Meet The New Boss

Obama Authorizes New Gas Drilling Off US Coasts
President Obama has unveiled a new plan to open up large swaths of the Atlantic, Gulf and Alaskan coasts to offshore oil and gas drilling for the first time in decades. On Wednesday, Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said drilling permits would be issued along the East Coast from Delaware to the central coast of Florida. New areas of the southeast Gulf Coast will also be open to drilling, as will the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska. Speaking at Andrews Air Force Base, Obama said the plan would help lead the US toward energy independence.

Judge: NSA Wiretapping Program Illegal
A federal judge has ruled the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program was illegal and in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the federal district court in San Francisco ruled the government illegally intercepted the phone calls of an Oregon-based Islamic charity called Al Haramain in 2004. Both the Bush and Obama administrations had tried to dismiss the suit claiming a trial could result in the release of state secrets. But Judge Walker rejected the state secrets argument. Attorney Jon Eisenberg said the ruling marks an “implicit repudiation of the Bush-Cheney theory of executive power.”

Obama Appoints Pesticide Executive to Top Trade Post

And food justice advocates are criticizing President Obama’s recent appointment of a top pesticide industry executive to a key trade position. The executive, Islam Siddiqui, was named the US Trade Representative’s Chief Agricultural Negotiator in a spate of recent appointments. Siddiqui is a former vice president and lobbyist at CropLife America, a group of the major industrial players in the pesticide industry, including Syngenta, Monsanto and Dow Chemical. A coalition of over eighty environmental, family farm and consumer advocacy organizations had campaigned against his nomination.

Study: Homeowner Program Favoring White Borrowers
A new survey from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition has raised new questions about the Obama administration’s $75 billion Home Affordable Modification Program. The program is designed to provide financial incentives for mortgage lenders and servicers to reduce monthly payments for struggling homeowners. The survey found white homeowners are almost 50 percent more likely to receive a loan modification under the mortgage program than African Americans or Latinos. Meanwhile, loan servicers foreclose on delinquent African American borrowers more quickly than white or Latino borrowers.

News briefs courtesy of Democracy Now!

Mea culpa

OK, I know I haven't been very active here lately. I've been traveling - Ecuador, Netherlands, and am about to disappear into the Bahamas on field work (I love my job!).

If you are one of the few who like what I have to say, my apologies. I'll get back to it. Soon. (Note to self: "Don't make a liar out of me").

In the meantime, visit my favorite blogger, Tom Degan (that's Tom on the left, no irony intended). He's much more regular than me, always has something to say, and says it with a sublime mixture of humor, outrage and finesse.

Quote of the Day II

"Neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency."
-- Jared Diamond

Now, this is something Sarah Palin and all of her tea bagger contingent will never understand.

Quote of the Day

We are living in an increasingly individualistic, over-privatized, fragmented society, and it's not going to get any better any time soon.
-- Sam Benjamin

Those Rethugligan hypocrites

Thank you, Rachel.

Jon Stewart on Net Neutrality

AT&T is pulling out all the stops to try and defeat Net Neutrality. With a a new FCC seemingly dedicated to keeping the Internet the great, unfettered forum for all voices with equal access, the telecom giant is 1) encouraging its employees to lobby against Net Neutrality and 2) sending its K Street droids up to Capital Hill with plenty greenbacks to grease their corporate shills in Congress.

So, the concept is to paint Net Neutrality as "Government Control of the Internet," the great tea bagger bugaboo.

Thankfully, John Stewart puts it all into perspective in about 4 minutes. Sit back and watch. AT & T, you is gonna lose this one!

"He passed the test."

Endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan, collapse
of the economy created by bank fraud, gutting
of the Bill of Rights...

Bush Sr. thinks Jr. "passed the test."

And what's up with the creepy smile when he says "this [sic] 9/11?"



I agree: WTF?

Soupy Sales 1926-2009

Why I Love Michael Moore

I went to see "Capitalism: A Love Story" last weekend, and left the theater (which erupted into applause as the credits rolled) with a certain degree of awe.

Why awe? Well, for much the same reason that I am in awe of Greg Palast. Both Palast and Moore can always finds the smoking gun, the hidden memo, the little bit of evidence that renders the emperor with no clothes. In "capitalism" it was two things: 1) "Dead Peasant" insurance: secret insurance policies that corporations take out on low level employees (like the moniker that the insurance industry has given this little vehicle?), and from which the company can still collect after Joe or Sadie leaves the firm; and 2) that lovely leaked memo from Citibank, one of the great beneficiaries of involuntary taxpayer largess last year, celebrating the fact that the U.S. system is a “plutocracy” for the benefit of the super-rich — that 1 percent of the population that makes more than all of the bottom 95 percent combined. And, no, they didn't view this as a problem.

