More Bull Shit

So the New York Times has decided that one the one hand and on the other hand, but the hand that is most important is the one that says that things are getting better and we can't afford to help the average person, now that the banks have gotten what they want. It is now time to cut the government spending and to go with the expatiation that the economy is going to get better simply through private incentive.

I do find it interesting that the ones who are most optimistic about this are the very ones who got us into this in the first place, but hey why should we be worried, I'm sure that they are right this time per Slacktivist:

This calls to mind an old story:

But knowing their hypocrisy, he said unto them, "Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a dime and let me see it."

And they brought one. Then he said to them, "whose head is this -- FDR's or Herbert Hoover's?"

They answered, "Roosevelt's."

And he said unto them, "Right. So shut up. Have you morons already forgotten the 20th Century? When the choice is between imitating what worked and what really, really didn't work, why are you pretending it's terribly complicated?"

And after, that no one dared to ask him any question.

Kagan

I've seen snippets of Kagan on teevee screens in the deli next door and on the web. Listened to Sessions pontificate and read a little about how "angry" republican senators are about "banning" military recruiters from Harvard campus(angry being in quotes 'cause you know it isn't real, just a game for the rubes)(banning being in quotes because you know: bullshit).

At any rate I just realized that I really don't give a shit about this nomination. If she is confirmed she will not be doing me any favors in the future. I'm sure she will vote with the administration (whoever that may be) in terms of "national security" (in quotes because --- oh hell you know), in favor of corporations whenever she possibly can and in general be just as well marvelous and liberal as Obama or Bush or Clinton.

So it really doesn't matter, except for the entertainment value, and perhaps the chance to watch the good ole boys of the GOP sashay around the issue of whether or not she's ever had a boy friend, or does she, you know like girls: Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

UPDATE: Apparently I was wrong they have decided to attack Justice Marshall (the black one). They do have several days to come out swinging (to coin a phrase) on the issue of lesbians on the Supreme Court, but apparently they want to start off by being unabashedly racist. As if Marshall would have countenanced what his one time law clerk has become. But in the end it is just more inside baseball, after all. Play to the cheap seats.

More Trials

Out of town yesterday to have yet another hearing in the "I am my own grandpa" case.

The grandfather/father has finally been convicted and sentenced to what amounts to life in prison. I expect that he will never get out. I don't think that he has any appealable issues and he certainly did not, in his statement at sentencing, indicate any remorse or even any understanding that having sex with his step granddaughter of 12 is a bad thing.

The GAL in the Protective Services case (my client) has held out and insisted that the grandmother not have unfettered access to the girl (her granddaughter) nor the girls two children (her great grand children).

For a reason no one other than the case workers are able to understand the Child protective Services wants (great)grandma to have a lot of access and originally want to place the girl and her children back with grandma. Right now the girl's two brothers live with grandma, something we could not prevent.

Of course, I cannot understand the Prosecutors position either, as the grandmother lied to the cops about the whereabouts of the grandfather and helped him fake the original DNA samples. Why she is not in prison or at least on probation, is also beyond me.

Well any way the girl will probably be approved for a Planned Permanent Living Arrangement. That is a special plan to place a child under the age of 18 out on their own with a lot of support from the system. Done with older children when it doesn't appear that living in a foster home until they turn 18 will work out. Although to be fair these foster parents seem to be very good.

The grandmother was requesting more time (actually unlimited time at her own convenience)with the great grand children, something she did not get. The judge said that to increase the great grandmother's visitation the girls GAL, Children's Protective Services (CPS), and the girl will all have to agree. Any one of the three has veto power to any change in the visitation.

I am not happy with my cross of the grandmother. I did not push as hard as I might have. She is participating in counseling because she too is a "victim" according to CPS. No mention of what her responsibilities were to the girl. This is particularly important since the girl's mother had accused the step grandfather/father of just the same thing about 20 or so years ago and the grandmother had refused to believe it and threw her out of the house. An interesting point with CPS, since they also believe that the girl's mother was lying. (Yeah, read studies of these creeps and see who gets caught the first time, not often).

I was concerned about how the grand mother would respond and if she would collapse on the stand and garner sympathy weeping that she tried, but just couldn't protect the girl. Now that I think about it I think that I should have taken that chance.

Well I'm hoping to get another chance, at her and make up for my mistake. One thing I've learned is that it really doesn't matter how skillful you are, it only matters if you win or lose. So far we have pushed CPS away from placing the girl and her children back with the grand/great mother and I think because of that the girl has gotten more and more strong and has a better understand of what kind of person the grand/great mother really is.

