Pathetic Grampappy and the 700 Billion Dollar Boondoggle

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.
“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”
Forbes, September 23, 2008

Soomebody better tell John McCain that sometimes the president needs to walk and chew gum at the same time, in other words, he/she sometimes needs to multitask. However, I am so glad that Grampy McSame decided to rally and join Barack Obama in Oxford, Mississippi for the first presidential debate. A debate in which ole Grampy managed to get through without incessant "blurting out of random crap."

But back to DC for more Bail Out Fun Plans - a plan that was about to come together until John McCain swooped into town and got behind the radical right's idea that what this fire needed was more gasoline, i.e. less regulation is the key to solving a situation that was brought about by virtually dissolving any oversight and regulation. This makes sense only if you believe semi-fascist, former-president Ronnie Reagan's infamous line that the nine most frightening words in the English language are "I am from the government and I am here to help you." At this point I think that it is a good thing that the politicians inside the beltway are bringing other ideas to the table, rather than swallowing Bush's urgent plea to pass his ridiculous Bill hook, line and sinker. Because sink is what Bush's Insane Bill of No Accountability, Oversight or Judicial Review would do to our already gigantic financial debacle. Never mind the fact that this Bill (as suggested by Bush) puts all the power for resolving this colossal failure in the hands of one man whose last job before he became Secretary of Treasury happened to be the CEO of Goldman Sachs. A job that paid Paulson over 38 million dollars in 2005. With that glaring conflict of interest staring them in the face, I applaud Congress for going back to the drawing board to rewrite this horrible piece of legislation. I just hope that saner heads of Representative Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd prevail and that while they send billions of dollars to Wall Street they don't forget to give the taxpayers a stake in the game that they are essentially buying, along with making sure that excessive CEO pay is checked, and that the Bill includes assistance for those people who are about to lose their homes in foreclosure. It also should include some measure of oversight and regulation to insure that this boondoggle doesn't beset us again in the foreseeable future.

Here are some links for further reading on the Financial Crisis of 2008 (how we got here and how we can get out, and a few other issues that we must consider during this feast of foreclosure and crisis of credit that is going on across America):

See Brian Wingfield and Josh Zumbrun's article in Forbes (see quote at top of post) The Paulson Plan - Bad News For The Bailout

10 Ways to Bail Out Wall Street (and Main Street) Without Soaking Taxpayers in Debt

McCain's Economic Plan: Blurt Out Random Crap

As Homes Are Lost, Fears That Votes Will Be, Too

Privatizing Profits, Socializing Loses

"When you privatize profit and socialize risk, it's a prescription for lack of discipline,"
Rep. Jim Leach (R - Iowa), Chairman of the House Banking Committee in the 1990s.

"This administration is asking for a $700 billion blank check to be put in the hands of Henry Paulson, a guy who totally missed this, and has been wrong about almost everything. It's almost amazing they can do this with a straight face. There is clearly skepticism and anger at the idea that we'd give this money to these guys, no questions asked."
Dean Baker, Co-director, Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington

What the Hell?
I had been attempting to educate myself on the sub-prime mortgage mess ever since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were bailed out, but today I gave up. I don't need to know any more than it is WRONG for taxpayers to bear the burden of the colossal financial mess that has its roots in the GOP deregulation madness that has finally come home to roost. No oversight equals no accountability. There are reasons why we are a country of laws - laws that apply to corporations as well as the average Joe. When the free marketeers finally succeeded in getting the government off of their back, they ran their ships into an iceberg, and now they want the government (read: average Joe Taxpayer) to bail them out. I say no way, not on Bush/Cheney/Paulson's terms. Not with this language in the legislation: "Decisions by the Secretary [of the Treasury] pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Talk about a recipe for a disaster.

There has been a piece floating around the internets entitled This is Your Nation on White Privilege, in which the author Tim Wise contrasts differing perspectives on various situations as viewed through a lens of race. This bail out smacks of the ultimate white/corporate/male/wealthy privilege that would never fly if the entity that needed the bail out were African-American working class families who just couldn't come up with the mortgage payment or pay a credit card bill. We know that this is true because there is little discussion of actually helping out the folks who can't pay their mortgages, rather all of the seven hundred billion dollars would go to the corporate fat cats who offered and signed off on those risky loans in the first place. This is a classic case of corporate welfare, and I, for one, hope that Congress calls McBush's bluff on this bail out scheme and "Just says no."

Last week I wrote the following in anticipation of the next shoe to drop, little did I anticipate that the shoe would be not just another shoe, but an Imelda Marcos-sized closet of shoes. A case on point: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac get major bail-out, then AIG. Who's next? The answer to that question is the entire financial industry, every sub-prime mortgage lender, every hedge fund manager, every speculator, every derivative actor, every short-seller, every fly-by-night CEO and risky banker, every person who is working on Wall Street.

“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are so large and so interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them would cause great turmoil in our financial markets here at home and around the globe. This turmoil would directly and negatively impact household wealth: from family budgets, to home values, to savings for college and retirement. A failure would affect the ability of Americans to get home loans, auto loans and other consumer credit and business finance. And a failure would be harmful to economic growth and job creation.”
Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury (NYTimes, September 7, 2008)

Some background information for those who are not economists or Security and Exchange Commission insiders:
Set up by the government - but run privately - Fannie and Freddie (Both "government sponsored entities"or GSEs) have been in the business of backing mortgages since 1968. Like any re-insurer that backs up loans, they make it easier for banks to issue riskier mortgages at lower rates. That means more mortgages for more families. Today Frannie and Freddie either own or back up 41% of home mortgages.

The companies ply their business in a number of ways. First, they buy mortgages from banks, savings and loans, and other mortgage lenders, freeing those lenders' cash to make more loans. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pay for those mortgage purchases by selling bonds in the public markets. They also guarantee mortgage-backed securities, investments sold on the open market that are backed by pools of thousands of home mortgages. The system is known as the secondary mortgage market.

Both before and after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac became private companies, the system helped make credit widely available. The companies, which were created by Congress but are owned by investors, suffered more than $9 billion in mortgage-related losses last year, and analysts expect those losses to grow this year. Because they were chartered by Congress, both companies have the implied, if not legally binding, backing of the government. That allows them to sell bonds at lower interest rates in the open market because investors perceive them as safer.

Finally, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities -- their bonds and mortgage-backed securities -- are one of the basic tools of financial-institution spreadsheets in the United States and abroad. U.S. banks buy billions of dollars worth of them a year. Further, because of the perceived safety, federally insured financial institutions can hold high concentrations of the government-sponsored-enterprise securities, well above that allowed of other securities. Those many tentacles into the financial system are the main reason why some -- most prominently Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan -- have expressed concern about "systemic risk." That is, under their current structures, if Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac falter, the shock to the system could be too great, and the financial risk to the government too heavy, to bear.

