Marisacat

Comments

1. marisacat - 18 January 2008

FWIW (not much, “poll” being a 4 letter word!) this is just up at Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrat Hillary Clinton holds a narrow 5-point lead on rival Barack Obama in Nevada on the eve of the state’s presidential nominating contest, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Friday.

Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, led Obama, an Illinois senator, by 42 percent to 37 percent in the rolling tracking poll. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards was a distant third with 12 percent. ::snip::

Poll is +/- 3.4

Real Clear Politics has a range of polls for the Dem caucus in NV… again fwiw.

LOL

2. D. Throat - 18 January 2008

Wade said she spoke to Murdoch on a regular basis and hugely valued his “exemplary” advice, revealing how he had called at 1.30am on the day of the New Hampshire primaries to warn her that the exit polls were wrong and to discuss the US election. “Like any editor, you get praise and criticism from your proprietor,” she said. But she denied that he explicitly influenced her day-to-day decisions. “I can’t remember one occasion when we have discussed tomorrow’s newspaper in the censorious sense that you keep telling me exists and I say doesn’t,” she told the committee, chaired by Lord Fowler. When the committee travelled to the US last September to talk to Murdoch and other moguls the minutes recorded that the mogul saw himself as a “traditional proprietor” of his UK tabloids. “He exercises editorial control on major issues, like which party to back in a general election or policy on Europe,” the minutes said.

Murdoch has long been courted by politicians around the world and the success of Tony Blair in wooing the Sun in 1997 was seen as a key factor in his victory.

3. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

My assertion re NH is still that Hodes, (NH Obama co Chair) –l and other nominal Barackites laid down for Hillary. Hodes fucking law partner and Hodes campaign bundler Bud is Jeanne Shaheens hub,Billy Shaheen, the NH Hill co chair that [cough,cough] had to “step down” over Barack Drug Smear #1 in NH….

No doubt though that Hillary is money in the bank for Murdoch. Factor in another Free Willy in the Restoration, and its Eureka!

As for Diebold, I have no doubt the Confimation Booth(c) of the Future will simply have one lever – no graphics, no ballot,- just a lever, a security cam and a sensor to detect any hesitancy , in which case flush-mounted robotic arms will descend, and pummel the hapless “voter” before ejecting the befuddled out the door.

4. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

The “-I” – was meant to begin italicize for
and other nominal Barackites. The only “I” of mine in that race was watchin’ it on the tube in Jersey.

5. marisacat - 18 January 2008

yes pretty clear on the Murdoch, it was reported, depending on where one read, a year ago. Wolfson and a couple of her other top lieutenants even spent months owrking at Murdoch in NYC… a quick google makes clear the long association betw Murdoch and Blair… Hillary is just following along.

The template is in place.

And I will add one thing, I found the UK papers SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING AND INFORMATIVE in the [US] ‘92 run.

Oh well. Congealing fuckball in place. Just sp great to read all the USA writers in place at The Guardian (not!!]

************

BHHM

interesting up date to the Hodes.. [I had meant to pull up your earlier commetns on that for D Throat, then it slipped my mind)…

interesting on the lie down. Sadly makes sense.

All I really want, have ever wanted is a god damned fuckign real run.

oh wellllllll. Fuck ‘em all.

6. marisacat - 18 January 2008

BBC

Israel closes crossings with Gaza

Gaza receives humanitarian and fuel supplies through Israel

Israel has temporarily shut its crossings with Gaza, after a series of rocket attacks on nearby Israeli towns from the Hamas-run territory.
The UN relief agency providing for Palestinian refugees in Gaza said it was unable to deliver humanitarian aid as a result of the closure.

The measure came as at least one militant was killed and several others injured in an Israeli air strike.

They had just launched rockets into Israel, officials on both sides said.

7. marisacat - 18 January 2008

Paine at Stop Me Before I Vote Again has a really good column on working/unions/getting stabbed int eh back, etc… LOL…

He pulls off a Counterpunch article by Macaray, who has been writing on the WGA strike.

Did not stop to read it but saw a headline at BBC that film directors have managed a deal wtih WGA after 5 days of negotiation.

8. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

Johnson from BET has apologized for his speech last week. The one that WASN’T really about drugs in his first “explanation”.

These people lie like they breathe.

Off to work.

9. marisacat - 18 January 2008

the saddest thing about the BET Johnson slur was that John LEwis backed him up. He could have supported Hillary AND walked away from that…

what a shame.

10. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

Hitchens at his Iconoclastic best. I think. For Now. LOL

In the WSJ

Those of us who follow politics seriously rather than view it as a game show do not look at Hillary Clinton and simply think “first woman president.” We think — for example — “first ex-co-president” or “first wife of a disbarred lawyer and impeached former incumbent” or “first person to use her daughter as photo-op protection during her husband’s perjury rap.”

One might come up with other and kinder distinctions (I shall not be doing so) but the plain fact about the senator from New York is surely that she is a known quantity who has already been in the White House purely as the result of a relationship with a man, and not at all a quixotic outsider who represents the aspirations of an “out” group, let alone a whole sex or gender. {Snip}

I remember going to several of the mass events generated by Colin Powell’s memoirs a few years ago, and being very touched by the eagerness with which young and old “white” people hoped he would give them the chance to elect (what would in fact have been) our first West Indian president. It was all book-tour hype as it turned out — I could have told you that then — but now it has resurfaced in a similarly naïve way.

Not to dampen any parade, but if one asks if there is a single thing about Mr. Obama’s Senate record, or state legislature record, or current program, that could possibly justify his claim to the presidency one gets . . . what? Not much. Similarly lightweight unqualified “white” candidates have overcome this objection, to be sure, but what kind of standard is that?

I shall not vote for Sen. Obama and it will not be because he — like me and like all of us — carries African genes. And I shall not be voting for Mrs. Clinton, who has the gall to inform me after a career of overweening entitlement that there is “a double standard” at work for women in politics; and I assure you now that this decision of mine has only to do with the content of her character.

11. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

Correct WSJ Link for Hitchens, Sorry.

WSJ

12. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

All I really want, have ever wanted is a god damned fucking real run.- mcat

I loathe the Clintons on Policy and their Politics.
Their lack of courage and Principle in BOTH.

Despite it being a dupes game, It would be something to see FOR ONCE something from them just on one side or the other.. Like if they just came out and made a Status Quo Policy Position then Advocated the Hell Out of It selling it Hard on its “Substance”, their conviction..
Or, – in the alternative – if they Came out with a HArd Left Turn with the moorings to calmly weather the Politcal Blowback. Nothin but runny poo on all counts….

13. marisacat - 18 January 2008

Boo Hoo… link?

I looked in edit and no shred of the url shows up…

14. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

Sorry. Blogging while tired and a doofus. No Link above.
Stepping away from keyboard now
Out.

15. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

Thanks Mcat : { D]

16. marisacat - 18 January 2008

well here is a gamier than thou NV wrinkle.

17. Miss Devore - 18 January 2008

perhaps…the second bush will succeed in destroying the republican party, and the second clinton will destroy the dems.

let it be.

18. JJB - 18 January 2008

In the current issue of The New Yorker, there is a fascinating (and quite long) article by Lawrence Wright on Mike McConnell, the Director Of National Intelligence, unfortunately not available online. The writer interviewed McConnell at length, and does a wonderful job of allowing this warped, frightening man to weave the rope with which he hangs himself. As I read it, I was struck by the way the hysteria that was used to convince us the Soviets were about to come crashing over the frontiers that divided their sphere of influence from our own has been adapted to the ONGOING AND ETERNAL WAR AGAINST GLOBAL-FASCO-ISLAMO-BADGUYS (McConnell constantly refers to the amorphous enemy as “bad guys”), but also by echoes of a work read long ago that refuse to leave my memory:

For all McConnell’s insistence on change, he often things like a traditional spy. During one conversion, I asked McConnell, “Have we gotten meaningful information through torture?”

“We don’t torture,” he responded automatically.

“O.K., through aggressive interrogative techniques.”

“‘Aggressive is your word,” he said. “Have we gotten meaningful information?” You betcha. Tons! Does it save lives? Tons! We’ve gotten incredible information. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. K.S.M. No. 3. Go pull his testimony. A lot of what we know about Al Qaeda and what we shut down came out of that.” (The reliability of the confession of Mohammed, who after sustained abuse claimed a role in more than thirty criminal plots, has been widely questioned.) He peered over his glasses. “And this was a test for Mike McConnell. When Abu Ghraib happened, my view was that we had lost the moral high ground.”

McConnell had not yet returned to government when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, but after becoming director of National Intelligence he received the still secret protocol that the White House had devised to govern future interrogations. Shortly after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales came into office, in February 2005, he issued an opinion endorsing the most brutal interrogation techniques that the C.I.A. had ever used. According to the Times, the agency had learned some of these methods from Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials; others were drawn from old Soviet techniques. The methods included stripping a suspect naked and placing him in a cold cell; manacling him in a painful posture; subjecting him to deafening rock music; head slapping; and waterboarding, an act of simulated drowning that was used in the Spanish Inquisition. Anyone of these techniques would likely violate the international legal standards banning torture, such as the Geneva Conventions. The C.I.A. had used “special method of questioning” on about thirty people, McConnell learned.

“I had to sign off on that program,” McConnell told me. “The President said we don’t torture anyone, but I had to convince myself by going through the whole process.” He pored over the procedures that had been secretly authorized by the Bush Administration. “I sat down with the doctors and the medical personnel who oversee the process,” he said. “Our policies are not torture.”

I asked how he defined torture.

“There’s a history of people making claims that it’s not torture if you don’t force the failure of a major organ,” McConnell said, referring to the infamous 2002 memo by John Yoo, a Justice Department lawyer, who argued that an interrogation technique was torture only when it was as painful as organ failure or death. “My view is, that’s kind of absurd. It’s pretty simple. Is it excruciatingly painful to the point of forcing someone to say something because of the pain?” McConnell leaned forward confidentially. “Now, how descriptive do I want to be with you? I don’t want to tell you everything, and why is that? Look, these guys talk because, among other things, they’re scared.”

McConnell asserted that it was not difficult to evaluate the truthfulness of a confession, even a coerced one. “And as soon as they start to talk we can tell in minutes if they are lying,” he said. “One, you know a lot. And you know when someone is giving you information that is not connecting up to what you know. You also know when to use a polygraph.”

McConnell refused to specify what new methods had been approved for the C.I.A. “There are techniques to get the information, and when they get the information it has saved lives,” he said vaguely. ‘We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened.”

Couldn’t the information be obtained through other means?

“No,” McConnell said. “You can say that absolutely.” He again cited the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. “He would not have talked to us in a hundred years. Tough guy. Absolutely committed. He had this mental image of himself as a warrior and a martyr. No way he would talk to us.” Among the things that Mohammed confessed to was the murder of Daniel Pearl. And yet few people involved in the investigation of Pearl’s death believe that Mohammed had anything to do with the crime; another man, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, was convicted of killing Pearl.

I mentioned McConnell’s hero, General Powell, whose disastrous speech to the United Nations, in February, 2003, made the case to the world for invading Iraq—a case founded on faulty intelligence. Part of Powell’s presentation was based on the testimony of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, an Al Qaeda operative who was captured by Pakistani forces in December, 2001. The Pakistanis turned him over to the Americans. According to Jack Cloonan, a former F.B.I. agent involved in the interrogation, Libi was providing useful and accurate intelligence until the C.I.A. took custody of him and placed him inside a plywood box for transport. He was reportedly sent to Egypt and tortured. (An agency spokesman said, “The C.I.A. does not transport individuals anywhere to be tortured.”) Libi allegedly told his interrogators that the Iraqi military had trained two Al Qaeda associates in chemical and biological warfare. This was the essence of Colin Powell’s claim: Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was working with Al Qaeda. Neither assertion was true. How could we ever trust information obtained under torture when such methods had already led us into a catastrophic war?

I had to keep reminding myself I wasn’t reading this:

“Do you understand the process? The Harrow is starting to write. When it’s finished with the first part of the script on the man’s back, the layer of cotton wool rolls and turns the body slowly onto its side to give the Harrow a new area. Meanwhile those parts lacerated by the inscription are lying on the cotton wool which, because it has been specially treated, immediately stops the bleeding and prepares the script for a further deepening. Here, as the body continues to rotate, prongs on the edge of the Harrow then pull the cotton wool from the wounds, throw it into the pit, and the Harrow goes to work again. In this way it keeps making the inscription deeper for twelve hours. For the first six hours the condemned man goes on living almost as before. He suffers nothing but pain. After two hours, the felt is removed, for at that point the man has no more energy for screaming. Here at the head of the Bed warm rice pudding is put in this electrically heated bowl. From this the man, if he feels like it, can help himself to what he can lap up with his tongue. No one passes up this opportunity. I don’t know of a single one, and I have had a lot of experience. He first loses his pleasure in eating around the sixth hour. I usually kneel down at this point and observe the phenomenon. The man rarely swallows the last bit. He turns it around in his mouth and spits it into the pit. When he does that, I have to lean aside or else he’ll get me in the face. But how quiet the man becomes around the sixth hour! The most stupid of them begin to understand. It starts around the eyes and spreads out from there. A look that could tempt one to lie down under the Harrow. Nothing else happens. The man simply begins to decipher the inscription. He purses his lips, as if he is listening. You’ve seen that it’s not easy to figure out the inscription with your eyes, but our man deciphers it with his wounds. True, it takes a lot of work. It requires six hours to complete. But then the Harrow spits him right out and throws him into the pit, where he splashes down into the bloody water and cotton wool. Then the judgment is over, and we, the Soldier and I, quickly bury him.”

