Amy Goodman looks at Barack Obama

Posted on November 8, 2008 by Tony Logan

Amy Goodman gives Barack Obama a fair lookover during a discussion with investigative journalist John Pilger in Britain, Columbia University professor and Africa scholar Mahmood Mamdani, Laura Carlsen of the Center for International Policy in Mexico City, Iraqi analyst Raed Jarrar, Pakistani author Tariq Ali, and Palestinian American Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada.
President-Elect Obama and the Future of US Foreign Policy: A Roundtable Discussion The focus is on foreign policy and the conclusions are rather gloomy about what 4 years with Barack as the Great Helmsman in the White House will actually soon begin to look like.

What a breath of fresh air Amy Goodman gives America with this program. It is nice to see intelligent discussion of reality as opposed to adulatory and adolescent fantasies about the new president that border on worship services at a Pentecostal Church. It is clear that all of these people who participated in this round table discussion on Goodman’s program understand that Barack Obama is not alone at sail on The Seven Seas, but is clearly part of a leadership teem astride an American aircraft carrier armed to the teeth. None of them seem to be very positive about what the future will bring from this sad perspective.

Since the focus of this discussion with Amy is Obama’s future foreign policy, there is little mention of what his future domestic policies will probably be like. It would be great if she continues the dialog with yet another round table discussion that examines just that question! I rather think that the conclusions from an informed group of Leftists about the future Democratic Party’s agenda under Obama will be just as dreary if she does look at his plans on the domestic front as well. After all, we have already seen just what it will appear like with the bipartisan giveaway to the companies from the Federal Treasury that the Democrats and Republicans worked out together that is currently continuing to contribute to sinking the world economy, not to mention just ‘our’ own.

Without Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, alternet, counterpunch, and antiwar.comm, we would only be left with a group of totally abject Democratic Party cheerleaders now. Each and everyone of these websites is worthy of any financial donation that you can make? We rely on all of them for informative reporting. Let’s hope that they keep up the good work and hope that other important sources of discussion and reporting can be developed, too.

When imperialists talk to sheep of ‘Self Determination’

Posted on November 7, 2008 by Tony Logan

sheep at election “Nor does it change the right to self- determination fundamental to our relationship with all of our Overseas Territories” -Gillian Merron, British Foreign Minister, on behalf of British Labor Party Prime Minister. Govt agrees new constitution for Falklands

Baah, baah, baah…. You see, there are close to 600,000 sheep on these some 778 islands off the coast of Argentina called Las Malvinas. And less than 3,000 people there, most of them connected to the British military in some way or another (like with the sheepherders’ importation there to help justify British colonial occupation of these foreign islands).

Sweet Gillian blathers on about ‘self determination’ which has become code word these days, for colonialist imperialist control over other peoples affairs. And she does it out of the same breath while talking about ‘Overseas Territory’… CUTE! You have to admire such clever abilities at double talk like this!

Now that Barack Obama is in in the US White House look for the US government to probably be borrowing more of this rather pathetic vocabulary from the degenerative British Labor Poli-class, that Prime Minster Gordon Brown and his team use. ‘Humanitarian’ imperialism is back in style once again! Oh, Whoopee!!! (Do sheep eat carrots like donkeys, I wonder?)

(PS …couldn’t find a sheep picture from the land where sheep outnumber people 20,000 to 1, and not just 3-1 like the words say on the pic…. Sorry. But sheep are sheep in whatever numbers. Baaa…..)

The Plan: big & stupid ideas for America

Posted on November 7, 2008 by Tony Logan

Rahm Emanuel Our blog’s most fervent Democrat challenged me to enlighten about the new chief of staff for Barack Obama (Rahmbo) and his book, ‘The Plan: Big Ideas for America’. Well here it is straight from antiwar.com’s website… Obama’s chief of staff choice favors compulsory universal service Even a cursory look at this material illustrates that Barack Obama and his crew want to even further militarize America, using this plan as a Trojan Horse to capture the support of the politically ignorant and naive cheerleaders they now have. They want a military draft in place.

No, they will call it a Civilian Service Plan or some other cover up name for what they are planning to do. They will talk about IDEALISM, HOPE, and CHANGE. But what will remain in the essence is forced conscription of young people into a so-called “anti-terrorism response team,” militarized to the point of the Homeland Security nitwits at all our airports.

The Plan: Big and Stupidly Poor Ideas for America, brought to you by the Democratic Party. But we absolutely don’t need further militarization of this country’s corrupt military patronage welfare system of jail guards/ soldiers/ police/ and vets. Nor do we need the Democratic Party itself running things in cahoots with their Republican Party politician/ businessmen/ lawyer friends..

Rahmbo shoots down ‘Peace’crats fast

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Tony Logan

Rambo How fitting it is that the first announcement of a major figure in the newly forming Obama Administration is a pro-war Zionist nicknamed Rahmbo. Rahmbo accepts job as White House chief of staff Yes, with Rahmbo, Barack Obama is already shooting down the ‘Peace’crats who stubbornly refuse to do anything other than stumble about with HOPE in their teary eyes. It’s a HISTORICAL moment of stupidity on their parts for these Regressives.

Rahmbo comes straight out of the Democratic Party Mis-Leadership camp, too. A rabid Clintonite with a long history of toeing party line under Slick Willie. No… Make that he was one of the chief formulators of Slick Willieism and made the lines to be toed! Now how do we spell… NO CHANGE HERE?

Here from wikipedia is more info about Rahmbo Emanuel’s previous history… ‘Emanuel is noted for his strong style and his fundraising prowess.[2] He is co-author with current Democratic Leadership Council President Bruce Reed of the 2006 book The Plan: Big Ideas for America.’ More like more deep doo-doo for America, don’t you think?

I already have run into trouble with the Democratic Party’s ‘Peace’crats, having had them call the police on us for trying to meet locally here as more Left leaning members in Colorado Spring’s so-called Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission tried to hold a planning discussion for Peace action. And just today, the major website of the Democratic Party loving ‘Peace’crats, CommonDreams.organization booted me off from being allowed to read material there! I kid you not! They put me into a loop where I cannot log into their site to read material that most all others can read without logging in. I have been shunned! Boo-hoo-hoo??? Oh, Praise Their Lord, Barack Obama! My crime? I linked to the commentary here on NMT where I said that Obama would get us out of Iraq by taking us into Iran… Sacrilege! Block the Messenger!

The directions Obama is headed towards is a pretty obvious political place for the Democrats. He is headed to being the Commander-in-Chief of a country glued to imperialism and war. His party is headed toward continuing to try to prop up the total system of Military Welfare spending that our country is known for. No change here, My Friends. And the rest of the world, contrary to corporate reporting in this country, is not waiting a ‘new’ Adminstration with baited breath. Rahmbo and others soon to be announced will shoot down the “Peace’crats fast. They already have. And the whole world prtty much knows that already.

The Myth of The Man Barack Jesus Obama

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Tony Logan

snakehandlers ‘Instead we hold our breath in awe of a capable man who will surprise us with his resourcefulness.’ No we don’t, Eric.

In this statement that you made, you are trying to reaffirm here what I would call ‘The Myth of The Man’, a myth that is almost Christian religious in its origins and outlook. Barack Obama and Jesus Christ are two myths of omnipotent men that simply beg out for challenge to the myth, not affirmation of them.

