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“Co-dependence”… 30 May 2009

Posted by marisacat in Divertissements.
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Birds sit on a giraffe’s neck in the Masai Mara game reserve, Kenya [Radu Sigheti/Reuters]

Doesn’t look so bad here, does it?

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1. catnip - 30 May 2009
2. marisacat - 30 May 2009

😆

Fortunately I alughed pretty hard when they sold Jackson, a woman and a black from NJ with a clear history of ugly accommodation, as the first black head of EPA. Then laughed again as Ob’s wif ran over to EPA for one of her ”listening tours” and reinforced it.

Gah. Choke us all with the corporatist spoon.

What a fucking scam it all is.

[J]UAN GONZALEZ: And the recent decisions by the EPA to issue forty-two new permits, what will be the impact of that?

JEFF BIGGERS: It’s a huge impact. That was—last week was really Black Friday for Appalachia. You know, President Obama campaigned with the idea that we have to find another way to get our coal instead of blowing up our mountains. And this is very important to point out, that less than seven percent of our coal production comes from mountaintop removal, that we easily could eliminate it with energy efficiency, with renewable energies, or simply getting underground coal, which would provide more jobs.

But it’s been an agonizing spring, because we’ve had mixed signals from the EPA: perhaps we’ll have more scrutiny, perhaps not. The Department of Interior says we’re going to rescind a law, take it back to 1983. But the fact of the matter remains, you have to abolish mountaintop removal. You can’t regulate it. You can’t regulate this kind of violation.

AMY GOODMAN: Who’s pushing for it? Why does it continue?

JEFF BIGGERS: It continues because we have an incredible coal industry and their lobby in Washington. And this is something that transcends politics. You know, I’m based in the Midwest now, in Illinois.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And also, just to clarify, for the industry, it’s much cheaper to blow up a mountaintop than to actually send people, workers, underground to get the coal out.

JEFF BIGGERS: Exactly. When we say coal is cheap, of course, you know, that’s an absolute outrage. It’s not cheap. It’s just cheaper for them. You know, instead of having three underground mining jobs, they only need one job of someone blowing up the mountain with massive explosives and then using heavy equipment to get at this tiny little seam. So, yes, for them, it’s a cheaper and effective way.

But the problem is, the coal really transcends party politics, that you have liberal Democrats in the Midwest, like Senator Dick Durbin from my Illinois or even President Obama, who have always been working with the coal industry. It’s something that, if you come from a coal state, it’s been very hard to shake from the stranglehold of the coal industry on our politics. …snip…

There si a lot of interesting information in the interview, esp about a 94 year old congressman [Dr Hechler] who is part of the protests, the Appalachian Spring movement – and a festival in NYC this weekend on the ties between urban centers – NYC – and blowing mountaintops.. but then we get to the – what I call the – SOVIET part. I am tired of it.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And in terms of the new appointees of the President, have any of them indicated that they’re going to move in a different direction at all?

JEFF BIGGERS: Right. You know, I greatly admire President Obama. And Lisa Jackson, I think, is doing an amazing job at the EPA. And Ken Salazar, of course, came in with the Department of Interior and immediately announced that they were going to rescind a Bush manipulation of a 1983 stream buffer zone.

But the truth is, they’re searching for some kind of compromise. Can’t we find a consensus on this? Can’t we work this out? Can we just have stricter enforcements? And I think, as Representative Hechler pointed out, you just simply can’t compromise on these things, that it easily must be stopped. It’s one of these situations that it’s an absolute violation of our human rights and the environmental movement down there and that you have to go through and stop this. And I think they really need to get beyond this idea that they can regulate this. It has to be abolished. …snip…

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3. catnip - 30 May 2009

Coming up on Sunday Kos ….

* kos will announce a new hire and a new position for Daily Kos.

Bouncer? Banker? Propaganda Czar? Official Assclown? (that one’s actually taken already)

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marisacat - 30 May 2009

bouncer!

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marisacat - 30 May 2009

Czar bouncer!

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catnip - 30 May 2009

Or Czarina Bouncer. I’m sure Elise is available.

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cad - 31 May 2009

“Community Overlord” is teh Koz’s cute but truthful title bestowed upon Meteor Blades. What’s better is all the syncophatic “Thank You Kos, O Thank You For Building A Better Community.” How many DK readers are former or future Republicans? Lots!

More revealing and insidious is this idiot “webbranding,” a marketing ass always trying to preach the gospel of hucksterism to the willing masses of DK with incessant posts on how to turn consumers into loyal pimps and ho’s. With no irony at all.

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4. catnip - 30 May 2009

Today’s Absolutely Clueless post winner:

The Loving precedent is of course directly relevant to President Obama because he himself has campaigned on the fact that the marriage that produced him would have been illegal in over a dozen states back when it occurred. The bigoted argument made and dismissed in Loving can also be made in the case of gay marriage — that it does not violate the equal protection clause because gay people and straight people alike are EQUALLY prohibited from marrying someone of the same gender.

More to the point, though, President Obama is trained as a constitutional law professor. And finally, just purely as a matter of personal morality, of a basic sense of fairness and the pursuit of justice, of his life goals, he is PRESUMABLY a supporter of equality and fairness in general.

So my question is this:
IF YOU ARE BORN into support of THE MOST DIRECT precedent supporting gay marriage, namely the one on inter-racial marriage, and IF YOU ARE A PROFESSOR of the laws relating to forcing this,
CAN YOU SERIOUSLY be opposed to gay marriage?
Might it be more likely that Obama CHOSE TO LIE about this IN ORDER to get elected so that
HE COULD APPOINT justices who would OBVIOUSLY Do The Right (if not right-Wing) Thing here?

Look! Over there! Unicorns!

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marisacat - 30 May 2009

There is a quote of his running around, in reply to query about Loving v Virginia the case that finally broke the miscegenation laws (which of course his parents in hawai’i did not live under)…. and he says that had he been there then he would have advised that more important was voting rights and other rights.

