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Day 27 October 2008

Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
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An Azeri man gathers salt in a lake in Azerbaijan, where people have gathered salt from May to November for more than 300 years. (Sergei Ilnitsky / EPA)

STAT OF THE DAY:

Barack Obama spent more than $105 million during the first two weeks of October, according to campaign finance reports.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Japanese stocks tumbled to 26-year lows on Monday and most other Asian markets fell heavily in chaotic trade as investors feared a flurry of central bank moves would not be enough to stave off a global recession.

Little that officials said could convince panicky investors that governments can stem the fast-spreading crisis that is menacing financial markets, economic growth and company earnings.

The yen continued to gain even after Group of Seven finance ministers on Monday singled out the excessive volatility of the currency, which is battering Japanese share prices.

European shares were expected to open sharply lower with losses of up to 2.3 percent, tracking weakness in Asia, while oil prices extended falls to below $64 a barrel.

“The outlook in terms of growth and exports remains shaky, so it’s hard to make a case for any sustained EM (emerging markets) rally for now,” said Win Thin, a senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in an email to clients.

…

Japan’s Nikkei index swung wildly throughout the session before ending down 6.4 percent at its lowest close since 1982 as exporters such as Canon Inc slumped on the stronger yen.  ::snip::

AND:

Hong Kong also saw shares routed, with the Hang Seng index plunging almost 12% in late trading – putting it on track for its biggest daily fall since 1997. And the Chinese stockmarket tumbled over 6%, bringing more pain to small investors who have watched the Shanghai Composite index fall 70% from last year’s peak.

With India’s stockmarket losing 8%, shares across Europe are also expected to fall sharply when trading begins. The Dow Jones index is tipped to fall by another 400 points, or 5%, later today.

The latest sharp falls, following last week’s heavy losses, showed that investors have little confidence that the world’s leaders can stave off a painful economic contraction.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I’d dearly love to believe.… Kathryn Jean Lopez – premiere classe de schnauzer -  and Drudgerina both have this tonight…

It Wasn’t Just a Joe-the-Plumber-Inspired Whim [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

In a radio interview in 2001, Barack Obama sounds like he unequivocally embraced “redistribution” of wealth several times, and, correct me if I am wrong, also laments that the Warren Court was not liberal enough.

Tell me this isn’t socialism.  Obama is the most radical nominee for president in modern history.

Enter at our own risk.

10/26 10:55 PM

And Drudge supplied a bit of text, for those on the fly or not near speakers:

Barack Obama on Chicago Public Radio WBEZ-FM, 2001: The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society… and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that… MORE…

As a friend emailed me back, “oh please god, if only”… and I remind myself that 2001 is the same year he said he was fine with Rumsfeld at DOD… from within the moderate to liberal, mixed race SS Chicago… fine with Rummy?

So… you know, I’ll believe in manna from heaven when it is stuffed up my nose, in my ears – and more is comin’ down.  Til then…

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Comments»

1. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 October 2008

there was donk spokesdrone talk over the various shows this weekend that current tax policy redistributes wealth already … UPWARD, so maybe they are seeing an opportunity to move left on this.

Not holding my breath, of course, but always willing to be surprised.

Have a great day everybody.

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2. marisacat - 27 October 2008

Well! Not to worry! Pulpiteering will be doing it! From Politico email, frm his prepared remarks for today:

‘[A]s I’ve said from the day we began this journey all those months ago, the change we need isn’t just about new programs and policies. It’s about a new politics – a politics that calls on our better angels instead of encouraging our worst instincts; one that reminds us of the obligations we have to ourselves and one another.’

Obama says that part of the reason that ‘the economic crisis occurred is because we have been living through an era of profound irresponsibility.’

‘[W]hat we have lost in these last eight years cannot be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits alone,’ he said ‘What has also been lost is the idea that in this American story, each of us has a role to play. Each of us has a responsibility to work hard and look after ourselves and our families, and each of us has a responsibility to our fellow citizens. That’s what’s been lost these last eight years – our sense of common purpose; of higher purpose. And that’s what we need to restore right now.’

That is sooo sweet. And the big bad people who had FIDUCIARY responsibility, Truth in Lending Act responsibility, etc., will smarten right up and fly right. The light hand of an earthly Jesus will instruct them.

