As this election season continues to roll along, one has to wonder exactly why in the world would a voter choose a Republican, the likes we have not seen since Nixon. As a group, they are the most self-centered and corrupt political party in this new millennium. Huckabee came out with his racist remark, calling it humor, yet no one laughed, during a recent appearance, causing one to wonder if he had presided over the Church of the Racist Fools. It showed the lack of shame and the insane level of unchecked humor such Republicans are willing to display in front of a group. To make a suggestion that Barack Obama learn to duck and cover when on stage, after a chair fell over sounding like gun fire, is truly racist. 

It is amazing that the Regressive Party, oh, I mean the Republican Party, ended up with the half-wit, McCain, as their front runner. I am not sure that we can really call him a flip-flopper even though he says one thing and does another. He may actually be just a half-wit because he does not know that he says one thing, and then, at a later date, refuses to admit his previous contradictory remarks. And other times, he just slogs along his rutted path of regressive beliefs, all of which have been formulated for him by lobbyists or former Republicon Senator Phil Gramm, who worked hard to lay the ground work for the subprime debacle, back in 1999, while sitting as the Senate Banking chairman deregulating the banking and financial sectors. Now as a board member of the Swiss bank, UBS, he is seeing his bank taking a multi-billion dollar subprime hit, ie. writedown. The half-wit McCain keeps this human destroyer of our economic national security as his top economic advisor.

McCain has repeatedly said that lobbyists have been a huge problem for Congress, yet throughout this campaign, lobbyists have been running the "Straight Talkin' Express" for the "Washington Maverick". The current number of lobbyists working for McCain is 115.

McCain is no Maverick. Hey John Boy, James Garner was the real Maverick. How did you arrive at such a delusional self-assertion as to believe that you are a Maverick? 'John McCain, I knew Maverick. And you John McCain, are no Maverick!' I watched Maverick religiously, and I know for a fact, you are no Maverick. You can pretend all you want, but no one believes you! And while I am talkin' to ya, you are no straight talker, either.  If you want to attach yourself to a t.v. character, then watch Saturday Night Live. You are the character MacGruber! A nit-wit who is so self absorbed in his delusional abilities that no matter what he tries to do to save himself and others, he fails so badly that he ends up exploding into ruins. Stupidity rules in this case.

Just look at who else McCain attaches himself to. He had a key strategist, Charles Black, Jr. in his campaign that was employed by Myanmar's military junta! How much more corrupt does it get? The only reason why this Republicon political whore left the campaign was because he was found out by progressive bloggers who exposed this blood-lusting Washington influence pedaling "hooker". 

Other lobbyists McCain has been embracing are strongly associated with the telecom industry. McCain, as a member of the commerce committee, involved in telecommunications rules and regulations, did the bidding for these campaign contributors.

John McCain says he did not vote for Bush's tax cuts when they benefitted  the richest

Americans, after the Social Security "lock-box" was looted to pay for this Regressive Party-favor. He now says that the Democrats should make them permanent. HUH? I guess he could not remember speaking out against this failed policy.

Now, he says that when he becomes president, we will win in Iraq. Did he forget that he was a pilot, who was shot down and held prisoner for years during the Vietnam War, and that the United States did not realize an actual victory over that bloody conflict? Does he not know that Vietnam, now, has a thriving economy (a better GDP that the U.S. 8% in 2007)? Does he not realize that if Iraq was left alone , they too, would eventually develop a thriving economy without the U.S. needing to be their perpetual occupier? But McCain appears to lack common sense and being in possession of any reality based thinking skills; or, maybe he is just a half-wit? But half-wit Republican presidents seem to be the fashion these days.

It is not because McCain is in his early 70's that should disqualify him from running for president. It is because he stands for absolutely nothing; he believes in nothing; and he is a nothing. Half-wit equals nothing. He captures nothing within the hearts and minds of voters who truly believe in democracy and freedom, as well as a healthy and sustainable country; although he does attract the rest of the half-wits within the nation. And such people are dangerous to our freedoms, and democracy because, historically, they have hated our form of government and prefer fascism. Since many hate communism, they have chosen fascism instead. Just look at Prescott Bush, George Bush's grandfather, who became wealthy by laundering a Nazi industrialist's profits. And, there is more!

