Positivity Did Not Last Long: I direct your attention to this important article by Simon Johnson, British American economist. He currently is the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He is, as I see it, EXACTLY correct about appointing the well qualified Elizabeth Warren to head the Financial Protection Bureau. I LOVE Elizabeth Warren and I loath Treasury Secretary Timothy Pay No Taxes Arm of Wall Street and Goldman Sachs Geithner. Warren SHOULD get the job hands down. Obama will lose his base at least the part of his base who understands how important this job is and how wonderful she would be for it. She has the American people's back when few in Treasury do.

I agree with Simon Johnson in his article "Treasury Makes a Mistake ...". He says it exactly as I would except that while he says this would be the straw that broke the camel's back, my camel's back was broken by the leak. Not choosing Warren would simply add to the spinal fracture. Read this article if you have time. It is not long and it is exactly correct. If you care about our country's economic security and YOUR economic security may I suggest sending an email to the White House in support of Elizabeth Warren as head of the Financial Protection Bureau? Its link is: http://www.whitehouse.gov/. Then hit the "Contact" drop down.

Simon Johnson's article below is well worth reading!

http://baselinescenario.com/2010/07/16/treasury-makes-a-mistake-claiming-they-are-not-blocking-elizabeth-warren/

Staying Positive: In my attempt to follow some of my friends/relatives' suggestions about trying to be positive, I came across this article on MSNBC. It is entitled Neuropsychology: Shift Your Brain Shift Your Mind by Dr. Rick Hanson. You may be interested in this too. Within the article he has a link called "Just One Thing" for more on his views.

I have seen some of what he suggests on PBS which has shown a number of other lectures entitled "Change Your Brain Change your Life" by Dr. Daniel Amen (yes, his name is REALLY Amen!).

Often I do not buy into much pop psychology or new agey philosophies but I suspect this is not that. Perhaps there is science behind it. Oh well, there is nothing to lose by reading some of it. :-) I can always return to my dour self!! :(

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-hanson-phd/neuropsychology-shift-you_b_648185.html

Ain't ain't in the dictionary--A FUN POST!: A relative and a friend of mine, too, told me perhaps I should "lighten up." My relative also wrote about poor grammar and syntax in our nation. So I added this to her blog. It's the best I can do at humor in these often serious times.

I am a stickler for proper syntax, grammar and speech. The mode of expression I think I loath more than any other is the so called “Valley Girl” speak. The word “like” is thrown into a sentence more than salt and pepper are thrown into spaghetti sauce. “Like it was totally this or that.” “I said to her like blah blah blah blah.” It’s HORRIBLE! What is that a substitute for? Perhaps like is used instead of a pause or “Uh or UM” I’d rather one be silent than use the word “like.” That being said, English is a difficult language. To me, it makes sense but to some it makes no sense. How often does one (yes “one” instead of “you”) hear “I coulda went” instead of “I could have gone” or “Him and me went to the store” instead of He and I went to the store OR me and Lassie went to the vet. Proper grammar always puts the other person first and the sentence writer or speaker second so it SHOULD be Lassie and I went to the vet. There is, too, little knowledge of cases i.e. the difference between the subjective and objective case. I gave the gift to HIM and NOT to he. “Him” is the objective case and pronouns usually take the objective case. “I” is always the subjective case. “I go to the store” Mari and I went out to eat. ME is the objective case often the object of a preposition. He gave the present to ME.

The grammatical, syntactic and punctuation fracturers of the English language in writing or speech, to me, are like fingernails on a black board. It is blatant, annoying and says something about the speaker or the writer. I pick up on it instantly. How have our schools erred SO badly (not bad but badly as it answers the adverbial question how)? When using verbs of feeling such as I feel bad about something, the correct word is “bad.” If one says I feel badly then it means that their sense of touch is out of whack!

Axed is OUTRAGEOUS to say instead of asked. When someone says that I want to take out an ax and say SEE THIS IS WHAT AN AX IS. You can cut down a tree with it. It is NOT the verb to ASK!

If I were interviewing someone for a job how WELL (not good) they speak in addition to the content of what they say would be the two most important yardsticks I would use when deciding to hire them. Perhaps, I might even say that the correct grammatical phraseology they use would be the first thing I notice.

Interview someone on the street and ask them to say something in multiple sentences. I am often AMAZED at what grammatically poor English they use and how little people know. It, I think, tells one something about the nature of our culture and it AIN’T — oops — it ISN’T good!