FUCKING DRIVEL up against reality. Elect the Reverend.

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3. NYCO - 27 October 2008

Had to laugh at this crack buried deep toward the end of this piece on The Inscrutable One…

Most of the time, Mr. Obama speaks lightly of the historic nature of his candidacy, and he is something of a postracial figure, with too many varied influences and constituencies to count. But a few times during the campaign — on the night of his Iowa caucus victory; in Philadelphia when he spoke of America’s failure to grapple with the original sin of slavery — Mr. Obama allowed voters to see just how heavily the country’s divided past sits on his slender shoulders.

(emphasis mine)

I dunno I just thought that was funny and none-too-veiled. I doubt his shoulders are any slenderer than any other candidate’s but one wonders what “slender” is a euphemism for… gayfriendliness (by innuendo, gayness)? White-collarness? Obama, with his slender shoulders and soft hands uncallused from work…?

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4. NYCO - 27 October 2008

Also, here’s the most informative presidential survey this year: because it’s all about Branding.

Landor survey results

What’s scary is that you can barely tell the daylight between the two of them even when it comes to branding!

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5. liberalcatnip - 27 October 2008

NYCO, I think your idea for an “anti-ER” show from the last thread is excellent. :)

2.

It’s about a new politics – a politics that calls on our better angels instead of encouraging our worst instincts;

Watching that Frontline piece last nite again left me with the fact that Obama is bound to spend far too much time and energy pandering to the right to get anything resembling “progressiveness” done if he’s the prez. It’d be one long festival of compromises.

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6. NYCO - 27 October 2008

5. Thanks! though “The Herbalist” is just a working title. I’d definitely want it set in a future America though (say 20 years from now)… it wouldn’t really work dramatically set in the current day.

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7. marisacat - 27 October 2008

LOL Via Ambinder:

The New York Times and the Washington Post both floated Rep. Rahm Emanuel’s name for chief of staff. This isn’t mere rumor; associates say that Emanual is seriously in the running for the post, assuming he wants it, assuming Obama can convince him to take it, if Obama decides that Rahm would do it.

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8. marisacat - 27 October 2008

Dahr Jamail has a new one…

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9. marisacat - 27 October 2008

Amanda Pandagon at Dkos. Really, they need to issue some Democratic Party nun’s outfit for her sort. My old joke about “Democratic Mary Janes” is just nto enough for the likes of Amanda. Let a male Dem pol dish it out and she will be the chorus.

moiv had a reply.

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10. marisacat - 27 October 2008

Biden is such a special fellow. We are so blessed, the Reverend and the Side Kick.

The Democratic VP candidate repeatedly matches attacks on his running mate to those on Presidents Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy in Greenville, North Carolina rally.

Notes challenges to Jefferson’s Christianity, Lincoln’s commitment to individual rights, FDR’s change and whether it was safe to pick JFK

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11. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 October 2008

In no way, shape of form could Jefferson’s “faith” be called “christianity”.

From the Jamail piece:

Less than a month from the American presidential election of 2008, the day after the so-called final debate, I sat writing some of this article in Oakland airport, awaiting a flight to Portland, as part of a team of journalists, authors, activists and military veterans from the occupation of Iraq. The team is embarking on a countrywide tour to talk about the occupation of Iraq and the American Empire, in the hope that the American public might consider resisting both.

“… for seven years, France has been a mad dog dragging a saucepan tied to its tail, every day unaware that we have ruined, starved and massacred a nation of poor people to bring them to their knees. They remained standing. But at what a price! While the delegations were putting an end to the business, 2,400,000 Algerians remained in the slow death camps; we have killed more than a million of them ….”
-Jean-Paul Sartre, “The Sleepwalkers,” Les Temps Modernes, April 1962

The economy is in shambles. Yet, in the heated exchanges between Obama and McCain about the economy, there appears to be no connection whatsoever between the occupation, now costing a cool $3 billion per week, and the financial dire straights the country is in.

Because, of course, the defense industries are all …

all together now!!!

TOO BIG TO FAIL!!!

… and so the death will go on, and widen under The One.

