far away...

far away… 17 September 2009

Posted by marisacat in DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, San Francisco, U.S. House, U.S. Senate.
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Socotra

An Egyptian Vulture, one of 192 bird species that can be found on Socotra. (Piotr Kot)

More links:
• The Wonder Land of Socotra, Yemen
• The land that time forgot

I landed on this gallery at the LAT… Socotra, an island in an archipelago off Yemen. I had never heard of it… reachable only by boat during limited periods of the year (monsoon season knocks the boat out) ’til a runway went in ’99. Like Gallapagos, I gather, go soon. Masses of the upright and walking on two feet are arriving (a different sort of vulture).

In a gallery at Telegraph.. I saw these two donkeys. (But was not sure I wanted to look at them all day Friday!) I say make THEM Speaker and Majority Leader.

I caught Nancy late today, her public weep.. or whatever that was. I cringed. Anyway, San Francisco sits on a ton of dirty secrets in that event, from the morning, the day of the killings to the arrest to the trial… probably all the way to Dan White’s suicide.

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1. BooHooHooMan - 17 September 2009: Another Body amidst Empire’s Ruins..

Danny Pang, barbiturates with a little weed for the one way ride.
Made all the rounds. Had great friends, like Former SECDEF/ Carlysle Grouper Frank Carlucci who had his back……well…
So much for that.

Anyways…Morgan Stanley, the Frontier Group , his own boutique the PEM Group…quite the clusterfucker. @ 650 million that went POOF.
Just. fucked. Taiwanese investers. Well ,somebody has the dough.
But Way to Build that Coalition of the Unwilling!
Surely decent people around the globe will continue to line up, no?

Big Rudy for Pres Booster last year, too.
Overmaxed to Rudy by a grand, then refunded, I see.

I’m tellin ya, there’s a market for an upscale drive thru burger and suicide joint.

Ya know.~
And Fuck Those Motherfuckers askin for extra condiments….

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2. BooHooHooMan - 17 September 2009: Just a reminder to shop early for Christmas, I guess.

Israel warns of threats to India

An Indian soldier surveys the Taj Mahal Palace Tower Hotel in Mumbai, during the attack in November
Major hotels and a Jewish centre were among the targets in Mumbai

Israel is warning that Islamist militants are preparing attacks in India similar to those in Mumbai last year, media and officials have said.

Israel’s counterterrorism unit said the group that launched the Mumbai attacks was planning to target Western or Israeli tourists, AFP news agency said.

Israeli television also reported that a travel advisory would warn Israelis against travelling to India.

India has blamed Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba for the Mumbai attacks

Hunh. Ya don’t say. What? ~ No similar ” head’s up” on 9/11?

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BooHooHooMan - 18 September 2009: BTW – that pic atop the last thread?

Definitely is llamist militant.

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marisacat - 18 September 2009: a secret llamist militant! Deep undercover in London…

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BooHooHooMan - 18 September 2009: I always like your photographic selections.
You really have a great eye for it..both in providing further clarity to
serious commentary or with those that are as fun as they are instructive.

For instance, The donkeys… Jeezis. What a scream. Could well be Steny Hoyer relations.
The one on the right methinks is a smoker, tho.
in with Big Tobacco .. Maybe a secret-puffer like Ob.
My take anyways. LOL.

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marisacat - 18 September 2009: i thought the donkeys were a hoot!

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marisacat - 18 September 2009: Where would we be without “Islamists”….

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BooHooHooMan - 18 September 2009: Oh…
Prolly 12 bucks a gallon for gas…
Courtesy of OUR market wizards.

I dunno, maybe flipping condo’s in Gaza.
All that good ‘Merkan Stuff.

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3. marisacat - 18 September 2009: oh you have to love it… deals with Russia … (as if I care!) but I just read that Obster extended the Cuba embargo a few days ago.

Let’s see, Russia is muy big. And Cuba is muy small… but inside our presumed “sphere of influence”.

We make so much sense. Right right, it’s always “our interests”.

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4. marisacat - 18 September 2009: Cpunch:

[I]t wasn’t more than six months later that I was knocked to my senses. The fairytale had ended. I read in the newspaper that my buddy Max had supported the North America Free Trade Agreement a few years prior. By then, I was diving into local environmental issues and came across the effects of NAFTA and the senators who supported it. Baucus was at the top of the hit-list. I couldn’t’ t believe it.

Upon further exploration, I learned that Baucus sat on the influential congressional committees, including the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, Environment and Public Works, and Finance and Joint Taxation. I learned how this man whom I had come to admire — for no real reason other than his bashing of a Republican — had succumbed to the interests of campaign contributors time and again. I found out how his seat on the Finance committee scored him bundles of cash from the health care industry and some big corporations I had never even heard of, including JP Morgan, Brown & Foreman, and Citigroup. I knew these guys weren’t from Montana.

I also learned how my hero supported welfare reform, Fast Track, and President Clinton’s Salvage Rider Act, all of which blatantly raped the Montana forests I loved so dearly. A year later in college I read an old article by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair in the Washington Post, which disclosed how actor Robert Redford had campaigned for Baucus by dropping letters in the mailboxes of elite Hollywood liberals, hoping to entice them to donate money to the Montanan for his astute convictions for environmental justice.

But as St. Clair and Cockburn put it so poignantly, “Across the length and breadth of Congress, it is impossible to uncover a more tenacious front-man for the mining, timber, and grazing industries … it was Baucus who crushed the Clinton administration’s timid effort to reform federal mining and grazing policies and terminate below-cost timber sales to big timber companies subsidized by the taxpayers.”

I was indignant. “How could he …?!” I pondered. “If the Democrats aren’t saving our natural resources, who the hell is?” . . . . . . . .

And, you know, more ways to kill off the wildlife than just shooting them from the air. Tho Democrats would kill before they admitted that.

I doubt that Max has ever hiked or driven through Montana’s Yaak River basin, where a massive forest service sale has destroyed critical grizzly bear habitat. I’d bet he’s never seen what the massive clear cuts have done to the region’s ecosystem, as tributaries have turned a pale yellow from mud and debris. And I cannot imagine Baucus ever apologizing for the legislation he supported during the Clinton years that’s to blame for it all. Many groups have challenged the illegalities of the outright pillage but all of these suits have been defeated or dismissed because the Salvage law gives the forest service “discretion to disregard entirely the effect on the grizzly bear.” All this from the party I once belonged.

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5. marisacat - 18 September 2009: hmmm

This Week: Obama. Roundtable with Donna Brazile, Peggy Noonan, Robert Reich, George Will.

Meet the Press: Obama.

Face the Nation: Obama.

State of the Union: Obama, Sens. McConnell, Levin

Fox News Sunday: ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis, Rep. Darrell Issa

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6. marisacat - 18 September 2009: oh Lovely! The Yale lab tech may have had help hiding the body. Not one but possibly TWO very rotten apples.

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7. marisacat - 18 September 2009: hahahahaha

TAPPER: And then, does the president have any response to the fact that when he mentioned the Baucus bill yesterday in College Park the Baucus bill was booed?

GIBBS: Not that I know of.

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8. marisacat - 18 September 2009: All together now! Weep for Teddy!

Politico http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27316.html

In a strange sequel to one of the most dramatic confrontations in modern political journalism, Sen. Edward Kennedy accuses former CBS newsman Roger Mudd of blindsiding him during the famous 1979 television special that featured the Massachusetts senator stammering on camera just days before launching his ill-fated presidential campaign.

Kennedy said he agreed to be interviewed by Mudd as a personal favor to help him in the competition to succeed Walter Cronkite. He accuses Mudd of misrepresenting what he was going to ask him and blindsiding him with personal questions.

Mudd told POLITICO that Kennedy’s description of the circumstances surrounding the interview, recounted in “True Compass,” his posthumous memoir, was “fantasy.” . . . . . . .

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9. Intermittent Bystander - 18 September 2009: Ob and Jill are coming to a local community college on Monday.
High-tech win lures President. HVCC-chip fab partnership attracts Obama administration.

Should be chip-fabulous!

However, tickets will be tight, for the plebes.

College spokeswoman Paula Monaco said about 60 HVCC students are being invited, and the White House is sending out all other invitations to what is expected to be a small, controlled event inside the school’s senior automotive lab at Cogan Hall, located on the southern edge of the campus.

::snip::

Cogan Hall is located next to Williams Hall, home to HVCC’s photovoltaic, or solar electric, program, which might be another reason why Obama is speaking there. That’s because Obama’s energy and economic plan — as well as the federal stimulus plan — has a big focus on renewable energy and energy efficiency. The HVCC program specializes in solar panel installation.

Obama also is expected to talk about HVCC’s TEC-SMART facility being built at the Saratoga Technology + Energy Park in Malta, which will allow the college to greatly expand its solar and renewable energy programs.

::snip::

The President will highlight community college education and its importance in developing a high-tech work force.

The White House also will invite local clean-tech and renewable energy entrepreneurs to the event.

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marisacat - 18 September 2009: the light bulb tour.

and energy efficiency.

maybe there are big doin’s somewhere, but what we hear about over and over is federal subsidies or tax deductions for insulation or new windows. Think there is a small rebate going on for upgrades to High Efficiency models of appliances.

All to the good……………….. but not exactly and avalanche of green jobs or construction.

There was a big announcement just a few weeks ago here of a Fed Stumble Bill project, they are extending a (A, a single one) BART platform. hmmmm.

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10. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 September 2009: GOP Rep Who Suggested D.C. Metro Hurt 9/12 Turnout Voted Against Metro Funding

They make me laugh. What makes me laugh harder is morons like this keep kicking donkey ass.

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marisacat - 18 September 2009: morons like this keep kicking donkey ass.

… amazing ain’t it.

***

I also noted today that Snowe, at least verbally, is to the LEFT of Ob on health care. She is commenting that subsidies, thresholds in the Baucus bill, have to be made more advantageous to poor and working class.

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11. marisacat - 18 September 2009: hmm i just heard that the US gov pulled the Treasury backing of Money Market funds… instituted a year ago to … I guess!.. reassure people.

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12. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 September 2009: Stage Fright

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13. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 September 2009: Grand Central Station’s Jewel

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14. Madman in the Marketplace - 18 September 2009: This Modern World

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15. catnip - 18 September 2009: My latest: Where’s the fight?

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marisacat - 18 September 2009: thanks for that… i gave moyers a miss tonight … it repeats endlessly thru the weekend.

btw… think that ”bill fletcher” is from black commentator… and they have totally, totally… given up. prone at ob’s feet but for a fake critique here or there.

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catnip - 18 September 2009: Iirc, he gave Obama a bit of a break during that interview. (Good memory – it’s just short! And I’d check the transcript but I’m off to bed.)

Moyers was interesting. I enjoyed it.

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16. catnip - 18 September 2009: Obama and Holder! Human rights heroes!

Oh…wait…

Inquiry Into CIA Practices Narrows

The Justice Department’s review of detainee abuse by the CIA will focus on a very small number of cases, including at least one in which an Afghan prisoner died at a secret facility, according to two sources briefed on the matter.

And does anybody seriously think they’ll be able to stand up to this pressure? The Spelunker-in-chief? Not a chance…

On Friday, seven former CIA directors urged President Obama to end the inquiry, arguing that it would inhibit intelligence operations in the future and demoralize agency employees who believed they had been cleared by previous investigators.

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17. BooHooHooMan - 18 September 2009: Mitchell leaves Israel with no deal
By LAURA ROZEN | 9/18/09 2:08 PM
Hopes fade for a meeting between U.S., Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York next week.

We TRIIIED ™ !

{wink}
{…reaching for Treasury checkbook}
[ and on Shabbat!|

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marisacat - 18 September 2009: Hopes fade

… and then some!

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BooHooHooMan - 18 September 2009: The Five-fer is I think has little to do with our
domestic Talk-it-to-Death-Care.

Big UN finger Wag the G-20 coming up…
What better way to say fuck you to an increasingly anti Zionist Europe?
Bang Bang goes the Iran Drum again.
Let’s do it in Irving Kristols memory!
I could puke. “secret report”. Conniving fucks.

IAEA secret report: Iran worked on nuclear warhead

‘Secret annexe’ to UN nuclear inspection agency report reveals Iran has ‘sufficient information’ to make a nuclear weapon

A missile in front of a poster of the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a military exhibition in Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Hasan Sarbakhshian/AP

The urgency of dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat was underscored today when a leaked report revealed that the UN inspection agency believes the Islamic republic has “sufficient information” to make a nuclear weapon and has “probably tested” a key component.

A day after Barack Obama scrapped plans to deploy missile defence technology in eastern Europe, the Associated Press said it had obtained material from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which suggests that it was more convinced Iran had been trying to make a bomb than its outgoing director, Mohamed ElBaradei, had admitted.

“The agency … assesses that Iran has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device based on HEU [highly enriched uranium] as the fission fuel,” AP quoted a “secret annexe” to a report on Iran as saying. Western diplomats confirmed that the annexe was authentic.

“Its absolutely accurate,” one official said.

Slam Dunk!

“It shows the agency’s thinking, which is that Iran is a lot further along on this than most people think. It suggests the Iranians have done a lot of work.”

The annexe said Iranian scientists had engaged in “probable testing” of explosives arranged in a hemisphere, which is how an implosion-type nuclear warhead is triggered.

There was also evidence, the report says, that Iran had worked on developing a chamber to carry a warhead on top of one of its missiles “that is quite likely to be nuclear”.

Attention will now focus on the United Nations in New York next week, where Obama takes the rare step of chairing a security council session in order to generate momentum towards nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and consensus over Iran.

Same Cheney/ Bush playbook. Go through the motions of brokering a deal. Pull out saying ya Triiiiiied, while leaking tired peripheral shit in the Press. Send Titular US President to UN to look all earnest and stuff. While neaderthal NeoCons proceed unscathed.

I eyed this in WaPo…with the simpleton pic added for emphasis.
And to think they could have used the donkeys instead..

Considering the target audience…

Israel Finds Strength in Its Missile Defenses
Advanced System Could Alter Strategic Decisions in Region

Israel’s missile defense shield is centered on the Arrow 2 antimissile system, which is already deployed. (2004 Photo By Associated Press)

By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 19, 2009

ASHKELON, Israel — As it pushes for international action against Iran’s nuclear program, Israel is steadily assembling one of the world’s most advanced missile defense systems, a multi-layered collection of weapons meant to guard against a variety of threats, including the shorter-range Grads used to strike Israeli towns like this one and intercontinental rockets.

The effort, partly financed by the United States and incorporating advanced American radar and other technology, has been progressing quietly for two decades.

Always with the Madoff con, the privilege of being “Let in on a little secret” …..An “opportunity” now…One too good to pass up…
One too good to be..

But Israeli defense and other analysts say it has now reached a level of maturity that could begin changing the nature of strategic decisions in the region.

…one too good to be True. Again with the Slam Dunk.
The Double Dunk. This War is New! And IMPROVED!
etc.

I take it the Russians are cool with what happens, not a prob for them as our talked up ABM tech gets deployed for Israel..
And Why Should they Care?
Why should they stand in the way of our imbeciles?
Why should they care if our dissolute elites are enthralled by –
and in hock to – Israel’s Madmen?
They should care as their Oil and Gas Revenue soars?

Welp. Good luck finding EU support on this, tho..
As they would have to perceive it from their POV as yet another major offensive of US Israeli Financial Warfare.
From their POV, it’s all but designed to wreck their individual economies and diminish the EU as a whole.
With domestic political blowback and the likelihood of collateral security threats accruing to THEM.

I don’t think the “Missile Shield” standown, per se, is their major concern.
But definitely count the Polocks out. LOL.
They SO wanted the American Vaporware of that much vaunted Missile Shield.
But hey, they believe in Jesus too, and that Jzeebuski would save them if the Russian Army decided to roll West. They’re upset now.
The Poles aren’t even taking Hillary’s call…
(The PM actually, .. citing “protocol”.)

They’ll be in Church.
Prolly prayin for cheap Russian gas and the Ayatollahs.
Not neccessarily in that order, even.

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marisacat - 18 September 2009: I read that Polish pretzel spent the hours during which he refused Hillary’s call boning up on the whole issue (the story being sprung that is). Interesting. So he was ready when he finally did talk. To Ob… that is.

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BooHooHooMan - 19 September 2009: Which reminds me of the one about the Polack and the Black guy in a bar talkin about the Screw You, It’s for Jews Missile Shield….

Sorry. Much of my shtick is affected, but there is truth in jest…

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18. marisacat - 18 September 2009: omigod. 277 speeches since in office (courtesy of local CBS news tonight). 122 on health care in general and I missed the smaller number on HC reform in particular.

Go away! Leave us alone!

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catnip - 18 September 2009: He’s giving 5 Sunday interviews? WTF? I see he’s squiggling his way out of dealing with race again. Mr Post Racial Discussions.

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marisacat - 18 September 2009: and he is the ONLY guest on Letterman on… Monday I guess.

I think his people (and he as well) are media obsessed. In a weird way. Kinda DUMB.

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marisacat - 18 September 2009: hmmm. Speeches don’t work if people won’t buy the blither.

LAT:

[B]ut a new poll indicates it’s gonna take a whole lot more than repeated rhetoric to convince skeptical Americans not feeling the $787 billion economic stimulus. The new CNN / Opinion Research Poll finds an overwhelming majority of Americans see the country as good and stuck in a recession and have no doubts about it.

Fully 86% of the 1,012 adults surveyed said the country remained mired in a recession; 13% disagreed. Seventy-seven percent call it a severe or moderate recession; only 10% light. More than half said their economic position had not improved in the past year and nearly 40% said it was worse. . . . . . .

And…

[W]hen a series of town hall meetings didn’t help that much last spring, Obama escalated to primetime news conferences. But they didn’t make news and some networks flaked off from coverage as ratings fell. So last week he escalated to a presidential address to a joint session of Congress, as President Bush did, for instance, after 9/11.

There’s been no apparent poll bounce from that. So the president will launch a media blitz this weekend. He’s going to do all the major Sunday political talk shows. Well, not Fox News. Couldn’t fit that one into the presidential schedule. . . . . . .

OVEREXPOSED.

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marisacat - 18 September 2009: jesus… 117 interviews… 66 of them on tv.

GOOD LUCK!

(via Charlie Rose)

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19. marisacat - 19 September 2009: geesh.. a week ago I thought he might check out (he looked pretty bad!)… NOW the Lockerbie so called bomber (the whole thing is too murky) has…………………..

a website.

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BooHooHooMan - 19 September 2009: Yes, but does he have a “Donate Now” button?
Or “Front Pagers” and “Guest Bloggers”
’cause if so …ya know what THAT means…
Dana Houle won’t be far behind. Tin cup in tow..

But if al-Megrahi want’s to go in an “Old Head” direction online,
Tim Lange can move the ole Meatier Blades suitcase over.
Into aisle 2 in First Class….
The “Meatier Blades” and ” suitcase angle” working quite well with a real retro Pan Am feel to it. And if he wants to amp it up all Snakes on a Plane Like, Cut it with a little bitchy psychotic lawyer, and have Llorens Sar wax on Legal Issues. Could be a blast.

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marisacat - 19 September 2009: probably got a ”Donate Now” button coming!

I mean why not?

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20. BooHooHooMan - 19 September 2009: Sorry about the HTML botch.
Quite the doozy. And thanks for the assistance.

I hadn’t picked up on it earlier wrt to our scuttling the Star Wars / Missile Shield Plans over Europe…but today,
Hillary came right out and said it’s about Iran.
Oooo with “an Update”. too…

Clinton: Not about Russia, but Iran
Posted: Friday, September 18, 2009 10:56 AM by Domenico Montanaro

From NBC’s Libby Leist
Secretary of State Clinton defended President Obama’s decision on missile defense saying, “This decision was not about Russia it was about IRAN and the threat its ballistic missile program poses.”

She said the change proposed by Obama will deploy missile defense sooner – a “stronger and smarter approach.”

She made the comments during a speech at the Brookings Institution, previewing next week’s session of the U.N. General Assembly.

*** UPDATE *** Clinton said there will be accompanying costs for “Iran’s continued defiance,” which will lead to more isolation and economic pressure, making less of a possibility for progress for the people of Iran.

Clinton said the Obama administration “clearly displayed our readiness to engage” with Iran. But since June, Iran has engaged in politically motivated arrests, show trials and is standing in the way of the progress it seeks. Clinton said, “Nevertheless the U.S. stands ready” to engage. But she added, “We have no appetite for talks without action.”

Same Cheney/ Bush playbook. War to secure their precious Fortunes.
More desperate tho, I think –
given their now naked domestic con..,

“”….There’s been no apparent poll bounce from that. So the president will launch a media blitz this weekend.”"”

.. and the economic ruin, their feckless Stay the Course WRT
AfPakIraqistan.

There’ll be a bounce all right. Eventually.
On the pavement, with any luck.

Now they may get the sabre rattling bounce..Buuuut
given their political desperation, their poseurs reality, their B Team status, it won’t have any of the staying power afforded Bush..and thats just the domestic political sitch….
They are Presiding over terminal collapse.
The Dems are going to get rocked in the mid terms and enter a political wilderness that made the Clinton years look comfy. Then be stripped of the Federal Patronage powers when the GOP comes abck in in 012…I don’t see this “suit” surviving past 012.

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marisacat - 19 September 2009: hmm I don’t know what is coming.. but caught a piece from Charlie Cook… who I thought compromised himself (in, imo, a long arc con) in the election by openly siding with Obrama… but now is edging to the comfy land of naysayer. Which is not hard!

ANYWAY! Charlie C is saying that Blue State Dems have no fucking clue what is coming in the mid terms. They are laying about, as I always say of Democrats, rubbing their tummies and talking to the genies coming out of the lamps… and totally missing reality.

GOOD LUCK!!

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21. marisacat - 19 September 2009: gnu thred…………….

LINK

………………….. …………………….

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