Monthly Archives: November 2008

South of the border, the Treasury Department’s Bailout The Base program is going forward with all the determination of a Gulfstream business jet full of financiers heading to Hilton Head for golf. 

Today, Amex is now a bank holding company, at least according the US Federal Reserve which means American Express can cozy up to the government money teat for a suckle.  Amex is seeking $3.5 Billion in funds to directly invest in financial firms, at least according to the Wall Street Journal. 

One would suppose that if you put a box in your garage and offered to take deposits from the neighbours, you too could be a ‘bank’.  Then you could nipple-up for a couple of Billion dollars in FedBucks and get your own personal bailout. 

Except the lineups are long and you’re too busy trying to pay your bills to actually be a bank.  You don’t have Henry Paulson or Ben Bernanke on your speed dial either, but that’s another issue.

Henry the FrankenFinancier is opening the gates to anyone in The Base, under the direction of President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy and Shotgun Dick.  There’s always some slush in the last days of an administration (viz. Clinton and various pardons) but this is approaching the Department of Silly. 

I’m waiting for Exxon and Chevron to cry poor over the dropping price of crude and cozy up to the Fed for a nice drink of $11 Billion or so.  After all, Exxon and the other Oil Oligarchs have credit cards and since Amex can become a bank, well, come on Dubya, let them in too.   GM, Ford and Chrysler all have credit stuff, so we’ll make sure they get a taste, at least until House sets up its own feeding station.

Don’t forget consultants, like the Carlyle Group, or lobbyists and PAC’s that have a Republican presence, as they’re all hurtin’ in this financial mess.  They need support, as they’re the engine that makes it all work right?  Come on down, with your Republican credentials and get you some! 

Haliburton is sorely being tested these days, what with declining oil revenues and not nearly enough spendin’ in the war.  Heck, make them a bank, right up there with KBR and Blackwater, as y’all need to be keepin’ them terrorists at bay too.  Blackwater Bank.  Has a nice ring to it, I say.  American Heritage Institute Savings and Loan, yep, works for us.

Hail, even make Rush Limbaugh a bank.  Y’all knows his ego can qualify for a local zoning exemption.  Make him a bank and give him a place in the hog pen to find him some God-divined sustenance from the mighty breast of the generous American People! 

If it weren’t for patriots like Rush Limbaugh employing four or five people, well, the whole economy would fold up in a Crawford Texas Minute, so we have to bail him out too.  And give his fat bottom State’s Rights while you’re at it, Lord know’s it’s big enough. 

Henry!  Crank up them presses, we need more dollars over here!

Remembrance Day, or Veteran’s Day in the US is the day set aside to honour the people who have sacrificed their lives for us.

The statement Lest We Forget has an implied question in it:  Forget what?  What is it that we’re supposed to remember?  Aside from the rote rereading of "In Flanders Fields" and cutting out red construction paper poppies, that question is never really answered in schools as best I can tell, as it is highly fraught with controversy and is emphatically not politically correct.  So, here goes:

In 1914 a world war erupted in Europe between Germany and the Entente, or Allied Powers of Britain, France and Russia.  The reasons were geopolitical and economic if you cut out the bullshit, the overlapping treaties and the treachery, but suffice to say, it was a big war.  Men of both sides, the Central Powers or the Entente, marched off to do their ‘duty’ for their respective countries, under the thrall of the politicians and rulers.

Except the war, which was supposed to be over by Christmas, was the first highly mechanized war with several inventions employed by both sides to efficiently kill each other.  The slaughter was on a scale never before seen and devolved into the stalemate of trench warfare which is nothing more than butchery.  The noble aims of "Beating the Hun" and "For King and Country" went out the window, except when used to bring in more soldiers.

Eventually it came to an end, as the various factions realized that murdering that many soldiers was not going to fix the economy, or settle old political scores.  The resulting treaties, notably Versailles, punished those who lost and rewarded the victors.  Several dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, Hapsburg, Romanov and Ottoman Empires went away and the seeds of dissent were formed in imperial colonies of every side, including Palestine, India, the Trans-Jordan, Iraq and the Pacific. 

Short form, the Great War lead directly, via the Treaty of Versailles and a global Depression, to World War II.  We decided to do it all again and this time managed to remove almost an entire generation from this planet.  The best estimates of war dead on all sides is 50 to 70 million people. 

Since then, we’ve decided that smaller wars, police actions, military assistance, insurrections and revolutions are more our style.  The list is long and bloody.

Our Lest We Forget, comes directly from WWI and John McRae’s poem, In Flanders Fields and speaks to the nobility that was assumed to rest with the Allied powers battling the "Hun" where loyal men from the home country and the colonies were fighting for our freedom.  Historically, the "Hun" also thought they were fighting for their freedom as well, but since we won, we get to write the history and ours was the noble cause.

