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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!.
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La Croisette Cannes Eugene Hernandez photog
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:

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.

*[Link to Juan Cole]

^^^

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.

Comments»

1. Madman in the Marketplace - 17 July 2008
2. marisacat - 17 July 2008

oh bullshit. Bob Dole is a lifestyle choice. Not one you have to make.

3. Madman in the Marketplace - 17 July 2008

don’t you know that men DIE if they can’t get an erection?!?!?

Geesh.

Oh, and just read about this: SF Gate

SAN FRANCISCO — A disgruntled city computer engineer has virtually commandeered San Francisco’s new multimillion-dollar computer network, altering it to deny access to top administrators even as he sits in jail on $5 million bail, authorities said Monday.

Terry Childs, a 43-year-old computer network administrator who lives in Pittsburg, has been charged with four counts of computer tampering and is scheduled to be arraigned today.

Prosecutors say Childs, who works in the Department of Technology at a base salary of just over $126,000, tampered with the city’s new FiberWAN (Wide Area Network), where records such as officials’ e-mails, city payroll files, confidential law enforcement documents and jail inmates’ bookings are stored.

Childs created a password that granted him exclusive access to the system, authorities said. He initially gave pass codes to police, but they didn’t work. When pressed, Childs refused to divulge the real code even when threatened with arrest, they said.

He was taken into custody Sunday. City officials said late Monday that they had made some headway into cracking his pass codes and regaining access to the system.

Childs has worked for the city for about five years. One official with knowledge of the case said he had been disciplined on the job in recent months for poor performance and that his supervisors had tried to fire him.

“They weren’t able to do it – this was kind of his insurance policy,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the attempted firing was a personnel matter.

Authorities say Childs began tampering with the computer system June 20. The damage is still being assessed, but authorities say undoing his denial of access to other system administrators could cost millions of dollars.

Officials also said they feared that although Childs is in jail, he may have enabled a third party to access the system by telephone or other electronic device and order the destruction of hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents.

Speaking of dicks …

4. CSTAR - 17 July 2008

that’s why insurance companies don’t reimburse for it unless pregnancy represents a danger for the woman. And then there’s a gray area where you can do a negotiation.

Mierda de toro. insurance companies don’t reimburse because they can make more money not reimbursing.

I think we need an insanity watch.

5. marisacat - 17 July 2008

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.

6. marisacat - 17 July 2008

The damage is still being assessed, but authorities say undoing his denial of access to other system administrators could cost millions of dollars.

Officials also said they feared that although Childs is in jail, he may have enabled a third party to access the system by telephone or other electronic device and order the destruction of hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents.

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.

7. Madman in the Marketplace - 17 July 2008

Memo to Obama, McCain: No one wins in a war By Howard Zinn

Go back to Sept. 11, 2001. Hijackers direct jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing close to 3,000 A terrorist act, inexcusable by any moral code. The nation is aroused. President Bush orders the invasion and bombing of Afghanistan, and the American public is swept into approval by a wave of fear and anger. Bush announces a “war on terror.”

Except for terrorists, we are all against terror. So a war on terror sounded right. But there was a problem, which most Americans did not consider in the heat of the moment: President Bush, despite his confident bravado, had no idea how to make war against terror.

Yes, Al Qaeda – a relatively small but ruthless group of fanatics – was apparently responsible for the attacks. And, yes, there was evidence that Osama bin Laden and others were based in Afghanistan. But the United States did not know exactly where they were, so it invaded and bombed the whole country. That made many people feel righteous. “We had to do something,” you heard people say.

Yes, we had to do something. But not thoughtlessly, not recklessly. Would we approve of a police chief, knowing there was a vicious criminal somewhere in a neighborhood, ordering that the entire neighborhood be bombed? There was soon a civilian death toll in Afghanistan of more than 3,000 – exceeding the number of deaths in the Sept. 11 attacks. Hundreds of Afghans were driven from their homes and turned into wandering refugees.

Two months after the invasion of Afghanistan, a Boston Globe story described a 10-year-old in a hospital bed: “He lost his eyes and hands to the bomb that hit his house after Sunday dinner.” The doctor attending him said: “The United States must be thinking he is Osama. If he is not Osama, then why would they do this?”

