Redistribute the Wealth

Many of us were blown away by the McCain camp accusing Obama of socialism, what decade are we in, anyway? I wonder how many people under 30 even know what socialism is? Certainly McCain doesn't. Here is a little article by TOM TEEPEN at the SeattlePI entitled If Obama's a socialist, so is McCain:

As it happens, we have already had a revolution that redistributed the wealth. Bush's big tax overhaul redistributed it to the already rich, so they could be richer yet already.

By 2005, households enjoying the top 1 percent of incomes -- those over $348,000 a year -- were receiving the biggest share of national income since 1928. The income gap between the well off and others has stretched beyond shouting distance. Where middle and lower earners had shared in the 1990s boom, they generally lost income in the meager "Bush recovery" from the brief 2001 recession.

In their rush to make Obama out as a socialist readying tumbrels for the rich, conservatives have sometimes explicitly but for the most part implicitly reverted to the old country-club grumble that the graduated income tax is nothing more than a radical scheme to coddle the undeserving poor with the money of the deserving rich.

It's very important to remember that ever since Reagan became President we have been on a course of redistributing the wealth upwards to the rich people of this country, which W put the final period on, that has helped to bring us to our current financial crisis.

So Obama isn't redistributing the wealth, he's getting back what the Republicans and the rich have stolen from everyone in this country who makes less than $250,000 a year.

We've had a progressive tax rate since Teddy Roosevelt, John McCain's hero, first started it. Progressive means the percentage gets higher the more you make. By the early 60's the very top rate was 90%. The Republicans try to use JFK as an example of a Democrat lowering taxes on the rich as if that would make it OK for us to do. He brought it down to 75%, but also did away with many of the loopholes that allowed those in that bracket to get massive deductions, the end result was that the richest people actually paid MORE when Jack Kennedy's tax bill went into effect.

That's very similar to what is happening today with business taxes. McCain continues to claim we have the second highest tax rate on business in the world, around 34%. This is true BUT (there are always these "buts" in any claim by Republicans) there are so many loopholes that after deductions US businesses end up actually paying the second lowest taxes in the world. Obama doesn't want to increase the tax rate but to decrease the loopholes. Things like a corp getting a tax break to move their production to China. He actually wants such a company to pay MORE taxes if they want to do that. But give them tax breaks if they choose to keep their jobs in this country.

So during the most abundant times in our history, the 50's and 60's, the progressive tax rates for the rich were very, very high. Why, if the Pubs were right that high taxes on the rich depress the economy, were we so prosperous in those decades? I think we've been trickled ON by George Bush and the other Have's and Have More's long enough. Nothing like a collapsing economy to tell us we are on the wrong path. High taxes on the rich are a way of creating prosperity for the entire economy, lowering the rates creates disaster. Current tax rates for the rich are around 36%, and we are all less prosperous than we were 40 and 50 years ago when the rates were at least twice that much.

Obama just wants to bring the taxes of the top 1% of the country back to the levels they were when Clinton was president, and THIS is being a socialist? I'll tell you what being a socialist is; it's Alaska claiming that all of the state's natural resources belong to everyone - collectively - and that everyone should get a share of the profits. So Sarah Palin took money from the rich oil companies and sent every man, woman and child in Alaska a check for around $3200. That's about as socialist as it gets. Are you against that? Is it a terrible thing that the oil companies have to pay the citizens of Alaska for using their resources?

In Washington they do it a little differently; they privatize profits, and when the top people of a corporation have squeezed the company dry then the government steps in and pays for their losses! What could be better than that? Wouldn't you love to be able to spend like crazy, take all kinds of chances and when you go broke have the government give you a couple of billion dollars? Sorry, only the top one percent of the wealthiest Americans can get that kind of socialism.

Darcy

I haven't written much in here lately and it's due to depression, I'm just so far down I can't find the energy to write. The problem is because my wife, Darcy, is not feeling very well.

Since she is very, very sick when she feels worse than normal this is not good. I know she doesn't have a lot of time left but she's been bad enough these past few weeks to make me feel like it could be over at any moment.

I feel like crawling under the covers, into a fetal position and burying myself from the rest of the world.

Unfortunately I have obligations, or perhaps it's fortunate that I have them because a big one is taking care of Darcy. She can get out of bed and walk to the bathroom but getting to the kitchen for food is a little tough for her. To make matters even more fun I seem to be developing arthritis in both my hips, which is making walking very painful. Sometimes it's been so bad that *I* can hardly walk and that is the last thing we need. Pain relievers don't seem to be helping much.

Plus I have to do all the shopping and deal with all the other little things in life that comes up, like $350 I just had to spend on my car. It was actually finding the time to get to the repair shop that was the worst problem.

And I have deadlines to meet that won't go away and that's how I pay my rent, I can't just stop doing it.

But I should write in here more often, it's very therapeutic and I'm actually feeling a bit better right now because of writing this post. I write really fast so each blog entry is only about 15 minutes of my time and it's never difficult because the words just flow. And because this isn't something I get paid for there is no pressure on me to do a good job. Although I do feel an obligation to any regular readers I might have.

I also feel an obligation to get the truth out during this election season but that is one I have to let go of at the end of the day too often. But man, is McCain really pissing me off. I thought Bush was a liar but McCain is simply unbelievable. It's as if he knows most of the people he is talking to won't hear any follow ups to what he says to find out it isn't true so he can say anything he wants.

