Nearly Half of You Loves the Rich Enough...

Seriously, I haven't been blogging for awhile but it doesn't mean I haven't been enjoying the ride.

Obama seems poised to finally say all those things we wanted him to say at the very beginning of his presidency, finally remembering that he wasn't  elected to play nice with the Good Old Boy's Club (now with spunky hostesses!) but to protect the interests of his base, the middle-class.

The Republicans have found more callous and twisted than them and are a bit surprise. And annoyed. 

Yahoo has erected itself as the Fox News of the internet, doctoring main stories distribution and choosing elements of coverage that only reflect Tea party/GOP allegiance. The comments section itself is nothing more but a gathering of strident bullies, a motley crew of GOP zombies repeating that they want nothing more than to let the Tea Party loose on the world and let the theocracy that the Saintly Anointed Founding Fathers OBVIOUSLY wanted for this country  triumph at long last! This victory will usher a new dawn of God fearing prosperity, where women are women and paid less, men are tools and paid less and children that have the money get educated and the rest are paid less or sent to war! Imagine! They'll get a gun!  EACH! For free!… la-la-la la-la-la!!

Damn! Where's Poland when you need it?!

Well, yes, all that would be tempting and enticingly suicidal but I prefer my Democracy lunatic-free and anti-totalitarian. I know, old habits die hard… So I still go back to Yahoo to get my GOP sponsored news page and I sill read the AP news wire everyday. And everyday I wish I could laugh it all off as an elaborate punk hoax by George Orwell  but, no, doublespeak is the new official language of the United States. For exemple:

AP-GfK Poll: Nearly Half Oppose Tax Hikes for Rich.

Pasted from <http://www.fair.org/index.php>

Isn't that pretty? Nearly half! Well that couldn't mean that (counting on my fingers)... let's say, more than half?... So.. the majority?  By Jove, my man, the majority are for tax hikes for the Rich (with a capital R)! 

I would have given a bloody Pulitzer to any decent journalist that would have wrote a simple, reality based headline: Majority of Americans are for the Repeal of Bush tax cut for the Wealthy.

Less sexy to the lunatic fringe, I guess…

How AP Can Make a Poll Say Whatever It Wants It To

Posted by Julie Hollar on 09/16/10 at 11:36 am

An AP piece published across the Web today (9/16/10) carries this headline: AP-GfK Poll: Nearly Half Oppose Tax Hikes for Rich.

Well, that's one way of looking at it--just like you could report the results of the 1988 election by saying that Michael Dukakis got "nearly half" of the popular vote. The more logical way of putting it would be that more than half support letting tax cuts expire for the rich: 54 percent to 44 percent. But framing it instead around the minority position lets them focus on how Democrats might worry about "provoking the 44 percent who say the reductions should include the wealthy," as opposed to worrying about provoking the majority who don't feel that way.

And that majority is particularly strong among Democratic voters (three quarters), who are presumably the ones Democratic lawmakers need to be most worried about, particularly given the sharp drop in enthusiasm among those voters.

Pasted from <http://www.fair.org/index.php>

State of the Union Corporation

Where I am, there is a small blizzard and the girls are joyously rioting in the snow.

But for me, to paraphrase Shaky, this is the winter of my discontent.

The political landscape that is emerging from the cold here is one of catastrophic, epic shithole proportion.

Stephen Harper have decided that he doesn't need parliament to have a good time after all and decreed - by some imaginary superhero' s omnipotence - that they can all go take a hike until March... because the economy is getting better and he needs to think!

In my birth country, the judges of the Supreme Court have decided that corporation needed free reign on every political aspect of governance and could flux and influence as many 'guns-for-hire' they wanted to make sure their satisfaction was guaranteed.

And Haiti, birth place of my mother and her 12 long-exiled siblings, is oozing and burning like an infected blister in the sun, while every doctor on the planet is making promises of doing something very soon about it.

Obama - and this is no typo - Obama lost Massachussetts' election AND the Kennedy seat (!) because he believed- unlike every single voter that choose his name over McPalin - the right-wing dream pairing of the century- that he must represent the center and keep the Bushes' legacy alive. Even if it means taking the blame for all their failures, excesses, ugliness, law breaking craziness and their deficit.

Somehow, change meant not rocking the boat.

Believe me, I know he must feel pressured from all over to keep quiet, lay low and let the Big Boys handle it. He actually, like Colin Powell before him, spent all his political capital, credence and reputation for the status quo so as to make those Big Boys as comfy as possible.

All the while, the middle class and Main Street were ready to follow him anywhere as long as it wasn't to More of the Same.

But he's not the only one that should be blamed.

Those famous blue dog Dems should all be called teh 'We're in the Pockets of the Healthcare Industry ... and They're in Mine! Tee-Hee!' stupid coalition. They're exchangeable monkeywrenches needed to grind everything to a halt.

And the Supreme Court just gave them a raise. Indirectly, of course...

Now what?

What is wrong with this pictures? The entire population wants Obama to create jobs while keeping government spending low. Most gave a blank check to the private sector and are still waiting for the trickle down thingy to take effect. (Jobs? From the private sector? They have jets and bonuses to think of!) They want the Golden Days to come back but without any rules, unions, taxes, trade barriers and a war that eats 70% of all the government's budget.

Yeah... Right...

Mr. President. Good luck. And forgive the Middle Class because they just don't know in what mess they're in. Too bad they'll blame you for all of it.

But I can't help it, I still hope for you.
Read a lefty someday. Better yet: take one in your administration.
They might surprise you. Maybe even help you. You would need a friend.

I Love Him... But I just Want to Kick his Butt

'I really do love him but…' It's what comes to mind every time I see him.

Yes, I'm talking about my ex.

But I'm also talking about my dear President.