Fannie and Freddie do not lend directly to home buyers. Rather, they buy mortgages from banks and other lenders, and thereby provide fresh capital for home loans. The companies keep some of the mortgages they buy, hoping to profit from them, and sell the rest to investors with a guarantee to pay off the loan if the borrower defaults. Because of the widespread perception that the government would intervene if either company failed, they can borrow money at lower interest rates than their competitors. As a result, they have earned enormous profits that have enriched shareholders and managers alike: from 1990 to 2000, each company’s stock grew more than 500 percent and top executives were paid tens of millions of dollars.

Those profits were threatened earlier this decade, however, when new competitors emerged and after audits revealed that both companies had manipulated their earnings. The companies were forced to replace top executives, pay hundreds of millions in penalties and consent to strict growth limits. To keep profits aloft and meet affordable-housing goals set by Congress, the companies began buying huge numbers of subprime and Alt-A mortgages, the highly profitable loans often taken out by low-income and riskier borrowers. By the end of last year, the companies had guaranteed or invested in $717 billion of subprime and Alt-A loans, up from almost none in 2000.

“I want these companies to help with affordable housing, to help low-income families get loans and to help clean up this subprime mess. Otherwise, why should they exist?”
Representative Barney Frank, (D - Massachusetts), Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

A report released earlier this month by a regulator, noted that although Freddie and Fannie had a combined $19.9 billion of “unrealized losses” on mortgage-related investments, neither company had reduced its earnings to reflect those declines. That is because they judged the losses to be temporary — in essence wagering that the mortgage market would recover before those assets were sold. Such a wager is permitted by the rules but difficult for outsiders to analyze. Both companies have also recently changed their policies on delinquent loans, which they previously recorded as impaired when borrowers were 120 days late. Now, some overdue loans can go two years before the companies record a loss.

“We’ve taken tremendous risks by loosening these companies’ purse strings. They could cause an economywide meltdown if they got into real trouble and leave the public on the hook for billions.” Senator Mel Martinez, (R - Florida), Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Ah, Senator, more prophetic words have rarely been spoken....

If you want to follow this debacle or send a message to Congress, click here.

Sign Senator Bernie Sanders' Petition to Secretary Henry Paulson.

Read Naomi Klein's excellent piece: Now Is the Time to Resist Wall Street's Shock Doctrine. Ms. Klein was on the Stephanie Miller Show this morning (Wed. Sept. 24, 2008). I recommend listening to the interview (it should be available at StephanieMiller.com later today).

And the McBush Mistakes Just Keep On Coming....

It is jaw-dropping the number of gaffes (outright blunders or as I like to refer to them, idiotic mistakes) that have been uttered by the mouth of John McCain over the course of the last week. If these are not signs of the judgment that McSame would exercise should he be fortunate enough to steal another election for the GOP (Giddy Over Palin), then on what are we to base our decision in November?

Here's a brief run-down of the colossal poor judgments/incorrect statements/general idiocy that McCain has demonstrated since his first huge example of poor judgment - the selection of Mrs. Todd Palin to be his vice presidential candidate:

1) "Our economy, I think still—the fundamentals of our economy are strong."
John McCain, speaking on the morning of September 15

2) "Mismanagement and greed became the operating standard while regulators were asleep at the switch. The primary regulator of Wall Street, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) kept in place trading rules that let speculators and hedge funds turn our markets into a casino. They allowed naked short selling -- which simply means that you can sell stock without ever owning it. They eliminated last year the uptick rule that has protected investors for 70 years. Speculators pounded the shares of even good companies into the ground. The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the President and has betrayed the public's trust. If I were President today, I would fire him."

Wow. "Betrayed the public's trust." Was Mr. Cox dishonest? No. He merely changed some minor rules, and didn't change others, on short-selling. String him up! Mr. McCain clearly wants to distance himself from the Bush Administration. But this assault on Mr. Cox is both false and deeply unfair. It's also un-Presidential.

From McCain's Scapegoat, WSJ, September 19, 2008

Not only is McCain's rash rush to a populist position insincere and hardly credible, given his long history of surrounding himself with "Foreclosure Phil" Gramm and championing every opportunity to deregulate any industry that he sees a government hand lending oversight to risky business, but he also doesn't seem to understand that it is not the president's perogative to fire the duly appointed Head of the Security and Exchange Commission without cause (which includes only acts of malfeasance or negligent oversight - neither charge applies to Mr. Christopher Cox).

3) McCain on Spain Tries Lamely to Explain (copyright by mfayehadley, 09/18/08) - a bizarro scenario in which McIdiot appeared to not only know the name of the President of Spain (Zapatero), or that Spain is an ally of the United States, is a fellow member of NATO, but he also apparently is geographically-challenged, not understanding that Spain is a country in Europe not Latin America. !Que loco!

4) McSame commenting on Septembet 17, 2008, his recent visit to and oil rig out in the Gulf of Mexico: "An oil rig off of the Louisiana coast. It survived hurricanes. It is safe, it is sound, and to somehow — And by the way, on that oil rig — and I’m sure you’ve probably heard this story — you look down, and there’s fish everywhere! There’s fish everywhere! Yeah, the fish love to be around those rigs. So not only can it be helpful for energy, it can be helpful for some pretty good meals as well."

Well, I guess that McInsane hasn't heard about the three oil rigs missing in the wake of Hurrican Ike, and I guess he's bought hook, line and sinker the following myths:
"Hurricanes won’t damage oil rigs. The U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 113 offshore oil platforms and caused 124 offshore spills for a total of 743,700 gallons. In fact, damage to offshore producers accounted for 77 percent of the oil industry’s storm costs. In the wake of Hurricane Ike, there are at least three offshore oil rigs missing and 'presumed to be total losses.'"

If anyone in this country still plans to cast his/her vote for the McBush/McPalin ticket I must assume that you are one of the fortunate 400 wealthiest Americans whose net income has grown by over 600% in the past seven years. If you are not one of this tiny and, dare I say it, elite group, then I gotta ask you WTF are you thinking or have you abandoned that faculty at your neighborhood Wal-Mart? Please think about this choice that you will make in just over six short weeks and cast your vote for real change. Obama/Biden '08!

Mind Over Matter...(on turning 50)

Yesterday, I had my 50th birthday and like many people facing this milestone, I had mixed feelings about celebrating the occasion. There are several cliches that I will run through just because they seem apropos - golden oldies like, "If I thought I was gonna live this long, I would have taken better care of myself," or "Turning 50 isn't great, but it beats the alternative." On a more serious note, I never really thought I'd reach this age. I have battled severe clinical depression most of my adult life, and have attempted suicide on more than one occasion. But here I am, thanks in no small part to a wonderful therapist and a fabulous psychiatrist that helped me through my most recent battle with the demon depression. Thanks also to my wonderful family who has always been there for me, no matter how badly I tried to hide from them and the world at large. And thanks also to the amazing friends that I have had the great good fortune to know, some for many, many years.

