Americans for America

Today Is A Very Special Day for Me

Frank Lynch — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:20:24 EDT

see why http:www.fluni.com

Another Reason We Need Change

Frank Lynch — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:04:27 EDT

One of our Party Builders, Robert Brooks, has written an excellent article on his blog at http://thewildernessvoice.blogspot.com/

I am not duplicating his excellent article, but making a major correction. As shocking as his article is, and with great respect to Mr. Brooks, he understates the problem.

He uses the example of the year 1967 for his computations that the dollar has lost 80 percent of its value in forty years, compared, among other things to the price of gold.

I beg to argue that the two most relevant benchmarks are the price of oil, and the median homeprice, since those two items determine the price of almost everything else we spend our money on.

In 1967 a barrel of oil was $2.90 a barrel. Today, Sept. 2, 2008 oil closed at a five year low of $105, which indicates a loss of 97 percent in the value of a dollar.

National figures on median home prices are subject to manipulation, so I will use my home.

My home was built in 1967, coincidentally the same base year used as a base by Mr. Brooks.

The current market value of my home indicates a 92 percent loss in the value of the dollar. People are mistaken when they think they have made money when a homeprice goes up. What you are really seeing is inflation: it takes more dollars to buy the same thing.

In the 39 or 40 years since 1967, Republicans have controlled the White House most of the time, but there is plenty of blame to go around for both parties.

What this really means is that our government has stolen 92 to 97 percent of the life savings that people had in 1967.

And every year they are stealing more of our life savings. Greenspan is a traitor who belongs in jail, because the statutory job of the Federal Reserve is to preserve a sound dollar.

Greenspan only missed the mark by 95 percent.

We need CHANGE

In case I did not state it clearly, WE NEED CHANGE

Sarah Palin Is A False Target

Frank Lynch — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:48:07 EDT

Everybody is ranting about Sara Bara Cuda misusing her power to get her brother in law fired. Problem is, there are reports he had been caught driving his Police Car while drunk.

Do not underestimate the Republicans. They will try very hard to find a way to use this to generate sympathy for Palin as defending the health and safety of her poor little sister.

It is much safer for us to attack on the issues, and attack McCain.

Palin is a false target the Republicans set up to distract us.

It is entirely possible that the only reason they chose her is purely as a way to distract us.

And it is working. She is all we talk about.

It is as though Barack disappeared from the face of the earth.

Get the focus on our strength: BARACK

Attack where we have the most strength: on the issues of universal healthcare, free college, extending education, plug-in cars etc

Always attack from strength (our superior issues) instead of attacking a woman who can claim she is defending her family, thereby creating resentment of us.

McCain/Bush and the issues are our strength, use them and forget the distraction.

New Orleans Hurricane

Frank Lynch — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:15:44 EDT

Yesterday, watching those poor people lining up for buses to yet again flee a hurricane, my heart broke.

With all our riches how can there still be people in America who are so obviously so impoverished and helpless?

Unfortunately, it is because our system of education is broken, failed, shameful.

How can any politician believe that property taxes from impoverished areas can pay for world class schools and world class teachers?

A factor in our broken system of education is that first, teachers are underpaid so that schools for teachers "sometimes" fail to attract the most talented people.

Second, the curricula are not teaching prospective teachers how to really teach.

I want every teacher in America to receive the same starting pay as computer programmers and engineeers.

I want better curicula for preparing teachers.

And I want 3,000,000 more, high paid, talented, dedicated teachers who are fully prepared to teach THE LOVE OF medicine, bioscience, math and engineering, starting in the first grade.

Let us all work for an America where everey child has absolutely equal and excellent education, so that in the future no American is so unprepared for life that they end up helplessly standing in line for buses to flee for their lives.

Please donate, tax deductible, to these goals at http://www.fluni.com

I cannot think of anything more consistent with the core values of our Democratic Party.

Michelle's First Date

Frank Lynch — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:57:41 EDT

This vignette touched my heart, because it has such relevant symbolism.

In the clips last night, Michelle Obama spoke of finally giving in to Barack's request for a date. She had been refusing his advances because she was very proper in the top law firm of Sidley & Austin, where she was a full fledged attorney and Barack was just a summer intern. Barack surprised Michelle when he took her, not to a fancy restaurant, but to a church basement where he gave a speech to steelworkers who were laid off when the local steel mill closed.

Michelle said Barack riveted everyone in the basement with a magnificent speech about how America actually was, and how America should be.

The clip showed a picture of the burly white steelworkers raptly listening to the young African American orator, demonstrating that the races were cooperating even back then.

I grew up in the same neighborhood as Michelle Robinson Obama, actually in between her house and Rev. Wright's church. I personally knew many of the steelworkers who forever lost high paying jobs to the slave labor wages of Indian and Chinese steelmills, and feel quite strongly about fair trade instead of free trade.

Those hard working men never, ever got jobs with pay remotely near what they earned in the mill, for very hard work.

Micehlle felt the same thing I did, and said that speech in the church basement made it all over, the end! She was in love with Barack.

A symbolic lesson for us all, united.

Proud To Be A Democrat

Frank Lynch — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 05:03:44 EDT

While I shall continue to post about how to improve our
Democtratic party and uplift the issues of our candidates, my heart burst with pride as I watched our great Democratic Party make history as the first major party to nominate an African American for President of the United States of America.

On the Fourth of July, 2007, I signed the papers to register as a Democrat and abandoned my life long membership in the Republican Party. What a great day!

May God Bless America, and God Bless our Democratic Party!

Who Is Crazy?

Frank Lynch — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:01:06 EDT

Who is crazy?

Comments on previous posts have stooped to the politics of personal destruction, ad hominem attacks, and calling people "crazy."

