Robert Scheer nicely summarizes how we got to where we are (snippet):

"....The late 1990s, it should be noted, is when President Clinton, working with Phil Gramm, the Republican head of the Senate Banking Committee, pushed through two critical pieces of legislation ending effective regulation of the banks. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act smashed the wall between high-flying Wall Street investment firms and the once staid commercial banks entrusted with the deposits and mortgages of America’s innocent souls. The next year Clinton signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, banning any effective regulation of the rapidly expanded trade in the collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps that have since haunted the world’s economy. "The collapse of those toxic securities led to the housing crisis and resulted in 15.1 percent of Americans now living in poverty, the same level as when Bill Clinton took office. But thanks to another one of Clinton’s grand triangulation strategies, the one he called “welfare reform,” the impoverished are now denied the safety net that existed before the Clinton presidency. Although 22 percent of U.S. children are now below the poverty line, the Aid to Families With Dependent Children program no longer exists. "Some of us who voted for Obama thought he was no Clinton, but he was and is, as was demonstrated in his first days in office when he appointed two key veterans of the Clinton Treasury Department, Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, to head up the Obama economic team. Geithner, as treasury secretary, is the point man for the administration’s push to pass the so-called American Jobs Act, which the president hyped in his Sept. 8 speech to Congress and the nation. It was pure Clinton bull: I feel your pain while I help the superrich pick your pocket....."

Oh woe are we. I no longer see a way out of this spiralling decline in the American economy in my lifetime. We had a chance in 2009, but forget it now.

From Kos:

"Of all the criticisms of Obama, this is the most obviously legit. The president's economic team hailed from Goldman Sachs, and their entire focus has been on bailing out the banking sector from their own excesses. The banks were functioning "properly" in Wall Street's eyes, when they created the credit default swaps and other schemes that destroyed the world economy. "Yet rather than help consumers, oftentimes victims of Wall Street's excesses, they rewarded the villains, time and time again. And then, they tried to hide it. "That Wall Street aristocracy has been coddled by this administration, while regular Americans end up victims to Democratic meekness and Republican obstructionism. It shouldn't be this way. Let Republicans carry water for Wall Street crooks. Democrats should be fighting for everyone else. "The problem with the economy isn't the bankers. Is that no one has money to buy shit. Giving the bankers free money doesn't solve that."

There's more in the post.

Obama said this today:

"....Also to put our economy on a stronger and sounder footing for the future, we’ve got to rein in our deficits and get the government to live within its means, while still making the investments that help put people to work right now and make us more competitive in the future. As I mentioned, we’ve had some good meetings. We had a good meeting here yesterday with leaders of both parties in Congress. And while real differences remain, we agreed to work through the weekend and meet back here on Sunday. "The sooner we get this done, the sooner that the markets know that the debt limit ceiling will have been raised and that we have a serious plan to deal with our debt and deficit, the sooner that we give our businesses the certainty that they will need in order to make additional investments to grow and hire and will provide more confidence to the rest of the world as well, so that they are committed to investing in America....."

NOOOOOO!!!!!! Would someone please tell him that fixing the debt and deficit is NOT going to help the economy! We need more government stimulus spending and higher revenue from taxing the wealthy and the corporations. That's it. Please!

The Voting Block Dominoes Will Fall

Dear Mr. President:

I understand "the long view" plan for the recovery of this country. The current tax cut bill only delays this country's recovery and compromise comes at a heavy political cost to you personally.

You broke a campaign promise of doing away with tax cuts for the wealthy. The Republi-cons who you negotiated in good faith with, will no doubt, throw you under the bus upon your run for reelection. Only you will get blamed for the continued budget increase. I fear you will lose a huge voting block of moderates, independents and Progressives who held you to this promise.

This compromise on the tax cut bill only emboldens the Republi-cons with future fights on Social Security and Medicare. The people are witnessing capitulation and will take full advantage. Unfortunately, unless congress approves it... this new tax cut bill will prevent disabled Veterans, Social Security recipients and military retirees from receiving a Cost of Living Adjustment for at least 2 years. This blows another voting block for you.

The people will say, the Republi-cons made a good tactical move... they got the tax cuts for the rich for 2 years, and only gave up unemployment extensions for 13 months... this will be approximately 9-10 months before the 2012 Presidential election. Who else will this voting block blame for a bad compromise? Plenty of time for them to remember the bad deal they received. Undoubtedly Sir, the finger of blame will be pointed at you. Another voting block down.

Americans know this tax cut bill comes at a time when corporations have had their best 3rd quarter in history, yet, corporations still refuse to hire. The bailed out and protected Wall Street executives are getting record bonuses for 2 straight years, CEO's continue to reap rewards and all the interlocking chairpersons of the boards have their coffers full. U.S. Government workers have had their wages froze. The American people are taking cuts in wages, hours, pensions, health benefits; while they continue to increase productivity. Who do you think they will vent their frustration at... yes, you Mr. President. There goes another major voting block.

This is not a good compromise for you politically, for "the long view" or for the long term needs of the American people... show some prescience, please, it is your turn to just say "NO". Stress JOBS, JOBS, JOBS! If you make that your mantra for the next 2 years, it might save your Presidency.

If of course, the republi-con congress doesn't try and impeach you for something first.

Sincerely, Seven of Six

ObamaCare Delivers!

