Recess Appointment Invalid? Give Me A Break!

"I can't imagine how anybody could maintain under the circumstances that your appointment and your service is valid," Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) told Cordray at Tuesday's hearing. "And I can't imagine then … how the actions you are taking will be upheld, and I think that's a very, very serious consequence for our nation."

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said: "There's no question there's going to be constitutional challenges" to Cordray's appointment.

Cordray said he and his staff have discussed the potential for legal challenges to the appointment by businesses affected by any new rules. But Cordray said it wasn't clear whether those challenges would succeed and that he believed the appointment was valid.

"I have been appointed as director," Cordray said. "There may be issues about that … but I now have legal obligations I'm supposed to carry out for this bureau. I'm going to do that."

The Republicans are all up in arms about this particular recess appointment. I find their complaints to be incredibly bogus when one first considers how many recess appointments Bush made, and second, how we had endure the fucking idiocy of John Bolton's recess appointment as the American representative to the United Nations. The man with the most reckless mouth in history at the UN (shaking head).

Republicans need to shut the fuck up. They are running in circles nowadays, and quite frankly, the rhetoric is just not convincing too many outside of the viewers of Fox News (all three million of them, in a country of 350 million people). Yawn .....

Ooops ... Guess Shutting Down Megaupload Has Other Consequences For Our Government

You know, if any of you out there really still believes that America is a democratically run country/government, I swear I will sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, damn it.

US prosecutors have said that data belonging to Megaupload users and stored by third parties could be deleted as soon as Thursday.

Users have been unable to access data since the file-sharing service was raided.

The warning was made in a letter filed by the US Attorney's Office.

Megaupload's lawyer Ira Rothken told the Associated Press that at least 50 million users had data which could be deleted.

This is data that has absolutely zero to do with any DCMA infringement. After the internet blackout to oppose the tyranny of the bills that were being bandied about in trying to stifle/control the internet, the American government shuts down a site, in New Zealand that affects millions of users, with probably only a small percentage of them subject to a real DCMA take down (as I have already had one on my blog, so I know what they can do).

China is looking awfully good as a new place to live.

Obama Administration Fucks Women Over, Again

Just when Obama was beginning to sound and act like a progressive president, he goes and does this.

Today the FDA announced the Secretary of Health and Human Services – for the first time ever – has invoked her authority to overrule the agency’s decision to approve the emergency contraceptive pill Plan B One-Step for full over-the-counter sale, which would have removed what was widely recognized to be a politically motivated age restriction on its access. This is the first time in history the Health Secretary has ever used this power to overrule an FDA decision. Had the FDA decision gone into effect, women of all ages would have been able to purchase this back-up birth control method without a prescription and without delays at the pharmacy counter.

“This is a deeply disappointing betrayal from an Administration that had pledged to promote the health and well-being of women and families and be guided by science and medicine,” said Andrea Miller, President of NARAL Pro-Choice New York. “The evidence is clear, the FDA has done more than its due diligence, and women across the nation deserve ready access to a safe, effective second chance to prevent an unintended pregnancy. The decision to overrule the FDA is reminiscent of a troubling era, when the Bush Administration routinely allowed politics to trump science, especially in its interference with the FDA’s deliberations over this product.”

I hate to quote Sarah Palin, but how is that hopey changey thing working out for you?

Obama Is Wall Street

For those that think we should just vote in Obama for a second term, and either hold our noses or point out the old cliche of "who else is there," one really needs to read this, and take it ALL IN CAREFULLY.

The largest banks are larger than they were when Obama took office and are nearing the level of profits they were making before the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, according to government data.

Wall Street firms — independent companies and the securities-trading arms of banks — are doing even better. They earned more in the first 2¹ / ₂ years of the Obama administration than they did during the eight years of the George W. Bush administration, industry data show.

Please continue your support for Occupy Wall Street.

For more in-depth coverage of this issue, read Think Progress' take here.

Tammy Baldwin, My New Hero

Finally, someone with "balls" ready to sock it to the banking industry that has fucked the 99%. H/T to AMERICAblog.

Baldwin's resolution states that any settlement should follow three guidelines: 1) Banks that engaged in fraudulent behavior "should not be granted criminal or civil immunity for potential wrongdoing related to illegal mortgage and foreclosure practices," 2) the federal government and state AGs should "proceed with full investigations into claims of fraudulent behavior by mortgage servicers" and 3) any monetary sum paid by the banks should "appropriately compensate for, and accurately reflect, the extent of harm to all victims."

