First Things First: If You Want to be One of the Good Guys, Act Like It

First we have to accept that Donald J. Trump will become the president of the United States on January 20, 2017. Against our better judgement, and in spite of our many protests, members of the Electoral College signed off on it and now it's a done deal. While we might call it many things--and we have--we haven't been able to prove enough hanky panky to make it illegal or even illegitimate.  It's going to happen.

So, okay, we hate the idea with a passion so rabid it's almost to the point of destroying us, of killing us, of making us eat and drink stuff that's bad for us late into the night when we can't sleep because we know that unbelievable excuse for a human being is going to be president and we can't do anything about it.

As Democrats, liberals, progressives--whatever--we should be used to not having control over anything coming out of Washington, but because we're Democrats, liberals, progressives, we live on hope. We think it WILL happen because it SHOULD happen. Because we're the Good Guys.

I can't stress enough that we're the good guys. We're going to need to keep repeating that to get us through the days ahead, and I'm going to be here doing just that, making a pest of myself, because I believe it so strongly. I have faith in us. We want what's best for the country--even for those clueless Americans who voted for Trump and keep supporting him as if he's just a normal guy who isn't really going to do all those bad things it looks like he's planning to do, by God.

The Trump presidency will be every bit as bad as we think it will be. Maybe even worse. But first things first: We've spent the last 18 months trying like hell to counter the attacks against everything we hold sacred. The things we hold sacred are still there, except now they're even more vulnerable, even more in need of our undivided attention.  So no wimps allowed. No whining. No carrying on about how it should have been, could have been, if only we had. . .

Got that?  Good. So let's get something else straight: The attacks on Hillary, Bernie, and anyone else who doesn't fit your idea of political perfection--they have to stop.  Hillary and Bill are going to the inauguration: get over it. Bernie is about to hold a rally: get over it. Chuck Schumer is going to be a pit-bull against the Republicans but there's that thing about Israel: get over it.

This isn't about your disapproval or your disappointment, it's about our survival.  We have bigger fish to fry, and they don't include the people in the trenches beside us. We're not all going to agree on strategy and some of us may even stink up the place, but if we don't fight this madness together the whole country will suffer. Keep that in mind the next time you want to sniff about some inane item wafting up to your pristine pedestal, forcing you to post or tweet in all caps ABOUT HOW AWFUL IT IS!!

What's awful is that Donald Trump is about to become the president, the Republicans are about to own everything from the House to the Senate to the Supreme Court to the majority of the states, and everyone from the Russians to the Religious ultra-right to the NRA to the KKK are gloating about their own part in making it happen.

What's awful is that we haven't yet convinced the press that they have a responsibility to report the unvarnished truth; that it's cowardice to hide behind ratings or paychecks or popularity while the country suffers from their silence.

What's awful is that millions of people will choose to go along and will fight us every step of the way. They'll work to undermine even those programs designed to help them and their own families. They'll choose to blame us when things go wrong because it must be our fault. Their propaganda machines say it's our fault, so it's our fault.

So first things first: Accept that Trump will be president. Accept that our ideas will be displaced, our goals will be postponed, our fears will be realized. Then recognize our true enemies, remember that we're the good guys, and let the battles begin.

America, What Have You Done?

Last night, against all odds, against everything that's holy, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.  A vile, cruel man who flaunts his fame and fortune, who exacts revenge in the form of name-calling and slander, a man who has a history of lying, cheating, and ruthlessly attempting to destroy anyone who goes against him, will be, as of January 20, 2017, the most powerful man in the world.

He beat out Hillary Clinton, a woman who carries her own baggage--none of it nearly as heavy or as dirty as Trump's--yet who is inordinately qualified to be president, a woman who couldn't match him in bombast and showmanship but rose above him in matters of the heart, of commitment, and of intellect. 

It wasn't a glass ceiling that was shattered last night, it was our country.  The Republicans--those very same menaces who, through their obstruction and disdain for anyone other than the rich and powerful, caused most of the economic problems plaguing the voters--still came out smelling like roses. They won over the Democrats and held their majority in Congress. Those voters who felt so threatened by the government of their choosing have now willingly bought into an outrageously ludicrous line of demagogic fear-mongering and turned to someone outside of politics for solace and succor. Or revenge.

