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Love to know… 27 July 2009

Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, Divertissements, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
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Parakeets on a bird feeder in a London garden. Around 90% of the UK’s population of wild parakeets are believed to live in the London area. It is feared that the parakeets, which nest in holes and crevices in trees, may displace British species such as woodpeckers and starlings [Phil Cole/Getty Images]

Love to know.. what the one on the right is saying…  Maybe:  Margaret!  Who do you think you are?  I wanted that corn kernel, I know there are thousands in the feeder but I wanted that ONE!… what do you think you are, a princess?

These pictures of wild parakeets visiting garden feeders (and it may be one garden where the pics are taken, for all I know) are popping up in the UK photo galleries.

Beats the nattering of pols.  Which will only get worse as we slide on the grease into an election season.  No, no!, say it is not so!

***

UPDATE, 5:14 on the Pacific Ocean

Not sure who asked this as I took it from the WH released transcript that Political Wire carries.. but so fucking mealy mouthed.

Q Robert, following up with the President on health care last week in the news conference, he was asked about the negotiations on C-SPAN and he said — his response in part was that —

MR. GIBBS: Are you pitching this for CNN or — (laughter) —

Q Well, I was hoping that maybe we could talk about that after this briefing. (Laughter.) But in all seriousness, at the news conference, the President’s response on C-SPAN was that the sort of opening ceremonies of the debate were on C-SPAN when you had some of the players — but that’s not really what the President promised. In August, in Virginia, I think it was, he had a campaign event and he said, “I’m going to have all the negotiations around a big table” — have doctors, nurses, hospitals, insurance companies, drug companies, you get the idea. He went on further. What went wrong?

MR. GIBBS: Well, Ed, I appreciate that we’ve done a postmortem now that the entire process is over, but given the earlier questions we’ve got a long way to go —

Q It’s not a postmortem; it’s from the opening ceremonies until now. There’s been a lot of negotiations and it has not been the way the President promised.

MR. GIBBS: Well, I can’t speak for the committee process on Capitol Hill. I’m sure you’ve got calls in —

Q But it’s the President of the United States, this is his initiative and he made this promise as a candidate. Why does he not follow through?

MR. GIBBS: The President feels very comfortable with the amount of transparency that we’ve had. The President feels — we’ve done any number of events on this. We’ve shown who’s been in here to talk to the White House. And I wouldn’t shut the door on something happening further.

Q Okay, last thing on this is — which is — he was also asked, as part of that question about the health care executives and lobbyists who were at the White House, about the records of that. And he noted accurately that it had been released shortly before the news conference. Why did it take a group like CREW, the watchdog group, to complain about this for you to release the names of those people, when you talk about transparency?

The President — you put out a schedule every night saying the President is having these meetings tomorrow. Why were those meetings not released in real-time during this debate, as it was played out?

MR. GIBBS: Ed, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Everything that we do at the White House isn’t on the daily guidance.

Q Okay. But this is a big debate that the President, as a candidate, said it’s going to be open and transparent. We didn’t set the standard. The President set the standard. He said —

MR. GIBBS: I feel like you should swear me in.

Q Well, because you keep kind of pushing it off with a joke or something. I’m trying to get a serious question. He made this promise.

MR. GIBBS: Right. Again, Ed, the President feels very comfortable with his level of transparency, which is why you have those names.

Mush.  In a bowl with a spoon

Comments»

1. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 July 2009

What real piracy looks like: biopirate loses patent over century-old latinamerican staple crop

You hear a lot of talk about piracy in the developing world, about Nigerian markets filled with bootleg DVDs or Chinese iPod knockoffs.

But if you want to see what real piracy looks like, look at the bio-pirates, people and corporations who receive patents on common life-forms from the developing world (abetted by the sleepy and lackadaisical US Patent and Trademark Office) and then use their might and muscle to tax people for growing, consuming and exporting the plants they’ve lived with for centuries, on the grounds that these plants are now some rich person’s property.

One such injustice is finally drawing to a close. US Patent Number 5,894,079, belonging Colorado’s Larry Proctor, has been struck down. Proctor brought home some yellow beans from a Mexican market and filed for a patent on them in the 1990s, neglecting to tell the USPTO that the beans had been a dietary staple in latinamerica for over a century.

Proctor called them “Enola beans” and began to receive a toll on every Enola bean imported into the US from latinamerica. He used this money to fund a series of defenses to challenges on his patent. Because the patent system continues to enforce challenged patents while the gears of litigation turn, for every year that went by, Proctor found himself richer and better-able to fund his defense, while the people who had grown and eaten the beans for a century got poorer.

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

I saw a documentary on an Indian activist, a woman doctor, who led the fight to take back patents on standard forms of local Indian rice. The whole practice is heinous.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 27 July 2009

I’m constantly amazed at the various creative ways people can figure out to enrich themselves at the expense of those less powerful.

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NYCO - 28 July 2009

This story highlights a truth about agriculture in general – as it has been since the dawn of time: it pretty much created society — and all of society’s successes and injustices — as we know it.

Unpleasant truth which many back-to-the-land Americans have yet to rediscover: Backyard gardening cannot feed a family efficiently (or without a great deal of risk — see: the current outbreak of late blight, or just read your history books about the Irish famine since oppressed Irish farmers were forced to essentially “backyard-garden” with potatoes.) Agriculture can only feed people most efficiently when it is large-scale. And large-scale agriculture requires specialization of social roles. I.e., modern complex society. And when you have specialized roles, you have differing levels of social status. We’re all still wrestling with the ramifications of that every day.

So, while this particular manifestation of greed and abuse of social status (the bean patent) is relatively novel… it isn’t anything new. Agriculture, in many ways, has been just as much a tragedy for mankind as it was a lifesaver.

People today who dream about self-sufficient backyard gardening are, I suspect, dreaming about the kind of personal independence, peaceful habit and social egalitarianism that really only exists in hunter-gatherer societies. So, if that’s what we really want, better start looking for local nut and berry patches, even to go along with our tomato gardens. Consider how much of them it takes to make one meal, and how far you will have to travel from your home (i.e., spend energy) to gather them. Now you understand why hunter-gatherers tend not to have permanent villages. Are we sure we want peace, independence and egalitarianism?

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2. catnip - 27 July 2009

Wherein I set off yet another orange shitstorm. And can I just add that some people are too fucking stupid to be online?

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

HA! Speaking of Lucia Whalen… you will get a kick out of this… it is an Ann Althouse post on some of the latest. Lucia W’s atty has pointed out she herself does not consider herself ”a white woman” (apparently often when ti is reported she said, “two big black men”, she is called “white”) as she is olive skinned and of Portuguese descent. The thread so far is very entertaining, which is a change, Althouse’s threads can be ugly and rightist:

Kirby Olson said…

“Portuguese” could mean just abuot anything. A lot of people are from the Canary Islands in the Boston, Area. They speak Portuguese, but some are black, and some aren’t, and many are mixed race, like Gates himself.

This is turning into a bigger pickle every day.

Someone posted a vid at your site yesterday from CNN showing a black newscaster talking to two black officers who support Crowley, and imply heavily that they will no longer support Obama because they perceive him as a racial bigot:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/07/26/nr.comrade.in.arms.cnn?iref=
videosearch

7/27/09 1:34 PM

emphasis mine.

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

As I said the other day, more chapters than the Bible itself…………… 😆

OpenID ironrailsironweights said…

“Portuguese” could mean just abuot anything. A lot of people are from the Canary Islands in the Boston Area. They speak Portuguese, but some are black, and some aren’t, and many are mixed race, like Gates himself.

You mean Cape Verde, not the Canary Islands.

Peter
7/27/09 2:48 PM

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catnip - 27 July 2009

Oy.

I might have to wait til later to head over there just to give my head a break.

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CSTAR - 27 July 2009

There are Lots of Brazilians of portuguese mixed race descent in Cambridge (from one place in the state of Minas Gerais: Governador Valadares)

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3. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 July 2009
4. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 July 2009
5. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 July 2009

The Ivy League Is Not Real Life

But I’m also sure, the good doctor was talking some shit. The Ivy League Effect, when it’s potent, wouldn’t allow otherwise. It made Gates forget that, no matter what, even when you’re right, you don’t talk shit to the police. And that’s not a matter of manhood or pride; it’s a question of survival. Why? Because you’re Black before you’re a Harvard professor. Because, in an extreme case, you can’t tell your side of the story if you get shot reaching for your ID. As a Black man and a Harvard professor, Gates’ thought process should have been: “Wow. I am so thoroughly pissed right now. When this current situation is resolved and am out of harm’s way, I’m going down to the station and I’m going to use my considerable influence to make heads roll. But right now, I need to be the smart one, remember all the details and not give him any reason to escalate this situation.” That’s what any of my fellow colleagues have done, guns drawn on them at night in the middle of campus by the police. They didn’t get loud; they got smart. They diffused the situation, then got pissed and did something about it. And I assure you, they did so with much less juice than Dr. Gates.

I remember when I heard about the story, I couldn’t help but think: Wow, that Ivy League Effect has washed out his healthy fear of the police. Yikes.

Can he be outraged? ABSOLUTELY. The circumstance should outrage any person that happened to. But why is he outraged? Because he didn’t think the Black Tax applied to him anymore. In his mind, he was Skip Gates, well-regarded Harvard professor who was being treated poorly in his home by the police. Believe me, if this took place at North Carolina State his sense of indignation would be far different and his ability to garner attention would be much less. And if he was just a working-class stiff? Forget it.

But this didn’t happen anywhere else. It happened in Cambridge on Ivy turf and now, his story has taken on Paul Bunyon-esque qualities. If you didn’t know better, you’d think a lynch mob was waiting outside Gates’ door with the rope and the hitching wagon before Ving Rhames came along and saved the day.

Skip Gates thought that he’d worked hard enough, achieved enough, become Harvard enough that this sort of treatment did not apply to him. And now, rather than channel that outrage in a such a way that is subtle but effective, he’s very publicly suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, having ‘joined the ranks of the million incarcerated Black men in America.’ That’s laughable. He does not see those million men as kin and he doesn’t, by and large, give a damn about those guys. He’s merely annoyed that such an annoyance as police misconduct found its way into his home. If he read about this story happening to a plumber in Roxbury, he’d shake his head in disappointment and then go on with his life.

So before we heed the call of racism, let’s be mindful of the tower from which that call came. This has something to do with race. But it as a lot more to do with messing with Skip Gates.

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

Is that the anonymous piece from another, younger, black ivy leaguer? I read it Salon… it was very good.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 27 July 2009

yes, I think it is. Found it at Alternet.

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

If you didn’t know better, you’d think a lynch mob was waiting outside Gates’ door with the rope and the hitching wagon before Ving Rhames came along and saved the day.

And he needed, or Obama just knew to oblige, Papa Obama’s magic gloss to enhance whatever he and Ogletree plan to extract from this.

Radley Balko has up some truly egregious examples of violence under color of authority – and some general ruminations. Crouch says Gates desperation for yet another 15 minutes and the media interest in avoiding any hard questions… etc., obliterates the discussion we need.

Gates imo is perfectly happy to suck up the air.

End of the day, Crowley is a hard ass and Gates is an over paid, over lauded putz.

[snagged the two links from Althouse thread, as I said one of the better ones, less reactionary and mean than usual]

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6. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 July 2009

U.S. Professor: I told FBI about kidney trafficking 7 years ago

The alleged crimes of the Brooklyn man arrested Thursday for dealing in black-market kidneys were first reported by an anthropologist from the University of California, Berkeley, who learned of the man’s suspected involvement through her research.

Nancy Scheper-Hughes – whose contacts in Israel define her as the world’s leading authority on organ trading – says she heard reports that the suspect, 58-year-old Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, held donors at gunpoint after they changed their minds about the operation.

Such reports that she received from her sources compelled her to go to the authorities. She met with an FBI agent at a Manhattan hotel and gave him information about Rosenbaum, but she says that the Bureau acted only much later. The Berkeley scholar is said to have identified Rosenbaum to the FBI seven years ago as a major figure in a global human organ ring.

