The most famous of these delinquent tax payers (otherwise known as “tax cheats”) is now the head of the IRS, Timmy Geithner, who “forgot” to pay a boatload of taxes. I know, I know, the irony is just too rich. But the damn Congress passed him anyway – even knowing he owed $26 thousand dollars in back taxes. Wow. I cannot dwell on this too long, or else my head will explode.

Well, now another member of Obama’s Administration has been identified by Rep. Darrell Issa as not paying his taxes and reporting earned income. Presumably, Patrick Gaspard may have continued to “forget” that he received $37,000 in funds from SEIU last year had Issa not made the discovery. And, yes, that SEIU of the purple shirts union which utilizes scare tactics, intimidates people at their homes, and demands the US Government bend to its will, which Obama seems all too willing to do.

Remember, the now-retired director, Andrew Stern, of the SEIU was a frequent visitor to the White House, and may have even violated lobbying rules. I wouldn’t look for any investigation into that at any time soon, though. Not with this crowd anyway. Bear in mind the Department of Justice dismissed out of hand a clear case of voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers. So, don’t look for them to do anything about Andy hanging out with Barry in the White House.

Anyway, I don’t know how one forgets that kind of money, but that’s just me. Here are the particulars:

The discrepancy was caught by California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In a letter to the White House, he told Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina of the unstated income.

“As I am sure you are aware, there are very specific limitations on the outside earned income of presidential appointees,” Issa wrote.

The administration downplayed Gaspard’s failure to include the income on this and last year’s disclosure forms. White House spokesman Bill Burton told Politico that the political director was in the process of correcting the forms to reflect that he did have an agreement for severance.

“We have made the small administrative change to this year’s and last year’s forms to indicate that part of the final payout to Patrick reflected in their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199,” Burton said.

So for two years he “forgot” that he had to pay taxes on this income? Seriously – have NONE of these people heard of TurboTax? It is not that hard. And he should have gotten a slip of paper indicating that he received these funds that the IRS woulds have gotten, too.

I’m just curious. How is it that these people in government never have the IRS come after them? They don’t sound hard to find, do they? I mean, gee willikers – they are right there in DC. I just don’t get it. And this cavalier attitude just irritates me.

Oh, one last quote from this article, which you can finish reading here:

Gaspard is a key player in the Obama White House, which maintains deep ties to labor unions, especially the service-industries’ union. He worked for nearly a decade for SEIU 1199 before joining Obama’s campaign

.
In other words, he can’t be dismissed as some flunky in the Administration who slipped through the cracks. Huh uh. He is a close aide to the president. And he’s a tax cheat along with Tim Geithner. What stand up people Obama hangs with, am I right?

And isn’t it a comfort that the SEIU has someone right there in the White House who worked for them for 10 years? That’s just perfect.

Hey, here’s a thought. Instead of hiring over ten thousand new IRS agents for $1 billion a year to harass business owners to cough up big bucks for Obamacare, maybe they can just enforce the laws as they stand now to make federal employees, including those in the White House, pay their due. Shoot, they probably wouldn’t even need a thousand new agents to do that, and they would bring in several billion bucks easy. I realize that getting federal employees and White House aides to pay their taxes like the rest of us do is a stretch, but hey – it would sure help offset the costs of programs like Obamacare, wouldn’t it?

Maybe this is just too much of a common sense solution – hire fewer people to enforce current IRS laws for federal employees to reap bigger benefits. But it’s worth a shot, right?

One last thought – maybe instead of these people in government only ponying up their fair share when they get caught (Geithner, Rangel, and this Gaspard guy come to mind), maybe they can just do the right thing and obey the LAW. What a concept.

Any other suggestions for people like Gaspard? I’m sure can think of a few…

**I will be on vacation for a week. My partner and I are taking our godson to Aruba to celebrate his high school graduation. He is joining the Marine Corps upon his return. We have had him for at least a week each year since he was 8, but we may not have too many more opportunities for that now…We are so proud of the young man he has become – very smart, great grades, star athlete in at least two sports, and a lifeguard to boot. He’s a wonderful young man, and will make a fine Marine, no doubt. Anyway, just wanted to let you know I’ll be away for a few days.

