Tuesday, October 28, 2008

EVEN MORE: Welfare Executives at the Trough Part II

It sure just blows me away really. These are the same people who 15 years ago were calling welfare recipients parasites, leeches, bloodsucking lazy slobs etc.

Well, when I opened my newsreader today here's what I saw:

http://money.aol.com/investing/adding-insult-to-injury?icid=100214839x1211881220x1200729240

As if the economic recession wasn't hard enough on Americans, seeing the government spend billions to bail out Wall Street has made it all even harder for the average person to take. Yes, we all want to avoid global financial collapse. But Bloggingstocks writers have noted many cases where the way the government bailout of Wall Street is playing out seems to be adding insult to injury.

Here are eight recent examples:

Next: Big Wall Street Bonuses

Wall Streeters Can Still Expect Big Bonuses

When the government agreed to bail out Wall Street, the goal was to provide funds to shore up banks' capital bases so they would start lending again. It wasn't to help them fund the bonus pool. But estimates run that as much as $70 billion will get paid out in bonuses to Wall Streeters this year. That amount equals 10% of the $700 billion bailout.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Ron Howard's Call for Obama along with Andy Griffith & Henry Winkler

Oh this should be fun. We know the right wingers will have field day with Opie and Fonzie, but Andy Griffith? How'r they going to paint Andy Griffith as a left-wing radical over pampered head in the cloud celebrity?

Ron Howard is the latest star to voice his support for Obama, and he did it alongside his old costars Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler in a video for Funny or Die. Watch him strip down, trim his nose hair and don an Opie wig for a black and white call to action before fast-forwarding to "Happy Days."

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Video: Your request is being processed... Will Ferrell Back As Bush With Tina Fey's Palin On Thursday's "Saturday Night Live"

Thursday's "Saturday Night Live" election special welcomed Will Ferrell back playing President Bush in the opening sketch, with Ferrell's Bush offering an unwanted endorsement for the McCain- Palin ticket. The sketch was cowritten by Adam McKay and also starred Tina Fey as Sarah Palin meeting Bush for the first time.

As Ferrell's Bush puts it, the election is between "the hot lady and the Tiger Woods guy" and "I'm out of here in a few months, so screw it." He has also declared the White House a "bummer-free zone."

The last time America saw Will Ferrell as Bush was in April at an autism fundraiser. Ferrell is set to play Bush on Broadway next year.

PREVIOUS FEY SKETCHES:
Sarah Palin on SNL along with Tina Fey playing her, plus a bonus Alaska rap
Tina Fey as Sarah Palin With Hillary Clinton
Tina Fey as Sarah Palin With Katie Couric
Tina Fey as Sarah Palin in the VP debate
Tina Fey talks about Sarah Palin's voice to David Letterman

Your request is being processed...

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Greenspan admits to 'flaw' in his free market thinking

Jeremy Warner: Greenspan admits to 'flaw' in his free market thinking

Friday, 24 October 2008

Outlook Alan Greenspan, quoting Keynes, insists that when the facts change, he changes his mind. It wasn't exactly a mea culpa we had from the former Federal Reserve chairman in Congressional testimony yesterday, but it was about as close as we are likely to get to it.

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Mr Greenspan has spent much of the last two years trying to justify what, with the benefit of hindsight, were plainly a series of mistakes, both in the exercise of interest rate policy and in the regulation of banks, for which the Fed is partly responsible in the US. Central banks shouldn't attempt to deflate asset bubbles, he has argued, but only deal with their aftermath, while banks are best left alone to regulate themselves in their own self interest.

Yesterday, he admitted for the first time that at least some of this thinking was flawed. Rather in the manner of religious disillusionment, his realisation that the market isn't always right has come as a terrible shock to the former monetary wizard. Yet Mr Greenspan is not entirely repentant. As far back as 2005, he insists, he raised concerns that the protracted period of underpricing of risk, if history was any guide, would have dire consequences.

Unfortunately, it may already have been too late by that stage, and in any case, he failed to act on his own wake-up call, despite ample authority and opportunity to do so. He also admits to having failed to act on the concerns of Ed Gramlich, a former member of the Federal Reserve's board of governors, who had warned him in terms as far back as 2000 of the perils of predatory pricing in sub-prime mortgage lending.

It is always easy to be wise after the event, and I'm not sure we should be too hard on Mr Greenspan for failing to recognise the significance of the boom in sub-prime lending. Hardly anyone else did either until it was too late. On the other hand, it is the job of a central banker to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets interesting, to quote another former chairman of the Fed, William McChesney Martin, and this Mr Greenspan notably failed to do.

Yet it was not for failings in monetary policy that Mr Greenspan was apologising, but rather for flaws in his whole world view. As he has said before, those who look to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity are in a state of "shocked disbelief". For him at least, 40 years of faith in the ability of the free market system to protect and heal itself has gone up in smoke.

Personally, I cannot see why an economist as ancient and accomplished as Mr Greenspan, brought up in the crucible of the Great Depression, should find this shocking at all. Down the ages, banks have repeatedly proved careless both with their shareholders' capital and their depositors' money. As the good times roll, they invariably drop their lending standards and eventually find themselves crucified by bad debt. In that respect, there is nothing unique about the present banking crisis at all.

As Mr Greenspan points out in yesterday's testimony, the crisis is at root about failure properly to price risky assets. Again, all banking crises share this characteristic. What made this one a bit different was the extent of global demand for dodgy, mispriced US assets.

Yet it is not so much the present state of market failure Mr Greenspan is in shocked disbelief over, as the fact that self-surveillance and correction by banks should have broken down on such a scale. Again, it is hard to see why he should find this remarkable. As the boom times roll, banks always end up allowing risk controls to become eroded and thereby lending too much. The longer the boom, the more extreme the process becomes.

What Mr Greenspan should really be kicking himself about is not his naive belief in the idea that markets are self regulating in their own interests, but his own failure to spot the extent of the mispricing, and then act on it. He's hardly alone in this failing, but then it was his job to keep the children under control. In any case, Mr Greenspan has now joined the greater regulation bandwagon. Yet it is endearing to see that he has not entirely lost his free market faith. Whatever regulatory changes are made, he says, will pale in comparison with the change already evident in markets. "Those markets for an indefinite future will be far more restrained than would any currently contemplated regulatory regime". Quite so. When markets get it wrong, they really know how to punish themselves. Unfortunately, it is the little guy, and not the responsible bankers, who takes the brunt of it.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

John McCain is PROUD of G. Gordon Liddy

John McCain Is Proud Of G. Gordon Liddy

by BarbinMD

Sat Oct 18, 2008 at 02:00:05 PM PDT

Several weeks ago, seeing his last chance for the presidency slipping away, a desperate John McCain chose to focus of his entire campaign on William Ayers. In television ads, in stump speeches and through his surrogates, McCain, unable to run on the issues, decided that his only chance was to turn Barack Obama's time on a school reform board with Ayers into "palling around with terrorists," and during the last presidential debate, McCain said that "we need to know the full extent of that relationship." And McCain is right. We do need to know the full extent of a presidential candidate's relationship with an "unrepentant domestic terrorist." So let's talk about McCain's own relationship with G. Gordon Liddy.

