What I Want….

The recession has popped a lot of dreams… It has forced a re-evaluation of priorities. It has put reality in the forefront.

So wiping off the table of everything, everything, and sitting down to a blank space, and asking myself, … what do I want, by the time I die.

It is:

A country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home and secure their retirement,”

After watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” you can be sure it can’t happen on a Republican’s watch….. For that dream to happen, we need protection from corporations and Big Money; not giving them more and more of what we make.

We need more money funneled away from big business, to be reinvested into the Middle Class… Since they haven’t done it voluntarily, we’ll have to force it.

Republicans can’t force anyone to do anything. They are putz’s. It will take a government of all Democrats to make Americans who die, at least die happy that they were able to secure:

“A country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home and secure their retirement”.

Response to Duffy

Duffy is God’s answer to a prayer.. I miss the old days of blogging when we were debating principals instead of people… Duffy has stuck to the old line of debating principals with facts, and that is what makes him special in the eyes of bloggers everywhere…

Since the passing of Steve Newton, he has been the only one to challenge me in any argument, and usually some pretty good stuff comes out of both sides during the exchange… I have respected that.. Cause once again, opinions mean dick. Facts are what we steer by.. It is my hope that in responding to his challenge that an answer may make itself apparent.. Who knows? It may not come from me… But if I’m the catalyst for bringing it out in the open, then… none of this was in vain..

Why I like to debate Duffy is simple.. Neither side, he or I, is concretely set in their opinions… We accept it when the other side makes sense… I usually go into such debates having no idea where they’ll end up… I hope the rest of you enjoy the ride as welI….

That said..

Duffy leads: Wall Street’s problems were caused by Fannie and Freddie loaning money to people they knew couldn’t pay and moreover, forcing banks to lend money to people who couldn’t pay. That was not deregulation but misregulation

kavips rebutt’s:Uh… Mr. President. That’s not entirely accurate.

First off, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was developed for, and locked in on, urban developmental areas and had no part of the subprime boom, which primarily occurred out in western desert regions where owning 4 to 5 investment homes was normal… Those homes were overwhelmingly funded by loan originators NOT SUBJECT to the act… We all know the crises was not because people couldn’t afford a payment on their house. It came about, because with no occupants, people could not afford the payments of 4 to 5 houses….. Instead of one loan per borrower turning up in default; four to five were.

Second off, The housing bubble reached its point of maximum inflation in 2005.

Courtesy of NYT

Third off, During those exact same years, Fannie and Freddie were sidelined by Congressional pressure, and saw a sharp drop in their share of loans secured by the Feds… Follow the dotted line on the very bottom of the graph…

Courtesy of NYT

Fourth off; During those exact same years, private secures, like Delaware’s own AIG, grabbed the lions share of the market.

Courtesy of NYT

Remember these graphs for later on when I discuss the results of deregulation, versus regulation… But like it or not, these graphs conclusively show that private insurers, who thanks to Marie Evans, we now know were deregulated by Phil Gramm in the 2000 Omnibus Bill, were the primary cause of the worlds financial collapse.. Probably put best by these words of AIG’s spokesperson, who when asked why they didn’t have sufficient funds to cover losses, said point blank, “We were deregulated. We were no laws requiring us to keep any funds, ..so we spent it…”

Duffy leads: The loosely regulated hedge funds escaped this mess largely unscathed. Why? They can’t count on a bailout like the big banks. The Too Big To Fail banks were counting on a bailout (not unlike the S&L bailouts which started on the Republican’s watch) and they got them.

kavips rebutt’s:Uh… Mr. President. That’s not entirely accurate. I agree that the hedge funds did survive better than the banks. Not because of bailouts, but because they sold short during the crises and made billions while firms closed and people got thrown out of work. There is nothing wrong with that; I did the same. In fact close readers may remember my warnings that the crises was impending almost a year earlier. Very close readers may remember my telling them exactly when to sell, and at what point the stock market would rebound… I must say: I called it rather well. 🙂

“Hedge funds were not in my understanding, at fault in the credit crisis,” said David Ruder, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. “At the most what they did was to sell securities when some of their investments were declining and they needed to have liquid funds. They were not the architects of these problems.”

