HOW BANKS BECAME FREE TO LET MAGIC OF MARKETPLACE KILL EARTH'S ECONOMY

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

The following CNN article from Nov. 12, 1999 sheds crucial light on just how the banking deregulation that spawned the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression came about. You'll find some familiar names, and they're not all Republicans. Phil Gramm is joined by Democratic luminaries such as Senators Charles Schumer and Christopher Dodd as well as Bill Clinton. All boasted of their work at the time.

They'd learned nothing from the deregulation of thrifts under President Reagan that ultimately cost taxpayers about $300 billion. The political pygmies of 1999 that took legalized bribes from the institutions they unleashed on us repeated the mistake of 1982, only this time to the tune of trillions. Most of those crooks and buffoons from 1999 are still running our economic affairs

Clinton signs banking overhaul measure

November 12, 1999

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The biggest change in the nation's banking system since the Great Depression became law Friday, when President Bill Clinton signed a measure overhauling federal rules governing the way financial institutions operate.

"This legislation is truly historic and it indicates what can happen when Republicans and Democrats work together in a spirit of genuine cooperation," Clinton said at a White House signing ceremony. The event brought together the president and several Republican members of Congress who have been among Clinton's sternest critics -- a sign of the bipartisan support that eventually developed for the package.

Congress passed the bipartisan measure November 5, opening the way for a blossoming of financial "supermarkets" selling loans, investments and insurance. Proponents had pushed the legislation in Congress for two decades, and Wall Street and the banking and insurance industries had poured millions of dollars into lobbying for it in the past few years.

"The world changes, and Congress and the laws have to change with it," said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm (R-Texas), who has fought for years for the overhaul. Gramm said the bill would improve banking competition and stability.

Financial Supermarkets

"This is a bill that is bipartisan, bicameral and tri-institutional," said Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), chairman of the House Banking and Financial Services Committee. He noted that the House, Senate and White House had worked together on the compromise that became law.

Clinton said the measure will "save consumers billions of dollars a year through enhanced competition." He said it also would protect consumers' rights and require banks to expand the availability of funds for community development.

At stake is an estimated $350 billion that Americans spend annually on fees and commissions for banking, brokerage and insurance services. Proponents say the legislation will save consumers some $15 billion each year, offering them greater choice and convenience and spurring competition. Consumer groups and other opponents maintain it will bring higher prices and jeopardize consumers' financial privacy.

The overhaul measure is one of the few major pieces of bipartisan legislation to emerge from the Republican-controlled Congress this year.

Clinton's support for the legislation comes despite warnings from Democratic critics and consumer activists that it could lead to price-gouging of consumers and the erosion of their privacy by newly formed financial conglomerates that are too big and powerful.

"The bill is anti-consumer and anti-community," advocate Ralph Nader declared. "It will mean higher prices and fewer choices for low-, moderate- and middle-income families across the nation."

In addition, he said, "Personal privacy will be virtually eliminated" under provisions allowing affiliated businesses of the newly merged companies to share customers' personal financial data as they offer one-stop shopping.

And up until a few weeks ago, the Clinton Administration itself had threatened a veto of the legislation as it took various forms that raised a series of White House objections. In recent months, the administration objected most sharply to the issue of rules requiring that banks make loans in minority and low-income communities where they operate.

Gramm, an outspoken conservative who opposes the rules, last year managed to kill a similar bill that would have overhauled the community lending laws. The White House insisted that banks be required to have a strong track record in local loan-making as a condition for being allowed to expand into other financial activities.

The big breakthrough came in the wee hours of October 22 when administration officials -- including Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers -- and key Republican lawmakers reached a compromise after negotiating for days behind closed doors. The White House then lifted its longstanding veto threat.

"It was sweaty, it was tense, but it had momentum," Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) said of the final bargaining session. He and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut) whose states are home to Wall Street and the banking industry (New York) and the insurance industry (Connecticut), helped broker the agreement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

OBAMA AND THE DEGRADED STATE OF THE NATION

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

The Republican propaganda machine has added a new paragraph to its manual. Instant word went out to all the Fox-o-crats and their allies to predict that President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi will now make war on each other. That’s just wishful thinking.

McCain and Bush agreed on 90 percent of the issues. Pelosi and Obama will beat that by a mile. Neither is a deluded simpleton, which makes common ground much easier to find. But delighted as I am that Obama-Biden crushed the team’s misguided opposition, I regret not being able to watch Constitution-challenged Sarah Palin on the day she showed up to -- as she promised while stumping for votes among the misinformed -- run the Senate. That would have been a sight to see.

As it turned out, defeating McCain-Palin was a piece of cake. In a nation where millions have already seen the value of their 401K’s and home equity chopped to splinters, where those who haven’t lost their jobs fear that they will, and owners of small businesses are frightened and barely surviving, it became harder and harder to convince Americans they should choose more of the same. The hard part was already accomplished --- taking down the national Clinton Machine.

We’ve become so accustomed to a government warring on its citizens that it will be tough to get used to an administration that, for example, might actually take the needs of patients into account when it fashions Medicare legislation. But the pharmaceutical lobby is still out there, along with oily oilmen, the anti-health HMO's, anti-missile-missile alchemists, the arbitrageurs, hedge-fund managers, and all the rest of the corrupters that have been dribbling out tips to “public servants” in exchange for vastly disproportionate favors.

Observe that it was a Democratic Congress that, asked to approve $700 billion to save the self-destructive banking industry, tacked on another $150 billion for its biggest contributors. So yes, there’s a steep road to climb. Obama knew how to turn the corrupters’ weapons against them, raising so much money that they surrendered, unwilling to pour more crooked dollars into the election cruncher. But money is a hermaphrodite. It’s happy to switch sides.

Meanwhile the fourth estate, which is supposed to monitor the players, is in steep, steep decline. Billionaire Sam Zell, for instance, is at work as we speak gutting the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, and all the other former watchdogs he purchased with leveraged dollars. Many of us, aware of this sorry circumstance, now look to the Internet for information. But it’s also a mine of misinformation. The Internet and talk-radio crazies were instrumental in spreading the McCain-Palin-Rove message to deluded bumpkins that Obama was a terrorist, socialist, Muslim non-citizen.

