Pattern

Pattern 6 May 2012

Posted by marisacat in Divertissements, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
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A herd of zebras drink at a waterhole in Etosha National Park, Namibia. Wildlife photographers Ann and Steve Toon from Hexham, Northumberland, captured the scene. | Ann & Steve Toon/Solent News & Photo Agency

A lot better looking than politicians.

😆

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hmm Cockburn has a piece up recounting some level of sexual assault is now a common occurance by police toward women OWS protesters – he details a drag from camera view when a protester took issue with a breast grab and a wrist forcibly broken… and along the way he has this:

It won’t be long before the NYPD kills a demonstrator. It will take that to force the issue of methodical police violence back onto the news pages.

Oh, briefly I would say… it, a cop killing an Occupier, will be briefly in the news. Brief, beyond brief. Other than that, depending on what side of the dividers you are on, sounds like Lara Logan hardly had to leave home.

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1. ts - 7 May 2012: I think people are coming to the realization that bums are going to be thrown out until someone does what needed to be done three years ago.

Citigroup Inc. said today that the risk of Greece leaving the euro by the end of 2013 has risen as high as 75 percent. Yesterday’s election propelled into parliament one party that wants to put land mines on the border with Turkey to stop illegal immigrants and another that wants Germany, the country’s biggest donor, to pay World War II reparations.

What’s not said is that in addition to the reported peculiar platform positions, is that they’re unanimous about Greece leaving the Euro and telling banks they will get no more blood out of the people. Hell, that crazy haired (greek) guy that talks about space aliens could get elected if he favored telling banks to fuck off.

It’s so sad that it has to take 4-5 years of torture, but then, that’s what the banks count on. If the outcome was obvious from the start, I guess you have to strip as much wealth out before you get kicked out. (note re-nationalizing industries e.g. Argentina and Bolivia is the next step)

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marisacat - 7 May 2012: I think it is odd that some are so verklempt (or whatever they are…) over how the Greeks voted, all in a tizzy over the slice fo the neo Nazi… etc.

WHY shouldn’t the Greeks throw it all in the air and see how it falls to earth?

Makes sense to me…

🙄

Hell yes leave the Euro…. and I sure hope there is conversation between Greece and Iceland…

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2. marisacat - 7 May 2012: hmm a long time reporter, war correspondent even!, does not go into the field when making a much noticed and much discusssed critique of an aspect of a new political, civil disobedience, anti government movement.

Oh BIG FAIL.

[I]n my opinion, Hedges’ article was a purely emotional response to the Anarchists. Rather than using good research and obtaining first-hand knowledge, he simply wrote from a gut level reaction.

Hedges later admitted during an interview posted at Truthout.org that he hadn’t spoken to any Black Bloc activists before writing the article. He says he listened to about four hours of Anarchist radio out of Eugene, Oregon and read some magazines and websites.

Supposedly, the Black Bloc are a direct threat to the power of what he calls the “organized left” – a group in which he seems to claim membership. . . . . . .

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3. ts - 8 May 2012: I liked this one: Why Paul Krugman is Full of Shit

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marisacat - 8 May 2012: He’s just too tied to the political process… he’ll have these emotional (well they seem that way!) breakdowns, declare it all a big loss, then in a bit (after he gets some emails i guess) climb back on the wagon. Madman indicated that he owes a lot of his career to Bernanke. Which spells BIG FUCKING MESS of a conflict.

I actually did have some hope when he got the nod for the NYT Op Ed page…………… but over the long long years…………….

*********

Just read it, thanks for posting that…. I had somehow missed it at Cpunch….

🙄

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ts - 8 May 2012: But if anyone dare contradict him, he’ll say “you don’t understand the situation…”, or “we need to support more and better Democrats and maybe something will be done.” and dismiss the criticism entirely. Hence his support for TARP, Obama’s stimulus, and general failure to support any policies that would help people. But, of course, we’re both with SMBIVA and know it’s all part of the plan.

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marisacat - 8 May 2012: But if anyone dare contradict him…

Classic teacher of a certain stripe…. esp as we all know he just collapses. One thing I stupidly thought might be of [some] value when he got the spot, his supposed long concentration on bubbles and boom and bust.

All of which, in my ‘totally knows nothing of finance’ opinion, we have had too fucking many. And that was before the past 5 years… on top of the past 25…35.

😆 I laugh at myself quite a bit these past few years…

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ts - 8 May 2012: Well, Ben Bernanke is supposed to be a “great depression expert” and we’ve all seen how well he’s performed on a garden variety “great recession”.

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marisacat - 8 May 2012: yes and the Democrats used that “story” over and over to jolly people along…scads of people of ALL persuasions balked at the huge bailout.

What a fucking joke it all has been.

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4. marisacat - 8 May 2012: 😆 A reminder that things can …..change and be the same.

Not that the incumbent is a peach, much less an orator:

I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I love.”

– Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), 22 January 2012

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ts - 8 May 2012: That’s a cross between Stephen Colbert and Yogi Berra.

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marisacat - 8 May 2012: It does sound like something Colbert would offer up – with a straight face too…

🙄

snicker.

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lucid72 - 9 May 2012: That’s shear genius.

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marisacat - 9 May 2012: Who says we can’t pick ’em?

LOL

I see Slobby is still sending sideways smoke signals from DC…. he’s for gay marriage. But state by state. If I have this straight!, that means no change.

😆

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marisacat - 9 May 2012: 😆

Little Ricky:

“Obama has consistently fought against protecting the institution of marriage from radical social engineering at both the state and federal level.”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/#ixzz1uPrM8ueC

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lucid72 - 9 May 2012: Yep – he is taking a position that actually opposes the court challenge of Prop 8…

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marisacat - 9 May 2012: Well he c l a i m s he sought counsel from Mother Michelle and The Daughters.

Might be one reason he is not making a whole lot of sense, except to try to scoop back into the fold some straying rich gay donors and bundlers.

Shekel counting…. LOL

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Madman in the Marketplace - 10 May 2012: It amazes me how happy some people are with his carefully, slowly doled out rancid crumbs, always for his own benefit, no one else’s. If the “left” >cough/hack/spit< were serious, they'd be screaming for an end to DOMA and immediate Federal recognition of all state-sanctioned unions.

not holding my breath.

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marisacat - 10 May 2012: Yes much of it is to rake it in tonight at the very boring house of Clooney in Studio City.

The soft drool at a lot of sites in reaction is really ridiculous. It really is happy meals for the starving.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 10 May 2012: He didn’t really DO anything. Big fucking deal … he finally got the balls to say something as Pretzel that he said YEARS ago as a state Senator. So fucking what … why is this nooz?

Jeebus, what easily led sheeple Americans are …

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marisacat - 10 May 2012: Happy Meals for the starving.

I go back to my old opinion of him that I formed when I was digging thru stuff in the Chicago media, the black Chicago press and recollections of various people about him, mostly from Chicago (and not incidentally also paying attention to Mother Michelle’s early speeches on the stump trail, she really was “out there”, telling a kind of disjointed, very confused personal story because, imo, the campaign and the white boys backing Slobby are disinterested in women as people. They paid no attention to what she said… nor to whom she spoke…. She did not matter, she still does not)

So much that he did, little as it was, back in Chicago in the late 90s and early 00s was done to merely facilitate his rise in a quasi liberal, somewhat black, also white and Jewish academia part of Chicago. I figured out, he is not at all a liberal. Not even just “socially progressive”. Not a drop. IN fact he, and Michelle too btw, were well on their way to a life as minor city politics figures and non-profit groupies.

He is conservative, when he bothers, but mostly he is just a small tool. Or as I usually put it, small time fixer who knows little about America. Hwaaii, some short term Chicago politics, Occidental, Columbia, Harvard…. big whoop…. (which is why the ”Kenyan birth” gets thrown at him… as if an 18 year old, only child, close to her parents would go around the world to give birth, Puhleese)
ms_xeno - 10 May 2012: I just saw the clip a few minutes ago. Honestly, a Clutch Cargo cartoon can display more energy than he did there. I was more enthused dragging my sleepy ass off to Templand this morning (new agency = new cut in pay! wheee!)

Hilariously, I was sitting at a break table around 3:30 PM with a mix of drones that included perms, temps, and some of each were very noticeably gay. They all concurred that Hopey is fucking full of shit, that this is just craven opportunism on his part, that he gives not one fart in the wind about their well-being, nor does Romney, etc.

I didn’t incite them, before you ask. That wouldn’t do on my first day, which may be my last, also. Who knows? But I was amused.
marisacat - 10 May 2012: They all concurred that Hopey is fucking full of shit, that this is just craven opportunism on his part, that he gives not one fart in the wind about their well-being, nor does Romney, etc.

Apparently they are screwed together right!

Oh I hestiate to mention “luck” w/r/t a new temp job… but I so hope it is not horribly bumpy…. take care dear and Kiss the Kitties!!
5. marisacat - 10 May 2012: I snagged this at a French politics blog I read:

In the US, Nicolas Sarkozy pummeled François Hollande 61% to 39%. Sarkozy cleaned up in eight of the ten polling stations in New York City, winning upwards of 74% of the vote.

But in two—no doubt on the Upper West Side and the Village—Hollande whipped Sarko 57-43.

They were pretty evenly divided in San Francisco, though Hollande won Berkeley (duh) in a 57-43 landslide. But Sarko won an even bigger landslide in Palo Alto’s two polling stations (60 and 64%). Hollande’s 75% top tax rate proposal was clearly not plébiscité in Silicon Valley.

