High Summer…….

High Summer……. 23 July 2008

Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
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H-RH's garden dragonfly...

I’ve made liberal use of H-RH’s garden dragonfly…. if by chance you are around, what is the stem material he’s clinging to (hiding his bible I am sure, LOL)???

Other than that, I am pooped. So, the garden dragonfly is going to have carry the ball, as it were… 😉

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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1. marisacat - 23 July 2008: hmm Ishmael Reed is really, really not happy. With The New Yorker cartoon

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2. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 July 2008: Bay, #50, last thread – nope, they won’t do anything, which should scare the shit out of everybody. We’re in this mess now at least partially b/c Clinton refused (for many of the same reasons) to hold the Iran/Contra crooks accountable.

A multiple-tiered system of justice is no longer a system of justice.

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3. Heather-Rose Ryan - 23 July 2008: Hey Mcat, you are welcome to use the pic anytime. The stem is a trunk of a very small flowering shrub, a variety of cherry, I think.

From the last thread: Diane, thanks so much for the info on borage!

and moiv: yikes, that webzine you linked to is really a piece of work:

02138
THE WORLD OF HARVARD

ABOUT US

02138 is a lifestyle magazine for a unique community of educated, affluent, and influential readers: Harvard alumni. Named for the zip code of their alma mater, it is a bi-monthly magazine that reflects their shared values, concerns, tastes, and obsessions. From commerce to comedy, medicine to M&A, public service to private jets, it will look at news and culture through the Harvard lens.

I’m not sure what’s “unique” about the “community” except that pretty much everyone I’ve ever met who went to Harvard undergrad is an obnoxious asshole. Harvard undergrad seems to have the

Those who only went to one of the graduate schools aren’t quite as bad, but then they don’t seem to be quite as much into “The World of Harvard as a rich yuppie lifestyle choice”.

Maybe my alma mater, Bryn Mawr, should start a “lifestyle magazine”. it could be entitled Castrating Bitches. This phrase was immortalized by a t-shirt commemorating the 100th anniversary of the college, “100 Years of Castrating Bitches”. The shirts had been printed up by an enterprising student. The story goes that the Dean’s office hastily bought up all of the shirts and tried to stifle the whole idea, but it was too late – word had gotten out, and everyone wanted one.

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4. Heather-Rose Ryan - 23 July 2008: whoops! lost the end of a paragraph there:

“Harvard undergrad seems to have the most assholes of all the Ivy League colleges. I suppose that sets them apart in some way.”

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5. penlan - 23 July 2008: This is interesting for any of you who may not be aware of this:

http://silverbearcafe.com/private/5.08/ripoff.html

Sorry, I don’t know how to do “links”.

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6. penlan - 23 July 2008: LOL…well I guess I didn’t need to apologize. It does it all by itself!

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7. NYCee - 23 July 2008: Madman – Your link from last thread. I think it’s worth another go-round::

Nancy Pelosi, How Do You Plead?

Nancy Pelosi was secretly briefed on torture many, many years ago, and yet did nothing to stop those unlawful programs. Indeed, she egged the torturers on.

Congress stinks of complicity. What was it Hannah Arendt said about the banality of fascism? It creeps in, unnoticed, a banal drip, drip, drip – one day overflowing and causing much shock. They are used to the smell, dont even notice it by now. That is the effect on the nation, too. Bit by bit, it takes hold.

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8. NYCee - 23 July 2008: Whoops – the link got ‘lost’

Nancy Pelosi, How Do You Plead?

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9. lucid - 23 July 2008: HRH did not know you went to Bryn Mawr. I took a class there through the Swat/Haverford/Bryn Mawr consortium when I was in school. Great art history dept. [among other things].

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10. JJB - 23 July 2008: For someone who’s supposed to be able to claim an understanding of foreign affairs as a strength, John McCain seems awfully clueless. Recently, there was an incident where he proved unable to distinguish between Sunni and Shiite factions in the ME, claiming that Iran was sheltering and training al-Qaeda (Holy Joe Lieberman had to publicly correct him on that occasion). Now he refers to the Iraq/Pakistan border in an interview with Diane Sawyer. He was obviously talking about Afghanistan in that second clip, but between the gaffe and the zonked-out way he was speaking there, it’s past time for someone to question whether or not he has the mental and physical capacity to be POTUS.

Of course, McCain’s alleged FP expertise is really based on the fact that he used to drop bombs on foreigners anyway, so that point may be moot. He possesses that echt-American quality of learning nothing about the rest of the world when young, and not bothering to fill in the blanks in his knowledge bank when older, in spite of the fact that he wishes to be President. Still, he does make a good point that Obama’s threats to attack the Pakistani autonomous zones are dangerous.

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11. lucid - 23 July 2008: Re Nussbaum/Sunstein/Power last thread… It’s almost like the unwritten chapter of ‘The Fragility of Goodness’… fwiw, never liked Nussbaum much. In typical U of C manner, she somehow misses the fact the Platonism is the metaphysical ground of political fascism.

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12. marisacat - 23 July 2008: One of the things that has helped to destroy this country is the Harvard MBA program. Talk about attack from within.

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13. marisacat - 23 July 2008: 11

well, that sort is so comfortable with fascism. hard for them to identify it…

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14. JJB - 23 July 2008: Truly frightening article on the economy by Mike Whitney over at Counterpunch:

Something has gone terribly wrong with the economy, but no one wants to say what it is. This is more than just a typical downturn in the demand-cycle or a temporary “rough patch”. In fact, it’s not a recession at all; it is a meltdown of the financial system. And it’s obvious. The “deep pocketed” Federal Reserve is currently providing hundreds of billions of dollars through its auction facilities to the most craven speculators on the planet, the investment banks. These very same banks have no ability to pay that money back. Show me their revenues; show me their assets; show me their capital cushion which is calculated mainly in terms of “Level 3 assets” and which allow the banks to assign their own value to the bad paper that’s overflowing from their vaults. Have you ever heard of anything more ridiculous? One blogger called Level 3 assets “mark to fantasy”. He’s right, too. It’s all smoke and mirrors. So why are we letting crooks decide what their assets are worth?

True, a few of the investment banks just reported “better than expected” earnings, but no one on Wall Street is fooled by that baloney. The SEC changed the rules on shorting bank stocks just days before their earnings reports were due; another gift from Uncle Sam to hide the dirty laundry. Also, some of the banks have started extending their “write downs” from 120 days to 160 days, buying themselves a little more time to deceive their shareholders about the size of their losses. It’s all one big swindle following another. The whole business stinks to high heaven and the Bush administration is right there in bed with them, snuggling up close and holding their hands.

If the public grasped the significance of the Bear Stearns fiasco, they’d understand how grave the situation really is. The technical details are irrelevant; don’t bother with them. What IS important is that the Fed acknowledged that the investment speculators had so polluted the financial system with their toxic, unregulated garbage,(Credit default swaps) that if the transaction with JP Morgan flopped, the entire system would have imploded. Think about that. In other words, the legitimate, “Real Economy” is now inextricably lashed to a massive $500 trillion dollar unregulated shadow banking system that operates without rules, supervision or sufficient capital. Over the counter derivatives trading is a cancer that has spread to every part of the system and is devouring it from the inside. It’s only a matter of time before the patient succumbs. That’s what the Bear bailout really means; the rest is bunkum.

The banking system is broke, busted, penniless; and yet the Fed and the G-7 allow this comedy to persist like nothing is wrong. When will the American people wake up?

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15. marisacat - 23 July 2008: well they dangle in front of us, that ”95 banks” are troubled… LOL People should believe it… and each week that passes something more about Wachovia is in the news. Seems ripe for a run.

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16. JJB - 23 July 2008: Yet another example of how little John McCain seems to know about the Iraq war, and how remarkably weak his supposed strongest point really is. Note that CBS News actively conspired to cover up his latest gaffe, but didn’t do a thorough enough scrubbing. The mistake was deleted from the CBS Evening News broadcast, but a transcript and unedited video was left on their website.

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17. marisacat - 23 July 2008: hmmm elect the blue-gray guy.