Despite a collapsing economy and complicity in a system that is devouring the embers of a burning planet, the privileged carry on with their lives, “unaware.” But everyone knows. Even the most ardent supporter of the powers that be is aware of what the government of the United States has done and is doing to Iraq, to the world, to the planet.

I believe that, like me, most people, deep inside, know that many things have gone terribly wrong, that we must find a better way to exist.

Now, as I write, on October 25, 21 Iraqis and another US soldier are killed in Iraq, along with an additional 17 wounded Iraqis. These facts hardly garner mention in the American corporate media, because the “surge” has been a “success.” You and I are the intended beneficiaries of this “success,” as our lives grind on in this twisted Disneyland, while half a world away an occupation grinds on, carrying out industrial scale slaughter, with the unfailing support of our tax dollars.

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12. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 October 2008
13. liberalcatnip - 27 October 2008

11. That’s similar to what I wrote about today.

While both US presidential candidates are fond of using the same talking point about the fact that $10 billion per month is being spent in Iraq, no one seems to have asked the logical follow up question: On what?
[snip]
So, when McCain and Obama complain about the $10 billion per month being spent there, instead of both of them refusing to consider lowering the Pentagon’s budget while they promise a new and improved military effort in equally ravaged Afghanistan, someone needs to ask them what they plan to do about the wretched state of Iraq’s infrastructure and why private corporations like KBR, Dyncorp, Blackwater, and Halliburton will still be allowed to flourish under their administrations while the Iraqi and Afghani people continue to suffer.

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14. marisacat - 27 October 2008

Because, of course, the defense industries are all …

all together now!!!

TOO BIG TO FAIL!!!

… and so the death will go on, and widen under The One.

— from Madman

ain’t it the truth…

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15. liberalcatnip - 27 October 2008
16. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 October 2008
17. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 October 2008

Assassination plot targeting Obama disrupted

WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal agents have broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree, the ATF said Monday.

In court records unsealed Monday, federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads. Agents said the skinheads did not identify the school by name.

Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville field office for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the two men planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

The men also sought to go on a national killing spree, with Obama as its final target, Cavanaugh told The Associated Press.

“They said that would be their last, final act – that they would attempt to kill Sen. Obama,” Cavanaugh said. “They didn’t believe they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying.”

I can’t help but wonder if this plot is as “real” as the various other terrorist “plots” that the gov keeps promoting. I’m way past the point of believing ANYTHING that comes out of Federal law “enforcement”.

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18. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 October 2008

This one is bleak, even for him:

Kunstler – Easthampton Burning?

A story-line is already emerging to the effect that these birds really didn’t quite know what they were doing in grinding out that multi-trillion dollar basket of alphabet securities sausage (a theme on Sunday’s “60-Minutes” broadcast). Nobody will buy that line of bullshit, though — and certainly not in the courtroom where, for instance, Mr. Hank Paulson will have to answer why his own firm of Goldman Sachs set up a special unit to short its own issues. It will be edifying to see how they answer.

In the meantime, however, millions of Joe-the-Plumber types will have gotten their pink slips, slipped helplessly into foreclosure, watched the repo men hot-wire their Ford pickups, and eaten down the kitchen cupboard to a single box of Kellogg’s All-Bran (which had been sitting there for eleven years infested with weevils). They will be watching the official proceedings in the federal courtrooms with jaundiced eyes as they hunch in their tent cities, in the rain, sipping amateur-brand raisin wine bartered for a few snared rock doves. How long before the hardier ones among them venture out to Easthampton with long knives and matches?

It will bring little satisfaction though, and the disappointment could lead to a more inchoate outbreak of civil disorder that would be more like a free-for-all of vengeance and grievance. There will be a great outcry for the new government to “do something!” Perhaps that will finally bring the troops home from Iraq — only for them to find that the Homeland has become Iraq….

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19. marisacat - 27 October 2008

Perhaps that will finally bring the troops home from Iraq — only for them to find that the Homeland has become Iraq….

New Orleans. They not only put in paramilitaries, but 82nd airborne troops, straight out of Iraq. More than one paper covered NO as a war zone inside the US, because that is how they saw the US authorities treat it. NOT as a rescue mission using the US mil and NG, but a war zone.

