The WAWG Blog

Ex-Leaders of Countrywide Financial Profit From Bad Loans – Fairly or not, Countrywide Financial and its top executives would be on most lists of those who share blame for the nation’s economic crisis. After all, the banking behemoth made risky loans to tens of thousands of Americans, helping set off a chain of events that has the economy staggering. So it may come as a surprise that a dozen former top Countrywide executives now stand to make millions from the home mortgage mess. Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide’s former president, and his team have been buying up delinquent home mortgages that the government took over from other failed banks, sometimes for pennies on the dollar. They get a piece of what they can collect. “It has been very successful — very strong. In fact, it’s off-the-charts good,” said John Lawrence, the company’s head of loan servicing, who was leaning back comfortably in his leather boardroom chair, even as the financial markets in New York were plunging.

Bailed Out AIG Spending Millions On Four Public-Relation Firms, In-House Team – Keeping the spin machine going.

One Flew Over the CPAC Nest – The leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

Only 28% percent of Americans view Limbaugh favorably, 45 percent unfavorably. The Republicans have replaced George W. Bush with someone who rates even worse. Of course they don’t see it that way since, among Republicans, Limbaugh has a 63% approval rating. Compare 63% to 28% and tell me that Republicans are on the same planet as the rest of the country.

Republican Hypocrisy on Earmarks – Have you heard all the Republicans complaining about earmarks in the new budget? Well, Taxpayers for Common Sense has compiled a spreadsheet of earmarks in the current budget. Look at the top ten earmarkers and you will see that six are Republicans, four are Democrats. Among the top ten, there were 825 earmarks submitted by Republicans and 613 by Democrats. The dollar amounts total to $1,796 million for Republicans and $1,084 million for Democrats.

Getting a Driver’s License in Post 9-11 Republican-Land – The woman asked me for my license, social security number, and current address, then told me to look into that weird telescope-y thing and read the fourth row of numbers and letters. Squinting, I did the best I could, given that the letters were about as legible as those Facebook partial-word confirmation messages. Apparently I missed two, but she shrugged, as if to say, oh well, the state needs your $24, Meemaw. I was almost done. Until she looked at her computer screen, then looked at me.

“Are you a U.S. citizen?” I stared back at her. “You’re kidding, right?”
Her: “No. It says here that your lawful status has not been verified.”
Me: “Look at me.”
Her: “You’re going to need to bring in your birth certificate as proof of citizenship.”
Me: “My birth certificate. Do you know what my birth certificate says?”
Her: (blank stare)
Me: “It says my name is Baby Girl Smith. First name, Baby. Middle name, Girl. Last name, Smith.”
Lady: “Uh-huh.”
Me: “My parents couldn’t decide on a name because they thought I was going to be a boy.”
Her: “Ma’am…”
Me: “They were going to name me Bernie.”
Her: “You could also bring in your passport.”
Me: “Trust me, I’m American.”
Her: “No.”
Me: “I can’t speak Spanish for shit!”
Her: (looking over my shoulder) “Next?”
Me: “BUT I’M BLOND!”
Her: “NO NOT REALLY!”

CIA Realizes It’s Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years – A report released Tuesday by the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General revealed that the CIA has mistakenly obscured hundreds of thousands of pages of critical intelligence information with black highlighters. According to the report, sections of the documents— “almost invariably the most crucial passages”—are marred by an indelible black ink that renders the lines impossible to read, due to a top-secret highlighting policy that began at the agency’s inception in 1947.

CIA Director Porter Goss has ordered further internal investigation. “Why did it go on for this long, and this far?” said Goss in a press conference called shortly after the report’s release. “I’m as frustrated as anyone. You can’t read a single thing that’s been highlighted. Had I been there to advise [former CIA director] Allen Dulles, I would have suggested the traditional yellow color—or pink.”

Goss added: “There was probably some really, really important information in these documents.” When asked by a reporter if the black ink was meant to intentionally obscure, Goss countered, “Good God, why?” (More humor at the link.)

Regards,

Jim

Porn in the USA: Conservatives Are the Biggest Consumers – Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, a new nationwide study finds. “Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by,” says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School. Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year’s presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama.

Church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays – a 1% increase in a postal code’s religious attendance was associated with a 0.1% drop in subscriptions that day. However, expenditures on other days of the week brought them in line with the rest of the country, Edelman finds. Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don’t explicitly restrict gay marriage.

Limbaugh Made False Claim About 401(k) Plans and Social Security – In a time when the nation calls out for cool leadership and rational discussion, Limbaugh stirs the caldron, a tendency he proved in a particularly grotesque way last week when he accused Obama’s party of plotting a government takeover of 401(k) retirement plans. “They’re going to take your 401(k), put it in the Social Security trust fund, whatever the hell that is,” Limbaugh woofed. “Trust fund, my rear end.” A slight problem with Limbaugh’s report: Obama and the Democrats have proposed no such thing.