Extreme (Medi-Cal) Makeover There’s no question the Affordable Care Act, the new federal health reform law, will transform California’s – and the nation’s – health care system. And a big part of the transformation will occur in the Medicaid Program, known as Medi-Cal in California. Medi-Cal, which has humbly provided health coverage to millions of low-income children, seniors, and persons with disabilities for 45 years, is due for a makeover. In a new CBP report, we project that by 2019, Medi-Cal coverage could climb to as high as 10.5 million under the new health law. In contrast, the program currently serves more than 7 million individuals, with approximately 500,000 more Californians eligible, but not enrolled. This significant expansion of Medi-Cal eligibility, and likely enrollment of millions of previously uninsured Californians, offers new opportunities. First, we estimate that generous federal funding will allow California to draw down nearly $30 in federal funds for each state dollar it invests in coverage for newly eligible adults between 2014 and 2019. Thus, for an extraordinarily modest investment, the state could potentially provide more than a million Californians with comprehensive health coverage. Second, the new health law declares that any person with an income below 138 percent of the federal poverty line is eligible, which makes it easier for certain individuals to enroll and stay enrolled in Medi-Cal. California Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Belshe said last week that Medi-Cal will be a program “grounded in covering people,” and federal officials are urging a new “triple-E” mantra – “Eligibility Equals Enrollment.” The transformation of Medi-Cal couldn’t come at a better time. As recent Census data have shown, the share of nonelderly Californians with job-based coverage has declined significantly since the beginning of the decade. Soon, Medi-Cal may help to fill that gap. – Hanh Kim Quach

Obama lectures Democrats:

"....It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election. There may be complaints about us not having gotten certain things done, not fast enough, making certain legislative compromises. But right now, we've got a choice between a Republican Party that has moved to the right of George Bush and is looking to lock in the same policies that got us into these disasters in the first place, versus an administration that, with some admitted warts, has been the most successful administration in a generation in moving progressive agendas forward. "The idea that we've got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible...It has been hard, and we've got some lumps to show for it. But if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place...."

About time!

From Maddowblog:

Since taking office in January 2009, President Obama has put done-and-dusted to financial reform, health reform, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the economic stimulus, the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the reorganization of the Minerals Management Service and student loan reform.

Greed, negligence behind BP oil spill By Donna Brazile, CNN Contributor May 3, 2010 5:19 p.m. EDT (CNN) -- I spent a restless night, worrying that another man-made disaster might devastate my beloved hometown, New Orleans, just as its post-Katrina motto "Recover, Rebuild, Rebirth" was becoming real. The oil spill couldn't come at a worse time. Everybody was so up, waiting for the inauguration of our newly elected Mayor Mitch Landrieu. The BP oil spill threatens New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast in a way that's more insidious than Hurricane Katrina. After all, the failure of the levees and the response from the previous administration, widely criticized for incompetence and indifference, followed an act of nature: the destruction, immediate; the impact, obvious; and the pain and suffering, visible to all. The BP disaster has only one cause: human greed, and the almost inevitable result, negligence. The immediate tragedy was that 11 people died. But the destruction that will result from BP's "crude river" will be long-term and the impact far from obvious. The "crude river" will spawn streams of suffering: economic, environmental and emotional. So as the "Big Muddy" fights the "Big Cruddy," how do we assess the players? And what actions should be taken against rigged disasters, both once and future? First, we must hold BP accountable and responsible. Was it an accident? Only if we define "accident" as negligence. The failure of the "shear ram," the set of steel blades intended to slash through a pipe at the top of a well and close off the flow of crude, should not have surprised BP or the corporations that work for it. Eight years ago, the Minerals Management Service found that 50 percent of the shear rams tested failed. So calling the failure of the "last resort device" an accident is like calling the damage caused by a drunken driver an accident. Failure to take the proper precautions is not an accident; it's negligence. BP has rightly accepted responsibility. We may grant the company a skeptical benefit of the doubt regarding its willingness to pay for the cleanup and the damages. We should, however, monitor its PR-to-payout ratio. But we should not lose sight of the role of companies like Halliburton, under investigation because it was responsible for the cement seal that apparently leaked; Cameron International, which supplied the rig's blowout prevention system; or Transocean, which manufactured the rig. As the federal government begins its investigation, it should ask not only who was negligent, but why. To what extent did profit preclude prudence? Since BP can't contain the spill -- rather, the river, which is what it really is -- government at all levels must do what it's supposed to do, and do it right. For example, officials should carry out Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser's plan to deploy local fishermen with booms on movable platforms in the Gulf, ready to "draw a line in the sand," depending on how the oil moves. Gov. Bobby Jindal has approved. Already the response from the Obama administration exceeds that of the federal response to Katrina, and the oil hasn't yet begun to cause the catastrophic damage we all fear. The morning after the explosion, Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes was sent to the Gulf. The morning after the explosion, Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes was sent to the Gulf. President Obama began monitoring the situation, staying in contact with the governors of the five Gulf states, making sure every available resource be at their disposal and ordering a coordinated Cabinet-level response. Here are a few authorizations the president has made, before his personal visit. • The U.S. Coast Guard; the Departments of Homeland Security, Commerce and Interior; and the Environmental Protection Agency immediately began directing and overseeing BP's response. • The Navy is using advanced technology and working with the Coast Guard to contain and disperse the oil. • The Departments of Homeland Security and Interior will be investigating the cause and inspecting all platforms and rigs in the Gulf. • The secretary of defense is authorizing the Louisiana National Guard to help communities in the cleanup and to protect critical habitats from contamination. But Obama has to let people know what's being done, what will be done, and that he takes this personally. He needs to express, perhaps as only he can, that the federal government gets it. He gets the plight of the fishermen, the restaurants, the waiters, the taxi drivers -- the economic ripple effect and the environmental tide of disaster. This is a visual and visceral crisis. If he handles it right, it will be known as a sign of Obama's competence. Obama can't split the sea, but he must help to plug the Gulf. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Donna Brazile.

