Diminished…

Diminished… 28 August 2011

Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, The Battle for New Orleans.
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People sheltering at Penn Station in New York grab some shuteye Photograph: Chelsea Matiash/AP

Diminished Irene may be but she definitely checked in… and wanted a lot of room service…

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1. Ganjafied Gabacho - 28 August 2011: I guess some 21 folks lost their lives, so it wasn’t just sound, but fury for them and their people…

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marisacat - 28 August 2011: oh last I heard was 15… I was just opening a report iwht a state by state, blow by blow. It was a lot to dump over a wide swathe …

And Obama did his best to appear prezteldental.

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: Morning news now saying 26… more than I few I see died hit by trees, in one way or another…

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Madman in the Marketplace - 29 August 2011: A good friend in New Haven called, said trees are down everywhere.

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: It looks like parts of NY state and parts of Vermont got hit really really hard.

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2. Ganjafied Gabacho - 28 August 2011: Narconews is reporting the presnce of US sponsored death squads in Mexico:

US-Trained Assassin Teams Now Deployed in Drug War
Posted by Bill Conroy – August 28, 2011 at 6:21 pm

Former CIA Asset Who Revealed Presence of US Special Forces in Mexico Says Hit Squads Targeting Narco Splinter Groups

A small but growing proxy war is underway in Mexico pitting US-assisted assassin teams composed of elite Mexican special operations soldiers against the leadership of an emerging cadre of independent drug organizations that are far more ruthless than the old-guard Mexican “cartels” that gave birth to them.

These Mexican assassin teams now in the field for at least half a year, sources tell Narco News, are supported by a sophisticated US intelligence network composed of CIA and civilian US military operatives as well as covert special-forces soldiers under Pentagon command — which are helping to identify targets for the Mexican hit teams.

snip

But Narco News as far back as June of 2010 reported that a special forces US task force had “boots on the ground” in Mexico assisting the Mexican military in tracking down the top capos of Mexico’s major drug “cartels” – such as the Juarez, Beltran Leyva, Zetas and La Familia organizations. (The Sinaloa organization’s top leadership, however, has been left largely untouched, and by design if you believe the recent US court pleadings of Vicente Zambada Niebla, a Sinaloa leader now imprisoned in Chicago who claims a quid pro quo deal has been struck between the Sinaloa drug syndicate and the US government.) [See link].

Narco News also reported in April of this year that a unit of a major US defense contractor was advertising in the mercenary community for “site leads” who can help oversee the company’s personnel in Mexico and also coordinate “with Mexican Army officials” at a dozen training sites, called “VMTCs [Virtual Military Training Centers],” located in Mexico.

The information in the job posting described the US military contractor’s training network in Mexico as being part of an effort called “Project Sparta,” which is designed “to train Mexican Army soldiers in basic and advanced urban warfare operations” with the ultimate goal of creating an “Urban Warfare Elite Force.”

The “new specialized reaction force” will support “federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the war against organized crime and the drug cartels,” the help-wanted ad stated.

snip

One law enforcement source familiar with the situation in Mexico says training in urban warfare would be critical to any unit set up to wage an assault campaign on narco splinter groups.

What is key to all of these glimpses into US operations in Mexico is that they all seem to be focused on military strategies, not law enforcement. And the goal of the military, unlike law enforcement, is to neutralize the enemy on the battlefield — not bring that enemy to justice through the court system.

snip

The experience of the so-called “death squads” in Central America remains raw for many even now and helped to sully the image of the United States in the region.

snip

… slate of splinter narco-trafficking groups that have stepped into the power vacuums created when US or Mexican law enforcers and military have an occasional success and take out a top narco leader. Examples of those successes in recent years include the killing of Arturo Beltran Leyva of the Beltran Leyva organization, the capture of Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas of La Familia, and more recently of Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez of La Linea [The Line] — the enforcement arm of the Juarez drug-trafficking organization.

Among the so-called splinter groups that have come onto the scene, many within the past year, include organizations whose names are not yet in the bright lights of the mainstream media: Mano con ojos, or Hands with Eyes; Mata Zetas, or Zeta Killers; Caballeros Templarios, or Knights Templar; Cartel de Pacifico Sur, or the South Pacific Cartel; Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion; and Cartel del Centro, to name but a few.

These so-called splinter groups tend to be extremely violent in their approach since they are competing more intensely against more organizations…

snip

And the response of the existing political and monied interests of the state to this threat, according to one of those sources, former CIA asset Tosh Plumlee, has been to take a page out of the “El Salvador solution,” modify it for the current era, and go at these splinter groups directly but covertly — utilizing highly trained assassination units whose mission is to “neutralize” the leaders of the splinter groups before they can consolidate power.

snip

Narco News reported in June 2010 that a special-forces task force under Pentagon command was operating in Mexico. That report was based on information provided by Plumlee, who worked in the past as a CIA contract pilot in Latin America and still has deep connections in the intelligence world.

snip
That report was later supported by both a leaked Pentagon document that verified US special operations troops were active in Mexico as well as a State Department cable released by the whistleblower organization WikiLeaks. [See link for details.]

The cable released by WikiLeaks also verified that the Mexican Navy unit that conducted the operation against narco-capo Arturo Beltran Leyva (resulting in his death) “received extensive U.S. training” — which serves as further evidence supporting Narco News’ original reporting on the involvement of U.S. special forces in that operation.

snip

According to Plumlee, members of the same US special-forces task force that assisted in the takedown of Beltran Leyva are now providing intelligence support and ongoing training to the Mexican assassin teams set up to target the leaders of the proliferating narco splinter groups.

