Thanks for your help

Thanks for writing your representative in Congress on my behalf. You sure told him – or her – that we shouldn’t be bailing out those fat cats on Wall Street and should protect the interests of little guys like me, and I greatly appreciate it. In fact so many of you wrote that you scared the hell out of them.

Thank goodness that you believe so strongly in the capitalist system and the philosophy of Ronald Reagan that you protected those hundred republicans from themselves. They might actually have voted against their principles if you hadn’t intervened. Imagine having to come home and explain to you that they’d gone `wiggly’ as Dame Thatcher would have termed it. But you saved them from having to explain why they’d abandoned the Gipper and gone socialist. Thank you (for me and them).

Not only did you save that pure heart representing you in Washington, you showed those greedy horned devils in New York City a thing or two. Two – why yes; you scored a twofer. Imagine one letter nailing two pigs without makeup – New York and Washington. I often feel the need to express my horror at the behavior of New Yorkers but am so wimpy that I limit my wrath to the Giants and Yankees – the Evil Empire, but I’ll save that for another day. Thank you again.

The Wall Street crowd is so afraid of you that they panicked when that stupid bailout failed and knew that you’d found them out. Boy, did you see them dump that stock? That’ll teach them. They say that more than a trillion dollars was wrung out of the economy. They’ll never doubt you again. Thanks for representing my interests.

President **** looked like a truck hit him. I watched him on TV about an hour ago. He’s just a comedy act now; his own party doesn’t even know his name or hear a thing he says. He vowed to resurrect that lousy plan that he (actually his boys Hank and Ben) and leaders of both parties worked day and night on for more than a week. What morons, they just don’t get it that purists like you believe that those that took the chances should bear the risks. Those hundred republicans bucked **** and their leaders and rejected that slimy package, and if you have to write and call them again to bust it up again, I know you will. Thanks from the bottom of my heart.

Regardless of what that nasty tongued Nancy Pelosi says – and thank goodness for those sensitive republican members for teaching her a lesson in manners - or what that discredited `high grade moron’ **** (Chris Mathews hung that one on him) recommend, we can count on you to keep your eye on the ball and keep on kicking those greedy evil doers on Wall Street. I’m praying for you; you’re so good. Thankfully, Congressman Eric Cantor (R. VA) was sensitive to the forked tongue of that awful Nancy and led the revolt on our behalf. Thank you and thanks, Eric.

I don’t follow the news very closely, but I’m looking forward to getting my quarterly 401K statement at the end of the week. Since you made sure that the fat cats took the hit, I’ll be looking forward to big gains. After all, you went out of your way to protect me. Surely it’ll all work out for you too.

And – obviously- I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.

A hundred times no

Let’s get this straight. The financial bailout bill is a republican plan. It was submitted on behalf of President **** by his Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson. The republicans got us into this jam and the crisis happened on ****’s watch.

While the democrats carried the heavy water on the bill, it is and always must be seen as a republican bill. That Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have propped up Hank and Ben doesn’t mean that the republicans are not the supplicants in this crisis.

Because John McCain blew into the hell hole on the Potomac in which republicans must wear gas masks to embark o a bi-partisan mission that turned out to be simply a way to charge up republican conservatives in opposing their own party’s bill doesn’t mean this pile of crappy paper that we’re buying won’t always have a `Compliments of President ****** * **** and the republican nominee for President, John S. McCain and their market driven theories’ stamped on every over priced page.

Now those principled republican morons stepped up to the plate today and said nay in overwhelming numbers and caused the bill to fail. John McCain blamed Barack Obama for the failure. Thank goodness that John is not a finger pointer by nature. The republican members did not blame Barack; they blamed Nancy Pelosi who said mean, mean things about republicans. Therefore, these same republican grade schoolers did what children everywhere always do, they punished everybody except Nancy. Mass punishment is big among juveniles, but this is large even for them.

President **** was disappointed – really - in the outcome because it showed to the American people that even the republicans have forgotten his name and face – or want to anyway. But **** is desperate as a number of democrats are seeking an earmark to put his and Herbert Hoover’s paper mache heads up on a landfill in New Jersey as a regional counterpart to the classic earmark on Mt. Rushmore. John McCain will publicly name the members behind this corrupt project.

The Dow dropped almost 800 points today, an all time record. Republicans are blaming Nancy. How could anyone blame the majority of republican house member for voting against a bill that would wipe out billions of dollars of the life savings of ordinary Americans in retaliation? Doesn’t this woman understand that her words can make hardened politicians cry? I’m going to send her a copy of this posting, so that she can understand the power she has over grown men and women.

Barney Frank is going to apologize to those broken hearted republicans. Maybe then they can put this Humpty Dumpty back together again, maybe.

By the way, this is the last day of a quarter, so the folks on Main Street – and your street - will get their 401K reports in a few days, so those members opposed will get an earful. It will be reconsidered, and a plan will pass.

And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.

Same but different

The world is out to get Governor Sarah Palin and that’s the only reason the ****/ McCain Campaign in full third term mode has been protecting her from the mainstream media. They’d love to turn her loose on the New York Slimes, but the editorial board and columnists there distort everything, so she won’t really have a chance to strut her intellectual stuff until after this week’s debate.

But thank goodness she’ll be prepared to deal with her democrat counterpart Joe Biden and evil doers everywhere during the contest as she’ll be the only one in the arena standing by her Second Amendment rights in case the questioning gets too hot.

John McCain has complete confidence in his running mate because she’s been fully briefed on foreign and domestic policy. You remember when Henry Kissinger was the most eligible bachelor in the Nixon administration in the middle of the last century; well old Henry woke right up from his nap when he was introduced to the governor and offered to tell her all about all his foreign affairs and about how he used to run the world. His eyes actually opened when telling her about his time in Beijing on behalf of the free world and about the time he and Dick got down on their knees to pray for Judge John Sirica, a truly deep religious experience.

After giving the governor his seven minute condensed version of his seven year Harvard Ph.D. program in political science, Dr. Kissinger pronounced her ready to be President of the United States. The governor, in accepting the degree, praised Henry as one of the greatest Americans who ever lived and thanked his mother for not aborting him saying it just goes to show that a person with a speech impediment can do great things.