De regulated hedge funds are not the issue… De-regulated, excessively leveraged, mortgage securities, are a different story however… They, not the banks that held them, are the cause of the crises…Years from now, when academics search for causes of the stock market crash of 2008, they will focus on the pivotal role of mortgage-backed securities. These exotic financial instruments allowed a downturn in U.S. home prices to morph into a contagion that brought down Bear Stearns a year ago this month – and more recently have brought the global banking system to its knees.

Where you err is when you state that banks too big to fail, assumed they would be bailed out… By implication, you say imply they failed from squandering money, and wanted the bailouts.. But your tax dollars didn’t flow directly to the bottom line.

The roughly $200 billion the Treasury Department has handed out to battered banks was swapped for a special class of stock that pays a 5 percent dividend (rising to 9 percent after five years.) As of April 15, the Treasury had collected about $2.5 billion in dividend payments on its investment.

So in that sense, the bailout money represents an expense for banks. That’s one reason a number of banks have said they want to give the money back as soon as possible.

You say big banks were counting on a bailout, and they got them? That didn’t happen to these banks. New Mexico, Georgia, and Florida each lost a bank just last Friday. That brings to 8, the number of banks failed in June. Unfortunately if a bank is failing, it can’t bet on itself to fail, as can a hedge fund.

Duffy leads: Banks have successfully lobbied to get their losses absorbed by taxpayers and gains are kept private. How nice for them. They felt comfortable making insane gambles because they knew they’d be bailed out. Most of them were right. Also remember that it was Bill Clinton who tore down the wall between retail and investment banking. The idea was to give banks more stability as they typically perform as exact opposites in bull and bear markets. (FWIW, I think that was a good idea and I can tell you first hand that two of the Fortune 100 banks I worked for were carried by retail banking in bear years. They may not have had bonuses those years but they didn’t have layoffs either)

kavips rebutt’s:Uh… Mr. President. That’s not entirely accurate. The idea is that the banks made bad decisions knowing taxpayers would bail them out is the issue that is inaccurate. For the record, I have no qualms that it was the Clinton legacy who tore down the wall between banks and investment banking. Like you, I feel it was a good idea to do so… Again the problem was not primarily with banks making loans to people who could not pay.. Although, it was as late as October 2009, when I was made aware of one private Bank in Denver still exaggerating income to make loans look good enough on paper to get approval of securitization. What caused the collapse was the leveraging of those loans as securities, so that as the housing market became overextended, and the ARM jumped past the low cost opening years, the damage was 100 times worse because of leveraging. What made the collapse criminal, was that the insurance most financial institutions had bought from AIG, to cover such an improbable event, had already spent by that companies executives, out on bonuses to themselves. What made it doubly criminal, was that when they received government dollars through a taxpayer bailout, those same executives assumed it was to first go towards paying their bonuses again. However, very recent events may give some cover to the argument that some collusion was implicit in the bailing out of Goldman Sacs and AIG… Basically, once bailed out, AIG paid Goldman Sacs for shares twice as much as they were worth. The documents also indicate that regulators ignored recommendations from their own advisers to force the banks to accept losses on their A.I.G. deals and instead paid the banks in full for the contracts.

Petraeus Report III

I disagree with some of those who put down Petraeus as a liar, simply because they fail to agree with his assessment. It may come across to some as funny that I have thought, if not said, some to the same things against which I am now taking issue, and if so, so be it……

What changed?

What happened was this. I became more familiar with what was going on within Iraq. Of course, being of skeptic I tended to look at things hard. Very hard. To my surprise, I found out that I was seeing real signs of hope. This hope was not in the eyes of the politicos; it was the eyes of Iraqis. Since desperate souls grasp any rope tossed to them, I have waited quietly to make sure that these Iraqis were not suffering any type of delusion. I listened to all three reports expecting to see something in them dash my half submerged optimism, upon the reality of Iraqi shores.

I think my conversion may have come about when I was studying the conversion of Al Anbar province. Those Sunnis chose to back us because they like us. Of course it wasn’t much of a contest, considering who their alternative was…..But it may have also come while studying the criticism leveled at us by the British, as they packed up and split. They criticized our arrogance , heavy handedness, and unwillingness to trust: all valid complaints Each of these were addressed under the Petraeus doctrine. After reading the Petraeus Book on the suppression of Insurrections, I realized his tactics were not part of the problem. They were in direct opposition to the problem. I understood what he was trying to accomplish.

What happened under Petraeus, happened not because of the amount of troops we had at our disposal, but because of the way we used them, that made a difference.

