Phew

don't need any astolgers to tell them That Obama's 30,00 arent going to fix
the problem. The CIA has such a good track record of fixing things covertly.
Crank your were kidding right?

I must disagree that drawing parellels between Viet Nam and Afghanistan is misreading history. Westmoreland (General) and McNamara (Defense) asked for soldiers and got them.
There is no clear mission and only a "lip service" exit.
To make things worse, there is a high rate of suicides among service personnel right now, and they are returning home with definite issues. There is much more to Fort Hood than Major Hassan.
One must also remember the CIA trained Bin Laden and company to fight the Russians. There's the little matter of several oil conglomerats wanting a pipeline through Afghanistan, with that territory to be controlled by -- guess who??? Oh, but we don't occupy or engage in that kind of thing?

How about the CIA in Pakistan, which is a war, albeit 'unofficial," where the CIA can do what it wants with "plausible deniability." Remember Mrs. Clinton heard an earful from the Pakistani women about that very thing.
»

pacifica coverage of last night's speech rebroadcast NOW
www.wbai.org

want to stay home.

The Jamaican bob sledding team has offered teach cold weather warefare techniques to show support for the Obama solution to terror

Flag pins sales are up! Obama wants to help the small businessman.

De beers has just added Lapis Lazuli to its declining product line of war diamonds.

There must be 30,000 unemployed science types who could go a head of the troops to set up solar power and modern water filtration facilities. That way we could show the Afghani 's that we are there to improve their life.

and clean government win hearts and minds.

anyone?

make mine cappuccino for the morning.

so that's where this cold air in new orleans today must be coming from

windy and very chippy (i know that's not a word but the one i am thinking of sounds kinda like it) may crank will know

Had McCain won, not only would we have Sarah, the war in
Afghanistan would be much worse and we probably would be in Pakistan creating more of a mess and spending more money.

I won't get into a discussion past this because I have my own opinion and my own intuitions on this matter so I will hold my own counsel.

toniD's Ya Think?

sandy, thanks

i am beyond the pearl clutching stage - what is is and what will be will be; noam chomsky has always been right about this; nomatter who's in the white house US foreign policy has always been consistent (the same) since WWII, because it's guided by the economic interests of the corporations

even noam though was alarmed enough by the bush doctrine to write his hegemony or survival book; now rachel is saying the obama doctrine is just a rehash of the bush doctrine and whether i agree or not is irrelevant (i actually do)

so where does that leave us? certainly not wishing for a macain/palin alternative, but certainly dispirited and hopeless

What a horrible mess! I just hate to take my breaks these days. The teabaggers have always controlled the conversation in the break room, and as Obama's poll numbers have dropped, the teabaggers have been on a tear.

But today they are cheering Obama's decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan. I had hoped that by delaying his decision Obama would do just the opposite, and I had told them so! My last hope is that Obama will be able get to sign a health care bill with a strong public option. If things don't get better, I might have to start taking my breaks at my desk, and I just hate that!

i agree - we would probably have ground troops in Pakistan - we already have drones.
mire - gmta - love the cappuccino!!

from the blue dogs and dino's to the progressive wing of the democratic party and others on the left.

they truly believe that when push comes to shove that we will vote for the lesser of two evils. the only way to defeat that is to stay home and let the republicans win and then hope that two years later we can swing it back to our side.

its disappointing that obama has chosen to be a 1 term president who governs from the right.

is this the same one who just had a baby?

it really sucks

it's madness to just think of marines in that land-locked country full of mountains, what does the navy have to do with it?

it is discouraging....

at least you got good grub in norleans and a nice new, as in different, place to enjoy.

Fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice? The Financial Times reports that Wall Street is bringing back some of its most controversial debt practices—the same ones that caused the financial crisis. Covenant-light loans, for example, give credit with few or no conditions. Now there are fears that government efforts to spur lending have caused a “best-of-all-possible-worlds” mentality on Wall Street. “We have had a huge rally in debt,” said Dino Kos, a former New York Federal Reserve Bank official. “Everything needs to be just right for that rally to be validated.”

Read it at Financial Times

http://www.thedailybeast.com/partnersfeed/?cid=cs:cheatsheet2&f=http%3A%...

toniD's Ya Think?

just the larger picture, and worrying a bit about my grandaughters' future

but for me, as long as i am healthy and have a good job that i reasonable like, can't really complain

and as for new orleans, i couldn't live anywhere else in the US at this point, i've become too much of a "native" - i know it's an oximoron.

Reid set to unveil new public option, breaking Senate impasse on healthcare
By J. Taylor Rushing and Bob Cusack - 12/01/09 08:32 PM ET

A new measure on the public option will be unveiled next week, which Senate Democratic leaders hope will break the logjam on healthcare reform.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who has been tapped by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to come up with a Plan B approach to the public option controversy that has divided Democrats, has been working closely with liberal and conservative Democrats, as well as Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).

In an interview, Carper acknowledged that Reid’s “opt out” public option bill does not have 60 votes necessary for passage, even though it cleared a procedural hurdle last month.

If it attracts widespread support, the Carper measure could be added to Reid’s bill, which is expected to be debated on the Senate floor over the next several weeks.

Sensing that his bill may need changes, Reid recently called on Carper and Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) to come up with new legislative language on the hot-button issue of the public option.

Carper indicated that significant progress has been made and it is a question of when, not if, the new healthcare plan will be unveiled. Carper initially said an outline of his measure could be issued later this week, but later said it is more likely to emerge next week.

Legislative text may not be available next week, Carper said.

“I expect early next week we’ll have something to share — not just with our colleagues, but with the broader community,” Carper told The Hill.
Reid’s office did not comment for this article.

The 62-year-old former governor said he is trying to “thread the needle” between conservative Democrats such as Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and

Independent Joe Lieberman (Conn.), who oppose a public option, and liberal senators such as Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Roland Burris (D-Ill.), who are insisting on it.

Carper, a junior member of the Finance Committee, was tight-lipped on the details of his plan, but noted that he has been talking extensively with Snowe. He pointed out that he served with Snowe, and her husband, former Maine Gov. John McKernan (R), in the House.

Snowe favors a trigger proposal, where a public option would go into effect if the private health insurance market falters. The trigger has been soundly rejected by some liberals in Congress.

Carper has been working on variations of the public option for months. Recently, he has touted a so-called hammer public option that he believes answers centrists' criticisms that the public option in Reid's bill is government-run and government-funded. The public option would kick in for states where insurance companies fail to meet standards of availability and affordability of plans. Unlike Snowe's trigger proposal, which would give insurers at least one year to satisfy those requirements, Carper's public option would start the first year the bill goes into effect. States might be permitted to opt into the public option even if the benchmarks are met.

Under Carper's proposal, the bill would establish a national public insurance program founded by the government but managed by a non-governmental board. In addition, the plan would be unable to access any taxpayer dollars beyond its initial seed money. This public option would operate alongside private insurance and, potentially, the nonprofit healthcare cooperatives and state-based public plans authorized by Reid's bill.

This plan is fluid and final details are expected to be ironed out in the coming days. more...

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/70107-new-public-option-plan

toniD's Ya Think?

UPDATED: Leahy to introduce antitrust repeal amendment
By Eric Zimmermann - 12/01/09 12:26 PM ET

Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) will file an amendment to the Senate healthcare bill in order to repeal the insurance industry's antitrust exemption on Tuesday.

The House included a similar repeal in its legislation, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has expressed support for it.

But some centrist Democrats oppose the repeal. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) has said he's secured an assurance from Reid that the provision will not be included in the final Senate bill.

Leahy framed the proposal as a way to prevent unfair insurance practices.

“This amendment will prohibit the most egregious anticompetitive conduct — price-fixing, bid-rigging and market allocations — conduct that harms consumers, raises healthcare costs, and for which there is no justification," he said.

"Subjecting health and medical malpractice insurance providers to the antitrust laws will enable customers to feel confident that the price they are being quoted is the product of a fair marketplace."

UPDATED: Sen. Joe Lieberman has joined Leahy in calling for a repeal, an interesting move for the Connecticut Independent whose state is home to several insurance firms' headquarters.

“Anti-competitive conduct that reduces consumer choice and drives up prices is harmful to consumers and should be subject to the full range of federal remedies to end such practices," he added. (Will wonders never cease!)

The partnership between Leahy and Lieberman is also strange given that Leahy called for Lieberman to lose his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee after campaigning for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president in 2008.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/69961-leahy-to-introduc...

toniD's Ya Think?

No turkish coffee's.? o.k.

Behind GM's Shock Shakeup

by Paul Ingrassia

It’s a shock but no surprise. That’s the best initial reaction to Tuesday’s ouster of General Motors CEO Frederick “Fritz” Henderson, which comes just 10 months after his predecessor, Rick Wagoner, got the boot.

Wagoner had been defended by GM’s board of directors, dubbed the “board of bystanders” by some former company executives, until the company was on the brink of collapse. Henderson’s departure, by contrast, comes at the hands of the new board installed by the company’s major shareholder, the United States government. Although several GM directors are holdovers from the old board, the new guys are calling the shots.

ops among them is Ed Whitacre Jr., former chairman of AT&T, who takes over as interim CEO. One of his more quotable remarks since becoming chairman this year was “I don’t know anything about cars.” He’d better learn fast, or find somebody who does know.

Despite the shock of the timing, the signs that Henderson was on thin ice had been building for several months. Recently the board overruled his effort to sell the company’s European operations, including the Opel division in Germany, to a Canadian company backed by Russian financing. Whitacre’s public statements increasingly seemed at odds with Henderson’s on several critical issues.

One was the possibility that GM might float an initial stock offering next year, which would have been a political victory for the Obama administration before next year’s midterm elections. Henderson was dangling that possibility, but three weeks ago Whitacre threw cold water on the idea. He also suggested in media interviews that the board believed management’s sales forecasts next year were too optimistic. Over-optimistic forecasts, coupled with underperformance, have long been a GM bugaboo.

Perhaps most important, Henderson missed his chance to show clearly that he was shaking up GM’s famously hidebound culture. Not one senior executive in his management team comes from outside General Motors. All are GM lifers, some of them Wagoner’s people whose responsibilities were shifted, others underlings promoted to fill the shoes of their bosses.

Finding a new CEO won’t be easy. It evokes the old Groucho Marx joke about not wanting to join any club that would be willing to have him as a member. At least Whitacre and his board have the cross-town example of Ford, whose hiring of Alan Mulally from Boeing three years ago has been an unqualified success. The new chief executive of General Motors, it is clear, will be somebody from outside the company, and perhaps, like Mulally, from outside the auto industry entirely. The move will be way overdue. more...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-01/behind-gms-sho...

toniD's Ya Think?

work together, the marines are the land guys and navy are sea guys, but sometimes their operations overlap. Still sad.

THERE ARE 39 OTHER GOP SENATORS.... NBC News announced the line-up for this week's "Meet the Press." Take a wild guess who'll be on.

Also This Sunday: Exclusive! Senator John McCain (R-AZ)

Sen. John McCain, the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2008, and Ranking Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, gives us his reaction to the president's plan.

I especially loved the "Exclusive!" with the exclamation point, as if this were a rare, special occurrence.

For those keeping score at home, as of this weekend, there will have been 47 Sundays since President Obama's inauguration in January. With this 16th appearance on a Sunday morning talk show this week, John McCain will have been a guest on one of the programs every 2.9 weeks. No other official in the country has been sought out by bookers this often.

Since the president took office, McCain has been on "This Week" three times (September 27, August 23, and May 10), "Fox News Sunday" three times (July 2, March 8, and January 25), CNN's "State of the Union" three times (October 11, August 2, and February 15), and "Face the Nation" four times (October 25, August 30, April 26, and February 8). His appearance on "Meet the Press" this weekend will be his third (December 6, July 12, and March 29).

And who, exactly, is John McCain? He's the one who lost last year's presidential race badly, and is now just another conservative senator in the minority. He's not in the party leadership; he has no role in any important negotiations on any issue; and he's offered no significant pieces of legislation. By all appearances, McCain isn't even especially influential among his own GOP colleagues.

Now, I suspect producers for "Meet the Press" would point out that U.S. policy in Afghanistan is a very important topic right now, and argue that McCain represents the conservative Republican perspective on the issue. Perhaps.

But let's not forget, McCain's alleged expertise has been wildly exaggerated, and his understanding of the policy debate is tenuous, at best. The main reason the Arizona senator is considered credible on the issue is that the media keeps handing him a microphone whenever the issue comes up.

What's more, there are 39 other Republican senators -- eight of them serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and 10 of them serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee. That doesn't even include the House.

There's no reason to invite McCain on 16 times in 10 months.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_12/021249.php

toniD's Ya Think?

President Obama's move. I am not a fan of the escalation by any stretch but it was good to hear of a plan with expectations and a defined time table.

Al-Qaieda was a result of us not supporting Afghanistan after the Russians retreated creating a lawless state left to the whims of the ISI. I don't think leaving the failed state is a responsible choice.

I do respect the anti-war arguments as I also hate war but not the simple just let it go to hell arguments. I especially loath the war is just about killing arguments. I have no respect for that.

It is wonderful to hear the President
actually say something that I can understand.
He can communicate & know what in the hell he
is talking about.

By the way - - I'm sick of hearing Mitch McConnells
voice.

Area Residents To Protest Afghan Strategy
PHILADELPHIA (AP) ―
Related Slideshows

Groups around New Jersey Wednesday plan to protest President Barack Obama's strategy to escalate the war in Afghanistan.

Vigils are scheduled in New Brunswick, Princeton, Atlantic City, Teaneck, Hackettstown, and Newton.

Demonstrators also plan to picket outside the Newark offices of U.S. Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and the Hackensack office of Rep. Steve Rothman. The Fair Lawn Democrat and Menendez want to study Obama's plan before endorsing it.

Lautenberg supports the plan. The Democrat says while he would like to bring everybody home, doing so prematurely would leave Pakistan vulnerable.

Republican Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen of Harding returned from a trip to Afghanistan on Saturday. The defense appropriations subcommittee member says more troops are needed.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter says he opposes President Barack Obama's plan to send 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan.

Specter, a Democrat, says al-Qaeda can operate out of other countries, such as Yemen and Somalia. So he says it doesn't make sense to fight in Afghanistan, where he says no one has succeeded in the past.

Specter's rival in the 2010 Democratic primary, Rep. Joe Sestak, says he supports the troop increase. He says he supports the president's overall goals but is looking for more details. Sestak says security benchmarks should be used to measure progress and there shouldn't be a fixed timetable to leave. Sestak commanded an aircraft carrier battle group in Afghanistan before being elected to Congress.

Erik Prince, Blackwater Founder, Cutting Ties With Company

RALEIGH, N.C. — The man who built Blackwater USA into one of the world's most respected and reviled defense contractors will no longer be involved in the company's operations.

A spokeswoman for the company, now called Xe (zee), said Wednesday that Erik Prince will relinquish involvement in its day-to-day operations and give up some of his ownership rights. Prince had appointed a new president and chief operating officer in a management shake-up earlier this year.

Spokeswoman Stacy DeLuke says Prince felt he was "constantly being thrown under the bus" after serving the country for years. Prince's company did years of work for the government but has been dogged by a series of federal investigations into its work.

Vanity Fair magazine was first to report Prince's feelings about his treatment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/erik-prince-blackwater-fo_n_376...

toniD's Ya Think?

good link!!! Interesting points, too. Even though I don't agree (with more troops), that link has a good perspective on it. Thanks for the good info.

We differ and I am sure as things develop views might change. I am very worried about the Fed and Bernake and all the unemployment. Obama has to be as forceceful with the attack on the problems at home. I really dont see the rest of the "rational" world jumping in with U.S. in a big way. And is snow Normal for Dallas this time of year ? Because the temps in the fifties up In NY are not. War tends to warm up the globe
******
And my prayers go out to people with families in the Armed forces.
*******

We need to see a a running dialogue In The M$M on "other options to unite the human family" Like green business or organic food development in places where the soil is still healthy. and The president better get vocal on that plastic in the baby bottles. America has dirty hands with Dow Chemical and Monsanto which is not good for out Karma as the world' s leader in ethical capitalism?

yah, I have the world's smallest violin right here....

who knew?

"this machine kills fascists"

revoked the peace prize after obama's performance last night.

did anybody see rachel last night with the segment about hillary where she basically acknowledges we have a ground war in pakistan using the cia but then refuses to talk about it.

was that segment on Rachel's show? I think I heard it from Rachel. Shocking, huh?

it was a weird slushy snow. We get light dusting of it. Usually we get ice. Not today.

It's already cleared off.

I'm so immature. I can't stop calling my female friends and leaving messages on their home phones to take their names off the phone. I'm not a good person.

I'm glad you read that. There isn't a good option.

...and the movement needs a big win right now.

New York Senate Set for Gay Marriage Vote

"ALBANY — The State Senate scheduled a vote later on Wednesday about whether to legalize same-sex marriage, but the outcome remained uncertain with people on both sides of the debate conceding they did not know how the vote would play out.

'There may be a few, that’s very possible,' said Senator Thomas W. Libous of Binghamton, the deputy Republican leader who said he will vote against the bill. 'Everybody’s feeling is get it on the floor and let’s vote it up or down. It’s been talked about enough. Let’s get it done. I think it’s going to be very close.'"

"this machine kills fascists"

i think it was on around 10:15-10:45 pm est which is when rachel was on last night.

how the rethugs and DINOs don't say a word about "how are we gonna pay for Afghanistan?""

grrrrrrr........

Cashing The Check

"I think it’s fair to say that the problem Yglesias identifies can’t be solved within the logic of Obama’s strategy, but it can be mitigated. As my piece reports, the administration is aiming to — well, if not exactly circumvent the Karzai government, say that it has more Afghan partners than just Karzai: “it would aim its military and development assistance down to Afghanistan’s provinces and districts, where Karzai’s influence is relatively tenuous.” Hence the reorientation of development aid from big reconstruction projects — and if you’ve been to Afghanistan and seen the destitution there, you have a sense of how little sense those make — to “immediate impact” projects like agriculture, and particularly irrigation*. And that’s of a piece with the decision to partner with local or tribal militias."

"this machine kills fascists"

but fernando you have always been about using the blog for an exchange of ideas. .

as for paying for the war I thought it was a given to pay as you go tax colllected from the corporations... ha ha . 60th street spoke of making reparations and doing good deeds in places where we have been bad. that should keep US busy and put a lot of Americans to work. peace corp kind of approach .

Peru tribe threatened by hepatitis

The Candoshi tribe in Peru's Amazon region has said their existence is threatened by a hepatitis B outbreak that began almost two decades ago.

She said the disease broke out when Occidental Petroleum Corporation was granted exploration rights in the remote northern Datem del Maranon Province.

The Candoshi population is currently estimated to number 2,400 people.

The Candoshi tribe has its homeland in a wetland ecosystem and lives off of sustainable fishing

The tribe is known for its conservationist culture, which the WWF said has helped restore Amazon wildlife around lake Rimachi.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/12/200912273035454208.ht...

there was another interesting tidbit, it went by so fast and was so shocking that i thought i might have not heard correctly, they were already talking about something else and this morning i didn't have the time to go download and rewatch the whole show

was when that guy she had on talking about afghanistan, some sort of expert because he had been in the army and deployed to iraq, he said something to the effect that this "surge" would be good for the economy and particularly concerning unemployment numbers which would improve (because it would give work to otherwise unemployed i assume?) but i am not sure that's what he meant; did anyone else catch that?