During his recent appearance with David Letterman, McCain was asked about that relationship and said:

I’ve met him...I know Gordon Liddy. He paid his debt, he went to prison, he paid his debt.

Actually, Liddy "paid his debt" for his role in Watergate and breaking into the office of Daniel Ellsberg of the Pentagon Papers fame. He never paid any price for:

...plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a "gangland figure" to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap "leftist guerillas" at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis...he had named his shooting targets after Bill and Hillary Clinton.

And he never paid a price for saying:

Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests." Liddy's advice that day was explicit: "They've got a big target on there, ATF. Don't shoot at that, because they've got a vest on underneath that. Head shots, head shots.... Kill the sons of bitches."

...a sentiment, by the way, that he expressed more than once on his radio show. And when asked in later interviews whether he regretted his role in Watergate or for giving instructions on how to kill federal agents, Liddy's answer was no. But really, who would expect remorse from a man who said:

When he listened to Hitler on the radio, it "made me feel a strength inside I had never known before," he explains. "Hitler's sheer animal confidence and power of will [entranced me]. He sent an electric current through my body."

Despite all that, McCain simply tells Letterman that he knows Liddy and that he's paid his debt to society. But there is more to their relationship than that. Liddy has donated thousands of dollars to McCain's campaigns, and McCain has appeared on Liddy's radio show, as recently as five months ago, and:

...McCain praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," said he was "proud" of Liddy, and said that "it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program."

Let's review: Barack Obama served on a school reform board funded by an ally of Ronald Reagan, along with a number of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. John McCain accepts money and enjoys sitting down for interviews with a man who is a convicted felon, who plotted murders and bombings, who advocated killing federal agents, who named his shooting targets after a President and First Lady/Senator, and who tingled when he listened to Adolph Hitler speak. And John McCain praises his:

...adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great.

Exactly which candidate "is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America"?

Comparing: Republicans Contract to Democrats New Agenda

You know, we hear a lot from the right wing propaganda machine about how much better Republicans are about things like keeping promises and how grand and glorious their Contract with America was, the slogan for years was "Promises Made, Promises Kept" Well here's a little chart for comparison. As we can see the 1995 Contract with America turned out to be yet another Republican lie. Even with an overwhelming majority in both houses they couldn't, or they wouldn't pass the base of their party's agenda whereas the Democrats New Direction Agenda has fulfilled the majority of it's goals, save the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act that was VETOED by Bush, with almost FULL Republican support!

..

Now I ask you, who gets things done? Promises made, promises kept, INDEED! What gets my goat is that there are people out there still buying the Republican party's line about fiscal conservatism, yet they run up the debt and cut the government's pay from the people seriously crippling the country's debt to pay it's bills. They gripe about helping the poor in our own country with social programs like food stamps and AFDC, medicaid, etc. yet they run up a seven hundred billion dollar debt (that's $700,000,000,000 look at the zeros!) to give welfare to millionaire and billionaire executives that are ALREADY squandering several HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS of the money on English horesy set trips and salon treatments to get their toenails cut at a posh high dollar spa in California! Then that particular company asks for an additional 38 BILLION DOLLARS? You keep on supporting these bums, these Republican bums and welfare executives, you like this? You like paying high taxes while they get all the loopholes and breaks? If you work for a large corporation, probably one that sends more than half it's open jobs to be filled in communist c

ountries like China and Vietnam, you go right ahead voting for Republicans, and you'll get out of it just what you asked for. More meaningless negative deficit spending, and unfair balance of power between business and labor, more deregulation (McCain is lying about being in support of it), more bad business in general.

Don'tchya know....

(click the pic for a larger image)

Monday, October 20, 2008

Tricked Into Registering Republican

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/tricked-registering-republican

Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country.

Newly registered voters report that an organization identified as Young Political Majors, hired by the California Republican Party:

.... said they were tricked into switching parties while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters. Some said they were told that they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law. Others had no idea their registration was being changed.

It is a bait-and-switch scheme familiar to election experts. The firm hired by the California Republican Party -- a small company called Young Political Majors, or YPM, which operates in several states -- has been accused of using the tactic across the country.

Election officials and lawmakers have launched investigations into the activities of YPM workers in Florida and Massachusetts. In Arizona, the firm was recently a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit. Prosecutors in Los Angeles and Ventura counties say they are investigating complaints about the company.

The firm, which a Republican Party spokesman said is paid $7 to $12 for each registration it secures, has denied any wrongdoing and says it has never been charged with a crime.

The 70,000 voters YPM has registered for the Republican Party this year will help combat the public perception that it is struggling amid Democratic gains nationally, give a boost to fundraising efforts and bolster member support for party leaders, political strategists from both parties say.

Those who were formerly Democrats may stop receiving phone calls and literature from that party, perhaps affecting its get-out-the-vote efforts. They also will be given only a Republican ballot in the next primary election if they do not switch their registration back before then.

Some also report having their registration status changed to absentee without their permission; if they show up at the polls without a ballot they may be unable to vote.

The article further states:

The Times randomly interviewed 46 of the hundreds of voters whose election records show they were recently re-registered as Republicans by YPM, and 37 of them -- more than 80% -- said that they were misled into making the change or that it was done without their knowledge.

Please click here to read the full article.

A related article at Californiachronicle.com states:

The San Bernardino County Democrats set up a meeting with an assistant Registrar in the County office and together they agreed to check up on the new Republicans that were being turned in. The Registrar's office gave the list of new registrations to the Democrats who parceled out the voters which had changed from "Democrat" or "Decline to State" to "Republican." They designed a questionnaire, assigned lists of voters to be called by various volunteers, and made several hundred calls to the voters using the questionnaire to determine what was happening and how it was being done.

Their findings were surprising. Of all the voters who were contacted, more than 80% said they had intended to register Democrat and that their party had been switched without their knowledge or permission.

More than 75% of the phone numbers listed were no good, and these registrations were just two weeks old. Republicans usually require 75% phone numbers on the cards they pay for, so it is necessary to invent phone numbers in order to get paid.

