Archive for the ‘News and Politics’ Category

April 4, 2009 – Saturday

I’m the President, and you’re not.
Category: News and Politics

This came out from the Politco about the meeting last week between the President and the Bank CEOs. I don’t usually do this, but I am going to quote the whole article. It is a reason to love our President.

Inside Obama’s bank CEOs meeting:

The bankers struggled to make themselves clear to the president of the United States.

Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs of the most powerful financial institutions in the world offered several explanations for paying high salaries to their employees — and, by extension, to themselves.

“These are complicated companies,” one CEO said. Offered another: “We’re competing for talent on an international market.”

But President Barack Obama wasn’t in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and offered a blunt reminder of the public’s reaction to such explanations. “Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that.”

“My administration,” the president added, “is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

The fresh details of the meeting — some never before revealed — come from an account provided to POLITICO by one of the participants. A second source inside the meeting confirmed the details, and two other sources familiar with the meeting offered additional information.

The accounts demonstrate that despite the public comments on both sides that the meeting was cordial, the tone in the room was in fact one of mutual wariness. The titans of finance — men used to being the most powerful man in almost any room — sized up a new president who made clear in ways big and small that he expected them to change their ways.

There were signs from the outset that this was a business event, not a social gathering. At each place around the table sat a single glass of water. No ice. For those who finished their glass, no refills were offered. There was no group photograph taken of the CEOs with the president, which typically happens at ceremonial White House gatherings but not at serious strategy sessions.

“The only way they could have sent a more Spartan message is if they had served bread along with the water,” says a person who attended the meeting. “The signal from Obama’s body language and demeanor was, ‘I’m the president, and you’re not.’”

According to the accounts of sources inside the room, President Obama told the CEOs exactly what he expects from them, and pushed back forcefully when they attempted to defend Wall Street’s legendarily high-paying ways.

Peace
J

So I’m sitting here today in my monkey suit, getting ready to go to the bank to bang out a proposal with the Evil Lance. I’ve been chasing this merchant for months. It’s a comic book shop. His name is Cat.

I was in the middle of reading truthout.org and and the place went quiet. Everything blinked off. The bastards at DWP had cut off my power.

My girlfriend walks out of the bathroom to say “You paid the power bill?”

I break a sweat. This has never happened before.

It’s really ok. I have the money. I was just being stupid frugal and retarded reluctant to pay a bill. Being poor makes you brave. Still, it’s more than a little discomfitting. My first thought is about what a dick I am because I made mad cash this month.

I go to the bank and make a big deposit. Call up DWP and pay the bastards. Call the other department of DWP and give them the confirmation number and they say by five p.m., power restored.

Get me a a couple chili cheese dogs with mayonnaise, mustard and onions. This is why poor folks are fat. I blame society. I cut a check for my rent and drop it off. The manager is this cool guy named Antonio. He smiles and shakes my hand. First time I’ve paid rent on time in months.

I go to my bank, the Evil Lance and his wife, mother in law and daughter are there, along with my significant other, the new guy we will refer to as GQ Todd, the Lovely Linda and the hot new receptionist. Ken, the head fromage is nowhere. The Evil Lance has done my homework for me. I get a folder with the proposal, the original statement and a printout of the ACH statement for money I’m being paid on a previous deal that will hit my account on Monday.

It’s a sweet chunk of change.

I threaten the daughter of the Evil Lance with cannibalism. I tell her to bring me butter and pepper. I demand a giant fork and tell her that her ankles will be chewey. She is gorgeous and I am charmed.

I come home and there’s an ominous yellow notice on the door. Mine heart doth sink. I’ve just figured out how to buy enough gin for the weekend and I felt like I may have fooled the world once again.

I walk into a dark silent apartment. I go on the balcony for a smoke and to read the ominous yellow tag. Turns out I just need to go get my security gaurd buddy to open up the meter room so we can flip the switch. After all, I’m paid up. I, we, do that. He’s the same guy who gives me the stink eye through the peephole when my shit is way too loud.

So yeah, today worked out well.

Then the news from the State Supreme Court of Iowa.

What a swell little gem. In Iowa of all places, we get a State Supreme Court stocked with Republicans to pretty much vociferously defend marriage between anybody who really wants to. The decision respected and actually honored the the concept and spirit of civil rights.

Watershed.

Iowa. The one state in the union where you dare not sell a bong. Wow.

We are changing.

Just look at the world stage today. Barack Hussein Obama and First Lady Michelle. Europe sees Jackie and Jack. They are abroad doing the absolute best they can to represent the rest of us. They are proud because we are or should be. They are humble because Americans have walked face first into humility.

Although I worry, I’m sure the ratio of smart Americans vs. stupid is in our favor. If you had to repeat that sentence to yourself, you’re not one of us.

They begin to repair the damage. The Obama’s show up in front of the people who need and want to see them. They show up at every chance they are afforded to distill themselves and what America is instead of what Europe has seen for the last eight years. Our knuckles don’t drag.

Bill Maher scores an interview with Joe The Plumber. Oh me oh my. See what I’m saying?

Drinks for my friends.

Bill O’Reilly, who’s likeness appears along side the definitions of both ‘hypocrite’ and ‘blowhard’ in the most reputable dictionaries, said in an interview today that he boycotts any film in which Sean Penn appears because of his political views. In the words of Snoop Dogg, “Fuck Bill O’Reilly”. And, “He’s a motherfuckin’ prick”. And, “Suck my dick”. And, “so I can kick his motherfuckin ass when the show is over with”.

I don’t really have anything to add here.

In other news, I thought it was pretty cool to hear that the CEO of GM, Rick Wagoner, was walking away at the behest of the Obama administration. That is, until I read the greedy bastard could tip the fuck out the door with as much as $20 million. Excuse me, there seems to be some sort of canker on my penis. Does this look infected to you? It’s like deja vu all over again.

Also, thirty thousand pythons as long as twenty feet are threatening to go forth, multiply and overrun Florida and there’s a million pounds of pistachios out there that will kill you in your bed.

The world is an increasingly perilous place and I’m almost out of pot again. It’s legal here in California as long as one suffers from a serious and/or chronic malaise like ingrown toenail, sebaceous cysts on one’s genitalia or say, brewer’s droop from drinking beer.

A prescription costs between a hundred and a hundred fifty bucks. My fridge is broke.

I watched a comic tonight on Comedy Central. Josh Blue. Self deprecating, brave, honest and very funny. He suffers from cerebral palsy. Walk a mile in another man’s shoes but never forget about the man with no feet.

I’m an agnostic. My position has more to do with the abject silliness of just about every organized religion on the planet, as opposed to some sort of soaring epiphany. Honestly, I owe my stake more to the vacuum of logic that exists in every dogma fomented by people of faith on up to, but not exclusively, the goddamn Pope.

For example:
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (March 17) – Pope Benedict XVI said condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and can make the problem worse, setting off criticism Tuesday as he began a weeklong trip to the continent where some 22 million people are living with HIV. -AOL news

Don’t lose sight of the fact they boink all the little boys and girls they want.

Good luck with that crap you pointy hatted pontiff. I’m not sorry to tell you that Catholicism just may be the most egregious and archaic “faith” practiced in America certainly, and under the world’s proscenium without a doubt. I will be as blunt as possible here. Catholicism encourages me to root for Satan. Catholics are fools. So are Baptists, Mormons, Anglicans, Protestants, Muslims and especially Evangelicals and Born Agains.

They are all petty children in the eyes of the universe.

My sincerest apologies if I left any one out.

Buddhism occurs to me to be the only discipline that bothers to address the existential nature and uniqueness of the human condition. I just can’t help but appreciate a fat guy with a shit eating grin in the context of all the other tragic and sometimes stigmatically bleeding religious icons.

Most of it is about guilt and non intellectually curious blind shithouse faith. What I mean to say is it’s spectacularly dumb.

You gonna eat that?

Drinks for my friends.

They are sprinting. The entire executive branch are running like there’s only a few hundred yards in front of them. They tackle or block almost everything in the way. The pace is impressive. It won’t, it can’t last forever.

Our Man will see some time on the bench. I will worry, along with Paul Begala, if they’re still running this hard in six or nine months. For now, they are impressive.

Don’t talk to me about minutiae. What they’ve done here is hit the ground running. What they’ve done in sixty plus days is impressive even if only for the sheer volume of work spent and tasks accomplished. If you disagree with every single policy issue, you still must admit that these folks have been burning it hot at both ends.

They are on this economy like sauce on wings. As far as I can tell it’s bold. Code for risky.

So many second guess. They example past economic scenarios that I can’t help but wonder might be obsolete. This is serious business. So many of them are full of shit.

It’s not like the Republicans have even floated a turd. I half believe they actually served us the turd, smoked and on a gilded platter. Cocktail forks and horseradish. Champagne they’d pissed in.

They just might have Huck Finned us into this Presidency. If that’s the case, I wonder how long they knew they had a turd on their hands. Gingrich knows. So does Frist and Santorum. Pricks.

On the other hand, I very much like what Obama has to say. Long term thinking our leadership has been bereft of for eight years. Education, energy and health care must be part of any plan for long term, not necessarily prosperity, but lack of abject poverty and widespread toothlessness.

