This, this is Greenspan’s curse Which started bad and ended worse Shit, shit is our credit worth To banks, the sons of Alan.
Enter CIA spooks.
O Video
Sung by the CIA to the tune of "O Tannenbaum"
O video, o video The evidence disgraced you O video, o video I must have just erased you
Not only in Guantanamo But anywhere combatants go O video, o video I think I just erased you
Enter American cable television viewers, waving remote controls.
Olbermann
Sung by American cable television viewers To the tune of "Silver Bells"
Bill O’Reilly Shrill O’Reilly Spews in everyday style On the air There’s a feeling That’s creepy Something awful Like falafel Spins out mile after mile So you switch from Fox only to hear
Olbermann Olbermann It’s Countdown time in the city Don’t you know Ratings grow When you’re not lying like Bill
Enter Democratic voters and the entire world.
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Sung by Democratic voters And the rest of the world To the tune of "Do You Hear What I Hear?"
Said the pundits to the folks at home, “Do you see what I see? Coming right at you, folks at home… Do you see what I see? A bomb, a bomb, landing on your head And Muslims under your bed, And Muslims under your bed.”
Said the people to the talking heads, “Do you hear what I hear? Listen very close, talking heads. Do you hear what I hear? The sound, the sound made without regrets Of the people turning off their sets, Of the people turning off their sets.”
Enter atheists, dressed in chic black robes.
Up on the Housetop
Sung by American atheists to the tune of "Up on the Housetop"
Up on the housetop reindeer flit Out jumps good old Romney, Mitt! Promising freedom for everyone — Not for the atheists, They’re no fun!
Flip, flip, flop! Where’s his voice? Flip, flip, flop! Pro-life or choice? Up on the housetop Flop, flop, flip! Magical Mormon Romney, Mitt!
Enter all American citizens.
The Twelve Days of Christmas
Sung by American citizens to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas"
On the first day of Christmas the Bushies gave to me A war from the GOP
On the second day of Christmas the Bushies gave to me Two chickenhawks And a war from the GOP
On the third day of Christmas the Bushies gave to me Three tax cuts Two chickenhawks And a war from the GOP
On the fourth day of Christmas the Bushies gave to me Four lawyers lying Three tax cuts Two chickenhawks And a war from the GOP
On the fifth day of Christmas the Bushies gave to me Five trillion spent Four lawyers lying Three tax cuts Two chickenhawks And a war from the GOP
[skip to the last verse]
On the twelfth day of Christmas the Bushies gave to me Twelve investigations Eleven indictments Ten subpoenas Nine closet cases Eight years a-wasting Seven scandals stewing Six rogues resigning Five trillion spent Four lawyers lying Three tax cuts Two chickenhawks And a war from the GOP
Enter Skimble, who conducts a ragtag bunch of dirty liberal hippie bloggers wholesome chorus of middle-class Americans dressed in festive red, white and blue.
We Wish You a Mrs. Clinton
Sung by liberal bloggers, Democratic voters, the reality-based community, and wellwishers from around the globe to the tune of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"
We wish you a Mrs. Clinton, We wish you Barack Obama, We wish you a Johnny Edwards in a happy new year. A bad year we bring to Bush and his kin, A bad year for Cheney is a happy new year.
We wish you a Mrs. Clinton, We wish you Barack Obama, We wish you a Johnny Edwards in a happy new year, Two thousand and eight the White House goes straight A change of regime means a happy new year.
Everyone here in enchanted Skimbleland wishes you and yours an excellent 2008 — the first year in a long time in which hope might not be a misplaced emotion.
WASHINGTON -- A panel of outside experts has told the Interior Department that the government may not be getting full value for the mineral rights it sells private industry, and that the federal royalty system needs to be revamped.
In a 166-page report, scheduled to be released today, the panel says better training, better audits, improved management and more resources are needed for the department's Minerals Management Service to improve the way it administers development of oil, natural gas and other minerals produced on federal lands. The government collected more than $11 billion in the fiscal year that ended in October, but better management of the program could likely produce much more, according to people familiar with the matter. [...]
The most recent potential revenue-losing problems surfaced in 2004, when four auditors from the service filed lawsuits against the government, claiming that oil and gas companies hadn't complied with reporting requirements. The auditors also claimed that the service had retaliated against them for filing the suits.
This is what happens when you let a sneering unelected oil service CEO (and his hand-picked brand-name blueblood marionette) into the White House.
William McGuire, the UnitedHealth CEO ousted last year in an options-backdating scandal, has cut a deal to settle civil and federal government claims that came out of the options mess.
He’s going to give up the rights to $320 million worth of stock options and forfeit $91 million in his retirement plan, the health insurer said this evening. That’s on top of $200 million of gains from options with questionable grant dates that he already agreed to gave back to UnitedHealth, the WSJ reports. Details about the deal are here.
Yes, those are big numbers. On the other hand, McGuire’s total options haul has been valued at well over $1 billion (it’s unclear how much money he actually wound up with).
It takes me three half-day visits to my Blue Cross HMO, that costs me $825 a month out of pocket, for a fucking antibiotic for which I must pay retail because it's not covered.
McGuire's exit compensation from UnitedHealth, around $1.1 billion, was noted as the largest golden parachute in the history of corporate America. A billion for one lousy CEO! With that kind of money, imagine how many people could treated for [fill in the blank].
It's not only class warfare — it's a war of the healthy against the sick.
At the Josée Bienvenu Gallery, a $20,000 Yuken Teruya sculpture of carved toilet paper rolls commanded much attention. “I love that the artist turns the ordinary into something heartfelt and beautiful,” said Diane Walder, a dermatologist in Miami who was considering the work with her art adviser, Lisa Austin.
What a coincidence! My personal art adviser recently recommended paper towel rolls for my contemporary art collection. But at $40,000 they seemed a bit indulgent because I had stocked up last week at Costco with a case for about $12.
Meanwhile, I am hoping to place my collection of peeled-label beer bottles in the secondary art market for a few hundred thousand.
Four-pointed urethral ring for the treatment of Spermatorrhoea, image no. L0003903. From one of many Golden Ages of Hypocritical Moral Theory, the 19th Century.
Alan Greenspan, who led the U.S. Federal Reserve for 18 years and was revered in the financial markets, was a "very bad'' Fed chairman.