Oh yes, and they stopped the leak .... for now! :)

The Leak, Lies and War: Off the top of my head because I cannot believe what I hear and I have no time to perfect a well written blog:

First lie: Oh sure Bristol Palin broke it to mommy just today...right...believe that and she'll tell you another one. And if you think that Levi Johnston was doing it all in the name of loving his absolute love Bristol I have another one to tell you. The answer to this whole scenario is DOUGH, ray, me and MORE DOUGH. Levi sees dollar signs glistening before his eyes ... he hit the jackpot. Palin sees Johnson silenced. Keep your mouth shut, you will get plenty of dough for the kid and it will look better and sound better to my base....That's MY take.

Second lie: The leak: MY take: They stopped the new cap because there are MORE leaks and they KNOW it...it's all been baloney. The dispersant is a metaphor for the fact that they just tell you what they THINK you want to hear to cover the disaster up. My guess: They stopped because there are more leaks. What are the odds that it's just gushing from one spot? NIL and I am not an engineer just a person with 1/2 a brain. This will not fly. My bet is they KNOW there are more leaks and they face the threat of a HUGE blow out at the bottom. If that happens....Good night Irene. They KNOW it could so they are going slow...OH sure...tell me another one.

Third lie: The Wars: They lie and lie and lie and lie and lie INCLUDING our government. I am NOT a fool and NOT duped easily. I've been around too long as when LBJ said there is light at the end of the tunnel in Vietnam...RIGHT another lie. Wanna hear another one? Afghanistan is working? OH SURE. This is all they can do is lie to cover up their rancid policies which get us killed."The game is rigged," as George Carlin said. " It's a club and guess what? YOU AIN'T IN IT!!"

If I'm wrong on any of it I will apologize. I suspect I am not but I have been wrong before.

X Rated: Here is a UTube link below of the late George Carlin which Glen Greenwald embedded in his post. Carlin, of course, is saying things PERFECTLY in his own inimitable style. It's one of my favorite political diatribes from him and is about three minutes long. WARNING: He does NOT, if you know him, mince words. If you do not like a little bit of profane language do not listen but the guy got the nature of everything about our political beast completely correct and I personally am glad he used the phraseology he did.

This country is absolutely clueless sitting on its hands dumb struck, drinking a beer and watching HDTV, and soon to vote in the worst of the worst Republicans often teabaggers or Conservadems who DUPE their constituency. Many, if not most, simply do NOT care. Worse in emergencies it is every man for himself. There is NO help or impotent help as you can clearly see from Katrina and now the Gulf spill. Pass it on to those whom you know would appreciate George Carlin. I paste Glen's blog but to get Carlin you have to scroll down to the picture of him and click on it.

For my bedtime reading I began to read a little of Noam Chomsky's "Failed States." mmmm "Failed States" plus George Carlin ... no WONDER I can't sleep but hey it's reality and you cannot put your head under the covers and pretend it does not exist because when you do that you play into the hands of those who have rigged the game. If you can't click on it either cut and paste the link into your browser or Google "George Carlin The American Dream" and you will get it.

Oh yes, we were in the flood yesterday when we were in Cambridge at the Kendall Theater where we saw only 1/2 of the film "Winter's Bone" as the electricity was cut because of the storm flash flooding the cities. It is just another thing that reinforces global warming and if you cannot see the global warming horror then you are like the creationists believing a fantasy. Our catastrophic weather in the past decades is saying something. If you don't think so STICK AROUND it will be proven to you over and over again, if not to you then to your grandchildren if you have them. Wake up America before it's too late. Unfortunately, I suspect it already is.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

To Believe or Not to Believe that is the question: I subscribe to a Jewish newspaper. There is within it a section for questions. Here is a question and response from a Rebbetszin which is the wife of usually an orthodox rabbi. Why she is an the authority on issues I have NO idea but, I suppose, some think her as wise as her husband may be. Does she have academic credentials is anyone's guess. I had, naturally, a response to her response. The question and answer is as follows:

Question: My son recently took a class at high school on philosophy that made him question his belief in G-d. He now declares himself an atheist, much to my dismay, after raising him to be an observant Jew. I know that directly challenging him is exactly what he wants because he’s rebelling, so I don’t want to do that. Is there any way I can talk to him about honoring the Jewish tradition without causing a huge argument?

Rebbetszin's Answer: Don’t do it. Everyone has questions about G-d and has struggled with it, at least at one time or another.
If you have raised him as an observant Jew, then he has received the background and foundation that will stand him in good stead as he goes through the normal soul searching and questioning. Encourage him to read theological works written by other observant Jews who discuss the subject.

I took issue with her answer and sent the following to her:

Dear Rebbetzin: In my opinion your response to the woman who was upset about her son "coming out'" as an atheist fell short. It reminded me of parents, when their children come out as homosexual, telling them to read a book about sex between men and women and if the parents gave a solid heterosexual upbringing to the child they should not worry. I think your answer evaded the issue.

