Classic Jon Stewart

I stand applauding -- absolutely classic.

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Zero days!

<----- I am a little giddy, I confess, staring at the countdown clock (to the left.) Zero days!

Free at last! Free at last!

Keith Olbermann Special Comment: Bush (8 years, 8 minutes)

How did we survive this?

Many people didn't. May they rest in peace.

And may we finally have learned something from all of this nightmare and chaos. Pay attention.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Daily Show: Six Days and Seven Nights

Jon is going to milk this final week for all that it's worth. (And W is going to give him more material than he's had in months, handed on a golden platter.)

This film footage is truly amazing.

No wonder the nation is in shambles (and every portion of the world we've touched.) I found W's comments about Katrina especially galling. I suspected the man was a sociopath. Now I'm sure of it.

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Six Days Seven Nights

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

The Final Week: Day 3

I am relieved - beyond words - that I won't have to listen to W tell confused reporters ever again about how everyone has 'mis-underestimated him.'

I won't have to hear any more speeches stuffed with lies or arrogant taunts, shudder as he mangles the English language while representing my country before all the world... or see his smug, self-righteous face sneering out of my TV set.

After next Tuesday, he simply will no longer matter. W the obsolete. W the nightmare from which we have all finally awakened.

Its nearly over. What a relief.

Bush: "I don't give a darn"

(A darn? Did he seriously say that?)

The fact is, our exiting 'president' has once again gone on the record - on the Larry King show - to thumb his nose at the American people by saying that he doesn't 'give a darn' about our rating of his job performance in opinion polls.

He - of course - blamed the opinion polls themselves, as though they were dreamed up by someone who just didn't like him, saying that he doesn't run the country based on what this poll or that has to say about him.

He completely overlooked, didn't comprehend, or simply dodged the fact that every single poll shows him with the lowest approval in history. And those polls are based on questions posed to us, the American people, by people who do this research for a living (and have also polled us on his predecessors.)

It comes down to this: the man doesn't give a damn what we think. We, the people who pay his salary.

He goes out the way he came in... a self-righteous jerk. I wouldn't have a drink with him in a bar, and I can't believe we've been stuck with him in the White House for the last eight years. The people's house.

I have one answer for that.

Hey! W!

GET OFF OUR LAWN.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out

Frank Rich ponders why Bush seems so small standing next to the steaming pile of, er, destruction he caused during his eight years in office. Could such a small, insignificant man really have wrecked such havoc? (Only with Cheney pulling the strings.)

A President Forgotten but Not Gone
By FRANK RICH

WE like our failed presidents to be Shakespearean, or at least large enough to inspire Oscar-worthy performances from magnificent tragedians like Frank Langella. So here, too, George W. Bush has let us down. Even the banality of evil is too grandiose a concept for 43. He is not a memorable villain so much as a sometimes affable second banana whom Josh Brolin and Will Ferrell can nail without breaking a sweat. He’s the reckless Yalie Tom Buchanan, not Gatsby. He is smaller than life.

The last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Bush’s presidency found that 79 percent of Americans will not miss him after he leaves the White House. He is being forgotten already, even if he’s not yet gone. You start to pity him until you remember how vast the wreckage is. It stretches from the Middle East to Wall Street to Main Street and even into the heavens, which have been a safe haven for toxins under his passive stewardship. The discrepancy between the grandeur of the failure and the stature of the man is a puzzlement. We are still trying to compute it.

More...

And then... there's Jon Stewart's grand send-off.

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The Bush Years: Farewell, Mr. President

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Robin sums it all up

Legacy of oil

Fire Sale! Everything must go!

(AP) The view of Delicate Arch natural bridge - an unspoiled landmark so iconic it's on Utah's license plates - could one day include a drilling platform under a proposal that environmentalists call a Bush administration "fire sale" for the oil and gas industry.

Late on Election Day, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a Dec. 19 auction of more than 50,000 acres of oil and gas parcels alongside or within view of Arches National Park and two other redrock national parks in Utah: Dinosaur and Canyonlands.

The National Park Service's top official in the state calls it "shocking and disturbing" and says his agency wasn't properly notified. Environmentalists call it a "fire sale" for the oil and gas industry by a departing administration.

Coming soon to an iconic natural wonder near you!



