The Obama Budget, Lobbyists/Parasites in Overdrive and Capital Punishment.

The Obama budget is a radical departure from the budgets that we have been getting since Ronald Reagan. The Obama budget focuses on the inequity of wealth distribution that has grown over the last 30 years. In other words, it benefits us peasants, peasants being the folks who bust their butts at a 40 hour a week job for a paycheck that buys less and less as time goes by. At least the ones still lucky enough to have a job. So we should all be getting giddy and start dancing in the street, right?

Oddly enough there are those out there who are already getting apoplectic over the thought of the working class getting some slack. It's not so odd really considering that the most vehement objections are coming from long time government parasites.

Lobbyists Line Up to Torpedo Speech Proposals

Health Care, Agribusiness, Mining and Defense Groups Raise War
Chests to Sway Legislators and the Public

I'm sure the legislators will be more easily swayed than the rest of us, so keep an eye on them.

The folks on the Right have been putting the blame for the financial meltdown on Barney Frank, Bill Clinton and even Jimmy Carter. The Right of course, has very little grounding in reality or factual information. However, they are experts at convincing their followers in the truth of fairy tales.

Here's an example of what the Right would call a left wing fairy tale.

Both retired FBI officials asserted that the Bush administration was
thoroughly briefed on the mortgage fraud crisis and its potential to cascade out
of control with devastating financial consequences, but made the decision not to
give back to the FBI the agents it needed to address the problem. After the
terrorist attacks of 2001, about 2,400 agents were reassigned to
counterterrorism duties.

I've never proponent of the death penalty. For one thing we know that too many mistakes have been made. For another, I don't really like the idea of a government being able to legally kill it's own citizens.

Some states may be doing away with capital punisment, not on any moral grounds but on financial ones.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — When Gov. Martin O'Malley appeared before
the Maryland Senate last week, he made an unconventional argument that is
becoming increasingly popular in cash-strapped states: abolish the death penalty
to cut costs.

The dollar will trump morals any time. Just ask any lobbyist.

Or you can ask some gun dealers.

The gun laws in the United States allow the sale of multiple
military-style rifles to American citizens without reporting the sales to the
government, and the Mexicans search relatively few cars and trucks going south
across their border.

What is more, the sheer volume of licensed dealers — more
than 6,600 along the border alone, many of them operating out of their houses —
makes policing them a tall order. Currently the A.T.F. has about 200 agents
assigned to the task.

Now if you would like to do something helpful before you start surfing the porn sites.

Have a good weekend.

Later