Maryville, PA — Martha Bergoinist has a roof over her head, but doesn’t have a floor under her feet. Through a new government program, and backing from the Federal TARP fund, her bank was able to execute a "Partial Foreclosure" on Ms. Bergoinist in which only a portion of her home was taken from her.

"They came in on Thursday with a warrant and by Friday, my carpet and wood flooring was gone," says Ms. Bergoinist, the shock still clear on her face.

"This program allows us to walk a fine line," said Voordec Hightower, the Regional Manager for her bank. "We can’t let people get away with not paying their mortgages. It’s sets the wrong example. But, the government wants people to stay in their houses. They need to get re-elected."

Hightower explained that his bank received compensation from Federal TARP funds representing only a fraction of the value of Ms. Bergoinist’s home. "They give us a fraction of what we’re due, and we take about that much house from the loan holder," he explains. In the case of Ms. Bergoinist, that "fraction" included her carpet, wood flooring, a microwave oven and the shelving in her pantry.

"You never know how important shelving is until it’s gone," Ms. Bergoinist lamented. Mr. Hightower said that he was not at liberty to discuss the formula that was used to determine which of Ms. Bergoinist’s belongings were taken. "It’s confidential," he said.

For her part, Ms. Bergoinist is glad to still be in her house. "I still have a house to come home to and the politicians who thought up this idea will probably get re-elected. It’s win-win," she declared.

Austin, Texas — Fanny Friedrikbergeren has been working the polls in Williamson County, Texas since the election of 1980. She’s seen a lot of elections. This year, however, is the first year that she’s been concerned that the election might not happen. Large crowds of people have begun to form outside her polling place, and she fears this could interfere with the voting process.

"I don’t understand it," Fanny told us. "They don’t have any signs. If they were protesters, you’d think they would be shouting and holding up signs."

Friedrikbergeren is not alone. In cities across the state, polling locations are being assaulted by these mysterious crowds, and party officials fear that the outcome of the election could be in question if the crowds interfere with the voting process.

"It’s clear that the Republican party has gotten desperate and is using these crowds to disrupt the election," said the Democratic Party Coordinator for Travis County.

"It’s that Internet thing," said County Coordinator for the Republican Party in Williamson County. "The Democrats have apparently used it to incite some kind of protest."

Fanny worked tirelessly to get the crowds to disperse. "Move on you people. There’s voting going on here today," she said in the loudest tone her 83 year old voice could muster. The gathering wouldn’t budge.

This reporter was unable to locate a leader at any of the polling locations we visited. No one we interviewed claimed to belong to any one organization. Several members of the crowd did attempt to show us their voter registration cards, and requested to use the machines inside.

"Naturally, we’re afraid that the machines may be damaged if used," said the Travis County Commissioner. "Some of these voting machines are 15 years old. There’s no telling what might happen if people start using them."

Whatever the intent of these crowds, it is clear that the American voting process is under assault, and could be completely changed for this election and elections to come.

My 11 year old daughter had an assignment this week: explain the differences between the economics plans of Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, the two leading candidates for President of the United States.

We looked at their Web sites, and found that we weren’t going to find a fair, coherent discussion of the differences, and in fact, we found it hard to find anything on the Internet that provided this in a way that a sixth grader could digest.

Now there is.

This is how I explained the differences to her and now it exists on the Internet for other sixth graders to find. I suspect it will inform many of us at all age levels.

McCain vs. Obama Economics for an 11 Year Old

Booklobbyist Tom Brown is going toe-to-toe with JP Morgan, who lobbied John Cornyn with $61,847. Tom sent Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free by Ellen Hodgson Brown to Cornyn. You can view Tom’s comments on Booklobby.

Tom takes a strong stance, calling the current bailout a “pre-meditated hijacking of the public trust.” According to Tom, all is not lost if the bailout bill passes the House–as of this writing, the Senate has already approved a version.

We can start by defeating this bill. If necessary (and Ellen gives plenty of rationale why we might), we can consider Article 31 of the Federal Reserve Act: The right to amend, alter, or repeal this Act is hereby expressly reserved.