There are still a few months in which to finally make good use of this wasted public land before the liberals get their tree-hugging hands on it again.

Here are a few lucrative improvements that can be made before our oil administration leaves office. For your viewing pleasure.

Mesa Verde


The Grand Canyon


The Grand Tetons


Mount Rushmore


Dinosaur National Monument


Oregon Coastline


Drill baby drill! From sea to (once) shining sea.

A. Lincoln: Concerning the Greater Good

Dear President Bush:

At the behest of my late friend and fellow Hoosier (yes we also claim him) Abraham Lincoln -- I believe you would know him as a former occupant of your current residence, The White House -- I am sitting before this keyboard to offer his reflections on your historic unpopularity.



It has been over a year since we last collaborated on a correspondence. Alas, Congress showed little interest in our concerns about the sad state of democracy in this country, or the war in Iraq.

However, with the recent election of former constitutional law professor and current Senator from Illinois Barack Obama, Mr. Lincoln is greatly encouraged and has expressed his hope for the future of our beleaguered nation.

And so Mr. Lincoln and I have determined that the time is right for the drafting of this humble letter. It is our shared and earnest hope that you will soon desist - at least for the remainder of your administration - from any further breaches of the public trust.

Mr. Lincoln has assured me that he is quite familiar with unpopularity, as it is experienced by one in your position. He has suggested that displeasure over 'this action' or 'that word' is quite common when serving a nation of often competing interests with conflicting passions and needs.

However he wishes to advise -- if you would but hear him out -- that there are some truths, some ideological lines that must never be crossed. A president must uphold his oath to serve and protect the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. Lincoln finds your determination to cross -- no, to completely obliterate these lines -- reprehensible. He also finds your shocking disrespect for that "goddamned piece of paper," which We The People revere as our beloved Constitution, to be unworthy of your office.

And so Mr. Lincoln is requesting but a few minutes of your time to make the case that your disregard for our Constitution, and your deliberate flouting of our nation's Rule Of Law are the rank and stinking rot that fester at the heart of your abysmal approval rating among the citizens of this nation.

My words are only an introduction; I will let Mr. Lincoln take it from here (his words will be notated in blockquotes.)

Dear Sir:

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.[1]

There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.[2]

I have borne a laborious, and, in some respects to myself, a painful part in the contest [the war between the States.] Through all, I have neither assailed, nor wrestled with any part of the Constitution.[3]

I freely acknowledge myself the servant of the people, according to the bond of service -- the United States Constitution; and that, as such, I am responsible to them.[4]

I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act.[5]

It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power.[6]

We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings.

We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them---they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Their's was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time, and untorn by usurpation---to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.

How, then, shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.[7]

Let me first state what I understand to be your position. It is, that if it shall become necessary, to repel invasion, the President may, without violation of the Constitution, cross the line, and invade the teritory of another country; and that whether such necessity exists in any given case, the President is to be the sole judge.

Before going further, consider well whether this is, or is not your position.

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose---and you allow him to make war at pleasure.

Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us'' but he will say to you "be silent; I see it, if you don't.''

The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object.

This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.[8]

Has it [popular sovereignty] not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death?[9]

The question of Revenue we will now briefly consider.

For several years past, the revenues of the Government have been unequal to its expenditures, and consequently, loan after loan, sometimes directly, and sometimes indirectly in form, have been resorted to. By this means a new National debt, has been created, and is still growing on us with a rapidity fearful to contemplate---a rapidity only reasonably to be expected in time of war.

This state of things has been produced by a prevailing unwillingness, either to increase the tariff, or resort to direct taxation. But the one or the other must come. Coming expenditures must be met, and the present debt must be paid; and money cannot always be borrowed for these objects.

The system of loans is but temporary in its nature, and must soon explode. It is a system, not only ruinous while it lasts, but one that must soon fail and leave us destitute. As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and next no one left to borrow from---so must it be with a government.[10]

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle.

Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.[11]

I know the American People are much attached to their Government;---I know they would suffer much for its sake;---I know they would endure evils long and patiently, before they would ever think of exchanging it for another.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property, are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the Government is the natural consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it must come. [12].

