"It's Over Johnny"

NY Times Peter S. Goodman writes: The economy is spiraling down at an accelerating pace, threatening to undermine the Obama administration’s spending plans, which anticipate vigorous rates of growth in years to come. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com, now places the odds of “a mild depression” at 25 percent, up from 15 percent three months ago. Arlen Spector says we're on the brink of a depression. The unemployment rate will most likely reach 10.5 percent by the end of 2011 — up from 7.6 percent at the end of January — average home prices will fall 20 percent on top of the 27 percent they have plunged already, and losses in the financial system will more than triple, to $3.7 trillion. Allen Sinai, chief global economist at the research firm Decision Economics, sees a 20 percent chance of “a depressionlike possibility,” up from 15 percent a week ago.

“In the housing market, the financial system and the stock market, we’re already there,” Mr. Sinai said. “It is a depression.”

Note that economists and our government were aware of this impending disaster long before former secretary of the treasury testified to congress that he needed 750 billion dollars.

This is from CNN Money.com back in March of 2008:

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the federal agency that backs bank deposits, last week reported the biggest jump in "problem institutions" it has seen since the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s. While the extent of the problem is still low by historic standards, it identified 76 banks as in trouble - a 52% increase from a year ago.FDIC Commissioner Sheila Bair among regulators set to testify Tuesday at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the state of the banking industry. Experts say the 76 banks now under scrutiny are likely only a small part of the problems now looming over the banking sector. And if I hear one more well off pundit blame the working class "bums" who signed a loan that they couldn't afford, I'm going to throw up. The majority of the hiome buyers signed those loans because they were foisted upon them by preditory lenders. Something like 60 % of the subprime home buyers qualified for a conventional FHA loan but were convinced to take the subprime adjustable loan because the lender could make more profit from it.

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Barney Frank, where were you man? You were and still are the Senate Banking Committee Chairman.
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But you see dear reader none of our economic woes will matter when we're under water.

ScienceDaily (Jan. 28, 2009) — A new scientific study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reaches a powerful conclusion about the climate change caused by future increases of carbon dioxide: to a large extent, there’s no going back. Regarding some of the effects of this increase in temperature, Professor Correll, who is also director of the global change programme at the Heinz Centre in Washington said the estimates of sea level rise in the IPCC report in February had been “conservative” and based on data two years old. The range of rise this century had been predicted to be 20 to 60 centimetres, but would be the upper end of this range at a minimum and some now believed it could be two metres. This would have catastrophic effects for European and US coastlines.

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New York and a large portion of Florida would be submerged. Now I know why the repubs ignored the global warming data. Now if they could just get California to fall into the Pacific ocean, they'll never lose another election.
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Ocean Temperatures And Sea Level Increases 50 Percent Higher Than Previously Estimated. Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City have found that 2008 was the ninth warmest year since continuous instrumental records were started in 1880. The ten warmest years on record have all occurred between 1997 and 2008, the study said.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Like a piece of chalk dissolving in vinegar, marine life with hard shells is in danger of being dissolved by increasing acidity in the oceans. Ocean acidity is rising as sea water absorbs more carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from power plants and automobiles. The higher acidity threatens marine life, including corals and shellfish, which may become extinct later this century from the chemical effects of carbon dioxide, even if the planet warms less than expected. (I never really liked shell fish and didn't the old testament warn us about the evils of shellfish?) In previous studies, increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere led to a reduction in ocean pH and carbonate ions, both of which damage marine ecosystems. What had not been studied before was how climate change, in concert with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, would affect ocean chemistry and biology.

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Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists. The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man's land between San Francisco and Hawaii. A Greenpeace report found that at least 267 marine species had suffered from some kind of ingestion or entanglement with marine debris. Warner Chabot, vice president of the Ocean Conservancy says, "Many of the animals die because the plastic eventually fills their stomachs," Chabot said. "It doesn't pass, and they literally starve to death."

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Yeah but there'll be less birds to get in the way of our airliners.

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Overpopulation and the consumption and depletion of natural resources. Here's something near and dear to my heart. Overpopulation. When we're floating in our inner tubes several leagues above our foreclosed homes we'll be bumping into each other as we scramble for the last scraps of available food or container of drinkable water. Paul Ehrlich, professor at Stanford University and fellow member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Our population has boomed on this planet at an incredible and unsustainable rate. Even at “just” 6.7 billion people, we are unable to find adequate resources for all – witness the close to a billion or so malnourished among us. Now imagine a world of 9 plus billion people.

Yeah, the future looks bright doesn't it?

DaG out

Obama vs Jindal

President Obama addressed congress the other day in a pseudo state of the Union speech. Boy howdy can this guy give a speech. I had to laugh at the momentum killing Speaker of the House who kept jumping to her feet at the end of nearly every sentence Obama uttered. She would clap enthusiastically and more closely resembled a star struck cheer leader than a house speaker. Vice president Biden seemed to be texting on his blackberry through much of the speech and appeared to tire of the repeated need to stand and applaud every time Pulosi leaped to her feet.

The speech was a masterfully delivered bunch of platitudes, generalities, and morale boosting stories to help ease the pain of all the deficit spending that is about to take place. . While I agree with the direction he says he wants to take the country, I have massive doubts as to how it's going to be achieved. It's nice to once again hear a president speak of the importance of education, alternative energy, and health care. It was also interesting that he not only spoke of the government's responsibility but, let the country know that government can not provide solutions to all our problems. The president spoke of individual responsibility and specifically called out parents to help with education. However, the cost of bailing out banks, auto manufactures, and home owners has only begun. We've merely scratched the surface of the deficit spending hole we're digging in order to successfully re-invest in this country. I'm not sure that we have enough printing presses or enough ink in the world needed to fix what's broken? At least in his proposed budget for this coming fiscal year he is being honest and will include the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations. You may recall that the previous administration conveniently left out the spending costs for those military activities.