Here's Obama's speech from last night, courtesy The Bobblespeak Translations, in a language that all Americans can understand:

State of the Union Address President Barack Obama January 27, 2010 ****************** Madam Speaker… I give you… the POTUS!!! [ yay ] Obama walks in, wearing a Nobel prize and carrying an iPad Pelosi: and heeeeeere’s Baraaaaaaaaaack! Obama: thank you very much Greetings, Madam Speaker, Joe, Senators, House members, all congresspersons - you goddamm worthless motherfuckers! All right anyone who is not a useless piece of shit can stay - everyone else leave the room [ Biden stands up ] Joe you can stay too [ Biden sits down ] [ everyone else gets up to leave ] All right all right you useless shitheads sit your asses back down [ everyone sits down ] And let me give a shout-out to our esteemed Supreme Court justices! Oh did I say esteemed - I meant to say soulless hypocritical corporate whores [ Scalia and Alito stand up, wave to Congress ] Hey Jersey Shore - sit the fuck down yes that's right I'm wearing my motherfucking Nobel prize - check it out assholes! [ waves Nobel prize ] yeah I'm done with teleprompters - I'm all about my iPad now dudes! Obama: Bull Run, Bloody Sunday, the Depression, Pearl Harbor, the day they canceled Star Trek - America has been tested many times before Now you all know I inherited 2 wars and a motherfucking Depression So of course we bailed out the people who created the problem Inexplicably, things are now even suckier than they were before! I’ve have traveled across this nation and read your letters and holy fuck is this country in some deep shit Most moving are the letters written in crayon - so I would like ask Michele Bachmann to please stop Obama: Americans are tired of pettiness Joe Wilson: No! Obama: Sit the fuck down you ignorant cracker Obama: Americans really want one thing - to avoid sliding into poverty and having to move into a black neighborhood But the White House is a black neighborhood now fuckers so that’s why I have never been more hopeful for America! [ yay ] Obama: Now let’s talk about the motherfucking bailout! I hated it - but goddammit let’s not forget Stupid created a crisis I had to deal with and we’ve gotten most of the money back! [ yay! ] Obama: so I propose a fee on the banks - they can fucking afford it, those slimy motherfuckers!!!! [ yaaaaay ] We cut taxes for 8 million people - do you hear me fucking teabaggers!?!?!? We didn’t raise income taxes on anyone... not anybody - can you grasp that you fucking lunatics??? [ yaaay ] And we saved 2 million jobs thanks to my stimulus bill - that’s right shitkickers!!! And so you can see I have single-handedly turned this economy around!! However because I heard there may still be a few unemployed people out there, and with the whole Scott Brown fiasco, I am calling for a brand new jobs bill [ woo-hoo ] Banks on Wall Street are now lending again, but mostly to other criminals - so I propose taking this 30 billion I found in the White House couches and give to tiny little community banks like the Building & Loan [ yaaaay ] You get a tax cut! You get a tax cut! Everybody gets a tax cut!!! [ yaaaay ] And we should have better trains than those damm Japanese! [ muted clapping ] and fewer tax breaks - but still some - for businesses located in the Cayman fucking islands!!! [ yaaaay ] So send me a jobs bill or I will come back here and crack some skulls!! Having said that - we need rules to prevent another lost decade which is why I am proposing a Constitutional Amendment saying no member of the Bush family can ever be President again!!! [ yaaaaay!!] Now the GOP says we have to wait to fix the economy but that would put us behind India and I am not going to stand here and listen to them bad-mouth the United States of Fucking America!!! [ yaaaay ] Which is why we need to skull-fuck the banks that caused the goddamm problem!!! Now I will wave my finger and look tough - do I look tough - no seriously do I?? We need to solve our energy problem which means building new nuclear power plants, drilling offshore, clean coal, biofuels, and harnessing the power of Brett Favre!! [ yaaay!!!] Now I know there are really stupid fuckers who don’t believe in global warming and to them I say grow a goddamm fucking brain and pull your heads out of your asses!!! We need to export more products which is why I have hired a Chinese company to tell me how we can make shit people want!! [ yaaay ] Also we need to expand our empire and seek new markets, in Asia, Africa, and the Spice federation on Tatooine!! [ yaay ] The best anti-poverty program around is to be born into a rich connected family and rig the system in your favor!! But since that is not realistic for people outside this room, I also propose better community colleges! [ yay ] and $10,000 in college grants and no more student debt after 20 years!! students: oh woo oh and we still need health insurance reform [ yaaaaaaaay ] I did not choose to take on health care reform to get a legislative victory or to be more popular.... OBVIOUSLY! Ha anyway let me describe my plan in a simple 7 paragraph - oh hi there’s my pretty wife [ yayayay] where was I - oh right the CBO says my bill would reduce the deficit by 2 trillion dollars!! GOP: deficits don’t matter Obama: so I completely fucked up underestimating how selfish most Americans are - my bad, America! But I will not walk away from insuranceless Americans and neither should you So please Republicans take a breath and vote for my plan Or just send me your plan and I will sign that instead So Congress just pass something so we can all move on all righty [ yay ] Now let me explain something to the extremely dense out there Clinton gave Bush a FUCKING SURPLUS and I inherited a FUCKING DEFICIT I wonder if Fox news will report on that??? Oh did I mention I am trying to prevent a motherfucking DEPRESSION??? So tonight, as usual, Democrats will have to be the grown-ups and freeze spending long enough to get voted out of office, where Republicans will blow the budget all over again!!! [ YAAAAY!!!] So I will freeze spending except for Defense, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security education and farming - that only leaves $20 billion spent on turning John Boehner orange all winter! [ yay ] Since you fuckers can’t even create a commission I will do it by executive order - yo Judd Gregg!! [ yaaaay ] Now Paul Krugman is probably freaking out - but this freeze won’t start until next year when the recession is over [ boooo ] hey zip it morons Now we could of course just cut taxes and borrow the money and party all the time - but every time Republicans do that it wrecks the economy! So let’s try some common sense fuckers!! Yeah a novel concept motherfuckers!! The rumors are true, America - Washington doesn’t work - it’s bought and paid for by corporations - yeah I’m looking you - you fucking Supreme Court whores!!! I’m not naïve - I’m know you are all untrustworthy snakes - that’s the very essence of our democracy But Jesus Fucking Christ on a cracker you can’t fillibuster every fucking procedure in fucking government!!! I mean criminy people are showing up to my town meetings with fucking guns - so chill the fuck out Republicans And Democrats - stop being such fucking pussies for god’s sake!! And Republicans - if it really takes 60 votes to get anything done well then guess what - then you are responsible for not getting anything done!! And while I am on the subject - GOP just shut the fuck up about national security and if you want a reminder go look at the hole in ground you created in New York City!!! Yeah I’m killing people all over the world - don’t fuck with me people! I am ending the Iraq war cause I am fucking sick of it Now let’s really support our troops and not just say we do! And just like Superman I am going to rid the world of all motherfucking nuclear weapons!!! Watch out Iran - Barack Hussein Fucking Obama is coming for you!!! We’re giving out food, curing disease, and helping Haiti! America is about all people being equal so sometime in 2010 I will work with Congress on repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell!!! [ yaaay ] Americans are hopeful, they have just lost faith in government, religion, business, schools, the media… oh wait they AREN’T FUCKING HOPEFUL AT ALL!!! Now I know people aren’t all into Hope and Change anymore but I never claimed to be your Magic Negro so I come here tonight to tell you this -- grow the fuck up America!!! Sure I fucked up this year - but I am not alone - many, many, many, Americans are also totally fucking up and are also in complete denial about it!! So my fellow Americans I don’t quit - I may get fired but I won’t quit!! Goodnight fuckers!!!

