Strike!
30 January 2009
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, France, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
Marseilles, France: Arcelor Mittal workers demonstrate [Jean-paul Pelissier/Reuters]
Just a very general report from the Guardian to tack onto the photograph…
It is the first wide-ranging general strike since Sarkozy took office and a rare show of unity from France’s main unions. Train drivers, airport staff, teachers, postal workers and tax inspectors joined private-sector employees including bank clerks, car workers, ski-lift operators, supermarket check-out staff and even employees from the company that operates France’s stock exchange.
With lawyers and journalists from state TV and radio also walking out, the various groups are protesting for job protection and better wages and against a raft of Sarkozy’s reforms, ranging from justice to hospital and school reforms, and changes to the running of state TV.
Car workers downed tools over the crisis hitting the French auto industry. The arts world joined the ranks as north Paris’s cutting-edge new arts centre, Le 104, staged its own strike.
“We need to sound a cry of anger,” said François Chereque, head of the moderate CFDT union.
Greve!
From Lenin’s Tomb:
Greek workers are up in arms, the Italian working class is revolting against the Berlusconi administration, protesters in Iceland have deposed their government, and now Sarkozy is the latest to feel the wrath. Today’s strikes and rallies involved millions of workers and took place across the country as this map shows… -Lenin
***
IOZ kept me laughing from sometime before 3 am to sometime after 3 am. Several in a row that were hysterical… starting with this deceptively simple one..
Dear America,
Stimuli.
Orthographically,
IOZ
Can I hear a vote for stimulIE? Stim u LIE ?
Somewhere along the way a few weeks ago he mentioned he is a graduate of Oberlin. As is, he helpfully offered, Michele Malkin.
There is just no accounting…
***
Truly no accounting. In other, less gay and blithe, news… Blair “suffers” and thinks of the dead… the soldiers and the Iraqis. He is an adult convert to Catholicism (he has a foundation for the furtherance of faith in the world)… perhaps as penance he can go (yes, please GO) and prostrate himself before B16 and.. I don’t know… Perhaps he can fall into some form of ecstatic suffering, develop stigmata and other wounds… war wounds would be appropriate, figments of his imagination can indulge him in lost and missing limbs, brain damage, vegetative states, PTSD, the abyss of pain, fear and confusion, the haunting – so he can suffer on.
Such indulgent shits.
For now he bows his head and claims to bear “responsibility”. Troubled, but not haunted. Such a good boy. So obedient.
He said that he was not haunted by it “but of course I reflect on it, and am troubled by it, and feel a great sense of responsibility for it”.
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, Brazil - Lula, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Switzerland.
Indians gather during a meeting to discuss rights of indigenous peoples at the World Social Forum, in Belem, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009. The World Social Forum, the annual countercultural gathering to protest the simultaneous World Economic Forum in Switzerland, is taking place until Feb. 1. [AP/ Andre Penner] link to larger version
As for Davos… it’s from Wonkette… but! any port in a PR storm!
Upon arriving here on Wednesday afternoon, he conducted a series of quiet meetings with foreign leaders that culminated in an intense late-night discussion with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The two former presidents met at a Sheraton hotel where Putin held a private party, following an early evening reception at a local museum hosted by Clinton.
Putin greeted Clinton cordially as “our good friend” as they raised glasses of vodka and then listened to a pianist pound out “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” When the musical entertainment concluded, they moved to a table in a separate room with access strictly controlled by Secret Service and Russian security agents. Flanked by aides and an interpreter, the two men talked for nearly 90 minutes before they rose and walked out together for a few pictures with partygoers and members of Clinton’s entourage.
“In the Hall of the Mountain King” ??? Okaaay. Whatever props up the great men. I can see how, in some idealistic Great Man drivel, they see a scenario of Peer Gynt escaping from the trolls and the king, the great hall tumbling down as they escape. When in truth rather than fiction it is thieves escaping in the night intent on both their bags of cash and their histories of perfidy.
Onward!
