of raising them.

Here’s what you need to know: Grover still runs them. The GOP house caucus is still united behind not raising marginal tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. Grover’s not gone, he’s closer than ever.

The Republicans will let the new year come and then they can vote for Obama’s middle class tax cut on it’s own under the guise that they couldn’t bear to see middle class people suffer under Obama tax tyranny. Until then, they can’t.

The best thing about all this, they had a great deal (for Republicans) when the grand bargain was on the table as it only asked for 800b in additional revenue. Obama really was ready to give them a very Republican leaning deal and they balked at it, now they have no leverage.