HEARTBREAKING AIG SCANDAL UPDATES

Fed failed to tell Obama about AIG bonuses!

"This is like the captain and the crew of the ship reserving the lifeboats, saying to hell with the passengers, we're going to take the lifeboats for ourselves, for the crew and the captain. That's what happened here." Massachusetts Democrat Stephen Lynch

This is heartbreaking: yesterday I was listening to the Ron Reagan show on Air America, and a woman called in named "Nadia" who lost her 19-year-old son in an industrial accident. Even though he was covered by AIG in an insurance policy with his company, AIG would not pay out. The grieving family was given the run-around and forced to go to court to sue AIG. The insurance giant still has not paid anything on the claim. They "claim" they have no money, or some such nonsense. I am not exactly sure of all the details, but you could hear the heartache in her voice. To have lost a son, and then to hear that AIG is paying out bonuses to buddies, swindlers and fellow partners in crime, is simply criminal.

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The Real AIG Scandal: It's not the bonuses. It's that AIG's counterparties are getting paid back in full. By Eliot Spitzer

Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG's bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG's counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?

...The appearance that this was all an inside job is overwhelming. AIG was nothing more than a conduit for huge capital flows to the same old suspects, with no reason or explanation.

It all appears, once again, to be the same insiders protecting themselves against sharing the pain and risk of their own bad adventure.

The payments to AIG's counterparties are justified with an appeal to the sanctity of contract. If AIG's contracts turned out to be shaky, the theory goes, then the whole edifice of the financial system would collapse.

What is the deeper relationship between Goldman and AIG? Didn't they almost merge a few years ago but did not because Goldman couldn't get its arms around the black box that is AIG? If that is true, why should Goldman get bailed out? After all, they should have known as well as anybody that a big part of AIG's business model was not to pay on insurance it had issued.
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Arianna Huffington: A Disturbing D.C. Whodunit [Updated]

The mystery over who killed a provision in the stimulus package that would have curtailed bonuses at bailed out companies is a disturbing D.C. whodunit. But even more disturbing is what it reveals about how our government is run. "It is the ultimate indictment of what Washington has become," Sen. Ron Wyden, co-sponsor of the eliminated provision told me. "It's a place where, again and again, the public interest is deep-sixed without any fingerprints." Wyden has no idea who killed the provision. And, so far, no one in the administration of a president who promised that transparency would be a "touchstone" of his presidency has demanded that whoever is responsible own up to it. We deserve better.
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Michael Hudson of Counterpunch says: Let’s go after the REAL money given to AIG – the $183 billion! I realize that this has already been paid out, and we can’t get it back from the counterparties who knew that Alan Greenspan and George Bush and Hank Paulson were steering the U.S. economy off a real estate cliff, a derivatives cliff and a balance-of-payments cliff all wrapped up into one by betting against collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and insuring these casino bets with AIG. That money has been siphoned off from the Treasury fair and square, by putting their own proxies in the key government slots, the better to serve them.

So let’s go after them altogether. Sen. Schumer said to the AIG bonus recipients that the I.R.S. can go after them and get the money back one way or another. And it can indeed go after the $183-billion bailout recipients. All it has to do is re-instate the estate tax and raise the marginal income and wealth-tax rates to the (already reduced) Clinton-era levels.


HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!

You are SO lucky!

AIG OUTRAGE UPDATE!

NY Attorney General Cuomo Reveals 73 Individuals Got Multi-Million-Dollar Bonuses... Top Recipient Got $6.4 Million....

Undercuts AIG Claim On Retention Payments: Numerous Bonus Recipients No Longer Work At The Firm ...

MORE AIG FALLOUT: CNBC's Santelli Downplays AIG Outrage, Asks Public To Show Some Perspective: "$165 Million Is Like Worrying About 16.5 Cents While $165 Maybe Necessitates A Little More Outrage"... Sen. Reid: Congress Intends To Retrieve Stimulus Money From AIG... Geithner Under Fire Over AIG Scandal: Sen. Shelby Charges Treasury Secretary Is "Out Of The Loop"... Security Ramped Up After Death Threats: Armed Guards Posted Outside AIG Offices... Some Senior Managers Submit Resignations... AIG BIG NEWS PAGE at Huffington Post

Who is Saint Patrick?

Saint Patrick was a missionary who lived in Ireland. He died around March 17, 493.
When he was 16 years old, Saint Patrick was captured and made a slave.
He was a slave for six years.
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Arianna Huffington: What If Jon Stewart, Instead of John King, Interviewed Dick Cheney

As I watched John King interview Dick Cheney on Sunday, Jon Stewart kept popping into my head. Each time King let Cheney get away with revisionist history, I kept thinking how different things would have been had Stewart been asking the questions. A low point came when King brought out some data to refute Cheney's spin, then undercut the impact of the hard, cold facts that he was quoting by using mealy-mouthed qualifiers like "There are people who would say..." and "and they have some numbers to back up their case." Facts are not some numbers that belong to some people being trotted to make their case. They are empirical evidence. I can imagine King asking a flat-earther: "Some people say the earth is round. And they have some pictures taken from outer space to back up their case. What would you say to them?" More at Huffington Post

JIM HILLIS: THE HEALING POWER OF LOVE

Letter from Jim Hillis, my gifted friend and angel who puts into action what we all should be doing - giving and caring for our neighbors:

Dear Lydia,

Funny how things come full circle...like life, the planet...like love, no beginning...and no end.

I've written a couple of stories for CNN that they took. Some about family, politics, God...and the sins of greed...and the joy of little cherished things that we take for granted.

