OK, if you’ve been around this site before you know that I supported Barrack Obama in his campaign for President but that I am not giving him “Carte Blanche`” as GW Bush got from his Republican supporters during his term as President of the United States. And I’m seeing evidence of the “Red Flags” I mentioned a few posts back (it’s all becoming blurry to me – I never imagined writing over 100 posts when I started this self-psychological project – trying to keep my sanity in a world “gone bad”) regarding decisions of our new President. I guess what I’m trying to do is have a public “I told you so” record which nobody will know about unless I point it out to them – kind of like the guys on TV who predict who will win the Super Bowl and you never hear from them after it’s over unless they were right. I guess like most people I want “my cake and eat it too.” (I never quite understood where and why that “truism” ever came about)

I’ve been cautioning President Obama to stop “coddling” Republicans – warning him this was a strategy that will ultimately blow up in his face – possibly destroying his Presidency. He doesn’t appear to be reading my site. I’ve been encouraging him to “go after” the criminal element of the Bush administration which would include Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Gonzales/Rove/Addington/Yoo/Wolfowitz and others to some degree – maybe just discressions which would cause them to lose their professional certification – such as John Yoo, a Law Professor at Cal Berkeley being disbarred (I can’t even imagine him at Berkely – shows you the problem with tenure) – while others should be doing jail time. My fear is that Obama’s reluctance is tied to the possibility that there is some kind of unwritten rule that Presidents don’t “go after” other Presidents – kind of like doctors don’t make accusations against other doctors, lawyers tend to shy away from testifying against other lawyers, etc. The problem is that we have these corrupted cultures at the top of the “food chain” to use an analogy that hopefully paints the right picture – and the only way to get this problem cleared up is for people at the top to prosecute people who have been at the top before them, i.e. – Obama’s Justice Department prosecutes Bush’s administration from top to bottom – and Obama makes a principled stand in support of this which sets an example for generations to come that the abuses of the past eight years will never again be tolerated – PERIOD!!!

I know a lot of my acquaintances don’t even want to hear that Obama might be following the footprints of Bush in any kind of way. And I can tell you that it will be very uncomfortable for Democrats if he does and then has to defend those actions against a Right Wing which has seemingly become more marginalized than ever following the previous election disaster for the Republicans. But let me clear your thinking a bit here. First of all, the true “Right Wingers,” that is, the ones who are acting like a tiger which has been backed into a corner (and they have) are coming out fighting. Don’t for a minute think that they are feeling defeated. They are using terms like socialist when they talk about the Bush administration and they are the ones mostly on the attack regarding the actions of the previous eight years. Now, I “get” that most of their anger comes from the fact that they had almost pulled off the impossible and gained a stranglehold on the entire government of the United States of America – much to the chagrine of our Founding Fathers. Madison/Jefferson/Hamilton et al had attempted to create a document when they wrote the Constitution which made it virtually impossible for one “party” to gain control of all three branches of government. They came close to doing this – and they fully realize that if the “Obama Phenomenon” can be limited to four years, they might still be able to accomplish their goals.

You might think this is absurd at this point – but let me give you a possible scenario where things could blow up in President Obama’s face. First of all, his reluctance to hold Bush and Company accountable is angering many of his followers – and many of his potential followers – people who believe that he, as a constitutional scholar, has to know better than to let some of this stuff go unchallenged. And, I can guarantee you that as time passes, more and more of the “transgressions” are going to be coming out and Obama will look worse and worse for not pushing for investigations should they not happen. That will make him vulnerable to losing the support of people like me. Second, the Right Wing of the Republican party REALLY DOES WANT OBAMA TO FAIL! And they will do whatever they can to make sure that happens. Right now, they are setting him up by their own “Throwing Bush under the buss” tactics which will make Obama look bad the more stuff that becomes public that is obvious illegal activity – can’t you just hear all the “I told you so’s coming from the Limbaugh’s and others as they try to undermine Obama’s popularity?

Then we get into the real problem for Obama. The places where he actually supports Bush policies – this will be his undoing if it happens. It appears that Obama is going to be leaving troops in Iraq indefinitely (according to Thomas Ricks in “The Gamble” his supplement to his great book “Fiasco” on Iraq) – certainly he’s already said they will be there for 15 months longer than his campaign pledge – and I haven’t seen anything coming from Ricks so far that would lead me to believe that he doesn’t know what he’s reporting – THIS (Indefinite occupation) IS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM “DOWN THE ROAD.” Then there’s Afganistan – Obama has already pledged an additional 17,000 troops for a mission that is not defined – and which to me is a potential MAJOR PROBLEM. Osama bin Laden’s original wish was for us to get bogged down in Afganistan – and I hope that Obama doesn’t fulfill that wish 7 years after the “fact.” He’s also continuing the financial bailouts which, even though it’s absurd to place any of the blame on him for the problems at AIG or the major financial institutions, the Right Wingers are already attempting to do so and they are setting Obama up for some major attacks in the next year or so if things don’t drastically change – and if Obama sticks to his guns regarding changing the direction of our economy he will need time – years not months – in order to be successful. Propping these banks up and drowning our economy in printed money has the distinct possibility of backfiring as well – and, believe me, the Limbaugh’s, Hannity’s, Gingrich’s, Huckabee’s, and the one who I believe will be their water carrier Romney – are preparing to pounce on every opportunity to turn this country against President Obama.

Obama is going to need every one of his base of support when it comes time to get a second term – and the thing that is irking me the most is apparently actually coming true. I have mentioned on several occasions that I have a really bad feeling about Obama’s take on the warrantless wiretapping abuses of the Bush administration. The first “Red Flag” came when he voted, as a Senator, for the FISA bill which granted immunity to the Telecom companies who have conspired with the NSA to “eavesdrop” on millions of American’s phone conversations and email messages. This was the Bush administration’s way of protecting themselves from court proceedings which would have exposed the obscene number of felonious legal violations they committed during the post 9/11 “era” (many people have reported that the illegal wiretapping began pre-9/11). Well, it looks like my fears in this area are coming true, although for some reason the news hasn’t made the front page yet. In the Al-Haramain case which is in the court of Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco the Obama Justice department is supporting the Bush administration’s effort to keep secret some documents which were accidentally mailed to the Al-Haramain Foundation’s lawyers proving that they were being illegally wiretapped without a warrant. This case has the possibility of being the first to document the abuses of the Bush administration in their blatant disregard for the fourth amendment of our constitution. I would expect Obama to allow this case to go forward without defending the Bush policies – but it’s been reported that Obama “doesn’t want to give up this power.” I can say without question that I will no longer support President Obama if he chooses to continue the illegal wiretapping of the Bush administration! And, along with these other points, I believe he will be choosing to be a one term president if he follows this path. I mean, do you really think the Right Wing Republicans will be supporting illegal wiretapping when it is being done by President Obama?

There’s a book out called “Angler” about the Vice Presidency of Dick Cheney and anyone interested in the present day war of ideas between the banished Republican “neocons” and the so-called “progressives” led by President Obama should read this book. Apparently, not only are the right wing – what I call – “nutjobs” led by Rush Limbaugh – you know, the guy who has had three failed marriages, who was implicated in a sex scandal in the Caribbean when he was caught with unprescribed Viagra pills (the rumors of that trip are very unsettling – if you’re reading this I’ll let you google Rush Limbaugh, Caribbean and decide for yourself what he was doing), the guy who was addicted to prescription pain pills, and the guy who apparently speaks for the party of “family values,” – but these guys have brought out Dick Cheney to try to vindicate the past eight years AGAIN! I really wish someone would get on with the investigation of the Bush administration so I wouldn’t have to listen to Cheney any more – he keeps popping up as the only one, evidently, who can defend the Bush/Cheney administration with a straight face. If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you’ve no doubt heard me point out how people who are pathological liars eventually start to believe their own lies. CHENEY FALLS INTO THAT CAMP.

What these guys are doing is spreading so-called “talking points” in a brazen attempt to persuade the American people that all the trouble we are in is the result of two months of President Obama’s administration. Now, I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m not happy with everything Obama is choosing to do, but I guarantee you it is a darned sight better than anything the Republicans have come up with in the past or are suggesting in the present (actually, what they’re suggesting in the present is exactly what got us into the mess we’re in – the same “failed policies” they crammed down our throats in the past). The reason I’ve been such a persistent proponent of prosecuting Bush/Cheney et al for all the legal transgressions committed under their watch is for exactly the reasons we are seeing – in fact, this Republican “campaign” is happening quite a bit sooner than I had anticipated. They are starting their “pushback” way ahead of schedule. I think Cheney knows that he is on the hot seat, so to speak, and the only way this guy knows how to go about things is very aggressively. And the Democrats better pick up on this, or we’ll be writing about these same “transgressions” again, and a lot sooner than I had even imagined.

