cann4ing--All I ask for, is that the separation of church and state be respected.

sabagio--I know that, one reason Obama felt he had to include his minister, was because alot of idiots were saying he was a Muslim (stf what??) Anyone who stil thinks that after seeing Rev. Wright, is lying or too ignorant for words.

Persaonlly, I think Rev.Wright used the spotlight, to highlight himself, not much to Obama’s advantage. I had a couple bad experiences with the Lutheran Church ( not really a big deal),but went to a Quaker College (You prob. knopw how little emphasis is put on religiosity in the Quaker Church) , yet, I voted for Rev. Jackson . (some family thought it was crazy--"he’s a preacher!"--I hadnt really thought of it that way--he was a liberal!). I guess Bush et al, was the proverbial straw.

I think the faith based initiatives are unconstitutional, as is praying in the Senate/ House every day.

I think that both conventions reeked of religiosity, ( I know that the Dems are trying to win back the Evangelical vote--but look what the GOP had to secede to them!) Theocracies , like Iran, must follow Muslim law to exist as a Muslim State. While the uS it not that, I hear all the time “If we are to be a Christian country...” and it is just wrong and is necessarily devisive. I also think that, using churches and charities , to provide services that the govt is already paid to provide us with, is just a way to privitize things while putting a religious mantle on it, so no one can question it.

I know that myself and others, have already quoted him here, but, as Sinclair Lewis ("It Can’t Happen Here”, 1935) said, “When fascism comes to America, it wil be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.” Whenever the “majority” “knows” the “only true path”, what is to stop them from doing almost anything to save themselves and their fellow citizens. Perhaps I am a little spooked, but there is alot of that evangelical stuff in Ohio, and it has certainly not helped the state, nor the city.I know that they’re not supposed to prostheletize, but, c’mon, everyone knows that they do. I dont think that, when we are paying for it, that someone shoudl have to “sing the church service for his supper”.

re: cyrena

If you look into what has happened to the SEC Chairman’s authority, you’ll find a systematic movement to render it powerless. A good example of this is related to what we call the dot com bubble. Which was not really a bubble, but rather an inevitable outcome of policies implemented and designed to mask dubious accounting practices, with the immediate goal of making the future appear all sunny and bright.
In 1994, The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) proposed ending a loophole that allowed companies to avoid recording stock options on their balance sheet. Merrill Lynch claimed that expensing stock options would reduce the profit sheet on high tech companies by an average of 60%.
Well, Senator Joe Lieberman wanted to hear nothing like that. On May 3, 1994, he rallied his senate colleagues to pass a non-binding resolution, 88-9, condemning the proposal.
Arthur Levitt, not a year into his Chairmanship at SEC, felt the pressure. (It should also be noted that funding for the SEC was under constant attack from the likes of Phil Gramm and associates.) So Levitt urged the FASB to abandon their proposal; an action Levitt later said “was probably the single biggest mistake I made in my years at the SEC.”
A strong SEC Chairman does not exist. I mean the kind of final arbiter over the financial industry, the way Kenesaw Mountain Landis was over Major League Baseball, after the fallout from the Black Sox scandal. So it is downright laughable that Senator McCain now calls for Christopher Cox to be fired from the SEC. But perhaps that is just salt on an old wound, because back in 1995, Christopher Cox wrote the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA 1995) which McCain was one of the four republicans to vote against. Legislation by the way, that was only one of two, to override President Clinton’s veto.

By KDelphi, September 18 at 10:42 am #

cann4--the only problems I had/have with Rev. Wright, is the same problem I have with all churches that blur the lines of church and state.

_________________________

I think, KDelphi, you confuse the blurring of the lines between church and state which occurs when, for example, religious zealots intrude into the public sphere such as insisting on teaching creationism (often masked by the pseudo-scientific “intelligent design") in our schools, or when, in the 1950s Republicans succeeded in adding “under God” to the pledge of allegiance.

But that is markedly different from ministers speaking out on political matters from the pulpit or leading others on the streets.  While there has been abuse, especially from the Christian right, in terms of attempting to impose their narrow view of morality on everyone else--e.g. abstinence only education, historically, the pulpit has served as a cornerstone of progressive movements, e.g., Quaker positions on opposing war and slavery; the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. leading the way on the civil rights movements.  And in Latin America, people suffering under the yoke of brutal authoritarian regimes that serve the interests of empire and wealth, have turned to “liberation theology.”

Rev. Wright’s belief in God--a belief I do not share--and his position as a minister should not translate into a surrender of his first amendment right to free speech.  And while Barack Obama does not agree on Wright’s poor choice of language, the full content of Wright’s sermons reflects that he is nowhere near the wild-eyed radical that the right-wing echo chamber, with a big assist from the corporate owned media, made him out to be.

I did not intend a theological discussion. The debate about predestination and free will was over years ago,the Age of Enlightenment and Ben Franklin. As a near death experience survivor, my anniversary being 9/ll eight years ago, my skepticism is on hold. I guess all I would like is cessation of commentary about Obama’s belief system and those he chose to associate with who have broken no laws. This man has been under the public microscope since the Democratic Convention of 2004, and rehash never tastes good, be it morning , noon, or night. Ms Palin has not, and Senator McCain has become the Chameleon of the campaign.

