Shelby’s Claims To Be Anti-Bailout Always DID Smell Rather Fishy
(Graphic by twolf)
When confronted by a bunch of UAW workers who were tired with Richard Shelby’s slander of their work ethic last week, a Shelby staffer explained the Senator’s opposition to the Big 2.5 bridge loan to be a principled opposition to bailouts. Given the Alabama Senator’s tireless efforts to claim that the non-union SUV assembly line workers in his state had a successful business model, whereas Michigan’s unionized SUV assembly line workers had a failed business model, that excuse always smelled pretty fishy to me.
Turns out his claims to be anti-bailout were even fishier than all that.
Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, one of the infamous politicians of the auto bailout fiasco, recently obtained $160 million for the fishing industry nationwide. A portion of this amount is headed for the Alabama fishing industry for reasons they have no control over. Shelby states on his own website and we quote "This funding will provide much needed assistance to an industry that is a vital part of the Alabama economy". The taxpayers of this nation should be aware this is not a government approved loan to the fishing industry but rather a handout.
Of course, given the handouts that Alabama used to convince foreign SUV manufacturers to his state in the first place, I shouldn’t be surprised that his "principled" stance is no such thing. It’s clearly just a stance that ensures Alabama gets to suck at the federal teat, but no other state gets to.
Selective corporate welfare does smell fishy. When I hear Shelby speak I get the creeps
Shelby is a two-faced flounder.
Alabama nearly killed Mercedes-Benz’s reputation for building reliable, high-quality vehicles. The first M-Class SUV, built in Shelby’s state, was a disaster. The company barely recovered its reputation.
Man, those models were crap too; really bad.
In 1861, Alabama was the newest state east of the Mississippi, and it was also the richest state in the Confederacy. By the end of the Civil War it became, and mostly remains, the poorest state in the Union (10 % of its income derives directly from Washington, D.C.).
What to make of all of this? Simply that the funding of Alabama is the latest, slowest, longest, and least well managed of any Marshall Plan–one that started, curiously enough, at roughly the same time as the Marshall Plan itself (with the military spending of WW II).
This can give rise to many an anachronistic fantasy, among them the following: if an unassassinated Lincoln had used his executive skills to rebuild the confederate states with funds recovered from northern war profiteers, would a Senator Shelby be acting as he does today? I happen to think that he would (if only because he’s a Senator), but the stakes and the context of his behavior would still be rather different–those of a class conflict instead of a regional one, with Alabama’s labor unions assisting those of (for example) Michigan.
I’m nitpicking here, alabama, but even Florida wasn’t recognized as a state until decades after AL was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L….._statehood
What type of shellfish would Senator Shel be?
Crustacean? Echinoderm? Or Mollusc?
Consider the characteristic fickle behavior of the spiny [yet spineless] hedgehog. Consider also the uncanny resemblance to the sea cucumber, along with the spiny hedgehog and others of its type among the dominant life forms of the Mesozoic era that somehow managed to survive over the two hundred million years or so since first emerging from the primal ooze of prehistoric methane-choked tide pools, thought owing in some critical part to their marginal nutrional value. Consider the utter dependence on the circumstances of locale to bring sustenance, with its distinction from others of its being based primarily on the better ability to move a bit through manipulation of its water vascular system, or bloviation.
Right: He’s clearly an unreconstituted elephanatozoa of the echinodermata phylum.
Forgive the drift, but I did not know that hedgehogs are spineless. Are porcupines also spineless?
I have about a dozen hedgehogs at my place, one above each doorway. Some are clay; one is stone; one lovely semi-abstract is wooden; and I’m not quite sure of a couple of them. I’m also not sure whether this was really a Scots tradition or whether it is just a tradition invented by my husband, but they’re his hedgehogs, collected over many years to live atop every doorway, so they live on, one over each doorway.
I’m not sure that it is fair to the noble hedgehog to compare it to Senator Shelby.
Yeah, pity about the name thing – but it’s applause as to apprehensions comparing those cute little house-appropriate mammals with them thingees that waft about below the waves.
And the watery version is also [and in some places better] known as “urchin” – as in the sound the Senator makes as he moves among the contradictions of his 2008 Nissan Hypocrisy.
