Father, bail me out!

The lipstick now belongs on the pig’s ass.

A year ago Treasury Secretary Paulson testified before Congress that “the economy is ‘marvelous, absolutely marvelous’”. Paulson is the former Goldman Sachs CEO who, in 2005, “earned” a $38 million bonus. He was one of the highest paid executives in America for ten years. Now he wants $700 billion to pass out to his Wall Street friends to get them back on their feet.

Since Bush became President, the top 400 individuals in the U.S. “earned” $670 billion. Staggering. As many are saying, even some key Republicans, Treasury Secretary Paulson’s bailout plan is just socialism for the rich. Do you hear the cheering? That’s Wall Street. Real economists hate it. Paulson’s original proposal was totally ridiculous.
Listen to David Herszenhorn of The New York Times tear it apart.

This “bailout” attempt goes hand-in-hand with the massive dishonesty and monstrous incompetence of the Bush Administration. Imagine the nerve, for the administration to say a month ago the fundamentals of the economy were strong. The code-speak there? Our rich friends are doing well. Now the fox wants a golden key to the hen house.

The Bush cabal have absolutely no regard for the middle class. We don’t exist. It is survival of the fittest for us. In 2007 Wall Street’s top firms paid out $39 billion in performance bonsus. Take a breath and read that again. $39,000,000,000.00. Right now, the top 1% of Americans earn more than all the bottom 50% combined. Yet universal health care is socialism, helping poor people heat their homes this winter is socialism, helping them send their kids to college, socialism. Bail out that wealthiest 1%? Absolutely necessary, with no judicial or legislative review. A total blank check. “Trust us”. . . . on a pig’s ass we will.

And don’t expect real help from John McCain. Phil Gramm/John McCain hold the prize for being the most rabid, super deregulators in Congress. The government’s last big bank bailout involved McCain, his poor judgement and joyous connivance with the banks - the Keating Five scandal.
Listen to a short, interesting refresher course on the S&L bailout.

As James Joyce proposed, life is an intensely serious low comedy. How could he know the “free market” buffoons would play it so perfectly?

Time is short to reassure the world about our capability. It can be measured in days. The next act in this low comedy could be ugly.

U.S. Army on a mission from God - Palin

Is Palin another possible commander-in-chief who talks with God? (Does God issue secret commands to Exxon/Mobil, too? He never talked to me about oil.) Are we colonizing Islamic nations to be Christian-lite or die? Is her God an angry white man with a long beard who issues commands from "up there"? And just what are HIS commandments?

"Sarah, this is GOD speaking. Let me put this in a friendly way for now, babe, since you're not very humble and don't take criticism well. Let's work on that, but for now, we need to get you and your buddies that oil, the oil I misplaced in the sands of Iraq. Oh, what was I thinking! We need that gas pipeline for Alaska, too. Do that for me, honey. I'll give you a free pass to kill some more moose! OK? Atta girl."

Read more about some troubling beliefs of Sarah Palin.

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If you don't know about NewsTrust.net, go there and read their story picks. Here are some top picks today:

• McCain's Convenient Untruth
  Washington Post - By Sebastian Mallaby - Sep. 8 (Opinion)
  Higher tax rates mean a lower budget deficit. According to the Tax Policy Center, over the course of a decade Obama's plan would result in a national debt $1...
  (4.3)
  

  See Reviews | Review It
  
  
• Her deadly wolf program
  Salon - By Mark Benjamin - Sep. 8 (Special Report)
  Palin didn't think Alaskans should be allowed to chase wolves from aircraft and shoot them -- they should be encouraged to do so. Palin's administration put a bounty on wolves'...
  (4.2)
  

  See Reviews | Review It
  
  
• An e-mail to friends from Wasilla becomes Internet hit
  McClatchy - By S.J. Komarnitsky - Sep. 8 (News Report)
  In all the coverage of Palin, Kilkenny's e-mail offers something maybe unique: a critique from someone who has known Palin since 1992 and been observing her up close for many...
  (3.9)
  

  See Reviews | Review It
  
  
• The Perilous Price of Oil
  The New York Review of Books - By George Soros - Sep. 8 (Special Report)
  The public is asking for an answer to two questions. The principal question is whether the sharp oil price increase is a speculative bubble or simply reflects fundamental factors...
  (3.8)
  

  See Reviews | Review It
  
  
• Storm Troopers at the RNC
  Consortium News - By Ray McGovern - Sep. 8 (News Report)
  On the fringes there was some property damage and further arrests. What violence there was bore the earmarks of provocation by the likes of Sheriff Fletcher and his Homeland...
  (3.8)
  

  See Reviews | Review It

I'm White, I'm Right, I Love to Kill (Moose)

Bullwinkle, beware. A foxy girl with a high tech rifle feels entitled to kill you. She's a perfect choice for warrior McCain, who feels we should have gone into Iraq AND Iran long before we did. Making war is his métier. Same old story - it's your money but his toys. (He is apparently unaffected by all the "collateral damage" he caused in the city of Hanoi as an Air Force pilot.)


I was personally ashamed of all the gushing praise from the mainstream media, including NPR, of Sarah Palin. Any questions of the wisdom of her as a choice for the vice commander-in-chief are considered unfair attacks of the "elite, left coast media". Yet the vicious, nonsensical rebuttals from these smug, self-satisfied candidates continued to intimidate the media. You thought the Bush/Cheney arrogance and secrecy were intolerable. You might well be going to jail under McCain/Palin if you dare have an opinion outside official doctrine.

Take a listen:


What is it about the people with money and personality disorders? They think anything they say is sacrosanct, and how dare you have another opinion! That's the oligarchy speaking, the bullying of a dying military-industrial complex, the last gasping breath of the angry white men of America, the self-entitled looters of the U.S. treasury, the folks who privatize profits but socialize the costs. The Ugly Americans of the 1950's have returned, in spades.

Unfortunately, the future of our country is in the hands of the undecided voters, the voters who are disconnected from any real skills of independent evaluation, the folks whose values have been programmed by the commercial culture they feel lost without. Yet one more bad choice by the "undecided" will certainly send us into oblivion.