Thank you for starting my journey...at the very beginning (with a lot of patience and a lot of love) to a clear open mind...eyes wide open...not jaded...just aware...watching and experiencing the joy of God's blessings (his gifts) to us. I'm fully aware...but I will always somewhat maintain an innocence.

I lost my grandmother in my arms a few months ago...it was just as amazing as how I lost my sister. In my heart...I would never grieve so bad that I would deprive her of what she worked so hard for (95 years)...the gift of heaven.

I would like to let you read my story sometime. Anyway, back to "the full circle" thing. I have been blessed with so many people in my life...including you...that unconditionally loved me...had faith in me...gave me many chances...and believed in me so much that you guys picked me up and dusted me off again and again...and pointed me to my journey on the planet.



I've been set onto yet another mission...to come full circle and help someone that helped me immensely.

My "Aunt" Inez was my neighbor in Beverly Hills. She lived in the city from 16-81. When her apartment was acquired by a new "greedy" owner...he illegally evicted seniors and 2 disabled people. They didn't know their rights. They didn't know it was illegal (at that time) they didn't know the resources they were eligible for...They were banished from their kingdom...the only place they knew...to the streets with a promise of $ 5,000.

My friend worked until her mid 70s. She was an old time switchboard operator at a hotel...and then for almost 40 years as the elevator operator at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel...She was rewarded 600.00 in retirement. She didn't know about SSI, Medical, Prescription coverage...or anything. She sleeps in a sleeping bag on the floor in a shoe box room on South Croft Ave...East of the Beverly Center. You can't remove an 86 year old woman from the only place familiar to her. Her rent is close to $700.00...it scares me to think where she got the "extra" to help her cover her bills.

I came from Boston to help. Not for accolades...not for points...just for the only "right thing to do". No one else would help. I do a lot of work for the people who can't, won't or don't know how to. I have a lot of doors slammed in my face. So, God bless her, my grandmother taught me to either open another door OR if there are no options...kick it down.

My friend now has SSI...medical insurance...prescription insurance...and someone to check in on her. Now she has some vitamins in her...and she has come "full circle" from the dark of Night...to face in the Sun.

Seniors paved the way for us. They worked so hard for everything we have. They always did the right thing.

Seniors are now discarded, dismissed and forgotten.

I kicked down some doors.

On this journey, I won't forget what I've seen and learned...and I will never be the same...in a good way.

Sorry to reference my grandmother again...but, she raised me...she raised 4 kids during the depression...single handedly when her wife beating husband walked out. She maintained her faith in God...and Mom's are survivors...she relied on God and Faith...and she always did the right thing...

Here was her simple rules to life...

God does not have many demands on us.
He wants us to do the very best we can.
Love one another.
Enjoy his blessings on HIS planet.
Always do the right thing.
And when your journey is complete...he will take to home.
As, we are all heirs and heiresses to God's Kingdom.

I LOVE you Lydia...I follow your writings. You have helped to empower me to do the right thing.

If it weren't for you mailing me the "Golden Key" by Emmet Fox while I was in the "nut house" I never would have made it out alive...I would never have Tom...I would never be able to follow my mission here...and I would never be writing this letter.

I have no false illusions.

I hope you and your beautiful family are safe and well.
I wish you prosperity in God's blessings.
I hope you are still enjoying the fruits of life.
....and I hope you are still always doing the "Right Thing"...

Full circle.
Full circle.


PS...You must now know I kind of write in Prose...and little ellipses...I hope you get it...it's the only way I know how to express my heart.

Above: Tom
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AN AMAZING HEALING

We went to hear a spiritual healer speak the other day.

Anyway, he told us how he had a huge lump on his upper lip, a tumor -- and was tempted to keep looking at it, and verifying it in the mirror, but caught himself and went straight to Spirit first, knowing that "flesh and matter" cannot give us our identity. Appearances are deceiving and there is no opposing force to good. (There really is no power in anything but good, there is no power in "evil" until we give it power with our thoughts.)

As he was driving to his office he became less focused on self and more focused on LOVE for his patient who was waiting for him in the office. As he entered the office, he was overcome with such love for the patient, love for humanity, he completely forgot himself. He accidentally reached up and felt his lip -- and the lump was gone.

Love really does heal.

We do not heal by manipulating "matter" but by turning away from the physical picture - and raising our consciousness above matter, above the flesh and focusing on LOVE, or God -- the good all around and within us.
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TENT CITIES (Digital Journal Adriana Stuijt)

Top-educated, middle-class American families have become poor so rapidly that it's a full-time job just keeping up with all the tent-cities which are mushrooming all across the United States as these families take their camping equipment and turn them into permanent homes - where-ever they can find an empty spot. California, the Golden State is now being hit hard by the recession. In February it had the highest number of repossession filings - 80,775 - of anywhere in the US, up 51 per cent in a year according to the website RealtyTrac. Auction sale notices almost tripled to 18,831. Thousands of families now are out on the streets, with no place to go, and find themselves setting up tents wherever they won't get chased off in a hurry - empty parking lots, public parks, beaches.

"I know there are some who believe we can only handle one challenge at a time. They forget that Lincoln helped lay down the transcontinental railroad, passed the Homestead Act, and created the National Academy of Sciences in the midst of Civil War. Likewise, President Roosevelt didn’t have the luxury of choosing between ending a depression and fighting a war. President Kennedy didn’t have the luxury of choosing between civil rights and sending us to the moon. And we don’t have the luxury of choosing between getting our economy moving now and rebuilding it over the long term." -- President Barack Obama

Please pledge your support for our President's plan: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/pledgeproject

FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." - Henry David Thoreau

"The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, and the solution comes to you and you don't know how or why. - Albert Einstein "

Science proves God... I say. God is the consciousness of love. There is no anthropomorphic god of course.

