In the Rage to Consume American Tax Dollars, Congress and Federal Agencies Spar for Hundreds of Millions in Earmark Loot Every Year

Is the American government the biggest criminal enterprise in human history?

Don't believe it?

Well, the ever-bold circus of pirates who pick our wallets are at it again. A new revelation? Senator Bill Nelson, such a great Dem, wants earmarks that senators use to reward the various corporations and special interests that bankrolled their campaigns, to go underground in Committee reports, i.e., he advises they don't even have to appear in a bill, and this in an effort to prevent Federal agencies from pirating the huge piles of cash for themselves and their own pet projects that in turn are being milked by grossly overpaid contractors in places like DOD and elsewhere.

From the NYT:

For example, the Department of Defense withheld $100 million from about a dozen earmarks, on the grounds that there was no statutory guideline for its action because the earmarks were included in the reports accompanying the spending bills and not the bill itself.

Mr. Nelson said the solution would be to specify in legislation that earmarks in committee reports should be treated as if they were written into the spending bills.

Uhhhhhh, so what's wrong with this picture of an American senator? Earmarks in committee reports? How simple and sleazy is that?

God, I hate these people!

Go back to sleep America.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics Defeated by Daily Show in Effort to Force Obama Administration to Act Less Bush-like and More Like a Democracy

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics stymied again. Poor FOIA! At least someone is trying, but the judiciary is apparently becoming just another corrupt arm of corporate America.

Politico.Com says it best. This is unf'nbelievable! Obama is acting more and more Bush-like everyday. If this does not help convince you Dems of the fundamental dysfunction of the Illinois corruption machine in the White House, what will? Or is this just simply an act of cowardice? Or is it further evidence of the corporate-ocracy at work, i.e., regardless of regime, the trends continue ...

Rebound marriage, America!

Here we go:

Wrap your head around this: The Obama administration wants to save former Vice President Dick Cheney from the likes of "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart.

That was the thrust of arguments the Justice Department presented Thursday seeking to prevent the release of an interview Cheney gave in 2004 to Special Counsel Pat Fitzgerald as part of his investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

In an afternoon U.S. District Court hearing in Washington, Judge Emmet Sullivan presided as Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Smith defended the government’s refusal to release the details of the Cheney interview. David Sobel, an attorney for the group suing for the documents, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, was there to argue in favor of disclosure. Here’s how it went:

Sullivan asked if President Barack Obama’s appointees stood by the Bush administration’s steadfast refusal to make the Cheney interview public, noting, “there’s a new administration.”

“This has been vetted by the leadership offices,” Smith said. “This is a department position.”

“It is disappointing that the new administration apparently is picking up where the old one left off,” said Sobel.

AND FURTHER:

Sobel argued that the government’s stance would render the records of any kind of White House-related investigation off limits to the public — not just an inquiry into a sensitive issue like the disclosure of classified information.

“The argument would apply to a murder in the White House, selling drugs in the White House, bribery in the White House,” Sobel said. “We would be carving out the White House ... for special treatment.”

Sobel also said it was "unseemly" for the court or the Obama administration to be predicting that there would be illegal activity involving White House officials.

HumanEvents.Com Plays Host To "Weekly Alerts" From Chuck Norris and Miscellaneous Other Far-Right Media Moronics

No, really, you can sign up! How thoughtful Chuck looks? He's jealous of Joe the Plumber ... No kidding!
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CHUCK NORRIS FACTS!

# There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.

# Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

# There is no chin under Chuck Norris’ Beard. There is only another fist.

# Chuck Norris has two speeds. Walk, and Kill.

# The leading causes of death in the United States are: 1. Heart Disease 2. Cancer. 3. Chuck Norris

# Chuck Norris doesn’t go hunting.... CHUCK NORRIS GOES KILLING.

# Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light, went back in time, and killed Amelia Earhart while she was flying over the Pacific Ocean.

