Month: February 2010

Rats Abandon A Sinking Ship

This is just amazing……daily there are reports of political rats leaving the ship of government…..call it retirement if you would like….but the real word is COWARDICE…

Why cowardice?  These people are running scared for their political future and want to leave at their own choice not that of the voters….these people are NOT into politics for the betterment of the country but rather their own egos…..

The sinking ship that I refer to is that of government……the vehicle is not doing well…..these pathetic souls are more worried about how it will look if they are defeated than the enrichment of the American people…egos…superficial pr*cks…..

Look at Kennedy of RI or Lincoln of Arkansas or Dodd of Conn or Dorgan of SD or Bayh of Ind and on and on……in the House alone so far 14 GOP are not running and 10 Dems….

They are leaving the ship of government for all the same reasons…..(pause of effect)…..that ship is a rudderless vehicle that has NO direct with the exception of driving it onto the rocks…..the system NO longer works…it is a dysfunctional system that has NO chance of righting itself ……the system that the Founders were so proud of is a complete bust…..just look at the workings of the legislative branch….NOTHING is getting done while the country suffers…..

Yes these guys and gals will be replaced….but with what?…will it be a new batch of nare-do-wells or will we finally get people that are interested in the plight of the country……my guess would be that the replacements will be No better than those they replace…..NOTHING will change until the people actually care about the country and stop worrying about their petty little issues…..The country is dying of a slow cancer…..a cancer of indifference…..

Bullsh*t Ideas!

In the last year there has been a number bullsh*t ideas that have been offered to the people as solutions to problems…..to me they are just what they smell like….MANURE!

Here are some of the more smelly of the lot…….

The new idea (pause here for laughter) of giving the shareholders the vote on whether CEOs can get a bonus….sounds like a good idea…correct?  try agin it is BS!  Why?  Most of the shares held are held by funds of some sort and they will decide who gets the cash…YOU have very little to say about it…..it is crap!

Next is the inevitable idea of privatizing Social Security….yet again…this is a continuous thing for the Repus….they have hated SS since the beginning and eventually they will get their way and the seniors in the U S will be f*cked!  If they had their way every accdount for retirement would have been wiped out inn the latest economic thing….but they try and try….and soon they will get their way….

Now on to one of my favs…the health savings Acount (HSA)…..a proposal to let people have a health account instead of real reform….this helps NO one but the banks and funds….futhermore the next economic crisis will wioe these accounts out just like the one now wiped out many 401ks…..another Repub idea to destroy the middle class (my opinion)….

Allowing corporations to fully fund political campaigns…the conservs on the Supreme Court is allowing this….the Congress is attempting to lessen this but time will tell…..for now corporations have it all….

Finally, I recently heard yet another inevtiable proposal…..Conservs say that lowering the corporation taxes will create jobs…..the figure they use is corporate tax is a  bout 30-35% in the US…one of the highest in the world….but the proponents of this fail to mention all the tax breaks and incentives that corporations already get from the government…in reality the “real” tax is much much lower…but yet it is proposed everytime the word deficit is mentioned…….

As usual there is always more and more BS proposals….this one is yet another GOP stand-by…..reduce the payroll taxes…..you know what that means, right?  Cut payroll taxes and the government will have less money to spend of pet projects from the Congress….it would also mean less deductions for FICA….which would make it even less solvent than now….which would make it easier to kill the program altogether….this may well be the plan all along……

Most of these BS ideas are inevitable….especially from the GOP….but yet they have very little validity when working on real solutions to real problems….just your typical slogans, talking points and lies….but what’s new?

Don’t Look Now But It Is Not Over!

We hear daily conflicting reports on how the economy is doing….first it is good, then after adjustments, not so good….we hear that banks are paying out massive bonuses and still using taxpayer cash…..we hear lots of manure daily, weekly and monthly on the condition of the American economy……investors are thrilled at the news…but the rest of us wait for our turn for attention…

Neil Barofsky of the TARP Fund office sees something a little different than the media:

Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the US bank bailout, released his quarterly report to Congress Saturday, saying, “It is hard to see how any of the fundamental problems in the [financial] system have been addressed to date.”

The document claimed that the financial system is more dangerous now than ever before because banks have reason to think the government will step in again when their speculative bets go bad. “Even if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car,” Barofsky wrote.

