Posts Tagged Obama
Cindy Sheehan is “Dishonorably Discharged”
Posted by Lance Haley in 9/11, Government, National Security, War in Afghanistan, War on Terror, White House, al Qaida, foreign policy on March 22nd, 2010
Sheehan is the poster-girl for the U.S. anti-war movement that sprouted after the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. Her son Casey was killed-in-action in Iraq in 2004, and within a year she became the leading figure in the Iraq War protests when she appeared on national television in the summer of 2005 near Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas when he was there on summer vacation.
While leading a protest in Washington, D.C. last weekend, Sheehan pointed a bullhorn at the Whitehouse and yelled, “Arrest that war criminal“, obviously calling for President Obama’s prosecution for war crimes because he has not yet ordered the removal of U.S. troops from Iraq. At that moment, Sheehan lost any credibility she may have garnered these past six years.
I opposed the war in Iraq from the day the Bush Administration launched it’s public relations offensive in support of that strategic disaster. Afghanistan was and always will be the right war. That is where the principle threat from terrorism exists, and no amount of debate will ever change that one simple fact.
Nor will the argument that Saddam Hussein was ever any strategic or regional threat to our national security. There were never any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There was never any significant military capability in Iraq. Even our intelligence agencies knew that. After Desert Storm I in 1990, Saddam was reduced to the status of just another tin-horn dictator. Kim Jung Il of North Korea has always been a far greater threat to our nation with his long-range missiles and nuclear weapons. So why didn’t we attack him first?
Because Saddam did possess the one ”threat” to our national security that was of any real value - a big damn oil spigot. Dick Cheney wanted his hand on that faucet, so he set out to convince everyone around him that Hussein was the most dangerous man in the world – when the real danger to global security was right there in Cheney’s mirror. I believe Cheney and his minions are war criminals. There is no hiding my disdain for this man, and I believe he is one of the most evil persons of the 21st Century – Osama bin Laden, notwithstanding.
However, no amount of projection of Sheehan’s anger towards President Obama, simply because she disagrees with his decision to alter the time-table for withdrawal of troops from Iraq, will somehow magically transform him into a war criminal anymore than painting a thin mustache on his likeness will make him Hitler – as his Teabagger foes are prone to doing.
President Obama – like myself – believes we need to leave Iraq. President Obama – like myself – never supported the War in Iraq. President Obama – like myself – understands that undoing the failed war strategies of the previous Administration cannot be accomplished overnight.
Cindy Sheehan – when you metaphorically painted that little black mustache on President Obama’s upper lip last Saturday, you shot yourself in the foot. You are a disgrace to America.
Surrender your bullhorn, and go home.
Obama Does Not Begrudge Wall Street Terrorists’ Robbing the National Treasury to make a Profit?
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Capitalism, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on February 10th, 2010
President Obama – you cannot be serious?!?
These Titans of Socialist Capitalism take the money we bailed them out with – including “rigging” the system with the help of Paulson and Geithner so that AIG’s TARP money was re-directed to them – go on to make an enormous profit by trading with that money (which was not the purpose of the bailouts), and you call them savvy businessmen?
Now almost a year ago to the day, you gave the following remarks at the White House:
“This is America. We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we believe that success should be rewarded. But what gets people upset – and rightfully so – are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.”
So are they failures? Or savvy businessmen? Or both?
This author recently pondered your failure to immediately regulate and reign-in Wall Street after your election when they were still on the ropes. Here is the bottom line: They screwed up, then they screwed us, and then you screwed up?
Do you see the problem here, Mr. President. The cognitive dissonance regarding your words and deeds towards Wall Street is deeply disturbing to those who supported you in 2008, especially when you had the perfect combination of opportunity, power, and the political capital to reign in these financial terrorists right after you took an oath to protect the American people. You did nothing, and now it is too late. Was it intentional? Or are you being obtuse?
When political rhetoric collides with inaction, people become dismayed. Maybe the young voters who are stepping to the sidelines are correct?
Disillusionment is too mild a word for such a betrayal if it was just the “same old wine in a brand new bottle“, President Obama.
“Meet the new Boss . . . Same as the Old Boss . . .We Won’t Get Fooled Again!”
Shame on us for ever having the audacity to hope? I hope not.
OK, President Obama, “Where’s The Beef”?
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Capitalism, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Wall Street, economy on February 6th, 2010
You are making all of this noise about refocusing TARP (bailout) funds towards small business.
