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September 9, 2008 archive
Sep 09 2008
The MSM’s Silence on Post-Gustav Louisiana
I wish I could say that Hurricane Gustav refocused more national attention on Louisiana’s issues including vanishing barrier reefs and wetlands as well as the following, which I learned about this morning from a fellow Kossack living in the NOLA area who had evacuated when Gustav was on the way. Maybe it did–for only a few minutes.
For to put it bluntly, even in the New Orleans area even though the MSM gave out of state observers the impression that the area had escaped unscathed or was only lightly damaged, residents still have a major mess to contend with–and FEMA still doesn’t seem to have learned from Katrina and the flood. More below the fold…..
Sep 09 2008
CBO: “The nation is on an unsustainable fiscal course.”
“The nation is on an unsustainable fiscal course.”
That is the prognosis of Peter Orszag, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which he gave in a press briefing coinciding with the release of a CBO report today on The Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the deficit for 2008 will be substantially higher than it was in 2007, rising from $161 billion last year to $407 billion this year.
The CBO’s report was written before the government announcd the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so the impact of the cost of their bailout — a cost of up to $100 billion each — was not factored into the report.
The budget deficit projection gets worse.
Sep 09 2008
Four at Four
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Get used to this face, America.ABC News reports McCain campaign crowds grow exponentially. Before John McCain announced that Sarah Palin would be his running mate, a typical McCain campaign event “averaged only about 1,000 people. Now 5,000 has been the low end of turnout in the last few days, and the biggest event last weekend drew about 11,000.” The Palin factor has been an incredible boost to McCain’s presidential chances. “Isn’t this the most marvelous running mate in the history of the nation?” McCain asked last Friday.
Palin is a “a huge hit” within the Republican party. At events, she is overshadowing McCain both in cheers and in campaign signs. By choosing her, McCain has pivoted the presidential campaign into a contest of celebrity and Palin’s popularity is rocketing upwards.
Reuters reports Poll shows big shift to McCain among white women. “The Washington Post/ABC News poll found that much of McCain’s surge in the polls since the Republican National Convention is attributable to the shift in support among white women.” The shift is attributed to Palin and her performance at the RNC.
The NY Times notes Palin is still at McCain’s side and appearing before enthusiastic crowds.
McCain’s crowds have mushroomed from hundreds to happily bellowing thousands. And judging from the women who turned up wearing “I (heart) Sarah” stickers in Lebanon this morning, it is safe to say they have not turned out to get a look at the 72-year-old veteran Washington senator who tops the ticket.
A pair of matching signs at the rally… said it all: “America Respects John McCain” and “America Loves Sarah Palin.”
For what it’s worth in their op-ed, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann write, Momentum’s in McCain’s favor. “The turning point was the designation of Palin and the personal attacks on her. By stirring up a storm, Democrats assured that Palin would speak to 37 million Americans – just a million fewer than watched Obama’s acceptance speech.”
Once upon a time, the presidential race was about issues. But in 2008, it’s the stupids’ economy.
Four at Four continues with Obama’s campaign fund raising problems, Bush’s shell game in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some hope for salmon off Oregon’s coast.
Sep 09 2008
Sign of the times: $.99 says they can’t sell for under a buck!
While Larry Kudlow and the rest of the neo-con Kudlowites are telling you the economy is Goldilocks, reality is trying to remind us that things aren’t so golden.
Sep 09 2008
The Bush/McCain Economy: Suicide for the Middle, Lower Class
I am not an economist or mathematician, In these areas I am a relatively ignorant lay-person. Just another working class stiff trying to make sense of it all. Please feel free to correct any mistakes I may make in the particulars, but I am more interested in the overview. I don’t know much.
But I am not blind.
It’s simple stuff really, on the surface where folks like me see it. It only gets complex when you listen to the Republican Spinmeisters when they try to justify and whine their way out of what they have inflicted on the country..
What is the BushMcCain economic policy? As I have said, all I can do is describe what I see from the layman’s perspective. The same old trickle down con game that Bush’s own father called voodoo economics when Reagan proposed it while running for office. Other than the eight years that a DEMOCRAT controlled the economy, the American middle and lower classes have been at the mercy of these voodoo econmics. The only change that I can see is that Bush Junior made it even easier for the rich to loot the economy, while the lower and middle class foot the bill. Just as we are footing the bill for the Bear Stearns failure and are about to foot the trillions of dollars necessary to bail out Fannie and Freddie. Which have failed because of the economic policies of Bush/McCain.