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18. marisacat - 23 July 2008: McCain is calcified.

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19. marisacat - 23 July 2008: I was just reading the extended snips of McCain / CBS at Ambinder

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20. JJB - 23 July 2008: 17

That blog is by one Marc Armbinder. Here is the last sentence of the “About Marc Armbinder” page on his blog: “He’s a 2001 graduate of Harvard and lives in Washington, D.C.”

Certain of this site’s posters will certainly draw conclusions w/r/t that.

BTW, take a look at what he found on the McCain website, which he posted just a short time after his bit about the Obama flyer. “Peace Is Born Of Wisdom,” indeed. Not that a McCain administration will be giving us either. It reminds me of the posters for old war films like The Guns Of Navarone, or The Winds Of War/War And Remembrance miniseries back in the 1980s.

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21. marisacat - 23 July 2008: The new bride (see last thread) has a piece up in NYRoB. I have always found her wearing, to say the least.

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22. marisacat - 23 July 2008: 20

Yeah I know it is Ambinder. And I have never considered him politically astute. In the slightest. Right now he operates as a D party mouthpiece.

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23. marisacat - 23 July 2008: … and yes I saw the imagery from the McCain site.

Sorry I am not voting for either of the left over desserts. Old con or new con.

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24. NYCee - 23 July 2008: Cass Sunstein v Greenwald argument on DN:

Greenwald was sharp in his arguments, Sunstein was really rather pathetic. (Turley was on Countdown last night, strongly criticizing Dem complicity, the egregious precedent they are setting… he may have spoken of Sunstein too, but transcript isnt up yet.)

Sunstein’s outlook seems to knit well with Obama’s (whose camp he’s in) given the heavy weight he piles on promoting “bipartisanship” above holding the criminals accountable. His use of the quote “sunlight as disinfectant” is really quite laughable, given how hazy and obscuring his remedy. (And ineffectual, given that he says Congress – this Congress? Oh right, he cottons to weakness – will deliver us back to a sound democratic republic, without use of courts or impeachment – or anything that would, heaven forbid, ruffle bipartisan feathers!)

And then to see that he and Samantha Powers have wed, well, knit one, purl two.

She was pretty hazy herself about the dangers of BushCo, in her case, regarding the neocon drumming of war for empire. (Hitching her “humanitarian” peace train onto Bush’s tanks… Which she would later shake her fist at… Oh yeah, no one saw that one coming!) That was before her intervention underwent reinvention, and there she was, posing as Obama’s antiwar surrogate, whereupon, without a shred of shame, she went after Hillary for having supported the war. (But then, Hillary is the “monster,” Samantha the Good Irish Fairy, fair of face and pure of motive.)

She was highly offensive during the lead up to the war – going on Charlie Rose and peddling it as having humanitarian potential, a war she was lending her ‘moral’ weight to as one who carried the weight of the international community, the suffering of the world, on her shoulders. Powers said she would support the war IF Bush could get a broad international coalition. More global support for this illegal, inhumane act of war makes it better? Justifies it? You are not entering into a bargain with obvious neocon fuckers? Ugh.

Has she yet apologized for being so wrong? For lending her burnished credentials to an obvious disaster in the making? I dont know. I dont go in search of apologies from “brilliant” people who profess humanitarianism as their life’s work, and then act so cavalierly to promote the opposite. (I knew and loved Sergio De Milo!)

I found her as upsetting as the most upsetting of classic hawks and neocons, at the time, a time when we so needed some voices of oppositioin. So, to see she’s criticized for downplaying US interventions (for Empire) does not surprise me.

It is hard to find much about her lending her cred, so stupidly, to the Iraq war, but some have noticed the pack she ran with:

Pro-War Liberals Frozen in the Headlights

[… ] The handwringer Samantha Power went even gushier in her blurb on the back cover: “Packer . . . cuts past the simplistic recriminations and takes us on an unforgettable journey that begins on a trail of good intentions and winds up on a devastating trail of tears.”

Trimmer Frank Rich, of The New York Times, settled for calling Packer’s book “essential,” and quoting it favorably in a column.

I think a better description of George Packer is “useful idiot,” as invoked by some Western anti-communists when they ridiculed liberals sympathetic to the ruthless Soviet state. Too harsh, you say? After all, “humanists” such as Packer, Power, and Michael Ignatieff signed on with the neo-conservative crowd for a “democracy-building” project in Iraq, not a proletarian overthrow of capitalism.

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25. JJB - 23 July 2008: Ambinder, and Yglesias for that matter, remind me of all the Bright Young Twits In A Big Hurry that Marty Peretz kept running through The New Republic. Now they’ve gotten older, and if they avoided being caught out for plagiarism or just plain making stuff up, they run publications like The Atlantic and hire the next wave of BYTIABH themselves. Which means that 10 years from now, the likes of Ambinder and Yglesias will be hiring yet another wave at whatever publications/websites they’ll be running.

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26. marisacat - 23 July 2008: Well, surely you were not expecting anything more from the sludge that passes for political commentary in this country. It is like asking the 6 year old ring bearer at a wedding to speak out against traditional marriage.

ALL of the shits who have been elevated supported the war going in. ALL OF THEM.

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27. marisacat - 23 July 2008: 24

They all make excuses for war. That, clearly, is their job.

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28. marisacat - 23 July 2008: Will check for the transcipt as well, but here is the YouTube on Turley on Conterspin….

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29. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 July 2008: Tortoise hates cats

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30. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 July 2008: she somehow misses the fact the Platonism is the metaphysical ground of political fascism.

I always suspected that my classical philosophy professor liked Plato so much for that very reason.

Speaking of fascism: TSA Agents Forced Woman To Remove Nipple Rings, Pulled Pants Off Disabled Man

In Chicago, people like Robert Perry are subjected to exhaustive security checks. He was patted down, his wheel chair was examined and his hands were swabbed, all in public view in a see-through room at the security checkpoint. Perry, 71, is not alone

“It’s humiliation,” Perry said.

Perry was also taken to a see-through room by a TSA agent when his artificial knee set off the metal detector.

“He yelled at me to get the belt off. ‘I told you to get the belt off.’ So I took the belt off. He ran his hands down over and pulled the pants down, they went down around my ankle,” Perry said.

At that point, Perry was standing in his underwear in public view. He asked to see a supervisor. That made things worse.

“She was yelling ‘I have power, I have power, I have power,” Perry said. The power to stop him from flying to Florida with his wife that day to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

“It makes you feel like you have no rights,” Perry said.

Who said you still did?

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31. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 July 2008: 14 – I suspect that they’re pushing the real collapse back until right after the elections, at which point the Bushies can push all kinds of disaster-capitalism-friendly horrors through a Congress that is all-too compliant. Gotta set things up so that the ultra-wealthy can buy up the rubble at a bargain.

The next 10 years are going to be VERY interesting times (in the sense of the supposed Chinese curse).

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32. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 July 2008: Keenan is a moron:

Obama got in a little trouble of his own on the issue earlier this month. In an interview with the Christian magazine Relevant, Obama seemed to suggest he was open to putting limits on health exceptions for later abortions.

“I have repeatedly said that I think it is entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions, as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother,” he said. “Now I don’t think that mental distress qualifies as health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, in which there would be real significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.”

That prompted a few complaints from feminists, including some who questioned Obama’s pro-choice voting record during his years in the Illinois State Senate. But mainstream groups such as NARAL and Planned Parenthood are essentially looking the other way.

NARAL’s Keenan called the comment one of those moments that “just happens” and that is misinterpreted. “He is right on the health exception, and he is right on reproductive choice, and he is going to be there for us 100 percent,” she said of Obama.

Well, probably not a moron, but rather a paid hack.

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33. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 July 2008: Novak’s hit and run victim worse than thought.

“I see something of an older gentleman in the crosswalk get hit. The black Corvette convertible take a right turn onto the K Street service road; the pedestrian rolls off to the left and the car speeds away,” he said.

Bono dismissed Novak’s assertion that he never say the struck pedestrian.

“There was a pedestrian splayed on his windshield — I don’t think there is anyway you can miss that,” Bono said.

