Sarah Palin 2 Star in New Fox Series, "Touched by an A$$hole"

Is there any truth to the rumors that Sarah Palin is to star in a new show for Fox, "Touched by an A$$hole"?

Check it out here, at BIG HOLLYWOOD DYNAMITE.

U.S. Creeps Closer to Bankruptcy

U.S. posts 19th straight monthly budget deficit

Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority

Let's remember: President Obama supports nuclear power (despite the leak and cover-up at Vermont Yankee which has a decades-long record of cover-ups) and off-shore drilling (despite...well, you know: The President is down in Louisiana for one of his photo-op opportunities -- does this guy ever stop campaigning?)

PBS ran a fine documentary about U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink, who co-authored Title IX banning gender discrimination in education.

Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority

However, it was disingenuous, as when it showed her attempt to introduce an amendment ameliorating Newt Gingrich's CONTRACT ON AMERICA hit on welfare recipients, it was portrayed it as a Sissyphian battle of liberals against "mean" and heartless Republicans, FAILING TO SHOW THAT IT WAS BILL CLINTON, A DEMOCRAT, WHO SIGNED THE REPUBLICAN'S WELFARE REFORM BILL INTO LAW. Clinton was determined to run up a big win in 1996 (he failed to get a majority), so he signed off on welfare reform.

(Can anyone believe that -- unlike Harry Truman -- Clinton and now Obama have their eye on a huge, multi-million, nine-figure payoff in their post-Presidency years when they go about policy-making? Jimmy Carter might have been wrong -- he was a conservative, after all, despite his post-Presidency stands -- and a political incompetent, but he wasn't a whore.)

We have one party, the Republicrat Party, with two wings: hard-right (GOP) and center-right (Democrats). We should be spending out time in an effort, akin to the Progressives at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th centuries, to bring about real democracy in America. It can't be done in an 18th Century "Republic" created specifically to curb democracy and keep an oligarchy in power. Otherwise, we're just joining in the fugue that made Reagan and Bush 43 possible.

What a sorry list of Presidents this country has had!

The Tea Baggers & Thei Allies Who Denounce "World Government"

The Tea Party movement is chock-a-block with weirdos, including the venerable "I'm Against World Government" ringht-wingnuts that made the John Birch Society, which denounced President Dwight David Eisenhower as a communist, so amusing.

My question to those who are not interested in world government: Are you interested in the fact that Big Corporations have no nationality, that under Bush 43, the Clinton Administration's crackdown on offshore money laundering in the Caribbean was abandoned and American corporations were able to offshore there and avoid paying taxes?

Are you interested in the fact that a GOP-controlled Congress gave US corporations tax breaks to send jobs overseas?

I say, instead of going into a fugue and worrying about black helicopters and some nonexistent Global Government, why not check into reality and realize that Big Corporations are more powerful than any government, even that of the U.S., because of the politicians they have bought.

Putting Reagan on the $50 Bill: Replacing One Lousy President With Another

Why is it with the Reaganauts? Are they mentally ill? They have never snapped out of the fugue they were in during the 1980s. 

Reagan on $50 bill not for Grant-ed; Southern Ohioans battle Congress to save face for native son

A better choice for the $50 bill would be Franklin D. Roosevelt, the man whom -- as Gore Vidal said -- "For better or worse," saved capitalism. After all, he was Reagan's hero, and when the right wingnuts tried to get FDR booted of the ten cent piece, Nancy Reagan stepped in and made sure Dutch's hero remained on the humble dime. 

P.S. You never saw Theodore Roosevelt on anything as he was opposed to having people commemorated on coinage (which he took an interest in). It wasn't until the Taft Presidency that the first person, Abraham Lincoln, debuted on the penny.

European Social Democracies Bitten in Arse by "Anglo-Saxon" Economics

I lived in Germany (the Bundsrepublik Deutschland, then West Germany), when I was in the military. They northern European social democracies have social safety net policies well beyond what Tea Partyers denounced as "socialism." Yet Sweden, which more than others qualifies as "socialist," even has billionaires. So much for the right-wing candard that socialism discourages initiative.

In the northern European social democracies, even the conservative parties support the safety net. In Imperial Germany, it was the Iron Chancellor Bismark, no liberal, who inaugurated social security in the interest of promoting social cohesion. Unlike the U.S., the rich get taxed, and there is not the huge spread between the haves and have nots that there is in the U.S.

Of course, the right-wingnuts' first hero Rush Limbaugh claimed in the early '90s that the American poor were better off than the German middle class, an out and out lie. But out and out lies are part of the fun of being a Fox Newsie type, isn't it?

I don't think it's just that these people are in a dissociative fugue, but they know they are lying and revel in it. It's a pathology. How could anyone take that hypocritical drug addict I call "Rash Limboo" seriously otherwise? As we see in the new books churned out by Cheney & Co., our former Vice President and his kind & kin they are just out and out liars (just like they were when they were in office). This isn't Henry Kissinger giving his reasons for a repulsive policy you might disagree with in a reasoned manner. This is out and out lying by pseudo-intellectual thugs.

anada, which has a much better social safety that the U.S. (which economists correctly predicted during the recession of the 1st Bush 43 Administration would better position it for economic recovery), didn't have as severe a recession then or now. And it currently is run by a minority, Conservative government.

