Oh That Henny Youngman

So there are thousands of gay men gathering around the United States today to support tea bagging. Hmmmm?

Let's See If We Can Figure This Out/ With Update

I remember when Clinton was elected and how the right seemed to go crazy and do everything they possibly could to derail his presidency. They really did succeed I think. At the time I wondered why they were so angry. It was shortly after Clinton was elected that I was able to see that he really was a moderate republican, like Eisenhower, Nixon and Hoover. Or a democrat like Cleveland. Hell, he was hardly to the left of Reagan. Still the republicans went nuts. I could not figure it out at the time.

So now they are doing the same thing. Obama is giving money to the banks, Obama is staying in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama is extending the secrecy arguments of the Bush years, and Obama is apparently keeping "Don't ask, don't tell." Taxes on the middle class are being lowered and the taxes on the wealthy are only going as high as they were under Reagan, or perhaps even lower. Still the republicans and right shriek and flail about as though our most cherished freedoms are being sliced away by the torture of the thousand cuts. Further they are able to get a least a few ordinary people out to back them.

I think that the long term goal is to make any even minor progressive move so painful to any politician that they will just decide that it is so much easier not to do it. That it will take a truly committed politician to propose any kind of liberal or progressive agenda. Knowing of course, that most politicians are most committed to being re-elected.

I suspicion that the entire hoo ra does not really cause many people to change their minds nor does it really reflect any strength on the right. Rather it is kind of like a frog sucking in air to make itself look bigger. I am further reminded that in the first free election after the fall of communism in Russia the communist party got a vote total in the mid 30% range and the fascists got the same amount in the first free election in Spain after Franco. So my point is that at any time and any where there are about one third of the general population who are simply bat shit crazy and really truly in love with the idea of a totalitarian master to just tell them what they should do.

I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.

UPDATE: A couple of thoughts. First, I mean better or worse because we do not appear to have more than our share of bat shit crazies, but there are a shit load of them out there.

Second, when I was listing things that Obama is doing that were pretty similar to what a generic republican would do, I left out the way he is dealing with the torture memos and with wire taps.

Hey Joe Whatta Know?

So I am kind off feeling off today. Just at this moment, I mean.

I am reading all about these here tea bagging demonstrations and I would really like to go to one, but I am afraid that I will be in court tomorrow and I will be trying to figure out just what it is the abusive father of my client (the kid) really wants.

You know that I am in a group that includes this person who keeps insisting that her taxes are going to rise with Obama's "tax increases." I've been by her house, her husband does not make more than $250,000.00 a year. In addition to that no one has ever explained to her just what "marginal" means as far as the tax code is concerned. So I would like to be at the demonstrations trying to figure out what these abused individuals really want for their wealthy overlords.

Well I would quote Blazing Saddles, but it's been done. Oh, OK I will anyway: THESE ARE PEOPLE OF THE LAND. THE COMMON CLAY OF THE NEW WEST. YOU KNOW... MORONS.

Just Slightly Delayed Sunday Animal Blogging

Sonny and Ming Just Hanging

Ming Getting All in Your Face

Loki and Sonny Watching TV

Sonny Decides That This Is OK

Dirt

It is now what I am now officially older than.

Great Gatsby

It's the anniversary of the publication of The Great Gatsby. What a wonderful book. Reading the New York Times article about high school students reading the book is painful. I guess that everybody identifies with Gatsby at that age. But from the Times' article it doesn't seem that the kids are aware that Gatsby's green light is really empty and false. On the other hand they are kids, although I would have thought that the teachers would have attempted to point something like that out to them.

In thinking about it though Fitzgerald was about as close to seeing life as Gatsby did as an author could get to a character. It is kind of surprising that being so much like Gatsby he could step back and look at him through Nick's objective eyes. So maybe I should not be too hard on 16 year old kids who don't see the futility and (dare I say it) existential emptiness of Gatsby's light. Particularly since the author both did and didn't, himself.

The 1974 movie was really pretty bad. Robert Redford was good as Gatsby, but Mia Farrow was no Daisy. She was awful. The script wasn't particularly good either. When a relatively short book like Gatsby or Call of the Wild or A Christmas Carol is made into a movie it really is better, I think, to keep very close to the original (which can be done with these short books) rather than to try to "open it up" or "improve" on it. The movie is rarely better for the changes.

Possibly an Increase in Income

In these days of hard times it seems to me, as an attorney who handles divorce and custody cases, that the actions of the Iowa Supreme Court and the Vermont legislature are to be applauded. Let's face it I can use the money and somehow I really do not think that homosexuals are really any more capable of living happily ever after than heteros.