I'll have to make a couple of posts on the election campaign this weekend.

True Ignorance and Bigotry

This woman says she won't vote for Obama because she can't stand the idea of the name President Obama, and because he had an atheist mother and a Muslim father, that last REALLY upsets her. What she is really saying is she won't vote for the n----r.
Special thanks to Pharyngula for letting me know about the video.


Elizabeth Dole, Atheist Bigot

Interesting article by vjack at Atheist Revolution. Apparently Elizabeth Dole is campaigning on anti-atheist bigotry:

As bad as it seems that Dole is basing her campaign on bigotry, the far-reaching implications of such a strategy may be far worse. First, Dole has actually singled out atheist blogs, including Daylight Atheism and Friendly Atheist, for attack. Yep, Sen. Dole is actually using atheist blogs to make the case that if we support Hagan, there must be something wrong with her. Second, if Dole's strategy succeeds, it will have a chilling effect on atheist equality, effectively making us toxic to any politician hoping to get elected. Vjack, Atheist Revolution: Elizabeth Dole: Campaigning on Bigotry, Oct 2008

It should be noted that the reason she is doing this is out of desperation because it looks like she is going to lose, and badly.
But I also wanted to post it on my blog to test the little Reblog logo vjack put on his blog posts. I don't recall seeing it before but that doesn't mean it hasn't been there for some time.

If this works well I'll see about putting it on my blog, too.

Update: Wasn't bad, I like how Reblog added quotes, links and names automatically but then it formatted it oddly and I had to fix it.

The Bizzarre McCain

This was on Huffington Post and is too good not to circulate:

The Reuters photo wire includes this shot taken after the debate last night, when McCain caught himself walking in the wrong direction on stage:

Rape and Sarah Palin

This needs to be seen by everyone. And also remember McCain in last night's debate sneering about "a woman's health" as if that was something so minor we shouldn't concern ourselves with it.

I've Been Polled!!

Everyone always says they have never been polled and wonder how that can be with all the polls that are being conducted these days. Seems like there are a dozen new ones every day covering local and federal issues.

Well, I just got an automated call asking me how I'd vote on Proposition 7 here in California. For those who don't live here (or who do but don't watch TV) Prop 7 is an energy bill that the electric companies are fighting against like mad. They have saturated the airwaves with negative messages about Prop 7, and I mean saturated. You can see one of their commercials 3 times in a half hour show, it's obvious they've spent multi-millions fighting this thing. It's because the bill forces them to do more about clean energy, which will cost them money, even if it might make them money in the long run.

This is clear evidence that the Big Money (BM) interests want very badly to sway voters and they can outspend any grassroots organization. As soon as I realize this is happening I immediately want to vote Yes if the BM's (Big Money) want me to vote no. This seems pretty automatic but history shows us that these kinds of ads work and anything opposed by any BM loses badly on election day. Further proof that the average American is just plain stupid and easily manipulated.

I really liked the call I got, the pre-recorded voice said that Prop 7 was opposed by 2 power companies, which they named, but 3 nobel prize-winning scientists have sent out a signed letter in favor of it. Then they asked me how I would vote and I was very happy to vote Yes.

Now, it just might be possible that the energy companies are right and it's a badly written bill, I plan on getting more info before election day. My local news stations usually give a complete recap of these things and what they really mean, as well as who supports it and who doesn't. But if I don't manage to get the info in time I will vote Yes.

Doesn't really matter, though, since it will lose by a wide margin, even if it was the greatest Proposition ever written and will save the world all by itself. Money rules, and anyone out of a job or complaining about the bills or just generally worried about financial and health matters should just accept those things, because you've all proven you can be coaxed into voting against your own interests if enough money is spent. You've willingly made yourselves sheep so stop complaining that you are living a sheep's life.

The part that always annoys me the most is that these BM's often spend more money on TV ads than such a proposition would cost them if it went into effect. And it's likely something that will be beneficial to everyone in the long run, even them. There is big money to be made in the new green economy that is coming, but some will fight tooth and nail even though it will mean leaving a devastated world to their children and grandchildren. Assholes.

Garrison Keillor

Life is hard; we dig in, and we can spot deceit

That's the start of an article by Keillor that is simply brilliant. He starts out talking about the heart of the American people then moves on the the cynical swindle that is Sarah Palin:

Some Republicans adore her because they are pranksters at heart and love the consternation of grown-ups. The ne'er-do-well son of the old Republican family as president, the idea that you increase government revenue by cutting taxes, the idea that you cut social services and thereby drive the needy into the middle class, the idea that you overthrow a dictator with a show of force and achieve democracy at no cost to yourself -- one stink bomb after another, and now Sarah Palin.

This is only one paragraph, the rest is worth the time.

October Surprise

The surprise is that McCain still retains at least SOME degree of decency. He was at a town hall meeting, walking around the room with a microphone, when he stopped in front of one woman and handed her the mic. She said she was afraid of Obama because he was, well (she mumbled a bit) he’s an Arab (code for black). McCain shook his head and took back the microphone. He said “No he’s not, Senator Obama is a decent family man and citizen, we just have a fundamental disagreement.”

Shocking!! Apparently there IS a line he won’t cross.

