Welcome Back Update - January 28th

(We all took a breather, but now we're ready for action once again. Let's check out what's been happening since we've been gone.)

• Of all people to miss this event, Mark Morford didn't watch the inauguration of Barak Obama.


• They may have held hands with him, but there are signs that the Saudis didn't care much for the SOB either.


• OhMyGawd. President Obama said that Republicans need to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. Is nothing sacred anymore? We agree, although we'd probably say that EVERYONE needs to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. And here's Joe Conason on El Rushbo.


• The inauguration of Barack Obama, "whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant," is both a culmination and a beginning. That's from an excellent article by Jonathan Schell in The Nation magazine, entitled "Obama and the Return of the Real."


• The Bush administration’s "war on terror"—including its controversial policies on detentions, interrogations and warrantless wiretapping—was all underpinned by legal memoranda. While some of those memos have been released, the former administration chose to keep many others secret, citing security and confidentiality concerns. Check out this really cool list of those secret memos. This is going to get exciting before it's over.


• Blago hits the talk show circuit. Here's a report from John Kass in the Chicago Tribune about the man he calls "Gov. Nosfratu, the walking politically undead."

My Own Personal Nightmare

Others may take the high road, I will not. This may have been "our national nightmare" but for me it was my personal nightmare. I had to listen to hoards of airheads parrot BushCo talking points, acronyms, themes, memes, whines and slimes. I don't really know how offended our nation, or the world were. I do know how offended and insulted I was by the spectacle of a homicidal frat boy getting control of what he often seemed to view as the world's biggest frat house, complete with hazing. Seriously, several pundits spoke of the CIA torture protocols as "a form of hazing". All I can say is, thank God I never aspired to be a part of the Greek System.

To his credit, George W. Bush is so damn dumb that he STILL doesn't get it. He should never have left Texas, where some of the more regressive elements in society applaud stupid as a lifestyle. Other Texans somehow endure, though how they do so truly escapes me. The fun and progressive parts of Texas are very fun, and very progressive.

And the one good thing about the Bush years that I can think of is that it gave all the red-meat, red-state, brain-dead conservatives a public outlet for all their fantasies about how uber-conservative government would "release" the pent-up creativity of man in his natural, feral state. And that unfettered man, buoyed by the teachings of various pundits and frothing radio personalities, would help our nation take over the world, picking up the White Man's Burden that England was forced to drop at the end of World War Two. So these troglodytic personalities were able to strut free, unhampered by regulations and inconvenient questions... free to pontificate and have people hang on their words, free to manage projects far, far beyond their modest capabilities, believing that what they lacked in education and experience they could make up by the fervor of their ideological purity and free-market sensibilities.

And boy, were they wrong. Pretty much every conservative wet dream anyone dreamed up during the twentieth century was dragged out from under the bed and given its moment in the sun, its chance to shine. Torrential rains universally resulted. None of them worked. None? Is that too strong? Okay, I have given this one some thought and I cannot identify one. I will pledge a six-pack of beer to anyone who can name one conservative brainstorm that actually panned out, when given an unusual opportunity to be tried, without any significant resistance. Do your best, I am pulling for you, but be aware that I remain supremely confident that it is me that is going to be drinking the beer, while others drink the bitter brew of defeat.

Okay Inaugural Speech. I mean, okay, but not a barn-burner. But you know what? I do not recall JFK's as that either... until people over the following months picked out certain portions and replayed them in isolation, turning them into selected sound bites. That has already started with Obama's address. It is fascinating to see history be shaped, as it is being reshaped.

I must confess that right up until the end I thought that the Bush administration would do something really, really creepy, and would not go away. I am still not convinced that they did not leave some kind of "poison pill" behind, that is, beyond the two dud wars and the massively duff economy... something else. Like what? Like, I don't know, like they secretly sold all the gold at Fort Knox to a grocery store in the Cayman Islands in return for a three-night stay at a Holiday Inn in Sarasota, Florida. You know, a typical Bush administration choice...

I hope I am wrong, this time. On the big stuff, I was right, they were crap. Harsh? maybe, but someone had to say it. Finally.

Arthur

Our Long National Nightmare Is Over

At 9 AM this morning I watched as the Willamette Valley fog lifted, the sun came out, little green buds began growing on the trees, flowers bloomed, little bunnies frolicked in widflower gardens, Disney music wafted through the forest, and what has been black and white for so long suddenly became living color. The curse has been lifted.

