BONUS look back at Rep. Charlie Rangel. Remember when he called VP candidate Sara Palin “Disabled”? Nice, huh?

Back to the article. I am so disgusted, words fail me. “DISCLOSURE PROBLEMS”?? That’s how our Congress refers to powerful members cheating on their taxes?? Now I know how Timmy Geithner, the tax cheat, was confirmed to head up the Treasury Department, and thus the IRS. Check this out:

Many members” of Congress suffer from the same disclosure issues as Rep. Charles Rangel (D.N.Y.), one of his allies said Wednesday.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) downplayed the seriousness of allegations against Rangel that he failed to disclose sources of income and pay taxes on some properties, saying that many lawmakers suffer from innocent lapses in judgment when filing mandatory financial disclosure forms.

“I want to tell you, there are many members who, if you go back over all of their records, over all of the years, you’re going to find that there were disclosures that were not made,” Waters said during an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday morning.

Republicans are seeking to force Rangel from his position as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee by offering a privileged resolution from Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) to mandate Rangel step aside.

If it is truly only Republicans, that does not speak well for Democrats, in my opinion. Why wouldn’t they be concerned that the most powerful member of the House Ways and Means Committee, the very committee that set tax law, did not pay his taxes?? Is it just me? At least as far as Rep. Waters is concerned, it appears so:

Waters defended Rangel, saying the Harlem congressman is making an effort to correct the records and pay his debts.

“What happens is, unfortunately with the requirements for disclosure that we all have, mistakes are made,” she said. “And you do get a chance to correct them. And so it looks as if he is correcting those mistakes.”

Waters said that Rangel should not step down from his chairmanship, but should continue working until ethics investigations into his finances have concluded.

Only after he was CAUGHT. It isn’t like he just failed to adequately report taxes one time. No, it was under-reporting some years, and failure to report at all other years. It is behavior that, if perpetrated by someone NOT in Congress (or the Secretary of the Treasury) would land them with a ton of fines at the LEAST. But when it’s the person actually writing the tax laws, the message is clear: “These laws apply to thee, not to me.” Evidently. And, with the perk of getting backup from the very people who SHOULD be holding them accountable. All I can say is, there oughta be a law. Oh, wait…

And what is this BS about “the rules for disclosure”?? How about having a CPA do your taxes, or use TurboTax or something! It isn’t like Rangel, and most of these Congresspeople can’t afford to have someone do their taxes for them. Sheesh.

Can you imagine using that excuse with the IRS? Yeah, they’d be laughing at you all the way to your jail cell.

Have the Democrats always this corrupt, or have they ratcheted that up recently? Maybe they always were, and they are just being more blatant about it now? I don’t see how anyone could listen to Rep. Waters “everybody’s doing it!” defense as anything else but corrupt when talking about the most powerful person setting tax law repeatedly cheating on his taxes. But that could just be me…

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers – a Detroit Democrat – is weighing into the controversy involving a much-maligned national community organization, asking congressional researchers whether any laws may have been broken by surreptitious recording of the group’s employees.

Just last week, the Democratic-led House followed up on a Senate vote that started cutting off federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, amid Republican-led calls for a widespread investigation into the group and its activities.

Even President Barack Obama has criticized the actions of ACORN employees in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere seen in sting videos. The employees appear to give tax advice to filmmakers pretending to be a hooker and her boyfriend. (Well, kinda – he said it wad “inappropriate. See video/transcript below.)

Conyers and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts asked the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service on Tuesday to provide an analysis on several aspects of ACORN. Among them:

# Any current or previous criminal investigations into the group.

# A breakdown of any funding received by the group and any violations of the terms of that funding.

# A report on alleged improprieties in collecting voter-registration forms and “the extent … that resulted in people being improperly placed on voting roles and actually attempting to vote.”

# The group’s programs to provide housing opportunities.

It also asked for a report on private sting activities “in which individuals have reportedly visited ACORN offices, misrepresented their identities and proposed activities, surreptitiously videotaped resulting conversations with ACORN workers, and widely distributed them.”

The letter went onto say, “Conflicting allegations have been made about the propriety of these activities. Please research and report on the federal and state laws that could apply to such videotaping and distribution of conversations without the consent of all parties.”

I’m sure they’ll get right on that.

Why the disdain dropping from my laptop? Because this isn’t the FIRST time Rep. Conyers was going to investigate ACORN. Previously, he had been pretty disturbed by the actions of ACORN, or so he claimed (this is a good article to see more of the underhanded workings of ACORN). Remember that they have been under investigation in over 14 states for voter fraud and voter registration fraud for some time now. The recent expose is just the icing on the cake. But the disdain comes for the REASON Conyers dropped it: The “Powers That Be” put an end to it. Yes, you read that right: THE POWERS THAT BE told the House Judiciary Chairman to knock it off.

Hmm. Let’s think. Just who is high enough to tell this powerful chairman to drop his investigation? It’s a pretty short list, I can tell you that much,

But, hey – better late than never, right? Yeah. Sure.

And I just KNOW once Obama has a spare moment, you know, when he’s not on The David Letterman Show, or something, maybe he will finally have a chance to follow what’s going on with ACORN, since he claimed to be out of the loop despite the millions ACORN has gotten, or the billions it stands to get. Yes, this is what he said in his recent interview with George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the funding for ACORN?

