(Akiit.com) In 2008 and 2009, 50 separate federal programs offered $23 trillion in loans, grants, or asset guarantees to the financial sector. Huh! This item was buried in paragraph 11 of 12 paragraphs in a joint statement that California Senator Barbara Boxer and Virginia Senator Jim Webb issued demanding taxes on TARP monies that executives used to compensate themselves.

The new number is more than 30 times more than the official $700 billion that Congress authorized to bail out the big banks and failed Wall Street financial houses. The $700 billion figure tossed out quickly became etched in financial stone. Then President Bush, President Obama, Congress, and the Wall Street and banking industry and every financial pundit cited the $700 billion payout as the maximum that taxpayers would be stuck with. Now almost as an afterthought, Webb and Boxer casually toss out the $23 trillion number.

Boxer and Webb made mention of it in a press statement to bolster their call for passage of the Taxpayer Fairness Act. This would levy a one time 50 percent surtax on bonuses on amounts over $400,000 in compensation and bonuses that the big banks and firms ladled out to their executives. Don’t hold your breath on this one, though. Boxer, Webb and the Senate were unwilling to impose this tax on the obscene bonuses that the big bank execs paid each other as a condition of getting the TARP money. The only thing that’s changed since then is that public fury at the non-stop record bonuses they pay each other has risen to fever pitch. And even if there was a congressional epiphany and payment required, the big banks that got the taxpayer cash will argue as they have every time a squawk is made about their obscene money that they’ve paid the money back.

Boxer and Webb’s move smacks of yet another empty gesture by two Senators feeling election heat to tap into popular rage at the bankers by appearing to be anti-Wall Street crusaders.

The outrage, though, should be over whether Boxer, Webb, the White House and Congress have come clean over how much the banks and financial houses dinged taxpayers for. One, two, or three federal agencies involved in the fed giveaway is one thing but fifty different agencies is another. The agencies that may have shoved more money to the banks and houses were known as early as April 2009. In testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Tarp’s Inspector General listed the agencies and the projected dollar amounts.
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(Akiit.com) It is said that when Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes he asked the wise man if there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes is said to have replied, “Yes. Stand a little less between me and the sun.”

I thought of Diogenes as I read portions of the president’s speech from Cleveland, Ohio. The New York Times reports that the president used the word fight or some version of it more than 20 times.

Mr. Obama vowed to fight for jobs; he promised to fight for quality education; he promised to fight for health care; fight for transparency in government. He promised to fight! Fight! Fight! And never stop fighting. “So long as I have some breath in me,” he said, “so long as I have the privilege of serving as your President, I will not stop fighting for you.”

Such pronouncements of chivalry no doubt came as a surprise to the parents and children of the opportunity scholarship program.

Also known as the D.C. voucher program the OSP was started in 2003 as a program to provide children from low income families scholarships of up to $7500 to attend non-public K-12 schools within the district.

During the 2008-2009 school year, there were over 1,715 D.C. OSP students attending 49 non-public schools of their choice. The average annual income for these families is around $23,000.

The program was a bargain. The D.C. public schools spend $14,400 per pupil on average, among the most in the country. More importantly the program was successful. According to an evaluation conducted by the department of education, “After 3 years, there was a statistically significant positive impact on reading test scores…” as well as a “positive impact overall on parents’ reports of school satisfaction and safety.”

And yet when this program came under attack from the teachers union Obama – the people’s champion – was, along with his white horse, missing in action.

Which begs a few questions: Exactly who is the dragon preventing quality education? Job creation? Transparency in government? This just in: Dragon last seen on Pennsylvania Ave. The dragon is big government!
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(Akiit.com) Shirley Chisholm was born on November 30, 1924, in the city of Brooklyn, NY to the proud parents of Charles and Ruby St. Hill. As a child, she was an exceptionally brilliant student in school. While attending Girls High School, which was located in Brooklyn, NY, she excelled in a variety of subjects. She graduated in 1942, and enrolled at Brooklyn College, where she majored in sociology.