The mission of these specialized Mexican attack units, Plumlee contends, is to “neutralize” (kill) the targets. This is a new focus, since before the Mexican military was targeting the leadership of the major drug organizations for capture, if possible. But in this case, capture is not the goal, and the targets are the leaders of these hyper-violent, independent splinter groups that have sprung up in the wake of the shakeup, via capture or killing, in the leadership of the major cartels — with the Sinaloa organization, it seems, being protected from a fatal attack on its leadership…. the old-guard “cartels” also see these splinter groups as their enemies, given they are rivals threatening the stability of the existing business model, so in essence the Mexican assassin teams are also serving the interests of the dominate narco groups the drug war is suppose to be combating.

“Some of the intelligence on the splinter groups is actually being provided by members of the Zetas,” Plumlee claims.

There are supposedly at least three such Mexican hit teams operating now in Mexico (in the north, central and southern regions of the country).

These Mexican military death squads were supposedly trained by the US, though Plumlee does not know where. Also, Plumlee says the US task force personnel now working inside Mexico, as part of their intelligence support mission for the Mexican hit teams, are helping to identify and verify targets.

I hope that’s not too long an excerpt and there’s lots more supporting info at the link…

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Madman in the Marketplace - 29 August 2011: and iirc, the cartel leaders they’re hunting, especially the Zetas, are former Mexican military and police that we’d trained to deal with leftists. So, the circle of military life continues!

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: Negroponte must be so proud!!!!

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Ganjafied Gabacho - 30 August 2011: That’s right, although I think that there’s more to it than that; I believe the were created to foment more violence, they certainly are first ones who brought the violence up to hyper levels. Before the emergence of the Zetas post 2001, the violence was bad, but not like now; they had to get SERE type training before they really knew how to “get biblical”. In response the West coast cartels (the zeta’s supposedly “natural enemy”) went to Guatemala for commando training and now everyone is “Iraqified” meanwhile the old, old school “independant” indio families that used to bring weed to hippies in Tucson fdon’t “work” any more for fear of being on the wrong team and brutally murdered…BTW the Hells Angels seem to be owning all the eating and drinking venues downtown in Tucson suddenly and there is some Gun/crystal meth./Goverment Spook Tombstone/Ft Huachuca dimension to it. Those fuckers certainly weren’t here 10 years ago when Tucson sent a lot of non cartel weed to rest of the nation, something that doesn’t seem to happen anymore…

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marisacat - 30 August 2011: The Hell’s Angels here, a long standing presence, get oodles of respect from the SF cops… always have. When they have a funeral, whcih are epic, they don’t even have to get permits for the long long long entourages from SF funeral homes to the big burial grounds just south of here, Colma… whcih most everybody else does have to do.

Not that I care, I am so used to it….

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3. Ganjafied Gabacho - 28 August 2011: Berkeley Scientists Discover an “Instant Cosmic Classic” Supernova

At a mere 21 million light-years from Earth, a relatively small distance by astronomical standards, the supernova is still getting brighter, and might even be visible with good binoculars in ten days’ time, appearing brighter than any other supernova of its type in the last 30 years.

“The best time to see this exploding star will be just after evening twilight in the Northern hemisphere in a week or so,” said Oxford’s Sullivan. “You’ll need dark skies and a good pair of binoculars, although a small telescope would be even better.”

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4. marisacat - 29 August 2011: Gah.. they just craft any sort f bullshite to explain it all away.

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, on success of “leading from behind,” in lead of “Talk of the Town”:

“[M]any of Obama’s critics still view a President who rid the world of Osama bin Laden (something that George Bush failed to do) and helped bring down Muammar Qaddafi (something that Ronald Reagan failed to do) as supinely selling out American power. Yet the Administration’s policies-a more apt description, admittedly, would have been ‘leading from behind the scenes’-were tailored to limiting circumstances. … The trouble with so much of the conservative critique of Obama’s foreign policy is that it cares less about outcomes than about the assertion of America’s power and the affirmation of its glory. … Yet a calculated modesty can augment a nation’s true influence.” http://nyr.kr/pxjgZj

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: Reading that over, I cannot bear to look up the full article, Remnick really is a punk. AND a Democratic party operative.

Disgusting.

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5. BooHooHooMan - 29 August 2011: So.
Back to the normal……
.
.
B U L L S H I T
::
Goo-Goo

Reducing wartime waste

How to improve our contract system.

GaGa

Lady Gaga Took Male Alter-Ego to the Limit By Using Men’s Restrooms…

An so forth…

Perry candidacy an alternative to Bush brand
Unrest in Syria raises fears about stockpile of chemical weapons

Dow Surges, Nearing Breakeven for 2011

Nearing Breakeven! LOL.
BTW, Fred and Edna send their regards.

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: Nearing break even is, I guess, in the New World Order…………….. WINNING!!!!!

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6. BooHooHooMan - 29 August 2011: I saw this on Sludge..You know.
LOL. And a couple ways to play it….
Gore: Global warming skeptics are this generation’s racists…

….But Damn! I’m thinkin, Helluva thing to say, Al,, ~yaknow-
about Barry the Black Guy/
“Drill, Spill, ‘n Cap EVERYTHING with a Kleenex” / OBAMA.

Helluva thing to say Al, ~ about Rendell and Cuomo and Oh~ the whole falling-all-over-themselves “Hydro-Fracking Is Good Fer Ya” Democratic PARTY, Ya know this generation’s Banksters, Lawyers, and Tobacco Settlement People and Future Winning Sponsors , no doubt of Clean Coal Cigarettes.

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: But the Democrats from minute one, including Gore, relegated climate change / warming, whatever it is, to the

RE ELECTION column…

and nothing more.

I hve a real problem that the only thing we are allowed to REALLY attack as cancer causing (Slobber’s own Surgeon General did an entire NATIONAL tour declaring that ONE cigarette can give you cancer) but everything else.. EVERYTHING is “inconclusive”.

Esp so many deadly pollutants and dangerous practices. Nuclear, for one. “Nuclear has never killed anyone”.