In the reincarnated, Barack Obama version of The Myth of The Man, Obama is expected to act God-like just like Jesus,’Son of God’, was once expected to perform miracles. These miracles include rising from the dead, curing the dead, walking on water, and stopping The Empire’s Wars against the actual interests of The Corporate Empire that just put him into its highest office! We are told, as Eric postulates in his comment, to be expecting surprises from this ‘resourceful’ SuperMan, who is godlike in his perfection, expected to rise up from his death-like corporate government bureaucratic surroundings, and expected to perform miracles for the common folk who he has come to rescue from the sins of Power!

The current Myth of The Man depends on all of us to express FAITH, just like over at New Life Church much the same also is asked of Followers. We are asked to suspend judgement by Church Ladies, too. And our very own Reverend MC Thomas is out there shouting that Satan has now been cast out from The Temple of Power! That Fascist Satan is gone he screams! Burn his dead body!

What does all this FAITH, HOPE, sense of Being God’s Messengers in HISTORIC moments imply about the consistency of the on focus message of ‘Not My Tribe’? That there is Myth of Middle Ground’? All this Hoopla for Jesus… no I meant Barack….. shown here, demonstrates religion to me. Political Religiosity, but religious fervor none the less. Hold the snakes in hand and pray for Obama?

OUCH!!!!! You are going to get bit!

Put IMPEACHMENT back on the table

Posted on November 5, 2008 by Eric Verlo

President-elect Barack Obama could begin work today, and not just choosing his cabinet. As de-facto head of the Democratic Party, Obama should put the impeachment of George W. Bush straight unto the table. Read an insult into this too, but Bush is a lame duck. Shoot it.

Technically a lame duck president is left with not much room to swing. But a drunk in a padded room is still a threat if he’s got the red phone.

What excuse could Speaker Nancy Pelosi give for avoiding taking on the sitting president this time? It imperils what priorities now? The political battle’s won. The Dems are in charge. Is Dubya holding the world hostage until he’s paid a ransom and given a plane to escape to Paraguay?

Bush has proved that in the space of two weeks his team can summon the greatest economic crisis from an economy whose “fundamentals are strong” and raise a tab of possibly five trillion dollars. He’s got an economic summit coming up, and an itch to scratch with his own weapons of mass destruction. Distract him before he pokes somebody’s eye out.

And how better to get a jump on the upcoming challenges than to bring President Bush right to the mat, before the clock is ticking on congressional sessions which everybody should hope can be addressing America’s pressing problems problems.

Too, Joseph Lieberman should be stripped of his leadership roles on Senate subcommittees, and right wing media pundits need to lose their access to Washington.

Bipartisan character of election fraud

Posted on November 5, 2008 by Tony Logan

baby-vote I must say that I find it utterly humorous this search with cameras for Republicans supposedly committing fraud? What are these people actually doing? So many of the Democrats are seemingly obsessed with rooting out this supposed election day fraud… but only when they seemingly might be somehow the victims of of it. They don’t seemingly give a damn that their own party’s victory is fundamentally structured and arrived at totally due to election fraud by their own party’s representatives in the first place? No concern of theirs at all, it seems… Why not though?

The Democrats dish out fraud to others challenging them for the vote, and rob the final elections’ results working in tandem with The Republican Party, their supposed enemies at the polls. Go figure now? But do you ever see the Democratic Party politicians proposing meaningful laws that would expose and stop election fraud? No. Instead, the Democrats and Republicans alike support their partisan government receipt of tax monies to fraudulently steal the elections for themselves, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars PLUS each election held inside our country. The Democratic Party stays alive through election fraud, same as their buddies The Republicans do.

Look at all the government assistance to keep these 2 parties monopolizing the voting. Schools, government buildings, policing, running their conventions for them with public monies, tax give aways for them at income tax time, and YES, paying for multiple impediments to be placed in alternative parties’ way. Isn’t that election fraud in a much bigger way than that seen when the final vote is done?

Election fraud does not just begin the day of the voting and neither does it have merely to do with the purging of voter registration lists. As bad as these manipulations can become, this is the mere tip of the iceberg when it comes to the bipartisan Demopublican-Republicratic voter fraud pulled off at each and every election in our country.

‘Elections’ where the business community is allowed to bottleneck the public into only having the choice of really being able to vote one or other of the two allowed political parties is election fraud, Folks. Don’t you get it? Get a clue now! The whole damn election thing in this undemocratic country is build on fraud, dishonesty, and corruption. No camera on hand will much help spread the news of where that basic election fraud really lies. People have to use their brains and not just their eyes to see the fraud that is.

Just another meaningless election day

Posted on November 4, 2008 by Tony Logan

exciting day Expect the cheers of delight to begin tonight, as many Americans begin to celebrate what the corporate media tomorrow will call a historic event. However, they will be wrong. There will have been no major change in America at all.

In July 2000 I was in Mexico, and got to see the jubilation as Mexicans were celebrating what they thought would be the final end of the world’s longest running dictatorship over them. They believed that all Mexico’s problems had been merely the product of having this one capitalist ruling party in place, and that by implementing 2 capitalist ruling parties that all would soon turn into a rainbow road ahead for Mexico. Wrong they were, and it should have been self evident to them at the time. However, the corporate media of that country began to bombard all Mexicans with nonstop commentaries that all had the same refrain… Mexico had now become a new country! Wrong they were.

Similarly today we will see the same delusions spread by corporate media talking dead heads and Democratic Party voting delusionary souls alike, who often like to call themselves ‘Progressives’. Wrong. They simply are not that at all, and can only marginally be called much improvement over the typical Republican voting clowns they always oppose so fanatically. And just like the Mexicans who were taken in by the believe that Mexico had turned some sort of corner in the year 2000, so too will they initially spread that very same false optimism throughout the general population. A crescendo of optimism will be built up between now and January as the Republican President is allowed to do his final corrupt actions in virtual silence from this new ‘hero’, Barack Obama.

Like Mexicans today, 8 years later from their election of 2000, we in the US will soon see how meaningless this meaningless election day actually will be for the US. Real Change must come from the furious anger of people down below and not from the manipulations of rich people up high, as certainly will be the case with Barack Obama’s cruise into power. We’re getting Obama because the US super rich finally begin to just get fed up with the poor results of what continuing to keep Dubya-like clowns in the White House for all of another 4 years would actually bring to them.

In the best of election outcomes…

Posted on November 1, 2008 by Eric Verlo

I’ve been fantasizing for decreasingly brief moments of late, about the outcome of this election. There’s still time to make a wish. Join me! It’s one thing to win the lotto, and another to have everyone win.

Let’s assume a Democratic landslide. It’s not improbable. In the wake of the Bush deluge, the economic and moral collapse of a once diffident cultural hegemony, in light of the investment bank highway robbery and the American legacy plunged into permanent war, couldn’t it be imagined that Americans might have wised up about Republicans? What are these Republicans after all but thieves? How can conservatism be taken to represent anything anymore but ignorant apologists for entrenched corruption?

I think it’s a lovely thought to imagine P.T. Barnum’s adage proving trump, that all Americans can’t stay fooled all the time. And so, what then? How to dispose of Republican stragglers intent on making a last stand with their authority?

