News Roundup for 1/30/09

Rudy Giuliani

-Headline of the day-
"Giuliani Defends Wall Street Bonuses While Slamming Tax Cuts For The Poor."

You remember Rudy Giuliani. You know, that one guy who was talking about 9/11 all the time? The one time GOP frontrunner whose brilliant strategy of sitting out the primaries until they got to Florida made him a presidential candidate without a hope in hell?

Yeah, that guy.

Rudy brought the same level of genius to CNN that he brought to the campaign trail, arguing in favor of big, fat, unearned bonuses for Wall Streeters, saying that ending them would create unemployment.

"I remember when I was mayor, one of the ways in which you determined New York City’s budget, tax revenues, was Wall Street bonuses," he said. "Wall Street had a billion, two billion in bonuses, city had a deficit. Wall Street had 15 to 20 billion, New York City had a 2, 3 billion surplus. And it’s because that money gets spent... It does have a reverse effect on the economy, if you somehow take that bonus out of the economy. It really will create unemployment. It means less spending in restaurants, less spending in department stores. So everything has an impact."

Guess what genius? The entire fucking nation is not New York City. If some guy on Wall Street gets a big fat bonus, he's not going to spend it at a restaurant in Des Moines or Albuquerque. Besides, we're paying the bonus! Handing out federal money to people to use however they want is welfare, right? Isn't that bad?

Apparently not. Because later, Mayor Brilliant told fellow moron Sean Hannity that tax refunds for the poor were "welfare."

"[If] somebody is not paying taxes is going to get a check from the government, then that is welfare," he said. "You haven’t earned it, that’s a welfare payment. I think he’s going to have to abandon that in light of the economic situation."

Yeah, because the only tax that's actually a tax is the income tax. All those FISA taxes aren't really taxes, because they're... well, what the fuck are they?

Y'got me. Ask Mayor Brilliant, he's the expert. (Think Progress, with video)


-At the other end of the spectrum...-
...we have Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, a Democrat and an Obama booster. Claire wants to "cap compensation for employees of any company that accepts federal bailout money." By how much? Under the legislation, "no employee would be allowed to make more than the president of the United States." For the record, that's $400,000 -- or, as most people call it, "plenty."

"We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer," the senator said on the senate floor. "They don't get it. These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses." Call it an income limit to qualify for a welfare check.

Since this was on the senate floor, it's written into the record. From now until the end of this great nation, this current crop of Wall Streeters will be remembered by history as the guys McCaskill twice called "idiots." Whether or not the bill goes through (sadly, the smart money's probably on "not"), she's a Hero for Our Time for that act alone.

Let successive generations say "Amen." (CNN, via reddit)


-Bonus HotD-
"Official: U.S. will not renew contract with Blackwater."

How sad. An official with the State Dept. says that their contract with the private mercenary army won't be renewed, just because a bunch of trigger-happy Blackwater jerks went and killed a whole bunch of innocent people. Really, that could happen to anybody. It hasn't, but it could.

According to the report, "Losing the contract will be a huge blow to Blackwater. It has been estimated that the Iraq contract makes up one-third to one-half of the privately held company's business. Blackwater has about two dozen aircraft in Iraq and 1,000 personnel." They'll be expected to be gone by May.

That's the good news. The bad news is that all these psychos will be coming back to the US, where most of them will be unemployed.

So there's that. (CNN)