Let Me Be Frank, Barney!

Have you noticed that those who shout the loudest have the most to hide? Yep, Mr. Frank, I talking about you! You headed the committee which passed a bill giving Treasury Secretary Geitner broad control over salaries at bailout companies. Fortunately, good sense prevailed and it died.

Now you've taken it a step further with the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009" where you intend to penalize all employees of bailout companies by tying their pay to performance for as long us the bailout money remains unpaid. Retroactively yet!

Okay folks. It's time for another Dogwalk solution. No more automatic pay raises for Congress. Let's insist on a "pay for performance" scale for them. After all, it is tax payer money! Let's let the whole country rate each and every one of them, not just the people in their districts or states who might be swayed by pork.

How would Barney fare? Let's look at the mortgage mess which actually began back in the Carter administration when mortgage lenders were being accused of being racist. Pressured to make loans to minorities and those with bad credit, lenders began loosening their standards under threat of punishment by regulators. Government chartered mortgage lenders, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, encouraged this "sub prime" lending then bought up the questionable mortgages.

We all know what happened. The bubble burst but all the while Frank insisted Freddie and Fannie faced no financial crisis. Right. Also, all the while, he blamed the private sector for having gotten us into the mess. With a lot of arm twisting by the government.

Barney Frank is the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. A one time partner of Frank's was an executive at Fannie who helped develop many of the lending programs. During that time Frank blocked tough regulations on banking companies.

Okay. Frank has been in the House since 1981. He's had his fingers in a lot of pies and a go round with the House Ethics Committee over a sex scandal. Idaho's Larry Craig, not unfamiliar with such, led an attempt to have him expelled or censured over that episode. It failed but the House did vote 408 to 18 to reprimand him. Of course, as it goes in Washington, he won re-election several times over.

In the 28 years he's been in Congress I'm sure he has been on the right side of some issues. His constituents would probably give him a 10 on a scale of 10, but what would the public as a whole give him? If we can't have term limits why not hit them where it really hurts? In the pocketbook. I'm not a constituent, you see, and my rating would definitely be "sub prime"!

Obama - Messiah Or Dictator?

There is a difference between anger and worry. I've experienced too much of both lately as I watch the administration try to mend the financial crisis by trial and error.

Today, I'm halting the emotions at worry. Tomorrow it may well be back to full blown anger. I am extremely uncomfortable with the sanctions that are being heaped on corporations receiving bailout money without the ground rules being set at the get go.

Take for instance the exit of Rick Wagoner from GM. GM was to submit their reorganization plans by March 31. That's tomorrow. However, the "auto czar", who has no auto industry experience, decided it wasn't adequate. The President, on his own, told Wagoner if there was to be any chance for GM to get additional help he had to go. Did Obama have that right? Should he have that right?

Granted, the GM board should have removed Wagoner long ago. And yes, it's tax payer dollars being used to bail them out. But without preset rules and an arbitrary opinion from someone outside the industry, it makes Mr. Wagoner the scapegoat. For what? To make the administration look tough?

I listened to Obama say that for GM to go in a new direction it needed new leadership. Wagoner's number two took over. Is that new leadership?

Okay, there can be a lot of arguments for everything the administration is doing because of tax payer dollars. However, more and more it looks to be an attempt to change the way corporate America works and if so, you'll soon see us as a diminished nation even more than we already are.

The New York Times had a story which was even more frightening. They are considering regulating executive pay via regulation rather then legislation. This smacks of dictatorship.

Even worse, they are considering extending this practice to financial institutions not receiving bailout money and even to publicly traded companies.

Obama campaigned on regulation to give share holders a larger say in setting executive pay. Well, that's the responsibility of the board. If the shareholders don't like what the board is doing they can vote them out. The hitch here is the shareholders have to exercise their right and vote their proxy's if they can't attend the annual meetings.

Just like politics. You have to vote to have a say. The responsibility, in that respect, falls on the shareholders, not the executives.

"What about corporate greed?" you may ask. There is far too much of it to be sure. But if what the administration is attempting doesn't shape them up nothing will. They will just move off shore.

Speaking of greed, how about the greed for power? To have the ultimate authority to reshape an entire country into a vision not necessarily sanctioned by the people? To dictate what CEO's can and cannot do while giving Unions a pass? By doing an end run around Congress?

Think about it. We criticized the Bush administration mightily for all Bush's signing statements stating he was going to ignore parts of passed legislation. We criticized Bush for ignoring the Constitution on many occasions. We criticize the Christian Conservatives for trying to hijack the government so they can force their agenda on those of us who don't agree with it.

I'm worried. Oh, yes I am. I see our President running around the country and the world as head cheerleader while in truth the team is making up the rules as they go. Who's our cheerleader and how can we win? Without a say, we can't.

Pitch Forks and Forked Tongues

For awhile now I've been suggesting the recipients of the "bailout bonuses" aren't necessarily the bad guys. This morning on Meet the Press David Gregory repeatedly asked Timothy Geitner, why, if he knew of the bonus plan at it's inception when he was still with the Fed, did he not object rather than feigning anger so far after the fact. Geitner never answered the question. No surprise there. Never stray from the administration's talking points.