Did you know that shortly after Frank filed with the FEC there was a staff post, since deleted, on Daily Kos, asking if Kos should support Frank instead of Obama? So the Kos staff was taking him seriously.

Tell me, who is crazy?

Frank Lynch is creating a new university http://www.fluni.com to train teachers of science, math, medicine and engineering to help treat our national shortage of science teachers and had the audacity to name the university after his father, who died at home in his arms.

Obviously Lynch is crazy, a loon, an egomanic and should be chased out of town. It goes against the principles of the Democratic Party to advance education and to deal with the teacher shortage. Drive Lynch away from posting, he is dangerous. And he is taking on the monumental, back breaking tsask of creating a non-profit, charitable university, and serving without compensation? What a jerk!

Frank Lynch is creating a public charity devoted to abused children and abused women and to fighting poverty inside of America as opposed to Clinton's foundation which is mostly outside the USA. http://franklynchfoundation.org also named after his deceased father.

Lynch is insane, What a narcissist. Anybody who wants to fight poverty inside America is a Nazi. Shout him down, ban him, ridicule him. And he wants to help abused children and save them from the broken foster care system? He can't possible be a true Democrat.

Lynch is writing books and creating a publishing company to raise money for his charities to help education and fight poverty in America. Criminal! UnAmerican. Anti-Democrat. No Democrat Presidential candidate ever wrote a book? Boo! Go away Frank. It is illegal to write a book.

Frank filed to run for president even though he knew the Democratic Party insiders would not let him on the ballots. Why? As a means of getting the other Presidential candidates to copy the ideas he posted on http://www.franklynch.org and use them in their previously vacant websites previously filled with only empty rhetoric from Jimmy Carter's 1976 campaign, and we know Carter's legacy.

Gee Frank, you reminded Hillary and goaded Barack into helping college students and into adopting Universal Healthcare. Frank, you really are a tin hat wacko loon. Everybody knows that Hillary and Barack adopted universal healthcare AFTER you publicized it and nagged the Chairpersons of all 50 state party organizations about it. What a maroone.

And by doing so, Frank Lynch changed America. What a terrible person! Pushing for universal healthcare and helping college students. Lock him in jail.

And Frank Lynch filed to run for President without ever serving as a legislator.

Now this is a big one. Frank Lynch is going to propose a Constitutional Amenment to forbid anyone who has ever been a US Senator or Representative, or ever graduated from law school, from running for President.

No lawyer ever SUCCESSFULLY managed anything of substance in the entire history of America. No many of you will cite lawyers who were the head of all sorts of things. Yes, ABraham Lincoln, my geatest personal hero, was a lawyer, but he never went to law school. Ha! Try to focus. No lawyer evere SUCCESSFULLY managed anything of substance.

Chew on that! First it is a really big crime how so many Senators do nothing about carrying out their duties to the taxpayers for two whole years while they abandon the Senate to run for President.

Second, the Presidency is EXECUTIVE. Senators and Representatives do nothing but work to get re-elected and collect campaign donations by holding hearing after hearing after hearing after hearing to extort contributions from the victims of their hearings.

Third, have you every watched CSPAN? None of those bums should ever be allowed to be President.

Frank Lynch has expert experience in the areas that determine America's future: science, national security, finance/economics, and running a business. See http://www.franklynch.name

In fact, compared to the irrelevant experience of all the other candidates, Lynch is OVERQUALIFIED

Frank Lynch at age 18 dropped out of college because he thought his professors were stupid. At age 19 he was back as a National Science Foundation researcher studying the effects of early experience on adult biochemical and hormonal reactions to stress.

Since stress is involved in weapons systems, he was recruited as a national security consultant, first on selection of advanced weapons systems, then intellegence, and he co-authored a study that predicted the current MidEast situation, in detail, with 100 percent accuracy, 40 years ago! Current candidates don't even understand the MidEast today, let alone see the future.

He then spent 10 years as a Corporate Finance Officer on Wall Street, followed by creating a new business from scratch, building it up into a publicly traded company, and selling it to a larger company.

In contrast, both Obama and McCain state they do not understand business, finance or the economy.

No other Presidential candidate has these comprehensive, totally relevant, qualifications to deal with the problems facing America today.

Maybe Howard Dean erred by keeping Frank Lynch off the primary ballots? Would it not be interesting if the voters had had the chance to debate this?

Idealism, Free Speech and Innovation

Frank Lynch — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:28:36 EDT

Are these blogs contaminated by professional paid assasins in the employ of funded campaigns?

In July 2007 I read every word of every website of all the Democrat and Republican Presidential candidates.

Then I wrote my Top Ten List and the http://www.franklynch.org website including only ideas that were not on any Democratic or Republican Presidential candidate website at that date, the sole exception being that Kucinich had the same elegant version of single payer healthcare.

Clinton had dropped universal healthcare after the Republicans threatened to put her in jail for unauthorized expenditure of taxpayer funds in 1993. She never again sponsored unversal healthcare until after I embarassed her on September 11, 2007. On that date she was in my neighbordhood doing a "not really campaigning" fundraiser in which her only words on healthcare were cheaper drugs for seniors and more healthcare for children, less than truly revolutionary concepts.

At the same time a mile down the same street the ABC station televised me campaigning for universal healthcare. Since her staff scans television news wherever she appears, they viewed the five televised spots of me pushing unversal healthcare when she did not.

Shortly AFTER that embarassment, she REMEMBERED that she used to support it. She researched me so thoroughly that she found out my mother belonged to an HMO named "America's Health Choice" and Clinton adopted the name of my mother's HMO for her universal healthcare plan.

As that website says, I filed for President with the FEC because I was disgusted that Hillary's and Obama's websites at July 2007 had almost no specific steps on how to achieve change, even though he had been campaigning for seven months and had spent more than a hundred million, including millions on consultants and writers to flesh out and put substance to his rhetoric.

