President Obama announces Dan Rooney for the next Ambassador of Ireland and other St. Patrick's Day Stuff (Video)

First, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Dan Rooney was announced by President O'Bama as the next Ambassador to Ireland.

President Barack Obama announced today that he intends to nominate Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney as the U.S. ambassador to Ireland.

Obama called Rooney "an unwavering supporter of Irish peace, culture and education" in announcing the nomination, according to the Associated Press.

Rooney co-founded the American Ireland Fund in 1976 and the organization, according to the White House, has raised more than $300 million for peace and education programs in Ireland.

"I am honored and grateful that such a dedicated and accomplished individual has agreed to serve as the representative of the United States to the Irish people," Obama said in a written statement. "Dan Rooney is an unwavering supporter of Irish peace, culture, and education, and I have every confidence that he and Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton will ensure America's continued close and unique partnership with Ireland in the years ahead."

President Barack Obama meets with Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen in the Oval Office of the White House


President Barack Obama receives a bowl of shamrocks from Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen


President Barack Obama leaves the U.S. Capitol Building following lunch there with Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen


White House Fountain Bled GREEN

O'Bama on St. Pat's Day

Desiree Rogers, WH Social Secretary

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Obama's Final 4 Picks

Louisville, UNC, Memphis, Pitt

I like Pitt, the one to watch out for. They got the heat right now.

President Barack Obama is picking Louisville, North Carolina, Memphis and Pittsburgh for the Final Four in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

The First Hoops Fan indulged in one of the week’s most popular pastimes, filling out his NCAA bracket Tuesday for ESPN. The network, which is posting Obama’s bracket online Wednesday and showing Andy Katz’s report on “Sportscenter” at noon EDT, will reveal the president’s pick for NCAA champion then.

The president stuck primarily with No. 1 seeds. The sole exception was Memphis, seeded No. 2 behind Connecticut in the West regional.

“It was an educated bracket,” Katz said. “He knew what he was doing. It wasn’t some random kind of pick. There were no political favors or anything like that.”

A private campaign promise earned ESPN the hoops scoop.

Katz interviewed Obama during the presidential campaign last October for a story about the president’s brother-in-law, Oregon State head basketball coach Craig Robinson. After the interview, Obama invited Katz to play in a pickup basketball game on Election Day in Chicago, and he did.

Katz extracted a promise from Obama that if elected, the new president would reveal his NCAA picks to ESPN when the pairings were announced in March.

“They stayed true to their word and didn’t hesitate to get it done,” he said.

Source

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AIG bonus outrage keeps going (Video)

AIG IS A HOT ASS MESS....for real...LIKE BLAGO, IT JUST KEEPS MAKING NEWS AND BAD NEWS AT THAT.....MORE HERE.....

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Banks mired in bad loans

Again, I don't see how all these banks will make it. I know the notion is to keep pumping the mantra, to big to fail, but the public is not feeling that right now. They don't care and the feeling is good riddance to greedy rubbish anyway. The AIG outrage is the tipping point for many people out here. Case and point, I call my niece a freshman in college, she is busy with her studies and only know what she needs to know about current events. My niece even knew about AIG and said, "Obama needs to get that money back from those bonuses." Her world is about keeping her scholarship, working and studying, so for her to comment that people in her dorm are talking about the AIG fiasco says something. It states folks are not in the weeds or clouds, they are paying attention to what is going on. So, here comes these banks, especially the big ones. Some will fall, it will happen. Time for hard choices for the Obama Administration.

Foreclosures and bad loans raced through the banking industry in 2008, with the more than 8,000 U.S. banks registering a 149 percent increase in troubled assets, according to a new analysis of bank financial reports to the federal government.

While a large majority of banks were still healthy, 163 ended the year with more troubled loans than capital, up from only 13 a year earlier, according to the analysis of data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. by msnbc.com and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University in Washington, D.C.

Nationwide, seven out of every 10 banks had less capital to cover potential loan losses than a year earlier. The analysis relies on information reported quarterly to the FDIC, calculating each bank's troubled asset ratio, which compares troubled loans against the bank's ability to withstand losses.

Although attention has focused on the largest banks, which hold the lion's share of deposits, the analysis shows how widespread the problems in the banking industry became in 2008 as the mortgage meltdown and broader recession unfolded. Msnbc.com is publishing information on the nation's 400 largest banks as well as all banks with high ratios of troubled loans at year’s end. And the American University group has created a new Web site, BankTracker, to provide information on the financial health of every bank in the country.

