Author: Brian

Stump politics is new, a Century or more, but novel and not mature. What parade have millions watched and how few have thrown trinkets?
>
I’m so patient for humanity but utterly slapped by jingo. I wonder if war will make us finally stubborn before lies do?
>
Ambition is unnoticed effort. It climbs into a family and calls itself purpose. It arrives before an invitation and stays whether wanted. It labors until wicked and sees only love.
>
These are the days of perception. There have been pioneers that endure much more than our good discerning. Today we think our frontier and those speeches are our tomorrow. Our vote one footstep to take us there.
>
It’s darn important to look at character or its dereliction. Darn important to decide who’s near us on the trail.

He may be mad, but there’s method in his madness.
There nearly always is method in madness.
It’s what drives men mad, being methodical.

Sarah Palin is, as John McCain, hiding criticism in every complement and an accusation in every claim.

A good education fixes this flaw, or a good amount of experience, or mere civility. Sarah’s gymnasium in the bush hasn’t done it. Her mentors and McCain are merely stooged privilege, more common and less novel, and the group of them are a small parade.

Sarah Palin will bring more hurt, higher tax, greater burden, less worldliness, more threat, greater dilution, more cruelty, less wealth, increased crisis, more poverty, more isolation, more scorn, fewer resources, greater argument, less research, stumbling progress, further distance, jingoist beliefs, trigger diplomacy, aggrandizing stumping, bravado politics, rigid authority, loose power, false affront, false persona, purported sincerity, small goals, tiny achievements, obsessive selfishness, massive favoritism and carnival skills.

I’m hoping this upset nation will not choose  a publican queen.

Someone strong, patient, smart, up-to-date, on top of the issues, informed, attentive, able, certain, affable, empathetic, clear, specific, supported, allied, courageous, engaged, decisive, thoughtful, prescient, respectful, loyal, determinant, capable, reserved, detailed, dutiful, embracing, experienced, trained, serious, alert, patient, comfortable, quick, accomplished, pioneering, complete, insightful, brave, understanding, and ready.

No bodies have been found amid the rubble.

“The plastic is a real killer of both turtles and birds.”

There’s not enough trailers to pull the plastic away.

Tons of debris swept up by Hurricane Ike last month were carried by Gulf of Mexico currents hundreds of miles from the upper Texas coast to this ordinarily pristine landscape just north of the Mexican border.

Sections of roofs, refrigerators, loveseats, beds, TVs, hot tubs and holiday decorations litter the more than 60 miles of gently arcing sand in the national park. [newsvine]

“Today,” says Matthew Yglesias, “as a swirling financial panic pushes national security issues out of the headlines it’s worth returning to bin Laden’s warning.”

Osama bin Laden himself in his November 2004 pre-election message. In that tape, bin Laden described a strategy of “bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy” by provoking us into undertaking costly military adventures. [full transcript]

Mocking a certain panicky quality in American policymaking, bin Laden bragged that “all that we have to do is to send two Mujadedin to the farthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human economic and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits to their private companies.”

…the $100 billion or so per year we’ve been spending on [Iraq] has cost us dearly.

Mother Jones asks “What do you think might happen if we were to start eliminating our military footprint?“

The view from Cato Institute in 2005 reveals Bush is wrong to “claim that Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism”.

“The truth is that ridding the world of Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime did not eliminate an Al Qaeda sanctuary or a primary source of support for the terrorist group.

A Thinking Policy:
“The military’s role in the war on terrorism will mainly involve special operations forces in discrete missions against specific targets, not conventional warfare aimed at overthrowing entire regimes. The rest of the war aimed at dismantling and degrading the Al Qaeda terrorist network will require unprecedented international intelligence and law enforcement cooperation, not expensive new planes, helicopters, and warships.

“Therefore, an increasingly large defense budget is not necessary to fight the war on terrorism. Nor is it necessary to protect America from traditional nation-state military threats—the United States is in a unique geostrategic position; it has no military rivals and is relatively secure from conventional military attack because of vast oceans on its flanks and friendly neighbors to the north and south.

“In fact, U.S. security would be better served by adopting a less interventionist policy abroad and pulling back from the Cold War–era extended security perimeter, which necessitates forward-deployed military forces around the world.