We ride them out of town on a rail. Send them to Iraq with personal instructions to stand in for the boys coming home. Make them rebuild Iraq with their bare hands. Make them do, as we forced the Germans to do as we liberated Europe, to help clean the mass graves of the concentration camps. Grind their noses into their immoral mess. Hope they contract a conscience and die of it. That’s for starters.

The smug pencil pushers, GOP operatives who paid the lip service to tolerating torture, condoned what the other imbeciles about them didn’t realize was legislated against already in common law. My sympathies will run insufficient you dopey fiends.

Mine is a bloody fantasy. Blind complicity to mass murder, mass ignorance, mass apathy, amoral immorality, the norm slacker. No more.

It’s time for righteous indignation to stomp on the banal serial injustice minions. We don’t want them crowding our pursuit of happiness, constraining us with conservative red tape which is just administrativ-ese for chicken-shit cheese place-holding.

Republicans deserve foreshortened lives. Not the noose for most, of course, but a doctor’s prognosis that, by measure of how much life they’ve sucked out of other people, how much spirit they have wasted, how much suffering they have caused, how many rights they’ve denied, how much they’ve taken from others, that much should be debited from what they have been banking as their due for their patriotic allegiance.

An eye for an eye. A tooth for a denture denied to an uninsured American. That simple.

We used to damn just the Neocons, but they rode on the shoulders of the Republicans, among others. Isn’t it the hour of reckoning for the Red Blue Meanies?

Fantasy Option Two:
Speaking of Blue Meanies, What if the Republicans win next Tuesday? What then? Cancel the champagne, hold the tar and feathers.

If the Republicans and their anti-democry programs escape the tether of the public’s grasp, it’s curtains most certainly for the land of liberty. But as we fall into post-industrial decay, I wish this fate for the Dems. Every last ordinary registered Democrat must repudiate their pseudo-party. Make their representatives don the lapel pins of their masters. Democrat and Republican politicians are the same.

It pains me to imagine being told that the Republican machine wasn’t built in a day, that Democrats must knuckle down for the long haul to build a similar base. Quietly and patiently put their people into the right local offices, that they might too, someday, rig the election in the Democrats’ favor. But this begs a question the Dems will never resolve. Republicans from top to bottom are smug, selfish dogs. Unthinking brutes by definition. That’s what it takes to run a well-oiled graft machine. Look at your fellow Dems and tell me they will have the stamina and self-interest to work those lower echelons with dumb tenacity. Republicans have staffed the halls of bureaucracy because it suits their temperament. How is a do-gooder supposed to lie, cheat and steal, for a living, elbowing his fellow man?

American government torture report

Posted on October 29, 2008 by Tony Logan

Guantanamo man tortured into confessing – US judge decides It gets worse, too. The US government is using the torture administered against a juvenile to try to kill this kid over in Cuba… oh! … I meant the robbed portion of Cuba called Guantanamo US military base.

Think of the moral character of the US servicemen and women connected in running this torture center for Bush, Cheney, and their Democratic Party cohort politicians? Oh well, they shouldn’t let any little thing like torture of juvenile Prisoners of War get into the way of their personal careers now should they? I don’t have a pension but I sure wouldn’t want these heroes, ‘our’ service people, to lose theirs that I pay for them to get. That just wouldn’t be morally right! After all, I owe my right to say these dastardly things due to their willingness to go out and torture juvenile POWs in hideaway spots on my behalf. Oh thank you, Heroes! You must be proud! I know that many of you are certainly smug…

BBC reports how US forces murdered Ossetian civilians in Tskhinvali

Posted on October 29, 2008 by Tony Logan

south-ossetia-world-map Just like how the Bush Administration just got though murdering Syrian civilian children in an unlawful attack on a foreign country, the US led forces of Georgia’s US puppet leader, President Mikhail Saakashvili, targeted, attacked, and murdered Ossetian civilians in that area of our world, too. Georgia accused of targeting civilians

And there’s worse, as this despicable US political party, The Republicans, is even running a torturer of Iraqi civilians for Congress! Once again we turn to the British media for a report about this. Allen West oversaw the brutal treatment of an Iraqi. Now he is running for Congress And the Democratic Party went alongside and worked alongside the Republican Party these last 8 years, following their Clinton regime of murder of Iraqi children by ‘sanctions’, their prepping of the lies the Republicans used to invade and occupy the country, and their votes that most often were directly with the Republicans in funding this huge atrocity, all which is now bankrupting our own economy here at home.

Yes, the Democratic Party under Obama, Pelosi, and Clinton, sit by and do absolutely nothing to oppose any of these moves by the Republcian Party, even as these murderous attacks on Syrians and Ossetians seem even to be almost partisan engagements on behalf of trying to get John McCain elected! What a sorry group of louts!

US government pimps US child prostitutes to justify its own worldwide terrorism against children

Posted on October 28, 2008 by Tony Logan

bush pimp ‘More than 600 adults have been arrested in raids across the US targeting people who force children into prostitution. Operations took place in 29 cities in a co-ordinated action involving federal, state and local law officers, according to the FBI.’ thus reads the Reuters reportage of yesterdays US government’s mass raids US smashes child prostitute rings coming just one day after the government violated all international law and entered into a Syrian village and murdered 4 children there.

The two events, though seemingly unrelated to each other, in fact are thoroughly related. So let’s take a look at the US government ‘child prostitution raid’ and examine some how the US government pimped our own American children here at home in the country to help justify its own terrorism both at home and abroad. Shall we?

Notice that ‘operation took place in 29 cities in a co-ordinated action’. Does that seem like a normal legal action to take here? If it does, then you need to think a bit more about it some. Just what type of government or policing body sits back and does not stop child prostitution involving even a single child going on for any more time than a second?

That’s right. The US government and its police sat back and did nothing for weeks and months at a time (if you believe their own storyline???), just so they could ‘co-ordinate’ in 29 different cities! In other words (their own words), they sat back and allowed multiple American children to be prostituted while doing absolutely nothing at all to save the children from these crimes, all so as to better do their own government co-ordinated showcase raids using multiple terroristic Swat Teams! You bet! What princes of morality we have here!

Imagine? You see a child being prostituted in your own neighborhood, call the police, and they say to you…

‘Don’t worry, we are working on taking action, but first we have to co-ordinate with 28 other cities before we help this one underage girl out.’

Your reaction here? Shock? Is this responsible policing? I think not.

Imagine the absolute corruption in our US municipal police forces to have just sat back in 29 cities allowing these children to continue to be prostituted, just so that they could all ‘coordinate’ these US government Swat Team raids to occur one and all at the same time! Imagine it?

‘Sorry, Mam. We know that you saw, and we believe you, too, that a neighborhood hoodlum is prostituting this 14 year old girl next door in your building. But we have to wait for the cameras to show up in 29 cities at one time before we can take action and help her out. Plus, The Feds haven’t done their Syrian raid either, and we need to wait for that to happen, so that we can show Americans how much we care about getting these bad guys out of action.’

Can you imagine? This is the morality of the Republican and Democratic Party creeps running our country today. The Syrian government said Sunday’s attack by four U.S. military helicopters targeted a civilian building under construction in Sukkariyeh shortly before sundown, and killed eight people, including four children. Our country is run by a bipartisan group of gangsters.