I also love the fact that Michael Moore sends the right into paroxysms of loathing beyond measure. Google "Michael Moore" and "hypocrite" for pages of Michael Moore assassination blogs. Do I care if Michael Moore owns stock or once owned stock? No. Do I care that he lives in a nice apartment in NYC? No.

What I care about is that he keeps making movies that mirror light into dark corners, and makes me laugh a few times, too. Laughter is good for the soul.

But most of all, Moore gives us hope. Hope that the 95% of Americans who do not share the wealth, are capable of taking their country back from the plutocrats who consider us little more than peasants.

American Hero V

The Honorable Rep. Alan Grayson D-FL (yes, Florida).

Why?

Watch below.

First aid

Need any further evidence that the Senate Health Reform bill is largely a sham and just a slightly reworked corporate welfare plan?

Think Progress' Igor Volsky reports that, "Following Baucus' announcement, HealthNet shares increased by 3%, United Health Group Inc shares rose by 2.7%, Humana Inc. grew by 2.6%, Wellpoint stock gained 1.7% and Aetna Inc rose 1.6%."

From Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post: "Max Baucus was paid handsomely (in campaign contributions) by the health care industry to deliver a health care reform bill that only the health care industry could possibly love. Well, mission accomplished! As Julie Hirschfield Davis reports for the Associated Press today, the Baucus plan 'gives health insurers, drug makers and large employers reasons to heave sighs of relief, sparing them the higher costs and more burdensome rules included in other Democratic-written alternatives.'"

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/health-care-stocks-soar-w_n_290125.html

Jason

Socialize the risk, privatize the profits.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/health-care-stocks-soar-w_n_290125.html

More culture

I couldn't resist.

We're Number 37!

From Paul Hipp: "Here is a song celebrating our proud ranking in the World Health Organization's list of world health systems for all the obstructionist hecklers to sing as they continue down the road to total irrelevance."

It's only rock n roll but I like it.

For Paul Hipp info and downloads please click on the links....

www.cdbaby.com/paulhipp

Paul on Twitter

Paul on Facebook

Paul on MySpace

www.paulhipp.com

E-mail Paul and join the mailing list at: hipptunes@gmail.com

War Is a Racket

In 1934 there was an attempted coup in the United States that was thwarted largely due to the efforts of U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler (ret., now deceased).

Butler was awarded the Medal of Honor twice and the only person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two different actions.

After it dawned on him how his heroism and the heroism of the troops under his command had been misused, he wrote a pamphlet called "War is a Racket" which has pretty much been expunged from our historical reading lists in school.

In the following video, an actor recreates the speech that Butler gave to many different audiences during the 1930s.

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Republican Asshole of the Month

And the winner is ...

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina.

(Normally these awards are annual, but there's just so many deserving candidates!)

In Search of Steve Ditko

I realize that this goes against the usual grain of Muttering Jam (i.e., it ain't political), but it IS cultural. Artist Steve Ditko was as much (if not more) a creator of the iconic modern comic book hero Spider-Man as Stan Lee, but abruptly departed the comic at the first zenith of its success, and has eschewed his rightful share of the megamillions that the franchise has raked in since. Now in his 80's, the reclusive artist singularly pursues his own vision, heavily influenced by the philosophy of Ann Rand (oy!). Join BBC commentator and comic fan boy Jonathan Ross as he, in turn, pursues the artist. If you are not an enthusiast of "sequential art," you may want to watch anyway, if only to glean why those of us who are, are.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Part 7

Another one bites the dust

Those of you who read this blog with any degree of modest regularity know that I am a big Van Jones fan.

I was ecstatic when he was appointed to be the "green jobs czar" for the Obama administration, and knowing the man's work ethic, I was confident that his low profile since that appointment was evidence that he was deep into the architecture of policy craft that would at once lead our country to a new energy future and empower the lost generation of inner city youth with a cornucopia of green collar opportunity.

But even a low profile cannot keep you safe from the roving eye of the petroleum-bloated corporate machine and their hell-spawned facilitators. No, all it took was a sorryass ex-top 40 DJ turned wingnut cheerleader named Glenn Beck.

If you can stomach it, here you can watch one chapter of this evil little man's week long character assassination of Van Jones.