Read, "The Right's America-Hating Preacher", by Robert Parry, (Consortiumnews.com, 5-2-08)--a special report (21 pages) about Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his infiltration of the Republican Party's Congressional membership. Moon formed the Unification Church in Korea and, over time, recruited agents from the Korean CIA. As he expanded into Japan, Latin America, and the United States, he integrated his agents into these political systems through various ways. One way was to contribute millions into congressional campaign coffers.

Moon had dealings with drug lords, dictators, and arms runners. He smuggled millions of undeclared cash into the United States for payola purposes. He spent 2 years in an American jail, yet, nevertheless, built an economic and political influence pedaling network with approval from the Regressive Republican Party. Both Nixon and Reagan embraced him and invited him into the White House.

McCain is so deluded that he loves to strut around Baghdad, just like GeorgieBoy, believing he is on the side of our soldiers. John McCain seems to have forgotten that the soldiers returning from Vietnam, his Band of Brothers, had been given a full G.I. bill allowing them to go to college and get the tuition paid for in full. Yet now, McCain has decided that our soldiers, today, do not deserve the same treatment that had been allowed to him and previous veterans. Only a half-wit would strut around like a rooster on Viagra, showing off his plume of cock feathers to a bunch of battle-weary soldiers who know in their hearts that they have been handed a bad deal by McCain and his Republicon Party hacks.

As I have written before, this half-witted regressive candidate, wishing to usher in a Bush third term, does not believe that the American people deserve the same fully paid health care program that he has been given since the day he was born. Term limits are sounding better all the time.

McCain has a double standard for America. There are the haves, just like him, and the have nots, who are those who don't get the same government privileges that he has been so fortunate to receive. 

He just does not seem to be able to keep track of what he has told us he believes in based upon his past statements and actions versus what he says now as a presidential candidate. For example, the Maverick,  John McCain, has worked hard to sow his disdain for K Street lobbyists in Washington, yet he has recruited them to build his campaign. He had walked the sidewalks, like a hooker looking for a cheap trick, searching for K Street lobbyists who can raise piles of money for him, since 2006. I guess, he has forgotten that just two years ago, K Street lobbyists were  lovers of the George W. Bush regressive agenda and the very people he spoke against.

There is a list of lobbyists McCain had recruited written in the article, "Media Advance Myth of McCain as Lobbyist Foe", Mediamatters.org, 2-26-08. Times have recently changed, since some have left under negative scrutiny. 

Charles Black, Jr.-- this guy is now gone because of negative press that has recently come out regarding his lobbying relationship with the corrupt junta running the country of Burma, which has refused world aid after experiencing a devastating hurricane. He was McCain's chief political advisor.

Former Rep. Thomas Loeffler (R-TX)--he was McCain's campaign co-chairman. He is a lobbyist for multi-national corporations and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Also, "his firm had made millions inserting earmarks into spending bills."

I guess John forgot how much he hated earmarks in spending bills even as far back as 2006.

Richard Davis--campaign manager, and a big time lobbyist, make millions hitting on our elected congressional representatives. He worked hard making sure John, the Maverick, did his telecom bidding for him, while on the Commerce Committee.

And the list of cons keeps on growing: Christian Ferry, James Rill, Anthony Villamil, Joseph Wright, former Senator Phil Gramm, (R-TX), former Sen. Slade Gorton (WA), former Sen. Matt Salmon (AZ), former Sen. Don Sundquist (TN), former Rep. William "Van" Hilleary (TN), and former Rep. Richard Zimmer (NJ).

It is so surprising that John, the Maverick, could not recall that all these pals of his who are working to get him into the Oval Office have been hardcore lobbyists. Is this the equivalent to walking in the house, putting down your keys, and forgetting where you placed them when you have to leave again? Does he have a memory problem? He must not be able to recall trivial or insignificant bits of information, very much like his bosom buddy--"W". They have so much in common. Maybe, he will ask George to be his job coach, once he loses the November election. Or, maybe John will pick up a gig as a stand-in for one of Alvin's Chipmunks (see podcast photo).

In an upcoming posting, I will write about the Bush family's involvement with a small South American terrorist group that killed 73 people that were on a Cubana airliner. There is so much information out there defining the Bush crime family and their ties to murderers, cult leaders and fascists. Now we see where "W" gets his training. This apple did not fall far from the tree.

When you combine two half-wits, like Bush and McCain, do you get a whole wit, or is there still just a 'hole'-in-the-nitwit?

My Fill-ary of Hillary Rant!

