"And finally a friend of mine told me a joke last night I thought I'd pass along: A public union employee, a Tea Party guy, and a bank CEO are sitting at a table with a plate of a dozen cookies. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies, turns to the Tea Partier and says, 'Watch out for that union guy; he wants your cookie.' "

I don't think there's a better way to describe the current situation.

They forgot the punchline.
The CEO took the 12th cookie promising to "take care of it" for the Tea Party guy.

  

And the tea party guy was only to happy to let him have it because he's a patriot and whatever is good for the bank CEO is good for the tea party guy!

Does that just about sum it up?

Nicely... those cookies are alive and well in the Cayman Islands.

October 14, 2011 5:30 PM
Friday's Mini-Report
By Steve Benen

Today's edition of quick hits:

* Americans in Uganda: “President Barack Obama said on Friday he was sending about 100 U.S. military advisers to Uganda to support central African allies pursuing Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, and other rebel commanders. Obama's decision commits U.S. forces to help battle a Ugandan rebel group he once condemned as an “affront to human dignityâ€

i signed MoveOn's petition over Zuccoti (sic) Park.

October 17, 2011 5:30 PM
Monday's Mini-Report
By Steve Benen

Today's edition of quick hits:

* Occupy goes global: “Buoyed by the longevity of the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Manhattan, a wave of protests swept across Asia, the Americas and Europe on Saturday, with hundreds and in some cases thousands of people expressing discontent with the economic tides in marches, rallies and occasional clashes with the police.â€

[i]* Leaving Iraq: “An Obama administration proposal to keep a few thousand American troops here after the end of the year to train the Iraqi military is being scaled back, as the administration has concluded that the Iraqi Parliament would not give the troops legal protection, two American officials said on Saturday.â€

October 18, 2011 5:30 PM
Tuesday's Mini-Report
By Steve Benen

Today's edition of quick hits:

* Freedom for Gilad Shalit: “In an elaborate prisoner exchange that could roil Middle East politics, an Israeli soldier held for more than five years by the militant Palestinian group Hamas was swapped on Tuesday for hundreds of Palestinians who have spent many years in Israeli jails, all them freed to jubilant welcomes tinged with bitterness and grief.â€

[quote][i]* Iran: “Iran's nuclear program, which stumbled badly after a reported cyberattack last year, appears beset by poorly performing equipment, shortages of parts and other woes as global sanctions exert a mounting toll…. Although Iran continues to stockpile enriched uranium in defiance of U.N. resolutions, two new reports portray the country's nuclear program as riddled with problems as scientists struggle to keep older equipment working.â€

Problem is we can't believe a word the US (or anybody else, for that matter) is saying.

October 19, 2011 5:30 PM
Wednesday's Mini-Report
By Steve Benen

Today's edition of quick hits:

* Greece: “Greek police fired tear gas as protestors threw firebombs, burnt dustbins and vandalized shops Wednesday at the start of a two-day strike ahead of a vote on a new austerity bill to stave off bankruptcy.â€

October 20, 2011 5:30 PM
Thursday's Mini-Report
By Steve Benen

Today's edition of quick hits:

* How did Gadhafi die? “[W]hen Gaddafi was walked out of the culvert to a truck, a firefight broke out between revolutionaries and Gaddafi's security detail, and Gaddafi was shot in his right arm, Jibril said. When the truck started moving, ‘they came under intense crossfire,' and Gaddafi was struck in the head, he said. ‘That was the deadly shot,' Jibril said.â€

[i]* Pakistan: “An unusually powerful American delegation arrived here Thursday and, according to a senior American official, intended to warn Pakistan that the United States would act unilaterally if necessary to attack extremists groups who use the country as a haven to kill Americans.â€

October 21, 2011 5:30 PM
Friday's Mini-Report
By Steve Benen

Today's edition of quick hits:

* Europe: “Expectations remained high on Friday that European leaders were trying to craft a bolder solution to the region's financial crisis, despite clear signals from French and German officials that they have sharp differences heading into an important weekend summit in Brussels.â€

* ABC News thinks it's found a big new scandal involving a U.S. loan that boosted manufacturing in Finland. ABC's report is really, really, really, really misleading.

Governments are frequently in too big a political rush to fund "pseudo cutting-edge" technology and end up wasting taxpayers' money.

Read the rebuttal... the loan was approved in 2007 - on Bush's watch. But that's only one of several points made in the article.

http://www.grist.org/cleantech/2011-10-21-the-facts-on-fisker-the-medias-latest-faux-scandal

Bush was "government".
I didn't state anything other than to suggest that politically expedient investments based on dog and pony shows tend to generate huge losses to taxpayers.

the loan was approved in 2007 - on Bush's watch.

That's not true.  The program the loan was made from was approved in 2007, but the first loans from it weren't made until 2009.  The Fisker loan wasn't approved until 2010.

https://lpo.energy.gov/?page_id=45

No doubt the Bush administration had their share of crappy investments. They certainly had some crappy non-investments that is now forcing the US to play catch-up.

October 24, 2011 5:30 PM
Monday's Mini-Report
By Steve Benen

Today's edition of quick hits:

* Tunisia: “A moderate Islamic party appeared to emerge as the big winner in Tunisia on Monday as preliminary results leaked out in the voting for an assembly to draft a constitution and shape a new government in this small North African country, where a revolution in January inspired uprisings across the Arab world.â€

October 25, 2011 5:30 PM
Tuesday's Mini-Report
By Steve Benen

Today's edition of quick hits:

* Europe: “A plan to address the European debt crisis might include only general principles rather than the detailed initiatives urged by the United States and other major nations, according to documents outlining elements of the plan and officials familiar with the deliberations.â€

October 26, 2011 5:30 PM
Wednesday's Mini-Report
By Steve Benen

Today's edition of quick hits:

* Europe: “European leaders struggled into the night Wednesday to reassure the world that they were determined to find a comprehensive solution to the two-year-old euro zone debt crisis, hours after German lawmakers approved a proposal to more than double an emergency bailout fund.â€

October 27, 2011 5:30 PM
Thursday's Mini-Report
By Steve Benen

Today's edition of quick hits:

* European accord reached overnight: “European leaders, in a significant step toward resolving the euro zone financial crisis, early Thursday morning obtained an agreement from banks to take a 50 percent loss on the face value of their Greek debt. The agreement on Greek debt was crucial to assembling a comprehensive package to protect the euro, which has been keeping jittery markets on edge.â€