Now, it should be mentioned that an organization that Van Jones founded called Color of Change successfully organized the advertiser boycott of Glenn Beck's show on FoxNews because of its scurrilous half-truths and racist-tinged attacks on the Obama administration. The boycott has cost Beck 57 sponsors, including Wal-Mart. No, you you won't find that little factoid on any of the myriad right wingnut web sites defending Beck's hideous little mind fuck. And of course that has NOTHING to do with Beck's pukesome crusade against Jones.

Among his other imagined sins, Van Jones DID have the temerity to call right wing Republicans "assholes." He also admitted that he can be one, too. I think he showed statesmanship restraint, don't you? Remember what former VP Dick Cheney, during a Senate session, told Sen. Patrick Leahy to do to himself? And Cheney, as we know, has never let an ounce of self-inspection tarnish his dream image of himself as some sort of white knight.

This weekend, Van Jones resigned from his post in the Obama administration.

Here is a great blog piece by St. Petersburg Times TV/media critic Eric Deggans on this subject.

And another great piece by Sharon Joy Kleitsch at creativeloafing.com.

The toxic minority

Let's face it.

Somewhere between 25 and 36% of the voting age American public are complete morons.

These are people who cannot think critically, whose pig-brained (and I genuinely apologize to all intelligent members of the genus Porcus) decision-making capabilities are molded exclusively by the latest, loudest, red-faced truth-defiling instrument of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, who willfully take for granted the past largess of the Federal government's experiments towards a civil society (and believe me, we have a long way to go), who often fail to even recognize that such inventions as social security and medicare are in fact government programs, whose grasp of the world stage ends five yards from their front door (or at best, the exit doors of their local shopping mall). These are the people who, right to the bitter end of November 4, 2008 insisted that history would redeem the administration of George W. Bush and his Svengali, Richard B. Cheney.

If the current voting age population of the United States is somewhere around 150 million, that means that 37.5-54 million of our fellow citizens have their heads situated firmly and irrevocably up their colons. That is no small number of pinheads. But they are still a minority. Now, breathing such fecund air does little for such already oxygen-starved brains. And yet, somehow, it is this sputtering minority that seems to rule the debate, at least within the strangled hallways of the mainstream media (what the wingnuts call the "liberal" media), when it comes to reforming the health insurance industry, shifting our energy paradigm to one much less reliant on fossil fuels, climate change, or literally any attempt at reform by our current moderate Democratic president. The reasons for this are manifold, intertwined, but not really very complex.

For one, spewing "tea-baggers" make for better press than quiet, reasoned, proponents of liberal causes. (Aside: "tea-bagger" has an interesting definition among the urban young that has nothing to do with politics - well, maybe sexual politics. Look it up. Personally, I feel like that's what's being done to me when I see some gonad-driven wingnut screaming at my congressional representative).

For two, the media is, for the most part, controlled by large corporations who, in case you haven't figured it out, are the main architects of "public" policy in America today (and times past, too). The status quo serves them very well, and projecting image after image of red-faced Sarah Palin facilitators is a bulwark against any reform that may suit them less.

And for three, the rest of us, by our conspiracy of silence, enable them.

Who Is Obama Playing Ball With?

by Amy Goodman

It looked like it was business as usual for President Barack Obama on the first day of his Martha’s Vineyard vacation, as he spent five hours golfing with Robert Wolf, president of UBS Investment Bank and chairman and CEO of UBS Group Americas. Wolf, an early financial backer of Obama’s presidential campaign, raised $250,000 for him back in 2006, and in February was appointed by the president to the White House’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Economic recovery for whom?

Interestingly, Wolf’s appointment came in the same month that UBS agreed to pay the U.S. $780 million to settle civil and criminal charges related to helping people in the U.S. avoid taxes. Not to worry. UBS, an ailing bank with a pre-existing condition, had great insurance coverage. It was actually receiving $2.5 billion in a backdoor bailout from bailed-out insurance giant AIG. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said, “It looks like we’re simply laundering this money through AIG.” UBS, this bank that shelters wealthy tax dodgers, was actually being bailed out by hardworking U.S. taxpayers.

UBS, which once stood for Union Bank of Switzerland, was founded more than a century ago. Its success hinges on Switzerland’s famous banking secrecy laws, allowing people to squirrel money away in untraceable “numbered accounts.” Secret Swiss bank accounts have become a favorite way for wealthy people in the U.S. to dodge taxes. According to the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in a July 2008 report, “From at least 2000 to 2007, UBS made a concerted effort to open accounts in Switzerland for wealthy U.S. clients, employing practices that could facilitate, and have resulted in, tax evasion by U.S. clients.”