I am still in touch with my best friend from high school, although I just spent the last hour or so trying to find the obituary of my first best friend, Michele Dermond, who was not as fortunate as I, she died of a drug addiction and/or homelessness (depending on who is telling the story of her demise) in Fort Wayne, Indiana, sometime in the early 1980s. I remember my parents telling me about her death -they were friends with Michele's parents - Jackie and Ed Dermond. Ed worked with my Dad at Detroit Diesel Allison. I remember playing in the backyard of the Dermond's house off of Girls School Road. We started the fairy club. I remember walking to a Reed's Drug Store and buying a small bag of miniature Reese's peanut butter cups and sitting on a retaining wall over an almost dry creek and eating the candy while it melted on our fingers. I also remember that my Mom said to me when I told her about how we spent our afternoon, that "that is a memory you will have all of your life." And because she said that, it is so. I do remember that afternoon, the heat of a Hoosier summer, the walking and stopping to sit on the concrete wall, licking the chocolate off our fingers, hanging out with Michele, talking and laughing. We both planned to be writers, she actually wrote a diary - I just dreamed of fame and fortune. I have often tried to think about what happened in her life - we lost touch when we went off to different universities (I headed to Indiana University in Bloomington, Michele went to Ball State in Muncie, IN). I was poised to head up to visit her after we had both finished our undergraduate degrees, but a snow storm got in the way. That was the last time I talked with her - I could tell by the sound of her voice that something significant in her life had changed, but I didn't guess what it was. Not that I hadn't done my share of illegal substances by that time in my life, but I wasn't living on the streets, surviving hand to mouth, trying to score my next fix.

In any case, I just said "Hasta luego," to my parents who drove out (620 miles - I come by my love of road trips honestly) to help me celebrate my birthday. While they were here, I asked them again about what they knew about Michele's death, and they repeated the story that I remembered and have already recounted here. I picked up another piece of information that may help me as I search the vital records of Indiana, that is Michele's mother's maiden name, so I will go back online with this new piece of the puzzle and see if I can find a record of her death.

I have devoted a lot of this post to a friend now long gone, but there are certainly many friends who have been an important part of my life and I hope will always continue to be a part of my life. Not just my best friend from high school, but my two dear friends in Albuquerque, along with a group of friends that I am fortunate to work with at the University of Tulsa, and I cannot neglect to mention a new group of friends that I have met thanks to the Stephanie Miller Show and the blog, FourFreedoms. They are a great bunch of folks whose politics and good-humor have gotten me through some of the toughest times I have experienced over the past year.

Kalyn, mfaye, & Vicki at my 50th b-day party

I, like all honest people, have no idea how much more time I have to live in this world, but I am forever grateful for the people who have touched my life, those I mentioned here and those who will be forever in my past. It has been a wild ride and a good life so far, and I will continue on as long as I can - trying desperately to make a positive difference on this planet.

And She's Mean, Too :(

Who would have guessed that Sarah Palin is such a beee-otch? She sure proved it last night with a speech full of lies, hyperbole, attacks and sheer hate-filled talk. Where to start? In case you missed it - here it is in all of it's hate-fueled glory. It was set-up by a string of other lie-filled speeches by Mittens Romney, Mike Huckleberry, and Rudi "Noun-verb-9/11" Ghouliani. By the time Palin took the stage the audience had worked themselves into a frenzy of attack mode, ready to hear all of the lies and hate without any expectation of substance or a real discussion of issues that face Americans today.

I couldn't figure out what Mittens Romney was going on about - his theme seemed to be it's all the fault of the "liberals" completely ignorant of the fact that liberals haven't been in charge for the past eight years. What the hell was Mitt Romney talking about? It hasn't been liberals who have raised the national debt, spending money like drunken sailors. George W. Bush & Dick Cheney are certainly no liberals. It wasn't liberals who bowed down to special interests at the expense of the people. Liberals are not the party that gave tax breaks to the richest 1% of the population, while screwing the other 99%. Liberals are not to blame for the debacle that is Iraq, nor was it liberals who have ignored all the environmental laws and allowed our world to get dirtier and dirtier. Liberals were not the ones behind giving medical care over to health insurance and pharmaceutical companies so that even if a family has insurance - they still may be overwhelmed by medical bills, get behind in payments, and lose their house or their job (and thereby losing what little health insurance they had). Liberals didn't enshrine oil and gas companies and the huge, growing world of privatization to enrich themselves and their country club cronies with millions and millions (in some cases even billions) of dollars (Allow me to name just of few of the corporations and their boards and CEOs that were greatly enriched during the reign of Bush/Cheney: Kellogg, Brown & Root, Halliburton, ExxonMobile, BP, Chevron, Shell, Smith Barney, Citigroup, Enron, and the bail out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). Liberals generally did not support the passage of FISA or the strong expansion of surveillance powers by the executive branch of government.None of these are problems created by liberals, they are all the legacy of the GOP, the party that has been in charge for the past eight years, the party that it is time to retire in November.

Mike Huckleberry gave his homespun sob story about his trailer park upbringing, followed by Rudi "Noun-verb-9/11" Ghouliani who had nothing substantive to say about any issue that matters to anybody.

Here is some fact checking from Palin's speech (along with a few other whoppers spoken by the greasers who warmed up the crowd) last night:

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform _ not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families. He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state _ by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

From Huffington Post's Jim Kuhnhenn along with AP's Writer Jim Drinkard.

Here are a few more corrections from Gov. Sarah Palin's remarks to the Republican National Convention about her record in which she stretched the truth:

GAS PIPELINE

PALIN: "I fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history. And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly forty billion dollar natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence. That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.

THE FACTS: Palin implies that construction has begun on a major natural gas pipeline from the top of Alaska into Canada. That is not correct. In fact, no building has begun and actual construction is years away, if it ever happens. This summer the Alaska Legislature, at Palin's request, passed a bill under which the state will issue a "license" to a Canadian energy company, TransCanada Corp., and pay it up to $500 million as an incentive to someday build this enormous project, which Alaska politicians have long sought with little success. The license is not a construction contract, and federal energy regulators have not yet approved the project. Palin also puts the price tag for the project at $40 billion, an exaggeration. This is roughly $10 billion more than most cost estimates industry players and consultants have made to date.

EARMARKS

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation, although she has cut, by more than half, the amount the state sought from Washington this year. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina Island, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

From the Daily News reporter Wesley Loy and the Associated Press.

Read more about Mrs. Palin in the Alaska Daily News - I Have Known Sarah Since 1992...

Sarah Palin: the Least Qualified VP Nominee Ever

Okay, so here is a preview of the kind of judgment that a President McCain might exercise when he is contemplating the next Supreme Court Justice. The pundits like to say that a candidate's choice for Vice Presidential candidate is the first significant and telling judgment call of the nominee's candidacy. Well then, we have quite a window into the workings of the mind of McCain. What does this selection demonstrate to us as an insight into the mind of McSame? Is he thinking that by selecting a woman he might be able to coerce a few disgruntled Hill-bots (PUMAs) to his side by adding a woman to the ticket? If this is a part of McRage's consideration, then it assumes that the PUMAs would willing disregard the fact that that Mrs. Palin is strongly anti-choice, anti-science, and pro-drilling in ANWR. I think that McInsane's thinking was more along the lines that Sarah Palin is an evangelical Christian who is anti-choice, anti-science, and pro-drilling and in this way the selection of Mrs. Palin is a blatant plea to court the far religious right of the republican party.

