Shut up and give

What exactly is the plan for the GOP's return to power. Sure, sure: oppose everything, pull down government on top of themselves, chastise Democrats for failing to fix the problems it took them eight years to create in two... with a straight face. We all know that's the general outline and have seen it played out over the past year. But what's their actual point-A-to-Z plan to get back into power?

Well, according to RNC documents obtained by Politico, it's pretty much the plan I listed above... only with a healthy dose of seething contempt, disdain, and openly hostile scorn for the intelligence of their voters and donors, large sections of the American public, and their own lawmakers. Mostly the donors though.

The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism."

The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.
...
Manipulating donors with crude caricatures and playing on their fears is hardly unique to Republicans or to the RNC – Democrats raised millions off George W. Bush in similar terms – but rarely is it practiced in such cartoonish terms.

One page, headed “The Evil Empire,” pictures Obama as the Joker from Batman, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively.

Ouch. Barry and Pelosi get two of the most iconic villains in American popular culture and Harry Reid is only characterized as a hungry, yet cowardly, talking cartoon dog who the Speaker may or may not turn into a magnificent coat? ....Yeah, that seems about right.

There's even a section in their presentation entitled "Visceral Giving" in which the motivation of low level GOP donors is listed as "fear" and their mood "reactionary". Big ticket donors are treated with more respect as their desires are only listed as "access" and their concerns "ego-driven" and susceptible to "peer to peer pressure". On the other hand the RNC does want to "Put the Fun Back in FUNdraising".

So just in case you were wondering, no, the Republican Party doesn't have any sort of specialized disdain for you personally or some vendetta against the country and its institutions. They just feel that way about everybody and everything. You're just lucky you haven't given money to them, because the RNC really seems to have a negative opinion about those people.

And why shouldn't Michael Steele have a healthy amount of distrust and dislike of these donors? These are, after all, people who willingly gave money to the RNC. He's justified.

Our horrible media

If you want to wonder why leaders in our country will torture and engage in Constitutionally criminal activities with seemingly little thought, then after Congress gets its fair share of blame for always being willing to grease the skids and then cover it up, you have to give our terrible media it's due as well.

Here we have our media betters clucking and wondering if we really need to talk about all this nasty torture business and try to prosecute all these lawbreakers. In fact this segment heaps more complaints on Obama for releasing the torture memos than it does for people who authorized and carried out torture. As did most media commentary since the memos were released. But that's what they do, always an excuse for their fellow elites, as long as the rule breaking is legally and Constitutional based in nature and not having to do with something really important like hookers or possibly gay hookers.

So give them all a round of applause, they've assured that no pressure or scrutiny will come from our nation's news establishment and thus no force will be brought to bear on those who tortured or those who just want to sweep it under the rug. It's better if we don't address these serious breaches of our legal structure. You know, for the good of the country.

All you need to know

Today Tim Geithner officially released his toxic legacy assets program. A program which attempts to completely subsidize private investment risk in return for throwing good money after bad in an attempt to pretend excrement is in fact brown gold. A program that was largely derided by economists as trying to pretend the fundamental flaws in the financial system are just superficial, ignoring clear historical precedent and guidance, and one that will prolong our problems and forestall real action.

The Dow responded to this plan by going up 497 points.
The S&P jumped 54.
The Nasdaq went up 98.

Bad economic news is good Wall Street news, as long as Wall Street gets their cut. You really are better off betting your money at the dog track.

This changes nothing

Remember last month when we formally issued articles outlining a Declaration of Hate on the Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) support group? While the entire sordid enterprise absolutely reeked of scam, we dove headfirst into the hatefest because, well, this is New York and the notion was not the least bit far-fetched. Turns out the Times done been had.

Editors' Note: February 25, 2009
An article on Jan. 28 about women who commiserated over dating Wall Street bankers caught in the financial crisis described a group they had formed, Dating a Banker Anonymous, as a support group. That is the name of their blog. Its creators originally told The Times that about 30 women had participated, but since publication, they have said that all involved were friends. Laney Crowell, one of the women who started the blog, said in the article that it was “very tongue in cheek;” she has since described it as a satire that embellishes true experiences for effect. Had the nature of the blog been made clear at the outset, the article would have described it accordingly, not as a support group.

So it's not a "support group," per se, but rather a blog that "embellishes true experiences." Fuck that. The hate remains. This city becomes more tolerable every time one of these people loses his or her job and has to move the hell out. TB will run no correction, no retraction. Only more hate. Hate hate hate.