Ironic, my vacation entails going back to Wisconsin. G figure.
Will be on the road as I make my way to the annual Binversie Family Reunion in the clan's ancestral family home of St. Nazianz, so blogging will be light likely until early next week.
See ya then.
P.S. Yes, I had a post ready to go about the Sarah Palin resignation news, but Word Press ate the damn thing and I didn't feel like re-writing it. Call me lazy, but it's the truth.
Heard this earlier in the week, but only now found a story about it. Once again, the Rush-kis' highlight their knack for being completely oblivious to public perceptions.
A marketing blunder in Nigeria has got online communities all of a twitter, after a joint oil and gas venture with Russia was named Nigaz.
Russia's Gazprom and Nigeria's state-operated NNPC formed the company - pronounced "nye-gaz" - last week.
Nigerians No Nigaz, a group formed on the social networking site Facebook, says the name could be pronounced in a way offensive to black people.
Users of Twitter have also expressed disbelief at the decision.
"Russian & Nigerian companies have formed new oil firm called... Nigaz. I'm not lying," says Osa Oyegun, under her Twitter name ChocolateMezzo.
The topic has prompted hundreds of tweets.
Henry Makiwa, known as makiwahenry, said: "Lol [laugh out loud] of the day: Russian/Nigerian oil conglomerate has had PR branding blunder after naming joint company 'Nigaz'."
We're about to see this name changed in all likelihood as the power of public ridicule over social network hits Mother Russia. Will be fun to see the documentation of it later.
No comment from this member of the Peanut Gallery...
Image from Journal Sentinel website.
Personally, at the rate this Congress is going, you could probably put "Any Pending Bill" there.
So much for your money being your money.
When President Obama announced on June 9 that some financial institutions would be allowed to repay Troubled Asset Relief Program dollars, he said the massively expensive TARP bailout had made money for the federal government. "It is worth noting that in the first round of repayments from these [TARP recipients], the government has actually turned a profit," the president said. Indeed, TARP supporters have long held out the hope that the program might be profitable.
But now Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers. Last Friday, Frank introduced the "TARP for Main Street Act of 2009," a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats.
In exchange for receiving TARP money, financial institutions were required to hand over shares of preferred stock that paid a dividend for the government. In theory, if a financial institution paid the dividend faithfully, and then repaid the TARP money, then the government would turn a profit. Last month, the General Accountability Office (GAO) reported that, through June 12, 2009, the government had received $6.2 billion in dividend payments. The original TARP legislation required that money made from the program "shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt."
Frank, however, wants to spend the money before it can be used to pay down anything. First, the "TARP for Main Street" proposal would take $1 billion "from dividends paid by financial institutions that have received financial assistance provided under…the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and apply it to a trust fund that Frank has long wanted to create for low-income rental housing. (The measure, unfunded, was part of last year's bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.) Next, Frank would take $1.5 billion from TARP dividends for a so-called "neighborhood stabilization" fund. Republican critics have charged that both measures might allow federal dollars to be distributed to activist groups like the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN.
I'll let others play around with ACORN-related theorizes and Democrat-connected activist groups getting tax dollars simply by showing up at the door.
Frankly, all people, no matter what their political stripe, should be upset with this news. Part of the selling of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was that eventually as the banks which took this money, they'd pay it back with the 'interest' being the profit to American taxpayers. It was not meant to become a slush-fund for any member of Congress - let alone one with the horrible track record of fiscal mismanagement of Barney Frank - to play around with and use as they please.
Now is the time for those Congressman who either voted against TARP initially; or later on wished they didn't, to raise hell about this discovery. This is the time conservatives like Wisconsin's own Paul Ryan to shine and get back in the good graces of many of his critics. It's also a time for pit bulls like John Boehner or Jim Sensenbrenner to earn their money.
Finally, it may actually be the one time Steve Kagen could show he's not a political tool who's not in the pocket of his party's leadership and voted against TARP for reasons beyond "John Gard had a TV ad against it and I had to answer him."
The CNN reporter for giving us this.
