I'm having a difficult time understanding both the credulity and faux-insider superiority that pervades those who think transparency in the bailout is dangerous. More than that, I'm wondering why anyone, even a Republican martinet like Shooter, would think that the Big Guys, who have presided over and industry and a system that hasn't made a red cent in ten years should be the ones to handle it. Seems a bit like rewarding failure... Oops. I forgot. Rewarding failure is now the official GOP way. Reagan taught us deficits don't matter, Bush taught us the truth doesn't matter, and they all agree that the little people should mind their own business.

Well, every con man and Ponzi schemer, as well as every gambler, always thinks that if they can just get through this tough spot without anyone finding out, they'll be ok. Madoff probably thought he was in trouble around $20 billion, but crossed his fingers and pulled the blinds.

How are these bankers any different? They ruined the institutions they ran, enriched themselves based on fake profits, took the money and ran, and now they want trust? For Pete's sake.

Many of them should be in jail, and the forfeiture of their assets could help pay for their mess. That's what taxpayers have "bought," Swiss bank accounts and mansions in "Homestead" states for these gangsters.

It's baffling to me that anyone could be so plain dumb not to see this. It's less surprising that a lot of folks are telling everyone not to believe their lying eyes.

If I understood correctly, Rep. Grayson is a member of the US House. I'm still absorbing that information.

His shocking and all too rare ability to both ask and frame questions that real Americans, not to be confused with the Broderian simulacra about whom we hear so much, would damn well like answered, made me think I was watching some foreign legislature in action. To hear "none of your business" from yet another dismissive Commissar, and have someone actually say, rather clearly, that the public should clearly be angered at such arrogant impunity, was a delightful breath of fresh air. Pity a few hundred others in the area had never thought of such a thing.

What citizen, in the desperate straits of a Citibank or somesuch, could waltz into a bankruptcy court, dispatch all debt, and leave with pockets stuffed, without the lurid and violating annoyance of explaining the painful tale that led there? When Blanche DuBois was asked whether Bell Rive was lost to taxes, she touched her hand to her forehead and said, "That must have been what happened."

The Federal Reserve, as Grayson says, "in collaboration" with failing institutions, just basically told us the same thing.

Put a paper shade over that harsh light bulb.

Armagedonoutahere.. "without the necessity of pretense." That's the grating part, isn't it? I wrote something about this the other day. "Gangster Pride Day" (link at sig)

Pedinska... I saw that article. It was a sprayer of the first order. Is it possible that only Friedman himself and a key Sulzburger or so fail to see what a simpleton he is? All this time I thought it was just me, but Taibbi really goes after that doltish fatass. Glad you enjoyed it, too.

T3... I didn't need a drink this early anyway, which is a good thing, since it's now sprayed all over the veranda.

It seems very un-Greenwaldian of Glenn not to have posted in so long; not to sound too freelancerish. After 20 hours or so, I start to worry about extraordinary rendition....

I share your frustrations with the NYT, RMP. For each excellent piece of reporting, there are a dozen others that are both dumb and damaging, and its outsized voice means the garbage is well-dispersed. And for every good op-ed writer there, there are, well, the others.

And the problem is is that the good is often very good, but the bad is often so bad as to utterly negate it.

Without Judith Miller, Michael Gordon, and Tom Friedman, would the Iraq war have started? Would Al Gore have lost without the relentless ridicule (and maniacal vendetta against the Clintons) of that pinch-faced ogress, Maureen Dowd? This garbage was, after all, carried in papers large and small all over the country.

The only kind of relationship it is possible to have with the NYT is a dysfunctional one. Like mine.

One thing that has struck me today is that all righty arguments, and the spirit from which they spring, is based upon a hierarchy in which they sit on top, and everyone else sits in different levels, but below. I'm thinking of the circles of deviance, in which the central circle is drawn tightly around the righty in question, and in each successive outward circle, the diminution of rights is increased, until you get to that last circle, "Nuke 'em."

Therefore, those guilty of more minor transgressions, like say, being poor or female, suffer indignities less odious than, say, those who have sex you don't like, and surely the brown person who is only subject to racial profiling and disproportionate sentencing ought to be grateful he doesn't get what the really bad ones get. And, of course, certain groups are just so large and mysterious that the only way to really deal with them is vaporization. That's the circle you don't want to be in, let me tell you.

This liberal nonsense about humanity being something you go around handing out to, well, just anybody, is the one thing they will never get, through reasoned arguments nor ridicule. They just know, and are told each day, that they are more equal than others, and convincing them otherwise is simply not possible.