Oh, yeah – Freddie Mac is asking for TEN Billion Dollars. I reckon they just want to add it to their tab:

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports:

Government-backed mortgage giant Freddie Mac today asked for $10.6 billion in additional federal aid after reporting a loss of $8 billion in the first three months of this year.

To date Freddie Mac has been provided with around $51 billion in government funds. The new aid would bring the total assistance to the lender to over $61 billion.

Late last year the Treasury Department essentially agreed to provide a blank check to Freddie Mac and fellow government-backed lender Fannie Mae when the agency controversially removed the cap on federal support for the lenders.

A “blank check”? That is what Geithner wants to give Freddie and Fannie? I reckon that’s what happens when you have someone in charge who can’t even fill out his own tax forms properly (or, as I like to say, a Tax cheat). Some folks aren’t happy about it, though:

Republicans have blasted the administration for that move, as well as for not putting forth a plan to overhaul the government-sponsored enterprises. Thus far the administration’s only action has been the April 14 release of a series of questions for public comment on what to do with the mortgage giants.

In addition, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has acknowledged that the government expects to suffer “very substantial losses” on its investments in the lenders, with recent estimates ranging around a minimum of $85 billion.

Well, that’s just jake – “a minimum of $85 billion.” That’s our money, folks.

And let’s not leave Fannie Mae out of this mix. Oh, no – now Fannie is asking for some more cash, too, a cool for $8.4 Billion more?:

Fannie Mae requested another $8.4 billion from the federal government on Monday, saying that it expects its deficits to continue due to trends in the housing and financial markets.

The government-controlled mortgage giant said it lost $13.1 billion applicable to common shareholders in the first quarter of 2010. In the year-earlier quarter, Fannie suffered a $23.2 billion loss, but an accounting change makes comparing the year-over-year losses difficult.

Fannie’s request for more federal funds comes just four days after Fannie’s twin Freddie Mac also asked for a handout – to the tune of $10.6 billion – after posting an $8 billion quarterly loss.

In using Fannie (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie (FRE, Fortune 500) to prop up the mortgage market, the government in December lifted a $200 billion limit on their bailouts, essentially giving the twin housing lenders a blank check. Fannie Mae has already received $76.2 billion from the federal government and Freddie has gotten $50.7 billion.

“In the first quarter, we continued to serve as a leading source of liquidity to the mortgage market, and we made solid progress in our ongoing efforts to keep people in their homes,” Fannie Mae President and CEO Mike Williams, said in a press release.

Just to recap, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were largely responsible for bringing down the housing market (click HERE to read the rest of the article).

Yes, indeedy, so no doubt the new Finance Reform Bill begins with Fannie and Freddie, right? Oh, so wrong. Chris Dodd, who benefited mightily from Fannie Mae and Countrywide says, “Nooooooooo.” Dodd thinks it should wait:

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) said Friday that legislation to address troubled mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will have to come after the current financial-reform effort.

Fannie and Freddie, which are known as “government-sponsored enterprises” (GSEs), have been a lightning rod for criticism of Democrats during the financial reform debate.

Dodd, who is chairman of the Banking Committee and has led the effort to craft a financial regulatory reform bill, said that there was not enough room in the legislation for rules covering Fannie and Freddie.

“Fannie and Freddie and the whole GSE system and it’s a great question and a legitimate one in desperate need of reform,” he said on CNBC. “But candidly there’s only so much I could only take on with this bill, and so that comes up. But not in this round. It’s in the next wave here we have to deal with GSEs.”

Well, sure, that makes sense, right? If you live in Upside-Down World, anyway (click HERE to read the rest). What a glaring, blatant, prop-up for those two entities that have done SO much to destroy the housing market. Unbelievable.

Frankly, I think this is a dereliction of duty on behalf of our Congress people. They refuse to hold accountable the very companies who wreaked havoc with our economy. They are in collusion with them. Even worse, they continue to throw money down the money hole.

