One Is the Loneliest Number

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Lots of talk these days about some pretty big numbers. Deficits, stimulus bill price tags, tax cut giveaways to appease "centrist" Republicans, votes in the Congress....yep, they all have three or four or nine or... digits, these numbers.

So it's pretty easy to talk numbers and forget about people. Suck it up you folks who might benefit from the Democratic plan, says South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford this morning on CNN. Ten thousand jobs here or a bazillion foreclosures there? pffft. Piffle. You got yourself in this mess. It's gonna be tough getting out, guess you're gonna be one of the collateral damage.

And his rationale is the same entities that screwed up Katrina would screw things up if we go down the Democratic path. And John King just lets him spew that spin unchallenged. Unauthenticated.

For one thing, George Bush isn't at the top of the entities, having his minions and cronies seed everything with the corrupt incompetent ideologues who were in charge the last eight years.

The Republicans are in lockstep now, with few exceptions. Standing against the will of the American people. Standing against the needs of the American people. Standing against the interests of the American people.

Because for John "Bagman" Boehner (remember him handing out those tobacco lobby checks on the floor of the Congress? No? Well no wonder the country's in such dire straits) and Mitch McConnell and Richard Shelby and Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the Republican leadership, it's all about scoring points against the new President. It's all about roughing him up..."Welcome to Washington"...it's all about carrying water for the same elite insiders that drove us into this quagmire the last eight years.

And they're not going to give up...heck, they're going full bore with their talk radio partners in propaganda still.

This week, President Obama is reaching out to the American people. Going to town halls to talk directly to the American people.

While the Congress meets in their cloakrooms and closets and caucus retreats and talks to each other. And their willing watercarriers in the media.

And in northern Minnesota, here in tall timber country, the foreclosure listings fill the paper. The business news is the layoffs at Teamworks.

And in Akeley, Minnesota, the Paul Bunyan Grocery is going out of business because the owner cannot afford the losses any longer.

So tell that little eighty-year-old widow lady in Akeley who depended on that Grocery because she doesn't drive and the nearest "big" town of Walker is some ten miles away. And it's 20 below and the wind chill's even colder.

Tell that lady to suck it up, because the posturing and preening of the demigods for those who line their pockets is so much more important than passing an economic stimulus bill that will put America back on track.
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McShamed

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Evidently finally the chorus was so loud and universal that John McCain has said he will debate tonight at Ole Miss. The Ol' Craps-shooter snake-eyed.

It's a foreign policy debate. I hope we'll see Obama strongly make the point that our economy is the chief strength of our foreign policy and our national security.

And, hey, just imagine how you'd be feelin' this morning if your social security account were vested in the stock market right now?

The New Welfare Queens

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Orrin Hatch on the Imus Show this morning was just the latest-I've-heard example of the Republicans digging out the ol' Ronald Reagan "welfare queen" card.

You see, the current financial "crisis" is not the fault of greedy Wall Street and investment bankers with their "swaps" and their "derivatives" and their other phony, unethical, totally in violation of standard business practices paper shuffles all designed to line their own pockets with big commissions and mega-bonuses and stock options. Nor is it the fault of Reaganomics or Bushonomics or any other variation on "hidden hand" that must, must, must not be regulated at any cost economics.

Oh, my, no. It's Clinton's fault--Bill, that is. And that 1999 bill...yep, yep, yessiree. And it's the fault of all those, you know, those "others" who had to have a subprime mortgage. And we know who they are, don't we, folks.

The slimy subtext of the argument that Orrin Hatch and BushCo are pushing is racial. And you thought these billionaire investment bankers were scum. Ha! Meet the "fiscal conservative minority" as Hatch described himself and those po' po' Republicans who couldn't possibly have done anything to rein in the outlaws when they had total control of the White House, the Senate, the House, and even the Supreme Court.

Audacious rape in progress, folks. And BushCo and their minions and the billionaire barons of Wall Street want you to just look away.
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Imus Interviews link update pending

Gramm-arse

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Let's deconstruct all the flying conversation, the steamrolling from the Bush White House, the oh-don't-we-sound-mellow-and-reasoning from the Congressional Republicans as they stick the shiv in our backs, and the so-far strong statements from the Democrats like Chris Dodd and economists like Paul Krugman.

The $700 Billion or $1 Trillion or whatever the number is that Henry Paulson was flacking Sunday on all the morning talk shows. The absolute proactive aggressive protectionism against accountability that's a prime component of this subprime bailout panickfest.

And bring it down to one simple question: Come January, would you want "Secretary of the Treasury" and John McCain's BFF* Phil Gramm with his hand in that cookie jar and absolutely no oversight at all?

Nope, me neither.

*BFF = Best Friend Forever? Or...Biggest Financial Fuckup?
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