The postmortems will be coming fast and furious in the days ahead, but the die is cast, our bed is made, our new president is a nasty narcissistic loose cannon who will be in a position to fill his cabinet with his equally slimy agenda-driven cronies, to fill the Supreme Court with Scalia clones, to shut down needed social services, to rape our public lands, to deny climate change, to end the Affordable Care Act, to send packing anyone whose skin color, religion, or ethnic background, doesn't match his idea of a pure America.

He has threatened to send his opponent, Hillary Clinton, to jail.  He has threatened to take away the freedom of the press. He has threatened to "bomb the shit" out of Isis. He has aligned himself with the ugliest elements in our society, including the gun toting militias, the KKK, the NRA, and the religious right.

Vladimir Putin has already sent his congratulations.

And I'm stunned, angry, depressed, mortified, and embarrassed for my country.  I didn't create Trump, I didn't promote him, I didn't vote for him, but I'll have to live with what comes next and so will everyone I hold dear.  Some of them voted for this man, along with the millions of others who saw this inconceivable win as payback of some sort, a punch in the gut to wake us the hell up.

I'll leave it to them to figure out how they'll live in the America they've now created.  And I won't feel an ounce of pity for them when all of their wishes don't come true.

(Cross-posted at Dagblog and Crooks & Liars)

Hillary, You Need To Stop Attacking Trump

Dear Hillary,

In only a few days we'll finally know which of our nation's two candidates has won the presidency.  No secret that I'm rooting for you, and that I have no earthly use for Donald Trump, but I'm begging you to stop talking about him. Right now.

We know what he is. We know how you feel about him. He's vile, he's an opportunist, he's so far from being a logical choice for a viable candidate we can't stop thinking, you and I and everyone in our camp, about how impossible, how improbable his rise to being this close to the presidency really is. We're shocked.  Okay, we're shocked.  But there it is, and the next million words about it and a million words after that won't change a thing.

Stop obsessing over him.  Forget about him altogether. You need to spend the rest of  your valuable time convincing voters you feel their pain and, what's more, you've got pretty good ideas about how to heal.

Hillary at Dartmouth - Dartmouth News

We want to know exactly what you plan to do about trade, joblessness, poverty, health care, education, infrastructure, the military, the environment and everything else that impacts our daily lives. We need to feel comfortable with handing you the keys to the highest office in the land, and it's obvious a whole lot of us are not there yet. 

We are a country so afraid, so on edge, so wary of our future, we've allowed a hate-filled, utterly ill-equipped demagogue to take over and build a ridiculously flawed case for his leadership.  The crowds his hateful taunting has been drawing for many long months should have sent shock-waves all over every single campaign throughout the land, both Democrat and Republican. He's pushing buttons you all can't seem to dismantle and it's working for him.

I don't mean to pile on you. Lord knows you get that enough of that, but if you want to get those young people, those undecideds to vote for you, you'll have to give them reason to believe in you.  Right now, less than a week before the election, they still don't. They're beginning to think your repetitive attacks on Trump are a way of sidestepping the real issues. That can't be good.

Do I need to bring up Bernie Sanders?  Do I need to remind you that he built a huge following by addressing real-world issues wholly abandoned by the Republicans and seemingly abandoned by our party, the Democrats? While I've always been your loyal supporter, I can't help but love Bernie's message.  Who wouldn't? It was, in a nutshell, "I care more about the have-nots than about the haves."  The undecideds need to believe that's your message, too. Bernie is now working to get you elected, but you'll remember that he was able to climb half way up the mountain by making his followers believe you weren't with them. It's your job to make them believe otherwise.

Let's remember, too, that Donald Trump rose to astonishing prominence by demagoguing his followers into believing he was the only one who could ease them out of their misery--an existence forced on them by a corrupt, uncaring government of, by, and for the establishment.  (Not unlike Bernie's populist message, it should be noted.)