They want to take whatever "stimulus" money obama hasn't already given to his Goldman/Sachs cronies to pay for the escalation. Perhaps o will do this now that he thinks the Teabaggers are his base.

but you probably have the correct understanding of what he meant. After all, war is good for the economy, right?

with a Tax on Divorces. Just so the neocon's heads will explode.

Zombie Reagan Raised From Grave To Lead GOP

http://www.babelgum.com/4012651?action=share

yep, they'd vote for him, probably. Dead voters are illegal, zombie Reagans are Rethug saints.

Lost' home movie shows Marilyn Monroe smoking joint

The silent colour film was recently bought by collector Keya Morgan for $275,000 from the cameraman, who has asked to remain anonymous. The photographer confirmed the cigarette contained marijuana
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/dec/02/marilyn-monroe-smoking...

the Onion News Network:

U.S. Condemned For Pre-Emptive Use Of Hillary Clinton Against Pakistan

Stupak will propose a tax on abortions.

sigh.

what a lovely smile she had

and its absence shall make you slaves.
Supreme Court rules to keep detainee abuse photos secret

By Michael Doyle | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court did all it could Monday to lock up forever some incendiary photos that show U.S. soldiers abusing foreign prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yielding to Congress and the White House, justices took the expected but formal step of reversing a lower court's order that the pictures be released. Using its budget powers, Congress already had moved to keep the photos secret.

In a brief, unsigned decision issued Monday without elaboration, the court cited a provision in a Homeland Security funding bill that President Barack Obama signed Oct. 28. The provision permitted the Pentagon to block the public release of the pictures in question, as well as others deemed to "endanger" U.S. soldiers or civilians.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/79739.html

Here's the Rachel segment nightbird.

Yes he said it. Yes that's what he meant (even if he didn't mean us to think that's what he meant). Yes, the (more or less) bald statement shocked me too.

How exactly are we going to "not limit the size of the military" when so many standards (age, quantifiable intelligence, mental health issues...) have already been lowered in terms of the "all volunteer" army?

Even if there were those chomping at the bit to "volunteer" who could not currently, the economic connection he made would still have been surprisingly "honest." Talking explicitly about COMBAT DUTY as a solution to domestic unemployment/economic necessity (and proposing that as policy as though that did not make more of a sham than ever of democracy here).

ALSO notice what he said about the supposed timeline.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#34232530

California man who wants to ban divorce says he's serious

"Till death do us part" is no idle promise to John Marcotte, a Sacramentan bent on banning divorce in California.

The Web designer and occasional prankster in 2008 voted against Proposition 8, the California Marriage Protection Act that outlawed gay marriage.

Now the gay-rights supporter, who calls himself an "accidental activist," figures those same protectors of traditional marriage should flip over his initiative: the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act.

Prohibiting divorce in California, after all, would take marriage protection to a new level.

And since the anti-gay marriage movement migrated to Maine, where voters narrowly repealed that state's new law allowing same-sex marriage, Marcotte figures his anti-divorce campaign could be exported there, too.

"We're going to enforce morality in California and then we'll spread from state to state, the same way the Prop. 8 backers moved to Maine," Marcotte said.

"If you want to protect traditional marriage, don't stop gay people from getting married," he said. "Stop straight people from getting divorced.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/79891.html

nope, i didn't like that guy a bit

sometimes rachel surprises me

Politics CAN turn on a dime in America...

Is Governor Paterson A Progressive Hero?

"These days it's hard to find someone who likes Gov. David Paterson of New York. His approval rating hovers around 20 percent. Seventy-five percent of New York Democrats would prefer his primary opponent, Andrew Cuomo. The President of the United States reportedly asked him not to run.

If Paterson signs a marriage equality bill -- and the odds right now are looking pretty good -- I suspect his administration will look very different to liberals and Democrats in hindsight. It's also worth noting that what's happening in New York is taking place across a backdrop of LGBT rights gains in which black people are centrally involved, from marriage equality in DC, to the election yesterday of Simone Bell to the Atlanta City Council and November's election of Charles Pugh in Detroit. "

Paging Senator Burris...please save health care reform.

"this machine kills fascists"

----------------------------
Submitted by maggiesboy on Tue, 12/01/2009 - 10:01pm.
Imagery is bullshit cent
That's a cheap fucking shot. I expected better of you.
Fuck this, I'll go read Red State they have their hate down pat over there.
-----------

I would have to agree with Maggiesboy here. First of all I’m surprised by the naiveté expressed on the blog. Obama did not say he would end the Afghanistan War. After all, this is America, dammit. Did you really think the cool black guy was going to teach the Military Industrial Complex a lesson? Did you actually think with a stroke of a pen he was going to crush 30 years of entrenched corporate power and right-wing ideology? Oh yeah? And he was going to do this because- we urge him to do so from the comfort of our keyboard? You’ve got to be kidding? They would have shot him dead when he took the oath!

The only thing I expected from Obama was to slow down the abuses of our civil rights. I don’t think Roe v Wade will be overturned under his presidency. I certainly think the 1964 Civil Rights Act will remain relatively safe. Maybe the privatizing of our economy will be removed from fast speed? But if the right-wing gains control of the presidency or congress again, it’s over. Unfortunately, for the Left, we are already assisting them in regaining power. The election last month was the beginning. Apparently, we are more concern with teaching the Democrats a lesson than what is good for the entire country.

Perhaps we have forgotten how the Right gained control of the country? Well let me remind you. Because Democrats and Progressives chose not to vote in New Jersey and Virginia, there are two Republican governors, right? These governors will have the power to appoint Republican judges to the municipal and common pleas courts. That should alarm you. They will put their political operatives in every office in the state. This will probably include the janitor. If the Secretary of State is a Republican, God forbid, because the governor and he now control the voting machines. That’s trouble for us. CAPICE!

Therefore, next time you hear Jane Hamsher, Rachel Maddow -or one of our lefty representatives boasts of our not voting, don’t fall for the okey doke. Under no circumstances should we stay at home. We should be horrified by New Jersey and Virginia. With the use of nothing but hatred, and those vote stealing machines, the Right motivates its voters. It works! They vote! They steal! However, if the harsh policies of conservatism haven’t taught us a lesson about voting, nothing will. Let’s not forget that it was our apathy that allowed Ronald Reagan to become president. It’s been hellish ride since. So, can we conclude that the Left is more to blame here? After all, aren’t we supposed to be smarter?

Our mission should be to never permit these Republican cretins from occupying another office, ANYWHERE! That includes street sweeping and dog catching. However, I think as Progressives we are a bit masochistic. We prefer kicking Obama’s ass and our own.

Fed Transparency Should Precede Bernanke Confirmation

Dean Baker and Mark A. Calabria
Posted: December 2, 2009 12:59 PM

Congress will soon consider whether Ben Bernanke merits another term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. It is fair to say that no single individual played a larger role in responding to the recent financial crisis. The Fed has directly lent more than $2 trillion to financial and non-financial institutions in the last two years. It has guaranteed trillions more. It is also fair to say that few individuals and institutions played as large a role in the economy leading up to the crisis than Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve.

However, at the moment Congress lacks the independent and objective analysis needed to fully assess Bernanke's performance and therefore to make an informed judgment as to whether he deserves re-appointment. For this reason, Congress should put off a vote on Bernanke's nomination until there has been a full audit of the Fed's actions preceding and during the crisis.

Before considering Bernanke's role in containing the financial crisis, Congress should, via the Government Accountability Office (GAO), investigate the role of Fed policy in allowing the housing bubble to grow. This is not just an effort at playing the blame game; an objective assessment of this policy will also be helpful in avoiding future bubbles.

It is often noted that Mr. Bernanke's research on the Great Depression makes him well prepared to run the Fed in this period of crisis. Unfortunately, Mr. Bernanke's research apparently did not tell him the obvious: that allowing an $8 trillion housing bubble to grow unchecked would lead to an economic disaster like what we are now experiencing. He and his colleagues at the Federal Reserve Board either could not see, or did not care about, this huge bubble. As a result, Ben Bernanke has been running around for much of the last year and a half telling us about his knowledge of the Great Depression.

It is worth quickly explaining why a collapsed housing bubble leads to a recession, since the policy people responsible for this disaster have done so much to try to obscure the obvious. In the years prior to its collapse, the bubble was driving the economy. Bubble-inflated house prices created an unprecedented housing boom. Residential construction peaked at more than 6.0 percentage points of GDP in 2005.

The $8 trillion in bubble housing wealth led to a consumption boom also. This is the well known housing wealth effect that holds that one dollar of additional bubble wealth will cause annual consumption to increase by 5-7 cents. The implication was that an $8 trillion bubble would push annual consumption up by between $400 billion and $560 billion.

When the bubble collapsed, residential construction fell through the floor as builders suddenly realized that we had an enormous housing glut. The drop in annual construction was more than 3 percentage points of GDP, or more than $500 billion. At the same time, when the bubble driven housing wealth disappeared, we lost close to $500 billion in annual consumption. more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/fed-transparency-should-p_b_377...

toniD's Ya Think?

same as mb's was....

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5517#comment-383733

...to counter potential homeland anti-war backlash.

Between the Lines, an Expansion in Pakistan
by David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt

..... quietly, Mr. Obama has authorized an expansion of the war in Pakistan as well — if only he can get a weak, divided, suspicious Pakistani government to agree to the terms.

In recent months, in addition to providing White House officials with classified assessments about Afghanistan, the C.I.A. delivered a plan for widening the campaign of strikes against militants by drone aircraft in Pakistan, sending additional spies there and securing a White House commitment to bulk up the C.I.A.’s budget for operations inside the country.

The expanded operations could include drone strikes in the southern province of Baluchistan, where senior Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, officials said. It is from there that they direct many of the attacks on American troops, attacks that are likely to increase as more Americans pour into Afghanistan.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/02-8

hey fern, what happened to "Mc Crackhead"?

doesn't seem so stupid now, does he....

Love ya, but knee jerks work both ways.

I know we've discussed this before but that's why they make chocolate and vanilla.

We can agree to disagree.

I'm concerned about the nuclear weapons in Pakistan. That's a big fear of mine. So maybe it clouds my decisions but that's where it sits. I can't get rid of my feelings about that and I've lived long enough to go with those feelings.

I'm not crazy about the troop increase but I can see a problem in that area. Rock and hard place.

toniD's Ya Think?

How many girl friends have you called today and asked them to remove their name from their voicemail?

I even called the lady at my insurance company. She called me back about it to tell me she was selling the tape :(

Spokeswoman Stacy DeLuke says Prince felt he was "constantly being thrown under the bus" after serving the country for years. Prince's company did years of work for the government but has been dogged by a series of federal investigations into its work.

Judge rejects RNC vote fraud argument
By: Kenneth P. Vogel
December 1, 2009 08:07 PM EST

A federal judge in New Jersey on Tuesday rejected an attempt by the Republican National Committee to end nearly three-decade-old restrictions on GOP "ballot security" programs that historically discriminated against minority voters.

In a ruling that extended the restrictions for at least another eight years, but also slightly narrowed the consent decree containing them, U.S. District Court Judge Dickinson Debevoise of Newark asserted that “voter intimidation presents an ongoing threat to the participation of minority individuals in the political process.”

The consent decree stems from a lawsuit brought in the early 1980s in New Jersey by the Democratic National Committee, which accused the Republican National Committee of suppressing minority voters under the guise of guarding against voter fraud, partly by challenging their registrations if mail sent to their residences was returned as undeliverable, and by stationing off-duty police around polling places in minority neighborhoods.

The resulting consent decree, which barred the RNC from launching any ballot security programs without prior court approval, was expanded in 1987 to cover the entire country.

But the RNC, in a motion filed with little fanfare the day before Barack Obama’s historic presidential election victory, argued that since the 1980s, the risk of fraud has increased, while the need for minority voter protection measures has decreased.

The DNC countered that the RNC was exaggerating the danger of voter fraud and said the potential for such fraud is outweighed by the risk of voter intimidation efforts by Republican groups, pointing to a recent decision by the New Jersey court that the RNC had engaged in illegal voter challenges as recently as the 2004 presidential election.

The RNC contended that the consent decree had been interpreted too broadly and made it tougher for Republicans to ensure an even electoral playing field. Plus, it said it had no incentive to intimidate minority voters, pointing to its own election of Michael Steele, who is African-American, as chairman, and asserting that Obama’s election meant existing voting rights laws would be adequate to protect minority voters without the decree.

“I find it very difficult to believe that with an African-American president, and an African-American attorney general, that the laws that are already on the books regarding voter fraud, voter intimidation, and voter suppression are[n’t] going to be actively pursued by this Justice Department,” the RNC’s voting rights expert Tom Josefiak told the court.

Josefiak, a former Federal Election Commission chairman who served as general counsel for George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, declined to comment.

But Debevoise rejected his assertions out of hand, pointing out “the appointment of minority officials within the RNC has not coincided with an end to racially polarized voting. Rather, minority voters continue to overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates. As long as that is the case, the RNC and other Republican groups may be tempted to keep qualified minority voters from casting their ballots, especially in light of the razor-thin margin of victory by which many elections have been decided in recent years.”

The judge contended “it is less likely that voter suppression is motivated by racial animus than by a simple calculation of who is voting for whom.”

Nonetheless, the judge set an eight-year sunset clause (unless the DNC can prove a violation before the sunset) and narrowed the decree by clarifying that only the DNC could bring violations to the court’s attention. He also said that the term “ballot security” would include only efforts aimed at preventing potentially unqualified voters from casting a ballot, as opposed to programs meant to ensure the smooth functioning of the electoral process or increase the number of people participating in it.

RNC spokeswoman Katie Wright called the modifications “a step in the right direction,” but added “the RNC will continue to work to ensure that we are able to compete on a level playing field.”

DNC Chairman Tim Kaine, in a statement, shot back that “Republicans would be better served trying to engage minority and under-represented voters rather than trying to intimidate them.”

He called the ruling “a victory for all Americans who believe that every citizen should have the right to vote and have their vote counted. It also represents a resounding repudiation of the Republican Party's trumped up claims of voter fraud.”

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=4CE6F695-18FE-70B2-A8369BCDB...

toniD's Ya Think?

please point to the statement that shows I disagree with Mc Chrystal, or Obama here...I can dig up a few to the contrary...

mb made a comment about obama and clarity, and how the statement was telling cheney to "suck it"... I simply posted a graphic of obama flipping the bird saying "this would have been clearer"...he MISTAKENLY took it as a cheap shot and responded accordingly...everyone else is just piling on that post....

this issue has people very touchy, internal conflict and dissonance will do that... I get that, but it ain't me jumping the gun here....and I am just as touchy and conflicted as everyone else, but I am not against McChrystals plan...I may not like it, but I see the need for it...I always have...

my nerves are just as shot as everyone elses, so forgive me if I don't respond to this undeserved bullshit directed at me, gracefully...

Does a society need paved roads, taxes, Walmarts etc. to be civilized?

Military control of social/cultural engineering...
Submitted by nora on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 2:32am.

Anthropologists and the War in Afghanistan
Submitted by Leah on Tue, 12/01/2009 - 11:55am.
A Better Way to Kill?
http://www.counterpunch.org/price12012009.html
==
Once I understood that David Price is an anthropologist
http://homepages.stmartin.edu/fac_staff/dprice/cw-pub.htm
and is writing from way up in an Ivory Tower (I still don't get who he is writing this for - who he thinks his audience is) it helped me understand who he is and what he is trying to tell me. I think that is, that anthropology is pure science and mustn't be sullied by being dragged through the mud of reality. Price mentions McFate whose work "led to the development of the US military's Human Terrain System, which, as of 2008, she is chief scientific consultant."[wiki]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_McFate
& http://montgomerymcfate.com/index.html
David critiques Montgomery McFate's actions after making sure we know that the name belongs to a woman and then bizarrely brings in Nabokov's novel, Lolita. "Nabokov riddles his novel Lolita with references to a form of destiny referred to as “McFate,” which are cruel turns of apparent coincidence that set characters upon paths linking their destinies with larger themes."[That was Prof. Price's attempt at linking McFate's name to a larger theme.]

Then price tries to tie in remotely controlled drones in that we can't just bomb people, we need to know who we are bombing.[or something like that]
====
[I pick on this guys' language because that is what he is about - or should be]

"The counterinsurgency program generating the greatest friction among anthropologists today is Human Terrain Systems (HTS) – a program with over 400 employees, originally operating through private contractors and now in the process of being taken over by the U.S. Army. Human Terrain embeds anthropologists with military units"

[so just asking - there are other counterinsurgency programs not causing as much friction among anthropologists today?]
This was a problem in Viet Nam, the historical culture of the country was ignored.

"Today, in Iraq and Afghanistan, anthropologists are being told that they’re needed to make bad situations better. But no matter how anthropological contributions ease and make gentle this conquest and occupation, it will not change the larger neocolonial nature of the larger mission; and most anthropologists are troubled to see their discipline embrace such a politically corrupt cause."

"Over the last few months, so many managerial problems with HTS have come to light that it is being discontinued as a program run by private contractors, BAE Systems, and, as noted above, plans are underway for the program to be taken over by the Army. Whether or not HTS continues to exist as a program in the future is unclear, but regardless of the program’s future, the military’s appetites for ethnographic information and intelligence for counterinsurgency operations will continue."

I'm still trying to grasp the issue. The Army is taking the program over because of backlash in the anthropological community and lack of qualified people. But "regardless of the program’s future, the military’s appetites for ethnographic information and intelligence for counterinsurgency operations will continue" or in non-anthropological bull-shit speak; the military sees knowing about the cultural heritage of the people they are dealing with as a useful thing.

The image of the tv commerical for "Beggin-Strips" comes to mind. The military is a tool. The military machine is like the dog in the commericial; "bacon -- BACON!!!" and what the dog gets is some sythetic version of bacon that satisifies their need. I imagine the military/war mind set is much like your local police force. Here, if you physically resist police enquiries you are guilty of a crime. In a war situation, if you shoot back you must be the enemy and and therefore must be anhilated. Maybe a little cultural understanding could go a long way.

"McFate recently explained that her dissertation examined “how cultural narratives, handed down from generation to generation, contributed to war,” and “how people justify violence.” This resume might lead one to assume her research was balanced between the positions of the Irish insurgents and British counterinsurgents. Such an impression would be false. Her dissertation reads as a guide for militaries wanting to stop indigenous insurgent movements."

"McFate wanted military forces to understand how their actions have undesired consequences that they cannot understand, unless they learn to see things from within the enemy’s mindset."

"It’s not that anthropology and warfare haven’t merged before; they have fatefully merged in all sorts of ways that have been historically documented. One stark difference is that today’s counterinsurgent abuses of anthropological knowledge occur after the discipline of anthropology has clearly identified such activities as betraying basic ethical standards for protecting the interests and well-being of studied populations."

This guy is rubbing me the wrong way. It's a fucking war. It is a situation that exists. It was a gift. It is complecated. What is he suggesting we do? Don't look? His words are so riddled with bias...
He says "protecting the interests and well-being of studied populations." I just don't know. The afgans seem to be living in the 14th century. Is this bad? I don't know. If you look on google maps at the area across the border from South Wazeristan there are no paved roads. In the days of WiFi communication does a society need paved roads, taxes, Walmarts etc. to be civilized?

& http://www.baesystems.com/Newsroom/index.htm the people that are [were?] running HTS. [they appear to be origionaly british hence the davids snark about colonialism.]