When an older child questions and then states that he/she is an atheist reading "theological works by observant Jews" as you suggest begs the entire question nor will the fact that the woman raised her son as an observant Jew address the issue either. In truth, in my opinion, NOTHING written by a theological scholar Jewish or otherwise will convince a non-believer that a god exists. Why? Because nothing anyone can say offers proof of that fact and usually contains personal observations such as the grandiosity of life and that there must be a "creator" for the created. Still, that those writers may believe that offers no proof to the non-believer because there is NO proof.

The substance of Judaism or for that matter ALL god-based belief systems have as their fundamental pinnacle FAITH and that is all they have. Faith and nothing but faith if one has a belief, will be the only explanation that child will find. I think you avoided the question like some parents avoid their children's questions about sex because they themselves find it UNCOMFORTABLE to talk about it.

I think you, as a believer, find that subject uncomfortable so you trivialize it by saying go read a Jewish theological book. There are, of course, many evolutionary biological texts based upon solid evidence which support Darwinian facts to explain the origin of life on earth and, indeed, the universe.

The value of Jewish tradition cannot be argued. It can be honed and rationally reinforced but an atheist, in my opinion, will find little persuasion or consolation in religious texts, modern or otherwise by great Jewish or other theologians which will persuade an atheist to believe in a god because there simply aren't any since FAITH is the operative religious word. Either one has faith and believes or one does not OR one can find co-existence with both religion and science -- two UTTERLY DIFFERENT entities -- living together side by side, decidedly separate, but in peace. Just my opinion.

www.natalierosen.blogspot.com

Defeat from the Hands of Victory: I taped the Today Show. I both saw and heard Rachel Maddow reporting from Afghanistan. She did a WONDERFUL job. She tells it like it is and I do not have to worry that she is giving some kind of soft soap sugarcoated for-American-eyes-only report. She presented a frank and honest account. While she rightly gave great awestruck accolades to our American can-do troops she was forthright in saying that they are only 20% of what REALLY needs to be done in Afghanistan. The REAL challenge is establishing an Afghan government in Kabul linking Kandahar to it. THAT is the rub and that is EXACTLY why our mission there courts either eternal, expensive war or failure. The Afghan people must govern themselves and it is a HUGE tribal oriented, lawless and geographically difficult land. Once American troops are gone will the Afghan people be able to govern? Can they turn off the saturated endemic corruption which has as its life giving arterial sustenance the lucrative opium trade and unite diverse tribal peoples into one? I have my sincere doubts.

The time for establishing an Afghan government George Bush, one of the worst presidents in US history, let slide. We had kicked the Taliban in their posterior right after the 9/11 attacks and in late 2001 even had Bin Laden and Mullah Omar cornered in the forbidding tribal area of Tora Bora. We let them go and turned our attention to fighting nearly 2000 miles away in Iraq, a land which did NOTHING to us and we now know had NO WMD. It is, indeed, a shame and, in my opinion, even treasonous that George Bush did NOT give the order to kill or capture the 9/11 mastermind murderers when we could have and when he was asked to give that order by our special forces in the region. Only George Bush, the utter incompetent nincompoop president, could snatch defeat from the hands of victory. Victory now may forever elude us.

I both saw and heard Rachel Maddow reporting from Afghanistan. She did a WONDERFUL job. She tells it like it is and I do not have to worry that she is giving some kind of soft soap sugarcoated for-American-eyes-only report. She presented a frank and honest account. While she rightly gave great awestruck accolades to our American can-do troops she was forthright in saying that they are only 20% of what REALLY needs to be done in Afghanistan. The REAL challenge is establishing an Afghan government in Kabul linking Kandahar to it. THAT is the rub and that is EXACTLY why our mission there courts either eternal, expensive war or failure. The Afghan people must govern themselves and it is a HUGE tribal oriented, lawless and geographically difficult land. Once American troops are gone will the Afghan people be able to govern? Can they turn off the saturated endemic corruption which has as its life giving arterial sustenance the lucrative opium trade and unite diverse tribal peoples into one? I have my sincere doubts.

The time for establishing an Afghan government George Bush, one of the worst presidents in US history, let slide. We had kicked the Taliban in their posterior right after the 9/11 attacks and in late 2001 even had Bin Laden and Mullah Omar cornered in the forbidding tribal area of Tora Bora. We let them go and turned our attention to fighting nearly 2000 miles away in Iraq, a land which did NOTHING to us and we now know had NO WMD. It is, indeed, a shame and, in my opinion, even treasonous that George Bush did NOT give the order to kill or capture the 9/11 mastermind murderers when we could have and when he was asked to give that order by our special forces in the region. Only George Bush, the utter incompetent president, could snatch defeat from the hands of victory. Victory now may forever elude us as our cost in precious lives rises in concert with the price in our dollars going down the corruption hole.