That's the blunt verdict of Patrick Artus, chief economist of Natixis SA and one of France's most listened-to pundits: He is an economic adviser to the French government.
In his latest book ("Les incendiaires: Les banques centrales depassees par la globalisation'' or the arsonists: central banks overtaken by globalization), Artus, 56, blames Greenspan and other central bankers for being so focused on inflation that they failed to prevent real-estate and stock-market bubbles which, in turn, burst and caused pain. [...]
[Interviewer Farah] Nayeri: Joseph Stiglitz went on the record on Nov. 16 as saying that Greenspan had "made a mess'' and that the U.S. now faced a recession. Do you agree?
Artus: Yes. Greenspan was an arsonist and a fireman combined. He derived all his glory from his reaction to the savings-and- loans crisis, to the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management LP, and to Sept. 11, 2001. But LTCM and the savings-and-loans crisis were his doing. He absolutely failed to see where the malfunctions in the U.S. economy were.
Greenspan came up with a phrase, "irrational exuberance,'' in 1997, but he didn't do anything about it.
Nayeri: How would you sum up his track record, then?
Artus: He was a very bad Federal Reserve chairman. He created four major crises: savings and loans, LTCM, new-technology shares, and subprime mortgages.
Nayeri: But surely you will acknowledge that Greenspan saved the planet at crucial turning points?
Artus: Yes, but after the fact. He's congratulated for his role as fireman, but he's the one who started the fire.
A high-stakes battle over shareholder rights, dubbed "proxy access," has become a proxy for something else: the performance of Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In a party-line vote, the SEC said companies can reject shareholder efforts to put their own director nominees on corporate ballots.* The move set off a storm of criticism from shareholder activists and Democrats, who responded with their sharpest rebukes yet for Mr. Cox.
In the latest twist in a long-running saga, the chairman voted with the 3-1 majority on what has been dubbed the "nonaccess" proposal, even though Mr. Cox said his ultimate goal is to give shareholders broader proxy rights.
"This action will tar his legacy as an antishareholder chairman and essentially now makes him a lame duck," said Richard Ferlauto, director of corporate governance at labor union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
*In other words, you can own part of a company but have no say in how it's run.
I've said it before and I'll say it again — the GOP is no longer the party of business.
If you want a strong economy, vote Democratic. Otherwise, ur ownership society -- pwned!
As the U.S. stock market struggles, it is facing another head wind: Some of the nation's most powerful investors are unloading shares in a big way.
Several of the largest public pension funds have been selling billions of dollars held in U.S. stocks, and others are expected to join in. In most cases these actions are unrelated to the recent market jitters, though worries about the economy, the weakening dollar and the credit crisis could be accelerating these moves. [...]
The more sophisticated money managers at endowments devote only about 15% to 25% of their assets to domestic stocks, compared with 35% to 50% at large public pension funds, Ms. Steer said. But over the next few years, she expects the figure for pension funds to drift lower, with the more aggressive ones placing only 25% of their investments in U.S. stocks. Even the conservative funds, she said, eventually will have less than half of total assets in U.S. stocks.
The Teacher Retirement System of Texas holds a $56.7 billion position in U.S. stocks. It plans to halve that position over the next two to four years so U.S. stocks will fall to just 25% of the portfolio. [...]
In Florida, the Retirement System Pension Plan examined the potential returns, relative to perceived risk, for U.S. stocks versus other investments. The $136 billion pension fund decided to cut its target for domestic stocks to 38%, from 48% in 2003, during the previous investment revision. At the same time, the fund raised its targets for foreign stocks, bonds and private equity.
Even Texas and Florida, which both had the benefit of genius governors named Bush, are buying foreign.
Nice to know the grown-ups are in charge while the USA flushes itself down the subprime, plunging dollar, penny-stock economic toilet.
Bucking a national trend, Texas-based corporations have remained loyal to Republican congressional candidates in the 2008 campaign.
According to a Houston Chronicle analysis of Federal Election Committee data, the 46 Texas companies that are included in the Fortune 500 gave 73 percent of their political action committee contributions to Republican House and Senate candidates in Texas, while donating just 27 percent to Lone Star Democrats in the first nine months of 2007. [...]
"There are more Democrats now, and more are in positions of leadership," explained Jim Greenwood, vice president for governmental affairs at heavily Republican Valero Energy Corp. San Antonio-based Valero has shifted its PAC contributions from 9 percent Democratic in the 2005-2006 election cycle to 23 percent this year.
The cash flow toward Capitol Hill Democrats is far more pronounced among businesses in the other 49 states. In the months since Democrats gained control of Congress in January, the 50 biggest American industries have given 57 percent of their contributions to Democrats, according to a Nov. 15 analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. [...]
Analysts said Texas businesses are more likely to stick with Republicans because Lone Star State businesses tend to be more ideologically conservative than corporations in other states.
Texas companies also are heavily concentrated in the energy sector, which has remained staunchly Republican even in the new period of Democratic control of Capitol Hill.
Come 2008, all the GOP geniuses of Texas will be relieved from their positions on the national stage. Look at the bright side, energy execs — at least you will have more time for your ingenious daddy-daughter abstinence programs.
The American Southeast has been suffering from one of its worst droughts in years. But you wouldn't know it from looking at the emerald-green estates of Palm Beach.
There, despite water restrictions and low reservoirs, lush lawns and verdant hedges line the Florida island's biggest mansions, awaiting the start of the annual winter "season" after Thanksgiving.
To keep their thirsty estates running over the summer and fall, Palm Beachers have been more than willing to pay water surcharges and even fines. And many have found a loophole in the local water rules, allowing them to spritz more often if they pay up to plant new lawns and shrubs.
Consider Nelson Peltz. The investor and food magnate's oceanfront estate, called Montsorrel, is among the island's biggest water consumers. His 13.8-acre spread, which combines two properties, used not quite 21 million gallons of water over the past 12 months -- or about 57,000 gallons a day on average -- at a cost of more than $50,000, according to records obtained from the local water utility. That compares with 54,000 gallons a year for an average single-family residence in Palm Beach, says Ken Rearden, assistant city administrator of West Palm Beach. (West Palm Beach supplies Palm Beach's water.)
