A-I-Gee, It Wasn’t My Fault

 

March 18, 2009

 

Seriously, folks…it’s way past time we throw the tea in the harbor…or better yet, drop a bomb on anything that moves in Washington. The American people are being bent over like Barney Frank at a Fire Island biker party, and there is no end in sight as the finger-pointing has just begun.

 

Amid the hue and cry about AIG executive bonuses, the loudest voices are those of our beloved, two-faced Congressmen screeching their indignation about payouts they engineered and wondering why there was no “oversight” to the billions and billions being taken from the taxpayers’ pockets. They conveniently leave out the part about how they ramrodded 1000-page legislations into law, literally overnight, and against the will of the people, without bothering to read them. “Something has to be done now,” they intoned. Now they profess ignorance of the bills’ pesky little fine points that allow AIG’s “best and brightest” to receive bonuses so obscene that the notion of a mere $100,000 salary is considered destitution.

 

“This is another outrageous example of executives-including those whose decisions were responsible for the problems that caused AIG’s collapse-enriching themselves at the expense of the taxpayers,” cried Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, all three of his chins quivering in mock outrage. Dodd didn’t mention that during last year’s campaign cycle he was the largest recipient of AIG campaign contributions. He also failed to discuss his massive role in the current economic meltdown as he blocked legislation for oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and received sweetheart loans from Countrywide, one of the largest villains in the mortgage crisis. Like father, like son. Dodd’s old man was a crook, too. Thomas Dodd was censured by the Senate in 1967 for using campaign money for personal purposes, and, mercifully for the good people of Connecticut, died of a heart attack in 1970 before he could put his sticky fingers into the till again.

 

John McCain was on the Hannity show last night expressing his outrage-as much as that Cigar Store Indian automaton can express outrage-at the malfeasance being committed by his brethren and cronies against the “American people.” Always the “American people.” McCain was the one who, in a grand choreographed flourish, interrupted his presidential campaign last September to “return to Washington” so he could spearhead the first government bailout. To think that McCain was the next best choice to the Messiah last November is not only stunning, but downright terrifying.

 

Now, it turns out, tax cheat and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, knew about the AIG bonuses, but did nothing to stop them even as taxpayer money was being back-hoed into AIG coffers. Geithner is now in the unenviable position of having to admit ignorance, or admit culpability. Either way, he’s thoroughly incompetent, but that’s hardly cause for concern in Washington where ignorance, inculpability, and incompetence are the order of the day. “We’re doing more in weeks than other countries do in years,” Geithner proclaimed last week while trying to sell the ever-continuing three-card Monte the government is playing on the taxpayers. Geithner is as oily as they get, and he looks every bit the entitled, smug, little Ivy League liar that he is.

 

But they say you get what you deserve, and in the case of the American people, this is eminently true. Americans, as a whole, are painfully stupid about most things, but especially politics. All those exit polls where Betty Sue and Billy Joe are interviewed after voting are great fodder for Jay Leno and Jon Stewart (America’s main source for “news”), but also offer a glimpse at the swirling eddy we are now beyond escaping. Americans, the media tells us, are angry, but they continue to re-elect incumbents at well over a 90% clip. Most, I’m sure, are unaware that you can vote for someone besides the cynical and scheming mountebanks from the two major parties. Alas, the brainless among us can hardly be convinced to pull a third-party lever when they’re pre-occupied texting their votes into American Idol. “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them,” Patrick Henry once said during the American Revolution. Indeed.

And Obama Sayeth…Let There Be a Stimulus Plan

January 28, 2009

 

 

Obama certainly does work in mysterious ways. A poll on CNN’s website this morning revealed that 61% of Americans support Premier Obama’s proposed $850 billion “stimulus plan”, that cruel hoax soon to be played on the American people. History has shown time and time again that stimulus packages don’t work, but the American people are perfectly content to throw good money after bad as long as it’s the Messiah doing the selling. H.L. Mencken said that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public….he had no idea. He also said “Democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses,” but I digress.

 

When Henry Paulson first started grabbing with both hands back in September, there was a hue and cry across the nation as fed-up citizens took to the streets and e-mailed their Congressmen to prevent this blatant theft of taxpayer money. “George Bush, Republicans, and greedy Wall Street types are robbing us blind,” the citizens cried. By margins of 80-20 and as high as 90-10, the people rightly opposed the bailout. And their anger was well-placed, though not nearly as widespread as it should have been.