Following the financial meltdown, the biggest banks grew even bigger as they bought up their failed rivals. As Barofsky put it in his report, “To the extent that huge, interconnected, ‘too big to fail’ institutions contributed to the crisis, those institutions are now even larger, in part because of the substantial subsidies provided by TARP and other bailout programs.”

The report emphasized that, despite the trillions of dollars provided by the bailout, the banks have continued to decrease lending. Barofsky stated, “Although there was this public disclosure that the purpose of these programs was to increase lending, very little, if anything, was done to encourage or direct lending.”

The report does not sound too cheery about the future of the economy…….it seems that the same conditions that caused the economic problems are still there and waiting for the next chance to throw a monkey wrench into the machinery of the economy…..no amount of cash thrown at a problem will solve it if the underlying conditions remain…it is NOT rocket science….it is common sense….

Bureaucrats–Manage By Paperwork

Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  Government/Political History/Political Theory

Paper #3

For months now an avid reader Quin of Quintessential Havoc (go to blogroll it is an insightful and well done blog) and I have been bitching about bureaucrats and their influence on most governments….so I sat about to explain bureaucracy and its functions….not one of my more simple of endeavors……

I tried for several days to find an opening for this ……but each time it did not seem to have a good enough hook to catch the imagination of the reader……

Bureaucrats?  Bureaucracy?  What comes to mind when I mention those words….(pause for reflection)…..How about inefficiency?  Or red tape?  Would buck passing enter your mind?  Maybe unfeeling?  Would stupidity do it for you?

We all have an opinion on what a bureaucrat is….the most notable are a/holes, lazy, do-dahs……but there is a real honest to God definition of bureaucracy…..

There are a number of different meanings….1) a system of administration carried out on a continuous basis by trained professionals, 2) a system of government  where leading executive positions are filled by professional administrators……

No matter which one is your favorite…the very mention of bureaucracy sends chills down most people’s spine……bureaucracy is an endless stream of meetings and order…though both are extremely inefficient…the bureaucrat when faced with a dilemna the answer will be that the rules were not followed or that the proper paperwork was not submitted…it is NEVER the fault of the bureaucrat…..

Personnel changes, like when the new Pres comes in, never changes the bureaucracy, if anything the new admin will adopt to the bureaucracy….just look at the Obama Admin….a prime example…..then tampering with the budget of a bureaucracy seldom changes anything at all….a cut in the budget will bring about cuts in much needed programs…not in the personnel make-up….and then if we throw money at the bureaucracy….nothing change….the money will be spent on raises, enlarged staff, studies, commissions, consultants and more do-dahs….

Mediocrity is the rule of a bureaucrat, they are not conscientious or make no sacrifices or for that matter, they are not particularly innovative ….but the one characteristic that they all possess is loyalty….but that is not particularly a good thing…rather it is self-preservation…..for the one thing that is important to the bureaucrat is their longevity…..

But can bureaucracy ever be controlled?

So they say….but you decide……

The elitist say that role of political leadership and advocate a design to secure political of the bureaucracy; this includes the appointing of top executive positions…..and then there are theorists who believe in open government and advocate the open access to government documents and information…..the participatory theorist looks at the need for participation on the local level on the grounds that the character of policy cannot be separated from the manner of its execution…..

The bad news is that if representative form of democracy or government to work properly then a massive amounts of administrators (bureaucrats) is needed and then when the legislative branch becomes more dysfunctional the more bureaucrats are needed to make the government work……

So the bottom line is…if there is an accurate way to control and make a bureaucracy more efficient it is not known or the person is keeping it to myself…..there is lots of talk about the control….but none of it seems to work….why?…..because those that would make it work are part of the problem…the bureaucracy….a conundrum that has NO answer short of a total replacement of the system we have……and that is not an answer either….why?…..all systems need a degree of bureaucracy to succeed…the conundrum continues…..

Note:  Paper #4  will be on Participatory Democracy—I know the suspense will be almost intolerable but stay tuned….

Who Really Deserves A Holiday?

Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  American History

Tomorrow is President’s Day, a day set aside to celebrate of several of our most influential people.  We Americans seem to want to celebrate those people that history says we owe some admiration for, for their deeds, words, etc.  But the one person that has done more in the early years of the Republic gets NO admiration or respect or acknowledgment.