You know what? This guy is talking to us. He’s taking questions. You know what else? He’s fucking smart. This guy has a command of facts and information that is dazzling. He talks to us and tells what he knows and he knows a lot. He does questions in a way that give you more than just an answer, but some background as well. Reminds me of Clinton, a President who was nearly impossible to stump unless you asked him where his dick had been.

Man, I’m so grateful to have a President who can answer questions without dodging and then go on to actually illuminate the average American. He is sharp and he is good. Masterful.

Dumbya could not have handled a tenth of this.

He took all comers, from Ebony and Politico, to ABC Radio, Washington Times, Agence France-Press, Univision, Stars & Stripes as well as CNN. A tour de force in terms of Presidential press conferences. Lungs full of fresh air and intelligence. Awesome.

Goddamn this guy works hard. He is so smart and I am so proud.

If they don’t applaud his acumen in the reviews tomorrow, we will learn something about the measure of our post election contemporary press.

I understand this guy is hanging his ass in the wind. He’s riding the lightning but he’s not kidding. Barack Hussein Obama is not here to fuck around.

Drinks for my friends.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

The Intentional Destruction of the Dollar
Category: News and Politics
There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense about the economy these days. The situation is so mind-numbing that an increasing number of Americans seem to be opting to simply ignore it all in the hopes that it just goes away. Most people I know have stopped looking at their account statements, and “bailout fatigue” is nearly universal.

Part of the reason for our collective denial is that we don’t want to come to terms with our diminished circumstances. When the average American’s life-savings has been cut in half, its understandable that people would be reluctant to face the new realities. However, I would argue that there’s something deeper going on. Not only does a clear-eyed appraisal of the situation require people to come to terms with painful facts, but it is also threatening to their basic sanity. How are we to make sense of the idea that the way to solve a crisis caused by excessive debt is by taking on even more debt? Faced with such counterintuitive notions, the rational mind simply turns away.

The latest insanity announced by the government is a plan whereby the Fed will buy over $1 trillion of government bonds and mortgage backed securities. In other words, the government is going to print money and then loan it to itself.

Likewise, on the same day that the Congressional Budget Office released staggering projections of the largest deficits in history, President Obama repeated his claim that he will halve the deficit by the end of his first term. This is double-speak that even George W. Bush would be proud of. Its no wonder that people choose to tune out rather than try to make sense of such absurdity.

There is, however, an explanation for the government’s actions which is logical and straightforward but will never, ever be officially acknowledged.

It is increasingly clear that we have dug ourselves into a hole that we can never hope to dig ourselves out of. Individuals, corporations, and government have borrowed more money than they can ever hope to repay. In such a situation, there is really only one option left open to policy-makers – i.e. devalue the currency.

Currency devaluation (i.e. inflation) is a way of transferring wealth from creditors to debtors. When a nation finds itself so in debt that it can never realistically hope to repay, there is a strong temptation to simply crank up the printing presses and inflate the debt away. An extreme case of this was Germany after World War I. The Treaty of Versailles imposed financial obligations on Germany that it could never possibly meet, so they did the only thing they could do – they printed enormous amounts of money. By the end of 1923, one pre-war Mark was worth one trillion post-inflation Marks. If we did likewise, we could eliminate our entire national debt for about ten dollars.

The actions of the Treasury and Fed make it clear that the government is willing to print any amount of money it deems necessary. A year ago a trillion dollars was an unheard of amount. Today it seems that every week the government pledges another trillion to the latest bailout/stimulus plan. It is the most basic common sense that you can’t print money indiscriminately without destroying its value.

My guess is that all of this is crystal clear to the President and his economic advisers. The destruction of the dollar is already a fait accompli. Its just a question of when. We have poured so much gasoline into the flooded engine of our economy that when it finally does fire, the whole thing will go up in a massive inflationary conflagration. Viewed from this perspective, it is completely understandable why the government would continue to print trillions upon trillions of dollars. If the destruction of the currency is already a certainty, why not print as much of it as you can as long as there are people dumb enough to take it? As long as the Chinese are willing to take our worthless paper, why not let them have as much as they want? As John Maynard Keynes observed, “The creation of legal tender has been and is a Government’s ultimate reserve; and no State or Government is likely to decree its own bankruptcy or its own downfall so long as this instrument lies at hand unused.”

Those who hold US debt are in a catch-22. If they don’t continue to lend us even more money, the value of their holdings will evaporate. So, for the time-being they have kept the money flowing. But even now there are ominous signs relating to the long-term health of the dollar. The Chinese Premier recently cautioned the US government against policies which will further erode the value of the dollar. (The very fact that he’s saying so publicly is highly significant.) Meanwhile, the UN is discussing replacing the dollar as the world reserve currency with a basket of national currencies.

So far, the game of hot-potato continues, but the music will eventually stop, and when it does, anyone holding dollars will have to pay the piper.

It is with mild trepidation that I wade in on the AIG debacle. I’m no economist so I don’t pretend to understand the nuances and compelexities of what is obviously a convoluted and contentious imbroglio.

Honestly, I wouldn’t pretend to grasp the big picture any better.

Still there are things worth pointing out. I think it’s at least salient to acknowledge that the $165 million in bonuses aren’t even equivalent to the drop in ones pants following a protracted post urinal dance after an evening of copious beer consumption. The number itself really is much ado about nearly nothing. Having said that, I’m well aware the symbolism here as an indicator of the morally as well as ethically bereft culture we fight simultaneously along side the fiduciary malfeasance and overt criminality.

AIG sucks. Fucking crooks.

Through the revolving door only to emerge on the other side. I’m not at all comfortable with this idea of an excise tax, whereby the Feds step in and take 91% of the contractually (pre-Obama) negotiated bonuses. It’s a little too punitive for me. It feels knee jerk and it solves not a goddamn thing.

What I’m trying to tell you here is this is a soap opera on a black and white TV while a live championship rodeo is full tilt boogie less than a hundred yards away.

With most of us so broke we can only afford to pay attention, should we spend any more currency on this? It’s two beetles fighting in a jar while the Hindenburg slow motion bellyflops on the tarmac of infamy. Sheezus!

Our Man said “it’s on me”. He implied that it’s done and he’ll do his best to mitigate it but there are far bigger fish to fry so shut up and stay with me here. Fifty some days in and I’m losing you people? To this? $165 million is a fiftieth of what we spend before the first drop of Presidential urine plummets into the cool water of an ornate White House throne on any given morning.

In a perfect world, AIG would have been so ashamed, we’d never hear of any of this. They would have shut these greasy executives down. They’d have said “in a pig’s ass”, or, “here’s a keychain, how’s the wife and kids?”. They would have been asked to leave early in every sense of the word.

Yeah right. These are the 30 to 1 geniuses. If these assholes own calculators they don’t use them.

So anyway, that didn’t happen.

Did the Obama administration drop the ball? I suppose they did. So many people, Republicans in particular, are so loathsomely and disingenuously concerned that our man has his fingers in too many pies. He’s trying too hard. He needs to focus. Most of those very same people are flogging this issue like the carcass is even breathing.

The AIG bonuses are simply not germane to the big picture. Our man understands that. Many of you do not.

Just about everything I see this man do speaks to me of both short and long term thinking. The big picture.

Sixty days. He’s been here sixty days.

Today, Obama talked to Iran, “the promise of a new beginning” that is “grounded in mutual respect.” -CNN

That gesture of profound reason and noble diplomacy was eclipsed by Sarah Palin pissing and moaning that Obama had compared his bowling skills to that of a Special Olympian on The Tonight Show”.

“This was a degrading remark about our world’s most precious and unique people, coming from the most powerful position in the world,” Palin said in a statement released Friday. -CNN

I will leave you with this: What’s the difference between Sarah Palin’s mouth and her vagina? Only one retarded thing has come out of her vagina.

Drinks for my friends.

A massive swing of the pendulum to the right along about 1999. A percieved, albeit shallow impetus had been in place since Newt Gingrich fell from grace. Republicans got out outfoxed by Bubba. Clinton spanked their faces with bricks. They were pissed.

So, it had been brewing despite their growing power, not because of it. Slow but deliberate and venemously vengeful at the behest of the most unimaginably foul people. Like a bow being drawn. Weird. I ask myself about the hang time. I wondered how long circumstances and zeitgeist would favor such momentum. Rules of inertia and gravity dictated it would swing back, but social will and thorough retardation of the great unwashed can effect more than the laws of physics.

How is it a grown man pulls off the name Newt? He’s a bit of a baby face.

Years go by. Dark and horrible years. Death, destruction and redistribution of wealth on a biblical scale. Richard Bruce Cheney. Karl Rove. Unimaginably foul people.

Then, seems like it’s been forever, but the arc of the bob is once again in motion. It grows larger. It steams towards us. It’s path is to the left by way of East . After years of near suspended animation, the air displaced as she gains velocity goes from a whistle to a howl. I worry about apogee and thrust. Seems she’s coming too fast.

The initial violence of the movement could send the bob swinging violently over the top. Three hundred sixty degrees. It’s that nine o’ clock position I worry about. No need to go far past there on the dial. Ninety degrees.