Hollande’s worst US scores were in West Palm Beach FL (16%; hmmm, I wonder why?…), Las Vegas (17%), Miami 2 (18%), and Tampa (19%). In the last one, pour l’info, Marine Le Pen came in second place ahead of Hollande in round one. Must have been those military folks stationed at CENTCOM.

Quoting http://www.arunwithaview.wordpress.com via http://www.artgoldhammer.blogspot.com

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6. Madman in the Marketplace - 10 May 2012: I found this piece interesting: Welcome to the Future Nauseous

How, as a species, are we able to prepare for, create, and deal with, the future, while managing to effectively deny that it is happening at all?

Futurists, artists and edge-culturists like to take credit for this. They like to pretend that they are the lonely, brave guardians of the species who deal with the “real” future and pre-digest it for the rest of us.

But this explanation falls apart with just a little poking. It turns out that the cultural edge is just as frozen in time as the mainstream. It is just frozen in a different part of the time theater, populated by people who seek more stimulation than the mainstream, and draw on imagined futures to feed their cravings rather than inform actual future-manufacturing.

The two beaten-to-death ways of understanding this phenomenon are due to McLuhan (“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”) and William Gibson (“The future is already here; it is just unevenly distributed.”)

Both framing perspectives have serious limitations that I will get to. What is missing in both needs a name, so I’ll call the “familiar sense of a static, continuous present” a Manufactured Normalcy Field. For the rest of this post, I’ll refer to this as the Field for short.

So we can divide the future into two useful pieces: things coming at us that have been integrated into the Field, and things that have not. The integration kicks in at some level of ubiquity. Gibson got that part right.

Let’s call the crossing of the Field threshold by a piece of futuristic technology normalization (not to be confused with the postmodernist sense of the term, but related to the mathematical sense). Normalization involves incorporation of a piece of technological novelty into larger conceptual metaphors built out of familiar experiences.

snip

Sometimes we experience the future via a basic individual-level “it won’t happen to me” normalcy bias. Things like SARS or dying in a plane crash are uncomprehended future-things (remember, you live in a manufactured reality that has been stretching since the fifteenth century) that are nominally in our present, but haven’t penetrated the Field for most of us. Most of us substitute probability for time for such things. As time progresses, the long tail of the unexperienced future grows fatter. A lot more can happen to us in 2012 than in 1500, but we try to ensure that very little does happen.

The uncertainty of the future is about this long tail of waiting events that the Field hasn’t yet digested, but we know exists out there, as a space where Bad Things Happen to People Like Me but Never to Me.

In a way, when we ask, is there a sustainable future, we are not really asking about fossil fuels or feeding 9 billion people. We are asking can the Manufactured Normalcy Field absorb such and such changes?

We aren’t really tied to specific elements of today’s lifestyles. We are definitely open to change. But only change that comes to us via the Field. We’ve adapted to the idea of people cutting open our bodies, stopping our hearts and pumping our blood through machines while they cut us up. The Field has digested those realities. Various sorts of existential anesthetics are an important part of how the Field is manufactured and maintained.

Our sense of impending doom or extraordinary potential have to do with the perceived fragility or robustness of the Field.

It is possible to slide into a sort of technological solipsism here and declare that there is no reality; that only the Field exists. Many postmodernists do exactly that.

Except that history repeatedly proves them wrong. The Field is distinct from reality. It can and does break down a couple of times in every human lifetime. We’re coming off a very long period — since World War II — of Field stability. Except for a few poor schmucks in places like Vietnam, the Field has been precariously preserved for most of us.

When larger global Fields break, we experience “dark” ages. We literally cannot process change at all. We grope, waiting for an age when it will all make sense again.

So we could be entering a Dark Age right now, because most of us don’t experience a global Field anymore. We live in tiny personal fields. We can only connect socially with people whose little-f fields are similar to ours. When individual fields also start popping, psychic chaos will start to loom.

The scary possibility in the near future is not that we will see another radical break in the Field, but a permanent collapse of all fields, big and small.

The result will be a state of constant psychological warfare between the present and the future, where reality changes far too fast for either a global Field or a personal one to keep up. Where adaptation-by-specialization turns into a crazed, continuous reinvention of oneself for survival. Where the reinvention is sufficient to sustain existence financially, but not sufficient to maintain continuity of present-experience. Instrumental metaphors will persist while appreciative ones will collapse entirely.

The result will be a world population with a large majority of people on the edge of madness, somehow functioning in a haze where past, present and future form a chaotic soup (have you checked out your Facebook feed lately) of drunken perspective shifts.

This is already starting to happen. Instead of a newspaper feeding us daily doses of a shared Field, we get a nauseating mix of news from forgotten classmates, slogan-placards about issues trivial and grave, revisionist histories coming at us via a million political voices, the future as a patchwork quilt of incoherent glimpses, all mixed in with pictures of cats doing improbable things.

The waning Field, still coming at us through weakening media like television, seems increasingly like a surreal zone of Wonderland madness.

We aren’t being hit by Future Shock. We are going to be hit by Future Nausea. You’re not going to be knocked out cold. You’re just going to throw up in some existential sense of the word. I’d like to prepare. I wish some science fiction writers would write a few nauseating stories.

Welcome to the Future Nauseous.

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marisacat - 10 May 2012: The result will be a state of constant psychological warfare between the present and the future, where reality changes far too fast for either a global Field or a personal one to keep up. Where adaptation-by-specialization turns into a crazed, continuous reinvention of oneself for survival. Where the reinvention is sufficient to sustain existence financially, but not sufficient to maintain continuity of present-experience. Instrumental metaphors will persist while appreciative ones will collapse entirely.

The result will be a world population with a large majority of people on the edge of madness, somehow functioning in a haze where past, present and future form a chaotic soup (have you checked out your Facebook feed lately) of drunken perspective shifts.

Oh I think we are there, it can only get worse and more visible…

What an interesting article… thanks for posting that…. I don’t think I have ever heard of ths site…

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Madman in the Marketplace - 10 May 2012: I found it via Boing Boing … I’ve read one other piece by the author. Interesting stuff.

I’m reading the ebook reissue of John Shirley’s cyberpunk trilogy, “A Song Called Youth”, which is sort of about the same stuff, only in a prescient fictional way. It’s funny how reading around will seem to line up in sort of themes …

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marisacat - 10 May 2012: Serendipity!

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lucid72 - 10 May 2012: Really interesting take. Will take a closer look later tonight… Gotta finish up the last two songs on the album now…

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Madman in the Marketplace - 10 May 2012: I thought so too … some stuff to think about.

I like the song you posted on Facebook!

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lucid - 10 May 2012: Thanks. there are seven from the album uploaded to our band profile page now. Just about to finish off the last two tonight. I’ll have everything up in a couple of days to get ready for some mass press mailings…

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Madman in the Marketplace - 10 May 2012: cool

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7. ms_xeno - 11 May 2012: The first thing I saw this morning upon awakening was some picture of Clooney and Hopey raising GLBT money and having themselves a contest to see which one could out-smug the other.

Jesus Christ. I’m never gonna’ make it to November.

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marisacat - 11 May 2012: Lillet!

One reason I spent a week re-acclimating myself to red wine again. Which I had not had in years, nor any other liquor but the occasional glass of champagne…. Self-medicate is the only way!!

Merlot my way into the scary future.

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ms_xeno - 12 May 2012: Too late! All of this weeks “Booze Fund” was re-purposed to buy more flea meds!

=^..^=

I gotta’ get me one of those online tip jars, but then I’d have to actually pay attention to my journal again… post to it more than once every six months or something…

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marisacat - 12 May 2012: so… what works today? Frontline by mail, bought online? Or is there something better?

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ms_xeno - 12 May 2012: Still using the dog chewable tablet. They each get 1/4 a month, so the one pill lasts two of the little beasts two months.

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8. ts - 11 May 2012: From the After reading the headline it’s not necessary to read the article department.

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ts - 11 May 2012: Heh. They changed it. Originally it was “Spain stakes credibility on fourth bank bailout in three years.”

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marisacat - 11 May 2012: Apparently “clean-up” is the political correction to “bail out”….

😆

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9. Madman in the Marketplace - 11 May 2012: Taibbi: Is This the Most Boring Election Ever?

The people who work for the wire services and the news networks are physically incapable of writing sentences like, “This election is even more over than the Knicks-Heat series.” They are required, if not by law then by neurological reflex, to describe every presidential campaign as “fierce” and “drawn-out” and “hotly-contested.”

But this campaign, relatively speaking, will not be fierce or hotly contested. Instead it’ll be disappointing, embarrassing, and over very quickly, like a hand job in a Bangkok bathhouse. And everybody knows it. It’s just impossible to take Mitt Romney seriously as a presidential candidate. Even the news reporters who are paid to drum up dramatic undertones are having a hard time selling Romney as half of a titanic title bout.

In other words, Obama versus McCain actually felt like a clash of ideological opposites. But Obama and Romney feels like a contest between two calculating centrists, fighting for the right to serve as figurehead atop a bloated state apparatus that will operate according to the same demented imperial logic irrespective of who wins the White House. George Bush’s reign highlighted the enormous power of the individual president to drive policy, which made the elections involving him compelling contests; Obama’s first term has highlighted the timeless power of the intractable bureaucracy underneath the president, which is kind of a bummer, when you think about it.

Then there’s one more thing – Obama versus Romney is the worst reality show on TV since the Tila Tequila days. The characters are terrible, there’s no suspense, and the biggest thing is, it lacks both spontaneity and a gross-out factor. In Reality TV, if you don’t have really sexy half-naked young people scheming against each other over campfires in the Cook Islands, you need to have grown men eating millipedes or chicks in bikinis drinking donkey semen. And if you don’t have that, you really need Sarah Palin.

This race has none of that. Biden is the best character in the series, but for exactly that reason the Obama administration would be wise to bury crazy Joe in a salt mine until the election is over. (The networks have skillfully teased the Frasier-style future spinoff show from this election – the inevitable Hillary-Biden race in 2016 – but they’re keeping most of that action under wraps for now). Romney will no doubt stoop to some truly appalling attacks before the election season is over, but he’ll do so out of sheer, boring calculation. He’s not insane, which is a tremendous insult to a Republican politician.

Anyway, you can expect the media efforts to drum up interest in the election to really heat up in the next few weeks. The Republican race is over now and the networks need to fill those hours. The presidential race is always a great illusion, designed to distract people from the more hardcore politics in this country, the minutiae of trade and tax and monetary policy that’s too boring to cover. When the presidential race is a bad show, people might not have any choice but to pay attention to those other things. And this year’s version is the worst show in memory. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.

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marisacat - 11 May 2012: (The networks have skillfully teased the Frasier-style future spinoff show from this election – the inevitable Hillary-Biden race in 2016 – but they’re keeping most of that action under wraps for now

Two elderly mean nannies, BOTH of whom remind of ex-wives, running for Pretzel and Veepessa?

I don’t think so.

Luv the Bankgkok bath house handjob line.

Romney will no doubt stoop to some truly appalling attacks before the election season is over, but he’ll do so out of sheer, boring calculation

And Slob and his white backers won’t?

Oen thing that makes it, the billion dollar GE / CREEP ‘Bama style, boring is the vaquely somewhat Dem party “lesser than” boychicks in the field just stop with what little they ever had.

Geesh Even Cockcburn has taken down his milquetoast “Obummer” banner.

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ms_xeno - 12 May 2012: Biden seriously makes Dan Quayle seem erudite in retrospect. I feel bad for the young Demo faithful who weren’t around when giants walked the Earth. :p

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marisacat - 12 May 2012: Biden is still the author of my favorite [verbal] mess of the 2008 season. That when the depression hit in 1929, Roosevelt immediately took to the TV screens to reassure the people.

The more one thinks about it, and that a supposed lauded Dem said it, the more special it gets.

Media did report it, but just for a day.

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10. marisacat - 12 May 2012: Best laid plans of fourth rate mortals (excerpt from Politico Playbook):

THE NARRATIVE – “North Carolina a political headache for Democrats,” by AP’s Mitch Weiss in Charlotte:

“Once a bright spot for President Obama, North Carolina is now more like a political migraine less than four months before Democrats open the party’s national convention in Charlotte. … Labor unions, a core Democratic constituency, are up in arms. Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue isn’t running for re-election; Democrats say she was likely to lose. The state Democratic Party is in disarray over an explosive sexual harassment scandal. Voters recently approved amending the state constitution to ban gay marriage, a position that runs counter to Obama’s. And unemployment in the state remains persistently high. …

“When Democrats announced the choice in February 2011, they said selecting the Southern city signaled Obama’s intent to fight hard for the conservative-leaning state like he did in 2008. … Now traditional Democratic Party groups are threatening huge protests in part because they’re deeply uncomfortable that the convention is being held in one of the least union-friendly states. And thousands of Democrats across the country are calling for the convention to be relocated because of the gay-marriage vote. Democrats say that won’t happen.” . . . . .

Oh too too bad! No one could have seen it coming!

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ms_xeno - 12 May 2012: Big Labor is so chronically clueless about how it’s really regarded by these people. Somebody really needs to take away its copy of “When He Hit Me, It Felt Just Like A Kiss.”

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11. marisacat - 12 May 2012: Day in day out, we are a car wreck.

THE BIG PICTURE – L.A. Times A1, middle of page, “U.S. lags in global healthcare push,” by Noam N. Levey in D.C.:

“Even as Americans debate whether to scrap President Obama’s healthcare law and its promise of guaranteed health coverage, many far less affluent nations are moving in the opposite direction — to provide medical insurance to all citizens. China … is on track to complete a three-year, $124-billion initiative projected to cover more than 90% … Mexico … just completed an eight-year drive for universal coverage …

‘This is truly a global movement,’ said Dr. Julio Frenk, a former health minister in Mexico and dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. ‘As countries advance, they are realizing that creating universal healthcare systems is a necessity for long-term economic development.‘” (Not online yet)

Up against Slobcare, which is just a free-for-all for insurers, as hosptials speedily move, across the nation, to restructure in ways designed to deny access.

This should work out really well.

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ms_xeno - 12 May 2012: …”California is a sterling example of the huge Titanic Parties playing games with our health. When Republican Schwarzenegger was governor, the Democratic legislature passed single payer twice, knowing it would be vetoed. When Democrat Jerry Brown was elected, it was predicted that the legislature would not pass the bill, and sure enough, they have not. Jerry Brown refused to take a stand on Medicare for All, and the Democratic legislature is leaving him alone. They’re also leaving us alone, with terrible health care,” said Laura Wells, 2010 Green candidate for Governor of California (http://www.LauraWells.org).

The Green Party speaks for a majority of Americans on health care reform: 64% of Americans believe that government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes, according to a 2007 CNN poll…”

(link to GP press release, 3/5/12)

So well over half the country already knows they’re about to be mightily fucked, but Demo blogs will keep yowling about how it’s the fault of the stupid unwashed Right Wing masses that we’re stuck with this bullshit.

Please just let this shit explode in Obama’s smug-ass face in a big way two years down the line. And please let some protester forsake his/her commitment to non-violence long enough to beat the shit out of that fuckhead Baccus… and then drive a stake through his heart. That shit. And his best ghoul/girl Pelosi, too.

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12. marisacat - 12 May 2012: 😆

THE SHOWS:

–NBC’s “Meet the Press“: JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon; Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin; RNC Chairman Reince Priebus; roundtable with Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), American Conservative Union chairman Al Cardenas, Washington Post columnists Kathleen Parker and Jonathan Capehart and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews

–ABC’s “This Week“: Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN); roundtable with Republican strategist Mary Matalin, Current TV host and former Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-NY), Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen, Faith and Freedom Coalition founder and chairman Ralph Reed, POLITICO’s Maggie Haberman

–CBS’s “Face the Nation“: Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA) and former U.S. Solicitor General and California Prop. 8 attorney Ted Olsen; roundtable with singer and gay rights activist Clay Aiken, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, Freedom to Marry founder and president Evan Wolfson and No Labels cofounder and Newsweek contributor Mark McKinnon; Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI); Mother’s Day roundtable on Women Voters with Romney campaign adviser and author Bay Buchanan (“Bay and her Boys”), former Obama White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, the Washington Post’s Melinda Henneberger and CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell

–“Fox News Sunday“: Sen. John Thune (R-SD) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); roundtable with Fox News’ Brit Hume, the Christian Science Monitor’s Liz Marlantes, the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot and Fox News’ Juan Williams

–CNN’s “State of the Union” (SUN 9am ET / 12pm ET): Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and NRSC Chairman Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX); Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Rep. Pete King (R-NY); Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO); Campaign for Working Families chairman and American Values president Gary Bauer and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins

–CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS Live“: (SUN 10am ET / 1pm ET): Roundtable on developments in Europe with Newsweek / Daily Beast columnist David Frum, Labour Party’s Rt. Hon. Lord Peter Mandelson, the New York Times’ Elaine Sciolino and Die Zeit’s (Germany) Josef Joffe; former World Bank president Robert Zoellick; BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink

–CNN’s “Reliable Sources“: (SUN 11am ET): Roundtable with the Washington Post’s Nia-Malika Henderson, Daily-Download.com’s Lauren Ashburn and former PBS Newshour correspondent Terence Smith; AmericaBlog.com’s John Aravosis and the Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis; the New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti; former The Daily Show producer Mike Rubens

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13. Madman in the Marketplace - 12 May 2012: Capitol Report: It didn’t take ‘divide and conquer’ video to sway police union against Walker

“I didn’t think I’d ever be voting Democrat. I know some of my friends feel the same way,” says Tim Fletcher, a detective with the West Allis drug unit and a voting member of the association’s political action committee. “But we’re all saying, ‘How can we vote for him again? We can’t.’”

Fletcher says the association’s PAC members took a vote a few weeks ago and decided to endorse Barrett. Typically, he said, police officers vote Republican because they think most Democrats are too soft on crime. Prior to Walker, collective bargaining wasn’t much of an election issue at all.

But rumors had started to swirl prior to the November 2010 election, causing Fletcher and others in the law enforcement community to question then-candidate Walker on his intentions regarding collective bargaining rights and the state pension system, should he beat Barrett.

Like the other gubernatorial candidates, Walker was invited to address the police union and questioned on his views. What he told Fletcher and others in 2010 was a far cry from what he told billionaire donor Diane Hendricks in the video, shot in January 2011, two short months after he won the election.

While revealing to Hendricks that he would take a “divide and conquer” approach to targeting public worker union rights, Walker told the West Allis Professional Police Association that he wasn’t going to touch collective bargaining rights or pensions, Fletcher recalls.

He says Walker did add that should he go after collective bargaining rights he would exempt police and fire for public safety reasons.

Fletcher says the subsequent endorsement vote by the union’s PAC members was close, but went to Walker.

“Police are usually Republican voters,” Fletcher says. “Every time we endorse Democrats we get flak from a lot of our members. I think it will be interesting to see how much negative feedback we get from our members over the (Barrett) endorsement.”

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ms_xeno - 12 May 2012: …He says Walker did add that should he go after collective bargaining rights he would exempt police and fire for public safety reasons…

So these fucks ended up endorsing Walker anyway, because they were okay with selling out the rest of organized labor? Good to know that, once again, you can never expect too little of the average police officer.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 12 May 2012: yup, they’re fine with the rest of the unions getting screwed, at least the cops were. The firefighters in several places, notably Milwaukee and Madison, sided with the other unions and tried to get the cops to come along.

Fucking cops …

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marisacat - 12 May 2012: They can be the worst of the worst… firefighters tend to b a bit different, it seems. Maybe fewer opportunities for graft, bribery and thievery. Oh and murder.

Interestingly we have had MASSES of bad fires lately, SF, East Bay, South Bay. Mostly multi unit buildings… Burned to the ground, or so much gone that it is all but, fires fought for hours, firemen having to pull back, injured firemen, mostly people saved but some fatalities, etc.

I wonder what is up.

We have far too many fire captains, and they make far too much.

SF teachers just voted (97%) to strike, big lay off notice… almost all the teacher jobs cut that were up to be considered… but only 8 administrators (who also make way too much) laid off….

On and on it goes.

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14. ts - 13 May 2012: From the “thank God Europe is finally getting a clue department”.

http://www.businessinsider.com/angela-merkels-party-loses-big-in-regional-elections-2012-5

And the Pirate Party got 8% of the vote.

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marisacat - 13 May 2012: Agree… and over and over she went out on a limb for Sarko… and while I was afraid to trust it, it has looked increasingly sure for months he was going to go down. 😆 Just huge likeability issues – and misreading the populace. Even the sniper /motorcycle /serial killer (and one who followed that one) barely gave him a brief bump… nothing really.

I didn’t even dare trust Sarko would fall til the vote was in.

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15. Madman in the Marketplace - 14 May 2012: JESUS, FREDDIE MERCURY AND GAY MARRIAGE

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marisacat - 14 May 2012: ooo thanks for that!!

(can you imagine what he – Mercury – would think of Slob?)

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Madman in the Marketplace - 15 May 2012: he’d probably find the whole thing pretty funny.

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ms_xeno - 15 May 2012: I want to believe it, and yet I’ve lost track at this point how many talented artists seems to think Hopey is the greatest thing to hit town since solar power. :p

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16. marisacat - 15 May 2012: Brooksie, today in the NYT. I scammed it from the Political email, saved me actually having to, you know, READ it in the whole:

DEFINING OBAMA — DAVID BROOKS, “The ESPN Man”:

“The fundamentals suggest that Obama will go the way of Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy – incumbents who were trounced in hard times. And yet Obama isn’t on the same trajectory as other global leaders, left or right. …

How has he stayed so competitive? First, the Democrats’ demographic advantages are kicking in. The population segments that are solidly Democratic, like single women and the unchurched, are expanding. The segments that are more Republican – two-parent families and observant Catholics – are shrinking. But most of the cause is personal. … The key is his post-boomer leadership style. [Do tell! Mcat]

“Obama has displayed a kind of ESPN masculinity: postfeminist in his values, but also thoroughly traditional in style – hypercompetitive, restrained, not given to self-doubt, rarely self-indulgent.

Administrations are undone by scandal and moments when they look pathetic, but this administration, guarded in all things, has rarely had those moments. … I’d say that Obama is a slight underdog this year: the scuffling economy will grind away at voters.

But his leadership style is keeping him afloat. He has defined a version of manliness that is postboomer in policy but preboomer in manners and reticence.”

gah. gag. grimace.

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ms_xeno - 15 May 2012: Nothin’ more manly than telling women we’re subhuman morons who can’t figure out on our own how fucking Plan B works. Ah, yup.

Davey, you’re a worthless pile of shit. Haven’t you got another stupid bookful of “culture war” anecdotes to fabricate– er, I mean, compile so you can scam another big fat check from your asshole publishers?

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marisacat - 15 May 2012: I saw in comments at a somewhat rightie site today… as in “not too rabid”, the Ob has been “all over ESPN today”.

😆

Hoping it works, I guess!

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17. Madman in the Marketplace - 15 May 2012: Barack Obama, the Great Deceiver

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marisacat - 15 May 2012: I landed on something interesting… but I admit I have not gone to the poll itself…

The CBS/NYT poll polled the same tel numbers one month apart, with the follow up poll just out now. Slob lost 5 pts each with what I would assume are self-identiying Moderates, Independents and……………. Wimmens…..

Of course any meaning is negligible this far out… but then, the time between now and the election may collapse in any number of ways May 15 – Nov…

Who knows.

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ms_xeno - 17 May 2012: You can tell how lowered my expectations are after all these years. I’m on a feminist LJ where I said point-blank that I hate Hopey’s guts and nobody’s thrown me out. Yet. 👿

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marisacat - 17 May 2012: I admit I have been entertaining myself with the stories in the new Ed Klein book on Obby, The Amateur…. ESP that Klein hooked up with the dreadful mess, Jeremiah Wright… Whoooeee! And I doubt Caroline Kennedy would speak to Klein but he either spke to someone or he just fabricated (who cares!) but those gossip bits are delish too.

