I've got about ten different posts swirling in my head, and some are more pressing than others. The most fundamental one deals with the systemic problems of our two party set up. And as much as I think we need to discuss the fundamentals, the issue of the banking system feels like it needs to be addressed quickly, so I'll start there.

This may be old news...I am not here as often as I would like (although more frequently this past week...amazing how much more time you have when there aren't little ones hanging on your ankles!) and may have missed it if it was already covered. BUT, if I missed it, there may be others, as well, and it really is good enough for an encore performance.

On January 8th, 2010, Bill Moyers interviewed David Corn and Kevin Drum about the article Kevin wrote in the February issue of Mother Jones regarding the banking industry and the ongoing problems, the government's failure to address the issues, and what we need to do to fix the mess. If you follow the link to the interview, it directs you to a transcript as well, if you are unable to download video.

It is an amazing interview, and if you haven't seen it, it is a MUST SEE. I would like to strap down every American, make them watch it, then force them to watch it over and over until they get 100% on a test reviewing the information.

Bill Moyers begins:

The ancient Romans had a proverb: "Money is like sea water. The more you drink, the thirstier you become." That adage finds particular meaning today on Wall Street, which began this New Year riding a tidal wave of bonuses in a surging ocean of greed.

Thanks to taxpayers like you who generously bailed banking from the financial shipwreck it created for itself and for us, by the end of 2009 the industry's compensation pool reached nearly $200 billion. And despite windfall profits, the banks will claim almost $80 billion in tax deductions. And nearly $20 billion of those deductions will go to just three institutions -- Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs.

Ah, yes -- Goldman Sachs, that paragon of profit and probity -- which bet big on the housing bubble and when it popped -- presto! -- converted itself from an investment firm into a bank so it could get your bailout money. Now consider this: in 2008, Goldman Sachs paid an effective tax rate of just one percent. I'm not making that up -- one percent! -- while their CEO Lloyd Blankfein pulled down over $40 million. That's God's work, if you can get it. And, believe me, Wall Street bankers know how to get it.

What's their secret? How do the bankers pick our pockets so thoroughly with barely a pang of guilt or punishment? You will find some answers in this current edition of "Mother Jones" magazine, one of the best sources of investigative journalism around today. Most of this issue is devoted to what the editors call "Wall Street's accountability deficit."

In it, the Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz writes of the "moral bankruptcy" by which bankers knowingly trashed our economy and tore up the social contract.

The magazine's David Corn examines why there's no mass movement demanding fundamental change.

And blogger Kevin Drum tours Washington's heart of darkness from down Pennsylvania Avenue, over to K Street where the lobbyists cluster like vultures, then past the local branch of Goldman Sachs -- also known as the U.S. Treasury -- and up to Capitol Hill, where key members kneel in supplication to receive their morning tithes from the holy church of the almighty dollar. As Kevin Drum writes, a year after the biggest bailouts in U.S. History, Wall Street owns Washington lock, stock and debit card.

Kevin Drum, formerly with "Washington Monthly," is now the political blogger at "Mother Jones." He's here to talk about his report, along with David Corn, who's been covering Washington for 23 years and is now "Mother Jones'" Washington Bureau Chief. Welcome to you both.

They go on to have a terrific discussion about Stockholm Syndrome, derivatives, the housing bubble, the President's efforts to get a banking bill passed, the relationship between lobbyists money and the congress...It is a fast moving, extremely interesting interview.Please make the time to watch it if you haven't already!

Toward the end, they talk about the President needing to come out swinging on the issue, and they felt like his strong intervention might be the ONLY thing that will get any real reform going...

...And lo and behold, this morning's radio address by the President. It is as if he read the article or heard the interview.

Now time will tell if anything gets accomplished, but it seems to be a step in the right direction.

 

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For the sake of this piece, "bots" are those who are accused of blindly supporting Obama, no matter what, and "children" are those who have either given up on or are so pissed off at him that they are considering or advocating finding somewhere else to go. (I am attempting to be fair and accurate here, so if I am mis-characterising, let me know!)

I have been lumped into the "bot" category by some, even though I frequently confess to not being completely thrilled with his performance, so I am speaking from that perspective. I speak for myself, not for all of the bots (I'll delete the "so-called" from each for the sake of brevity, but keep in mind it is there.)