[snip]

“This process and execution, which you now have an opportunity to admire, have no more open supporters in our colony. I am its only defender, just as I am the single advocate for the legacy of the Old Commandant. I can no longer think about a more extensive organization of the process—I’m using all my powers to maintain what there is at present. When the Old Commandant was alive, the colony was full of his supporters. I have something of the Old Commandant’s persuasiveness, but I completely lack his power, and as a result the supporters have gone into hiding. There are still a lot of them, but no one admits to it. If you go into a tea house today—that is to say, on a day of execution—and keep your ears open, perhaps you’ll hear nothing but ambiguous remarks. They are all supporters, but under the present Commandant, considering his present views, they are totally useless to me. And now I’m asking you: Should such a life’s work,” he pointed to the machine, “come to nothing because of this Commandant and the women influencing him? Should people let that happen? Even if one is a foreigner and on our island only for a couple of days? But there’s no time to lose. People are already preparing something against my judicial proceedings. Discussions are already taking place in the Commandant’s headquarters, to which I am not invited. Even your visit today seems to me typical of the whole situation. People are cowards and send you out—a foreigner. You should have seen the executions in earlier days! The entire valley was overflowing with people, even a day before the execution. They all came merely to watch. Early in the morning the Commandant appeared with his women. Fanfares woke up the entire campsite. I delivered the news that everything was ready. The whole society—and every high official had to attend—arranged itself around the machine. This pile of cane chairs is a sorry left over from that time. The machine was freshly cleaned and glowed. For almost every execution I had new replacement parts. In front of hundreds of eyes—all the spectators stood on tip toe right up to the hills there—the condemned man was laid down under the Harrow by the Commandant himself. What nowadays has to be done by a common soldier was then my work as the senior judge, and it was an honour for me. And then the execution began! No discordant note disturbed the work of the machine. Many people did not look any more at all, but lay down with closed eyes in the sand. They all knew: now justice was being carried out. In the silence people heard nothing but the groans of the condemned man, muffled by the felt. These days the machine no longer manages to squeeze a strong groan out of the condemned man—something the felt is not capable of smothering. But back then the needles which made the inscription dripped a caustic liquid which we are not permitted to use any more today. Well, then came the sixth hour. It was impossible to grant all the requests people made to be allowed to watch from up close. The Commandant, in his wisdom, arranged that the children should be taken care of before all the rest. Naturally, I was always allowed to stand close by, because of my official position. Often I crouched down there with two small children in my arms, on my right and left. How we all took in the expression of transfiguration on the martyred face! How we held our cheeks in the glow of this justice, finally attained and already passing away! What times we had, my friend!”

Clemenceau once said something to the effect that artist’s were the only people who could possibly understand and explain the world, or at least come close to making sense of it. Does it help to understand our current predicament to realize that Mike McConnell is just a cipher dreamed up by a Central European Jewish writer roughly 90 years ago? There might be some postmodern masterpiece devoted to that theme, if the author could eschew the narcissistic preening that so often afflicts that genre.

19. JJB - 18 January 2008

Long post stuck in spam/moderation, I think.

20. marisacat - 18 January 2008

Mr. Clinton’s temper has been an issue for him as long as he has been in public life. But it has played an unusual role during the current campaign, his face turning red in public nearly every week, often making headlines as he defends his wife and injects himself, whether or not intentionally, into her race in sometimes distracting ways.

Some Clinton advisers say the campaign is trying to rein him in somewhat, so that his outbursts become less of a factor to reporters, but his flashes of anger only seem to be growing.

…

“The bottom line is, his outbursts don’t help the campaign,” said James A. Thurber of American University, an analyst of the presidency and Congress. “They become an issue, and it can grow into a real problem. I think the campaign is worried about him right now.”

NYT

21. cad - 18 January 2008

Kos loves Obama because Obama loves Reagan.

We can rest assured that an edorsement from Kos usually equals Kiss Of Death.

22. cad - 18 January 2008

Ouch! from BradBlog:

Kos and his designated lead authors threatened readers with permanent banishment for discussing the serious concerns about “faith-based” elections, such as the one that took place last week in New Hampshire.

23. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

This “Relief” Package is Heroin fronted from the Dope Man.
Cutting Taxes somehow = Paying for Government Help
War is Peace.
Up is the New New Down.

NYT

Bush Calls for $145 Billion Economic Aid Package
By DAVID STOUT and EDMUND L. ANDREWS 2:50 PM ET

The president also called again for Congress to make permanent the tax cuts that were enacted several years ago and are to expire in the next three years.

Bush and the Republicans have the Dems once again in the position of voting for tax cuts. This is another issue of BullShit Dem Victimology. They’ve been doing this for years. The Correct answer is FUCK YOU We’ll all go Down Togeether. This does nothing but Protect the Rich and ensure their Higher Returns as we increasingly Borrow money from them when we sell them Bonds.

— It’s like borrowing money from thieves so you can BUY your stolen shit back from them….Right down to the Fridge and food in it.

24. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

Oh. My. God! [getting all Pageant weepy like Hillary]

I got some html coding right! LOL.

25. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

LOL Matthews has Mad Money Huckster Jim Kramer saying
DOW could drop 2000 points as 450 Billion of Mortgages ready to go under. Oh god the Squeeling.

26. marisacat - 18 January 2008

LOL Found this via The NOte…

Obama’s pastor, for one, isn’t afraid to let the M-word escape his lips. Per the New York Post’s Maggie Haberman (in remarks Obama quickly distanced himself from):

“The pastor whom Barack Obama calls his spiritual guide and mentor took a stunning shot at Bill Clinton this week, saying the ex-president did the same thing to black voters that ‘he did to Monica Lewinsky.’ ”

I dunno? What DID Bill do to Monica? Cunnilingus? Drop her? Get Vernon Jordan to look for a job for her? Use Carville to lace the press with slams and slurs? The one I especially remember was abotu dragging a dollar bill thru a trailer court… something that really sounds more like a Bill-bait that would work.

You have to laugh.

I just want to be watching the day Bill blows big. To use the vernacular.

27. marisacat - 18 January 2008

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/ has three posts up on the rat-a-tat-tat back and forth between Hillary Camp and Obama Camp over hsi comments on Reagan.

What a hoot!