With all the twisted factoids, lies, and half-lies flying around, it will take a revived educational system to produce more responsible citizens who can cut through the crap. But Obama and the Congress have inherited an exhausted economy. Revenue from sales, property, and income taxes are all headed down. As recently as the Kennedy Administration the top tax bracket, now 34 percent, was at 91 percent, but the plutocracy hires high-priced accountants and lawyers, plus Democratic and Republican office-holders who for relatively small gratuities will continue to impede reform.

And thanks to stupidity and torpor, the Democratic Congress continues to pour $10 billion a month into Iraq for no rational reason that any fair-minded person can determine. As he looks for resources to pull this country out of the pit, Obama should look there first.

McCAIN, ECONOMY IN ACCELERATING FREE-FALL

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
As the world economy collapses around us it’s hard to take our eyes off the spectacle of the increasingly unstable, 72-year-old cancer survivor John McCain, who won’t release his medical records, barnstorming around the country with the message that Barack Obama is dangerous and untested and that only McCain and Palin can save the world, conquering greed, creating jobs, paying off everyone’s mortgages, and defeating whatever else ails us too.

When they stop in one place they stand outside their respective covered wagons loaded with tonic bottles and pledge to do it all because they know how.

But their bottles are empty.

Meanwhile, Palin has that frightening combination of stupidity, ignorance, and unbridled confidence that we’ve seen work so well for Bush Junior. She couldn’t name one publication she reads? Here’s another question for you, Sarah. Got any books in your home? Name them.

Back to McCain. At least he still has the presence of mind to know he’s lying, which may be why he looks so damned angry all the time. When he does smile it’s in the form of a Charles Manson grimace, except beady black dots take the place of Manson’s big zombie orbs. McCain’s lips spread horizontally as a smile should, but the eyes are pure batshit. In yet another spurt of self-righteous anger, he wouldn't even shake Obama's hand after the second debate. Maybe on some level he's convinced himself that the accusations he and his Rasputins have invented must be kind of true in a generic sense even if the facts have been twisted into a tangle of coat hangers.

But what's really scary are those supporters of his.

Stay safe, Barack.

HARD RAIN'S GONNA FALL

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

Voters who believed there should be no bailout were wrong. Barney Frank and other Democrats removed much of the language in the bill giving Paulson and Bush an open-ended license to steal. So by depriving the Treasury of funds to buy up bad debt, the House probably (I hope I’m wrong) triggered a storm of horrors, beginning with bank failures, that, ironically, will leave the very Wall Street fat-cats the voters wanted to punish high and dry anyway. The rest of us will suffer due to what economists call the snowball effect. Banks fail, businesses fail, the customers of those businesses fail, government cash flow dries up as joblessness rises and the value of real estate continues to dive. There should have been much more in the bill to help the little guy, but there's a limit to how much decent legislation you can squeeze out of an indecent white House and Congress.

If we had a President who’d proved his/her character to the voters over the last seven and a half-years, most of them would have believed his/her appeal to support bailout legislation. But of course if we had a decent, intelligent president, the promise of deregulation paradise concocted by Phil Gramm and other highly paid thieves would never have made it through Congress and the White House.

As it stands, not even hard-core Republicans believe George Junior anymore. Most of us know him to be a liar and a fool. So when he entreats us to do something, as he did earlier this week when he asked us to support the bailout, we pay little to no attention and try to find out what grown-ups think about the subject.

Americans who re-elected Bush, a man aptly described by Democratic insider Paul Begala as a high-functioning moron, have yet to learn the consequences of their folly. FDR, facing a similar economic disaster in the thirties, told people the truth. So when he addressed them on the radio, most of them believed what he had to say. But in 2008, the voting majority of 2004 left us leaderless and rudderless.

No one knows what happens next. As the folly of doing nothing becomes clearer, the ensuing destruction might spur Congress to act, but once the glue is out of the tube there doesn’t seem to be much chance that this Administration of fools and crooks will figure out how to get it back in.

Our legislators, for the most part, don’t put the nation first. Members of Congress have showered themselves with so many perks and legalized kickback schemes that they will do almost anything to get re-elected, including triggering Great Depression II. They’re like dirty cops. They might start out with ambition to serve the country, but their morals gradually deteriorate as day after day they man the phones to raise money for themselves.

Our ghastly predicament will probably prod voters into electing Barack Obama, but it’s hard to say how much he can do for us now. He and Biden are vastly preferable to madman McCain, who facilitated both this global panic and the thrift disaster of the eighties, and to lipstick Sarah, who wouldn't know a Wall Street derivative from a walrus. But it would have been nice to choose sanity before, not after, the hard rain fell.

PAULSON DEMANDS LICENSE TO STEAL

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

Only a thief demands a license to steal. What am I referring to? Here’s a sentence from the legislation demanded by Treasury Secretary Paulson:

Decisions by the Secretary [of the Treasury] pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

That gives Paulson the right to buy up paper from his Wall Street pals for $1.50 on the dollar and sell it back to them for 2 cents on the dollar, and we couldn’t touch him for it. He demands at least as much deference as the Vatican pays to the Pope. He’s telling us he wants a check for 700 billion, no questions asked, have it by Tuesday or the world comes to an end.

Think Katrina. Think Cheney, who dreams up a war, then hands out the contracts for that war to his own firm. The firm gets caught stealing --- blatantly making up services and merchandise it didn’t provide and sticking it on the invoices. And the firm retains the contracts. And nobody lays a glove on Cheney, who’s busily destroying evidence as we speak and preparing a wall around the evidence he can’t get rid of that will last into perpetuity.

This administration is dedicated to the proposition that the rich can’t get rich enough and everyone else can go screw themselves. Paulson’s incredible demands are a part of that program. In fact, it's their best scam yet, born of ineptitude, unwarranted conceit, and their thieving hearts.

When he went before a skeptical congressional committee today Paulson said he never intended to escape oversight. Then why did he invent an escape clause? It’s only a two-page piece of legislation. Are we supposed to believe he skipped that sentence? An honest broker could never dream up a sentence like that. Paulson, Bush, and their ilk think they have a divine right to steal. They'd pass any lie detector test when they proclaim innocence because they're so crazy they believe it.

When Congress is skeptical of legalized skulduggery, we should pay attention because no one in the world knows more about legalized skulduggery than our members of Congress. Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who convinced building contractors to do hundreds of thousands of dollars in free work on his property, then handed out government contracts to those same companies, now claims he did nothing wrong. And you know what? He probably believes it. He’s been pulling this crap so long he’s convinced himself the laws don’t apply to him. He’s mostly right. Only some of them do. And now Paulson and his pals want to cut themselves in for a bigger piece.