The list gets longer after the' but' in my ex's case. Unfortunately, it's starting to be the same situation with my Prez.

Who writes his speeches? Who could tell him he's not in class or in court anymore? Who could tell him to buy a barf bag, sit down and actually study Bush-moron Junior for a little while?

I'm shocked at my self to even suggest this but O.B. Man needs to study the nitwit in chief and let some of his sweat locker monosyllabic charm rub off on him.

'O the Man' forgot that what he was voted for was to be the champion of the Little Guys of the nation, the champion of inclusion and the end of exploitation of the Everyday people by the 1% of the Porky Pigs (thus, the Nobel. But those feelings of vindication are so long past and forgotten, we just don't know why O's here anymore.)

He should remember that the middle class put him as Commander-in-Chief to clean house and bust heads. (Yeah… They were stereotyping.) And he needs to lead by being clear about his targets, zeroing in on identifiable enemies and stopping all appeasement actions toward the neo-KKK movement now at the heart of the so-called Republican party.

'Cynical claims...' speech lingo, talk-show tennis talk and, no, not even a consumer protection bill won't cut it (Funnily enough, most won't feel concern about it as rules can sometimes be easily circumvent by business, as we all saw…)

We feel hesitancy, anxiety and downright unwillingness to shake up the established order of things. People pleasing is not an attractive quality in a leader.

Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis talks about the need for the US to remember who we are. I would add a nuance and say that the US needs to remember that we can change and accomplished more by cooperation than savage competition. That we always did. That's who we can be anytime we chose to. And no one give a tone and a sense of identity or direction to this nation as it's President.

Well, it's between him and Paris Hilton.

Seriously though, Obama is poised to become one of the greatest. If he can find the right voice to communicate with his constituents, if he can learn from all his predecessors and most importantly, if he starts to yield a big whacking stick that he'll use unapologetically for the common good.

I'm shock again, but Biden did it well against Vampire-in-chief Cheney. Simple, monosyllabic and on target.

TADAIMA!: I'm back ! ( or Some come, some go...)

Haaaa! School life....

One day all is under control, the other you hope to get through that ridiculously empty, self-absorbed, , "post-modern" bs-full French deconstructivist jargon - all 250 pages of that disgusting, vile stuff - and, at the same time, not rip all your hair out at the gall of the Republicans to try that "we are the common people" barf inducing joke again and again.... And see them succeed, again and again!!

Yep, so I'm studying Japanese/French/comparative literature and translation. Last leg before starting my Master's, if all goes well, so I'm psyched!

But Obama is still in the back of my mind and I was soooo proud of him, even though 2 HUGE party-pooper problems still made me wish for perfection to exist...

Yeah, one is easy to guess because it's bloody, ugly and shameless despite all proof: it's Gaza.

The other might be more difficult to understand for those who are still on post-election cloud 9: the Democrats systematic capitulation of the agenda setting's rhythm to the Republicans.

Still, to this day, we have to "negotiate", we have to give them the damn inch that they will transform exponentially and voraciously into light-years, we have to act kindly while they stump their feet.

Every mother of a 2 or 3 years old knows what to do in a case like this but not the bleeding heart Dems.

When a child is having a tantrum, you watch him kindly, smile and move away firmly and resolutely from the scene. You wait 'till they get their senses back, then you repeat your instructions until they sink in.

You do not give in. You do not negotiate (too much. But that depends on the degree of maturity of your toddler. Since this is the Repugs we're talking about, the level is -1 to nil. So just skip that part), you do not give candy for bad behaviour and to make peace at all cost or to look good for company because then your toddler will take you for a deranged idiot, and rightly so.

You stand firm.

When will that happen, with the Dems?

Good that some nutcases have left the building, but this sinking ship is still full of rats.
Obama, our new captain and his crew must do all in their power to keep us safe, not throw us overboard or feed us to the disloyal, deceiving thieves that put us all in this mess in the first place...

Republicans to Use Internet (and lots of dough) to Fight Obama

Actually, this story I found on Yahoo! Tech could be considered the continuation of yesterday's Naomi Klein story.

It does confirm that the Internet will be the tool of choice to help Obama or keep him in line for the Progressives. Forget about the Press, we have to take matters into our own virtual hands and tip the balance of power through direct interference or support, without the filtering effect of the corporate media.

The Repugs are finally learning what a wonderful propaganda/brainwashing tool the Net could become for them and are showering money to some CEOs as we speak to create a new generation of nonsensical neobots to flood the nooks and crannies of the blogosphere with their Talking Point Memos items of the day.

It already works pretty well for them - anybody participating to any Huff Post's story comment space knows that already. So, it will get zombie invasion scary real soon.

So to mcthfg that ask me if writing is enough, if we shouldn't do something more physical than that, here's your answer. Protest is always welcome but this is a new kind of war. We're in a new movie called "66 Days Later" and we got us some Internet wingnut zombie heads to blow. All with our blogs. And some mighty cold Red Bull.

Here's an excerpt:

Obama online supporters key to pushing his agenda (AP)

• Posted on Tue Dec 30, 2008 12:36PM
  

HONOLULU - President-elect Barack Obama's top asset in pushing his agenda will not be his Cabinet secretaries or aides, but rather his online network.

Obama's political e-mail list tops 13 million names, a digital force that the incoming White House can tap to push for his legislation, tamp down critics or bolster popular support. It's also a way for Obama to reach into every state, every city, and every neighborhood.

A study released Tuesday found that a quarter of Obama voters said they would continue to work online to support the new administration. The nonpartisan Pew Internet and American Life Project also found 62 percent of Obama's voters say they would ask others to support Obama's policies.

Welcome to the Democrats' new permanent campaign, one planned online and executed on Main Street.