Bill Maher: Is This as Good as It Gets From Obama?

Yeah, I'm disappointed, too. I thought we were sweeping into power; I thought change meant Change. I believed all that talk about another First 100 Days, a la Roosevelt. Well, that didn't happen. The question is, is this as good as it gets from Obama, or is he pacing himself? He may have a four and eight-year plan and they included a first year of just gettin' to know you and not gonna rock the boat too much. Well, Mission Accomplished on that. It's still too early to lose hope in a guy as smart and talented as Barack Obama. But I would counsel him to remember: If you're going undercover to infiltrate how Washington works, so you become one of them for a while, to gain their confidence, well, it can be just like all those movies where a cop goes deep, deep, DEEP undercover with drug people and -- fuck, he's a drug addict, too! Logic tells me that really smart guys like Obama and Rahm Emanuel know better what they're doing than I do. They certainly know things I don't know. I think we have the same general goals and beliefs. And this is what they do for a living -- I wouldn't even try it. But I will never stop having this doubt: that maybe if they had really charged in there riding the forceful energy of the historic election, and acted like it was an emergency moment -- which it was -- they could have gotten some big victories right up front, and there really could have been an historic "first hundred days" for this administration and the country. Instead of what happened, which is the Obamas got a dog. It could have worked -- the country had given its endorsement to "...and now for something completely different." There might have been a way to knock the Republicans back on their heels right away, with the argument that "The American people demanded we make these changes, and you are unpatriotic to stand in their way." We'll never know. Because that moment passed, and now it could follow the pattern of World War I and devolve into boring, static trench warfare where nothing really gamechanging happens while both sides slowly bleed to death. That said, I do not forget that if the election had gone the other way, we'd right now have a barter economy and be at war with Honduras.

"...The Status Quo Is Not Acceptable..."

My folks' primary health care provider, the Mayo Clinic, "strongly supports President Obama's" Health Care reform...

Mayo Clinic Reaction to President Obama’s Speech – September 9 Mayo Clinic strongly supports President Obama’s call for health insurance reform and health care delivery reform, and agrees with the President’s position that the status quo is not acceptable. We believe that a bipartisan, collaborative approach is essential to achieving significant, patient-centered health care reform. Mayo Clinic and the many organizations and individuals working with us in the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center are strongly in favor of reform of both health care delivery and health insurance. True health care reform is getting better results for the money spent. Better results for money spent is what we meant by high value health care: better outcomes, safer care, better service and at lower costs over time. And this will translate to better access to medical services for all Americans. We agree with President Obama’s focus on insuring all Americans and reforming the health care payment reform.

Pretty solid endorsement. Of course the cynical part of me is wondering if they aren't happy because they will be making huge profits from the reform plan.

Here it is, Nazi-leader Obama's brainwashing indoctrination speech forced upon our helpless children across the country today:


Please, don't let your child watch this, otherwise he or she might be inspired to be a better person. Republicans know that Obama's next act will be making the goose-step mandatory for all kids walking to school...

I never thought that I'd agree this completely with Bill Maher. The important part of this starts at the 1:57 mark.

"Memorandum for Record: 05-29-2008"

