Summer doldrums, eternally [UPDATE: From Prussia with love] 17 July 2008
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, DC Politics, Democrats, France, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, WAR!.trackback
La Croisette – Cannes – Eugene Hernandez photog
Mid summer political scrimmage. Can it get more boring? Oh I think so. Stay tuned.
Nat Hentoff, a very mixed bag himself, admits to his personal Obama deflation. What a shock! (not), as I opened his opinion piece, in the Sacramento Bee, I thought it would be FISA (check!) and wondered what else. Entanglement of Church and State, it seems, is the other burr under the Hentoff saddle. He comes at both, via the Constitution, being a former Con law prof himself.
But Obama insists this program will be the “moral center” of his administration. Just where is his own center of credibility? I remember the surge of hope for a national change as a child, during the Great Depression, when, while my mother would walk blocks to save a few cents on food, there came Franklin Delano Roosevelt! I haven’t seen such a surge since Obama’s first chorus, but I can no longer believe in this messenger of such tidings.
In the wake of The New Yorker cover, MoDo looks at the paucity of jokes and comedic mocking of ObamaRama. All I can say is, if comics and comedians and stand ups don’t go after his lecturing and self sainthood-ing, they are not doing their job. Or any job. Gonna be a loooong 4 years. Or, whatever it is………………….
Comparing him to FDR… always reminds me of a family story, which I only heard for the first time a few years ago, thankfully it had not lived in the family forever, as some hackneyed tale… My mother’s eldest sister gave birth to her first child on election day in 1932. When she came round and the baby was out, her first question was, Had Roosevelt won? Nothing about the baby… LOL
One thing I am certain of, with FDR we got some much needed change. However it came about. WIth LBJ, despite the horror of Vietnam (which we still live with and learned NOTHING from), and, again, however it came about, we got some massive, landmark, legislation. The likes of which we will never see again.
What we will see, is [continued] tear down.
^^^^
From the end of the last thread, from CSTAR:
Is everybody going insane? Is Obama giving off some pheromones that are causing really strange behavior? Juan Cole* today wrote this today
Clinton and Obama are both policy wonks and people it is clear you could trust an economy to (unlike Bush and McCain, who are all about giveaways to the rich, their own social class). But Clinton and Obama are also hunks, whom men admire for their lithe physicality and over whom women swoon.
Women swoon? Lithe physcality. Read the entire posting in his blog; I don’t think I’m quoting out of context or misinterpreting his remarks.
Am I going insane and am I only imagining that these comments are real? Frankly that would be the more desirable option.
^^^
… and ms_xeno mentioned SMBIVA, so I dropped by. Luvved this… and the photo. Think that is the old pink palazzo itself, the Beverly Hills Hotel………….. We are so issue oriented. We are so useless…. note it is a MoveOn.org sponsored event.
BTW, speaking of gas, lithe physicality in our pols (they are the same thing, LOL) and whatever else… we are well over 5.00/gallon here for “Unleaded Premium”… In reality, it is hardly worth noting anymore. Any sort of international incident, or threat of same, and it will climb… and will without the incident…
Happy Rest of the Summer. If we can afford it. Or, afford anything. I am unsure we can afford the game of politics anymore. Much less le pain quotidien
***************
UPDATE, 3:23 pm
Oh… the righties will have fun with this one. Via Geraghty at NRO’s Campaign Spot:
‘Lightworker’ Candidate To Speak Before Angelic Column
Campaign Spot reader Tim tells me Berliner Morgenpost is reporting that the Obama campaign and Berlin city authorities have agreed on the location for his speech next week, the Great Star (Grosser Stern), where seven streets intersect. It lies in the middle of the big park in the center of Berlin, the Tiergarten. ::snip snappy::
However at the Grosser Stern one finds:
It is a totally non-descript place except for one thing. The Victory Column (Siegessaeule) is there and Sen. Obama will speak directly in front of it. The Victory Column is a tower over 700 feet high and is a monument to Prussia’s victories in wars against Denmark, Austria and France in the 19th century.
I think it suits a US candidate for a 21st c presidency, while the US is in the midst of global terror masking as anti-terrorism – something it has NO intention of stopping, quite well.
*******
Using another entry at NRO, no, he does not hear himself. Does not stop the lecturing tho…… What a tiresome prig.
