Jeff Lewis

The political bombshell last week was the surprise announcement of Pennsylvania Senator of 29 years, Arlen Specter, that effective immediately he was now a Democrat.  This switching of political party affiliation is one of the more unique aspects of American politics: all you have to do is claim affiliation, or in this instance declaim affiliation.  In some cultures divorces are achieved, similarly, by simply stating, “I divorce thee”, and the union is over.

In the afternoon of Specter’s announcement came the enthusiastic welcome of President Obama and other Senate Democrats.  Pennsylvania’s popular governor, Ed Rendell, also chimed in with his promise of political fealty to the veteran Senator, whom he had campaigned against since his early political days.  It was pointed out, however, that when Specter served as Prosecuting Attorney in the 60′s, Rendell served under him as a deputy in that office.  At day’s end, the triumvirate of Obama, Specter, and Rendell talked about working in the coming months for Arlen’s election in the Democratic primary and later in the fall against Specter’s Republican opponent.

Specter’s desertion from Republican ranks set off a firestorm of talking heads about the continuing implosion of the Republican Party and the significant changes in the political landscape that led Specter to the sobering conclusion that he couldn’t possibly defeat a well funded primary campaign from former Republican Congressman Tooney, who had the backing of rightwing political support that had already dispatched other Republican moderates in primaries in other states.  Specter’s decision was underscored by a switch in party registrations in Pennsylvania in the 2008 primary that calculated over 200,000 Republicans switched to the Democrats.  Because Specter cherishes being a current member of the U.S. Senate more than being an ex-Senator, he made the switch.

Later that evening, I saw the interview Chris Matthews had with current Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak from the Philadelphia suburb of Delaware County, presently in his second term. I said to myself,” This guy hasn’t bought in to the Specter deal, yet.”  There is always an unmistakable glint in the eye of a potential, but unannounced candidate, and it was manifest in Sestak during the interview. Congressman Sestak has everything it would take to upset Specter’s well greased introduction to Pennsylvania Democratic politics.  To begin with, he has been raising money for the past few months for this Senatorial seat anticipating that he would run against Specter in the fall.  It is estimated that he has raised over $3 million so far. He is an articulate, clean cut fellow with a stellar public service background.  For 31 years he served in the U.S. Navy, attaining the rank of a three star Admiral, who commanded the George Washington carrier battle group until his recent retirement from naval service. He also has a Masters Degree in Public Administration and a PhD in Political Economy and Government from Harvard.

He told Matthews that he has not made up his mind on whether he would challenge the Specter cabal and go against the President and Governor of his state.  As Matthews was throwing all of these potential obstacles out in the interview, Sestak fielded them all with the aplomb of a guy that was ready to take up the challenge.  In spite of Specter’s top line Democratic cavalry support, I sense Sestak knows that rank and file Pennsylvania Democrats have no loyalty to Specter, after all, in spite of Specter’s 29 years of Senatorial experience, he is still a “Johnny Come Lately”.  Sestak is fresh, a military star, articulate and one of their own.  If he decides to run, he will provide Specter with his first real thrill of what it’s like to be a Democratic newcomer.  To overcome such a formidable challenge, Specter will have to work overtime to ingratiate himself to Democratic primary voters, which he could achieve if he proves his value to the President’s agenda, as Obama is counting on.

If politicians are anything, they are creatures of opportunity.  It will be interesting to see if Sestak’s door receives the proverbial “Knock,” loud enough for him to hear it.

Jeff Lewis

(Original Content) - Editor’s Note: Possibly NSFW -

For over a Decade now, the leggy blond skeletal framed female pundit and author known as Ann Coulter, has spewed her political inanities and absurdities. In the process, she penned several best selling books serving to incite her fellow conservative minions. Her vitriolic pen and incorrect or sometimes wholly absent fact checking/sourcing has gone relatively unchallenged by mainstream American culture.