Silly me, I thought that if someone were to run for President, they should have their ideas fleshed out with specific plans BEFORE starting a campaign, otherwise why run? That is not a rhetorical question. I think the reason to run for President is because you have specific ideas. If your initial, starting Presidential website lacks specific steps you intend to implement, why bother running?. Much worse is if after running for seven months, there is no excuse for not having specific, concrete actual steps, except if you have no specific, concrete ideas?

Isn't the purpose of running for change to have specific changes written down? All of the Democratic candidates were insider Senators or Congressmen (if Obama was an outsider, how come he lived off the taxpayers for the last ten years? Ha!) I knew there was no way the Party machine would let a true outsider like me into the debates or on the ballots, so I used faxes and certified mail to the State Party Chairpersons, and within 48 hours, the elements of my Top Ten List and website began appearing on the DNC website and on Hillary's and Obama's website. It is an incontrovertible fact that at July 20, 2007, neither Hillary nor Barack had Universal Healthcare, plug-in electric cars, windfarms, talking to our enemies, Energy Independence, Free College or College Tuition Assistance, or the phrase "Bold New Ideas" on their websites. How short memories are!

Sure, if you Google any idea you will find many hits, but none of the ideas on my Presidential website were on Hillary's or Obama's websites at July 2007, and I did in fact succeed in inserting them into the current Presidential campaign and defined the major issues of this campaign.

And by doing so I changed America!

What amazes me is the vicious antagonism of this Democratic website toward a Democrat because he contributed to defining the issues and expanded the debate.

Perhaps Fox News may have something when they claim that we Dems really suppress free speech and ideological expansion while claiming the opposite?

You and Howard Dean have proven to me that our Party is the old establishment, and is highly resistant to true change. We won the 2006 elections to bring change, but tell me please, why are Congressional approval ratings so low after our 2006 victory?

I urge everyone to embrace outsiders who publicize ideas of change, instead of responding with pettiness and calling people "crazy." First, that is immature. And Second, That is what Hitler's Brown Shirts did.

Obama's Plagarism is Getting Excessive

Frank Lynch — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:26:39 EDT

When Obama appeared after Joe Biden's speech tonight, Obama said he was going to the Mile High Stadium tomorrow because he needed room for more people because "In America, ordinary people do extraordinary things."

Now, Obama did not have universal healthcare until I promoted it. Same for plug-in electric cars, energy independence, windfarms, and talking with our enemies. I enjoyed his copying my ideas because that is why I ran for President:

In July of last year Obama and the other candidates had very little specifics, so I filed for President with the FEC and deluged all the State Party Chairs with my Top Ten List as a means of defining the national issues for the 2008 campaign to uplift the nation. And I was wildly successful. More than half of Obama's issues today were nowhere to be found in his pre-July 2007 speeches and websites until he copied from http://www.franklynch.org only after I posted them in July 2007, had them broadcast on television and sent them to the 50 State Party Chairs.

In fact, during the last primary debate before Christmas 2007 I actually rolled off the couch with laughter as Clinton and Obama tossed verbatim quotes from my website back and forth during their phony debate.

But I object to Obama's plagarism of my line "America, where ordinary people do extraordinary things everyday" because that was really a trademark identifying the theme of all of my websites, charities, and publications.

Obama, either stop plagarizing from the 180 pages of my five websites, or have the decency and honesty to preface or follow your quotes from me with an acknowledgement such as "as the Futurist Frank Lynch says . . . "

Thank you for your courtesy, Barack

Obama, Biden and McCain Must Enforce the Laws Against Selling Stock in Insolvent Companies

Frank Lynch — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 16:59:13 EDT

Here is another issue that the media should really jump onto all the candidates about: I do not want to be taxed to pay off the mortgage of deadbeats who bought homes that they (and I) cannot afford. Why should you and I have to pay two mortgages, mine and the deadbeats?

Where is the media discussion of both NObamaâ��s and McSnoreâ��s bailout of the corrupt and crooked financial institutions who created the housing mess? And letting the crooked executives walk away with hundred million dollar golden parachutes when their companies get taken out and we public investors are left holding the bag?

Where is the media wailing to stop the fraud on the public of continuing to trade the stocks of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when the insiders know they are insolvent?

When I was a corporate finance officer on Wall Street, it was a crime to knowingly sell stock to the public in insolvent companies. Yet both these insolvent companies continue to trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Senators NObama, JoeBama and McSnooze should take time out from campaigning to perform their Senatorial duties to the taxpayers and set this right. But both of them are more concerned with campaigning then to go to the Senate for one half of a day and have the Chairman of the SEC stop this fraud on the public. But we know what comes first for these three Senators, NObama, JoeBama and McSnooze: their self interest.

Stop defrauding the public investors and stop trading FNM and FRE. Media, please champion this cause.

Why not just let them go bankrupt? Congress never should have meddled in the free markets by creating these two genetic monstrosities of mortgage fraud companies.

Just put their entire Boards of Directors in jail with no multi-million dollar golden parachutes and let the free markets work the way the Creator intended.

We need more bank failures to cleanse the system.

We need Senators and a President who take time out from playing their self-promotions and sound bite games to force the SEC and the FDIC to agressively perform their duties to save us taxpayers.

Under the current flawed laws you and I will have to pay thousands of dollars more taxes to bail out these deadbeats and let crooked executives put ill-gotten millions into their pockets.

REQUIEM FOR A TROLL or TROLL IGNORED

Lincoln Park Dem — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:45:44 EDT

Our campaign has successfully united for CHANGE on BARACKOBAMA.COM and other Democratic websites.

The grass roots efforts are expanding all across AMERICA. As we increase our attention to GOTV, Hosting and attending events and phonebanking,the attacks on our nominee have intensified.The intent is to distract and disrupt.

