The Poor, The Waltons and How One Pays to Change the Subject

CBS News Reports that Half of the US population is Poor or Low Income: "Since the housing bubble burst, nearly 4 million American homes have been lost to foreclosure. An estimated 1.6 million children will be homeless at some time during the year - 38 percent more than at the start of the recession.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, questioned whether some people classified as poor or low-income actually suffer material hardship. He said that while safety-net programs have helped many Americans, they have gone too far, citing poor people who live in decent-size homes, drive cars and own wide-screen TVs."

In a pattern that always amazes Rush Limbaugh made precisely the same point using exactly the same metaphors about big screens TVs and what not earlier this week.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57343397/census-data-half-of-u.s-poor-or-low-income/

Meanwhile, according to Forbes, the six children who inherited the vast fortune of Sam Walton-- who built his retail empire from the beginnings of single store in Northwest Arkansas-- have more wealth than the bottom 30% of Americans. Six trust fund managers with more wealth than 80,000,000 Americans combined.  That seems healthy.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/14/six-waltons-have-more-wealth-than-the-bottom-30-of-americans/

Finally, more data form the NBC New Wall Street Journal Poll:

Which of the following has been the most disappointing event of the past year for you personally?

The wealthiest one percent getting richer and the middle class declining: 31

The lack of economic recovery : 29

The failure of Congress to reach a compromise on the budget deficit : 27

These are not overlapping votes. This is a summary of what most concerns voters, with the three answers above comprising nearly 90% of what people said.

However, the issue that has preoccupied Congress this entire year is the budget deficit, so let see what the pollsters found when asking “What, if anything, most disappoints you about the current Congress?”

They have not gone far enough in cutting federal spending:  12

Another interesting question regards the growth of the two “grass roots” organizations.

The percentage of Americans that consider themselves supports of the Tea Party Movement:  25

The percentage of Americans that consider themselves supports of the Occupy Movement:  27

It may be illuminating to take a quick look at where the two organizations get funding before we rationalize that essentially “Same amount of Americans support both equation”. FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity are the two major organizations funding and organizing the Tea Party.

Both of these organizations were started by Koch Industries, the second largest privately owned business in the United States. Koch Industries have given $12 million to Citizens for a Sound Economy, the predecessor to FreedomWorks, and David Koch serves as a chairman to Americans for Prosperity.

According to Sourcewatch.org, Americans for Prosperity has received nearly $15 million from Koch Family Foundations, 84% of their total funding.

Occupy has no doubt drawn some funds from Soros, but with under a million raised to date, there is no single entity funding a self-interest promoting grass roots organization on the left as there is with the Tea Party on the right. In this case a statistical tie in support is not precisely a tie in real life.

The American Middle class understands that it’s getting hosed by the rich. They are spending millions to muddy the waters and change the subject.

Newt, The Political Everyman Fights the Washington Elite

The latest NBC News/ WSJ poll shows my candidate Newt Gingrich leading his opponent from Massachusetts by 40 to 23%. The same poll has half of all Republican voters saying they won’t vote for Newt in the general which is odd, but Newt has surged to a 10% deficit in the theoretical match up with the president. Go Newt! He's got 'em, just where he wants him. Newt did point out that Ronald Reagan- the patron saint of the right who in response to a tripling of the national debt actually raised taxes- did not catch Jimmy Carter until September of that election year. Newt has plenty of time. That’s true.  But on the facts that’s actually not true, I checked. Immediately after the primaries Reagan actually led Carter by eight points in the polls, only to find himself trailing at the end of October. It is widely believed that the Carter Reagan debate of Oct-28, 1980 turned the election for Reagan, who came across as positive and optimistic. Reagan trailed by several points until that debate, turned the tide then, and rode to an eight point victory.

But to Newt’s point Reagan did not engender nearly the level of negative sentiment in the electorate before the election. In the NBC News/ WSJ poll among independents the number of voters with a negative view of my candidate, Newt, is 48%. Yesterday el Rushbo suggested that the Republicans would do better focusing on their core. (Of course, el Rushbo also suggested that liberals are on the move to outlaw football, so take it with a grain of salt.) But considering the impact that doubling down with the extreme right would have on Newt’s already sky high negatives with independents that seems a totally winning strategy.  So I say go for it!

Newt is vigorously working the anti-elitist campaign trail. According to the New York Post just this week alone, Commander Zany attended a private holiday party for clients of his consulting firm in Washington, DC, while also squeezing in time to join the Kennedy Center Honors. His campaign has had extended periods of time away from both New Hampshire and Iowa. Hard telling there, I assume that is the same for all the candidates. But there is some concern that the arrogant bas*** is going to blow his lead due to his lack of effort, especially in Iowa where they expect you to show up and kiss their religious right tuchas. So that’s a problem. 

Newt is running is the most unusual of campaigns. He rails against the Washington elite often in speeches to the elites in in Washington.  By all appearances he continues to nurture his consulting business giving him something to fall back on in case he is crushed in the general. This would make him the third Republican candidate—after Palin and Cain—to utilize the presidential campaign primarily as a springboard to wealth which is certainly a bizarre development. During this election season, with the exception of Cain Newt, is clearly of all the candidates the one least focused on retail politics. Soon after his announcement to run Gingrich’s entire campaign staff quit after Newt and the wife headed for a two week cruise to the Greek aisles. What serious candidate does that?
Americans are expected to forget that he was speaker of the House and once famously got it a snit over a seat on Air Force One during the Clinton years. Counter intuitively Republican voters are asked to support Newt because of this lengthy and effective record of battling the evil left. As a campaign posture this is the primary weapon employed by Newt’s campaign to convince the right that he can be trusted.

Unfortunately (for me at least) Alan Simpson, former Republican senator from Wyoming and one of the co-chairs of Obama’s deficit reduction commission which went nowhere, was no help yesterday. Simpson was quoted yesterday as saying that Newt’s break with his party over the 1990 budget deal with Democrats under Bush ’41 was “the most hurtful and duplicitous thing I have ever seen”. He went on to say that Newt is “for himself before he is for anybody” Just screams independent minded outsider doesn’t it?

The deal Simpson was referring to was agreement for the 1990 Budget, where Bush the elder famously broke his “No New Taxes” pledge. Interestingly, the plan which was pushed in response to skyrocketing deficits started off with budget cuts and tax increases on gas and other increases in fees eventually settled on spending cuts and a surcharge on income taxes for the wealthy. So often “populist” uprisings in America over taxes come down to the wealthy protecting their wealth. One has to wonder if the proposed  gasoline and other tax increases in the original 1990 budget plan which Newt torpedoed that  would have affected the middle class much more and the wealthy much less would have engendered the anger from the right that income tax surcharge eventually did. It feels much the same way now. It is curious to watch the Republicans see so little merit in the payroll tax cut which would primarily benefit Middle America. Does anyone really believe they would be nearly as fiscally conservative if one of the tax cuts Republicans really want, say allowing corporations to repatriate trillions of overseas profits by lowering the corporate rate from 35% to 10% or 5% was on the table? 