More on our situation

More on Demand Side economics We've seen how this lousy economic situation happened. We've gone from people earning money and spending money, a demand based economy, to people's taxes being doubled under Reagan, the money being given to the wealthy where in most cases they are either saving it, sending it to China or maybe buying new ivory backscratchers. Either way the idea of it trickling down doesn't seem to be on their minds.

For people to maintain lifestyles they had from the late 40's throughout the 70's had to start borrowing and now we're all tapped out. So where do we go now? Dick Cheney said "One thing Ronald Reagan taught us is that deficits don't matter." From the Sunday paper insert "Parade" "For sale, U.S. roads, some of America's cash strapped states and cities are leasing public roads to the higest bidder who are often foreign investors. Chicago's Skyway is controlled by the Spanish-Austrailian Investment Group, an Italian firm operates the Dullus Greenway outside of Washington DC." You want to get to the nation's captital's airport you have to get on a greenway that is owned by a company that is out of Italy!

Abu Dhabi is poised to drop their connection to the dollar, why? Because the dollar is inflating like mad. They are experiencing 11% inflation in the UAE, because they don't fiddle with their inflation numbers. Kevin Phillips says our inflation numbers are total nonsense! A whole series of things happened, The Clinton Administration changed them, in 1994 the Bereau of Labor Statistics said if you work for less than half a year, you're now a "discouraged worker" and won't be counted as unemployed so right away 4 million people fell off the unemployment rolls. Looked good for the Clinton economy but really wasn't so good for us. They also thinned the economic sample by a sixth, it went from 60,000 families to 50,000 and guess who the 10,000 people they didn't samply anymore was, the inner city! So we no longer look at the areas where unemployment is highest in the United States, bottom line, we've got totally phony numbers. Now we can thank Clinton for that, but when we look at what was going on at the time with political pressure from the newly elected Republican majority in Congress coming into office we can probably attribute that to Clinton being weak knee'd in the face of what appeared to be a mandate from the people for Republicans on economic issues when in fact the Gringrich Revolution was mostly based on the culture war and the fear that things were going too far away from societal norms than fiscally.

According to Kevin Phillips, one of the top economists, and top conservatives in America says here's the real numbers, get this, today's unemployment rate is actually between 9 and 12%, our infaltion rate is actually between 7and 10%, our economic growth rate, once we take out the already rich and the super rich is not even there, we're creeping into recession, and that's Keven Phillips.

Meanwhile because our dollar has fallen so far, who won this battle between Bush and bin Laden, to the extent that it was a battle, not sure it ever was because Bush never went after him really. Nonetheless in 1998 Osama bin Laden said in an interview that one of the things that was really wrong with the world was the fact that we were "stealing oil from Saudi Arabia" his holy land. We were paying $11.00 per barrell in '98 as you may recall. How much did he say it should be? He said it should be about $144.00 per barrell. Guess what the price went to last summer, you guessed it folks, $144.00 per barrell. I would say that Osama bin Laden has effectivley won the economic war against the United States. He is bankrupting us. But really it's not so much bin Laden that's doing it, it's Bush and Republican policies, that's the bottom line, it comes down to that.

On top of that we've just seen the biggest job loss number come in for 2008, the biggest seen for FIVE AND A HALF YEARS actually at 159,000 jobs LOST!! That's NINE MONTHS IN A ROW OF JOB LOSS, and HUGE job losses at that every month!! Nobody's mentioning the fact that even if there were no jobs lost, there would still arguably be jobs lost due to the fact that on average we've got over 100,000 people coming into the job market every month as young people graduate from high school and college coming into the job market at higher numbers than people are retiring or dying. So we have to have 115,000 jobs a month just to keep even. At least during the 8 years of the Clinton administration for all of it's faults, over thirty million jobs were created, during the almost 8 years of the Bush administration, three million jobs have been created. Now granted under Bush economics and the second half of Clinton economic policies if you got lost your good paying full time union job and you took a part time job working at Wal Mart and another part time job working at a gas station, you are now considered to be 2 employed people.So according to statistics, things went up! That's how bad the book keeping is.Now it's cracking down into the 401k's, all the while the neocons have been saying we need to privatize Social Security and put it into a 401k type of system, forget pensions, that's so outdated, people want a fixed amount of money, not a pension that pays every month for the rest of their lives no matter how long like Social Security does, which is a pension, instead they want a defined benefit plan where if you put in 100,000 dollars, you get out 100,000 dollars plus intrest. The problem is, most 401k plans are based in the stock market and what's happening to the stock market now? It's going south! You hear anyone promoting privatization of Social Security now? Even John McCain flipped his flop from for it, to against earlier this month. I'm telling you folks, the Republicans have destroyed our economy for everyone.

Look, as long as we refuse to admit that Reagan didn't actually save us from the economic woes of the late 70's and early 80's and as long as we don't admit that it was all a fantastic illusion based on borrowed money that was never totally paid back (both with Republicans Reagan, Bush I and Bush II as well as the Democratic President Clinton) and the real problem of jobs and wages were never solved, only worsened during this time over the past 30 years, we'll only see our intrests fall to below the poverty line and our aspects of doing better seriously hobbled.

Remember, if Gen X is the first American generation to not do better than their parents did then the boomers will be the fist American generation to leave the country worse off than their parents left it to them, after all the country was coming back from the Depression by the end of Roosevelt's 2nd term though it would be until around 1953, '54 before the stock market had totally recovered some quarter century after the crash of '29, at least they spent that quarter century fixing the real problem. Now that we're more than a quarter century away from the end of the Vietnam war, and the resulting effect that the money borrowed for it had come due by the late 70's (considering it ended totally in '75) we never fixed the problem, only deluded ourselves about how well we had done and how far we had come.

Don't you think it's time to change, don't you think it's time for honesty in assesing the situation and actually fixing a thing or three that's wrong?

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Video: Mick Benedict - Chevy Van

I was just foolin' around with the video software and thought I'd throw this one out there. If you didn't know I've always had a thing for custom vans. I had a Jim Dandy of one when I was about 17.

I had a 1977 Dodge B-200 short wheel base deal with no windows except for the small slits in the upper rear corners. On the inside it had a parkay hardwood floor, quilted velor on the walls, the couch/bed, sink and ice box, moon roof, overhead console complete with CB radio and killer stereo.

On the outside the van had desert murals on both sides with letter about a foot high that stretched across from front wheel to back reading "GOOD TIMES MACHINE" in reflective lettering, and on the back had a metal plate that said "Keep On Truckin'". I miss that old heap.

Well, hope you enjoy. After finishing the video up I noticed that I had used a previous demo track so sorry about the parts that sound a bit wrong.