At another town hall a man said he was scared of an America with a President Obama in charge. McCain again said he has no reason to be afraid, that Obama is a decent man. The crowd actually booed him, their own candidate. Boy, has he painted himself in to a corner. He’s been talking all week, along with Palin and TV ads, about how terrible Obama is, making people think he’s actually a terrorist himself. When he’s gotten the crowds worked up there have been calls of “traitor” “terrorist” and “kill him.” Imagine if such things were said at an Obama rally, the press and everyone else would be marching in the streets, burning buildings. But the white candidate’s white supporters says this and hardly anyone knows about it.

But there have been reports that the Secret Service was going to investigate any death threats and several Republican politicians have come out saying that McCain has gone too far. Perhaps yesterday he realized he did cross the line and tried to reign things back, but it got him booed by his own people. For him to do an about face now will make him lose his own supporters. But to keep going with this strategy will tarnish his image forever, even among Republicans, but to try and stop it makes him look like a fool.

Well, that’s OK, he IS a fool.

Ana Marie Cox on Rachel Maddow today said that this time, when she went to talk to the people at the rally after it was over, they were all loonies. She said there was always one or two crazies at McCain rallies but this time every one she and other reporters talked to were crazy, all believed Obama was a terrorist, Muslim and/or traitor.

What should scare McCain the most is just how stupid his followers really are. People like that can turn on you.

In Defense of Dignity

This was a post that had me in tears reading it:

My mother had pulmonary fibrosis, a degenerative lung condition, and we knew enough about the disease to know that dramatic turns for the worse were a possibility. She knew that pulmonary fibrosis would eventually end her life, and she'd done some research into just what sort of an end she could expect. It wasn't going to be pretty. Her lungs were gradually filling with scar tissue. She would, when her time came, slowly and painfully suffocate to death over a period of hours or days.

Darcy has pulmonary fibrosis so this article really hit home. She too, knew she would likely face death painfully gasping for breath. It isn't just painful, your body automatically goes into panic as you struggle more and more air. She got a lung transplant that extended her life and made it considerably better for quite a long time, but 10 years post transplant the medications have destroyed her kidneys and she is now on dialysis 3 days a week. Her liver is failing too and she has to go in about every 6 weeks for them to drain her stomach from the fluid that fills it from the faulty liver. I don't think she has too much more time left.

How she will die has always been a major concern for her. What she is most afraid of is being put on a vent indefinitely and stashed in some nursing home for years, more vegetable than alive. The one good thing about the kidney failure is that if she does want to give up she can just stop the dialysis, after a couple of weeks she will just fall asleep and not wake up.

People must accept death at "the hour chosen by God," according to Pope Benedict XVI, leader of the Catholic Church, which is pouring money into the campaign against I-1000.

The hour chosen by God? What does that even mean? Without the intervention of man—and medical science—my mother would have died years earlier. And at the end, even without assisted suicide as an option, my mother had to make her choices. Two hours with the mask off? Six with the mask on? Another two days hooked up to machines? Once things were hopeless, she chose the quickest, if not the easiest, exit. Mask off, two hours. That was my mother's choice, not God's.

The author of the article, Dan Savage, lives in Washington state and apparently there is a proposition on the ballot to approve physician assisted suicide. The Pope is spending lots of money in the state fighting it. That's the point of his above comment.

The hour chosen by god is ridiculous nonsense. If Darcy hadn't had a lung transplant 10 years she would likely have been dead 9 years ago. There has been more than one chance of her dying over the past 10 years and she didn't thanks to the doctors and medication and her own fighting spirit. It certainly seems to me that the hour chosen by god has come and gone at least half a dozen times already, which makes it meaningless.

For those who think that is important then don't go a doctor when you get sick because you will be interfering with god's desire to have you dead.

The Second Debate

I have one word for it - Booooorringggg. If you saw the first debate you pretty much saw the second one, almost word for word. McCain even said the same lies about Obama's tax and medical coverage plans and Obama corrected him in exactly the same way.

McCain tried to be a little more friendly, actually shook Obama's hand and smiled at him. If he made weird old-man faces while Obama was talking I didn't see them because the camera never focused on McCain during those times. What I did notice was McCain wheezing and making other weird old-man noises while he was talking. I can only assume the standing and moving around was a bit hard on him. He was all hunched over and looked really - well - old.

It came down to pretty much the same thing - Obama looked calm, cool and presidential, McCain looked like an annoyed and annoying little old man. The kind that yells at the neighborhood kids when they play on his lawn. Obama was playing on his lawn and he was pissed, called Obama "That one." Sorry old man, time for the next generation to take over. You aren't even the last generation, you are the one before the last one.

Rachel Maddow had an interesting comment, she said Obama won by acting as if McCain wasn't even there. Good one.

Update: Pat Buchanon had a good comment tonight, he said that McCain keeps painting Obama as this scary, radical, liberal, Muslim, but at every one of these debates when 50 million viewers see him, some for the first time, they don't see someone scary. They see a self possessed, cool and calm , intelligent guy, nearly regal in his manner and mien. Which completely undermines McCain's last ditch effort.