While I believe Cheney is a criminal of the nature of an organized crime boss, I have to give him credit for being gutsy and fearless. He believes in striking first – and he is definitely on the attack. Now, my TV isn’t working presently (makes my wife happy) so I’m only catching snipits of what’s going on this past week, but the few snipits I’ve managed to listen to are alarming to say the least. Cheney is on the prowl and, I believe, the Democrats are making a HUGE mistake if they don’t hammer him at every opportunity. Some of the things I’ve heard him say in the past week: First – he’s still stating the claim that the Bush/Cheney administration “kept us safe after 9/11” – and he’s claiming that President Obama is making us “less safe” or words to that effect. Well, the absurdity of both of those statements should be such that they don’t even deserve a response, but I guarantee you there had better be a strong Democratic response. Unfortunately Cheney has one thing right, the Democrats show themselves as whimps more often than not – especially when dealing with him and his boss, George W Bush. But, back to his argument, for them to continually claim that they “kept us safe after 9/11” just really #*&%*# me off! Where were they before 9/11? There is ample evidence that they were sleeping at the switch prior to 9/11 and it never should have happened. Both Bush and Cheney ignored warning after warning and the way they set up the Defense department with Donald Rumsfeld led to a lack of cohesion between the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI – allowing the terrorists who ultimately took down the trade center to roam freely in this country for over a year (read “Shadow Factory” by James Bamford if you want to really understand what they did “to keep us safe”) when they should have been stopped.

And to claim that we are “more safe” because of their decisions is equally if not more absurd. Every expert that I’ve read – and there are many – says that al Qaeda is stronger today than it was right after 9/11 specifically because of the decisions of the Bush administration. For example, one of Osama bin Laden’s goals in attacking the World Trade Center was to get the United States “bogged down” in an endless war in Afganistan – with the ultimate objective of bankrupting our country just as they had bankrupted The (former) Soviet Union in the mid to late eighties. Well, Bush and Cheney did them one better – instead of capturing or killing bin Laden when they had him on the run in Afganistan during the early months of 2002 they decided to get “bogged down” in Iraq – thereby fulfilling bin Laden’s plan, only in a much better way for him. Bin Laden was able to escape and reconstitute his forces in Pakistan (which is now far more dangerous than any other place in the world – in fact if a huge disaster comes from all of these blunders by Bush/Cheney I believe it is likely to come from Pakistan and the terrorist forces embedded there) and the US is bankrupting itself in Iraq in an endless war (another interesting point; Bush/Cheney actually paid the Pakistani government something approaching 10 Billion dollars in aid while it was allowing bin Laden and the Taliban to roam freely in its country). In fact, President Obama has already said that our troops will be in Iraq for 15 months longer than he “promised” in his campaign, and I fully expect them to be there indefinitely (bin Laden couldn’t ask for more – and this is one area where I disagree with Obama – I say get ALL the troops out of Iraq in the timeframe you promised – but that’s a subject for another day).

Our presence in Iraq where our troops and their support “contractors” have committed numerous atrocities while suposedly defending Iraqi’s has been a great recruiting tool for bin Laden and other terrorist cells around the world. So, to suggest we were “safer” under their watch is so absurd that I hope the Democrats out there with a little spine “call” Cheney on this. And if it’s true that Cheney was running a “Death Squad” out of the Vice President’s office which led to assasinations in numerous countries (the reports I heard placed the number at 9 or 10 different soveriegn nations) – as has been alleged by Si Hersch – then I guess Cheney believes that will make us safer – I’m actually feeling when the truth comes out about the US killing world leaders there are going to be a lot of really MAD people in these other countries. WE’RE PRETTY MUCH NOT SUPPOSED TO GO AROUND KILLING THE LEADERS OF OTHER COUNTRIES, EVEN IF WE DON’T AGREE WITH THEM. I mean, Dick Cheney shouldn’t even have the credibility to get his voice heard – of course that’s in a perfect world, and a perfect world doesn’t include FOX “News.”

Obviously, I could go on and on here – and I only heard a few things he said. A couple more that struck a bell with me. Cheney said something along the lines of “I love Rush Limbaugh” and I can’t remember the rest but it was a ringing endorsement of Rush. Maybe Rush really is the leader of the Republican party – as hard as that is for me to believe. I figured the Republicans were in a down time, but I just couldn’t imagine them being that stupid. However, I would be all for it. In fact, I would like to see Limbaugh run for President in 2012. I think the perfect Republican ticket would be Limbaugh/Palin – they would get 100% of the white supremicist/successionist vote in the country. The other thing Cheney said was that he felt the Bush administration was not at fault for the economic “meltdown” because they were so busy keeping us safe. When you study the history of the Iraq invasion and the occupation you wonder how they could say they were busy keeping us safe – because they didn’t really do anything. They just assumed everything would turn out OK, and while you won’t get them to admit it today, George and Dick were “licking their chops” over the prospect of controlling the second largest known oil reserve in the world. I’m sure they figured this would be the biggest heist job in the history of this planet. I guess they assumed that the Iraqi’s would be so happy to be rid of Saddam they would just give us their oil (remember the Bush/Cheney claims that the Iraqi oil would pay for the war? – which was going to cost only a few billion dollars! Ughh!)

These guys were idiots every step of the way – and now they are busy trying to make sure the history books reflect something far more reflective of what they want us to see than what is the truth. However, history books don’t work that way. I suppose the first “histories” of their administration are so negative they feel it’s important to kind of circle the wagons and defend themselves – in other words, they don’t want to leave it to the historians because the first installments don’t look at all like what they would like. In reality, they have come close to destroying the very fabric of this nation – and really as I read about what’s happening in the rest of the world, these guys (Bush/Cheney and their close associates) were infecting many other nations with their venom that is backfiring in one country after another. I have come to the conclusion their economic philosophy could be called exponential borrowing. They not only believed in borrowing to the hilt (and hiding as much of it as possible – like the accounting scandals of the 90’s) – but they leveraged the borrowing with the so-called credit-default swaps, etc. Borrowing money and gambling with it – over and over – creating this huge pile of paper wealth that was almost imaginary – REMEMBER, THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THEIR OWN LIES – They probably believed this wealth was real. So now Cheney is trying to blame Obama for the economic crisis and convince the American public that our sitting President is making us “less safe” by adhering to the constitution and honoring our basic principles regarding human rights. Despite the fact the greatest tragedy in the history of this nation happened on his and his President’s watch – he wants us to believe that he kept us safer. Dick Cheney wants you and me to believe that his endorsement of warrantless wiretapping, his outing of a covert CIA agent, his lying us into a needless war, his part in ruining our economy (he was the one in the Bush administration who said “Ronald Reagan proved deficits don’t matter”), his part in running an alleged “Death Squad,” his endorsement of torture which led to Abu Ghraib and waterboarding, and him and his boss letting Osama bin Laden go – the very guy who masterminded the 9/11 attacks – has kept us safer. Well, if you believe Dick Cheney’s claims – I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you!

For those of you out there who think I’m nuts when I keep pushing for accountability for the Bush administration and their right wing associates let me help you out a bit here. Now, if you’re the type of person who somehow has come to the conclusion that this nation was intended to be full of WASP’s – and I don’t mean the kind that might sting you – I mean the White Anglo Saxon Protestants who somehow have determined that they are the “true” Americans – then you won’t like what I’m about to write. But if you’re the type of person who actually takes our Bill of Rights and our Constitution at face value – and celebrate, as I do, that this nation is the epitome of the “melting pot” – that is a mixture of cultures and nationalities from around the globe who are proving people can “get along” – then maybe you’ll find this interesting if not alarming.

George W Bush once said something along the lines of “it would be OK for this to be a dictatorship, so long as I’m the dictator.” He said this with what appeared to be a tongue in cheek, but as the evidence is coming out, maybe the tongue wasn’t so much in the cheek. The nine memos released a week or two ago from the Justice Department described an executive branch that was actually thinking along the lines of a dictatorship. They had given themselves the power to declare any American citizen an “enemy combatant,” arrest them, and wisk them off to some detention facility who knows where in the world, torturing them and, as was the case in South America with some of the dictatorships our CIA put into power in the 70’s and 80’s – “disappearing them” – with the people never to be heard from again. It’s unclear if they used this power, but it is clear that they, along with the Office of Legal Counsel – manned by thugs like John Yoo – had given themselves this power.

Most people hear about this stuff and the natural reaction is that they can’t believe it – so they don’t believe it. If you’re one of the people who have this tendency I would recommend that you read Naomi Klein’s book titled “The Shock Doctrine.” It will open your eyes to what our CIA was doing long before GW Bush ever got into the White House. More distressing than the 9 memos was the news reported this past week by Seymour Hersh – one of the most respected, if not the most respected, investigative journalists in our nation – that Dick Cheney was running a “Death Squad” made up of elite Navy Seals right out of the White House. It was reported that this group had entered at least 9 or 10 foriegn, soveriegn nations, and assasinated leaders whom our government did not approve. Can you picture this – George W Bush doesn’t approve of you and Dick Cheney has you assasinated – Wow! Now, if that doesn’t get your attention I don’t know what will. Well, just in case let me take it a bit farther. How about the Bush administration and Cheney authorizing the CIA to be actively working within the borders of our nation spying on American citizens. THESE ARE MAJOR CRIMES – AND YOU’D THINK EVEN REPUBLICANS WOULD BE TURNED OFF BY THESE REPORTS AND DEMAND INVESTIGATIONS.

