Downfall of the Empire, Rome Burns

The news just keeps getting worse and worse here in the USA.

"Bipartisan group works to revive auto bailout" reads the AP headline. Well, yeah, there are corrupt Congress-critters from "both" side of the aisle supporting the taxpayer money giveaway. But they're really all on the same page -- paid off by auto industries residing in their homes states.

And then there's this jerk, South Financial Group CEO Mack Whittle. He takes an $18 million golden parachute just before his company gets $347 million in taxpayer money bailout.

We've already heard about lots of other such cases, like the notorious AIG junket and party paid for its bail-out millions.

How bad does it have to get before taxpayers rise up and storm the offices of these greedy bastard CEOs bearing pitchforks, tar and feathers? Or are Americans so complacent and stupid these days, they won't do a thing?

Many years from now when they write the history of the USA ("a quaint democratic republic which died decades ago due to corporate greed and citizen apathy"), this bailout spending will be noted as a turning point in the downward spiral.

Michele Bachmann: Pathological Liar

Good grief! Now the Minnesota 6th district congresswoman (and FOX TV talking head wanna-be) is claiming what she said is just an "urban legend" -- despite millions of people seeing her say it on video. Bachmann is essentially claiming that Day is Night.

Too bad this kind of stupidity isn't painful or fatal; it would put Bachmann out of our collective pain.

FUD on the Coleman/Franken election recount

Jim Ragsdale of the Pioneer Press gets it right in his November 12 article:

The Coleman campaign, while promising to "work together to get things done,'' has dished most of the dirt, suggesting that normal bounces in the unofficial results are evidence of vote-tampering or worse. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty jumped in this week, saying that the question is whether "ballots from outside the process are going to be allowed in."

I understand the freak-out factor for the Republican team when the net result of the "unofficial" changes has benefitted Franken, the Democrat. That will be sorted out in the recount. But having our top Republican officials suggest that state and local election officials are crooked is irresponsible and reminiscent of the battle in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Tallahassee in November and December 2000.

In fact, Ragsdale says it so well, I have little to add. He finishes his article with this:

Deep breath time. While it is true that Coleman-Franken is also a statistical dead heat and that vote-counting remains an inexact science, Minnesota has two important elements in its favor.

• An automatic statewide recount law. In Florida in 2000, there was no statewide ballot-by-ballot recount. Gore had to seek hand recounts in selected counties. Minnesota law provides for an automatic recount of all votes in close races. It ends with two district court judges, two Supreme Court justices and Minnesota's Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie, a Democrat, voting on challenged ballots and deciding who won.


• "Intent of voter" language. Those good Floridians looking at punch-cards for hours upon hours had no law to guide them to determine what a voter intended when the hole wasn't punched clearly through. Minnesota uses paper ballots marked by voters and counted by optical scanners. For incorrectly marked votes, state law gives officials considerable guidance on how to determine a voter's intent.

That was the civics-class version. It will produce a winner, sometime before Christmas. But Florida showed that there are separate legal and political realms where this battle will also be waged. Either side can go to court and contest the election or challenge specific decisions; there is even the possibility of a court-supervised Recount II.

And the political fight goes on. While the Franken side has been quiet, the Coleman team has not gotten out of campaign mode. When the unofficial results change, the Coleman team issues a statement saying that "improbable and statistically dubious chunks of votes appear and disappear.'' Coleman went to court over Minneapolis absentee ballots that his lawyer later said proved not to be a problem. He fired off demands to vote-counters as if he were dealing with a hostile nation.

The tie will not be broken to everyone's satisfaction. Election officials have to check out all allegations, operate out in the open and show their work; but we as citizens do not have to assume the worst until proven otherwise. And we can judge Coleman and Franken by how they allow their supporters to behave in this difficult challenge to our precious democratic system.

Deep breath, indeed. Coleman should rethink his criticism, essentially of every person involved in the election process, and his fear-mongering. He knows the facts better than what his statements say; his complaints about a few hundred votes changing are ridiculous in the face of his benefiting from changes in the thousands in the very same manner in the 2002 election.

Minnesota District 6 Voters: Morons

Last election, where Michele Bachmann was elected to Minnesota's U.S. House District 6 seat, pretty much left me appalled. But to re-elect the biggest nut-job in Minnesota politics? Against a moderate, well-liked El Tinklenberg who has demonstrated success at getting the taxpayer's job done at a couple of positions, both elected and appointed?

That's completely nuts.

One can only draw one conclusion when a district elects a woman who hides in the bushes at rallies, places a lip-lock on the president upon meeting him and repeatedly shoots herself in the foot by making completely false or inflammatory statements -- amongst the many, many crazy, bigoted, racist, and just plain stupid additional things she has said and done.

That one conclusion can only be that too many of the district 6 voters are complete, utter, mindless, uninformed, raving, idiots.