An increase in the divorce business of ten to fifteen per cent is something to be devoutly wished for in these times and here it has happened in one felt swoop, at least for Iowa and Vermont.

Can there be anything else of imporance here?

Post Sunday Beasts

Another lazy Sunday, or perhaps I should just learn how to take action shots.

Some Good News For a Change

From Colorado it looks like Ward Churchill won his case (in reality the first round, I suspect), but still good for him. It is all part of a more or less well orchestrated attempt from the right wing to suppress .......... I was about to say speech, but what they really want to suppress are thoughts and ideas that are not sufficiently servile. Servile, in general to those who control things here abouts, that is. Those who control things here abouts are right wingers.

Let's face it when even the suggestion of a limitation on the wages of those who run companies that get tax dollars to stay afloat can bring near total mass hysteria from the right in opposition. It is amazing that a jury on Colorado can find for the guy. I'm just really impressed with the jury.

If one thinks that both John Yoo and Alan Dershowitz still teach at law schools on opposite sides of this continent, one justifying torture as a government lawyer and the other teaching at one of the most prestigious law schools in the country after having written calling for the establishment of "torture courts" does one really need to wonder what it was that got Churchill canned? Of course Yoo didn't call it torture, but rather enhanced interrogation techniques, I think. It makes a lawyer proud that one in my profession could come up with that. It makes one amazed that the entire media in this country could immediately accept that phrase to describe what has, for thousands of years, been known as torture while at the same time crucifying Churchill. So I guess that answers my questions.

(There are a lot of people at the highest levels still will apparently defend the practice. One of them wants to be the head of Obama's CIA.)

The second thing that really blows me away is the Iowa Supreme Court's decision that same sex marriage is a right under the Iowa constitution just blows me away. I would expect a massive blow back from the right and something like Prop 8 should be coming to your Iowa ballot box soon.

We in Ohio do not have to worry about that since in 2004 as part of defeating the famous communist Kerry we got a constitutional amendment that limited marriage to couples of the opposite sex (I think that same species was understood).

I think about how far we as a country have come in my life time (ok that is a rather long life time), but still. I was 22 when Stonewall happened and I remember reading about it (maybe at the time or shortly thereafter). Worked at Antioch in the 70s and got my eyes open by some folks there. I suspect that being forced into situations with people I would not normally hang has changed me (without taking any credit for doing it myself) for the better. One looks back on one's life and sees a series of accidents really, that if one is open to new and different ideas can shape one in a much better fashion than could have happened if all one's hopes had originally been fulfilled.

Well Well

UPDATE: Oh yeah, I forgot about this guy of course he is a progressive democrat.

So there was so much prosecutorial misconduct that Holder has decided to dismiss the charges against Stevens. From what I've read about the case it was probably the correct decision. Although, I have had cases which were covered in detail in the local paper and I couldn't recognize them from the description in the newspaper.

I defended an guy who was accused of arson. Made the front page of the local news two days running. The first day was not too bad (it was the prosecution's case in chief). The second day and the decision was weird. Apparently, the reporter decided that my guy was guilty before the trial started, or at least before I put my case on.

The jury found him not guilty, but you couldn't have figured out why from the report, since none of the exculpatory evidence was given in the newspaper. A person reading that story simply figured that the jury was crazy.

So to make a long story short perhaps there was indeed this much prosecutorial misconduct. Or perhaps we're just covering for another good ole boy who deserves it because...........well because. What do you think was going on here with an Attorney General's office as highly politicized as the Bush one? Why go so far to try to nail Stevens?

At any rate do you think that Holder will do this for any accused drug dealers whose trial has the same sort of prosecutorial misconduct. Also will the attorneys involved be disciplined by their state bar? If they did it they should be.

Automobile Workers, We Don Need Your Stinkin Automobile Workers

I guess one thing I thought about Obama was that he would not be so doctrinaire. So ideologically rigid. He seems unable to think of anyone who is not in his circle as human and to care about them. Let's face it. When you come out and speak in favor of letting the wealthiest 1% keep their monies and bonuses and then tell the real workers that they have to take one for the good of us all. Or actually I guess, 99% of us have to take one for the good of the 1%, well shit.

The real interesting thing is that the right hates him even more for saving their bacon. The left is forced to support him cause he is all we've got. But to me it looks like we are going to be right back where we were, you know.

I Could Use a Laugh

Well I certainly hope that Marx (Karl not Groucho) was right about history repeating its self because I could use a great big laugh. Although I'm not sure that the first time with the Clintons wasn't farce, so I don't really know what this time will be, but I'm wishing for some more of that farce, since it really looks like that's where we are headed. Since Obama apparently wants the union contracts broken at the automakers. The insurer for the pension system in this country is busy gambling (badly) with our pensions. And it looks like Obama is planning on following the Soviet Union down the rat hole that is Afghanistan.