The theory is, at least in part, that if we make the rich as rich as possible….
…by not having them pay their fair share of taxes, they will then spend their riches buying things that Americans make, thus bolstering the economy. That they will be responsible to invest that middle and lower class funded largesse in new businesses creating new jobs. That they will invest in Research and Development to develop new technologies and enterprises. That they will fund entrepreneurship…somehow. Combine this myth with massive deregulation and replacing responsible oversight 9sound familiar?) With cronies and incompetent political appointments, putting the fox IN CHARGE OF the hen house and looking the other way while the alledgedly smart responsible rich people break the few remaining rules to manipulate and loot the economy. At the core of it is the fallacy that since the rich are rich, they are smart, responsible, and somehow worthy to be stewards of the economy. Stewards that will allegedly grow the economy in a way that benefits everyone. In other words, creating a new form of economic aristocracy that will direct the entire economy for the benefit of all. Here in America, where supposedly everyone has the chance to be rich. So, are you rich yet? Or are you enjoying the benefits of being trickled down upon? Other than the Clinton years, the Republicans have had since 1976 to make their voodoo economics succeed, to test their theory on the American economy.
How is that working out?
Are YOU better off than you were under Clinton? Is the economy better off? Is the country better off?
Sep 09 2008
Winning The Stay-At-Home Mom Vote
From a stay-at-home mom.
I know, I know…my alias is “grannyhelen”, which I’ve used as a tribute to my own great-grandmother. I, myself, am a 40 year old stay-at-home mom of two in a small commuter city.
Wanna win my vote? It won’t be as easy as simply nominating a “hockey mom”, or even taking down the “maverick” image of John McCain. But women – and particularly mothers – may help decide this election, and it’s obvious that the McCain campaign picked Governor Palin to appeal to women like me. In order to put Barack Obama in the White House, Democrats must compete successfully for these votes.
Follow me over the fold for some talking point do’s and don’ts of this demographic.
Sep 09 2008
From Inside this Enfolding Heart
The final night of the Republican National Convention set forth a vision of America and its emotional center. Two videos, along with the nominee’s acceptance speech, portrayed in a soft but clear light the prime mover by which people are attracted to the party. The emotional center, the prime mover, the heart, beats with a sentimental militarism.
The attraction is undeniable. The promise is of a kind of warm embrace, a belonging, into both a family and a story. Inside this enfolding heart, all that surrounds you is home.
Sep 09 2008
In a Funk from The Fever
I’ve been in a bit of a funk the last couple of days. That’s mostly because night before last I watched an HBO movie titled The Fever. Here’s a synopsis:
Director Carlo Gabriel Nero brings actor/playwright Wallace Shawn’s controversial study of the growing chasm between the first and third world from stage to screen with this tale of a privileged woman whose reality suddenly suffers a profound shift. A bourgeois woman awakens suffering from a particularly intense fever and trapped in an unidentified third-world country. Later, upon venturing out into her war-torn surroundings, the once-wealthy woman is forced to contend with such unfamiliar issues as luxury, culpability, and revolution. Angelina Jolie, Joely Richardson, and Michael Moore co-star in a drama that employs animation and thought-provoking first-person monologues to explore the concept of bourgeois privilege.
If you’d like to read Shawn’s original writing, you can find it here. Part of me wants to do like many critics have done and write this off as merely playing on liberal guilt. But for me, it brought all those ugly questions that linger in the back of my mind to the fore.
Sep 09 2008
I AM WHO AM
YOU HAVE ATTEMPTED TO CHANGE MY ESSENCE BY GIVING ME MANY NAMES.
Yahweh, Allah, Jesus, Wakan Tanka, Jupiter, Gaea, Waak, Mithras, Krishna, Odin… so very many, so many attempts to re-create me in the image of your evil.
I AM NONE OF THESE.
Hear my words.
Sep 09 2008
Resolving to Find the Truth
Just prior to the Republican Convention Veterans For Peace held their annual convention, it to took place in the twin cities area, Minneapolis-St Paul. For those who might be interested you can take a look at some photo’s of the VFP Convention Here and Here
But this isn’t about the VFP Convention, it’s about what came out of.
Veterans For Peace adopted two resolutions last week effectively firing signal flares into the path of whoever wins this November’s election, regardless of party.