And I wish someone in Media Land other than Kathy Lee Gifford,Robin Roberts,Diane Sawyer and the Hen Party at CBS what’s going with the country every morning. The folks are the surragate Liars for invisible power groupings managed by invisible humans.  Wouldn’t it be refreshing that every once in a while we would be exposed to more than the misinterpretations of The 1st amendment and talk about The Constitution and the rule of law, how it defines us, We the People, and how that our unique history make us as a civilization different from everybody else. I don’t like us being perceived as just another international bully who believes in war and torture as the only solutions, and the suspension of freedoms we take for granted as the only way to control what we can know or don’t know.

We are so much better than that.

Beerdoctor

I think you’re so right to key in on the 26-year reference that Obama mentioned, even if he did immediately switch to the past 8 years, as any politician is won’t to do. His professortorial character clicks in, (and is always there – now in the background) but if you remember (only because I’ve mentioned it so many times myself) he started out that way, (with more detailed explanations of how things came to be this way) and was pretty much dismissed by an impatient and attention deficit populace. Such as it is.

That said though, it really DOES go back, because we know we didn’t get to this overnight. My own sense (and I don’t have any advanced knowledge of high finances either, specifically in terms of the market) is that we’re seeing the effects of what began as Reganomics. The trickle-down that never did, the beginnings of the massive deregulation, the union busting, and all of the rest.

I had to elicit an ironic chuckle at the term, “a new kind of democrat.” I’d never heard Clinton say that, but my own opinion has always been that Clinton was far more a republican than a democrat. Of course he would be thoroughly aghast at such a suggestion, but the bottom line is that Clinton was ALWAYS a centrist, and his ‘new kind’ of anything is more appropriate to the neo-liberal mindset. At the end of the day, it’s not drastically different than the neo-con mindset, at least in terms of the money. That said, I’m definitely *not* putting him in the same cage with the Criminal Cabal of the 21st Century, and I actually do believe that he could have (and probably would have) done better if he hadn’t been saddled with a republican congress. Just thinking back, we know that it created a constant battle for nearly anything at the time. Still, his decisions (even when he had the ultimate power) were always on behalf of the Corporate arm.

I concur absolutely with you on the need for strong oversight in Securities and Exchange, but that’s pretty much the case with the entire package. The safeguards of the system itself actually are in place, (check that link that jackpine posted from the Agonist) but all of these commissions have been stripped of any real authority. To explain that, we need only look to Dick Cheney and his secret staff. The same Dick Cheney who has claimed that we need to get away from being a ‘nation of laws’ and become a ‘nation of men’. (his words, not mine).

Now Rubin is the guy that everybody is complaining about, right? I don’t know much about him either, but I do know more about Warren Buffett. So, I’ll take you’re lead on that. He seems OK with me.

sab--That is fine, for people that can believe it. To be honest, unlike most atheists/agnostics, I wish I could still believe it. I was raised Lutheran, went through catechism, on and on. I would really like to believe that some of hte people who have done good on this planet would be rewarded and recognized, for more than just altruism. I wish to hell that some would see god’s justice for their evil.

Just keep it in the church, mosque, temple, wherever . Thats all the constituition asks. It is actually for hte protection of the church as much as the state. I’m also afraid it implies a universe with a force for good that is not there. People say, “Oh, he’ll get his when he has to face god”. Well, what if he doesnt?

By KDelphi, September 18 at 11:53 am #

Sab--Kerry and Kennedy And, coming to a tv station near you, Biden--have all been denied communion

You wont catch me sticking up for any religion. Obama didnt.----------------------------------------------------- ---

Sab--Kerry and Kennedy And, coming to a tv station near you, Biden--have all been denied communion

You wont catch me sticking up for any religion. Obama didnt.

=====================================

Communion? What’s that? Man’s invention, not God’s. And the Kennedy Kids, at least some, had their marriages annulled so they could stay in good standing when they remarried. But their kids did become bastards.

And a true woman of quality, Jackie, as a wife of serial divorcer, Aristotle, had a revised status as well.

And the IRA members still get communion, even though they blew up protestants for the last 40 years.

All this is say that those who kill and main and seek to destroy either by word or deed, make their god a murderer, a criminal.

So who is in the case of questioning Obama and his association with the leader of his former church is truly righteous, the accused or the accuser?
Would that it would stop. There are more critical things that need to be discussed and resolved before November.
Anyway, humans have always had to have faith in something, even faith in not that believing in faith mattered. So, what all that boils down to is,we have a need to belong to something, more than just immediate family, and the closest something is church, mosque,temple, shrine, hole-in-the-wall, whatever. The evil side of all this did this or that and therefore is guilty of something, not quite clear or defined, is intolerance not faith and religion, especially when it involves the destruction of others in the name of their god(s). I wish it tweren’t but tis, and that’s a damn shame.

