Something Short Of Massacre



As of this moment (4:40 p.m. Eastern), there is hope for an end, however temporary, to the attacks between Hamas and Israel as

Diplomatic efforts accelerated on Tuesday to end the deadly confrontation between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, as the United States sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Middle East and Egypt’s president and his senior aides expressed confidence that a cease-fire was close. But by late evening there was no word on an agreement.

But by late evening there was no announcement, and Mrs. Clinton said she would be working in coming days to complete an agreement. Appearing beside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to speak briefly to the press, Mrs. Clinton said she hoped to achieve an end to the hostilities with a deal that moves “toward a comprehensive peace for all people in the region.”

Reacting to the Israeli missiles which have killed at least 54 Palestinian civilians, hundreds of protesters had taken to the streets of Chicago the previous night to protest U.S. support of Tel Aviv.  Hatem Abudayyeh of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network told ABC "The problem with U.S. policy is you support Israel unequivocally all the time, even when they're massacring civilians."    And today

Masked Israeli gunmen forced six people suspected of collaborating with Hamas to lie face down on the street — and shot them dead, witnesses told The Associated Press.

Then, while an angry mob stomped and spat on five of the bodies, the sixth was tied to the back of a motorcycle and and dragged through the streets.

“Spy! Spy!” the people screamed as the corpse was hauled off.

Witnesses told the AP that Israel posted the names of the alleged informers on a utility pole.

Informed, thoughtful, and objective reader that you are, you didn't believe that.    Substitute Hamas for Israeli/Israel and Israel for Hamas, and this is the story as it was actually written in The (New York) Daily News:

Masked Hamas gunmen forced six people suspected of collaborating with Israel to lie face down on the street — and shot them dead, witnesses told The Associated Press.

Then, while an angry mob stomped and spat on five of the bodies, the sixth was tied to the back of a motorcycle and and dragged through the streets.

“Spy! Spy!” the people screamed as the corpse was hauled off.

Witnesses told the AP that Hamas posted the names of the alleged informers on a utility pole.

Israel continues its (sarcasm alert) policy of genocide when (emphasis mine)

Intensifying the pressure on Hamas after a day of heavy rocket fire out of Gaza against southern Israel, the Israeli military said on Tuesday afternoon that it had distributed leaflets over Gaza instructing the Palestinian residents in several areas to evacuate their homes immediately, “for your safety,” and to move toward defined zones in central Gaza City.

Israeli actions can be misguided, unwise, or excessive; massacres, though, are not how they roll.    There is, meanwhile, no ambiguity in the policy and aims of Hamas.


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Governor, You're No Mario Cuomo



Hooray for Chris Hayes (video, below) and Alex Pareene, both of whom recently exposed Andrew Cuomo. And it's not a pretty sight.

After vowing in July "I will veto laws that are not drawn by an independent commission that are partisan," the New York governor, as Salon's Pareene notes, "signed off on gerrymandered state Senate districts."   Though the state assembly is safely Democratic, this month's elections for the 63-member state senate produced 31 Democrats and 30 Republicans.   However, Brooklyn's Simcha Felder, elected as a Democrat, announced he would caucus as a Republican, a switch which has elicited little interest from the governor.  

That leaves 31 Republicans and 30 Democrats with two races yet to be decided.  In one of these, Democrat Terry Gipson leads incumbent Repub senator Terry Saland, whom Cuomo had successfully encouraged to cross party lines to endorse same-sex marriage.

In another Senate district, another GOP incumbent who voted to support with the governor on same-sex marriage, Roy McDonald, was defeated in the primary by a tea party-backed candidate, with Cuomo nevertheless refusing to back the Democratic opponent in the general election.

Cuomo's support of the GOP redistricting map, coupled with his failure to support Democratic legislative candidates, has jeopardized Democratic efforts to enact progressive legislation, including an increase in the minimum wage, public financing of elections, and decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use.  Hayes observes

Watching all this unfold, one can’t help but suspect that Andrew Cuomo does not want a Democratic majority in the state Senate, because a Republican majority gives him more of an opportunity to burnish his bipartisan compromiser bonafides before launching his presidential campaign...” 

