Panetta sounds like Strangelove

Posted on August 7, 2011 by oddmanout215


Ignore the jobless, kick people out of their homes, starve the kids. These consequences are grim but acceptable. The one thing we cannot afford, you slimy Congresspeople, is to cut the Defense budget. Doing so might set off a “doomsday mechanism,” perhaps identical to the doomsday machine dreamed up by the Soviets in Dr. Strangelove.

Posted in arts, Congress, humor, mainstream media, movies, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

‘Goons of August’ usher in new era

Posted on August 6, 2011 by oddmanout215

Nobody’s shooting yet, but I’ll bet Barbara Tuchman would appreciate Robert Kuttner’s headline. Kuttner does a good job summarizing Democratic stupidity regarding the debt deal, and of explaining why our government, in its current form, is in worse shape than those of most democracies in Europe:

…Economically, the budget deal will further weaken a fragile economy. Politically, the deal is a time bomb. It locks in a path to deeper cuts in programs that Democrats should be defending. Under the deal, the same scenario of default versus massive budget cutting that worked so well for the Republicans this time will be repeated next year…

In much of Europe today, far-right populist parties now typically get 20 or 25 percent of the vote. With Europe’s parliamentary and multiparty system, however, they don’t get to govern, but in several countries they are now the second of third most popular party. These parties represent about the same share of public opinion as the Tea Party in the US. But in America, with our two-party system and our constitutional machinery of blockage, if a determined minority gains control of one party it can bring responsible government to a halt…

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Great Recession, Obama, Politics, taxes, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street, world-wide economy | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Snooki does Florence. Ain’t it ironic?

Posted on August 6, 2011 by oddmanout215

Did you know the hit reality show “Jersey Shore” was quickly “co-opted by the would-be hip” but overcame this potential liability “by staying true to its artificiality”?

This must be true, I read it in The New York Times, in a story describing how Snooki and her swine were cast before the pearls of Florence, Italy, courtesy of MTV.

Posted in arts, humor, mainstream media, NJ | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

How many looks-per-day on God’s Blog?

Posted on August 6, 2011 by oddmanout215


Do you spend a lot of time logged in and looking for the truth? Could be you’re searching in the wrong places, or at least on the wrong sites. Try God’s Blog, and don’t forget to tell the Divine One what you think of his work.

Posted in God Squad, humor, mainstream media | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Bush/Obama’s ten years of torturing the truth

Posted on August 6, 2011 by oddmanout215

George Bush’s avuncular cheerleader for torture, Donald Rumsfeld, is facing another civil suit. Good news, but why no criminal charges from Barack Obama’s Department of Justice?

It seems Eric Holder and the gang have yet to acknowledge arguments comparing Bush era “interrogation techniques” to Soviet torture of inmates documented by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago:

Enforced sleeplessness… was favored because it was cheap, easy, and left no marks on the prisoner—not to mention that it was effective. Solzhenitsyn attested from bitter experience that “it is not really necessary to use a rack or hot coals to drive a human being out of his mind.”

But American intelligence officials also learned something from the Soviets about manipulating language to conceal reality. When our enemies use methods like this, they amount to torture. When we do, they don’t. A newly released 2002 memo from a Bush administration official authorized keeping prisoners awake because “we are not aware of any evidence that sleep deprivation results in severe physical pain or suffering.”

How ironic that the 2009 article quoted above appeared in Reason, a libertarian magazine, and that Democrats therefore would probably dismiss it as the work of a kook. The sadder irony is that Obama has allowed many illegal and extralegal policies put in place under Bush and his team to continue, and very few establishment Dems have called him on it.

Clarification: I’m not a libertarian, and I think many of their views are crazy, especially regarding the economy. But at least they don’t think it’s OK to crush human rights and civil liberties in the name of national security.

Almost forgot: Where is the mainstream media concerning the government’s kidnapping and imprisonment of U.S. citizens who haven’t been charged with crimes? MIA.

Posted in Iraq war, mainstream media, Obama, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s … Super Congress!

Posted on August 5, 2011 by oddmanout215

Concerned that nations will soon fight over oil reserves? If you think that’s bad, wait until world population booms to 10 billion or so at the same time all the fresh water is drying up.

But that’s long-term stuff. This short-term disaster is all I can stomach for now, just barely:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has made a Super Congress a central part of his last-minute proposal, multiple news reports and people familiar with his plan say. A picture of Boehner’s proposal began to come into focus Saturday evening: The debt ceiling would be raised for a short-term period and coupled with an equal dollar figure of cuts, somewhere in the vicinity of a trillion dollars over ten years. A second increase in the debt ceiling would be tied to the creation of a Super Congress that would be required to find a minimum amount of spending cuts. Because the elevated panel would need at least one Democratic vote, its plan would presumably include at least some revenue, though if it’s anything like the deals on the table today, it would likely be heavily slanted toward spending cuts…

Don’t believe anything these jerks say, D or R. The formation of a Super Congress — or super committee, as some are calling it now — will do nothing but allow D.C. politicians to do their dirty work even further in the dark, away from constituents, where only high-level campaign donors can burrow.

Democratic leaders should know better than to sign on to the Super Congress idea. (Picture Mitch McConnell, the Human Tortoise, in green cape and cowl, leading a gang of geriatric Marvel Comics villains.)

The problem is, there are no Dem leaders. Harry Reid is a dead weed twisting in the wind. Nancy Pelosi must have had work done on her brain (lobotomy?) while having all that work done on her face.