“If the United States adopted a balancer-of-last-resort strategy (allowing other countries to manage the security of their own regions), most overseas U.S. military deployments could be eliminated and the defense budget could be substantially reduced.”

BOSTON (Reuters) – Mocked by comedians, derided by prominent conservatives and reeling from flustered interviews with national media, Sarah Palin is proving a risky gamble in Republican John McCain’s quest for the White House.

“Palin is Ready? Please” a headline in Newsweek said this week of the moose-hunting Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, capping a turbulent week in which Palin’s fitness for the job came under growing scrutiny.

“Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president,” Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria wrote.

“She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start,” he said.

The column could be dismissed as one of hundreds of biting news stories in the hard-fought race between McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, with less than six weeks before the November 4 presidential election.

But it follows a whirlwind of criticism and ridicule from Republicans and Democrats alike since interviews with CBS news anchor Katie Couric, Fox News’ Sean Hannity and ABC News’ Charles Gibson that raise question over her nomination and dealings with the media.
…
But the governor’s troubles are piling up — from a stubborn investigation into charges that as governor she abused her power by firing a public safety commissioner to her latest stumbles with the media.

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, an early Palin supporter, on Friday bluntly called on Palin to step down to “save McCain, her party, and the country she loves”.

“Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin, should conditions warrant her promotion,” Parker wrote in the conservative National Review.
…
‘EMBARRASSING’
Until last Tuesday, Palin, who would be a heartbeat away from the presidency if 72-year-old McCain were to win the election, had never met a foreign leader.

Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks called her candidacy “embarrassing.”

Ameriblog:

“Seriously, what kind of man designs his home office to look like the Oval Office?”

One of McCain’s 12 homes. 10 fireplaces, 13 bedrooms, 14.5 bathrooms, 13,000 square feet, wine tasting room, air conditioned playhouse, 6 car garage, extra second garage, 22 flat screens, 3 full size bars…

The NYTimes:

On Wednesday evening, as the senators gathered to vote on the $700 billion financial rescue package, Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, walked over to the Republican side of the chamber to extend a greeting to Senator John McCain of Arizona.

While it took Mr. Obama several seconds to make his way over to Mr. McCain, the actual handshake lasted barely a second, as Mr. McCain responded with a chilly look, a turn of his head and a brief return handshake.

“In fact, Senator John McCain has a very clear, long, and illustrious history of not supporting troops and veterans one bit,” said Brandon Friedman of VoteVets.org.

Disabled American Veterans rank McCain 20% for his voting record.

McCain Voted Against Funding for Veterans’ Health Care.

McCain Voted 28+ Times Against Veterans’ Benefits.

McCain’s Against Cost-of-Living Adjustments.

McCain Supported Outsourcing VA Jobs.

McCain Opposed the new GI Bill.

McCain voted against minimum downtime.

McCain said winning the war would be “easy.”

McCain voted against a ban on waterboarding.

McCain Voted to Underfund Veterans Affairs.

McCain Voted Against $13B Funding for Veterans Programs.

McCain Voted Against $44.3B for Veterans Programs.

McCain Voted Against $47B for Veterans Affairs.

McCain Voted Against $51B in Veterans Funding.

McCain Voted Against $122.7B for Veterans Affairs.

McCain Opposed $500 Million for Counseling Services for Veterans

McCain opposed an Assured Funding Stream for Veterans’ Health Care.

McCain Voted Against Adding More Than $400 Million for Veterans’ Care.

McCain Relies On Private Sector for Rationing Care.

McCain Also Supported Outsourcing at Walter Reed.

McCain voted against the TRICARE program of the National Guard.

McCain opposed commission on reasons for Iraq War.

McCain voted Against Fund for Military Health Facilities.

McCain voted against a timetable for withdrawing troops.

McCain announced keeping troops in Iraq for decades.

McCain said Saddam was “a threat of the first order.”

McCain: “It was worth getting rid of Saddam Hussein. He had used weapons of mass destruction.”

McCain said we’ll just “muddle through” in Afghanistan.

McCain said, “We’re going to win this victory. Tragically, we will lose American lives. But it will be brief.”

Hey! McCain! You are wrong!!

“Every unprocessed rape kit represents a victim who has been denied justice,” said Representative Carolyn Maloney.