I have used this video before, but it seems mighty timely given the requests of Fannie and Freddie (Onion video alert):

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

If only this were a joke…

That would be Mort Zuckerman. If you are not familiar with the name, you surely are with the U.S. News and World Report, of which he is Editor-in-Chief, or the New York Daily News, which he owns (along with other properties). He is a gazillionaire (okay, just a billionaire), and he supported Obama in the 2008 Election. Now, he is just a tad put out as his Op-Ed, “He’s Done Everything Wrong,” indicates (h/t to Andy):

Obama punted on the economy and reversed the fortunes of the Democrats in 365 days.

He’s misjudged the character of the country in his whole approach. There’s the saying, “It’s the economy, stupid.” He didn’t get it. He was determined somehow or other to adopt a whole new agenda. He didn’t address the main issue.

This health-care plan is going to be a fiscal disaster for the country. Most of the country wanted to deal with costs, not expansion of coverage. This is going to raise costs dramatically.

In the campaign, he said he would change politics as usual. He did change them. It’s now worse than it was. I’ve now seen the kind of buying off of politicians that I’ve never seen before. It’s politically corrupt and it’s starting at the top. It’s revolting.

Holy moley! Bear in mind, this man, Mr. Zuckerman, was a SUPPORTER. I sure can’t disagree with his assessment, though. He continues:

Five states got deals on health care—one of them was Harry Reid’s. It is disgusting, just disgusting. I’ve never seen anything like it. The unions just got them to drop the tax on Cadillac plans in the health-care bill. It was pure union politics. They just went along with it. It’s a bizarre form of political corruption. It’s bribery. I suppose they could say, that’s the system. He was supposed to change it or try to change it.

Even that is not the worst part. He could have said, “I know. I promised these things, but let me try to do them one at a time.” You want to deal with health care? Fine. Issue No. 1 with health care was the cost. You know I think it was 37 percent or 33 who were worried about coverage. Fine, I wrote an editorial to this effect. Focus on cost-containment first. But he’s trying to boil the ocean, trying to do too much. This is not leadership.

Obama’s ability to connect with voters is what launched him. But what has surprised me is how he has failed to connect with the voters since he’s been in office. He’s had so much overexposure. You have to be selective. He was doing five Sunday shows. How many press conferences? And now people stop listening to him. The fact is he had 49.5 million listeners to first speech on the economy. On Medicare, he had 24 million. He’s lost his audience. He has not rallied public opinion. He has plunged in the polls more than any other political figure since we’ve been using polls. He’s done everything wrong. Well, not everything, but the major things.

I don’t consider it a triumph. I consider it a disaster.

You and me both, Mr. Zuckerman. But if I may be so bold, perhaps lofty words are not a prerequisite for the highest office in the land. Just saying. Perhaps you should have looked a little deeper into how much Obama enjoyed the adoring masses, buying the PR spin that he was The One. The problem is, he started to believe it. He believed/believes it really is all about him. But, as a truly great president said, “I feel your pain.”

And speaking of Clinton:

One business leader said to me, “In the Clinton administration, the policy people were at the center, and the political people were on the sideline. In the Obama administration, the political people are at the center, and the policy people are on the sidelines.”

Again, YES. I hate to keep harping on this, but why were you not capable of seeing this BEFORE?? When Obama regurgitated Deval Patrick’s speeches, that should have been a clue that it was absolutely NOT about policy, but all about politics. When he continually took Hillary Clinton’s policy positions for his own, instead of crafting them himself, that should have been a bit of a clue. But no. Zuckerman, and to many like him, failed to see what was right before their eyes. They believed the hype, too:

I’m very disappointed. We endorsed him. I voted for him. I supported him publicly and privately.

I hope there are changes. I think he’s already laid in huge problems for the country. The fiscal program was a disaster. You have to get the money as quickly as possible into the economy. They didn’t do that. By end of the first year, only one-third of the money was spent. Why is that?

He should have jammed a stimulus plan into Congress and said, “This is it. No changes. Don’t give me that bullshit. We have a national emergency.” Instead they turned it over to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who can run circles around him.

It’s very sad. It’s really sad.

He’s improved America’s image in the world. He absolutely did. But you have to translate that into something. Let me tell you what a major leader said to me recently. “We are convinced,” he said, “that he is not strong enough to confront his enemy. We are concerned,” he said “that he is not strong to support his friends.”