Just You Know Whatever

Working this week a lot for a change. You know I really expected that there would be a lot more crime and drunkenness out there with the economy as bad as it is and I am really getting tired of the criminal element not keeping up their end of things. In particular I am looking for more stupid criminals to get arrested and soon, I can use the money.

All this week I've been busy in various courts. Yesterday we got started two and a half hours late because the sheriff didn't get the guy that was in jail here on time. I guess I can't complain. Today one of the other attorneys reported something her client said incorrectly (the frequency of visitations). My client, the wife chased her ex out into the parking lot and she was going to assault him, if I hadn't caught her and explained that it was the other attorney's fault for getting the information wrong. Some fun. Normally when clients fight, I move in the other direction, just my normal cowardice coming into play, I guess.

I see that Obama did something right (kind of) with McChrystal. Of course after the drama and play acting are all over we are still going to be fighting that war in the country that has been invaded again and again for centuries with no winner since Alexander, and no real end in sight for us, but hey it gives the news guys in DC something to talk about for a day or two so it is all good.

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More Thoughts on Skerry Republicans

In writing a couple of days ago about how certain liberals are beginning to raise the specter about how bad it will be if the republicans get in office (you know investigations, impeachments, etc.). I'd forgotten about how the republicans and Monica managed to save Social Security during the Clinton (or Obama I) administration. Remember?

It was this way, Clinton had decided that he was going to cut Social Security and had worked out a deal with the republicans to do just that with a kind of "bipartisan consensus." When the republicans got control of the congress and started investigating every thing Clinton did, including "Not having sex with that woman." Now there the republicans acted like scorpion in the frog and scorpion story. Instead of backing off and letting the deal go through to help the fat cats who were not stealing enough money fast enough, they couldn't help themselves and attacked Clinton in that interesting feeding frenzy that sharks (to skip to another metaphor) experience when they smell blood in the water.

At that point Clinton needed every vote he could get to keep from being impeached and to stay in office. So the deal on Social Security went out the window and we managed to keep it for another ten or so years until another democrat was elected president.

I don't think that we will be that lucky this time.

Gay Pride

So went to Columbus today to take the LW to a quilting convention. The sign up for the convention (at the Hyatt on North High) said you would want to be signed in and inside before noon. The reason; some sort of parade, they didn't know what[?!]. So after the LW signed in I took my book and went outside and walked up High Street to see what was going on. It didn't take me long to figure it out.
Gay Pride.

The parade was not as outrageous as in the past nor as in places like say New York or San Francisco, but still fun. It was followed up with about thirty or so any gay pride demonstrators, with signs that said: God Hates Homo Sex" and a sign that a silhouette of two guys fucking saying that god hated them. They brought their kids out of course. on the other hand there were at least three churches marching in the main parade and a lot of kids.

I was very happy that I happened to wear my new t-shirt:

Strawman Much

So TPM has a lecture about the nasty liberals who want a conservative in because Obama isn't pure enough, at least according to them, following Digby with a post coming from the same position. Or maybe just skerry republicans can't let them get power post. I'm not sure what to say about this, no really I'm not.

I had decided that Obama's votes on the Wall Street bail out and the PATRIOT Act renewal made him unfit to be president and worthless to vote for, but to be honest I got scared and so ended up working and voting for him in the last week or so of the campaign.

At this point I do think that McCain....................? Well he would not have been better and in some ways probably (maybe?) worse, but the democrats would most likely have opposed his worst policies and prevented them from becoming law. There would still have been some sort of stimulus, and if not we would be in the middle of a world wide depression right now. As opposed to a mere massive recession, with more or less 25% of us under- and unemployed. As opposed to 25% to 45% actually totally unemployed with a total Hoover in office vs. a partial Hoover (which is what we have now).

There is no good answer to this situation. The people who are running for office are not, for the most part, worth voting for. The liberal/progressives in office right now seem more than willing to cave right at the point they are about to win something big. The phrase "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" comes to mind. Obama clearly does not want to do anything to mess with the people who run this country: the bankers, insurance industry types, and in general those who are the wealthiest 10%.

The attacks from republicans and the tea baggers are because he isn't being subservient enough. And those are the only people who are getting any traction in the MSM. Of course, if Obama was a third of the politician I thought he was he would be getting information from other sources than the oligarchs who now rule. He would know from his early life and his time as a community organizer, but he has chosen to completely throw himself behind the oligarchs/plutocracy, the big money men.

Question: Is there a big check room to go to when you run for office where you check your soul for the period of time you are in public life?

