Talking Heads - Take Me To The River

Plan amounts to a de facto government takeover

General Motors couldn't possibly have imagined this outcome when it made the calculated decision last fall to ask for survival loans from the federal government instead of taking its chances on a bankruptcy filing. Now, GM may get the bankruptcy anyway, and its future will apparently be dictated by a White House whose vision for the company is driven more by ideology than the marketplace.

Chrysler has been told it must merge or else.

President Barack Obama tore up the turnaround plans of both automakers Monday and handed them plans of his own. While the president said repeatedly that he "has no interest" in running a car company, he appears to be very much running GM....

Government Gone Wild

Back in February, the government said that its $787 billion stimulus bill would create 3.5 million new jobs. This was at the very highest end of the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) estimate of 1.2 to 3.6 million new jobs.

But even this high-end estimate of U.S. job creation is penny ante, when compared to a leaked memo from Gordon Brown, the British prime minister. He proposed a $2 trillion European stimulus plan that was supposedly going to create 19 million jobs. In other words, Europe can create a new job with just $105,000 of government spending per job, while the U.S. needs $219,000....

Don't Let Centrists Water Down Obama's Budget - Eyal Press, The Nation

The must-read in this week's news magazines is Jonathan Chait's lacerating piece on Congressional Democrats in The New Republic, in particular the centrists and moderates who are doing their best to distance themselves from Barack Obama because he is too progressive. If you've watched any political talk shows lately, you've probably seen a pundit or two fawn over these moderates, who invariably present themselves as "pragmatists, not ideologues," as Evan Bayh of Indiana put it when announcing his new working group of centrist Democrats a few weeks ago.

Chait takes a close look at what this actually means, quoting Kent Conrad, who appeared on CNBC to complain that Obama's budget would (1) not reduce the budget deficit enough, (2) limit tax deductions on high-income earners, and (3) cap subsidies for farmers who make more than $500,000 a year. Did everyone get the pragmatism in that? A ‘deficit hawk' who just happens to be from a farm state opposes two sensible deficit-reducing measures that just happen to displease two of his deep-pocketed donors (wealthy farmers and high-income earners). As Chait notes, the performance should have turned Conrad into the punch line of a joke, but instead "launched him as a symbol of fiscal rectitude and encouraged fellow Democrats to follow in his hypocritical wake."

The centrists who practice this hypocrisy do not lack an ideology, which most dictionaries define as a doctrine that guides the beliefs of a group or individual. Their ideology is simply "we're between the parties" – regardless of what's good for the country, regardless of whether it will help solve the problems we face. The one extremely useful purpose this ideology serves is to protect them from future attacks for being too liberal...

Frank Wants Control Of All Employees Pay

It was nearly two weeks ago that the House of Representatives, acting in a near-frenzy after the disclosure of bonuses paid to executives of AIG, passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent retroactive tax on those bonuses. Despite the overwhelming 328-93 vote, support for the measure began to collapse almost immediately. Within days, the Obama White House backed away from it, as did the Senate Democratic leadership. The bill stalled, and the populist storm that spawned it seemed to pass.

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to "prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards," according to the bill's language. That includes regular pay, bonuses -- everything -- paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is "unreasonable" or "excessive." And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate "the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates." ...

Obama's path to greatness

Once-a-day heart combo pill shows promise in study

ORLANDO, Fla. — It's been a dream for a decade: a single daily pill combining aspirin, cholesterol medicine and blood pressure drugs — everything people need to prevent heart attacks and strokes in a cheap, generic form. Skeptics said five medicines rolled into a single pill would mean five times more side effects. Some people would get drugs they don't need, while others would get too little. One-size-fits-all would turn out to fit very few, they warned. Now the first big test of the "polypill" has proved them wrong.

The experimental combo pill was as effective as nearly all of its components taken alone, with no greater side effects, a major study found. Taking it could cut a person's risk of heart disease and stroke roughly in half, the study concludes.

The approach needs far more testing — as well as approval from the Food and Drug Administration, something that could take years — but it could make heart disease prevention much more common and more effective, doctors say.

