That's Alright Obama

A little northern humour on the bailouts in the key of "eh?"

The banks may not all be solvent but the comment threads are. Deposit your thoughts below.

When it comes to Joe Lieberman...

If Joe Lieberman...
Originally uploaded by msgeek93

Nothing to add.

KWIN-uh-pe-ack Poll is up - And so am I...

It is way too early in the morning but I figured I'd check for the latest Quinnipiac poll results for the Connecticut Governor's race:

In an early look at the 2010 election for Connecticut Governor, Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz runs best among possible Democratic challengers, trailing Republican incumbent Jodi Rell 46 - 40 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Gov. Rell leads 91 - 5 percent among Republicans and 56 - 26 percent among independent voters, while Bysiewicz leads 74 - 12 percent among Democrats.

Businessman Ned Lamont trails Rell 53 - 33 percent and Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy loses 52 - 33 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

In a Democratic primary matchup, Bysiewicz gets 26 percent to 23 percent for Lamont, with 9 percent for Malloy. No other contender tops 3 percent.

With no candidate on the right to compare, all I can say is that it looks like Susan Bysiewicz is the early front runner in the race for the Democratic party nomination.

And it looks like Rell may still be able to squeak out on a bit of a high note barring anymore news of the scandal involving Dautrich - AKA: Rell's Brain - and Quinnipiac leaking out. Of course, this poll was, I believe, taken before the news of subpoenas going out in that scandal.

Voters are starting to trend towards a lower opinion of Connecticut political ethics during the Rell years... Quite punch to the gut when you consider Rowland was the previous Governor.

Why this trend? Might just be because of information:

The more information they have, the lower their opinion goes.

Note to Simmons and McMahon: Crystal Balls and Teabaging don't mix

Smash mouth political commentary from Linda McMahon and Rob Simmons:

"Isn't it sad that after 30 years in Washington, Chris Dodd is still writing letters and putting out press releases after the fact,'' Ed Patru, spokesman for Linda McMahon, said in a press release. "The H1N1 shortage didn't just occur over night - it has been months in the making. Connecticut families deserve to have H1N1 vaccine availability, but they also deserve a Senator who puts timely leadership ahead of late-to-the-game outrage."

And Rob Simmons, another one of Dodd's GOP opponents, compared the government's handling of the flu vaccines to its bungled response to Hurricane Katrina.

"It is intolerable that H1N1 vaccines have arrived on Wall Street before they found their way to the most vulnerable on the Main Streets of Connecticut where infections grow by the day,'' Simmons said in a statement. "This situation is quickly becoming Katrina-like in its mismanagement, and it is providing an early glimpse at how government-run health care would operate under Senator Dodd's plan."

We could solve the real problems, the shortage of swine flu vaccine, by removing the source of the problem...

The failed free market unable to react to the needed production of vaccine.

U.S. health officials expressed frustration Wednesday with the nation's struggles to produce vaccines against the H1N1 flu strain and told lawmakers they cannot guarantee that supply problems won't resurface.

The new flu strain is spreading faster than the U.S. can make vaccines against it. Equipment problems and the slow pace in growing the new flu strain in laboratories for vaccines scuttled plans to have 161 million vaccines available by October. Today, just 32.3 million doses are available, far less than the 159 million needed to cover all those at highest risk from the H1N1 flu, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Thomas Frieden said at a House Appropriations subcommittee briefing Wednesday.

Or we could be stupid republicans and ignore the real issues in healthcare. The government does not produce the vaccine. Free marketeers do. If they can't keep up with the demand, perhaps they are in the wrong business?

This is the free markets' bathtub. Let them drown in it.

As for the "letter after the fact"? What the ???

Was Dodd supposed to go all Reagan and ask astrologer Joan Quigley to divine the future on what he should do to solve all of the h1n1 problems before they even existed?

For all of you that advocate crystal balls and teabaging?

"By the time it was over, medics had administered government-run health care to at least five people in the crowd who were stricken as they denounced government-run health care. But Bachmann overlooked this irony as she said farewell to her recruits."

Pick up your teeth on the way home, Okay Teabagrrrs?

Single Payer Activists Arrested at Lieberman's DC office

They came, they sat, they chanted:

8 Protesters backing a universal health care system briefly occupied Sen. Joe Lieberman's office this morning.

Protesters were arrested, one by one, and dragged out of his office amid chants of "Everyone in and noone out, universal healthcare now!" and "Represent Connecticut, not AETNA!"

Activists hopefully moving the Overton Window - in our case leftward - because too many Democratic party politicians were too stupid to do that on their own at the start of the healthcare debate.

Many in the Blogosphere had already set the long term strategy table for using Single Payer as a focus to keep dragging a compromise leftward. Part of why it made no sense to push single payer aside and settle on the compromise out of the gates.

Many in the Blogosphere had already set the long term strategy table for using Single Payer as a focus to keep dragging a compromise leftward. Part of why it made no sense to push single payer aside and settle on the compromise out of the gates.

The strategy was left there unused to the detriment of the entire cause.

8 people are sitting-in the office of Sen. Lieberman!

8 people are sitting-in the office of Sen. Joseph Lieberman demanding that he stop taking money from the insurance industry. The massive campaign donations and lobbying spending of the insurance industry is blocking real reform that would provide everyone in America with access to health care. When 45,000 people are dying annually due to lack of health care it is a moral imperative that America act now to provide health care to all. We are able to do this for senior citizens, why not for all Americans?

Please take the following steps:

1. Call Lieberman and tell him to stop taking insurance money. His numbers are: (202) 224-4041and (860) 549-8463.

2. Sign the petition urging Lieberman to stop taking insurance money. Click here to sign the petition now. Urge everyone you know to sign the petition.

3. Make a donation to support the Mobilization. Donate for bail money for those sitting in Lieberman’s office.

Since beginning just over one month ago thousands have signed up to participate in “Patients before Profits” sit-ins and over 920 have signed up willing to risk arrest. By the end of this week the Mobilization will have held 32 sit-ins in 28 different cities with more than 150 arrests and over 220 risking arrest. We started out wanting 100 people to risk arrest at “patients before profits” sit-ins and now more than 920 have done so. The Mobilization needs to continue to grow in order to achieve health care for all.

There is anger growing in the country at the failure of Congress to put forward a national health care plan that provides health care to everyone in the United States. It is important that people speak out now to push Congress and the president to achieve this urgent moral imperative. When President Obama ran for office he raised hopes in Americans that health policy would be reformed so that no one would go without health care. When the reform process began he talked about universal coverage now millions will go without health care access ten years from after the reform bill is passed. That is unacceptable. We need to demand that health care reform achieve the basic goal – that no one go without health care in a country as wealthy as America. We can achieve that goal if we speak up now and demand action. The United States has been effectively providing health care to senior citizens for 40 years through Medicare, we can do the same for everyone.

Thank you for your support. Please take action now.

Lamont In - Rell Out There Somewhere?

Still waiting on word from Rell on whether or not she will be running - presumably she is having trouble forming an opinion on whether or not to run without Dautrich first poll testing the ideas - but, via Paul Bass, it looks like Lamont is getting ready to run for Governor:

Ned Lamont, who took on U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman three years ago, has formed an “exploratory committee” for a challenge to Gov. M. Jodi Rell in 2010. He plans to talk about Moody’s, not Moody.

