Moral Bankruptcy, Fiscal Bankruptcy, Mental Bankruptcy -- Dirty Bush's Excellent [Mis]Adventure Trifecta

So why is no one really mad at Dirty Bush? Why have we no pitchfork-waving crowds outside the White House?

Lack of imagination?

Never mind.

Let's think about Addie Polk, the 90-year old who shot herself in the chest when she was about to be evicted from her home.

Fannie Mae has now forgiven her.

But -- have we forgiven Fannie Mae? What about Goldman Sachs?

CNN) -- Fannie Mae said it will set aside the loan of a woman who shot herself as sheriff's deputies tried to evict her from her foreclosed home.

Fannie Mae foreclosed on the Akron, Ohio, home of Addie Polk, 90, after acquiring the mortgage in 2007.

Addie Polk, 90, of Akron, Ohio, became a symbol of the nation's home mortgage crisis when she was hospitalized after shooting herself at least twice in the upper body Wednesday afternoon.

On Friday, Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith said the mortgage association had decided to halt action against Polk and sign the property "outright" to her.

"We're going to forgive whatever outstanding balance she had on the loan and give her the house," Faith said. "Given the circumstances, we think it's appropriate."

Residents of Akron have rallied behind Polk, who is being treated at Akron General Medical Center. She was listed in critical condition Friday afternoon, according to Akron City Council President Marco Sommerville.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, mentioned Polk on the House floor Friday during debate over the latest economic rescue proposal.

"This bill does nothing for the Addie Polks of the world," Kucinich said after telling her story. "This bill fails to address the fact that millions of homeowners are facing foreclosure, are facing the loss of their home. This bill will take care of Wall Street, and the market may go up for a few days, but democracy is going downhill."

I agree with Dennis.

And while we're on the subject of the Bush/Cheney/McCain/Palin Ruination of America, here's something about ruination by homelessness. That should perk people up, no?

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) -- The number of homeless families in Massachusetts has surged -- a spike that has overwhelmed the state's shelter capacity and forced it to again place homeless families in motels.

The number of homeless families living in Massachusetts motels skyrocketed in September 2008.

Driving the increase is the sour economy, rising energy costs, escalating unemployment and shortage of affordable housing. For the first time, the state is tracking how many families are winding up homeless due to foreclosures.

"You're seeing a perfect storm," said Robyn Frost, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless. . .

In just the past 12 months, the number of homeless families living in Massachusetts motels has skyrocketed from 17 in September 2007 to 550 in September 2008. That's on top of another 1,800 or so families in shelters . . .

Massachusetts isn't alone. Advocates for the homeless say that while statistics are still sketchy, many areas are reporting increases in the number of homeless families. . .As of midweek there were 588 families in 29 hotels across the state. . .

The state is also starting to track foreclosures as a cause for homelessness. That typically occurs when a multifamily home or apartment building is foreclosed on and the tenants are evicted, sometimes losing their security deposit in the process, making it harder to come up with the rent for a new apartment.

Frost said the state should focus on creating more housing vouchers to get homeless families into permanent homes quickly.

"If people are permanently housed, kids get education and parents can keep their jobs," she said. "Without vouchers you're going to continue to see this storm."

A brief teaching on karma, cause and effect: DOW PLUNGES DESPITE BAILOUT.

Jesus' General on Obama's Associations, via Swiftboaters for McCain.

VastLeft's Monday Morning Under-Rated Two-Hit Wonder Wall Street Shuffle.

Robin Morgan, When Sisterhood Is Suicide.

Nan Rhyner, Sarah Palin, How DARE You?

In Nightmares Begin Responsibilities

Time to kiss Roe v. Wade goodbye, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome in the official Judge John Roberts era of forced maternity.

That's where we are now, brought there thanks to Bubble Boy, foreshadowed by repeated heh-heh-heh "Dred Scott decision" heh-heh-heh nudge-nudge wink-wink innuendo moments during his 2004 campaign.

Bubble Boy sure can smirk, but I'm not smirking about his plan to repeal women's reproductive freedom. That's a tragedy.

Not Judge Roberts' simplistic "tragedy of abortion"-type tragedy--alright, he's Roman Catholic, he can get away with it--at least they're consistent within their tradition, well, pretty much, except for that big fat "just war" loophole--but the actual American tragedy is that of post-born women, and their actual post-born kids and their actual post-born families.

Let's welcome, then, the coming upsurge of unwanted babies, thanks a lot.

Let's have more and more babies we can't care for, we can't afford, we can't deal with. Let's have a little more child abuse, because, really, stressed out moms and dads who can't make ends meet, well, they're not going to be the poster boys and girls for patient parenting, are they? Let's up the general quota of maternal/child suffering.