BREAKING NEWS:

1. WALL STREET JOURNAL STORY AN ADMITTED FAKE, a 'PLANT" BY THE RIGHT WING! (more details coming)

2. JIM CRAMER ADMITS TO ILLEGAL MARKET MANIPULATION, SHORTING STOCKS! (see video below)

3. FOX ADMITS TO PLANTING POLITICAL BRAINWASHING IN TV SHOWS

4. TURNING LEFT PAYS OFF FOR MSNBC, NBC News (GE)


5. 41,000 NEW GOVERNMENT JOBS AVAILABLE in every business and district. Need a job? Check out USA.gov

Here are the stories:

WATCH: In Shocking Interview, Jim Cramer Admits To Market Manipulation, Touts Illegal Activity



From HuffPo: In light of the current economic crisis, and with the hullabaloo ignited recently by Jon Stewart over the accuracy of CNBC's reporting, we thought it might be useful to revisit this shocking 2006 interview Jim Cramer gave to TheStreet.com's Aaron Task.

In it, the host of Mad Money says he regularly manipulated the market when he ran his hedge fund. He calls it "a fun game, and it's a lucrative game." He suggests all hedge fund managers do the same. "No one else in the world would ever admit that, but I could care. I am not going to say it on TV," he quips in the video.

He also calls Wall Street Journal reporters "bozos" and says behaving illegally is okay because the SEC doesn't understand it anyway.

Here are some gems:

-On manipulating the market: "A lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund, and I was positioned short, meaning I needed it down, I would create a level of activity before hand that could drive the futures,"

-On falsely creating the impression a stock is down (what he calls "fomenting"): "You can't foment. That's a violation... But you do it anyway because the SEC doesn't understand it." He adds, "When you have six days and your company may be in doubt because you are down, I think it is really important to foment."

-On the truth: "What's important when you are in that hedge fund mode is to not be doing anything that is remotely truthful, because the truth is so against your view - it is important to create a new truth to develop a fiction," Cramer advises. "You can't take any chances."

Special thanks to our tipster Henry Chukuka at Huffington Post! Keep those tips coming team!
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WHERE IS STIMULUS MONEY GOING?

Go to Recovery.gov for specifics on where every penny of the Stimulus money is going to help our nation in this crisis.


Turning Left Pays Off For MSNBC, NBC News (GE)


Nicholas Carlson|Mar. 9, 2009, 1:25 PM|11
Tags: TV, NBC, CNBC

GE Mar 9 2009, 07:42 PM EDT
7.41 Change % Change
+0.35 +4.96%
Two years ago, MSNBC execs decided to turn the network more opinionated and politically leftward. It's paying off.
MSNBC is up from 341,000 daily viewers in February 2007 to 471,000 last month.

With MSNBC making up the biggest chunk, NBC News accounted for 13% of NBC Universal's profits, or $400 million in 2008.

MSNBC's success was just part of a very flattering overview of NBC's news business in today's New York Times.
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FOX ADMITS TO PLANTING POLITICAL BRAINWASHING IN TV SHOWS

Paul Joseph Watson | PrisonPlanet.tv

Rupert Murdoch’s Twentieth Century Fox corporation has admitted to planting political brainwashing within its globally popular TV shows and indeed boasts that it is proud of the fact.

A corporate video currently being showcased on another part of Murdoch’s media empire, MySpace.com, shows Fox executives and stars of its universally recognized shows bragging about how they use the platform of hit shows that are broadcast globally to implant messages about the supposed threat of global warming.

This is not the first time Fox have been enthusiastic in propagandizing for the establishment. In 2003, Rupert Murdoch himself admitted that the corporation had “tried” to help the Bush administration sell the war in Iraq.

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And by the way, JIM "MAD MONEY" CRAMER IS WRONG!!

Here's what the Fox Business Network commercial says:

That last thing you need is bad advice.

The last thing you need is Jim Cramer.

Barron's said Cramer's [stock] picks consistently underperform.

Cramer said buy Wachovia, and it tanked.

And, when things got rough, Cramer said, dump your stocks and hide your money!

CBNC says Cramer is their financial guru.

That's just plain crazy.
Cramer: Creating diversions to hide his failures as a stock analyst.
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A LOOK AT THE BRIGHT SIDE
If there is one pattern I've seen in almost 20 years of corporate consulting, it's that no matter what the dilemma there is always a positive lesson or outcome. The only difference between a 'good' or 'bad' situation is how it's perceived. When it comes to your job, you are not a powerless pawn in a corporate game. And when it comes to money, your level of attraction is equal to your positive focus. Everything you experience, positive or negative, is simply the law of attraction at work.

Let's consider how the law of attraction affects two workplace scenarios: jobs and money.

"I'm going to lose my job"

I wasn't one of the those people that started work in the affluent 80's, by the time I entered the workforce words like 'retrenchment', 'outplacement' and 'downsizing' were commonplace. Yet no matter what the economic climate I always managed to find a job where I was mostly valued for my contribution, well paid and departed of my own accord.

My friends, on the other hand, were being retrenched all around me.

I later realized that they got what they focused on. They would say things like, "I'm really worried about my job", "I think my boss is out to get me and my job is on the line" and "I knew that was going to happen" when they finally did get the heave-ho.

Failure is Not an Option: Apollo 13 Creativity
by Margaret J. King, Ph.D.

Failure is not an option," Gene Kranz, lead flight director for Mission Control, announced to the ground crew in Houston as Apollo 13 approached the critical earth-to-moon decision loop. Did he mean that failure had been an option at one time, but wasn't now? Perhaps that was why things weren't working the way they should have.