In a piece in The New Yorker last year on MO… she is quoted as replying to a query about SSM as “it is too controversial, it has to wait”. Think the author was Laurie Collins.. (sorry for not having links but all is findable)

Really, what a fucking shit. shits. THESE ARE RECALCITRANT CONSERVATIVES.

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catnip - 30 May 2009

It must suck to really really really want to believe stuff about Obama that just isn’t true. Once you wake up, that is.

Gays are under the infamous bus with everyone else he’s discarded.

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marisacat - 30 May 2009

he openly laughed at the gay protest, Wednesday night in LA.

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5. Madman in the Marketplace - 30 May 2009

‘The Mormons Are Coming!’
Supporters of Same-Sex Marriage Trumpet the Church’s Work Against It

LOS ANGELES — As more states take up the debate on same-sex marriage, some advocates of legalization are taking a very specific lesson from California, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dominated both fundraising and door-knocking to pass a ballot initiative that barred such unions.

With the battle moving east, some advocates are shouting that fact in the streets, calculating that on an issue that eventually comes down to comfort levels, more people harbor apprehensions about Mormons than about homosexuality.

“The Mormons are coming! The Mormons are coming!” warned ads placed on newspaper Web sites in three Eastern states last month. The ad was rejected by sites in three other states, including Maine, where the Kennebec Journal informed Californians Against Hate that the copy “borders on insulting and denigrating a whole set of people based on their religion.”

“I’m not intending it to harm the religion. I think they do wonderful things. Nicest people,” said Fred Karger, a former Republican campaign consultant who established Californians Against Hate. “My single goal is to get them out of the same-sex marriage business and back to helping hurricane victims.”

The strategy carries risks for a movement grounded in the concept of tolerance. But the demographics tempt proponents of same-sex marriage: Mormons account for just 2 percent of the U.S. population, and they are scarce outside the West. Nearly eight in 10 Americans personally know or work with a gay person, according to a recent Newsweek survey. Only 48 percent, meanwhile, know a Mormon, according to a Pew Research Center poll.

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6. marisacat - 30 May 2009

Here is a tidbit… House appraisals are only good for 30 days now. some lenders regard the CA market as ”a steadily declining market”.

(listening to a KGO consumer program)

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Madman in the Marketplace - 30 May 2009

how could you ever close a deal in that small of a window, unless the buyer was paying cash?

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marisacat - 30 May 2009

I honestly don’t know. The whole thing mystifies me… and mostly I am thankful I never spent time thinking, well the house is worth this or that. I have ALWAYS found the RE bubbles (and bubbles rising from bubbles) here bizarre.

Cuz I sure would be weeping now, with house prices way way way “down”. Think I have mentioned that my friend Luciana who died of inoperable recurrance of cancer in ’96, had bought in 89 and 90, in another bubble, several pieces of property. A veritable pied-a-terre on Telegraph Hill… large living room, giving onto a large outdoor patio, small bedroom (with city view) small kitchen and one bath… with a deeded parking spot…. and 3 properties in Yountville, in the heart of the wine country. One with a mixed use zoning, so it could be developed commercially.

Trying to sell those 4 pieces in ’97 was hell… her executor was a friend, a RE agent himself. And supposedly the recession was over here. The Tech Dot Com Dot Died one… Ha!!

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7. marisacat - 30 May 2009

Tapper has a post up on the Uighurs…

[O]n October 7, 2008, the D.C. District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered that all 17 Uighurs be released into the United States by Friday, October 10.

The Bush administration appealed the case to the DC Circuit Court which on February 18, 2009, reversed the lower court’s decision.

On April 3, 2009, the Uighurs asked the US Supreme Court to hear their case.

The Obama administration on Friday urged the Supreme Court to not hear the case of the Uighurs, and to uphold the appellate court ruling.

You can read the filing in the case Kiyemba v Obama HERE.

Ironically, the Obama administration is now using Congress’s refusal to allocate funding for the closing of Guantanamo as further reason why the Uighurs should not be freed. Mentioning that the House of Representatives passed a supplemental defense appropriations bill containing a provision specifying that “(n)one of the funds made available in this or any prior Act may be used to release an individual who is detained” at Guantanamo. [any tapdance will do… —Mcat]

The Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim minority from the Xinjiang province of far-west China, were living in the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan run by the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, a Uighur independence group the State Department designated as terrorist three years after their capture. ….snip…

And at the time i thought we were doing the Chinese a big state-to-state favor: We will hate your separatists esp if they can be labeled or are “Islamist”.

[E]vidence indicates that some of the Uighurs intended to fight the Chinese government and received firearms training at the camp.

They fled to Pakistan after U.S. aerial strikes destroyed their camp after September 11, 2001 and were turned over to the U.S. military and detained as “enemy combatants” though they had no apparent animus towards the U.S.

A prior case involving the Uighurs, Parhat v Gates, resulted in the court concluding there wasn’t enough reliable evidence in the record to establish that the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement was “associated with” al Qaeda or the Taliban or that the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement engaged in hostilities against the US or its allies — two criteria the Bush administration acknowledged were necessary to justify the long-term detention of the Uighurs. The Bush administration ruled it would no longer try to hold the Uighurs as enemy combatants. …snip…

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8. marisacat - 30 May 2009

Hail Britannia! er………….. Hail Pax Americana!

I see in McClatchy we are building:

[T]he White House has asked Congress for — and seems likely to receive — $736 million to build a new U.S. embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing for U.S. government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital.

The scale of the projects rivals the giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million. snipsnappy!

AND, let’s not miss the rully big picture:

[S]enior State Department officials said the expanded diplomatic presence is needed to replace overcrowded, dilapidated and unsafe facilities and to support a “surge” of civilian officials into Afghanistan and Pakistan ordered by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Other major projects are planned for Kabul, Afghanistan; and for the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Peshawar. In Peshawar, the U.S. government is negotiating the purchase of a five-star hotel that would house a new U.S. consulate.

Funds for the projects are included in a 2009 supplemental spending bill that the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed in slightly different forms …snip…

On and on it goes.