This tactic will not survive our unified decision to ignore. No Response, No Debate....Ignore.

We can do this,

Yes we can.

Join other Party Builder and Obama bloggers now and sign up for this event:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpg22s

Party Builder Bloggers

Lincoln Park Dem — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:41:11 EDT

In the event some of you don't know we have a group of bloggers from this blog that have created a group at the Obama site called PB Bloggers:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/PartyBuilderBloggers

This is what we have been able to do collectively so far:

Average Individual Activity 0

# of Members 78

Events Hosted 958

Events Attended 2,329

Calls made 3,983

Doors Knocked 16

Number of blog posts 2,989

Amount raised $5,130.23

These numbers include all individual and group efforts.

Our Group is within $125 of meeting our goal form donations.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/maingroup/PartyBuilderBloggers

Just wanted to extend an invite to any that have not joined as of yet and send a BIG thank you to all who have helped us!

"This is our time, Our moment."

Yes We Can!

Obama '08 and '12

Making a difference

Lincoln Park Dem — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 11:34:32 EDT

As some may know, we have a group of bloggers on the Obama site. We are really making a difference there.

Our stats:

Party Builder Bloggers is making a difference together5Activity IndexMore Details Party Builder Bloggers STATSAll 7 Days 30 Days Average Individual Activity 0# of Members 77Events Hosted 952 20 56 Events Attended 2,291 53 312 Calls made 0 0 0 Doors Knocked 12 12 12 Number of blog posts 2,855 182 182 Amount raised $5,130.23 $286.22 $1,067.91

Please join us:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/PartyBuilderBloggers

Please READ about Disabled Wife Carol McCain, John McCain callously left behind. | Posted by: Edward Janus | Disability Advocate and Activist

Edward Janus | Disability Advocate and Activist — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:53:19 EDT

Posted by: Edward Janus | Disability Advocate and Activist

Please READ about Disabled Wife Carol McCain, John McCain callously left behind.

The wife John McCain callously left behind | Mail Online

Now that Hillary Clinton has at last formally withdrawn from the race for the White House, the eyes of America and the world will focus on Barack Obama and his Republican rival Senator John McCain.

While Obama will surely press his credentials as the embodiment of the American dream – a handsome, charismatic young black man who was raised on food stamps by a single mother and who represents his country’s future – McCain will present himself as a selfless, principled war hero whose campaign represents not so much a battle for the presidency of the United States, but a crusade to rescue the nation’s tarnished reputation.

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.

But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.

And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons

had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.

Carol insists she remains on good terms with her ex-husband, who agreed as part of their divorce settlement to pay her medical costs for life. ‘I have no bitterness,’

she says. ‘My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn’t the reason for my divorce.

‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.’

Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

McCain was then earning little more than £25,000 a year as a naval officer, while his new father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was a multi-millionaire who had impeccable political connections.

He first met Carol in the Fifties while he was at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. He was a privileged, but rebellious scion of one of America’s most distinguished military dynasties – his father and grandfather were both admirals.

But setting out to have a good time, the young McCain hung out with a group of young officers who called themselves the ‘Bad Bunch’.

His primary interest was women and his conquests ranged from a knife-wielding floozy nicknamed ‘Marie, the Flame of Florida’ to a tobacco heiress.

Carol fell into his fast-living world by accident. She escaped a poor upbringing in Philadelphia to become a successful model, married an Annapolis classmate of McCain’s and had two children – Douglas and Andrew – before renewing what one acquaintance calls ‘an old flirtation’ with McCain.

It seems clear she was bowled over by McCain’s attention at a time when he was becoming bored with his playboy lifestyle.

‘He was 28 and ready to settle down and he loved Carol’s children,’ recalled another Annapolis graduate, Robert Timberg, who wrote The Nightingale’s Song, a bestselling biography of McCain and four other graduates of the academy.

The couple married and McCain adopted Carol’s sons. Their daughter, Sidney, was born a year later, but domesticity was clearly beginning

to bore McCain – the couple were regarded as ‘fixtures on the party circuit’ before McCain requested combat duty in Vietnam at the end of 1966.

He was assigned as a bomber pilot on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin.

What follows is the stuff of the McCain legend. He was shot down over Hanoi in October 1967 on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam and was badly beaten by an angry mob when he was pulled, half-drowned from a lake.

Over the next five-and-a-half years in the notorious Hoya Loa Prison he was regularly tortured and mistreated.

It was in 1969 that Carol went to spend the Christmas holiday – her third without McCain – at her parents’ home. After dinner, she left to drop off some presents at a friend’s house.

It wasn’t until some hours later that she was discovered, alone and in terrible pain, next to the wreckage of her car. She had been hurled through the windscreen.

After her first series of life-saving operations, Carol was told she may never walk again, but when doctors said they would try to get word to McCain about her injuries, she refused, insisting: ‘He’s got enough problems, I don’t want to tell him.’

H. Ross Perot, a billionaire Texas businessman, future presidential candidate and advocate of prisoners of war, paid for her medical care.

When McCain – his hair turned prematurely white and his body reduced to little more than a skeleton – was released in March 1973, he told reporters he was overjoyed to see Carol again.

But friends say privately he was ‘appalled’ by the change in her appearance. At first, though, he was kind, assuring her: ‘I don’t look so good myself. It’s fine.’

He bought her a bungalow near the sea in Florida and another former POW helped him to build a railing so she could pull herself over the dunes to the water.

‘I thought, of course, we would live happily ever after,’ says Carol. But as a war hero, McCain was moving in ever-more elevated circles.

Through Ross Perot, he met Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California. A sympathetic Nancy Reagan took Carol under her wing.

