Steele Attacks Limbaugh's Show As "Incendiary," "Ugly"

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Today's Republican Party is a sinking ship. And now the rats are turning on each other. As Politico reports, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has attacked the OxyMoron's HateWing radio program. Steele called Limbaugh an "entertainer," whose show is "incendiary" and "ugly."

I'm sure that GOP pressure will eventually force Steele to backtrack on his comments. For now, I'm really loving this. And I have to admit: at least for the moment, I do have some respect for Steele, for daring to speak up against this vicious hate-mongering NeoNazi, whose fascist spewings have long been embraced by so many in the GOP establishment.

Here's the report from Politico:

On the same night he was offering the keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Rush Limbaugh drew criticism from an unlikely source: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.

In a little-noticed interview Saturday night, Steele dismissed Limbaugh as an "entertainer" whose show is "incendiary" and "ugly."

Steele’s criticism makes him the highest-ranking Republican to pick a fight with the popular and polarizing conservative talk show host.

But the new RNC chairman’s extraordinary comments won’t sit well with the millions of conservative listeners Limbaugh draws each week, and Steele aides scrambled to limit the damage Monday morning by trying to change the subject.


More here.

And the Kool-Aid Drinker of the Day Award Goes To...

BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com reader Victor gets the Kool-Aid Drinker of the Day Award for his insightful response to the recent article by Manifesto Joe that we posted here, titled "Is A Capitalist Meltdown Upon Us?" which took a look at the current economic crisis.

Victor's award-winning comment reads thusly:

"At the end of WWII, Eisenhower and his troops rolled into the last of the concentration camps and killing fields uncovering unspeakable horrors with emaciated bodies piled into mountains. He had the foresight to order his men to 'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the track of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.'
In spite of the reams of evidence to the contrary, there are holocaust deniers around the world. Driven by the emotion of their conviction rather than the facts staring them in the face, they make utter fools of themselves.

You people remind me of those idiots who ignore the lessons of the past because of your own selfish agenda. It some kind of insane frenzy to "stick it to the man," you are willing to hand over your freedoms and to deny liberty to your own children. I knew jealousy was a powerful emotion, but I had no idea it could be fanned to such an incinerating level such as we are seeing. It is no longer considered acceptable to praise and reward achievement. Now it is called excess. The winners who our economy is built around are being pulled down by the losers who have never been willing to demonstrate any energy or to produce anything. And when it is over, they will look around and say, "Why do we not have jobs? What have we done?"
But the true lessons of the past tell us the only thing government can do to help an economy is to lower taxes, get out of the way, and let the markets do what they will. It always works. And because lower taxes lead to increased wealth, it always results in greater treasury receipts.
But you seek to cover up the past. You say it never happened. You refuse to admit the lessons of growing government a la FDR, LBJ and now Obama have been catostrophic to the economy.
But the pendulum will swing. In 2010 conservatives will muster and amass on Washington after this orgy is over and the filthy aftermath is shown in the light of day. Lets hope that once they shut down the Maniac on Pennsylvannia Ave. they keep their wits about them this time.
And I want to say one more thing. Fuck you. Fuck you all who gleefully allow this proud nation's might and traditions to be trampled, raped, starved and killed off like those innocents in Germany. You should be ashamed."
----Victor

Congrats, Victor, you get our Kool-Aid-Drinker of the Day award. But first, here's a few bulletins from Planet Earth:

1. Re: Eisenhower wanting to "Get it all on record."
Actually, that's what we Dems have long wanted to do with Bush's treasonous crimes. But (as was the case during the Reagan/Ollie North years) Bush and Cheney were the masters of secrecy and destroying records.

2. "The winners who our economy is built around are being pulled down by the losers who have never been willing to demonstrate any energy or to produce anything."

Yeah, losers like Warren Buffett, the richest man on earth, who has urged Congress to raise taxes on the rich. Clearly, Buffett doesn't know anything about economics or prosperity and, instead, we should listen to geniuses like GWB, (who was such a big success in the private sector).

3. "In 2010 conservatives will muster and amass on Washington after this orgy is over."

Yeah, the GOP showed us how "conservative" they are during the past 10 years (during which they held all the levers of power in D.C.) They inherited a surplus from Clinton and proceeded to double the nation's deficit with things like their $3 trillion war fiasco in Iraq. Yes, these are the people who we can depend on to restore fiscal sanity to Washington.