Rather than trying to spend our way out of this, why don't we begin to make some inteligent choices, cuts, and sacrifices? Number one cut on my list would be the waste of billions and billions on the occupation of Iraq and the military surge we're going to do in Afghanistan. Boy is this a sore point for me. Part of the reason I voted for Obama was his commitment to get us out of Iraq. He has just recently extended his time line for that and added that only a large percentage of troops would be taken out. Boo! Hiss! Why he feels that a surge of troops in Afghanistan is going to do anything but increase the debt and kill more Americans and Afghanis. What does he think he'll accomplish? Getting Bin Laden? Use a special ops task force to get Bin Laden. Bring the troops home! Damn it! This really concerns me. Mr. President, I doubt that you would have motivated so many to vote for you had you let it be known that you were going to increase our presence in Afghanistan.

One more gripe about President Obama's speech. Mr. President, as I am sure you are aware . . .there is no such thing as "Clean Coal technology" It does not exist! You know it I know it. It is a myth perpetuated by those whose wealth is tied up in the mining and refining of fossil fuels. . . specifically the coal industry. Coal pollutes absolutely! The Coal lobbyist spend 60 million a year trying to convince legislators that clean coal technology not only exists but, is a viable renewable source of energy. It's a lie! In the early morning hours of December 22, 2008, the earthen wall of a containment pond at Tennessee’s Kingston Fossil Plant gave way. The breach released 1.3 million cubic meters (1.7 million cubic yards) of fly ash—a coal-combustion waste product captured and stored in wet form. As fly ash dries, it is typically moved to new containment areas to continue drying, and it was one of these areas, housing dredge cells that facilitate further drying, where the containment wall broke. Some of the sludge traveled north through a valley, and some flowed to the east, where it damaged dozens of homes. The spill infiltrated the Emory River, buried some 120 hectares (300 acres) in sludge, and even knocked a nearby home completely off its foundation. A report released by the Tennessee Valley Authority stated that the plant’s byproducts included arsenic, lead, chromium, manganese, and barium, although tests of drinking water upstream from the plant indicated that the water there was safe to drink. I'm more interested in the tests conducted using the water downstream from the spill. Estimates of the time required to clean up the spill ranged from weeks to years. Oh yeah and did I mention that some of the elements in the ash are radio active? Here's a site that gives some interesting facts regarding the clean coal myth.

http://www.thisisreality.org/#/?p=canary

Now let's look at the Republican response to the speech. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the GOP's much ballyhooed great ethnic hope for 2012 . . .Piyush "Bobby" Jindal. Oh boy, where do I begin? When previous political party responses have been aired after the state of the union speech,: We'll see a representative seated or standing in front of the camera ready to give their parties take on the speech. This was a little different . . . this was a little staged for dramatic effect . . . (Oh the theatre of politics) The scene opens from a dimly lit room of the governors mansion in Louisiana. Entering stage left we see a well dressed, slim ethnic man in his mid thirties approach the center of the camera's view. Why it's govenor "Bobby"! Dressed in a nice suit with a red candy striped tie. When he first began talking I was taken aback. It seemed as if he was speaking to a 2nd grade elementary class. His delivery and intonation reminded me of the narrator in one of those industrial films that explained how the food we see on the supermarket shelves got there. " First the farmer plants the seed, the crops grow, then they are harvested, processed and delivered to your local store by very very big trucks. See, there's Mr. Grocer waving good bye to one of the truck drivers." The following is some excerpts from the Republican response:

Bobby: "As I grew up, my mom and dad taught me the values that attracted them to this country - and they instilled in me an immigrant's wonder at the greatness of America. As a child, I remember going to the grocery store with my dad. Growing up in India, he had seen extreme poverty. And as we walked through the aisles, looking at the endless variety on the shelves, he would tell me: 'Bobby, Americans can do anything.' I still believe that to this day. (First of all , I betcha the Governor's dad called him Piyush and not "Bobby". Second of all, Daddy Jindal should have told his son, "See how lucky Americans are by virtue of geography? ")

He went on pretty much saying that the Democrats and Obama need to listen to the Republican's ideas, then listed the ideas that were nearly verbatim what Obama said in his speech.

Jindal: "That is why Republicans put forward plans to create jobs by lowering income tax rates for working families, cutting taxes for small businesses, strengthening incentives for businesses to invest in new equipment and hire new workers, and stabilizing home values by creating a new tax credit for home-buyers. These plans would cost less and create more jobs. But Democratic leaders in Congress (Excuse Me? All those things are in the stimulus bill. He needs to go on line and read the thing.) -- they rejected this approach. (No, Mr. Jindal. They did not.) Instead of trusting us to make wise decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history, with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest. While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is loaded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, (Um, Mr. Jindal, I believe these are more fuel efficient vehicles and will help keep jobs in American owned auto companies) $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a "magnetic levitation" line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, (Okay Bobby. If you read the bill you'd know that there is no such provision. Although there should be. "magnetic levitation" is a wonderful advancement in mass transit and has been put to use most effectively in other countries like France, Germany, and Sweden. Not to mention the jobs that would be created, idiot. ) and $140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." (Yeah, keeping tabs on volcanic activity inside active volcanoes so that people living near them could be warned of an impending eruption, and be able to evacute before being covered in lava or lethal ash, seems like a real waste of money. Unless of course you happen to live in California, Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, Wyoming or Washington. ) Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C. "

So, in a nut shell the republican response to Obama's speech was to remind us that Americans not the government can fix our problems. Just like Obama said and Jindal ignored. The republican response consisted of doing pretty much everything Obama recommended, except improve health care, education, and squelch Union participation. The republicans seem to be the party of spoiled children who just want to say "No!" Then restate the very ideas they said no to as if it was their idea. And oh yeah, don't forget their propensity for just out and out lying about what is in the stimulus bill. From a mouse in Pulosi's district to the bullet train from Vegas to Disneyland. Interesting to note that all of the special provisions (pork) that was added to the original bill were written in by the republicans in both houses.