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

...won't get a kneejerk outta me. :)

"this machine kills fascists"

Submitted by cent on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 2:09pm.
-----

Sorry Cent it's not knee-jerk. I'm as upset by the war as you. As a matter of fact, I belong to Women In Black. We've been protesting the Afghanistan & Iraq Wars since they began. But I cannot go along with the vilification of Obama. At least not with the same tactics used by the right. That includes pictures like the one you posted. But as ToniD said,"that's why they make chocolate and vanilla." Therefore, you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

I still love ya babe.

what is the mission in afghanistan and what is the exit strategy? did anyone hear one?

some others...not so much....

...likely to replace Biden in second term

"We need essentially a surge strategy in Afghanistan, so that we can win in Afghanistan. And that means more resources, more troops there...The people there (Afghanistan), the government there, should be able to take over and to have a more peaceful existence there for the people who live there -- without American interference, if you will,..."

Sarah Palin

"The 30,000 additional troops that I am announcing tonight will deploy in the first part of 2010 — the fastest pace possible...But it will be clear to the Afghan government — and, more importantly, to the Afghan people that they will ultimately be responsible for their own country..."

barack obama

New York State Senate Votes Down Gay Marriage Bill - NYT

edna, cent wasn't vilifying Obama, at all.

He was providing a visual aide to mb's comment:

"He [Obama] was telling Dick Cheney and the 5th deferment to suck it."

i.e. Obama flipping the Cheney's off into the camera would have been "a clearer statement".

"this machine kills fascists"

congressional testimony www.wbai.org

Peter Mandelson declares war on Rupert Murdoch's media empire

Lord Mandelson declared war on the Murdoch empire today when he accused News Corporation of maintaining an "iron grip" on pay television and warned that the company wants to import rightwing Fox News-style journalism to Britain.

In his strongest attacks on News Corp since the Sun abandoned its support for Labour hours after Gordon Brown's party conference speech, the business secretary accused the company of imperilling the traditions of British broadcasting.

Mandelson's intervention came as Rupert Murdoch faces a growing fight with the Australian government over a controversial tax avoidance scheme put in place when News Corp moved its headquarters to the US. Sydney tax commissioners claim that an elaborate series of legal manoeuvres, dubbed "flip and spin" by News Corp, wrongly deprived authorities in Australia, Britain and the US of billions of dollars in capital gains tax.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/02/peter-mandelson-rupert-murdo...

Nir Rosen: “We Managed to Make the Taliban Look Good”
Rep. Kucinich on Afghanistan War: "We're Acting Like a Latter Day Version of the Roman Empire"
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/12/02-1

Maybe I'm slow and maybe last night's speech was conflicting me.

Didn't mean to jump on you, just wanted to explain my position.

I think we are all unnerved because of the 8 years of Bush and Cheney and it's carrying over because we want change so badly and it's coming very slowly and not how we expected.

To be honest I have issues with Obama not being strong enough with Congress, but my big issues are with the idiots we have in Congress. My biggest disappointment lies with them! And several of the people on the administration and you all know the ones I mean.

toniD's Ya Think?

and no reasonable explanation for the madness makes any sense...LOOK UP.

CURRENT MOON PHASE

just chalk it up to the moon. ;)

...and my seemingly unending talent for failure in eloquence.....

I just hope we haven't driven mb to Red State for very long....

what pissed me off about the speech last night was when he said we were attacted BY AFGANISTAN...

that was a totally manipulative Bushy kind of thing to do. I have always felt this should be a criminal effort especially since the criminals are all over the world. now we have fucked the whole thing up and have to figure a way to get out of there.

Toni, I am really scared about the nukes in Pakistan. Joe Carincionni is wonderful to listen to about this issue. He is the pres of Plow Shares.

India became the last of the "big four" polluters to reveal its opening hand in the negotiations today, ahead of the crucial climate change talks in Copenhagen next week.

Government sources revealed the country could curb the carbon emitted relative to the growth of its economy – its carbon intensity – by 24% by 2020. - GuardianUK

... – while the US last month proposed cuts of 17%

Tom Friedman: 'After 9/11, I Overreacted' (VIDEO)

On "The Daily Show" Tuesday night, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman admitted that he "overreacted" to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

When host Jon Stewart made the case that invading Iraq had a detrimental effect on the war in Afghanistan, Friedman seemed reluctant to respond.

"I feel like you -- you are holding something inside you about Iraq. I feel like you supported that. Are you upset with yourself about supporting that tactic and supporting that war?" Stewart asked.

"Yeah, my criticism of myself would be that after 9/11, I overreacted. and I think as a country we overreacted," Friedman said.

Video at link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/tom-friedman-after-911-i_n_3767...

toniD's Ya Think?

I watched the Congressional hearings in the Senate and House with Clinton, Mullen and Gates on and off for most of the day today, they seem to have their poop in a group with regard to mission and strategy in Afghanistan...they presented a united front and seem to at least all be on the same page...and based on what I heard about strategy, they are all pretty much in agreement with McChrystal...I am satisfied Obama did due diligence here....lets just hope it works out.

I am still worried about how things will be handled in Pakistan, though. They did not seem as clear or resolved apart from demanding Pakistan do their part to hunt Al Qaeda...and every time that word Pakistan comes up, Clinton gets a sneer on her face and her eyes burn with hatered...

My hunch is they are going to step way up on black ops in Pakistan, but not invade in force...yet...This will bear some watching....

Zell Out As CEO Of Tribune Company

NEW YORK — Tribune Co., a newspaper publisher and broadcaster under bankruptcy protection for the past year amid a $13 billion debt load, named its chief operating officer to succeed Sam Zell as chief executive, with Zell remaining as chairman.

Wednesday's appointment of Randy Michaels, a former broadcast executive who got his start as a radio engineer in college, brings to the helm yet another executive with a background outside the newspaper industry. Before Zell, a real estate mogul, Tribune was headed for five years by Dennis FitzSimons, also a former broadcast executive.

Although Tribune operates 23 television stations, it also publishes some of the most esteemed newspapers in the country, including the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and The (Baltimore) Sun.

Michaels, 57, could bring to those newspapers his expertise in running Web sites. Before becoming chief operating officer of the Chicago-based company in May 2008, Michaels was head of Tribune's interactive and broadcast divisions.

With the CEO appointment, which is effective immediately, Michaels also joins the board.

Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy protection last year because of dwindling advertising revenue and a crushing debt load of $13 billion. Much of that debt was amassed when Zell took the company private in 2007.

Since the Chapter 11 filing, many have speculated that Zell would be pushed out as part of the reorganization plan.

Angry creditors have been looking into Zell's buyout and want to propose their own alternative plan for turning around the company.

On Tuesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey in Wilmington, Del., granted Tribune more time to submit a reorganization plan, extending the period under which Tribune has exclusive rights to file a plan to Feb. 28, with the possibility of a further extension after a mid-February hearing.

Along with settling its debt, the company faces a crippling ad slump as Michaels takes over. Like almost all publishers, Tribune has seen the value of its newspapers plummet with the recession and the ongoing migration of readers and advertisers to free or cheaper alternatives on the Internet.

After working as an engineer at the radio station at State University of New York, Michaels worked at a small TV and radio station operator, Taft Broadcasting, and founded his own radio company in the early 1980s. After merging with Jacor Communications, that company was bought out by Zell in 1993. Three years later, Michaels was named CEO of the company.

In 1999, it was acquired again, this time by Clear Channel Communications, the largest U.S. radio station operator. Michaels continued to lead the company as a division of Clear Channel.

As Zell took the helm of Tribune in December 2007, he hired Michaels as executive vice president and CEO of its broadcasting and interactive businesses, which include the 23 local TV stations and more than 50 Web sites.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/zell-out-as-ceo-of-tribun_n_376...

toniD's Ya Think?

Dodd: If Troops Can Work Christmas Eve, So Can Congress

Senate Chris Dodd, a chamption of the Democratic health-care bill, said Wednesday afternoon that if Republicans keep delaying progress on the reform bill, the chamber ought to keep working until they hear the jingle of sleigh bells.

Wednesday marked the Senate's third day of floor debate on just the first of many proposed amendments, a bill-killer from John McCain that would take any cuts to Medicare off the table. Congress is slated to adjourn on Dec. 18, so Republican senators are hoping they can stonewall debate into the new year.

Not so fast, Dodd said at a press conference. "If we can't do it today or tomorrow or next week, then I'm prepared to stay however long it takes to get this done," Dodd said at a press conference. "If that soldier can be on guard for us over there, we can certainly be on guard for them right here."

Dodd said leadership is also open to using any procedural techniques at their disposal to force votes and start to move the process forward.

"Certainly three days to debate the McCain Amendment has been more than adequate," Dodd said.

In a morning Democratic caucus meeting, he said, "I think there was almost unanimous feeling that enough is enough," he said. "We're going to move along here now, and we're going to stay here as long as it takes, as many days as it takes, to complete this."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/dodd-if-troops-can-work-c_n_377...

toniD's Ya Think?

And part of that country, I believe the Northwest part, is War Lords also. So Pakistan, as forward as we think it is has it's own problems and it's not India.

I would have liked to be a fly in the room when Obama was talking to Singh, the PM from India. And the Chinese. And Russians.

The Chechens are taking responsibility for the Train Bombing in Russia and they too are Muslims.

The fundamental Muslims are spreading world wide.

toniD's Ya Think?

fifty dollars he can make a quahog piss in your ear....

be prepared to receive an earful of quahog piss.

Tone deaf Village idiots aside...it must drive the NeoCons and wingnuts insane to see Obama speaking at West Point, to see the adulation he gets from the troops and to see them smiling, even beaming, wanting to shake his hand and get a picture of/with him. There are regular Kos picture diaries showing how popular he is with the troops.

Remember Karl Rove saying on Monday that he'd be the first to "stand up and applaud" Obama's decision?

well...he didn't...far from it.

Obama is wiping the floor with the chickenhawks and the "GOP as the party of the military" meme the Villagers like Matthews love to latch onto looks more and more ridiculous every day.

Despite the annoyance, personally, I hope they turn to John McCain every freekin' Sunday morning during the next two years to remind everyone how little he knows about anything and how, had things gone the other way, he and Sarah Palin would be calling the shots in Afghanistan/Iraq right now.

"this machine kills fascists"

My nuke concern is not confined to Pakistan. War Dog and I engaged in an argument while he was gloating and beating his "kill the Arabs" war drum. I insisted that locating the missing nuke materiel from the former Soviet Union (and gawd-knows from where else) is a much better place to devote national security resources. If the nuclear capability is secured then the overall threat is considerably reduced from all crazies, not merely Muslim religious fanatics.

If the available weaponry is confined to Kalashnikovs and trucks filled with conventional explosives and the occasional hijacked airliner, hell, we've got those threats in the U.S. already.

is that a spelling error left uncorrected after five minutes in Crank's post!?

*rubs eyes*

can't be...

*taking screenshot*

"this machine kills fascists"

Wait!
Submitted by 60th Street on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 6:02pm.
is that a spelling error...
-----
Okay, I cry Uncle. I don't see it. I hope for your sake that you are right.

new
Submitted by cent on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 2:50pm.

Once again I violated my prime directive which is "DON'T OVERREACT!". I assumed you posted that pic as Obama flippin' the bird at we the peeps. I did not give you credit for your "cent-ness" and totally misconstrued your message which is prone to happen in a text based world.

Now that I realize that the bird was intended for Cheney, before I sit down to my 4 course meal featuring Crow ala Chump, let me say first I'm sorry and second that was a brilliant fucking post now that I know your intention.

cent rocks...

kum ba ya
kum ba ya

I'll be back later. Got real and ether chores to do.

we pushed a lot of the Taliban into Pakistan, for the most part...now we are on the ground there to stomp them out...then they will probably go north into Tajikistan...will we follow them there too...where will it end?

Something else too, there is a lot of talk about building up the "partnership" with US/NATO and Afghani troops and Police to "stabilize" south western Pashtun provinces on Iran's eastern border...this instantly sets off my bullshit detectors...as in "if the problem is in the north west and pakistan, why are they focusing on the Iranian border?".

The rationalization seems to be these areas are more easily secured and will be ready for hand off to Afghani Troops and security sooner...but, I don't trust anyone involved here, so this raises my eyebrows and has me reaching for my tin-foil headgear...

I've been following Rachel Sklar's tweets today on this.

First read this incendiary misogynist garbage from the NY Observer.

Then read this bit of awesomey awesomeness retort piece from NY Mag!

Lol!

"this machine kills fascists"

That fat fucker calls Obama "weak."
Why doesn't he go over to Afghanistan
& get on the front fucking line.
He's the fucking puss. I hate Rove!
Big talker - small dick

The bigger they are, the more face shots they take in the end.

Jeff Farias via the internet

I should have looked it up before I said anything...

...throw a reactionary brutha an accent, at least!

(shouldn't "gawd" be capitalised?)

"this machine kills fascists"

lol - really lol

how could u not be satisfied with Elle
(i hope that is how u spell her name)

..just remember this the next time I lose my cool...which is always likely more sooner than later. :)

no crow required...'sides, half the crow is mine...vaguery is an issue I seem to struggle with sometimes...another unfortunate glitch in my stars...a Sagittarian rising...which afflicts me with the occasional foot-in-mouth disease...

peace.

nevermind, it was "materiel"...
Submitted by 60th Street on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 6:28pm.
--------
I suspected as much. There will be no counter-gloating this time around even though I am fully within my rights.

I already have a target on my back the size of Saskatoon. There's no sense in aggravating the situation.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ba27ad47ea/please-respect-the-meat-from...

Please Respect The Meat

Performed by Darnell "Crab Man" Turner from My Name Is Earl.

MoTown soul at its best...and most irreverent.

being helped by this new 'surge'. Where's the proof of such a conclusion from that guy?

The last surge didn't improve anything. It's pure profit for the war-profiteers. And it is not just regarding our enlisted military personnel. The huge numbers of contractors too, and if they come home wounded and need help and lifetime support, we taxpayers pay for that social need and the mercenary contracting war profiteering corporations pay nothing!

These imperialist adventures clearly plunge us deeper in national debt and social burdens.

six more poppy harvests?
new
Submitted by dan on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 7:45am.
there's an interesting article in reuters today about the somali pirates:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5B01Z920091201

essentially, they are in a part of the world that has no employment, no government, etc. to survive they have turned to piracy which i think is really just imperialism on a much smaller scale (using force to take things). in the absence of government, the pirates have banded together and are taking care of the villages and surrounding areas which has lead to the locals supporting them.

now flop over to afghanistan where things really aren't much different. drug addiction in a far away country doesn't mean squat to a rural farmer trying to eek out a living on a patch of dirt. the common sense solution is to let them grow the poppies and harvest it. it makes more sense to me to let these farmers get income from opiates than to let some big pharma corporation get it from a synthetic process.

the bottom line is that people will do whatever it takes to survive. rather than bombing the crap out of them we as in the rest of the world need to be finding economic solutions that help them to survive.

»
==================================

Your conclusion seems to miss the way business works. These farmers didn't decide -- like a co-op might -- to start raising this ag commodity. They had no capital to invest in the raising of poppies AND the out-of-country distribution of the end product. The investment capital came from outside Afghanistan -- my guess is that that is what happened to some of the pallet of $9Billions that UsurpersBush&Cheney sent to Iraq and then disappeared so quickly -- poppy crop seed money. Or maybe it came from the overcharges of Halliburton or the Iraq contracters. But we know there have been PLENTY of missing funds that went through the fingers of those in charge.

And these wars -- which create physically and psychologically and economically wounded returned military personnel -- are successfully creating the CONSUMERS for the Afghan poppies' street drugs. Because these desperate vets, and many in their wounded families, begin to self-medicate.

This is one circular system. It's a profiteering formula that has been applied by the U.S. Ruling Class probably since the Civil War, I bet.

Those little farmers are taking orders, growing anything the investors pay them to grow, force them to grow. It's the INVESTORS who refuse to invest in humane crops needed in a hungry world!

the crazy right supports his O-Surge in Afghanistan.

The U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan will NOT lead to stabilizing Pakistan. Just look at what has occurred since the drone attacks by the U.S. in Pakistan — destabilization leading to hundreds of thousands if not millions of domestic refugees!

Even the fact that Pakistan has nuclear weaponry is due to U.S. involvement, and the desire since Kissinger/Nixon, to box in India and so box in democracy in the South/Southeast Asian area. I think it is all about containing/STOPPING democracy, really. Stop democracy, stop self-determination of peoples who can thumb their noses at the transnational corporations.

PLEASE READ ABOUT THE Kissinger/Nixon period where the U.S. sided with East and West Pakistan against India leading to the necessity to create Bangeladesh! Our presence today is a direct line from the U.S. involvement then. It was an imperialist's longterm win either way: 1/ Fomenting hostilities on BOTH sides of India or 2/ chopping target/victim countries into smaller and weaker pieces. (Plus the corporatists cannot tolerate that India was proving capable of being simultaneously both traditionally agrarian and high tech proficient! The corporations' push to mechanize Indian agriculture is a cruel process at work now. Locking India's food supply to the transnationals' oil is key to getting a stranglehold on India.)

Breaking the target/victim countries into smaller, weaker pieces is always a favorite tool of the Imperialists/Colonialists. This will happen in the Indian subcontinent if the Muslim Pakistani destabilize the borders.

Dear XXX,
*** ***
More horrible news from Idaho: most members of Idaho’s Basin Butte wolf pack have been mercilessly slaughtered from a helicopter.

This deadly action is a brutal escalation of the state’s war on wolves.

*** ***

He {Prez O} could have told SOI to be on The Side Of Science - which SAID "NO" to the Wolf slaughter & aerial murder of the Wolves.

If you do NOTHING then agree YOU ARE A HUMANIST.

The Animal Rescue Site: Feed Shelter Animals With a Free Click Bulletin
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That's a great result for November and clickers did even more by voting in The Animal Rescue Site's $100,000 Shelter+ Challenge with Petfinder.com. Every week of the Challenge, a new shelter in the Petfinder.com Network receives a cash grant to spend as they wish for the care or feeding of the animals. In the past, shelters and rescue groups have used this money for everything from kibble to building more comfortable enclosures to emergency surgery for an injured animal.

On December 23, we will be announcing the remaining rewards of $1,000 to $20,000 for shelters and rescue groups in the United States, Canada, and the international members of Petfinder.com. Be sure to cast your vote after you click today.

Shop to Help More

Double your impact: start your holiday gift shopping today! Now through Friday, December 4th (11:59 p.m. PT), every order placed at The Animal Rescue Site's store will help vaccinate a shelter animal. This cost-free extra contribution will help organizations in the Petfinder.com network provide life-saving vaccines to the dogs, cats and other animals in their care. This gift comes from The Animal Rescue Site and is in addition to the cups of food you fund with each item you purchase!

And if you have a furry friend on your gift list, don't forget to check out our wonderful toys for cats and dogs.

I agree with u - I read that earlier &
was fuming - pissed - & felt helpless
all @ the same time. :(

For the Trilateral Commission? Obama?

Caller to Hartmann made some detailed observations about the frightening interconnections between entire Rockefeller/Kissinger agenda and what is going on now in Central Asia.

i was on the line with jeff farais
& could not hear/understand what he
was saying. I felt like a real dumb-dumb.

The insurance corporations who deny medical care KILL 45,000 Americans A YEAR and our rulers do nothing to stop it. Al Qaeda kills 3,000 and our rulers spend TRILLION$ to invade other countries.

Profits, profits, profits first.

