I've always been drawn to people that have this gift, of what I like to call, basic common sense, and indeed do not rely on soaring bullshit rhetoric, that does nothing to solve our problems.
I've always been drawn to people that I consider to be the 'salt of the earth,' who have little time for small talk and gossip, but rather than spend 90 percent of their time, (saying nothing and filling up the 'universe' simply because they are malignant narcissists) I keep being drawn back usually to people I like most: they are quiet, or when they do have something important to say, they stand up with courage, dignity, integrity and truth, to speak the power to those elements.
The small group of amazing friends I've had for the past 40 years, I can count on one hand. I'm so grateful to have them. We can actually sit together, and be in a state of 'silence' (reading or relaxing together, giving each other space) and then when we decide to have a serious discussion, we can depend upon each other for honestly, and no superfluous crap. That is what real friendship is all about to me.
My friends and I can agree to disagree, (and not end up in pie fights or whatever), and at the end of the day, we can still smile at each other, break bread and move on to other subjects, regardless of how we disagree.
Right now, this is the way I feel about Senator Carl Levin. I never expect any politician for perfection, because I realize that is not how our system is set up, but this singular Senator (along with a few others) has the the courage and dignity to point out exactly what is going on in our nation, and for that along I applaud him.
He has a wonderful essay today that I hope you might find the time to read, because I would like to remind you all again, that according the Senator Levin and his panel of other Senators they has specifically asked and requested that Attorney General Eric Holder after a long two year investigation follow up on this:
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair and of which Senator Tom Coburn is the ranking Republican, spent over two years investigating the factors and causes that have contributed to our financial crisis and recently released a 639-page bipartisan report (available at levin.senate.gov). In the course of four hearings and the review of countless documents and pieces of correspondence, we uncovered stunning evidence of rampant and blatant conflicts of interest. Time and again, we learned how financial professionals who were supposed to look out for their clients' interests violated those very interests and instead chose to enrich themselves.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
So, in case you do not fully understand what Senator Levin and his panel has spent the past two years doing is to basically, do all the work for AG Holder and to lay out the evidence. We know this much to be true. Yet still, the top five big Wall Street firms, and their top CEO's are not being prosecuted.
Why? What is the hold up here? Joe Cassano of AIG, off the hook. Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers, off the hook, Contrywide, Angelo Mozilla off the hook, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan Chase, off the hook, and of course Robert Rubin of Citigroup, all of the fucking hook and they all got away with millions if not trillions of dollars.
More from Senator Levin:
Some of the structures we exposed were as impressive in their complexity as they were repulsive in their breach of the clients' trust. There are countless examples, such as investment vehicles set up to contain highly dubious assets sold with aggressive sales tactics to clients, while the financial institution that selected the poor assets made huge profits by secretly betting against these very assets with short positions. In one case, a $2 billion security called Hudson was marketed by Goldman Sachs to clients with promotional materials representing that the firm's interest was aligned with the security, when in fact Goldman had secretly held the short position, which resulted in Goldman enriching itself at its clients' expense when the security tanked.
snip....
The financial crisis has shattered the financial security of countless Americans, many of whom have tragically lost their life savings and are facing desperate fears and anxieties about their economic survival and their children's future. We all witnessed what happens when financial institutions entrusted with maintaining the safety and soundness of the markets fall short in their commercial and ethical duties, and we all received painful reminders that some people with the opportunity to enrich themselves will behave badly when they are not regulated and supervised.
