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9/30/2008

Or, at least that is what you would think if you were Bush. It's all the fault of the average american citizen who bought too much house, and it's all the fault of the bankers who gave them the loans. But it's absolutely NOT the fault of the government that de-regulated and deregulated until there was virtually no regulation left, and the banks and investment houses and everyone else who could possibly jump on board the money-train, and it's most definitely NOT the fault of Wall Street or the Bush Administration or any single republican in Congress.

Bush gave his obligatory yammer session this morning. If, like me, you were WORKING for your living this morning, you weren't able to watch Bush's little pep talk to try to convince the American people to stop bullying those poor little elected congressmen into voting against a bill that would SCREW the American people fifteen ways from Sunday and leave absolutely no recourse for vengeance against Bush and Paulson and those poor little congressmen later on when the proposed Bailout Bill voted down yesterday in the House made the economy even worse. MSNBC was kind enough to post the transcript so you won't miss the bull pucky.

After the thoroughly expected "We're in the midst of a financial crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive action." Code talk for 'Paulie and I didn't get what we wanted, so now we're about to lay the blame on all those damned american voters who called their congressional reps and ordered them to vote my perfect measure down.'

He goes on to say "We...acted to prevent major investors from intentionally driving down stocks for their own personal gain." This, on the heels of a 700+ point drop in the dow, so isn't that exactly what the "major investors" did, and so you didn't really "prevent" anything?

Bush: "Easy credit, combined with the faulty assumption that home values would continue to rise, led to excesses and bad decisions." i.e., it's the fault of those americans who were demanding and getting bad loans! That dog don't hunt, as I demonstrated in my 9/19/08 post.

Bush: "Many mortgage lenders approved loans for borrowers without carefully examining their ability to pay. Many borrowers took out loans larder than they could afford, assuming that they could sell or refinance their homes at a higher price later on." So, it's the Bank's fault! Well, ok, the Bee agrees....with the first part of that quote. The second, not so much - as nearly every professional in the industry was making money hand over fist telling the borrowers just exactly that - your house will appreciate! It will double in value again! Maybe triple! The sky's the limit! Well, that dog didn't hunt either.

But, not one single word of accepting blame for continuing the deregulation policies of predecessors, and not a single word of blame for the Congress which consistently voted for said deregulation.

As far as I'm concerned, Bush and half of Congress and probably 98% of Wall Street need to do some jail time. I want to see jail time in the next proposed bailout bill. Oh, and I'll have my stock certificates in all those bailed out companies mailed directly to my home address, as well. To hell with golden parachtes and camoflage parachutes and poor little congressmen and presidents who shouldn't ever have to shoulder any blame - I want to see jail time.

And I'm not talking about a nice federal white-collar pen with a golf course and gourmet dinners - I'm talking Supermax - maybe the ADX Florence

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9/28/2008

In 1996 (way before the husband, mortgage and toddler) my mother got a wild hair to go to Alaska. She asked me to go along, and of course, I jumped at that chance. Trip was wonderful, beautiful country, etc. I came back with a very pretty t-shirt with ALASKA embroidered across the front in blue letters and with otters cavorting around the print. I love that t-shirt, and still wear it. Until yesterday.

Yesterday the husband and I took the toddler to the Virginia State Fair. The toddler got to ride for free, we needed tickets. So, the husband puts the toddler on a kiddie ride, and I go to stand in line for tickets. The 'nascar' republican dad complete with orange baseball cap with garish blazes and the typical fat beer ass turns around, peers at my chest and says with an idiotic grin on his face "Alaska! We love Sarah Palin!"

Damn that woman, anyway - now I can't even wear an Alaska t-shirt without some putz thinking I'm a republican.

SNL last night, of course, opened with Tina Fey as the scarily spitting image of Palin, and if it weren't so right on target as to how ludicrous Palin's interview with Katie Couric was, it would be funny. Don't take my word for it, though - watch it for yourself:

And here is are portions of the original interview with Sarah Palin by Katie Couric, in all it's frighteningly stupid glory:

The people who "like" or "love" this woman, I think, are the same who "liked" or "loved" George W. Bush - the ones who seem to want someone in power over them who just isn't so smart, isn't so quick on the uptake. In short, a leader that those particular voters can feel superior to.

Me, I don't want a leader I can feel superior to, I want someone smarter than me, and this woman is most definitely NOT smarter than me. She's not even smarter than the neighbor's poodle.

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9/27/2008

The Republicans are melting down, and it's almost beginning to look like a schism in the ranks. It all comes to a head over the Paulson Bailout Bill. Basically, House and Senate republicans were afraid to back it last weekend when Bush was pushing to get Congress to pass it sight unseen. Even the republicans had the good sense to say "hey, wait a minute, the last 100 times we gave you a blank check...well, fool me 100 times, shame on...you, me, the dog."

The NYT article linked above says that Representative John A Boehner (R-Oh) put an alternative plan on the table, which led to the verbal fisticuffs and peacock-like strutting, and as we all know, the bill was still not passed. Back to negotiations.

You see, the republicans are scared stiff(er) that whatever plan is passed will ultimately fail, and they don't want to take any blame for a failed plan. They probably aren't going to be allowed any choice in whether to take blame or not, since IT IS MOSTLY THEIR FAULT TO BEGIN WITH, GIVEN TRICKLE DOWN WHICH DOESN'T WORK AND DE-REGULATION WHICH FAILED HORRENDOUSLY.

Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-Tx), leader of the RSC, a conservative group of lawmakers dedicated to spreading the blight of conservative agenda, said "“If Democrats believe the only plan that will save the economy is the Paulson plan, they have the power and the moral responsibility to go ahead and pass it...They don’t have to have Republican votes to get it done.”

I believe the Democrats already said earlier this week that they have no intention of passing Paulson's plan as is, that they have no intention of giving Bush another blank check, and if there is going to be a bailout bill at all, it is going to be bi-partisan. Which makes perfect sense to me - the republicans had a great big hand in this, the democrats had a lesser (but not my much) hand in it, and if the ship is going to sink, then they should all go down with it.