Bono also said that the pedestrian was in a crosswalk and had the right of way.

Here’s the actual funny part of the story:

Novak admitted he was emotionally shaken by the incident.

RFLMAO … suuuurrrrre he is.

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34. marisacat - 23 July 2008: LOL I wondered when I would see Ob with a yarmulke. Just did… perched on his little appeaser’s head, at the Holocaust Memorial.

What a fucking crock of utter shit they roll out for us, over and over and over and over.

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35. marisacat - 23 July 2008: I just heard about the diesel oil accident just off NO… 450,000 lbs of coarse diesel oil.The accident split a tanker…

We got 58,000 (all they would admit to) and it was a godawful mess.

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36. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 July 2008: So, the non-impeachment hearing coming Friday … another probable scam, not that this is a surprise:

From pp 17-18 of The House Rules:

“Whenever it is asserted by a member of the committee that the evidence or testimony at a hearing may tend to defame, degrade, or incriminate any person, or it is asserted by a witness that the evidence or testimony that the witness would give at a hearing may tend to defame, degrade, or incriminate the witness- (A) notwithstanding paragraph (g)(2), such testimony or evidence shall be presented in executive session if, in the presence of the number of members required under the rules of the committee for the purpose of taking testimony, the committee determines by vote of a majority of those present that such evidence or testimony may tend to defame, degrade, or incriminate any person; and (B) the committee shall proceed to receive such testimony in open session only if the committee, a majority being present, determines that such evidence or testimony will not tend to defame, degrade, or incriminate any person.”

But, following this rule, you’d have to go into closed session to play a video of Bush confessing to violating FISA or a video of Bush being warned about Katrina or a video of Bush suggesting it didn’t much matter if his WMD lies were true. That is, statements that are in the public record would have to be kept “secret.” That pretty well describes the culture of Washington, D.C.

Clearly we need to be prepared for this hearing to be shut down quickly, much to Conyers’ great “regret.” And we need to demand a real impeachment hearing in which “executive privilege” does not apply and in which witnesses are permitted to speak.

Of course, this will be presented as something that can’t be helped, like the insurmountable Republican filibuster.

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37. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 July 2008: Willie Nelson agrees to Farm Aid-type event in support of Impeachment

Willie Nelson, speaking on the Alex Jones show, has just announced that he would be a driving factor in a new Farm Aid-type event that will focus on supporting Dennis Kucinich’s efforts to impeach george bush. It will also be an anti-war event. This plan is literally coming together as I type. Willie has just committed to it.

Mr. Nelson also believes that the event could be used as a platform for those who do not believe the government’s official story of 9/11 to speak out and let their feelings be known.

The event was conceived by a caller into the Alex Jones radio show just minutes ago who suggested that Willie back or organize the event as a way to take the efforts to impeach bush and advocate for a new 9/11 investigation, which is supported by the majority of victims’ families, to the next level.

The venue will be either in New York City or in Austin, Texas. Both Mr. Nelson and Mr. Jones agree that the event should be held soon so that it can be used as a way to enhance Congressman Kucinich’s efforts.

This is a developing story and is unfolding on air.

If anyone can pull this off and make the media pay attention, it’s Willie Nelson.

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38. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 July 2008: Loving Mint

Too often, fresh mint is relegated to tea-making (nice) and dessert-garnishing (mostly stupid), but it is far more versatile than that. Yesterday, the smaller leaves from half a bunch went into a salad. Today, there was chopped mint in our fish cakes – and a ton of it in the sauce that accompanied them (made from the milk in which the fish had been poached, thickened with a butter-and-flour roux and sharpened with a splash of white wine). We’ve eaten it with peas, of course, and in stuffed zucchini; when the tomatoes are worth buying we’ll be using it in place of basil, at least some of the time.

I used to have a Steven Raichlen cookbook with a fantastic mint recipe, and due to the wonder that is both of teh internets, here it is. I used to love this salad w/ a nice chicken breast and some good wine.

Black-Bean Salad With Feta Cheese And Mint

Wash the dry beans and soak them in cold water to cover overnight. The next day, drain the beans and place them in a pot with cold water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, or until tender. Refresh under cold water and drain. (For extra flavor, cook them with onion, carrot, celery and garlic.)

Combine the beans, onion, mint and most of the cheese in a bowl. Add the olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and mix well. Let the beans marinate for 10 minutes and toss again. Correct the seasoning before serving, adding salt and lemon juice to taste. Garnish with mint sprigs. Makes 4 to 6 servings

The ingredients are at the link. Oh, and I used to cheat and use drained Goya black beans out of a can when I was too lazy to cook the beans, which was most of the time.

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39. Madman in the Marketplace - 23 July 2008: new BAR: Obama (and Big Media) Turn Blind Eye to Israeli Apartheid

In this, it would be a mistake to believe that the Israeli tail is wagging the dogs of US presidential candidates and Big Media. The heavily militarized and nuclear armed state of Israel is entirely dependent upon US military aid, economic support, and political patronage. Israel is the direct recipient of more than six billion US tax dollars annually. Israel could not continue its brutal annexation policies, its militarized wall, its “settlement” of Palestinian lands or any of its other objectionable policies without the complete and bipartisan support of US ruling circles. For the US, Israel is a kind of offshore military base, a nuclear-armed white enclave in the middle of millions of brown people who sit atop a large share of the world’s most accessible oil.

Apartheid in South African was odious, to be sure. But apartheid South Africa was not of primary strategic or economic importance to the US. Apartheid Israel is.

US public opinion, like that in the rest of the world, persistently calls for a more just and even-handed US policy toward Israel-Palestine. But corporate media and the US political elite, including Barack Obama continue to ignore them. On this issue, as Salon’s Glen Greenwald writes, public opinion is pretty well irrelevant.

If, as some Obama supporters claim, there is a “movement” which he listens to, and which potentially influences his positions, this would be a good time and place for it to speak up. If they can’t or won’t, it’s one more piece of evidence that the Obama candidacy is as people-proof as any other corporate one, that there is and never was any “Obama movement” with an objective beyond November, and that Obama is just another brand name, like Monsanto, or Ford, or Exxon.

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40. marisacat - 23 July 2008: Poor Obama from the confused background (when you are dragging along your born again submit to Jesus church as your family, you are not grounded), so wants to be corporate… he’ll do anything.

That’s my take on him.

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41. marisacat - 24 July 2008: No shit… and Zbig should know:

Brzezinski wary of repeating Soviet experience

By Daniel Dombey in Washington

Published: July 20 2008 23:37 | Last updated: July 20 2008 23:37

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former US national security adviser and prominent supporter of Barack Obama, has warned the Democratic presidential candidate that he risks repeating the defeat suffered by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Mr Obama has called for up to 10,000 more US troops to be deployed in the country, where the USSR once sent tens of thousands of soldiers only to suffer cataclysmic military failure.

But in an interview with the Financial Times Mr Brzezinski warned: “It is important for US policy in general and for Obama more specifically to recognise that simply putting more troops into Afghanistan is not the entire solution . . . We are running the risk of repeating the mistake the Soviet Union made . . . Our strategy is getting in deeper and deeper.” ::snip::

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42. JJB - 24 July 2008: You’ll all be pleased to know that Max Mosley, son of the late Sir Oswald Mosley (a pal of Hitler and leader of the British Union of Fascists), has won his suit against the tabloid News Of The World. Seems they got wind of an SM orgy Max had arranged, smuggled a video camera into the flat where it was to take place, and ran a lot of stories about it, claiming that the affair was Nazi-themed:

The judge upheld the central argument made by Mr. Mosley and his lawyers in court and in the battle to save his job as president of the Paris-based Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, or F.I.A. that there had been no Nazi theme to the five-hour sex session in a Chelsea flat that was secretly filmed by the newspaper, and no issue of public interest in its decision to splash the story on its front page and to run video footage of the session on its Web site.

“I found that there was no evidence that the gathering of March 28, 2008, was intended to be an enactment of Nazi behavior or adoption of any of its attitudes. Nor was it in fact,” Justice Eady wrote in his judgment. He added: “I see no genuine basis at all for the suggestion that the participants mocked the victims of the Holocaust.”

