My Fifteen Favorite Movies

At least for the time being . . . .

The Golden Coach (1953)
The Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935)

Henry V (1944)

Hana & Alice (2004)

The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)

Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
Fist in the Pocket (1965)
Ugetsu (1953)
The Letter (1940)
The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
The Earrings of Madame de ... (1953)

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Morocco (1930)
The Big Sleep (1946)
His Girl Friday (1940)

Impeach President Obama II

There are those who challenged my last post about firing President Obama. They ask whether I have any legal reasons for impeachment, if I was being histrionic, if I was being reactionary. I'll leave the last two characterizations for others to decide.

As to reasons for impeachment of a president, we learned at the end of the last century that it's not necessary to have strong, even legal, criteria for such an action. Nowhere in our laws will you find listed a blowjob in a side room off the Oval Office of the White House as a reason for a presidential impeachment. Yes, I know, the stated reason given by the Ken Starr investigation was that President Clinton lied about the affair. Wouldn't you? Besides, how does a lie about a sexual act compare to starting a war based on lies -- no impeachment for Bush, was there?

Following are actions Obama has done to warrant my wrath, none of which may satisfy legal requirements for impeachment. But I can hope, can't I? This is hard for me to say because the last president and members of Congress, both Republican and Democratic, are such liars and have done so much to destroy this country. Still, it's Obama who's in office now. Here is my list about Obama's wrong choices:

1. Has not ended either war, in fact escalating the one in Afghanistan and drone bombing in other countries.

2. Has not ended Don't Ask, Don't Tell -- first American injured in Iraq war was a gay Marine (lost his leg 3 hours after war started and his livelihood when he came out).

3. Has not signed by executive order a dictate to end (he can do it) the discharging of soldiers who have been outed.

4. Has not closed Guantanamo.

5. Has not ended CIA rendition.

6. Has not established new (protected) wildlife refuges, parks or forests.

7. Kept Bush's Secretary of Defense.

8. Named Geithner and Summers to Treasury, knowing they were part of the Wall Street establishment that helped to lead the financial collapse.

9. Bailed out General Motors and Chrysler instead of letting them fall as real capitalism dictates.

10. Continued to bail out banks and insurance companies even though TARP started under Bush.

11. Created Cash for Clunkers, against free market ideals.

12. Named Cabinet members who are not qualified, much the same as was done under the Bush regime.

A dozen reasons are enough for now. There are at least a dozen more to follow at some point. If you have reasons for liking what the president is doing, let us know.

Impeach President Obama

This week we learned that the military is sending the biggest tanks ever into Afghanistan to continue fighting that insane war. Such tanks have long been part of combat in Iraq, but they've been kept out of the Afghanistan War efforts until now. Why I don't know, except perhaps they were all in Iraq until recently.

President Obama is commander in chief of military forces and operations. He would have been consulted on the deployment of the tanks and he would have given his OK to such a tactic, which I believe will further escalate casualties for American soldiers and Afghan civilians.

I was a big supporter of Obama in 2008. I mean, who wouldn't want someone as our president who said he would correct the abuses, fraud and downright crimes of the Bush administration? But he was a liar then and he's a liar now. He is doing exactly what Bush did only with more thievery, pillaging and warmongering. We can wait until he loses in 2012 or we can hope to get rid of him now. I choose now. With Republicans leading the House in a few weeks, impeaching Obama might very well be at the top of their list of things to do.

With that said, there is one problem to all of this: Joe Biden. He would become president if Obama is impeached. Biden is a loser beyond belief. He never did anything as a senator for many years and has done even less as vice-president. Even worse, what he does do is against American interests. For example, these days he's going around the country, sometimes with his pal, turncoat Joe Lieberman, expounding the wonders of the scan machines at airports because he and Lieberman have "friends" who own the company that produces the machines. (Former Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff represents the company, as well.)

So you see, even though Obama could be impeached -- possibly -- we're still screwed. Will Sarah Palin win in 2012? I don't know. But I do know that if she does, we will know what we're getting. Fool me once . . .

Comparative Disadvantages

I part company with the Libertarian-minded on the issue of international trade.

As long as the United States has minimum wage laws, there's no way to stop offshoring under any plan to remove trade barriers--as Obama and hundreds of business leaders are trying to do. We have wage and hour laws in the United States to create and maintain a middle class, and to establish a basic standard of living. For good reasons, we don't want to be a sweatshop economy, to revert to the way things were in the early decades of the Industrial Revolution.