For starters, I was, and continue to be a strong supporter of the President. He has not, at this point, lived up to my expectations in all areas, but I recognize he inherited a mess of colossal proportions, so I am willing to cut him more slack than I may have, had the events of 2008 not unfolded the way they did. I also understand that he and I are not in lock step on the issues, and he is the one who gets to make the decision, not me. george bush had 8 years to screw this country up...I am committed to giving this President 8 years to do the best he can to unscrew it. I will guide and encourage him throughout those 8 years, knowing there will be many times he does not heed my council. He has more information than I do, but I am hoping he will at least consider my views as he makes his decisions.

Obviously, not everyone feels the way I do, and many of them, based on statements that sound more like petulant children than thoughtful adults, have been labeled "children." Duh. I
have been advised by people I admire, that this labeling is not productive, and I have attempted to moderate my language, although I am not always as successful as I would like to be.

Toward the end of Kali Star's blog from yersterday the discussion got pretty heated, and some came away feeling there was an attempt by the  "bots" to either silence or chase off the  "children."

Kali commented, I think it's vital that people unhappy with Obama are not run off TPM. It's a bullying tactic that has worked. I'll be back. They will not run me off.

My reply to that comment is the point of this post:

I'm sorry you feel like there is an attempt to run you off or silence you. Since I have been one of the most vocal in opposition to your opinion, I have contributed to that feeling, but it was not my intention.

I am glad you are here, and I rec'd this piece because I am glad the discussion is going on. We need to air our differences. Obviously, I am hoping you will see the merit in my opinion, as I'm sure you are hoping others will see the merit in yours.

Having said that, things that are repeated over and over without being disputed are left to stand as true. Those who believe they are not true need to push back. I do not believe Obama's Presidency is a failure. And although you certainly have the right to vote for whoever you wish, and to encourage others to do the same, I also have the right to express my belief that you are making a mistake, and encourage others not to be swayed.

There are those who will be influenced by what is said here. If people who are sitting on the fence believe that the left has withdrawn their support for this President, it weakens him. Therefore, it is incumbent on those of us on the left who DO support him, to continue to do so, and to attempt to sway those who are undecided to do the same.

If I cannot convince you of the correctness of my view, I do not want you to shut up or go away. I want you to show me the error of my thinking, and I will do the same. At some point one of us will sway the other, or we will agree to disagree.

To that I would like to add that many of us, myself included, are guilty of labeling. Once that is done, it is hard to see that person from any other perspective. Sometimes the labels are actually quite accurate, other times they are not, but the outcome is the same either way.

I really like TPM. I like the diversity of thought. If everyone felt exactly the same way, this would be a pretty boring place to be. I have learned and grown in ways I never could have anticipated as a result of many, many discussions with people who I initially disagreed with. Although my perspective is firming up, I hope never to be so rigid that I am closed to seeing the value of other ideas and adjusting my views accordingly.

So please, don't stop speaking, and don't leave, and try not to feel like you are being asked to do so. Yes, I can see that when you hold the minority opinion in a community, it can feel like you are being bullied. But by the same token, asking those who disagree with your perspective to keep it to themselves, is not the answer.

I believe with all my heart that that voting for a third party candidate or not voting at all is the same thing as voting for a republican. While you certainly have the right to believe differently, and to vote for whomever you please, I cannot and will not sit quietly by as people advocate doing things that I think have the potential to tear this party apart, the way the conservative right is tearing apart the republican party. We all have the obligation to speak our minds.

The saddest part of all of this is that we all ultimately want pretty close to the same things for this country. Our major disagreement is in how we get from here to there. My greatest fear is that we remain so divided that the repubs slip back into power while we are arguing about it.

 

Somewhere in the process of growing up, I learned to problem solve, and after being married to the same man for 37 years, raising children, and owning my own business for 20 years, I am pretty good at it. One of the things I always try to do is to sort out the core problem from all the symptoms, because until you work on the core problem, all the other stuff is sitting on a pretty flimsy foundation.

And as I think about all the problems in this country and trace back to their core, they all seem to start at the same place...lack of ethics. A blurring of the lines between right and wrong.

We saw it in our foray into Iraq. Instead of concentrating on what was at the time, a worldwide effort to squash Al Qaeda, an unethical President used the pretense of fighting terrorists to advance his own agenda.

We saw it in the beginnings of the financial crisis, way back when an unscrupulous industry, aided and abetted by greedy politicians, dismantled the regulatory protections that were enacted to prevent exactly what ultimately occurred.

We saw it back when President Reagan, one of the most loved Presidents ever, destroyed the unions to the detriment of the middle class, and enacted tax decreases for his friends (the rich and powerful) which have hurt the poor, and contributed mightily to the class warfare we are now experiencing.

