The Obama Incident

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Three Months Ahead of Schedule

by Andrew Tobias

 

Five hundred sixteen years ago yesterday, Christopho Columbo discovered Japan (or thought he did; actually it was the Bahamas), claimed it for Spain, and the rest is history.

Which brings us to . . .

THE DEBT

President Bush continues to exceed all expectations.  Our 232 years of accumulated National Debt, I have been writing in this space for some years, "will have reached $10 trillion or so by the time President Bush leaves office – up from under one trillion when Ronald Reagan took office."* 

Well, he hasn't left office yet, and he's already there – and with a quarter trillion to spare! 

You go, Mr. President. 

*Consider: 75% of all the debt our 43 presidents have racked up since 1776 was racked up by just three of them:  Reagan, Bush, and Bush.

THE TRAGEDY

It didn't have to be this way. 

It wasn't necessary to slash taxes on the rich – even a previous version of John McCain opposed doing that. 

Nor was it necessary to oppose the kinds of regulation that could have kept unqualified buyers from getting loans (the less pumped the bubble, the less painful the bust). 

And it surely wasn't necessary to invade Iraq.  (Even though it's rarely said, or listened to, I'll say it again:  Most of the Democratic Senators who "voted for the war," and perhaps many of the Republicans, were not in fact voting for war; they were voting to give the President the authority, to give his negotiations teeth, foolishly taking him at his word that he would use the authority only as a last resort.  Only later did we learn Iraq was the agenda long before 9/11.)

Here's what a 41-year-old Barack Obama told a crowd of Chicago protestors in October, 2002, five months before we attacked:  

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.  I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda.  I am not opposed to all wars.  I'm opposed to dumb wars.

Clear thinking.  A steady temperament.  Don't forget to vote.

http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/081013.html

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Internet Searching May Boost Brain

by Andrea Thompson

For middle-aged and older adults, searching the Internet could be a boost to the brain, a new study suggests.

In recent years, several studies have showed a link between pursuing activities that keep the mind engaged, such as crossword puzzles and memory games, and a lowered risk of cognitive decline later in life.

As the brain ages, a number of structural and functional changes occur, including atrophy, reductions in cell activity, and increases in deposits of amyloid plaques and tau tangles (both associated with Alzheimer's disease), all of which can affect cognitive function.

Keeping your brain active could drive some of these brain chemistry signals in the opposite direction compared to where they go as dementia sets in, and now it looks like surfing the Web could be another way to do that.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/internetsearchingmayboostbrain;_ylt=AvZNq2c432FipIfFStjCWc4DW7oF

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Sarah - She wolf of the SS

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Not My Financial Crisis -- I've Got Literally Nothing to Lose

 

By Alexander Zaitchik

 

Like most people I know in their 20s and 30s, it takes a stretch of the imagination to understand that I have a stake in the national economy.

In a literal sense, the financial meltdown has hit me close to home. The smoking ash piles on Wall Street lay just a 10-minute walk from my front door in New York's Chinatown. But my sense of proximity to events stops there. In terms of their impact on the soundness of my sleep, at least so far, the economy in question might as well be North Korea. My feeling of remove from the crisis is a product of the fact that I don't have much to lose. Like millions of Americans, I own nothing -- not property, not stock, not a 401(k) plan, not health insurance, not a car, nothing.

Like most people I know in their 20s and 30s, it takes a stretch of the imagination to understand that I have a stake in the national economy. In terms of day-to-day life, my only ties to large financial institutions are a Bank of America checking account, a single low-limit high-fee Visa card, and a Kilimanjaro of student debt, which I have come to accept as something I will die with, not from, like a benign but grapefruit-size tumor or peaceable parasite dwelling in my large intestine. When people use scary terms like "unchartered territory" and "total meltdown," my first thought is, "Would an economic cataclysm wipe out my student debt? If so, then let's press reset and start the whole damn thing over! Burn it clean!"

