Poppies for “remembrance”…. just keep digging the graves 28 May 2007
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, DC Politics, Iraq War, WAR!.trackback
Progress in Iraq likely to miss target
Military officers doubt any of the three top goals will be achieved before the September assessment.
In September, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, is scheduled to present Congress with an assessment of progress in Iraq. Military officers in Baghdad and outside advisors working with Petraeus doubt that the three major goals set by U.S. officials for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki will be achieved by then.
Enactment of a new law to share Iraq’s oil revenue among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions is the only goal they think might possibly be achieved in time, and even that is considered a long shot. The two other key benchmarks are provincial elections and a deal to allow more Sunni Arabs into government jobs.
With overhauls by the central government stalled and with security in Baghdad still a distant goal, Petraeus’ advisors hope to focus on smaller achievements that they see as signs of progress, including deals among Iraq’s rival factions to establish areas of peace in some provincial cities.
“Some of it will be infrastructure that is being worked, some of it is local security for neighborhoods, some of it is markets reopening,” said a senior military official in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing military tactics. [snip]
“One of the Muslim world’s leading calligraphers has been shot dead by gunmen in Baghdad. Khalil al-Zahawi was the most famous practitioner in Iraq of the art of writing classical Arabic script.” (thanks May)
On a lighter note, I managed to trim Baby’s nether regions today.
I used to take her 3 or 4 times a year for a flea bath and a “butt shave”… trim the long fur on her back legs… but she is too elderly for the bath, blow dry and the machine trimmer.
But somehow we managed it today. Filled her full of tuna with mayonniase, tuna juice as a chaser, and earlier Fancy Feast… so she would sleep heavily… then a couple fast trims with a small pair of sissors.
Success! And no wounds…
I see you found the same LA Times piece I did – just finished writing about it too. I hope every Dem that supported this damn “surge” last week reads that and realizes exactly how they’ve sold themselves and everybody else down the river.
Good news about your baby. My cats would never put up with a blow dryer and they sure don’t like the sight of scissors.
A new law to share Iraq’s oil revenue among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions is laughable to the extreme considering that Iraq oil income has already been appropriated by the Bush regime to offset expenses incurred during the invasion and occupation. Not that decades of Iraq oil money, even at prices inflated by Wall Street speculators, would put a dent in the enormous war deficit run up by Rove & Corp. Iraq oil production is down to the point where gasoline has been imported since the war began (which is something akin to importing water into the ocean), and gangs of bandits have a tap on the pipelines as well.
But good news about the furry friend.
Just watching “CIA’s Secret War” on the teevee with an interview of Khaled al-Masri. Last nite I watched “The Secret History of 9/11”. Damn good thing I don’t have high blood pressure.
Newsflash: Bush Still a Myopic Idiot.
delarue
I agree. From the get go we were thieves, forcing them to a wall, forcing the privatisation of the oil, forcing foreign contracts on them, forcing a constitution on them (it is my understanding they had one that could have been reworked, BY THEM and not the Noah Feldmans of the earth) and so on.
I don’t blame anyone in Irq for sabotaging the oil from extraction to off load at AL faw. They know why we are there, for the oil.
*************
catnip
actually I went to look for a picture i had seen there… but then they had just put this Barnes piece up.
Feel free to link to your post on it as well.
oh poor old cat. She is doing pretty well tho…
Seems Peter Pace has a hard time remembering how many troops have died.
Thanks. Here’s the link. Nothing special. I’m too riled up tonite to have much patience to write about this cl*sterfuck.
Ha. Saw a blog ad for Feingold’s “Progressive Patriots Fund”. One of the star “progressive” Dems? Sherrod Brown who voted for war funding last week. Whoops. (I don’t recognize the other names except for Angelides but he’s not in congress).
I ahve grown to literally hate the “leadership pacs”…. the money goes all sorts of places.
Isnt killing the the biggest calligrapher like some killed Speilberg or JK Rowling in west. I mean their art is literally the word of god.
it would seem so revisionist… arabic script is everywhere, as design and art.
IMO there never was any intention to do anything about the war. The whole thing has been a calculated song and dance. Our leaders went into this for the oil and they won’t stop until they get it or someone decides to push us into the sea. Unfortunately, if that happens, we’ll get a nuclear war. But, hey, it’s been a good run for the top 1%. Nothing to complain about, right?
Kevin
Thought of all the new Senators that Sherrod Brown had some courage.
Marisa – agree, the PACs are one more scam.
I don’t get why Bu$hCo is putting so much pressure on the Iraq government signing the oil deal — does he think that a scrap of paper is all he needs to declare victory and begin withdrawing troops? Who’s going to enforce the deal if the Iraqis renege? The UN? ha ha
He’s just setting up the Iraqis for more sectarian clashes if this oil bill passes – not that he cares. It’ll all be al Qaeda and Iran’s fault.
when people would comment at Dkos in 2003 and onward that “we would be there for 10 years”
I would slip in if I could as the next comment and put:
x 10
if you poked around in 2002 you could find references to ’20 years in Iraq’. They were admitting ot that… We weren’t coming home.
And the Democrats knew it.
I particularly listened the day that Oprah had Tom Friedman on to “discuss Iraq”, it was somwehre between the IWR vote and invasion. I knew he would want to titillate the ladies. He openly said “20 years in Iraq” and they dutifully gasped.
They are so fucking programmed:
LOL Teresa was the most insider outsider I ever saw at that joint. and practically surgically attached to pastor dan.
TomP utterly revealed himself in Marie’s diary.
He is closer to Rebel’s comment than he cares to say.
