aka Bank of America’s board:

ts members are expected to vote Wednesday on the addition of three directors from Merrill Lynch: Charles O. Rossotti, who was the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service in the 1990s; Joseph W. Prueher, also a retired Navy admiral and former ambassador to China; and Virgis W. Colbert, a former executive at Miller Brewing, according to two people briefed on the agenda. Their approval would raise the number of board members to 20, and would tighten the web that already binds many of the board’s current representatives. Mr. Prueher, for example, met Mr. Franks in the 1990s, when he was commander in chief of the United States Pacific and Mr. Franks was a division commander in Korea. And Mr. Colbert is a member of Augusta National, the Georgia-based golf club, where Mr. McColl, the bank’s former chief, is also a member.

Among its members are Monica Lozano, who publishes La Opinión, a Los Angeles daily, and Patricia E. Mitchell, the former PBS chief. “The perception that Bank of America’s board is provincial and insular does not hold up when you look at the composition,” he said.

Yet some board members are connected in other ways that reveal strong cross-pollinations with other company boards. For example, two of Bank of America’s directors serve as trustees at NStar, a utility company in Massachusetts that is headed by yet another Bank of America board member, Thomas J. May. And the Lowe’s Companies, the home improvement retailer, counts one of Bank of America’s directors as its former chief executive, and another as a current member of the Lowe’s board.

Bank of America’s two most influential members hail from North Carolina. The board’s independent lead director, Mr. Sloan, the founder of an auto parts company, lives in Raleigh. Mrs. Spangler is married to a well-known local businessman, C. D. Spangler, a former president of the University of North Carolina who once shared an apartment in the city with Mr. McColl, the former leader of the bank.

Rolling back the clock:

The St. Pius X Society is a traditionalist group whose 600 priests and 400,000 adherents represent the far right of the world’s one billion Catholics. It was founded in 1970 by a French archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre, in staunch opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II, including its commitment to ecumenicism, the celebration of Mass in the language of the worshipers, and a greater role for laity and women.

As pope, Benedict has made reaching out to the society an important personal cause, and the Vatican views any reconciliation as an internal matter. Yet in revoking the excommunications, some say he has given another sign that he may be rolling back Vatican II reforms, though he has denied such fears in the past.

Nothing like the man one step down from GOD throwin his support behind the most radical part his church. Why anyone donates money to the church or sets foot in one these days is beyond me. How can someone actively persue their “faith” when their leader does stuff like this?

Oh wait I know, it’s called believing one thing, doing another, ignoring the rest that doesn’t fit your way of life, not caring what the leaders decide or what Jesus would really do and actually doing something about it.

shorter version, being a sheep.

You’d think the money they are spending on lawyers would go to making their cars more fuel efficient….nahhhhh

and at the same time, they want to keep going with their lawsuits, which have already cost millions and millions of dollars.”

I’ve put in a call to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents all the major automakers, and will let readers know when I hear back.

UPDATE: Yes, they will continue to sue.

Automakers Rep: We’ll Keep Suing

In a telephone interview this morning, Charles Territo, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which is a party to two of the lawsuits now in federal court, said that the association had no intention of altering its strategy just because some of its members had recently received billions in public money.

“Keep in mind that the money that was given was one to two manufacturers [GM and Chrysler],” he said. “And all manufacturers have opposed the standards. Those lawsuits were brought by the entire industry, to protect the longstanding federal law that says that fuel efficiency standards should be set at the federal level and not by individual states.”

It should be noted that the auto manufacturers have so far lost all the cases that have gone to trial. They have appealed those decisions.

Wierd…

“‘This is where I get to be honest, and I hope I’m not out of school here,’ Obama said in a transcript published by JTA, a respected news service on Jewish issues. ‘I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel, and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we’re not going to make progress.’

“Obama added, ‘One of the things that struck me when I went to Israel was how much more open the debate was around these issues in Israel than they are sometimes here in the United States. It’s very ironic.'”

Wow, it’s going to be hard to be the Best President in Modern History when the guy following you says stuff like that. It is kinda like playing basketball against your dad when you are 8 and thinking he is the best ever. Then you play Jordan and go oh, wow dad, you sucked, this guy is really the best.

This rabbit will run no more.

go figure:

One of the voters was Douglas Thompson, who admitted under oath that his girlfriend filled out his absentee ballot application for him, signing his name with her own hand and purporting to be himself. His ballot was rejected because the signature on his ballot envelope (his own) did not match the signature on the application (his girlfriend’s). The Coleman team’s argument appears to be that he is still a legal voter in Minnesota, as the signature on the ballot was his own, even if admitted dishonesty was involved in getting the ballot.

Oh look a 2nd GOP voting illegally and lying about it…man, crazy

Another one of the voters, an older man named Wesley Briest, initially responded that he voted at the polls — not by absentee. Then Coleman attorney James Langdon showed him his absentee ballot envelope, reminding him that he did not go to the polls, too. Upon cross-examination by Franken lawyer Kevin Hamilton, Briest admitted that his wife, who served as the witness on his ballot, did not fully complete the witness section of the absentee ballot.

What’s great is this was supposed to be a guy to SUPPORT Norm Coleman’s case. GEEEE, and look, real voter fraud, it was a GOP vote, and Norm Coleman’s defense team is trying to defend it. Ahhhhh, do you smell that?

TAMPA, Fla. — Brain damage commonly associated with boxers has been found in a sixth deceased former N.F.L. player age 50 or younger, further stoking the debate between many doctors and the league over the significance of such findings.

Why aren’t Jury Duty Return Envelopes postage paid? I received my first ever jury duty summons and am sitting here looking at an envelope that has is not postage paid, YET has the return address the exact same as the Mailing address….

When I said that news of Obama’s meeting with the Congressional Republicans was going to start to filter out, I was not expecting this:

Republicans are star struck:

A GOP source to TIME’s Jay Newton-Small:

Nearly as many House Republicans sought to get their photos taken with Obama as questioned him about the stimulus during their meeting. – via kos

Feel free to listen to the audio of BofA here:

Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community’s top legislative priority.

Participants on the October 17 call — including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG — were urged to persuade their clients to send “large contributions” to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill.

God I hope this country unionizes big time in the next 4 years. If they are this worried about it, it has to be a good thing for you and the rest of the 90% of the country that need a voice in this economy.

Here is just one comment:

Bernie Marcus, the charismatic co-founder of Home Depot, led the call along with Rick Berman, an aggressive EFCA opponent and founder of the Center for Union Facts. Over the course of an hour, the two framed the legislation as an existential threat to American capitalism, or worse.

“This is the demise of a civilization,” said Marcus. “This is how a civilization disappears. I am sitting here as an elder statesman and I’m watching this happen and I don’t believe it.“

Remember that Norm Coleman VS. Al Franken Race? You wonder why it was so important?