Bank of America CEO Brian T. Moynihan scolded us customers (for me, I am now mostly a FORMER customer), saying he was "incensed" at criticism of his bank.

Well Mr. CEO Moynihan, sir...did you notice that your stock has dropped from over $50 a share to about $6 a share? To me that marks YOU as a failure. Meanwhile, TD Bank, which did NO predatory lending and took NO taxpayer funded bailout money, has stayed about $70 a share through the entire time Bank of America tanked.

Seriously, Mr. CEO Moynihan, sir...do you have ANY right to be scolding ANYONE given the disgusting performance of your company?

Come back to me when you no longer need my tax money to just stay afloat. In a TRUE free market you and your lousy company would already be bankrupt, with companies like TD Bank buying up the remains of your assets at bargain prices. That is what TRUE capitalism would look like. Mr. CEO Moynihan, sir, you would be out of a job in a real free market. So stop whining and stop scolding and start showing some humility given the failure you represent.

Mr. CEO Moynihan, or should I say Mr. CEO $50 drops to $6 a share, has no business telling me I shouldn't complain about his lousy company.  read more »

With the Roger Stone story slowly wrapping up (hint: more to come), it's time for the Festivus-like Airing of Grievances. Today's edition concerns our friends at the MSM blogs; and let me start out with the observation that y'all are lame.

Yes, Daily Politics, I'm looking at you. You too, Capitol Confidential. No, not you, Azi. Hi, Jay. Hi, Liz. Hi, whatshisname.

Let's recap: over the last few weeks, Daily Gotham and The Albany Project uncovered an entire sleaze campaign against Governor Spitzer being run by someone employed by Joe Bruno. Now, ordinarily, you'd think that would be a big deal - real blogs, like Open Left and Digby, certainly did.

Y'all ran stories, complete with frigging video, of a frigging barbecue hosted by a republican state senator somewhere, presumably on the mistaken impression that anyone but yourselves gives a flying fuck. We owned you on that story - owned. You, meanwhile, continued to print the lamest imaginable denials about this from people who were lying to you, whom you had to have known were lying to you.

Lameness.

Of course, this isn't new, and goes to the very heart of the general lameness of MSM blogs: most of them completely ignore actual, real blogs, preferring instead to pretend-play that they're bloggers. That's why they usually only feature content from, gasp!, other MSM - the same tired process stories that actual real people are so sick and tired of. Why is it, do you think, that "journalist" has become such a dirty word? It's not because people don't like or want carefully researched stories about their government - it's because people are tired of the steaming bullshit you and yours pass off as news. It's because people are tired of being fed the lame-ass stenography you think matters.

Ooooh, a barbecue! How awesome!  read more »

Time for me to start harping on one of my pet peeves. No, not site load times; given that we have roughly fifty seven ways of creating content, and every possible feature that nobody ever uses, of course the site loads slowly. That's one thing. My cross to bear.

No, what I'm talking about is this: every day, we get, collectively and individually as editors, solicitations and requests. Candidates want plugs for their candidacy. Fundraisers want publicity for their events. Organizations want plugs for their most recent report, event, fundraiser, personnel announcement.

Fine. So buy an ad. Seriously. We support what you're doing; that's what Progressive blogs do. We do more than that, certainly; the ad campaign for Craig Johnson, back in the day, was produced by The Daily Gotham. The banners you see currently, promoting the Brodsky Bill, also come from us. All 100% pro bono.  read more »