Showing us who's the boss

Yesterday we heard from Larry Summers, talking about how, in the end, Wall Street will do what's right for the American people because "we were there for them." Well, that statement also happened to coincide with a meeting the President was having with the major heads of financial corporations on things like executive compensation, new regulations, and lending. Thankfully, a few of our financial betters decided to show just how thankful they were.

President Obama didn’t exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him. “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he began the meeting at the White House with Wall Street’s top brass on Monday.

He was, of course, referring to the three conspicuously absent attendees who were being piped in by telephone: Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; John J. Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley; and Richard D. Parsons, chairman of Citigroup.

Their excuse? “Inclement weather,” according to the White House. More precisely, fog delayed flights into Reagan National Airport.

Awww, fog. Shame there isn't a high speed rail system connecting the two cities, just as it's also a shame that the fog was only bad enough for those three not to make it out of New York.I guess there just wasn't a sense of urgency, seeing as they weren't going to be getting any more billions in return for showing up.

On the bright side, they are saying there has to be major financial reforms. Sure, the armies of lobbyists they pay and their Congressional toadies are saying something else, but the CEO's are pretending really hard. In the end, isn't that repayment enough? Isn't putting up a thin candy shell of humility, gratitude, and claims that you're ready to act like humans again "doing what's right'? It'll just makes the loophole riddled bill that Congress passes and Wall Street loves easier to swallow. Imagine how hard that bill would be to take if these CEO's acted likes assholes the entire way through the process?

Next time make more of an effort to catch a plane: it makes it easier for us to pretend you care. Our psyches are fragile enough as it is, what with lending dried up and no jobs. We need some phony showmanship, so we can at least pretend we got something out of the global financial apocalypse. Can't you at least give us that?

Maybe they should start talking about this more

After the last few days of the White House's continued statements that sure, they'd love a public option, but they'll jettison it in a second if push ever comes to shove, and the chief Republican negotiator in the Senate (a man dubbed both serious about health care reform and a great negotiating partner) alternating his time between claiming death panels are real and stating that he won't even commit to supporting a bill he agrees with, some Democrats have decided that maybe it's time they actually stood up and spoke out on something they believe. After no one stepped forward to do so, Nancy Pelosi was elbowed in the ribs and shoved in front of a microphone, but not before she could grab Russ Feingold and a Rockefeller and drag them out there with her.

In the Senate, where negotiations are now focused, John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.) said that a public option, as the plan has become known, is "a must." Sen. Russell Feingold (Wis.) said that "without a public option, I don't see how we will bring real change to a system that has made good health care a privilege for those who can afford it."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said that the plan will be included in whatever bill is voted on in the House. "There is strong support in the House for a public option," she said, though she did not demand that the administration express support for the idea.

One Democrat predicted that without the provision, the bill could lose as many as 100 votes in the chamber.

Oh poor, poor Feingold and Rockefeller. Don't you know that as a Senate Democrats who believes in a public option, you are effectively un-important to the debate? I mean it was decided by Max Baucus that instead of working with an actual Democratic majority, he would cede almost full negotiating power to Chuck Grassley and the most conservative members of the Finance Committee. Progressive Democrats aren't allowed to have a say.

But hey, thanks for at least speaking up on the issue. You will be ignored by everyone who matters, but thanks. But stop with the predictions of 100 defections if there's no public option, because we all know how this story ends. A weak, do little, co-op plan is pushed out of the Finance Committee and passed by the Senate, then all the House members who thought about standing on principle and voting against the thing are then guilted into voting for the thing on the basis of Paul Begala's "shit sandwich" principle: that the co-op plan is doing something for health care and doing something is better than nothing. Don't go trying to get our hopes up that for once the Democrats will be led by the larger Progressive caucus, instead of getting yanked around by the smaller Blue Dog caucus. Our health can't take it, and it doesn't look like effective health reform is on the horizon.

Iran bloggings

• There is tension in Iran between Iran's Supreme Leader and his newly minted flesh puppet "President" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It seems when they rigged an election to get Ahmadinejad in power they didn't want him to bring along his VP selection. Because really, just think of all the damage a powerless VP could do to a puppet President in a powerless government that takes all it's orders from corrupt religious dictators. Thankfully Ahmadinejad has vowed to fight on, because if the Supreme Leader is making demands on who should be VP, what other infringements on Iranian "democracy" might he make? Slippery slopes.


• This VP choice has spilled over into a fight with the Cabinet, who clashed with Ahmadinejad in meetings. They must really not like this guy. I mean all they're essentially arguing about is the other guy who gets to sit at the long table and pretend they're running something as they take their orders from the various old men with beards who control things. And really, who wants to spend all that hard work pretending you're a democracy and pretending you're in charge if the guy who is pretending to be VP and pretending to have more power than you is an asshole?


• Worldwide marches and a "day of action" are scheduled for tomorrow to protest Iran and the "election" they had. They plan to stream the protests on YouTube so that Iranian citizens can know that behind the firewall that's blocking them from viewing it, people are supporting them. In Washington there's going to even be an appearance by a man described as "the Iranian combination of Bono and Sting." These protest will involve 10 times the number of protesters as the teabaggers and will proportionally receive 1/10th the coverage.


• Al Gore's Current TV network spends a day with the Basij, the lawless security service that you mostly know for beating up, shooting, and imprisoning protesters.