Intermittent Bystander linked to the Reuters report on Erdogan and Putin in Davos… and someone just sent me the NYT version…
Panel discussions at Davos are strictly restricted to one hour, but Mr. Erdogan insisted on responding to Mr. Peres. Red faced, and with one hand grasping the arm of the moderator, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, Mr. Erdogan turned to the Israeli president.
“Mr. Peres, you are older than me,” he said. “Your voice comes out in a very high tone. And the high tone of your voice has to do with a guilty conscience. My voice, however, will not come out in the same tone.”
Resisting efforts by Mr. Ignatius to end the session, Mr. Erdogan continued, saying to Mr. Peres, “When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill.”
Eventually, the prime minister gathered up his papers and departed from the stage, saying, “And so Davos is over for me from now on.”
Mais Oui!
Closer to home but so evocative… this scene, or set of scenes, at the WH yesterday.
Of those who braved the weather to meet with President Obama today were just over a dozen CEOs from around the nation, who sat down with Obama to discuss the impact of the weakening economy on business and workers.
“They make things, they hire people,” Obama said of the meeting participants. “They are on the front lines in seeing the enormous problems in the economy right now. Their ideas and their concerns have helped to shape our recovery package in order to get this economy back on track.”
When I read they were served orange juice, well… I just KNEW those great men had donated blood. Surely. Donated, as they stood, poorly dressed for the weather, in the snow. Having walked miles to get to the WH and will have to manage the miles again, in reverse. You just know it!
Afterwards, the dulcet tones of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” filled the East Room as President Obama shook the hands of the business leaders who had come to Washington, DC, to express their support for his plan.
No lyrics could be heard — just the melody to the song that would otherwise proceed “Night and day, you are the one/Only you beneath the moon or under the sun/Whether near to me, or far/Its no matter darling where you are” — while in the next room, Staff Sgt. Russell Wilson of the U.S. Marine Corps Band tickled the ivories at a tax-payer-financed orange-juice-and-coffee reception awaiting the CEO crowd and their appetites.
There is such a mincing quality to it all… but, who cares. As long as it is not too chilly in that draughty old Southern Manse. If it were I would be so worried. Very very worried.
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Democrats, Divertissements, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Israel/AIPAC, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, WAR!.
Snowflakes illuminated by lights streak across the sky on the White House grounds in Washington [January 28 2009 AP]
Considering that, from what I read, Netanyahu is favored in the polls to win on February 10, should be a fun fun fun filled few years.
Mr Netanyahu, who claimed to have forecast the destruction of the Twin Towers by Islamic extremists in 1995, said terrorists would target the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – Christianity’s holiest site.
“Radical Islam is willing and will want to attack the symbolic heart of the Christian religion,” he said. “This will incur a chain reaction we can’t even envision. We will witness an escalation of religious conflict above and beyond the regional conflict we have now.”
The leader of the Right-wing Likud opposition recalled that he had warned Islamic terrorists would detonate a nuclear device in the Manhattan World Trade Centre complex in a 1995 book, six years before the September 11 attacks.
He claimed that the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre would trigger a clash between religions, much greater than the “regional conflict” that currently wracks the Holy Land.
Live by religion, die by religion… and I don’t mean the rank and file in the pews… I mean the leadership who use religion. To herd, attempt to herd, a wider flock than the faithful. And not just Netanyahu and Israel, either.
It emerged yesterday that the size of Jewish settlements on the West Bank had grown by 69 per cent in 2008. Activists with Peace Now reported that Israel’s army was quietly promoting the establishment of new settlements, as well as the expansion of existing outposts.
The development appears to violate Israel’s official promises to restrict the unrestrained growth of the settlements.
It is another damaging blow to Tony Blair’s credibility as international envoy to the conflict. Since taking up office Mr Blair has negotiated the dismantlement of just one Israeli army checkpoint but the total number has gone up to 699 from 521.
.
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, WAR!.
… this will probably defy the automated links… 😉
Whoops! I forgot! I DID have something to add… just taken ‘as is’ from the Greg Sargent blog at Wapo:
It appears that President Obama has asked House Dem leaders to jettison another provision sought by liberals from the stimulus bill as a way of placating Republicans.