We survived it. We survived the desecration of our society, the loss of freedoms, the torture, the cronyisms, the evil that was the Bush administration. EPRushNet started this crusade 8 years ago, to comfort and cheer those of us who felt nothing but despair. I hope we have done a good job. We want to thank all of you who have stuck with us through all of this, all of you who have sent us stuff to post, all of you who have pleaded with us to keep going, to keep the faith.

Arthur and I, and whoever wants to contribute, will continue with Bad Hat, although we're going to take a week to celebrate the return to national sanity. The Idiots are still out there, and they will do everything they can to discredit Barak Obama during his administration.

Everyone take a deep breath. Feels good, doesn't it...

Love, EPRush

Weekend Update - January 17th

• On January 15, George W. Bush presented his valedictory, desperately seeking thanks and congratulations. So here goes: Thanks and congratulations, W, for showing the world that today’s conservatism is an abject failure. Bye bye to the worst President ever.


• What we need to do is conceptually simple. We need to launch investigations to get at the central unanswered questions of Bush's abuse of power, commence criminal proceedings and undertake institutional, statutory and constitutional reforms. Obama has to hold George Bush accountable for the laws he broke. Period.


• He was elected as the man we'd most like to have a beer with. But when it came time to have that beer, it got really awkward. From The Onion.


• Pastor Rick Warren tells his faithful to follow Jesus like Nazis followed Hitler. Could possibly become the Christian statement of the year, and it's only January.


• Here's a pretty good farewell to Bush from a fellow blogger.


• Hope this isn't a trend. Reporting from Sacramento -- The state will suspend tax refunds, welfare checks, student grants and other payments owed to Californians starting Feb. 1, Controller John Chiang announced Friday. Chiang said he had no choice but to stop making some $3.7 billion in payments in the absence of action by the governor and lawmakers to close the state's nearly $42-billion budget deficit. More than half of those payments are tax refunds.

The Rehabilitation of President Bush

President Bush's "equanimity" in recent weeks seems similar to his bland confidence at the many points where he plowed ahead, confident of his "rightness" in the face of a world full of people waving their hands and pointing toward the open manhole he was preparing to step confidently into. With the rest of our nation in tow.

Whether President Bush will ever experience any substantive rehabilitation in his lifetime, or perhaps in a half century or more in the future, is by definition something that we, cannot yet know. One is certainly free to predict that such a miracle will happen, but in my opinion it has roughly the same chances of success as our being greeted in Iraq by crowds throwing flowers and signing songs of praise, something the British should have known was highly unlikely from their botched 1920s adventure in nation-building and village-bombing there, shortly after the formation of the modern state of Iraq. Taking the Brits with us as our primary ally must have given many Iraqis pause, as they recalled Churchill's use of mustard gas and retaliatory bombings. Oh, sorry, had you not acquainted yourself with the history of that region? The book "Churchill's Folly" might be a useful starting point.

There have probably been more difficult times in which a new President took office, but the current combination of a military shambles, diplomatic chaos, economic crash and consumer panic does rather look like something of a perfect storm, doesn't it? For those inhabiting a cushy bubble in the District of Columbia, secure within the bastion of your own certitude, things may seem just swell, but for those who get out and about more, who see the breadth of our national Ponzi Scheme as it progressively unravels? Not so encouraging.

As President Bush bids farewell and bids farewell again and again and again, is it a surprise that his words are seen with favor? When the most popular statement a political figure is able to make is "Okay, I really am going away now", what does that tell us? I would argue that it is the only thing he could say that the American people ever want to hear from him. While other Presidents could look forward to a long and lucrative run on the lecture circuits of the world... Bush may not fare as well.

Arthur

Elections Have Consequences

Elections have consequences. Losers give speeches, struggling to wrap themselves in sanctified rags of their Good Intentions, while minimizing their serial misbehaviors as "honest mistakes", as though they were the excess of their passion to secure their nation and work for the welfare of their people. Okay. Bullshit.

