la vie en rose..

la vie en rose.. 4 February 2009

Posted by marisacat in Divertissements, la vie en rose, UK.
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pelicansflamingoeslondonzooepa
Picture: EPA

Flamingos… which the caption at the Telegraph called “pelicans” – I assume everybody’s related (Flamicans!) – in the recent snows in London.

Apparently at some point part of the London Zoo got made into an “Outback” section with warm weather critterati. An unusual chance, at least as I recall, to see them close enough to catch the neon orange skin… THESE guys could carry off small, red rimmed circular specs. In a heart beat.

It’s a break from the political mugs on display lately. Gah.

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1. lucid - 4 February 2009: Something I wrote tonight…

The shapely
They fall,
To the curdled underbelly
of etal.

The shaped,
My God!
We must brand you all?

The token,
Some lip
And haute indignities
and my silk is sown,

While the thread
crosscuts an underground.

That dignity might be
a silk-stitched token
of the shaped
and shapely,

Raising a finger to the belly button,

Is it in,
or out?

Not sure what it means…

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2. lucid - 4 February 2009: ….flamingos…

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3. marisacat - 4 February 2009: Just caught a report on KY… it mentioned that the Gov is “waiting for the president to declare and emergency”. Well. MO was, a week ago.

Whaddup.

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4. marisacat - 4 February 2009: 2

or peligoes… 😉 pelicanos… 😆

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5. marisacat - 4 February 2009: If by chance you were feeling cheery… Hedges will knock that idea around. Dark. I would say no, mindful of Madman’s link in the previous thread.. but then I think of the huge swathes of the country with little or no safety net. I’ve long thought in this country it will have to be pushed to food riots. Sheer starvation, more than now…

It’s not going to be OK

By Chris Hedges

The daily bleeding of thousands of jobs will soon turn our economic crisis into a political crisis. The street protests, strikes and riots that have rattled France, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Iceland will descend on us. It is only a matter of time. And not much time. When things start to go sour, when Barack Obama is exposed as a mortal waving a sword at a tidal wave, the United States could plunge into a long period of precarious social instability.

At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril or has the possibility of totalitarianism been as real. Our way of life is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will never have the standard of living we had. And poverty and despair will sweep across the landscape like a plague. This is the bleak future. There is nothing President Obama can do to stop it. It has been decades in the making. It cannot be undone with a trillion or two trillion dollars in bailout money. Our empire is dying. Our economy has collapsed.

….

He said the widespread political passivity is dangerous. It is often exploited by demagogues who pose as saviors and offer dreams of glory and salvation. He warned that “the apoliticalness, even anti-politicalness, will be very powerful elements in taking us towards a radically dictatorial direction. It testifies to how thin the commitment to democracy is in the present circumstances. Democracy is not ascendant. It is not dominant. It is beleaguered. The extent to which young people have been drawn away from public concerns and given this extraordinary range of diversions makes it very likely they could then rally to a demagogue.”

Wolin lamented that the corporate state has successfully blocked any real debate about alternative forms of power. Corporations determine who gets heard and who does not, he said. And those who critique corporate power are given no place in the national dialogue.

“In the 1930s there were all kinds of alternative understandings, from socialism to more extensive governmental involvement,” he said. “There was a range of different approaches. But what I am struck by now is the narrow range within which palliatives are being modeled.
…

“The puzzle to me is the lack of social unrest,” Wolin said when I asked why we have not yet seen rioting or protests. […] Anti-war protests in the 1960s gained momentum from their ability to spread across the country, he noted. This, he said, may not happen this time. “The ways they can isolate protests and prevent it from [becoming] a contagion are formidable,” he said.

…

“I keep asking why and how and when this country became so conservative,” he went on. “This country once prided itself on its experimentation and flexibility. It has become rigid. It is probably the most conservative of all the advanced countries.” …snap…

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6. marisacat - 4 February 2009: hmm and Sheer is dark dark dark on the economic team, in particular Geithner. The wunderkind we had to have despite his rotted history.

Rubin, Geithner and Summers are hell-bent on denying the responsibility of their deregulation initiatives for the economic crisis. But the reality is that the merger of investment and commercial banks with insurance companies and stock brokers was illegal before the approval of their legislation, which reversed the Glass-Steagall Act passed under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. So, too, the newfangled financial instruments exempted from any government regulation, thanks to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that Summers got Clinton to sign into law a month before he left office.

The reversal of Glass-Steagall unleashed the robber barons, as was freely conceded by Goldman CEO Blankfein in an interview he gave to the New York Times in June of 2007. “If you take an historical perspective,” Blankfein said, gloating back then about the vast expansion of Goldman Sachs, “We’ve come full circle, because that is exactly what the Rothchilds or J.P. Morgan the banker were doing in their heyday. What caused an aberration was the Glass-Steagall Act.” …

hardly news of course.

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7. wu ming - 4 February 2009: weird, i just went to the zoo this afternoon (panda room still sold out, altho the crowds are gradually subsiding) and spent a good amount of time watching the flamingos. beautiful birds, no red rimmed glasses to be seen, tho.

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8. marisacat - 4 February 2009: On the New Year’s eve BART killing…

[B]ut in the intervening days, the political balance of forces had shifted dramatically, with the legitimacy of both the BART police and the OPD seemingly in free-fall. First, it was announced that the head of OPD internal affairs, Ed Poulson, had been suspended and that the FBI is currently investigating the force over the death in custody of Jerry Amaro some nine years ago. This combined with a threatened no-confidence vote for Police Chief Wayne Tucker partly over handling of the investigation into the murder of journalist Chauncey Bailey, led Tucker to announce his unceremonious resignation, leaving a gaping power vacuum at the head of this force, which would make itself felt later.

In addition, BART police chief Gary Gee, who seems hell-bent on infuriating the public as much as is humanly possible, was circulating a memo instructing all BART officers on how they could show their solidarity with Mehserle by making a donation to his defense. “You have our full support,” writes Gee, who went on to blame “public abuse and the media’s reporting” for placing undue stress on his department. As Grant family attorney John Burris put it, “It is unacceptable for the police chief, who ostensibly is investigating Mehserle and other officers, related to their conduct on the night that Oscar Grant was killed, to encourage officers to visit and make financial contributions to Mehserle.”

But perhaps the most important element in this new upsurge in public anger and disillusionment with the police was a new cellphone video release by KTVU news, and taped on the BART platform the night Oscar Grant was executed. The recording shows a different officer, now identified as Tony Pirone, who would later have his knee on Oscar Grant when he was shot by Mehserle, punching Grant in the face for no apparent reason, and clearly escalating the tone of the situation. While those in the streets have been demanding the arrest of the other officers as accessories to murder, this demand had been largely ignored until it gained a degree of tangible reality in that video, at which point BART officials announced an investigation would be opened. …snip…

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9. NYCO - 4 February 2009: Hedges is worth reading, but he — like so many others — makes the mistake of assuming America is a cultural and economic monolith. America is many disparate pieces crammed into a totalitarian federal “whole” — pieces that have their own, much older values and traditions of governance, not to mention resources and political will.

