One plus one equals five

 

Is anyone listening?

 

OHIO GOV DEWINE: Senator Portman has a good proposal. And that proposal is to get two very distinguished people in this country, Democrat and Republican, have a commission, and to take a hard look at voter security. [...] We have a lot of people in this country who -- who are very concerned about it.

JAKE TAPPER: Because they have been lied to, Governor.

DEWINE: And with the change in ...

TAPPER: Governor, because they have been lied to by President Trump for -- for weeks. ... But this isn't about actual allegations of legitimate fraud. This is about fomenting lies in order to undermine the democracy. It's very different.

DEWINE: Jake, you -- you can make that point, but I will go back to my point. I think it's valid as well. And what's valid about it is that we have a lot of people in this country who are questioning this election. That's a problem for us.

TAPPER: But why? Why? Why do you think they are?

DEWINE: Why? Look, you can go through why. The question for us is, what do we do about it?

ME: Once again, a very concerned "reasonable" republican is trying to solve the wrong problem. The only way Trump is going to accept any commission's finding is if it finds that he won. It doesn't matter how respectable they are. Because he doesn't respect anyone. You think he's just going to shrug and say "I guess I lost after all?" How did that work out for Bill Barr?

The only thing that can be done is to tell the truth. Every Republican Senator. Every Republican congressperson. Everyone anywhere near a microphone who knows the truth - and make no mistake, they know - needs to step up to it just like Gabriel Sterling did in Georgia the other day and SAY it. Clearly and unambiguously.

And then people must be held accountable. REALLY accountable. People need to be fired. Lawyers need to be disbarred. Criminals need to be prosecuted. Not by the incoming president, it's bad precedent to have politicians jailing their rivals; rather, by the states, and by the current justice department. And Trump needs to be impeached again now, and quickly, with solid majorities from both parties.

THAT'S what you do about it.

Via this link.

Stupidity and insanity and banksters run amok

Wisconsin Senate hopeful Ron Johnson in all his glory.

Rand Paul.

Teapartiers love Ayn Rand but have no idea who she really was. Sickeningly,

...she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation.

Being rewarded for torture:

A psychologist whose research was used in constructing the US's program to torture terrorism suspects has been granted a $31-million no-bid Army contract to provide "resilience training" to US soldiers.

The Pentagon needs more money:

The latest talking point du jour has been around in one form or another for years. It asks us to forget that A) America spends more on defense than every other major nation combined and B) the Pentagon, whose annual budget is now approaching World War II levels in inflation-adjusted terms, has lost track of trillions of taxpayer dollars. In light of those troubling truths, we are nonetheless urged by Beltway Republicans to focus on the fact that defense spending is "4.9 percent of our gross domestic product, significantly below the average of 6.5 percent since World War II," as a recent Wall Street Journal editorial proclaimed.

That widely circulated article, aimed squarely at grassroots conservatives, was jointly written by three of the most influential Republican think tanks in Washington -- the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Foreign Policy Initiative. And like clockwork, the "percentage of GDP" nugget went from their pen to the GOP's well-oiled media machine.

For those who just don't have enough:

A gold and jewel bedazzled version of Monopoly worth $2 million is heading to Wall Street this Friday. That's not a metaphor.

Crafted by master jeweler Sidney Mobell and 22 years in the making, the set features dice with 42-cut diamonds and a photo-etched 18k gold board.

Krugman on the lack of property mortgage documents:

True to form, the Obama administration’s response has been to oppose any action that might upset the banks, like a temporary moratorium on foreclosures while some of the issues are resolved. Instead, it is asking the banks, very nicely, to behave better and clean up their act. I mean, that’s worked so well in the past, right?

The response from the right is, however, even worse. Republicans in Congress are lying low, but conservative commentators like those at The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page have come out dismissing the lack of proper documents as a triviality. In effect, they’re saying that if a bank says it owns your house, we should just take its word. To me, this evokes the days when noblemen felt free to take whatever they wanted, knowing that peasants had no standing in the courts. But then, I suspect that some people regard those as the good old days.

What should be happening? The excesses of the bubble years have created a legal morass, in which property rights are ill defined because nobody has proper documentation. And where no clear property rights exist, it’s the government’s job to create them.

That won’t be easy, but there are good ideas out there. For example, the Center for American Progress has proposed giving mortgage counselors and other public entities the power to modify troubled loans directly, with their judgment standing unless appealed by the mortgage servicer. This would do a lot to clarify matters and help extract us from the morass.

One thing is for sure: What we’re doing now isn’t working. And pretending that things are O.K. won’t convince anyone.

In fact... give us our money back

After all, it's our (the taxpaying public's) money; we have a right to know where that money goes, what debts are being paid and however else those billions are being used. It's time, fumes Cramer, for AIG to open its "big book of business" and "show us the money!"

Cramer then aims his personal Outrage at the market "wizards" and know-it-alls -- you know, the ones you see crowing about how they saw this financial crisis coming and got out and, oh yeah, made a ton of money and are doing absolutely great, thank you very much.

To those smirking faces, this is what Cramer has to say: "Shut the heck up."

After all, "people are losing fortunes, their savings, their nest eggs, college tuition money, hard earned and hard to earn dollars in this stock market." Do these people -- or ANY honest, hard-working people -- need to hear that kind of smug, self-congratulatory crap? What happened to common decency and courtesy -- if not actual empathy?