The mission went beyond testing physical limits, which the space program had been doing from the beginning. It was far more than a contest of athletic, technological, or engineering prowess. This was something more: a case study in problem-solving, a drama of solution-finding played out with limited resources against unknown odds, using the wits of two teams: the three-man flight crew in open space and the computer operators on earth.

Creativity need not begin with inspiration. It sometimes is a reactive force, triggered when all else fails. It’s a response to a new order of things. We experience our highest creativity not in doing business as usual, but when there is the most at stake and failure is a possibility but not an option. When our fixed assumptions about how things operate won't do, a new mission must be launched. "Forget the flight plan," ordered Kranz. "From this moment on we are improvising a new mission. How do we get our men home?"

It’s Often Easier to Quit... BUT WE SHOULDN'T

What can be gleaned from examining this episode of space exploration for application to business, research, or relationships—the whole gamut of problems and problem solving?

1. First, sudden and severe limitations can evoke the highest order of creativity, but only if they are not allowed to “abort the mission.”
2. Second, the automatic reflex when situations go bad is to get out rather than to make them better or turn them around.
3. Third, the knee-jerk answer to loss or failure is to minimize trauma through damage control rather than in creative thinking.

One example of an “aborted mission” is downsizing just to save face for the near-term bottom line. The consequences to morale, productivity, security, and opportunity are an array of self-reinforcing negative forces, social, economic, and psychological. These forces, of course, don’t solve the underlying problems, which don’t go away. The worst effect is that this policy of “containment,” layoffs followed by piling work on the remaining staff, which threatens their security—all lower creativity, dulling incentive to solve problems innovatively rather than reactively.

The alternative, following the astronaut’s example, is to drive the crisis through the “burn” to a creative solution: new products, better methods, refined targets, improved quality, conversion of failed solutions to one problem into effective solutions to another.

In order to convert chaos and crisis into opportunity, however, failure must first be precluded as an option. Once that hatch is closed, solution-finding can begin in earnest as a serious venture, not as just another human-resource excursion.

Closing off failure also constructs a tighter box of opportunity. When there is really no available fix-it kit, solutions must be devised that no one has dreamed of.

In this sense, thinking “inside the box,” rather than outside it, is the more creative act.

The human values mobilized in the problem-solving process are the catalysts to innovation. Creativity isn’t simply applying the tools of science to the job at hand. It involves the culture of creativity, the human mindset, the “deep structures” that tell us what is important.
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UPDATE:
In our interview with iconic White House correspondent Helen Thomas on Monday, she started out by saying, "Im a liberal, proud to be a liberal and always have been." Later, when I said to her: "The truth has a liberal bias," she laughed as if it was a revelation and said, "That is a GREAT point!"

I guess the truth can finally get ratings too! Maybe they can't keep the truth out of the media, though we know how hard Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Glen Beck, Praeger, Ingraham, Savage and all the rest of them have tried.

TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT PILOT EPISODE

A BEAUTIFUL WORLD

Quote of the Day: " To ease another's heartache is to forget one's own." - Abraham Lincoln

CONGRATULATIONS to the OSCAR WINNERS!! I am thrilled about Kate Winslet, Sean Penn and SlumDog Millionaire - my favorite movie.

We need to inspire each other and stop spiraling down into so much fear about the economy. We need to lift each other up with hope and inspiration. We are entering the era of enlightenment. If the naysayers would stop trying to defeat Obama's economic recovery plans before it can see the light of day, everyone would win. (oops that was a funny typo earlier!) Our thoughts create our reality. Please give our new President a chance. And BANKS MUST START LENDING. (We are writing a persuasive argument about this issue now. Stay tuned!)

"If we have enough to money to kill people, we should have enough to help people." - from "Sicko" Michael Moore

I found this from "The Happy Pill" at Wordpress:

All of a sudden at the moment when I’ve pretty much reached the depths of my despair and discouragement this quote pops into my head that just really gives me a boost. It was something that gave me the faith and courage to keep on going in spite of it all. I’m going to write it below real big and hope you’ll remember it in case you reach a stage in your life where you feel you’ve reached your rock bottom. I hope that it will be an encouragement to you as it was for me. The quote was:

You’re never nearer the top, as when you’ve hit rock bottom!

Don’t exactly know where it’s from but that thought gave me an instantaneous surge of encouragement when I needed it so badly. Really, I couldn’t go any lower at the time and there was only one way to go and that was back up. The thought that this personal situation might end up propelling instantly to the top, or at least back up, gave me hope. It kinda reminded me of another quote that I heard with a similar meaning which said something to the affect of “God’s way up, is down!”.

If you look throughout history you will find so many examples of people who had terrible things done to them or did terrible things themselves. After hitting rock bottom in their lives, they didn’t give up, they just took the situation from where they were, kept fighting and often went on to do bigger, better and greater things than ever. There low point was a necessary stage, position, state of being, or catalyst that brought them closer to God, taught them important lessons and usually ended up spring boarding them back to heights higher than they had ever gone before. From From thehappypill.wordpress.com/ tag/love/

Joke of the Day:
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I have been with a loose girl."
The priest asks, "Is that you, Joey?"
"Yes, Father, it is."
"And who was the girl you were with?"
"I can't tell you, Father. I don't want to ruin her reputation."
"Well, Joey, I'm sure to find out her name sooner or later, so you may as well tell me now. Was it Tina Minetti?"
"I cannot say."
"Was it Nina Capelli?"
"I'm sorry, but I cannot name her."
"Was it Cathy Piriano?"
"My lips are sealed."
"Was it Rosa DiAngelo, then?"
"Please, Father. I cannot tell you."
The priest sighs in frustration. "You're very tight-lipped, and I admire that. But you've sinned and have to atone. You cannot be an altar boy now for four months. Now you go and behave yourself."
Joey walks back to his pew, and his friend Franco slides over and whispers, "What'd you get?"
"Four-months vacation and five good leads."
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The Hidden Power

Strange as it may seem to you, there exists a mystic power that is able to transform your life so thoroughly, so radically, so completely, that when the process is completed your own friends would hardly recognize you, and, in fact, you would scarcely be able to recognize yourself. You would sit down and ask yourself: "Can I really be the man or woman that I vaguely remember, who went about under my name six months or six years ago? Was I really that person? Could that person have possibly been me?" And the truth will be that while in one sense you are indeed the same person, yet in another sense you will be someone utterly different.