As part of the settlement, UBS agreed to share client account information with the U.S. government. While there may be as many as 52,000 such accounts, UBS is releasing only about 4,450 client names. Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman said in a press release, “We will be receiving an unprecedented amount of information on taxpayers who have evaded their tax obligation by hiding money offshore at UBS.” UBS will be sending account holders notification that their names may be among those delivered to the IRS, and the IRS, in turn, is granting leniency to tax dodgers who turn themselves in before Sept. 23. Account holders won’t know if their names are included, though, so gamblers among them may keep quiet and hope their accounts stay secret.

Last Friday, as Wolf was preparing for his golf game with Obama, UBS whistle-blower Bradley Birkenfeld was sentenced to 40 months in prison for facilitating offshore tax evasion through UBS banking schemes, despite assisting federal investigators in exposing the secretive bank.

Above the entrance to UBS’ headquarters in Zurich is a bust of the Greek god Hermes—not only the fleet-footed messenger of the gods, but also the god of thieves and merchants. The symbolism is striking. Whether or not Wolf won his golf game against Obama, UBS has clearly scored a hole in one.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 750 stations in North America. She is the co-author of “Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times,” recently released in paperback.

Astroturf: Exposing the Fake Grassroots

And while we're on the general subject....

Here's a little Glenn Beck gallery. Yet another triumph of noise over reason, sheer stupidity over intelligence. 1/4 to 1/3 of the American public feed out of this halfwit's hand.

Scary.











































Now this last one is not of ol' Glenn, but nobody - no less an elected official - so forcefully combines sheer ignorance with outright wingnut lunacy as the Honorable Rep. Michelle Bachman of Minnestota (yes, the same bipolar state that barely elected Al Franken to the Senate).

So, here's my piece of unsolicited advice to all of those first class idiots that swarmed the health care town hall meeting in Tampa the other night, screaming about socialism and nazism:

THIS fat fuck calls Obama a Nazi?!?!?!?

Let us hope that next time Rush the Scumbag comes back from one of his sex tourism jaunts in the Dominican Republic, they find more than an empty vial of Viagra.

Oh ... and as for you so-called dittoheads, do us all a favor and march off in unison into the sea sooner than later.

Evidence of explosives in Twin Tower rubble

"It's not like before"

These aren't two hippies railing against the system. This is one of most insightful mathematicians and one of the most accomplished options traders of our time. Watch it and start making plans. Maybe.

The Quiet Coup and other things

Wow, has it really been 2 months since I posted anything? Some of it is, of course, the same inertia that has afflicted a sizable number of liberals since election day 2008. I was laughing the other day at an ad from a purveyor of progressive bumper stickers and other paraphernalia, facetiously (or not) begging people to buy from him and help shake the sales slump he's been suffering since the election. On a more somber note, progressive talk radio has evaporated from the south Florida airways.

Complacency? No. Never that. We're still in Iraq; we're killing even more innocents in Afghanistan. We are, no doubt, the Taliban's best recruiting tool, not only there, but in Pakistan, too. The economy is still stuttering, and all anyone wants to do is evaluate recovery by Wall Street! Congress, no matter the Democratic majority, is still the private property of lobbyists.

Hey, President Obama - I'M PISSED!!!!!!! I worked my ass off to win you Florida and you gave me Timothy Geithner, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers! Not to mention Robert Gates.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose ...

Maybe that should have been the title of this post ...

It wasn't until I read an article in the Atlantic by Simon Johnson that I began to understand the pathology of Obama's thrall with Wall Street. Johnson is a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management and the former head economist (2006-2007) for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Just so you know that we're not talking about some bandana-wearing anarchist. His article is titled "The Quiet Coup," and it is hands down the best piece of analysis that I have read concerning the strange, sorry state in which our nation has found itself.

From the article's lead in:
"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time."

Read it, and weep. Then send President Change an email and tell him to do the same.

Hey Paul Krugman (A Song, A Plea)

This is just TOO good. Jonathan Mann writes a song each day.

Best news of the first 100 days

The Obama administration has almost made up for the appointment of Timothy Geithner to the Treasury by announcing that Van Jones will be joining the Cabinet as Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). This is just incredibly good news and we should all be celebrating!

Progressive Obama emerges from his centrist shell

... and I for one, rejoice. This is why I gave up my weekends to knock on (sometimes hostile) strangers' doors from September through November 2. Was I worried? You betcha. Why wasn't Joseph Stieglitz and Paul Krugman, both Nobel Prize winners for economics, invited to his economic adviser table along with tired Clintonistas like Larry Summers and Robert Rubin? Robert Rubin?!?!?!? The guy who Marketwatch called one of "ten most unethical people in business," who has profited greatly from policies he enacted while Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury?

