Question of Today: Business Model?

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If Big Business demands tax cuts and bailouts and loopholes and outsourcing to feed its hungry greedy maw, destroying [the buying power of] the Middle Class in the process, how is that a successful business model?
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The 70% Solution

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Frank Rich cuts through the economist apologist bullpucky with the finesse of a ginsu knife.

"Mistakes were made..." "everyone believed...."

Maybe the denialist crowd Rich weaves together, including Rubin and Greenspan and the whole WMD platoon, can gather where East meets West and spare us all further spewings of their self-serving sludge.

I believe the word is seppuku.
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The Grind

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"Confronting opposition by the Bush Administration...."

Just think, on January 20 we'll never have to hear that phrase again.

Meanwhile, we have opposing Presidential video views to contemplate. The first of YouTube weekly addresses from almost-president Barack Obama [see twolf's diary link at Oxdown Gazette].

And the grinding down of the Bush Administration.

What could be a more apt picture this morning than Bush, herding the G20 leaders off the photo-op stage for a meaningless show meeting whose prime objective is to make him look good in legacy.

Sorry, Bush. That boat has sailed.

Seeing Bush grinding his teeth as the group had to regroup so the photo could include the tardy Argentinian representative kinda summed up the day for all of us.

And I hope somebody gets this moment I saw on MSNBC up on youtube soon, because it's good to reflect that while Bush is so no longer relevant and we're all just grindin' down our teeth wantin' him to go away, he will soon no longer be obstructive, too.

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(crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette)

Who's on First

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John McCain likes to boast that he puts Country First. He'll have an opportunity to put that on the line as Congress tackles the megabazilliondollar bailout Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has cooked up.

Over the weekend, that bailout spread out just a wee bit more, right on over to the yodel-ay-eeee-who? territory of UBS. Best known as the bank Phil Gramm works for. That's right, now the taxpayer's expected to not only bail out Wall Street, but Swiss Street, as well.

You know Phil Gramm. The mush-moufed Texan [why are they always Texans?] who gave us the Enron debacle and never met a bill he couldn't sneak a little deregulation into.

Phil Gramm. Former Senator. Lobbyist. Best Friend Forever of his fellow deregulation buddy, John McCain.

So what will it be for John McCain this week? Country First? Or Cronies First?
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Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeettt

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Sunday night on 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley elicited few details from John McCain. Oh there was a laundry list of issues where he differed with President Bush--a short laundry list that belies the facts.

Treatment of prisoners, Senator? But you supported George Bush's authorization of torture...after you opposed it.

Mostly, during the segment I viewed, McCain seemed to be more inclined to bash Obama with deceptive statements [Obama will raise taxes...well, yeah, except for that 95% of Americans who will get tax cuts.] than to offer detail on how he would accomplish any of the goals he espouses.

Well, there was one little detail he mentioned. A detail that surely will perk up the ears of farmers who raise sugar beets up here in Prairie Country. Farmers down south who raise sugar products, too.

McCain said tonight on 60 Minutes he would cut the sugar subsidy.

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttt.
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Shorter Bush Today:

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Everything my monkeys and I have done to the American economy the last seven-plus years has been a total Clusterfuck....

There, I said it.

Think I'll go cut some brush now. So long, suckas.
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Yep, the economy has survived all kinds of events, Bushie. It just couldn't survive YOU. Heckuva job.
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UPDATE: Think Progress has more....

Deja Voodoo All Over Again

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Why do all these mega-major bazillions of dollars bailouts of the financial industry come along when there's a Bush in the White House?

Oh, but don't worry your beautiful mind about it.

And isn't it cute the way the mazillionaires like Trump and the PUMA de Rothschild are comin' out to endorse John McCain this week...
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Feedin’ Grain

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Ever since John McCain selected his running mate, we've seen the media absolutely ga-ga over her quaint yet forceful way of speaking, and her moose-killin' and her fixing' and all the rest.

I don't know what all the fuss is about.

People outside the Beltway can do...and say...all kinds of interesting things.

And come up with sharper on-point metaphors than all the overpaid self-loving punditocracy inside the Beltway chattering class.

