I can't wait to see your posts when Madame President Bachmann gets ahold of our short hairs in a couple of years.

Ah, c'mon Jack. Forgotten? Not after his second term. And as for that third party of independents in the nearby post, didn't Sam Waterston and some other folks try that with Unity08? Does anyone even remember Unity08? (I had to look it up.)
If you want the real Obama, give him a Congress to get it done. I think more people now understand the depth of the problems Obama has faced since Day 1, including Obama.

Nice Old Guy -

He had that Congress for 2 years. What did he get done?

Even in the special session after the Nov. '10 election he had a huge majority up until the new Congress was sworn in on 3 Jan '11.

He had the chance to get rid of the Bush tax cuts, with a liberal Democratic majority which had already paid the political "cost" of that position. It was a "free" vote to get rid of the Bush tax cuts, and Obama wiffed. He caved in like the the craven, cowardly opportunistic sad sack he is. CHangw?

Bah.

Obama is a loser.

He for got the Clinton mantra. "Its the economy stupid". Wall Street got hand outs, but the average working stiff who is out of a job got little or nothing.

I think the New World Order that George Bush Senior loved to talk about is getting ready to insert Jeb Bush into the White House and continue that family's wretched grip on American History. It really is quite a nightmare especially when you factor in Prescott and the Nazis and the "7 Days in May" scenario he came up with against Franklin Roosevelt.
Google that sometime: How the Bush family wasn't run out of America speaks to their power and connections. Yes, George, Sr. was in the CIA long before he became director. And yes, that does look a little like him in the picture in Dallas.

Too out there for you? I understand. I like to think of happy things too. Hey, now that the NFL is back, Congressman Wu can get a job as the Cincinnati Bengals mascot!

See, I haven't completely lost my ability to laugh, but mother of God, this is getting ugly.

Now that Obama is in trouble, the first stirrings are out there for Jeb. That's my bet. Maybe that was the plan all along. Have W. do his thing, have Obama take the fall, and then bring Jeb in to seize more power for the globalists. This is like following a script. It's pageantry.

That's my fear: They're going to try for another Bush presidency. Good times.

"A much more obvious disappointment than Bill Clinton"

I don't know about that. Clinton could've taken Bush both times and Obama easily. Mayne a disappointment, but not one that would've kept him from being elected.

I too think the Prez needs to get a backbone and stop trying to move to the center of every issue. However he will be re-elected no matter who runs against him in the general election. Just my prediction, if he is in a real fight, out comes the winning hand, the Vice Prez announces he's not running for re-election due to age and family. Presto up pops Hillary as running mate, President Obama wins in a landslide.

Hilary Clinton as Nelson Rockefeller.

That's funny.

I'm rapidly coming around to supporting the idea of Charles Manson in 2012, if only for his campaign slogan: "A Nation of Freaks Deserves To Be Led By One".

I don't think Nelson R. got the female votes like Ms. Hilary would.

IMO he was put in place without understanding he was only a figurehead to get the Dem in place.
His problem was he thought he was being elected because he was deserving.
It is all a chess game people. Too bad so many of you were hoodwinked. :-(

Hummm...Jeb, with the 'clepto' wife and the druggie kids...
But still in all, a Bush. Barbara will be SO proud.
I am considering immigration to Canada, but it won't be far enough away.

What?????? You're telling me that someone with little experience isn't turning out to be a good president? I wish tf his idnea were explored in the primaries .

What, are you are telling me that Obama brand Snake Oil doesn't work and that you actually bought some on a two-for-one special offer?

He's in over his head, has been from day one, and for all his supposed charisma, he has no leadership qualities.

How's that "Hope and Change" working out for ya ??? There is no one to blame but the sheeple who were shucked and jived by the "community organizer".... LOL !!!

Look for a President Perry or President Romney in early 2013. Obama will be going down as a one term failure just like Jimmy Carter...

Dems were afraid Hillary would get beat, and instead thrust a young rookie into an ugly fray just because he could win the election. Like plucking the local star from the high school team and starting him right away in the NBA finals. Little chance for success I'm afraid.

A recent poll said BO would lose (if a vote were held today) by over 8 points to the top repubs that have stepped forward to challenge him in 2012. Look at who has stepped forward on that side so far and it gets a little scary.

Agree with Paul Krugman’s description of Obama the other night on Charlie Rose. We basically voted for a moderate conservative in ‘08.

Let's not get crazy, people. The problem with Obama isn't his ability - it's that his policies are too much like the last GOP gift to the world.
Oh, and as a comedy writer, I distinctly remember that the standard jokes about Bill Clinton at this point in his first term, were based on the idea that there was no way he would be reelected.
It's a lot easier to imagine Obama getting beaten by the Republican nominee, before we know who it is.
As bad as the Dems have been lately, the Republican party has been a parade of losers that would make Eisenhower wince. McCain was the last old school GOP guy you had.

I don't feel badly about voting to keep Sarah Palin out of the "heartbeat away" slot, especially when McCain was so old.
So getting duped by Obama? What's that old blues song?
Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself.
You geniuses ran Sarah friggin' Palin!!!!!

You geniuses ran Sarah friggin' Palin!!!!

Amen.

The election is more than 15 months out--we shall see.

The choir's getting grumpy and the congregation’s leaving.

"I'll take Presidential nick names for 500, Alex."

"Barak Obama"

"Jack!"

"What is Swahili for Jimmy Carter?"

Let's not get crazy, people. The problem with Obama isn't his ability - it's that his policies are too much like the last GOP gift to the world.

Nah. Obama is the worst of Bush combined with the worst of the left. And his ability IS indeed at issue, or more precisely the lack thereof.

Clinton had the benefit of the Microsoft/Intel economy.

Obama has only the non-fruits of his mindless (at best) profligate deficit spending which does nothing to stimulate the economy.

Obama will be re-elected handily. Romney's a transparent, flip-flopping phony who got rich putting people out of work: the Dem attack ads will write themselves. He and the other GOPers will tear each other apart in the primaries, after which when he pivots to the center the rabid tea party true believers will feel spurned and will desert him in the general election. When the younger voters - a growing number of which are of color - start tuning in, they will see a choice between a stuffy, rich white guy and a cool, charismatic, black guy and their choice will be clear (and I say that as a stuffy, but decidedly non-rich, white guy).

I also predict Congress remaining divided, in which case we'll have a repeat of the gridlock that characterized W's second term.

Bill, you're giving me nightmares! Imagine a 30-second TV spot:

Jeb slowly walking into view with the current goat rodeo candidates CGI shrunk to be waist high to him. They are all running around him and screaming and pushing and shoving. With a condescending smile he says, "Kids, kids, let's all play nicely together" while gathering them like a mother hen with her rambunctious chicks.

Tag line supers: "Let an adult put things back in order."

Fade to black;

Fade up "Bush 2012"

AAAAAAARGH!

Indeed, we have not reached the "anybody but Obama" moment. I just can't imagine having Palin or Bachmann. One of them is eternally doomed to become an excellent subject for a Tina Fey parody, the other one has migraines, among other unacceptable problems. Migraines are a fundamental disqualifier until they find some sort of cure. I don't care how much titanium she claims she has, if an intern says there's a rainbow of pills and the light switch is frequently in the off position for many hours at a time, Houston, we have a problem. Not to mention that she will definitely be the anti-science type with regards to climate, stem-cell research, education, and birth control. Shudder.

I got a letter from Michelle the other day, asking me for money. I wrote a note on it: "Michelle, the day you wore a hijab was the day I permanently left the Democratic party. Regards, Gaye."