“There are still thousands of rape cases that remain unsolved, even though we have all the DNA evidence we need to find and convict the rapists,” said Scott Berkowitz.

Sarah Palin’s hometown newspaper, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, was given an interview September 30. They asked, “Were any sexual assault victims ever charged for this [rape kit] testing while you were mayor?”

She answered, “The entire notion of making a victim of a crime pay for anything is crazy. I do not believe, nor have I ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test. As governor, I worked in a variety of ways to tackle the problem of sexual assault and rape, including making domestic violence a priority of my administration.”

But Sarah! The Associated Press reports in a story headlined “Palin’s town billed rape victims to get evidence“:

When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the city billed sexual assault victims and their insurance companies for the cost of rape kits and forensic examinations. Palin had been in office for four years when the practice of charging rape victims got the attention of state lawmakers in 2000, who passed a bill to stop the practice.

September 27, 2008 – (Washington, DC) – “The Debbie Smith Act is the most important piece of anti-rape legislation that Congress has ever passed, and its reauthorization is a victory for thousands of sexual assault victims whose perpetrators have yet to be identified. The bill extends critical funding for the processing of the DNA backlog of rape kits and other forensic evidence.” [link to RAINN]

There seems to be a specific objection to Rape Kits or a part of their procedure or methodology that annoys Palin. I haven’t found what this is.

CLICK TO ENLARGE RAPE KIT DETAILS

So, why do we garden?

So, why do we garden? Part 2

If we garden we are more likely to be psychologically balanced people capable of making sane choices. And the world needs people like that at the moment. [link]

There is a squiggly black line in the chart below.

Below that line precipitation will decline; above that line, it will increase. [link]

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Oklahoma rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the rancher. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President .

The rancher said, ‘Well, ya know, Sarah Palin is a post turtle.’

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was. The rancher said, ‘When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post turtle.’

The rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face, so he explained. ‘You know she didn’t get up there by herself, she doesn’t belong up there, she doesn’t know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with.

Sarah Palin voodoo doll.

Is she wondering what she’s is talking about?

Look, old McCain is holding up the P.O.W. card!

Tip to Polly at the Hrrmph Blog for sending a link to Sarah Palin Bags a Big One.

Zina Saunders illustrates for newspapers, magazines and other clients around the world. You’ll enjoy Zina’s recent political pieces and her portfolio. And you’ll enjoy Polly’s work too.

Is McCain demented or outright corrupt?

McCain tells us: “American business pays the second-highest business taxes in the world…”

The truth: At page 42 the Treasury Department reports America has the second lowest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. The Congressional Quarterly reports, “Most corporations, including the vast majority of foreign companies doing business in the United States, pay no income taxes.”

McCain seeks to freeze spending on everything but war, vets and entitlements. But discretionary spending is at its lowest levels in a generation and soon the lowest since the 1930s Hoover administration.

No one can explain this!

NPR: Given what you’ve said Senator, is there an occasion where you could imagine turning to Governor Palin for advice in a foreign policy crisis.

McCain: I’ve turned to her advice many times in the past… and I’ve already turned to Governor Palin particularly on energy issues and I’ve appreciated her background and knowledge on that and many other issues…. a broad variety of issues from her worldview to threats that we face, to radical Islamic extremism, to specific areas of the world. I’m very proud of her, and proud of the knowledge and background that she has.

The nation is dumbfounded.

The former chairman of the Republican National Committee is dumbfounded.

“Obviously, in a McCain Administration, she will not have much of a role in foreign policy”

Haley Barbour, Mississippi governor and McCain friend says about the Alaska Governor’s foreign policy capability, “It is honest to say, though, if I live in the state closest to Russia, I probably have got more sensitivity. I live in a state on the Gulf of Mexico, I got more sensitivity to hurricanes than people in Kansas.”

If you don’t read this post, read the very last line.

Charlie Rose interviewed this fellow September 30 on the crash and bailout.

Martin Feldstein is an American economist. He is currently the George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and the president and CEO of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). From 1982 to 1984, Feldstein served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and as chief economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan (where his deficit hawk views clashed with Reagan administration economic policies). The video clip here.