"Widely applied, this could have profound implications," said Dr. Robert Harrington, an American College of Cardiology spokesman and chief of Duke University's heart research institute. "President Obama is trying to offer the greatest care to the greatest number. This very much fits in with that."

The polypill also has big psychological advantages, said Dr. James Stein of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Tea Party progress report

Clinton: 'War On Terror' Phrase Won't Be Used

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the Obama administration has indeed abandoned the term "global war on terror."

Clinton says that while she hasn't seen any specific orders, the new administration in Washington simply isn't using the phrase.

The term was a rallying cry for President Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But the use of the term "global war on terror" is widely disliked overseas.

Reporters asked Clinton about the phrase Monday as she headed to Europe for a week of diplomatic meetings.

She said the absence of the "war on terror" language speaks for itself. Pundits have noted the absence, but top administration figures have had little to say on the subject.

Pietà is Italian for pity, as in "have pity on me". In the arts, the word is used to refer to images of the Virgin Mary and her recently deceased son. The Bible does not mention such a moment.

This clever composition shows all the master's skills. As with his David, the figures are deliberately out of proportion to achieve the desired pyramidal structure.

The right hand supports the dead body, while the left hand seems to call for compassion. Against tradition, Mary is shown as a young woman.

It is said that Michelangelo motivated his choice by arguing that Mary’s virginity would have kept her from ageing normally.

This Pietà was made for St. Peter's Basilica, in Rome, where it still is on display. It is probably Michelangelo's most famous sculpture, maybe only matched by his David in Florence. It is the only work he ever signed.

The sculpture has been damaged on several occasions over the years and restored. In the 18th century part of the left hand was broken off. In 1972 a man with a hammer knocked off part of the left lower arm and damaged head and face. These days the sculpture is behind a strong glass window.

Ronald Reagan

I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life.

Your Mama Don't Dance

OBAMA'S MOST PERILOUS LEGAL PICK

JUDGES should interpret the Constitution according to other nations' legal "norms." Sharia law could apply to disputes in US courts. The United States constitutes an "axis of disobedience" along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq.

Those are the views of the man on track to become one of the US government's top lawyers: Harold Koh.

President Obama has nominated Koh -- until last week the dean of Yale Law School -- to be the State Department's legal adviser. In that job, Koh would forge a wide range of international agreements on issues from trade to arms control, and help represent our country in such places as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.

The Return of Weakness

In diplomacy and espionage, there is no worse mistake than "mirror-imaging," that is, ascribing to foreigners your own actions and views. For Westerners this is especially debilitating, given our modern proclivity to assume that others pursue their interests in secular, material, and guilt-ridden ways. Confession is an important part of the Western tradition; self-criticism is less acute elsewhere. Americans, the British, the Spanish, and the French have written libraries about their own imperialistic sins; Arabs, Iranians, Turks, and Russians have not. In an unsuccessful effort to reach out to Iran's clerical regime in 1999, President Bill Clinton apologized for the actions of the entire Western world. Last week, in response to President Barack Obama's let's-talk greetings broadcast to Iran, theocratic overlord Ali Khamenei, "supreme leader" of the Islamic Republic of Iran, enumerated 30 years' worth of America's dastardly deeds against the Islamic revolution--but not a peccadillo that the clerical regime had committed against any Western country.

Looking overseas, many Americans are feeling guilty. George W. Bush and his wars have embarrassed Democrats and Republicans. So the Obama administration has tried to push the "reset" button, and not just with Russia. Nowhere has this American sense of guilt been more on display than in the Middle East: Obama has picked up where Bill Clinton left off, trying to engage diplomatically Iran and Syria, and perhaps down the road the Palestinian fundamentalist movement Hamas. Yet nowhere is guilt-fueled mirror-imaging more dangerous.

Walking on the Moon

Israeli drones attacked Iranian convoys in Sudan

Israel used unmanned drones to attack clandestine Iranian convoys in Sudan that were attempting to smuggle rockets into Gaza, Britain's Sunday Times newspaper reported.

The paper said that western diplomats confirmed that Israel attacked the Iranian truck convoys in late January and the first week of February in the remote Sudan desert, just outside the Red Sea town ofPort Sudan.