Republican Administration Concluded It Was OK to Suspend the First Amendment of the Constitution – In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against U.S. citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according to a memo released Monday. the memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel—along with others made public for the first time Monday—illustrates with new details the extraordinary post-9/11 powers asserted by Bush administration lawyers. Those assertions ultimately led to such controversial policies as allowing the waterboarding of terror suspects and permitting warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens—steps that remain the subject of ongoing investigations by Congress and the Justice Department. In perhaps the most surprising assertion, the Oct. 23, 2001, memo suggested the president could even suspend press freedoms if he concluded it was necessary to wage the war on terror. The memo stated, “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.”

Regards,

Jim

Limbaugh Repeats His Wish: ‘I Want Barack Obama to Fail’ – Rush Limbaugh wants America to know that there’s nothing wrong with wanting President Barack Obama to fail. In fact, the conservative talk show host said Saturday, wanting the new U.S. president to fail is “nothing more than common sense.”

(Is this really all that different from the past eight years where the Republican administration did everything it could to make government fail so that they could prove their point? Proving their ideology is always more important than actually solving or preventing problems. – JLV)

Santorum At CPAC: ‘Absolutely We Hope That’ Obama Fails – In an interview with ThinkProgress today, radio host Mark Levin and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) added their voices to the chorus of conservatives hoping for Obama’s failure:

TP: What do you think about what Rush said about, I mean, do you hope, should we hope that President Obama fails?
LEVIN: Yes.
TP: Yes?
SANTORUM: If…absolutely we hope that his policies fail.
TP: Ok.
SANTORUM: Because, well, we, I believe his policies will fail, I don’t know, but I hope they fail, I don’t know. But I believe they will fail.

(That’s right Rick, you don’t know, but you are willing to hurt the nation and its citizens just so you can say, “I told you so.” – JLV)

Rush Limbaugh Accuses Barack Obama of Pursuing the “Bastardization of the U.S. Constitution” Just After Limbaugh Misquotes the Constitution – During his much-discussed keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, Rush Limbaugh accused Barack Obama of pursuing the “bastardization of the U.S. Constitution.” It was one of the more politically acidic notes in a speech defined by rambling political assaults. But the conservative talk show host wasn’t exactly standing on firm footing. Just a few moments earlier he himself had actually — not theoretically — “bastardized” the Constitution by confusing it with the Declaration of Independence.

From Limbaugh’s speech:

We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause]

Here is the Constitution’s Preamble: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The GOP Problem Solver – Yes, they do have the answer to every problem! And if you don’t like the first answer, just press the “That doesn’t make sense button.”

Regards,

Jim

Ronald Reagan demolished the Fairness doctrine in 1983.  For those who don’t remember, the Fairness Doctrine was a program enforced by the FCC that ensured discussion of national policy matters equally represented opposing views.  The justification for killing the doctrine was that there were so many news sources available that it was no longer necessary.   This gave rise to right wing hate radio; the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin; people who say whatever they want without benefit of actual thought, knowledge or fear of question.
 
We are told repeatedly that the Main Stream Media is biased to the Left and that’s why hate radio is necessary.  If this were true you’d think the Right would be crying for a Fairness Doctrine, wouldn’t you?   So, is the media really biased to the left?  Let’s take just one topic: The Stimulus Package. 
 
During the Bush years Democrats couldn’t get a word in edgewise.  It was 24/7 run up to war and anyone asking questions was un-patriotic.  They were the winners of the election and represented the People, right?  Democrats just won their second election.  They now control Congress and the Presidency.  It was the Democrats who designed the stimulus plan and who researched the various methods of reversing the downward spiral in our economy.   So who do the talking heads call on to talk about the stimulus package?  Republicans by 2:1.  WTF? 
 

Well, the economy is a pretty complicated thing, right?  I mean we have a $14 TRILLION GDP and it’s not just everybody who can decipher why the various parts of it do what they do.  Doesn’t it take years of education and study to even know what the different aspects of the economy are?  So you’d think the talking heads would find those experts who know such things; you know the Pulitzer Prize winners who are recognized for their knowledge and perceptions of how economics work?   Well, only 6% if the “experts” interviewed on cable and broadcast networks were economists.  Six effin’ percent!  The rest were political consultants, congress critters and talk show hosts.  And they were right of center by a 2:1 margin!
 
Meanwhile we are bombarded with terms like “socialist”, “class warfare” and “big government”.  Why do you think that is?  Could it be that the MSM is just another bunch BIG CORPORATIONS with a vested interest in keeping things the way they are?  You know, tax breaks and regulations, or lack thereof, that keep them rich and safe from scrutiny? 
 