Oh and as far as the current Second Great Depression, it's clearly unfair to blame it on the GOP. No, let's blame it all on Obama, who's been in office a few weeks.

Please, Victor, turn off Rush and EDUCATE YOURSELF, moron.

Is A Capitalist Meltdown Upon Us?

By MANIFESTO JOE

I'll only be 53 on my next birthday in late July, yet it already seems like I've lived a tiring amount of history. Only 20 years ago, the world saw the meltdown of Soviet-style communism -- and many observers, largely neo-conservatives, interpreted that as an ideological culmination, "the end of history." There was even an influential book written with that title. (Does anyone remember that author now? And, does he want to remember that book? Yeah, I know -- Francis Fukuyama.)

It appears that reversals of fortune can happen quickly. Now it looks like the allegedly venerable ideology of "free-market" capitalism is on the ropes, and in serious danger of going down. Who would have thought it?

Die-hard Marxists did. I've never been one of them, even as a long-ago radical all of 23 years old. I still know three people who have continued to call themselves Marxists in total defiance of dismissal or ridicule, and they are probably gloating a lot now. The economic train wreck they kept dogmatically predicting finally seems to be in front of us.

But even as America sleepwalked through our Second Gilded Age (circa 1981-2005), I grew skeptical of the Marxist vision. "Historical inevitability" always sounded like a religious tenet, without the pure superstition; and Marxism itself, a sort of quasi-religion for embittered atheists.

We should be as cautious about awarding hard-line socialists a victory here, as much as "we" (in the editorial sense) should have checked for our wallets the minute Reagan started talking about trickle-down and Phil Gramm started talking about deregulation. The past century should have taught us that the answer lies in between.

Starting with the excesses of laissez-faire: America has, for the past 30-ish years, seen the roller-coaster ride that happens with that sort of economic policy. An elite grows very rich, a minority near the bottom slips much further down, and most people tend to stagnate in the middle.

There are cycles of boom and bust. The booms are good for most people, but especially good for a few. The latter group inevitably forms a "Why Should I Have To Pay Taxes?" lobby and gets bonanzas from lawmakers eager to please. And since these are the people of ostentation and material success, their influence is great among fashionable "thinkers" of the day.

Now the big bust is upon us. It's a bit like 1933 all over again -- not as grim or total in devastation, but it's likely to get worse. President Barack Obama has warned us that this is so.

But history, with its entire lesson, should be heeded, and it seems like Obama is one who will do so.

There were very good reasons for the meltdown of the Soviet empire 20 years ago. Contrary to right-wing mythology, Reagan and his military buildup had little to do with it. Post-Soviet Russian economists recall the problems as internal, and any intellectually honest person knew what they were. There's no need for me to recite the litany here -- Americans heard it all for decades.

But let's face it, die-hard socialists out there -- state-run enterprises have a poor track record. The employees seem to lack incentives to produce. Cooperatives tend to degenerate into personal conflict, power struggles and chaos. And as for the concentration of power in the hands of "vanguard revolutionaries" -- the horrors and enormities of that have been abundant just in the past century.

I don't think it's hard to argue for a sense of balance and measure. In America, it seems like the compromising wheeler-dealers -- the FDRs, the Trumans, the LBJs, the Ted Kennedys -- got more done for working Americans than any of our homegrown radicals ever did.

But there is little doubt that there's been a sea change, and it's been back toward socialist thinking. The Nobel Prize committees have not been known for their sympathy toward socialist-leaning economists, yet Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz has more or less come out in favor of the nationalization of U.S. banks. That would be a major step toward socialism of some fashion. Why not? We've just given the bastards $700 billion in taxpayer money to keep them in business. Here's a link to the interview with Stiglitz.

And, it appears that such state power would be the only thing to force the shameless swine who run these enterprises to behave themselves. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., made a speech on the Senate floor about the Wall Street oinkers who had themselves awarded $18.4 billion in bonuses while their enterprises got in on the aforementioned $700 billion, because of reckless and disastrous mismanagement. Here's another link to reports on this issue, and to a video of McCaskill's speech. Be patient, the video seems very rough.