We see it every day in Congress, as our elected officials bow to the lobbyists over and over again to do the bidding of the privileged class, as they use and abuse those less able to care for themselves. This whole horrific health care debacle can be laid at the feet of the unethical politicians, and unethical citizens who are so unwilling to provide a safety net for everyone.

There are many, many other examples, both back in history, and here today. No one has to think very hard to add more to the list.

But we are trying to fix the symptoms, rather than address the core problem. We will never be the country we are capable of being until we address the primary issue that keeps us from building a strong country...lack of ethics.

Both parties are guilty of it. There is plenty of blame to go around. But the reason I blame the republicans more is because they make a big, big show of being the "moral" party the one with the moral superiority. The party that houses the Christian right, those who are supposed to be asking with every decision "WWJD?"

That is not to excuse the dems. We could, if we chose to, reclaim the moral high ground by getting rid of the lobbyists, including the trial lawyers association. But, we don't. We could change the rules so that members of Congress can't go off on boondoggles that waste precious money, and it should be an easy feat for the Congress to enact rules that rollback their medical benefits to match those of a typical small business. But we don't.

Again, it would be easy to come up with dozens of ways for our leaders to work toward being an ethical  country, with or without the aid of the republicans. But we don't.

And, worse yet, We the People, don't demand it. We blame the other party and avert our eyes while our own people do the same things.

So, the problem has been identified. If we were going to lay out a game plan for how we are going to address it, what would it look like? Where would we start? And what are you willing to do to make it happen?

 

By now we've all heard some of the stories in the new book, "Game Change." Harry Reid has gotten the most press I've heard for his insensitive remarks (which I really can't get too upset over given that they were, in spite of their lack of political correctness, in support of Obama, not meant in a derogatory way) and the repubs are calling for his head.

But the part that has my head exploding is the admission by Steve Schmidt that the McCain campaign was well aware of how unqualified Sarah Palin was for the job, and went with her anyway, because they needed something big to have any chance of winning. I mean, we KNEW it. But to have Steve Schmidt come out and flat out admit that they virtually perpetrated a hoax on the American people in order to win, just has me screaming. She would have been a 72 year old heart beat away from the Presidency, and they KNEW that she knew NOTHING.  Even Cheney is reported to have said she was unqualified.

I find what they did horrifying, and I find the lack of outrage to be equally horrifying. What am I missing?

tlees2 queried us about our "worst" movies, and it got me to thinking about my favorites. So how about it? A list of your all-time favorite 5...the ones you watch over and over again, year after year. The ones you would want with you on a deserted island (um, one with electricity and a dvd player!)

Mine?

5. Braveheart
4. The Godfather Chronicles (the one that added footage in addition to I,II, and III)
3. Top Gun (for obvious reasons!)
2. Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, and
1. Sliding doors with Gwyneth Paltrow...even though its twist is the best part of it, after watching it about 50 times, I still love it!

Have you ever wondered what the planners of the 9/11 attack must be thinking as they see the results of their handiwork? Do you think they ever in their wildest dreams thought they would be so successful?

Even from the beginning, I don't think they realized that by crashing into the Twin Towers they would bring them down, or kill so many people, so just that obviously had them high fiving, screaming, and dancing around with joy (not to mention some sexual release, if you know what I mean!)

But consider the ramifications since then.

We have spent a gazllion dollars on security, ranging from increased "safety" measures at airports (including a whole new department  - TSA) and protecting things like dams, electrical grids, and schools.  I would really be curious to know how much, all total (is anyone out there keeping track?)

We have spent a horrific amount of time waiting in line at airports as we watch elderly folks and mothers with children getting searched. Seriously, does it REALLY make us safer knowing that granny isn't carrying a bomb? And now we're getting ready to subject ourselves to full body scans? Seriously?

There have been many articles written on the subject of terror, but two in the WSJ addressing the terror issue from a little different perspective popped out at me today.  

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For nearly a year and a half TPM has been my sanity. My place to go when none of the rest of the world is making any sense. But more and more I'm feeling like I've fallen down the rabbit hole and nothing is as it seems. Far from being my sanity, it is making me crazy.

Suddenly I find myself in the midst of a bunch of people who sound like they no longer support this President. Who in one short year are ready to feed him to the wolves. Who have little confidence in him.

Just a little over a year ago, we were all filled with hope we hadn't felt in a very long time. And within a very short time, the reality of our perilous situation has set in. This country is in trouble. Serious, serious trouble. There are storm clouds lined up for miles in every direction, with little hope of the sun peeking out anytime soon.