(The social safety net Tea Partyers would denounced as socialism was put in by the coalition government headed by Trudeau consisting of the centrist Liberal Party and centre-left New Democrats.)

The Wild Wild West laissez-faire economics of the U.S. that we returned to with the repeal of the Franklin Roosevelt-New Deal laws that had been put into place so what we're going through now we wouldn't go through again is dysfunctional. The Chicago School economics that Reagan & Co. bought into, the "Voodoo Economics denounced by Bush 43's father and propagated by the son, have been a disaster.

One shudders to think of what the Republicans, who gave us the Great Depression of the Thirties and this, the worst economic downturn since World War II, would do to this country if they ever got back in power.

Many of those northern European democracies also are going through hell as during this decade, they adopted looser, laissez-faire "anglo-Saxon" economic policies so their financial industry could compete with America's in the global financial services market. It was a disastrous policy move.

Are the Tea Baggers The Minutemen Redux?

The Tea Party: an Insider's Perspective:


The Minutemen (the right wing extremist group of the 1960s) and the militia movement ride again!

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

Progress and the Act of Forgetting the Past

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

-- George Santayana

Condemned to Repeat the Past

During the Bush 41 administration (the Father, not the son -- and let's not forget the OTHER son of George H.W. Bush who helped loot an S&L, a bipartisan sport during the second Reagan administration), it was argued that the Depression era laws regulating the financial industry that put up firewalls between commercial banking, investment banking (stock brokerage) & insurance, and related laws that strictly limited interstate banking and financial institution mergers had to be repealed as American banks had to become "bigger" to compete with the larger Japanese banks.

(Remember when Japan was our economic "foe", much like China is portrayed now.)

It wasn't until the GOP took back the House and implemented Newt Gingrich's "Contract on America" that this legislative agenda was put into law. (And granted, it had bipartisan support despite the warnings that it would lead to disaster, and the laws were signed by Bill Clinton, including laws on "hedging" that once again introduced destabilizing "speculation" into the financial sector, the bugaboo that had been blamed for the Great Depression.)

The irony was, by the time these laws were being enacted, the huge Japanese banks had proven themselves to be inefficient dinosaurs, unable to react nimbly to changing market conditions due to their size, and were in severe trouble. (Remember -- it was SIZE that was the argument for those arguing against financial industry regulation staring with Bush 41. The mantra was American banks had to get BIG to compete with Japanese banks in a global market.)

During the Clinton Administration, the huge Japanese banks dragged Japan into a DEPRESSION (not a recession, as there was negative growth) for a decade -- this was going on at the very same time these laws were being enacted by the Republican Congress, and signed off on Bill Clinton, who never met a campaign contributor he didn't like. Thus, the "reason" for the repeal of New Deal regulatory legislation, that U.S. banks had to become BIGGER to compete internationally with the huge Japanese banks, was false.

Bigness in banks was proven to be dysfunctional, a destabilizing factor that had brought about economic disaster in Japan.

Then why did this come about then? Then again, why did the U.S. continue with the deregulation of the electric utility industry after deregulation in Ontario an Alberta proved so disastrous? When it was shown that small business and individuals were getting shafted in favor of BIG businesses, and causing economic dislocations that helped trigger a recession?

When electric utility deregulation first came to California, it had the exact same disastrous effects.

(Hey people. the FDR & Truman ideal that regular folks and small businesses are the bedrock of stable economic growth is true!)

Were foreign examples ignored because to your average American, nothing exists beyond the borders of the U.S.A.? That the examples of other countries -- even "U.S.A., Jr.", Canada -- don't count as America is so unique? That America is exceptional.

(Yeah, it's SO different than Canada, isn't it? Well, Canada does have a better social safety net and economists who predicted that because of that safety net and tighter regulation, it would better survive the original global recession that started during the first year of Bush 43's reign were right, and it is doing better than the U.S. and the European countries that adopted the "anglo-saxon model" of laissez-faire capitalism during this downturn, too.)

To put it bluntly, do Americans ignore the examples of other countries as we are so ignorant about the rest of the world, even countries on our border? Or is because the lobbyists had bought Congress, Republican and Democrat alike, and had Bill Clinton in their pocket, too?

But remember: It was the GOP under Newt Gingrich that made this nightmare a reality. When people say it was all unexpected -- what a laugh! It was all forecasted.

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana

Social Security & Job Discrimination: The High Court Raises the Bar to Proving Age Bias

Some people propose that the Social Security retirement age be raised further again, as when the program was enacted in 1935 the average lifespan was 59 years. Thus, setting the retirement age at 65 ensured that most workers wouldn't make it.

My question is: Where are we supposed to get the jobs to work at beyond present retirement age? Actual unemployment is near 20% , when you don't use all the Reagan through Clinton era stratagems to under count the unemployed.

