President Obama declares “Peace in our time!” O wait...

That was British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain when he got back from talking with the Germans, just before the Germans went to war with England. Chamberlain believed he was negotiating with reasonable people. 

President Obama is just way too much like Neville Chamberlain to negotiate with Republicans. He needs to tap Richard Trumka as his primary negotiator. Richard Trumka knows what Republicans are made of. I like this ad:

"This fight is not going to be won by the president taking a step towards Boehner, Boehner taking a step toward the president, the president taking a step toward Boehner, Boehner taking a step toward the president and so forth until they meet in the middle," Damon Silvers, policy director at the AFL-CIO, told Ezra. "That hasn't worked before. Boehner doesn't take the steps. It will be won by the president clearly siding with the American people on tax fairness and preserving the safety net from benefit cuts."

MORE AT:

A shift in posture, a sense of 'weakness'

When asked if she goes to PA 26 Rep Hennessey’s office Patsy Ray said, "I go there and I can go there any day of the week "

From the Coatesville City Council meeting of July 24, 2006

Linda Lavender is running for Municipal District Judge even though she works for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as Tim Hennessey’s Legislative assistant in Hennessey's Coatesville office.

In court, when her petition signitures were challenged; (she did not make any ballot) her answer to Judge Ott’s question as to “what is at the top of your pay check?” was “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania". Judicial candidates cannot hold a government job and run for election. Lavender is running for Judge anyway.

I guess she does not understand that in the extremely remote possibility of her winning she would be removed and the Governor would appoint.

Do you think she is being used to draw votes from Greg Hines?

Here she is advising the Coatesville City Council at the Monday May 11, 2009 meeting; another no- no for judicial candidates:

Patsy Ray speaking at the Monday May 11, 2009 Coatesville City Council meeting. The commotion in the background is the ranting of Kurt Schenk as he walked out of Monday’s Coatesville City Council meeting:

I believe that the blog post that both of them are speaking about is:

Sunday, May 10, 2009
WAS MOSAIC DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS, LLC CREATED TO OWN THE RDA'S FLATS PROPERTY?
http://coatesvilledems.blogspot.com/2009/05/was-mosaic-development-partners-llc.html

All the other people sitting at the table at the Coatesville City Council kept silent about Mosaic.

The Judicial Conduct Board of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
http://www.judicialconductboardofpa.org/ConductOfDistrictJudges.html#Rule3

The Code of Judicial Conduct
http://www.cjdpa.org/geninfo/djcodeconduct.pdf

High speed Rail

We have no high speed rail in the United States of America. We have a few fast trains.

• Our air traffic control is not up to 21 Century standards.

• Our truck freight system is not very safe.

• Our rail freight system is not all it can be.

• Our manufacturing has been moved to other countries and an economy that was once based on manufacturing is now based on consumers buying stuff, mostly made in China.

• Our financial system is based on buying imported manufactured items, USA consumers buying them and China and other countries buying our Treasury bonds. USA manufacturing is all but dead.

There is a common thread that binds all those together:
Unions and the anti-union mission of the Republican Party; unions mostly support the Democratic Party. Among other things the Rush-publicans have rejected any transportation form that may involve unions and has driven out USA manufacturing. It is very clear to me that they did this for purely political reasons.


The Obama Administration has a bold new plan to bring high speed rail to the United States of America.

President Obama's initiative will fund high-speed and intercity passenger rail programs. It includes $8 billion in stimulus money and $5 billion more over the next five years.

"The money represents the first major step toward establishing a genuine high-speed train network in the United States and has sparked a stampede among states, advocacy groups and lobbyists who are not accustomed to this level of funding." Washington Post

“High-Speed Rail Drives Obama's Transportation Agenda
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 8, 2009;
A01
The Northern Lights Express is little more than an idea –

a proposal for a 110-mph passenger train between Minneapolis and Duluth, Minn., that has crept along in fits and starts for years. But the slow ride may soon be over. The project is one of dozens nationwide that are likely to benefit from President Obama's initiative to fund high-speed and intercity passenger rail programs, including $8 billion in stimulus money and $5 billion more over the next five years in the administration's proposed transportation budget.”
More at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/07/AR2009030701794.html?nav=hcmodule

Republican Leader

When I see a black man or woman in a political office as a Republican; my first reaction is to find out what he had to do for selling his "soul".

