John_Schwada's Blog

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, played a forceful role in protecting mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when regulators repeatedly raised red flags, saying that these two institutions, now disgraced and bailed-out, were in very deep trouble.

Unwitting enablers or co-conspirators? The record is chilling. It shows the feisty Waters and her congressional colleagues ignored repeated warnings that Fannie Mae was a potential train-wreck waiting to happen; that Fannie was loaded down with risky loans, was cooking its books to hide the gaping holes in its portfolio and that the engineers of this impending debacle, in particular Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, were raking in millions of dollars in bonuses based on Fannie's reckless policies.

Fannie and Freddie's overseers in the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) regulators ran into a buzzsaw of skepticism and denial when they testified (repeatedly testified) about their troubling findings regarding Fannie and Freddie before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee (Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises) on which Waters and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts (photo below, right), sat. Frank now is a leading voice in the bailout debate, Waters to a lesser extent.

Fannie and Freddie, the regulators were told by the testy Democrats, were not in crisis; in fact, the OFHEO folks were told by one Democratic lawmakers that they had wasted the subcommittee's time with their findings, that he was literally "pissed off" by OFHEO's work. Talk about shooting the messenger.

Take a look at this videotape now on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
WARNING: This video is highly partisan and heavily edited. But it does capture the flavor of the congressmembers reacting to a Bush administration proposal to alter and supposedly improve, the oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after an audit discovered some major irregularities.

In 2006 OFHEO produced an exhaustive 390-page examination of Fannie Mae's activities - that goes along way toward explaining that agency's meltdown and its role as an enabler of the housing bubble. http://www.ofheo.gov/media/pdf/FNMSPECIALEXAM.PDF

Here are some excerpts from the transcript of the Sept. 25, 2003 hearing of that subcommittee.

U.S. REP. BARNEY FRANK (D-MASSACHUSETTS):
".... I think it is clear that Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac are sufficiently secure so they are in no great
danger. And I was glad to have Secretary Snow say when he
testified that this is not something we are doing in response
to a crisis. For once, Congress is getting out ahead of a
problem.....In this case, we are taking some anticipatory steps....

"I don't think we face a crisis; I don't think that we have
an impending disaster. We have a chance to improve regulation
of two entities that I think are on the whole working well.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do very good work, and they are
not endangering the fiscal health of this country."

U.S. REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D-NEW YORK):
"And since I have to go to another hearing, I will try to be just real quick.
As well as the fact that I am just pissed off at OFHEO because if it wasn't for
you I don't think that we would be here in the first place.

"And Freddie Mac, who on its own, you know, came out front
and indicated it is wrong, and now the problem that we have and
that we are faced with is maybe some individuals who wanted to
do away with GSEs in the first place, you have given them an
excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it
and maybe change the direction and the mission of what the GSEs
had, which they have done a tremendous job."

******SCHWADA Note: Meeks' view is that the best defense is a good offense.
But the oversight agency head, Armando Falcon, Jr., fires back:

ARMANDO FALCON, JR., OFHEO DIRECTOR:
"Congressman, OFHEO did not improperly apply
accounting rules; Freddie Mac did. OFHEO did not try to manage
earnings improperly; Freddie Mac did. So this isn't about the
agency's engagement in improper conduct, it is about Freddie
Mac. Let me just correct the record on that."

******SCHWADA Note: And then there's Waters, also defending the GSE's
(Government Sponsored Enterprises, i.e. Fannie and Freddie), opposing any new
regulatory scheme that might interfere with Fannie and Freddie's
missions and - with haunting irony - praising Fannie and Freddie's
"innovative" loan practices - including backing "100 percent loans."

U.S. REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CALIFORNIA):
"Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and
in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of
Mr. Frank Raines. Everything in the 1992 act has worked just fine.
In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals.

"What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and
this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their [Fannie and Freddie's]
affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation
flourish from desktop underwriting to 100 percent loans."

this is the url that gets you to the full transcript of Sept. 25, 2003 hearing:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbn
ame=108_house_hearings&docid=f:92628.wais

Did Republicans kill the bail-out – as early news reports have suggested?

Here are the numbers behind the sound-bites, the finger-pointing: Republican members of congress supplied 58.3 percent of all the votes to kill the plan (133 out of 228 no votes) while Democrats provided 41.6 percent of the plan-killing votes (95 out of 228 no votes). In fact, it was a bi-partisan finger on the trigger.

Even those Democrats who voted for the plan did so while holding their noses.

Let’s hear what U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, said when it was his turn to address congress on the so-called Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, H.R. 3997.

“Mr. Chairman, I rise today in reluctant support of H.R. 3997,” Waxman said. “This is a Republican bill which must pass with bipartisan votes. Many Democrats don’t like it. Many Republicans are choking on it. But for now, it would be irresponsible to do nothing and I will vote for this bill….what we are voting on is the Bush bailout plan.”

“I would have preferred that we take a different approach. Nobel Prize economists have recommended alternative approaches….But the Bush Administration has been adamant that Congress adopt its approach. They have steadfastly resisted considering other options to protect the taxpayer.”

But then Waxman also praised fellow Democrat, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Boston, for improving the plan with amendments – without mentioning what they were.

If the bailout later failed to pull the economy out of its doldrums, Waxman could say he only voted for it because it was forced down his throat by a stubborn Bush administration while better options were ignored.

On the other hand, if the bailout (providing, of course, that it was approved) did succeed in re-booting the economy, Waxman could say he voted for it and that fellow Democrat Frank made the entire plan workable.

In other words, Waxman had hedged his bets so he was blameless if the bailout failed, victorious if it succeeded.

Real moral victories are hard to find anywhere in this rubble however.

Just look at this perverse element of the proposed (and now failed) bailout: I'm talking about a provision under which the government would have the option of limiting the pay of future executives (of faltering financial institutions that participate in the bailout) who might actually do the hard work of turning around their companies. But the government would not - could not - reduce or eliminate the compensation agreements (aka "golden parachutes") for those past or existing executives who steered their companies into the reckless lending and investment decisions now tearing our economy apart.

In other words, we'd limit the pay incentives for good guys but let the bad guys who created the mess keep their ill-gotten gains? You gotta love it. When are the bad guys ever going to pay...