So, what should be the ultimate American destination, in an era of "capitalist" meltdown? The Swedes, with a hybrid socialist-capitalist system, don't seem to do badly, with avowed Socialists predominantly in power since 1929. Their booms are smaller, but so are their busts. Their people don't live in fear of homelessness or inability to afford basic health care. Right-wing humorist P.J. O'Rourke, when asked about the Swedes' seeming happiness with their stable system, said that they are all insane -- but that their insanity is distributed equally among the people.

It's a funny line. But there's nothing funny about facing a mortgage foreclosure, or about the welfare rolls shrinking even as joblessness is rapidly expanding. With a growing U.S. underclass, it may be time to take a second look at the socialist mind-set -- despite the old Marxist baggage. Nobody requires us to go to extremes.

Manifesto Joe is an underground writer living in Texas. Check out his blog at Manifesto Joe's Texas Blues.

How Bush Unwittingly Helped Bin Laden's Plan To Wreck U.S. Economy

By MARC McDONALD

"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy."
---Osama bin Laden, 2004 videotape statement.

"The past eight years of imperial overstretch, hubris and domestic and international abuse of power on the part of the Bush administration has left the U.S. materially weakened financially, economically, politically and morally. Even the most hard-nosed, Guantanamo Bay-indifferent potential foreign investor in the U.S. must recognize that its financial system has collapsed."

---Willem Buiter, London School of Economics, 2009.

Contrary to what George W. Bush would have us believe, Osama bin Laden does not hate America for its freedoms. Nor has bin Laden ever harbored ambitions of destroying America in a military confrontation.

No, actually, what bin Laden has long sought is to diminish America's standing in the world by wrecking our economy. Bin Laden believes this is possible because he saw first-hand how the Soviet Union met its demise.

As bin Laden said in a 2004 statement, "We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat."

It's clear that the main goal of the 9/11 attacks was to provoke the U.S. into a costly war in Afghanistan that would drain our treasury and ultimately weaken the main lever of America's global power and influence: the U.S. dollar.

Unfortunately for America, after 9/11, Bush took bin Laden's bait. As bin Laden put it himself in 2004, Al-Qaeda found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."

In fact, bin Laden succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in provoking America into not one, but two disastrous and ruinously expensive wars that have done untold damage to America's global standing, as well as our economic power.

Eight years after the 9/11 attacks, America's economy is in the worst shape it has been since the Great Depression. But the damage is actually far worse than that. As bad as things were in the 1930s, few people then seriously expected the dollar to collapse or for America to become a bankrupt nation. Now, such forecasts are increasingly common.

It's becoming frightening clear that the U.S. dollar is now teetering on the edge of a cliff. For all of the economic misery of 2008, the dollar managed to avoid a steep collapse in value. But it's increasingly likely that in 2009, the East Asian nations that hold trillions of dollars in U.S. debt will finally start off-loading their assets. And when they do, the dollar will crumble in value.

The destruction of the dollar's value will mean an end to America's reign as the world's sole superpower. Once upon a time, such a scenario was embraced only by an alarmist fringe of commentators who weren't taken seriously. But these days, more and more mainstream respectable observers now believe this will be America's fate in the near future. Even Warren Buffet, the wealthiest man on earth, has said the U.S. is at risk of becoming a "sharecropper’s society."

How Bush Took Bin Laden's Bait

During the Soviets' disastrous war in Afghanistan, bin Laden saw first-hand the devastating effects that imperial overstretch can have on a nation's economy. Clearly, that costly fiasco played a role in the ultimate demise of the Soviet Union.

The 9/11 attacks were meant to provoke the U.S. into a similarly costly and debilitating war. And in this, it succeeded beyond bin Laden's wildest dreams, as Bush proceeded to launch not one, but two disastrous wars. (That one of these wars was against the secular state of Iraq, headed by bin Laden's old nemesis, Saddam Hussein, was the icing on the cake).

The 9/11 attacks presented a series of challenges to George W. Bush. The challenges were clear: kill or capture bin Laden and destroy Al-Qaeda.

Eight years later, it's difficult to comprehend just how much Bush has utterly failed to meet this challenge. Bin Laden remains a free man. Al-Qaeda remains intact and is still as lethal as ever. And the Taliban are back and growing in strength.