Kewl. ;D That was you and you sounded great. One could tell it was "technical" problems, then you sounded Great!
;D

The wolves are just a single and necessary part of the ecosystem, why can't the policymakers get it? Why is it that those humans who kill for RECREATION have more sway than our group need for healthy ecosystems?

Marc Maron was correct to say so many of the powerful ruling elite belong to a Death Cult. They prove it at so many levels, through so many of their 'policies'.

The murderous Death Culters, who murder not for life but insane bloodlust, must be spotlighted; only then do these Death Culters creep back in the shadows for a while.

Sen. Bernie Sanders Wednesday placed a hold on the nomination of Ben Bernanke for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. “The American people overwhelmingly voted last year for a change in our national priorities to put the interests of ordinary people ahead of the greed of Wall Street and the wealthy few,” Sanders said. “What the American people did not bargain for was another four years for one of the key architects of the Bush economy.”

..Bernie tells Ben The Rat "You Fail!"

re: Another good caller observation
Submitted by nora on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 9:10pm.
The insurance corporations who deny medical care KILL 45,000 Americans A YEAR and our rulers do nothing to stop it. Al Qaeda kills 3,000 and our rulers spend TRILLION$ to invade other countries.

Profits, profits, profits first.

I bet the CIA knows how many there are to the man since Al Qaeda has been paid by the CIA in the past, right?

Struggling media will need government help: US congressman

The newspaper industry is suffering "market failure" and the government will need to help preserve serious journalism essential to democracy, an influential US congressman said Wednesday.

"The newspapers my generation has taken for granted are facing a structural threat to the business model that has sustained them," said Representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California.

"The loss of revenue has spurred a vicious cycle with thousands of journalists losing their jobs," he told a meeting on journalism in the Internet age hosted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Waxman, who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over the FTC, said the "depression in the media sector is not cyclical, it is structural."

"While this has implications for the media it also has implications for democracy," he added. "A vigorous free press and vigorous democracy have been inextricably linked.

"We cannot risk the loss of an informed public and all that means because of this market failure," he said.

Without endorsing any proposals, Waxman noted various proposed remedies, including new tax structures for publishers, providing non-profit status, changing anti-trust regulations or eliminating a law that bars owning a newspaper and a television station in the same city.

Acknowledging that talk of government support for the press raises "red flags," Waxman stressed it is not the job of Congress to "deny the evolution of media."

But "as we look at these various solutions, government's going to have to be involved in one way or the other," he warned.

"Eventually, government is going to have to be responsible to help resolve these issues and our whole society depends very much on reaching some resolution of the problem."

US newspapers are grappling with declining print advertising revenue, falling circulation and the migration of readers to free news online, while several major US publishers have declared bankruptcy.

con't

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Struggling_media_will_need_governme_1202200...

u silly girl.... the cia is 2 busy counting
their money from the poppies that they have
the afghan folks grow. there's no time to be
busy with other things.

"Tiger Woods continues to have problems with his putz!"

"this machine kills fascists"

This horrible human being is now on your case. She has bitten in to your billion dollar neck- and she is going to shake it until your head falls off. Oh don't think she won't! Look what she did to Michael Jackson!

she can't even look at her...

me?...meh...just another msm bobblehead....

my take...even if Tiger were fucking the entire squad of Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, it is still none of my business.

got a Starbucks aka as ten bucks,
Wendy just brought me one home.
Yummy - I do NOT par take of ten
bucks because ..... well hence
the name!

my take...even if Tiger we fucking the entire squad of Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, it is still none of my business.
cent - you r goddamn right :)

Nancy Grace.? What does that make me?
Stupid or clueless? She has been on
t.v. for long time. I used to watch her
on court t.v. a longggggg time ago.

Didn't BofA buy at least two banks in that time? And they are not paying a cent of interest?

I'm not impressed. They just profitted from us taxpayers paying the loan interest for them as they consolidated! We were ripped off again.

Plus, they are getting all this free "feel good" advertising about "paying back" the funds. Egad.

thanks cent for this ^^^^^^^
that's really cool.

Malloy is good tonight

ha - It's none of my business...I might rent the DVD though. ;)

"What does that make me?
Stupid or clueless? She has been on
t.v. for long time. I used to watch her
on court t.v. a longggggg time ago."

It makes you Human...everyone is attracted by the darker side of humanity, especially when it is someone elses life we are watching...the difference between you and Nancy Grace is she makes a living off of it....

Submitted by cent on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 10:20pm.
she can't even look at her...
---

I'm with the Wifey, Cent. I can't stand crazy Nancy. A young woman committed suicide after appearing on her show. Besides, her alleged passion against crime stems out of the random killing of her boyfriend. It turned out that Nancy exaggerated the facts about the case.

It used to be a character flaw to gossip, and now the manipulative non-news media programs give the most exposure to stories that are no more than gossip for mass consumption. But no-one seems embarrassed about it. Gossip is now peddled as a national pasttime, no matter that it is an empty, time-wasting, usually hurtful activity.

an exhibitionist generation...

just another revolution on a theme...it will change...again...hopefully...

Makes sense.

Our society rewards the extroverts-to-exhibitionists and shames introverts-to-analysts and it is an unfair cultural flaw I believe the Corporate Culture has forced on us.

I'll settle for the paid back TARP...

On Wednesday, December 9, 2009, join International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Free Mumia Coalition NYC, as we gather to protest the 28-year conspiracy to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal for a crime that an enormous amount of evidence proves he did not commit. Lynne Abraham, the outgoing District Attorney, and Seth Williams, the newly elected black DA, want to bury the truth and silence Mumia forever. THE PROTEST BEGINS AT 4 PM IN FRONT OF THE GOVERNOR'S REGIONAL OFFICE, 200 SOUTH BROAD STREET, NEAR MARKET STREET, IN PHILADELPHIA. There will be an indoor meeting following the protest at 7PM at the American Friends Center, 1515 Cherry Street. To reserve a seat on the bus, call 212 330-8029. For information on our work visit www.freemumia.com.

The Auld Triangle Goes Jingle Jangle

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Obama’s dipped below 50 percent in public approval, which—so the pollsters tell us—is nothing particularly unusual for a new president at this stage of the game. Next week, he’s scheduled to announce that that he’s ordering 34,000 more troops to head for Afghanistan.

I heard someone on NPR say this was Obama’s straddle between General Stan McChrystal’s original demand for 50,000 troops and those who have been imploring Obama to nix further deployments and bring all the troops home. In other words we have a typical Obama compromise, making gestures designed to please everybody, but all the while intent upon going along with Business as Usual. Take his performance on Guantánamo. Pledge to close it down, then drag your feet, continue secret renditions of captives to other prisons like Bagram and finally engineer the forceed resignation of Gregory Craig, the White House counsel who was trying to close Guantánamo which will remain open until every remaining prisoner can be sent to replications of that hell hole somewhere else.

Such decisions are coming thick and fast. Right before Thanksgiving came news that the Obama administration has decided not to sign an international convention banning land mines which now has support from more than 150 countries. Yes, there was a land-mine policy “review” by the Administration, now denounced by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy as "cursory and halfhearted.” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told the press last Tuesday that US defense requirements really require landmines and Obama is going to stay with the Bush policy, though – here’s the Obamian compromise – the US government is, for the first time, sending an official observer to a session of the International Convention, meeting this very weekend in Cartagena, Colombia. This will come as a great comfort to the relatives of those thousands – half of them children -- blown to bits each year by landmines littering war-torn landscapes across the globe...
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11272009.html

of what I was talking about last night.

WTF?

"State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told the press last Tuesday that US defense requirements really require landmines and Obama is going to stay with the Bush policy,"

our allies, namely Israel, who still use anti-personnel mines...

I posted this last week and it turns out we haven't deployed them since '97 or something...

I don't get it either...maybe Obama should explain his resistance to this.....sure would clear things up, because this doesn't make any sense...

Why did Mike Huckabee pardon child rapist Maurice Clemmons? Because God told him to

EXCERPT:

During the former Baptist minister's decade as Arkansas governor, it appeared that no matter how heinous an inmate's crimes, all he had to do for a pardon was drop to his knees, praise Jesus and persuade some preacher known to Huckabee of his newfound holiness. "Everybody knows that Mike Huckabee makes up his mind what to do by what God tells him to do," said one minister who gained clemency for a prisoner serving 100 years for the strong-arm robbery of elderly neighbors.

con't

http://www.salon.com/news/mike_huckabee/index.html

And I find that alarming. I do not like that flabby word that can be twisted any which way.

Some word counts in Obama's Afghan 'War' speech (did this myself, so NOT guaranteed perfect):

9/11: 6 times
war: 18 times
attack: 3
hope: 2 (once in the beginning, once near the closing--Hope-nosis!)
terror words: 5
extremists: ten
Al Qaeda: 22

Just saw a photo of the bunch. They look so HAPPY. Incredible.

It is so much more specific and effective than indiscriminate drone bombing.

Despite Obama's smooth and repetitious use of the words 'Al Qaeda' and 'war', it is legally impossible to 'declare' a 'war' against any group without a nation (unless Al Qaeda really is still financed via UAE and/or the CIA).

Gov't has no heart, is why he can't get one.

(As if he could get one even if he weren't "illegal" or at least insufficiently "documented."...Well maybe so...but only b/c he's a kid.)

As if person by person by person is going to work at all...

But, hey, "it was there," so now it's here.
________________________________

Dear K(ali ;)),

While heath care reform dominates the national debate, not everyone in this wealthy country will be helped. In Kansas City, KS, there is a 14 year-old boy named Eduardo Loredo who could die any day.

Eduardo is being denied a heart transplant because he does not have health insurance (or enough money) to pay for a heart transplant and follow up care. Eduardo was diagnosed with Cardiomyopathy, and was hospitalized at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO beginning in July 2009. Eduardo was sent home from Children's Mercy Hospital on October 14, 2009 and told that he had the potential to live a few years or a few days.

Missouri's Medicaid program is generally available only to citizens and certain legal immigrants who meet a five year waiting period. These restrictive rules prevent Eduardo from qualifying for health insurance that would cover both the transplant procedure and the long-term follow up care required to ensure a successful transplant. Without this coverage, the total cost of the transplant would cost his family $500,000. Children's Mercy Hospital told Eduardo that without an up-front payment of $100,000, he would not even be able to get on the waiting list for a heart transplant. While Children's Hospital in St. Louis, MO originally offered to perform the transplant surgery for no cost, this offer was later retracted. His family is simply being told that his life is not a priority.

Here's what you can do to help:

Sign the petition to save Eduardo Loredo's life - http://www.petitiononline.com/Eduardo/petition.html

-

The Soup Nazi is a hero to some of us... ;)
-----
He's right about the Salvation Army though. Last year when the bell-ringers were outside, the lil' checkout coupons to donate to the local food bank mysteriously disappeared (and didn't come back for some time after that). This year, not so far...

So, good, cuz I promised myself I was going to talk to the management if it happened again.

From afterdowningstreet.org --

http://afterdowningstreet.org/whipwars

[excerpt]

WAR: It's Not the President's Decision
The U.S. Constitution leaves the decision to wage war to Congress, and Congress can enforce its decision not to wage war by refusing to fund it. Blocking a funding bill for wars requires the House of Representatives alone, and both Democrats and Republicans in the House are rapidly joining us in saying No to war funding.

It's time to finally get serious, to lobby, to protest, to sit in, to nonviolently disrupt and resist in local district offices until enough Representatives commit to voting No on any bill to fund more war.

[end excerpt]

:):(

re:
U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein responding to your message
InboxX

Reply |senator@feinstein.senate.gov to me
show details 11:34 AM (11 hours ago)

Dear Mrs. Conway:

I received your letter expressing your support for increased Federal funding for child nutrition programs. I appreciate the time you took to write and welcome the opportunity to respond.

Like you, I am concerned about the health and well-being of our Nation's children. With the occurrence of childhood obesity and diabetes on the rise, it is critical that children receive the nutritional assistance they need. Federally supported childhood nutrition programs, such as the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program reach more than 40 million children and nearly 2 million pregnant and post-partum women each year, respectively. These programs are particularly important in States such as California, where the WIC program served nearly 1.4 million participants in 2008, according to the California Department of Public Health.

On October 21, 2009, President Obama signed into law the Agriculture Appropriations bill (P.L. 111-80), which provides $16.8 billion for child nutrition programs. This is an increase of nearly $1.9 billion from fiscal year 2009. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, please be assured that I carefully noted your support for child nutrition programs. Additionally, I will be sure to keep your support in mind when Congress considers the full reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act.

Once again, thank you for writing. If you have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.

Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the Nation are available at my website http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/. You can also receive electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ENewsletterSignu....

so all is into Obama. I KNEW HE KEPT SAYING Afghanistan.

& u folks here care not for the infrastructure, nor education. nor once again future of CHILDREN.

MY FATHER WON Purple Heart & Bronze Star ... in Korea. He was "UNDERWATER Demolition". {Get It!}
I fought a different way AND since 13/14 ... however did work in 20's for (now Central) for CERTAIN PD's & SO's {4 SO I did UNDERCOVER work, even for Sharp Shooter Ex-fiance & CA MAIN Head of CA F.B.I}.

Husband of 24 PLUS years blieved as me (AOT) in "doing what is needed, Gentle or Harsh TO PUT THINGS RIGHT".
But MOST only can do (especially husband ATT) Certain ACTIONS for so long & he handled. Few can keep going, as me...

...however I still have guns & ... {we/I use to shoot}.

My FATHER respected me & proud of me... He would not be proud, as a man that put his life on the line for WTP's (especially those here) opinon.

Mother & Father & a moment of further Sanity & voted 4 Kennedy.

located on a certain "Island".

FOLKS MOSTLY HERE DO NOTHING BUT {TOXIC}BITCH...
Some (be careful) are seen at protests.
{Whilst reviewing other locations & also of CURRENT fighters NOT IN JAIL (but reviewing those ROTTING IN JAIL also.)

Regarding MEAT {disgusting Video also re CRABS ...}

GREAT I have been nice not to post CERTAIN sites - but now I will POST SOME, since some here DON'T GET IT!. ;)

WTF

*

Someone blogged this at another site and wonder if anyone here heard of this before...It probably can be filed under New World Order methods or gold speculators' dream?

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article7310.html

[excerpt]

The G-20's Secret Credit Crash Debt Solution
Currencies / Global Financial System
Nov 14, 2008 - 02:38 PM

By: Money_and_Markets

Larry Edelson writes: If you think this weekend's G-20 meetings in Washington are only about designing short-term fixes to the financial system and regulatory reforms for banks, hedge funds, brokers, mortgage companies and investment banks … think again.

...

...Here's one scenario …

They cease all gold sales and instead, raise the current official central bank price of gold from its booked value of $42.22 an ounce — to a price that monetizes a large enough portion of the world's outstanding debts.

That way, just like in 1933, the debts become a fraction of re-inflated asset prices (led higher by the gold price).

And this time, instead of staying with the dollar as a reserve currency, the G-20 issues three new monetary units of exchange, each with equal reserve status.

The three currencies will essentially be a new dollar, new euro, and a new pan-Asian currency. (The Chinese yuan may survive as a fourth currency, but it will be linked to a basket of the three new currencies.)

The new fiat monetary units would be worth less than the old ones. For instance, it could take 10 new units of money to buy 1 old dollar or euro.

New names would be given to the new currencies to help rid the world of the ghost of a system that failed. Additional regulations and programs would be designed and implemented to ease the transition to a new monetary system.

The IMF would be at the center of the new monetary system.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) would implement the new financial system in conjunction with central banks and governments around the world.

Keep in mind that the IMF is already set up to handle the transition, and has had contingency plans allowing for it since the institution was formed in 1944.

Included in the design and transition to a new monetary system …

A. A new fixed-rate currency regime. Immediately upon upping the price of gold and introducing the new currencies, a new fixed exchange rate system would be re-introduced. The floating exchange rate system would be tossed into the dust bin along with the old currencies.

This would kill any speculation about further devaluations in the currency markets, and drastically reduce market volatility.

[end excerpt]

The player you posted goes on automatically. Please fix or remove.

The music is okay the first time but is annoying when you have to go back to turn it off all the time.

toniD's Ya Think?

Most mobile phones have tiny GPS chips that do things like give directions or route your call to the right city when you dial 911. It turns out that law enforcement can ask phone companies for GPS info that reveals exactly where a phone owner is, and, according to a disturbing piece of audio making the rounds, the cops asked Sprint-Nextell for the locations of customers 8 million times in one year.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/sprint_passed_8_million_requ...

absolutely nora!! Good day greetings to the bloggerati.

Submitted by smcgee43 on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 7:16am.

If you really dont want to found take the battery out of the phone. Just turning the phone off doesn't always work

Hope he is Ok

America Without a Middle Class
Elizabeth Warren
Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel

Can you imagine an America without a strong middle class? If you can, would it still be America as we know it?

Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street.

Families have survived the ups and downs of economic booms and busts for a long time, but the fall-behind during the busts has gotten worse while the surge-ahead during the booms has stalled out. In the boom of the 1960s, for example, median family income jumped by 33% (adjusted for inflation). But the boom of the 2000s resulted in an almost-imperceptible 1.6% increase for the typical family. While Wall Street executives and others who owned lots of stock celebrated how good the recovery was for them, middle class families were left empty-handed.

The crisis facing the middle class started more than a generation ago. Even as productivity rose, the wages of the average fully-employed male have been flat since the 1970s.

But core expenses kept going up. By the early 2000s, families were spending twice as much (adjusted for inflation) on mortgages than they did a generation ago -- for a house that was, on average, only ten percent bigger and 25 years older. They also had to pay twice as much to hang on to their health insurance.

To cope, millions of families put a second parent into the workforce. But higher housing and medical costs combined with new expenses for child care, the costs of a second car to get to work and higher taxes combined to squeeze families even harder. Even with two incomes, they tightened their belts. Families today spend less than they did a generation ago on food, clothing, furniture, appliances, and other flexible purchases -- but it hasn't been enough to save them. Today's families have spent all their income, have spent all their savings, and have gone into debt to pay for college, to cover serious medical problems, and just to stay afloat a little while longer. more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/america-without-a-middle_...

toniD's Ya Think?

Americans to suffer from their obstructionism!

GOP Senator Pens Obstruction Manual For Health Care

Sen. Judd Gregg, (R-NH) has penned the equivalent of an obstruction manual -- a how-to for holding up health care reform -- and has distributed the document to his Republican colleagues.

Insisting that it is "critical that Republican senators have a solid understanding of the minority's rights in the Senate," Gregg makes note of all the procedural tools the GOP can use before measures are considered, when they come to the floor and even after passage.

He highlights the use of hard quorum calls for any motion to proceed, as opposed to a far quicker unanimous consent provision. He reminds his colleagues that, absent unanimous consent, they can force the Majority Leader to read any "full-text substitute amendment." And when it comes to offering amendments to the health care bill, the New Hampshire Republican argues that it is the personification of "full, complete, and informed debate," to "offer an unlimited number of amendments -- germane or non-germane -- on any subject."

The details of Gregg's outline are a clear reflection of the extent to which Republicans are turning to the Byzantine processes of the Senate chamber as a means of holding up reform. And doing so with eagerness. Take for instance, the section on offering a "point of order."