Barack and John, good buddie militarism attacks Syria and Pakistan united in killing frenzy

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Tony Logan

syrian casualty The second coming of Christ has struck born again Democrats in Colorado and elsewhere and paralyzed them into none action, as they hardly notice that the US government killing goes on without so much as a word from their Black Jesus. The US has created 300,000 refugees in one province of Pakistan alone, continues to bomb that country’s civilians almost daily, and now is sending US assassination squads into Syrian towns in preparation for what? You might want to ask Joseph Biden on that one? Where are the Democrats? Where are the so-called American peace groups? Where is America’s conscience and consciousness?

Obama wants more troops to Afghanistan, and Biden wants to start a war with Sudan’s government. And nobody talks about the 3,000,000 PLUS refugees made in Somalia by the US-Ethiopian tag team! Nobody talks about the US-UN tag team in absolutely hurricane devastated, US occupied Haiti! American liberals just have no shame, now do they? All they want to do is spit on Sarah Palin. They have John McCain under microscope but seem blind to their own Messiah?

What do liberals really think they will get with Barack Obama and Joseph Biden? Don’t they take these guys for their word? The Democrats want better run wars, not less war. Duh…

Don’t liberal Democrats ever get the most simple truths? Don’t tell me…. I already know the answer to that question. What a hopeless gang of dumb little donkeys they are. What are these dopes going to do when they get what they want, which is the pro-war Barack Obama in office, increasing US troops fighting yet more wars in Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, and Afghanistan?

They won’t have Bush around to blame everything on anymore, but so what? Dumb, stubborn donkeys is what the Democratic Party voting block really are. (Sorry, Donkeys. You deserve better than to be associated so with the likes of this crowd!) Yes, Bush won’t be around any more, and the Democrats will only have themselves to point the finger at.

In pictures: Grief and anger in Syria
Syrian witness reacts to US war crime

Polls, schmolls, and the future ahead

Posted on October 23, 2008 by Tony Logan

vote fraud This morning reactionary AOL front-lined for its predominately Republican fans, that the Gallup poll showed the election was a tossup! What a joke! Reuters has a much different read on the presidential election stating that Obama lead on McCain grows to 12 points In fact, it might not even really be that close? The McCain ticket does well in only an urban area or two in the entire country (Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, and a very few others). People in most metro areas do not like McCain except in some of the suburbs.

Why is McCain sliding so fast? The reality is simply that not even the business community throughout most of the nation wants a Bush clone in office at this time. Bush did his job for them but his style and directly reactionary politics is all used up at this particular moment. And even more so, the business community doesn’t want a Fundamentalist Christian fool in office, which is what Sarah Palin would be if McCain died. The American Business Community, at this crashing moment world wide, wants a team of directors that might be able to keep the Western European countries from going into open rebellion against their own DC based Empire??? It might be a little too late for that however?

The Democratic Party will have control over the Presidency, the House, and the Senate. A perfect target for the Right to blame for the coming economic meltdown already under sway. Why is that? Because the Democratic Party political platforms are perfect for disintegrating the country even more as they continue to give the military-industrial complex all the plum economic government welfare contracts.

The Right will promote that very same too, but will then turn around and blame everybody and anybody else for the destruction that this will cause. Time for the hate filled then to get rabid. The predominantly Rightist Churches will be a preaching and praying against the supposed immorality and indecency that will be blamed on The Others, and history will repeat itself one more time as most folk will find it easier to go after the more defenseless people who’ll they find to be their victims, rather than those more responsible for their disintegrating plight.

Jonah and the Obama Chinese food story

Posted on October 19, 2008 by Brother Jonah

(Editor’s note: Jonah posted this account yesterday on Alfrankenweb, which reached the Rec List on Daily Kos. Now I’m fielding emails and calls inquiring whether Jonah is real. Here are the Alfrankenweb posts, until Jonah can give us an update.)

OK, so this is the story as I finally got straight.

I was out scrounging scrap metal today, to get enough food money to last us through the weekend.

I came home and Miss Johnnie, my landlady, was crying and showing me a table full of food.

I thought one of our friends or my relatives had come over and bought for us.

But it was bought, according to the lady who owns the restaurant, by Barack Obama over the phone.

After the Obama Campaign Workers came to the door, and were listening to Miss Johnnie describe why she, a registered republican, was voting for Obama.

She showed a picture of her daughter Michelle the Marine who had been deployed to Iraq twice, and is still pending discharge because of the Stop Loss.

All her kids in fact.

And her late husband, who had died of Agent Orange from his service in VietNam.

About that time the campaign workers started making phone calls and she got to talk to Obama.

She was in tears while telling me all this so I got the story wrong at first.

She talked about the War, about the health care bill that got turned down because it was “too expensive” but the Rich Thieves got to take 16 times as much just because they had broken the economy with their wild schemes.

About the VA messing around with the repayment of the medical expenses she had borne by herself over the 12 years since her husband died, over nitpicky paperwork errors on Their Part.

About me being out against doctor’s orders scrounging scrap metal just to make it through til monday.

One of the volunteers was a Marine and a Nam Vet, so much for the notion that Veterans are all voting for McCain, (despite his continued votes to screw the veterans the same way the VA is messing up Miss Johnnie’s paperwork and payments)

Miss Johnnie, understandably, doesn’t talk without a great deal of emotion on those subjects.

So after the Volunteers left, about 20 minutes later a very large order of Chinese food charged to Obama came to the door.

The Delivery man is a recent immigrant and doesn’t speak English, so he called his boss, who confirmed it but said it was supposed to be a surprise.

Enough food to last until Monday.

I came in with this really pitiful half gallon of milk and about a meal worth of food and some cat food.. and she was crying and showing me all the food.

And said that Obama had bought it for us.

I didn’t get the story quite right the first time, so I thought he had been there in person.

Not quite, but you know how in the Churches people say “I’ll be there in spirit”?

He was there in a way that really counts.

McCain has a fake falsified made-up “Joe the Plumber” who turns out to be a white-collar person named Sam and not even a plumber…

Obama now has Miss Johnnie the Viet-Nam Widow and a Real Joe the Ex-Roofer with Busted Feet.

That’s why Obama wins.

He’s Real, his concern for the people is Real, and the people who supporting him, WE’RE real too.

…

Hell, I don’t know where to research it myself.

There’s been a flood of out-of-state volunteers past two days, because Ms Sarah was doing her Schtick at the baseball park to a tame crowd.

Tame as in no Nasty Obama Supporters being let through to ask all kinds of icky-poo questions.

I went in yesterday and mentioned at the welcome desk at Obama HQ about the FreakSquad chalking the death-threat or death-wish either one on the sidewalk essentially directly across the street from them.

The restaurant is “Coal Mine Dragon” at 1720 W Uintah, the Springs. The lady who runs it is Second Generation Chinese. She told Miss Johnnie that it was Obama paying the tab, and that it was supposed to have been secret.

If it was merely the Volunteers calling in the order, and the restaurant owner not getting it out clearly distinguished, that’s still great.

as to was he the one who spoke to her, he identified himself as such.

If he was a clever impostor doing a good imitation that’s more improbable.

Not much reason anybody would, especially as Obama wouldn’t tolerate it.

if he confirms it himself is the best proof I could think of.

…

Who has that kind of pull to hotline direct to Obama during a rally?

Congressman Mark Udall, that’s who.

He told Miss Johnnie about being a Marine himself, I had thought “damn, that sounds a lot like Mark Udall…”

And, sure enough…

…

Run the pack of clowns out of office.