I haven't heard much from or about people like me in the last month. Watching the media report on the crisis, you'd think the United States had achieved the Republican dream of becoming a full-fledged "ownership society" populated by an upwardly mobile class of home-owning day traders sitting on fat nest eggs. But it hasn't. So here's a news flash from the young-and-indebted demographic: Those of us without retirement plans or health insurance, who just barely make rent and buy food in the real economy, a lot of us aren't as scared as maybe we should be. We have our own gut take on the disappearance of $9 trillion in electronic NYSE casino chips. And that is, we could give a shit.

 

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/102676/not_my_financial_crisis_--_i%27ve_got_literally_nothing_to_lose/

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Bushland

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Bill Ayers Fan Club

by Paul Berman

 

Over 3,000 fervent supporters have signed a statement emblazoned "Support Bill Ayers," describing the former leader of the Weather Underground, Chicago educator and Obama associate William Ayers as a victim of McCarthyite slurs by the McCain campaign. The naïveté and self-delusion of the signatories heats up the already boiling Ayers issue on the day of the final debate between Obama and McCain.

A complicating factor: Bill Ayers always was—still is—a good and decent educator. Even before he made his disastrous entrance into American left-wing politics, he helped run a hippie-style pre-school center in Manhattan, and his pre-school center was first rate, by all accounts. Left-wing politics of a lunatic variety led him into an underground existence for a while, armed and on the lam. But when he re-emerged, he resumed his educational work, and he became a professor of education. And, again by all accounts, or at least by some respectable accounts, he has applied himself with admirable sincerity and skill to his educational work.

Ayers has got to be, even so, the stupidest man in America, politically speaking. Always was; and is. In the 1960s the big left-wing student organization on campus was called Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS. At the beginning of the decade, SDS was an organization with a sturdy social-democratic or democratic-socialist pedigree, roughly in the style of the British Labor Party. Then SDS moved leftward, and kept on moving.

Obama never shared, not even for the briefest second as a kid in high school or college, the political imagination of Bill Ayers.

By the time Ayers became prominent in the organization, SDS could claim 100,000 members. Ayers rose among those 100,000 because he came from an extremely wealthy background, which gave him an aura of command. He was also several years older than most of the members, which allowed him to manipulate his younger followers unscrupulously. By the time he and his faction were done, they had dismantled SDS in favor of their own mini-organization, the Weather Underground, which called itself "revolutionary communist." And Ayers and the Weather Underground launched a Che Guevara-type war in the United States, than which nothing could be more idiotic.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-15/bill-ayers-fan-club/

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Two Candidates with a Nasty Secret

By Scott Burns

In the coming election, two major candidates share a nasty secret. Twenty-five years ago the candidates voted for legislation that now hits middle-class retirees hard. Because of this legislation, many retirees now face effective income tax rates of 46 percent--- even though their household income may be less than $100,000.

Yet these same candidates are claiming that, if elected, they will help the middle class. Each candidate claims he will provide tax breaks for the 95 percent of all households with incomes under $250,000.

For retirees, that simply isn't true.

Here's the story.

In April 1983, following the recommendations of the Greenspan Commission, Congress approved major reforms of Social Security. They increased the employment tax on the self-employed. They reduced benefits for future retirees by increasing the age for receiving full benefits. And they accelerated planned increases in the employment tax.

Washington then claimed that Social Security was safe for at least 75 years. The same change also created a large surplus for Social Security. Over the next 25 years that surplus was squandered. IOUs were put in the Social Security trust fund.

The reforms also introduced the taxation of Social Security benefits. If the combination of one-half of your Social Security benefits and other income sources exceeded $32,000 for a couple or $25,000 for a single taxpayer, a portion of your benefits would become taxable. (During the Clinton administration, a still higher tax was imposed.) There have been multiple efforts to eliminate the tax, but they have not been successful.

Back in 1983 the tax affected very few people. Only a small portion of all retirees had enough income to pay the tax.

But the legislation had an odd twist.