President Obama, this blog noted that you said the same thing 100 days ago . . . read it right here.
So Where’s The Beef?
Americans Better Hope Obama Does Not Fail On Repairing the Economy
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Budget Deficit, Business and Money, Capitalism, Congress, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Lobbyists & Lobbying, Politics, Sarah Palin, Senate, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on January 24th, 2010
Most Americans have a hard time with economic complexity, and reading charts . . . BORING!
Please stay with me on this one . It is far too important to ignore, because the graph posted above does not paint a pretty picture for the future of this country. If you do not care to understand the fundamentals, skip to the explanation and assessment at the bottom under “gobbly-gook“.
This graph was apparently created by Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch Global Equity Strategies research group for Bloomberg financial news (Bloomberg.com), and posted at one of my favorite investment and economic blogs – Seeking Alpha. For those of you who do not engage in economic analysis – I minored in Economics in undergraduate studies - this chart represents the comparative relationship since 1996 between the U.S. stock market (utilizing the S & P 500 as an indicator) and job growth/decline in the American labor market utilizing the U.S. Conference Board’s “job plentiful index”. The key factor here is the radical divergence between the stock market and jobs over the past seven years.
From 1996-2000, job growth grew lock-and-step with the stock market, and the job index was actually much higher than the relative market index – meaning that as businesses made money (profits), jobs were created – this concept of “wage labour“ correlating with profits is the single most fundamental component of Adam Smith’s original theory of Capitalism as outlined in his treatise The Wealth of Nations. Capitalism in its most simple of terms states that as companies compete for and secure profits, workers will benefit through both increased job opportunities and rising wages, all which serves the best interests of society.
If you follow the graph out from 2000-2003, both indexes dropped in remarkable comparison as a result of a relatively severe recession. However, after 2003, the stock market goes up, but job growth lags far behind, and this growing divergence is only temporarily halted by the financial meltdown in late 2008 – when the two lines meet again in early 2009. Now the divergence between the two is growing ever wider at an alarming rate.
So what does this gobbly-gook mean?
Simply put, the stock market believes publically-traded companies in the United States - which are overly-represented by very large corporations - will produce a growth in profits without creating more jobs.
What this really means is that no matter who is President – Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Mitt Rommney, John McCain, [you fill in the blank] – the future for the future of U.S. workforce looks bleak. Moreover, if you think putting the Republicans back in office will change that – with their proposed policies of cutting taxes, gutting business regulation, and further fostering the concentration of power in large corporations – you are only fooling yourself.
Obama said this past week that he is going to make the economy, specifically job creation, his number one priority. I had absolutely no illusions that Obama was going to be able to turn this mess around quickly – he was handed the second worst economic situation in U.S. history, coupled with two very expensive wars. Nonetheless, I am sorely disappointed in his failure to immediately regulate the financial system, and focus the bailouts on bolstering small and medium-size business to quickly boost employment. You can defend Big Business all you want, but it is statistically indisputable that small and medium size businesses provide over 50% of the jobs in this country, and produce 64% of the new jobs every year.
Adam Smith, the Father of Capitalism, would be astounded at the bailouts for Wall Street, and the subsequent consolidation (concentration of power) of these financial behemoths. Moreover, he would bemoan the fact that such an extraordinary amount of financial capital was squandered on such an inherently risk-weighted aspect of business (trading derivatives and securities), which only produces profits while creating virtually a statistically insignificant number of new jobs in comparison (which ironically, Wall Street was shedding jobs at a record pace while making record profits and bonuses on trading in 2009 – so as for creating new jobs, “that dog just won’t hunt”).
Better pray it’s not too late to redress these problems. Hoping Obama fails on this front, is proverbially speaking, biting you nose off in spite of your face.
P.S. The bailouts were a monumental failure - and the primary blame must be placed at the feet of former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and present Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (former New York Federal Reserve Chairman) for reasons I address in a future posting. Paulson, Geithner and Blankfein could all be charged for conspiracy to commit financial fraud if Federal Prosecutors would just grow some testicles.
Harry Reid is an Insensitive non-Racist – Trent Lott is a Devout Racist
Posted by Lance Haley in Campaigns, Conservatives, Cultural Issues, Fox News, Government, Media & Communication, Politics, Race, Senate on January 12th, 2010
There is something either very duplicitous or patently stupid in some of the Conservatives’ responses to the brouhaha over Senator Harry Reid’s comments several years ago about then Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s skin color and articulate speech-patterns.