But the one thing you can count on with Republicans is that they all seem to act like sheep. They go in whatever direction their leader points them in (this would be doubly scary if their leader was say, someone like Rush Limbaugh), without a second thought, and they seem to have no conscience whatsoever regarding the actions of our government (so long as our government is made up of right wing wackos). For most of them, as long as they can continue to delude themselves that the Republican party is the “pro-life” party – they will “see no evil.” THIS IS AMAZING TO ME! And I know a lot of Republicans, they are not dumb people. Many of them just don’t have time to figure out what is happening (really) with our government – so they listen to these ridiculously dishonest, disengenuous, and immoral leaders – and then they all start sending emails around spreading fear messages about Barrack Obama. IT’S GETTING A BIT MUCH FOR ME! Well, this isn’t all of it – in fact as the news comes out things just get looking worse and worse.

This next one will probably make you think that I’m nuts – or that Chuck Norris is just a “nut job” – depending on your perspective – but this just compounds the information that is already out there. Now Norris (who played Walker, Texas Ranger on TV) has been following Mike Huckabee around for the past year, since Huckabee ran for President in the Republican primaries of 2008. Huckabee, actually did pretty well and won a few primaries. Well, the other day Norris was quoted in some magazine article as saying that some day he (Norris) might run for “President of Texas” once they secede from the union. He pointed out that when that day comes, which could be sooner than most people realize – according to Norris – there will be “thousands of cells” joining in from all across the nation. This is beyond the pail type of talking and Republicans everywhere should be challenged as to whether or not they are with Norris – especially Huckabee who is contemplating another run for President in 2012. You think these guys are just a bunch of wierdos who are nothing but blowhards?

Well, how about this? Last year I read a book about Blackwater Inc. – which I believe has changed its name to XE – pronounced ZEEE – the private militia who was hired by the Bush administration with bloated no-bid contracts in Iraq to provide security for our State Department. In the process they were involved in several incidents where Iraqi civilians were allegedly murdered – on one occasion 17 unarmed civilians including women and children – and they claimed they were immune from both Iraqi and American laws. Hopefully, they won’t get away with that – but the real story with them lies ahead in my opinion (they have been thrown out of Iraq and are presently “looking for work”). They have a mercenary Army of several thousand of the “baddest” banditos from Central and South America along with some of our best special forces retired from the Army and Navy and Marines waiting in the wings for their next call to duty – along with a huge cache of weapons, a miniature air force, and navy. This corporation is headed by a man named Eric Prince who falls into the extreme right wing Christian extremist category and in the book I read it was reported that Blackwater was prepared to participate in an armed insurrection in the late 90’s in the US. Some of the people involved in the group which was contemplating this were the so-called leaders of the “Christian Right.” Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson to name some of the ones I remember from the book. Their plan, evidently, was to bring good old fashioned “Christian morality” by force – and did I mention that many of the people associated with their group have racist tendencies (Remember Sarah Palin – her husband was part of a successionist movement in Alaska that was tied to the John Birch Society – ugh!!!)

Putting all this together with the allegations above, and the fact that most of these people have clear track records as white supremists, and I’m sure you can guess where this is going. I’ve been saying for months that the most important thing for President Obama to do when he gets into office is to make sure that the Bush administration (and anyone associated with them) be investigated thoroughly. My original thought was that it is of paramount importance to insure that the legal violations they committed be uncovered to prevent the possibility of their recurrence. It is getting more severe now. If Hersh is correct about Cheney leading a Death squad right out of the White House he should be in jail – IMMEDIATELY. And if Norris is still affiliated with Huckabee or any other national politician they should be called before Congress and forced to either denounce Norris or publicly acknowledge that they are thinking along those lines and agree with him. Of course, no one will associate with him publicly – because what he said was Sedition – which is a treasonous violation of our laws (I guess he “implied” some insurrection is in the wings – but his intent was clear). Remember, we have our first Black President, and the way these right wing wacko Republicans are talking they will do anything they can to undo him – regardless of the consequences to this nation. I know that Obama is trying to “reach across the isle” to Republicans – but this part of the Republican party isn’t going to be listening or working with him, no matter what happens to our economy or anything else. My question to Obama, the Justice department and to the Democratic Congress is – when are we going to have this investigation? How far do they have to go over the edge before you take them seriously? They are the ones acting like terrorists and they need to be stopped. I don’t care whether there is a “truth” commision or Special Prosecutor, but the “Bush Crime family” needs to be investigated!

For years I have watched in amazement at the type and style of the new houses being built. I remember often saying things like, “I wonder how people can afford these houses?” or “What will happen if the bottom falls out of the market?” Well, it won’t be long and I believe we’ll have a good answer to both of those questions. For the most part, I believe hardly anyone can (or desires to) afford the really nice house around where I live. Now, I do live in an area that was once “rural” (actually, it still is, you just wouldn’t notice by looking at the homes – it’s just that they’re all on acreage) and where half a million dollar homes were selling in a matter of hours – not days or months. Now, virtually every house I’ve seen for sale for the last year or so, is still for sale. The house I live in has lost about a third of its value and we are in an area that is supposedly one of the better areas regarding the “Location, location, location” rule of real estate. But the grim reality is that most of the homes close to where I live are listed – even in these horrific times for home sales – in excess of $500,000. People have to have good jobs and be secure in their jobs for there to be any kind of market for these types of homes.

The question then becomes, “When will the market return?” Or should I say, “Will the market return?” So far, around us there aren’t any “bank owned” signs that I’ve seen, but there has to become a point where people say “enough is enough” as far as keeping homes that continue to drop in value and have no prospect for sale. I have friends who, even they would admit, got “sucked in” to the “sub-prime” scandal and they have a home that they can’t afford to keep. The thing that is a bit frustrating is that they paid $375,000 for this home and today it’s probably worth about $250,000 and the banks don’t want to work out a deal with them. I’m not sure they are in a position to even do that, but if they were, wouldn’t it be in everyone’s interest for as many people as possible to stay in their homes. I keep thinking about the CNBC rant by Rick Santelli calling the people who are losing their homes “Losers” and telling President Obama “We don’t want to pay these losers’ mortgages!” Well, I’m having enough trouble paying my own, but as long as we’re bailing out the banks to the tune of a trillion dollars or so – it seems that preserving as much of the home market as possible makes sense to me.

Now, I wasn’t in favor of the bank bailouts in the first place – certainly not under the “no strings attached” terms with which they were granted. But, as long as we’ve gone down that path, it makes sense to me to try to stop the hemorrhaging foreclosure problem. I mean, how much will the banks lose if the reported ten million homes are foreclosed on? Or, is the plan for the taxpayers to prop up the banks so that they can withstand these huge losses, and then capitalize them so that they can profit off of the losses of the foreclosed homeowners – because the homes aren’t going to go away – someone, eventually is going to buy them and live in them. I suppose the Santelli theory is to keep the banks viable (his buddies on Wall Street) and then make the killing on the homes that will be sold for a fraction of what it costs to build them – but if the banks are being paid for the losses from making the bad loans in the first place, and then they get all the homes that are foreclosed as well – to be eventually sold again – it seems like maybe we’re propping up the wrong people here. I really don’t understand how this works, I’m only speculating here, but I would be happy to hear from someone who better understands how this works – what I REALLY DON’T WANT TO SEE HAPPEN is for the banks to get a double benefit here – and the mortgagees get screwed (any worse than they already are).

The other day I heard a radio show (The Peter B Collins show) where they brought on a series of guests who were “underwater” in their homes in California. What was the most interesting to me was the fact that almost all of the guests were current on their payments. They certainly weren’t acting like the “Losers” Santelli portrayed those who were looking to the government for some relief. The sad reality for most of them was that they purchased a home in the previous two years and the value of the home had dropped in half. For example, one lady that I remember had a home originally purchased for $550,000 with $250,000 down – and the home is now worth $300,000. Well, in my mind, instead of saying “tough luck – Loser” – I believe it makes sense to assist this woman in renegotiating the mortgage on the home so that the bank shares with her in the loss. As the home dips under the balance on the mortgage, and she owes more than it’s worth – it seems reasonable to me that the bank would rework her loan to make it worthwhile for her to stay in the home. If we allow 10 million foreclosures – as a nation – we are continuing the “me, me, me” philosophy of the previous 30 years of Republican rule (with a very slight “blip” during the Clinton years) – and home prices could fall another 50% or more. Buying a home might no longer be the “American Dream.”