To: The Office of the President of the United States From: Freeman, Milo D., OIF Sept. '06 - Dec. '07 RE: Detainee Abuse Photos MESSAGE FOLLOWS Mr. President, My name is "Milo Freeman." I am a proud supporter of your election, and an Iraq War veteran. I served in support of OIF from September of 2006 to December of 2007. I am proud to call myself a veteran. I am not, however, proud of the ways which my country has chose to view or exploit my service in the past. While proud of my former occupation, it became clear to me very quickly that our presence in Iraq was in fact a harm to the people of that country. I believe that our presence there caused a great deal of suffering to the people of Iraq, and only served to damage our standing in the world. When I first heard that you were running for President, I eagerly supported your campaign. The night of your election was one of the proudest of my life, because, as a man of 26 years, yours was the first presidency in whose making I had truly had a hand. I have applauded many of your sweeping accomplishments since taking office. I applaud your decisive actions on the economy, and have applauded your efforts to undo the damage of the last eight years. But there is one policy of which I must vehemently disapprove: the decision not to make public ALL of the photographs depicting detainee abuse by US forces. I know that my comrades serve bravely every day in the service of our country. I know that their service is noble, because once it was mine. But I also believe that we are frail, that we are human, and that without the proper guidance we can fail to live up to the values that our Constitution espouses. I believe that being American does not render us incapable of sin. And in these photos, sir, I believe that we have committed many grave sins, indeed. I understand your office's desire not to engage in partisan witch-hunting. I understand that our nation faces many challenges, and simply finding scapegoats for the recent past will solve nothing. But I also believe that we, as Americans, must LOOK our sins in the face. We must know that we have done wrong, so that we can TRULY begin to heal the wounds we have inflicted. Without this catharsis, sir, there can be no justice; there can be no healing. I understand that the photos you have chosen not to release contain images which may incite backlash against the forces responsible. I understand that they contain images which may be upsetting to the American public. My response: good. After an era which was so marked by double standards of justice, my conscience cannot abide the sufferings depicted in these images. I cannot proudly call myself an American, a veteran, while knowing that my service contributed to this shame. It is not merely wrong, sir, it is vile. It is abomination. We allowed ourselves to forget our most basic values, and in so doing we are ALL the less for our silence. Even you, Mr. President. When American forces stormed into Germany in 1945, they discovered horrors beyond belief. They saw how German soldiers had allowed themselves to be co-opted, how German citizens had willingly blinded themselves to the truth. And when they looked upon those crematories, those stacks of corpses piled like cordwood, they did the only thing they felt was right: They rounded up the surviving soldiers, and forced them to bury the dead. They rounded up the villagers, and forced them to confront the hideousness of their own sins. For not all sins are acts of comission, as you well know. In hiding the truth from the public, we are committing sins of OMISSION. If yours is the Administration that I believed it to be, then you can maintain no silence in this. The truth, however ugly, must be made known. If the rumors are true--that the photos you have suppressed not only depict torture and humiliation, but even murder and rape--then we are bound, as Americans, to acknowledge our crimes. Without truth, there can be no healing. I implore you, Mr. President. Serve Justice. Serve Truth. Release these photos. // Freeman, Milo D. (SPC), US Army, 2004-2008 MESSAGE ENDS

Why Obama can't fix our country:

The Audacity of Hopelessness By Phil Rockstroh May 27, 2009 Editor’s Note: Over the past few decades, an arrogant Establishment has led the United States on a dangerous course of deindustrialization, empire-building and free-market extremism that brought fortunes to the well-connected of Wall Street and Washington, and declining standards of living for many other Americans. Now, as the consequences of those policies become bitterly apparent, some Americans are trying to make sense of what happen, as poet Phil Rockstroh does in this guest essay: From time to time, events unfold that are so large in scope, so all-encompassing in their implications that one's initial response is muted by an inability to categorize it all within the realm of experience. Previous reference points prove of little service. One's image of oneself and one's place in the world is under siege, perhaps even in danger of being torn away. One stares into the abyss, until the abyss removes its dark shades and makes direct eye contact. The mind buzzes; one's thoughts scuttle in circles like stunned insects. On a collective basis, we as a nation are living through such a time. At present, we are witnessing the descending spiral of Icarusian Capitalism; our sacred delusion of the perpetual ascendancy of a god-like market place lies broken in the dust. Malls and McMansions stand abandoned, desolate as the edifices of forgotten gods, as the come-ons of the salesmen of deregulated capitalism are churned to spittle amid a cacophony of collapsing market platitudes. And not an uptick in public optimism, nor a surge of euphoria on Wall Street, nor the "invisible hand of the marketplace" sprinkling pixie dust will bring back the Olympian days of 2005, when the wise men of Washington and Wall Street knew the force of gravity was just a myth believed in by those embittered prophets of doom whose only joy in life is fantasizing the fall of their wealthy betters. It does not matter a damn how many dollars our present day believers of neoliberal tall tales, President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner, pour into the hole in the ground where the crash occurred, a bean stalk, twining skyward towards a golden, debt-negating goose, will not flower forth. Fortunately, when false convictions fall, it is possible for a leveling of sanity to prevail. But there can be no more hubristic flights borne on waxen wings. No more multibillion dollar confidence scams from Wall Street. No more smash and grab imperial wars. No more tea parties for the dim and deranged. Evil of Banality There is the banality of evil, and then there is the evil of banality. Both, the present era has produced in abundance. From about the late 1970s to the present, the United States all but ceased manufacturing products and went into the business of manufacturing marketplace hype, baseless fears, and illusionary enemies. Due to this economic and cultural derangement, a dark tower of self-imprisoning delusions has circumscribed our nation's fate. Is it any wonder the quintessential dark lord of the darkest tower, Dick Cheney, will not exit the scene? And what will foster real change? Not pleasing sound bites and rousing oratory from President Obama, then a continuance of many of the pernicious policies of his criminal predecessors. Conversely, the iron gates of Hell must crash closed behind us. The absence of light must grow so unbearable to us that we're willing to ask how is it we arrived in this place and become willing to challenge our most cherished concepts about ourselves and our place in the scheme of things. That is the sort of "indefinite detention" the nation could use. What is needed is the audacity of hopelessness. President Obama and the Democratic Congress could have ridden a wave of public discontent towards meaningful reform, but instead they have hugged the shore. And they seem to be surveying the property, scouting locations to build beach house retreats for their elitist benefactors and the militarist fantasists whose tsunami-sized arrogance wrought the present destruction in the first place. Meanwhile, right-wing radio haters, like penned dogs, bark into the empty air of their meaningless day. Daily, we negotiate our way through the encompassing banalities and casual brutalities of soft oligarchy, as beneath it all churns the nebulous rage of the powerless that creates an audience for the likes of Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh. It is high season for those virtuosos of displaced anger, because not only the nation's treasure, but its élan vital, has been squandered inflating the bubble-borne vanities of the ultra-wealthy up to the point of economic immolation. The elite have perpetrated an act of catastrophic clownishness so massive that it has left the rest of us stunned, and left to pick amid the debris of our exploded hopes. But hopes do not die pretty. Once dead, they do not rise like the redeemer gods of myth; instead, they stagger about, rotting and snarling like B-movie mummies. They leave us with our mouths tasting of ash. Our hearts choked by dry thistle. High-End Looting Yet the buffoons of Wall Street and the killer clowns of our militarized Disneyland strut and swagger past the smoking ruins they left behind after their high-end looting spree. In their plundering, the only thing they didn't steal for themselves was any sense of self-awareness. Or is self-awareness necessary when you're obscenely rewarded for your narcissistic follies? What motivation would a high-chair tyrant have to modify his self-centeredness when he is shielded from the consequences of his bratty machinations? Why become an honest actor in the realm of human events when one can strut through life with a con artist's inexplicable sense of entitlement? And what about the rest of us? The financial elite, by means of their bagmen in the Executive Branch and Congress, continue to plunder our hopes for a meaningful future byway of that legal larceny popularly known as the bailout, i.e., the latest transfer of wealth from the bottom upward. This is why the buffoonish tea-bagger types hoard their resentments. All they've been left with is a heap of fragmented hatreds. Those toxic baubles they store against reality. Tragically, when not addressed, fear and resentment will increase in intensity and can become an exponentially growing feedback loop of paranoid rage. At present, such a process has created that haunted forest of the airwaves known as right-wing talk radio. It is the voice of anger feeding off of itself, and it seems dangerously close to reaching the point of hypertrophic breakdown. It is the audio analog of a belief system in exponential decay. The more the rot increases in the system the more Glenn Beck babbles and weeps. It is physically manifested in the cataclysmic ecosystem of Rush Limbaugh's repulsive bulk, his corpulent carcass is the morbid bloat of unregulated capitalism. Right-wing hatred is a many headed hydra that feeds on fear and desperation. It cannot be fought by attacking its spindling heads, each of its hissing mouths dripping with black poison. Instead, one must make thrusts at the noxious heart of the raging beast. But one cannot know where the heart of an external monster beats without suffering the agonies of one's own. Don’t Look to Obama Accordingly, one must allow one's heart to be broken. And don't look to Barack Obama's bland charm to mend it. Because the honest grief of the heart provides a point of reference, a foundation of knowledge, as to why the monster is inconsolable in its wounded fury; hence, this provides a strategic starting point as to how to fight it. And that is why we must release the photographs of torture. Moreover, we must bring public ignominy upon the respectable psychopaths in high places who mandated these policies, plus bring a leveling of shame upon the high-flying, highchair tyrants of high finance who exploded the global economy. Our ugliness must be public like a frog. The nasty secrets must be revealed; the mortifying pictures gazed upon. Our stomachs should seize up in revulsion. The ordeal must exact such a degree of revulsion within us that we will never again allow these despicable practices to transpire on our watch. There is a stench of putrefaction rising from beneath our feet. We must uncover the corpses laid under by empire. Being placated by Barrack Obama's bland charm -- in the same manner we were cowed by George W. Bush's infantile petulance, amused by Bill Clinton's brilliant, bad boy seductions, and drugged by Ronald Reagan's stupefying 1940's Hollywood bromides -- will only defer the reckoning and render us ignorant stooges in the impersonal sweep of history. As a people, we have a choice: We can be strengthened by embracing uncomfortable truths, or we can grow enervated and enfeebled by pushing them away. But sadly, Obama is attempting the tried and tested political trick -- used effectively by Washington hacks from Watergate ("Our long national nightmare is over") to Iran-Contra ("We cannot have another failed presidency") -- of inducing the uniquely American trait of Instant Amnesia that has, in the past, allowed the empire to stagger on, repeatedly committing variations of the same crimes, then coddling and protecting the same variety of corrupt elitists responsible, and thereby, reducing the Constitution to tatters and rendering the rule of law to rubble. But this time, the rot is too deep, the pathology too systemic. Obama's placebo presidency will not stem the hypertrophic decay. Granted, it was good to evict the previous, psychotic tenants from the property (Although Dick Cheney seems to be stalking the place with his obsessive, media drive-bys.) but that does nothing to repair the collapsing foundation of the structure, its core eaten away by an infestation of anti-democratic termites. Rather than addressing the core issue, the deterioration of the rights and liberties granted by the U.S. Constitution, President Obama is wallpapering over the rot wrought by the national security state's termite hive mind of authoritarian appetites, that has been, silently, and hidden by darkness, gnawing the house of state to sawdust. Again our choice: Either open up the decay within the system to the light of day and start the process of rebuilding and renewal, or allow the republic-ravening pestilence to continue unchallenged, hence unabated, and let the nation go bughouse crazy as the house comes down around us to the strains of the insect-brain stridulations of Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh. Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: philangie2000@yahoo.com

It's gonna take a revolution to fix things.