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Keith Olbermann on AIG Outrage with Robert Reich....(Video)

What's the most outrageous of this is that most of the banks AIG is paying bonuses to have received BAILOUT MONEY...unbelievable....

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AIG probably won't be able to pay us back, US, the taxpayers (Video)

Enough of too big to fail. If the government owns around 80% of this company it is time to take it over and fire management. This company is scurrilous!!! Shaming AIG? PUHLEAZE....this company don't give a DAMN!!!!!

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President Obama on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Thursday

POTUS making a west coast swing....

The White House says President Barack Obama will appear this week on Jay Leno's talk show, perhaps adding a lighter touch to his bid to resuscitate the moribund economy.

Obama will visit "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" during his trip to Los Angeles on Thursday. NBC will tape the program and air it that night, after the president has returned to Washington.

Source

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Hard to swallow the truth while the government is in OUTRAGE over AIG, Tent Cities, Slums are real (Video)

This is near Ontario Airport, one of the burbs of Los Angeles. And Sacramento and Phoenix have tent cities popping up, too.

Sacramento is below:



Folks, families, individuals getting thrown out on the street is real, not FAKE. We sure care about AIG and the rest, not failing and this just breaks your heart. And evictions, look here.

h/t Jeffrey Feldman

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Obama slams AIG and Supports Small Business (Video and Transcript)

I guess the White House got the message. They are forcefully going out after AIG to get this money back. Again, I am with Barney Frank here, it is time for some pink slips to go out. In the real world this shit would not be tolerated, at all.

Transcript of President Obama's Partial Remarks on AIG

But before I talk about the new steps we're taking to get credit flowing to small businesses across our country, I want to comment on the news about executive bonuses at AIG.

This is a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed.

Under these circumstances, it's hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay. How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?

In the last six months, AIG has received substantial sums from the US Treasury. I've asked Secretary Geithner to use that leverage and pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.

I know he's working to resolve this matter with the new CEO, Edward Liddy, who came on board after the contracts that led to these bonuses were agreed to last year.

This isn't just a matter of dollars and cents. It's about our fundamental values.

All across the country, there are people who work hard and meet their responsibilities every day, without the benefit of government bailouts or multi-million dollar bonuses. And all they ask is that everyone, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, play by the same rules.

That is an ethic we must demand.

What this situation also underscores is the need for overall financial regulatory reform, so we don't find ourselves in this position again, and for some form of resolution mechanism in dealing with troubled financial institutions, so we have greater authority to protect the American taxpayer and our financial system in cases such as this. We will work with Congress to that end.

Transcript on Small Business Owners

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FLOTUS, Michelle Obama on the cover of New York magazine

In fact practically the whole magazine is devoted to FLOTUS. Click on the image below to read!!



h/t Mrs. O

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Publie outrage of AIG

I wrote yesterday, that I have HAD IT, with AIG.

I don't care what the amount in the large millions these bonuses were, you mean to tell me that either the former Bush Administration or the Obama Administration did not ask about these bonuses? I think they did ask, AIG just was not truthful about it. Why? The way and I will write shady way this all was spilled out this weekend and the letter of CEO, Edward Liddy dropped on Treasury and the White House.

The tough talk time is over for all these corporations, yes, let's call it what they are PRIVATE CORPORATIONS, the time of verbal outrage is over. Action and stern action is needed to send a message to these corporations and Wall Street. Why? Because the public is sick, just sick of reading about all this money going to these banks and corporations and their arrogance and constantly giving us, the taxpayers the finger while they still whoop-de-do it like this was 1999.

Should the Obama Administration be worried about public outrage? You betcha.

The Obama administration is increasingly concerned about a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street, worried that anger at financial institutions could also end up being directed at Congress and the White House and could complicate President Obama’s agenda.

The Obama Administration should be very worried. The public is behind this president, no doubt, but when you constantly read the f*ck ups of these banks, AIG, etc., the anger of the public is over the top. People out hear are working hard, working for LESS MONEY, scrimping by, worried about bills, their kids college tuition, if they will have a job tomorrow and we have to repeatedly, again repeatedly read about blowhard corporations and banks taking our money only to give themselves bonuses in the MILLIONS almost BILLIONS of dollars? People out here may not understand the total financial meltdown, which is something the Obama Administration needs to be clearer about, but they surely understand average joe and josetta's tax dollars being given to these corporations and banks and they don't play by the rules but continue to act like nothing happened.