On the other hand, America is a profoundly different nation than the one that existed before 9/11. We're now a country that is widely despised, feared and hated around the world. We're a vastly weaker nation, economically, than we were before 9/11. America's debts have mushroomed to fantastic levels that threaten the nation's economic security.

About the only thing future historians will remember about Bush's presidency is that he presided over the beginning of the end of the American empire. And it's clear that his bungled response to 9/11 was a key factor in America's ultimate demise as a superpower.

It's this last point that is especially noteworthy. Bin Laden realized early on that his ragtag group of Al-Qaeda fighters could never defeat the U.S. militarily. And horrific as they were, the 9/11 attacks by themselves were a mere pinprick on the overall American economy.

For bin Laden to succeed, he needed the unwitting cooperation of George W. Bush. And that's exactly what bin Laden got, with Bush's disastrous, bungling response to the 9/11 attacks.

Bush's Last 10 Days, Part 1: Recipe For Fiscal Disaster

By MANIFESTO JOE

As the countdown to Bush as ex-"president" begins, it might be good to put into context why some Americans, even some U.S. historians, regard Il Doofus as the worst "president" of modern times.

The federal deficit for the current fiscal year is being projected at $1.2 trillion. That's more than the entire national debt was at the time Jimmy Carter left office in January 1981.

The Congressional Budget Office report lays much of the blame for this spike on lower tax revenues due to the recession, and on $400 billion spent to bail out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and various financial institutions amid the mortgage crisis. Bush policies did a great deal to contribute to all of the above, but that's another post. For now, let's stick to the budget.

The deficit for fiscal 2007-08 was about $455 billion, consistent in real dollars with what was being run annually during the Reagan and Bush I presidencies. It's not too shocking, until you consider that Bush II inherited what had been the largest surplus the federal government has ever run, some $230 billion in fiscal 1999-2000, from departing President Bill Clinton's administration.

The surplus decreased to $158 billion during fiscal 2000-01, which Bush presided over some of. Bush apologists have tried to make an end run out of this, saying that declining revenues due to a briefly sour economy were responsible. They've also pointed out that the Clinton surpluses occurred even though federal tax cuts were passed in 1997, an apparent argument for supply-side policies.

That's fair enough, up to a point. But by 2001-02, the federal government was in the red again, and that continued year after year until the aforementioned $455 billion deficit was reached. How did this happen?

Bush spent the first months of his presidency pushing tax bonanzas, mainly for his rich friends, through the Congress, along with scraps from the rich man's table for the rest of us, amounting to $300 per person. His economic plan basically rolled back the relatively modest Clinton tax increases on the wealthy, passed by the narrowest of margins in 1993.

Students of fiscal policy know that it's anything but simple, but a few policy effects during this administration seem clear. It didn't take long to turn surpluses into deficits, and arguments that this isn't related to tax policy are, at the very least, unconvincing.

Then, after 9-11, Bush the "decider" decided to take the country to war(s). The first one, in Afghanistan, seemed and still seems like a defensible action, despite the toll on the Afghan people. The second, the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, was in hindsight clearly elective. Aside from being an act of aggression, it turned out to be one of the most expensive mistakes a U.S. administration has ever made.

According to a July 2008 update, military operations alone in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $872.6 billion. Some $661.1 billion of that was for ops in Iraq. Source: Congressional Research Service data.

Even conservatives need to put this into perspective. Would Winston Churchill have held fast to big tax cuts for the wealthy during an expensive war, and even have audaciously pushed for more such cuts?

George W. Bush did. And in so doing, the U.S. was set up, and knocked down like bowling pins, for the $1.2 trillion annual deficit we now face. Now tell me that, as a "president," this buffoon didn't suck great big green ones, with warts on them. His decisions were consistently the worst that could have been made, and yet he stubbornly continues to defend them. I don't think future generations will find his defense convincing.

Manifesto Joe is an underground writer living in Texas. Check out his blog at Manifesto Joe's Texas Blues.

Rick Warren's Hero, W.A. Criswell, Was Fierce Foe of Desegregation in the 1950s

By MARC McDONALD

Rick Warren is a big fan of the late Southern Baptist pastor, W.A. Criswell (1909–2002). Warren once wrote, "In fact, I believe W.A. Criswell was the greatest American pastor of the 20th Century."