Just yesterday more news came of how Newt is polishing his outsider image by repeatedly linking himself to the real everyman in the electorate, Donald Trump. Yesterday the USA Today reported that Gingrich “had made the cut and was now an official member of Trump National in the Washington suburbs of Northern Virginia”. Trump was quoted as saying, “I have a lot of respect for Newt. Newt's a member, so I love my members. I always love my members.” Of all the candidates it is quite clear than when Trump speaks of the candidate he desires, the one what would prevent him from throwing his hair, ah…hat, in the race, it’s Newt.

As much as I want to see Trump flying around one day, speaking to America from his gold gilded New York penthouse throne the next, I guess I have to choose preferences. Newt without Trump or Romney and Trump, but no Newt? I am all in with Newt, but that does make it tough.

The Bill of Rights, The Price We Pay for Freedom

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has now passed through committee and is working its way through both Houses of Congress towards the president’s desk.  S1867, the Senate version of the bill, raised serious civil liberties concerns that have yet to be adequately answered. Initially the President threatened a veto, but since the bill emerged from the House –Senate conference committee on Monday, the White House has yet to say whether the threat still holds. Several senators that raised civil liberties objections, including Diane Feinstein, D-CA, had a hand in the rewrite in committee. But in a pattern that continues to trouble neither the Obama Administration nor Congress has released the final language, so it is unclear how far Congress has gone to resolve the situation constitutionally. One should not hold their breath.

Previous to the conference committee report, two key provisions of the Senate Bill presented a direct attack on the privileges of American citizens contained in the Bill of Rights. According to the Huffington Post, “Sec. 1031 of the Senate bill would authorize indefinite military detention of suspected terrorists without protecting U.S. citizens' right to trial. Sec. 1032 of the Senate bill would require that suspected foreign terrorists be taken into custody by the military instead of civilian law enforcement authorities…” Of course it would matter little to those held indefinitely without charge or trial if they were held by the military or civilian authorities, but there can be little doubt that the military provision is specifically designed to create legal cover to bury suspected terrorists away from the press and civilian authorities. 

This is no small matter. In the years that followed 9-11, the record of American and other western powers in securing the rights of suspected terror subjects is lengthy and poor. In addition to waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques, it has been well documented that certain detainees were shuttled from one overseas prison to another, as authorities tried to stay one step ahead of legal authorities across the globe. Under Clinton the CIA initiated the Rendition program. Through two terms a couple dozen people were captured and moved through the program. In an indication of what happens when protections promised by one Administration are passed to the next, after 9-11 the CIA moved more than 3,000 detainees through the program during the Bush years. Assurances on torture were requested, but according to a lengthy article in the Journal of Strategic Security (http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1100&context=jss) “It was determined that in certain cases, the United States Government seized persons and transferred them to countries where torture was common in detention facilities, leading some to call extraordinary rendition policy ‘outsourcing torture’”. This is not to cast aspersions on all law enforcement or military personnel, but the protections encoded in the Constitution and Bill of Rights are there specifically to protect citizens from the power of government, not just sometimes, but all the time, and especially when the government feels under threat and is most likely to act undemocratically and precipitously.  

It should not be assumed that every prisoner caught up in the Rendition program was an innocent, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for example. But with thousands of detainees in a program operated outside the view of American courts and the press, bad things happen. Khaled al Masri was one such case.  According to the JSS article, “Al Masri, a Lebanese-born German citizen, was captured while vacationing in Macedonia in 2003... Allegedly, in court documents filed by al Masri and his legal team, al Masri was detained and tortured for nearly six months by the United States in Afghanistan. He was released in 2004 without explanation, let alone any specific criminal charges… Al Masri has since returned to Germany and filed legal action against the United States for cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.”

Perhaps I read it wrong, but it seems holding US citizens without charges or trial would be problematic in the context of the 5^th and 6^th Amendments to the Constitution contained in the Bill of Rights. The 5^th Amendment says in part, “ No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger…” The 6^th goes on, “ In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” You know that whole jury of your peers deal. I printed the all of the language from the 5^th pertaining to being held without trial or charge because the framers did include language separating military cases from civilian ones.

I understand that there are those that would, and have, made the case that these are extraordinary circumstances with military-type attacks are carried out by civilians. But what is also extraordinary is the extent to which Constitutional law has been evaded, and rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights have been ignored, and the extent to which all of this has been met by a collective yawn by the media and most politicians, save Ron Paul.   

The Patriot Act which Obama signed an extension of in May of this year, was ratified by the Senate 72-23 and the House 250-153. That is not a not a partisan cliff hanger. That is a 2/3-plus majority voting to allow the FBI to search email and phone records of American citizens by merely stating the subject is the target of a terrorist investigation.  In addition according to the ACLU, “the Patriot Act allows the FBI to force anyone at all - including doctors, libraries, bookstores, universities, and Internet service providers - to turn over records on their clients or customers”. The ACLU continues, “Judicial oversight of these new powers is essentially non-existent. The government must only certify to a judge - with no need for evidence or proof - that such a search meets the statute's broad criteria, and the judge does not even have the authority to reject the application.

Surveillance orders can be based in part on a person's First Amendment activities, such as the books they read, the Web sites they visit, or a letter to the editor they have written. 

A person or organization forced to turn over records is prohibited from disclosing the search to anyone. As a result of this gag order, the subjects of surveillance never even find out that their personal records have been examined by the government. That undercuts an important check and balance on this power: the ability of individuals to challenge illegitimate searches.” So there quickly and painlessly, the Patriot Act eviscerates the first amendment both for those on the right and the left. All Americans have rights, or none do.

In another area the FAA has authorized 266 licenses for civilian use of unmanned drones, much in demand by police forces across the country, over American soil. It is not hard to see what a small drone, monitored by local police, flying over your back yard at a height of 200 feet does to your 4^th amendment protection against illegal searches: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

In academia speech rights of both the left and right are attacked. Americans no longer seem to believe that speech is the appropriate response to hatred or bigotry, or just plain stupidity. I long for the days when Phil Donahue would invite skinheads to his show and let America decide. Both right and left argue for restricted speech and count on big brother, and their emissaries in the media to monitor and punish the opposition. Sharpton went after Don Imus in the same way that Glen Beck, O’Reilly and the rest of the yahoo chorus attacked the building of a Mosque near Ground Zero. Both barely slow down at the first amendment markers they crush on their way to righteous indignation. While I recognize both have the right to dissent loudly from their chosen enemies, I make the point here because both would choose to silence those they choose as enemies rather than debate positions or dialogue honestly. Neither party seems willing now to accept the maturity or sophistication of the public. Everyone assumes that they know better.  Right and left both claim to speak for all of America when they tell us what is funny or course or inappropriate.  Richard Pryor and George Carlin blazed a trail now paved with petty swearing and narrow-minded pedestrian hacks travelling safely down the middle of the road. Americans cannot be trusted after all to turn off that which we disapprove. The thought police will do it for us by applying freely permitted first amendment pressure on sponsors.

