The NY Times Asks: What About The Rest Of Us?

From today's New York Times lead editorial:

Any bailout bill must allow struggling homeowners to modify their mortgages
in bankruptcy court. Mr. Paulson should drop his opposition now. If he won’t,
Congress should insist on the bailout for homeowners.

Except that Congress is almost half Republican and Republicans oppose any plan to allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages to help homeowners.

Look out today for what could be a major bloodbath on Wall Street. With Bush's own Republican House members in open revolt against his bailout plan, there is no "agreement" and so we''re back to the real risk that our financial system could collapse Great Depression style. This is what we've come to with the era of Republican sponsored reliance on the market, combined with deregulation. Thank Ronald Reagan, who got the "government is the problem" ball rolling, and the two Bushes, especially Junior, whose tax giveaways to the rich and whose war of choice in Iraq has run the county's debt to record proportions. Meanwhile Americans still continue to support John McCain, according to the most recent polls. They haven't suffered enough, apparently, and want a third Bush term.

What we're seeing may be an American fall of the empire.

Jim

Bush: Dear Leader Finally Speaks

From today's New York Times lead editorial:

It took President Bush until Wednesday night to address the American people
about the nation’s financial crisis, and pretty much all he had to offer was
fear itself. There was no acknowledgement of the shocking failure of government
regulation, or that the country cannot afford more tax cuts for the very wealthy
and budget-busting wars, or that spending at least $700 billion of taxpayers’
money to bail out Wall Street and the banks should be done carefully,
transparently and with oversight by Congress and the courts.

The Times doesn' think much of either McCain's or Obama's leadership in this crisis either, although they're harsher on McCain and his ploy to postpone the debate Friday. It does look like the outrage of the American poeple has put the brakes on any blank check for Wall Street.

Jim

Vote NO On The Bailout!

Click on the title of this post to send your protest of the latest plan to redistribute wealth upward to the rich:

Congress has no right to give the White House and its Secretary of the Treasury the power to transfer the people's money to the richest bankers in the country. Vote No to the Bailout legislation. The Bailout legislation is being rammed through Congress in a matter of days. This is an illegal power grab by the White House and their richest friends on Wall Street. The Legislation allows the Treasury Department to appoint the same bankers who created the crisis to administer and dictate the use of trillions of our tax dollars. It is also one of the biggest transfers of wealth from working families to the ultra-rich in the history of the United States.
Congress should help families stay in their homes. Wealthy executives should be forced to disgorge their obscene profits, fees and bonuses that made them ultra-rich while they ran the economy into the ground.
I will be watching your votes on this and remembering your actions come election day.

James Kelly

What Bush Junior Has Wrought

Americans need to be told a more fundamental truth: This crisis is the
result of a willful and systematic failure by the government to regulate and
monitor the activities of bankers, lenders, hedge funds, insurers and other
market players. All were playing high-stakes poker with the financial system,
but without adequate transparency, oversight or supervision.
The regulatory
failure, in turn, was grounded in the Bush administration’s magical belief that
the market, with its invisible hand, works best when it is left alone to self
regulate and self correct. The country is now paying the price for that
delusion.

New York Times editorial 9-20-08.

Have we had enought yet of the Republican-conservative hatred of government and regulation?

Jim

Dump The Republicans - VOTE BLUE

America Blog reader "John" wrote this:

How many times do we have to hear:

We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to fix Social Security.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to fix Medicare.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to provide health care to ALL Americans.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to help out Americans losing their homes.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to help all our veterans returning from war.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to rescue "no child left behind".

BUT...

We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to bail out Bears Stearns.
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to bail out AIG.
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to pay for an unnecessary TRILLION DOLLAR war.

When the LITTLE GUY needs help, they scornfully say, "GET A JOB!"But when one of their BIG GUY CRONIES need a bailout, what do they say? SURE, NO PROBLEM. Where's the checkbook?"But what about the debt we're leaving on the backs of our childen and their future?""Children? WHOSE Children? OUR children won't have to pay for this. YOUR children will."The Republicans have had their hands in our pockets for well over 8 years.Now they are robbing us blind IN BROAD DAYLIGHT and smiling about it!!!!The Republicans have shown their true colors and now they expect us to vote them back into office?What's next? Should we bend over and spread 'em? Oh, I'm sorry, but we've ALREADY DONE THAT!!SEVERAL TIMES!!!Vote for REAL change this November.VOTE BLUE

McCain Dishonest And Dishonorable

"...we do not have a serious pick for the vice-presidency in the GOP,
do we? We have an absurdity. And a joke."

"John McCain is dishonest and dishonorable. That much we now know. "

- Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan, one time Bush supporter and one time admirer of John McCain.

Sullivan's fierce criticism of the Republican ticket is raising eyebrows...including mine.