This level of thirst is a variation on the epic levels of me-first corruption and greed we've been witnessing in the USA for years now.
It is really necessary to add that Peltz gave $25,000 to the RNC?
The government may go ahead with its bid to seize assets from Ken Lay's estate, a judge ruled Wednesday, denying a request from the Enron chairman's widow to stop the effort.
U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein's ruling allows the government to seek nearly $13 million from Lay's estate, including the upscale condominium he and wife Linda Lay shared.
The judge wrote that prosecutors had provided "ample allegations" of criminal activity tied to the cash and property in question to pursue its case. [...]
The government contends Ken Lay gained $99 million from criminal activity, mostly by repaying Enron loans with company stock throughout 2001 when the company was in financial turmoil. Prosecutors say they can trace and recover nearly $13 million of that.
The amount includes $2.5 million Lay used to pay off the condominium's mortgage days after Enron went bankrupt in December 2001; $10 million that was controlled by a partnership named after the couple; and about $22,000 in a bank account.
So where's the rest of the money?
My bet is on annuities that are protected from these kinds of proceedings. Kenny Boy probably bought up a bunch of annuities — millions and millions worth — and then killed himself on the 4th of July in order to protect his family from his own wrongdoing.
[Cathy] McBroom was summoned to the judge's chambers on Friday, March 23, at about 3 p.m.
Her hands were full of legal papers when the judge [U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent] — a former high school athlete who is more than 6 inches taller and at least 100 pounds heavier — asked for a hug.
She told him she didn't think that was appropriate, but reluctantly approached.
The judge grabbed McBroom, pulled up her blouse and her bra and put his mouth on her breast. Then, Kent forced her head down toward his crotch.
As McBroom struggled, Kent kept telling the married mother of three what he wanted to do to her in words too graphic to publish. The papers fell to the floor. The pet bulldog Kent kept in his chambers began to bark.
The incident was interrupted by the sound of footsteps from another staff member in the corridor, and the judge loosened his grip. As she left, the judge said McBroom was a good case manager and then made suggestions about engaging in a sexual act.
McBroom ran out crying.
Pickup line: "you're a good case manager"? Pet bulldog in his chambers? Who appointed this veritable Don Juan of the bench? Bush's daddy.
Probably the only homeopathic song you'll hear today with megaphone beatboxing. These guys are great. As they say, "Egy kis örömzene a Zubolytól. Látni kell!" and, elsewhere, "they are descibing themselfs as an 'broken-ethno' band."
Dozens of anti-pornography groups asked the U.S. Congress to force the Pentagon to keep sexually related material from being sold in military stores.
Pornographic material was banned from being sold in military establishments nearly 10 years ago, but Christian group American Family Association claimed that adult fare, including Penthouse and Playboy material, is still being sold in the stores, USA Today reported Monday.
Personally, I find gore porn like Saw IV and The Passion of the Christ more offensive, but I don't try to drive it underground.
Given the sacrifices they make, aren't soldiers entitled to some skin?
The two Senate Democrats who turned the tide for Mr. Mukasey sought over the weekend to explain their planned votes. "The decision in supporting Mukasey was primarily motivated in continuing the work I had done in removing [his predecessor as attorney general], Alberto Gonzales, and to depoliticize and create the independence at the Justice Department," Mr. Schumer said in an interview. Mr. Gonzales stepped down earlier this year after a series of scandals.
Ms. Feinstein, in a CNN interview, said that if Mr. Mukasey wasn't confirmed, the president would likely make a recess appointment, thereby dodging the need for congressional approval. "That would bring about diminished transparency, diminished congressional oversight and would not be for the benefit of the [Justice] Department," she said.
Oh boo fucking hoo. You are squandering your majority, idiot.
The business newspaper Barron's (sub. req'd.) regularly polls the people who manage the Big Money for pension funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, and the wealthy to see what their opinions are on a number of topics.
As you might expect, they are a conservative and wealthy lot so they are quite fond of Bushian tax policy, but they also have enough smarts to distinguish between the military excursion in Afghanistan versus the folly in Iraq.
The most interesting thing is that these largely Republican and wealthy managers view Hillary Clinton's presidency as a fait accompli — a whopping 61 percent said she will win the 2008 election. Also notable is that this conservative group also deservedly flunks George for both energy and healthcare policy.
Economically, there is still trouble ahead: "Tim Call of Capital Management in Richmond, Va., observed that 'peak mortgage defaults do not occur for three years after mortgage origination. Thus, expect to see rising default rates through 2010.'"
Methodology: "The Big Money poll, a survey of professional investors, is conducted twice yearly by Barron's, in the spring and fall, with the help of Beta Research in Syosset, N.Y. Our latest survey drew responses from 112 managers across the U.S., representing a range of investment styles. Many run their own firms, while others manage billions of dollars for mutual-fund complexes, hedge funds, state pension funds and wealthy individuals."
Click on the chart for a clearer view — I have no idea why it's so damn fuzzy.
Now, WellCare is busy promising to cooperate with federal and state authorities. While it has offered investors no details about the probe, the company has pledged to keep its board - and its audit committee in particular - informed about the situation. But that vow could prove less reassuring than it sounds.
Notably, the board counts Alif Hourani - cousin to CEO Todd Farha -- among its "independent" directors. Indeed, Hourani ranks as the only director who sits on WellCare's audit committee and its two other committees to boot.
Unlike Farha, who owns a large stake in WellCare despite some massive stock sales, Hourani has little to lose. After dumping most of his WellCare stock - and becoming a multimillionaire in the process - Hourani now has just 581 shares left.
The "independence" of a multimillionaire who has just made his multimillions from his cousin's "management" is what this is all about. What kind of governance do you get from your cousin who has just made several million dollars from your defrauding Medicaid? (Allegedly, that is, but we all know where this is headed.)
Funny, I've always heard that when something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't. Too bad they never learned that at Merrill Lynch:
Years ago, in an article published by The Tampa Tribune, WellCare's own CEO predicted that the company would never post margins above 4%. This summer, however, analysts pegged WellCare's margins at 6% -- and even higher - instead.
"This quarter, you're up close to 7% for a government business," Merrill Lynch analyst Doug Simpson marveled during the company's second-quarter conference call.