So let's pretend Donald Trump is out of the picture.  Let's pretend your opponent is someone who knows something about politics  He or she is a Republican, a member of the same party that set out to ruin Barack Obama's--and the nation's--chances at any kind of social or economic success, simply because they couldn't stand the thought of watching our first black president get credit for a win.  These are the people working to take us down, and they'll go on working at it until we pull the rug out from under them.

Your-opponent-who-is-not-Trump understands government and policy as well as you do, and can go head-to-head over what our future will look like under either regime. They know a little something about demagoguing themselves. You need to get your game on.  You need to push the Democratic platform, which, as you know, is stronger on equity, equality and opportunity for all.  You need to ask favors of every blue collar leader you know and get them to push our agenda--the one where we win and the other side loses and the country is the better for it.  You need to energize our young voters by giving them a reason to dream.

We are a country of hard workers.  We need good paying jobs, we need good benefits, we need good retirement packages.  We need good, low-cost health care, we need education packages that build learning and literacy. We need to get back to building a solid middle class. We need more of what we used to have.

We can only get those things if you and the Dems win. If you want those things, too, then tell us.  For God's sake, tell us!  The script is there; we've written it before.  Now go out there and deliver it.  You only have a few more days.  You're wasting your time on Trump.  Leave him in the gutter. The country and its citizens are far more important.
_______________________

(Cross-posted at Dagblog and Crooks & Liars)

I'm Offended by my Country

As a denizen of the Internets given to spouting personal opinions I'm not easily offended.  I can't afford to be. It's hard enough to write without having to do it curled up in a fetal position, tears in my eyes, sucking my thumb.

But I'm offended by my country.

I'm offended by the very idea of a Donald Trump in the role of public servant, and even more offended by the narcissistic, asocial blowhard billionaire himself.

I'm offended by the Republican party for opening up the deep, dark hole Donald Trump felt encouraged to slither out from.

I'm offended by the press, whose idea of good journalism is the elevation and celebration of a madman who believes he can be president of the United States.

I'm offended by voters who hate our government system so thoroughly they're working to punish the entire nation by electing officials whose qualifications are limited to a mutual need to make us pay for our supposed sins.

I'm offended by my own Democratic Party for allowing this to happen.  We're supposed to be the party of the people and we've let the people down.  Our leaders wimped out and didn't fight hard enough for the people whose age, race, gender, religion, income, or health kept them down and sometimes out. 

The Dems didn't show enough interest in the economy, in our public lands, in our public schools, in our public roads and bridges, in the very water we drink or the air we breathe.  They didn't care enough about the health and welfare of the occupants of our beautiful nation. That's not to say they didn't show any interest. They cared far more than the Republicans ever did. But that's not saying much.

More people now have health coverage but too many are bogged down by crushing deductibles and copays.  We still have not capped the price of pharmaceuticals.  We still have not lifted the cap on Social Security.  We still have not figured out how to convince half the country that helping the least of us is what makes us wholly American.

The stock market is up, the deficit is down, but we're not feeling it.  We've cauterized the job cuts so that more people are working, but  too often they're among the working poor. We're winding down our military presence in countries that are not ours but our pantries still go empty while our war chest fills up. We've allowed our prisons to become for-profit industries.  We don't worry enough about other peoples' children.

We're in thrall to the one-percenters, we're leaning toward a church state, we're ripe for a demagogic takeover. 

I'm offended by my country when it stops being proud of what it can be and reverts to being ashamed of what we've become. We're in a mess of our own choosing, which means we can fix it if we choose to.  Now we have to choose to.  Because this sure as hell isn't us.

(Cross-posted at Dagblog and Crooks and Liars)

"Deal Me In": Hillary plays the Gender Card.

Let's be clear:  Hillary and I are all for playing the gender card.  Hell, men have been doing it since the dawn of mankind. (See what I did there?)

The top job in this country has been held by that other gender since George Washington became our first president in 1789.

Women couldn't even vote until 1920.

It wasn't until 1932 that the first woman was elected to the Senate. Since then, only 31 women have served in that office.