OBAMA: You know, if — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off.

OBAMA: You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re not committing to — to cut off the federal funding?

OBAMA: George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.

Or you can watch it here:

That Obama – he’s just so busy doing the talk show circuit, he couldn’t POSSIBLY know what is going on with ACORN. I mean, really, besides his having worked for them, and all of that, what possible connection could he have with them?

Oh, wait – he does. Right in the West Wing. Uh huh – his Rove, the Director of the Office of Political Affairs, is Patrick Gaspard. Mr. Gaspard, before moving into the West Wing, was the Executive Vice President of – Wait For It – SEIU. SEIU was founded by Dale Rathke, the brother who embezzled a million bucks from ACORN. Which they hid, by the way. Whatever. Just a million of your tax paying dollars, no biggie.

And Patrick has a brother, Michael, who works for the Advance Group. Which represents – like you need to wait for it – ACORN. Coincidentally (hahahahaha), the national spokesman for The Advance Group, and ACORN, is one in the same, Scott Levenson.

I gotta wonder, how long will it be before Conyers is called off of THIS investigation?

(Photo above bymusicFIRSTCoalition)

Now, why would they say that about Rep. Rangel, a long time representative from New York? Because of this:

FOR POLITICIANS with major bad news to release or to make public, there’s no time like the dead of August to do it. The thinking goes that the public won’t remember a thing come September. We hope Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) will have no such luck. His belated revelation of previously unreported income, property and bank accounts demands that he step aside as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Rangel’s amended financial disclosure form, which exposes omissions from his 2002 through 2006 records, is a treasure trove of outrage. He neglected to report a checking account with the Congressional Federal Credit Union and one with Merrill Lynch, each valued between $250,000 and $500,000; the tens of thousands of dollars he’s earning from dividends from a number of mutual funds and stocks; and the money made from the sale of a Harlem townhouse. As a result, Mr. Rangel’s reported net worth doubled, from between $516,015 and $1,316,000 to between $1,028,024 and $2,495,000.

Yeah. That’s right. When the truth came out, Rangel’s worth pretty much doubled, and he kinda, sorta forgot to pay taxes on it. Hey! Just like Timmy Geithner!! What’s their problem with that, anyway?? Sheesh, picky, picky. Oh, right, because of his position within the House:

We called on Mr. Rangel to resign his coveted post last November while the House ethics committee probed his contact with a potential donor to a pet project who also had business before the committee. Mind you, that committee already was looking into his using official stationery to raise funds for that pet project, paying below-market rents on four Harlem apartments, failing to report income from a Florida condominium sale and failing to pay taxes on a home in the Dominican Republic. There’s another subcommittee investigation into lobbyist-paid trips by Mr. Rangel and four other members of Congress.

Much is expected of elected officials. Much more is expected and demanded of those entrusted with chairmanships and the power that comes with them, especially when it involves the nation’s purse strings. From all that we’ve seen thus far, Mr. Rangel has violated that trust continually and seemingly without care.

Yes, much is expected, a fact seemingly lost on many of our elected officials as the recent town halls would indicate (or lack thereof – many of our elected officials refused to hold them). But for the Chair of the Ways and Means Committee to fail so egregiously is unacceptable.

And it is made even more so by the revelation of a little tax provision Rangel slipped into the Health Care Reform Bill. How I wish I was kidding. I am not:

~ snip ~ The changes approved by the House Ways and Means Committee that Rangel chairs would strip away legal defenses and pile higher penalties on corporate and individual taxpayers facing IRS proceedings for what they claim are unintentional mistakes, experts said.

Rangel’s bill would:

* Punish those who fail to alert the IRS to potentially questionable tax exemptions.

* Bar the IRS from waiving penalties against taxpayers who clearly erred in good faith.

* Double fines in certain circumstances. (Emphasis mine.)

“The bill raises penalties and eliminates many of the reasonable defenses that taxpayers have always been able to use when honest mistakes are uncovered,” one lawyer told The Post.

In fact, the bill increases fines “in some cases even for honest mistakes,” the expert added.

I don’t know about you, but I am literally shaking my head at the arrogant, patronizing, HYPOCRISY of Rangel’s bill. Seriously – has he not looked in the mirror??

Well you know some folks had something to say about Rangel’s machinations:

Republicans yesterday ripped Rangel’s attempt to go after taxpayers, given his own failure to pay taxes on rental income from his villa in the Dominican Republic and his extensive reporting problems with his financial-disclosure statements to Congress.

“It is highly ironic that Chairman Rangel continues to work to crack down on American taxpayers who make honest mistakes on their tax forms when he himself has failed to pay his own staggering tax bills,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

“Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi should force him to step aside as chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee until this baffling array of allegations are resolved.”

In addition to $75,000 in rental income he failed to report to the IRS a few years ago, Rangel recently filed new papers revealing he neglected to disclose to Congress more than $1.3 million in income and $3 million in business deals between 2002 and 2006.

The Post reported last week that he also failed to pay taxes on property in New Jersey that he neglected for years to disclose he owned.

His office maintains he is now up to date on all his taxes.