The judge said the “bondage, beating and domination” that took place between Mr. Mosley and the five women involved, admitted by Mr. Mosley in court, had been “typical of S and M behavior.” But he added that Mr. Mosley had a “reasonable expectation” of privacy for sexual activities that took place on private premises and that did not involve breaches of the criminal law, and that he had a right to be spared the “embarrassment and distress” he had suffered as a result of the newspaper’s actions.

“There was no public interest or other justification for the clandestine recording, for the publication of the resulting information and still photographs, or for the placing of the video extracts on The News of the World Web site — all of this on a massive scale,” the judge said.

In another story I read about this matter a week or so back, Mosley stated that it was impossible for this frolic to have been enjoyable for him if a Nazi theme had been employed because his parents flirtation with Hitler’s regime made it a turn-off for him. Which in turn reminded me of a lawyer I used to work for, prep school and Princeton bred, who once used the phrase “that’s as boring as watching your parents (bleep).” Max apparently would concur.

Anyway, Max had the following to say:

Outside the court, the 68-year-old Mr. Mosley, who had testified that the newspaper story was “totally devastating” to his wife of 48 years and “humiliating” for his two sons, said he was delighted with the ruling, which he described as devastating to The News of the World.

“It demonstrates that their Nazi lie was completely invented and had no justification,” he said. “It also shows that they had no right to go into private premises and take pictures and film of adults engaged in activities which are no one’s business but those of the people concerned.”

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43. NYCee - 24 July 2008: Havent caught up on thread.

Just watching Obama talk in Germany.

Have the impression, about 15 minutes in… (I rewound, probably finished by now) that he is probably deflating some expectations. He strikes me as coming across rather stern and demanding… and all about the military and the cold war and 9/11, the bullets and blood shed, the sacrifice of war…

He is hawking greater partnership, but I would imagine that many there (and in the European community) may be feeling a cautionary note, as in, er, yeah well tell us we must sign on, but let’s see the fine print, first, okay mate.

I just have the feeling, because the image is so sparkling, they may have been expecting a more globally/spiritually evolved sorta cat than they got.

The initial applause seemed much more ebullient than what I hear as he goes on.

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44. NYCee - 24 July 2008: I saw Zig on this topic on Morning Joe yesterday. He was refreshingly clear and sensible on all fronts – Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I know what he did in Afghanistan… “Let the Soviets have their Vietnam” …

But that horrid idiocy aside, he, overall, tends to impress me quite often. If he and Carter could get into the inner circle, front row, it would be great. Wont happen, of course. Just saying.

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45. NYCee - 24 July 2008: Oh, was commenting on Brezezinski linked bit, #41.

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46. marisacat - 24 July 2008: Zbig cannot stand the Clintons… I used quite a few of his comments and quotes in 2006 against them. But Obama is not going to work out for Zbig, long run. I forget his exact title, advisor, but my guess would be not too close. Afterall, Ob must love the Israelis… and Zbig is not good news to them. Oh so tangled. Like a broken web.

AND it sounds to me like Dr Rice had a big hand in the Ob speech at Tiergarten. Years to go and I am sick to death of his stern lecturing. What a fucking PUTZ

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47. marisacat - 24 July 2008: CNN has the trasncript, as delivered (about half way down):

[T]hink about it. The terrorists of September 11th, plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi, before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil. As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the icecaps in the arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya. Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan, could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris. The Poppies in Afghanistan come to Berlin in the form of heroin. the poverty and violence in Somalia, breeds the terror of tomorrow. The genocide in Darfur, shames the conscious of us all.

…

This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to route the terrorists who threatened our security in Afghanistan and the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets. No one welcomes war. I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan. But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO’s first mission beyond U.S. borders is a success. For the people of Afghanistan and for our shared security, the work must be done. America can’t do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops. Our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda, to develop their economy and to help them rebuild their nation.

We have too much at stake to turn back now. This was the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons.
::snip::

There shall always be war.

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48. NYCee - 24 July 2008: Also, I wonder how many Americans were up there front and center in the crowd. There are a lot in Germany.

Someone from our media, cant recall who, maybe Andrea Mitchell, contrasted his positive European/German reception with Bush’s negative (no brainer!) by noting all the American flags waving. Possibly by… Americans?

I noted a lot of serious faces in the crowd, too. And he did not get big cheers for his war-heavy talking points. More on environment or his one concession to America making some mistakes.

Perhaps he should have left it at carefully controlled photo ops in the ME. Will be interesting to see what the German press has to say. As well as others, such as French…

Lol… Chuck Todd and others were saying this was a speech McCain could have signed off on and given.

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49. NYCee - 24 July 2008: New Poll: Israelis Prefer Obama

He’s edged out McCain, who has polled ahead of Obama, who made them feel more secure as a known entity – a hawk, who likes to bomb Iran and has Lieberman grafted to his hip. And who promised to keep up the “Move along, I see no occupation or oppression here!” ME policy of Bush. And no middle name Hussein.

It was taken before the visit. At first I thought Obama may have worked a little majik, given the non stop lovin of his stop over… The skillful dance atop the steep imbalance. For example, there was the outrage over the child harmed in Sderot by Gaza rockets (My little girls, if they were harmed, Id damn well … grrrrr! I feel yer pain, israel), but alas, there was not a Palestinian child to be found to get him lecturing the Israelis, not one who suffered from their guns, in the WB or Gaza.

When I saw him in his yarmulke at the wailing wall, I wondered what the prayer said, on the little paper stuffed into the wall.

Could be…

“Dear God, give the world peace.”

or

“Dear God, give me the world.”

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50. moiv - 24 July 2008: Excuse the irony. Operation Rescue is fundraising to send a missionary to China during the Olympics.

As the attention of the world turns to China for the Summer Olympics, God has opened an amazing door for us to send a missionary to Beijing to help expose China’s draconian abortion policies.

While there, our missionary will work with a Christian ministry in China that goes to the hospitals and combs the streets looking for babies that have survived forced abortions or who have been “thrown away” due to birth defects or their sex. These courageous men and women risk their freedom – and even their lives – to care for those precious babies.

We can’t tell you who the missionary is or the name of the brave group of Christians in China for safety reasons.

But in the post just below that one, they gleefully list the names of Dr. George Tiller’s entire staff, complete with photo gallery.

Operation Rescue has released the most up-to-date list of abortion clinic workers employed by George R. Tiller at his late-term abortion mill, Women’s Health Care Services, in Wichita, Kansas. The list includes twenty-two people, including three out-of-state abortionists who travel to Kansas to do abortions, including late-term procedures that are illegal in their home states.

“We are releasing this list of abortion workers in order to expose them to the community, and to elicit prayers for their repentance,” said Operation Rescue Senior Policy Advisor Cheryl Sullenger.

“As Christians, we are concerned about them as people, and understand that sometimes it takes ‘tough love’ to help someone see the destructive path they are taking, so that they can make the changes necessary to have a better life,” Sullenger said. “Most people who quit the abortion industry tell us that they are relieved to be out of that business, and say that leaving improved their lives.”

Convicted clinic bomber Cheryl Sullenger only wants to help.

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51. moiv - 24 July 2008: In other news, the doctors who fly in from other states to provide abortion care at South Dakota’s only remaining clinic seem to have taken a principled stand that leaves the clinic with no doctors at all — by refusing to tell patients that having an abortion will kill a “whole, separate, unique, living human being” and impel them to suicide.

Monday was the first day that Planned Parenthood, which operates the only abortion business in South Dakota, had to comply with a new state law telling women the truth about abortion. Rather than tell women abortion kills children and has numerous risks, Planned Parenthood closed its doors.

The state law, which the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld last week, required abortion practitioners to inform every woman that she is terminating the life of a human being.

It requires giving her information about the mental health complications such as a high risk of depression and suicide and physical problems like hemorrhage infection, premature births of subsequent pregnancies, and infertility.

The woman considering the abortion receives a chance to sign in writing that she received the information and abortion practitioners who don’t comply face losing their medical license, two years in prison and a possible medical malpractice lawsuit.