He really must want the old Reagan Democrats – cuz it will not work with the Dem party base. So Webb like.

hey go for it. Who cares anymore. [Reaching for the baseball bat... ]

28. cad - 18 January 2008

And ten more months of this shit…

29. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

Joan Walsh now saying from conference into Nevada that Obama experiencing “a backlash” from Latinos feeling “pushed around” by the Unions.” LOL. All on schedule with Hillary and Reids co-option of the Casinos. Tis Farce, truly..

30. marisacat - 18 January 2008

well from outside looking in, sure is clear that HIllary is using the Reagan comments as well as on the ground issues with union/caucus/muscle (all sides) for her final putsch — AND it looks like Edwards is helping her, taking pot shots to repay O for the 527 criticisms he mounted against Ed.

Long may they reign… LOL.

31. marisacat - 18 January 2008

BHHm

LOL the link I posted up thread, at “gamier than tho” to an LAT piece on Hillary hitting Obama with some earlier commentary of his, slamming the gaming industry (oops!) over issues of morality… and so on.. lists some of her very heavy duty NV political backing.

Winning the Culinary workers was further diminished, frankly. Paired with the endorsement, again mostly a Hillary slam endorse, from the LV Review Journal (which I read as it loves to slam Reid, LOL)… and sad to say it might be over.

Just read that Michelle O ws boo’d for misprononcing Nevada.. I have said it wrong my whole life…

32. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

She’ll win in Nevada I think :

1. Because SHE HAS TO, – Jiz on a Dress as evidence of Perjury didn’t derail
these People. LOL.
2. The Casinos comfort with Reid and complicit Union Brass will make a less than Hospitable environ for those allegedly mobilized hired help. If anything, the go ahead for Caucus at Work
Locales will serve as convenience for Management voters likely to align with Hillary.
3. Snowbird Housing Boom Investors in Nevada I think will be more reliably Hillary.
4. Edwards presence will hurt Obam more there than it will Hill vis a vis Union and Environmental Issue Voters.

33. liberalcatnip - 18 January 2008

Just read that Michelle O ws boo’d for misprononcing Nevada.. I have said it wrong my whole life…

Ha. I was listening to some talking head last nite pronouncing it as nev-aw-da and I was thinking, ‘isn’t it nev-a (as in the southern vernacular ‘a could have sworn that was the way it was pronounced’)- da?

34. liberalcatnip - 18 January 2008

Olmert promised more war yesterday and here it is:

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel bombed the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza and closed border crossings with the strip on Friday, sharply escalating what it called a campaign to halt Palestinian rocket attacks.

The four-storey ministry complex in Gaza City was empty at the time but one woman was killed and at least 30 others nearby were wounded in the air strike, medical officials said.

“It felt like an earthquake,” said Umm Fahmi, a woman who lives across from the blast site.

“My house did not only shake, it jumped from its foundations and back down. How could they drop such a bomb in a residential area on top of people’s heads?” she said, peering through the dust at the concrete and steel remains of the security complex.

It was the first Israeli bombing of a Palestinian government building since Hamas Islamists took over Gaza in June after routing secular Fatah forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas.

A second Israeli air strike minutes later damaged Hamas’s so-called naval headquarters in the central Gaza Strip.

Israel has killed at least 33 Palestinians in Gaza this week as part of what officials describe as a stepped-up campaign to pressure Hamas to rein in militants who have fired more than 110 rockets into the Jewish state in the last three days alone.

So now we know what that little “peace” meeting between Bush and Olmert was all about.

35. marisacat - 18 January 2008

I always pronounced it wrong: Nuh VAH da

and it should be Neh VAAAAAAAAAAAAAA da.

a hard a there in the middle syllable.

36. marisacat - 18 January 2008

I say we just call NV, South Carolina West. And be done with it.

LOL

37. liberalcatnip - 18 January 2008

The pile on continues:

“I’m stupefied,” said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts. Referring to Ronald Reagan, he added, “This notion that style in the presidency trumps substance is a terrible error.”

“It’s just baffling to me that Senator Obama would speak so favorably of him,” Mr. Frank added.

Another supporter, Representative Corrine Brown of Florida, said that Mr. Obama misunderstood “history” and the impact Mr. Reagan’s policies had on poor, blue-collar, and middle-class Americans.

“Every time I see a homeless person, I think of Ronald Reagan,” said Ms. Brown, an eight-term Congresswoman who is an African-American. “It is important that young people understand their history, and know something about their history.”

A poll in the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Friday showed that Mrs. Clinton was leading Mr. Obama 41 percent to 32 percent. The poll had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

“I haven’t been thrown off the island yet,” Mr. Obama said.

Ya, but you don’t exactly have the immunity idol either.

38. marisacat - 18 January 2008

The Clampetts go at it, Bill mounts an attack on Obama over Reagan.

Oh if ONLY someone would slap down Webb over Reagan luv. And 60s and 70s dissemble.

IF ONLY the Clintons had never shown up, ever.

39. liberalcatnip - 18 January 2008

Okay. Now that I’ve see that Michelle Obama Nevada clip, I see that I have been pronouncing it correctly.

40. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

the saddest thing about the BET Johnson slur was that John LEwis backed him up.

Lewis, like Conyers, has decided it’s safer to be a go-along hack.

sad, really.

41. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

18. JJB –

How do moral and mental midgets like that always rise so high?

NevAHda – NevAAAda

I pronounce it “shithole”.

42. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

I just want to be watching the day Bill blows big.

I don’t think MONICA had that problem!

ba da DUM!

43. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

Madman – It may be a political and environmental shithole in NV, but there is the redeeming architectural aesthetics, no? LOL.

44. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

potentially good lineup on Moyers tonight.

BHHM … I’ll never understand the draw of a desolate desert state that makes it’s money from artifice, exploitation and destroying the natural environment, populated by ingnoramous “libertarians” who seem to have endless love for pimps, mobsters and the pathetic shills like Reid who enable them.

45. BooHooHooMan - 18 January 2008

The natural extrapolation of Bill mounting attacks on Obama
is Bill simply mounting Obama himself. Barack should really see this coming and have a rolled-up newspaper at the ready…

46. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

Ch-ch-ch-changes

47. marisacat - 18 January 2008

well one thing I will say FOR LV, at least, what a shame that the local ptb blew up alll that fantastical mid century commerical architecture.

How fabulous would it be – and non US Nationals would lvoe it, if they had maintained the old, at least the best of the old..

Not do-able I am sure.

I find modern LV overwhlmeing (if there are good spas, bars and restaurants)… and the poverty is just a couple of blocks behind that strange glitzy steroid strip. Small harsh little one and two story housing blocks… filled with the poorer workers, the illegals, the sex workers.. etc.

48. marisacat - 18 January 2008

44

yes I thought that too.

Quite the Roman games on display.