One last thought: if John McCain's debate performance last Friday wasn't enough to sink his candidacy, today's House vote - as it is initially being widely portrayed in the media - should deliver the final coup de grace. That message: dear voters, Republicans killed the bailout, crushed your 401(K) investment program , all because GOP lawmakers were outraged that House speaker Nancy Pelosi, as the vote was about to be taken, attacked the Bush administration, blaming its "right-wing ideology" for the economic mess. But how does that explain all the Democrats voting against the bailout?

Here's another example: the New York Times lead editorial last Sunday blamed the Bush administration's hostility to regulation for our mess, citing three votes in congress that stripped away regulatory protections. Those votes, the Times editorialized, were in 1995, 1999 and 2000. Excuse me for bringing up an inconvenient truth: George Bush did not take office until January, 2001. Now that does not mean we should let Bush off the hook for failing to stem the tide of bad loans being made in the name of expanding homeownership to everyone in sight. But it does leave us wondering where Bill Clinton - our nation's president from Jan. 1993 to Jan. 2001 - was when those three votes were taken....granted Republicans held majorities in congress during those years but what were the vote breakdowns, Republican/Democrat, on those measures?

In other words, beware of easy, politically-driven explanations for what's going on. There's plenty of blame to go around.

After tonight’s debate I can say without fear of contradiction that while both of our presidential nominees oppose waterboarding they don’t practice what they preach. Tonight was torture. In fact, the Geneva Conventions ought to be amended to explicitly ban re-broadcasting that debate as a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

Don’t be surprised if some enterprising personal injury attorney starts advertising for clients among debate-viewers. “Were you the victim of the Sept. 26 presidential debate? After watching it have you suffered from a deepening despair about our country’s future? Do you have troubling doubts about the leadership choices? Do you want a re-do on the entire primary season? You may be suffering from post-debate syndrome. If so, call 1 800-NoVotes for a free legal consultation.”

The only thing that kept me watching tonight’s listless matchup was the prospect that someone would call 911 and a paramedic crew would rush onto the stage and seek to revive McCain and Obama with electro-shock therapy.

Uninspired. McCain droning on about ancient history. Vietnam. D-Day. Dwight Eisenhower. Obama sounding like an earnest undergrad.

McCain arrogant, refusing to look at Obama. Obama doing his me-too routine.

Both men treated the big issue of the day – the proposed bail-out plan – like teenage boys who’ve been forced to dance with their great aunt at a church social. They were polite, flat-footed and dispassionate.

Did anyone come away at the end of the economy segment of the debate with any new information about the bail-out? What an anti-climax.

Why couldn’t they just say: "Look, the American public is skeptical about this bail-out, and I share their concerns. The same folks who failed to forestall this debacle – may have even contributed to it – are now saying they’ve got a $700 billion solution. I’m a U.S. Senator, I’m not going to just rubber-stamp the Bush-Paulson-Bernacke plan – which is also being embraced by leading congressional Democrats. I want to take a closer look at this monster and compare to other possible solutions. Isn’t it possible that there’s more than one way to skin this cat? And don’t tell me that if we don’t act now the sky will fall down. It didn’t. Friday, the stock market went up.”

Did we hear any signs of independent, enterprising, outside-the-box thinking from these guys? No way. It was all gutless generalities and platitudes.

In a previous blog, I explored the role of Franklin Raines in the Fannie Mae debacle and his ties to Barack Obama.

Now comes the New York Times, breathing heavily down the neck of John McCain, reporting on his messy ties to Fannie Mae, the giant financial institution that played a key role in creating the giant housing bubble that has hit our economy with the same devastating effect as a suicide bomber in a peaceful market in Iraq.

Rick Davis, the GOP presidential nominee’s campaign manager, was president of a non-profit outfit called the Homeownership Alliance created by the real estate/housing industry and bankrolled, perhaps almost entirely, by Fannie Mae and its little brother, Freddie Mac.

The purpose of the Alliance, if you want to be charitable, was to be a cheerleader for the joys of homeownership and to support efforts to make sure that joy was available to as many as possible.

Churlish skeptics, however, say the Alliance – now apparently disbanded – was a lobbying tool to protect Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from scrutiny and regulatory controls as it embarked, during the regime of its CEO Franklin Raines, on a bold program of trying to double its earnings per share in part by jumping into that then-electrifying (just how electrifying it would take years to know) subprime market.

In fact, Davis’ consulting/lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, received about $2 million from the Alliance over five years.

And – here’s the new part - the Times reported Wednesday morning that it had two sources who claimed the firm, Davis Manafort (not Davis personally), had been paid $15,000 per month from late 2005 until this last August. Now that latter claim appeared to contradict McCain’s recent claim that Davis (who has remained throughout an owner of Davis Manafort) had had no dealings with Fannie Mae for several years.

The Davis-Fannie Mae issue is a blow tof McCain’s claim to be the scourge in the temple of Washington, D.C. influence-peddling class. Of course, not to rehash too much: Obama’s ties to two former CEO’s at Fannie Mae, including the aforementioned Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, Raines predecessor, also do little to comfort our troubled souls.

Additionally, the McCain campaigned has pointed out Obama has accepted more than $126,000 in campaign contributions from employees of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since 2004, while McCain himself has taken only $22,000 since 1998 (this according to the Center for Responsive Politics). On this latter point though, the moral algebra may not help McCain. "I would view [Obama’s]donors as one step removed from someone who is a key advisor [Davis] in the campaign," Sheila Krumholz executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, told the Los Angeles Times. "But there's mud flung on both doorsteps. The candidates are judged by the company they keep."

McCain, of course, is slipping in the polls as the Palin boomlet subsides and as the economy – not Iraq or oil prices – moves to the front-burner on voters’ minds. McCain has seemed to struggle with the economy as an issue, looking at times flat-footed. Meantime, Obama has glided serenely through this mess, looking cool and placid, while really not saying very much about how he’d deal with the crisis.

The bail-out – excuse me, rescue plan – is unpopular with many voters. On the other hand, neither Obama nor McCain has shown any willingness to take the risk of appearing “unpatriotic” in this “national crisis” and strongly opposing the measure.