If it works the way Obama's top lieutenants plan, the White House would marshal hundreds of thousands of phone calls within hours if it looked as if the president-elect were losing a policy battle. With the click of a keyboard, Obama's aides could ask supporters to flood the phone lines of Congress, making it untenable to ignore the clamor.

That, at least, is the idea.

Obama's unmatched database gives his incoming administration a clear advantage over its Republican rivals, who have seen decades of datamining overcome in the matter of months. GOP leaders, though, insist they are not deterred.

"I'm impressed with what Obama did, but did they do anything innovative? No," said Cyrus Krohn, the Republican National Committee's online director. "They did things creatively."

Can Daschle do it?

Well, some big shot from the right is scared enough and he elegantly put forth a way to keep citizen of this country to get healthcare because he never traveled (trust me, if he did, he would have seen how absurd to believe that the United States can continue to have a huge unhealthy, uninsured workforce and still think it is competitive) and he hopes the really unhealthy ones will just die, this being a Darwin world and all that.

I still can't believe that in this day and age there are people that can't see that you get more through cooperation than simplistic, genocidal Darwinist fantasy.

Moreover, I still can't believe that, after the Wall Street debacle and the slow decline of the middle class into poverty, there are still people claiming that the free market will win the day. They still define success for this country by what 1% of its population have in their bank account!!

It's insane. Telling them that it will be good for the majority make them give a reflex reaction to the word "majority" or "common". Or "good". THEY are the one that , as the Repug nutwing that they are, more than anything want to be part of an elite. The rich destructive one. That's all.

The Reasons to Fear, according to US News and World Report:

1) Passage would be a political gamechanger.
2) Shrinking government would get exponentially tougher
3) Republicans better earn to competently talk healthcare.

In other word, they want poor people to somehow scrapped the money themselves to pay the companies and feel "empowered" by that simple Darwinian fact. Because "relieving the patient of the stress of making decision about treatment" or the fact that he or she "does not have to worry about shopping around for the best price" is a bad thing.

Oh, and Obama is your worst nightmare. Not Bush and his mess. No. Focus on Obama. Now.

(And number two is just so funny!!! Imagining the Republicans shrinking ANYTHING is funny!! Ego, Scandals, Budget, Waste, War, Injustice, Unemployment, Mess... The only thing they shrink are taxes for the rich...)

So lots of opposition against the Healthcare system. I don't understand since there are so many model of it working in different countries all over the world to great success and not one have gone Bolshevik yet. I think.

Can Daschle kill those flim flam excuses for the masses without a filibuster?

That's what I'm wondering. I didn't read his book and I know he helped Hillary with the same problem before so it won't be his first time at the bat. Can he not be played and made the fool by the PA attitude of the Republicans?

Easy to see what they will do: they will simply claim how bad it will be for the working class. It is their only lie and it is their best.

It has already started:"Uncle Sam would require individuals and families to put 15 percent of their income into health savings accounts. If you run out of money before year-end, the government steps in. If you don't, you get the money back or it rolls over into a retirement account."

Bet you anything that they 'll present it as Obama's nightmare plan. Come on, 15% of revenue! Nobody pays that in Canada! Why would you, especially with 10 times the population.

But who will listen if Daschle is not quick enough to kill such rumors as soon as they are born, laughing at the Repugs' very small minded definition of what success is for America all the while...

The Republicans: Leaving the Country Bankrupt and Proud of It!

The US Press is Playing Hangman Again...

Remember my question about Fitzgerald? Well, I always forget that if Kenneth Starr was the right brutish, dauntless hound dog, the Press was the hunt party beater.

Obama's not even swear in yet that the Repugs tiring tactics have already started. Shame on the Dems if they do not know how to react to the same strategy line time and again!! Because, the Repugs might unquestionably be an organized, disciplined, relentless bunch but they do lack imagination. They learn a trick (and like Microsoft, they are not about innovation, their tricks are usually somebody else's idea, yet they adapt it to fit their own need like a glove...) and use it till its threads are exposed for all to see. So I seriously do not understand how the democrats can act so surprise each time!

For example, in California, they're doing the same bait and switch as usual calling the Press saying that the Dems are not playing "fair", that they are being too partisan, while they are the ones being ridiculously rigid and partial. They're a pouting, rabid pack of two years old every time they don't get their way and the Dems acts like irresponsible, overprotective hen mothers.

Democrats need to stop protecting their collective ass and the Republican idiots that's kicking it!!!

If ever you have dealt with passive aggressive narcissists before , you already recognized the pattern of shifting blame and diverting attention toward trivial matters while the house's on fire!

I hope that Obama's analysts and core strategists understand that the Republicans WILL TRY AGAIN, they will keep derailing all beneficial or constructive endeavors, communications and ideas. It is a compulsion. A need to sabotage every attempt that the democrat show of moving ahead, or solving a problem. And I really hope that what Obama is doing right now that's working is being done consciously and not just because he alone is smart enough not to be suck into the uncooperative, stubborn Republican vortex of useless obstructions.

It's time for Democrat to stop reacting to them and set the pace themselves, like Obama is doing, by ignoring the temper tantrums and repeat incessantly the message that need to be carried through to the population, explaining to them how it will benefit the country as a WHOLE and not only the gentlemen of the country club.

As Dave Johnson observed in a post on his Seeing the Forest blog, California is being threaten of massive layoffs by the Repug AND they killed an industry that is responsible for 5% of the total jobs in the United States.

But somehow, the Democrats have failed to explain that to the population and get their point across.

And yet, I just know there is a good chance that they'll fail this country even more when they'll start to play their usual martyr role, and panicking, appoint all their resources to answer the usual round of unsubstantiated accusations, leaving all our hope for change in the dust.

