Sunday, July 31, 2011

Paul Krugman writes an epitaph

Tragically it is for the country we once had that has been stolen by the Republican/Teabaggers and a high yaller pussy.
A deal to raise the federal debt ceiling is in the works. If it goes through, many commentators will declare that disaster was avoided. But they will be wrong.

For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status...

It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will.
How soon before Mitch the Chin has Barry shuffling to his office and calling him Massa while he waits for his instructions?

Why do Republicans want to kill Pell Grants & student loan programs?

Well, maybe so those rich old farts can stop supporting politicians and get down to what is important in life. Helping college hotties pay for their education the old fashioned way, 'tween the sheets. Everybody gets something and no tax dollars are hurt by this program.

Why lethal injection is the preferred method of execution.

Not because it is painless or in any way gentle to the poor slob on the gurney. Nope, states like it because the person doing the killing can flip a switch and then take his seat with the audience and pretend to himself that he didn't really kill someone before the mechanism automatically injects poisons into the prisoner. Last night Sen. John "Horse Face" Kerry, who is in reality a horse's ass, let slip the sticking point in the Great Sellout is.
That is the big sticking point here in the Senate," Kerry said in a floor speech Saturday evening. "We need to know that if there is a trigger that is used in an automatic way in which money is going to be held back, that money has to be held back in a fair and balanced way."
In addition to setting up cuts to Medicare/Medicaid and possibly Social Security, they have set up an automatic mechanism so no one party can be blamed. At this point the Democrats are looking for some harmless revenue increase also so that they can adopt a holier-than-thou attitude come election time.

If it looks like a turd and smells like a turd you can expect it to stick to your shoe no matter what you do.

They are still makin' bacon

But no more can you trade pork bellies. The futures market, once used to even out the ups and downs of demand, is no longer needed as demand has expanded to year round.
When the Chicago Mercantile Exchange announced the other day that pork belly futures would no longer be traded, it was hardly a shock. Trades had shrunk to almost nothing. Volatility was too much. The frozen bellies, used to make bacon, were, in the view of some, losing relevance.

Still, the demise of the futures means something else is really gone now, too — a unique belly culture and its hard-charging, daring cast of characters who, decades ago, made their fortunes in the high pressure of the belly pit.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

Did Karl Rove hire Obama to run as a Democrat?

Even if he didn't, he could not have found a better candidate for his masters in their efforts to devolve America into a banana republic.
Entering a campaign that is shaping up as an epic clash over the parties’ divergent views on the size and role of the federal government, Republicans have changed the terms of the national debate. Mr. Obama, seeking to appeal to the broad swath of independent voters, has adopted the Republicans’ language and in some cases their policies, while signaling a willingness to break with liberals on some issues.

That has some progressive members of Congress and liberal groups arguing that by not fighting for more stimulus spending, Mr. Obama could be left with an economy still producing so few jobs by Election Day that his re-election could be threatened. Besides turning off independents, Mr. Obama risks alienating Democratic voters already disappointed by his escalation of the war in Afghanistan and his failure to close the Guantánamo Bay prison, end the Bush-era tax cuts and enact a government-run health insurance system.

“The activist liberal base will support Obama because they’re terrified of the right wing,” said Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the liberal group Campaign for America’s Future.

But he said, “I believe that the voting base of the Democratic Party — young people, single women, African-Americans, Latinos — are going to be so discouraged by this economy and so dismayed unless the president starts to champion a jobs program and take on the Republican Congress that the ability of labor to turn out its vote, the ability of activists to mobilize that vote, is going to be dramatically reduced.”
Way to go, chasing after voters by offering what they don't want. I have to admit it would be a change in tactics for TurdBlossom. But how clever is it to get the president to always offer up his weaknesses and never fight for anything?

Wisconsin Republicans getting desperate?

From the Fox Point-Bayside Patch:
Fire officials in La Crosse are continuing to investigate a Saturday blaze that destroyed the regional offices of We Are Wisconsin, a union political action committee (PAC) that has pumped millions of dollars into supporting Democratic candidates in the upcoming recall elections.

The La Crosse Tribune reports that the cause of the fire, which started at about 9:30 a.m., remains unknown. Firefighters thought they had the blaze under control in the afternoon, however, that wasn't the case and it continued into the evening, the newspaper reported.

We Are Wisconsin used the building at 432 Jay St. to oversee its efforts in the 32nd Senate District recall election, which will be held Aug. 9. Incumbent Republican state Sen. Dan Kapanke is being challenged by Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Shilling in that district.

A spokesman for the group told the La Crosse Tribune that the group's office was a total loss.
Hm-m-m. Curious and well timed, don't you think?