Let us look at George Washington—our first president and general of the Continental Army…..but he may not have even been a footnote if not for Thomas Paine…it was he that urged the Continental Congress to appoint Washington as the commanding general of the ragtag army.  Then if he had not been the general of the army then it is feasible that he would probably not been the first president.

The DoI was the direct result of his ideas…think not?  Then read the DoI and then read Common Sense….the DoI is a condensed version of the pamphlet.  Jefferson may have hand written the DoI but the ideas were Paine’s and Paine’s alone.  Jefferson did not have the passion of an idealist, Paine did and ALL of his works and writings prove this out.

The issue of slavery—- it was Paine’s  anti-slavery writing of “African Slavery In America”  in 1775 that lead to the FIRST anti-slavery association called ” The Society for Relief of Free Negroes, Unlawfully Held in Bondage”.   It was founded in April 1775 in Philadelphia in the Sun Tavern on Second Street.  It can be said that Thomas Paine was the Father of the Abolitionist Movement and the first person in America to speak out publicly against the despicable practice of slavery.  But yet we celebrate Abraham Lincoln as the great savior of those held in bondage.

Paine also spoke out for justice for women, making him one of the first American feminist, he also championed an “old age” pension of American citizens and the education of all citizens especially the poor and he also called for a “Great Republic of All Nations” of the world, which could be the very concept of the UN.

And let us not forget, he , Paine, was the first person to call for a declaration of independence and he was the very FIRST person to use the term, United States of America.  As well as his pamphlet “Common Sense” turned the population into a radical band of revolutionaries that demanded independence from Mother England.

With ALL these accomplishments, Thomas Paine has been ignored by American historians, which is a sad indictment of the reactionary attitudes of people that read the histories.

If there is ANYONE in American History that deserves a holiday or even a little recognition it is Thomas Paine…..who, by his very nature, made the “revolution” possible as well as a wealth of other things that can be attributed to him.. je has been ignored mainly because of the assertion that he was an atheist, which is one of history’s biggest lies like the lie the church has propagated for centuries that Mary Magdaline was a whore…..both are outrageous LIES….Paine was not an atheist he was a deist, he believed in God just not the trappings that organized religion would have us believe…..we as a country owe way too much to Paine and we have given him NOTHING in return……that is a pathetic indictment of the country….

2010 Anal-Ocity #3

The Tea Party Convention has come and gone and is now in the history books, well the books that neo-cons want us to read……all in all the convention was a success but then there was good old reliable Tom Tancredo, former congressman from Colorado…it seems his comments on the first night of the convention have him in a bit of a pickle…….

“Because we don’t have a civics literacy test to vote, people who couldn’t even spell ‘vote,’ or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House named Barack Hussein Obama.”

Tancredo simply calls it good public policy to require citizens to pass a civics literacy test to be allowed to vote.

“To suggest that a civics literacy test will necessarily be discriminatory is absurd,” said Tancredo. “I have long advocated a civics literacy test for voters, and have often suggested we could use the same test as used for immigrants seeking to become naturalized citizens.”

If he gets his way we all will have to take a literacy test, but if I am not mistaken amendment 15 of the US Constitution pretty much says that it cannot be done…but why let the Constitution get in the way of your ranting and raving?

But if we as voters have to take a literacy test then why not make it mandatory that the people that represent us have a knowledge of the civics that Tancredo is so worried about?  Just in the last year prominent politicians have been caught on youtube show their ignorance of the Constitution…..for example, the minority leader of the House of Representatives at a rally held up the Constitution and quoted the Declaration of Independence……these people use the Constitution as a prop to stand on while they deliver their soliloquy….I would prefer that the reps in Washington understand Civics more than the voter…after all they are the ones making decisions for us and they are ignorant of the stuff government is made of……

What is next?  The color of ones hair?  Or maybe where you live?  What is next?  When will you people have had enough of these ass clowns that you send to Washington?  Tancredo is an opportunist…he is looking for an audience for his next endeavor…the nomination….

A Commercial Loan Crisis?

I was surfing this morning and found this piece of information on CNN/Money:

A congressional watchdog panel warned on Thursday that mounting commercial real estate losses could endanger the banking system and thwart economic recovery.A total of $1.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans will require refinancing in the next four years, the Congressional Oversight Panel said in a report. More than half of those loans are underwater, written for properties whose value has dropped like a rock.

