2-minute video on how things work in our world: More disappearing technology

In our world today, greed and power rule -- and that is why there will be NO bipartisanship in Congress, no matter how earnest and honest a president we may have. And why our world will have to fall apart completely before things like long-lasting car batteries and cars that use water for fuel will be allowed to rise to the surface of our consciousness. Geniuses like Nikola Tesla died in poverty, their inventions and discoveries hidden from us all--because they wanted to give us FREE electricity, FREE energy -- and that could never be allowed by those who rule us through power and money. J.P. Morgan kept Tesla's discoveries from the world in the early part of the 20th century -- and others just like Morgan are here today in our present-day world, doing the same thing to this generation. If something is discovered to benefit our planet and its people--and it might take away profits from the ruling class, be assured we will never hear of it! No doubt you saw the earnings of the big oil companies for last year -- and you've probably noticed that, even though the price of a barrel of oil is down to $40 as of yesterday, the prices at the pumps are steadily rising again. Hmmm.... You may be interested in the following short video (a little over 2 minutes):

What if a battery existed that allowed
you to drive your car for 300 miles
on a single charge?

That would easily take care of most
people's daily commuting needs.

Unfortunately, we're years away from
having a battery like this right?

Wrong.

It exists, or rather it existed.

GM acquired the company that owned
the technology -- in producing, not
on the drawing board - and then GM
sold it to Chevron.

Now it's gone.

Details:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/553.html

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ON THE EDGE by Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize Winner for Economics)

Who Will the Republicans Listen to, if not to someone of the stature and knowledge of Paul Krugman? No One, that's Who. They are obstructionists of the worst order, willing to take the country down with them in their hatred of the Democrats. Obama reached his hand out to them, and they bit him...hard!

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.

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Time to leave the obstructionist GOP behind

It's business as usual (obstruction) for the Republicans. If only they could be deported to another planet! The next best thing is for us to completely ignore them and support our Democratic representatives as they try to keep us from entering the black hole of another Great Depression!

Krugman: GOP Trying to Push Country Over the Edge of Catastrophe

By Susie Madrak Friday Feb 06, 2009 2:00pm

It's been surreal, watching this whole stimulus battle play out like a train wreck in slow motion. The pointless and naive attempts by Obama to find moderate Republican support (I'd think the main lesson of the last three decades is that there are no moderate Republicans - they just play them on TV!), the usual gang of right-wing radio hacks whipping listeners up into an anti-stimulus frenzy, the predictable inability of Democrats to recognize and constructively channel that populist anger - it would be nice to just pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep for another ten years or so. (Oh, if only!)

The important point Krugman makes in today's column is that rapid, massive stimulus is necessary to keep the country out of a deflation trap.

Why is deflation such a disaster? Because falling demand and prices leads to a vicious circle (the so-called "trap"): wages and jobs are cut, leading to steep drops in demand and prices while the real value of debt rises, leading to a rising tide of corporate and household defaults that will only amplify the credit losses of financial institutions. The problems cycle, over and over. This will truly be the end of the American middle class as we've come to know it.

So this is why Krugman is so anxious:

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.

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Asking for help: Phone your representatives! OPERATION ZERO CRED.

See full article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/operation-zero-cred_b_164377.html

OPERATION ZERO CRED.

...There's no debating the Republican record on the economy. Their allegiance to Reaganomics and free market deregulation have led us to the brink of, well, dogs and cats living together and mass hysteria.

Nevertheless, there they are on cable news and the Sunday shows acting as if they know something. At the same time, they've proved themselves to be dishonest, bad-faith actors in this thing. They've spread lies about fake CBO reports, while also ignoring an actual CBO report on the Senate bill indicating that it would, in fact, succeed in stimulating economic growth. They've spread lies about nonexistent ACORN line items in the bill -- line items that only exist inside of Michelle Malkin's twisted dome. I mean, they met with Joe the Plumber on the Hill this week to discuss the economy. Joe the Plumber. About the economy. Because they're very serious people who ought to be taken very seriously.