Now there’s a car. Surpassed only by the Toyota Apostasy.
IMVHO, you are far too complimentary in viewing him as any life form with an exoskeletan. I’d contend that Shelby is a bottom feeder; a creature notable for operating far better in the hideously dark depths, lurking in and out of caverns, scavanging what drops down from the mile or more of ocean pressing down on them.
They ’sense’, they do not see.
Their food supply is what’s left over after all the things above them have eliminated their bowels, dropped their leftovers, and otherwise let slide down to the depths of shivering, unearthly cold.
No slam at Mercedes, but this Shelby is a bottom feeder. Woe, Alabamans, to have their fate in his hands.
a carp in other words…
In related business, Felix Salmon (Detroit Bailout: No News is Bad News) reminds us that while all this non-bailing out is occuring, Bush is in Afghanistan, having just ducked out of Iraq.
Can we talk them into keeping him?
I should think that would depend in part on the outcome of U.S.-Mexico talks on the return of the State of Texas.
In related foreign news, it’s being reported that the journalist who yesterday threw his shoes at President Bush has been cited with clear indications of have been tortured since [and presumably therefor]:
http://tinyurl.com/3uj5p
Analysts comment that Iraqi officials acted in anticipation that President Bush would best appreciate this characteristically American gesture.
[Okay, I added that last sentence.]
And not just cited, but sighted, too.
Sorry, LabDancer: I had not seen your serious post @ 8 when I was writing.
I fear this very much, and I hope that the international community will make our contempt for anyone who abuses al-Zaidi very clear.
This man is a hero around the world. He did what millions of people would like to do and far more. Would still like to see the law thrown at Bush instead of shoes but the shoes will do for now.
Earlier today wrote to Code Pink asking them to start the
“SHOE THROWER’S DEFENSE FUND” Please contact them or anyone other group that would have the where with all to get such a fund started. This man needs to know that he has our support, admiration and appreciation
Please contact Code Pink or anyone else that could pull this off
http://www.codepink4peace.org/contactus.php
bmaz gave us the info on Tamm’s legal defense fund.
Was it an earmark, which states get it, how much, whose hands does it end up in, how do they use it? Why is $160 million for fishing in the public interest? I hope Obama excises with his scalpel before it’s spent stocking streams in Tuscaloosa.
Senator Shellfish’s website makes reference to the need to the rebuild of south shore commercial fisheries brought about by severe tropical storms, IOW for shrimpin’.
Downright Gumpian, that.
Shorter Shelby: “Bailouts don’t work. I oughta know. I’ve tried bailing out Alabama for years but it ain’t helped no how.”
Tamm will be on Rachel tonight! MSNBC.
i am not ashamed to admit i have tears in my eyes after watching tamm.
a true patriot.
He is great. And Rachel got the first interview. Good for her.
anyone watch Hardball tonight? Matthews had the latest words of Cheney having to do with the WMD’s. Man you can see Matthews nerves twitch in his jaws when he reports anything having to do with Cheney. It is oh so obvious that Matthews hates Cheney. Well hates everything Cheney has done
Can not find the clip at Hardball
http://www.politico.com/news/s…..16609.html
Cheney: Iraq had ‘every intention’ of resuming WMD program
By ANDY BARR | 12/15/08 6:50 PM EST
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday defended the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq in March 2003.
Photo: AP
Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday defended the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq in March 2003, claiming that then-President Saddam Hussein had “every intention” of resuming production of weapons of mass destruction once United Nations sanctions were lifted.
Former White House Adviser Karl Rove said last week that if pre-war intelligence on the Iraqi WMD programs had been accurate, the United States likely would not have entered the war. But asked about Rove’s comment during an interview with ABC News Monday, Cheney said “I disagree with that.”
What Shelby is, behind the doublespeak, is Pro-Social-Control. A trait he shares with his other Plantation
OwnersCaucus Members. These guys, like Shelby, Corker, McConnell, etc like it Just the Way They’ve Got It Arranged in their Mayberry States.Everybody stays in their place, and the money’s right, too.
The Plantation Caucus votes for the Self-Interest of the Wealthy Racists over the Best Interests of the Impoverished and Poorly Educated Workers.
Hypocrisy is part of the game when Selfish, Greedy, Hateful Ideologues exercise an Agenda of Wink-and-Nod Social Control – they’ll Take everything you give them, but don’t fool yourself into thinking they’ll Give-up anything!
And, their front-men are Shelby, Corker, McConnell,…it’s not about US, it’s Only about Servicing Their Ideology of Social Control.
So, they’ll gamble on killing the Larger Economy to stab the Unions, while Taking $160M for the Plantation Owner’s Fishing Pond Association…because, for them, Social Control is What It’s Really About.
Really, they smoke cigars and laugh about stuff like this.
Oxdown this rant. It’s that good.
you’re surprise that shelby is a greedy self interested hypocrite ???
better stay out of the casino if that’s the case (or you could be shocked)
or maybe you’re just surprised that it is so easy to prove shelby’s hypocrisy
then I’d have to admit, it does look as if you’re shootin fish in a barrel here …
I’d be shocked if we could find a repuglitard official who isn’t a greedy self interested hypocrite …
OT – Bushies at GITMO are about to send 3 of the 5 Algerians they were ordered to release to Bosnia (from whence they kidnapped them) Two, including named habeas petitioner Boumediene, are still waiting.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..eheadlines
And who made up the bizarre terminology whereby they are saying that they are having “exit interviews” with them? Gosh, I hope they explain why they are being “fired” from GITMO.
And a nice little endcap on the piece – Cheney owns his role in getting toture “approved” to ABC news.
Tamm on Maddow. He really sounds like one of the good guys.
I was listening to an audio version of the book “Transparency”, marketed in the business book but co-authored by several people including psychologist Daniel Goleman in which they talk about who in an organization turns out to be a ‘whistleblower’.
People assume that a whistleblower is someone who’s unhappy, or doesn’t fit in.
In fact, research is showing that ‘whistleblowers’ actually turn out to be the people within an organization who DO believe in its highest values and aspirations. Tamm sure fits that description.
What an articulate guest.
Props to Maddow for allowing him to answer questions without interrupting him!
(Here’s hoping that David Shuster is taking notes on Maddow’s skill in allowing articulate guests to speak and explain what they know.)
http://www.bnet.com/2422-13724_23-219866.html
Sorry, should be: ‘marketed in the business books section of bookstores…’
Goleman wrote “Emotional Intelligence”, among other titles.
So where would the 3 Algerians get a fair shake? One would think that the International Court would have an opinion about these releases.
OT-from Roads to Iraq here are a few notes on Al-Zaidi, the journalist who threw the shoes:
1) Al-Zaidi’s tortured body arrives at US Camp Cropper near airport
http://www.roadstoiraq.com/200…..er-prison/
2) cites Arab media reactions to throwing shoes
http://www.roadstoiraq.com/200…..-reaction/
3) reports bush met four hours with Hakim, Al-Zaidi tortured and some other bits
http://www.roadstoiraq.com/200…..-tortured/
4) cites Norwegian game on throwing shoes at bush
http://flash.vg.no/grafikk/2008/bush/kast_sko.html
I see Siun has a piece on this at FDL with lots of good comments.
http://firedoglake.com/2008/12…..-tortured/
Free the Shoe Thrower Petition
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/montather/
Oh, even lower in the trenches than a carp — but your point is well taken ;-)))
Watching Mr. Tamm; heartening to know people can be so courageous. A “size 10**” phone call, if you will.
** ’size 10′ said to be the size shoes thrown at GWBush by the Iraqi.
and in other news, the REAL election of the next President of the United States took place today
Obama won
Of every dollar the feds collect in taxes from Michigan, they spend 85 cents in Michigan.
Of every dollar the feds collect in taxes from Alabama, they spend 1.71 cents in Alabama, i.e., more than twice as much as they do in Michigan.
Source: http://www.taxfoundation.org/f…..060316.pdf
OT-This is lovely–via Raw Story-Court sides with ACLU, strikes down Patriot Act gag provision.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/….._1216.html
Opinion:
http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safef…..cision.pdf
I might have missed it, but is that ruling likely to be appealed further by the administration?