In 2009, the Supreme Court gutted age discrimination laws, making it easier to can older people, with their higher health care costs. I see the Democratic Congress and the Democratic President doing NOTHING, NOTHING AT ALL to address this outrage by the High Court, which completely ignored the intent of Congress and effectively negated the laws.

At the time the decision was made, liberal legal commentators said that the decision was so utterly outrageous, it would soon be remedied by Congress. A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS & A DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT have done nothing. As for the higher health care costs that make older employees less desirable, do you think the health care reform will address that? Is it anything positive, other than a kick in the teeth to the GOP reactionaries?

The Congressional Democratic Party and "Bush 44" (Barack Obama, the politician who praises Ronald Reagan & Judd Gregg, the latter of whom hates his policies and likely loathes him personally) has given us the "No pharmaceutical maker & health insurer left behind" bill (that only the right-wingnuts, in their dissociative fugue, could term "socialism").

No one -- NO ONE -- believes the Democrat's health care "reform" bill actually will cut health care cost inflation as the move from hospitals as non-profit institutions to for-profit money makers over the past generation means that medical cost inflation is inevitable. A single-payer system was the only logical answer. P.S. Our illustrious Democratic President wants atomic power (the mass media ignored the leak at Vermont Yankee nuke plan which happened simultaneously with Obama's announcement of his support for atomic power and loan guarantees for hte industry, a leak that showed how wrong-headed his energy policy is), and he for off-shore drilling, and is going to Louisiana for a photo-op.

The United States is so dysfunctional now, it is beyond satire. We need a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation, and a Senate that is only a place like in Canada where you ship off rich campaign contributors and old pols so they can pad their resume and go to parties (and have no power). I want to vote for a true labor party, a social-democratic party, not the center-right wing of the Republicrat Party that goes under the moniker "Democrats." Democrats who are counting on a reaction against the reactionaries in order to stay in power are fooling themselves.

Here is  a recent Newsweek article on workplace age discrimination:

Keep Young and Beautiful—Especially At Work; How a Supreme Court decision is making age discrimination harder than ever to prove.

Bernanke says prompt action needed on deficit

Bernanke says prompt action needed on deficit

"Mister we could use a man/Like William J. Clinton agaaaaaain!"

--With apologies to Archie Bunker

How much mileage will the GOP get out of their calls for fiscal responsibility, the very same party whose god, Ronald Reagan tripled the federal deficit while simultaneously (according to 2008 Republican Presidential nominee John McCain) cutting it? A miracle indeed.

Remember, this is the same party that, controlling all the levers of government, the Executive Branch, the House & Senate, and the Supreme Court, that inherited a federal deficit of $5.7 trillion in 2001 (when the annual deficit was a manageable $144.5 billion) and saw spending (and the budget deficit) skyrocket.  In the last year of the Bush 43 regime (2008), the federal deficit swelled to $1 trillion. (It took all the Presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter to rack up the first trillion in public debt, over a period of 192 years!)

The Bush 43 Administration, with its tax cuts for the rich and big war budget, added $4 trillion to the deficit. When Obama took over the Presidency, the public debt totaled  $9.8 trillion.

The U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK had the debt at $12.8 trillion, plus change, as of April 28, 2010. Of course, the real debt, the real liabilities surpassed the $70 trillion mark sometime in the second Bush 43 Administration, which is peanuts when you realize that the outstanding total of speculative financial contracts, swaps, options, collars, etc., is more than half-a-QUADRILLION dollars.  That's a one with 15 (fifteen) zeroes after it, one thousand million million.

Who knows what new frontiers of financial irresponsibility the Orwellian Republican Party can take us if they win back power. The Weimar Republic hyperinflation may be replicated here on our shores!

Since it was the objective of many Bushites to destroy the federal government by bankrupting it, is this scenario so far fetched? Inflation would wipe out mountains of pesky debt.

[Picture: One needed a wheelbarrow to haul around the cash you needed during the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic]

Charlie Crist Gives Up on GOP; Will Run as Independent

Crist to Run as Independent in FL Sen Race

The right-wing loons and Tea Baggers are making life tough for Republicans with mainstream appeal, which should help the Democrats in some races.

101st Airborne Commander Orders End to Suicides

Brig. Gen. Stephen Townsend addressed the 101st Airborne Division with military brusqueness: Suicides at the post had spiked after soldiers started returning home from war, and this was unacceptable.

"It's bad for soldiers, it's bad for families, bad for your units, bad for this division and our Army and our country and it's got to stop now," he insisted. "Suicides on Fort Campbell have to stop now."

This is priceless. Joseph Heller couldn't have written a more surreal scene for Catch-22 than this serious, straight Washington Post article "Fort Campbell tries to stop soldier suicides".

It's been said that the problem with satire is that real life soon outstrips the absurd situations created by the satirist. We live in a world that is satire (or beyond satire), since a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court who did not believe in an activist interpretation of the 14th Amendment and believed in state's rights used an activist interpretation of the 14th Amendment to trump the rights of the state of Florida in order to elevate George W. Bush to the cat bird's seat of the Presidency.