In a joint statement, the pair Wednesday called the plan “flawed” but also urged Democrats and Republicans to rise above politics and reach a bipartisan plan/solution.

So the pregnant question is: who would you want to have babysit your daughter….uhhh, I mean, oversee the rescue plan over the next few years? McCain or Obama?

Who has shown the independence of spirit that will be needed to overhaul the financial system, make sure the Treasury Department does not go on a sailor’s holiday and pay too much for the mortgage-backed securities it’ll be buying with billions of our tax dollars?

Who’ll satisfy the public’s blood-thirst and actually chase down and prosecute some of the highflying executives who ran some of these companies that engaged in predatory lending (to often greed or brainless borrowers), who passed on their mortgage-backed junk deals to others (who may or may not have been complicit) and cooked their books to hide the growing mess they had created while walking away with bonuses?

Who, indeed, will rise above our cankerous, slumping expectations?

Barack Obama gave a very strong speech last night. Here are the highlights and I invite your comments:

These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush. America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

 It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it. For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy - give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work. That's the promise of America - the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.

I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as President of the United States.

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

America, now is not the time for small plans. Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy.

And Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America's promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us to recover what John F. Kennedy called our "intellectual and moral strength." Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient. Yes, we must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programs alone can't replace parents; that government can't turn off the television and make a child do her homework; that fathers must take more responsibility for providing the love and guidance their children need. Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility - that's the essence of America's promise.

And just as we keep our keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must we keep America's promise abroad. If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.

That's not the judgment we need. That won't keep America safe. We need a President who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.

We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe.

These are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain. But what I will not do is suggest that the Senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism. The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain.

Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things. And you know what - it's worked before.

I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington. But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

(T)he change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time. America, this is one of those moments. I believe that as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming. Because I've seen it.

But what the people heard instead - people of every creed and color, from every walk of life - is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one. "We cannot walk alone," the preacher cried. "And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back." America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Bill Clinton last night praised Barack Obama for “hitting one out of the ballpark” when he picked Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate. But I heard several Democrats say they thought Biden’s subsequent Pepsi Center acceptance speech was flat, at times inauthentic sounding. “He sounded like a political hack,” one Democrat who closely watched the speech told me; this Democrat was bothered in particular by the laundry list of complaints about John McCain’s positions, followed by the rhetorical refrain:  “That’s not change, that’s more of the same.”

To me, Biden’s speech did sound conflicted (thus perhaps giving rise to that complaint that it sounded inauthentic). On the one hand, the Delaware senator was ripping McCain. On the other hand, he was calling McCain by his first name. “John thinks the economy is doing well…John wants to give tax breaks to corporations” etc. Biden and McCain have been long-time colleagues, in the Senate, a place that prides itself on its clubby-genteel house rules. Biden even admitted “John McCain is my friend.”  So, he probably is conflicted about pillorying one of his long-time Senate buddies. And when he called McCain by his first name, he sort of personalized the Republican in a way that took some of the edge off his attack – which I can’t imagine the Democrats want him to do. They want an attack-dog, off-the-leash….

The best part of Biden’s speech was the heartfelt introduction given by his son – and then Biden’s teary-eyed reaction to it. That seemed real – as did his personal recollections and embrace of his family.

But it’ll take more than Biden to provide the Democrats with the “bounce” in poll numbers that they hope to get out of the convention. So far, the Democratic ticket has not seen a bounce in its poll numbers - the virtually automatic 5-10 point jump that normally comes with a good convention and all the publicity it garners (part of that might be attributable to the very aggressive GOP campaign to spoil the Democratic party which I blogged about two days ago). In fact, a few polls (Rasmussen and Gallup) have shown McCain continuing to close the gap on Obama even during the Democrats’ convention. Not  a good sign....for Democrats.

Bottom-line, if anyone hit one out of the ballpark Wednesday night – speech-wise – it was Bill Clinton. Now his speech was, so far, the most masterful one of the convention…not only in purely technical speech-making terms but also possibly in terms of acting; after all, wasn’t it Bill who was supposedly the least reconciled to Hillary’s defeat at the hands of Obama?  Whether it was an act or not, Bill gave the convincingly generous speech that Hillary was supposed to have given the night before to heal the Obama-Clinton wounds.

I ran into Lt. Gov. John Garamendi Wednesday, at the Pepsi Center, making the rounds of the radio talk shows. His pitch was that his party is still in transition; that the Clinton-istas are in the painful mourning phase of their loss - not to worry, in time, they’ll be fully on board with Obama.

Maybe, maybe not. The real danger is NOT that the Clinton-istas would vote for McCain so much as they would not open their checkbooks to Obama, walk precincts or man phone banks for him.

If it's any solace to Democrats, it’s the same dilemma McCain faces with his own party’s hard-line conservative wing.

The GOP is not giving the Dems any breather; they’re raining everything they’ve got on the Democratic convention parade.

They’ve set up a “Not Ready in ‘08” office in Denver where they’re churning out press releases and attack ads – two of these now circulating are intended to capitalize on the media attention of Hillary Clinton’s speech tonight at the convention. While Hillary is trying spackle over the unity holes in the Democratic party, the GOP ads are trying to enlarge them, by reminding voters of Clinton’s scathing remarks about her rival Barack Obama during the primaries; at one point, you will recall, she said she had the experience to lead, John McCain had the experience to lead…but Obama wasn’t ready for the White House. Now those words are being resurrected by the GOP attack machine…

Also today here in Denver, a sudden flood of former GOP candidates for president. Probably not a coincidence. Mitt Romney will be here….be doing an event at the GOP headquarters in the Mile High City. Our question, if we get a chance to ask it, will be: Is your visit here and your remarks, Mr. Romney, meant to give us a foretaste of how you’ll be working as McCain’s running mate – or are you still trying out for that job, showing off your talent for playing the pit-bull/vice-presidential role in hopes of getting the nod?

Rudy Guiliani also in Denver today, supposedly looking at convention security issues….huh? Anyway, it would not be surprising if the former candidate, if prodded by churlish (my latest favorite word) reporters, took a few swipes at the Democrats.

