The Daily Greg

16 May, 2012

Taking a longer look at the JPMorgan Chase ‘One-day $2billion Fiasco’ – I think this might be a tipping point. Wall Street has contributed a number of unforgettable terms into our vocabulary:
- Goldman Sachs is ‘A Giant, Vampire Squid’ (Rolling Stone, 2009)

- Goldman Sachs has lost all morals and treats its investors ‘like Muppets’ (open letter from ex-employee Greg Smith, 2011)

- And now Jamie Dimon’s ‘Egregious Error.’

Defensively, Jamie Dimon also said ‘ This plays right into the hands of the pundits out there.’

YES it does! Congrats, you were right about one thing.  Now let me do my job.

(There was only ONE headline about JPMorganChase in today’s paper.. Let’s not let this die down, people.)

Jamie Dimon complains that now America is really going to crack down & regulate the banks. YES they are. Congrats again. But forget America for a moment. What about me? I bank at Chase. That’s my money you lost, Jamie. In fact, look who else has a million or 2 stashed at Chase: Barack Obama.

Please, President Obama, enforce the Volker rule. Punish this man.

Meanwhile, Jamie Dimon, you didn’t just lose $2 billion. You also lost a customer. And his $1564.19.

14 May, 2012

Thanks to Joe Biden’s big mouth, President Obama is now out of the closet for gay marriage.

Red meat for the Republicans! So many soundbites to choose from – each one more over the top. My favorite: Senator Rand Paul

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kflXcLs1Svk

All this gay talk makes Mitt Romney uncomfortable. Why?

A)   He’d like to talk about NOTHING BUT THE ECONOMY & now he can’t.

B)   He was once PRO-gay marriage. Now he’s not.

C)   Before he was pro-gay marriage, he was against it.

Back in high school (prep school to you & me), Romney did ‘some dumb things.’ One of them was to gang up on a boy with long blond hair, tackle him & cut off his hair.

If you want to see what really happened, this Chinese documentary spells it all out -
(including Obama straddling a fence with the Village People).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDb6SQgqWGA

Of course, Romney took the opportunity to (kind of) apologize.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj-W0O4QdDE

Here’s the part I love: “Going back to the 1960’s, [homosexuality] wasn’t something that we all discussed or considered.”

Ah, the 60s! It was a purer time, when there were no homosexuals; there were only ‘queers.’

A vote for Romney is a vote for ‘Mad Men.’ You can just see Romney: picturing himself as Jon Hamm, fixing himself a scotch in his office & diddling the secretary.

According to Romney’s logic:

‘It was that damn Obama with his hippie parents that started us thinking about homosexuality. Before that it didn’t even exist!’ Remember the way homosexuality was portrayed in the movies back then? It was kinda, kinky & always hilarious. Even as a kid, I remember watching ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ & wondering ‘Do all gay guys really like being racked in the nuts?’

(2 min)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2GHL8VhMjo

No, in the 1960s, there was no homosexuality. Certainly not at an all-male prep school with nothing but teenage boys dressing & undressing in front of each other…
I guess there’s a reason they call it ‘homophobic.’

Now – on the subject gay marriage – Mitt Romney is protesting.  In fact, maybe he’s protesting a bit too much. Is Romney trying to tell us something?

Is Mitt a ‘catcher?’

9 May, 2012

If money has taken over politics and America is mired in vetocracy, then the time is right for a big, bad 3^rd party. There’s the Tea Party, but that’s the Republicans. The Democrats have Occupy Wall Street. The 2 sides aren’t even talking anymore. At some point, the Tea Partiers & Occupiers may realize their common enemy: Money in Politics. The American system is paralyzed.

Yesterday in the NYT, David Brooks described the paralysis this way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/opinion/brooks-the-structural-revolution.html

Brooks talks about the Cyclicalists (Stimulus) vs. the Structuralists (Change the system). He forgot to mention the Arsonists (Slash everything).