Let us then turn this government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it.[13]

There is a spirit in the people, sometimes slumbering, but never extinct, which, when thoroughly aroused by usurpation or tyranny, will overwhelm the usurper and his devices in an undistinguished ruin; nor can they long escape this generous indignation, who prostitute the power bestowed by the people to unworthy ends or selfish purposes.[14]

I believe you do not mean to be unjust, or ungenerous; and I, therefore am slow to believe that you will not yet think better and think differently of this matter.[15]

Yours truly,



(Cross-posted on ePluribus and Daily Kos)

Bush orders DOJ to probe Ohio registrations

Even though the Supreme Court of the United States already overruled the GOP's attempt to challenge the validity of new voter registrations in Ohio, George W. Bush (of movie fame) had decided to step in and take charge. He is, after all, the decider. He has apparently decided that these new Ohio voters should not be allowed to vote.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled an attempt by Republicans to challenge the validity of 200,000 voter registrations in Ohio, saying that the party lacked the standing to sue.

The Republicans had sued to force Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, to provide county election officials with lists of registrants whose personal information did not exactly match Social Security or driver's license data, a step that would leave those voters vulnerable to eligibility challenges.

Tensions began to escalate Thursday with disclosures that the FBI is investigating ACORN and the possibility that it's engaged in a vote-fraud scheme.

On Friday, Obama's legal counsel, Robert Bauer, wrote Attorney General Michael Mukasey, charging that the inquiry is politically motivated and that it risks repeating the 2007 scandal over the Bush administration's politicization of the Justice Department.

Bauer asked Mukasey to broaden a special prosecutor's investigation to examine the origin of the ACORN inquiry.

Thanks Nancy! First he was only throwing food and painting on the walls... now he's burning the entire house down.

But sure: why impeach?

President George W. Bush late Friday asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate whether hundreds of thousands of newly registered voters in the battleground state of Ohio would have to verify the information on their voter registration forms or be given provisional ballots, an issue the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on last week.

The unprecedented intervention by the White House less than two weeks before the presidential election may result in at least 200,000 voters in Ohio not being able to vote on Election Day. Information on the 200,000 voter registration forms does not match up exactly with information on government databases. Republicans are claiming that's evidence of voter registration fraud.

But the mismatched information can be attributed to misspellings and other minor mistakes, not a malicious intent on the part of voters to cast fraudulent ballots.

Still, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Bush Friday asking that he order the Department of Justice to probe the matter claiming Ohio election officials are not complying with federal law. Boehner wants Mukasey to order the Ohio Secretary of State to identify the 200,000 voters by county and precinct and be given a provisional ballot until their registrations are confirmed. Provisional ballots largely go uncounted.

“I strongly urge you to direct Attorney General Mukasey and the Department of Justice to act." Boehner said in his letter “Unless action is taken by the Department immediately, thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of names whose information has not been verified through the [Help America Vote Act] procedures mandated by Congress will remain on the voter rolls during the November 4 election; and there is a significant risk if not a certainty, that unlawful votes will be cast and counted. Given the Election Day is less than two weeks away, immediate action by the Department is not only warranted, but also crucial.”

Independent studies have shown that phony registrations rarely result in illegally cast ballots because there are so many other safeguards built into the system.

George George George... what ever happened to 'states rights?'

Worried about an Obama landslide? Or is this simply part of a much larger, intricate election stealing mechanism already in place?

Because - God knows - your chances of legally hanging onto your (abuse of) power grow slimmer every day.

Oh... snap! Obama response, quick as lightning

"I am not Bush." Me thinks Obama was ready for that one.

Thought for today, and a question

While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years.

- Abraham Lincoln

Is the disastrous state of our nation due to our own lack of 'virtue and vigilance;' or because the damage dragged on - unchecked - for eight full years instead of four?

We did surprise the establishment by sending a Democratic majority to Congress in 2006, assuming that they would push back and 'clean the place up.' They chose to do nothing. They didn't even vote to end the war in Iraq (which has cost us billions and resulted in an enormous debt to Communist China, not to mention ongoing loss of life.) They chose not to hold the Bush Administration accountable, even when the multitude of crimes committed by this administration became evident.

All of these components have led us to our current state of economic collapse and lack of respect around the globe.