49. marisacat - 18 January 2008

from jake Tapper… and sadly true. What a mess:

Zoo Story

January 18, 2008 11:52 AM

So now, weeks after the Christmas Day tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo — after all the hand-wringing how-secure-are-your-zoos media coverage — here’s the Political Punch tip on how to avoid getting mauled by a wild animal at the zoo.

Don’t get drunk, get high, go to the zoo, stand on a railing, and taunt a man-eating savage beast.

– jpt

Not that plenty else was not wrong, did nto go wrong… but boy, that sure did it.

50. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

Lancet defense of their Iraq casualty study, in response to the latest round of attacks from the right.

51. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

Don’t get drunk, get high, go to the zoo, stand on a railing, and taunt a man-eating savage beast.

generalize to this rule:

DON’T BE A FUCKING TESTOSTERONE-DRUNK DICK.

52. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

Translation device gives police one-way communication in multiple languages.

53. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

Please, just shit or get off the gold-plated pot.

AUSTIN, Texas — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg met Friday with the ballot access expert and campaign manager for H. Ross Perot’s third-party presidential bid, a sign of the multibillionaire’s seriousness about a possible independent run.

Bloomberg met privately with Clay Mulford, who is well-versed in third-party ballot access and served as campaign manager for Perot, according to an individual close to the mayor. Perot sought the presidency in 1992 and 1996. The lunch meeting with Mulford comes less than two months before Bloomberg would be able to start gathering signatures to get on the ballot and meet Texas’ early deadline.

If Bloomberg wants a chance at winning the state’s large slice of electoral votes _ 34 _ he would need to collect about 74,100 signatures by May 12, and cannot begin circulating petitions here until March 5. Not only does he have a short window to petition, the signatures need to be from Texas residents who did not vote in a party primary.

I want two brokered conventions, resulting in Obama and Huckabee as the candidates, and Bloomberg running. More the fuckign merrier, that’s what I say.

54. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

Speaking of shit and gold-plated pots:

Hillary Opens Up To Tyra About Adultery

Alien anthropologists are going to have a fucking field day with us in some far-flung future.

55. marisacat - 18 January 2008

this is the SF Gate report on the tiger/zoo/stupid boys incident that Jake Tapper built from.

Geesh

56. Hair Club for Men - 18 January 2008

OK. I was feeling soft on Huckabee because he liked an occasional squirrel cooked up in the popcorn popper.

But part of him makes my inner African American a bit nervous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kggoIyEijME&eurl=http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/

BTW, I wonder if the guy who put this Confederate flag on his pickup is just proud to be a southerner?

http://rogouski.com/loose-photos/huckabee-north.jpg

57. Hair Club for Men - 18 January 2008

Somebody needs to use this music in an anti-huckabee commericial.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=esl2NNOtHQE

58. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

Moyers on LBJ and MLK

Moyers, too, kinda misses the point, though he’s historically right.

BILL MOYERS: As he finished, Congress stood and thunderous applause shook the chamber. Johnson would soon sign into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and black people were no longer second class citizens. Martin Luther King had marched and preached and witnessed for this day. Countless ordinary people had put their bodies on the line for it, been berated, bullied and beaten, only to rise, organize and struggle on, against the dogs and guns, the bias and burning crosses. Take nothing from them; their courage is their legacy. But take nothing from the president who once had seen the light but dimly, as through a dark glass — and now did the right thing. Lyndon Johnson threw the full weight of his office on the side of justice. Of course the movement had come first, watered by the blood of so many, championed bravely now by the preacher turned prophet who would himself soon be martyred. But there is no inevitability to history, someone has to seize and turn it. With these words at the right moment — “we shall overcome” — Lyndon Johnson transcended race and color, and history, too — reminding us that a president matters, and so do we.

LBJ couldn’t have “seize(d) and turned it” WITHOUT the civil rights movement. He would NEVER have been able to push through the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts WITHOUT the resistance. The movement was NECESSARY, while the political leadership was SUFFICIENT.

Many many years ago, I was a young White House Assistant, when President Johnson at first wanted Martin Luther King to call off the marching, demonstrations, and protests. The civil rights movement had met massive resistance in the south, and the south, because of the seniority system, controlled congress, making it virtually impossible for congress to enact laws giving full citizenship to black Americans, no matter how desperate their lives. LBJ worried that the mounting demonstrations were hardening white resistance.

Sound familiar?

59. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

ooops … I missed a some html. Should be a blockquote from “As he finished, Congress …” to “… and so do we.”

To continue the thought, though, the Movement couldn’t have succeeded w/out Malcolm and the Panthers and so many others. A march is a raised fist version of a mob. To fear-soaked, hate-driven whites, ANY group of blacks was a de-facto mob. It took the threat of REAL armed violence to make the marches look reasonable.

I know I harp on this, but the misunderstanding of how change happens (as far as I see it, anyway), drives me nuts.

60. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

Green Party’s Jared Ball drops out, backs McKinney

61. marisacat - 18 January 2008

well I am glad for Moyers’ show (becuase we are allowed so little), but part of the problem is that he is inside the system. has been for 50 years.

He will only ever go so far.

And his particular format of inquiry, always the credulous question (and I understand this is a stance) REALLY gets to me.

gah.

Bottomline, I don’t think either Hillary or Obama should be running for the presidency. I mean, they can run but I can say, neither of you is experienced or competent enough NOR INDEPENDENT enough (nto that we ever get that!) to be president.

Neither is strong enough. Both are chumps.

62. Hair Club for Men - 18 January 2008

Bottomline, I don’t think either Hillary or Obama should be running for the presidency. I mean, they can run but I can say, neither of you is experienced or competent enough NOR INDEPENDENT enough (nto that we ever get that!) to be president.

The real question for me isn’t the experience or lack there of of Hillary or Obama (or Edwards or McCain). It’s the fact that they’re all talking about “change” when they should be talking about “justice”.

I don’t know if there’s some kind of under the table deal with Hillary (but note the Murdoch/News Corp money on Open Secrets) to go easy on the Bush family in return for the Republicans holding their fire during the election but I do know this.

No candidate who runs no a platform that doesn’t include real consequences for the major war criminals in the Bush administration deserves to be president.

A right winger in favor of impeachment and prosecuting those responsible for the legalized torture and the restrictions on civil liberties is better than a progressive who makes a devils bargain to ignore them.

Unfortunately only Kucinich even comes close to calling for real consequences for Bush and his cronies.

Try to imagine talking about dealing with the “root causes” of terrorism without talking about bringing Bin Laden to justice. You need to do both but criminals have to be punished.

63. marisacat - 18 January 2008

because ‘Change” is a cheap and easy selling point. Rather like the route to Jerusalem is thru Baghdad, or “support the troops” and all the other candy kisses they throw at us.