As distasteful as the whole AIG mess has been, it is but the tip of the iceberg and shows what a bunch of hypocrites we have holding the reins. According to Newsweek , five major TARP recipients made campaign contributions to members of committees overseeing the TARP program since the administration came to power. You know, the ones in front of the cameras expressing their outrage.

Two of those receiving the contributions are House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and GOP Whip Eric Cantor. This is the first real sign of bipartisanship I've seen!

The rationale is that this money doesn't actually come from the company, but rather it's employees. This is how it works. The company has a political action committee (PAC) to which the employees are strongly advised to contribute. Therefore it is employee money. The problem, as I see it, is the employee has no say as to where the money goes. To me that makes it, technically, a corporate contribution of employee funds.

Hoyer's office said accepting such contributions is legal and "policy". Pelosi and Frank have said they won't take money from TARP recipients but, the article goes on, House fundraisers have said that "down the road" they will resume accepting them. Right. As soon as it's back under the radar!

This is not how I envisioned the pay back would work. I would have thought the money would go back into the treasury coffer; not campaign coffers! It indicates to me we do indeed have the best Congress money can buy!

Reality Check

I've got to tell you, I'm not sure I can continue these weekly updates. It's an emotional roller coaster as much as is Bacchus's condition. The difference is he doesn't know it!

Tuesday we had taken a longer walk then usual. One of his favorite neighbors came out to see him and they greeted each other as would anyone who's been cooped up for the long winter months. I had no sooner shut off the camera when Bacchus keeled over, legs flailing and gasping for breath. I thought that would be it. George and I knelt beside him and he quickly calmed down. I kept him quiet while George called Hub and asked that he bring the van around.

By the time he arrived Bacchus was standing and we were scratching ribs and ears. We stood chatting for a few minutes after Hub arrived then I put Bacchus in the van. He peered out the window and his expression said, "Why am I in here? I want to be out with you guys!" That fast he seemed back to normal. What we don't know for sure is how much it took out of him.

I talked with our vet and his cardiologist and they explained what had likely happened. It drove home the point that he has a very weak heart. Not only does he have to deal with the enlargement, the arrhythmia rears it's head and gives the system fits.

He came out of this episode and seems pretty much himself. The fluctuations in his eating and willingness to take pills continue but he's happy and bouncing around like he has good sense.

A friend of mine suggested writing these weekly updates is cathartic. It is if those of you I'm doing it for realize it isn't always going to be a cheery "he's holding his own". The truth of the matter is we don't know. He gained back five of the pounds he lost. That's good. He had this episode. That's bad. It's day to day. It's rough.

So I'll end on that note. Another week. The neighbor's grand kids are playing next door. He's having a good time barking at them. It's what he does. Que sera sera.

Heros? Bully!

I listened to the noon news with a sigh of resignation as the story about a Dallas cop unfolded. It seems a car rolled through a stop sign in the wee hours of the morning in a rush to get to the hospital. He pulled it over - in the hospital parking lot. The occupants explained they had gotten a call that the woman's mother was near death and they were trying to get to her.

No dice. He refused to let them go, demanding the usual, drivers license, registration, proof of insurance. Flustered, the man had trouble finding everything and finally the woman fled into the hospital, arriving in the nick of time. The man did not.

I don't understand the mentality it takes for these jobs. The man in question was a member of the Dallas Cowboys. Did the officer want to make a score to impress his buddies?

How many of you as a kid wanted to be either a fireman or a policeman? What has happened to them as role models? Well, in Spokane they can get away with egregious behavior and lose little more than their jobs - if that. We just had a case wrap up where a drunken off duty officer chased a young man through a neighborhood ultimately shooting him in the head. He claimed the young man tried to steal his truck.

He was acquitted and will receive back pay. In the infinite wisdom of the judge, the jury was not allowed to be told the young man had already been found not guilty of trying to steal the truck in a previous trial! Fellow officers cheered the outcome. The chief declared she believes in the process.

Then just this morning there was a story about a former firefighter being convicted of assault. This is his second go round. The first, which cost him his job, was having sex with a sixteen year old in the firehouse and taking pictures of the episode to boot. To make matters easier for him detectives had him erase the photos from his cell phone.

The firefighter said the sex was consensual. In the firehouse? With a sixteen year old? I realize that everyone under the age of 60 looks 16 to me, but the offender was around 35 at the time! And married. The prosecuting attorney said he could not file charges because the evidence had been destroyed.

So. What did he do that finally caught up with him? He bought another 16 year old girl bras and asked her to model them in the adult care home run by his wife. He then fondled her, straddled her on a bed while giving her a massage. This time the charges stuck. His wife lost the license for her facility and he must have a psycho sexual evaluation. Do you think?

If soap opera writers ever get stuck for material for story lines they need but search the archives of the local paper for stories galore. This, unfortunately, is just one more in what seems to be a constant parade of deviant behavior.

Police and firemen are supposed to be our hero's! They're supposed to save lives, not ruin them!

As for the attorneys, the judges and the juries? That's another post after I get the distaste from this one out of my mouth!