Pareene has found Governor Cuomo's

tenure so far has been marked by flashy liberal victories on issues like gay marriage, along with a quietly conservative economic agenda: A property tax cap, total neglect of mass transit, and (partial) support for fracking. Even on economic issues where Cuomo has more liberal priorities, he rarely pushes his Republican friends particularly hard. (A Republican-controlled state Senate will almost certainly block a minimum wage increase Cuomo ostensibly supports.) There’s a reason, in other words, that the National Review loves him.

Cuomo also has cut education and health care spending, as well as benefits for public employees.   Hayes fears Cuomo is striving to "burnish his bipartisan compromise bonafides before launching his presidential campaign."   Worse, as Pareene notes, "he’s in an enviable position of being able to run and govern as a conservative while retaining a progressive reputation, because he’s, you know, a Cuomo and a big-city blue state liberal governor who got gay marriage passed."

Pushing same-sex marriage through the state legislature was a critical strategic victory for the New York governor, enhancing his support in the gay community and its allies, and enriching his fund-raising capacity among them.   But whatever positions Andrew Cuomo takes on major national issues over the next 3-4 years, his effort to clothe himself with a bipartisan veneer while taking the position of Wall Street in opposition to Main Street ought not to be forgotten in a party which will have any combination of Martin O'Malley, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Sherrod Brown (if there is a God), and other worthy individuals competing to be the party's presidential nominee.   For that matter, Andrew Cuomo's path to the Democratic nomination ought to be stopped whatever the opposition.

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With Gender, Missing The Point


Female Democratic U.S. Representatives recognize that attacks upon Susan Rice over the Benghazi assault have been overwrought and unfair and

Republican senators’ angry criticism of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice over her initial account of the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Libya smacks of sexism and racism, a dozen female members of the House said Friday.

In unusually personal terms, the Democratic women lashed out at Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham who earlier this week called Rice unqualified and untrustworthy and promised to scuttle her nomination if President Barack Obama nominates her to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“All of the things they have disliked about things that have gone on in the administration, they have never called a male unqualified, not bright, not trustworthy,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, the next chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. “There is a clear sexism and racism that goes with these comments being made by unfortunately Sen. McCain and others.”

Rice's G.O.P. critics have not complained that she is hysterical, angry, manly, or conniving and have avoided stereotypes of women.  Her supporters appear to have forgotten

The House has voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over his failure to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal, the first time Congress has taken such a dramatic move against a sitting Cabinet official.

The vote was 255-67, with 17 Democrats voting in support of a criminal contempt resolution, which authorizes Republicans leaders to seek criminal charges against Holder. This Democratic support came despite a round of behind-the-scenes lobbying by senior White House and Justice officials - as well as pressure from party leaders - to support Holder...

Since the Justice Department would have to seek an indictment of Holder - a department he oversees as attorney general - no criminal charges will be brought against him. Previous administrations, including the Bush administration in 2008, refused to seek criminal charges against White House officials when a Democratic-run House passed a criminal contempt resolution over the firing of U.S. attorneys.

Boehner’s office, though, is expected to submit a criminal referral to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald Machen, in the next few days, according to a Republican official.

Holder, as with Rice, is black, and racial animus may play a role in Repub criticism of both officials.   But Holder is a man and, properly, there was no suggestion when he was under attack by Republicans that males were being targeted- and they were trying to remove an individual from office, not merely (as in Rice's case), prevent a promotion.

Clearly, the primary motive of the U.N. ambassador's critics is that she serves a Democratic president.    But a disaster has taken place and responsibility should be determined.   Evidently, that is not going to be the Republican whose first name is "General," although

Petraeus testified that the CIA draft written in response to the raid referred to militant groups Ansar al-Shariah and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, but that those names were replaced with the word extremist in the final draft, according to a congressional staffer. The staffer said Petraeus testified that, to get the CIA talking points out quickly, he allowed other agencies to alter the draft as they saw fit, without asking for final review.

The congressional officials were not authorized to discuss the hearing publicly and described Petraeus' testimony to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Sen. Mark Udall (D., Colo.) said Petraeus explained that the CIA's draft points were sent to other intelligence agencies and to some federal agencies for review. Udall said Petraeus told them the final document was put in front of all the senior agency leaders, including Petraeus, and everyone signed off on it.

"The assessment that was publicly shared in unclassified talking points went through a process of editing," Udall said. "The extremist description was put in because, in an unclassified document, you want to be careful who you identify as being involved."

Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.) said it remained unclear how the final talking points developed. The edited version was used by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice five days after the attack when the White House sent her out for a series of television interviews. Republicans have criticized Rice for saying it appeared that the attack was sparked by a spontaneous protest over an anti-Muslim video.

According to published reports, everyone- including the esteemed David Petraeus- signed the document whose contents were to be used by an administration representative when responding to the media.   Those comments substituted "extremist" for mention of any terrorist groups. 

King added "The fact is, the reference to al-Qaeda was taken out somewhere along the line by someone outside the intelligence community.   We need to find out who did it and why."  

They certainly do.  Presumably, it was not the C.I.A. director who took out the reference, especially because his agency apparently suspected the involvement.   But he agreed with the others that the American public ought to be deceived, a decision which will be disregarded by Democratic, and eagerly so by Republican, members of Congress.

So too, though, ought Ms. Rice's defenders avoid excessive deference to the awesome power represented (and until his resignation, held) by The Man Called Petraeus.    Once they take a break from charging sexism, perhaps Susan Rice's defenders might notice what others refuse to, that the man who failed in Iraq and failed in Afghanistan went on to fail at the Central Intelligence Agency.


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Junk Food Debacle


The broadcast media division of the Republican Party has wasted no time blaming unions for the closing of Hostess' factories and plans tosell of its brands and liquidate the company.   Media Matters noted

Martha MacCallum, co-host of Fox News' America's Newsroom, introduced a segment on the Hostess bankruptcy by saying the company is "blaming a worker's strike for crippling their ability to make and deliver their products." At the end of the report, co-host Bill Hemmer blamed the coming job losses at the company on "a labor dispute," suggesting that the union had put "18,000 jobs on the line." MacCallum said the employees were "paying dues to the union and then the union won't make a deal." 

Rush Limbaugh never misses an opportunity to blame workers and claimed

Yeah, I'm gonna talk about Hostess.  You know what, 18,500 people gone, Hostess Twinkies, Ding Dongs, shut down.  Some people might think it's a buy opportunity if you want to get in the Ding Dong business.  But folks, if you need an indication that the Democrats will never compromise on anything, look at this.  Hostess is going out of business because of unions.

While Rush deftly, without evidence or logic, simultaneously blames unions and the Democratic Party for corporate failure, Dean Baker sets us straight, explaining

Hostess has been relying on pretty much the same mix of products for decades. While other companies have sought to adjust to changing consumer tastes, Hostess still gets the vast majority of its revenue from a relatively small number of products that it has been selling in largely the same form since the sixties. This failure to innovate was the main reason that the company first went into bankruptcy in 2004.

Hostess remained in bankruptcy for five years until it was brought out of bankruptcy in February of 2009 by Ripplewood Holdings, a private equity company. Remarkably, it exited bankruptcy with nearly $670 million in debt, almost 50 percent more than the $450 million it owed when it went into bankruptcy.

Usually companies use bankruptcy to shed debt. With Hostess the opposite was true. This meant that Ripplewood was taking a heavily leveraged gamble. If the company survived, it would get a very high return on its investment. However there was a strong likelihood that the company would not be able to make it given its extraordinary debt burden and the weakness of the economy.

Ripplewood first asked workers for concessions in August of 2011. The workers refused since they had made substantial concessions in 2008 to facilitate the exit from bankruptcy. The concessions did not prevent layoffs of close to 20 percent of the workforce. The company also had stopped making payment to the pension fund in July of 2011 and is now more than $160 million in arrears.

Ripplewood took the company back into bankruptcy in January of this year, owing close to $1 billion. It has used bankruptcy to impose new contract terms on workers. This is the immediate cause of the current impasse, with the bakery workers’ union refusing to accept the reductions in pay and benefits and changes in work rules demanded by management.

Workers had several important issues to consider beyond just the prospect of working for less pay and under worse conditions. First, and most importantly, there was little reason to have much confidence in the current management team. They had done nothing to turn the company around in the three years since the last bankruptcy and there was little reason to believe that they would do any better going forward.

Accepting new concessions would provide no guarantee of job security. In fact, management wanted the unions to agree to the closure of 10-12 plants (of its choosing) as part of a new contract. This means that many of the company’s 18,000 workers would soon have been laid off even if the workers had accepted management’s terms.