They jsut cannot stnd it. She did nto play it the party way.
and frankly there is NO Democrat who has done jack shit to end the war.
NONE.
I don’t recall when I pulled up charlie Brown’s campaign pages or read the slobber for him at Dkos (one of their favorites) that he was so special.
I will poke around again I am starting to rememer a coupdl of things about Brown.
Oh not to worry, Pelosi is on to global warming. GOt an email today.
So busy, too busy for the war.
And…
Just how much absolute cluelessness can be on display there in one day?
Wanker.
Enough brainrot for tonite.
yeah. It ws not going to end well.
They just want to hump the next election.
Already they forgot last Thursday. Lining up to vote for a DLC candidate. Which sadly they all are, from the field. Or such tired worn out do nothing liberals that it does not matter.
Fuck you, Teresa. You miserable peabrained little party hack.
You don’t own “3rd Party folks.” You don’t own Sheehan. She is allowed to make her own decisions, as we all are. “Every Mom” is not a Democrat. Nor is “Every Son, Every Daughter, Every Sister, and so on.” You don’t fucking OWN US. Get it through your thick skull, Teresa.
Your masters despise what they cannot put on a leash and muzzle, and so do you. Well, the feeling’s mutual. I find you despicable, too. You have no minds of your own. You utterly fail to see you so-called leaders as they truly are, so all you can do is rain down contempt on those who have actually opened their eyes.
Stop believing the dribble you read in the Koss-ary. There is nothing in either the Constitution or the Bill of Rights guaranteeing your bloodsucking leaders unlimited, exclusive and free access to activist movements from now until the end of time. Activist movements are not their fucking ATMs.
The activist movements most worth having exist outside your reeking little veal pen, for their own reasons, quite apart from your bullshit agenda of getting more hacks booted upstairs and a little cash to trickle down –in best Reagan fashion– for Kos and his repugnant band of sycophants.
Your precious two-party system is destroying this country, and all you can do is hurl insults at those who demand something else. Something better.
Fuck you, Teresa.
her daughter is a student here at UCD, quite an eloquent poet and speaker for peace in her own right.
i suspect that the iraqis are going to have to kick us out of that country. we will not leave willingly.
Charlie Brown was a Fightin’ Dem. Retired Lt Col USAF, worked as a police dept clerk, son serving in Iraq…
Found a poll from 8 days before election a 10 pt spread. Doolittle 51, CB 41.
District (outside of Sacto, around Roseville) is heavily R, 48% and a lot of “decline to state” who can be very conservative. Doolittle was up to his neck in Abramoff and I think also the marianas mess with Delay.
LOL.. but dogdammnit, Cindy lost it for Big Ol’ Charlie Brown, a Fightin’ Rootin’Tootin’ Dem. They are just pissed at the world.
I think iirc that CB had either recently moved back to the disrict or newly moved ot the district for the firt time… from VA (probably where he was based).
Oh but blame Cindy.
Doolittle won by 3 pts… credited to the Abromoff scandal. They are going for a rematch.
LOL Maybe Cindy should move out of NO California. Just to be safe.
What a hoot!!
Yes – Doolittle is dirty. But another retired military officer is not exactly my idea of a progressive. But it didn’t matter what he would have done if he’d won. Thanks for the polls numbers — that was my recollection, Doolittle with a large lead.
Sherrod Brown did vote for the that habeas corpus abomination in the waning days of the last session. That was his only major vote that wasn’t progressive. But it was in the waning days of his Senate race, his vote made no difference and he wasn’t about to give his opponent a last minute opening. I gave him a pass on that (it was a shrewd political move IMO). He really had nothing to lose by voting against the supplemental — I don’t get it.
I wonder if any of the yahoos at Dkos read Bacevich. Not like he is inaccessible – or anything.
not the most damning part of the piece either.
Marie, I really do think the vote in the senate ws calculated. To send a message.
LOL and hollow tho it is Kennedy and Kerry want that useless moniker, liberal lions.
As if it matters. Huge majorities for years. Made little difference.
They want to be rid of any anti war that are not sold out, like Mattzei or Andrews, the groups they shuffled several millions to.
***********
Doolittle won by 3 pts. It narrowed at the end.
I don’t give any of them a pass anymore. We’re past calculation and vote-trading … at least we should be. This isn’t some electoral game being played w/ a reasonable other side. The gov’t has been highjacked by imperialist radicals in service of religious zealots and big money, and pretending that “balance” and the pendulum swinging back in time is foolish and criminal.
Blaming some outside actor for losses due to crappy, ineffective campaigns is just pathetic. Those people NEVER direct their ire at the politician, which just baffles me. It’s like those rightie assholes who say “He’s protecting us … we haven’t been attacked since 911!”
ummmm, HE WAS PRESIDENT ON 911, AND THEY ATTACKED US THEN!
But no, too trained to look toward “authority” and forgive it nearly everything. Things sucking are the fault of dirty hippies, Nader, Cindy Sheehan, sluts demanding control of their own bodies, faggots who won’t accept that they are filthy second class citizens … NEVER the powers that be who suck us all dry for their rich friends, dancing on the corpses created by our imperial army.
I’m going to work. HOpe everybody has a good day.
LOL the pope is gonna be mad!
From the BBC
Unleashed my yucky potty mouth against Teresa the PArty Hack. Now stuck in spam. Don’t care. I’d tar and feather that little conniving piece of anti-democratic shit and every last one of her fucking clones if I only could.
I haven’t checked spam, I will… there were pages of it that came in over night. I put it off til I woke up.