Here are a few biographical facts about Palin:

--She was born in Idaho in 1964, and moved with her family a few months after her birth to Wasilla, Alaska.
--She was a beauty contestant (runner-up in the Miss Alaska 1984, although in all fairness, she was named Miss Congeniality).
--She is an evangelical Christian, strongly anti-choice (even in the case of rape or incest), is anti-science (supports the teaching of creationism in science classes), and is pro-drilling (even in ANWR).
--She is the mother of five children, ages 4 mos. (Trig) to 19 years old (Track) who is set to deploy to Iraq on Sept. 11, 2008.
--She is against same-sex marriage, and supports a constitutional amendment to declare marriage as the exclusive purview of one man and one woman.
--Her husband has Eskimo heritage and is a commercial fisherman (and not so well publicized by the McSame camp is the fact that he works for BP Oil).
--Palin is currently under investigation by her own legislature for abusing her gubernatorial power by firing a state employee who refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law.
--Palin's public service experience includes one term as mayor of Wasilla (population less than 9,000), and a mere 20 months as Governor of Alaska (population just under 700,000).
--Palin is a life-long member of the NRA and a strong supporter of everybody's right to arm themselves.
--Palin is a staunch support of abstinence education, however it was revealed on Monday, Sept. 1, 2008 that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant.
--When Palin was Mayor of Wasilla, she threatened to fire a librarian for not removing books from the shelf that Palin claimed had objectionable language - grrrrr :[
--In 2000, Palin voted for Pat Buchanan in the presidential election.
--Palin believes that human activity has no bearing on Global Warming and that Polar Bears should not be listed as an endangered species.
--Palin has no discernible foreign policy or international experience.

All of this must be considered in light of the fact that John McInsane is 72 years old and has a history of health problems (both disclosed and undisclosed) - one of the health issues of which we are aware includes recurring melanoma (skin cancer). The odds that McRage may not make it through one term in office are currently running about 20% - 40%, growing to 50% when the skin cancer factor is taken into account. This number doesn't consider the high likelihood that McSame might become disabled by Alzheimer's or some other age-related dementia.

All in all, I sure don't feel very sanguine about having a 44 year old hockey mom making decisions that could impact the global scene for generations to come, do you? Obama/Biden '08!

If this post failed to convince you that Palin is an awful choice, please see a thoughtful piece by a true patriot and Alaskan Native, Katrina Dolchuk Jacuk, Why I Do Not Support Sarah Palin.

A view from Mrs. Palin's hometown paper, Choice stuns state politicians.

And for those who are titillated by the purely salacious, check out this from the Daily Kos.

Memorable Lines from the DNC 2008

"America, now is not the time for small plans."

Barack Obama, August 28, 2008, Democratic National Convention

With the Democratic National Convention fading in the rearview mirror, here is my recap, of sorts: I offer up a collection of some of the most memorable lines (to me anyway) that were spoken in what struck me as a wealth of amazing, entertaining and well-delivered speeches. These are listed roughly in the order that they were delivered:

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg (Monday, August 25, 2008):

"I have never had someone inspire me the way people tell me my father inspired them, but I do now, Barack Obama. And I know someone else who's been inspired all over again by Senator Obama. In our family, he's known as Uncle Teddy. More than any senator of his generation, or perhaps any generation, Teddy has made life better for people in this country and around the world."

Senator Edward M. Kennedy (Monday, August 25, 2008):

"And so with Barack Obama -- for you and for me, for our country and for our cause – the work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on."

Michelle Obama (Monday, August 25, 2008):

"I come here as a Mom whose girls are the heart of my heart and the center of my world - they're the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I think about when I go to bed at night. Their future - and all our children's future - is my stake in this election."

"My Dad was our rock. Although he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in his early thirties, he was our provider, our champion, our hero. As he got sicker, it got harder for him to walk, it took him longer to get dressed in the morning. But if he was in pain, he never let on. He never stopped smiling and laughing - even while struggling to button his shirt, even while using two canes to get himself across the room to give my Mom a kiss. He just woke up a little earlier, and worked a little harder."

"Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you're going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know them, and even if you don't agree with them."

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (Tuesday, August 26, 2008):

"Even leaders in the oil industry know that Senator McCain has it wrong. We simply can't drill our way to energy independence, even if you drilled in all of John McCain's backyards, including the ones he can't even remember."

"Barack Obama understands the most important barrel of oil is the one you don't use. Barack Obama's energy strategy taps all sources and all possibilities. It will give you a tax credit if you buy a fuel-efficient car or truck, increase fuel-efficiency standards and put a million plug-in hybrids on the road."

Senator Hillary Clinton (Tuesday, August 26, 2008):

"Whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines. This is a fight for the future. And it's a fight we must win."

"You haven't worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership. No way. No how. No McCain."

"We have a lot of work ahead. Jobs lost, houses gone, falling wages, rising prices. The Supreme Court in a right-wing headlock and our government in partisan gridlock. The biggest deficit in our nation's history. Money borrowed from the Chinese to buy oil from the Saudis."

"I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?"

Tammy Duckworth (Wednesday, August 27, 2008):

"The administration of George Bush—supported by John McCain every step of the way—has let our warriors down. Our troops are courageous, strong and fierce. This administration has re-deployed them until they are overstretched, stressed and strained."

"I believe that America will elect the leader who has always fought to keep our nation’s promise to our veterans. I believe America will elect the leader who can best keep this nation strong. Barack Obama is right for our military. Barack Obama is right for our veterans. Barack Obama is right for our country. And that’s why Barack Obama will be our next commander-in-chief."

Senator John Kerry (Wednesday, August 27, 2008):

"Our mission is to restore America’s influence and position in the world. We must use all the weapons in our arsenal, above all, our values. President Obama and Vice President Biden will shut down Guantanamo, respect the Constitution, and make clear once and for all, the United States of America does not torture, not now, not ever."

"To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say, let’s compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain. Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once denounced as immoral. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain’s own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you’re against it."

"So remember, when we choose a commander-in-chief this November, we are electing judgment and character, not years in the Senate or years on this earth. Time and again, Barack Obama has seen farther, thought harder, and listened better. And time and again, Barack Obama has been proven right."

"Years ago when we protested a war, people would weigh in against us saying, “My country right or wrong.” Our answer? Absolutely, my country right or wrong. When right, keep it right. When wrong, make it right. Sometimes loving your country demands you must tell the truth to power."

President Bill Clinton (Wednesday, August 27, 2008):

"Most important, Barack Obama knows that America cannot be strong abroad unless we are strong at home. People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

"They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more. Let’s send them a message that will echo from the Rockies all across America: Thanks, but no thanks. In this case, the third time is not the charm."