Seven percent for a "government business" is 75 percent higher than Farha's own estimate of four percent. I guess the era of small government and accountability in spending is no longer a cherished Republican ideal.
Don't make the mistake of relying on "independent" Wall Street analysts to make sense of the whole mess. We learned only days ago about the glorious independence and stunning business insights of Merrill Lynch, with its $161 million payday for outgoing Stan O'Neal, CEO and Bush Pioneer, who managed to "earn" his rich rewards by losing a mere $8 billion.
This is the same Merrill Lynch that did more to enable Enron than even Arthur Andersen.
Does anybody even remember Andersen anymore? Oh, that's right, they were destroyed by the DoJ. That's exactly the punishment you get for auditing Halliburton while Cheney was CEO. No paper trail!
"Independence" is a myth. The entire Republican machine — from the boardrooms to the Oval Office — is a plutocratic circle jerk. The only ones left out of the celebration are the rest of the world, including non-upper-class Republican voters who got fooled by the bogus appeals to Christianity and "values." Nepotism and dynasties and fraud driven by crony capitalism are all they know, and greed is the only real value they hold dear.
WellCare is just a baby Enron. If only we could get it off America's tit...
If you're just tuning in, we last looked at Farha and WellCare here and here.
A crisis at Bear Stearns Cos. this summer came to a head in July. Two Bear hedge funds were hemorrhaging value. Investors were clamoring to get their money back. Lenders to the funds were demanding more collateral. Eventually, both funds collapsed.
During 10 critical days of this crisis -- one of the worst in the securities firm's 84-year history -- Bear's chief executive wasn't near his Wall Street office. James Cayne was playing in a bridge tournament in Nashville, Tenn., without a cellphone or an email device. In one closely watched competition, his team placed in the top third.
As Bear's fund meltdown was helping spark this year's mortgage-market and credit convulsions, Mr. Cayne at times missed key events. At a tense August conference call with investors, he left after a few opening words and listeners didn't know when he returned. In summer weeks, he typically left the office on Thursday afternoon and spent Friday at his New Jersey golf club, out of touch for stretches, according to associates and golf records. In the critical month of July, he spent 10 of the 21 workdays out of the office, either at the bridge event or golfing, according to golf, bridge and hotel records.
Mr. Cayne evidently didn't court business on the links, as some CEOs do. "The golf course for him was an escape," says John Angelo, a hedge-fund client and frequent golf partner.
Needless to say, Cayne is a Bush Pioneer, raising funds at a record clip for that other record-breaking lover of leisure, George W Bush.
This camp of Bush-enabling rich incompetents also includes Stan O'Neal, the Merrill Lynch Chairman who "retired" having lost $8 billion and having kept $161 million for himself; Todd Farha, the Medicaid fraudster behind Wellcare (see a couple of posts below this one); and, of course, the ur-fraudster Ken Lay of Enron fame, who helped finance Bush-Cheney in 2000 on a fat cushion of imaginary profits.
In the critical month of July 2007, James Cayne played golf and bridge. Which reminds us that in the critical month of August 2001, another "CEO" was goofing off with golf and photo ops.
Has uselessness and harmfulness ever been so richly rewarded?
UPDATE:More Republican misbehavior in men's rooms. Omitted above is the Journal's most tabloidesque revelation about James Cayne: "Attendees say Mr. Cayne has sometimes smoked marijuana at the end of the day during bridge tournaments. He also has used pot in more private settings, according to people who say they witnessed him doing so or participated with him. After a day of bridge at a Doubletree hotel in Memphis, in 2004, Mr. Cayne invited a fellow player and a woman to smoke pot with him, according to someone who was there, and led the two to a lobby men's room where he intended to light up. The other player declined, says the person who was there, but the woman followed Mr. Cayne inside and shared a joint, to the amusement of a passerby."
I will write about stoner Republicans another day. Today's theme is rich rewards for lazy incompetence.
WellCare, which had earnings of $139.2-million in 2006, gets all of its nearly $4-billion in revenues from state or federal governments. Profits come from the difference between the amount received from the government and the amount spent on overhead and medical care for its members. [...]
WellCare was a slow-growing Florida company until 1992 when its owner, Dr. Kiran Patel, sold it to a New York investment group led by financier George Soros. The bankers hired Todd Farha, an aggressive Harvard MBA, to transform the company. Under his leadership, WellCare's earnings have increased eight-fold and the company's investors and executives like Farha have profited handsomely from appreciation in its stock.
In an interview last year, Farha credited WellCare's success with hard work, attractive member benefits and close attention to the basics. But he has also nurtured the kinds of relationships invaluable to a company dependent on government funding.
WellCare and its affiliates have given the Republican Party of Florida some $105,000 in contributions this year, according to state election records. They've also given the Florida Democratic Party $5,000 this year. In 2006, WellCare's PAC gave $66,000 to federal candidates, all Republicans.
Commenters at the St. Petersburg Times article above are typing things like "I pray to God that they can get some kind of criminal charges against George Soros" and "I hope they prosecute that worm GEORGE SORROS. He is behind everything wrong with America!! Check him out on the web.He supports the ACLU and the Homosexual agenda and much much more SLIME!!" and "This will be a, great time to bring down that creep, George Soros." Apparently they are unaware that Soros hasn't been involved with WellCare since last year, having sold off his interests, and they also seem oblivious to the fact that Farha and his senior management were responsible for the GOPCare, not George Soros.
All of which just goes to show once again that the mere mention of the name "Soros" — relevant or not — wakes the right-wing zombies.
We eagerly await Republican Gov. Crist's pronouncement of "it's all Soros's fault."
NEW YORK -- WellCare Health Plans Inc.'s market value was cut in half when the stock reopened Thursday following news of a government raid of the manager-care provider's Florida headquarters.
On Wednesday, state and federal law-enforcement agents armed with a federal search warrant raided WellCare's headquarters in Tampa, Fla. [...]
At midday Thursday, WellCare shares were at $49, down $66.17, or 57%, on brisk volume. [...]
It isn't clear what information or materials authorities were seeking in the criminal investigation. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Health and Human Services Department and the Florida attorney general's Medicaid fraud unit participated in the raid.
Much of WellCare's revenue comes from Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly and disabled, and Medicaid, a state-federal health program for the poor. By offering managed-care alternatives to traditional Medicare and Medicaid benefits, the company acts as a middleman between government payers and health-care providers; about a third of Medicaid beneficiaries receive care through private insurers.