You geniuses ran Sarah friggin' Palin!!!!

As opposed to Joe Biden? He is a pack of smokes away from the presidency and that really shouldn't make anyone feel good. Also, this was O's first big decision and he picks Biden. Ouch.

I am in no way a fan of Ms. Palin but your point is pretty weak.

"The United States defaulted on its debt" yet another Obama first!!! Hope y'all are super proud of this never-was that you put in the White House. Carter was bad, but at least he didn't sport the oversized ego that this clown touts. Obama is NOT Carter II, he's not even THAT good.

I've been as disappointed by Captain Capitulation as the next guy, but I'm a little skeptical that the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party is going to let them field a reasonable alternative.

However, if the Republican Party can avoid nominating a radical right winger and runs a reasonable, moderate candidate, I agree Obama's in trouble.

Of course the Right hates Obama and loves to sound "reasonable" in their "awe shucks I guess he sucks" comments. But that self serving attitude of course ignores several facts. First, he is trying, with not a lot of help, to clean up the biggest mess since the great depression and WWII. He inherited from the Republicans two wars and a huge financial meltdown. Now both wars are winding down, the economy, while not perfect, is on the mend (remember how bad it was? remember the warnings that it would take years to repair and jobs would come last, if at all?) and he has gotten more legislation through congress than most presidents in their first term. With huge opposition from the monied intersts and the far right racist nutjobs, oh sorry, I mean the Tea Party.

And next,lets no forget that he and the Democrats have compromised over and over again to the Reps and they have given nothing in return. It is their way or no way. If Obama and the Dems can be faulted for anything it is for giving too much to the Right during this mess. Why don't we despair over Boner and his Tea Baggers?? Because it is easier to bewail the god that failed.

George Bush and the Reps were a disaster for this country and if we want to go back to the "good old days" then by all means place the blame on Obama and not where it really belongs. A dysfunctinal congress and a complicit media.

Prescott Bush also has an interesting 'war hero' charade story that should be in the history books. http://tarpley.net/online-books/george-bush-the-unauthorized-biography/chapter-1-the-house-of-bush-born-in-a-bank/

Killing.inc has been very profitable for the Bush family. Let's hope that you're wrong Bill, and Jeb isn't illegally placed in the White House, and this family's reign of terror is over.

What about the people, the delegates who go to these conventions, where is their backbone?

Seems both the D's and R's went off the track and platforms.
We had a Republican Party that brought us President Eisenhower, locally, Senator Hatfield. We had a Democratic Party that stood for their platform. Our current President does not.

(I posted on the Wyden thread but needed to do here.)

http://cstl-cla.semo.edu/renka/ps103/Fall2008/presidential_elections.htm

Primaries and Electoral College: Free Agents Need Not Apply Top; Next Down

For over a century the two major parties chose their presidential nominees at suspenseful national nominating conventions. These events were worth watching, and political reporters flocked to them. This is no longer true. Now they are "giant infomercials" for candidates who are chosen in advance, during state primaries and caucuses.

...Despite this unusual development, I warned last spring and summer not to count on any serious excitement at the Democratic convention itself. The reforms of post-1968 put a firm end to that in both parties. For example, the Republicans' 1952 national nominating convention was exciting to watch, as every political reporter was elbowing to get there and report back the intrigues and moves that would ultimately decide that party's national ticket. That was the year General Eisenhower threw his name in the ring in June 1952 and ultimately overtook the former front runner Senator Robert Taft of Ohio ("Mr. Republican" in those days) to win the Republican nomination. The Democrats held an open convention with many contenders, ultimately choosing Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois in a raucous Chicago affair (Parades, Protests and Politics in Chicago, 1952). But that's the old system. The post-1968 conventions became scripted infomercials hardly worth the extended television time they still can capture. This is clear to some political reporters. One leading television journalist, Ted Koppel of ABC, actually bolted the 1996 Republican convention in San Diego after saying on the air that nothing worthwhile was happening and thus he had no reporting to do. The true value of Convention watching now is to hear the pre-chosen candidates give their speeches. Beyond that, year 2008 in both parties resembled 1996 far more than 1952. Delegates were not free agents able to switch from a Taft to an Eisenhower or back again.

I used to watch these on TV when delegates from states would state their choice...fight for their values...what happened to those?
Now is it just "the fix is in" and they go to rah rah rah?
Since our current President has shown his "change", I would have expected a huge conventional debate to put forth other candidates, alas, that was the old system.

Except for the media part, which I think is tiresome considering the NYT and Wall St Journal pretty much frame the middle, where most of the country is, George and Bill McDonald said in longer posts what I would have said in my original short one yesterday if I had realized this blog was so full of people who need real life explained to them.

I feel the presence of my Mother this morning - a World War 2 Red Cross worker who served in France. Here goes:
If I had to find the most forgiving, tolerant way of describing what happened, I would go back to the invention of security swap derivatives, and say that President Clinton didn't really understand them, Wall Street didn't understand them - nobody did.
What followed was a 600 trillion dollar balloon that is destroying the world. I wish we could go back and do something else. I want to prosecute the wrongdoers but I am willing to accept that some of this was just a bad idea that blew up on us.

I find it deeply ironic that our credit rating as a country is threatened, when the mortgage security swaps were given a fraudulent triple A rating back then, all so a few thousand investment types could get rich on commissions.

Yes, there was deliberate criminal behavior, but in my forgiving heart I also acknowledge that we are looking at the biggest screw-up in financial history.

...and if we want to go back to the "good old days" then by all means place the blame on Obama and not where it really belongs. A dysfunctinal congress and a complicit media.

The dysfunctional Party System.
The dysfunctional population?? at some point the people have to put pressure on local officials and delegates for going along with this downward spiral of America...and then the people need to be responsible for "change", not depend on someone else to fix the mess.

...I find it deeply ironic that our credit rating as a country is threatened...

I find it deeply disturbing that our local council is on some insane race track to add more and more debt to the citizenry of Portland. Instead of being prudent in this economic crisis ...even Congress is focused on debt and yet the decision makers around here are carrying on like a last party of money to throw around! Have they made such a botched up financial mess that they are planning to sell out our assets when or if that time should come??

The handling of the debt crisis or lack of is about to impact local governments if something isn't done soon because the Oregon Short Term Fund must mature or reset within 93 days at all times. Some of the debt is in treasury bills and highly rated corporate issues.

I wonder how Portland is doing?

C'mon people! Quit being sucked into the long con. Snap out of it!

The Kabuki theatre of America's debt ceiling
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100011099/the-kabuki-theatre-of-americas-debt-ceiling/

Notable quote:
The great health care cartel is in my view the villain here. It is the root cause of US ruin, and is itself responsible for the epidemic of diabetes, Alzheimers, and several other mass ailments afflicting America. It has systematically failed to keep up with the scientific literature, and refuses to abandon grievous policies when shown to be wrong. Americans need to confront this huge vested interest (nearly a fifth of GDP) before it destroys the country. But that is a rant for another day.

Pathos in there, too:

S&P cited Winston Churchill in its downgrade warning that “you can always count on Americans to do the right thing after they’ve tried everything else.”

Single Payer Now!

I love the excuses from the guys still high on Hopium:

Year 1: We inherited this mess from the last guy!
Year 2: Just give some time for the stimulus to start working. We'll see the employment rebound Real Soon Now™
Year 3: If only we had a Congress that would just rubber stamp anything that comes in the door on Oval Office stationary! Never mind that we had that during years 1 and 2 and did nothing with it but whine and bicker, and fight over minutiae rather than fix terribly broken policy!