The Rangel plan also would prevent the IRS from waiving punishment in cases where tax officials thought the penalty was excessive.

Under another provision, the IRS would require that taxpayers self-report areas where they may have gone over the line seeking tax advantages. If they fail to self-report and problems are found, tax penalties skyrocket.

The IRS becomes “judge, jury and executioner,” said a lobbyist.

In one provision, the measure doubles the fine against the taxpayer from 20 percent of the underpayment to 40 percent.

As with many of the complex tax provisions buried in the 1,018-page bill, the severity of the self-reporting language is a matter of debate.

Advocates argue that the provision is intended only to go after flagrant tax cheats, but that’s not clearly spelled out. (churt@nypost.com)

Unless he is willing to start with himself, Rangel needs to pull that out right now. I might add, what the hell is it doing in the Health Care bill ANYWAY????

And Charlie, I agree with WaPo, it is time to step down. It is way PAST time, in fact, especially since you seem to think you are above the laws already in the books. Never mind adding a new “Do As I Say Not As I Do,” law on top of it. If ever there was a time for the (Matthew 7:5) saying, “Take the plank out of your own eye before taking the speck out of your neighbor’s” this is it…

Well, Obama has figured out a way to deal with the massive debt under which we are staggering. And no, not another “czar,” though that would not be a surprise at this point. Not this time, but this may be one of the best plans he has ever had. And it comes to you via The Onion:

U.S. Government Stages Fake Coup To Wipe Out National Debt

Can’t you just see it now? I wonder what roll Pelosi, Reid, Boxer, et al, will play in that “coup”?? I welcome your suggestions.

The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy.

Congratulations, Mr. Rich. With all your education, it has taken you two years longer than most of the people on this site to arrive at this conclusion. Obama is a corporatist. Or, as noted on HillaryIs44, an opportunist. He doesn’t care about the little guy or gal. Further, by his use of signing statements, a disturbing echo of the Bush Administration, he is on the road to becoming a “Unitary Executive.” I wonder if Mr. Rich feels ‘punked’ over that as well.

Let’s take a look at some of Mr. Rich’s observations leading him down disillusionment alley:

… [T]here is real reason for longer-term worry in the form of a persistent, anecdotal drift toward disillusionment among some of the president’s supporters. And not merely those on the left. This concern was perhaps best articulated by an Obama voter, a real estate agent in Virginia, featured on the front page of The Washington Post last week. “Nothing’s changed for the common guy,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been punked.” She cited in particular the billions of dollars in bailouts given to banks that still “act like they’re broke.”

But this mood isn’t just about the banks, Public Enemy No. 1. What the Great Recession has crystallized is a larger syndrome that Obama tapped into during the campaign. It’s the sinking sensation that the American game is rigged — that, as the president typically put it a month after his inauguration, the system is in hock to “the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few” who have “run Washington far too long.” He promised to smite them.

…What disturbs Americans of all ideological persuasions is the fear that almost everything, not just government, is fixed or manipulated by some powerful hidden hand, from commercial transactions as trivial as the sales of prime concert tickets to cultural forces as pervasive as the news media.

Come on, Mr. Rich, it’s not such a long walk to realize why Wall Street has been protected with endless bailouts. Mr. Obama got more money from Wall St. than any other candidate. Rich must give Obama credit that he is doing some of the “rigging.” Rich still tries to pretend that Obama just can’t fight ‘the man.’ loathe to acknowledge that Obama is ‘the man.’ Certainly, he was elected by ‘the man.’

Where Rich tries halfheartedly to assail Republicans for disruptive town hall meetings, he must admit Democrats have unclean hands as well:

As Democrats have pointed out, the angry hecklers disrupting town-hall meetings convened by members of Congress are not always ordinary citizens engaging in spontaneous grass-roots protests or even G.O.P. operatives, but proxies for corporate lobbyists. (snip)

But the Democratic members of Congress those hecklers assailed can hardly claim the moral high ground. Their ties to health care interests are merely more discreet and insidious. As Congressional Quarterly reported last week, industry groups contributed almost $1.8 million in the first six months of 2009 alone to the 18 House members of both parties supervising health care reform, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer among them.

Then there are the 52 conservative Blue Dog Democrats, who have balked at the public option for health insurance. Their cash intake from insurers and drug companies outpaces their Democratic peers by an average of 25 percent, according to The Post. And let’s not forget the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, which has raked in nearly $500,000 from a single doctor-owned hospital in McAllen, Tex. — the very one that Obama has cited as a symbol of runaway medical costs ever since it was profiled in The New Yorker this spring.

Finally, Rich has a hallelujah moment when he points out that (D) or (R) after one’s name means less and less. It’s the character, stupid!

In this maze of powerful moneyed interests, it’s not clear who any American in either party should or could root for. The bipartisan nature of the beast can be encapsulated by the remarkable progress of Billy Tauzin, the former Louisiana congressman. Tauzin was a founding member of the Blue Dog Democrats in 1994. A year later, he bolted to the Republicans. Now he is chief of PhRMA, the biggest pharmaceutical trade group. In the 2008 campaign, Obama ran a television ad pillorying Tauzin for his role in preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices. Last week The Los Angeles Times reported — and The New York Times confirmed — that Tauzin, an active player in White House health care negotiations, had secured a behind-closed-doors flip-flop, enlisting the administration to push for continued protection of drug prices. Now we know why the president has ducked his campaign pledge to broadcast such negotiations on C-Span.