Jack Cafferty: Viagra Is For A Medical Condition, Birth Control Is A “Lifestyle Choice”
oh bullshit. Bob Dole is a lifestyle choice. Not one you have to make.
don’t you know that men DIE if they can’t get an erection?!?!?
Geesh.
Oh, and just read about this: SF Gate
Speaking of dicks …
Mierda de toro. insurance companies don’t reimburse because they can make more money not reimbursing.
I think we need an insanity watch.
Well we found out in the middle 90s at my law firm, when we changed insurerers, from Northwest Life (a very good insurance) to Travelers (really really bad, and pulled a coupel of years later due to firm wide revolt) that by the choice of a single woman, a Director at the Firm and head of HR (and a massive and nasty bull dyke, by the way) that BC was no longer covered.
Shit. What to do.
We triangulated. A black Southern Baptist secretary, who had the full backing of her partner, a Big Democrat, lead the pushback.
We got it covered.
3
it’s been unrolling for a few days. And last I heard the City was struggling to get inside its own system.
AND he is not, classically speaking, a hacker. Since he was employed to work on the system.
As for the last, the third party concern… they best just ASSUME he has done this.
Memo to Obama, McCain: No one wins in a war By Howard Zinn
Maybe Zinn should not halfway endorse the Democratic con.
There’s a htought.
thinks they’ll listen.
Can you stop me from swallowing this pill?
The planet is exploding, I stand still.
As I close my eyes I feel a chill.
Last night’s all you said it was.
Last night’s all you said it was.
What have I done,
What have I done?
[not my words… one of the best songwriters I’ve ever met in my life, who became a methhead in SF in the mid ’90’s.]
He was a god to me when I was 18 and he was 21. At 20, while he was a 6th year senior, I didn’t have a band, and I just asked him if he needed a bass player, though I’d never really picked up a bass in my life, and for some reason, because he thought I was a better guitarist than him, he said sure. Hence my first studio experience in my life… and touring.
And then he went and became a meth addict… For me that is beyond sad.
If you can imagine Dave Matthews, with a soul, a better falsetto, and lyrics that mean something to homeless people, before Dave Matthews ever existed, you have Dave Myers. Seeing where his clone went, with far less soul, it always upsets me that the harp player went fo U Mass for social work, the drummer went to the New School for Psychology, I went to the New School for Philosophy, and Dave went to San Francisco, to be a bike messenger and meth addict, to give up music… as his teeth rotted…
If I’m ever in the position, one of the first music rescues I will ever do is for Dave.
fwiw, this is where Bush was this evening. No address listed, and not open to the public. They closed highway 29 (St Helena Highway) for his cortege, it looked like 15 or so black Suburbans… and the 5 double helos landed at Sutter Home, which I guess is associated with Harlan Estates. Or just more Republicans. Or Wingers. Where (Harlan) the proprietary red begins at 450.00
And, interestingly enough, our local news was delighted to show us, over and over, some sort of cheering section that got out for him, in St Helena.
Can it please end. So Obamanomics can begin. Gah.
War is so Great.
Piece by Risen, up in the NYT
Gah. Neil Young is with Charlie Rose, about Living with War
This stuff gets fucking OLD. Seems clueless he is with one of the great civilian promoters of this war. Gotta sell records, gotta sell movies.
bizaro:
there should be a comma somewhere there…
But the written,
Our Possession,
Transmutes timelines.
Should be the last
This is what I meant.
One more addendum:
and the ‘i’ for an ‘i’….
should have seen that before I posted it.
David Paterson speaking at NAACP.
Refreshing alternative to both Obama AND Jackson. Not to mention an actual liberal. Not to mention, actually in charge of a major government already…
Please. Tear each other to effing shreds.
Madman:
[Zinn] thinks they’ll listen.
Zinn knows better than that, or he’s a moron.
Zinn is thinking of Zinn’s career. That’s what they’re all thinking of.
Speaking of the last thread, I’ll give CSTAR or whomever five bucks to slap Juan Cole with a big fish. But put your back into it or no cash.
What a yutz. And speaking of yutzes, here’s Carl “Meathead Blahblah II” Davidson in action at SMBIVA, smugly intoning about how very, very important he personally is to St. Obama and to St. Obama’s handlers, etc.