We should be asking the presidential candidates: Is our war in Afghanistan ending terrorism, or provoking it? And is not war itself terrorism?

8. marisacat - 17 July 2008

Maybe Zinn should not halfway endorse the Democratic con.

There’s a htought.

9. Madman in the Marketplace - 17 July 2008

thinks they’ll listen.

10. lucid - 17 July 2008

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.

11. marisacat - 17 July 2008

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.

12. marisacat - 18 July 2008

War is so Great.

Piece by Risen, up in the NYT

WASHINGTON — Shoddy electrical work by private contractors on United States military bases in Iraq is widespread and dangerous, causing more deaths and injuries from fires and shocks than the Pentagon has acknowledged, according to internal Army documents.

During just one six-month period — August 2006 through January 2007 — at least 283 electrical fires destroyed or damaged American military facilities in Iraq, including the military’s largest dining hall in the country, documents obtained by The New York Times show. Two soldiers died in an electrical fire at their base near Tikrit in 2006, the records note, while another was injured while jumping from a burning guard tower in May 2007. ::snip::

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.

13. lucid - 18 July 2008

bizaro:

Skewed pens
challenging cuneiform
and the ‘a’ for an ‘a’
before the cursive takes hold.

The writing,
Is more important than the written.

Thee before thou,
But always before she.

Mine before yours,
Subject to theirs.

A language
Lacking a possessive
And flailing to possess.

Should it surprise?
Our nation is born of blood,
Expanded through blood,
Sought diplomacy through blood
Accepted blood
As the seal of our writing.

While leaving the truths to be written.

But,
The history of the written.

Our possession
Transmutes timelines.

14. lucid - 18 July 2008

there should be a comma somewhere there…

15. lucid - 18 July 2008

But the written,
Our Possession,
Transmutes timelines.

Should be the last

16. lucid - 18 July 2008

Skewed pens
challenging cuneiform
and the ‘a’ for an ‘a’
before the cursive takes hold.

The writing,
Is more important than the written.

Thee before thou,
But always before she.

Mine before yours,
Subject to theirs.

A language
Lacking a possessive
And flailing to possess.

Should it surprise?
Our nation is born of blood,
Expanded through blood,
Sought diplomacy through blood
Accepted blood
As the seal of our writing,

While leaving the truths to be written.

But the written,
Our rebellious possession,
Transmute timelines.

This is what I meant.

17. lucid - 18 July 2008

One more addendum:

and the ‘a’ for an ‘a’

and the ‘i’ for an ‘i’….

should have seen that before I posted it.

18. NYCO - 18 July 2008

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…

19. marisacat - 18 July 2008
20. ms_xeno - 18 July 2008

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.

21. ms_xeno - 18 July 2008

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.

22. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008
23. marisacat - 18 July 2008

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

24. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008

It’s not my tax money, but if it were, I’d be pleased to make the investment in public humor infrastructure. 😉

25. marisacat - 18 July 2008

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

26. marisacat - 18 July 2008

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.

27. marisacat - 18 July 2008

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…

28. marisacat - 18 July 2008

Got it backwards… a bare majority OPPOSES the ban, which is Prop 8

In a finding that could foreshadow a difficult political battle for a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage, a new Field Poll says more California voters oppose Proposition 8 than favor it.

The new poll, released today, is the first independent statewide measure of public opinion on the proposed constitutional ban since gay men and lesbians began marrying legally in California on June 16. It was also the first time Field Research has polled voters on the official ballot description of Proposition 8. A narrow majority of 51 percent of 672 likely voters said they would vote against a ban, while 42 percent said they would vote for it.

The poll showed a California sharply divided over a constitutional ban – along the lines of geography, gender, race, age, religious belief and political affiliation. But it’s also a California where Proposition 8 supporters may have a hard time winning in November. Just 7 percent of voters were undecided, a strikingly small amount so long before Election Day, leaving relatively few voters to sway. ::snip::

[had to change SUPPORTS to OPPOSES, I hate ballot measures… you have to be so careful with them]

29. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008

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 . . . .

30. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008

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.

31. marisacat - 18 July 2008

Gosh I should rather think that Harold Ford and Kos might glom onto each other and MERGE.