What will year 4 bring from the excuse factory running out of the West Wing?

Congressman Wu can get a job as the Cincinnati Bengals mascot!

As someone living in Cincinnati, I'd appreciate it if you didn't export this trash to the Tri-State metro area, much like I'd appreciate it if Portland would stop trying to export a streetcar project to Cincinnati. It's only because of the election of Governor Kasich that they haven't started tearing up Vine St. all the way from Fountain Square to the UC campus in Clifton.

I don't think Congressman Wu would hurt the image of the Bengals too bad. Just don't let him near the cheerleaders.
Hey, you signed Pacman Jones. Why not give this guy another chance?

I hate to say it but Hillary might be right. It is a giant right wing conspiracy!
Just check out the Koch brothers, and the American Legislative Exchange Council for starters.

Single Payer Now!

Obama kept that conversation off the table.
Why did the D wimps go along?

As far as health concerns in our country, need to know why and how the food we eat has changed in our country and of that relationship to our health and our enormous healthcare costs.
More corporate control and processed foods and more healthcare costs as a result is what many are discussing. GMO foods for one and lack of labeling, worse yet, forced on us as almost impossible to avoid.

http://www.naturalnews.com/031416_GMOs_food_labeling.html

Like I told my Mom who is one of those "Don't you talk bad about MY Obama" supporters," I voted for him because I believed he would change the course of our economy for the better. He spent a year dithering on healthcare after his fiscal stimulus paid off the trial lawyers, teacher's unions, environmentalists and other liberal interest groups who assisted in his election. If unemployment is at or above 8% come 2012 election day, then I am writing in "Bugs Bunny" for US President and "Daffy Duck" for US Vice President.

He inherited from the Republicans two wars and a huge financial meltdown. Now both wars are winding down, the economy, while not perfect, is on the mend

And we're in six wars now, George. And counting.

And let us not forget one of the most critical wars of our country, class war!!

"Single Payer Now!

Posted by Mojo "

Yes, because all of the problems with a bunch of smaller bloated, corrupt, inefficient healthcare/insurance providers (along with much government interference) will be solved by having one big bloated corrupt, inefficient healthcare provider. A provider that currently can't figure out its own budget and live within its means.

Centralization is not always the best way to solve complex problems.

NiceOldGuy, intentional or not you broke my sarcasm meter. :(

So Jack posts how big a loser he thinks Obama has been so far,
and almost half the comments are some theme of "It's Bush's fault!"
All of them: W, Prescott, Jeb, HW, even Babs. LOL

Who are the real losers, Jack?

The Supreme Court?

I don't know if this Americans-Elect is good or not, but it is the sort of concept that could enable our country to come back with a vengeance, that is, against the professional politicians now at the helm.
One thing I see on this blog is the unwillingness to accept each other's idea and beliefs, i.e., be willing to compromise. There seems to be a very politically oriented state of mind that continually plays the blame game. A lot of time and energy is spent putting down people, parties and groups. If all, everyone, would consider the primary things in our country that need to be addressed and changed. Then have a polite discourse that conceivably might reach a consensus, all of us would be better off in a future with a third choice, if it is for real. It may be BS, but I intend to see what it is all about.

gaye harris: See http://www.migraines.org/myth/mythgood.htm for the names of the great and famous who suffer or suffered from migrains. "President, and architect of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson; the great painters Vincent Van Gogh, George Seurat (after which is named the Seurat effect, a current medical term often used to describe the visual phenomena of scintillating aura aka scotoma), and Claude Monet; great authors Virginia Woolfe, Cervantes (best known as the author of the classic, 'Don Quixote'), and Lewis Carroll who's Migraines are said to have influenced his gifts of literature still so popular today; leaders such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and Mary Todd Lincoln; scholars such as psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche, the great German philosopher and poet who kept his enemy Migraine closer; and Icon Elvis Presley, the King of Rock & Roll who struggled with the king of all 'headaches.'"

Face it folks, Obama is a joke. He is a thin skinned tyrant who must have been bullied as a kid.

Sigh - the problem with all of this is that too much of the country is wedded to their nintendos, reality TV shows, what's going on with Lindsey Lohan, ad nauseum. Look at the people who comment on this blog - a handful of people. Even if hundreds are reading the posts, that's in a metro area of over a million people. There's just too many people too easily led by the best sound bite du jour. Democracy takes work, but the country seems to have lost sight of that.

Shelia wins as the craziest post.

...Democracy takes work, but the country seems to have lost sight of that.

Taking democracy for granted or that we vote and then elected officials will take care of matters for us - how has that turned out?

So now, if we care to get any semblance of America back, we need to double or triple up efforts, or is it OK to continue on the road we are on?

...One thing I see on this blog is the unwillingness to accept each other's idea and beliefs,...

In my view, it isn't so much that we need to accept each other's ideas and beliefs, as that we need to work together on the things we can agree upon.

I think/hope many are coming to the conclusion that for the good of our country, we need to get a grip and communicate with each other. Perhaps put some personal issues aside, it is our constitution and country at stake here. I talk to people "left and right" and we can learn from each other, bottom line it seems to me is that we are disgusted with both the D's and R's. we can work together on matters that we do agree upon.

Example:
Jane Hamsher progressive from FDL reached across political lines with Grover Norquist to jointly write a letter where they agreed on their concerns regarding Rahm Emanuel:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/12/odd-couple-of-norquist-hamsher-call-for-investigation-rahms-resignation/32543/

Really Thor? Why?

From the very begining it was ME-chelle who wanted the Presidency.... Now that Obama has it he has no idea how it works.
"Leading from behind" is no way to run an airline...
He will indeed be a one trick pony... destined to fade into the negative side of history.
It never pays to DATE or VOTE out of HATE !

Take a look at these hands.
Take a look at these hands.
The hand speaks. The hand of a government man.
Well I'm a tumbler. Born under punches....

Find a little space, so we can move in-between in-between it.
And keep one step ahead, of yourself.

Don't you miss it, don't you miss it.
Some'a you people just about missed it!
Last time to make plans!
Well I'm a tumbler...
I'm a government man.

Never seen anything like that before....

And the heat goes on...and the heat goes on...and the heat goes on....

Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) ~ Talking Heads, Live in Rome, 1980.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VsEgW3tiww

You may find yourself
living in a fiscal crisis
And you may find yourself
14 trillions dollars in debt
And you may ask yourself
How did we get here?
And you may ask yourself
What do we do now?

Letting debt build up 'til it takes the country down
Letting bills go by, dollars crashing to the ground
Into the red for good, after the money's gone
Once we ruled the world, now we're buried underground.

Bad as it ever was, bad as it ever was.

And you may ask yourself
Where is my beautiful country?
And you may ask yourself
Who owns this Federal Reserve?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my America
And you may tell yourself
My God, what have we done?

Letting debt build up 'til it takes the country down
Letting bills go by, dollars crashing to the ground
Into the red for good, after the money's gone
Once we ruled the world, now we're buried underground.

Bad as it ever was, bad as it ever was, bad as it ever was.

Yippee! Thank you, Bill!! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!

My response deemed craziest by Thor, was in response to Bill's concern that Jeb would be 'inserted' into the presidency. I just thought that when a family is allowed that much control to rule a country,(isn't that a monarchy? or tyranny? or crazy?), that the people so governed, would be curious as to how the 'family' accumulated their wealth. Power and accumulated wealth does very strange things to people and/or very strange people are in positions of power and inherited wealth. I had/have a heck of a time explaining why politicians like Edwards, really screwed the country, to my young son.