I dnno I am having a day when it all looks so bad.

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BooHooHooMan - 29 August 2011: On the nuclear and I dunno I am having a day when it all looks so bad.

I’ve been felling that way too over the last few. I had to stay here during the storm , packed off those near and dear mostly sentient beings who, unlike most of .MRKA , uh, still recall Fukishima ( Not So Long Ago! ) and know the score here in the Nuke Plant East iif you ended up with a major hurricane.

Now , suspend for a moment that knowledge and try and process any of the Boobs in Charge messaging 1 that it was going to escalate or 2 that 🙄 it wasn’t going to be the storm, per se , gentelmen, that , so on and Fukishima so forth…
Well once they announced shutting down nuke plants in Salem about an hour West wind of us, that’s when a number of the life-long LOCAL poobahs on the Cape started to freak and turn to blubber. As, well, they should I think,….Hell, Why NOT have a last moment of self actualizing attainment? LOL. ANYWAYS.

So back to the fam – they go to PA no prob with phone contact, they go with the photo albums , cherished items, all our pc’s and electronica. My nephew to a motel (who BTW, relayed the gag post from nonexistant Uncle Fred) anyways, they run into people from RHODE ISLAND who had fled that far west , straight up (and having clue) freaked about nuke plants along the coast.

So what are our PTB doing now?
ANYTHING? Anything to SAY even?
After Obama & Co- in the wake of Fukishima – simply handed out recertification for another 20 years?

Like this one a month ago in New Jersey?

Nah not lookin good.

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: Obama practised Pretzeldental presentation. Bloombutt failed Spanish. Chris, with a tan, bitched about tans.

Etc.

It was STELLAR.

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: Yeah they are all achieving recert… just as Fukushima was about to get, iirc…cuz all of their elderly plants were being recertified too. From what i read the operators demand it, it is about now they really rake in the cash,.

We are so blessed.

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7. BooHooHooMan - 29 August 2011: I see Ezra Klein survived Irene.
And he’s a toutin’

Economic adviser pick is a natural

Ezra Klein | Analysis

Selecting Alan Krueger to lead the Council of Economic Advisers fits an Obama administration pattern.

Wha-? What Pattern? Oh – – > Picking shameless tools?
Carried aloft by obvious crap-gilded resume?
Thoroughly Clintonian retreads and certifiable Rubin / Summers lackeys??

Well…..YES! 😆

Of course it’s Alan Krueger
By Ezra Klein

There are two ways to look at the White House’s decision to name Alan Krueger to lead the Council of Economic Advisers. One is that Krueger is arguably the leading labor economist 😆 in the country. He’s known for bringing a near-superhuman rigor 😆 to a subject that, oddly enough to non-economists, had fallen into a bit of disrepute in the profession (for more on that, stay tuned to the blog today, as Brad Plumer will have a longer look at Krueger’s academic work). He’s served in both the Clinton and the Obama White Houses, so he knows the players and has proven his ability to move within the bureaucracy. He’s more than qualified for this position.

Whoa, wait. A question first , Lord. –
We can get back to Ezra beating-off to a comic book in a sec.
Who the fuck is Brad PLUMER?
And Did Ezra , before he even really got going to his latest Democratic Marvel hero – did Ezra just hand-off the lube to a staffer?
Are we actually at the point that Ezra Klein has an ASSISTANT SHILL?
Well…..YES! 😆

A closer look at Alan Krueger’s academic work
By Brad Plumer

Now that Alan Krueger has been tapped to be the next chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, it’s a great time to take a peek at his academic work. {Gaydar Alert in Shill Sector E } Krueger is known for his empirical research — he’s more of a data guy 😆 than, say, Larry Summers — and he’s accumulated a long trail of papers over the years. Here’s a look at some of the topics he’s delved into:

The minimum wage:

Krueger might be most famous for the paper he did with David Card back in 1992

showing that an increase in the minimum wage doesn’t always increase unemployment, as most economists had long believed.

😆 Krueger and Card compared fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and western Pennsylvania and found that New Jersey, which had hiked its minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.05, didn’t lose jobs as expected.…..

F E E L the “CHANGE”!
Otherwise known as ….
nubbins.

So…… Back to Ezra pounding this hummingbird-dick away –

The other way, however, is that of course the Obama administration chose Alan Krueger. Why would anyone have ever thought they would have chosen anyone else? The White House has hewed to a very specific personnel-replacement strategy, and Krueger fits it perfectly.

When Peter Orszag left the Office of Management and Budget, he was replaced by Jack Lew, who was serving at the State Department and had led the Office of Management and Budget under Clinton. When Larry Summers left the National Economic Council, he was replaced by Gene Sperling, who was serving in the Treasury Department and who had previously led the National Economics Council. When Robert Gates left the Defense Department, he was replaced by Leon Panetta, who was leading the CIA, and who had previously served as chief of staff to Clinton. When Ron Klain left the Vice President’s office, { 😆 WHICH TIME??? – bhhm} he was replaced by Bruce Reed, who had been Clinton’s top domestic adviser. When Rahm Emanuel left the White House, he was replaced by William Daley, who had served in Clinton’s cabinet. Aside from Gates, every name on this list could have been found in a Clinton administration roll call, too.

Krueger fits this pattern. He was the top economist on the Labor Department under Clinton and the top economist for the Treasury Department from 2009-2010. He’s a close tennis buddy of Summers and Geithner. He knows these guys, and they know him. If you had tried to predict this choice by asking yourself, “who is the former Clinton-administration economist who has an extremely good relationship with the current set of economic-team principals,” Krueger is among the first names you would have come up with.