For example, several 6th district supporters claimed they voted for Bachmann because of her "Christian" morals -- as if her opponent, Tinklenberg, a minister himself were not Christian. With that kind "thinking" (or lack thereof), they can't be anything other than plain stupid.

A commenter on the Star Tribune web site (who appears to be named Lisa and live in Savage) describes the situation well:

I don't know what ever happened to the Republican party I used to support. Oh wait... yes I do. The party I used to support did not embrace far-right evangelicals trying to impose their specious religious beliefs upon the rest of us. THAT party lauded higher education. THAT party was fiscally conservative. THAT party embraced reason and logic. Now you all seem to rejoice in your lack of education, celebrate your lack of heart and hold up your fear tactics and warmongering as virtues. I was a registered Republican from 1988 to 2000. George W. Bush drove me away from the party and I remain a proud anti-Republican - voting against the party of theocracy, hatred and fear at every opportunity.

How can any sane person support Michele Bachmann?

Even Governor Sarah Palin is critical of Michele Bachmann's latest foot in the mouth rant:

Speaking with reporters in Colorado yesterday, Palin said she does not agree with Rep. Michele Bachmann’s recent comments suggesting that some congressmen hold “anti-American views,” NBC/NJ’s Matthew E. Berger reports. “Well that's quite subjective,” she said of Bachmann’s comments. “I would think that anybody running and wanting to serve in Congress is quite pro-American because that's what the mission is, to better this country, so I would question the intent of that."

Who are the people who are supporting Bachmann? There is no way she represents mainstream conservatives and Minnesotans.

Brilliant

A brilliant observation by Boris Johnson:

However well-intentioned it was, the catastrophic and unpopular intervention in Iraq has served in some parts of the world to discredit the very idea of western democracy.
The recent collapse of the banking system, and the humiliating resort to semi-socialist solutions, has done a great deal to discredit - in some people's eyes - the idea of free-market capitalism.

Democracy and capitalism are the two great pillars of the American idea.

To have rocked one of those pillars may be regarded as a misfortune.

To have damaged the reputation of both, at home and abroad, is a pretty stunning achievement for an American president

This is why our country is in a mess

Is the rest of America populated by people as stupid as this? Or is it just Minnesota?

It's all over the media, how John McCain dialed back the hatred and incitement at his rally in Lakeville, Minnesota, where he defended Barack Obama and asked for respect for his opponent. The eyes of the world are on Minnesota once again.

Here's how the Star Tribune reported one particularly boneheaded Minnesotan's racist remarks at the rally:

Late in the town hall meeting, Gayle Quinnell of Shakopee called Obama "an Arab." Taken aback, McCain shook his head and, taking the microphone from her, said, "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."

After the rally, Quinnell was unrepentant. "You can't trust Barack Hussein Obama because he is a Muslim and a terrorist," she said.

Obama is a Christian, and has been all of his adult life.

Moreover, what if a politician were Muslim? Or Jewish? Or Buddhist, or Catholic, or whatever religion? Should it matter in a country where church and state are supposed be separate?

Gayle Quinnell of Shakopee is just exactly the kind of person who has caused this country to sink so far from the Founding Fathers' vision. Ignorance is not bliss, and bigotry is worse. It's harmful to our nation and to the well being of all its citizens.

What is Norm Coleman hiding?

This video of Senator Norm Coleman's spokesman repeating himself endlessly in stonewall mode over a couple of suits is both hilarious and worthy of some concern. If this is how Coleman reacts to minor questions about something as trivial as the shirt on his back, what kind of reaction can we expect over more serious and controversial issues?

Actually, we should already be very concerned. Anybody who would stonewall on such a trivial issue must have something to hide. The more he refuses to simply answer yes or no, the more it looks like he's got something to hide. What is it?

No Bailout!

It looks like Congress is about to stick us poor taxpayers with the $700 billion bailout of the fatcats on Wall Street -- tonight.

Citizens contacting their representatives and senators were 100 - 200 to 1 against the first bailout bill, and that's why it failed to pass. Now is the time to call your Congress person and tell them no again. Otherwise, they'll sell us down the river.

No economist has made the case that if this bill does not pass, we will suffer 10 years of double-digit unemployment like we did during the Depression. But politicians and Wall Street bankers all throw the word "Depression" around to cow the taxpayers in fear, even though there is no evidence we are facing such a thing.

If this bill passes, once again the wealthy gamblers on Wall Street will make out like bandits, not learn their lesson, and continue their greed-filled business as usual while we taxpayers and out children and our grand-children get stuck paying the bill. And because Wall Street didn't have to feel the pain and pay the piper, this same mistake and cycle will happen all over again before the 22nd century. Will the taxpayers get screwed again then?

Tell your Congressman: vote no on this $700 billion bailout bill!

Trillion dollar accident?