[puke] Yeah, dude. You’re so “visible” to the powers-that-be. Like an ATM machine is visible.
Congratulations, San Francisco!
Proposed George W. Bush Sewage Plant makes ballot.
well call me slow, but i just found out the past few days that renaming it will cost money. So I might pass on a YES vote. Frankly I was all for it when I first heard of it, tho it is getting lambasted right and left as childish.
Oh no! We could not be childish… could we?
LOL
It’s not my tax money, but if it were, I’d be pleased to make the investment in public humor infrastructure. 😉
The HHS leak about proposals regarding contraception and abortion that moiv posted about (here too) a couple of days ago… has hit KGO news radio out here, not as a topic (yet, but I am hopeful Christine Craft might pick it up or even a couple fo the male hosts) as a repeated sound bite, with [audio] quotes from Hillary and Keenan of NARAL (hosanna we are so blessed!)…
hmmm
24
oh it is just that we are strapped, for real. As Gavin expands his personal staff.
We are so scrweed up over money tho, that it hardly matters.
hmm bad news… apparently a new poll is out showing a bare majority (in CA) oppose the same sex marriage… Ambinder had a bad link, so I am searching SJ Mercury News…
Got it backwards… a bare majority OPPOSES the ban, which is Prop 8
[had to change SUPPORTS to OPPOSES, I hate ballot measures… you have to be so careful with them]
NYCO’s memory of a politician proposing that unmarried women without children should be last in line for health coverage did ring a faint bell with me, though I had/have no clue if it was an Ohio legislator. I spent some time trying to google up a specific reference, to no avail.
However, this Ohio state bill proposing a Mandatory Permission Slip from the Fetal Father (with no father unknown “defense” allowed for the woman seeking an abortion, and a mandatory paternity test if the woman names several possible fathers), introduced July 07 and assigned to the House Health Committee in September, was quite a doozy in its own right.
Might be worth checking the sponsors of that one for further shenanigans . . . .
28 – Good news, then! I saw something the other day indicating that the ban’s chances weren’t good, even if it did get on the ballot.
OT: Against all odds, some support (on the topics of panel diversity, scheduling, and a Harold Ford/Kos “debate” event) is breaking out in the comments to this diary by heartsandflowers: I’m at NetRoots and I’m bored.
Gosh I should rather think that Harold Ford and Kos might glom onto each other and MERGE.
Being so similar.
Apparently they did.
As the blogger above (associated with the CBC Monitor Report Card, which had rated Ford “Derelict”) headed to the mike during question time, Ford skedaddled.
Kid Oakland is at NN, too, announcing his new position with the Kleeb campaign.
heartsandflowers ought to drop by and hit him up for a T-shirt.
hmm I am surprised someone associated with the CBC Monitor was at NutNutz. Frankly.
I remember when MyDD (Bowers actually) picked up on the CBC Monitor a couple years ago, and USED it to rag on members. But just as a device. not bothering to show that corruption is endemic, fully, in congress. Think they glommed onto it just to use agaisnt Al Wynn with their beloved, Donna Edwards.
Pox on all their diseased houses, frankly.
33
They all need to get a room. Seriously. WIth a 70s wall mural of amber waves of grain.
33 – Snicker, snicker. I see the SYFPH dude got his!
34 – From the live DK front-page thread during the Ford/Kos event (which was titled “The Texas Shootout,” of all things):
Apparently there’s a big tent party tonight. Hope they skip the lasers.
#33 lol, noticed in the thread no one even asked him exactly what ‘working’ for Kleeb entails. Any ideas if he’s on the payroll (and as what) or doing volunteer work?
methinks little KO has a big mancrush on Kleeb, the Montana Marlboro guy.
hmm i think in this case, “The Texas Shootout” sounds like very middle of the road pron
Wasn’t it Jason Melrath who called Kleeb, “Senator McDreamy” LOL iirc…………
yessh… the local news here is trying to say foreclosures are ”bottoming out”. Uh not from what I read. We have 12 months at least of more sub primes hitting.
What a mess we are in. Even if we WERE bottoming out.. this is not a bust with a quick rise off it.
Pheromone insanity watch…
KO: Kleeb and his wife appreciate your support. First I’ve heard of her. . . She musta been just out of frame in all that hay!