Thanks--Mick

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Reality of Reaganomics

As Gen X will remember, back around 1991, 1992 we were told that we would be the first American generation to NOT do better or even as well as our parents।

For years we wondered just why this was. We asked ourselves, can this be true? How can this have happened? Especially after the messiah Ronald Reagan came in and saved us all. Or did he?

The main reason behind the holding back of achieving the reality of the American dream and offered a watered down, debt ridden version of it is because of Conservative/Republican economic policies, because we have replaced old fashioned "demand side" economics that was the way this country was run for over 200 years and arguably goes back thousands of years.

Demand side economics basically is the idea that there are people out there that want to buy things, gee, I think I'll start a business to sell to them. With "supply side" economics, an invention that came to life during the Reagan adminsitration basically says, let's take the public's money and give it to wealthy people and hopefully they'll build more factories, and they'll get even more wealthy, and in the process of them buying yachts, they'll build factories that will create new jobs buidling yachts, and when they buy more Gulf Stream airplanes, Gulf Stream will create new jobs building Gulf Stream airplanes and hopefully they'll build more factories making more things that we'll want to buy.

THIS HAS BEEN A DISASTER!! IT DOESN'T WORK!!

The traditional concept of economics is people buy things because they have the money to buy them. What drives an economy is demand and the demand comes in part because people have the means to fulfill that demand. In other words they're making enough money to buy things.

There were really two pieces to Reaganomics, the first part basically said, we're going to forget about whether or not people can afford to buy things, we're going to tax working people, literally doubled the tax on the middle class and put in huge tax breaks (it went from 70% to 28% on people making over 3.2 million dollars per year) on the very wealthy and on corporations. Before Reagan came into office major corporations were paying 35% of all infastructure like police and fire that yes, even corporations use. Because of that we are now down to around 7 or 8% of our taxes in the United States are paid by corporations, the rest are paid by individual taxpayers, you know, you and me. There's the reason YOUR taxes are so high.

The Reagan Administration came to the conclusion, as a result of this supply side silliness that it doesn't matter if people actually have the money or not because we're all about raising corporate profits. So they cut corporate taxes, gave them money to the corporations by way of subsidies, bonuses, more free Federal land for the oil industry, mining industry, etc. We're going to change our rules on international trade so their manufacturing floors can move overseas, they can make the cars in Mexico, make the toys in China, etc, etc. so labor becomes cheaper, as a consequence of that corporate profits go up as well we didn't see necessarily where prices went down, but profits did go up. So the bottom line was, destroy the ability of the wage earner to earn money and shift all this money up to the top. There's a slight problem here, who's going to buy anything if they don't have income anymore?

We've seen the income of the average American worker erode after it had climbed for years and years. From 1949 to '59 the median income of American familes grew by 37%. From 1959 to '70 it grew by 41%, that's SUBSTANTIAL INCREASE in the income of working people. People were making more money every year. People knew that they could do better than there Dad had. Every year was a better year as far as income was concerned. By the end of the Carter Administration, mainly because we were ringing out all the money borrowed for the Vietnam War it dropped down to 6.8% during the late 70's and 97% of that went to the top 20% of families. Since Reagan came along real income for wage earning Americans, people who earn a paycheck and don't live off of dividends. Real income has DECREASED steadily.

So the Republicans looked at this and said this is working out well for our fat cat campaign contributors, the top 2%, the millionaires and the billionaires, the top tenth of 1%, but we've got this problem, we've got consumers that aren't buying stuff. So Greenspan came along and said, loosen credit, let them borrow. During the 40's and 50's when we were seeing wage growth every year, the middle class became strong, people bought their homes, they bought their cars, land, ASSETS! Let's strip them of their assets. Make it easy for them to refinance their house as times get tougher, make it easier to buy on credit, don't even buy a car, just lease it. Let them run up credit card debt high intrest rates and make it easy for the credit card companies to screw them.

Basically what has happened over the last 30 years Americans have, by government policy, been thrown massively in debt as a way to keep buying stuff, as a way to keep the economy moving and here we are now, it's coming to an end. It's coming to an end in two ways, Number One; We're reaching the limits of credit. Americans are tapped out. We're so broke we can't afford to borrow money anymore. Number 2; The government has been doing the same thing. 70% of the TOTAL DEBT of America was run up by THREE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTS!!! Two Bushes and a Reagan.

The consequence of this is that our dollar is falling through the floor, now places like Abu Dhabi and other countries around the world that have a dollar peg are strongly considering de-pegging our currency and theirs.

It's time to get past ideology and admit to ourselves for all of their talk, all of their shoving it down our throat, it's time to admit that Republican policy has failed the United States of America, and as a result, we, the good ol' U.S. of A. as the leaders of the free world, with all of our promise to spread good will and uplift and promote democracy and freedom of thought everywhere have failed in our stewardship of our own Constitution, and our own freedoms.

We are citizens, it's time to act like it. Don't be distracted by a go nowhere culture war, be sensible and do what's right, stay away from what's wrong (even if it's legal) and don't be anybody's fool!!

Friday, October 17, 2008

कमेंटरी: वहत लबोर वांट्स फ्रॉम थे नेक्स्ट President

"Commentary"-What Labor Wants From The Next President

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

SUZANNE PRATT: With the presidential election just 20 days away, we continue our special series of election commentaries, looking at the candidates' economic choices. Tonight, John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO weights in on what labor wants from the next president.

JOHN SWEENEY, PRESIDENT, AFL-CIO: There couldn't be more at stake for working families in this year's election. Today's financial crisis is rocking Wall Street and Main Street. The stock market's tumble has wiped out $2 trillion in Americans' retirement savings. More than 760,000 Americans have lost their jobs this year. But this crisis didn't develop overnight. In fact, the roots are decades deep, reflecting an elitism that was built into our economic rules. These rules favor corporate profits and Wall Street over working people. Over the last several decades, America's workers set records for productivity, yet wages have stayed low. In part this is because big business has brutalized workers who have tried to win better wages and benefits by forming unions. And without strong unions, there is no real counterweight to corporate greed. America's workers can't afford another day of the Bush economic policies. And there's no question that this is the most important election in our lifetimes. Our very future and our children's futures are at stake. That's why I believe Americans will make history this November and turn our nation around

Thursday, October 16, 2008

TAKIN' MY COUNTRY BACK

Now here's a REAL country song, not what Gnashville seems to think is country music and values. This is what the common folks have on their minds.

You see, it's not just George Bush, it's the whole right wing ideology on economics and jobs that has gotten us into this mess. Villifying "liberals" against "conservatives" and having them follow the party line right on down the line with more us against them politics has been a pretty easy job for Limbaugh, Hannity and Billo the Clown with their massive media machine behind them, saturating the airwaves with their message 24/7.