And with all the fuss and feathers coming out of Washington

Nobody is paying any attention to how much this will further degrade the economic situations of the various states. So much of what they still can do depends on funding from the federal government.
The federal piggy-bank that helps them pay for health care, jobless benefits, road building and schools could run out of cash.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is warning that his state might not be able to fully cover potential shortfalls, and jittery California cushioned its finances last week by borrowing $5.4 billion from private investors. Massachusetts is preparing to replace $850 million in U.S. payments that could be derailed in August, while Oregon plans to free up a cache of money if Washington stops sending checks.
And afterwards, the "shared sacrifice" will cut deeply into the funding and thanks to the Republican/Teabaggers will not be replaced. One way or another, it will only get worse.

If the troops don't get paid

Will they continue to fight? Wouldn't we all be better served if they settled back into a defense only posture? After all, it's not like they are defending us from any real enemy.

My God has a bigger dick than your god

And maybe you should die for it. Bill Maher speaks to religion and out the Christian Terrorist.


Start Sunday with some bluegrass gospel music

The Ward Family are 7 sisters who have been playing since 2004. Watch the little one on the right. According to family notes she had been playing mandolin fot 3 years when this was made.


Saturday, July 30, 2011

You know you want it

And Bill Maher exposes all the ways you lie about it to yourself and others.



C & L has the full New Rules.

Recognition for The Stupidest King in Congress

From our union friends


In case you wondered where the jobs are

From the pen of Ben Sargent



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AT & T to throttle back data speeds

Because it is cheaper to trim services and pay executive salaries and bonuses than to build out a network with adequate capacity.

Irag has become more dangerous than last year

What with an increase in the number of bombing, assassinations and general all around mayhem, the country is starting to crank up its civil war in anticipation of the departure of the US.
"Iraq remains an extraordinarily dangerous place to work," Bowen concluded in his 172-page quarterly report to Congress and the Obama administration on progress – and setbacks – in Iraq. "It is less safe, in my judgment, than 12 months ago."

The report cited the deaths of 15 U.S. soldiers in June, the bloodiest month for the U.S. military in Iraq in two years. Nearly all of them were killed in attacks by Shiite militias bent on forcing out American troops on schedule.

It also noted an increase in rockets launched against the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, where government offices and foreign embassies are located, as well as constant assassination attempts against Iraqi political leaders, security forces and judges.

Additionally, the report called the northeastern province of Diyala, which borders Iran and has an often volatile mix of Sunni and Shiite Muslims and Kurds among its residents, "very unstable" with frequent bombings that bring double-digit death tolls.
Despite this, there are some who still want to keep an imperial outpost with about 10,000 US targets in Iraq after year end. While the Pentagon has long been known for some of the finest bureaucratic infighters in the world, their strategic vision is sorely lacking. Anything less than all out by December is a defeat for the US.

Air Force removes Jeebus from the missile launch sites

Following a revelation that professional Christians have wormed their way deeper into the Air Force than previously imagined, the Junior Birdmen have removed the "Launch a Missile For Christ" training manuals from the missile bases. This is only a temporary setback for the pC's in their efforts to create a faith based branch of the military.

A reminder

Courtesy of Paul Begala who gives a concise rundown of how we reached the current edge of the precipice in our country.
As Washington seems paralyzed, our economy stagnates, and America's full faith and credit is on the brink, it is useful to recall how we got here. This was not an act of nature. There was no unforeseen earthquake, no tsunami, no hurricane that wiped out our surplus. It was instead a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican president who squandered the surplus. In full possession of the federal government for the first time since Eisenhower, the GOP—with, to be fair, some help from some very foolish Democrats—systematically dismantled the economic and fiscal policies that produced the strongest economy and largest budget surplus in our history.

Specifically, they did four things: cut taxes (with a heavy tilt toward the rich), waged two wars on the national credit card (one of which was against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no serious threat to America), passed a prescription drug benefit with no pay-for (the first entitlement in American history without a revenue source), and deregulated Wall Street (which helped turn the American economy into a casino and touched off the Great Recession).

I recap all that not to further depress you, Dear Reader. But it is striking how absent that history has been from the coverage of our current crisis. I can understand why the GOP doesn't want to remind folks of how they screwed the pooch. Indeed, they have a competing myth—that Washington went on a spending binge; radical young President Barack Obama went crazy with the national credit card. That, of course, is nonsense.
And I post it here in hopes that good readers will pass it around and understand that both parties are not responsible, only the Bat Shit Crazy one is.

Looks like justice to me

A New York State Supreme Court justice has finally had enough of sloppy and false paperwork being presented in support of unsupported foreclosure claims.
A State Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn is threatening sanctions against the chief executive officer of HSBC Bank USA, blaming her personally as head of the bank for filing what he called false and misleading documents involving “robosigning” in a home foreclosure case.

In a complex decision issued in early July, Justice Arthur M. Schack denounced what he called the “frivolous conduct” and the submission of fraudulent paperwork by HSBC and the attorney representing it in the case, Frank M. Cassara of Shapiro, DiCaro&Barak LLP in Rochester.

He said the documentation submitted to the court by Cassara and HSBC to support the foreclosure is full of defects and “material factual statements that are false.” And he criticized their case as a “waste of judicial resources.”