And so they should be summarily shut out of this process -- whether or not the president wants them out.

The Republicans have zero cred.

And that's the message we can unify around: ZERO CRED.

Operation Zero Cred.

From there, considering the unprecedented dollar amount of the recovery bill, it might be impossible to herd every cat. But perhaps, in the process, we'll at least marginalize the Republicans just a little more. And that will surely mean a larger, more robust recovery bill.

So as the saying goes: We are the ones we've been waiting for, and all that.

Don't write or send e-mails. Written screeds can be conveniently lost, deleted or shredded. Telephones, on the other hand, make loud beeping and ringing noises and you'll know right away that there's a real life human being on the other end of the line who has to listen to what you have to say.

Phone numbers for your senators here. Phone numbers for your congress member here.

The message:

"The Republicans have zero credibility on the economy."

Paraphrase President Obama:

"Please reject the Republican theories that got us into this mess in the first place."

Feel free to toss in the following:

"Make the Republicans stand and filibuster if they want to filibuster. No cloture votes!"

Don't get into specific details of the bill. Our message needs to be consistent and unified: Zero Cred. The Republicans have zero credibility. We reject their ideas and we reject their theories.

Let's do this.

BobCesca.com

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If you're driving toward a cliff, you have to change direction: Obama

EXCERPT:

Oh, how I agree with the following quote from John Cole! The Republicans who are still wanting to continue neocon principles (there's an oxymoron for you) and are trying to obstruct Obama's plans to try to right the terrible wrongs of the Bush/Cheney regime are INSANE. There is no use trying to negotiate anything with them. They are INSANE. Like Rush Limbaugh, their leader, they are all talking gibberish nonsense, hoping Obama fails, so we can all crash together. You can't reason with people like this--and you'll never win them over to a sensible understanding of anything. You just have to ignore their ramblings and find the few--the very few--among the Congressional Republicans who have retained their sanity--and speak only to them.

I think John Cole has it about right:
I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

OBAMA SAYS WE NEED TO CHANGE DIRECTION--OR HEAD OFF A CLIFF
by David Niewert (www.crooksandliars.com)

Barack Obama delivered a rousing speech to House Democrats last night:

"I welcome this debate, but, come on, we are not going to get relief by turning back to the same policies that, for the last eight years, doubled our national debt, and threw our economy into a tail spin '' Obama said, with a passion unseen in public since the campaign trail. "We can't embrace the same old formula that says only tax cuts will address the problems we face.''

Opponents say the plan is not a stimulus bill, it's a spending bill, he said. "What do you think stimulus is?'' Obama said, with visible frustration. "That's the point!''

The president's appeal marks a sharply accelerated drive for an economic stimulus that Republicans are criticizing and some members of his own party are starting to question as the Senate debates a plan that cleared the House with unanimous opposition from the GOP. Obama plans a prime-time news conference Monday night to take the same case to the American public, but they are unlikely to see the campaign-styled passion that Obama rolled out for his party at its retreat tonight.

"I don't care if you're driving a hybrid or SUV. If you're driving toward a cliff, you have to change direction,'' Obama told his party, applauding the words of their new president at the start of a weekend retreat. "That's what the American people called for."

Politico has more, including this quip:

“When you start hearing arguments, on the cable chatter, just understand a couple of things,” he said. “No. 1, when they say, ‘Well, why are we spending $800 billion [when] we’ve got this huge deficit?’ – first of all, I found this deficit when I showed up, No. 1.

“I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.”

How long before the wingnuts and their Village enablers all simultaneously fall to their fainting couches? Ah, poor sweet Bipartisanship, foully struck low in the bloom of youth!

