January | 2010 | Marisacat

Climb on a flying canape… 31 January 2010

Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Switzerland, Viva La Revolucion!.
23 comments

Movers, shakers and canapes – a typical Davos scene [Laurent Gillieron/EPA]

…and just zoom from international conference to international conference. Bloviating and accomplishing nothing.

A plan.

And, a job. I think they go for the free food and …oh… the night action, shall we say. Plus ca change.

Talk about a bunch that should be put on enforced video conferencing. Our man in Davos is Larry Summers. And entourage of course.

If they’d shift the conference to somewhere in the Pacific region, in the heat, the ptb would be sending Ob…

Bless them, every one.

Sliding about on the ice… 30 January 2010

Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, U.S. House, U.S. Senate.
51 comments

People are silhouetted as they walk on the frozen inner city lake Alster during sunset in the northern German city of Hamburg [REUTERS]

hmm well who knows… but in a Politico article on some kissing up to Wall St going on in NY races – Ford, Paterson, Maloney and Saujani – there is mention of this:

[A] Quinnipiac University poll last year found that 79% of all New York voters backed a “millionaire’s tax,” in the form of a higher state income tax rate for people earning more than $1 million a year.

Among Democrats, support for the measure ran 91% to 7%.

The state’s labor-backed Working Families Party has been testing support for a “banker’s bonus tax” in its door-to-door canvassing in recent days, the party’s executive director, Dan Cantor, said, a prelude to a campaign on the issue.

“It’s about the best issue work we’ve ever done,” he said of the response to canvassers. “People are angry. [Wall Street] nearly wrecked the economy and people don’t think they should be rewarded for their trouble.” ….

I am happy if they all – both sides in a perfect fiction – run scared… 😉

When all else fails, they pray – together… 30 January 2010

Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems.
19 comments

Obama and leading House Republicans bow their heads during the invocation. | AP Photo

Of course “prey” works just as well.

NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’: White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), roundtable with CNBC’s David Faber, NY Times columnist David Brooks, Washington Post columnist Gene Robinson and U.S. News and World Report Editor-in-Chief Mort Zuckerman

ABC’s ‘This Week’: Senator-elect Scott Brown (R-MA), roundtable with ABC’s George Will, Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, NY Times columnist Paul Krugman and Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington

CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’: Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA), Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-MI), and Sen. John Thune (R-SD), roundtable with POLITICO Executive Editor Jim VandeHei and the Washington Post’s Anne Kornblut

‘Fox News Sunday’: Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), roundtable with the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, NPR’s Mara Liasson, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer and NPR’s Juan Williams, ‘Power Player of the Week’ with DC Press Corps’ Independent Copy Editor Daniel Lippman

CNN’s ‘State of Union’: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-MI), Republican analyst Mary Matalin and Democratic analyst James Carville, ‘Last Word’ segment with AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka

C-SPAN — ‘The Communicators’ (6:30pm ET Saturday): FCC Distinguished Scholar in Residence Stuart Benjamin, guest reporter is Telecommunications Daily’s Lynn Stanton … ‘Newsmakers’ (10am ET /6pm ET Sunday): Democratic Policy Chairman and Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), questioned by Roll Call’s David Drucker and POLITICO’s Eamon Javers … ‘Q&A’ (8pm ET & 11pm ET Sunday): Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout, who talks about his new biography of Louie Armstrong called, ‘Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong.’

Are the shows worth anything? I’d say no. But the networks and cables have dead air to fill…so they fill it with dead air.

They would not know live air if it knocked them over and declared a paid bonus.

As long as they can charge for the advertising… it will limp on. And the networks and the whole of media know they scored big $$$$$ with the SCOTUS ruling on political speech. It hardly matters, looking over 2008 election, to say nothing of 40 years of elections prior, public financed elections were always a vaporous pipe dream.

We have hit bottom when Ivanka Trump and her molded cheeks (all 4 I would suspect) is on … think it was ABC’s GMA with Robin Roberts and Steph (despicable pair of handmaidens, send them to a diary farm for re-education!)… and she doles out POLITICAL COMMENTARY — along with Mort Zuckerman.

One would think Mort, at least, would have something better to do. But no.

We’re sucking down dirt.

Don’t worry! Hillary says……. 29 January 2010

Posted by marisacat in Afghanistan War, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Israel/AIPAC, WAR!.
37 comments

A demonstrator confronts the police during a protest outside the EDO and ITT manufacturing plants in Brighton, southern England. Demonstrators protested outside the plants, which they say manufacture parts for Israeli weapons, during a demonstration to mark the end of the conflict between Israel and Palestine one year ago today. [Reuters]

Hillary says….. we won’t talk to the “real bad guys”. Oh no not us. We’d die of mortification. Fer sure…

Clinton says no talking to ‘really bad guys’ in Taliban

(AFP) – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has ruled out talking to the “really bad guys” in Afghanistan, promising that a new drive to woo moderate Taliban would not set back women’s rights.

Clinton doubted that Afghan leaders or the international community would reach out to hardliners like Mullah Omar, who headed the Taliban regime which imposed an austere brand of Islam from 1996 to 2001.