The convoys had been tracked by agents from Mossad, Israel's overseas intelligence agency, the report added.

Giovan Battista Tiepolo 1696 – 1770

The Judgment of Solomon

fresco (360 × 655 cm) — 1726 - 1729
Palazzo Patriarcale, Udine

Two women claim to be the mother of a child; one of them really is the mother. King Solomon sees that they are unable to reach an agreement, and rules that the child be divided between them - literally.

When the soldier raises his sword, one of the women drops her claim. She is the real mother, who puts the life of her child above all else.

This painting is one more of the large frescos Tiepolo made in the bishop's palace in Udine.

George Thorogood - Bad to The Bone

Stoop Down Momma

Another Obama appointee to leave

Christine M. Flowers: Legalize drugs? Far out, dude . . .

I'M A DEVOUT capitalist. My belief in the free market is second only to my faith in the Holy Trinity. But I draw the line at drugs.

Over recent days, some savvy people have exploited both the weakened economy and the deadly violence on our Mexican border to yet again push for the legalization of narcotics.

The argument goes like this:

It's the illegal nature of the drug trade that causes the carnage. Thus, if we treat controlled substances just like any other commodity and regulate them in accordance with existing laws of commerce, we'll eliminate the extreme profit motive. And, presumably, the mayhem.

One Ivy type has even opined that legalizing drugs is the patriotic thing to do. Jeffrey Miron, a senior lecturer in economics at Harvard, writes that "it is impossible to reconcile respect for individual liberty with drug prohibition."

So we can solve the drug problem if we "just say no" to wholesale restrictions on their production, use and transfer. By eliminating the black market, we can let people exercise their constitutional right to get stoned, all the while benefiting from increased tax revenues and removing the social stigma of addiction....

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Down on the corner 1969

Claire's Birthday Song - The Beatles

Mom, Apple Pie, and the Overseas Contingency Operation

I wish I were making this up — but no such luck. The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration has renamed the Global War on Terror. Apparently it is no longer a war, nor is terror worth mentioning. It is now the “Overseas Contingency Operation.”

Or, I suppose, if you want something a little snappier, the OCO.

If we could only persuade America’s enemies to use language like that, we’d win. Overcome with polysyllabic confusion, they’d spend most of their time wondering who they are fighting, or why.

As it is, my heart goes out to the brave American men and women fighting on the front lines of a very real war, who are now risking their lives not in the Global War on Terror, or World War IV, but in the Overseas Contingency Operation. Is that what Obama will still be calling it after the next attack on America’s shores?

Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer does a neat summing up:

“And so now we are engaged in a great Overseas Contingency Operation, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. And be assured: if the Overseas Contingency Operatives succeed in pulling off another Contingency Operation on American soil on the scale of 9/11, or more than one, we will indeed be sorely tested — and utterly unprepared to meet the multifaceted cultural, military, political, and spiritual challenge the enemy presents.”

White House to Hunt for New Tax Revenues

Hmmmm, could it be from the 95% who will get a tax cut?

Geithner 'open' to China proposal

Geithner, at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the U.S. is "open" to a headline-grabbing proposal by the governor of the China's central bank, which was widely reported as being a call for a new global currency to replace the dollar, but which Geithner described as more modest and "evolutionary."

"I haven’t read the governor’s proposal. He’s a very thoughtful, very careful distinguished central banker. I generally find him sensible on every issue," Geithner said, saying that however his interpretation of the proposal was to increase the use of International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights -- shares in the body held by its members -- not creating a new currency in the literal sense.

"We’re actually quite open to that suggestion – you should see it as rather evolutionary rather building on the current architecture rather than moving us to global monetary union," he said....

Courage is the power to let go of the familiar. ~Raymond Lindquist

Dreaming of President Petraeus

Signs of our collective weakness emerged after 9/11 when only part of the American population took seriously that we were at war with an evil and motivated enemy determined to destroy our way of life. Since then, al Qaeda has refused to quit despite debilitating losses.

Clearly, our national will is wilting away...