Patrick Fitzgerald: Is he the Next Kenneth Starr?

Just asking.

Let me explain!

I love Law and Order. Despite its sexist, racist bias and cliche characters, the storytelling is usually compelling enough, the bad guy interesting enough. It's not The Wire but it will do on a rainy day.

Real life crime narratives however are generally so incredibly lame: the bad guy almost always plain pitiful, as far as the portentous, nefarious dark (aren't they all...) laughing movie villain as Trent Reznor is from an ice bucket.

Hysterical? Yeah. Manipulative? Ooh yes. Hypocritical? Of course. Opportunistic? Absolutely! Criminally negligent? Damn sure!!

But except for all those we know as perfect shoe-in for Lord Voldemort (Rove, Gingrich, Mukasey, Gramm, Cheney, Helms, etc..), the bad guy are mostly bad boyfriend gone loco (I did not have sex with that woman. What do you mean there's a stain?) or best friends with super backstabbing knives (Lieberman).

So here is another pathetic governor that was supposedly (I cannot believe how basically stupid this is yet!) caught trying to openly set a bidding war over Obama's free seat in the Senate, in HIS OFFICE and OVER THE PHONE ! How did he survive for so long on so little brain? It's a miracle of science...

But what caught my eye was who brought him down. Patrick Fitzgerald. A straight shooter workaholic. Blond, blue eyed Irish type, righteous. Nominated by Republican Peter Fitzgerald, he does not seem too partisan at first sight. Cold, distant, I did not find many that could describe his thinking process except in this old USA Today article:

"Friends and critics agree that his integrity is unassailable and that he is relentless. The list of people he has prosecuted ...shows he has no qualms about going after the powerful.

Fitzgerald's politics, motivations and style have prompted debate.

"He has no agenda," says David Kelley, former U.S. attorney in New York and a longtime friend. "He looks at the facts, uncovers the facts and goes where the facts lead him."

Mary Jo White, who was Fitzgerald's boss when she was U.S. attorney in Manhattan, says she knows nothing about his political views — "if he has any, and he may not."

Fitzgerald, who declined interview requests, is registered to vote with no party affiliation.

Defense lawyers have a different perspective. Scott Mendeloff, a Chicago lawyer who specializes in corporate fraud cases and formerly tried and supervised public corruption prosecutions in the U.S. attorney's office, says Fitzgerald demonstrates "a more black-and-white view of the world" that is "reductionist in disregarding nuances beyond what it will take to prevail." Some defense lawyers, he says, believe Fitzgerald is "not prone to consider what some would term humane factors in charging and sentencing decisions."

"To say that he is extremely aggressive is, I think, a gross understatement," Safer says. When he's arguing a motion, Safer says, Fitzgerald is "not disrespectful, but he's a lot less deferential than I bet most judges are accustomed to."

He does seems more concern about the size of the prey than anything else: Osama Ben Laden, John Gambino, the World Trade Center bombers.

Then, right after his nomination, he got serious and prosecuted Illinois Governor Georges Ryan.

Ryan was an old time moderate Republican - nothing like the foaming at the mouth self-serving modern type - he actually did some serious good in Illinois: he push for more advanced technological structure for the State and gave more money to school than any of his predecessors to improve the education system. For a Republican, that is short of Mother Theresa status.

But more than this, and how I remembered him, was how he was actually nominated for a Nobel for his role in the re-evaluation of the damage that can be done by the death penalty. He decided to put all death penalty on hold to review the cases where new evidence could help prove the innocence of inmates.

I do not believe in a clean politician anymore that I believe in a clean athlete. Both systems are much too corrupt, ruthless and power hungry to create saints and angels. The elite of these abusive organizations - politics and sports - are the survivors of a bloody fight for dominance that leaves no hand unsullied. As they say, you have to want it to win it. And you have to want it badly enough.

George Ryan was caught with his hands in all the honey jar and Fitzgerald had made a name for himself giving him 6 1/2 years. Then he went against Democrat mayor Richard Daley, top gubernatorial fundraiser Antoine Rezko and just yesterday it was Governor Blagojevich that learn that the wrath of a boy scout is no laughing matter.

I know that Fitzgerald also gave Scooter Libby 2 years and 250,00$ fine but, seriously, what was that about? Bush quickly commuted the sentence and that was that. Who's surprised? Rove, who was mentioned as being one of the senior White House advisers who knew about Plame, did not even testify. After all, Fitzgerald was appointed as a replacement to former nut case Attorney General John Ashcroft by James Comey, now senior vice president of Lockheed Martin. Comey lives in the grey zone: he did not testify against Alberto Gonzales directly before a Congressional committee but he did oppose the NSA Domestic wiretaping program.

Where is Fitzgerald in that grey zone? Can he be politically manipulated? Does he want to be? Can the Repug dangle Obama before his eyes - the biggest catch of his life for sure - in exchange for carte blanche in the prosecution. Exactly as what happened in 1994-1999. Remember that Kenneth Starr too was praised for fairness and neutrality by Democrats in 1990 and the Department of Justice leaders were afraid that he wouldn't be conservative enough to be appointed as a Supreme Court Justice by Bush sr.

We know how Starr showed them just how good his good conservative side was after that. Whitewater, Vince Foster, Paula Jones, Monica L, Richard Scaife, spit out gum, anything that would stick, Starr will find and play pin the donkey with it.

Already the right wing blogosphere is trying to ducktape together Rezko, Joseph Aramanda and Obama and begging Fitzgerald to give them a bone. Any human bone. A Black human, if possible.

I know that he was threaten by the Bush administration, I know all about his good attorney awards but while other US attorney lost their jobs in 2006 to Mr. Judicial Activist and Toddler Supreme Alberto Gonzales' whims and fancy, he kept his anyway.