Michael Steele is the new leader of the Republicans. But I think that Steele does not need to be concerned about his "soul".

It turns out that Steele might only be a figurehead. The real leader of the Republican Party, the only person with any clout, is in my opinion; that recovering narcotics addict, Rush Limbaugh. .

It could be a gut busting laugh if not for this:

The Republicans say have a plan to get our country out of the Reaganomics death spiral that I believe the Republican's put us in. The only details of that plan appear to be coming from Rush Limbaugh. His plan appeared in ‪Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal.

Limbaugh's plan turns out to be mostly massive tax cuts for the ultra wealthy. Do the Republican fat cats really need bigger personal ships to cruise the Mediterranean?

Reaganomics is in short:

• Eliminate manufacturing; don't make any product in the USA

• Force US citizens to buy products manufactured overseas, mostly from China.

The first two are to eliminate that bane of Conservatives; the middle class union worker.

Continuing;

• Give massive tax cuts to the wealthy

• Lower interest rates and implement new “creative” and completely unregulated financial instruments for middle class people to borrow from in order to purchase imported goods.

Those two eventually allowed the wealthy to morph into the spectacularly wealthy.

In my opinion the now secret Republican economic plan will turn out to be a rerun of the “Reagan Voodoo Economics" that caused the economic death spiral we are in.

They call the Republicans the loyal opposition. But just what and who are they loyal too? It does not appear to be the USA.

The Raging Right

Here in Coatesville we have intimate experience with the Extreme Far Right. They have been a part of Coatesville’s politics for decades. They hide their most extreme agendas in public. You have to do some research to find meetings they organized or articles they published. They are opportunists that switch political parties as it suits their purpose.

Their political tactics are the easiest way to identify them. Intimidation is always a part of their politics.

I could be wrong but just from speaking with former Republican Committeepersons; I have gathered that the Chester County Republican Party leadership has taken a turn to the Right; not the Extreme Far Right but to the Right that some call the Republican Party “base”. I believe it is partly responsible for the dramatic shift from Republican Party to Democratic Party in Chester County. I believe that the moderate Republicans that have historically been a dormant part of Chester County politics cannot stomach the more Right Wing Chester County Republicans. If I am correct, then the future of Republican politics in Chester County could become even more concentrated to the Far Right.
Jim

The Washington Post
McCain and the Raging Right
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008;
Are we witnessing the reemergence of the far right as a power in American politics? Has John McCain, inadvertently perhaps, become the midwife of a new movement built around fear, xenophobia, racism and anger?

McCain has clearly become uneasy with some of the forces that have gathered around him. He has begun to insist, against the sometimes loud protests from his crowds, that Barack Obama is, among things, a "decent person."

Yet McCain's own campaign is playing with powerful extremist themes to denigrate Obama. When his running mate, Sarah Palin, first brought up Obama's association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, who has become a centerpiece of McCain's attacks, she accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists." What other "terrorists" was she thinking about?

Since Obama was a child when Ayers was part of the Weather Underground, and since even Republicans have served on boards with Ayers, this is classic guilt by association.

Ayers has been dragged into this campaign because there is a deep frustration on the right with Obama's enthusiasm for shutting down the culture wars of the 1960s.

Precisely because Obama is not a baby boomer, he carries none of that generation's scars. Most Americans (including most boomers) are weary of living in the past and reprising the 1960s every four years.

Yet culture war politics is relatively mild compared with the far-right appeals that are emerging this year. It is as if McCain's loyalists overshot the '60s and went back to the '50s or even the '30s.

What we are witnessing is the mainstreaming of the far right, a phenomenon that began to take shape with some of the earliest attacks on Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
MORE AT:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/13/AR2008101302173_pf.html

Sarah Palin's Extremist Ties

We have lots of experience here in Coatesville with militia types. I think that a few people associated with “America First”, an offshoot of the “John Birch Society”, have been interfering in Chester County politics for decades.