As I noted below, anonymous House Dem staffers told Politico that Nancy Pelosi and the House Dem leadership were dropping from the bill the so-called “cram downs,” which give judges the power to renegotiate mortgages on terms that are better suited to homeowners who are in trouble. House liberals wanted this, and it was unclear why the leadership had done this.
I’ve just confirmed from a senior House Dem aide that the House leadership did this at the behest of Obama aides, who asked the leadership to chuck the provision. This is the second such move: It comes after the news this morning that Obama had personally appealed to Pelosi to drop family planning funds for low-income people from stim package — also to placate Republicans.
“The Obama camp said, `Don’t do it in the stimulus, we’ll do it in another bill,’” the aide told me, referring to the cram downs. “He thinks it’s controversial with Republicans.”
“Now Obama can say he’s trying to show a good faith effort with Republicans,” the aide continued. “He’s reaching out a hand to them, they keep slapping at it.”
Asked for confirmation, Pelosi spokesperson Brendan Daly would only say: “The Speaker has said that [the cram down measure] is a priority for her and for the caucus. We will work to pass it soon, whether in another vehicle or in a stand alone bill.”
One quick question about the politics here: Do Obama aides actually believe such gestures will win over Republicans? Perhaps, but it’s also possible that such measures are all about laying the groundwork in advance to blame GOPers and paint them as partisan obstructionists if and when most of them vote against the stim package, which they appear likely to do, no matter how many concessions Obama grants.
Oh sorry! I find that last to be salesmanship. Laying the groundwork to blame the R. Woo hoo Sure!
Yeah right. I am very mindful that Obster, at the Harvard Law Review, elevated the baby Federalists.
Go for it pretzel.
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Russ Feingold, WAR!.
Not that it matters. Just slowly starting off touring the political sites. Not that it matters… [sigh] but I landed at this first.. at The Page:
Curtain Rises on the Blago Trial
Illinois’ Senate will open the state’s first-ever impeachment trial Monday, as Gov. Blagojevich continues his media blitz.
Set to appear Monday on “Good Morning America,”” The View” and “Larry King Live.”
Told the “Today” show that his trial is “rigged” and “fixed,” and that he draws comfort by thinking of Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Luther King.
Watch video here.
Not that it matters, as we all know Obama is from Honolulu and Jakarta. As I began the silly online perambulations, TV helpfully assisted with telling the Blago stories… with a cut from Daley being asked about Blago. His only answer was to “cuck coo” a few times. He does it well. Which might mean something. I guess.
Feingold has a nice idea (that I don’t see a bi partisan push back from governors going for) that out of cycle empty senate seats must be resolved by election, but hahahahahaha it barely scratches the surface of our political problems.
As for the rest, catching MTP on a repeat, Summers is surely on the right track, this was nearly the first out of his mouth.
DR. SUMMERS: I’m telling him he’s inherited an extraordinarily difficult situation: the worst economy since the second World War, a financial system that’s got very serious problems, government budget deficits he’s inheriting of a trillion dollars, an entitlement situation that’s three times the burden that it was in the year 2000. He’s inheriting an extraordinarily difficult situation in the domestic economy, in the global economy; the kind of situation that requires the types of decisive action he’s been working with Congress to produce.
Wars? Anyone care to mention the wars? The COST of the wars?
Oh look! Beyonce is serenading the Prom King and Queen… Look over there! At last… at last…
Things are in bad shape.
I do wonder what is to become of us.
Posted by marisacat in Divertissements, Israel/AIPAC, Italy, Viva La Revolucion!, WAR!.
I actually found that photo at a Catholic Youth site… LOL.. AND! stranger than fiction, when I went hunting for a photo of il papa, using “Benedict 16”, it was first up!
What a hoot! The former Hitler youth has people all riled up. No! Say it is not so! Everybody’s mad!
The Pope has lifted the excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church of four bishops appointed by a breakaway archbishop more than 20 years ago.