So, what is the reason for my (cautious) optimism? It is the following components of his budget, unvieled last week:

Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American.³

Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won't go up one dime.⁴

Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.⁵

Brings our troops home from Iraq on a firm timetable, finally bringing the war to a close—and freeing up almost ten billion dollars a month for domestic priorities.⁶

Reverses growing income inequality. The plan lets the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire and focuses on strengthening the middle class.⁷

Closes multi-billion-dollar tax loopholes for big oil companies. ⁸

Increases grants to help families pay for college—the largest increase ever.⁹

Halves the deficit by 2013. President Obama inherited a legacy of huge deficits and an economy in shambles, but his plan brings the deficit under control as soon as the economy begins to recover.¹⁰

Dramatically increases funding for the SEC and the CFTC—the agencies that police Wall Street.¹¹

Tells it straight. For years, budgets have used accounting tricks to hide the real costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and too many other programs. Obama's budget gets rid of the smokescreens and lays out what America's priorities are, what they cost, and how we're going to pay for them.¹²

Now, how do we know these are proposals on the right track. Well, the corporate interests affected by each of these budgetary items are already amassing huge lobbying efforts to defeat them, the surest sign that the peoples' interests just may be served by the Obama administration.

There's more:

1. Stops unnecessary government subsidies to big banks, health insurance companies and big agribusinesses.^13,14,15
   
2. Expands access to early childhood education and improves schools by investing in programs that make sure every child has a qualified, strong teacher.¹⁶
3. Negotiates for better prescription drug prices using Medicaid's tremendous bargaining power.¹⁷
   
4. Expands access to family planning for low-income women.¹⁸
   
5. Caps the pollution that causes global warming, and makes polluters pay to support clean energy innovation.¹⁹
   

Sources:

1. "Climate of Change," The New York Times, February 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27krugman.html?em

2. "Obama Calls His Budget Sweeping, Needed Change," The New York Times, February 28, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51201&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=2

3. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=3

4. "Obama Expects Fight Over $3.55 Trillion Budget Plan," Bloomberg News, February 28, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51203&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=4

5. "Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51204&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=5

6. "The Economic Cost of War in Iraq and Afghanistan," The New York Times, March 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/weekinreview/01glanz.html

7. "Tax Cuts," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-tax.html

8. "Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51204&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=6

9. "Student Loans," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-edu.html

10. "Obama unveils budget blueprint," CNN, February 26, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/26/budget/

11. "Obama budget would boost SEC, CFTC, FBI," Reuters, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51205&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=7

12. "Obama's budget," Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51206&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=8

13. "Student Loans," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-edu.html

14. "Health Insurance Stocks Dive on Medicare Advantage Cuts," The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51207&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=9

15. "Agriculture," The New York Times, February 26, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-agri.html

16. "Investing Wisely in Our Children," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51208&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=10

17. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=11

18. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=12

19. "Setting 'Green' Goals," The New York Times, February 26, 2009 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51209&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=13

A tip of the Mirsky hat to Moveon.org.

Another Idea?

Barack Obama's resume

Are you sick and tired of being assailed by your unrepentant Rethuglican friends and family members about the thinness of President Obama's resume, about how the reason no one could find much meat to hang an attack hook in during the campaign was the fact that he hadn't really done anything?

Well, fear no more. Here is the new president's resume for your rebuke arsenal. Pretty impressive one, too, I might add.

Oh, and if you want Dubya's as counterpoint, head over here.

Thank you, and good day.

Couldn't say it better myself

The George W. Bush Presidency - A Retrospective

Where in the world is Mike Connell? (or the saga of Turd Blossom)

Do you know who this man is?







Is Karl Rove the most dangerous man in America? How does a portly, baby-faced fascist with a predilection for leather bars manage to

1. cheerlead the most presidential administration in American history as it shepherds one disaster after another for 8 mind-boggling years
2. treasonously engineer the outing of a clandestine CIA operative
3. railroad a Democratic governor of a southern state into prison
4. mastermind scads of election fraud scams and schemes in order to secure his moronic doppelganger another term in office
5. thumb his nose at every congressional attempt to get his broad criminal ass in front of a committee under oath
6. enjoy paid gigs with both Fox news and the Tribune Corporation (Newsweek) as a talking head despite the fact that he is a sociopathic lying sack of shit?