George W. Bush got elected, to the extent that he really ever did get "elected", by distinguishing himself from the other Republican candidates for President by having a better record at killing prisoners. Oh, does that sound unfair? Really? If you think so, I have some bedtime reading for you. Not a "bedtime story" unless you have strange tastes in recreational reading, but a story to stand your hair on end: (Click Here)

Let's be blunt; the outgoing President was not a very nice man, nor a very principled man. It would almost appear (though we may never be able to prove it) that early in his Governorship he decided to distinguish himself for personal cojones by killing his way through the pending Death Penalty cases in Texas, including those involving the halt, the lame, the sick and the blind. Okay, I made that last one up. I do not know that any of the 152 prisoners that Bush nudged towards the Gas Chamber was legally blind. Some were retarded, others apparently insane, while some were just bad to the bone. All of them died, arguably in a cause greater than themselves; getting George W. Bush elected President, as the most badass Governor in America. A former aide referred to President Bush recently as a "Sarah Palin-like figure", easily lead by Vice-President Cheney and his unsavory associates. Neo-Cons, ya know. Toy Soldiers. Pansy-ass chickenhawks; lots of draft deferments, lots of John Wayne movies, no experience of actual war, aside from a safe distance.

And now all those third-rate minds are leaving our nation's capital. It would be nice to imagine that some of them, at least, could be held accountable for the havoc they leave in their wake. Republicans are big on "accountability" we are told. They lecture us that the poor should starve and freeze and attend crappy schools, as a just return on their failure to become CEOs. When they leave government, as "Dick" Cheney did after Gulf War I, they tend to gravitate towards industries where their connections can be useful. In short, the ideal for many Republican political figures is not just to patronize prostitutes, but to become a really, really well-paid one. And the good of our nation? Are you joking? Are you, sir, some kind of "socialist" or something? Why "getting ahead", by fair means or foul, is the American Way! Anyone who is afraid to sell out is a namby- pamby liberal limp-dicked sissy!

But things sometimes change. Something changed last year. Actually, a lot of things changed last year, in what I think history will see as a "perfect shit storm" of bad news for business as usual. Did anyone else listen to Eric Holder's testimony to the Judiciary Committee today? I had no idea who Holder was, had never heard him speak, I thought he looked a bit like a suit, but who knew? Who knew that Eric Holder came up through the ranks of the Justice Department not because he knew someone, or was someone, or someone owed him. He clearly rose to the cusp of being our next Attorney General because he is really, really smart and really, really principled. In short, an excellent choice and pretty much the "anti-Gonzales" at a time when someone like that is so badly needed. Our jails are filled with poor people who are in for selling small amounts of drugs or petty thefts. Bad behavior, no doubt, but then there is Bernard Madoff, who says he thinks that he has "made off" with perhaps as much as fifty billion dollars. His punishment, to date, has been to be confined to his 5th Avenue penthouse. Damn! Call the Red Cross! The poor man will be forced to have his domestic staff shop for him and prepare his meals! Oh, wait, they already do that? For some reason we seem able to find abundant rationales for mild treatment of really, really big crooks and we compensate by coming down like a ton of bricks on the poor who stray. Why is that? Do we have a system of dual standards? Are the wealthy seen as inherently weak, but not culpable for their own actions? Are the poor a greater threat to the fabric of our society? or does it have something to do with how well one dresses and speaks? That's my guess.

And elections have consequences.

Can anyone imagine Congress giving a Democrat a check for $350 BILLION as they enter office? Wow. That's a lot of petty cash, isn't it?

We've become a bit blase about large amounts of slush money, haven't we? I'd like to give us a reality check for a minute. Can anyone else recall President Bush's deranged ravings about the terrible condition that the Social Security system was in? No? about six or seven years ago he and his sock puppets wept crocodile tears about how SSI was "going broke" and would be impossible to fix, unless someone magically could find an impossibly LARGE SUM OF MONEY, too large for our nation to afford. Really. That "impossible sum" (TM)? 75 Billion. Say what? No, seriously, that was the shortfall, that was the insolvable crisis. Honest. Today Congress gave President-Elect Obama 4.67 times more money than that, for him to use for "stimulus". Okay. So "stimulus"... what the heck is that? It is doing something or spending money on something that will make people have more confidence in our economy, so they will go back out and buy and invest and feel... good. Call me old-fashioned (and not for the first time) but if someone skimmed 75 billion off the top of the "TARP" funds and fully funded SSI so I could retire knowing that my government could keep its promises to me? that would make me MUCH more optimistic and adventurous about life. I would, in short, feel very STIMULATED.