"Barack Obama will lead us away from division and fear of the last eight years back to unity and hope. If, like me, you still believe America must always be a place called Hope, then join Hillary, Chelsea and me in making Senator Barack Obama the next President of the United States."

Senator Joe Biden (Wednesday, August 27, 2008):

"Let me make this pledge to you right here and now. For every American who is trying to do the right thing, for all those people in government who are honoring their pledge to uphold the law and respect our Constitution, no longer will the eight most dreaded words in the English language be: 'The vice president’s office is on the phone.'”

"You can learn an awful lot about a man campaigning with him, debating him and seeing how he reacts under pressure. You learn about the strength of his mind, but even more importantly, you learn about the quality of his heart. I watched how he touched people, how he inspired them, and I realized he has tapped into the oldest American belief of all: We don’t have to accept a situation we cannot bear. We have the power to change it. That’s Barack Obama, and that’s what he will do for this country. He’ll change it."

Susan Eisenhower (Thursday, August 28, 2008):

"I believe that Barack Obama has the energy and the temperament to lead this country. He knows that we can either advance on the distant hills of hope or retreat to the garrisons of fear. As our standard bearer, he can mobilize a demoralized America and inspire all of us to show up for duty. Discipline will be required, as will compromise, flexibility and quiet strength."

Vice President Al Gore (Thursday, August 28, 2008):

"With John McCain's support, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have led our nation into one calamity after another because of their indifference to fact; their readiness to sacrifice the long term to the short term, subordinate the general good to the benefit of the few and short-circuit the rule of law."

"So why is this election so close? Well, I know something about close elections, so let me offer you my opinion. I believe this election is close today mainly because the forces of the status quo are desperately afraid of the change Barack Obama represents. There is no better example than the climate crisis. As I have said for many years throughout this land, we're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the future of human civilization. Every bit of that has to change."

"And it just so happens that the climate crisis is intertwined with the other two great challenges facing our nation: reviving our economy and strengthening our national security. The solutions to all three require us to end our dependence on carbon-based fuels."

"Then let us leave here tonight and take the message of hope from Denver to every corner of our land, and do everything we can to serve our nation, our world-and most importantly, our children and their future-by electing Barack Obama President of the United States."

Senator Barack Obama (Thursday, August 28, 2008):

"These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush. America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this."

"The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives - on health care and education and the economy - Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made 'great progress' under this President. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisors - the man who wrote his economic plan - was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, 'a nation of whiners.'"

"You see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country. We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage; whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma. We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was President - when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of down $2,000 like it has under George Bush."

"Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves - protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology. Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work."

"Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime - by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow. But I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less - because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy."

"And just as we keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must we keep America's promise abroad. If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have."

"We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans -- Democrats and Republicans - have built, and we are here to restore that legacy."

"The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America. So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first."

"I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington. But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you."

"America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future."

If you missed any of these and many other fantastic speeches, google them, watch them on YouTube, click on the speakers' names and read the full text for yourself. But more than that, believe these words, because these words are perhaps all that stands between us and a catastrophic future, a future too dismal to imagine, a future that, if it includes a McCain presidency, will destroy us all as surely as day turns to night. So get out there and work your butts off for Barack Obama (& Joe Biden) - the future of the planet demands nothing less. Obama/Biden '08!

Don't Be a Sucka For the GOP

Since long before Thomas Frank wrote What's the Matter with Kansas? I have always wondered about the legions of middle-class and working-class people who vote time and time again against their own best interest, by casting their votes for the Republican party and their candidates. I can't help but feel that the Hill-bots (i.e. PUMAs) are following in the footsteps of all those other misguided souls who cast a vote against their own best interest. Why are these men and women threatening to vote for John McSame or to stay at home and not vote at all rather than casting a vote that might actually achieve the change that they were so hungry for when Hillary Clinton offered it. I just don't get it.

The GOP may not understand it either, but that won't stop McInsane and his campaign from exploiting these folks to their own ends. To wit, see McSame's recently released campaign ad that features the words of Hillary Clinton used against Barack Obama. Please don't be a dupe for the RNC!

But alas, the PUMAs of this country are post-rational (po-rash to mfaye) a phrase coined by Rachel Maddow (see recent post Mad About Maddow, this blog). Which of course is a popular intellectual's way of sayin' that there is no reasonin' wit 'em. They are living in another world. Even Chris Matthews challenged the smart one (Ms. Maddow) that her comment wouldn't win over many Hillary supporters, Maddow retorted "I'm not trying to win over any Hillary fans, I am just trying to put up a good argument." May I say that Maddow makes loads of sense to me, while the Hill-bots (I am tiring of the PUMA meme already) just don't make any sense to me at all - yet it seems that every time I try to point this out I am shouted back down by the ultimate victim's cry "But he didn't win fair and square," accompanied by stomping feet and pounding fists. A little child crying out "No, I won't eat my peas, no, I won't, I won't!" Whatever, just please don't console yourself with the thought that Obama (if he should come up short in this race), lost this race on his own. If John McInsane manages to steal this election, you better be prepared to look in the mirror on November 5th and recognize the reason why this world will come crumbling down - it is you and your ilk, and I, for one, will never ever forgive you for it. I am not kidding.

Early Impressions of Obama's VP Pick

Barack Obama "is a clear-eyed pragmatist who will get the job done."
Senator Joe Biden, August 23, 2008

So, Obama's campaign selected Senator Joe Biden (D - Delaware), granted not the most creative pick, but here, today, I am prepared to defend the choice as a pragmatic one. And after eight years of right wing republican rule, I'll take pragmatism over neo-cons anytime. Here, as I see it, are the strengths that Biden brings to the ticket:

1) He brings thirty years of experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - huge foreign policy experience.

2) He's from Pennsylvania (Scranton, PA) Catholic, working-class, and may be able to connect with the Hil-bots who voted for Clinton in the primaries.

3) He is a pitbull and can do much of Obama's attacking that will no doubt need to be done if this team is going to win the White House.

4) If McCain chooses to go back in time and look at some of Biden's past misdeeds, McSame opens himself up to a rehashing of the Keating Five scandal and I really don't think McInsane wants to go there.

Drawbacks of selecting Senator Joe Biden (D - Delaware):

1) He brings thirty years of experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - will open Obama up to criticism that he has abandoned his call for "Change in DC."

2) Selecting Biden, with all his years of experience, will be seen by the GOP and some PUMAs as an admission on Obama's part that he is weak on foreign policy.

3) Biden is known for his numerous verbal gaffes - they will no doubt play ad nauseam the clip of Biden saying that "Obama is a clean and articulate candidate."

4) Biden has strong ties to corporate America (after all, Delaware is where most companies that have roots in this country are incorporated).

I'm sure I've missed a few advantages and disadvantages, but the most important point that needs to be made, again and again and again, is that we must end the reign of terror that has been wielding power over this country and the world since it stole the White House in 2000. To that end we have but one choice - to cast our votes for Obama in November. Sitting out this election is tantamount to tossing up ones hands and admitting defeat, before the finish line is even in sight (a move that I will be making if the GOP steals another election in the fall).

