Rep. Alan Grayson’s bill to cap executive compensation on bailed out financial institutions

Well, as you probably already know, Fox News makes me feel like losing my groceries, but I had to show this video attack on Congressman Alan Grayson. This repulsive dude, Neil Cavuto, is attempting to take on the appearance of authority to trick him into giving him an absolute number on an argument that doesn’t really call for anything but a relative example.

What Alan is dealing with here is known as The “Cavuto mark”. Following a satirical segment proposing it on The Daily Show on September 13, 2006, the word “Cavuto” is sometimes used to refer to a question mark “used to turn any statement, no matter how outrageous, into a simple, seemingly fair, question.”

Barney Frank: “This is presumably a psychological disorder”

Huffington Post

April fools day, 2009

House Republicans did their best Wednesday to battle Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) on the House floor and wound up on the receiving end of some classic Frank jabs.

The bill at issue, authored by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), would cap executive compensation at bailed-out financial institutions and it puts the GOP in a tough spot: after expressing outrage over the AIG bonuses, it’s tough to vote against the bill.

In announcing their opposition, Republicans such as Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) took to the floor to decry the fact that the stimulus allowed the bonus payments to be made. They excoriated Democrats for not reading the full stimulus bill but said they objected to the bill on the floor that would fix the loophole that had been in the stimulus.

Frank had a field day with it.

“This is really extraordinary,” he said. “What you have just heard is a denunciation of something the Congress did a few weeks ago and a refusal to undo it. I’ve never seen people, Mr. Chairman, so attached to something they hate. This is presumably a psychological disorder which I am not equipped to diagnose. The objection of the gentleman from Texas was that when the recovery bill was passed, it was passed too quickly [and it] included a provision that shouldn’t have been in there. This bill takes it out.”

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Cavuto Called Out Beck On His Fearmongering

Even Neil Cavuto thinks Glenn Beck is ‘scaring people’

Crooks and Liars- By David Neiwert Tuesday Mar 10, 2009 5:15pm

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Glenn Beck went on Neil Cavuto’s Fox News show yesterday, and Cavuto, after the usual niceties, rather bravely called out Beck on his fearmongering. (Though he put it a little more softly than that.) In return, Beck accused Cavuto of intentionally fluffing up his newscasts:

Cavuto: But when you — and great show, of course I’m going to say that, because I love you dearly — but you also bum me out. You bum me out, because you say in 2014, I think you said there will be like three people working and the Dow will be at 27.

Beck: Noooo. Neil, you know I have profound respect for you. Do you know that? You don’t know that?

Cavuto: Well, I don’t know, you scared me.

Beck: Listen to me. Neil Cavuto, I don’t know if you know who this man really is. You may watch him on television — do your homework on Neil Cavuto. You are an amazing man. Amazing.

Cavuto: That I know. [crosstalk]

Beck: You and I have a fundamental disagreement on something.

Cavuto: You think we’re going to hell in a handbasket.

Beck: You believe that it is your responsibility to make sure that you say, ‘Hey-hey-hey-hey everybody!’ I believe you’re playing music on the deck. I’m saying, ‘Get into the lifeboats!’

Cavuto: No, no, no. I am a realist and I look at it — No, no no no. You are scaring people. And here’s what you’re doing —

Beck: I’m not scaring! I am letting them —

Cavuto: I am a big enough appreciator of history to know that we always get through these things. Now the government cannot —

Beck: And I believe that too.

Cavuto: Then why are you doing this stuff in 2014 we’ll all be eating lead?

Beck: [Looking skyward] Because when the market hit 14,000 I said, ‘Get the hell out of the market!’ And when —

Cavuto: You, you will say — people watch you in droves. Your ratings are through the roof. You’re radio rock star. So everything you say, when you say it, they’re gonna say, ‘Gee, well, Glenn just said, you know, we’re all gonna be dead.’

… I just think that you’re scaring people. I love you dearly, because you are a rock star. I’m just saying, I look at it, I watch it in my office as I’m getting ready for my Fox Business show … and I watch, and I’m saying, ‘Man, Glenn is scaring me.’

Beck: I watch you in my office. I watch you —

Cavuto: One night affected my appetite. I didn’t get dinner. So you’re actually good for me losing weight.

Beck: And terrible for me. I watch you and I get frustrated. Because I think you’re putting on such a happy face.

Cavuto may be a corporate suck-up, but evidently even he can see some problems in where Beck wants to take us. After all, the torches-and-pitchforks crowds often go after wealthy Republicans too …

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