I find it absolutely amazing all of the grandstanding going on over the Economic Stimulus bill. Republicans voted as a block AGAINST the stimulus package when we face a crisis that is so bad, it's a possible forbearer to the collapse of the American banking system.

There seem to be two reactions:
Gleefully taking the bailout money, and even fighting for a bigger chunk after VOTING AGAINST IT, and even more preposterous rejecting, or at least making overtures to reject it.
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As much of a dumbass as he is, in the "stopped clock department" at least our Governor had the right reaction: "If others don' want their money, we'll take it!"

I find it truly amazing that the Republican mindset seems to be to stamp their feet and reject everything. Do they not realize that all of that "Party of 'NO'" bullshit they tried to hawk when Bush was president didn't just go away?

fools!
Anyway, it irritates me that the stimulus bill had so many provisions for jobs stripped out and included so many tax breaks.

Why, oh, why must it always be tax breaks?
When we're struggling to pay the bills we shouldn't be making it easier to not pay taxes.

Taxes are the price you pay for living in a free society.
Nobody LIKES to pay them, but nobody likes to pay the power bill either.

Yes, yes, the government spends money on some stupid crap, it also spends money on critical infrastructure.

And before anybody speaks of "class warfare" or how tough the rich have it, please keep in mind that a large segment of the financial industry essentially works fulltimes to take full advantage of our fucked up tax code to make sure that the rich folks out there pay as little as possible.

Our tax code sucks, it should be scrapped and restarted from scratch.
I'm not saying i'm the guy to do that, that sounds like torment, just that it needs to happen.

I'm getting off topic here, but it looks like we could be looking at bank nationalization on some level.

I'm not against that.
Despite the ardent free market rallying cry of private enterprise being infinitely better than government, I think it has been proven in recent history that is NOT true.

Anyway, the bank bailout, while necessary was clumsy and absolutely wasteful. I never felt that NOTHING needed to happen, just that with that money should have come some serious strings. Such as addressing the source problems.

Let's put it this way: I'm not the kind of guy that thinks government is the solution for everything. Government is only as good as the people running it and staffing it, which is prone to change, and has an utter lack of urgency towards completition (red tape!)

However, considering how incredibly irresponsible the banks have been, and considering how perilous of a situation our country is... and yes, as an ardent "protectionist" I'm worried about THIS country first, less about the world markets, well, let's just say I feel the same way about this as I feel about when Oakland lost control of a lot of it's schools to state funded charters.

You shouldn't be expected to be rewarded for fucking up.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Holder Vows To End Raids On Medical Marijuana Clubs

Good!
Let's get the Justice department focusing their resources on stuff that actually matters. One of John Ashcroft's last crusades comes to an end.

Attorney General Eric Holder said at a press conference Wednesday that the Justice Department will no longer raid medical marijuana clubs that are established legally under state law. His declaration is a fulfillment of a campaign promise by President Barack Obama, and marks a major shift from the previous administration.

After the inauguration, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) continued to carry out such raids, despite Obama's promise. Holder was asked if those raids represented American policy going forward.

"No," he said. "What the president said during the campaign, you'll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we'll be doing in law enforcement. He was my boss during the campaign. He is formally and technically and by law my boss now. What he said during the campaign is now American policy."

One of the math teachers at one of my school's has an iphone app that makes it look like you're getting a phone call from Barack Obama. I was a fly on the wall in the classroom installing something when I witnessed the following exchange.

He was having a discussion with one of the students about an assignment that was going nowhere and activated it, it rang like a normal call:

"Who's calling you" A kid asked.
He showed it to the class who ooh'd and ahh'd.
"WOW! THE PRESIDENT!!!"
he picked it up.
"Yes."
"Of course Mr. President... of course... thank you, talk to you later."
"What did he say?"
"He told me that he knows you haven't been doing your homework and he's not happy about it."
(collective oohs and ahhs!)
"How does he know."

To which I piped in:
"Hello! Department of Homeland Security!"

The students nodded knowingly and started looking around the room for secret cameras.
"We'd better do our homework!" Another kid said.

Briliant!

Current Mood: amused