One of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s appointees, Briton Richard Williamson, outraged Jews by saying the Nazi gas chambers did not exist.
Two of the other three appointees are French while the fourth is Argentinean.
Israel’s envoy to the Vatican said the papal decision would “cast a shadow on relations with Jews”.
“We have no intention of interfering in the internal workings of the Catholic Church, however, the eagerness to bring a Holocaust denier back into the Church will cast a shadow on relations between Jews and the Catholic Church,” Mordechai Lewy told Reuters news agency. …snip…
The special relationship between the Church and the Jews has room for more shadows? What a euphemism!
Somehow the BBC story manages to leave out that the bishops were in a far right wing faction of the church… quite aside from being classic schismatics.. denying or dissenting from the so called modernisation of the Church under John XXII, and the suppression of the Latin Mass.
LOL Once you are into denial, you can deny all sorts of things! Rooting around online, Bishop Williamson also denies the official story of 9/11, believing (among many beliefs I would imagine) that the WTC buildings were wired and blown up. How anyone is comfortable with that day, how it rolled out, is a mystery to me, but the theory of the wiring and internal blast bombing of the buildings has always seemed a bit extra murky…
Decades ago, being a fallen away Catholic, I had no idea that embrace of the banned Mass was code for being all sorts of looney… and happened to mention once at a luncheon that I missed the Latin Mass. About 20 people proceeded to jump far away from me. I had no idea that factions of the Church were bunkered over the whole thing, with near Neanderthals holding secret celebrations of the Latin Mass in garages on Long Island.
Who knew? Then again I never understood, and still do not, why it was so important to ban the Latin Mass.
But it is loaded with delicious wrinkles…
At first sight the appearance of Richard Williamson, the drawling English leader of a Catholic splinter group, on Swedish television, to deny that Hitler killed anything like 6 million Jews, looks like pure comedy gold – the Producers come to life. The documentary in which Williamson appeared, “the Swedish Crusade” was an attempt to make sinister the activities of a sect which has, in Sweden, 30 members but which proclaims its ambition to reconvert the whole country to Catholicism.
But the Lefevrist splinter group of which he is one of the four bishops does actually matter to the Vatican, because it represents an institutional challenge to the legitimacy of the Second Vatican Council, which turned the church inside out in the 1960s, introducing masses in the vernacular, and opening up to other Christians groups and even to Jews in a quite unprecedented way.
And this little tidbit…
Update: the plot curdles I have now spoken to the Catholic Church’s press officer in Stockholm who has of course seen the film land adds two fascinating twists. The first is that the interview was recorded on November 1 last year, so it wasn’t timed to this week’s rumours.
The second, which makes it even more embarrassing, is that it was recorded at the Lefevrist seminary in Bavaria, where holocaust denial is a criminal offence.
Some of the other Lefevrist bishops are said to be keen on reconciliation with the Holy See. Although the Latin mass was not the only grounds for the schism, the Vatican has been putting out the story recently that Archbishop Lefebvre, who led it, signed all the decrees of the Second Vatican Council to which he later objected, and they have his signature in the archives to prove it. Under the circumstances, a graceful negotiated surrender might well have been possible – but Richard Williamson at least would rather die in his bunker.
Maybe they can all cuddle in bed together.
And I found that photo at a youth site as well…
The World Youth Day 2008 theme, received from The Holy Father is:
‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses.’ Acts 1:8
This passage occurs after the death and resurrection of Jesus, just before his ascension to the Father.
It represents the birth of the Church. The disciples had questioned Jesus about the time of the restoration of Israel. His words ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you’ were somewhat surprising – they referred to a new meaning of the word “power”. Jesus promises a different kind of “power” to help the Jews from under the yoke of Roman occupation. The power He promises to give is the very Spirit of God, the dynamic potential for transformation, the very condition of living according to the manner of Jesus’ life.