The surge may have helped. For before the surge, we, due to our insufficient numbers, acted like Soviets, if I may be blunt. We were there to suppress and pacify. We, with our own patriotic roots, should have been more aware that by taking that stance, we directly increased our own opposition.

Once we added just a few more troops on the ground, we were able to interact with the local population, while still having enough force surrounding us to protect us. Prior to the surge, the problem was that whenever a few shots were fired, we would have to shut down our clinic, and head out across the desert. However with additional troops able to chase the insurgents, the military medical corp could continue to cure the local citizen’s ills. That was the difference. We could finish what we started.

Of course the original problem was created by republicans, Rumsfeld in particular. Had we ramped up enough ground forces from day 1, we never would have needed the surge in the first place. Yes, we know their insurrection began because they believed we wanted their oil. (That republican Cheney messed everything up). But if I understand correctly, we dropped that privatized oil plank as a “no go” and are now supporting the nationalization of oil assets. We are pursuing more of a Biden local strategy, tribal leader by tribal leader, and doing so because of the surge. Paul Bremmer’s national unification strategy was not working.

What I found, in essence, was that everything I said eight months ago that we needed to do in Iraq to win, we were now doing.

Can this late development be twisted to mean I justify this war that was fought on false pretenses? Hell no. It will always stand as a stupid war, instigated by stupid ass republicans. Nothing can ever change that. We could have achieved much better results at far less cost, had we chosen to use other means.

But we didn’t. We went in against all common dignity, history and sense. So since we did, does the resulting mess lie at our doorstep? Does we broke it, mean we own it?

Perhaps. But instead of a “oops, I broke it” moment, it is more of an “Honey, I’m pregnant” moment. Whatever happened way back then, has now changed things permanently.

Of course we can put up our hands and say, “Whoa, that’s your problem bitch…” and walk out the door. Many people do and feel no remorse about doing so. But that is not how I want my America to be perceived. I want My America to be responsible. I want My America to do the right thing. My America will be no punk. My America will be a Dad……….

So emotionally, that is how I have come around about to see how we could win in that barren land. It is nothing new. Biden has pushed it for years.

To win, these things must happen. They are in our control.

Congress must finally stand up to the President. If Iraq can finally realize that America does not equal Bush, that we too think he’s a moron, that we too can admit and correct our mistakes, our relations will improve. If the American Congress ever gets some backbone, and forces upon the president a withdrawal timetable, the Iraqis too will get some backbone and begin controlling their own affairs.

Congress must stand up to the president, and eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy 2%, and invest that money into Iraq’s infrastructure, hiring Iraqis to build their own sewers, roads, and buried electrical conduits. If Congress could do that, then the Iraqis might get some back bone and start controlling their own affairs.

Congress must stand up to the President, and force impeachment if he fails to comply with Congress’s orders. Only then will Iraq realize that America is not over there to conquer, but sincerely is over there to help. If we are decisive over here, they will be decisive over there,……. instead killing time and each other until our next inauguration day.

Mosquito Wars….

The long awaited Petraeus report is due today. Since the White House has admitted it will be responsible for content, one can assume that it will represent the Republican take of the war in Iraq.

However, timed to break just before the Petraeus report, were two other reports of which we have heard already. One, by David Walker of the GAO, could be said to represent the Democratic view of the crises at hand. The other, sponsored by Senator Warner, featuring General Jones (Retired: who looks like he stepped out of the move “White Christmas”) could be said to provide a centrist, or otherwise unbiased, review.

Oh boy….here we go again……surprisingly, all say the same thing………WHAT?…….. All say some progress has been made militarily, but the true solution needs to be political.

So when asked if the surge worked, the answers are all the same. There are gains in stability in some regions as a result of the surge. But politically, we are in the same spot or worse, as we were in January 07.

At each of these hearings, each time this same conclusion is uttered, the Dems posture and say the surge didn’t work….and the Republicans hunker down and say some progress shows momentum…..you can’t quit while you are moving forward.

Oh No! Parallels to Vietnam: In Vietnam, the US Military won every engagement it fought against the enemy. However our State Department was unable to matriculate a political solution. So it is in Iraq. I heard Lindsey Graham, (R-SC) make a speech that would have fit quite nicely in an anthology of “Hawk’s” statements from the early ’70’s.

