Lies and the liars who tell them

One of the things that seems most maddening to me has to do with the financial breakdown we've had in the last 2 or 3 years, that it was allowed to happen and that we've done nothing--nothing--to rein in abuse in the system, regulation-wise, and that no one has been prosecuted for outright, blatant abuse of the system and our laws.

It's nearly insane.

It's certainly irresponsible.

And here's a prime example, today, from Yahoo! News on one of their news blogs, "The Lookout".  It seems Alan Greenspan didn't do enough to wreck our economy by allowing the "bubble" he created, years ago as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, now he wants to make sure we don't have any financial oversight of the industry:

Wall Street reform: 

In a recent op-ed in the Financial Times, Alan Greenspan went after Dodd-Frank, the legislation passed by Congress last year to rein in the financial sector. The former Fed chair argued the global financial system is so complicated that almost any regulation is doomed to fail, and that, "with rare exceptions" like the 2008 financial crisis, unregulated markets have a pretty good track record anyway.

Now this case is a little different, because Greenspan was expressing an opinion. And everyone's entitled to an opinion. But the barrage of withering criticism directed at the man who used to be known as "the maestro" made clear this was an opinion largely unsupported by facts. Numerous commentators poked gaping holes in the former Fed chair's argument: For one thing, the 2008 crisis, which nearly toppled the world financial system, shouldn't be glossed over in a parenthesis; for another, it's far from the only exception to global economic stability since the industry was deregulated beginning in the late 1970s; and finally, there's reason to believe that smart regulations can indeed help make sure the financial system functions smoothly.

So we're going to rank Greenspan's claims one level higher on our gauge-- not as completely bogus as the idea that BP spilled less oil in 2010 than previous years, or that no one knew Obama growing up. But not much more accurate.

If one more right-wing or Republican or "Conservative" or even Libertarian person says we don't need any additional financial regulation after the debacle of the last 3 years, I'll at least scream, at minimum.

There's some more real beauties on here, too, if you want to look, like BP saying they didn't spill that much oil this last year:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110405/ts_yblog_thelookout/closer-look-are-bp-donald-trump-and-alan-greenspan-telling-the-truth
Background on Mr. Greenspan:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_greenspan

Finally, Washington is catching up with us

From The Huffington Post, Rep. Barney Frank and Rep. Ron Paul, just now: Why We Must Reduce Military Spending As members of opposing political parties, we disagree on a number of important issues. But we must not allow honest disagreement over some issues to interfere with our ability to work together when we do agree. By far the single most important of these is our current initiative to include substantial reductions in the projected level of American military spending as part of future deficit reduction efforts. For decades, the subject of military expenditures has been glaringly absent from public debate. Yet the Pentagon budget for 2010 is $693 billion -- more than all other discretionary spending programs combined. Even subtracting the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military spending still amounts to over 42% of total spending. It is irrefutably clear to us that if we do not make substantial cuts in the projected levels of Pentagon spending, we will do substantial damage to our economy and dramatically reduce our quality of life. Welcome to the party, boys. Now, make it happen.

What they said wasn't "the 'n' word"

As the now-old saying goes, let's not put lipstick on this pig.

I keep seeing references to the incident in Washington, DC this past Saturday wherein some "Tea-bagger" Republican protester shouted an epithet at Represenetative John Lewis and it's irritating me.

I keep seeing it referred to as this ignorant person yelling "the 'n' word."

And I want to say stop.

Let's stop calling it that.

Let's stop making this nice. Or pretty. Or politically-correct.

Because it absolutely isn't any of those things.

Whoever that person was called Representative John Lewis--longtime civil rights activist and now legislator--a nigger.

The word isn't nice.

This is racism of its near-worst form.

The only thing worse, after this, is physical violence, let's be clear on this.

That word--nigger--is the worst thing a white person can call an African-American yet that's what this person did.

And then someone spat on our own Kansas City, Missouri Representative Emanuel Cleaver.

And then someone else, shortly thereafter, across Washington, called Representative Barney Frank a "homo."

Racism, homophobia and bigotry, all.

And stupid. And irresponsible. And hate-filled.

And it all has no place in any discussion or debate about health care.

And it has no place in America.

And it needs to stop.

And it needs to stop now.

If we call it something less than what it is, we're giving it a pass and that's not acceptable.