It as become perfectly clear in just the last couple of days that George W. Bush is worse than a fool, but an imbecile of the highest and most despicable order. He will say anything to try and boost his falling and failing popularity as a legitimate and relevant world leader. What has become more revealing than ever is that Hillary Clinton is not that different from Bush in her attempts to increase her own popularity and ratings. She will do or say anything in order to try and repair her damaged integrity, in spite of it being a self-inflicted wound. It appears, at this point, many of her supporters are abandoning her torpedoed destroyer and heading for the life boats. Abandon ship; abandon ship. She is sinking her own ship, mate.

Speaking about a sinking ship, Bush went before the Israeli Knesset and framed Obama and the Democrats who, contrary to BushCo thinking, believe there very likely is a place in presidential foreign policy to present opportunities for dialogue (the use of words before using swords, even amongst one's enemies) before dropping bombs upon innocents who would be caught in the cross-hairs of our nation's military actions against an adversarial government or regime, as a type of surrender to such evil as Nazism. This comes from a dry-drunk psychotic imbecile who ran away from his enlisted military responsibilities as a pilot to clean toilets and, later, go AWOL, because the job was beneath him. I believe he wanted the job so he could be close to the bowl. Now, isn't he the credible critic of judgement? Let's give HIM the Medal of Freedom! Rally 'round the flag boy. Give HIM a flag pin to wear proudly, but make sure he wears it at half-mast.

Here is some information that our president seemed to have forgotten to tell the Israelis--that his family had collaborated with a Nazi. Between 1933 and 1942, Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, handled money given to him by Fritz Thyssen, a German industrialist and Nazi who had close ties to Hitler and his regime. Thyssen, through his business dealings with the Nazi Party and Hitler's killing machine, was connected to the killing of Jews during WW2. Prescott Bush's Union Banking Corporation, which held Thyssen's money, was later impounded by the U.S. government under the Trading with the Enemy Act. ("All the President's Nazis: An Open letter to Bush", Larisa Alexandrovna, huffingtonpost.com, 5-15-08; "The Bushes and Hitler's Appeasement", Robert Parry, Consortiumnews.com, 5-18-08)

So, when Georgie Boy speaks of Nazis, he knows what it means to be a collaborator. Sadly, it does not stop there.

Georgie Boy's dad, G.H.W. Bush, former president of the United States, and former director of the CIA, had made $13.6 million from speaking engagements paid by Reverend Sun Myung Moon, of the Moonie's fame. You remember, that far right-wing radical Unification Church, originating from South Korea, which had direct connections to the South Korean CIA, South American drug lords and guns smuggling, and which owns the Washington Times newspaper, and contributed millions to those " Vast Right Wing Conspirators" in congress. Moon had ties to Jerry Falwell, had a meeting with President Nixon, and was praised by President Ronald Reagan, too. Before and after Moon had served 2 years in U.S. jail, he had infiltrated the U.S. government with his church/Korean CIA agents who had direct ties to fascists, dictators, and the Nazi-Klause Barbie. He had proclaimed his hatred of the U.S. Constitution, our democracy, and freedoms, even though he had an official "green card" and was never booted out of the country.

Yet, former President G.H. W. Bush began making a series of speeches for Moon's Women's Federation for World Peace beginning in 1995. "W"'s daddy had been bought by Moon. So, when Boy Bush speaks of fascist sympathizers, he knows from which he speaks! ("The Right's America-Hating Preacher", Robert Parry, Consortiumnews.com, 5-2-08)

Our dangerously mentally deficient president has done way too much damage to be allowed to remain as commander-in-chief; or even allowed to live unsupervised!!

Yet, Hillary Clinton has moved closer and closer to a place on the continuum that shows she, too, creates damage as she grapples to take hold of Cheney's unilateral executive creation. We saw that she believed her Bosnia story was more than just a dream, but a part of her mind-game strategy to plant rumored seeds of doubt into the psyche of America's ignorant voters that Obama might not be a Christian, but a "closeted" Muslim.

Her self-righteous "shame-on-you-Barack-Obama" retort about rural Pennsylvanians who cling to their guns and Bible as they fall closer and closer to economic hardship was a way to gather more of the white "frightened America" vote. As, too, was her criticism of Obama's relationship with the radically outspoken Rev. Wright and how damaging and un-American his words were. Yet, her Iraqi war vote has caused more strife, death, sorrow, and damage to lives than any lifetime of words spoken by Reverend Wright. So, shame on you Hillary Clinton. She has yet to be honest about herself, or policies, therefore, how can she be trusted to tell the truth about anything important?

