Jump! You Fuckers!

Lane in Anne Arbor MI:

"I find your approach to this economic crisis dismaying and ill-focused. I keep hearing we have a credit crisis that will cripple us economically. I don't believe this is really at the center a credit crisis, I think it is a wealth crisis. The middle class has been squeezed so hard, there is no longer any wealth in the middle to fuel our economy. The American economy and the middle class have been robbed blind by crazy laws and tax policies that have transferred wealth away from those who work, and toward those who bet we can't keep it up. I am fighting -- hopping -- yelling -- mad about it. And I am sick of hearing that the bail-out is helping me! It is not. It is still protecting the panty-waist financiers from the mess they have made."

- Email sent to Diane Rehm Show, NPR November 26, 2008

This why I keep my shotguns oiled and fresh shells lying out in the garage. When the common people take up arms and march on the arrogant elite I want to be right up front.

* * * * *
Many's the time I've been mistaken, and many times confused
Yes, and I've often felt forsaken, and certainly misused
Oh, but I'm all right, I'm all right, I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered, I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered or driven to its knees
but it's all right, it's all right, for we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong

And I dreamed I was dying ... I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me, smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying. And high up above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying.

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age's most uncertain hours and sing an American tune
Oh, and it's alright, it's all right, it's all right, You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day, And I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying to get some rest

-An American Tune Words & music by Paul Simon

* * * * *

Bush's Last Days: The Lamest Duck

In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and abroad. Bush never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and regulation that was necessary to make markets work. He never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and equity that was necessary to maintain the strong middle class required for both prosperity and democracy. He never considered the complexities of the cultures he was invading. He never understood that faith, unaccompanied by rigorous skepticism, is a recipe for myopia and foolishness. He is less than President now, and that is appropriate. He was never very much of one.

- Joe Klein, Time Magazine

* * * * *

Obama adds advisors, says "Help is on the way."

By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO – President-elect Barack Obama pledged on Wednesday to have an economic plan ready for action on the nation's financial crisis on his first day in office. "Help is on the way," he declared.

He also said his Cabinet would "combine experience with fresh thinking" and pushed back against criticism that he was recycling former Clinton administration officials as he builds his new economic team.

In his third news conference on the economy in as many days, Obama announced he had chosen former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to head a new White House panel to help create jobs and bring stability to the ailing financial system.

Volcker, 81, will head the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. The board's top staff official will be Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist.

Volcker is a legendary central banker who raised interest rates and restricted the money supply to tame raging inflation in the 1980s. It was a painful prescription that helped send the economy into one of the nation's worst recessions.

"He pulls no punches," Obama said of Volcker. "He seems to be fairly opinionated."

Fifty-five days before his inauguration, Obama defended his selection of former Clinton officials to help run his administration.

"The American people would be troubled if I selected a treasury secretary or a chairman of the National Economic Council at one of the most critical economic times in our history who had no experience in government whatsoever," Obama said.

"What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking," he said. "But understand where the vision for change comes from. First and foremost, it comes from me. That's my job, is to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and to make sure then that my team is implementing."

Obama said he wants the new economic panel to provide outside voices for his administration.

"The walls of the echo chamber can sometimes keep out fresh voices and new ways of thinking," Obama said. "You start engaging in group-think."

* * * * *

"Whether you voted for Obama or not, it's hard to watch this crisply orchestrated transition and doubt that the president-elect both understands and relishes the great possibility of this moment. That doesn't mean he'll succeed, and it certainly doesn't mean he won't make mistakes. It means he has big ideas and big plans -- right or wrong -- and I think most people know intuitively that this is no time for small. "

- Eugene Robinson, Washington Post

* * * * *

Jesus! We might actually have elected a President who fucking "gets it" ... about fucking time.

Théâtre de l'Absurde

"Artistic articulation to Albert Camus' philosophy that life is inherently without meaning as illustrated in his work The Myth of Sisyphus. Though the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play". -Wikipedia

Seriously ... Saturday Night Live in its' full-blown Ackroyd-Belushi heyday simply could not write anything nearly as good as this real thing ... although the "Bass-o-matic" came awfully close.

E Pluribus Unum

Four years ago, at the Democratic convention, in the speech that lifted him from obscurity, Obama said: “For alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga: a belief that we are connected as one people.”

He never wavered from that theme. “In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people,” he declared Tuesday night in his victory speech to a joyous crowd in Chicago.

In that four-year span, Obama never got angry. Without breaking a sweat, he took down two of the most ruthless political machines on the planet: first the Clintons and then the Republican Party.

- Roger Cohen, New York Times

As you may know the Obama transition team has now set up change.gov as the new transition website. And as TPM Reader SB points out there's already signs of the radicalism McCain and Palin warned the country about.

I've clipped out this section of their organization chart of the US government, which you can find linked on this page.

And as you can see, not only has the president been demoted to a position under the constitution. But the vice-president (as shown by the red arrow) has had his own fourth branch revoked and been reassigned to the executive branch ...

-Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo

America, where all things are possible

Si! Se puede!

To those who would tear the world down - we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security - we support you. The true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms, or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: Democracy. Liberty. Opportunity. And enduring hope.

Out of many, we are one.

Yes, we can.