"We have to do the best we can to make innocent victims whole. But secondly, especially in light of the taxpayer bailout of the biggest banks, we owe taxpayers a solemn effort to do everything we can do to uncover what went wrong and whether laws were broken," Baldwin said in an interview with The Huffington Post. "Part of that is to make certain this won't happen again. That, to me, is one of the most basic responsibilities we have."

More On AG Settlement With Banks

I first posted on this subject here on August 22, 2011. Here's a little tidbit from Matt Taibbi's blog about this, with a very interesting point.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris sent a letter to state and federal regulators explaining that she pulled out because the proposed settlement amount for banks guilty of bad securitization practices leading up to the mortgage crisis – said to be in the $20 billion range – was too small.

[snip]

I’m convinced that the deal will eventually go through, however, after some further concessions are made. Certainly the absence of both New York (whose Attorney General Eric Schneiderman gamely started this mess by refusing to sign on or abandon his own investigation into corrupt securitization practices) and California will make it difficult for the banks to do any kind of a deal. But there is such an awesome amount of political will to get this deal done in Washington that it almost has to happen before the presidential election season really gets going.

If it does get done, expect a great deal of public debate over whether or not the size of the settlement was sufficient. Did the banks pay enough? Should they have paid ten billion more? Twenty? Even I engaged in a little bit of that some weeks ago.

But if and when that debate takes place, it will actually obscure the real issue, because this settlement is not about getting money from the banks. The deal being contemplated is actually the opposite: a giant bailout.

In fact, any federal foreclosure settlement along the lines of what’s been proposed will amount to a last round of post-2008-crisis bailouts. I talked to one foreclosure activist over the weekend who put it this way: “[The AG settlement] will be a bigger bailout than TARP.”

Another bailout. More giveaways to the 1%. Nothing fair to the 99%. And media keeps asking what is the point of OWS? Open your eyes, stupid people!

Still Think Obama's Administration Is On The Regular Person's Side?

Two senior Treasury officials said Friday that they had never seen a loan restructuring similar to an Energy Department loan to a failed solar panel maker.

The half-billion dollar loan to Solyndra Inc. was restructured earlier this year so that private investors moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment on part of the loan in case of a default.

You read that right. The loan was restructured so that private investors will get their money before the TAXPAYERS!

And you wonder why OWS exists???????

Obama Administration Now Attempting To Run Interference With AG's And Investigations Of Bank Fraud, Etc.

Why am I not surprised? Why are many Democrats in America not surprised? Why are the American PEOPLE not surprised?

Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, has come under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to drop his opposition to a wide-ranging state settlement with banks over dubious foreclosure practices, according to people briefed on discussions about the deal.

In recent weeks, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and high-level Justice Department officials have been waging an intensifying campaign to try to persuade the attorney general to support the settlement, said the people briefed on the talks.

Mr. Schneiderman and top prosecutors in some other states have objected to the proposed settlement with major banks, saying it would restrict their ability to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing in a variety of areas, including the bundling of loans in mortgage securities.

Well, DUH! If you haven't figured out by now that Obama is propped up by the financial industry (and the oil industry, and big pharma, etc.), and watches out for THEIR interests over the interests of the American people, then you simply have had your fingers in your ears and yelling out loud so as to NOT know these things about the president YOU elected to change things.

This is disturbing to me, because I first read about Mr. Schneiderman's efforts to stop the settlement of a paltry $20 billion because such settlement includes a bar against further investigations into the banking industry's other notorious practices. Uncovering wrong doing is supposed to be an AG's responsibility, and the fact that the president of the United States is taking an active role in curtailing such investigations, continues to strike me as proof positive Obama and the banks have their hands in each others' pockets.

I cannot tell you how many cases my office has where we are representing clients who have had their homes foreclosed upon, and the documents produced by the banks and lending institutions are all signed by a handful of these robo-signers! Seriously! We just "google" some of the notaries and other signers and the list of those that are under current investigation is remarkable. One such signer, who also signed off on many documents on a couple of our cases, said in a deposition (which is available on the internet) that she signed about 180,000 of these documents every month, never read them, and just did what the banks and lending institutions told her to do. One day she was an officer of Chase Bank, the next day she was an officer of Countrywide, etc. She was signing and or notarizing documents transferring title (generally AFTER the fact and not BEFORE the fact) where banks would then use these documents to prove they held the underlying loan on the property, hence they were entitled to foreclose. Many of these properties, as you have undoubtedly read time and time again, were never delinquent in the payment of the loans by the borrowers ... the "industry" as it were, simply was (and still is) stealing homes, many of them with equity and not "upside down" as the term is generally used when the value of the property is less than the mortgage attached to the property. Millions of people have lost their homes due to this unsavory practice, and the small settlement offered by the banking industry does not come even close to bringing satisfaction to those millions who have lost their homes. But all the president seems to care about is, once again, not prosecuting the bad guys, whether it is banks, Wall Street, or the Bush Administration.