Clinton has had a year of campaigning to master her art of manipulating the frightened white, rural, uneducated, uninformed voter who believes there is nothing better than to hold onto both their Bible and gun from the likes of the Van Heusen, Polo, Gucci, Nordstroms Reagan white man, who has done everything in his political power to castrate such psychological and economically beaten down every day people from a chance at the American dream to achieve a safe and secure living for their families, while avoiding bankruptcy resulting from a catastrophic illness. Become a  congressperson and all will be well, you poor and down trodden American souls! So, God bless you and your wealth--Hillary Clinton (and Bill O'Reilly) fore you both are part of the deserving class of wealthy Americans!! I guess, God blessed you so you could be wealthy and deserving, while the omnipotent one had no intention of doing the same for the rest of working, every day Americans. Just let them hold onto their guns and Bibles. That should be enough for them.

So, Hillary has taken her fairy dust- ground up and purified--made in her former White House alchemy laboratory during her 8 years of being the First Lady (of the First Black President, if you have forgotten), and has now used it to advance her self-interest and to re-make herself into the neo-pied piper of the Democratic Party hypnotizing the white "frightened Americans" of various makes and models (from white racists in West Virginia, to jobless union workers, to middle-aged women who blindly see that any woman is better than no woman president, to adults never graduating high school with very limited opportunities, and people who like to read how a simple minded Texas librarian gave birth to alien twin girlbots) so as to follow her to the promised land.

But the truth is, as you recall, she assisted her brothers to ride the shyster bus as they "persuaded" BillyBoy to pardon their "client-pals" who were in prison because they were thieves and drug dealers. Would that be called influence pedaling? And, don't forget as the U-Haul backed up to the loading dock of the White House during the last days in the joint, Billary and Hillary were pilfering the White House valuables thinking that they were all door prizes they had won for being the auctioneers of the Lincoln Bedroom Sleepover Parties. I guess, that is why she did not mind when the Iraqis and some U.S. private contract personnel decided to take Saddam's jewels and booty for their own, when really the stuff belonged to the Iraqi nation and people. 

Also, BillyBoy helped usher in this subprime debacle by signing the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 deregulating the financial industry's ability to go hog wild and acquire huge amounts of wealth by manipulating commodities prices. Then he followed in lock step with the congressional neo-con ideologues by selling off nearly every American job through foreign trade agreements. He, too, felt a $1.00 per hour foreign job was better for America than our union and high paying jobs.

And, don't forget that Hillary, as an undergraduate at Wellesley College and Yale law student had direct ties to the Weather Underground (the radical 1960-70's group that bombed buildings in protest to the Vietnam War and had a member named Bill Ayers, who Obama knows), and the Black Panthers through her work with the radical law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, which also represented the Communist Party, and the Panther's murder trials. She also wrote her senior thesis on the radical political community organizer Saul Alinsky ("The Question of Hillary Clinton's Guilt-By-Association Tactics", 5-2-08, Carl Bernstein, Huffingtonpost.com).

So, Clinton's own guilt-by-association is much less significant than her claim that Obama's guilt-by-association with Bill Ayers, as a fellow board member for a community organization, in Chicago, is worth exploiting more than informing the public of her radical past life. Bill Ayers, in the 1970's, was a member of the Weather Underground group that engaged in guerrilla warfare as a protest against Nixon's war policies. Ayers, currently a professor at the University of Chicago, is a board member, along with Obama, for the Woods Foundation, an anti-poverty organization. He appears to still be a radical thinker, yet never was convicted of a crime, and has been an upstanding citizen in the community in which he lives. He is engaged in grassroots community work, which is more than Hillary has done as a middle-aged white American.

Yet, Clinton has used McCarthyism tactics to frame the Obama/Ayers connection as a negative. She has used the words "bombs, 9/11, people died" when describing their relationship, which existed in only an extremely limited fashion. Bill Ayers is responsible for only Bill Ayers, and is not responsible for any actions done by Barack Obama. And the same goes in reverse. More shame on you Hillary Clinton!