The thing I love about the political blogosphere is that we can divorce ourselves from the rudimentary issues addressed by the media and think about what is important to us as individuals. The swing voters will decide the presidency in this election, and they, by and large, will pick the guy that they like, largely independent of the issues.

So here’s an interesting point of view from Maura Thomas over on Tell Me Your Idea. She asks the question "which candidate will be able to multi-task." Multi-tasking, ever the popular drop-word of techies and millennials, is actually misnomer for "mental flexibility."

Of course, as I write this, answer emails, and listen to Palin and Biden debate, I wonder how my own mental flexibility is affecting my work.

–Brian

 BookLobby’s Brian Massey enjoyed the company of a great crowd at Mashable’s SummerMash in Austin, TX.

Maybe I had a little too much fun with the open bar…

I owe Michelle Greer for that one…

 
To my left are Michelle Greer and Kristine Gloria

Marketing Diva Jen Blackert of Entrepreneur Machine

With Pete Cashmore

Just a quick note that we’ll be talking about BookLobby at the SummerMash in Austin hosted by the folks at Mashable Social Networking News.

Register for SummerMash Austin for some fun and connections.

Look for Brian Massey.

Did you know you could view all booklobby content without a Facebook account? Give it a try.

Technorati Profile

Kyle Johnson of Bumperactive has a Booklobby message for Barack Obama.

My concern is that you will inherit a government such as Kennedy’s, where the ablest minds have been culled, and only the yes men remain.

Kyle appears to have been busy with Bumperactive now offering a state-by-state bumper sticker featuring Senator Obama.

Here are Kyle’s comments for Senator Obama.

Dear Senator Obama:

I am excited and hopeful at the prospect that you will be the next President of the United States. At the same time, I am deeply concerned about the state of global affairs and the machinery of the government you will inherit.
Many in the country have high hopes an Obama Presidency can realize the unfulfilled promise of the Kennedy administration. Yet despite the idealism of Camelot, we cannot forget that it was the failings of Kennedy and his advisers that made irreversible the tragedy of the Vietnam War.

Like Kennedy, as president you will inherit a war not-of-your-choosing, although unlike Kennedy, you have made your strong opposition to this war widely known. Nevertheless, my fear is that you may underestimate the strength of the political forces that have brought us into the Iraq War, and their ability to color the decision-making of even a President who opposes them.

Please find enclosed a copy of David Halberstam’s "The Best and The Brightest," the definitive, decision-by-decision history of American military involvement in Vietnam. You are no-doubt familiar with the book— it even strikes me as highly likely that you’ve already read it. In any case, please revisit it again; I can only imagine how the lessons of the book might serve a newly-installed commander-in-chief.

There is, of course, no single cause that "made" Vietnam. However, Halberstam’s book illuminates the degree to which the legacy of McCarthyism permeated Vietnam policy, in ways both explicit and implicit. Moreover, there are bright parallels between the influence of McCarthyism on Vietnam and that of the Neoconservative movement on the Iraq War—to the degree that I believe Neoconservatism can be rightly viewed as the "successor movement" to McCarthyism.

McCarthyism impacted Kennedy’s decision-making explicitly through his fear that, as a Democrat, he was politically vulnerable to appearing "soft" on Communism. Accordingly, he made every effort to seem tough, from the moment of his inaugural address when he pledged to "bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe" in defense of liberty (read: to fight communism).

In your opposition to the Iraq War, you have already opened yourself to comparable charges from the bellicose right. Moreover, you must surely realize that the real kvetching hasn’t even started yet. I have faith in you and your political staff to traverse these rapids.

However, it is the implicit influence of McCarthyism on Vietnam—and the analogous influence of Neoconservatism on Middle East Policy—that I find most deeply troubling. I urge you to begin measures to counteract this influence on Day 1 of your Presidency in order to restore the natural balance within American government.