As far as that view of Russia from the governor’s backyard boat dock in Wasilla, it’s really just the other side of the lake, but Russia and Alaska look pretty much alike so it’s really the same thing but just different. The governor took the VIP tour of the United Nations complex last week and spent almost half an hour on the flags of member countries, so I expect that she’ll be able to get a solid gentlelady’s `C' when she has to name the flash cards.

The economy’s tougher. `Tranche’ is going to be tough and if Gwen Ifill, the moderator, asks the governor to use it in a sentence there’ll be hell to pay, double ought buck hell. Chuck Schumer was the only person only Capitol Hill who was able to use it correctly, at least while on camera. Barney Frank said he could but chose not to try while front of a live microphone. `Derivative’ will be easier for the governor, as she can fall back on her high school chemistry.

So if you see Governor Palin having to explain how mortgages will be bundled into tranches and how they’ll be priced by Hank Paulson while Biden is asked, true or false, “It is best to buy low and sell high. Or, yes or no, “There really is a free lunch.” you’ll know that the democrats have been successful in getting the fix in on working the debate system against her.

Let’s hope that she doesn’t have to pull out the debate at the request of President **** and John McCain to save the country from a derivative multi-faceted tranche meltdown. But don’t be shocked, it could happen.

And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.

The **** plan to save us

Republicans are so afraid to run on the party brand name that they’ve taken to putting themselves forward as representatives of the G.O.P. As the sea of mortgages, derivatives and stocks reaches their nostrils, they proclaim that they are all mavericks who never really bought into the policies of the **** Administration, a group that never really was republican but that usurped the elephant logo and is now stuck with it. So the newly minted G.O.P., Gagging On Paper, boys and girls are demanding that they be allowed to run on the new title for the fetid old product.

It’s not so bad that these weasels are running from their roots, the sad part is that lots of morons think it’s a great idea. “The voters won’t know the difference, and half of us will get elected.” What’s frightening is that they might be right.

To get back on track, John McCain doesn’t have the luxury of demanding a new label on the nation’s ballots. I’m sure they tossed it around, but its’ just too late to make it happen, so he’s stuck with the next best thing: he’s a republican who never left a fingerprint on any policy that might look bad today. Maybe he could say that the ninety plus percent of the time that he was caught voting with **** was actually an exercise in bi-partisanship. Maybe they could dress up **** as a pig and put a little lipstick on him and call him a uniter. On the other hand, that one was probably rejected early on in the crisis.

The folks I pity are the House republicans. They’re caught with voting for every key **** Administration proposal for the war in Iraq, deregulation of the financial system and every controversial aspect of violating the privacy of citizens. Doubling down, their pictures giving standing ovations to **** every time he mentioned WMD and noted the direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda are being played on home town TV stations in the ads of the democrat opponents.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost and with only thirty-seven days until D-Day. What they’d like to do is trade party labels for just a little over a month, but it’s not to be. **** announced, without understanding, that the financial system is in grave crisis, and his appointees – Hank and Ben – are taking the lead in crafting a solution. That’s great except that the solution is something that could have been dreamed by Karl Marx. They were hoping for one by Groucho that they could support unanimously, but Karl stuck in their collective (Ooh!) craws.

So they decided to rebel and stick with their republican free market principles, and that was that. But that horrible Nancy Pelosi and her card carrying friends in the majority won’t play ball. That meany Nancy says this is a republican caused meltdown, so in the spirit of bi-partisanship, the House republicans and John McCain are going to have to own this rescue plan. So there’s no way out except for republicans and G.O.P. folks but step forward and say that the **** plan is theirs. And if they don’t agree to do it by sundown tonight they’ll have to identify who **** is for the newspapers and TV stations back home. Now that’s mean.

What’s worse, Barack Obama is going pin the donkey’s tail on them and on John McCain and reveal on national TV the identity of ****.

And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.

A lot of bull

It was all there for the voters to see; the Merrill Lynch bull on display for the TV audience and for those in the arena in Oxford. Eyes flashing, head shaking and in full attack mode, John McCain demonstrated for all to see that he can barely contain his violent and well known temper, even when that was a prime goal.

Here was an unapologetic neoconservative proudly pawing the ground ready to take on Iran, Russia, China or any other nation or group with or without allies. As Barack Obama parried and flashed his cape on why John McCain was wrong to support the invasion of Iraq, the Merrill Lynch (or should I say the Bank of America) Bull could barely contain himself. At every opportunity he simply hurled personal insults rather than policy differences at his younger opponent whom he held in open contempt.

Even his build up to the confrontation in Mississippi was wild and wooly – excuse the non-bovine metaphor but McCain could just as easily be compared to a ram. He suspended his campaign and charged into the capitol to shake the troops up and just about derailed the possibility of an agreement between two parties already acting like scorpions in a bottle – another of today’s stinging metaphors.

All in all McCain showed clearly that he is disdainful of others and does not have the temperament to be president of the United States. His view of the American empire was obsolete within months of the Roman Triumph aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, and his position of the economy showed significant lack of understanding of what got us in the fix we’re in.

His rationale for staying Iraq skirted the edge of madness in that he implied that more lives and treasure should be thrown at the problem to demonstrate that all that had already been chewed up had not been wasted. On the other hand, Obama’s position was that we should only fight when in it is in the nation’s interests and not to avoid losing face.

McCain’s pandering of veterans was so obvious as to be difficult to watch. We know that he loves them – we all do – but if he’s such a champion why didn’t he break the scandalous situation at Walter Reed? The clear implication was that the democrats would not act in the best interest of those in uniform. It was too lame for Obama to even waste time on.

This debate on foreign policy was supposed to be McCain’s last best chance. While Obama simply had to play defense and prevent a disaster, McCain had to handle his opponent with ease. Based on the expectations, Obama was the clear winner despite yesterday’s McCain campaign ad proudly proclaiming the old guy to be the winner that was accidentally flashed to the world before his arrival in Oxford.

McCain’s job was clearly to separate himself from the Bush administration’s sorry stewardship of the nation over the past eight years. As of this morning, he has failed in that effort.