No, its not a crime of course, to survive. But he was in their face and he survived. Hope he stays neutral and fair for all and not only for Fox News viewers.

As for Kenneth Star, he's taking of his new client business, protecting and serving Blackwater Security Consulting. Life is good, Kenneth!

Robin William, the Recap: 8 years in 5 minutes

Pump It Up!: The Work, the Movies, The Book

Did so much lately, did not have time to post: but I am coming back!

When I went away Clinton was poised to become SoS and would have I propose a talk-show with Elvis Costello as host the world would have kick me in the arse reeling from laughter!

Well look who'll be walking hand in hand with Gates and Elton John was last seen seating knee to knee with Elvis giving polite answers to polite empty questions. The kind Costello would have give the middle finger to in his crazy youth. Time heals all, isn't it?

My half-brother sent me an e-mail all scared of Rahm and the zionists and the evils hidden in the sands. He thinks people see Obama too much as a saviour and it is all sooo wrong.

I think he forgot just how close we came to have another 4 to 8 years of Republican insanity unleashed onto us, how we finally have the possibility to help and consolidate the middle class of this country and stop the erosion of citizen's rights and the open pillage that created one of the most unequal divisive society of the Western world. Is the Democrat socialists or even barely progressive? Of course not! Everybody knows that and nobody's fooled! But the lesser of two evil is still better than the evil itself.

With Obama what we are celebrating obviously is a hope, a possibility to actively change the direction the country was going toward: more wars, more injustice, more greed. Do I not see the writings on the wall that all this could be an illusion? Of course! But I always thought that cynicism and sarcasm and negativism are worst than naivete. If you see something you don't like write it out, scream it, oppose it but don't give me armchair muttering saying you know it, you knew it, all is for not'.

There is a chance here and it will be what we make of it. Even if it is only a case of having healthcare for all than it is worth it. If we do not scream louder than the lobbyist and Wall Street and the military, Obama will have no other choice than to go where the power is. He did told us as much: for this change to take place, he does need us all. The Repug posse just won't lay low and sit this one out: they'll fight it, they'll fight us. They've been fighting us for awhile now and our silence and fears make them so much more potent and lethal. Now is not the time to back out.

Neither is it the time for smug, paternalistic re-hashing of old conspiracy theory or divisive, thick priggish "progressive v/s the rest of the left" rumination like this one. the reasons for the creation of Israel is here for all to see in post WWII history. And it is not only a question of reparation, we all know that. Rahm is CoS: he does not make any policies: he is here to whip a democrat strong line, something they never had. Clinton voted for the war. I believe it was an opportunistic cowardly move of hers not based on belief. As I said before she can be a fearsome opponent when she wants to and now that she is not seeking re-election her hands are free: what kind of legacy will she leave us?

I do not believe in perfection and imperfect leaders are all that we have. No, I do not think I am the one waiting for a saviour. One that shows contempt for imperfection is a hard man to satisfy: usually he is the last to redeem and the first to cut anyone down.

Let the backlash begins!

Darn! I'll speak about the books and movies later, I guess! Politics will always be my Kaddish!

To Cindy, my neocon nut BFF, with all my bipartisanship love

My second week blogging and here come the neobots already! Propaganda must be shared at all cost, I guess…

"Gee wizzz buddy calm down.

Just because the market falls 20% after Obama is elected and non of the bail money has been released doesn't mean Obama is the cause.

(ok I am laughing over that)

Of course he is responsible, good grief the sell off is to avoid his increases in cap gains tax you idiot.

from Cindy "

But to answer my charming guest's puzzlement at the recession, let's use simple drawings: see the chart above, Cindy dear? That's the Dow's average index for June 2008 to November 2008.

Do you see what we could call a trend , maybe? Kind of like money getting out of one pocket and into oblivion type of thingy? And that - yes, yes, - even before Obama even won the election? But your guy was there remember? On permanent vacation…

But do not take my word for it, Cindy dear. Here's a professional putting it in professional terms:

"UP AND DOWN WALL STREET DAILY

Uncle Sam's Credit Line Running Out?

By RANDALL W. FORSYTH

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

The yield curve and credit default swaps tell the same story: the U.S. can't borrow trillions without paying a price.

WHAT ONCE WAS UNTHINKABLE has come to pass this year: massive bailouts by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, with the extension of billions of the taxpayers' and the central bank's credit in so many new and untested schemes that you can't tell your acronyms or abbreviations without a scorecard.

Even more unbelievable is that some of the recipients of staggering sums are coming back for a second round. Or that the queue of petitioners grows by the day.

But what happens if the requests begin to strain the credit line of the world's most creditworthy borrower, the U.S. government itself? Unthinkable?

American International Group which originally had to borrow what was a stunning $85 billion from the Fed to keep it from cratering in September, upped the total Sunday to $150 billion.

Monday, Fannie Mae reported a $29 billion third-quarter loss, far in excess of forecasts, raising the specter that the mortgage giant may need more money after the Treasury pledged to inject $100 billion in preferred stock financing in September.

Meanwhile, American Express received Fed approval to convert to a bank holding company, joining the likes of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, that have a direct pipeline to borrow from the Fed or the Treasury's TARP, the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Fund.

And, of course, Detroit is looking for a credit line from Washington. General Motors (GM) Friday warned it could run out of cash next year without a government loan. GM plunged another 23% Monday, to 3.36, as several analysts helpfully recommended selling shares of the beleaguered automaker that already had lost more than 85% of their value.

Visiting the White House Monday, President-elect Obama pressed President Bush to support emergency aid for GM and other automakers. The prospect for federal aid for GM ironically weighed on its shares as one bearish analyst said the price of the bailout could be a wipeout of common holders.