Of the  435 members of the House of Representatives, fewer than 20% are women.

Only 39 women have ever served as state governors.

In too many workplaces women are still paid less than men in the same job.

Our body parts are under attack daily by people who want to take away our right to own them unilaterally.

Our sex makes us vulnerable in every aspect of society, even here in America, even in the 21st Century.

So when we say out loud that it's our turn, that's because it's our turn.  Nothing subversive about it.  It's our damn turn.

As of this morning it looks like Hillary Clinton will be running against Donald Trump for the top job. She'll pull out all the stops to prove she's far more qualified to be president than he ever could be. He'll be using what he sees as his male privilege to attack her.

He won't give up. But I've got news for him: Neither will she. And neither will we.

Dismiss us at your peril, you cocky loser.  Bring it on. You and the rest of your pals dealt this card. Now sit down, shut up, and watch how it's played by the other side.

(Cross-posted at Dagblog and Crooks & Liars)

The Mortgage Fraudsters and Their Get Out Of Jail Free Card

I don't have to tell you that when it comes to Big Money I know nothing. Beyond coming deliciously close to balancing my checkbook once in a while and/or putting a few pennies away in a sock or a next-to-no-interest savings account, finances are a complete mystery to me.  I know people who do know something about Big Money but when they talk about it, it's in a foreign language.  Pretty sure.  When they're talking about billions and trillions they might as well be talking about the enormity of the galaxies.  No comprendo, buddy.  Don't even waste your time.

So when I read a story in USA Today about Goldman Sachs finally getting around to agreeing on a settlement for bilking mortgage customers out of billions of dollars over many years, causing many thousands of them to have to default and move out of their homes, their fine seemed colossal enough where even I should have been screaming with joy.  Over $5 billion!  Dollars!

The glimpse of the New York-based banking and investment giant's internal review process came as Goldman Sachs acknowledged it marketed and sold tens of billions of dollars in residential mortgage-backed securities without weeding out questionable loans as investors had been promised.

“This resolution holds Goldman Sachs accountable for its serious misconduct in falsely assuring investors that securities it sold were backed by sound mortgages, when it knew that they were full of mortgages that were likely to fail,” Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart Delery said as the Department of Justice, state attorneys general and other officials announced the finalized agreement.

They weren't the only ones, of course.  In February, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $1.2 billion for their part in cheating on mortgages.

From USA Today:

NEW YORK -- San Francisco bank Wells Fargo Wednesday said it has agreed to fork over $1.2 billion to settle allegations that it fraudulently certified loans in connection with a government insurance program.

In a 2012 lawsuit, the U.S. government accused Wells Fargo of sticking it with "hundreds of millions of dollars" in Federal Housing Authority insurance claims as a result of years of "reckless" underwriting and fraudulent loan certification.
As a result, FHA had to pay out insurance claims on thousands of FHA-insured mortgages that defaulted, the government said.

Around that same time in February, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $3.2 billion.

Also from USA Today:

“Morgan Stanley touted the quality of the lenders with which it did business and the due diligence process it used to screen out bad loans.  All the while, Morgan Stanley knew that in reality, many of the loans backing its securities were toxic," said acting U.S. Attorney Brian Stretch of California's northern federal district.

Morgan Stanley said its previous financial set-asides for the settlements would prevent the payments from affecting the bank's 2016 earnings. "We are pleased to have finalized these settlements involving legacy residential mortgage-backed securities matters," the bank said.

 Well, isn't that special?  Their bottom line won't be hurt at all by it. BIG sigh of relief.

Note that ugly word "fraudulent".  Note, too, that innocent phrase "agreed to pay"--as if paying, for them, is an option.  Note also too there is no mention of anyone going to jail.  Not a single soul from anywhere within those vast companies had to go to jail for their misdeeds. They couldn't even muster up a single scapegoat.  Nobody.  They paid fines large enough to sustain entire cities but it turns out it's no more than money in a sock to them.  So, big frickin' deal.  Let's move on.