# Crop circles are Chuck Norris’ way of telling the world that sometimes corn needs to lie down.

# The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Chuck Norris out. It failed miserably.

# Contrary to popular belief, Chuck Norris, not the box jellyfish of northern Australia, is the most venomous creature on earth. Within 3 minutes of being bitten, a human being experiences the following symptoms: fever, blurred vision, beard rash, tightness of the jeans, and the feeling of being repeatedly kicked through a car windshield.

# If you ask Chuck Norris what time it is, he always says, “Two seconds ‘til.” After you ask, “Two seconds ‘til what?” he roundhouse kicks you in the face.

# When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes, ever.

# The quickest way to a man’s heart is with Chuck Norris’ fist.

# Chuck Norris invented Kentucky Fried Chicken’s famous secret recipe, with eleven herbs and spices. But nobody ever mentions the twelfth ingredient: Fear.

# CNN was originally created as the “Chuck Norris Network” to update Americans with on-the-spot ass kicking in real-time.

# Chuck Norris can win a game of Connect Four in only three moves.

# Chuck Norris once ate three 72 oz. steaks in one hour. He spent the first 45 minutes having sex with his waitress.

# What was going through the minds of all of Chuck Norris’ victims before they died? His shoe.

# Chuck Norris is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis.

# Police label anyone attacking Chuck Norris as a Code 45-11.... a suicide.

# Chuck Norris doesn’t churn butter. He roundhouse kicks the cows and the butter comes straight out.

# Chuck Norris doesn’t wash his clothes, he disembowels them.

# A Handicapped parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.

# Chuck Norris will attain statehood in 2009. His state flower will be the Magnolia.

# Chuck Norris once bet NASA he could survive re-entry without a spacesuit. On July 19th, 1999, a naked Chuck Norris re-entered the earth’s atmosphere, streaking over 14 states and reaching a temperature of 3000 degrees. An embarrassed NASA publically claimed it was a meteor, and still owes him a beer.

# Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship.

# It takes 14 puppeteers to make Chuck Norris smile, but only 2 to make him destroy an orphanage.

100 Days of Spin - FactCheck.Org on Barack Obama's False Statements Made For Political Gain

My dear dems, this is a must for those of you who actually care more about your nation than the worship of idols. Here is undeniable proof of President Obama playing VERY fast and loose with the facts, not unlike W himself. Yes, I'm sorry, don't crucify me. Judge for yourself.

From FactCheck.Org:

... we find that the president has occasionally made claims that put him and his policies in a better light than the facts warrant. He has claimed that private economists agreed with the forecast in his budget, when they were really more pessimistic. He's used Bush-like budget-speak trying to sound frugal while raising spending to previously unimagined levels. And he has exaggerated the problems his proposals aim to cure by misstating facts about school drop-out rates and oil imports ... [more]

Swine Flu Fraud! The Latest Media Scare Hoax That Will Make Millions. What is Worse -- Fear or Flu?

OMG! On the third rock from the sun, a planet of billions where malaria alone still kills 3000 people every day, and 36,000 die of influenza every year in the U.S., less than a hundred have died from "Swine Flu" (now mutated to a human influenza virus that causes sore throats, coughs, fever, and runny poop), President Obama asks Congress for another billion or so to help prevent the ONCOMING GLOBAL PANDEMIC THAT WILL POTENTIALLY KILL MILLIONS! Oh, yes, the mainstream media is running hours of flu scare 24 hours a day, ratings are skyrocketing while swine flu masks, gloves, and $49.00 Swine Flu Kits are flying off the shelves faster than drug stores can stock them. Megatons of Tamiflu are on the way to save America (half a billion in sales at least?) and shares of Roche and GlaxoSmithKline are rising on the stock market. In this recession, at least someone is making money off of scaring the shit out of people. The American way!

Oh, echoes of BIRD FLU! Remember? The weeks of scare tactics by CNN, Fox, and everyone else? The millions of bird flu products sold, the circulating video of bird flu killing millions, etc. etc. Now the media marketing types are at it again and now America is falling into the abyss of fear again. How many times can we be fooled?