Lamont planned to start informing past supporters of his move Wednesday morning, a day after the polls closed on the 2009 municipal elections and attention officially turns to the already crowded 2010 campaigns for governor and U.S. Senate.

h/t to TPMDC for the full press release from Ned Lamont:

NED LAMONT ANNOUNCES FORMATION OF EXPLORATORY COMMITTEE

Norwalk, CT - Ned Lamont, successful businessman, co-founder of the state policy center at Central Connecticut State University, and Democratic nominee for US Senate in 2006, announced that he will be filing papers today with the State Elections Enforcement Commission establishing an Exploratory Committee for statewide office:

"As I have continued to meet with citizens across our state over the last three years, as co-chairman of President Obama's Connecticut campaign and on behalf of health care reform, I have been constantly reminded that Connecticut is not living up to its potential and that too many of our families are being left behind," said Lamont.

"Like businesses, states thrive with strong executive leadership, and they fall behind with weak leadership. As measured by the loss of jobs, young people leaving our state, and the never-ending budget crisis, Connecticut's Chief Executive is simply not getting the job done."

Since the 2006 campaign, Lamont has continued to serve as Chairman of the Board of Campus Televideo, a Connecticut company he founded twenty-five years ago. He is also a distinguished professor of political science at Central Connecticut State University, where he co-founded a policy center which has brought together leading business, labor, and non-profit leaders to formulate a strategic plan for the state of Connecticut. In addition, he serves on the boards of Conservation Services Group, a leading provider of energy efficiency programs, Teach for America/CT, and Mercy Corps, an international non-profit organization that focuses on job training and small business start-ups around the world.

Banks - Breaking up is hard to do:

Via the LA Times:

Britain is forcing breakups of bailed-out major banks

The British government -- spurred on by European regulators -- is forcing Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Northern Rock to sell off parts of their operations. The Europeans are calling for more and smaller banks to increase competition and eliminate the threat posed by banks so large that they must be rescued by taxpayers, no matter how they conducted their business, in order to avoid damaging the global financial system.

The move to downsize some of Britain's largest banks comes as U.S. politicians are debating whether American banks should also be required to shrink. The Obama administration has maintained that large banks should be preserved because they play an important role in the economy and that taxpayers instead should be protected by creating a new system for liquidating large banks that run into problems. But Britain's decision already is being cited by a growing chorus of experts, including prominent bankers and economists, who want the United States to pursue a similar approach.

"We still need to see exactly which parts the [British] banks will need to sell off to judge whether the goal of having smaller banks is really achieved," said Richard Portes, an economics professor at the London Business School. "But there are lessons here for the United States. The supposed economies of scale of massive financial institutions are outweighed by the difficulties in controlling risk inside them."

Hopefully the US will follow suit but I don't expect that since the big banks that failed here still managed to hold on to their biggest asset: The US government.

Free Marketeers Against Healthcare? Go Galt and take your communist influence with you...

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, …”

I assume they were not discussing welfare payments for high ranking military officers when they mention "promote the general welfare". And the 16th amendment allows for the government to tax for the purposes of promoting the general welfare.

16th Amendment

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

There are numerous other mentions in The Constitution supporting their right to tax you for whatever they deem is for the good of the nation. 

And not just to "promote the general welfare" but to "provide" it, as well:

Article 1 Section 8

"Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;"

It is safe to say that keeping Americans healthy would be providing for the general welfare of the United States. You may not like it. But that is The Constitution.


As for healthcare being a right? Article 25, section 1 of the Declaration of Human Rights:

“Article 25  Section 1

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care [...]”

Signed by the President of the United States of America and ratified by Congress, healthcare is a right in the USA.

The basis of the Declaration of Human rights was not meant to be an enforceable treaty, but it was to be a recognized document to give legal definitions to generalized ideas like freedom and rights around the world. Things that had, up until then, not really been legally defined have been since that time.

You can and should thank Eleanor Roosevelt for her small part in all of that.

For those of you that screech "free markets" extremism and falsely tout The Constitution, threatening to "Go Galt"? None of this infringes on your rights to pursue “Life, Liberty and Happiness” unless your definition of those things are having a few more bucks so the poor can die of illness. If you think those things than you are an extremist because nothing in The Constitution guarantees you those things as a "right". And, in fact, the legal definitions could not support your extremist misconceptions.

Even Adam Smith, the “father of modern economics”, recognized that a capitalist society based on free markets would cease to function if there were no taxes, wage controls and strong social safety nets to balance the free markets. From his wiki:

“One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. Adam Smith is widely cited as the father of modern economics.

[...]

Smith has been celebrated by advocates of free market policies as the founder of free market economics, a view reflected in the naming of bodies such as the Adam Smith Institute, Adam Smith Society and the Australian Adam Smith Club, and in terms such as the Adam Smith necktie.

Alan Greenspan argues that, while Smith did not coin the term laissez-faire, "it was left to Adam Smith to identify the more-general set of principles that brought conceptual clarity to the seeming chaos of market transactions". Greenspan continues that The Wealth of Nations was "one of the great achievements in human intellectual history". P. J. O'Rourke describes Adam Smith as the "founder of free market economics".

However, other writers have argued that Smith's support for laissez-faire has been overstated. Herbert Stein wrote that the people who "wear an Adam Smith necktie" do it to "make a statement of their devotion to the idea of free markets and limited government", and that this misrepresents Smith's ideas. Stein writes that Smith "was not pure or doctrinaire about this idea. He viewed government intervention in the market with great skepticism ... yet he was prepared to accept or propose qualifications to that policy in the specific cases where he judged that their net effect would be beneficial and would not undermine the basically free character of the system. He did not wear the Adam Smith necktie." In Stein's reading, The Wealth of Nations could justify the Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, mandatory employer health benefits, environmentalism, and "discriminatory taxation to deter improper or luxurious behavior"."

I have not bolded any particular part since his entire wiki page is worth the read. Go read it all since…

You’ll also find that Adam Smith, the original free marketeer that founded the line of thought free market extremists screech about in the USA today was also one of the strong influences on communist theories.

Classical economists presented variations on Smith, termed the 'labour theory of value', later Marxian economics descends from classical economics also using Smith's labour theories in part. The first volume of Karl Marx's major work, Capital, was published in German in 1867. In it, Marx focused on the labour theory of value and what he considered to be the exploitation of labour by capital. The labour theory of value held that the value of a thing was determined by the labor that went into its production. This contrasts with the modern understanding of mainstream economics, that the value of a thing is determined by what one is willing to give up to obtain the thing. Smith is often cited not only as the conceptual builder of free markets in capitalism but also as a main contributor to communist theory, via his influence on Marx.

Yeah, Karl Marx loved him some free marketeer.


So, if you're against healthcare reform for all of the really stupid reasons? The reasons that are not there in The Constitution and the reasons that don't work in a balanced free market and the reasons that are so extremist they are actually going against The Constitution and the laws of the United States of America:

Please, feel free to "Go Galt" and take all of your communist influence with you.

Windsock Joe

We really want to know which way the wind blows, Joe? The other day you were dead set against the Public Option, much to the chagrin of Connecticut voters. And now?

Sen. Joe Lieberman has reached a private understanding with Majority Leader Harry Reid that he will not block a final vote on healthcare reform, according to two sources briefed on the matter.

The unpredictable Democrat-turned-Independent last week publicly stated he would join Republicans in filibustering the Democratic legislation after Reid (D-Nev.) announced he had included a government-run health insurance plan in the bill.

But sources said Reid’s staff is telling liberal interest groups that Lieberman (Conn.) has assured Reid he will vote with Democrats in the necessary procedural vote to end debate, perhaps with intentions to change the bill.

Careful or you'll end up with whiplash if you keep this up, Joe.

National Nurses Movement Action Diary

URGENT ACTION NEEDED - CALL NOW!

Your calls are needed to keep single payer amendments alive in the U.S. House of Representatives. The message is simple: "Keep the Kucinich Amendment!"

• Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
  DC 202.225.4965 - SF 415.556.4862
  
  
• Representative George Miller:
  DC 202.225.2095 - Concord 925.602.1880
  
• Representative Henry Waxman:
  DC 202.225.3976 - LA 323.651.1040
  
  
• Read the National Nurses Blog Post

And don't forget to rec up that dKos diary and leave a comment thanking them for all the National Nurses Movement does if you are a member there.

Do the Math

Susie Madrak at C&L suggests you do the math, and I do not think you'll like it:

The bill provides financial assistance on a sliding scale. Premiums range from 1.5 percent of income to 12% for those at 400% of the Federal Poverty Level. The plan provides additional assistance for households up to 400% of the FPL by limiting cost-sharing to 3% of plan costs at the lowest tier, to 30% of plan costs at 350-400% of the FPL.


For instance: If your income is under 133-150% of the poverty level, your premiums will be limited to a range of 1.5 to 3%. That means you'll pay 3% of plan costs, with an annual out-of-pocket cap of $500 for individuals and $1000 for families.


And so on:


150-200% - 3-5.5% - 7% - $1000/$2000

200-250% - 5.5-8% - 15% - $2000/$4000

250-300% - 8-10% - 22% - $4000/$8000

300-350% - 10-11% - 28% - $4500/$9000

350-400% - 11-12% - 30% - $5000/$10,000


The Federal Poverty Level is:


Persons in family


1 $10,830

2 14,570

3 18,310

4 22,050

5 25,790

6 29,530

7 33,270

8 37,010


For families with more than 8 persons, add $3,740 for each additional person.


So although I've been on unemployment for the past year, I would be expected to pay approximately $4000 a year. Huh? Your individual mileage may vary, but those figures aren't very reassuring to me.


Do the math, and let me know if you think this is affordable.

Go ahead and figure it out for yourselves. Is this making healthcare more affordable for you?

Gov. Rell: "The Computer Ate My Homework!"

When you read stuff like this you really don't have to wonder if Dautrich focus group tested this message before she sent it out:

A review of documents provided by the university to The Day also shows that the governor's office did not fully comply with previous requests for public records, leaving out a handful of e-mail responses from Moody to Dautrich, including a message that thanks the professor for his help in crafting Rell's budget speech.

Harris declined to comment on any of the new findings in the UConn documents, but said in an interview this week that the Moody e-mails had been withheld from a reporter inadvertently because the governor's staff had not correctly used the "Find" function in the Outlook e-mail program when complying with The Day's records request.

 1st thing: Harris, she wasn't complying with The Day's record request. You know... Kind of like what happens in a "cover-up". A really big part of this story.  

2nd thing: Was Dautrich Rell's equivalent of Bush's Brain? Because her excuse is what I might expect to hear from a child. Her messaging is all over the place without his focus group tested waste of taxpayers' money asshattery.

Rell's politics and policies were always marginal. Now her excuses for them are too.

If you are like most Single Payer supporters...

I think you'll find the following links are the bomb!

Weiner Amendment || Kucinich Amendment || Public Option || Healthcare Reform || Republican Healthcare Plan || Democratic Healthcare Plan || Doctors on Healthcare Reform || Nurses on Healthcare Reform

Don't be shy to click on them and feel free to copy and paste them everywhere. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink...

And, ain't it funny what news of the CBO scoring Single Payer can do?

Flushing Out the Ongoing Bank Fraud and Financial Terrorism

The number of foreclosure filings hit a record high in the 3rd quarter: "Despite signs of broader economic recovery, number of foreclosure filings hit a record high in the third quarter - a sign the plague is still spreading."


And banks are keeping losses off the books as they ignore the people that are not paying their mortgages:

JUAN GONZALEZ: And William Black, where is the outrage? It seems to me, at this stage, with the—as the foreclosures continue to escalate in numbers, and yet we’re seeing these enormous profits less than a year after the financial crisis. There doesn’t seem to be the kind of outrage, even in Congress, that there was six months or eight months ago.


WILLIAM BLACK: There’s no palpable outrage, certainly not in Congress. The reform efforts on derivatives, for example, are a scandal. They exempt virtually all of the problem derivatives, and they’re designed to exempt it. And that’s the bill that’s introduced, and of course it’s likely to get worse with additional lobbying from the special interests.


Link the things that you’ve just been talking about. You talked about foreclosures reaching record highs. But in fact, foreclosures, relative to delinquencies, are quite low compared to historical ratios. In other words, banks have tons of folks who are not paying their mortgages on time, and they’re not foreclosing. And the reason they’re not foreclosing is, once you foreclose, you have to recognize losses under the accounting rules. And the banks gimmicked the accounting rules. They put pressure on Congress, and Congress put pressure on the accounting profession to gimmick the accounting rules now about a year ago. Now, these bonuses, of course, are paid compared to alleged profits. What happens if you understate your losses dramatically? You report much higher profits and much higher bonuses. So this is a web of fraud, in which they are getting as much as they can before the place goes to hell in a handbasket again.

Here we are neck deep in debt to pay off the gambling debts of the bankers and now they are completely ignoring their very real losses that are piling up at a record rate simply so they can keep the bonus money flowing into their own pockets:

The Dow is Up but Your House is Gone
So here we have another bankster scam being waged on the consuming public. The scam is to create another "too big to fail" scenario as they make record profits and pay out record bonuses by rigging their books.


But the good news is the Dow is up.


So you or someone you care about is likely without a job or looking for more work. But the elite are rigging the system again, and you are going to fix things next time by voting for a Republican.

And what are these bankers with their Enron style accounting doing to help the homeowners that are on the verge of losing their homes? You can be certain that they are still out there offering ARMs to unsuspecting victims of their financial rape of the world.

And as for you? You get nothing but shafted:

It's time to recognize what it means to be part of the billionaire-bailout nation. Citizenship comes in three distinct flavors.


If you are wealthy, it's fantastic to take part in the resurgent Wall Street boom. You are thrilled to see the trillions in taxpayer dollars successfully prop up the financial sector. After all it's not really your money -- your tax shelters take care of that. You love the rise in the markets. You are now reaping the rewards of investing in a sector that rests firmly upon government welfare, and in which the largest institutions are guaranteed from failure. It feels good to see double-digit returns again, which you feel you truly deserve.

The gap between your wealth and the average American's is utterly fantastic. Life is good.
If you have a job, you are feeling better than a year ago. Your 401k is coming back from the dead. The stimulus program seems to be helping with your employment. You may even get some relief from health care reform. But you are not seeing your wages increase. (Overall the average production workers real wages are down more than 18 percent since the mid-1970s.) It's not easy to maintain a middle-class existence or get anywhere near one if you're not already there. Layoffs might be slowing down but you are still petrified that your job will soon disappear. You are unsure you can provide for your children's education and your own retirement. The future seems much less secure than it did for your parents' and grandparents' generations.


If you don't have a job you're in deep trouble. You are a "lagging indicator."

If you are among the Nouveaux Welfare Riche of the world?


Then your life is still good. The rest of us will never have a chance unless they fix the real problems.

These rich bastards know the government will hand out more of our future tax money over to them so they can continue to profit no matter how outrageously insane and fraudulant their business practices. Heck... Congress doesn't even want to take a real honest look at one of the major problems in of all of this:

As chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Representative Edolphus Towns has not been shy about criticizing the excesses of the financial services industry, from executive bonuses to Wall Street profits, as well as the spotty track record of some bond-rating agencies.


But his refusal to subpoena records involving Countrywide Financial, a company blamed for lending practices that contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis, has made Mr. Towns himself the target of criticism.