Want another example of “balanced coverage”?  Every “news source” for the last week has been Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) coverage 24/7.   Every word and nuance of extreme right wing nut-o-phobia from Rush Limbaugh praying that Obama, and our economy, fails to Wayne LaPierre, President of the NRA, declaring the Constitution nothing but “stains on a rotten piece of parchment paper in a museum somewhere”. 

CPAC drew 8,500 attendees this year.  Well, at the same time CPAC was going on a two year old left leaning organization, Powershift.org, held their annual meeting with Democratic Party speakers.  It drew 10,000 attendees and ended with a march to the White House.  Anybody here even heard of Powershift?  
 
Meanwhile, the media’s idea of “balanced coverage” is to allow every religious nut-job air time to proclaim homosexuality an abomination, advocate for teaching Old Testament superstition in biology class, and oil industry “experts” to “de-bunk” Global Climate Change.  
 
I say all this to remind you that you must question what you are told.  By all sides including those you want to believe.  Question me.  Read the sources, vet their validity and take nothing on face value, even if it seems to make sense on the surface.
 
I will close with two quotes from Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister:

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

and

The greater the lie, the greater the chance that it will be believed.

Household debt: Credit card debt, car loans, personal loans and home mortgages

According to NPR’s Morning Edition, Columbia professor David Beim said this about his chart:

The problem is us. The problem is not the banks, greedy though they may be, overpaid though they may be. The problem is us… We’ve been living very high on the hog. Our living standard has been rising dramatically in the last 25 years. And we have been borrowing much of the money to make that prosperity happen.

Morning Edition went on:

“From 2000 to 2008, it’s almost a hockey stick. It just goes dramatically upward,” Beim says. “It hits 100 percent of GDP. That is to say, currently, consumers owe $13 trillion when GDP is $13 trillion. That is a ton.”

This has happened before. The chart shows two peaks when consumer debt levels equaled the GDP: One occurred in 2007, the other in 1929.

And that scares Beim.

“That chart is the most striking piece of evidence that I have that what is happening to us is something that goes way beyond toxic assets in banks. It’s something that has little to do with the mechanics of mortgage securitization, or ethics on Wall Street, or anything else,” Beim says. “It says: The problem is us. The problem is not the banks, greedy though they may be, overpaid though they may be. The problem is us.”

We have overborrowed, Beim says: “We’ve been living very high on the hog. Our living standard has been rising dramatically in the last 25 years. And we have been borrowing much of the money to make that prosperity happen.”

I don’t totally agree with Mr. Beim – that banks are not the problem. It takes two to tangle and create such a crisis.

Back in the late 1970’s after I graduated with an engineering degree, I could barely get a gasoline credit card. It wasn’t until 1984, that I was able to get a major credit card. Since then, I, and millions of others, easily added other cards and refused many many credit card offers.

Back in 1992, when we got a home loan, we went though weeks of “interrogation” before it was approved.

Look where we are now. First, it was easy credit cards, then zero interest car loans, and finally easy unrealistic home loans to satisfy investor greed. Who made it so easy? Who couldn’t resist the temptation to move up or get rich quick?

Big Banks Try to Stop Help for Struggling Homeowners – Big banks, scrambling to prevent the government from forcing them to rewrite mortgages for struggling homeowners, are using their lobbying clout to press the Obama administration and Congress to scale back a key measure to rescue borrowers from foreclosures.

Rush Limbaugh Doesn’t Have a Clue (Why Women Don’t Like Him) – Women don’t really like Rush Limbaugh. On Feb. 23, Public Policy Polling released findings showing that only 37 percent of women hold a favorable opinion of the hate radio host. But Limbaugh says he can’t figure out why women don’t like him. So here’s his solution:

We’ll have a summit of all the women in this audience — or as many of them as we can get into breakout groups — and perhaps devote an hour in an upcoming program to calls only from women who genuinely want to talk to me. … I own the men, and what must I do now to own women? And who better to ask than women? Including some of those who may agree that that I’m unfavorable. So stand by for that.

Maybe it’s because women generally don’t like the sexist remarks that Limbaugh is so fond of.

Bobby Jindal is Falsely Portrayed as a Washington Outsider – Gov. Jindal is an outsider devoid of any connection to those unpopular Congressional Republicans. There’s one small problem with that description. It just isn’t true. If anyone in the media thinks for a minute that describing Gov. Jindal in this fashion is accurate, they should bear in mind the following:

Bobby Jindal was appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2001 to be Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation.

Bobby Jindal was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004 as a Republican, taking over for now-Senator David Vitter and serving until January of 2008. (Something even the right-wing Newsbusters felt important enough to point out, though they got the years of his service wrong.)
Bobby Jindal, upon coming to Congress in 2004, was elected Republican Freshman Class president by his GOP colleagues. How outsidery.