America: we are smarter than this….We should not make the same mistake twice……

All three reports comment on the marvelous success we fell upon in Al Anbar province. However it was not our military that forced the issue. Rather it was the local population that became fed up with Al Qaeda’s brutality so much that they did something about it. It was fortuitous that the troops were there, to capitalize on the decision made by the Sunni sector.

Had we not had the surge and enough troops in the field, we could have still been holed up in the Green Zone, and the opportunity that presented itself, could have slipped through our fingers. Supposedly the tipping point for the Sunnis came when Al Qaeda made a point of punishing a tribe by killing 6 or 7 of its young boys. The chieftain asked for protection. The astute Lt Col. said “I’ll have a tank parked here in two hours”…… The domino effect rolled throughout the region based on the momentum off that one incident.

But one incident doth not a war make…. As we succeed in Al Anbar, we are unraveling in the South; insurgents are moving back in as the Brits pull out. This should surprise no one……going back 67 years ago:

“hostile forces will withdraw into the more remote parts of the country, or will be dispersed into numerous small groups which continue to oppose the occupation. Even though the recognized leaders may capitulate, the subordinate commanders often refuse to abide by the terms of the occupation. Escaping to the hinterland, they assemble heterogeneous armed groups of patriotic soldiers, malcontents, notorious outlaws,…… and by means of guerrilla warfare, continue to harass and oppose the intervening force in its attempt to restore peace and good order throughout the country as a whole.

Anyone out there recognize that? That was taken directly from the declassified version of the Marines’ Small Wars Manual, first published in 1940. It suggests that to countervail such forces, similar to what we anticipate today, we need numerous presence patrols organized with the help of local, native militias, and outposts that are erected dispersed over a wide area in order “to afford the maximum protection to the peaceful inhabitants of that country.”

This blanket approach of embedding Marines into local tribes, and assisting them in regaining some type of stability in their lives vis a vis their experience with the chaos caused by terrorists, means we often wind up doing the work, and leaving local militias with the credit. This has worked well in the southern Philippines, and has for many years worked well in Afghanistan. We did not employ these type of winning tactics in Iraq, until Petraeus took over, and because of bureaucratic squeamishness over causalities, we have let up on our winning strategy inside Afghanistan.

Americans are good…..and as long as we fight on the “side of good”, we continue to win the hearts and minds of local populations. On this direct level no one can compete with us. No one! Our administration lost sight of that. Intent on imposing a government made to help the image of the republican party, American forces found themselves, instead of fighting for the good in the local populations eyes, fighting for oil rights and Cheney/Bush’s tough machismo.

I call this post Mosquito Wars, because as I sat through each of these hearing, listening to all everyone had to say, the war became less of a military adventure, and more of a politically psychological one. After all, that is how the Soviet’s broken regime crumbled…..not by nuclear strikes or preemptive invasions. They just imploded.

The Soviet analogy sets this up well. During the peak of Cold War, we were beset by Soviet spies. They were relative easy to find, hard to kill, and harder still for their agency to replace. Today against the terror threat, the parameters have changed. The terrorists are very hard to find. easy to kill, and easy for their agency to replace.

The way you fight terrorism is with intelligence. If you know what terrorists are going to do, you can prevent it. But finding out is hard, especially when they mimic regular citizens. But as long as the root causes of terrorism are still out there, as long as there are breeding grounds to replace the ones killed or captured, terrorism itself will be never conquered.

Which brings us to mosquitoes. You can live with them, by walking around with mosquito netting over your head whenever you choose to go out, or you can spend 100 % of your outdoor time, watching your bare arms, and swatting whenever one lands. But if you really want to kill mosquitoes, you change the environment to one where they cannot survive. We did so as we built the Panama Canal. We suffocated their breeding grounds with oil; we sprayed standing water. We succeeded.

Terrorists are not lions, tigers or bears…oh my. They are mosquitoes. Totally harmless entities until they land on you. So lets fight them the same way we fight mosquitoes.

Fix the abject poverty in the area where they breed. For a mere 12 billion, it is estimated, we could permanently end poverty in the world…….Drill some wells, teach crop techniques, vaccinate their livestock, provide lifesaving medical attention, and do so with some M16’s standing by in case a lone mosquito slips in and needs a good swat…

It’s America…..it’s how we win…….and it is not to late to win in Iraq. Announce the timetable, work hard to build an Iraq ready for withdrawal, and leave whenever we are done, not a moment before. But announcing the timetable is the key to developing political will among all factions in Iraq.