Then their is Clinton's direct association with what she called, during her days as First Lady, the Right Wing Conspirators: Richard Mellon Scaife, who financially bankrolled the movement to impeach BillyBoy, O'Reilly and Fox News, and now, her good pal Rush Limbaugh. These three have been good role models for her as she learns the Roveian tactics taken out of the Regressive's playbook.

BillyBoy has tried to use the race card to play his hand and help his wife win the game table. He used Jesse Jackson's name (more guilt by association?Hillary) in a "branding" campaign against Obama. He thought by referring to Obama as "the black candidate" he might subtly embed racism into the minds of the white "frightened American" voter. 

Her campaign handlers have tried to weave the phrase "Obama scandal" into fabric of the debate when talking about Rev. Wright. This is not unlike Bush when he frames al-Qaeda and the phrase "they hate our freedoms", with Saddam and Iraq in the hyperbole leading up to the war and the selling of the war to the American people and Congress. Yet, the problem was not in Iraq, but in Saudi Arabia.

Hillary Clinton is a divider and not a uniter. She is the Great Pretender. She plays the 3-shell carnival (hide the pea under the shell and mix them all up ) slight-of-hand trickster game. Under which shell is the truth? I don't believe we would ever really know the truth from Hillary Clinton. 

The Economic Expansion is Over!!!

Contrary to the belief of Republican neo-cons, the reason there are fewer middle class Americans today then there was 8 years ago is not because they have been lifted up into a higher income stratosphere, but because their wealth and income has been disappearing. The regressive-minded economic zombie Republicans brought to be by drinking a type of  Kool-Aid that induces psychotic  episodes triggered by listening to too much Rush and O'Reilly droning, has finally been found to be the cause of our nation's decline. (Read the Neo-con comment written in response to my last posting. You will find it under "comments" attached to the blog posting below this one.)

According to the Economic Policy Institute (Bivens, and Irons) Briefing Paper #214, the U.S. has had the worst expansion since World War 2. The unemployment rate rose from 4.4% in March 2007 to 5.1% in March 2008. The only aspect of this business cycle that shined was the huge growth in corporate profits; the highest since 1949!!! How does that happen? The worst expansion brings about the second biggest profit taking since 1949? Read on.

Economic output spiraled downward in the fourth quarter of 2007 to a 0.6% annual rate and has continued into 2008. Payroll enrollment growth matched the weak economic output figure of 0.6%.

The EPI report looked at macroeconomic cycles, which consisted of 27 quarter durations, with 10 business cycles, since 1949.

John Bivens, in his EPI article, "GDP Growth Anemic Again. Since When Is 0.6% Growth Good News?", wrote that to have had three straight months of negative job growth totaling 232,000 jobs lost just this year is recessionary. Any GDP growth below 25% negatively effects employment and wage growth. 

Employment must rise by 1.1% annually to absorb newly available workers. We are seeing a 0.5% difference when compared to payroll enrollment growth. This means that there has been a drop in hires.

The EPI report (#214) said that GDP growth in the latest expansion was a full 40% slower than the post-World War 2 average. 

It is clear that the so-called "expansion" claimed by BushCo is over. We have financial market turmoil, housing price declines, and higher energy costs. Plus, "there are declines in consumption, spending, investment in equipment and software, residential and non-residential construction, exports, and imports. Residential investment fell for the 9th straight quarter, and its 26.7% drop was the largest quarterly change since the decline began." (Josh Bivens-EPI).

The recessionary pressures are effected by 2 factors: "slower hourly wage growth and fewer average hours worked per week." (Jared Bernstein, "Nation's Payroll Decline Again, and Hours, Wages and Incomes Feel the Squeeze,"EPI, 5-2-08). He went on to write, "At 5.2 million, this indicator of under-employment is up 850,000 over the past year."

With these reports, anyone believing that the middle class is becoming richer is foolishly ill-informed. I guess, the Kool-Aid drinkers have become addicted to the drug and need rehab immediately. The opportunity for our economy to turn around under these conditions will be a huge struggle, and very likely to not happen until there are major progressive reforms that must be addressed by a competent president and not by a stupid one. And that includes McCain't, oh, I mean McCain.