But already the McCains’ marriage had begun to fray. ‘John started carousing and running around with women,’ said Robert Timberg.

McCain has acknowledged that he had girlfriends during this time, without going into details. Some friends blame his dissatisfaction with Carol, but others give some credence to her theory of a mid-life crisis.

He was also fiercely ambitious, but it was clear he would never become an admiral like his illustrious father and grandfather and his thoughts were turning to politics.

In 1979 – while still married to Carol – he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage.

Carol and her children were devastated. ‘It was a complete surprise,’ says Nancy Reynolds, a former Reagan aide.

‘They never displayed any difficulties between themselves. I know the Reagans were quite shocked because they loved and respected both Carol and John.’

Another friend added: ‘Carol didn’t fight him. She felt her infirmity made her an impediment to him. She justified his actions because of all he had gone through. She used to say, “He just wants to make up for lost time.”’

Indeed, to many in their circle the saddest part of the break-up was Carol’s decision to resign herself to losing a man she says she still adores.

Friends confirm she has remained friends with McCain and backed him in all his campaigns. ‘He was very generous to her in the divorce but of course he could afford to be, since he was marrying Cindy,’ one observed.

McCain transferred the Florida beach house to Carol and gave her the right to live in their jointly-owned townhouse in the Washington suburb of Alexandria. He also agreed to pay her alimony and child support.

A former neighbor says she subsequently sold up in Florida and Washington and moved in 2003 to Virginia Beach. He said: ‘My impression was that she found the new place easier to manage as she still has some difficulties walking.’

Meanwhile McCain moved to Arizona with his new bride immediately after their 1980 marriage. There, his new father-in-law gave him a job and introduced him to local businessmen and political powerbrokers who would smooth his passage to Washington via the House of Representatives and Senate.

And yet despite his popularity as a politician, there are those who won’t forget his treatment of his first wife.

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: ‘I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit.

‘When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.

‘Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.

‘This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.’

One old friend of the McCains said: ‘Carol always insists she is not bitter, but I think that’s a defense mechanism. She also feels deeply in his debt because in return for her agreement to a divorce, he promised to pay for her medical care for the rest of her life.’

Carol remained resolutely loyal as McCain’s political star rose. She says she agreed to talk to The Mail on Sunday only because she wanted to publicize her support for the man who abandoned her.

Indeed, the old Mercedes that she uses to run errands displays both a disabled badge and a sticker encouraging people to vote for her ex-husband. ‘He’s a good guy,’ she assured us. ‘We are still good friends. He is the best man for president.’

But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

‘McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said.

‘After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.’

My name is Edward Janus.
I am a Disability Advocate and Activist. My Campaign and Mission is Fighting for Persons With Disabilities and Making Our Voices Heard. Main Web Site: www.EdwardJanus.net

Sincerely,
Edward Janus | Disability Advocate and Activist
10707 Wrightwood Ave. Northlake, IL. 60164
E-mails: EdwardJanus@msn.com
EdwardJanus@EdwardJanus.net

EdwardJanus.net Disability Online Network Services
Web Site: www.EdwardJanus.net
MSN Group: http://groups.msn.com/EdwardJanus
MSN Blog: www.EdwardJanus.spaces.live.com

Hillary's Shadow

dcperdueusmc — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:46:17 EDT

This is interesting...

a Clear Politics article

by Victor Davis Hanson

Barack Obama and John McCain are running neck and neck.

Impossible?

It would seem so. Republican President Bush still has less than a 30 percent approval rating. Headlines blare that unemployment and inflation are up -- even if we aren't, technically, in a recession. Gas is around $4 a gallon. Housing prices have nosedived. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has been indicted -- another in a line of congressional Republicans caught in financial or sexual scandal. Meanwhile, the GOP's presumptive candidate, John McCain, is 71 years old. The Republican base thinks he's lackluster and too liberal.

So, everyone is puzzled why the Democratic candidate isn't at least 10 points ahead.

Clinton’s supporters petition to have her name on the ballot at the National Convention

Bob — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:28:37 EDT

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton says her defeating Barack Obama at a contested Democratic National Convention “is not going to happen” but she is looking for a way for her delegates to vent before getting behind the future nominee ahead of the November election.

Clinton, who battled Obama for 18 months but came up shy of the delegate votes needed to capture the nomination, told a mostly female group of backers at a California fundraiser last week that she wants unity in the party, but she is asked every day whether she will put her name on the ballot.

Clinton said that her delegates want to have a role and feel that their “legitimacy is validated,” before the group moves forward to back Obama.

“I happen to believe that we will come out stronger if people feel that their voices were heard and their views respected. I think that is a very big part of how we actually come out unified,” Clinton, D-N.Y., said to applause.

“Because I know from just what I’m hearing, that there’s incredible pent-up desire. And I think that people want to feel like, ‘OK, it’s a catharsis, we’re here, we did it, and then everybody get behind Senator Obama.’ That is what most people believe is the best way to go,” she said.

“Doesn’t work that way,” shouted one supporter. The video clip of her remarks was posted on YouTube accompanied by the one-word remark, PUMA, an acronym for a group of Clinton supporters who have not committed to Obama. PUMA stands for “Party Unity My Aâ€".”

Click here to see the YouTube video of Clinton.

In the video, Clinton, who endorsed Obama on June 7 after the final Democratic primary, said that she is fully behind Obama and actually has offered more help to him than other candidates have done for other nominees in previous years.

“I think it’s fair to say if you look at recent history, I have moved more quickly and done more on behalf of my opponent than comparable candidates have. And most of them didn’t endorse until the convention,” she said, naming Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, former California Gov. Jerry Brown and former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, all past presidential candidates who lost the party nomination.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton nothing has been decided in terms of the role of Clinton’s delegates. He said Democrats remain united, despite the hard-fought battle between Clinton and Obama.