DaG Out

When a problem is not a problem

“Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control
a man’s appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not
crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which
our government was founded.” - Abraham Lincoln

According to Journal of American Medical Association roughly 17,000 deaths a year are caused by illegal drug usage amongst Americans. Zero percent of the fatalities are due to smoking or ingesting marijuana. Almost all are due to impurities and dosages that are not standardized, and a reluctance to call 911 when someone overdoses out of fear of being arrested. Exactly 0 deaths a year are attributed to smoking or ingesting marijuana. In fact there has never been a single recorded death that was attributed to marijuana use. Conversely, the yearly death toll attributed to legal alcohol use is 85,000. . . . Cigarette smoking - 435,000 . . .Poor diet and physical inactivity- 350,000.

These statistics alone should be enough to cause us to take another look at our prohibition laws, but I'm not going to stop there. Legalize Pot. There I said it. Me, most doctors, NORML, rational thinking economists, Libertarians, and millions of American citizens know it's the right thing to do. IMHO it's almost too easy an argument to defend here in the blog so, I'm going to take it a step further and call for the removal of all the prohibition laws. Legalize and regulate all of them.

Although the United States has only 5% of the world’s population, we use 60% of the
illegal drugs. We don’t just use two or three times as many drugs. We use more than
all the other countries of the world combined and they have 95% of the population. We use
twelve times as many drugs as the average of all the other countries in the world. We are the
most stoned, drugged, intoxicated society in the history of the world, thanks to the drug war.

A 2008 justice department report found Mexican traffickers were the biggest organized crime threat to the US. Just the other day hundreds were arrested in U.S probe of Mexican drug cartel. Mexican drug cartels are a threat to US national security. Our attorney general has stated that "They are lucrative. They are violent. And they are operated with stunning planning.''.

The drug runners are protected at our borders by a well armed militia with hi tech weaponry that make nearly impossible for our border patrol to prevent their entry into the states.

DEA Administrator Karen Tandy testified before the House Committee on Appropriations regarding DEA's FY2008 budget request, $2.4 billion. She describes the DEA's significant "successes" over the past year, and of course, asking for more money. I guess the $205 million seized this week was just a drop in the bucket. $2.4 billion for the war on drugs? That figure doesn't include the millions spent on incarceration, court costs, and attorney fees. Yearly seized assests by the DEA average about $1.5 billion. Simple math tells us that this war is costing us the tax payer money when legalized and taxed drugs could be making us money.

2.1 million people are currently in prison. According to the United States Justice department figures 55% are serving time for drug related convictions.

Data for this analysis is taken from various reports of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, United
States Sentencing Commission, and an analysis of the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal
Correctional Facilities.
Substantial Growth of the Federal Prison Population
· As of 2003, 161,673 persons were held in federal prisons, an increase of 81% from 1995.
· The federal prison population has increased at nearly three times the rate of state prisons
since 1995, 7.7% vs. 2.7%.
Composition of the Federal Prison Population – Mostly Non-Violent
· More than half (55%) of federal prisoners are serving time for a drug offense, and 13% for a
violent offense.
· Nearly three-fourths (72.1%) of the population are non-violent offenders with no history of
violence.

Time Served in Prison for Drug Offenses Increasing
· From 1992 to 2002, the average time served in prison for a drug offense increased by 31%
from 32.7 months to 42.9 months.
Rehabilitation is simply a joke there is no rehabilitating going on in prison. There is gang violence and the exchange of criminal procedural activity but, nobody is reforming as was originally intended. Once you've been sentenced to even a minimal prison sentence, you can pretty much kiss any chance of a productive life good bye. About the only job you'll be able to get is a restaurant dish washer, Pizza delivery guy, or a congressional lobbyist.

The current prohibition laws feed the for profit prisons. (A Reagan era entrepreneurial opportunity for construction and management business.) Prior to the 1980,s construction and management of prisons were part of the commons, once they became a for profit private industry business we've seen the prison population grow expediently.

Looking at this from a purely socioeconomic angle: Those with considerable wealth are coddled and given access to rehabilitation centers when they are arrested and in possesion of illegal drugs, while the poor are simply thrown into jail, tried and convicted. Sentenced to prison forever ruining their lives.

If drugs were legal and regulated, prisons could be used to keep the truly violent, dangerous, and repeat offending thief of of our streets. Prison over crowding would no longer be an issue. Billions of dollars could be pumped into our economy. Drug cartels would be cut off at the knees when the drugs they sell are cheaper, better quality and legal. They would be forced to go elsewhere to sell their products. Lives would be saved. Hundreds of thousands of DEA agents could be converted to border patrol officers, helping to keep illegal immigrants from crossing the border. Better yet, they could be used to investigate the multi million dollar companies that sub contract their construction work to local builders who hire illegals, in order to keep their hands clean.

Junior high students say it's so much easier to buy cocaine, ecstasy, methamphetamine, and pot than it is to score a six pack of beer. Why? Because, alcohol is legal and regulated while prohibited drugs are not. Why our country is still clinging to antiquated attitudes and concepts about altering our state of consciousness baffles me. We are always going to seek out mind altering drugs. We always have and we always will. When this practice neither harms or hinder my fellow man, why is it outlawed? Keeping drugs illegal costs lives, money, and only benefits politicians, drug cartels, and corrupt law enforcers. (See Al Capone during the first failed prohibition)

Dag Out

A rougher tougher Depression

How many of us remember Rush shouting over the airwaves about a minority party voicing complaints about "W's" policies. He said,"Until you (the democrats) win an election you need to shut up. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!!!" I remember that like it was yesterday.

