Is there anything much left to say? 8 October 2008
Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.trackback
“This isn’t a time for fear or panic. This is a time for resolve and leadership. I know that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis. Because that’s who we are. Because this is the United States of America.”
Obama – today – out on the hustings – Indiana State Fairgrounds – preaching to humanity on the hoof
*****
This did at least give me a hoot:
An amused RNC spokesman sends around this clip from a Joe Biden rally in Tampa, at which he was s introduced as “the next Vice President of the United States, Joe McCain.”
Sums it up!
^^^^^^^^^^^
Mogadishu
BAR put up a story on AfriCOM (seems to be the latest large cap/small cap mix around!) and there are stories that, just this past week, the US is honing in on Tan-Tan Morocco for a base… OR! Luanda Angola.. mebbe. Denials froth forth.
[E]vidently, keeping Africa barefoot, hungry, sick and at war with itself is good for American business. During the bloody Congolese war, in which the US supported armies of nine nations invaded and pillaged the Congo killing at least five million of its inhabitants, US policy was focused on keeping the timber, gold, titanium, and other strategic minerals flowing to the US and its allies, regardless of the civilian death toll. At the same time, a conflict in Darfur, with somewhere between one twentieth and one fiftieth of the Congo’s death toll has rallied the bipartisan US foreign policy establishment to call for open US military involvement in Darfur, perhaps because some of Sudan’s oil is going to China.
Africans are not fools, and despite the clamor of a few of the continent’s most discredited and craven regimes to locate Africom in their countries, probably as the ultimate insurance against coups and revolutions, Africom has not yet found an African host country. Most African governments fear being labeled as abject stooges of Africom. They fear the wrath of their own people, which is as it should be. […]
William “Kip” Ward, Commander of AFRICOM, in Luanda last week.
[W]ard has already backed down from the goal to establish his headquarters in Africa, which is a symbolic defeat. The headquarters remains at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany for the foreseeable future. He will still have a large base in the Horn of Africa, which will likely serve as AFRICOM forward. (At the same time Congress cut funding an AFRICOM headquarters, it increased funding for expanding the base in Camp Lemonier in Djibouti.)
Additionally, the command has had to re-emphasize its role in bringing stability to Africa through military training. This is a very different message than the “hearts and minds” message it was initially promoting. In my view, it was a mistake to overplay the development dimension of the command, which provoked ire from the traditional development community who can do these jobs much more cheaply and effectively than the U.S. military can.
There are traditional military missions to be performed in Africa and AFRICOM should not run away from these. It can train and deploy African Union peacekeepers to combat genocide in Darfur and Congo. It can train and equip regional coast guards to interdict piracy to prevent regional security fallout from weak states like Somalia. It can facilitate maritime safety and security in West Africa to help staunch the illicit trafficking of drugs, weapons, and people that are a threat to Europe.
[It is ready to fuel WAR! — Mcat]
Along these lines, Ward has urged leaders to be patient and judge the command by the legacy programs it will continue and the new missions it will conduct. He is working to field diplomats, builders, and guardians, not warfighters. The command will help partner countries control their borders, deploy peacekeepers to conflict zones, and develop the capacity to make peace with neighboring countries. […]
America is lining up her ducks. Picking her new war colors… And I won’t fool myself, as some media wants me to… that we “can’t afford more war”. I heard Americans, the past few weeks, agree over and over to scale back. Did they mention war? To be scaled back? No.
I doubt, by now, many Americans really care, at all, about bin Laden. The government surely does not and never did, imo. But he is the live rabbit at the end of the stick, as our tired greyhound bodies pound out the distance.
What a mess.
Marisacat 
Saw this on Calculated Risk. Is it being reported anywhere else?
From Radio Telefis Eireann:
wow no… but I had noticed that Hang Seng took a bigger hit than other Asian markets.
Thanks for posting that NYCO.
I would call that real, official, bank run and panic.
Actually, the Nikkei was down 9% plus. but it’s hard to imagine Japanese folks rioting.
I googled Hong+Kong+lehman+riots
Found an AP report at a bulletin board, but without a link:
From the last thread:
#118 LC…. got a friend of a friend, crazy as a shithouse rat but witchy as hell… said, in June, this winter is gonna be a real bitch. Who knows….