Sad and regrettable that events so odious as an economic implosion were the only catalyst with mass enough to dislodge the bob from it’s parking place in the neoconservative lot.

From a howl to a scream.

Ah well, here it comes and this is America goddamnit. Religious adherence is down, correspondingly, common sense is up. The pious right revealed as the shallow, callow, two dimensional fucktards they are. Credibility across that side of the spectrum in severe disrepair.

Republicans are flailing in a vast puddle of human excrement. Yes, their own shit.

Ann Coulter and The Human Shitsmear Rush Limbaugh bleat incendiary expletives between gags on authentic Red White and Blue liberal American cock. Cheney shows up on TV specifically to say thet we’re already less safe because we don’t torture. Just tell me what has to happen to shut this quacking, rounheaded, corpulent fingered fucking penguin the fuck up.

Booya! Bitch!

Are you getting the sense this is an angry sort of hit piece? I gotta tell you I’m feeling it. I really hate these bastards. I’m not even sure what I mean about that American cock bit, but it speaks to the spirit and depth of my rage somehow.

This is an opportunity for progressive thinkers to pay it forward. Foment and supply the kind of disciplined thinking, politics, and ethics America has been so deliberately starved of for so long. Pushback. Give to the ignorant and fearful in equal measure what they’ve so successfully crammed down our gullets for the last eight years at least.

They can all blow me.

Go ahead with the truth. It is more than good enough.

Drinks for my friends.

March 19, 2009 – Thursday

Gambling with no money
Category: News and Politics
Insurance is a bit of a gamble. If I am an insurance company I am betting that what I insure against will never happen, and if it does, the risk will be spread out amongst other insurers.

So, if you insure homes in fire prone areas in California you had better not be the only insurer, and you had better have insured homes in other areas of the nation, as a nation wide fire or natural disaster is a risk you can accept.

AIG insured the financial markets, almost all of the markets, and they burned down.

If my name is Bernie Madoff, and you gave me all of your money, and I told you I was going to invest it, and pay you interest on your money based on the investments. However, I took the money and paid you interest on the money with the money the next person gave me, and spent the principle instead of investing it, I would be a criminal, and guilty of the largest Ponzi Scheme in history.

If my name is AIG, and I insured your financial transactions, and I told you I was putting money aside to pay for what I insured. However, I took the money you paid me for your insurance, and I gave it to my stock holders, and brilliant employees, not keeping any money to pay for the insured financial transactions, thinking they will never need to be paid, I would be too big to fail and bailed out.

In Bernie’s case, those that invested in him are out their money.

In AIG’s case, those that bought insurance for crappy investments (liar loans to name a huge number of them!!!) are having those insurance policies paid for as those crappy investments fall apart, starting with the Lehman Brothers’ investments. Going on to Goldman Sachs …

AIG entered the unregulated CDS market insuring anything that Wallstreet threw together. Put their AAA rating on those investments through insurance, and are now forced to pay out the losses in the markets.

Sure, the bonuses are wrong, and they should be clawed back, but what the hell was going on on Wallstreet? What was going on at AIG?

Most people would agree that when Lehman Brothers fell, September 15, 2008, the market crashed right along with them. I wonder how far the market would have crashed if AIG went bankrupt? When the true lose is known…

When Lehman Brothers went under the gambler was exposed. What was insured came due, and the gambler had no money. What happens to gamblers with no money? They usually get their legs broken…

I found this gem yesterday. I guess Glenn “Punch me in the face” Beck went on a tear filled gyration on air, ending in this:

“Believe in something — even if it’s wrong. Believe in it!”
Glenn Beck

Please, believe in something, but make sure it’s right, and stop believing the lies.

Peace,
J

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
Category: News and Politics
Sad to say, but with each passing day President Obama looks less like an agent of change and more like the latest installment in a never-ending series of Washington powerbrokers. This is doubly disappointing, since if there is a silver lining to the current crisis, it is that we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fundamentally change the way things are done. So far, all indications are that the Obama Administration lacks the courage and integrity to deliver upon the hopes they raised during the course of the campaign.

Case in point is the omnibus spending bill that the President signed last week. Despite promising repeatedly to veto any budget with earmarks, Obama signed this spending bill containing over 8,000 earmarks. Granted, it would be much more difficult to cobble together a congressional majority without the sweeteners that these earmarks represent, but this is precisely the kind of situation that tests the mettle of a leader. Does he have the strength to hold the line, or will he cave in to the status quo when push comes to shove? Obama could have stood up to the corrupt leaders of his own party (Pelosi, Reid, Frank, etc.) and refused to sign the bill, but he didn’t.

Another example of failing to lead is this week’s populist pandering over AIG bonuses. Yes, it is infuriating for the American public to see executives being rewarded after the enormous amounts of public money that have been pumped into their companies. That being said, the bonuses in question are microscopic in comparison with the real story. In the context of the trillions of dollars the government has already used to prop up the financial system, $165 million is completely insignificant. By turning it into a public firestorm, our leaders are cynically exploiting the public’s inability to comprehend the magnitude of the amounts of money currently being thrown around. $165 million, $20 billion, $1.5 trillion, what’s the difference? They’re all staggeringly large numbers. That being said, there’s a very big difference between a hundred million and a hundred billion, and our leaders are counting on our inability to tell the difference.

Of the money that has been pumped into AIG, over $12 billion has gone to Goldman, Sachs, the company once led by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. The President and the leaders in Congress have nothing to say about this, while they make an enormous stink about bonuses that represent less than 2% of that amount. This is a deliberate and cynical error of omission and emphasis. By making a spectacle out of a relatively insignificant issue, our leaders are hoping we’ll be distracted enough that we won’t notice the hundreds of billions that are being allocated according to a process that is both opaque and riddled with conflicts of interest. In other words, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…

DeWitt writes:

“Fighting on the internet is like competing in the special olympics; even if you win, you’re still retarded. This is not third grade; I am an adult.
Do you never tire of being the schoolyard punk?

Perhaps you lack the ability to understand complex language, so I will be as simple and direct as I possibly can.

I come to MySpace to have a few laughs and exchange ideas with friends. You are not my friend, and I have no intention of making you one. I have no interest in exchanging insults with you or any other Obamunist on the internet. If you and the rest of your fascist ilk want to fight about it; go ahead and fight amongst yourselves. Let me know how that turns out. If you don’t like what I post, good. I wouldn’t want to think I had done anything to make your existence on this planet less odious.”

My response:

No, you’re wrong.  You post this kind of deliberately irresponsible and obviously incendiary bullshit in public and you deserve at the very least to answer for it.  This is no mere lunch conversation among friends.  You put it out there.  You want to say what you have to say?  Own it and understand that there are people like me out there who will call you on it.

It’s not the first time you’ve resorted to the simplicity of labeling me a “schoolyard punk”.  It’s one thing I can honestly tell you I’ve never been.  If anything, I’m an intellectual bully.  I hate stupidity and I loathe your lazy pronouncements and casual, convenient under informed straw man tactics.

You call me a fascist.  That’s just empty and ignorant.  A definition:  “a person who is dictatorial or has extreme right-wing views.” -dictionary.com

Hello?  Is this thing on?

I’ve got to put somewhat of a disclaimer in here.  My angst is not directed exclusively at you.  It’s your kind.  You are a symbol of the ignorance that so plagues and infects the national dialog.  It pisses me off.  Under informed, ignorant and irresponsible.  I hold no hope of changing your mind.  You’re too far gone.  My goal is to hold you to the light so that the open minded understand that you are see through.  Transparent.  Your logic is archaic and your positions are absurd.  The world has left you behind because your acuity has lapsed into boilerplate neoconservative ideology that is obsolete.

On a directly personal note;  you say, “Perhaps you lack the ability to understand complex language, so I will be as simple and direct as I possibly can.”  This would be funny if it weren’t so absurd.  I’m not merely here to tell you I think you suck.  I explain myself and my objections in detail, in language far more detailed and nuanced than anything you have ever begun to approach.  That explains why you won’t engage me as well as anything else.  You’re outmatched.  Overwhelmed.  Afraid.  You are a coward who lacks the courage of your convictions.

My advise to you is to leave the game.  Once you can no longer adequately defend yourself and your opinions, it’s time to leave the game.  Shut up and walk away.

You are bad news Dewitt.  You poison the waters of what needs to be a healthy, progressive and proactive debate.  You Sir, are the problem.  Go away.  At the very least, do us all a favor and resign yourself to regaling your fellow ignorant flat earthers with your stupid opinions and reckless vitriol.

I am here to encourage and foment forward thinking and action.  I genuinely hope for America to replace her standing as a progressive, compassionate and generous force on the world stage.  In my mind, the opposite of what she’s been and how she’s been perceived for the last eight years.  You contribute nothing.  You detract.  You are destructive and contrary.  You have no hope.  Get the fuck out of the way.  Leave.  Please.  Let us get on with it and please shut the fuck up.

Drinks for my friends.