Rush and his ilk used to say that anyone who criticizes an American president in a time of war was aiding and abiding terrorists. They were unpatriotic and against the troops. Interesting to note that we are still at war and Rush Any one wishing that Obama and the stimulus package fails apparently is a good Republican.


I keep hearing and reading that we are in this economic situation due to Liberal agendas like "affordable housing". While Carter and Clinton were proponents of such measures it was the Republicans like Phil Grahm who wrote the legislation that removed all of the oversight and regulations from those initiatives. Not to mention the housing collapse is merely 1/10th of our current economic catastrophe. Let's look at three other reasons our country needs money injected into the economy: 1. The previous administration removed more than a trillion from the economy for the war in Iraq. 2.The Federal Reserve gave another 2 trillion to insolvent financial institutions. 3. Another trillion was lost in tax cuts for the top 1% percent.

When Reagan put a cap on social security he began this 2nd Great Depression. Are you aware that those who make over $100,000.00 a year pay no social security tax? None. Zippo.

Think of how much more money there would be for the good of the commons. Something Jefferson and the founding fathers used to speak and write extensively about but seem to be conveniently ignored by the conservative right. Infrastructure, Schools and Education, medical research, etc etc. The middle class pays for the wealthiest of our countrymen's social security benefits. That's just criminal!!!

Why doesn't congress just do what it did before the Usury laws were usurped and the big big big business of credit cards took off. The United States is one of the only countries that does not have a cap on how much interest can be charged. At 12% they could still make a hefty profit. Capping credit card interest rates at 12% would truly stimulate the economy. The MFing Credit card companies are currently borrowing money at less than 1% and yet they are still charging card holders upwards of 30% on their purchases and balances. If you don't believe that we are in a class war then explain to me why the multi- million dollar corporations get their interest rates lowered to 0.5% and Joe Six pack gets his interest rate raised and his credit limit lowered? I'll tell you why? We are losing the war because we have no defense to their weapon of choice. Greed.

We are fucked people and I see no way out. Crippling the American economy, middle class, and the ability to attain a college education is Wall Street's, WTO's, and the wealthiest in the world's wet dream. Millions of out of work Americans deeply in debt are cheap labor. Starving people will work for a lot less than well fed people. We survived the last depression by the skin of our collective teeth. We were a kinder gentler nation in those days. There were about half as many people to clothe feed and house as there are today. Citizens rarely if ever car jacked one another. Road rage was non existent. As a population we were much more sociable, neighbors knew each other, and there was a sense of community, a sense that we were all in this together. Today's neighbors rarely speak to or even know each other and this is pretty much by choice. Our lives are so chocked full of the day to day minutia of life in these the aughts. We work more hours for less pay, we have multiple hour commutes, organized sports for the kids, work outs at the gym, nail and hair appointments, nearly daily trips to the supermarket, and on and on. We're just too busy for the neighborhood networking we used to do.

So, when this impending Depression is in full bloom, I fear that we'll be sitting on a powder keg, and the first gasoline, food, or water shortage we face will be the spark that ignites it. I don't see inner city gangs or even a lot of suburbia's Americans patiently waiting in a gas, food or water line.

Back to some more bitching: With each passing day I see this country driving right off the cliff and it makes for sleepless nights. I am reminded of that all so true Lincoln quote, " A country divided against itself can not stand." Well folks, we're pretty divided right now. Flip channels on your television and you'll see the divide. FOX vs MSNBC. Those who watch Fox hate the left and those who watch MSNBC hate the right. Those who watch neither are split down the middle as well, half read books and try to avoid television all together and the other half watch local stations and listen to conservative talk radio. We are about as divided a country as we were during the Civil War only the weapons being used are verbal and political. We are constantly being distracted by the dog and pony show of politics. We're too busy taking sides instead of addressing the problems. It doesn't look good for our future as Super power. We're printing money right and left with no standard which we know will only make the dollar virtually worthless. Yet we just keep doing it because if we don't there will be riots in the streets. I say there will still be riots only not this year but, next.

So here we go plodding through our daily routines thinking that somehow it'll all work out and this will all be a negative blip in our economic security. I disagree because, I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. The drastic measures that must be taken in order to avoid total collapse won't be as long as every policy decision is being made by millionaires looking out for their own best interests. Democrats and Republicans alike. 350 billion unregulated, unsupervised, unaccountable dollars given to those institutions that schemed away trillions of client's dollars. Did they have to lay off anybody? Did they have to give up medical benefits? Did they have to take a cut in pay? The answer to all those questions is "No."

Where's the outrage?!! Why isn't the headline of every news program: "What the hell did they do with our money?" We won't see that because the 5 media companies that own our nations media are part of that elite group of people who benefit from our ignorance.

DaG down and out

Repubs will say "I told you so."

WASHINGTON – U.S. retail sales jumped 1 percent in January, reversing a six-month declining trend and defying economists' expectations by posting the biggest increase in 14 months.

But higher gasoline prices and sales, and buyers snapping up other items on post-holiday discounts appeared to aid last month's results. Analysts cautioned that the relief is unlikely to last.

But you know the Right wing talking points won't go into the reasons, they'll only repeat the headline.