Geithner Asks Congress for Broad Power to Seize Firms

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner today told Congress the administration will seek unprecedented power to seize non-bank financial companies whose collapse could jeopardize the economy, a move Geithner said would have allowed the government to bail out insurance giant American International Group at a far lower cost to taxpayers...

American Garage - Pat Metheny Group

Once in a lifetime

C.S. Lewis

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. ~C.S. Lewis

Sting - If You Love Somebody Set Them Free

The Constitution

Article 3 Section 1
The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Toxic R Us - Maureen Dowd

Trouble in Rome, Nero?

"Unless you try to do something beyond 

what you have already mastered, 

you will never grow." 

- Ronald E. Osborn

Hero: SFC Michael Segreaves

In the late morning of May 8, 2004, a 30-truck logistical convoy snaked its way along an Iraqi highway just north of Baghdad International Airport on its way to Logistics Support Area Anaconda. In the lead gun truck rode SFC Michael Segreaves, a squad leader with the 810th Military Police Company charged with protecting the convoy with the help of 18 other MPs.

As the convoy neared a cloverleaf where two highways connect, surrounded by tall buildings, Segreaves could see several plumes of smoke near the roads. When the convoy entered the cloverleaf, Segreaves realized the area was a prime ambush site –and that the smoke was rising from an earlier ambush.

Just as he realized that, the ambush began.

Several improvised explosive devices (IEDs) exploded near the convoy as it turned into the cloverleaf. A single rocket propelled grenade flew toward the convoy, but missed it completely.

“The guy that fired that RPG couldn’t hit anything,” Segreaves remarked.

While the front of the convoy came under attack, the rear element saw what it thought was friendly forces.

“The rear gun radioed me and said that he saw dismounted troops and wanted to check them out,” Segreaves explained.

Segreaves suspected they were not friendly forces and wanted the convoy to keep moving --but the rear element stopped anyway. There was no reply when he tried to call them back on the radio.

“We lost communication with each other,” Segreaves explained.

The lead element of the convoy drove onto the overpass, where they encountered a stranded Stryker vehicle.

The Stryker was part of another convoy from Segreaves’ camp that had been attacked earlier that morning.  U.S. forces were in the process of loading it onto a Heavy Equipment and Truck Transport (HETT), but the disabled Stryker was continuing to block traffic.

Segreaves established a security formation around the stranded Stryker, approaching a sergeant in the Stryker to determine how long it would take to load the vehicle onto the HETT.  Suddenly, the rooftops erupted with small arms fire. The insurgents launched the main thrust of their ambush, including more RPGs and IEDs.

“This was my very first convoy into Iraq, and it was a toe-to-toe fight,” Segreaves said.

Segreaves wanted to call for close air support but realized he did not have the correct frequencies, so he asked the Stryker sergeant.  Segreaves then ran towards the rear of the convoy to reestablish communications with the rear security team -- all while continuing to direct suppressive fire to protect the convoy and recover the Stryker.  The rear element soon arrived.

Able to turn more attention to the fight now that he had accounted for the rest of convoy, Segreaves returned to the front of the convoy and continued to fight beside his Soldiers. The ambush had worsened; now insurgents were attacking from the rear, from rooftops and even from below the overpass.

“My guys were dumping a lot of ammo,” Segreaves said. “I’m thinking the whole time, ‘fire discipline, fire discipline,’ because I don’t want to be standing out here with my 9mm.”

Minutes after he asked the Stryker sergeant to call for air support, attack helicopters began circling overhead. The insurgents fled at the sound of rotors, and Segreaves and his Soldiers continued with their mission.

Later, an infantry unit responded to the area and cleared the buildings where the convoy had drawn fire. Segreaves later learned that his earlier fight resulted in nine insurgent casualties.  There was no damage to his convoy and no U.S. casualties.

“I didn’t do anything that any other NCO wouldn’t do,” Segreaves shared humbly.  He said it almost felt awkward to receive the Bronze Star for Valor.

“Without my squad I would be nothing. I was blessed to have great guys,” Segreaves said.