“America” as we know it has only been a single entity, psychologically, since maybe the 1860s at best. It has been, for much longer before that, a series of states and prior to that, colonies (and even prior to that, peoples) that all had their own separate interests and modes of governance.

America isn’t at heart any more monolithic than the old Soviet Union was. In that hidden fracturing is local, demagogue-proof strength for hard times.

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10. NYCO - 4 February 2009: In that hidden fracturing is local, demagogue-proof strength for hard times.

Of course, some areas may OPT for demagoguery, such as Turkmenistan did. But that was an extreme case.

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11. lucid - 4 February 2009: 9 – so when does the Northeast break off?

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12. catnip - 4 February 2009: Weird #2: my roomie bought a book on Sunday titled “La Vie en Rose”.

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13. catnip - 4 February 2009: This is rich – literally: TARP Recipients Paid Out $114 Million for Politicking Last Year

WASHINGTON–The struggling companies whose freewheeling business practices have contributed to the country’s economic woes are getting a lucrative return on at least one of their investments. Beneficiaries of the $700 billion bailout package in the finance and automotive industries have spent a total of $114.2 million on lobbying in the past year and contributions toward the 2008 election, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has found. The companies’ political activities have, in part, yielded them $305.2 billion from the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), an extraordinary return of 267,208 percent.

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14. marisacat - 4 February 2009: hmmm Waivers and buffers a go go.

[W]e’ve also been reporting that some on the Hill are saying the White House are considering creating a buffer between Gregg and the [Census] bureau to alleviate such concerns. Obama’s press office hasn’t responded to our requests for comment.

“Secretary of Commerce-Designate Judd Gregg’s record raises serious questions about his willingness to ensure that the 2010 Census produces the most accurate possible count of the nation’s population,” said a spokesman for NALEO’s political arm.

“As a current member and former chairman of the subcommittee that funds the U.S. Census Bureau, Secretary-Designate Gregg fought President Clinton’s efforts to increase funding for the Commerce Department to administer the 2000 census. During his tenure in the U.S. Senate, some policymakers questioned his commitment to supporting the basic functions of the Bureau…NALEO will be closely monitoring the confirmation process to learn more about Secretary-Designate Gregg’s view of the Department’s responsibility to conduct an accurate census.

There is also a story out that those paragons of inclusion, a gaming industry fixer and a Mormon (Reid) and son of an Irgun fighter (Rahmbo)… pushed for Gregg.

Good going.

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15. bayprairie - 4 February 2009: drudge has a link up to a youtoob where la nan mispeaks and says 500 million americans are going to lose their jobs…

sillystring!

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16. marisacat - 4 February 2009: Nan!… not our savior.

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17. catnip - 4 February 2009: 15. 500 million americans are going to lose their jobs…

Looks like you really do need a new census! lol

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18. catnip - 4 February 2009: Personality injection needed for patient Gibbs – stat.

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19. marisacat - 4 February 2009: And the problem for Gibbs is that, love her president or hate him, he follows Perino, who was at least prepared each day. Pretty smooth delivery.

Gibbs is an operative and not a front man, imo.

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20. marisacat - 4 February 2009: 17

LOL it probably includes the global off shored jobs.

I am guessing she meant 5 million, which might be LOW for 2009. If between 500 and 600k continue to go each month, which could happen.

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21. NYCO - 4 February 2009: As a wag on another blog said today-

well, look on the bright side, if 500 million Americans lose their jobs, Pelosi will be among them…

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22. bayprairie - 4 February 2009: i better shove off for work. i have to lose my job 50 times between now and the 17th. time’s wasting!

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23. lucid - 4 February 2009: 21 – reading calculated risk I see. 🙂

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24. marisacat - 4 February 2009: Nah does not matter.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs indicated this afternoon that the nomination of Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire as commerce secretary would not be imperiled by a former staffer emerging in the investigation of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The Associated Press is reporting that Kevin Koonce, who worked as legislative director in Gregg’s Senate office from 2002 to 2004, was the “Staffer F” cited in a guilty plea last week by Todd Boulanger, a former deputy to Abramoff, who said he gave the staffer front-row tickets to a hockey game and other tickets to a baseball game, and in exchange received favors in spending legislation.

Gibbs said that Gregg is “not a target” of the investigation, and noted that the staffer left Gregg’s office “quite some time ago.”…snip…

The STAFFER being of greater importance than the SENATOR he WORKED for.

Let’s see. Voted to get rid of Commerce. Voted (or wanted) to underfund the last Census… now in charge of 2010 census.. Which is uniquely tied to increased minority representation in the House as well as Federal monies to districts…. and WH talking of a buffer between Gregg and the census.

And now Abramoff (heavy duty ties to Israel) had an in to his senate office. AND Reid (jackass fixer guy) and Rahm (son of Irgun) pushed for Gregg.

Moving right along.

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25. catnip - 4 February 2009: Just watching the C-SPAN video of the house hearing with the Madoff whistleblower, Markopolis (which the chairman keeps pronouncing as Marco Polos lol). He’s entertaining. A bit of an ego but definitely a straight talker who has nothing nice to say about the SEC.

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26. marisacat - 4 February 2009: hmmm Newsweek on who’s in control. Or out of control. OR who is losing control. Or, Ob needs to …. do something.

I’d ask what the agenda was to start with. I sure notice that the guy from Moody’s is popping up on all the political shows. Seems we are under the gun of rating agencies. So blessed.

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27. marisacat - 4 February 2009: 25

LOL BBC pronouncing his name right… some of his testimony had the crew on the studio in stitches.

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28. marisacat - 4 February 2009: We went officially bankupt on Sunday…

California Cut to Lowest Credit Rating Among States (Update3)

By Jeremy R. Cooke and Michael B. Marois

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) — California became the lowest rated U.S. state as Standard & Poor’s cut its general obligation bonds one grade because Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers have failed to close a record budget deficit.

California’s $46 billion of full-faith-and-credit debt was lowered to A, the sixth-highest of 10 investment grades, from A+, the New York-based rating firm said in a release.

The downgrade by S&P puts California, the most populous state and largest tax-exempt borrower, below the level it shared with Louisiana. Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings have said they may cut California from A1 and A+, respectively, their fifth-highest grades.

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29. Madman in the Marketplace - 4 February 2009: Rubin, Geithner and Summers are hell-bent on denying the responsibility

The only people who have to accept “responsibilty” are the poor and the defenseless.