Bobby Jindal, while in Congress, voted with Congressional Republicans, the ones he is soooo far away from now, an average of nearly 89% of the time, according to Congressional Quarterly’s annual review (password required) of votes.

Bobby Jindal, while in Congress, collected campaign contributions from notorious sources like disgraced former Majority Leader and consummate GOP insider Tom Delay’s ARMPAC.

Bobby Jindal, as noted above, only left Congress last year when he became Governor of Louisiana — happy Mardi Gras!

With deep ties like these to Washington, former President Bush and Congressional Republicans, how anyone in the press could infer that Gov. Jindal is an “outsider” is beyond me.

Jindal’s Story About the Katrina Rescue Boats is Not True – Remember that story Bobby Jindal told in his big speech Tuesday night — about how during Katrina, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a local sheriff who was battling government red tape to try to rescue stranded victims? Turns out it wasn’t exactly true. Jindal overheard Lee talking about the episode to someone else by phone “days later.” The spokeswoman said she thought Lee, who died in 2007, was being interviewed about the incident at the time.

Secret Norm Coleman-Lawyer E-Mails Reveal Intentional Hiding Of Witness – On Wednesday, the Coleman team was caught having withheld notes given to them in early January by Pamela Howell, a Republican election worker in Minneapolis. (Note: Minnesota precinct workers are selected by partisan identification, and then buddied up across party lines to keep it running smoothly and honestly.) The court then struck the witness’ testimony, relating to double-counting of votes — but then turned around yesterday and reversed themselves, after the Coleman team said it had been an honest oversight — that there was no bad faith involved.

This morning, Franken lawyer David Lillehaug was restarting his cross-examination of Howell, and inquired as to whether there had been any further communications between herself and Coleman. The answer was yes — and Coleman lawyer Tony Trimble then had to cough up some private e-mails he’d sent to Howell in early January.

“Pam, the legal team and campaign have made a strategic litigation decision to hold off from having you sign and us file your affidavit at this time,” Trimble (or possibly his assistant, Matt Haapoja) wrote on January 6, saying this was being done “to avoid tying you down to any particular testimony and to avoid having to disclose your name and statement.”

Weighing Lives Against Money, Jindal Chooses Money – Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s swipe at federal spending to monitor volcanoes has the mayor of one city in the shadow of Mount St. Helens fuming. Jindal singled out a $140 million appropriation for the U.S. Geological Survey as an example of questionable government spending during the GOP response to President Obama’s address to Congress Tuesday night. The governor, a rising Republican star, questioned why “something called ‘volcano monitoring’ ” was included in the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus bill Obama signed earlier this month. “Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington,” Jindal said.

But Marianne Guffanti, a volcano researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey, said, “We don’t throw the money down the crater of the volcano and watch it burn up.” The USGS, which received the money Jindal criticized, is monitoring several active volcanoes across the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and Hawaii. One of those is Mount St. Helens, about 70 miles north of Vancouver, Washington, and neighboring Portland, Oregon. The volcano killed 57 people when it erupted in 1980 and sputters back into action periodically, most recently in late 2004 and early 2005, when it sent plumes of steam and ash thousands of feet into the air.

USGS researchers are also keeping a close eye on Alaska’s Mount Redoubt volcano, about 100 miles from Anchorage, which is predicted to go off again within a few months. Its last eruption, in 1989, disrupted air traffic and forced down a commercial jet that sucked ash into its engines. “If we can give good information about what’s happening, that system of diversions and cancellations all works much more efficiently,” Guffanti said. “And fewer people are delayed and standard business is resumed quickly.”

Growing Hate Groups Blame Obama, Economy – The number of hate groups grew by 54 percent since 2000, according to a study that identified 926 hate groups — defined as groups with beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people — active in 2008. That’s a 4 percent jump, adding 38 more than the year before. What makes this year’s report different is that hate groups have found two more things to be angry about — the nation’s first African-American president and an economy that is hemorrhaging jobs. For the past decade, Latino immigration has fueled the growth of hate groups.

Burris’ Son Got State Job From Blago – The son of embattled Sen. Roland Burris is a federal tax deadbeat who landed a $75,000-a-year state job under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich five months ago, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. Blagojevich’s administration hired Roland W. Burris II as a senior counsel for the state’s housing authority Sept. 10 — about six weeks after the Internal Revenue Service slapped a $34,163 tax lien on Burris II and three weeks after a mortgage company filed a foreclosure suit on his South Side house.