I, for one, am glad that the Obama camp stood up and made a solid, thoughtful choice that will garner more votes for the Democratic Party (rather than picking Joe Lieberman, or Geraldine Ferraro, or some other choice that does nothing but ensure a GOP victory come November - although I still maintain that Al Gore won that race :). I admire the Obama campaign for considering not just the Democratic party base, but also all those other voters that we need to win over in November. As I said, Biden is not an exciting choice, but choosing Biden is pragmatic in the very best sense of the word, and I'll take pragmatism over the disaster that we've had for the past eight years, any day... Obama/Biden '08!!!

Mad About Maddow

I just couldn't let this occasion pass without giving a shout out to our grrrrl, Dr. Rachel Maddow, Rhodes Scholar and all around great gal who just landed her own show on MSNBC. The show is set to kick off on September 8th and will follow the insightful Mr. Keith Olbermann at 8:00pm (CST). This move on the part of MSNBC is another sign that progressives are stealing more and more air time from the staid and stuffy usual political pundits that inhabit the airwaves and the myriad cable news channels. I love me some Rachel Maddow, unfortunately for me, she's taken. She and her partner, Susan Mikula, share homes in Manhattan and West Cummington, Massachusetts.

Born on April 1st, 1973, this grrrl is no April Fool. She graduated from Stanford University in 1994 with a degree in public policy then headed to England, where, as a Rhodes Scholar, she earned a doctorate in political science.

Way to go Rachel - knock 'em all dead!

Read more about this rising star: Mad About Rachel Maddow, by Rebecca Traister in The Nation.

MoDo Gets the Story, But Misses the Point

This morning I was perusing the NYTimes - an activity that I do most every Sunday and I turned as I do most every Sunday to the op-ed column written by Maureen Dowd (MoDo to those of us who feel a sort of familiar relationship with this usually witty writer). She, of course, focused her column this morning on the revelation that John Edwards had an affair in 2006, an affair that he has already confessed to his wife (whom he did not leave). I make a point of these details of Edwards' affair not to excuse his actions, but rather to contrast Edwards' infidelity with another man who is much closer to becoming president (John McCain).

The McCain affair was equally tawdry; it not only took place while his then wife was suffering from sever complications from a debilitating accident, but it also resulted in a divorce - a divorce that allowed McCain to marry the multi-millionaire beer heiress, Cindy Lou Hensley - the woman who would finance McCain's entree (and continued career) in[to] the political arena. So whose infidelity is worse? I think that McCain's infidelity is much worse than Edwards' affair, namely because of the situation in which McCain left his "first family." McCain left his first wife high and dry - so much so that the former Mrs. McCain had to turn to billionaire Ross Perot to survive. So this all prompted me to leave a comment for Ms. MoDo. The comment reads as follows:

MoDo,
Shame on you for not following up this insipid coverage of the Edwards affair with an equally scolding report on the transgressions of the current Republican presumptive nominee, John McCain, who not only cheated on his wife, but didn't wait until she had fully recovered from a debilitating accident. McCain not only cheated on his wife, he left her in a compromised state. Why is everybody ignoring this more significant infidelity?
— mfhadley, Tulsa, OK

Here's a link to a more detailed list of McCain's sordid past: Phoenix Reporter Details McCain's Sordid Political Past

Here's a link to another blog post that came before this one that basically makes the same point: Bubble wrapped by the great Velveeta Jones at FourFreedomsBlog.com.

Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain, by Phillip Butler.

Judge Rules in Cobell Litigation :(

After twelve long years of seemingly endless litigation, DC District Court Judge James Robertson finally gave a monetary amount to the betrayal of the Individual Indian Money account holders who have lost by most honest assessments billions and billions of dollars in mismanaged trust funds. The number that the Judge settled on was $455,600,000.00 - not even close to one billion dollars and a fraction of what the plaintiffs were seeking ($47 billion dollars). Once again the federales have screwed the Native people of this land, many of whom have died during the last twelve years of drawn-out litigation while the government kept delaying hearings, requesting postponements and otherwise attempting to wear the plaintiffs down and drain their meager resources so that they would settle for an amount far lower than what the government knew that they owed. Elouise Cobell (the lead plaintiff in this class action lawsuit), not unexpectedly, disagrees with the ruling:
"I am disappointed, to say the least," said Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation of Montana. "We believe we presented a strong, compelling case that individual Indian trust beneficiaries are entitled to much more than the government's admitted mismanagement of our trust monies over the past 120 years."

Once again the federal government has failed to live up to its legal obligations as trustee for the Native beneficiaries in whose best interest it promised to act, and it has been exonerated by the courts of the same lying, cheating system for its failures.

If you would like to read the ruling that settled on the paltry amount that the government owes the Native people of this land, please click here.

If you'd like to see the complete history of this case, please visit Indian Trust: Cobell v. Kemthorne.

If you would like to read an interview by Amy Goodman of Elouise Cobell - see: Federal Judge Rules US Government Owes Group of Native Americans $455 Million for Unpaid Royalties on Drilling for Oil and Gas.

Could Nuance Undo the Dems?

There are several large differences between the Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate for president, but the difference that has me worried at the moment can be summed up in one word - "nuance." Senator Barack Obama speaks in thoughtful, nuanced statements, Senator John McCain speaks (when he manages to speak at all :) ) in sound bites, slogans, phrases that once dissected are revealed as meaningless. The former takes careful listening and some thought while the latter is easily digested and more importantly easily repeated. This observation may help to explain why McCain is gaining in the polls during a year when even GOP pundits admit that the race is the Democrats for the taking. The current resident of the White House has lower poll numbers than any president has had before, the nation is sick and tired of sending our money and young men and women to Iraq and want that war to end. Here at home, Americans are weary of rising gas prices, and the concomitant rises in grocery and utility bills, never mind increasing foreclosures, bank failures, and job losses. In a word, the economy sucks. But this is not the greatest threat to the Obama presidential candidacy - it is rather the Harriets of the country who are still sitting at home licking their wounds, still playing the role of the wounded woman, the victim, if you will, of a sexist press corps, of unfair coverage, all the while ignoring the very real reasons why their candidate (Hillary Rodham Clinton) in not the presumptive nominee.

Why in all this mess would anybody do anything to continue this madness? I have a few choice words for the Clintonistas who have morphed into PUMAs (Party Unity My Ass), if you think sitting this one out will keep your hands clean, you haven't thought very far ahead. In a country in which the GOP is actively looking to disenfranchise any voter who may cast a vote for a Democratic candidate, choosing to stay home on election day will not only play right into the hands of the GOP, but will also help continue the madness and disastrous policies that have so severely damaged our country and our place in the world over the last eight years. I don't care whether you fancy yourself as Switzerland (and if you were in fact Swiss I can almost guarantee that you would be an Obama supporter) and claim to share their neutral stance; I must remind you that you live here in America and there is NOTHING NEUTRAL ABOUT THIS COMING ELECTION! Each and every vote will count only if each and every vote is cast and recorded accurately. That is a noble goal and one that we won't be able to achieve if we have good Democrats sitting on the sideline holding their noses or worse sitting at home on their superior couches, telling themselves the lie that there is anything meritorious about not voting on November 4th. So get off your non-unified party asses and head to the polls on November 4th and do the right thing for your party and your country. The future of the world and the history that we will make on that day demand nothing less!