Unlike virtually everything else in the entire tax code, the threshold for taxing benefits--- $32,000 for a joint return, $25,000 for a single return--- was not indexed to inflation. They are the same today as they were 25 years ago.  Had they been indexed to inflation, the thresholds would now be $70,389 for a joint return and $54,991 for a single return.

That's quite a difference.

http://assetbuilder.com/blogs/scott_burns/archive/2008/10/10/two-candidates-with-a-nasty-secret.aspx

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The Shift - A movie being made by a movement

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House Report: Can't Assess Cheney Role in PlameGate; Stymied by Executive Privilege Claims

By Jeralyn

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released its report (pdf) on PlameGate today. The last two paragraphs tell the story:

The investigation sought to answer basic questions about this incident, including (1) how the Valerie Plame Wilson leak occurred, including whether there was a concerted effort to knowingly disclose classified information; (2) whether senior White House officials complied with requirements governing the handling of classified information; (3) whether the White House took appropriate steps to address an improper leak and sanction any individuals involved; and (4) what legislative or other actions are needed to ensure appropriate identification and handling of classified information by White House officials so that such leaks do not occur in the future.

The Committee has been unable to completely investigate these matters, in part, because of the President's assertion of executive privilege over the report of the FBI interview of Vice President Cheney. This invocation of executive privilege was legally unprecedented and an inappropriate use of executive privilege. It prevented the Committee from learning the extent of the Vice President's role in the disclosure of Ms. Wilson's identity.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/10/14/154443/23

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Retirement

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The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

Our Podcast Feed link: http://www.theskepticsguide.org/rss.xml Weekly Audience: 40,000+ Podcast #168 10/8/2008 Interview with PZ Myers; News Items 2008 Nobel Awards, Turing Test Your Questions and E-mails: Darwin Quote, Cosmology Name That Logical Fallacy Science or Fiction Latest Podcast: Download Episode Info Previous Week: Download Episode Info The Skeptics Guide to the Universe is a weekly Podcast talkshow produced by the New England Skeptical Society (NESS) in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) : discussing the latest news and topics from the world of the paranormal, fringe science, and controversial claims from a scientific point of view.

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Sphere: Related Content

Tell McCain to End the Politics of Hate

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Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis

 

By David Goldstein and Kevin G. Hall

 

WASHINGTON — As the economy worsens and Election Day approaches, a conservative campaign that blames the global financial crisis on a government push to make housing more affordable to lower-class Americans has taken off on talk radio and e-mail.

Commentators say that's what triggered the stock market meltdown and the freeze on credit. They've specifically targeted the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the federal government seized on Sept. 6, contending that lending to poor and minority Americans caused Fannie's and Freddie's financial problems.

Federal housing data reveal that the charges aren't true, and that the private sector, not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring subprime lending at the core of the crisis.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html

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Judge: GOP's voter purge a 'violation of federal law'

by Stephen C. Webster

The American Civil Liberties Union is trumpeting a judge's decision in Michigan which brings to a halt the practice of eliminating voters from rolls if their mailing address is found to be invalid.

Recently, the GOP chairman in Macomb County, Michigan, detailed a plan to use a list of foreclosed homes to challenge voters. His pronouncement drew an immediate backlash, with predictions that the plan would "backfire."

It has.

The suit, filed by ACLU national and ACLU of Michigan, along with the Advancement Project, aimed to protect voters whose registration cards were returned to government offices by post as 'undeliverable.' Judge Stephen J. Murphy of the U.S. District Court of Michigan's Eastern District concluded that the program of eliminating these voters from rolls is in violation of federal law.

The voter purge program, better known to elections integrity experts as 'voter caging,' is a long-storied GOP tactic employed against minority, student and low-income voters. In September, the Obama campaign filed a lawsuit in Michigan challenging the illegal tactic.

"You essentially send a first-class letter to a household where you suspect that person no longer lives there but where they're still registered to vote," explained Allen Raymond, a convicted GOP elections fraudster who spent time in prison after the discovery of a phone-jamming scheme during the 2002 elections. "That letter comes back. ... Somebody [at the local polling place] then challenges that vote if that person comes in to vote."