Alarm was Sounded About Stanford Financial Group in 2000, But was Ignored – When Federal agents raided the offices of Stanford Financial Group earlier this month, exposing a massive fraud and successfully preventing its perpetrator, Allen Stanford, from lamming it overseas, it was the culmination of more than an investigation into a despicable “mini-Madoff” Ponzi operation. It was also a neat little public relations moment for the beleaguered Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and their former head Mary Schapiro, who now heads up the equally beleaguered Securities and Exchange Commission. Despite what you may have thought about the way FINRA and the SEC seemed to be clueless to the ways of Bernie Madoff — and those agencies could have made use of both celebrated whistleblower Harry Markopolos and a timely article from Michael Ocrant at MAR Hedge — this new regulatory regime was serious about bringing scofflaws to justice, and those who were formerly asleep at the switch were going to get regular wake up calls.

It turns out that another forgotten reporter, in this case David Ivanovich of the Houston Chronicle, had raised some serious alarms about Stanford back in 2000. In an article entitled “Houston Banker Tries to Create Caribbean Empire, Runs into Problems with Feds” (July 16, 2000) Ivanovich chronicles Stanford’s wheeler-dealing in the nation of Antigua, painting a picture of Stanford that finds him waist deep in shadiness, even downright creepiness.

Most Iodine Supplements Mislabeled, Study Says – Most multivitamin supplements that contain iodine carry less — and sometimes far less — of the element than stated on the label, possibly putting newborns at risk for developmental delays, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. The American Thyroid Association’s recommended daily dose for pregnant and lactating women is 150 micrograms per day. Among the 44 products that claimed to deliver that amount, one third had less than half that amount. Iodine deficiency affects more than 38 percent of the world’s population and is the leading cause of preventable mental retardation. )And Republicans say there is no need for government monitoring?)

John Bolton Suggests Nuking Chicago – Former UN Ambassador John Bolton believes the security of the United States is at dire risk under the Obama administration. And before a gathering of conservatives in Washington on Thursday morning, he suggested, as something of a joke, that President Barack Obama might learn a needed lesson if Chicago were destroyed by a nuclear bomb.

Laura Bush Really Cares About America, But Just Totally Forgot to Watch the President’s Speech – Despite the lack of newspaper delivery at their new home, the former first lady said they are keeping up with the news back in the nation’s capital but they certainly are not operating on Washington’s clock.

In fact, Mrs. Bush said she did not watch President Obama’s address to Congress on Tuesday night because she “totally forgot about it.”

“The next day I thought it was so ironic that for eight years I would be a nervous wreck before the State of the Union, and for days before, as George would be preparing his speech, worried about it and thinking about what was going to be in the speech. And this time it came and went and I didn’t even think about it.”

The GOP’s Next Anti-Pork Rallying Cry: Blueberries! – On Friday, Minority Leader John Boehner attacked the omnibus spending bill currently heading through Congress by honing in one particularly odd-sounding earmark: federal money for “blueberry research.” Absurdity was the effect that Boehner was hoping for, and the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference ate it up (not literally). But there was, as usual, another side to story: without the money, experts say, the blueberry industry could fall by the wayside; hundreds if not thousands of jobs could be at risk, and the U.S. government could deny itself serious advancements in medicine and cancer research.

Chrysler, GM at Bottom of List of Reliable Vehicles – Chrysler and General Motors took the bottom two spots, respectively, in Consumer Reports magazine’s new automaker for reliability, even as the pair seek billions more in federal loans to stay afloat. The third of Detroit’s Big 3 automakers, Ford Motor, fared better at fourth from the bottom, also beating Suzuki.

First place went to Honda for the third-consecutive year, followed by Subaru, Toyota and Mazda. Next came a tie by Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Volkswagen and BMW, among the 15 makers rated. They were followed by Hyundai, Volvo and Mitsubishi.

Stonewalling in Style: Bank of America – On Thursday, the president of Bank of America, Ken Lewis, refused to provide a list of bonus payments to the New York Attorney General, after arriving in New York in his $50 million corporate jet.

Republican Statements That Stimulus Money Can’t be Spent Soon Shown to be False – Less than a week after President Obama signed the economic stimulus bill into law, some states are moving quickly to take advantage of transportation funding. Missouri had construction crews working on a bridge replacement within minutes of Obama signing the bill. Iowa awarded contracts Feb. 20 on 19 projects ranging from bridge replacements to resurfacing roads worth $56.6 million. In Utah, transportation officials solicited bids for six highway repavement projects. Contracts will be awarded in early March, said Nile Easton, a spokesman for the state’s department of transportation. “Every Tuesday and Thursday for the next six to eight weeks we’ll advertise chunks of projects,” Easton said. He said all of the projects will be awarded contracts by late spring and the state’s entire list will be completed by the end of the calendar year.

Regards,

Jim

Republican Senator/Congressman:

You may be dependent on the voters in your state, but you are a senator in our nation’s congress. You don’t just represent your state. You represent all of we the people and that should have more weight in your congressional decisions than looking out for your state or your party. If you are only there for your state, then you need to consider changing jobs and get elected to your state’s congress.