The Politics of Make-Believe
Barack Obama, Changeling
By Jeffrey St. Clair (July 27, 2011)
http://counterpunch.org/stclair07272011.html

Excerpt:
"That old softy John Boehner, the teary-eyed barkeep’s son, sculpted a resolution demanding that Obama explain his intentions in Libya. It passed the House overwhelmingly. A competing resolution crafted by the impish gadfly Dennis Kucinich called for an immediate withdrawal of US forces from operations in Libya. This radically sane measure garnered a robust 148 votes. Obama dismissed both attempts to downsize his unilateralist approach to military operations, saying with a chill touch of the surreal that the 14,000-and-counting sorties flown over Libya didn’t amount to a “war.”

This is Barack Obama, the political moralist? The change agent? The constitutional scholar? Listen to that voice. It is petulant and dismissive. Some might say peevish, like the whine of a talented student caught cheating on a final exam.

****

And what of Obama’s spellbound followers, those youthful crusaders who saw him illumined in the sacral glow of his ethereal rhetoric and cleaved to him during the hard slog of two campaigns with a near-religious devotion? What was running through their minds when the mists finally parted to reveal that Obama was implementing cunning tracings of Bush-era policies on everything from the indefinite detention of uncharged prisoners in the war on terror to raids on medical marijuana distributors in states where medical pot has been legalized? What, indeed.

Illusions die hard, especially when shattered by cruise missiles."

P.S. ~ Oregon picks up another electoral vote for the next presidential election. For whatever that's worth, anyway.

Doesn't seem like worth much, if the fix is in before delegates get to have input regarding the platform or the candidate.

See above link as to how Presidential candidates used to be selected.

That was the year General Eisenhower threw his name in the ring in June 1952 and ultimately overtook the former front runner Senator Robert Taft of Ohio ("Mr. Republican" in those days) to win the Republican nomination. The Democrats held an open convention with many contenders, ultimately choosing Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois in a raucous Chicago affair (Parades, Protests and Politics in Chicago, 1952). But that's the old system.

Mr Wade,

You will notice that most of the great exemplars you cite were artists; some were important leaders during eras where people had a lot of privacy, and no nuclear weapons.

I named one of my children after Julius Caesar. Caeser could never have accomplished what he did and also had a lot of migraines. It is possible to write and paint and compose through a migraine, but bringing order and rule of law to a barbaric world on the scale that Caesar implemented, is not compatible with frequent migraines. It is, on the other hand, quite possible to be an occasional migraine sufferer and get a lot done.

Where Ms Bachmann fits in the spectrum of occasional to frequent is not clear, but until it is clear, she should be considered unfit on that basis alone.

Killiana...You forgot the UAW...The GM and Chrysler bailouts were paybacks to the UAW rank and file, despite the fact bankruptcy laws had to be violated to do so.

sheila wrote: Really Thor? Why?

Citing/linking to Webster G. Tarpley. Followers of Lyndon LaRouche and 9/11 Truthers are people you should always trust and believe because they are so sane and rational.

Call me a whack-nut if you want, but here's my theory:

The type of brinksmanship being played out with the debt ceiling will cause havoc in the markets. It's very predictable havoc, however. While the debt ceiling debate remains unresolved and the deadline approaches the market will fall fairly dramatically. Hedge fund managers, who have the technology to perform zillions of trades per second, will short the market and make a TON of money. When the debate is resolved and the market begins to recover the funds will buy buy buy and make another TON of money. When all is said and done a great deal of wealth will have been created, but not for you and me. Upside? Well, perhaps it will become easier to borrow money, because cash assets will now equal "toxic" assets. Downside? The wealth will probably simply be hoarded and the imbalance between rich and poor will become greater.
If such an action - the manipulation of the debt ceiling debate to influence the markets - is being undertaken, who is complicit? I think it's everyone: Republicans, Democrats and the PotUS himself. Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm just sayin' . . .

What? I probably shouldn't give a thunderbolt, but thor, Tarpley uses cites. It takes effort, but if you fact-check them, they appear factual.

I was talking with a friend years ago who is in an appointed postion with HUD, and Katherine Austin Fitts name came up, she is a former US Assistant Secretary of Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner. From an insider's perspective who has whistleblown and suffered the consequences, she really shed's the light of the B's, Brady, Bush, Bechtel & "the boys", and yes, it is heavily cited.

http://www.dunwalke.com/1_Brady_Bush_Bechtel.htm

It takes a herculean effort to try and sort this stuff out, I don't think it can be done. But at least you can get an inkling of how the US finds itself in 6 wars!

If Jeb Bush is inserted into the presidency, lord help us.

Mister Tee

I can turn the other cheek to the auto bailouts just as I did when George W. Bush bailed out foreign banks like Deutsche Bank along with Goldman Sachs. Turning the other cheek does not mean I agree, rather it means I am not going to lose sleep over the action itself because we got something from both.

With George W. Bush's TARP, we avoided a global financial collapse allowing our dysfunctional, welfare Federal Government to keep on going to it's sugar daddy creditors in China, Japan and it's own citizens who for whatever reason keep on buying T-bonds.

With Barack H. Obama's auto bailouts, we got awesome new models of the Ford Mustang, Dodge Charge, and Chevrolet Camaro. Out of the three, I have seen Fresno police (where I live) patrolling in new Dodge Chargers in the more northern, wealthier areas of Fresno, but I prefer the Camaro over the new Mustang and new Chargers.

Ridiculous I know, but we all have our reasons and I plan on buying one of these new muscle cars that I see everyday in traffic here in Fresno, CA.

sheila - Lyndon LaRouche. You really want to stay with that one? Really?

Go ahead and hitch your caboose to that crazy train but that is why you get my vote for craziest comment on this post (70+).

Thor, again, what? Please look back at your post, you mentioned Lyndon LaRouche. I don't know who he is, I had to google him. And since we're now on trains, the trainwreck will be this country if Jeb Bush is inserted into the presidency.

It's a bit premature to be worrying about someone being president, if they haven't even declared candidacy, don't you think?

Maybe wait until he even forms a PAC, which hasn't even been done. Sheesh.

His son has. Jeb Bush Jr. To pick up the Hispanic vote.

Jeb recently when on Hannity and answered the question of whether he'd run this way:

"I don’t anticipate that. You never say never. This is a standard answer that I’ve kind of learned how to give which is — you never say never, but I never rule out being on Dancing with the Stars either … there are a lot of ways you can make a difference."

I know that "aww shucks" humor. I've seen these people in action. You have to wonder - if he's so disinterested - then why was he there?

I guarantee you the Bush family never had a big meeting and said, "That's it. Let's retire from the power game in America. It's been a good run - let's get out."

An orchestrated piece doesn't start with a power chord.
Just a whisper here and there with a little joke. Trial balloons and suggestions. I've seen this before.
Translation: I don't think he's planning to make a difference by going on Dancing with the Stars.

sheila - You clearly aren't following things.

First, I don't particularly care for G.H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, or Jeb Bush. The country can't handle another one as president; however, the country ain't doing so swell under President Hope and Change.

Second, while I don't care for the Bush family I think your link to the Webster Tarpley book is batsh#t crazy stuff. Webster Tarpley is a follower of Lyndon LaRouche. Now that you have Googled Lyndon LaRouche, you now know that the man and his followers are nuts. In addition, Webster Tarpley is a 9/11 truther and those people are not really known for their sanity or rationality.

Articles and book chapters from crazy people aren't very credible. Citing and linking to articles and book chapters is not very convincing and undercuts your credibility. It is like citing to the KKK (oh, I believe that Lnydon LaRouche flirted with the KKK back in the 1970s).