The next bout takes place next week when the vice-presidential candidates square off, and things ain’t looking good for the incumbent party.

And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.

Obama supporters; read this and weep

I’m writing Saturday’s posting ahead of time on this Friday afternoon secure in the knowledge that McCain has already won the debate. I know because the McCain camp has already prepared the ad saying so and – accidently – posted it on the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page. Here’s a screen shot of the ad. It’s not many times that we get to read tomorrow’s news today, so savor it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/images/26Sep_Friday_WSJ.JPG

Now that’s great news for old duffers like Senator McCain and me. We’ll be able to nod off during the debate secure in the knowledge that we know the outcome. That’s really important for old timers staying up well past their bedtimes.

It must be a real confidence builder to know that you won before the fight, sort of like a palooka entering the ring for a bout with a younger stronger fighter confident that fix is in. But I think there might be a surprise for the old fella; Barack Obama is in fighting trim and he hasn’t got the word that he’s done.

So as McCain naps on the way down to Oxford, I hope his handlers don’t wake him to share that little possibility. It’ll be better if he shows up believing that he at least has to try to spar with the younger trimmer fighter. Only after it’s over, will they tell him he’s the champ.

Either way I win. I’m well on my way to meeting my posting deadline without even having to break a sweat.

By the way, despite the foregone conclusion, I’m going to tune in to the debate just in case McCain trips over his own ad and blows it like he has so many things during this financial meltdown.

And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya

Multi-tasking

If you think reading this electronic rag is tough, you ought to try writing it. A daily deadline is too tough for anyone not on booze; fortunately, I have an ample supply of Busch Beer which sustains me and its rhyming name (really it’s a homophone) reminds me of why I’m cranky.

When I started this blog on September 8, I had no idea that we would be in a financial meltdown within days. Of course, we all knew that there were problems. We’d passed through a gauntlet of multiple popping bubbles and were kind of homed in on the mortgage problems. Housing prices were down, some – in few places, substantially – in many, and greatly – in more places than we care to contemplate. But things seemed controllable.

Then came the Hank (Paulson) and Ben (Bernanke) show and they had the inside skinny on how the country was racing into situation that could turn into the worst meltdown since the Great Depression. (Any financial crisis that demands that we label it in capital letters after three fourths of a century must have been bad.) As I remember that period quite well, take my word for it, it was very bad indeed.

Loyal servants that they are, Hank and Ben stood behind the great one, the president of the United States - whatever his name is, and told him to say that we were in deep, deep financial manure, and he did, not that anyone still remembered his name. They quickly added that he should demand that the Congress solve this problem by Friday, and he did. Not that they cared what he thought, Congressional leaders believed the stage whispers of Hank and Ben, and proceeded to hammer out a deal.

Meanwhile back in Oz, John McCain’s advisers alerted him that the financial system was melting down, that he was going to lose election as he represented the party associated with the fiasco if he didn’t do something fast and suggested that he avoid the debate on Friday by suspending the electoral race and acting presidential. Startled from his nap, the old boy jumped to attention and blew off the David Letterman’s show – but not Katie Couric’s - and said that he was in charge and would not debate or campaign until the problem was solved.

His opponent, Barack Obama, indicated that he, too was concerned about the financial crisis that John had contributed to in a big way and would gladly return to Washington should he be needed – although the Hank and Ben show had seemingly sufficiently caught the attention of the Congress that was well on its way to dealing with the problem.

Barack added that the debate in Mississippi should go on as scheduled since presidents should be able to solve problems and explain them to the people in bad times; `multi-tasking’ was the term he used to John who seemed genuinely confused by it. Barack explained to John that some of our presidents, especially the great ones, had proved able to `multi-task’ in times of national crises.

Not that you, dear reader, need reminding that some of our greatest chief executives were quite good at ‘multi-tasking’, many friends in the mainstream media, including The Guardian, pointed out that Abraham Lincoln was able to run for president and deal with the greatest Constitutional crisis in history in 1860 and to run again in 1864 as the Civil War raged.

Barack, if not John, was also aware that Franklin Roosevelt was able to actively campaign for president even as the – truly – greatest financial and economic crisis in the nation’s history almost ruined the capitalist system and caused fear – “…nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror…” - throughout the land. He also knew that while the Nazis prepared for world conquest and, indeed, as they waged the most terrible war in human history, FDR felt quite up to running for president in 1940 and 1944.

While John McCain seemed unable to both run for office and contribute to the solution of our present problems, Barack Obama was. And while no one – certainly not an old b.ser like me – would suggest that John McCain was afraid to face the music in Mississippi, there were the cruel among us who immediately thought that John McCain was afraid to debate – as he had long agreed.

Meanwhile back in Washington, that evil place where republicans get hives on entering the city, Hank and Ben had already agreed with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd on the outline of a plan to rescue the financial system, Barack and John were summoned to the Oval Office to meet with you know who to bless a plan that had already been worked out so that John could say that he made it all happen – much like he had invented the Blackberry.

Clearly, John McCain's resurrection of Al Haig's "I'm in charge" act has laid an egg, so it’s unlikely that he can show his face in Mississippi tonight. The rush to Washington, like Haig's before him, has probably sunk the Straight Talk Express. This looks bad for John’s being able to `multi-task and to answer that 3:00 AM phone call.

Of only one thing am I certain - but won't be able to prove, the president, old what's his name, will be voting for Obama on November 4. Mr. X must absolutely despise McCain who once again has made him look like the moron we suspect him of being.

And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.

Reckless John

John McCain did it again. He's fourth and goal from his own five and sees no alternative to the longest Hail Mary of all time. He won't debate and and he demands that the campaign for president be suspended so that he can look like he's in charge. He doesn't seem to understand that he's running for president as compared to being president. Sad.

Actually, I should have known, as yesterday I found out that John McCain is the problem. He lost the election due to his own incompetence. That’s the word from el Rushbo. I was out and about and tuned into the Excellence in Broadcasting Network and to the bloviater-in-chief to find out what the ditto heads were being fed, and that’s it: John McCain is doing it to himself and the party.