And Rove, no matter what he does, comes up smelling like a rose. Could it be what his best bud GW meant when he bestowed the honorific "Turd Blossom" on his loyal wonder boy? Perhaps the one time when Dubya's verbal irony was not accidental.

If you really want to know just how wondrously wretched one damaged human being can be, read these three books by James Moore and Wayne Slater: Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, Rove Exposed: How Bush's Brain Fooled America, and The Architect: Karl Rove and the Dream of Absolute Power.

But getting back to the lead-in to this post ... Do you know who Mike Connell is (was)?

Mike Connell is/was Karl Rove's brain. Or at least his IT whiz kid. You see, Connell was a Republican consultant accused of involvement in alleged vote-rigging in Ohio in 2004. This case, which was being heard in Ohio, was the result of a civil suit brought by two civil rights lawyers. Though at first he refused to appear, Connell eventually was forced to cave and was expected to fully testify. It was the hope of the plantiff attorneys that Karl Rove himself would eventually have to appear in court as part of their suit.

And that's where things start to get ... well, meaningfully coincidental. Because, you see, Michael Connell -- founder of Ohio-based New Media Communications, which created campaign Web sites for George W. Bush and John McCain -- died instantly after his single-prop, private aircraft smashed into a vacant home in suburban Lake Township, Ohio on December 19, 2008.

"The plane was attempting to land around 6 p.m. Friday at Akron-Canton Airport when it crashed about three miles short of the runway," reports the Akron Beacon Journal.

Connell's exploits as a top GOP IT 'guru' have been well documented by RAW STORY's investigative team. You can also read about it on Brad Friedman's Blog. In fact, Brad's offshoot org, Velvet Revolution, had been offering a $100,000 reward for information lining Karl Rove to the shady shenanigans of the 2004 presidential election, a scandal which VR calls: "Rove Cybergate."

It gets nastier:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Michael Connell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly implicated in the rigging of George Bush's 2000 and 2004 elections, was killed last night when his single engine plane crashed three miles short of the Akron airport. Velvet Revolution ("VR"), a non-profit that has been investigating Mr. Connell's activities for the past two years, can now reveal that a person close to Mr. Connell has recently been discussing with a VR investigator how he can tell all about his work for George Bush. Mr. Connell told a close associate that he was afraid that George Bush and Dick Cheney would "throw [him] under the bus."

A tipster close to the McCain campaign disclosed to VR in July that Mr. Connell's life was in jeopardy and that Karl Rove had threatened him and his wife, Heather. VR's attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, notified the United States Attorney General , Ohio law enforcement and the federal court about these threats and insisted that Mr. Connell be placed in protective custody. VR also told a close associate of Mr. Connell's not to fly his plane because of another tip that the plane could be sabotaged. Mr. Connell, a very experienced pilot, has had to abandon at least two flights in the past two months because of suspicious problems with his plane. On December 18, 2008, Mr. Connell flew to a small airport outside of Washington DC to meet some people. It was on his return flight the next day that he crashed.

So, the question that nags at the back of my feverish and Rove-hating brain is this: is Turd Blossom a murderer, or is Mr. Connell enjoying a new life on some private Caribbean island owned by ... let's say, Rupert Murdoch?

The myth of the over-paid union auto worker

In a prepared statement for his December 4, 2008, appearance before the Senate Banking Committee, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said:

Contrary to an often-repeated myth, UAW members at GM, Ford and Chrysler are not paid $73 an hour. The truth is, wages for UAW members range from about $14 per hour for newly hired workers to $28 per hour for assemblers. The $73 an hour figure is outdated and inaccurate. It includes not only the costs of health care, pensions and other compensation for current workers, but also includes the costs of pensions and health care for all of the retired workers, spread out over the active workforce. Obviously, active workers do not receive any of this compensation, so it is simply not accurate to describe it as part of their "earnings."

Yet, both the Big Three CEOs (for whom over-compensation IS the shoe that fits), abetted by the media, continue to promote this fiction in an effort to cast the blame of their titanic mis-management and poor strategic decisions on the people whose job it is to put together their low quality products, not design them. Here is a fine review article from Media Matters for America.

Jeb Bush momentarily emerges ...

... from underneath whatever rock in Miami this fiercely partisan* foil for his dimwit sibling has been hiding.

His call to arms? That Republicans should form a "shadow government" to thwart the Obama agenda.

Wait a minute. "Shadow government?"

What the hell have we had for the past 8 years?

In this same interview Bush reiterates the myth that America is a "center-right" country. Well, if you only converse with millionaire Republicans, I am sure that is the perspective engendered.