Don't think McCain is McSame as Bush? Just dig on what he had to say about free trade just last night on the final debate: "Free trade with Colombia is a no brainer." This is ridiculous. Now we've got a transfer of wealth going on but it's not the top being taken from to give to the bottom, but the bottom getting hosed by bandits at places like AIG.

Don't you think it's time to take our country back before the Repugnacons can give it away to more communist intrests overseas?

TAKIN' MY COUNTRY BACK

COUNTRY MUSIC'S GOT MAMAS AND DADDYS
WE GOT BAR ROOMS AND OLD HEARTBREAK SONGS
BUT I 'M HERE TODAY TO STAND UP AND SAY
HOW I FEEL ABOUT MY HOME SWEET HOME
WHAT'S LEFT, WHAT'S RIGHT AND WHAT'S WRONG... AND

I’M TAKIN’ MY COUNTRY BACK
SON, YOU AIN'T BEEN DOIN’ HER RIGHT
OH I BEEN WATCHIN’ YOU AND I DON’T LIKE
HOW YOU'VE BEEN TREATIN’ MY STARS AND STRIPES
YOU TOOK OUR JOBS AND SENT ‘EM OVERSEAS
NOW WE OWE BILLIONS TO THE RED CHINESE
YOU BLEW THE BUDGET AND YOU BOTCHED IRAQ
SO I’M TAKIN’ MY COUNTRY BACK

WE HAD A BUNDLE IN THE TREASURY DRAWER
MORE THAN THERE HAD EVER BEEN BEFORE
BUT EVERY DAY WE'RE DROWNIN' DEEPER IN DEBT
MAYBE FOUR YEARS SHOULD BE ALL YOU GET
THEN YOU GAVE TAX BREAKS TO THE MILLIONAIRES
AND TRIED TO MAKE THE WORKIN’ MAN PAY
BUT YOU CAN’T TAX A MAN WHEN HIS JOBS NOT THERE
NOW LOOK AT WHERE WE ARE TODAY…HEY

I’M TAKIN’ MY COUNTRY BACK
SON, YOU AIN'T BEEN DOIN’ HER RIGHT
OH I BEEN WATCHIN’ YOU AND I DON’T LIKE
HOW YOU'VE BEEN TREATIN’ MY STARS AND STRIPES
YOU GOT TOO MANY FANCY FRIENDS FOR ME
THE SAUDIS TREAT YOU LIKE YOU'RE ROYALTY
YOU BLEW THE BUDGET AND YOU BOTCHED IRAQ
NOW I’M TAKIN’ MY COUNTRY BACK

NOW I CAN UNDERSTAND WHY YOU WERE HOT
'CAUSE BIN LADEN NEVER DID GET CAUGHT
SO YOU SAID WE HAD SADDAM TO BLAME
TRIED TO TELL US IT WAS ALL THE SAME
BUT NOW THE YEARS ROLL BY AND OUR KIDS KEEP DYIN'
YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A PLAN TO BRING 'EM HOME
AND THOSE W.M.D. YOU PROMISED ON T.V.
HEY ADMIT IT, YOU FIGURED IT WRONG... SO I'M TAKIN' MY COUNTRY BACK

NOW YOU DON’T KNOW MY NAME, BUT YOU KNOW WHO I AM
I'M YOUR EVERYDAY WORK HARD, PLAY HARD
RAISE KIDS AND PRAY HARD COMMON MAN....
AND LORD KNOWS I LOVE THIS LAND...THAT'S WHY

I’M TAKIN’ MY COUNTRY BACK
SON, YOU AIN'T BEEN DOIN’ HER RIGHT
OH I BEEN WATCHIN’ YOU AND I DON’T LIKE
HOW YOU'VE BEEN TREATIN’ MY STARS AND STRIPES
YOU SAY "UNITE" BUT YOU DIVIDE US MORE
CUSSIN' EACH OTHER ON THE SENATE FLOOR
AIN'T WE SUPPOSED TO BE ABOVE ALL THAT ?
HEY I’M TAKIN’ MY COUNTRY BACK
I GOT MY FAMILY AND MY CHURCH AND FLAG...
NOW I'M TAKIN' MY COUNTRY BACK

Brought to you by
Honky Tonkers for Truth
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/10/ale04066.html

A Case of Welfare Fraud?

Consider this, if you get food stamps and use them for purchasing alcohol, tobacco, drugs or any other non approved food items there is a good chance that you will be found out and when you are you WILL be charged with the crime known as WELFARE FRAUD.

Do we allow these Welfare Executives at AIG to keep up this bad behavior? This is the second instance of these bums living off our dime, a dime that is getting harder to come by, and squandering the money on frivolous things like horseback riding and getting their toenails cut at a high dollar salon while the rest of us can scarcely afford the milk and eggs it takes to bake a cake. Let'em eat cake? INDEED!

Apparantly these Welfare Executives have some kind of problem. Our lack of correction for this behavior will only make us enablers to it and they will never be cured of their dependency on government assistance. Get these bums off the public dole and treat them like you would a single mother who did something like this.

AIG executives spent thousands during hunting trip

By IEVA M. AUGSTUMS – 22 hours ago

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — A handful of top executives from American International Group Inc. spent thousands of dollars during a recent English hunting trip, even as the New York-based insurer asked for an additional $37.8 billion loan from the Federal Reserve.

The news comes as New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday told the insurance giant to do away with golden parachutes for executives, golf outings and parties while taking government money to stay afloat.

Cuomo said he has the power under state business law to review and possibly rescind any inappropriate AIG spending as long as the Federal Reserve is propping up the huge insurer with almost $123 billion in loans announced since Sept. 16.

"This was an annual event for customers of the AIG property casualty insurance companies in the U.K. and Europe, and planned months before the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's loan to AIG," company spokesman Peter Tulupman said Wednesday morning.

In a prepared statement later in the day, the company said, "We will continue to take all measures necessary to ensure that these activities cease immediately. AIG's priority is to continue focusing on actions necessary to repay the Federal Reserve loan and emerge as a vital, ongoing business."

AIG officials declined to say which AIG executives attended the trip, which reports have said racked up an $86,000 tab. News of the hunting trip surfaced just days after AIG received an additional $37.8 billion loan from the Federal Reserve, on top of a previous $85 billion emergency loan granted last month.

The company said last week it would stop "all non-essential conferences, meetings and activities that do not clearly maximize value and service given the current conditions."

Last month, and just days after the U.S. government stepped in to save AIG with a $85 billion taxpayer-funded loan, the company picked up a $440,000 tab for a week-long retreat at a posh California resort for top-performing insurance agents.