Glenn Greenwald debukes the "inflame anti-American sentiment" justification by Obama for keeping torture photos classified:

"We're currently occupying two Muslim countries. We're killing civilians regularly (as usual) -- with airplanes and unmanned sky robots. We're imprisoning tens of thousands of Muslims with no trial, for years. Our government continues to insist that it has the power to abduct people -- virtually all Muslim -- ship them to Bagram, put them in cages, and keep them there indefinitely with no charges of any kind. We're denying our torture victims any ability to obtain justice for what was done to them by insisting that the way we tortured them is a "state secret" and that we need to "look to the future." We provide Israel with the arms and money used to do things like devastate Gaza. Independent of whether any or all of these policies are justifiable, the extent to which those actions "inflame anti-American sentiment" is impossible to overstate. "And now, the very same people who are doing all of that are claiming that they must suppress evidence of our government's abuse of detainees because to allow the evidence to be seen would "inflame anti-American sentiment." It's not hard to believe that releasing the photos would do so to some extent -- people generally consider it a bad thing to torture and brutally abuse helpless detainees -- but compared to everything else we're doing, the notion that releasing or concealing these photos would make an appreciable difference in terms of how we're perceived in the Muslim world is laughable on its face. "Moreover, isn't it rather obvious that Obama's decision to hide this evidence -- certain to be a prominent news story in the Muslim world, and justifiably so -- will itself inflame anti-American sentiment? It's not exactly a compelling advertisement for the virtues of transparency, honesty and open government. What do you think the impact is when we announce to the world: "What we did is so heinous that we're going to suppress the evidence?" Some Americans might be grateful to Obama for hiding evidence of what we did to detainees, but that is unlikely to be the reaction of people around the world. "If we're actually worried about inflaming anti-American sentiment and endangering our troops, we might want to re-consider whether we should keep doing the things that actually spawn "anti-American sentiment" and put American soldiers in danger. We might, for instance, want to stop invading, bombing and occupying Muslim countries and imprisoning their citizens with no charges by the thousands. But exploiting concerns over "anti-American sentiment" to vest our own government leaders with the power to cover-up evidence of wrongdoing is as incoherent as it is dangerous. Who actually thinks that the solution to anti-American sentiment is to hide evidence of our wrongdoing rather than ceasing the conduct that causes that sentiment in the first place?"

One theory I heard that sort of makes sense is that Obama knows that the courts are going to force him to turn over the photos. By resisting as long as possible, he's "supporting" the military by keeping them out of the crossfire and thus gaining their support and thanks early in his administration to use as future capital. My question is, "But at what cost?"

"Yes, He Can"

Elections have consequences. President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years. If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course. The budget will, among other things, come as a huge relief to Democrats who were starting to feel a bit of postpartisan depression. The stimulus bill that Congress passed may have been too weak and too focused on tax cuts. The administration’s refusal to get tough on the banks may be deeply disappointing. But fears that Mr. Obama would sacrifice progressive priorities in his budget plans, and satisfy himself with fiddling around the edges of the tax system, have now been banished. For this budget allocates $634 billion over the next decade for health reform. That’s not enough to pay for universal coverage, but it’s an impressive start. And Mr. Obama plans to pay for health reform, not just with higher taxes on the affluent, but by putting a halt to the creeping privatization of Medicare, eliminating overpayments to insurance companies. On another front, it’s also heartening to see that the budget projects $645 billion in revenues from the sale of emission allowances. After years of denial and delay by its predecessor, the Obama administration is signaling that it’s ready to take on climate change. And these new priorities are laid out in a document whose clarity and plausibility seem almost incredible to those of us who grew accustomed to reading Bush-era budgets, which insulted our intelligence on every page. This is budgeting we can believe in. Many will ask whether Mr. Obama can actually pull off the deficit reduction he promises. Can he actually reduce the red ink from $1.75 trillion this year to less than a third as much in 2013? Yes, he can. Right now the deficit is huge thanks to temporary factors (at least we hope they’re temporary): a severe economic slump is depressing revenues and large sums have to be allocated both to fiscal stimulus and to financial rescues. But if and when the crisis passes, the budget picture should improve dramatically. Bear in mind that from 2005 to 2007, that is, in the three years before the crisis, the federal deficit averaged only $243 billion a year. Now, during those years, revenues were inflated, to some degree, by the housing bubble. But it’s also true that we were spending more than $100 billion a year in Iraq. So if Mr. Obama gets us out of Iraq (without bogging us down in an equally expensive Afghan quagmire) and manages to engineer a solid economic recovery — two big ifs, to be sure — getting the deficit down to around $500 billion by 2013 shouldn’t be at all difficult. But won’t the deficit be swollen by interest on the debt run-up over the next few years? Not as much as you might think. Interest rates on long-term government debt are less than 4 percent, so even a trillion dollars of additional debt adds less than $40 billion a year to future deficits. And those interest costs are fully reflected in the budget documents. So we have good priorities and plausible projections. What’s not to like about this budget? Basically, the long run outlook remains worrying. According to the Obama administration’s budget projections, the ratio of federal debt to G.D.P., a widely used measure of the government’s financial position, will soar over the next few years, then more or less stabilize. But this stability will be achieved at a debt-to-G.D.P. ratio of around 60 percent. That wouldn’t be an extremely high debt level by international standards, but it would be the deepest in debt America has been since the years immediately following World War II. And it would leave us with considerably reduced room for maneuver if another crisis comes along. Furthermore, the Obama budget only tells us about the next 10 years. That’s an improvement on Bush-era budgets, which looked only 5 years ahead. But America’s really big fiscal problems lurk over that budget horizon: sooner or later we’re going to have to come to grips with the forces driving up long-run spending — above all, the ever-rising cost of health care. And even if fundamental health care reform brings costs under control, I at least find it hard to see how the federal government can meet its long-term obligations without some tax increases on the middle class. Whatever politicians may say now, there’s probably a value-added tax in our future. But I don’t blame Mr. Obama for leaving some big questions unanswered in this budget. There’s only so much long-run thinking the political system can handle in the midst of a severe crisis; he has probably taken on all he can, for now. And this budget looks very, very good. - Paul Krugman, 2008 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics

"On the Edge"