In the 1950, McCarthyist fervor directed the methodical weeding-out of non-partisan, free-thinking careerists from the frontlines of all branches of the federal bureaucracy, and in particular the State Department. The tools were both blunt—mere mention of the word HUAC—and more subtle, via selective application of promotions and transfers. By the time Kennedy came to office, the damage had already been done:

There were literally no East Asia policy experts remaining in government to provide a nuanced assessment of the nationalist origins of the North Vietnamese cause, the 1,000-year blood-feud between China and Vietnam, and the glaring schism between Mao’s China and the Soviet Union. Simply put, The Domino Theory did not compute as a cause for war in the assessment of the people most knowledgeable about the region.

Tragically, those civil servants had all been systematically removed by one means or another for insufficiently hewing to the (incorrect) McCarthyist notion of global "Monolithic Communism." As a result, it took 14 years and 58,000 American lives for their considered judgment to become policy.

I specifically refer you to the index of The Best and The Brightest, and the pages relating to the careers of John Stuart Service and John Paton Davies, for the account of the McCarthyism-driven purge of the State Department and its impact on the policy alternatives afforded to Kennedy and his advisers.

The abuses of the present administration are well documented. At every turn, voices deviating even marginally from, the party line have been silenced and exiled. Across government, talented, career civil servants have been replaced by sycophants and dilettantes, with the implosion of the response capability of FEMA serving as the starkest example within these shores.
My concern is that you will inherit a government such as Kennedy’s, where the ablest minds have been culled out, and only the dim yes -men and -women remain.

I urge you to seek out and "re-recruit" career civil servants who left the government during the Bush years, particularly those who did so for lack of advancement or ideological "incorrectness." Doing so will send a clear message that the Bush standard of seeking political expediency over candid analysis is no longer acceptable.

I urge you to aggressively recruit new minds of all political ideologies into government from the private sector, to make it known that new, bold ideas are valued higher than business and politics as usual.

Most crucially, I urge you to appoint a trusted member of your senior staff to oversee a vetting of middle management for quality control. The layer of government that will make-or-break your Presidency is that of the "supervisor of senior career professionals." In Halberstam’s book, this is generally the level of Assistant Secretary, although I imagine things may have changed since that era.

In any event, you must take special care to restore and ensure the competence of the cadre of officials at the nexus of top-down policy implementation and bottom-up data analysis; i.e., the people who are not only responsible for implementing your policy directives, but also ensuring those directives are formulated from the best available information available. Above all else, you need to be sure these people have the mettle to fight for the judgment of their staffs in the face of political pressure.

I believe you will find it easy enough to attract the talented and capable, top-level officials with whom you will interact on a daily basis—the luster of the Oval Office is more than sufficient for that. On the other hand, ensuring the quality of the advice your advisers receive may be the truest challenge of the Presidency.
It is the fear of every American that a problem will land on the President’s desk—be it military, economic, environmental or cultural—for which there is no simply no "good" option. Do not let that be because no one within the apparatus of government has the wisdom to provide you with one.
Senator Obama, thank you for your consideration and I hope you enjoy the book. My thoughts and prayers are with you in the campaign.

Sincerely and hopefully,

Kyle Johnson
Founder, www.bumperactive.com
kyle@bumperactive.com

 Read the Booklobby

Related Booklobbies:

Boots on the Ground by Dusk for Senator Barack Obama

This has been re-posted from BookLobby: Energy.

Joe America has done a great job as a video lobbyist. His YouTube video has exceeded 500,000 views as of this note, and I’ve personally received it by email from three different sources.

As a Booklobbyist, we often must walk the line between passion and informed statesmanship. Does "Joe America" accomplish this? Here are some choice quotes:

"What should we think of you [Senators]? … Are you grossly inept or are you just stunningly stupid?"

Nice use of alliteration.

"Here’s a big plan for you to consider. … The key here is to think about using our own oil reserves as a means to get us off of imported oil. It has four steps."

Very statesman-like.

Joe America on YouTube.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPch2k63uj4

What do you think?