This overbuilding and over-loaning was “pushed” by the banks and by those in positions in the government to want to perpetuate the false economy of the past decade almost exclusively built upon borrowing. And the banks that are saying they are making a profit today (Citibank claimed today they made 8 Billion in the first two months of the year – in this age of creative accounting I can virtually guarantee you there is a caveat to that number that the CEO didn’t want anyone to know about) haven’t even begun to deal with the credit card bust that is sitting on the horizon. If you were wondering why the banks pressured Congress to pass the bankruptcy law of a couple years ago, you will soon know why. I believe there’s going to be a growing and growing number of people defaulting on credit cards in the months ahead – I’m not sure if it will be as severe as the housing crisis – but I believe it is inevitable.

So, what do we do? Well, if you’ve read any of my previous posts on this site – I support President Obama and hope he succeeds – but I’m not sure I agree with some of his “plans.” However, I believe the best chance we have going forward of slowing down the “meltdown” of our economy, is for Obama to be able to pass legislation without having it “glutted” by recalcitrant Republicans in the Senate. Then, once the policies have a chance to work or not work, we know where the buck stops. With Republicans “muddying the waters” I just wonder, what if? What if the Democrats could just pass the progressive legislation the voters wanted. I feel almost totally certain (I truly hope I’m wrong) that the so-called stimulus package was too small and contained too many tax cuts which will have a negligible effect on our problem. I don’t believe we need to give people like me another 30 or 40 dollars a month to spend – I believe we need people to have jobs that would motivate them to be customers of the stores that are closing down once again. I listened with dismay a while back at the CEO of Home Depot railing against the idea that his employees might have an easier path to forming a union because of the “Employee Free Choice Act” – as if it would cause the end of the world almost. What seemed strange to me at the time was that I kept thinking workers earning union wages create customers and, without customers, businesses like Home Depot keep failing,which causes less customers which causes more businesses to fail, etc. Obama is going to have to come back for more “stimulus” in my opinion (again, I hope I’m wrong) and, If Obama can pass true “progressive” stimulus legislation, maybe the economy will revive and our homes will still have some value.

I long ago gave up reading the local newspaper and switched to the NY Times online. Some of my Republican friends find this publication “liberal” although I have to say that I often times find it like a real newspaper should be – actually reporting news. That isn’t to say that parts of it might not be considered “liberal,” but certainly some parts would fall into the category of “conservative.” But to me, much of it is what I expect from a “news”paper. I really enjoy the op-ed page, there are some very interesting columnists there (In fact, when I first had the urge to write, I foolishly sent in some op-eds – not realizing that 6th grade school teachers from the “left coast” wouldn’t be too appealing to their readership). One of the columnists who I have had a tendency to shy away from – due to wondering where in the #*@% he’s coming from – is Thomas Friedman. But I have to say that he wrote (I believe it was yesterday) one of the more interesting columns I’ve read for some time – it coincided with a lot of what I’ve been thinking about in trying to get a handle on the economic crisis as I watch all the “experts” searching for the bottom of our economic meltdown.

Friedman pointed out – and I think he got the idea from someone else – that maybe what is happening is what he called “The Great Disruption.” His point was that maybe we are at a point in time where both the Stock Market and Mother Nature are saying “enough already” – or words to that effect – in unison. Well, I’ve been thinking along those lines, but I have to say that I don’t give the “Market” that much credit. I’m not willing to put a place where high paid executives gamble with other people’s money – in fact I’m beginning to look at Wall Street as the world’s largest gambling casino, on the same plane as our planet. In my opinion it’s Mother Nature that is saying “enough already.” The stock market is just one more part of the machine that is out of whack – I suppose using Friedman’s thinking (or at least how I would conceive it) the Market could be considered the axle on which the wheel turns – therefore its demise is emblematic of the larger society’s demise. Businesses are going belly up all around me – not just “small businesses” but some of the more prominent businesses that have seemed to be invincible. It is becoming clear that nothing is invincible.

Part of Friedman’s point was that we have been in an economy that is measured by year over year growth with this mindset that it will go on forever. A good number of people have understood that the lifestyle of many Americans was not sustainable – and it appears to me that the ones at the “top” – that is the people who have the most income – are going to be the last ones to understand what is happening. In my mind, this is because they will be able to go on almost as if nothing is wrong because of their “reservoir” of resources – but, depending on the severity of the downturn, their time could be coming. Of course, they would have to be almost blind to fail seeing what is happening to those around them – I have several friends who have lost their jobs and have no prospects in sight. And keep in mind that my peer group is the pre-retirement group in their 50’s and early 60’s – many who have lost their retirement savings and are getting quite anxious about what lies ahead. Getting back to Friedman’s point – it seems quite evident that the entire direction of this nation is shifting – out of necessity. For all those “Global Warming deniers” out there – if Friedman (and me to a certain extent) are correct – there is going to be a huge shift in our economy – WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT!

Some of these companies that the government is trying to bailout – maybe they are a thing of the past no matter what the government does – but if they are going to survive it will be in an entirely different form. The Republicans continue to complain about President Obama – many of them calling him a “socialist” or worst – as he appears to “get it” and is attempting to change the course of this nation in an attempt to mitigate the disaster that is lying ahead. And while I am sick of listening to Republicans, I can see the importance of getting beyond the partisan bickering in Washington – one of Obama’s main goals – if we are to respond effectively to the challenges that lie ahead. In fact, I’ve said on this site several times in the past that I believe maybe it’s time for a new “opposition” party – to counterbalance the Democrats. At the rate they’re going the Republicans are going to appeal to a smaller and smaller minority of American voters as the evidence mounts regarding the changes we all have to make in the future. It is greed that has fueled the crisis we are in and greed has no place in the solution. Maybe the “Green” party is looming as the next major political force in this nation as we try to bring the earth that we depend on back to health (and us along with it).

Until our national attention is redirected to a “Green” economy – and companies, whether new ones or old ones that retool, get focused along those lines I believe that Wall Street may continue to slide. I mean when companies like AIG and CitiCorp – two businesses that are “too big to fail” are trading at less than a dollar a share – despite the commitment of the government to “save” them – well, that’s a REALLY BAD SIGN regarding the health of this nation’s economy. Stop with the talk that this is just another recession and it should “turn around” sometime in “the third quarter.” The other day I listened to a snipit of the John Stewart show – Comedy Central’s version of the news – and it was recordings of “advice” given in the last year by a number of the “experts” (like Jim Cramer and Rick Santelli) on CNBC – the cable channel dedicated to Wall Street and the economy. If these guys weren’t so pathetic it would have been a lot funnier – but their advice has been somewhat akin to someone at the race track telling you to bet on the number four horse because he took a dump during the post parade (if you’ve never been to the horse races – that would be laughable). These guys have been making predictions that probably cost you your life savings if you listened to them. Business as usual on Wall Street is OVER! They can blame Obama for all of this all they want – BUT WHAT THEY REALLY NEED TO DO IS GO LOOK IN A MIRROR TO FIND THE “CULPRIT.”

Just like General Motors MUST RETOOL in order to survive (and I firmly believe we need to close our ears to the Republicans who want GM to declare bankruptcy) our nation must RETOOL in order to maintain its leadership position in the world. And I believe the world needs the US to show leadership more than any time in the past 75 years. Tonight I won’t get into the importance of prosecuting those who got us here any more than to say it’s part of the requirement of showing leadership – we will hold our own accountable first – in order to claim credibility when dealing with others (and the reality is that it’s probably a bit harsh to say “they got us here” – it’s probably more accurate to say they have accelerated the process – this was inevitable). Saving the planet is certainly a multinational challenge. If we are going to lead in this area, the time to kick things into “high gear” is NOW! And I agree with Friedman that it is none other than “Mother Nature” who is demanding this change.

If we continue to look to Wall Street for solutions and ignore the realities in the world around us – this “Great Disruption” could last for a decade or longer. There are billions in this world already suffering from shortages of food and WATER. Are we going to wait until the crisis is actually killing our citizens before we deal with it? I’ve heard experts say that within 10 years water will be a much bigger issue in America than oil. Are we going to ignore these experts and listen to the ones on Wall Street who have proven their fallibility? We live in a society where the average Major League baseball player earns over one and a half million dollars per year and the average teacher earns that in a career. Are we going to continue to misplace our priorities in this manner? We take for granted the food supply while we continue to deplete the land that grows the food and the aquifers that supply the crops with water. 30 years ago Jimmy Carter put CAFE standards on the auto industry which respected that oil is a finite resource – and we willingly voted in politicians who derided him as they reversed his policies. Carter was ridiculed for putting solar panels on the White House in an attempt to set an example for the rest of the nation that we needed to conserve energy – Ronald Reagan had them removed shortly after replacing Carter as President. Hillary Clinton was roundly criticized for attempting to institute a national health care policy in the early 1990’s which was critically needed then and is desperately needed now. There are examples after examples of people who have tried to change the fundamental direction of this nation in the past 30 years – usually meeting with resistance from the “establishment” that is embedded in Wall Street. As I’m writing this tonight, the Republican party is positioning itself as the “Party of No.” Many of them have said they feel we’d be better off with more of GW Bush’s policies than those proposed by Barack Obama. I can only guess where Thomas Friedman would come in on this, but I can tell you that I believe it’s time for them to get out of the way. Forget Obama’s campaign slogans. Both Wall Street and Mother Nature are telling us IT’S TIME FOR A CHANGE!