Interestingly, the editorial skew of the article is revealed when it concludes with this irrelevant factoid: "A private-equity fund that included George Soros as an investor last year finished selling its WellCare stake, purchased for $220 million, for a total of $870 million."
This is media bias at work. The Journal manages to sneak in an imaginary association of WellCare Chief Executive and Chairman Todd Farha with George Soros, but not with George W. Bush, to whom Farha has contributed the maximum amount.
UPDATE: A little more digging shows just us exactly how Bush-lovin' the WellCare crooks really are (Robert Trigaux, St. Petersburg Times, 2004):
Bush has raised $14.7-million, making Florida his third biggest money state after Texas and California. [...] Here's a brief look at Tampa Bay's biggest money raisers for Bush:
* Todd S. Farha. Never heard of him? You will. He emerged on the Tampa Bay scene in 2002 when the former executive with Oxford Health Plans led a New York investor group in the purchase of Tampa's privately held WellCare HMO (FYI, one of Farha's investment partners in that venture is George Soros, the billionaire who's spending a ton of money to defeat Bush). Last month, Farha took WellCare Health Plans Inc. public on the New York Stock Exchange. The company depends heavily on government contracts to run Medicare and Medicaid HMOs in Florida and five other states. Last spring, Florida House Speaker Johnnie Byrd flew home from campaign fundraising on a private jet chartered by WellCare at the same time the HMO was pushing legislation potentially worth millions of dollars to the company.
* David Hart. As finance director at WellCare Health Plans, Hart and Farha not only share the same executive suites but the same political interests. Two Pioneers in a pod.
Again interestingly, this article also offers a mention of right-wing nemesis George Soros — but at least it's in the proper context as a direct contrast to Farha's deepest and truest political affections.
Farha has already fallen pretty far (ha!), despite having been selected by Business Week as recently as last year as a top CEO under the age of 40. It turns out he was only a top crony under 40.
UPDATE 2 — Oct 26: Now it gets weirder. I've just had a visit from Jeb Bush's Charlie Crist's office doing a Google search for "george soros and wellcare":
IP Address 204.115.188.# (Executive Office of the Governor) ISP Executive Office of the Governor
Country : United States (Facts) State : Florida City : Tallahassee Lat/Long : 30.4629, -84.2446 (Map) Language English (U.S.)
Operating System Microsoft WinXP Browser Internet Explorer 6.0
Time of Visit Oct 26 2007 12:24:25 pm Last Page View Oct 26 2007 12:24:25 pm Visit Length 0 seconds Page Views 1 Referring URL http://www.google.co...&hl=en&start=10&sa=N Search Engine google.com Search Words george soros and wellcare Visit Entry Page http://skimble.blogs...-medicaid-fraud.html [i.e., this post just before this update] Visit Exit Page http://skimble.blogs...-medicaid-fraud.html
Governor Charlie Crist, like his predecessor, is a Republican. We can now expect Jeb's Charlie's office to paint this whole Medicaid fraud thing as the fault of the rich left-wing Jew, despite Soros having sold his investment in WellCare in 2006.
Washington Wire was a little stunned to receive a press release today hawking disgraced former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown as “available for interviews” to discuss the wildfire crisis in Southern California.
Brown, who became the face of government mismanagement following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and was ultimately forced out of the job following a national uproar, is now director of corporate strategy for Cotton Cos., a “leading provider of disaster recovery services,” according to the release. It’s a regular practice in Washington for companies and public relations firms to promote their internal experts to the media for interviews on the issues of the day.
Whether Brown is an expert on disaster preparedness is open for debate. “Mr. Brown can speak to the turmoil being caused by the California wildfires as well as to some of the new processes in disaster relief efforts that will help to restore California communities. He can offer advice to residents and businesses on proper relief and recovery efforts and provide suggestions for future disaster preparedness,” the press release states.
In a particularly nervy move, the release also draws parallels between the California fires and the 2005 hurricane that devastated New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast — and tagged then-FEMA Director Brown as incompetent and unqualified. “Currently, the brush fires are affecting hundreds of local businesses and have forced more than 500,000 people out of their homes. Of these 500,000 people, an estimated 10,000 of them have taken shelter at the local NFL stadium, Qualcomm, vaguely reminiscent of circumstances of Hurricane Katrina evacuees two years ago.”
Brown, who never worked in disaster preparedness before he was chosen for the FEMA job by President Bush, had this to say: “The agency has learned some hard lessons regarding the handling of mass evacuations especially in regard to the bureaucratic red tape that is involved in such a process.” He went on, “This is a tragic time for many of the people of California, and Cotton Companies is working to ensure that normalcy is restored and that businesses and organizations are back up and running as soon as possible.”
Commenter KDM has this gem to add: "This would be like Larry Craig making himself available as an expert on meeting new friends. Sort of the Dale Carnegie of the men’s room."
The jokes write themselves. Thanks to the Bush administration, we're all Jay Leno now.
...when water is used for golf courses it can become the greatest water usage in a region. It has been estimated that a single average mid-western US golf course is equivalent to a population of 50,000 residents in water usage. (Thus, in areas where there are 20 golf courses the load is that of one million residents, as found in tourist areas such as Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, and the famed 100 courses of Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs, California use the equivalent of 5,000,000 resident consumers' water.) Some governments have labelled golf course usage as agricultural in order to deflect environmentalists' charges of water waste.
Earlier this year, a certain father of the president collapsed in Palm Springs on the golf course. Leave it to a soft and coddled anti-environmentalist to have a fainting spell in the midst of his flagrant display of waste, i.e., desert golf.
How much farther from Palm Springs can you get? Try Kennebunkport!
I find it difficult to believe that a billboard has any dampening influence on the sexual behavior of teenagers. So, for sheer ineffectiveness, this goofy hip-kid-abstinence image and its idiotic placement on a secondary highway amount to a fantastic waste of money for some fool.
Except that I am that fool. It's especially disturbing that I financed this billboard through my taxes — as witnessed by the website's listing of the program's federal grantees.