As the market tanks:

Dow Could Hit 6,500

Expect a further 10%-15% drop in the Dow, predicts Ron Ianieri, chief markets strategist at Options University, adding that the index could slide to 6,500.

And there it goes...

Dow Jones Industrial Average

So. You CEOs who fly private jets to come and ask for more money... you morons who go to private spas and partridge shoots while on the taxpayer's dime... The party is over. And you guys are now accountable to us.

Where did the money go?

Because we want it back.

Update: Josh Marshall of TPM is making a list:

We're focusing today on Mack "MackDaddy" Whittle, longtime CEO of South Financial Group, who pushed up his retirement last month so he could cash out with a $18 million Golden Parachute just before sending his bank hat in hand to the Feds to get $347 million in choice Grade A Prime bailout money.

[snip]

But we also know Whittle isn't the only one who's pulled something like this. And we want to put together a list of everyone who has. It doesn't have to be precisely like this. Gazillion dollar corporate retreats while you've turned your company over to the Treasury Department's corporate ICU will do fine as well.

So let us know all the examples you can think of.

Late Update: Surprise, surprise -- turns out Whittle was a part of McCain's South Carolina finance team. And now a shareholder is suing him to cough up some of the loot.

Palin: 'A fraud of truly comical dimensions'

Tell us what you really think of her, Josh!

(click for source of this fantastic photoshop!)

We've now had a week of blaring headlines and one-liners about Sarah Palin as the mavericky, pork-busting reformer from Alaska. But we seem to be witnessing the first stirrings of a backlash and a dawning realization that the 'Sarah Palin' we've heard so much about over the last few days is a fraud of truly comical dimensions.

The McCain camp has made her signature issue shutting down the Bridge to Nowhere. But as The New Republic put it today that's just "a naked lie." And pretty much the same thing has been written today in Newsweek, the Washington Post, the AP, the Wall Street Journal. Yesterday even Fox's Chris Wallace called out Rick Davis on it. (Do send more examples when you find them.)

On earmarks she's an even bigger crock. On the trail with McCain they're telling everyone that she's some kind of earmark slayer when actually, when she was mayor and governor, in both offices, she requested and got more earmarks than virtually any city or state in the country.

I WANT MY MONEY BACK!

Think Progress:

Government watchdog CREW today released a report, Homeland Security for Sale — DHS: Five Years of Mismanagement, “detailing massive failures and billions wasted at the Department of Homeland Security.” Some highlights:

– $24 billion has been spent, and at least $178 million wasted, on the failed Coast Guard Deepwater program;

– over $600 million has been allocated for unworkable radiation border scanners;

– $1.3 billion has been lost on the USVISIT program, which was never fully implemented; and

– projected $2 billion loss on the SBInet “virtual fence” border program.

They didn't do the work? Give us back our money. It's that simple. GIVE US BACK OUR MONEY, YOU THIEVES!

The glorious neocon experiment that is Iraq

Is using slave labor to build the embassy. I can see Cheney's fingerprints all over this.

Via Chet at Vanity Press:

The Oversight Committee holds a hearing, "Allegations of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse at the New U.S. Embassy in Iraq." The hearing examines the performance of the State Department and its contractors in the construction of the new $600 million U.S. embassy in Baghdad. The Committee reviews questions regarding the embassy compound construction as well as allegations of labor abuse through improper contracting practices. Rory Mayberry, a former subcontractor employee for First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting Company, gives opening testimony.

Sicko review

Steve Bates of The Yellow Doggerel Democrat tells it like it is.

Waste, fraud, and abuse

The Bush administration's three tenets for governing:

Want to place your bets

On how long before Tenet Healthcare has another bout of lawsuits? (Via cookie jill at skippy the bush kangaroo):

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, brother of U.S. President George W. Bush, will join the board of Tenet Healthcare Corp. (THC.N: Quote, Profile , Research), the biggest publicly traded hospital company said on Thursday.

The move to appoint Bush, 54, comes as Dallas-based Tenet continues its struggle to recover from a slew of scandals and lawsuits. Last year, it settled with the U.S. Department of Justice for $900 million over allegations that it had bilked the Medicare insurance program for the elderly. Earlier this month it settled a securities probe over fraud charges.

Government lawsuits and several legal actions related to quality of care caused doctors to flee the company's hospitals, which has led to sinking patient admissions.

Gee....scandals, lawsuits, bilking....Jeb should feel right at home.

Update: Sinfonian has an overview of Jeb's lifestyle after he left the governorship.

Pigs at the trough

A Republican president means loads of money for everyone! Every defense contractor that is:

NORFOLK - A Chesapeake defense contractor admitted in federal court Monday that his company bilked the Navy out of more than $600,000 by filing phony invoices.

Kennis Sigmon, president of The Sigmon Group, pleaded guilty on behalf of the company to two felony counts of filing false claims.

The company admitted submitting 33 phony invoices from 2001 to 2003 for contract work on Navy aircraft carriers the Carl Vinson and the Dwight D. Eisenhower.

I don't think the defense 'But everyone is doing it' will work anymore....

And do you think we will ever EVER see the money that is owed to us? From Enron? Halliburton? Do ya think?

One person = one vote. One machine = -18,000 votes.

Which lever, button, switch do I push to vote for a paper trail or the old fashioned vote counting by humans?