Be that as it may, it's all adding up. If the late Sen. Everett Dirkson were around today, he might comment that a trillion here, a trillion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

Trillions are no hyperbole. The Treasury is set to borrow $550 billion in the current quarter alone and $368 billion in the first quarter of 2009. "Near-term pressures on Treasury finances are much more intense than we had thought," Goldman Sachs economists commented when the government announced its borrowing projections last week.

It may finally be catching up with Uncle Sam. That's what the yield curve may be whispering. But some economists are too deaf, or dumb, to get it...

Cutting through the technical jargon, the yield curve and the credit-default swaps market both indicate the markets are exacting a greater cost to lend to Uncle Sam. And it's not because of anticipated recovery, which would reduce, not increase, the cost of insuring Treasury debt against default.

All of which suggests America's credit line has its limits.

Pasted from <http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html>

Oh, and he added:

"

The Recession Started in June at the Latest and is Deepening: Non-farm Payrolls

The most important chart is the 12 month moving average of the changes in US non-farm payrolls directly below.

It should have been apparent to any economist, as it was to us, that the US was falling into recession at the end of 2007. The actual start of the recession is a formality, but no dating for the start past June 2008 seems justifiable, especially when all the other coincident non-jobs indicators are consulted."

Pasted from <http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html>

In other words, the war and all those tax cut for your boss and the bosses' boss took a toll, Cindy. The government is quasi-bankrupt. I know, I know… Your media Republican gurus told you that we could run a deficit forever and call it small government, but, well, how could I put this: they lied to you.

Bush, the guy you voted for, took a budget surplus and run it to the ground. Then, since September at least, he added a last parting gift to his "homey" in the shape of a big fat Christmas bonus checks. And now the Chinese would like their money back, thank you very much. You know, our lenders…

Investors had lost faith in the American stock exchange way before Obama. But Bush unwillingness to address the problem by any other means than blank checks to defaulting companies - all while consumer consumption was down or stagnant and unemployment rampant - was the nail in the proverbial coffin. Of course, we'll share that coffin in a spirit of bipartisanship, Cindy. Don't worry...

Republicans are all big, fat, lying, thieving idiots: here's how to figth them

Or Begich wins, suckers!!! And Franken soon will too!!!

"...the country's best-known radio talk-show host wasted no time using our airwaves to attack the president-elect for preaching "racism" and "socialism," and for creating our current economic collapse by scaring off potential investors who fear higher taxes. "The Obama recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen," Limbaugh proclaimed only two days after the election. "Stocks are dying, which is a precursor of things to come. This is an Obama recession. Might turn into a depression.""
-Steve Weissman, Truthout Web site

So it is an Obama recession, Rush. Got a little bit ahead of your next whiteline for this one, isn't it Rush. My favorite conservative cokehead is all "bipartisan" happy right now, spinning the next improbable tale of the Republican Agenda.

It shows clearly the next revolutionary tactic that the Republicans will adopt as they try to win their peau-de-chagrin base back: more of the same but more rabid, foolish and empty than usual. I did notice too that clear talking-points Repugs web-bots or brainwashed fake dems are springing a bit everywhere on left blogs' comment space. Republicans take nazi mastermind Goebbel at his word and apply every one of his recipes for "national enligthenment": radio, press, tv, now web. All media are blanketed by one message under all the joe the plumber , Bill Ayers, hate the Clinton nonsense: destroy and control.

Destroy as a mean, control as an end. This type of very disciplined, organized, deliberate sabotage of democratic freedoms and collective wealth for the benefit of a few won't just disappear because of an election. After all, they were in power for so long before, they could describe that fact as a success. They'll readjust. That's all. But they won't go away. For Rush and co to get their coke and bonbons they need to lie and attack and keep at it until nothing is left but their voices.

So the Republican party is not "down in the dump", or in "bad shape" or , if only, are they going to "self-destruct" anytime soon. They're barely wounded. And they are still dangerous. I am all for ignoring Palin: she has nothing but winks and lipstick jokes. But Savage, cokeline Rush or, it's all the same, Michele Bachmann are different. They have a base, a regular appointment with it and an habit of using false flag operations to augment or strengthen this base.

So how do we fight them?

Here's what I found: the axioms of counter propaganda:

Axiom 1: When they intensify. downplay.

Axiom 2: When they downplay, intensify.

Pasted from <http://webserve.govst.edu/pa/Schema/counter-propaganda.htm>

We need to literally level the playing field even in the area of conceptual thoughts and argumentation. We need to oppose them effectively by shining light where they would rather we keep the statue quo and downplay their hysterics.

"Realistic assumptions must be made: power exists, weakness exists. The strong do not voluntarily give up power. Total equality will never exist. Yet, a movement toward equality is better than a movement away."

Pasted from <http://webserve.govst.edu/pa/Schema/counter-propaganda.htm>

Then, education and getting ourselves good legislators, judges and lawyers that would pass and protect fair laws are our best bets.

Post Punk Wall Street: Killing Jokes, Echoes and Masters of the Universe

"Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men....The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization."
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I’d never taken an accounting course, never run a business, never even had savings of my own to manage. I stumbled into a job at Salomon Brothers in 1985 and stumbled out much richer three years later, and even though I wrote a book about the experience, the whole thing still strikes me as preposterous—which is one of the reasons the money was so easy to walk away from. I figured the situation was unsustainable. Sooner rather than later, someone was going to identify me, along with a lot of people more or less like me, as a fraud. Sooner rather than later, there would come a Great Reckoning when Wall Street would wake up and hundreds if not thousands of young people like me, who had no business making huge bets with other people’s money, would be expelled from finance.