When right-wingers tag me with the scarlet letter of liberalism and insist that I hate America, this is one of the top reasons why they're correct. Because I hate American stupidity, especially very expensive and very harmful American stupidity, of which there are thousands of examples in the last seven years alone.
(And you know what, kids? Indiana is wrong. Sex shouldn't wait. You're not worth it. You're just like the rest of us and nothing special. So go ahead and fuck like everyone else who has ever been on earth since the beginning of time. God connected your genitals to the pleasure center of your brain, your hypothalamus — it would be a sin not to use them. Too bad the state of Indiana won't help you learn how to do it right — free of disease and unwanted pregnancy.)
The chart accompanies a long article by Glenn R. Simpson that characterizes the no-bid yellow-ribbon slime who are feeding American troops and starving American taxpayers (WSJ):
Prominent American food companies are under scrutiny in a federal probe of possible fraud and corruption in the military's food-supply operations for the Iraq war.
The inquiry is focused on whether the food companies set excessively high prices when they sold their goods to the Army's primary food contractor for the war zone, a Kuwaiti firm called Public Warehousing Co. A related question is whether Public Warehousing improperly pocketed for itself refunds it received from these suppliers. Public Warehousing bought vast amounts of meat, vegetables and bakery items from the food companies, and delivered them to U.S. troops.
Public Warehousing's dealings are the subject of "a very large and active investigation into criminal and civil fraud involving amounts in the hundreds of millions of dollars," Justice Department lawyer Brian Mizoguchi told a judge in Federal Claims Court in Washington, D.C., on June 12. Public Warehousing, which receives more than $1 billion annually to feed troops in Iraq and Kuwait, denies wrongdoing. [...]
A key figure in the probe is David Staples, a top procurement official at the Army who formerly worked at Sara Lee's Jimmy Dean sausage unit. Records show Mr. Staples required Army food contractors to purchase products from certain suppliers rather than allowing the contractors to shop around. [...]
In one of the most striking examples of the agency's selectivity, Tyson Foods Inc., one of the world's largest chicken producers, has been virtually shut out in the competition to supply the troops for the Iraq conflict. Much of the chicken supplies for Iraq and Kuwait are provided by Perdue and a ConAgra unit called Pilgrim's Pride Inc. That is in line with a recommended menu on a spreadsheet issued by Mr. Staples's agency. The spreadsheet lists foods and recommended suppliers such as "turkey thigh roast, raw, netted, 8-10 lb avg" next to "Sara Lee."
In an April 3, 2007, letter to the Pentagon, a lawyer for Tyson complained that "elements within the military" were providing sole-source contracts "to certain companies employing former military personnel."
So much for the glory of competition and the inherent wisdom of the free market. I guess all of that routine Republican faux-capitalist blathering is as much bullshit as its reasons to go to war.
If we're spending $2.4 million per month on lobster tails, and the war has been going on for 55 months since March 2003, that would put the total American lobster tail cost for fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq at about $132 million. (Discounting, of course, the effect of any lobster tail "surge.")
In effect, what the Republicans are saying with their lobster tail budget is "Fuck you, uninsured American children! Fuck you, Iraqi civilians! The lobster tail supply in Iraq is more imporant than any of you, according to the inhuman financial priorities of our chickenhawk American leadership."
But a hundred million dollars speak louder than any words.
Let's look at the nominal growth in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq stock indexes during the George W. Bush presidency: DJIA, up an average of 4.3% a year, or a cumulative 33.0% total; the S&P 500, up 2.3% per year, 16.4% total; the Nasdaq, up 0.2% per year, 1.5% total. [...]
Revise the three indexes' returns to account for both the value of the dollar in euros and Europe's harmonized index of consumer prices and you get an even worse picture. Using this approach, the DJIA lost an average of 3.9% a year, declining a total of 23.3%; the S&P 500 dropped 5.8% annually, for a loss of 32.9% in all; and the Nasdaq forfeited 7.7% a year, or 41.5% in total.
In other words, a euro-based investor in the Dow has, after adjusting for European inflation, lost 3.9% (excluding dividends) per year in real terms during the Bush presidency. In a global economy in which America depends on foreign investment, this relationship is untenable.
These rates of return are far more ominous when adjusted using the cost of either oil or gold instead of the inflation-adjusted euro value of the dollar. The annually compounded rate of return on the Dow Jones Industrials since January 2001 (excluding dividends) has been -9.8% when adjusted for the price of oil and -10.5% when adjusted for the price of gold.
Many would argue that the market's recent volatility is, in part, the consequence of efficient-market forces trying to reconcile these imbalances. It is reasonably certain that a sinking currency and rapidly rising commodity prices will ultimately lead to substantially higher prices and/or higher interest rates, which will further weaken the domestic equity markets.
The U.S. dollar has enjoyed a pre-eminent international position for most of the last century. The economic forces unfolding before us have the power to undermine that authority and to inflict grave financial hardship upon us as a nation.
When we think about the upcoming presidential election, we should listen carefully to what the candidates are saying -- if anything -- about the collapse of the American equity markets. Our future depends upon the health of those markets, and no candidate should receive our vote if he or she doesn't recognize the problem we face and show a willingness to correct the great damage that has already been done.
We are not better off today than we were seven years ago.
One mo' time: Adjusted for oil prices, the stock market has lost 10 percent a year since Bush-Cheney stepped into the White House.
These are the same people who tried to privatize Social Security — yet that political strategy might at least have made economic sense under Clinton, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained a total of 350 percent over his two terms. This is worth repeating as often as necessary — under Bush, national wealth was lost; under Clinton, national wealth skyrocketed. As we have seen time and time again, Democrats are good for business in reality, as opposed to in soundbites.
If you think of the American economy as a portfolio, then Bush has been a complete and utter failure as a portfolio manager. Pro-business Republicans everywhere should be ashamed of having given him their support, for he has not only destroyed their credibility as a party for the positive potential of capitalism, but he has also literally erased principal out of their investment accounts. Negative ten percent a year, to be exact, thanks to oil prices. It turns out that holding hands with Saudi princes doesn't make you any more effective when it comes to managing oil prices — it obviously makes you less so — but starting Middle Eastern wars based on false premises sure messes up the stock markets.
For American voters who want a better economy, there is no other choice. The Democratic Party is now the party of business — they have won the title by default.