This President inherited a mess. A disastrous economy caused by Wall St. greed, and politicians who aided and abetted them by deregulating the financial markets. Two wars, one that was horribly mismanaged, and another that should never have been waged. A desperately divided country whose opposition party has decided the only way for them to survive as a party is for this president to fail, miserably, and will do anything and say anything to insure that he does. Lobbyists with a stranglehold on the Congress. CEOs whose only goal is  padding their wallets, with little or no concern for the little people who make them their millions/billions.

With so many challenges facing him, it is no wonder that the change he promised is not coming as quickly as many of us would like. Yet many here on these pages have accused him of being "weak," "more of the same,"  and worse. Some have already declared their intention to either stay home in 2012 or vote for some 3rd or 4th party candidate.

None of the challenges facing this President exist in a vacuum. They are all interdependent and require simultaneous action. Health care reform aids the economy. Resolution of the wars aid the economy. Lobbyists are fighting the health care reform and keeping banking regulations from being tightened once again. There is no way to just wipe the slate clean and rebulid the government from the ground up. The changes have to occur in the midst of day to day operations, with people from both sides screaming in his ear constantly...a little like trying to do a major remodel on your home while living in it at the same time. It's not pretty. But once it's done, it is  worth the aggravation.

Tonight our President gave an address about the war in Afpakistan. He didn't try to do a rah rah go, fight, win, sales pitch. He told us he was asking us to eat a crap sandwich. He didn't try to sell it as a gourmet dish. He was as straightforward as he could be, letting us know there was no good choice, and that his decision was the lesser of all the evils.

There is no doubt in my mind that many here will join with the repubs and beat him up over it. I hate these wars, and I want out now. But I realize that what I want and the reality of the situation are two different things. I trust that he is doing what he thinks is best, after getting the best information he could from many different sources. I feel his pain in making the decision to send more of our children to their deaths. I don't think he made the decision lightly. I wish he would have decided to just pull out. I think that would have been his preference. I don't believe he could.

I am not an Obama "fan." I am not an "Obamabot." I am an informed voter who made a choice to support this man for President, and I am going to support him. I will let him know if I think he doing something wrong. What I am NOT going to do is malign him or call him names, or attack his integrity.  I'm going to support him.

Our last President got eight years to screw up the country. I think this one deserves eight to try and unscrew it...  

 

  

 

I've spent the morning reading...I don't even know if I should share the articles with you since I've found them so depressing, but the bottom line is, we're deluding ourselves into believing we can continue going down this same path thinking everything is going to be okay, and I'm wondering how long we can continue to keep the blinders on.

I'm reminded of a couple of stories that are the basis for my reputation of being the one in the family that will optimistically keep going until I run out of road. Settle down with a nice cup of coffee (or a beer) and bear with me here, I'll get into the politics part down the road a bit...

In the first, I'm heading for a party at a home I've never been to, in an area I'm unfamiliar with. Part of the instructions (now mind you, this is way before GPS, cell phones and Goolemaps) are that "it's a long way, but just keep going" and I did. Until I ran out of road...but I was going exactly the opposite direction I was supposed to be going. So I just turned around and went all the way to the other end of the road and arrived to the party as some were leaving.

In the second, years later but still in the dark ages, I was delivering a batch of girl scouts home after a trip rollerskating (some 75 miles away.) The last one lived out in the country off the paved roads.  I was in my station wagon with this last girl, and my daughter and son, then ages 6 and 7. It was a dark and stormy night (really! LOL!)  Getting to her house was no problem, because she was there to guide me. But once left to my own devices, I pulled out from  the dirt driveway and immediately took a wrong turn onto the dirt (now mud) road and set off. As the minutes ticked by, it was obvious I was lost, but what could I do besides keep moving? There were no landmarks, everything looked the same, no right angles...

The kids were getting nervous, but I assured them we would be fine. We just needed to find the road. Then, an hour or so later, I hit a particularly muddy spot and was stuck. The more I revved the engine, the stucker I got. We weren't going anywhere. Living in the mountains, we always carried a couple of blankets in the back of the car. I put the back seat down and made a little pallet for the kids so they could sleep. As my precious little son drifted off he said, "Don't worry Mommy. Dad will call the FBI and they will rescue us." I spent the night sitting in the front seat keeping vigil, and starting the engine every 1/2 hour or so to run the heater so the kids wouldn't get too cold.