McCain’s not letting Palin be Palin. He’s not answering the lies of the LIBERALS. He’s not defending himself from the mainstream media, especially the New York Slimes. So when the dust settles and you have the untested empty suit Barack Hussein Obama packing up to move into the White House, it’s not the fault of supply side economics. It’s not the fault of a neocon inspired insane foreign policy. It’s not because of the disastrous and wrong war being waged in Iraq. It’s not because of mad deregulation of the financial sector. No, my friends and ditto heads, it’s because of the stupid campaign being run by John McCain.

The right wing maniacs are already gearing up for their comeback after the disaster caused by John McCain and his handlers. Rush Limbaugh could tell them how things should be run, but the McCain campaign doesn’t want to hear it. They’re going into the toilet and don’t seem to care. Here they’ve selected the best possible vice presidential candidate but they have her muzzled and are keeping her on the phony message of change that is just a cheap copy of Obama’s erroneous campaign that has no faith in freedom and liberty and in the American people.

By turning his back on his party, John McCain has sealed his own doom and is taking down the party of Ronald Reagan with him. Sad. By turning his back on solid republican principles of free markets low taxation and joining the democrats in jumping to solve what is merely a market correction, he is a traitor to his party and all those wonderful people on Main Street who would love to support him if he’d only be true to what brought him to leadership of the party.

McCain could have been president, but who cares. He’s not really a republican. He was and is a maverick without a brain. Rush knew that McCain was never a conservative and not much better than a LIBERAL. He’s running the worst campaign since Tom Dewey and deserves to lose. What’s sad is that he’s taking down those wonderful conservatives with him.

This is what the ditto heads are being fed, and, based on the call ins that I heard, they’re buying it hook, line and sinker.

And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya!

Grinding John McCain

I don’t mean to keep picking on John McCain despite his being about the easiest person in the world to needle. Today it is my sad responsibility to tell you that John McCain is going to crack. Years in a Hanoi prison cell under direct and ferocious torture could not make him cry, `Uncle’, but he now faces a far more formidable foe, the enraged taxpayers of red and blue states who are demanding a pound of someone’s flesh.

Little did John McCain realize that when he flip flopped on torture by agents of the United States that he would be the first visible victim. The first inkling of our inhumanity was the Washington Post – ABC poll that shows the senator suffering the electric shock treatment that he has fallen far behind in the election.

It’s bad enough that McCain has been linked by the taxpayers/voters with the culprits of the present financial calamity, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but the representatives of both parties on Capitol Hill are preparing any number of devices to assure that the voters can have no doubt that John McCain is as responsible as the beloved pair he is being chained to as victims are offered to the public.

Congress and George W. Bush are going to bail out Wall Street and Main Street, but there will be no bill unless John McCain personally approves it. As you know, John’s out on the hustings telling his beloved and fast shrinking voter base that he’s got a rope and he’s going to use to hang the evil greedy bankers from the tree that grows in Brooklyn.

Sadly, only now is John wising up to the notion that he is going to hauled back to the nest of evil doers second only to Wall Street, Washington, D.C., where he will be publicly tortured in the well of the Senate.

As you know, John McCain has blamed democrats and republicans, President Bush and SEC Chairman Cox, the regulators and the deregulators, and, I believe, you and me, dear reader, for the financial debacle facing the country, indeed the world. The only two people not on the candidates list of culprits are McCain and his running mate.

So as those kind, generous and always gentle folk on Capitol Hill prepare a package to bail out wall Street, Main Street, your moronic neighbors who bought far too much for far too dear, and everyone else who can vote on November 4, there’s one little extra waiting for Mr. Clean, John McCain, he’s going to have to pay – big time.

The bailout won’t happen unless John McCain walks into the well and votes “Aye.”

Has there ever been anything more cruel devised in America? I think not.

But as John slinks into the well, he can take heart by reciting Dickens, “It is a far, far better thing that I do now, than I have ever done before…it is a far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known before.”

And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.

Stop naming buildings for Reagan

The republicans are fighting for the soul of their party – what little there is left of it. Even though they’re in the midst of a pivotal election that could cement their hold on the courts and provide four more years of free plane rides, the defeat in the 2006 bi-election demonstrated to old time republicans that their party was completely bankrupt. With this in mind, check out George F. Will's column which appeared this morning: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/22/AR2008092202583.html?nav=hcmoduletmv.

The Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Rockefeller wing of the party – of which I was member until the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq - had been driven out to pasture by the Goldwater/Reagan forces that had combined their strength with the neocons and evangelicals effectively leading the party to power then to excess and now to ruin.

The democrats faced a similar situation in the sixties when Lyndon Johnson had dreams equal to those of St. Ron and ran the party and country aground with both the Great Society and Vietnam. Years in the wilderness led – after many groups fought for the leadership of that party - to a desire to win despite ideology after twelve years of St. Ron and the first Bush – the party to turn to the center and elect Bill Clinton.

After eight years and thousands of smears, the republicans, not having run their mad course of Goldwater’s “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue,” had yet to peak and the party was set to test its limits.

George W. Bush, a self styled uniter, fell under the influence of Dick Cheney who found the perfect candidate to run with Bush, himself. The moderates were done, and the inmates were in charge of the asylum. Deficits did not matter. Shock and awe would demonstrate that the U.S. was in charge and able to enforce its will on any nation or group.

After 9/11, two laboratories were needed and in Saddam’s Iraq the empirical one was found. In the second, and co-equal to the first, spending was unleashed while taxes were cut for all Americans, but especially for the rich; all the while deficits spiraled to previously undreamed of amounts. `Shop till you drop,’ was the mantra for civilians at home.

Shock and awe carried the day in Iraq and Saddam’s government fell in weeks. An imperial Roman triumph was held aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln; the mission had been accomplished. Unfortunately, the rationale for the war was flawed and there was no real plan for the aftermath of the conflict and we did not have the power to enforce our will on the Iraqi people. Things went terribly awry, and the conflict proved terribly costly in blood and treasure.