(same article as noted above)
To call all of this 'legal' is as disgusting as it gets to me. To not have the courage to point out exactly how the Great Heist of 2008 went down, is to tell your fellow Democrats, that: The Regulators such as Ben Bernanke (it was his job), Timothy Geithner (former Federal Regulator at the Fed in NY) did his job, that the OCC did their job, that the SEC did their job (who was hounded for 8 long years to go after Bernie Madoff and did not) and to pretend that now the same fucking feckless, Tom Miller is making yet another sleazy deal, to let the Banks off the hook, to sell out States Rights, to give the Banks full immunity in the future:
Banks Offer Paltry $5 Billion In Exchange For Full Expungement Of Robogate Charges And Complete Release Of Any Future Claims
And there were those who thought that the $20 billion demanded by state and federal officials of banks caught in various acts of robosigning fornication was a joke. According to the WSJ, "The nation's biggest banks are willing to pay as much as $5 billion to settle claims by federal and state officials of improper mortgage-servicing practices." Needless to say this is a sham of a farce of a "settlement", and amounts to one quarter in trading perfection for the likes of the afore discussed JPM, BofA or Goldman. Recall that Goldman pays well over three times this amount in bonuses each year. On the other hand, this is merely a counteroffer to the $20 billion preliminary bid. Which means that the final number to put the entire robosigning affair behind us will be about $10 billion give or take. And banks can go back to doing what they do best: post 0 trading losses per quarter, and other such infinite sigma events.
From the WSJ:
Bank representatives met Tuesday with state and federal officials in the latest round of negotiations. On Friday, banks received revised term sheets from government negotiators. One sheet revised proposed changes in mortgage-servicing practices. The second term sheet governs how penalties would be allocated; among other things, it details how they would have to reduce loan balances for certain borrowers.
The banks intend to propose that as much as $5 billion be used to compensate any borrowers previously wronged in the foreclosure process and provide transition assistance for borrowers who are ousted from their homes, according to people familiar with the matter. One idea is that foreclosed borrowers could receive several months of free rent once they find new housing, one of these people said. Not only that, but the $5 billion token amount is supposed to be a broad release, in essence granting banks immunity from any and all future related lawsuits:
http://www.zerohedge.com/...
Make no mistake about it, I know what is at stake here: The Republicans are doubling down, and now we have 'Every one is a Nazi but me, Newt Gingrich,' in the picture, but I will not allow our own fellow Democrats to run away from Main Street, A real jobs program or an end to endless Wars. That is not the answer.
And the worst of all answers is to call out your own fellow Democrats for being the new so called "Bath Party' because they do not agree with your own concepts or the new so called pragmatism. As John Lennon said: Nobody is right, if everyone is wrong.
We can agree to disagree without destroying our own party, and that is why we are called the Democratic Party, the party of the people of Main Street, to ditch diggers and wage earners, who Alan Simpson of the Cat Food Commission just gave the 'finger' too, as appointed by President Obama:
To not understand why we are here now, is just incomprehensible on an everyday level:
The reason the country is facing widening deficits and mountainous debts, is because we've been handing out trillions of dollars to thieving banksters who should be in in the jail. Period. Even so, that doesn't address the problem at hand, which is raising the debt ceiling. On that point, the markets are already in the process of making adjustments that might have grave long-range implications for the US. For example, Geithner has slashed the issuance of new Treasury bills to $142 billion instead of the estimated $298 billion. What difference does that make?
Well, it just so happens that there's a dearth of high quality collateral in the repo market at present, and this just makes the situation worse. (I realize that this all sounds like "inside baseball", but stick with me for a minute and you won't be disappointed.)
snip...
Warsh has every reason to be concerned, congress is unwisely putting the very credibility of the United States on the line. Remember, the US does not keep underground bunkers loaded with gold bullion to meet its obligations. It depends on the confidence of foreign central banks and investors to maintain the illusion of solvency. Once that confidence runs out, then... POOF... the game is over. The US will be unable to maintain its preeminent role in the global order. The empire will wither.
http://www.counterpunch.org/...
I completely reject this naive notion that both parties do not know what is going on right now in our nation. And further, I reject the notion, that if we do not hold our own Democrats from running away from the real issues that we will not indeed be forced into what is going on in Ireland now: Their Pension Funds are being sold off, by the Powers that be. Think it can't happen here? Think again, and then, think about three things: The Great Heist of 2008, the Selling our of our own States Rights for MERS by the AG's (Tom Miller) How many on Wall Street got away will billions of our home equity, etc., and what continues as the bullshit fake social issues that keep us all divided. How's that working out for you?