This mystic but intensely real force can pick you up today, now, from the midst of failure, ruin, misery, despair – and in the twinkling of an eye, as Paul said, solve your problems, smooth out your difficulties, cut you free from any entanglements, and place you clear, safe, and happy upon the highroad of freedom and opportunity.

It can lift you out of an invalid’s bed, make you sound and well once more, and free to go out into the world to shape your life as you will. It can throw open the prison door and liberate the captive. It has a magical healing balm for the bruised or broken heart.

This mystic Power can teach you all things that you need to know, if only you are receptive and teachable. It can inspire you with new thoughts and ideas, so that your work may be truly original. It can impart new and wonderful kinds of knowledge as soon as you really want such knowledge – glorious knowledge – strange things not taught in schools or written in books. It can do for you that which is probably the most important thing of all in your present stage: it can find your true place in life for you, and put you into it too. It can find the right friends for you, kindred spirits who are interested in the same ideas and want the same things that you do. It can provide you with an ideal home. It can furnish you with the prosperity that means freedom, freedom to be and to do and to go as your soul calls.

This extraordinary Power, mystic though I have rightly called it, is nevertheless very real, no mere imaginary abstraction, but actually the most practical thing there is. The existence of this Power is already well known to thousands of people in the world today, and has been known to certain enlightened souls for tens of thousands of years. This Power is really no less than the primal Power of Being, and to discover that Power is the Divine birthright of all men. It is your right and your privilege to make your contact with this Power, and to allow it to work through your body, mind, and estate, so that you need no longer grovel upon the ground amid limitations and difficulties, but can soar up on wings like an eagle to the realm of dominion and joy.

But where, it will naturally be asked, is this wonderful, mystic Power to be contacted? Where may we find it? And how is it brought into action? The answer is perfectly simple – This Power is to be found within your own consciousness, the last place that most people would look for it. Right within your own mentality there lies a source of energy stronger than electricity, more potent than high explosive; unlimited and inexhaustible. You only need to make conscious contact with this Power to set it working in your affairs; and all the marvelous results enumerated can be yours. This is the real meaning of such sayings in the Bible as "The Kingdom of God is within you"; and "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all the rest shall be added." - Emmet Fox, "Power Through Constructive Thinking"

Loony Award of the Year:
Michele Bachmann: "We're Running Out Of Rich People In This Country" »
The Huffington Post | Rachel Weiner | February 17, 2009 at 03:17 PM

In an interview with a conservative talk show host, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has once again embarrassed herself. Posted by the blog Dump Bachmann and picked up by the MN Progressive Project, the clip has the Minnesota Republican telling KLTK's Chris Baker that she opposes she stimulus because we're "running out of rich people in this country."

By the way Michelle: ACORN is not getting a penny from the Stimulus plan. STOP LYING.

HAUNTING MORAL DILEMMAS * WE'RE AS SICK AS OUR SECRETS

Jane Hamsher: DC Journalists Love GOP Obstructionists, But Americans Don't!

There appears to be a pretty big gap between what DC journalists think Americans think, and what Americans actually think. No better example of this can be found than the "winners" and "losers" that DC media are proclaiming in the wake of the passage of the stimulus bill, and what DailyKos/Research 2000 polling on the subject indicates. Read more at Huffington Post
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We're as sick as our secrets...
THE READER is a film that will not stop haunting me. I often think about moral dilemmas, but this one is a puzzle. Below is my analysis of what I consider the best film of the year. Spoiler Alert: If you haven't seen it yet, please do not read the review. But first a few items:
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"Some of the poorest people in the world will never know the name Barbara Lee, yet owe their lives to her determination in the fight against AIDS. Her sense of justice — and injustice — runs about as deep as it's possible to go." - Bono, lead singer of U2 and cofounder of the anti-poverty organization ONE.

On Monday February 16, 2009, Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee will be the guest on the Basham and Cornell Radio Show at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas.

Lee gained national attention in 2001 as the only member of congress to vote "No" on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF), stating that she voted no not because she opposed military action but because she believed the AUMF, as written, granted overly-broad powers to wage war to the president at a time when the facts regarding the situation were not yet clear.

Lee is the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and was the Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Her new book is titled “Renegade for Peace and Justice: Congresswoman Barbara Lee Speaks for Me.”

Ad: From the Las Vegas Review Journal

Basham and Cornell Radio Show at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas and simulcast worldwide on the web.

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THE READER ... a review by Lydia Cornell

"There's an often-heard saying in the recovery community: “We're as sick as our secrets.” Over the years, I have met many people in abusive situations who have paid a great price to eventually extricate themselves from the vicious cycle of manipulation and recrimination. Sexual and physical abuse, in particular, scars the victim deeply. Often the victims falsely blame themselves. Recovery from abuse involves breaking the conspiracy of silence and deception perpetrated by abusers. Only the truth, however painful, can really set us free. Secrecy keeps us chained to our abusers.