The making of legislative sausage is never pretty. The White House has to give to get. But the cynicism being whipped up among voters is justified. Unlike Hillary Clinton, whose chief presidential campaign strategist unapologetically did double duty as a high-powered corporate flack, Obama promised change we could actually believe in.

Rich cannot miss an opportunity to trash Hillary Clinton to the bargain. I was waiting for him to find some inane reason to drag her name into this, even though Obama has proven himself to be in bed with corporate interests ten times over. We’d be lucky to have her as President right now. No matter what, I can assure you he would not feel ‘punked.’

Still, Mr. Rich cannot hide from the truth although he does try to soft pedal it:

[Obama’s] first questionable post-victory step was to assemble an old boys’ club of Robert Rubin protégés and Goldman-Citi alumni as the White House economic team, including a Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, who failed in his watchdog role at the New York Fed as Wall Street’s latest bubble first inflated and then burst. The questions about Geithner’s role in adjudicating the subsequent bailouts aren’t going away, and neither is the angry public sense that the fix is still in. We just learned that nine of those bailed-out banks — which in total received $175 billion of taxpayers’ money, but as yet have repaid only $50 billion — are awarding a total of $32.6 billion in bonuses for 2009.

It’s in this context that Obama can’t afford a defeat on health care. A bill will pass in a Democrat-controlled Congress. What matters is what’s in it. The final result will be a CAT scan of those powerful Washington interests he campaigned against, revealing which have been removed from the body politic (or at least reduced) and which continue to metastasize. The Wall Street regulatory reform package Obama pushes through, or doesn’t, may render even more of a verdict on his success in changing the system he sought the White House to reform.

President Obama has shown no signs that he wants corporate control to stop metastasizing. The advisors and moneyed interests with whom he surrounds himself offer ample evidence of that, which even Mr. Rich now admits.

Despite this Administration’s expending significant resources on smoke and mirrors, the realities that Mr. Rich alludes to are getting more and more attention. Change We Can Believe In has now been substituted with The Fix Is In.

Some of us knew that a long time ago.

– calling the vetting process for Obama administration nominees “ridiculous” and “a nightmare.”

At a question-and-answer session with staff from the U.S. Agency for International Development, a woman asked her when the agency would be getting a new administrator and “why it’s taking so long.”

“Let me say it’s not for lack of trying,” Clinton replied. “The process — the clearance and vetting process — is a nightmare,” she told the staff. “It takes far longer than any of us would want to see. It is frustrating beyond words.”

The secretary said she “pushed very hard last week, when I knew I was coming here, to get permission from the White House to be able to tell you that help is on the way and somebody will be nominated shortly.” But, she said, “the message came back, ‘We’re not ready.’”

Wow. So everyone who wants to work for the Obama Administration has to submit to a colonoscopy. Hillary certainly did. Oh, oops. Sorry. My bad. I guess. I mean. Not exactly everyone. I don’t think the Commander in Chief has ever submitted to, nor could he pass, his own vetting process. And Timmy “Turbo Tax” Geithner clearly would have failed, too, according to the criteria of the White House, except for the fact that our President made a big case of saying Timmy was the only one who knew how to fix the economy.

So how’s that working out so far?

Hey, in Timmy’s case, maybe a strict vetting process would have been a good idea. What a shame he was not subject to the same scrutiny as prospects for the USAID position. As Secretary Clinton further states:

“Anyone who has gone through it or looked at this process will tell you that every administration it gets worse,” she added.

“Some very good people just didn’t want to be vetted,” she explained. “You have to hire lawyers, you have to hire accountants. I mean, it is ridiculous!”

Drawing laughs from the crowd, Clinton said, “And then here’s one of the questions you get asked: First of all, you have to remember everywhere you’ve lived since you were 18. And, beyond a certain age you can’t even remember when you were 18!”

One of her “all-time favorite questions,” she said, is, “Please tell us every foreign national you know.”

“I mean, some people who are of different ancestry, they’re a hyphenated American and they have family still living in other countries, finally said it’s ridiculous. I mean, I have lots of cousins I’ve never met. You’re going to ask me to put their names down so they can all be interviewed? That’s ridiculous!

“You’re sensing my frustration!” Clinton sighed.

Now I know that news media is always looking for any sensational headline it can squeeze out to put Clinton and Obama at odds, but really this does seem to be undermining of her efforts? The combined one-two punch of the State Department and USAID is important and I am continually amazed, if not surprised, how this Administration keeps shooting itself in the foot, not able to focus on the big picture.
A job needs to get done here and this over burdensome vetting process is not helping, particularly when it is only selectively applied.

More do as I say, not as I do, I guess.

Wow. This is but one of the profound statements made by Dr. Jones throughout the course of Bill Moyers’ “Journal: Faith and Social Justice,” which also included Dr. Cornel West, formerly of Union, now at Princeton University, and Dr. Gary Dorrien, from Union. There is a video of the show, which can be seen HERE, and is from which all further quotes are taken (thanks, SusanUnPC, for the link).