I've said it before: Things are going to have to get a lot worse before they get better, and I can't be sure that once they get a lot worse they will get better. But you know what after a year and a half of Obama and democratic control, I am positive that things are going to get a lot worse. And I am afraid that it is going to be quickly enough that I will live long enough to see it. Crap.

Vietnam

Damn that war still pisses me off. In an argument at Iconic Photos about the above picture. God I lost it once again. I am amazed at how pissed off I get when a discussion of that war happens and people try to argue about how, in the above argument, for instance, that that photo was staged or altered in some way.

My point being that who ever did it (apparently the S. Vietnamese AF) it was our fault, because we were the ones who prevented free and open elections in the South and decided to back the continuation of a colonial war for about 20 more years (although we personally weren't there in full military force for the entire 20 years). Therefore, in my opinion we are morally responsible for every death and every bit of destruction that happened there.

I'll go farther, we are at least partially responsible for the Cambodian holocaust, because we over threw the Sianouk government and put in its place an unpopular and unstable military dictatorship that fell once we withdrew. That then led directly to Pol Pot. Now are we the only ones who are responsible? Of course not. The Pol Pot and his minions themselves have a major or perhaps the major share of responsibility. Of course when Vietnam invaded and over threw the Pol Pot regime, we supported Pol Pot even though by that time the horrors that he perpetrated were widely known.

So yeah, I'd say that we as a nation are greatly responsible for what has happened in that peninsula since 1954. I am reminded of Grant's belief that the Civil War was god's punishment on the United States for the Mexican War, or for an unjust war waged by a greater power on a lesser.

More Depressing Thoughts

One of a Series Linked to below.

So I ran across this the other day, I'm not sure where, but it's now all over Facebook (I don't mean to imply that it was my doing there were over 5000 postings to FB when I saw it). I thought it would be worth while reposting here.

The information isn't something I haven't known about for a long time, but seeing it in graf form is certainly a help. The Class War has been going on a long time, but some how the right wing has been able to convince the majority of Americans at least that it is all being fought by the leftist radicals against the poor and oppressed middle class, when in reality it is the wealthy who have been waging that very war against the middle and lower classes all along.

Unions are for the most part a dirty word in this country, but why I cannot figure out. When I graduated from college in 1975 (about 5 years after I would have had I not accepted my uncle's invitation to spend time in various foreign countries like Thailand and Alabama) I distrusted unions. This was after graduating from Wright State a relatively liberal state school in Dayton/Fairborn a union area. I was not dumb (I don't think although it is true I was stoned), nor was I uneducated, I was after all a history major with a major in late 19th and early 20th century American history. So how did I come by this distrust? A constant hammering by the owners of the media and the various local government folks, like the teachers I guess.

Most of the people I knew were not wealthy, but they were strongly middle class and they didn't like unions telling them what to do. Also, this was the 50s and 60s periods of real growth in the middle class. The concept was that "I am doing this no one is helping me." It fed right into our ideals of who were thought we were. I suspect that this is added to America's ability to simply and quickly forget our very own history (with the exceptions of our very own heroic and always righteous wars).

So now we are in this situation (more frog in the water metaphors?) and yet we cannot see that it will take a great deal of collective action to start to recreate the middle class in the per centages that it existed in the 50s and 60s, if that is even possible at this point.

This is what we get instead:

Should I Be Surprised?

Greenwald has a post up today about the party Biden threw for the Washington "press" corps and their families. Now I hadn't seen this on vacation (hahaha, I am doing more or less than just following the news on vacation) so I'm just finding out about it today.

It does remind me of the party McCain threw for the "press" corps during the campaign (wow that was hard to find, wonder why?). All the right thinking kinds of people were aghast that the "press (let's face it, it is impossible to refer to these people as press without the quotation marks, isn't it?)" would accept that kind of thing from the candidate they were supposed to be covering objectively. Now a few, but not so many, at least on the left, but still some. Thank your higher power.

The complete obliviousness of the "press" to how this makes them look (although, I truly doubt that it is only looks) is amazing. Apparently they haven't ever heard of Caesar or his wife.

A couple of days ago I posted about Helen Thomas and what a crock it was to force her out for saying nasty things about Israel when others have been able to say essentially the same things about the Palestinians. But the more I think about it the more I realize that what these people do in Washington has nothing (or at least not much) to do with being reporters.