I guarantee you when the dust clears on this bailout legislation Congress will have cut itself a generous tributary from the new gravy train, one of the biggest ever. Congressional oversight means the profiteers will have to pay Congress to stay in business.

Let’s face it. We’re stuck. The American people refused to impeach and remove Bush and Cheney for their high crimes and misdemeanors, so we’re still dealing with these larcenous nitwits now that one of their many deregulation scams disintegrated into mush. So barring a wave of sanity that removes them from office, we’ll be putting up with their Treasury secretary another four months, only it will seem much longer. And they may be succeeded by the equally grotesque McCain-Palin duo, or, to hear her tell it, Palin-McCain. Meanwhile the watchdogs over Administration chicanery will be beak-wetting Congressional members.

We’ll have to keep watch on all this ourselves because it’s unlikely the big media’s pretty faces will do it for us.

I know a car dealer in Orange County, California who sold 137 cars in August 2007 and 7 in August 2008. There's a big shitstorm of a recession coming in after the Wall Street collapse. We need to help real people with needs, do what we can to curtail the thievery, and work to earn outselves a President Obama, who just might get something done to counter the corruption and endless war of our government -- a government that continues to make war on 99.5 percent of its citizens.

QUESTIONS BIG NEWS MEDIA DON'T ASK

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

Major U.S. news outlets present the same puzzle that boxing officials present fans when we see particularly inept decisions by judges and referees. Are these guys corrupt? Or are they just that stupid?

Example: Sarah Palin, who proclaims herself ready to be the Number Two steward of the U.S. economy, gives an acceptance speech at the convention that fails to mention the banking and foreclosure crises that have already dragged down millions of American families and may just swallow the entire economy. These are man-made crises caused by the Republican insistence on deregulation so their corporate pals can work their swindling voodoo without government interference. Remember how they told us to get government off the backs of thrifts and we ended up with a savings and loan meltdown that cost taxpayers $300 billion? This new one apparently will cost us much more.

All Palin has to say about the economy is that John McCain will see to it that American companies sell all kinds of stuff all over the world, creating great jobs for everybody. And Obama won't. No word on how McCain will bring about this great turnaround in an economy entirely dependent on the cheap Chinese junk that has taken over our retail stores like alien spores.

Moments after Palin concludes her ignorant, xenophobic diatribe about why soccer moms make great statespersons, I hear CNN’s Wolf Blitzer describe the speech as “great.” Amazed, I flip the channel to MSNBC, where seconds later I hear Keith Olbermann, a self-proclaimed prince of the liberal media, describe the speech with the same word –-- “great.” I spare myself the horror of hearing the Republican propaganda machine's interpretation straight from the bowls of Fox News. Instead I turn off the TV altogether.

When I raised these points with a friend later, she wondered whether Blitzer and Olbermann meant that the delivery was great. That may be a good guess. Another reason Palin might get a pass is because when a book-burning, anti-intellectual nut job can appear almost normal, she's surpassed expectations. When thoughtful, articulate Barack Obama does a great job, they figure so what? He cheated by already being thoughtful and articulate. But can’t these TV guys explain just what they mean by "great" in precise English? Or is that too much to expect from big-cheese, network interpreters paid millions per year to speak their thoughts?As it stands, we're left with the same puzzle. Are they corrupt? Or are they really that stupid?

Okay, Olbermann and Blitzer may get confused from time to time, and life is hard, their hours stink, and they need help once in a while. So here's help --- questions to ask their interview subjects. Olbermann, whose MSNBC network is owned by General Electric, chief contractor in charge of building the Star Wars anti-missile network, might consider a query to Secretary of State Condi Rice and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden. Why is it so necessary to re-ignite the Cold War by placing these G.E.-built contraptions that have only a marginal interception rate anyway inside Poland? Isn’t this precisely the sort of corruption of American policy by the military-industrial complex that Ike warned us about in his farewell address? Weren't we better off when we were helping the Russians dispose of their old Soviet-era warheads?

Second question I have is for Wolf Blitzer. Just him. I don't want to confuse Olbermann with too many issues at once. Blitzer should keep posing this query to administration higher-ups until he gets an answer. Republican icon Alan Greenspan, who knows a thing or two about why people in this administration do things, said in his book that the Iraq War is clearly about petroleum. For a moment let’s skip over the more than four thousand U.S. war dead, the uncounted hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, the millions who are displaced, homeless, jobless, or permanently maimed. Let’s just look at the $10 billion check signed each month by U.S. taxpayers to pay for this nightmare. Now bear in mind that the oil companies don’t give us a price break on the petroleum they plan to extract from Iraq with these new drilling and exploration contracts of theirs. They always charge Americans the same world price they charge everyone else. In fact, they’re not even American corporations anymore. They’re global corporations. Why don’t we tell them to put up the monthly ten billion smackers themselves?

And here’s a question for big U.S. media. Instead of wasting our time with the kind of crap you routinely present as news, why don’t you pose truly pertinent questions? Are you corrupt? Or just stupid?

McCAIN-PALIN ADMINISTRATION COULD HAVE US LOOKING BACK FONDLY AT BUSH-CHENEY

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
Too many of us are taking these Sarah Palin revelations too seriously. Instead we should all sit back and appreciate the entertainment value of the McCain-Palin ticket. This is like being fed the very best reruns of the fabulous Jerry Springer Show.
And I don't believe McCain made his running-mate decision at all hastily. He used every bit as much care as the Palins did choosing their self-described redneck of a future husband and in-law. Seriously, I feel sorry for both those kids. It's bad enough having to deal with an unplanned teen pregnancy without having the facts splashed around the world media.

As for other revelations, the facts that have come out on Troopergate so far are not terribly flattering to Palin and may involve lawbreaking. Her husband's very old driving mishap is of no consequence. Was she supposed to dump him because he had a DUI conviction 20 years ago?

But Governor Palin, we've recently learned, says the war in Iraq is our mission from God. That strikes me as being more germane to our elective choices than her husband's driving record. Some of these characters drawn from the Springer show apparently aren't terribly thoughtful in the foreign policy department. We already know McCain's mission: victory. Victory over who or what remains vague.

Let's look carefully at the substance of what McCain and Palin have to say at their Twin Cities convention. Then let's cut their bullshit campaign to pieces and save America from the kind of trouble that could have us looking back fondly at the Bush-Cheney era.