They won’t be discussing, not really, justice.

neither is compentent both are hacks. I read today that one of the chump change points Barack uses is tha thte he stumped more for candidates than any other Democrat in 06.

yes becuase the party saw the marketing potential, wanted to give it a run on the stump and PIMPED HIM OUT. I watched his stump work, it was basic and the charade was sad.

Close to minstreling when he stumped for Harold Ford inparticular.

Oh yes, fuck them all.

64. marisacat - 18 January 2008

War Criminals will nto punished in the system we have. Nor will any party hack (whcih all THREE are) will be calling ofr that or single payer or any number of other hard realities that we need to survive in any recognisable form.

I am sure you have figured that one out.

Come on who is there to do it?

NO ONE. The one hope was for a ‘rolling thru the states’ impeachment movement, and imo the party quashed it, but good.

65. Hair Club for Men - 18 January 2008

Kucinich actually has it right on his web site.

http://www.dennis4president.com/go/issues/securing-constitutional-democracy/

The United States does not elect kings.

66. Hair Club for Men - 18 January 2008

NO ONE. The one hope was for a ‘rolling thru the states’ impeachment movement, and imo the party quashed it, but good.

Right now I’m reading the David Cay Johnson book “Free Lunch” (the one DN talked about today). He’s devestating on the redistribution of income.

This combined with the elimination of constitutional democracy points in only one direction.

There has to be a violent revolution or the United States ceases to exist as a democracy. Thomas Jefferson was right. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

It’s time. But maybe technological advances in weapons and surveillance make a Paris Commune/1917 revolution an impossibility and we’re on the cusp of a new age of Pharohs/Pyramids/Theocracy/God Kings/Slavery.

67. Hair Club for Men - 18 January 2008

I keep trying to remember what this election reminds me of, the idea of using progress for blacks and women as a way to turn the dialog away from punishing war criminals.

And I keep thinking of January 2005, the elections in Iraq which were used to justify an occupation.

There’s nothing wrong with democracy in the Middle East or with ending the white male monopoly on the White House.

But the elites will pervert anything if they have to.

And if you ever had a white woman or a black man (or a black woman) who actually acted in the interests of his/her class/gender, you’d have the media romance with White House affirmative action end very quickly.

68. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

And his particular format of inquiry, always the credulous question (and I understand this is a stance) REALLY gets to me.

It’s a teaching style, really prevalent with theology depts, divinity teaching etc. When I was a young philosophy double major, my school began to merge the Religious Studies and Philosophy depts, and they replaced one of the old retiring Classicists with a Jesuit-trained Professor as part of the transition. He was a good prof (I took some American Political Philosophy classes with him), I learned a lot, but that avuncular questioning thing just got on my nerves sometimes. (My fav profs were a cranky Kantian logician who LOVED to make cheerleaders taking Logic for Liberal Arts credit cry and a wonderful woman prof who introduced me to Sarte, de Beauvoir, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche).

Moyers is a type.

69. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

Right now I’m reading the David Cay Johnson book “Free Lunch”

He’s really good on Moyers tonight.

70. marisacat - 18 January 2008

some professors use it in a more tolerable form tho, less facial playacting. And I realise Moyers is on TV and so on,… but god. It is so worn out.

Honestly I am sorry they brought him bakc for another hour show, after his moving on from NOW. Brancaccio does good shows, a mixed format… I like the woman who joined him (cannot think of her name), she had been on Latino radio then at CNN…

I am thankful for mOyers but god it gets old.

71. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

Montana Governor Foments Real ID Rebellion

Montana declared independence Friday from a federal identification rules and called on governors of 17 other states to join him in forcing a showdown with the federal government which says it will not accept the driver’s licenses of rebel states’ citizens starting May 11.

If that showdown comes to pass, residents of non-complying states could not use a driver’s license to enter a federal courthouse or a Social Security Administration building nor could board a plane without undergoing a pat-down search, possibly creating massive backlogs at the nation’s airports and almost certainly leading to a flurry of federal lawsuits.

States have until May 11 to request extensions to the Real ID rules released last Friday, which requires states to make all current identification holders under the age of 50 to apply again with certified birth and marriage certificates. The rules also standardize license formats, require states to interlink their DMV databases and require DMV employee background checks.

Extensions pushes back the 2008 deadline for compliance as far as out 2014 if states apply and promise to start work on making the necessary changes, which will cost cash-strapped states billions with only a pittance in federal funding.

Last year Montana passed a law saying it would not comply, citing privacy, states’ rights and fiscal issues and in his letter (.pdf) to other governors, Schweitzer makes clear he’s not going to ask for an extension.

“Today, I am asking you to join with me in resisting the DHS coercion to comply with the provisions of REAL ID, ” Schweitzer wrote. “If we stand together either DHS will blink or Congress will have to act to avoid havoc at our nation’s airports and federal courthouses.”

But Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner says DHS has no intention of blinking.

“That will mean real consequences for their citizens starting in may if their leadership chooses not to comply,” Keehner said. “That includes getting on an airplane or entering a federal building, so they will need to get passports.”

Keehner says DHS’s policy won’t change even if Georgia — one of the 17 states that has signaled strong opposition to the rules — declines to apply for an extension.

If that scenario came to pass, every Georgian who flies out through the nation’s busiest airport — Atlanta-Hartsfield International — would have to be patted down by Homeland Security agents and have their carry-on bags hand-screened, likely resulting in massive delays at the nation’s busiest airport.

She also suggests that patted-down citizens will turn their wrath not on the feds but on their state government.

72. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

got one in moderation, I think.

73. marisacat - 18 January 2008

Real ID makes me crazy… would be wonderful if it sparked a rebel stand in the western / mountain states.

Who knows.

74. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

one can hope

75. cad - 18 January 2008

Tyra Banks? Holy shit.

76. liberalcatnip - 18 January 2008

LBJ couldn’t have “seize(d) and turned it” WITHOUT the civil rights movement. He would NEVER have been able to push through the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts WITHOUT the resistance.

Moyers did make that point though. I thought so anyway.

77. marisacat - 18 January 2008

Snagged this at Danny Schechter’s, he did nto provide a link:

US TRAINS TERROR SQUADS IN INDONESIA

ETAN: December 19, 2007 – Human rights advocates have learned that the U.S. is training members of Kopassus, the notorious Indonesian Special Forces unit with a long record of human rights violations. The similarly-brutal Brimob, the para-military mobile police brigade, is receiving training as well.

The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) and the West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) today strongly condemned U.S. training for the two units, saying that it undermines the little credibility the U.S. has left in promoting human rights and accountability in Indonesia. ETAN and WPAT urged Congress to intervene to prevent such training and called on the administration to publicly pledge not to provide further assistance to the two units.