I spotted Gov. Palin right away; anyone familiar with extremist militia groups would have.

It looks to me like a hideous white supremacist; extremist militia side of the Palins is now out in the sunlight for the entire world to view

The most devastating example so far of the militia movement is the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, an office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by Timothy McVeigh.
Jim

Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition: Sarah Palin's Extremist Ties
by Plutonium Page
Sun Oct 12, 2008 at 10:02:28 AM PDT
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/10/palin_chryson/print.html

Meet Sarah Palin's radical right-wing pals
Extremists Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll helped launch Palin's political career in Alaska, and in return had influence over policy. "Her door was open," says Chryson -- and still is.

By Max Blumenthal and David Neiwert

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/10/palin_chryson/print.html

Also see, ADL Extremism in America-The Militia Movement:
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/Militia_M.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=4&item=mm

Does Governor Palin have buddy list of AIP anti-American bombers?

Isn't anyone interested in what the "First Dude" Palin's hero Joe Volger wanted to blow up with those "plastic explosives"?

"Vogler was murdered in 1993 during an illegal sale of plastic explosives that went bad. The prior year, he had renounced his allegiance to the United States explaining that, "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government." He cursed the stars and stripes, promising, "I won't be buried under their damned flag...when Alaska is an independent
nation they can bring my bones home." Palin has never denounced Vogler or his detestable anti-Americanism."-RFK Jr.

Governor Palin's association with the Alaskan Independence Party is ongoing.

"While retaining her Republican registration, she attended the AIP's 1994 convention where the party called for a draft constitution to secede from the United States and create an independent nation of Alaska."

"The McCain Campaign has reluctantly acknowledged that she also attended AIP's 2000 Convention. She apparently found the experience so inspiring that she agreed to give a keynote address at the AIP's 2006 convention and she recorded a video greeting for this year's 2008 convention. In other words, this is not something that happened when she was eight!"-RFK Jr.

In RFK Jr's words:
"So when Palin accuses Barack of "not seeing the same America as you and me," maybe she is referring to an America without Alaska. In any case, isn't it time the media start giving equal time to Palin's buddy list of anti-American bombers and other radical associates?"
Jim

The Huffington Post

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Posted October 9, 2008 | 11:28 AM (EST)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/alaskan-independence-part_b_133261.html

Alaskan Independence Party: The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel

AIP leader murdered over Plastic Explosives deal gone bad

Ok, Maybe the Palin’s Ayers Attack is “Racially Tinged”

AP: Palin's Ayers Attack "Racially Tinged"
DOUGLASS K. DANIEL | October 5, 2008 02:40 PM EST
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/05/ap-palins-ayers-attack-ra_n_132008.html

But should we be asking a different questions; questions about possible terrorist connections to the Palins via the Alaskan Independence Party?

Should we be asking ourselves, was a Federal building targeted for the placement of plastic explosives by Joe Vogler, the founder of the Alaskan Independence Party? Yes, plastic explosives.

The very same Alaskan Independence Party that the “First Dude” Todd Palin was a registered member of from 1995 until 2002.

That very same Joe Vogler that said:
"The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government...and I won't be buried under their damn flag."

See – “The real vetting problem: Republican elitism” below
Jim

“Nobody has more questions about this? About the Palins' having been fellow travelers with separatist party types who get killed in plastic explosives deals right in the militia movement/Waco/Ruby Ridge/Oklahoma City historical sweet spot?”

The Daily KOS
The real vetting problem: Republican elitism.
by Kagro X
Wed Sep 03, 2008 at 01:00:31 PM PDT”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/3/121032/3543

From “Marketplace” American Public Media comes an understandable explanation of how an why we are in a credit crunch.

A complicated debt package uncorked
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/10/03/cdo/

"Economists are saying collateralized debt obligations are partially to blame for the mortgage crisis. What those are is hard to explain, but Rico Gagliano gives it a try with help from Senior Editor Paddy Hirsch"