Michael Seitzman On The Debate

He writes a very powerful blog post on this one. The guy is fast becoming my second favorite writer after Matt Taibbi. I tend to think I'm a pretty good writer but then I read something like this and it really puts me in my place:

Last night's debate was a David and Goliath match-up. Not because Joe Biden is a towering and formidable foe to a less-prepared civilian. Look again and tell me if you can tell the hero from the monster. Need some help? Goliath is the one who is condescending, arrogant, sarcastic, combative, insulting, childish, patronizing, untruthful and divisive. The monster doesn't lead, it misleads. It doesn't inspire, it frightens. It doesn't protect, it provokes. The monster is what has dominated us for eight long years. Sarah Palin is just the brand new model.

The monster marches and devours and never sleeps and it can only be defeated by its opposite: Hope, Courage, Knowledge, Kindness, and Grace. Those are the traits we saw in Joe Biden last night. They're the traits we see in Barack Obama. But most importantly, those are the traits they see in us.

Do your self a favor and read the rest of the blog.

Veep Debate

Joe Biden was the winner by a HUGE margin, but Sarah Palin did much better than I expected. This was a better format for her, no pesky reporter asking follow up questions and wanting details and actual knowledge, or any other annoying stuff like that.

I got the feeling she was a little windup toy inserted with prerecorded messages, each programmed to go off at the right moment. Any info outside of of those recordings and she would change the subject. No substance to any of what she said, and because she didn't really understand what she was saying she managed to contradict herself a number of times without even realizing it.

And pretty much everything she said was a lie but one can be a very convincing liar when she doesn't know she actually is lying. She's just spouting the talking points she was fed and assumes they didn't program her with lies.

Biden played it a little too low key at first. I think everyone had been telling him he had to take it easy on her or they would get upset at him mistreating a poor, little woman and he over did it. Of course, no one warned him he'd be facing a pit bull with lipstick. Palin went on the attack from the beginning and didn't stop for a breathe until the end.

As the debate went on Biden got angrier and sharper in his answers. I think the attack mode and the constant, blatant lying really got to him.

One really good moment when Joe was talking about his kids, his 2 boys who were badly hurt in the accident that killed his wife and daughter 30 years ago. He said he knew what being a single parent was, and choked up a bit. Very real. And Palin, cold hearted bitch that she was, didn't even acknowledge that bit of emotion and didn't respond to it for even a second.

The polls taken right afterward had Biden winning by a two to one margin. All of Palin's approval numbers improved, but all of Biden's improved by the same amount and he started out WAY higher than she did. Ability to become president on day one if necessary for Biden went from 73% to 94%. For Palin it went from 36% to 55%. Nuff said.

Bernie Sanders

Now here is the one senator who is TRULY the most liberal in the senate, and he is the guy who knows how to say things right on target. In this video he explains why the rich people should pay for this Wall st. debacle since they are the ones who benefited from it. The burden should not fall on the middle-class who have already borne the burden to make the rich REALLY rich during Bush's Reign of Terror. I had already linked to his petition in this earlier post:

Reborn Again

Cute baby, eh? Wrong, it' a doll, called Reborn Dolls. I saw them on TV today and was totally freaked out. I always think to make anything too close to real, but not quite, makes it creepy. For instance, in animated movies when there have been ones that tried to be realistic it didn't do well and gives people the creeps because the characters are almost real but are still wrong. But movies like Shrek or Japanese Anime are very popular because they are too stylized to bring that sense of wrongness. We can except distortion of the human body within a certain context with no problem. As an artist I've long been aware of that feeling of "Wrongness". When most people look at a piece of art they usually don't know enough about art to say why they feel what they do, but they can intuitively sense when something is wrong. I tend to follow that sense of what is wrong rather than what is good when working. These dolls are just wrong.

To add to the creepiness is the fact that most of these dolls are being collected by adult women, who keep the dolls around all day and treat them just like babies, even when going out. That's just weird. In some ways, though, I don't think most of these women are to blame. Just about all women, and a majority of men, experience a release of endorphins as well as other chemicals, and activates the reward centers in the brain. This is entirely involuntary and bred in by evolution. Let's face it, without those chemicals how many babies would survive to adulthood?

When we oooh and aaaah over a baby face, or any cute and cuddly face like a kittens, it happens automatically. I can well imagine young mothers 100,000 years ago who didn't release those chemicals smashing the baby's head against the rocks because it won't stop crying during the night. Those who did that, or who just left their kid somewhere, would not pass on their genes. While the people strongly moved emotionally will take care of that kid no matter what and have more of them who will pass on their genes. So that chemical reaction to "cuteness" is a very powerful survival mechanism. Studies show pretty much all mammals have this kind of reaction.

So it could be these women haven't had those emotions in a while and suddenly they are holding one of these dolls and their brains explode. And the emotion would continue every time she picked up and cuddled the doll, which would just reinforce their desire for the doll. Blame it on evolution. It's still damn creepy, though.

Political Cartoons

Here is a bunch of good ones all on the bailout. Here's a few samples but there is more at the site:

Mad Dog Palin

Matt Taibbi is fast becoming my favorite political writer. Not only does he "tell it like it is" about the absurdity that is American politics but the man is nearly a poet in the way he puts together a sentence or paints a scene. Great stuff. See his Mad Dog Palin article, you won't be disappointed:

"She totally reminds me of my cousin!" the delegate screeched. "She's a real woman! The real thing!"