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30. Madman in the Marketplace - 4 February 2009: 9 – I think the fracturing into stronger localities surrounded by the meltdowns is part of what Hedges is describing. It also doesn’t preclude a police state, no matter how much some local areas might try to opt out.

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31. Madman in the Marketplace - 4 February 2009: Why the pitchforks were out for Daschle

For two years now, Americans have been so focused on picking a new president, because that seemed like the obvious antidote to the fiasco that was George W. Bush. And now we have a 44 who’s a lot better than 43, and so the nation is waking up to a new and much worse nightmare, that it wasn’t just one awful president who was stinking up the joint, but a whole rotten system, a permanent, undislodge-able government of limo-laden lobbyists, their political lackeys in both parties, and a braindead national media that can cover the living daylights out of somebody’s nanny problems but heads for the hills when a top official makes an allegation of something serious like torture. And the more that sinks in, the more I wonder how this is all going to end, aside from…badly.

The only good news is that there may be a way here for Home Depot to climb out of the recession –if they start stocking up now on pitchforks. And tar. Oh, and start selling feathers, too.

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32. NYCO - 4 February 2009: 31. Great highlighted quote, Madman. Oh so true. Shows precisely what ground was lost by the Cult of Bush Hatred over the past 8 years.

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33. marisacat - 4 February 2009: Volunteers at Huffpo have been going thru the stimulus bill, page by page.

The sifters found some noteworthy nuggets in the bill. Combing through his section of the bill, law professor and health care author Timothy Jost noticed that the Senate had removed the House provision that would allow people 55 and over who are laid off to continue COBRA coverage at a subsidized rate until they’re 65 and eligible for Medicare. The House version also made folks who were laid off temporarily eligible for Medicaid; the Senate version strips that out, Jost found. Every one percent increase in unemployment throws more than a million people into the ranks of the uninsured.

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34. BooHooHooMan - 4 February 2009: Following Harry Markopolos testimony on Madoff and his willingness to reveal other research into pervasive market fraud, a piece in the Village Voice (re)-raises questions about Bloomberg…

……But speaking of Dr. Evil, Markopolos also pointed out (as I and some others have) that Wall Street’s fraudsters couldn’t pull off their schemes without Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s proprietary sophisticated hardware/software machines.

{Snip}

Bloomberg is supposedly the biggest philanthropist in America; he got the money from the sale of his machines on Wall Street.

Which leads to the question: How could Mayor Bloomberg not have known the various nefarious uses to which his machines could be put? Of course he knows.

Which leads to this: Wall Street’s meltdown happened on his watch, and it was created by his pals — his customers — at the Street’s big banks. So why didn’t he stop it or at least see the signs of an impending disaster?

If not him, who? If not then, why not?

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35. BooHooHooMan - 4 February 2009: I’m catching the entirety of Markopolos off CSPAN ..

At 23 min to 29 in clip…..

Somebody give this Dem Critter Gary Ackerman a towel. – He’s the pasty old shlemeiel on the right.

From Bayside/Queens – Bernie’s old neighborhood- Ackerman was laboring all friendly like on the margins to clarify that Markopolos came to his conclusions “pretty quickly”, “no hard evidence”, etc–

Ackerman, in going for The Blur®, asked for additional time to ask a question if Madoff could have acted alone, Markopolos replied with an emphatic No! ….He had extensive help….etc.

Right before Ackerman clowned in – clearly to diminish the guy’s testimony, Markopolos revealed he is doing forensic work in conjunction with regulators in France and Switzerland…Ruh- Rohs!

Load up the St. Bernard!

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36. Madman in the Marketplace - 4 February 2009: I have a new post up:

I’m personally not sure he’s all that smart. He’s of that sort that is spit out by the very same “elite” universities that gave us both Bushes, Kerry, Clinton and the lords of the universe that gave us credit default swaps and bundled mortgage securities (and so many other pyramid schemes) … the yawing pits that spawned the Goldman Sachs “public servants” who destroyed what was left of banking regulations in this country. Able to follow directions and spit out pseudo-scientific cant with lots of numbers to back it up on demand, but utterly unable to conjure up an original thought or penetrating insight. If some “mentor” hasn’t provided a Mad Libs for guys like Obama to fit reassuring words into on demand, they’re lost. They certainly aren’t “leaders”.

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37. BooHooHooMan - 4 February 2009: What a Shlamozzle. I mis-spelled “shlemiel”.

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38. Madman in the Marketplace - 4 February 2009: link in moderation.

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39. Madman in the Marketplace - 4 February 2009: MOBILE STRIKE FORCE | Strategy used vs. insurgents in Iraq helps Chicago cops fight crime

The Mobile Strike Force, created late last year, includes two companies of 48 officers each. They’ve been patrolling the Marquette, Harrison, Austin and Grand Central districts.

In January 2008, there were 17 murders in those districts, compared with only one murder last month, said James Roussell, commander of the unit.

“It is very dramatic,” he said. “It’s an early validation of the strategy. Now we need more people to buy into it, particularly the public.”

It’s good news for a department criticized for Chicago’s 2008 murder total, which surpassed 500 for the first time in five years.

Roussell, who recently fought against Iraqi insurgents as a Marine Reserve officer, said he is less concerned about compiling arrests than about suppressing violence.

Roussell said the Mobile Strike Force’s surge into the West Side is somewhat similar to the strategy he employed in Iraq: targeting the most dangerous actors while winning the hearts and minds of innocent residents.

Many of the gang members responsible for the violence don’t live in the neighborhoods where they commit crimes. The Mobile Strike Force works closely with the Illinois State Police to target them, Roussell said. “We spend a great deal of time identifying who these violent offenders are, where they are coming from and where they are going — and interdict them in vehicle stops,” he said. The officers have seized 85 guns between November, when the strike force started, and the end of January, Roussell said.

How long ’til the police have drones “targeting” vehicles?

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40. Madman in the Marketplace - 4 February 2009: Florida Student Asks Scalia a Question — and Gets Scolded

So what did Sarah Jeck ask that caused the volatile justice to erupt? According to her own notes and this account in today’s Sun-Sentinel, Jeck asked whether the rationale for Scalia’s well-known opposition to cameras in the Supreme Court was “vitiated” by the facts that the Court allows public visitors to view arguments and releases full argument transcripts to the public, and that justices go out on book tours.

It’s that last part that probably grated, because Scalia could, at that precise moment, have been said to be on a book tour. He was speaking before the Palm Beach County Forum Club and Bar Association, while his book — Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges, co-authored by Bryan Garner — was for sale at a table outside the hall.

thin-skinned asshole:

After Scalia made his comment to Jeck, he took several written questions and then circled back to Jeck’s query, according to this story in the Palm Beach Post. Scalia said he originally supported the idea of camera access in the courts, but came to oppose it because the inevitable “30-second takeouts” would not give a true picture of what is going on. “Why should I be a party to the miseducation of the American people?” According to Jeck, Scalia made no reference to his book tour as a possible contradiction to his views on public access to the Court.