Whether the closing is temporary or permanent remains to be seen.

Dr. Allen Unruh, a leading pro-life advocate who works with Alpha Pregnancy Center, told LifeNews.com that Monday was a historic day.

“Time will tell if Planned Parenthood plans to re-open it’s doors, but as for now, the regular abortions were canceled today as the abortionist refused to show up,” he explained.

“We will see if any other abortionists plan to take the risks involved with full disclosure of what they do to women and their unborn children,” he added.

If Allen answered the phone, Leslee must have been out buying balloons for the party.

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52. marisacat - 24 July 2008: Also, I wonder how many Americans were up there front and center in the crowd. There are a lot in Germany.

hmm well reports are he shined on scheduled vists to Landstuhl and Ramstein air bases… probably a saunter thru the big hospital. Apparently there was a problem, you can tour as a sitting elected or you can tour with associates, but he wanted to go with political operatives. So he went to the gym.

Whatever.

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53. marisacat - 24 July 2008: 50

… brave group of christians?

spare me.

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54. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 July 2008: nobody exemplifies hypocrisy like the fundie does.

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55. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 July 2008: SUNBLOCKHEADS AT THE STADIUM
YANKS TAKE HEAT OVER BIZARRE BAN

Ladies and gentlemen, The Bronx is sunburning.

Yankee fans are seeing – and turning – red over a ban on sunscreen, which Stadium security guards say was widely expanded in the last few weeks.

Security guards collected garbage bags full of sunblock at the entrances to Yankee Stadium over the sweltering weekend, when temps hit 96 degrees and the UV index reached a skin-scorching 9 out of 10 – a move team officials said was to protect the Stadium from terrorism.

But fans baking in the bleachers and upper deck argued that the sun may be a bigger threat than Osama bin Laden.

“I was really pissed because, since I am Irish and I have a bald head, I need my sunblock,” said Sean Gavin, 40, who had to toss his SPF 30 at the gate Saturday.

“After they saw me dousing myself with it, it should have been obvious to them that it was sunblock and not some explosive.”

The team contends that sunscreen has long been on the list of stadium contraband, but there is no mention of it on the Yankee Web site.

Four weeks ago, Stadium officials decided that sunscreen of all sizes and varieties would not be permitted, a security supervisor told The Post before last night’s game.

“There have been a lot of complaints,” he said. “We tell them to apply once and then throw it out.”

Keep them safe, or cash in?

The Stadium does sell 1-ounce bottles of Arizona Sun SPF 15 for $5 – a huge markup that makes its beer seem cheap.

Dermatologists said that, security concerns or not, leaving 56,000 fans unprotected from potential skin cancer is “very dangerous.”

“This is especially bad for children, as their younger skin is particularly sensitive,” said Dr. Babar Rao, a specialist at the Skin and Cancer Center of New York. “Sunblock needs to be reapplied every two hours, even if you are not swimming in the ocean or pool.”

What is more American than extorting padded profits by exploiting fear?

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56. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 July 2008: Statement of Bruce Fein Before the House Judiciary Committee Re Impeachment – Prepared Remarks for July 25, 2008

He closes with:

In “Federalist 65”, Alexander Hamilton explained that impeachments would proceed “from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from abuse of violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be dominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done to society itself.” There is no more important task for this Committee than restoring the constitutional equilibrium among the three branches that the Founding Fathers fashioned based on their unsurpassed insight into human nature and the inexorable degeneration of unchecked power into tyranny.

Tomorrow will be a potemkin hearing, sadly, but Fein and others like him keep plugging away.

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57. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 July 2008: The Shadow of His Smile

In politics as in pop, legions of little girls jumping out of their panties can’t be wrong. That’s the vital lesson so far of Election ’08. I watched a throng of them in November 2006, teenagers in their short skirts and breathlessness, jumping and jittering, hands to cheeks, screaming for Barack Obama. White and black, they crowded to the front of a rally for Jim Webb in the onetime capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia. Jim who? One of the white girls awkwardly told me that she didn’t really know anything about the beet-faced warrior for the white working class running for the Senate, and she wasn’t really there to find out. Obama hadn’t come there to say much about the candidate or Virginia or even that year’s election, either. He glided across the stage like a crooner, one slender hand gracing the microphone, the other extending long fingers to trace the imagined horizon of his hopes and dreams. He must have talked for thirty minutes. It didn’t matter what he said; he smiled a thousand watts, put a little Southern sugar in his voice and mentioned his mama. Webb steamed in the wings as the girls keened, and from somewhere in the crowd grown-ups started calling out, “Obama for President.” He wasn’t yet a candidate. He was Frank Sinatra, so cool he’s hot, a centrifugal force commanding attention so ruthlessly that it appeared effortless, reducing everyone around him to a sidekick, and the girls in the front rows to jelly.

OMFG … and no, she doesn’t appear to be kidding, though I like the idea of Webb fuming while the good-looking black guy steals his thunder.

When he leaned into Michelle as she wrapped her arms around him from behind after the New Hampshire loss, when she cradles his face in her expressive hands while kissing him, with every dap and nuzzle and palpable vibe between them, “you see love onstage,” said Harriette Cole of Ebony, the first in a long line of popular magazines to certify the two as a “hot couple.” The right will no doubt try again to paint Michelle as a bomb-thrower and might mine the vein of white fear of unbridled black sexuality that Barack prospected disturbingly close to when he scolded black fathers. But it’s hard to see smears trumping the desire of millions of people for the promise of the most conservative thing in the world, a happy marriage. For youth the image of hot married love stokes the fantasy that maybe one day… For marrieds, it raises the notion that maybe this is the best sex they’ll get. For Christians eager to sell the marriage bed as pleasure dome, it affirms that this is the best sex there is. Even homosexuals have a place inside the magic circle now that Obama has come out against California’s anti-gay marriage proposition. All in all, a wholesome package as Barack and Michelle make America cool and marriage cool by making both sexy, or at least ready for their close-up.

I hope none of you were eating before you read that.

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58. marisacat - 24 July 2008: Again with the sunblock (not) we are just certifiable. Ridiculous. The nation that took its shoes off FOR NOTHING… and dumped its sunblock FOR NOTHING.

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59. marisacat - 24 July 2008: 57

well I saw a lot of him, as the Democrats shoved him out on the stump, for everyone and their brother, in 2005/6. And he was awkward, dull and he barked at the audience. The nadir, imo, was when he repeatedly begged people to vote for Harold Jr in TN, “so I won’t be the only black in the senate”.

Geesh. Fucking hell. And then LOL it did not work.

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60. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 July 2008: Perrin on the arrest of Radovan Karadzic:

… liberals might very well get a chance to be pro-war all over again.

As far as Karadzic goes, I pretty much concur with Richard Seymour, a Verso stable-mate whose latest book, “The Liberal Defense of Murder,” is an English bookend of sorts to “Savage Mules.” One needn’t condone nor attempt to explain away Serbian state violence in order to see the larger imperial picture. In a world run by mass murderers and war criminals of impeccable stature, Karadzic is small potatoes, an easy way to excuse or even deny far worse violence committed by those who’ll never face a “human rights” tribunal. If the man is truly guilty, then an open, unbiased court should have no trouble convicting him. But then, that’s not how “humanitarian” justice operates, not on the world stage, anyway. Perhaps soon Karadzic will dangle from the end of a noose, a la Saddam, with self-satisfied liberals dancing around his feet, tossing dead flowers at his stiffening corpse. And you thought the Sixties were over!

Meanwhile, here in the States, we have a different way of remembering our ethnic cleansers and war criminals. JFK and Ronald Reagan have had major airports and aircraft carriers named after them, as has Harry Truman, whose vessel features the MK 41 Vertical Launching System, its Sea Sparrow missiles boasting annular blast fragmentation warheads, 90 pounds Proximity fuzed, continuous expanding rod, with a 27 ft. kill radius. Not quite Hiroshima-Nagasaki force, but it’ll get the towelheads’ attention. Woodrow Wilson has an International Center for Scholars that celebrates his legacy. But for me, the best and most democratic example of war criminal remembrance is perhaps in your pocket this very moment.