I stared at her open-mouthed. In that moment, the rank cynicism of the whole sorry deal was laid bare. Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.

And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed middle-American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin' Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else's, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

The Debate

I had really been looking forward to the debates because that was when I figured Obama would wipe the floor with McCain and the election would be in the bag.

Lots of good things happened over the last 2 weeks with McCain self-destructing on the economy and pulling what has got to be the stupidest political stunt ever. He said he was suspending his campaign (never happened) and going to Washington to lead congress out of this mess, no talk of a plan - we have to assume he will do this by sheer force of personality - and threatening to cancel the debate. Then he takes 18 hours to get from New York City to Washing DC, canceling an appearance with Letterman because of the rush. When he got there he did nothing and the Republicans rejected a deal they were going to accept because they wanted McCain to get his say first.

So McCain, the Drama Queen, actually screwed up the whole process in a bid to derail the election he was losing. The pundits said he was hitting the reset switch on his campaign, but he ends up looking like a madman. Every news person had to use a sports analogy for McCain’s pathetic ploy but I think a Hail Mary is still the best description. That’s where the quarterback, in sheer desperation, tosses a long ball into the end zone, where both teams gather, and hope his guy will come down with the reception. McCain’s entire campaign has been one Hail Mary after another, and one of them, Sarah Palin, looks like a very bad mistake. Imagine a presidency that is nothing but Hail Mary’s for 4 long years. We’d be in big trouble.

So with all that happening during this week it looked like McCain would come in rattled and off his game and Obama would take him apart.

It didn’t happen. I was actually quite impressed with McCain’s performance because he did far better than I thought he could. He was strong and aggressive and energetic. I kept wondering what kind of drugs and vitamins his campaign shot him up with so he could do that. And only 2 senior moments.

Obama still won, and by a good margin, but there was no knockout punch. Mainly Obama looked more presidential and McCain made several stupid mistakes. The most notable was mispronouncing Ahmadinejad’s name several times in a row, that was one senior moment. The other one was when he repeated his line about never winning Miss Congeniality in the Senate. He also looked like a troll, hunched down over his podium and refusing to even look at Obama. And when Obama was talking he made some really bizarre faces. The man is scary, the thought of him as president is REALLY scary. And when Obama said that Ahmadinejad was not even the top guy in Iran McCain laughed like that was the most ridiculous thing he ever heard. It scared me, though, because I think he really doesn’t know that Ahmadinejad isn’t the top guy in Iran. It’s something he really should know.

Obama was calm and cool and knowledgeable, and forceful, which is a quality he really needs to display more often. McCain’s biggest attack on Obama was that he just didn’t understand, he repeated that over and over. And it fell totally flat because every time Obama opened his mouth he proved very effectively that he understood quite well, he simply didn’t agree with McCain. But this was a debate of foreign policy which is supposed to be McCain’ biggest strength yet Obama not only matched him but exceeded his knowledge, and showing he understood even subtle nuances, which is what McCain didn’t seem to understand.

On the economy McCain seemed to be incredibly ignorant. He felt most of the budget deficit could be solved simply by getting rid of earmarks, which is totally absurd, earmarks only account for about $18 billion of the budget. But McCain had little to push with the economy since his main plan is to lower taxes even further on the rich and corporations which would only increase our debt and lower the value of the dollar.

The polls show that most think Obama won. One poll had 40% for Obama, 22% for McCain and 38% saying it was a tie. But a tie is pretty damn good since McCain had been attacking Obama as too inexperienced to be Commander In Chief, but a tie says most people think he will be just as good if not better. There were a number of places I thought Obama could have landed some real knockout punches but he didn’t go for it.

Still, a good debate, overall. There are 2 more so we can see what happens. And next Friday is the VP debate which should be hysterical. Sarah Palin against Joe Biden. I almost feel sorry for her. She should do so badly that it seals the election right there but the American public really IS stupid, which the last 2 presidential elections have proven beyond a doubt.

Senator Bernie Sanders

Sign the Petition! Normally I don't sign these things, I think it makes people a target for the FBI and these days, in the land of the once-free, that is a very serious worry. But Bernie is my favorite Senator (I wish we could get him to move out here and replace Feinstein) and this issue is too important and too outrageous. How dare they come back and ask the American public to rescue the greedy wall streeters who have caused this but apparently, are not supposed to pay any price for it. They've already ripped us off in any number of ways as Bush and the rich have looted the national coffers over the past 8 years to make themselves richer. Bernie says this:

While the Administration has quickly rallied to help Wall Street, it has ignored the needs of the declining middle class. Since President Bush has been in office the wealthiest people in this country have made out like bandits and have not had it so good since the 1920s. The top one-tenth of one percent now earn more income than the bottom 50 percent of Americans and the top one percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Incredibly, the richest 400 people in our country saw their wealth increase by $670 billion during the Bush presidency.

Having mismanaged the economy for 8 years while continually insisting that, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong,” the Bush Administration, six weeks before an election, wants the middle class of this country to bail out Wall Street to the tune of one trillion dollars. Meanwhile the wealthiest people, those who have benefited most from Bush’s policies and are in the best position to pay, are being asked for no sacrifice at all. This is absurd.

So sign the petition and let's see if we can put a stop to this insanity and not give Bush his final, and biggest, victory.