Indefinitely?

As With Exceptions for Powerful Lobbyists, Obama Retains the Infamous Power of Bush to Issue Signing Statements

Much like his Orwellian about-face on appointing influential lobbyists to carry on biz as usual in the White House and at the Pentagon, among other places, President Obama has opted to retain the hated Bush power of "signing statements" ... And what are those? Bush would often issue written direction to his appointees in federal agencies to ignore provisions in law passed by Congress, while citing the Constitution as a basis for doing so.

Though Obama signed a memorandum negating the old Bush signing statements by telling the agencies not to follow them without consulting DOJ in advance, he nevertheless failed to end the policy. Rather he reserved his "right" to issue signing statements should the need arise. As Andrew Cohen at CBS put it:

... the Obama White House sacrificed a measure of principle to achieve a form of pragmatism. In both cases, it reversed the practical import of Bush policy but kept for itself the option of reversing back yet again should circumstances require it.

But "pragmatism" that benefits who? I cannot use that as a basis for excusing Obama (like Cohen does), not when it comes as an excuse to potentially abuse power ... But will he? Time will answer.

For a comprehensive look at how and why signing statements become an abuse of presidential authority, please read the American Bar Association study that opposes Bush-like signing statements (very interesting and full of history!)

The New Dr. No - Eric Cantor of Virginia Opposed to Everything Obama Does

While I support Cantor's classic free market views that would deny select automakers access to tens of billions in taxpayer dollars for "bailout" purposes, I can't help but fault him for his transparent status climbing by taking a stand as Minority Whip in the House and automatically and publicly opposing everything Obama does. It's just too easy!

The Dems have acknowledged his contribution by programming him into their relentless and tireless robocallers that methodically target potential voters in states like California and Florida (where Republican seats are in danger) and say things like, "Why follow the party of no and it's leader, Eric Cantor?"

When can we centrists get our own robocallers? ... Stupid Question.

Last month, Keith Olbermann told his audience, "If House Whip Eric Cantor is the future of the Republican party, it is time to register as a Whig, or possibly a Bull Moose."

I love Keith, despite the fact that Ms. Magazine and Katherine Spillar targeted him a SEXIST who must be eliminated from the media.

From Associated Press, March 3: Obama Retains Earmarks Despite Campaign Pledge and Dangerous Budget Deficit

If not now, when?

6:18 PM EST

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted overwhelmingly to preserve thousands of earmarks in a $410 billion spending bill on Tuesday, brushing aside Sen. John McCain's claim that President Barack Obama and Congress are merely conducting business as usual in a time of economic hardship.

McCain's attempt to strip out an estimated 8,500 earmarks failed on a vote of 63-32. The Arizona senator's proposal also would have cut roughly $32 billion from the measure and kept spending at last year's levels in several federal agencies.

Last year's Republican presidential candidate said both he and Obama pledged during the campaign to "stop business as usual in Washington," and he quoted the president as having said he would go line by line to make sure money was spent wisely.

The White House has said that Obama intends to sign the legislation, casting it as leftover business from 2008. Spokesman Robert Gibbs pledged on Monday the White House will issue new guidelines covering earmarks for future bills.

----------

Obama's Daschle Plan for Health Insurance "Reform" in the Stimulus Bill The Result of Bribes Paid To Daschle by Health Care Industry

Following up on my previous post, this just in from POLITICO. Dems who won't do an ostrich routine need to slap themselves and read this ... NOW:

Daschle made nearly $5.3 million in the last two years, records released Friday show, including $220,000 he received for giving speeches, many of them to outfits that stand to gain or lose millions of dollars from the work he would do once confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services.

For instance, the Health Industry Distributors Association plunked down $14,000 to land the former Senate Democratic leader in March 2008. The association, which represents medical products distributors, boasts on its website that Daschle met with it after he was nominated to discuss “the impact an Obama administration will have on the industry.”