"A Senator may make a point of order at any point he or she believes that a Senate procedure is being violated, with or without cause," he writes. "After the presiding officer rules, any Senator who disagrees with such ruling may appeal the ruling of the chair--that appeal is fully debatable. Some points of order, such as those raised on Constitutional grounds, are not ruled on by the presiding officer and the question is put to the Senate, then the point of order itself is fully debatable. The Senate may dispose of a point of order or an appeal by tabling it; however, delay is created by the two roll call votes in connection with each tabling motion (motion to table and motion to reconsider that vote)."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office pounced on such a vivid example of Republican instransigence. "Just in time for the holidays, here it is in black and white, the Republicans' manual for stall, stop and delay," said Jim Manley, Reid's spokesman. "And what do the American people get? -- higher costs and less coverage. What kind of present is that?"

Even if health care is passed out of the Senate, Gregg has outlined ways in which Republicans can slow its passage.

"The Senate must pass 3 separate motions to go to conference: (1) a motion to insist on its amendments or disagree with the House amendments; (2) a motion to request/agree to a conference; and (3) a motion to authorize the Chair to appoint conferees. The Senate routinely does this by UC [unanimous consent], but if a Senator objects the Senate must debate each step and all 3 motions may be filibustered (requiring a cloture vote to end debate)."

Considering the already lethargic pace of health care reform, this is an illuminating reminder of how Republican's are putting their energy into dragging out the process rather than affecting the legislation.

HERE IS THE FULL LETTER: at link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/read-it-gop-senator-pens_n_3773...

toniD's Ya Think?

WASHINGTON, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Most Americans would like to see a "public option" in health insurance reform but doubt anything Congress does will lower costs or improve care in the short term, according to a poll released on Thursday.

The survey of 2,999 households by Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.TO)(TRI.N) shows a public skeptical about the cost, quality and accessibility of medical care.

Just under 60 percent of those surveyed said they would like a public option as part of any final healthcare reform legislation, which Republicans and a few Democrats oppose.

Here are some of the results of the telephone survey of 2,999 households called from November 9-17 as part of the Thomson Reuters PULSE Healthcare Survey:

* Believe in public option: 59.9 percent yes, 40.1 percent no.

* 86 percent of Democrats support the public option versus 57 percent of Independents and 33 percent of Republicans.

* Quality of healthcare will be better 12 months from now: 35 percent strongly disagree. 11.6 percent strongly agree. 29.9 percent put themselves in the middle.

* Believe the amount of money spent on healthcare will be less 12 months from now: 52 percent strongly disagree, 13 percent strongly agree.

* 23 percent believe it will be easier for people to receive the care they need a year from now.

The nationally representative survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percent.

The House of Representatives passed a healthcare overhaul bill last month.

The Senate is debating a plan and will vote on Thursday on competing measures to ensure women have access to mammograms and other preventive screenings and amendments on proposed spending cuts in the Medicare government health program for the elderly.

If the Senate passes a bill, the two versions will have to be reconciled and passed again by each chamber before being sent to President Barack Obama for his signature.

The Senate plan is designed to slow the rate of growth in healthcare, expand coverage to about 30 million uninsured Americans and halt industry practices such as denying coverage to those with pre-existing medical conditions.

It would require everyone to have insurance, provide federal subsidies to help them pay for it and establish a new government-run insurance option to compete with private industry.

Thomson Reuters is the parent company of Reuters. (Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Alan Elsner) ((Maggie.Fox@ThomsonReuters.com; Washington bureau newsroom +1 202 898 8492))

http://www.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUSN02109772200912...

toniD's Ya Think?

Bernie Sanders Moves To Block Ben Bernanke's Confirmation

WASHINGTON — Irked by the Federal Reserve's bailout of Wall Street, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said Wednesday that he will seek to block the Senate from confirming Ben Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the nation's central bank.

For now, the move isn't expected to derail Bernanke's confirmation, but it could slow down the process.

The maneuver by Sanders, an independent, comes on the eve of Bernanke's confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee.

"The American people are disgusted with the greed and recklessness of Wall Street .... People are asking why didn't the Fed intervene at the appropriate time to stop the casino-type activities of large financial companies," Sanders said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Lax oversight by the Fed as well as other banking regulators has been blamed for contributing to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

Sanders told the AP he placed a "hold" on Bernanke's nomination. The Senate would need to have 60 votes to override Sander's maneuver to move forward with a vote on the nomination. Bernanke probably has sufficient support to overcome that procedural hurdle.

President Barack Obama nominated Bernanke to a second, four-year term. That requires Senate approval. The Fed chief's term expires on Jan. 31.

Sanders said Bernanke should have done more to help struggling Americans, such as demanding that bailed-out banks cut interest rates on credit cards.

One of the biggest grievances of the public – and their representatives in Congress – is the government's bailout of Wall Street. The multibillion-dollar bailouts of American International Group and other financial firms that continued to hand out huge bonuses sparked fury. They've also fueled worries that the Fed's moves will encourage further reckless bets by companies in the future.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/bernie-sanders-moves-to-b_n_377...

toniD's Ya Think?

Senate Democrats Working on a $300 billion Jobs Bill!

"While the GOP has been blocking the health care bill the past 3 days, the Democratic Senators have still been working diligently behind the scenes.

The $230 billion package backed by Zandi would lower the unemployment rate by 0.7 percent by the end of next year and would save or create 1.3 million jobs, according to his estimates."

"this machine kills fascists"

Dylan Ratigan
Host of MSNBC's "Morning Meeting" and "The Dylan Ratigan Show" on WABC radio

You want to do something about jobs? Well, considering a different Fed Chairman might be a good place to start.

Nothing would more clearly display the inability of our leaders to deal with the disastrous state of our economy than easily reconfirming Ben Bernanke for another round at the Fed on the same day that they hold a "job summit" in a harebrained attempt to try to figure out how to create jobs in this country.

So far in his tenure, Chairman Bernanke has already told us that housing prices won't go down, the subprime market will be "contained", unemployment won't get to 10% and that instead of regulation, those responsible Wall Streeters who used credit derivative swaps could just be trusted to use them "properly". Of course, he thinks this performance should be rewarded with more power and utter secrecy.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, does that make Bernanke crazy for still basing our nation's economic policies on his terrible predictions? Does it make Congress crazy for reconfirming him? Or does it make us crazy for voting these people into office??

Defenders like to point out what a fantastic job Chairman Bernanke has done "rescuing" our economy from supposed CERTAIN DOOM, utilizing his formidable expertise on the Great Depression as his guidance (or cover) for providing an infinite supply of money to our most culpable banks with no strings attached. Dropping the future wealth of America from the sky is a pretty easy way to put out almost any economic fire, but in this case our superstar fireman also happens to be one of the primary arsonists.

So what does Bernanke's failure to be a proper steward of our nation's banks have to with jobs?

Unlike any other business, banks and insurance companies are the only companies that do business with the wealth of others. Banks are also the only business granted a list of special privileges and responsibilities. This was done to encourage banks to take the savings of others and lend it out to American businesses and individuals, with the goal of helping grow new ideas and businesses that serve the current and future needs of society and, in the process, create jobs that help fulfill those needs.

But our banks haven't been serving the interests of the broader economy for quite some time.

Instead of being incentivized by the government to lend money to all the innovators, investors and workers in this country, our banks are either hoarding cash, playing the spread between low interest government loans and higher yields or just flat-out gambling through the giant and ongoing insurance fraud that is the derivatives market.

The Federal Reserve and other government programs are literally pouring a potential $23.7 trillion of taxpayer money into bucket with a giant hole in the bottom and wondering why there are no jobs.

Would you work if you could steal money without consequences? Would you do the hard work of lending money to the small businesses of America if you could just make more gambling it in swap markets of New York and never have to worry about the losses?

This economic model is not geared towards jobs. This is not capitalism. This is not American. This is a crime.

So when the very same government proclaims today at a so-called "jobs summit" that, by golly, they really want to try and come up with some ideas to help you get a job, tell them a good place to start would be to deal with the recent job performance of one of our economy's chief arsonists.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/americans-dont-have-jobs_b_3...

toniD's Ya Think?

have all come from big investment companies - once that changes, maybe there can be some progress.

Comcast, NBC Deal: Comcast To Buy Controlling Stake In NBC Universal For $13.75 Billion

PHILADELPHIA — Comcast Corp. announced Thursday it plans to buy a majority stake in NBC Universal for $13.75 billion, giving the nation's largest cable TV operator control of the Peacock network, an array of cable channels and a major movie studio.

Although the deal could mean that movies could reach cable more quickly after showing in theaters, and that TV shows could appear faster on cell phones and other devices, it was already raising concerns that Comcast would wield too much power over entertainment.

Indeed, if the deal clears regulatory and other hurdles, Comcast would rival the heft of The Walt Disney Co. – which Comcast CEO Brian Roberts already tried to buy.

Comcast, which already serves a quarter of all U.S. households that pay for TV, would gain control of the NBC broadcast network, the Spanish-language Telemundo and about two dozen cable channels, including USA, Syfy and The Weather Channel. It also would have regional sports networks, Universal Pictures and theme parks.

Shares of Comcast rose 36 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $15.30 in pre-market trading Thursday, as the company also announced an increase in its dividend.

In agreeing to buy 51 percent of NBC Universal from General Electric Co., which has controlled NBC since 1986, Comcast hopes to succeed in marrying distribution and content in a way Time Warner Inc. could not. AOL and Time Warner are undoing their ill-fated marriage Dec. 9. Time Warner has already shed its cable TV operations.

Comcast's Roberts and GE CEO Jeff Immelt have been discussing the deal for months, and the final weeks came down to GE's persuading French conglomerate Vivendi SA to first sell its minority stake.

Comcast made the deal because it is eager to diversify its holdings. It faces encroaching threats from online video and more aggressive competition from satellite and phone companies that offer subscription TV services.
Story continues below

For entertainment viewers, the deal means Universal Pictures movies could get to cable faster.

TV shows could appear on mobile phones and other devices faster as part of Comcast's plans to let viewers watch programs wherever they want. Comcast already is letting subscribers watch cable TV shows online in trials, with a nationwide launch in December.

On Thursday, Comcast pledged that NBC Universal shows that now cost money over its cable video-on-demand service would be free for three years after the deal closes.

Comcast also said it would maintain free, over-the-air TV on NBC stations – a business model that is eroding because of falling advertising revenue. Comcast also pledged to improve public interest programming. And it said it would not let its business interests affect NBC News.

But consumer advocates worry about the deal, saying people could end up paying more for TV. (Of course they will pay more)

Under Comcast, subscription-TV operators such as DirecTV Group Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.'s FiOS service would be negotiating with a direct rival on how much they have to pay to carry NBC Universal's cable and broadcast channels.

An NBC Universal under Comcast might be less willing to budge than one under GE. Consumer groups worry that as a result, fees that are already creeping up could rise even faster, with the costs passed to customers in their monthly pay-TV bills.

NBC Universal is profitable, with operating earnings of $1.7 billion on revenue of $11.2 billion in the first three quarters of 2009, despite weakness in the fourth-place NBC broadcast network and Universal Pictures, ranked sixth in North American box office gross this year by Rentrak Corp./Hollywood.com.

Comcast wants the company largely for its lucrative cable channels. It is seeking more programming to beef up its video-on-demand offerings and rely less on cable revenue as the company loses subscribers to rival providers – such as phone companies that are offering TV services – or the Internet.

Meanwhile, GE needs cash to support its financing unit, GE Capital, which was devastated in last year's financial meltdown. (Too damn bad! We're suffering also from their bad financial decisions!)

Under the deal, expected to close in a year if regulators and shareholders approve, GE would buy Vivendi SA's 20 percent stake in NBC Universal for $5.8 billion. Of that, $2 billion is payable in September 2010 if the deal hasn't closed by then, and the remaining $3.8 billion would be due at closing. NBC Universal is to be separated into a new joint venture.

Comcast would buy a 51 percent stake of the new company by paying $6.5 billion in cash and contributing $7.25 billion worth of cable channels it owns, including E!, Style and Golf Channel. Moody's analyst Neil Begley noted that Comcast is jumping in as media company values are relatively low and stands to benefit as business conditions improve. more....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/03/comcast-nbc-deal-comcast-_n_378...

Plus Comcast donated to the Bush admin and would surely change things. The only media that's even vaguely Liberal.

toniD's Ya Think?

Peter Mandelson declares war on Rupert Murdoch's media empire

Source: guardian.co.uk

Lord Mandelson declared war on the Murdoch empire today when he accused News Corporation of maintaining an "iron grip" on pay television and warned that the company wants to import rightwing Fox News-style journalism to Britain.

In his strongest attacks on News Corp since the Sun abandoned its support for Labour hours after Gordon Brown's party conference speech, the business secretary accused the company of imperilling the traditions of British broadcasting.

Mandelson's intervention came as Rupert Murdoch faces a growing fight with the Australian government over a controversial tax avoidance scheme put in place when News Corp moved its headquarters to the US. Sydney tax commissioners claim that an elaborate series of legal manoeuvres, dubbed "flip and spin" by News Corp, wrongly deprived authorities in Australia, Britain and the US of billions of dollars in capital gains tax.

In a sign that Murdoch also faces a fight in Britain, Mandelson turned his fire on a joint Tory-News Corp campaign to dismantle the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom. The business secretary, who claimed last month that the Sun had agreed a "contract" with the Conservatives in which David Cameron would help News Corp's business interests, told peers: "There are some in the commercial sector who believe that the future of British media would be served by cutting back the role of the media regulator. They take this view because they want to commandeer more space and income for themselves and because they want to maintain their iron grip on pay-TV, a market in which many viewers feel they are paying more than they should for their music and sport. They also want to erode the commitment to impartiality. In other words, to fill British airwaves with more Fox-style news."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/02/peter-mandelson-rupert-murdo...

toniD's Ya Think?

Al Franken fallout has GOP fuming Updated at 4:20 PM

Source: Politico

Republican senators feel burned by Al Franken — and not by his old jokes.

The Republicans are steamed at Franken because partisans on the left are using a measure he sponsored to paint them as rapist sympathizers — and because Franken isn’t doing much to stop them.

“Trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape —and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues, I don’t think it’s a very constructive thing,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview.

...

In a chamber where relationship-building is seen as critical, some GOP senators question whether Franken’s handling of the amendment could damage his ability to work across the aisle. Soon after Tennessee GOP Sens. Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander co-wrote an op-ed in a local newspaper defending their votes against the Franken measure, the Minnesota Democrat confronted each senator separately to dispute their column — and grew particularly angry in a tense exchange with Corker.

...

At issue is an amendment to the Pentagon spending bill that would bar “future and existing” federal contracts to defense contractors and subcontractors “at any tier” who mandate employees go through a company’s arbitration process for workplace discrimination claims — including claims of sexual assault. The measure passed 68-30, with 10 Republicans voting yes and 30 voting no.

...

“I don’t know what his motivation was for taking us on, but I would hope that we won’t see a lot of Daily Kos-inspired amendments in the future coming from him,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, No. 4 in the Senate Republican leadership. “I think hopefully he’ll settle down and do kind of the serious work of legislating that’s important to Minnesota.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30088.html

toniD's Ya Think?

Thursday Is New Jobless Day

457K new lucky duckies, 5000 fewer than last week. Still high, though inching towards not quite awful territory...

-Atrios 08:33

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2009/12/thursday-is-new-jobless-day.html

toniD's Ya Think?

somewhere i saw that until that number drops below 400k the unemployment rate will continue to rise.

House GOPers having jobs summit with architects of the failed Bush economic policy
by Joe Sudbay (DC) on 12/03/2009 09:43:00 AM
Can't make this stuff up. The economy is in a shambles because of the mess created by the failed policies of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Democrats have been trying to dig out of this disaster for the past year. Today, Obama is holding a jobs summit at the White House. The House Republicans are having one of their own:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has scheduled an "economic roundtable" today, to compete with the White House's job summit. Roll Call reported, "A spokesman for Boehner said the purpose of the meeting is to give a platform for economists who have a different perspective on how Obama's agenda has affected the economy."

And who are these experts? Apparently, House Republicans have turned to "former Bush administration and McCain campaign staffers, who have advocated disastrous tax and budget policies."

So, to summarize, less than a year from the last administration, congressional Republicans believe it's time to re-embrace the Bush/Cheney agenda that didn't work, and listen to the architects of the Bush/Cheney agenda that didn't work.

The thing that really sucks is that if Democrats don't fix the economy and create more jobs by next fall, the elections could be a disaster. That will empower the same Republicans who destroyed the economy in the first place. It's as if the GOP economic plan is also their 2010 campaign plan: Ruin the economy in order to defeat Democrats.

http://www.americablog.com/2009/12/house-gopers-having-jobs-summit-with....

toniD's Ya Think?

is that the republicans are all a bunch of asshats.

Grayson Responds To Coburn’s ‘Die Soon’ Claim: ‘The Basis For What He’s Saying Is Delusion’

graysonian2 Earlier this week, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), one of the Senate’s most stalwart obstructionists, made a wild claim on the Senate floor intended to scare seniors. He told them that if the Senate health care bill passes, they’re “going to die soon.” Many in the media were quick to compare Coburn’s wild claim with the comments made by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), who noted that the GOP’s health care plan — which would either maintain or worsen the status quo — amounts to telling people “don’t get sick, and if you do get sick…die quickly.”

On the Alan Colmes radio show yesterday, Grayson responded to people comparing his comments to Coburn’s. He told Colmes that the “basis for what [Coburn] is saying is delusion”:

GRAYSON: There’s no valid comparison unless lies are now the same as truth. … I mean, I had a Harvard study to back me up. And everybody knows the Republicans haven’t any plan for health care. They still don’t have a plan for health care. …. And the basis for what he’s saying is delusion. There’s nothing in the Democrats’ health care bill that would put any senior at risk at all. So I – I know that people have been drawn to this idea that there is somehow this moral equivalence between what I said and what Senator Coburn said, but I think that’s ridiculous.

Listen to it: at link

While Coburn continues to make the ridiculous claim that seniors will die if the Senate passes its health care bill, Americans continue to perish simply because they don’t have health care. As the Harvard study that Grayson cites concludes, nearly 45,000 Americans die every year because they lack proper access to health care.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/03/grayson-coburn-colmes/

toniD's Ya Think?

I’ve never been fully committed to the notion that we’re going to have a “double dip” — that the economy will slide back into recession. But it has been clear for a while that it’s a serious possibility, for two reasons. First, a large part of the growth we’ve had has been driven by the stimulus — but the stimulus has already had its maximum impact on the growth of GDP, will hit its maximum impact on the level of GDP in the middle of next year, and then will begin to fade out. Second, the rise in manufacturing production is to a large extent an inventory bounce — and this, too, will fade out in the quarters ahead.

Two stories this morning highlight the risks. The WSJ has a report on highway construction titled Job Cuts Loom as Stimulus Fades:

Highway-construction companies around the country, having completed the mostly small projects paid for by the federal economic-stimulus package, are starting to see their business run aground, an ominous sign for the nation’s weak employment picture.

Meanwhile, the ISM for manufacturing suggests that industrial growth is already slowing down.

I’d be more sanguine about all of this if there were any indications that private, final demand is taking off — consumers, business investment, whatever. But I haven’t seen anything suggesting that sort of thing.

The chances of a relapse into recession seem to be rising.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/double-dip-warning/

toniD's Ya Think?

Submitted by toniD on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 10:39am.
Al Franken fallout has GOP fuming Updated at 4:20 PM

Guys Like Franken and Grayson are the only hope for the democratic party. Weiner from NY also.

Grayson was on Alan Combs last night and was very critical of Obama's
Afgaffe
istan.