President Jimmy Carter said yesterday that the "atrocious economic policies of the Bush administration had caused the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s." True. But what of the Democratic Congress we elected in 2006, and their responsibility to act as a check on those economic policies?

Seems to me that there is more than enough blame to go around.

My question for today: does our current state of affairs reflect badly on our vigilance as citizens, or on Democratic capitulation?

I still plan to vote for Obama. But I can't stop wondering... have the Democrats learned anything at all from this disaster? And if they haven't, do we really have any hope - other than in the foresight of one potentially great leader, Barack Obama - that this country can pull out if its nosedive?

The Clinton Impeachment: An example of 'Shock Doctrine'

I believe that an overlooked but critical example of shock doctrine was the nationally humiliating and partisan impeachment of Bill Clinton for sexual misconduct.

As Americans were subjected to Kennith Starr, Monica Lewinsky and the sordid details unveiled in our national media, the word impeachment became unhooked from the prosecution of legal and criminal activity as evidenced during the Nixon Watergate Scandal. Instead, impeachment became associated with the shocking and distasteful outing of Clinton's sexual peccadilloes; behavior that was widely considered immoral, but is not related in any way to federal law.

Thus, impeachment became linked - in the minds of current democratic legislators - with the very lowest of partisan witch-hunting. This link was forged by shock; thus... shock doctrine at work.

When I wrote to my congressional representative two years ago and laid out the legal and constitutional arguments for the impeachment of Bush, his baffling response was that he 'wanted nothing to do with any partisan activity that would ruin his relationship with his republican colleagues.' I found it astonishing at the time that he would put his friendship with fellow republicans ahead of his oath of office to protect the Constitution, and before the defense of our 'rule of law, not men.'

It wasn't until recently (and after reading Naomi Klein's book 'The Shock Doctrine,') that I realized my representative had simply forgotten the the lessons of Watergate in the wake of a more recent - and shocking - use of the 'I word.'

Americans - and especially Democrats - were apparently shocked into inaction by lasting horror and embarrassment stemming from the Clinton impeachment. It appears that the Democratic party has confused the impeachment process itself with its partisan misuse by their GOP colleagues. Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi cling to the perception that impeachment is 'bad for the country.'

In actuality, the right to impeachment elected officials (designed by our nation's founders to keep executive ambitions in check) is a very necessary tool for the protection of democracy from executive overreach. We are now seeing the fallout of having no tool with which to keep any president from simply grabbing more and more power, breaking laws, attacking our Constitution and destroying the balance of power between the three branches of our Federal government.

The GOP effectively 'broke' impeachment in advance of their own party's rise to power... and I suspect that this mock impeachment was also useful as a facilitator of their political ascent.

Gossip and Victorian outrage hung like a dark cloud over the entire Gore campaign. It also lowered the bar of election dialog from discussion of real political and economic issues, to discussions of marital fidelity and Christian morality. Gore had an obvious advantage over Bush when it came to economic and political discussion, so the GOP simply lowered the level of dialog to give their candidate a chance.

It is likely - given the overall prosperity of the Clinton era - that Gore would have won handily and by a wide margin. Instead, many Americans were disgusted with Clinton's sexual escapades and the national embarrassment that they felt as a consequence. Gore never managed to crawl out from under the Clinton stain. Democrats everywhere came to blame impeachment itself - rather than its very partisan misuse by the GOP - for their loss of face.

Impeachment as political shock doctrine. Think about it.

Dean Baker: Bush sought to provoke financial panic

This excellent essay by Dean Baker accuses Bush of deliberately creating financial panic to push through legislation. Naomi Klein calls this 'Shock Doctrine.' Whatever you call it, Congress fell for it once again. Then the rats all fled the sinking ship.

Perhaps the day will come when Americans are too poor to even pay taxes. There are so many of us... what if the economy goes belly up and the dollar collapses? I wonder what our dear representative government will do to collect on this enormous debt they have assigned to us against our will? Put us all in debter's prison? Assign us all jobs in a massive national work house?

This will likely go down as one of the greatest - if not the greatest - betrayal in our nation's history. I had the impression that my congressman grasped that fact (and thus refused to vote for it, along with most of the other Hoosier congressmen.)