Our very own Milosevic, Andrew Jackson. He doesn’t go as far as he used to, but you can still get a filling meal at Taco Bell and receive plenty of change. I think the old Indian killer would appreciate that.

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61. marisacat - 24 July 2008: I thought it was pretty obvious how the Great No KIA/US nationals Democratic War of the late 90s just popped right up again.

I even heard a segment, not sure where, on how “we protected the Muslims”.

There really are no words left for the manipulation, at the point of a bombing foray.

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62. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 July 2008: It’s just so sadly predictable.

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63. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 July 2008: PJ Myers over at Pharyngula has finally posted his threatened desecration of the ~~body of xrist~~ that stupid cracker:

I wonder how many of our Catholic friends have heard of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215? This is the event where many of their important dogmas were codified, including the ideas of Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, that the Eucharist was the sacrament that only properly ordained priests of the Catholic church could give, and that the Jews were a pariah people, who could hold no public office, had to pay a special Jew tax for their right to exist, and were required to wear special clothing to distinguish them from Christians. The yellow badge marking the Juden was not an invention of the Nazis, but a decree by faithful Catholics in the Middle Ages. That’s an interesting juxtaposition, that a symbol of Christian exceptionalism was formalized at the same time that they formally decreed the Jews to be inferior, and a target of hatred.

That combination was useful, too. Declare something cheap, disposable, and common to be imbued with magic by the words of a priest, and the trivial becomes a powerful token to inflame the mob — why, all you have to do is declare a bit of bread to be the most powerful and desirable object in the world, and even if it isn’t, you can pretend that the evil other is scheming to deprive the faithful of it. Now you could invent stories of Jews and witches taking the communion host to torture, to make Jesus suffer even more, and good Catholics would of course rise in horror to defend their salvation. None of the stories were true, of course — Jews and infidels see no power at all in those little crackers, and the idea that they were obsessing over obtaining a non-sacred, powerless, pointless relic is ludicrous — but heck, it’s a cheap excuse to make accusations illustrated by cheesy woodcuts of hook-nosed Jews hammering nails into communion wafers and lurid tales of blood-spurting crackers and hosts that pulsed like and beating heart, and thereby providing a pretext to encourage massacres.

After sharing more history, and several of the nutty missives he received in protest, he posts a picture of his “blasphemy” and closes with:

OK, time for the anticlimax. I know some of you have proposed intricate plans for how to do horrible things to these crackers, but I repeat…it’s just a cracker. I wasn’t going to make any major investment of time, money, or effort in treating these dabs of unpleasantness as they deserve, because all they deserve is casual disposal. However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel. My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt.

By the way, I didn’t want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur’an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanity’s knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.

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64. bayprairie - 24 July 2008: moiv cited

Monday was the first day that Planned Parenthood, which operates the only abortion business in South Dakota, had to comply with a new state law telling women the truth about abortion.

without knowing the bill, or the tally, i’d still bet five bucks this new law was passed with the willing assistance of 50% of the democratic party state senators.

anyone wanna take that bet?

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65. marisacat - 24 July 2008: When I read the comment on Karadjic… I was trying to remember earlier to day WHO it was I just heard Holbrooke compare YET AGAIN to Hitler… and it was Karadjic and just for extra Iran points, he threw in Mahmoud of Iran. It was on TNH on the last couple fo days.

It is SO FUCKING OLD. Plus that disgusting pompous killer voice that Holbrooke usses. Ob must admire it… I would bet anything.

Well they writhed, a bit, for our presumtive to day in Berlin, but Merkel won’t be sending any fodder to Afghanistan. hmm Not unless we manage a deal whereby they get the Congo, or some other toy.

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66. marisacat - 24 July 2008: 64

I agree. At the time of the SD mess, in … wll when ever it was… they got a lot fo the Dems in the state house. And iirc one o f the leaders on that bullshit was Bartlett, or Bartly… something like that, a woman Dem in the assembly, or what ever SD calls it.

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67. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 July 2008: Obama Will Run Ads During Olympics

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68. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 July 2008: Venn diagram of all of the various Bush Justice Dept scandals.

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69. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 July 2008: speaking of the Dakotas, good on Byron Dorgan:

· Native American women are far more likely to be raped than other women — and tribal officials say many incidents on reservations across the country go unreported and uninvestigated, NPR’s Laura Sullivan reported a year ago on All Things Considered.

The Justice Department estimates that 1 in 3 Native American women will be raped in her lifetime, and most victims who do report their assaults describe their attackers as non-Native. Legally, tribal authorities can do little to stop them. Chickasaw Tribal Police Chief Jason O’Neal told NPR in 2007 that “many of the criminals know Indian lands are almost a lawless community that they can do whatever they want.”

For the past year, the Senate has held hearings on reservations nationwide on how to stop the assaults. The resulting legislation, called the Tribal Law and Order Act, was introduced in the Senate on Wednesday by Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, who is chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Dorgan’s bill has three primary goals. First, it would make it easier for tribal police like O’Neal to arrest non-Indians who commit federal crimes on tribal lands, including sexual assault. Second, it would increase the sentencing power of tribal courts by allowing them to put convicted tribal members behind bars for three years instead of one — and even send them to federal prison. Third, the bill would increase accountability for U.S. attorneys by requiring them to keep a record of every case on tribal lands they decline to prosecute.

“I think now the women finally have a voice,” said Georgia Littleshield, director of the Pretty Bird Woman House domestic violence shelter on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in South Dakota.

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70. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 July 2008: I hadn’t even heard of this:

Big Pharma Pushes Drugs That Cause Conditions They Are Supposed to Prevent

Like gastroesophageal reflux and bipolar disease, osteopenia began to inflict millions when a drug to treat it was patented.

“Osteopenia, or the risk of developing osteoporosis, was concocted as a disease at a World Health Organization osteoporosis conference in Rome in 1992 that was sponsored by two drug companies and a drug company foundation,” writes Susan Kelleher in the Seattle Times.

Using the bone density measurements or “T scores” of a 30-year-old woman as a standard, the new condition, osteopenia, had “boundaries so broad they include more than half of all women over 50,” writes Kelleher. And it didn’t hurt that 10,000 bone density measuring machines appeared in doctors’ offices to detect the new disease — only 750 existed in 1995 — many owned and financed by Merck, whose anti-bone-thinning drug Fosamax came online in 1995.

No wonder doctor visits for thinning bones increased by 5 million from 1994 to 2003, according to the Associated Press.

Of course, selling “prevention” to at-risk patients is a pharma gold mine.

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71. moiv - 24 July 2008: 54/66

The name of the loyal Democratic sister in question is Julie Bartling, who was the official sponsor of the 2006 ban.

This latest travesty isn’t an altogether new statute, but one whose implementation has been delayed by court challenges. The 8th Circuit now officially approves.

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72. moiv - 24 July 2008: These are fun.

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73. bayprairie - 24 July 2008: its a sucker’s bet, of course. my five buck profit was a sure thing.

bill number 1166, 2005 session.

Kloucek – Excused – Dem.

Hanson (Gary) – Yea – Dem.
Moore – Yea – Dem.
Peterson (Jim) – Yea – Dem.
Sutton (Dan) – Yea – Dem.
Bartling – Yea – Dem.
Koetzle – Yea – Dem.

Hundstad – Nay – Dem.
Nesselhuf – Nay – Dem.
Two Bulls – Nay – Dem.

in south dakota women have a bipartisan legislature mucking about between their legs.

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74. Madman in the Marketplace - 24 July 2008: Jane Mayer will be on Moyers Friday night.

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75. marisacat - 24 July 2008: When the 8th circuit came down iwth that, Ron Owens on KGO spent an hour on it… He is reliably middle/right of the road (no real issues with Arnold, for instance) but for social issues.

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76. marisacat - 24 July 2008: 74

thanks for the tip!

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77. marisacat - 24 July 2008: Life is tough…. from spiegel online

Reactions to the almost 30-minute speech hit both extremes. “It was excellent, not good, but excellent,” said Henry Aikins, 63, a pensioner from Berlin, though originally from Ghana. “It was good he didn’t just talk about America, but Africa and other continents as well. … He really moved me in my heart.”