This Spirit is not a vague ambiguous force, rather it is a Divine Person, the true Self Gift of the Father to the Son, and the Son to the Father, and hence the gift of the Father to us in the Son – with Him we say “Our Father”. Only with the reception of the Spirit of Jesus can we exercise the authentic passion of the Heart of Christ, and hence by being set on fire with it do we as persons become witnesses to Him and everything for which He stands.
The ultimate witness we can make is to follow in the pattern of His life through the total self gift of our lives, lived authentically in truth and love for Him and at the service of others.
What a tangle it all is… Apparently, zooming around the netteries, people are just in a tizzy over this… especially that the lifting of the excommunication includes that the 4 (in particular, Williamson) are bishops again. Not merely restored to priests under the Vatican, but princes of the Church.
Ratzy must laugh a lot…
****
UPDATE, 4:51 am Pacific Time
Cooler than cool…way way way cool.
January 23, 2009, 4:52 pm <!– — Updated: 1:32 am –>
By Sam Grobart
Nobody’s saying anything official or on the record about this, but reports popping up all across the Web indicate that while President Obama may be able to keep a mobile phone/e-mail device while in office, that device may be something more exotic than a BlackBerry from Research in Motion.
(Cue James Bond theme.)
The nation’s e-mailer in chief may be carrying something called a Sectéra Edge, which is made by the military contractor General Dynamics (you know, the submarine people). …snip…
hmm not to push it too much, but General Dynamics would be the DEFENSE people. Or OFFENSE, to be more precise.
But, carry on. Bombs away! Cool guy!
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, WAR!.
A group of greater adjutant stork search for food at the Deepor Beel bird sanctuary on the outskirts of Guwahati city, northeast India [EPA]
Moyers had a very interesting program tonight, first up were Sirota and Thomas Frank…
THOMAS FRANK: And but exactly what David said. He doesn’t — maybe he does understand that he has the power, I mean, this is where they teach you the orthodoxy, you know? Harvard, Chicago Law School. I mean, these are the upholders of the orthodoxy, the idea that, no, we can’t have an industrial policy in America. The market has to decide. We can’t pick winners. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
He now has the power to throw all that overboard. History is demanding that he throw it overboard. The — you know, the orthodoxy is discredited like at no time since, you know, the 1930s. It is, you know, it is in his power to do that. I think he’ll rise to the challenge.
the last half hour was Patricia Williams who writes Diary of a Mad Professor for The Nation and Melissa Harris-Lacewell
BILL MOYERS: Last subject, everywhere we turn this week somebody was praying. I mean, I’m serious about this. What did you make of all the God talk all week?
PATRICIA WILLIAMS: Well, I think that the, you know, appeal to greater power is perhaps a necessary deflection to the fact that we are a very religious country. I would hope, however, because, again, I speak as a lawyer. I am a deep believer in a separation of church and state.
BILL MOYERS: You’ve written a lot about it-
PATRICIA WILLIAMS: And I’ve been very distressed by the degree to which faith-based analyses of late have permitted the allocation of funds even to organizations that discriminate on any variety of bases. And I hope that this deflection that he has made is not something that carries over into actual policy if it’s, you know, at you know, we can pray to the God of our choice. But, again, when he is actually governing, I hope that this takes very much a back seat.
hmm. Way back in the knotty mess we are in, visions of the underwater congealing fuckball of the snakes comes to mind again… Sy Hersh had a long piece in The New Yorker, think it was March 31, 2003 and I found I went back to it over and over as the invasion blasted the war torn images around the world. A template or road map, it constantly gave up information, as time moved. Think Moyers managed an interesting template to return to……
With that in mind the opening from Moyers is instructive – and worth keeping ahold of as well. Nice platitudes from the earnest and the willing is sometimes just a posy of wilting -or wilted- flowers. Sorry to be blunt.
BILL MOYERS: Well we’ll find out what this means as President Obama confronts one of his first big challenges — the bankers and the bailout.
Usually it’s the bandits robbing the banks. But now it’s getting hard to tell the bankers from the bandits. Where have they stashed the loot — that 350 billion dollars of our money that the Bush Administration lavished on them to jump-start our failing economy?
