Washington is an out of control crack whore.

According to Campbell Brown's latest commentary on the financial crisis,

1) over 1/3 of the $700 billion in the September bailout package has already been spent with no oversight;
2) the so-called "oversight" that Congress had demanded as a condition for doling out the money has YET to be appointed by the White House and Capitol Hill;
3) Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is now saying he doesn't believe that the money has been spent in the right way, and he wants to re-direct the remaining 2/3;
4) ... and the inspector general of the Treasury Department, according to the Washington Post, has admitted: "It is a mess. I don't think anyone understands right now how we're going to do proper oversight of this thing."

Yes, Washington is a crack whore. And the crack rock she WILL and MUST have, come hell or high water, is our money. Billions and billions of dollars of our money.

So why do we continue to allow the crack whore to smoke billions of our money into oblivion?

Un-effing-believable! The corporate bailout feeding frenzy intensifies

Um, let me see here: Amex has obtained bank status so that it, too, can get in line for bailout money, the Fed is refusing disclosure and insisting we don't need to know where our taxpayer money is going, and AIG is getting another $38 billion on top of the $85 bil they've just gotten.

At first I was so mad I couldn't even think straight, but at this point I am beyond enraged, beyond sick, beyond disgusted.

I happen to be an AMEX cardholder, so upon hearing this unconscionable news about AMEX, part of me was tempted to stop paying my American Express bill (which for the past two months HAS BEEN MORE THAN MY MORTGAGE!) so as to keep from paying them twice: once through my bill and a second time through my taxes. (As one dismayed Michelle Malkin reader noted: "I've been paying them money for years. Now I have to pay them twice?") But alas, defaulting on my AMEX bill would affect my credit. And if I chose to go the tax evasion route instead, I'd have the IRS after me.

So, really, there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. These corporations WILL have your money whether you like it or not, and guess what, neither they nor the federal government believe that you have the right to know where it's going. It's taxpayer robbery at gunpoint.

And as if that weren't enough to make you sick, here's why pork projects thrive in the Democratic Congress's spending scam. Turns out the "paygo" principle that helped them take back the majority in 2006 has been quietly dropped from their central platform and has been wantonly trampled upon ever since by both spend-happy Democrats and Republicans alike (e.g., Ted Stevens). Nice, huh?!

The only thing we can do at this point is to take note, and REMEMBER the Senators and Congressional representatives who have gone hog wild and then vote every last one of those spend-happy a-holes out in 2010. And give your local Congressional representative no peace, no rest until he or she agrees to support the Fair Tax. We MUST do these things to ensure that our country and its citizens survive this economic crisis.

Legendary South African songstress Miriam Makeba dies on stage at 76

Miriam Makeba, the legendary South African songstress known as "Mama Africa" and "The Empress of African Song," died after collapsing on stage during a concert in Italy.

Makeba, who gained fame and renown worldwide, was exiled from her own country for 31 years during apartheid. In exile, she sang for such leaders as President John F. Kennedy and performed with such musical greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte, and Paul Simon.

In a statement issued after her death, Nelson Mandela said, "Her haunting melodies gave voice to the pain of exile and dislocation which she felt for 31 long years. At the same time, her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us."

He further noted that "Whilst this great lady was alive, she would say: 'I will sing until the last day of my life.' "

She was the first African woman to win a GRAMMY Award for Best Folk Recording in 1966, along with Harry Belafonte, for "An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba." The album voiced the plight of black South Africans under apartheid.

Makeba's exile began when she starred in the anti-apartheid documentary Come Back Africa in 1959. The following year, when she attempted to come back to South Africa to attend her mother's funeral, she found that her passport had been revoked. She would not be allowed to come back to South Africa until the end of apartheid and Nelson Mandela's release from prison 30 years later.

Makeba's life in exile was not without controversy - in the early sixties she married black power activist Stokely Carmichael and decades later, supported dictators such as Togo's Gnassingbe Eyadema and the Ivory Coast's Félix Houphouet-Boigny, performing at their political campaigns even as they were brutally suppressing the democratic movements that were sweeping West Africa in the early 90s.

We played "The Click Song," one of Makeba's most famous songs, at our wedding.

Now, not just one but two famous female singers have died recently, within a week of each other. It MUST have something to do with the moon being in Scorpio ...