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20. Too Big to Fail « Breakfast in the Ruins - 27 October 2008

[...] Some interesting pieces floating around today about our ongoing imperial self-immolation. Thought I’d flesh out a little what I first noted at Marisacat’s place, that we won’t be seeing any change anytime soon, even if The One is elected, that the very things dragging us down will not be fixed because we’ll be told that they’re all TOO BIG TO FAILTM!!! [...]

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21. marisacat - 27 October 2008

Madman expanded on his “Too Big To Fail” refrain.

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22. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 October 2008

Thanx for the link!

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23. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 October 2008

Top Obama Adviser Signs on to Roadmap to War with Iran

If you haven’t seen it already, check out the op-ed by former Sens. Daniel Coats and Charles Robb in the Washington Post today, entitled “Stopping a Nuclear Tehran.” It is the summary of a report issued last month by an organization called The Bipartisan Policy Center (at whose website you can find the full report), and it amounts to a roadmap to war with Iran to which a senior Middle East adviser in the Obama campaign — namely, Dennis Ross — has apparently signed on.

Now, you would expect a report like this, which is clearly aimed at the transition team of an incoming president, from hard-line neo-cons with a distinctly Likudist bent like Makovsky and Rubin, or, for that matter, task force member Steve Rademaker, the spouse of AEI’s Danielle Pletka, who also worked under John Bolton in the State Department. But what really drew my attention to the report when I first heard about it two or three weeks ago, was the fact that Dennis Ross, who is a senior foreign-policy to Barack Obama, also signed on to the report as a task-force member. Ross, who previously served as the chief Israel-Palestinian negotiator for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, has been associated with WINEP in various positions since he left public service, although, unlike Makovsky or Rubin, his sympathies have leaned more to Labour than to Likud, at least in the Israeli context.

According to a variety of sources, Ross was the main drafter of Obama’s pander (except on the settlers) to AIPAC’s annual convention here in May and has since raised his hopes for a top post in an Obama administration, possibly even secretary of state. Frankly, I doubt that the latter prospect is realistic, but — and here’s the main point — I have it from several sources close to the campaign that he is more eager to gain control over the Iran portfolio (possibly special envoy) than to work on the problem that he knows best from his long experience, the Israel-Palestinian conflict. If he succeeds in his quest and if this report is any reflection of his views, then the U.S. could very well find itself at war with Iran within a remarkably short period of time.

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24. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 October 2008

Here’s the WaPo link, if you’re up for a walk through the blood.

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25. marisacat - 27 October 2008

Dennis Ross is a HORROR and is yet another [goddamned fucking] Clinton re-tread.

Change Hope… etc.

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26. NYCO - 27 October 2008

Watching the Dow gently sinking this week (as most of Asia and a lot of Europe tanks), I have to believe that the minute Obama gets elected there’s going to be a mad dash for the exits on Wall Street, which currently seems delayed. A lot of bargain-basement buying going on right now (a daily spike, followed by a slow deflation and a quick sell-off in the last five minutes), but I’ve always found market logic curiously Neanderthal. As if Obama is really going to start up re-regulation in earnest. But that’s how Wall Street will take it, I’ll bet.

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27. marisacat - 27 October 2008

Interesting comment to the Jim Lobe Downing Street piece… an embedded link at the comment to the report mentioned:

Dennis Ross didn’t just sign on to a plan. He also created one for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy a blueprint for the next President that includes “preventive military action” as an important policy option. actually, the statement reads like a loyalty oath to Israel.

Discovered it while writing an in-depth report on WINEPs persistent push for a preventive attack on Iran.

Washington Think-Tank Cultivating ‘Last Resort’ Against Iran and Priming Next President

The “Statement” which is about improving U.S.-Israel relations and approach to Iran is discusssed beginning at the bottom of page 5. Three other Obama advisers signed on as well – Richard Clarke, Susan Rice and Anthony Lake. Their names right next to R. James Woolsey. Check it out.

Lake was quoted a few months ago, in hmm either Foreign Affairs or Le Monde Diplo forget which, that all that matters is that the US president is “strong for Israel”. He is an adult convert to Judaism.

Gee Thanks Tony.

And Lake is another one of those, Ob’s “DNA will heal us” chaps.

Fucking loons in my book. Christian War by a God Sent [Nancy says so!] Leader.

No thanks.