Unleashed my yucky potty mouth against Teresa the PArty Hack.
Thank you. I was APPALLED by her shallow and tasteless comments to Sheehan.
From the AP via SFGate:
I think “restive” wore out soon after the Nov assault on Fallujah in 2004. Or the February shooting of protesters in Fallujah in Feb… or or or…
I saw an incoming link in the stats so went and read somehting at Ind Bloggers Alliance (first time I was there).
And let’s get real. The Feingold ad at the top of the left column is just so much bullshit.
9:20 am PT
ms xeno
found your comment among 300 spam. Tried to let it out, WP went down for service. sigh.
Will get it out when the back pages come back up.
oops
it did make it out of Spam:
it’s up there, comment # 21
Not a good day. The mother and daughters hanged in a trailer closet in TX
Jesus. 5, 3, 2 and 8 months — and the mother was 23. Yeah, this outcome is oh, so much better than birth control and abortion.
Jesus.
People get utterly overwhelmed. And a country with no single payer health care. And every division possible based on race class and opportunity.
There is so much that has never been ON the political table.
In addition to the Germans now 5 Brits kidnapped in Iraq.
Gonna be blood blowout for months.
full text, not a snip. So sue me.
More detail here. A BearingPoint “employee” was the target. There under a USAID contract. 4 private security (GardaWorld) were the balance of the kidnap numbers.
CNN mentioned that 11 helicopters have gone down this year with some 30 dead. Oh but just wait for the happy puppy stories in September from Petraeus. Then the Dems can say “I told you so” for supporting this fucked up surge and contributing to even more deaths. Happy puppies. That’s what it’s all about.
i grew up outside roseville and it’s a heavy repub district, bordering the racists and armed dwellers of placerville and auburn.
cad..
i used to go up there [for a year or so in 00/01] to a dr…. staying a few days usually in sacramento, roseville … also went to a dr in grass valley from 00 – 02…
that was my impression as well.
yeah, it’s changing gradually, from more über-reactionary white flight transplants to more middle of the road suburbanites who just want affordable housing and good schools for their kids, but tire of the wingnuttier elements. and even thenm, only in a relative shift, not an absolute change by any stretch, placerville weirds me the fuck out. still pretty conservative, but shifting gradually to a less virulent version of R (and to R-leaning independents).
the district had several counties that voted against the two parental notification props in 2005 and 2006, believe it or not, so things are changing, if slowly.
but even so, to even get close to doolittle was fairly impressive. i wouldn’t consider brown a liberal (i still don’t know what the fuck people mean by ‘progressive’ online), but he would be a huge step forward in the fooothills from the current execrable duo of lungren and doolittle. it’s been decades since democrats even bothered trying to compete east of the coastal range.
none of that has anything to do with sheehan’s right to speak her mind, however. if you’re goig to try to build a broad-based opposition to the war, you have to show up and make the case everywhere, even (especially!) base-heavy conservative districts. inconveniencing a political candidate pales in comparison with the perpetuation of this war.
Hey all – I go offline and the bad news continues to roll in… Looks like this will be a bleak summer for the world.
Back to some previous threads – I’m a June baby too – June 3 to be exact. Extremely Gemini [in fact there’s no earth in my chart – mostly fire & air, with a touch of water]. I’ve never been the grounded sort. And my moon’s in Venus to boot, which means I’m pretty much an emotional wreck, if you hadn’t noticed that lovable quality about me in the past.
As for the Dead, look, I’ll admit it – I was a deadhead in my late teens. I spent a couple of summers doing the midwest tour with hair down to my ass. While I agree with most of the criticism of the Dead, one cannot overlook Jerry’s playing. He really was one of the most original and soulful guitarists in the history of rock. Hell, he was one of maybe 3-4 rock guitarists that Miles Davis ever complimented. Though I’ve given up my once extensive live tape collection, I do still put on some of the vinyl from time to time… So sue me. 🙂
I think that this is the fifth mother murdering all of her children in the past year and all were “evangelically” related. One threw all three of her children over a bridge, another butchered her five homeschooled kids in a trailer home in the middle of the woods
All had visions…. I would swear that some of the so called ministers are putting drugs in the “holy water”. I was on another board and this woman a “holy roller” had to take a drug test for a job and kept failing… at first she thought it was cold medicine … she failed at least three times. It made me wonder why Ted Haggard needed bagfuls of meth…
Anyways, noticed a trend on the BBB of trying two “moderate” evangelicals as normal loving people… not the hate driven madmen that they really are. First there was a diary from a “Liberty University” student on DK …who of course was treated way better than Cindy Sheehan or for that matter…any liberal on DK.
Now I see Stoller pimping the moderating of evangelicals on My DD and even AdamB stopped in to put in his two words of praise… remember this is the same Adam B who thinks that doctors should have the right to discriminate against patients if they don’t like their face.
…so what is new…the Boyz pimping the right wing …once again….how revolutionary. Cuz…we all now that is how the right wing came to power…by pimping for the libruls.
Via Green commons:
Sheehan Calls For Those Who Want A Way Out of Duopolyto meet in Philadelphia on 7/4/07.
Was that sound I just heard a certain froggy head exploding ? 😉
Mcat, sorry about my potty mouth earlier. mr_xeno swears to me that there are over a thousand posts in response to Sheehan at Orangeville and that many of them are salutory. But I haven’t looked yet.
The “theme” being pushed frm Howard to the blogs (I mean as a spectrum) and in the political press is that there are new nicer fundies. Howard just pushed it this past Satruday on ring of fire, on AAR. And called Webb and Tester “anti war”.