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9/26/2008

What a debate! After the dead-fish drone of John Kerry, the Kindergarten-teacher-on-ludes speeches of Gore, the stumbling bumbling yadda yadda of Bush, it's nice to see a man who can speak coherently and intelligently. You didn't think I was talking about McCain, did you?

Although, I will give McCain this: He is vastly superior to George Bush. Of course, the neighbor's poodle would be vastly superior to Bush (and more articulate). But still, at least the republicans put someone out front this time who can string a complete sentence together.

I don't trust what McCain said about the Bailout Bill early in the debate, as he is simply too rich, for too long, and I don't believe he fully comprehends what it is to be "Middle Class." His Main Street is like something out of the Magic Kingdom - Obama's is the Main Street of the southside of Chicago.

I personally find it refreshing to see someone (Obama, duh) who wants to actually DEAL with leaders in other countries, rather than BULLYING them. Such as Russia. McCain seems to think we shouldn't deal with Putin, and I believe I heard economic sanctions, as if we are in any position to sanction anyone else's economy right now. And, by the way, Medvedev is now the President of Russia. Granted, Putin handpicked him, and still pulls the strings, but Putin should probably be marginalized a bit more. Besides, the Bee is pretty sure that Medvedev is sitting at home in Moscow right now, sucking on a Stolie and watching the debate on Satellite, and do you think he might be a a little...offended?

I was suprised to hear McCain actually bring up the experience factor - considering the nincompoop he picked for VP running mate who actually does think that foreign policy experience can consist of "living next door to Russia."

And now it's over, the talking heads are blah blah blah and completely missing the points, as usual.

Wonder which network will interview the KKK for their views on who was the better debater tonight. Probably the WHT channel. That seems to be the white evangelical answer to the BET network.

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9/26/2008

Here's a big surprise. Around 2002-2003, I read a disturbing, short AP Press article in the local newspaper, in which Bush was quoted mentioning the big "N" word - Nuclear Option. The Russian Ambassador was quoted as a saying something along the lines of "Oh Shit."

Well, it's been a few years, and the Cold War seems to be now officially back. According to the BBC news today, Russia is expanding its nuclear capabilities. New warships, new nuclear subs and an aerospace defense mechanism.

This of course comes on the heels of the Bush Administration signing a deal with Poland to put a missile defense system on Polish land. In the Russian's backyard.

Doesn't anyone in the Bush Administration know anything about the Cuban Missile Crisis? When Russia was putting nuclear warheads in our backyard? They should know, they're all old enough to remember.

Yes, that was a rhetorical question - the Bee is well aware that the lessons of history have absolutely no place in the Bush White House.

This is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night.

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9/25/2008

Keith Olbermann has a pretty good video concerning Sarah Palin and the Wasilla Assembly of God - her church, which has...(cough cough) blessed her in her bid for the Vice presidency in what is looking like the doomed campaign of John McCain. Evidently, Mrs. Palin has a witch-hunter on her side. Remember how the republicans were yammering on and on a few months ago over Obama's old pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Well, this Muthee fellow makes Wright look like the most reasonable human to ever walk the earth.

You can watch Olbermann's video here:

And, when you've finished vomiting your lunch over the wackadoo-ity of it all, take a gander at this video:

This woman believes this stuff, and that is not a good thing for a potential leader of a diverse nation to espouse. Witchcraft? Witch Hunting? What century is this again??

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"It's Terrible."

9/23/2008

You know it has to be bad when a former economic advisor to Reagan says that the bailout bill is terrible. Great Googly, how bad does it have to be for a Reagan economic advisor to say it's "scare tactics" and "It's terrible"? Pretty bad, as the economic climate during the Reagan years weren't exactly fun and giggles.

Peter Goodman of the New York Times, in his article of today's date entitled Experts See A Need For Punitive Action In Bailout quotes a few other distinguished financial experts.

For example: “It’s a straight subsidy to financial institutions,” said Martin Baily, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton administration, and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “You’re essentially giving them money.”

But we're supposed to believe Paulson when he says he knows what's best. Well, here's what Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research had to say: “This administration is asking for a $700 billion blank check to be put in the hands of Henry Paulson, a guy who totally missed this, and has been wrong about almost everything...It’s almost amazing they can do this with a straight face. There is clearly skepticism and anger at the idea that we’d give this money to these guys, no questions asked.”

Yes, that's roughly what I've been saying since last night.

Are they kidding us? Congress already wrote a blank check for the Iraq War, and the Patriot Act, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and those haven't exactly worked out very well at all. Now we're supposed to let Congress hand Wall Street a blank check, and give Paulson complete and utter immunity at the same time, to buy back bad loans bundled into financial vehicles that noone even knows the true value of, any way he sees fit with no oversight and no accountability when he screws it up even worse?

I still agree that Wall Street is going to have to get a check, but a blank check, and with Paulson as Unclothed Emperor of the Great Greenback Way? Unacceptable. That dog don't hunt.

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The Bailout Bill is Unadulterated BullPucky

9/22/2008

Today we learn that Paulson is trying to make himself the Financial Emperor of the United States. The bailout bill contains a provision that "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

Didn't catch that? Here is is again, as reported in Huffington Post: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

That's right, he wants to make every decision, sans any input from anyone anywhere at anytime, and his decision shall be unchallenged in any official arena. He wants to be emperor of the American financial system.

Banks and mortgage houses made bad loans. They did this in order to make money hand-over-fist. It's that simple. And now Paulson wants to give them money when they screwed it all up by making bad loan after bad loan after bad loan ad infinitum. It is truly mind-boggling just how many bad loans these banks wrote, and it was all in the pursuit of wealth. Period. That's the only reason. Now, the greedy bastards want us all to believe this just came out of left field, that noone understood how much of a hole the financial industry was digging. That's Bullpucky, through and through. Analysts were saying 7 years ago that this bust was coming, and when it did come, it would be hard and long. They were written off as crackpots. Turns out they were right.

Paulson wants unlimited power. He also wants to add foreign banks to the list of bailouts. Foreign banks, if they have operations in the U.S. Paulson says "...this is about protecting the American people and protecting the taxpayers. and the American people don't care who owns the financial institution.".