Back to President Jones for a moment, though. In Union Theological Seminary’s 172 year history, she is the FIRST woman to hold this post. I wrote about her way back in April, 2008, “Is This A Sign Of Things To Come??” Of course, now we know that the Powers-That-Be made sure it wasn’t, but a girl has to have her dreams, and that was mine at the time. (Now, it is that Secretary Clinton can get out before her ability to affect change has been marginalized beyond recognition. As in, she should be in Russia right now – just sayin’.) President Jones has a distinguished resume, including teaching at Yale for the past 17 years, at the university as well as the law school. She is an impressive woman, brilliant mind, yet the kindness and warmth exude from her like, well, like it does from Hillary. Or as one might expect from someone who is the head of, and teaches at, a seminary preparing students for ministry.

Union has long had a history of social justice in the world. One might say that is its calling, or the calling of the students who attend it. During my time there, we were able to get the Board of Trustees to divest assets in South Africa, still in the throes of apartheid at that time. Many of the students worked in soup kitchens, engaged in protests on a variety of issues, and dealt with the AIDS crisis as it first erupted in New York City. In addition to that, because it was understood that language shapes reality, all classroom discussion, all papers, and all worship services HAD to be in inclusive language. It was an amazing environment in which to learn, though it made it rather difficult in the world at large in which language was certainly not all inclusive, or in which women did not hold prominent positions Even then, though, we had a number of outstanding professors in women’s theology, ethics, and Hebrew Scriptures. Thankfully, those numbers continue to increase among the faculty. (Photo by wallyg)

So, it is in that environment that this discussion took place with Bill Moyers moderating. Bear in mind, these are Christians, and that is the place from which they move in the world. BUT – that being said, they may not be the kinds of Christians you are used to hearing from, thus why I encourage you to listen to the whole video, if you have the time and inclination.

This is what followed the statements made by Dr. Jones above:

BILL MOYERS: And that’s the trade union movement you talked about.

SERENE JONES: That’s what love is.

CORNEL WEST: That’s the woman’s movement. That’s the gay and lesbian movement.

SERENE JONES: You put it in policy forms.

GARY DORRIEN: It’s the love that, that’s what holds you in the struggle, you know. Even if you’re not succeeding, you know.

CORNEL WEST: Allowing you to sustain and do.

GARY DORRIEN: It’s the energy. It propels you into a struggle in which you might not be succeeding.

BILL MOYERS: You remind me that all three of you come out of what, once upon a time, was called the Social Gospel movement. The movement to apply Christian ethical principles to society. And wasn’t that a response to the first round of economic collapse in the early part of the last century?

GARY DORRIEN: There is something new that started in the 1880s with the Social Gospel. You have a sociological consciousness itself that there’s such a thing as social structure. And so, well, if there’s such a thing as social structure then now there’s something that’s just different.

That makes the equation different. That it’s not just a question of bringing people to Jesus who will then transform society. But rather salvation itself has to be conceived, not just in personal, but social-structural terms. So, with the Social Gospel movement in the 1880s, you do, for the first time, see preaching and theology in which Christian salvation is being talked about as including making movements toward the change of social structures themselves in the direction of something that’s now being called social justice.

CORNEL WEST: There’s a sense of-

GARY DORRIEN: Because even the term social justice is only coined during that very same period.

BILL MOYERS: But the Social Gospel tradition was, in itself, overwhelmed by the materialism of the last part of the 20th century and by the turbo capitalism that you were talking about enshrined in Thomas Freidman’s icon. I mean, the Social Gospel was not sufficient to sustain itself against the power of economics and, in fact, structural wealth. Right?

CORNEL WEST: Right. That’s true.

SERENE JONES: But I think we can never underestimate the crisis of desire. That it wasn’t just that there was – it didn’t have enough social strength, or a good enough analysis. That what turbo capitalism does, is it – the biggest, sort of, war zone is interior to us – where it takes over your desire. It makes you into a creature who wants to buy the commodities. So you could have a great political analysis. But what you’re doing, on the ground every day, is you’re fueling this turbo capitalism. And it’s in the churches that another kind of desire should have been being crafted. That’s where you can get people in their bones and really begin to force the question of, what is it that you want? What makes you happy? What makes your life mean? What, you know, it’s those deep questions of want.

“Turbo capitalism” – what a concept that is. I think we have seen that operating on Wall Street and in our banks (which was the discussion preceding this one). Here is a good bit of the discussion on Obama. Now, I should say that early on, as I understand it, West was a supporter of Hillary Clinton’s. Clearly, he has moved to back Obama, but critically so, as he points out in this discussion. There is more about Obama, but for space reasons, I am limiting that part of the discussion to this:

BILL MOYERS: You said the age of Obama is about everyday people. And you asked the question: how do we unleash their power? What’s the evidence that that’s happening?

CORNEL WEST: Well, I think it’s a very complicated situation. Because, of course, the age of Obama actually emerges with a discredited Republican party in disarray. With a mediocre Democratic party that only had the Clinton machine at the center. And if this charismatic, brilliant, young, black brother can somehow get over the Clinton machine, he can become president.