Deficits continued to spin out of control. The deregulation of financial institutions that had been another mantra of the St. Ron branch of the party - and which had been long supported by John McCain - led to excess and to a breakdown in the financial markets and to the events of the last weeks. It was a house of cards and the fools in charge had nowhere or no one to turn to except traditional republicans as it began to collapse. The Hank and Ben show was the only game in town and they pulled away the curtain on the cringing morons no longer in charge of anything.

They’re done, of course. Their empire is in tatters, and we’re going to have to begin to bring the troops home. The great leap forward instituted by St. Ron is in shambles. Bush lives in a dream world, one in which he’s in charge of everything.

John McCain, perhaps a natural member of the moderate wing of the party – although with a temper suited for an emperor (or the Queeen of Hearts as shown by George Will) - has no real philosophy of his own and can only think of winning office without a real cause other than his ego to save the nation. He’s stuck with empire which he likes and tax cuts that he doesn’t to assure party unity for one last time in hopes of assuming the mantle of St Ron and the Bushes.

McCain, out of desperation, threw a Hail Mary and selected a running mate from the evangelical wing of the party. (I know the metaphor is ridiculous, but I’m old, cranky and angry.) The neocons are out. The traditionals were out but, like Cincinnatus, had to be called back to save the country and party and they were sick of the madness. They will save the party and the nation. But they all have to go away to contemplate what they have done to us.

Barack Obama will win if you vote, work and donate. Most importantly, it’s time to stop naming buildings after St. Ron; I get confused and enter airports to mail letters and post offices to fly. You have save me; vote for Obama.

And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.

More power

The George W. Bush eight year run is analogous to Tim Allen’s TV situation comedy show, Home Improvement. Tim Taylor – Tim the Tool Man – spent almost eight years with the constant answer to everything being - `more power’.

Somehow George Bush, under the direction of Dick Cheney, saw the answer for himself, the presidency and the nation to be `more power’. Poor Dick, his formative years under the tutelage of Don Rumsfeld during the decline and fall of Richard Nixon, viewed the presidency as weakened beyond belief by both the Congress and the courts during the Watergate scandal, and his mission in life seems to have been the restoration of those powers.

Cheney also viewed the Reagan era through a zealot’s eye and saw the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of the United States to the unchecked empirical power as a near religious experience. Similarly, Dick took the tax, fiscal and monetary policies and their initial success as the end of economics as it had been known throughout history.

The rise of the neoconservatives and their constant harping on the economic and military power convinced the director and the decider that all rules were off when it came to the place of the United States in the world after the Cold War. Russia was a shell of its former Soviet self. China was barely on the horizon. And we were now an empire, an empire greater than that of Rome, England and all others at the greatest extent of their powers.

So, directed by Darth Vader and enabled by the likes of John McCain, George Bush ran roughshod over the Congress and the courts in seeking to restore what little power had not already been grabbed back and snatched new power wherever it could at the expense of the other two branches. New opinions from the Justice Department led the way to snoop on citizens and to interrogate those deemed our enemies. And they got away with it.

But the greatest mistakes of the Decider and the Director were in economics. They concluded that because Reagan got away without a scratch when huge deficits appeared on his watch that even greater shortfalls did not matter. But they did, and ultimately the spigot for new loans for we pawns and for the big boys and even the government itself would no longer be open.

They watched as the economic crisis played out hoping against hope that a third term could be won by their candidate, John McCain, thus validating their sorry butts. They almost got through the election cycle unscathed – but not quite. Last week the entire system trembled like a great fault line that was well past overdue and scared the hell out of thinking people everywhere.

Hank and Ben had to step in and stanch the flow of treasure by guaranteeing that all those lousy loans held by far over-leveraged greedy banks and institutions, so that the entire financial system of the country and maybe the world would not collapse.

So much for the genius of Reagan and the fanatical beliefs of George and Dick in `more power’; they couldn’t abolish the business cycle no matter how hard they prayed.

So it’s up to us to elect Barack Obama and turn these other bums out in shame.

And I ain’t b.s.n’ you!

Poor babies

Don’t you feel sorry for Rush, Ann, Sean and the rest of the loud mouths on the right who’ve labeled anyone who thought even slightly left of Attila the Hun to be a LIBERAL at best or, in their darker rants, even a COMMUNIST? Starting yesterday they had to adjust to their team, the Bush McCain third term truthiness express, being in the driver’s seat to the greatest nationalization since the 1918 Russian revolution.

Let’s be straight, I support the Hank and Ben show. There doesn’t seem to be any real alternative to the course they’ve set. I was born into a Franklin Delano Roosevelt household, so drastic action in the face of a meltdown of the financial system does not stand my hair on end as I know it must poor Ann’s who must look like a refugee from a Halloween party this morning.

John McCain’s first reaction to the AIG bailout was to revert to the standard Rush talking points, but as the day wore on, he became a converted SOCIALIST like most of the rest of us, not to get our votes you understand but to show he wasn’t as bad on the economy as he claimed earlier.

But John McCain’s a flexible guy. He recognizes that real old time republicans are now in charge of the party, so at least from now until the election, he’s got to pretend he’s Ike. It won’t be the toughest act in the world as the neocons and the evangelicals are catatonic over what Hank and Ben have wrought. Poor babies, it’s like they seen the second coming of Karl Marx. Since John has already explained away his 180 degree switch on nationalization to be no flip flop, he won’t have to deal with any of this in the debates with Senator Obama, right?

Florida is solidly in the McCain camp’s orbit. It’s not? Goodness, all those old folks get antsy when someone mentions that their early bird specials are threatened, but they needn’t worry, Hank and Ben are rushing to cover their money market funds that are falsely threatened by the Bush McCain financial miracle. But they shouldn’t worry; George Bush is in charge for another 121 days

Surely, John will be able to waltz through the debates clearly showing that he has always been consistent on regulatory matters as he’s been the Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee where he oversaw all the wonders worked by George W. Bush, and he’ll gladly tell us why he’s now the SOCIALIST that was his true inner self.

Surely you can’t wait; neither can I, and I’m not b.s.n’ you.