John McCain: The New FDR

All McCain can talk about these days is regulation and how great it is and how much he is for it and boy, when he is president he’s going to regulate those greedy Wall Streeters to within an inch of their lives!!

It’s hard to find a concept more absurd when McCain has called himself the DE-regulator for years and said he is always for less regulation. Let the markets find their own balance was his philosophy, echoing the Republican party line. Free markets should be worshipped like an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god. What an embarrassment this latest crisis must be for him - and all Republicans. Now they have all become regulators crying out against those greedy rich people who have brought us to the brink of ruin.

And make no mistake about it, we are on the brink, which means the whole world is on the brink of financial ruin. We might be back on the barter system soon, better gather up some actual products instead of money, because it will soon be worthless. But John McCain, or any Republican, sounding like a socialist calling for more and more regulation is a world turned upside down and inside out. But it’s important to note how easily and nimbly McCain has given up everything he has held dear all his life and done a complete about face and betrayed himself in order to become president. Either that or he’s lying. Take your pick on which is a worse statement on his character. What we can say now is that he IS a character, but he HAS none.

But what choice does he have? His whole life has just been shown to be a lie, that the great Republican philosophy of a free market is pure fiction and instead leads to economic ruin. Isn’t it interesting how little it means to him that his life has been a lie, he just does an about face and puts another mask on. Clearly he never believed his own philosophy, it was just convenient for getting him elected as a Republican. Now that it is no longer convenient (to say the least) he does an easy pivot and changes his basic view of the world and becomes a completely different person.

Actually, he has not become a different person, he was always an empty suit and has only reacted to the crisis in the only way possible. It’s like the old joke of a guy running behind a crowd as fast as he can and saying he has to get in front of them because he is their leader!

More On The Economy

Paul Krugman is my favorite economist because he is one of the few who doesn't have his head stuck up the rightwing a-hole. And he really is a well known and highly respected economist. Check out his bio at the NY Times from which this is just a small piece:

Paul Krugman joined The New York Times in 1999 as a columnist on the Op-Ed Page and continues as professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Mr. Krugman received his B.A. from Yale University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977. He has taught at Yale, MIT and Stanford. At MIT he became the Ford International Professor of Economics.

He's a heavyweight in the field. And he said something today on the Rachel Maddow show that scared me and made me realize what I forgot to mention yesterday in my post on the economy; namely, that we could be heading for another Great Depression just as bad, if not worse as in 1932. This is something I've worried about for years because anyone who knows even a little bit about the economy and what the idiot Republicans were doing to it were worried. Another Great Depression is, of course, the worst of all possible outcomes so I always thought it wasn't too likely (I hoped). But Krugman said today that if the Fed hadn't bailed out AIG we might have been only days away for a GD. Days. This from his blog 2 days ago:

And there’s a lesson there for those ready to hear it: government takeovers may be the only way to get the financial system working again.

Some people have been making that argument for some time. Most recently, Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman, and two other veterans of past financial crises published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal declaring that the only way to avoid “the mother of all credit contractions” is to create a new government agency to “buy up the troubled paper” — that is, to have taxpayers take over the bad assets created by the bursting of the housing and credit bubbles. Coming from Mr. Volcker, that proposal has serious credibility.

If everyone loses faith in the ability of banks to borrow money then the whole system comes crashing down because all credit will end which will bring most business to a halt and put all of us out of work. In 1932 they had an unemployment rate of 24%, we could see that again.

So what do we have going on here? We can now proudly proclaim ourselves a socialist country in the style of Europe. That's what Republicanism has done for us. But we aren't out of the woods yet. Krugman says he wants to know the details of what the the Fed, SEC and Congress are cooking up to see if it will do what it needs to do, and hopefully without the CEO's and stockholders of failed companies walking away with millions.

The Economy Stupid

I'd like to say the stupid part goes to Bush, and while he's been the biggest enabler of disastrous economic policies, the fault of this goes way back for decades. In fact, it would be hard to pinpoint where it all started, probably the 1920's is the best place. One article that explains it very nicely starting from the 1920's on up, but written well enough it's easy to understand, is Only a Roosevelt-Scale Counterrevolution Can Prevent Great Depression II By Robert Kuttner.

Free-market extremists brought us this needless economic collapse. Here's a rundown of the mistakes we've made and the reforms we need now.

Free-market extremists, otherwise known as Republicans. And one of the people most at fault is Alan Greenspan. His entire philosophy since he became head of the fed is to do what he could to make the economy business friendly. Here's an article by Digsby on how Greenspan created this current crisis, Digsby quotes Newsweek's Michael Hirsh:

This mess is mostly a titanic failure of regulation. And the largest share of blame goes back to one man: Alan Greenspan. People mainly fault the former Fed chief, who once enjoyed a near-saintly reputation because of his reputed "feel" for market conditions, for ushering in an era of easy credit that accelerated the mortgage mania. But the much bigger problem was Greenspan's Ayn Randian passion for regulatory minimalism. Under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act enacted by Congress in 1994, the Fed was given the authority to oversee mortgage loans. But Greenspan kept putting off writing any rules. As late as April 2005, when things were seriously beginning to go wrong, he was saying that subprime lending would work out for the common good—without government interference.