Jim

Bush's October Suprise: WW III

From The Jerusalem Post:

The Dutch intelligence service, the AIVD, has called off an operation aimed
at infiltrating and sabotaging Iran's weapons industry due to an assessment that
a US attack on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program is imminent, according to
a report in the country's De Telegraaf newspaper on Friday.

So Bush may start yet another war in the Middle East, and of course we'll need to elect John McCain to insure that we have the leadership we need in wartime.

Jim

New Book Explains 40 Years Of Conservative Domination

According to a book review in today's New York Times, a new book, “The Liberal Hour” by G. Calvin Mackenzie and Robert Weisbrot, two professors at Colby College, makes the case that the blame for the last 40 years of conservative/Republican domination can be traced to "overreaching by liberals" in the 1960s, in particular, by President Lyndon Johnson:

He never appreciated the limits of good intentions, especially his own.
Like many a tragic hero, Johnson was brought down by hubris. And Democrats, Mr.
Mackenzie and Mr. Weisbrot tell us, are still paying the price.

That is a fascinating theory. I wonder if the overreaching by Bush Junior in Iraq and with his ultra conservative domestic agenda will result in a swing of the political pendulum back in the other direction.

Jim

PHOTO: The Cherry Bowl volleyball game held last week in Cherry Grove

Cheney's Lawless Assistant

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert's column today is a must read. It details how an aid to Vice President Dick Cheney, a man named Addington, has been the force behind the gutting of the U.S. Constitution under Bush/Cheney:

In the view of Mr. Addington and his acolytes, anything and everything
that the president authorized in the fight against terror — regardless of what
the Constitution or Congress or the Geneva Conventions might say — was all
right. That included torture, rendition, warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, you name
it.

Note: the American people did not elect this Addington character - he is a political appointee.

Jim

PHOTO: I took a lot of pictures over the weekend at the annual Fire Island Dance Festival. It's a spectacular event to shoot.

Pickens, Gore, And Bush

The summer is rushing by. We've just had a beautiful week of near perfect beach weather. The surf has been a bit rough, but the water is warm once you get past the breakers. It's been dry with no rain for weeks until last night, when we finally had a thunderstorm.

T. Boone Pickens, the corporate raider and oil magnate, has a plan to rid us of our dependency on foreign oil. Al Gore is calling for a 10 year horizon to switch the U.S. to non-fossil fuel for all of our needs. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush is calling for off shore drilling. What's wrong with this picture?

Jim

PS: Read Tom Friedman's recent column on Bush and energy: "9-11 and $4.11"

Jackass Missing In Action

On Friday last one of the biggest banks in the country, INDYmac went belly up after depositors made a Capraesque run on it seeking their money. Over the weekend the U. S. government announced that it would bail out the two biggest quasi-governmental mortgage banks, Fannie and Freddy - Mae. Where is dear leader-in chief as the country seems to be coming apart at the seams? In the old days a real president would have stepped up to the mike and made a speech to reassure Americans about the country - he would have said something like "All we have to fear is ...fear itself." But we have George junior, a pretender to the White House, liar, and war criminal, so even if he did say something who would believe him anyway? To this we've come, to quote Menotti. Shame.

PHOTO: A lovely Echiveria in bloom

Bush Is Bushwacked By The Supreme Court

This is good. Columnist Eugene Robinson in today's Washington Post:

So yesterday, for the third time, the high court made clear that the Decider has
no authority to trash the fundamental principles of American jurisprudence. In
ruling 5 to 4 that foreigners held at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detentions in
federal court, the court cited the Constitution and the centuries-old concept of habeas corpus.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's majority opinion seems broad and definitive
enough to end the Kafkaesque farce at Guantanamo once and for all.
"The laws
and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary
times," Kennedy wrote. Again, it's amazing that any president of the United
States would need to have such a basic concept spelled out for him.

Well, it's not really all that amazing given that the president is dullard George W. Bush.

Is former Senator Sam Nunn from Georgia on Obama's short list for Vice President? Don't go there, Barry. Nunn is an anti-gay bigot who scapegoated gays and lesbians in the matter of gays in the military. He is one of the main reasons we still have "Don;'t Ask, Don't Tell." The gay community would rebel, and rightly so, if Barak selected Nunn.

Jim

PHOTO: A poster in Madrid attests to the active gay scene there.

McClellan Is Believable

Scott McClellan never struck me as being the brightest bulb in the closet. I always thought of him as someone who was clearly in over his head as White House Press Secretary. So, I'm inclined to believe him when he says that he was duped by Rove and Libby, and that he only lost faith in Bush after Bush admitted that he broke his own word about security leaks by actually ordering leaks to further his (Bush's) political agenda. McClellan's tell all book is all the more powerful precisely because it comes across as truthful and believable, even if it's hard to understand how someone could be so naive as Scotty.

PHOTO: A view of mountainous Northwestern Spain

The Hopelessness Of The Iraq Situation

Why are we in Iraq? What "national interest' is being served by our occupation of Iraq and our interference in the internal power struggles between factions of the various religious sects in that country? Yes, there's the oil, but nobody wants to talk about that. What is the "end game?" When will we withdraw? When we "win?" What does that mean? What is "victory" in Iraq?