Such a shame Aravia can’t show his face in Austin (or dramatize his absence, as he did last year) . . . . He owes any number of people there a round of double margaritas, at least. For example, one of his most worshipful and dedicated personal comment rating hygienists ever – vcmvo2. Can’t remember how long she remained stalwart, after he was cast into the wilderness pen of Talk Left. And I’m sure as hell not going to look.
Oh my god, as I was writing this, I received an e-mail with some sculpture photos. Check out the work !
hmm I don’t recall hearing much about Mrs Tester either. We heard about and saw his TRACTOR.
LOL
More photos of Jean Luc Cornec’s sculptures.
(Ha – thisthis turned up in the flickr search, too.)
20 – and I thought I was cynical!
^^hug^^
tho it is getting lambasted right and left as childish.
well, the childish bar was set by naming one of the nation’s major airports after Ronnie Raygun, the man who did so much to destroy air travel in this country.
I love the phone sheep… I recognise the name, I must have seen hsi work somewhere…
hmm From Ben Smith, full text:
Apparently McCain broke embargo on his IRaq scheduled co-del. This weekend.
the biggest thing going against the ban is the piles of money to be made from marriage tourism, which is why MA now allows out-of-state couples to marry there.
Big bucks.
foreclosures are ”bottoming out”. Uh not from what I read. We have 12 months at least of more sub primes hitting.
What’s going on is by no means subprimes only, either.
The non-metropolitan, low-snack-bracket “working class” can no longer fuel their outsize vehicles and buy the groceries and Pampers (not to mention cigarettes) and make the truck payments and pay the property taxes, as well as the primary mortgage and whatever home equity LOC they’ve already tapped . . . and that’s not counting child care or health care, insurance, and actual accident, injury, disease, disability, downsizing, divorce, dependents’ debts, penal detention, or death.
48 – Absotootly. Why not go ahead and be the new Niagara Falls?!
I hope McCain gets lambasted far and wide today for giving up the info that Obama is arriving in Iraq this weekend. To give the insurgents a heads up on when Obama and a Congressional delegation is arriving is nothing less than criminal.
If this was done in reverse it would encompass and entire news cycle.
Forgot to mention dental care and elder assistance, school glasses, cable/Internet, and shoes.
Even Wal-Mart’s low, low prices can’t protect you when your Home Depot card, Victoria’s Secret, Sears, and time-share balances start to trigger universal default. Lots of things can start tumbling after.
49
agree… there is no possible bounce back from the depth of this bubble burst, bust, inflation, deflation, loss of RE value, cons on the loose preying on anyone in distress… the morass is endless. Some of suburbia is dying before our eyes… unsustainable in this economy.
The news profiled a truly sad family, 3 years ago bought in Vallejo, with money down, not no money down version … 565K… not really worth it from the look I got, but pushed to that price, very new development. Now worth under 300K and with a balloon of 900.00 more per month on the mortgage payment.
So they are vacating, with the three children. At least both parents are employed, and can pay rent. About all that is good to say…
oh yeah CA knows what a boon this SSM is … no question. The most venerable, old (and since resold, not really worth it) jewelry store downtown is running ads for wedding sets… for the gamut. Think of the resort areas, tourist areas, coastal, desert, wine country, you name it…
HEY, New England is ever so romantic too! Plus, quaint and and cool and affordable!
these texas tidbits to be filed under political humor: a couple of vids of nutroots-bound howard dean stepping off his not-quite-keseyesque no further bus onto crawford, texas soil yesterday.
DNC Howard Dean In Crawford TX #8
then after shaking a few hands, spots a local woman, walks over, sticks out his hand and immediately gets pounced.
DNC Howard Dean In Crawford TX #9
dean should take a lesson from barry and use a fist-bump in order to facilitate a quicker get-away.
hat tip to garychapelhill
Marriage is, after all, an ECONOMIC institution as far as the law/society goes, and once it is shown that it PAYS, then there is no going back.
Oh, just saw This guy on Countdown:
Yes, yes, but here’s the REAL reason:
LOL you win… Cali is not affordable.
hmm I laughed pretty hard the other day, reading that Camp Obama, having subsumed the political arm of the DNC (mostly, tho I noticed a report on an upstart third party group rising, LOL, insurgent child against Daddy Axelrod) anyway, they have dispatched Howard to GOTV in the 5 Deep South states.