Sab--Kerry and Kennedy And, coming to a tv station near you, Biden--have all been denied communion

You wont catch me sticking up for any religion. Obama didnt.

For those who choose to bring up the Rev. Wright/ Obama connection, I say face it: if it wasn’t his pastor, it would have been his barber. You’ve heard those stories about black barber shops haven’t you, eh?
As far as the minister saying God damn America, well there are portions of American foreign policy worthy of damnation. Being a robotic patriotic scoundrel just does not cut it. There are plenty of other nut jobs to point the finger at.

This question of “why Obama didn’t ,quit and then did quit his church after Rev. Wright’s first Rant and Rage has always come across as one-sided. He was damned when he didn’t and damned again when he did. Krauthhammer and Will, and perhaps others at the time wrote commentaries which didn’t suggest but recommended/prodded/baited Senator Obama to leave his church. When the pedophile scandal in the Roman Cathlic Church America, became front page news, and more so when coverups by Bishops and Cardinals was also exposed, was there an outcry for Kennedys and Bidens and Republican Cathlics to justify their faith and continued membership in the their Catholic Churches? Were the evangelicals and born again Christians who were members of congress encouraged to quit their churches when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson made outrageous comments about what God had told them to convey to us about the sinners with AIDS and the destruction of the World Trade Center as the wrath of God applied to nonbelivers and sinners? For that matter why wasn’t President Bush outraged when Falwell and others compared Katrina’s destruction of New Orleans to God’s destruction of Sodam and Gommorah? Fair is fair, right?

Guilt by Association. Character assassination?  Nixon’s Dirty Tricksters loved this part of presidential campaigning. McCain, thus far seems to have avoided guilt by association connections, which puzzles me. 
John McCain was one of Keating Seven of the Savings and Loan Scandal. It’s deja vu all over again. Recommendations coming out of the last days of the Reagan/Bush administration guaranteed these scandals would never happen again. Guilt by association? Read the Chronology of the savings and loan scandal’s final days at the end of the Regan Era and the beginning of the Bush I Dynasty. “Greed is Good” …still!

August 1986--Bank Board raises net worth standard gradually to 6% with up to 2% points offset for reduced interest rate-risk.
1987--Losses at Texas S&Ls;comprise more than one-half of all S&L;losses nationwide, and of the 20 largest losses, 14 are in Texas. February 1987--Bank Board requires prior supervisory approval for S&Ls;making direct investment in excess of 2.5 times their tangible capital.
April 1987--Edwin Gray ends his term as chairman of Federal Home Loan Bank Board in June. Before his departure, he is summoned to the office of Sen. Dennis DeConcini. DeConcini, with four other Senators (John McCain, Alan Cranston, John Glenn, and Donald Riegle) question Gray about the appropriateness of Bank Board investigations into Charles Keating’s Lincoln Savings and Loan. All five senators, who have received campaign contributions from Keating, would become known as the “Keating Five”. The subsequent Lincoln failure is estimated to have cost the taxpayers over $2 billion.
August 1987--Competitive Equality Banking Act of 1987 enacted. The Act authorizes $10.8 billion recapitalization of the FSLIC with only $3.75 billion authorized in any 12-month period. Also contains forbearance measures designed to postpone or prevent S&L;closures.
February 1988--Bank Board introduces the “Southwest Plan” to consolidate and package insolvent Texas S&Ls;and sell them to the highest bidder. The strategy is to resolve insolvencies quickly while conserving scarce cash for FSLIC. The Bank Board uses a number of strategies to pay for the difference between assets and liabilities of the failed institutions: FSLIC notes, tax incentives, and income, capital value and yield guarantees. The Bank Board disposes of 205 S&Ls;through the Southwest Plan with assets of $101 billion.

November 1988--
George Bush elected President.
S&L;problem not part of election debate. (Now this sounds familiar.)

1989--President Bush unveils S&L;bailout plan in February. In August, Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA). FIRREA abolishes the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and FSLIC, switches S&L;regulation to newly created Office of Thrift Supervision. Deposit insurance function shifted to the FDIC. A new entity, the Resolution Trust Corporation is created to resolve the insolvent S&Ls; $50 billion of new borrowing authority, with most financed from general revenues and the industry; meaningful net worth requirements and regulation by the OTS and FDIC; allocation funds to the Justice Department to help finance prosecution of S&L;crimes.  Justice Department to help finance prosecution of S&L;crimes. Additional bank crime legislation the next year (i.e., the Crime Control Act of 1990) mandates a study by the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement to uncover the causes of the S&L;crisis, and come up with recommendations to prevent future debacles.

Is John McCain lying when in January 2008 he said, “bailouts were bad.”
This week John McCain’s fix for the economy is “Bailouts are Good.”

The complete summary of this chronology is found at:http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/s&l;/index.html.

Sabagio Mauraeno home alone in Decatur Georgia, watching a life time of savings, college funds and retirement investments disappear down a rat hole that still remains to be discovered.

cann4--the only problems I had/have with Rev. Wright, is the same problem I have with all churches that blur the lines of church and state.