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28. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 October 2008

and after he makes the Middle East safe for Israel, on to Africa for a followup.

I’m so sick of the evil fucks who run this country.

Have some Perrin: Want Fries With Your Vote?

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29. marisacat - 27 October 2008

Jonathan Karl had a report on ABC tonight.. offered with some ass covering incredulity, but along the way admitted to abut 2 dozen “special ops” missions inside Pakistan, “several” inside Somalia and now this with Syria.

Oh sure boyo is going to end the war. the wars. any of the wars. yeah.

I am listening to pro Obama drivel on KGO from one of hs most fervent believers. I guess after you vote the Libertarian ticket for 40 fucking years (which this one did)… maybe you do have to believe in some fake-FDR-fake-savior.

Today Sully declared George Will the greatest political writer of this election cycle. And this former Libertarian loon spent several minutes recommending Brooks’ latest column on McC and Ob as “brilliant”. Of course Ob is ”brilliant” too.

They will follow hm to war and elsewhere. After all, Sully supported Iraq invasion. Voted for Bush in 00. He’s not picky.

LOL I am very mindful that when Ob got on the HLR he elevated the Federalists and, very literally, cut out the progressives. IMO he was NOT at all bi partisan. He sucked up. Simple as that.

he’s still sucking up.

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30. BooHooHooMan - 27 October 2008

Swinging Dicks at the Ready?”

[NYT]

Party Lawyers Ready to Keep an Eye on the Polls

With heavy voter turnout expected on Election Day, both parties are amassing thousands and thousands of lawyers to keep an eye on the polls.
:::

“We have a selective, but ferocious legal strategy,” said Jenny Backus, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign’s legal program.
{meow, …belch? LOL}
:::

This comes on top of an effort the Democratic National Committee began after the 2000 election. The committee set up a National Lawyers Council to work on ballot issues, established a voter protection hot line and surveyed 1,300 state and local election officials to flag potential Election Day problems in advance…

So far, over 10,000 lawyers have signed up over the committee’s Web site. “We want to assist voters in real time to make sure they will be able to vote,” said Joe Sandler, general counsel for the committee, “and to advocate for them with local election officials.”

…Alan C. Kessler, a partner at Wolf Block in Philadelphia who recently hosted a $6 million fund-raiser for Mr. Obama, said he had already received four calls from Obama volunteers asking him to work on Election Day. Mr. Kessler said the 2000 election had caused many lawyers to want to become more active.

[ Nothin' to do with liquidating a trill in assets, mehbe?]

“Lawyers have always written checks,” Mr. Kessler said. “Now we are taking it to the next level in assuring that there will be no issues on Election Day. We are learning from the last two elections and we now have the credo ‘Never again.’…

Holocaust Level? Really? – BHHM

“If we lose, we lose. [We INVENTED "Whore" ...] ..But we don’t want it because of something that took place in the polling place.”

Some firms, like Saul Ewing in Philadelphia, are allowing their lawyers to receive pro-bono credit for voter protection work on Nov. 4. Saul Ewing, with 250 lawyers and offices in the mid-Atlantic region, says that lawyers from nearly all of its nine offices will work at the polls and that the firm’s Harrisburg office had been used for election training.

Orlan Johnson must be the latest incarnation of Delaware Dem the Luscious Vagina…I had to weigh in with this money quote-BHHM

“Our lawyers are willing to go mano-a-mano if necessary,” said Orlan Johnson, a partner at Saul Ewing and a member of the Obama national finance committee. All volunteers must undergo a training session either in person or online with the Obama campaign.

Progress! —– >

“Both sides are assembling literally thousands of lawyers at the state level,” said Kenneth Gross, a campaign finance lawyer at Skadden, Arps in Washington who represents both parties.

“We’re not talking about Laurence Tribe or David Boies, but there will be no shortage of lawyers looking for any kind of imperfection in the process.” [ I imagine not with Melrath on the case, who might warrant a snooze at the Holiday Inn Express... - BHHM - LOL. ]

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31. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 October 2008

The very public expansion of Spec Op adventurism is horrible, and incredibly dangerous. It’s nothing less than the state-sponsored version of al Qaeda.

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32. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 October 2008
33. BooHooHooMan - 27 October 2008

That’s Entertaaainmennt!