So after seeing that Tarpley is associated with Lyndon LaRouche, you still want to stand by the article?

As I said, if you want to hook your caboose to the crazy train that is Tarpley/LaRouche then you go right ahead.

Bottom line: Citing the articles/book chapters of nut job = winner of craziest comment of the post.

Thor, it looks like you may be right about LaRouche, but I didn't cite him. I don't think that Tarpley is still associated with him and he may rue the day he hitched his caboose to that train as you say. In any case, Tarpley's article/ebook, is heavily footnoted and an interesting read about the Bush family.

Katherine Austin Fitts was a U.S. Assistant Secretary of Housing and an Associate at Dillon and Reed. She isn't a nutcase and I would think that she has done due diligence with her book.

I'm glad I won something for the day.

Sheila, the internet is replete with folks who seem to get a kick out of giving complete strangers s***. It clearly is something going on in the hippocampus, where the crocodiles emote, that drives people to these depths.

It's Catherine Austin Fitts, and thanks Gaye.

The way I was raised you give a new president a chance even if you didn't vote for him. I did so with Obama. I didn't like the hatred for Bush, and I hoped that Republican pols and press would be statesmanlike and professional in the opposition.

I hoped Obama would make smart bipartisan moves, strong to the center left. I wanted to grow to like him like I eventually grew to like Clinton. I hoped Obama would prove Clinton-esque. I always thought Hillary was the stronger candidate against McCain/Palin, right up to election night.

I was ready to ride out an eight year Obama administration, and I still might.
I'm not writing him off just yet, not by a long shot.

http://nwfreepress.com/next-question/mark-ellis/

sheila: Tarpley's book on Bush was first published in 1992 by a LaRouche publishing company (it was reprinted in 2004). Tarpley was a host of LaRouche cable programs in the 1990s. He is currently a big 9/11 truther and he pushes some pretty noxious theories and conspiracies (Illuminati and Protocols of the Elders of Zion - if you don't know about those then AltaVista them). It is really off the wall stuff; however, anyone who was into the LaRouche movement as much as Webster is more than just off and you can't run away from that stuff.

I'm sure Ted Kaczynski (again, use AltaVista) thoroughly researched his manifesto but that doesn't make it credible.

Why respond 3 or 4 times to your comments? Because thor's mighty mjolnir always comes down hard on kooky stuff.

Mark Ellis.

You da bomb. Couldn't agree more.

Thor, I guess that it's a matter of perspective. When looking for the truth, people can be lead down myriad paths, it rarely falls onto your lap. You most often have to back-track and try to piece things together.

Like I stated earlier, Tarpley heavily footnotes his content, so one can attempt to fact-check if so inclined, in order to draw their own conclusions.

Many groups have zealots who can tarnish the original objectives of the group. Or, the group gets infiltrated by those whose motives are just that, to discredit and/or take down the group, especially if they get too close to a certain truth.

As for the Bush family, one of the most secretive families in history, I'm sure they would like to control how history is written. And with their ties to the publishing press they may get their way. Especially if it involves teaching to the children.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/3742329.html

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/3742329.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1022-02.htm

He who controls the publishing press, accumulates power and wealth. Just ask Rupert Murdoch.

I read in a manifesto once, there's a recall on the metal uru. (Dogpile it).

thor, I wouldn't be losing too much sleep over kooky as you say- Larouche; seems his printing press is a little small. However, a family as entrenched in the leadership of the country as the Bush family, deserves notice of the size of their publishing press. The duplicate link above should be this:

http://www.schoolmatch.com/articles/cd2006Aug19.cfm

Heck, why not throw in this:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/jeb-bush-promotes-education-plan-in-rare-return-179503.html

Go after the minority vote, by making the little people think that you care about them. And especially go after the young minds. It's not just American youth, it's global. If read carefully, you might see a pattern.

Sheila,
Interesting link/schoolmatch above.

Critics of the Bush administration have been vocal about the Bush family ties to defense contractors at a time of war and, more recently, to their ties to the price of gasoline. Few, however, have noted the close and profitable relationship with the leadership of publishing giant McGraw-Hill, which, with sales of $6 billion in 2005, produced an annualized return of 19 percent last year.

President Bush has managed to keep his family's relationship with the company alive and well - a relationship that, according to The Nation, began in the 1930s between the president's grandfather, Prescott Bush, and James McGraw Jr., great-uncle of current McGraw-Hill Chairman Harold McGraw, III.

...McGraw-Hill's CTB division appears to be dominating this lucrative new industry with contracts in nearly half the states. The test publishers have spent millions with government officials and at some foundations on reforms that produce more corporate profits rather than substantive benefits for students.

Follow the money trail. Wonder how many other programs have been created for corporate profits instead of beneficial for the people?

The money is one factor, what I am also concerned about is the element of propagandizing young minds, and/or the rewriting of history.

sheila, you rock. You give good cites. Tarpley is excellent stuff; be sure to visit his website with smarts in many parts: Tarpley.net
'thor' (if that's his or her real name) is an example of rockbrain. He got some fixed impression sometime somewhere, set the concrete, and doesn't know enough to double back and re-assess developments in dynamic systems. All slander, no inquiry, lost cause.

I expect rockbrains (their numbers are decreasing) to completely crumble when the Toronto Hearings begin shaking, around the Xth anniversary celebration of Nine Eleven Op. Toronto Hearings .org proves the consciousness raising of an increasingly larger group, especially among the kids it's catching on.

sheila, I doublevote your comments the most articulate and awarely informed.
Probably your cites are not even glanced at by 'thor' but for every one of him there are dozens of curious and interested readers who can judge for themselves and just might light some ideas in their associations. Being outnumbered and outvoted is the cognitive dissonance that drives the rockbrains, and Tea Party totalitarians, bonkers over the edge and into the migraine miasma.
You go, Girl, because with comprehension around you and facts up front, you are bound to go farther than the detractors can follow or prevent.

Bill McDonald, you point exactly at the kernel of the chaos, planned and staged, which is: finances of financiers in the shadows. It's about the money. Got any? I hear rockbrains say, "nope, none." So why not? why ain't you rich if you know all what's 'true' going on.

[Introduction: This 'little' number I've been mulling and revising for a week. I'm going to go ahead and post it up, yet I expect it is so far afield from the massmedia 'narrative' Myth, (which many have recited pieces of here), that it is going to test a lot of people's core faith in personal reasoning ability to make the leap and grasp it. We can do this, though. You can do it. Uncounted times before when I've written such long pieces I threw them away as too distracting. This time is different, qualitatively and categorically. As someone has commented what's at stake is our very Constitution, and politics infrastructure, and more: our planet Earth and the very lives of hundreds of millions of souls. We must deal with the deadly criminal plutocracy or we are soon going to be killed by them in it. "The prospect of being hanged in ten days sharpens the mind wonderfully" - Ben Franklin. And the kicker that decided me to go ahead and post is the realization that some workers at the newspaper and at the broadcast stations will read it, and will know this contains newsworthy material they have been aware of and have kept secret, unforgiveably, and to their eternal shame and disgrace. As more of this stuff of 'known knowns' grows in circulation, the more the media 'image' sellers look abhorrent. (See an item at MediaMatters.org today reporting a couple dozen cable operators have cancelled or demoted FOX feeds off of their cable lineup. Additional removals are expected. The tangled web of FOX lies has started suffocating itself.) 'Mainstream' massmedia must stop trying to thicken white lies over black ops or else they and their livelihoods are going to be blacked out.]
With sincere due respect to bojack.org, apologizing for impassioned excess, I'd like to offer the following comment, if it may be allowed:

Heated bedlam in blog comments can never reach, touch or toast Obama.
Too many individual views and perspectives, too few facts on the ground. And those rare facts that do somehow surface must be totally denied or ignored by whichever person(s) the facts refute or touch on, in order to keep in-focus, carved in brain stone and sure of, the preset individual view and perspective. Many 'explanations' of insight into Obama's character turn out to be recitations of hindsight.