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41. Madman in the Marketplace - 4 February 2009: Lux Interior, CRAMPS founder, has died.

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42. marisacat - 4 February 2009: Madman… two of yours out of Moderation… (free at last!)

Sorry ti took a while…

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43. marisacat - 4 February 2009: 35

hmm I am guessing Ackerman is more pro Bernie than he has been pro israel/related issues….

A few years ago I caught Ackerman on Cspan, the morning call in… with Brian Lamb… he was so good on gays, some issue was coming up… forget what. He was like some Hebrew Santa, with a boutonniere and sweet beyond belief.

I was very taken in… not knowing anything of Ackerman.

A few months later he was on again about something to do with Israel. And screamed at callers taking issue. I mean screamed.

So he must like Bernie better than all the Jewish charitable foundations that lost money…………

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44. BooHooHooMan - 4 February 2009: Classic “Meteor Blades” or in the Ish-Hunu loosely translated as “Licked Finger Held to Wind”:

What a sucklefuck, that multiple-orificed Timothy Lange,
in a ToqueDeVille Rec List Diary on the give-give-giveaways.

One of the reasons I’ve been so pissed … (25+ / 0-)

…at the “chill-the-fuck-out-because-Obama’s-smarter-than-y’all-don’t-criticize-idolize crowd around here is that they don’t believe in bottom-up politics, but rather think getting somebody elected is pretty much the end game. They’re wrong, and Geithner and Summers (and much of the foreign policy appointments) prove it.

{ Here’s MB’s “OTOH”—……..BOTH beating off in twin piston fashion…LOL..}

Nonetheless, for left-progressives, it’s not all over. Because we don’t give up no matter what. And we don’t rally our side by providing only critiques and no positive vision.

I’m highly critical of the stimulus package and agreed with TocqueDeville in a comment on this subject that he made the other night. But we don’t effect change by saying we’re fucked we’re fucked we’re fucked unless a way is presented for us to get unfucked.

I’ve been highly critical of Obama’s failure to make his bipartisanship inclusive of the left-of-center people in his coalition and the left of left-of-center people.

But I am more critical of this cynical throw-up-your-hands approach to politics I’m seeing here.

by Meteor Blades on Wed Feb 04, 2009 at 06:46:04 PM PST

]

So So “Critical”. LOL.
More rejoinder in a bit.

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45. marisacat - 4 February 2009: WSJ on the faith based roll out tomorrow. Abortion tees up first graf (no no no, they just are all about adoption. Sure!). It’s also all about interfaith global outreach. Pardon me while I laugh. I ma sure he’d call ti dialogue, I would call it (all too likely) state based church planting. In countries that I bet don’t want christian proselytising.

And Obster being Obster (not being a hack operative like Tim Lange, I can say what I like) he is stepping back from all the campaign balderdash about how he was a constitutional prof and values separation of church and state. Right, working ot preserve Bush’s lenient hiring practices for the Religionists.

WSJ helpfully provided his campaign slobber along side the article.

[M]r. Obama’s goal, much like President George W. Bush’s, is to harness the power of churches and other religious groups to solve some of the nation’s toughest social problems. But almost from the start, the Bush plan was ensnared by constitutional questions about the separation between church and state, most notably whether an organization that received tax dollars can make hiring decisions on the basis of religion.

As a candidate, Mr. Obama came down firmly against such hiring. But on Thursday, he will take a more nuanced position, saying that these issues should be decided on a case-by-case basis, said Joshua DuBois, the 26-year-old former campaign adviser who will be named to head the White House Office for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

“The president found one of the problems with the previous initiative was that tough questions were decided without appropriate consideration and data,” Mr. DuBois said in an interview Wednesday. President Obama, he said, “doesn’t have an interest in rushing questions that are so complex.”

Instead, the president will sign an executive order making clear that the director of the new office should seek guidance from the Department of Justice on specific legal issues regarding “how to respect the Constitution” and nondiscrimination laws, Mr. DuBois said.

The same case-by-case approach will govern another tricky question: whether federal funds can pay for secular portions of programs that also include proselytization, he said.

That approach will likely anger some on the left who were hoping for a clean break with the Bush policy. In a speech last July, Mr. Obama presented a more clear-cut view of how to draw the constitutional line. “If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them or against the people you hire on the basis of their religion,” he said then.

But the new approach will please people like David Kuo, who was deputy director of the Bush faith-based office, and who says that too much energy was spent on questions that have little impact in the real world. He said that very few charities actually discriminate in their hiring. …snip…

The Right, in particular the schnauzers at The Corner, had a little joke amongst themselves about Ob… that all his promises have expiration dates.

So true.

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46. BooHooHooMan - 4 February 2009: The Link above goes to this comment instead, which lead off Langes typical two faced crap.:

.

It’s always been up to us, TDV … (33+ / 0-)

{ LIAR!}

…and Obama has said it himself: “bottom-up politics.”

I agree with your premise that this stimulus bill needed something fresh and rallying, a megaproject with vision, if you will. And I’m no pal of Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, the two myopic guys who had the greatest influence on the stimulus bill, which definitely isn’t all it could be, to be charitable.

But you could have avoided all the flaming you’re getting and going to get if, instead of flaming the Obama administration, you had suggested in detail what you suggest in outline. That is, what the administration should do for its second round. You know, instead of arguing that everything sucks, present a positive vision for the administration to try for American Recovery and Investment Act – Part II. Something that could still come in the first 100 Days, y’know.

OK. I know that’s not your styleBut if it were, you’d be a lot more persuasive, a lot more effective. If you want to be.

by Meteor Blades on Wed Feb 04, 2009 at 06:17:21 PM PST

It’s about “US” from the bottom up. LOL.
“””What are Your Solutions?”””

What disingenuous crap.
Obama and the Dems are NOT delivering.
Haven’t. Won’t. Ain’t.
Economically, It’s not an issue of what is SAID– It’s DOING it.

But why should anybody be SURPRISED?!
It’s all part of the same exceptionalist shit.
Christ, all the shit mucked down by “Pwoggwessives”,
– the but but but on withdrawal,
the NSA,
TORTURE,
the Pandering to Churchmen, the Military, blowing the Israelites, the Gays To the Back of the BusⓇ, all of this Most UN Progressive shit so their meat-and-potatoes powdered Dem asses realize their “Priorities”.