I know I have explained why I voted for Obama, but please remind me why again.

A Couple of Brief Blogger Thoughts

I am a little delayed in getting the animals up, but I've had a couple of thoughts.

First, one reason I voted for Obama instead of Clinton in the primary was because I didn't want a Clinton II presidency. By that I mean that I believe that Hilliary and Bill are peas in a pod. Whatever their personal relationships are, their political beliefs are (I think) very similar. Particularly their economic thought. So, I figured that Obama would at least be a little different.

I did not think that Obama would recycle all these old Clintonistas as his economic advisers and appointees. I figured that he would have at least a few new faces, at least some people who did not parrot the Wall Street line. I guess not.

(By the time the general election came around I thought I had no choice. I figured the republicans were going with bat shit crazy. No matter how rational it seemed to let the worst be elected so the general public could feel the results of their own stupidity...........I live here. I do not really want to spend the last few years of my life under a bridge eating the apples I couldn't sell. Now I'm no so sure that isn't what is going to happen anyway.)

Second, this is just bullshit. All the complaints about anonymity in today's world seem like a wilful (one hopes it is wilful and it is not that they really don't know) refusal to know and understand our very own history and the importance of the anonymous pamphleteer. As Mudflats says Ben Franklin used a pseudonym in some of his writings. Also, the fellows who wrote the Federalist originally wrote anonymously. Outing someone like that is really kind of pricky. And one hopes it will come back to bite the ass of the asshole who did it.

Of course, given they way the world works, probably not. I would think that is probably the reason people believe in the afterlife. There everybody gets their just reward. Unless of course you are a fundie. In which case you can be the biggest asshole in the world as long as you believe in the correct way. Which might explain the incredible number of fundies in the world.

A Funeral

Went to a viewing last night, the funeral was today. The guy was two years younger than I am (60). He had been feeling unwell and losing weight for some months. His wife was closely watching what he ate and was concerned.

Oh yes, he had been laid off a little over a year ago when he lost his employer provided health insurance. He and his wife could not afford to pay for COBRA so they were without that insurance. So they were hesitant to go to a doctor and were just hoping that there wasn't really anything wrong that wouldn't fix itself. They rescue (or at least did) animals from horrible conditions. All their "excess" money went into caring for the animals. They lived simply. He was not fat or in bad shape and had no really bad habits that we are always being warned to give up so we can live longer.

Monday he went out to feed the animals and was a little long out there. His wife went to see how he was and found him out there surrounded by the animals.

They asked for money to defray the cost of the funeral instead of flowers. Tell me again the danger of socialized medicine.

We Are Doomed in Afghanistan

Clearly we are doomed to lose in Afghanistan.

Fuck 'em All

These are the people I hate with a real passion. No not those in the mob, I mean the ones who write the pathetic articles. I do not mean that in any metaphorical sense nor do I mean that in any literary sense I mean I hate this whiny little shit. I hate his family and I wish the worst luck in the world on him and his. I want his house burned to the ground and the land sown with salt. I want his family scattered to the winds and I want him living by himself under a bridge eating cat food on a good day. I hate all the other people on Wall Street who have been making enormous profits while moving shit around. They make nothing they add nothing to the wealth of this country and they understand nothing except their shit.

Directly from school he apparently went to buying and selling shit. Shit that did nothing except make more money for him and his friends. Fuck him (and his horse). He would have made well over a million dollars a year for the last several years. He would have made at least half or three quarters a million in 2008 before the boom fell. Don't whine to me about the fact that you get a million (at least) in a bonus which you certainly do not deserve.

It should not have to be said, but apparently many miss the fact that auto workers have lost their bonuses but the NYT doesn't print their complaints. Nor for that matter can an autoworker do anything, but take the hit. Nor can the autoworker give over $700,000.00 to a chairty. Lets face it there would be no company if we hadn't poured billions (or maybe a trillion if you count the Federal Reserve) into AIG with apparently little or no preconditions. Unlike with the automakers.

Do not let the door hit you on the way out you ass hole.

Uh Oh

You know that we are in real trouble when the best Krugman can hope for is that Geithner, Summers and the rest of the Obama crew are lying.

I remember, I remember when that was my fondest hope about Clinton. Guess what. I was wrong, they were as serious as a heart attack (to coin a phrase). The result was a terrible disaster for Clinton and for American workers in general (anybody remember NAFTA and GATT and watching them jobs continue to drift overseas).