This COULD have been avoided ten years ago and we could have declared victory and left with constant vigilance by covert action and special ops but instead this is the legacy George Bush has left us. Now indeed it is Obama's war truly in a few short years few will remember George Bush even existed but his life has been a cruel blow to so many. It is beyond me how anyone would want to sign up for this mission impossible. That is the true miracle that anyone even wants to try. If our world lasts a thousand years it would not surprise me if one could return somehow to Afghanistan one would find the same thing one encounters now -- nothingness. As Alice in Alice in Wonderland says: "It would be so nice if something made sense for a change." So far it does not.

He Who is Without Sin: The link below from CNN is about the imminent stoning of an Iranian woman who will be buried alive vertically up to her neck when stones will be thrown not large enough to kill her immediately but of a size that can inflict severe pain she will surely initially feel. After enough of them are thrown she will, of course, die. Her crime: adultery!

The Medieval-like treatment and punishment of women in the Islamic world is an abomination of the highest order. THIS staggers and confounds me as a progressive. One will hear little outrage from the world, the UN and certainly little to NONE from the Arab/Islamic world which should be rising in indignation at the barbarity of this act. Many on the left in the west, too, will remain silent. People should be screaming in the streets against this innocent Iranian woman's cruel and unusual punishment with its attendant inane torturous death for the most trivial offense.

Let Israel, though, trying to defend its very existence, commit a crime that includes the killing or maiming of those who are innocent and some who are NOT so innocent one hears screams ring around the planet. I do not understand it. Do I think Israel is always right in its course of conduct? NO, of course not but this kind of barbarity most especially levied on women of the Middle East (with the EXCEPTION of Israel) is addressed with anemic world protest.

Medieval draconian principles of punishment, torture, suicide bombings, and the brutal unequal treatment of Arab/Islamic women are a fact of life in the Islamic world. No one can say that is not true. One's eyes do not lie. If we are to condemn our own country and Israel, too, for actions that may include the killing of innocents then we can do NO LESS for the absolute SLAUGHTER in the Islamic world of its own innocents as well as the brutal oppression and suppression of its women. To turn one's head, as my left wing compatriots often do, is nothing less than hypocrisy of a crime against humanity. I surely say he who is without sin cast the first stone!


http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/07/05/iran.stoning/?hpt=T1&fbid=st5YEsiUWfP

Crying: FABULOUS editorial in the Huffington Post by Robert Kuttner. Kuttner says it ALL. Every single thing he wrote in this I have said at various times probably NOT as eloquently. I have, I think, never read an opinion that sums up the Obama presidency so far that is as well written as this and as, in my opinion, completely correct. Unlike, as he says MOST progressives are, I personally am NOT an optimist as those who know me understand.

I would like to take this editorial and hand it to Obama personally not that it would matter very much to him! Prediction: Obama is a one term president unless he changes his stripes and WE the people will suffer all the more for it while he will go off enjoy the millions from his book and the exorbitant fees for the speeches he gives. Where will the people's money come from? Not even the unemployment line. Good luck, America as China rises. Boy did we as progressives get this one WRONG! Read, the link and as Kutner says watch this accident in slow motion. As a progressive I will just sit here and cry!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/my-private-obama_b_635289.htm

Rethink Afghanistan: The short video below commands us on the 4th of July to THINK really THINK what our nation's wars against our terrorist enemies have done and continue to do. We, generally, as a people, do not understand just what dropping bombs on human being's heads REALLY means as we march patriotically down streets carrying flags and lighting fireworks. This country has been spared by its geographical good luck. As our enemies are patient and become more sophisticated someday for us, our children OR our children's children, I fear, our geographical isolation will mean nothing as it did not on 9/11. I fear our enemies ultimately will acquire the unthinkable weapons and not fail to use them.

Most of us sip our coffee in the morning and think not one second about what it is like for an innocent mother to be cradling the body of her dead young child, limbless, faceless and lifeless as an American drone does NOT SEE what it has done. War is about THAT and these wars are NOT keeping us safe. They are endangering us more as the enemy is a patient one who has NOTHING to lose by inscribing on the hearts of his children generation after generation a hatred of Americans for killing their INNOCENTS on their soil. It is what, after all the 9/11 bombers said was the rationale for what they did. That can be debated. What cannot be debated is the longer we are waging perpetual war the more our sons and daughters we commit to the grave, the more we expend HUGE costs and the more we will lose our country to unaffordable constant war sapping our will, our strength and breaking our bank so that we CANNOT afford to send people to school, provide affordable health care for the sick, fix our crumbling infrastructure or alter our warming climate. Ironically perpetual war WILL leave our country defenseless against nature and other men. The leak in the Gulf is a metaphor for those forces which man himself cannot stop.