More afghans! Must crochet!
To be fair, I had stepped outside earlier and saw chunks of white stuff falling from the sky. Yes, it was snow, but it only lasted for a few minutes. But still, it WAS snow.
I remember one Halloween – my daughter was about 7 or 8 and we were living in the homeland (Saskatchewan). The temp was -28C. She begged me to let her go Halloweening with her older friend so I bundled both of them up massively and they went around the block. They came back with a ton of candy because no other kids were out.
Community torn apart by SC immigration raid
Chicago’s Cook County won’t evict in foreclosures
Good point.
8
still going on here. In some ways it’s been a campaign of intimidation, to forestall a repeat of the big Latino immigration marches of spring 2006
10. It’s pretty damn sad.
Also said at the Indiana State Fairgrounds…
Md. Police Put Activists’ Names On Terror Lists
Be Logical, Captain!
The illustration made me laugh.
OH, and thanks for the Kucinich link.
catnip – It snowed in the Adirondacks a week ago, I’m told. And last weekend forced most folks around here to (aaargh) turn their furnaces on. Saw a report the other day that utility shut-offs are climbing, and heating costs are expected to rise 15% this year. I hope the witches and farmer’s almanac types are wrong, and it’s a mild one, or there will be plenty more folks having to choose between paying rent or mortgage and getting an oil delivery.
*
Found this the other day – pollwatchers might find it handy for bookmarking as election day draws near. It’s a funky interactive graph showing how various news organizations are predicting electoral college tallies, by individual state.
Track the electoral college vote predictions
hmm Michigan based Mother’s cookies (isn’t this a big standard national brand?) shut a San Jose factory (Monday) with no notice. And the company checks to cover employee Health Insurance bounced. So no job, no notice and no health insurance. Instantly.
Apocalypse John
well, we had two days of mugginess… tho they are saying now that a DRY CANADIAN FRONT is moving in… LOL. And of ocurse the standard warning, fire hazard goes up.
I am sure we will sue.
Tho of course, we had fires start thru the mug too.
The Daily Show: John Oliver Breaks Down the Stupid Vote
SF Bay Guardian: Obama for President, Sheehan for Congress, and more
oh I am totally confused.
I thought I was SF 2, CA 6 and CD 8.
I feel pretty sure that the Bay Guardian is accurate.
The Onion: Gunman Kills 15 Potential Swing Voters
Saw that John Oliver bit the other day and it cracked me up!
(Especially since a family member had recently confided his theory that uncommitted voters are specially grown on idiot farms and harvested for election season.)
Just got served Stiff Nancy, puppy dog eyes Jackie Speiers (wh o nearly wept, on camera, at the unemployment of “so many”, then named a figue of “700,000”, sounds kinda low to me) and then George Miller who looked like a stone carving in his front lawn. It occured to me he was either stoned or drunk and had gone to a point of no movement.
They all sounded like utter loonatics.
23 – when I worked in a call center I had a co-worker who used to say, after particularly stupid calls … “yup, and THAT’s a voter.”
Man in solid gold hat derides materialism
FWIW, Packer has a look at Ohio… in The New Yorker:
With the caveat that it is NRO, Geraghty takes a look again (ther are others below) at the week of open registration with same day voting in Ohio. It may have underwhelmed.
I assume the Democrats can throw themselves across the finish line… but I am suspicious of their beginning meme that the race is over. And Ob is king.
Obama is the end of life as we know it.”
Sadly, he’s not … he’s more of the same, just w/ new marketing.
BTW, will see if it might make a post this week, but Prop 4 (parental notification, with a shitload of confusing legal language) is showing a 7 pt spread in favor. Bad news.
NO on 4 has not started TV ads yet, but there are PRO ads around.
Also Sebastiani, scion of the wine and one of two big moneyed Catholic backers, is appearing in news spots. Talk about a fucking wanker. I had never seen him. Doubt he could get a chicken pregnant.
AND, as well, Prop 8, SSMarriage may be in trouble. There is a local CBS poll running around that is worrisome. The antis are running a VERY powerful TV ad, using Newsom being a fucking asshole the day of the SC ruling. I figured then his words would be used. IMO he has ALWYS been a switch hitter showing up in the Dem column but WAY TOO CLOSE to the Hoover Institute, who I heard long long ago, quietly backed him for Mayor, years before he managed to squeeze in in 03..
