From AIG bonus checks may be taxed at up to 100%, says Sen. Chuck Schumer:

"They should voluntarily return them. If they don't, we plan to tax virtually all of it," New York Sen. Chuck Schumer declared on the Senate floor.

"To those of you getting these bonuses: be forewarned, you will not be getting to keep them."

Cuomo, in a letter to Congress, said he had learned that 11 AIG executives who got retention bonuses of over $1 million no longer even work there.

In total, Cuomo said, the top 10 bonus recipients at AIG shared a combined $22 million, 73 got more than $1 million and the most handsomely paid got a whopping $6.4 million.

Schumer called it "Alice in Wonderland business practices" to give bonuses to executives at a firm that lost nearly $100 billion last year and had to be rescued with $170 billion in taxpayer money.

"It boggles the mind," he said.

Isn't Schumer adorable when he gets all outraged?

So answer me this, because I feel like am missing something here : Where was he when TARP was being written up? What exactly did he do to ensure that the books of these financial institutions saw the day light and came under the scrutiny needed to prevent this kind of chicanery?

And for that matter, where was he along with the whole NY State Congressional delegation all these years? What were they doing to make sure Wall Street was accountable for their gains in good times and in bad?

This is not a rhetorical question. You guys know more about the trappings of the NY politicosphere way more than I do. Was he really a crusader?  read more »

Pam Spaulding alerted me to the demotardic shenanigans of Andrew Cuomo. My quick response is ending up being a larger piece on race, so let me just get the news out first.

Andrew Cuomo, the Attorney General for the State of New York and Hillary Clinton supporter, has earned not just a culturekitchen Demotard award. He also gets to hang on his door a Reappropriate "Racism Fairy" badge and enjoy a video prelude from Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing :

Andrew Cuomo (who could easily be played by John Tuturro, the italian guy in the video clip) said of the primary process that, “You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference ... all those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.”

His response to criticism for the quote? Well, what he really meant was "bob and weave" your way through a situation. That it was never meant as a reference to Barack Obama.

Yes, because "shuck and jive" is really all about bobbing and weaving.

Geezus.

I have more respect from Klansmembers than from Europeanoid liberals with repressed racist tendencies that get manifested in curiously inappropriate moments like, you know, when they're talking up their white candidate who's poised to lose the nomination to a black man.  read more »

DEM, WOR
Andrew Cuomo
Campaign Website: http://www.andrewcuomo.com/home.asp

REP, IND, CON
Jeanine Pirro
Campaign Website: http://www.jeaninepirro.com

LBT
Chris Garvey (Libertarian)
Campaign Website: http://home.att.net/~chrisgarvey/home.htm

GRE
Rachel Treichler (Green)
Campaign Wesite: http://www.serve.com/ecobooks/voterachel

SWP
Martin Koppel (Socialist Workers' Party)

I'm looking at the Attorney General race with a mixture of amusement and foreboding. Mark Green is clearly having the time of his life (how long can it be before he buys everyone in this state a subscription to the New York Times?), doing what he does best: attack.

Here's a suggestion, made because this blog has been not unfriendly to Mark, and (if I had to hazard a guess) because the Daily Gotham editors are pretty much friendlier to Green than we are to Cuomo: Mark, lay off a bit, and tell us why you're the best choice, not that Andy Cuomo is Bush's butt boy. He's not. The same message goes out to the Cuomo camp.

I'm concerned specifically about the stature of the eventual primary winner after the smoke clears. In this year's California gubernatorial primary, the contenders, Westly and Angelides, did everything to each other but rip off hunks of flesh with trained Rottweilers. The eventual winner, Phil Angelides, was weak to begin with (Freddy Ferrer with a tan, as I wrote to a republican friend of mine who's reasonably well connected in the California party), and is presently on a course to lose his race to Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governator, in turn, is using the wealth of material from the Democratic primary to smear the Democratic nominee, and it's working.

It's easy enough to laugh at Jeanine Pirro. Page 10, her husband, her hair, the list goes on. It's also a mistake to do so. In the general, she's the only republican who may stand a chance, and the last thing we need is a Democratic governor paired with a hostile Attorney General who has designs on the governorship. Maybe Mark and Andy don't remember Ken Starr, but I do. Lay off, guys, because while what you're doing to each other may be fun to watch, you're also hurting the overall agenda - and that is more important than either of your careers. While I personally prefer Green as the next AG, I could live with Cuomo; I couldn't live with Pirro.

The New York Times today endorsed Mark Green, delivering a major shot across the bow for Andrew Cuomo and reinvigorating Green's candidacy.

If there are excellent Democratic candidates for governor this year, the race to succeed Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is a lot more contentious and a lot less promising. But there’s little question that the former public advocate, Mark Green, is the candidate whose experience and record best fit this job.

From the beginning, this race has been a contest between Mr. Green and Andrew Cuomo, the former secretary of housing and urban development. Two other candidates, Sean Patrick Maloney and Charlie King, are interesting politicians who have little chance to win this particular contest.

I still say that Maloney is the best and most interesting choice of the four (with Charlie King also great, but with a somewhat misplaced message, as I told him at his pre-campaign cocktail reception), but he's been pigeonholed, partially by design and partially by default, as the gay candidate; which is not per se a liability in this state, but did keep the rest of his message from getting out. He'll likely wind up with a juicy job in a Spitzer administration and be on the watchlist going forward. But back to the Times:  read more »