A local writer of a letter to the editor here in Prairie Country has written as succinct and colorful a metaphor for the Republican philosophy of economic policy as can be:

Gerald B. Jacobs writes in The Forum:

"their Republican economic philosophy...based on the concept of feeding grain to the horses in order to feed the sparrows."

Hmmmm, seems to me, given the current low setting of the bar on qualifications for high office, this guy's ready to be Secretary of the Treasury. Unless Judge Judy--"don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining."--wants the job.

Jus' need to work on droppin' those "geeeeee's."
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For Your 4th

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Whatever you have on tap for this holiday weekend, take a little time out to give thought to what you can do to truly "support the troops" who don't have a choice between the usual holiday at the resort, or the beach, or the national park, or even "staycation."

Men and women are putting their lives on the line each and every day for us...in Iraq and Afghanistan...on the fire line in Big Sur...at home, ready if the call for first responders goes out.

We talk a lot here and throughout the blogosphere, and one of the things we've talked a lot about is Congress and oversight. Why, we ask, haven't the now in control Democrats put the brakes on the runaway freight train about to careen off the side of the mountaintop that is the Bush Administration?

We talk a lot...but what are we doing? How many have sought out our Senators or Congressperson to say, listen to US. Listen to America. Don't listen and vote for the special interests on K Street, like the telco's who just had their way with the House of Representatives while doling out a paltry few thousands of campaign dollars.

I'm thinking that works because the Congresscritters are tellin' themselves, if I don't vote AT&T's way, then maybe Corp X, Y and Z would see that they might not get their "money's worth" and turn off the campaign contribution spigot, too.

A screwed-up system.

On the Imus Show this week, Tom Friedman, the man who put the "FU" in friedman unit, opined, as though by a timely cosmic revelation, we've got to fix our democracy here, we've got to fix our country.*

Well no shit, Sherlock.

Welcome to reality, pal. While you've been busy furthering the friedman unit, the rest of us out here in the real world have been dealing with the consequences of the Village's blithe bolstering of the gut of Bush. And it ain't pretty. So put down that plate of cocktail wienies, step away from the RNC blast o'the hour, let go of the self-indulgent claptrap, grab your media-darling cronies, and say, hey, maybe it's about time we stopped treating this as some kind of theatre of the absurd, pushing people around like pawns—a few thousand layoffs here, a few thousand layoffs there, a few hundred thousand casualties over there, pretty soon it adds up to real yadda, yadda.

Because oversight belongs to all of us. Congress. The media. And you. And me.

So this Fourth of July, between the wienies and the fireworks, ask yourself...what am I putting on the line?
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. Need a jump start? Christy's got some great ideas and tools over at firedoglake.

* my paraphrase, because WABC hasn't put the interview up on their website for linkage and exactitude as of this writing...not that that ever stopped the BBQ Media from runaway adoration of St. Mc and distortion of whatever they feel like distorting on any given day.

Prairie Postcard: Gramm's Fairy Tales

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Last night, mainstream media in the program of Keith Olbermann's Countdown showed that true investigative journalism is alive and rarin' to go despite the best efforts of a tiny band of corporate overlords co-opted with Team BushCo to stifle anything that might discredit or otherwise expose the naked corruption of the Republican brand.

The short story: Former Texas Senator Phil-the-pill Gramm, who never met a regulation he didn't try to stomp into the dirt, was a paid lobbyist for UBS, a gigagantic Swiss bank with heavy investments deep in the U.S. mortgage market while also serving as John McCain's key economic advisor...and lobbying Congress for industry-friendly legislation.

Oh, the tentacles of corruption and cronyism they do run deep. While you're over at Keith's place, take a look at this picture and tell me if it doesn't make you think of the Brothers Grimm...and likely to get grimmer.

The moral of the tale: choose your friends wise, and your advisors wiser.... or you're liable to end up with: it's the economy--stupid.

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This is one of three stories poppin' already today. Scotty McClellan's book release is stirring the pot about how Team BushCo lied us into Iraq. Obama methodically added another three superdelegates this morning.

Go ahead and cruise around the blogosphere. here. here. here. here. Read what the msm will be talkin' about...tomorrow...maybe....