It has gotten so bad that Bugsy Bernanke has allowed banks, and financial institutions, to cough up student, auto, and credit card loan bonds as collateral for injections of clean Treasury capital at a low, low interest rate of 2%. So, why not? Bugsy continues to liquify a very liquid global market where banks are afraid to loan creating a freezing cold credit environment. Banks are not lending to one another, which is what they often do, because they don't know who else is hold the hot potato called junk bonds (collateralized debt obligations, and credit default swaps), or what is often called Monopoly money, hiding deep within their balance sheets. These banks are thick and knee deep in our Treasury dollars as they swapped away their junk for the good stuff. They are swimming in liquidity. Yet they don't loan it to one another or use it to stimulate our drowning economy, but loan it out to the ultra rich. More money is channeled to the ultra rich investor class through unregulated private equity and hedge funds, while the middle class loses jobs, benefits, assets, and confidence in the government.

Bugsy, and Paulie Paulson (Treasury secretary) keep shootin' up the banks with the bad-credit-swap narcotic exchanging their riskiest junk bonds (student, auto, and credit card bonds) through their bi-weekly Term Auction Facility to the tune of $75 billion per pop. In addition, these two banksta gangstas have lifted the cash give-away, by 50%, as they swap with the European Central Bank and Swiss National Bank purging any subprime stuff the Europeans were stuck holding from the financial Wall-Street shysters. 

Spain, France, Germany and other European economies are doing well, as they did not get caught up in the subprime web (except for Britain) of lies, deception, and fraud to the extent that the Americans did. Also, they are not trapped in the buy-Chinese-cheap-stuff quick sand in which we are heavily sinking deep within. They respect livable wages, unions, and worker stability, which is paying off. The neo-con regressives took us in the opposite direction and look where we are today. The regressives were willing to destroy our economy so the ultra rich could become richer!!!

Robert Kuttner (5-5-08, Prospect.org) quoted Germany's Gunter Verheugen, the vice-president of the EU, "We need a strong and competitive industrial base in order to have a strong service economy. Don't try to be cheaper. Try to be better. Don't try to compete on low social standards." Now, that makes sense. Although, McCain't and BushCo don't believe in such thinking. The countries within the EU are running trade and/or budget surpluses!! Is that not a novel outcome?

It is clear to me that BushCo faked the economic expansion to sell a second term as he boasted about a booming economy throughout a completely failed presidency of 8 years. He built his lies upon a known but beautifully covered hole until the weight of a pervasive and burdensome debt load, accompanied by significant and widespread foreclosures sunk his fabricated illusive house-of-mirrors masterpiece.

He faked the economic expansion by performing two moves-one being the massive boosting up of housing prices and values (housing bubble), and the other by creating an extra $1 trillion in deficit spending handed over to the richest people in America through tax cuts.

Through the housing bubble, households took out approximately $6 trillion in home equity giving disposable income a 5% injection. But now, the high-flyin' spending Americans, from suburbs to cities, have lost their loft and are free-falling, along with Humpty-Dumpty, right to the ground.

All of this validates my theory that the plan all along was to allow the wealthiest Americans, by allowing laissez-faire regulatory standards, and oversight, as well as the reduction of paid government workers to do the regulating, and tax rules favoring the rich, and through high salaries, bonuses, commissions, fees and perks resulting in terrific corporate profits, the opportunity to profit further off of the misfortunes of middle and lower income Americans. The privileged elite within those corporations benefiting from such thievery by cashing in on the planned BushCo housing bubble (Greenspan believed in blowing bubbles) by investing in the sale of subprime and other mortgages, through an unregulated resale market, furthered their wealth at the expense of the nation's economic well-being. This should be investigated by the justice department and prosecuted to the highest levels and penalties. 

It was never about increasing the strength of the nation. It was only about greed, while manipulating the economics of the country toward its most devastating peril since the 1928 Great Depression. Nothing else mattered to these greedy neo-con regressive Republicans more than increasing the wealth of the "haves and have mores"--as Bush refers to his base of supporters and contributors. They have created nothing but our nation's greatest national security risk. This risk outweighs everything else that they have used to scare us into believing that the boogieman is not them. The truth is---they are the boogieman. No terrorist group could ever harm this nation as they have so calculatively done.

The Rich Get Richer off of Government Contract, ie. the Taxpayers

Last week I wrote about how the private equity groups, the richest people in America, and possibly, the world are making huge gains from investments made by those managers. Now, who are those contributors to the private equity groups? They are the CEOs, CFOs, vice presidents of corporations and divisions of corporations, lawyers leading departments of legal services within those corporations, and more. They need to find places to invest their huge payloads and private equity groups are just that kinda place.