And just who is this pastor, who Warren believes is worth of such praise?

Criswell, like Warren, was a pastor and author. He was a president of the Southern Baptist Convention. And he was regarded by many as a major figure behind the right-wing fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, beginning in the 1960s.

Oh, and early in his career, Criswell was a racist bigot. In fact, like Warren, Criswell used his twisted interpretation of the Bible to try to defend his bigotry.

In 1956, Criswell railed against the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Integration, Criswell argued, was "foolishness" and "idiocy."

Criswell saved some of his harshest words for the NAAACP. In one crude remark, he made a clumsy attempt at humor that wouldn't have been out of place at a KKK rally:

"Why the NAACP has got those East Texans on the run so much," he said, "that they dare not pronounce the word 'chigger' any longer. It has to be 'cheegro.'(sic)"

All white Southerners wanted, Criswell argued, was to be simply left alone:

"Don't force me by law, by statute, by Supreme Court decision ... to cross over in those intimate things where I don't want to go. Let me build my life. Let me have my church. Let me have my school. Let me have my friends. Let me have my home. Let me have my family"

Indeed, reading quotes like this makes it clear that Criswell believed that Southern whites were the victims and that they were the ones whose rights were somehow being infringed.

It's language like this that eerily echoes Warren's own twisted logic that the suppression of bigotry somehow leads to persecution of Christians.

An example of this is when Warren recently claimed he supported Proposition 8 because of free-speech, of all things. He claimed that "any pastor could be considered doing hate speech ... if he shared his views that homosexuality wasn't the most natural way for relationships."

Criswell later distanced himself from his 1950s statements on race and desegregation. But the fact is, in the 1950s, he was most definitely fiercely opposed to integration and used twisted interpretations of Bible to defend his racist bigotry.

It's clear that Warren is following in Criswell's footsteps when he uses Scripture to try to justify his own bigoted views.

Iraqi Shoe-Throwing Journalist Speaks For A Lot Of Us

By MARC McDONALD

I'm not sure what the specific grievance was that motivated an Iraqi journalist to throw two shoes at George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad. Throwing shoes at someone is a considered a supreme insult in the Middle East.

But I do know this: if I could speak to that Iraqi journalist, I'd tell him that I share his contempt for Bush.

Indeed, I wish those shoes had hit Bush squarely in the middle of his smirking face.

After all, Bush now has only a few weeks left in office. Bush will leave the White House without ever having faced any consequences whatsoever for his reckless, illegal, immoral invasion of Iraq.

Throughout history, other world leaders have faced serious consequences for comparable crimes. They've faced international court tribunals. They've been tried in The Hague. They've gone to jail. In some cases, they've even faced the firing squad.

But thanks to the spineless, wimpy Democrats, Bush will apparently never face any consequences for the Iraq War, a $3 trillion fiasco that has resulted in the deaths of over 1 million men, women and children.

No, Bush will any face any consequences for the Iraq horror that he unleashed. He'll never be arrested. He'll never be tried. He'll never face justice.

Indeed (like all ex-presidents) Bush can look forward to a nice, cushy, lucrative career after the White House. Presidents generally land multi-million-dollar book deals (and thanks to ghost writers, they don't even have to bother to write their books).

And ex-presidents can generally command enormous multi-million-dollar fees on the lecture circuit. (Note that although most of America despises Bush, there are still plenty of Kool-Aid-drinking Bush cultists who will glad shell out money to hear him speak).

So like Jack the Ripper, Bush is a monster with blood on his hands who is going to get off scot-free and never face any repercussions for his crimes.

Like I said, the shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist speaks for a lot of us in his contempt for Bush.

Chicago Factory Sit-In: The Dawn of a New Era For Unions in America?

By MANIFESTO JOE

This is an example of why a bailout, any bailout, is fundamentally a no-win situation for the taxpayer.

You may have heard news that workers at the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago occupied the building and began a sit-in after the factory shut down Friday on three days' notice. Last time I checked, they're still there.

The workers say the factory was closed in violation of a law that requires a 60-day notice for a shutdown. They say they won't leave without assurances that they'll get severance and vacation pay.