So I get confused sometimes when I ponder what American stands for, and what passes for rights in the United States at the beginning of the 21^st century. For some willful ignorance has become a platform on which they raise themselves. Being informed does not play well to the rabble or the thugs.  The ability to dialogue with nuance and thought is not a thing to value in any leader. We blame our leaders, but we accept the sock of lies. I raise the issue of blowhards in our political discourse often, but perhaps it is better to blow hard than to go quietly into that dark night.

Thoughts on Obama and Another Roosevelt

Obama has been a big disappointment. That being said I will vote on Nov-12, 20…—Oh, sorry that’s when Perry votes. I will vote on Nov-06, 2012 for the President. Suggesting that there are only shades of difference between Obama and a Republican chorus of thugs bent on advancing unfettered free market principles even if it means dispossessing 20 million more families of their homes is absurd.

In 1980, I was pretty hostile to Carter, believing him a simpleton, who much like Obama spent too much time kowtowing to a right wing that couldn’t stand him anyway.  I was enthused about much more liberal candidates in the primaries and sat out the general. Ronald Reagan was elected, and with his election an era of me-first government of the rich was ushered in. I don’t believe my vote made the difference. Reagan garnered 51% of the vote to Carter’s 41%, and wiped him out in the Electoral College. But what did wipe him out was the general trend of millions of progressive democrats sitting out the election, some drifting to the third party candidate out of their frustration with Carter specifically, and the political process in general.

20 Years later a small sliver of true believer progressives turned the election of 2000 for Bush in Florida and so the nation. The argument is often made that the election, with only 500 votes separating Bush and Gore, was decided by a partisan Supreme Court, and a vigilante brigade of republican operatives. In  reality the election was decided by the 97,488 Florida votes that went to Ralph Nader. I love Ralph, but that election swept in the worst administration the US has seen since Herbert Hoover.

We would do well to remember the economic circumstances under which Clinton departed (the launch site Bush had), and where Bush landed (the smoldering ruin from which Obama began). Steaming along with the explosion of the internet economy under Clinton the GDP grew at an annual rate of 3.6%, and created 23 million jobs, more than the beloved Reagan who created about 20 million. Through Sept 2008 Bush averaged a much more meager 2.3% in GDP growth, and a net increase of 3.5 million jobs, even after the biggest trickle down tax breaks in the nation’s history.  

As the poorly regulated housing and investment markets crashed in the fourth quarter of 2008 GDP shrank at a rate of 6.8%. In response the economy shed 2.6 million jobs, 700,000 in December of that year alone. After Clinton’s 23 million, Bush created six million jobs in the first 7-1/2 years of his administration, even with the massive tax cuts to the wealthy, a far cry from the previous democratic administration record. But then the economy shed the 2 million-plus jobs in 2008, which left Bush with a net increase of about 3.5 million jobs. In January and February of 2009 the economy shed another 1.3 million jobs before it starting to respond to stimulus spending and leveled off at 60,000 jobs lost on March of 2009. In the first quarter of Obama’s presidency, GDP shrunk at a rate of 4.9%. In total for the last twelve months of the Bush Presidency and the first six of Obama’s the economy shed four million jobs. The republicans would like America to forget but it was pretty grim.

The deficit in Federal spending was just $200 billion in FY 2000 and the government, Clinton’s last, was projecting surpluses in 2001 and beyond. Many then called for locking these savings way for a rainy day which it got on 9-11. However, Bush and the right enacted their tax plan by arguing that Americans had earned these savings and the money did not belong to the government. Like a kid with a buck, the money was burning a hole in our pocket and was gone. By 2008, Bush had pushed annual deficit spending to $500 billion. Much has been made of the negative effect 9-11 played on the economy and spending at the federal level, but in 2002 the federal debt stood at $6.2 trillion. It ballooned to $10 trillion at the end of Bush’s term. Currently that national debt stands at just over $15 trillion. Roughly  speaking Bush ran up the national debt by about $4 trillion in his second term and Obama spending his way out a of a recession will have run it up by an additional $6 trillion by the end of his first term.

Of course those are just numbers, evaluating the Bush Administration in terms of human lives presents a more stark picture of his failed Presidency, whether it be the missed signals before 9-11, the catastrophic failure with Katrina in New Orleans, or the execution of a war of choice in Iraq, a flawed waste of lives, treasure, and misguided national security priorities. And yet, every policy failure was dipped in a patina of arrogance. General Shinseki, who suggested in front of a committee of Congress before the war a far more robust presence in Iraq was dismissed by Rumsfeld. Eventually a parade of generals would step forward calling for Rumsfeld’s ouster. Thomas White, former Army secretary, said at the time, “Rumsfeld has been contemptuous of senior military officers since the day he walked in… It’s about time they got sick and tired.” But home grown citizens critical of the Patriot Act and the torture at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo were called naïve, unpatriotic, or both. Instead of being shamed by the faithless and despicable behavior arguments were made out of some distorted sense of national pride and necessity.

So where are we with President Obama?

Health care reform was passed. Far from a “government takeover” of 1/6^th of the economy, the plan steers millions towards the insurance industry. Health care spending which was under 14% of GDP in 2000 at the end of Clinton’s term was running at nearly 17% of GDP in 2008. In 1980 it was 9% of GDP. Netting out the cost of recession recovery, the explosion is this expense is the single biggest reason for the ballooning deficits into the future. I personally doubt that the cost containment is strong enough, something more progressive plans certainly would have addressed.

There are reforms that will benefits consumers such as the requirement that insurance companies cannot limit coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, allowing them to profitably cherry pick the healthy. Children get coverage on their parent’s policies. This has already resulted in millions being added to the roles of the insured. I now carry my daughter on my policy which saves me the cost for her insurance—about $2,300 her first year of college. Considering I pay that bill out of my after tax income that is a rather large savings. Millions of Americans want Obamacare to go away. But it is provisions like the following that bring the massive campaign donations from the insurance industry to overturn; Insurance companies are now required by law to spend 85% of revenues on healthcare coverage rather than marketing or advertising or whatever. Rules are being written now by the regulators to enforce this policy and at first glance at least it appears the administration is serious about enforcing the provision.

The same cannot be said for the regulations to enforce Dodd-Frank. Many of the regulations required to enforce the financial industry legislation remain unwritten under a firestorm of criticism from the right and campaign money and lobbying efforts from large financial institutions. There can be little doubt that initially some of this lobbying was funded at least indirectly in part with taxpayer provided TARP monies. The nomination to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has been held up by key GOP lawmakers who as the Washington Post reported earlier this week, “renewed their vow to block any nominee unless broad changes are made to the watchdog agency.” Republicans do not want a consumer advocate for the finance industry. Period. A well-financed political opposition has stymied financial regulatory reform. While I would be critical of the president on many levels on this one, I think he has pushed as hard as he can. The repubs will run out the clock, so only a second term will allow us to see whether any real reform is possible there.