Feldstein’s answers were very clear. He shows that the White House and our government were highly aware of impending problems, were discussing it for years, failed to act even though they were equipped with the regulatory tools to avoid this calamity – a supervisory failure.

Martin Feldstein points to Bush without wavering. He points to extremely slack ratings agencies, and he puts White House dereliction of supervision squarely in the center of the greatest financial mess since the 1930s.

Just days before New York’s Eliot Spitzer was shamed out of office, he published an opinion in the Washington Post, February 2008, How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers. Spitzer seems livid in this piece.

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers’ ability to repay, making loans with deceptive “teaser” rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

The White House invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to freeze state lending laws, “thereby rendering them inoperative“. Spitzer concludes, days before he’s drummed out of his career,

“When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.”

The collapse of Fannie, Freddie, Lehman, Bear, and others like them, represents the failure of federal regulators to enact reforms in the $6.5 trillion mortgage securities market, an industry far bigger than the United States treasury market.

This Administration has put extra efforts against us to block action and intervention.

The Administration along with the ‘old boys’ in Congress are responsible for this crisis. They knew in advance. They said nothing. John McCain and Phil Gramm, his economic advisor, are each culpable. They have enthusiastically dredged regulatory favoritism to Wall Street, Enron et al.

Warned more than two years ago, McCain has colluded in an ideological foolishness that has slapped this country silly. William Black — former deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation during the “Keating Five” scandal that nearly ended McCain’s political career — says the Arizona Republican’s chief errors at the time were underestimating the importance of regulation and relying too heavily on slanted advice from captains of industry …he took his advice from the worst [kind of] criminal.

In March 2007! Obama Called on Paulson & Bernanke to Address Economic Crisis

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce.”

Laid flat, Americans are stunned. It’s a kick to follow the anger and honesty emerging.

Below are poignant remarks collected under various posts at The BigPicture.

It shouldn’t take licensed analysis to remember. For those of us who have been in the biz a while, we’ve seen this before. Let us be adults and put our trust in those who lie. They saved the world before.

“NO NEW TAXES” Really? That’s INTERESTing.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever. – George Orwell

Fellow Americans, the time has come for us to realize that we have nothing to fear except reality!

We are all subprime now!

And just when you thought you were set for retirement.

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief. – Bob Dylan

We’re supposed to fight debt with more debt? Isn’t that insane?

Make one demand: We want the deal Howard Buffett gets!

DEBT? YOU WANT DEBT? YOU CAN’T HANDLE DEBT !!!! – Jack Nicholson

Restore the economy? $700 billion won’t get enough toxic assets for even banks to trust each other.

Money don’t disappear, only change hands.

Go to any trading screen. Watch in real time. When Bush speaks the dollar falls.

Firms may “look solvent today only because it’s kind of hidden. They actually are insolvent.”

Our Chief Bookkeeper, Peter R. Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office points out Bush’s bailout could expose the way companies are stowing toxic assets on their books, leading to greater problems.

Washinton Post

“Ironically, the intervention could even trigger additional failures of large institutions, because some institutions may be carrying troubled assets on their books at inflated values.”

“Establishing clearer prices might reveal those institutions to be insolvent.”

Ron Suskind tells us:

Feb. 22, 2002.

The meeting, recounted to me by Paul O’Neill, Mr. Bush’s first Treasury secretary, and several other participants, was something of a showdown.

The officials were President Bush’s original economic team, including the Securities and Exchange Commission’s chairman, Harvey Pitt; Glenn Hubbard, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers; and the senior White House economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey. The Federal Reserve chairman, of course, was Alan Greenspan.

Speaking with a hard-edged frankness rarely heard in public — and seeing that those assembled were not sharing his outrage — Mr. Greenspan slapped the table. “There’s been too much gaming of the system,” he thundered. “Capitalism is not working! There’s been a corrupting of the system of capitalism.”

A presidential speech that followed was toothless…

Chicken with White House Whine Sauce.

The Bush team had been preparing this ‘hurry-up bailout’ for months, telling few if anyone, but please note, these benefits are not aimed at you.

Here’s another suggestion, tried successfully before, notes Ellen Brown, J.D..