Second, management was not shy about rewarding itself in spite of the company’s poor financial condition. The CEO upped his annual pay to $2.25 million and other top executives got raises of 35-80 percent. This doesn’t seem like the behavior of management that puts the survival of the company first.

Third, the financial situation of the pension has to be a top concern for workers. While the pension is guaranteed by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, the guarantee for multi-employer plans like the one at Hostess is limited. If the plan were to become insolvent then many workers would see large cuts in benefits.

From this standpoint, if Hostess were to continue to put off contributions to the pension and allow it to become badly underfunded, then workers could be looking at sharply reduced pensions in retirement. Workers who are approaching retirement age may view this prospect as a far greater danger than the risk of losing their job at this stage in their career.

Limbaugh blames AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka for maintaining "What’s happening with Hostess Brands is a microcosm of what’s wrong with America, as Bain-style Wall Street vultures make themselves rich by making America poor.  Crony capitalism and consistently poor management drove Hostess into the ground, but its workers are paying the price."   After a campaign in which the Democratic candidate rarely criticized venture capitalism and his most effective (other than Chris Christie) surrogate, Bill Clinton, unsurprisingly completely avoided the issue, it's downright pleasing to hear someone defend unions and workers by highlighting the recklessness of "job creators."  Months ago, Robert Reich illustrated how it works in the world of venture capitalism:















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Hopeful, Barely



Digby remarks "It's good to see some people making the progressive argument at long last. The media seems to be treating them as slightly slow children as usual, nodding patiently at the absurd notion that the "entitlements" don't have to be slashed mercilessly for our own good."     On Thursday, during a press conference following a summit of House and Senate progressives the previous day,

... liberal lawmakers struck a supportive tone when invoking Obama.

"We will have your back, you will have ours, together we will give President Obama all the support he needs during these negotiations," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)

Social Security does not contribute to the deficit. It is funded by payroll taxes, and currently enjoys a $2.7 trillion surplus, enough to fund the program without any changes until 2033. While lawmakers at Thursday's event universally rejected any cuts to Social Security benefits, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) told the crowd he would be happy to boost revenue for the program by allowing income for people who make more than $108,000 a year to be subject to the payroll tax. Doing so, he said, would allow beneficiaries to receive an additional $65 a month through 2050.

"If you wanna fix Social Security, there it is. Make those making millions of dollars a year pay the same thing and the same rate as those making 40 or 50 or 60 thousand dollars a year," Harkin said. "This is not magic. It can be done."

Medicare, by contrast, is a major driver of long-term deficits, driven by the abnormally high cost of health care in the United States. Whitehouse said that any changes to Medicare included in a debt-reduction package should focus on reducing health care costs, not on cutting benefits for seniors.

Whitehouse also said that the Defending Social Security Caucus, a 19-member group of senators founded by Sanders, would create a "firewall" in Congress to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from cuts. Sanders highlighted Wednesday comments from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) who said he would oppose any deal to cut the deficit that would reduce Social Security benefits. The notion that Social Security is in dire financial straits, Reid says, is a "myth" created by Republicans.

Recent history suggests a bit of skepticism is in order.    In late August, 2009 leaders of the House Progressive Caucus delivered to the White House a letter signed by 57 Democrats characterizing any health care bill without "a public option built on the Medicare provider system and with reimbursement based on Medicare rates-not negotiated rates" as "unacceptable"- and noted it must be available immediately "and not contingent on any trigger."

At the time, the prescient Greg Sargent warned

Should Obama jettison the public option, progressives will come under tremendous pressure to back the plan anyway. White House advisers will likely insist that liberals mustn’t deny the president a historic victory and enable a defeat that could cripple the first African-American presidency.

Forty- two Democrats stood up and issued an ultimatum- or at least what they wanted viewed as an ultimatum- and exactly zero (0) of those Democrats ended up voting against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act without a public option, with or without reimbursement based on Medicare rates.

And now we have 29 members of the United States Senate addressing to the President a letter (PDF) in which they maintain

... we believe it would be a serious mistake to cut Social Security benefits for current or future beneficiaries as part of a deficit reduction package.  To be sure, Social Security has its own long-term challenges that will need to be addressed in the decades ahead.  But the budget and Social Security are separate, and should be considered separately.