I think John Cole has it about right:

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

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The whole world seems to be in awe of a president who can admit mistakes

Sad, isn't it, that this is what we have come to -- expecting and accepting presidents like Bush who was so low in consciousness he couldn't even admit making errors, even though he made hundreds of terrible ones in the EIGHT LONG YEARS! he was in the White House. We are so used to such low standards that when we finally get a man in office who is a responsible adult and does what most of us have been taught by our parents to do, we look at his words and actions with reverence and praise. No wonder! We've been without role models like this for a LONG, LONG time!!! There is a great story about a Minnesota Vikings football player in the following essay...and what he learned by making a mistake:

A President Who Actually Admits Mistakes

By Steve Young,

Philadelphia Inquirer (2/5/09)

Every time a leading sports figure gets caught up in some questionable circumstance, there is instant talk-show clamor over the dearth of role models. If there is one person outside the family who is well-positioned to give children a standard of proper behavior, it would have to be the president of the United States.

Unfortunately, for most of his eight years in office, George W. Bush set a poor example in that he would not - or could not - comprehend the possibility of his making a mistake. If President Obama wants change, he can ensure it by continuing to take direct responsibility for things that go wrong.

And they certainly will, as this week’s botched nominations showed. No one’s perfect. Not every decision is the right one. Far from being an indication of weakness, though, conceding a mistake can be a powerful move toward proficiency.

You can’t begin to learn from failure until you acknowledge that you have failed. To help make it a precept we can all learn from, it might not be a bad idea for our new president to redefine failure, especially for the children watching him, as being an important stepping-stone toward success.

Bush did finally admit an error - the infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner - in his final news conference as president. But that was years after his administration had blamed Navy sailors for the error.

And Bush framed his other blunders, for the most part, as mere “disappointments.” He was disappointed, for example, that the predicted weapons of mass destruction were never found in Iraq. But disappointment is far from admitting a mistake. In fact, it distances a person from a mistake.

We can change by learning from our mistakes and failures. Disappointment is only a feeling, and you don’t feel your way into real change. Why would Bush correct his handling of emergencies such as Hurricane Katrina, for instance, if he couldn’t admit the response was too slow?

Accepting our mistakes is far harder than making them. If it weren’t, the lessons wouldn’t be of much value.

Our children need role models who aren’t afraid to admit their imperfections and learn from them. There are countless real examples of how this works. One was, believe it or not, a professional athlete.

In what may have been the single most embarrassing moment in the history of professional sports, Minnesota Vikings rookie Jim Marshall picked up a fumbled football just before halftime and ran for the goal line - the wrong goal line. He ended up scoring for San Francisco, the wrong team, in front a sold-out stadium and on national television.

Marshall virtually crawled into the locker room amid jeers. He didn’t want to come out for the second half, but he remembered what his father had taught him: If you make a mistake, you have to make it right. “I realized I had a choice,” Marshall told me. “I could sit in my misery, or I could do something about it.”

The second half ended up being one of Marshall’s best. He hurried the opposing passer into three interceptions and caused the fumble that Hall of Famer Carl Eller picked up and ran in for the winning touchdown. Afterward, Marshall acknowledged his mistake and his shame to reporters.

Soon, thousands of calls and letters started coming in from people Marshall had never met. They told him of their own embarrassments. Most of them said they had never told another person about a mistake, but what Marshall had done gave them the courage to do so. It freed them from their secrets, and they felt better for it. “My mistake had actually helped others,” Marshall said. “What a gift.”

After his playing days were over, Marshall made what he had learned his life’s mission, opening community centers to help youths, senior citizens and immigrants. “We reveal the mistakes, show them how to become responsible citizens, and allow them to make it right,” Marshall said. Now that’s a role model.

Seemingly fearful of getting anything wrong, Bush and his admirers have defended his presidency by saying history will prove he was right about most things, including Iraq. My guess is that history will prove that he never learned a thing from history.