This week, the group began openly lobbying him, sending him a letter urging him to rescind a rule requiring competitive bidding of Medicare contracts.

Another organization, America’s Health Insurance Plans, paid $20,000 for a Daschle speaking appearance in February 2007. It represents health insurance companies, which under Obama’s plan would be barred from denying coverage on the basis of health or age.

There was a $12,000 talk to GE Healthcare in August, a $20,000 lecture in January to Premier, Inc., a health care consulting firm, and a pair of $18,000 speeches this year to different hospital systems, among other paid appearances before health care groups.

The speaking fees were detailed in a financial disclosure statement released Friday, which showed that Daschle pulled down a total of more than $500,000 from the speaking circuit in the last two years, and $5.3 million in overall income.

And furthermore, from nextGov:

Daschle received speaking fees in 2008 from Premier Inc., which collects and analyzes clinical and financial data for hospitals, and America's Health Insurance Plans, an association that represents 1,300 health insurers, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Premier and America's Health Insurance Plans belong to the Confidentiality Coalition, which sent a letter in December to Senate and House leadership opposing plans to include in the economic stimulus bill provisions that would protect the privacy of patients. The bill includes $20 billion for promoting transforming American's paper health records to electronic form to reduce costs and improve health care.

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Daschle and Obama Create the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology to Curtail Costs by Depriving Americans of Needed Care

Excuse me, my Dem dears, but why isn't our camera-loving, speechy Obama crowing about this as one of his triumphs? Read on and find out.

How best to control the absurd costs of health care in America? According to the disgraced Daschle and our new Messiah, President Obama, you penalize the consumers while doing little or nothing to prevent the medical mega-corps from continuing to pad the nation's indefensible medical bills with never-ending demands for more profit.

Listen up, you Dems who support the Messiah, this is all in black and white. The government will function like a corrupt HMO, using bureaucrats to make rules that will deny specific treatments not only for specific age groups, but potentially everyone, and thus relieve medical professionals from the need to use their experience and brains. Medicare will also take a big hit as the elderly will suffer terribly from this. Medications will suddenly not be covered. Important innovations in Alzheimer's disease, e.g., will be denied. You think I'm joking?

We will all suffer from this. Yes, CHANGE is coming, and Obama will make sure of it.

Also, more windfall profits for insurance companies. Why? Because they won't have to pay off on billions worth of treatments suddenly deemed inappropriate or unsuitable by the Washington bureaucracy, they will get access to a uniform medical database that will make it easier for them to deny claims and coverage based on "pre-existing" conditions, and as a bonus, they won't have to lower their rates or make it easier for the uninsured to acquire needed insurance.

Health care costs to the consumer will remain the same and we are assured the enshrinement of a well-defined two tier health care system: one for the rich, and the Daschle-Obama plan for everyone else. The "change" helps only the corporate supporters of Obama and Congress.

According to Betsy at Bloomberg.com:

One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.”

There was zero national debate on this. It was cleverly included with the stimulus package, disguised and kept quiet by Obama at the advice of Daschle.

True? Yes, it's true!

As a friend of mine would say, Shine Perishing Democracy!

More Hypocrisy From The Messiah Force? Obama Appoints Top Defense Lobbyist William Lynn to Powerful Number Two at Pentagon!

First Ron Klain, then others, and now the biggest face slap of all: William Lynn, the supreme darling lobbyist of none other than top defense contractor RAYTHEON appointed to be number two man at the Defense Department--easily one of the most powerful jobs in Washington.

According to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs: "Reasonable exceptions" granted for "uniquely qualified individuals."

Oh, this macho prick of Obama's holy world of can-do-no-wrong is certainly qualified! How much more ANIMAL FARM can we get guys and gals? Well, let's see. Brace yourselves, Obama-loving followers of the holy temple. According to Huffington Post:

Raytheon is no mom-and-pop defense contractor shop. It is the type of industry behemoth that protesters of the Iraq invasion bemoaned for profiting off of the war and encouraging militarization. And as the man who led "the company's strategic planning and [oversaw] the government relations activity," Lynn was intimately involved.

