Who put your mortgage in the blender?

One of the culprits is MERS - here's Beau Biden, Delaware Attorney General, talking about problems with the mortgage market. You will have to endure an ad to get to the story, sorry.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#45081550

I think all 50 state AGs are involved in a lawsuit against large banks and financial institutions. Find out more and don't let them settle for a few billion dollars.

Isn't that an amazing thought? 'a few billion dollars'. This thing is so big that fining people something like one hundred billion dollars seems too small.

The Keystone Pipeline

Here is what I wrote to President Obama about the pipeline that would run from the oilsands in Alberta, Canada to the US midwest.

Keystone Pipeline.

Dear Mr. President,

The Keystone Pipeline has many good and bad points and I won't add to that.

What I do want to say is that if you decide to permit the pipeline, you have a great bargaining chip with Big Oil and big oily congress.

If you decide to build it, make Congress pass some compensating legislation. How about taking the $6 billion giveaway to oil companies and putting it to fund renewable energy?

How about forcing them to pass real job creation legislation such as you have been touring the country to promote?

Keep up the pressure. The Occupy Wall Street and all the other Occupy's are getting the message to people. Did you know there is an Occupy Fairbanks Alaska?

Political Cartoon

Spoiler alert, I can't draw. But I can write those thousand words. Picture Obama (editorial cartoon style Obama) leading a crowd of citizens toward the future but being pushed against by a big elephant (editorial cartoon style Republican elephant with those big pissed off eyes). Got that? Good. Now the caption reads. "It's hard to move forward when you're waist deep in elephant poop."

Dick Deadeye

Dick Deadeye is a sailor in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera HMS Pinafore. He has such a bad name and is so ugly that whatever he says, everyone takes the opposite view. He could say the sun is yellow and get an argument from the rest of the crew.

I bet President Obama feels like Dick Deadeye. Seems like any time he supports a Republican idea, the Republicans immediately hate that idea.

Wait, maybe this is more like Steve Martin in The Jerk when that crazy guy picks him randomly out of the phonebook and starts shooting at him at the gas station where he works. As the guy continues to shoot, Steve hides behind some oil cans but then figures out "he hates those cans!"

No, the Repubs don't disklike their own ideas, they don't want to see anything the President does succeed. Isn't that horrible? Putting politics over the good of the country, especially during this long long recession is unpatriotic. Whatever happened to 'Country First'?

If I did this, I'd be in prison

Here's a 60 Minutes documentary about banks FORGING mortgage documents.  In this video, people admit to signing or notarizing documents they knew were false.  The banks used these to back up their foreclosures on toxic loans when the house of cards fell and they didn't have the paperwork. 

If you or I did this, we'd be in prison so fast.  But is anyone being even investigated by someone other than CBS?  
(I apologige that there are probably ads before the clip)

60 Minutes Video

In this environment, rich people and powerful corporations ALWAYS do just fine, no matter what happens with taxes or governments.

Here's a little gallows humor from the Daily Show -

Daily Show Video

I call BS on 'job creators'

The phrase 'you can't increase taxes on job creators' annoys the heck out of me because it is a lie. .  We've been un-taxing the rich for thirty years and you see the results around you. Institutions have been hollowed out.  The idea of the commons is gone.  It is all me, me, mine.   

Remember the Clinton years?  The tax rates were still very low but we did take in enough to have an actual middle class..  We even had a budget surplus.  W took care of that surplus by un-taxing the wealthy.  You and I got $2500 while the upper 1%  got billions.  Where are the jobs those billions should have created?  Why does anyone think giving them more billions will create more jobs?

So here it is, the rich corporations do not create most of the jobs.  Most of the jobs they have created are overseas.  It is small business that creates local (real) jobs.

Don't be fooled when politicians talk about 'small business' either.  They mean Subchapter S (Sub S) corporations and in this case the small means 20 stockholders which can be 20 VERY RICH stockholders.

What is wrong with giving back a bit to the system that has enabled all this wealth?  You know, where  people who have a lot are expected to contribute to the good of the entire nation? 

Winged Radio

Right wing::

Guest: "Those liberals hate America."
Host:   "Yes they light the Consitution on fire with a  burning American flag."

Left wing:

Guest: "Those conservatives hate America"
Host:   "You can't say that in general.  even the wackiest Tea Party congressperson believes they are working for the good of the country."