For a story in last Sunday’s “New York Times”, largely overlooked in all the pre-inaugural hoopla, reporter Mike Mcintire reviewed investor presentations and conference calls to see how bankers talk when they think the rest of us aren’t listening.
This from Boston Private Wealth Management, a healthy bank that was handed $154 million:
“With that capital in hand […] we’ll be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves once this recession is sorted out.”
Once this recession is sorted out? Those funds are supposed to generate loans for people and small businesses in trouble — not to help banks ride out the recession on a cushion of cash.
Then there’s this bit of Simon Legree mustache-twirling from the chairman of Whitney National Bank in New Orleans. They’ve received 300 million dollars in bailout boodle:
“Make more loans?” he asked. “We’re not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans.”
I’m not making this up — Flushing Financial crowed that it was newly flush enough to use the bailout bucks to raise the ante and buy new companies:
“We can get $70 million in capital,” their CEO said. “So, I would say the price of poker, so to speak, has gone up.”
And, so to speak, he’s playing with our chips!
Warm and cosy…
******************************
UPDATE, 6:14 pm on the Pacific Coast
GAZA
I don’t let myself read too far in some articles on Gaza, but I have certainly caught that, in addition to killing any one of any age, willing to shoot people in the head, sniper fire on streets, into homes, people shot carrying a white flag, shot when forced to exit their homes, the IDF also killed farm animals and livestock.. as well as household pets…
Anyway, I just saw this photo at Angry Arab:
“A Palestinian boy carries rescued cats inside a birdcage, on a stroller on a street in Gaza City in the Gaza strip, Friday, Jan. 23, 2009.” (AP Photo)
It’s from a post at AA of photos from Gaza, one a baby really, a small 4 year old burn victim… I can’t even see the body for the gauze. The caption says they had to amputate because some parts ”kept on burning”. White Phosphorus? Earlier I read the bombed out UN school, the one where so many died, burned for days, the WP again.
**
Angry Arab is also running serial entries now on “Obama bombs”
“US soldiers killed an Iraqi couple and wounded their eight-year-old daughter during a raid against
Al-Qaeda suspects near the northern city of Kirkuk on Saturday, police and the US military
said.” Posted by As’ad at 9:57 AM
It was the promises promises… in my opinion at least.
“A claim by US forces in Afghanistan that they killed 15 Taliban fighters in the eastern province of Laghman, has been disputed by village elders. A US statement said on Saturday that soldiers killed the fighters after coming under fire from opposition fighters. But the elders say all those who died were
civilians.” (Obama bombs will be a regular feature now). (thanks Olivia)
Posted by As’ad at 8:40 AM
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, 2010 Mid Terms, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
Troublemaker –
This young adult Sulawesi black-crested macaque, nicknamed Troublemaker, was more interested in the photographer than foraging for food, so getting a close-up wasn’t difficult. Troublemaker’s expression captures, Stefano says, “the spirit of these wonderful monkeys”, and the setting makes it an unforgettable portrait
[Photograph: Stefano Unterthiner, Italy/Wildlife Photographer, Animal Portraits, of the Year 2008]
I don’t know about you … but I am pooped. Ushering in a new pretzel is just so damned hard………
While I was fishing around for a photo… I landed on this short little series between a Ridgeback and a pelican… the photo series is called Pelican Wars. Pretty funny… and I think the Ridgeback will be sticking to his own food bowl from now on, for thine is the power and the glory amen… speaking of the pelican there, I am.
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, Democrats, Divertissements, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, U.S. Senate.
A story of updates… Gothamist and Gawker… Gothamist updated for hours...
UPDATE 11:24 p.m.: It’s the NY dailies versus the Associated Press: The AP spoke to a source (one who is not “authorized to speak for Kennedy”) who “says she has renewed her determination to win appointment to the U.S. Senate seat once held by her slain uncle, Sen. Bobby Kennedy.” Basically Uncle Ted’s seizure only gave her “misgivings” but the source seems to think she’s still going for it. Are Cuomo, Gillibrand, Maloney et al. hoping the AP has it wrong?