I love this quote from the article, which concerns an argument Mr. Schneiderman had with Kathryn S. Wylde, a "member of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York who represents the public."

Characterizing her conversation with Mr. Schneiderman that day as “not unpleasant,” Ms. Wylde said in an interview on Thursday that she had told the attorney general “it is of concern to the industry that instead of trying to facilitate resolving these issues, you seem to be throwing a wrench into it. Wall Street is our Main Street — love ’em or hate ’em. They are important and we have to make sure we are doing everything we can to support them unless they are doing something indefensible.”[my emphasis]

But Ms. Wylde, they ARE doing indefensible things, and HAVE been doing said indefensible things for quite some time now.

I shudder as I continue to watch this president devolve into a greedy politician.

Obama Administration Suspends Scientist Related To Polar Bear Problems In Arctic Region ... Hmmm

Aside from the fact that the Obama Administration is helping bring this nation to its knees, one really has to wonder how much money he is receiving for his re-election campaign from big oil interests, such that he has to resort to this:

It was seen as one of the most distressing effects of climate change ever recorded: polar bears dying of exhaustion after being stranded between melting patches of Arctic sea ice.

But now the government scientist who first warned of the threat to polar bears in a warming Arctic has been suspended and his work put under official investigation for possible scientific misconduct.

[snip]

Some question why (Charles) Monnett, employed by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, has been suspended at this moment. The Obama administration has been accused of hounding the scientist so it can open up the fragile region to drilling by Shell and other big oil companies.

Yeah, well those of us that have wised up to Mr. Obama's "change for the corporate world" can believe this.

The Secret Bipartisanship Of The Patriot Act

I was having a conversation with someone at my local watering hole last Friday, and when I indicated my dislike for the current president, he nearly went apoplectic on me! When he asked me why, and I started to explain all of the things that Obama has failed to accomplish when compared to what he campaigned on, I got the regular meme recited back to me that most liberals and progressives chant. That being the statement that Obama (1) has done incredible things and (2) what he hasn't been able to accomplish is because his "hands are tied" by Congress. He even said something akin to "after all, he's only the President."

I started to delineate all the areas of compromise made by the President, mostly with himself and the Democratic party, and the faux bipartisanship the Obama administration believes they have accomplished.

Actually, there is an interesting piece by, you guessed it, Glenn Greenwald, on the actual bipartisanship that exists up on the Hill.

First, consider what Democrats and Republicans just jointly did with regard to the Patriot Act, the very naming of which once sent progressives into spasms of vocal protest and which long served as the symbolic shorthand for Bush/Cheney post-9/11 radicalism:

[snip]

This will be the second time that the Democratic Congress -- with the support of President Obama (who once pretended to favor reforms) -- has extended the Patriot Act without any changes. And note the rationale for why it was done in secret bipartisan meetings: to ensure "as little debate as possible" and "to avoid a protracted and familiar argument over the expanded power the law gives to the government." Indeed, we wouldn't want to have any messy, unpleasant democratic debates over "the expanded power the law gives to the government." Here we find yet again the central myth of our political culture: that there is too little bipartisanship when the truth is there is little in Washington but that. And here we also find -- yet again -- that the killing of Osama bin Laden is being exploited to justify a continuation, rather than a reduction, in the powers of the National Security and Surveillance States.

How's that "transparency" campaign promise working out for America? When Obama campaigned on this rhetoric, and when he especially spoke distastefully about The Patriot Act, it is no wonder that his Administration works "in bipartisanship fashion" secretly to not only extend this horrible assault on American's rights, but enhance it to include spying on American's internet and mobile phone usage. And someone on another blog had the audacity to criticize me for mentioning a thought I had about moving to China ... as if only in China and countries like China, have privacy rights been trampled on!