In modern times, Lest We Forget has, thankfully, changed itself.  Today it is a way to honour the sacrifices that soldiers have made for us and continue to make.

That’s what we’re remembering.  That’s what we’re not going to forget. 

We promise.

Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican Party’s Vice-Presidential candidate is now the recipient of the garland of garlic from the Republican Party.  Caribou Barbie, or to use her Secret Service code name, Denali is back in Alaska and catching all kinds of flak from every quarter of the the Republican party.

Up front, I thought Palin was a weird choice, but might have been a foreshadowing of the New Republican Party for Change ™ coming forward to take over from the old Regan-era dinosaurs.  I was proven wrong, but that’s the price one pays for having an analog crystal ball, instead of the newfangled digital ones.  However, I wasn’t willing to throw her under the bus in September.  I can live with that.

For a week or so after Palin’s appointment to the ticket, the Republican Reptiles stood her up as a solid, working-class, experienced and able candidate that would make a fine Vice-President right up next to the war-hero John McCain.  They even whispered that if John McCain proved the actuarial tables right, that Sarah Palin had the qualities necessary to make an excellent Commander In Chief.

A couple of weeks later, after she opened her mouth to change boots, notably with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, the Republicans kept her in front of crowds:  Palin the Maverick, the new spokesperson of the base, conservative, and family-oriented supporters of the party.  As the campaign wore on, it became patently clear that with her winks, twitches and homespun language that she was designed to appeal to the basest of the base. 

About all Palin didn’t do was to stand in front of an arena of supporters and scream, "You cain’t vote for Obama, ’cause he’s a Neeeegrohhhh."  That was her job and she took it on with a zeal that only the simple, or, the Republican strategists could appreciate.  If nothing else, Palin proves that the Republican party knows what their base supporters want to hear. 

Now that the GOP is shut out of the levers of power, there has to be a goat and it can’t be John McCain.  Never mind that the Republican Party strategists chose Palin.   Never mind that the Republican Party strategists vetted her politics.  Never mind that the Republican Party strategists examined the Palin family for excessive weirdness.  Never mind that the Republican Party bought her wardrobe. 

Never mind that the Republican Party ran Palin through the policy and presentation drills until they were satisfied with her performance.  Never mind that the Republican Party stage managed her events with all the abilities of a well-oiled machine.  Hell, even ignore the fact that the Republican Party kept putting her out front to speak to live humans. 

The same Republican Party, who boosted Caribou Barbie up as candidate for the second-most-important job in the US and with a straight face said she was ready, now is going to blame her fully for the loss.  Which explains the revelations of Sarah Palin meeting with advisors in a bath towel, or cleaning Neiman-Marcus out of clothing on the Party dime. 

(I’m expecting revelations how the party paid for her husband to have a mani-pedi and his back waxed as part of a full manscaping at a frou-frou spa in New York City.  I suspect they sprang for her daughter to get a tattoo on an intimate area that reads "Levi’s Ho" in six inch gothic letters.  I’m surprised they haven’t released the itemized wardrobe list, as I bet there’s some lingerie in there.  It would be fascinating to know if the "Denali Dominatrix" outfit was sized to fit the Vice-Presidential candidate’s form.  I salaciously digress.)

The Republican Party strategists are going to be leaking "Palin" stories for the next few weeks to pin the blame on anyone except themselves:  The ones that chose her, trained her, groomed her and put the words in her mouth.

This is not to say that Sarah Palin isn’t to blame for some of this.  She rose above her level of competence when she became the Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.  That Sarah Palin is the Governor of Alaska further proves the theory that only the truly incompetent can rise above the "elitist" principles of merit, skill, intelligence or demonstrated ability.

The disturbing part is how Sarah Palin embraced her candidacy.  She seemed to enjoy being the mouthpiece for the race-baiting, mouth-breathing and knuckle dragging segment of the Republican Party. 

That those kinds of people still exist is repugnant.  That the Republican Party was fully willing to wind them up to support their slate of candidates is more evidence that there is far to go.

Dear American Cousins:  If you noticed yesterday morning that things felt different, trust me, that’s a good thing.  You finally got rid of a couple of hundred years of guilt off your shoulders by selecting Barack Obama as President.  That’s what is probably making you feel a little light-headed right now.  You’ll be fine.

However there are things that are on the event horizon for your country to accomplish in the next while.  With your kind permission, may I suggest a few things that are worthy of your attention?  Thank you.

1:  Take ownership of your Constitution.  Rumour has it, The U.S. Constitution is the basis and the yardstick against which you measure your law.  As best I can tell, by reading it, there’s a few things in there about inalienable rights, government staying the hell out your lives and the separation of Church and State.  Perhaps it is time for a re-read. 

Believe it or not, the U.S. Constitution is kept in Washington, D.C. and can be viewed by regular folks, just like you:  You don’t have to get permission from Homeland Security to see it.  Some schools even teach it to the kids, despite No Child Left Behind.  It isn’t hidden away in the back and, although imperfect, is a good place to start. I’ve even seen it and I’m Canadian.  