When the taxpayers are left holding the bag for $1 trillion this time around, it's hard to believe it's any sort of accident. This is intentional, by men who were willing to plunder the economy for their personal greed and ideology, and who had every expectation that they can plunder the system again and again, while the taxpayers pick up the tab.

Congress shouldn't tinker on the edges of the administration's bail-out proposal. Their substitute plan should put the pain on the pin-striped grifters where it belongs, instead of on those Americans who have been repeatedly victimized by them.

The financial market meltdown

John McCain's former economic adviser is ex-Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.

Last February, Fortune Magazine called Gramm "McCain's Econ Brain." Gramm lost the official title of economic adviser for making an impolitic remark about this being "a nation of whiners." But Gramm's belief in letting speculators do as they please was never an issue. And even after he left the campaign, Gramm had been mentioned as a possible treasury secretary in a McCain administration.

On Dec. 15, 2000, hours before Congress was to leave for Christmas recess, Gramm had a 262-page amendment slipped into the appropriations bill. It forbade federal agencies to regulate the financial derivatives that greased the skids for passing along risky mortgage-backed securities to investors.

And that, my friends, is why everything's falling apart. That is why the taxpayers are now on the hook for the follies of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns and now the insurance giant AIG to the tune of $85 billion.

Reuters, estimates that when you combine all of the bailouts and other rescue deals orchestrated in the past year, taxpayers could be on the hook for up to $900 billion, or about $6,500 from each and every taxpayer (not including interest, of course).

I don't think conservatives have truly grasped what this means for the big picture. The fact federal authorities had to essentially nationalize the largest mortgage companies and the largest insurance company within weeks makes the government's role in our financial markets unprecedented. This is not the Republican party I grew up with.

Wishing for Tim Pawlenty

Readers of this blog will know I can't stand Tim Pawlenty as a governor. He sold out the welfare of this state for a stupid promise to the noTaxpayers League. He's a lying, cheating, conniving politician who will do almost anything to get ahead. I completely disagree with most of his policies.

But he's not ignorant, and he's not rash, and he's not a religious nutcase.

Sarah Palin is all of those.

So here I am wishing that Tim Pawlenty would have been John McCain's pick for VP. At least then when McCain was elected, we would have VP who would have a Clue. As much as I might disagree with Pawlenty's ideas, they would be much more carefully considered, more fully informed and a whole lot safer for the country and the world than anything Palin might do.

Sarah Palin, nitwit

The thought of Ms. Palin sitting across the table from the likes of a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chills me to the bone. It is quite possible she could be the President of the United States of America. She really does not have the experience in the international arena.

Ok, let me hear it -- "neither does Obama." Let's compare!

Obama spent 3 years as a community organizer, became the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, created a voter registration drive that registered 150,000 new voters, spent 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spent 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, became chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spent 4 years in the United States Senate representing state of 12.8 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees.

Sarah Palin's resume is: beauty queen, local sports girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people. Then she's qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive? Not.

Brent Johnson, Belle Plaine: Idiot

Brent Johnson writes to the Editor of the Star Tribune newspaper to whine about the government spending money on mass transit, demonstrating vast ignorance or something. Sadly for us, but perhaps happily for him, he has lots of company in his half-witted belief that only the [mass] "transit system" is heavily subsidized. Never mind the trillions of dollars in general revenue which have gone into the nation's highways over the past decades, eh?

Keep in mind that this was only part of the $6.6 billion bill for higher gas taxes and other fees to bring in more money not only for roads and bridges, but an already heavily subsidized transit system!

BRENT JOHNSON, BELLE PLAINE

Second Ward, Minneapolis: DeLaSalle Astroturf

I'll be damned. A local politician gets it right. Minneapolis City Council member Cam Gordon points out the complete hypocrisy and favoritism begin exhibited by his council member colleages in his blog posting "Second Ward, Minneapolis: DeLaSalle Astroturf."

FUD and worse

The so-called Minnesota Voters Alliance is pursuing a lawsuit against Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) -- after thousands of citizens worked hard to enable it -- claiming such nonsense as it would confuse senior citizens. As these three letters to the Star Tribune newspaper illustrate, the Alliance is doing nothing more than spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD). It's not too difficult to figure out why, either. They don't really represent the voters -- who with IRV actually get an improved chance to voice their will -- but instead the "inside" interests who stand to lose some of their power, some of their undemocratic grasp on the political system.

To the Minnesota Voters Alliance, I say FOAD. I hope the court throws your silly suit right out of court.

Media morons

Go, Ron Paul, go!

The corrupt, inept and brainless mainstream media refuses to acknowledge Ron Paul even exists, yet he managed to out-poll Rudy Giulani in Iowa.

And that 5th place rank was only out of third by a few votes, while Paul's 5th place was quadruple the votes of Giuliani's 6th. The critics were pretty much all wrong.