78. liberalcatnip - 18 January 2008

Right now I’m reading the David Cay Johnson book “Free Lunch”

Good interview. Depressing though. I don’t know how any Dem supporter can begin to think that their party is going to change that regime.

79. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

Moyers did make that point though. I thought so anyway.

You and I are just NOT going to agree on this, are we?

Placing the emphasis on LBJ and the eventual LAW is putting the cart before the horse. It’s inverting what is truly important.

The failure of the Civil Rights Movement, epitomized in Obama’s run, is that the public, independent-of-a-political-party movement ENDED (mainly because the leaders were dead or in jail or bought off w/ offices).

Moyers, like so many of us whites, puts the focus on the SYMBOL, not the reality.

It’s not done yet, and just look at the levels of segregation, the prison systems, urban schools etc to see just how terribly unfinished the whole project is.

Moyers, like Clinton, doesn’t get it.

80. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

If you want proof of what I’m saying. look at the reaction to the Jena marches. The party hated it. The black establishment hated it. The media hated it. The local white establishment was TERRIFIED by it. That march was the raised fist that I tried to mention before, and it is EXACTLY what has been missing.

Sharpten, Obama etc SIPHON off energy, bleed off the need for change, coopt and dissipate people’s yearning for justice. Someone up thread mentioned that it isn’t change that is needed, it is JUSTICE.

81. marisacat - 18 January 2008

… Obama etc SIPHON off energy, bleed off the need for change, coopt and dissipate

Sadly the whole point. And why Sharpton angled to get on the Dem party [at that time, Kerry camp] payroll in ‘04.

What a fucked mess.

82. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

I’m not saying that the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts are wonderful milestones, but they aren’t COMPLETE. We’re not DONE. We haven’t really embraced social justice. We haven’t complete the project. It’s …

… shit, I really don’t know why I’m even bothering to pay attention. It’s not going to happen through established politics. It’s just not.

We’re not ready, but celebrating LBJ as some kind of deliverer is to misunderstand how fragile and incomplete the movement for social justice is in the US.

83. marisacat - 18 January 2008

Moyers has just started here and think I heard the line where he loses it.. but will have to check the transcript…

Think he said that the South held the North (or congress) back from moving forward on race.

I would never defend institutionalised apartheid in the South, but that regime in the south (as well as slavery in teh north earlier), for ever and always was used to benefit the nation economically. The congress used the So (and yes the Boll weevils were a bloc, no doubt) but they used it as an excuse to let it go on as it was.

84. liberalcatnip - 18 January 2008

We’re not ready, but celebrating LBJ as some kind of deliverer is to misunderstand how fragile and incomplete the movement for social justice is in the US.

I DO understand what you’re saying. Really. The only point I wanted to make about Moyers’ monologue was that I thought he did mesh the two realities – the movement and the politics – in a fair way, emphasizing what happened before and after the passage of the act. That’s all. And I think he clarified the point that Clinton was trying to make that was so distorted – that it took everybody involved to make progress.

As for where that progress is now, I agree with you wholeheartedly that it’s in a sorry, sorry state and the fact that a black man (the first ‘viable’ candidate, as they call him) is now running for president can’t be seen as a symbol of some huge leap from the state of oppression that existed then or that continues to exist now. I fear that some people might think supporting him is some form of atonement.

85. liberalcatnip - 18 January 2008

Sharpten, Obama etc SIPHON off energy, bleed off the need for change, coopt and dissipate people’s yearning for justice. Someone up thread mentioned that it isn’t change that is needed, it is JUSTICE.

Sharpton’s become a joke – showing up with a mic everywhere there’s a camera to be seen and Obama – well – he’s just not showing up in any way at all. Neither strategy is working.

I thought Shelby Steele’s comments about the Bargainer vs the Challenger were quite eye-opening in that respect.

86. wu ming - 18 January 2008

The United States does not elect kings.

true, we elect emperors.

87. liberalcatnip - 18 January 2008

As Peter Tosh sang:

Everyone is crying out for peace yes
None is crying out for justice

I don’t want no peace
I need equal rights and justice
Got to get it
Equal rights and justice

88. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

but the fatal flaw of Moyers, and Clinton, and Obama, is the emphasis on the centers of power DEIGNING to dole out some modicum of justice.

The politics is the echo … and LBJ’s laws were, ultimately, failures.

89. liberalcatnip - 18 January 2008

87. To follow that line to its logical conclusion though, government/laws would be rendered useless, wouldn’t they?

I think we’re talking past each other here because I’m no historian on LBJ so I’m certainly not standing up for his administration’s efforts however my only dog in this fight is that all Clinton said (and Moyers, by extension) was that it took MLK’s movement and the president’s actions to move things along. How they moved along after that is not what I was addressing as far as what Clinton said is concerned.

90. marisacat - 18 January 2008

we have the inbred hierarchy of the plantation. At least, in my opinion.

91. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 January 2008

87. To follow that line to its logical conclusion though, government/laws would be rendered useless, wouldn’t they?

You are of a sane country that still has some semblance of the rule of law. You still believe in a political process.

I don’t anymore. My country is dead. It put a gold-plated gun to its head and chose to blow its brains out.

You are, of course, right … hopefully the end result of an activist movement is a new set of laws, a new encoded paradigm of standards for the fair and just treatment of human beings.

That’s not what happened w/ the laws LBJ signed. We wanted to believe it. We, as a country, PRETENDED to believe it, and then American whites ran for the suburbs, destroyed public education, hollowed out the healthcare system, destroyed higher education, destroyed the public airwaves … all because we were bound and determined not to SHARE. Our police forces are militia. Our companies are divorced from any sort of social obligation. We spend over half of our tax revenues on preparing to wage war, waging war and cleaning up the human detritus of our wars.

We are a racist apartheid state that pretends to be something higher and better and more just. We make holidays of the birthdays of revolutionaries and then act in contravention of EVERYTHING they fought for.

I cannot play the game that Clinton and Moyers are playing. I just can’t. I’m sure LBJ meant it. I really do. I’m sure that we all think that we’re better than we are.

BUT

WE

AREN’T.

A venal, warmongering state of selfish, narcissistic children who don’t know our history, can’t speak our own language, worship the people who exploit us and the land we claim to love … THAT is America.

I hate that this is what I see, but it is what it is.

92. liberalcatnip - 18 January 2008

Speaking of so-called “justice”. [insert rant here about the corrupt US system and the death penalty]

93. liberalcatnip - 18 January 2008

You are of a sane country that still has some semblance of the rule of law. You still believe in a political process.

’some semblance’ being key but as far as the political process goes re: human rights goes, you just have to look at the subjugation of our first nations people that still continues to this day. It’s horrendous. So yes, there is ’some semblance’ left here and perhaps we’ve made some advancements in some areas that have been government-supported ie. health care (that the Conservatives in this country want to privatize at every turn) but it certainly isn’t nirvana and we have just as much corruption as the next so-called “democracy”.