This week, in reference to his ill-advised nomination of Tom Daschle for secretary of health and human services, Obama said to reporters: “Did I screw up in this situation? Absolutely, and I’m willing to take my lumps. You know, that’s part of the job here.”

Let’s hope learning from his mistakes is also part of the job. That’s what role models do.

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Chris Wallace thinks he may be in trouble at FOX for being gracious to Obama

I love Obama's style!!! So wonderfully different from the narcissistic, self-defensive Idiot who preceded him in the presidency. Isn't it great to have an obviously super-intelligent president who admits his mistakes and who can articulate so clearly in conversation and in speeches? I feel like I have died and gone to heaven! It's interesting, too, that even a FOX News ("fair and balanced" in your dreams!) reporter is admitting the truth about that cable "news" (Rupert Murdoch's views) station?

from www.crooksandliars.com

It was said in jest, sure, but does anyone here really doubt that treating Barack Obama (and his family) with a modicum of respect and fairness -- rather than, say, accusing them of being secret Muslin terrorists -- gets you some dirty looks in the FOX News break room? I mean, every good night for Obama throughout the campaign practically transformed the mood of the station into a funeral.

Wallace: You were widely quoted when you met with the House GOP caucus saying, "go ahead, feel free to whack me. I'll watch FOX News and feel bad about myself."

Obama: That one I did say.

Wallace: Perhaps, let me raise the possibility: Are you a trifle thin-skinned?

Obama: I said it in good humor. I think everyone understood that was a joke.

I think it's fair to say that I don't always get my most favorable coverage on Fox, but that's part of how a democracy is supposed to work. We're not all supposed to be in lock step here.

And you've always been very gracious to me.

Wallace: I don't know if that improves or hurts my stock at FOX News.

Obama: It may hurt it.

You can catch the entire interview here.

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Righting the Bush wrongs -- there are SO MANY -- Here's just one

Yet another example of "compassionate conservatism" during the Bush regime.

DOJ Rehires Attorney Fired in Bush Administration for Allegedly Being a Lesbian

Here's another Bush-era reversal we can all be proud of. Something tells me Monica Goodling's fingerprints are all over this one.

NPR:

On Monday, the Justice Department undid a small part of the damage that top officials caused in a scandal of politicized hiring and firing during the Bush administration. The department rehired an attorney who was improperly removed from her job because she was rumored to be a lesbian.

NPR first broke the story of Leslie Hagen's dismissal last April, and the Justice Department's inspector general later corroborated the report. Now, Hagen has returned to her post at the department's Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.

In 2006, Hagen was the liaison between the main Justice Department and the U.S. Attorneys' committee on Native American affairs. The chairman of that committee, Tom Heffelfinger, described Hagen to NPR last year as "the best qualified person in the nation to fill that job." Hagen's performance evaluations had the highest possible ratings — "outstanding" in each of five categories.

The job came up for renewal every year. After the first year, Hagen was surprised to hear that she would have to move on.

from www.crooksandliars.com

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Did you ever think you'd see the day????.....

...when Brit Hume at FOX News would praise OBAMA? It's a once-in-a-lifetime happening (click on the link below to see the video) -- but I notice Brit didn't say anything about Bush and Cheney's umpteen refusals to EVER admit a mistake or error in judgment. It seems that's something on which the FOX reporters would rather not focus their listeners' attention.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/04/foxs-brit-hume-praises-ob_n_163951.html

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Stephen Colbert -- on Rush Limbaugh

Don't miss this one -- it is GREAT!

http://crooksandliars.com/media/play/wmv/7255/25737

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The rich: too busy to pay taxes

It's only the little guys -- the middle class folks (who are fast disappearing into the poor class) who pay their taxes, while the rich think they can get away with anything. Three (THREE!) of Obama's nominess have now been revealed to be tax dodgers. What a disappointment for those of us who were hoping for something more than "business as usual" from our federal government "servants." Democrats or Republicans, the rich politicians all seem to be the same -- greed-driven, power-lusting, law-scoffing hypocrites. I am DISGUSTED with them all! But my disappointment is reserved for the Democrats, from whom I expected something better. After 8 years of Cheney/Bush, I already know Republicans can't be trusted in any way, shape, or form.
Taxes? Too Busy, Busy, Busy!