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/GOP_voter_purge_declared_illegal_in_1013.html

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The Key to the U.S. Bank Deal: Government to Get Free Checking

By Don Davis

"WE ALSO INSISTED ON UNLIMITED CHECKS, WITH A DESIGN OF OUR CHOICE, ALL AT NO FEE. THIS WAY, WE CAN CONTINUE TO RUN UP THE NATIONAL DEBT … WITHOUT ALL THOSE ANNOYING MONTHLY CHARGES." 

http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=3975

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NOV 4

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Liquidating the Empire

 

by Patrick J. Buchanan

"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers."

So Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon advised Herbert Hoover in the Great Crash of '29.

Hoover did. And the nation liquidated him – and the Republicans.

In the Crash of 2008, 40 percent of stock value has vanished, almost $9 trillion. Some $5 trillion in real estate value has disappeared. A recession looms with sweeping layoffs, unemployment compensation surging, and social welfare benefits soaring.

America's first trillion-dollar deficit is at hand.

In fiscal year 2008 the deficit was $438 billion.

With tax revenue sinking, we will add to this year's deficit the $200 to $300 billion needed to wipe the rotten paper off the books of Fannie and Freddie, the $700 billion (plus the $100 billion in add-ons and pork) for the Wall Street bailout, the $85 billion to bail out AIG, and $37 billion more now needed, the $25 billion for GM, Chrysler, and Ford, and the hundreds of billions Hank Paulson will need to buy corporate paper and bail out banks to stop the panic.

As Americans save nothing, where are the Feds going to get the money? Is the Fed going to print it and destroy the dollar and credit rating of the United States? Because the nations whose vaults are full of dollars and U.S. debt – China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Arabs – are reluctant to lend us more. Sovereign wealth funds that plunged billions into U.S. banks have already been burned.

Uncle Sam's Visa card is about to be stamped "Canceled."

The budget is going to have to go under the knife. But what gets cut?

Social Security and Medicare are surely exempt. Seniors have already taken a huge hit in their 401(k)s. And as the Democrats are crafting another $150 billion stimulus package for the working poor and middle class, Medicaid and food stamps are untouchable. Interest on the debt cannot be cut. It is going up. Will a Democratic Congress slash unemployment benefits, welfare, education, student loans, veterans benefits – in a recession?

No way. Yet, that is almost the entire U.S. budget – except for defense, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and foreign aid. And this is where the ax will eventually fall.

It is the American Empire that is going to be liquidated.

http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=13588

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Again With the Trickle Down!?!

byJared Bernstein

 

If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That's what came to mind this AM when I read that John McCain's plan to address the ailing economy includes a big cut in the capital gains tax rate, from 15% to 7.5% for the next two years.

How wrongheaded is this? Let me count the ways.

First, the McCain folks may have missed this, but asset values have been falling, big time. Remember, John?... That whole financial mess that folks have been talking about? When capital assets, like stocks or bonds, lose value, that's a capital loss, and it's already deductible from your taxes.

OK, but there's probably a few folks out there who've realized some capital gains, or will do so at some point in the next couple of years. What's the point of giving them a tax break? What itch does that scratch?

The vast majority of realized capital gains--that's the money you make, for example, when you sell a stock for more than you paid for it--go the richest families, so they're the ones who benefit from this. The good number crunchers at the Tax Policy Center examined who would benefit from the McCain proposal. The middle fifth of families end up with all of 0.2% of the benefits. That's not a typo. The tax break would lower their annual tax bill by $4.00. OK, that is a gallon of gas, but it's not what you'd call a game-changer.

The top 20% end up with 98.3% of the benefits of the cut, and the top 1%, with income above $600,000 get 75% of the gains, for an average benefit of $37,600. The average tax savings for the top 0.1%--income above $3 mil--is $244,000. In other words, this isn't a recipe for helping families hurt by the financial crisis and the recession. It's a recipe for more income inequality.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/again-with-the-trickle-do_b_134796.html

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Palling around with terrorists

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