Pasted from <http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?tid=true>

Michael Lewis represented what was wrong with the Wall Street system, the "trickle down" theory and the "greed is good" Geckoian approach to capitalism. And he knew it. He knew it so much he was disgusted enough by the whole affair to quit it with little regret. It is ironic and fitting that I discovered him through a post made at HuffPost by a very fragile and sick woman that was battling cancer alone in America's insurance hell. She once was one of those "Masters of the Universe" dissected by Tom Wolfe way back in 1987. Significantly, Wolfe is now calling Wall Street an anachronism:

"Incidentally, there are no seats on the Floor, none that this correspondent ever saw. The Exchange is already an anachronism, like Broadway. Everything is done by computer today. Hanging out on the Floor of the Exchange is like hanging out at OTB. Broadway and the Exchange are like the first thing you see when you enter Disneyland in California. You find yourself in a turn-of-the-last-century town with a trolley and an apothecary and a barber shop. That’s Broadway and Wall Street today."

Pasted from <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/opinion/28wolfe.html?_r=1&oref=slogin>

Another sign that the United States' position in World Affairs is shifting from main actor to soon to be second seat witness.

So Lewis tells us that as a young, inexperienced brat, he just played with money, other people's money and made millions doing it. Then he retired and wrote a book about it. He was early but now the young Masters are following suit, just fashionably late enough, and are leaving their million dollar jobs as easily as Arsene Lupin after a good sting or one of Kevin Smith's everyday slackers in Clerks. "They’d read my book as a how-to manual.", Lewis tells us , a tad bit amazed. And now, Tom Wolfe tells us in his NY Time op-ed piece:

"...when your correspondent paid his one and only visit to the Floor, one member came up to another and informed him that he, like so many others recently, was leaving the Exchange for good.

“What will you be doing?”

“I’m joining the Fire Department.”

“The Fire Department? In what capacity?”

“I’ll be a firefighter. The pension plan is awesome.”"

Yep, they saw, they gain, they bought a Manor in Greenwich, Connecticut, leaving us the pieces of broken hype and sudden disillusion. Their bosses do not know what they did or how or why. But they WILL receive that bail-out check, thank you very much. The fact that the young Masters had no clothes and that the Repugs were giving them money like candy again, and again, and again; scandals after scandals after ruinous scandals, screaming in horror every time somebody mentioned that this displacement of power and wealth is killing the working class and the poor i.e. more than 90% of Americans. The fact that a Nobel Prize of Economics like Krugman has to teach basic history to right wing propaganda drone George "I have a bow tie, so, thrust me" Will, the fact that Obama will have to deal again with people so blinded by greed that they will destroy everything , including his Presidency, to fulfill their ambitions; all those fact are why I started this blog.

In every system, capitalism or socialism or communism or anarchism, unregulated freedom will fail if left unchecked. And the only one in power to check those systems are you and me. The Repugs get away with it because we let them get away with it. We are participating in our own demise, hoo-ing and haaaa-ing and fawning over Coulter, Palin, Lieberman, Kissinger, Bill O'Reilly for Pete's sake!

The Masters are not dead and we DO need them. But on a golden leash.

But how? Jason Forman (CitiGroup), Robert Wolf (UBS), Jim Johnson (Fannie Mae),William Daley (Freddie Mac), Robert Rubin ("deregulate now, sir!"), people with THE money (corporate employees, CEOs, ex-execs) all are glued to Obama's ears and are adding gentle constant pressure to his private Presidential parts.

But I still believe in his capacity to do what's right. For now, I like what I'm hearing. Not love (Stop with the Hillary nonsense already. Leave her where she is so she can try again for the Presidency and influence the hell out of Reid and Pelosi. Richardson is the one.) But like. Now I have to wait 'till January to see if I'll like the action.

In Vogue: Valerie Jarrett , more than a supermodel!

Who is Valerie Jarrett?
For her birthday, Obama gave her a senior White House adviser /Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison job (Try to say THAT three times while drunk!) and a lot have been said about her keeping our President-Elect "grounded" or being the "female version" of Obama.

But that didn't tell me who she was and WHAT exactly she did.

In the Vogue piece (http://www.style.com/vogue/feature/2008_Oct_Valerie_Jarrett/), not everything was fluff and chiffon but it was still a "An American Next Supermodel" type of expose. All wide eyed, slick and shiny.

So here are some details I gleaned through the web (Thanks WIKI among others!)

She comes from a family of "FIRSTS":
Her father: Currently Professor Emeritus in Pathology and Medicine, University of Chicago, Dr. James Bowman, was the first black resident at St. Luke’s Hospital;
Her grandfather: Robert Taylor the first black man to head the Chicago Housing Authority;
Her great-grandfather: He was the first African-American to graduate from M.I.T..

She herself was born in Shiraz, Iran. (Wait till the Repug get a hold of that!!) and received a B.A. in Psychology from Stanford University in 1978, and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Michigan Law School .

She started working for Mayor Harold Washington in 1987, then Richard M. Daley and during that time she hired a certain Michelle Robinson - now Obama - AND a certain Barack Obama - now the President.

A less pretty picture is her legacy in Chicago real estate: the housing project she funded and supported with the help of Antoin 'Tony' Rezko and Allison Davis - Obama's former boss - were so bad that they were deemed uninhabitable from the start:
"In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale -- a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.", according from the Boston Globe.

But as the Vogue piece is quick to point out :

"...Valerie Jarrett's real clout comes less from her career than from her extraordinary connections and seemingly endless capacity for extracurriculars. As one observer put it, "She knows everyone in Chicago." Obama's media adviser Anita Dunn recently cracked that "she may be one of the most plugged-in people in the United States." Or as Susan Sher says, "Whatever situation she's in, she rises to the top," enumerating how Jarrett did just that at City Hall, where she ended up in the famously difficult post of chairing the Chicago Transit Authority for eight years; at the Chicago Stock Exchange; and on the board of the University of Chicago Hospital, which she now also chairs. "She is like a god in Chicago, an icon," says Adrienne Pitts, a 40-year-old lawyer who takes every opportunity to see Jarrett speak at events around the city..."