Ezra ready to come now-

That’s not a criticism of Krueger, 😆 whose academic work makes him a particularly good fit for this position at this particular moment. In fact, it’s not a criticism of any particular choice in this list.:lol: It makes perfect sense that when you’re looking to hire for a job, you would look for people who had served in that job before, or served in something close to that job before, and also for people who had some demonstrated ability to work well with your team. But taken as a whole, it’s a very strong preference for a very specific type of experience and a very specific type of person, and it’s been followed so rigorously that it’s hard to believe the administration is hearing a very wide range of internal views.

NUBBINS. 😆

Good Luck peddlin it.

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: omigod. Ezra gives me a headache. He (and the hand off guy) is taking tiny molehills and trying to make………………. I don’t knwo what out of it….

Did you by chance see him today when he stood beside Slobster in the Rose Garden?

Krueger looked so nervous. Hell, he made me nervous.

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: OH! I know what comes next… Slobster makes a speech about how it’s nto his fault, he heard the screams and cries for help and by fucking golly! he got a LABOR economist.

So go blame Canter, Bachmann, Palin, Boehner..oh and PERRY, Satan of Texas.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 29 August 2011: I’m sure he’ll salve his nervousness with a new handout to Wall St.

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BooHooHooMan - 29 August 2011: No I didn’t see the tele.
Krueger looked so nervous. Hell, he made me nervous.
LOL.

And THAT”S how I felt when I saw the pic of Obby Fuckin Nothin lookin all Irene- oncerned-nervous-like LOL and standin behind Nappin Groper. In other words WE ARE FUCKED.

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: Foundling! AND Big Sis… !!!!

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: I just heard the death toll is up to 38.

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brinn - 29 August 2011: BHHM!! Glad to see you baaaack! 8)

Awesome post!

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: Hi dear… how are you?

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brinn - 31 August 2011: Hi Marisa! Oh, I’m running on fumes atm, but good, all told! Got $13 in the bank and roof overhead and food in the fridge and gas in the car!

The boys started school last week — just went to the middle schooler’s open house last night and he seems to have a good solid bunch of teachers, homeschooling boy the younger is going well so far — but less than 6 hours of sleep a night, what with still teaching online, and you know, trying to make time to eat and do housework and such….

Thanks for asking! 8)

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BooHooHooMan - 29 August 2011: Heya Brinn!

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brinn - 31 August 2011: Hey there, you! 😉

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ts - 29 August 2011: But these deck chairs are quality deck chairs, and as you can plainly see, they’re in completely different positions from before, showing this administration’s commitment to change.

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brinn - 31 August 2011: LOL!

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8. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 August 2011: Federal Court: Massachusetts Law Against Recording Of On-The-Job Cops Is Unconstitutional

A federal appeals court ruled that the people have the right to record police officers when they’re on the job in public. A U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals judge found that a Massachusetts law used to ban such actions is unconstitutional.

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: Fantastic!!

A federal appeals court ruled that the people have the right to record police officers when they’re on the job in public

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BooHooHooMan - 29 August 2011: Which is nice
I’m hoping the bric-a-brac market responds quickly with a nice selection of Photo albums and cop specific personal data storage devices , all geared toward the memorabilia market for the fucked over citizen. I dunno, people could “recommend” favorites or sorta share greatest hits, or, all Sheriff Joe like – > vote for their favorite mug, make ordered lists , Mapquest residences and so forth.

And the cops should have no problem with it, afterall, if they have nothing to hide….Henhhenhenhenh..

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9. BooHooHooMan - 29 August 2011: HA! Mcat, here’s another Confidence-in-the-Admin builder!

Just in case!

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: 😆

Very interchangeble they are… Shaun Donovan, Arne Duncan, Jay Carney, and now Krueger….

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10. marisacat - 29 August 2011: omigod… I almost cannot believe it, I jsut heard on a news tease, that the WH is saying L’Obster “not ready” to make his big jobs speech. Or whatever that speech is was supposed to be.

“Not ready” so it is off, for now.

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: Ooops update… he is not ready, they are struggling to pull together his jobs plan… but the speech is on for after Labor Day.

Stay tuned.

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BooHooHooMan - 29 August 2011: They… NEED-A PLAN! 😆
(I’d make an awesome cheerleader)

Or Maybe they could, ya know™,
HIRE some more Script Doctors.
Fuck, for that matter, hire anybody fer fuckin anything. LOL.
Hell, go around in a truck to pick up new staffers to hold up high performance umbrellas or somethin. Might come in handy on the hustings to keep Precious & Company from getting hammered with incoming bricks. 😆

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marisacat - 29 August 2011: Roger Clinton and Hugh Rodham update (in a sense!)… snicker.

Boston Herald has the tidbits…. Obama uncle popped as an illegal Boston Herald

More articles at Boston Herald…

😳

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BooHooHooMan - 30 August 2011: 😯

Shh. maybe the GOP won’t notice
.

OR

The head of Karl Rove instantaneously begins to deform,
driving his eyes to meld mediailly, bringing forth, at will,
the feared Rovian Cyclops which will now focus LIKE A
FREAKIN SHARK WITH A LASER BEAM ON IT’S HEAD upon this matter. 😆

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BooHooHooMan - 30 August 2011: …as any Rovian Cycloptic version of a shark with a laser beam on it’s head WOULD.

Not to pile on. 😆

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11. marisacat - 30 August 2011: hmm 2.9 just south of the city, this time on THIS side of the Bay.