DAILY KOS, REPUTEDLY TOP-NOTCH, PLACES PALIN STORY ON SITE WITHOUT VERIFICATION, AND THIS BLOGGER WAS SUCKED INTO SAME MISINFORMATION MORASS

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

The Daily Kos placed an utterly strange story on its well-regarded site Saturday claiming that Sarah Palin's latest child was actually born to her teen-age daughter. Then it proceeded to ignore its own story, leading me to believe it was phony, but not before I'd leaped down the same hole of unverified information. This does not excuse me, but we have been so slammed around over the last several years by under-reported news and non-reported news from the standard media, that we've been led to believe we can get superior workmanship out of media outlets such as Daily Kos and HuffingtonPost. But these sites are run on a shoestring, often by people who are poorly paid and not terribly well-acquainted with professional standards. I apologize for mimicking their behavior, but I'd actually come to think of the Daily Kos as a legitimate information source and paid the price for it. Even if this story were to prove true, the Kos's odd lack of follow-up is evidence that the people there just put the story out there without checking it. Governor Palin's teen-age daughter is in fact five months pregnant, which the family announced today. But assuming Governor Palin bore her own child, her daughter's pregnancy of course has no bearing on the governor's suitability for office.

McCAIN CANDIDACY AN ACCIDENT OF HISTORY, GIVING OBAMA, RIGHT MAN AT RIGHT TIME, A SHOT AT VICTORY

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
As a presidential candidate, John McCain is an accident of history, just as Hubert Humphrey was in 1968. Back then the Democratic candidate would have been California primary victor Bobby Kennedy had not Sirhan Sirhan changed history in the kitchen of Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel.

And in 2008 the Republican candidate would have been Virginia’s George Allen, if not for his videotaped “macaca” remark. He had the contributors, the babbling-right-wing editorialists, and pretty much the whole world primed. But after Allen allowed us a quick look into his ugly mind, there weren't many GOP alternates ready to go for the prize. McCain, who’s too old and too ornery to be nominated under ordinary conditions, just happened to be the last man standing. Republican voters weren’t about to pull the switch for Mitt Romney, who’d abruptly switched virtually every political stand he’d ever taken as Massachusetts governor in order to sign off on all the hard-core positions a candidate must take to win GOP primaries.

McCain had also re-tailored most of his positions in order to pass muster with Mr. and Mrs. Right-Wing, but his switch had been a gradual one over approximately eight years. McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for the No. 2 spot is an interesting one, but not likely to peel off nearly as many Hillary supporters as he’d hoped.

I’m not going to claim relatively untested Palin couldn’t possibly fill the role of president because if there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last eight years it’s that the country can stumble along with virtually anybody in the Oval Office, even a lazy little bastard who can’t put six grammatical words together and never asks any questions because he already knows everything.

But Barack Obama is not an accident of history. He’s the logical president for a country weary of a government that cares for the interests of only the very, very rich and their natural allies, the big global corporations out to buy favors.

Obama’s the logical president for a country that wants to get past its crazy concern over race. But of course not everyone in this country wants to get past race. When voters tell interviewers they don’t know enough about Obama, they’re basically saying they’d need to know an awful lot more about a black man in order to vote for him and they don’t really want to know too much because then they might want to vote for him. This is a man who wrote his own informative, revealing autobiography, writes his own speeches (as did Lincoln), and who told us in his acceptance speech exactly what he plans to do, who he is, and where he comes from. And they don’t know enough about him? Where do they live? Saddam’s old spider hole?

After what we’ve been through the last eight years either Al Gore or John Edwards --- both white Southern men with brains and decent instincts --- would have won this general election 58-52 percent. But Gore lost the fire in his belly and Edwards couldn’t get through to enough Democratic primary voters and ultimately self-destructed.

Naturally it’s going to be more difficult for an African-American with a funny name, particularly since a black man, as Jesse Jackson noted, isn’t allowed to get angry. And when the McCain-Rove machine really starts throwing mud, he’s going to have to be our new Jackie Robinson, the university-educated black man who promised Branch Rickey he would remain composed when taunted by racist ball players and fans. Robinson pledged to just play his best and pave the way for others. That’s what Barack is going to do for all of us.

OBAMA'S FOREMOST MISSION IN DENVER SHOULD BE TO RUB McCAIN'S NOSE IN BUSH'S STINK

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
Even John McCain would have to agree that Michelle Obama was extremely poised for a Muslim, America-hating bomb-thrower from the Weather Underground. And those two daughters are triple-adorable. Trouble is, when the Republicans come to bat in Minnesota they will unleash TV sharpies like Fox’s Roger Ailes who will fill their precious time slot with vicious, anti-Obama venom that will take its toll. That’s why Fox News doubles the viewership of tamer CNN. It knows how to get eyeballs fastened on what it's doing.

The first night in Denver avoided disaster. Teddy was quite moving, and Michelle proved to be one of the finest public speakers in memory. Very few members of Congress can come close to her in terms of intellect and communications skills. But we now suffer under the worst president in American history running the most inept, venal, corrupt administration since Nero. Obama and his people must rub McCain’s nose in Bush’s stink. They must remind us over and over, using McCain's very own statements, asides, voting record, and senior moments as supporting evidence, why his administration would be a continuation of our present nightmare.

Positive campaigning is great, but Americans' hatred and distrust of the Bush administration are fantastic gifts to Obama. In Denver we should be hearing about McCain and Bush every fourth or fifth sentence. Cheney is hated from sea to sea, but I didn't hear one prime-time word about him. Also, that ex-GOP congressman from Iowa is one of the ten most boring people in America. He had to drive off millions of viewers with his dull, nearly pointless history lecture. Didn't anyone bother to check up on this guy? Listening to him was like tuning in to golf on your radio dial.

Democrats have all sorts of media experts they could call on – Rob Reiner, Spielberg, etc., etc. But whoever ran this show for Obama was far from first-rate. That may not be fatal, but it can’t help. There’s a saying in boxing: if you don’t train hard, remember your opponent will. It’s a concept Obama’s people clearly didn’t understand when they put together their first night in Denver.

COLD WAR PART II -- A LOOK BACK

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
No one gave it much thought when Prince George marched into the Rose Garden in December 2001 and announced, "Today I am giving formal notice to Russia that the United States of America is withdrawing from this almost 30-year-old treaty." He was referring to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Why was this country unilaterally pulling out of one of the most successful peace initiatives in world history?