Oh htat was pretty amusing.
Good luck Howard!
Obama is a servant and Larry Hunter knows it. He is PR. Adware. Walk-on.
To preside over the further destruction.
If New York State ever gets free of its partisan political quagmire, it’ll follow suit – in matching tuxedos or gowns – not long after.
No big uproar, here, not really, over Paterson’s move to recognize.
60 – yup
hmmm William Grieder is on with Moyers… will hunt up the transcript later… about the financial services meltdown… and just said that private equity companies want to buy into the banks. With the Rubicon that FDIC, Treasurey and Congress jsut crossed… and that messy “moral hazard”. Knowing that “bailout” is now part of the deal, but regulation agaisnt usury is long gone.
That good old bipartisan fuck over.
So sweet of Obama to twaddle about solving the great divide.
#49 #53
Not too many grounds for optimism, economywise, that I can see by reading the Newspaper anyway. From the Times .
Meet the Press: Gore
Fox News Sunday: Adm. Michael Mullen, Sens. Lieberman, Bayh
Face the Nation: Treasury Secretary Paulson
Late Edition: Speaker Pelosi, House Minority Whip Blunt, Paulson
This Week: Pre-empted by British Open , 6:10 PM
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz It looks likw TW will be the best show of the lost.
In essence we are bankrupt, long since, but the illusion goes on, in some areas.
Well all the real stuff that forms the basis of the gigantic pyramids of paper that people buy and sell in financial markets is still there: the real stuff is the houses, the factories, machinery etc underpinning mortgages and stocks.
Just some very clever people, somewhere, pulled a really clever trick on us dupes and all those claims (for those lucky enough to have them) that we had to that stuff, which we were told would pull us through our old golden years (oh that sentimentality is just for you my dear Barack) now can claim a lot lot less, if anything at all.
Thank you Milton Friedman. Chicago Boy in chief.
We need to reinvent hell, just for him.
what’s completely unfunny about the now-pathetic howard dean is that he could have gotten off a bus in crawford texas back in 2005, stepped into the ditches with cindy sheehan, and potentially accomplished something.
its fitting he’s headed to netroots nation to lead the “movement” as center ring clown of the big potemkin tent.
Is netroots nation crossed by a root canal?
If anyone is somewaht inclined… there is a new video of my band, soon to be put up within the vaunted gothic pillars of the www.
And, for what it’s worth, we’re playing a festival in Delaware headlined by John Waters, Sandra Bernhart, and The Fixx, and a festival in Lowell MA which is the only fair trade festival in the country… should anyone be near either of these locales. Big deals both… not sure what to do about that fact yet…
70 Bad Url
OK 1st Url works. Pretty cool.
Howard had something quite powerful in 2004… his own org, with genuine, organic crossover following. Quite rare.
It all dissolved in parts:
He campainged too fucking hard for Kerry… a loose jock strap at best. He CONFORMED to nothingness and scuttled his own speech at the convention. He let a blimp of a troll, on pay from so many many paymasters, Al Sharpton, be the one rebel speech (other than Carter, who refused to conform to the Kerry games).
He should have followed his own inclinatons after Iowa, remembered what he accomplished for people in VT, and either left the party, become IND or stand alone, still a part of the party.
Every single thing he and his brother have gone out on a limb for in the intervening three years (4 really from Iowa) has been a JOKE. Or a betrayal or a LOL REJECT and RENOUNCE of his own words.
All you can do is laugh…………..
Well, he is a presbyterian, after all…
Who is Presbyterian?
Not Howard. Cannot think of the church in VT he used to belong to… one of the classic old American religions. LOL Til the bike path controversy.
He lands in the place that sinks empires.
Whatever…. posterity, posterior… whatever
They run thru the crowd at NutNutters. All anxious to be quoted… 😉
My apologies… for some reason I had him pegged as a presby… Northeast stuffiness and all… though UCC – church of Pastor [lets threaten women online] Dan… [not to mention my late racist Grandmother].
As for profanity and the nutrootz, well, you know, writing for a G rated audience always does mean ‘you’re arrived’. 😉
Obama has touched their tongues with his golden Jesus wand…
Yeah pastor Dan ws never a good ad for UCC, frankly. Lunatic in robes…
79
well Obama did say sex is sacred… LOL.