I keep listening to the people who created the economic mess we find ourselves in trying to rewrite history in ways that suggest total states of denial in regard to their own role in leading us into the quagmire we find ourselves stuck. Between the Wall Street “experts,” the right wing economic gurus who spent the last 8 years enabling George W Bush and company (some of them enabling supply side economics for 30+ years), and the Republicans who are desperately trying to shield the reality of what they have caused, but essentially proposing more of the same, it is getting a bit much. As far as I’m concerned these people need to crawl back into the hole they came out of. And then to listen to them trying to place the blame for everything from the recession (which began about 18 months ago), the deficit, the banking crisis, and the Wall Street meltdown on Barrack Obama and his administration of about 6 weeks defies rational thinking.

But you have to keep in mind that these people haven’t used rational thinking for as long as I can remember. What I do remember, very distinctly, is that back in the eighties Republicans came up with (what I have to admit has been a very effective) propaganda strategy which has become known as the “talking points.” Now, the theory behind this is that if enough of them repeat the same thing over and over and over and over (well, you get the point) hordes of people who have busy lives will hear them and actually believe the bull #*@% they are spewing out is true. This is how they have convinced people to vote against their own self interest. Obama had it exactly right during the campaign when he pointed out that Republicans use “wedge” issues – like abortion, or gun rights, or gay marriage – to rile up their base and get every day “blue collar” Americans to support things like the fleecing of the US treasury that took place on a regular basis during the Bush reign in office. Well, the Republican party has unleashed this strategy again – only this time I think the American people are so sick of their shpeel that nobody’s listening – or at least I hope not. The other day I heard about five of them say the exact same words in five different venues – from radio announcers (you know who), to TV announcers, to the really disgusting Congressional “leaders” who have bought into this strategy of repeated lies.

And this fleecing was monumental and arrogant to the point that the fleecers actually started to believe the company line – that is that they actually deserved – and were worth – all the money they were pealing off from the tax roles. If the so-called no-bid contracts given to Halliburton, KBR (and Dick Cheney), Blackwater, Parsons, Bechtel (Rumsfeld), and the others are ever fully investigated the American people are not only going to go into a state of shock – THEY WILL BE VERY ANGRY! Now, I personally believe that the “grand finale” – the TARP bailout of his Wall Street buddies by Henry Paulsen during his last couple months in office will be the greatest fleece of them all – but the other ones were War Profiteering – ripping off taxpayers while our troops were dying in Iraq due to insufficient armor and equipment. Our wounded troops were sitting in rat infested rooms at Walter Reed, or taking showers in Iraq not knowing whether or not they might be electrocuted due to faulty work by contractors – and these corporations were skimming Billions upon Billions from the war funding which was all borrowed money and which was hidden from the actual deficit figures reported by the federal government.

The Wall Streeters, immediately upon receiving the first wave of funding from Paulsen, started handing out bonuses at an alarming rate – almost as if they knew the “gig was up” and they were grabbing as much as they could while the public’s collective attention was diverted to other things. The thing that is the most alarming about all this is that I believe these banks are already failed – and the government very likely can’t print money fast enough to save them – in this case I believe you could say that the cure is worse than the disease. Last week I pointed out that CitiCorp was worth around 13.5 Billion as the government was about to put another slug of “relief” their way – that is after the initial 45 Billion which was 300% the worth of ALL THE STOCK IN THE COMPANY. Well, since then the value of the company has dropped to about 5 Billion – and very likely headed toward ZERO!!! As I’ve stated before, if feels like we’re sending “good money after bad.” When will it stop?

Well, as ludicrous as it is to blame all of this on President Obama, it is – and should be – fair game to question what he’s doing about it (I really do wish the Republicans would participate in the discussion in some kind of way besides more tax cuts for the rich – that “record” is beyond BROKEN). I support Obama, and unlike Rush Limbaugh, I truly hope he succeeds. But the reality is that he’s inherited a mess that may not be fixable – at least with the known economic remedies of the people he has advising him. I mean, most of the names are way too familiar to me – in my mind Larry Summers participated in the demise of the regulation system when he worked for Bill Clinton – and Tim Geithner was the New York Fed Chairman as Wall Street was imploding – so, to me, it is fair game to question what they are doing. I’M JUST HAPPY THAT WHAT THEY ARE DOING ISN’T WHAT BUSH AND CO. WERE DOING.

However, I question if the reason they keep putting money into the Wall Street Banks and AIG is because the money was already allocated in the original TARP funds. To me, that’s not a good reason. Of course, I’m on record as opposing the TARP bailout right from the start – but hopefully I’ll be wrong and it will eventually work in getting the credit markets “moving” again. In my mind, the more money we throw at these enterprises the more money we have lost. The sensible approach was to allow the banks that are insolvent to fail with the government coming in to pick up the pieces. It’s like we are trying to protect the very people who created this mess in the first place. There was over a trillion dollars spent – by my account – before a single cent was aimed at the foreclosure crisis and the American families losing their homes. Where’s the Republican “family values?” I’ll tell you where it is – look up Rick Santelli on the internet – he has become a Republican folk hero for calling the homeowners seeking help to stay in their homes “LOSERS” and making it clear that he feels any restructuring of their loans (which makes sense even for the banks – I don’t think they want 8 – 10 million foreclosures) means he’s paying their mortgage for them. This is the kind of “Me, Me, Me” thinking that has driven the “party of family values” for the past quarter of a century.

So, while – as I said – it is ludicrous to blame Obama for the troubles we are in – he does have some incredibly tough decisions facing him. I’m suggesting one of those decisions is to give the Republicans what many of them have been clamoring for – let the free market determine the solvency of these banks that Henry Paulsen said are “too big to fail.” The reality is they have already failed – and what is the best and cheapest way to get a banking system functioning in this country again. The fact that we’ve already poured hundreds of billions of TARP dollars onto their balance sheets is not a sufficient reason to continue to do so. Think of the requirements that have been put on GM and Chrysler for a far smaller amount of taxpayer money – which is in the form of a loan – and then tell me that similar expectation shouldn’t be expected of any bank or anyone else seeking assistance during this economic meltdown. I believe continuing the TARP program may be like pouring gas on a fire – it is just making things worse. These large banks should have to provide a plan that demonstrates SOLVENCY before they receive another cent of TARP funds!

If you’ve been reading any of my posts for any length of time you know that I have been PUSHING for the investigation and prosecution (where appropriate) of the GW Bush administration since I started this blog. I’m sure you can surmise that my intensity about this was gaining steam for a long period of time prior to my needing to write, a (seemingly at the time) deparate attempt to make myself feel better. I mean, when you’re watching your own country dissolve into a semblance of a second rate dictatorship, all because of a terrorist organization which you could have summarily stamped out, but chose to disregard for the sake of an “oil grab” of historically incompetent proportions – you feel – well, I have to be careful here (you know the saying about making assumptions) – I feel the only honorable way out of this for America is to make a clear statement to our citizens and to the rest of the world that we are a nation of laws and not men. I mean, the level of hypocrisy as GW and his cronies were pushing “Democracy” in Iraq while suspending it at home is beyond belief. I honestly never thought something like this was possible in this nation I love.

Well, it looks like the “you know what” is hitting the fan as far as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Addington, Yoo, Wolfowitz, Gonzales, and others are concerned. And the way it’s playing out is quite interesting. I mean, on the one hand President Obama is stating “I want to look forward and not backward” – discouraging words to me – but then his justice department makes public nine memos from the Bush Office of Legal Counsel which have really “stirred” the waters as far as an investigation of Bush is concerned. Today, Karl Rove and Harriet Miers – two of the Bush advisors who refused to tesify before Congress – agreed to appear before John Conyers House Judiciary committee – not under oath, but subject to perjury charges (whatever that means, I’m sure we’ll find out later) – and not in public session – to testify regarding the firing of the nine US attorneys during Bush’s second term. The allegations are that the attorney’s were fired illegally (essentially by Rove) for partisan political reasons – and with at least two of them, David Eglesias of New Mexico and Carol Lam of San Diego California – there is overwhelming evidence they were fired because either they weren’t aggressive enough in prosecuting Democrats or too aggressive in prosecuting Republicans.

This scandal will lead to other areas besides the attorneys who were fired. It is sure to be rehashed about how Monica Goodling was hiring Justice Department lawyers based on their loyalty to Bush as opposed to their legal credentials – this in a department that has prided itself on non-partisanship – the integrity of our legal system depends on the public perception that our Justice Department is fair and unbiased in prosecuting the laws of the land. This proposed investigation will also lead to the events leading up to the illegal imprisonment of Don Siegelman, former Democratic governor of Alabama, who was railroaded into prison by Karl Rove – that one will be not only very interesting when it comes to light, but I guarantee you it will be a sobering example of why we have to prosecute these people so that this kind of criminal activity never happens again in any part of our government – or at least we set a precedent of what will happen if it does. Karl Rove should get at least 4 or 5 times as much jail time as he subjected Siegelman to – for starters (and, believe me, Rove is “dirty” in several other areas as well.