Schack threw out the foreclosure case itself, declaring that HSBC lacked the legal right to foreclose on a woman’s home because it did not own the loan.
But Justice Schack took it one step farther by declaring that the HSBC USA CEO was ultimately responsible for the actions of her corporation and has required her presence to explain why she should not be oenalized.
Schack justified his threat by citing a new statewide requirement for attorneys in foreclosure cases to certify, under penalty of perjury and sanction, that they have taken reasonable steps to verify the accuracy and correctness of documents submitted to the court.

In Dorner’s case, Schack argued that she is “captain of the ship” and “bears a measure of responsibility” for HSBC’s actions. “She should not only take credit for the fruits of HSBC’s victories, but must bear some responsibility for its defats and mistakes,” he wrote, noting that she earned $2.3 million in total compensation for 2010.
Three cheers for Justice Schack and may he set a landmark precedent with this action.

Friday, July 29, 2011

I think I should retire to this place

I mean, if the hens lay soft boiled eggs who needs anything more?


The Great Orange Boner passes a bill

In his case he would have gotten the same result if he had pinched off a loaf on the podium. After licking every Republican/Teabagger boot and kissing every Republican/Teabagger ass (lord knows how many times he had to swallow instead of spitting) he was able to get a 218-210 vote.

Shit in hand, slap forehead

According to a linked story over at The Great Orange Stan, the US is having better luck negotiating with the North Koreans than we are with the Republican/Teabaggers. Ergo, we need to sign a peace treaty with North Korea and declare war on the Republican/Teabaggers. We have plenty of room at Guantanamo for enemy combatants.

If only they would go first

From the pen of Stuart Carkson


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E J Dionne doesn't like centrists either

And last Wed gave vent to his feelings on Centrism or The Art of Moving Fast to Stay in the Middle. In fact he gives a very good definition of the differences between moderation and centrism.
Moderation in politics is about balance. It means believing in a vibrant and innovative private sector and a government substantial enough to do what the private sector doesn’t, and it means enforcing sensible rules for economic competition. It means incentives for success, help for those making their way up, and security for the sick, the aging, the poor, the unlucky. It means balancing our love of individualism and our desire for community. This, in turn, means that reducing the budget deficit can’t rely only on cutting programs. Yes, taxes need to go up.

All the polls I have ever seen peg the vast majority of Americans as moderate by this definition.

Centrism is something altogether different. It’s not a philosophy. It’s a position based on calculation. It doesn’t start with fixed principles. It measures where everyone else stands on some political spectrum at a given moment and then frantically adjusts.

Because centrism is reactive, you never really know what a centrist believes. Centrists are constantly packing their bags and chasing off to find a new location as the political conversation veers one way or another.
If only we could get DC denizens to pay any attention to what America really wants instead of what their paymasters want.

Like father, like son

It doesn't matter what your father does if you are proud of him. From the NY Times.
Down Clown Alley, in the backstage tent for Circus Smirkus, a slight boy of 14 studies his clown self in a jagged piece of mirror. This is Sam Ferlo, the son of a former circus clown and a former circus showgirl, and the godson of a man once known as the Human Cannonball.

Guess what Sam wants to join when he grows up.

Seeing the need for a touch more of the garish, the boy dabs a finger into the greasepaint he keeps in his most precious possession, a makeup kit that is small, red and well traveled. His every move is watched by the tiny photograph of a clown taped to the inside of the kit’s lid. Practice, this clown tells the boy. Take clowning seriously. And always: Be big.
Make 'em laugh, kid.

R.I.P. Hideki Irabu

Living up to New York hype is a bigger bitch than karma ever was.

このたびはご愁傷さまでございます

Quote of the Day

I think a good chunk of the Republican caucus is either stupid, crazy, ignorant or craven cowards, who are desperately afraid of the tea party people, and rightly so.
Bruce Bartlett, former domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan discussing the state of the Republican Party, the seeds of which he helped to sow.

While Congress farts around with the debt ceiling

Some members are using all the fustian and bombast as cover to move their unsavory projects forward. One of them is the business overseas profits tax holiday. Matt Taibbi has some updates on that and who to look out for in this latest corporate sweetheart deal. With all the talk about the US going broke, this deal is a real shitty piece of work.

Another stealth disaster being cooked up in the Senate is an extension of telco immunity for spying on Americans. This is much wanted by the feds because if their tools have immunity, they can spy on us to their heart's content.
Amid the calamitous debt-limit talks seizing Washington in recent weeks, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence kick started yesterday the mark-up of legislation that would reapprove the spying activities and telecom immunity.

While the Obama administration has urged the FAA's renewal, at least two Senators are calling for greater caution in the process. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) asked the director of national intelligence to explain how the Obama administration had applied the 2008 act, and to provide an estimate of how many Americans' communications were spied upon.

The administration refused to provide an estimate, according to The Associated Press.
The administration refused to provide an estimate because you don't really want to know. Chances are that if you are one of the "Professional Left" they have checked you out. You are the biggest threat.