On the economy the president has been a major disappointment. It is largely here that is disapproval level of sixty, equal portions of disaffected progressives, the hard right that literally hates him, and long term and hurting unemployed is consolidated. Growth has been anemic, the results of less than robust plans designed to garner the faith and support of the middle right which no longer exists. Yes, over 2 million private sector jobs have been created, but as everyone knows this has not resulted in acceptable GDP growth or substantially lowered unemployment.

As with healthcare the president has allowed the national conversation to be defined on the right. In the republican debates the dialogue mostly comes down to the dishonest desire for deficit control (see Bush 43), further tax cuts for the wealthy, and less regulation. The president leads from behind, because he was naive enough to think that once the Bush tax cuts were extended in the fall of 2010, the other party would play nice on the deficit and further stimulus. This was a HUGE miscalculation. The Republicans nearly let the country default, and there is NO movement on employment that would have immediate effect. Obama is crazy like a fox, maybe, but it appears more likely that he’s getting rolled by the Republican opposition. He seems to be winning the public relations war, but legislation is still stalled, and whatever emerges is likely to be so timid that it will not jolt the economy forward. The danger of a decade of Japan-style malaise is real. If we do see that, for progressives the argument that blames it all on the right will not hold up. Either lead, follow, or get out of the way.  While I personally would give the president a passing grade on the economy, barely, I would have to be honest and say that there is a substantial danger of a fail.

The right will no doubt make their foreign policy and security arguments. The I-can-see-Russia–from-my-house true believers and the religious right, always zealots of Israeli security, will buy it. Doubt anyone else will, though Iran is a great concern. A military involvement in Iran must be avoided, and all the other options seem sort of toothless. This doesn’t stop the time honored tradition in both parties of trying to make the toothless sound fierce, but IMHO I don’t see any clear solution there. But in the broader context I can’t imagine, especially compared to the unfettered disaster of the Bush years, Obama will score poorly there after the elimination of Bin Laden and Khadafy.

Energy policy is another area where decisive middle of the road inaction will cost him, and this has a great effect on national security.  While much was made of the Solyndra debacle, and there have been reasonable investments in green technology, the Chinese outspend us more than ten to one. They see green energy, high speed rail and other infrastructure projects as long term investments in the financial vitality of the country, and they are preparing for an economy not reliant on low cost labor. For America the sad truth is that after a decade of inaction on climate and energy under Bush, Obama has shown scant improvement and little leadership. Early on, this was a place to be bold.  Obama was not that. Now he has the right apoplectic because he has "locked up" our energy potential and the progressive left angry because he has moved forward so little. He would have taken a lot of heat early on for a bold policy, but if Americans could see results on the horizon, that would have passed. Instead both sides see weakness, another area where opposition from right and left combines to create a high unfavorable rating.

It could be a great day if the president finally figures out that a portion will hate him regardless and starts to lead. Perhaps Obama can take a page from FDR rather than Teddy. FDR spent a lot of time and expended considerable political capital trying to find compromise with a right that hated him. Thanks to Eleanor and his own progressive instincts FDR finally came to see there was little chance of compromise. Once he came to understand centers of power arrayed against him, FDR abandoned middle of the roadism became the great president he eventually was. If only…

Ann Coulter Leads the Bitter & Fearful Dunce Parade

Wow, this was really an entertaining week, and it’s only Tuesday.

Ann Coulter is Funny... Today she said tongue in cheek-- Get ready because this is really funny, hyperbole and all-- that she would vote for Jeffrey Dahmer over Obama. I am still laughing... She also made clear on Hannity's show that she really hates Newt, and principles over politics now believes that Romney “really means it” when he says that he is against abortion, Obamacare, and a liberalized immigration policy. She feels the left wing media empire will hoist Newt in effigy and rip him to shreds over the circumstances of his two failed marriages and intense record of flip flops on critical issues. Yeah… so…? I missed a lot though. I was still laughing at the joke about how she would rather vote for a mass murderer of 17, who ate the flesh of those he killed than the current president. That is funny, funny stuff.

Give Coulter credit. She knows how to sell herself to the unstable minions on the right who just can't make up their minds over which thug they would like to see carry their banner as Republican nominee. I know Coulter is just trying to sell books to the powerless and ill informed, but this, this was just too funny. Hannity by the way said Newt was on the show earlier and explained all that marital stuff. A lot of miscommunication, I guess, so Hannity gave his stamp of approval. No sense making too much of marital infidelities when there are serious issues to address.

Both parties should just give up on this angle though. Since Clinton it has been a parade of sordid. Hard to see one party has an edge, though I do find it fun and entertaining when the family values party gets their soiled linens exposed in public. Is there anything better than Craig’s foot bump in the MPLS airport? Well, hello…

Rick Santorum wants you to take him seriously, but he isn’t very serious so he makes it hard. The Huffington Post picked up an ABC News story about Rick Santorum’s explanation for his opposition to gay marriage at a campaign stop on Monday at a Christian college in Iowa.

“A recent graduate of the college compared gay marriage to interracial marriage and pressed Santorum on why it would be "a hit to faith and family in America." Santorum “got agitated” and said that if same sex marriage was legalized then "their sexual activity" would be seen as "equal" to heterosexual relationships and it would be taught in schools. (They teach sex in schools?)

Santorum continues: "Really--wow--um okay, well let's see if we can have a discussion. We can flesh out some, (sort of an awkward phrase, no?)  well, let's look at what's going to be taught in our schools because now we have same sex couples being the same and their sexual activity being seen as equal and being affirmed by society as heterosexual couples and their activity."

The student disagreed with him, but Santorum stuck to his line of reasoning.

"I think you're wrong--okay, in fact you have to know you’re wrong, because if we say legally if this type of relationship is identical to other type relationships than of course more of it will be taught because this is what the law says," he said.

If I did not know better I would think Santorum’s real issue was a deep and abiding fear of gay sex, perhaps more so than the natural extension of rights to GLBT community. Christ, he seems obsessed with the concept of his wee wee coming in contact with another man’s.

Michelle Bachman, oh poor Michelle, she’s a little ascared too. I first saw this tweet when Cain was sinking, but it applies here: Much like the movie the Sixth Sense, everyone knows this candidacy is dead, except the campaign. But we still have her around for entertainment. It was priceless to see the frozen look on her face when the eight year boy with mom urging him on worked up the courage to tell Bachman that, “My mommy is gay and she doesn’t need fixing.” Bachman was frozen like a friggin’ statue. I am sure Santorum must be horrified, but thankful that he didn’t have to handle that. It can rub off, you know.

And then along comes Donald “Birther” Trump! Fancy Hair Trump, excepting Cain, is the most arrogant ass we have seen this election cycle. And he’s going to moderate a debate!  AND-- This is really great-- he’s making suggestions he may jump back in as a third party candidate! If only he didn’t have such a record of being all show and no go. I know this is BS, but I can dream, can’t I?

In the debate we can count on Fancy being fair and balanced. He called the Ron Paul candidacy “a joke”. Fancy and Newt spent quite a bit of time Tea Bagging yesterday in New York. First words out of my candidate’s mouth were what a “great promoter” Fancy Hair is that! And boy they just looked so…, well…, cute together.