The expected losses when loans go bad could hit between $200 billion to $300 billion and threaten 3,000 small and mid-size banks with a disproportionate share of commercial real estate assets on their books, according to the panel.

The panel’s research found that 2,988 banks are heavily invested — with more than three times their assets tied up — in commercial real estate loans. Of that number, 2,500 banks each have less than $1 billion in assets.

The first thought that comes to mind is…”YA THINK?”

Gee if only we had more informed people that could have seen this coming….WAIT!……we DO!

On 6 January 2010 the great blog, “Info Ink” (okay I am biased), had a good post along these lines, but yet it took over a  month for the Washington insiders to come up with this conclusion…check it out:

The Next Economic Tsunami?

My point is….apparently, we bloggers are a bit more perceptive than our counterparts that work for corporate media or the Washington machine…..maybe instead of putting all yoiur faith in the “media” you should read more and then you would NOT be so surprised when stuff bites you in the ass….Just a thought….

More On GOP Health Alternatives

Okay, let’s beat this damn dead donkey one more f*cking time!

Bi-partisanship is the buzzword in Washington and now the Prez is trying to grasp the concept with his new health care summit with Repubs…..good luck with that……

I have been accused by some as a basher of the GOP and that I do not think that they do anything right….Personally, I do not agree with this assessment but then I may be biased…..

Below is the alternatives that was recently handed to the Prez at a Repub Leadership Conference…….my comments on the proposals are in italics:

Some key elements of Republicans’ alternative plan:

· Lowering health care premiums. The GOP plan will lower health care premiums for American families and small businesses, addressing Americans’ number-one priority for health care reform.  I think this proposals is sterling….but I would like more info on just how they plan to accomplish this…..

· Establishing Universal Access Programs to guarantee access to affordable care for those with pre-existing conditions. The GOP plan creates Universal Access Programs that expand and reform high-risk pools and reinsurance programs to guarantee that all Americans, regardless of pre-existing conditions or past illnesses, have access to affordable care – while lowering costs for all Americans.  this is yet another GREAT idea and it was also when proposed by the Dems…..

· Ending junk lawsuits. The GOP plan would help end costly junk lawsuits and curb defensive medicine by enacting medical liability reforms modeled after the successful state laws of California and Texas.  This is just a typical GOP answer….lawsuits account for about 1% of the cost of health care….do not believe this would do much to solve the problems of paying for health reform….this is inevitable for Repubs to propose…..the reason is that they need to placate the insurance industry for their monetary support….but if it will get them talking then by all means throw it in…..

· Prevents insurers from unjustly cancelling a policy or instituting annual of lifetime spending caps. The GOP plan prohibits an insurer from cancelling a policy unless a person commits fraud or conceals material facts about a health condition. It also prohibits insurance plans from instituting annual or lifetime spending limits. Another good idea…but it sounds like an out for insurance companies, atr least parts of it…..but worth a look….

· Encouraging Small Business Health Plans. The GOP plan gives small businesses the power to pool together and offer health care at lower prices, just as corporations and labor unions do. I have NO prob with this proposal, in fact sounds like a good idea…..

· Encouraging innovative state programs. The GOP plan rewards innovation by providing incentive payments to states that reduce premiums and the number of uninsured.  As long as this is used to benefit all the people of the states then I see NO prob here either….

· Allowing Americans to buy insurance across state lines. The GOP plan allows Americans to shop for coverage from coast to coast by allowing Americans living in one state to purchase insurance in another.  An EXCELLENT idea…….

· Codifying the Hyde Amendment. The GOP plan explicitly prohibits all federal funds, whether they are authorized funds or appropriated funds, from being used to pay for abortion. This one is just boring, but I guess if it is your main concern then why not…..

· Promoting healthier lifestyles. The GOP plan promotes prevention & wellness by giving employers greater flexibility to financially reward employees who adopt healthier lifestyles.  This one I have a prob with….but that is for a much larger post because this involves much more than eating….

· Enhancing Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). The GOP plan creates new incentives to save for future and long-term care needs by allowing qualified participants to use HSAs to pay premiums.  A CRAP proposal!  The recent economic meltdown should preclude anyone from considering this piece of crap!