Of course, Fox News commentators led the charge with their claims of a “double-standard”by Democrats in rushing to Harry Reid’s support, trying to contrast it with a dissimilar circumstance in 2002 when Senator Reid and other Democrats called for the resignation of Senator Trent Lott for his comments supporting Senator Strom Thurmond’s 1948 run for the Presidency on a Segregationist platform. However, other Conservative commentators understood the obvious nuances in each man’s remarks, as well as the context in which each of them were speaking.
Harry Reid was simply stating something that even the most politically correct among us was thinking – Senator Obama epitomized the ideal of a “perfect black Presidential candidate”: light-skinned, and extremely articulate (as well as handsome and intelligent).
Trent Lott was simply stating something that all racists believe: this country was better off when it was segregated.
If the people over at Fox News cannot even discern something as obvious this, their intelligence has to be seriously questioned.
So which is it, Murdoch’s minions? Duplicitious or Stupid?!?
Obama Meeting With Fat Cat Bankers Elicits Call for Guaranteed Loans?
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Capitalism, Credit Card Industry, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Lobbyists & Lobbying, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, financial industry on December 16th, 2009
So President Obama chides the bankers on CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday night, referring to them as “fat cats”. On Monday morning he meets with them – at least the ones who showed up – to tell them they need to step-up their lending. What was their response?
Some of those in attendance said the government should “cut the red tape” in lending requirements for Small Business Administration (SBA) loans.
WTF?
We just gave these guys trillions of dollars interest-free in March of this year to lend back to Americans in order to prop up the economy. Then they hoard the money, investing it in everything from bonds (very conservative returns), to credit card holders (then turned around and raised interest rates to all-time highs), to high-risk derivatives – you know, those insane and arcane financial instruments that broke the casino the last go around. Thereafter, they paid themselves handsome bonuses for their genius (listen, give me a boatload of $$$ interest free and I can make a profit on it investing in high-grade bonds – the “spread” of 2% interest is a no-brainer; let’s see, 2% of $35 Billion – wow, nice freakin’ bonus, Lance; you are such a genius).
Now when pressed to lend the money, they have the audacity to suggest that the government-backed SBA loans are the way to go about fixing this mess. Let’s see. I will loan the money you just gave me interest free to small businesses. You guarantee 80% of the loan. I get the borrower to pledge his business as an asset to back up the remaining 20%, of course, making sure that the appraised fire-sale value of the “hard assets” – real estate, equipment, etc, far exceeds the other 20% of the total loan. Even if the deal goes South, the government pays me 80% of the money back (which they gave to me interest free, anyway), and I sell the business for 20 cents on the dollar and recover the other 20%.
What a deal! I take NO risk, and get all of the rewards. Isn’t Capitalism great?
Mr. President. Wake up!!! These guys are sandbagging us. Good will has left the building. The last remnants of Capitalism are gone, buried along side Adam Smith, who is rolling over in his grave as I speak.
P.S. For those not familiar with Adam Smith, he was the author of Wealth of Nations – the book written in 1776 where he first forwarded the economic theory of Capitalism.
Fire, Aim, Ready, Reporting . . . Tiger Woods’ Accident Reveals All That is Wrong With US!
Posted by Lance Haley in Cultural Issues, How and Why We Get Screwed, Media & Communication, Sports, Uncategorized on December 1st, 2009
The day after Thanksgiving I was on the golf course when my buddy’s phone rang. The news was disturbing, to say the least.
Another friend of ours was calling to tell us that Tiger Woods was involved in a bad car accident, that he had suffered severe head injuries, and that he was in the hospital in serious condition. Ten minutes later I received a phone call from my mother telling me the same thing. My thoughts immediately turned to his wife, children, and mother – what a horrible ordeal they must be suffering through. As golfers, we were discussing the ramifications of whether or not Tiger would be considered the greatest golfer of all time were he not able to return and beat Jack Nicklaus’ record of winning eighteen majors.
As it turns out, none of those concerns were even close to what really matters now to our culture of celebrity worship regarding this incident. As the holiday weekend bore on, and the story slowly evolved, it was apparent that Tiger was not seriously hurt and would return to golf. What was less apparent was whether or not the most cloistered and private super-athlete in history would weather the media frenzy over rumors that spread like wild-fire regarding his ostensible marital infidelity, why he was a bad driver that night, and why his wife used his driver to break the windows in his SUV.