My gosh though, Newt and Fancy had such nice things to say about each other. Newt, my choice for repub nominee, was so proud of his obsequious journey to the foot of the master who knows “a little something about creating jobs”. Too bad Newt and he spent so much time fondling each other. Newt as the repub nominee and Donald as a third party is the dream deal for dems.

Like Newt says, Fancy knows how to create jobs. He’s kept bankruptcy lawyers solvent for years. Trump was all over junk bond financing on which he built the “Taj Majal” casino in Atlantic City in the early 90’s. The Taj declared bankruptcy and almost dragged Fancy into personal bankruptcy. From there the list of business catastrophes is really impressive. Fancy has a great history of picking himself up, but his history of failure is ripe for the kind of scrutiny a presidential candidacy would bring, if for no other reason than to expose the extent to which his ability to be a “promote” far surpasses his actual business acumen. Trump Plaza (formerly The Plaza Hotel), The Trump Shuttle, Trump Hotel Casinos and Resorts, all either declared bankruptcy or had bad debt restructured in ways that made Fancy give substantial portions of the leveraged properties back to the banks. Fancy has lived off the sort of unwise over-extended lending that the right now rails against. If buying a home for $200K when you can only handle $100K, and then taking out a loan for $210K is worthy of criticism, how can it be that Fancy  gets off the hook for doing similar deals for hundreds of millions. Fancy did very well, though as we know his investors and bond holders often took a beating. The string of failures is as long as the single strand of hair that circles his massive noggin, but no matter, Fancy lands on his feet as the rich often do. I do hope he runs so we can all gain from his wisdom.

I Quote Donald Rumsfeld: Democracy is Messy.

I have a regular and ongoing exchange with a guy named Andy G on FB. Andy is a liberal Republican I think, or a conservative Dem. No matter, Andy provided the first fodder for some of what followed here on the blog because he posted something or other that sort of made my blood boil. If there is such a thing as a limousine liberal, Andy is the opposite. From the comfort of his perch Andy takes his shots against the protestors, and the left in general, all the while suggesting he is essentially for the cause, if only…

Anyway, I do sort of like Andy though I only know him through FB. A couple of days ago he posted a piece about the mess in LA after the Police cleared the Occupy sight there. For some reason it has drawn an enormous amount of response. Funny how that works sometimes.

What follows are some of the posts Andy put up, a link to the LA Times piece, and my response.

OH, PLEASE ... blame it all on the right? Give me a break! Civil protest is one thing, but there is absolutely nothing civil, respectful or decent about leaving your sh*t all over the place, I don't care who or what you're protesting! Don't hang this on the right, don't hang it on the rich. That's patently absurd.

Perhaps, Jeff, but I fail to see and no one here has successfully made an argument for why that justifies the wanton disregard for civility and why we all have to clean up such a horrendous mess. There's no defending it ... it's just wrong, plain and simple.

And frankly, if these demonstrations didn't turn from real protest to some sort of carnival, gypsy-esque commune type of encampment, we wouldn't be reading stories like this in the LA Times or anywhere else.

And our brothers and sisters, at least the ones who really weren't there for a real, legitimate protest, should have better manners ... that's all I'm saying. They want legitimacy and to be respected ... fine, no problem there, but act like.

So do I, Dan ... but we all end up footing the bill for those cleanups ... I'm supportive, but not when it costs society. How does that really add anything to what they're protesting? It doesn't. In fact, it actually tends to run counter to their whole objective. This needs to be thought through a little more by the actual OWS core base, since all this glomming on is likely causing a lot of the messes.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/occupy-la-30-tons-of-debris-left-behind-at-city-hall-tent-city.html

Jesus, Andy. What a priss. Is that you under all that shit you’re peddling? Do you really care they left a mess (as Jeff said someone else made the mess), or are you really just riding this thing because you have generated so much feedback.... No criticism there, I would be thrilled if there were 50 responses to a post of mine, but I would have to say less so if 38 were mine. 

 This is not right vs. left thing; or rather it is, but only to the extent that the right is now completely identified with and beholden to wealth. The talk about footing the bill of the physical clean-up of an encampment which was cleared with little warning or care for people’s personal possessions (Same thing happened in NY too, with similar results) is preposterous. Especially in a week where we learned that the Fed spent $7.7 f***ing trillion bailing out the banks, and later colluding with them to keep it secret, your outrage seems sort of misplaced. 

Your paean to the costs to the taxpayers sounds like a Romney-esque poll-tested and totally hollow response to the movement. Say this much, and frame it that way, and then everyone will believe I am sincere. What utter horse shite!

 Please identify for me the method of protest that you would find acceptable to confront the power structure. This group of people is literally is so far removed from the larger community on which they feed like friggin’ eels on a carcass that they could not identify a real American with a magnifying glass and a polygraph. If the Occupy kids dropped a deuce on the desk of the Chairmen of Wells Fargo, I would not consider it inappropriate or ill advised, and it seems to me that that the gleaming exterior that these bastards have has sort of hidden the result of their greed driven activities. A tattooed thug holds up a liquor store, running off with a few hundred and society gets behind the idea of punitive incarceration. But these bastards literally stole billions, and they continue to game the system using the profits of their ill-gotten gains. Bloomberg reports the banks made a cool $13 Bil from the action of the Fed.

Your response, “Hey look at the mess those kids made! Am I gonna have to clean that up?” F***! Really?

 I know you are well informed enough to know that the cause has merit, but increasingly you look to me like the white preachers that King wrote to while he sat in a jail in Birmingham after being gassed by the police. Those preachers knew King’s cause was just, but they just wished he had done something that would have been less confrontational. Sound familiar?

Jesus, Mike, sounds like you don't really give a shit that these protestors left all their shit lying around in the name of protesting. Are you any kind of an environmentalist? Give me a break! You keep trotting out the same old tripe about... this being a war on Wall Street, and I'm fine with that part. What I'm not fine with is people abdicating their basic civility to the rest of us and wantonly messing the joint and then saying it was all part of the protest! That dog doesn't hunt and all your ranting at me does NOTHING to justify why that kind of trashy behavior is acceptable! It's not and I still say it lowers the movement's credibility. Let's also not forget that OWS isn't and can't be wholly about the 1% and the banks. Some of that 1% are very high paid public employees, professors and other elitists who have nothing in common with the other 99% of us.

Andy, No I don't give a s*** how much debris was left down there. Last year after the ball dropped in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The next day the Sanitation Department cleaned up the mess, just as they do every year. There was 40 tons of mess, making our revelers messier than your occupiers by a factor of 33%! Yeah, we win!

What a load of… jeez, I don’t know. Occupy is a protesting in reponse to the betrayal of tens millions of people by the political and business structure in this country. They are mostly kids, organized primarily to the extent that they distrust leadership at any level, so much so that they have completely disowned it. As someone in their fifties that's quote a legacy to ponder.