So first they conspire with the GOP to extend the Patriot Act without any reforms, then seek to expand its most controversial and invasive provisions to obtain the Internet activities of American citizens without having to bother with a subpoena or judicial approval -- "they" being the Democratic White House.

And people actually want to argue with me that this President is better than not only what we had for the past 8 years with Bush, but will continue to be better than what the "other side" will put up in 2012 for votes?

The way a republic is supposed to function is that there is transparency for those who wield public power and privacy for private citizens. The National Security State has reversed that dynamic completely, so that the Government (comprised of the consortium of public agencies and their private-sector "partners") knows virtually everything about what citizens do, but citizens know virtually nothing about what they do (which is why WikiLeaks specifically and whistleblowers generally, as one of the very few remaining instruments for subverting that wall of secrecy, are so threatening to them). Fortified by always-growing secrecy weapons, everything they do is secret -- including even the "laws" they secretly invent to authorize their actions -- while everything you do is open to inspection, surveillance and monitoring.

China or America - spying on its citizens is just another job by the government. You tell me where the difference is.

Drama, Drama Obama, Holder, Clement And Continued Arguments In Defense Of DOMA

I was bothered a lot when Obama went back on his promise with regard to not defending DOMA, and then his DOJ filed really nasty briefs in support of it. They were even more egregious than anything Bush's DOJ ever filed, and they angered not only the GLBT community, but those that support marriage equality for all (and not just domestic partnership rights, but real marriage).

Then, after all Obama's DOJ did, they suddenly decided not to continue with the defense. Of course, perpetually orange skin fake tanned Boehner, decided Congress would hire a private firm (the law firm King & Spalding) to continue to oppose DOMA. However, they suddenly unemployed themselves (and one of the lead attorneys, Paul Clement, quit because of that decision).

The law firm King & Spalding stunned many observers Monday by abruptly withdrawing from representing the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) -- barely a week after coming under fire for signing on to defend the law on behalf of House Republicans. But the real shockwaves may have taken place within the firm, where, according to one insider, employees were at each other's throats over its decision to take on the case.

Obviously, the firm was not aware that most of America supports gay marriage.

Sources with knowledge of the backlash confirm that one of King & Spalding's top clients, Coca Cola, also based in Atlanta, directly intervened to press the firm to extricate itself from the case.

Then, of course, there was that onerous "contract."

This is a huge deal. Lawyers don't just drop cases. King & Spalding knew DOMA was controversial, but they took the case anyway. Then, once the controversy erupted last week, they fled. Granted, things were looking bad for King & Spalding. Petitions had been launched. Their embarrassing contract with Boehner was leaked, a contract that appeared to forbid any an all employees of King & Spalding, even those not working on the case, from doing any gay rights advocacy opposing DOMA (including, it seemed, even donating to a gay rights cause that didn't toe the official Boehner line on DOMA).

Naturally, Eric Holder, the White House Attorney General has to chime in with his two cents.

"Paul Clement is a great lawyer and has done a lot of really great things for this nation. In taking on the representation--representing Congress in connection with DOMA, I think he is doing that which lawyers do when we're at our best," Holder said during a roundtable with reporters at the Justice Department. "That criticism, I think, was very misplaced."

Holder also compared the criticism of Clement to the attacks on Justice Department lawyers for their past work for detentainees at Guantanamo. "It was something we dealt with here in the Department of Justice...The people who criticized our people here at the Justice Department were wrong then as are people who criticized Paul Clement for the representation that he's going to continue," Holder added.

As John Aravosis adroitly points out, "Criminal defendants have a constitutional right to counsel. Causes do not."

That's a good one. Now Eric Holder is suddenly the great defender of the eternally-incarcerated at Gitmo. But let's talk about Holder's offensive comparison of the American civil rights community to the anti-Muslim bigots and religious right filth who would let those detained at Gitmo rot on the vine because they're dark-skinned. It seems our top law enforcement officer isn't familiar with Constitution. Criminal defendants have a constitutional right to counsel. Causes do not. That's the difference between the Gitmo defendants and DOMA. It's offensive and embarrassing that Holder isn't aware of the difference.

And let's not forget what happened with this DOMA defense, and thus how it compares to the Gitmo trials. The lead Republican lawyer who Eric Holder is defending let the Republicans politicize the defense of DOMA and portray their move to hire him as a swipe at President Obama (funny that Obama's own Attorney General had no problem with that). The lead Republican lawyer had no problem letting Boehner portray the DOMA defense as a favor Boehner was doing for the religious right. Again, not a word from Holder. The DOMA defense was already politicized long before the gays weighed in in their own defense, and President Obama's Attorney General couldn't have cared less.