Credit those Senators for stating, dangerous in the Age of Obama, a few simple truths about Social Security:   the average monthly benefit is low "by international standards;" it is not "welfare;" and of course, that it operates independently, cannot borrow, pays all benefits from its trust fund, and is separate from the federal budget, thus not contributing to the deficit.   But the letter does not address Medicare and does not define "cuts" (omitting reference to chained CPI), and does not pledge to oppose any reduction in benefits (though considering the experience of health care, that may be an asset).  

Still, there were 24 Democrats who chose not to sign the letter. Significantly, their number included Obama's closest ally in Congress, Dick Durbin, and John Kerry, a likely Obama nominee to head the departments of Defense or State.  Kerry of Massachusetts- Massachusetts!- may be reluctant to offend or challenge the President, who tends to be sensitive to criticism from liberals.

Resistance from the left (what is left of it in the U.S. Senate, or in either chamber, in The Age of Obama) is greater on Social Security than on Medicare, for which the best-case scenario is a reduction merely in provider benefits.  But there are trying times ahead, as one would expect with a (Eisenhower) Republican in the White House.


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And Now A Rice Has To Pay The Price?



They seem deadly earnest- but could John McCain and Lindsey Graham really be serious?   Or is this just some kind of joke?

On CBS' This Morning on Wednesday, the Arizona senator asserted "the American people deserve the truth" because the "consulate in Benghazi was turned into a death house and somebody has to be held responsible."   He pledged to block any nomination of U.N. ambassador Susan Rice to head the Department of State, accusing her of "not being very bright, because it was obvious that this was not a 'flash mob' and there was additional information by the time she went on every news show...in America."

Graham also addressed yesterday Rice's possible appointment, maintaining during a press conference

Somebody has got to start paying a price around this place.   I don't think she deserves to be promoted. There are a lot of qualified people in this country the president could pick, but I am dead-set on making sure we don't promote anybody that was an essential player in the Benghazi debacle.

Acceptance of blame.   Responsibility. Accountability.  Thank goodness some people are looking out for these virtues.

The pair, joined to the hip in foreign policy, are new to the game.    When in 2005 President Bush nominated National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to be Secretary of State, McCain charged

Also, I thought that some of the remarks — and I’m not going to mention my colleagues’ names — some of the remarks aimed at her during the hearings challenged her integrity. We can disagree on policy and we disagree on a lot of things, but I think it is very clear that Condoleezza Rice is a person of integrity. And yes, I see this, some lingering bitterness over a very tough campaign. I hope it dissipates soon.

When Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton identified Ms. Rice as a "liar," Graham responded "Yes, that's even more unfair. Because it was all in terms of weapons of mass destruction and misleading us about the war and what was in Iraq. Well, every intelligence agency in the world was misled. And to connect those two to say that she's a liar is very unfair, over the line."

Oh, how easily they forget- or at least pretend to.      In his State of the Union address in January, 2003, President Bush- as part of the ongoing effort to gin up support for the attack on Iraq- infamously claimed "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."   With the White House likely aware that the British intelligence was inaccurate, Bush's remark was probably a lie. Moreover  

Then-Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said on July 11, "These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President .This was a mistake." On July 22, Deputy National Security Advisor Steven Hadley said that he deleted a reference to Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium in Africa from President Bush's October 7, 2002 Cincinnati speech based on a telephone call from DCI Tenet and two CIA memos sent to himself-one of which was also sent to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Hadley said that this second memo detailed some weakness in the evidence, the fact that the effort was not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already had a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. The memorandum also stated that the CIA had been telling Congress that the Africa story was one of two issues where we differed with the British intelligence . . . based on what we now know, we had opportunities here to avoid this problem. We didn't take them . . . having been taken out of Cincinnati, it should have been taken out of the State of the Union.

(Sarcasm Alert) Ever forthright, Rice in April of 2007 "rejected, on grounds of executive privilege, a House subpoena regarding the prewar claim that Iraq sought yellowcake uranium from Niger."

In her post-conservative but pre-Huffington Post Days, Arianna Huffington noted on Salon

Condoleezza Rice has been the worst offender. Now that we know that Tenet personally warned Rice’s deputy, Steve Hadley, not to use the yellowcake claim back in October, and the role NSC staffers played in manipulating the State of the Union, Rice’s widely publicized claim that at the time of the State of the Union, “maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery” has been revealed for what it is: A bald-face lie.