Being so similar.

32. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008

Apparently they did.

The bad news is that the whole shebangabang was nothing more than a love fest between Harold and Markos. They kept allowing him to wander down memory lane when he was asked direct questions. It was more of “where can we find common ground” bullshyt.

I don’t know about any of you, but I don’t have jack in common with a SNAKE.

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.

33. moiv - 18 July 2008

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.

34. marisacat - 18 July 2008

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.

35. marisacat - 18 July 2008

33

They all need to get a room. Seriously. WIth a 70s wall mural of amber waves of grain.

36. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008

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):

Meh (0+ / 0-)
They’re both old news. One older news than the other, but both feel somewhat anachronistic and out-of-touch with today’s political environment.

Strategy ’08: Obama vs. the other guy
by dansac on Fri Jul 18, 2008 at 11:38:14 AM PDT

Apparently there’s a big tent party tonight. Hope they skip the lasers.

37. wilfred - 18 July 2008

#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.

38. marisacat - 18 July 2008

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…………

39. marisacat - 18 July 2008

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.

40. CSTAR - 18 July 2008

Pheromone insanity watch…

41. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008

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 !

42. marisacat - 18 July 2008

hmm I don’t recall hearing much about Mrs Tester either. We heard about and saw his TRACTOR.

LOL

43. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008

More photos of Jean Luc Cornec’s sculptures.

(Ha – thisthis turned up in the flickr search, too.)

44. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 July 2008

20 – and I thought I was cynical!

^^hug^^

45. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 July 2008

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.

46. marisacat - 18 July 2008

I love the phone sheep… I recognise the name, I must have seen hsi work somewhere…

47. marisacat - 18 July 2008

hmm From Ben Smith, full text:

Obama’s meetings: Heads of state, and opposition

On a conference call with reporters planning to travel abroad with Obama, aide Denis McDonough offered the fullest list yet of Obama’s meetings with foreign leaders.

Perhaps the most striking name on the list: Conservative Israeli opposition figure Benjamin Netanyahu.

He’s also meeting with the leader of the opposition Tories in England and the leader of Germany’s liberal opposition, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He appears not to be meeting with the French Socialist opposition, however.

In Europe, Obama will meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown; French President Nicolas Sarkozy; German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It’s also been reported that he’ll meet the chief of the British Tory opposition party.

In Israel, he’s planning to meet Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, as well as former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Netanyahu, on the left and right, respectively.

He’s planning to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayad.

Apparently McCain broke embargo on his IRaq scheduled co-del. This weekend.

48. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 July 2008

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.

49. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008

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.

50. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008

48 – Absotootly. Why not go ahead and be the new Niagara Falls?!

51. wilfred - 18 July 2008

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.

52. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008

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.

53. marisacat - 18 July 2008

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…

54. marisacat - 18 July 2008

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…

55. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008

HEY, New England is ever so romantic too! Plus, quaint and and cool and affordable!

56. bayprairie - 18 July 2008

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

As he stepped off the bus he was greeted immediately by Guila Jackson, who loudly demanded that the party put Hillary Clinton’s name into nomination at this summer’s national party convention.

“We want a nominee who’s elected, not selected,” she said, gripping his hand tightly as he stood, a smile frozen on his face.

Ms. Jackson is part of a group of die-hard Hillary supporters called PUMA, which stands for Party Unity my Ass.

“He tried to get away from me,” Ms. Jackson said later. “But I had a hold of his hand.”

dean should take a lesson from barry and use a fist-bump in order to facilitate a quicker get-away.

hat tip to garychapelhill

57. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 July 2008

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:

I’m a lifelong conservative activist and I’m backing Barack Obama

BY LARRY HUNTER

Wednesday, July 16th 2008, 7:39 PM

I’m a lifelong Republican – a supply-side conservative. I worked in the Reagan White House. I was the chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for five years. In 1994, I helped write the Republican Contract with America. I served on Bob Dole’s presidential campaign team and was chief economist for Jack Kemp’s Empower America.

This November, I’m voting for Barack Obama.

When I first made this decision, many colleagues were shocked. How could I support a candidate with a domestic policy platform that’s antithetical to almost everything I believe in?