This GOP attack campaign is not unprecedented. I remember Ann Lewis, Bill Clinton's campaign media boss, holding court in San Diego in 1996, during the GOP convention there, casting aspersions on the GOP for the benefit of any camera-crew or pencil (print reporter) within earshot.

But the GOP’s current relentless attack on Obama is unusual in its magnitude – no more 100 calorie-attack-snacks, this is a full-on, four-course meal they’re serving of irony, derision, humiliation – and, yes, shocking as it may seem – even naysaying.

In the past, it seems there’s been a kind of unspoken gentleman’s agreement that during the other guy’s convention you don’t fall asleep and turn the other cheek (after all the “other guy” is probably going to be wailing on you in prime-time at his convention) but you ease off a bit – you certainly didn’t go balls-out to flatten the tires of his bandwagon, call down hailstorms on his parade, try to knock the tent-poles out from under his circus big-top….(did I miss any corny metaphors???).

Of course, we can expect the Dems at next week’s GOP convention to return the favor.

It is supposed to be a masterful stroke of political theatre – holding Barack Obama’s Thursday night acceptance speech, aka The Big Speech, at Invesco Stadium here in Denver. 

The Obama team calculated that an Invesco Stadium speech – before a live crowd of some 70,000 - would showcase Obama’s crowd-appeal and make the speech more of a democratic (small “d”) affair, accessible to the average Obama well-wisher. The Pepsi Center, it was calculated, where the bulk of the convention’s business will be conducted, would be too small to permit such a large political and theatrical performance.

But this plan is partly a gamble. Already we’ve heard rival John McCain grousing that the Invesco Stadium event once again reinforces the fact (their view) that Obama is more about sizzle than substance.

But the bigger gamble may involve Mother Nature. She could have a big say-so in the success of an outdoor event in this city. And Invesco Stadium is an outdoor venue.

 We got a taste last night of weather’s possible role when the Denver metropolitan area was hit by a tornado. Outside the Pepsi Center, in our flimsy trailer workspace, we were buffeted by intemperate winds and saw vast, threatening cloud-scapes looming over this city. At times, it looked cataclysmic; something out of the Old Testament. It reminded us that there really is unpredictable, inclement weather in some parts of the U.S.

In other words, if it rains cats and dogs Thursday night, the Big Speech could become the Big Meltdown.

Only one other candidate in recent memory risked an outdoor venue for their acceptance speech. That was John F. Kennedy, who gave his 1960 acceptance speech, after some agonizing, at the Colesium, in Los Angeles, the host city for that year’s Democratic Party convention.

Roz Wyman, then a whippersnapper, now a veteran Democratic Party heavyweight, recently told the National Journal about the Colesium speech decision. It was, she reminded the reporter, her big idea. Bobby Kennedy, JFK’s brother and tireless political guard-dog, was not sold on it. He saw pitfalls, the biggest being the possibility that his brother couldn’t fill the stadium with supporters (weather not a problem in Los Angeles). He foresaw headlines the next day, like, “JFK Speaks to Empty Seats!!!” In other words, a political disaster; Bobby warned Wyman that if the party ran with her idea and it failed she could expect to be a political has-been in her twenties.

With her career on the line, Wyman rounded up every Democrat she could lay her hands on, busloads of them. It worked. Some say the stadium was still only half full on the big night but the fact is that it was full enough to keep the attendance issue from eclipsing JFK’s Big Speech.

Will Mother Nature be as kind to Obama, Thursday night? Can wild weather keep the Obama-ites at home? Can Obama throw the elocutionary long-bomb in the rain? We may find out.

Saturday, 12:30 pm: After only a few minutes on board Southwest flight 178, LAX to Denver, I’m wondering if the airplane is equipped with oxygen masks that drop down when the political hot-air hits a certain level in the cabin. Every fourth passenger is wearing a Barack Obama t-shirt or pin…or gripping a copy of Obama’s book, “Audacity of Hope” (maybe in retrospect an unfortunate name for the book because it was the title of the first serrmon Obama heard preached by the Rev. Wright; the same Rev. Wright whose wild rhetoric of liberation theology would later prove to be a big embarrassment for the candidate). 

But I digress. The Southwest stewardess quickly picks up on the politically-charged atmosphere and announces on the PA system that all political palaver between passengers had to stop long enough so she could deliver her (riveting) pre-flight instructions. Being a Democratic crowd, the obedience level is pretty nil.

In seat 7D is the political star of this flight - Councilman Bernard Parks, an at-large Obama delegate to the Democratic Convention, who seemed (along with everyone else lined up at Gate 7 at the Southwest terminal) to be very oblivious to Senator Joe Biden’s maiden speech as Barack Obama’s running mate; Biden’s remarks were being carried live on the TV at Margarita’s bar, adjacent to the Southwest boarding area.

Parks can probably be excused for ignoring Biden’s remarks: after all he’s got big political worries of his own; he’s now engaged in a tough fight with Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas perhaps THE plum job for LA’s African-American politicos, the LA County Board of Supervisors seat being vacated by Yvonne Burke. While waiting in line for boarding, Parks spars gently with another passenger, labor leader Yvonne Wheeler; labor is gung-ho for Park’s rival, Ridley-Thomas.

As I pass Parks on the way to my seat (21D), I tell him – as part of my never-ending churlishness - that Ridley-Thomas is actually hiding in my carry-on bag. “Keep him there, will you,” Parks laughs. This retort is helluva lot better than anything I heard Parks say at his news conference Friday where he implied union campaign contributions to Ridley-Thomas were improper. Make a note of that: the guy is not as wooden as I thought.

Taking my seat, I look around and there’s Kitty Felde, long-time KPCC reporter/commentator. Kitty introduces me to her husband, Tad Daley, who tells me he tried, unsuccessfully, to get elected as an Obama convention delegate from U.S. Rep. Diane Watson’s district. “ I was one of 84 candidates running,” Daley says. “And that’s the guy who beat me,” Daley adds, pointing to Robert Cole, who's  squeezing down the aisle. “Yeah, he out-organized me," Daley says with a shrug.