No doubt, the Jebster will be running for Mel Martinez' Senate seat, now that the latter has announced his retirement. My greatest pleasure will be helping to usher in his defeat.

*According to my state assemblyman, for the eight years he was in office as Florida's governor, Jebimiah never even so much as knocked on a Democratic legislator's door.

Economy in Crisis

In case you never scroll down the length of my blog page, I have added a new feed in the left panel, Economy in Crisis. This extraordinarily informative web site "is a news blog dedicated to educating legislators and the American public in regards to the destruction of our country's industrial base, the impact on national and economic security, and the effect on our standard of living. We publish critical but overlooked facts and figures, keeping our readers up-to-date with daily articles regarding the U.S. economy.

"Out of concern for America's deteriorating economic condition, the individuals responsible for www.EconomyInCrisis.org donate their expertise and time. EIC does not support any political organization or corporate interest."

As a testament to the even-handedness of EIC, one can read plaudits on their web site from a diversity of pundits of all spectrums, from reactionary Pat Buchanan through Reaganite Paul Craig Roberts to liberal intellectual Air America host Thom Hartmann.

Idiotocracy

And that's exactly what they are doing. Barack Obama isn't in office yet, but the right wing radio voices are already making references to "Obama's recession." My local pinheads write into the newspaper proclaiming how the economic shitstorm that we have entered is -- of course -- the result of Democratic party policies and, most specifically, Bill Clinton. Of course the oxygen-starved brains of the wingnut brigade forget two salient facts: 1) that Bill Clinton, zealous centrist that he was, left the ecocomy of our nation with a budget surplus, a declining deficit, and an expanding job market; and 2) that it was the capitalist wet dream of deregulation ushered in by Ronald Reagan where the seeds of today's corporate implosion were sown. But the right will forever excel at one thing and one thing only: re-writing history to justify their sorry ass gospel of greed, hypocrisy and intolerance.

Last tag

I might have thought that after last week's electoral victory I would be willing to cast a little slack George Bush's way. But the little thug is determined to be a miscreant to the very end of his sad, larcenous administration, not content to merely fade into history's dustbin.

The sociopath intends to finalize 90 Federal regulations, and do so in a way that will insure that the Obama administration must spend hours, weeks, months, embroiled in the process of undoing them.

According to constitutional scholar John Turley, Bush's moves are "akin to fouling a water-well ... almost a sign of contempt for the results of the election."

From a Raw Story article by David Edwards and Muriel Kane:

In an appearance of Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show, Turley explained, "This is the ultimate dead-hand control. ... What a president can do is, by finalizing a regulation, he can force his successor to go through an entirely new regulatory process that can take years."

"What the means in real terms," Turley noted, "is that you can have an Obama administration that continues to carry out George Bush's directives. And for people who elected Obama for change, that's a particularly obnoxious reality to accept."

Turley explained that the regulations in question are not the same as executive orders, which "are easier to undo. A President Obama can come in with his own superseding executive orders." However, once a federal regulation has been in effect for 60 days it can no longer simply be reversed by presidential action. This means that as of January 20, President Obama will be unable to undo any regulations finalized by November 22.

"We're talking about environmental regulations, a lot of issues that the public clearly indicated they wanted a change on," Turley continued. He observed that "President Bush has a certain benefit in being the least popular president in modern history. ... That seems to, in a strange way, have freed up his subordinates, where they are trying to just run the table and move every regulation, executive order they can to try to create this control."

However, as Politico pointed out on Wednesday, the "little-known" Congressional Review Act (CRA) of 1996 was passed to address just such a situation and will allow Congress to undo these last-minute regulations "with a joint resolution that can’t be filibustered in the Senate."

"It creates something of a fiction," Turley said of the CRA. "It says if you push it through in the final days of your administration, it won't be considered final until the new Congress comes in. ... Congress gave itself extra time to reverse it."

"The key here, however, is time," Turley continued. "We're not going to have a lot of time, and we're talking about a lot of regulations and a lot of executive orders. And that's why Obama reportedly has a team of dozens of people who are trying to unravel this very complex web of executive orders and regulations."

Olbermann asked whether late January will see Congress handling "a flurry of legislations in which a dozen of these are repealed at the same time -- or one giant Get Rid of Bush Bill?"

"They could do it in an omnibus manner like that," stated Turley, "and I suspect that they may have to."

"Congress ... is going to be dealing with literally hundreds of executive orders and regulations and also hundreds of signing statements by this president," Turley concluded. "And eventually, they going to have to tackle each one of those individually to give Obama the right to direct his own administration."