 As I said I would consider it a totally legit form of protest if a couiple of Occupy kids dropped a deuce on desk of the Chairmen of Wells Fargo. Jamie Dimon made $20 million, plus last year, they should drop two there. To their credit Occupy has shown up at Obama events across the country, but mostly hit financial institutions and Republicans. They followed the money (and this is sort of where it led).

I have made a good living for years and I do pay taxes. I am a businessman. Have been for 30+ years. I am not a socialist, though the recent suggestion someone made against me to that effect was amusing. I vote in almost every election, but millions of other Americans I am really angry. I am also pretty well informed, and so not just responding to the lost chapters of my youth. The issues Occupy is raising are the real deal. Big money corruption is rotting the soul out of both parties, and I  have made my feelings about that that clear both on this site and on the postings on my blog.

I seek neither violence nor retribution, but I have a deep desire to find justice, and to equal the playing field for the most vulnerable in our society. The political and financial establishment don’t care yet about me, or what the Occupy crowd is doing. They faint a little here and there, but they don’t really don’t care.

So we are in a war of attrition. Does this movement, perhaps the most important in our lifetime, certainly since Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement, have the tenacity to stick around long enough until based on people’s discomfort, either to their routine or perception, they do start to care?

I continue to be amazed at the level of corruption of which you are well aware, and see that the only thing that gets you and millions of other fence sitters riled up over is silliness, whether the “fake” mess reporting’s in LA and Portland, or the unruly behavior resulting --at least in NY-- with arrests for people spilling from the sidewalk.

They f***ed you Andy, you and everyone else, who works hard, plays by the rules, and pays their taxes. The people at the brunt of these protests did not.

And in a self-perpetuating cycle the bastards invested some of the ill-gotten gain into running ads and on public relations gambits to convince enough of you and people like you, that they didn’t do anything bad. Their paid mouthpieces on Fox News and elsewhere bring us their phony outrage, and raise the smoke level. They hope America will forget the damage done. Perhaps they will. As with everything else, the right finds a way to get indignant for behaviors previously tolerated when it fits the argument they hope to make. Now they are upset about deficits, but a few years ago they funded two wars by selling bonds to the Chinese and spent $5 bil a day doing it. Pardon me if I feel the credibility has leaked out of the hot air balloons over there.

“When decorum is repression, the only dignity free men have is to speak out.” Abbie Hoffman

Newt, The New Boss

Hello, Newt.

The Washington Post reports that you legally transferred all of your business interests to your third wife when you decided to run. Now that’s a firewall. She must be pretty happy.

It has been widely reported that my man Newt has worked the system pretty well since getting throw… ahem, leaving office. Quoting Newt’s own attorney Randy Evans, The Washington Post reported my man Newt has made a bloody fortune since leaving office:

• $1.8 Million consulting for Freddie & Fannie
• $60,000 a pop for “50 to 80” speeches a year
• $52 million running a think tank called American Solutions for Winning the Future
• $37 Million collected from the Health Industry as dues to a group called the Center for Health Transformation

In fairness it appears that Gingrich and his team stayed clear of lobbying. However, like everything else in Washington there is the spirit of the law, and the letter of the law. Corporations did not pay Gingrich $100 million in consulting fees because they wanted to share a cup of hot cocoa. Corporations pay for access to get their agenda heard and then carried out.

In the spirit of Romney Gingrich now sees himself backtracking from the few areas where he has been bold enough to compromise, or worse, take a progressive position. In 2008 Gingrich appearing in a TV ad with Nancy Pelosi joined an Al Gore organized advertising effort to promote the battle against climate change. He now calls that “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done”.

Gingrich’s posture on the healthcare proposal which has raised the most ire and which is now being challenged in front of the Supreme Court—mandates for the citizens to purchase insurance—has evolved.

• 1993 “I am for people, individuals -- exactly like automobile insurance -- individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance. And I am prepared to vote for a voucher system which will give individuals, on a sliding scale, a government subsidy so we insure that everyone as individuals have health insurance.”
• 2007 Editorial in the Des Moines Register- “Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance”
• May-15, 2011- When given the opportunity to go after Romney Newt said, “I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay--help pay for health care… I've said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond ..."
• But a day later (May-16, 2011)  on his website Newt stated, “I am for the repeal of Obamacare and I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and I believe unconstitutional.”

The post also reports that not all of Gingrich’s clients were happy. PhRMA, a lobbying group for the drug industry, dumped Gingrich after he suggested the industry should set up a web site to help consumers compare prices. F***ing communist!

The New York Times reported on a rapprochement  between Hillary and Clinton and Newt, and at the core I believe Newt’s views on healthcare might be thoughtful and there is the potential in their for some creativity, but as Romney already knows and Newt appears to have discovered the thuggery of Republican politics leaves little room for reconciliation and creative thinking.

Sadly for me at least, Newt’s suggestions about what he did for Fannie and Freddie look to be complete hogwash. David Frum, a speechwriter for George W Bush writing on his own blog the day after Gingrich made his assertion that he told-them-not-to–do-it took issue with Gingrich:

“…let’s not overlook this audacious moment from the debate: Newt Gingrich’s breathtaking assertion that Freddie Mac paid him $300,000 for a lecture he gave “as a historian” about how they should forthwith cease their business practices.

Turns out, that’s not quite how it happened. From the AP:

The records obtained by the AP reflect growing concern within Freddie Mac over a chorus of criticism from Republicans worried that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae had grown too big. The two companies owned or guaranteed over $5 trillion in mortgages.

The Bush administration and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan were sounding the alarm about the potential threat to the nation’s financial health if the fortunes of the two mammoth companies turned sour. They did eventually, when they took on $1 trillion worth of sub-prime mortgages and when their traditional guarantee business deteriorated. Commercial banks regarded Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as competitors and were anxious to pick up business that would result from scaling back the two companies.

Pushing back, Freddie Mac enlisted prominent conservatives, including Gingrich and former Justice Department official Viet Dinh, paying each $300,000 in 2006, according to internal records.

Gingrich talked and wrote about what he saw as the benefits of the Freddie Mac business model.”

It has since come out that Gingrich was paid $1.8 million by Fannie and Freddie, which makes his posture overtly corrupt and highly misleading. He may not have lobbied, but he wrote and lectured and humped their case. Almost certainly cash won out over wisdom, because as with every other one of these scum, I simply refuse to believe that people did not know better. Everyone was making so much money everyone ignored the obvious. When the s*** hit the fan the rich walked away with their dough, and their bailouts and the poor and middle class took it up the what’s its.

On immigration, Newt has already proposed amnesty. I could forgive the scramble to avoid the word. As with the draconian posture suggesting free markets as solution for the housing crisis, just once I’d like to hear a lame-streamer ask how the right would propose making 11 million undocumented workers simply disappear.  Here again, this isn’t Newt, but Romney and the others are throwing red meat to the lions as a substitute for serious policy discussions.

On tax and economic policy with a few wrinkles, including a “Voluntary Flat Tax system” he is well within the mainstream of Republican circles which proposes additional transfers of wealth to those who already have done amazingly, stupidly well. He humps the same de-regulation crapola as the rest of them, which again shows the lack of seriousness in the goal of creating jobs by the Republican field.