There’s some tidying up to do, seems like a herd of Elephants has gone through the national living room, pooping on the floors, breaking stuff and drinking out of the toilet.

If I’m not mistaken, some poor clerk at the VA in Denver is going to have a rude surprise Monday morning.

Mark Udall is running on Workers Rights, and Veterans Affairs… very large issues here in Colorado.

The “Terror Connection” they’ve been trying to tar Obama with, with Udall it’s “the Department of Peace” and Labor Unions.

His opponent is making big talk from those same National Attack Ads just like with the “Daschle Democrats” Ads with the bobble heads…

Well, Daschle was proven RIGHT about Iraq.

Trying to paint Udall as a hippie-dippy doper (seriously, they’ve been using that angle) when he’s a Marine and a Nam Vet, I think they bit off a chunk of the wrong sandwich.

I don’t know what all the names of the meals are, one involved a lot of chicken and broccoli, mushrooms… oh man..

Another same recipe, stir fried, with steak in it.

Cabbage rolls and rice with more chicken in it…

I think I like this restaurant and plan to give them my patronage.

The bill came to just under $40 bux.

If you’re in Colorado, vote no on 47 and there’s two more Blatantly union busting amendments there.

Oh, there’s an attack ad on right now….

These freaks need to be slapped repeatedly, in fact I’ll start a thread about that…

…

I had to reboot the puter, knocked my keyboard connection loose.

We have one cat, Keenan, neutered male.

She built him cat-runs at three of the windows, we can’t let him outside because our next-door neighbor is a Confirmed Cat-Kicker.

Last summer she contracted Leishmaniasis, which is also called the Baghdad Boil, in Mesopotamia it’s spread by the bite of a flea…

They gave her Antibiotics for it, and for the Mycelin Resistant Staph Aureole that goes with it.

This has affected her inner ear, because the antibiotics were so strong.

At the time we thought it was her lymphatic cancer coming out of remission.

After her husband died, she was waiting on getting her Widow’s Pension, the VA wasn’t even acknowledging that her husband had died of Agent Orange.

It took a few years for that. That’s when she had the lymphoma.

She was out on the street while taking chemo.

Last year she started to try for her CHAMPVA benefits, so she could get meaningful health care.

The ones who come to the forum to blast “Socialized Medicine” don’t know the least part of what the hell they’re putting out, or putting down.

We had the paperwork and forms from the VA to take to the Air Force to get her Widowed Spouse ID card, to get the CHAMPVA started.

We rode the bus across town to Peterson AFB, they allowed her onto the base, but not me, made me get off the bus and wait outside.

Which I prefer anyway, when I left the Air Force, I LEFT.

The guards at the gate, they weren’t Air Force, didn’t have any insignia or rank or name tags, but I knew they weren’t SPs because the SPs are stone freaky about maintaining a spit-shined appearance.

Turns out they’re mercenaries, I thought at first Blackwater but it seems it’s a different group of Mercs.

All the same to me.

At the Admin building another Mercenary, not Air Force personnel, clerk told her that the VA was full of shit, everything changed with nine eleven, don’t you know there’s a war on yadda yadda and threatened to have her arrested.

This year we finally got her ID card, got her CHAMPVA started.

Any Vets reading this, be-the-hell-ware because this is what they’re fixin’ to do to YOU next if McInasane gets in power.

So she’s owed 11 years worth of reimbursement for all the medical care she had to pay for out of pocket, even with the next to worthless Colorado Indigent Care Program insurance (Look up “worthless” in the dictionary and right next to it will be a picture of CICP) one of those “Massive Entitlement Programs For Bums” that McCain bitches about.

She got some reimbursement but is owed about 5 times as much more.

They keep bouncing her claims back, saying the forms are “incomplete”.

Utter bullshit, because I went over their claim as to what information was missing, and it was all right there in the papers.

That’s why I believe somebody from Mark Udall’s office is going to give them a Nasty Note Monday.

That’s the status so far.

The Health Care meltdown in Colorado is almost as bad as it was in Texas when I left.

Privatized everything. Well, I can testify, it didn’t work in Texas, and it surely ain’t working in Colorado either.

…

I get SSI and Medicaid. Miss Johnnie gets a Widows pension and CHAMPVA.

I supplement it by repairing computers and selling them, and the Scrap Metal.

I’ve been making more money off the scrap metal than the computers though.

The internet is part of our Cable package.

And, it’s necessary for the repairs I do to the computers, otherwise we would have ditched that part and just used dial-up.

The past month I haven’t been able to scrap, doctor’s orders.

That drop in income brought us near the edge.

We have for vehicles three bicycles, two of them mine, and she can’t ride hers anymore because of some of her injuries.

And ride the bus for further transportation.

I don’t drive anyway, never learned because it would be too dangerous.

Trust me on that.

But I’ve been getting on fairly well using the bicycles.

Until last month.

On top of that, scrap prices are down, way down… and there’s more competition for what scrap there is.

This is what’s happening across America.

I find out on November 5th what exact kind of surgery is going to be needed, for the foot I thought was uninjured 16 years ago.

I do know part of it is going to involve removal of a bone, the Cuboid.

I won’t have a leg to stand on.

It would be really really cool, you know, if this situation were anywhere near being unique.

Fact is, it ain’t.

That’s why there’s this:

I’m not dancing with joy that McCain is going to lose…

I’m rejoicing that America now has a chance to WIN.

…

Thanks, but we’re getting there. You might need it yourself soon anyway.

Stocks are tanking like mad.

Gas prices are down to 3 a gallon but that’s mostly because so much business, small and large, has crashed that there’s a huge drop in actual consumption.

First law of economics, supply and demand.

There’s going to be money coming in, just a question of when.

We both know how to make money, just we aren’t going to try doing anything on credit, build from a cash-only base.

Johnnie used to be a business owner, she and her husband did custom printing. Before his illness got to him they had over a million in the bank.

That’s how quick a catastrophic illness can do you down.

“difficult” and “impossible” are two separate equations, if something is difficult that just means it’s possible.

It’s a challenge more than anything. I hope.

I’ve got good skills I can adapt, like these computer skills.

This one I’m using now I built up from parts I salvaged, part of the scrap metal deal.

Here in town there WAS a steady supply of one-off computers, like, HP would come out with the newest mainboard and all the HP employees would get a discount on the new one, and either sell the older ones cheap or donate them to the ARC or Goodwill. Here’s a really good business tip, something you might want to invest yourself into, a new mainboard combination comes out roughly every 6 months and the older one, the one that’s King of the Jungle today, is going to be only worth half of what it is today.
Same with all the parts.

And for all practical purposes, the best there is today, in 6 months will still be able to run any software package there is. Not much point in buying a brand new computer, unless you’re developing software specifically for the newest chipset. so I’m developing a base of people who will want to buy good computers, that’ll do whatever they want, just at an amazingly lower price than they would pay to HP or Dell.
it’s more a matter of timing your purchases than anything else.

Now HP is closing down most of their local operations here, moving some to Albuquerque and some to iirc Little Rock.

But I’ll adapt. Part of it is that I don’t have a huge monetary investment in anything, mostly my investment has been in skills.

At least we have a plan, and are getting, slowly to be sure, but it is building up, the means to implement the plan.

Dire straits are familiar territory for me. At least I know my way around.

There’s good coming onto the horizon.