The American people don't care? Guess again - some of us care plenty. Those banks, like Toyota, might be employing americans, but their profits go back to their home country - and who much in U.S. taxes do they pay, anyway?

I agree that the financial system needs to be bailed out, because this, friends, could very well lead to another DEpression, and it's not clear yet that we're not already there.

However, to do so wholesale, with no oversight, with no placement of regulatory controls to keep greedy bastards from causing another colossal fiscal tsunami with their "Get Rich Quick!" free-for-alls, then this won't help, anymore than a band-aid would help stanch an arterial hemorrhage.

Meanwhile, we learn that John McCain's campaign manager made TWO MILLION bucks as an advocate defending Fannie and Freddie from...regulation. And the McCain campaign had the gall to try to tie Obama, in what the New York Times called "guilt by association," to Freddie and Fannie.

Un-Freaking-Believable.

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SNL Can Still Be Funny

9/21/2008

This clip from last night's opening of Saturday Night Live speaks for itself. Enjoy.

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Obama, Albright, Town Halls and New Friends

9/20/2008

I went across the river to University of Richmond today to attend a town hall meeting on foreign policy, with Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State for Bill Clinton, speaking in support of Barak Obama.

I felt like I was in Oz. I've never seen so many democrats and liberals in one place together in all my years in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and it was refreshing to see the diversity that the Democratic Party is made up of. I saw young, old, gay, straight, college students and teachers, mothers and fathers and grandparents, black, white, asian and african.

I met two new friends, wonderful men named Chol and William, who fled the oppression and war and killing in Sudan fifteen years ago. Chol told me briefly about the history of his home country, about having to leave as a very young man to escape the violence and devastation caused by the muslim takeover of the entire country. He told me about how he misses his family. He hasn't seen them in 15 years. After spending some time in Egypt as a refugee, he got a chance to come to America, and has been here ever since.

He and his friend William want to write a book about their experiences, but Chol feels that he cannot get his thoughts settled enough - he still has nightmares about the terrible things he saw there, and he is not confident in his english skills.

Our conversation was cut short when Albright took the stage to thunderous applause. And who would have known, she has a sense of humor. She began with a story about being stopped in an airport security checkpoint, where the guard recognized her, told he was from Bosnia, they love her in Bosnia and then had to have a picture with her while the line was backing up behind her. Another woman asked what it was all about, and Albright responded "Oh, I used to be Secretary of State." The woman said "of what, Bosnia??"

Albright laid out the 6 key issues that face Obama when he is elected in November, those being:

1. How to fight terrorism without creating more terrorists

2. How to deal with the fact that the non-proliferation regime is broken, i.e., there is a need for more effective disarmament treaties.

3. How to restore the best face of democracy. Albright said "I believe in it, but democracy has gotten a bad name...you can support it...but you cannot impose it."

4. Globalization. It's here, it's not going to change, it's not going anywhere, so the U.S. has to deal with it and learn to work with it. She said that in her view, one of the biggest negatives with globalization of markets and economies has been the growing wealth-disparity, not only in the U.S., but all over the world.

5. An umbrella set of issues from energy, environment, food prices and shortages; and

6. The Global Financial Crisis, of which I myself have been writing about for a few posts now. When our systems fail, the rest of the world follows suit - hence our Black Monday on 9/15/08 led to massive tanking of stock markets in Asia and Europe.

When asked what to respond to people to say Obama is naive for wanting to resort to diplomacy first and warfare last, she responded that Obama was right about Iraq, that it would end up being a quagmire and was simply the wrong way to go. He wants to focus more on Afghanistan, where the terrorists really are. There are 2 million Iraqi refugees destabilizing the entire middle east, and Iran needs to be dealt with. She feels that, from speaking to an Iranian ambassador recently, that not everyone in Iran has a problem with Israel - and those are the people who can be used to sway the president of Iran.

Basically, she made a lot of sense, which is a rare thing in this state which has been blood red since 1964.

I completely agreed with her personal assessment that "I want a president who is confident, not a president who is certain." I couldn't have said it better myself.

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Egads! Socialism in America!

9/20/2008

The price tag on the Wall Street and Banking Bailout (the WSBB heretofore) is now at $700 Billion, up from the $500 billion reported by the New York Times yesterday.

The Apprentice has a problem. A big fat problem. She agrees with Bush on one aspect - that this bailout is necessary to avert a long and decimating Depression. However, she still says "This was your fault to begin with, to perpetuate Reaganomics, a thoroughly discredited economic system that didn't work in the 80's and still doesn't work today, so take that, you slob."

Now that I have that out of my system, let's talk turkey.

The Dems in congress wanted to make sure this bill contains provisions to help out the average Joe and Jenny I talked about last night, the ones who were scammed, and on a certain level let themselves be scammed, by the mortgage and bank lending system that ran wild for the last 15 years. It was, for the most part, unregulated. It was, for the most part, left to the "Free Market" to determine what was best for Wall Street and Shareholders, and screw the Joe's and Jenny's on Main Street.

Now, suddenly, regulation is a "GOOD THING" on Wall Street, who seem to be all on board because, well, they screwed up massively, and now we the taxpayers get to pay for it. Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) is quoted as saying: ""The free market for all intents and purposes is dead in America...(The U.S. Treasury's proposal would) "take away the free market and institute socialism in America...."

Can he get a little more knee jerk over his pet ideology? Time to face reality, Sen. Bunning, your precious "Free Market" NEEDS to be dead, as it DID NOT WORK. Get it? Simple concept. The Market had the freedom it needed to get filthy stinking rich. And, to quote the movie Casino, "In the end, we fucked it all up." This country, frankly, needs a little socialism mixed into the financial systems to basically save the financial systems from themselves. Simple Concept - take the good from both socialism and free market capitalism, put them together, and Wall Street can't drag us all down with the next "Get Rich Quick!" scheme they cook up.

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Inane, Insane and Profane

9/19/2008

Today's New York Times carried an article about the Federal Bailout of Wall Street which Paulson estimates at $500 Billion, but "Outside experts predicted that the bill could exceed $1 trillion."

