Motley Moose – Archive

Tomorrow, President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner will implement a pay cap of $500,000 to executives of companies receiving bailout money.

The New York Times reports the plan, which is similar, though not as strict as the plan proposed by Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) this week, will allow for bonuses, but no large than their pay base. (Whether this means bonuses cannot exceed their base salary or total more than $500,000 plus salary is still in question). McCaskill’s plan banned any bonuses at all.

Here’s the story;

My ex-girlfriend and I are still friends. She’s back in New York and is a political writer for a major newspaper there, that for her sake, will remain nameless in this diary.

She e-mailed me early this morning (I guess late last night there) and told me about an interesting Friday editorial meeting she had with political editors. This, btw, is a very liberal newspaper that always endorses Democrats.

Here’s some of her e-mail…

Ok, everyone is pissed about Rick Warren at the inauguration. Except apparently me, who could care less who gives a prayer at the thing. Means nothing to me. I have my reasons that I don’t care. For one, I tend to trust Obama and what his friends believe isn’t necessarily want he does. Also, I’m not in favor of silencing opinions I don’t agree with. I’m interested in outdebating them. Silencing opponents is what Bush did.

It’s slightly entertaining to see some in the blogosphere turn on Obama on this. I guess I’m the only one not surprised. MyDD meanwhile is infested with the return of the PUMA’s glorifying this event as their “I told you so” moment. Honest discussion does not fly there.

Anyway, I’m not surprised the LGBT community is offended by this move…but as someone who took to the streets in the past for gay rights…I’m not surprised and I’m also not expecting the outcry to lead to anything. Frankly, outside us in the LGBT community, few could care less about gay rights.

(Crossposted at MyDD where most of you probably already read it)

It’s been a week since I returned to my adoptive homeland. The Flight from JFK ro Fiumincino was suprisingly smooth…or maybe I was just still so stunned and excited to notice turbulence. I teared up only once…on takeoff when flying over Long Island and Connecticut. I was listening to my IPod as soon as I was allowed to. I kept playing one song over and over again;

“Jump” by Madonna.

The song has come to define my own personal struggle post college from job hunting to family situations to my decision to throw caution to the wind and move to Rome with my cousins.

I also used it to pump me up during the campaign. When I first started knocking on doors in Loudoun County in an office full of campaign workers who, at the time of my arrival, were still skeptical of victory in the wake of Palinmania.

As I’ve been mentioning, tomorrow I’m returning home from Rome to New York, then to Virginia to join my brother in locking that state up for Obama in the final weeks of this campaign.

I had decided to do it a month ago when Obama fell behind in the polls and I panicked. Now that we’re in landslide territory, I feel a similar, if not bigger, sense of urgency to put this thing away.

Part of that feeling is because of the desperatation of McCain supporters who have become really mean, vindictive and scary in the past week or so

Cross posted at MyDD

Back when I was still home, I used to love getting into primary battles with the girl I used to work with. Me for Obama, her for Hillary. It was all in jest. Everyone knew in the end we’d vote for the same candidate, no matter which Democrat is was.

At least that’s what I thought. Sarah Palin has become the shiny new object in front of every stupid person’s eyes, even this girl I used to work with apparently, because she is “such an inspiration”, she has inspired her to not only hate Obama, but hate the other Democrat she used to support too.