Worrisome Thoughts on the Way to the Jobs Summit

Most ideas for creating more jobs assume jobs will return when the economy recovers. So the immediate goal is to accelerate the process. A second stimulus would be helpful, especially directed at state governments that are now mounting an anti-stimulus package (tax increases, job cuts, service cuts) of over $200 billion this year and next. If the deficit hawks threaten to take flight, the administration should use the remaining TARP funds.

Other less expensive ideas include a new jobs tax credit for any firm creating net new jobs. Lending directed at small businesses, which are having a hard time getting credit but are responsible for most new jobs. A one-year payroll tax holiday on the first, say, $20,000 of income – which would quickly put money into peoples’ pockets and simultaneously make it cheaper for businesses to hire because they pay half the payroll tax. And a WPA style program that hires jobless workers directly to, say, insulate homes.

Most of this would be helpful. Together, they might take the official unemployment rate down a notch or two.

But here's the real worry. The basic assumption that jobs will eventually return when the economy recovers is probably wrong. Some jobs will come back, of course. But the reality that no one wants to talk about is a structural change in the economy that's been going on for years but which the Great Recession has dramatically accelerated.

This means many Americans won’t be rehired unless they’re willing to settle for much lower wages and benefits. Today's official unemployment numbers hide the extent to which Americans are already on this path. Among those with jobs, a large and growing number have had to accept lower pay as a condition for keeping them. Or they've lost higher-paying jobs and are now in a new ones that pays less.

Yet reducing unemployment by cutting wages merely exchanges one problem for another. We'll get jobs back but have more people working for pay they consider inadequate, more working families at or near poverty, and widening inequality. The nation will also have a harder time restarting the economy because so many more Americans lack the money they need to buy all the goods and services the economy can produce.

So let's be clear: The goal isn’t just more jobs. It's more jobs with good wages. Which means the fix isn’t just temporary measures to accelerate a jobs recovery, but permanent new investments in the productivity of Americans.

What sort of investments? Big ones that span many years: early childhood education for every young child, excellent K-12, fully-funded public higher education, more generous aid for kids from middle-class and poor families to attend college, good health care, more basic R&D that's done here in the U.S., better and more efficient public transit like light rail, a power grid that's up to the task, and so on.

Without these sorts of productivity-enhancing investments, a steadily increasing number of Americans will be priced out of competition in world economy. More and more Americans will face a Hobson's choice of no job or a job with lousy wages. It's already happening.

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/12/worrisome-thoughts-on-way-to-job...

toniD's Ya Think?

Living With Another Public Option Compromise

As you’ve probably read or heard by now, the public option debate seems headed back to an old compromise, albeit with a new twist or two. This clearly isn’t good news. But I’m not sure it’s awful news, either.

In the two weeks since Harry Reid rounded up sixty votes to begin debate on his health reform bill, it’s become clear that he probably can’t count on the same sixty votes to pass it. The single biggest reason is the public option.

Reid’s bill included a relatively weak version of the public option. The plan would negotiate rates with providers, rather than use Medicare rates. And individual states would have the right to “opt out” of it altogether. But even this is too much for a handful of centrist Senators. And without those Senators behind him, Reid doesn’t have the votes to break a Republican filibuster.

As The Hill’s Jeffrey Young reported this week, Reid has responded by asking Delaware Senator Tom Carper to come up with a “Plan B.” Although Carper isn't saying what Plan B will be, Capitol Hill sources I consulted expect (as The Hill story suggests) that the basis for the compromise will be some variation on a “trigger,” perhaps along the lines of what Republican Olympia Snowe first suggested several months ago. Under that proposal, a public plan would become available only in states where insurance offerings were not sufficiently affordable, according to the latest data on prices.

That’s the old idea. And the new twists?

The first has to do with what happens once the trigger is pulled--that is, the kind of public plan that appears in states without sufficiently affordable insurance. Carper himself has suggested the plan not be run by the government--at least not permanently. Instead, the idea would be to have government start up the plan, then hand it off to some quasi-independent, non-profit authority. The second new twist (and here, to be clear, I'm reading between the lines of what Carper and others have said) would be to add some kind of “opt in”--that is, to allow states that want a public plan to offer one, even if the trigger conditions aren’t met.

This package will not thrill progressives, nor should it. The Reid version was a watered-down version of the House public option, which was, in turn, a watered-down version of the public option progressives have been touting for the last two years. If not for the absurdities of the Senate and the filibuster, reform with a stronger public option would have passed long ago.

But, to be honest, it’s not clear exactly how much progressives would be giving up in this new compromise. The trigger has an awful reputation on the left, in part because people associate it with Snowe and the agonizingly painful quest for bipartisanship. But you can make a case that a well-designed trigger could do as much good--maybe even more good--than a poorly designed public plan.

In fact, three researchers from the Urban Institute recently made that case. And they made it pretty well. Among other things, they noted, the states most likely to opt out of a public plan are precisely the ones whose populations would most benefit from it. (Hint: They tend to be in the South and interior West.) By contrast, a trigger that set high standards for affordability and costs would help people in all states.

Naturally, the hard part is making sure the trigger really is "well-designed." And that really depends on the details. What conditions would cause the trigger to be pulled--lack of affordable insurance, higher-than-expected cost growth, some combination of the two? And for those states that end up with a public plan, because the trigger gets pulled or because they choose to opt in, what does the public plan look like? Will government merely provide the start-up funds--or actually get the plan started, perhaps tapping into Medicare’s provider network, just so it’s established? Would the plan get to use the same sorts of innovative payment schemes Medicare will be introducing, in order to foster more efficiency? Would it be a national plan, with various states participating, or a bunch of separate state plans? And who, exactly, would be running it if not the government? more...

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-treatment/living-with-another-public-option-...

toniD's Ya Think?

its disappointing that reich leaves out leveling the playing field by bringing back fair trade (putting tariffs on foreign produced goods to eliminate the benefit of dollar a day labor), taxing corporations and eliminating loopholes that encourage shipping jobs overseas, taxing corporations that produce goods abroad at a higher rate, and rolling back the bush and reagan tax cuts so that we can reduce the deficit and debt to manageable levels and expand government run programs like a national high speed rail service, energy independence, and affordable health care.

the other thing thats needed is to think differently about peoples value. its time to say that the people that do the work deserve to be fairly compensated while the few people that are executives deserve a lot less than they take for themselves.

to cover up the really big problem of "This thing of ours" the federal Reserve .

Keep the people talking about anything esle while the :money Lenders in the Temple: do what they always have done.

Jane
by John Aravosis (DC) on 12/02/2009 10:23:00 PM
Ben Smith does a rather large profile of blogger Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake. Let's just say, you won't like her when she's angry :-) (Well, most of you will, but the Hill and the White House most certainly won't.)

But Hamsher's sharp elbows haven't prevented her from being a central, and effective, player on the left, with a distinct agenda: To reclaim the "narrative of discontent" from Tea Party activists and other conservatives who have seized it from a neutered progressive movement.

A particularly grave error, in her view, was steering the groups away from populist assaults on the AIG bonuses early in Obama's term.

"The natural people who would have been organizing at that point in time were the liberal groups. The bankers came to the White House and said, 'We want you to ratchet down the rhetoric and that's what happened. The word went out at those meetings, 'Don't criticize the bankers, don't criticize Geithner and Summers,’" she said, referring to gatherings of major, White House-allied groups under the rubrics Unity '09 and Common Purpose.

"All that populist anger migrated over to the teabaggers and grew over there," she said. "That was a huge mistake and we're going to pay for it in 2010."

Hamsher says she's "not as cynical and disdainful of the Veal Pen as I sometimes seem." After all, she was asked, aren't they on the same side?

"Are we on the same side?" she asked. "They're on the side of the Democratic Party. We're an independent political force."

http://www.americablog.com/2009/12/jane.html

toniD's Ya Think?

Dems Durbin and Feinstein attack citizen journalists
by John Aravosis (DC) on 12/02/2009 07:36:00 PM
Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL), who is closely allied with the White House, are offering an amendment to strip citizen journalists, including bloggers, from the proposed media shield law.

And Feinstein wonders why the blogs don't like her. As for Durbin, I'm not sure it's very wise of the Senate leadership to be taking a swipe at a core Democratic constituency. I can understand why Feinstein would do it - her MO is to undercut Democrats as often as possible - but Dick Durbin? Hopefully this is one of those instances where Harry Reid can have a little talk with his leadership team and tell them that if they want to go attacking Democrats they can start with Lieberman (yeah, whatever, he has a committee chair, he's a D), Landrieu, Nelson and Bayh, who are threatening to bring down the health care reform package.

God forbid Durbin be asked to show some real balls and take on the folks who are impeding, not assisting, the Democratic agenda. Is anyone in charge in this party?

http://www.americablog.com/2009/12/dems-durbin-and-feinstein-attack.html

Link to amendment info from Daily Kos:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/2/810181/-Sens.-Feinstein-and-...

toniD's Ya Think?

"Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country."

Remember this photo of Sad Sack? And how many billions have been spent since he declare it was over?

Have a beer with Bernie Sanders?

more likely traif with Leiberman.

But Give Dodd some credit with his work on the Fed
Ron Paul makes more sense about Banking theft than most democrats

take off the rose colored glasses and see Obama for who he isn't.

before the House Armed Services Committee yesterday? Quite interesting.

madame Bovary - oops - Hillary - seems from her rhetoric to believe in the Bush doctrine. No one answered that question.

You know the small flakes that you can barely see that looks like dust in the wind. The forecast is for snow showers today, tonight and tomorrow. 34 degrees and falling with a cold front coming through.

First of the season. Just hope we don't get as many ice storms this year.

toniD's Ya Think?

Obama administration OKs
embryonic stem cell research
Thirteen stem cell lines have been added to the pool that scientists can use for taxpayer-funded research, and many more such lines will soon be made available, U.S. health officials announced Wednesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20091203/hl_hsn/usapprovesnewstemcelllinesfo...

toniD's Ya Think?

Bank of America to repay $45 billion to US
by Rob Lever Rob Lever Wed Dec 2, 6:34 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Bank of America said Wednesday it had reached an agreement to repay the US government the entire 45 billion dollar investment it provided the bank under a program to stabilize the financial system.

The largest US bank by assets will be making the largest single payback under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, a program approved by Congress last year at the height of the financial crisis.

"We appreciate the critical role that the US government played last fall in helping to stabilize financial markets, and we are pleased to be able to fully repay the investment, with interest," said Bank of America chief executive Kenneth Lewis.

"As America's largest bank, we have a responsibility to make good on the taxpayers' investment, and our record shows that we have been able to fulfill that commitment while continuing to lend.

"We believe that this is good news, not only for the US taxpayer and our company, but for the country as it is a milestone indicating that public policy has succeeded in helping our industry and the economy begin to recover."

Many banks repaid the government earlier this year, escaping tougher scrutiny from regulators that could include limits on executive pay and bonuses at bailed-out firms.

"We are pleased that Bank of America is moving ahead with plans to pay the taxpayers back in full," a Treasury official said in an email to AFP.

"As banks replace Treasury investments with private capital, confidence in the financial system increases, taxpayers are made whole, and government's unprecedented involvement in the private sector lessens."

The bank based in North Carolina said it would repurchase the preferred shares issued to the US Treasury as part of TARP, but would not immediately buy back the warrants, or options to buy additional shares.

"This is good news that the bank can get out of the TARP and can stop having to answer to public and government criticism," said Jon Ogg at 24/7 Wall Street.

"But this is going to be dilutive (to shareholders) at a minimum."

Shares, which had shed 1.51 percent in New York, soared three percent to 16.12 dollars in post-session electronic trading.

Bank of America said it would use 26.2 billion dollars in "excess liquidity" and 18.8 billion dollars from the sale of "common equivalent securities," subject to shareholder approval of the sale.

This will increase the bank's capital ratios seen as an important indicator of financial health.

In addition, Bank of America agreed to increase equity by four billion dollars through asset sales to be approved by banking regulators. If not approved, the company agreed it would raise a commensurate amount of common equity.

Bank of America said it would raise up to 1.7 billion dollars through the issuance of restricted stock in lieu of a portion of incentive cash compensation to executives as part of their normal year-end incentive payments.

"Year-end incentive payments are dependent on the performance of the company, business units and individuals and have not yet been determined," the company said.

Bank of America had received 25 billion dollars under the initial program to shore up capital in the banking system under a plan engineered by the administration of president George W. Bush.

It also received an additional 20 billion dollars to help absorb the troubled brokerage giant Merrill Lynch -- a deal that has raised hackles among lawmakers and the public because of massive losses and hefty bonuses that were not initially disclosed at the Wall Street firm.

Amid the uproar, Lewis announced he would give up his title as chairman and later announced he would step down as CEO on December 31.

In September, Bank of America agreed to pay 425 million dollars to the US government to exit a guarantee program put in place to cover potential losses in its takeover of Merrill Lynch.

Many major banks began repaying the government after the "stress tests" that indicated how much capital they would have to raise in private markets.

Citigroup, which also received 45 billion dollars, still has its TARP funds outstanding but has converted a portion of that to common shares, giving the government a major ownership stake.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091202/bs_afp/uscompanybankingpublicaidbof...

toniD's Ya Think?

BREAKING: Sanders Puts Official Senate Hold on Bernanke Nomination

WASHINGTON, December 2 - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today placed a hold on the nomination of Ben Bernanke for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.
"The American people overwhelmingly voted last year for a change in our national priorities to put the interests of ordinary people ahead of the greed of Wall Street and the wealthy few," Sanders said. "What the American people did not bargain for was another four years for one of the key architects of the Bush economy."

con't

http://www.openleft.com/diary/16291/breaking-sanders-puts-official-senat...

Submitted by toniD on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 11:53am.
=====
I share your concern. I took off my rose colored glasses and these two scare me. This action they are taking is very bill Clinton like
=======
I have been listening to MSNBC in the daytime and This is just Like CNN's brainwashing.

The party crashers, Tiger's love life, 30 seconds of Bernie Sanders and back to misinforming,manipulation and media mindlessness.. esp the "chicks"

Dylan looks like he knows the deal ,here comes the Comcast Censors around the corner.

Had relative that fought in the International Brigades. We need the Brigades now to fight against our own corporations. Our "government" won't.

Reid Smacks Back At Gregg's Obstruction Memo
Brian Beutler | December 3, 2009, 10:23AM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took direct aim at Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH)--ranking member on the Budget Committee--for authoring a detailed memo advising Republicans on the procedural tricks they can use to delay health care legislation.

"[T]he Republican plan we've waited weeks and months to see [is] not even about health care at all," Reid said on the Senate floor this morning. "The first and only plan Senate Republicans could be bothered to draft is an instruction manual on how to bring the Senate to a screeching halt."

"The Senate might be interested to learn that the architect behind this blueprint is none other than the Ranking Member of the Budget Committee, the senior Senator from New Hampshire," Reid said. "It's worth noting that this Senator - who, more than any other, often speaks publicly about how to properly use citizens' tax dollars - has now signed his name to a plan with the explicit goal of wasting the taxpayer's time and money."

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/reid-smacks-back-at-greggs-ob...

toniD's Ya Think?

Nelson: I'll Filibuster Without Stupak-Like Amendment
Christina Bellantoni | December 3, 2009, 12:05PM

Brian Beutler reports in from Capitol Hill:

Sen. Ben Nelson told reporters today he will filibuster the health care bill if it doesn't contain an abortion amendment similar to Rep. Bart Stupak's amendment that passed attached to the House health care bill last month.

"I will not vote to take it off the floor," said Nelson (D-NE).

"Now I don't know that it's going to come down to that, because I don't know that Stupak's not going to pass, number one," he said. "Number two I don't know what kind of alternative legislation may be offered as an alternative bill. I don't know what the next steps are, but I've made it clear that whatever is finally considered has to have that language in it."

We'll update as senators react to this latest.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/nelson-ill-filibuster-without...

May he live to regret his position with personal pain and suffering!

toniD's Ya Think?

is calling Obama Black Bush. This radio station's format is for the younger set,urban contemporary?

has 51% control of nbc - just on the news

is urban black contemporary - for da yout

it was the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing yesterday afternoon

Drug-Makers Paying Off Competitors To Keep Cheap Generics Off Market
Zachary Roth | December 2, 2009, 3:07PM

Republicans and their allies in the business community talk a good game about the virtues of free-market competition. But, as we've seen in the debate over the public option, that stance often goes out the window when corporate profits are at stake.

And now we've got another example -- one of the sleaziest and most blatantly self-serving yet.

Over the last few years, drug-makers have embraced a startlingly simple tactic for fending off competition from generic brands: paying them off. In a nutshell, the company that holds the patent on a profitable drug strikes a deal with the maker of the cheaper generic brand: you hold off on marketing your generic for several years, and in return, we'll give you a share of our profits on the drug.

The vehicle for these deals is patent litigation. When a generic drug is approved to come to market, the maker of the more expensive name-brand drug sues the generic for patent infringement. But instead of a conventional settlement, in which the generic pays the patent-holder to settle the claim that it infringed the patent, the payment goes the other way: the patent-holder pays the maker of the generic, in exchange for a pledge to delay bringing the generic to market. That suggests the patent-holder fears its patent wouldn't hold up in court, as many don't. And it runs counter to the intent of the Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984, which sought to speed the path of generics to market, and to provide a legal framework for these cases.

So common have these deals become lately that they've been given a name: pay-for-delay. The approach -- a textbook anti-competitive tactic -- is worth billions to drug-makers, because it essentially allows them to buy more protection than their patent confers.

That was made more or less explicit by Frank Balsino, the CEO of Cephalon, which makes the sleep-disorder drug Provigil. In a 2006 interview, Baldino trumpeted recent deals with four generic drug-makers that kept generic versions of Provigil off the market until 2012, declaring: "We were able to get six more years of patent protection. That's $4 billion in sales that no one expected."

But pay-for-delay doesn't work out nearly so well for consumers. Generics are sometimes priced as much as 80 or 90 percent cheaper than the name brands. For instance, the cholesterol drug Zocor costs $164 a month, while a generic version costs just $12 a month. Pay-for-delay deals will cost consumers an extra $35 billion over the next decade, by keeping those cheaper generics off the market, according to a recent Federal Trade Commission study. And it's the uninsured, who pay out-of-pocket for drugs, that disproportionately pay those costs.

Part of the blame lies with the Bush administration. A series of court rulings in 2004 made pay-for-delay much more common, with the result that in 2006 and 2007, nearly half of all deals between generic brand-name drug-makers involved a payment to the generic maker in exchange for a promise to stay out of the marketplace, according to the FTC study. On several occasions, the Bush Justice Department declined to weigh in on the side of consumers by urging the Supreme Court to clarify the law, as it could easily have done. more...

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/drug-makers_paying_off...

toniD's Ya Think?

Poll: Lincoln Trails All GOP Opponents
Eric Kleefeld | December 3, 2009, 9:16AM

A new Rasmussen poll has Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) trailing all four Republican candidates in her 2010 re-election fight.

State Sen. Kim Hendren leads Lincoln by 46%-39%; State Senate Minority Leader Gilbert Baker is ahead by 47%-41%; businessman Curtis Coleman is ahead by 44%-40%; and businessman Tom Cox leads Lincoln by 43%-40%.

The pollster's analysis says that the state's opposition to the health care bill -- particularly the intense opposition -- is a factor: "Against all four Republicans, she leads by wide margins among those who favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. The senator even leads by a wide margin among those who Somewhat Oppose the legislation. But among those who Strongly Oppose the health care plan, Lincoln trails every potential Republican challenger by more than 50 percentage points."

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/poll-lincoln-trails-all-gop-o...

toniD's Ya Think?