This war is NOT winnable and it will be forever UNLESS we simply STOP IT by protesting it or supporting candidates that will PULL the funding plug. We must say NO MORE. NO MORE killing, NO more dying, NO more expenditures for wars without end. We have lost more Americans than we did on 9/11. Both economically and militarily we are looking into the abyss. STOP it by fighting terrorism with PRUDENT vigilance and not eternal war. STOP it before it is too late! The video is linked below.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=410258247434

Skin Deep: When I see a Frank Rich column I KNOW it's got to be good. He never disappoints me and this is no exception. Link below to his NYT article "Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010."

The US is a mixed bag. It's one half good and the other half .... well let's say LESS sometimes MUCH LESS than perfect. I am glad Niki Haley, the Indian-American former Sikh overcame the stupid and, it seems, salaciously false attacks on her character to win the S. Carolina gubernatorial primary BUT I do not like her politics. Lipstick on a conservative is still a conservative and the Republican party has become since Nixon ushered in his "southern strategy" and the so called "moral majority" the party which has a few tokens of color to send its message heretofore carried by the white Dixicrat haters.

The message, I believe, is still the same they just dress it up in a skirt, and give her skin a bit of a hue but not much changes. It is still the party of white power using code words like "activist" to mean they are against government giving the little guy, especially if he is black or Hispanic, a helping hand to ensure equality or "smaller government" to mean smaller just where the minority poor are concerned. Big corporate business, though, takes a BIG government helping hand no problem there. Exclusionary race, big corporate money and religious extremism are still the base of the Republican party and most of the old south. All one has to do is look beneath the surface to see the same old politics of exclusion and white Protestant male power!

The old south with its "conservative" politics of race and gender does NOT die an easy death. It's still in good condition and will live to see, I'm afraid, many more days. For the Democratic party it is obvious it is an eternal and vigilant struggle against the forces that dress a candidate up so they look good but are about policies which keep the monied power of mostly white men in the hands of a very few. In many parts of the nation the pretty picture is only skin deep!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/opinion/04rich.html?hp

Thoughts on the Late Senator Robert Byrd: A relative of mine wrote in a segment of her blog called “Kudos and Catcalls” of the mixed nature of Senator Robert Byrd. She iterated what was true that Senator Byrd, a man from West Virginia, was, indeed, long ago, a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He was, at one time, a Dixicrat segregationist and thus I have mixed emotions when I eulogize the man as well. The heinous KKK is everything my relative said and for Byrd to have joined it is the abomination she says it is. I am reminded of the Catholic Pope Benedict who has been excused from being a Hitler Youth because the entire social milieu during the Nazi period dictated that he sign-up. Too bad he was not a righteous Gentile.

Too bad Robert Byrd did not morph sooner into what he became AFTER 1965 as he surely morphed into a totally different man. I am reminded, too, of an apologetic George Wallace who said he was absolutely wrong to do what he did opposing integration and spewing his segregation now and segregation forever trash. Later he had a black man as his political right hand man (pardon the pun) to show for it.

The damage ALL of these people have done when they took up the mantle of the extremist racist right cannot be denied or undone. At least, though, in the 2000 votes Senator Byrd cast he voted AGAINST the Iraq War and even came into the Senate in a wheelchair to vote for the health care bill. He in an interview said if he had had it to do over he would have voted FOR the Civil Rights bill. This has to be judged commendable as does his gift for great oratory and his abiding love for our Constitution which he knew verbatim.

I am ALSO reminded of the “to err is human to forgive divine” quote IF the person is truly repentant. Byrd joined the Klan in 1949 a year after I was born. The south was segregated from drinking fountains to restaurants, from schools to voting booths, Jim Crow laws and literacy tests prevailed. We, I think, sometimes forget how difficult it is to change the social order. Even today the sentiment that gave life to slavery and all its attendant evils is still with us as those of us who are politically savvy well know.

It is easy for us to glow in our moral purity but as the Holocaust memorial in Israel of the Righteous Gentiles in Yad Vashem extols and praises those people who were the EXCEPTION to immorality because it truly, then, was the exception and not the rule. When I look deep into my soul am I able to say IF I were gentile in Germany at that time would my name be among those special few. The true answer is I don’t REALLY know. It took exceptional bravery and I am not very brave.

Some orthodox rabbis have said they may not like what the reform Jew does but they HOPE and, indeed, pray the Reform Jew will have a change of heart. They leave room that a person can change and morph into something different and, as they see it, better. On Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, all vows are null and void, the slate is wiped clean and we begin anew and TRY to do better.