There were others responsible, Phil Gramm comes to mind - you know, McCain's economic adviser - but the heart of it all goes back to Reagan's election in 1980. That's when the idea that government was evil and regulations come from government and are evil too. McCain himself is one of those free-market extremists who has supported de-regulation every time he could in his 26 year senate career. But now he likes regulation (hahah).

But not to worry, the government bailout should save us all from collapse, now the Fed is running some major companies, like Fannie Mae and AIG, and actually own all or part of these companies. This means that eventually we all might make a profit from these companies.

A guy on the Today show this morning had a good analogy for it. Think of the hurricane that just wiped out Galvaston. All the people there are screwed because they are individual homeowners with limited resources. But suppose some really rich guy owned it all and could afford to sit back and take big loses for several years, eventually all that property would be rebuilt and he'd make a fortune. The key is being rich enough to get through the financial loses. When it comes to AIG and all the others the Fed has bailed out, only the government is rich enough to do that on the scale needed. Wow, the government as a solution to a major problem, what a concept!

And don't worry, the Fed has money even though the country is in debt. They are the people who print money so they can make as much as they want. But in the modern age of computers actually printing money is not necessary, so the Fed magically created billions of dollars that only exist in computer storage. Isn't that cool? Don't you wish you could make Magic Money?

The main point is that we should be OK, eventually, as long as some strong regulations are enacted to prevent this from happening again. How do we do that? By electing Democrats, especially as president, and throwing out alllthe clowns who want deregulation no matter what. And who are they? Republicans. Republicans should not be allowed to rule and they should never be given moeny to handle, and this has now been proven definitively by the current crisis.

Lipstick on a Bourgeois Pig

I'm really liking Michael Seitzman as a writer, even though I only discovered him a few days ago. He's incredibly succinct yet makes his point better than people who write longer and boring articles. In this post he says pretty much what I said about McCain but better:

Notice that the minute there is a disaster of any sort, Old Man Winter responds in two ways -- the disaster is either not actually happening and you're just whining, or, he's going to make sure it never happens again. And how exactly is he going make sure of that? Well, he says he's going to appoint a commission -- that's right, a GOVERNMENT commission. If that sounds like more of that bureaucracy he's going to shrink, it's because it is. And what do you think that commission's going to recommend? Hold on...wait for it...here it comes....REGULATION. You heard right, Seniletor McCaine and Governor I-Can-See-Russia-From-Here would officially like to change their position. It seems they've awakened to the stunning realization that "government interference" is exactly what's needed to do all that changin' and reformin' they gon' do.

It's amazing to me that McCain can suddenly change the position he's held for 26 years and get away with it. 48 hours ago he was The Deregulator (I keep picturing McCain's face with the skin gone on half of it with the metal robot showing underneath). Now - suddenly - deregulation is the problem and he is going to start regulating as soon as he gets to Washington! Does that mean he's been WRONG for the past 26 years and now - suddenly - sees the light? Perhaps now he will also see the wisdom of raising taxes on the rich and government run health care? Only if he needs to do that to win the election, because all McCain really wants is to be president, I don't think he cares much about what he will do once he's there.

I actually suspect that McCain is sick and is keeping it a secret until he gets elected. I have no direct knowledge of this, just a gut feeling based on his age, the fact that his campaign has refused to let out ALL of his health information, and the fact that Cindy is now traveling with him everywhere at all times. What is she doing for him that only the two fo them know about? Adrenaline shots to keep him going? Pain shots? Maybe a dialysis machine back in the plane? I don't know and I could be wrong but he's old and doesn't look good, which means Palin could be president in a short time if they win. Damn, is that scary.

Anyway, read Michael Seitzman article on Huffington Post, lots more good stuff than what I quoted here and well worth reading.

Drill Baby, Drill!

Rudy Giuliani has gotten credit for this new slogan that gets Republicans all fired up but it was actually Michael Steele who coined the phrase at the Republican Convention. And it's really just another Republican scam.

The Democrats in congress are about to pass a bill that allows off-shore drilling and are taking a lot of flack for it, flack that is undeserved. Bush removed the moratorium against off-shore drilling that had been around for decades, which means that after September 30 they can just start drilling anywhere they want. This bill is to reign them in with very specific limitations. They have to drill no closer than 50 miles from shore and they have to get the permission of the state where the shore is. If the state says no that ends it.

Yet Democrats have said that no oil company person has said they want this. It's been said they don't currently have any equipment for off-shore drilling and haven't planned on getting any. Plus they already have millions of acres leased from the Feds for the purpose of oil drilling that they are NOT drilling on right now. Why even bother to go for the much more expensive off-shore drilling when they have all those empty on-shore acres they can drill for the next 20 years before even getting started on off-shore drilling? And their processing plants to turn oil into gas are now working at capacity, so what do they need more oil for and how would it help us?

Because it's a scam. McCain managed to convince a large portion of the public that off-shore drilling is a solution to high gas prices so people want it and the Republicans are milking it for all it's worth. It's pure political pandering with no relationship in reality. Kind of like most Republican philosophies.

Sadly, most of America has been fooled by them again. I'm afraid I have to admit now that Americans really are just plain stupid.

The Final Verdict

"Let's be clear," Obama said, "what we've seen the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed."

This is the most important thing Obama has said so far in this campaign, and he seems to be the only one involved, including media and economists, that has really seen the full picture and said it out loud.