The answer is simple: Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights vs. ill-conceived tax and economic policies – this is the difference between venial and mortal sins.

Yes, yes, but here’s the REAL reason:

Plus, when it comes to domestic issues, I don’t take Obama at his word. That may sound cynical. But the fact that he says just about all the wrong things on domestic issues doesn’t bother me as much as it once would have. After all, the Republicans said all the right things – fiscal responsibility, spending restraint – and it didn’t mean a thing. It is a sad commentary on American politics today, but it’s taken as a given that politicians, all of them, must pander, obfuscate and prevaricate.

Besides, I suspect Obama is more free-market friendly than he lets on. He taught at the University of Chicago, a hotbed of right-of-center thought. His economic advisers, notably Austan Goolsbee, recognize that ordinary citizens stand to gain more from open markets than from government meddling. That’s got to rub off.

When it comes to health care, I am hoping Obama quietly recognizes that a crusade against pharmaceutical companies would result in the opposite of any intended effect. And in any event, McCain’s plans in this area are deeply problematic, too. Take drug reimportation. McCain (like Obama) says he’s perfectly comfortable with this ill-conceived scheme, which would drive research and development dollars away from the next generation of miracle cures.

But overall, based on his embrace of centrist advisers and policies, it seems likely that Obama will turn out to be in the mold of John Kennedy – who was fond of noting that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Over the last few decades, economic growth has made Americans at every income level better off. For all his borderline pessimistic rhetoric, Obama knows this. And I believe he is savvy enough to realize that the real threat to middle-class families and the poor – an economic undertow that drags everyone down – cannot be counteracted by an activist government.

58. marisacat - 18 July 2008

LOL you win… Cali is not affordable.

59. marisacat - 18 July 2008

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!

60. marisacat - 18 July 2008

Obama is a servant and Larry Hunter knows it. He is PR. Adware. Walk-on.

To preside over the further destruction.

61. Intermittent Bystander - 18 July 2008

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.

62. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 July 2008

60 – yup

63. marisacat - 18 July 2008

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.

64. CSTAR - 18 July 2008

#49 #53

Not too many grounds for optimism, economywise, that I can see by reading the Newspaper anyway. From the Times .

Even so, most economists think house prices must fall an additional 10 to 15 percent to get back to reality.

More than two years ago, Nouriel Roubini, an economist at the Stern School of Business at New York University, said that the housing bubble would give way to a financial crisis and a recession. He was widely dismissed as an attention-seeking Chicken Little. Now, Mr. Roubini says the worst is yet to come, because the account-squaring has so far been confined mostly to bad mortgages, leaving other areas remaining — credit cards, auto loans, corporate and municipal debt.

Mr. Roubini says the cost of the financial system’s losses could reach $2 trillion. Even if it’s closer to $1 trillion, he adds, “we’re not even a third of the way there.”

65. marisacat - 18 July 2008

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.

66. marisacat - 18 July 2008

In essence we are bankrupt, long since, but the illusion goes on, in some areas.

67. CSTAR - 18 July 2008

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.

68. bayprairie - 19 July 2008

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.

69. CSTAR - 19 July 2008

Is netroots nation crossed by a root canal?

70. lucid - 19 July 2008

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…

71. CSTAR - 19 July 2008

70 Bad Url

72. CSTAR - 19 July 2008

OK 1st Url works. Pretty cool.

73. marisacat - 19 July 2008

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…………..

74. lucid - 19 July 2008

Well, he is a presbyterian, after all…

75. marisacat - 19 July 2008

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.

76. marisacat - 19 July 2008

He lands in the place that sinks empires.

Obama Lands in Afghanistan

By JEFF ZELENY
Published: July 20, 2008

WASHINGTON – Senator Barack Obama arrived in Afghanistan early Saturday morning, opening his first overseas trip as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, to meet with American commanders there and later in Iraq to receive an on-the-ground assessment of military operations in the two major U.S. war zones.

77. marisacat - 19 July 2008

Whatever…. posterity, posterior… whatever

July 18, 2008, 7:37 pm
Easing Off Online Obscenities

By Katharine Q. Seelye

AUSTIN — Has anyone noticed a decline in the use of obscenities in the blogosphere lately (well, at least when various public figures aren’t being quoted)?