All hot for the environment, these new cute “green” fundies…. And the party is reaching out to them.
I really am laughing, they ain’t reaching out to me.
*************
The mother who threw three off a pier ws here in SF.
Marisa – the Bacevich piece made it to the Rec section. Reading skills there are either very low or they’re too brainwashed to see the truth.
grrrrrrrrrrrr…… i am glad that the “crisis” i sover nad I can stop reading Dkos again. Checked it again today and was dumbfounded. Some of them really don’t get it. Following the Palast and Sheehan brouhaha. Its the same mob think I have seen over and over. Buffy. The soldier guy. MCat etc. They all attack and act like dumb asses and then revise what actually happened a couple of days later as to make their shit not stink. Surely the past week has opened the eyes of 1000’s as to what farce that place really is.
They really remind me of right wing church. They act just like the fundies I know in RL. Is there any difference in what they did to Sheehan and O’Reilly’s ongoing campaign against Rosie O.
What is interesting iirc that the Dems were bragging about the 2% (?) increase in fundie partisanship… yet I recall that Dem leadership was the LOUDEST to claim that the youth did not vote when in fact the youth vote increased 10%…
Go figure…2% vs 10%…. yet the party is reaching out for the fundies
D.Throat reminds me of yet one more reason for Jews to put not their faith in Xtian princes. The Fundies were loved earlier and far more consistently in the U.S. history than was any Israeli or Jewish group/lobby. When the evangelicals tire of the current state of affairs in everyone’s Holy Land, we all know which side the Big Two will come down on. With the authority-worshippers at DK and the like following suit as if all the bannings over Palestine had never happened. Hint to anyone with no knowledge of Jewish history: It won’t be us they favor, you arrogant idjits.
lucid, I confess to enjoying the Dead show KBOO has on Saturday mornings. I don’t go batshit crazy with love, but I’d still prefer that over “classic” rock almost any day of the week. NOTA knows, if I never have to hear Bob Seger singing about rock ‘n roll again, it’ll be too soon.
Oh, and as a follow-up to yesterday, I’d add Burns and Convertino of Calexico fame to the musicians that do better Springsteen than Springsteen does, IMHO. I couldn’t live without “Crystal Frontier” or “Service & Repair.”
ms xeno
what I saw in the thread (when it ws at 300) was not very smart nor astute nor sharp people trying to reach out to her in their limited fashion.
I am sure it went downhill from there.
I did nto bother with threads elsewhere, except for MLW which was linked to by someone in thread here. Most of them seemed to miss the point as well.
It’s a pity but a lot of people only read blogs. That was bad news a long time ago.
BTW, she is in Crawford for what would ahve been her son’s 28th birthday. I am guessing that the hoary old Memorial Day (surely a fucked game, I am sorry to be blunt) is not what figured in her timing.
And at least out here in CA our media is reporting an echoing of what she is saying from others — a mil mother protester whose son has done three tours, I have heard her before — and a couple who two years ago put an effigy of a KIA on their front lawn with a note aobut “our taxes”… You can be sure that set off the neighborhood.
Both have said “have to move beyond the parties”. What next, hell who knows.
Be interesting to see how mnay knuckle under and vote for the Democrats in 08.
“Reaching out,” Mcat ? More like “reach-around,” which would explain the epidemic of blindness as well.
[ducks to avoid empty catfood cans thrown at head. Cackles/hacks maniacally before retreating back to work.]
Look it ws not smart but when people say I love you they are in a way trying to comfort. these are nto swift people, most of them.
What she wrote went right over their heads.
Or, you know, go read the thread.
Revisionist
RW talk radio out here (I listened to a smatter of KGO, KCBS and KNEW) is luving the Rosie and the LOHAN as well.
Filling their days.
BTW… during the Katrina crises “somehow” all the evangelical charities where publicized by FEMA as places to donate money…. does anyone know what happened to the millions of unregistered monies they collected. I have yet to see one of them in NOLA.
BTW in the MYDD thread Adam B is pimping what a great champion of the poor Santorum is backing up his argument with an article from David Brooks.
I tell you that is who the right won …championing Jesse Jackson quoting Ebony and Jet magazines…. it is farcical.
BTW… I think “poor” is the new “anti-war”. I see the that bloggers and their maids are fluffing Dem fundie Tim Ryan… no longer is he the anti war candidate but the pro poor foodstamp candidate… Dems are desperate to put more ant abortion fundies in the Senate… this idiot Ryan is no different than Langevin from RI.
Marie
pity they can’t read, Bacevich says the exact same things. Same day too.
He named Kerry and Kennedy and McGovern (MA rep) and there ws a comment that asked Cindy to name names.
She should.
Go for it. Stop protecting people, entities, sell outs, electeds, toady orgs, etc.
well Edwards is at the head of the line for mouthing “poor”. And you hae not lived til you hear EE rush in to add “of course they must be responsible”
white southern christian welfare office managers.
The Ryan stunt is just gag worthy.
The floodgates will be opening as we get closer to Iowa.
POPCORN!!
Sometimes I think Adam B writes what most people wold assume are “liberal” diaries…but when know his history you realize he is just getting off on women being oppressed… from the “bargain”… and throughly savoring the moment in a bizarre public masturbation.
re: Ryan’s food stamp experiment
You know – you can’t really understand the long-term effects of food insecurity and poverty by just trying it out for a week: the psychological desparation, the physical weakness and deterioration, loss of mental acuity etc etc. Knowing that you’re just doing it for a week and that you can just gorge yourself after that time with whatever you like is not the same as living it month after month, year after year. That’s rather insulting, to say the least.