Anton Kliegl, however, a 50-year-old managing consultant from Regensburg, didn’t see things that way. “In general I have to say I was a bit disappointed,” Kliegl said. “The coverage of the primaries created this impression that he was an amazing speaker who could carry away his audience. He didn’t do that tonight. I really expected more.”

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78. bayprairie - 24 July 2008: “In general I have to say I was a bit disappointed,” Kliegl said. “The coverage of the primaries created this impression that he was an amazing speaker who could carry away his audience.

barryO was all tuckered out from the sunrise circumcision.

next time though, the black johnathan edwards!

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79. marisacat - 24 July 2008: Speaking of Edwards, the “story” is working its way thru the media.

LOL Ob is only occasionally an orator. Jesus juice gets him going. They got pretty much his standard today. Kinda halting and often FLAT.

Oh well. Life is hard.

One thing about him, not a ton of stamina. He looked half asleep in the interview iwth Couric… and think that was the day he commented he ”could fall asleep standing up”. Oh, the joys if sinking us in deeper ub Afghanistan will re-energise the fella.

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80. CSTAR - 25 July 2008: Strange, I have associated the victory column to Wim Wenders “The Wings of Desire”. Certainly a more poetic and substantial work than Obama’s speech. I highly recommend it. (the movie that is)

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81. marisacat - 25 July 2008: [New] Labour lost big in Glasgow East – in a by election, to SNP. Lenin at Lenin’s Tomb takes the hint: Brown is finished.

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82. marisacat - 25 July 2008: 80

yes iirc it is at the close of the movie, which I loved.

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83. marisacat - 25 July 2008: Democrats should shake in their [recently] gilded shoes… as they have no answers either… but to push a thin resume and claim no one should criticism him. WHAT FUCKING BUNK.

From Lenin’s Tomb

Everybody knows by now that Glasgow East is an overwhelmingly working class constituency, with life expectancy in some areas lower than in Gaza. Unemployment is well above the national average: 10% for men over 25, 25% for women. It contains Shettleston, the most deprived area in Britain according to the UN. This is a place where even the Tory candidate was a trade union branch secretary. This is Labour turf, has been for generations, and it has stuck with Labour during the worst of the Blair years, through gritted teeth. A little bit of imagination should tell you something about the combination of fury and heartbreak that produced a 23% swing to an SNP candidate with no profile, no charisma and not much in the way of policy.

Not only does the government have no solution for those squeezed by soaring food and fuel prices but to scrap the winter fuel allowance and abolish the 10p tax rate, they decide to go after those on benefits while allowing criminal companies to engage in tax evasion.

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84. marisacat - 25 July 2008: LOL, and where does this emit from? None other than one of the bigger Obama slobberer, TNR.

Reporters who have covered Obama’s biography or his problems with certain voter blocs have been challenged the most aggressively. “They’re terrified of people poking around Obama’s life,” one reporter says. “The whole Obama narrative is built around this narrative that Obama and David Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it’s not entirely true. So they have to be protective of the crown jewels.” Another reporter notes that, during the last year, Obama’s old friends and Harvard classmates were requested not to talk to the press without permission.

That’s not all, I have read, at least out here in the west, that campaign volunteers are not allowed to speak to the press.

It may take years, or it may blow quicker, but it will blow up.

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85. marisacat - 25 July 2008: Way too much is made of slippery national polls in June and July. But this, esp MN, should worry the Obs.

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86. marisacat - 25 July 2008: Too funny… I think TNR is doing some ass cover for later. Not to worry! The Obs are good at helium production. ‘Til, of course, they cannot get it up. I suggest they work like little forest animals with big sharp teeth, cuz I don’t want to hear the fucking whining.

Acerbic of me? Oh you bet.

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87. Madman in the Marketplace - 25 July 2008: 80 – I love that movie.

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88. Madman in the Marketplace - 25 July 2008: the faker he is, the greater the letdown, and there is nothing that so-called “liberals” and “progressives” need is a good, solid, rough slap in their collective faces. Might wake a few up. Probably not many, but some.

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89. Heather-Rose Ryan - 25 July 2008: PZ Myers is a twit. He’s a big supporter of the idiot “DarkSyde” over at the Orange place.

He thinks he’s a brilliant intellectual because he’s figured out that evolution is a better theory than whatever the religious nutcases have put forward.

Yawn.

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90. Heather-Rose Ryan - 25 July 2008: 80/82 – yes, one of the all-time great movies. I prefer the original title, “Heaven over Berlin”

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91. Heather-Rose Ryan - 25 July 2008: working upward – 72, those are a howl.

My favorite such sign was on the Upper West Side several years ago:

“Pizza to Go in Rear”

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92. Heather-Rose Ryan - 25 July 2008: 86- Dang, MCat, you are such a harsh female! I am shocked! You might even possibly be a lesbian homophobe! I am reporting you to the authorities.

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93. marisacat - 25 July 2008: oh no!

I am a lesbian homophobe racist.

LOL someone dropped me an email jokingly offering marriage, that I am just too unique to pass up.

What a hoot!

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94. CSTAR - 25 July 2008: 72 Hilarious. Good laugh.

That first sign on the list I suspect was in Macao. Someone who spoke a little Portuguese translated “grávida” as “gravid” instead of pregnant. BTW though many (if not all) official signs in Macao have Portuguese translations. Portuguese is almost useless there as I discovered a few years back. Fortunately, my wife can speak Cantonese (I have pretensions of learning Mandarin, but they’re mostly just that)

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95. NYCee - 25 July 2008: PP in SD must tell women the truth about abortion?

Yay! That must be a good thing!

(Draw yer brakes, Scottie!/// Stops. Adjusts rear view mirror. Uh oh.)

Impeachment Friday!!!!

Yay! That must be a good thing!

(Draw yer brakes, Scottie!/// Stops. Adjusts rear view mirror. Uh. Oh.)

I see a PelosiMobile, I do.

And me, I am a hopeful person. (Yes, I have a strong hope gene, very durable.) Still, while the road behind us may be past us, it aint a mirage… and as for the road ahead, well, I see all sorts of speed bumps, really huge ones… Hey, one looks exactly like John Conyers!

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96. ms_xeno - 25 July 2008: #57:

Well, it’s settled. You can do anything you want in this country if you remember to be born tall and good-looking. Let’s hope Kucinich remembers that on his next go-round.

So much for getting out of High School. The mentality starts the day you’re born and persists until the day you die.

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97. marisacat - 25 July 2008: Jesus Fucking Christ. It could have been written by a 12 year old.

Lord,

Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins and help me guard against pride and despair.

Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just.

And make me an instrument of your will.

Ma’arive has printed it.. a Yeshiva student pulled it from the wall. I ask you IS NOTHING SACRED?

[Ben Smith has a pic of it… and the Rabbi of The Wall condemned its publication. Surely Great God could have PREVENTED IT?]

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98. marisacat - 25 July 2008: Of course, I am laughing like hell.

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99. JJB - 25 July 2008: The person Novakula hit with his PrinceOfDarknessMobile is 86 years old, and homeless. Fortunately, after a night in the hospital, he seems to be okay, relatively speaking. It seems that Novakula also ran a red light and collided with another vehicle 4 years ago. TMZ is on his case, which he might find more of a problem than the authorities.

W/r/t the supposed “Good War” we are fighting in Afghanistan . . . US airstrikes have killed 78 civilians this month. According to UN and Afghan officials, “In the first six months of this year, the number of civilians killed in fighting has increased by nearly 40 percent over the same period last year, according to U.N. data.”

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100. CSTAR - 25 July 2008: 97. I thought that was supposed to work like the pneumatic tubes of Paris of old. You put it in, and whish it was delivered up in heaven.

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101. marisacat - 25 July 2008: Afpak will be ramping up. Ob is on the line the Jesus right now.

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102. raincat100 - 25 July 2008: On CSPAN now — Constitutional Limits of Executive Power
Judiciary.

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103. JJB - 25 July 2008: Forgot the link to the Afghanistan story I quoted.