Some prominent bloggers on a panel here at Netroots Nation said today that for a variety of reasons, they have scaled back their use of profanity. Others said they were swearing as much as they ever had.

Digby Parton, who writes on Hullabaloo.com, said she initially thought of her blog as an ephemeral form of conversation among friends and used vulgarities freely. But now she is read by a substantially wider circle and has cleaned up her language.

“I don’t use the same amount of profanity,” she said. “We’re taken much more seriously as a political force,” and she has a stronger sense that her words are “out there for posterity.” ::snipsnappy::

They run thru the crowd at NutNutters. All anxious to be quoted… 😉

78. lucid - 19 July 2008

Though he was raised an Episcopalian, Dean joined the United Church of Christ in 1982 after a dispute with the local Episcopal diocese over a bike trail (see below).

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’. 😉

79. lucid - 19 July 2008

Mr. Papa said his impulse toward vulgarity, including references to rape, was a reaction to that climate of suppression. Besides, he said, “I curse a lot in my daily life.”
But now, he said, he curses a lot less, almost as if he has developed an internal quota system that lets him get it out of the way each morning.

Obama has touched their tongues with his golden Jesus wand…

80. marisacat - 19 July 2008

Yeah pastor Dan ws never a good ad for UCC, frankly. Lunatic in robes…

81. marisacat - 19 July 2008

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…

82. lucid - 19 July 2008

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…

83. lucid - 19 July 2008

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?

84. NYCO - 19 July 2008

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.

85. marisacat - 19 July 2008

LOL

“There is some truth to the notion that some of the animus at the popular level towards the Bush administration may have made it easier for some of our European partners to avoid taking steps that we may want them to take and that perhaps they ought to take,” she [Dr Susan Rice] said.

“That has, in some respects, perhaps on some issues, given them an easy out. Barack Obama will lead from a position of strength and seek progress, and he will want to work with Europe in very strong partnership.

“It means we in the United States will have to do our part; but Europe will have to do its part too. There can be no free riders if this is going to be an effective partnership.”

The Obama campaign has highlighted Afghanistan as a prime example, arguing that Europe should send more troops there and lift restrictions on how they can be used.

On Tuesday, Mr Obama argued for a major sift in American policy away from the “single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq” towards a broader approach to the world and vowed to send more troops to Afghanistan.

“Among the issues we will want to focus on together are a strong and effective approach to Iran and to the larger non-proliferation challenge, a robust effort to tackle climate change, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the situation is deteriorating and where we in the US as well as Nato need to do more,” said Miss Rice.

She added: “And so Obama will ask more of ourselves and ask more of our closest allies.” ::snipwhippy::

86. bayprairie - 19 July 2008

Digby Parton, who writes on Hullabaloo.com, said she initially thought of her blog as an ephemeral form of conversation among friends and used vulgarities freely. But now she is read by a substantially wider circle and has cleaned up her language.

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.

87. Intermittent Bystander - 19 July 2008

Nancy Pelosi is undergoing her (presumably gentle) grilling in Austin.

Live thread here . . . live video streaming here.

88. bayprairie - 19 July 2008

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.

89. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 July 2008

well Obama did say sex is sacred… LOL.

So did Prince. Of course, Prince has turned into a lecturing prig too.

90. Intermittent Bystander - 19 July 2008

Gore just turned up as special guest.

91. bayprairie - 19 July 2008

yeah.. such convenient timing.

questions OVAH!

92. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 July 2008

cool song lucid.

93. Intermittent Bystander - 19 July 2008

All Code Pinkers (some at the back of the room, apparently) will be expected to clap politely now!

94. Intermittent Bystander - 19 July 2008

#
Ha! (1+ / 0-)

Even the Code Pink people are taking pictures/recording Al instead of protesting!

AAPI Wellesley grad in Austin for Obama! Travis County delegate, Pct. 277 – 3/29

by lirtydies on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 08:12:14 AM PDT

#
I wish Al had his own slot (0+ / 0-)

we still need Nancy to answer some questions she brushed off.

