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Media
Monthly Archives: March 2009
Ninety percent
The Washington Post reports that Fannie Mae plans to pay four top executives $1 million or more in retention bonuses. The Post helpfully explains that a fifth of this money was paid in 2008. The four Fannie Mae executives will receive about 60 percent of the remaining funds this year and, depending on performance, as much as 40 percent next year. According to this statement issued by the Speaker’s office, »
The hour is getting late
Mario Loyola focuses attention on what he calls “the southern front in the War on Terror.” Running through Latin America’s institutions of state, the front is cracking under the combined assault of political revolution, Islamist terrorism and the world’s most heavily armed drug cartels. Loyola takes a dire view of the regional trend: On Colombia’s frontiers, the radical “Bolivarian” governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia have embraced Iran, and are »
It could happen here
Peter Wehner contrasts the views of Charles Murray and David Brooks on the all-important question of whether the United States soon will become very much like Europe. Murray, in an address to the American Enterprise Institute, argued that there exists the real possibility that irreversible damage will be done to the American project over the next few years. Brooks, in a New York Times column, argued that America ‘s cultural »
A restoration farce
Three political scientists have completed a study they say demonstrates that the ratings of federal court of appeals nominees by the American Bar Association are biased against conservative nominees (hat tip: Matthew Sheffield). The study constructed an ideology measure for appeals court nominees and a model to explain the roles of other factors — experience, career path, education, race/gender, and political affiliation — in ABA evaluations. It then applied that »
AIG, Suicide Bomber!
I don’t believe Barack Obama is an idiot. Truly, I don’t. And yet, whenever he talks without a teleprompter, he makes you wonder. This verbal excursion is from today’s “townhall,” conducted in California before a cheering throng of, no doubt, carefully selected fans: The same is true with AIG. It was the right thing to do to step in. Here’s the problem. It’s almost like they’ve got — they’ve got »
Just When You Think They Can’t Sink Lower…
…they do! Nancy Pelosi has just announced that she will introduce legislation tomorrow to tax the AIG bonuses at 90%. This is being done, of course, “to strengthen our economy and create jobs.” The tax will be highly selective: The bill would apply a separate income tax rate of 90 percent to bonuses received by individuals from companies which have received at least $5 billion from TARP. It would also »
Dodd Changes His Story
In a bizarre turn of events, Chris Dodd has walked away from the claim he made just yesterday that he had no idea how the provision affirming AIG’s bonuses was inserted into the “stimulus” bill at the conference committee stage: In an interview with CNN, Dodd denied inserting that exemption at the 11th hour, and insisted he doesn’t know how it got there. “When I wrote the language there was »
AIG: How Bad Is It?
Lots of numbers have been attached to the AIG bailout; here again, the House subcommittee hearing was illuminating. Edward Liddy broke down the government’s investments: BACHUS: Now, I’m aware of the federal loan which is $37.8 billion. The $40 billion TARP, now, that’s $77 billion, $78 billion. Is that what is actually owed? Or is it $170 billion? LIDDY: No, it’s $78 billion that is actually owed. Let me — »
Highlights From the Hill, Part II
One significant point that emerged from the testimony of AIG’s Edward Liddy is that the bonuses that have stirred controversy were all, within AIG’s financial products division, retention bonuses, not performance bonuses: LIDDY: Congressman, I — I think the contracts that you are reading from have to do with performance bonuses. No performance bonuses at F.P., zero. It’s a different issue than the retention bonuses, where we basically said to »
It’s Not Just the Bailouts
This arresting exchange occurred in Robert Gibbs’ White House press conference yesterday. Gibbs was asked about the AIG bonuses, but his answer quickly veered off into executive compensation generally: QUESTION: One follow-up. You — you mentioned that the president and the American people are outraged. There were some on Capitol Hill who have questioned his outrage. They — they say, how can he come out and say he’s outranged when »
Drama on the Hill
Today the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets conducted a hearing on “AIG’s impact on the global economy.” The hearing has been scheduled for a while, but the current furor over payment of bonuses by AIG made it the focus of much attention and even a protest by none other than Code Pink, looking for a way to stay relevant now that the Iraq War is more or less won: The »
Republicans Take Lead in Generic Ballot
The Associated Press notices that the Democrats have a problem: “White House, Dems backpedaling on AIG”: For the first time since last fall’s election, Democrats and the Obama administration are backpedaling furiously on an issue easily understood by financially strapped taxpayers: $165 million in bonuses paid out at bailed-out AIG. Republicans, struggling to regain their political footing, are content to let Democrats try to dig their way out of this »
Fall Guy?
Many are speculating that Tim Geithner is being set up to be the fall guy for the disasters of the Obama administration’s early days. So yesterday, President Obama backed his Treasury Secretary 100%: The White House stood by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday amid widespread outrage over millions of dollars in bonuses insurance giant AIG gave to executives after receiving federal bailout money. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said »
Amherst’s disgrace
It could have been any elite institution of American higher education that disgraced itself by a faculty boycott of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia when he spoke on campus. But it was Amherst College, alma mater of Meg Scalia ’02. Peter Robinson quotes Meg Scalia’s letter to the college newspaper: My father, who is one of the most conservative figures in government, chose to send me to Amherst to be »
Why Obama thanked himself
The AP reports on a White House Teleprompter malfunction yesterday: Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few paragraphs into an address at a St. Patrick’s Day celebration at the White House when he realized something sounded way too familiar. Turns out, he was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just given. Cowen was set to speak twice at the White House on Tuesday night because there were »
The passion of AIG
This week the White House has expressed shock and anger over the $165 million in bonuses due to AIG employees. The Washington Post reports, however, that President Obama was informed about the bonuses the day before they were paid out last week. The Post’s report is based on a timeline released by the White House late Tuesday. The AP moves the timeline back even further. According to Julie Hirschfield Davis »
Americans — “conservative” but not “center-right”
The results from a poll taken for NPR by Public Opinion Strategies and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner provide a good snapshot of public sentiment as of March 10-12, 14. The best news for Republicans is that their party is tied 42-42 on the generic “who would you vote for today in your congressional district” question. With respondents disapproving of the congressional performance by a margin of 58-36, perhaps this generic preference »