Lawmakers investigating AIG's meltdown said they were enraged that executives of AIG's main U.S. life insurance subsidiary spent a lavish amount on the retreat, complete with spa treatments, banquets and golf outings. Last week, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino called the event "despicable."

At that time, AIG issued a statement saying that the "business event" was planned months before the Sept. 16 bailout and that it was held for top-producing independent life insurance agents, not AIG employees. Of the 100 attendees, only 10 worked for the AIG unit hosting the event, it said.

The insurer said Chief Executive Edward Liddy sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson "clarifying the circumstances" of the event. In the letter, Liddy assured Paulson that AIG is "reevaluating the costs of all aspects of our operations in light of the new circumstances in which we are all operating."

The insurer then said it canceled a future California retreat that was to be held later this month.

Regarding the recent hunting trip, "We regret that this event was not canceled," Tulupman said Wednesday.

Shares of AIG fell 37 cents, or 13.2 percent, to $2.43 in trading Wednesday.

Video: Motorcycle Man

We're (finally) putting out another great song with Sailcat, a followup to the 1972 hit "Motorcycle Mama" with "Motorcycle Man"

We've put together a video to go along with the demo to see how it floats. A tribute to the American Biker, complete with the art of longtime EASYRIDERS magazine artist DAVID MANN, Hope ya'll enjoy:

and widout furdder ado, here's Sailcat in 1972, right after cartoons ended on Saturday morning, remember?? :-D

Now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers...

Hey Ya'll,

I came across this article at Angela Moland Barnes blog
and thought it was a nice read about the Shoals music scene.

Now Muscle Shoals has got the swampers…

And they’ve been known to pick a song or two

Lord they get me off so much

They pick me up when I’m feeling blue

Now how about you?

(Chorus)

Sweet Home Alabama

Where the skies are so blue

Sweet Home Alabama

Lord, I’m coming home to you

If you are from Alabama, you know this Lynyrd Skynyrd song by heart and if the time is right (we do have manners), you sing it to the top of your lungs. You know what I am talking about … don’t pretend. If you happen to be from the Muscle Shoals area (like myself), you may be particularly interested in the slice of the song listed above. The Swampers, also known as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, were a group of studio musicians who worked at Muscle Shoals Sound. Lynyrd Skynyrd is from Jacksonville, Florida and wrote this song as a tribute to the studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where they recorded their demo album in 1971. Sweet Home Alabama became their first hit song from their second album.

The song also mentions Neil Young - “I hope Neil Young will remember a southern man don’t need him around anyhow”. Neil Young had written Southern Man and Alabama, which may have made people think that all Southern people were racist and stuck in the past. Lynyrd Skynyrd responded with Sweet Home Alabama which highlighted all things good about Alabama. This was a lighthearted feud between the bands and Neil Young performed the song at a memorial when three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd were killed in a plane crash in 1977.

mss.jpg

Muscle Shoals Sound

Muscle Shoals and the Shoals area is one of the most unaffected “music capitals” in the world. The music that is recorded there is distinctive because of the mixture of soul, gospel, country and rock. The city is situated between Nashville (known for country) and Memphis (known for blues). In the 1960’s, during the Civil Rights Movement, the Shoals was full of creativity and black and white artists worked side-by-side. A lot of people praise the area for its innovative thought, but it was nothing new for North Alabama, where you could find black and white musicians working together since the 1930s regardless of racial tension in other Southern regions.

There are thousands of songs that were recorded in Muscle Shoals. Some people say that the song I’ll Take You There by The Staple Singers is the perfect example of the Muscle Shoals Sound. Pretty impressive!

Here are a few artist that you may recognize that recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama:

Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Bob Seger, Boz Scaggs, Carlos Santana, Cher, Eric Clapton, Etta James, Helen Reddy, Jason Isbell (Drive-by Truckers), Jimmy Buffet, Joe Cocker, Linda Ronstadt, Melissa Etheridge, Otis Redding, Paul Simon, Percy Sledge, Rod Stewart, Simon and Garfunkel, The Allman Brothers Band, The Osmonds, The Rolling Stones, Travis Wammack, Widespread Panic, Faith Hill, Reba McEntire, Willie Nelson, etc., etc……

Muscle Shoals Rythm Section To Be Inducted to Hall of Fame

I'd like to give a shout out to my good friend Pete "Guitar" Carr and a hearty Congratulations on being inducted into the Musician's Hall of Fame along with the rest of the "Swampers" this month.

Check out Pete's website at www.playthatguitar.com and check out his videos page by clicking on the tab marked videos. My favorite is the Mary McGregor session with the swampers and Peter Yarrow from Peter, Paul and Mary narrating and Executive Producer on the session. It really shows a kind of a birds eye view into what goes into making a hit recording. A good bit of repitition getting it right, but truthfully these guys were so professional at recording hit records that they make it look a lot easier than it usually is...lol...just listen to any of my cruddy recordings and realize that it took me at least 3 tries to get the vocal as right as it ended up haha.

( (( BMI is a proud sponsor of the 2008 Musician's Hall of Fame &
Museum Award Show )) )

Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum 2008 Induction

Booker T. and the MGs, The Memphis Horns, The Muscle Shoals Rhythm
Section, The Crickets, Al Kooper, and Billy Sherrill

WHAT: Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum Induction. Seven renowned
musicians and musical groups will be honored at the 2008 Musicians
Hall of Fame & Museum Awards Show on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at the
Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville.

WHO: 2008 inductees are Booker T. and the MGs (Booker T. Jones,
Steve Cropper, Al Jackson and Donald "Duck" Dunn), The Memphis Horns
(Wayne Jackson and Andrew Love), The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section
(Jimmy Johnson, Roger Hawkins, David Hood, and Barry Beckett), The
Crickets (Jerry Allison (J.I.), Joe B. Mauldin, and Sonny Curtis), Al
Kooper and Billy Sherrill.

Special guests include Percy Sledge (When A Man Loves A Woman); Eddie
Floyd (Knock On Wood); Phil Everly; George Jones, Barbara Mandell,
and many more to be announced.

WHEN: Tuesday, October 28, 2008; 7:30 pm

WHERE: Schermerhorn Symphony Center; Nashville, Tennessee

Inductees are nominated nationally by the Musicians Union which has a
membership of over 90,000. Last year's inductees included some of
the most esteemed and influential musicians in recording history:
The Nashville A-Team, The Blue Moon Boys, The Funk Brothers, The
Memphis Boys, The Tennessee Two, and The Wrecking Crew. They were
joined in their performances by recording artists Garth Brooks,
Brenda Lee, George Jones, Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Peter Frampton, B.J.
Thomas, Rodney Crowell, Roger McGuinn, and many others.

For more information on the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum and to
see highlights from last year's show, please go to:
http://www.musicianshalloffame.com/.