I realize that , traditionally , Af. Am. churches serve as “more than just churches”.

But, I think we have to draw the line somewhere. When politics mixes with religion, we get problems. Like the ones some people had/have with Wright. I see him as no better, nor worse, than any other preacher. But, I think we would all be better off if churches stayed out of politics.

At the very least, dont have a Religious Advisory Committee , where you appoint your own pastor. (I think that is what it was called. I also faith based initiatives are unconstitutional, but that is unlikely to change)

I realize that many presidents have done the same. (Bush has actaully done worse, maybe Carter too.) But, I dont like it in any administration. I realize, that to drag the uS kicking and screaming out of its preoccupation with religiosity is a far-fetched dream. But people in other countries must truly marvel at our ability to ignore our own constitution’s requitrement of separation of church and state. It never comes to a good end. Especially in US where there are so many religions and so much diversity.

In the end, with pressure from the Press Corp. (although Wright did not hesitate to appear before the media over and over again--I began to wonder whether he realy wanted Obama to win), Obama severed his tries with Wright. This need not have happened.

Army Vet’s diatribe typifies the “guilt by association” mentality of the Republican right-wing.  It matters not that there is no evidence whatsoever of even a hint of impropriety on the part of Senator Obama or that Obama may not see eye-to-eye with every view ever expressed by Rev. Wright.  Indeed, it matters not to Army Vet that the right wing echo chamber smeared Rev. Wright by pulling words of a speech out of context. They made it appear that Wright was calling upon God to “damn America” when, in truth, that context reveals that what Wright was simply expressing the view that God does not bless everything we do.  He, in Wright’s view, does not bless us when the forces of power acting in our name commit atrocities against innocents--be they 19th Century slave traders and Middle Passage, the genocidal campaign carried out against Native Americans under the racist doctrine of Manifest Destiny, or U.S. bombs reigning down on thousands of innocents in places like Falluja.

Of course, my question when someone says, “God bless America” is--If God only blesses America, what does He do to the rest of the world.

I too am an Army vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands, Vietnam 1968) but that does not prevent me from asking you, another Army Vet, a very basic question.  Tell me, Army Vet, who would Jesus have bombed?

FYI Folks,

If you get the chance read,

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080929/kranich

a very comprehensive article about Library Gate and insight into how Pailn preformed as mayor.  If you believe in censorship you need her in office, on the other hand if you do not believe in censorship the Palin way, well....

ArmyVet-What would be your ideas for changing DC? I for one, would really like to know, although I think some of your assertions about Obama have been around the track and back and , some of them dont pass the smell test. But, I’m not going to dismiss you out of hand, because of that.

With thte state the country is in, we should be listening to everybpdy’s ideas. Everyone here must have already heard all those accusations, and, has decided to fact check them, ignore them ot whatever.

Army Veterarn,

“I guess Barack Hussein Obama’s questionable associations don’t matter to anyone.”

You are a year and half late, all this BS has been through the ringer with Hillary. Although I am tired of hearing about how Palin has or has not gutted a Moose, how about trying to discuss a real issues for a change, like the war?

Questionably, your post shows a real inability in addressing reality.  Suppose using the title Army Veteran is to create some credibility and makes you a spokes person for all veterans, sorry clown, not this one!

re: cyrena

Yes the whole business of dismantling Glass-Steagall is one of the more unpleasant sausage operations in the history of Congress. Yes and you are correct, Bill Clinton’s championing of NAFTA assured he was not going to fight this repeal, as he often said, he was “a new kind of democrat”.
This may be of use to you. Watching an Obama speech about the economy, two nights ago, he mentioned that the present economic troubles are the culmination of policies that began twenty six years ago. He then quickly moved on to zeroing in on the last eight years (as any campaigning politician would do). But I still recall that mention of twenty six years.
Although I am pretty much of a dim bulb when it comes to these high finance matters, but I still think that a strong Securities and Exchange Commissioner is essential to restoring any semblance of market stability. I know people mention Robert Rubin, but for me, there is too much conflict of interest. Perhaps Warren Buffett instead?

Alaskagirl,

If I get this right, the folksy story was supposed to make us feel better about Sarah Palin becoming our Vice President, because she appointed people who she was not having sex with and were not her kin? I know I feel better already.