Did Democrats politicize the terror trials, forcing the Republicans to respond in kind? No.

Clients of King & Spalding were disgusted by the firm taking on a case defending bigotry. Did the same thing happen with the terror trials? No.

One can assume that new recruits and current staff of King & Spalding were not exactly pleased about the nature of the case, nor the fact that the firm's contract included a blatant effort to restrict the free speech rights of the firm's employees, even those not working on the case (ordering them not to do anything, even on their free time, that might help overturn DOMA). Did all of that happen on the terror trials, forcing the Republicans to intervene? No.

The defense of the DOMA brief was politicized from the beginning by the GOP. The terror trials were politicized by the GOP. That's the only thing these two issues have in common.

Perhaps it's time someone explained to our Attorney General the difference between those who criticize you for defending the Bill of Rights versus those who criticize you for attacking the Bill of Rights.

Now it appears that Clement's new firm, Bancroft PLCC, will handle he eternal tan man's insistence that DOMA needs to be defended. As John stated: "I think Bancroft PLLC just bought itself a world of pain."

Good Grief, Obama, Get Over Pfc. Manning And Treat Him Like The American Citizen He Is

P.J. Crowley, the state department spokesman, stepped down Sunday after saying publicly that treatment of Wikileaks suspect Pfc. Bradley Manning in military detention has been “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.”

In a statement, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote that she accepted his resignation with regret.

I really don't know how many of you have been following the Manning story, but I have, and thank goodness Glenn Greenwald has been holding the Obama Administration's feet to the coals on this.

America at its best, of course. It's a sign of the times, people. You have no rights. Where are your papers? It gets worse before the whole government falls. Eventually, people revolt. Turning a blind eye only works until you're the person that blind eye is turning from. When you no longer have any rights as an American, what the hell distinguishes you and this country from other dictatorships?

UPDATE: 3/14/11

As usual, the ever prolific Glenn Greenwald has a few choice words in his latest two posts on Pfc. Manning.

So, in Barack Obama's administration, it's perfectly acceptable to abuse an American citizen in detention who has been convicted of nothing by consigning him to 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement, barring him from exercising in his cell, punitively imposing "suicide watch" restrictions on him against the recommendations of brig psychiatrists, and subjecting him to prolonged, forced nudity designed to humiliate and degrade. But speaking out against that abuse is a firing offense. Good to know. [rest of post here]

When Obama was asked on Friday about Manning's treatment, he said in part: "I've actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures . . . are appropriate. They assured me they are." [rest of post here]

To me, it is unfathomable that a supposed Democratic President who campaigned against this type of torture (among other campaign promises that were broken immediately upon his election) gets away with this crap. Mr. Obama, the question I have for you is -- go see Pfc. Manning and ask HIM if he's being treated fairly, you stupid asshole. Do you think for one minute astute Americans are buying your lame excuse that the military says he's not being treated badly so be it? Get off your hiney and check it out, dude. You're the Prez for damn sakes. Act like one. Or, could it be that you are actually not interested in the rights of the American public, and that even though you campaigned on the slogan of change, you really just bullshitted the American people into electing a tyrant?

Mr. President - you are despicable. You are complicit in this crime against humanity and your head in the sand approach is not becoming of one who holds the highest office in America. You, sir, do not deserve to be president of the United States. You deserve to experience the same treatment as Pfc. Manning. Then tell the world how you feel. Just once, put your feet in the doo doo that you perpetuate, you hypocrite.

Obama Administration Not In Line With Moratorium On Foreclosures

What a stupid, pompous and Bush like stance, coming out of the White House.

White House senior adviser David Axelrod signaled Sunday that the Obama administration is opposed to a national moratorium on foreclosures, even as pressure from Congress, labor unions and consumer groups mounts for the federal government to take action.

Calling the growing evidence that lenders have used inaccurately prepared and even fraudulent documents to foreclose on homes a "serious problem," Axelrod said it had already "thrown a lot of uncertainty into the housing market that is already fragile."

"I'm not sure about a national moratorium, because there are, in fact, valid foreclosures that probably should go forward, and where the documentation and paperwork is proper," Axelrod said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Tell me again, why I should support this administration and vote this election?