What you may not have heard is the reason for the abrupt shutdown. The company's creditor, Bank of America, canceled Republic's line of credit. Republic's sales have tumbled in the sour economy, and with no line of credit, CEO Rich Gillman said the company had "no choice but to shut our doors," The Associated Press reported.

This is the same Bank of America that got $25 billion of the federal government's $700 billion financial bailout. That's over 3.5% of the total package. And they can't afford to extend a line of credit so that 250 mostly Hispanic wage earners in Chicago can keep their jobs?

SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH, "FREE" MARKET BUGGERY OF THE POOR

The Associated Press also reported that Bank of America, in a statement Saturday, said that it isn't responsible for Republic's financial obligations to its employees.

Exactly for whom, and to whom, is Bank of America, sucking at the federal tit to the tune of $25 billion, responsible and accountable?

It's in the public interest that people can get and hold jobs. These people can't pay taxes when they're in the unemployment line. Since this largess is coming from the taxpayers, we've got a perverse situation of collectivist capitalism for the bankers, and the icy sidewalk for the faceless mass of suckers who put up money for the bailout.

WHITHER THE BAILOUTS?

Along with many other people, I held my nose and voiced support for the bailout as a necessary evil. But this case illustrates why taxpayer-funded bailouts end up being no-win situations. It's a sort of blackmail -- the national economy would fall into a downward spiral of Depression proportions if financial institutions the size of Bank of America were allowed to go under. They seem to know this, and their behavior is commensurately unaccountable.

Chicago will easily survive a loss of 250 jobs at Republic. But multiply that scenario across the country, with many hundreds of struggling companies and overextended creditors, and you get a mental picture of what the U.S. economy is facing.

This is an example of why bailouts need to have many strings attached to them, and very sturdy ones. In exchange for that $25 billion, the federal government ought to have pretty much leverage over what Bank of America uses it for. Republic operates at the level of a few million dollars per month, not in the billions like BOA. This is a microcosm of the kind of abuse that the many have endured, at the hands of the few, for decades.

A UNION SUNRISE?

A bright spot is that this incident may become a rallying point for the revival of a union movement in America. Here's more from the AP report:

"Across cultures, religions, union and nonunion, we all say this bailout was a shame," said Richard Berg, president of Teamsters Local 743. "If this bailout should go to anything, it should go to the workers of this country."

Outside the plant, protesters wore stickers and carried signs that said, "You got bailed out, we got sold out."

Leah Fried, an organizer with United Electrical Workers, obliquely compared the sit-in to the landmark 1936-37 General Motors sit-down strike in Flint, Mich., which helped unionize the auto industry. (Yeah, I know, there's the automakers bailout. That's another post.)

"We're doing something we haven't done since the 1930s, so we're trying to make it work," AP quoted Fried as saying. She pointed out that the occupying workers have been shoveling snow and cleaning the building during the sit-in.

Realistically, the financial bailout is a bitter concoction we're going to have to gulp down. But that doesn't mean we have to like it. And, for a dramatic change from '80s and '90s stupor, a lot of Americans seem to be waking up from virtual date-rape drugs and realizing who's been carrying out the assault on working people for many years.

I hope the 53-46% mandate for Barack Obama was only the beginning. Republic should trigger a reborn union movement in this country. Against the kinds of monolithic entities we now face, like Bank of America, lots of people getting together again is the only chance we have.

Manifesto Joe is an underground writer living in Texas. Check out his blog at Manifesto Joe's Texas Blues.

Poll: Bush Less Popular Than Nixon In Final Days

From Politico:

With 71 days left in office, President Bush is less popular than President Nixon was at the time of his resignation, according to data released Monday by CNN and Opinion Research Corporation.

The new poll, taken Thursday through Sunday, showed an approval rating of 24 percent and a disapproval rating of 76 percent.

CNN released a chart showing presidential "disapproval" ratings in CNN or Gallup polls for each president dating back to Harry Truman. This list shows the percentage of Americans who disapproved of the way each president was handling his job.

More here.

Despite GM's Staggering Losses, CEO Still Rakes In Millions

By MARC McDONALD

It's difficult to imagine a more poorly run corporation than General Motors these days. The company reported a $2.5 billion loss in the third quarter and warned that it could run out of cash in 2009. GM's share price is down 78 percent this year.