He’s not exactly my arch nemesis but he’s fun to poke my stick at. Just ignorant enough to be a flat earther. He wrote the following on his myspace blog:
“Many of you have heard of the Mustang Ranch. It was a famous brothel in Nevada where prostitution is legal. Anyway, back in the 90’s when Bubba and Hillary occupied the White House, the Mustang Ranch was seized by the IRS for failing to pay income taxes. It’s a little known fact, but; as required by law, the government tried to operate the business but failed and had to close it down. Now you want to trust the economic security of this nation to the same morons who couldn’t make money running a whorehouse and selling whiskey???

You must be kidding. . .
Don’t even think about turning our healthcare system over to them.”

I respond:

You’ve no idea of what you speak. Big suprise. Balloons and confetti. What you don’t understand is that the last administration installed a parade of idiots. While some are controversial, this administration endeavors to employ smart qualified people. One of the ideas here is for things to run much better. Smoother. More fair. More equitable.

I’m quite sure the failing brothel’s ultimate demise was directly attributable to Bill and Hillary. Gimme a break. Joe Conforte was a charismatic criminal but not a business man. The Mustang Ranch had already been closed and dormant once. When the feds took posession it had been closed and inactive a second time.

I don’t know the government even bothered to make a go of it. Work with me here, like the Federal Government is gonna try to run a brothel. Next. It was relocated and eventually auctioned off by BLM, the Bureau of Land Management. BLM owns about85% percent of most western states on average. The leisure suited wonderkind in bolo ties at BLM wouldn’t begin to have a clue about running a whorehouse.

Now, Bubba might just be the world’s greatest philanthropist. He shakes a hand and millions of dollars go to AIDs medicine in countries that can’t possibly afford it otherwise. He walks a tarmac and water flows. Wells are dug and they produce clean water. Irrigation networks are constructed. He’s an extraordinarily effective human. What’s your guess how a post Presedential Dumbya will do?

The first comment on his blog:
“If Dennis Hoff CAN do it and the Gov’mnt can’t then yes, by all means DO NOT turn anything over to them!”

I’m from Carson City Nevada, Dennis Hof is a friend of mine. He’s decent honest man with integrity. He’s done me more favors than I can count.

For my birthday I recieved a signed and inscribed copy of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s autobiography, “The Good Fight”.

So as a disclaimer, I’m a bleeding heart pinko liberal Democrat.

Dewitt and friends, you think you know something you don’t. You think you understand something you cannot.

Your lack of depth pains even me, someone who has very little respect for you. You’re reach exceeds your grasp and allows just enough for you to be detrimental. Not part of the solution, so definitely part of the problem. Just so you know, when I engage in name calling; asshole and idiot for example, it’s merely shorthand for what I’m trying to tell you here.

Those profane sentiments made by me you choose so conveniently to hide behind as a reason for not engaging me… You are a coward. A meat puppet.

I just loathe your perspective, your intolerance, the narrowness of your mind and your lack of intellectual curiosity. A sheep in wolf’s clothing.

That you could seize on an example such as this to make some grandiose sweeping point about the future of this once great country under our new President, is just Fisher Price ludicrous. Do some homework. Pay attention. Stop grabbing at ankles from the ditch.

Such a hypocritical and selective lover of government you are. You adore the mansion the neocons and religious zealots built. If you’ve got an ounce of sack left, you’ll answer my next few questions honestly. I am calling you out.

1) Do you have adequate healthcare for your age and condition? Yep, it’s a trick question.

2) Do you understand that George Dumbya Bush inherited a massive surplus from Willam Jefferson Clinton? Seriously, do you get that? Do you understand that this giant rotting swamp in the middle of a vast arid desert used to be sparkling streams rushing through a verdant landscape?

3) Tell me, without resorting to WMD, Al Qaeda or imminent threat, why we invaded the sovereign country of Iraq?

It’s a good place to start. I’ll do the same for you. Ask me three questions. Seriously and with a modicum of respect. I’ll answer them.

What we’ve witnessed here is the worst capitalism has to offer. What about a little socialized medicine and nationalization of less than half of our banking institutions? What are you so afraid of?

We are course correcting here. Greed has been completely replaced by jeopardy. So called Republicans and conservatives seem content to sit on their hands and bleat from the sidelines. Passive obstructionism. You offer few if any answers and seem content to deride and divide wherever you can. Totally in lockstep.

If I’ve never said this before, I’m remiss. I don’t imagine you to be a bad guy. I do think you lack the courage to question what you’ve been indoctrinated with and it frustrates me. And I do think you’re a fool. Fool and decent guy aren’t mutually exclusive concepts. A decent fool just gums up the works, see?

The U.S. is 35th in the world for math. According to the International Trade Centre, in 2005 the United States imported $494,477,000 worth of explosives and pyrotechnic products, or 24% of the world’s total. -rankingamerica.wordpress.com

According to a 2006 study first published in the magazine, Science, the United States ranks thirty-third out of thirty four nations (32 in Europe plus Japan and the United States) in acceptance of evolution. Iceland ranks first. Only Turkey ranked lower than the United States in the acceptance of evolution. -rankingamerica.wordpress.com

They’re talking about you Dewitt. Tell me you don’t buy into creationism Dewitt. If you do, the discussion might be over before it starts. I just can’t engage you there. It’s silly. There was no Noah. There was no Arc. There was no garden, no apple and no serpent. Sorry. Metaphors at best.

There’s no reason America should be so far behind in every way. Education and healthcare are long term issues we need to pay attention to immediately. A robust economy cannot be complete without moving to solve these problems now. Bedrock stability depends on those two issues in motion now, in five years and peaking in ten.

The culture of fear is obsolete. What we are being offered is hope. It is the the antidote.

What’s happening here is the mother of all adjustments. We do it the right way, ride it out with class and dignity and a genuine ethic of sacrifice, we’ll all be cool. Make no mistake, things will get smaller and stay that way for some time. We will be walking it back.

I really want to know what the average ketchup packet costs. It doesn’t stop there. What about mayo, mustard, relish and ranch? The nearly elegant, in the world of single servings of condiments, foil envelopes of soy with the post modern red and white. Heinz Mayonnaise is classy packaging.

Which of the aforementioned are no longer available at your neighborhood 7-11?

At what point does it cease to be cost effective to provide these delicious pillows for free? I am concerned.

Drinks for my friends.

A colleague and I had a mildly intense but friendly conversation about politics the other day. I’m hoping I disabused him of few ridiculous notions but I doubt it. Maybe I gave him pause on one or two matters. I may never know. Interesting guy. Very bright, very calm and very friendly.

I really like my little department at the bank. It doesn’t suck that Skippy’s gone.

So, same colleague tells me he agrees with Warren Buffet’s remarks this morning. I wasn’t aware of what he said but told my friend that I thought Buffet was a bright guy. He characterized what he’d heard as Buffet saying that the Obama administration should limit it’s focus to issues economic and stop using the power of majority to ram a liberal agenda down the throat of congress.

I thought to myself, less than fifty days in, and we’re being accused of precisely what Republicans have been audaciously guilty of for the last eight years, plus twenty.

Oh the humanity.

Here’s what Buffet said:
Warren Buffett, an Obama supporter, famously described the economic crisis as an “Economic Pearl Harbor” — but now says Congress, especially the GOP, has failed to adopt an appropriately unified “Dec. 8th” mentality. -politico.com

“The minority really do[es] have an obligation to support things that are clearly designed to fight the war in a big way,” Buffett said. “I think the Republicans have an obligation to regard this as an economic war and realize you need one leader… I think the [Democrats] should not use it … to roll the Republicans.” -firstread.msnbc.msn.com

I asked my friend if he thought Obama’s executive order today lifting the ban on federal funding for stem cell research was an example of the gratuitous Liberal agenda. His answer was, “absolutely”.

In other news:
The daughter of Republican Sen. John McCain called President Obama “the hippest politician around” – then complained that being a member of the GOP is “about as edgy as Donny Osmond” and blasted conservative commentator Ann Coulter as “offensive” and “radical.” -nypost.com

This sort of betrayal pleases me to no end. I wonder how long before she’s forced to walk it back a little. It won’t be long before daddy starts to forget.

Doesn’t Meghan McCain have a big rack?

Also, the practise of organized religion is on the decline. Some 86% indentified themselves as religious in 1990. These days it’s around 75%. Salient point here is that’s a long way to go. We need it closer to fifty-fifty. I’d feel better.

Last but not least is Our Man’s signing of the executive order today. Not only is it an economic opportunity and therefore part of a much bigger picture, but it’s intended to help “restore scientific integrity in government decision making.” -whitehouse.gov

“Today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation. It’s time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology.” – President Barack Obama -whitehouse.gov

See what I’m saying?

Drinks for my friends.

Just recently Our Man announced another welcome reversal from Dumbya era policies.

Along with closing Gitmo, ending torture, bringing troops home, allowing tax cuts for the wealthy to expire and no more raids on medicinal marijuana, Obama announced a lifting of the ridicilous restrictions on government funded stem cell research.

Hoorah and in your face bitches.

I’m looking at change. I’m looking right at it.