Grandpa is mean and he smells funny.

by MadAsHellMaddie on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 08:13:49 AM PDT

95. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 July 2008

Help Get Cindy Sheehan on the Ballot

We made a commitment to you that when the time came, we would do everything we could to help Cindy Sheehan. That time is now.

Cindy Sheehan is making a courageous run for the Congressional seat in San Francisco, to challenge Nancy Pelosi, who has done nothing but cave in to the Bush/Cheney criminal war agenda, while the approval rating of Congress drops into single digits for the first time ever.

But FIRST Cindy needs to get on the ballot, and to do that as an independent she still needs another 6,000 petitions signatures in the next couple weeks.

You will remember we told you that unless we defeated Nancy Pelosi in the June Democratic primary that not only would impeachment remain “off the table”, but that Congress would wave through yet another 200 billion for illegal war profiteering. That’s why we worked out hearts out for that race. It’s worse than that, they threw in telecom immunity with the omnibus surrender.

The fact is that unless and until Congress sees a downside to their despicable cowardice there will be NO policy change. We’ll repeat that. No policy change whatsoever. Their whole self-justification is they point to the elections they are winning. Unless and until we defeat one of their own, one of the biggest of them all, we can send emails and make phone calls until we’re blue in the face, and they will must keep lying to us and stalling. Yeah, sure they’re just about to impeach. Sure.

96. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 July 2008

The US will not prosecute Bush

Hang on a moment. There is no way that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or the second- and third-tier enablers of torture – the Feiths and John Yoos – will be prosecuted for war crimes in the United States.

The obstacle to prosecutions is the absence of a national consensus on the specific issue of torture, or, more generally, the Bush administration’s actions on terror. Certainly there is a consensus that the Bush administration has been a disaster and that the Iraq war was a mistake. But this doesn’t apply to specific terrorism policies, on which the White House still has more or less a political blank check to do as it pleases. (Whether a majority of the public supports those policies is debatable, but Republicans still back Bush, and Democrats are still cowed by the risk of appearing soft on the issue.) See Kevin Drum on why this is not Watergate: a well of political support remains for Bush’s terror policies, “enhanced interrogation” among them.

The matter of criminal culpability lies several steps further on. Even if they concede that torture is a war crime and buy the practical arguments against it – that it generates false information, endangers US soldiers should they be taken prisoner and is disastrous for America’s image and diplomatic efforts – many Americans would still resist prosecuting officials whose motive was averting terror attacks.

This also goes deeper than politics. I hate to sound cynical, but Americans don’t have much interest in accountability, truth or reconciliation. Our national motto is “move on”. The buzzword of the decade is Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness”. Trials or commissions on war crimes would force a reckoning that many Americans don’t think is necessary and/or would simply rather not have.

97. bayprairie - 19 July 2008

just enough time for a lightning round of questions!

those clown-nosed chumps in austin have just been played.

98. bayprairie - 19 July 2008

and of course the questions are for GORE! ROTFLOL

99. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 July 2008

Newsweek Says We Should Pardon Officials Who Sanctioned Torture

The sad thing is: I know Obama will do exactly as Taylor recommends. Except he won’t even bother to set up the fucking bogus-assed truth commission. Just sweep this shit under the rug and enjoy his newfound powers to issue warrantless wiretaps and torture orders. Oh, and be sure to give special immunity to people like Nancy Pelosi and Jay Rockfeller, who should also be tossed in the Hague for being complicit in all this bullshit. This isn’t about partisanship, peeps — it’s about restricting the ability of our political class to behave in the most reckless and lawless ways imagineable. If we don’t want to degenerate into a damn banana republic, we have to demonstrate that we won’t let our most powerful politicians get away with breaking the laws they’ve sworn to uphold. Stuart Taylor, you can bite me.

Too late … this is already a banana republic, only instead of bananas we grow lies and PR.

100. Intermittent Bystander - 19 July 2008

97 – The revolution will not be revolutionized!

101. bayprairie - 19 July 2008

shes now fluffing gore buying more time, as a grandmother blah blah blah particularly grateful blah blah blah

102. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 July 2008

‘Justifying’ Torture: Two Big Lies By Coleen Rowley and Ray McGovern

The Real Reasons Behind Torture?