So while Bank of America says they really want a whole lot more money, and Citibank says things are really tight this month, my response is "fuck 'em". And for good measure "you betcha!" It am tired of those lying weasels (TM) pissing and moaning and bleeding the poorest segments of our society with credit card extortion and usury. Think that is unfair? It turns out that banks earn 40% of their profits from credit card interest and penalties. Yup, it is not from loans to large business, or mortgages, it is from taking advantage of the desperate and temporarily short-of-cash. And which of us has not fallen into that situation a time or two? Eh? Really? Never? Vito and the Bank of America count on you having problems, or getting really sick, or... or the host of other problems. They are not social workers, they are vultures. And now they have made some bad investments themselves and they'd really like us all to let bygones be bygones and give them a hand up, at really reasonable rates. That $350 Billion they already got? oh, THAT $350 Billion? they can't really talk about what they did with the money, so sorry. Oh, yes, they did buy a smaller bank, or two... I mean, the prices were just sooo attractive, but making new loans? Mmmm, no, that did not really seem so attractive. Maybe if they had another $350 Billion, then a few small loans would be possible, maybe, but we'd have to wait and see...

Fuck 'em. I think we have a lot of things that can be done with the money that do not involve trusting large banks and investment houses. Social Security is just one example. That would still leave 275 Billion, which is a lot of stimulus.

Listen, I am just glad that an intelligent and principled Democratic President is going to have some walking around money to spend. Elections have consequences. What are we talking now? Four and a half days, or slightly less? How stunning. I think it is all going to work out okay. Oh, and when it does I think the 2010 elections are going to drive the Republican Party into a decade of ecllipse. I was fascinated to see that Senator David "diaperboy" Vitter was the sole Senator to vote against the confirmation of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Given the beatings he endured in "discipline sessions in a famed New Orleans bordello" I had assumed he would vote for a strong woman, but guess again. And guess when Vitter comes up for reelection? Yup, 2010. Elections have consequences. Maybe Vitter can go to work for Halliburton, as they struggle to reinvent themselves as a Green Energy Company. Or maybe he, like many of the functionaries of the Bush era, will just go away, tainted forever by their complicity in a deeply flawed Presidency and corrupted government.

Anyhow, that's how I see it. Now I've got a party to get ready for.

Arthur

Goodwill Ambassadors

I will confess to having done some fairly ill-considered things during my visits to other countries. Some I deeply regret, others made me sick, some could have killed me, but didn't. But there are some dumb things that I am proud to say I would never do. These are three of those things.


The world's largest fish market is reversing a month-old ban on tourists at its riotous early-morning auctions.

Tsukiji market in the Japanese capital Tokyo had accused tourists of flouting hygiene rules and causing disruption with flash photography. Some tourists had been caught hugging, licking and even riding the huge frozen tuna that are Tsukiji's most arresting sight, an official said.

Arthur

Health Care Follies

My favorite line in this article is:

Tauzin defended direct advertising as a means to not only educate patients about treatments but also alert them to illnesses they may not realize they have.

See, some consumers might not even have heard of certain diseases, or imagined that they might have it. In addition, many Americans need more to worry about, not less, and since the medical system is set up the way it is their primary care physician cannot be relied upon to find out of they might be ill, because there are so few primary care physicians and the system is designed to rush office visits for maximum efficiency in terms of the number of patients seen each day. Oh, and those ads for Cialis? the ones that make people want to have old-fashioned claw foot bathtubs moved out on beaches or to the edge of cliffs and somehow have them filled with nice warm water, although the nearest water supply is probably a half mile away? I guess it must work, since the ads show so many satisfied bathers, but has sitting in twin bathtubs on the edge of a cliff ever been a strong desire of yours? Me either.