To purchase tickets contact the Schermerhorn box office at
615.687.6400 or to purchase tickets online, click here

The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and Friends - Jimmy Johnson
(guitar), Roger Hawkins (drums), David Hood (bass), and Barry Beckett
(keyboards) along with friends Spooner Oldham, Clayton Ivey, Randy
McCormick, Will McFarlane and Pete Carr. Formed in 1967, the Muscle
Shoals Rhythm Section is considered one of the finest studio rhythm
sections in the world, playing sessions in New York, Nashville, and
Muscle Shoals. They became world renown as the musicians, and or
producers, on such classics as "Respect" by Aretha Franklin, "Mustang
Sally" by Wilson Pickett, "Kodachrome" by Paul Simon, "I'll Take You
There" by The Staple Singers, "Old Time Rock and Roll" by Bob Seger,
and many others. They have played on over 500 LPs, garnering over 75
gold and platinum LPs.

Booker T. and the MGs - Booker T. Jones (organ, piano), Steve Cropper
(guitar), Al Jackson (drums) and Donald "Duck" Dunn (bass). Best
remembered historically as the studio band for Stax-Volt Records
during the 60s, Booker T. and the MGs created the "Memphis Sound"
behind the hit recordings by Carla Thomas ("Gee Whiz"), Rufus Thomas
("Walkin' the Dog"), Otis Redding ("Dock of the Bay"), Sam and Dave,
among others. The reputation as a band in their own right was
established in 1962 with their instrumental hit "Green Onions." On
their own Booker T. and the MGs had rhythm and blues hits with "Hip
Hug-Her," "Groovin'," "Soul Limbo," and "Time Is Tight."

The Memphis Horns - Wayne Jackson (trumpet) and Andrew Love (tenor
saxophone). Famous for their many appearances on Stax Records, they
have been called "arguably the greatest soul horn section ever." The
Memphis Horns appeared on nearly every recording for Stax — with
Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas, Sam and Dave and others — as
well as on other releases, including The Doobie Brothers' What Were
Once Vices Are Now Habits, U2's Rattle and Hum as well as a few solo
records.

The Crickets - Jerry Allison (J.I.) (drums), Joe B. Mauldin (bass),
Sonny Curtis (guitar/lead vocal) Founded in 1957, the Crickets have
influenced virtually every major rock performer in the United States
and abroad – from Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan to the Rolling
Stones and the Beatles (whose name was even Crickets-inspired)

. Their
hits have included some of rock's historical classics, "That'll Be
The day," Peggy Sue," "Oh Boy," "Not Fade Away," "Maybe Baby," "It's
So Easy," "I Fought The Law" and "More Than I Can Say."

Al Kooper - Best known for his striking organ riff on "Like a Rolling
Stone" and his performances with Bob Dylan in concert in the 60s.
Kooper was a member of the Blues Project, and formed Blood, Sweat &
Tears, culminating in the release of their first album, Child Is
Father to the Man. He has played on hundreds of records, including
performances with The Rolling Stones, George Harrison, B.B. King, The
Who, Jimi Hendrix and innumerable others. He has released
approximately 11 albums since 1968 including the best-selling "Super
Session" album featuring Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills. In
addition, he produced the first three albums of the band Lynyrd
Skynyrd, including the single, "Sweet Home Alabama" and the
iconic "Free Bird".

Billy Sherrill (Producer Award) – Record producer and arranger who
has been regarded as the defining influence of the countrypolitan
sound, Sherrill is famous for his association with a number of
country artists including Tammy Wynette, Charlie Rich, Elvis
Costello, George Jones, Johnny Paycheck, Tanya Tucker, Johnny Cash,
Barbara Mandrell, David Allan Coe, Ray Conniff, Joe Stampley, Charlie
Walker, Ray Charles and many others.

Duane Eddy - Grammy Award winning guitarist, member of the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame, and the Number One Rock and Roll Instrumentalist
of All Time. Beginning with his first release, in 1958, his
distinctively low, twangy riffs would be featured on an unprecedented
string of thirty four chart singles, fifteen of which made the Top
Forty, with sales of over 100 million worldwide. Best known for such
hits as "Rebel Rouser", "Forty Miles of Bad Road", "Peter
Gunn", "Because They're Young", "Cannonball", "The Lonely
One", "Shazam" and "Some Kind-a Earthquake".

###

Broadcast Music, Inc.® (BMI) is an American performing right
organization that represents more than 375,000 songwriters, composers
and music publishers in all genres of music and more than 6.5 million
works. BMI's latest financial results, $901 million for its 2008
fiscal year, are the highest performing right collections for any
copyright organization in the world. BMI has represented the most
popular and beloved music from around the world for over 65 years.
The U.S. corporation collects license fees from businesses that use
music, which it then distributes as royalties to the musical creators
and copyright owners it represents.

Best o' the Web: Palin As President

Just go there, point and click on various things in the room. Cute

http://www.palinaspresident.us/

GOP to Steal the Election?

We're hearing a lot about the trumped-up charges against ACORN these days—but very little about the massive voter suppression campaign being orchestrated by the Republicans. The GOP is trying to purge thousands of Democratic voters off the rolls in states like Ohio, Florida, and Colorado.¹

John McCain and Sarah Palin are falsely accusing a community organizing group—ACORN—of voting fraud to distract the media from their own party's wrongdoing.² Worst of all: It's working.

The truth is, McCain is vilifying ACORN to justify voter suppression—making it harder for Obama supporters to vote.

The GOP's voter suppression campaign could steal this election. But we can stop them with a rapid-response fund to support legal actions, run newspaper ads to get the media talking about GOP voter suppression, and prosecute anyone who tries to steal this election.

Can you chip in $25 to kick off our No Stolen Elections fund?

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/suppression.html?id=14429-10222665-_jCOLPx&t=3

The simple act of raising funds to protect this election will send a warning to right-wing operatives who think they can get away with voter suppression.

For over twenty-five years, Republicans have promoted the myth of voting fraud to argue for restrictive voting laws—but Bush's own Justice Department found virtually no organized voting fraud.³ Now McCain is attacking ACORN in order to justify a frenzy of lawsuits making it harder for Obama supporters to vote.

Here's what he's not telling you:

The only fraud committed was against ACORN itself. ACORN hired 13,000 workers to register a remarkable 1.3 million new voters. And a few of them turned in registration forms with inaccurate and even made-up names to get credit for work they didn't do. ACORN fired them and turned them over to the authorities.⁴

ACORN reported the fraudulent registration forms. In most states, ACORN is required by law to submit all forms collected whether they appear to be bogus or not—that way election officials, not partisan groups, can make the call. ACORN flags cards that may not be legitimate. And in many places, the charges of fraud only came up because ACORN was the one who flagged the cards!⁵

This won't have any impact on the election. No one is allowed to vote unless they are properly registered. And there is no evidence of false registrations actually leading to organized voting fraud.⁶

We can't let false charges of voting fraud distract us from the very real voter suppression campaign that is already well under way.