Somehow our aging Senator Lugar - a nice man - missed the historical significance. Perhaps he was simply afraid. It is unfortunately that history will damn him along with the rest of the millionaire's club. Our children's children won't know anything about him other than that he signed this bill -- and it will stick to his name and reputation like the stink of a skunk.

Dean Baker's essay assigns the biggest blame to Bush. Is this the legacy Bush plans to leave -- bankrupting an entire nation? He says that he truly believes history will vindicate him. Is he actually hoping that there won't be anyone left to read it?

If Lincoln's ghost really does haunt the White House, I have a theory about why Bush spends so much time on vacation, away from the place. If I were Lincoln, I'd be howling "TRAITOR!" over W's bed, every single night.

Statement on Congressional Approval of Bailout

by: Dean Baker, The Center for Economic and Policy Research

Friday 03 October 2008

This is the first time in the history of the United States that the president has sought to provoke a financial panic to get legislation through Congress. While this has proven to be a successful political strategy, it marks yet another low point in American politics.

It was incredibly irresponsible for President Bush to tell the American people on national television that the country could be facing another Great Depression. By contrast, when we actually were in the Great Depression, President Roosevelt said that, "we have nothing to fear, but fear itself."

It was even more irresponsible for him to seize on the decline in the stock market five days later as evidence that his bailout was needed for the economy. President Bush must surely understand, as all economists know, that the daily swings in the stock market are driven by mass psychology and have almost nothing to do with the underlying strength in the economy.

The scare tactics of President Bush, Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Bernanke created sufficient panic, so that by the time of the vote, much of the public believed that the defeat of the bailout may actually have had serious consequences for the economy. Millions of people have changed their behavior because of this fear, with many pulling money out of bank and money market accounts, and in other ways adjusting their financial plans.

This effort to promote panic is especially striking since the country's dire economic situation is almost entirely the result of the Bush Administration's policy failures. First and foremost, the decision of Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke (and previously Alan Greenspan) to ignore the housing bubble, allowed for the growth of an $8 trillion bubble, which is now collapsing.

It is the collapse of this bubble, which has already destroyed more than $4 trillion in housing wealth, and is likely to destroy another $4 trillion over the next year, that is at the root of the economy's problems. While competent economists were warning of the bubble and the dire consequences of its collapse, the top officials in the Bush administration were celebrating the rise in homeownership rates.

The Bush administration made the crisis even worse by deregulating Wall Street. This led to the huge over-leveraging of financial institutions, which has vastly complicated the country's economic policies. It is especially disturbing that Secretary Paulson personally profited from these policies, earning hundreds of millions in compensation from Goldman Sachs during his years there as its CEO.

The collapse of the housing bubble, while falling short of the magnitude of the Great Depression, is likely to lead to the worst recession since World War II. Repairing the damage caused by this bubble will be a long and difficult process. Cleaning up the damage to the political system from President Bush's unprecedented fear campaign may prove to be even more difficult.

Difficult or impossible.

Likely the next guy to take office will remember how well fear worked - and how unwilling congress was to stand up to it - and ram all sorts of horrors down our throats. McCain certainly will. Obama is still a mystery.

Obama voted for it; but perhaps naively believes he can undo it. I honestly have no idea. I wonder if he still wants to be president of this imploding empire?

What would FDR do?

How often I think of FDR in these dark times, and wonder what he'd be doing - and especially what he would be saying - if he was here today. FDR: of the 'we have nothing to fear but fear itself,' rather than George Bush's endless 'BE AFRAID' speeches, designed to facilitate the fleecing of the people.

FDR cared... about more than merely getting re-elected or running off with the nation's wealth. People respond to humanity and compassion in high office.

We've had some terrific presidents in our history. Somehow I doubt, with our current media and (broken) election process, that we'll see any true leaders in our near or maybe even distant future.

Maybe Obama. Maybe. If can un-glue his mind from delusions of empire, and recall what it once meant to be a Republic.

"And to the REPUBLIC for which it stands..." even our own flag doesn't recognize us anymore.

Here is an excerpt from "Franklin Roosevelt, a Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes to You," by Michael Winship:

The President has seemed underinformed, disconnected and not, you should excuse the word, invested. In his address to the nation Wednesday evening, he said that the government was blameless for the financial crisis; it had done what it was supposed to do but had been victimized by overseas lenders, greedy banks and Americans taking on more credit than they could carry. And as he has done too often before, he tried to make us afraid.