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There is a lot of hopelessness in America right now, just one year after the most hopeful time I can remember. So much has happened (or not happened, depending on your viewpoint.)

We have gone from the tears of joy at the President's election, to tears of sadness as we realize how little one person, even a president, can accomplish in Washington. We were naive about how long change would take, how much resistance to it there would be.

There is so much to be depressed about. The stimulus package has not worked as well as we had hoped it would. The Wall St. big wigs have learned from the financial crisis that "too big to fail" means they have a green light to do whatever the hell they want, rather than an obligation to conduct their businesses in a responsible fashion. More people are suffering from the lack of health care. More, including many of our own, have found themselves out of work - the unemployment rate the highest it has been in over 25 years. We've been asked to swallow the fact there will likely be no prosecutions for the deplorable, and yes, illegal behavior of the prior administration as it relates to torture. We are still involved in two wars, and having difficulty figuring out how to get out of them, while day after day more of our babies die over there with no clear goal in mind. The programs established to aid people in keeping their homes have been largely ignored by the financial institutions WE bailed out. We've watched in horror as the very people who CAUSED the financial crisis have been left to oversee the industry. Gays are still being kicked out of the military and unable to wed. The lobbyists appear to own the country lock stock and barrel. We are subjected to a daily barrage of the selfishness of the privileged class, grabbing more and more of the pie, without regard for those who have not even a sliver.

If you haven't slit your wrists yet,

 
 

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It is amazing how much there is going on out there in the world that gets missed. Or at least I miss it. Is it that way with everyone? And I'm even TRYING HARD to pay attention now. I wonder how much slips by those who aren't.

Do you know who Brooksley Born is?

In March of this year she won the "Profiles in Courage" award for her work on behalf of the taxpayers in 1998-1999, in spite of fierce opposition from the Federal Reserve, the Department of Treasury, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, in calling for new regulations and disclosures that would bring more transparency and stability to the complex financial transactions now infamously known as derivatives and swaps.  (Paraphrased from Caroline Kennedy's remarks when presenting the award.)

In light of the foxes who have been put in charge of the hen house after the financial institutions drove us to the brink of financial disaster, how little, if anything, has been accomplished in setting up regulations that will keep it from happening again, and the cavalier attitudes of those on Wall St. who are continuing their shameful behavior, we should all be in an uproar.

I realize that health care reform is taking top priority right now in most people's minds, and we should all be working for that. But all the hard work on insurance reform will be for naught if the lobbyists are able to keep us distracted from the biggest danger that is facing us today: the perilous financial situation our country is in, and the seeming lack of awareness of this fact by those who we trust with our financial well-being. Banking regulations are not sexy like health care reform. And they are more difficult to understand. But they are critical.

Why do I bring this up now?

PBS did a special called "The Warning"  that outlines how we got to where we are, in layman's terms, not from the perspective of the financial instruments themselves, but showing how our esteemed leaders aided and abetted the greedy Wall St. tycoons in their efforts to fleece America.

In it, they show how Brooksley Born, the then chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), became concerned about the lack of transparency and inadequate regulation of the financial instruments that ultimately caused the near collapse of the global financial markets. She took the battle to House where she was shut down by the likes of Alan Greenspan, Larry Sommers and Robert Rubin, who succeeded in stripping her agency of all regulatory authority over derivatives.

As a result of their refusal to heed her warnings, the country was subjected to what she called "her worst nightmare." And thanks to lobbyists, the threat to our country's well-being remains, with no promise of re-regulation in sight.

Please make time to watch this show. It is so interesting that it will be a fast moving hour, and open your eyes to a problem far more fundamental than health care.

I am anxious to hear your observations.

Hmmmmm. It appears that the worm may be turning...Seriously, did the insurance companies step on their wangers?

A few days ago the public option was on life supports, seemingly just days, or moments away from time of death being called.

Then the insurance companies produced a quick "study" that turned out to be cooked, threatened to raise everyone's health care premiums if the public option passed, and now all of a sudden I'm hearing optimism about the public option surviving everywhere I turn.

Even my husband, who hasn't been paying much attention to all of this, came in tonight and asked if I heard about the insurance companies pooping in their mess kits, and asked me for an update...

Is it possible? Did they over play their hand and start a bit of a backlash?