By Emily Yoffe
Tuesday, February 3, 2009; A15

Like many Americans whose steady, reliable job has suddenly disappeared, Thomas Daschle cobbled together a bunch of gigs when he was laid off in 2004 by the people of South Dakota after more than two decades of representing them in Congress.

There was the day job at the law firm Alston & Bird that must have been blessedly free of the kind of dull legal minutiae that make up many a billable hour, since Daschle is not a lawyer. That paid $2.1 million over the past two years. The consulting position at InterMedia Advisors, a private equity firm, paid him $1 million a year. A senior partner there told The Post that Daschle did "a lot of helpful work," which he declined to enumerate. A stream of speeches to businesses that had business with the government earned Daschle $500,000 during the past two years. There were directorships on several boards -- BP Corp. alone paid him $250,000. As practitioners of Bokononism, the religion created by Kurt Vonnegut in the book "Cat's Cradle," like to say when contemplating the complicated machinery of life: "Busy, busy, busy."

So busy must Daschle have been dashing from one job to another -- understandable to anyone who has to moonlight after the day shift ends -- it must have merely seemed like a sensible efficiency to say yes when the founder of InterMedia put a Cadillac and a driver at his disposal. It's easy to understand how natural such a gift must have seemed. At a farewell party in his honor after he left the Senate, The Post reports, Daschle told a joke about how on the way to the party both he and his wife got into the car and sat and sat until she said to him, "If this car is going to get us there, you better get in the driver's seat." Of the InterMedia-funded car and driver, Daschle's spokeswoman told The Post that Daschle "naively" believed "it was nothing more than a generous offer from a friend."

When someone earns more per week than the U.S. median yearly household income, we naively assume that person has more sophistication about money than the rest of us. But maybe the IRS, in an effort to find scofflaws, should have every American nominated to a Cabinet post, given the salutary effect it seems to have on one's memory of taxes unpaid -- witness the taxable-income confession of our new Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner.

Now Daschle, nominee to be secretary of health and human services, will go through the "mistakes were made" ritual -- in addition to belatedly recognizing that maybe he should have declared the limousine service, there was also some unreported consulting income and some irregularities with his charitable deductions. We will all end up finding out more than will ever be useful to us about the tax implications of gifts of luxury cars and chauffeurs. And the really interesting question that arises from all this -- What in the world did Tom Daschle do to earn all that money? -- will probably be left unanswered.

His spokeswoman says that for InterMedia, Daschle did "extensive work . . . raising funds." Did he spend hours shaking money out of the people in his BlackBerry like some highly paid telemarketer? The Alston & Bird Web site says that he focused "on advising the firm's clients on issues related to all aspects of public policy." Did that mean slogging through endless meetings explaining the intricacies of how to bend the legislative process to the clients' will? Did he make the right calls to get this done? Or was most of his value to these firms the simpler fact that on their payroll was Tom Daschle -- once one of the most powerful people in Washington, and with everything breaking the Democrats' way, likely to be so again?

"He's the gold standard for integrity in government," said a former aide to Daschle, Andrea LaRue, herself now a lobbyist. In recent months, as the economy has melted down, we have all learned about the art of monetization -- of turning things such as bad home equity loans into arcane derivatives and how there's lots of money to be made out of monetization (until sometimes the money disappears). Even if we don't know what Daschle did to earn all his money, we do know that when you monetize the job of Senate majority leader, as Daschle's financial disclosure forms reveal, you come up with almost $5.3 million in two years. Gold standard, indeed.

Emily Yoffe is a contributing writer to Slate.com.