Now, I don't really care about the faux smears of some Democrats that underlie the overall schemes of the opposition party. The real problem here is that if they start looking at the symptoms of this Great Recession? The Bank of America owned Coutrywide mortgage mills?

It might lead them to the real fiancial disease.


The banks and shadow banks that got us all stuck where we are and are continuing with more fraud and will continue to take us around this depressing loop and they will find new ways to flush the nations' economy down the toilet as the old ways are still being brought to light:

Apparently, when you say something long enough and loud enough, people start to believe it, even when it defies reality. Here, for instance, is the normally skeptical Barney Frank on the subject: “What happened was an explosion of loans being made outside of the regular banking system. It was largely the unregulated sector of the lending industry and the underregulated and the lightly regulated that did that.”

To which I can now triumphantly reply: Oh, really???

Last weekend, after the column was published, an angry mortgage broker — someone who felt she and her ilk were being unfairly scapegoated by the banking industry — sent me a series of rather eye-opening documents. They were a series of fliers and advertisements that had been sent to her office (and mortgage brokers all over the country) from JPMorgan Chase, advertising their latest wares. They were dated 2005, which was before the subprime mortgage boom got completely out of control. They’re still pretty sobering.

“The Top 10 Reasons to Choose Chase for All Your Subprime Needs,” screams the headline on the first one. Another was titled, “Chase No Doc,” and described the criteria for a borrower to receive a so-called no-document loan. “Got Bank Statements?” asked a third flier. “Get Approved!” In a number of the fliers, Chase makes it clear to the mortgage brokers that the bank doesn’t need income or job verification — it just needs to look at a handful of old bank statements.

Right now people are being tried because they knew that this bust economy was coming but were still pushing their junk products on investors:

On Wednesday prosecutors painted a different story, claiming that the men knew their success as managers of mortgage-related funds was coming to an end in the spring of 2007, so they began a campaign of lies to keep investors from withdrawing their funds in the hopes of turning things around. The funds collapsed in July of that year, costing investors about $1.6 billion.


Messrs. Cioffi, 53 years old, and Tannin, 48, potentially face a maximum of 20 years in prison for each of the several fraud counts of which they were charged in 2008, after a year-long investigation.


Defense lawyers have stressed that most of the investors were banks, insurance companies and investment funds, who knew the risks of investing in the Bear Stearns funds.


It's "human nature" to "use hindsight bias" against people after "things don't turn out well," but "that's not fair to Matt," Ms. Brune said about her client. "This is a case about trying to do your best," she said.

Since we know that they haven't stopped selling junk mortgages even as they are purposely ignoring the billions and billions in mortgages that should be putting them into the major losses category so they can continue to get their great bonuses, and they are still gambling with credit derivatives and credit default swaps at the same unregulated pace that brought the economy of the world down...


It will be impossible for them to claim the "hindsight bias" defense the next time this comes down the pike.


You don't have to be a financial genius to know it is all coming again because none of the problems, the real causes like Derivatives and CDS and myriad practices of these Wall Street financial fraudsters, nor the symptoms like the mortgage mills offering up ARMs and other economic disasters waiting to happen, have been stopped:

I have posted this warning of Bank of America's (BAC) naked swap writing to my subscribers a few weeks ago. Since BAC is reporting this week, I have decided to make my suspicions public. I have found evidence that this bank has $32 billion of naked (as in apparently unhedged) swaps on its books - just like AIG. The difference is this bank is bigger, probably has more exposure, and has already been bailed out - several times. Oh, did I mention the insured collateral is nearly half BBB rated or lower? How about extreme management issues at the top, and I mean all the way to the top (the CEO may actually bring down the ex-treasury secretary and maybe even the Fed Chairman). A trunk full of junk, surrounded by drama. It should be an interesting conference call today when they report, that is if anybody decides to ask the right questions.

As many of my subscribers and readers know, I have caught many companies on the short side as they imploded. One company that I did not get was American International Group. The reason it escaped me? I was too close to it. I have met Frank Tizzio (then president), Maurice Greenburg (then CEO and Chairman), and a several of their upper management to collaborate on deals, and was impressed with the way they ran their shop. Because of this, I didn't apply the same critical, skeptical eye that I used with the other prospects. Alas, because of such, I overlooked the inevitable, and in retrospect, the blatantly obvious.

Every step of the way the banks have been trying to stick us with more and more losses as they find new ways to profit off of the government troughs.

Everything you need to know about the bailouts...

in 2 short paragraphs. A relatively long post for Atrios. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

What's The Goal?
Others have made this point in various ways, but if the goal is to bail out the banksters and keep the existing too big to fail financial order in place with the same cast of characters in charge, then all of this sounds like a cunning plan.

If the goal was really to get banks lending again they'd be funneling large sums of money to healthy (mostly smaller) financial institutions who actually made sensible choices over the last few years.

Meanwhile a fire sale is going on:

Lenders have become so overwhelmed by the foreclosure crisis that they are starting to unload properties in bulk to investor groups at steep discounts.
Investors then flip the properties for a profit without necessarily improving the home.

For example, a unit of Citigroup, the troubled financial giant, sold a foreclosure in Temecula to an Arizona investment firm for $139,000 when comparable homes in the area were selling for $240,000 to $260,000.

The firm listed the home for $249,000, received multiple offers and the property has entered escrow, said Amber Schlieder, the real estate agent who handled the listing.

Citigroup left a 100 grand on the table. This looks like a great way to abuse the taxpayer even more.

I want to know who they are all selling in bulk to.

Remember who else was buying up the mortgages in bulk?

So it may come as a surprise that a dozen former top Countrywide executives now stand to make millions from the home mortgage mess.

Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide's former president, and his team have been buying up delinquent home mortgages that the government took over from other failed banks, sometimes for pennies on the dollar. They get a piece of what they can collect.

"It has been very successful - very strong," John Lawrence, the company's head of loan servicing, told Mr. Kurland one recent morning in a glass-walled boardroom here at PennyMac's spacious headquarters, opened last year in the same Los Angeles suburb where Countrywide once flourished.

The Treasury has shown a willingness to recklessly toss all of our futures away to keep these "Too Big Failures" operating in their self-entitled comfort zone.

What incentive do the banks have to sell these properties for as much as they can when they can sell them in bulk at a loss to their buddies' companies (or even their own companies) so they can turn a profit on them and doing this knowing the failure bankers can ship off all of the bills for the losses to us? Think about it.

If Geithner were handing these trillions to the smaller more responsible bankers some of us little people would be able to buy these cheap houses...

But this way the elite get to keep all of the assets in their greedy hands and have us pay for their gambling addiction failures too. And then they will turn a profit on selling us these properties AGAIN.

“While some critics are distressed that Mr. Kurland and his team are back in business, the executives say that PennyMac’s operations serve as a model for how the government, working with banks, can help stabilize the housing market and lead the nation out of the recession. “It is very important to the entire team here to be part of a solution,” Mr. Kurland said

Important for Whom? You, maybe, but not me.

I am thinking predatory lenders should already be in jail and that this is a model for more financial disaster for taxpayers. I smell smoke and all I see is a fire and a bunch of greedy arsonists standing around with their gasoline soaked hands in our pockets..

And, so far, the elite are achieving their goal of bailing out themselves with our money.

From buhdydharma at dKos, some extra food for thought:

Hard Not To Call It Evil
According to people who should know, The Ruling Class is using our money....draining our money, the money we use to survive and feed our children and to actual produce things, to rescue the very structure...that allows them to BE The Ruling Class. The structures that enable them to Rule us by controlling credit, capital, and our pensions and IRA's and 401k's.

And our regulatory agencies and politicians. And so by extension our military. Which is then used in the service and interests of The Ruling Class and their Party of Business, the GOP.