If the system is broken, can a 3^rd party help? We’ve seen how minority parties can change the direction of elections. Sarkozy got voted out in large part because of far-right Marine Le Pen. George Bush would never have won in 2000 without the Green Party stealing votes from Al Gore. This year Ron Paul may join the Libertarian Party & run against Romney.
This year there’s also noise from Americans Elect ‘Vote for a President, not for a party.’ http://www.americanselect.org/about

If the system is broken, then surely it’s time to question the non-stop 2-party election process. 2 parties alone are set to raise over 1 billion dollars this year. For the American voter, that’s a lot of money for not a lot of choice.

The last time there was anything like a serious 3^rd party in America, it was Ross Perot’s Reform Party in 1992. He got 19% of the vote. I remember because I voted for him (sorry, Bill).

Maybe 2012 is the year a 3^rd party gets 20%.

Political Junkies

7 May, 2012

Every month, I’ve been hosting an event at De Balie in Amsterdam: the US election update for ‘Politieke Junkies: Unspinning the News.’ Dutch journalists compete to pick apart news stories and see who comes closest to the story behind the story. At the end, a real politician gives his version of what really happened in Parliament.

My job is to take on US politics. The intro segment is called ‘The United States of Shapiro.’ Using images and video, I sum up the more ridiculous moments of the US elections 2012. My recurring guest is Prof. Andrew Tanenbaum, aka ‘The Votemaster’ and host of electoral-vote.com. Look for special appearances by guests such as Pep Rosenfeld (Boom Chicago, SNL) and Max Westerman. (RTL Nieuws, BNR, HP DeTijd).

http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?articleid=452167

Obama to the Dark Side?
26 April 2012

The Onion.com drew first blood: Obama Introduces New “I Have Big Ideas, But Let’s Be Realistic” Strategy.’

http://www.theonion.com/articles/obama-launches-more-realistic-i-have-big-ideas-but,27953/#

The polls still confirm: most Americans think Obama is a wishy-washy, weak communicator. He may have big ideas, but he can’t deliver. He promised to run his campaign on more hope & change, but it’s more of the same mudslinging. He’s a flip-flopper.

But the real dirt in Obama may be forthcoming. He’s grabbing power in ways not seen since – well, – George W. Bush.

I’ve been saying since January that there’s a new President Obama: the Do-It-Yourself / ie Do-It-Without-Congress Obama. By April, it’s official: I read it in the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/us/politics/shift-on-executive-powers-let-obama-bypass-congress.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Barack Obama is a professor of Constitutional law, so he knows about checks & balances. For 2 years, he’s been trying to restore the balance. That changed last summer. After the Republicans pulled a Geert Wilders and walked out of the budget deal, the White House had had enough. I was only waiting to hear when that meeting actually happened, and now we know: September.

Since last autumn, Obama has launched a new campaign called ‘We Can’t Wait.’ Republicans accused him of election-year tactics. But what really happened: Obama was reinventing his presidency. House Republicans make it impossible to appoint a head of the new Consumer Protection Board? Obama does it by Executive Order. Republicans pass the Defense of Marriage Act? Obama tells Justice Dept. ‘Don’t enforce it.’ And remember signing statements? Obama is using them almost as often as Bush did.

Remember the Old Obama? The ‘Spirit of Bipartisanship’ Obama? He has now officially been thrown under the bus. The Old Obama is now just a spirit, wagging his finger & wringing his hands at the new Dark Side Obama.

And the Republicans are joining right in. At the end of the article (above) Republican Senator Charles Grassley ‘accuses Obama of “acting more & more like the king that the Constitution was designed to replace.”’ Does this mean Republicans will be fighting the President even more? No, says Grassley, or else they ‘play into Obama’s effort to make portray Congress as dysfunctional.’

Operation ‘We Can’t Wait’ is working

Yes, the ‘Hope & Change Obama’ is gone. Good. We need a Chicago street-fighter Obama.