"The government's top economic experts warn that without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic, and a distressing scenario would unfold." President Bush said. "More banks could fail, including some in your community. The stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet. Foreclosures would rise dramatically. And if you own a business or a farm, you would find it harder and more expensive to get credit. More businesses would close their doors, and millions of Americans could lose their jobs."

Contrast what he had to say with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he was sworn into office for the first time, in 1933, during the Great Depression. Rather than foster anxiety and panic, FDR proclaimed, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," despite the fact that 13 million were unemployed, nine million had lost their savings and a quarter of the banks had closed. Wages had plummeted 60 percent. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" is the phrase that everyone remembers, but here's a little more of what FDR had to say:

"This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure, as it has endured, will revive and will prosper ...

"In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunk to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income ... More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment ...

"The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of that restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit ... If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize, as we have never realized before, our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take, but we must give as well."

Read the rest

Jon Stewart: Dive of Death

Clusterf#@k to the Poor House - Dive of Death



Absolutely... priceless.

Verbal brawl in the White House

-- What - George didn't get his way?

It appears the Republicans want their party back! And not a moment too soon.

I'm sure Congress worked very hard to forge a bipartisan compromise; a solution to the financial crisis that was constitutional, and included protection for taxpayers. The very predictable and reoccurring problem is - of course - that compromise isn't (ever) what George and his buddies want. The Neocons want total control of the purse strings - a complete financial coup - and nothing less will ever satisfy them.

George won't be happy until he and his pals have stolen every last borrowed penny.

This was so predictable. That the Republicans fought back... that is a welcome surprise. It may just save our nation from crippling debt and bankruptcy.

Congress - both Republicans and Democrats - hammered out a compromise. But it was never going to fly with the Neocons. They (who created this mess) refuse all compromises, all oversight, all 'rights of man' -- and they spurn and scoff at our Constitution.

They came for our money, our children's money, and our grand children's money. I'm sure they planned to spirit it overseas, perhaps to Dubai.

Thank you Congress -- and especially to congressional Republicans -- for standing firm. Stick to your principles! Don't let up. We're counting on you.

Thank you to the real Republicans. I dream of a day when the Democrats can remember what they once stood for as a party; the party of Kennedy and Roosevelt (they can start by glancing over at Dennis Kucinich and Russ Feingold.) Perhaps then there will be balance again.

If not... its time to form a third party to represent the growing numbers of us that fall through the cracks. Honestly... I've always been something of a mix: fiscally conservative, socially progressive. And no, I don't mean 'liberal;' progressive... as in 'progress.'

Progress means alternate forms of energy that won't destroy our climate or cause endless wars for oil. Progress means protecting the environment for future generations and simply because it is the right thing to do. Teddy Roosevelt (Republican) created our National Parks Service. Eisenhower (Republican) created the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. Republicans have a tradition of preserving the land. They haven't always been greedy destroyers.

Progress means protecting our Constitution against tyranny and any hostile overthrow of our democracy. The Constitution is the only true guardian of our freedom. No foreign war is ever going to make or keep us free. That is our responsibility.

Progress means change from this rule of greed and elitism. Progress means a return to the days when we Americans believed in justice, honor, fair play, prosperity for all. Remember that American dream? Many of our ancestors went through hell to reach our shores so that their descendants could live well and prosper, in freedom and harmony. But they expect us to preserve this dream.

Fiscally conservative and socially progressive. I don't see why we can't live in a nation that succeeds economically and socially. I have never understood why our corporations couldn't be successful in a free market, while taxpaying Americans (and the poor, the down and out) also succeed or at least survive with good jobs, fair pay, good schools and affordable health care. It was only corporate greed that got in the way of balance and the 'good life' in our country, and around the world.

If the corporations - with Neocons promoting this irresponsible behavior - weren't so damn greedy, we'd never have gotten into this mess. We could have had a healthy society that all could live in and thrive.

I hear there are a lot of us who consider ourselves 'fiscally conservative and socially progressive.' Neither party wants us... we need our own representation.