Lazy thinking Americans want safe ‘change’ and they will only get Obama

Posted on October 19, 2008 by Tony Logan

Wow! 175,000 show up on one day in Missouri at Democratic Party rallies to help elect political hack, Barack Obama. They are looking for CHANGE, capital letters. Sadly to say they will only get Barack Obama into office, and that is no change anybody can really believe in at all. Except for lazy thinking Americans who want change that is actually more of the same thing… IMPERIALISM.

Think if these same lazy thinking Americans had gone out in the same force to antiwar demonstrations where we would be today? They are the same types of people that think that demonstrations accomplish nothing, so instead they only go out to vote for political hacks who they think of as being the lesser of two evils. Lazy thinking, know-nothing people are what bring nations into crisis. Ask the Germans about that. These people could just as easily have mobilized themselves for the cause of really changing America, but they didn’t.

Iraq speaks up: Get Out, Occupiers!

Posted on October 18, 2008 by Tony Logan

baghdad How many times have I heard the words from Democratic Party type liberal smurfs, saying that demonstrations supposedly accomplish nothing? Yet how to explain that the Iraqis seem to think otherwise and just held a huge demonstration in Baghdad under conditions that Americans cannot even begin to imagine having for themselves? Iraqis stage mass anti-US rally.

Unlike do-nothing Americans, Iraqis seem to see value in holding mass demonstrations to show the world how they feel about US troops continuing to promote slaughter in their country. And they are right to do so. These demonstrations, in their case, are part of supporting armed struggle to resist the imperialist invaders. Holding mass demonstrations in our country, too, would work toward the goal of regaining national sovereignty away from others.

Time to use the word DEPRESSION again

Posted on October 9, 2008 by Tony Logan

One of the most ridiculous of the utterly false and phony positive thinking talking points used by the US’s Right Wing corporate daily press and the talking heads of their TV stations is their constant babble about whether we have entered into a ‘recession’ or not? The correct word to be used is depression, it ‘s an ECONOMIC DEPRESSION we have been entered into worldwide, and there is nothing left to debate about it either. It’s here. End of discussion. Go take a hike, Clowns@!

Today, stocks fell almost 7% and that now is a drop of about 25% from the DOW all time high just 2 years ago. That is a depression. Further, this Friday morning Japanese stocks have already fallen 11% of their value in just a few minutes of trading. That is an economic depression.

Let’s cut to the quick on this. Bush and his clown clones are through. They are out of here. This presidential election will turn out to be a rout of McCain/ Palin, because they are more of the same, and The Same just flushed itself down the toilet via a whole shitload of corruption finally coming home to roost. But there is yet more here than the rout of the neocon corruptionists that will occur. If we in America are fed up with this crew, the rest of the world is even more so.

Yes, the rest of the world is going down the drain with us and our stupid economy where thieves rule the rest of us. They are going to hate the US for the misery we have delivered them into. In fact, they already do. Afghanistan to Iraq to Somalia to Pakistan and flush, flush, flush. They can put it together, even if your dumb Republican neighbors can’t.

It’s time to use the word depression once again, because we alhough we all thought the thought that ‘communism’ self destructs, we had all but forgotten that capitalism does just that in an even much worse way. We have been entered into a worldwide economic depression by all those that fed us the total line of crap that it was all running so very smoothly. Pompous stupid, arrogant twits they were, and now the world has once again had its eyes opened to the dangers that capitalism constantly puts the human race into. The unemployment to come will soon see to that.

The rich everywhere will say that The Treasury has no money to stop it. You can bet your 401K retirement funds on it! And the whole world will correctly blame the US government, AND the stupid American people themselves, for what is being done to them. Get used to really being hated, My Friends. And we will be hated rightly so, for playing stupid so long.

Good luck, Democratic Party. Just because everybody holds the Republican Party to be hugely responsible for this mess, don’t think that they won’t also begin to see you as the Republican’s cohorts. Hell! That’s what you have always claimed to be actually, isn’t it? People played stupid though and didn’t take you people at your own word. You are now in a BIG, BIG, BIG… BIPARTISAN MESS. We got it. You earned it!

Yes, it’s time to once again use the word DEPRESSION once again. It will be hard on us all (save the Capitalist rich who always profit off human misery).

Who is losing in the debates? We are.

Posted on October 8, 2008 by Eric Verlo

FOX NEWS claims McCain is winning. MSNBC seems to be making an un-characteristic Obama gambit. Who’s losing the presidential debates? We are. And I’m not even talking about the exclusion of third party voices like Nader or McKinney. The Dems are winning, this last by “that one” but so is an escalation in Afghanistan, an attack on Pakistan, backing Israel in war-making against Iran, military intervention in Sudan, and the corporate profit replenishment bailout.

Lost in the concern about the Palin versus Biden match-up was Biden’s straight-up militancy. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Sudan. The Dems plan some kind of deceleration in Iraq, but more troops everywhere else. American voters haven’t become energized because they favor Dems over Repugs. They are against war! The American people prevailed eventually against the Vietnam War and they find themselves three decades later having to rise again to stop their government from waging war against the world in the name of the so-called GWOT.

Meanwhile the Democratic Party has co-opted that energy by posing as antiwar, and as the only social justice voice in Washington. Work within the system they say. But then you come against a hawkish leader like Joe Biden. What now. Are energized Dems cheering Biden’s war cries?

An audience member in last night’s debate advocated killing Bin Laden no matter where he’s hiding. Forget arguing whose borders must be respected. And the candidates seem to jostle for who is more eager to get Osama. I’d like to ask that woman if we should call in an air strike if it turns out Osama’s hiding in HER house? Should the US DoD violate American public’s territorial integrity?

Is this what American justice has become? Air strikes in lieu of day in court, rule of law, innocent until proven guilty? Do Dems and Republicans form just a blood-thirsty mob out to buttress their standard of living at any cost?

I caught some of the call-ins on C-SPAN after the debate. A number of the callers were for neither candidate and wanted to discuss the issues and candidates being cut out of the presidential debates. C-SPAN hung up on those.

What is… illegal immigration

Posted on October 7, 2008 by Tony Logan

Game show question… ’17 Wee’ gurz is?’

Answer- ‘What is US illegal immigration promoted by Republican and Democratic Party politicians alike.’ Judge: Let Chinese Muslims in Gitmo into U.S.

That’s right! Isn’t the Guantanamo concentration camp something that both unconscionable groups fully supported running? Didn’t they support that use of US torture on Pentagon held POWs, illegal detention of them, and what can only be called ultimately illegal immigration of them into this cursed land called America?

The all powerful America, a country which trots itself around the world waving its own flag, wrecking other people’s countries, and then tries to build a wall up to keep its victims out of the US itself. It’s the Department of Pompous, Self Serving Security in Homeland Stupidity.

Let these 17 Chinese citizens in! Maybe they can help educate Americans on why they are hated so?

The crash continues as American people go into shock

Posted on October 6, 2008 by Tony Logan

dangerous Last week we saw most of America go into shock as the stark reality of the US not having a real opposition party became evident. The Democratic Party actually led the rush to pass Bush’s $700 billion giveaway to the rich Bill into law, and it was actually the Republican party that posed the minor stumbling block to getting it done. The American people were almost completely left on the sidelines as a result of simply never having constructed a major opposition party to the Two Party Big Business dictatorship that US is run under.