Bush’s White House was getting weak kneed attorneys to write legal opinions giving them abusive authority that all of them had to know was unconstitutional. Of course, you have to keep in mind that Bush’s VP was Dick Cheney who felt ever since Watergate that the executive branch of the government had lost power that he wanted to get back. For example, the warrantless wiretapping will lead right to Cheney when everything comes out, the torture will lead right to Cheney when it all comes out, everyone knows that Cheney is the one who “outed” Valerie Plame Wilson (she was a covert CIA agent, and we’ll probably never know the full ramifications of what happened to those in her “network” – a treasonable offense – and was shielded from guilt by Lewis “Scooter” Libby who took the “fall” for him – hopefully, this will come out.

The Senate Judiciary committee is proposing a “Truth Commission” – a series of investigations to find out everything that was happening while Bush was President. Today, the leading Republican opponents of that plan suggested that if laws were broken that we don’t need a “Truth Commission” (I happen to agree with them, for once) – there should be a special prosecutor and any lawbreaking should be prosecuted. Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is on record that he just wants to make sure that the truth comes out so that these abuses are not repeated again – whether by the Obama administration or any other future administration. Should prosecutions prove to be appropriate, then they should happen. He seems to think both things can happen. The important thing to me is that the truth comes out and we SOUNDLY repudiate all that happened under GW Bush! Not only for our own nation, but as a statement to the rest of the world that we will not tolerate this abusive behavior – especially when it comes from our own. Just the torture policy (which has been publicly admitted by both Bush and Cheney that they authorized it) is a HUGE NATIONAL DISGRACE!

While I’m very encouraged by these developments and I’m pleased that Eric Holder released the memos which have heightened the “push” for investigations, I’m still very curious about the position of President Obama and his legal advisors. For example, it has been reported that the deal getting Rove and Miers in front of the House Judiciary Committee was negotiated by Obama’s Legal counsel – preventing them from being in the position of possibly defending Rove and Miers in Court. As I’ve stated many times it’s much easier to give up our rights than to get them back. And while I am a supporter of President Obama I’m still on “Red Alert” as to how he’s going to deal with all this. Presidents don’t like to prosecute Presidents. I think they believe in the “What goes around, comes around” theory – and would rather just look the other way. THIS WON’T DO IN THIS INSTANCE! The Bush administration abused their power to such an extent that IT MUST BE REVERSED! Whether Obama wants to give up this power or not. The case of Rove and Miers would have been an executive privilege case that Obama would have lost in court had he taken it on – it would not have been wise (In fact, I don’t think it was wise to even let on that he was considering it). He is soon to face another crossroads in this issue – warrantless wiretapping – and my suggestion to President Obama (it’s reported he doesn’t want to give up the power assumed by Bush) is to take the “high road” and do the right thing. Get the government off of our phone lines and out of our emails – and any other areas where they have overstepped their bounds. You talk about a possible area which would unite Republicans and Democrats – just let it get out that you are continuing the eavesdropping tactics of GW Bush!

I will close by saying that this representative democracy has survived all these years by considering the constitution a non-negotiable document. It is what it is, and the government – just like the citizens of this great nation – is obliged to abide by it. The US is not a dictatorship, and Bush/Cheney et al need to be prosecuted to prove it!

Now, I’ve stated before that I don’t like to pat myself on the back (OK, occasionally I do :o) but tonight I have to point out that I listened to two national TV “news” shows (are there really any “real” news shows anymore?) and read on op-ed in the NY Times arguing in favor of Harry Reid finally getting some backbone and forcing Republicans to actually filibuster as they obstruct the will of the voters in the US Senate. All I can say is IT’S ABOUT TIME! About a year ago I took the daring (for me) step of calling into the local “progressive” talk show as I was driving to work to suggest the same thing as the Democrats were allowing Republicans to manipulate every piece of legislation in the last two years of GW Bush – including the illegal war in Iraq which the voters expected to be concluded prior to the election of 2008 (and I’ll have a lot more to say for those of you who have actually bought the lie that the “surge” worked in the future). I was summarily “dismissed” as being unrealistic by Carl Wolfson and Thom Hartman who I have since heard espousing the same line. At the time they suggested that I was “very unrealistic.” And since then we have watched Democrats cave in one time after another, the last cave in being three Republicans holding the entire “stimulus” package hostage until they could gut it to the tune of, by most estimates, about 1 million potential jobs lost for an increas in tax cuts.

I think what is happening is that as the stock market gets closer to what I have predicted might be the bottom (5000 – one of my fellow workers today even said she has heard 4000) more and more Americans are getting tired of the political process preventing a “purer” attempt at stopping the slide. People are starting to realize that this really may be the “big one” and they’re taking more notice. And more and more people are going to realize that this is a political “war.” The Republicans, who by all accounts but their own have led us into this abiss are – at least the die hards – sticking to their guns. They continue to clamor for more tax cuts for the wealthy as the way out of the crisis. And some of them are really going into “panic mode.” Also tonight I watched on two different programs analysis of the Rush Limbaugh effect on the Republican party and what appeared to me a futile and ill informed attempt to understand it. The discussion centered on Rush’s claim that he hopes “Obama will fail” and an attempt to understand what that means and why he would be making such a stand in this time of crisis. One thing people involved in the discussion fully appeared to understand is what the consequences of Obama “failing” would be.

Without getting into that I would like to explain as briefly as I can why Limbaugh (and his troop of followers) want Obama to fail. The caveat here is that – based on my knowledge of several of his followers – many of Limbaugh’s “ditto heads” haven’t got a clue what they’re rooting for. They listen to him and take his word as the “gospel.” Even friends of mine who are Christians and should know better buy Limbaugh’s shpeel – “hook, line, and sinker.” And I will also add that I have put Limbaugh into the “traitor” category long ago – I’ll give the guy credit for being able to amass a large audience (although I believe it’s shrinking) and a huge fortune. But he is the epitome of the Americans who put self before country and I truly hope this ensuing debate which will take place over the next year or so puts Limbaugh and his followers (there is now a slew of right wing “talkers” who are trying to emulate him) into their proper place in this society. Limbaugh has proven himself to be a racist and sexist over and over again and he is driven by the very greed that has threatened to bring this nation to its knees.

The sad thing here is that we truly need vocal “compassionate conservatives” to be the counteracting force in the debate that re-directs this nation for the next century. Anyone who thinks that the Democrats have a monopoly on the ideas which will get us out of this mess, in my opinion, are just as wrong as those who thought the Republicans should have a “permanent majority” to run our government. The idea of checks and balances between the three branches of government was brilliant – devised by our founding fathers – and it is important that every American understand the significance of this because we are all in the minority at one time or other in our lives. Getting back to Limbaugh’s motives as to why he wants “Obama to fail.” I’ll give him one thing, at least for once in his life he is being honest. I really can no longer stand to listen to the guy for more than a few moments – he is one of the most phenomenal liars ever – in fact a couple weeks ago I attempted to listen to him again and lasted for less than a minute before I had to change the channel because whatever he was saying at the time was so venomous. But, Limbaugh really sincerely does hope that Obama fails.

Limbaugh and the other hard core right wingers who have orchestrated the mess we’re in FULLY UNDERSTAND that if Barrack Obama succeeds they will be “gone” for maybe generations to come. George W Bush is already being compared to Herbert Hoover on many fronts and I believe that the fallout from his government could exceed Hoover’s if Obama does fail (which as I’ve stated before I believe is more of a possibility as long as Obama keeps catering to the “right” and allowing them to water down badly needed legislation). What Limbaugh is doing is trying to create a propoganda campaign to put the blame for the next “Great Depression” on Obama. Personally, I will do everything within my power to prevent that from happening (if by some miracle you happen accross this site and agree at all with me – email the address to some of your friends – I’ve actually had up to 50 visitors on one day – and the only way that will increase is by word of mouth because if you haven’t figured out yet – I’m not really a blogger – just someone who feels better after writing about this mess we call politics in America). Anyone with half a brain has probably put two plus two together realizing that the “Republican revolution” of the past 30 years has finally caught up with, not only America, but the entire world. THIS IS BIG!!!

Limbaugh, The Bushes, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wofowitz, Delay, Reagan, Nixon, Armey, McConnell, and I could go on and on (these are the Republican names that come off the top of my head at the moment) – have been “railing” against the “New Deal” of FDR for as long as I can remember. They hate the unions that built this country into the greatest nation in the world, they hate the idea of what they call the “redistribution of wealth” where the people with the highest incomes pay the highest percentage of taxes, they despise the idea of the “many” helping the “few” who, for whatever reason, find themselves destitute (“it’s their own damned fault”), and most of all they hate government – Remember Reagan’s famous quote about the nine (or so) worst words in the English language – “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” – something along those lines. A better way to put their philosophy is “I’ve got mine – screw you!”