Flip flop

It’s too bad that George W. Bush wasted those Medals of Freedom on the likes of Tenet and Bremer as Henry Paulson may well have saved us all from financial ruin and prevented a real depression and is truly deserving of the honor.

Of course our die hard brethren of the right wing talk show variety have old Hank labeled a communist for his moves over the last two weeks. Actually by nationalizing banks and insurers he is more analogous to a South American dictator like Hugo Chavez, but who cares he really had to act and move the other players along. The rationalization will simply have to follow at a later date.

Bush, the deer in the headlights, was told to look presidential and act like he knew what he was doing when all of the new policies were announced. By performing that little minuet, he saved himself from being labeled the worst president of all time on two fronts instead of just one. Herbert Hoover still nips today’s man in the White House for the race to the bottom on the economics and financial fronts, but it’s close.

John McCain, the self proclaimed non-economic expert, was out and about denouncing everyone he could remember for greed or malfeasance and was completely against the nationalization of AIG until his experts told him he was for it. But, it’s O.K., he’s got it straight now: he’s for it, and he’s not a flip flopper; just ask him.

John’s back in his comfort zone denouncing earmarks which total less than one percent of federal expenditures and some of which actually do good and all of them grease the process. Of course he’s still lying through his teeth about that bridge to nowhere and about how the administration in Alaska has religion when it comes to taking such funds. In truth they beg for them and take every penny available and then some.

The McCain campaign is also doing its damnedest to denounce the efforts of the Alaska investigator looking into the allegations that the governor misused the office to fire an official who stood in the way of settling a family feud. This is another of those embarrassing flip flops; first they were for the investigation but then they were against it.

It is evident that McCain has no clue about the financial calamity that Henry Paulson is beating back – and we can only hope successfully. Yet, in the face of this once in more than a generation crisis, almost half the nation is willing to elect him president when all he is able to offer are republican bromides as a solution. He denounced Mitt Romney as a flip flopper throughout the primary campaign, yet daily he’s forced to restate what he really mean the day before.

The McCain campaign is also a great place to work. Every day spokespersons have to go on television to restate the campaign position on the one the old man blew the day before. It’s also clear that McCain is simply a commodity for the campaign managers; they have no difficulty in saying that the candidate has no qualifications to run this or that, after all he’s only running for president of the United States.

While perceptive observers might find sense in his statements such when you look down from oil rigs you see fish, many fish, but it takes a degree in environmental science to do so. Of course, lots of his supporters have such degrees, right? Oops!

You’re not going to hold the republicans accountable for the last eight years?

Surely you’re b.s.n’ me.

Listen up!

Most of you know that John McCain is running for president of the United States. What almost all of you do not seem to realize is that he is the nominee of the Republican Party. Senator McCain has taken great pains to hide the fact that he ran for and won the nomination in primary contests that featured millions of republicans voting for him because he is a member of the party in good standing as he has been for most of his adult life and that he is indeed the nominee of the Republican Party.

His opponent, Barack Obama, has repeatedly chided Senator McCain for supporting republican policies during his quarter of a century in congress and for standing shoulder to shoulder with the present incumbent, George W. Bush, more - way more - than ninety percent of the time. Senator McCain responds, of course, by ignoring the fact that he is a member of the G.O.P. and that all of his backing is from members of that same party – again that Republican Party which has been in charge of the nation for the past eight years and for most of the last generation.

John McCain is in lock step with George W. Bush with regard to the two wars we are fighting. He agrees with Bush that tax cuts for large corporations and for the richest among us should be made permanent. Until it became unpopular with voters, he was with Bush in wanting to privatize Social Security. I could go on, but even those of you who support Senator McCain must agree that he certainly appears to be a republican, even if he says doesn’t act like one. It’s kind of like the actor who says he isn’t a doctor but plays one on television; John McCain isn’t a republican he just wears the label as he plays one on the hustings.

Were John McCain to be elected – and I use the subjunctive with great hope – he would proudly wear the label `republican’. He would choose the overwhelming majority of his cabinet and thousands of other appointees from the ranks of what? That’s right, the Republican Party. Now just what kind of change would John McCain bring to Washington? None, you say; you’re damn right, `none' is the answer to that great question.

Now bear with me for just a few more minor points of logic. If John McCain is the nominee of the Republican Party, and if John McCain appoints almost all republicans to senior positions in the government, and if John McCain continues the foreign policy of George W. Bush, and if John McCain supports virtually all of the domestic policy initiatives of the George W. Bush administration – as he has for these woeful last eight years. Can we properly label him both a supporter of George W. Bush and above all can we categorize him as being a republican? YOU’RE DAMNED RIGHT WE CAN.

Just a little bit more now; stick with me. I – like the vast majority of the American people – blame George W. Bush for a terrible foreign policy that led us into one war that should never have been fought, a war terribly costly in blood, treasure and international prestige; the policy that fought the war that should have been fought without the necessary men and munitions because the president took his eye of that war to fight the unnecessary one. I – again like most Americans blame - George W. Bush for ignoring the financial crisis that built like a tsunami on his watch that has now led to the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. In all of this, John McCain was and remains one of George Bush’s greatest enablers.

George W. Bush and John McCain are joined at the hip. They are members of and true believers in the in the philosophy and polices espoused by the Republican Party and both have been supported in their leadership of that party as they took us down the road that leads to ruin if we do not change course.

The Republicans have put us in the position we are in as a nation. George Bush and his prime supporters, including John McCain, have now entrusted the leadership of the party and – they hope – the nation into the hands of John McCain.

Obviously, if you have a brain and you have read and understood the above, you will be punishing the Republican Party and its new leader, John McCain, for leading us on fools’ errands both foreign and domestic, and you will all be voting for Barack Obama for president of the United States on November 4, 2008.

If you’re not for Obama, you’re clearly b.s.n’ me, but, more important, you’re b.s.n’ yourself.

What was your weekend like?

It’s show and tell; what did you do over the weekend? I sat on my butt drinking Busch beer and watching football. How about you, Hank? For those of you not in the know, that’s what we insiders call Henry Paulson, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

Hank’s been redefining the work week. It seems that Wall Street’s bankers’ hours and Washington’s nine to five doesn’t suit Hank. He’s changed his hours to Friday night’s after five till Sunday at sundown.