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12. marisacat - 30 August 2011: well… it’s def an outlier but there it sits:

Gallup 8/25 – 8/27 1500 A 38 55 -17

38 approval

RCP

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13. Madman in the Marketplace - 30 August 2011: Not that it matters, and not that the donkles aren’t just as eager to throw the citizenry under the bus, but still entertaining:

Town Hall Constituents Tell Sen. Grassley To Raise The Payroll Tax Cap

One middle-aged woman, Rosie Partridge, pointedly asked Grassley, “Why can’t we raise the wage cap in order to ensure that Social Security can continue on as it is without talking about cutting it?” (The current payroll tax does not tax income above $106,800.) Partridge, a small business owner, went on to tell her senator that despite the fact her business “would pay more” in payroll taxes, “you know what? No complaints. We want to have Social Security!” Grassley, who helped lead his party’s efforts to privatize Social Security in 2005, backed down, saying, “You have to have everything on the table”:

PARTRIDGE: My husband and I have a business in Carroll County. […] My question is, why can’t we raise the wage cap in order to ensure that Social Security can continue on as it is without talking about cutting it? [Applause] And if we, as a business, we would have some people that would be giving more to that, actually a family member that’s part ownership of the business. And the business would pay more, too. And you know what? No complaints. We want to have Social Security! [Applause]

GRASSLEY: I think when it comes to Social Security, if anybody’s going to bargain in good faith, you have to have everything on the table. But if your point of view is to solve the Social Security problem just by taking the cap off, that isn’t going to solve it, as the trustees looked at it and said five years.

In fact, lifting the payroll tax cap would keep Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced he would introduce legislation to this effect, because doing so would keep Social Security fully-funded without having to cut benefits.

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marisacat - 30 August 2011: Lots of polling shows that over and over people want the simple direct solutions that tweak SS, like raising or even removing the cap… they want the poor helped, they want Medicare and so on.

Frankly I kind of wonder how Perry will do in just the R debates, as his rhetoric whacks at things people know they need and need to keep…

But the politicians trundle on, whacking away at things.

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Madman in the Marketplace - 30 August 2011: I think as shitty as Americans are to each other, there is a sort of floor they don’t want things to fall below.

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marisacat - 30 August 2011: well… and the screaming creeps get given a spotlight ALL the time. All across the country…

our local anews the other night… I forget which affiliate it was, carried as NEWS – but with NO video, no citations used, no think tanks or public policy groups named of any persuasion, no sites mentioned, but nonetheless they declared SS to be out of cash… I think they used 2024 iirc.

And remember this bullshit city, over and over and over again votes for Democrats (Pelosi, Boxer La Kerry Di Fi) at the rate of 72 – 76 %

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14. Madman in the Marketplace - 30 August 2011: “I would be surprised to see any other handbook as punitive as ours”

The “tools” Walker has handed to local governments are supposedly meant to help cut costs. However the changes to the New Berlin school workplace approved August 29 don’t look like mere cost-savings to me. New Berlin Education Association President Diane Lazewski agrees in MJS: “I would be surprised to see any other handbook as punitive as ours,”

snip

A few of the changes:

–A ‘sick bank’ which allows teachers to donate sickleave to seriously ill colleagues will be eliminated.
–No set pay for overtime; only stipends
–Elementary teachers work an added 205 hours without added pay.
–Secondary teachers work an added 95 hours without added pay.
and there are odd restrictions such as
–Dress Code: Skirts below knee, no sweatshirts, no jeans, no large logos, no open shirts, etc. and
–The loss of all microwaves, refrigerators, and coffeemakers.

I called a young teacher, E., from Racine just before the meeting. E. said New Berlin’s handbook is the worst of a new crop of handbooks he’s seen. Handbooks now serve in lieu of contracts for public school employees where contracts have expired.
E. says: “This turns back the clock. It keeps teachers on call until 5PM for I.E.P meetings (Individualized Education Programs). This is eating into the time of people. Making them do more work for less money”

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marisacat - 30 August 2011: How legal is all of that?

Some things they can take away but almost any employer would say it is dumb, they are low cost or no cost morale boosters… the mandatory unpaid overtime surely can be challenged?

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Madman in the Marketplace - 30 August 2011: I’m sure the lawsuits will take a while … it’s all about this weird, hateful ideology.

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marisacat - 30 August 2011: the skirt length is frightening… a precursor.

I don’t buy into the manner that Democrats fight R, all about demonising and bullsht, when both parties just use each other, but the R or Winger phenom of men who LOOK like Walker and Santorum is just disgusting.

The boy men. Child men. Wanting to control everyone, but esp MOTHER. Sister, wife daughter… etc.

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brinn - 31 August 2011: Christ. It’s reading things like that that make me happy that I am spending my first year as a certified teacher teaching my son. The pay sucks, seeing as there isn’t any, but damn, I don’t know how long I’d last in a job that treated me like that….

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15. Madman in the Marketplace - 30 August 2011: Happy 40th Birthday To Justice Lewis F. Powell’s War On the American Left

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16. Ganjafied Gabacho - 30 August 2011: So an apology to begin with for what will surely follow. I just got back to Tucson and I’m still steaming. I wish I had just a little more courage ’cause there would be at least one migra with a broken nose and not just a bruised ego. I’m sorry for the length and content of this rant, especially the language; just skip the following if you don’t want to put up with my sexist vulgarity and bad attitude

So we took the baby to see my folks south of the 25 mile Border Patrol Checkpoint on I-19. Oldman is fucked up from agent orange so I make a point of bringing the next generation around when ever dear of dad is around. Dinner was great, had a family swim and head back to T town when I notice Babe-a-licious and little Ziyah getting a more thorough interogation then normal when we have to stop to identify ourselves. My babymamma is let go, and I in a second vehicle now get to be “inspected” by a very short, and slight white dude that looks ridiculous in his green migra uniform.

“Where are you coming from” he asks probingly.

“That’s none of your business, chapo (shorty)

“That’s my job to determine” he mewls, tryi!ng to sound tough but I’m grinning a very unfriendly grin and btw I can be very, very, intimidiating when I’m angry.

“Peleme la virga, puto! (Masturbate me, bitch!) I don’t have to telll you anything, have you ever heard of the 4th ammendment to the constitution, you nazi runt.”

“You’ve got secondary inspection!” he tries to bellow, with his squeaky little man voice, but looking very scared (I butcher 800lb logs for a living and look like it).