Yes, I know that Clinton remained popular throughout his administration, but just remind me what he accomplished. I realize that compared with the second greatest failure in American Presidential history (Buchanan will probably be the greatest failure until this country ceases to exist) Clinton is quite the fellow. Still other than screwing the American worker, destroying any hope of real health care reform for a decade, and getting rid of most of the remaining regulations on Wall Street thereby helping bring on our current disaster and getting a blow job, what did he do? Oh wait, he helped to continue to destroy the middle class (but I repeat myself).

I am kind of sorry that Greenwald finds something good about the criticism of Obama from progressives. Not that I am sorry that progressives criticize when Obama is obviously wrong, but that there are so many opportunities to do so.

You would think that Obama would prefer to have a memorial in D.C. resembling F.D.R.s rather than the one for Hoover (what there isn't one for Hoover--my oh my). But I guess not.

All Your Tarps Are Me

Let me see if I can say this right. If we do what Krugman and others like him want and they are wrong, what happens? We get rid of bad debt, we get rid of bad and stupid bankers we put the country back on the road to recovery quickly. Then we also nationalize some very large banks (we are already nationalizing small and medium banks weekly) for a short time. We then get rid of banks that "are too big to fail" so this kind of economic melt down will be much less likely to happen again. Essentially, nothing bad will happen if we go the Krugman route and we find it is unnecessary.

Now what happens if we go the Geithner route and he is wrong? Continued recession going into a possible depression. More money to the bankers and speculators and less to the "middle" class and working class (anymore the phrase middle class must be put into quotation marks as there is little real middle class left). The people who caused the recession left in power to do it again. The government buying these people out giving any loses to us the tax payers and any profits to the speculators. Finally, a continuation of the war against the middle and working classes by the wealthy and their minions. And those who got us here left in power to do it again and to profit from their mistakes (not at all like real capitalism). In other words: screwed.

What we have here is a failure of imagination. The people with the power simply are unable to look beyond their little area of muck. It is unfortunate, isn't it?

Later the Same Sunday

Loki drools over Opus.

I can hold my likker.

Sunday

Having trouble downloading pics so we will go with what we've already got.

Ming in the Confusian contemplation pose.

Sonny taking care of his little brother.

Halley watching over us all.

More of the Fucking Same

I couldn't think of a single funny thing.

So the best of the economists of the left, the ones who predicted the collapse, have jumped all over Obama's leaked (should that be in quotation marks?) new (that should definitely be in quotation marks) economic plan. For those who have been asleep for forty-eight hours, they panned it.

Basically, as I understand it we, through our rulers, by giving money to the people who originally screwed up will buy bad assets at way over the market prices and take the hit if they stay down, but not get the profit if they go up. That will be because we've loaned the money to these assholes to make the purchases, not made them ourselves.

It truly amazes me that these people (the ones running the companies, the ones making the trades, the ones who used to run the companies and now run the Treasury and government in general) seem to have absolutely not one second of self doubt. It was beyond their control, no one could have foreseen this problem (it doesn't matter that people did, of course)(including a Noble prize winner). It will correct with a "little" help from the government.

The government's position: It will all be over by next year. And when it isn't, it won't be the conservative assholes who get blamed.

Nuts

Well, after just posting about lying republicans I get to post about not exactly lying democrats, but democrats who are taking us down the long dark road to national bankruptcy.

Krugman is pretty unhappy and so am I. It looks like the Obama boys are dead set on saving their buddies' (and you know the old military definition of a buddy) financial asses. One of the most interesting things about FDR was how he would get information from all sorts of people. People who had various points of view and who came from different backgrounds. Of course, the fact that he was married to Elinore couldn't hurt either. I looks to me that Obama only listens to the people who matter. You know the bankers and economists who got us into this situation.

That does correspond with the bonus issue. No matter what they've done they can't be wrong. And they deserve extra money for it, don't ya know. Nor can the system be wrong, nor can the theory be wrong. Therefore, what you see is an illusion. Everything is really OK don't you know.

Hypocrisy Watch

There is serious hypocrisy and there is just your normal hypocrisy. I figure that Buchman is just your normal hypocrite for lying about ear marks. But Rice and all the Bush people are just wow.

I Don" Know

I don't know, but I'm beginning to think that maybe The Memorandum might be kind of sort of right wing in its point of view.

UDATE: It's late afternoon now, after 5:00 p.m. that above was posted this morning. Apparently nothing has happened all day as the same stuff is at the top of Memorandum that was there this morning. That is stories that link to the Special Olympics joke by Obama on Leno.