Read that number again. One Trillion Dollars, I say in my best Doctor Evil impression. Mind boggling.

Bush thinks it's great, and says "we must act now to protect our nation’s economic health from serious risk.”

What was wrong with protecting the nation's economic health 7 years ago when you were writing off the analysts who said this meltdown was coming? Bush & Gang said they were Chicken Littles several years ago. Bush & Gang want us all to believe that the financial problems the nation now faces came out of left field, that noone saw it coming. Give me a break! I saw it coming 7 years ago, and I'm a paper pusher!

I spent 10 years closing mortgage loans. I would see loans come through that would turn your hair white - interest only for 5 years on houses selling for $400,000 and being bought by people making $60,000 a year TOTAL. Gross earnings, not take-home. They simply could not, in anyone's wildest dreams, afford these houses. They were bad loans from the start. So what did Wall Street do? Come up with the incredibly inane idea of bundling this sure-to-default mortgages and sell them on the open market as securities. All with the blessing of the federal government, because the republican ideologues believed that the Free Market would correct itself.

Let's face reality here: Free Market my behind - the market is run by humans, and humans are greedy bastards when faced with the possibility of making a bazillion dollars and walking away, which is exactly what the CEO's of Bear Stearns, IndyMac Bank, Fannie and Freddie are doing right now, with their golden parachutes fully intact. Meanwhile their workers are out of jobs.

As I said, I worked in the closing end of this industry for some number of years. So, why not blame the idiots out there who took these loans knowing they couldn't pay for them? Let me tell you why they don't deserve all of the blame, and it comes down to simple timing.

You begin the process by looking for a house. Realtor asks you how much you make, and says how much you can afford to spend, and then steers you toward the house he/she will make the most commission off of based on a percentage of the sales price. Big suprise, that house is the most expensive one they can talk you into believing you can afford. Now, the borrower, not having a clue about any of this process, has the realtors words set in stone with a pre-approval letter from the mortgage broker or lender who the realtor sends most of his/her buyers to for loans. Big suprise, the broker/lender says "well, sure, you can afford that house! We'll find a way to get you into that brand-spanking new neighborhood and into that 4,000 square foot house with the granite countertops and italian tile floors and 3 1/2 baths. How about an interest only loan for 5 years. You'll get raises and bonuses, and in 5 years you'll be able to afford your dream home when the payments go up just a little bit to adjust for the beginning of principal payments! Oh, by the way, just a formality, how much do you make? Oh no, we don't need any proof, no need to make me copies of those pesky tax returns!"

About a month later, you go to the closing table at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon. Well, make that 4:20, because your mortgage papers just came into the lawyers hands about 20 minutes ago, and the paralegal is making copies. That's right, your papers just arrived from the lender 20 minutes ago. Not 2 days ago, when everyone had a chance to review the docs to see just what kind of loan you were getting, and cancel the loan, cancel the sale of your previous house, and try to back out of the impending funnel cloud of financial instability bearing down on you. Nope, your papers came in at 4:00 for your 4:00 closing. The moving van is in the parking lot, the keys to your old house have already been given away, and you are homeless if you don't close NOW. You get a half-hour with the lawyer, if you're lucky, to "review" and sign 50 - 120 pages of legalese and numbers that blur together after a long day in the best of situations. If you manage to spot a problem with the docs, like "wait a minute, that small increase in 5 years looks here like my payment will double or triple!" it's too damned late, because your lender conveniently (for him/her) left the office for the weekend at 4:00, and there is noone to fix any problems, or to tell you to sign anyway, you're on the hook, and we'll sue you for performance along with the seller of your new house, if you don't sign.

That's the process. Insane is an understatement. This is why I don't place but a small modicum of the blame for the unbelievable numbers of defaulted mortgage loans on the borrowers themselves. Because it's a big, fat Profane scam. Bush thinks it's imperative that we save the big mortgage lenders and the investment houses and pour money into Wall Street to save the greedy bastards who got us all into this mess to begin with. Oh, and don't you dare talk about regulation. But all of a sudden, Bush & Gang want us taxpayers to bail out the wall street turkeys and the banks and the mortgage houses and the investment companies that got us all into this mess with their greed. Oh, and the CEO's of Fannie, Freddie, IndyMac, Lehman, etc. get to keep their golden parachutes. How about this, just for kicks - how about putting them all in jail? I believe fraud would be enough to convict them, and good luck finding a jury who will believe their woe-is-me stories when the jury finds out they walked away from horrendously failed companies with millions in severance while their workers maybe got 15 minutes of notice that the pink slip was on its way.

Everyone out there who plans to vote for McCain - you better think long and hard about his ideology, which is the same as Bush & Gang. It is the ideology of slash and burn economics, and winner take all. The losers are always us little guys out here just trying to make a living. Forget the talk of recession, you who claim that McCain represents you need to think long and hard about how incredibly irrelevant abortion and Iraq and gay marriage will be when this country is in a long, hard DEpression. Unless we can get a democrat into office to fix this mess, that's exactly where we're all headed, and I ain't talking about the kind you fix with Prozac.

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An Ordinary Day, Part 2, Approximately 5 minutes later

9/15/2008

And sure enough, CNN just tops themselves - Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition, and best lobbying buddy of that guy we all love to hate, the one who gave the Bee's favorite southern euphemism, "crookeder than a dog's hind leg," a whole new level of relevance, Jack (four more years - in prison) Abramoff, is on CNN as a sometime pundit. He's been on quite a lot lately. Talking about the economy, and how John McCain really really gets it. Pffft, don't you believe it.

This Reed guy, who one would think would have been discredited forever and a year because of his ties to Abramoff, keeps turning up like that proverbial bad penny. And, he's on McCain's campaign staff.

The News, my friends, is dead. When a network puts this little stealing lying weasel-faced twit on the tube and asks him questions like he has a clue what he's talking about, the news is officially dead. But what else can we expect when most of the news outlets in this country are owned by 2 or 3 uber-rich republicans?