Please, Caroline, go home. No matter the reason.
The Post‘s original, cryptic scoop offered no rationale for Kennedy’s withdrawal. Then, a person “told of [Kennedy’s] decision” told the Times Kennedy chalked the move up to her worries about Sen. Ted Kennedy’s ill health.
People immediately started calling bullshit. Ted Kennedy has been on deathwatch since before the start of Kennedy’s non-bid bid for senate. Now she’s worried?
What a story. The whole thing, not just the squibble of fiction dribbled out at the end..
NYT (who, I see, went with a photo from December of CKS at the Gee Whiz diner, so appropriate):
Mrs. Clinton resigned from the Senate on Wednesday, immediately after being sworn in as secretary of state. The governor has said privately and publicly that he would like to select a woman to succeed her, noting that if he were to choose a man, the number of female senators would drop to just 16.
So, Gillibrand moves up? And Maloney? (Not as if I know… I just guess from 2,700 + miles away.) I feel like I am at a table of donated items at the Goodwill, or the St Vincent de Paul. Charity. How miserable it all is.
***
In other news, not unrelated… Tapper on with Charlie.. saying, when asked about the relationship of Team Obama (don’t get too close and ask about Gawd there, Charlie!) to the media..
Well some of us try to report from our feet rather than our knees.
Local Democratic aligned talk radio is bitching, as I flip it on at 1:18 am to see what is up, that Hannity refers to Obster as “the Messiah”. ”How dare he”. And “it’s just plain wrong”.
Then quit with crafting that bullshit… it seems simple to me.
Good luck to all.
LOL
21 January 2009
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, 2010 Mid Terms, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, WAR!.
Snagged this pic from Politico, the tag there called it “Dawn over the Capitol”, it was taken at the Mid-Western States Ball.
I caught a news segment last night, a touring of various smallish, in peoples’ homes, parties to celebrate the new pretzel… Over and over I saw a framed image of Obster on display, propped on the fireplace mantle often, almost always a Fairey or Fairey derived image, dominating the room.
Whiff of Mao is all I can say.
And some non-helpful prattle that he “was born to lead us”… Over the past few days think I have heard that at least 100 times. Anyone hear themselves?
Sorry to be blunt, that sort of thing just sets me off. Couple of years ago I had so hoped to be rid of the God-ordained, Jesusing stuff. From the Unitary. Too many faithful R willing to say George was “selected by God”.
Pretty basic article at Politico, on seven reasons to be a skeptic. VandeHei and Harris. No 7 is (said in other words) that we have a tongue out, courtier 4th estate. And how. Loved hearing, just the past couple of days, media creeps anxious to say that they never liked Bush, nor he them. But they sure facilitated.
From No 1 on the list:
[E]veryone was saying the exact same things about the two economic geniuses of the 1990s: Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan. Now Rubin has been reduced to making excuses for his involvement in high-risk investments and for helping oversee the demise of Citigroup, which lost $10 billion in the past three months alone. The onetime oracular Greenspan has admitted to Congress that his once-revered economic philosophy had “a flaw,” and many blame him for turning a blind eye to the housing bubble.
As it happens, the Obama economic team is full of Rubin protégés, including Geithner and Summers. Geithner had to recently admit he failed to pay taxes on a big chunk of income — as part of his confirmation process to run tax policy and the Internal Revenue Service. As president of the New York Fed, he was integrally involved in the decision not to rescue Lehman Bros., which many see, in retrospect, as a grievous error.
The reception of the Obama economic team recalls the reception of President George W. Bush’s foreign policy team eight years ago. Many Democrats applauded the experience of Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell. …snipwhip…
Oh yes, Colin was to be the moderate. He was perceived as “better”. Why? Anyone check his history? Just as hapless Americans assumed that Poodle Blair would “rein Bush in”.
Carry on… kiss the hem.
In related news, Podesta, CoS for the transition, is arguing that Obster keep not only his Blackberry… but internet and email access.
Oh.. Popcorn! Tons of it.
Marisacat 