So today, Sunday, this tool who’s been on my radar for some time, Eric Cantor (Republican Whip) had this to say, “Why are we going and distracting ourselves from the economy? This is job No. 1. Let’s focus on what needs to be done,” – CNN

Hey Cantor, how is this a distraction? Why are the economy and potentially life saving scientific techniques or methodologies mutually exclusive? What kind of simpleton are you? One who’s so clueless as to imagine himself to be fighting for a baseless retarded principle? Or, so cynical as to pander impudently to right wing Christian whackjobs by fomenting ignorance and fear?

No secret that Cantor has been one of the most shrill Republican voices pissing on any and all of Obama’s economic proposals and policies.

White House domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes: “Advances with regard to science and technology help advance our overall national goals around economic growth and job creation,” she said, adding, “I think anytime you make an effort to try and separate these pieces of the puzzle, you’re missing the entire picture.” – CNN

Well said.

Cantor also said: “Frankly, federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research can bring on embryo harvesting, perhaps even human cloning that occurs,” Cantor said. “We don’t want that. That shouldn’t be done. That’s wrong.” – CNN

Fear, ignorance and proof that Cantor either doesn’t know what he’s talking about or at the very least, doesn’t think Americans do.

Government has very little judicature to be palavering over the morals or ethics of scientic research, save maybe for defense and national security. See how I just bitch slapped you with the irony? Did you like it? Call me daddy.

We would do well to remember that history provides plethora example of scientists and philosophers jailed or executed for telling what they knew to be the truth. We are not the center of the universe. We are not the center of the solar system, the sun is. The earth is round. Germs are really small.

I will paraphrase the local NBC affiliate coverage by telling you that opponents of stem cell research fear the destruction of human embryos and that the government will now be responsible for loss of human life.

Here are the motherfucking facts. We’re not even talking about embryos, we’re talking about blastocysts. I microscopic ball of about thirty cells, four or five days fertilized by in vitro fertilization only. In vitro fertilization is about numbers. The more eggs sperm conquer the better the odds. What I’m trying to tell you is that the blastocysts that don’t get used are discarded. Thrown away. The ones we want for research, end up in some strange receptacle with a scary symbol on it.

The entire controversy is over what has been biological waste until tomorrow.

Eric Cantor, fucktard that he is would have you believe that he’s not the one doing the distracting. Methinks he doth protest too much. Me also thinks he’s a jackbooted, lockstep Republican who’s just stupid enough to not see his base eroding.

Why behave in public if you’re living on a playground? – DLR

Two names: Bill Frist and Rick Santorum. Mumbling stumbling fucks, welcome to the clubhouse Mr. Cantor, sodas are free.

Drinks for my friends.

My question is, what’s wrong with this picture?

So we’re in the middle of an economic clusterfuck. Um, no shit.

The housing bubble erupted like a volcanically abscessed cow and deflated into a crater with a bottom below sea level. Tragic. I saw it coming. Twenty five percent annual appreciation in home values was unsustainable. Duh. I understood housing sales and speculation to be the last pole standing underneath the tent of our economy.

I was at the table, bought a brand new house in ’94, sold it in ’96 just after I no longer had to worry about capital gains. In and out at the last minute. I was lucky.

The consistent erosion in value of the dollar against foreign currency was troubling. Dragster fueled gold prices were an omen. Unemployment began to walk up a precipitous ladder. Then there was a deficit ballooning like a hemorrhoid after a dinner of habaneros, jalapenos and horseradish. A senseless war we couldn’t begin to afford.

I was and am a salesman, I talk to people all over the country everyday. I saw it coming.

Jon Stewart made a hysterically funny point tonight about how CNBC, a self proclaimed financial network, just missed it. Didn’t see it coming just like Alan Greenspan didn’t. I don’t know about CNBC, but Alan Greenspan is a liar.

How is that? You know, Greenspan turns into an idiot overnight and entire network devoted to the economy has fiscal Down Syndrome?

I predicted it. Read my old blogs. Am I a genius? One could argue it as a purely academic exercise, but that’s not the point. I am as clueless as the next Joe in most matters financial.

Shhhh! We’re hunting wabbit. See what I’m saying?

Here’s my point. We’ve got 90,000 troops in Europe, almost a hundred thousand in Asia and various amounts in twenty or thirty other countries. We’ll be spending well north of six hundred billion this year for “defense”. More than ten times as much as any other country.

Economies expand and contract. America’s economy is contracting at about the same rate as that of the planet. Our actual vulnerability in terms of national security are more congruent and even symbiotic with world economic fortune than any other facet of anything we do here on the blue marble.

Time to reckon and then contract. Not saying we should get all xenophobic at the bacchanal. How about we shrink some of our imperialistic aspirations around the globe? America must sacrifice her codependent love affair with the military industrial complex. If we don’t, we’ll fold like the Soviet Union for the same reasons and in the same way. Trust me.

It will be chaotic, noisy and there will be food lines.

Drinks for my friends.

We are barely thirty days in and already a legion of Guy Smiley conservatives are pinning the tail of the demise of America on Obama, our shiniest donkey. Our best hope.

They piss and moan about the deficit like they didn’t oversee the most gargantuan one in world history. Like they didn’t inherit a massive surplus. See kids, the first rule of business is you have to spend money to make it. You guys spent it foolishly. Now, we need to spend more money because you assholes did it wrong. Shut up. This is your fault. You’ve left us no choice. Shut up.

Bill Clinton wasn’t Jesus but he was Elvis.

Wall street is tanking. Frightening indeed. World markets are falling towards the most spectacular faceplant we may ever see. It sucks. It’s bad.

But, I’m not willing to let the most concentrated army of irresponsible greedy speculators be some sort of barometer for our economic future. They surf economic waves, they straddle inflated bubbles. They knew housing was gonna pop like a greasy zit. Of course they’re not happy with current stimulus effort because it’s not about them. At least not in the short term. They will have to wait. Every damn one of them has let the phrase ‘long term thinking’ escape their pie hole. Time for some of your own serum you fools.

If you’re looking to the stock market as any indicator at all about this administration’s potential for edible bacon, you’re a damn fool.

They love to gripe about tax increases. They never even bother to mention that damn near every workaday American will see their tax burden reduced and that any increase will only be for the top one percent. One percent that owns eighty percent of this country’s money and assets. We’re talking about ninety five percent of us who will spend that money because we need to as opposed to the richest folks on the planet that will never experience the onus of spending a single dime more on anything. When the bottom line sags, they cut jobs. They tip less. They trim their own nose hair. Sometimes, they fold their own socks.

This trickle down economic theory hatched by conservative birdbrain/icon Reagan has done nothing but shovel fuel into the engines of the ridiculously wealthy to steam us further and faster towards an endogamous caste system. We’re already a plutocracy. It’s a really bad idea that has been exclusively antithetical to the American Dream of economic equality and social parity.

Trickle Down Economics is an anathema to the American Middle class. After almost forty uninterrupted years of said philosophy, the once strong back of the American middle class is all but broken. It’s never been harder to simply work for a living wage.

They would have us believe that any and all spending on infrastructure is pork. Nevermind that everything from electrical grids to bridges and hospitals are crumbling like dirt clods in the hands of fourth graders in an arid desert. Nevermind that these projects will create jobs immediately that cannot be outsourced. Nevermind the dignity and self respect it will restore to men and women that want nothing more than a job that contributes in a tangible way to their own communities and pays the bills.

Nevermind FDR and The New Deal.

What about this doesn’t make sense to you greedy bastards?

Drinks for my friends.

The Republicans have been putting on quite a show lately.

It is with limp wristed Liberal delight that I watch a cavalcade of blowhard conservatives stumble over their own dicks. I should point out I’m wearing my frilly liberal blouse to give you a better visual. No boots but a handsome silver tiara.

RNC Chair Michael Steele used the words “Ugly” and “Incendiary” when discussing Rush Limbaugh on D.L. Hughley this weekend.

Did I mention my artfully encrusted codpiece?

It speaks volumes about the current state of the Republican party that Michael Steele says what he thinks in a candid moment about Rush Limbaugh and then back peddles, getting tangled up in his own phallus while attempting a mea culpa for the pleasure of the notorious Human Shitsmear.

Weak and stupid.

Some suggest we only launch against the Shitsmear for the sake of ‘strawman’ tactics. Villify Rush and prove our priorities have nothing to do with substance and policy. Nope. Ring the buzzer. We are here to expose him for being full of shit. He’s a loose lipped caricature stomping the stage to regurgitate talking points and rigid ideology back to the great unwashed like a carnival barker.

He is here for the stupid. The base.

Rush Limbaugh wields more influence and therefore more power than any single other Republican. Think about that. He’s not a journalist, he’s not a pundit, he’s not a politician, he’s an entertainer. When a disingenuous, hypocritical bloviating drug addict speaks…………..wandering clueless Republicans listen.

Then there’s the notion that Republicans can contemporize conservative ideals by by applying them to “….urban-suburban hip hop settings.” -Michael Steele/The Colbert report. The show went on to include Michelle Bachman (R. MN.) telling Steele that “You be the man”.

Sheezus. This is fucking pathetic.

After nothing less than renting our once proud nation asunder, the Republicans are desperate to remake themselves in any way, by any means possible and put as many miles as possible between them and their wreckless sins of avarice and division.