Saturday, 3:30 pm: Daley and a knot of other passengers are now huddling around Parks’ seat, schmoozing. Politics. In mid-air. At 35,000 feet. Turns out, Daley does NOT reveal to Parks that he’s actually a volunteer in Ridley-Thomas’ campaign. Hmmm.

Daley also encourages me to swing by Progressive Central, a four-day symposium of left-leaning Democrats, meeting at a Denver church, who are trying to  encourage Obama to tilt more left-ward; Daley’s shtick is that Obama sounds too much like President Bush on Iran’s nuclear program. In other words, too hard-line. Not that Daley wants Iran to have nuclear weapons, mind you. He just believes it’s “unsustainable” hypocrisy for the U.S. to have nukes and yet deny them to the rest of the world. Best of all worlds? No nukes, Daley tells me. World-wide nuclear disarmament.

Saturday, 4:50 pm: On the train ride (yes, train ride) from the Southwest gate to baggage claim, I meet Tony Pierce, a Simi Valley Obama enthusiast (t-shirt). Pierce is seriously on the prowl for tickets to Obama’s Invesco Stadium acceptance speech Thursday night…Pierce’s story is that he was the runner-up in a fierce battle to get elected as the Obama delegate from his neighborhood. Sorry to say, this friendly guy with a great smile, lost. “The insiders won the election, but I’m here anyway.” That’s the spirit. Pierce also wants to "go green" while he's at the convention, maybe rent a bike to get around Denver. That's refreshing: a political two-wheeler-dealer.

Getting geared up for the convention....Saturday producer Bob "Sleeping Volcano" Tarlau (more about the nickname later), photog Darrell Kim and I fly into Denver, for the Democratic confab, arriving at 4 in the afternoon after wrestling with large quantities of gear.

My brain? I’m leaving it behind. Unnecessary baggage. You don’t need a brain to cover a convention, you just follow the hordes of reporters clamoring for the latest, newest, weirdest. Rule number 1, don’t fall down in a crowd of stampeding reporters and cameramen. Mostly what you need to cover a convention is stamina, plenty of coffee, a working internet connection, five hours of sleep and a sense of humor that will carry you through the darkest moments of exhaustion, frustration and tedium. Forget about God helping you out. He’s not at any of these conventions, Democrat or Republican. He’s got better things to do - like watching the latest Woody Allen movie.

Of course, we’re looking forward to our convention adventure. Nothing can be better than having to go through a half-dozen security checks per hour, losing one’s cellphone in the clutter of electronic equipment on a desk built for kindergarten students...sweating through several shirts in one day, getting electronic feedback from your IFB connection during a live-shot (that feedback is the maddening sound of your own voice echoing in your ear, after about a 1/5th of a second delay)...

Better yet!!! How about watching the miracle of birth and evolution. Yes, it's true. I have witnessed - amid the pre-creation Chaos of a reporter’s convention workspace - small slimy things crawl out of swampy cups of coffee and plates of half-eaten pasta, sprout air-breathing lungs and walk on four legs upon floors littered with old newspapers...Did they evolve into delegates, lobbyists – reporters? Who knows.

But don’t get me wrong - nothing beats covering a news conference where the sitting president’s aides have to respond to reports that a top adviser is separating from the campaign because he’s been caught consorting with a prostitute (Dems, Chicago, 1996). Hmmmm....maybe we’ll pass on that example. Forget it.

Or how about hanging out at a secret training camp in Malibu where militant convention protesters were practicing their hell-raising tactics (Dems, Los Angeles, 2000), including  rappelling down the sides of buildings to hang illegal banners, while inhaling sizeable quantities of ganja? Watching a guy in a Che Guevera t-shirt try to climb a rope on dope is memorable.

Or getting my hair singed because I was too close when Al and Tipper Gore, as millions watched, locked lips in that famous, staged kiss that was a prelude to the nominee’s "class warfare" acceptance speech (Dems, Los Angeles, 2000). Hot romance and hot rhetoric – all on one stage!!

Or what about the entire Democratic political establishment, including Bill and Hillary, doing the macarena amid a cloud of balloons (does anyone remember how to do the macarena?) as the closing act of a convention (Dems, Chicago, 1996). Little did we know at the time that this hip-grinding frivolity would be a last hurrah of fun for Bill Clinton who was about to face several years of painful exposes.

Or what about being cursed for being part of the Fox news family while covering a huge parade of leftists, anti-war protesters, labor unionists and members of CodePink (GOP, New York, 2004). Burning question: will Medea "Ms. CodePink" Benjamin be arrested somewhere, somehow at the Dems convention in Denver?

Or how about the entertaining "shadow convention" where organizer Arianna Huffington presided, as the queen of parody, with help from Al "Minnesota Funnybone" Franken (GOP, Philadelphia, 2000)? Asked whether the founding fathers would’ve recognized the GOP convention as a good sign of our nation’s political health, Huffington told me: "(Thomas) Jefferson - he wouldn't have set foot at the other convention. He said we needed a rebellion every twenty years, right?"

Just to wrap up: Bob Tarlau, producer-extraordinaire, has earned the nickname "Sleeping Volcano" for his antics during the 2008 New Hampshire primary. Bob is a man of exceptional good manners and even-tempered....but during the hectic days of the primary, Bob’s personal printer began doing strange and unpredictable things. Suddenly, after a half-hour or so of fussing with the monster, Bob finally stood up, screamed a few expletives, snatched the printer by the short-hair and slam-dunked it into a garbage bin.

This convention Darrell "Photog" Kim and I will be keeping a foul-weather eye on Bob. If he starts to bubble at the mouth, spouting lava and curses, we’ll try to appease him with platters of virgin cold-cuts from the Fox News commissary. More congealed mayo, Bob?

Barack Obama admits one of his (many) talents is that people find in him what they want to see....and local elected officials have been looking at Obama and seeing...a Sugar Daddy!

By their lights, Obama is the key to a slew of ballot-measures here in the Southland that would, if passed by voters in November, increase taxes and government revenues. Local government leaders have been figuring Obama will produce a big turnout of Democrats – and drastically improve the chances for passage of their tax-and-spend ballot measures…

One of my talented curmudgeonly friends – who has made a livelihood out of eating from the public trough - sat down recently to enlighten me about the scuttlebutt inside the inner sanctums of the Four-Level (LA’s version of Washington, D.C.’s Beltway).