Tim Lange is just weak, a fucking douchebag.
So typical, his “you can avoid the flaming your going to get..”
The Blog Pwoggies deserve each other and their bourgeois lot in life.

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47. marisacat - 5 February 2009: in a ToqueDeVille Rec List Diary on the give-give-giveaways.

HA! Someone jsut sent me the same DKos diary… I came back here to see if it was the same URL.

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48. marisacat - 5 February 2009: The Page

Faith Based Thursday

The President will deliver remarks Thursday morning at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.

Later he’ll sign an executive order in the Oval Office creating the President’s Advisory Council on Faith.

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49. marisacat - 5 February 2009: Ugh. Broder says Gregg will be critical in moving on Entitlement reform.

Yeah, get a white guy partner for that one. They know how to do it, with a black face as front man. LOL a lot of people just hired a black overseer. Oh how impolitic of me!

[]For now, recruiting Gregg for Commerce is scant consolation for the loss of Daschle. But in months to come, Gregg will be worth celebrating. He is one of the smart guys on Capitol Hill, especially when it comes to fiscal policy. And he provides Obama with a third strong Republican Cabinet member, joining Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Ray LaHood at Transportation.

Gregg and North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, respectively, the top Republican and Democrat on the Budget Committee, have been pushing for the creation of a bipartisan commission that would tackle the looming bankruptcy of the three big entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Conrad told me he deeply regrets the departure of his partner and does not know where to find a substitute. [sob! weep! —Mcat]

But help may be on the way. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the No. 3 man in the Senate Republican leadership, quietly joined the Budget Committee last month. When I asked him why, he said it was to “help move the Gregg-Conrad commission proposal forward.”…

Eat the christian wheaties, given to you in your old age as charity.

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50. BooHooHooMan - 5 February 2009: TDV responds to MB:

You think there’s a Part II? (7+ / 0-)

Sorry again. There isn’t. Sometimes you only get one chance at bat. This was it.

And why would you think I could be more persuasive by not telling the truth as I see it? I’m speaking my views honestly. I call it as I see it. I said up front I didn’t care if my views were unpleasant for some people.

If I wanted to water down my views to make them more palatable, I would run for office. That’s what politicians do. Which is why they rarely say anything worth hearing.

by TocqueDeville on Wed Feb 04, 2009 at 06:44:41 PM PST

Weepier Haze with his self serving, passive agressive response:

I’m not asking you to water down your views … (12+ / 0-)

..I never do that and you know it. –

[ Of course not. He goes sideways. Lange never says anything straight up, ’cause he’s a bullshit artist. -BHHM }.

I’m asking you to expand on your outline for a positive vision. Present your complaints, your critique, your lament, of course. And then your solution.

Yes, Part II may not be doable. I’ve worried about that, too. But there’s still time – not much, it is true – to craft a true Investment portion of the Recovery and Investment Act, which currently lacks one worthy of the name. I’ve got a grandchild and one on the way, and I’m not going to fall for the cynical view that they have no future because every Democrat in Congress has betrayed them.

GAG.
MB using “da chidren” as a shield.
A point not lost on TDV…

I thought I did (7+ / 0-)

…Present a single unifying vision that is forward looking and can give people something to look forward to instead of something to run from. I even threw out examples.

This is my daughter. {Pic of cute kid, BTW -BHHM}

Don’t even try that shit on me. The only reason I’m here is that maybe, by a slim chance, someone from the party will click on here to see what the mob is up to and see a diary like this and think, ‘holy shit, the mob is pissed’.

That’s what I call pressure. How did we get the New Deal? From Roosevelt wanting to do the right thing? No, from Huey Long scaring the shit out of him.

I don’t mind you criticizing my views or my methods. I always respect your opinions. But don’t even try to suggest that I don’t care for children’s futures as much as you.

They are the only reason I am even alive. I am fairly certain I would have died in a bar in Mexico otherwise.

But I’ll tell you what, until liberals wise up and realize what the fuck is really going on, my daughter’s future is very much in doubt. And that pisses me off.

I didn’t say Democrats “betrayed” them. But I might as well have. They have chosen repeatedly, year after year, to put their own personal power and that of their monied sponsors above the American people, the environment, and all decency.

Why would you rather your grandchildren not have a future? Because the Republicans did it?

Liberals have a problem. They project their own decency on others who just aren’t decent at all. Washington is a criminal operation. I worked in DC, lived there for years without ever knowing that. None of my friends who were staffers and lobbyist knew it really either. It took me years of research to connect the dots.

And I can tell you, until we remove the corruption from Washington to a significant extent, put these criminals in jail, and take this country back, our children and grandchildren will not have a future. At least not one we would wish on anyone.
::
……We are not going to fix global warming, fix healthcare, reign in our evil, militant foreign policy, until we first take our country back from the criminals. And that includes a shitload of Democrats.

Somebody needs to say it. If it were left to the believers here, those who brought us, “Thank your lucky stars for corporate attorneys” when Obama picked a corporate attorney for AG, or those who suddenly didn’t care about FISA when Obama rolled on FISA, if we left it up to these losers, then there wouldn’t be a progressive voice at all.

And you think there’s any persuading these people? People who show zero sign of being unhappy with the condition of our country or the world in any way – except when people like me dare to speak out against our miserable party? People who only post comments and diaries of cats and one line snark when someone dares to challenge authority?

I write for the hopefully larger percentage who are actually on the side of trying to change things. People who aren’t afraid to think unhappy thoughts and bury their heads in the sand about what a sick, corrupt country this is becoming.

Fuckem. Politics attracts two kinds of people: those who really want to make the world a better place, and souless suckups who just want a piece of the action. Most never know which kind they are until they’re tempted, tested. But the indicators are there if you look. They never post about anything relevant. They never are outraged by the injustices in the world. And they always take the side of established authority.

When they show up in my diaries gnashing their teeth, I know that I’m doing the right thing.

by TocqueDeville on Wed Feb 04, 2009 at 08:07:05 PM PST

Dig TDV’s last few. “When they show up in my diaries gnashing their teeth, I know that I’m doing the right thing.” He’s might as well be talking about that toothess Grampa, Meatier Butter Knife, the one with the nightly steamed Spam on his cheeks.

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51. marisacat - 5 February 2009: All you can do is snicker. Looks like a plan to me. Unless Obama is abysmally stupid and even more passive than I see him as, then he HAD to know the R would oppose him. And run hard interference. Or was the blessed manger event YESTERDAY?

Obama Losing Stimulus Fight to Defeated GOP

By E. J. Dionne

WASHINGTON — The irony of President Barack Obama’s Blue Tuesday is that the wall-to-wall television interviews he granted were designed not to apologize for Tom Daschle’s fall from grace but to fight back against the Republicans’ success in tarnishing his stimulus package. [sob! weep! — Mcat]

Obama’s network appearances were planned as a response to a wholly unanticipated development: Republicans — short on new ideas, low on votes, and deeply unpopular in the polls — have been winning the media wars over the president’s central initiative.