And even now as the truth comes flooding out, Rice continues to play fast and loose with the facts — and stand by her man. “The statement that he made,” she said on Sunday, speaking of the president, “was indeed accurate. The British government did say that.”

Condoleezza was a liar and terrible foreign policy official in the Bush administration.  Susan Rice, fortunately, has a long way to go before living down to the record of the other Rice.




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Race-Obsessed, Class-Blind

Chauncey DeVega, editor and founder of the blog We Are Respectable Negroes, has written an interesting, topical, and thoroughly patronizing essay addressed to "angry white conservatives who are mourning Mitt Romney's loss."   If the piece is intended to annoy conservatives as well as liberals who aware of the impact of class, gender (did I mention class?) and factors other than race, it is also a brilliant essay.

Noting "ultimately, Barack Obama is a Black man who is the chief executive of a white government," DeVega recognizes that the President "has done remarkably little in terms of advancing policy goals that would directly benefit people of color in the United States. In fact, Obama has spoken less about race than any president in 50 years."   Remarkably, this was after he asserted that having a black President of the U.S.A. is "a ground breaking achievement that should not be easily discounted or dismissed."  Except, presumably, that he has done virtually nothing to address the unique needs of blacks and has chosen to ignore the issue beyond that of "any president in 50 years."   There are echoes here of Republicans who have responded to the thundering rejection of their party's agenda by Hispanics by vowing to enlist more candidates who speak Spanish and look Latin, whatever their ideology.

DeVega points out

...White men control every major social, political, economic, and cultural institution in the United States. With few exceptions, white men are the CEOs of every Fortune 500 company.
White men control both Hollywood and the mass media. There, approximately 95 percent of the most important positions as writers, directors, advertising, producers, show runners, executives, and the like are held by white men.

This is a great advantage in a country where white men make up 30 percent of the U.S. population.

White men control the United States Congress and Senate. There are now 20 women in the Senate—a record number. But there are no African Americans in the same governing body. There are two Hispanic and Asian senators, respectively. The majority of senior-level and cabinet positions in the federal government are held by white men. White men are also over-represented on the United States Supreme Court.

It is unclear whether DeVega is addressing white people generally or conservative whites when he claims "people who look just like you remain in charge."   Remarkably, however, not all whites look alike, and I haven't yet found "in charge" anyone who looks like the Caucasian neighbor of mine, or is much like him.  Instead, the ones in charge are just like the bank executive who received total compensation of $261 million during his five years as CEO while his firm- which at $476.2 billion was the most generously aided recipient of federal largesse during the financial crisis- lost nearly 90% of its stock price.   Shortly before his recent departure, he steered his corporation to an $88 million quarterly loss, but as CNN Money reports

Citigroup said Friday that the former CEO, who resigned last month in a management shakeup, will receive an “incentive award” of $6.7 million for his work at the bank this year.  Former president and chief operating officer John Havens, who stepped down along with Pandit, is getting $6.8 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The two men will also continue collecting deferred cash and stock compensation from last year, awards valued at $8.8 million for Pandit and $8.7 million for Havens. 

Is Vikram Pandit even white- is he among the "people who look just like you"?   DeVega no doubt would want to know, or would assume he is.  I don't care, nor would historian/author Thomas Frank, who even in 2004 understood "the great goal of the backlash is to nurture a cultural class war, and the first step in doing so, as we have seen, is to deny the economic basis of social class."   He recognized the general applicability to the nation's conservative movement when he criticized the College Republicans of Kansas University by acknowledging

These complaints are of course small beer by the usual standards of oppression and unfairness.  I was never beaten for trying to vote or shot at for walking off the job. But these developments were nonetheless sufficient to awaken me to the existence of class, of the elite.  Also to the startling fact that I was not part of it.  The Franks may have lived near them, but I could no more choose to join them at their well-appointed table (to return to David Brook's cafeteria metaphor) than I could flap my arms and fly to the moon.  I had about as much of a stake in the order that propped up Mission Hills, I now realized, as did the Section Eight residents in decrepit midtown Kansas City, shuffling along the street muttering curses to themselves.




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