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

The Berkeley scholar is said to have identified Rosenbaum to the FBI seven years ago as a major figure in a global human organ ring.

It’s simple! She was identified as an anti-Semite!

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7. Madman in the Marketplace - 27 July 2009

Ishmael Reed: Post-Race Scholar Yells Racism

Now that Henry Louis Gates’ Jr. has gotten a tiny taste of what “the underclass” undergo each day, do you think that he will go easier on them? Lighten up on the tough love lectures? Even during his encounter with the police, he was given some slack. If a black man in an inner city neighborhood had hesitated to identify himself, or given the police some lip, the police would have called SWAT. When Oscar Grant, an apprentice butcher, talked back to a BART policeman in Oakland, he was shot!

Given the position that Gates has pronounced since the late eighties, if I had been the arresting officer and post-race spokesperson Gates accused me of racism, I would have given him a sample of his own medicine. I would have replied that “race is a social construct”–the line that he and his friends have been pushing over the last couple of decades.

After this experience, will Gates stop attributing the problems of those inner city dwellers to the behavior of “thirty five-year-old grandmothers living in the projects?” (Gates says that when he became a tough lover he was following the example of his mentor Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka as though his and Soyinka’s situations were the same. As a result of Soyinka’s criticisms of a Nigerian dictator, he was jailed and his life constantly threatened.)

Prior to the late eighties, Gates’ tough love exhortations were aimed at racism in the halls of academe, but then he signed on to downtown feminist reasoning that racism was a black male problem. Karen Durbin, who hired him to write for The Village Voice, takes credit for inventing him as a “public intellectual.” He was then assigned by Rebecca Penny Sinkler, former editor of The New York Times Book Review, to do a snuff job on black male writers. In an extraordinary review, he seemed to conclude that black women writers were good, not because of their merit, but because black male writers were bad. This was a response to an article by Mel Watkins, a former book review editor, who on his way out warned of a growing trend that was exciting the publisher’s cash registers. Books that I would describe as high Harlequin romances, melodramas in which saintly women were besieged by cruel black male oppressors, the kind of image of the brothers promoted by confederate novelists Thomas Nelson Page and Thomas Dixon.

Gates dismissed a number of black writers as misogynists, including me, whom he smeared throughout the United States and Europe, but when Bill Clinton was caught exploiting a young woman, sexually, he told the Times that he would “go to the wall for this president.” Feminists like Gloria Steinem defended the president as well, even though for years they’d been writing about women as victims of male chauvinists with power, the kind of guys who used to bankroll Ms. magazine.

Not to say that portraits of black men should be uniformly positive–I’ve certainly introduced some creeps in my own work–but most of the white screenwriters, directors and producers who film this material–and the professors and critics who promote it– are silent about the abuses against women belonging to their own ethnic groups. Moreover, Alice Walker, Tina Turner and bell hooks have complained that in the hands of white script writers, directors and producers, the black males become more sinister straw men than they appear in the original texts.

There are big bucks to be made in promoting this culture. Two studios are currently fighting over the rights to a movie called “Push” about a black father who impregnates his illiterate Harlem daughter. A representative of one, according to the Times, said that the movie would provide both with “a gold mine of opportunity.”

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

Also from Reed is this.. and in fact Gates mother is a big issue, imo. A big unresolved issue. She was mroe than a black nationalist, not uncommon for her period at all.. and as a movement nothing wrong with it. BUT she also subscribed to the “Jack and Jill” magazine, which pandered to light skinned prosperous black society.. Membership in the local groups, iwth parties for children to meet and perhaps as they grew up marry and socialise with “their own”, with rules like ”skin no darker than a paper bag” and ”hair straight as a ruler”. It all gets into a big messy jumble. It’s really hard to be a dedicated black nationalist when you fully buy into a snob routine.