“The local electeds (I can’t help it if he talks this way!!!) have been positively giddy about the political picture with Obama on the ballot,” he told me. “They figure he’ll create a Democratic tidal wave that will lift all their ballot measures into the victory circle.”

Here’s the ballot measure landscape, as described to me by this jaded friend of mine:

• MTA’s ½ cent sales tax, meant to raise $40 billion over 30 years for mass transit improvements. “Expect most of this money (if passed) to go for giant rail projects that will make all the MTA elected officials’ construction and development pals and contributors richer than Midas. Forget about any significant cash going to bus improvements. Buses are so yesterday –  only poor people ride them.”

• LA city’s anti-gang, parcel tax that’s supposed to raise $30 million per year – ad infinitum. This tax plan is the brainchild of Councilwoman Janice Hahn and will be a full-employment act for rehabilitated gang members looking for a less lethal gig as gang counselors. My jaundiced friend says: “If this passes, our chances of ending the gang plague will be a lot greater than our chances of ever getting rid of this tax. Our kids will be paying this tax even after the Second Coming.”

• The LA Unified School District also is trying to capitalize on the perceived Obama gravy train. The district recently agreed to put a $7 billion bond measure on the ballot. “I had hope for a while that a school district that cannot teach our kids how to read, write or do math would dither so long over what to do that it would miss the deadline for placing a measure on the ballot.,” my friend told me. “But alas! I forgot to figure that once the school board members saw the money their greed would propel them to act – not procrastinate, debate endlessly and fall into a swamp of indecision., their default mode.”

• Last, but not least, the LA community college is shooting for a $3.5 billion bond measure to build new facilities. “Didn’t they approve another bond measure a few years back – and can anyone show me anything they’ve built with that money,” my friend asked.

Wow. There was a lot of negative energy flowing out of this conversation with my, er, friend (?), a kind of reverse-Nirvana thing going on. I really wanted to distance myself from that kind of karma so I gave him some phony excuse about having to get back to work to finish a story and excused myself.

I hadn’t heard from my friend for about three weeks when the phone rang today. It was my misogynist, cynical friend on the line. “Hey!” he shouted, sounding very upbeat. “Did you hear?!”

I immediately wondered what catastrophe must have gone down to warrant his passion – maybe an entire government bureaucracy had collectively committed hari-kari, in public, on Channel 35. What? I asked. What happened?

“Schwarzenegger has screwed them up!! He’s looking at a 1 cent sales tax increase. It’s too much…if that goes on the ballot, the whole house of cards will collapse. There’s likely to be a voter revolt, not an Obama bounce, facing the MTA, City Hall and the boards of education! All their best-laid plans will be at risk! Fantastic!”

But why so happy? I asked.

“Because,” my friend chuckled, “all these government agencies will now be running scared, and they’ll have all their little elected officials running all over the place raising money to pay for hugely expensive campaigns - TV ads, flyers, you name it - to get voters to support their tax and bond measures! It’ll be great. For me.”

For you? “Yeah, I’ll be taking a leave of absence from (his government job) to run one of these campaigns – at twice the salary I’m making here pushing paper in this bureaucracy.”

In other words, you don’t care if the measures pass or fail just that they create big budget campaigns that hire guys like you to run them? “You got that right, dude!”

It slipped by all the media (except Fox 11 News) that the LA County Board of Supervisors quietly signaled on Monday that it would sharply beef up its little-known jailhouse immigration watchdog program that identifies inmates who are illegally in the U.S. and hands them over to federal agents for deportation.

The move was pushed by Mike Antonovich - who, in keeping with the board's unwritten rule to govern in starchy and sublime obscurity (if not secrecy), refused to comment on the matter before it was formally approved by the board on Tuesday (what is it with these guys?). We ran a story Monday night on the proposal anyway...here's the link to the video.

The measure is intended to increase from 8 to 13 the number of "custody assistants" (CA's) in the Sheriff's Dept. who are trained and deputized by U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) to conduct immigration investigations of inmates.

The Sheriff's Dept. tells us about 54.5 percent of the inmates investigated by its CA's are found to be in the U.S. illegally.

Still, it appears that many, many illegals will slip by the Sheriff's Dept. immigration watchdogs whether there are 8 or 13 of them - because these watchdogs are kept on a short leash.

Under a Board of Supervisors policy the sheriff's CA's are only allowed to investigate the immigration status of inmates who admit they are "foreign-born."

Perhaps this helps explains the controversial case of Pedro Espinosa, the illegal alien 18th St. gang member charged with killing high school football star Jamiel Shaw one day after Espinoza was released from county jail after serving time for his conviction on an assault-related charge out of Culver City. According to ICE, Espinosa claimed - after being arrested for the Shaw murder - that he was a U.S. citizen; it is presumed that in Espinosa's several previous brushes with the law, he also claimed he was a U.S. citizen.

In other words, the Board of Supervisors MAY have been responsible for the fact that the 19-year-old Espinoza was able to avoid detection, for so long, as an illegal alien even though he was almost continuously in jail or in county juvenile detention facilities from age 14....All Espinoza had to do to avoid any scrutiny by the county's jailhouse immigration watchdogs was lie and say he was born in the U.S.

The parents of Jamiel Shaw and others believe Shaw would be alive today if the authorities had done their job by identifying Espinosa as an illegal alien and deporting him. These folks are now focused on overturning limits on the LAPD's cooperation with ICE, imposed under the LAPD's Special Order 40.

Perhaps these critics should also be looking at the Board of Supervisors.

So, how come Espinosa - after being busted for the Shaw killing and claiming he was a U.S. citizen - was finally discovered to be in the U.S. illegally?

Because ICE agents are also embedded, sort of, in the LA county jail system - and there are no restrictions (that we know of) on which inmates they can screen, interview and investigate about their immigration status. In other words, just claiming you're a U.S. citizen does not give you a free pass with ICE....

In fact, it was ICE agents who identified Espinosa as an illegal alien. And here's my suspicion: that ICE screened Espinoza because he had been busted for the highly-publicized Shaw murder. (Likewise, it was ICE agents who last week identified Enedina Cardona-Rodriguez as an illegal alien only days after her highly-publicized arrest; the Long Beach mother of eight, who was on welfare, was arrested for dealing drugs out of her car while some of her kids were in the backseat).