Republicans are looking for typos on voter registration forms, threatening to challenge homeowners facing foreclosure, and falsely warning that voters with outstanding traffic tickets may be arrested if they go to the polls.⁷

Help protect this election from Republican voter suppression. Click here to contribute $25 to our No Stolen Elections fund:

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/suppression.html?id=14429-10222665-_jCOLPx&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Noah, Laura, Ilyse, Daniel and the rest of the team

P.S. You can learn more about the false charges against ACORN by clicking here:

http://acorn.org/quickfacts

P.P.S. Republicans aren't just smearing ACORN—they're smearing Barack Obama, too, by sending around untrue emails about him.

Have your friends or family ever forwarded you an email with false attacks on Obama? If so, be sure they know the truth. Forward the email to The Center for Political Accuracy, and they'll reply with the true facts for you to respond with:

info@politicalaccuracy.org

Sources:
1. "States' Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal," New York Times, October 8, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html

"Check-off box delays thousands of voter registrations," Denver Post, October 14, 2008
http://www.denverpost.com/previous2/home/ci_10713377

2. "ACORN defends efforts amid voter-fraud allegations," Associated Press, October 14, 2008
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081014/ap_on_el_pr/voter_fraud

3. "In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud," New York Times, April 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html

"The Truth About Fraud," Brennan Center for Justice
http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/

4. "The Truth About ACORN's Voter Registration Drives," ACORN
http://acorn.org/quickfacts

"Group Answers Charges of Voter Registration Fraud," New York Times, October 14, 2008
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/acorn/

5. "Voter Group Admits Mistakes, Defends Work," ABC News, October 14, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=31241&id=14429-10222665-_jCOLPx&t=5

"Is there ACORN fraud in Florida?," Orlando Sentinel, October 15, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=31239&id=14429-10222665-_jCOLPx&t=6

6. "'Fraud' vs. 'Suppression'," Politico, October 14, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=31240&id=14429-10222665-_jCOLPx&t=7

7. "After A Surge in Registration, A Surge in Suppression," Brennan Center for Justice, October 7, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=31236&id=14429-10222665-_jCOLPx&t=8

"Democrats fear GOP will turn away foreclosed voters; GOP won't rule out using residency change to challenge a ballot," Indianapolis Star, October 3, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=31237&id=14429-10222665-_jCOLPx&t=9

"Vote-scam fliers target black neighborhoods," Philadelphia Daily News, October 2, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=31041&id=14429-10222665-_jCOLPx&t=10

Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 4.2 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

It's the Jobs too, stoopido

I know, I know, it's the economy stupid. But what is causing the economy to go down the tubes?

People are in mass not paying their bills, for whatever reason the pundits like to put out there it was all going swimmingly when regular folks could make the minimum monthly payments.

However we've seen our wages stagnate and recess back to early 70's pay scales for both blue collar and now white collar jobs. Downsizing wasn't really a downsize for the company. Sure they downsized the American workforce that was employed at these companies, but remember right after the big downsize bust came outsourcing. They got rid of good paying jobs here in the U.S. and hired even more people over seas at less of a cost to the company, making board members and CEOs of these companies very rich, but their target customer base lost their buying power over the years.

Now we're seeing what happens when you don't give a man a leg to stand on. Republican pundits can rail against "protectionism" like it's a bad thing and when the issue of trade agreements finally gets tackled one day the right wing media machine will be in full swing doing their best to convince well meaning American workers that these deals are good for the country and good for them.

When we look at it though, who's it good for? It's good for the CEO, it's good for the Board of Directors, it's good for shareholders, but only for a short time really. In the long run the consumer is going to have to be able to afford to buy the products that these companies sell.

For awhile they are going to have to come off the public dole of corporate welfare for sending jobs overseas and I'm sure they'll lobby for more welfare to bring jobs back (they don't want to see THEIR pay scaled back at the top after all), but we're going to have to force these jobs and wages issues.

It's all about the jobs and what we get paid for doing them. I like being self employed, however even at my teeny-tiny small business I've been seeing a trend since mid '05 when gas prices went over $2.50 per gallon and now with the drop in the markets, failing banks, etc, not even my customers are able to afford to do things they want to, just what they have to.

It's the jobs folks, we need more of them, we need them stable, we need decent pay and so called "protectionism" is really about the only idea for fixing the problem that makes sense, at least the only one I've heard. Big business, or big American business simply will NOT go for trade agreements like the ones that were passed by the European Union where companies can't just exploit workers in poorer countries and countries with environmental regulations more lax than their own.

Say you're a German CEO and you want to open a factory in Co. Cork Ireland so you won't have to pay the people as much as you would in say Berlin then you have to make some kind of investment in the infastructure of that community. You can't just set up shop like you're based there and basically pull a train and exploit every aspect of the poorer less developed country where you put up your facility and you have to offer a liveable wage based on the scale where your company is located, not just exploit low or non-existant minimum wage laws.

That would be a good thing, it did major wonders for Ireland through the 90's until they went into recession last week. But don't count on American big business to be interested in investing anything in the infastructure of any community overseas that they are in. They aren't interested in doing it for their own back yards here in the states. They just want another yacht to ski behind, another vacation home to go hang out in when they get bored hanging out at home, another ivory backscrather to hang next to the barkolounger on the veranda, etc.

It's time to get aggressive with companies that send most of their work overseas when they aren't just trying to supply local markets overseas. When a company in New York sends work to COMMUNIST China or Vietnam just to send what was made by those men and women over there for .25 cents an hour back to the U.S. for sale then that's just wrong. That's not free trade, that's shady. Those jobs should be here in America, with Americans, or at least some smart illegal aliens, haha.

I'm not trying to engage in "class warfare" here, that's just a buzzphrase used by ditto heads to try to quash any intelligent discussion about the reality of our American job situation. It's time to get real about our work, our pay, our financial security and our dignity.

Be a hero. It's your turn now.

What If?

Yeah yeah right wingers, I know, you can excuse your thoughts on this by saying I'm race baiting here, but you've got to look deep at this stuff. I didn't realize it in myself until I could be honest with myself about it. Just think.

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin: what if things were switched around?... think about it.

Would the country's collective point of view be different? Could racism be the culprit?

Ponder the following:

WHAT IF:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class of nearly 900?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama had problems reading from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing five planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality,do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.