AIG and Our Embarrassing Congress By Steve Chapman

Congress is outraged. Really, really outraged. Unbelievably, incredibly outraged. And there are certainly grounds for anger.

Not at the insurance company AIG, which paid bonuses that are seen as intolerable, but at Congress, which blithely declined to prohibit them but is now shocked to find AIG doing what it was allowed to do. The Democrats who control Capitol Hill want revenge, as do many Republicans. So the House voted by a 328-93 margin to impose a 90 percent tax on the payments....

Has a ‘Katrina Moment’ Arrived? Frank Rich

A CHARMING visit with Jay Leno won’t fix it. A 90 percent tax on bankers’ bonuses won’t fix it. Firing Timothy Geithner won’t fix it. Unless and until Barack Obama addresses the full depth of Americans’ anger with his full arsenal of policy smarts and political gifts, his presidency and, worse, our economy will be paralyzed. It would be foolish to dismiss as hyperbole the stark warning delivered by Paulette Altmaier of Cupertino, Calif., in a letter to the editor published by The Times last week: “President Obama may not realize it yet, but his Katrina moment has arrived.”

Contentment is the only real wealth- Alfred Nobel

California’s Unemployment Rate Rises to 26-Year High

California’s jobless rate surged in February to the highest level since 1983 while unemployment in Oregon and Nevada climbed above 10 percent for the first time in more than two decades.

Unemployment in California rose to 10.5 percent from 10.1 percent in January, its Employment Development Department reported today in Sacramento. Neighboring Oregon’s jobless rate rose a full percentage point to 10.8 percent, and Nevada’s increased to 10.1 percent.

Christine M. Flowers: Paging Dr. Frankenstein. . .

WHEN President Obama lifted the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, the supporters screamed in joy - "Science over ideology!" - like charismatics at an old-time revival.
Ironically, these advocates of unfettered embryonic experimentation are just as ideological as they accuse the other side of being. The difference is that for them, science is the creed, and blind faith the commandment.

I can't say I'm surprised at this development. We who champion life over choice saw the writing on the wall months ago. During the campaign, Obama didn't hide his liberal stance on abortion rights, one that put him far to the left of most Americans, including many in his own party....

Administration seeks increase in oversight of executive pay

The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation, government officials said....

Elegant People

The Progressive: Reckoning on the Iraq War

This is the sixth anniversary of Bush’s illegal war against Iraq, and it’s time for a little reckoning.

Let’s tally the costs.

First and foremost, in human terms.

Bush’s war killed anywhere between 100,000 and more than a million Iraqi civilians.

And it turned more than 10 percent of the Iraqi population into refugees.

On the U.S. side, Bush’s war resulted in the death of 4,258 of our soldiers.

On top of that, 45,583 U.S. soldiers have been physically wounded.

Here’s another staggering stat: 300,000 U.S. soldiers suffer from PTSD, and another 300,000 or so suffer from traumatic brain injuries.

That’s about 650,000 U.S. soldiers and their families whose lives may never be the same again.

On top of that is the financial toll, which is likely to exceed $2 trillion dollars.

Isn’t it incredible that there is always $2 trillion for an unnecessary war that any President wants to wage, and there’s always $2 trillion to bail out banks, but there’s never enough money for universal health care, or free college education, or eliminating poverty in this country?

Bush’s Iraq War will forever leave a blot on U.S. history.

But it’s not the only such blot.

It was just one of the most egregious examples of a runaway U.S. empire and of misguided priorities that have steered us away from the kind of country we hope, or at least pretend, to be.

I'm a bit fuzzy on this whole "Bush's illegal war" thing. Also, where do we get the 300,000 with traumatic brain injuries and why aren't they counted as injuries? Other then those small issues, ya know facts, it's a great piece.

The Country’s in the Very Best of Hands

So the Democrats are encouraging Americans to man the barricades in outrage at protest at bonuses to AIG executives, while the White House frantically rearranges the deckchairs, hanging Chris Dodd and increasingly Tim Geithner out as bait to a public that is staring in disbelief as an administration they elected on the basis of its supposed intellectual and ethical firepower has done more to wreck the economy in eight weeks than the Bush administration did in eight years.