The House stimulus bill contained a provision designed to protect federal whistleblowers. Currently, those protections are shockingly weak. According to the Project On Government Oversight, whistleblowers who are fired or demoted can file a complaint with a government board -- but over the last eight years, that board has ruled in favor of whistleblowers only twice in 55 cases.
More to the point, the protections were designed to encourage federal workers to point out cases where taxpayer money is subject to waste, fraud, or abuse -- a legitimate concern when Congress spends $800 billion, and one that centrists and Republicans have been particularly exercised about.
Yesterday, 20 members of the House, from both parties, yesterday sent a letter to House negotiators urging them to ensure that the protections remained.
But, according to a person following the bill closely, Collins used today's conference committee to drastically water down the measure, citing national security concerns as the reason for her opposition. In the end, the protections were so weakened that House negotiators balked, and the result was that the entire amendment was removed.

Disgusting! Were I Obama I wouldn't sign this Bill. Send it back to congress and have them put it back the way it was. As a matter of fact screw the original sugar coated olive branch tax cuts it and make this thing strictly a JOBS bill. Period. One big change. Don't borrow the money, we'll have to pay it back with interest, to China or whoever buys the debt. Screw that, we circumvent the Fed, and print the money ourselves. Our own currency not the Federal Reserve. (Which is neither Federal nor a Reserve) We make an $800 billion dollar investment in ourselves. And by ourselves I mean those of us who work for a living. The money should go for job creation, new technology, health care, education, infrastructure spending has been replaced with tax cuts that will mainly benefit the well to do. It was originally a 67% reinvestment spending and 33% tax cuts. And IMHO 33% is ridiculously high. The military is still fighting an illegal war, 10's of thousands of troops giving their lives for "democracy" - Job loss by the millions and auto manufactures as well as other businesses struggling to survive. We've played the tax cut card for nearly 30 years now. They do nothing to help the economy! Tax cuts only pad the pockets of those who least need the padding. The middle class folks that live pay check to pay check are the ones who keep an economy rolling. They buy the stuff that's for sale, they don't put their money in off shore bank accounts. I'm not going to reiterate the many reasons tax cuts won't work to stimulate the economy now because I've already covered that in previous posts.

Lets look at some of the things that have been stripped from the bill:

Family planning money stripped. Apparently the Repubs like poor people to have lots and lots of babies. I guess it gives them fodder for cannons, talk show host topics ( the fornicating welfare recipients are ruining this country), and campaign issues. ( if the poor prevent pregnancy they won't need abortions and there goes our single issue divisiveness)

Education spending and aid to state and local governments. Unless we invest in education our country is doomed to be nothing but a labor pool for those countries who do.

The Buy American provision was deeply cut. This would have ensured that American materials like Steel and wood would be used in the construction projects.

They removed the provision that would make it impossible for businesses to hire workers from outside the U.S.

$15000 tax credit for any home buyer, not just the 1st time buyer. Different than a tax cut, this scrapped portion of the bill would have given an give incentive to potential home buyers. It would have helped the frozen credit situation as well. Which in turn would have put money back into this sagging economy.

These are just a few of the compromises that lessen the effectiveness of this bill. In this revised version I don't see anyway that it going to work. Damn spineless Dems in the Senate. It must be the Stockholm syndrome or the battered wife syndrome or some kind of syndrome that causes them to kiss the ass of the Repubs. Either that or my Dad's conspiracy theory is correct. The power's that be allow the Dems to take the reins of the procedural public government every so often . . just to give the appearance of a 2 party system.

This just in:
AP – WASHINGTON – Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire abruptly withdrew his nomination as commerce secretary Thursday, the third Cabinet-level pick scuttled. The move left President Barack Obama without a full team to lead the government. He cited "irresolvable conflicts" with Obama's handling of the economic stimulus and 2010 census

And the beat goes on. How many times will Obama's attempts to appease come back and bite him in the ass? He just got suckered by Senator Gregg. Remember that Gregg came to Obama and offered up his name for commerce secretary. Even though he loudly voiced his opposition to Obama as president. Even though he voted to abolish the commerce department. Now the Obama administration is beginning to look like the Gang that couldn't shoot straight. If I may borrow a word from the Democratic nominee acceptance speech . . ."ENOUGH!" It's time for our president to sink or swim by his core values. I believe that he received the lion share of American votes because he campaigned on that feeling. That feeling that we've been sold a bill of goods. From the transfer of wealth from the middle class to the upper 1%, to allowing oil companies to write our nations energy policies, to the raping of our civil liberties. Enough! We need a government that represents the people and not the special interests. So, please President Obama, enough with the Gandhi lets see some Genghis Khan.

On a closing note: Those who voted for Obama are overwhelmingly calling for investigations into the abuses of the past administration. I mean call after call on the Progressive radio stations and blog after blog in the blogosphere. Those who feel that we've got too much on our plate due to the economy to begin prosecutions are out numbered. Those in favor of prosecutions list several reasons to proceed with the investigations. One of my favorites is that after WWII the United States managed to pay billions to help rebuild Europe with the Marshall Plan and still found the time to help prosecute war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.

No, I'm not going to let this go. We've got people doing time for smoking a joint while mass murder goes unpunished. Under their watch: Elections were stolen, torture was authorized as an acceptable method of interrogation, and they used my tax dollars to line the pockets of "war for profit" industries like Haliburton and Blackwater, used terror tactics to convince congress to give away billions to Wall street, and worst of all . . . in my name as an American . . .unleashed bombs and the military that killed men, women and children who did nothing to me or my country. Helping to create more terrorists than they've captured or killed. We're talking over a million dead innocents. So yes, I have a vested interest in seeing the many wrongs committed by these evil men brought to light. The least, I mean the very least I can do is write in this blog my reasons why I feel these bastards should be held accountable.

DaG Out

We can't handle the truth!

