Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy the turkey!

Thank You, Texas!

How about that? On November 12, Olaf begged that Cheney be indicted before he croaks, and damned if a grand jury in Texas doesn't do it, and Fox "News" reports it (so has CNN and other outlets, but Fox was the first I saw, so why not give 'em a nod--even those fuckers know which way the wind is blowing). And BONUS--Alberto Gonzalez is on the indictment too!

As Craig Ferguson likes to say, it's a good day in America.

Oh, Shut Up!

Here he is again, El Presidente Stupido, making us all proud as the spokesman for global capitalism, American-style, at the G20 summit he's hosting:

He made his argument even as the U.S. government has set billions of dollars for taking stakes in banks to help jump start lending again. "I'm a market-oriented guy, but not when I'm faced with the prospect of a global meltdown," he said.

Exactly. It's like saying, "I'm a big boy. I'm on my own." And then, when trouble comes, "Mommy! Daddy!"

And Mr. Genius continues,

While acknowledging that critics from across the ideological spectrum are "equating the free enterprise system with greed and exploitation and failure," Bush argued that the crisis was not a failure of the free market system.

Shit, man, greed, exploitation, and failure are what the system is based on! Ask any stock trader. Volatility and instability rule, dude! Unless you're a poor working schmuck. But then they're just suckers, right? They don't deserve any of the wealth they've created, or any security, or respect. After all, George W. Loser and McCain got their money the right way: inherit it, or marry it.

The Irony Meter Just Exploded

I'll let the AP blurb speak for itself:

"Our aim should not be more government. It should be smarter government," Bush said during a speech in New York, a day before about two dozen world leaders converge on Washington for a weekend summit he is hosting.

You can't make shit like this up.

War Criminal Watch

Please indict this man before he dies on us. Hell, even if he is already technically dead, indict him anyway.

Please Go Away...

...and take your rat-pelt collar with you.

With a son who's a high school dropout, and a 17-year-old daughter who's been knocked up by another high school dropout, you'd think that Sarah Palin would have considered Piper Palin's school attendance to supersede the governor's own political ambitions. But even now that the campaign is over, she's dragging little Piper onto television shows as her prop to show what a great mom she is.

Palin doesn't get it at all. Nobody cares about what she thinks, her state elected her to run business up there, and her remaining school-age children need to get educated enough to know what a US vice president does and that Africa is a continent, and, let's hope, that Jesus did not ride a dinosaur to the sermon on the mount, not to mention being able to put one god damned coherent sentence together.

Sarah, please, for the sake of those you've spawned, GO AWAY.

Thank You, Dr. Dean

Those of us on the left owe a great ovation to Dr. Howard Dean who ran for president in 2004 and has since been the Democratic National Committee chair. Dr. Dean insisted on a 50-state strategy for the DNC, doing grassroots operations everywhere, rather than simply focusing on states that typically are in contention. His insistence on building left-looking organizations in every single state is largely responsible for the impressive results of this past election.

I had the privilege of seeing Dr. Dean in person in our part of the country, and my friend MB got her picture taken with him, which is tres cool. Dr. Dean is a genuinely warm, smart, and determined individual, and as he leaves the DNC chair, I hope all who celebrate the change in our country's direction will remember to thank Dr. Dean for his savvy, skill, and foresight. He's made this a better place.

A Happy Day

This is my favorite image of Barack Obama so far, as a teacher. After eight years of an administration rife with dark ignorance and stupefying incompetence driven by batshit ideology, the country desperately needs a president who can, and desires to, explain and illuminate the way ahead.

As for the reports of the rifts in the McCain/Palin camps regarding her astonishing ignorance, appalling temperament, and skanky behavior, I'll leave that to Fox to elucidate.

And then there's the towel story.

I don't know if these are true or mainly attempts to divert blame from McCain for choosing so, so badly, his running mate, but either way, it reveals how fractured and vicious the Republican party is. Thank your lucky stars that enough people in this country finally woke up.

Olaf Channels Trotsky

Since the Wingnuts are certain that we're on the eve of a Communist takeover, I thought I'd do my best Lev Bronstein.

McCain's Big Head Finally Outthinks His Little Head

One Final Post for Today...

You will vote...Look into my eyes! You will vote, you will vote, you will vote.

Who you vote for, that's your business. But for the sake of the nation, participate. Then I can rag on you for another four years, whatever happens. If you don't play, you don't get to bitch.

The Downside of Voting Early, However

I thought this campaign season was interminable enough, but if you vote early, it's even worse. Now I wish I had enough Xanax and Vodka to put myself into a coma until Wednesday next week...except that I'd miss my neighbor's party on Tuesday night to watch the returns. Okay, just knock me out until Tuesday afternoon.

I Voted...for Obama

And yes, that is a Cohiba. Damn, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but a Cohiba is a celebration.

Why Not Pile On...

...while the Repubs devour their own?

I thought there still might be a crumb of respect for McCain left me even after this rotten campaign, but there isn't. He's morally bankrupt and a loser. He might have had a legacy to be proud of, but he burned it in the fires of his ambition. I hope the defeat next week is crushing, brutal, and massive, taking the maximum of down-ticket Republicans and starting up a right-wing cannibal carnival the likes of which we haven't seen in history.

The Dope on Palin

I couldn't do anything as succinct and funny and, in a way, moving. Just click to play the video.

It Depends on What You Mean by "Socialism"

Just a guess.

No God No More

Trillions in personal wealth flushed down the toilet and this is all Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan can offer. And he was treated like a god at the Fed.

There are no gods and there are no devils. There are no pure ideologies that work. There ARE ideas that need consideration and discussion and analysis and testing, and usually a lot of work. Every time this country yields its own power and skepticism to some guru, it gets soundly fucked. We don't need pedestals and saints--we need citizens who think!

That's why I'm feeling so sour today. We're living in a nation of zombies.

Greenspan was a free market fanatic who was massively wrong. But he and all the people in all the circles he travels in (with wife Andrea Mitchell of NBC News) will still have their wealth, their shields and bodyguards from the rabble, and will suffer no consequences of their incompetence and/or theft.

As for the rest of us? Let 'em buy Sarah Palin's second-hand Nieman-Marcus rags.

October Surprise?

Hey, she's ambitious! And it sure doesn't look like Johnny is going to make it to the White House. She's fecund enough, we know that, and since she rejects science and is born again, well, it could be both an immaculate conception AND Obama's kid, because he's, you know, That One.

Red Baiting?

Did I just go back in time? Jesus H. Christ, the most right-wing, reactionary, free market crackpot party rams through partial nationalization of banks and their candidate for president, John McCain, is invoking the spectre of communism to attack Barack Obama?

“He wants to quote ‘spread the wealth around,’” McCain said in a campaign speech in Pennsylvania Tuesday. “He believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that grow our economy and create jobs and opportunities for all Americans. Sen. Obama is more interested in controlling who gets your piece of the pie than he is in growing the pie.”

And Sarah Palin keeps reading from the same cue cards:

At a rally Friday in West Chester, Ohio, where one banner in the crowd read, "Obama is a Socialist/Marxist," Palin said, "Joe suggested that that sounded a little bit like socialism. Whatever you call it, I call it bad medicine for an ailing economy, and it's what Barack Obama will do to those who want to create jobs, and we're willing to call Barack Obama on it."

What the frak? I mean, I get it. They lost ground when they tried to label him a terrorist, and a secret Muslim, and a guy with a weird name, and a guy named "Hussein," and a guy who happened to be half African-American, and a guy who was educated and "elite," and a guy who was "eloquent" and therefore suspicious, and so on, they lost polling points every time, and so they have to reach waaaaaaaay back to some retro Eisenhower era codeword that might just echo for the last few numbskulls who haven't realized what a washed-up douchebag weathervane McCain is and what an incurious, dumbass, fanatic Palin is.

Ooooooooh, there's a Commie under the bed!

Please. Just when you thought even the last Republican standing wouldn't say something so dumb, their fucking leaders are saying things this dumb. And with two weeks left, I can't wait to see what comes next.

My guess? A whispering campaign that Barack Obama is an alien. I mean, look at those ears! And he's so thin. Doesn't he remind you of Michael Rennie in The Day the Earth Stood Still?

Paulson Discovers Marx? Maybe, but America Is Still Getting Screwed

Before I rant, "Neu Entdecken" means "new discovery," which is why I had to use this recent photo from my Berlin trip to accompany commentary on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's capitulation to partial nationalization of the banks. It's one of those sweet, sweet ironies that also has a terribly painful price for its enjoyment--all of us losing our financial asses. Paulson, a Wall Street insider who loved the totally anti-regulation atmosphere and absense of any enforcement of the few regulations that remained, had to face the obvious-to-some-of-us fact that capitalism cannot function without some protection from the natural greed that too often destroys the very thing that fed it. Here's what Paulson said, and it's kind of delicious. I just wish it wasn't costing me so goddamned much money. Fuck!

Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy. We regret having to take these actions. Today's actions are not what we ever wanted to do — but today's actions are what we must do to restore confidence to our financial system... We are acting with unprecedented speed taking unprecedented measures that we never thought would be necessary. But they are necessary to get our economy back on an even keel, and secure the confidence and future of our markets, our economy and the economic well-being of all Americans.

Yeah, they never thought it would be necessary because they're greedy, incompetent, unimaginative assholes, and, let's face it, Americans are not really very well educated in financial matters...or much of anything beyond what Rush Limbaugh or Wolf Blitzer tell them, depending on which no-nothing they happen to like. Looking at the New York Times' photo of Paulson, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, and Timothy F. Geithner (a Fed board member) is really fun, because they look like a trio of schoolboys about to see the principal. But they're just smart enough to keep this deal flush with loopholes that will allow the further raping of the U.S. taxpayer and looting of the nation.

Here's the deal. The European central banks really forced the U.S. to do this by rapidly deploying capital and control over the financial sector in Europe. But the U.S. version is faulty for the following reasons, as reported by the New York Times:

Whereas some European plans barred banks from paying dividends on common stock until the government got its money back and demanded promises that the banks would keep loans flowing to businesses and individuals, Washington allowed the banks that it invests in to continue paying dividends on existing common and preferred shares.

In addition, while European banks are being required in some cases to put government representatives on their boards, the American government will not receive board seats or have voting power.

Got that? Paulson, et alia, are funneling money to the same fuckers who caused this mess, but without the necessary guarantees and controls that they won't fuck it up again, and even worse. So don't expect this to be any sort of turnaround. Paulson is giving away our money without demanding sufficient proportional control and, even more importantly, openness.

If I could, I'd like to have all my dough in cash and in denominations large enough that I could smuggle them across borders. Hmmm...I remember that in Ian Fleming's James Bond book Dr. No that the title character had secreted his wealth around in rare stamps. Probably not a bad idea. Alas, current laws prevent anyone but drug kingpins and greedheads from getting their hands on much cash anymore.

I could always exploit my amazing musical skills to earn a few Euros on the S-Bahn, I suppose. You can still get a doner kebab for 2.5 Euros in Berlin. And beer's cheap. I could stay drunk.

Not much else left these days. I will say this, however. No matter how poor I become, I'll never sink to drinking Bud Lite or Coors or any of that other swill. Pilsner Urquell, Baby, all the way to the poorhouse!