Remember how the moment Reagan was sworn in, the Iranian hostages were released after 444 days of captivity? They were not going to budge an inch as long as Carter was still president.

Let us move things fast forward too, by changing our leadership on this side of the Atlantic, doing so on our fast forward timetable (67 votes), thereby giving Iraq some hope too………

It’s something to think about; the next time you swat a mosquito……

WTF

photo by SUCHAT PEDERSON, News Journal

Cheney’s 1% Doctrine Put in Perspective

Hube is married to a Latina. Chavez is also a Latina. It may seem hard to believe, but based on evidence to the contrary, it could be possible that Hube supports the policies of Chavez. Even up to a whopping !% chance that he does. IT COULD BE POSSIBLE.

Mike M is familiar with geo positioning technology. In the wrong hands, that could be dangerous. He has recently returned from Canada, which has less stringent border requirements than does the US. There could be a chance that he spoke with someone about sensitive technology. Perhaps even a gigantic 1% chance that it possibly could have happened. BUT STILL, IT COULD BE POSSIBLE.

Randy, has left WGMD. Sometimes a personal event can change a person’s perspective. He is knowledgeable of radio technology. That knowledge in the wrong hands, could be dangerous. Perhaps there is even a 1% chance that he will instigate some type of disruptive event. You say it is far fetched. I say THERE IS A POSSIBILITY!

Congressman Mike Castle has supported the war in Iraq. despite the fact that it removes resources devoted to finding Bin Laden in Northwestern Waziristan. Why would someone WANT TO LET UP pressure on America’s number one terrorist, if that person wasn’t being a sympathizer to Al Qaeda’s cause? What other reason would representative Mike Castle have for aiding and abetting Bin Laden? The chances are possible that he is a mole, operating not to defend the Constitution, but under code from a lanky Arab who climbs over rocks and shoots a gun……(at least that is all we ever see him do…) You laugh, but look at the results. There is at least, if one rounds up, a 1% chance that congressman Mike Castle is helping Al Qaeda. IT COULD BE POSSIBLE.

Dave at FSP supported McCain in 2000, and now supports Mitt. Anyone who supports Mitt Romney is aware of his views on Iraq. His sons have not joined any branch of the Armed Services…. Does that mean that secretly, Mitt does not want them fighting and killing terrorists? By default, anyone who does not want to fight or kill Al Qaeda, must want them to live. Therefore anyone who WANTS a terrorist to live, is being supportive of their cause. Dave, who supports Mitt, who supports his sons’ decisions. which indirectly support sparing the lives of terrorists, could be considered a co-conspirator. At least there could be, again rounded up, a 1% CHANCE THAT IT IS SO.

The Cheney doctrine is as follows: “Even if there’s just a 1 percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty. It’s not about ‘our analysis,‘ as Cheney said. It’s about ‘our response.’ … Justified or not, fact-based or not, ‘our response’ is what matters. As to ‘evidence,’ the bar was set so low that the word itself almost didn’t apply.”

You laugh, but look at those arrested so far on terroristic charges. Granted it is hard to arrest, and prove intent before a crime has been committed. Sometimes the flimsiest of evidence is necessary to proffer a conviction. And sometimes the evidence is stretched a little too thin. We are fortunate that ultimately our actions will be judged, not by government officials, but by twelve citizens culled from a pool of those who could not escape their jury notices. We are fortunate that members from such a group would be skeptical of the government’s infallibility.

But acting on the possibility of 1% chance of a terrorist attack, as we demonstrated in the above examples, crosses the line that differentiates the reasonable from the unreasonable.

The underlying tenet that makes unthinking Americans susceptible and willing to believe this nonsense,.. is that on an emotional basis, it makes sense. After all, I still vaccinate my children for diseases they have less than a 1% chance of exposure.

However that being granted, the simplistic doctrine of “if at least 1 percent, then act“ becomes especially frightening in the context of international conflicts, not just because of the number of threats misconstrued to meet the 1 percent threshold is overwhelmingly large, but because the consequences of misconstrued military action are so terrible, expensive, and irrevocable.

Therefore the emotional argument turns against the 1% doctrine. What do we have to give up to maintain such an unrealistic level of security? Here are some examples……….

