Cheap Blogging Crutch 4.17

Ex-McCain aide to call for gay marriage support
Seems former McCain aide Steve Schmidt thinks that Republicans being for gay marriage is a smart thing. He'll be denounced as a heretic, shunned, and possibly stoned by the rest of his party in 3...2...1. While it's good to see him make the argument, let's make sure he's not involved in selling it or getting it passed. I don't know how much McCain campaign type backbiting, mixed messages, infighting, confusion, incoherence, and mismanagement the issue can take.

Banks Rush to Repay U.S. Funds, but Cling To Other Lifelines
Well, well, well. Banks want to bitch about taking one set of government funds while lining up at the trough to take another. CEO's are complaining about the restrictions surrounding the use of TARP funds, using words like "scarlet letter", "asinine", and complain that they only took the money to show a united front. Now that some turned a 1st quarter profit, they want to yell about how they never needed the money in the first place, they're defaulting on checks to their butler, and the terms are "damaging the economy", neglecting to mention the fact that they'd be bankrupt if they didn't get the TARP money and are still hoovering up government billions from other areas. They really haven't learned anything, have they?

Injured War Zone Contractors Fight to Get Care From AIG and Other Insurers
Turns out those bastion of usefulness, AIG, were making quite a handsome profit off of the Iraq war. Not only did they insure civilian contractors, collecting premiums to the tune of $1.5 billion dollars, a sum an army audit called "unreasonably high", they went ahead and denied 44% of all claims for contractors suffering serious injuries and over half of all claims for psychological distress. They were able to net a cool $600 million profit, which given their track record, they probably used to fund the liquidation of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. God, I'm so glad they were too big to fail. What would we ever do without them? I mean besides have a solvent economy and treat people wounded in war with a shred of dignity.

Sondhi Limthongkul Survives 84 Gunshots
Mr. Limthongkul, aka King of the Badasses, organized protests that ended up deposing Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra last year. The New Rasputin, who led the 'yellow shirts', has been under fire (figuratively at first, now literally) from the 'red shirts' who backed the previous government and are trying to protest the new government out of power. When asked for comment, Mr. Limthongkul responded that "there is no spoon" and then kung fu fought his way through a bunch of men in black suits.