Because, as we are all well aware by now, the republicans love their scandals and scoundrels and liars and cheats. They have to, as this is what they seem to like to see on their boob tube.

Oh, and now we learn that Palin won't speak to the Alaska investigator in the Troopergate scandal. Why am I not surprised?

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9/15/2008

Today was just an ordinary day. Got up, made breakfast for the toddler, watched a little news, went shopping for a new pair of jeans (wranglers - the Bee don't do those expensive jeans, what's the point?), played with the toddler, and wondered just what the heck is going on in this country. I wonder about that a lot, have have since 2000.

Today's headlines are the same standard fare - McCain's pathological lying, Palin is an unconscionable idiot, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch got itself bought by Bank of America, AIG found buyers after it became clear that the massive insurance company was about to fold - a buyout "suggested" by the Fed. Wall Street tanked, and McCain's daughter is going to be on Larry King Live in a matter of moments, suprise suprise, agreeing with daddykins.

Just another ordinary day.

Ike tore up Houston pretty badly, although Galveston, while pretty torn up itself, seems to have escaped the worst of it. Gas here in the presidential state of Virginia rose 40cents in one day (even though the local news said 9 cents, but that's not what I saw - what I saw was 40. But what do I know? I'm just a lowly blogger.) People are hurting in Houston. I wonder if Babs Bush is right now saying "well, they have it pretty good, don't they?"

Just an ordinary day in America.

It's sad, really. CNN, just now - all of the above happened today, but CNN focuses on Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin on SNL. This is the funniest thing to come out of SNL in years. But is it worth still talking about 2 days later? Well, take a look, and you decide.

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9/13/2008

The Republicans are dishing up waffles, complete with a box that depicts Barak Obama as the 1920's iconic "darky" caricature, with the thick lips and bulging eyes. These boxes of waffle mix were being sold at a rented booth at a VALUES VOTERS SUMMIT sponsored by the Family Research Council, whose motto is "Defending Faith, Family and Freedom," which seems to be a bit of an oxymoron since the let a couple of wankers sell the oh-so-wonder republican christians, full of love and charity toward all, their newest fetish - the 21st century closet-racist version of the Mammy Cookie Jar and you can even still buy those, brand new - yes, someone out there in the LaLaLand that has become America is still making those damned tacky things.

Now, to the dubious credit of the Family Research Council, who let these boxes that not only depicted Barak Obama in the worst of the 1900's southern style, but also showed him wearing an arab turban (even though Obama being a Muslim has been debunked about 5,000,000 times in the last few months, and what would it matter is he were a Muslim anyway, I have to ask) did make the two jackasses who were selling them for Ten Bucks a box take their "exhibit" down when someone complained. After two days of sales.

The two yahoos, Mark Whitlock and Bob DeMoss, said they were engaging in political satire. Nope, sorry, that dog don't hunt, either. There's political satire and caricature, then there's simple racist nastiness that hides itself within the republican party. Or, at least, it hides itself until, like the crazy guy down the street who manages to maintain the facade of normalcy for awhile, until the craziness eventually gets the better of him and he melts into a raving loony right in front of your eyes. This type of thing just can't stay under wraps for long, and eventually shows itself for what it really is. The republican party can be described this way. They don't have much problem with racist snarks against the opposition. But oh, Boy, you ask Sarah Palin what the Bush Doctrine is, and you're being sexist for asking difficult questions! Even if that question should not have been difficult at all for a Bushite to answer. Talk about more of the same.

I find it highly repulsive deep down in the reason centers of my brain, those centers that trigger the gag reflex when I see absolute and utter lies passed off as truth if they are repeated often enough and vehemently enough, that the republican party hasn't really changed in ideology at all since 1878. For example, Sarah Palin has been reported to have called Obama a Sambo. Reported by a waitress in a restaurant where Palin was having dinner with a group of most likely like-minded people a few days after the DNC, but presumably before her own pick by McCain for VP on the republican ticket. This is what I'm talking about here, people - the republican party hierarchy don't really seem to care that they portray themselves as the racist turkeys they are.

Liberal is the new dirty word in this country, with liberals afraid to call themselves liberals because of the general mind-washing of this country through 30 years of the nastiest of the republican "values" running rampant in this country.

Sometimes I think that if this Waffle Box episode is an example of what half of the voters in this country really want, really get into, then perhaps this country isn't worth saving any longer. The fact is, this country has a long, long history of general nastiness to our own people and to the rest of the world, with a few notable exceptions of when we really were of use to the rest of the world. The Nuremburg Trials come to mind - forced into existence by the US when the rest of Europe was ready to have summary executions of Nazi war criminals. The US stood up and said no, the rule of law must stand, if only to provide a record of absolute power run rampant. I think about when Kennedy had the good sense to sit down and talk to Kruschev to avoid total world annihilation by nuclear war. Honestly, though, it's hard to think of America without remembering that this country held black people in slavery for half of the nations lifetime, and treated them like dirt on their shoes for another hundred plus years after slavery ended.

But then I think - wow, the last Jim Crow laws in Louisiana were only repealed in 1972, and here we have a black man who has won the nomination to run for President of the United States of America on the Democratic Ticket, and I think maybe we have progressed, after all. But I am jaded, I will readily admit, and think that when the chips fall, he will not win simply because he is black. I don't trust the rest of the country to think clearly enough to get over the deep seated racism that is still ingrained in the US.

Barak Obama, on the other hand , thinks that people will, given the chance, do the right thing, and will band together when times dictate the need. He sees the best in people, and expects the best of people. Some call that naive. I call it good, and decent, and just. It is an example that more of us, myself included, could stand to follow.

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9/13/2008

Lehman Brothers is going belly up, and the Fed doesn't want to be seen as too ready to bail out the centenarian company like it did Fannie and Freddie just last weekend.

The economy is tanking, ladies and gents, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has got to be wondering to himself "Why the hell did I take this job again??"

The website Bank Implode O Meter has had Lehman on its watchlist for awhile now, with over $67.2 BILLION in losses. But take a look a little farther down the line - there are some other big banks that are posting huge losses, and could very well be the next to go. Washington Mutual posting $28.6B in losses, National City with $14.9, and the list goes on and on with relative giants like Wachovia and Bank of America.