Nevermind that the people who crashed AIG are long gone, and it is the workers who have been brought in to clean up the mess who now work under armed guard, fearful for their safety. What was that about the Right always stoking anger and violence in the community again?

The thing is that as outrageous as the situation at AIG is, it is the Obama White House that is largely behind the bonus outrage, not Chris Dodd. And believe me, as someone who has no love for the ethically-challenged Connecticut Senator, and hopes he is pensioned off to his Irish cottage where he can do no harm, this is a painful thing to write. As Glenn Greenwald, hardly a member of the vast right-wing conspiracy, writes at Salon.com, "It was Obama officials, not Dodd, who demanded that already-vested bonus payments be exempted. And it was Dodd, not Obama officials, who wanted the prohibition applied to all compensation agreements, past and future. The provision which shielded already-promised bonus payments from the executive compensation limits ended up being inserted at the insistence of Geithner".

It's early days but Obama has form with this sort of "modified limited hangout". Remember, last year's tightly-disciplined Obama campaign had no qualms about throwing advisors under the proverbial bus. Heck, back then the then-junior senator from Illinois had no trouble throwing his aging grandmother under the bus.

The fact is, as much as Democrats and the White House may enjoy stoking eat-the-rich class warfare in the hopes that there's a little bit of Hugo Chavez in all of us, they need to take ownership of this problem. Fannie Mae, which did so much to get America - and the world - into this mess is paying out huge bonuses, but somehow they get a pass.

Alison Krauss and Robert Plant in Please Read the Letter

Ever Ever After By Carrie Underwood

Monet

Tough Talk From the Teleprompter - Maureen Dowd, New York Times

Barack Obama even needs a teleprompter to get mad.
On St. Patrick’s Day, the president spoke a bit of Gaelic, dyed the White House fountains green and talked about his distant relatives in the tiny Irish town of Moneygall, aptly named since money and gall are the two topics now consuming him.
But Mr. Obama is still having trouble summoning a suitable flash of Irish temper at the gall of the corrupt money magicians who continue to make our greenbacks disappear into their bottomless well. He’s got to lop off some heads.

Ms. Doom & Dowd seems to be losing that warm and fuzzy feeling for the Obamasm!!

A CAPELLA HARMONY

IRELAND The best little country in the world

Cry of the celts

Victory - Lord of the dance

Nelson Eddy - When Irish Eyes are Smiling 1939

Hebrews 12:14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

"If you want to be happy, set a goal that 
commands your thoughts, liberates your 
energy, and inspires your hopes." 
- Andrew Carnegie

The Constitution

Article 2 Section 1.1

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

Celtic Woman - Danny Boy

Celtic Woman - The Butterfly

Lord Of the Dance - Cry of the Celts [Michael Flatley]

Celtic Fiddle Dance

CELTIC MUSIC FOR A CELTIC PARTY

When irish eyes are smiling

Dennis Morgan - When Irish Eyes are Smiling

Danny Boy

The Real AIG Outrage

President Obama joined yesterday in the clamor of outrage at AIG for paying some $165 million in contractually obligated employee bonuses. He and the rest of the political class thus neatly deflected attention from the larger outrage, which is the five-month Beltway cover-up over who benefited most from the AIG bailout.

Taxpayers have already put up $173 billion, or more than a thousand times the amount of those bonuses, to fund the government's AIG "rescue." This federal takeover, never approved by AIG shareholders, uses the firm as a conduit to bail out other institutions. After months of government stonewalling, on Sunday night AIG officially acknowledged where most of the taxpayer funds have been going.

Since September 16, AIG has sent $120 billion in cash, collateral and other payouts to banks, municipal governments and other derivative counterparties around the world. This includes at least $20 billion to European banks. The list also includes American charity cases like Goldman Sachs, which received at least $13 billion. This comes after months of claims by Goldman that all of its AIG bets were adequately hedged and that it needed no "bailout." Why take $13 billion then? This needless cover-up is one reason Americans are getting angrier as they wonder if Washington is lying to them about these bailouts...