That’s why I supported him. Critically! A Socratic, prophetic, orientation toward the brother, right? Because he becomes the initiator of a new age. We had to bring the age of Reagan to a close. The era of conservatism had to be brought to a close. Thank God it was. But then the question will be, well, is he going to focus on the poor and working people? Will he recycle neo-liberal elites from the old establishment of Wall Street – which the economic team is?

BILL MOYERS: We know the answer to that.

CORNEL WEST: We know the answer to that.

BILL MOYERS: Right after the election, you were-

CORNEL WEST: Will he recycle the same neo-imperial elites when it comes to foreign policy. I know he’s dealing with tremendous power. Wall Street. Congress. And so forth, and so on. I understand the political considerations. People have the right to organize. Lobbies have a right to bring power and pressure to bear. That’s what American democracy’s about.

But that’s not truth. That’s not the same as prophetic witness to truth. Especially as Christians, you see. So that the critique launched against Barack Obama, be it Gaza, be it Darfur, be it in Ethiopia, be it wherever. It has to be put forward. That is the calling of prophetic Christians.

GARY DORRIEN: Well, I wouldn’t even give him the out that Cornel just gave him. Because I think, in fact, he could stay in his lane and do way better than he has on the economy, and also on scaling back the military empire.

So, on those two things, to be so solicitous of Wall Street, to have treatment of the banks that’s just absurdly favorable to their interests, and refusing to clear out shareholders, and refusing to get to the bottom of it.

And also in his just utter refusal to really face up to the cost and extent of the military empire that, even though he notes in this book, “The Audacity of Hope,” is outspending the next 25 nations combined in the military. He says in the next paragraph, and he has continued on this line, that we need to expand it further. So we’ve got nothing coming on sort of pulling back on that issue as well. On the other hand, you can’t say that this has been a cautious president overall.

I mean, it’s quite amazing that he is taking on virtually everything one way or another at the same time. So he has – there’s been a fair amount of audacity in deciding that this is his moment. There’s not going to be a better moment to come along anyway.

If he’s going to do something about health care, or a number of issues. Dealing with Iran, maybe make a breakthrough with Cuba. That he’s got to put his cards on the table now and get what he can.

BILL MOYERS: You said, after the election, “We want to give him time. We want to give him room.” And my question to you is: how much room and how much time?

CORNEL WEST: Well, the first thing we want to do, we want to protect him, and he and his precious family. Second thing we want to do, we want to make sure all the criticism is fair, so it’s not ad hominids, it’s not personal. It’s not racist. It’s not whatever, you see.

At the same time, he is subject to all the same requirements of truth and justice as any other president, any color. So my criticism out of love for, not just the people, but Barack Obama himself. How my criticism help him? Give him strength? He plans to be progressive Lincoln. Fine. That’s difficult. He will be helped by more progressive Frederick Douglasses. That’s what I aspire to.

BILL MOYERS: Do you see the-

CORNEL WEST: To help him push him in a progressive direction.

BILL MOYERS: Do you hear those voices coming from his left? We know about them from the right. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh. We all know them.

CORNEL WEST: Well, the voices are there! Paul Krugman, and Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Ben Barber and William Greider and Ron Walters. The voices are there. He’s not yet listening. That’s the difference. Lincoln listened to Douglass, Garrison. Brother Barack Obama, he is listening too much to Summers, Thurman, Geithner. We can go right down the neo liberal list. That’s dangerous if he wants to be a progressive president.

BILL MOYERS: Why do you think that is?

SERENE JONES: I think one of the reasons that it happens is that we are living in a very overwhelming time. And it’s always going to be the case that a conservative familiar neo liberal agenda sounds safer.

Because it’s what we know. But the truth of the matter is what we know is what got us in trouble in the first place. So it’s one of those moments that everybody faces in their own life. We happen to be facing it structurally right now. Is everything collapses, what do we do? In the midst of that fear, do we grasp for what’s most familiar? That’s what’s happening. But the very thing you’re grasping for is the thing that got you there in the first place.

CORNEL WEST: Absolutely.

SERENE JONES: It takes a little opening of spirit and an opening of intellect and courage. It’s courage.

There is so much more to this discussion. But for me, it is heartening to know that these kinds of discussions are taking place at all. I hope that their being Christians didn’t put you off, because what they say really transcends what their particular faith system is (and I say that as someone who is not Christian, myself). I am glad that people like this are keeping a watchful eye on Obama, and I think they make good partners with us as we try to reclaim our country from where Obama and his Wall Street cronies are trying to take us.

I began with the words of President Jones, and now I’d like to conclude with them as well. I think these are good words to live by in general, and especially in these days:

It takes a little opening of spirit and an opening of intellect and courage. It’s courage.

Ten Years After The Massacre.  

Prepping for the show Sunday 19, when I speak with Dave Cullen, author of the mesmerizing and appalling “Columbine,” a comprehensive review of the mass murder of children by two sick people ten years ago, April 20, 1999, I was stumped and then gripped by the brief chapter on “Psychopath.”   I read this paragraph with a  fresh chill.

“Researchers are just beginning to understand psychopaths, but they believe psychopaths crave the emotional responses they lack.  They are nearly always thrill seekers.  They love roller coasters and hang gliding, and they seek out high-anxiety  occupations, like ER tech, bond trader, or Marine.  Crime, danger, impoverishment, death — any sort of risk will help.  The chase new sources of excitement because it is so difficult for them to sustain.”  Did you notice?  ”Bond trader.”