These people, the Ruling Class, are the ones who got us into this financial armageddon. These are the same Ruling Class that took us to war in Iraq, after ignoring the warnings that an attack was coming.

They are the same people who made America into a nation that tortures people they KNOW to be innocent. They are the same people...if they even deserve the name...who are stopping any serious efforts to mitigate a Climate Crisis of incomprehensible scope.

They are the same people that so unprecedentedly had the Supreme Court decide Bush vs. Gore, so they could have Bush cut their taxes and deregulate the very same structures that we are now being called to give OUR money to prop up. Yes, the very same people who are directly responsible for everything that has gone wrong in our world, are the people who are now telling us....not asking us....telling us, that we have to bail them out. While as always, not telling us the whole story, not telling us what they are doing behind the scenes and behind our backs.

Read on...

At this very moment Banks are making up books telling Wall Street how profitable they are but it is all a massive illusion as what they are really doing is hiding losses and managing to turn it into their own personal profits for their insider friends and even themselves. They are doing all of this using our tax dollars to create some kind of warped Capitalist Welfare Elitist society. And it is not like the some people in the financial world haven't noticed:



Is it time to say that this is truly economic warfare on the people of the world and start calling it the financial terrorism that it all really is?


Because until some of the real problems that lead to all of the other problems that everyone knows still exist are fixed... This is exactly what it is.


And fegining ignorance of it? Not gonna cut it when people called it what it was long before this current meltdown:

The rapidly growing trade in derivatives poses a "mega-catastrophic risk" for the economy and most shares are still "too expensive", legendary investor Warren Buffett has warned.


The world's second-richest man made the comments in his famous and plain-spoken "annual letter to shareholders", excerpts of which have been published by Fortune magazine.


The derivatives market has exploded in recent years, with investment banks selling billions of dollars worth of these investments to clients as a way to off-load or manage market risk.


But Mr Buffett argues that such highly complex financial instruments are time bombs and "financial weapons of mass destruction" that could harm not only their buyers and sellers, but the whole economic system.

There are so many ways that financial tools have been developed to terrorize the people...


And this is all the rest of the people, the one's that are not the Noveaux Welfare Riche, have to show for it:

Step 2: Documenting Bushvilles

Welcome to America in decline:

"They are tagging us because we are homeless," she said, staring at her orange wristband. "It feels like a concentration camp."

We need to set out to document these atrocities in as much detail as we can. Are there any places like this near you:

Bushville, Ontario, California:

"Is a campground the solution to the problem of homelessness? The California City of Ontario thinks so."

Bushville, Los Angeles, California:

"Tent cities have sprung up outside Los Angeles as people lose their homes in the mortgage crisis."

More:

"Large, often confused, crowds formed ragged lines behind police barricades where officers handed out color-coded wristbands. Blue meant they were from Ontario and could remain. Orange indicated they had to provide more proof to avoid ejection, and white meant they had a week to leave.

Pattie Barnes, 47, who had her motor home towed away last week, shook with anger.

"They are tagging us because we are homeless," she said, staring at her orange wristband. "It feels like a concentration camp.""

Welcome to free market America:
"It feels like a concentration camp."

Bushville, Sacremento, California:

"Some 300 people call a tent city in Sacramento home, including Tracy Vaughan, who moved to the city with her husband six months ago.

Via the AP, No Job - No Home:


As many as 1200 homeless?
"Some nearby homeowners have reportedly complained about the tent cities, but Sacramento's new mayor, former NBA star Kevin Johnson, has suggested that the tent cities might provide a temporary solution to the lack of shelter. As many as 1,200 people may be living in these tent cities, according to the local ABC 7 News."

Bushville, Reno, Nevada:

"A few tents cropped up hard by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer.

Then others appeared — people who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy, or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work and discovered no one was hiring.

Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population. Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a "tent city" — an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go.

From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation."

Bushville, Santa Barbara, California:

"The relatively tony city of Santa Barbara has given over a parking lot to people who sleep in cars and vans."

Bushville, Fresno, California:

"authorities in Fresno are trying to manage several proliferating tent cities, including an encampment where people have made shelters out of scrap wood."

America the Beautiful:
3rd world shantytowns.

Bushville, Athens, Georgia:

"Wayne Hill packed up his meager belongings last week and moved his home deeper into the woods.

Hill's red tent and neighboring homes had inched too close to the nearby highway, and police told him to move.

"We've asked them to move back off the road a little bit," Athens-Clarke police Maj. Carter Greene said. "It seemed they were encroaching on Lexington Road."

snip

But Tent City limits slowly crept downhill, so now people look up from Lexington Road and a perimeter off-ramp to see campsites and junk piles."

Can you just imagine the horror of having to actually see the homeless?

Bushville, Seattle, Washington:
(Note: there are several - 5 or 6 - of them in Seattle)

"Activists point to the annual One Night Count as evidence that not enough shelter beds exist. During the count of the homeless in Seattle and other parts of King County on Jan. 25, volunteers counted 2,631 people sleeping in cars and trucks, doorways and parks and under highways, or walking around or riding buses to stay warm in freezing temperatures. When comparing similar areas counted a year ago, the number of homeless increased 15 percent.

An additional 2,515 people spent the night in emergency shelters, with 3,293 more in transitional housing, for a total of 8,439 homeless people."

Bushville, Nashville, Tennessee:

"To its credit, Nashville recognizes that there is a problem with the "system" and, as the community slowly works towards correcting these problems, understands that there is at least a temporary need for the existence of homeless encampments.

To its discredit, Nashville is currently engaged in dismantling Tent City, the largest (the population fluctuates wildly at times, but is consistently around 50) and oldest (in existence since the mid 1980s) homeless camp in the area, which is slated to close June 1, 2009; sooner if outreach workers are able to find housing for the remaining residents."

Bushville, Chatanooga, Tennessee:

"The demolition of Tent City left many of Chattanooga's homeless without a place to live.

But not so for one lucky man.

For the first time in six years Richard Waldrep has a home to call his own.

Waldrep has spent the last several years on the streets, for the last few months he called "Tent City" home.

But, now that home has been destroyed.

Due to safety concerns and liability issues Norfolk Southern Railroad bulldozed the property leaving Waldrep and almost 30 others to find another place to live. "

Bushville, St. Petersburg, Florida:

"Police officers with box cutters showed up where St. Pete's tent city residents had moved and set up. The cops slashed their tents to the ground as residents watched in shock. Now one homeless group is moving to label St. Petersburg as the 'meanest city in the nation.' Video by Tina May."

The police destroying the few meager belongings left to these homeless people. Is that what the mandate of police officers is supposed to include today? What happened to serve and protect?

Do you know of any of these tent cities or Bushvilles near you that the media has yet to disclose of? If you do... Links, photos, and videos need to be added to our own archives in order to document the widespread disaster that is a very result of this failed Bush economy and the free-market run amok.

Arthur Delaney at the HuffPo is attempting to document these stories. We should all be doing our part to identify these places:

There are reports of tent cities popping up across the country as unemployment rises in a worsening economy. The biggest and highest-profile shantytown is in Sacramento, where hundreds of newly-homeless tent residents are cooking soup in old coffee cans.

We want to know where else this is happening.

HuffPost readers: Is there a tent city near you? Have you noticed a newly-formed community of people living together in improvised housing in a public space? Email us! Send any information you've got (or pictures) to submissions+homeless@huffingtonpost.com.

Sacramento's KCRA reported this week that city officials plan to shut the tent city down:

While this is a good idea - documenting where they exist is really only Step 2 because it is an idea without a real humane purpose.