Well, make no mistake, as bad as this recession/depression gets it’s probably not going to do much damage to Rush Limbaugh’s financial standing. In fact, I imagine it will open huge doors for him and his buddies to make eye-popping profits as more and more people begin fire sales of their assets just to keep afloat. They fully understand that it will end at some point – for them I’m sure they’re hoping it is later rather than sooner. The farther things go down the better it is for them on two fronts – which is why Limbaugh is beginning already with the “push” to blame Obama for the economy’s failure. As things get more dire Limbaugh will make more money – that is front number one – and he fully understands that if the Republicans are going to see the White House or control of Congress in the next 40 to 50 years Obama had better fail. I guarantee you that Limbaugh and the people who think like him will be voting no on everything Obama proposes – and the Republican politicians in Washington seemed terrified of getting on Rush’s “bad side” – the guy even admitted recently that he has way too much power and influence in the Republican party as it is presently constituted (the party has no leader at present). What he’s failing to see, in my view, is that the “root” of the problem is that his philosophy is “bankrupt” and more and more Americans are realizing this.

So everyone involved in this debate need to take a deep breath and then start calling Rush’s position – and that of his Republican faithful – what it is – a push for the continuation of a fleecing of the American middle class by the 1% at the top of the economic spectrum. IT IS PURE GREED. I mean Rush supposedly is the 400 million dollar man – I presume that is what his ridiculous salary is. God forbid that he has to pay another 3% in taxes – I believe that what really rankles him is knowing that some of that money will go to help the “unfortunates” that he despises – because in his mind they can’t help themselves. And I have to admit that I don’t understand what happens to a person to get them on the corner holding a sign asking for help, but I do have to say that I’ve finally come to the point where I “get” that I don’t need to understand – I just need to be thankful that I’m not there doing the same thing – and when I have something to give them – give it to them without worry of what they might do with it.

Obama’s success, rightfully or wrongly, will be compared to that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 30’s and 40’s. Many people are correctly pointing out that World War II is actually what brought us out of the Great Depression. They are saying that the “New Deal” wasn’t agressive enough in creating jobs. The last time in our history when the deficit spending of the government exceeded today was during the “War to end all wars.” There’s an old truism, “Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it.” Let’s not make the same mistake. Barrack Obama’s stimulus package was very likely too small, not too big. His budget which was announced last week is ambitious and progressive – the question is at this point whether the Democrats in Congress are going to stand tall and “quash” the Republican obstructors – HARRY REID, FORCE THEM TO FILIBUSTER UNTIL THEY CAN’T TALK ANYMORE – then pass the legislation as Obama wants it. Then and only then will we be able to congratulate him or blame him based on the results. The Limbaughs of this world, of course, want it both ways. They want to “water down” the legislation because they absolutely don’t want another “New Deal” to succeed (they care more about regaining power than restoring this nation to its former place as the leader of the free world) – hoping they can cause Obama to “fail” – and they want to be able to blame Obama for the plague they have put on this nation should his “recovery” program not succeed. Rush Limbaugh was honest in saying he wishes for President Obama to fail, Let’s be honest in examining Limbaugh’s motives!

Let me start off today with my thoughts as I reflect on my feelings about GW Bush when he assumed the Presidency. I remember thinking, as he was running, “Couldn’t they find someone more qualified than this guy?” – not too positive. And then when he won with 3 million less votes than Al Gore and with the suspicions of millions that his brother had “jobbed” the system in Florida I was not a happy camper. I knew enough about Dick Cheney to be even more alarmed that he was the Vice President and then as I watched him in action once it was settled that Bush was the President-elect I braced myself for a re-run of the Reagan years. It was apparent from the start that Cheney was filling many of the important positions with the same people he had worked with in administrations dating back to the Nixon years but especially with Reagan holdovers. Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary was a problem for me, but little did I know at the time how much of a problem it would become.

In listening to President Bush, in the beginning, I found myself being able to actually “pull” for him. I, despite everyone around me thinking I’m a flaming liberal, have always considered myself a conservative in many ways. I thought a “compassionate conservative” would be OK and hoped that Bush would actually fulfill that expectation. And, at this point in time, I think that Bush may have really been a compassionate conservative who screwed up by choosing Cheney as his running mate. Especially after 9/11, I was pulling for Bush to make the right decisions – I had no idea that his ultimate goal was to essentially gut the federal government of any type of regulation that hampered his business “partners” and to control the Iraqi oil fields. I was not able to conceive how strong the “Republican base” would be in determining the direction of Bush’s administration. As his administration evolved I began to wonder who was REALLY in charge? Was it Bush, was it Cheney, or was it the blowhard underlings like Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, etc? Whoever it was, at least until the 2006 elections, I’m still convinced that Bush – if he was in charge at all – wasn’t really the “decider.” After the invasion of Iraq I started to realize that whoever it was that was in charge, their agenda was not what was best for the people of this great nation.

The thing that has struck me as I think back to this is the question: Does the office of the Presidency mold the man or does the man mold the office of the Presidency? In Bush’s case, I believe that with Cheney’s help they were consciously trying to mold the office of the Presidency. Like my sixth grade students, it appeared to me they were “pushing boundaries” at every opportunity – in a brazen attempt to increase the power of the executive branch of government in relation to the Congress. And with 6 years of a Congress controlled by Republicans they faced absolutely ZERO resistence in doing so. Obviously, this has led to a meltdown of government of proportions that may be unmanageable. The downward spiral in the economy may be accelerating faster than the Obama administration can even imagine – because failure of this proportion has never been seen before. Even the failure during the Great Depression was of far less magnitude if for no other reason than there were far less people, far less businesses, the government was far less BIG, and there were far less “second guessors” for every decision made. So Barrack Obama takes office at a time when the two questions above are very relevent and DIFFICULT.

The pressure he faces has to be HUGE. And the question which I have tonight is will Obama mold the office of President of the United States or will it mold him. I hope it’s the former but I’m afraid I’m seeing signs that it is the latter. Now, Obama took office on a campaign of “Change we can believe in.” He made many promises – and there are signs that he’s trying to fulfill them. But there are also signs that the realities he’s facing and the position he’s in along with the “advisors” he’s surrounded himself with are beginning to MOLD him. Take for example the Iraq war. He did say he would “be as careful getting out as we were reckless getting in.” But he clearly said he would have ALL the troops out in 16 months! Yesterday he announced (as I had predicted over a week ago on this site) that his 16 month timeframe would be 19 months and at that time “Our combat mission in Iraq will end.” That statement, in itself, is an example of the office molding him. IT IS DISENGENUOUS! There is no reason for a “combat mission” as I speak today. And the fact that he’s casually saying he’s leaving 50,000 troops behind “to train the Iraqi’s” is absurd! This is Bushlike speaking – again a sign that the office is molding Obama instead of the other way around.

Now, I totally appreciate much of what he’s trying to do. He is trying to appeal to a broad spectrum of the nation and it is true, whether some people like it or not, he is the President of all Americans. But he has a huge responsibility to restore this office to its rightful place in the American hierarchy of government. We are not a dictatorship, or an oligarchy, we are a representative democracy and it is on Obama to return his office to a place that respects that reality. What bothers me about his announcement of yesterday is that he made it as if he was fulfilling his campaign promise with the caveat of being a couple months more than originally “promised.” Let me tell you straight up – with 50,000 troops still in Iraq he has not fulfilled his promise – NOT EVEN CLOSE as far as I’m concerned. And it’s the way he went about this that really bothers me – kind of like taking us all for a bunch of idiots – just like the Republicans – and doing it with a straight face. The LEAST he could have done is explain to the American people why we need troops in Iraq “training” the Iraqi troops we have supposedly been training for almost 6 years. THIS IS ABSURD ON ITS FACE and I hope the so-called liberal “base” of Obama lets him know about it.

If he’s going to be “sly” about this, what is next? I know that he’s gambling everything on restoring the economy – and I, for one, am hoping that he’s successful in that regard (although, as I’ve said before, I believe his “stimulus” bill was too small and contained too many tax cuts and not enough infrastructure spending). However, in the long run, there are some other issues I consider WAY MORE IMPORTANT. For example, the government for the past five years or so has been eavesdropping on phone calls and emails from virtually every US citizen – all of this obviously without warrants (it would be very inconvenient and expensive to get warrants for millions of “wiretaps” :o) – and so far, no mention of putting a stop to this from the Obama administration. In fact, the little I’ve been able to find out, the exact opposite is true. The ugly rumors are that he “doesn’t want to give up this power.” I can say this with all honesty, if Obama continues the wiretapping policy of the Bush administration I WILL ASK FOR MY MONEY BACK. I have threatened this half-heartedly before, but I will actually send a letter to his office asking for a refund of my campaign pledges if he doesn’t reverse this blatant violation of our constitutional rights. This again would be the office molding the man instead of what I had hoped for.