They have done so largely by focusing on minor bits of the stimulus that amount, as Obama said in at least two of his network interviews, to “less than 1 percent of the overall package.” But Republicans have succeeded in defining the proposal by its least significant parts. … snip…

So, how stupid IS Obama. How stupid are the American people. How entranced with “historic” are they.

In just two weeks, Obama and his advisers have been forced to learn basic lessons on the run. [oh puhleeze… —Mcat] The elation of Inauguration Day has given way to a classic form of partisan hardball. The media cannot be counted on to be either liberal or permanently enchanted with any politician. Arguments left unanswered can take hold, whether they make sense or not. And one more lesson: No occupant of the White House has ever been able to walk on water.

Dionne ws one of the biggest hacks selling Obama. An overrated hunk of merchandise.

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52. marisacat - 5 February 2009: The only reason I’m here is that maybe, by a slim chance, someone from the party will click on here to see what the mob is up to and see a diary like this and think, ‘holy shit, the mob is pissed’.

Oh get real ( I would say to TDV)… I can tell Tocque what the response has been from Washington DC to the mob. That McCaskill display in congress… for which she wore extra heavy eye make up (I don’t like to comment on womens’ looks, but it was no help, sorry to say)… and part deux was ObRama playing all whupset this am over “compensation”. With that neurotic Geithner by his side.

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53. BooHooHooMan - 5 February 2009: The Take-Away?

MB believes in “Bottoms Up” Politics. LOL.
Randy , baby.

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54. BooHooHooMan - 5 February 2009: TDV’s “The only reason I’m here is that maybe, by a slim chance, someone from the party will click on here..” Yeh, I was thinking good luck with that, too,..

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55. marisacat - 5 February 2009: LOL think Josh Marshall will be mounting a months long battle against slashing Entitlements??????? Under “historic” Obama? Or will the self identifying Zionist be persuaded to drop his long opposition of just a couple years ago? For Israel issues? Iran Issues? Muslim issues?

I don’t share the sense of panic expressed by some Obama supporters over his approach to the stimulus package. If the campaign taught us anything, it’s that Obama is willing to invest in strategies that only yield dividends in the long term. I suspect his careful cultivation of the GOP side of the aisle is closely akin to his caucus strategy; it may require a lot of time and effort before it produces a payoff, but if he can pick off votes and limit rancor, it will be well worth the investment. […]

The reader’s point about the long view is well-taken. Obama’s mix of steel and patience are two of his key virtues. …snip…

Good luck!

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56. marisacat - 5 February 2009: Grrrrrrrrrrrrreat. A fucking speech. We don’t need any more speeches from Obama.

02.04.09 — 2:19PM // link | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (113)
Our Highest Priority

From Theda Skocpol …

In response to what you are saying: Obama is, sadly, much to blame for giving the Republicans so much leverage. He defined the challenge as biparitsanship not saving the U.S. economy.

Right now, he has only one chance to re-set this deteriorating debate: He needs to give a major speech on the economy, explain to Americans what is happening and what must be done. People will, as of now, still listen to him — and what else is his political capital for?

Speaking as a strong Obama supporter who put my energies and money into it, I am now very disillusioned with him. He spent the last two weeks empowering Republicans — including negotiating with them to get more into Senate and his administration and giving them virtual veto-power over his agenda — and also spending time on his personal cool-guy image (as in interview before the Super Bowl). The country is in danger and he ran for president to solve this crisis in a socially inclusionary way. He should be fighting on that front all the time with all his energies — and he certainly should give a major speech to help educate the public and shape the agenda. That is the least he can and should do. Only that will bypass the media-conserative dynamic that is now in charge.

–Josh Marshall

He probably will give a speech. Or two. Or three. Pabulum to the masses. Eat that pabulum iwht a cross rather than a spoon.

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57. marisacat - 5 February 2009: People should catch onto all that “cool guy” shit he promotes. I am not a fan of SNL but they did, when they re-tooled the Arnisen interpretation… and I was glad to see it. it might float by and maybe get a few things said.

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58. marisacat - 5 February 2009: This seems to be all over the UK press… Times Online version:

[D]avid Miliband will make a statement to the House of Commons today on the alleged cover-up of the torture of Binyam Mohamed, a former British resident being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Foreign Secretary faces tough questioning from MPs on the diplomatic pressure applied by both President Bush and President Obama’s Administrations for Britain to keep secret Mr Mohamed’s alleged mistreatment in secret US jails in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Morocco.

He is also likely to be quizzed on how far MI6 agents were complicit in the alleged torture. Mr Mohamed claims that British spies interviewed him during the time he alleges he was having his chest and penis cut with a scalpel and stinging liquid poured into the wounds, and that they passed on detailed personal information about him to his torturers.

Mr Miliband has been forced to make the statement after two British judges released a damning ruling on Mr Mohamed’s case yesterday. The judges complained that they could not release details of Mr Mohamed’s alleged mistreatment and Britain’s role in it, even though it was in the interests of justice, because America had threatened to withdraw intelligence co-operation from Britain and this could put British lives at risk. …snip…

A good way to show you stopped torture, if you did, is to be open about what you did do. “You” being the US government and its proxies and allies.

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59. marisacat - 5 February 2009: From a Guardian Cif posting on the Binyam Mohamed torture:

[T]he British government led the court to believe that the Obama administration has adopted the same line as its predecessor. But is this really true? Certainly, President Obama needs to speak for himself.

Indeed, the judges conclude with something close to a plea for common sense: “It must now be for the United States government to consider changing its position or itself putting that information into the public domain.” …

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60. marisacat - 5 February 2009: Jeane Cummings in politico. Fwiw. It is amusing at points.

[T]he Jetsons versus the Flinstones

Obama’s campaign was lauded for its visionary use of modern tools for old-fashioned politics. Through the Internet, it recruited supporters, collected dollars, rallied supporters and organized get-out-the vote operations.

But when these modern heroes arrived at the White House, it was like the lights all went out.

Their contact with their millions-fold supporters was cut off, literally, as e-mail systems broke down and ‘The List’ of political supporters was blocked at the iron gate.

To meet government ethics rules, the campaign operation and its grassroots army were forced to de-camp to the Democratic National Committee, robbing the president of one of his most potent political weapons just as the stimulus bill was under consideration in the House. [oh puhleeze. we wuz robbed? –Mcat]

But while the White House team struggled to adapt, it was business as usual on Capitol Hill for Republicans.

They could practically sleep-walk through their attack plan once House Democrats began to fill in Obama’s broad outlines for a stimulus with a few pet projects of their own.

