The Mean Girl Just Jumps Out

 

So, hat-tip to Gawker for seeing the entire outfit, which reminds me of something I might have worn in high school. This is a US Senator. This is a person who apologized to another US Senator in an airport just recently because her constituents still thought she was someone who cared. And to the person who wanted a minute of her valuable time, she said "Noli me tangere".  Clearly she's wearing the hem of her garment closer to her vest for some reason, but she's a woman of mysteries. Evidently.

This gets us back to the age old question of when is it un-feminist to ream out a woman for stuff like her clothing choices or how she chooses to assert her physical boundaries, and whether we're judging too harshly or by standards we wouldn't hold any man up to, and I'm sorry--what is the male equivalent of this outfit? Jeans and a Senor Frog polo? My question is, would a Hill staffer get away with that getup? And is she possibly dressing for the job she actually wants? (Bartender in a college town gastropub?)

Is this some form of protest over being held responsible for people thinking she should probably act and vote like the person she set herself out to be when she ran for office? Is she checking her phone for job offers that are somehow better than being a US Senator--a person with actual power to effect change if she felt so moved? 

Am I being mean? Because something about her whole deal is just exceptionally vexxing to me, and I am not liking it. 

Climate Tuesday: Like I was Saying, People are Missing All of the Points

So, the takeaway from Naomi Klein's book, if I just boiled it down to the simplest message is, "For crying out loud, not everything has to come down to the Almighty Buck!"

So here's another example of people who seem to be missing all of the points in the extractivist quest to mine for gold in...the dumbest places.  So here we go--West Virginia.

I like West Virginia, it's a beautiful state. The Ohio River is lovely, and its water serves the thirst requirements and more for over 3 million people. So, of course, oil companies are looking at that stream of liquid life and thinking,

"Hey, could there be natural gas under there?"

Yep. The state that just recently had water services to 300,000 residents interrupted by a chemical spill wants to play River Roulette. Sad to say, the governor there is a Democrat, albeit I guess a pitiful one. Which is a reminder that stupidity in the pursuit of petrodollars is not a partisan issue--it's a problem all over.  Fossil fuel royalties are no way to plug a budget hole if it's a stopgap at best and poses more serious clean-up problems down the road. This is the kind of short-term political thinking that makes things worse.

If Your State Has Jay Nixon Then Your State Could Use Some Fixing

I joke about politicians not being real "profiles in courage" from time to time, but seriously, this is the kind of leadership Missouri has right now:

While St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCullough’s (sic) *objectivity is in question by many Black Democrats, Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon quietly threw his support behind him.

In a statement Tuesday evening, Nixon announced his support, saying McCullough should not recuse himself from the investigation into the police shooting of Michael Brown unless he wants to.

“From the outset, I have been clear about the need to have a vigorous prosecution of this case, and that includes minimizing any potential legal uncertainty. I am not asking St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCullough to recuse himself from this case,” he said.

The punch line goes like this:  McCullouch has said he’ll recuse himself only at the request of Nixon.

As of February of this year, there was chatter that he wasn't ruling out a 2016 run. I think Mrs. Clinton might like to take him off her VP short-list.

(Nota bene: the name of the prosecutor here, Robert McCulloch, was in fact misspelled in this article. However, I still think he might not be the best guy to try whether a police slaying is ever wrong.)

Two Discretionary tales from the 1%-ers.

Because the ideals of the 99% are very much a part of my thoughts right now, I'm offering these two stories as a package deal--they represent what is going on with some of these 1%-ers.  There aren't, as you may have been able to statistically deduce, as many of them as there are of the 99%-ers, but their stories still need to be told. And in the interest of inclusion--I mean to tell them.

I will start with my main man Jon Corzine. He used to be my boss, actually, which is part of my "what goes on in Jersey, stays in Jersey" vow of omerta. But anyway, now that he isn't the governor of New Jersey, I want to point out that what happened with MF Global sure does look a lot like Goldman Sachs redux--as in: they just don't learn.  There is no such thing as house money--there is only investors' money, and a fiduciary responsibility to actually try to not lose money. Unfortunately, the impulse to gamble "as if" remains.  This is a discretionary tale about the sensible hand supposedly shaping markets--no.  Investors and movers and shakers can look like gamblers--they are individuals who do their own thing, whether it is sensible or not.

Also, one of the lesser-spoken-of in these pages contestants in the Best of the Worst 2012 Presidential Race, Mitt Romney, has a bit of a family affair going on regarding connections to a Ponzi scheme, of all things. And I don't mean Social Security!  It appears that one of the fine, young, upstanding freshly scrubbed Romney scions, Tagg, launched a "fund of funds" that invested in investing. And it turned out that the investing was not about investing, so much as profiting.  Hmm. And some of the people involved were even connected to the Stanford Ponzi scheme.

Ya know, I sort of sympathized with Romney when he admitted to going to his landscaper in a pet about immigrant workers and crying out "But I'm running for office for Pete's sake!"  But why didn't these same instincts kick in re: not financially partying like it was pre-2009?

So 1%. They know not what they are doing with so much of the wealth they have. There but for the grace of the markets go I, you know?

Does anyone ever learn?  

The Democratic Spine--Found it.

Rumor has it,  Democrats rediscovered the spine today. Apparently, it was lurking in that general area between the ass and shoulders that chronic slouchers often forget as being a body part that truly matters. Having rediscovered the spine, Democrats are expected to do upright things in the future.  Here are two tales of wonder.

First up--our president speaks very candidly about the budget deal, and it is good:

"I said, 'You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We'll have that debate. You're not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we're stupid?'" recalled the president of his closed-door negotiations on the bill to fund the federal government until September. (listen to the remarks in the video at left)

Mr. Obama said he told House Speaker John Boehner and members of his staff that he'd spent a year and a half getting the sweeping health care legislation passed -- paying "significant political costs" along the way -- and wouldn't let them undo it in a six-month spending bill.

Also, House Democrats decided to have a little fun with a freshman/Tea Party-heavy GOP majority, and decided to simply vote "present" regarding a budget bill to the right of Ryan's. Here's what happened: