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Still patrolling the cities, still turning over the houses… 19 June 2009

Posted by marisacat in Culture of Death, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Iraq War, WAR!.
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Mosul, Iraq: Iraqi soldiers, seen through a mirror, patrolling with their US counterparts from the 3rd Battalion 8th Cavalry Division, search a home in the Al-Naherwa area of the city [Ali Al-saadi/AFP/Getty Images]

It will never end…not at this rate.

Officials Insist Troops Will Be Out of City By End of June

by Jason Ditz, June 18, 2009

Ambassador Christopher Hill was the latest US official to declare that the nation intends to comply with the requirement of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Iraq that all troops would be out of Iraq’s cities by June 30. This would include the cities of Baghdad and Mosul.

But according to US army commanders in the Mosul area, there is enormous confusion about exactly what this requirement actually means, and have cautioned that the Iraqi government has ‘created a false impression among Iraqi citizens that American troops will no longer be seen on Mosul’s streets when, in fact, they will.’  [what a shock!  --- Mcat]

In reality the troops will be in bases along the outskirts of the city, and they are urging Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to give them exact guidelines regarding what they can and cannot do. “All of the battalion guys have concerns,” one commander noted, “all we have at the moment is the security agreement, and all that says is ‘no unilateral patrols’.”   snip

They’ll figure something out…

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1. marisacat - 19 June 2009

hmm from BAR

In May, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared the Obama administration’s intent to close and “turn around” 5,000 “underperforming” public schools in poorer neighborhoods across the country. Duncan’s last job was CEO of Chicago’s public schools where he shut down dozens of neighborhood schools, practically all in lower income areas, and dismissed thousands of committed and experienced teachers, the vast majority of them African American women.

When the Chicago Teachers Union made no effort to reach out to parents, students or their communities, refused to organize teachers to oppose the wave of school shutdowns and privatizations, teachers organized what they call CORE, the Coalition of Rank & File Educators. CORE has now filed suit against the Chicago Board of Education, charging that the mass dismissal of hundreds of mostly black veteran teachers and their replacement with uncertified and generally underqualified white teachers is racially discriminatory.

“We looked at the number of teachers who lost their jobs in these ‘school turnarounds,’” CORE research director Carol Caref told BAR, “and we looked at the number of African American teachers who were employed in those same schools or in the charter schools which replaced them and there was a huge discrepancy which couldn’t be accounted for by chance. The fired teachers are disproportionately African American, and the newly hired teachers are not.”snip

Same thing they have done in NO, since Katrina… and Vallas was sent down there.. before NO he was in Chicago, before Arne.

It’s a crew. Or a gang.

And the article does get around to Vallas and NO…

Ruled for more than 40 of the last 55 years by two men named Richard Daley, Chicago has given the nation dubious education reforms before this. The New Orleans model, in which the entire public school workforce was fired at one stroke immediately after Katrina, and nearly all the city’s public schools replaced with charter schools was implemented by Arne Duncan’s predecessor at the Chicago Board of Education, Paul Vallas.

Like Duncan, whose longest period of employment before the Chicago Public Schools was as a professional basketball player, Vallas was no educator either. Vallas was an accountant.

And as in New Orleans, the closing of neighborhood public schools in Chicago and their wholesale replacement with charter and other special schools has destabilized vast residential areas of the city and greatly contributed to gentrification.

The Daleys, on earth and in hotter places, are laughing really hard.

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2. catnip - 19 June 2009

Blowback:

Khamenei also attacked what he called interference by foreign powers who had questioned the result of the election, saying Iran’s enemies were trying to undermine the legitimacy of its Islamic establishment.

“American officials’ remarks about human rights and limitations on people are not acceptable because they have no idea about human rights after what they have done in Afghanistan and Iraq and other parts of the world,” he said.

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3. catnip - 19 June 2009

It’s a freaking epidemic:

President Obama’s choice as chief of protocol for the State Department, a position that carries the status of an ambassadorship, did not file tax returns for 2005 and 2006, errors she corrected last November.

The nominee, Capricia Penavic Marshall, has placed blame for the problem on the Postal Service and on miscommunication between her husband and their accountant.

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marisacat - 19 June 2009

very cute. Not even filing can involve criminal charges. But she blithely “corrects” it when offered a big job.

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artemis54 - 19 June 2009

I have to say I sympathize a tiny bit with people caught in these IRS nightmares. Currently the IRS is at the same time placing a lien on a bank account that isn’t even mine over one filing of mine, for $1900, and at the same time insisting that they owe me – that they owe me – $1500 over another issue from 2005 and demanding all sorts of records over that issue – or else. Those records were lost during a move, and the brouhaha over the overpayment is probably going to get me into more trouble than the underpayment. Their demands can really be unreasonable.

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marisacat - 19 June 2009

well I have sympathy for lots of people needlessly or vengefully or for whatever reason hauled over the coals by the IRS.. No question.. but NOT for these people.

A friend fo mine was just audited, she provided consulting to attys… and attys are a targetted group by the IRS (with reason, judging by most attys i have known) but also those who regularly work with attys get targetted. Fortunately she had used a CPA to prepare and file, so the IRS sat in their office for days… rahter than in her home.

I read minutely the background of the Geithner evasion. And it was evasion. Daschle, imo, clearly fiddled his taxes. I picked thru it all, all that I could find exposed.

SHVOE THEM OFF THE CLIFF.

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artemis54 - 20 June 2009

Well certainly someone who is supposed to be the world’s preeminent financial expert, the only man who can save the economy, ought to be held to a bit stricter standard than little old me getting sucky advice from an accountant who’s since skipped town.

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marisacat - 20 June 2009

well there is a difference. For one thing in Daschle’s case some of the “charitable donations” simply listed a name. No receipt, nothing. Which was disallowed by the IRS for that category. He was allowed to “reassign” the donation. LOL After the fact.

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4. catnip - 19 June 2009

Brutal:

(CNN) — A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each — a total of $1.9 million — for 24 songs.

“Outrageous” doesn’t even begin to describe that ridiculousness.

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lucid - 19 June 2009

Jesus! And exactly how much of that goes to the artists downloaded? Let’s see 7% of $.99, 24 songs… a whopping $1.66!

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Madman in the Marketplace - 19 June 2009

so damned ridiculous.

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5. marisacat - 19 June 2009

The [state] EPA declares that smoke from MJ is “cancer causing”. (coming off a news update from KGO, off to hunt up a report). It joins a list of arsenic, asbestos, and DDT.

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lucid - 19 June 2009

Oh noes! We must immediately get children to safe distance so they can inhale fumes from internal combustion engines!

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marisacat - 19 June 2009

exactly…

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6. marisacat - 19 June 2009

LOL Can’t we all just get along” Waaaaa ”Why not”

The Plum LineGreg Sargent’s blog

Gay Rights Lawyers: Obama Administration Rebuffed Our Requests For Dialogue — UPDATED

Two prominent gay rights lawyers litigating high-profile cases against the Obama administration tell me that their requests to meet with administration lawyers to discuss the cases were rebuffed — something that will further anger gay rights activists who feel badly stiff-armed by Obama on gay rights issues.

In both cases, the lawyers are representing Federal employees whose spouses are being denied protections or benefits under the Defense of Marriage Act. The Obama administration, which is officially opposed to DOMA, is defending the act in court and claiming it precludes the granting of some benefits (like health care) to same-sex spouses of Federal employees — the topic of so much controversy this week surrounding a case in California.

The refusal of meetings raises new questions about the Obama administration’s commitment to gay rights. Activists say the administration’s lawyers should want to meet to discuss such cases, in hopes that opposing lawyers find a way for the administration to legally grant benefits around DOMA, even as it defends the act in court. snip

According to Americablog… the WH is disputing the Plum Line report.

waaaaaaaaaaaaaa. whambulance.. for the WH and DOJ.

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7. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 June 2009

Media: Why supporting the Iraq War was the smart career move

Writing in “Democracy: A Journal of Ideas,” former Council on Foreign Relations chief Les Gelb slaps the print media on the wrist for getting the Iraq war wrong. After studying 576 news and opinion pieces from the three major newspapers and two major newsweeklies, Gelb says that “the elite press did not embarrass itself to the degree widely assumed–nor did it distinguish itself.” But, he adds, “[f]or the most part, the elite press conveyed [Bush] Administration pronouncements and rationale without much critical commentary.” He goes through the familiar media failings, from pre-invasion suckerhood to Mission Accomplished to the oversimplification of The Surge narrative. Gelb then says the elite print media, “centurions of our democracy,” deserve the same scrutiny we’d give “major government policies and actions.”

snip

But one of the major overlooked reasons of why journos and pundits were so willing to embrace the Iraq War had nothing to do with “print media” as a faceless institution. It came down to individuals, with faces, bylines, and column inches. It didn’t even have much to do with ideology. It had to do with getting ahead.

Supporting the Iraq War was the smart career move, the savvy play.

To his credit, Gelb makes this point(albeit in a typically CFRish way) towards the bottom of his piece. “My initial support for the war,” he writes “was symptomatic of unfortunate tendencies within the foreign policy community, namely the disposition and incentives to support wars to retain political and professional credibility.” This is quite a statement: to be taken seriously, you had to be on board for the war. And you had career “incentives” to do so.

As a twenty-two year old intern at one of these elite media outlets, I saw this career pressure at work, first hand. From the summer of 2002 to the invasion in March 2003, the views of a number of big names at Newsweek flipped like light switches. And Newsweek (as Gelb notes in his piece, and Chris Dickey noted in our recent interview) actually performed much more admirably than any of the other elite print outlets. But the “incentives” to support the war were apparent to columnists and reporters in newsrooms across the board–from the New Republic, to the New Yorker, to New York Times and the Washington Post.

There’s no need for me to name names here. Within a year, most of the folks who got it wrong had publicly begun their intellectual journeys back to common sense. (But if you want names, take a minute to read Slate’s 2004 roundup of war rationalizations and mea culpas, and then again in 2008.)

Still, what were those pressures/incentives exactly? A big one was the pressure to stay relevant. Being for the war was seen as the cutting edge of thinking. If you were against the war, you were marked as some kind of left-wing throwback, or an isolationist, someone who didn’t get it. You were marked as irrelevant, and media types fear irrelevancy above all else. (An example of this attitude can be found in this L.A. Times Op-Ed, where a former editor at Foreign Affairs worried that if more progressive thinkers didn’t start aggressively making the case for war they were in danger of “sounding like pacifists, hand-wringers or, worst of all, Europeans.“) Pro-war writers were being read–they were having impact on the debate. (Ironic, sure, that the way to be part of the mainstream conversation was to basically say what the majority was saying. But being read is a big deal, especially if you’ve slaved away for most of your career feeling that your work hasn’t been fully appreciated.) Pro-war writers and pundits were getting TV time, which could (and did) lead to other career intangibles like book deals, greater brand recognition, magazine awards, and what not. Also, supporting the war got you currency with the sources in the Bush Administration–heck, the powerful people in the White House might actually read your work, too.

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marisacat - 19 June 2009

Supporting the Iraq War was the smart career move, the savvy play.

it worked in blahg snark land too….

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Madman in the Marketplace - 19 June 2009

supporting death and horror seems to pay off for a lot of people.

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lucid - 19 June 2009

Don’t ever say that America can’t make murder sexy!

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Madman in the Marketplace - 20 June 2009

and we’ll airbrush as much as necessary to make it look good.

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8. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 June 2009

Obama’s Doctor Knocks ObamaCare

Scheiner, 71, was Obama’s doctor from 1987 until he entered the White House; he vouched for the then-candidate’s “excellent health” in a letter last year. He’s still an enthusiastic Obama supporter, but he worries about whether the health care legislation currently making its way through Congress will actually do any good, particularly for doctors like himself who practice general medicine. “I’m not sure he really understands what we face in primary care,” Scheiner says.

Scheiner takes a few other shots too. Looking at Obama’s team of health advisors, Scheiner doesn’t see anyone who’s actually in the trenches. “I have a suspicion they pick people from the top echelon of medicine, people who write about it but haven’t been struggling in it,” he says.

Scheiner is critical of Obama’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary–Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who used to work as the chief lobbyist for her state’s trial lawyers association.

“He doesn’t see all the pain, it’s so tragic out here,” he says. “Obama’s wonderful, but on this one I’m not sure if he’s getting the right input.”

What should the president be focused on? Scheiner thinks that a good health reform would be “Medicare for all,” a single-payer system where the government would cover everyone and pay for it by cutting out waste in the system. “A neurosurgeon gets paid $20,000 for cutting into the neck of my patient. Have him get paid $1 million a year instead of $2 million or $3 million. He won’t starve,” Scheiner says.

Scheiner thinks that Obama’s “public plan” reform doesn’t go far enough. He supports the idea of that option for people who don’t like or can’t afford their HMO. But he worries that it will be watered down or not happen at all. “It’s nonsense that the private insurance companies need to be protected,” he says. “Why? Because they’ve done such a good job?”

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9. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 June 2009
marisacat - 19 June 2009

the bases in Italy are out of control.

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marisacat - 19 June 2009

ugh I read it. Poor Italy, under our boot. As is the former Yugoslavia, in its parts and pieces… I should get out the Atlas… It’s clear we are building a land mass we control, a linear one.

March round the earth, is our plan. Fly over wars… en route to the next kill ground.

I imagine Vicenza is working up to a another season of anti base protest…

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marisacat - 19 June 2009

I looked up the acronym that was used in the ADS piece: COESPU… ugh.. some NATO or UN “post conflict” thing. War is our business:

Center of Excellence for
Stability Police Units
Acronym: COESPU
Location: Italy

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10. marisacat - 19 June 2009

The entire Bush family endorses Sotomayor.

No, really. All of them.

[I think this confirms she is a loaf of corporate white bread]

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Madman in the Marketplace - 20 June 2009

and likely not a friend of women’s autonomy and full access to healthcare.

Hard to believe sometimes that it used to be the RIGHT that tried to keep Catholics away from gov’t.

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11. marisacat - 19 June 2009

i scammed this from SMBIVA:

I narrowed the spammers down to three of the most persistent – @StopAhmadi @IranRiggedElect @Change_For_Iran

I decided to do a google search for 2 of the 3 – @StopAhmadi and @IranRiggedElect. The first page to come up was JPost (Jerusalem Post) which is a right wing newspaper pro-Israeli newspaper.

JPost actually ran a story about 3 people “who joined the social network mere hours ago have already amassed thousands of followers.”

Why would a news organization post a story about 3 people who JUST JOINED TWITTER hours earlier? Is that newsworthy? JPost was the first (and only to my knowledge) major news source that mentioned these 3 spammers. snip

There’s more at SMBIVA and Charting Stocks, where the story originates… (well – other than Mossad, LOL)

From Charting Stocks:

These twitting spammers began crying foul before the final votes were even counted, just as Mousavi had. The spammer @IranRiggedElect created his profile before a winner was announced and preformed the public service of informing us in the United States , in English and every 10 minutes, of the unfair election. He did so unselfishly, and without any regard for his fellow friends and citizens of Iran, who don’t speak English and don’t use Twitter! ….

Like a PR firm in Arlington used by the right was ready to go with cubicle dwelling thread trollers, even before Dan Rather finished his report on Bush and TANG.

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catnip - 19 June 2009

My conversation with thereisnoclue is still going on. Man, and I thought I could be naive…

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marisacat - 19 June 2009

He’s not naive. Just another Dem party issued creep.

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catnip - 19 June 2009

He’s Mr Talking Points. No doubt about that.

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lucid - 19 June 2009

I was told today by one of my best friends that ‘we’re not 20 anymore’ when I suggested that Obama was to the right of Reagan… After all, he just spooged ‘trillions of dollars’ on the ‘economy’. Would a ‘conservative’ do that? Mind you, this is an individual I respect greatly, and is very smart… he was actually vetted by the administration for a job in Central Asia…’too liberal’.

I really don’t know what to say anymore. I’d like the record to just speak for itself, but somehow, even the most intelligent, refuse to see the actual record…

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marisacat - 19 June 2009

Well he can check in with you in 5 years. I am unsure there is enough band aid material on earth to cover up the mess. Or keep it from bursting again, in a big bloodletting.

Geesh, Pearlstein of the Wapo… was very exasperated last night on with Charlie. I will hunt up the transcript.

What about Summers and Geithner does your friend nto get? Or Dennis Ross, just “elevated” from State to the WH… or Rahm? gah. Its ENDLESS. Or Arne?

Tell him to cheat on his taxes, it seems to be an “in” of sorts… :twisted:

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lucid - 19 June 2009

He didn’t want the job…he has one of the cushiest academic jobs imaginable. Lot’s of time to travel – good budget for research – sabbatical every 4th year – and tenure, in NYC.

But that statement, I really didn’t get. We were at a new Manhattan Bistro eating a steak frites, drinking wine, being upper class to the core, and all he can say to my critique of the administration is ‘we’re not 20 anymore’. No shit we’re not 20 anymore – when I was 20, I could drink like a motherfucker 6 days a week, hold down a full time job, go to graduate school full time and play in a band… And what precisely does that have to do with politics? [As an aside, I'm the one that turned both friends on to Dkos in 2004, Calculated Risk in 2007, and... well you get the picture].

My friends are pwogs… Smart ones, but falling back into the same arguments. Said friend even suggested tonight, like potential wreck list diary at dkos, that the ‘public option’ in the ‘healthcare bill’ was actually the death knell of insurance companies, and in 15 years, that plank would lead us to single payer… And went on to suggest that it was great ‘strategy’…

Well yes, he is a good bridge player too.

I just think he and his partner misjudged the hand…

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marisacat - 19 June 2009

well he can drink a lot more red wine waiting for change.

And read up on Chile (neo liberal policies we – Chicago Boys – foisted on them) and Argentina (police state with multi discipline religious acquiesence)… just my opinion.

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lucid - 19 June 2009

His dad was John Cooley whose obituary I posted here a year ago… good dad, good kid…Very complex and in depth views of the world… and despite my being a dirty hippy, still a good friend. So he’s open. I just get pissed off occasionally when he says shit like that.

marisacat - 20 June 2009

teh Pearlstein interview was Thursday, but no transcript yet

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catnip - 19 June 2009

Obama said at a presser “I am a conservative”. So, yes, a conservative would do that.

They’re definitely notorious here for spending like drunken sailors – leaving it to whoever succeeds them to clean up their economic messes.

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12. marisacat - 20 June 2009

I just heard that the Obama administration filed in support of Alaska, in the case decided earlier this week on DNA testing for incarcerated …

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13. Madman in the Marketplace - 20 June 2009

“Democrats are the new Republicans”

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14. Madman in the Marketplace - 20 June 2009

Lydia Guevara, Che’s Granddaughter, Poses Semi-Nude For PETA

The revolution will not be televised, because there will be no revolution.

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15. Madman in the Marketplace - 20 June 2009

Bageant: Worker rights: No balls, no gains

If a few pricks and gangsters have occasionally seized power over the dignity of labor, countless more calculating, bloodless and malevolent pricks — the capitalist elites — have always held most of the card — which is why in 1886 railroad and financial baron Jay Gould could sneer, “I can always hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.” And why a speaker at the U.S. Business Conference Board in 1974 could arrogantly declare, “One man, one vote has undermined the power of business in all capitalist countries since World War II.” And why that same year Business Week magazine said, “It will be a hard pill for many Americans to swallow — the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more. Nothing in modern economic history compares with the selling job that must now be done to make people accept this new reality.”

The new reality is here, and has been since 1973, the last year American workers made a wage gain in real dollars. Hell, it’s been here so long we accept it as part of America’s cultural furniture. Only about 12% of American workers are unionized and even with a supposedly union friendly Democratic Congress, unions are still fighting to exist (although government employees are unionized at 36%, because the Empire allows some leeway for its commissars ). In fact, things are worse than ever. Employers can now force employees to attend anti-union presentations during the workday, at captive audience meetings in which union supporters are forbidden to speak under threat of insubordination. Back in 1978 when I was working to organize the local newspaper, the management was not even allowed to speak to the workers on the matter until after the union vote results were in.

Then there’s President Obama, the guy soft headed liberals think is going to turn this dreadful scenario around. He talks a good game about unions, when he is forced to. But Obama is working on the things that will “create a legacy,” such as health care (which is simply a new way to pay the insurance industry’s blackmail) or the economy (by appointing the same damned people who fucked it up to fix it), and immigration reform, a nicely nebulous term that can mean whatever either side of the issue wants it to mean. Obama’s not going to publicly ignore the unions. But he’s not going to sink much political capital into this corporatized nation’s most radio-active issue either. For him, union legislation is just a distraction from the “legacy building” of a very charming, savvy, and ambitious politician. That is the assessment of Glenn Spencer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the most anti-union institutions in America. (Many thanks to Washington writer Ken Silverstein for publishing Spencer’s astute observations).

Things are changing though. Union membership climbed 12 percent last year. Twelve percent of twelve percent ain’t shit, but at least it’s forward motion. At that rate it will only take us 21 years to get back to the 1956 level of union membership. We can expect no miracles, top union leaders are still among the Empire’s elites. And they are still technically accountable to whatever membership will still have jobs when the 2012 elections roll around. The least they could do is make it harder for Obama to lick off those millions of hard earned union support dollars from the top of the campaign contribution ice cream cone as he did in ’08.

But who can be sure? Because the new union elites and their minions are lawyers and marketing professionals. They’ve never come down off the mountain with both stacks red hot, or gathered on the porch of a crappy but new roadside bungalow, proud because they owned it, and stood up straight because, “Boys, your daddy is coming home.”

I’m no t going into the current brouhaha about the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) or the “card check” bullshit here. Because what it’s gonna take to restore dignity to laboring America, ain’t gonna be more legislative wrangling. What it takes won’t be pretty, maybe not even legal in this new police state, and sure as hell won’t be “within the system.” Because the system is the problem.

So it will be up to us, just like it always has been … the writer, the Nicaraguan janitor, the forty year old family man forced to bag groceries at Walmart, the pizza delivery guy, the welder and the certified nurse … the long haul trucker and the short order cook. And they will snicker at us from their gilded roosts on Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Some people are bound to get hurt in the necessary fight. In fact, people need to be willing to get hurt in the fight. That’s the way we once gained worker rights, and that’s the way we will get them back. The only way to get rid of the robbers’ roost is to burn the fucker down.

Anyone got a match?

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16. marisacat - 20 June 2009

fwiw… the usual dreary right center right reactionary winger nutter line up:

This Week: Sens. Dodd, Graham. Roundtable with Bill Keller, Robert Reich, George Will, Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts.

Meet the Press: Benjamin Netanyahu; Former Sens. Nunn, Thompson. Roundtable with Chuck Todd, Nina Easton.

State of the Union: Sens. Feinstein, Grassley, Lugar.

Fox News Sunday: Sens. Bayh, McCain; Reps. Hoekstra, Ryan; Carnegie Endowment’s Karim Sadjadpour. Panel with Stephen Hayes, Mara Liasson, Byron York, Juan Williams.

Face the Nation: McCain.

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17. brinn - 20 June 2009

I’ve got a whole damned book full of matches!!

Back from the first vacation my family has ever had — was a BLAST! and my goddesdaughter who was watching the house and animals for us while we were gone cleaned up the whole PLACE!! first time we’ve ever been able to come home and not say, “ick, here we are back in the shithole!” LOL! I’ll have some pics up tomorrow — we went to the mountains in GA, right by a river, a wedding in a vineyard, the Space and Rocket Center in AL, and the beach at the LA/TX border (saw lots of hurricane damage…) and those were just the big things!! ;) We crammed 10 years of vacation into those 12 days! heh.

but, upon going through the mail, I found a bill from the city of Austin for $296.50….you see, in April, my 5 year old broke his collar bone at school — I was called and when i got there he was in hysterics and wouldn’t even let me touch him — I called the EMTs, and I called the insurance company — they said that as long as he was being transported to a facility, it would be covered (you see, since I couldn’t strap him into his car seat, I thought it would be safer and faster to have the EMTs transport him, plus, we didn’t even know for sure what was wrong until the EMTs got there, the school nurse was fairly useless…) — so, we went to the ER at Dell Children’s Hospital — the ride cost 415.00 plus 67.50 for “mileage” (it’s 9 miles from his school to DCH)….apparently, the insurance company decided to pay only $186.00….we already paid our deductible ($100) for the Er visit (7 hours of my life I’ll never get back….that is another long story, but I’m usre everyone has one), so i would really like to know why the FUCK they didn’t pay it….gotta wait ’til Monday though, ‘cuase I’m sure there won’t be anyone with any actual answers in the office until then…and I don’t want to be pissed off at some poor sucker who earns 8 bucks an hour to be “customer service” on the weekends….

Yeah, I’ve got matches, and a motherfucking blowtorch….’scuse my language!

I’ve missed you guys!!

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marisacat - 20 June 2009

hey hey brinn…

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Madman in the Marketplace - 20 June 2009

Lucky for you that the private healthcare system is so efficient!!!

Well, if you were Canadian, you and your child would have been dragged to a shoddy emergency room on a travois pulled by a team of mangy mutts, only to have to fill out endless forms (IN FRENCH!!) while you waited on broken chairs next to the corpse of a man who had waited TWO WEEKS to be seen for a goiter.

Everybody sing … “I’m proud to be an American …”

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18. marisacat - 20 June 2009

wow totally fascinating… NYT has interactive map of murders in the 5 boroughs of NYC. Each little blue dot has statistics on that murder.

A ton of killings by knife.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 20 June 2009

makes one wonder what that map would look like if guns weren’t so hard to get legally in that city.

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19. Madman in the Marketplace - 20 June 2009

So representative, those Democrats: Most Support Public Health Care Option

“A clear majority of Americans — 72% — support a government-sponsored health care plan to compete with private insurers, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds. Most also think the government would do a better job than private industry at keeping down costs and believe that the government should guarantee health care for all Americans.”

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marisacat - 20 June 2009

they need to withhold the vote.

Reading around yesterday and today I am very entertained by the commentary that drug companies insurers and the ”gubmint” have agreed to lower pharmaceutical costs. Some finagling with the “donut hole” for elderly and disabled.

I so [do not] believe it.

Since when.

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Arcturus - 20 June 2009

withhold the vote

how low would participation have to go before the PTB acknowledge a ‘crisis of legitimacy’? seems fair to ask, ever?

after the populist Lavelas party in Haiti was denied access to the ballot in the last (senatorial) elections, turn-out was estimated between 5 & 10% – run-offs merrily proceed tomorrow, w/ nary a concerned-for-democracy voice raised, not even after UN ‘Peacekeepers’ shoot mourners at Jean Juste’s funeral – you know, the Lavelas guy who was imprisoned to prevent him from running for President against Preval

how many is ‘not enuf?’

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marisacat - 20 June 2009

well they noticed when a small percentage of blacks sat out in 2002. It was still being discussed in 2004. They noticed, and Hillary is audio recorded, that parts of Applachia did not vote for Bill.

They notice. If I hear one more Dem consultant, pol, pundit or shit faced dog faced turd say the left “has nto where to go” and laugh.. I will tear my hair out.

I have ntohing against marches, and whatever else, but all they want is the turnout, every 4 years and at the mid terms. THAT IS ALL THEY WANT. A s for marches and sit ins and letters and calls all they do is laugh and look away.

We are mired in concrete and I won’t vote for it.

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Arcturus - 20 June 2009

I trust you know I’m hardly asking anyone to vote for it – just voicing depressed rhetorical questions – sure, they’ll notice if they think they they can recover a segement, or the other side’s gonna ‘capture’ it – but rarely if ever does any of that lead to anything substantive policy-wise

silly question, really, but how low does participation have to go to engender a crisis (i’e.da peeps are saying ‘to hell w/ yr 2 parties!’) & not just stimulate further motions to herd the crowd back into a corral?

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marisacat - 20 June 2009

obviously Arcturus I have no idea. Frankly what is the difference if Haiti votes at 5% and the same leader goes in as if they voted at 80%.

My vote was rendered useless so long ago it hardly matters. I live in such a dust bowl of no reality… rigged and machined to the Democratic party.

But I won’t ratify the rotting the flesh.

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Arcturus - 20 June 2009

if any______country votes at 5% and the same leader goes in as if they voted at 80%.

‘s ’bout all I’m sayin’ . . .

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marisacat - 20 June 2009

At least they did not ratify the US selected dictator.

And I am relieved I did nto vote for the goddamned creep whose DOJ put in a amicus brief [in support of Alaska] on the DNA case that the SCOTUS ruled on earlier this week. I have not looked it up, but I have read it was in strong support.

Madman in the Marketplace - 20 June 2009

at the very least, you’re not ratifying their goatfucking of all of us …

… I’ve given up on pretty much everything but symbolism and art at this point.

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Arcturus - 20 June 2009

here, have an artful Prayer

(voice ”n drum, Abbey Lincoln & Max Roach, from MR’s 1960 Freedom Now Suite)

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Madman in the Marketplace - 20 June 2009

yes, like that …

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20. Arcturus - 20 June 2009

yes, you can! join the groundswell, as the New! Improved! Imperial Humanitarianism gathers its stars & glitterati in DC this June 22-23

don’t forget to “dress to impress for Lobby Days,” & if you can’t make it, learn how to “join the Advocacy Assault from your living room”

can’t imagine why Mamdani isn’t invited . . .

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21. marisacat - 20 June 2009

don’t worry. be happy… think by now that is code for ”be a dope”

Obama and the girls sneak out Saturday afternoon for some vanilla custard at The Dairy Godmother in Alexandria, Virginia.

Also picks up a bag of “puppy pops” to bring home for First Dog Bo. Pool report here.

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22. marisacat - 21 June 2009

new post…

LINK

……………… 8O ……………….

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