It is somewhat how I feel about Senator Byrd. He did what he did when he did it so many years ago but the preponderance of his life in the Senate was, I think, an attempt to right that wrong. I ALWAYS like that some rabbis leave room for a person to change his mind and start over. A man, I think, should be judged by the sum total of his life and not by one part no matter how objectionable. After all, who of us is philosophical perfection in all phases of our life? I see Robert Byrd, in the end, as a righteous Gentile who, as his dear friend Teddy Kennedy said of his own brother Robert Kennedy, “… saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.” I will give a kudos to Senator Robert Byrd rather than a catcall.

Boehner the Boozer: The July 1, NYT article by Gail Collins "The Most Unhappy Fellow" talked about the enigmatic interview of minority leader from Ohio, John Boehner. I saw the interview of Boehner. I couldn't put my finger on it then but the man barely answered the questions, rambled and defined the greatest near collapse of the economy since the Great Depression as an ant. In addition, he got the issue of the Gulf leak totally screwy. He seemed lethargic, sleepy and mumbled as his words rather slurred aimlessly into one another. It was hard to understand what he was saying. Then again that is not so unusual from members of Congress especially Republicans so I dismissed it business as usual. But REALLY what was awry with Boehner? I thought maybe he was not feeling well. Then I read Gail Collins's article this a.m. in the Times (Link below). She explained my subliminal wondering to a tee – inebriation -- Boehner was possibly DRUNK. The reporter states it is known he is quite the drinker, starts early at 5:00 p.m. and does not work very hard except at fund raising. Now THAT is astounding isn't it? I say that in jest!

How many from both sides in Congress keep the bars humming? I only know Washington from what I read in my papers but I don't think I have to go too far out on a limb to think that the bars in Washington depend mightily on Congress for their life. Why? To be a Congressman/woman means one has a mountain of very complex minutia to sift through and at least pretend to understand. The subject matter and its attendant legalize is often boring, you have a bazillion requests and a dose of angry opposition from your constituency as well. Importantly, too, is that one is often away from home and family. The media focus on ESPECIALLY the leaders, even IF they are in the minority, is intense. Ohio’s John Boehner the tan man and his perpetual year round tan, neatly coiffed hair piece seems to indicate, to me, some attempt to, in vanity, hide something -- maybe his age, baldness or bags under his eyes. I do not think those bags under his eyes come from burning the midnight oil studying the issues intensely but rather they come from, perhaps, downing too many Chivas Regal shots at local Washington pubs.

Great, it's not hard to figure out WHY the Republicans are SO utterly out of touch awful. With Republican leaders like Boehner this country is, indeed, in a quicksand soup! Ohioans, CAN'T YOU DO BETTER THAN BOEHNER the Boozer? Try a Democrat. Even though they too can tip a few at LEAST the country might just get something accomplished to cure our potentially fatal disease malady malaise it cannot do with the uncompromising intractable opposition from the Republican Party of filibuster obstruction and No!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/opinion/01collins.html

The Reality in Three Minutes: I URGE you to either click on this story by McClatchy one of the BEST news gathering organizations and one of the most ethical and even handed. Or go to McClatchy on Google and you will get it. Link below.

The video will tell you all you need to know in three minutes about just what the corporate swill is all about. It is why I am a TRUE liberal who is in favor of truth, justice and the American way. This is what your governments for decades have perpetrated on an unknowing unsuspecting public. It is WHY YOU MUST be aware and involved and NOT TAKE IT ANYMORE. Teabaggers are NOT the way. They are used by the corporations and DUPED utterly DUPED by them using everything from race to fear and hand it off to the politically unaware who carry their signs and think they know. They DON'T.

It's all a game and most of you are NOT in it. Take back your country YES, but put it in the hands of honest, ethical people who LOVE this country and would NOT do it in for a billion bucks. The few have been blessed by administrations who care about them and do NOT care about the average person. They care about people lining their pockets who vote according to THEIR own pocketbooks and would just as soon move to Dubai as stay here. WAKE UP and KNOW who REALLY is at fault and it is not people who tried to buy a house but the fault is at the FEET of the men who were behind the curtain manipulating everything from Wall Street directly to the White House to the Congress to the Courts. They BOUGHT it all and NOW look at where we are. We are in the primordial soup. All we have is our vote. Vote for those who REALLY care about your interests NOT about Wall Street and certainly not about the military industrial complex which has a vested interest in perpetual war. I include our present powerful as well.

Watch this you may just learn something if you do not already know it.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/29/96779/goldman-admits-it-had-bigger-role.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=3917760#Comments_Container

Stare Decided: What a horrible position Solicitor General Elena Kagan is in or, in fact, ANYONE would be in who is vying for a Supreme Court position. She is damned if she does in some instances and in other instances she is damned if she doesn't.