Re: thebeerdoctor, September 17 at 12:05 pm #
re: cann4ing
Thank you for your insights concerning this mess, and of course the link to the David Corn article.
What I keep thinking about is why President Clinton did not veto the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, even if it would have been eventually overridden.

~~~~~
Beerdoctor, I’m just throwing some stuff out for your consideration in response to your question about why Clinton didn’t veto the Graham-Leach-Bailey Act.
This link may help a bit….

“Congressional history of the Act. The bills comprising the act were created in the Senate Banking Committee and shepparded through the legislative process by Phil Gramm, the Republican chairman of the committee. [1] The bills were introduced in the Senate by Phil Gramm (R-TX) and in the House of Representatives by James Leach (R-IA). The bills were passed by a 54-44 vote along party lines with Republican support in the Senate[2] and by a 343-86 vote with in the House of Representatives[3]. Nov 4, 1999: After passing both the Senate and House the bill was moved to a conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. The final bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90-8-1 and in the House: 362-57-15. This veto proof legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999. [4]

The banking industry had been seeking the repeal of Glass-Steagall since at least the 1980s. In 1987 the Congressional Research Service prepared a report which explored the case for preserving Glass-Steagall and the case against preserving the act.[5]”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act

There’s no doubt that it WOULD have been overridden, (see the link to veto proof) but, I still get your point. Thing is, when we consider Clinton’s ultimate sponsorship of NAFTA, I don’t think he would have vetoed it anyway. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act is really part of the entire package, and Clinton being the centrist that he was and is, was always on board with that.

Granted, he did not start the momentum in that direction, since it was clearly a Republican thing going back to the 80’s. Still, he was seemingly as much on board with it as any of the Republicans that held sway at the time.

So, just a thought. When I did some earlier research on NAFTA, (specifically in terms of outsourcing, because my former employer was among the first to WIDELY embrace this back in the mid-80’s) I discovered how much of a boon the Act was to cementing that complete destruction.

Because one of the posts said “you must all be a bunch of disgruntled Hillary supporters”. And, that is not true.

By KDelphi “I don’t give a damn about Hillary Clinton. She is rich and will be fine. “

=====================================

Did I miss something? When did Ms Clinton become part of the Lying Equation? I thought this series began with Ms Palin and her practicing what’s preached in the Republican Bible of Half-Truths, Misdirection and Obfuscation, amended by the Ronald Reagan Admonition: “Let no Republican say anything bad about any other Republican.”

None of the candidates has gotten the message yet. None us care about this superficial finger pointing BS, not when national disasters are becoming more so because of bureaucratic incompetence and politicians looking for a feel good photo op. or sound bites for the evening news.  All we get to date are glittering clichés and golden generalities. Or is it golden clichés and glittering generalities?  Whatever. What we don’t get, and what all of us whatever ideology or political orientation should be outraged about, is the lack of candorr and substance and views and personal concerns about what is happening to our country, now, and the future it portends if nothing, if no corrective policies, laws, commitments, occur ASAP. Aren’t any of you out there scared shitless about those possibilities about what now looks like is going to happen to our kids and us?  Or you just don’t want to think about it preferring indulge yourselves in guessing how many nitwits can dance on the head of a pin, without stepping on each other’s toes? 

Never mind.

Correction to my last post:  A vote for McKinney or Nader is an exercise in futility that eliminates the chance for meaningful change.

thebeerdoctor, I agree, but let’s not overlook President Clinton’s first betrayal of his democratic base when he rammed NAFTA thru on the fast track.  That was the beginning of the end of the middle-class aspirations of American labor and one of the principle reasons why, after Dennis Kucinich dropped out of the race, I supported Obama over Clinton.

At this point in history, I think voting for either of the excellent third party candidates, Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader, amounts to an exercise in futility that increases the chance of any meaningful change.  One would hope that a President Obama would be more reliant on a Paul Krugman than a Rubin or Greenspan, but the main thing for progressives to understand is that defeating McCain and electing Obama is only a starting point.  Progressive Democrats of America are now the largest caucus in Congress.  But we have to swell their numbers, we have to work tirelessly to both educate the grass roots and convert their energy into positive pressure on an Obama administration.

One thing is certain, McCain/Palin will not listen to the grass roots.  Indeed, if events outside the RNC are any indication, their answer to grassroots is jackboots.

Too bad Rubin is now one of Obama’s economic advisors.

re: cann4ing
Thank you for your insights concerning this mess, and of course the link to the David Corn article.
What I keep thinking about is why President Clinton did not veto the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, even if it would have been eventually overridden.
But then again, the Clinton administration has plenty to answer for in this debacle. From Rubin, to Summers, to Greenspan and that cozy relationship with Citi group.
Still I wish Bill Clinton, even if only symbolically, had stood up for the New Deal policy that actually saved the capital markets from itself.
It is good to remember that Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Joseph P. Kennedy to be the first SEC chairman. Kennedy who knew every trick to pull in an unregulated market, was wise enough to recognize that the transparency of regular financial statements went a long way to keep the greed driven entities within certain bounds. The republicans then, as now, bemoaned these regulatory actions. But the truth of it is, without the actions taken by the federal government, the capitalist system would have destroyed itself.