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts. It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated. Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what’s at stake — of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again. It’s hard to exaggerate how much economic trouble we’re in. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush-era housing bubble has set economic dominoes falling not just in the United States, but around the world. Consumers, their wealth decimated and their optimism shattered by collapsing home prices and a sliding stock market, have cut back their spending and sharply increased their saving — a good thing in the long run, but a huge blow to the economy right now. Developers of commercial real estate, watching rents fall and financing costs soar, are slashing their investment plans. Businesses are canceling plans to expand capacity, since they aren’t selling enough to use the capacity they have. And exports, which were one of the U.S. economy’s few areas of strength over the past couple of years, are now plunging as the financial crisis hits our trading partners. Meanwhile, our main line of defense against recessions — the Federal Reserve’s usual ability to support the economy by cutting interest rates — has already been overrun. The Fed has cut the rates it controls basically to zero, yet the economy is still in free fall. It’s no wonder, then, that most economic forecasts warn that in the absence of government action we’re headed for a deep, prolonged slump. Some private analysts predict double-digit unemployment. The Congressional Budget Office is slightly more sanguine, but its director, nonetheless, recently warned that “absent a change in fiscal policy ... the shortfall in the nation’s output relative to potential levels will be the largest — in duration and depth — since the Depression of the 1930s.” Worst of all is the possibility that the economy will, as it did in the ’30s, end up stuck in a prolonged deflationary trap. We’re already closer to outright deflation than at any point since the Great Depression. In particular, the private sector is experiencing widespread wage cuts for the first time since the 1930s, and there will be much more of that if the economy continues to weaken. As the great American economist Irving Fisher pointed out almost 80 years ago, deflation, once started, tends to feed on itself. As dollar incomes fall in the face of a depressed economy, the burden of debt becomes harder to bear, while the expectation of further price declines discourages investment spending. These effects of deflation depress the economy further, which leads to more deflation, and so on. And deflationary traps can go on for a long time. Japan experienced a “lost decade” of deflation and stagnation in the 1990s — and the only thing that let Japan escape from its trap was a global boom that boosted the nation’s exports. Who will rescue America from a similar trap now that the whole world is slumping at the same time? Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive. So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next. It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge. - Paul Krugman.

Time for a Spine

I am losing my patience with President Obama... quit kow-towing to everything GOP... they are not our friends... they will bury you if they get the chance... start going on the offensive. Please, get a spine!
From Theda Skocpol...

In response to what you are saying: Obama is, sadly, much to blame for giving the Republicans so much leverage. He defined the challenge as biparitsanship not saving the U.S. economy. Right now, he has only one chance to re-set this deteriorating debate: He needs to give a major speech on the economy, explain to Americans what is happening and what must be done. People will, as of now, still listen to him -- and what else is his political capital for? Speaking as a strong Obama supporter who put my energies and money into it, I am now very disillusioned with him. He spent the last two weeks empowering Republicans -- including negotiating with them to get more into Senate and his administration and giving them virtual veto-power over his agenda -- and also spending time on his personal cool-guy image (as in interview before the Super Bowl). The country is in danger and he ran for president to solve this crisis in a socially inclusionary way. He should be fighting on that front all the time with all his energies -- and he certainly should give a major speech to help educate the public and shape the agenda. That is the least he can and should do. Only that will bypass the media-conserative dynamic that is now in charge.

"Obama--Let Daschle Go"

It turns out that former Senator Tom Daschle waited nearly a month after being nominated to be Secretary of Health and Human Services before letting President Barack Obama know that he had not paid years of back taxes. The tax problem resonates at a time of deepening economic pain, as joblessness soars and Wall Street executives are rightfully chastised for using bailout money for multi-million dollar bonuses. But the serious issue here is Daschle's ties to health care firms. In a letter to the HHS ethics office on January 16th (cited in the Washington Post on Sunday) Daschle wrote that he wouldn't participate in any matter over the next year in which "a former client of mine is a party or represents a party." How does one define that? And won't this then mean that Daschle is unable to play a role in passing critical healthcare reform until 2010? After all, the same Washington Post story notes that the Health Industry Distributors Assn., which represents medical product distributors, wrote Daschle "last week" to express concerns about proposed Medicare changes and "reminded him of the $14,000 speech he delivered at its conference last year." Other special interests from which Daschle collected speaking fees ranging from $12,000 to $40,000 included the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy and America's Health Insurance Plans, which represents the for-profit health insurance industry. He also gave "policy advice" to United Health, a conglomerate that sells insurance, helps the government administer Medicaid, advises drug companies and physicians and dispenses prescriptions. In fact, when all is tallied up, the former Senator received more than $300,000 in income from health related companies that he might regulate. Experts who study this gray zone debate whether giving a speech, consulting, and otherwise taking money from special interests in return for services is different from lobbying. Nonetheless, Daschle's activities clearly pose the appearance of a conflict of interest. This was a campaign about change. Obama spoke eloquently of ending the way Washington does business and curbing the exploitation of public service for private gain. And he followed through with his early executive order attempting to slow the "revolving door" that has allowed so many former government officials to quickly enter the ranks of registered lobbyists. But slowing that revolving door is only the first step in ending the legalized corruption of the town's lobbying culture. Daschle's tax problems have, so far, attracted the lion's share of scrutiny. And he may well make it through the Senate---though one leading Democratic Senator told me Sunday that he may not vote for his former colleague's confirmation. But Daschle's potential conflicts of interest should persuade Obama to make this a "teachable moment" and find another public servant to tackle the critical task of healthcare reform. If Obama stated clearly that regulators in his administration should not have any financial ties to the industries they regulate, he'd revive the change brand he campaigned and won on. Sure, there are a slew of reforms that need to be put in place to dismantle the legalized corruption of lobbying in DC,, but Obama could begin by asking Daschle to step aside. My pick for his replacement: Howard Dean. - Katrina vanden Heuvel