A former employee of DFI International -- a D.C. consulting firm -- Lynn joined Raytheon in August 2002 and was elected an officer in May 2005. The firm and its subsidiaries are a major force on Capitol Hill, having spent more than $14.5 million on federal lobbying activities during the six years Lynn was working there, according to a review of lobbying records. Raytheon worked to lobby the House, Senate, DARPA, Defense Department, Energy Department, Treasury Department, State Department, and others on issues ranging from long-range guided munitions, sea based missile defense and joint standoff weapon systems.

The government outreach efforts seemed to pay dividends. Raytheon Company received more than $54 billion in contracts from the federal government during that time period, according to fedspending.org, a project of OMB Watch.

If this appointment of the lobbyist's lobbyist, William Lynn, doesn't prove that Obama and his apostles in the White House are as close to frauds as you can get, I don't know what does.

You go by the rules, even when it gets tough, or they count for nothing!

Obama Inauguration Party Planners Budget $45 Million Acquired From Wall Street and The Wealthy Elite of America

Remember the days of Madison and Jefferson? The parties on the White House lawn, composed of all types of Americans, from clerks to diplomats? Remember Dolley Madison cordially welcoming all Americans to her house, regardless of their wealth or status, simply because they were fellow Americans who shared her vision for democracy?

Well, of course you don't!

In those days, our Founders shunned anything that imitated the corruption and vanity of the European courts, the fabulous, glittering, absurdly expensive elite parties wherein only the most wealthy and influential could participate, i.e., those most suited by virtue of their positions to rub shoulders with the King and Queen, not to mention their teams of court lackeys and sycophants.

One can't help but call to mind the bumbling and arrogant aristocrats of France on the eve of the French Revolution; and that image in turn recalling some of the wealthiest on the Titanic who refused to believe the ship could sink even while it was sinking.

Now, 2009 America. Has American democracy evolved? Our shining new Democracy with our shining new god, Barack Obama, whose closest circle of newly appointed staff and cabinet officials will only shoulder-rub with a party list consisting exclusively of America's elite, from Wall Street bankers (who received or who will receive bail-out money!) to ridiculously wealthy actors.

Is this Obama inauguration an indicator of true democracy? Is Obama akin to the great American leaders he so often attempts to imitate?

Where are the special meetings and parties and balls packed floor to ceiling with America's best, you know, the thinkers, teachers, philosophers, authors, scientists, and artists? Where? There just isn't room. Or what about a few balls and parties for representatives of Americans who have lost their jobs or whose kids have died pointlessly in Iraq? What about them? Or what about the firemen, construction workers, plant employees, carpenters, etc.? Those poor bastards. Why don't they get a chance to sip a martini and talk in the ear of an Obama staffer, or God help us, even the president himself?

Sorry!

Democracy of 2009 must first entertain the real estate moguls, the $10,000-a-plate lobbyists, the flashy media darlings, the whores of Wall Street and the silicone-injected tramps of Hollywood, and so on, as well as all other manner of "mover and shaker" that might benefit the Obama image in the future ... Yes, no time, no room for anyone else. In order for Obama to serve the country, he must first and always serve himself.

This is AMERCIAN DEMOCRACY in 2009.

Get with it! Be realistic. Stop your whining! He is better than Bush, right?

And don't come back at me with the money Bush spent on his parties. What do you expect from that cretin? We expected more from the Democrat man of change during a severe, job-killing recession in a country that is steadily growing the largest and most unreasonable debt in world history. Oh, and don't throw "little people" photo ops in my face and point to those examples of Obama shoulder-rubbing with the less fortunate.

Please stop living in the fantasy world of high school civics class. If we expect more from President Obama, then he should deliver more. He should restore true democracy, not further mire it in the politics of elitism.