But ICE is not always available to plug the gaps in the county's CA coverage.

ICE's presence in LA county jails is spotty. Sheriff' department officials say sometimes ICE has an agent or two conducting screenings - and sometimes it doesn't have any. ICE refuses to say what its staffing situation at LA County jail. "We do not talk about our allocation of agents," Virginia Kice of ICE public affairs told me.

Another loophole: the Board of Supervisors also prohibits its jailhouse immigration watchdogs from interviewing anyone until they have been convicted (again, ICE is not restricted in this regard).

In other words, if you're not found guilty of the crime for which you were arrested (murder, robbery, burglary etc.) or the charges are dropped by the District Attorney, then the LA County Board of Supervisors does NOT believe you should be questioned about your immigration status. Period.

Finally, even with the aforementioned restrictions on the CA's program, there's one more handicap: manpower.

According to the Sheriff department its current contingent of CA's only gets around to interviewing about 30 percent of the eligible inmates (those who are convicted and have identified themselves as foreign-born)....So adding 5 more CA's may reach about 50 percent of the eligible inmates (To put numbers on some of this: between Jan. 30, 2006 and Sept. 28, 2007, the county's CA's interviewed 14,880 inmates and began deportation proceedings against 8,114 of these - or 54.5 percent).

With LA county's jailhouse immigration watchdogs finding that more than 1/2 of the inmates they interview are in the U.S. illegally, it makes you wonder what more could be done if the Board of Supervisors took the gloves off this program.....

There's plenty of food for debate on this issue. For example, some would find it morally offensive if the county were to interview self-described foreign born inmates before they were convicted of a crime. "You talk funny and were born overseas? Let's see your papers buddy." Sound like racial profiling? Or bullying people who are presumed innocent until proven otherwise. (After someone is convicted of a separate crime the obnoxiousness of such an approach probably diminishes in many people's minds). What about a requirement that everyone convicted of a crime be interviewed about their immigration status - no matter where they say they were born? There are lots of permutations on this theme, and maybe it's time to air out this issue. In a public debate.

Jamiel Shaw. Those are fighting words these days. In Los Angeles, for sure.

In fact, I continue to get e-mails at my office address, schwada@fox11.com, from folks who believe, fervently believe, young Shaw - a star high school footballer killed outside his house, allegedly by a self-avowed member of 18th St gang - was no angel. That he was, in fact, a gangbanger.

Apparently some believe if Shaw's bona fides as an innocent victim are besmirched it will take the steam out of the Shaw family's high-profile campaign against illegal alien gangmembers.

The Shaw's crusade has been fueled by their belief that their son would be alive today if the authorities had done their job and deported his alleged shooter, 19-year-old Pedro Espinoza, who is an illegal alien.

The Shaw's have called on the LAPD to amend Special Order 40, the controversial measure that bars the LAPD from enforcing federal immigration laws. (Their efforts have gotten a lot of play on conservative talk-radio shows but gained little traction elsewhere, including the LA City Council, where they appear to be getting some support - perhaps only lip-service? - from Councilman Dennis Zine. This at a time when the New York Times reports on a trend of police agencies and local governments, in other parts of the U.S., hammering away at the illegal alien situation).

Authorities say not only is Espinoza in the U.S. illegally but also that he is a self-avowed member of the 18th Street gang. Records show Espinoza was in and out of youth authority detention facilities and county jail for several years prior to Shaw's murder. In fact, Espinoza had just been released from county jail 28 hours prior to Shaw's murder after serving time for an assault-related incident in a Culver City park.

So, does it detract from the Shaw's crusade against Special Order 40, against illegal alien gang members, if their son were himself a gangmember?

No question much of the outpouring of sympathy for the Shaw's upon their son's murder was based on the belief young Shaw was an upstanding kid, with a future.

But even if we granted Shaw was actually a below-the-radar gangmember (the LAPD has never said they had any record of him being a gangster) would it really diminish the Shaw's argument that if the authorities had done their job, their son would be alive today, that on March 2, Espinoza would have been in a deportation tank awaiting a trip back to Mexico, instead of gunning down Shaw less than 100 steps from his home?

Frankly, my view is that from a subjective standpoint, it probably does diminish Shaw's attractiveness as a "martyr" in the anti-illegal immigrant cause if he were a gangbanger.

On the other hand, logically, it makes no difference. The facts still remain: that Espinoza - if we are to believe the authorities - was here illegally, had been in and out of lockups for years and probably should have been collared by immigration authorities and deported as soon as he walked out of county jail on March 1.

We are still waiting to hear from LAPD chief Wm. Bratton about his promised report to clarify Special Order 40. It is a political hot-potato.

Here is the link to the website that argues Shaw was a gangbanger. It includes a photo that purports to show Shaw with a red bandana across his face, flashing a gang sign. Alex Alonso, a well-known local gang expert and a man who I have several times relied on to add his valuable insights to my own stories about gangs, is the source of much of the "debate" about Shaw's gang ties.

Click here to read the New York Times article I referenced about the local fight against illegal immigration that ran earlier this week.

Click here to read my first blog posting on the Shaw murder.

Click here to read my second blog posting on the Shaw murder.

Does Barack Obama really want someone as his running mate who has fantasized about his assasination? Would you trust Hillary Clinton with your back after that?

All kidding aside, Hillary's remark, recalling the assasination of RFK, should not be held against her. But what she's doing now should be.

When she signaled Tuesday that was offering herself up as Obama's v-p, she crossed into a new realm of witchery......that finally puts her on the same footing as the conniving, power-hungry (and yes, murderous) Lady MacBeth.

What's Obama to do, now that she's thrown her hat, even tentatively, into the ring as his running mate?

Obama's got to hope, pray, that she somehow withdraws her offer. If she doesn't, then the nominee has got a very sticky situation on his hands. If he doesn't pick her, if he passes her over, she's a woman doubly scorned (once by voters, once by Obama). Can you imagine the blow-back on that one?

