Carl Levin Created the 'At Long Last, Have You No Decency?' Moment for the 2008 Financial Crisis

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To The Last Post Of The Week From The Blog’s Favourite Living Canadian)

Former Senator Carl Levin, who passed away this week, had a long record of achievement in his 36 years in the Senate, but he had one golden moment in the sun. He got one Daniel Sparks, a former executive from Goldman Sachs, in front of his committee and grilled him about Timberwolf, a scam by which with one hand, GS sold to its clients what one of its own people called a “shitty deal” in a company email, while simultaneously betting against it with the other. Levin used the phrase “a shitty deal” like a nine-pound hammer on the man from Goldman.

“Should Goldman Sachs be trying to sell a shitty deal?” Levin said, repeatedly.

It was probably the iconic moment of comeuppance for the various sharks and brigands who’d wrecked most of the world economy and then sold off what was left at a huge profit. It was the, “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” moment of the fiscal crisis, and it was delivered by a career politician who knew when he was being worked by amateurs. May his memory be a blessing, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: “Backwater Blues” (Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns). Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.

Weekly Visit To The Pathe Archives: Here, from 1964, are two British Olympians getting married. “It isn’t often that a bride and bridegroom can run like a couple of hares, but neither of them wanted to run now.” Thanks, classy Brit narrator guy. Very strong hat game on the groom’s side of the wedding party. Robbie Brightwell and Ann Packer were teammates at the last Tokyo Olympics, with Packer picking up a silver in the 400 meters and a shocking gold medal in the 800. (Brightwell picked up a silver medal as part of the British 4x400 meter really team.) Two of their sons played footie for Manchester City. History is so cool.

It’s a wonder they didn’t have to drag him out.

The House Oversight Committee released some very interesting notes taken of a phone call between the former president* and Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. From the AP:

The notes of the Dec. 27 call, released Friday by the House Oversight Committee, underscore the lengths to which Trump went to try to overturn the results of the election and to elicit the support of law enforcement officials and other government leaders in that effort. Emails released last month show that Trump and his allies in the last weeks of his presidency pressured the Justice Department to investigate unsubstantiated claims of widespread 2020 election fraud, and the department’s inspector general is looking into whether department officials tried to subvert the results. “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen,” Trump said at one point to then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, according to notes taken by Richard Donoghue, who was then Rosen’s deputy and who was also on the call.

This was almost two months after he’d lost. It’s a wonder they didn’t need the Jaws of Life to get his ass out the door of the White House.

Is it a good day for dinosaur news, LiveScience? It’s always a good day for dinosaur news!

When late paleontologist Jaime Eduardo Powell discovered the skeleton in Argentina's Río Negro Province in the 1980s, he observed that one of the feet was injured, and he described the injury as a possible fracture. However, when researchers recently reexamined the fossil, they found that the foot deformity was instead caused by a large, possibly cancerous tumor. Using computed X-ray tomography (CT) scans and microscopic analysis of bone samples, the researchers also identified fractures in two vertebrae in the middle of the dinosaur's tail, and there were erosions in the bone around the fractures that may have been caused by infections. As the fractures were partially healed, they likely weren't directly responsible for the dinosaur's death, scientists reported in a new study, published in the August 2021 issue of the journal Cretaceous Research.

This was one plucky hadrosaur. It knew how to play with pain because it knew it had to live then to make us happy now.

Well, it was nice to be back in Our Nation’s Capital after almost two years of aquarium life back home. Can’t say things are any more sane than they were before I left, and the Republicans in the House of Representatives are an incredible passel of freaks, geeks, and people who struggle to fit three-cornered hats onto four-cornered heads. But here we are. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line. Wear the damn mask where you’re supposed to wear it, but, for the love of god, get the damn shots.

Charles P. Pierce

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.