The Democratic convention is being held in Denver on Aug. 25-28, with the first three nights’ activities taking place at the 21,000-seat Pepsi Center. Obama is expected to accept the nomination at Invesco Field at Mile High, a 75,000-seat stadium where the Denver Broncos play. Convention planners said the venue would demonstrate the massive support Obama commands.

“You don’t have to be a delegate or party insider to witness this historic moment firsthand,” Democratic National Convention Committee CEO Leah Daughtry said, announcing the plans for credentials.

Ticket selection was designed “to showcase the gains the party has made in the West,” she said. Nearly two-thirds of the tickets will go to residents of the West and Southwest, including Colorado, where Democrats have made inroads in recent elections.

But several of Clinton’s supporters are insistent that the former first lady get a vote on the convention floor. One self-identified delegate at the California fundraiser said a petition had been formed to put Clinton’s name on the ballot.

Clinton did not oppose that idea, but said it won’t change the outcome.

“I have made it very clear that I am supporting Senator Obama and we’re working cooperatively on a lot of different matters, but I think that delegates can decide to do this on their own. They don’t need permission. They can decide under the rules of the DNC, and so I think it would be better if we had a plan that actually we put in place and everybody knew what it was and then we executed it because I just think that would go more smoothly,” she said.

Former Clinton campaign manager and Howard Wolfson also obliquely acknowledged Thursday that relations between Clinton’s and Obama’s delegates aren’t all roses and sunshine.

“You know the these two people ran against each other for 18 months there were some moments of … friction as you might imagine,” he said, stressing that Clinton is doing her part to contribute to Obama’s election.

“If you have some people that are concerned that they are not getting the respect that they are looking for, that the party not quite yet unified, what is the way to bring those people back into the party to make sure that they are enthusiastically supporting Senator Obama by the time the November election comes around? And one possible way of doing that is to have roll call that has Senator Clinton’s name placed in nomination, that is one option. There are other options and I think that the important thing is that this is going to get decided between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama in a way that I think both can agree unifies the party and bring people together,” he said.

Democratic strategist Bob Beckel added that a vote for Clinton would help relieve some of the tension between the Obama and Clinton delegates.

“They can’t stop them if they want to do it. They cast their vote for Hillary Clinton and before the final roll call is finished they are going to go back through and make it unanimous by state. That’s one way I think to let a little bit of the pressure out of this pressure cooker, but it’s there. I mean it’s bound to be. You can’t have a convention with 1,800 delegates out of 4,400 be for somebody else and not expect there is still going to be some latent animosity,” Beckel said.

Clinton is expected to deliver a prime-time address to delegates on Aug. 26, the second night of the gathering. Typically the vice presidential nominee delivers the address on the third night of the convention.

Action Alert

Lincoln Park Dem — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:06:39 EDT

Please see following:

Subj: FW: Voting Rights
From: Heather Smith, Rock the VoteDear Rock the Vote staff,I was outraged when I found out the other day that the Department of Veterans Affairs has forbidden voter registration drives in its hospitals, rehab centers and other facilities.

This ban hurts thousands of young veterans who have been injured while fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We should be helping our veterans register and vote, not making it more difficult.

Last week, the Senate introduced a bill to overturn the ban and allow states to require V.A. hospitals to offer voter registration to their clients.

Will you join me and ask your Senator to co-sponsor the “Veteran Voting Support Act”?

http://action.rockthevote.com/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&id=107

Banning the most basic act of democracy from Americans who have fought for our democracy just doesn’t make any sense. We need to stand up for our veterans--especially for the thousands of young veterans who are eligible to vote in their first presidential election.

Please contact your senators today.

Sincerely,

Heather Smith

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Update

Bob — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:56:52 EDT

As the one-year anniversary of the housing and credit crunch approaches, investors in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have nothing to celebrate. They won’t see an end to the losses at these mortgage finance giants until after next year.

Moreover, a report from the regulator of the two mortgage finance giants gives embarrassing new detail on how Fannie (FNM: 12.25, +0.42, +3.55%) and Freddie (FRE: 7.94, +0.42, +5.58%) were mindlessly gunning the securitization engines well after the housing bubble had burst and Wall Street backed off.

Freddie Mac will report its second-quarter financial results Wednesday. Fannie Mae will release its results on Friday. Freddie Mac’s shares are down 88% this year, while Fannie’s shares have dropped 83%. More losses and writedowns for the two are likely on the way.

The Office of Housing Enterprise and Oversight says in a new report that the two combined own about $217 bn in securities minted by Wall Street firms that are backed by the shakiest home mortgages dating to 2004 and 2005, the height of the housing bubble.

The mortgages here are subprime and Alt-A loans, just a notch above subprime. To the extent that Wall Street firms book fair value losses on this pool, “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have to do so as well,” OFHEO says.

As delinquencies and defaults on subprime loans continue, and increasingly even prime loans bellyflop, Fannie and Freddie will continue to book losses into 2009, says Credit Suisse. Some analysts say they may lose an additional $24 bn or more.

This should alarm both taxpayers and investors across the country.

Elected officials enacted a $300 bn housing bailout bill that gives these two carte blanche without any statutory limits on their colossal $5.3 tn book of business (Lehman Bros says the two have another $3.3 tn in hedges, among other items, off the balance sheet). The two have reported more than $11 bn in pre-tax losses over the last three quarters and have a history of accounting misdeeds (on a fair value basis, Fannie incurred a loss of $13.3 bn, Freddie, $24.7 bn, OFHEO says).

The housing rescue now lets the government inject tens of billions of taxpayer dollars into these two publicly traded companies, who clearly have failed in their fiduciary responsibilities. The government can now use tax dollars to buy unlimited equity stakes in the companies and their bonds if needed.