Centrist fantasies

And the harm they do our country are the subject of Dr. Krugman's column today. He expands his blog post on the subject to provide more detail on the harm that the media's false equivalency does to the politics and governance of this country of ours.
Some of us have long complained about the cult of “balance,” the insistence on portraying both parties as equally wrong and equally at fault on any issue, never mind the facts. I joked long ago that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read “Views Differ on Shape of Planet.” But would that cult still rule in a situation as stark as the one we now face, in which one party is clearly engaged in blackmail and the other is dickering over the size of the ransom?

The answer, it turns out, is yes. And this is no laughing matter: The cult of balance has played an important role in bringing us to the edge of disaster. For when reporting on political disputes always implies that both sides are to blame, there is no penalty for extremism. Voters won’t punish you for outrageous behavior if all they ever hear is that both sides are at fault.
Krugman goes on to call a spade a shovel because he does not note that Fux Nooz and and their stable of talking heads are paid to generate just that sort of confusion in the public. Still he is making a point that is starting to break into the consciousness of many as the current congressional fap fest continues.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Update from below

Apparently the Republican/Teabaggers current champion Deadbeat Dad proudly embraces that role. And we are counting on this douchebag and others like him to do the right thing in Congress?

below

Now here is something that will cost money to fix

There are thousands of holders of FAA certifications as airmen and mechanics whose real identity can not be verified. This number includes 27 just added and deemed a threat to the US.
The Transportation Security Administration cannot determine the real identity of thousands of the people to whom the Federal Aviation Administration has issued licenses as pilots and aircraft mechanics, but has located an additional 27 who should not have held them because of terrorist connections, according to an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security.

The report was requested two years ago by four members of the Senate, after a private data analysis company in New York determined that the man convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 still held an F.A.A. license, as did a man caught trying to smuggle military equipment to Hezbollah in Lebanon, a man convicted of trying to manufacture an airborne poison in his basement and a self-described "eco-terrorist" who fled the country after he was indicted on a charge of arson.

The F.A.A. and the Department of Homeland Security were supposed to scour the list of licensed pilots, mechanics and flight dispatchers for terrorists under a law approved by Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but they have shown great difficulty in doing the work, despite having access to far more information than the private company.
And now, thanks to the union busting zeal of the Republican/Teabaggers, the Dept Of Fatherland Security are the only ones working on this problem. And if the FAA ever gets back to work on this, you can bet they won't have the budget to improve their record. Gotta love those Republican/Teabaggers, making America safer since, oh I don't know, how about the 12th of Never.

Eine KleineThursday Nacht Musik


Gay Mr Bachmann too special for press scrutiny

At least that is what Our Queen of the Bat Shit Crazy says to media questions about him. It was OK for Michelle to criticize Michelle Obama because she was a Democrat and all those other things.

Dumber than a bag of hammers

Just a story about about another dumb ass from upstate New York who dares the police, in Facebook, to catch him.
A fugitive from upstate New York who taunted police on his Facebook page to `catch me if you can. I'm in Brooklyn' has been arrested.

The Daily News says U.S. marshals and NYPD detectives tracked Victor Burgos down to an apartment in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood Monday night, sitting at his computer with his Facebook page open.
I guess we should be glad he was dumb enough to catch himself.

Murdoch's bad habits

New reports indicate that hacking into cell phones in cases of abduction and murder of children is not a one off thing for Rupert Murdoch's newspapers. This new example is even more shameless, if that is possible.

93 Members of Congress get it

The ones that signed on to the letter by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Water Jones (R-N.C.). Sadly my potato head did not do so. The article has a list of the ones that did sign.

NEWS FLASH: Secaucus Fats taken to hospital

He had difficulty breathing in his air conditioned limo while being driven to his farm and was taken to a hospital in a precautionary measure. Because a lardball like him could have any number of problems just waiting to explode.

Cheap bastard doesn't want to pay anybody

Rep. Joe Walsh R-IL is the kind of person who likes it when money comes in but has great difficulty in letting money go out. For Pinchpenny Joe this was first shown in his many tax liens for which he sought to excuse by hiding behind Teabag rhetoric. Then came his calls for national default. The country should not pay its debts. And now,
One of the most uncompromising members of the Republican tea party, Congressman Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), has a personal problem he'd rather not discuss in public: his ex-wife is suing him for over $117,000 in unpaid child support.

While Walsh's lawyer denied that he owes anything near that amount thanks to a stint of unemployment before his surprising election to Congress, Laura Walsh's lawsuit pointed to a $35,000 loan he personally gave to his campaign, claiming that if he had enough for that, he had enough to help support their 9-year-old child.

“Joe has paid himself back at least $14,200 for the loans he gave himself," Laura's attorney wrote, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.

She also asked a judge to revoke his driver's license until he starts making payments. In prior attempts to have him pay-up, she's even gone so far as to ask a judge to garnish his wages.
Given Pinchpenny Joe's record, the judge should garnish his pay. Probably won't happen because of some law Congress passed to protect itself.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

With Washington doing their damndest to kick us into a Depression

Here is a tune from the last Big Depression that might help you make it through the lean times.