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Federal Judge Rules Bush is a Felon (ABOUT TIME!)

http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/07/federal-judge-ruling-george-w-bush-is.html

EXCERPT:
 Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the US District Court in California has ruled that President George W. Bush is a felon. The ruling stems from the case of Al-Harmain Islamic Foundation Inc. v Bush, a case which will now be remembered as making it official that Bush's program of 'warrantless spying' is illegal.

Judge Walker held that the president lacks the authority to disregard the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA -- which means Bush's warrantless electronic surveillance program was illegal. Whether Bush will ultimately be held accountable for violating federal law with the program remains unclear. Bush administration lawyers have fought vigorously -- at times using brazen, logic-defying tactics -- to prevent that from happening. The court battle will continue to play out as Congress continues to battle over recasting FISA and possibly granting immunity to telecom companies involved in the illegal surveillance.--Suing George W. Bush: A bizarre and troubling tale

The complete story at Sott.net outlines the sorry history of how the Bush administration has defined the law of this nation as well as the laws of common sense and decency to carry out a program that would have made even Richard Nixon or J. Edgar Hoover blush.

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Memo to Conservative Republican Ditto-heads

CONSERVATIVES' PROFOUNDEST FEAR: THAT OBAMA WILL SUCCEED
by David Neiwert

Memo to Conservatives: You failed and are now irrelevant.

OK, I expect you'll ignore this memo like our previous ones. Nate Silver is right: Republicans are caught in a death spiral, and it's going to be awhile yet before they hit bottom.

Nowhere is it more self-evident than in the broad acknowledgment this week that the GOP is being led by a bilious radio talk-show host, and the ongoing fact that its most popular politician is a wingnutty, malinformed Alaska governor.

The unanimous refusal of House Republicans to vote in favor of Obama's stimulus plan may raised a cheer from the Dittoheads, but all it really demonstrated was the utter impotence of Conservatives to have any say in how we proceed with fixing the economy.

And there's one real reason for that: They broke it. Their philosophy of governance, especially their feverish laissez-faire demolition of regulatory oversight, and their obscene enrich-the-rich approach to taxation, were the two overarching reasons for our current economic debacle. Of course they still want to blame minority lending for the plunge, but no one with serious money is bothering to listen any longer, because they know what the story is. And so do most Americans.

So Rush Limbaugh can pen all the worthless split-the-baby-in-two proposals for economic stimulus he likes, and House Republicans can toss out all the tax-cut-heavy alternatives they like. And no one will take them seriously, because we've heard these proposals before -- for the past eight years, in fact. They've been nothing but a recipe for failure and disaster. Why would anyone want to take that course now?

What's worse for Republicans is that not only have they not yet figured out how irrelevant they've become, they are even further from understanding the reasons for their irrelevance. They're in deep denial about the direct relationship between their philosophy and the current economic debacle, and even more so the extent to which the public is finding their pugnacious, vicious, attacking style of politics increasingly repellent. (AMEN!)

So Neil Cavuto is right when he defends Limbaugh by saying that of course, ideologically speaking, conservatives will naturally as a matter of principle oppose Obama's policies. We understand that Limbaugh and other conservatives believes that Obama's policies will fail and will vote and speak accordingly.

But he completely overlooks the problem with Limbaugh when he openly hopes Obama will fail: It's one thing to believe a policy will fail and oppose it accordingly. It's quite another to openly hope for it.

Most liberals, by way of contrast, believed George W. Bush would fail, and many predicted it; but it's hard to find any of them, particularly leading Democrats, who were out there saying that they hoped he -- and by extension, the nation -- would fail after 9/11 because his policies were "fascist." They opposed these policies in principle. Anyone who openly hoped for our military failure in Iraq, for instance, was in a tiny minority; but there were millions of us who opposed the war because we believed it was not only wrongheaded but doomed to fail. And we were proved right.