[cricket sounds]

Even with the mounting evidence of bank fraud in foreclosures, and with several banks (BofA for one) completely putting a hold on all foreclosures in all 50 states, THIS ADMINISTRATION "is not sure" that is the best way to go? For whom? The banks, of course. This is an administration, to be sure, that has NOT GOT IT'S PRIORITIES set to help the people. Please, please, don't be caught up in the orations of the President. Don't get fooled because he can talk in complete sentences and Bush couldn't. Their goals are one and the same, and these past two years shows that ... in fact, it shows the Obama Administration taking Bush's position to the extreme. Government transparency? Check. Health care for all (with public option)? Check. I have repeated this shit over and over, so no need to go into the record again. We all know Obama and friends ain't all that.

UPDATE: From the great Glenn Greenwald:

"...there is no shortage of Democrats and progressives who hurled all sorts of accusatory rhetoric at Bush and Cheney for -- as Hayden put it -- "state secrets, targeted killings, indefinite detention, renditions, the opposition to extending the right of habeas corpus to prisoners," etc., yet now either turn a blind eye to or actively defend Obama as he does exactly the same thing, and sometimes worse."

Long piece, but precisely what is in my head that I can't bang out on the computer any better.

Bye-Bye, Emanuel, But It's Too Late To Save Obama

Thank god Mr. Emanuel is departing the White House. His advice, which was taken by the Prez, has been a disaster through and through, and I for one, and happy to see him go.

Unfortunately for Obama, the damage done by Emanuel is DONE. This mid-term election will be proof of that.

We Just Need To "Buck Up" So The President Says

Admonishing his own party, President Barack Obama says it would be "inexcusable" and "irresponsible" for unenthusiastic Democratic voters to sit out the midterm elections, warning that the consequences could be a squandered agenda for years.

"People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up," Obama told Rolling Stone in an interview to be published Friday. The president told Democrats that making change happen is hard and "if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place."

Sorry dude, but I think you've got the story backwards. YOU need to shake off this lethargy and get YOUR ass to work! We, the ones you keep wanting to make go away, but want to vote Democratic party ticket anyway, we got you and the majorities into the House, Senate and White House. We did that, Mr. President, and now you tell us to be satisfied with what little you have accomplished because it is "hard?" Hmmmm, now where have I heard before that being president is "hard" work? Oh yeah, that was Bush's favorite line, wasn't it!

And to now use the phrase that we want to take our ball and go home, that's just hitting below the belt to YOUR OWN minions, prezzie darling. You really just fucking lost the last few of those that were still trying to convince the rest of us to just give you another chance. Name calling, in this age of politics, is for the other side, damn you, not to be used against those that have expressed frustration that you are simply a loser at being president, and that you have NOT, let me repeat, NOT done what you said you would do. Don't throw that piece of shit health care at me because you and I and most of the progressives know you caved in from day one, and never ever tried to put the bill out there that we all NEEDED, let alone wanted. Don't toss out the stimulus package as an accomplishment, because we all KNOW it was TOO LITTLE and was only a band aid on what is yet to come. Catering to big business on all levels over WE progressives is an insult, and you sir, can reap the rewards of that insult. Go ahead and count on your corporate dollars, cuz they ain't gonna do shit when it comes time to actually vote ... we the PEOPLE have to actually submit a ballot, not your corporate donors. So you suck it up.

Prez, old buddy, we are sitting this one out, and tough shit for you and your corporate cronies. Not a dime has been coming into your coffers from we out here in fringe land as you like to call us while your hand is out begging. Nada dollars and nada votes. Remember, as John reminded readers, Bush got his agenda passed quite regularly, and he did it with 50 to 55 votes! So this excuse of a "super majority" problem isn't going over well with those of us that fucking gave you the damn 60 you needed! Don't you get it at all? We gave you the power to push the agenda, and YOU FUCKING CAVED at each and every battle. Sure you talk a good talk, but you ain't walked the good walk ... and now a lot of you will be walking ... bye bye.

If I'm going to be lied to, have my privacy invaded, be asked to agree to Democratic positions just because that is what the "party" has decided it stands for, etc., I might as well go back to letting the idiots run the show. At least when we go down the drain, we can blame it on them, because right now, the stink is all over you, Obama, and your entire majority in the House and in the Senate. It was your one and only chance to do something great, and just like most rookie quarterbacks, you called the wrong calls, threw the ball short, and your coach (ahem, Rahm, ahem) have called for punting way too fucking much.