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9. BooHooHooMan - 30 May 2009

In Pakistan, an exodus that is beyond biblical

Locals sell all they have to help millions displaced by battles with the Taliban

By Andrew Buncombe

Sunday, 31 May 2009

The language was already biblical; now the scale of what is happening matches it. The exodus of people forced from their homes in Pakistan’s Swat Valley and elsewhere in the country’s north-west may be as high as 2.4 million, aid officials say. Around the world, only a handful of war-spoiled countries – Sudan, Iraq, Colombia – have larger numbers of internal refugees. The speed of the displacement at its height – up to 85,000 people a day – was matched only during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. This is now one of the biggest sudden refugee crises the world has ever seen.

Obama’s War. His drones now. His policy of pushing AfPak.
And this cynical Pas de deux with Cheney…Oh well: It provides good cover while this Uncle Tom in the White House is executing the same Militaristic Policy, is escalating a futile but flush-with-cash war, with the notable and dangerous exception of having even larger Legions of Boobeoisie applauding his every move, more enraptured than the Bushies ever were….

We live in an Oligarchy. People sense it of course,
but can’t quite get their minds wrapped around it, as if all near and dear to them would vanish, as if the propaganda was actually true – that they are somehow associated and valued personally by their governors.

And think about the superiority, of the most ignorant, dumbass American who looks down their nose at all “foreigners” as a rule. The “Immigrants” or “Illegals” {Gah} here. The Godforsaken “X” elsewhere. In this case, the Pakistanis fleeing a war zone. A war zone that is as attributable to our fucked up acquisitive-by-force Foreign Policy as it has to do with with the pretext of 9/11. …

Still,… An Oligarchy. In which the dumbest of dumbass Americans and allegedly educated Obama Cultists alike view Pakistanis fleeing a War Zone as somehow deserving their lot or, simply, “necessary”.

So who are the wise? Or the Just? The brainwashed Americans?
Or the dirt poor refugees taking flight?

Seems to me, only the refugee – with nothing- is wise, desperate, and realistic enough to get, perhaps, out of the way. But these are not people who gave up their way of life, or ever ceded their powers of perception, as they deided to flee, or in the case of others under attack, to resist. The point is they did not just give up their reason, their faculties, their rational powers of perception, as is sorely the case of our domestic polity:

Here, Most of the damn fools clapping for Obama or gnarling for the Republicans have nothing, nothing that can’t and won’t ultimately be taken away, sold off, or materially burnt out by our elected charlatans masquerading as legitimate heirs of “Democracy”. Oh Hyperbole! The walking brain-dead accuse. Bullshit.

Incrementally, methodically, relentlessly, the power structure in this country is taking, taking, always taking. As for the dropping of Bombs on Civilian Populations here, calling in the Army or having a domestic refugee crisis…Please. The Philadelphia Police used a Firebomb in SouthWest Philadelphia to put down one house of “radicals” in 1985. And leveled the whole neighborhood. Let’s wait and see what happens to Detroit and Flint and a good chunk of Michigan when they are starving this winter or out of fuel food and medicine no matter how cheap it is. Let’s see the “Economic Recovery”, the inner workings of that carpetbaggers dream all but pushed on the media backburners now. Let’s see the much vaunted restraint while they continue policies of ruinous war and political profiteering. .

Refugees? Remember who said this?

We’ll rebuild New Orleans!

Pick one.
A. Asshole Bush
B. Barack OTellMeAnother
C. Mr. “Go Fuck Yourself”
D. All of the Above
E. Everyone Else. Reid Pelosi Lott, Scummer, Every Shit-heel Republican and Democrat on the Hill.

And acknowledge your refugee status. Hey- It’s NEW. And Lean.

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marisacat - 30 May 2009

I read two stray references, forget where now… just this past week, that the plan of the Ob Stumble bill to not heavily front load this year, for jobs and cash but to emphasis 2010.. is politics. The mid terms.

hell it may work. I have no fucking clue.

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BooHooHooMan - 30 May 2009

I believe much of this panic is engineered. LOL-
“Like a Rock”, the Chevrolet (GM) Truck Song comes to mind.

the Pillaging certainly was , and I suspect the Hording at the top anticipating some givebacks before carrying on with but-a-pause in Disaster Capitalism…

But I think that they not only did really serious structural damage to the economy this binge cycle, – so long – not even the pretense of being checked –

Moreover they really have a consumer confidence problem. Twins!
Despite the Political Con holding – i.e. : people feel better about being broke under Obama, (LOL.)

Still, unemployment is rising at a greater rate than Happy New ‘Just in Office” bullshit can cover . In New Jersey, “The Broker Mentality/ Political Patronage State” , many of the Villagers aren’t so Happy Pants, or “summer”-y anymore:

Recession widens pool of shore-job applicants
May 18, 2009 … Many teens and even some adults are having trouble finding seasonal work this year

Everybody is cutting way back. Triplets!
We’ve achieved Bipartisanship!

Well, as for not having a fucking clue,
need I remind you of my long and substantial track record? LOL. Senator Caroline Kennedy, everyone. A big round of applause! LOL.

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marisacat - 30 May 2009

California is not happy… 😯 no clue what it means. One thing it meant was he had to reduce the ticket prices for Wednesday’s big name (hosts and performers) fundraiser in LA.

What it all means as the dregs hit the bottom of the cup. No clue.

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10. BooHooHooMan - 30 May 2009

I’ve got an idea.

Why don’t we build that Embassy in Pakistan.
Load up the joint with food wine and cigars.
And give it to Bebe. I’d say as a parting gift.
And then invite the neighbors in for a housewarming.
But hey that’s just me.

Oh but now we couldn’t do THAT.
Seeing as how there is enough for Bebe handling the smashing success that has been the creation of the State of Israel.

Such the dullards of History, we.
So let us proceed with our own cadres promoting our own
corporate, Christocentric, ~@#!cLu$tErFuck@*#!!~…

…it should be a smashing success. Like Israel.