The political leadership of the world is very, very dismayed. He better turn it around. The Democrats are going to get killed in this election. Jesus, looks what’s happening in Massachusetts.

Well, for a moment, perhaps, but even in other countries, people are waking up (check out The Telegraph, or Der Spiegel sometime). But here’s the thing: by caring more about appearances than policy, being liked more than fixing problems, Obama, and all who voted for him, have done this country a tremendous disservice. We told you it wasn’t American Idol for which he was running, but the presidency.

There is still some delusion, though:

It’s really interesting because he had brilliant, brilliant political instincts during the campaign. I don’t know what has happened to them. His appointments present somebody who has a lot to learn about how government works. He better get some very talented businesspeople who know how to implement things. It’s unbelievable. Everybody says so. You can’t believe how dismayed people are. That’s why he’s plunging in the polls.

I can’t predict things two years from now, but if he continues on the downward spiral he is on, he won’t be reelected. In the meantime, the Democrats have recreated the Republican Party. And when I say Democrats, I mean the Obama administration. In the generic vote, the Democrats were ahead something like 52 to 30. They are now behind the Republicans 48 to 44 in the last poll. Nobody has ever seen anything that dramatic.

Did you mention by how much Obama has run up the National Debt? You know, the one he has increased by $1.7 TRILLION since he took office? And he’s looking to increase it by even more. Oh, yippee.

If I may return to another part of Mr. Zuckerman’s editorial, no offense, sir, but OBAMA didn’t have “brilliant, brilliant political instincts during the campaign,” his HANDLERS, Axelrod and Plouffe. did. Had you taken just a few minutes and used the considerable resources at your disposal, you could have looked into his REAL record in IL. You would have seen the shenanigans he employed to even get elected. Now, maybe YOU think that is “brilliant,” but I see it as being an indicator of the man’s moral fiber, and his “win at all costs,” mentality, no matter who he steps on, or what kind of damage he does. Perhaps what Zuckerman is seeing now, is the failure of Axelrod and Plouffe to pull the man off the Campaign Trail and him getting to work. Obama still hasn’t stopped, as he heads off to Ohio on Friday.

Still, at least he is finally getting is. In this interview with Neil Cavuto (h/t to Logistics Monster), he can barely contain himself:

Mr. Zuckerman made some mighty interesting assertions in there, didn’t he, especially in terms of housing? Welcome to the reality based community, sir.

Indeed, slowly but surely, the Kool Aide is wearing off, but not until Obama has done untold damage to out country – IN ONE YEAR. Will he be able to turn it around? I don’t know, but that would presuppose he was capable of introspection, and a willingness to actually listen to the people, as opposed to talk, talk, talking to us (though apparently, he hasn’t talked at us enough – we just don’t get it, you know – because apparently, we are all a bunch of mo-rons not to buy his healthcare bill). Just a thought.

In the meantime, maybe we have all learned a lesson after this presidential election, and after the Massachusetts election. People can be hoodwinked, but not forever. When they wake up, they are none too happy at the lies they were told. That’s why we have elections, and this year is shaping up to be mighty interesting indeed…

Geithner and his cronies in Washington have misrepresented–if not outright lied–about the payments to both domestic and foreign banks in settling exposures to then failing AIG. While politicians and pundits alike will reference the precarious nature of the time and heat of the moment to defend Geithner and his cronies, the simple fact is the settlement of the AIG swaps at 100 cents on the dollar was nothing short of one of the greatest heists in our country’s history.

This heist transferred multiple billions of dollars from the American taxpayer to the likes of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Societe Generale, and many more domestic and foreign banks as well.

At that very point, Wall Street knew it had Tim Geithner over a barrel and has owned him ever since. As much as Geithner may try to play the populist card, the power brokers on Wall Street know all too well that at the point of the gun, Geithner blinked.

Who deserves credit for exposing this corner of the Wall Street-Washington incest? Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). As Bloomberg highlights this morning, Geithner’s New York Fed told AIG to Limit Swaps Disclosure:

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show.

AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008. The e-mails were obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Why couldn’t Geithner demand that Goldman take 60 cents on the dollar? Geithner admittedly knew the system needed funds and expediently transferred these funds at 100 cents on the dollar. That said, the precedent Geithner set proves that Wall Street has always and still now owns Washington. Lloyd Blankfein, who was in the room with Geithner and Paulson at the time, is a much better poker player and trader than Tim Geithner. Blankfein trumped Geithner at that point and at each and every hand since then.

America deserves so much better.

LD

During the presidential campaign, Peggy Noonan rhapsodized about an Obama presidency, trashing Hillary Clinton to the bargain. Recent months have seen Ms. Noonan pen several articles deconstructing her prior romantic notions, reaching the same conclusions as the very people she derided for not jumping on Obama’s bandwagon. In her WSJ piece, He Can’t Take Another Bow, Noonan complains that the Obama White House is “coming to seem amateurish”:

This week, two points in an emerging pointillist picture of a White House leaking support—not the support of voters, though polls there show steady decline, but in two core constituencies, Washington’s Democratic-journalistic establishment, and what might still be called the foreign-policy establishment.

From journalist Elizabeth Drew, a veteran and often sympathetic chronicler of Democratic figures, a fiery denunciation of—and warning for—the White House. In a piece in Politico on the firing of White House counsel Greg Craig, Ms. Drew reports that while the president was in Asia last week, “a critical mass of influential people who once held big hopes for his presidency began to wonder whether they had misjudged the man.” They once held “an unromantically high opinion of Obama,” and were key to his rise, but now they are concluding that the president isn’t “the person of integrity and even classiness they had thought.”

Misjudged? What other politician have you ever heard of who got a lot of important people to stake their reputations on his “integrity” without having offered any more than “words, just words” attesting to the same?

Noonan and Drew should not be surprised that another big Obama supporter now sits under his bus. Greg Craig was a highly respected operative and his early endorsement of Obama and simultaneous belittling of Hillary’s foreign policy street cred carried a lot of weight with beltway insiders. What a difference a year makes…

[Ms. Drew] scored “the Chicago crowd,” which she characterized as “a distressingly insular and small-minded West Wing team.” The White House, Ms. Drew says, needs adult supervision—”an older, wiser head, someone with a bit more detachment.”

And speaking of an older and wiser choice, this is the most telling part of Ms. Noonan’s article:

As I read Ms. Drew’s piece, I was reminded of something I began noticing a few months ago in bipartisan crowds. I would ask Democrats how they thought the president was doing. In the past they would extol, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, his virtues. Increasingly, they would preface their answer with, “Well, I was for Hillary.”

Thanks, Peggy, so was I. Noonan then worries that “No one loves Barack Obama; they’re not dazzled and head over heels. That’s gone away.” Is she kidding? The sycophantic press and his virulent supporters have not shown enough love? If she is wondering why the love has gone, I would like to point out one can only be dazzled by a movie trailer once. Having then paid for your ticket and bought your popcorn, you expect the film itself will deliver the goods. If the two minute trailer is as good as it gets, patrons will turn off very quickly.

“He himself seems a fairly chilly customer; perhaps in turn he inspires chilly support.”

Now Noonan’s figuring out he’s a chilly customer? There’s no there there. There never was. Please tell me which constituency or issue he has ever gone to the mat for? Noonan continues…

…In the Daily Beast. Mr. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and fully plugged into the Democratic foreign-policy establishment, wrote this week that the president’s Asia trip suggested “a disturbing amateurishness in managing America’s power.” The president’s Afghanistan review has been “inexcusably clumsy.”

He added that rather than bowing to emperors—Mr. Obama “seems to do this stuff spontaneously and inexplicably”—he should begin to bow to “the voices of experience” in Washington.

When longtime political observers start calling for wise men, a president is in trouble.

It appears Obama’s cheerleaders, The New York Times and Newsweek, concur with this thinking. During the primary, wine rack liberals I knew who supported Obama said “Congress does everything anyway. He’ll surround himself with really great people.” I wonder what they’re saying now about the “good judgment” they touted. One could say he exercised good judgment in appointing Hillary as SoS, yet he has been accused of hamstringing her at every turn. Many suspect the appointment was to ensure she was no longer a threat to him politically.