At the heart of the ‘twelve steps’, in Step Four and Five, is the willingness to break the power of secrecy by admitting to God, yourself, and another person the exact nature of how you have wronged other people. Until we can open up and get such things off our chest, we are still stuck with guilt, recrimination, and self-doubt. We really are as sick as our secrets." The Rev. Ed Hird

If Hanna Schmitz, played by Kate Winslet, hadn't been so ashamed of not being able to read, she wouldn’t have preyed upon weaker people and manipulated them. Of course her pathology would have manifested in other ways — which goes along with my theory that many of us are controlled by our ancient wounds, our "woundedness" — and this perverts itself in devious ways. Our low self-esteem, our feeling "less than" others — results in various kinds of retaliation such as gun-shootings on school campuses.

There is another level of subconscious political jealousy going on here: Hanna was uneducated, and of a lower class than the very Jews in her prison camps, who had learned to read.

Hitler had brainwashed the Hitler Youth into believing that Jews were the ones taking away German’s rights, money and education. But to begin with, the mere fact that "not being able to read” is her deepest shame – deeper than murder – makes her a peculiar brand of sociopath. She blindly follows the party line, like any authoritarian follower. She either believed that Jews were less than human beings — or she didn't even think about it, as her indoctrination would confirm.

Is Hanna a sociopath? A pedophile/rapist? A cold-hearted narcissist? I was considering how I would feel about a loved one who had once been a Nazi prison guard and had allowed women to burn alive in a church. What if Hanna had been one of my relatives, who thought nothing of murdering Muslims and abortion doctors because she was brainwashed listening to Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or Michael Savage or Mark Levin (or Lou Dobbs) all day on right wing hate radio – and had been convinced that abortion is a sin and crime, and that she was doing the right thing in killing live human doctors in order to save innocent fetuses — and you had no idea of this years earlier?


Hana represents Germany itself. Survivor guilt and all the bad feelings toward Germany are contained in her resigned expression. In other words, Hanna represents all Germans, Christians and death-camp guards who were just there following orders without thinking too deeply. Germany itself is culpable for being so passive as a nation – in not stopping this evil. The boys’ family, everyone was responsible, not just a few guards.

The film reminds us that all the German people knew what was happening, yet they did nothing to stop Hitler. Even the Christian churches were complict. Except for a few courageous souls who hid Jews, protested or fled —  the German people were all guilty. This was their shame.

Again, we are only as sick as our secrets. Here is why "The Reader" is so profound to me:

1. If Hanna hadn’t has such shame about not being able to read, she wouldn’t have preyed on weaker people and manipulated them. Her shame ultimately did her in. If not for her secret, she wouldn’t have taken the boy under her wing. She did everything for self-serving interest of “being read to.” (Side note: Later, it would be one thing if the books he was sending to her in prison were books of the Holocaust or Anne Frank – or books that would make her sympathetic to the Jews whom she had killed, but he was reading her some very bourgeouise books.)
2. This is a striking character flaw of the alcoholic, who is ego-riddled: the tendency to hide a bad motive under a good motive. All for selfish interests.
3. Her shame ultimately did her in. But to begin with , not being able to read, being her deepest shame and longing – the only way she can live with herself and maintain the secret (either secret) is to remain aloof and cold. You must keep your distance from people if you want to keep your secrets.

But again, the author makes a point: everyone was doing it; everyone In Germany, especially the Christians in whose church we were meeting in.

The only way she could live with herelf was to be cold and aloof; to cut hersef off from human emotion. She could only move forward with the bad habits of the past, the survival habits. We don’t change that easily. It takes a while for our mind to match our actions. Old habits die hard. Okay, so let’s say Hanna shut a part of herself off from feeling the horrors of her past. Let’s say she has tried to numb herself, convince herself she was obeying orders, doing the right thing.

Why is she any more guilty than every other German during the war?

The grown-up lover played by Ralph Fiennes, was also guilty of judging Hanna. He did not freely forgive. Instead of redemption, he judged her. He had a chance to do what Christ did, and forgive her, love her, heal her. That’s all anyone ever needs anyway. We are all judging each other, but do we really know what kind of background or childhood the person has been through?

We are all judging each other, but what do we really know?

Ralph Fiennes couldn’t forgive he and wouldn’t hug her. In prison, when she was an old woman, he asked her accusingly , “What did you learn?”

“I learned to read.” She said very coldly after saying it didn’t matter what she said because "the dead were already dead." She showed no heart or feelings after 20 years in prison.

Ralf Fiennes stiffened; he judged her. He got up to leave and she tried to make a gesture to hug him but he withdrew his affection. By pulling away from her, he sealed her fate. The way she reached out with her shoulder in such small subtle moves, was humbling on her part. It was “acquiescence.”

Now, questions:

“I learned to read” she said, very coldly, without any remorse or compassion.
a. Did Hanna actually gain a conscience? Did she read any deep books on this -- or just bourgeiouse fluff?
b. Could she have deliberately said this to test him?

Okay – some choices:
A. His rebuff of her hug shows her that there was no purpose in life for her. She would be worse off in the normal, non-prison world. Everyone would hate her.

*** B. She loved him. Her love for him, their love — and his rebuff — ultimately made her see herself clearly – that she couldn’t live with herself. LOVE HEALED HER HEART. It made her see her crimes clearly because they caused her lover to hate her. She woke up and was able to kill herself as her final gesture of love. This action of killing herself was a gift to her lover. It validated him in the real world too. It made all his actions seem noble. By knowing him, she was changed and awakened.