And then I put this up against what I read daily about the grotesque risk the big banks and attendant shadow banks sought out and took during the well-known housing bubble of 2002-2008.  AIG’s counterparty bets with CDS is astonishing until you consider there may have been a psychopathology to the behavior.  The risk was the desire, not the money.  All the major banks took part in similar fashion.  Where was the adult supervision?   Anger management?  Were the traders psychopaths?  No.  But perhaps a few, more than a few, and perhaps that behavior was acceptable to the sane.  Or perhaps the psychopaths were very good at disguising their rage and compulsive, reptile-brain risk-taking.  

Another stunning paragraph from the “Psychopath” chapter:  “Psychopaths are distinguished  by two characteristics.  The first is a ruthless disregard for others: they will defraud, maim, or kill for the most trivial personal gain.  The second is an astonishing gift for disguising the first.  It’s the deception that makes them so dangerous.  You never see him coming.  (It’s usually a him– more than 80 percent are male.)  Don’t look for the oddball creeping you out.  Psychopaths don’t act like Hannibal Lecter or Norman Bates.  They come off like Hugh Grant, in his most adorable role.”  Does this sound too much like Jamie Dimon, Tim Geithner, Vikram Pandit, even Lloyd Blankfein?  Is the big banking culture a nest of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold types?  Impossible!   Are they thrill seekers?    Why are their banks either insolvent or fashioned with an architecture of opacity?  Will JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs pass the stress tests due Monday May 4?   You ask? 

Sometimes I wish I had Larry Doyle’s knowledge and financial background. Sometimes I am glad I don’t, for if I did, I would not have amused myself as much today. I was listening to a talking head on a business network TV show and heard a word that was not in my normal everyday lexicon. Later I rushed to the computer and typed in what I thought I remembered. The word was Oligopoly.

The talking head was, well, talking about giant multi-national businesses stretching out across horizontal markets that they all shared, along with a common interest in collusion. I had just passed by that very same TV only minutes earlier and I was sure they were talking about the bailout plan being like a board game with convoluted, peculiar looser-rewarding rules. I must have gotten a few charged particles crossed in my cognitive recall cells because, by the time I got to the computer, I went to Google and searched for the word..

Totopoly! Faster than you could shake a drunk donkey off of an epileptic elephant’s back I put two and two together and got, of course, twenty-two.

I read the definition and description and it was like an epiphany. I declared out loud: “Now I know. I now know where Timothy Franz Geithner got his game plan. I finally understand it all!”

Totopoly is a commercial board game, based on the events leading up to, and during, a horse race. Originally made in 1938 by Waddingtons, the game is based on a double-sided board, with each side representing a different half of the game.

In the first section, each player has a set of horses, which start and end this phase in one of two stables. The horses are moved around a loop, and, depending on which squares they land on, the player may collect “advantage” and “disadvantage” cards, which become important in the game’s second phase. Some horses may be eliminated during this part of the game. An unusual feature is that each player throws the dice only once in each turn, the same throw being used for all his or her horses.

The game’s second phase is the actual race. Before starting, bets may be placed on any horse the player wishes. During the race, “advantage” cards may be played to improve a horse’s position; also, any “disadvantage” cards held must be used, with the effect of holding a horse back or canceling an “advantage” card, before the end of the race. As well as the settling of bets, prize money is awarded for first, second and third place.

A curious aspect of the game, which some people have regarded as a serious design flaw, is that (in the original version) the winner was the person whose horse came in first, irrespective of how much money they had. This meant that the part money played in this version of the game was fairly minor, and in particular the elaborate rules for betting, together with the prize money, were actually quite irrelevant. More recent editions of the game have an alteration to the rules, allowing the players to make the winner the one who has most money at the end of the race.

Source: Reference.com

OK Tim. I think I got it. Can I play now?

How come Ralph Nader doesn’t spend more time doing what he was actually good at instead of running for President? There was a time when Ole Ralph would have had a stroke if he saw something like this rolling off an assembly line. This baby makes the Pinto look like an armoured tank and the Corvair look front-heavy.

One would almost have to put a call in to the Scooter Store 800 number to match this. Actually, the Scooter Store is a better deal because they have figured out a way to bilk Medicare for their wheels. “It didn’t cost me a thing!”.

Looks for sure like something Congressional Motors would design.

I envision the guy in this photo murmuring, “Dear Jesus. Please don’t let anyone back up.”.

Now I ask you, why bother paying for a “vehicle” such as this when you can just lie in the middle of the street during rush hour and become road pizza for free? Then they could just roll you up and cart you off, and your carbon footprint would be really small, let me tell you.

Who in his right mind without a Death Wish would expose himself to traffic while moving at 35MPH in this thing? My dog is bigger than this “vehicle”. This would also go over really well in a North East winter, don’t you think? I bet they come out with a little plow attachment (optional).

No wonder GM is circling the drain.

General Motors Corp. is teaming with Segway Inc., maker of the upright, self-balancing scooters, to build a new type of two-wheeled vehicle designed to move easily through congested urban streets.