William Poole, once president of the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis, was quoted by Reuters as saying "...letting Lehman go down, if it comes to that, that would clear the air."

This is government-speak for "We don't have the resources left in the reserves to cover all of these failing banks and their deposits."

And that, dear readers, should give some serious pause. The Free Market that the republicans and libertarians like to tout as the holy grail of wonderfulness in the world, that wonder-cure-all that will fix all of the ills of the world, doesn't work. The fact is, this free market is still populated by people, and people are greedy bastards in the end. The more money they get, the more they want, even when it comes to writing bad loan after bad loan which leaves even the Bee, who works in the industry, wondering just how many bad loans were written, and then packaging them into volatile "investments," and sold on Wall Street to other investors with a lot of money to lose, but who also made a killing. Noone knows for sure how much, but obviously just enough to throw this country awfully close to the brink of a full-scale depression, when you add in the suddenly sky-high cost of fuel and the soon-to-follow sky-rising cost of food and necessities.

Some say "We've seen this before, just give the market time to correct itself. We saw this in the 70's with the gas shortages and rising inflation, we saw this in the 80's when the S&L's imploded, and we saw it in the 90's with the tech stock bust."

The difference between those instances and this situation consist of two very important factors. The first is that we've never seen real estate, across the board, lose value. Remember that old saying "Buy Land - they ain't making any more of it"? That old saying doesn't necessarily hold water anymore. Second, we're seeing problems in those once ultra-conservative-investment vehicles, the bonds markets.

This is the deal gentle readers: this economy is in a LOT more trouble than Paulson, or anyone else, wants to admit. McCain said recently that the economy is basically sound - well, when you've got banks tanking left and right, the economy is not basically sound. It's sick, and right now the Fed is the only life support for it, but the Fed is running out of cash. It's time to get the heads out of the sand, because the sooner we all face the reality of the "credit crunch" and the bank failures, the sooner Congress can come to their senses and pull out the proverbial heart attack paddles. When the dust settles from all of this nuclear fusion in the financial sectors, we would all be wise to force the hands of the politicians in Washington and start demanding that heads roll for the governmental deregulation that has been going along strongly since the at least the 80's.

If you have any cash to start stockpiling, you might want to do just that. I hear the coffee can buried in the backyard is, in the end, the safest place to hide it.

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9/12/2008

Oh, Lions and tigers and...well, you get it. The potential First Dude should be receiving his subpoenae to appear in Alaska and tell all he knows about Troopergate, and how Palin tried to have her EX brother-in-law fired from his job as a State Trooper. Oh, what a deadly web we weave...

It is beginning to Look like the Pitbull has Lipstick on her teeth.

You think the Bee thinks this woman is a joke and a poor choice for a vice presidential candidate? Check out the women over at Women Against Sarah Palin. now these women have some righteous indignation going on. The Bee likey.

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9/12/2008

Hurricane Ike is headed for Galveston. The Bee truly hopes in her heart of hearts that this will not a repeat of the 1900 Storm

Nor a repeat of Katrina.

Houston and Galveston - I hope the best for your people.

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9/10/2008

Oh, my. Obama made a Pigs In Lipstick remark, and the republicans are jumping on him for sexism. Give me a break. One, he wasn't necessarily talking about Palin, but even if he was, well - if the shoe fits, and all that.

It's a turn of phrase. Rove used it, Cheney used it, Bush used it and got it completely bass ackwards, and it actually is a well known turn of phrase. Kind of like "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

Or, my personal favorite, "crookeder than a dog's hind leg."

Or, "You can put icing on a dog turd, but that doesn't make it a cupcake."

Or, "You can put whipped cream on a cat turd, but that doesn't make it shoofly pie."

Speaking of Palin and her oh-so-vulnerable-feelings, how about "that dog don't hunt"?

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9/9/2008

The Bee has been focusing too much on what the wrong-wing wants her to focus on - Sarah "She was for the Bridge before she was Against it" Palin. It's time now to focus on what really should be focused on - the man of the hour, Barak Obama.

I've been reading Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope," and I'm impressed. This guy seems like the real deal - a reasonable man, and honestly, that's all I'm looking for at this point in a leader. Reasonable. Not the image of a gun-toting self-proclaimed "maverick," but a person who thinks about what they are about to say before they say it. In other words, everything that George Bush and John McCain and Sarah Palin (see, there she is again, the ubiquitous little toadie) are not - reasonable. Able to see different sides of an issue. Or should I say WILLING to see different sides of an issue. I believe that McCain and Palin are perfectly capable of being reasonable people, they just choose not to.

The Bee had her doubts about Obama, but would tow the party line anyway, as the Bee has never, ever voted for a republican, and unless they were to utterly and completely and irrevocably change their self-righteous ways, the Bee never will. Because I know that, being a woman, the wrong-wing does not represent me in any way. Being a middle-class woman, means double whammy they don't represent me. Being a middle-class woman from a blue-collar working class union family tells me that they do not in any way represent me.

The sad part is, so often, the Democratic party doesn't represent me either. But Obama - well, I can't relate to him, not really, and I don't want to. I don't want a president I can have a beer with and walk away thinking "Hey, I'm smarter than that guy, and he is running for President!" No, I want a president who I would feel uncomfortable with having a beer with, and would walk away feeling like a dolt because he's about 3 planes above me in the smartness category.

I don't think Obama is 3 planes smarter than me, but he is smarter than me overall - and he is definitely more reasonable. And in this world of global politics and global economy, we have to have a reasonable person at the helm. I never felt that Hilary Clinton was all that reasonable a person, and besides, I was tired of the dynasticism that has gripped the white house for the last 20 years. That was enough of a strike against her in my personal opinion, for me to vote for Obama at the primaries.

I find myself actually liking Obama's calm, reasonable nature. The man is truly unflappable, and that's what I want in time of crisis in this country. I don't see his slow to rile nature as a liability - quite the opposite, I see it as an asset. I never liked Kerry, Gore, Clinton (bill), Mondale, Dukakis, but I voted for them, because the alternative was abhorrent to me.