They found Bubbles the chimp folks...'nuff said.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin tried to be funny about an apparent comment made by State Senator Ted Kanavas (R-Elkhorn) about jobs in Wisconsin leaving for Texas (in actuality, Kanavas was telling a story about a lawyer friend) because of the difference in business and tax climates. Unfortunately, it came out worse than it intended to be.
Not one to take criticism to his political patron [Doyle] and the Democratically-passed budget lightly, new DPW Chairman Mike Tate reacted exactly like any 30 year-old going on 10 would.
He pouted.
Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate today released the following statement in response to reports that Senator Ted Kanavas’ may soon move to Texas.
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
Some quick points.
I'm liking this new regime at DPW already.
Just want to point out two back-to-back stories in WisPolitics' "DC Wrap" section today which highlight the upcoming 2010 Congressional race.
First, a tale of challengers past.
Former Assembly Speaker John Gard and his wife Cate Zeuske, the former Revenue secretary, have purchased Wisconsin Independent Businesses and Explore Wisconsin.
Gard, who made unsuccessful bids for the 8th CD in 2006 and 2008, said the purchase of both entities from owners Tom and Nancy Dohn takes him out of the running for 2010.
Gard took some time after the '08 campaign to decide what he wanted to do next when this opportunity presented itself. The sale was expected to be finalized today.
Best of luck there John and Cate. I'm sure you two will be great ambassadors for Wisconsin's Small Business and Tourism communities.
Secondly, a tale of challengers future.
Roofing company owner Reid Ribble tells WisPolitics he plans to file nomination papers later this week to officially get into the GOP primary to take on Dem U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen next year in the 8th CD.
Ribble, whose group owns two roofing companies and a gutter protection company, said he was in Washington, D.C., this month to meet with the NRCC, some members of Congress, national trade groups and consultants. But he said it was his conscience that persuaded him to get into the race.
"My passions in the early stages are just the runaway spending and the national debt," Ribble said. "I think Americans are getting very concerned. I know that I'm getting concerned with an $11.5 trillion national debt. With socialized medicine coming down the pipe, cap-and-trade, it's all going to cost this country and economy jobs and money."
Ribble joins Door Co. Super. Marc Savard and Brown Co. Super. Andy Williams as Republicans who have already announced they're running, With others considering a bid as well, Ribble said he expects to stand apart from the crowd because he's not a "career politician" and his background in the business world.
"I understand what it takes to create jobs and sustain a business," said Ribble, who has never run for public office before.
I don't personally know any of the three announced GOP challengers to Kagen for this cycle, so I wish the best of luck to the three of them and a spirited, fair, and honest primary among the three. Of the three, I'd say Ribble is sort of "The Anti-Kagen." Like "the good Doctor," Ribble will likely have enough money to finance himself during the primary, and he's enough of known name that he could be in the small business community to parry with Kagen especially on small business issues. He also can claim - like Kagen has in past campaigns - to not be a professional politician (that's now Kagen) and knows how to make a payroll as well as many issues facing small businesses.
Should be an interesting race in a growing field.
One of President Barack Obama's most prominent Wall Street backers gives him high marks on just about everything except his approach to Wall Street.
Billionaire investor George Soros today said that Obama is "doing very well except in the recapitalization of banks and the reorganization of the mortgage market."
Soros, the chairman of Soros Fund Management, said he was pleased with the administration's handling of education, health care and global warming.
But, he said, "I'm afraid that it's too much continuity between the Obama administration and the Bush administration as far as the management of the financial system is concerned," Soros said this morning at a breakfast discussion hosted by the Wall Street Journal.
Soros also predicted that fears of inflation would drive up interest rates and "choke off" economic recovery.
Soros is like any other high-flying, multi-convicted, illegal currency trader. He's getting the shakes that all the borrowing and spending will trigger not just inflation, but hyper-inflation, which will leave guys like him sitting on nothing but worthless paper.
Later on in the article, Soros is quoted as saying the current U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was not his first choice. Instead he would have preferred Obama Economic Advisor Larry Summers in the position instead.
That's an opinion I concur with. Summers is at least the practical, sane, non-ideological one of the bunch it seems. He'll also likely be the first one to render his resignation because no one appears to be listening to him at the White House.