Spec Op Adventurism, War Tourism, the “opportunity to be “On the Ground” For Lawyers going ‘mano-a-mano” in Florida…All the same goo at the core… you’d think these guys never jerked off….OTOH, maybe THEY WERE struck blind…

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34. marisacat - 27 October 2008

All the same goo at the core… — BHHM

Is it ever.

I am wondering how many entertainment interviews ob and Michelle can crank out in the next 8 days. And how many in the 77 supposedly serious inter regnum days when they get down to biz and commence to Save Us!

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35. marisacat - 27 October 2008

30

honestly it is gladiator games. I just don’t think it means much.

Even David Corn, who was not in a pre orgasmic state for Kerry, reported that he was hearing, directly from attys in firms, in the run up to the election in 04 that Democratic aligned firms were being told in so many words, to stand down. Not needed.

They threw that one and this one is meant for them. I just cannot see anything else. They need a different sales force.

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36. BooHooHooMan - 27 October 2008

Short of imposing ruthlessly progressive corporate and personal income taxation and lopping off the DOD , you must as well call the case now. IOW, call the case now…

We flirted with Facists for 50 years, then elected and re-elected them and their appeasers…Here we are..

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37. marisacat - 27 October 2008

31

well I agree.. and despite tiny trills about Sp Ops across the border in Iran the past years, I never saw anything so headlined as Jonathan Karl tonight. the “story” that we got some leader was def in small print, tho mentioned.

So it is just natural progression from W’s ‘kill em get em’ stuff to Ob whose blatant war talk is ugly and frankly profane… to now this.

And really other than subjucate countries and the perfectly innocent people inside… who did we get, really, but our old lover, Saddam, in a raggedy, forlorn state?

It’s a given that McC is an old war monger. I can’t waste time on what will not ascend. Bad enough he stays in the senate. With ALL THE OTHER WAR MONGERS.

Dems are pandering fearfully to [mostly rotten] old Byrd right now… to pretend to play for WV and all those lily whites, but I think they’d love to prepare a hypo for him, shove him off a cliff… because as long as he lives, he will speak against expanding the war.

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38. BooHooHooMan - 27 October 2008

Gladiators with dry cleaned breast-plates, heavy on the starch.

And what follows Global Depression?

Following our repetitive calculated military and economic warfare…. We seem to be under the illusion that we won’t manage, prosecute or negotiate, we will inspire at will the rest of the planet into docility…

Unapologetic Confiscatory Taxation and Demilitarization towards rational Security is the only path that will lend a fly’s fart of credence to our our our USA!.

[hey, it's the model we're working with...]

Any Wagers?

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39. marisacat - 27 October 2008

I don’t know what is coming. I think my brain lay down and died, at some pt.

But it seems they are the sort that wants further destabilisaton with a very distracting (they think) charismatic leader in place. That’s abundantly clear.

One debate I have is how long his speeches (I mean he just barked today, the so called great “closer” speech) and pastoring hold out. It could work long term I suppose.

I just don’t know. I am guessing, for some, cheaper gas gives them hope. Or something. I just see everything as completely unstable.

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40. BooHooHooMan - 27 October 2008

Nothing like cheaper gas just when the Penis Compensator gets repo’d

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41. marisacat - 27 October 2008

BTW, following After Downing Street, the Jim Lobe that Madman linked to up thread, led to this. Very interesting. 6 pages, but they are short and her writing is very readable…

This is the WINEP report on Iran that 4 of Ob’s top advisors signed onto. Ross, Lake, Susan Rice and Clarke. Among others. Vin Weber and Woolsey and so on.

I am sorry the representation of the photo on the cover of the WINEP report is so tiny. Armed men in front of the US and Israeli flag.

Why don’t we just fucking merge, officially. Openly declare Global War on Anyone We Don’t Like.

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42. marisacat - 27 October 2008

40

isn’t it a hoot.

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43. marisacat - 27 October 2008

sigh

KGO has a Frontline producer on, Martin Smith.. sounds like they have a pro Afghan war theatre (“they need help!!, the young guys need help!!, they are fighting ghosts!”) production coming. In the Korengal valley, which media has been covering the fire fights there, more and more.