A bunch of old white guys wrote the entire mechanism for the whole United States in 1787.  It took them four pages to lay out the entire US on paper, so it isn’t like it is a particularly long or complicated read.  Perhaps all of the existing and most of the new laws that get passed should be kept down to three or four pages.  That keeps laws simple and easy for regular folks to understand.

You can, at least according to your Constitution, change things up a bit, but there are rules about how to do it and the rules were set to be strict, to prevent loons and crazies from taking over. 

The Constitution doesn’t mention things like e-mail, or selling off government services to Haliburton because Bush, Cheney and Rove said so, but the broad strokes are there.  Odds are you could get the Supreme Court to rule, instead of changing the Constitution, but be aware you can change it.

2:  Reach out.  I mean this in a difficult way.  There is a percentage of your population who are very bitter and twisted about the results of the election.  You’re going to have to reach out and remind them that they are Americans, which means they have to be tolerant of other points of view.  They can protest, bitch and whine, but they also have to be respectful. 

You can show them how to do it by listening to their point of view, agreeing where you can, and agreeing to disagree where you can’t. It’s called Teaching by Example. 

Unfortunately most of the bitter and twisted learned by a negative example, so you have an uphill climb here to undo eight years of Bush, Cheney and Rove wiping their feet on your Constitution.  Sorry.  I never said this was going to be easy.

3:  Hold yourself to a higher standard.  This is aimed at the folks coming to Washington.  That means no lobbyist money, or PAC money, or influence peddling.  Have a witness or two with you, or offer to record the meeting.  Influence peddlers don’t like to have anything they say written down or recorded.  It covers your ass and puts the lobbyists on the defensive.

If a lobbyist tries to put the arm on you, tell a reporter or two exactly what happened and make sure the lobbyist gets his or her ass caught in the blades eight ways to sunrise.  Lobbyists are not your friends no matter how nice they seem. 

Oh and for the newcomers to Washington?  Don’t try to hump the staff, Congressional pages, or troll in public washrooms.  Learn from the Republicans on this one and keep it stowed.

4:  Hope, which is what the election was about, is a very fragile thing.  Most folks I’ve talked to are rational enough to know that there will be tough decisions ahead.  As long as it is fair and for a greater good that they understand, then they’ll buy into it.  Grudgingly, but they’ll go along.

One that comes to mind is your $10 Trillion dollar deficit which was brought to you by Bush, Cheney and Rove.  Someone has to pay for it and since the American people voted for them in 2004, it’s going to be the American people who pay for it in 2009.  And 2010.  And 2011. 

Remind your fellow citizens that since they let Bush, Cheney and Rove do whatever the hell they wanted, someone has to clean up.  It isn’t your shit to apologize for, but it is your shit to clean up.  Place the blame where it resides:  Bush, Cheney, Rove.  Frankly, if you could drag that troika into court somewhere a lot of Americans would be happy.

5:  Remember that the whole election was about change.  Change doesn’t happen as fast as you want it to.  Be patient.  Washington is a complete and utter mess and that will take some time to fix. 

It will take some wisdom to decide if it’s a coat of paint or a sledge hammer that is needed.  The SEC comes to mind here, along with the FDA.  Those two agencies are supposed to be looking out for the common good of all citizens, enforcing the rules fairly.  If those two agencies were businesses, they’d have a very bad fire before someone looked too closely at the books.

6:  This one’s for Barack Obama specifically:  Keep reading newspapers, watching TV and listening to the radio.  If your advisors keep telling you it’s sunny outside, look for yourself.  If it’s raining, then something is wrong.  Never be afraid to get out of the car and ask the folks.  President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy happily lived in a Cheney-Rove contrived plastic bubble of euphoria and see where that got the country? 

Try to keep Condi Rice and Colin Powell around.  They’re good folks with good experience and good judgement.  David Paulson from FEMA seems to be smart too.   

The rest of them?  Well, I won’t suggest you should have a large mediaeval catapult set up in the Rose Garden to fling people over the White House to land on the concrete out past the front lawn:  That would be needlessly violent and messy, but would bring a new meaning to the phrase ‘rapid outplacement’.

However, firing the miscreants and taking away their golden parachutes comes to mind.  You could always have the US Marshall Service show up with a "No-Knock" warrant at 3 am then drag them to jail in leg irons and an orange jumpsuit.  I’d watch that on Pay Per View at $40 a show, as it would be better than WWE, even at 3 am.  Use the proceeds to pay down the deficit.

Essentially, Barack, you’re going to have to be part Mahatma Gandhi and part Vlad The Impaler for the first few months.  Do so wisely please.

That’s all she wrote my American cousins.  It will take time and there will be mistakes, but I think you picked the right one this time. 

To paraphrase the man:  Yes You Can.

Cheers!

David