While those of us being anesthetized by booze and circus scream our lungs out as three hundred pound men kick the crap out of each other, Hank and his team have been mighty busy. Frankly, I admire the man. He’s done more to prop up the George Bush/John McCain economy and to paper over their ignorance of finance than either of them deserve.

So as the sun sets each Friday, Hank’s team overdoses on no-doze and gets to work on this week’s bail out candidates. Bear Sterns, Freddie, Fannie and on and on. Last week’s prime candidate didn’t make the cut, so Lehman Brothers officers had to throw in the sponge. I’m no expert, but the media – the elite media – gave Hank a passing grade on that one.

Hank’s been doing a heck of a job – maybe the Bush/McCain folks should have reserved the accolade for Hank instead of Brownie down there on Bourbon Street – that he almost got the administration through its third term election before the crap hit the fan, but it was not to be.

It’s very clear even to us cheap beer types that we’ve got some serious financial problems. Holy cow, that Bush McCain tax I railed about last week jumped another pole volt high and my house and 401K took some really solid thumping. You’re doing a heck of job, George and John.

I know that those folks in the battle ground states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and lots of others are kind of concerned about their jobs. Well you can take comfort in that John McCain’s on that one. By the way, Hewlett-Packard is going to lay off another twenty-five thousand folks. Thank goodness, Carly Fiorina the former CEO of HP is helping John McCain with economic advice.

And, of course, Phil Gramm, McCain’s former colleague in the Senate, now a lobbyist for financial clients, and the principal economic guru of the McCain campaign say that the economy isn’t bad; it’s just that we’re a nation of whiners.

Well my fellow beer swillers committed to vote for a third term for Bush/McCain can take heart in that even though John admits he’s not real swift on the economy, he’s got great advisors. And John’s pronounced the economy to be sound.

You’re b.s.n’ me! You’ve got be for Obama

Oil's well

Bush, Cheney and McCain are big on the private sector. They want the government to get the hell out of your way so that you can get rich. Understandably, they are sickened by the sight of pin headed guideline writing bureaucrats who stand in the way of progress and energy independence. The Bush/McCain third term team wants people with industry experience dealing with the complex issues of oil extraction from public lands. You can’t have career morons running around demanding that every `I’ is dotted and `T’ crossed in these oil leases. How could you ever get that stuff pumped out of the ground that way?

So, Bush, Cheney and McCain carefully plugged in outside oil experts into the U.S. Department of the Interior to assure the smooth running of the drilling for oil on public lands. It looks like that oil industry is a wee bit less prudish than the values folks who think they’re running things and when they applied industry standard practices to the program, the mainstream media got outraged at the behavior of the political appointees. Damn that media with its Calvinist guilt and phony outrage.

It seems the media didn’t particularly like those appointees taking sexual favors and big nights out on the town to smooth and hurry the bringing of that goo to market. It’s all the media’s fault. They pick up on some stupid Department of Interior report that blows the whistle on these outside energy experts and trumpet it like they’d done the research themselves.

It’s easy for me to see where these outsiders went wrong. They had no clue that the pin heads riding those desks in interior were human. They had no idea that they wouldn’t approve of the pols having all the fun and might ultimately spill the beans on ‘em.

Oh well, when John McCain takes over for George W. Bush as a third term reward for this type of efficient behavior, he’ll have a chance to put a lot more randy roustabouts in charge over at Interior when they open up all those millions of square miles of offshore leases to the oil companies. Man, can you see the parties then?

Hair shirt, John, is big on anti-corruption and maybe if you’re a party type he’ll get you a job at Interior and you just might get rich – or at least a little happier. I know that all you readers are rich, so consider a public sector job at Interior for the next four years. Not everyone at Halliburton is willing to take a cut in pay, so there’ll be lots of openings. Think about it.

For you few who are trying to hang in where you live and are more than a little worried about where these clowns have taken us and where they’re going , maybe you’ll join me in voting for Obama.

It’s not that I’m better than those industry types, I’m just too damn old to party that hard.

You're not a tax evader, are you?

Have you paid your special Bush, Cheney, McCain tax? You didn’t know about the special assessment? Well not everyone pays it, just those left holding the bag. When the Bush, Cheney, McCain group – now seeking its third term – deregulated everything turned the economy into musical bubbles, somebody had to pay. It’s kind of like that old bank scam where you’re left with newspaper clippings in a brown bag while the perps drive off.

For example, if you bought into the dot.com bubble and got left holding the bag, you paid. Luckily, I didn’t have any money for that one and didn’t get dunned a red cent. Another good one, if you bought financial stock – or even held it in a mutual fund while the big boys stripped them clean, you paid. I got third degree burns from that one – although on a very small percentage of my body.

I got rich on my house as the housing bubble expanded. Too bad I didn’t cash in before that one burst. I only got second degree burns on that one, but the fire’s still burning, so I don’t know what the final tax on that one will be.

The stock market tax – you didn’t know? Yeah, the rate on that one has been holding at twenty percent for a long while. Given that it was only everything I’d saved over fifty years, that’s not bad, just a little higher than capital gains.

Some of my friends and neighbors are still in burn units – third degree over their entire bodies. They must have been rich to get into that bracket.

I heard that the folks in on most of the really hot hedge funds got out before the blast and have millions available to invest when this all turns around. I feel good about that; those are the folks with the creativity to make the economy hum.

I know that everybody who reads blogs is among that top one tenth of one percent of those who made it big, so when you vote for the third term for Bush, Cheney, McCain, please understand that those of us who’re paid up in our tax would like to make a change before the rates go up still further.

You mean you’re not in that top tenth of… Well I’ll be damned.

You’re b.s.n’ me. And you’re still voting republican? How about that!

53 days until the election.

A chicken in every pot

How’s your house value doin’? Mine’s been tanking. I’m down about 20% and we’re listing to starboard. But if yours is up, you must be looking forward to Bush’s third term, his and John McCain’s.