Nobody really asked. In December 2001, three months after 9-11, Bush was America's darling, a "hero." So if he was pulling the plug on this hugely significant pact, it was assumed he must have a good reason. He'd even gotten away with running away in Air Force One on Nine-Eleven, making a panicked, circular flight around much of the nation that lasted several hours, then journeying three days later to Ground Zero to take up a bullhorn and cheer the workers who were (unbeknownst to them) being poisoned by toiling day after day in the killer dust. The media played down and mostly ignored his retreat from responsibility and played up his cautious, long-overdue foray to New York as somehow being courageous. And when he declared a “crusade” against (Muslim) enemies, he was forgiven for being an ignoramus who ratcheted up the rhetoric to make new enemies of those Muslims that had been sympathetic to the U.S. after the Twin Towers came down.

But in November 2001, Vladimir Putin, on his first visit to America, had said through an interpreter that Russia intended "to dismantle conclusively the vestiges of the Cold War." He meant the thousands of Soviet-era nuclear warheads. Then when Bush double-crossed him only one month later and made him look like a fool, the KGB alumnus took another look at his policy and pronouncements. Members of the Russian Duma immediately called for an end to the country’s then-ongoing destruction of the old warheads.

To execute intelligent foreign policy, you have to use empathy. After Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 and subsequently hanged its leader, Russia saw that the U.S. was capable of attacking a country just to show it could, and that the U.S. media, Congress, and public would swallow it too. The president could even keep his troops in that country after his stated war aims – knocking out WMD and crippling an Al Qaeda supporter – were proved bogus. Meanwhile, Bush-Cheney had pulled out of the ABM treaty and were encircling Russia with new NATO allies from the old Soviet Empire. What were the Russians to think?

Of course the U.S. “defense” industry was merrily proceeding on its dubious Star Wars mission. Its biggest players, including big-time Pentagon contractor G.E., owner of NBC and, let's face it, the late Tim Russert, saw that the end of the Cold War was very, very bad for them, and that this war on “terror” might not consume enough advanced military hardware to keep top defense executives in eight figures. The science behind Star Wars involves trying to shoot down a bullet with a bullet. Once you figure out how to do it, the enemy can change the nature of its bullets much more easily and inexpensively than you can alter your anti-bullets. Doesn't it make more sense to get rid of nukes using careful, mutual inspections?

Make no mistake. Al Qaeda is a beast. Putin is a cold-eyed dictator whose agents murder pesty journalists. But there are better ways to handle them than to place moronic chicken hawks in charge of U.S. policy. McCain might not know how many houses he owns, but he does know that any opportunity for war makes him look strong. If chicken hawks like Bush and Cheney can look heroic for sending other people to their death just for laughs, how much better can he look by pursuing the same policy? Because despite his many disqualifications for office, McCain is no chicken hawk. So now he's taken time off from snarling at Arabs to snarl at Russians. If he's lucky, maybe before Election Day Cheney and his Little Bush sidekick will manufacture even newer enemies for McCain to snarl at. Oh happy day.

STAR WARS PERSISTS; REMEMBER IKE'S WARNING ABOUT MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX?

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

Have any of our corporate media outlets bothered to ask just why it’s so important to place an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic? Of course not. They’re too busy checking to see who is or isn’t wearing an American flag lapel pin. But plenty hangs on the answer to this unasked question.

Ever since the Reagan administration the government has been slicing billions upon billions out of the defense budget to develop Star Wars missiles. Though the program has always rested on shaky scientific ground, it survived Daddy Bush, Clinton, and Little Bush administrations plus all those Democratic- and Republican-led congresses. But after the military industrial complex finally put together some dwarf models, it looked around to discover there was no more Cold War.

No problem. All we have to do is start a new one. Why not ignite one with the rotting rump of the old Soviet Empire - gangster Russia? Because Bush-Cheney managed to triple the price of petroleum, they’ve made oil-rich Russia wealthy enough to stand in as a credible threat.

Bush-Cheney tell us repeatedly that the ten anti-missiles to be deployed in Poland are aimed at “rogue states,” not Russia. When Putin invaded Georgia, (Georgia initiated hostilities by sending troops into its two breakaway provinces) he was angry at the West for quite a number of insults, but chief among them was the plan to place Star Wars in Poland, with radar installations in the Czech Republic.

Anyway, as soon as Putin sent tanks rolling into Georgia, first somebody had to explain to Prince George about the existence of this other Georgia. Then the newly informed Little Prince retaliated by getting Poland’s quick okay, after years of resistance, to accept the system. Another question our media never asked: If the missiles are aimed at rogue states not to include Russia, how could their deployment be a tit-for-tat tactic to punish Russia?

More questions: Does this incremental Star Wars shield work? Does it make us safer? It's not designed to stop ABM’s, by the way, only shorter-range missiles. Poland never thought it would be made safer by this Strangelovian system, which is why it refused to accept the thing on its soil all this time. It requires only a few pennies to beef up offensive capability in relation to the dollars it takes to develop defensive missile capabilities. In simple terms, it’s much cheaper to develop a gun that shoots bullets than a gun that shoots bullets designed to stop bullets.

Bin Laden is a maniac in a cave with no air force. Putin commands thousands of nukes that Russia was once eager to destroy. But that was before Bush unilaterally pulled out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty (another barely noticed event that had huge repercussions)

What's going on is a classic enactment of precisely what Eisenhower warned against in his 1960 farewell speech, when he coined the term “military-industrial complex.” When this complex gets big and powerful enough, it drives U.S. policy away from its true interests. Now it's feeding on itself to grow even bigger. And feeding on us.

OBAMA'S PATRIOTISM -- IS THAT REAL ISSUE?

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

The Karl Rove attack dogs that have taken over the McCain campaign have already managed to choose the chief topic of the 2008 presidential race: Why does Barack Obama hate America?

Republicans aren’t much good at governing, but they know how to run an election campaign in a nation that loves simple, ugly scandals even if they're untrue.

McCain and his creatures can’t say out loud what their two-part program is for this country, which is to make the rich richer and screw everyone else, paying particular attention to punishing the downtrodden. Consequently, they stay away from issues of substance or skulk up to them with tangential asides that pose as issues. The thrust of their election strategy is to replace the topics that matter by substituting personal attacks, often leveling charges that are totally invented and repeating them even after they're proved false.