My smile just gets a little wider (actually a self defense technique, gritted teeth are harder to punch out)

“Que pinche pedo tienes, culero? El peto es demasiado chico?” (What’s you’re fucking problem asshole. Is your dick too small?) I place my car in park, and refuse to move, and shake finger in his face.

That’s when his buddy steps up. His buddy is about my size (5’10 195) and sees his friend shrink back.

“You’ve got secondary inspection! Move out of the way!”

“Chingate, pendijo you’ve earned a lecture on the mutherfucking constittuition”

“I’m warning youdon’t make any more furtive jestures!” He says will fingering the strap on his tazer.

I smile real big, a put up my hands and say, “You’re not only morally retarded,, but you’re a pussy too. Its pretty funny, ’cause you got the gun and I’m outnumbered 30 to 1.”

Now the big guy turns a color of red that is hard for even white men to achieve, and starts sputtering “I’m giving you one more warning, pull over for secondary inspection…” but I’m already moving to where they want me to go, with the bird flying out the window of course…

As I pull over, some young grunt level migra comes out of the AC’d trailer they hang out in and looks quizically at me and back at the 2 guys I had just fucked with. They were heading off the “line”…I guess my scene had motivated the supes to move them over. So I turn to the third guy and say, ” I think the little shithead over there has small man’s disease because I didn’t respect his “Authoritay” (said like carmen in south park). Do you want to inspect my vehicle? because I want to tell you how no law in the US code superesedes the constitution,ever and I’d love to furhter intruct you greenshirted little nazi pigs because you all obviously need a lesson in Civics.”

Fortunately for my confused young migra friend, the supervisor shows up at my truck just then dismisses him and says “sir, you’re free to go now that we’ve checked your immigration status” He’s older, white and not nearly as stupid as my first three advesaries. His dog’s leash wraps like a belt around his waist, where his hands rest “astronaut like” Fucking “law and order” type. He is my natural enemy we both know it, and he knows I’m itching for a fight he can’t win; no white man gets arrested at a BP checkpoint unless they can pin serious charges on him, and I wasn’t going to hit anyone no matter how aggresive and mean I would be.

“Fuck, you. You knew from the beginning that not only am I a US citizen but that there is neither contraband nor undocumented immigrants in my truck. I’m not playing you’re bullshit, game. I’m not going anywhere ’til I’m damn well ready, and I know that you have to listen ’cause this ain’t the first time I’ve had to you little green shit heads on civics and I know you have to stay here and listen to me until I drive off.”

At this point the guy looks pained, and it’s obvious this ain’t his first rodeo with local gabachos enojados.

“So I’m here to tell you about how absolutely fucked up this checkpoint is, and particularly how the runt that sent me over here has an attitude problem. You see I got secondary inspection because I didn’t kowtow his authority, That’s a waste of my taxes besides infringing upon my inalienable rights… Maybe while you’re all distracted by me a ton of coke just made it past?,

“Well sir, I suggest you write you’re congressman…” he starts interrupting, desperate to get away, but I ain’t havin it and I say,”well some psycho shot her in the head so she kinda out of it right now..” He tries again, “Well you’re senator is….”

“Kyl’s a douchebag, and so are you so fuck you for being a traitor to the constitution and america and,” I say pointing a finger “gun” at the prick out the window as I drive off slowly, “Maybe one day a Jared Laughner type will show up here.

Sorry. It feels good to write that. Time to medicate. Oh BTW I did have my weed with me the whole time, but since I do have my card I’m hoping for them to take my couple of grams of pocket-weed sometime so I can really make a federal case about it….

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marisacat - 30 August 2011: I don’t even know what to say…I read way back last year, between a point in AZ (I forget which) and the Cali border, there are 8 check points.

If people don’t htink this will, however slowly, move to Warsaw ghetto and concentration camps of one sort or another (more than we have now), they are fooling themselves…

ugh I have to get valid ID, I let everything expire..

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Ganjafied Gabacho - 30 August 2011: Just don’t get Real ID

Me and my kind (those who believe their destiny is to fight for the seventh generation yet to be born, the we recognized and prophesized WARRIORS of the RAINBOW) are fighting them with every action as we stone ourselves silly. Johnny POT seed. Weed everywhere. Your kids can’t get in the military or a corporate job ’cause they can’t pass a drug test. This is good thing. There’s far too much hustle and bustle and so little real progress, so lets stop and have a ‘”SAFETY BREAK” for say 20 years. Get real high and think things through (this is what weed and psychedelics were invented for) . High people are happy people; their joints don’t ache, their heads don’t hurt, they can sleep at night and food tastes great (and is less filling, altho just as fattening). …

AZ just went medical and even without dispensaries (I say good riddance, their a scam for wannabe climbers to corner a new market) cultivation is spreading like wildfire. The links throughout the western states are strong and if and when it comes to concentration camps we are ready to oppose with everything it takes…non violence until that becomes the stupid course of action and then in arc of the rainbow, the mountains that form the spine of our land, we will become the Pesh Merga, the Taliban, the VC.

I don’t want anyone to suffer, but I believe in the prophet Bob Marley was right when he sang “ain’t no use, nothing going stop them now.” Its time to buckle up, and be brave because soon the lovers are going to need to use live rounds and fire back at all the haters…

Until then lets get everybody totally medicated if we do a real good job at that (it is something we actually live for) hopefully we won’t ever need to draw blood if there’s enough strong smoke passing around…

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marisacat - 31 August 2011: oh I agree, everything should be legal. All of it.

One reason I have to somehow manage the DMV is to get an updated Cal ID…. the bedrock necessity for a Medical MJ card… don’t much care for the stuff, but there is a place not far from me that supposedly has the “best edibles” – – we shall see…

Oh yeah I can see in just limited investigation, the dispensaries are a joke. Of several kinds.