Somehow, this seems eerily familiar.

This one’s for HM...Check YOUR facts.

Washington Post:
“The only hard facts that have come out so far are the $200 contribution by Ayers to the Obama re-election fund, and their joint membership of the eight-person Woods Fund Board. Ayers did not respond to e-mails and telephone calls requesting clarification of the relationship. Obama spokesman Bill Burton noted in a statement that Ayers was a professor of education at the University of Illinois and a former aide to Mayor Richard M. Daley, and continued:

Senator Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost forty years ago is ridiculous.”

And so it goes...Washington Post, Newsday, Chicago Sun Times...all support the position that the Obama/Ayers “connection” matters only to Karl Rove and others desparately attempting to create “connections” where they simply don’t exist.

I dont give a damn about Hillary Clinton. She is rich and will be fine.

Can you say the same for the people who have lost their homes, must pay outrageous prices for food and utilities, soldiers that come home and are told to fuck off (they just failed another GI Bill yestereday, in the House. Not sure what Senate will do).

When I hear Obama address those issues directly, I will consider it a huge advance for Dems. He gave a speech about Wall St. etc. yesterday. It was pretty good.(the content--I would never question his speaking abilities) I dont agree with alot of it. (He still basically wants an unregulated free mkt), but he is getting there.When the public takes over a previously private corporation, we have every right--no, responsibility-- to regulate it as to what serves the public interest. (FMs were never intended to be “private” int he first place)

The GOP has to lie over and over again to maintain power. Theyve already run the gambit of social issues, (and disappointed those that put them in power for , say, abortion or gay marriage)

Now, if the Dems would just take OPPOSING positions on these issues--they might make liberals feel a little less used.

By Eugene Robinson

What kind of person tells a self-aggrandizing lie, gets called on it, admits publicly that the truth is not at all what she originally claimed—and then goes out and starts telling the original lie again without changing a word?
========================================
Got a pencil. Let’s see, FDR,Eisenhower,Johnson, Nixon, Spiro, Reagan,Bush I of Iran /Contra, Clinton forever, Bush II (Dick Cheney)

That’s for starters.

Then there’s Rush Lumbaugh,Sean Hanritty, Neil Bortz, ..., Montel Williams, TMZ, NBC,ABC, MNBC, CNN,NYC,WP,…

And how about Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Franklin Grahm, Richard Roberts…
the Tobacco Cartel,(cigarrettes are good) Eron, Countrywide, Merryl/Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Lehmon Bros., AGI, predatory lenders nationwide, Bank of America, AT &
T, Micrsoft, HP, Ibm, comcast, Humana, et. al. health insurance providers, Donald Rumsfield, ..., GM, Ford, Chrysler, Dodge, Lee Ioccoca,

None of these folks would be considered “confidence builders.” We need to distinguish lies on behalf of “enlightened self interest.” And lies because that’s the only thing one knows how to do and get away with it.  It’s most easy to lie when there is no request for “accountability” coming from the populous,the other branches of government, friends, neighbors, Romans, countrymen and women. The Artful Dodger of all time up to now is by any standards, Bill Clinton. But he oversaw a strong economy, minimal investment in war, containment of Saddam Husein, decoding the human genome, research in the fields of medicine, technology,stem cellresearch,AIDS, etc. \\

Folks who don’t get caught much in lies but are considered miscontents or downright crazy are Ted Turner, Michael Moore and Al Gore. Then maybe Oprah and Whoopie Goldberg, Larry King, Dan Rather, Mike Douglas, Andy Rooney, The Pope,

By HM, September 17 at 8:08 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Obviously, you’re all obsessing and disappointed that Hillary didn’t win the nomination.  If Obama wins in November it will be the Carter administration all over again, but worse. 

No, and no no no.

“What kind of person tells a self-aggrandizing lie, gets called on it, admits publicly that the truth is not at all what she originally claimed—and then goes out and starts telling the original lie again without changing a word?
_____________________________________________
Well, where I come from, they are known as pathological liars!

Thebeerdoctor:  A repeal of Glass-Steagall was a key first step, but by no means the end of the process that led to the present morass.

Phil “Gramm’s most cunning coup on behalf of his friends in the financial services industry—friends who gave him millions over his 24-year congressional career—came on December 15, 2000. It was an especially tense time in Washington. Only two days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision on Bush v. Gore. President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were locked in a budget showdown. It was the perfect moment for a wily senator to game the system. As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.).

“’Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it,” says a congressional aide familiar with the bill’s history.”

The legislation contained a provision—lobbied for by Enron, a generous contributor to Gramm—that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed. (For Gramm, Enron was a family affair. Eight years earlier, his wife, Wendy Gramm, as cftc chairwoman, had pushed through a rule excluding Enron’s energy futures contracts from government oversight. Wendy later joined the Houston-based company’s board, and in the following years her Enron salary and stock income brought between $915,000 and $1.8 million into the Gramm household.

“But the Enron loophole was small potatoes compared to the devastation that unregulated swaps would unleash. Credit default swaps are essentially insurance policies covering the losses on securities in the event of a default.”

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/forecl osure-phil.html