I have not read Rude Pundit in years, but he had some knockout posts. A few that I never forgot…
81 – I remember too…in fact, I remember a time when the larger ‘blogoshpere’ was far more interesting than it is now. Pity the democatic party detritus…
The profanity ‘issue’ has always bemused me. I’ve never used a lot of profanity in my writing, save occasionally when drunk and going over the top – in fact I never really use that much profanity in my speech… Chalk it up to the Christian parents who think the word ‘suck’ is offensive.
I guess I’ve always thought that profanity can be used well, or not, in writing. To some extent, back in 2004, I thought MSOC actually used it well, though it got old, quickly.
It’s just funny that it has been such an ‘issue’ over the years. I mean really, who the fuck cares?
Yeah I miss the old Howard. He probably was never presidential palace material (but oh what a gloriously rowdy one term it would have been!), but he would have made one helluva loose cannon. But he just lashed himself to Kerry, and then to the Party, body and soul, and really what we’ve ended up with, with Obamism, is a bloated parody of 2004.
That said, I never would have been paying as much attention to, say, Black Agenda Report in 2004.
LOL
words “out there for posterity” my ass. its all about employability in democratic party free-lunch line. the golddigger faction are very much aware of the edwards/95-10-feminist revolving door.
Nancy Pelosi is undergoing her (presumably gentle) grilling in Austin.
Live thread here . . . live video streaming here.
87.
the war funder? the bring FiSA to the floor for a vote leader?
its like the bush-enabler just said
something is very very very wrong with this picture.
well Obama did say sex is sacred… LOL.
So did Prince. Of course, Prince has turned into a lecturing prig too.
Gore just turned up as special guest.
yeah.. such convenient timing.
questions OVAH!
cool song lucid.
All Code Pinkers (some at the back of the room, apparently) will be expected to clap politely now!
Help Get Cindy Sheehan on the Ballot
The US will not prosecute Bush
just enough time for a lightning round of questions!
those clown-nosed chumps in austin have just been played.
and of course the questions are for GORE! ROTFLOL
Newsweek Says We Should Pardon Officials Who Sanctioned Torture
Too late … this is already a banana republic, only instead of bananas we grow lies and PR.
97 – The revolution will not be revolutionized!
shes now fluffing gore buying more time, as a grandmother blah blah blah particularly grateful blah blah blah
‘Justifying’ Torture: Two Big Lies By Coleen Rowley and Ray McGovern
I missed the Nancy Show???!!!
I say dang (no cussin… now) coz Im a big fan.
Dont you know, my name stands for:
oh shes still tap dancin. i suppose shes got about ten to twenty more minutes to fill, depending on if they stop ten before the hour to clear the room.
im so impressed with the much heralded put-nancy-on-the-spot hotseat at nutroots nation. laughable. the moderator is trying to take questions from the floor and she just cut him off!
blah blah blah.. revolutionary.. blah blah blah evil republicans, blah blah blah
the sting is stage managed. i bet she has audience members expressly planted asking gore questions about the environment and odds are the moderators in on the game.
the hollow movement.
Naomi Klein vs Fox Business News
Oh, she’s so funny when the scumbag challenges her. “I guess they have secret oil rigs hidden in their back yards”.
They’re so thrown by somebody who isn’t just a cheerleader for the markets and big business. Neither of them read the book.
I think the Pinks made some organized noise early on in Nancy’s nonenlightening round . . . background is quiet now . . . hope someone got pics of their ejection by the People Powered Reality Based Community.
she just bought another minute talking shitsky after cutting short the moderator. i assume he’s trying to salvage his last remaining shred of credibility.
gore actually just stated hes sitting next to one of the greatest leaders in the united states.
ROTF
106.
i think so too. i heard that as well and thought the same thing. i also noticed that the overal volume mix dropped as well.
well back to info about batteries!
Looks like Cindy is down to a smaller deficitUPDATE: As of 3:17 PM on Friday, July 18th, only 3,605 more signatures are needed
What the fuck took them so long?
(From the comments to the Al Rodgers live thread on the orange recroomlist.)
Taibbi: It’s a Class War, Stupid
is it just ok to write it here on Kos, and not ok to demand it from our leaders in person?
Yes.