Yes, I would say one could move very easily in this thing. Stuck to the grill of an SUV.

According to GM, though, this thing will be smart enough to move out of the way of 4×4’s. Of course, we won’t know whether or not that idea is defective until the April Consumer Reports Auto Issue comes out in the following year. As I fondly remember my last GM car, the one whose heated windshield shattered like a spider’s web on the first day of winter, the one whose electronic suspension sunk to the ground, and the one whose heated seats began to smoke, it’s pretty safe to say that there will be plenty of road kill before that ’smart feature’ is debugged in the field.

The Project P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) prototype is shown in Brooklyn April 4. GM and Segway say the vehicle could allow people to travel around cities more quickly, safely, quietly and cleanly, and at a lower total cost.

God. They named this POS after PUMAs.

The Segway Personal Transporter was launched with considerable hype eight years ago but practical issues prevented the scooter from becoming a mass-market product, including its relatively high cost and restrictions on its use in many jurisdictions.

I don’t suppose the thought that nobody in his or her right mind would allow a loved one to enter traffic in that thing had anything to do with it, did it?

The struggling auto maker, surviving on a government lifeline, is looking to generate enthusiasm for its increasingly uncertain future ahead of the New York auto show this week.

Generate enthusiasm. Oh yeah. This will do it. I’m rolling my eyes here.

Produce this vehicle, GM, and your future will definitely be certain. Your future non-existence, that is.

GM didn’t say how much the machines would cost,

Whatever the price is, it’s too much.

“Dem newfangled environmentally friendly GM machines must be biodegradable, Claude. I hear they never found his.”

**Thanks for the link, DE. I think.

John Batchelor: From my blog. Don’t miss Larry Johnson on my show Sunday nights. Watch for NoQuarter’s promo on Sundays.

UPDATE: It’s remarkable that the following comes from the very liberal, Soros-funded Think Progress, in its “Under The Radar” section:

ECONOMY — TARP OVERSIGHT PANEL: TREASURY MAY NOT BE ACKNOWLEDGING THE DOWNTURN’S ‘DEPTH’:

According to new forecasts set to be released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), “toxic debts racked up by banks and insurers could spiral to $4 trillion.” With that harrowing number hanging overhead, the Troubled Asset Relief Program’s Congressional Oversight Panel released its six-month report today. The panel, chaired by Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren, questioned Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s assumption that the toxic assets clogging the banks are merely economically depressed, noting that Treasury’s response “fails to acknowledge the depth of the current downturn.”

“If the economic crisis is deeper than anticipated, it is possible that Treasury will need to take very different actions in order to restore financial stability,” wrote the panel. The Warren panel also noted that
Treasury “has not explained its assumption that the proper values for these assets are their book values.” As estimates regarding the number of toxic assets climb higher and higher — with Nouriel Roubini claiming there are $3.6 trillion worth — it is becoming clearer just how much depends on Treasury finding a workable plan for cleaning up the banks. As IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said, “[Y]ou never recover before the cleaning up of the banking sector has been done.” And right now, Geithner’s clean up is premised on an assumption with which more and more people are taking issue.

Que pasa?

Pirate Bankers Rising.

Francesco Guerrera, FT, reported to my financial roundtable on the show, Sunday 5, that the bankers are preparing to game the junk assets on their books.  Here is the part of the scheme that I like best so far:  The banks have discovered that the Tim Geithner plan called PPIP provides that the federal government will contribute 85% of the purchase price of the toxic waste on the books of the now insolvent banks regardless of who bids on the junk.   Let the games begin.

Let us stipulate that the bidders are going to pay top dollar for the junk asset.  If the bank that holds it claims it is worth 80 cents on the dollar (and even if you know it is worth well under 33 cents on the dollar), you still bid 80 cents.  This means that if Citi bids on $10.00 of Chase’s junk — and is willing to pay full value — Citi puts up $1.50 and the feds put up $8.50.  Simple.  Now why would Citi want to pay even $1.50 for junk that is possibly worthless and will certainly be impossible to price candidly?  Two reasons:

 1.  Because Chase is meanwhile buying Goldman’s and Goldman’s is buying Citi’s, in a daisy chain of junk buying and selling, all underwritten by the feds at 85% of the costs; and

2.  Because it gets the junk off each bank’s books and so makes their stocks rally, since the reason they are undesireable to investors is that they cannot now price their junk for sale nor find any buyers at any price.

Once the junk is gone, the lone problem the banks have is the $1.5o they each put at risk.   (Not now exploring the high probability that the banks have formed third party entities with hedge funds to buy a ton of calls on the bank in order to profit when the junkless stock rallies.)  From Businessweek.com:

The problem is probably compounded by the fact that financial types aren’t especially emotional, and can’t be moved by the plea, “You must do this for your country! It’s your patriotic duty!” These people are too reality-based to respond to such emotional hooks.

Do you have ANY ideas for how Geithner can get some people to help him?

And do you really think he should take over any more companies? To begin with, it’s not like he has a background in the automobile industry. Hell, he’s been a financial bureaucrat for his entire professional career.

Then, Rachel’s giddy optimism aside, is there any real hope that Geithner can create new regulations that make sense and will ENCOURAGE businesses to invest, and make business people WANT to create new companies? I doubt it.