Here's the video:

Circling the wagons (and shooting at each other)

It had to happen. The Republican Party is licking its wounds, and at the same time putting its worst foot forward. Soon, they will start eating their young. Instead of taking a lesson from the sweeping mandate given to Barack Obama by the American people, and accepting that turning the GOP into a vehicle for incoherent, white, radical right-wing rage is a thoroughly failed party paradigm, the wack jobs are proposing to expunge all moderate elements from the Republican Party forever, and crown Sarah Palin as the new voice of the elephant brigade.

They call it "Operation Leper." To quote redstate.com, the blog where the proposal received its maiden voyage:

"RedState is pleased to announce it is engaging in a special project: Operation Leper.

"We're tracking down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against Governor Palin to Carl Cameron and others. Michelle Malkin has the details.

"We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you'll see us go to war against those candidates.

"It is our expressed intention to make these few people political lepers."

Notable members of the list so-far? Steve Schmidt, McCain-Palin's campaign strategist.

With the characteristic deficit of self knowledge we've come to associate with this wing of the party, they obviously fail to understand that they themselves are the true lepers in our nation today.

So, is it worth $11.99 to buy one of those cups for the simple pleasure of smashing it against a rock?

Not as red as you think

You are looking at a cartogram of the now familiar red/blue electoral map that has become the hallmark of Election Night media. The difference between this cartogram and the usual map is that the states have been "morphed" to proportionally reflect their population rather than the size of the state. Looking at the results of Tuesday's election from this perspective gives a much more realistic view of how successful Barack's campaign was and how solid was the victory.

This and other transformations of the electoral map can be found here.

In case you missed it ...

Best news I heard all day

"BREAKING: Federal Judge Compels GOP IT Guru Mike Connell To Give Deposition in Ohio '04 Election Case "

"The BRAD BLOG has learned that Mike Connell, the Republican IT guru whose company, GovTech Solutions, created Ohio's 2004 election results computer network, appeared in federal court today, as compelled, and has been ordered to appear for his deposition on Monday, November 3, just 24 hours before Election Day 2008.

"Though Connell's attorneys have fought to quash the subpoena, recently issued after the judge lifted a stay on the case several weeks ago, it looks like his options to avoid testimony, or at least jail for avoiding it, may have come to an end. The attorneys in the case have said that Connell's testimony may well lead to the subpoenaing and under-oath questioning of Karl Rove, who, they say, would be unable to use Executive Privilege as an excuse to avoid such a subpoena in a civil RICO case."

GOTV

GOTV. It stand for "Get Out The Vote." It is the rallying cry of the last days of the Campaign for Change of Barack Obama who stands to inspire not only the largest voter turnout in American history, but perhaps a shift in the consciousness of our nation. A much-needed shift, after the seeds sown by Ronald Reagan have their flowering amid the meltdown of the American Dream.

My garage is a local staging area for GOTV. My area field organizer arrives early with his older sister - I'll call her "T," who will man our HQ with me. We suspend a huge "CHANGE" sign from the open garage door, and pepper the yard with signs and flags. From here, we dispatch volunteers to other neighborhoods in the vicinity throughout the day, armed with canvas lists and their own story. "Hi, I'm ______ , and I'm a local volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign. Have you voted already?" The supporters we cajole for a few volunteer hours.

All day, the cars pull up. Women and men by themselves, or families. Perhaps they have done nothing else since the campaign began. But now they have stepped up to the plate, because they know what is riding on a Florida victory for Obama/Biden. White, black, Asian, Indian, Hispanic, of all ages, they arrive in spurts of activity. T. checks them in, and I train them in the art of canvassing. Only one returns prematurely, embarrassed by her admission: "I"m sorry, I can't do this." After that we team up the more timid ones, though that usually means less doors knocked. But we want every one in their comfort zone.

The packets come back, unsurprisingly, with a comfortable margin of Barack supporters. Over weeks and weeks of door-knocking and phone calling, the lists have been winnowed down to predominantly Obama voters. We look for people who will need transportation to the polls, and press the able ones for a canvas commitment. And always: "Have you voted yet?"

Early voting ends today in Florida. On November 4, we decide nothing less than the future of our country, and perhaps the world. Regardless of the outcome (which I hereby declare will be a landslide victory), I have had the opportunity the past 3 months to see the best side of America, a taste of the unification of spirit that I believe will be the over-arching theme of an Obama administration. That has changed me, in late middle age, back to something of the innocent I was before Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were mowed down within 3 months of each other. I have always thought that something inside me was irrevocably lost that year. But is turns out that it was only sleeping.

The whole world is watching.