News flash. The likes of Limbaugh and Coulter cannot possibly lead you people out of these woods. They are your problem, no chance of them playing part in a recipe for the magic poultice. Their baseless vitriol, the fundamental components of which are hate and fear, will only further poison your message and perception. We are encouraged by them to view all Republicans like racists still clinging to the mantra of seperate but equal.

The Human Shitsmear obviates that you just don’t get it.

You people are idiots.

Drinks for my friends.

Oil and pot. One syllable, three letters each. What’s the only difference? One’s legal and one’s not. People die, get kidnapped and beheaded at the behest of both. A simple product. A commodity. The bad people get rich either way. The terrorists are just as sexy.

Among the most dangerous and foolish of games.

The prison industrial complex. Mexican warlords. Where the money goes has not changed since Nixon. The only significant change has been the amount of money. Can you say exponential? The gleaming city is underwater. The levees have failed. The cash overflows. America’s Drug War is the second or third stupidest thing we’ve ever done. After slavery, Viet Nam and Iraq.

It may be the second or third most expensive.

Then there was The Pet Rock, The Osmonds and Spam as meat.

Lives lost and innocent imprisoned in numbers staggering and shameful. Pigs at the trough, persecuting, prosecuting and killing their own while they horde the filthy lucre. You want terrorism? It’s on your southern border and it’s blowing the fuck up. Terror not mutually exclusive with the North American continent anymore.

It’s state sponsored, by your state, by the US of A. As we speak, it spills over. Civilians slaughtered. Juarez, Tijuana, El Paso and San Diego. Every American city bends and groans under the weight of our archaic policies and a draconian incarceration non-solution.

Enforce, enforce, enforce.

We learned in the thirties that prohibition is wrongheaded and the furthest thing from efficacious mankind could possibly muster. Stupid then, stupid now. It gave rise to a brand of crime we came to call ‘organized’. I wonder why we called it that. Seems kinda non-nefarious. A non sequitur. What it is today, is bad news. Organized crime like this, is American made. Homegrown like Jazz and The Blues. Just like a gorgeous and unique art form, we are worldwide with the violence and the ignorance.

I worry about my parents. They winter in Yuma. They have the world’s best insurance but they still cross the border to save money on a few things.

This is where we are. This is what we’ve allowed to happen. It’s sick. The War On Drugs and The War On Healthcare. The conversation with my mother will be about their safety on the border, because of The War On Drugs and The War On Healthcare. Because they could be killed on a lazy Sunday.

This is bullshit. We need to shut this nonsense down. We reap what we have sown. Did you know Reagan dealt drugs? He also dealt arms to folks we’d all decided as a country we couldn’t do business with because they were brown and kinda socialist. Or was it the other way around? I forget.

Even in my world the clouds part.

Then there’s Our Man’s choice for Drug Czar (head of the ONDCP), Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. I don’t know much about this guy yet but he looks to be pretty progressive. Alternet calls him “a relatively enlightened cop.” Seattle is goddamn liberal. They’ve lowered marijuana as an enforcement priority and have needle exchange.

Maybe there’s potential.

United States Attorney General Eric Holder has confirmed he will not be pursuing DEA raids on medical marijuana clinics. A policy shift that’s precisely 180 degrees out from the previous administration. It’s a waste of time and money and it foments distrust and fear. Smart move. Makes me smile.

Pretty big deal the aggregate of these issues alone. The departure they represent, despite them not being secondary or even tertiary to the electorate these days, it’s awesome. Forgive me but it is. It reveals a compassion and pragmatism people won’t recognize because it’s been so long since they’ve seen it.

Trust me, this is big.

My sincere hope is that it’s harbinger of things to come.

It he tells us he’s closing Gitmo, ending torture and the war in Iraq. Gonna wind down the defense budget a little, spend lots on infrastructure, healthcare and education. He seems to understand this is a long term deal. This is not your father’s President. His short game looks good too. Aggressive and decisive. Perhaps we should do something to revive the patient as opposed to speculating ad nauseum over what will be it’s demise.

If we could just stop spending money to kill people or be able to kill them better in the future. Not forever. Maybe for a few years. You know, a three year moratorium would just about get us out of this mess. It could work pretty well in the short term.

End the drug war, stop killing folks. Stop putting them in jail. Let the masses self medicate and get off your asses and allow America to cultivate hemp. Oil, nutrition and textiles in a crop requiring no pesticides that can be turned around every twelve to sixteen weeks. It’s illegal because it scared the shit out of Hearst (paper) and Rockefeller (oil) back in the thirties.

Good green bud has Pfizer horrified and vomiting.

Life is not a game and we’re not necessarily here to compete all the time. But when people succumb, when they become overly cynical and bitter. They have lost. They are losers on the human stage. They may succeed in some ways, but when they lose in important ways, nobody gives a damn.

Drinks for my friends.

Our man has delivered a budget. That word reads so simple. A budget. It’s more than that. A philosophy. He has huge balls. He’s not here to fuck around. It’s a lot of goddamn money. An unbelievable, unimaginable amount of money. Three and a half trillion at least. History will repeat itself like pi before you and I can realize a number like that.

Hoo ya!

“In keeping with my commitment to make our government more open and transparent, this budget is an honest accounting of where we are and where we intend to go,” Obama said at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House before the budget was officially released. He said previous budgets have “not told the whole truth” about spending and that “large sums have been left off the books,” including war costs that have been funded by separate emergency supplemental appropriations.

“And that kind of dishonest accounting is not how you run your family budgets at home; it’s not how your government should run its budgets either,” Obama said. -truthout.org

It’s spooky ambitous and ideological even. It’s visionary. The symbolism of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building is not lost on me. Long term thinking as opposed to thumb in the dyke stop gap chicanery. He’s made the very bold and cold shower honest move of including the cost of our wars in the official accounting of our government’s spending. The first time since we began to wage this unjust war. It begs the question of why it hasn’t been included so far. Did they think we didn’t know? Did they think we didn’t understand they were spending more money than you and I can make?

That all the while the rich were getting richer and we didn’t know?

“I have serious concerns with this budget, which demands hardworking American families and job creators turn over more of their hard-earned money to the government to pay for unprecedented spending increases,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement. -truthout.org

That is a lie. He is a Senator and he is lying. He sucks. His lament was for the wealthy. He presided over what will be the bulk of your debt for the last eight years. He’s an asshole. Google him, you can tell by looking at him. He was the kid you beat up for trying to tax Jello or maybe sell you gum by the stick.

These asshat Republicans have forced us to double down. They act like they left us a pile of chips. They left a pair of red panties on the green felt. Cotton granny drawers XXL.

Get out of the way while we play bold because it’s the only option you left us. Peniswhipdrinks. Go sit by the pool but you can’t put your drinks on your room.

We intend to use the rollback of tax cuts to the absurdly wealthy as our marker. Spreading the wealth around indeed. 80% of the world’s wealth in the hands of 1% of it’s people. Socialism my ass. Looks entirely equitable and ethical to me. Again, you haven’t left us much choice.

Here lies some proof in the moveable feast of the pudding. We spend ten times more than our closest competitor on guns, bombs, missiles and fighting men & women. America is responsible for forty percent of the entire global outlay of guns, bombs, missiles and humans. It’s ridiculous and obsolete. The single biggest component of that expense is humans. The world has changed. The ideology and geography of huge human armies is obsolete. Wars like this are no longer sustainable. If they prove to be viable at all, we will lose them. Good Morning Vietnam. A lesson we should have learned forty years ago.

“WASHINGTON (AFP) — President Barack Obama Thursday unveiled a 663.7 billion dollar defense budget, up a modest 1.5 percent on 2009, but projected a sharp decline in spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming years.”

Somehow under the new administration, it’s ok to photograph and reproduce images of coffins containing our dead service members. You may call the changes so far symbolic, I call them substantial.

We’re not in Kansas anymore. Kansas is no longer Kansas, despite how bad the people who live there want it to be. The world has changed and continues to do so. Pay attention. Nobody is in Kansas anymore.

We need to be as fierce in battle as we are gentle in friendship. I stole that but I don’t remember where.

Maybe next we’ll talk about education and health care.

Drinks for my friends.

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Executive Compensation
Category: News and Politics

The more I hear about the specifics of the new bailout/stimulus package, the more I fear that we are squandering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make badly needed changes in our fundamental economic arrangements and are instead indulging in an expensive exercise in populism and pork.

I suppose in any spending bill of this size, a fair amount of pork is unavoidable, but the blatant (and misleading) pandering on an issue like executive compensation is not only a distraction from more important issues, but it is also dangerous.

Prior to the collapse, the best and brightest in the banking industry could hope to earn millions (or even tens of millions) if they made it to the top of their field. Disregarding for the time-being the ethical/moral dimensions of the pursuit of mega-riches, let’s consider the practical consequences of capping executive compensation.

In a society that worships fame and fortune, the financial markets represent one of the only fields in which those not blessed with exceptional athletic abilities or good looks can hope to achieve success comparable to that of professional athletes or movie stars. For an ambitious college senior surveying the landscape of career options, there is an array of possible choices. Those who desire financial comfort but who also value stability and job-security might choose a career in law or accounting. Success in these fields is more attainable than in banking, but compensation is commensurately lower. A good accountant might make a couple hundred grand a year, never a hundred million.