With that said, you need to recognize that your conservative rhetoric on what is right for our economy is not what the nation voted for last November. We have learned from the mistakes of the conservative worldview that has brought us to this economic crisis. You should try and learn from it also.

You have supported years of borrow and spend. You have supported huge deficit spending for the war in Iraq. You have supported tax cut after tax cut while sending more and more. Your president Bush never vetoed any spending bill and pork reached record levels under conservative leadership. And now you are worried about spending and tax increases to cover some of that spending. Give us a break!!

We need to start paying for our way of life. We need to stop asking others, China, to pay for our mistakes. The Greatest Generation paid tax rates of up to 94 percent to help fund a war they all supported. On the other hand, all we were asked to do to support our wars was ‘shop.’

The “core membership” you are pandering to represents less than a quarter of the voting public. Please stop bowing to the Republican leadership under threat of “you’re on your own” come election time. Please, start working for the majority of the nation whom you represent.

From time to time I get emails about how our government is luring us into Socialism and slowly stealing our liberty, particularly now that we have a Democratically controlled Congress and a Democratic President. Well, with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy;

IF you have ever driven on a road that was built, maintained and patrolled for safety using public monies…. YOU may be a socialist.

IF you helped your elderly parents sign up for Medicare so you would not have to pay for the healthcare they need… YOU may be a socialist.

IF you sent your kids to a public school… YOU may be a socialist

IF you have ever invested in stock, held a bank account, owned or used American currency… YOU may be a socialist.

IF you drink water supplied by a utility that is tested to EPA guidelines… YOU may be a socialist.

IF you define socialism as any form of taking tax money from people to provide services and infrastructure, YOU really don’t understand what Socialism actually is. You are dependent on society and society takes care of many of your needs without you even thinking about it. Here are some other things I like about what some people call Socialism:

I like knowing that when I buy gas, I get a real gallon. (Bureau of Weights & Measures)

When I eat at a restaurant, I like being reasonably sure there isn’t a rat turd in my soup. (Health Dept.)

I like being reasonably sure that my airliner won’t crash into another. (FAA)

I like the knowledge that if my ship sinks, I can call someone to rescue me. (Coast Guard)

I like believing that when I take medicine for an illness, I’ll probably be OK. (FDA)

I like knowing that if my wife gets makeup in her eye, she probably won’t go blind. (FDA)

I like knowing that even if my bank president runs off with the money, I’ll still be able to get my savings. (FDIC)

I like knowing that if my neighbor starts dumping toxic waste in HIS yard, I can stop him. (EPA)

I like knowing when a hurricane or tornado is approaching. (Weather Bureau)

I like weekends off, overtime, vacation, and a 40hr work week. (Those evil Socialist Labor Unions)

I like it that McDonalds and Wal-Mart can’t exploit children. (Child Labor Laws)

I like knowing that someone is watching out for epidemics. (Center for Disease Control)

I like knowing that I can seek assistance if my employer creates a deadly work environment. (OSHA)

I like it when people who are too disabled to support themselves aren’t forced to be beggars. (SSI/SSDI)

I like being able to afford to educate my kids. (Public Education) (Pell Grants)

I like to see snake-pit nursing homes fined and shut-down. (State Inspections & Appeals)

I like it when a person injured on the job can get some financial help with retraining and job placement. (Unemployment/Vocational Rehabilitation)

I like knowing that if my house catches on fire, someone will come to put it out.

I like being able to call the Police if I need them.

If that makes me a Socialist, just call me Comrade.

Joe Barton Too Busy Tweeting to Pay Attention to President’s Speech; Blames It On a Staffer – During President Obama’s address to Congress, there was Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), in whose name this text message was sent at about the time the president spoke of the need to pull the country together: “Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren’t going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour.” A few minutes later, another message came through: “Disregard that last Tweet from a staffer.”

Let Them Sleep On The Street! Fox News Calls Troubled Homeowners “Deadbeats” – In a panel on Fox News in which nobody advocated for the homeowners in question, Fox repeatedly characterized them as “deadbeats” who would be profiting at the expense of working people. No statistics were provided to back up their inflammatory soundbites nor was there any information about the nature of the actual suffering of non-deadbeats who may have lost their only shelter as a result of a job loss or medical bills, etc. Statements made included, “We are incentivizing people not to pay their mortgages. These dead beats have no moral right to my money.” and “We have to let this thing purge itself. Let them fail. Let the houses come to market.” [Conservative without conscience worldview: You’re on your own and you get what you deserver for being undisciplined and immoral.]