I don’t anymore. My country is dead. It put a gold-plated gun to its head and chose to blow its brains out.

I can’t disagree with that.

94. cad - 18 January 2008

Now seems the perfect time to check out a brilliant prophecy for the Reagan era, from ABC’s FRIDAYS ((Michael Richards and Larry David alert):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8sVAslUphUQ

95. liberalcatnip - 19 January 2008

My Saturday predictions: Smuckersbee in SC and HillBill in NV.

96. marisacat - 19 January 2008

what an ugly addition the whole NV thing has been.

Maybe they should have picked NM… small state, not dead on white white.

Not that it matters, of course.

97. liberalcatnip - 19 January 2008

These little caucus parties sure are a weird way of picking a candidate. I just don’t get the rationale of not having secret ballots.

98. BooHooHooMan - 19 January 2008

My Ouija Board came up Hill in Nevada and McCain in a squeeker in SC.

It then when on to tell our dog had secretly crapped behind the sofa.

I’ll check after the results are in to see if it’s right.

99. marisacat - 19 January 2008

two ou tof three polls has Hill up. I suspect she wins. Regardless of polls.

SC seems a squeaker between Theocrats and Warmongers. I suppose McCain pulls it out.

But no real idea.

I asked the all seeing blind cat to opine and she declined to wake up. A loser all around for her, I guess.

=^..^= [thanks to ms xeno]

100. sabrina - 19 January 2008

JJB, #18 – it is sickening to read that and to know that we have no opposition party to stop these criminals – ‘we do not torture’! What liars they are …..

Re the ID card, how great if it sparked a revolution throughout the country, but I doubt it. Sadly the witch from the DHS is probably right. Selfish Americans WILL probably the governors who stand up for their rights, rather than the infringers of those rights, because of a little inconvenience.

101. Hair Club for Men - 19 January 2008

If you want proof of what I’m saying. look at the reaction to the Jena marches. The party hated it. The black establishment hated it.

And the (white) “liberal” blogs refused to post about it until they realized it was such an overwhelming success they couldn’t ignore it.

Even the “anti-racist” David Neiwert made up some sort of lame excuse about how he needed more proof that there actually was a miscarriage of justice (ie until Digby gave him permission to write about it).

Sharpten, Obama etc SIPHON off energy, bleed off the need for change, coopt and dissipate people’s yearning for justice.

Well, Sharpton showed up for the Jena 6 march and Obama didn’t. But in late 2006 when there was a series of (very militant, very radical) marches in Queens against the NYPD for Sean Bell, there was a genuine energy building. Then Sharpton, Leslie Cagan and the NYC liberal dems stepped in and organized a permitted march down fifth avenue in Manhattan, complete with the usual police barricades, hordes of NYPD, etc. I felt more racial tension at the 5th Ave march (where there were metal barricades seperating the redneck white tourists on the sidewalks from the blacks and radical whites in the streets) then I did in Queens at the marches organized by the New Black Panther party and the various black nationalist organizations. And after that big permitted march, the energy just left. It was funny to see people shouting “Viva Chavez” at Charlie Rangel though.

102. marisacat - 19 January 2008

Then Sharpton, Leslie Cagan and the NYC liberal dems stepped in and organized a permitted march down fifth avenue in Manhattan, complete with the usual police barricades, hordes of NYPD, etc. I felt more racial tension at the 5th Ave march (where there were metal barricades seperating the redneck white tourists on the sidewalks from the blacks and radical whites in the streets) then I did in Queens at the marches organized by the New Black Panther party and the various black nationalist organizations. And after that big permitted march, the energy just left.

And that is what Sharpton is used for. To suck the air out. he horned in on Jena imo, and the family also sought help from him. Well, their right to choose their mediator, but I would have to say: GOOD LUCK.

And now he is the professional confessional for white miscreants.

It is gag worthy.

103. Hair Club for Men - 19 January 2008

And that is what Sharpton is used for. To suck the air out.

I think Sharpton’s a bit more of a complex character than that but that was certainly the effect in December of 2006.

One of my most vivid memories was walking back to Penn Station after it was over and hearing a cop talking to his wife on a cell phone.

“Oh it wasn’t so bad,” he said.

He was visibly relieved that it was just another big permitted march in Manhattan.

But even most white “radicals” in the city refused to participate in the Queens marches because the people organizing them (the New Black Panther Party) were supposedly black supremacists and anti-semites.

To be fair, they probably are but the marches in Queens weren’t created out of thin air by the New Black panthers (and the various gangs). They came out of the anger already in Jamaica.

Bringing everything to Manhattan just ripped this anger out of its context and put it exactly where the NYPD wanted it.

And not only is Ray Kelly still police chief. He’s going to be the next mayor. Those jackasses on the Daily Kos (ie Larry in NYC) who supported Bloomberg in 2005 because Perkins was supposed to be Bloomberg’s heir apparent have a huge suprise coming.

And of course they won’t write about it when it happens.

104. marisacat - 19 January 2008

i agree he is more complex but that is what the Dem party uses him for. And whomever else he works for.

Tho Roger Stone used him to inject air in the Dem primaries in 03. Worked too. And his speech at the convention was just outside prime time. Pretty good shooting from a professional sniper like Roger Stone.

105. marisacat - 19 January 2008

Opps, just going thru the thread:

Hello! Sabrina!

106. Hair Club for Men - 19 January 2008

i agree he is more complex but that is what the Dem party uses him for. And whomever else he works for.

At this point Sharpton has so many skeletons in his closet (Tawana Brawley, Freddie’s Fashion Mart, his campaign finances, his testimony to the FBI a few years ago) that yes, the white establishment can use him pretty much any way they want. The deal is that he gets to stay a national figure as long as he stays within the Democratic Party. He royally screwed the anti-war movement during the RNC in 2004 by holding his people back. In fact, he probably directly organized against participating.

And when a black man got framed for assaulting some cops when the cops rushed people on their motor scooters and started beating the crap out of everybody in sight, Sharpton didn’t organize any anti-politce brutality marches.

But, once again, the whole thing is pretty complex. White (or black) radicals are notoriously bad at doing simple things like hiring lawyers. It really helps to have Norm Siegel and people like that around to pick up the pieces. And Leslie Cagan was instrumental in saving WBAI and Democracy Now from turning into a corporate soft jazz station. If you got rid of this whole crowd, most of the black and white ultra left couldn’t organize themselves out of a paper bag. They’d do nothing but sell Trotsyist newspapers and fight amongst themselves.

107. marisacat - 19 January 2008

they – a multilayered set of entities – own Sharpton.

Find something that is not complex.

108. marisacat - 19 January 2008

new thread… sort of…

LINK

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