From the New York Times:

September 26, 2008

Talks Implode During a Day of Chaos; Fate of Bailout Plan Remains Unresolved

WASHINGTON — The day began with an agreement that Washington hoped would end the financial crisis that has gripped the nation. It dissolved into a verbal brawl in the Cabinet Room of the White House, urgent warnings from the president and pleas from a Treasury secretary who knelt before the House speaker and appealed for her support.

“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,” President Bush declared Thursday as he watched the $700 billion bailout package fall apart before his eyes, according to one person in the room.

It was an implosion that spilled out from behind closed doors into public view in a way rarely seen in Washington.

By 10:30 p.m., after another round of talks, Congressional negotiators gave up for the night and said they would try again on Friday. Left uncertain was the fate of the bailout, which the White House says is urgently needed to fix broken financial and credit markets, as well as whether the first presidential debate would go forward as planned Friday night in Mississippi.

When Congressional leaders and Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, the two major party presidential candidates, trooped to the White House on Thursday afternoon, most signs pointed toward a bipartisan agreement on a grand compromise that could be accepted by all sides and signed into law by the weekend. It was intended to pump billions of dollars into the financial system, restoring liquidity and keeping credit flowing to businesses and consumers.

“We’re in a serious economic crisis,” Mr. Bush told reporters as the meeting began shortly before 4 p.m. in the Cabinet Room, adding, “My hope is we can reach an agreement very shortly.”

But once the doors closed, the smooth-talking House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, surprised many in the room by declaring that his caucus could not support the plan to allow the government to buy distressed mortgage assets from ailing financial companies.

Mr. Boehner pressed an alternative that involved a smaller role for the government, and Mr. McCain, whose support of the deal is critical if fellow Republicans are to sign on, declined to take a stand.

The talks broke up in angry recriminations, according to accounts provided by a participant and others who were briefed on the session, and were followed by dueling news conferences and interviews rife with partisan finger-pointing.

Friday morning, on CBS’s “The Early Show,” Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the lead Democratic negotiator, said the bailout had been derailed by internal Republican politics.

“I didn’t know I was going to be the referee for an internal G.O.P. ideological civil war,” Mr. Frank said, according to The A.P.Thursday, in the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.

“I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson’s kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: “It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.”

Read more...

The King hath addressed his subjects

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Wednesday, September 24, 2008 -- 9:15 PM ET
-----

Bush Asks Americans to Support Bailout

In a speech to the nation, President Bush calls on Americans to support the economic recovery plan. Mr. Bush has invited presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, as well as top lawmakers, to the White House for economic crisis talks on Thursday.

Economic recovery plan. For whom? Because I don't see anything in there about an economic recovery for us. Three years ago I drove to Louisiana to volunteer after Katrina (the government sure as hell wasn't showing up,) and gasoline - in Louisiana - was $1.89 a gallon. Now its nearly $4. Economic recovery plan? Was that a lame attempt at Texas humor?

Bush wants the British subjects (scratch that, the American subjects) to support the latest stamp act tax (scratch that, 'economic plan,') which will ensure that his barons can keep their castle estates (scratch that... mansion estates) after they've wrecked the economy with their endless robbing and pillaging of... well, the British subjects (scratch that, American taxpaying... subjects.)

Support our own economic destruction? Is he completely out of his mind?

Even lockstepping Republicans won't support this. Has he managed - already - to buy their silence, and now actually believes that he can BS us one last time, and then run off with the entire national treasury? (Silly me, he's already emptied the treasury. He wants to write a bad check to his friends, and sign our name.)

This 'subject' politely declines. One if by land... two if by sea.

Bruce Fein: Rethinking U.S. Role

Constitutional Lawyer and former member of the Reagan Administration, Bruce Fein, has written an excellent commentary in the Washington Times.

For those (like myself) who have heard Fein speak over the years, these arguments are not new. For those who appreciate his grasp of history, his fiery defense of our Constitution and adherence to the intentions of our forefathers, Fein's words are always refreshing.

FEIN: Rethinking US Role:

By Bruce Fein
Tuesday, September 16, 2008

COMMENTARY:

If the United States neglects to rethink its purpose informed by the genius and practice of the Founding Fathers, it is destined to self-destruct like every other empire from hubris and overreach. At present, the Republic is undergoing a metamorphosis into executive despotism featuring escalating taxes and permanent warfare because of staggering ignorance of the nation's birth certificate among officeholders, candidates and the public.

