Evidence of explosives in Twin Tower rubble

"It's not like before"

These aren't two hippies railing against the system. This is one of most insightful mathematicians and one of the most accomplished options traders of our time. Watch it and start making plans. Maybe.

The Quiet Coup and other things

Wow, has it really been 2 months since I posted anything? Some of it is, of course, the same inertia that has afflicted a sizable number of liberals since election day 2008. I was laughing the other day at an ad from a purveyor of progressive bumper stickers and other paraphernalia, facetiously (or not) begging people to buy from him and help shake the sales slump he's been suffering since the election. On a more somber note, progressive talk radio has evaporated from the south Florida airways.

Complacency? No. Never that. We're still in Iraq; we're killing even more innocents in Afghanistan. We are, no doubt, the Taliban's best recruiting tool, not only there, but in Pakistan, too. The economy is still stuttering, and all anyone wants to do is evaluate recovery by Wall Street! Congress, no matter the Democratic majority, is still the private property of lobbyists.

Hey, President Obama - I'M PISSED!!!!!!! I worked my ass off to win you Florida and you gave me Timothy Geithner, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers! Not to mention Robert Gates.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose ...

Maybe that should have been the title of this post ...

It wasn't until I read an article in the Atlantic by Simon Johnson that I began to understand the pathology of Obama's thrall with Wall Street. Johnson is a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management and the former head economist (2006-2007) for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Just so you know that we're not talking about some bandana-wearing anarchist. His article is titled "The Quiet Coup," and it is hands down the best piece of analysis that I have read concerning the strange, sorry state in which our nation has found itself.

From the article's lead in:
"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time."

Read it, and weep. Then send President Change an email and tell him to do the same.

Hey Paul Krugman (A Song, A Plea)

This is just TOO good. Jonathan Mann writes a song each day.

Best news of the first 100 days

The Obama administration has almost made up for the appointment of Timothy Geithner to the Treasury by announcing that Van Jones will be joining the Cabinet as Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). This is just incredibly good news and we should all be celebrating!

Progressive Obama emerges from his centrist shell

... and I for one, rejoice. This is why I gave up my weekends to knock on (sometimes hostile) strangers' doors from September through November 2. Was I worried? You betcha. Why wasn't Joseph Stieglitz and Paul Krugman, both Nobel Prize winners for economics, invited to his economic adviser table along with tired Clintonistas like Larry Summers and Robert Rubin? Robert Rubin?!?!?!? The guy who Marketwatch called one of "ten most unethical people in business," who has profited greatly from policies he enacted while Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury?

So, what is the reason for my (cautious) optimism? It is the following components of his budget, unvieled last week:

Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American.³

Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won't go up one dime.⁴

Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.⁵

Brings our troops home from Iraq on a firm timetable, finally bringing the war to a close—and freeing up almost ten billion dollars a month for domestic priorities.⁶

Reverses growing income inequality. The plan lets the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire and focuses on strengthening the middle class.⁷

Closes multi-billion-dollar tax loopholes for big oil companies. ⁸

Increases grants to help families pay for college—the largest increase ever.⁹

Halves the deficit by 2013. President Obama inherited a legacy of huge deficits and an economy in shambles, but his plan brings the deficit under control as soon as the economy begins to recover.¹⁰

Dramatically increases funding for the SEC and the CFTC—the agencies that police Wall Street.¹¹

Tells it straight. For years, budgets have used accounting tricks to hide the real costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and too many other programs. Obama's budget gets rid of the smokescreens and lays out what America's priorities are, what they cost, and how we're going to pay for them.¹²

Now, how do we know these are proposals on the right track. Well, the corporate interests affected by each of these budgetary items are already amassing huge lobbying efforts to defeat them, the surest sign that the peoples' interests just may be served by the Obama administration.

There's more:

1. Stops unnecessary government subsidies to big banks, health insurance companies and big agribusinesses.^13,14,15
   
2. Expands access to early childhood education and improves schools by investing in programs that make sure every child has a qualified, strong teacher.¹⁶
3. Negotiates for better prescription drug prices using Medicaid's tremendous bargaining power.¹⁷
   
4. Expands access to family planning for low-income women.¹⁸
   
5. Caps the pollution that causes global warming, and makes polluters pay to support clean energy innovation.¹⁹
   

Sources:

1. "Climate of Change," The New York Times, February 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27krugman.html?em

2. "Obama Calls His Budget Sweeping, Needed Change," The New York Times, February 28, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51201&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=2

3. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=3

4. "Obama Expects Fight Over $3.55 Trillion Budget Plan," Bloomberg News, February 28, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51203&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=4

5. "Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51204&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=5

6. "The Economic Cost of War in Iraq and Afghanistan," The New York Times, March 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/weekinreview/01glanz.html

7. "Tax Cuts," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-tax.html

8. "Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51204&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=6

9. "Student Loans," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-edu.html

10. "Obama unveils budget blueprint," CNN, February 26, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/26/budget/

11. "Obama budget would boost SEC, CFTC, FBI," Reuters, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51205&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=7

12. "Obama's budget," Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51206&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=8

13. "Student Loans," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-edu.html

14. "Health Insurance Stocks Dive on Medicare Advantage Cuts," The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51207&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=9

15. "Agriculture," The New York Times, February 26, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-agri.html

16. "Investing Wisely in Our Children," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51208&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=10

17. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=11

18. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=12

19. "Setting 'Green' Goals," The New York Times, February 26, 2009 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51209&id=15687-630415-XAqpeBx&t=13

A tip of the Mirsky hat to Moveon.org.