opening eyes--this is sortve a dumb thing to be going back and forth about, isnt it? But....one of the references you listed was from 1998 (psychopathy). It is no longer used, at least, in any progresssive-thinking psyh’s offices or Boards of MH, because, as I said, it has become (like definitions of retardation, disability, etc.) an insult--so the similar term (socioathic personality disorder ) is “preferred”. (If you use it at all--people throw it around today , everytime someone lies or does something that “shocks their conscience"--I hate that term too--it can come to meant anyone taht is difficult to figure out)

It is certainly not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it was taken out with right after “homosexual deviancy”. Sure, you can find people who will use it--ALOT of people use it in the movies, on the newzzz to describe behavior they dont understsand. (Just because we cant understand it, doesnt mean we shoudl throw a Hollywood label at it) If we just say “well, they have no conscience, they’re a psycho” How wil we be able to recognize the behavior, possibly change it, etc. (I’m not referring to Dubya, here, so , dont even go there)

The link (I think you should re-read it-- no offense, but ) it rather goes on to make my point.It is from the UK, also, which may use a different diagnostic system (2004 Royal College of Psychiatrists--it may be diff among shrinks, too) “...limited evidence of predictive validity....at BEST...for high risk groups..including youth...for developing a TREATMENT PLAN”.

Therefore , they are saying that it actaully has no diagnostic value.

I’m not even sure diagnosis has much value, except for biling purposes.(If they need mney fro your insurance, they’ll damn sure find a label for you) An alternative , is to put “Axis I--R/O (Rule Out)” and , then list as many diagnoses that dont seem absurd , as possible, so you havent labelled the person for life. Insurance and lawyers love to find those labels, as an excuse to lock the person up or avoid paying for care. NOT ALL LAWYERS! lol--I have them in my family, ok? When you need them--there’s no one else.

Bush is a seriously fucked up little person.Palin appears to be also. I guess the labeling stuff doesnt matter so much, as long as people are just palying around with it. (Stanford-Binet IQ test makes a great party game!Its hard when some of your friends start to go past what you know the answers to, adn you have to look it up..lol..but, except in extremes, it has no real diagnostic value) But, when the “doctor” cam in her with his “professional opinion” (on this site), it reminded me ofevery shrink I ever worked for that said “GIVE ME A FRICKING LABEL! THE COURTS WANT IT”

If you expect people to lie, you except people to lie, expect to be lied to.

True Lies

Golleee Gee Whiz!!!! Ms Palin LIES! Tell us something new about today’s successful politicians. They all lie. It’s key to the contemporary American Political Game. The last President who said he would never lie to the American people was Jimmy Carter and he was held up to public ridicule. SNL couldn’t have been happier.  So that given, all politicians lie should not be an issue. What should be THE issue is that as a group, being patronizing and condescending is thought of as best practices, PLUS their failure to get to the substance of what’s important, and
THEN tell us lies that may assuage our fears and give us some hope that something can be done: The economy, global warming, dumbing down of public education, American treasure being sold off to the highest bidders in the Global Economy, tax breaks for some, nothing for the many, urban gridlock, disaster capitalism as witnessed by Katrina, Rita, Lehman Brothers, gasoline shortages and panic at the pumps, George Bush. Nitpicking about Ms Palin is a waste of space-time and everything.

Sabagio Mauraeno home alone in Decatur Georgia going out the door to find a gas station that ain’t price gouging and an honest politician.

Pathological liars seem like they should be some sort of danger to society.  Imagine a society were we all were pathological liars, maybe half of us are and the other half get taken by them.  Looking around Wall Street lied to make big bucks.  Politicians lie most of the time, except in Palins case it is all the time. What about religion, isn’t telling a lie a sin? 

If Palin is supposed to be a Christian , Does she go to confession and be absolved of her sins, or in her special religion, telling lies is acceptable in order to make an objective?

re: Cann4ing

The bailout of A.I.G. would have happened whether it was a Republican or Democratic administration in charge. The destruction of the Glass-Steagall Act, is the core root of the present disaster. The final blow to Glass-Steagall came in 1999, when the prohibition of banks from owning other financial companies was repealed, by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wallstre et/weill/demise.html

And the lies continue. Just reported on Countdown and The Rachael Maddow Show, Sarah, while giving a speech declared that the teleprompter was not working, so she would go ahead and talk to the people (ad-libbed). If we could have seen the actual wording on this teleprompter, I bet it was the words she said that it wasn’t working. However, reporters and others among the crowd saw that the prompter was working, as well as the technical people said there was no problems to which she claimed. She lies for the sake of lying.

Also the chef she claims she fired, much to the disappointment of her children, is another lie. She still has this person cooking for her children-a job her church feels is “a woman’s role”, she changed the job name and is using this category rather than chef. So when she says she no longer has the chef they had, she really isn’t lying, she is twisting the truth.

I don’t care what they try to claim. It is a lie, and I hate liars. And yes,I know, unfortunately, most politicians lie.

In effect George W. Bush is a serial liar who believes he was chosen by God. Neither the media, the people, nor the Democrats has risen to dispute his lies, let alone his messianic complex.

Emboldened by Bush’s lack of accountability, McCain is playing the same Rovian tune.

After it became increasingly obvious that the seemingly robotic McCain with the bankrupt Bush legacy could not effectively run against Obama, McCain’s Rovian advisors prompted a desperate McCain to choose a young, female radical conservative. She is opportunistic, has messianic delusions, and the same capacity for lying as Bush.

The serial lying started with her speech at the Republican National Convention and has been sustained and augmented by campaign partners since.