The thinking is, the Treasury will simply mint more debt and use that resulting capital to inject more liquidity into Fannie and Freddie, despite their history of accounting misdeeds, losses, misstatements and repeated dilutive equity raises that prove that these two companies do not know what they are doing. Also, the two can now borrow at the Federal Reserve.

Fear is now rampant that if the rescue doesn’t work, the US government must spend more than what the Congress said it would cost to bolster Fannie and Freddie, $25 bn, a sum it cooked up in order to sell the $300 bn housing bailout bill.

Remember, the government’s estimate of the cost to taxpayers for the S&L crisis rose from an initial $50 bn to more than $124.6 bn (not inflation adjusted).

More importantly, Congress spitballed that $25 bn number even though just this past month it sent in bureaucrats from the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to go find out what the heck is really sitting on Fannie and Freddie’s books, as it clearly doesn’t believe the management at these two levered up examples of crony capitalism.

The fear is, too, that the government may have to swallow these two obesities, causing the US dollar to plunge in anticipation of the need to mint more dollars, creating more inflation (not to mention the $99 tn in unfunded liabilities at Social Security and Medicare, according to Fed stats).

In effect, US taxpayers have been loaded into the backseat of Congress’s spaceship pointed directly at the center of the sun.

Because the market believes the US government has given Fannie and Freddie an “implicit guarantee”of their debt, for years both have used that backing to execute a sweet carry trade, where they can borrow money much more cheaply than banks and then turn around and use that money to buy things such as higher-yielding mortgage-backed securities from lenders, in turn injecting liquidity into the lending system to make more loans. The two also sell guarantees against defaults on loans for a fee.

For years, Wall Street believed their obligations were “nearly as good as Treasurys themselves,” notes Dennis Gartman of The Gartman Letter. Indeed, their securities traded as if the government backed them, and US government debt traded as if the government did not back them.

Fannie Mae was born in 1938 as part of FDR’s New Deal to get the country out of the Great Depression and provide home ownership. Back then, millions of Americans were struggling to buy homes, and also faced foreclosures, as banks weren’t lending and mortgage money had dried up.

For years Fannie sat on the government’s books, helping to expand the real estate industry. In 1968, the LBJ administration, worried about the effect of the Vietnam War on the federal budget, moved Fannie Mae off the government’s books, and Fannie became a publicly traded company.

When the savings-and-loan industry wanted its own mortgage financing creature to play with beginning in 1968, Congress obliged and in 1970 Freddie Mac was born. The two quasi-socialist mortgage finance giants then became to the US economy what off-balance sheet vehicles were to Enron, Gartman says.

When Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were limited in the dollar amount of mortgages they could buy and securitize, to $417,000, in the ‘90s, Wall Street stepped in to securitize these loans.

Wall Street then manufactured all sorts of subprime paper, paid the credit ratings agencies to get rosy ratings, and then sold this drunken daisy chain of paper to all sorts of unwitting investors from here to the Arctic Circle, now sitting as landfill in portfolios run by pension funds, hedge funds and local governments.

Wall Street firms then kept a sizable slug of this bad paper off their balance sheets to keep financial results rosy, and then wrote themselves sweet bonus checks off the goosed-up numbers.

So Wall Street, with the help of Fannie and Freddie, shot these risky loans into the ether, thus breaking the bond between the overseer, meaning the lender, and the borrower. Why care about monitoring a borrower who has no skin in the game with a zero-down mortgage when you’ve entirely offloaded that loan as a security?

As far back as 1987 the Financial Accounting Standards Board warned there was no adequate way to value these derivatives, and now Frankenstein derivatives are sluicing financial poison through the system.

Then Fannie and Freddie itself started buying Wall Street’s mortgage backed securities, securities backed by zombie loans given by banks such as Countrywide Financial (CFC), which already had pointed its conveyor belt of bad loans at Wall Street.

When the credit markets seized up in 2007, Wall Street stopped doing much of these securitization deals as its recycling machine for these cut and paste jobs had sand thrown in its gears.

But as Wall Street stepped back, check out how Fannie and Freddie stepped in big time.

OFHEO says in its recent report that while the volume of single-family mortgatges securitized in 2007 fell by 8% to $1.9 tn, as the number of single family mortgages originated declined, “Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s combined share of MBS [mortgage-backed securities] issuance rose substantially to 61.6% from 46.7% in 2006.”

Indeed, OFHEO says Fannie and Freddie “increased their MBS issuance by nearly one-third in 2007 as competition” from Wall Street “virtually ceased in the second half of the year,” though OFHEO says the two started to curtail their purchases of securities backed by shoddy loans. Too little too late.

Now teetering atop Fannie’s and Freddie’s painfully razor thin $54 bn in net worth is a pyramid of $5.3 tn in debt that is nearly half the size of the US gross domestic product. The two have much higher leverage ratios than banks or hedge funds, but lower borrowing costs due to their implicit government backing. The two whittled down their capital cushions after they gunned their lobbying engines on Capitol Hill, showering elected officials with money.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM: 41.10, +0.96, +2.39%) or Bank of America (BAC: 33.69, +1.07, +3.28%), for example, have almost as much bank-level capital as these two “combined supporting one fifth of the commitments,” says the research website The Institutional Risk Analyst, published by Lord, Whalen LLC.

So the fear is that, as mortgages belly flop right and left and an increasing number of homes go into foreclosure, the two are insolvent. Former Fed official William Poole has said as much of Freddie Mac.

But instead of reining in their colossal, outsized portfolios which has caused such danger to taxpayers, the new housing rescue legislation went in the opposite direction. It would increase the statutory limit on the national debt by $800 bn, to $10.6 tn, as the two would now get to buy and back jumbo loans worth $625,000.