It required two simple steps: Scream pork, call Rush Limbaugh.

They even could have even used a rotary phone.

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61. NYCO - 5 February 2009: Obama’s mix of steel and patience are two of his key virtues

Oh brother.

“Knowing he was destined for greatness from birth, the boy Obama desperately wanted to lead the mightiest nation on Earth to truth and glory, but wisely bided his time until he’d gotten at least a term as junior Senator under his belt…”

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62. Intermittent Bystander - 5 February 2009: Speaking of MB, I noticed his preventive-care massage of the Miliband story yesterday afternoon: UK Foreign Secretary Backs Up on Claim Regarding Obama Administration’s Torture-Related ‘Threat’.

Finding a balance between national security and the liberties of a free society is, obviously, something that all democracies must wrestle with. Over the past seven years, however, the Cheney-Bush administration has pressed forward those national security claims by taking the United States many steps down the path that dictators everywhere prefer to trod. And we continue to discover just how far they were willing to go to undertake and conceal their crimes. In the past two weeks, the Obama administration has initated some welcome backtracking. The Mohammed case offers the opportunity to do so again. That opportunity should be seized without delay.

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63. marisacat - 5 February 2009: He has an op ed in the Wapo

The Action Americans Need

By Barack Obama Thursday, February 5, 2009; Page A17

By now, it’s clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring. … and on…
.

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64. marisacat - 5 February 2009: There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being.

At the National Prayer breakfast Long and windy he was..

Considering the bombing of Pakistan and Afghanistan and Gaza, I assume he does not mean children bombed to death in US bought and paid war.

Then again he refers to the ghouls at teh breakfast as ”beloved children of God”. Including, of course, himself.

COUNT ME OUT.

😯

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65. BooHooHooMan - 5 February 2009: Me, too on ..Obama’s mix of steel and patience..

LOL. Well. “Stalin” is Russian for steel, though our boy seems more
like Steele, the New! ornamental GOP jockey. LOLx2 at
Josh Marshall for his cult of personality pastiche,
Ob as some Pwoggy Stalin with a sweater of
patience-as-preeminent-virtue-in-crisis thrown in.

Some Daddy Issues there, Josh?

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66. BooHooHooMan - 5 February 2009: LOL. Whoops! Double clutched on edited comment. Please Delete #65

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67. BooHooHooMan - 5 February 2009: Thanx!

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68. marisacat - 5 February 2009: hmm catch the comments from that flower of the south, Lindsay Graham. Think it was just yesterday that obRama reached out to McCain again in light of his harsh criticism the past few days.

[“I]t’s a broken process, and the president, as far as I’m concerned has been AWOL in providing leadership.”

“I hope the President will call a time out and we can come together and be smart about how we spend the American People’s money.”

“Scaring people is not leadership…we have had enough President’s trying to scare people”

“I like President Obama, but he is not leading; having lunch is not leading.”

“The President is giving TV interviews rather than getting people together, and I am very disappointed.” ….

I am guessing the R smell blood in the water.

Thsi could get boring.

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69. catnip - 5 February 2009: Politico.com Breaking News:
—————————————————–

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been hospitalized for surgery for pancreatic cancer, the Associated Press reports.

If she retires, I can’t wait to see who Obamalama has in mind to replace her. That choice may (hopefully) cause the spontaneous combustion of the entire so-called progressive blahgosphere.

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70. catnip - 5 February 2009: 58.

The judges complained that they could not release details of Mr Mohamed’s alleged mistreatment and Britain’s role in it, even though it was in the interests of justice, because America had threatened to withdraw intelligence co-operation from Britain and this could put British lives at risk.

I’m trying to think of a response to that kind of supremacist arrogance that doesn’t involve making my head explode.

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71. bayprairie - 5 February 2009: 69

this story Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg has cancer surgery mentions the whipple procedure, although doesn’t seem to confirm it for sure. Its a century-old procedure but still in use today, a most aggressive surgery but i think its often still the gold standard. Even at a healthy 75 it’ll be months and months to climb out of, with a future of pancreatic acid supplements, digestive issues and the like. a permanent sea-change.

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72. catnip - 5 February 2009: Panetta, during his confirmation hearing, just said that he doesn’t think anyone who tortured under the law as Bushco had made it at the time should be prosecuted. Then when asked if you can make torture legal, he chuckled and said, “I believe that would be a stretch.”

Who, in their right mind, didn’t know torture was illegal and that the Bush interpretation was unconstitutional?

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73. marisacat - 5 February 2009: Isn’t this a second bout with cancer for her?

What a shame.

In other news… Solis hearing in committee postponed… and husband just wednesday paid liens of several thousand dollars. Some going back many years.

On and on it goes.

There is something else.. too. Oh.. Bloooooooooo Dogs threaten to walk… some letter they sent to Nancy. They want something done about that nasty old Stim Bill.

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74. marisacat - 5 February 2009: They took those pics at VF waaay too soon.

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75. marisacat - 5 February 2009: I’ll answer myself… just heard a recap on Ginsberg, she had surgery in ’99 for colon cancer…

***

Today’s Qs for O’s WH — 2/5/09

February 05, 2009 3:19 PM

TAPPER: Robert, two questions. One’s a housekeeping one. In the name of the transparency that you and the president herald so much, is there any way we could get the copies of the waivers that the OMB issues to allow certain cabinet posts or deputy posts…

GIBBS: I’ll check.

TAPPER: … free of the ethics constraints that you put up? And, also, the disclosure forms that your nominees put out that go to the Office of Government Ethics, that somehow they’re not able to e- mail or, you know, put on the Web, is there any way we can get copies of those?

GIBBS: Yes, I will check. I don’t — I don’t know how those forms are distributed.

TAPPER: Just based on listening to the president’s rhetoric, I’m sure it’s something he’d want to do.

GIBBS: Well…

TAPPER: The other question is…

GIBBS: Knowing of your crystal clarity on his opinion, I’ll certainly check.

TAPPER: He doesn’t believe in transparency?

GIBBS: Did you have another more pertinent question?

TAPPER: I think that’s pretty — I think it’s fairly pertinent, your cabinet nominees and whether or not they pay their taxes and whether or not they have speaking fees with all sorts of industries they’re suppose to regulate. I think that’s fairly pertinent. You don’t?

GIBBS: Obviously I do. And obviously the — the president does.

TAPPER: A majority of the American people apparently support blocking or making major changes to the stimulus bill, according to a Gallup poll. Are you worried at all that you’ve lost control of the process on how these bills are received?

GIBBS: No, I’m not.

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76. BooHooHooMan - 5 February 2009: No, – no judgement here, none whatsoever in what follows-
but Oh , THE MAN love. Desperate, Fantasy Man Love, that is…

LOL. Greg Palast stimulated last week on the Stimulation
clearing the low bar in the House.