This week, the show has already begun again, as stocks begin the week by crumbling throughout Asia, Europe, and North America. Nobody is fooled internationally by the $700 billion dollar American give away legislation. Germany had to even copy the US government with their own give away bill, too, to the banks. Germany moves to shore up bank confidence And the Euro appears to be in as bad a shape as the dollar is in world currency marts, sliding in relation to the dollar!

Everywhere they talk of a stampede as stock values and currencies crumble. They talk of panic and they talk of crisis. The US stock market continued down this AM and everywhere there is a sense of impending doom. Hard times are now being made by the financial sectors for all of us, as unemployment rolls rise, production drops. The crash continues as the American people go into shock.

What a coincidence! Good Ol’ Boy goes marching off to war the day after!

Posted on October 3, 2008 by Tony Logan

One day after the family values ‘debate’, Joe says good by to his Good Ol’ Boy for the cameras! What a coincidence, right? How much more opposed to the endless wars can he get? What a big stupid con artist Joe Biden really is! Biden sees son and troops off to Iraq The Democratic Party IS, IS, IS the proWAR party. Can the Obama camp make it any more explicit?

Senators give Paulson keys to treasury

Posted on October 1, 2008 by Eric Verlo

The Senate has signed Paulson’s blank check for the Wall Street ransom payment. Band of Thieves, Murder of Crows, Goddamn Jerk of Senators!

Overheard on the radio about Obama/McCain: “It’s amazing such similar solutions for the economic crisis can be coming from such vastly different candidates.” Not so amazing if you consider you’ve only assumed the red and blue are opposites. Both candidates colluding with the Banking oligarchs could be a tipoff that both parties represent the same interests. Time to wonder how the American people’s interest might have been represented by an alternative third [sic] party?

How well are you reconciling Barack Obama’s theme of “change” as he stumped for the Wall Street money grab. Obama likened the crisis to your neighbor’s house being on fire. Besides the implication that no one would want to be uncharitable, you might also deign to pitch in for the selfish motive of keeping your neighbor’s fire from spreading to your house. That was Obama’s clever pitch, but is that what the failing investments represent? The bankers’ homes? Hardly. I can’t even think of an analogy to represent what the jeopardized assets represent to the hierarchy of needs of the super wealthy.

Assuming they are your neighbors. Would it be their twelfth snow-machine that’s on fire? Their son’s floozy’s uncle’s twelfth snowmobile on fire and threatening your house. You need to what, pay him to buy another so that the burning one can be safely drenched without pissing him off, since the thrill he gets from that snowmobile is to keep it ablaze for the thrill of endangering you and your family.

Try that one on us Obama.

UPDATE FROM MICHAEL MOORE:

Tonight, the Senate passed an even worse “bailout” bill than the one the House defeated on Monday night. Only 25 Senators (and most of them for the wrong reasons) voted “No.” It now moves to the House for a vote, possibly on Friday. Why did Obama and Biden vote for it? I think we all know the answer. Let’s keep our eye on the ball of removing the Republicans from the White House, but let tonight be our first reminder that our work is not finished on November 4th when Obama wins. The struggle between what is best for the people and what is best in order to line the pockets of Wall Street will continue. 150 million Americans combined can’t even match the wealth of the richest 400 Americans. All we have is our vote. And there will always be more of us than them. We will all need to become more politically active if we are going to get our democracy back.

Not Sons of Bitches, Dems are bitches

Posted on September 30, 2008 by Eric Verlo

When the Democrats were the minority they seemed so weak. Now in the Majority they’re positively wimps. Pundits tell us it’s a lack of leadership. Why would the corporate media overlook who’s at the whip? It would seem clear that the corporations writing the legislation, funding the campaigns, and paying for the free lunch, are driving the agenda. The GOP is paid to play the white hats, and when a bill is unpopular, the Dems are pushed forward to play the creeps.

On the proposed bailout ripoff, the Dems were not the sons of bitches, they’re just the bitches. I heard a Dem scare-mongeree explain that in spite of loathing the idea of a solution which benefited the wrong people, the bailout was our only option. “All economists agree we have to do this” he said, ignoring quite a few who have urged the opposite. The interviewer interrupted to announce, this just in, the vote had failed and as a result the DOW had plunged by 700 points. She wanted his response: “Oh. My. God.”

As Bush and his GOP team stand in the shadows, the Democrats are thrust forward to “lead” the support for this criminal legislation. Whether the bill won or lost, either way the Democrats would come out looking like shits.

I’m reminded about how an invading army flushes out defenders still hiding. Send your captives into the buildings to spring the booby-traps. Make them open the doors to draw the fire. Among thugs in prison the dirty work is done by the bitches.

Except for Democracy Now, the media won’t report the authentic Democratic efforts to lead. Here’s Dennis Kucinich on the floor of Congress speaking against the bailout and asking: why, why why:

“The $700 billion bailout for Wall Street, is driven by fear not fact. This is too much money in too a short a time going to too few people while too many questions remain unanswered.

Why aren’t we having hearings on the plan we have just received? Why aren’t we questioning the underlying premise of the need for a bailout with taxpayers’ money?

Why have we not considered any alternatives other than to give $700 billion to Wall Street? Why aren’t we asking Wall Street to clean up its own mess?

Why aren’t we passing new laws to stop the speculation, which triggered this? Why aren’t we putting up new regulatory structures to protect investors? How do we even value the $700 billion in toxic assets?

“Why aren’t we helping homeowners directly with their debt burden? Why aren’t we helping American families faced with bankruptcy. Why aren’t we reducing debt for Main Street instead of Wall Street?

Isn’t it time for fundamental change in our debt based monetary system, so we can free ourselves from the manipulation of the Federal Reserve and the banks?

Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs? Wall Street is a place of bears and bulls. It is not smart to force taxpayers to dance with bears or to follow closely behind the bulls.”

Michael Moore is more charitable about the Democrats’ actions yesterday. Here’s his update:

Friends,

Everyone said the bill would pass. The masters of the universe were already making celebratory dinner reservations at Manhattan’s finest restaurants. Personal shoppers in Dallas and Atlanta were dispatched to do the early Christmas gifting. Mad Men of Chicago and Miami were popping corks and toasting each other long before the morning latte run.

But what they didn’t know was that hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up yesterday morning and decided it was time for revolt. The politicians never saw it coming. Millions of phone calls and emails hit Congress so hard it was as if Marshall Dillon, Elliot Ness and Dog the Bounty Hunter had descended on D.C. to stop the looting and arrest the thieves.

The Corporate Crime of the Century was halted by a vote of 228 to 205. It was rare and historic; no one could remember a time when a bill supported by the president and the leadership of both parties went down in defeat. That just never happens.

A lot of people are wondering why the right wing of the Republican Party joined with the left wing of the Democratic Party in voting down the thievery. Forty percent of Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans voted against the bill.

Here’s what happened:

The presidential race may still be close in the polls, but the Congressional races are pointing toward a landslide for the Democrats. Few dispute the prediction that the Republicans are in for a whoopin’ on November 4th. Up to 30 Republican House seats could be lost in what would be a stunning repudiation of their agenda.

The Republican reps are so scared of losing their seats, when this “financial crisis” reared its head two weeks ago, they realized they had just been handed their one and only chance to separate themselves from Bush before the election, while doing something that would make them look like they were on the side of “the people.”

