Failout

What happens when the President and his cronies decide to "Legislate from the Oval Office"? New word: Failout. This President and his cronies are now attempting to bypass the Legislative Branch by drafting laws themselves to provide more cash to a Wall Street that has managed to squander all of the cash that the under-regulated, free-market system once espoused by this President as the brainchild of his idol, Republican demi-god Ronald Reagan.

I am particularly displeased with the House and Senate Democratic leadership on this one. First and foremost, the legislature should have been all over this months ago. Specifically, I am pointing my finger at you, Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd. How could you allow the administration to one-up you like that and have a completed bill to put on the table last week? I mean, yeah it was only 3 pages, so they probably showed up early that morning and cobbled it together (much in the same manner a procrastinatorial high-schooler may utilize first-period Algebra class for their writing assignment on Chaucer). Either way, even with their procrastination the Administration managed to put forth a proposal that was allegedly a month or two in the making. Now, the members of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee, as well as their counterparts in the House, are stuck attempting to draft legislation which is based upon the Bush Administration's core intent, which is to provide some easy money to "stimulate" the credit market with new capital.

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to be hearing the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, as a voice of reason in a crisis. Nonetheless, there he was, and the liberals and conservatives in Congress managed to actually reach across party lines and defeat the centrists in staving off the bailout bill. Everyone's favorite congressman, Dennis Kucinich was there to vote against it as well:

• http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/news_article.aspx?storyid=97563&catid=3

This is really a plan that should have input from more sectors of the population and the economy. There will be huge ramifications with regard to funding availability in the future for other parts of government (including the ones which are working very well). We need to put an end to short-term stitches, and endeavor to create more long-range plans. Otherwise, we will continue to rely upon debt as a vehicle for providing cash flow to support our half-baked solutions.

The Taxing Truth This Election

So, I recently did a long drawn-out investigation of the data dumped by the Tax Policy Center on the tax proposals of Obama and McCain. A lot of info, but I have done a better job summarizing it than many of the graphs floating around out there on the 'Net. I'm posting the link here to the blog post on The Cincinnati Enquirer.

If you scroll to the bottom of the page, click up the "Recommend" flag at the bottom of the article, and it will help knock it to the top of the "Recommended" list on the website, and thus get many many more views in the notoriously Republican southwest corner of Ohio, and hopefully do some work to dispel Republican myths.

• Tax Plans This Election

As always, share the link and spread it around. In addition to the typical "how much taxes do you save" analysis, I also took the liberty to summarize the impact on the federal deficit too. This is one point that is important to many, but gets very much less impact.

Fox News on Alaskan Earmarks

Pass it on...

America for CINDY SHEEHAN!

Get your copy of the poster here:

Thumbnail image!

McCain/Palin: Fear First

So, I am watching the Republican National Convention tonight, and I saw the Homage to 9/11. How disgraceful of the RNC to reach back to 9/11 with a purely cynical, self-serving stage show, abusing the memory of those who died on September 11, 2001. I can't even begin to explain how shocked I was that this was going on. I thought for sure they wouldn't go there. So, the party leadership reveals who they are to the American people: Shameless opportunists who will use any device to get ahead. I have boycotted all of the Hollywood recreations of September 11, 2001, including the numerous movies about United flight 93, out of a sense of respect and dignity for those who died. This is a sad commentary on the real values held by the Republican Party today, and a far cry from the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Goldwater, and, yes, even Ronald Reagan.

I hope that all of you readers can find the time to write to your Republican, Democratic, and Independent representatives and candidates to voice your outrage at what a terrible offense has been committed to the memories of those dead in the Sept. 11 attacks, and the brave soldiers and unfortunate civilians that have died in the fighting since.