A lot of people at GM are feeling a lot of pain these days. GM has been shedding jobs left and right and announced it will lay off 3,600 workers beginning early next year.

One person who is not feeling the pain, though, is GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner.

This year, Wagoner will pull down a salary of $2.2 million, in addition to other CEO perks. And last year, Wagoner's total compensation was $14.4 million. That works out to $39,452.05 per day, including weekends. (Note that in 2007, GM lost a staggering $38.7 billion).

And now, Wagoner has the gall to push for a government bailout for his company. In other words, Wagoner is a firm believer in the "capitalist" system when it comes to defending his obscene pay. But he apparently has no qualms about asking for billions of our tax dollars to help fix his sinking company.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of all this is that GM's woes are entirely self-inflicted and the result of poor management over the years. While Toyota was perfecting hybrid technology for its now wildly popular Prius, GM was betting the farm on clunky gas-guzzling SUVs. Now that the latter are out of favor, thanks to sky-high gas prices, GM is on the ropes, because it was too short-sighted and stupid to have a "Plan B."

Actually, I guess GM does have a Plan B---stick out its hand and beg for the government to give it billions of our tax dollars.

So in the end, all of us will wind up paying for this fiasco. GM's workers, who're being laid off by the thousands will suffer the brunt of the pain. We taxpayers will also likely suffer. In fact, just about everyone is going to suffer, in the end. That is, except for the people directly responsible for GM's mess: the over-paid GM executives like Wagoner whose short-sightedness and poor decisions led to the fiasco at GM in the first place.

What's even more astonishing about this story is that Wagoner's fat paychecks dwarf the pay of Toyota's executives (who have traditionally earned only a small fraction of what their Detroit CEO counterparts earn).

Although Japanese CEO pay is not publicly disclosed, it is estimated to be only a fraction of what U.S. automaker CEOs make. For example, the estimated pay of Toyota's CEO in 2005 was under $1 million.

In fact, in recent years, U.S. CEOs have made vastly more than what their counterparts make in other nations. For example, in 2005, a typical Japanese executive made 11 times what a typical Japanese worker earned. In the U.S., the average CEO pulled down a staggering 475 times what the typical American worker earned.

Al Franken's Bid For Senate Still Alive

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From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON — The Associated Press is uncalling the Minnesota Senate race.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman finished ahead of Democrat Al Franken early Wednesday in the final vote count, but his 571-vote margin falls within the state's mandatory recount law. That law requires a recount any time the margin between the top two candidates is less than one-half of one percent.

The AP called the race prematurely.

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said the recount won’t begin until mid-November at the earliest and will probably stretch into December. It will involve local election officials from around the state.


In this video, Franken makes a strong case for his campaign, as well as what the Democratic Party stands for. Franken's arguments are so compelling that I really have to wonder: who the f*ck ARE these morons who vote GOP these days?
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Election 2008 Voting Information From MoveOn.org

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Today's the big day. This is from MoveOn.org; it includes a lot of useful info for voters:

Election 2008 Voting Information

Today, November 4th, is Election Day! Remember to vote---not just for Barack Obama, but for Congressional, state, and local candidates as well.

Where and when do I vote?

Find your polling place, voting times, and other important information by checking out these sites and the hotline below. These resources are good, but not perfect. To be doubly sure, you can also contact your local elections office.

• Obama's VoteForChange site: voteforchange.com
  
• League of Women Voters' site: vote411.org/pollfinder.php
  
• Obama's voter hotline: 877-US4-OBAMA (877-874-6226)
  

What should I do before I go?

• After you've entered your address on either Vote For Change or Vote411, read the voting instructions and special rules for your state.
  
• Voting ID laws vary from state to state, but if you have ID, bring it.
  
• Check out all the voting myths and misinformation to look out for: Vote411
  

What if something goes wrong?

• Not on the voter list? Make sure you're at the right polling place, then demand a provisional ballot.
  
• If you're voting on an electronic machine with a paper record, verify that the record is accurate.
  
• Need legal help? Call 1-866-OUR-VOTE.
  
• If you encounter a problem, try to videotape the situation and submit it to VideoTheVote.org
  

Want to do more?

• Text all of your friends: "Vote Obama today! Pass it on!"
  
• Make calls from home for Obama.
  

Now, everybody go vote!!!