Let's stipulate a few indisputable facts of today. Let's see the list, then talk about what can be done and what we can do about it. That last clause is my reason for posting the list -- because relaying information I discover (in the comparative luxury of leisure time given me to search and read), and report to share with everyone, is what I individually can give back 'according to my abilities.' (Please don't declare that certain facts must be wrong wherever they don't help reach your conclusion.)

B.O. grew up named Barry Soetoro from age 2 to 19. At age 7 his mom (Ann Dunham) moved him to Indonesia to live with her and his step-father Lolo Soetoro who filed papers and legally adopted Barry there. Indonesian law required all adopted kids to obtain Indonesian citizenship only, (dual citizenship status prohibited), and accordingly Barry or his mother signed renouncement of allegiance and citizenship of USA, and he was legally adopted.

Later, (age 18, 1979) Barry enrolled in Occidental College, tuition-paid on a Scholarship for Foreign Students (since he had forsaken his rightful USA-born citizenship).

Ann Dunham was a CIA asset the same as Valerie Plame was a CIA asset. "But," you say, "Dunham worked in Indonesia on grant money from Ford Foundation and USAID." (Those are widely-known CIA 'front' intermediaries. Plame worked for the 'brass plaque' Brewster Jennings & Associates but so what? Plame was a CIA asset.)

Ann Dunham was a CIA agent.
Lolo Soetoro was an officer (colonel) in the CIA-directed Indonesian army who overthrew President Sukarno in a military coup d'etat and installed Pres. Suharto.

Ann Dunham's parents (Barry's maternal grandparents), Madelyn and Stanley Dunham were both CIA agents.
Madelyn was the Bank of Hawaii v.p. solely in charge of the escrow accounts and signed the paychecks for CIA assets (agents) stationed in the Pacific 'theatre' and in Southeast Asia in particular, approx 1965-82. (Think: Vietnam War era.) [Tim Geithner's father was Obama's ("Toots") grandmother's boss at Bank of Hawaii. That is but one of hundreds of oh,by-the-way details concerning Obama's circumstances then, and now ...?]
'Grandpa' Stanley was stationed in Beirut with diplomatic (State Dept.) credentials to observe and report local politics, 1942, when and where 'mama' Ann was born with American citizenship.
Reviewing: Barry Soetoro's grandparents were CIA agents.
He lived with them (guardians) in Hawaii from age 2 to 7, while his mother had gone to Indonesia with her second marriage.

Barack Obama, Senior, (b. ~ 1935, British citizenship) came in 1959 from the British East African Protectorate, 'assigned' to Univ. of Hawaii in Russian Language and Culture studies, as 1 in a planeload of selected Africans, CIA-approved and -placed, (odd fact: 1959 recruitment funded through a Kennedy charity).

Excerpt: August 19, 2010 -- SPECIAL REPORT. The Story of Obama: All in the Company -- Part III ... Obama maintains that his mother and father first met in a Russian-language class at the University of Hawaii in 1960. However, a photograph has emerged of Stanley Armour welcoming Barack Obama, Sr., complete with traditional Hawaiian welcoming leis, from Kenya. Obama, Sr. was the only Kenyan student airlifted to Hawaii as part of the CIA-inspired Airlift Africa project that saw Obama and 279 other students from British eastern and southern African colonies brought to the United States for college degrees prior to their homelands gaining independence from Britain. The students were selected by Kenyan nationalist leader Tom Mboya who would later conduct surveillance for the CIA at pan-African nationalist meetings .... Stanley Armour Dunham [third from right, second row] with Barack Obama, Sr. [fourth from right] at welcoming ceremony to Hawaii. The presence of two US Navy personnel indicates the plane may have landed at Hickam Air Force Base, an indication of the U.S. government's and CIA's role in the Airlift Africa project.

Also, some accounts indicate Ann Dunham was in Cuba with her father when she became pregnant during Thanksgiving '60 break from college, 3 or 4 days before her 18th birthday. (A curiosity that Americans went to Cuba in 1960; Fidel Castro became President August '59. However, Cuba is not extra-ordinary in the Dunham family's global travels ... England, Lebanon, Kansas, Seattle, Honolulu, Jakarta, Pakistan, and more.)
Barry Junior was born August 4, 1961. Some investigators have looked to see where his mother was nine months earlier, November 4, 1960. But a touch of astrology analysis might find the pregnancy began Nov. 23 and was delivered a couple weeks 'premature'.

An 18-yr-old white American mother with a mixed-race baby in 1961 plausibly abandoned him, for adoption or something.

In the 1975 Senate hearings investigation of CIA crimes, (and also in earlier 'leaks'), there was disclosed the CIA 'program' MK-ULTRA, 1950-75 and 1976- present day, which planned and performed human experimentation to 'create' a so-called Manchurian Candidate. One method in MK-ULTRA described obtaining the experimental subjects soon after birth and 'handling' them into adulthood; perhaps hundreds of subjects were involved but expected attrition would largely reduce the number who arrived in adulthood brain-wired and -programmed 'successfully.' Five colleges were disclosed as sites of CIA-directed research (active circa 1960) on-campus involving nursery/day care facilities and "behaviorial science" and "intelligence production" programs: M.I.T., Yale, Univ. of Michigan, U.C.L.A., and Univ. of Hawai.

Wait, there's more. Barry Soetoro's first job after college was at Business International Corp as a reporter for a newsletter on commerce and economics in countries worldwide. In some of that he traveled to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Later he (was) 'parachuted' into Chicago and assigned to infiltrate black activist groups such as at Trinity Church, 'underground radicals' and community organizations, as an undercover 'snitch' informant for somebody (FBI? CIA?) to monitor closed-door meetings.
Also, there are accounts of previous times he was an 'informant' while in college (Occidental, Columbia U., Harvard) and a member of student activist groups.

That's enough. Readers to here, either see a pattern in what's known of B.O.'s biography, or draw a blank.

Surely the enigma of Prez Obama's personality, political ascendancy, broken promises, continued Bush behaviors in 'wars', torture-murders, tax revenue give-aways, Wall St coercion, and any other disappointment, double-cross, or reversal that any person can specify in him, in office, all of it seems logical and demystified and perhaps predictable, (like this [n.b. written 7/29], Coming Soon: Obama caves on the debt deadline melodrama, cuts taxes for the rich, chops up Soc.Sec. and Medicare), is all consistent with and contained in the single, simplest explanation: he is a CIA creation, a CIA-programmed and CIA-controlled 'mole' double-agent in the Oval Office. Spying on America(ns) and spying on democracy in order to subvert and destroy both.

The 'ironic' thing about rightwing hate-talk radio bashing Obama is that they are bashing one of their own kind, a rightwing CIA military-mad 'conservative' Republican stalwart ... inside his superficial skin color. Massmedia hate being driven at him mostly shows that the haters sense (soonest) the ways He is (like) Them. A skunk smells his own self first, (an oldtime farmer axiom). The pointing finger shows three pointing back, super-sensitive, at the same guilt as accused.