A co-worker today told me she doesn't like him because he will be a prime target for assassination. I asked her if she liked Palin, because if McCain wins and croaks in office, guess who the next president is? A whackadoo.

Other than that, her reason was "I don't like his fiscal policy - he can't start a bunch of new programs with a record deficit!"

To which I replied "Well, I haven't seen where he's proposing any new massive governmental programs, but even if he were, why not? Clinton did, and he ended his 2nd term with a surplus, no wars, and a pretty good economy." "He's a tax and spend democrat" she said. I replied that the term is ridiculous, and is a republican created myth. Look at the terms of Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and tell me that's not tax and spend - or maybe more like spend and spend and spend.

The fact is, when a republican leaves office, the democrat has to come in and raise taxes, because they are left with a humongous deficit and no choice but to tax to pay it down. And pay it down, they do tend to do. So, the "tax and spend" democrat argument is a non-argument, it simply doesn't exist in reality.

Why that should suprise me, I don't know, as the republican hierarchy doesn't seem to live in reality anyway.

So, all you swingers, all you indies, all you Hilary supporters, stop eyeing the dark side, and come on into the light - it's a beautiful day, and the water's just fine.

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9/8/2008

No, Just Kidding - not "Teen", but ABC, with Charles Gibson. Ok, you're right, the Bee stands corrected, it may as well be Teen magazine.

Palin has given one interview since being picked as McShame's vice running mate - to People Magazine, those hard-nosed-tough-questioning-show-no-mercy interviewers that they are.

The McCain Republican Campaign Manager defended their refusal to allow her to give interviews by saying that they didn't want her to be put before a "cycle of piranhas."

So...in other words, "Sarah Barracuda" can't handle swimming with the piranhas? Gee, are they afraid she'll make an...I don't know, maybe an ass of herself on national television? Are they afraid that maybe she'll say something Plug Stupid and ruin McCain? They need to protect this woman from making a mockery of herself and McCain? They need to protect her from herself? Hmm, that sounds familiar - it would be typically republican, and somewhat demeaning to women, don'tcha think?

They are probably right. She probably will make an ass of herself. They've only had about a week and a half to vet her, to teach her world history, to teach her economics, and to give her a crash course on just about everything else that could possibly come at her, if anyone is allowed to ask her a simple question. A question like "What is your planto fix the healthcare situation?" Or how about "How do you intend to fix the shattered economy, and by the way, what do you think of the Fannie/Freddie bailout?" Or, how about "What do you think about the use of torture, and what do you think about the price of a gallon of gas, or milk, or orange juice?"

I've heard the talking heads say that Biden will have to be nice to her, or he'll be accused of being a misogynist. Well, I'm a woman, and I say "Let her Have it, Joe!" She wants to swim with the sharks and hide behind McCain, but she also wants to be out front and center on the national stage, so show her what it's like when she's not surrounded by republicans screaming how much they love her because they have to convince themselves that McCain didn't just do the dumbest thing he could possibly have done, and lost himself the election in the meantime. Show her that only in wrong-wing land, can you say a falsehood 500 times and it magically becomes truth.

Noone even needs to mention her kids, who she herself had no qualms about trotting them, and their dirty laundry, out on the national stage. All Joe needs to do is pound her on foreign and domestic policy and her apparent lack thereof, and show her for the nincompoop she really is.

Oh, and Joe - don't be afraid to make her cry. If the Barracuda wants a fight, then feel free to be the Great White.

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9/7/2008

According to MSNBC.com today, the Jobs Data that the Fed released last week shows that 84,000 more jobs were lost in America in August, and the unemployment rate rose to 6.1%. Doesn't sound like much, but there are 84,000 more people who might very well lose their home, who probably lost their health insurance, if they had any to begin with, who can't afford COBRA coverage if they did, who will probably default on car loans and credit card bills and every other debt they owe, and may very well never recover financially. The deck is stacked against the average american worker, and we know it. Obama at least talked about it at his acceptance speech, but did McCain? Not that I heard, other than saying that worrying that people might lose their real estate investments. InvestmentS. Plural. Yeah, that's what I said.

Obama thinks that whatever measures the federal government takes to shore up Fannie and Freddie must be “focused not on the whims of lobbyists and special interests worried about their bonuses and hourly fees, but on whether it will strengthen our economy and help struggling homeowners...” McCain said “There's got to be restructuring, there's got to be reorganization, and there's got to be some kind of confidence that we've stopped the downward spiral.”

In other words, neither one said much, and both are correct. The government bailing out Fannie and Freddie, both originally government programs but traded publicly for the last 30 years (and thereby forcing both “companies” to turn a profit or else risk shareholder wrath) is a necessary measure. Basically, this country is “One Dollar Away From a Depression”, to quote the astute teenage daughter of a friend in West Virginia. She's right. Not bailing out Fannie and Freddie, to the tune of AT LEAST 25 BILLION taxpayer dollars will keep the whirlpool in the great american economic bathtub going at a fast clip, and much much more stands to be lost in the long run. Follow this link – MSNBC also mentions in this article that Sec Treas Henry Paulson has been oversees trying to convince foreign goverments – namely, CHINA, from pulling all of their investments in Fannie and Freddie out of our stock market. Remember this – it has been said by some of the great financiers – that if China alone sold all of their US stock in one day, this country would be totally devastated. Total devastation. As much as I hate to have my tax dollars spent to bail out two companies that used to have strict lending policies, but which loosened their standards during the real estate boom because they just couldn't stand to not make a killing on bad loans along with everyone else in the industry, I fear that I will have no choice. Nor will you, or your children, and probably grandchildren, until this country is led out of the enormous sums of debt it owes to foreign governments. All in the name of the republican holy grail – deregulation. Free Market will correct itself, they like to crow. Well, it did correct itself, right into the toilet. A lot of people on wall street and in mortgage brokerage houses across the country got filthy rich, and now we're paying it back for them. A lot of foreign goverments made a killing on our stock, and we're paying it back to them in spades for ages to come.