Rather than just documenting these stories, perhaps we should try to solve the problems? In some of these Bushvilles there are already people working to help fix the problems as both short term and long term solutions are needed.

In Portland, Oregon, many in the community are providing the elbow grease to make their tent city, Dignity Village, more livable for the short term and more effective at helping the people get back to work:

Many more community's across the country, have looked to us for answers to help the homeless population that is growing bigger each year. When People come out to visit us , they are amazed at what we have set up and how we help the 50 to 60 homeless people that live here at any given time, a stepping stone effect that gives each person living here a chance to help themselves regain a new start to gain main stream living again.

All of this comes from donations from viewers and visitors that help to support our goals.

Dignity Village has been working this way since 2001 and long before Bushvilles started popping up. I imagine that they are probably experiencing a huge surge in people needing their help as the economy has collapsed over the last few months.

The right did not solve the problem of Hoovervilles, but the left did with the bold and visionary leadership of FDR. Many on the right would like nothing more than to ignore Bushvilles because it exposes the reality of their political ideology taken to extremes.

We can and will solve the problem of Bushvilles.

I am no community organizer, but I imagine that we need to take these steps first:

1. Identify the major problem - done

2. Identify where it exists - ?

3. Identify problems that are more local to each area - ?

4. Get to work solving the short term problems on a local area needs basis - ?

5. Get to work solving the long term problems on a local area needs basis - ?

Are any of you up to a real challenge?

Are any of you interested in beginning Step 2 and starting to document as many of these tent cities and Bushvilles as we can? Searching for links, getting out in the streets and photographing and videoing these places AND, more importantly, documenting the problems they face so we can try to find real solutions would be no small undertaking.

Something tells me we ain't seen nothing yet from these financial terrorists... Because we have all seen these Bushvilles growing more and more as things have gotten worse and worse and nobody has done a God-damned thing about them, either.


Not fixing the problems, and not fixing what caused them all.

Shorter Erick Erickson: "It's because he's black!"

And he is Jimmy Carter too!

"I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news. There is no way Barack Obama earned it in the nominations period."

Per usual, Red State's Trike Force always keepin' it classy...

A better summary of Obama's accomplishment:

"Recognizing the severity of John McCain's issues with violence and its appropriate use, the Nobel Committee awarded Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize primarily just for beating him. [...snip...] You award accomplishments. And Obama's main accomplishment in the area of peace is that he denied the Gods of War their choice of president." - BooMan

A Politician That Might Just Do What He Promises?

A Middletown Township, Pennsylvania, politician telling you he has done nothing for the last 6 years:

"Nobody does nothing better than Steve Young"

H/T the Smirking Chimp and I have to wonder if this is even real?

[update] Holy crap! It might just be for real and he is a Democratic candidate, at that. Otherwise he has been running this gag since at least May:

Poll watchers are expecting the largest election turnout in ever in Bucks County. The poll watchers who expect that are mostly in the Republican Party and we know how many things they’ve gotten right lately.

Today, I will be facing my toughest campaign, if not my first. To be sure I am running unopposed, but unless you or anybody, including myself, come out and votes for me, I cannot move on to the November election when I expect to be running opposed. Some may scoff at the dire need for votes when running unopposed, but those are people who don’t understand the power of write in votes nor the infamous 2000 presidential race when Al Gore ran against pretty much nobody and lost. Let us not let the Middletown Township auditor primary race end up being decided by the Supreme Court. America, nor Middletown Township cannot bear another unnecessary war.And, while my race is obviously the most watched in Middletown Township, I also ask you to consider the other decisions you will be making today and ask you to make the right one.

This is just too funny!

Goin' Down The Memory Hole

It's Tengrain Presents...

So you know you should get over there and read it all!

Jon Stewart on Healthcare

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart takes a look at the healthcare successes of the Democrats:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Democratic Super Majority
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

(h/t GottaLaff :)

Score One For The Working Families Party in NYC

Score two, actually... Via The Gotham Gazette, The Working Families Party, a political party that has made significant contributions to Connecticut's political landscape, has taken over New York city:

Both Liu and de Blasio had the endorsement of the Working Families Party, yesterday and in their original primaries two weeks ago. De Blasio’s ties to the party are particularly tight.

The victories yesterday continue a very successful election year for the Working Families Party. In the Sept. 15 primary, challengers backed by the party toppled four sitting council members.

“The Working Families Party, once derided as a ragtag collection of Brooklyn progressives, is now the pre-eminent political force in New York City politics, replacing a forlorn, disorganized Democratic Party,” Michael Barbaro observed in the City Room.

The kinds of issues that the Working Families Party pursues?

This:

Billionaires for Budget Cuts is a diverse group of insurance company CEOs, bailed-out Wall Street executives and hedge fund managers, united to stop even a pay increase in taxes on the very rich, even if it means slashing healthcare and education.

See the Billionaires' recent press clips.

Join the Billionaires for Budget Cuts Facebook group.

That:

Our healthcare system is broken. Costs are through the roof, and yet we still have hundreds of thousands of families in Connecticut without coverage. It's time for a high quality public health option. Read more.

And the other thing:

Paid Sick Days. Between the outbreak of swine flu and the recession, it's clearer than ever that working families need paid sick days. We're leading the fight. Learn more.

I don't expect that they will see a lot of corporate money flooding their coffers as they endorse candidates from every and any party that has a proven record of voting for the little guy.

In The News:
Read the our great CT Post Op-Ed on why people are voting Working Families and help spread the word:

"When you vote for a Democrat or a Republican on the Working Families line, you're vote counts for the candidate just the same as a vote on the major party line. But a Working Families vote also sends a powerful message to all politicians that it's time to put working families first again.

The real work to fix our economy will start the day after Election Day. Our elected officials will have to make difficult choices to put our country and our state back on the right track.

Voting on the Working Families line is a small way that each of us point our politicians in the right direction -- and give them a little push."

More details here.

Who needs sleep?

Those who know me well know that I am a part-time insomniac. At times I can go days without sleeping before I finally burn and crash. Many of the posts I have written were done in the middle of the night and saved to post later. Don't ask me which ones' because I probably won't remember. Now I may be able to tell you why:

A Connection Between Sleep and Alzheimer's?

You shouldn't stay up all night worrying about it, but a new study has found a connection between a lack of sleep and a biomolecule thought to be important in the development of Alzheimer's disease.

In both humans and mice, levels of a peptide called amyloid-β rise during waking hours and decline during sleep, researchers have found. They also report that sleep-deprived mice are more prone to developing deposits of amyloid-β, called plaques, like those found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Although far from proven, the finding suggests that sleep disorders could be a risk factor for Alzheimer's. On a brighter note, it also hints at new avenues of treatment.

Many lines of evidence suggest that the naturally occurring amyloid-β builds up in the brain over many years in people who develop Alzheimer's disease, beginning long before people show signs of memory loss. But very little is known about what factors might influence levels of the peptide in the brain, says David Holtzman, a neurologist at Washington University in St. Louis in Missouri.

Please remind me if I forget to post this diary... 
And enjoy this barenaked lady I found in the bathroom in the middle of the night:

Senator Dodd On Snowe Delaying Legislation

ctblogger uploaded this video and I thought I would yank it from him because it shows a lot slicker version of the material I covered:



Pay no attention the Blogging geek asking the question nor the mug of Sam Adam's Octoberfest beer on the counter behind him.