What, then, accounts for the descent into Inquisition practices of waterboarding and other torture techniques? What accounts for the bizarre decision to round up a whole bunch of people with no provable attachment to terrorism, designate them terrorist suspects, herd them into prisons in New York, New Jersey, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and God knows where else, where they could be — and were — abused?

[snip]

1 — Deceit: Granted, torture does not yield truthful information. It can, though, be an excellent way to obtain the untruthful information you may wish to acquire. All you really need to know is what you want the victims to “confess” to and torture them, or render them abroad to “friendly” intelligence services toward the same end.

[snip]

2 — Sadism: Cheney’s open advocacy of waterboarding speaks volumes, but what about the President? Sad to say, as psychiatrist Justin Frank, author of Bush on the Couch, has noted:

“Bush’s certitude that he is right gives him carte blanche for destructive behavior. He has always had a sadistic streak: from blowing up frogs, to shooting his siblings with a BB gun, to branding fraternity pledges with white-hot coat hangers (explaining that the resulting wound was ‘only a cigarette burn’)…

”His comfort with cruelty is one reason he can be so jocular…Instead of seeing a President in anguish, we watch him publicly joking about the absence of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq, in the vain search for which so many young Americans died.”

3 — Intimidation: Are you perhaps in some “shock and awe” at the prospect of the President designating you an “enemy combatant” and sending you off to the Navy brig in South Carolina for an indefinite stay? He now has court approval to do precisely that, and we are proceeding on faith that this joint article will not bring us “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Indefinite imprisonment is bad enough, but with the fringe benefit of the kind of torture suffered by Jose Padilla? Well, let us just say that the open advocacy of waterboarding and other “harsh” methods may, just may, be aimed at throwing the fear of Cheney into us, as a way of dissuading those of us who still believe in the Constitution from attempting to hold accountable those who break the law.

4 — Because We Can: Lord Acton was, of course, right. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And closeness to it does the same.

103. NYCee - 19 July 2008

I missed the Nancy Show???!!!

I say dang (no cussin… now) coz Im a big fan.

Dont you know, my name stands for:

Nancy You Can ee-eeeeeeeee!!!

104. bayprairie - 19 July 2008

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

105. bayprairie - 19 July 2008

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.

106. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 July 2008

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.

107. Intermittent Bystander - 19 July 2008

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.

108. bayprairie - 19 July 2008

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!

109. NYCee - 19 July 2008

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?

110. Intermittent Bystander - 19 July 2008

What are the hecklers yammering about? (4+ / 0-)

by citizenx on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 08:39:01 AM PDT

*
About impeachment (4+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
OLinda, citizenx, LoLoLaLa, David Kroning

they want it back on the table

by heartsandflowers on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 08:43:28 AM PDT

[ Parent ]
o
I thought most people here did too….or (0+ / 0-)

is it just ok to write it here on Kos, and not ok to demand it from our leaders in person?

Be safe Barack Obama.

by David Kroning on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 08:58:53 AM PDT

(From the comments to the Al Rodgers live thread on the orange recroomlist.)

111. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 July 2008

Taibbi: It’s a Class War, Stupid

I am a single mother with a 9-year-old boy. To stay warm at night my son and I would pull off all the pillows from the couch and pile them on the kitchen floor. I’d hang a blanket from the kitchen doorway and we’d sleep right there on the floor. By February we ran out of wood and I burned my mother’s dining room furniture. I have no oil for hot water. We boil our water on the stove and pour it in the tub. I’d like to order one of your flags and hang it upside down at the capital building… we are certainly a country in distress.

— Letter from a single mother in a Vermont city, to Senator Bernie Sanders

The Republican and Democratic conventions are just around the corner, which means that we’re at a critical time in our nation’s history. For this is the moment when the country’s political and media consensus finally settles on the line of bullshit it will be selling to the public as the “national debate” come fall.

If you pay close attention you can actually see the trial balloons whooshing overhead. There have been numerous articles of late of the Whither the Debate? genus in the country’s major dailes and news mags, pieces like Patrick Healy’s “Target: Barack Obama. Strategy: What Day is it?” in the New York Times. They ostensibly wonder aloud about what respective “plans of attack” Barack Obama and John McCain will choose to pursue against one another in the fall.