Killing herself was her first and only selfless act: it was proof that she had learned by his love, that he had served a purpose and had not lived his life in vain. It was also a way to free his soul. And she knew it was the only way she could live anymore — without secrets, totally "seen."

C. Love had made her become whole, but ashamed, perhaps for the first time ever in real life. Perhaps she had never been loved or trusted to do the right thing before this man came into her life and messed up the compartments she had so neatly kept separate.

Perhaps as a Hitler Youth, she had never seen the world through another lens. She had her life kept in separate parts, pushing down feelings and conscience and moral certitude. Pushing down the truth and intuition. (As many neocons do.) That’s how she coped with life: her job as a guard was to protect prisoners from escaping; to prevent chaos at all costs. The German efficiency. Moral choices had no place here. Emotion and morality had no overlap. This was always respected in her youth and at work. She was so honest in the trial because she had nothing to hide. These were the facts and the laws of the time. You do not disobey orders.

Who knows? She may have been on of the Hitler Youth that ratted and turned on their parents.

But here’s the rub: "I think the big question in the book is how is it possible to love your parents, your pastors, your teachers or, indeed in the circumstance used in the book, your lover who has been involved in such a terrible past, whether as a direct perpetrator or as a bystander? How is it possible to love?" Daldry explains. "We were trying to be very clear about the degrees of her moral illiteracy, whether it is the relationship with a minor or what she was engaged in in the [concentration] camps. We tried to keep her ambiguous, not totally understood or understandable; but obviously we were very concerned about how to calibrate the sympathy towards her without ever allowing her to get off the hook."

Winslet believes the film neither condemns nor condones the Hanna Schmitz character, which puts the viewer in the position of deciding.

"We didn't want to give answers," notes Winslet. "We only wanted to ask questions and have an audience walk away questioning everything and possibly questioning their own morals if, even for one split second, they felt any empathy for Hanna Schmitz. I knew it wasn't my job to try to make an audience sympathize with her or humanize her or warm her up. I had to make her a person. I had to make her real."


But it makes one wonder: where was her moral conscience and heart? Why and how could it have been so hardened? How could she have locked those women in the church – and still gone to the church in the country and not be bothered by her conscience? Separate compartments.

On their country bike ride, “Love saves a soul.” Hana admitted she loved him. “Only love can save you.”

* Hitler Youth indoctrination made her cold, unfeeling, robotic, German
* It is possible, this cold aloofness is her way of being the counterpart or opposite to love.
* Because she has never felt love, or been treated with love, she doesn't know love.
* Out at the country church, Hanna sits down to hear the beautiful voices of children singing, never once letting on that she has another separate compartment where she puts "dead church people." She has not allowed her two sides to merge here.


We are all guilty – all of Germany is guilty – Do not judge one another. By Him judging her at the end, he has her fate in his hands. He is being the guard at that point. He has the power to end her life or make her live with his own brand of shame. He has manipulated her with reading gifts, just to try to get her to redeem herself and say she’s sorry. He was manipulative too – she was his first love. He kept hoping to save her, hoping she was redeemable. The moment she disappointed him by not answering the way he wanted, he closed the door on Love and withdrew his love. He judged her, He was not compassionate toward her.

NO MATTER how much Hanna “deserved” her fate and guilt and shame – it is still not the Christ idea - "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." The ultimate loving end to the circle of life would be to forgive your fellow man. He should not have had to force Hanna to take that test. To break the cycle of the Holocaust, he should have simply loved her. His love would have saved her life. But he couldn’t forgive her. He was not God and did not know the depth of her shame. But he demanded her to have the same sense of shame and regret he would have. He demanded her to have learned the lesson on his timetable and in his style. If he had wanted her to realize her sin, I wonder why he recorded so many tapings of frivolous books for her to listen to.

So, were as sick as our secrets. The Ralph Fiennes character breaks the cycle of secrets. With his daughter, he is guilty of being equally secretive, which could be fatal to them both. His secret shame of having been lovers with this Nazi guard has kept him distant and locked off from his daughter. He finally takes her to Hanna's grave and tells her the whole story.

We must not hold ourselves above others and separate from others in the human race -- because we are all ONE. Love is our unifying principle. We all have love as our true source, but we have forgotten. Love created us and we are here to love and accept ourselves and transfer that love and acceptance to others.

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I just have to congratulate ROBERT PLANT (photo below; in his heyday he was beyond gorgeous) ALISON KRAUSS and COLDPLAY for their Grammy wins. I have always loved Robert Plant, and Coldplay is my favorite!! I'm also glad Adele won for her brilliant "Chasing Pavements." Have you seen Adele's heart-wrenching video?

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Photo: Jim Hillis and me

Full Circle: My good friend Jim Hillis was in town last week. Once a male model, he's still stunning — and you can read some of his brilliant pieces on CNN.com. He's a humanitarian and amazing human being, who was in town to help a few homeless women get their benefits and restore their dignity. His partner Tommy is also a total sweetheart!
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THIS IS A GREAT STIMULUS BILL * READ IT !!

TEAR DOWN THIS MYTH!! DON'T LISTEN to unpatriotic Republican/Obstructionists who are trying to destroy our country. Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and Sean Hannity should be indicted for treason — for "hoping our president fails" and for spreading lies and propaganda about this stimulus plan.

This is a very, very good bill. Here are some facts about what the bill really does:

* Creates or saves 3 million to 4 million jobs in the next two years.
* Averts "literally hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs"—and doubles funding for the Department of Education.
* Creates 500,000 green jobs and doubles our clean energy production.
* Immediately helps unemployed folks get affordable health insurance.