There's almost no reason for rightwing conservatives and the Republican Party to reject Obama. He could be their candidate and beat whoever the Dems put up. But wait, there's more. It turns out he is bisexual; he and Rahm Emanuel are card-carrying lifetime members of Man Country, a 'traditional' gay men's (health) clubhouse in Chicago. Three men in Trinity Church have declared they had sexual encounters with Obama -- two were murdered silent in Oct and Dec 2007, the third one has published a book with the expose:
Barack Obama & Larry Sinclair: Cocaine, Sex, Lies & Murder?

www.larrysinclair.org/2011/04/18/barack-obama-larry-sinclair/

Seeming to be gay or bi-sexual, (maybe one showing was that the only Big Reform he did sign was DADT repeal, after all), may make him even more Republican-like. But it probably discounts his chances of (openly) being on the top of the GOP 2012 ticket.

And, finally, here's a religious-stained academic rightwing professor's book review, dealing with 6 books published lately, all guessing about Obama and what makes him tick ... tick.tick.tick.tick.tick.suicidal? The reviewer unabashedly agrees with statements in the books saying Obama is a CIA-made -owned and -operated agent of espionage against America, democracy, etc.

So the religious-rightwing reviewer agrees Obama is all CIA inside! And then adds that (CIA-made) to the pile of 'reasons' for the Republicans to bash and reject Obama! Huh? Wha'? Well, because, you see, everyone knows that the CIA is a leftist/socialist/Democratic Party-instilled anti-conservative institution with CIA planning to rule the world under one kinda-communist government. The CIA? Leftwing socialist? I thought the review was funny and the reviewer a kook.

But that's his view and perspective overlooking the facts (which he recognizes), that Obama is the CIA's long-sought Manchurian Candidate.

www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1852/article_detail.asp

Wayne Madsen Report dot com website delivered the 'list of facts' stipulated above, from FOIA releases, insider sources (Madsen was an NSA intel.analyst for years), interviews, foreign press reports, and regular ol' investigative reporter gumshoe methods such as thoroughly reading through available archive records and materials, seeing photos such as above; (his grew up, lives, and works in WashDC, archives city). A goodly sense of WayneMadsenReport.com develops by checking the Front Page daily for a week or so. Notice the found items in world news publications which are presented nowhere else in American media.

Here is the link to the main start of Madsen's oeuvre of Obama:
Wayne Madsen: Obama's CIA Connections, Part I and II, posted at Veterans Today .com
[Notice the absence of editorial opinion in it, 'just the facts' you can evaluate and connect in your own fashion.]

Here is the rest of the headlines for the additional reports Madsen has compiled on his website, (well worth the inexpensive subscription fee).

Part I

Part II

Part III

The Story of Obama: All in the Company - Part IV. More evidence surfaces on Obama's and his family's deep CIA links. WMR Exclusive Content.

The Story of Obama: Part V. All in the Company.

Tales from the Obama Crypt -- Obama's mother began her Indonesian field work at height of complaints about CIA involvement with foreign "research"

Stanley Dunham: Female "Indiana Jones" targeting Communists for the CIA.

Stanley Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro's CIA colleagues

Obama's "Mommy Dearest" -- targeting Indonesians for assassination.

Obama's mother and grandparents: government infiltrators?

Obama's CIA brief

Obama's mother's employer and Barack's "company"

Obama's sealed college transcripts

Obama's grandfather's CIA "furniture store" cover

Obama's mother in Ghana: Why was she there?

Obama's mother and Suriname: past agency links?

Obama, CIA, and USAID

www.waynemadsenreport.com/categories/20100918 [pay-walled]

The White House Press Office issued written notice (and Madsen posted it) which states that any reporter in the daily 'Press gaggle' who asks any question about Obama's work history or college records and such, will have his or her W.H. Press Pass cancelled instantly.

Madsen's contacts inside W.H. councils, State Dept, and the (foreign) intelligence community, (multiple sources) have recently 'warned' him that the W.H. has targeted him for assassination. And Madsen posted it. (And mainstream media, frightened to death, ran away and hid from that leaked 'warning' news item and cowered from responsibly Press-shielding Madsen.)

Very few facts about Obama are revealed to the public. The large number of comments in this thread shows the public's large interest in knowing more details. The range of speculation, snipes, and wild-eyed unbalanced opinions in this thread shows the effect of information starvation.

It is obvious in massmedia there is deliberate suppression of Obama info. Documentation which is, with great difficulty uncovered so far, shows a preponderance of evidence for concluding Obama is a CIA tool, agent, brain-washed and -starched anti-democracy autocrat & authoritarian ideologue. I.e., an extreme rightwing Conservative, or Tory, i.e., a stealth dictatorial Republican. ("... b- b- but the peel-n-stick nametag on his label says 'Democrat', and the TV says he is, too. He can't possibly be a Republican ... turncoat. Manchurian candidate.") Bush III, in drag.

F u r t h e r m o r e ... meanwhile, in another part of Political Gotham, or Babylon, Bush II signed the checks which purchased (from Bushcronies) computer-programmed Touch-the-TV election equipment installed in all 50 States. Hence, election 'winners' are pre-programmed for us, the people, and actual votes are not counted (actually) any more. If Rick Perry or Jeb Bush is already 'dialed in' as the next POTUS, pre-programmed, then your vote / voice / opinion / outcry, and mine, (or not), in 2012 don't matter and doesn't count. Read these items:

www.intrepidreport.com/archives/2596

www.bradblog.com/?p=8616
[in this item, you can follow links to see one particular example of ballot count fraud where a precinct's printed Final Tally sheet and official's signature certifying the results are date-stamped 7 days before Election Day! That public record is exhibited, on-line.]

Getting down to the bottom line, since marking ballots does not matter these days and our votes are never counted anymore, (EXCEPT in Oregon, the only Vote-by-Mail state, all absentee all the time, paper ballots hand-marked by voters, making material and substantiating evidence prima facie, ipso facto), voting cannot effect or affect the dictatorship bubble anymore. So now what can we DO about democracy lost while we are living under the rule of an autocratic dictatorship?

Maybe not voting is the answer ...
Maybe shouting our opinion real loud to persuade everyone else to vote for (or against) the same candidates we favor (or oppose), yeah, that's the ticket ...
Maybe run away to Canada ... Mexico? ...
Maybe we could ... uh, oh, let's say ... on second thought, maybe not ...

Maybe the thing we need to see and understand is this:

www.iamthewitness.com/DarylBradfordSmith_Bankers.htm

The History of the "Money Changers"

1764 Benjamin Franklin is asked by officials of the Bank of England to explain the prosperity of the colonies in America. He replies,

"That is simple. In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay no one."

As a result of Franklin's statement, the British Parliament hurriedly passed the Currency Act of 1764. This prohibited colonial officials from issuing their own money and ordered them to pay all future taxes in gold or silver coins. Referring to this after the Act was passed, Franklin would state the following in his autobiography,

"The viability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of King George III and the international bankers was the prime reason for the revolutionary war."

... the name, "First Bank of the United States," was deliberately chosen to hide from the common people the fact that it was privately owned. The names of the investors in this bank were never revealed, although it is now widely believed that the Rothschilds were behind it.

Interestingly in 1790 ..., Mayer Amschel Rothschild made the following statement from his bank in Frankfurt, Germany, "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."

[esp. see this] blog: webofdebt.wordpress.com/

The Web of Debt, Ellen Hodgson Brown, J.D.