 

Wall Street, “W”, and all the usual suspects were HUGELY complicit, but few cared to think that there were actually some Democrats that might be responsible as well. While Republicans were raked over the coals, few cared to listen that Christopher Dodd (he of the triple chin and the sweetheart loans), Maxine Waters (serial violator of the Federal law prohibiting nepotism), Barney Frank (who seems to think that because he likes it in the ass, so do the rest of us), and Obama cronies Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson were equally, if not more culpable, than the Republicans. Few cared to listen that it was the Community Reinvestment Act, signed into law by Jimmy Carter, and further strengthened by Bill Clinton in 1995, that set America down its current path.

 

As a former real estate agent, I know first-hand the insidiousness of the CRE. At our weekly meetings, the first priority was ALWAYS, “Don’t get sued! Don’t redline! EVERYONE gets a loan!” The sins of the father are now being visited upon the rest of us, and we, the sheep, play right along. We can’t wait to give more money to the very people who created this mess in the first place.

 

Obama has been making noise about delaying the nationwide conversion to digital TV, with the argument that many American citizens aren’t prepared for this overhaul. Why this conversion should be subsidized by the government is a rant for another day, but Obama’s intent should be closely scrutinized—like Hitler at Munich, he relies on the glassy-eyed masses, this time in front of their idiot boxes, to get his message across. Sadly, no one in the media calls him on it. Even more sadly, we, the people, are the ones who pay in the end.

Charles Being Charles

October 29, 2008

 

So Charles Barkley is at it again. His mouth flows like the river Nile, but people keep giving him a platform, and for some reason he never seems to get called out for his ridiculous pronouncements because…..it’s CHARLES BEING CHARLES!!!!!

 

Just as a certain Dodgers’ outfielder has all his sociopathic peccadillos dismissed as “Manny being Manny,” Barkley is the Teflon Don of loudmouthed ex-jocks. Several years ago he blurts, “That’s why I hate white people,” and that’s just “CHARLES BEING CHARLES.” He spits on a fan and it’s “CHARLES BEING CHARLES.” He throws someone through a plate-glass window and it’s “CHARLES BEING CHARLES.” John Rocker wishes he had it so good.

 

Well, maybe “Charles being Charles” is code for “Charles being a friggin’ idiot.” Barkley knows all about code words…or so he says. In a recent interview with CNN’s Campbell Brown, Sir Charles opined that the Republican Party uses code words like welfare, terrorist, and Muslim to disguise their racist views. He also added, “The only way they can win this election is to make it about race. That’s the only way they can win it.”

 

Never mind that the McCain camp has not once mentioned race in the campaign, and has even eschewed what would surely be a winning tactic…establishing the Messiah’s blatant racism by being all- Reverend Wright, all the time. And never mind that Muslim terrorists took down the World Trade Center seven years ago. Charles wants to wrap them in a loving embrace.

 

The thing is this—Barkley is just another left-leaning Democratic hypocrite. It wasn’t too long ago that Barkley considered himself conservative (probably since he’s rich enough to cavalierly dismiss million dollar gambling losses), but put a black man into the race and the self-anointed master of race relations switches sides. Who’s the racist now?? Come to think of it, he has put on enough weight over the years to look smashing alongside fat cats Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, and the other millionaire Democrats who are so concerned with the plight of the common man.

 

Charles claims he shudders whenever he hears the word “conservative,” as if it’s only the Republican Party doing the raping and pillaging in our government. But he doesn’t mention the video that surfaced today of Dianne Wilkerson, a black Democrat stuffing bribe money in her bra, or William Jefferson, the black Democrat from Louisiana, currently facing trial on racketeering and bribery charges after FBI officials found $90,000 stuffed in his freezer. And he doesn’t mention the battleground state of Michigan where Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm and Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit’s black Democrat mayor have run that state into the ground. Kilpatrick will have lots of time to ponder how to get Detroit back on track while he sits in jail for essentially partying too much on the public dime.

 

Now lest you think I have it in for Democrats or want to stifle free speech, let me assure you nothing could be further from the truth. I detest Republicans (or anyone holding public office), and I believe short of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, anyone should be able to say whatever moves them. It’s the double-standard I object to. The Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman makes a 100% innocuous remark about Tiger Woods and she’s thrown under the bus and suspended; John McCain innocently refers to Barack as “that one” during a debate and he’s branded a racist, but Charles prattles on and on with impunity. I wonder if he’ll be asked to apologize for his most recent gaffe when he lampooned Isaiah Thomas’ recent drug overdose by inferring the Knicks would be better this year since their new coach probably won’t try to commit suicide.

 

Probably not, since the liberal media genuflects (on their knees and with their mouths open, no doubt) at the altar of “Sir Charles” simply because he’s a “good sound bite.”

I have no problem with Charles speaking his mind…I’ll even admit I admire him for saying what no one else will…but Sir Charles, please let others speak their minds as well without you and your ilk screaming racism at every turn.