The vote to preserve SSM has a very low key TV ad running.
gah.
Oops it posted before i was done.
Sully is quite tetched, for days now, over the Prop 8 tension. But he should get a mirror. The rest of his page is threaded with care and love for evangelicals and he is again demanding (several days running) the medical records on the Palin baby birth.
Of course all is working well for Sully, if it loses it will be black church goers (he seems woefully painfully ignorant of CA demographics) and Palin exciting the xtian base.
Dennis Kucinich on the Democrats’ Bailout Betrayal By Chris Hedges
O’Biden are car salesmen.
Meant to add that Dennis, once he’s re-elected this fall, needs to announce that he’s leaving the party, if he’s serious. Declare himself a Green or some other third party.
He won’t, though, and it probably wouldn’t do anything anyway.
Actually I wonder why Sheer keeps Hedges around, Ritter as well… and even Marie Cocco gets off stuff more irritable than the usual pro Dem party slate that TruthDig has become allows.
My guess, like Dkos, the stronger more adventurous voices bring in readers.
Unless one likes EJ Dionne, seeped in dullness and party faxes.
Yes, yes, but I heard that you saw a UFO, Dennis.
34- and Hedges & Ritter are getting more and more angry as time goes on. They sound like us.
I’ll drop in… when the TruthDig email comes I dump it without opening…
I only pop in to read the two of them and if something w/ Vidal shows up there.
though now that I think about it, Ritter hasn’t had anything new there for a while.
I’m not sure if the Obama campaign is happy about this: O’s for Obama
Lehman Brothers CEO Got Punched In The Face
Someone should hit FULD again. What a stupid parade of sick old men it has been. Rescued by their bud. Or their parachutes or their cash balances… or or or.
They are shitting bricks. (To the side on the FP is an article headlined Cash May Feel Good But Has Dangers Too – or close – damn straight they are extruding something.)
it’s amazing how fast the corps abandon their ideology when it serves them.
Bonus Quote of the Day:
Schumer Thinks 60 Seats Possible
44
But don’t form an administrative trust corp of some kind to buy and adjust mortgages. DON’T do that. that would bring plague and pestilence upon the land.
BTW, after the big Countrywide settlement here, class action suit, I think Jerry Brown brought it (running for governor, at least a benefit of term limits is that the candidates have to fight a form of musical chairs), several billions in relief to sub prime who were involved across about 2.5 years..
why! my goodness! suddenly IndyMac is CONTACTING people in foreclosure and negotiating lower interests. The one profiled tonight was about a 3% reduction.
46
It seems Al Franken may make it… Coleman in some messy snafu over who gives him suits of clothing. He might be running from the cameras these days…………………
47 – funny that!
Next thing you know Brown will threaten the hospital corps and suddenly they’ll stop dropping indigents off in the street!
31. Dennis asked some hard-hitting questions during the AIG hearing on Tuesday (which I’m still working my way through). Now, if I could remember what they were… What he’s trying to do is to peel away the layers of these companies and their connections to the federal gov’t (ie. Paulson and his former Goldman Sachs sidekick in Treasury and that company’s relationships to AIG and Lehman Bros. etc) to figure out how these bailout decisions were made. (I should be in bed already so that may not have made sense…anyway…)
43.
The British gov’t just announced that that’s what they’re doing and to the tune of…wait for it…$700 bn US too (from what I saw on the news tonite). Something strange is going on here, afaic.
Here’s a link.
I just left my backpack, checkbook and $100 worth of promotional materials in the back of a cab after I got into a lovely conversation with a Pakistani man about how the US was cynically carrying out their colonial mandate – and he thanked me over and over again for being one of the few Americans he had met who could converse fluently about the world…
Funny thing is,I’m not even pissed. I’ll have to spend another $100 and a lot more time, and cancel a few checks, but I’m really glad that at least one Pakistani in New York knows that there is an American who actually understands and cares about what is going on in Pakistan.
Obviously they haven’t been reading their Roubini… The deposits should be covered and the insolvent banks should be forced to fail. The S&L crisis cost the US twice as much as it should have because we didn’t crack down on failed banks and bailed out Neil Bush and his ilk. Protect the deposits, fuck the assholes.
gosh lucid… cool cucumber… 😉
on another ominous note, the pension fund for my main employer has lost half a million dollars over the last 4 weeks. I told the owner to get out of the market immediately after the Bear Sterns collapse, alas, I’m just the person who runs all of the other finances. There will have to be some defined benefit pension restructuring throughout this crisis. As the current rules stand, this small business will be on the hook for $100,000 per year for 7 years in additional contributions to make up for the shortfall – this is a company of 20 people that grosses $3 mil a year and has been savaged by the metal markets. Let’s just hope that the same restructuring that applies to GM [who follows the same rules] will apply to us.
the first thing that happens with the slightest instability is they get their mouthpieces out there telling you NOT TO MOVE YOUR MONEY.
You should always move your money, if you can. I realise not everyone can depending.
Just my opinion.
Hell they dragged Jane Bryant Quinn from her satin lined, tufted box abuot 10 days ago. I was sure she was dead. Oh no… there to tell us Not To Worry!
Well hey – I had warned the owner over several months that the pension fund should start drawing down investments in securities… Today, I spent the morning hours listening to her telling her boyfriend [the pension manager – who, of course, had never managed a dime in his life before they hooked up after her husband died, who did really well in the late ’90’s, but also had experienced serious shortfalls in the ’80’s] sell! sell! sell!. She called him back every 2 minutes, wathcing his trades online, watching as from 11:30 to 12:00 that the fund had lost yet another $15,000, telling him that ‘when you set the sell price higher than the bid price, you are not aggressively selling!’
The last week she has been prying me for my insight. What hidden wisdom do I have at the end of times. I suggested you strategically get out of the market 6 weeks ago. I have no idea what to do now. I’ve never bought a security in my life – I just deal with cash management, keeping your businesses afloat, within the law, and as updated as they can be on IT shit. I told you what I thought… you didn’t act… that could be said many times over for a host of things.
What do I tell her? I think the market will continue to go down. I don’t think it will hit bottom until it’s around 7K-8K from the articles I read. If you’re invested in quality stocks it will probably get better. If you want to go to cash it may be safer, but it may not.
I ain’t no fucking guru… but I was right 4 weeks ago and she didn’t heed the warning and still today she was arguing with her boyfriend… of course on in between calls, she was telling all of her personal banks to sell shit. She has 8 figures to her estate. She can weather it…
Meanwhile the $10 and hour employees that we might need to lay off in the next few months can’t.
… but they speak spanish, so it’s OK.
55 – PRI’s Marketplace has had two reporters out on a road trip through the Midwest interviewing ordinary people about how the financial crisis is affecting them. (Comfortingly, the series is called The Road to Ruin.) One woman made exactly the same point: Average, small-time investors are constantly being told not to panic, to stay calm, be patient, ride it out, blah blah blah. And yet every day the finance “experts” and the titans of Wall Street appear to be panicking their asses right off (I’m paraphrasing here), causing even more drastic losses to modest savings, retirement portfolios, etc. And of course every day Washington responds (in a panic) by throwing more public money their way.
Someone should call Oxford, Merriam-Webster, et al. Change the official spelling of bilious – the people demand a second L in the middle!
58
yes I don’t know much about money, I tried to not be stupid by at least reading Abelson/Barron’s and BW for years… but it was not hard to see how they flood the media pronto to make small holders feel it is ”wrong” to sell.
I posted here when that idiot Cramer begrudgingly told people, well OK if your gut cannot take it, I suppose you could take 20% and move it.
HA! Suze Orman has made herslef into a parody over the years, but she at least was out there right away saying SELL! If you move it or cash out DO IT.
****
hmmm I don’t know much at all about ACORN, other than what they do, more or less (voter reg, housing for the poor activism and, likely bearing in now, Ob was an organiser with them)… but something (voter fraud issues and they were recipients of Fan/Fred money over the years) has been kicking aorund about them for weeks and months on rightie sites and so on… and it seems it might be ready to pop. As in move to the mainstream press.
hmm this might be a “set up” piece for more to come. No mention of ACORN but starts to pick at Fan/Fred (not LOL they they have nto been picked at).
The other issue for the righites is that Ob, tho a short time in the senate, is the #2 recipient of Fan Fred money, right after Dodd who has been there for ages. Others at the top are Barney and Schumer.
Raspberries for all, imo.
Think R might be planning on suing ACORN over voter fraud as well. They are going to get skewered themselves over removing names from voter rolls and I imagine they want return fire, somehow or other.
59 – There was a raid on a Nevada ACORN office on Tuesday, so maybe that’s part of it? mcjoan at DK did a front-pager on it, FWIW – Link.
Sounds like strange doings, if info is correct.
David Iglesias (fired US atty) was on Fresh Air last night and was very interesting, especially on the topic of voter fraud investigations and the GOP pressure for election-season indictments (actual convictions didn’t seem to matter so much). Said that after reviewing the (scant) evidence, the closest his team could find to a prosecutable case of voter fraud was probably a single low-income ACORN worker who had signed up a 15-year-old kid, among others, and her motive was very simple – money. She could have cared less about partisan election outcome, said Iglesias; she was just being paid by the head for registrations. No evidence of massive fraud on view, but lots of Republican clamoring for smoking guns to wave before the populace, in hopes of keeping elderly, poor, Hispanic, and minority turnout down.
Same old, same old.
thanks IB
yes i figured when the NV offices were raided that it would heat up.
I have stepped waaay back from the usual Democratic stances around election day. I used to care, no more. They do soft KITV, they enable the Republican games — and the R do more hard core versions.
When Jimmie exited from his long perambulations with Jim Baker over voting issues/other issues (about 2 or more years ago) and announced that they had an agreement on Voter ID – an ugly one in my opinion and a WRONG one, I was DONE.
May both parties rot.
FYI – NYT on state voter purges.
Gotta go – have a good day, bellwether-watchers (whatever the weather on view)!
OK, one last snippet (from the NYT link above):
NYT snippet gone to mod, I think.
Gah, running late – I’m out!
Can someone explain to me why voters have to register at ALL? Why don’t they just tie voter registration to being issued a Social Security number? (ie, at birth?)
Got you out of Moderation NYCO, sorry it took a while… 😉
Well I have no problem with that, nor with Motor Voter, that epople register when they get a drivers license.
IIRC the Republicans are agaisnt Motor Voter… so I can imagine the impediments to automatic registration at birth.
Lovely… anti same sex marriage has a SECOND TV ad up. And the pro side keeps going iwth their PBS-Judeo-Xtian-kumbaya-ya-ya one. An elderly pair of parents asking that you not revoke their child’s right to marriage. It is fine, as far as it goes.
It’s nto enough.
Think there is a new poll out showing the spread widening again on SSM.
Alos Newsom is on camera on news programs saying the anti ad using his face and words is not working. It is, and, the DPCA should box Newsom up til sometime next year. If they let him out at all.
I’d do an ad, somehow, of the most presentable, most delectable couples getting married at SF City Hall, with their parents with them, their children with them BE OPEN… with the elderly Chinese woman who (I think) works in the Recorder’s Office there (as she was often in view).
They need to do something. Because it is going down… and may be going down in 3 states. The Corner is crowing:
Nouriel Roubini in Forbes. The Choice: Recession or Depression.
gotta love when the fucker running wants to be called “like FDR” but won’t produce a real list of real help. And would die before he used New New Deal, for instance. He mentions things and has lists and has long promised a “rebate” — but he lacks strong language and emphatic presentation. All glory to God Ob. First and foremost.
My guess, if it gets worse one of the few payoffs is he might, but only might, be less likely to keep Paulson.
We are so blessed.
Wall Street is fugly this afternoon. Looks like it could be another 600- to 700-point down day.
closed under 9000 I just saw.
There was a segment on local KGO this am. It was a year ago today, that the Dow danced around 14.000, its highest point.
8653
down almost 600
oh yes GM lost 20% down to 1951 levels.
Uh, catch on guys. Post war wipe out.
hmm see WSJ says GM down 31%, think they mean over a range of time.
whew I feel winded.
In other news, America’s leading economists now admit we’re in a recession.
You know… now that we’re in a depression.