We have to ask ourselves if this recession is adversely affecting the spending of middle and lower income Americans? And, where do many of these corporations go to make up their loss of sales from the downturn in consumer spending? The Pentagon sucks up over 33% of our national yearly budget; and that total national yearly budget is around $13 trillion. The Pentagon is funded via the taxpayers, as well as through foreigners buying up American assets, such as bonds and Treasury Bills. And, consumer spending has begun to significantly slow down due to the fiscal policy brought to you by the Bernanke-Bush-McCain regressive party politics.

So, as the richest Americans working for these huge multinational corporations make profits from their business contracts off of the people's Pentagon, they walk away with taxpayer subsidized expense accounts, retirement bonuses, salaries, and more. Much of what these employees "earn" comes from our tax contributions.

You can look at this as the biggest welfare program in the history of the planet!!!! This is what Dean Baker calls the Nanny State. The rich getting richer off the government programs, established rules, and policies that permit such a feeding frenzy.

This government subsidy of the rich by the taxpayers has been going on for generations, but now, it is becoming more apparent. The internet blogging world has exposed this scam. The subprime housing bubble and all that has been written about it has helped many of us to assemble a mental-visual picture of how all these pieces have fit together in order to allow the "privileged class" to avoid any of the economic suffering that the rest of us are dealing with every day. The Republican regressives have made sure of that.

Keep the worker bees working, gathering honey by swarming the country for the greenback pollen so the "privileged class" hive queens can benefit from all our hard work.

George W. Bush was born into the world of privilege through his grandfather and father's oil wealth and connections. His grandfather, Prescott Bush, brought these connections and wealth privileges to the Bush Boy. Dumb W. never figured out how to use intellect and acquired skill sets to create wealth on his own. He was always given his opportunities, and always failed. He was never smart enough to do it on his own. Whenever he failed, daddy's friends and colleagues bailed the Dummy W. out of his economic woes. He failed with every oil business he ever got his fool-hearty hands into.

Dummy W. never earned an honest dollar in his life. The political regressives saw a patsy fool with an appealing shot n' beer Texas swagger to set up in the Texas governor's mansion, and later, on into the White House only after sealing the election through thievery and the ultra right wing majority (regressive) Supreme Court.

This is how the well-connected rich get richer. The plan has always been in place to take the wealth of the middle class and transfer it into the hands of the very rich. We saw it with the Bush tax cuts. The very ones that McCain voted against but now supports with full embrace. He wants to make the tax cuts that took money from the Social Security trust fund and transfer those public dollars, specifically set aside for supporting middle and lower income workers, on into the hands of the ultra rich. McCain wants to continue this transference of wealth to the tune of $325,000 per year for the millionaires and billionaires through permanent tax cuts.

How do many of our wealthiest employees get their money? In Nick Turse's article "The Real Matrix: The Pentagon Invades Your Life", found on TomDispatch.com, 4-24-08, he writes about the one trillion dollar per year Pentagon contract budget. The Pentagon contracts with, at least, 100 top multi-national and national corporations. These corporations are armed with top brass executives making big bucks, and they look for places to invest their money. One spot is the private equity group funds, which include hedge funds. One trillion Treasury dollars--public dollars--trickling down into the accounts of the richest people in the nation.

Here are some of these contracts. Procter and Gamble received $362,461,808; GE raked in $2.3 billion in 2006; Danskin received over $1 million over two years; NASCAR posters were printed to the tune of $38 million of taxpayer dollars; Tyco International, including ADT alarms, came in at $187 million; GM agreed to build a $100 million test track for the military; Goodyear received $357 million; Verizon got $128 million from the Pentagon and $50 million from HLS; Motorola phones came in at $308 million; In 2004, Bectel received $1.7 billion; Shell's parent company received $1.15 billion in 2006.