What is most disturbing now is not Tiger’s injuries, but rather the injurious nature of celebrity culture worship to our society. We are deeply enmeshed in two wars that are both going to drag on for years to come, our country is in serious financial condition, robber barons and financial terrorists have looted the national treasury to further enrich themselves at our expense . . . and we are obsessed with whether or not Tiger Woods slept with some alleged celebrity gold-digger, and pissed off his wife?
Innuendo, allegations, and “verified sources” are the stuff of modern day ambush tabloid journalism. Moreover, these tales grows bigger with each newly released “fact”. When truth becomes a subordinate goal of reporting a story, reality is whatever the spinmakers ordain it to become.
For instance: Obama is a Kenyan because he has not provided a certified birth certificate demonstrating his American citizenship to the satisfaction of the people who claim he was born in Kenya? After the certified birth certificate is released by the state agency in Hawaii, elements of the media and public still deny it’s authenticity. So how do you prove something that is undeniably true, if the listener engages in “don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up” rationale. After all, can’t you simply ignore those who will not believe that which is self-evident? Not in the age where truth is the first casualty of war.
If truth is so easily squandered away, how can we as a society expect to acheive greatness in the midst of an obsessive focus on the mundane and insignificant veiled under the guise of relevance and importance?
That should be what America is asking itself.
Wonder If They Can Help the Democrats Grow Testicles?
Posted by Lance Haley in Congress, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Show Them the $$$, United States on November 9th, 2009
Scientists at Wake Forest University Medical Center claimed that they have succeeded in growing artificial penises in male rabbits using similar cells from another male rabbit. The study was reported to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and has given given great promise for humans who are missing particular organs in their own bodies.
One of the researchers working on the project said he “is hoping the the procedure will work with people, perhaps starting with adult men who have had damage to their organs.”
Hey, I will donate my testicles in order to help any number of those spineless Democrats in Washington who hold a Congressional majority to finally stand up to the likes of Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, John Boehner, or Mitch McConnell and tell them to stick their heads where the sun never shines.
I will make this sacrifice for my country and report to Wake Forest University Medical Center at the first call to duty. Just let me know if any of you Democrats have the balls, figuratively speaking, to take me up on this offer since most of you obviously do not have any balls, literally speaking.
Bipartisanship is just another word for “nothin’ left to lose.”
Greed is Good!
Posted by Lance Haley in Uncategorized on October 22nd, 2009
![Greed is Good [1]](http://screwedus.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Greed-is-Good-1-222x300.jpg "Greed is Good [1]")
Remember the mantra ”Greed is Good” ?
Thank you Brian Griffiths for resurrecting the ghost of Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) from the movie Wallstreet.
Mr. Griffiths is an international advisor for Goldman Sachs (at least he is as of this moment – tomorrow is another story). He spoke at an economic conference held in London yesterday where the topic of discussion was . . . oh this is really good . . .
“What is the place of morality in the marketplace?”
From there, it gets even more surreal.
Mr. Griffiths defended this weeks report coming out of Goldman Sachs that record compensation packages of $16.7 billion were being paid out to the company’s employees for the first nine months of 2009, an increase of 46 percent from a year earlier. If you think that obscene information just made your blood pressure go through the proverbial ceiling, his comment justifying these compensation figures will absolutely cause you to ”blow a gasket”.
“We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all.”
Yes! That is how he rationalized this unconscionable decision from a financial institution that the U.S. taxpayer just bailed out.
But Mr. Griffiths is not done. He concedes that “[i]t was the failed moral compass of bankers which was primarily responsible for why we had this crisis. The question is: what can we do in the culture of institutions to make them behave in a more socially responsible way?”
Ahhhhhhh . . . Give them more money???? Yea, that’s the ticket! That should stop this ever-escalating climb into the stratosphere of economic insanity. Right?
But he ends on a very positive note, telling the audience that “To whom much is given much is expected,” he said. “There is a sense that if you make money you are expected to give.”
Yes. That’s what they will do. Engage in an ignoble and altruistic charitable act in order to wash away the sins of avarice, greed, and excess so that one can tolerate the inequality of his lifestyle compared to those less fortunate so as to inspire prosperity and opportunity in them, that they might become like him and do the same for others in a long cycle of never-ending prosperity and go on tolerating this inequitable way of living so that even more will prosper, all in the hopes that someday we will all be equally filthy rich and working ever harder each day to make more money to show the opportunities that await others who aspire to our level of greed and avarice.