While attending Brooklyn College, Chisholm occasionally encountered hateful acts of racism, but she openly fought against them. On one occasion at Brooklyn College, all of the black students were denied admittance into a social club on campus, so Chisholm in turn, formed an alternative club. With academic honors, she graduated in 1946, but because it was so difficult for black college graduates to find employment, it would take her a little time to find a job. After being denied employment on several occasions, she would obtain employment at Mount Calvary Childcare Center, which was located in Harlem, NY.

In 1949, she married a Jamaican by name of Conrad Chisholm. They both participated in local politics, and would soon form the Bedford-Stuyvesant political league. Chisholm not only dealt with politics, but she also dealt with early childhood education. From 1959-1964, she worked with the New York City bureau of child welfare.

In 1964, she won a seat in the state assembly, and served in the New York General Assembly from 1964 to 1968. In 1968, after serving a term in the legislature, Chisholm campaigned in pursuit of representing New York’s Twelfth Congressional District. She would win the election and become the first African American woman to ever be elected to Congress. Chisholm was a strong believer in women rights, so she hired an all-female staff during her first term in Congress.
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(Akiit.com) I’ve never in my life questioned the value of having a democratic society. I still don’t question my democracy, since I believe that in most cases, democracy works quite well. But the textbook on democracy needs to have a chapter describing exceptions to the rule, and that chapter would read something like this: “Democracy works quite well except when you attempt to elect the first black president in the history of a nation that has spent most of its time hating black people. In that rare and highly improbable reality, democracy turns into a bunch of angry conservatives creating deliberate gridlock at the expense of the American people. Racism makes people so angry that they will destroy their society in order to prove a point.”

Ok, the chapter might not read that way, but during these tough economic times, I sit on airplanes and quietly wonder if China’s ability to get through this recession has been driven, at least in part, by their ability to get things done. If they need a jobs plan, the government simply demands one. If they want to raise taxes, they order the people to pay more. At the very least, they don’t have Democrats and Republicans spending more time fighting for power than acting on behalf of the American people. But then again, maybe Chinese disrespect for human rights and elimination of many key civil liberties ultimately undermines my utopian description of a Communist society. I am certainly not a Communist, but usually democracy, Communism and socialism are present in every modern society, at least on some elementary level.

In our great American democracy, President Obama is trying to play quarterback for a football team where every position player wants to do his own thing: The wide receivers (liberal Democrats) want to go left, the running backs (Republicans) want to go to the other end zone, and the offensive linemen (the American people who got Obama into office) are sitting on the sidelines, watching the game with a beer in their hands. When the American team loses the game by 40 points, everyone is going to wonder why the quarterback didn’t do his job. Well, the quarterback can’t score touchdowns if he has no one to whom he can pass the ball and his linemen are allowing him to be sacked.

The president is being told to create jobs, and lots of them. Following suit, the president has communicated that job creation is his top priority. The problem, however, is that job creation costs money and that money comes from either additional debt or tax revenues. The president is being told that he can’t have access to either of these things, at least not in the magnitude necessary to artificially create economic growth. If he increases the deficit by another dollar, America is going to go bananas over it (for good reason). If he tries to raise taxes on the bulk of the American people, he’s going to catch hell for that as well.
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(Akiit.com) Langston Hughes is undeniably one of the most prominent and influential writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Nowadays, most people read or hear about the great poetry he composed, and some do not know that he was an important figure because he not only composed noteworthy poems, but he also wrote notable novels, plays, short stories, magazine articles, and other literary material. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement where so many African-American arts flourished, and so many people were inspired by it. The Harlem Renaissance took place in the late 1920’s, and early 30’s, and during this time period, some people were encouraged by Hughes’ literature because some of it reflected his outlook on the world.

For instance, during the depression, his work mirrored his socialist attitude. During World War II, some of his literature was patriotic in its tone. He also explored segregation, the life of ordinary blacks, and black culture. It was not uncommon for some of his inspiration to come while sitting in jazz clubs listening to music because a good deal of his literary work was influenced by jazz.

In 1925, Hughes won a poetry contest with Opportunity magazine, which was a local magazine in the Harlem area. A year later, his first book “The Weary Blues” was published. Hughes then had a host of other publications in the late 20’s and early 30’s. Aside from Hughes’ publications, the Harlem Renaissance gave new life to the Harlem city because a variety of others writers wrote great pieces of literature.
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