And crime. Let's not forget crime. "Unwantedness leads to high crime," according to economist Stephen Levitt and Steven Dubner. "When a woman does not want to have a child, she usually has good reason. She may be unmarried or in a bad marriage. She may consider herslef too poor to raise a child. She may think her life is too unstable or too unhappy, or she may think that her drinking and drug use will damage the baby's health. . . for any of a hundred reasons, she may feel that she cannot provide a home environment that is conducive to raising a healthy and productive child. . . . Two factors--childhood poverty and a single-parent household--are among the strongest predictors that a child will have a criminal future."

But that's ok with the people ordering mothers to bear children against their will.

It's all about being a selfish, black-heart neo-con with no capacity for empathy, much less compassion: as in Bubble Boy, and his anti-choice lynch mobs.

It's about punishing women for being women, punishing the poor for being poor, and punishing the pregnant for the act of conception itself.

The crackpots across the street from Camp Casey said it best: WE DON'T CARE. WE DON'T CARE. WE DON'T CARE.

They don't.

No surprises there.

We'll shriek hysterically about the horror of murdering embryoes, but are fine with sending the grown-up ones to die in Iraq. We'll weep sadly about fetuses, but put our own accumulation of wealth first, putting ourselves always at the head of every line. We'll yap endlessly about culture-of-life, culture-of-life, but we really couldn't give a shit about anyone but ourselves. We'll squawk about culture-of-life, culture-of-life, but we'll cause pain whenever we please, to whomever we please; we'll do anything to anyone whenever we want to--so long as it's not residing in a womb or in a petri dish.

The so-called "culture of life" is really a culture of death; a culture of ego, a culture of me-first, a culture of "gimme," a culture of torture in which your pain is perfectly permissible.

It's not really very Christian at all.

In Nightmares Begin Responsibilities: The Tao of Bubble Boy

"Poor people are poor because they are lazy."

The Tao of Bubble Boy.

Dear Bubble Boy:

Despite what your insensitive, racist, college dropout mom taught you, poor people are poor because they don't earn enough money to be rich, or because they have not inherited sufficient funds to live on (interest from inherited) bread alone.

Poor people are poor--oh, and sick--because even when they work, they don't earn enough money to pay for rent, or clothes, or health care. Oh, and they get sick because they eat cheap junk food because--it's cheap.

Recently, the cost of health care rose to equal earnings from minimum wage jobs. The latimes reported that "average annual premiums for family coverage grew more than 9% since last year to $10,880. A minimum wage worker earns $10,712 before taxes. "

You, Bubble Boy, recently reduced the hourly wages for reconstruction workers in the aftermath of Katrina. Isn't that nice?

As for Katrina evacuees, here's the picture from the Washington Post:

Six in 10 evacuees had family incomes of less than $20,000 last year. Half have children younger than 18. One in eight was unemployed when the storm hit. Seven in 10 said they have no insurance to cover their losses. Fully half have no health insurance. Four in 10 suffer from heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure or are physically disabled.

That's pretty seriously poor--and ill. All their fault, of course.

And what about that unemployment thing? Wow. Must be so lazy.

On the other hand, neither one of your college graduate daughters works. That makes them both unemployed. Is that why neither one, much less you you, cares about the minimum wage? But why aren't they starving, if they're not working? "Daddy's friends"? "Daddy'?

You, Bubble Boy, a noted dunce, got into Yale and Harvard because of your "Daddy's friends." This, according to you.

Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" who can help them get into Yale? Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" who can help them get into Harvard? Do poor people have disproportionate incidence of diabetes and obesity because they have less access to vegetables, protein, and dinners at the Fairfield Country Club with Muffies and Binkies?

Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" to get them into the National Guard as a a way to avoid going to Vietnam, even though they, like you, might support the fighting of that war, but just not want themselves to be exploded? Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" to cover-up one's illegal drug use, and one's derelictions of duty, so that one suffers no consequences pretty much however deeply one screws up?

Do poor people have trust funds? Do poor people have financial advisers? Do poor people get tax breaks? Do poor people know how to scam like Halliburton, Bechtel, and CACI? Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" who can help them get into the oil business, and into the Texas Rangers business?

Why don't they?

Are they too lazy?

In Nightmares Begin Responsibility

Nightmares: Bush failures during Katrina.

K: NorthCom started planning before the storm even hit.

We were ready for the storm when it hit Florida because, as you remember, it crossed the bottom part of Florida, and then we were plaining, you know, once it was pointed towards the Gulf Coast.

So what we did was we activated what we call defense coordinating officers to work with the state to say okay, what do you think you'll need, and we set up staging bases that could be started. We had the USS Baton sailing almost behind the hurricane so that after the hurricane made landfall it's search and rescue helicopters would be available almost immediately. So we had things ready.

The only caveat is, we have to wait until the President authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion, we have to wait for the President to give us permission.


U.S. Xpress driver from Chattanooga, TN, fills water truck on Monday. FEMA does not permit driver to enter New Orleans until Friday.