Whoever ends up in the White House (and supreme deity of your choice forbid it be McShame), they're going to have one hell of a mess to clean up.

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Fair is Fair

9/7/2008

This morning on Meet the Press, Tom Brokaw pointed out to Joe Biden that Biden's 30-something son, after graduating from Yale Law School, went to work for $100K per year for MBNA, one of the largest credit card banks in the nation. Biden's response was "Surprise Surprise, he went to work for the second largest employer in Delaware," Biden's home state.

In CNN Money that John McCain's 38 year old son, Andrew McCain was on the board of as of Friday failed bank # 11, Silver State Bank in Nevada. The bank tanked because it got itself mired in the mortgage meltdown still raging strong.

Andrew McCain left the Board of the Bank in February 2008, citing personal reasons. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Andrew McCain, being on the Board of a soon to be failed bank, which would have been well aware in February that it was floundering, bailed out when it started to become apparent that his father, John McCain, would probably win the republican nomination for presidential candidate.

Tom Brokaw noted on Meet the Press this morning that the show has requested John McCain and Sarah Palin to appear any sunday morning between now and November 4. If they appear, Brokaw needs to have the decency to make the same thinly veiled innuendos about McCain's son as he made about Biden's.

Call Trashy Trashy - Andrew McCain didn't quit his position on the Board of Silver State Bank for personal reasons, he quit because as a Board Member, he had a vote in the really terrible decisions which led directly to the Bank's demise. I've got a $10 bill in my pocketbook which says that Andrew voted in favor of these poor business decisions while he was on the board, and he quit when it became apparent that the bank would fail.

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If Sarah Palin's Family is "Just An American Family," Then What Do I Call My Family?

9/6/2008

I was feeling particularly masochistic Monday night, so I turned on the Republican National Convention. Of Course, there wasn't much going on at the convention, since the Superhero wannabees McShame and Palindrome decided to see if they could get their photo op of themselves carrying someone's child to safety across sewage filled floodwaters in New Orleans like Superman and Spiderman all rolled into one big republican ball of gooshy warm fuzzies. Gustav didn't deliver the goods that the wrong wing seemed to want to so badly, but boy, did the republicans make a great big stinky show out of their willingness to help those in need, or what?? It was a little sickening, though, the way they prattled on and on before Gustav even hit the Gulf Coast about how much the republicans would help, send money, etc. etc. etc. Especially considering how caring they all were, McShame included, when Katrina left that city a third world wasteland. It all smelled a bit fake, and a bit vulturish in its blatant opportunism.

But, I digress. So, as I said, I was watching the republicans simultaneously slobber with glee at the impending doom to New Orleans and bow their heads in oh-so-solemn prayer that Bush wouldn't screw it all up again, when some nameless face was interviewed by CNN, and asked about Sarah Palin. The reporter asked what this no-face thought of the news that the Alaska Governor's underaged daughter was pregnant out of wedlock, and what they thought of Palin outing her daughter on national TV to deflect internet rumors that the Palin's infant son is actually her other underaged daughter's child. I won't bother posting links, you all know all about this sordid mess, I'm sure.

No-Face says "It's life, they're an American Family."

WHAT? I yelled at the TV. I would have thrown something, but we just got this big LCD monstrosity, and it's not even paid off yet.

Let me tell you the difference between Palin's "American family" and my own "American Family". I have never been under investigation for anything, and neither has the husband, and I have certainly never been investigated for illegally firing my ex-brother-in-law. My underaged child is not pregnant (granted, she's only 2), but if she were, I certainly wouldn't be crowing from the rooftops "LOOKY, MY 17 YEAR OLD IS KNOCKED UP! AND HERE'S HER SHOT-GUN WEDDING GROOM! AND I'M GOING TO PLASTER THEIR FACES ALL OVER YOUR LIVING ROOM BECAUSE I DON'T WANT YOU TO THINK ABOUT HOW I MAY HAVE LIED ABOUT MY OWN LAST PREGNANCY!" Maybe Palin needs to think about her position of "no birth control education in schools" a bit more, as the so-called "abstinence only" education she personally gave her daughters DID NOT WORK.

I have never banned a book in my life. I wouldn't if I had the power. It's wrong with a capital W. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I have never lied about selling a jet on EBay just to make myself look better. The jet didn't sell on ebay, and it didn't sell for a profit. It sold to a rich Alaskan who now takes other rich people out on it to hunt, and it sold through a brokerage in Alaska, and sold for 2.3 million when it was worth 2.7mm. I don't call that a profit, or selling on ebay.

The husband has never had a DUI. Neither have I. In fact, neither of us has been to jail. He's never even seen the inside of one. I have, because I worked for a law firm once that sent me down to the City Lockup to interview clients. I was allowed to leave, though.

I've never been a member of a group that wants to secede from the Union.

My husband works all day, I work all day. We are that Middle Class that Mr. Obama keeps throwing in McShame's face.

Sarah Palin does not have the kind of family that I aspire to have. And I think it's typical of the wrong-wing hierarchy, which has had more than it's share of Jerry Springer like revelations in the last 8 years, to foist it's sick sense of morality on the entire world and to push her family as a "normal" american family, because it's not. It is abnormal, and it SHOULD be abnormal. Most of us simply don't live that way. Most of us manage to get through life just fine without any brushes with the law, without our young and unprepared daughters being married off in shotgun backwoods weddings to an equally young and unprepared kid and without having to trot them across the national stage, and without having to lie about selling a jet on ebay to make ourselves look better. These are NOT things to be proud of, they are symptoms that Sarah Palin is a mess, and has made a mess of her family as well with her holier-than-thou beliefs that she knows better than anyone what is best for the rest of us. This is a 'high-road' that Sarah Palin cannot claim.

I claim the high road here, and so should you gentle readers, because this bunch of low-lifes has been claiming the high road for too long now. Stand up and call Trashy Trashy. Sarah Palin is just Trashy. The religious reich loves her because she's as trashy as they are. McCain loves her because she deflects from what a low-life he really is.

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