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11. marisacat - 30 May 2009

I see donk-kkk-keytale still working as astroturf

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BooHooHooMan - 30 May 2009

Another hobbling-from-reality refugee
whoever the fuck he is –

In areas of import to pwoggies, such as SCOTUS, he appoints an unabashed liberal.

I’m out. Refuge in sleep.

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12. marisacat - 31 May 2009

hmm darling little Obling… out by himself.. unfettered.

Context: Jack Welch has just opined that Barack Obama’s budget is “from the moon.”

GOOLSBEE: The budget is from the moon, Jack is from Mars and Joe [Stiglitz] is from Venus.

Look, we enter the government essentially in a hotel that is on fire. We’re throwing people from the windows into the pool to save their lives and this is the evaluation of the Olympic diving committee: Well, the splash was too big. …snip…

In alternative moments does he float in the pool, self-fellating, watching people hit the concrete? Judging from the arrogance, I’d say so. Sad, these people are so hooked on being “historic”.

I caught Laura d’angelo Tyson, head of Bill C’s Economic Advisors and the Real GF before Monica… deflecting criticism during some part of the big bail out, with the defense that this is all “historic”. ‘This will be in the history books”, she said.

***

The thread is mixed.. I liked “OregonGuy” and “clawback”.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 31 May 2009

the depression is in the history books. the dustbowl is in the history books. countless beatings and murders of working people by Pinkertons, other thugs, cops and National Guard are in the history books.

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13. marisacat - 31 May 2009

I dropped in on a totally boring blog entry from Floyd Norris at NYT… so dull.

But a good comment:

Anyone who thinks that we have hit bottom in real estate should start smoking something else. The S&P Case-Shiller National Home Price Index fell 19.1% in Q1, the sharpest drop in history. Charlotte, NC did best, rising 0.3% while Detroit, where prices have fallen to 1995 levels, did the worst at -4.9%. San Francisco came in at -2.2%. Most disturbing is that the disease is metastasizing from the West coast and the Sunbelt to infect the entire nation. Home prices are now back to the 2000 level, meaning that we have given back the century to date. Foreclosures are accounting for up to 70% in some local markets, and while they are boosting sales volumes, they are also accelerating the downward march in prices. Today’s data shows that the downward spiral is continuing, so most Americans are probably looking at another $100,000-$200,000 fall in home values. Not exactly a springboard for an economic recovery.

http://www.madhedgefundtrader.com

— The Mad Hedge Fund Trader, San Francisco, CA

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14. marisacat - 31 May 2009

Angry Arab just keeps rolling along………………..

Great progress

“Obama noted that Palestinians also must improve security as part of their commitments under the 2003 “road map” for peace, though he added that the Palestinian Authority had made “great progress” with the assistance of a U.S. general.”

Posted by As’ad at 10:23 AM

Obama rules

“”But deciding to cover the photos up in order to manipulate world opinion … I believe this is another crime against the Iraqi people and humanity in general.””

Posted by As’ad at 10:22 AM

That, above, is a quote from a torture victim.

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15. marisacat - 31 May 2009

Dahr jamail….

At least 20 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq in May, the most since last September, along with more than 50 wounded. Iraqi casualties are, as usual – and in both categories – at least ten times that number.

Attacks against US forces are once again on the rise in places like Baghdad and Fallujah, where the Iraqi resistance was fiercest before so many of them joined the Sahwa (Sons of Iraq, also referred to as Awakening Councils), and began taking payments from the US military in exchange for halting attacks against the occupiers and agreeing to join the fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq. In early April I wrote a column for this website that illustrated how ongoing Iraqi government and US military attacks against the Sahwa, coupled with broken promises of the Sahwa being incorporated into the government security apparatus or given civilian jobs, would likely lead to an exodus from the Sahwa and a return to the resistance. …snip…

[M]eanwhile, the Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade, despite an “agreement” between the US and Iraq that would bring all US troops home by 2012. General George Casey, the Army chief of staff, recently stated that the Pentagon must plan for extended US combat and stability operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, saying, “Global trends are pushing in the wrong direction,” he said, “They fundamentally will change how the Army works.” It is important to note that at the moment, the US maintains 139,000 troops in Iraq, which is still a greater number than that which existed prior to the so-called “troop surge” of George W. Bush. …snip…

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16. Madman in the Marketplace - 31 May 2009

On the Street and On Facebook: The Homeless Stay Wired

SAN FRANCISCO — Like most San Franciscans, Charles Pitts is wired. Mr. Pitts, who is 37 years old, has accounts on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. He runs an Internet forum on Yahoo, reads news online and keeps in touch with friends via email. The tough part is managing this digital lifestyle from his residence under a highway bridge.

“You don’t need a TV. You don’t need a radio. You don’t even need a newspaper,” says Mr. Pitts, an aspiring poet in a purple cap and yellow fleece jacket, who says he has been homeless for two years. “But you need the Internet.”

Mr. Pitts’s experience shows how deeply computers and the Internet have permeated society. A few years ago, some people were worrying that a “digital divide” would separate technology haves and have-nots. The poorest lack the means to buy computers and Web access. Still, in America today, even people without street addresses feel compelled to have Internet addresses.

New York City has put 42 computers in five of the nine shelters it operates and plans to wire the other four this year. Roughly half of another 190 shelters in the city offer computer access. The executive director of a San Francisco nonprofit group, Central City Hospitality House, estimates that half the visitors to its new eight-computer drop-in center are homeless; demand for computer time is so great that users are limited to 30 minutes.

Shelter attendants say the number of laptop-toting overnight visitors, while small, is growing. SF Homeless, a two-year-old Internet forum, has 140 members. It posts schedules for public-housing meetings and news from similar groups in New Mexico, Arizona and Connecticut. And it has a blog with online polls about shelter life.

Cheap computers and free Internet access fuel the phenomenon. So does an increasingly computer-savvy population. Many job and housing applications must be submitted online. Some homeless advocates say the economic downturn is pushing more of the wired middle class on to the streets.