What he is saying is that our economy crashing down around ours ears is the full result of Republican economic policy. Let's be very, very clear, the end result here is absolutely proof that the Republican economic philosophy is WRONG. It won't even do what the True Believers think it will do. What they do is remove regulations, privatize everything and let all the fat cats sit back and rake in the cash at the expense of the middle class and poor. The top 1% has nearly doubled their income since Reagan took office, while the middle class has lost over 6% in the same time period. And Bush carried this to new extremes by refusing to enforce any regulations that still existed.

And what happens when the restraints are taken off of the business men, the free market worshipers? They get greedy. And I don't mean just greedy, I mean serial murderer crazy greedy, something all out of proportion to what they needed to do to get very rich.

Phil Gramm was leading the charge back in 1999 to strip regulations from the banking industry. After he left congress he became a lobbyist for one of Europe's largest banks, UBS. What a surprise. John McCain made him his finance czar and he wrote up all of McCain's financial policies. He's been in the dog house ever since he said we were all whiners over the economy but he's still part of McCain's campaign and word is he will be Treasury Secretary if McCain wins.

McCain himself has said for years that he is The De-Regulator. That he always wants less regulation every time. But in the last 24 hours he is suddenly all for regulations on those greedy people on Wall Street, despite a 26 year record of voting against such things. Isn't it great how politicians can suddenly become the exact opposite of what they have always been - in a crisis? Especially when all they really want is to be president and will sacrifice every shred of honor they ever had in that pursuit.

This failed Republican economic philosophy lasts a long time for 2 main reasons; 1-The guys at the top make lots of money for a long time before the house of cards comes crashing down and 2-They are all ideologues, to them this will always be true no matter how much evidence there is that says otherwise. This is why Bush has said we are just "in a rough patch" and that the economy is fundamentally strong. He really does believe that if we all just wait a while it will work out like it's supposed to.

In the meantime, while it's all working itself out, we - you and me - are the ones who have to pay the piper while the guys who caused it all walk away with billions of dollars in their pockets. Not much incentive for them to change, is there? They get all the rewards but take no risks, because when the rich are in trouble socialism suddenly becomes a good thing. In the meantime we have reaped no rewards for all this gluttony but we are stuck with the bill.

The last time this happened it was Herbert Hoover putting the final touches in place to cause the Great Depression. Then we had FDR come in and turn things around by injecting socialism into the American system. And by doing so saved the country and saved capitalism, created a strong middle class and made us rich and prosperous, and most of us got a piece of that prosperity. But the conservatives have been steaming ever since. Their greatest desire was to undo the New Deal and with the election of Reagan in 1980 they had their opening. They've been working like crazy to recreate the world of the Robber Barons of the late 19th century, going all the way up to 1929, and have suceeded.

Bush has put on the final touches with an economy so bad we just might see the American economy collapse, or even the world economy because this whole thing is reverberating all over the world. I hate to see what kind of policies other countries will create out of this in order to keep themselves safe from the American cancer of Republicanism, but whatever it is it will be very bad for us and for a very long time.

Our only hope right now is another FDR to come in and save the day and create another golden age of the middle class. That means Obama. Is he up to the task? I don't know and have many severe doubts about his abilities and his economic policies, but he's all we've got, four more years of Republicanism and we are finished. So the next time someone says "Free Market" to you, go out and vote for a Democrat.

Michael Seitzman

Just discovered a great new writer on Huffington Post, Michael Seitzman. To me a good writer is someone who says something I should have said and as good or better than I would have said it, Seitzman met that criteria with a single post, Sarah Palin Naked.

Now, I want to be clear and speak directly to those of you who LOVED that Palin interview. You're an idiot. I mean that. This is not one of those cases where we're going to agree to disagree. This isn't one of those situations where we debate it passionately and then walk away thinking that the other guy is wrong but argued well. I'm not going to think of you as a thoughtful but misguided person with different ideas who still really cares about the country and the world. No, sorry, not this time. This time, if you watched those interview excerpts and weren't scared out of your freakin' mind, then you're mentally ill, mentally disabled, or mentally disturbed. What you are NOT is responsible, informed, curious, thoughtful, mature, educated, empathetic, or remotely serious. I mean it.

He nailed it an didn't hold any punches. I recommend cruising his site and reading some other posts.

Tina Fey Does Sarah Palin

And she is so much like her it's scary.

Super Obama

I wrote about Graphitti Designs doing a Super Obama shirt, painted by Alex Ross. Bob just sent me a picture of Obama holding the shirt. This is great! I have no idea who the other people are but I thought I'd leave them all in.

McCain Change

This is from Tom Toles and the Washington Post. It speaks perfectly to how ridiculous the idea is that McCain is going to Washington for change. But there is one change we can be guaranteed of, he will appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court and Roe vs Wade will be overturned. It should happen before the end of his first term.

Hillary had a great line in a speech recently: "Anyone who things Republicans can fix the problems they have created probably think the iceberg could save the Titanic."

Countdown

Here is another Special Comment by Keith Olbermann. He brings up one thing that has REALLY bothered me since 9/11, why does Bush get no blame for it? It was on his watch and the reports were there. It's obvious that Clinton kept a close eye on these things but Bush and crew never did, they just ignored it.