Well, one good thing might have been, that maybe we might have less money to fight new wars. But maybe it’s guns over butter.
Only 2 left in stock — order soon
Because they LOOOVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEE the troops!!
U.S. Officers’ “Phone Sex” Intercepted; Senate Demanding Answers
AKA they’ll do NOTHING.
77 But
Whoa,, and there’s Dow 36.000!!
and Holy Cow!! Carajo! No me jodas!!
Fortunately
45 used & new available from $0.01
59 – I don’t know much at all about ACORN
There is a lot of screaming here is WI and some other places about their workers filing fraudulent registrations:
Only it was ACORN itself that reported the problem MONTHS ago:
Note that the case in NV was brought BY A DEMOCRAT. Here in WI it’s being pushed by Republicans. In BOTH cases what they don’t want is poor and mainly minority voters. BOTH parties.
I think I’ve got one in moderation and a piece about ACORN in spam.
AIG canceled their retreat – or whatever it was going to be, payoff for sales – at the Ritz Carlton at Half Moon Bay. I am more upset to learn there is some sprawling R-C at Half Moon Bay. Ugh somehow i missed that……….
If It Walks Like A Duck and Talks Like a Duck Dept: The McCain-Palin Mob
They repeat the ACORN stuff, btw.
Sorry Madman… one out of Mod and one out of Spam… 😉
***
In BOTH cases what they don’t want is poor and mainly minority voters. BOTH parties.
Yeah I agree with that.
Well this has been bubbling along for months at the rightie sites. Was going to blow at some point.
Grassroots workers out here, that work to expand voting to minority and underserved communities, said long ago they never saw any of the HAVA/Help America Vote money. It went to groups that reinforce static voting, relying on and reinforcing groups that already vote.
However, ACORN does get Democratic money, and was, apparently, one of the standard D leaning groups that got money from Frannie and Freddie. (This is one of the places it seems R are headed)
I *am* leery of where Democrats choose to put money…. which doesn’t say anything about ACORN as I don’t know much beyond the standard about them.
LOL … this is going to be SUCH a long month: Alaskan Independence Party sponsored By Iran
84 – I’m leery of pretty much everything the donks do. They’d fuck up rolling a ball downhill, and I’m convinced they do it on purpose.
wow, this is the worst flack I’ve seen in a LONG time.
Al Franken should be thanking the stars for this …
86
yes. I am certainly for expanding the vote. Newsom talked about that a lot and demagogued (sp?) it, did it for years. Ran ads with people of color, people living in the projects, when he was running. Stopped there, all over once he was in, til re-election. Classic DLC or worse in office.
Some of the numbers of new registrants are stunning. This ws also one of the big “pushes” about Obama. He would register many tens of thousands of new voters.
No one would argue with the premise.
I am unsure I should suddenly believe him… my guess is a rerun of the Newsom play. If indeed the poor and underserved were massively, in several states, registered, they will be as unheard as the rest of us post inaugural speech.
I guess I could stand at the Democratic Holy Communion Rail and take my wafer and pray. Just not in the cards for me anymore.
The Courage Campaign in CA is blaming the Mormons for the shrinking chances for GBLT civil rights in CA:
Ob on the events of today. I am guess if the market fell 2000 pts in one day he would still say Now Is Not The Time For Fear Or Panic…
89
It’s beginning to mentioned in nws reports as well. That organisers are coming from NV.
That is what they said, not UT.
The Nikkei is in total free fall. -900 at present, was flirting with -1000 a few moments ago.
92 – wonder if tomorrow will be the new Black Friday.
I would nto want to be holding anything over the weekend.
Local ABC here had a good segment on how far the powers accorded to Paulson go under The Plan. (or, The Wreck)… will see if they have a good report at their site of the segment.
McCain’s mailer creates controversy
ACLU: New Documents Reveal Unlawful Guantánamo Procedures Were Also Applied On American Soil
CA State unemployment insurance will go bust in early 2009. Report on local ABC news.
Mr. Puddles, I Have Snausages
Little hopeful signs here and there: LGBT High School Planned For 2010
“You fuck over voters with the lists you have,” Rumsfeld replied, “not the lists you might want or wish to have.”
gnu thred………………….
LINK
…………………… 8) ……………………..