And who in their insane way of thinking decided that $20/week for food was enough?
And who in their insane way of thinking decided that $20/week for food was enough?
Well, this looked like an interesting news release about the minimum wage hike until I checked out the source.
Yeah, that was sure some anti poverty legislation…
And leave it to the asshole papist Bono to claim Rick as some sort of hero on poverty issues…
So was Adam B working to get Santorum re-elected last time around? Could he possibly kiss his butt any more than that? His lips must be awfully chapped.
well shit the Delays do/did charity for children and Falwell had a putative adoption service out in Falls Church or Lynchburg, VA
Get em all halos.
Santorum ws a shit and so is Casey.
Bono is part of the religionist fuck up in DC and elsewhere.
And I am sick to death of Clooney Matt Damon Cheadle and others who are part of the Bono tooclosetogovernment scam cosying up to the Republicans.
SICK of it. Nt that the D are any better.
LC – in all reality while the minimum wage hike is much needed, it won’t do much – and it still sits below the minimum wage legislation in several of the more liberal states. I think it will help in poorer states – particularly in the south – but $7.25 an hour is still not going to pay your rent in an urban area, and it will likely barely bump a number of wage earners off food stamps, so they will lose more than they’d gain. Even at $7.25/hour, we’re paying less than we did over 40 years ago. We really need living wage campaigns throughout the urban areas in this country & an effective lobby for affordable housing.
But that EPI/Berman stuff is simply ludicris.
Lucid
I think even Huckabee had a relatively decent wage package in Ark. LOL Not endorsing him, just commenting.
You know when all the hoopla came down post 9/11 about air port screeners.. LOL it was so clear the difference. We privatised, with no job sec, little health benefits. Low wages. No protections. there was some brief talk of making the positions civil service. Not a bad idea, but shot down pronto. What we did do, won’t be working long term.
So secure. I read an article contrasting the way certain EU countries handle it: higher wages, job security, health and other benefits and LOW TURNOVER in the job.
I mean, if it matters… 😉
Yeah… but that’d mean either budgeting for public sector workers or forcing the airlines to pay more money to airports. So higher taxes or higher planes fares, take your pick. 😉 [Because of course the US would not cut back on corporate whorefare and airlines wouldn’t cut CEO salaries to accomodate a stable profession.]
But, of course, it doesn’t matter. What matters is getting Americans to accept greater intrusions upon their privacy in the name of fear. I still blister in anger every time I am forced to remove my shoes at an airport. And I’m even more pissed off that now I can’t even bring my own water with me, but must spend $3.00 at an airport concession.
lc,
I have no doubt that an increased minimum wage makes a difference but, as you noted, if it doesn’t keep up with cost of living increases its effectiveness is nullified after a while.
CNN’s Jack Cafferty asked at the top of last hour: “4 p.m.: What does it say about the U.S. economy when 30 year-old men are making less than their fathers did?” He provided some stats but the transcript isn’t up yet.
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Cindy Sheehan’s diary exposed the reality, in the most painful way possible, that the Democratic party is merely the second head of a wholly corrupt War Party.
Hopefully in a couple of days everyone will have forgotten the words and truths written about by Cindy Sheehan and we can all get back to the partisan business of pretending this bullshit party of hucksters, shills, fakes, frauds, slime and sleaze represents the people and makes a positive difference in our lives.
“When you’re a worker it rains stones seven days a week.” – Jimmy in Ken Loach’s ‘Raining Stones’
by Near Vanna on Tue May 29, 2007 at 01:16:22 PM PDT
and of course this was followed by the dk faithful, like that irritating full of himself mike stark labeling near vanna as “ralph” as in ralph nader, get it? get it?
and then you have the blaz and the infantile posting of kitten pix as a response…
This is actually pretty good (and I’m not an Arianna fan):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/her-way-hillary_b_49733.html
LC – that’s not just minimum wage issues.
P. Krugman in Rolling Stone. Bear in mind Krugman is a Clintonite.
And this isn’t just Bush’s fault. Real inflation adjusted wages for the bottom 95% of Americans were merely stagnant from the 1970’s through the mid 1990’s & then started to decline under Clinton & got worse under Bush.
In the mid-1990s, he was a floor manager for welfare reform, the most successful piece of domestic legislation of the past 10 years.
It’s funny, that’s just how the DLC and Newt Gingrich descibes welfare deformation. And they are all correct if you define ‘successful’ as increased poverty and increased deep poverty rates, increased child and maternal mortality rates, increasing rates of homelessness, lack of access to medical, dental care and reproductive health care and more and more fathers who refuse to contribute to the support of the children they’re responsible for bringing into the world.
Why it’s as if AdamB’s notion of successful domestic legislation was laws and regulations to make the daily lives of the poor and particularly poor women and their children as difficult and dangerous as possible.
LOL ‘Cuz corporatist and DLC/NDN is the core of that site.
More third tier attys, working it out with a pencil. To run the old, slightly vulgar accountant joke.
We really need living wage campaigns throughout the urban areas in this country & an effective lobby for affordable housing.
Bravo
Those two things plus single payer health care and efficient and affordable public transportation systems would make life better for most of us.
If the Dems were serious about helping the poor they would index the minimum wage to inflation and have done with it rather than drag the ‘issue’ up every once in awhile. But then we know that the Dems are as serious about helping the poor as they are about ending the occupation of Iraq.
Oh just have to laugh. ZOELLICK who has been around a long time as aide de camp, most recently as iirc a sort of CoS to the ISG, will be nominated to the WB.
Gee… do you think it is a meme?
Religion: Progressives Left Behind?
by David Brock
Tue May 29, 2007 at 02:38:08 PM PDT
was Brock a Log Cabin CATHOLIC ??
I just cannot quite remember.
marisa – can’t recall either, but it doesn’t sound right. The LCR came of age after Brock was pulling away from the GOP. Don’t recall that he practiced any religion as an adult.
Doesn’t matter for this report — merely points out that conservative religious spokesperson get more airtime than their liberal counterparts. Merely a question of fairness.
If Huckabee weren’t a corrupt misogynistic megalomaniac, he wouldn’t be such a bad guy. He was the strangest of all Republican animals in one respect, a prolifer who believed the born have a right to life (unless they were convicted of a capital offence). Especially considering it is a poor state, Arkansas has one of the highest rates of insured children.
“But then it became clear you were interested more in protesting in and of itself than in actually ending the war.”
Oh yes, the Democratic Party is SO interested in ending the war. That’s why they sandbagged most of the progressive Democratic primary challengers like Johnathan Tasini and Hong Tran. That’s why Rahm Emanuel went out of his way to recruit pro-war candidates. That’s why they tried to take down the few anti-war Republicans in Congress with pro-war Democrats (they succeeded with Hostettler and failed with Ron Paul).
“You held a protest in Sacremtno at the end of October 2006. This is literally right next to CD-04 where Charlie Brown was running to take out John Doolittle (the MOST corrupt member of congress). But it’s a district that also thinks very little of you, Cindy. Your presence just a week before the election hurt Charlie Brown’s chances. Given the clsoe election, you may very well have cost him the race because you were unable to correctly analyze the situation in terms of political reality.
For THAT, I will NEVER forgive you.”
Thanks to low-rent thugs like this, the name “Little Orange Footballs” is quite appropriate.
Miss America stumbles in Mexico and is booed.
What is the world coming to?
Stay tuned for the latest on Rosie, too, tonight on Marshmellowball .
Also, right before the commercial, I just heard that maybe Oswald didn’t act alone.
Need I say more? I bet when its my time to go, I’ll be the naked guy running down the street screaming about the government and TV and something melting my brain.
I hate the use of “foreign employee” or “contractor” to describe armed guards. THEY ARE MERCENARIES IN A WAR ZONE, and calling them “contractors” is a shameful bit of propaganda to get people to think they are truck drivers or aid workers or teachers. If they are armed and wearing body armor, they are combatants.
so sick of how dishonest this country is.
Speaking of which, ABC’s coverage today of the protests in Venezuela was a amazing bit of two-faced bullshit, ESPECIALLY coming shortly after coverage of the Mayday Melee report from LA today. THOSE protesters down there were heroic, while “agitators” here were partly to fault.
We’re so fucked. Call things what they are.
#61 the SCOTUS judges being conservative is not only bad news from the social standpoint with abortion and womens’ rights. It’s also horrible for workers’ rights. There is the possibility that much of the congressional legislation on policy and legislation around workers’ issues and environmental laws can be undone with these judges. Businesses and corporations know this court is pro-business and anti-worker, so I would expect to see many cases coming up invalidating lots of existing laws or undoing workers rights legislation.
oow
but for the incident with the Huckabee son, that came out a few weeks ago.
google name son and killed dog. As I recall he and a little friend, slit the stray dog’s throat and beat it to death. On a Boy Scout outing too…
It was beyond horrific. Stuff like that, and it seems it was actively hushed up, has to be dealt with.
lucid
I dig Jerry’s work w/ Dave Grisman, especially “Shady Grove” but I couldn’t hear what he was capable of in all of the mastubatory noodling of the Dead records.
That being said, “Friend of the Devil” is one hell of a well-written song.
BHHM-Miss America was doing a performance piece entitled “US Foreign Policy”
Mitm – two Dead faves, along with “Friend of the Devil” : “New Speedway Boogie” (toonz for our times) and their cover of Marty Robbins’ “El Paso”. I lean more toward The Band.
Oh, The Band were a much better … ummmm … band. I’d take The Byrds over them too …
MCat,
Yes, but of course it was deemed “TOO EXPENSIVE!”, in spite of the fact that it would have cost a small fraction of what our imperial occupation of Iraq is going to end up costing. But then they would probably have had to make it a union job, and who in our federal government today wants to empower unions?
BHHM-Miss America was doing a performance piece entitled “US Foreign Policy”
lol…no wonder she “stumbled”.
Glen Beck is such an idiot: What happens to the real estate market if there’s a nuclear attack?
MitM – I tend to go for the psychedellic era stuff – like Dark Star. Besides that I dig songs like Loser that Jerry brought into the band later on from solo projects. Brokedown Palace has always been a fav too & the only two decent solo albums were American Beauty & Workingman’s Dead.
Always hated Bob Weir’s songwriting, but Jerry has a special place in my heart [and though you’d never know it now, he was also pretty influential on my lead playing for about 8 years – my favorite two scales of choice are still Dorian in minor and Mixolydian in major].
Quick FYI to Marisacat and other bird fans: A documentary about musician Mark Bittner befriending the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill is playing on Independent Lens tonight (here on the East Coast, starting now).
Gotta run, but here’s the URL:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/
lc,
that’s not just minimum wage issues.
I realize that. It was just related in my little head since we were talking about wages. The Cafferty transcript still isn’t available. He had stats for an earlier time period in the 60s which showed that real wages increased 32% and compared them to more recent times in which the increase was only 9%. Not sure of the dates though.
I don’t follow your economic situation that closely and I don’t know the tax structure etc. Numbers aren’t my thing. But I do know that the Canadian dollar is at a 30 year high compared to yours – at $.93. I remember going shopping in N Dakota as a kid because our dollar was higher than yours. Times are definitely changing again.
As you can tell, I lean more towards the alt-country/folk end myself.
BTW, Jeff Buckley left us ten years ago today , if you haven’t stumbled across any tributes yet today.
I Wanna Be Famous.
MC-You are awfully persnickety about the details, so I’ll revise:
\
Funny aside, there has been recent research that shows gastric bypass makes some insane. If that holds true for Huckabee (redundancy problems, I know), he’d certifiably be best qualified candidate for President.
Little B-Boy rocks the house …
sorry, but I need a break from the ongoing disintegration, and I thought I’d share.
fwiw:
“As for comparing her to Emsock . . . I’m not even going to give reasons why that’s an absurd thing to do. If you think there’s any equivalence there in the first place, you’re incapable of being reasoned with on the subject.”
I’m going to have to think about that one for awhile, but I haven’t felt very comfortable commenting here since yesterday. And I can’t find it in myself to retract the gist of what I said.
oow
no, I just meant to add it (the story of the kid) to the mix.
I was glad when he had a state package for min wage.
Even tho I find him just too odd, too folksy and iirc is a Baptist minister. What I call the Boy Scout Face of the RW. I throw Brooks of the NYT on that heap as well.
But who cares, the RW is collapsing.
I am amusing myself touring Los Blogs and reading all the soft damage control.
Remember to vote early, often and for Democrats. It can only help.
Such a joke.
Also-I think (but don’t know) I posted a link here, about three weeks ago, re Bubba Huckster’s adult and Boy Scout antics. Huckabee the Younger was in the news at the time when his forgotten (it could have happened to anyone!) gun at the airport made the news. The despicable liberal press contemporaneously revived the innocent’s naughty adolescent transgression re animal torture.
‘I’m not giving up,’ Sheehan tells radio host Schultz
MC-Just what is the difference between a hiccup and an collapse?
Did anyone ask?
Miss Devore
There is no reason to retract what you said. Why should you.
But the war and issues areound the war are hot to the touch. That won’t be changing. Blog personalities are also hot, raging flambee, topics – that won’t be changing.
I also am not going to herd people or force some code of perceived, or even mutually agreed upon civility on people.
Feel free the next time JJB comments (I don’t know that he drops in every day) to say what you like to him. He is a grown up.
If you’d like me to ask him if I can pass along the email he lists here, I will be happy to..
You can let me know, if you like, where.is.the.cat
on gmail com
************
On a related note:
brinn
a new commenter replied to you in the previous thread. Wanted to alert you, if you happen to see this. “thomasm”. Near the bottom of the thread.
I realize you are not an enforcer Mcat; I saw that JJB had recently commented, so I thought I’d remark on my relative silence, as it was today. I did respond to his remark, yesterday. I have no more to say than that. But, I am still ordinary-human-like, and have been talking to y’all for a bit.
62, catnip: Knowing that you’re just doing it for a week and that you can just gorge yourself after that time with whatever you like is not the same as living it month after month, year after year.
That’s the thing that always irritated me about the Oxfam Fast. It’s OK to send them money, but please don’t pretend that “fasting in solidarity” for one lousy day gives you ANY insight into what it’s like to be poor and hungry.
Democracy Now: How U.S. Presidents Past & Present Resist Calls For Withdrawal.
Miss D, please don’t feel you need to retract anything. It’s fine to disagree.
On a lighter note: Kos is asking for new slogans for t-shirts! What fun! I trust you to come up with something snappy.
Here’s mine:
Daily Kos: A Nonstop Parade of Assholes
supervixon & catnip
Intellectually, you guys are right, but politics is partly theater. That may be sad, but it’s a fact. At the level politics operates in this country, it might change the way people who’ve been fed “the poor deserve their lot” think.
After all, how many of those judgemental men who’ve completely changed the political conversation in this country about women’s health can understand what it feels like to face a choice to end of pregnancy? None, of course, but their theater is winning.
Kostipation: Helping Donklephants Block the People’s Movements
What not to say in an airport (even in LA):
“I’m here to shoot a pilot”.
Yo – you’ve got wild parrots in spam!
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/
Madman
I am actually with D Throat on the current dramatic HS theatre of pushing the poor as “an issue” (I am not buying anyone’s display). There is a very good chance it is an alternative public theme in order to push pro life candidates….
Ties in with the AdamB so cosy push of how wonderful Santorum is.
The sites should be getting ready to push Casey in some way. Lvoe for the poor, strong on trade and unions (Nancy is tying global warming and trade, LOL)
Then Ryan who figures prominently at Democrats for Life gets on the love the poor, live the poor life bandwagon.
Lordy. They could give a flying whoowhooo.
#111. I like Big Orange Tent. BOT, for short….cuz that’s what they are.
Or…”Centrist Paradise”.
Or…”We’re Not Republicans, we just look that way.”
Or…”Selling Our Souls for the Democratic Party”.
Or…”Orange…it’s the new red.”
Okay. I’ll stop now.
musing graze
Thanks for the alert to save your comment # 97 from spam o rama!
Oh, I don’t trust the people pushing it … they’re full of shit, like the way they used judges and “protecting the vote” to fund raise and do nothing, but the tactic is sadly how dialogue is driven in this country. The people using it aren’t sincere, I agree w/ you there.