How nice it would be not to hear the stupid words stare decisis (the thing having been decided stands.) That phrase which Justice Roberts used SO often surely did not apply to the case of Citizen's United. I guess he LIED. Sure, they are all for a NON activist court as long as the issues are not about issues, corporations or people they care about. Clearly Republicans care about corporations before the average citizen who does not possess great wealth and therefore power. It is too bad Solicitor General Kagan cannot come out and unequivocally say that Citizen's United was indeed an ACTIVIST decision and say I probably would vote against something like that if it comes before the Court again. The importance of reversing a decision like that will, of course, NOT come from Kagan. It will come from whomever takes the seat given up by a justice from the activist right and who the president is who may decide who that utterly important justice will be.

Too bad she cannot be honest and say there are a set of principles I favor. I favor human beings over corporations or I favor the environment over corporate polluters, or habeus corpus over indefinite detention without benefit of trial etc. Then we would get the truth which most of us already know. It is also too bad she cannot say that the Constitution is an interpretive document and changes over time. We are not STUCK in the 18th century one HOPES. Moreover, there are situations which call for a strong executive and other situations which call for a division of power. It all depends on your point of view and the specifics of the case.

Ms. Kagan is so obviously MORE than qualified for this position. Her resume reads like a who's who in great American academic scholars. So what's wrong with that I might ask since part of the country has a case of agida over academics? Thank God SOME in this country can THINK more profoundly about issues than about Lady Gaga or Tiger Woods!

The Third Depression's psychotropic remedy: Paul Krugman's NYT article "The Third Depression" (See Link below) is, as Dr. Krugman always is, incredibly prescient. His predictions over time are usually proven correct. If Paul Krugman knows what he is talking about it is hard to understand that political leaders of some depth and insight do not at least read what he has to say and if they want to avoid further catastrophe, in fact, DO what he says. I simply do not get it.

Why oh why Barack Obama chose to stick with the advice on the economy of the very people who brought us to the economic abyss I will never know. I, too, will never know why, as the handwriting seems to be on the wall and unemployment benefits dumped, he does not ditch his economic team for new batting champs. I vote for Team Krugman.

Surely, in this country of 300 million people we can do two things: (1) plug the leak in the Gulf and (2) enact policies which will turn the economy around. Mr. Obama, Paul Krugman has your back and you do not even seem to know it! Please, Sir, listen to him. It may save your presidency and our nation from entering another quagmire and the hellish quicksand depths of yet another LONG Depression!

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/opinion/28krugman.html

A Minute and One Half: I never fail to read excellence when Frank Rich writes it in the NYT. Perfect editorial. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/opinion/27rich.html?hp

When everyone was ruminating and hand wringing as to how a general with McChrystal's savvy could be so stupid as to utter the things he did to a seemingly lowly newspaper like "Rolling Stone" (the ONLY paper which is able to tell it like it is and get the scoops -- economic debacle, the Interior Dept. Gulf leak idiocy or McChrystal interview -- correct) I thought there is a method to McChrystal's madness.

He did it for a reason maybe two, three or more. It surely did gather attention, showed the insanity of this war and PERHAPS just perhaps got McChrystal off the hook for a policy which he KNEW this country nor any other can win in the no-win Afghanistan. He won't be blamed but will be able to do a lot of I told you so's.

My worry is that the attention span of the American public is about a minute and a half. Once McChrystal is gone and Petraeus in, Afghanistan will be forgotten again UNLESS American casualties rise horrifically. (Truly, even one more life after NINE years is too much.)

9/11 should have been met with the force it did when it happened and the ability then to capture the perpetrators like Bin Laden and Mullah Omar when we absolutely could have done so in Tora Bora. We didn't so Bush could begin another insanity called Iraq. How we get ourselves into the WORST of predicaments I will never know. NOW we have two insanities to monitor -- Iraq which is NO paradise, the hot war in Afghanistan and, oh yes, make that three do not forget the nuclear equipped Pakistan. WE ARE STUCK, like the pelicans in the Gulf, we cannot move and the fact that we cannot move seals our own sorry fate.

That is what happens when a country elects INCOMPETENT leaders. The price is heavy in blood and treasure. That is the ONLY thing we DO know. God save us, bless General Petraeus and hope, unlike recently when he fainted during his testimony before Congress, he keeps WELL hydrated!

An email to Rachel Maddow. Saw your Friday show. I did love the rendition of what Obama has achieved. We need that BUT we also still need laser focus on the things on which he disappoints his base -- war, civil liberties, imprisonment without trial, Guantanamo and rendition not to mention what you did the public option on health care. There are many other things. The president CAN forge the policy and I do not buy the oh he's not that powerful argument.