Another Idea?

Barack Obama's resume

Are you sick and tired of being assailed by your unrepentant Rethuglican friends and family members about the thinness of President Obama's resume, about how the reason no one could find much meat to hang an attack hook in during the campaign was the fact that he hadn't really done anything?

Well, fear no more. Here is the new president's resume for your rebuke arsenal. Pretty impressive one, too, I might add.

Oh, and if you want Dubya's as counterpoint, head over here.

Thank you, and good day.

Couldn't say it better myself

The George W. Bush Presidency - A Retrospective

Where in the world is Mike Connell? (or the saga of Turd Blossom)

Do you know who this man is?







Is Karl Rove the most dangerous man in America? How does a portly, baby-faced fascist with a predilection for leather bars manage to

1. cheerlead the most presidential administration in American history as it shepherds one disaster after another for 8 mind-boggling years
2. treasonously engineer the outing of a clandestine CIA operative
3. railroad a Democratic governor of a southern state into prison
4. mastermind scads of election fraud scams and schemes in order to secure his moronic doppelganger another term in office
5. thumb his nose at every congressional attempt to get his broad criminal ass in front of a committee under oath
6. enjoy paid gigs with both Fox news and the Tribune Corporation (Newsweek) as a talking head despite the fact that he is a sociopathic lying sack of shit?

And Rove, no matter what he does, comes up smelling like a rose. Could it be what his best bud GW meant when he bestowed the honorific "Turd Blossom" on his loyal wonder boy? Perhaps the one time when Dubya's verbal irony was not accidental.

If you really want to know just how wondrously wretched one damaged human being can be, read these three books by James Moore and Wayne Slater: Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, Rove Exposed: How Bush's Brain Fooled America, and The Architect: Karl Rove and the Dream of Absolute Power.

But getting back to the lead-in to this post ... Do you know who Mike Connell is (was)?

Mike Connell is/was Karl Rove's brain. Or at least his IT whiz kid. You see, Connell was a Republican consultant accused of involvement in alleged vote-rigging in Ohio in 2004. This case, which was being heard in Ohio, was the result of a civil suit brought by two civil rights lawyers. Though at first he refused to appear, Connell eventually was forced to cave and was expected to fully testify. It was the hope of the plantiff attorneys that Karl Rove himself would eventually have to appear in court as part of their suit.

And that's where things start to get ... well, meaningfully coincidental. Because, you see, Michael Connell -- founder of Ohio-based New Media Communications, which created campaign Web sites for George W. Bush and John McCain -- died instantly after his single-prop, private aircraft smashed into a vacant home in suburban Lake Township, Ohio on December 19, 2008.

"The plane was attempting to land around 6 p.m. Friday at Akron-Canton Airport when it crashed about three miles short of the runway," reports the Akron Beacon Journal.

Connell's exploits as a top GOP IT 'guru' have been well documented by RAW STORY's investigative team. You can also read about it on Brad Friedman's Blog. In fact, Brad's offshoot org, Velvet Revolution, had been offering a $100,000 reward for information lining Karl Rove to the shady shenanigans of the 2004 presidential election, a scandal which VR calls: "Rove Cybergate."

It gets nastier:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Michael Connell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly implicated in the rigging of George Bush's 2000 and 2004 elections, was killed last night when his single engine plane crashed three miles short of the Akron airport. Velvet Revolution ("VR"), a non-profit that has been investigating Mr. Connell's activities for the past two years, can now reveal that a person close to Mr. Connell has recently been discussing with a VR investigator how he can tell all about his work for George Bush. Mr. Connell told a close associate that he was afraid that George Bush and Dick Cheney would "throw [him] under the bus."

A tipster close to the McCain campaign disclosed to VR in July that Mr. Connell's life was in jeopardy and that Karl Rove had threatened him and his wife, Heather. VR's attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, notified the United States Attorney General , Ohio law enforcement and the federal court about these threats and insisted that Mr. Connell be placed in protective custody. VR also told a close associate of Mr. Connell's not to fly his plane because of another tip that the plane could be sabotaged. Mr. Connell, a very experienced pilot, has had to abandon at least two flights in the past two months because of suspicious problems with his plane. On December 18, 2008, Mr. Connell flew to a small airport outside of Washington DC to meet some people. It was on his return flight the next day that he crashed.

So, the question that nags at the back of my feverish and Rove-hating brain is this: is Turd Blossom a murderer, or is Mr. Connell enjoying a new life on some private Caribbean island owned by ... let's say, Rupert Murdoch?