It’s not just Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase had record earnings last quarter as well. I’m not sure if they rejected my six-figure car co-signer last quarter or this quarter, but they sure as hell didn’t make any money through lending.

No, Wall Street is all about screwing now, moving piles of money around and always always always keeping a little for themselves every time they touch a pile. If the world operated like Wall Street bankers every chef would weigh 400 lbs., no entree could make it from the kitchen to your table without a bite being taken out of it, strangers on the bus could demand a sip from your coffee and, well, everybody would get a piece of everyone else’s action.

The world wouldn’t make any sense, not that it does now for anyone but Wall Street bankers. Eric Lotke explains how Wall Street trumps the real economy. Mick is mad. Charlie asks where are all the unemployed (because they’re most certainly out there). EVEN THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IS DEMANDING THAT TAXES BE RAISED!

Paul Krugman has (for me) an undecipherable graph that shows how the debt Obama took on is all that stood between us and a global depression worse than the one in the ’30s. I don’t understand economics all that well, but during the course of writing 7k+ resumes during the ’90s and early Bush years I did see some heinous trends.

Frinstance, I’m not surprised the medical device companies are in deep shit. Every aspect of the medical industry from insurers to hospitals need to be examined and reregulated. No money is being lent and businesses are laying off right and left. Vijay Prashad looks at the numbers and for the most part, we’re fucked.

We live in a world where money has become divorced from reality. All systems are go and all profit continues to flow uphill and into the already stuffed pockets of the parasites who got us into this mess. The hard right has gone from blaming Jews for these things to blaming just one Jew — George Soros. (Odd  how no one ever asks Warren Buffet where his mom went to church.)

And debt collectors continue to cheat like there’s no tomorrow. Everyone is making money except the people who make things or provide needed services.

Take it from a farm kid: this shit is getting deep.

-

The Sotomayor thing is getting a little crazy, but it’s helping the wingnuts to sort themselves out. Legit cons like Eugene Volokh are defending Sotomayor from some of the more egregious bullshit, while pluperfect hacks like Ass®ocket (aka Cap’n Corndog) are doing about faces and are now biting at her ass.

Juan Cole was even moved to write about the hearings, decrying conservative hypocrisy on race. I guess an expert on the Middle East would know something about that.

For every sarcastic invocation of “wise Latina” there has been a rebel cry from the peanut gallery. Our side? Our side was cloying and annoying.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s questioning of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor went from bathrooms to baseball today, hitting on a variety of other themes, from prosecutorial issues and “Perry Mason” to the badgering Klobuchar got from both her mother and a baggage carrier at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

And while Sen. Franken briefly got to head up the Judiciary Committee, his turn at questioning turned into TV trivia time.

Big Tent Democrat (who I find more palatable with each day’s additional distance from last year’s primaries) calls this the worst SCOTUS hearings ever.

It’s almost as if the script is calling for us to eat hearings.

-

Franken now officially is on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions [HELP] committee. It’s a good place for him. Working people need help.

The pickets are still out at German-owned Trader Joe’s, and I guess the parking lot is still full of limousine liberals. So long as liberals with money continue to disrespect labor, it really doesn’t manke any difference who’s on the HELP committee.

-

Lots of good stuff when I checked out Counterpunch last night. I’ve already linked to a couple of their stories but here are still more good ones:

Cheney Sweating Bullets by former CIA dude Ray McGovern

Uighurs vs. Afghans

The Assassination Bureau (fascinating read!)

-

Apparently the NCAA is only now, after years of chronic undercoverage at many small schools, insisting that colleges FULLY insure their student athletes.

?? Yep, student athletes have been getting stuck with large portions of the bills for their surgeries and rehabs after being injured in practices or games.

The NCAA sucks like no other American organization, and its system of taking care of athletes is like slavery without any of the perks.

-

One of the commenters at MDE chewed me out for not having comments at the end of each post. It took me a while to figure out his complaint but apparently he thought each of my posts was actually a week’s worth of stuff as in each item its own post.

Life is hard when you blow the candle out each time you get to reading too fast.

The other links:

Ms. Hepatitis C also worked in New York

Linda, the grieving hussy, steals Harry from Pepper

Too late to join but not too early to be very, very afraid

The ACLU is again making the world safe for religion

Honduras

More on the birther who refused to go to Afghanistan and how that too clever by half bullshit bit him on the ass

The web in poetry

Masnick calls bullshit on the study that said bloggers follow media’s lead

Helen Thomas update

Bits

Europe tired of Israel’s bullshit

Hmongland

-

David Brauer has a trio of posts on the new audience measurement system being used to measure radio audiences. MPR breaks even, talk radio takes a beating, but a few talk jocks do OK.

-

Watched Killer Diller the other night. Fun if you like movies like The Commitments or Fame. This 71-second trailer actually summarizes the entire movie pretty well and yes, the music makes it worth a closer look.

I have no idea who the actual piano player was, but that dude was fucking amazing.

-

Oh, and for all my MDE fans I’m not ignoring your comments. I’ve been locked out by MDE’s censor bot, and the new proprietor apparently has no interest in letting me back into their system.