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17. Madman in the Marketplace - 31 May 2009

Dr. George Tiller was murdered:

Wichita television station KAKE-TV reported that police were looking for a blue Ford Taurus with a K-State vanity plate, license number 225 BAB. Police described him as a white male in his 50s or 60s, 6 feet 1 inch tall, 220 pounds, wearing a white shirt and dark pants.

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marisacat - 31 May 2009

Does not appear that Calls for Moderation from the US Government is working.

I see from the thread at Crooks and Liars it is the anniversary of the re capture of Rudolph. And also, someone pointed out to me, the “real” Memorial Day.

May 31
Sun, 05/31/2009 – 11:09 — theWalrus

is also the anniversary of domestic “pro-life” terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph’s capture in 2003.

Reports that the shooter has been picked up..

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marisacat - 31 May 2009

Tiller, 67, had repeatedly been the target of protests over his work. He had been shot once before, while at his clinic in 1993. The clinic was also bombed in 1996, and was severely vandalized earlier this month, according to an AP report.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/23140.html#ixzz0H7P2UsMF&B

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18. catnip - 31 May 2009

It’s a bouncing orange baby Bouncer Czar!

He is UID #6, Meteor Blades, your new community overlord.

What was that about ‘polish on a mud wallow’?

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19. cad - 31 May 2009

It’s hard to tell if this post in that diary is a joke or not, but I suspect it’s quite sincere as the authotarian lovers at DK get the full benefit of bowing down to the CORPORATION:

Ahh.. finally, we’re starting to get a corporate (0+ / 0-)
like hierarchy in place.

Here’s what it looks like at a typical Fortune 100 company:

CEO (also known as El Hefe)

SEVP (Senior Executive Vice President)

EVP (Executive Vice President)

SVP (Senior Vice President)

VP (Vice President)

AVP (Assistant Vice President)

Director

Manager (Level I, II, III), Systems Consultant (Levels I, II, III), Architect (Levels I, II, III)

Technically, a level III is equal to a Director – however, this distinction / placement is usually left up to the individual unit.

C Level executives (CFO, CIO, CISO, CCO, COO) are usually at least at the level of SVP. If the person is in “favour” he or she will usually be bumped up to EVP and/or SEVP.

I’m glad to see our organization is becoming more professional. Having a more clearly defined hierarchy of C&C (Command and Control) will garner more respect from traditional organizaitons operating within the political sphere.

I’d like to suggest that we also begin to develop areas – and I’ll start by suggesting the creation of three of my favorites: Corporate Communications / Marketing, Legal / Compliance, and Strategic Architecture.

And, just my two cents, but I think Meteor Blades should be promoted to at least the VP level and have a couple of assistants of his choosing at the AVP level.

Henry Kissinger doesn’t believe in conspiracies either. Rumsfeld, however, believes there are unknown unknowns.

by Johnathan Ivan on Sun May 31, 2009 at 11:44:45 AM PDT

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catnip - 31 May 2009

Wow. That guy has WAY too much time on his hands.

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marisacat - 31 May 2009

Probably works in HR at a corporation. Seems very in thrall to the corporate hierarchy.

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20. BooHooHooMan - 31 May 2009
21. marisacat - 31 May 2009

Middle of the night. Worthy of Bush. hell, maybe Nixon. Look! Over there! Obamas on a date night!

Obama Justice Department Continues Bush’s ‘State Secrets’ Argument…Again

May 30, 2009 10:09 PM

Jake Tapper and Jason Ryan report:

In a court filing submitted in the middle of the night, President Obama’s Justice Department is continuing the “state secrets” argument of his predecessor in litigation over the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance Program.

The al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, investigated for terrorist financing out of its Oregon offices, sued the government alleging it was targeted under the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.

In the middle of the night the Justice Department filed its response in the court case, telling a federal judge, who has ordered it to disclose information in the case, that Justice is still asserting the state secrets privilege.

“The Government must continue to oppose the disclosure of state secrets in any further proceedings,” the Justice Department wrote.

The judge has said he will institute sanctions against the Justice Department for not complying with the court’s orders.

“The Government has merely declined voluntarily to agree to a protective order that would, in the Government’s view, require disclosures that would irretrievably compromise important national security interests,” the Justice Department filing said.

“The Government recognizes that the underlying dispute in this case raises the fundamental separation-of-powers question concerning whether the Court has the ultimate authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to order the disclosure of state secrets to a private party over the Government’s objection.”

…

We’ve looked before at the President’s frequent invocation of the “State Secrets” argument despite the pledge on the Obama-Biden campaign Web site where “The Problem” is described in part as the Bush administration having “invoked a legal tool known as the ‘state secrets’ privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court.”

Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said in a statement that the Obama administration “recognizes that invoking the states secret privilege is a significant step that should be taken only when absolutely necessary. In keeping with the administration’s commitment to transparency, the President just this week announced the formation of an interagency task force to be headed by the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to review procedures for labeling and sharing sensitive information to ensure that the needs of law enforcement, privacy and civil liberties strike the proper balance. At the same time, the Justice Department has been reviewing the state secrets on a case by case basis and hopes to make the results of that review public.”

– Jake Tapper and Jason Ryan

Look! Over there! Obama is playing golf today!

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22. marisacat - 31 May 2009

Interestingly McLaughlin Group opens on abortion, taped before the killing obviously…. Clips from the Notre Dame drop in and references to the recent polling… indicating a rise in pro life. Mort Zuckerman cites a Quinnipiac poll,, much larger, that is at issue with the more oft quoted polling numbers.

Yes well that DNA of Obama’s is just rolling along making us peaceful fat and happy.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 31 May 2009

CNN has nothing to say about it, though I suppose they may just be rerunning their morning programs without any updated headlines.