Watching C-Span yesterday morning was one of the best comedy shows I’d seen in ages. There they were, one Republican after another who had backed the war and sunk the country into record debt, who had voted to kill every regulation that would have kept Wall Street in check — there they were, now crying foul and standing up for the little guy! One after another, they stood at the microphone on the House floor and threw Bush under the bus, under the train (even though they had voted to kill off our nation’s trains, too), heck, they would’ve thrown him under the rising waters of the Lower Ninth Ward if they could’ve conjured up another hurricane. You know how your dog acts when sprayed by a skunk? He howls and runs around trying to shake it off, rubbing and rolling himself on every piece of your carpet, trying to get rid of the stench. That’s what it looked like on the Republican side of the aisle yesterday, and it was a sight to behold.

The 95 brave Dems who broke with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were the real heroes, just like those few who stood up and voted against the war in October of 2002. Watch the remarks from yesterday of Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Dennis Kucinich. They spoke the truth.

The Dems who voted for the giveaway did so mostly because they were scared by the threats of Wall Street, that if the rich didn’t get their handout, the market would go nuts and then it’s bye-bye stock-based pension and retirement funds.

And guess what? That’s exactly what Wall Street did! The largest, single-day drop in the Dow in the history of the New York Stock exchange. The news anchors last night screamed it out: Americans just lost 1.2 trillion dollars in the stock market!! It’s a financial Pearl Harbor! The sky is falling! Bird flu! Killer Bees!

Of course, sane people know that nobody “lost” anything yesterday, that stocks go up and down and this too shall pass because the rich will now buy low, hold, then sell off, then buy low again.

But for now, Wall Street and its propaganda arm (the networks and media it owns) will continue to try and scare the bejesus out of you. It will be harder to get a loan. Some people will lose their jobs. A weak nation of wimps won’t last long under this torture. Or will we? Is this our line in the sand?

Here’s my guess: The Democratic leadership in the House secretly hoped all along that this lousy bill would go down. With Bush’s proposals shredded, the Dems knew they could then write their own bill that favors the average American, not the upper 10% who were hoping for another kegger of gold.

So the ball is in the Democrats’ hands. The gun from Wall Street remains at their head. Before they make their next move, let me tell you what the media kept silent about while this bill was being debated:

1. The bailout bill had NO enforcement provisions for the so-called oversight group that was going to monitor Wall Street’s spending of the $700 billion;

2. It had NO penalties, fines or imprisonment for any executive who might steal any of the people’s money;

3. It did NOTHING to force banks and lenders to rewrite people’s mortgages to avoid foreclosures — this bill would not have stopped ONE foreclosure!;

4. It had NO teeth anywhere in the entire piece of legislation, using words like “suggested” when referring to the government being paid back for the bailout;

5. Over 200 economists wrote to Congress and said this bill might actually WORSEN the “financial crisis” and cause even MORE of a meltdown.

Put a fork in this slab of pork. It’s over. Now it is time for our side to state very clearly the laws WE want passed. I will send you my proposals later today. We’ve bought ourselves less than 72 hours.

Yours,
Michael Moore

Seven hundred times N,OOO,OOO,OOO!

Posted on September 29, 2008 by Eric Verlo

Is the strategy to pay this ransom, then have the robbers intercepted as they make their escape? What other excuse will Democrats Pelosi and Reid offer for coming home with a bag full of 140,000,000,000 wooden nickels? That money’s gone if we don’t STOP THEM! STOP THEM NOW!

We hear pundits say the bailout sum is beyond comprehension. Nonsense. It’s our prosperity, our health, the pursuit of happiness we offer our children and take for granted. Gone. Unless there is still time to shout down the miscreants in Washington. As we see the politicians of every stripe complicit in this heist, and insufficient outcry in the streets, isn’t it hard not to conclude Americans are getting what they deserve? If you have any gut feeling that you DO NOT WANT TO STAND IDLY BY, listen to Michael Moore: (although the DC email/phone connection appears to have been pulled.)

Friends,

Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies — who must soon vacate the White House — are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.

No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday’s New York Times and you can see what the real deal is:

“Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.

“Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.

“At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.

“Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury’s proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions.”

Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to “consult” in the bailout.

The problem is, nobody truly knows what this “collapse” is all about. Even Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn’t know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can’t figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone.

And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Falling for whom? NOTHING in this “bailout” package will lower the price of the gas you have to put in your car to get to work. NOTHING in this bill will protect you from losing your home. NOTHING in this bill will give you health insurance.

Health insurance? Mike, why are you bringing this up? What’s this got to do with the Wall Street collapse?

It has everything to do with it. This so-called “collapse” was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people’s home mortgages. Do you know why so many Americans are losing their homes? To hear the Republicans describe it, it’s because too many working class idiots were given mortgages that they really couldn’t afford. Here’s the truth: The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills. Let me state this simply: If we had had universal health coverage, this mortgage “crisis” may never have happened.

This bailout’s mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It’s to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. It’s to make sure their yachts and mansions and “way of life” go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars!

I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are staging a financial coup this morning in our country. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So stop reading this and do something — NOW! Here’s what you can do immediately:

1. Call or e-mail Senator Obama. Tell him he does not need to be sitting there trying to help prop up Bush and Cheney and the mess they’ve made. Tell him we know he has the smarts to slow this thing down and figure out what’s the best route to take. Tell him the rich have to pay for whatever help is offered. Use the leverage we have now to insist on a moratorium on home foreclosures, to insist on a move to universal health coverage, and tell him that we the people need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives, not the barons of Wall Street.

2. Take to the streets. Participate in one of the hundreds of quickly-called demonstrations that are taking place all over the country (especially those near Wall Street and DC).

3. Call your Representative in Congress and your Senators. (click here to find their phone numbers). Tell them what you told Senator Obama.

When you screw up in life, there is hell to pay. Each and every one of you reading this knows that basic lesson and has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. In this great democracy, we cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter. No more! Not again!

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Having read further the details of this bailout bill, you need to know you are being lied to. They talk about how they will prevent golden parachutes. It says NOTHING about what these executives and fat cats will make in SALARY. According to Rep. Brad Sherman of California, these top managers will continue to receive million-dollar-a-month paychecks under this new bill. There is no direct ownership given to the American people for the money being handed over. Foreign banks and investors will be allowed to receive billion-dollar handouts. A large chunk of this $700 billion is going to be given directly to Chinese and Middle Eastern banks. There is NO guarantee of ever seeing that money again.

P.P.S. From talking to people I know in DC, they say the reason so many Dems are behind this is because Wall Street this weekend put a gun to their heads and said either turn over the $700 billion or the first thing we’ll start blowing up are the pension funds and 401(k)s of your middle class constituents. The Dems are scared they may make good on their threat. But this is not the time to back down or act like the typical Democrat we have witnessed for the last eight years. The Dems handed a stolen election over to Bush. The Dems gave Bush the votes he needed to invade a sovereign country. Once they took over Congress in 2007, they refused to pull the plug on the war. And now they have been cowered into being accomplices in the crime of the century. You have to call them now and say “NO!” If we let them do this, just imagine how hard it will be to get anything good done when President Obama is in the White House. THESE DEMOCRATS ARE ONLY AS STRONG AS THE BACKBONE WE GIVE THEM. CALL CONGRESS NOW.

Not My Tribe

The Myth of Middle Ground

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