[G]ates was also under pressure for making himself the head black feminist in the words of feminist Michele Wallace as a result of his profiting from black feminist studies sales because, as she put it in the Voice, he had unresolved issues with his late mother, who was, according to Gates, a black nationalist. The black feminists wanted in. As a result, Gates invited them to join his Norton anthology project. The result was the Norton Anthology of African American Literature. One of the editors was the late feminist scholar Dr. Barbara Christian. She complained to me almost to the day that she died that she and the late Nellie Y. McKay, another editor, did all of the work while Gates took the credit. This seems to be Gates’ pattern. Getting others to do his work. Mother Jones magazine accused him of exploiting those writers who helped to assemble his Encarta Africana, of running an academic sweat shop and even avoiding affirmative action goals by not hiring blacks. …

Friend of Obster, remember.

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8. marisacat - 27 July 2009

Gawker:

Gawker

For Your own safety

Oh Goody a More Powerful Taser

By Hamilton Nolan, 5:07 PM on Mon Jul 27 2009, 969 views

Fantastic news, minorities: A new Taser that boasts three times as many shots! Elsewhere in law enforcement matters: “Taser-hit man bursts into flames.” …

As we move into the future.. a tasered minefield… with no health care. But plenty of prisons!

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Madman in the Marketplace - 27 July 2009

I’m waiting for electrified orange fences around protests …

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

with electrified dogs.

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9. marisacat - 27 July 2009

I think the whole thing in Cambridge set us back. And this repeated elevation of Obama as some race healer. Geesh. With baiters like Gates who needs THEIR friends.

About the only good is perhaps s o m e, a few, myopic liberals catch on to the BLack Elite Industry.

‘Cuz it is old. OLD.

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10. catnip - 27 July 2009

You government is nuts. Truly. Without the chocolate.

House Passes Resolution Calling Hawaii Obama’s Birthplace

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Madman in the Marketplace - 27 July 2009

good thing they’re dealing with real problems.

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11. moiv - 27 July 2009

Again, Ed, the President feels very comfortable with his level of transparency, which is why you have those names.

How much transparency do you want, anyway? It’s already crystal clear that Scotty McClellan couldn’t have done any better on the best day he ever had.

Sheesh . . .

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

Gibbs is so bad. One of my few recent pleasures was his doing really reeeeeeelly badly on FOX on Sunday. Baaaadly. Bad.

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catnip - 27 July 2009

Darn. I missed that. Probably would have fallen asleep in the middle of his lullaby-speak anyway.

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12. marisacat - 27 July 2009

And Ishamel Reed heads in for the kill:

While his alliance with feminists gave Gates’ career a powerful boost, it was his Op ed for the Times blaming continued anti-Semitism on African Americans that brought the public intellectual uptown. It was then that Gates was ordained as the pre-eminent African American scholar when, if one polled African-American scholars throughout the nation, Gates would not have ranked among the top twenty five. It would have to be done by secret ballot given the power that Gates’ sponsors have given him to make or break academic careers. As Quincy Troupe, editor of Black Renaissance Noire would say, Gates is among those leaders who were “given to us,” not only by the white mainstream but also by white progressives. Amy Goodman carries on about Gates and Cornel West like the old Bobby Soxers used to swoon over Sinatra. Last week Rachel Maddow called Gates “the nation’s leading black intellectual.” Who pray tell is the nation’s leading white intellectual, Rachel? How come we can only have one? Some would argue that Gates hasn’t written a first rate scholarly work since 1989.

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13. marisacat - 27 July 2009

Beer on Thursday at the WH!! You know, that big plantation era mansion on Pennsylvania Ave. A house that only serves American beer, too I read.

If I were Crowley I’d take a witness. Or not go… 😆

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BooHooHooMan - 27 July 2009

Contrived much?

I don’t know about anyone else, but that afternoon, I happen to be driving a mini-bus full of retirees up to Cambridge for an afternoon of shoplifting.

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

most hilarious they all drink different beers. Ob, Bud. Gates, REd Stripe or Beck’s (he’s outta luck, no foreign beer available) and Crowley, Blue Moon

Honestly I did not work to know this, I stumbled on a news report tha t had it all laid out for me…………….