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23. bayprairie - 31 May 2009

i’m very sad to learn dr. tiller was murdered today, yet at the same time not surprised in the least. he did wonderful things for women who were unable to give birth and live, or who’s birth-giving would have taken their lives of their potential children in the process.

americans, by and large. are abusive, misogynist, ignorant shits.

fuck this country.

and by god fuck both political parties, republican and democrat who feast tonight on their precious fucking political issue.

god damn them all.

and most especially. fuck the christianists and their lying, paternalistic “love” of life.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 31 May 2009

well said, my friend.

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CSTAR - 31 May 2009

Very distressing news.

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James - 31 May 2009

From reading some of the chatter at twitter and elsewhere, it’s readily apparent that there are some very sick folks out there, courtesy of a very sick society. The hate rhetoric in general has ramped up quite a bit lately, so I suppose I’m not too surprised either – Tiller had been a target for a while. Saddening but not surprising.

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24. Madman in the Marketplace - 31 May 2009

A comment at Balloon Juice that they reposted on their front page:

In 1994 my wife and I found out that she was pregnant. The pregnancy was difficult and unusually uncomfortable but her doctor repeatedly told her things were fine. Sometime early in the 8th month my wife, an RN who at the time was working in an infertility clinic asked the Dr. she was working for what he thought of her discomfort. He examined her and said that he couldn’t be certain but thought that she might be having twins. We were thrilled and couldn’t wait to get a new sonogram that hopefully would confirm his thoughts. Two days later our joy was turned to unspeakable sadness when the new sonogram showed conjoined twins. Conjoined twins alone is not what was so difficult but the way they were joined meant that at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants. We were advised that our options were to deliver into the world a child who’s life would be filled with horrible pain and suffering or fly out to Wichita Kansas and to terminate the pregnancy under the direction of Dr. George Tiller.

We made an informed decision to go to Kansas. One can only imagine the pain borne by a woman who happily carries a child for 8 months only to find out near the end of term that the children were not to be and that she had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy and go against everything she had been taught to believe was right. This was what my wife had to do. Dr. Tiller is a true American hero. The nightmare of our decision and the aftermath was only made bearable by the warmth and compassion of Dr. Tiller and his remarkable staff. Dr. Tiller understood that this decision was the most difficult thing that a woman could ever decide and he took the time to educate us and guide us along with the other two couples who at the time were being forced to make the same decision after discovering that they too were carrying children impacted by horrible fetal anomalies. I could describe in great detail the procedures and the pain and suffering that everyone is subjected to in these situations. However, that is not the point of the post. We can all imagine that this is not something that we would wish on anyone. The point is that the pain and suffering were only mitigated by the compassion and competence of Dr. George Tiller and his staff. We are all diminished today for a host of reasons but most of all because a man of great compassion and courage has been lost to the world.

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25. Madman in the Marketplace - 31 May 2009

Dr. Warren Hern:

“I’m profoundly sad and I’m furious and I think the American people need to understand that we have a fascist movement in this country,” Dr. Warren Hern told The Colorado Independent on Sunday. “We don’t have to invade Iraq to find terrorists. They’re right here killing abortion doctors.”

“Every doctor that does abortions has been under an assassination threat for decades,” Hern said. “The anti-abortion movement message is, ‘Do what we tell you to do or we will kill you,’ and they do. This is a fascist movement.”

Hern laid blame for Tiller’s death at the feet of the anti-abortion movement’s encouragement of violence against abortion providers and the Republican Party’s “exploitation” of the extremist rhetoric.

“Dr. Tiller is dead by an anti-abortion assassin, and this is the absolutely inevitable consequence of 35 years of anti-abortion fanatic rhetoric and intimidation and assassination violence and exploitation by the Republican Party of this movement,” Hern told the Independent.

Hern, who described Tiller as “a good friend of mine,” said he doesn’t “know of any other doctors in the world doing late abortions like I am.” The Boulder Abortion Clinic, run by Hern since he founded the practice in 1975, has as its motto “Specializing in Late Abortions for Fetal Disorders”.

Hern declined to say whether he planned any changes to his security precautions after the killing of Tiller, who was shot to death while ushering at his Lutheran church.

Noting that Tiller is the “fifth American doctor to be assassinated,” Hern told the Los Angeles Times he’s well aware of the dangers. “I get messages from these people saying, ‘Don’t bother wearing a bulletproof vest, we’re going for a head shot.’ ”

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26. Madman in the Marketplace - 31 May 2009

Suspect in Tiller murder identified

According to the Associated Press, police have identified the man suspected of murdering abortion provider George Tiller as 51-year-old Scott Roeder of Merriam, Kansas. He is in custody but has not yet been charged with the crime.

Roeder has a history with Kansas law enforcement and with potentially violent political extremism. In 1996, he was stopped and arrested for driving a car without a valid license plate, apparently an act of protest. According to the Kansas City Star, the FBI believed that Roeder was a member of the Montana Freemen, a militia group that engaged in a standoff with authorities. His license plate read:

Sovereign

Private Property

Immunity Declared at Law

Non-Commercial American

Upon searching Roeder’s car, police discovered bombmaking material including gunpowder and two six-volt lantern batteries. In his home, they found a two-page instruction manual, “Underground Cookbook: Clothes Pin Time-Delayed Switch” that reportedly gave directions for how to assemble a bomb with the items in his car. After later violating his parole for convictions stemming from that incident, Roeder was sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Various Internet sleuths have discovered two comments Roeder left on Web message boards about Tiller.

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27. Madman in the Marketplace - 31 May 2009

The Murder of Dr. George Tiller, A Foreshadowing

For those who would like to think today’s murder in church of Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider, is an isolated incident: here’s the horrifying news: You are wrong. The pattern is clear and frightening.

In March 1993, three months into the administration of our first pro-choice president, Bill Clinton, abortion provider Dr. David Gunn was murdered in Pensacola, Florida. That was the beginning of what would become a five-fold increase in violence against abortion providers throughout the Clinton years.

Today’s assassination of Dr. George Tiller comes five months into the term of our second pro-choice president. For anyone who would like to believe that this is a statistical anomaly, a coincidence that doesn’t portend anything, again, you are wrong.