Koch Brothers forgot the buses again

And the result was a Teabagger rally in Washington that almost had more politicians than Teabaggers. When you have such party favorites as Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Rand Paul (R-KY) and presidential candidate Herman " Pizza Boy" Cain and you can't break a hundred on a beautiful summer day, your time has passed.

Everyone in their proper place

From the pen of Pat Oliphant



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The DoJ awakens

And is pressing a criminal case against Wells Fargo for steering black mortgage borrowers into higher priced sub prime loans.
The Department of Justice is preparing a lawsuit against Wells Fargo, the nation's largest home mortgage lender, for allegedly preying upon African American borrowers during the housing bubble and steering them into high-cost subprime loans, according to three people with direct knowledge of the probe...

Last week, the Fed said that perhaps more than 10,000 borrowers were inappropriately steered into subprime mortgage loans or had their loan documents falsified by bank personnel. Wells Fargo agreed to pay $85 million to settle the civil charges. It did not admit wrongdoing.

In its ongoing case against Baltimore, Wells Fargo stands accused of using those same practices, but deploying them against black borrowers in majority-black neighborhoods, an act commonly known as "reverse redlining." The city alleges that the bank targeted black borrowers, knowing they'd ultimately default on their loans, but did not fear shouldering the cost because Wells sold those loans to investors. Wells Fargo denies the allegations.
It is not clear if these were Wells Fargo practices or legacy problems from Wachovia, which ended its days as an unindicted RICO enterprise. Whichever, a banker friend of mine informs me that in the Carolinas, Wells Fargo is now known colloquially as WTF Bank.

Die a Motherfucking Legend

The latest Republican/Teabagger Entitlement reform


Social Security Reform Bill Encourages Americans To Live Faster, Die Younger

Grasping for straws

News media are carrying versions of a last gasp story that the US will be able to pay more bills than some people expect. It turns out that the collection of federal receivables recently has been better than expected. But this is not a silver lining to our impending cloud, rather it illustrates the need for an increased debt ceiling. Federal cash inflows are erratic and difficult to pin down to a particular time or date. Even in the old days when both parties were still sane and worked together, borrowing was necessary. Like paving on a road it evens out the bumps and insures a smooth ride through the fiscal year. Without it the government devolves to a third world style hand to mouth existence, waiting for revenues to come in before making payments. Lord knows why the Republican/Teabaggers think this is a good idea, but when you include their efforts at enforcing an unnecessary austerity to force the economy into a second Depression, it would appear to be a good time to examine their loyalty to the United States.

Just protecting his turf

The Obama candidate for Chairman of the JCS was giving testimony to Congress the other day and, in the grand tradition of his predecessors, issued a stern warning about cutting the Pentagon budget.
Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, President Obama’s nominee to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned on Tuesday that proposed cuts in the military budget of up to $1 trillion would be “extraordinarily difficult and very high risk.” ...

General Dempsey, who is expected to be easily confirmed, tangled briefly at the hearing with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who demanded to know what $800 billion to $1 trillion in military cuts would do to the readiness of the armed services over the next decade. General Dempsey replied that Mr. Obama had asked the Pentagon to cut only $400 billion, but “based on the difficulty of achieving the $400 billion cut, I believe 800 would be extraordinarily difficult and very high risk.”
Perhaps in the next round of base realignment he can include for closure a large percentage of our Imperial overseas outposts.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

If only there was someplace to get good boudin


Quote of the Day

This isn't just about them saying we should reduce the deficit. This is an excuse. The budget deficit is an excuse for the Republicans to undermine government plain and simple. They don't just want to make cuts, they want to destroy. They want to destroy food safety, clean air, clean water, the department of education. They want to destroy your rights.
Nancy Pelosi unleashed.

The Republican/Teabagger debt disaster in pictures

From the pen of Tom Toles

From the pen of Stuart Carlson

From the pen of Tony Auth


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Let the other primary battles begin

The battle over who shall be first to hold their primary. For many years every one was content to let Iowa run their caucuses and then give New Hampshire it's one brief moment in the sun (with snow for effect). And then, in a media fueled burst of me-toism, all the little states wanted to be first because nobody paid any attention to them once the media had declared who the winner should be. And the struggles continue ahead of next years primaries.
The 2012 presidential race is the first to fall under new rules from the Republican National Committee, which had intended the contests to start in February, a month later than in 2008. But at least a half dozen states are threatening to defy the rules and move up their primaries.

The result is that the first ballots are once again likely to be cast in January as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina move up the dates of their contests to protect their franchises as the early voting states.

At the same time, the rush toward the front of the calendar by Florida, Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Missouri is accompanied by another trend: several states are pushing back their presidential primaries — or canceling them entirely — because of tight state budgets.
And everybody has their people pushing for their favorite date.

