The Red Menace

Let's make a new rule: All states have to be self-supporting in terms of Federal tax revenue. That means that states like Alaska, who comfort themselves with a "suspicion" of Washington, would no longer get all that extra Federal money. Neither would Wyoming or any of the other red states.

Because the debtor states are the red states. These people who want Washington out of their lives could start by giving back the excess Federal money they get over and above the amount of taxes they pay.

But isn't it all about the purity? The "we are better than you because we pretend not to have sex until marriage or gay sex" thing?

Yeah, right. Give us back our money and you can be as pure as you want. Then you really don't have to worry about Washington interfering with your life.

So Alaska Is Suspicious of Washington?

Then give back all the money we keep handing you. Don't trust Washington? Thinking of sending a convicted Senator Stevens back to the Senate? That'll show them - but perhaps not what you imagined.

Kill Moodys! Kill Standard & Poors

So these dorks still want to rate bonds? After the shit they pulled? In capitalism, you have the freedom to fail. Congrats!

F*ck You, MSNBC Execs! Go Hardball !!!!

What kind of boneheaded dipshits run MSNBC? The best political program on the air, Hardball, is only finally available in video and then it is hidden and hard-to-find on their web page.

Chris Matthews is the best political reporter in the United States. His interview of that erratic Congresswoman likely changed the outcome of her re-election. He knows his history and has a great understanding of American politics.

Besides, how can you not love the feeling of being a part of an insider conversation about politics? It is the rolling style of an ongoing conversation that is so appealing.

Chris Matthews and Hardball have been sidelined and under-promoted by the MSNBC execs for years, and I'm really mad about it.

I Grew Up in Small Town America, I Lived in Small Town America, I Know Small Town America

Sarah Palin is trying to align herself with small town Americans. The problem is that they aren't all as stupid as she is.

Being from a small town doesn't mean you can't read the Constitution. It doesn't mean that no one knows you are being mean because you are smiling. It doesn't mean they can't remember the McCarthy era hyperbole and its ramifications.

The McCain campaign is reaching for a voting public that hasn't existed for over 50 years. Let's see if they come up out of their graves to vote.

Let's Blame Black People!!

"Weapons of Mass Deception" are the lies about how the housing crisis is the fault the poor minorities who got loans they couldn't afford. But let's be real: the mortgage companies didn't want to give up their racist practices and are trying to punish the regulators with shifting the blame now, when the real blame lies with them.

I got my first mortgage through the ACORN program. I am white, educated, and got no family help for my first home purchase. The ACORN program helped me get that condo and I paid that mortgage in full when I sold it four years later. Let's not blame ACORN.

When I refinanced my house six years later, the interest-only loan was practically shoved down my throat. I still said 'No'. I'm not Econo-Girl for nothing. The mortgage broker assured me "they" won't let the interest rates get too high. In the end, I got a fixed rate thirty year mortgage. But if someone wasn't as informed as me, they would have taken it, thinking it was a no-brainer.

What the free-marketers, bankers, and mortgage lenders hate to admit: they live or die based on the will of the voters. So if we say so, that's it. Jump, boy, jump. Higher.

Don't Sell Stocks!!

You only lose money if you sell stocks. You haven't really lost money unless you sell your stocks. So if you can, don't sell your stocks. Hang in there as long as you can. I know it's scary, but the people who make money, serious money, are not selling or are even buying stocks.

Sarah Palin On Rape and Abortion - She Favors Birth Control

Here is a hidden story. Sarah Palin favors birth control. Not the morning after pill, but she is in favor of contraception.

Would that make her a rational pro-life candidate? She also favors support for mothers choosing to have a baby by making adoption easier.

But here's something I want to know: would Sarah Palin be in favor of forcing a woman to bear a child? That the essential issue in the abortion debate. No matter how much you hate abortion, will you try to force women to bear children they don't want to bear?

I say "try" to force because we all know that women, as they have from the beginning of time, will find ways to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. The abortion debate is a power struggle over the power of women to choose to bring a new life into the world.

Abortion will not be stopped with a law.

Worst Week Ever From the Worst President Ever

President Bush, who inherited a balanced budget, spent like a drunken sailor for eight years, and here we are. The amount of American debt that the international community has bought is directly related to the amount we had to borrow to pay for President Bush's profligate spending. Now our entire country is indebted to, and dependent on, foreign money to stay afloat. Since when is that conservative?

George Bush's breed of Republican is interested in power for power's sake. The ideology they chant is only meant to gather support for what they want to do.

Certainly no one can say that President Bush's philosophy of less government, and getting government out of the lives of people, has any relationship to his actions.

George Bush likes to blame other people for his problems. Who is getting the blame this time? Is it going to be another "Clinton recession"? That is what President Bush called the recession of 2001. I'm just waiting for the conservative media machine to revisit the phrase.

NASA, Grow Up!

NASA is continuing to embrace triviality to the exclusion of practical, effective projects. In deciding to "launch a super-size rover" to Mars in 2009, once again NASA is choosing a really expensive hobby over any action that could produce practical and tangible results.

Of course, if one tried to actually do something, like create solar-based energy on the Moon, one might fail. You can never fail at cute little adventures. The expectations are very low.

So rather than be held to account for producing something, the coneheads at NASA are diddling around with landing on Mars while projecting that it will take a century before the United States will have a base on the Moon.

But I know a secret. Guess what? It won't take China that long.