“This war is likely to b longer and more difficult than the war in Iraq”, from the Frontline guy.

Tomorrow night 10 pm.

gah. Examine the sinkhole as we are sucked into the drain.

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44. BooHooHooMan - 27 October 2008

One debate I have is how long his speeches (I mean he just barked today, the so called great “closer” speech) and pastoring hold out. It could work long term I suppose. -Mcat

Not long is my guess. The culture is far more instant-ass than in 1932. or 1976 …highly likely to “Get Cartered” , the loot that is now in strategic retreat offshore will be available to the next tag team wrestler(s) to come along …I bet BO will fare better than Clinton by mid-terms but by 012 be fully commoditized goods…

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45. BooHooHooMan - 27 October 2008

Anyways nice reads and stoppingby as always but it’s beddy …seems I was wrong about Markos though, the lad is certainly riding a wave.

Like the tourist headed for that construction site at Bandeh Aceh..

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46. marisacat - 27 October 2008

hmmm scammed this at Daily Telegraph from RGE Monitor:

IMF may need to “print money” as crisis spreads

The International Monetary Fund may soon lack the money to bail out an ever growing list of countries crumbling across Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia, raising concerns that it will have to tap taxpayers in Western countries for a capital infusion or resort to the nuclear option of printing its own money.

[N]eil Schering, emerging market strategist at Capital Economics, said the IMF’s work in the great arc of countries from the Baltic states to Turkey is only just beginning.

“When you tot up the countries across the region with external funding needs, you get to $500bn or $600bn very quickly, and that blows the IMF out of the water. The Fund may soon have to start calling on the West for additional funds,” he said.

…

“Right now the IMF is too small to meet the foreign currency liquidity needs of the larger emerging economies. We’re in a dangerous situation and there is the risk of extreme moves in the markets, as we have seen with the Brazilian real. I hope policy-makers understand how serious this is,” he said.

The IMF, led by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has the power to raise money on the capital markets by issuing `AAA’ bonds under its own name. It has never resorted to this option, preferring to tap members states for deposits.

The nuclear option is to print money by issuing Special Drawing Rights, in effect acting as if it were the world’s central bank. This was done briefly after the fall of the Soviet Union but has never been used as systematic tool of policy to head off a global financial crisis.
…

For now, Eastern Europe is the epicentre of the crisis. Lars Christensen, a strategist at Danske Bank, said the lighting speed and size of Ukraine’s bail-out suggest the IMF is worried about the geo-strategic risk in the Black Sea region, as well as the imminent risk a financial pandemic. “The IMF clearly fears a domino effect in Eastern Europe where a collapse in one country automatically leads to a collapse in another,” he said.

…

The root problem is that Eastern Europe and Russia have together borrowed $1,600bn from foreign banks in euros and dollars to fund their catch-up growth spurt over the last five years, according to data from the Bank for International Settlements. These loans are now coming due at an alarming pace. Even rock-solid companies are having trouble rolling over debts.
…

Pakistan – now facing imminent bankruptcy – has also raised political hackles, balking at IMF demands for deep cuts in military spending as a condition for a standby loan. Diplomats say it is unlikely that the West will let the nuclear-armed Islamic state slip into chaos.

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47. marisacat - 28 October 2008

LOL what a hoot! From “latest polls” at RCP:

Arizona Rasmussen McCain 51, Obama 46 McCain +5

New poll as of today Monday, 27th.

You know, some Republicans claim they won MN as well in ’84, but put a thumb on the scale and tossed it to Mondale, for, uh… hmm … kindness.

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48. marisacat - 28 October 2008

A Memphis paper has the story of the neo Nazi plotters, their own staff produced report, not a retelling of the AP early acct..

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49. Madman in the Marketplace - 28 October 2008

much outrage on Morning Joe this morning that the banks are using the bailout to BUY OTHER BANKS … and of course to pay bonuses.

Why are they surprised?

Off to work. Have a great day everybody.

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50. marisacat - 28 October 2008

from the politico email:

DAVID BROOKS PREDICTS ‘OBAMA BY 9′ in a chat with local reporters before a college speech in North Adams, Mass.: ‘I have a wager with an Obama pollster, who says he’ll win by seven’ – The Berkshire Eagle. (Hat tip: Romenesko)

What ever hands the Dems and Obama a MANDATE, works for me.