Sometimes a Picture (or a Cartoon) is Worth a Thousand Words

Da Boyz are Back in Town!

Dylan & Tulsey in Jamestown, Indiana
(Summer Camp with Grandma & Grandpa)

Yesterday I drove from Tulsa, OK to Rolla, MO and met my parents who handed off my doggies to me. Da boyz had been staying with my Mom & Dad since I dropped them off over the 4th of July weekend. Tulsey and Dylan are both leaner and seem to be better behaved than they were when I left them at my folks' farm in Jamestown, Indiana. They stayed outside most all of the time while they were there (except when they were allowed in the garage when a thunderstorm blew through - thunder scares the bejesus out of the boyz like nothing else, with the possible exception of fireworks). Anyway, I just wanted to let those who are regular readers of this blog know that da boyz are back in town, and my house is once again filled with the joy and companionship that only dogs can bring. Yeah :)

A Congressional Remedy for Oliphant?

Thirty years ago the Supreme Court ruled in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U.S. 191, 98 S.Ct. 1011, 55 L.Ed.2d 209 (1978) essentially that Native Nations had no jurisdiction over non-Indians who committed crimes on tribal land. Justice Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion which held that Indian tribal courts do not have inherent criminal jurisdiction to try and to punish non-Indians, and hence may not assume such jurisdiction unless specifically authorized to do so by Congress.

This decision arguably left a jurisdictional gap that in many cases has not been adequately filled. Yesterday, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs held hearings on a bill designed to give Native American courts and law enforcement broader authority to combat violent and sex-related crimes. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and 12 co-sponsors introduced the Tribal Law and Order Act on Wednesday. Joining Dorgan as co-sponsors to this legislation are Senators Murkowski, Biden, Domenici, Baucus, Bingaman, Lieberman, Kyl, Johnson, Smith, Cantwell, Thune, Tester.

If passed, the bill would give American Indian courts authority to impose stricter sentences, expand the courts' jurisdiction to cover more non-Indian suspects, and provide for additional law enforcement training and federal cooperation in addressing the crimes.

In a prepared statement for the hearing, National American Indian Court Judges Association Vice President Roman Duran (Tesuque/Hopi) commented:

"Tribal courts agonize over the very same issues state and federal courts confront in the criminal context, such as, assault and battery, predatory crimes, hate crimes, child sexual abuse, alcohol and substance abuse, gang violence, violence against women, and now methamphetamine along with the social ills that are left in its wake. These courts, however, while striving to address these complex issues with far fewer financial resources than their federal and state counterparts must also 'strive to respond competently and creatively to federal and state pressures coming from the outside, and to cultural values and imperatives from within.' ... Judicial training that addresses the present imperatives posed by the public safety crisis in Indian Country, while also being culturally sensitive, is essential for tribal courts to be effective in deterring crime in their communities."

Jurisdictional Variation in American Indian Criminal Justice: An Argument for Stronger Understanding and Better Methods

Amnesty International Report: MAZE OF INJUSTICE - The failure to protect Indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA

Obama in the World

Ah, summertime, time to hit the road or the airport, time to do some serious traveling. Stephanie Miller headed for England and Ireland (courtesy of the U.S. State Department - no joke!), and I just returned from a trip to Oregon (Portland and the Oregon coast). Senator Barack Obama is taking the summer travel time to visit hot spots around the world and in doing so he is exposing the depth of the hatred that has been engendered by the current Bush/Cheney administration. For right wingers, it is anathema to suggest that any American politician follow or even demonstrate the slightest admiration for anything European (such as their universal health care or the way that they manage to take care of their children and their elders), gasp! According to the Fox viewers and dittoheads, we should never look to imitate anything that is done by those socialist (damn-near communist) countries across the pond. Could it be that those who hold those Neanderthal notions are just a skosh jealous?



"Germans have fallen in love with the man many in Europe have come to see as the anti-Bush -- the man who many hope will steer America back toward the path of peace, love and happiness. Almost three-quarters of Germans would vote for Obama were they given the opportunity to do so; in France, that number approaches 90 percent. Berlin authorities are expecting tens of thousands -- maybe even hundreds of thousands -- for his appearance later this week."
Der Spiegel, July 21, 2008

It is more than a skosh ironic that while Senator Obama was busy touring Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine and Israel (and is on his way to Germany to speak in Berlin tomorrow), that the duly-appointed prime minister of the Republic of Iraq stated to a German magazine (Der Spiegel), in no uncertain terms, that it is time for the United States and any and all auxiliary forces to leave his sovereign nation. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki not only endorsed the very same time-table (now renamed by BushCo as a "time horizon" - laughable, if it weren't so pathetic) that Obama has been proposing for months. This development leaves John McCain in the diplomatic dust, as the Bush/Cheney administration was quick to dance around the statement made by the Iraqi Prime Minister.

In my humble opinion, this all should have been done years ago, but I agreed with Mr. Obama that this particular war should never have been fought. But now that we are there, it is way past time for us to leave. So let's get out, already... All of the media coverage of Obama's travels has Mr. McCain crying foul, but his protests that the media is enamored of Obama doesn't hold much water as CBS edited a recent interview to make McCain look much more polished and intelligent than his words might suggest. See coverage of the doctored Katie Couric/John McCain interview here. That's all from me today, folks, talk amongst yourselves, until I am over this nasty respiratory infection that has a hold of me at the moment. Carry on, kids...

A Message to Loyal Readers of this Blog...

Hello Loyal Readers,

Just a quick note to let you all know that I am on the road - currently accessing the internets from the Tillamook Public Library (a loverly facilty, I might add - fund Public Libraries!!!). I wanted to also let you know that I am having trouble with my laptop. "Bad pool header" is the message I am getting whenever I try to log on, and I don't think that that is a good thing. I'll be back in Tulsa on Sunday evening and have my laptop into Geek Rescue on Monday, so I hope to be back online by Monday evening - please stay tuned... And I'll leave you all with a beautiful shot of the Oregon Coast to dance around in your heads while I am away.

