add to that a seeming unwillingness to use the bully pulpit (FDR's cousin Teddy's concept), the lack of courage to confront the republicans, and i fear we have a prescription for disaster in the making.

Now that is certainly a democratic reason to run for higher office.  I really want to be leader so I can tell people to shut up and get my slippers.

Here's the applicable lesson I learned courtesy of the American Red Cross water safety training I took many years ago to become a lifeguard.  

Never let a drowning victim direct his own rescue.  Both victim and rescuer will surely perish.

Wall Street is drowning and if Wall Streeters like Geithner & co. direct this rescue they WILL pull down all of us with them. The Wall Streeters are grabbing at anything to keep their own heads above water.  

Suspend income tax witholding for 2 months, let everybody keep their gross less SS & Medicaid, catch up on their bills, pay back their banks, spend some dough, stimulate the economy.  

Fiscal policy in the US and China has also its limits. Of the $800 billion of the US fiscal stimulus only $200 bn will be spent in 2009 with most of it being back-loaded to 2010 and later. And of this $200 half is tax cuts that will be mostly saved rather than spent as households are worried about jobs and about paying their credit card and mortgage bills (of last year's $100 bn tax cut only 30% was spent and the rest saved). Thus, given the collapse of five out of six components of aggregate demand (consumption, residential investment, capex spending of the corporate sector, business inventories and exports) the stimulus from government spending will be puny this year.

One financial attorney unabashedly states that at this point the biggest goal is to get the reportable income below $249,999.00.

Automobile sales off almost fifty percent (and prices to follow)

Corporations going bankrupt left-and-right

We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong . . . somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. . . . I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot.

It takes about 3 months of stalled spending in these industries to create new crises and the wheels are in motion.  I am sticking with my October crash.

We needed a jobs program last year and much higher commitment in the stimulus.  

I have not heard any economist say that we could begin recovery in the second half of this year and Bernanke saying it confounds me.  

I cannot believe they can sit back and watch us move to 1982 levels with such stark differences in the economics.  

The Supreme Court has granted the Obama administration's request to dismiss the pending appeal of an accused enemy combatant held on U.S. soil.

The decision "to dismiss the appeal as moot" came in a brief order from the nine justices issued Friday.

Ali al-Marri has been held in military custody since 2003, and was challenging the president's unilateral authority to detain him indefinitely and without charges. The court's order is a defeat for him on the larger constitutional issue.

But the Qatari man was indicted last week on federal conspiracy charges and President Barack Obama wanted him transferred to civilian custody immediately, and to have the pending high court case thrown out.

No explanation was given by the high court, which had the option of going ahead with oral arguments as scheduled in late April.

The ruling means the larger constitutional issue of the president's power to detain accused terrorists and other criminals in the United States will remain unresolved.

The justices also approved the transfer of al-Marri's custody from military to civilian custody. There was no immediate indication when that transfer would occur.

The Minnesota Supreme Court today ruled that Al Franken was not entitled to be certified winner of the U.S. Senate election pending the outcome of a trial challenging his 225-vote recount lead.

The court said state law says a certificate of election cannot be issued until the state courts have finally decided an election. The court also said federal law did not require states to certify senators by the time a new term begins in January. Moreover, it said the U.S. Senate could always seat Franken even without a certification.

Annoying but no biggie for me, that's play around money, but I know struggling families who bank on that money coming in a reasonable time frame.  Plan around it and count on it.  They're in for a shock and a long wait.

And even worse, he said some states are just gonna stiff people all together, refunds due will not be paid....ever.

The Obama administration had asked the court not to hear Marri's case now that it had charged him. But his attorneys said that if the justices agreed, they should also vacate the 4th Circuit's opinion.

"While we would have preferred a Supreme Court ruling that U.S. citizens and lawful residents detained in the U.S. cannot be held in military custody as 'enemy combatants' without charges or trial, the Supreme Court nonetheless took an important step today by vacating a lower court decision that had upheld the Bush administration's authority to designate al-Marri as an 'enemy combatant,' " said Jonathan Hafetz, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project and lead counsel in Marri's case.