😆

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moiv - 27 July 2009

I saw that on Maddow, and thought at first she was having one of her jokes. But no . . .

If they’re even half serious about getting real, I say let’s have a rapprochement that the Amerkun people can identify with. Break out the lawn chairs, drag a styrofoam cooler out into the Rose Garden and ice down some Bud Lite.

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

If they’re even half serious about getting real, I say let’s have a rapprochement that the Amerkun people can identify with. Break out the lawn chairs, drag a styrofoam cooler out into the Rose Garden and ice down some Bud Lite.

hey! on C-span, for all that vaunted “transparenceeee to a certainteeeeee”.

Etc.

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catnip - 27 July 2009

😆

Wear your breezy sundress! Or steal a new one, at least.

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moiv - 27 July 2009

And let them eat cake. Catnip, I just have to know. Is this going to become a new favorite among Canadian fanciers of patisserie?

To commemorate its Canadian centennial and thank Canadians for 100 years of support, Heinz has created The Great Canadian Heinz Ketchup Cake — an ideal dessert for any celebration. It’s red, perfectly spiced and delicious. Think carrot cake without all the work.

I think I’d rather work, and have the real thing. Although the recipe reads like red velvet cake, if you lost the spices and added a little cocoa.

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catnip - 27 July 2009

If I’m going to die of a heart attack from eating too many baked goods, it sure as hell won’t be caused by a ketchup cake! Mon dieu. That’s disgusting. You don’t put tomatoes in cake. And we’re not that bloody patriotic to begin with.

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14. BooHooHooMan - 27 July 2009

Maloney backing away from Senate Race?

But who will get custody of the Trippi sockpuppets?

Here what I think the deal is…Trippi , his op, sockpuppets and all -gets traded to Sestak;s team during camp. He takes the kids on walks in the woods, canoe rides, they beat tom-toms at night, get to put on war paint etc. – S’mores mostly…For a bit…While they go through machinations a year and a half long of a faux contest that seals off any other would be challenger to Sestak’s Progressive bid. ( t’oh.) ( chertle shnertle)

You know Joe Sestak. The guy who bootstrapped his way up at the center of Progressive Politics in the US. The PENTAGON.

Big Plans in the works, see..That blip from the other day…
the mano a mano pow wow at Markos Neutered’Roots Nation coming up in a few weeks.

But the New Arlen shuck and jive towards Could it be?
(blink, blink) is happening already, my take anyways,
Markos the Fighting Chipmunk Weighing In –
{ I know, I know..I gotta lay off the chipmunks…}

Anyways, today Markos was Touting Arlens good behaviour..

You can draw a pretty clear line in the sand from when Specter went from sorta, kinda Democrat to OMG totally! Democrat, and it coincides with the date that Sestak announced his challenge.

Seein how MAMZ is Playing host at the Pwog Blog Star Trek
Cue narrative transition heading towards the ” TWO FINE CANDIDATES” Scheisse when they BOTH BLOW.

And as for this…well….

The real question is how Specter will behave if and when he wins the primary challenge, and the pressure from the left is off.

Only in America.

somehow re-mold Arlen Arlen from seasons sinnce time immemorial…into groovite

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BooHooHooMan - 27 July 2009

My God, I do believe I’ve lost my pasties.

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moiv - 27 July 2009

I saw Eric Cartman wearing them on the set. They’re turning the whole thing into a two-parter for South Park.

And I read a blind item in the trades that makes me suspect Alvin is fighting with the rest of the chipmunks over who gets to dub Markos.

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

well then there was the Sharpton play that was run. And Repubbers collaborated in that one, ‘cuz it fit a [operative] play they are running, Democrats are Racists. which they are, just like Republicans.

The field was cleared for Gillibrand. oh we are SO BLESSED.

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BooHooHooMan - 27 July 2009

Yep. And With Sestak, win or lose – it will be a vehicle to reaffirm War.
With Specter–win or lose it will be a vehicle to reaffirm Zion.