“We’ve got enormous problems that need to be addressed,” David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, said in an interview. “And it’s hard to address because there’s a lot of anger about the irresponsibility that led us to this point.”

“This has been welling up for a long time,” he said.

Mr. Obama’s aides said any surge of such a sentiment could complicate efforts to win Congressional approval for the additional bailout packages that Mr. Obama has signaled will be necessary to stabilize the banking system.

This is the real issue. The public will have no sentiment for giving any more money to these corporations and banks, and quite frankly they shot themselves in the foot on this one. Their excessive lavishness, no carishness, continuing business as usual mentality has led the public to turn around and want to give them the F'U you when it comes to more dollars being given to them.

Even as Mr. Summers was denouncing A.I.G. for the bonuses, he suggested that there was little if anything the government could do to stop them, seconding the conclusion of Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. But even if their reasoning was legally sound, they also risked having the administration look ineffectual in the face of what Mr. Summers said was the worst financial abuse of the last 18 months, since the economy began turning down in earnest.

“Never underestimate the capacity of angry populism in times of economic stress,” said Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and labor secretary under President Bill Clinton. “A big challenge for President Obama will be to maintain a rational and tactical public discussion in the midst of this severe downturn. The desire for culprits at times like this is strong.”

In a further development, A.I.G. on Sunday named dozens of financial institutions that benefited from its huge rescue loan from the Federal Reserve last fall. The list included Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Wachovia.

Nothing the government can do about it? It starts with not giving them anymore money. I know this may sound harsh, or even unrealistic, but just sit back and listen to the public, they are fed the f*ck up with this. Reich is right, don't underestimate the public's anger that is brewing and it is hotter than a pot of coffee.

The Obama Administration was handed a desk load of problems by the Bush Administration and this mess with AIG comes from the Bush Administration, but going forward the decisions by the White House must be on point, must quell the anger out here, if not it will be a very bumpy ride ahead.

Source

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AIG can pay themselves MILLIONS in bonus money from US taxpayers, but folks get EVICTED from their homes, with no help in sight....

Where is the fairness?

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Stop saying they are "Too Big To Fail"....LET THEM

AIG that is it. Really it is it.

Even after watching Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on 60 Minutes tonight, who I might add was eloquent, reserved, humble, I still say as a tax payer let them fail. Even Chairman Bernanke was hot under the collar by giving AIG money, but has to read headlines that they are giving themselves bonuses.


Fed Chairman Bernanke's 60 Minutes Interview, Part Two

The 'effin' moxey of AIG is enough. This company reminds me of Blago, it just won't do the right thing, or more importantly the controversy will never stop.

AIG has taken over 160B dollars of U.S. taxpayers dollars to keep this company propped up but has that moxey to pay out bonuses in the range of 450M? President Obama this is where the rubber hits the road for U.S. taxpayers.

American International Group Inc. will pay $450 million in bonuses to employees in its financial products unit. That division was at the heart of AIG's collapse last fall, which compelled the U.S. government to provide $173.3 billion in aid to keep it running.

The CEO, Edward Liddy of AIG told Treasury Secretary Geithner that their hands were tied in giving out these bonuses.

CEO Edward Liddy told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that the next payments to employees of the financial products unit are due on Sunday, and added “quite frankly, AIG’s hands are tied.”

Well, of course the outrage is that, outrage it is natural. Now it is time for action. Action from the White House.

See, the average joe and josetta don't understand why we are throwing money down the well to the likes of AIG, as they use the money we are giving them to keep them functioning, but they turn around and payout bonuses that are unbelievable. See, the joes and josettas out there are struggling. Many of them are one paycheck from being thrown on the street, but they constantly have to read about these companies and Wall Street that take our money and then throw the finger at us. Yes, Obama Administration, they are throwing the finger at us. What is next?

Obama Administration, I am smelling the rubber burning. Remember the segment of the Sci-Fi, Horror movie, Aliens? OK, it is the part of the movie when the marines while in the den of Aliens are told to give up their weapons and can only use flame torches, at this juncture one marine says, "How are we suppose to protect ourselves, use harsh language?" Well, we all know how that scene ended, what we don't know is how this scene with the likes of AIG and others will end. Harsh language is being touted, here,here, here, and here. Outrage all from D.C., which is fine and dandy, but Obama Administration and Washington, D.C. the public demands action. We mean stern action, not more harsh language.