“We’re not going to talk to the really bad guys because the really bad guys are not ever going to renounce Al-Qaeda and renounce violence and agree to re-enter society,” Clinton said in an interview with National Public Radio broadcast on Friday.

“That is not going to happen with people like Mullah Omar and the like.”

Clinton was speaking from London, where a global conference threw its backing behind a multimillion-dollar fund to support Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s plan to integrate militants who lay down their arms.

The chief US diplomat, a longtime advocate of women’s rights, acknowledged that some Afghan women were concerned about dealing with the Taliban — whose regime forbade women from going to school, working or traveling on their own.

However, she added: “I don’t think there is cause for alarm that the current government or any foreseeable government would turn the clock back like that.”

She said it was crucial for women’s rights that “there is enough power in the state and through the new Afghan security forces to make sure that there’s never a resurgence of the Taliban that would come close to taking over large parts of the country.

“That’s what we’re preventing,” said Clinton.

She rejected suggestions the strategy would confuse people just as the United States and its allies pour another 40,000 troops into Afghanistan to battle Islamic extremists.

“You can’t have one without the other,” said Clinton.

“Only a surge of military forces alone without any effort on the political side is not likely to succeed; only an effort to make peace with your enemies without the strength to back it up is not going to succeed.”

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved

Everything is in good order. And, as everyone can clearly see, we HAD to go to war, all those years ago.

And, not to fret, nothing will be ending anytime soon.

Everything is fine.

Stand off 28 January 2010

Posted by marisacat in Divertissements.
64 comments

A red cardinal chases a sparrow away from a feeder near Maysville, Kentucky, US [Terry Prather/AP]

Looks like the cardinal is operating with the energy of divine light… sparrow beware!

Post-speech…………. ;) 27 January 2010

Posted by marisacat in Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
32 comments

Mason City, Iowa, US: A multi-vehicle pile-up on Highway 65 [Bryon Houlgrave/AP]

How very odd!

I remember him p r o m i s i n g, just drive forward, watch the road, be good, trust in him… and all of us would be safe on Highway 65 in Mason City Iowa. He was very specific… and he promised!

I wonder what happened…….. ???? Looks like a car crash to me!

***********************

Gah. 27 January 2010

Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems.
34 comments

Six-year-old Malie and nine-year-old Toktak have been trained to play basketball by their keepers on the picturesque island of Koh Samui, Thailand [Bronek Kaminiski/Barcroft India]

For some odd reason this looked appropriate. Hell if I know why.

********************

Speech! Speech! 27 January 2010

Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election.
119 comments

The young one is Favreau… responsible, along with the white guys behind Ob AND of course Obby himself, for the 2008 speeches.

******************************************************

oh just a couple of snips that are lying around, and seem appropriate to underline the SOTU speech…

This from Rick Klein’s The Note of Tuesday:

“I think that this gets into a big mush. So let’s just clarify: I didn’t make a bunch of deals,” the president told ABC’s Diane Sawyer Monday. “There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked.”

Okaaay……… I so believe that one! Well.. the “mush” part anyway!

And this (courtesy of the Mike Allen Playbook of Tuesday)… the DSCC memo to the assembled multitude on how to win win win in November. To be honest, I had thought Menendez was a bit smarter than this (I am sure BHHM will fill me in!), but then! he likely is not even trying…:

‘The memo urges Democratic candidates to force their opponents to answer a series of questions:

‘Do you believe that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen? Do you think the 10th Amendment bars Congress from issuing regulations like minimum health care coverage standards? Do you think programs like Social Security and Medicare represent socialism and should never have been created in the first place? Do you think President Obama is a socialist? Do you think America should return to a gold standard?’

If a Republican candidate says no to any of the questions, the memo says Democrats should ‘make their primary opponent or conservative activists know it. This will cause them to take heat from their primary opponents and could likely provoke a flip-flop, as it already has several times with Mark Kirk in Illinois.’ … Menendez spoke last week at a private Democratic Caucus meeting, where he urged all his party’s candidates to ‘run scared.’

So, what is new? This is new strategy? When did the Democrats NOT carry the Republicans water for them?

hmmm? When?

As for the speech, when is 6PM Pacific… 9PM Eastern.

Chuckle buddies 26 January 2010

Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
63 comments

Chuckle buddies laugh infectiously: sweet at first, but you’ll feel like avoiding them like the plague after five minutes. Mini Chuckle Buddies (Mint Concepts, RRP£4) are keychains that laugh when you squeeze them. The bigger versions (RRP£15) roll around on the floor and roar with laughter Photograph: Graham Turner/Guardian

hmm they remind me of the human swizel sticks that vote… a lot of whom seem to be falling off the ‘little engine that could’ – a contraption the white men behind Ob built.

They, the human swizel sticks, may very well get back on… or they may say, You Were No Fun, Obama… and … and… what WAS it all about anyway? We forget! No No!… don’t bother to tell us again..

He gave too many speeches. It wore out. The bubble met the buzz saw……..

******************