While Republicans Call People With Housing Problems “Losers” That Don’t Deserve Help, Military Families Are Affected Particularly Hard – The orders came while Navy Lt. Adam Diaz was winding down a one-year stint in Baghdad: Report to the Navy Annex in Arlington for a new assignment in April. — Given the military lifestyle, the prospect of a move came as no surprise to Diaz, 31, who has spent his adult life in the Navy. The shock came when he spoke with his wife, Stephanie Diaz, about the value of the Jacksonville, Fla., home they bought in June 2006, near the height of the housing bubble. — “Hey, by the way,” she recalls telling him. “The house has been valued for about 50 grand less than when we bought it.” The housing crisis is hitting military families particularly hard, according to real estate agents and service member advocacy groups. Many who bought during the boom and must now relocate because of fresh orders are faced with selling their homes at a big loss.

Bobby Jindal Tells the Las Vegas Train Lie Again – Last night, Bobby Jindal claimed that the stimulus bill is larded with wasteful spending such as $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a ‘magnetic levitation’ line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called volcano monitoring.” The claim that $8 billion is set aside for a “levitating train” between Las Vegas and Disneyland is untrue. That total is for unspecified high-speed rail projects. And isn’t it interesting that the governor of a state that depends on the U. S. government monitoring of natural disasters (hurricanes) would sneer at the idea of monitoring volcanoes?

Congressional Republicans Complain About Waste, But Won’t Cut Their Staffs – Congressional Republicans have been pouncing on any instance of wasteful spending they can find, but a ten percent increase in the budget for Congressional operations was needed because Senate Republicans wanted to retain previous staff levels despite having lost roughly 20 percent of their ranks in the 2008 elections.

Another Racial Reference to President Obama – The mayor of Los Alamitos, California, is coming under fire for an e-mail he sent out that depicts the White House lawn planted with watermelons, under the title “No Easter egg hunt this year.” Local businesswoman and city volunteer Keyanus Price, who is black, said Tuesday she received the e-mail from Mayor Dean Grose’s personal account on Sunday and wants a public apology. “I have had plenty of my share of chicken and watermelon and all those kinds of jokes,” Price told The Associated Press. “I honestly don’t even understand where he was coming from, sending this to me. As a black person receiving something like this from the city-freakin’-mayor – come on.” The mayor said he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelons. (Then why would he send it? Was he thinking, “I don’t know what this means, so I’ll just send it out?”)

Slave Farms in Florida – In December of last year, the Department of Justice concluded yet another farm labor slavery case in Florida. According to court documents, workers in this latest case were chained to poles, locked inside trucks, beaten, and robbed of their pay. When a reporter called the governor’s office for comment on the most recent case, your spokesperson, Terrence McElroy, gave the impression that one forced labor case per year is no cause for alarm.

Regards,

Jim

Hero Pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger To Congress: My Pay Has Been Cut 40 Percent In Recent Years, Pension Terminated – Sullenberger, a 58-year-old who joined a US Airways predecessor in 1980, told the House aviation subcommittee that his pay has been cut 40 percent in recent years and his pension has been terminated and replaced with a promise “worth pennies on the dollar.” He said the problems began with the deregulation of the industry in the 1970s. The reduced compensation has placed “pilots and their families in an untenable financial situation,” Sullenberger said. “I do not know a single professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps.” Sullenberger’s copilot Jeffrey B. Skiles said unless federal laws are revised to improve labor-management relations “experienced crews in the cockpit will be a thing of the past.” And Sullenberger added that without experienced pilots “we will see negative consequences to the flying public.”

Republican Congressman Repeats Lie About Train to Sin City as Part of Stimulus Bill – When California Congressman Darrell Issa brings up the right-wing stimulus lie du jour — the so-called “train to Sin City” — David Shuster delivers a well-deserved smackdown, practically laughing at Issa for spreading that lie on his show.
ISSA: When we see $8 billion into a train to Sin City as part of a stimulus, we reject it. SHUSTER:

But Congressman, there’s no project for a train from California to Las Vegas. You Republicans know better. It’s $8 billion that’s going to the Department of Transportation, and a Republican, Ray LaHood — he was a Republican in your Congress — he’s the Transportation Secretary who gets to decide where the money is spent! It is wrong to say there is a project from L.A. to Las Vegas. It’s not in the bill, Congressman.

CNBC “Reporter” Falsely Claims White House Threatened Him – White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the following about CNBC reporter Rick Santelli’s rant against the Obama housing plan:

GIBBS: I’ve watched Mr. Santelli on cable the past 24 hours or so. I’m not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives but the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgages, stay in their jobs, pay their bills, send their kids to school.

But on (convicted Nixon Watergate burglar) G. Gordon Liddy’s radio program, Santelli tried to make it sound very different:

SANTELLI: He started that press conference saying, “I don’t know where he lives, I don’t know where his house is.” This is the Press Secretary of the White House. Is that the kind of thing we want? Is that —
LIDDY: It’s a veiled threat.
SANTELLI: It really is. […] I don’t really want to be a spokesman, but I really am very proud of a) the response I’m getting, which is overwhelmingly positive, and b) discourse, that is debate. That if the pressure and the heat I’m taking from the White House – the fact my kids are nervous to go to school – I can take that, okay.