Reform of the American health "industry" is on the agenda for the new Congress and new President (eleven days, and counting) and there is a huge fight shaping up over the glib spokesmodel Doctor Sanjay Gupta. Congressman John Conyers says he will be damned if he lets Gupta be put in as Surgeon General without a fight. Conyers sees Gupta as a mainstream partisan for the status quo, who has been dismissive of the concept of universal coverage, aka "single payer". Whatever faults such a system would have, and doubtless there would be many, short of starting a terrible epidemic it could not help but be vastly superior to the existing "pay to play" mess that the American medical profession has morphed into. When I was growing up my mom was surprised to see that her Doctor Anderson served powdered milk as an economy measure in their home. Can anyone imagine a doctor these days doing that? So in fifty years the medical profession has gone from middle class to something else. And the insurance companies? Oh my, what a growth opportunity that has been, eh? An entire industry that thrives through the ruthless denial of medical claims, often for frivolous reasons. I mean, what is a really sick person going to do? sue a massive corporation? Ha, right. Mostly they go somewhere and die.

What that has created is a game. Doctors raise their rates to stratospheric heights, insurance companies negotiate vigorously and they settle on a discount. How much? Try 80%. Sound impossible? It turns out that a noted University Medical Center near here has exactly that policy in place. So what happens if you come in as an uninsured? You get charged the full whack. $5,000 for a $1,000 procedure. Oh, unless you apply for a discount, permitting them to assess your assets and do a credit check. Sort of progressive gouging.

There is going to be a lot of work to do in the 111th Congress. I wish them well and I hope they are able to be as transparent as the President wishes things to be. If so, there will be some hair-raising stories that come out.

Arthur

Weekend Update - January 11th Full Moon Edition

• Two good ones from Morford this week. First, Kids, click here for images of brutal misery and pain! And then, can this year be summed up in two little words: "More Ambien"? Mark wonders if this year is the year of yes.


• An unprecedented number of Americans are questioning Israel's actions in Gaza. Could it be the rise of online progressive media telling the truth about Israel, or that the public rejects the same pundits who sold us Iraq?


• Dubya says his Dad was "almost too humble to be President." Dad says son Dubya "passed the test," then breaks out in tears. See it all here, raw and disgusting.


• We're all planning to be here when the Bush Countdown Clock runs down to zero, just to see what's going to happen. In the mean time, here's how to say goodbye to Bush in three minutes.


• Conservatives have started self-serving myths about Obama's economic plan. Here's one of those top 10 lists that explains it all.


• Should have heard of "The Mad As Hell Club" before, but this is a great essay to start with. Seems a high school English teacher in Los Angeles wants to "get rid of Henry Jimenez." They don't pay these people enough.


• Jeez, I actually got sucked into this nonsense in the 70's for a few months. Haven't heard much from them for decades. But look out, Amway, Religious Right Pyramid Scheme, Returns to the Motherland.

Delusional States

I could be wrong, but my guess is that despite how proud and impressed his father is with him the odds of "Jeb" Bush ever becoming President of the United States are somewhere in the range of ten thousand to one. He is alive and over the age of 35, oh and born in the United States, so it would be LEGAL but gosh, when one talks about a tarnished brand name doesn't the Bush name just sort of rise to the top of the heap like pond scum? Can anyone think of a name that conjurs up more rancor? Ironically, I suspect that the late Saddam Hussein probably enjoys more popularity in Iraq than the Bush family does in this country.

Isn't that ironic?

Arthur

Weekend Update - January 3rd

• Sympathy for the W? Mark Morford writes, "if you're so inclined, if the temperature of your temperament is just so, if that fourth glass of $10 recession-defying wine is making you feel unusually generous, maybe, just maybe you can muster a bit of sympathy for George W. Bush." Oh brother.


• Bill O'Reilly's latest book is entitled "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity." Well, it's a fresh piece of something all right, just like Billo himself. Here's a look at The Bizarre Life and Angry Times of Bill O'Reilly.


• "There should be a great hue and cry -- a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches -- over the damage he’s done to this country." Here's that Bob Herbert column from this week that summed up George Bush's damage to our nation. It's a doozie.


• Al Franken holds a 49-vote lead over incumbant Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, pending the resolution of the absentee ballots. Franken's campaign has declined to say whether he would try to take his seat immediately if the canvassing board certifies him the winner. The GOP says it will block any attempt to seat Franken early. Go for it AL!


• Here's a "must read:" Robert Scheer writing in The Nation of "Cheney's Legacy of Deception."


• For nearly two years, Steve Kroft and 60 Minutes followed Barack Obama on the long and winding road to the White House complete with interviews, never-before-seen footage, and candid moments with Obama, his family, and his closest advisors. In case you missed it, check it out HERE.