I am still endorsing Newt though on the basis that he is still less slippery than Romney, and so more likely to say it like he feels it that whiff of blow dry, Willard from Massachusetts. Go Newt.  

Herman Cain- Sex, Lies, and 49 Bye Bye's

Well, I thought the silly season would have been done a few weeks ago when  Herman got tangled up in his web of harassment deceits. As many of you know I have come full out for that slimy bast… (oh, sorry) for the certain eventual republican nominee and my guy-- Newt !
Of course the absurd thing with Cain is not that the pattern of behavior seems to have at last (almost) wrung him from the race, it is that his total lack of knowledge on almost every subject has not. He has run with pride dropping alternating pearls of mind numbing ignorance and seasoned unwillingness to even think about issues, much less propose serious solutions. Thoughtful serious solutions as we know are my man Newt’s area of expertise, but I will long remember Cain stumbling through his first debate after the harassment allegations broke answering 9-9-9 preposterously to almost every question, like a friggin’ machine. 9-9-9! 9-9-9! 9-9-9! 9-9…. Ah f***, shut up already.

Cain is Jon Galt for the no attention span MTV Generation. I read Atlas Shrugged. Hated it, but at least Ayn Rand was a thinker, an intellectual even. She certainly was someone that gave great thought to the issues before her. The current Republican electorate can’t be bothered with deep thought. Like Galt, Cain and the Republicans speak metaphorically for the masses, but at their core they really just represent money. Unlike Galt’s creator the Republicans can’t be bothered with giving any real thought to the issues though. And poor, poor them, they are so unfairly affected by the power of government. They just can’t do whatever they want, whenever they want. Look, look, Obama nationalized the auto companies, AIG, Freddy and Fannie, and several large banks who he forced to take TARP money. The educated right will tell you all this was foretold in Atlas Shrugged. I guess the collapse of 2008, and the rescue of 2008 & 2009 is all just part of a big plot by statist elements on the left to take over everything. If only the market had been left to its own devices... 

Listen carefully to the Republicans, even the “moderate” Romney, calling for market solutions to the housing crisis. Roughly defined I guess this would mean letting around 20 million more households —roughly all those with underwater mortgages-- lose their homes. None of the lamestream newsies at the debates actually gets to the reality of the damage that would be done by these draconian proposals. It’s so much more satisfying to hear “free market solutions”. Do we really need to delve into specific consequences?

Jon Stewart expressed disappointment about the potential for Cain leaving the race, especially after “we lost Trump”. Give Cain credit he was, and for now still is, the gift that keeps giving. Cain expressed his opposition to appointing Muslim as judges or members of his cabinet. Apparently a staffer advised him that there was something in the Bill of Rights that guaranteed religious freedom or something and it looked bad to suggest that as the highest political figure in the US he would sort of ignore it—at least before the election. So he backtracked like a moron to limit his opposition to Muslims that want to destroy America. I’m all in there. No candidate should be nominated that proposes hiring terrorists for the department of Transportation. Whew, close on that one, but Herman was there.

In an informal debate with my man Newt on healthcare, Cain preformed a near ritual suicide, a precursor to the Libya brain freeze. There they were seated at the couch when Americans for Prosperity Texas chairman Ben Streusand asked Cain whether he favored a “defined benefit plan” or “premium support” when it comes to Medicare. Cain repeated the question, looked to the sky for relief, wiped his face (perhaps the answer in the palm of his hand?) and finally said "You go first, Newt". Libya was the live performance. Few in the media picked up the dress rehearsal. If forced to answer honestly his only reply could have been “I really have no idea”. Fair disclosure: I am not sure I know the exact answer to the question either and I have no clear posture on the answer. But 1) I am not running for President presenting simplistic solutions to almost everything, and 2) I actually think I could formulate at least a limited response based on what I know of the concept presented.

Stymied when scrambling to repair damage to his right wing anti-abortion rep, Cain evidenced a total lack of knowledge on the basic function of the constitution. He said he would “sign it” referring to a constitutional amendment banning abortion. Presidents of course do not assign amendments. Once passed by congress, amendments are ratified by the states.

The so-called lame-stream media promoted his candidacy endlessly. Before his epic crash and burn, the major networks mostly talked about the newness of his voice, and the simple seductiveness of 9-9-9. Early on there was little actual reporting on the wisdom of the plan, and ultimately it fell to Cain’s Republican rivals to eviscerate a plan that had no chance of passage anyway. The gaffes were reported on, but often with a patina of “Well, at least he says what he means”, as if a scolding, narrow minded ass that sputters ill-informed crapola – but with a lot of verve and feeling--is what the country needs at this juncture in our history.

On the right the coverage was fawning. After the fiasco in the Heath debate, John Hayward of Human Events when summarizing that healthcare debate with Newt wrote, “Cain embodies the warmth of a Christmas Eve spent by the fireplace with a mug of hot cocoa, and connects with people so easily it’s almost hypnotic.” Holy crap! Really?  Heyward sounds like he’ pining for one of those 4:30 AM booty call IM’s.

Cain’s is clearly unwilling to give serious thought to the issues. He combined this with a carnival barker’s decorum, sprinkled liberally with bitter remarks about lazy Americans, bigoted comments about Muslim Americans, and an outwardly hostile attitude about women. But none of that drove him out. His general disdain for the rabble amazingly didn’t do him in. Ironically it will be the religious right’s abandonment of his campaign due to his problems with women that probably will be the death knell. Somehow that seems wrong. An unethical bigot with no knowledge of how government works should have been done in long ago for the obvious foolishness of his candidacy. Instead he raised $30 million and we had to wait for the religious right to finally get their fill. Pathetic.

Bye, bye Herman. I think I know what your wife will “say”. See you on Fair and Balanced.

How The F*** is it that Martha Stewart Went to Jail

I remain convinced that average citizens on both sides of the political equation have much more in common than the rich and powerful would ever like to see articulated. I saw Jon Stewart talking about this last night and dug up the article, dated, Nov-27, this morning. CNN reported the story a couple days later, but the lame stream media has not picked this up. Several commentators on fair and balanced have addressed it, but by and large the scope of the transfer of wealth to the criminals who precipitated the financial crisis has gone unnoticed. $7.7 trillion dollars, 11 times TARP money, was loaned by the Fed at 0.01% interest. The banks and Fed hoped to keep this secret and notified neither the Executive (Treasury Department) nor Legislative (Congress) arms of government.
Here’s a portion of the Bloomberg Article.
“The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.
The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.“
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html
Here’s Stewart’s Take: “Bloomberg report reveals that the U.S. government loaned banks $7.7 trillion in secret bailout funds at no interest and then borrowed the money back at interest.”
The banks took the money, tried to keep it secret, and then reinvested it reaping a $13 billion profit. http://www.thedailyshow.com/
The first two segments of the Daily Show have beome the most important (and entertaining) much watch news segnments in the media.