The problem with free trade is that it forces Americans to compete with factory workers in low-wage countries. Tariffs--taxes on imports--help rectify the imbalance: they are designed to neutralize the "comparative advantage" created by economies overseas that pay large sectors of their work force 40 cents an hour.

These tariffs would be targeted--they would not apply to countries with minimum wage laws, such as Canada, Germany, Australia, Britain, France, or Japan. Once these tariffs are in place, we Americans could--and should--once again build manufacturing plants in all sorts of fantastic new industries generated by private sector ingenuity and research.

Technology does replace people, in any robust economy. But in a protected domestic economy, those people would be hired for other work in the flourishing industries. When free trade policies with sweatshop economies in Asia, Indonesia, South America, and Africa send American workers home to collect unemployment checks, does it really matter whether the president and all those business leaders crow about "growth"?

Georgie, Porgie, Puddin' & Pie

War-lover George The Second is out there trying to pump up his legacy after leaving office as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. Does he think that we've all contracted amnesia?

I read about Georgie Boy BEFORE he ran for president. In one book he is quoted as saying that if he ever had the chance, he would go back into Iraq to complete the job he thought his daddy left unfinished in the first Gulf war. He said the worst day in his life -- up to that point -- was the day his daddy said he wouldn't go into Baghdad because it would mire down U.S. forces. Bush had plans to go into Iraq long before September 11, 2001. (For those who have lost all reasoning, no one from Iraq had anything to do with the September 11 attacks.)

On a tour to promote his new book, W tells a different story about why he sent troops to die and be maimed in Iraq. None of it makes any sense, of course, but that's never bothered the boy born and raised in New England and who pretends to be a Texan. Everything is a fantasy world to Bush. That's not surprising because drunks and dry drunks rarely tell the truth. Lying is part of their day-to-day life. He looks so honest when he's talking about plain old dog shit, doesn't he? Wouldn't you like to share a Texas-sized burrito with him? He's just like you, right?

Needless to say, I won't be buying such a book of fiction. And anyone who does has the memory of a gnat.

Let's Get It Right: Libertarians and War

"With your strict Libertarian ideals and values, where you are against all foreign wars, I await your actions in the Senate ..."

Let's get it right, Cassandra. There is no Libertarian tenet against "all foreign wars." You have mischaracterized Libertarianism. There is a fundamental Libertarian tenet against initiating force -- which applies to both individuals and nations -- but clearly that wouldn't affect a person's or a country's legitimate right to self-defense.

Rand Paul said that invading Iraq was the "wrong thing to do" not because it was a foreign war but because it was, in his view, an initiation of force. Paul did support the initial attack on Afghanistan, believing it was a legitimate use of force as a response to an attack on American soil.

In the eight or nine years since the invasion of Afghanistan, Paul, like so many other Americans, thinks that the Afghan War has turned into a policing and nation-building mire. Paul's views on the wars in no way contradict classic Libertarian politics.

Countin' On You, Rand Paul

I can't wait.

Mr. Rand Paul, you will be sworn in as Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky in January. With your strict Libertarian ideals and values, where you are against all foreign wars, I await your actions in the Senate where you will do everything you can to block funding for the two wars now being conducted by the current president. With the crazy Senate rules, where one senator can block any bill (even anonymously), you will have an opportunity to stop providing billions of dollars for the no-end-in-sight wars in the Middle East.

Oh, and Mr. Paul, I understand you are against agriculture subsidies. I await your action to stop all such subsidies and giveaways to big business.

If you work things right, you may be the best person to fight the corruption in D.C. I'll reserve judgment about other issues in our nation's capitol and how you fit into the equation. Good luck.

I'll Trade Ya

Gee, look at all the great contracts being inked between U.S. and Indian companies.

www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/06/india.obama.trip/index.html?hpt=T2

Does anyone really believe that increased trade will benefit American workers? (It may benefit American consumers, but even they don't much like trying to understand the impenetrably thick accents of the phone operators in the overseas call centers.) These overseas presidential junkets cost U.S. taxpayers a lot of money. That's a scandalous injustice because these trips are almost always intended to negotiate trade deals in foreign countries, which, as everyone knows, result in MORE offshoring and MORE layoffs here at home.

Since the big honcho CEOs in the story support this trade trip, let THEM pay for it.