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51. liberalcatnip - 28 October 2008

My latest: Attack in Syria: A Late October Surprise? I admit to finding it difficult to think like Bush.

Thanks for the link/info about WINAP. That should confuse me even more. :)

As for the massive brigades of lawyers, no surprise since that’s how Obama managed to win in Ill. I think if he’d been Gore in 2000, he wouldn’t have surrendered.

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52. liberalcatnip - 28 October 2008

On a completely different note, this was an interesting news report run by CBC teevee last nite: Positively Autistic

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53. liberalcatnip - 28 October 2008

Obama splashes money across U.S.

The Oct. 22 headline told the shocking story in nine measured words: “Obama Purchases Ad Space on Side of McCain’s Bus.” The paper had a photo to prove it.

All right, the paper was The Onion, the satirical weekly that specializes in “news” of the imaginary variety. Photo “evidence” notwithstanding, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama had made no such purchase. But you could almost believe it was possible.

On the campaign trail, Obama frequently decries income inequality. Thanks, however, to his unprecedented decision to reject a public subsidy and raise money solely from private donations, he benefits from the widest rich man-poor man spending chasm in the history of U.S. presidential elections.

In this race, Obama is the fat-cat Wall Street titan he mocks in his speeches, John McCain is the hard-up Main Streeter with whom the Republican nominee has struggled to connect.

In the first 15 days of October, Obama and the Democratic National Committee outspent McCain and the Republican National Committee almost 2 to 1 – flooding every swing state with cash.

McCain, a relative pauper in this campaign, was forced to make agonizing choices about which battlegrounds he should continue to contest and which he should surrender.

Obama, who raised a record $150million in September, has bought ads just about everywhere – even in the virtual world of Xbox video games. At 8 p.m. tomorrow, he will run a 30-minute commercial on NBC, CBS and FOX. Cost: about $3million.

Afaic, Mr Ego should donate that $3 million to charity to help the poor he cliams to care about.

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54. liberalcatnip - 28 October 2008

I decided to write a post about my last comment: What about the poor?

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55. NYCO - 28 October 2008

I am not up on the latest about autism, but somehow over the last 10 years it seems to have morphed from a condition where kids sat on the floor rocking and never spoke or made eye contact, into one where if a kid is shy, tongue-tied and prefers to read alone in her room, she’s “autistic” (or has Asperger’s which seems to be incredibly overdiagnosed these days). I can’t help feeling like an affluent, striving (albeit credit-fueled) society has something to do with the ballooning “diagnoses” of “abnormalcy.”

That said, obviously autism is real (my cousin’s son has it, with all the behavioral problems, outbursts, etc that go with it)… and there was a terrific article in the NYT the other week about a new type of schooling that is working wonders with calming autistic teen boys down .. sounds like the guy running the school really “gets it” (his approach is to get on the autistic student’s level to engage them with the goal being to calm them down and make them feel better, not make them “normal”).

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56. marisacat - 28 October 2008

On spending gobs … he did that several times in the primary. Texas for one. Did not work. Then again, for all their warts, sins and faults (immense) the Three Clintons campaigned like Sherman Tanks, rolling across the landscape. McC, John and Cindy, are not up for that.

NONE of these people have campaigned with that ferocity. Jill essentially never showed up. Biden is an on again off again car of some sort. Talk about leaving oil leaks, geesh. Should be trashed or at least turned off. Michelle has been two days a week for months. Eh. Well the campaing told her her identity was to be “Muther”… so….Probably a good thing she let the admittance to the bar drop in barely 5 years, after all that Ivy-ing. LOL and Ob still, after all these months, strikes me as a walk on/walk off. he’s been shaped like a hamburger patty into Messiah… but I wonder how many people really see him as alive and breathing. Could be interesting to watch.

Good Luck to them all.

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57. marisacat - 28 October 2008

Crisis Over, Carry On!

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

Dow Closes Up Nearly 900 Points in Late-Day Rally [4:01 p.m. ET]

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58. marisacat - 28 October 2008

Financial Times comes out for Ob. Calls him “the better choice”.

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59. marisacat - 28 October 2008

neue post…

LINK

……………… 8) ………………..

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