It isn't a Stimulus package, or a Recovery package, or a Tax Cuts and Spending package, it's a Band aid on a severed artery package. Even before the "conservatives" and the "centrists" watered it down, it wasn't enough to prevent the Depression of 2010/2011. When we save or create 4 million jobs and we've lost 2.6 million in 2008 and 600,000 lost in Jan 2009 another 2 million are predicted to go by the wayside by the end of the year. It's easy to see that we're expecting the flood waters to rise 12 feet and we've only got enough sand bags for a 10 foot wall.

While Obama's plan will help in the short term far far greater measures need to be taken in order to save this country from economic disaster. Understand that the credit swap derivatives equate to selling $30 worth of investment on $1 capital asset . A third grader knows that dog won't hunt. How can a financial institution pay up when the bill comes due? (which it is now)

This isn't even being talked about and it is still going on today. The SEC needs ability to regulate collateralized debt obligations. Shortly after the Savings and Loan scandal (Keating 5), a group of Dems in Congress went to the Fed and said we've got to have oversight and regulations. Greenspan said "No". Allen knew what he was doing. He knew this collapse was going to take place. Notice that when the huge job losses were posted a week or do ago that the stock market spiked. Job loss in huge numbers means large numbers of available cheap labor. What's bad for labor is good for business.

Peter Defazio congressman of Oregon is drafting a bill to bring before congress that will demand that the banks that misspent the money of the first bail out installment, have to give the $ back. It has zero chance of passing but, it's nice to see someone other than Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul with our best interests in mind. http://www.defazio.house.gov/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=71

Isn't it interesting that by attempting to get bipartisan support of his bill, Obama has only succeeded in diluting it's effectiveness. By letting the very representatives who voted for the policies that created this insolvent economic situation put in their 2 cents worth, (ie tax cuts and less spending for education) what's left is a piece of shit with only a minimal amount of job creation, education grants, and infrastructure investment. The obstructionists accomplished their goal of weakening the bill increasing the chance of it's failure. Now when they vote against it there's less chance of it blowing up on their face. If the bill succeeds in protecting or creating jobs by spending billions making things the Repubs in Congress will be on record voting against it. Can't have that. so, they're relying on the tried and true mantra of more tax cuts and less spending! Nice bumper sticker, easy to remember, Rush can pound it home, never mind that over the past 8 years congress has spent over a billion dollars a month on destroying things. I'm not a fan of our government spending billions and billions and billions when we're already have over a trillion dollars in debt. I just can't think of any other plan that'll put people back to work. There are logical things we could do to cut wasteful spending like firing every single executive on Wall Street, and making them give back the $350 billion, but you and I know that's not going to happen. Everything the Repubs call pork in the stimulus package, (money for electric vehicle development, building more schools, etc etc will create jobs! Just not the jobs that will perpetuate our addiction to oil or contribute to the Republican status quo.

Just a note if you go to the RNC site you will see the Republican elephant symbol. Notice that it decorated with 3 stars. They happen to be upside down, the top of the star should be a point. The way it is pictured is a Devil worshipers star with two points at the top which resembles a goats head. It may be nothing but, I'm just saying . . . http://www.rnc.org/


Okay back to the economy stimulus recovery re-investment hullabaloo. It ain't perfect but, it's better than nothing. It could be really helpful if we only allocate money to those states whose Senators voted for the bill. Let all those Repubs with their education, renewable energy, and infrastructure cuts vote "no" and then say, "Okee Dokee. You don't want it? Your state doesn't get a cut of the $. We'll give your share of the package to Indiana , Michigan, or any other of those states that really need it." If this seems unfair to you remember that during the Bush Administration, Federal allocated money for highways, education, police, etc etc was considerably less in the blue states than in the red ones. (Makes you wonder if Louisiana's Governor would have been a republican when Katrina hit, would help have come sooner?)

These are tough times and it's going to get tougher. The American people spoke in November 2008 and believed this young man from Illinois meant what he said. He's made good on his attempt to end the partisanship only to have his extended hand slapped. When you try to please everyone you please no one. When a great movie gets edited for television, it ain't so great anymore. When Lincoln freed the slaves he freed all of them, the Southern Representatives weren't allowed to say "Okay Okay, . . . we'll only keep 3 slaves per farm."
When FDR passed the "New Deal" most of the Repubs were screaming foul!!! So FDR just gave them the bird. (in a very eloquent way)
When LBJ signed the Civil rights act. He didn't say that only college educated Negroes could vote. It cost the democratic party the south including LBJ's home state of Texas in future elections.

So if this congress with it's Democratic majority can't or won't do the right thing it becomes more and more apparent to me that there is only one party in this country. We are in a class war. The illusion of a representative two party system is a tactic of this war. In reality most Democrats and Republicans are on the same side and it ain't ours.

DaG Out

Random thoughts and TJ takes

When the incumbent president is a republican, gas at the pump will historically go down just before an election. This year was no different. There was no great new discovery of oil, there was no surge in supply from OPEC, the national reserves weren't tapped into . . .Oh no, just for some strange reason, Gas began falling form $4 a gallon to well below $2 a gallon. Well after all those "speculators" on Wall Street made their investment profits. Then those very same people received a 750 billion dollar hand out from the American tax payer. Thanks to a gutless bunch of politicians with millions invested on . . ."wait for it" . . . Wall Street! The bailout was less about financial institutions that are too big to fail and more about saving our Senators and Congress men's savings and investments. Let's see the bail out funded by the middle class could have only been sold to them by terrific con men.

The con began when companies no longer offered secured retirement pensions, (you remember those, many of your grandfather's enjoyed them and had plenty of money to live on after retirement.) Then the 401k was sold to the workers in place of the pensions. These were more liquid and if you changed jobs you could roll it over into your new companies 401k plan. Sounds good doesn't it? What companies neglected to tell their employees was that the 401K's helped build investment institutions capital base and company owner's, board members, and CEO's were all invested in these institutions. What a deal for the wealthiest of us! Not only did get to save money by not writing pension checks but, they could make money on employee savings. It was only by the grace of God, Buddha, Allah, Ganesha, or Zeus that Social Security didn't get privatized and go the way of the pension plan.