Senator Chris Dodd on Obama's Afghanistan Strategy

In this video, taken on Saturday, September 26th, '09, Senator Chris Dodd makes sense on the situation in Afghanistan. It starts with Nutmegger John Kantrowitz, from My Left Nutmeg and the Conn-Post Blogs, discussing the shades of Vietnam parallels. But there is an 800 pound guerrilla that too many ignore that I try to point out at the end of the video:



Just so you understand what I am talking about at the end of the video, General Petraeus re-wrote the doctrine for dealing with counterinsurgencies:

The first chapter of Petraeus's manual calls for a "force ratio" of 25 counterinsurgents (here meaning US, allied, and Iraqi soldiers and police) per 1,000 residents. In Baghdad that would require a total force of 120,000. But even with the additional 17,500 US troops President Bush has called for, and a reallocation of Iraqi troops from the North to Baghdad, the total force will be approximately 80,000, a full third less than what the manual prescribes.

I was shooting from the hip and based on my faulty memory, but the numbers I was talking about were sufficiently close to make the point. Thinking in terms of the situation in Afghanistan a quick look at the math tells you what you need to know.

The population of Afghanistan is 28,150,000 according to wikipedia - And the math based on 25 soldiers per thousand residents?

703,750

By Genral Petraeus' own standard that is how many soldiers would be needed to effectively stabelize Afghanistan. Accounting for US, UN and even the Afghanistan soldiers that have been trained up to provide security there are nowhere near enough. And there will never be anywhere near enough without a draft. That is an 800 pound guerilla that nobody will address.

Little wonder why Obama may be suffering from buyer's remorse on campaign statements and early decisions after he was sworn in:

Once in office, Obama compounded the damage by doubling down his bet on the war. In March, he introduced a “comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan” in his first significant public statement on the subject, which had expansion written all over it. He also agreed to send in 21,000 more troops (which, by the way, Petraeus reportedly convinced him to do). In August, in another sign of weakness masquerading as strength, before an unenthusiastic audience at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, he unnecessarily declared: “This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity.” All of this he will now pay for at the hands of Petraeus, or if not him, then a coterie of military men behind the latest push for a new kind of Afghan War.

As it happens, this was never Obama’s “war of necessity.” It was always Petraeus’s. And the new report from McChrystal and the Surgettes is undoubtedly Petraeus’s progeny as well. It seems, in fact, cleverly put together to catch a cautious president, who wasn’t cautious enough about his war of choice, in a potentially devastating trap. The military insistence on quick action on a troop decision sets up a devastating choice for the president: “Failure to provide adequate resources also risks a longer conflict, greater casualties, higher overall costs, and ultimately, a critical loss of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result in mission failure.” Go against your chosen general and the failure that follows is yours alone. (Unnamed figures supposedly close to McChrystal are already launching test balloons, passed on by others, suggesting that the general might resign in protest if the president doesn’t deliver — a possibility he has denied even considering.) On the other hand, offer him somewhere between 15,000 and 45,000 more American troops as well as other resources, and the failure that follows will still be yours.

It’s a basic lose-lose proposition and, as journalist Eric Schmitt wrote in a New York Times assessment of the situation, “it will be very hard to say no to General McChrystal.” No wonder the president and some of his men are dragging their feet and looking elsewhere. As one typically anonymous “defense analyst” quoted in the Los Angeles Times said, the administration is suffering “buyer’s remorse for this war… They never really thought about what was required, and now they have sticker shock.”

At this moment in time the Generals are asking for more troops and, even by Petraus' own standards, they aren't asking for enough to deal with the issue. And that is assuming the strategy of more boots on the ground is even an effective one. It isn't because the whole strategy is based on loonytunes logic [emph. mine], according to Pen and Sword's Jeff Huber:

Obama said that he would only approve another escalation if he has "absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be." McChrystal’s report is incoherent on the subject of strategy.

It says, “We must conduct classic counterinsurgency operations” and states that success depends not on “seizing terrain or destroying insurgent forces” but on “gaining the support of the people.” That’s laughable in light of the fact that classic clear-hold-build counterinsurgency operations involve seizing terrain and destroying the insurgent forces that occupy it.

The notion that we can separate the Afghan people from the insurgents is as ludicrous as the idea of invading Mexico to separate the Hispanics from the Latinos. Nor can we pretend to be the good guys when the Karzai government we prop up is as bad or worse than the insurgents. McChrystal admits that Afghans have “little reason to support their government.”

McChrystal says he sees no sign of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. So, his argument goes, in order to disrupt al-Qaeda terror network, we need 45,000 more troops to occupy a country al Qaeda is not in to make sure it doesn’t come back. And what exactly is this al-Qaeda juggernaut we’ve come to quake in fear of? As former CIA officer Philip Giraldi recently noted, “An assessment by France’s highly regarded Paris Institute of Political Studies [suggests that] Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda has likely been reduced to a core group of eight to ten terrorists who are on the run more often than not.”

If McChrystal and his allies get their way, we’ll have deployed over 135,000 troops to Afghanistan—on top of the roughly 130,000 troops still in Iraq—for the purpose of rounding up fewer than a dozen bad guys. Daffy Duck and Wiley Coyote could come up with a better strategy than that. Our military leadership and its supporters are a thundering herd of buffoons whose only real objective is to keep the cash caissons rolling and the gravy ships afloat and the wild blue budget sky high.

I still have a pile of video to sort through and edit from this event, and more from another event that featured Ned Lamont and Rep. Rosa DeLauro.

Don't Let Them Increase Choice With A Public Option!

Funny or Die?

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Blue Dog Mike Ross Real Estate Scandal?

Via TomP at dKos, Rep. Mike Ross is getting his first taste of promised push-back for going against what the majority of Americans want:

ProPublica is reporting that Blue Dog Congressman Mike Ross (DINO-AR) "sold a piece of commercial property in 2007 for substantially more than a county assessment and an independent appraisal say it was worth."

Who did he sell it to? An Arkansas-based pharmacy chain with an interest in defeating universal health care.

Ross sold the real estate in Prescott, Ark., to USA Drug for $420,000 -- an eye-popping number for real estate in the tiny train and lumber town about 100 miles southwest of Little Rock.

"You can buy half the town for $420,000," said Adam Guthrie, chairman of the county Board of Equalization and the only licensed real estate appraiser in Prescott.

ProPublica: Mike Ross Raises Eyebrows With Healthy Haul

But it's not just $420,000. There is an extra almost 1 million dollars that went to the Rosses in the deal. The total value of the transaction is between $1 million and $1.67 million.

Any other Blue Dogs or Money Party candidates in Congress want to reconsider selling out Americans to the health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations? If we don't hear from you, you will very likely hear from us...

Update: Rachel Maddow gives the story a little love:



Crooks and Liars has a statement from Ross on this "Gotcha Politics" traditionally called bribes.

Boehner at CPAC calling all of Obama's Policies Socialist

Flushing out Boehner's lie on Meet the Press and a David Gregory that doesn't follow politics well enough to be able to call him out on the obvious:



Boehner is no different then any other Bircher whackjob.

Healy Is Still Fat, Drunk and Stupid

Seriously, Healy, is this really a great way for you to to continue to go through life?

"Let this be a warning to those who think they can roll the American people and get away it. Exhibit A is the quick destruction of ACORN - Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - after several videos showed their members setting up prostitution ring and one member bragging how she shot her husband dead without anyone knowing about it - until she told the tale on tape."

If the pitiful head Connecticut Republican mobile liquor sponge would turn off Glen Beck and the FOX noise for a few minutes he might begin to realize how much of a joke he really is.

I can't do anything about your being fat and drunk, Healy, but here is some Kryptonite for your stupid:

Here’s what ACORN says:

When the actors approached Ms. Kaelke with their provocative costuming and outlandish scenario, she could not take them seriously. So she met their outrageousness with her own personal style of outrageousness. She matched their false scenario with her own false scenarios.