In a perfect world, all the primaries would be held in the first three weeks of June. The states would be grouped by delegate counts or electoral or Congressional district counts, with the smallest states first, middle then largest states last. No campaign may begin before Feb 1. They would then have all summer to have their convention and run for office.

Ambassador Crocker doing it the hard way

According to the latest reports the new Ambassador to Afghanistan is working to allay fears that the US will abandon Ye Olde Shithole. He is using lots of soothing words but he should just tell the Afghans the truth. They are our new colony, the minor drawdown is just to fool the rubes at home, we will be in your country our new colony for a thousand years. That would allay everybody's fears and probably cause the Taliban to just give up, grab their ankles and enjoy it.

Just get the fuck out

Jon Stewart gives voice to the feelings of Millions of Americans.

The Daily Show
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Is there no end to what these pricks will try?

In their efforts to enforce an illegitimate minority rule on the country, the Republican/Teabaggers are casting aside all restraints and letting their inner Anarchist come out. In the Senate we have Mike Lee threatening to force a default if his impossible dream does not come true.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Monday that he is giving Congress ten days to pass a constitutional amendment that would make raising taxes nearly impossible. And if he doesn’t get what he wants, he will do everything in his power to force the U.S. to default on its debts.
And over in the House we have Rep. Steve "The Most Stupidest King in Congress" King R-IA squealing like one of those pigs they feed all their corn to.
A Republican member of the House of Representatives declared today that President Barack Obama could be impeached if the U.S. defaults on its debts.

The comment is from Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who told his followers on Twitter that they should "stop talking about" a potential U.S. default.

"The 1st dime of each $1 of revenue services debt," he wrote. "Obama would be impeached if he blocked debt payments."
And with time yet before default or other conclusion we can only imagine what next will come from the Grand Old Party of Anarchy. One thing the rest of us should remember. When you encounter a rabid animal you do not pet or feed it, you kill it.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Feed your head


England Beats India by 196

Of course this is Cricket, the current Test Matches where Old Blighty is attempting to restore itself to No. 1 in the world by beating India in the best of four matches. Unfortunately, cricket is not like golf where your numbers carry over to the next round.

Massachusetts joins New York and Delaware

From Bloomberg:
Massachusetts said it won’t sign on to any settlement of a nationwide foreclosure probe that includes certain liability releases for banks, joining at least two other states that have raised concerns over terms of a possible deal.

The banks in settlement talks with state and federal officials are seeking broad releases to protect them from legal claims. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said today she won’t support an agreement that includes releases for securitization of mortgages and conduct related to a database of mortgages known as MERS.

“Massachusetts will not sign on to any global agreement with the banks if it includes a comprehensive liability release regarding securitization and the MERS conduct,” Coakley wrote to the Norfolk County register of deeds in Dedham, Massachusetts. “These investigations must continue.” The registry keeps real estate records.
This will surely piss off BO & Tiny Tim who promised a sweetheart settlement to the Banksters in time to make campaign contributions.

Speculators and hedge funds to push oil to $120 by year end.

And they are announcing their intentions so you can prepare for the disaster. Kind of like the Germans warning the passengers of the Lusitania before they sailed.
The biggest bet in the oil market has become a 20 percent increase to $120 by the end of the year as global growth drives demand for raw materials.

The number of contracts held by traders in options to buy West Texas Intermediate crude at $120 a barrel in December totaled 45,502 lots on the New York Mercantile Exchange as of July 21, 4,226 lots more than the next-highest wager, which is for $125. Open interest in the two contracts jumped 29 percent in the past four weeks, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Traders anticipate this year’s gains will exceed forecasts of the most accurate strategists as economic expansion in emerging markets outweighs the debt crisis in Europe, slowing U.S. growth and efforts by Saudi Arabia and the International Energy Agency to curb prices. Bullish bets mark a turnaround from April, when $80 a barrel was the favorite wager and futures fell as much as 22 percent in the next two months.
This is the next big oil run up coming. The alleged reasons are malarkey. The economy will stagger under the blow of either a Teabaggers sponsored US default or the return of the Depression when the cuts pull the last support out of the economy will spread worldwide faster than last time.The high oil prices will only last a month or two after the New Year as the smart money takes its profits.

Along with all the other crooks, we support the Taliban, too

And now details of an unreleased investigation into the scope of criminal activity associated with US contracts have come out. We knew that Talibs took bribes to let trucks pass safely but now we have details of how it all works.
The military summary included several case studies in which money was traced from the U.S. Treasury through a labyrinth of subcontractors and power brokers. In one, investigators followed a $7.4 million payment to one of the eight companies, which in turn paid a subcontractor, who hired other subcontractors to supply trucks.

The trucking subcontractors then made deposits into an Afghan National Police commander’s account, already swollen with payments from other subcontractors, in exchange for guarantees of safe passage for the convoys. Intelligence officials traced $3.3 million, withdrawn in 27 transactions from the commander’s account, that was transferred to insurgents in the form of weapons, explosives and cash.
The military has promised an new transport system that will eliminate the crime and improve the security. This essentially means increased attacks on the supply trucks until a new modus vivendi is worked out with the Taliban. The only way we can stop supporting the Taliban is to get out of a country where we don't belong and don't need to be.