About 100 people have died at the Chalmette Slip after being pulled off their rooftops, waiting to be ferried up the river to the West Bank and bused out of the flood ravaged area, U.S. Rep. Charles Melancon, D-Napoleonville, said Thursday.

About 1,500 people were at the slip on Thursday afternoon, where critical supplies like food and water are scarce, he said. Melancon expressed serious frustration with the slow pace of getting these items to the people waiting to finish their journey to
safety.

In St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, just south of New Orleans, victims of the hurricane are still waiting for food and water and for buses to escape the floodwaters, Melancon said. And for the entire time Bush was in the state, the congressman said, a ban on helicopter flights further stalled the delivery of food and supplies.

“I thank the president for his visit today, but it was more show than substance,” Melancon said. “Frankly, we needed action days ago.”

Bubble Boy's Boys to Poor: DROP DEAD

A bevy of beer-bellied, back-slapping white boys surround a still-smirking Bubble Boy, as they glad-hand, and slap-five and do nothing. FEMA director and political appointee, Arabian-horse-addict Michael Brown, whose responsibility it is to distribute aid and manage emergency situations is apparently just as incompetent as his boss. Ditto Ming The Merciless Uber-Doppleganger & Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff: he's supposed to be handling major incidents? Handling? As in what? This is just the same as the aftermath of a terror attack, and all he can offer is more blather?

Message from Bubble Boy's boys to the poor: DROP DEAD.

And, they are.

Even the constant drone of Rovian spin is beginning to wear thin on the networks: it's fine, we're doin' all we can, help is on the way, it's hard work, hard work, freedom's on the march . . .

Yeah, right. We can see the bodies floating in fetid water, we can see the corpses covered up in wheelchairs, we can see patients begging for insulin, we can hear doctors and nurses begging for protection. We can hear of roving bands of well-armed (thanks, Wal-Mart!) warlords roaming around the Bush-made New Somalia of New Orleans.

And the Army would be--where? And the National Guard would be--where?

Oh, right. I-rack.

You betcha.

Mayor Nagin, until recently a Republican, says:

"They don't have a clue what's going on down here. They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn -- excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed...

This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans...

We're getting reports and calls that are breaking my heart, from people saying, "I've been in my attic. I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out." And that's happening as we speak...

Then they told me that they went overnight, and they built 17 concrete structures and they had the pulleys on them and they were going to drop them.

I flew over that thing yesterday, and it's in the same shape that it was after the storm hit. There is nothing happening. And they're feeding the public a line of bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down here."

Forty thousand National Guard troops were needed there on Monday and Tuesday, and forty thousand National Guard troops are not in New Orleans yet. A massive helicopter food and water drop was needed there on Monday and Tuesday, and is not there yet.

It's like those Yellow Elephant fat guys in Crawford screaming at Cindy Sheehan: WE DON'T CARE! WE DON'T CARE! WE DON'T CARE!

And--they don't. What a surprise. From Condi spending her time stocking up on more three-thousand-dollar Ferragamos to Bubble Boy looking annoyed and bored as he's forced YET AGAIN to mouthe heh-heh-heh helpful platitudes and pat his useless buddies on the back.

"I don't think anyone anticipated a breach of the levees."

You didn't? You knew enough to cut funds for breach prevention. Moron. Swine.

Bush AND Chertoff was briefed about the likely breach--but now they've forgotten that briefing ever happened? Having a conveniently-timed Alzheimer's moment? Too bad for them the briefing was caught on tape. Oops.

Why couldn't Bubble Boy load up Airforce One with evacuees? Gore sent a plane. Guess he IS the real president, 'cause he's the only one of the two acting presidential.

Oh, wait. Maybe we should hold up whatever supplies we do have, and wait until Bubble Boy comes by for a photo-op. If a couple of poor sick people, or sick poor people, die in the meantime, that's just social Darwinism, which in any case we don't believe in, we believe in Intelligent Design, screw Darwin, so that'll be ok. Yeah. Let's set up another photo op. See, help is on the way. It's hard work. Sorry if you're dead already. It's your own damn fault. Poor people are poor because they're lazy.

Here's another question: on TV tonight, they interviewed a FEMA trucker bringing in water who works for U.S. Xpress, based in Chattanooga, TN. Now, besides the obvious question of why one is going ALL the way to Chattanooga for water, there is this gentleman's comment: he said he had loaded up with water on MONDAY, but "his bosses," uh, that would be FEMA, kept him OUT of New Orleans until FRIDAY.

Hel-lo? What's going ON here? Why are essential supplies being deliberately withheld from dying Americans?

Why is this pitiful excuse of a president good for nothing but clearing brush?

Which is worse, Bubble Boy bringing us into fiscal bankruptcy? Or moral bankruptcy?

Lake George counts in both columns.