“They were not believable”, said Ms. Kaelke of the two actors. “Somewhat entertaining, but they weren’t even good actors. I didn’t know what to make of them. They were clearly playing with me. I decided to shock them as much as they were shocking me. Like Stephan Colbert does – saying the most outrageous things with a straight face.” While her sense of humor might not be funny to many people, the fact is that she spun false scenario after false scenario and the videographer ate them up.

For example, in response to the set-up by the filmmakers in which they say they are trying get the young woman away from her abusive pimp, she responds that she was abused by her former husband as well (true) and that she shot and killed him (false). He is very much alive and living near Barstow, CA.

However, this is taken as the gospel truth, not just in the film itself, but also by several “news” personalities, indicating that no journalistic standards were applied to making the video or vetting it for broadcast.

And here’s a report from the San Bernadino police department:

An undercover video reportedly filmed in the San Bernardino office for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was recently released on the Internet. The film depicts a worker talking about her past involvement in prostitution and the alleged self- defense killing of her former husband.

The San Bernardino Police Department is investigating the claims made regarding
the homicide. From the initial investigation conducted, the claims do not appear to be factual. Investigators have been in contact with the involved party’s known former husbands, who are alive and well.

Of course when the video popped, righties didn’t apply their b.s.-filters and like when Cheney said Iraq would greet us as liberators, just assumed all was as it appeared.

Yet again... Joke is you.

Healy is, still, clearly "Fat, drunk and stupid"  if he thinks anyone is buying the Republican snake oil he sells.

McMahon and Schiff Add Names to #CTGOPBattleRoyale

Via tparty at MLN:

This morning, proud non-voter Peter Schiff officially entered the ring of the 2010 #CTGOPbattleroyale. This is the man about whom Stuart Rothenberg wrote earlier this year that he saw:

"...no evidence that he understands how to talk to voters who have the kinds of problems that average Americans in Connecticut face each and every day, no evidence that he'd be effective in the Senate and no evidence that he has even the vaguest idea how to put together a campaign"

But while Schiff will have tens of millions to spend savaging the Republican party, he may actually be late to the main event: Linda McMahon vs. Rob Simmons, which now appears to be a rematch of an under-the-radar fight the two had in 2006.
In late September 2006, as then-Congressman Rob Simmons was busy trying to fend off Joe Courtney in the closing weeks of what turned out to be an historically close election in eastern Connecticut, Greenwich multimillionaire McMahon from the other side of the state contributed $10,000 to the DCCC to help give Simmons that final push off the ledge:

McMahon, Linda E.
Greenwich, CT 06831
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.
DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE (D)
$10,000
primary 09/29/06

Here is Linda McMahon's unofficial announcement:

A cool dose of DFH reality

Might not be safe for work... But FUCK IT!

DFH by joeyess

Sweeoowweet... Here Doggy

Via Jed Lewison, the happy-go-lucky teabaggers:

A collage from this weekend's teabagger rally in DC (photos posted by NineTwelvePhotos on Flickr):

Aren't they such thoughtful and happy people?

Much like these people, via Connecticut Bob:

Ray Charles disrupts Tea Party!

In a brilliant bit of political theater, the 9/11 tea party in Bridgeport was interrupted by the legendary Ray Charles, singing an American classic! Ann Coulter was on the stage when it happened.

They don't seem to appreciate having their voices drowned out by America, the beautiful, when they are trying to speak. Imagine that? And, of course, those were happy threats of violence they were loudly sharing with the neighborhood.

And please remember to hide the white women because Obama is an angry black man...

Good hypocritical doggy!

A little Black history in the making...

I was checking out The Field Negro's Blog and Wayne had something far more interesting on his sidebar than anything he has written lately, to myself at least. (Sorry Field, not knocking your writing but I am a veteran.)

I have not checked out the background on this project or the "producer" myself, so if you are interested in helping out on this I suggest you use due diligence and verify before you give. I'll try and check if Wayne has looked into yet, himself. ([UPDATE] I just got an email back from Wayne and he said that he did do "some" looking into it and it appears legit. Again and always, do use due diligence and verify before you give.) Anyways, below is what Wayne had up there on the sidebar:

HEY FOLKS, PLEASE READ THIS AND SHOOT AN E-MAIL TO THIS BROTHA TO SEE HOW YOU CAN HELP HIM. THANKS!

Choc’late Soldiers From The USAA Landmark Television Project Po Box 63511 Philadelphia, PA 19147 215-627-6265 Heshprod@gmail.com

Dear Field:An attorney friend of mine referred me to you as a possible source of help.In fewer than 70 days, Choc’late Soldiers from the USA (CSUSA), a landmark documentary about the service, sacrifice and bravery of African American soldiers in Great Britain and Europe during World War II is scheduled to premiere (see attachment) at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture on November 10, 2009.

My primary sponsor who had promised funds for the documentary’s premiere and completion is unable to fulfill its obligation, so I am left to scramble for completion funds. I am requesting that you use your blog to bring attention to my situation, which could result in an influx of sponsors in time for the November 10th premiere.CSUSA is the untold story of African American soldiers in wartime England and Europe. It was in England where many Blacks experienced, for the first time, what it was like to be treated as Americans, and as equals. It was in England where many fell in love with British women, and some go on to have families. When Blacks left England for war-torn Europe, they demonstrated their mettle and courage in combat; some took pay cuts and had their rank reduced for the privilege of volunteering for combat. It was these character-shaping experiences that gave Black veterans the courage and conviction to fight for civil rights in America during the following decades. All of us stand on the shoulders of this “The Greatest Generation.” CSUSA can go a long way toward educating Americans, of all colors, about the sacrifices Black Americans have made in defending a democracy, which, for most of its history, has denied them the rights and privileges of being an American. Surely these men and women, who fought in a segregated army and who were thwarted at every turn by racist practices, deserve to be honored as “The Greatest of the Greatest Generation.”

But time is running short. Every day 1,200 WWII veterans die. Soon they will all be gone and no one will be left to tell their heroic sagas, the stories of unbelievable patriotism against overwhelming odds. CSUSA is an unprecedented opportunity to tell an untold American story and to once and for all let these African American heroes take their rightful places in American history.While we await a decision from a major foundation, we are seeking $332,000 to complete CSUSA in time for the Smithsonian Institution’s premiere on November 10, 2009. (Sponsors usually give increments of $50k) I am pulling out all stops to secure the funds for completion, which is why I am contacting you. Anyone who underwrites the premiere and completion of CSUSA will receive the following benefits:• Their name/organization in the film credits and all accompanying materials such as brochures, posters and study guides• A tax deduction up to the maximum allowed by the IRS• Inclusion of their name in major newspaper and magazine articles as a supporter of the project• Their personal legacy linked to helping complete an enduring piece of American historyAs a former high school and college educator, I am dedicated to the long-term proposition of teaching young people about black World War II veterans.

Part of the budget will be used to develop high school and college-level curricula for American and British students. I can think of no better gift to bequeath to future generations.Choc’late Soldiers from the USA has already generated enthusiastic interest from civilians, veterans and scholars in the U.S. and Britain, and has been featured at academic conferences and commemorative ceremonies.

Also, as a work-in-progress documentary, it placed third in competition at the D.C. Independent Film Festival in 2008. I am enclosing a verifiable list of veterans, historians and sponsors who are directly involved with CSUSA.Field, I am requesting that you use you blogging influence to help me raise funds for the Smithsonian Institution premiere and completion for PBS slated for next year.

I hope you are able to help me.

Sincerely,Gregory S. CookeProducer.


[p.s. He will take donations starting from a $1.00
Just think, you can be a part of making this happen for a $1.00. Now that I like.]