Aside from Noonan’s condemnation of the current health care bill “as a poor piece of legislation that Obama ought to scrap so that he may live to fight another day,” most shocking is her acknowledgment of what Democratic holdouts feared from the beginning:

There is the growing perception of incompetence, of the inability to run the machine of government. This, with Americans, is worse than Obama’s rebranding as a leader who governs from the left. Americans demands baseline competence. If he comes to be seen as Jimmy Carter was, that the job was bigger than the man, that will be the end.

She then brings us back to the issue of Obama once again bowing to a foreign head of state.

In a presidency, a picture or photograph becomes iconic only when it seems to express something people already think. When Gerald Ford was spoofed for being physically clumsy, it took off. The picture of Ford losing his footing and tumbling as he came down the steps of Air Force One became a symbol. There was a reason, and it wasn’t that he was physically clumsy. He was not only coordinated but graceful. He’d been a football star at the University of Michigan and was offered contracts by the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers.

But the picture took off because it expressed the growing public view that Ford’s policies were bumbling and stumbling. The picture was iconic of a growing political perception.

Noonan is right about perception. Last week, I spoke with a young urban professional male, who I would have thought was Obama’s demographic. There were some things he did not know about Obama’s policies but he did know about the “bows” and he didn’t like them. Ms. Noonan concludes:

It is true that Mr. Obama often seems not to have a firm grasp of—or respect for—protocol, of what has been done before and why, and of what divergence from the traditional might imply. And it is true that his political timing was unfortunate. When a great nation is feeling confident and strong, a surprising presidential bow might seem gracious. When it is feeling anxious, a bow will seem obsequious.

The Obama bowing pictures…express a growing political perception … that there is something amateurish about this presidency, something too ad hoc and highly personalized about it, something . . . incompetent, at least in its first year.

You can get tagged, typed and pegged your first year.

Punditry is allergic to a long view and demands to stay vital by offering grand pronouncements daily so Noonan passing judgment on a snapshot in time is hardly evidence of anything. Yet we have seen one after another of these types of indicators, well stated in Steven Stark’s brutal RCP article last week, Has Obama Peaked? Yes, He Has. Stark states that the high point for Obama was the night of his election, but:

“[Y]ou can only be elected the first African-American once.”

Now that we, as a nation, have awakened from our post-election, post-racial dream state, we’ve begun to notice that our president may not be much interested in being a chief “executive,” given that he’s never run anything before or expressed the slightest inclination to do so. He has big ideas, to be sure, but that’s only a small part of the job. The hard, nitty-gritty labor of figuring out how government can actually work better – the operative word is “governing” – seems to hold no appeal for him.

Put another way, where are our flu shots? It’s worth recalling that, in what seems a lifetime ago, it was Clinton – not Obama – who promised to be ready on Day One.

More in the pundit class are wistfully mentioning Hillary, the work horse, not the show horse. It’s a shame they spent so much time kicking her around instead of lauding her when it would have mattered. I wonder if the glowing write up of “her brilliant career” in December’s Vogue Magazine sent the WH frat boys Gibbs-y and Favreau spinning? I’m sure they are looking for new ways to trash her and her ever increasing popularity.

Mr. Stark seems to think Obama needs to “come down from the mountaintop” and stop talking at us, i.e., campaigning, and start listening to the American people, yet he wonders if the President is capable of such a transformation. He rightly points out we are waiting for Obama “to lead us in real time.” When Governor Rendell of PA endorsed Hillary, he stated that the real work of governing is much more suited to Hillary’s knowledge, work ethic and indefatigable nature. Obama’s endless need for campaigning and photo-ops are not what is required now. Understanding proper protocol wouldn’t hurt either.

Stark points out that President Obama’s outsourcing of important legislation to Congress without offering adequate leadership, putting the foxes in charge of the henhouse by appointing Tim Geithner Treasury Secretary, and basically continuing the policies of President Bush, along with his many other rookie mistakes are making many raise the “c” word in Washington.

Competence. What a concept.

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?