During the entire Bush administration, from 2000-2008 there were no murders.

During the Clinton era, between 1994-2000 there were six abortion providers and clinic staff murdered, and 17 attempted murders of abortion providers (one of these attempts was on Dr. Tiller who was shot in both arms.) There were 12 bombings or arsons during the Clinton years.

During the Bush administration, not only were there no murders, there were no attempted murders. There was one clinic bombing during the Bush years.

One can only conclude that like terrorist sleeper cells, these extremists have now been set in motion. Indeed the evidence is already there. The chatter, the threats, the hate-filled rhetoric are abundant.

In the last year of the Bush administration there were 396 harassing calls to abortion clinics. In just the first four months of the Obama administration that number has jumped to 1401.

And so the execution of Tiller, 67, is not only tragic but ominous. He was born into an era when being an abortion provider meant saving women’s lives. And the cold-blooded murder in church and in front of his wife of this stalwart defender of women rights and beloved physician, comes as a message for others, as well as tragic deja vu.

Battered women are at greatest danger of being killed by their abusers when they are most strong–that is, when they muster the courage to leave. The same phenomenon may be true in the abusive political abortion debate. The pro-choice movement, specifically our abortion providers, are in the greatest danger of violence when we take power. When the anti-abortion movement loses power, their most extreme elements appear to move to the fore and take control. The murder of Dr. Tiller suggests that violence against abortion providers may be far more linked to the power, or lack thereof, anti-abortion groups have politically than to laws designed to increase penalties against such acts.

History has another disturbing lesson for us. The escalation of anti-abortion rhetoric plays a direct role in instigating violence. When anti-abortion groups ratchet up the rhetoric, they know exactly what they’re doing and the results it will have. Even if they maintain deniability, as Operation Rescue recently did saying, in effect, we wanted Tiller gone, but didn’t want him murdered, they have inflamed the rhetoric. And suddenly people Like Dr. Tiller’s murderer become inspired. On this issue, history is instructive.

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marisacat - 31 May 2009

Thanks for posting that.

I went to check on the uber Catholic hysteric, Sully. Who is top to bottom abortion, Tiller, O Reilly and Randall. He also carries the detestable statement Robert P George floated at The Corner this am. He also managed to post, just at the time the email news alerts carried the first news of the killing, a very odd link and snip.. that one might as well leave women to it, as legal or not they will do it.

Drenched in compassion. As always, only for himself. I will check on Ross Douthat later. I can only take so many truncated human form replicas at once.

On the very day the dr is shot and killed, Sully laments (hystericals love to lament), but also is pleased to post emails from readers who, with NO FIRST HAND KNOWLEDGE of the Tiller clinic, write about the “assembly line abortions”. One even states he performed medically unnecessary, post viability, illegal late term abortions. Claiming personal knowledge of one patient that ful filled this criteria.

Sully posts this on the day the doctor died.

Save us from the hysterics. And the Catholics. Esp those who are ill and seek to bareback.

More interesting than the convenient drool Robert P George (who holds an academic chair at Princeton) posted today at the National Review confessional is one that moiv sent me, from a 1994 invited commentary online forum after the killings of a doctor and a security guard in FL by Paul Hill:

Robert P. George

I am personally opposed to killing abortionists. However, inasmuch as my personal opposition to this practice is rooted in a sectarian (Catholic) religious belief in the sanctity of human life, I am unwilling to impose it on others who may, as a matter of conscience, take a different view. Of course, I am entirely in favor of policies aimed at removing the root causes of violence against abortionists. Indeed, I would go so far as to support mandatory one-week waiting periods, and even nonjudgmental counseling, for people who are contemplating the choice of killing an abortionist. I believe in policies that reduce the urgent need some people feel to kill abortionists while, at the same time, respecting the rights of conscience of my fellow citizens who believe that the killing of abortionists is sometimes a tragic necessity-not a good, but a lesser evil. In short, I am moderately pro-choice.

I won’t even start in on Obama. Who, we were told (it was widely reported and not denied) last month in the aftermath of a badly mangled and distorted Obama speech/story of Churchill, WW 2 and torture, reads Sully.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 31 May 2009

From the coverage in the Chicago Tribune:

In addition to fending off abortion protesters for years, Tiller had been pursued by public officials opposed to abortion.

In March, he was acquitted of charges that he broke a Kansas law requiring a second doctor to affirm that a late-term abortion was necessary to preserve the health of the woman. That second doctor must be financially and legally independent from the first physician.

In a trial that lasted five days — and in which the jury took less than an hour to return its verdict — Tiller was cleared of charges that he had improper ties to Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus.

Today, Neuhaus said that she had expected further violence after Tiller’s acquittal. “I knew it was going to antagonize these people that he quote, unquote, got off the hook,” she said. “Dr. Tiller really was a warrior. He was a quiet, persistent, capable visionary, a true leader. Even if he had known it was going to end up this way, he wouldn’t have been deterred.”

During his trial, when his attorney asked why he stayed in practice despite years of harassment, Tiller told the jury, ” ‘Quit’ is not something I like to do.”

The Associated Press reported that parishioner Adam Watkins, 20, said he was sitting in the middle of the congregation at Reformation Lutheran Church when he heard a small pop at the start of the service.

“We just thought a child had come in with a balloon, and it had popped, had gone up and hit the ceiling and popped,” Watkins said.

Another usher came in and told the congregation to remain seated, then escorted Tiller’s wife out. “When she got to the back doors, we heard her scream, and so we knew something bad had happened,” Watkins said.

snip

When President Obama was elected last fall, Hern predicted that antiabortion violence would increase, he said. Because Obama supports legalized abortion, said Hern, its foes “have lost ground. . . . They want the doctors dead, and they invite people to assassinate us. No wonder that this happens. . . . I am next on the list.”

Today Obama said he was “shocked and outraged” by the killing. “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion,” he said in a statement, “they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.