401k's and the inventions of Ira accounts are schemes to get the average Joe to invest in the market. When something isn't broke why fix it? I'll tell you why, greater profit! Period. Now we find the poor guy trying to save for retirement loosing 40% of his savings while the people investing those savings are the beneficiaries of billions of tax payer dollars. It's genius really. Evil greedy genius but, genius none the less. Selling unsecured investments that could easily loose money and did, to an entire working population. Wow! Not even the Mafia in it's hay day could boast this much corruption, extortion, and inside jobs. Money that was meant to buy bad assets and open up lines of credit merely went to fund bank mergers, pay CEO bonuses, and buy corporate Jets. Oh yeah, I forgot they did buy some bad assets . . .at nearly twice as much as they were worth!

Remember McCain and Palin's slogan, "Country First". It's funny how those who say that are the very same ones who oppose tariffs and the part of the recovery package that insists we only use building materials made in the USA. These very same people want to allow companies receiving money to hire workers from overseas and bring them here instead of hiring our very own unemployed. "Country First" my ass. That slogan should be "Profit First".

Here's a Jefferson quote those on the left are fond of: "A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference." Notice he uses the word "against" letting citizens of a government know that they are in a conflict, competition or a battle even, and the Bill of Rights is more or less a weapon.

Here's one for those on the Right: "A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government." If Rush and Hannity did a little research before they start flapping their gums they could use this quote to knock the whole "We need more government regulation"argument right out of the park.

Here's one I like: "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." Are you listening Prop 8 proponents?! That's why civil rights are not up for a majority vote! Jesus H tap dancing Christ . . .with "jazz hands"!

Our fore fathers, like the Romans before them feared the 51% and didn't think it was a good idea to give the unwashed, uneducated masses too much power or "say" in their own governing so, they devised something called a representative democracy. The unwashed and uneducated could vote for someone they felt best looked after their interests. Just in case that individual didn't stay true to his constituency, we have the three separate branches as a sort of check and balance. Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. No one branch has controls the power. No one branch nor one party, however it may not be that way anymore.

Over the past 6 years the Judicial (the Supreme Court) had two new appointees, both staunch conservatives, giving the deciding vote to Head Justice Roberts. Justice Roberts, according to a 16-page financial disclosure form Roberts submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee prior to his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, his net worth was more than $6 million, including $1.6 million in stock holdings. I don't have a problem with Roberts earning a 6 million his 50th birthday, but I do have a problem with the fact that he held positions in Republican administrations in the U.S. Department of Justice and Office of the White House Counsel. He's a wealthy Republican insider that has defended big business on several occasions when he was a practicing attorney.

And most recently upheld Exxon's right to gouge billions in profits from the very people whose tax dollars subsidize that company. Let me just wrap this one up with one more Jefferson quote: "Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

"DaG Out

Copy and paste entry

When someone speaks eloquently and sums up my thoughts exactly pointing out the hypocrasy and evil in those who govern us, I must simply let their words speak for themselves. From last nights special comment on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Vice President Cheney's remarks about the prospects of future terrorist attacks in this country. Flatly, it may be time for Mr. Cheney to leave this country. The partisanship, divisiveness and naiveté to which he ascribed every single criticism of his and President Bush's delusional policies of the last eight years, have now roared forth in a destructive and uninformed diatribe from Mr. Cheney, that can only serve to undermine the nation's new president, undermine the nation's effort to thwart terrorism, and undermine the nation itself.
Mr. Cheney's remarks were posted yesterday at Politico.com. They are a reiteration of all the manias of his vice presidency. Only they now come without the authority of office. They insist, he insists, on the imminence of attack, of the maintenance of Gitmo, of the necessity of waterboarding, of the efficacy of torture.Time does not stale nor custom wither your infinite variety, Mr. Cheney. You will say it, and be wrong and you will still say it anew. You will say it, and undercut a President 17 days on the job and you will still say it anew. You will say it, and help terrorists and you will still say it anew.

Cheney said "The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy. I'm not at all sure that that's what the Obama administration believes."

The first glimmer, in years, of sanity in any your remarks, Sir. That's not at all what the Obama administration appears to believe. It seems to be ready to use all avenues and all emotions, seeking love, respect, fear, diplomacy, shared experience, education, principle, and, yes, even rational thought. This President, unlike yours, seems intent on living in the real world rather than trying to re-shape an imaginary one, by force.
Cheney goes on "When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an al-Qaida terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry."

More concerned, Mr. Cheney? What delusion of grandeur makes you think you have the right to say anything like that? Because a president, or an ordinary American, demands that we act as Americans and not as bullies; demands that we play by our rules; that we preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States; you believe we have chosen the one and not the other? We can be Americans, or we can be what you call "safe" — but not both?
Cheny: "If it hadn't been for what we did — with respect to the terrorist surveillance program, or enhanced interrogation techniques for high-value detainees, the Patriot Act, and so forth — then we would have been attacked again. Those policies we put in place, in my opinion, were absolutely crucial to getting us through the last seven-plus years without a major-casualty attack on the U.S."