Here is a new amazing article that I hope you pay attention to, based on Carl Levin's report by Matt Taibbi:
Defenders of Goldman have been quick to insist that while the bank may have had a few ethical slips here and there, its only real offense was being too good at making money. We now know, unequivocally, that this is bullshit. Goldman isn't a pudgy housewife who broke her diet with a few Nilla Wafers between meals — it's an advanced-stage, 1,100-pound medical emergency who hasn't left his apartment in six years, and is found by paramedics buried up to his eyes in cupcake wrappers and pizza boxes. If the evidence in the Levin report is ignored, then Goldman will have achieved a kind of corrupt-enterprise nirvana. Caught, but still free: above the law.
...
When it came time for Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein to testify, the banker hedged and stammered like a brain-addled boxer who couldn't quite follow the questions. When Levin asked how Blankfein felt about the fact that Goldman collected $13 billion from U.S. taxpayers through the AIG bailout, the CEO deflected over and over, insisting that Goldman would somehow have made that money anyway through its private insurance policies on AIG. When Levin pressed Blankfein, pointing out that he hadn't answered the question, Blankfein simply peered at Levin like he didn't understand.
...
This isn't just a matter of a few seedy guys stealing a few bucks. This is America: Corporate stealing is practically the national pastime, and Goldman Sachs is far from the only company to get away with doing it. But the prominence of this bank and the high-profile nature of its confrontation with a powerful Senate committee makes this a political story as well. If the Justice Department fails to give the American people a chance to judge this case — if Goldman skates without so much as a trial — it will confirm once and for all the embarrassing truth: that the law in America is subjective, and crime is defined not by what you did, but by who you are.
http://www.zerohedge.com/...
BTW, this just came out, so I'm sorry it is not on Rolling Stone right now, but still Matt is just laying down the truth.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with our party, or each other right now. Please stop that meme once and for all.
I always viewed our party, and it's platform in my visual artists head as a great, and beautiful old and ancient and righteous sea bearing vessel with perhaps thousands of sails.
I always felt that every new sail that blew that wind into our hearts, would lead us forward, to blow the winds of change and demand that our own Democratic Leaders stand up for the poor, the middle-class and the disenfranchised was so important. I welcome every single breath of those airs from the winds:
Every single color and creed, every single person of different sexuality, every single person that worked so damn hard to simply have one single belief in mind:
That we were a nation of laws and not men. That may seem like a simple or perhaps uncompromisable ideal to you, but it is not to me, and I will not allow any other Democrat, to compromise me in that respect.
Now we have learned the hard way: There are two rules of laws in the nation: One for the rich, and one for the poor, and we will forever be paying for the rich until we hold our Democratic Leaders accountable, and stop the fleecing of this nation, regardless of who is selling us down the river.
Now we have learned the hard way: Our military is, after 10 years of endless wars at their wits end, and they have no jobs to come home to. They are physically, spiritually and many mentally and physically ill, and regardless of the fact that even the military families are being illegally foreclosed upon, we are not holding our own President to stop this madness.
I will stand up for all Democrats, including this President when he finally has the courage to stand up for Main Street, and the dying middle class. My vote is sacred, and I will not allow any other Democrat on this site to tell me:
'I'm doing it wrong.' No I am not. We are all doing it right. When you shut down debate and dissent, guess what? You are doing it wrong.
I've always shied away from people that have control issues, because I always felt that the greatest thing about my party and about human expression was our own singular voices that could in fact become the amazing glorious song that would hold all of our voices.
So I leave you all know with one of my favorite songs, and I wish you all the greatest success and love, and laughter and whatever joy you can find:
LOL, Lord have mercy, and thanks as always:
Ms. B.