Well, how about we don't this time?  I know for a fact if I did something "fraudulent" or even "toxic" that caused even one family to lose their home, I would be in big trouble.  HUGE trouble.  It would probably cost me everything I owned.  I would surely go to jail. I would be a bad, bad person.  I would even think so myself.  I know for a fact I would not have the option to "agree to pay" for my crime.  I would pay for it, or else.  And I know for a fact I wouldn't be "pleased with the outcome".  That's the point of punishment.  It should be the opposite of "pleased".

When huge institutions cause that much indisputable harm to hundreds of thousands of citizens, when billions of our taxpayer dollars end up having to pay for their crimes, we should expect more from them than a slap on the wrist.  We should expect that they lose everything, and every member of their group who knew anything about it and let it happen should have to spend many thousands of their remaining days in prison

They sure as hell shouldn't be able to "agree" to the amount of their fine, and it shouldn't be pennies on the dollar. They sure as hell shouldn't be pleased at the outcome. And they sure as hell shouldn't be allowed to go back to business as usual.

In August, 2013, Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder expressing her dissatisfaction with the criminal-free mortgage settlements.  In it she wrote:

"I am concerned that this might be yet another example of the federal government’s timid enforcement strategy against the nation’s largest financial institutions. I believe that if DOJ and our banking regulatory agencies prove unwilling over time to take the big banks to trial or even require admission of guilt when they cheat consumers and break the law — either out of timidity or because of a lack of resources — then the agencies lose enormous leverage in settlement negotiations."

To which I can only add: You can say that again, sister.  We've been living in a system for far too long where the bigger the crook, the lighter they fall. I don't need to know a single thing about high finance to know it's time to end that insane double standard.

So now we come to the elephant in the room: This is a big election year. My candidate, Hillary Clinton, has taken big bucks in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street giants. She says they haven't bought her influence, and so far I haven't seen any signs that they have, but if she is the Democratic party nominee we're going to need to know how close she is to agreeing with Elizabeth Warren.  It had better be pretty damned close.  (Let's not get sidetracked by my admission that I'm supporting Hillary.  We've been through this.  Here's why.)

My party, the Democratic Party, has lost its guts, and it's people like Elizabeth Warren and, yes, Bernie Sanders, who are willing to take up the pitchforks in order to bring some sanity, some fairness, to a system that has fallen all over itself to keep from governing as a full-fledged democracy. 

My party is the party of the people.  It should be obvious to our party leaders that it's their job to make sure we live up to our name.  We've been too long pretending that any move in the direction toward the people makes us better than the Republicans. Not good enough. Anybody is better than the Republicans. 

Big money is the bane of our existence.  When we speak of billions the way we used to talk about millions, we've lost touch with the common needs of the people.  We read the articles about billion dollar fines and tend to forget how many lives were adversely altered or outright destroyed, thanks to the fraudsters working out in the open with no fear of punishment or retaliation.  They didn't get to that place on their own.

Money talked louder than we did and money won.  Now we're in the midst of a crazy election season, and what we're seeing is the equivalent of an angry mob scene.  Somebody's to blame and somebody has to pay. 

Let's hope it's not us again.


(Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars)

It's my Party and I'll Care if I want To

 Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

No matter who wins the nomination and ultimately the presidency this year, the Democratic Party is in trouble.  For almost two decades, after the economic successes of the Clinton administration went sour, after things got rough again for the 99 percent, my party didn't try hard enough to repair the damage. They made enemies on the left and made bullies on the right.  And now, when it seems they're finally waking up, both the left and the right are going after them, loaded for bear

George W. Bush and his cohorts systematically and deliberately destroyed a thriving economy, took away the homes and livelihoods of millions of Americans, and lied their way into a murderous, protracted trillion dollar war.  And what did the Democrats do? Not a whole hell of a lot.  With all of the excesses and outrages the GOP and the Right Wing were throwing at us, the Dems were in a perfect position to build a movement so big and so strong the painful realities of the Bush years would have been left to the history books and not to the burdens of generations to come.