In fact, all this shouting is just cover for Republicans' greatest and deepest fear: That Obama in fact will succeed. That progressive "socialism" (as they call it) actually will make people's lives better, heal the economy, and get the nation back on its feet. That the nation's working people will finally get a clear view of which side is on their side. That the public will finally see that not only is Conservatism an abject failure, it's a fraud.

In the end, they are such deeply invested ideologues that they would rather see the nation fail than see that reality reach fruition.

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The Bush Library

The George W Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages and accepting donations.


The Library will include:

*         The Hurricane Katrina Room , which is still under construction.

*         The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything.

*         The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up.

*         The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in.

*         The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out.

*         The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has been able to find.

*         The National Debt Room, which is huge and has no ceiling.

*         The Tax Cut Room, with entry only to the wealthy.

*         The Iraq War Room. (After you complete your first visit, they make you to go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth visit.)

*         The Economy Room, which is in the toilet.

*         The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with shotgun gallery.

*         The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty.

*         The Supreme Gift Shop, where you can buy an election.

*         The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.

*         The Decider Room, complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws.


Note: The library will feature an electron microscope to help you locate and view the President's accomplishments.

The library will also include many famous Quotes by George W. Bush:

' The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country. '

' If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure. '

' Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and
child. '

' No senior citizen should ever have to choose between prescription drugs and medicine. '

' I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change. '

' One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is ' to be prepared ' . '

' Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things. '

' I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future. '

' The future will be better tomorrow

' We're going to have the best educated American people in the world. '

' One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.' (during an education photo-op)

' Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it. '

' We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur. '

' It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it. '

' I stand by all the misstatements that I've made. '

George W. Bush to Sam Donaldson

PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY!

Sincerely,
Jack Abramoff, Co-Chair
G.W. Bush Library Board of Directors

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Obama -- we finally have a Democrat in the White House!!!

by Greg Palast (Cynic Extraordinaire!)

Republicans are right. President Barack Obama treated them like dirt, didn't give a damn what they thought about his stimulus package, loaded it with a bunch of programs that will last for years and will never leave the budget, is giving away money disguised as "tax refunds," and is sneaking in huge changes in policy, from schools to health care, using the pretext of an economic emergency.

Way to go, Mr. O! Mr. Down-and-Dirty Chicago pol. Street-fightin' man. Covering over his break-your-face power play with a "we're all post-partisan friends" BS.

And it's about time.

Frankly, I was worried about this guy. Obama's appointing Clinton-droids to the Cabinet, bloated incompetents like Larry Summers as "Economics Czar," made me fear for my country, that we'd gotten another Democrat who wished he were a Republican.

Then came Obama's money bomb. The House bill included $125 billion for schools (TRIPLING federal spending on education), expanding insurance coverage to the unemployed, making the most progressive change in the tax code in four decades by creating a $500 credit against social security payroll deductions, and so on.

It's as if Obama dug up Ronald Reagan's carcass and put a stake through The Gipper's anti-government heart. Aw-RIGHT!

About the only concession Obama threw to the right-wing trogs was to remove the subsidy for condoms, leaving hooker-happy GOP Senators, like David Vitter, to pay for their own protection. S'OK with me.

And here's the proof that Bam is The Man: Not one single Republican congressman voted for the bill. And that means that Obama didn't compromise, the way Clinton and Carter would have, to win the love of these condom-less jerks.

And we didn't need'm. Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!

Now I understand Obama's weird moves: dinner with those creepy conservative columnists, earnest meetings at the White House with the Republican leaders, a dramatic begging foray into Senate offices. Just as the Republicans say, it was all a fraud. Obama was pure Chicago, Boss Daley in a slim skin, putting his arms around his enemies, pretending to listen and care and compromise, then slowly, quietly, slipping in the knife. All while the media praises Obama's "post-partisanship." Heh heh heh.

Love it. Now we know why Obama picked that vindictive little viper Rahm Emanuel as staff chief: everyone visiting the Oval office will be greeted by the Windy City hit man who would hack up your grandma if you mess with the Godfather-in-Chief.