If President Obama's economic stimulus plan doesn't pass, we're in deep trouble. Even John McCain's economic adviser estimates that without the stimulus, unemployment would top 11% by 2010, the highest level since the Great Depression. Who had power the past 8 years and drove our economy into the ground with their 3 trillion dollar war and giant bonues for corporate CEOs?

...Read more below, but first, this message:

TEAR DOWN THIS MYTH! On Monday February 9, 2009, Will Bunch will be the guest on theBasham and Cornell Radio Show at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas.

Will Bunch is an award-winning political journalist, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, and author of its popular blog, "Attytood." His new book is titled "Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future."

Ad: From the Las Vegas Review Journal

Basham and Cornell Radio Show at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas and simulcast worldwide on the web.

In this provocative new book, Will unravels the story of how a right-wing cabal hijacked the mixed legacy of Ronald Reagan, a personally popular but hugely divisive 1980s president, and turned him into a bronze icon to revive their fading ideology. They succeeded to the point where all the GOP candidates for president in 2008 scurried to claim his mantle, no matter how preposterous the fit.

With clear eyes and an ever-present wit, Bunch reveals the truth about the Ronald Reagan legacy, including the following:

* Despite the idolatry of the last fifteen years, Reagan's average popularity as president was only, well, average, lower than that of a half-dozen modern presidents. More important, while he was in office, a majority of Americans opposed most of his policies and by 1988 felt strongly that the nation was on the wrong track. Reagan's 1981 tax cut, weighted heavily toward the rich, did not cause the economic recovery of the 1980s. It was fueled instead by dropping oil prices, the normal business cycle, and the tight fiscal policies of the chairman of the Federal Reserve appointed by Jimmy Carter. Reagan's tax cut did, however, help usher in the deregulated modern era of CEO and Wall Street greed.

* Most historians agree that Reagan's waste-ridden military buildup didn't actually "win the Cold War." And Reagan mythmakers ignore his real contributions -- his willingness to talk to his Soviet adversaries, his genuine desire to eliminate nuclear weapons, and the surprising role of a "liberal" Hollywood-produced TV movie.

* George H. W. Bush's and Bill Clinton's rolling back of Reaganomics during the 1990s spurred a decade of peace and prosperity as well as the reactionary campaign to pump up the myth of Ronald Reagan and restore right-wing hegemony over Washington. This effort has led to war, bankrupt energy policies, and coming generations of debt.

With masterful insight, Bunch exposes this dangerous effort to reshape America's future by rewriting its past. As the Obama administration charts its course, he argues, it should do so unencumbered by the dead weight of misplaced and unearned reverence.

Wall Street Insiders Whine Over Obama Executive Pay Limits: ‘$500,000 Is Not A Lot Of Money’....

THESE MEN ARE LYING TO YOU:

Who had power the past 8 years and drove our economy into the ground with their 3 trillion dollar war and giant bonues for corporate CEOs? Don't listen to Obstructionist Republicans who are trying to destroy our country. If President Obama's economic stimulus plan doesn't pass, we're in deep trouble. Even John McCain's economic adviser estimates that without the stimulus, unemployment would top 11% by 2010, the highest level since the Great Depression.

RUSH LIMBAUGH IS UNPATRIOTIC AND A DISGRACE TO OUR NATION

** Most Republican governors have broken with their GOP colleagues in Congress and are pushing for passage of President Barack Obama's economic aid plan that would send billions to states for education, public works and health care.

This stimulus plan is the BEST plan for recovery. Conservative talking points are dominating the media's coverage and there's lots of misinformation around. Here are a few things you may not have heard about it:

1) This is a very, very good bill. As The Nation writes, "If enacted, the economic recovery plan will be one of the biggest and boldest pieces of progressive legislation in the past forty years."

This is a very, very good bill. Here are some facts about what the bill really does:

* Creates or saves 3 million to 4 million jobs in the next two years.2
* Averts "literally hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs"—and doubles funding for the Department of Education.3
* Creates 500,000 green jobs and doubles our clean energy production.4
* Immediately helps unemployed folks get affordable health insurance.5

Some folks are arguing that it should be bigger, and they're probably right, but this is the best down payment on economic recovery we have seen, and it needs to be passed.

2) The stuff that's being singled out for criticism amounts to a tiny fraction of the bill—like anti-smoking programs that make up less than one-ten-thousandth of the spending.6 They would have you believe this is the centerpiece of the bill. It is not. This kind of nit-picking is pure politics.

3) If it doesn't pass, we're in deep trouble. Even John McCain's economic adviser estimates that without the stimulus, unemployment would top 11% by 2010, the highest level since the Great Depression.7

"Obama's proposed cap on salaries for top executives of bailed-out corporations is a first step: next, there should be inquiries into who, exactly, caused the financial crisis." Just the Beginning
JOHN NICHOLS, The Nation |

We all urgently need to get these facts out before the public. Can you write a letter to the editor of your local paper about how the stimulus will affect real people? Our tool makes writing a letter really easy. Click here to get started:

Click here!

Last week alone, 100,000 people lost their jobs in this country.8 So we need to make sure the Senate takes action quickly. Nearly 200 economists from across the political spectrum wrote to Congress, agreeing:
"We do not have the luxury of a lengthy debate over the best course of action. This legislation may not be enough to solve all the economy's problems, but it is urgently needed and an important step in the right direction."9

But with so much rhetoric and demagoguery surrounding the bill, it won't pass unless we can get the real facts out to a wide audience.

SEND A LETTER TO YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER NOW. Please....?

Basham and Cornell Radio Show at 8 am Pacific Time on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas and simulcast worldwide on the web.

Coming up: A review of THE READER, my pic as most haunting, complex film...