Glad you asked. My 401K is in the dumpster, also down twenty points. Course, it wasn’t that big to begin with, just my life’s savings. These McCain people are just smarter than me. I went with the old conventional advice and of the small time money managers who said to diversify. But the McCain people – and I’m sure that if you’re voting for him you fit the profile – are really looking good and getting rich while we Obama supporters are in the toilet. Everybody supporting McCain is going to keep their tax windfall from George Bush and John McCain. You’re not in the top one percent? Not in the top five? But you are supporting John McCain? Really!

A couple of my neighbors are sweating the small stuff – not like you. One got laid off and the other’s company was sold last week. They’re both whiners – complained about not having golden parachutes. I’ve been reading the papers and saw where the big time operators at Freddie and Fannie are getting millions. My neighbors are ordinary folks, so they're probably getting only a couple of hundred grand when they hit the bricks. Most ordinary folks like you and me are really safe right? No? You mean your job isn’t really bullet proof? I’m sorry; I won’t go that way again.

My next door neighbor’s kid graduated from college in May. He’s waiting tables until he can hook on with a Fortune 500 outfit. He majored in economics and hasn’t got a single feeler from anywhere. Damn that Post Office! They can’t get anything straight. Oh well, the tips are good, at least from those drinking heavy.

His sister’s getting ready to go to college. They told me last year that they had it aced, re-mortgage just like Freddie and Fanny had been papering the world. You know, the old ATM machine with windows. But he told me this morning that a bad pair of lines intersecting there may have put the kibosh on that one. Availability of mortgage money isn’t what it was on one axis and the ever sinking value of the house on the other. What the hell, a year changing bedpans at the local hospital will be good life experiance for her until their ship comes in.

Well enough of the whiners. Phil Gramm says we’re fine if only we’d just stop crying in our beer. While John McCain has said he doesn’t know squat about economics, maybe my neighbor’s kid could help him out. At least John knows – or says – the economy’s sound, and I’m sure you agree, if you’re voting for him.

Now you are b.s.n’ me, right? Or are you another Alfred E. Newman with a “What me worry? Hanging around your stupid neck?”

Lying sacks of...

They’re liars and have no shame. John McCain who wears his honor like a great hair shirt tells us bald faced lies every day, without even blushing or averting his eyes. He picked a running mate who lies as bad as Tricky Dick Nixon and says she’s telling the truth.

She was against the bridge to nowhere. You’re damn right she was after the Congress got caught and had to backtrack on it. But she cashed the check for that bridge. And of course she’s against lobbyists, except for the team of ‘em in Washington that are on contract to her office

The executive jet she was so proud of putting on e-bay. That’s not a lie, but she tells it every day like she sold it there. Are you kidding me? She sold it at loss like you’d sell a used car.

And here’s one that’s no lie but they never wanted you to know. She was paid a daily allowance for living at home. That’s not illegal in Alaska. It damn well is nearly everywhere else in the country, but Alaska’s just a little more corrupt than most places. Where the hell else could you draw salary and then get a living allowance for sleeping in your own bed?

Even Dick Cheney’s buddies at Halliburton would find that one too far a reach.

You're b.s.n' me!

Yes, he's black

Of course Barack Obama is black Are you going to vote against him for that? Move on you racist moron.

Are you going to vote for Obama because he’s black? If you’re black, you’re forgiven. If you’re white you’re a do good nut, almost – not really – as stupid as those racists.

The presidency of the United States is the most important office in the world. It has more to do with the fate of the world than any other position. It commands a nuclear arsenal that could – with the help of others – end civilization. And you’re voting for or against a candidate because of his race?

Let’s stop the b.s.n’. You’ve got to vote for McCain or Obama based on how you read the candidates.

McCain to me is more of the same bellicosity that stretched our military so thin that all we can lob at the Russians for their transgressions in Georgia is damp spit balls. I’ll give McCain credit for the dampest of these but they don’t come anywhere near sticks and stones.

Obama, new to the scene as he is, had the judgment to oppose the fiasco in Iraq, and he’s chosen an experienced person to succeed him if he croaks.

The presidency is not a job to be selected on race or gender. I’m voting for Barack because I think he’s the person for the job.

But if you’re against him for some half baked reason like the color of his skin or the lies about his religion, go for it you jackass.

Are we idiots?

Let me get this straight, John McCain one the most aggressive enablers of George W. Bush’s war in Iraq into which we’ve sunk more than four thousand lives, more than twenty-thousand wounded – including thousands permanently shattered in mind or body, almost a trillion dollars in expended dollars and further commitment of a grand total of three trillion dollars now says that we’re winning. And he wants you and me to forget that we should never have been there.

John McCain who is for getting government out of your way has enabled George W. Bush’s effort to virtually socialize the federal government by taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to bail out private equity houses committing your money and mine in locking the barn doors on misfeasance and malfeasance by the officers and boards of Fred and Fan all the while enabling them to run these now dogs into ditches over his twenty-six years in Washington.

John S. McCain is now the agent of change in Washington. He wants to free you to buy your own health insurance on the open market, wants to privatize your social security by letting you invest in this tanking stock market, wants to kick Russia’s ass for its assertion of a sphere of influence in its back yard, and has selected a person whose claim to a position one heartbeat from the presidency is that she’s a self described pit bull with lipstick with knowledge of foreign affairs that is only now being pumped into her at undisclosed locations like some poor french goose.

John McCain, if elected, will embarrass members of Congress seeking earmarks and veto even the most important of bills because your member is trying to bring home the bacon to you. By the way, what the hell else can that poor bastard do for you? It isn’t all about bridges to nowhere; there are hundreds of projects that are useful and highly desirable to many districts. Earmarks may not all be good, but they’re an almost infinitesimal part of the federal budget, and vetoing every bill containing them is surely as bad as overloading them.

And he wants you to vote for him and Miss Congeniality, Governor Sarah Palin, because they’ll change what John McCain has supported for these last twenty-six years in Congress.

Now have I got this straight; John McCain expects you and me to elect a guy who has been a big part of the problem because he’s not really a leopard and can change his spots. Sounds like it's time to break out that stock of the bridge to nowhere.

I’ve got it! If we buy this bull, we're idiots.

You’re B.S.n’ me!