The killing shines a harsh spotlight on the notion that common ground can be found between proponents of legalized abortion and those who oppose it. Last month, the University of Notre Dame, one of the country’s preeminent Catholic institutions, came under fire for inviting Obama to give its commencement speech and receive an honorary degree. Obama devoted much of his speech to a plea for respectful discourse, but admitted at one point, “The fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable.”

Kelli Conlin, president of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, echoed that sentiment in a statement about Tiller’s death: “It is cold-blooded, vicious actions like today’s assassination that make it hard for those of us in the pro-choice community to find common ground with those on the other side. It is lawless, violent behavior like this that makes us fear for our lives and our families. When they sit down across from us, they have no reason to believe that we come to the table with violent intentions. Today is a brutal reminder that we are not privileged to have the same sense of security.”

In a sense, Tiller’s killing plunges the debate over legalized abortion back in time, to a moment when violent protests and blockades at abortion clinics led Congress to pass the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in 1994.

Carole Joffe, a sociology professor at UC Davis, said that the worst period of violence against abortion providers was during President Clinton’s tenure and that attacks dwindled under President George W. Bush, when the movement believed it had an ally in the White House. But with a president that supports abortion rights and a Democratic Congress, she said, some abortion foes may be feeling desperate.

“When social movements feel they’re not getting anywhere they get desperate,” said Joffe, adding that the vast majority of antiabortion rights activists reject violence. “This is deeply tragic but unsurprising.”

The antiwar movement, utterly powerless before BOTH parties, isn’t blowing shit up and murdering people … idiot.

Although some commenters on antiabortion websites hailed Tiller’s death, antiabortion leaders were dismayed.

“It’s tragic,” said the Rev. Pat Mahoney, an antiabortion activist who attended Tiller’s trial in March. “The probability is that someone who opposed abortion did this. The reason we are pro-life is because we hate violence on any level. I don’t know of one legitimate pro-life leader who would not unequivocally condemn this.”

Mahoney said he had scheduled a news conference with antiabortion groups Monday morning on the steps of the Supreme Court to condemn the killing.

“One of my main concerns here is that the Obama administration and Democratic leaders don’t make the same mistake that the Clinton administration made, and don’t use this isolated episode to demonize an entire movement and try to take this tragedy for political gain,” said Mahoney. “If they overreach, then they put pressure on peaceful people who are trying to peacefully change the climate on abortion in a way that President Obama talked about at Notre Dame.”

It’s about THEM, not the dead man or his family or the women who no longer have his care available to them … and notice the barely veiled threat in that last sentence:

“If they overreach, then they put pressure on peaceful people who are trying to peacefully change the climate on abortion in a way that President Obama talked about at Notre Dame.”

Put pressure on them to do what, exactly?!?! Murder MORE doctors, and maybe some nurses, and hey, how about some of the patients?!?!

Asshole, and the coward donks will do NOTHING about it.

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catnip - 31 May 2009

Why is it that when an abortion doctor is killed, it’s just one (usually Christian) murderer not connected to any kind of “sleeper” or “terrorist” cell according to the powers that be? Yet if Abdul Whoever gets caught doing something, he’s pretty much seen as a member of a terrorist group right off the bat? (rhetorical question)

This is a systemic problem. It isn’t about lone whackos.

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James - 31 May 2009

Correctamundo!

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James - 31 May 2009

The thing to keep reminding folks is that this assassination is no “isolated incident” – there has been a pattern of attacking family planning facilities, their physicians and staff for a long while now, and that has to be placed in a broader context of violence (and of course the incitement to violence by various authority figures among the extreme right-wing) against ethnic minorities, immigrants, “liberal” church-goers, and so on. If anything, there hasn’t been enough pressure put on those who have incited the violence of which they would now choose to wash their hands.

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James - 31 May 2009

I’m guessing our own home-grown terrorists already have their next targets lined up, including Betty Pulliam.

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28. marisacat - 31 May 2009

Why am I not surprised. He’s giving a speech (remarks comments whatever) tomorrow on the GM bankruptcy.

Go away, is all I can think of.

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29. Artemisia - 31 May 2009

i’d say something..but bayprairie (#23) already said it all.

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30. marisacat - 1 June 2009

How bizarre…

Brazil: Air France Jet Missing Over Atlantic

Brazil’s Air Force says an Air France jetliner disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean

By ALAN CLENDENNING Associated Press Writer
SAO PAULO, Brazil June 1, 2009 (AP)
The Associated Press

Brazil’s Air Force says an Air France jet bound from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean and a search is under way near the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha.

An Air Force spokesman says the search and rescue mission was mounted Monday morning after the jet failed to make regular radio contact.

The spokesman said he could not immediately divulge how many people were on board the jet, or the make or flight number of the Air France jet.

He spoke on condition of anonymity, in keeping with Air Force policy.

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31. marisacat - 1 June 2009

It’s really gone, it was due at CDG airport over an hour ago.

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32. marisacat - 1 June 2009

nu

Flat earth…

………………………………………

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33. n69n - 1 June 2009

well look @ you!
Susie Bright linked to you bog!

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marisacat - 1 June 2009

norn! How are you!???

Thanks for the tip on Susie Bright… I would never know. .. the back pages of wordpress are pretty lousy I never know if anyone is linking or not. Will go check her out…

How are YOU?

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Madman in the Marketplace - 1 June 2009

hi norn!!!

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34. n69n - 1 June 2009

i’m fine!
losing my job earlier this year was the happiest, healthiest thing to ever happen for me!
ive thought of you often but totally forgot about your blog!
its bookmarked now!
are you on facebook?

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marisacat - 1 June 2009

I am on facebook but rarely go there, it sometimes crashes my computer…

You lost the job at Baby Dior? Where are you now? still in Manhattan??

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35. n69n - 1 June 2009

yes, i am still here.
i actually was moved from the Baby Dior to the Juicy Couture division, & then lost THAT job last november….but within a week i was hired @ another childrenswear company…then was let go from that in March.
well, i have TONS (i mean TONS) of new art all on my facebook page, i would love to show you!!!

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