The invasion of Iraq was illegal and was based upon a fictional "WMD" (Weapons Of Mass Destruction) premise. Now, five years later, 4000+ Americans dead, many many more Iraqis dead, and a half a trillion dollars spent, we remain mired in an occupation. The leading General cannot say when we will be able to leave. If asked, which he was not yesterday, I doubt that he could even say what his mission is except to act as a police force to help prop up the current regime in Iraq. Will the Democratic candidates for president actually end our involvement in Iraq if either of them is elected? I doubt it. They won't be able to do it. Meanwhile, don't be surprised if Junior Bush starts a war with Iran before he leaves the White House. You read it here.

PHOTO: Sea foam.

Jim

A Socialized Bailout For The Rich

Knee-jerk conservatives and their Republican heros are dead set against just about any form of universal health care for all Americans. They consider "single-payer" systems along the lines of the models in Canada and Europe to be "socialized medicine." However, they have no problem with socialized bailout of the bad boy big financial firms on Wall Street. When one of the big private investment banks gets sick, the Republicans rush in with taxpayer money to help make it well. Socialized financial medicine for the wealthy is fine, but socialized health care for Americans is not.

Bush and company won't even more closely regulate these private banks. The Times Paul Krugman notes today in is column:

"...in a draft of a speech to be delivered on Monday, Henry Paulson, the
Treasury secretary, declares, “I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame
our regulatory structure for the current turmoil.”
And sure enough,
according to the executive summary of the new administration plan, regulation
will be limited to institutions that receive explicit federal guarantees — that
is, institutions that are already regulated, and have not been the source of
today’s problems. As for the rest, it blithely declares that “market discipline
is the most effective tool to limit systemic risk.”
The administration,
then, has learned nothing from the current crisis. Yet it needs, as a political
matter, to pretend to be doing something."

When will American wise up to this stuff, if ever?

Jim

It's The Economy, Stupid! (Failing!)

Economist Paul Krugman on the US economy in today's New Yrok Times:

"...things are falling apart as you read this."

George Bush, of course, merrily plods along in the last year of his eight year reign of incompetence while Wall Street sinks and our economy is in danger of tanking big time. Sure, extend those tax cuts for the wealthy...let Rome burn.

Jim

Hillary's Vote For The War

Alec Baldwin over at Huffington nails it:

Mrs. Clinton has been quoted as saying, "If the most important thing to any
of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a
mistake, then there are others to chose from."
Precisely.
I want Mrs.
Clinton to apologize. Until she does, I encourage Democrats to focus their
attention, and their money, on illuminating what is good about Barack Obama.

Yes, and her vote to authorize junior to go to war is not the only major sin. last Fall she voted to authorize war criminals Bush and Cheney to bomb Iran. After she gets done apologizing for the Iraq vote then she'll have to apologize for the Iran vote. But she won't.

Jim

The Greatest Threat To World Peace

...is not Iran, as the "Decider" said in what his aides describe as the most important speech of his current tour of the Middle East. The "Decider" himself is the greatest threat - the starter of wars of aggression, the occupier of foreign countries, the one responsible for taking our country outside of the Geneva Conventions, and for authorizing the torture of detainees. There's just one year left of the "Decider" in office. I hope it goes fast.

Jim

Countdown To 2008

No blogging yesterday, as I was seriously "under the weather" and spent most of the day in bed. It was one of those things going around, I guess.

The clock from the Macy's light show reminds me that time is running out in 2007. There are just s few short days left until 2008. It was a pretty good year for us, I think. We did some foreign travel and enjoyed summer very much. The holidays were fun. Let's hope that 2008 is another good year.

The murder of Benazir Bhutto continues to be in the news. The turmoil that is occurring could escalate into something worse. The Bush policy of propping up Musharraf and hoping for democratic elections is in shambles. We continue to pour money into Pakistan ostensibly to help Musharraf fight terrorism, yet some observers feel that there is no oversight coming from us and that the money is actually going toward arming Pakistan against India. We're focused on Iran, which does not have nuclear weapons, while Pakistan, that does have bombs, is in danger of melting down. Speaking of 2008, I hope we can get through the last horrible year of George Bush's presidency without something else terrible happening. (Is that better, Dan?)

Jim

What I'm Thankful For

Happy Thanksgiving!

With yesterday's better than 200 point sell-off on Wall Street, the Down Jones Industrial Average is now down just over ten percent from the high it reached in October. One hopes that this is just a correction, however, with the price of oil set to hit $100.00 a barrel very soon, and Bush's horrible policies across the board that have destroyed all confidence in America, this may be just the start of something much worse. So I'm thankful today that we only have a little over a year left to endure Bush's presidency.

PHOTO: This colorful mural is located inside the Reading Terminal Head house.

Jim