“Send MOney and SYFPH”
svix–I obviously have no problem disagreeing- but the “incapable of rational discussion on the issue” threw me for a loop. just didn’t expect that. not as if self-criticism wasn’t my religion.
manana
The winner is…..
“Orange…it’s the new red.”
MD-You’re loved here. Really.
I was raised Catholic, so I don’t do positive emotion often, and only when I mean it.
Fuck Oprah, (hat tip to Antiwar blog).
Love the parrot story! Here’s one about the wild parrots of Brooklyn.
As they say in Arsenic and Old Lace: Brooklyn – a place where anything can happen and usually does.
It is interesting, that Cindy Sheehan’s dairy at dk, got major play in the MSM today, and, I think aside from plutop & mcjoan, no other FP’er has ever mentioned a word about her. kos will take the hits, but never move his lips on that one.
ok, I didn’t czech if meteor blades ever did, so I am prepared for his correction.
oow-je comprende.
FWIW the “tone” left me feeling uncomfortable.
now i wish i’d said something nearer the moment. but with my machine dead, i’m reading at work and really shouldn’t comment.
but i’m completely sure everyone here loves your comments/input.
:::waving at IT dude::::
#121: MCat, LOL!
#122: Miss D: yes, that comment was somewhat over the top. But I think you and JJB can work it out.
How can I cajole you into good spirits again? Perhaps I can find a clip of John Belushi crushing a beer can on his head.
Cynthia McKinney:
There is a very good chance it is an alternative public theme in order to push pro life candidates….
Well certainly to push the worst and most demeaning and degrading aspects of religion without an honest discussion. The fact of the matter is that it’s impossible to legitimately claim to represent the poor or care about the poor while you’re intent on forcing women to have children they do not want and cannot afford to feed.
My sense is that this talk about the poor from AdamB, a man who believes that destroying the remnants of the safety net for single women trying to raise children on their own is effective domestic legislation, signals a escalation of the present trend towards using the poor and women in the same way that the republicans did and do. (as in we must invade and occupy Iraq to save women from the rape rooms. We must maintain the office of faith based hoohaa in the WH because otherwise the Catholic church would be unable to help the poor with it’s Armies of Compassion)
In other words it’s Democratic party outreach to liberal women time. The spinmeisters, emboldened by their success in getting the abomination Bob Casey elected for six fucking years, believe that most women are as stupid and suggestible as the women they date or marry (or, in the case of jacinto and lv, hope someday to own) and will vote for men like Tim Ryan and Bob Casey because they will ‘help the poor’ in some unspecified, imaginary manner.
The funny thing is that if any candidate actually intended to help the poor they would be marginalized and demonized with alacrity by these guys and by both political parties.
It just occurred to me:
Mcat, my comment to you in #55 was in response to your comment #49. All the other stuff in between showed up while I was still typing. If that matters.
I was content to just take mr_xeno’s word for it regarding Sheehan on Kos. The only threads I read over there are the ones linked to here.
I’m still not 100% clear on what happened with JJB and Miss D the other day. But I don’t want anyone to go. Disagreements are all right. I’d worry if there weren’t any, frankly.
Sorry I’m not following the nuances so good. Stoopid meds are making me spacey, though I might as well be pouring them into my shoe for all the good they’re doing my pipes. Bah.
Everyone have a great night.
Another good, though long, piece over at Counterpunch. David Swanson. He ends with this:
But Miss D there is NO REASON to accept what he said.
Tell him off, tell him to get lost. Or whatever suits. Tell him it bothered you for over a day. I ahve offered to ask if you may email him.
If someone told me I was incapable of reason (tho he did limit to that comparison) LOL, I’d slam it back.
I realise everyone is different.
I had a major turning point when the ptb at Dkos started iwth
You can’t say to someone, [insert any old reason] “Suck my cock!” or “you cock sucker!”
I always saw those moments as “No thanks” or whatever response suits.
However, I DON’T see the comparison. When Cindy does a series of diaries (as was done in the summer of 2004 and as best I can determine, erased b y Armando to suit when the wind changed) entitled
DEMOCRATS I’D LIKE TO FUCK
and the author parades the acronym in comments DILTF (which includes Kerry by the way, with some detail) then there might be a valid comparison.
I did not see it. It seemed a stretch. Just my opinion.
well, I’m, hard to believe it,a bit more circumspect. am not as familiar with JJB as with many others here.
oh hell, it’s just a tiny stupid thang among all the things we have to get anxious about.
(and yet, I worry about the truth of someone’s contention that it is a midwest habit to ungrammatically end in prepositions.)
New Thead
link
***********
moiv has a diary on the rec list (or was a bit ago)
The New Scarlet Letter: A is for Abortion
well, I’m, hard to believe it,a bit more circumspect. am not as familiar with JJB as with many others here.
He’s a lovely man, Miss D and one of my favorite long time (former) DK posters.
Cindy Sheehan is to many people including myself an immensely sympathetic figure and genuinely decent human being whereas emsock is …emsock.
I think most everyone here is very fond of you also, it’s just that we strongly disagree that there is any equivalency at all between emsock and Sheehan.
As quoted by Madman:
…But I will urge everyone now to do the one thing most likely to influence Congress toward peace: fund Kucinich’s presidential campaign…
With all due respect to Kucinich’s handlers, fool me once shame on me, etc… and so on…
Very mixed feelings about Kucininch. Some of the things he does, excellent. Glad he runs, anyone who wants to should.
But end of the day, DP and he knows who he needs to stay close to… and worse, out of the Ohio lege.
I remain unconvinced.
Unconvinced meets de-convinced. :p