The media, trained to look for the sensational, rather like this sort of campaign and reflexively become its tools. A few of their members question why they do things they way they do, but for the most part they fall obediently into line rather than focus on what the campaign should be about. The global corporations that employ them naturally lean right, and they’re pleased they don’t even have to put out directives to get the kind of election coverage they hanker for.

Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC (Disney, Inc.) knew their work would be applauded in the executive suites, when, for example, they spent much of a nationally televised “debate” blaming Obama for violent attacks made by the Weather People when he was ten years old.

It’s not that Obama doesn’t try to press forward on the issues; it’s just that almost no one pays attention. His statements on reforming Social Security, health care, energy, and ecology policies fall unheard in the forest, as does his determination to at least modify America’s expanded role as Soldier of Oil.

Instead he has to explain he’d never intended to bring in cameras while he visited with wounded service people, as McCain, Inc. claimed. In this case McCain didn't twist the truth a bit but just made something up. Once you start answering such charges, you’re sunk. The charges stick. But the real indictment is broader – that he’s a non-white, secret Muslim agent seeking to destroy America. The New Yorker cartoon cover was only kidding, but McCain and his people aren’t. They’ll keep hammering out the Big Lie, a strategy perfected by Joseph Goebbels when he and his boss came to power in Germany 75 years ago.

Somehow Obama has to figure out a way to push the issues into the spotlight – not easy in dumbed-down America, where so many voters can’t name their congressional representative but will readily tell you about the latest loser on "So You Think You Can Dance".

DO VOTERS NOTICE McCAIN'S POLICIES?

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

John McCain’s domestic and foreign policies are opposed by an overwhelming majority of Americans.

His economic policy is to soak everyone but the very, very rich, whose tax cuts he favors preserving and extending into perpetuity.

His health care plan? He has none, other than to preserve socialized medicine for him and his family and to leave as many people as possible at the mercy of insurers and drug companies, who paid him and his Senate colleagues handsomely for that privilege.

Now he says he wants to rip up the coasts for more oil so when we run out we’ll not only have no oil, but dead beaches.

He wants to send police after women who choose abortion even when pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. He also wants to criminalize the doctors who treat them. To ensure this he will dig through the sludge to find more people like Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, etc. and get them lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court.

He intends to maintain Iraq as a colony even though the elected government there wants us out. At the same time he claims he wants to foster democracy there.

He equates military duty in Iraq to the occupations of Germany and Japan, where G.I.s were treated, for the most part, decently, and could walk the streets alone without being harmed. Despite his military heritage he doesn’t identify with the enlisted men who must carry out mad edicts from above. A good officer looks after his men and women, but this grandson and son of four-star admirals has other ideas.

Bush and Cheney have succeeded in arranging sweet deals for pet oil companies to move into Iraq. And they've also succeeded in quadrupling petroleum's world price. But even if McCain were to get at all the oil in and around Iraq through Exxon-Mobil and other global corporations, you have to ask whether they would share it with Americans. Of course the answer is they would sell it to Americans at the same world price anyone else would pay. The oil companies, through the special tax breaks arranged by their lobbyists, don’t even pay their fair share of the ten billion a month we pay to occupy Iraq for them. But McCain does favor giving us a gas-tax holiday, which would save the average family a couple dollars a month and further deprive our broken-down insfrastructure.

But our hopelessly inept and corrupted corporate media don’t even try to get at such issues. They consider it more important to corner politicians into wearing American flag pins.

Americans, who for the most part are able to see the Bush administration as a gang of law-breaking, lying incompetents, are almost evenly split when they’re asked to choose between a candidate who will continue the Bush-Cheney policies and one who won’t. That’s quite a disconnect.

But ignorance reigns during this perfect storm of failing education and failing media. An increasingly ill-educated public doesn’t notice the failures of the news media so much as long as new “American Idol” segments are provided each week.

BUSH QUOTE OF THE WEEK: There is some who say that perhaps freedom is not universal.

EVERY WELL-INTENTIONED HILLARY VOTER CONSIDERING McCAIN NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT DEBBIE SHANK

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

Debbie Shank is the reason I would have voted for Hillary had she been the Democratic nominee. Yes, I who have railed against this devious royalist for reasons I won’t repeat now, would have pulled the Hillary lever. And Hillary backers should pull that Obama lever for the same reason -- Debbie Shank.

Mrs. Shank was the Wal-Mart employee from Jackson, Mo. who was brain-injured by a truck that collided with her vehicle. She and her husband got $417,000 from a lawsuit against the trucker’s insurance company (all that was left after legal fees, etc. from a $1 million judgment). But then Wal-Mart demanded back the $470,000 its health insurance had paid toward Mrs. Shank’s hospitalization.

Mrs. Shank is permanently brain-injured, and her husband works two jobs. Like most Wal-Mart employees, they’re perilously clinging to their low place on the economic ladder. In fact, they're broke. Oh, and their son was killed in Iraq.

When they protested the Wal-Mart demand they lost in court, and took it all the way to the Supreme Court. But the high court, five of whose members were appointed by the Bush family, refused to even hear the case. The court concluded justice had been done.

That’s what Hillary and Barack supporters have in common. We don’t even want to think about what will happen to the country if John McCain fills the next life-time vacancies. John Paul Stevens, one of the last of the liberal justices, is 88. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has had health problems. McCain has already said he’d nominate the same sort of justices that George Junior did. That would be Roberts and Alito, two justices that never saw a ruling in favor of a global corporation against actual people that they didn’t like.

Next time a friend tells you he/she is too upset over Hillary's loss to pull the Obama lever, tell them about Debbie Shank. Ask them to look her up on the Internet. It’s all there. I wish I’d made her up. But unfortunately, I didn’t.

HILLARY TO OBAMA: CHOOSE ME OR I'LL BURY YOU

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

When it comes to a spot on the Democratic ticket, that’s no signal Hillary is sending to this upstart who dared to defeat her. It’s a Mafiosa-style message. Put me on the ticket or your presidential campaign will sleep with the fishes.
A signal is something you send out privately. But Hillary broadcast her demand in a conference call with a group of congressional Democrats, which is like shouting it out on the Larry King show. The purpose was to communicate with her supporters, especially the zombies who'll follow her across the River Styx. Now they know what she wants, so she can drive them into further fits of rage when she doesn’t get it. If Hillary can keep them from pulling the Obama lever in November, she can set herself up for 2012.