It’s The Derivatives Stupid

The Bank for International Settlements recently reported that total derivatives trades exceeded one quadrillion dollars – that’s 1,000 trillion dollars. How is that figure even possible? The gross domestic product of all the countries in the world is only about 60 trillion dollars. The answer is that gamblers can bet as much as they want. They can bet money they don’t have, and that is where the huge increase in risk comes in.

[But, there are other systems of credit!]

The government can issue its own credit – the “full faith and credit of the United States.” That was the model followed by the Pennsylvania colonists in the eighteenth century, and it worked brilliantly well. Before the provincial government came up with this plan, the Pennsylvania economy was languishing. There was little gold to conduct trade, and the British bankers were charging 8% interest to borrow what was available. The government solved the credit problem by issuing and lending its own paper scrip. A publicly-owned bank lent the money to farmers at 5% interest. The money was returned to the government, preventing inflation; and the interest paid the government’s expenses, replacing taxes. During the period the system was in place, the economy flourished, prices remained stable, and the Pennsylvania colonists paid no taxes at all. (For more on this, see E. Brown, “Sustainable Energy Development: How Costs Can Be Cut in Half,” webofdebt.com/articles, November 5, 2007.)

Today’s credit crisis is very similar to that facing Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s. In 1932, President Hoover set up the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) as a federally-owned bank that would bail out commercial banks by extending loans to them, much as the privately-owned Federal Reserve is doing today. But like today, Hoover’s ploy failed. The banks did not need more loans; they were already drowning in debt. They needed customers with money to spend and invest. President Roosevelt used Hoover’s new government-owned lending facility to extend loans where they were needed most – for housing, agriculture and industry. Many new federal agencies were set up and funded by the RFC, including the HOLC (Home Owners Loan Corporation) and Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association, which was then a government-owned agency). In the 1940s, the RFC went into overdrive funding the infrastructure necessary for the U.S. to participate in World War II, setting the country up with the infrastructure it needed to become the world’s industrial leader after the war.

The RFC was a government-owned bank that sidestepped the privately-owned Federal Reserve; but unlike the Pennsylvania provincial government, which originated the money it lent, the RFC had to borrow the money first. The RFC was funded by issuing government bonds and relending the proceeds. Then as now, new money entered the money supply chiefly in the form of private bank loans. In a “fractional reserve” banking system, banks are allowed to lend their “reserves” many times over, effectively multiplying the amount of money in circulation. Today a system of public banks might be set up on the model of the RFC to fund productive endeavors – industry, agriculture, housing, energy — but we could go a step further than the RFC and give the new public banks the power to create credit themselves, just as the Pennsylvania government did and as private banks do now. At the rate banks are going into FDIC receivership, the federal government will soon own a string of banks, which it might as well put to productive use. Establishing a new RFC might be an easier move politically than trying to nationalize the Federal Reserve, but that is what should properly, logically be done. If we the taxpayers are putting up the money for the Fed to own the world’s largest insurance company, we should own the Fed.

Proposals for reforming the banking system are not even on the radar screen of Prime Time politics today; but the current system is collapsing at train-wreck speed, and the “change” called for in Washington may soon be taking a direction undreamt of a few years ago. We need to stop funding the culprits who brought us this debacle at our expense. We need a public banking system that makes a cost-effective credit mechanism available for homeowners, manufacturing, renewable energy, and infrastructure; and the first step to making it cost-effective is to strip out the swarms of gamblers, fraudsters and profiteers now gaming the system.

Found under comments: “I see bumper stickers that refer to the US flag, saying, ‘These Colors Don’t Run!‘ Bullshit! People in this country live in constant fear of looking at the facts.”

“I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world . . . no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.” Woodrow Wilson, signed the Federal Reserve into law in 1913.

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. The one aim of these financiers is world control by the creation of inextinguishable debt.” Henry Ford

“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933

OOPS!

Found in the UK. John Naughton, well-respected academic, author, columnist, optimist, dad, photographer, blogger, company director, says about John McCain and Sarah Palin: And you thought Cheney was scary?

I’m tired of hearing people pay obesience to John McCain because of his, er, heroism.

Whatever principles he once may have had have already been jettisoned in the interests of getting elected.

Besides, a guy who could offer this religious crackpot to his country as a potential president needs to be certified, not elected.

There are two Wasilla Church videos at YouTube here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4LjsfWbZLA&hl=en&fs=1]