There you have it….the Repubs alternatives and what I think of them…..if you took the time to read it then you will see that there is room for lots of bi-partisanship….the question to ask is why is there not?

One answer is the games politician play….instead of going before the American people and emphasizing their points and commonality of points, they would rather spend their time insulting, lying and  just plain throwing negativity around….there is common ground why cannot they just work from there and leave all the BS behind?

Personally, I would not vote for any of these dickheads….they show a serious lack of country first….both sides…..there is plenty within the Repub plan that has the potential to be bi-partisan and worthy of negotiation…..if this does not take place for whatever reason then the American people will see that it is NOT about them but rather the egos and  the idiocracy of Washington…….then it will be time to send these dinks a message to start acting on the people’s behalf or go home and service the wife/husband….because YOU ARE finished in Washington….

Who Is The Father Of Civil Rights?

Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  American History/Black History

February is Black History Month and I would like to write about a person that gets NO respect when it comes to history.  We can teach all about Douglass and Dred Scott and Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King, Jr, and I do not want to take anything away from these important figures in the fight against slavery and champions of civil rights, but there are those people that began the fight even earlier than mentioned.

The very beginning of the history of this country was a pivotal time and it could have been a historic time in the anti-slavery movement….wait!  Until 1775, there was NO anti-slavery movement.  There may have been those people that thought it was a despicable practice but if they did they kept their thoughts and opinions to themselves…that is until the arrival of one Thomas Paine, who later became famous for his pamphlet, “Common Sense” which is credited for the whole independence movement.

In November of 1774 Paine arrived in the Colonies from England with a letter of introduction from Ben Franklin.  He then set about acquiring work as a printer and writer.  One of his first published works was an essay entitled “African Slavery In America”….in which he set about condemning the practice harshly….one of the first to do so publicly in the Colonies.  History teaches us that several of the founding fathers detested the practice and even cursed it privately, but NONE did anything about it.  Paine did!

Shortly after the publishing of Paine’s condemnation of slavery, the first anti-slavery society was formed in Philadelphia in the Sun Tavern on Second Street in April 1775.

Later in our history it was Abraham Lincoln that gave us the Emancipation Proclamation, but if you read Paine’s anti-slavery essay you will see that Lincoln had the second proclamation;  he was not that original.

Everyone is taught that 22 September 1862, Lincoln issued the first Emancipation Proclamation and no where is the essay by Thomas Paine taught or even remembered.  For without Paine the anti-slavery movement would have been longer in coming to the forefront of American society.

Once again I say that I am NOT trying to lessen or ignore any of the people and their attempts in the area of civil rights, only that everyone involved should be acknowledged and celebrated and held in high esteem for ending an institution that makes people slaves……

Questions? We Have Questions…..

In a recent event Obama was asked questions by Repubs and he answered…it was a win for him (and he did not need a teleprompter….a fact that is overlooked by the opposition that accuses him of too much)…..and now there are calls from bloggers, progressives, libertarians, etc for a regular session of questions by the Congress to the Prez and it is suppose to be broadcast…..thoughts?

For me, I think it is a damn good idea……no teleprompter….random questions…..with short concise answers…that would be a win-win for the people and their education on the issues….. I agree with Voltaire, “Judge a man by his questios rather than his answers”……meaning……the question that is asked will be far more telling than the answer that is received….if it is the Repubs then we will see if they truly want to work bi-partisan or just there to say NO to everything……and because it is televised the people will be the winner and become more informed…..

From the website:  demandquestiontime.com:

America could use more of this — an unfettered and public airing of political differences by our elected representatives. So we call on President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner to hold these sessions regularly — and allow them to be broadcast and webcast live and without commercial interruption, sponsorship or intermediaries. We also urge the President and the Republican Senate caucus to follow suit. And we ask the President and the House and Senate caucuses of his own party to consider mounting similar direct question-and-answer sessions. We will ask future Presidents and Congresses to do the same.

It is time to make Question Time a regular feature of our democracy.

Please join us by signing the Demand Question Time petition.

If you believe that this type of thing can make our democracy a bit stronger then I urge you to sign the petition!

Question time has been an institution in the UK for some time now and I am sure that there are those that think it is a waste of time, but I prefer to hear from my friend Quin of Quintessential Havoc (blogroll will get you there…a site worth the visit)……