But here’s the clinker, the true Clinton-esque twist. If Obama gives in, he’ll appear weak to the independents and wavering Republicans he must have to beat McCain, which also sets Obama up for defeat this November and gives Hillary a boost for 2012. The mantra would then be, Well sure we lost. That 2008 ticket was upside down. Obama’s too black, too untested, and worst of all, he’s not even a Clinton.

Meanwhile, Bill has already signaled he’s going to stick to his foundation from now on. The implied promise to Obama is that if he gives Hillary the Number Two spot he won’t have to worry any of those red-faced Bill outbursts will soil the campaign. But anyone who believes that is naive enough to believe Hillary really wants an Obama victory in November. Narcissist Bill never saw a TV camera or a microphone he didn't love.

Obama and his strategists understand all this. The question now is, what to do about it. What they have going for them is they've grown used to figuring out the Clintons, who've succeeded in making themselves the biggest impediment to a Democratic victory in the fall. That's been their purpose ever since they realized months ago that their 2008 campaign was a walking corpse. Defeating a 71-year-old mini-Bush ought to be relatively easy for Barack, but not when a couple of Doberman Clintons have their teeth sunk in his ankles.

FORMER BUSH SPOKESMAN CASHES IN, SEEKING CREDIT, BIG BUCKS

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

Prince George's former press secretary Scott McClellan, who now proclaims himself a truth-teller in his soon-to-be-released, tell-all book, ought to have his head placed in one of those eighteenth-century stocks so passers-by could throw apples at it.
"Bush is plenty smart enough to be president.” McClellan wrote in What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, according to the Washington Post. McClellan, in his capacity as White House press secretary, was supposed to be a word wizard. The fact that he defends a man’s intelligence with an ungrammatical splotch of junk English that closely resembles the way his boss murders syntax, language, and reason tells us just how reliable his judgment is in such matters.

But McClellan also writes that the Iraq war didn’t need to be fought and that the administration used propaganda rather than facts to justify it, and of course that's what the general news media are jumping on, thereby giving McClellan a jump in sales. In his media marketing blitz, McClellan, unused to dabbling in the truth, often contradicts himself within a single sentence, telling us Prince George is an honorable and intelligent leader served by honorable and intelligent people and that all of them routinely lied and deceived to get what they wanted.

Now here’s the problem: wasn’t he obliged to share this hugely important inside information about the war with his employer the American public before the tanks went in? Now, more than five years later, after several hundred thousand people are dead, millions are terribly wounded, homeless, and in exile, McClellan cashes in with a multi-million-dollar book deal to reveal what he knows.

Somebody pass me an apple, a really rotten one.

CLINTONS FORM THIRD PARTY

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," Hillary Clinton said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, she cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me. There's a pattern emerging here."

WASHINGTON -- Hillary and Bill Clinton shocked the world yesterday when they mounted the steps of the Capitol and declared Mrs. Clinton will run for president in November on the newly formed Hard-Working White Americans ticket.

Asked whether they were implying blacks don’t work hard, Bill’s face turned redder than a radish as he proclaimed, ‘I was America’s first black president and I've worked hard all my life. That’s why I’ve got so many damn houses I can’t even remember all the addresses. I’m rich, see? Richer than you."

Hillary patted him on the hand as she nodded to his handlers to take him somewhere he wouldn’t hurt himself.

"Look,” she continued, “the name of our ticket has nothing to do with whether we believe black people work hard or whether Obama is a Muslim, which he isn’t, as far as I know. We’re just saying white Americans who work hard now have a place to go in November, a party that will be working every day for them, from Day One. But we still count Barack Obama as a dear friend even though everybody knows an untested black person can't possibly win in November.

“Also, the new Hard-Working White Americans Party, which was formed in response to the Democratic Party's unwillingness to give hard-working white Americans in Michigan and Florida a voice in the process, won't like certain parties I'm too polite to name, ignore the votes of hard-working white Americans in Michigan and Florida."

At this point she paused to bite off a huge chunk of a Krispy Kreme doughnut that she washed down with a swig of Bud, after which she wiped her mouth with her sleeve, nearly scratching her face with her $80,000 wristwatch. "And," she continued, "you won’t see anybody on our ticket who attended a terrorist madrasa, either."

Exactly, what, she was asked by George Stephanapolous, was she trying to imply? She leaned down from her makeshift podium, petted him like a spaniel and said,“I’m implying nothing. I’m just saying, is all. You didn’t see me planting terrorist bombs with the Weathermen either. At the same time, notice that our party is inclusive. We welcome the support of white Americans who've been to college so perhaps aren't as receptive to our message as hard-working white Americans. "

“But Senator Clinton," said Miss Alabama 2007, CBS’ new news anchor, “aren’t you afraid your new message is explicitly racist and that you’re also helping John McCain by trying to drive Democrats apart?” Miss Alabama 2007 read this from a script placed in her hand by another dumpy woman who'd attended Wellesley.

“Let me explain it to you,” Bill said to Miss Alabama 2007 as he broke away from his handlers and led her toward his limo. At that point Hillary let loose a fake smile that cracked several camera lenses, but news people weren't paying attention because they scurried after Bill and his new friend so they wouldn't be cut out of the new sex scoop.

“Wait,” Hillary hollered. “I haven’t finished my statement! . . . Damnit, I’m still a big story!!!”

GAMES VS. LITERATURE IN 21ST CENTURY AMERICA

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
The newest version of video game "Grand Theft Auto" comes out Tuesday, and experts say it should sell at least 6 million copies the first week. Amazon lists the game at $49.99. Most copies will be purchased by young adult men, some of whom will line up outside stores Monday night.
If they decide to vote, their vote is as good as yours. So is the vote of the 10 percent of Americans who think Barack Obama is a Muslim and the millions of Americans who voted to re-elect The Decider in 2004.

Fact: If you can sell thirty thousand copies of a novel within a few weeks -- that's one-half of one percent of 6 million -- you'll almost certainly hit the best-seller list. Hardbacks sell for about $25. Find the right literature and it can change your life forever. You'll relive that awakening over and over with delight and understanding. Did you know that back in Dickens' time thousands of readers waited at the New York docks for the latest installment of his novels?

Short stories are dead, buried alongside poetry, and literate novels are expiring. The stuff is being written and sometimes even published, but readers are dying off and younger minds prefer to anesthetize themselves with video games, sitcoms, and sequels to films written for the least aware minds in the Western world..