Ready. willing and able

Dr Krugman discusses the president's willingness to sacrifice Medicare in search of a "Grand Bargain". After running through the positive side of Medicare, the good Dr. ask the Million Dollar Question, why.
So why is the president embracing these bad policy ideas? In a forthcoming article in The New York Review of Books, the veteran journalist Elizabeth Drew suggests that members of the White House political team saw the 2010 election as a referendum on government spending and that they believe that cutting spending is the way to win next year.

If so, I would respectfully suggest that they are out of their minds. Remember death panels? The G.O.P.’s most potent political weapon last year — the weapon that caused a large swing in the votes of older Americans — was the claim that Mr. Obama was cutting Medicare. Why give Republicans a chance to do it all over again?

Of course, it’s possible that the reason the president is offering to undermine Medicare is that he genuinely believes that this would be a good idea. And that possibility, I have to say, is what really scares me.
I just love the way those who have it all are so willing to sacrifice others for their foolish beliefs.

Nothing to see here

Despite the opening of an investigation by the FBI there really is nothing but smoke here, no fire.
Federal investigators have opened a second criminal probe of U.S. Rep. David Rivera, examining undisclosed payments from a Miami gambling enterprise to a company tied to the Republican congressman, The Miami Herald has learned.

Agents with the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service have begun interviewing witnesses knowledgeable about a $1 million consulting contract between Flagler Dog Track — now known as Magic City Casino — and Millennium Marketing, a company co-owned by Rivera’s 70-year-old mother and her business partner, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Just another Republican son being good to his mother and seeing that she is comfortable in her old age.

No permenant bases in Afghanistan

Ninety nine years should be enough time to get it done and get out. So says the new ambassador to Ye Olde Shithole.
The United States has no interest in creating permanent military bases in Afghanistan and does not want to use the country as a platform to influence neighboring countries, the new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan said Monday.

Washington is negotiating with the Afghan government on a deal to define the long-term American role in Afghanistan beyond the end of 2014, when NATO-led combat troops are due to leave after handing security control to the Afghan army and police.

It remains unclear whether the "strategic partnership" agreement would explicitly refer to possible U.S. military bases in Afghanistan beyond 2014. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said the possibility of long-term U.S. bases can only be addressed once peace has been achieved.

"We have no interest in permanent bases in Afghanistan," said U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker shortly after he was sworn in at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, in an apparent nod to Afghanistan's powerful and wary neighbors.
This is all part and parcel of the campaign to stay there as long as the military can sucker the White House into thinking it's necessary. The operative phrase came next.

"We will stay as long as we need to and not one day more."
If that were truly the case we would have been gone years ago.

It's just a matter of time

Anders the Assassin is telling all he can to the Norwegian police. How much of it may be just a good story remains to be seen. And another pending question of great import. Given the depth of his anti muslin beliefs, when will Pam Geller say she wants to have his baby? And will Pete (2nd Stupidest King in Congress) King continue to ignore the threat of people like him in his hearings?

Sunday, July 24, 2011

In heat like this

You got to keep your salt up.


Jefferson County to file for bankruptcy

Those who follow Matt Taibbi may remember that Jefferson County was one of the largest and most profitable municipal frauds perpetrated by the Bankster, chief among them J P Morgan Chase. Matt's previous writing is here for those who need a refreshing. And speaking of refreshing, the country will decide this week to continue the agony of the ordeal by renegotiating or seek surcease by filing bankruptcy.

The Ultimate Anarchists

With apologies to Slim Pickens who was conservative but he wasn't stupid.



h/t Mule Breath

Will the Banksters get their waiver?

And in doing so escape any responsibility for their criminal fraud activities, past present and future? We would hope not but as the settlement talks are happening before any serious and comprehensive investigation of the crimes involved this may only be a pipe dream.

Oslo gunman thinks like a Teabagger

According to his lawyer:
He has said that he believed the actions were atrocious, but that in his head they were necessary,
The main difference is the Teabaggers want to pull the plug on people and let them die slowly rather rather than shoot them directly.

The DC Delusion continues

Having lived so long on a steady diet of bullshit, no one in Washington seems quite able to accept that their self created crisis is a shotgun and they are sucking on the barrel. And while the mess made by the avulsion of their cerebellum will affect us all, it will ruin them. And all because they can't agree to a simple piece of legislation that many of them have passed multiple times before. But those previous times, the president was white.

Jesse Ventura has had enough

And has filed a suit against the TSA for violation of his, and by extension our, Constitutional rights. Ever since he had his hip replaced, Jesse sets off those metal detectors and gets a grope when he tries to fly.
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura lambasted Friday at a federal court hearing "un-American" security procedures implemented at airports across the nation in 2010.

He filed a lawsuit with the Transportation Security Administration in January, claiming their use of pat down searches at airport security checkpoints is unconstitutional. Pioneer Press reported that a lawyer for Ventura argued in federal court that the searches violate his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable and unwarranted searches.