Memories of Eddie, Joey, Joey, & Joey on World AIDS Day

I came to New York in 1978 with little sophistication, a country boy really with no big city experience or worldly knowledge. The extent of my upbringing was a cast of mostly middle class white kids and their families. We were Catholics in a Catholic town though some of my friends were Protestants or Baptists or whatever, no one really focused on that. In our little group there were a few kids of Hispanic background, but no black kids until went we went to big bad Elgin High with the squealing tires in the more “urban” setting. Well, it was Downtown Elgin, but I wouldn’t call it a city, not even today.  A lot of us didn’t know what to do. Sadly, stupidly when one looks back on it, there were fights over race born of the ignorance and fear that the whites and blacks had about each other. Looking back most of us white kids did not realize how completely sheltered we were, or the extreme proximity of our rung on the ladder to the black kids we were just meeting then.

There may have been gay kids in the group. Hell, there must have been, but no one I knew thought about it, and whomever they were kept it pretty quiet. No one came out in High School in the mid 70’s.

I graduated High School a year early, pretty disenchanted with that whole education thing, and started working immediately. Back then a teenager could take his pick of crappy jobs. I had a few. McDonalds was the first.  Got fired. Then I got a job pumping gas, which seemed like it would be lucrative, but I didn’t really like getting my hands dirty, and the Oil Embargo came along and I got tossed. Shortly thereafter I found a job selling shoes and after a couple of years of 70 hour weeks, leavened with aimless consumption of alcohol and not insignificant quantities of illicit pharmaceuticals, I was able to wangle a passage to New York. I have been a desk jockey of one sort or another ever since.  

In New York, everything changed. I literally wore a straw hat off the plane, but lost that quickly as I learned how critical it was to try to avoid drawing attention to yourself as you traversed the streets of the city. My first stop in New York was the majestic Woolworth building, where I worked in a pretty large office with several hundred staff. There everyone knew where they were on the ladder, but the people I knew, or rather the people I met and hung around with, were mostly in the same spot- entry level office workers. It was not that integrated, certainly not by todays’ standards, but pretty much all the races were in representation at some level, and there were people from all over the place with accents foreign to anything I had heard. Joe, the stout, big hearted Rangers fan from Brooklyn, was exotic to my eyes. It was hard to stand out though, because everyone stood out or was different in some way.

Somehow Eddie found a way though. Eddie stood out. He was proudly out in 1978, barely a decade after Stonewall. He was fit as hell, and in his none too subtle way he made fun of almost everyone who wasn’t. At office parties he often spun the records, or influenced heavily whoever did. Nightlife music in New York was disco back then. It was the common music of gays, blacks, Latinos, and every white kid everywhere—especially in cities, and especially in New York City-- who followed street life and street fashion. Hip Hop was just being born in the Bronx, and was not widely followed or known. When Eddie was around, one did not hear Sweet Home Alabama, but he could wind it up for I Will Survive. I can still see him shakin’. The girls loved him and the guys, well, they responded to him in many different ways. He made fun of me. I remember once in the bank, he motioned at me flamboyantly from across the line. It seemed like sort of a come on, but it was really just a ribbing. Eddie knew I wasn’t there, but I think that made embarrassing me even more fun for him. He took his license to torture me, and that he did. Eddie, who had boundless spirit, could be relentless once he knew you. For out and proud people in the gay community in those days, New York was a mecca for the endless party. But then Eddie got sick. No one knew what it was called. It just seemed like sort of a flu or pneumonia. He withered away before our eyes, and then he was gone.  I remember you, Eddie. Somewhere I hope you’re still dancing.

The years went by quickly. I loved the urban milieu and dove in again and again. I felt often like I had missed a lot growing up in Illinois and was determined to catch up. I moved to Hoboken, where my brother joined me. It was a lot more boho then (and affordable). My brother and I hung out, a lot, in a bar named Maxwell’s. They had bands every weekend, and the good times rolled. We met Sean there, a professor at Farleigh Dickinson, who was Irish, smart, progressive, funny, and gay. I think he tried to turn both my brother and I. At least I know he encouraged me to consider alternatives. He was a blast. Through Sean and others we met I began to attain a comfort level that would have better prepared me for Eddie.

We lived on Washington Street there in Hoboken. Our landlord Joey, rented us his beautiful duplex. The rent was manageable and the place was way too nice for my brother, our roommate and I. It was painted bright yellow with high ceilings and white shutters and a tar beach out back. We played the music loud annoyed our downstairs neighbors and I think mostly amused the lady directly below us who owned the beauty parlor. Joey was an interior decorator, and left some of his personal choices (the place was his abode before he rented it to us). What I remember most is the elegant slender lladro piece, a boy or young man reading a book, totally appropriate for Joey’s home, but a bit incongruous for the three of us.  By the time Joey passed, we knew what it was called. Joey died of AIDS, a few years after we moved to Washington Street.

Later I moved to Atlanta, though I would eventually come back to Hoboken. My best friend met and married a real Greenwich Village girl, who seemed to know someone on every narrow street down there. She worked at the famous Whitehorse Tavern and knew or seemed to know the best place to get pizza (Arturo’s) , the best deli, best bars, butchers and dry cleaners. And of course she knew where to send you to get your hair cut with style. So I often went to see Joey during my many trips back to the city from Atlanta, where I was dutifully given the MacGiver. It wasn’t his fault I swear. I wanted it, sort of the fashion in the mid-80’s. He often suggested something else, but I was so insecure of myself even into my 30's, I still went with what I knew. That Joey too dies of AIDS, though I did not see the demise and only heard later of it. He was a gentle soul with a small nurturing space in the Village. You did not go there for the shampoo and cut. You went for the ambience and to be around his sweetness. I miss you, Joey.

As I said I did move back to Hoboken. I moved with my first wife before we were married into a bigger building on 11^th Street with dozens of apartments . We had a dog then, Dexter, though we really ought not to have. The dog was hyper as hell and miserable. My brother would eventually rescue us and the dog. Dexter relocated to the more suburban Bayonne. Before Dexter moved he helped us meet the gay couple at the end of the hall. They also had a dog. I do not recall both names, but I know that of the two one died, and his name was Joey. I remember it because of my personal history of young Joeys lost to AIDS. Honestly the other fellow was much nicer though I am not particularly friendly and so not one to talk. But Joey was sweet to our Dexter, clearly a dog lover himself. When you have a dog, particularly a hyper one, live in close quarters, and then see that the dog is met with kindness and patience you tend to hold a little warmth for whoever smiles or pets the beast. That was Joey. His exit was excruciating and painful for both of the men down the hall and anyone who saw him deteriorating. By the time he had passed, ignorance was no longer an excuse for political inaction.

But as we know the president at the time went almost his entire presidency without ever uttering HIV or AIDS. Larry Kramer and others in ACTUP and other organizations forced the issue onto the national agenda through a series of inconvenient, confrontational and wholly necessary actions. Kramer was one of the founders of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, to which I have made an annual donation for almost two decades.  Sometimes I write the name Joey in the remarks.

So long, friends. I miss you all, especially you Eddie. I wish that I knew what I know now when I met you, but then you wouldn’t have had so much fun.