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104. NYCee - 25 July 2008: There are some astute commenters sprinkled amidst the gushers on NYTimes and Times of London blogs, re the Obama Berlin speech.

From Germany, Uk, Canada.

They were not impressed.

I’m digging this last one I read, a Mr CHUCKMAN, from Canada.

Obama in Berlin: We’re a People of Improbable Hope

#418.July 25th,20088:38 am

There are some fine phrases, but I am disappointed overall.

Obama, sadly, felt the need to emphasize his American identity and his love of country.

What else could he be but American? He comes as an American candidate. He sounds like an American. He talks from an American perspective. He didn’t need this weak, saccharine-flavored emphasis.

As far as the love of country, hasn’t the world had enough of American jingoism?

It has been nothing but a source of pain and injury to others, death and destruction on a rather massive scale from the holocaust in Vietnam to the destruction of Iraq.

And there is something painfully embarrassing about the need to tell crowds you love your country. It really reminds me of the urges of Fundamentalist Christians to declare their love of the Lord.

That Puritan strain seems to drench, almost like cheap cologne, much of America’s communications, from info-mercials for mops to policy speeches abroad.

Do other foreign leaders come to America and make featured speeches about their love of Britain or France or China?

At least he spared us a team of baton-twirling girls in red, white, and blue sequined panties.

Obama’s line about finding the future for the children was ghastly stuff. Where do you hide a future?

— Posted by JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO

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105. Intermittent Bystander - 25 July 2008: 101 – Operator !

Meanwhile, neatly avoiding the continental kisses of common frogs, O determined that a brief rendezvous at the palace will suffice.

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106. marisacat - 25 July 2008: LOL

Gallup daily tracking, 45 / 43 advantage Ob.

No matter what, he’ll always have Paris.

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107. marisacat - 25 July 2008: 105

Yes he and Sarko are clearly enamored.

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108. NYCee - 25 July 2008: Here are a few post from the Times Online, Barack Obama – the world can expect better of America

Every time I listen to Obama speak, I’m half expecting him to ask us all to repent for our sins, put all our faith in the forgiveness of The Lord and make a donation by calling the number appearing on our screens…

Jafius, London, UK

Lol. That was the first one out of the gate.

Lots of gushies, like this slight exageration (and how many flagwavers were German? Of the 20 or so? Ugh)

It’s refreshing to see that 200,000+ people waving US flags. I haven’t seen that in such a long time! What a nice change from people burning it-thanks to the Bush administration!

Ann, Pasadena, CA, USA

But, as antidote:

Barack Obama has not yet spoken against poverty as the theme for action in the world if he gets into the White House. That must be the only theme. Yet he has not made it his. Which shows the real poverty of the politics that Obama so far has represented. The prospects therefore are equally poor.

Muhammad Haque, London, UK

If Obama was attempting to appear presidential, he was not convincing. The speech was boring and filled with facts that most of us have read in history textbooks. Not a great orator as has been purported. The notable lines were remarks however that Europeans should remember should he win in November

KBB, Vienna,

German online newspapers are full of sarcastic comments about Obama’s speech, due to its simple-mindedness in content and language – this definitely can’t be described as a success…

Anja Mueller, Loerrach/London,

Germans are not stupid. We’ve all been watching it, me, my family, my neighbours. We were open and happy but our preliminary hopes soon faded after we listened to nothing but superficial statements.

Obama, I think those 200,000 who watched, they liked you this morning, but don’t respect you now.

Ferdinand Schneider, Potsdam, Germany

Are there not strict rules about electioneering prior to the US Presidential election? Relevant times and the costs involved.Is he allowed to hold forth like this.
He tried to speak at the Brandenberg Gate but Merkel thankfully vetoed it.
Are there limits on cash quotas for electioneering now?

james allen, manchester, england

So earnest. So heartfelt. From one autocue to another. Brings a tear to the eye. As prepared, groomed and fake as the next man.

s garrod, watford, UK,

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109. Intermittent Bystander - 25 July 2008: Bruce Fein at Conyers hearing talking about permanent war.

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110. NYCee - 25 July 2008: I think I heard SloMo (Conyers) say Vincent Bugliosi is speaking at the hearing on “impeachment/off the table”

Also Fein and Holtzman, who have been indefatigable on the issue. I saw them at Judson Church, a few months ago, along with Scott Horton.

Barr just spoke.

Now Rocky Anderson, Salt Lake City mayor. Talking about our torture and rendition. American people havent heard about suffering people subjected to by “monstrous” acts… Indefinite detention without a hearing, grave violations of treaties, etc… Wow

Yeah, Rocky! Says “Congress must meet its responsibility.

Never been a more compelling case for impeachment.”

Now he is saying no attacking Iran, Congress must declare (take responsibility)…

Oh dude, you are hitting every mark.

xoxoxo!

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111. Heather-Rose Ryan - 25 July 2008: Comment from the Ben Smith blog:

Disgusting thing for the student to do but shows that he really is a Christian | July 25, 2008 at 10:06 AM

Yeah, nothing says “Christian” quite like the Wailing Wall.

The stupidity of people continues to astound.

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112. raincat100 - 25 July 2008: Interesting moment for “audio difficulties” sheesh.

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113. Intermittent Bystander - 25 July 2008: Live blogging of hearing at AfterDowningStreet.org (Hat tip to sabrina at pff.)

Link.

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114. Intermittent Bystander - 25 July 2008: Fein: You don’t need an archaeological expedition to uncover these crimes. They are open and notorious. The president went on national TV and national radio and said “I flouted the FISA law.”

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115. marisacat - 25 July 2008: The president is proud of what he has done. Clear for years, all you have to do is listen to him/them/and the new wannabes too… 😉

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116. NYCee - 25 July 2008: The Parade of ‘Shrill, Unserious Extremists’ on Display at Today’s Impeachment Hearing

Greenwald on impeachment. Below, on Cass Sunstein (Betrothed to the “Brilliant” Samantha Powers, another “brilliant” Obama TOP advisor… )

Jane also asked Fein about Obama adviser Cass Sunstein’s recent statements that Bush officials should not be prosecuted for their illegal detention, interrogation and spying programs. To get a sense for why this matters, National Journal this morning listed Sunstein as one of a small handful of likely Supreme Court appointees in an Obama administration. But — similar to Fein’s point regarding Jay Rockefeller, Jane Harman and comrades — Sunstein has long been one of the most vocal enablers of Bush radicalism and lawlessness, having continuously offered himself up over the last seven years to play the legal version of the TNR role of “even-liberal-Cass-Sunstein-agrees-with-Bush.”

During my Democracy Now debate with him, Sunstein said: “I’d be honored but surprised if the military commissions cite some of my academic articles.” But as Talk Left’s Armando documented, Sunstein would be an ideal and highly likely “legal scholar” for the Bush administration to cite as part of its military tribunals, as Sunstein was an early and outspoken supporter of the theory that Bush had the authority to order military commissions (a theory which the Supreme Court rejected in Hamdan). Identically, while Sunstein now pretends to disagree with Bush’s theory as to why he had the power to spy on Americans in violation of the law (Sunstein said on Democracy Now: “while I agree with Senator Feingold that the President’s position is wrong”), Sunstein defended those theories as “very reasonable” when he was on right-wing talk radio with Hugh Hewitt in late 2005 during the height of the NSA controversy.

It’s really hard to imagine a worse person on whom Obama could be relying as a legal adviser, let alone a potential Supreme Court nominee, and here is what Fein had to say about Sunstein’s view of things:

Lots of links within, including video of Fein on Sunstein.

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117. NYCee - 25 July 2008: Oh, not “betrothed” but wed to… sorry for the world ending factual error.

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118. marisacat - 25 July 2008: nu thred……….

LINK

………… 8) ……………

[NYCee, I moved your Sunstein comment forward to the post]

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119. marisacat - 25 July 2008: CA banned transfats. First in the nation to ban it as a state.

I think they should just issue us baby bottles. Pink nipples for girls and blue nipples for boys. No exchanging either. And no guzzling from the baby bottle while driving.

gah. what next.

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