Again, my point is not to judge whether it’s a good thing for the smartest members of our society to be motivated by the hopes of earning big bucks. The point is that the potentially outsized rewards ensure that the banking industry is able to attract people of the highest caliber.

If we now arbitrarily pass a law stating that bank executives’ compensation cannot exceed $500,000 per year, we will drastically affect the incentive structure facing the talent pool available to the industry. If a top-tier financial professional is faced with the option of running a bank with a salary of $500,000 or working for a hedge fund and earning $10 million, its not hard to see that banks will be unable to recruit and hold onto the most talented people. It is beyond foolish to expect that we can make such a change without causing a deterioration in the quality and performance of banking executives.

Furthermore, while the amounts of money earned by top banking executives seem excessive relative to what people earn in other fields, they are not out-of-line in terms of their impact on the bottom lines of their companies. Let’s imagine a bank that makes a profit of $5 billion and pays its CEO $100 million. If having the very best person in the position of CEO is responsible for a 10% increase in profitability (relative to a less talented CEO), the impact of the star-CEO is $500 million, so paying $100 million for his services is a good corporate decision. (Likewise, in an environment where we are seeing banks lose tens of billions, if a top-notch CEO is capable of paring losses even by a few percentage points, it is a good decision for the corporation to pay that CEO whatever it takes to prevent him from accepting some other highly lucrative form of employment.)

Yes, it is infuriating to see bankers taking expensive boondoggles to Monte Carlo or auto execs flying in corporate jets while their companies hemorrhage money, but this should not cause us to hastily make policies that will only further impair the ability of these corporations to recover. Simply capping salaries at $500,000 will only guarantee that we end up with less talented executives trying to deal with the most difficult banking environment of our lifetimes.

All of this is not to say that executive compensation is not in need of fundamental reform. But the simpleminded, populist fix of arbitrarily capping salaries is not the right solution.

The most glaring problem with compensation in the financial field (as well as others) is that tying bonuses to a company’s reported earnings in any given year creates dangerous incentives for executives. On one hand, it rewards reckless risk-taking, since if a gamble pays off the executive responsible can make a pile of money, while if it doesn’t, he can just walk away and get another job. Additionally, it creates incentives for executives, auditors, and ratings agencies to present fraudulent numbers in order to boost short-term rewards. Many of the problems that currently threaten the very survival of the country’s largest banks stem from these pay-related incentive issues. But to just deal with a complex and thorny issue with a simplistic and politically expedient fix like capping salaries at $500,000 is foolish and potentially harmful.

February 5, 2009 – Thursday

The Action Americans Need
Category: News and Politics

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis — the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We’ve seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

Every day, our economy gets sicker — and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now.
Barack Obama
The President of The United States
(Yea, he writes op-ed pieces too)
LINK 1

Barack Obama, yea that guy, wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post today, taking his message to the people. So, not only does our president apologize, he writes op-ed pieces to speak directly to us, the electorate.

He knows how critical this time is for our economy, and the future of our country. Two wars, infrastructure in the worst shape in decades, capital markets collapsed, job loses continue at record pace.

With all of this, the answer I keep hearing from the small loud obstructing party (GOP) is the same we have heard for the last 25 years. Tax cuts!

I actually had a Republican tell me (ok, he claimed to be a libertarian, whatever 😉 that one example of tax cuts that work was the Harding-Coolidge tax cuts of the 1920s. Never mind we found ourselves in the great depression within 5 years of passing the cuts. Look at the $1.3 Trillion dollar tax cuts of BushCo, and look where we are now. Look at the Reagan tax cuts, and the recessions we had both in his administration and in Bush I’s.

I watched Representative Barney Franks on Sunday remind us all that no tax break every fixed a bridge, never educated a student, never built a road, never paid a fire fighter, never brought new teachers to education.

Is the congress’ stimulus bill perfect? Hardly! But watch it when it comes out of the Senate. It will have a lot of things cut out, a lot more infrastructure spending, and will gain some support from Republicans. Those that don’t vote for it, well I hope they go home and tell their constituents that they fought hard to NOT bring jobs home, and did all they could to ensure that the rich get richer, and the public web that binds us together crumbles further.

I’m with Obama on this one. I did not like the whole tax mess with several of his appointments, but for the first time in 8 years, the president said “I screwed up”. Wow! There is change in the air, and if you can’t get behind it, get out of the way.

Peace,
J

Our Man admits he “screwed up”.

One word. Wow. Or maybe, fuckmerunnin.

I’ll state the obvious by pointing out it’s the first time we’ve heard any thing like that in about eight years.

Geitner’s imbroglio was one thing but Daschle’s had become a flaming sack of canine fecal matter on very well known doorstep. Quite another thing, see. I’m confident Our Man ordered it removed. He’s not stupid. He’s doubled the IQ of previous occupants of the big White House on his own.

Sucks cause I really like Tom Daschle. He would have been very effective. Big loss. I think that’s where the rubber met the road here. Obama, being the erudite individual so many of us fell in love with, realized that Daschle was one of the few individuals with the respect and gravitas to spearhead genuinely efficacious healthcare reform. A player.

He knew he was perhaps the best man for the job and therefore America’s best shot at equitable, decent and affordable medicine.

Sad. Daschle screwed the pooch. He did it to his own self. He mayhap would’ve rocked.

This business about Michael Phelps potentially arrested for being photographed doing a bong rip is absurd. Leon Lott, the sheriff of Richland county South Carolina is rather obviously a publicity slut. I like the message, however inadvertently, Phelps is sending. Even record breaking olympian athletes can and should smoke the Devil’s foliage if they want to.

If more Republicans did they would be less inclined to wipe their dicks on their own drapes.

It’s fine with me if you don’t as long as you take no exception to those that do. I should point out that if you read me regularly, you understand that I’m fond of beelzebub’s garden. Yes, I’m on the pot. I also like Bombay Saphire ($28.88 this week at Ralph’s), Vicodon, Percoset, Cheladas and Xanax roughly in that order.

We’re gonna go ahead and nickname him ‘Leon The Lott’ in case he’s stupid enough to pursue this.

I’m trying to make a point but nothing happens.

Denny’s gave away a free breakfast today and I can’t believe I missed it.

Drinks for my friends.

Monday, February 02, 2009

Say It Ain’t So, Barack!
Category: News and Politics

I had a strange experience today. For the first time ever I found myself agreeing with Sean Hannity. It was not a pleasant experience – in fact, it made me feel kinda dirty. But, when he rails at President Obama for standing behind Tom Daschle (nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services), unfortunately Hannity is right on the money.

Daschle failed to pay over $100,000 in taxes resulting from private limousine services he received. Daschle only remedied the situation once it became clear that Obama would be President and that Daschle might have a chance to serve in the Cabinet. Regardless of whether this was a legitimate mistake, it looks terrible and undermines the credibility of the new Administration.

Given the enormous expectations that swept Obama into office, it was inevitable that some necessary disillusionment would set in. That being said, I’m shocked that the President would expend valuable political capital defending an establishment Democratic Party mainstay like Tom Daschle. I was willing to overlook Tim Geithner’s little tax hiccup, but Daschle’s is more glaring and indefensible. At a time when the American people are being asked to make painful sacrifices in order to put our country back on track, seeing a fat-cat like Daschle skate through a confirmation process simply because his party controls Congress just screams business-as-usual.

As someone who has high hopes for our new President and genuinely wishes him well, it is tempting to give him the benefit of the doubt. But it would also be a betrayal of the principles that Barack Obama built his campaign upon to overlook the fact that lately he is starting to look more and more like a typical Democrat. Where is the new blood in this administration? Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, Tim Geithner? And now we’re being asked to overlook a serious tax violation by a man who personified the divisive partisan politics of the last 20 years. Please, Mr. President, don’t make me agree with Sean Hannity. I don’t want to feel dirty anymore.

February 2, 2009 – Monday

If Jesus Had a Trillion Dollars
Category: News and Politics

“I think we need to exercise some discipline here and I think it may be time for the President to get a hold of these Democrats in the Senate and House who have rather significant majorities and shake them a little bit and say look, let’s do this the right way.”

“if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and you spent a million dollars every day since then you still would not have spent a trillion dollars.” adding that, “it is more than we have spent on all the wars since 9/11.”

Senator Mitch McConnell Republican Senate Minority Leader

If Jesus had a Trillion Dollars, what would he spend it on? I think that is what Senator McConnell was asking, right?

As I write this, the current cost, Budget Authority for the Iraq War is over $629 Billion dollars, not including interest. Senator McConnell was making a comparison to the stimulus program, which currently sits at $820 Billion. It is well accepted that Iraq alone will cost in real dollars a minimum of $100 Billion a year for at least the next 2 years.

So, if Jesus had a Trillion Dollars, do you think he would spend it on infrastructure, schools, health care, green energy, and tax breaks, at $1 million dollars a day for 2000 years, or would he spend the money invading a nation killing tens of thousands, and maiming hundreds of thousands, all in less than 6 years?