Instead, leaders of the Democratic Party took us farther away from our Rooseveltian roots, playing nice while the demons haunted us.  Their refusal to fight back was a puzzlement, disturbing to those of us who still believed our party could do great things.  Then our knight in shining armor--Barack Obama--appeared on the horizon and we thought we were saved.

Obama won the 2008 election, riding in on a colossal wave of hope and change, but when the Democrats were given two full years of nearly unencumbered opportunities they squandered them, allowing the Republicans to go on acting as if they were still in charge.

After the Dems lost both houses in 2010, mainly because the voters were fed up and stayed home, the triumphant Republicans found themselves having to share the catbird seat with a gaggle of new and dangerous occupants: The Tea Party.  They came in with no governing experience, making demands so outrageous and out-of-touch the Dems should have been able to turn public opinion against them without much fuss or muss.   It didn't happen. 

In 2012, we won a partial battle but lost the advantages we needed to win the war:  Obama won the presidency but the GOP took back the House and the Senate, this time with more anti-government Tea Party newbies, all willing to suck at the teat of the government while threatening to drain it dry.

Aided and abetted by big money donors with ties to the John Birch Society, the NRA, and the religious right, pushing a pro-business, anti-government agenda with help from the Right Wing media, the GOP swept the board, handing entire states over to pro-business, anti-government leaders who promptly went to work finishing the job of shredding what we bravely but foolishly used to call our unalienable rights.

So here we are, Democrats, just months away from our chance to get it back and do it right this time. Our successes during the Obama years were encouraging, considering the Congress we had, but few and far between. We've just begun to build on them and we can't allow them to be thrown away. We have two presidential candidates to choose from. One of them, Hillary Clinton, is the pragmatic establishment candidate, and the other, Bernie Sanders, is the anti-establishment, pro-revolution counterpoint.

Bernie, the Independent, is closest to our populist roots and tells our story best.  Hillary, the Washington insider, may be better positioned to build on the populist theme and get the work done.  At this writing, it looks like Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination.  Then the job begins. We'll be back to Hope and Change but this time it has to work.

We--and I'm addressing Democrats here--have drifted from being the party of good to being the party of good intentions. "We meant well" is a far cry from "We got it done".  Our party needs a good swift kick in the pants and they're getting it in the person of Bernie Sanders.  People who are disillusioned, disappointed and tired of waiting are flocking to him.  Even those of us who are pushing for a Hillary win are cheering Bernie on.  (Come on.  You know we are. We might grouse at how he's doing it, but he's pressing our leaders to take us back to our inestimable roots. Even if we're not voting for Bernie, we're sitting up and taking notice.  It's been a long time coming and Sanders' candidacy is the catalyst to move it forward.)

We owe Bernie Sanders an enormous debt of gratitude and we'd be wise not to forget it. We are the party of populists and always have been.  We're liberals, we're progressives, we're white collar humanitarians, we're blue-collar do-gooders, we're pink collar nurterers.  We're the unabashed, unrepentant caretakers of our society.  That's what separates us from the other party.  That's what makes it so imperative that we sweep the election in November.  There are people hurting out there and they need us.

If we want to win in November we'll have to work together against the Republicans.  There are two parties in a position to fill the big vacancies.  Only two. If Bernie's people abandon the Democrats, we'll lose.  If Hillary's people stay miffed at Bernie's people, we'll lose.  The anger on both sides is going to have to take a back seat once we choose a candidate, just as it did in 2008 when Barack Obama won on a message of hope, the Democrats went on to hold the majority, and Obama's toughest rival, Hillary Clinton, became his friend, his ally, his Secretary of State.

We have a chance to do it right this time.  The Republicans should, by rights, be easy to beat. (You've seen their candidates, right?)  We have more to offer than they do, but in order to get our message out, in order to draw the most voters, we have to get our leaders to get with the program and agree on what our message is.

Simplified, this is how it goes:  Down with Oligarchy!  Up with Democracy!

The message may be simple but the execution won't be.  But we're Democrats and the other guys aren't.  We've done it before, we can do it again.

Emphasis on "we".

(Cross-posted at Dagblog and Crooks & Liars)