I don't know about you, but THIS is the change I've been waiting for.

Will it last? We'll see if Obama caves in to more tax cuts to investment bankers. We'll see if he stops the sub-prime scum-bags from foreclosing on frightened families. We'll see if he stands up to the whining, gormless generals who don't know how to get our troops out of Iraq. (In SHIPS, you doofusses!)

Look, don't get your hopes up. But it may turn out the new President's ... a Democrat!

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Short video -- good advice for Republicans

from Stephen Colbert...
http://crooksandliars.com/media/play/wmv/7217/25607

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Our brains and our memories -- interesting article

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/28/memory.research/index.html

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Self-reflection can be valuable -- Republicans ought to try it

A Hole Worth Digging?
by Dylan Loewe

After the 2006 midterm election, the Republican Party showed such a dramatic inability to engage in self-reflection - and self-correction - that in 2008, they ushered in a beating without precedent at all levels of government. Now, as the GOP prepares to oppose President Obama's economic stimulus plan, to oppose a president with overwhelming approval ratings and a mandate for change, to oppose a piece of legislation with broad support from a desperate public, it is becoming ever more clear that, from the perspective of the Republican leadership, a hole worth digging is a hole worth digging deep.

Since Election Day, the post-mortem analysis of the Republican Party, by the Republican Party, has been exceptionally superficial. Most GOP officials and conservative opinion makers argued that the party was led astray because of an abandonment of conservative principles. Republicans failed and a liberal Democrat was elected, Republicans concluded, because Republicans weren't Republican enough. It's with that brand of logic that they've begun moving forward.

Having presided over an economic crisis not seen since Hoover, their squabbles with pork and excessive spending in the economic stimulus plan will be perceived as ranging from blindingly disingenuous to outright hypocritical. When the public lost the benefit of a government it could trust, the Republican party lost the benefit of the doubt.

What the party has yet to fully accept is that there are long-term consequences to losing credibility. Long after public opinion had cratered around Republican ideas and officials, long after the scandals, and the crises, no matter the facts, no matter the consequences, the leaders of the Republican Party defended their debunked philosophies and tainted colleagues.

Now, injured and wayward, the Republican leadership has geared up for a fight it cannot win, against a president who, both in mandate and in institutional advantage, enjoys unmatched power. That they cannot see the strategic error they are engaging in, that they are unable to regroup and reformulate, self-assess and readjust, is perhaps the answer to the most dumb-founding of questions. How could the Republicans, who only four years ago spoke of a permanent majority, have allowed themselves to become almost entirely irrelevant?

They have only one playbook, and it doesn't apply.

You don't win a post-partisan argument by being partisan. You win it by being right. If the Republican Party hopes to survive, they need to get on board, the sooner the better. They should stand with President Obama, support his policies and his mission, take credit for some of his accomplishments, and hope, hope, that he one day makes a mistake. Unless and until that happens, the public will continue to treat them like the obstacle they've become - unreasonable and irrational, unqualified and ill-equipped for government.

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Bailout recipients doing all they can to keep the middle class workers down forever

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/bank-of-america-hosted-an_n_161248.html

The Republican Way.... Make the rich guys richer and don't ever let the little guys have a buy into the "American Dream."

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Dead athletes' brains show extensive damage from concussions

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/26/athlete.brains/index.html

I have never been a fan of violent sports. It really shouldn't be too surprising to discover that the sum total of several concussions is often extensive brain damage. I hope today's parents take note of this research and keep their children from participating in violent-type (with deliberate slamming, butting, hitting, etc.) sports like football and wrestling--and boxing. Competitive sports don't need to be violent to be fun. There are so many sports that lend themselves to competition without violence: basketball, baseball, tennis, archery, skating, swimming, diving, etc., etc. Choosing those types of sports could keep our children safer from brain injury.

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