Bamboozled in the boondoggle.

A lot at the Port of Long Beach may be used to park cars. Jamie Rector for The New York Times

For a while today, this was the most emailed article at the NYT…

And for the first time, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Nissan have each asked to lease space from the port for these orphan vehicles. They are turning dozens of acres of the nation’s second-largest container port into a parking lot, creating a vivid picture of a paralyzed auto business and an economy in peril.

“This is one way to look at the economy,” Art Wong, a spokesman for the port, said of the cars. “And it scares you to death.”

Just listening to Shelby and Barney Frank go at it (on Charle R).  The Democrats have certainly looked like fools the past few weeks.. all of them have.  I notice nobody is whining about “call it a Rescue!” anymore.  It is just a big fat fucking boondoggle of a failed Bail Out.  Bleeding massively.

Kurt Golledge, 48, was one of just two truckers loading his green, 75-foot-long hauler with cars last week. Mr. Golledge said eight of his colleagues were laid off this month because Toyota dealers did not want more deliveries.

“I was dropping cars in Henderson, Nev., about a month ago and the dealer told me: ‘Take ’em somewhere else and dump ’em,’ ” said Mr. Golledge, who works for a company called Allied Systems. “All the dealers are telling us the same thing.”

Auto dealers typically place orders with manufacturers months in advance, but they can modify their orders to receive fewer vehicles.

“The ships keep coming, but there’s nowhere for the cars to go,” Mr. Golledge said. He said he believed the vehicles he was loading would be his last before he was laid off, and he was already considering where he might find a new job.

Then, this dicey tidbit:

The mothballing of cars is nothing new for Detroit, where thousands of unwanted American-made cars have been parked over the last two years at Michigan’s state fairground and in lots at its airports.

The report also informs that China does not want our garbage any more… not much demand for the items they produced from the recyclables.  Guess what?  Loads of trash are still getting dropped at the transit sites, the stations before being shipped to China.  And there they sit.

Not a problem! About to get it ALL cleaned up in a jiffy… and then on to ending wars (Iraq), winning wars (Afghanistan, the regional bleed – and any new ones!) and delivering on some boondoggle of health care (just think! Czar Daschle *, Liberal Lion Kennedy and Baucus, I am so excited they will be working on it!).  Not to worry! Immigration, when Ob&co get to it, will be a snap of the fingers!  Gitmo? Consider it shut!  Not a problem.  Preventive detention, a little sticky, but Not To Worry!

I will keep breathing.

* At issue is Mr. Daschle’s work since leaving the Senate four years ago as a board member of the Mayo Clinic and a highly paid adviser to health care clients at the law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird.

In a detailed list of campaign promises, Mr. Obama pledged that “no political appointees in an Obama administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years.”

Although Mr. Daschle’s work might not preclude his appointment, it could raise the possibility that the administration could require him to recuse himself from any matter related to either the Mayo Clinic or some of the clients he advised at Alston & Bird — a potentially broad swath of the health secretary’s portfolio.

Obama promised, in an a ever cascading shift of words that finally landed, iirc, at “no federal lobbyists will be running my WH” (the version above is just recently extruded from the Ob camp).

Anyone seen a Czar around?  What do they do?  Run things?

Although not a registered lobbyist, Mr. Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat who was party leader in the Senate, provides strategic advice to the firm’s clients about how to influence government policy or actions. The firm’s Web site declares,

“Our health care legislative and policy team has the significant advantage of including two former U.S. Senate majority leaders — Senators Bob Dole and Tom Daschle — both resident in our Washington office and champions of many health care issues in their Senate Finance Committee and leadership roles.”

Champions.

As examples of the firm’s achievements the Web site lists matters involving Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, approvals of federally regulated drugs and medical products, fraud investigations, medical waste disposal, privacy and other compliance issues. [could he be more involved?  do you think?  --Mcat]

The Mayo Clinic, where Mr. Daschle is on the board, is itself a major health care provider, research institution, and recipient of grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Mr. Daschle’s wife, Linda Daschle, is a prominent lobbyist for aerospace and military concerns. She does not, however, represent any health care clients. Nor did Mr. Obama make specific campaign promises related to the occupation of a spouse.

If Mr. Daschle is required to recuse himself from certain areas involving his former clients or corporate affiliations, other Obama campaign pledges might require the administration to disclose the areas of recusal.

Be interesting to see how soon the Obs whine. Legalistic rewording soon to come down the chute…

I remember reading, soon after he shot himself, that Vince Foster simply could not cope with reading quite specific criticism of himself in what had been the most vaunted publication in his world, the WSJ.  I remember being bored and irritated when I read that….  These chumps WANT to come to Washington, stay in Washington, they want to lead the whirled, they want the pay off and the groveling…  As awe filled and horror filled (let’s not forget petty back biting, as well) leading the nation and leading the world is, it’s also the Big Leagues.

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UPDATE, 2:34 AM

Betsy Aron on ABC World News Overnight just said that Wall St is “losing faith in Washington’s ability to find the way out of this mess”.

Nothing to add to that!

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