Oh Just Waaaa

I mean like Atrios says "poor wealthy white people." I do see that one of the writers is a Buckley, I wonder if it's a relation.

You know I've had clients who were charged with a crime when they were in a car when the real thief went into the place to rob it. I've also got a guy who bought a gun from a thief, thinking it might be stolen, but not sure. He's now charged with receiving stolen property. These people at AIG (and other places like MSNBC and Bear Sterns) should be glad they are not in jail.

Boring AIG & Bonuses Again

I have been thinking about these people at AIG who got the bonuses and the ones who will receive the next billion in bonuses. They ran the company into the ground and they ran the entire world's economy into the ground. Which now that I think about it really is pretty impressive.

On the other hand, what do you think that they do/did that a graduate of a good joint vocational school with dual degrees in accounting and computer science couldn't do?

Damn I Hate It When I'm Right

I put up the last post before I saw this. There is apparently no way you can fail without being chosen to work on this administration's financial team. At least under Bush they waited until they were appointed to fail completely.

Given my tax problems and criminal history I should be a natural for some high level administration position. Well that and the fact that I am willing to take a position in a field I know nothing about. I think that I'll put my name in today.

Epic Fail

I don't think that Obama has permanently failed, but I do think that he has up to this point on the two most important issues out there right now.

The bailout package and the war in Iraq. His positions are in lock step with the completely repudiated positions of Bush and the republicans. The only reason he isn't getting reamed on Iraq is that it is relatively quiet right now and the bailout has pushed it off the front pages.

They screwed the pooch on the bailout bonuses and now they are trying to blame Dodd. Apparently, that is not true. In fact Dodd tried to put limits on the bonuses and Geithner and the rest of the administration were able to keep limits out of the bill.

It is difficult to understand just what he is doing and why he is doing it. I would like to believe that there is some really clever concept here rather than think that the guy I voted for is a complete idiot. But right now he and his administration are acting like complete idiots and they were idiots when they forced the bailout bill through. Of course we're not even talking about the most expensive provisions of the bailout bill. And you do not really think that they are any more fair in the long run, do you?

Quite simply, I doubt if he has the desire to force anything other than variations on what he has already do through the congress. Therefore, we're fucked. Now where have I heard that before?

But to get back to my first point, I do not expect Obama to change his policies or the people he listens to which means: EPIC FAIL!!!!!

The First African American Hoover

You know I always thought that Obama wanted to be the first African American FDR, not the first African American Hoover. But I would not be surprised to begin seeing some Obamavilles around soon, if this ass hole doesn't get his act together.

I am having the same sinking feeling I had with Carter and Clinton. Perfectly good republicans.

As usual Greenwald has some interesting stuff about who put the protection for bonuses into the bailout bill. His piece and the links are very interesting. In one of his updates he states the the Times has changed it story to reflect the reality of who (the administration not Dodd) insisted protection for bonuses be put into the bill.

I find it interesting that the Times would change its story after being confronted by outsiders with the truth. I would be encouraged by this, but I am reminded that we do have a "democratic" president, no matter how incompetent he is turning out to be. Perhaps just because he is turning out to be incompetent they will be more willing to pile on.

Blind Pig?

Do you suppose this Fox (yeah I know) article is right? I find the graphs at the bottom very interesting.

Do you wonder about the Cuomo thing? At least he apparently got to look at the work by the [unnamed] law firm. Why do you think they are not named. It might not be a bad deal that he wasn't appointed to Clinton's seat.

Well clearly some democrat helped move this little thingy right along. Be it Geithner or Dodd. However, my money is on Obama. He is the president. He is the guy who hired Geithner. He is the guy who is responsible. Or at whose desk the buck stops to quote another democrat. He is still ridding high and his numbers are good. But I think that he just is (as mom used to say) buying trouble. He might ride this one out, but then again something will come along that will blow him out of the water. The media would love it. The wealthy would love it.

He can think that he hitched his wagon to that conservative democratic star, but it did neither Carter nor Clinton any good in the end. I did think that Obama was smarter than he now appears. I hope he is a lot smarter than I think he is. Cause otherwise we're fucked.

Of course a few hundred million is I guess less than 1% of the money we've already given to AIG. Still, it is good to get outraged over something involved in the bailout. Do you think it is just a way to distract us? We pour mass amounts of money into their (and a lot of others) pockets with little or no oversight. Hell, oversight. We should own them but because of our ideological rigidity we let the same people run them who ran them into the ground and/or stole from them and us. So now we are upset because they play the scorpion? No one could have predicted.

So we get this money back and all is well, we just go on as before pouring 1000 times that much money into the shit pile.