Please see Glenn Greenwald's email to me. I passed it along and posted it on my blog. I believe too McChrystal knew EXACTLY what he was saying and did it for the troops to change this policy of insanity first by Bush and now incredulously enough by Obama. I read Glenn Greenwald every day. There are FEW times I disagree with him. Occasionally it does happen I disagree especially with respect to Israel but more often than not we are in the same corner. I value his comments and think they are ESSENTIAL.

I was hoping even though I knew it would be unlikely that Glenn would be offered the 10:00 MSNBC spot after Rachel. Larry O'Donnel got it. Larry is good but he is NOT Glenn. Probably O'Donnel is a bit more mainstream. It's too bad we NEED Glen's articulate and excellently formed opinion!

As you know I more than value your opinion. You and Keith are necessary to my sanity!

“We’re losing this thing”: I get sent many emails. This one below is from Glenn Greenwald, a WONDERFUL writer who posts for Salon.com. He is excellent and has a few words to say about McChrystal, Afghanistan and the never ending war. I suggest you click on it and listen. Here's the link: http://webmail.aol.com/32131-111/aol-1/en-us/Suite.aspx#. This war MUST stop. It MUST to save our blood, innocent's blood and OUR treasure. Even McChrystal KNEW it is lost which I think is why he said what he said. It probably came out of desperation. Well, he DID get his thoughts out in the Rolling Stone Article. You should read that too (here's the link to Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/).

We have spent BILLIONS upon BILLIONS to a trillion on never ending wars. I propose a draft to get people to care when it is their own son/daughters having to fight perpetual wars! Better still END the wars and keep a volunteer force fighting implementing ONLY surgical strikes, which are deemed absolutely necessary. These can be very effective and kill INFINITELY fewer in addition to the use of special ops. There is no question we need to defend against those who would want to hurt and destroy us BUT minimal and PRUDENT strikes have always been the answer. Ground forces in Iraq, the surge there, Afghanistan and the surge there have been FAILURES. Just because NBC news shows you an improvement here or there does NOT mean that the wars worked. They did not. Watch films made by those who do NOT have a commercial interest in war if you really want to get the truth!

Silly Me: Add to my last opinion which included a list things the President USED to support but no longer does the civil libertarian priorities of habeus corpus. Glen Greenwald brilliant reporter for Salon.com (See link below) writes that this egregious Bushian-like offense has been given a significant extension by the Obama White House and states:

"Even in the context of America's wretched civil liberties abuses over the last decade, the case of Mohamed Hassan Odaini stands out. He was 17 years old in 2001 when his father sent him from Yemen to study at a religious university in Raiwand, Pakistan, and when a campus house in which he was staying there was raided by Pakistani authorities in early 2002, he was turned over to the U.S. and shipped to Guantanamo, where he has remained without charges for the last eight years (he's now 26). A federal court this month granted his habeas petition for release, finding that the evidence "overwhelmingly supports Odaini's contention that he is unlawfully detained." Worse, the court described the multiple times over the years -- beginning in 2002 and occurring as recently as 2009 -- when the U.S. Government itself concluded that Odaini was guilty of nothing, was mistakenly detained, and should be released (see here for the court's description of that history).

Despite that, the Obama administration has refused to release him for the past 16 months, and fought vehemently in this habeas proceeding to keep him imprisoned. As the court put it, the Obama DOJ argued "vehemently" that there was evidence that Odaini was part of Al Qaeda. In fact, the Obama administration knew this was false. This Washington Post article this weekend quotes an "administration official" as saying: "The bottom line is: We don't have anything on this kid." But after Obama decreed in January that no Yemeni detainees would be released -- even completely innocent ones, and even though the Yemeni government wants their innocent prisoners returned -- Obama DOJ lawyers basically lied to the court by claiming there was substantial evidence to prove that Odaini was part of Al Qaeda even though they know that is false. In other words, the Obama administration is knowingly imprisoning a completely innocent human being who has been kept in a cage in an island prison, thousands of miles from his home, for the last 8 years, since he's 18 years old, despite having done absolutely nothing wrong.

It really is hard to imagine many things worse, more criminal, than imprisoning people for years whom you know are innocent, while fighting in court to keep them imprisoned. But that's exactly what the Obama administration is doing. Every day that Odiani is kept in a cage is a serious crime. Just imagine what has happened to his life by being shipped off to Guantanamo for 8 years, starting in 2002 during that camp's darkest days, with absolutely no justification. ..."



If you care about our country's DNA then you should care about this. We are not what we SHOULD be without the Bill of Rights. If we give this up what have we become? I THOUGHT when we elected Barack Obama we were returning to our genetic roots. Silly me. I actually believe what some politicians say!

For Glen Greenwald's entire article(s) with links see link below:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/