Remember: Neither of these hacks, or most other Dems, are saying a word about how they caved on jobs programs and tax hikes for the rich. We should remind them every day and run them out of office, one by one, as soon as possible.

Posted in enviromentalism, Great Recession, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Onion’s birthday joke, with an edge

Posted on August 4, 2011 by oddmanout215

The Onion’s Obama birthday joke was satire, but only in the lamest sense of the word:

After months of heated negotiations and failed attempts to achieve any kind of consensus, President Obama turned 50 years old Thursday, drawing strong criticism from Republicans in Congress. “With the host of problems this country is currently facing, the fact that our president is devoting time to the human process of aging is an affront to Americans everywhere,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who advocated a provision to keep Obama 49 at least through the fall of 2013. “To move forward unilaterally and simply begin the next year of his life without bipartisan support—is that any way to lead a country?” According to White House officials, Obama attempted to work with Republicans right up until the Aug. 4 deadline, but was ultimately left with no choice except to turn a year older.

Here’s how the piece would read if the writer had acknowledged what happened this week in Washington, D.C.:

President Obama tried to turn 50 years old Thursday, drawing strong criticism from Republicans in Congress. Democrats protested the GOP’s criticism but then, at the eleventh hour, joined it in a resolution calling for creation of a supercommittee to examine whether or not Obama should reach the big 5-0.

This was soon after Dems conferred with Obama himself, who said, “There’s no reason goods folks shouldn’t be able to agree on this issue, regardless of party affiliation. Therefore, in the interest of moving this country forward, I have agreed to put off turning 50, at least until the 2012 elections are completed. May God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.”

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, Obama, Politics, The New Depression | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Debt bill destroys America. Who’s next for a swim?

Posted on August 4, 2011 by oddmanout215

I’m on the home stretch with my novel-in-progress Good Sal/Bad Sal, set in casino-era Atlantic City. One of the final chapters starts with Good Sal asking:

Have you ever let the cold surf creep between your toes and thought what’s the point of my time, I’ll be gone a million years and these waves will still roll in? No? Then maybe you spend too much time on Facebook.

It’s good for the soul to brush up against something even dumber and more unwieldy than human nature and simply accept it. It can put your hopes and fears in perspective.

The downside is too much time near the sea might lull you into psychic undertow. Here’s Tom Waits on the danger:

The ocean doesn’t want me today
But I’ll be back tomorrow to play
And the stranglers will take me
Down deep in their brine
The mischievous braingels
Down into the endless blue wine
I’ll open my head and let out
All of my time…

I’ve made a vow: No swimming until the novel is finished and I have an agent for it. The latter part of the vow might keep me out of the water for a million years.

Posted in arts, fiction, Great Recession, livable cities, NJ, Philadelphia, The New Depression | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama calls OUR bluff, not GOP’s

Posted on August 1, 2011 by oddmanout215

Anybody but Obama. Lewis Black would do a better job.


For months Obama loyalists at places like Daily Kos have argued against the evidence of their own senses. They insisted critics were wrong to call the president weak and rudderless. They remained confident Obama would stop caving and call the bluff of the wing-nuts who were threatening actions that would lead to default on the national debt.

The true believers were way off, probably because they couldn’t, and can’t, admit Obama has turned out to be exactly the wrong person to lead the fight against Republicans determined to use the debt issue to destroy the social safety net and maintain huge tax breaks for the rich. The loyalists will keep the faith even though, as Paul Krugman wrote yesterday

The deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.

Obama is not a Democrat. In fact, he is somewhere to the right of Richard Nixon on most issues, although he is, of course, much cooler than Tricky Dick. In the end, Mr. Cool called our bluff, not the GOP’s. He gambled that even progressive Democrats will stand with him in 2012, because we have no one else to turn to as a viable candidate. It’s time to prove him wrong.

There has been much talk about how self-defeating it would be for Democrats to give up on Obama, but wouldn’t it make sense to try to draft Sherrod Brown or Howard Dean or Elizabeth Warren — feel free to suggest others — if only to disrupt the Dem establishment that stood solidly behind Obama even as he began to talk about dismantling Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?

I’ve heard stand-up comedians who make better sense than Obama. That’s it — Lewis Black for president! At least he wouldn’t let himself be made a fool of by Mitch McConnell, the human tortoise, or by that great statesman John Boehner.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Great Recession, Obama, Politics, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Just say no, in person, to Obamabots

Posted on July 31, 2011 by oddmanout215

Here’s part of an e-mail I recently received from Barack Obama’s spin doctors:

David —

As someone who got his start as a community organizer, President Obama’s entire career has revolved around the idea that ordinary people working together can do extraordinary things. So I hope you can take part in marking his 50th birthday… This Wednesday, August 3rd, campaign volunteers will get together for house meetings in all 50 states. We’ll plan local events… and talk about how to spread the word about the President’s accomplishments… Can you attend a house meeting…? RSVP now.

I replied:

What are “the president’s accomplishments?” His unprecedented (for a Democrat) efforts to tear down the social safety net that evolved from the New Deal? You people are a disgrace, or out of your minds, or both. To my shame, I voted for Obama, but I’m certainly not going to help celebrate his ongoing dismantlement of the Democratic Party.

But there’s a better way to express discontent about Obama’s refusal to back tax hikes for the rich and his unwillingness to defend Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Simply show up at one of the house meetings and tell those present what you think of his ongoing cave-in to right-wingers.

Click here for the meeting closest to you.

Posted in economic collapse, Obama, Philadelphia, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment