BY TOM TOMORROW
Laura Ingraham has a meltdown because a guest admits she has never heard the show. What’s particularly fascinating about this clip is that it’s taken from some sort of direct feed, and includes Ingraham’s off-air banter, such as:
“You’ve never listened to talk radio? You’re completely out to lunch. She’s out to lunch. Idiot. By the way, really stupid for her to open that door, screw up, she revealed that and I’m gonna friggin’ destroy her. What else can you find out about her?”
What a charmer.
Sean Hannity frequently laughs during his radio rants, and by “laughs,” I mean “interjects a weirdly fake-sounding barking noise to demonstrate what a lighthearted, fun loving guy he is.” It is to actual laughter what Fox is to actual news. Anyway, every time I hear him make the “laughter” noise, it tickles some memory just out of reach, reminds me of someone else’s (equally unconvincing) laugh — and I’ve finally just figured it out. Listen for it at about the 11 second mark:
They even look alike, don’t they?
Then:
The White House is downplaying published reports of an estimated $50 billion to $60 billion price tag for a war with Iraq, saying it is “impossible” to estimate the cost at this time.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels told The New York Times in an interview published Tuesday that such a conflict could cost $50 billion to $60 billion — the price tag of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
But Trent Duffy, an OMB spokesman, said Daniels did not intend to imply in the Times interview that $50 billion to $60 billion was a hard White House estimate.
“He said it could — could — be $60 billion,” Duffy said. “It is impossible to know what any military campaign would ultimately cost. The only cost estimate we know of in this arena is the Persian Gulf War, and that was a $60 billion event.”
Duffy also was careful to caution that President Bush had not made a decision to use military force against Saddam’s regime.
The war has turned out to be hugely costly in both blood and treasure. We estimate that the total budgetary and economic cost to the United States will turn out to be around $3 trillion, with the cost to the rest of the world perhaps doubling that number again. In one sense, this book is about that $3 trillion – how America will be paying the bill for this war for decades to come, and why it is that the true costs are so much larger than the cost estimates originally provided by the Bush administration.
Current Cost of War in Iraq Is Almost $11 Billion Per Month. “In FY2007, DOD’s monthly obligations for contracts and pay averaged about $12.3 billion including about $10.3 billion for Iraq and $2.0 billion for Afghanistan.†[CRS Report, 2/22/08]
That Amounts to…
* $332,258,064 Per Day
* $13,844,086 Per Hour
* $230,734 Per Minute
* $3,845 Per Second
Who is Penny Pritzker?
Pritzker is the national finance chair of Obama’s presidential campaign. She’s from one of America’s richest families, the founders of the Hyatt hotel chain, and is herself the 135th richest person in America.
She also has an ugly history as the former chair of Superior Bank in Illinois, which (1) was created thanks to a giant S&L bailout by the government; (2) then helped invent the securitization of subprime mortgages; and (3) then collapsed in 2001 thanks to massive financial chicanery.
Interestingly, she lives in a fancy Chicago neighborhood just a short stroll away from Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago professor who’s one of Obama’s main economic advisors. It’s really quite wonderful how Goolsbee can maintain his deep admiration for the Free Market while living a few blocks away from billionaires who use massive government power to create and subsidize their businesses.
Background:
Dennis Berstein: “Obama’s Sub-Prime Conflict”
Earl Ofari Hutchinson: “If Obama’s For Real on the Sub-Prime Crisis, He’ll Dump His Campaign Finance Chair”
Bob Feldman: “Obama Campaign’s Pritzker/Superior Bank S&L Scandal Link?”
Flashpoints Radio: “An investigative report into Penny Pritzker”
Another brilliant video from the maker of Barack OBollywood :