In these pieces we already see the candidates trying on, like shoes, the various storylines we might soon have hammered into our heads like wartime slogans. Most hilarious from my viewpoint is the increasingly real possibility that the Republicans will eventually decide that their best shot against Obama is to pull out the old “He’s a flip-flopper” strategy — which would be pathetic, given that this was the same tired tactic they used against John Kerry four years ago, were it not for the damning fact that it might actually work again. (I’m actually not sure sometimes what is more repulsive: the bosh they trot out as campaign “issues,” or the enthusiasm with which the public buys it.)

112. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 July 2008

is it just ok to write it here on Kos, and not ok to demand it from our leaders in person?

Yes.

113. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 July 2008

More from the Taibbi, spot on, I think:

None of this is a secret. Here, however, is something that is a secret: that this is a class issue that is being intentionally downplayed by a political/media consensus bent on selling the public a version of reality where class resentments, or class distinctions even, do not exist. Our “national debate” is always a thing where we do not talk about things like haves and have-nots, rich and poor, employers versus employees. But we increasingly live in a society where all the political action is happening on one side of the line separating all those groups, to the detriment of the people on the other side.

We have a government that is spending two and a half billion dollars a day in Iraq, essentially subsidizing new swimming pools for the contracting class in northern Virginia, at a time when heating oil and personal transportation are about to join health insurance on the list of middle-class luxuries. Home heating and car ownership are slipping away from the middle class thanks to exploding energy prices — the hidden cost of the national borrowing policy we call dependency on foreign oil, “foreign” representing those nations, Arab and Chinese, that lend us the money to pay for our wars.

And while we’ve all heard stories about how much waste and inefficiency there is in our military spending, this is always portrayed as either “corruption” or simple inefficiency, and not what it really is — a profound expression of our national priorities, a means of taking money from ordinary, struggling people and redistributing it not downward but upward, to connected insiders, who turn your tax money into pure profit.

114. CSTAR - 19 July 2008

#87 Grilling? Why is she going to Austin for a face-lift? Can’t you do much better in SF?

115. Intermittent Bystander - 19 July 2008

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.

re (2+ / 0-)

Smartest move was to bring Gore on stage.

Bush would show up at NetRoots if he was guaranteed Al Gore would walk in after 5 minutes to charm the crowd. Bush would know that he could order the Iranian war and no one would notice him and instead be mesmerized by Gore.

“Steve Holt is now iSteve Holt 3G.” – Steve Holt

by cookiesandmilk on Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 08:22:52 AM PDT

116. NYCee - 19 July 2008

This is dated April 26th Anti-war Cindy Sheehan files to take on Pelosi

Peace activist Cindy Sheehan wants to snatch House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat from her in November, but first she’s going to need the help – and signatures – of 10,198 friends and supporters.

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.

117. NYCee - 19 July 2008

#113 – I dont know… Barbara is in San Fran and hers isnt all that subtle.

118. NYCee - 19 July 2008

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! )

119. marisacat - 19 July 2008

Madman comment at 96

Sorry! It languished in Moderation …

120. NYCO - 19 July 2008

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.

121. marisacat - 19 July 2008

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.

122. NYCO - 19 July 2008

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).

123. NYCee - 19 July 2008

My comment to what was formerly #113 is now aimed at #114 (Cstar re facelifts of the B list)

124. NYCee - 19 July 2008

And then there is the seamless wickedness one finds at the intersection of the housing/sub-prime debacle and new bankruptcy laws.

125. marisacat - 19 July 2008

new post………………….

LINK

………… 8) ……

126. marisacat - 19 July 2008

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..

127. bayprairie - 19 July 2008

but isn’t it good news minister obama intends to fully fund the new U.S. social safety net?

Well, the night falls through the mission door
You get a cot with a blanket, don’t you spit on the floor
And Sister Theresa, she’s friends with the Lord
So no smokin’ in bed, no sleepin’ late in the morning

And it’s hands on the Bible and tears in your eyes
Kneel on the corner, pray for more wine
Well it’s beans and it’s bread, it’s a small price to pay
To hold hands and go dancing
Hands and go dancing
Hands and go dancing
On the old Devil’s grave

eric taylor (wrong song, right eric)


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