At the last Drinking Liberally, I ordered a Heineken. Across the bar was a Miller Lite drinker, dressed conservatively, who glared at me. I deduced there was more than a 1% chance he would give me trouble…….I shot him.

My wife visited the Doctor. “Anything wrong” he asked and she said “I woke up with this scratchy throat. It could be allergies.” He said it could be cancer and if it is, we don’t have time for conclusive tests. Begin chemotherapy now, just in case.

The leader of the free world, conferred with his second in command. The consensus was that they could attack a third world nation intent on building a nuclear weapon before the leader’s term was up. Just as in the last engagement, no one worked through the possible consequences of their drastic action. Perhaps Russia will retaliate with a nuclear attack of their own. There is at least a 1% chance of Armageddon.

As Cheney said. “It’s about ‘our response.’ … Justified or not, fact-based or not, ‘our response’ is what matters.”

So impeach now.

Local Commentary on the “DEL”

WDEL featured the Americans Against Escalation in Iraq  today. It was good that the group gets some publicity.

However I was surprised that most of the show was an attempt to discredit the group by tying them to a ‘partisan’ partner, and trying to blow the lid off of their non partisan status.

At one point, the inexplicable was asked of the group? “Why are you protesting only Mike Castle, a republican, and not Tom Carper, or Senator Biden?”

I’m listening and not believing my ears. There was no way he was saying what I heard him say. The last time something so off base was allowed over the air waves, was when Gerald Ford said Eastern Europe was not, and never would be under Soviet domination during a Ford Administration. Could anyone else be that confused while on the air?

Everyone in the studio was stunned and tried to save the interviewer’s face by saying politely……”like….duh…. they are on our side, they are against the war…………whereas Mike Castle supports the war, and as the republican, is the enabler who keeps this policy going forward, so we are targeting him……

All I can say is, fortunately they have commercial breaks to allow the interviewers to regroup.

So for those who listened in, here is how it went.

You are a partisan group. . . . . . Uh…..no we are not…..

You are a partisan group. . . . . . Uh…..no we are not…..

You are a partisan group. . . . . . Uh…..no we are not…..

You are a partisan group. . . . . . Uh…..no we are not…..

Of course I was expecting more… Does anyone care about those families who lost children for nothing? That is the true tragedy that republicans seem to ignore. What every American knows and out of politeness does not say, is that every death from Iraq, is the republican’s fault. Every future death in Iraq, is the republican’s fault. We don’t have to prove it to anyone. We know it. Deep down. We know it. It is the republicans fault. Mike Castle is a republican. Every death is his fault.

If Mike Castle stood up and said, this war was started under good intentions, but I cannot support it anymore, the house of cards that keeps this war funded, would dissolve. Years from now, some presidential candidate just might include Mike’s biography in a book titled “Profiles in Courage.” Any attempt, like Fox News, to shift the argument away from what matters, our sons and daughters, is a moral sin. Right now, in Arlington cemetery, lies a St. Marks graduate. From the pages of a William Penn yearbook, a ghost stares out….. And we have a radio host trying to say that stopping the war is a partisan adventure???

It is time for real Republicans to stand up and say this war is wrong. It is time for real Republicans to accept that we were sold a bill of goods that like Enron financial reports, were at the least, untruthful. It is time for real Republicans to publicly repudiate those who mock our servicemen by supporting this administration. It is time!

Honey, Did You Take that 2.86 Billion?

What would you do with 2.86 Billion?  Would you redo every Delawarean High School, and hire additional teachers?  Would you inspect and repair those bridges in danger of falling down?  Would you put it as seed money into forming a Single Payer health care system so needed by this state?  Would you invest it and use the interest to fund the Highway Fund on a yearly basis?  Would you buy up farmland  in danger of development, so Delaware will always be a wonderful place to live?

What is this 2.86 Billion anyway?  Why are we speculating on what we would do with it if we had it?

IT IS DELAWARE’S PORTION OF THE MONEY WASTED IN IRAQ.   If we were not spending it on a religious civil war over there……we could be spending it here, on us………

For those of you who still do not know, anyone still supporting the policies of this administration in that part of the world, is the person to be blamed for us not spending that money where it is needed.  Here!

That person needs to switch parties, and then support spending that money here, not there.

“They Were the Best of Times; They Were the Worst of Times

It is so frustrating to live in these times. So many things need commented upon. They need researched. They need exposed. They need discussion.