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Pelosi: Pass stimulus by mid-February - Seize the Day and Pass The Pork

In an era of multi-trillion dollar deficits, Nancy Pelosi and House Dems can't resist using the economic era as an excuse to push forward a massive pork bill (and while Obama does what?)

Just in off the AP wires:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pressed top congressional Democrats on Wednesday to pass a massive economic recovery bill by mid-February, a call tempered by new projections of unprecedented deficits ahead.

Pelosi emphasized the infrastructure and energy components of a massive stimulus package that Congress and President-elect Barack Obama are fashioning in response to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The combined spending and tax cuts of the plan are expected to cost nearly $800 billion.

"Many will focus on the cost of it," Pelosi told the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. "While we are not discussing small sums, the bill is fiscally responsible because it will provide a fiscal dividend by returning 40 percent of the cost to the Treasury — at least that much in increased revenue."

Noting that the proposal will include spending on roads and bridges, clean energy technologies, expanded Internet access, and modernizing schools, she declared: "This is not your grandfather's public works bill."

No, it isn't. This is far more wasteful and insane. Borrowing to SPEND in an era of dangerous deficits is a very bad idea.

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The Historic Rape of The American Treasury, and America's Future, Continues in The Final Days of the Bush Administration

And I thought the deficit was ONLY two trillion? OMG. WE ARE UP TO $7.4 trillion AND COUNTING!

The organized Bush mob are looting and pirating sums that even the wildest fantasy could not conceive. According to a few media patriots at CNBC who are keeping close tabs on the money, we've just spent in the past year, twice the amount of money we spent for all of World War II! And yes, that is inflation adjusted!!!

This is insanity, absolute criminal insanity. We need a revolution. If Obama doesn't clamp down on this and get our money back, he is no one to be trusted.

My poor country!

I have no words to express my rage. America, awake! Please.
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Lobbyist Ronald Klain Chosen for Top Post in Obama's New Ethical Administration

After a strong and repeated campaign pledge to “wrest the federal government out of the hands of lobbyists” our upcoming PRESIDENT OF CHANGE, Barack Obama, has just appointed Ronald A. Klain, a former lobbyist for various corrupt organizations, as CHIEF OF STAFF to future Vice President Joe Biden.

Isn't this how it always begins? They claim they will change things, then later deny that business as usual is business as usual. Excuses are made. Negative no-go-with-flow types are fired or ignored. Deluded followers pretend things are still different and refuse to see the truth.

According to the NY Times:

"[Ronald Klain] worked until 2005 as a lobbyist at the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers, where he lobbied for clients including the failed mortgage giant Fannie Mae; an industry group seeking help with asbestos lawsuits; a drug maker under federal investigation ..."

Fannie Mae? Drug makers? Yeah, this guy's got moral backbone, I can feel it driving a sharp knife into my backbone even as I type this.

Course, the new "rules" supposedly prohibit Klain from "directly" "working" on any "matter" related to his "employers" over the previous two years. Do we have loopholes here? Is there a potential for lying? Zero application of the new "rules" and so forth? And who the hell is going to enforce these rules, some lower level White House ethics attorney? Sure, sure. He or she will just get on the phone and scold Biden's chief of staff whenever the need arises.

But the bigger question remains: why hire the LOBBYIST in the first place? Are we naive enough to believe that so-called ethics rules will prevent the corrutpion that lobbyists bring with them from job to job rather like pigs slopping bacteria from pen to pen?

They Want to Believe, They Are Religious About Obama as Messiah

But do they know his #1 corporate-bundled contributor is GOLDMAN SACHS, followed closely by LEHMAN BROTHERS?

I know I've harped on this, but go tell the U.S. to face the facts.

Oh, and what exactly is his plan for ending the war?

And for ending the incredibly damaging budget deficit by cutting more taxes, as opposed to cutting the overbearing size of government?

And so forth, on and on?

America is headed for a bad rebound marriage, Oprah notwithstanding.