AIG is an example of what the public does not want, which makes it hard for the Obama Administration to move forward with its financial package. The actions of AIG, Citibank, Bank of America, etc., are examples of reckless management and disregard of its financial situation. It is we, the taxpayers that these blowhards are begging for our help and we have to continue to read about bonuses paid out in the mulit-millions while Americans are losing jobs, in line for food, tent cities popping up in this country, unemployment numbers are astounding, people don't know if they will have a job tomorrow and many in this country are one pay check from the street!!! And we have to read about AIG taking our money and paying themselves bonuses????

Obama Administration, do you get it? We are angry and yes, stop giving them our money if they don't respect the process. Which means they don't respect you and definitely do not respect we, the taxpayers. Yes, we are angry and yes, let them fail.

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This Week with George Stephanopolus, ABC, Round Table on Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer, CNBC (Video)

Frank Rich says what my husband has said about Cramer and how he pumped and dumped those worthless internet stocks. But the insight is spot on, the anger of the public is real and it is out there.



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Michael Eric Dyson on Bill Maher, HBO, Gives Andrew Braitbart a cup of STFU...for real....(Video)

Folks, Michael Eric Dyson is another one you don't f*ck with if you don't have your facts straight. The smack down he gave Andrew Braitbart was classic. Bill Maher didn't have to say a word, Dyson said it all.


Part One


Part Two


Part Three

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Dick Cheney emerges from his undisclosed location because he has something to say

Dick Cheney is one who should share a jail cell with Bernie Madoff. He, more than anyone else, was the main cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq. Well, 8 long years can be a bitch and in the end he left as one of the most disgraced Vice-Presidents EVER. Well, what can I write? He's back.

Cheney surely does not like Barack Obama and was a heavy pusher of total partisianship during his tenure. The word "bi" was not even in his vocabulary. He believed in us vs. them, which is why many Americans see such vitriol in Washington, DC. He had a lot to do with it and Bush just followed behind.

Towards the end of the Bush Administration it was written and rumored that Cheney tried very hard to get former President Bush to pardon, MANY. In fact, he wanted pre-pardons, for the likes of, um like, disgraced and dumb former Attorney General Alberto Gonazles, but it did not happen. Cheney really wanted a full pardon for Scooter Libby, but Bush just said NO, to all of the above. In other words, those who thought they may be saved, were left hanging out to dry by the former president.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said he and former President George Bush had “a fundamental difference” over pardoning Scooter Libby.

“I was clearly not happy that we in effect left Scooter hanging in the wind, which I don’t think was appropriate,” Cheney said.

Cheney pressed for a pardon for Libby, his former chief of staff convicted in 2007 of perjury in connection with the CIA leak case. Bush declined to issue the pardon.

Cheney said the details of his disagreement with Bush are “best left to history” – or his upcoming memoir, which will cover his 40 years in Washington.

Cheney and Bush have spoken by phone three times since leaving office, the former vice president said. “We traveled a long way together in eight years,” Cheney said.

Now in Cheney's words:



And of course, Cheney does not believe the economic failure was on the Bush-Cheney watch. Why would he? This man benefited and profited from this economy, especially the Iraq War. A war that bankrupted this country. So, of course he don't give a damn.

Don't blame the Bush administration for all the country's economic problems.

That's the message from former Vice President Dick Cheney.

President Barack Obama constantly talks about the enormous economic troubles that he inherited when he took office in January. Cheney agrees that Obama did indeed came into power amid very difficult economic circumstances.



But Cheney says he doesn't think the Bush administration can be blamed for creating the economic woes. Cheney says it's a global financial problem. He says the idea that fault can assigned to the previous administration is "interesting rhetoric" but he doesn't think people care about that.

While the Republicans wither every time Rush Limbaugh opens his mouth, they wither even harder when the "old administration by the name of Bush or Cheney" comes skipping out to any microphone so they can say their peace. In other words, when Bush-Cheney left the White House, the Republicans said, "Good riddance". So, Cheney maybe you should continue to remain in your undisclosed location, either way your opinions are really not relevant any longer.

More from CNNs State of the Union, Iraq War:



After watching this, Dick Cheney as George W. Bush, were two elected officials who left this country in shambles and will continue to try to clean their image up. But like Herbert Hoover, when you leave a catastrophe on the desk for the man behind you to clean up, the only thing that will be remembered is what you DID or DID NOT do to put this country on the course it is on.

As for John King, CNNs interviewer, I am sure he is in the running for one of the WORST INTERVIEWS, EVER.

Cross-posted @ Daily Kos

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