Finally, if he’s going to say in front of both houses of Congress “The United States does not torture” what is he willing to do to the previous administration who did torture? Again, is Obama going to mold the office (actually by this I mean – if you haven’t figured it out – fulfill the obligations of the office based on his oath to the constitution) or is it going to mold him. If I know that George W Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld authorized torture then shouldn’t President Obama know this as well? And if he knows that someone has committed a crime isn’t he obligated to – as the President – to insure that the laws of the land are obeyed? This double talk about “Combat operations being over in Iraq” (with 50,000 troops still there) is very disheartening to me. And as I’ve said on this site before, President Obama does not get a “free ride” from me as Bush got from his supporters after the 2000 election. We are all obligated as citizens to look at issues responsibly and to speak out against things that we see which are WRONG. And to me, I hope Obama’s double talk ends with this Iraq speech he gave yesterday – but history tells me that it will be otherwise. The problem with the office of the Presidency is that the office seems to mold the man instead of the other way around. George W Bush and Dick Cheney purposefully attempted to expand the power of the Office of the President illegally (their ambition “molded” them into criminals – whether the Obama administration prosecutes them as such is another matter) and the only hope that we, as citizens, have that these abuses will be reversed is if Barrack Obama reverses them. So I say tonight; President Obama, please don’t let your office mold you into something you’re not!

These are truly historic times.  Not only are we experiencing diversity in the White House – FINALLY – but the economic meltdown is one for the ages.  I keep thinking that if I was a young man I would be watching all of this even closer – because the learning that could take place is phenomenal.  You can’t get this kind of education in a classroom.  I’m soaking as much of it in as possible, but at my age it probably won’t do much good in the long term.  Watching the stock market and those who survive gambling on it is quite fascinating to me.  I can kind of relate because there was a time in my life when I was training horses at the race track as an expensive hobby.  It was a hobby that put me right in the middle of a group of people who liked to say they were making a living gambling on the “ponies.”

I even remember having a couple really good days and suddenly thinking that working for a living was for ordinary people.  Temporarily, I thought I was smart enough to make a living gambling.  Fortunately for me, I figured out pretty soon that the only ones at the race track who consistently make money are the track owners.  And I think Wall Street is somewhat the same.  The ones who make the money consistently are the brokerage houses who get $10 or whatever when someone buys or sells a stock.  They make money whether or not the market is going up or down – or at least that is what it seems like to me – because people are buying and selling millions of shares daily one way or the other.  I even got into the stock market a bit, only enough to figure out it was gambling as well.  They like to call it investing because the euphemism sounds better – but it’s gambling – and millions of Americans are finding this out in “spades” during the present economic crisis.

Watching the politicians during this crisis has been fascinating as well.  I remember listening to George W Bush speaking to a bunch of Wall Streeters a couple of years ago and then giving one of his rare “impromptu” question and answer sessions.  I believe he was “turned loose” on this occasion because he was “speaking to the choir” and there wasn’t much chance of his remarks making it to the main stream media where his foopahs were often ridiculed.  When Bush’s remarks were  finished I took a good look at the economic situation (The DOW was approaching 14,000) and said to myself, “oh my gosh, this guy is virtually clueless!”  I can’t remember exactly what he said, but the crux of it was that he didn’t even come close to answering the questions posed to him – I mean his remarks were TOTALLY disconnected to the questions.  It was right after that when I pulled all of my (not much) money out of the stock funds and put them into savings – getting about 4.7% ever since – during the ensuing period the DOW has dropped about in half.  The thing that really struck me was that the chief executive of our country was pretty much clueless about what was happening with our economy.  My assumption was that someone else was in control because he couldn’t possibly be – and putting 2 + 2 together, I thought THIS IS NOT GOOD!

Obviously, this was one of the few good moves I’ve made, financially, in my lifetime (I’m a a teacher, that should explain my financial situation) and I’ve been watching the “managers” (Greenspan, Bernanke, Paulsen, and now Geitner) very close since then.  What has really struck me as interesting is how the so-called free market “capitalists” – those who stood with Clinton as he attempted to eliminate “welfare” in the 90’s – have been looking to the government they fleeced of regulations to help them out of the mess they essentially created ( you know they now apparently believe in – welfare – only corporate welfare, which I guess is OK).  Some of the Banks involved have been labled “too big to fail” as has the insurance giant AIG.  These are all corporations who have invested heavily in the Republican party that was mainly responsible for eliminating the regulations which kept these companies in “check” as much as possible.  And now, they are – one by one – unashamedly holding out their collective hands for government “bailout” money.  Already, the Wall Street companies have received well in excess of half a trillion dollars and there seems to be no end in sight.  It’s like the government believes it would be worse to let them fail than to pore probably what will amount to in excess of a trillion dollars onto their balance sheets in a bid to keep them afloat.  And what does the government get?  Evidently they are getting shares in these companies.  That in itself brings up some even more interesting questions.

I looked the other day and one of the companies being propped up by Uncle Sam (Citigroup) had a market cap of about thirteen and a half billion dollars – based on the value of the stock.  The government has already poured $45 Billion (yes that’s already almost 4 times what the company’s stock – all of it – is worth) and they’re talking about a lot more.  To me that’s not gambling – that’s stupid!  Is Citigroup really that important? Wouldn’t it be a much better investment to allow them to fail and then pick up the pieces?  And then there’s AIG.  This is beyond ridiculous.  Their market cap is less than 2 Billion dollars and the government (remember this was Henry Paulsen – I hope someone at some time investigates the connection he had with this company) has already put up $150 Billion (yes 75 TIMES THE WORTH OF THE COMPANY) and they’re coming back for more!  What did we get?  An eighty percent stake in the company.  That’s 1.6 Billion for an investment of 150 Billion.  Even I can figure this one out.  Again, to me this is stupid!

And then the people who keep telling us that these companies are too big to fail turn around and fight giving a loan to General Motors for 20 or 30 Billion dollars.  The message I’ve gotten from all of this is that the government officials believe the fat cats on Wall Street are much – exponentially so – more important than the blue collar workers who have made this nation great (the ripple effect of the demise of GM would be about 6 million jobs – mostly blue collar jobs).  Remember, the auto workers and those affiliated with them (parts manufacturers, etc.) MAKE STUFF.  The Wall Street execs – GAMBLE WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.  What’s really interesting is that when they lose – and in this case they have lost in the trillions – they still consider themselves to be irreplaceable and apparently there are many in the government who agree.  The fight over bonuses and executive salaries of CEO’s who have led their companies into virtual bankruptcy has also been fascinating.  Once again, we have seen the image of people who believe – despite the fact they’ve brought an entire nation, the richest nation in the world, to its knees – they think they are so important that we can’t solve the problem without them – their high salaries must be justified because if the government “caps” their salaries they will have to  go elsewhere (they can’t live on $500,000 per year with no bonuses).  That is such a ludicrous argument to me – I mean where would they go?  Are things so absurd out there that a CEO who left a company which had lost tens of billions of dollars due to mismanagement – because his multi-million dollar salary got “capped” at half a million – can find another company to pay him that same multi-million dollar salary so that he can help them lose tens of billions of dollars for their stockholders?  Are these guys who are demanding accountability for me in my classroom trying to tell me they are so important that they should have no accountability?  These really are interesting times.

The reality, as I see it, is that the major banks in this country went so far over the edge during the Bush years that they will very likely fail, no matter what the government does (yes, there really is a free market out there).  I’m sure that the brilliant minds in Washington have figured out that it’s cheaper to keep propping them up until they eventually become profitable again – but it seems that the government is going to pretty much “own” them one way or the other.  I’m going to keep watching closely whichever way this thing plays out – and I recommend anyone who might happen upon this site do the same – especially younger people.  I believe that what caused me to pull what little money I have out of the stock market before all this happened was my experience in the 80’s during the Reagan years when we had the last Banking “crisis.” (If you remember that one, John McCain was right in the middle of it – and not in a good way – can you imagine where we’d be right now if we were depending on him to figure a way out of this present mess?)  Watching the housing prices soar by over 20% per year for several years was enough of a red flag for me (along with the realization that my President was clueless regarding the economy) – signaling that I  get to as safe a place as possible with what little I had.  I know that the government (under Obama) will get things turned around at some point, but the damage from this “meltdown” will be felt for years and years to come.  I get the sense that many of the “gamblers” on Wall Street are just waiting for the “green light” so they can go back to “business as usual,” but I believe that day, if it comes back, is a long way off.  The mentality of these guys on Wall Street was pretty well summed up by the CNBC guy who had the incredibly selfish rant the other day about any attempt by the government to help regular homeowners during this crisis.  I guess the commentator, Rick Santelli doesn’t want the government helping his neighbor with their mortgage, but he’s OK with Uncle Sam keeping his bank afloat!