Here are many other names you recognize that received contracts from our tax dollars. ExxonMobil $1.17 billion in 2006; Ford; Kodak; Olympus; 3-M Post-It Notes; Microsoft Windows software; Budweiser; Lexmark printers; Canon photocopiers; AT&T telephones; Maxwell House coffee; Kidde fire extinquishers; Xerox fax machines; IBM servers; paper from International Paper; Duracell batteries; an LG Electronic refrigerator; paper towels from Marcal Paper Mills; Wolverine boots; Oakley sunglasses; American Optical Company goggles; Apple; Starbucks; Google; Breakaway Games; National Football League jerseys and caps partnered with the Pentagon; Marvel Comics partnership; HP; Hilton; Marriott; Columbia TriStar Films; Sony; Pfizer; Sara Lee ($68 million in 2006); M&M Mars and Hershey; Nestle; ESPN; Walt Disney; Bank of America; Johnson and Johnson; FedEx; Dell; Samsung; Harris Pillow Supply; Thomasville Furniture; Sears; Charmin; New Balance; True Fitness Technology (treadmills); Hanes Her Way; Home Depot; and, of course, Lockheed Martin.

The article went on to point out that in 1959, during Eisenhower's presidency, the Pentagon contracted out at a cost of $23 billion. In 2007, the direct procurement of combat related goods went up to $600 billion per year!

In the article "The Myths and Harsh Effects of Bush's Economic Class War" found on Alternet.org, 4-28-08, the author wrote that the recession of 2001 never ended, at least, not for ordinary Americans.

Ordinary Americans found their incomes declining. From 2001-2007, median family income declined somewhere between $500-$1000. Median individual income declined by, at least, $1000.

The yearly average number of new private sector jobs created from 2001-2008 was just 369,000, not even keeping up with the growth in population. In 1992-2000, private sector jobs increased by 1,760,000 per year.

The number of people in manufacturing jobs declined by over 3 million.

The number who got health care at work went down from 64.2 million to 59.7 million. The number of people without health care went up from 38.4 million to 46.9 million.

The list goes on!

The middle class is disappearing. The writer went on to say that "The growth in the U.S. economy is a bubble. It consists of debt. Can it be true the growth in the U.S. economy in the last seven years, such as it is, consists entirely of debt?"

From that same article, here are the numbers:

The U.S. economy grew by about $4 trillion. The national debt in January 2008 was $9.2 trillion. An increase of $3.5 trillion. Total consumer credit debt in 2008 will likely be $1.8 trillion. Total consumer credit debt in 2001 was $7.65 trillion, which is an increase of $5.25 trillion.

In the course of achieving growth of $4 trillion, we took on $8.75 trillion in debt, combining what we owe as a nation and as individuals.

This is the Bush-McCain-Republican Party legacy. The cowardly Democrats, led by the Blue Dog (I call these capitulators- Yella Dog)Democrats who failed to stand up to Bush in the last 2 years. Yet, one must remember, this all began with Reagan, and now, overwhelms the nation because of this current president.

The economy cannot grow with this huge amount of debt, but it is clear, the rich are getting richer. With such lucrative Pentagon, Homeland Security, National Security, CIA, FBI, and other government contracts, those within those corporations, while living large at the top of the pyramid, are investing their money with private equity funds, which are buying foreign currencies, commodities, and various types of precious and industrial metals increasing inflation among working Americans as they go about paying for their daily needs, while expanding the 2001 recession to most of the nation. The rich folk holding the government contract "ATM" card to the Treasury are getting wealthy off our backs.

Banks are hardly lending to consumers, but are developing major lending relationships with private equity fund groups who then borrow to speculate (gamble) against a declining dollar. What we are witnessing are banks lending to equity group funds that are not choosing to speculate on the building of a new American economy and future, with solidly paid workers, but to go outside America to advance their wealth. Unfortunately, such behavior does not help pull the nation away from its economic recession, but only fuels it. The reality is they are leveraging against a declining America. Therefore, the Fed is encouraging the banks that will now receive even cheaper government money, 2%, to work against the national security interests of our country. 

Why would Bernanke, Paulson, and Bush do this? 

They do it to make sure the richest Americans don't suffer ANY wealth losses. As the subsidized rich investor class within the private equity groups speculate in Europe, and in Euros, they stabilize the European economies keeping their food and oil prices down, as our prices go up at home.

This should be a crime!

Is their plan to force European exports, with their higher labor costs resulting from speculators boosting foreign currency values through their investment, away from the American markets? By doing so, those European products cost more here at home. If this is the case, their plan could help our disappearing industrial sector (only 10% of our economy) export what little they can because of our shrinking dollar? Regardless of such a plan, our 10% industrial sector is no longer big enough to pull our huge economy out of recession and into a recovery. Any plan to devalue our dollar by betting, oh, I mean investing Treasury subsidized dollars outside of America will not help our economy, but will only damage it further.

Have we had enough yet?