With Twoomey, well, he’s a real shithead pentathlete:
at least five Glory Be’s for his candidacy… Catholics and Anti Choice , with the cursory pledge of allegiance to War, Zion, and Wall Street. They’ll tear each other apart and laud each other in the end and whoever is left standing will serve War and Wall Street whatever their pet constituency is…But you all know this, sorry for the SOS, but it;s all there is…

PA Sen is going to be a brokered race in the Dem Primary.
If it’s presented as “exciting” or “interesting”, it’s because – frankly – that Arlen and the Party will need it, the media and the admen from the MSM on down – to hangers on like Markos need it and Sestak could use the name recognition if wants to be handed Arlens seat someday, or run for Gov, or just to increase his juice on the Hill…

Activists worth anything in PA – LOL – the ones who haven’t MOVED- see The Party of Rendell for what it is., Admiral Joe for what he is, and Obama for what he is not. All the other party hacks will do as they’re told.
Broke Ass Non Factors like Bowers can be bought for a slice of pizza. And a beer.

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15. catnip - 27 July 2009

I see Big Tenter Tantrum is posting at C&L now. Did Jeralyn finally have enough of him?

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

i just looked, he posted there today…. 🙄

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catnip - 27 July 2009

Blogwhore!

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

i saw this when i was there…………….

Obama Ramping Up War on Drugs at Northern Border

By Jeralyn, Section Crime Policy
Posted on Sat Jul 25, 2009 at 03:08:46 PM EST

President Obama has a Border Czar named Alan Bersin. His official title is “special representative for border affairs.” In an interview with the Associated Press , he discusses the increased number of border agents along the Canadian border to fight the war on drugs.

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catnip - 27 July 2009

How many czars is that now? 196 or so?

Dog save you from the evil canucks! Soon you’ll all be so stoned that you actually will like curling.

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marisacat - 27 July 2009

The joke is, and I think it is likely accurate, Ob has more aides called ‘Czar” than Russia had Czars.

Can you imagine if this were Bush? The laughing in BlahgShitLand?

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BooHooHooMan - 27 July 2009

Border Czar Jeezis.

Just wait till all of these Ob-Inbred Czars and Kaisers start warring amongst themselves.
I’m as Northeast as you come, but at least out of the South you got “Colonel” Sanders and a nice breast of chicken to go with the ridiculous title. AFAIK he wasn’t an officer but he did serve and fight in
The Great Chicken War. ..LOL..-
And he wasn’t on the side of the CHICKENS, either.

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BooHooHooMan - 27 July 2009

Armando at Crooks and Liars…well THAT’s a shocker!
He’s not Frontin’ malignantnarcissist.com?

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16. catnip - 27 July 2009
17. marisacat - 27 July 2009

Well there was weak spin after his prime time dissemble… but over and over the “take away” is: it fell flat. Pancake no syrup!!

Why Doesn’t Obama Tell It Like It Is?

The Actually Existing Health Care System

By CARL GINSBURG

There is nothing inherently wrong with spending 17 per cent of GDP on health care if the result is a really healthy population. Just like there is nothing wrong with a “big” budget deficit if the money goes to making good jobs for working people, cleaning up their cities and environment and bettering schools instead of making rich financiers richer.

But given the fact that countless pregnant women go without sonograms, diabetes is near epidemic proportions, dialysis patients on average die within five years (in Japan they live 20) and, most significantly, the number of primary care doctors remains very low — taking preventive care off the agenda for most — the US health care system is a travesty.

Medicare is the point only if you let private health care off the hook. We know that President Obama did exactly that when he invited in insurers earlier this spring and announced their voluntary commitment to cost containment (only to have them repudiate his interpretation of their comments within days) and you go before the nation in a news conference, July 22, and devote the presentation to existing government programs.

American health care is reeling because it is a profit center where gouging is the norm. For-profit clinics and hospitals print money, paying out hefty dividends and huge salaries to management. Not-for-profits operate along similar lines. Ask Michelle Obama, who pulled down a reported $400,000 a year at a Chicago hospital doing non-medical work. But that’s just a small piece of the action. …

Well… I read 317,000 but he might mean with bonuses and other aspects of a compensation package.