For some time now, she has been expounding on the sexuality of her liberal targets, accusing John Edwards of being gay¹, insisting MSNBC host Chris Matthews has a “man crush” on Barack Obama², and questioning Al Gore’s masculinity³, just to name a few. Recently, during an interview with Joy Behar on CNN, who was sitting in for Larry King, she went so far as to opine that conservative women experience greater, more powerful orgasms than her liberal counterparts.⁴

I thought, “That’s it, I have heard enough!” How in the hell would she know enough about the dynamics of human sexuality to make such an outrageous statement? On what research model did she base this utterly preposterous assumption and point of view? It could not possibly be based on her life experience, unless, of course, she has engaged in sufficient enough sexual activity with liberal and conservative women, or at least observed same, conventional logic dictates.

She claims to have attended dozens of Grateful Dead concerts all over the country.⁵ Anyone who has ever attended even one such performance, is instantly reminded that they are witnessing a miniature Woodstock: Masses of scantily clad and unclad youth reveling in a dope induced euphoria where casual sex is as easily obtained as a joint or other hallucinogen. My imagination does not permit me to see Miss Coulter lying on a blanket on the ground, or in a Volkswagen minibus, groveled and defiled by some long hair tattooed devotee of Jerry Garcia. Any person who has ever had sex with Ann Coulter has most certainly never bragged about it publicly, let alone even acknowledged such behavior.

The disposition she manifests in her public persona is repellant to any such notion of coitus. When I hear her drone on in her condescending nasal utterances, as she bullies her way through interviews, she reminds me of a modern day Circe (The vixen who turned Odysseus’ men into pigs), except she turns her male followers into sheep. She exudes what most right wing media stars do to attract their ovine like audiences, while they bleat their pronouncements about the evils of liberals they liken them to a horde of locusts descending on the country’s body politic.

When many of my friends returned from Vietnam in the 60 and 70, they told me about some of the unpublished horrors they experienced and heard while in uniform of our armed services. Two stories which come to mind when I think about Ann Coulter. One, was a rumor that any G.I. should be wary of having unprotected sex with local Vietnamese women because they had a V.D. that, “Scared the shit out of penicillin!” and two, If you opted to use penile protection, some Vietnamese prostitutes put razor blades in their vagina that would slice a penis to ribbons!

Thus, I have no idea who or with whom Ann Coulter has had sex with…Sheep perhaps, that I would buy.

Source(s): ¹Denver Post “Coulter’s Gay Slur Draws Fire” • ²AOL News Political Machine “Chris Matthews’ Mancrush Obama” • ³Media Matters “The Coulter-Matthews-Dowd continuum” • ⁴Salon “Joy Behar vs. Ann Coulter: The smackdown” • ⁵Newsweek “The Secret War”

Allison Bricker

In the self aggrandizing banter following last night’s Vice-Presidential debate, the punditocracy’s own, Chris Matthews committed a giant verbal faux pas.  As soon as the word “depression” left his lips, Mr. Matthews froze. Viewers could literally witness his face glaze over, trying to process the gravity of his own words.  Mr. Matthews then attempted a course correction, nervously fumbling over, “recession”.

Make no mistake, now that this bailout bill has passed and is on its way to the President, our American republic is headed towards a multi-year economic depression, instead of just a shorter less painful recession. Contrary to the condescending tones from the financial “gurus” about how “We the average People” just do not understand the complexities or necessity of the bill, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that you do not fix a debt problem by shoveling on more debt.

Americans knew all too well twice before that central banks were bad for the country.  Both “The First and Second  Banks of the United States” were ripe with corruption, caused wild speculation in markets and, were not renewed at the times their 20 year charters came up for review before Congress¹.

However, unlike “The Third Bank of the United States”, i.e “The Federal Reserve” the first two central banking schemes utilized sound money to back the currency.  Where once the American Dollar bore the words “Gold” or Silver Certificate”, meaning the Dollar was legally convertible into actual gold or silver on demand of the bearer.  Today’s Dollar only bears “Federal Reserve Note” on its face, and are thus nothing more than paper backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

From 1800 to 1933 the average daily price of one Troy ounce gold, chugged along steadily at $20.00/ounce². Thus a Dollar in 1800 basically bought the same amount of goods in 1912. However, on March 9, 1933, in an effort to “stabilize agricultural crop prices”, Franklin Delanor Roosevelt signed Presidential Executive Order 6102 which invoked his authority to make it unlawful to own or hold gold coins, gold bullion, or gold dollar certificates³. By the end of that year gold rose 62% to $32.00/Troy ounce.