The richest Americans' share of national income has hit a postwar record, surpassing the highs reached in the 1990s bull market, and underlining the divergence of economic fortunes blamed for fueling anxiety among American workers.
The wealthiest 1% of Americans earned 21.2% of all income in 2005, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. That is up sharply from 19% in 2004, and surpasses the previous high of 20.8% set in 2000, at the peak of the previous bull market in stocks.
The bottom 50% earned 12.8% of all income, down from 13.4% in 2004 and a bit less than their 13% share in 2000. [...]
Mr. Rauh said "it's hard to escape the notion" that the rising share of income going to the very richest is, in part, "a Wall Street, financial industry-based story." The study shows that the highest-earning hedge-fund manager earned double in 2005 what the top earner made in 2003, and top 25 hedge-fund managers earned more in 2004 than the chief executives of all the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, combined.
Meanwhile, Democrats are so fucking smart — they just gave hedge fund managers a huge tax break. Congressional Democrats, through the wisdom of their preemptive surrender, will ensure that "incredibly rich fund managers are paying lower tax rates than school teachers and firefighters."
Texas has long viewed itself as a conservative bastion, but the Lone Star State ranked third in the nation between 2000 and last year in receipt of federal dollars, raking in aid and contracts worth more than $1.2 trillion. [...]
Texas ranked third among all states between 2000 and this year in the dollar amount of federal contracts, about $200 billion, as well as direct financial aid, which exceeded $1 trillion over that period.
In direct federal financial support, Texas trailed just two states, Florida — whose federal aid is boosted by a large number of senior citizens who qualify for Social Security and Medicare — and California. [...]
From 2000 to 2006, Texas Education Agency received the most federal aid of any state agency in Texas, taking in $20 billion, followed by the Transportation Department, which got $14 billion.
Texas, Florida — what kinds of dynastic sibling governors might those states have had?
The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday charged an ex-MetLife broker with swindling a 9/11 widow out of $250,000.
In 2004, Kevin James Dunn Jr., 28, the former broker, told the widow (not identified by the SEC) to invest the $2 million she received from the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund with MetLife, and to allow him to manage the investment.
The widow’s husband was a Port Authority police officer who died in the World Trade Center terrorist attacks.
Initially, the widow purchased $1.25 million in shares of some tax-exempt mutual funds through her MetLife brokerage account.
The rest of the money went toward a MetLife annuity contract, according to the SEC.
He also raked in a fraudulent $23,157 commission when he transferred proceeds from the mutual funds to the annuity contract.
Beginning in Sept. 2005, Mr. Dunn misappropriated $248,000 from the widow by fraudulently creating a fund in both their names and forging her signature on wire transfers from the joint account, the SEC alleged in its complaint.
Mr. Dunn also lied to the widow about the status of her investments, tricking her into giving him blank checks, which he put in his own account, according to the suit.
This February, Mr. Dunn was fired from MetLife but continued swindling money from the widow, the SEC said.
The SEC is ordering the ex-broker to repay the misappropriated cash, plus interest, and civil penalties.
Mr. Dunn is also facing an indictment from federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York.
He faces mail and wire-fraud charges and may do up to 20 years in prison if he’s convicted, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that mirrors Democratic views and suggests trade deals could face high hurdles under a new president.
The sign of broadening resistance to globalization came in a new Wall Street Journal-NBC News Poll that showed a fraying of Republican Party orthodoxy on the economy. While 60% of respondents said they want the next president and Congress to continue cutting taxes, 32% said it's time for some tax increases on the wealthiest Americans to reduce the budget deficit and pay for health care.
If you drill down to the poll numbers, you see that only 32 percent of today's Republican voters (i.e., about 11 percent of the US voting population — see the post below) call themselves "very" conservative. Only 5 percent self-identify as liberal, but a whopping 61 percent call themselves "moderate" or only "somewhat conservative."
This calls for an elegiac prayer:
O mighty Christian Lord, no matter how piously hypocritical your followers, one out of ten Americans is too few to maintain your holy grasp on the American sceptre of power. Thus endeth the failed experiment carried out by the soldiers of the Republican Christian Revolution, in which genuine economic greed was devoured by fake moral sanctimony. May they all rest in the shallow graves they had dug for others of lower class and of pigmented skin. Amen.
Pew found that between 1987 and this year, for example, support for "old-fashioned values about family and marriage" had dropped 11 percentage points. The percentage of those who said gay teachers should be fired dropped 23 points, Pew said. Support for U.S. global engagement and "peace through military strength" also shrank.
But the number of Americans who share some classic Democratic concerns has risen. Three-quarters of the population is worried about growing income inequality, Pew found, while two-thirds favor government-funded health care for all. Support for a government safety net for the poor is at its highest level since 1987, Pew said.
"More striking," Pew concluded, was the change in party identification since 2002. Five years ago, the population was evenly divided -- 43% for each party. This year, Democrats had a 50% to 35% advantage.
A fifteen point shift in five years? That's buh-bye.
God help us all today, the day on which the Lieberman-Kyl amendment passed, a "dangerous effort to put us on the record for the use of military force in Iran."
A group working to combat childhood obesity is using — of all things — Sen. Larry Craig’s (R., Idaho) men’s room incident to raise awareness on how campaign contributions by big agricultural interests affects kids’ health. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit advocacy group, will introduce a television ad Wednesday — the same day Craig is expected in a Minneapolis court in an attempt to withdraw his guilty plea to a disorderly conduct charge stemming from a sex sting at the Minneapolis airport.
It’s a bit of a leap. The “Dirty Little Secret” ad is a takeoff on Craig’s incident: a faceless senator enters a men’s room, taps his foot and grabs thick bundles of cash handed to him under a stall divider. [...]
So what’s the Craig connection? There’s isn’t one, Chaitowitz acknowledges. “We just thought it was a good opportunity to draw attention to an issue that is dry and boring.”
It's a bit of a stretch, but at least it's a funny stretch. Watch the ad here.
President Bush could be court-martialed for abuse of power as Commander-in-Chief. Vice President Cheney could probably be court-martialed for his performance as Acting Commander-in-Chief in the White House bunker the morning of September 11, 2001 .