Nate Silver at 538.com did a little "10 reasons" thing on the 20th on why the public option is probably gaining momentum...#1 being :

1. The tireless, and occasionally tiresome, advocacy on behalf of liberal bloggers and interest groups for the public option. Whatever you think of their tactics -- I haven't always agreed with them -- the sheer amount of focus and energy expended on their behalf has been very important, keeping the issue alive in the public debate.

Woohoo! That's us, huh???

I was home most of the day yesterday with the t.v. on MSNBC in the background and it seemed like there were many guests on talking about how close they are to getting the votes, and more optimism than I have seen in months.

Then as I sat down to write this post, I stumbled on the full speech the President gave from New York on the Organizing For America Webcast...the one the "mop" clip came from. Well, hell...if I had seen the whole speech before I did my whiny post yesterday, you wouldn't have had to prop me up. It is almost half an hour long, but if you haven't heard it, please take the time. It will remind you why we voted for him, and reassure you that he DOES know what he is doing.

We have an amazing President, and I can't believe I keep forgetting that.

Speaking about health care reform he said, "You Democrats...y'all are an opinionated bunch, and I like that about y'all...But now it's time to come together and get this done." He pointed out that of the five plans that have passed committee, pick the one you like least...it has provisions to stop people from being refused insurance because of pre-existing conditions, from having your insurance canceled because you get sick, and creates exchanges so you have bargaining power. That's the one you like least!

Broadening his scope he went on to say that we have a long way to go, but we've only been here for nine months. and "I'm not tired...I'm just getting started...I'm energized!"  Me, too!

What a difference a day makes...24 little hours.

I'm like a new person.

I was born of and raised by ostriches. Then I married an ostrich, and gave birth to and raised more ostriches. Therefore it has been difficult to pull my head out of the sand and pay attention to what is happening in the world. I mean, after all, it was a pretty comfortable life.

I was poor (by today's standards) growing up. My parents bought their first house for $19,000 using his G.I. Bill benefit. He worked at an auto parts store, and my mom stayed at home and ignored us kids as much as possible. We mostly fended for ourselves, except when we were "really bad." Then Mom pulled out the "just wait until your dad gets home card." He'd come home from a hard day at work, receive his instructions to spank us, and he did, without question. Everyone in our small world was pretty much just like us. No one had much, but we didn't know there was any other way to live. Seriously, my first recollection of "rich" people was watching "Dallas" on t.v

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Well, I just got back in after seeing "Capitalism: A Love Story" and like FlowerChild, my hair is on fire.

In the space of 2 hours and forty minutes I went from the "baby steps" I was encouraging earlier today to wondering if Chicken has pitchforks in bulk, or if I need to buy my own. At this moment, I'm ready for a revolution.

Now, I need to say, I have never been a Michael Moore fan. He has always been the face of the "libruls" in America to me, and not someone whose opinion I even wanted to hear, let alone ever thought I would agree with. Now he is my new hero.

The film is simplistic, but seems to be pretty accurate. I couldn't find much anything to disagree with, and found myself cheering (out loud, mind you) in the theater. My husband, the Libertarian, didn't even jab me in the ribs. Seems as if he couldn't find much to disagree with, either.

On the way home we had a discussion about Obama's Presidency and we pretty much agreed that he needs to step up to the plate and start cleaning house in Washington. If it makes him a one term President, so be it. In addition to the mundane things he has to do like get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and get us free from our dependence on foreign oil, and get our country back to work again, he needs to fulfill his promise of change. His promise of hope. If he doesn't, I believe this country will have lost it's best, and perhaps last, chance to correct it's course. 

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I am unable comment this morning on anything but my own past blog-posts. So, I'm troubleshooting as well...interesting morning at TPM.

It is happening in homes all over the country...family and friends at odds over the current situation. I would think we all know someone like this. It comes under the heading of truth being stranger than fiction. You just can't make this stuff up.

The following is a series of e-mails exchanged with my uncle...you know the one I introduced you to a few months ago. For awhile after the election he left me alone, but then he sent me a vile forward about one of the many crimes of Obama, the day of the health care speech. I sent him a link to factcheck.org debunking it, then in a separate e-mail, wrote  the following comment, then it was on. Interspersed with the direct back and forths was a barrage of 10 different forwards...you know the ones, accusing Obama of everything but murder...

I'm sure I could have handled it better, but my blood pressure was rising with each new shot...maybe you could critique the exchange, and give me some suggestions for handling the next one (and it is SURE to come, unless I have finally been COMPLETELY disowned!)

My Comment:

I hope you caught the President's address....What an amazing man...
I can't remember the last time I was so proud of one of our Presidents. Ever.

His Response:

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