[W]ith his fanatic commitment to free markets President Obama’s stated commitment to working families unravels with every passing day. Word is that the good people in Washington are starting to glaze over, as this president’s capacity for talk — and serving corporate interests — seems to have no bounds.

Everything has “glazed over”. Or as I used to say, we are covered in a thick coat of Vaseline… a sex agent product for the pols.

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18. marisacat - 28 July 2009

So very shocked. To my bones. I laughed out loud earlier just reading the titles of a piece by Katrina vd Heuval… and one by P Krugman… despairing of the Bloooooooooo dogs or calling them out of touch.

So… how come they run everything? Hmm?

From The Note.

[I]n the House, it’s the Blue Dog Democrats who, by themselves, are stalling work in the Energy and Commerce Committee, to say nothing of what they could do on the House floor.

As for the flickers of bipartisanship that are left in Congress, careful what you wish for: Senate Finance Committee talks are set to exacerbate tensions inside the Democratic Party — this time, enraging the left.

The latest out of that last refuge of bipartisanship will test the Democratic Party’s cohesiveness anew. Senators are seriously discussing dropping the public option, along with the employer mandate:

“A bipartisan group of senators is closing in on a health care compromise that omits key Democratic priorities but seeks to hold down costs, as lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol labor to deliver sweeping health legislation to President Barack Obama,” per the AP’s David Espo and Erica Werner.

“Three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee were edging closer to a compromise that excludes a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for large businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite Obama’s support for such a plan.” …

Oh yeah, he so supports it. Basically he and Axelrod waited for them, those out of touch Blooo Dogs, to nail it all down. From what I have read this is where we have been headed. That and mandates tied to the IRS annual forms and penalties levied for taxpayers for not being in the ”insurance reform” game.

Please, go to the Vineyard. Don’t come back! 😆

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19. marisacat - 28 July 2009

Too funny. A subject about which she knows nothing, other than from a bureaucratic distance having been a state bankruptcy atty in NC, years ago.

Also Tuesday: Elizabeth Edwards testifies on medical bankruptcies in front of a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee, at 11 am ET.

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20. catnip - 28 July 2009

Did you see Jon Stewart’s takedown of Bill Kristol last nite over the issues of gov’t run healthcare? It was priceless.

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21. catnip - 28 July 2009

Oh…there he is…on my teevee again…

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22. marisacat - 28 July 2009

Pink Everlast squeaks…

Reid Comments on Getting Health Care Out of Finance Committee

“Any plan that passes the Senate will be fully paid for … When all of the numbers are crunched, the number on the bottom line will be zero … We are long overdue for changes in our health care system. The biggest cost to the American public is inaction.”

“What I think should be in the bill is something that I will vote for according to my conscience when we get this bill to the floor … But I have a responsibility to get a bill to the Senate floor that will get 60 votes that we can proceed toward.”

“That’s my number one responsibility and there are times I have to set aside my personal preferences for the good of the Senate and I think the country.”

“It would be really premature for me to lay out for each of you what I think should be in this bill.”

Give ’em a stale donut Harry!

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23. marisacat - 28 July 2009

Too funny! ONLY Gates and Crowley are invited for Thursday night. UNFAIR!

I say Crowley should be able to bring his father, who voted for O. You know, even numbers. Friend of Skip and Father of C.

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24. marisacat - 28 July 2009

Reading around the media.. someone throw some funereal flowers on the waters, in memoriam of the “public option” that never was to be anyway.

Toss bile on the aisle crossers! Demand more and better Democrats! Vote in 2010! And in 2012! Vote until you starve to death!

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25. marisacat - 28 July 2009

Mission Accomplished!

The Associated Press had reported Monday night that the Finance committee had dropped the public plan in favor of government-financed healthcare cooperatives for consumers.

Gregg, another one that runs things and, you know, bona fide FOO Friend of Ob of a certain sort – like Coburn is!, says it was necessary. Ob sends thank you note. Whew! the white boys backed me up and got it done… so glad I was there to help them!

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26. marisacat - 28 July 2009

Gnu……..

LINK

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