We in the U.S. military would never consider a military coup, removing an elected president and installing one of our own. But following our oath of office, obeying the Nuremberg Principles, and preventing a rogue president from committing a war crime is not a military coup. If it requires the detention of executive branch officials, we will not impose a military dictatorship. We will let the Constitutional succession take place. This is what we are sworn to. This is protecting the Constitution, our highest obligation. In 2007, this is what is meant by “Duty, Honor, Country.”
"If Jenna got married in the White House, it would be a tremendous boost to (President Bush's) popularity," says Doug Wead, former special assistant to the first President Bush and author of "All the Presidents' Children."
"Nixon received a lot of goodwill because of Tricia's wedding. I've said before that President Bush's best chance to come out of his term well is if they capture Osama bin Laden and one of the twins gets married."
Of course, there are less cynical reasons a couple might choose a White House wedding. The place already has a no-fly zone, protecting the betrothed from the chopperazzi attacks that plague other celebrity couples.
Nothing distracts Americans from our quagmires and the blood on our hands quite like a big White House wedding.
But now Wells Real Estate Investment Trust, the public, nontraded REIT with about $5 billion in assets across the country (mostly class A office buildings) has changed its name to Piedmont Office Realty Trust Inc.
"The name change is a natural progression in our strategy of differentiating ourselves as a unique, self-managed REIT," said Donald A. Miller, CFA, Piedmont's president and CEO.
Yeah, right. My guess is it's a preemptive marketing strategy to stave off the ungodly taint of Leo Wells and the $161 million he stole from shareholders through the help of his folksy Christian manner. The disappearance of $161 million into the pocket of your Christian CEO not the kind of thing Jesus would want your investors to know about — so you change the name of the fund.
Interestingly, one of the Board of Directors of the newly renamed fund, Michael R. Buchanan, sports facial hair. This is the kind of crime, along with atheism and casual wear, for which previous Wells employees were fired.
When even Forbes and the Wall Street Journal perceive you as a Christian wackjob, it's time to change your name!
Investors, beware. $161 million is not chump change. Jesus might not trick you but the hypocrite Wells, hiding behind Jesus, certainly would.
A Wells REIT by any another name would still stink to high heaven.
The financial sector cut 35,752 jobs in August — the highest one-month total for the field in 14 years — as mortgage and subprime lenders collapsed this summer.
Overall U.S. job cuts increased 85% between July and August, with nearly half of the those layoffs coming from financial firms, a study from Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc. found. [...] Eighty-six percent of these came from the mortgage/ subprime area.
At 102,758 layoffs this year, the field is well on its way to beat its annual record of 116,515 cuts in 2001. [...]
“We have not seen such a rapid descent since the airlines shed thousands of workers in the wake of Sept. 11.”
Whoops.
Will our subprime lenders be pursued as vigorously as bin Laden has been pursued?
The answer is "probably" because bin Laden is still at large. In six years, most of the architects of the subprime credit attack on the US will also be walking free in Connecticut or wherever they keep their spider holes.
President Bush, left, plays a guitar presented to him by Country singer Mark Wills, backstage following his visit to Naval Base Coronado, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. AP Photo.
So, listen up, cable TV pundits: next time you feel the urge to say "death tax," say "Leona's dog tax" instead. You may surprised at how many of your viewers would welcome the change and not mind taking a few million dollars away from Trouble.
Shareholders of an unusual real-estate investment fund are suing the fund's founder, claiming that the fund failed to disclose a takeover offer, and instead paid $175 million for a group of companies he controlled.
Under the terms of the takeover offer, shareholders would have received higher payouts if the fund didn't buy the companies from the founder.
Leo Wells III, the 63-year-old founder of Wells Real Estate Funds, based in Norcross, Ga., personally received roughly $161 million of the $175 million purchase price as the predominant owner of the companies, which had been paid millions in management fees by the fund, Wells Real Estate Investment Trust.
Shareholders were informed about the "internal" purchase, but they were tricked: "What Wells REIT directors didn't disclose was that at least one potential suitor offered to buy Wells REIT, and the offer would have been more lucrative to Wells shareholders if the fund didn't buy Mr. Wells's management companies."
Foreclosure filings across the nation jumped 9% between June and July and rose precipitously by 93% compared to the same period last year.
There were 179,599 foreclosures last month, according to RealtyTrac, a marketplace for foreclosed properties — one filing for every 693 households.
Some 43 states reported year-over-year increases in foreclosures, with Nevada leading the way: one filing for every 199 households. [...]
California, Florida and Ohio, along with Michigan and Georgia, made up nearly half of the total foreclosure filings.
In the last nine months, about 120 mortgage lenders have shut or declared bankruptcy. Naturally this does not account for the tens or even hundreds of thousands of personal bankruptcies yet to appear from the subprime credit mess — an unforced catastrophic error that was generated by managerial hubris and a power structure out of control. (Sound familiar?)
The GOP's beloved Ownership Society has become its own bastard child: the Bankruptcy Society.
When [Ashton Kutcher's] friend Matt spotted Jenna and Barbara Bush, Matt graphically described his amorous intent, oblivious to the glares of the Secret Service agents: "I'd fucking nail the shit out of that bitch!"
"My God, he was not shutting up," says Kutcher. Nevertheless, Ashton met the twins, who asked what he was doing after the party. Everyone ended up going back to Kutcher's house, although he insisted the Secret Service stay outside. "So we're hanging out," Kutcher says. "The Bushes were underage-drinking at my house. When I checked outside, one of the Secret Service guys asked me if they'd be spending the night. I said no. And then I go upstairs to see another friend and I can smell the green wafting out under his door. I open the door, and there he is smoking out the Bush twins on his hookah."
The next morning, Kutcher picked up his phone -- and didn't get a dial tone. He assumes that ever since the Bushes' visit, the Secret Service has had his phone tapped.
So now Lil Jenna's all grown up and stuff — getting all engaged.
By planning to marry a nice Republican boy, Drunk'n'Spliffy Girl follows Coke Daddy's example and shows the world she's capable of pretending to clean up her act.
Meanwhile, the White House is going to fucking nail the shit out of Jenna's wedding for all it's worth.
And there you have what will be remembered Dubya's legacy in a nutshell — a big 2008 White House wedding for Drunk'n'Spliffy Girl, all calculated to goose Coke Daddy's record-breaking abysmal poll numbers before he's gone for the good of the whole world.