But I don’t know anyone anymore to go thru.

Sometimes I think back to the two times in the late 70s that I wrapped (really really well, LOL) and put in my luggage California weed to take to Texas, to my friend for his mother, for suppositores… in the last throes of cancer.

I never even thought twice about it.

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Ganjafied Gabacho - 31 August 2011: Harborside is a good outfit, and one of the first to step up; they do donate a lot of medicine to terminally ill and indigent patients in the bay area. If you get edibles (I love ganja pesto, personally) make sure you let the herbtender know what you’re looking for (i.e. Indicas are good for pain med, sleep. Sativas are energetic and visionary but can induce paranoia, so Caveat Stone-or)

Here in AZ Cannabis Capitalists from CA wrote our law so they and their friends could get rich. Ironically Breweer holding up the dispensaries is a blessing because it means every cardholder can cultivate and right now twe’re trying to get 1) cards to as many people as possible and 2) getting 12 plants put in a garden somewhere for every cardholde so after the lawsuit dust has settled on the dispensary debate they won’t be needed, nor economically viable.

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marisacat - 31 August 2011: oh thank you.. as I have no idea what to get or what strains there are (I never did know much and when I did buy for others or to take t Texas, I relied on friends, or a dealer who was a friend of a friend kind of thing)… but after a 35 minute fight, and it was pretty much a small knock down drag out about 3 weeks after I got out of the hosptial about a Xanax script… I won’t be asking for pain meds. I tolerate several of the opiates really well…. and, I don’t know about other people, but fo me the mdication just goes to the pain.

So I decided the only way is to give MJ a whirl… but it does mean getting an updated Cal ID.

gah.

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Ganjafied Gabacho - 31 August 2011: I can’t wait to see if my new AZ card will be honored in CA. I’ve been itching to try quickdissolve gelatin strips. Supposedly they melt on contact with your tongue and in about 5 minutes full blown effects manifest. No fuss, no muss and smokeless for those long cross country driving tips.

I’m going to zipping through the bay up to trinity county in a couple of weeks (if I ever finish this barney’s order) so hopefully I’ll get the chance soon

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marisacat - 31 August 2011: Supposedly… and obviously I know nothing, you need a Cal ID here… how it all shakes out in reality, I have no idea.

I would think there is a lot up around Trinity…
marisacat - 31 August 2011: Your kids can’t get in the military or a corporate job ’cause they can’t pass a drug test.

hmm I think here they drug test for almost any job….

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Ganjafied Gabacho - 31 August 2011: toucche, mon cher

but aren’t all jobs corporate these days?

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marisacat - 31 August 2011: yeah truly…

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17. Ganjafied Gabacho - 31 August 2011: It’s another sunny, hot and muggy late summer day in T Town. An invincible thermal isobar hovers like a hostile mothership over the old pueblo and promises another nearly rainless chubasco for an overpoppulated desert valley overheated with the cancerous encrustation of ever expanding asphalt and concrete radiators.

No news here. Oh but wait, the stoking of drug war fires has created some more smoke. It seems to me to smell like a conflagration that threatens to burn our little infierno from something first circle (occupied Azlan) to something more akin to the 9th circle (like Iraqistanfrica).

The head of ATF and the US Attorney for Arizona are suddenly leaving their jobs as Project Gunrunner continues to explode. Meanwhile, Arizona police files hacked by Lulzsec, along with the new releases of US diplomatic cables from Mexico by Wikileaks, are posing more disturbing questions about Project Gunrunner.

On the Arizona border, residents long knew that the only way that drug cartels in Mexico would have a steady supply of AK-47s and other assault weapons, was for the United States to supply those.
(Al huevito, guey. Ya se)

snip

Arizona police files, hacked by Lulzsec in June, expose facts about Project Gunrunner and raise new questions.

An e-mail from a Flagstaff police officer about Project Gunrunner is dated March 17, 2008 – three and one-half years ago — long before Arizona officials admit knowledge of the operation.

The e-mail had a booklet attached, “ATF Southwest Border Strategy Project Gunrunner Weapons of Choice,” with the date stated as revised in Feb. 2008. The e-mail and booklet were sent to a long list of army and navy personnel, as well as to the Department of Homeland Security. It is unknown at this time, the role played the US Army, Navy and Homeland Security in Project Gunrunner in Mexico in 2008, or when the operation really began in Arizona.

The booklet not only was being circulated here in Arizona in early 2008, but it is called the revised version, so it had already been around for a while.

snip

The Wikileaks cables refer only to a few weapons that the US was able to track. These records reveal that weapons from the US sales to militaries of Mexico and El Salvador were used yo commit crimes in Mexico.

Although it is not widely known, Project Gunrunner began as a pilot project in Laredo, Texas, in 2005 and was expanded as a national initiative in 2006 , as stated in Wikipedia. The Texas border, and the region south of Texas in Mexico, is where the largest number of violent deaths have occurred, with mass graves, and the repeated executions of local mayors.

Today, CBS News reported that Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Acting Director Kenneth Melson is being moved out of the top job at the bureau. The U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke has submitted his resignation to President Obama, effective immediately. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20099228-10391695.html

Project Gunrunner weapons, according to the Justice Dept., have been tied to at least 12 violent crimes in the United States, and an unknown number of violent crimes in Mexico. Two federal agents were killed with those weapons, Border Patrol agent Brian Terry near Nogales, Ariz., and ICE agent Jaime Zapata, in northern Mexico.