Mr. Cheney, you are lying. As the cloud of fear you deliberately fostered in this good-hearted and courageous nation finally begins to dissipate, the nonsense that you and Mr. Bush presented as "evidence" of this childish claim, this perverse example of wishful-nightmare-thinking, has become apparent, and it should shame you.
The "major-casualty attacks" on the U.S. you think you stopped, involved would-be hijackers who were under constant surveillance and had neither passports nor plane tickets. They involved feeble-minded braggarts so clueless as to even the most obvious steps of organization that they believed they could enter Fort Dix in New Jersey disguised as delivery men, and kill hordes of Americans, and get out alive, even though Fort Dix teems with soldiers who have an almost inexhaustible supply of weapons.They involved embittered ex-Airport-employees so uninformed about where they used to work, that they thought dropping a match in a fuel supply line thirty miles away would cause the airport to explode. These are the plots that by your own proud, strutting, crazy admissions, were the ones you "got us through."You and Mr. Bush, sir—you are the old men who cried wolf.

The Politico story continues: "Citing intelligence reports, Cheney said at least 61 of the inmates who were released from Guantanamo during the Bush administration - "that's about 11 or 12 percent" - have "gone back into the business of being terrorists."

Mr. Cheney, you made this statistic up. Perhaps not you personally, but your people made this statistic up! As the new reality-based administration has discovered, there are not enough records of detainees still at Gitmo to suggest that there is any reliable database on those released. That McCarthy-esque number, Sir, is also as fluid as the infamous Senator's was.
As Professor Mark Denbeaux of Seton Hall University noted on this network last month: "The government has given its 43rd attempt to describe the number of people who have left Guantanamo and returned to the battlefield. Forty-one times they have done it orally as they have this last time. And their numbers have changed from 20 to 12 to seven to more than five to two to a couple to a few - 25, 29, 12 to 24. Every time, the number has been different. In fact, every time they give a number, they don't identify a date, a place, a time, a name or an incident to support their claim."

Mr. Cheney, which orifice are you pulling these numbers from? Y'know, in the movie "The Manchurian Candidate," the character based loosely on Joe McCarthy had trouble remembering all the different numbers. His Lady Macbeth-like-wife pointed out to him that the reason she kept changing the number of purported communists in the state department, was so that people would no longer be asking "are there communists in the state department?" but would begin only asking "how many communists are there?"
And, six years and more since General Powell, and Dr. Rice, and all the rest, played the trump card of terrorizing this nation, the mighty Cream of Mushroom Cloud soup, you played it again... nuclear weapon, biological agent, deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands.

Cheney continues his rhetoric of fear: "I think there's a high probability of such an attempt. Whether or not they can pull it off depends whether or not we keep in place policies that have allowed us to defeat all further attempts, since 9/11, to launch mass-casualty attacks against the United States."

"The Bush System," as John Yoo so aptly re-christened it the other day. Start the wrong war, detain the wrong people, employ the wrong methods, pursue the wrong leads, utilize the wrong emotions. Beat up first, ask questions later. You know, just like Al-Qaeda does, or Iran. Save this nation from terrorists by doing the terrorists' work for them, Mr. Cheney. To your credit, sir, you have added a new monster under a new bed, to try to continue to foment a national policy of panic. It's the Terrorists-on-our-streets ploy.

Cheney: "Is that really a good idea to take hardened al-Qaida terrorists who've already killed thousands of Americans and put 'em in San Quentin or some other prison facility where they can spread their venom even more widely than it already is?"

As opposed to keeping them in an extra-legal facility mixed in with some unknown number of innocents mistaken for terrorists. Who's likelier to be more influenced by terrorist venom, Mr. Cheney? The characters from the TV series "Oz?" Or a bunch of guys who we're holding in chains without trial and without even some token attempt at rehabilitation? And by the way, what about Ahmed Ressam, sir? Benni Noris, if you prefer. The Millennium Bomber. Caught at a ferry crossing from Canada to Washington State in December, 1999, on his way to blow up Los Angeles International Airport. He had a car, a legit passport, nitroglycerin, and timing devices. And what did we do to him, Mr. Cheney? Did we send him to Gitmo? Or Pre-Gitmo? As "high a value" terrorist as ever we've caught in this country. Trained by Abu Zubaydah. Days away from his target and ready to go. We tried him. In U.S. courts. With U.S. lawyers. Part of the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. He got 22 years in U.S. prisons.No torture, no Gulag, no stories of him proselytizing fellow prisoners. Oh, but he did cooperate long enough to tell prosecutors about al-Qaida cells in this country.That was his info they stuck in the President's Daily Brief of August 6th, 2001. That's probably news to you, since obviously you and Mr. Bush didn't read it, stalking Saddam Hussein as you were. Of course, none of that mattered to Mr. Cheney, just as none of this matters to Mr. Cheney. Because, at heart, Mr. Cheney is not interested foremost in protecting this country. He is interested foremost in protecting Mr. Cheney. And the business of being Dick Cheney, of rationalizing one's own existence after one of the most reprehensible, myopic, unprincipled, and even un-American careers in the history of our government, depends on continuing to convince the gullible of us to live in abject fear and not with vigilance and common sense and principles.We, sir, will most completely assure our security not by maintaining the endless, demoralizing, draining, life-denying blind fear and blind hatred which you so thoroughly embody.
We will most easily purchase our safety by repudiating the "Bush System." We will reserve the violence for which you are so eager, Sir, for any battlefield to which we truly must take, and not for unconscionable wars which people like you goad and scare and lie us into.You, Mr. Cheney, you terrified more Americans than did any terrorist in the last seven years, and now it is time for you to desist, or to be made to desist. With damnable words like these, Sir, you help no American, you protect no American, you serve no American — you only aid and abet those who would destroy this nation from within or without. More than 400 years ago, when a British Parliament attempted to govern after its term had expired, it was dispersed by the actions, and words, of Oliver Cromwell."You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately," he told them — exactly as, Mr. Cheney, exactly as a nation now tells you: "Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. "In the name of God… go!"

Thank you Mr. Olbermann.

DaG Out