Poll: Isolationism soars among Americans
Poll finds sharp growth in isolationist sentiment among Americans

BARRY SCHWEID
AP News

Dec 03, 2009 09:00 EST

Americans are turning away from the world, showing a tendency toward isolationism in foreign affairs that has risen to the highest level in four decades, a poll out Thursday found.

Almost half, 49 percent, told the polling organization that the United States should "mind its own business" internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own, the Pew Research Center survey found. That's up from 30 percent who said that in December 2002.

Results of the survey appear to conflict with President Barack Obama's activist foreign policy, including a newly announced buildup of 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan to fight Taliban and al-Qaida extremists.

"Isolationist Sentiment Surges to Four-Decade High," the nonpartisan research center headlined its report on the poll about America's role in the world.

Only 32 percent of the poll respondents favored increasing U.S. troops in Afghanistan, while 40 percent favored decreasing them. And fewer than half, or 46 percent, of those polled said it was somewhat or very likely that Afghanistan would be able to withstand the radicals' threat.

Forty-one percent of those surveyed said the United States plays a less important and powerful role as a world leader than it did a decade ago, up from 25 percent who said that just before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the report said.

Pew Research Center President Andrew Kohut said in an interview that the "very bad economy" appeared most responsible for the growth of isolationist sentiment. He said the public was also "displeased with the two wars we are waging, in Iraq and Afghanistan."

While isolationism and unilateralism reached four-decade highs among the public, the stature of China increased.

A majority of Americans surveyed, or 53 percent, see China's emerging power as a threat to the United States.

The United States is seen by a comfortable majority, 63 percent, as the world's leading military power.

Concerning the Middle East, about half, or 51 percent, of respondents said they were more sympathetic toward Israel than to the Palestinians, who drew 12 percent. Fourteen percent supported neither side, while 19 percent offered no opinion.

The findings come from two surveys. The first poll, of 2,000 adults, was conducted by telephone Oct. 28 to Nov. 8 and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. A subsequent poll of 1,003 people conducted from Nov. 12-15 had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/12/poll_isolationism_soars_am...

toniD's Ya Think?

I guess the news of the Comcast purchase helped him make up his mind. yesterday he had a different view.

have trouble laundering their money. Why not just lend it to the small businesses that have no access to loans. Instead of paying 20% to launder it the Cartels could make 20% all day long.

Matt Taibbi's 'Obama's Big Sellout': How The White House Is Caving To Wall Street (VIDEO)

Matt Taibbi is not finished with the financial industry.

In a video by Rolling Stone (hat tip to Zero Hedge) that offers a glimpse into Taibbi's forthcoming piece, "Obama's Big Sellout", he details what he sees as the White House's nefarious connections to deregulation champion Bob Rubin.

The very day Obama got elected, he brought in a Wall Street-friendly team, Taibbi says, led by former Citigroup exec Michael Froman, a Harvard classmate of the president.

Froman was put in charge of running Obama's economic transition team and hired James Rubin, the son of Bob Rubin, a former Goldman Sachs chief and Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, to be his number two.

Though he has never actually worked for the Obama administration, according to Taibbi, the Obama administration has long been under the sway of the elder Rubin's philosophy:

"[Bob] Rubin probably more than any other person was responsible for the financial crisis by deregulating the economy [while] in the White House. And he had a major role in helping destroy one of the world's biggest company in Citigroup. He has one of the worst tack records you can find, but he was basically the guy who was the architect of the entire Obama policy. Obama put him in charge of everything. "

Interestingly, Taibbi also points to Citigroup's influence on White House policy. Tim Geithner was appointed as Treasury Secretary specifically because he helped engineer Citigroup's bailout, argues Taibbi.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/03/matt-taibbi-obamas-big-se_n_378...

toniD's Ya Think?

Senator To Fed Chair Bernanke: 'You Are The Definition Of Moral Hazard'

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was scolded Thursday by a group of senators who let the country's top economic official know how angry they are with what they perceive as his multiple failures both before and after the financial markets crashed.

Lead among them was Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky.

The only senator to vote against Bernanke's confirmation four years ago, Bunning ripped into the Fed chair for handing out "cheap money to [his] masters on Wall Street"; referring to him as "the definition of moral hazard"; and stating flatly that it was either "incompetence or a desire to secretly funnel more money to a few select firms" that led Bernanke to not pressure then-New York Fed President Timothy Geithner a to demand concessions from AIG's counterparties during the government's massive bailout last fall.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/03/senator-to-fed-chair-bern_n_378...

excerpt...

On consumer protection, the Greenspan policy was don't do it. You went along with his policy before you were Chairman, and continued it after you were promoted. The most glaring example is it took you two years to finally regulate subprime mortgages after Chairman Greenspan did nothing for 12 years. Even then, you only acted after pressure from Congress and after it was clear subprime mortgages were at the heart of the economic meltdown. On other consumer protection issues you only acted as the time approached for your re-nomination to be Fed Chairman.

Alan Greenspan refused to look for bubbles or try to do anything other than create them. Likewise, it is clear from your statements over the last four years that you failed to spot the housing bubble despite many warnings.
Story continues below

Chairman Greenspan's attitude toward regulating banks was much like his attitude toward consumer protection. Instead of close supervision of the biggest and most dangerous banks, he ignored the growing balance sheets and increasing risk. You did no better. In fact, under your watch every one of the major banks failed or would have failed if you did not bail them out.

On derivatives, Chairman Greenspan and other Clinton Administration officials attacked Brooksley Born when she dared to raise concerns about the growing risks. They succeeded in changing the law to prevent her or anyone else from effectively regulating derivatives. After taking over the Fed, you did not see any need for more substantial regulation of derivatives until it was clear that we were headed to a financial meltdown thanks in part to those products.

The Greenspan policy on transparency was talk a lot, use plenty of numbers, but say nothing. Things were so bad one TV network even tried to guess his thoughts by looking at the briefcase he carried to work. You promised Congress more transparency when you came to the job, and you promised us more transparency when you came begging for TARP. To be fair, you have published some more information than before, but those efforts are inadequate and you still refuse to provide details on the Fed's bailouts last year and on all the toxic waste you have bought.

toniD's Ya Think?

too mainstream for me anyway.

Big wind bag. At the same time, today he's claiming he doesn't care about B Boxer criticizing him for being too hard on Dems.
He says he will never give up on a real PO.

I keep reading about this free market wonderland. Remember the Dubai Ports kerfuffle? Remember Halliburton running off to Dubai? I got about 15 windows open trying to figure out if Halliburton is now part of Dubai Holdings which is part of Tatweer-- the "company" Tiger is invested in.

At the least, I'd like to see an investigative report into the construction of Tiger's resort. Ten to one says slave labor was used. In any event, reading about Dubai, shows what a dismal world the future will be for all but the super rich:

"I am confident The Tiger Woods Dubai is set to become one of the world's most sought after destinations. I think this community will be a genuine oasis for those lucky enough to live or stay within its spectacular grounds," said Tiger Woods.
http://www.tatweerdubai.com/En/cd-1-1

The private sector must be the engine that drives future Middle East growth and ushers in a new era of sustained prosperity based on a knowledge economy, according to Saeed Al Muntafiq, Executive Chairman of Tatweer, a member of Dubai Holding.
http://www.ameinfo.com/120861.html

Well, I dreamed I saw the silver
Space ships flying
In the yellow haze of the sun,
There were children crying
And colors flying
All around the chosen ones.
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun.
They were flying Mother Nature's
Silver seed to a new home in the sun.
Flying Mother Nature's
Silver seed to a new home.

in general - but i don't have to agree with everything he does. he certainly represents me a lot better than that last guy, who I never called "my president."

# Senate Passes Women's Health Amendment "- 28 minutes ago"

The Senate held the first vote on amending its health care legislation, agreeing to require insurance companies to provide free mammograms and other preventive services for women.

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/senate-passes-womens-h...

toniD's Ya Think?

many home loans in Mexico are over 30% from a bank and using the house as collateral. Many don't understand how important our financial institutions are here. Believe me when I tell you that our institutions are terrible and corrupt and greedy, but nothing compared to Mexico's.

Blessed are the conservative in Bible translation
By TOM BREEN, Associated Press Writer Tom Breen, Associated Press Writer Thu Dec 3, 5:50 am ET

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The Gospel of Luke records that, as he was dying on the cross, Jesus showed his boundless mercy by praying for his killers this way: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Not so fast, say contributors to the Conservative Bible Project.

The project, an online effort to create a Bible suitable for contemporary conservative sensibilities, claims Jesus' quote is a disputed addition abetted by liberal biblical scholars, even if it appears in some form in almost every translation of the Bible.

The project's authors argue that contemporary scholars have inserted liberal views and ahistorical passages into the Bible, turning Jesus into little more than a well-meaning social worker with a store of watered-down platitudes.

"Professors are the most liberal group of people in the world, and it's professors who are doing the popular modern translations of the Bible," said Andy Schlafly, founder of Conservapedia.com, the project's online home.

Experts who have devoted their careers to unraveling the ancient texts of the Scriptures, many in long-extinct languages, are predictably skeptical about a project by amateur translators.

"This is not making scripture understandable to people today, it's reworking scripture to support a particular political or social agenda," said Timothy Paul Jones, a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., who calls himself a theological conservative.

Religious publishers already provide an alphabet soup of Bible translations for a range of theological outlooks, from the King James Version (KJV) to the Revised Standard Version (RSV) and beyond. The most widely used traditional translations were overseen by scholars who are considered the best minds in conservative Christianity.

"The phrase 'theological conservative' does not mean that someone is politically conservative," said Schlafly, who lives in Far Hills, N.J.

This liberal slanting, Schlafly argues, ranges from changing gendered language — Jesus calling his disciples to be "fishers of people" rather than "fishers of men" — to more subtle choices, like the 2001 English Standard Version of the Bible, which uses "comrade" and "laborer" more often than the conservative-friendly "volunteer."

Contributors to the project aren't arguing on ideological grounds alone. The discussion forum on the site is full of discourse on Greek grammar, along with arguments long familiar to Biblical scholars about the history of certain passages.

Take the famous passage from Luke: the Conservative Bible Project omits it not only because it's "a favorite of liberals," but because there's some dispute over its authenticity, based on the manuscripts it appears in.

Jones, the professor, said while some early Greek manuscripts omit Jesus' words, others include them.

"There are so many factors to consider when looking at that, but here it gets boiled down to 'liberals put it in,'" he said. "You've got people who are doing this who have probably never looked at an actual ancient manuscript."

In some ways, the Conservative Bible Project reflects an ancient debate over Scripture. The Bible as it's known today more or less took final shape in the 4th century after hundreds of years of debate over which books were canonical.

The debate flared up again during the Protestant Reformation, when Martin Luther fruitlessly yearned to cut the Book of James because of its fairly explicit contradiction of his belief that salvation could be attained by faith alone.

"People have always done this with the Bible," said Philip Jenkins, a professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University. "Virtually everyone in a mainstream Protestant or Roman Catholic church in the United States is reading a doctored version of the Bible."

Jenkins is referring to the Revised Common Lectionary, a selection of biblical texts read in worship services that amounts to about a third of the full text.

Schlafly's project is distinctive, though, because non-experts collaborate Wiki-style on the Internet to produce their version.

"The best of the public is better than a group of experts," said Schlafly, whose mother, Phyllis, is a longtime conservative activist known for her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.

Jones says the project is a misguided effort to read contemporary politics back into the text.

"Ironically, there's a long tradition of the liberal twisting of scripture," Jones said. "Scholars have rightly deemed those translations illegitimate, and this conservative Bible is every bit as illegitimate."

The Bible's roots in a dizzying variety of ancient manuscripts require a lifetime of dedication to master, said the Rev. Frank Matera, a professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and a former president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America.

"There's a little Italian proverb, 'Every translator is a traitor,'" Matera said. "Most Bible translations are usually done by a group of scholars, precisely so they can balance out each other. It's not something that everybody can do."

toniD's Ya Think?

Sen. Nelson vows to block healthcare bill without Stupak-type abortion measure.

"And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

have fun in hell fellas....

on google streetview

the Pompei ruins

http://tv.repubblica.it/copertina/gli-scavi-di-pompei-su-google-street-v...

beautiful! I have never been there in person

Submitted by Fernando on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 2:29pm.

I was foolin around about the drug cartels lending their profits to the small businesses here in the States instead of paying to "launder it' to get back out.There probably is a credit union " bank" in Humbolt county CA or Laredo TX doing that already.

I hear what you say about the mexican system but isn't my29% Sears card with a 15 minute grace period getting close?

I used to think all the stories about The Federal Reserve sounded so conspiritorial. but Now I see that One man's Conspiracy is another man's Insight.

And all their pornographic all paintings. What was eerie is the houses and the marks where people were found preserved by the lava.

I have a photo somewhere of one of the frescoes of a man with
with a long erect penis.

Here's the villa I was talking about, at least the frescoes:

http://www.touritaly.org/pompeii/vetti.htm

toniD's Ya Think?

The doctors say "start over" with Medicare For All

The doctors of PNHP say this bill is garbage. Here's why:

PNHP Talking points on the Mandate Plans

• The plan is completely inadequate in expanding coverage and
controlling costs. It is essentially an insurance industry bailout. Most
provisions to expand coverage don't even go into effect until 2013, after
which it still leaves at least 17 million Americans uninsured.
• The insurance industry hijacked the process: Private insurers get
millions of mandatory new customers and about $600 billion in taxpayer
subsidies. This will have the effect of making the health insurance lobby
even more powerful, and more able to hijack political processes in the
future.
• It forgoes over $400 billion annually in potential savings on overhead
and bureaucracy in the health system - enough to cover all 47 million
uninsured - by retaining profit-driven private health insurers instead of
replacing them with a streamlined, more efficient, Medicare for All
system.
• It makes private health insurance mandatory for middle-income working
people, forcing them to buy a defective product. It will become a federal
crime to be uninsured, with a penalty of 2.5 percent of income, starting
in 2013. Families of very modest means, at 200-400 percent of poverty,
will be required to spend an unaffordable 8-12 percent of their incomes
on insurance premiums if they don't have employer-sponsored coverage.
Since the plan institutionalizes different levels of benefits and allows for
skimpy plans (e.g. "bronze"), the mandated insurance may not even
cover their health needs.
• We will have a nation of underinsured families and businesses who will
be paying money they can hardly afford for health plans that will never
meet their needs. Globally, the U.S. economy will continue to be at a
competitive disadvantage.
• A Medicaid expansion will cover more low-income Americans, but
coverage gains - both in Medicaid and for people receiving tax
assistance to buy coverage - will be short-lived because the cost is
unsustainable as we've seen in several states that have attempted reform
in recent years.
• People in other developed nations all use some form of non-profit
national health insurance to get better care for less money. Their
average per capita cost of healthcare is about half what it is in the United
States, yet people in Canada and western Europe live about two years
longer and have lower infant mortality. As with our traditional Medicare
program, they have completely free choice of doctor and hospital. We
need to start from scratch with a Medicare-for-all, single-payer
approach.
On private insurers
• Private health insurance is an overpriced, defective product, and this plan
won't change that. The majority of Americans who face medical
bankruptcy start their illness with private health insurance, but are
bankrupted anyway by gaps in coverage, like co-payments, deductibles
and uncovered services.
• Individuals and families with incomes up to 400 percent of poverty
($73,240 for a family of 3) are eligible for skimpy subsidies to buy
coverage through a new "insurance exchange." Families of very modest
means (200-400 percent of poverty) are still responsible for paying an
unaffordable 8-12 percent of their income towards health insurance
premiums.
• The plan bans denials of coverage based on pre-existing conditions
(starting in 2013) and recissions (retro-active cancellation of coverage)
immediately. But insurers are still allowed to deny claims, and two
industry whistleblowers (Dr. Linda Peeno and Wendell Potter) have
testified before Congress that the industry is now so sophisticated in its
ability to deny claims, control care, and cherry-pick that these
protections are essentially worthless.
• Similarly, caps on out-of-pocket expenses (at $5,000 for individuals and
$10,000 for families) don't prevent medical bankruptcy because they
don't include expenses for uncovered services.
• Insurers are supposed to spend 85 percent of premiums on care, but
experience from Minnesota shows that insurers are able to circumvent
this rule easily by categorizing administrative expenses as "clinical" or
"quality improvement."
On Medicaid and community health center expansion
• The plan expands Medicaid after 2013 to additional low-income
Americans (up to 150 percent of poverty), which is good, but you don't
need this plan to expand Medicaid. Also, rising costs, and a lack of
funds for Medicaid at the state level, will quickly erode any gains in
coverage.
• The plan increases funding for community health centers, which again, is
good, but this could be done independently.
• The plan eliminates the Children's Health Insurance Program in 2014,
routing the beneficiaries into Medicaid (under 150 percent of poverty) or
into the purchase of private coverage), adding hassle and possibly
disrupting care arrangements for these children.
On the public option
• The public plan option is a sham. According to the Congressional
Budget Office, the premiums will actually be higher than premiums in
the private sector, and fewer than 2 percent of Americans will enroll. So
the public plan option will be an expensive, tax-funded subsidy to
private health insurance, because the public plan option will take the
sickest patients off their hands. It won't expand coverage or decrease
costs.
On the employer-mandate
• Starting in 2013, employers with payrolls over $500,000 are required to
provide coverage and pay a share of the premiums (72.5 % for
individual, 65% for family coverage) or pay an 8 percent payroll tax.
• Employers are not required to meet benefit standards until 2018, but
even then are only required to help fund the "lowest cost plan" that
meets the "essential benefits package," and so may offer very skimpy
coverage. The "basic plan" on the insurance exchange, for example, is
only required to cover 70 percent of benefit costs. As there are no cost
controls, coverage will deteriorate further, leading to a rise in
underinsurance nationwide.
• Millions of working Americans will continue to lack coverage. In
Hawaii, which has had an employer mandate since the 1970's, many
employers circumvent the requirement by hiring part-time employees or
using consultants. Also, small businesses are not required to provide
coverage (but receive a paltry tax credit for two years if they do).
On the insurance exchange and tax subsidies
• The plan creates a national insurance exchange, a marketplace where
individuals and small business would go (after 2013) to buy insurance. If
you have subsidized coverage, you would have to buy your insurance
through the exchange. Like the "Connector" in Massachusetts, the
exchange will add another layer of bureaucracy to the health system, and
an additional 4 percent overhead to every health plan.
• Subsidies for low-income people to purchase coverage will be
hopelessly complex, requiring verification of income, citizenship,
employer size, etc.
• Millions will have their subsidies change as they change or lose jobs.
Imagine finding a job, losing your insurance subsidy, then being laid off
your job and applying for a subsidy all within a year. How would this
work?
On evidence that this plan won't reduce the number of uninsured or
control costs

• The coverage gains from the plan won't last. What's happened in the
past when bills like this have passed in the states is that they run out of
money very quickly, healthcare is simply unaffordable, and then you
start to see the coverage expansions cut back. The subsidies shrink, the
Medicaid shrinks, and then you're back at square one, where you've
spent a lot of money and not made any progress. And we've seen this
over and over in the United States-in Massachusetts in 1988, in Oregon
in 1992, in Washington 1993-passed bills virtually identical to what's
being passed in the House right now, and there was no durable
improvement in the number of uninsured in those states. Healthcare was
not affordable ten years after those bills were passed.
• The Massachusetts plan is the model for this bill. Massachusetts
expanded Medicaid (which again, is good, but you don't need this plan to
expand Medicaid) and passed an individual mandate that makes it illegal
to refuse to purchase private health insurance. The fine is up to $1,068.
The plan has been very expensive. The state has opted to pay for that by
taking money from safety net clinics and hospitals, so that safety net
providers that care for immigrants, the mentally ill, people with
substance abuse, that provide primary care, they've seen their funds
shrunken, so that money could be handed over to purchase insurance
policies.
On the anti-abortion provisions
• The plan applies restrictions to policies sold through the insurance
exchange to undermine women's rights. It creates an insurance
exchange, a marketplace where you would go to buy your insurance. If
you have subsidized coverage, you would have to buy your insurance
through the exchange. And any insurance plan purchased through the
exchange would have to exclude coverage of abortion. So, for the first
time, Congress has stepped in and said that even with your own money,
with private money, it's illegal for insurance to cover abortion. It's a
tremendous step backwards for women's rights. More...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&fo...

toniD's Ya Think?