Narconews

So yeah, I’ll state my tinfoil clearly. Forces within the US spook world (specifically those connected to the bush cabal of the black lodge) trained the Zetas to begin the “Iraqification” of the Mexican drug trade. They have pumped up the violence in Mexico for the purpose of destabilizing the country to a de facto war that will “require” more and more US military presence in Mexico; so it more closely resemble El Salvador or Panama or Guatemala wrt US military presence. This is difficult thing to do due to the historic mexican resentment of forces within the US mocking their sovereignty, but I think that’s the plan. This is is all pre-positioning for an ultimate conflict with China for CA and SA and the vast resources there…

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marisacat - 31 August 2011: Iraqistanfrica

oh I LIKE that…

They have pumped up the violence in Mexico for the purpose of destabilizing the country to a de facto war that will “require” more and more US military presence in Mexico; so it more closely resemble El Salvador or Panama or Guatemala wrt US military presence

No question, however it was being done (and now we know so much more) , even some years ago the stories came thru of weapons making it from US armories into Mexico. Classic. We now have a complicated war on Northern Mexico by some means, on Southern Mexico by other means. And points south… As I see it.

There is one thing, I read of the widow of the recent army (think he was army) suicide, the one facing his 8th tour of duty between Iraq and AfPak…. his widow confronted Rumsfeld at a book signing. Gotta bring that FORWARD. Obama and his cadres and the strange white men, admen, PR men, etc., behind him, around him and above him are in charge now.

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Ganjafied Gabacho - 31 August 2011: …above him are in charge now.

was he ever incharge?

I love how everyone how his personal knob polishers chortle about how “in charge” and different than Bushy he is everytime the Managers let him sit in the catbirds seat and watch his very own live action war game…

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marisacat - 31 August 2011: NO I mean “now” as in since he appeared on the scene. There was no break. There is no before and after.

I think he has been an asshole forever. From adolescence at least (no different from Bush, but a less recognixable version, for some).

He picked up on how easy some things were for his particular mix and honed his spresentation, whcih was very clear in that crap heap of a book, Audacity of A Bullshitter…… bullshitting some one way, bullshitting others another way. Very adept at manipulation,, but not exactly the sort of pol we are overly well used to…. or only certain areas can pick up on it… it seems.

I think people are pathetic – and i don’t indulge much in ‘sheeple” talk – who know so little of poltics that they could not pick up on how he pandered to his slice of SS Chicago…. Or, as I used to say, they want me to be so scared of Palin but I should vote for a fucking black born again from a self selected part of Chicago, one so separated it is policed by UC police and not city cops……. On the religion, (and I never fell for that lousy second rate peacock Wright) in my opinion, he is not even a Believer. Horrid as THEY are.

One of the peak moments of the election was the night Gwen Ifill was on Charlie Rose and bald facedly said “no one in Chicago knows him, he is so not a part of Chicago politics”.

About a minor fixer… and Axelrod had tried all the same selling points several times, same speeches churned out thru several people, not just Deval (another dog)… but others as well. Hell, that lunatic Edwards, for one. Ax was on his team in 2004, all that one america crap.

GMAFB.

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Ganjafied Gabacho - 31 August 2011: There was no break. There is no before and after.

and everything you said after, I say “tha’s rite, you said it sista!”

Sweatin the barney’s order, jus talked to a clothing friend, and he’s telling me to be careful and check my contract ’cause they’ve shafted him before, he’s of the opinion they’re kinda of mountebanks;putting on airs but chiselers when it comes to paying the talent.

Nuther thing to worry over, or at least a toke over…back to the grind

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marisacat - 31 August 2011: they’re kinda of mountebanks;putting on airs but chiselers when it comes to paying the talent.

That would be so classic… Like Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. LOL Cleaned up their names, their public personas, their bios, hide the more revealing partners outside of the pages of the fashion mags… and away they go.

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BooHooHooMan - 1 September 2011: Lotta Tartan in Brooklyn.

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BooHooHooMan - 1 September 2011: oo-oo = The Bronx, I mean the Bronx.
Very Oxfrodshire meets Milan. Hard to keep track.
18. marisacat - 31 August 2011: Yup… and iirc there was talk of a second loan guarantee as well… tho this is not a shock, the company has been nose diving for months.

Must be that magic touch of Slobbster’s.

Solar company Solyndra Inc. declared bankruptcy today despite receiving a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Energy Department.

After receiving the loan in 2009, Solyndra promised to make solar power as cheap as coal in 2-3 years.

Yesterday we published a report by Bruce Krasting speculating that the private company was on the brink.

Krasting noted that CEO Chris Gronet had recently retired without naming a replacement. It was also suspicious when the company failed to show for a Congressional hearing earlier this summer. Then there was the matter of the canceled IPO in 2010. . . . . .

Read more: Business Insider

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brinn - 31 August 2011: This kind of shit just so pisses me off. The PTB want to slash PITTANCES for the poor, old, infirm or otherwise shit-outta-lucks, but they will shell out $535 million to con men/women who promise utter BS!! Oh, and nevermind that it is a moral goddesdamned FAILing if an individual has to declare bankruptcy — and they keep making it harder and harder to do…but, hey, less than 2 years later and you’re going to go bankrupt on the public dime? No, problem!

I guaran-fucking-TEE you that if I was granted $535 million 2 years ago, not only would I not be going bankrupt, but I would have a hugely thriving enterprise that would be well on its way to doubling its $$….and I could do THAT in my spare time (i.e., none).

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marisacat - 31 August 2011: Yup.. it was a con … I thought that too as they began to sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide.. Not all that long after Slobster made them the centerpiece of a trip to t he Bay Area back in 2010…. And what does it say about this admin and the DOE? the company backed the wrong technology, no matter what the “story”. They were going to do a new type of solar panel, photovoltaic.

People laid off yesterday at the firm claimed they had no clue, people were getting raises and promotions up to and including Friday of last week… but the company has been in trouble for months… it si a while since they abandoned a second site they were building (why they needed two.. I don’t know, Slobster had a whole media day at the site under construction, last year)

Rack one up for Slobby and Chu… snicker.

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19. marisacat - 31 August 2011: New

LINK

…………….. 8)

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