Good luck trying to pry us from sitting on our hands this year. You dealt this hand of cards, and it's just too bad for you that the progressives are not going to ante up in this election.

"Stop Whining?" WTF?

This is, I believe, the third time that Obama (twice) and Biden (once) have recently belittled the Democratic base heading into this election. It's now clearly a White House strategy, for at least its wealthiest fundraisers, to knock the base of the party. That base would include labor, Latinos, gays, women, environmentalists, health care advocates, and more.

[snip]

The President, rather famously, routinely refuses to stand up to conservative Democrats and Republicans, and it's likely the primary reason we're about to lose the House. The President insisted on compromising out the gate on the stimulus - rather than asking for the amount of money we needed, he asked for half, then gave another 35% away in near-useless tax cuts, cutting the impact of the emergency legislation even further. The entire country, all of us with friends and family members currently out of a job, are paying dearly for this mistake. So for him and his to tell us and ours to stop whining is pretty pathetic. It's also a pretty idiotic strategy a month out from a crucial election.

John keeps hitting the nail on the head on this one, and I concur. I do not understand the abusive tone from the White House concerning the progressives, the GLBT groups, minorities, etc. And, if that was not enough, I get hit over the head from the "other" side of the progressive agenda (you know, the DK group) to just hold my nose and vote for the Democrats in my voting pool because, you know, they are better than the Republicans. Ya think?

How's this for NOT being better than the Republicans. From Glenn Greenwald:

At this point, I didn't believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record. In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki's father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims. That's not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality. But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is "state secrets": in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are "state secrets," and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.

Kind of makes me sick to my stomach to know that the President I voted for, and actually had such high hopes that he would be so much more different than the Bush regime, turns out to be actually far worse than Bush. I know, I am shaking my head at that, because it's so obscene, but I personally believe it to be true. Bush's administration knew they were fucking with civil liberties and all that, but at least they tried to hide it. Obama's administration is just in your fucking face with the same crap of arguments that Bush's team threw out.

I'm stymied at this, for sure, and there is absolutely no way in hell I'm putting any more Democrats in office. Let the Republicans take over. At least we know they are nutjobs (most of them). We expect more from Democrats. We expect more from the so called liberals we elect.

I'm not eating the pablum any more. I'm done with it. Let this country go to hell, because we can't fix it if our only choices are "more of the same, please" regardless of party!

Gonna go back to my football game, and try to stay cool! Hey, just noticed the temperature dropped to 95! Yippee! This calls for an early cocktail, ahem.

So, Who Actually Buys The Government's Statement That 75% Of The Gulf Spill Is Gone?

I'm really having a difficult time understanding the Obama administration's position with regard to the BP oil spill. At each and every step in what should have been a government controlled investigation, the Obama administration sidestepped the issue and allowed BP to call all the shots.

Now, the government is saying that "all is good," that 75% of the oil has been cleaned up, and in proving that the water is safe, Obama even orchestrated a photo op with his daughter and him in the water off the coast of Florida!

What part of all of the above reminds you of Bush, his "good work, Brownie" comment, and his planned photo op with firemen in NOLA after Katrina?

Yep, all of the above, gosh darn it! No one has been allowed to investigate, tabulate, videotape, explore, examine, view, work at, work with, work for, or even fucking view the spill site unless you either "work" for BP (wherein you signed a document that says you'll be fired if you so much as sigh in the direction of media, and probably contains a lot worse, but I can't say for sure right now, except I would not put it past BP to have a "we'll sue you" clause in it as well), or your are controlled by our corporate government, which of course, means again, you work for BP and not the American people.

Just like the Bush administration refused to let reporters into the really bad areas of NOLA, how they controlled the "reports" of the levees being fixed, and withheld pertinent information about the trailers they tried to herd NOLA residents in (especially those from the Ninth Ward), and basically ignored anyone's opinion about the conditions that didn't work for the inner circle of the Bushies. It was all about "the right party" during that era, and making sure that all the public agencies were staffed by those that bought the party agenda, and regurgitated it verbatim.

Now, with our new and viewer friendly president, whom we expected "change" in how government was going to be run, is pulling the same shit as the Bush administration did! No transparency, no cracking down on the parties responsible, no real investigation, and whooooaaaa nellie, the unbelievable cover-up of the depth of the disaster such that Obama was willing to put his own daughter at risk by actually getting into that seriously infested water. That's a mind blower to me.