And if Obama does pick her? Dream ticket or nightmare ticket?

Some believe Obama, as the candidate of hope, of change, cannot let the tires on his bandwagon be flattened by bringing on board Hillary Clinton, with all her weighty history, and her husband with all his (arguably enough to bust the suspension on the best bandwagon). Asked about such a matchup, Gov. Bill Richardson told me Tuesday that he had some strong doubts about it's workability given the sometimes rancorous relations between the two camps during the primaries...

Those trying to nix a Clinton vice-presidential bid were probably gleeful about - if not responsible for - the lengthy report in ultra-liberal Vanity Fair by former Bill Clinton White House press secretary DeeDee Myers' husband, Todd Purdum, about Bill Clinton's health and rumors of more sex-capades by the Great Unzippered One. This journalistic piece surely was an attempt to sink any thoughts of an Obama-Hillary ticket.

Having Clinton on board would also mark Obama as a sign of weakness...Clinton would look like she's virtually barged onto the ticket, and that he wasn't man enough to say no. Is this the kind of guy we want negotiating with the tough guys around the world, if he can't say no to Hillary?

So, this is a no-win situation unless....unless Hillary retracts her interest in being #2 on the ticket.

It would seem Obama's self-described knack for being able to negotiate with hostile, obnoxious characters/nations will really be tested at this moment....can he get Hillary to stand down, disarm, pull back?

If he can't do that, how can we expect him to fare any better with Iran's Ahmadinejad, Russia's Putin or Hugo Chavez?

I received the attached blog-posting and instantly recognized its merit.
And now I am privileged to share this rare diamond in the rough with you,
my readers, in its entirety, unedited, unexpurgated (I’ve been infatuated with
that word ever since I first saw it on the cover of Lady Chatterly’s
Lover – the unexpurgated edition….). Okay, it’s not my cup of tea. The
ideas herein. But sometimes it’s okay to turn my blog-space over to someone
else – after all, I don’t get paid extra to crank out this blog so it’s
kind of like getting a vacation - having a guest-blogger do the heavy-lifting.

So today, here at the John Schwada Blog-Salon, we’re blessed to have as our inaugural
guest-contributor the bold, the original…..

Okay, okay, okay…. so he’s really a half-wit with herpes – and
wrote his posting while sitting in 15 inches of lukewarm bath
water, surrounded by the flotsam of burnt-toast crumbs, coffee cups,
cigarette butts, Diet coke cans and yellow ducks – all of it
drifting aimlessly around in his little sudsy sea of despair. A pretty
picture, indeed. But I digress and I need to turn over the stage to our
guest blogger (please, please!!! be tolerant of his
idiosyncrasies, facial tics and nasty temper...after all some of our greatest
authors/bloggers have been covered with warts...)

But before you’re sucked into our guest's alternative universe,
let me warn you that his political views are hybrid, shaped by
Ezra Pound, Squeaky Fromm and Olaf the Swedish
Conscientious Objector.

But please excuse me - I’ve got to stop this self-centered babbling and let our
guest-writer do his thing. So, without further introduction, I give you
our distinguished person-manque…the wonderfully self-absorbed,
incredibly illiterate, Joe ----- whose blog, I might add, was actually
inscribed on a Nabisco wheat thin, written in Cyrillic with a fine-point
Scripto pen (did I tell you about his Russian ancestry?). This little
bit of edible bloggery has been re-typed – at my expense (it really is a
small matter to be a midwife to such an astonishing bit of insightful
bloviation) - into standard blog format and is now available for your
consideration….

But …but not to delay the moment of truth (as a former bull-fighter, our
guest writer, earned a brief living in Tijuana wrestling with bull) or
prolong your ecstatic anticipation of the EVENT for much longer, I would
like to offer up a sidebar tale about our
guest-speaker-author-sufferer’s exotic story; he’s a sui generis
performance artist-phenom who has made a name for himself in venues like
the Place de la Concorde (yes, of course, it’s the same place where they
beheaded the French aristocracy) and Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley for
his daring experiments in body-piercing. What makes his self-inflicted
art-wounds so visually satisfying is that they’re done with antique
safety pins, engraved with very tiny little portraits of saints (St.
Christopher crossing a stream with a baby on his shoulders is one of my
personal favorites).

Anyway, our guest-blogger, who has been waiting patiently for his debut
on this blog (he is now drinking his third shot of Wild Turkey in the
green room of his mind), is actually held together by various gymnastic
leaps of faith and the aforementioned safety pins (there’s not really
much earthly matter, molecular glue or whathaveyou involved in his makeup).

Finally, after all this waiting, let us read, hear, listen to his
original prose, written – must I repeat myself? - on a wheat thin wafer,
in Russian (actually an obscure form of Russian only spoken by the
survivors of the Stalin-era gulags, a prison patois if you will)….

So, at this time, I have the great pleasure to introduce – whatever is
his name? It’s slipped my mind, but let’s get on with it – just one last
observation: the popcorn that’s available in the back of the room was
made by my deceased aunt in 1978 and was used originally to decorate a
Christmas tree in Sturgeon, Missouri (one string of this popcorn was
festooned around her head, in her casket, and made for a lovely
send-off). That was a long time ago but the decorations are heirlooms
and there are numerous references to them in the family Bible, under the
heading: “Crazy Auntics.”

So, unless there are any questions, I’d like to close out this
installment of the “John Schwada Guest Writers Blog” and applaud our
author du jour who has so extravagantly graced our website. I thought
the Tanqueray was quite good – even without the olives.

No questions? Oh! Yes! I am so sorry!!! I almost forgot – our guest
editorialist, an exquisitely Unterrified Man of Insight (his brain was
once found inside a bowling pin set-up machine)…Joe – I’ll spell his
last name (it is impossible to pronounce because it has no
vowels)…B-L-Z-T-K….

And here, finally – drum roll please - is Joe's unexpurgated and unplugged
blog offering:

"Lying polit8icains - Repbublicans and Demodorats! wwho's gtoo vote for a thrid wright parrty canddiate. how's bt barr or nadir.. bettr thn silly hilly, obma husei or mcSAme....damnn4et. by tghe illegal wqay, anyone out there no a good frackin' pizza in azusa? "