As the “Great Depression” continued, the government tried all sorts of measures, such as the 1933 “Agricultural Adjustment Act”⁴. The AAA even paid a subsidy to farmers to plow under their crops in order to “stabilize crop prices”, whilst 7 million+ Americans starved.  All so “Prices” could remain stable on the “open” market. Only after inflating the currency even further via the “Lend/Lease” scheme of World War II and being in charge of the massive rebuilding of a devasted Europe, would America climb out of the “Great Depression”.

Following World War II, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Government continued its effort to move totally away from a sound currency.  Finally, in 1973, President Nixon put the final nail in the coffin, and removed the dollar completely, 100% off the Bretton Woods gold standard⁵.

Since that day, our money’s value has been based on one thing; the peoples ability to perpetuate the borrow/repay cycle needed to sustain a wholly fiat currency.  This time however we are propping up “home prices” by buying up these failed mortgage backed securities at an over valued price, from the criminal financiers who recklessly packaged said instruments in the first place.  It sometimes seems like we never learn, and hence why my philosophy on the importance of history is: “You cannot know where you are going, if you do not know where you have been.”

Please do not misconstrue my analysis that we are headed into another depression as yet another condescending statement to “We the People”.  The difference now is that in previous borrow/repay cycles, the creditors were fellow Americans, in the form of local banks, business, etcetera, etcetera.  However, now the creditors are wholly foreign as we no longer produce much of any real assets,  instead we consume.  We consume all the wonderful distracting gadgets, such as plasma televisions, iPhones, and clothing to name a few.

In the final analysis, let us say you take a credit card with a $50,000.00 limit and spend until the card is completely maxed to its limit.  You then fall behind on a couple of “minimum payments on the National Debt”.  Which leads you to the bright idea to call the credit card company and explain to them to raise your credit limit so you can buy/invest in some more consumable not durable goods or real assets, which will then allow you to make a profit to pay off the originally purchased items “sometime in the future” – maybe.

What do you think that credit card company would say? This is exactly what this bailout is in essence requesting.  However, even more despicable, is that this bill will print the money out of thin air and then try to sell these Treasury I.O.U’s to our master creditor, the Chinese government.

My fellow Americans, this is the situation we now find ourselves in thanks to the wholly uncaring, selfish, corrupt, and deviant government that runs amok in Washington.  It spread its “Consume until bloated” mentality to both the state governments and the American people.  Unfortunately, the “United States Credit Card” has officially just been Declined” for the inability to repay.  My fellow readers, our country is bankrupt.  Perhaps Mr. Peter Schiff’s words from an interview on Thursday says it more succinctly, stating “we’re screwed” in response to the question, “What will happen if the bailout passes?”  Mr. Schiff, as our loyal readers already know, warned us two years ago exactly where this current debt based bubble was taking the U.S. economy.

Unfortunately, I have no direct answer on how to solve this crisis.  If our family was wealthy enough we would invest in foreign gold and silver markets.  However, this malfeasance threatens our Republic’s very existence, and even if that opportunity were available, it is only a matter of time before the government outlaws the possession of gold yet again.

Perhaps there will be a groundswell of Americans finally ready to repeal the charter of the Federal Reserve and thus a demand to return to sound money.  If not, there is always that tree, and it seems more and more to be in need of a serious refreshment.

Source(s): ¹ Central banking functions of the United States Treasury, 1789-1941 published: 1943- ² World Gold Council – ³The American Presidency Project/University of California – ⁴The Depression in the United States–An Overview/University of Illinois – ⁵Commanding Heights by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, Published 1997 – “Purchasing Power of Federal Reserve Notes”/Consumer Price Index/Bureau of Labor Statistics