Is our president really that beholding to major, non-American corporations, and to the bloody oil money, that he'd put the entire American population at risk just so that BP can "save some money?" This doesn't just impact the gulf area, we are talking about saying it is ok to fish and SELL the fucking fish and EAT the fucking fish (and shellfish) that are in these waters, when they don't even have a test to determine the toxicity of the Corexit used to disperse the oil? They are relying on SMELLING THE FISH? You have got to be kidding me.

You put tainted fish into the open markets across America, and you have no clue the level of contamination contained, and that's ok with you as POTUS? Wow ...

I realize that Obama hasn't lived up to his various promises such as comprehensive health care reform, repealing DADT, rejecting DOMA, closing Gitmo, having an open and transparent government, etc. But to literally put the entire American population at risk by falsely claiming that 75% of the oil has been cleaned up from the Gulf is not about not living up to any promise, but is a clear and deliberate act to expose the American people to real danger at the expense of allowing a corporation to skate through. That's pretty darn bad.

When it is factually provable that Alaska has not fully recovered from the Exxon Valdez oil spill many moons ago, it is not believable that a spill that was so much larger and dangerous by the tenfold than Exxon Valdez, magically in a few months, has just cleaned itself up! This is horse pucky as my grandfather would say. I am just amazed that these statements can come from the Obama administration, and that they don't feel any sense of duty to humanity to double down on the safety factor. No, it's business as usual. Drill some more, it's ok, there's no oil here ...

We should start a campaign to send Obama and his family fish caught from the Gulf waters on a daily basis and see just how much of it he eats, or he allows his family to eat. Any takers? Any guesses as to whether or not he'll actually eat anything caught in those still contaminated waters?

Uh huh. I thought so.

Gibbs Is An Ass, But Hold That Thought -- My Comments Later

I' m not silent on the Gibbs fiasco today, but I can't really post a cognizant comment today. Besides the initial outrage, which has been covered immediately by the big blogs (we of the "professional left" whatever the fuck that means), which I share, there's everyone on the "professional left's" comments that have to be absorbed and commented on, as well.

Expect light and airy posts this week. In my legal real work world, I have an opposition to a summary judgment motion due Thursday morning, and so my office is busy, and I am exhausted by keeping up with the other day to day stuff and still assisting on the opposition creation (from discussing law and research on that law to basic clerical stuff like typing).

I'm With Julian Assange - Keep The Light Shining On Our Actions

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Friday that he was disappointed by criticism from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates over the release of about 76,000 pages of U.S. documents related to the war in Afghanistan.

Gates said Thursday that the massive leak will have significant impact on troops and allies, revealing techniques and procedures.

Assange rejected that assessment Friday, saying in a release that Gates "has overseen the killings of thousands of children and adults" in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[snip]

"Secretary Gates could have used his time, as other nations have done, to announce a broad inquiry into these killings," the statement said. "He could have announced specific criminal investigations into the deaths we have exposed. He could have announced a panel to hear the heartfelt dissent of U.S. soldiers, who know this war from the ground. He could have apologized to the Afghani people.

"But he did none of these things. He decided to treat these issues and the countries affected by them with contempt. Instead of explaining how he would address these issues, he decided to announce how he would suppress them.

"This behavior is unacceptable. We will not be suppressed. We will continue to expose abuses by this administration and others."

It is these types of stories, well not really stories, real things is better, that get me pissed off the most about Obama and his presidency. I am pretty fucking sure that most of us that voted for Obama actually thought he would pull down troops, bring out soldiers home, and end these two ridiculous and unwinable wars. Most of us, again I am sure, did not in our wildest imagination figure that he would increase the number of troops in Afghanistan. Either Obama knows he is wrong but the money controllers (those corporate people that dictate what goes on in Washington) really have a hold on his nads, or the dufus believes he's doing "the right thing," which is kind of very hard for me to take.

When Bush was in the White House, I knew he was on drugs. But with Obama, man, I feel like I'm the one on drugs. It's like (said as if Cheech to Chong) -- dude, deja vu.

Who thought Obama and the Democrats would continue the tyrannical war policy of the last eight years?

Who knew?

DOMA Ruling Today

Ok, so I know that a federal district court in Boston made an important ruling on DOMA. But, remember, the Obama DOJ has been filing briefs in SUPPORT of this act, (not going to link to all the previous posts, you all know what they are). So, is the Obama DOJ going to AGAIN appeal this ruling????