Another good description of her comes from that article in the Chicago Tribunes (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-072708-jarrett,0,1640738.story):

"Technically her title is "senior adviser.'' But Jarrett, the soft-spoken, steely willed, longtime Chicago powerbroker, has also been called the other side of Obama's brain. At the very least, he says, she is his eyes and ears in meetings that he cannot attend....Every successful politician, monarch or business tycoon needs someone like Jarrett, a straight-talking, fiercely loyal, well-connected, discreet, disciplined, protective confidant/friend/sounding board/ surrogate sibling who has known the candidate since before he or she became the next big thing. Obama told me that having an adviser like Jarrett, someone who "knows your flaws but also knows your strengths'' and encourages you "to follow your gut'' when others advocate sticking to the script is crucial in the brutal, chaotic, 24/7 world of presidential politics."

So how I see it we should be grateful to Valerie Jarrett to have let her former employee go, get him to meet his fantastic wife and groomed him to be our 44th President.

Not bad for a psychology major...

Addendum:

Was tired when I finished this post, I concluded abruptly and a little too much on a sissy note.

Yes, I admire Valerie Jarrett and I am relieved to see such complete a genius, a mom and first rate political presence in a covalent bond with our actual President Elect. It is way much than what the Bushies' kibitzers have given us as a character study during those last 8 Republican years.

But...

Is she a real Democrat - believing in her own Habitat co. mission to give poor people a better environment through a good mix of affordable housings and middle-class homes.

Or was this just a front, meaning her Democratic leaning would be a front also, giving us a fantastically sexy but still nefarious Machiavelian type of Obama's whisperer that would tell him to thread gently in the middle?

I think Obama is strong enough to hold to left leaning politics if he feels that he is clearly supported by a strong majority of Americans. But there will be pressure and I hope that Jarrett will be more a safeguard than an obstacle to Obama.

Tenderness and a cup of joe

I had to steal this one from cat lovers and master bloggers Bad Attitude.
Great shot. Aren't you glad they're going to the White House?

What to do with Hillary?

She is smart, courageous, strong, tenacious, ridiculously more than Palin's "capable"....
So what do we do with her?

I have seen the different news reports saying that she is being considered as SoState.
I have stated before that Bill Richardson was my choice for all that he would bring in this position: an articulated foreign policy outlook, actual experience brokering peace treaties and prisoners' release and the respect of the Hispanic caucus.

OK, he is not perfect and the concealed handgun law or the offshore drilling job is not to be put on his immediate resume for now.

But we do have to say to our new President: enough Clinton's leftover already! Hillary was my first choice as President but now that the other jobs are filled with Clintonian ghosts we do have to ask that Obama gives a chance to other less obvious choices.

We need new faces too. The fact that Lieberman is staying is bad enough as it is and announced a future catastrophe of Shakespearian proportion. One day we will hear Obama utter "Et tu, Brute?" while looking at Lieberman's pretty snickering face.

But in the meantime, what to do with Hillary?
Why not ask her? Isn't she in a good enough position as she is? Can't we count on her to kick Pelosi's scaredy-cat ass once in a while?

But if it's being a Secretary she wants, cautious, "Third Way" advocate, "I voted for the Iraq war" Hillary will needs to ask herself first who she wishes to be. I hope the "I don't bake cookies", I want Medicare for all Hillary will re-surface soon.

All That and World Hunger Too!

So we gave Obama a paper clip, a light flare, some light bulbs, a couple of loaded dice and are now expecting him to solves all the world's problems and then some!

Some are touting the end of white guilt - because they do not see how everyday African Americans still have to fight regularly for minimum respect under the threat of the prison goulag and permanent civil disfranchisement. Some other just killed racism in its sleep, so sure they are that a black president represent the possibilities of all African Americans - while they easily ignore negative cultural environment, bad schools, lowered job prospects, higher costs for basic services at lower pay because of discrimination, etc...

I admit that I am excited by a new era in black culture where the leftover toxicity of the Reagan years can finally wear off and we will not compulsively define and limits our people by our errors - that are solely human and shared by all other culture on this earth despite their assurance of the contrary - but by our heroes and and our positive contribution to the world. We are not dogs, bitches, hoes, somebody's baby mamas, somebody else's nigga and our world, our realities are not stopped by the frontiers of some ghetto. Everything everywhere is also ours. We can change all of it and some have been changing some of it, not only by sport, music and attitude but by exploring their talent in so many other fields.

I traveled a lot and I have seen how hip hop was adopted everywhere as a communication tool by all culture to defy the established order of their country. I was proud of this but at the same time I wished they also knew of our pioneers in medicine, science, the arts. All of them had to fight, as Obama did, the character assassination attempt that is racism and the contempt of lowered expectation, that hypocritical double edge-sword.

For like the new President-Elect, those brave souls had also to constantly prove their right to exist, by being not only good, but close to perfect. They had to exceed, surpass, fly higher, faster. And they had to be ready for the ritual stoning at their slightest mistake.

Because this too shall come: Obama will face some serious backlash when people will see him not as a saviour anymore but as a human being. Racism has two simple faces: positive where everything that a culture, or an individual from that culture, does is taken to be superior and close to perfection. Or negative, and we all know what that is, Palin and McCain were so counting on it to get elected.

Being a human being is define by one color for a lot of people. Obama will show them how untrue that is and some of them are really not ready for the shock. He's not MacGyver, he's not MLK, he's not FDR not even LBJ. He's our new President and he will trace he's own path of triumphs and errors.