And as economist Edward Yardeni points out (his reports are a must-read), both “have been scrambling to plug all the holes in their huge mortgage portfolios.” Citing the Wall Street Journal, Yardeni notes that at the end of last year, the two “started guaranteeing payments on loans that back mortgage securities held by others to delay recognizing losses on some delinquent loans.”

Yardeni adds that “earlier this year, in their most shocking (desperate) tactic to reduce losses, Fan and Fred started making loans of up to $15,000 to people who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments.”

Here are the stink bombs, potholes and steam pipes bursting in these two reckless publicly traded companies:

*Both have a total of a microscopicâ€"did you see it, did you catch it?â€"$54bn in net worth, generally assets minus liabilities (don’t listen to the $81 bn figure tossed around for their total capital, that’s a pro forma fake number that doesn’t include certain losses).

*Teetering atop that razor thin wedge is a pyramid of $5.3 tn in debt.

*One stink bomb is the total of $260 bn in securitized assets backed by subprime and Alt-A loans, loans which sit in between subprime and prime. Those sums dwarf their capital positions.

*Freddie has $156.8 bn in level three assets, those illiquid securities it can’t get a pricetag on because no one wants them now. Remember, under US accounting rules, it gets to assign its own values to these assets, they could be worth more, they could be worth less.

*Fannie has $56.1 bn in level three assets, or about a seventh of its fair valued assets.

*Fannie and Freddie have combined debts of $1.59 tn, borrowings they made merely to operate their businesses. Again, that’s against just $54 bn in total net worth. Their guaranteed liabilities were 29 times their net worth at the end of the first quarter.

*They each have $2.25 bn pipelines into the Treasury, which the government now wants to expand.

*Forty years ago, when they went public, Fannie had debt of about $15 bn. Do the math against Fannie’s $804 bn in liabilities today, and the pipelines should be about $120 bn each.

Still believe that $25 bn figure Congress is selling you?

Take It Back!

Lincoln Park Dem — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:46:38 EDT

"This spirit of Woody Guthrie lives on!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMSsm_B8iaE

I loved this video. It says it all.

Enjoy!

Obama '08"

I didn't consider the song to be country but I guess it leans that way.
Hope you'll give it a listen and if you dig, pass it on to friends...

The highest post-World War II budget deficit

Bob — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:36:43 EDT

The budget office predicts the economy will grow at a rate of 1.6 percent this year and will rebound to a 2.2 percent growth rate next year. That's a half percentage point more than predicted but also the widely cited "blue chip" consensus of leading economists. The administration also sees inflation averaging 3.8 percent this year, but easing to 2.3 percent next year â€" better than the 3.0 percent seen by the blue chip panel.

"The nation's economy has continued to expand and remains fundamentally resilient," said the budget office report.

Senior administration officials downplayed the impact of the number, with one noting that as a percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product, the deficit projection would be roughly 3 percent to 4 percent.

Another senior administration official said "a lot can happen" in 18 months that could worsen or improve the outlook, such as an improved economy leading to better tax returns, or increased spending under a new administration. The official specifically warned about the impact a Democrats.

"Democrats could blow the doors off spending and drive the deficit even higher," the official said.

Congressional Democratic leaders took aim at the administration â€" and the Republican candidate for the next administration â€" for what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called misguided priorities.

"The large budget deficit is a symptom of the many serious problems that Bush-McCain Republicans refuse to address. Rather than continuing the flawed policies that produced this result, Democrats believe we must change course," Reid, D-Nev., said.

Among the problems Reid said Republicans neglected were renewable energy, health care reform, and refocusing military efforts on Afghanistan. "Until we deal with these underlying problems, our budget deficits and the squeeze on Americas families will only get worse."

Likewise, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized what she called unrestrained spending.

"President Bush has mortgaged our future with record deficit spending on the wrong priorities. An unnecessary and extraordinarily costly war in Iraq has turned record surpluses into record deficits. Meanwhile, our economy is in a severe economic slump as a result of this President’s mismanagement," she said.

White House officials said the increase from February's $407 billion projection for the coming year is due largely to a worse economy as well as higher-than-expected costs from the $168 billion economic stimulus package passed by Congress earlier this year.

The highest post-World War II budget deficit, in terms of a portion of the GDP, was in 1983 when it was 6 percent of the national economy. The record high-dollar mark to date was in 2004, when the deficit reached $413 billion.

The new figure actually underestimates the deficit, since it leaves out about $80 billion in war costs. In a break from tradition â€" and in violation of new mandates from Congress â€" the White House did not include its full estimate of war costs.

White House press secretary Dana Perino had no comment on the new outlook figure. But she told reporters that the White House and lawmakers acknowledged months ago that they were going to increase the deficit by approving a short-term boost for the slumping economy.

"Both parties recognized that the deficit would increase, and that that was going to be the price that we pay," Perino said.

Officials said revenues are holding up better than officials hoped for the current year: With costs running about $10 billion lower than expected, the budget deficit is expected to be less than $400 billion at the end of the fiscal year this September.

The deficit for 2007 totaled $161.5 billion, which represented the lowest amount of red ink since an imbalance of $159 billion in 2002. The 2002 performance marked the first budget deficit after four consecutive years of budget surpluses.

That stretch of budget surpluses represented a period when the country's finances had been bolstered by a 10-year period of uninterrupted economic growth, the longest period of expansion in U.S. history.

In his first year in office, helped considerably by projections of continuing surpluses, Bush drove through a 10-year, $1.3 trillion package of tax cuts.

However, the country fell into a recession in March 2001 and government spending to fight the war on terrorism contributed to pushing the deficit to a record in dollar terms in 2004.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., said the deficit projection confirms "the dismal legacy of the Bush administration: under its policies, the largest surpluses in history have been converted into the largest deficits in history."