NY Post and UK Daily Mail are enraptured of course and running pieces… yum

oh and a PS.. apparently one of the wealthier Romney types with a big PAC – the Ameritrade guy – is planning a campaign timed to correspond with the DNC in Charlotte, using Jeremiah Wright and I suppose, tho it was not mentioned, the revelations in the Klein book.

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ms_xeno - 17 May 2012: Yeah, I just saw that. Did anyone but the most obsessed insiders (or insider-wannabees) even fucking remember the good Rev. before these bozos unearthed him again? Christ. Maybe they could run some Willie Horton ads, too. Why the fuck not?

It’s telling though. As Margaret Kimberley pointed out back during that last moronic Limbaugh flap, Romney can’t really run easily as a fucking Right-winger because the incumbent already IS one. The Dems just keep grabbing more and more Right-wing tropes and symbols, and the poor flustered GOP has to keep heading steadily towards the morals of the Stone Age just to kind of sort of look distinctive to we, the great unwashed– who deep down wish they’d both just drop dead and leave us in peace. (Unlike the hardcore partisans and hacks, who still probably eat this shit up.)

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marisacat - 17 May 2012: Oh but… JW has NEW things to say. 😆 🙄

I say bring it on. Of course, the most fun for me would be if they bit each other to death in a public hand to hand (mouth to mouth?) combat fight.

Of course it, the supposed plan to run a Wright infused campaign against slobby, was showily dropped later today… but I remember when the D thought they had vanquished the Swift Boaters, it was April / May as well. The Demmers online (Dkos especially as I recall), on radio all chortled their triumph…. They simply went low key local, going into communities, to various groups, very low key and unreported. Til they sprang forth, writ large, in August iirc.

Best of luck to them all. I hope they ALL break their knuckles. And any other protruberance.

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ms_xeno - 16 May 2012: This was pretty good, apart from the usual whining about the Supreme Court, and whichever buffoon downthread claimed that abortion isn’t an economic issue. Clueless yob Lefty men… Jesus.

It’s both hideous and hilarious that the apologists who never cease to whine about 3rd Parties “causing” Bush also never have squat to say when you point out the endless stream of collaborationists in their own ranks. Pelosi and the rest, who could have seriously made trouble for him, but choose not to time and again because at the end of the day they all have the same fucking agenda anyway.

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18. ts - 16 May 2012: What scares me is not the $2 billion loss JP Morgan made. What scares me is the record $19 billion in profits.

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marisacat - 16 May 2012: yes I agree…. it seems as the days go by the big showy exposition of the 2 bil (or whatever the fnal amount) is part of election strategery… with Dimon now making messy and fake public weeps. And forgive me while I laugh, promises to “do better”….

Other than that………

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marisacat - 16 May 2012: btw ts not sure f you are still around… Madman sent me this, you might find it interesting… apparenlty Goldman accidentally dislclosed revealing docs in a legal filing over Overstock …

Naked short selling

Taibbi in RS

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ts - 16 May 2012: That’s a really awesome read, especially heartening when the counsel responsible is getting some karma. The sad thing is, even Taibbi retains that attitude that “oh, it’s horrible Goldman hiding stuff again” as if this is an aberration of a bad apple, in these times, and not the m.o. of every financial firm from time immemorial. The system rewards cheaters, and they will always cheat. No exceptions. And nobody should be surprised otherwise.

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marisacat - 16 May 2012: […] the m.o. of every financial firm from time immemorial. The system rewards cheaters, and they will always cheat. No exceptions. And nobody should be surprised otherwise.

Oh so trooo!!

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ms_xeno - 16 May 2012: It’s funny how “Criminal” as the default is part of my daily life as a temp and searcher after the elusive “stable” shit job. But I’m not supposed to be offended by it, and neither are the rest of life’s losers. Let anyone impugn the integrity of the clowns in the skyscrapers, though, and bawwwwwwwww! It’s so unfair.

I will now squeeze out a solitary tear for the frail, delicate li’l egos of one-percenters and their well-paid enablers all across the globe.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 16 May 2012: I have a feeling Taibbi grew up with and is friends with a lot of these guys, and facing that a sizable majority in the industry have massive ethical blind spots at best and and that a lot of them are just crooks is hard for him to accept.

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marisacat - 16 May 2012: well… and… Jann is out beating the hustings for Slob.

It ain’t pretty.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 16 May 2012: so many blind spots … not that I don’t, but …

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19. Madman in the Marketplace - 17 May 2012: Recovery Begins When Addiction Ends: An Open Letter to Jamie Dimon

By the Alternative Banking Working Group of Occupy Wall Street

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marisacat - 17 May 2012: 😉

I’ll move this forward to te new thread…

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20. marisacat - 17 May 2012: New

LINK

……………. 🙄

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