The Constitution's preamble explains that the national interest of the United States lies in providing for the "common defense" and "secur[ing] the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The Founding Fathers denied that the United States was saddled with either a moral or legal responsibility to implant freedom throughout the planet.

None ever hinted at a national duty to overthrow the French Bourbons, the Russian Romanovs, or the Ottoman Sultans. Nor did they believe Americans would be made either safer or freer by attempting to cram American democracy down the throats of feudalistic, tribal, sectarian or autocratic foreign political cultures, for example, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia or China. The exercise would be futile because the knowledge needed to pluck the flower of democracy from the nettle of longstanding tyranny is beyond human grasp.

Further, these utopian larks would make Americans less safe and less free. Military interventions abroad make enemies by the inevitable killing of innocent civilians in pursuit of actual enemies. Think of the mounting "collateral damage" deaths in Afghanistan or Iraq. Resentments are also awakened by the insult to national dignity implicit in American military bases or occupation forces - a variation of "The Ugly American" by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer.

In addition, the trillions of dollars squandered in foreign military frolics subtract from fashioning a virtually invulnerable defense posture at home earmarked by spy satellites and aircraft, anti-missile systems, submarines, upgraded border security, sophisticated intelligence collection, and a credible threat to destroy any enemy nation with the audacity to attack.

Finally, the military exertions necessary to effectuate an endless American crusade for democracy abroad would be the death knell of the republic. War endows the president with invincible power at home. He controls the public record of information through selective disclosures of classified intelligence. He awards military honors and contracts. And he commands popular political support by exploiting the natural patriotism and fears of Americans that he manufactures by logarithmically inflating foreign threats.

A president with unchecked authority spies on political opponents, flouts the rule of law, cripples the congressional power of oversight, and, arbitrarily detains, harasses or punishes citizens or noncitizens alike on his say-so alone.

In sum, the United States would have become a mirror of the tyranny that provoked the Declaration of Independence if its mission was the global expansion of liberty.

President Bush epitomizes the light years the United States has traveled from its more modest founding purpose and the Constitution's injunctions. Bob Woodward reports in his new book "The War Within": "The opportunity to spread freedom throughout the globe, and particularly in the broader Middle East and in the Muslim world," [Bush's National Security Adviser Stephen] Hadley said that day, "that is, I think for the president, the defining idea of his presidency... it is not only a sort of moral duty, it's not only consistent with our principles, it's consistent with our interests, it's actually essential for our national security. ... For liberty to be secure at home, liberty has to be on the march abroad. Big stuff. Not big. Huge." But President Bush's ambitions are also delusional, ill-founded and extra-constitutional.

Not a syllable in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence, however, suggests the president has either the duty or authority to carry freedom to the four corners of the Earth. And Mr. Bush's concoction of a moral obligation is unconvincing. The United States did not create the dictatorships, autocracies or lawlessness that afflict Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Ethiopia or Syria. It is not morally bound to relieve afflictions it did not create.

Further, that messianic task would contradict the nation's principles as expounded by the Founding Fathers. Then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams in his July 4, 1821, address amplified: "[The United States] has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings. ... She goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. ... She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit."

In addition, liberty in the United States can thrive irrespective of foreign dictators or despots. The suppression of human rights in Burma, Venezuela, Iran or North Korea does not undermine enforcement of the Bill of Rights.

To be sure, nations that honor democracy are less likely to attack the United States. But nondemocracies can be deterred by the threat of incineration a la Hiroshima or Nagasaki coupled with enhanced defense technologies and intelligence. Moreover, the United States does not know how to evolve democracies from political cultures barren of democratic DNA.

Alarming theories of national purpose and interests are propounded by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the 2008 Republican and Democratic Party contenders for the White House. Those grandiose ideas clearly demonstrate the quartet would have been Tories opposed to the American Revolution. They would have been denied admission to the ranks of the Minutemen as fifth columnists. They would have been excluded from the Constitutional Convention as unfit. None can be trusted to recapture the republican principles of the Founding Fathers needed to frustrate executive despotism.

Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer with Bruce Fein & Associates, Inc. and author of "Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for our Constitution and Democracy" (Palgrave Macmillan).