More from the Taibbi, spot on, I think:
#87 Grilling? Why is she going to Austin for a face-lift? Can’t you do much better in SF?
Just a little toasting, as it turns out. Complete with SPF pre-screening of the Qs.
From the occams hatchet thread, some of the home-alone readers are fuming.
This is dated April 26th Anti-war Cindy Sheehan files to take on Pelosi
Jeeze Louise… she only needed 10,198? Has her campaign effort been a wilt? (Like much of the rest of the peace movement?) I could have gotten her that by myself… in less than two months’ time. Give me 4 hours a day, 24/7. (Dont forget to feed and ice coffee me too, of course. And I confess, I like a smoke as well… might have to be transported out of state for cig breaks. lol)
Good luck, Cindy.
#113 – I dont know… Barbara is in San Fran and hers isnt all that subtle.
Madman:
Oh my… I saw that Larry Hunter interview on Countdown… as another check mark in the Conservatives for Obama column. They are incredibly comfy in that chair (except for the crowding). Speaks to how ham-handed Bush has been as he crashes across the globe and how ham-handed and downright feeble on top of it is that R candidate on plate, how wrecked the party. They yearn for the finesse and the face of Barack Oblahdeeblahda (Open head hatch and peer in… Hey, nothing to fear in here, folks! )
Madman comment at 96
Sorry! It languished in Moderation …
Interesting interactive feature on the NYT website about debt. I took the quiz, and I seem to be in the lowest 10% of the American population in terms of debt load.
Looking at the American population, poverty-level Americans carry the least debt (hand-to-mouth existence, no doubt). The average debt load increases steadily for Americans as they earn a higher and higher income. So, paradoxically, if you make more money at your job, you’re likelier to carry more debt. Seems like those higher paychecks are pretty illusory… and so is the middle class…
I can’t gloat however, because as of yet, I haven’t had to deal with serious home repairs or with costs associated with my parents’ care (they’re still in pretty good health)… which no doubt their pensions and Medicare are not going to cover fully. That will be coming.
But it’s good not to be owned by a bank – for now, anyway.
Home repairs…
hmmm the frist half of Moyers lst night profiled a neighborhood in Cleveland, Slovak Village. Somewhat mixed race, small frame homes, small yeads, front and back, working class district, from the pre war era, was my guess. Apparently most people had owned their houses outright… People in that neighbrohood got cuaght in the sub prime as mostly were retired or living on smallish incomes and ran into home repairs. And were targetted for sub prime.
Incredibly sad stories.
And of course the other killer is medical costs. And congress specifically killed amendment to the Bankruptcy reform law that would have made exception for medical costs that overwhelm people.
AND we won’t be getting any medical health care reform that means anything.
I think congress and the business community (of scoundrels) set up a perfect duck blind Only took a few decades to get here.
121. I’m continually astonished at what Americans have been using their home equity for. Critical home renovations, certainly a good reason to dip into HELOC. Vanity home renovations or renovations in prep for putting a house on the market… sure. But big-screen TVs? Cars? And even worse, vacations? Did these homeowners’ parents teach them nothing about responsible asset management? If I ever used my HELOC for a vacation, my grandmother (who originally had the house built in the 1950s) would come back from the grave and condemn me to the fires of hell. She was probably a little paranoid about dipping into it, but she did do so once to make a major expansion on the house.
Oh, but of course, home values were going to go up and up forever and ever! DUH.
As for the owners in the Cleveland neighborhood that is indeed very sad (even sadder because, but for periodic upkeep expenses, those are probably much better-built homes than the crackerboxes they build out in the desert).
My comment to what was formerly #113 is now aimed at #114 (Cstar re facelifts of the B list)
And then there is the seamless wickedness one finds at the intersection of the housing/sub-prime debacle and new bankruptcy laws.
new post………………….
LINK
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122
Well certainly there were stupid people, greedy people etc. Not news.
I also heard the other day that 6 out of 10 POC who received sub prime loans actually qualified for real loans. Higher grade loans.
I thiink one of the most egregious aspects of the fraud was the selling and reselling and reselling of the loans.
It all reminds me very much of Lloyds of London debaucle … forget if that was the 90s or what. They even duped secretaries in the firm to buy in, to a scam. Took their life savings in many cases..
but isn’t it good news minister obama intends to fully fund the new U.S. social safety net?