The American Legion Strongly Opposed to President's Plan to Charge Wounded Heroes for Treatment

WASHINGTON, March 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The leader of the nation's largest veterans organization says he is "deeply disappointed and concerned" after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries. The Obama administration recently revealed a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in such cases.

"It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan," said Commander David K. Rehbein of The American Legion. "He says he is looking to generate $540-million by this method, but refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it."

The Commander, clearly angered as he emerged from the session said, "This reimbursement plan would be inconsistent with the mandate ' to care for him who shall have borne the battle' given that the United States government sent members of the armed forces into harm's way, and not private insurance companies. I say again that The American Legion does not and will not support any plan that seeks to bill a veteran for treatment of a service connected disability at the very agency that was created to treat the unique need of America's veterans!"

Ansel Adama

Mahatma Gandhi

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to liveforever.

Mahatma Gandhi, 10/02/1869 - 01/30/1948 Indian ascetic & nationalist leader

Why Barney Frank’s Phony AIG Outrage is Worse Than the Bonuses

Thousands Rally Downtown Against Government Spending

CINCINNATI -- Thousands of Tri-State residents gathered Sunday on Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati to voice their opposition to government spending bills recently signed by President Barack Obama.
The group called itself the Cincinnati Tea Party, modeled after the Boston Tea Party of 1773.

Foil Hat Alert: Kucinich To Investigate "Executive Assassination Ring"

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich has sent a letter to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns on Friday requesting an investigation into an executive assassination ring rumored to exist under the Bush administration. Here is the release as well as the original letter:

Washington D.C. (March 16, 2009) - Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) Friday sent a letter to Chairman Edolphus Towns of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee requesting an immediate investigation into allegations made by the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that the White House operated an 'executive assassination ring' that circumvented Congressional oversight....

Whew!!! And to think I thought it was just a full moon!!!!

U.S. Confirms It Shot Down Iranian Drone Flying Over Iraq

Obama Orders Treasury Chief to Try to Block A.I.G. Bonuses

WASHINGTON — President Obama vowed to try to stop the faltering insurance giant American International Group from paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives, as the administration scrambled to avert a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street that could complicate Mr. Obama’s economic recovery agenda.

"Never give up, never, never give up." Winston Churchill

Nasa

Beauty Is the Night

The waters of Cape Canaveral captured the reflection of space shuttle Discovery as it lifted off on the STS-119 mission from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The STS-119 mission is the 28th to the International Space Station and the 125th space shuttle flight. Discovery will deliver the final pair of power-generating solar array wings and the S6 truss segment. 

Image Credit: NASA/Tony Gray, Tom Farrar

TEA PARTIES GROWING- Powerline.

The tea party movement has been spreading, but most anti-tax/deficit/grotesque spending rallies have been relatively small. That may be changing, though. This photo of today's rally in Cincinnati, taken from a 17th-story window overlooking Fountain Square, is really impressive. I can't estimate the crowd, but there appear to be thousands of people participating; click to enlarge:

Architecture Of The World

Obama Braces for a Backlash Over Wall Street Bailouts

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is increasingly concerned about a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street, worried that anger at financial institutions could also end up being directed at Congress and the White House and could complicatence H. Summers on “This Week” called new bonuses at A.I.G. outrageous.

A.I.G. Lists Which Banks It Paid With U.S. Bailout The administration’s sharp rebuke of the American International Group on Sunday for handing out $165 million in executive bonuses.

Lawrence H. Summers, director of the president’s National Economic Council, described it as “outrageous” on “This Week” on ABC — marks the latest effort by the White House to distance itself from abuses that could feed potentially disruptive public anger.ministration is increasingly concerned about a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street, worried that anger at financial institutions could also end up being directed at Congress and the White House and could complicate:Is President Obama at risk of becoming another target of a backlash against Wall Street?The administration’s sharp rebuke of the American International Group on Sunday for handing out $165 million in executive bonuses — Lawrence H. Summers, director of the president’s National Economic Council, described it as “outrageous” on “This Week” on ABC — marks the latest effort by the White House to distance itself from abuses that could feed potentially disruptive public anger....