I like it. I think I can handle the job. Let me check . . . no pulse, no heart, ice in my veins and in my glass of 20 year old scotch, no conscience, not a moral fiber in my body. Please hand me a cigar. When can I start?
You Can Be the Boss of Your Own Death Panel
Posted by Lance Haley in Humor, Religion & Spirituality, Uncategorized on October 15th, 2009
Just imagine. You take a little guided astral projection excursion into LaLa Land with the assistance of a self-help guru, and while you are out there wandering around in the universal mist, you decide you are having so much fun that you are never coming back. That’s right, people. For a mere $10,000, you too can arrange your own death, and leave this chaotic existence behind for an afterlife full of bliss and order. And the Obama Health Care Plan cannot stick it’s nose into this one.
What happened this past week is one of those inexplicable stories that should give pause to anyone seeking peace and comfort from religious charlatans and spiritual wackos. Two men died while participating in a New Age ceremony inside of a sweat lodge out in the desert of Arizona.
According to the website of Organizer/Guru James Ray, by attending his Spiritual Warrior workshop, “You’ll accelerate the releasing of your limitations and push yourself past your self-imposed and conditioned borders….You owe it to the rest of your life to get to Spiritual Warrior as quickly as you can.”
Well, the two guys who died “got to Spiritual Warrior” pretty damn quick by paying “with the rest of their life”, as well as giving Ray a $10,000 travel-guide fee, and if you believe the rest of this crap, I guess they are still out there wandering around and whooping it up in the eternal afterlife.
Guru James Ray was such a coward that he left right after the incident, and later contacted the remaining participants by way of a phone conference in order to help them bring closure to their “retreat”. Then a woman who called herself Barb got on the phone and told the listeners that a self-described “channeler” who was present at the ceremony said that the men who died had “out of body experiences . . . and were having so much fun that they decided not to come back.”
OK . . . that has to be code for some great LSD! After all, that is the only experience that seemed to make a fair number of people not ever want to come back to reality in the late 60’s or early 70’s. Now, it’s been a little over thirty years since I last checked, but a good “hit of acid” was only going for about five dollars back then (not that I ever bought any I’ll have you know). Even given a very liberal rate of inflation over the past three decades, in dollar-adjusted terms, I just don’t see a tab of acid selling today for $10,000.
For that kind of money I would do a week in Bora Bora instead, and hope to locate a shaman who would help me find some magical tree bark to boil down into a nice tea that would take me around the solar system for an evening or so. If I was lucky, I could hang out with Timothy Leary and Jimi Hendrix, and Jim Morrison, raising Hell and tearing up the universe. It might even give me the experience of being a right-wing tea bagger, or a birther, or some other Far Out Right Wing Nut. What a crazy trip that would be. I could come back as a well paid Fox Network political analyst and tell Limbaugh and Beck all about it, and further help them convince their followers that Obama is a Communist agitator, Hell-bent on taking the country down, and leading us to disaster.
On the other hand, it probably was not LSD. Acid will not kill you, and you can not really overdose on it. Yes, it will make you bat-shit crazy if you take enough of it, which would only cause you to die because you decided that you could fly out the window of your buddy’s 10th story apartment window, or screw yourself to death in some massive orgy with hundreds of beautiful women. These poor saps paid ten grand to stand in a hot freakin’ tent with a bunch of other New Age idiots, and then collapsed to the floor due to dehydration. No attempts to fly, no drug-induced orgies with tons of beautiful women. They just sweated too much, fell down, and died.
Now that is one bad trip.
Poor Dr. Timothy Leary is rolling over in his grave right now. And the Plaintiff’s lawyers are probably lined up three-deep around the sweat lodge in their Armani suits and Nordstrom’s ties, with brief cases, video teams, stenographers, blackberries, and enough BMW’s to run a Sedona Grand Prix. Maybe the lawyers can get crystals from one of the local channelers, and hang them from their rear-view mirrors in the hope that it would lead these two dead guys who are wondering around the universe back to the sweat lodge long enough to give a deposition or two for their wrongful death cases.
Man . . . . these dudes got the ultimate rip-off. All they wanted was bliss and order. What they got was chili-dipped into a hut of hot steam and smelly bodies for Ten Grand, came out dead, and then were put straight into a Barnum and Bailey three ring circus under the Big Tent.
As P.T. Barnum was fond of saying, “There is a sucker born every minute.”