The link between literacy and clear thinking was mapped out precisely by George Orwell in his great essay "Politics and the English Language." The spike in the games industry, the ascendancy of moronic political ideas, the American Idolization of the news media, and the deterioration of schools well serves global corporations that buy what they want from our politicians without being asked too many questions.

TAKE CLOSE LOOK AT CLINTON DYNASTY ISSUE

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HILLARY'S FOUND CLEVER WAY TO GET NOMINATED AFTER ALL

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
Anyone else notice in the last Pennsylvania debate that Hillary's angling to be McCain's running mate? How else do you explain her strategy of trying to spray Obama's candidacy with such heavy toxic poisons that no one will ever touch him again?
Who'da guessed that Barack's a Weatherman who hates America, white people, and especially White Americans? Served on a board with a Weather guy? Gimme a break. Anyone ever check out who served on the union-busting, small-business-destroying, Communist China-loving Wal-Mart board with Hillary for 15 years? She stepped down only when hubby ran for President in '92.
ABC even assigned one of the Clintons' favorite pooches, George Hairball Stephanopolous, to chew up the black man along with one of George's hyena friends. While they're at it, why not resurrect one of Bull Connor's police dogs? You can't let major news media "moderate" these debates. They're deeply entangled in Medici politics and peculiar corporate angles. They're out to create phony explosions, not explore real issues. Did they ever examine the fact that an oil guy and a defense industry guy ran on the same ticket and started a war that benefited nobody but the oil and defense industries (plus al Qaeda and Iran, but whose counting?)?
I used to think Hillary's running her '12 campaign against old man McCain now, figuring that even though everyone will hate her for wrecking the Democrats' chances in '08, she can make them all forget that in '12 by completely distancing herself from the '08 Hillary the same way she's distanced herself from the 2003-06 Hillary that was crazy about invading Iraq. Now I see the truth. She's looking to run on McCain's ticket against Commie Mau Mau Obama who's gonna hand us over to the Muslims.

DISSEMINATING THE TRUTH: SO WHAT?

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
I used to think it was vital to communicate to the public just how much harm our Iraq adventure is doing to this country, not to mention Iraq. But after five years of madness seventy percent of Americans and seventy percent of Iraqis want our forces out fast. So changing attitudes doesn’t appear to have any effect on the lack of any policy because the “surge,” at least in a mutated form, goes on even though the Army is having a nervous breakdown and all the generals minus Patraeus say this just can't go on. Clearly there’s a systemic failure within our democracy.
Multi-millionaire John McCain, the son and grandson of admirals, married to a beer heiress, and working hard to destroy the middle class while making the rich richer, calls self-made Barack Obama elitist. Corporate news media, failing to notice the irony, act as though there’s some substance to Bittergate. What about McCain's Let-Them-Eat Cake-Gate?
And it’s pretty clear that neither Obama nor Clinton would pull out of Iraq, not really. Try to pin them down and they talk about “trainers,” use the word “residual,” and recite a “withdrawal” rate, that, if pursued, would leave many thousands of U.S. troops there for many years to come.
Meanwhile, the dollar has collapsed, and Americans failed to notice.
Our educational and news-presentation processes are so broken that politicians and their corporate employers can get away with just about anything they want. The immigrants that Lou Dobbs and his ignorant legions scream about are actually key gears that keep our wheels turning.

CATCHING UP

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
No, I don't mean I think Hillary will catch up. I'm talking about what's going on in my life. But as long as people are actually for some reason asking my opinion on some of what's going on in these politically tumultuous times, it's this:

Hillary knows she has almost no chance to win the nomination but hopes to damage Obama to such an extent that he'll lose to McCain and she can run against the 100-year warrior in 2012. A dangerous strategy, because it will increase the number of Hillary-haters, but she figures she has nothing to lose because if she can't be president then what does anything matter? So what if the Republicans put a few more crazies on the Supreme Court who won't even hear the case of the lady brain-damaged by a truck accident who has to pay Wal-Mart back its $400K for her medical bills? It's of no consequence compared to achieving the dream of restoring the Clinton dynasty to the throne.

And while I'm rambling, allow me to point out that I'm in Costa Rica for 2 weeks and like lots of turistas I sometimes turn to CNN in my hotel room, where I see it repeats the story over and over of Hillary uttering a line written by her handlers that likens her to Rocky Balboa. Plus we learn -- wow! -- 2 people and counting have asked Princess Chelsea about Monica!

Meanwhile there's nothing on, for instance, the terrible descent of the Republican Party into right-wing lunacy thanks to crippled campaign reform laws that have put Republicans officeholders on the side of their paymasters -- the minute slice of Americans who can grab $100 million parachutes and bid for Picassos. And screw health care and the more humane practices of the Western democracies minus our schizo-monarchy that loops around from Bushes to Clintons and back again. The rabble can wait in emergency rooms if they need help with their ongoing illnesses. If they need pharmaceuticals, they can always turn to Christian Science. And CNN is supposed to be the moderate 24-all-day-and-night news channel. Hey, in all those 24 hours can't they dig up and interview the political scientists who have no doubt researched what's really going on in the world and why our republic is crumbling as we speak?

I heard Lou Dobbs pronounce the domestic policies of Clinton, Obama, and McCain as practically identical. The man's out of his fucking mind. Don't they have executives over at CNN who can at least demand he read a book once in a while? He spoke with a maddening combination of ignorance and assertiveness. Where did they get this sonofabitch? Kick his ample butt over the border with nothing but ten bucks and a serape. Maybe it would educate him.

Anyway, back to catching up. I haven't been around my own blog because I'm concentrating on writing fiction. My novel The Barfighter will be out from Permanent Press in April '09. It will be followed around December or January by my novel Exit Blue from Black Heron. They're both small but respected publishers. The first deals with Vietnam, boxing, remorse, the power of love, and of course other issues. The second is a political satire set in the near future. Both these novels make excellent presents. Send them instead of Christmas cards.

Meanwhile, I haven't forgotten the cheated families tossed out of their homes, the hopelessly indebted unemployed who are no longer able to declare true bankruptcy, the disabled veterans who go home to nothing, the service people who get stop-lossed into the funeral pyre of our Iraq policy, the hungry semi-employed citizens who aren't eligible for food stamps because they've managed to hang on to their homes or cars. I know you haven't forgotten them either.

Peace.