Remember When I Said that Stewart Was Brutal to Corzine Last Night?

Well, here is the evidence:

It's a Good Election Night

But not a great one, with Ohio overturning Governor John Kasich's union busting bill, while in Mississippi, they defeated the "fetal personhood" referendum, and Maine defeated the elimination of same day voter registration by the 'Phants.

On the other side, it's likely that Virginia's state Senate will flip to the 'Phants, (actually a 20-20 tie, but the Lt. Gov, who breaks ties is a Republican) with the pivotal seat having the Republican leading by 86 votes, and Mississippi approved a poll tax strict photo ID requirements.

I will say that the recall of über wingnut, and state senate leader, Steve Pearce in Arizona, made famous as the sponsor of Arizona's "Papers Please" law, does make me chuckle.

Bill Daley Being Shuffled Out the Door

Well, it looks like Obama's more prominent efforts to completely capitulate to the Washington, DC insider consensus, his appointment of William Daley, political insider and bankster, as his chief of staff, is now inoperative:

President Obama’s chief of staff, William M. Daley, has turned over some of his day-to-day management responsibilities to another senior aide, Pete Rouse, according to several officials with knowledge of the change. The shift comes after a turbulent period in which the White House has struggled with a weak economy and a hostile Congress.

Mr. Daley made the announcement in a staff meeting on Monday, these officials said, though it was unclear exactly what his new role would look like. He told a Chicago television station recently that he planned to return to his home there after the 2012 election.

The news of the management changes was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

A banker with deep connections on Wall Street and in Democratic politics, Mr. Daley was recruited by Mr. Obama last fall to smooth relations with the business world. But after the administration’s failure to strike a deficit-reduction deal with the House speaker, John A. Boehner, Mr. Daley found that his deal-making skills were of less use.

Yeah, that whole "Kissing Republican and bankster ass," post partisan unity schtick strategy worked so well, didn't it.

Don't worry though, you can be sure that a year from now, we'll see it back, just as soon as the polls close.

Stewart Unleashes Hell on John Corzine

Comedy central does not have his monologue up yet, but I'm watching Jon Stewart talk about Jon Corzine's clusterf%$# at MF Capital.

It's not up on the web yet, but this is unbelievably brutal.

As I've said before, don't piss this man off.

I'll post it tomorrow.

Worse Than Wal-Mart

The big banks, who are so dedicated to nickel and diming their customers that Wal-Marthas experienced explosive growth in its check cashing services as people desperately try to find a bank that does not cheat them:

Americans say they are fed up with banks. They are protesting on Wall Street and raising a ruckus over outsize fees. Now there is a surprising beneficiary: Wal-Mart.

Geoffrey Cardone, a 26-year-old factory worker, said he dumped his bank account because he felt that he was being nickeled and dimed by fees. His new payday ritual includes a trip to the Wal-Mart here in northeastern Pennsylvania.

“It’s cheaper,” said Mr. Cardone, who was charged a flat fee of $3 to cash his paycheck. Many check-cashing stores keep a percentage of the check, which tends to be higher.

The Wal-Mart here has a clerk in a brightly painted Money Center near the entrance, like more than 1,000 other Wal-Marts across the country. Customers can cash work and government checks, pay bills, wire money overseas or load money on to a prepaid debit card. At most Wal-Marts without dedicated Money Centers, the financial services are available at the customer service desks or kiosks.

Four years ago, Wal-Mart abandoned its plans to obtain a long-sought federal bank charter amid opposition from the banking industry and lawmakers, who feared the huge retailer would drive small bankers out of business and potentially conflate its banking and retail operations. Ever since, Wal-Mart has been quietly building up à la carte financial services, becoming a force among the unbanked and “unhappily banked,” as one Wal-Mart executive put it.

Even before the recent outcry against banks, the services had become popular with cash-poor customers, many of whom never had a bank account and found the services more affordable than traditional check-cashing operations. Now newcomers to the ranks of the banking disaffected are helping to swell the numbers, Wal-Mart officials said.

Here is the kicker:

In research conducted a year and a half ago, Wal-Mart found that more than 60 percent of the customers using its financial services had bank accounts. When Wal-Mart asked those people how much their banking activities cost them over the last six months, the answer was between $200 and $400, Mr. Eckert said, with overdraft fees, minimum-balance charges and so forth.

 (emphasis mine)

So for the privilege of giving customers ¼% on their own money, money that they then lend to them at 23% as revolving credit, they are also charging them around $500 a year.

Let's see, 500 a year, ¼% … So the break even point is about $200,000.00.

And the VSPs wonder why people hate the banksters.

Italy's Cancer of the Body Politic Offers to Step Down

Silvio Berlusconi has offered to resign:

The European debt crisis appeared to claim its most prominent victim on Tuesday when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, cornered by world markets and humiliated by a parliamentary setback, pledged to resign after Italy’s Parliament passes austerity measures demanded by the European Union.

Although Mr. Berlusconi’s exit was not immediate — weeks of political wrangling over the austerity measures probably lie ahead — political commentators said they could see no escape this time for the prime minister, whose Houdini-like ability to wriggle free from scandals is legendary.

“A season is over,” said Mario Calabresi, the editor in chief of the Turin daily newspaper La Stampa, who said Mr. Berlusconi told him that he was not only stepping down, but also would not run for office again.

In the end, it was not the sex scandals, the corruption trials against him or even a loss of popular consensus that appeared to end Mr. Berlusconi’s 17 years as a dominant figure in Italian political life. It was, instead, the pressure of the markets — which drove Italy’s borrowing costs to record highs this week — and the European Union, which could not risk his dragging down the euro and with it the world economy.

It's good that he's going, but the bigger picture is that Berlusconi's continued political success has been almost entirely due to his near complete dominance of Italian television.

Self-serving clowns like Silvio are the inevitable result of media consolidation, whether it's the Italian monopoly on commercial TV (and effective control of state TV), or the media oligopoly in the United States.

The problem is that while one can have free and fair elections, but without an independent and heterogeneous media, you stand a real risk of not having a free and fair campaign.

Why I Haven't Written About L'Affaire Cain

Because it is the Republican presidential primary, and it's so whacky that all I can do is make fun of them.

Unfortunately, the reality that is Herman Cain simply beyond my meager literary gifts to ridicule.  I can't beat the straight news.

A quick search of The Onion reveals that they haven't covered it either, to their (far better) writers appear to be flummoxed by this as well.

Will Rogers I ain't.