Just wondering,
J

PS: Let’s not remind him that the Bush Tax Cuts which the Republicans rammed through cost over $1.3 Trillion, left us with the lowest job creation ever for a two term administration, and an over all 30% loss in wealth in the stock market, $700 Billion in bail out funds, $ Trillions $ in Fed money, and a real loss in earning of the middle and lower class…

Title courtesy of Jon Stewart.

Subject: The stimulus bill.

He didn’t invite them to his table, he sought to sit at theirs. He told them what he intended to do and solicited their contributions. He asked them for their ideas. He made concessions. Diluted his ideas with theirs in the spirit of bipartisanship.

Despite such pointed magnanimity, every single Republican in the house walked away. Irresponsible, single minded, tunnel vision afflicted pricks. Shameful and embarrassing. How ridiculous. Yes Virginia, Republicans are not only assholes, but deaf, dumb and blind assholes.

He knows better than they do that he doesn’t need them. They’ve been marginalized by their own actions. They are fools and he understands this better than they do. He didn’t do this to them, they are prisoners of their own device.

He walked straight at them with hands open and they chose instead to piss into the wind. Let the record show they are damp and they stink.

Like soldiers stranded on remote islands with no evidence the war is over.

Punks. Dipshits. The most clueless union of fucktards to ever inhabit our government since they were the most clueless union of fucktards ever in power. Children.

“Why behave in public when you’re living on a playground?” -David Lee Roth

Stay with me.

Are we to expect this sort of partisan obstinance to continue? Did they not get the memo? Do they not understand that they are over? Ignorance does not always prove to be bliss. Led by House Minority Leader John Boehner (Boner), The Repugnicunts marched in jackbooted lockstep. Lemmings. They haven’t even bothered to wet a finger and hoist it. They still think it’s 1992. Chronic insouciance.

Boner quotes:

“This Was a Bipartisan Rejection of a Partisan Bill” Um, what? How can it be a bipartisan rejection when it was a single party exclusively doing the rejection? Spot the retard.

“I’m just a Congressman, so I have no opinions about what the government does. My opinion on waterboarding is classified information.” -WEBCommentary

John Boehner is a clueless dickhead. The poor dumb saps from Ohio got him as substitute teacher after Tom DeLay was forced to walk the plank.

I say slash every concession out of the bill, every unecessary tax cut and let them eat goddamn cake. Our man should take full advantage of the bully pulpit and otherwise let be what will be.

There is no tangible difference between House Republicans like Boner and the CEOs that rode corporate jets to to Washington to beg for money. No different than the megalomaniacal Wall Street captains that took tax payer money for bonuses in an awe inspiring display of ostentatious avarice.

I gotta give it to Claire McCaskill for proposing legislation that would cap salaries for Wall Street execs of firms recieving TARP money at $400k, the same as President of The United States. “These people are idiots. You can’t use taxpayer money to pay out $18-billion in bonuses… What planet are these people on?” -Daily Kos

Couldn’t have said it better myself. How many of the aforementioned would you guess are Republican? I imagine the answer would delight me.

I’m reasonably sure that this style of creep is on the verge of extinction. I’d like to believe that anyway. One thing is certain, they are no longer at the wheel and that is encouraging. Fools. Insidious fools.

If House Republicans are in any way representative of the future of their party, it may be time for them to contemplate the most flattering diorama they can afford in backward ass country fuck museums across our great land. Dinosaurs anyone? Neanderthal. Cro-Magnon at the very least. Reptilian perhaps. Assholes without a doubt.

The diorama itself would have to depict various men and women in obvious sartorial business splendor fellating a variety of other similiarly attired beltway professionals with wheelbarrows of filthy lucre at the ready and nearby. The obligatory backround matte painting would include poor folks suffering from hazardous chemical contamination, non US citizens impoverished and displaced by war and The Constitution being defecated on et al.

Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya you miserable bastards.

Drinks for my friends.

January 26, 2009 – Monday

I WON
Category: News and Politics

At the end of last week, President Obama invited Democratic and Republican legislators to the White House to talk about the stimulus package. Hmmm, I don’t remember Bush doing to much inviting, or listening to the other side.

Let’s not put Obama on a pedestal, he did take a swipe at Republicans. In an exchange with Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) about the proposal he had for the stimulus (don’t tell, more tax breaks?), the president shot back: “I won,” according to aides briefed on the meeting.

A side note on Rep. Cantor’s wife. She works for a privately held bank which just before Bush left office received $267 Million dollars in TARP money. You’ll love this, the bank is called, New York Private Bank and Trust, and bills itself as a “haven for wealthy individuals and families.”

Maybe that’s why Cantor is so big on tax cuts for the rich, they are his constituents and his wife’s employer.

Obama also took a swipe at the hard right in general:

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,”

Ok, I think I just felt that “tingle up my leg” that Hardball’s Chris Mathews was talking about. Yea, maybe he deserves to be on a pedestal.

I watched all the Sunday news shows. What an interesting round up. Let me share my views, and the views of Jason Linkins from the Huffington Post:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY had John McCain. John doesn’t like the stimulus package. He doesn’t notice that a huge part of it is given in tax cuts exactly the way Obama said he would, as well as tax cuts for small business, which John McCain was for in his run for the president.

No matter, John went on to say that Waterboarding is torture, good for him, but he also said that we should be forward looking. So, if you get pulled over for a traffic violation, and smoky walks up to your window, let him know, “Hey, let’s look forward, and not back. After all, while I’m sitting here on the side of the road I’m not speeding anymore …

Brit Hume believes that we’ll one day realize that “enhanced interrogation techniques” really did help America in the seven years after 9/11. I would like to say that I believe Hume will one day realize that NOT USING these techniques really did help America in the seven years after the first attack on the World Trade Center, and, past that, Presidents should take their Daily Security Briefing seriously. I’d like to believe that, but this is Brit Hume we’re talking about.

FACE THE NATION had VP Joe Biden on for the half hour. Biden was relatively gaff free, but he is so knowledgeable about everything foreign policy. I feel safer now that Dick is gone.

MEET THE PRESS had I believe the best show of the weekend. I really like David Gregory. He had Larry Summers, and John Boehner (Boner) on the show, but not at the same time. That would have been a real show.

Remember, Boehner (Boner) said last week, after the Obama meeting:

“You know, I’m concerned about the size of the package. And I’m concerned about some of the spending that’s in there, [about] … how you can spend hundreds of millions on contraceptives,”

“How does that stimulate the economy?”

So a guy named Boehner (Boner) is concerned about the package size, and wonders how contraceptives stimulate? Lol!

Back to the show, Summers really lays out what the Obama administration is going to try to do. The reason why all the money won’t be spent in 18 months is because the way the economy is going we will need stimulus for years beyond 2010.

Boehner (Boner) wants more tax breaks, you know because they have worked so well over the last 8 years, and questions giving so much of the money to the states. I’m not sure about this, but by states, aren’t they talking about the 50 states we, you and I, live in?

Summers wants the Bush Tax Cuts to go away, sooner rather than later. Why? We can’t afford it, and it hasn’t done anything for the economy. Remember, thus far Bush’s tax cuts have cost the treasury over $1.3 trillion dollars.

Gregory, points out says that Americans aren’t spending or borrowing, they are saving their money, and doesn’t that make the government the spender of last resort? Boehner says no: “If you give the taxpayer back more of what they’ll earn, they’ll either save it, spend it, or invest it, all of which are good for the economy.” THIS ELIDES OVER THE QUESTION GREGORY ASKED IN THE FIRST PLACE. Americans will ONLY SAVE THAT MONEY. And that is a good idea! For the individual American! But it doesn’t defibrillate the economy. Also, it just proves that individual Americans are not going to eschew their own self-interest to save the economy, either.

I’ll break it down in short hand. Boehner (Boner) wants tax breaks, put money back in peoples hands, but not poor or middle class people, though they will spend it quickly. Summers spelled out tax breaks for the middle/lower classes, and for small businesses. Summers also spelled out spending programs on infrastructure, green energy, and other investments in America.

ABC This Week had Nancy Pelosi on. I am happy to hear her put bipartisanship in context. She doesn’t seem to care too much about what the Republicans want. She has allowed them to put forward ideas to be voted on, but beyond that, ummm, they need to get real. There is a reason the Republicans are not in power any more. Their ideas have not changed, though the current conditions have.

The round table was most interesting. George had Carly Fiorina, Paul Krugman, George Will, Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson. I love to hear Krugman straighten out Carly and Will on economics, neither seemed to understand that the banks in America are grossly over leveraged.

Yes, we have put tons of cash in the banks, but they are still over leveraged, and until that changes they will not lend money, they will instead beef up their leverage. Plus, if we want to tell the banks what to do, we need to nationalize them not buy stock that has not vote.

Which leads to my theory on the economy, I believe even more strongly now than ever, that we should have taken the first $350 billion dollars should have been put in individual’s bank accounts for one year before the money could be removed. That way the banks get the leverage, and the tax payer gets to keep the money in the end.

That’s my round up, in addition to the great week our nation had, I am very hopeful that things have changed for the good, finally!!!

Peace
J