“I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending.and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress ‘thanks but no thanks’ for that Bridge to Nowhere.”

“If our state wanted a bridge, I said we’d build it ourselves,” said Palin. Since her debut on the national stage, the McCain campaign and its surrogates have reiterated this claim at least 25 times, even featuring it in a new TV ad. The tabulation is McCain, 4; Palin, 7; TV Ads, 1; and surrogates, 13.

What is the truth?

As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the tiny town of 9,000 totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending. So in actuality, Palin supported the bridge to an island with 50 residents until the plan was ridiculed nationally by McCain himself.

Another flavor of lies comes in distortions and misrepresentation: “The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Summarily, McCain’s plan would cut taxes across all income levels, but effectively raise after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent while Obama’s income tax plan would raise it by 5 percent. For the rich, more manna would flow from McCain (actually the taxpayer) to support additional tax breaks for the rich even beyond Bush.

Palin, like Bush before her, has deluded herself into believing that God supports her and her radical right-wing ideas. Last June, she told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a “task that is from God.”

Suggesting God serves gas companies, she said, “..she’d work to implement God’s will from the governor’s office, including creating jobs by building a pipeline to bring North Slope natural gas to North American markets. God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.”

Another category of lying is the Orwellian invention, saying the opposite of the truth. “A McCain-Palin administration” would “move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources.” The truth is that she and McCain are soul-mate Luddites. She believes alternative-energy solutions are over ten years away and that global warming is a myth invented by liberals. McCain has consistently voted against renewables but boldly calls himself “green”.

With Palin being isolated from the media by the McCain campaign, only scheduled to interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson, she cannot be challenged regarding her many lies told to the American people.

The obvious purpose of the lies is to give Republicans four more years in the White House.

And certainly Palin would say that God wills it?

NY Times just revealed that the Fed will bail out AIG with an $85 billion loan.

“The bailout is likely to prove controversial, because it effectively puts taxpayer money at risk while protecting bad investments made by A.I.G. and other institutions it does business with.
“What frightened Fed and Treasury officials was not simply the prospect of another giant corporate bankruptcy, but A.I.G.’s role as an enormous provider of financial insurance to investors who bought complex debt securities. That effectively required A.I.G. to cover losses suffered by the buyers in the event the securities defaulted. It meant A.I.G. was potentially on the hook for billions of dollars worth of risky securities that were once considered safe.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/business/17insure.ht ml?_r=1&hp;&oref;=slogin

Great scam Republicans have had.  They place their bets on the crap table, and we, the people, cover their losses.

This financial meltdown is great news for the Democrats! McCain is dead as a mackeral. If he goes with his previous statement that he “doesn’t know much about the economy”, he’s dead. If he goes with his other statement that as chairman of the Commerce Committee he has been overseeing the deregulation of the economy for the last eight years, he’s even deader. His chief economic advisor for years has been Phil Graham, whose deregulation of depression-era laws governing finance is chiefly responsible for the current mess. Of course this only continues what has been going on since the Reagan deregulation, which was a huge con that has continued and gotten worse all these years. There is a difference between a free market and a lawless market as there is a difference between a free society and a lawless one.

Thought I should add my source for the psychopathic personality definition:
http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/10/6/466

(...I mean Tony Wicher. Been a long day here.)

(Tony Wilcher...my apologies. Meant this for our friend HM.)

Tony Wilcher...Please show me where in this blog anyone has ever stated or even implied that Democrats have never lied.

And while you’re working on that, why not illustrate how an 8-year-old Barack Obama connected with the young Bill Ayers. (Oh wait. I forgot. You’re a Republican. Palin’s ability to see Russia from Alaska gives her experience in world affairs so I suppose Obama’s political association with Bill Ayers makes him a terrorist. My error.)

The Palin bubble is bursting like the housing market.

Democratic landslide, coming up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no doubt that Sara Palin is a serial liar.  But she hasn’t acquired the adroitness of a Dick Cheney.  For most people, Palin included, the increase in volume and pitch of voice is a dead give away when they stray into a whopper--in the case of the bridge to nowhere, this is enhanced by finger pointing and related gestures. 

Cheney, however, is a master sociopath.  Go back and watch any of his performance where he was selling the nation on the multiple canards about Iraq.  What you will find is an almost flat delivery, as if the lies he spins are so obviously true that one simply recites them as fact.  He’ll spill out grotesque lies as obvious matters-of-fact with so little emotion that you would think he was reading a chemistry formula.

Either way, with Karl Rove aka Bush’s Brain working for Cheney/Palin behind-the-scenes, there can be little doubt that we are essentially dealing with the same duplicitous cabal that has occupied the White House these past eight years.

By HM, September 16 at 1:26 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Oh, because democrats don’t lie???  Gimme a break, why doesn’t anyone ever question Obama’s ties to Bill Ayers - Weather Underground
---------------------------------------------------
HM,

There you go, spreading Republican lies and smears again.