In Praise of Librarians

I am in Portland, Oregon attending the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting and being in the company of fellow librarians (not all of whom are radical and militant, but many of whom are) I would like to point out and praise one brave member of my chosen profession who stood tall this last week and had the audacity to express a fairly innocuous sentiment (McCain = Bush) and was escorted off the premises for her simple expression of free speech. The librarian's name is Carol Kreck and she has blogged about her experience on the Huffington Post. Not only is this a curious sentiment to object to (McCain = Bush) as it would seem that any good Republican would not only welcome a comparison between a sitting president and his own party's candidate for the same office, but also it is curious that any self-respecting Republican would find fault with a sign that merely compares two prominent party stalwarts. It was even more strange that this sign caught the attention of the local police department who saw fit to escort Ms. Kreck away from an event that candidate McCain was about to appear. The event at which McCain was about to appear was being held in a public building - Denver Center for the Performing Arts. The irony apparently lost on the police who, under orders from the McCain campaign, removed and ticketed Ms. Kreck for attempting to enter the McCain campaign event.

Life Without Dogs

The house is so empty when I open the door at the end of a working day, there are no creatures scratching at the door or whining (just a little bit ) from Dillie-doo-doo or Tulsey-loo-loo. I MISS MY BOYZ :( Who wouldn't miss these sweet faces?

Tulsey & Dylan

Meanwhile, Over in Afghanistan...

Today in Afghanistan not only is there yet another report about a suicide bomber that killed over 40 people, but also there are reports of more civilians killed by the U.S. military in this war-torn country. That turns out to be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problems that are faced in this neglected war in Afghanistan (remember the first war after September 11, 2001, the one that the rest of the world all understood, why we would want to go after the very men who planned and atacked the US on that fateful day). Despite what Fred Barnes says, most experts agree that the war in Afghanistan is every bit as important, if not more so, than the war in Iraq.
It is not just the resurgent Taliban that demonstrates the price we have paid for taking our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, but the poppy crop has exploded as the Taliban uses the revenue raised from growing poppies to keep their group alive and thriving. Along with a resurgent Taliban is the danger of Al-Qaeda working with other militant groups along the Pakistani/Afghan border to reconstitute terrorist cells that send suicide bombers to Kabul and shake up the already unsteady government of President Hamid Karzai, the government that is being propped up by the Bush/Cheney administration.

"While Pakistani militants with links to the Taliban have bolstered their strength in the border areas, the Taliban in Afghanistan have clashed with international troops in the worst summer fighting since the Taliban fell seven years ago. The Taliban have resurfaced strongly in the southern and eastern parts of the country." (NYTimes, July 7, 2008)

So thanks loads, Bush & Cheney (& Condi and Gates), for letting Osama Bin Laden get away, and diverting troops and resources from the real war against those who actually attacked us on 9/11, and leaving a huge mess in your wake. But hey, that's what you're good at, it's the only thing you've ever done during your tenure in office - make a huge mess. And in this mess, like so many of your other messes (Katrina, Iraq, the mortgage crisis, the energy debacle, etc...) people have been hurt and thousands of people have died. Thanks, thanks for nothing, George & Dick.

Major Insurgent Attacks in Afghanistan Since 2001 (NYTimes, July 7, 2008)

A Note to Loyal Readers of this Blog

I just wanted to apologize and explain why I haven't added a new post in almost a week. On Thursday, I drove from Tulsa to Jamestown, Indiana to celebrate my Mom's birthday (and the 4th of July) and to leave my doggies (Tulsey & Dylan) at "summer camp." The house is now entirely too quiet and feels empty, but I will drive back to Jamestown (about 620 miles) at the end of July and pick up da boyz. They will no doubt be leaner when I see them next; in fact, my brother-in-law noticed that Dillie has gotten rather chubby, so we whispered that this was "fat camp" for Dylan ;) Anyway, here's a little something for you all to watch and listen to. I hope that this eye candy (Willie or Sheryl - whichever way you swing) makes up for the lack of posts.

Sheryl Crow & Willie Nelson - On the Road Again (Dedicated to RB :D )

Tacking Right - Governing Left

Tacking Right – Governing Left

I have been mulling over the political moves, statements and actions that Senator Barack Obama has made over the last week or so and I think I’ve made some kind of peace with myself and with him about the various stances that he has taken. He is no doubt tacking to the center (some may even accuse him of going to the right, but I think that that is little bit of hyperbole). Here are the statements that have caused me concern over the last week: First, Obama’s response to the Supreme Court's only decent ruling at the end of this term – the one that ruled that the death penalty was not appropriate for child rapists. I agreed with this opinion, primarily because I am not in favor of the death penalty in any circumstances and even if I were, I think that children are notoriously unreliable witnesses, and are so malleable and easily influenced that little stock can be put in their testimony. So I was truly disappointed that Barack Obama came out with a statement critical of the Court’s decision. Obama said that he thought that the Court had gotten it wrong and that the decision as to whether a crime qualified as a capital crime should be left up to the states. The old "states' rights" gambit is often heard on the right when those on the other side of the political aisle feel that the Federales have interfered too directly in a right that they value (abortion and education come to mind here, although I also must point out that the “states' rights” argument doesn’t seem to apply when a state votes for assisted suicide or medical use of marijuana).

That was the first sign that Obama was looking for issues onto which he could take a more conservative stand and hopefully slide under the radar of his progressive base. But we are watching vigilantly and we notice just about every move our candidate makes, and although few of us faulted him for foregoing public campaign financing, some of his other stands of late have us shaking our heads. For instance, he not only challenged the Supreme Court decision on the Death Penalty, but he also (and I believe that this is a much more troubling stand) reneged on his promise to filibuster the FISA bill that offers retroactive immunity to telecom companies that have by all accounts broken the law.

But as Jason Rosenbaum wrote at HuffPo in an article entitled The Obama Problem:
“But the only way to hold a Presidential candidate in the general election accountable once the general election season comes around is to work for their defeat or otherwise endanger their victory. For most of us, given the alternative of four more years of deadlocked government and a stubborn, hyper-aggressive President McCain, that is not an acceptable option. I see occasional commenters writing about not lifting a finger to help Obama now that he's screwed us on FISA or other issues, but I don't think very many of us in the progressive movement are there. Am I bummed, am I pissed that Obama and most of our Democratic leaders caved in on FISA? Absolutely, and there's nothing wrong with saying so. But am I going to "hold Obama accountable" for this action? Well, no, frankly. I don't think there's a way to do that without doing something far worse. It's the nature of the American political system: winner take all, no instant runoffs, no fusion voting (except in a few states). In the months before a Presidential general election, I can't think of another alternative re the Presidential race other than doing everything I can do to help Obama win.”

So be it an unwelcome lesson in pragmatism or a cold slap in the face, we must stand by our candidate for the alternative is so horrible that we cannot or will not imagine it. I will not live in a country that continues the horrendous policies of the current Bush/Cheney administration. I could not abide the election of John McCain, so I will fight my heart out for Barack Obama and hope against hope that he is a practical person, too. And that once he gets into office he will lead again with his good heart and his fine mind and get this country back on track. It seems to me our not our only but also our best hope. Viva Obama. Si se puede! Yes, we can and we must. Peace out, everybody. (Another version of this post appears at FourFreedomsBlog)

The Guardian in U.K. Gets Obama right (Daily Kos, June 28, 2008)

Obama Supporters Take His Middle Name as Their Own (NYTimes, June 29, 2008)