House Democrats want to use bailout money to pay for jobs Updated at 3:31 PM

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN) - House Democrats said Thursday they're planning to use money intended to bail out banks, Wall Street and other financial institutions to pay for their jobs bill, a package they aim to vote on by the end of the
year.

"I think the TARP funds are appropriately used to create jobs to reduce the deficit," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at her weekly news conference, referring to the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

It's unclear if the proposal would tap unused TARP funds or money repaid to the Treasury by banks who got bailout money. Democratic sources say leaders are discussing those details with the Obama administration.

Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have been looking at a series of proposals to address the record unemployment numbers in recent weeks and are now focusing on an initial package that Congress could vote on before leaving for the holiday break.

But the speaker stressed that "this is not the be-all" and said Congress will work on a broader economic proposal early next year.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/03/house-democrats-want-to-...

toniD's Ya Think?

Comcast CEO Endorses Heath Care Reform, Says It Will Put Nation On Path To Prosperity Updated at 12:50 PM

Source: The Plum Line

Comcast CEO Endorses Heath Care Reform, Says It Will Put Nation On Path To Prosperity

This is interesting: The CEO of Comcast — which is in the news today because of its huge takeover of NBC — has just penned a letter to the President, endorsing his health care reform effort as “critical to putting this country on a path of sustained growth and prosperity.”

The letter from Comcast CEO Brian Roberts to Obama — which was sent over by a source — puts the CEO of one of the most visible companies in the country directly at odds with claims by some business groups and Republicans that health care reform is a job killer and amounts to a threat to the private sector.

Here’s the key bit, in a discussion of today’s jobs summit:

Because of our announcement today that we have formed a joint venture with General Electric consisting of NBCU’s businesses and Comcast’s cable networks, I am unable to attend the Summit. I very much appreciate the outreach to the business community, and want to express one ofthe thoughts I intended to make at the Summit — that enactment of comprehensive health care reform legislation is, in my judgment, critical to putting this country on a path ofsustained growth and prosperity.…

While there has been much controversy and debate over hundreds of provisions and alternatives, it is my view that the current legislation pending in the Senate provides a workable framework for this country to take an important step toward enhancing health care accessibility, promoting operational efficiencies and technological innovation, and reducing the cost of health care and the federal deficit…

I want to commend you for your dedication to health care reform and for the remarkable progress that has been achieved in this area under your leadership. We cannot allow perfection to stand in the way of critically needed and very good legislation, which is why I support your efforts. Comcast stands ready to assist you and this nation in the effort to enact sensible health care reform.

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/comcast-ceo-writes-obama-y...

toniD's Ya Think?

Submitted by toniD on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 4:42pm.

With the info you posted that would be logical.I am putting my faith In Bernie Sanders or an Alan Grayson. If they think the final bill IS better than nothing I will roll with em.

is pushing for an okay for the purchase of NBCU by sending this letter?

This purchase involves anti trust laws. Trying a cheap way to get around anti trust?

toniD's Ya Think?

Have a great evening.

Later

toniD's Ya Think?

yep...

Strong Mandates + Weak or No PO = Garbage!

(funny, I remember hearing that on some internet radio show recently...)

your unsecured Sears card isn't like a fully collateralized home loan with 20-40% down. There is a big difference.

If you don't pay off your Sears card, they don't take your home.

my home is a kit from the sears catalog

(I am kidding you .I know that the mexi system is outragous)

on Afghanistan..

impossible to watch....

"this machine kills fascists"

(various congresscritters [whitehouse?], corporate purveyors of nooz, Comcast with the merger) are trying to do away with the real democratic potential of the internet without going after net neutrality--again.

If you only go after the bloggers and their biggest readers...activists and/or political junkies...you don't deal with same flack from entrepreneurs, teachers...all those have joined forces with the first group each time to stop any assault on net neutrality.

I include Comcast here because of current free internet access to MSNBC shows some of whom (esp. Rachel) have also stepped up the use of bloggers/internet organizers as guests, in turn making their work that much more effective. (About free access: They say they will leave NBC News alone editorially [if you can believe that]; they don't say they won't make the liberal MSNBC shows harder to see--also making profits in the process.)

It looks to me like a full-court press. (Disclaimer: I actually barely know what that is, as far as the literal referent...but I can imagine.;}) Even the little change FDL and others have been able to effect so far has been too much of a nuisance for various arms of the hydra.

Does that make sense?

.

on Democracy Now today re One Voice for Choice phone drive...

I always worry about her these days. She looks overworked and has many irons in the fire. I don't know if she's overworking herself or if she's relapsed. I really hope it's the former.

"this machine kills fascists"

...are breaking down any doors to interview Sarah Palin.

"this machine kills fascists"

so hot...

- Two Injured in Fall From Cowboys Stadium Roof

Urgent. Send a fax Now. Support Senate Amendment SA 2837.

From Donna Smith:
The idea of a Medicare for All type, single-payer healthcare system will be heard on the Senate floor. Late last evening, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont filed Senate Amendment No. 2837, and there are two additional original co-sponsors of this amendment, Senator Roland Burris of Illinois and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

Click here (http://tinyurl.com/crazed-weasel) to send your fax now to your Senators. by default it also goes to the White House.

Then call the offices of your Senators (numbers here: http://tinyurl.com/ydeclgl).

Then call the office of Sens. Burris (202) 224-2854, Brown (202) 224-2315 and Sanders (202) 224-5141 to thank them for having the courage to bring up that amendment. Then call the office of Sen. Reid (202) 224-3542, Harkin (202) 224-3254, Franken (202) 224-4451 to ask them to support SA 2837.

Then call the office of Max Baucus just because (202) 224-2651

(Disclaimer: Not advised for other than drywall.)

Everybody knows you are between wives. ;)

mb and I were already talking about it a few weeks ago.

If she weren't so pale, I would say maybe she's fixing to run for something and/or wanted to get more telegenic--but she is, very pale. Only Rachel's people are sometimes able to make her up so you don't notice it.

Overwork don't usually make hourglass girls get thinner. (Of course everybody's different.)

So...yeah...it's worrisome.

When MSNBC chooses to be unwatchable, it really goes all out...

I'm just glad Dobbs is gone because before @ 6-7 here it used to be either Hardball or Dobbs...

*click*

"this machine kills fascists"

Submitted by gloryoski on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 6:08pm.
...It looks to me like a full-court press. (Disclaimer: I actually barely know what that is...
----------
It's a stenograph.

for Repuglycans to conflate Tiger Wood's sex scandal with President Obama and his wife? You know it will happen.

how about...2 days ago?

"this machine kills fascists"

Jane is a real deal hero...

It is sad for me to see her begin to realize we will probably end up pushing people to kill this bill in the end...it is breaking her heart...

the upside is all the resulting rage can be easily channeled into Lobbying Reform...which we all know is the keystone...

Julia Corker Carjacked: Bob Corker's Daughter Crime Victim In D.C.

"Police said Corker was stopped at a traffic light when one of the suspects knocked on the window. When she rolled it down, the man grabbed her by the throat, dragged her out of the car, threw her on the ground and drove off.

Senator Corker is very grateful that Julia was not seriously injured, that those who committed the crime were quickly apprehended, and he is extremely appreciative to the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the Capitol Police, the FBI, and the Seat Pleasant Police Department for their quick response and professionalism."

But, of course, they didn't mention this...

With GM Bankruptcy Closing TN Plant, Will UAW Spend Against Anti-Labor Senators?

or this...

When Waste is Not Waste When it Helps Bob Corker

"this machine kills fascists"

it's officially Winter now.
It's snowing here where I live,
& it's coming on down pretty
good. Pretty yes - but I love the
warm weather.

Hello 2 everyone out there -
hope ya all had a good day. :) ∆

"this machine kills fascists"

Quite a story!

toniD's Ya Think?

ACORN suit over voter registration settled in Ohio

Source: The Plain Dealer

By Gabriel Baird, The Plain Dealer - November 30, 2009, 9:00PM

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has agreed to a legal settlement that will result in more low-income residents being registered to vote.

The settlement in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio resolves a three-year legal battle between the state and two women, represented by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN.

Attorneys for ACORN had argued that under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, the secretary of state was required to make sure county job and family services offices gave people applying for or receiving aid an opportunity to register to vote.

..... "We have a clear judicial directive from the appeals court in this case that the secretary of state's office has supervisory authority and responsibility to implement federal voter registration law," said Jeff Ortega, Brunner's spokesman.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/11/acorn_suit_over_voter_registra.h...

toniD's Ya Think?

Obama birthplace attorney files new allegations

Source: OC Register

Laguna Niguel attorney Orly Taitz had her lawsuit challenging Barack Obama’s presidency thrown out on Oct. 29, but that hasn’t stopped her from filling a new document in the case with a broad array of allegations.

“There was a concerted and a well orchestrated effort by a number of individuals to assassinate my character, endanger my law license and ultimately derail my case against Mr. Obama,” Taitz writes in the document filed with the federal court today. “A number of criminal activities were perpetrated upon this court.”

In response to federal Judge David O. Carter’s earlier statement that he received affidavits from witnesses who said Taitz asked them to lie to the court, Taitz says it was the two witnesses who were lying. Click here to read my story about those wintesses’ claims.

She also complains that another plaintiff with a similar case being handled by a different lawyer is a convicted forger and should not be trusted. She draws a tenuous link between Obama and a Roman Obama, pointing out that the latter studied in Moscow at a school known for “heavy Communist indoctrination.”

She complains of daily death threats, and includes an email and a drawing of a car engine which shows a certain hose that was allegedly disconnected in an attempt on her life.

http://totalbuzz.freedomblogging.com/2009/12/03/obama-birthplace-attorne...

toniD's Ya Think?

It wouldn't take much effort journalistic effort to conflate Tiger's empire in Dubai with Cheney's Halliburton based in Dubai. But the Dems, and obama, specifically, never gave a damn about investigating, let alone prosecuting, the Bush Crime Family. So do I care, if the Rethugs drag obama into Tiger's shit? I hope they do. I admire their ruthlessness.
Besides, the corporate paradise of Dubai is exactly what obama loves. Why, do you think we're occupying the Middle East?
Have you heard, Fernando, after obama's first and only miserable term, he and his lover, Geithner, are planning on escaping to Dubai?

Talks on future of public option in healthcare bill intensify in the Senate
By Jeffrey Young - 12/03/09 09:12 PM ET

Senate Democrats from the liberal and centrist factions are engaged in increasingly urgent talks aimed at bridging the divide within the party over the public option in the healthcare reform bill.

With the end of the year rapidly approaching and no agreement over whether the bill should create a government-run insurance program – or at least what form it should take – Democrats said Thursday they are deepening their resolve to unite the party and renewing their efforts to court Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine).

“Our caucus now is in the process of negotiating with ourselves because we need all 60 of us to get this done. And this issue is being negotiated as we speak,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), a centrist who opposes the public option in the Senate healthcare bill. “We knew this day would come and it has come.”

Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said that the public option and abortion funding remain the two major sticking points among Democrats. “What [Majority Leader] Harry Reid [D-Nev.] is looking for and what we need is to come together with an answer on public option. It’s one of the two, I think, really critical issues,” he said.

At meetings and in private conversations throughout Thursday, centrists huddled together and liberals maintained their lines of communication strategizing for an endgame on the public option. Those discussions have taken on a new sense of urgency, senators said.

“There’s sort of a new initiative on the public option which is highly useful,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a vocal proponent of the public option. “There’s going to be a group of people representing various points of view who are going to just closet themselves and try and resolve this so that you can put something on the floor that can pass.”

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a centrist who supports the public option, is developing a new version and working closely with other centrists such as Landrieu and Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who oppose the public option in Reid’s bill.

“A number of, if you will, factions within our caucus are, I think, mindful of the need to pass a solid bill,” Carper said. “There’s a growing realization there’s so much good in the legislation that at the end of the day, we’ve got to find common ground on this issue.”

Carper hosted a meeting with a number of centrists Thursday evening, including Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson and Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Mark Begich (D-Alaska), Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.). Earlier Thursday, Landrieu, Lincoln and Nelson met with Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell (Wash.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.).

Even as Senate Democratic leaders, White House officials and individual senators such as Carper and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) continued to inch toward a deal, the rift between their party’s two wings was evident.

Lieberman remains steadfastly opposed to any type of public option. “I came out of respect for Tom Carper, who’s a good friend of mine, but my position remains the same,” he said after exiting a meeting with centrists Thursday evening. “I say it every time before I go into one of these discussions: I feel really strongly about this. I’m going to come and listen but generally speaking I didn’t hear anything that changes my mind.”

Meanwhile liberals such as Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) made plain they are in no mood to further shift their positions to accommodate their centrist counterparts.

“There’s no negotiations, as far as I’m concerned,” Brown said. “We’ve compromised the public option three times -- maybe four depending on how you define it -- and this bill’s not going to continue to become more pro-insurance-company. End of story.”

Durbin indicated that Senate Democratic leaders, White House officials and individual Democrats are reaching out to all sides. “There are several different groups talking about this and I know that there is communication with Sen. Brown, Sen. Sanders. On the other side, I think the conversation is involving a lot of other senators,” he said.

The intransigence of Lieberman makes winning Snowe’s support all the more vital to Democrats. If Reid and the White House can persuade liberals to swallow more compromises to win over Snowe, he can get the 60 votes he needs without Lieberman.

Carper and other centrists are in regular contact with Snowe and are partly basing the latest compromise proposal on her notion to set up a fallback “trigger” public option that would only kick in on a state-by-state basis if private insurance companies fail to meet benchmarks for availability and affordability.

“For me, I want to make sure at the end of the day that Sen. Snowe will feel comfortable in joining us. To me, that’s important. I think it should be important to the president and to our party,” Carper said.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/70561-public-option-talks-intensify-i...

toniD's Ya Think?

Bernanke Channels Willie Sutton In Assault On Social Security: 'That's Where The Money Is'

Ben Bernanke has overseen the greatest expansion of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet in its history, pouring trillions of dollars into Wall Street firms at roughly zero interest rates.

His generosity, however, has a limit.

In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee today, where he's seeking re-appointment as the Fed's chairman, Bernanke called for cutbacks in Medicare and Social Security even as unemployment rises and the middle class is endangered.

Citing legendary bank robber Willie Sutton, Bernanke said of the retirement and health care funds that are the legacy of the New Deal: "That's where the money is."

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) sympathized with Bernanke, saying that, because of entitlement spending, "you're going to be looking at a situation where the Congress will be unable to provide any kind of fiscal discipline because of the mandatory spending. That puts an enormous burden on your plate."

"Well, Senator, I was about to address entitlements," Bernanke replied. "I think you can't tackle the problem in the medium term without doing something about getting entitlements under control and reducing the costs, particularly of health care."

Bernanke reminded Congress that it has the power to repeal Social Security and Medicare.

"It's only mandatory until Congress says it's not mandatory. And we have no option but to address those costs at some point or else we will have an unsustainable situation," said Bernanke.

But there are several other obvious options that could make the situation sustainable -- including a transaction tax on Wall Street speculation or a slight tax hike on the wealthiest Americans.

Bernanke talks as if increasing taxes on the wealthy simply isn't an option.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) followed Bennett and pointed out that "there's only really two ways you can deflect this deficit, and that's either by cutting expenditures or raising income taxes or other forms of taxes."

Reed asked him if he could think of other ways, but Bernanke returned to entitlement money as the way to balance the budget.

"Willie Sutton robbed banks because that's where the money is, as he put it," Bernanke said. "The money in this case is in entitlements."

There's also money at the very top of the income ladder. Reed asked if Congress would be wise to tax some of it. Full of suggestions when it came to cutting entitlements, Bernanke was suddenly overtaken by a bout of policy modesty.

"Would you take taxes off the table?" Reed asked.

"Those decisions are up to Congress," Bernanke said.

"Well, your predecessor signaled very strongly that the tax cuts in 2000 were appropriate," Reed reminded him.

"I have not done that. I've done my best to leave that authority where it belongs, with the Congress," Bernanke said, just moments after telling Congress to cut entitlement spending.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who has placed a hold on Bernanke's nomination, was apoplectic when HuffPost told him Bernanke was pushing for cuts in entitlement spending. "Bernanke wants to cut entitlement spending? Well, that confirms everything I'm saying," Sanders fumed.

"The CEOs and top people on Wall Street make huge bonuses, and what? We're going to cut back on Social Security and Medicare? That's what we're going to do?"

Bernanke worked to assure the committee he had nothing against old people. "I'm not in any way advocating unfair treatment of the elderly, who have worked all their lives and certainly deserve our support and help, but if there are ways to restructure or strengthen these programs that reduce costs, I think that's extraordinarily important for us to try to achieve," he said.

Bernanke allies in the Senate are working to see he gets his way. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has been pushing hard for the creation of an independent commission that could cut entitlement spending. He has met recently, he said Thursday, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, reiterating his threat to block Senate legislation if the commission isn't created.

"We're on a course that's just unsustainable," Conrad said, but put emphasis on Medicare rather than Social Security.

While the debate about entitlement spending is often masked with high-minded talk about fiscally-responsible policy solutions, it is little more than a struggle between competing classes for scarce resources.

Sanders said he sees it for what it is. "That's the solution? To cut back on the middle class and the elderly? That only adds fuel to the fire," he said. "Look, let's be clear. The middle class in America today is collapsing. Within the confines of the Beltway, we don't talk about that too much. But that is the reality. It's not just unemployment or underemployment. People are working longer hours for lower wages. People are unable to send their kids to college. People are losing their homes. People's jobs are going to China. That is the reality."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/03/bernanke-channels-willie_n_3789...

We seem to be veering very close to a one party gov't.
Are you angry yet? It's time!

toniD's Ya Think?

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5523#comment-383997

just as long as they don't move to Dallas, I'm cool.

Winter starts in less than 3 weeks.

It gets worse. The cold, she comes.

I hope the Gov't stops this transaction causing a monopoly.
new
Submitted by toniD on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 9:59am.
Comcast, NBC Deal: Comcast To Buy Controlling Stake In NBC Universal For $13.75 Billion

PHILADELPHIA — Comcast Corp. announced Thursday it plans to buy a majority stake in NBC Universal for $13.75 billion, giving the nation's largest cable TV operator control of the Peacock network, an array of cable channels and a major movie studio.

Although the deal could mean that movies could reach cable more quickly after showing in theaters, and that TV shows could appear faster on cell phones and other devices, it was already raising concerns that Comcast would wield too much power over entertainment.

...

======================

Yikes!!

When the devil fell from grace, it fell here and this is our "god" Everything would make sense in the religious books, esp the bible.