McCain Says Blame the Republican Party, Not Me – Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is the subject of a federal lawsuit that claims he violated the copyright of Jackson Browne’s 1977 hit song, “Running on Empty,” when it aired in one of his presidential campaign commercials. Does McCain take responsibility for his campaign ads? “I was not involved at all in any way in the writing, creation, production, distribution or dissemination of the video, nor do I have any knowledge whatsoever of how this video was written, created, produced or disseminated or who was involved in any aspect of the writing, creation, production, distribution or dissemination of the video,” McCain said in a statement acquired by Wired’s David Kravets. “I was completely unaware that this video even existed until I was informed of it after this lawsuit was filed.” McCain claims the Republican Party is solely responsible for his campaign ad, not him, and has asked that he be stripped from the case.A federal judge allowed the suit to move forward Friday.

McCain Tries to Blame President Obama for Costly Helicopters Ordered by Bush – McCain tried to put the president on the spot for he new presidential helicopters ordered by the Bush administration. “Your helicopter is now going to cost as much as Air Force One,” McCain told Obama. “I don’t think that there’s anymore graphic demonstration of how good ideas have cost taxpayers enormous amount of money.” But President Obama was both straightforward and cool with his answer: “This is going to be one of our highest priorities. By the way, I’ve already talked to [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates about a thorough review of the helicopter situation. The helicopter I have now seems perfectly adequate to me. Of course, I’ve never had a helicopter before. You know? Maybe — maybe I’ve been deprived and I didn’t know it. But I think it is an example of the procurement process gone amuck and we’re going to have to fix it.”

The Myth of Republican Fiscal Responsibility – One graph is worth a thousand words:

Republican vs. Democratic Debt

If Today’s Republicans Had Been Around at Key Points in Human Civilization… – By around 46BC, the Romans had sewage systems to drain waste from homes. In the 19th century major city governments undertook projects to create sewage systems for most homes.

Republicans: “Can you believe this? The government is actually going to spend money on connecting each home to a series of pipes just to take away human waste! Let’s just have some tax cuts and keep the government out of people’s homes!”

Also in the 19th century, city governments begin to develop water supply infrastructures, which also hark back to Roman times…

Republicans: “Leave the market to meet supply and demand. Why waste money on a crazy system of pipes when the wells we have are full and aren’t ever going to run out. Let those who can afford such systems pay for them, and the rest can trickle down to everyone else.”

The late 18th century – the idea of the steam locomotive starts to lead to the creation of a railway transport infrastructure and government invests in laying rails across the country.

Republicans: “Are we really going to waste money on some pie-in-the-sky scheme to connect far off places by building miles and miles of railway lines? Let’s just have some tax cuts and stick to horses!”

The notion of an education system for children and older students has existed since around 1500BC, perhaps earlier…

Republicans: “You want to take away my child for hours each day to be indoctrinated and controlled by government forces – and you want my tax dollars to pay for it? Then you’ve got a serious fight on your hands, mister! Tax cuts would allow families to spend more on educating their own children.”

In 1881, the world’s first electricity distribution system was established in Godalming, England when a generator supplied power to street lights. In the ensuing decades electricity grids spread throughout the world.

Republicans: “Am I hearing this right? You want to waste my money on some crazy scheme to connect each and every home with copper wires? Sounds like a communist mind-control plot. Count me out. Tax cuts would be far better.”

In the early 19th century, the invention of the electrical telegraph spurs the eventual invention of the telephone.

Republicans: “You want what?! A system of cables so that the government can listen to me in my home. You’ve got a fight on your hands, mister. Now let’s quit this crazy talk and pour ourselves a nice round of tax cuts instead.”

In 1936 the United States Government agreed to coordinate the Air Traffic Control System which built a series of radar stations and employees operators to keep airlines traveling upwards of 400 mph from colliding with each other.

Republicans: We don’t need to waste government money on some radar towers and people on the government dole, those pilots can just learn to fly better and if they have an accident the insurance company are willing to pay for the damage.

Trails lead to paths and they lead to roads. In 1956, Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower appropriates $25 billion for the construction of highways in the US. A similar boom takes place across much of the developed world folowing the success of the automobile.

Republicans: “$25 billion!?!?! Are you crazy? My taxpayer money is being spent on concrete? Are we living in communist Russia? Tax cuts would build far more…”

Today: Ideas for new grids to transport green energy; new kinds of green energy; electric cars that could be recharged just by plugging them in to your power socket at home…

Republicans: “No, no, no, no, NO!!!! This is socialism! I want a TAX CUT!!!”

Regards,

Jim