It is in times like these that one discovers exactly what one’s priorities are.

I woke up feeling the need to comment on Delaware’s wind power. It has been awhile for me and I needed, particularly with the cancer clusters in the news today, to find outwhether any other coal fired power plants had cancer clusters popping out around them.

Then I received some economic news that set me off.   New insights of a Stock Crash that makes 1929 look puny.

I then got a call from someone who had no health care and wanted my advice on how to go about getting a cyst removed…..Another topic that needed addressed.

Later today I got fired up over watching a panel discussion describing the so called union of Canada, the US, and Mexico. Although the presentation was just on trade barriers only, during the questioning, the public conversation turned to covering a union of the three countries. The most telling of the answers was that this type of wild speculation was prevalent only because every negotiation was being done in secret. No one really knows what is going on on the larger scale because each splinter group is meeting with its counterpart without disclosing any information to the other splinter groups.

What was needed was full disclosure with one negotiation held around one table done in the open for all to see………

Sort of a metaphor for Delaware’s State legislature………

Next, while listening to WDEL I got fired up over my children’s education. Ideas popped out of the conversations and I needed to flush them out and post them.

But by the time I got back to post, it was time to check on the court case in San Francisco. Like a kid opening a present, I frantically searched for any comment from that telling exchange. I finally found one just minutes after it was posted.

So as I look back and reflect upon my day, I see I value the environment, cheap energy, open disclosure, improvements in education, and a fierce protection of our privacy. But at the core of my being, I will drop all these to protect the Constitution. The Constitution is really worth giving up ones life over.

And right now, after last weeks vote on the Protect America Act, our Constitution is in danger. Great danger. Of course each of our elected officials can decide NOT to be Julius Caesar and NOT take the reins of a dictatorship that have been handed to them, but they would be bucking the trend of human history, if they did so………

I am struggling to understand how and why any Democrat would or could have voted to allow this travesty to happen. The more I find about the turn surveillance has taken since 9/11, the more apparent it seems that everything was staged to allow the reins of power to be handed to a choice few. For once done, no one can take them away. I am struggling to figure how rational, thinking human beings, could be so unaware of the potental of wrong doing and yet so trusting of those who have proven they cannot be trusted.

After all that is why History is there. In 2002 when protesters were chanting “No Blood For Oil” I smiled and thought that made a nice chant, but that slogan was so far fetched that it never could have seriously been possible. My research into whatever files I could find leading up to the invasion of Iraq, have proved otherwise. Apparently, we did invade Iraq for oil……..

So even though the idea of a “shadow” government that could quietly become the acting government also seems like a nice chant, but is still a bit too far-fetched and could never be possible,……. I have, no choice, but to act like it is, based on the past actions of this administration.

Yes, of course I hope I’m wrong……I hope it with all my heart. But had a greater number of Americans seen the light in 02, and frozen this nation in its tracks, we would not be where we are today, looking over casualty lists……

This stuff is not out in the open. The main stream media neither can or will investigate deeply enough. Even then, the stories are getting buried when and if they are reported.

I can only hope that more citizens become concerned that their right to privacy has gone with their ability to challenge this administration.

With spy satellites now focusing cameras on our backyards with a resolution of 4.54 inches, we need to be very careful about who is looking. Men, it would be a smart idea to keep your clothes on. Women, watch out for those cleavage shots………

Ladies and Gentlemen: the Constitution is in grave danger. You need to hold your Congress accountable: they have made a decision worse than the Dred Scott Decision. Don’t just phone or email……That becomes a statistic. Show up at one of his meetings in Georgetown, Dover, Wilmington, or Newark……Ask him in front of everyone why he decided to sell your freedoms down the river……….Only public scrutiny and/or embarrassment can and will make the difference. For if our public officials  defray from defending the Constitution, then it is up to us to ensure that this document, and the freedoms that come with it, are still around for our grandkids and great-grandkids…………..

Even if just to stall for time, bite up several of the six months, distract the administration from carrying out their mysterious plans,  impeachment procedures need to begin.  Had such fortitude been present in Rome, as Caesar crossed the Rubicon, history could have turned out much differently………….

I

Get Ready, Here it Comes…..

If you didn’t heed my earlier post and shift all your assets over to fixed rate, you still have time. Not much, however according to this.