They yell (for the most part) questions at the President or more often the press secretary. Thomas tried to follow up those questions, and that is to her credit, but who among them is worth one tenth a Seymour Hersch, or Matt Taibbi? What have they discovered or revealed that would help the country or better inform the populace? Most twelve year olds know enough to ask questions the Washington "press" corps asks and would have fun at pool parties, so why not hire the twelve year olds, they would probably be cheaper. Certainly they wouldn't be any more corrupt.

MORE THOUGHTS: I've thought that these people are truly little people in the sense that not one of them has any real moral or intellectual backbone. They are not particularly intelligent either. Obama seemed to be the smartest one around, but he has been shown that once given authority that he is no more competent than the last guy. They think that they are being oh so smart and oh so clever, but in the long run, they are destroying the base of the country. The thing or people that make them, as rulers, strong. Without us they or their descendants will be nothing.

At any rate they dance around giving each other high fives and chortling like the nobles did at Versailles before the revolution. They are really truly clueless. The interesting thing here is that I don't think that there will be any revolution, not in any progressive sense, rather I expect that there will be a (more complete) take over of the government by the oligarchs which will end up being a fascist state more along the lines of Italy than Germany in the first half of the 20th century. Corporatist I guess.

We're Fucked

In Florida, I know I shouldn't enjoy the place so much, but I do. I don't do a lot except hang out, go to the beach, eat, and read.

Opened the paper today (that is something else I do, I read the local newspaper, in this case the Daytona Beach newspaper) to find that Helen Thomas said bad things about Israel and has to quit immediately. Ann Coulter still has a job, still after telling us that Jews had better become Xains or else you know.

So our foriegn policy is run by a brutally colonialist country that can do no wrong. Well OK, a different brutally colonialist country other than the USof A that can do no wrong.

Aw hell, I go on line and I read Krugman that we can expect a lost decade that is a recovery, except a recovery that really doesn't help most of us, then I read that our doctors have been experimenting on "detainees" to see how much we can torture them (oops I mean harshaly interrigate them).

Well I'm heading for the beach (the east coast, not the west coast where I would be able to watch the oil come ashore) so it will appear to be OK for awhile.

On The Road Again

Getting ready to hit the road. Got a great house sitter the dogs love her and she likes to stay at our place so it all works out well.

On the other hand my traveling computer, the ASUS solid state is sitting in the computer shop because one or more of the cats decided that the wire from the charger was tasty and of course that specific computer is rare and they have to ship the part from Indonesia or where ever to get the thing up and running.

For some reason all the cats are still alive.

Isreal I Guess

Well I was getting ready to write about this vile article in the New York Times about how individuals are just sticking it to the banks by not paying their mortgages and are still living the good life, so they must be near do wells, or just like trailer trash only they have more money, don't ya see, but then



The Israeli Navy decided to teach some protesters a lesson so the IDF in defense killed about 10 and wounded many other protesters, while suffering minor casualties themselves. But according to most of the main stream and certainly the right wing and this winger on my facebook, the IDF was merely defending themselves after forcing their way onto a boat bringing humanitarian supplies. Now I read that this might not be in violation of the law of the sea or the law of war or the law of those who have the money and power make the laws. That is if the blockade is legal then if you say that you are going to violate it means that you can be boarded anywhere at all and maybe sunk. I guess that just shows Wilson and those idiots on the Lusitania. So I gues that Chaiarman Mao was right all law does come from the end of a gun.

Now apparently the only country where the IDF is getting nothing but complete support from all the powers that be is the good old U.S. Even the Israelis seem to be disgusted with the IDF for being such incompetent fools. But not the good old USofA here we cannot bring ourselves to criticize or oppose anything the government (which ever government it is, although the more conservative and more Arab hating the better) of Israel does.

One way I think one can feel kind of sorry for the Israelis is that they are forced to live in the 20th and 21st centuries. Hell, when we took over North American and the Spanish and Portages took over South America in the 16th, 17th 18th and 19th centuries we just killed all those who were in our way. Now instead of having two continents populated by the red man we've got two continents populated with the white man (with a sprinkle of reddish color thrown in). Australia was dealt with in the same general fashion, although there weren't as many to exterminate.

So pity poor Israel, unable to kill all the rag heads because of some sort of evolving (mostly) world wide morality. I suppose it is a drag for them. Particularly, since they try to hold themselves up as practicing the highest ideals of democracy and freedom (much like the USofA, back in the day). And they just can't get away with doing anything they want to, oh they can get away wit hit, but it does make them look bad. On the other hand there is the concept that God is on the side of the heavy battions. So they do have that going for them.

UPDATE: On the other hand here is a different point of view as to whether or not the action of Israel was within the law.