Obama Is a Two-Faced Liar. Aw-RIGHT!

… Way to go, Mr. O! Mr. Down-and-Dirty Chicago pol. Street-fightin’ man. Covering over his break-your-face power play with a “we’re all post-partisan friends” BS.

And it’s about time.

Frankly, I was worried about this guy. Obama’s appointing Clinton-droids to the Cabinet, bloated incompetents like Larry Summers as “Economics Czar,” made me fear for my country, that we’d gotten another Democrat who wished he were a Republican.

Then came Obama’s money bomb. The House bill included $125 billion for schools (TRIPLING federal spending on education), expanding insurance coverage to the unemployed, making the most progressive change in the tax code in four decades by creating a $500 credit against social security payroll deductions, and so on.

It’s as if Obama dug up Ronald Reagan’s carcass and put a stake through The Gipper’s anti-government heart. Aw-RIGHT!

About the only concession Obama threw to the right-wing trogs was to remove the subsidy for condoms, leaving hooker-happy GOP Senators, like David Vitter, to pay for their own protection. S’OK with me.

Sure about that? Passage en-bloc in the Sen?
Any proof? Oh here it is.

And here’s the proof that Bam is The Man: Not one single Republican congressman voted for the bill. And that means that Obama didn’t compromise, the way Clinton and Carter would have, to win the love of these condom-less jerks.

And we didn’t need’m. Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!

Oh fuck, Greg. Just in the door, and now you done shot
your load on the carpet like Josh Marshall.

Now I understand Obama’s weird moves: dinner with those creepy conservative columnists, earnest meetings at the White House with the Republican leaders, a dramatic begging foray into Senate offices. Just as the Republicans say, it was all a fraud. Obama was pure Chicago, Boss Daley in a slim skin, putting his arms around his enemies, pretending to listen and care and compromise, then slowly, quietly, slipping in the knife. All while the media praises Obama’s “post-partisanship.” Heh heh heh.

And so forth. Hey, whatever Greg. No judgement here, but I know man-love when it’s slowly, quietly, being slipped in. Heh heh heh. Media praise and all:

Love it. Now we know why Obama picked that vindictive little viper Rahm Emanuel as staff chief: everyone visiting the Oval office will be greeted by the Windy City hit man who would hack up your grandma if you mess with the Godfather-in-Chief.

I don’t know about you, but THIS is the change I’ve been waiting for.

Will it last? We’ll see if Obama caves in to more tax cuts to investment bankers. We’ll see if he stops the sub-prime scum-bags from foreclosing on frightened families. We’ll see if he stands up to the whining, gormless generals who don’t know how to get our troops out of Iraq. (In SHIPS, you doofuses!)

Look, don’t get your hopes up. {Got it covered. LOL-BHHM}

But it may turn out the new president’s … a Democrat!

But it may turn out the new president’s … a Democrat!
Oh, THAT should turn out well…
…a few pegs down from Only Begotten Son, er,
“Godfather-in-Chief:, but hey, whatever, Greg.

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77. marisacat - 5 February 2009: Yu know.. when I read that dumb slither from Palast I wondered if he lost his mind. Really.

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78. BooHooHooMan - 5 February 2009: What a fuckin two-step. All the demi-Leftischer scribes panic selling O’bs Brand, his central marketing proposition as Not Another Slimy Pol® along with it, for just another slimy pol, Boss Daley, from Chicago, no less. Or Stalin. Or something.

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79. marisacat - 5 February 2009: Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

President Obama to Hold First Prime Time News Conference Monday [2:47 p.m. ET]

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80. BooHooHooMan - 5 February 2009: Oh let me write that down. How we fixed for Popcorn?

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81. marisacat - 5 February 2009: well fixed and the cows are churning the butter.

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82. BooHooHooMan - 5 February 2009: Maybe Ob is going to House-Party our ass out of disaster.
Watch and Witness Every. Historic. Word. and so forth,
bring a covered dish. And cover.

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83. catnip - 5 February 2009: From the DeToc diary:

What we need to remember (38+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
Ed in Montana, askew, gogol, rhubarb, CivicServant, MD patriot, Miss Blue, ybruti, gsbadj, sc kitty, Brooke In Seattle, jimreyn, LABobsterofAnaheim, CWalter, third Party please, CParis, Do Tell, Alfonso Nevarez, Badabing, cville townie, elwior, golconda2, Rick Winrod, geomoo, left my heart, Jeff Y, A Man Called Gloom, satanicpanic, cameoanne, Psychotronicman, theworksanddays, mkor7, sillycilla, blueocean, Liberal Pagan, Eddie L, Grumpy Young Man, Earth Ling

is that we aren’t alone in this fight. We have very powerful allies.

Governors of BOTH parties.

Mayors of BOTH parties.

Oh, and the elephant in the room: the LABOR UNIONS.

Who do you think does GOTV to get all of these Democratic senators elected? Who works the phones? Who shows up for the primaries and the fundraisers?

It’s the freaking UNIONS. Trust me, they aren’t sitting idly by while the GOP tries to strip millions of jobs from this bill. They have our back, and we have theirs.

by existenz on Wed Feb 04, 2009 at 07:04:39 PM PST

Really?

I saw Thea (somebody) from the AFL-CIO interviewed on CBC teevee yesterday about the protectionism controversy and when asked what she thought about the inclusion of that clause causing trade wars she said (and I quote), that was “silly”. (Apparently, she doesn’t get out much, read the papers or watch teevee.)

I saw a CNN blurb that the senate has “softened” that clause today but I haven’t checked it out yet. Regardless, making a blanket statement about the unions having the Dems’ back and vice versa is clearly misguided. Then again, that comment is in Big O La La Land so that’s par for the course.

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84. catnip - 5 February 2009: 79. President Obama to Hold First Prime Time News Conference Monday

I see he avoided American Idol nites. 😉

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85. catnip - 5 February 2009: (Yes I do watch American Idol sometimes. After the US election season ended, I felt a void in my life when it came to watching contenders making asses out of themselves in public week after week.)

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86. BooHooHooMan - 5 February 2009: They should just Nationalize these Ob Events and House Parties.
Who cares if the presser is at three in the afternoon?
Give people some work.

Mouth Gapping General Attendees could get maybe $7 Bucks an hour, with dibs on the macaroni salad to take home. Up to 12 bucks an hour to other proles on a sliding scale depending on grunted enthusiasm.

Tech types and Boy Blahgers alike
could compete for positions as Balloon Blower – Uppers.
Bonuses even, in valuable currency: Cigars? Cigarettes?

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87. marisacat - 5 February 2009: gnu post

LINK

……………. 🙄 …………

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