Gods save us.

A Majority of Republicans in the House Voted Against the Wall Street Bail-Out, But A Majority of Democrats Voted For It!

Yes, it's true, and I was originally blaming the Republicans as a whole/hole when in fact many of them remained very opposed to the corporate welfare package. Much to their credit, many of the Dems didn't cave until they were able to add their own personal wasteful pork products to the bailout bill--$150 billion extra in lard. I suppose you could say, they were bribed? Does that happen in America?

And guess what? Obama's top corporate buddy in terms of bundled donations is GOLDMAN SACHS. More shockers from the NY Times:

When you break it out by individual companies, you find that employees of Goldman Sachs gave more to Obama than workers of any other employer. The Goldman Sachs geniuses are followed by employees of the University of California, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, National Amusements, Lehman Brothers, Harvard and Google. At many of these workplaces, Obama has a three- or four-to-one fund-raising advantage over McCain.

Shine, Perishing Democracy!

Obama is a total fraud and a sellout.

Bush Pushes $700 Billion Bail-out Plan -- Just When We Thought He Could Not Get More Ruinous or Foolish - Shine Perishing Democracy!

The last biggest lie of George Bush Jr with regards to the $700 billion corporate welfare package for fellow Republican golfers in the predatory financial industry:

"And that over time, we're going to get a lot of the money back."

Kinda like NAFTA, eh? Another crock of outrageous poop from the Republican party and George Bush Jr. Another instance of the corporate Democrats knuckling under. And Obama? Are you kidding? Do you really think he will stand up to this historical rape of the American wallet? ... No, really, we're talking mega-criminal activity here on a scale never before seen. This is the result of the insurance the financials bought with all their political contributions over the years ... or should I say, bribes? Don't fool yourself.

Also, this is an historic opportunity outside of the Iraq War to so strain the budget as to force deep and permanent cuts in social programs, social security, and everything else mainstream Republicans hate.

Also, it is an opportunity to keep press focused on a Republican plan to HELP AMERICA just before a pivotal presidential election. (Will McCain whore himself out to this also?)

And, oh, um, what happened to supply side economics? This "bailout" is going to terribly burden all Americans with large-scale, ruinous taxes. And for what??? To give free money to a pack of Wall Street speculators and scoundrels who should be learning a big lesson? It's not a matter of IF, only a matter of WHEN. The politicians are avoiding the consequences, and hiding, depending on the usual media schizophrenia to confuse the issue, as well as the American penchant for ADD, and the formidable skills of their Big Lie marketing teams to rescue them from the consequences of reality.

The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) put it best in call to protest the bailout:

It is clear that the Federal Reserve and the Administration continue to blame homeowners facing hard financial difficulties in making payments on mortgages that were structured to fail, while using billions of taxpayer dollars to bailout the same predators who created this mortgage crisis and have hugely profited from it. The Federal Reserve’s orchestration of JPMorgan/Chase’s takeover of Bear Stearns with taxpayer dollars is an outrage.

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Proof That a Vesitge of Democracy Still Exists in America - Voting Machines Scrapped - Deborah Hastings of AP Reports

Excerpt of Article By DEBORAH HASTINGS (AP National Writer) From Associated Press, August 19, 2008 6:23 PM EDT:

The demise of touch-screen voting has produced a graveyard of expensive corpses: Warehouses stacked with thousands of carefully wrapped voting machines that have been shelved because of doubts about vanishing votes and vulnerability to hackers.

What to do with this high-tech junkyard is a multimillion-dollar question. One manufacturer offered $1 a piece to take back its ATM-like machines. Some states are offering the devices for sale on eBay and craigslist. Others hope to sell their inventories to Third-World countries or salvage them for scrap.

A few more are holding out hope that the machines, some of which were purchased for as much as $5,000, could one day be resurrected.

"We store them very, very carefully in the hopes that someone, someday may decide that we can use them again," said San Diego County Registrar Deborah Seiler, whose jurisdiction spent $25 million on the devices.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. After the disputed 2000 presidential recount, Congress provided more than $3 billion to replace punch card and lever-operated machines. State officials across the country said the new systems would eliminate human error and political tampering.
But problems with the machines soon followed: vanishing votes, breakdowns, malfunctions and increasing evidence that the devices were vulnerable to hackers.

Beginning last year, states including California, Ohio and Florida abruptly ordered election officials to mothball their electronic machines. Over the last two years, the percentage of registered voters relying on touch-screen technology dropped from 44 percent to 36 percent.

Return of The Citizen Legislator: Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma Won't Give "Yes" For an Answer Because His Country Needs "No"

Mark Twain once observed, "There is no distinctly native American criminal class, except Congress." Today, in this era of horrendous budget deficits, even Twain would be stunned at the magnitude of untouchable fraud and waste perpetrated daily by politicians and government officials, all eager to strip the American wallet of every possible dime in their own selfish interest. And who stands against them?

A guy named Tom Coburn?

Wait a minute ... Wasn't he the guy who pissed off Congress by ranting about the infamous bridge to nowhere in Alaska. As George W. noted back as far back as 2006:

Coburn came to the nation's attention last October when he proposed taking the $223 million earmarked for Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" and using it to repair a New Orleans bridge destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Because this threat to Alaska also threatened Congress's code of comity -- mutual respect for everyone's parochial interests -- his proposal lost by 67 votes. But rather than do the decent thing -- apologize, tug his forelock and slink away chastened -- he refused to stop talking about it, made it an embarrassment to the Senate and catalyzed revulsion against spending that is both promiscuous and parochial.

A lone warrior in a mire of corporate greed, soft money kick-backs, and home-grown sociopathology, Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and his staff struggle daily to restore some semblance of integrity to Congress. According to their estimates (which agree with mine), our government dedicates upwards of $300 billion per year to fraudulent and wasteful spending, i.e., enough money to build a fleet of spaceships and colonize the entire nation of Zimbabwe in lavish terra-domes on the planet Mars (minus Mugabe).

As I've said before, our government is like a morbidly obese human being, weighted to debilitation by an excess of budget fat resulting from a never-ending infusion of unneeded tax calories. Sure, the calories are good to a point, but once that point is passed, they only create layers and layers of pointless bureaucracy, and stagnant Treasury pools of money waiting to be pirated by the best and brightest. Arguably, the worst thing that ever happened to American government was income tax.

But, oh God, how can we live without it? Well, we've been conditioned my friend. If this government had a single accounting system that worked, if we had zero tolerance for reckless spending, if we stopped allowing the White House to facilitate the thievery, the average American could easily have his or her tax burden cut in half, or even more. Considering that the average American loses 40% or more of his or her income to taxes, is that such a bad idea?

Back to Senator Tom Coburn, also known as Dr. No because he says NO to all types of wasteful spending. Why? Because he understands that Congress is constantly earmarking money for programs and sprees that are not only pointless but often duplicated elsewhere. His yes-man enemies in Congress, like Nancy and Harry (of course), are attempting to end-run Coburn's tactics of delaying wasteful spending bills. Coburn, unlike most yes-woman and yes-man politicians in Congress, is not interested in doing favors to get ahead (he even imposed term limits on himself!), so he rejects earmarks without hesitation. Like any rational being, he understands the true costs. And unlike those without moral compass, he takes responsibility.

How dare he? What could make a politician more angry than a colleague who stands in contrast and in doing so reveals their perpetual complicity and hypocrisy?

According to The New York Times:

[Senator Coburn] said the Senate was shirking its duty by failing to give closer review to the hundreds of bills that slide through by unanimous consent. And he said Congress should not be clearing the way for billions of dollars in potential new spending — even on meritorious projects — without making reductions elsewhere. Fearful of the public debt piling up, he said he wanted the opportunity to at least propose those cuts.

You go Big Tom!