The empowering knowledge in all the reading is this simple understanding:
Money is debt. That is all it is. It does not have to be printed paper nor minted coins nor notched sticks. Simply debt. When you make debt you are making money, out of thin air. The rest is imagery, bluffery, custom, and/or intimidation usually by putting fear and ignorance (same thing?) in people's minds limiting people getting wise to the scam of banks and bankers (making money out of thin air).
Taxes pay interest on debt. That is all that taxes are. Interest payments. Where zero-interest debt (money) is issued and circulated, there are no taxes. In some eras in America, money (debt) was issued at zero-interest (Pres. Lincoln's 'greenbacks' e.g.); the times and circumstances are told in The Web of Debt.

Since our voting no more elects our 'representative' federal gov't., and since the ones now in office refuse our calls to audit, nevermind regulate the Federal Reserve, there is no redress of our grievances but what we do ourselves for ourselves.

In Oregon, beaver pelts used to be money. Pendleton(TM) wool blankets used to be money. Gold and metals in Oregon hills used to be money. (Medford, Harry & David's) Fruit of the Month Club in its heyday was kind of money. Today there are insufficient amounts of those things to be issued at-large to circulate as a convenient token of exchange-value. Today petrodollars (issued by Saudi Royal family) is money. Future Oregon most likely uses water for money. (Hey, Ibn Saud's tribe: Got water?)
Could tea bags be money? No, not so much. In a so-called 'underground' economy maybe marijuana is money. 'Underground' economy is somewhat different than a 'black market.' Money is not the same as 'vice' meaning contraband, (esp. booze), prostitution, gambling.

It seems to me there are two ways to end WashDC dictatorship as personified in Obama and Congress and Supreme Court, and as practiced suffocating our lives, (liberties, and pursuits) with the police-state SWAT mentality, which in turn is controlled by CIA/NSA/FBI/TSA/ATF/DEA/ICE/DHS (eight leech tentacles off the same one fat head), which in turn is controlled by private bankers global cartel issuing money (World Bank, IMF, Fed.Reserve, and CFW, TriComm, 'Bilderberg', and 'petro-dollars'). The self-coronated Elite Officials (or 'godly goons') obtain rising power of social control (defrauding people) in direct proportion to obliterating facts, knowledge, and understanding about money as the instrument of control. Petrodollars has been that 'money' since 1900 (ref: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindletop ) causing our current social straits and diminishing People Power. The stupider we stay, the richer they get. (E.g., the amount of Saudi oil remaining underground is one of the most highly-guarded data-points ever -- more than a State Secret, it is world dictator-group TopTopTop Secret. When (not if) inevitably they tell us, then they'll have to kill us. Cue the Bush crime family; Bill McDonald, this 1's for U: www.theoildrum.com/node/3770 Smartly, while watching its video timeline of activities, make mental correlations with year-by-year world socio-political controls; explore more data in the links and comments at the bottom, and generally around the website, www.TheOilDrum.com )

Arguing our angers and hopes here among ourselves, and in result then voting for 'our guy' is NOT the way to arrest and alter our American and Earthling destiny from devastation and annihilation which looms in view and is seen fast-approaching.

Although there is not much debate-style argument here, nor anger nor hope, after each comment spits some spite of a one-line 'wit', stops reading further, and then dashes off to the next blogride attraction. Customary politics, and Dems vs. Reps, is NOT the way through and out of the bad government we are in -- canned politicians and vacuum-sealed politics is past its last sale date. Let it go. Get over it. Re-Constitute our lives.

Consider two ways to end US.fed.govt. peacefully, without gunfire (or Predator drones whizzing in), before it grows into the New World Order:

* The better way is doing it by involving everyone, together, aware what is being done. Every State secede from the Union, (by State Legislative Act) -- poof!, no more national govt, no more seat of power in WashDC -- and then Constitutional Committee delegations from each State get together, draft a new USConsti2tion, and enact it by 3/4ths voting to ratify. (Maybe all 50 would not reunite; I expect that regions of 5, 6, 8, 10 adjoining States could come to some agreements among themselves, and compared to what there is now, 50 temper-tossing States, what's so bad about regional arrangements if this TOO BIG too bulky ungovernable country divided calmly and conscientiously into a half-dozen smaller 'locality' countries?)

* The second way goes indirectly to the same result (of 'downsizing' the stumbling behemoth into several smaller sovereignties). Each individual State has an option now, today, to issue its own money. That conduct is instituted in and by establishing a State Bank, (as was heard in Salem during this Session and in 5 other State Legislatures as well this year). North Dakota is already running its own bank and its economic condition is the envy of every Governor -- least unemployment, most budget surplus. (See data and details in Web of Debt book, excerpted at the website.) When States issue their own money, or combine in multi-State consortiums and issue 'regional' money, then, as Rothschild said and has proved for 250 years, it doesn't matter what WashDC 'laws' there are, whoever makes them. Local money upstages the Fed.Reserve (in an individual person's life's perspective), and there's devaluation of the federal "full faith and credit" imagery bluffery that's been wrapped around an entity (USA? Fed.Res? Congress? Obama?) no one knows much about in a personal way. Today's dictated "faith and credit" does not look very "full" to most people. Anyway, issue local money that locals use among themselves and that ends conscription of locals into dollar-wage slavery. (Local money could have an exchange rate to petrodollar money.) Notice how China has parity with America because China issues its own money, and exchange rate. Read about individual States doing deals with China.

Explicitly, I oppose the overthrow of the USGovt. I advocate undermining and undoing it by issuing 'local' currency of our own (local) design(s) into circulation. By thinking globally then we better can act locally.

Here among us overheated frogs, as I say we better act decisively now or all die stuck stupid in the worsening conditions we're in, others are heard in response saying, in essence, "whatever are you talking about, sounding goofy and writing uninteresting points too complicated to read through, and besides, would not all problems be solved and have everyone living happily ever after by shifting together over to 'the cool' partisan side of the boiling sociopolitical bath?" Alas, I despair, and cry out looonnnng in loving humankind. As global warming nears to incinerating and dessicating our habitat, and there is no 'side' in the shade on a planet that is continuously turning 'round, skewered through, please, ACT: we must (re)write and (re)enact new Consti2tional Law. ("Say what? ... what is this 'global warming' you speak of?")

www.ratical.org/corporations/limit2growth.html

Social side-effects must be anticipated and forestalled before the large-scale introduction of a new technology.

While technology can change rapidly, political and social, insitutions generally change very slowly. Furthermore, they almost never change in anticipation of social need, but only in response to one.

We must also keep in mind the presence of social delays -- the delays necessary to allow society to absorb or to prepare for a change. ... The social delays, like the physical ones, are becoming increasingly more critical because the processes of exponential growth are creating additional pressures at a faster and faster rate.

We must all live according to the facts of life. No facts = No life.

Indeed, Obama is toast. So are we. Unless we unseat the mad death-dealing Monsters who rode in on the black horse Obama, decline to follow such suicidal 'leadership' and walk away from the way they are going.

The links I put in this are meant to provide some map showing other ways to go, where others have gone before and found success in self-governance. (Links can be Copy'n'Pasted into URL address.) The key instrument is local (State) issuance of money for unlocking chains of debt enslavement and, thereby, dispelling the 'confidence game' charade of slaveholder politics that took America(ns) captive. Public authority in issuing money was designed in the first USConstitution, and has been stolen (despicably: modernhistoryproject.org/mhp?Article=FedReserve&C=3.0#Act ) by private-profit bankers into the Federal Reserve. If readers have only time or interest to look into one link, then the Web of Debt book (and website) is recommended first for facts with the most power to make impact, just like and as good as Scripture.