We voted for these criminals?

Well over 50 million of us did not. In fact, none of what has happened in THIS election cycle could have happened had our 50 million not gotten so goddamned angry at the 59 million who did.

Like the European papers headlined the next day in 2004:

How Could 59 Million People Be So Stupid?

But Obama would not be President-Elect, had Bush's people/Diebold not STOLEN Ohio.

Our ANGER drove Obama into the White House, just like it would have driven Hillary Clinton in, if Obama had not come along.

But now that we have a home field advantage, if we do nothing, we shall have lost the war, because the America we have lived in all our lives until 2001 will be utterly gone.

Me MUST hold them to answer for their crimes. And crimes they were.

If we don't, Sir, "the law is a ass." [with respects to Charles Dickens].

And no one raised a hand against it.

And we have paid for the last eight years for accepting it without a whimper.

And who knows for how much longer...

You said

I hope someone has the good sense and fortitude to challenge their legality and, even better, explicitly make them illegal in the future through legislation.

Legislation alone can't accomplish it.

Why is everybody bringing in TRCs like S. Africa had, instead of prosecutions like Argentina has had? I agree with you that when it is the government itself, and many people have been killed as a result, the closer model would be, say Nuremburg.

As a point to think about, would anyone here think TRCs would have been a good idea with the Nazis? Certainly not.

With tens of thousands of Iraqis killed, from a war waged against a nation that posed us no threat, how does a TRC even come close to meting out any form of justice?

TRCs might make sense if it is after a civil war - a REAL war, not just a lot of talk - where deadly hostilities might carry on for decades or longer. But in a case where the deadly fighting was done overseas and the non-invasion abuses were mainly perpetrated behind closed doors on government property or in telephony switching stations, what continuing deadly hostilities would be prevented by using a TRC instead of a grand jury and a court of law?

Absolutely none.

What? Are people intimating that the red states might attack the blue states over the NSA eavesdropping?

Or because the prisoners at Guantanamo were illegally held?

Or because Valerie Plame was outed?

WHAT hostilities are we circumventing with a TRC? None. None. None.

TRCs are for healing. This is not a healing issue! This is criminal behavior, that needs to be attended to. It needs to have the perps "held to answer" for their actions, and the government needs to prove or fail to prove their actions were criminal.

What healing? Should we have offered Jeffery Dahmer a TRC when he psychotically killed so many young men? Should Bush get off any easier for killing 4200 U.S. men and women and uncounted more Iraqis, over what to all intents and purposes appear to be lies? Shouldn't the courts have a chance to make a determination on the evidence and rule on it all?

It should have happened in 2006-07, but alas did not.

What the HELL was Pelosi thinking?

And without making all that hidden stuff transparent, how can we ever know what kind of country we live in? Ever again? If so much of that was still out there, and possibly in the hands of a John McCain or a Newt Gingrich type? Oy vey!

If you think that letting the Big Three go under, you would have done well as skipper on the Titanic, "Go ahead and hit the damned iceberg! We're unsinkable!"

It is not the Big Three that goes down. It is the tens of thousands of smaller (and many not so small) companies providing them with parts. And those employ so many people that no one has a good handle on it.

If Lehman Brothers going under (why the HELL did BushCo let THAT happen? It was the blasting cap for all of this.) felled the financial sector, the Big Three going under would be an aneurysm the size of Australia, for the entire WORLD economy. It would be INSTANT Great Depression #2.

Gawd, I could go on long winded about what the Big Three going under would do for - TO - our economy.

The ONLY reason anyone would want to shutter the Big Three is if they were actually wanting it merely to kill the unions. And THAT signals your politics, in even considering letting the Big Three go belly up.

Without going off on a tangent, hopefully:

As an engineer, I am slightly aware of the use of robotics in auto manufacturing. I would hesitate a guess that they might be doing 40-60% of the current major operations in the assembly plants - possibly more.

And if there is one thing robotics is, it is absolutely flexible.

By changing the "grippers", or "effectors", on the end of the robot arm, and by writing a new program (which is typically done within a few days), you have a brand new function to an existing "machine". You can't get much more flexible than that - except maybe by using humans.

I am probably the most simplistic thinker here, but in my readings of late, I have latched onto the following:
1. The $700 Billion Bailout represents about $2,300 for every man, woman and child in the U.S.
2. Consumer spending is 70% of the U.S. economy.

So, my question is this - in complete agreement with your saying "the money just sits on the sideline waiting":

Wouldn't the bailout have had more effect if we'd just given $2300 to every man, woman and child in the U.S.?

At $9200 per family of four, THAT would have gotten things going.

WE THE PEOPLE would have put that money INTO the economy - either by paying bills, buying things, or depositing it into OUR banks (not AIG or GE Credit). And if the money funneled that immediately into OUR banks, wouldn't that have made loan money more available across the board?

We have gotten an occasional "Stimulus package" every few years (supposedly to kick start the economy, but the more cynical like myself always saw it as a bribe). These have been what? $660/$300 per person? How much of an effect was THAT supposed to be? But, now increase that amount four-fold and THAT is much more likely to stimulate the economy.

Right now, the money is just sitting on the sidelines, waiting. . . and waiting . . . and waiting.

When in the HELL is it going to go INTO the economy and start moving things?

(Of course, an argument could be made that it wasn't actually MEANT to; it was meant to keep their pals from going under. . . Screw the rest of the country; after they've got theirs, they don't give a damn about the rest of us - and the faster the rest of us go under, the more power they believe they will have, in their New World Order.)

IMVHO

Do we have our Boston Tea Party here?

Is this the insurrection of the colonists? Are we rebelling yet? Can the Battle of Concord Bridge be far behind?