The Justice Department has filed a motion to have the lawsuit dismissed, claiming that the searches are legal and that they can only be challenged in a federal appeals court.

"In a free country, you should never feel comfortable being searched," Ventura told the Justice Department lawyer Tamara Ulrich. "This is not the country I was born in. We're a fascist nation now."
No doubt about it, Jessie got this one right. I hope he wins his suit.

Bill Maher has a pledge, too

And there are no lemons in his pledge.


Hey, do you remember the Ritz Brothers?

Maybe you should.


Saturday, July 23, 2011

Why Rick Santorum will never again be elected to anything

We all know about the first link that comes up when you Google (or Bing) Santorum. Rick does not like this. So why did his handlers let him have this picture taken.

Quote of the Day

The problem with the 112th isn’t a structural impediment; it’s the result of a radicalized Republican Party that has no use for compromise, evidence, or reason. We have a congressional GOP abandoning all institutional norms, pushing extremist policies, rejecting their own ideas if they enjoy Democratic support, and engaging in tactics that were once thought unthinkable from policymakers who put the nation’s needs first.
Steve Benen explaining in his post why this is the Worst. Congress. Ever.

For those who have had enough summer heat

Just go full screen and enjoy the song and pics.


In defense of their right to breathe dirty air

The various polluters lobbying groups are predicting that efforts to improve air quality will work against President Obama's re-election next year.
Within weeks, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to tighten the national standard for ozone, the main ingredient in smog. In last-minute lobbying, business groups are warning that the country can't afford cleaner air in an economic downturn and that President Barack Obama can't afford it politically, either.

Ozone inflames the airways, makes it hard to breathe, worsens asthma and other lung ailments, and increases the risk of death from lung or heart disease.
You can have my ozone when you pry it from my cold dead lungs.

When making their case for your right to breathe crap they always discount the jobs created by the necessary cleanup efforts.

It's that bad

From the pen of Tom Toles



click pic to big

So now we have an official number

According to the about to be released reported from the Commission on Wartime Contracting, we pissed away $34 Billion on service contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States has wasted some $34 billion on service contracts with the private sector in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a study being finalized for Congress.

The findings by a bipartisan congressional commission were confirmed to Reuters by a person familiar with the draft of the study, which is due to be completed in coming weeks.

The analysis by the Commission on Wartime Contracting, details of which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, offers the most complete look so far at the misuse of U.S. contracting funds in Afghanistan and Iraq, where more than $200 billion has been doled out in the contracts and grants over nearly a decade.
All things considered, we should really label all $200 Billion wasted because a) it was spent doing things the military used to do for itself and b) it was spent in Iraq and Afghanistan where we have no reason being, then or now.

So what now

All the very serious budget plans have disappeared in a flash like lit farts in a frat house. Now with one week left about the only way to raise the debt ceiling is a clean bill on a fast track, something the big deals can't do. Will the Republican/Teabaggers admit they painted themselves into a corner and allowed BO to beat them like a red headed step child? Time will tell but time is also eliminating all other options.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Just thinking of my college days

And this was one of the groups around then.



And they are still around and so am I.

Remember when The Onion was satire?

I guess it just got too difficult to stay one step ahead of the loonies, whackdoodles and dribblewits in our society. So now the Onion has changed over to straight news reporting. Witness their first attempt.
Members of the U.S. Congress reported Wednesday they were continuing to carefully debate the issue of whether or not they should allow the country to descend into a roiling economic meltdown of historically dire proportions. "It is a question that, I think, is worthy of serious consideration: Should we take steps to avoid a crippling, decades-long depression that would lead to disastrous consequences on a worldwide scale? Or should we not do that?" asked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), adding that arguments could be made for both sides, and that the debate over ensuring America’s financial solvency versus allowing the nation to default on its debt—which would torpedo stock markets, cause mortgage and interests rates to skyrocket, and decimate the value of the U.S. dollar—is “certainly a conversation worth having.” "Obviously, we don't want to rush to consensus on whether it is or isn't a good idea to save the American economy and all our respective livelihoods from certain peril until we've examined this thorny dilemma from every angle. And if we’re still discussing this matter on Aug. 2, well, then, so be it.” At press time, President Obama said he personally believed the country should not be economically ruined.
One or two years ago this would have been ROTFL, but now it is current headline fare. We are so fucked.

The Great Orange Boner tries to make a funny

You know the dizzying array of debt talk drama has gone beyond the state of ridiculous when an announcement from Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) about striking a deal with President Obama is his idea of a joke.

Boehner began a conference meeting Friday morning by deadpanning that Republicans, the White House and Democrats had reached a deal, according to a lawmaker in the room. The response from his conference was nervous silence before Boehner eased the tension by letting them know he was only joking.
Went over like a lead balloon that joke did. Funnier than a screen door on a submarine. Curious how worried the Republicans were at the thought of a solution to the problem they created.

Everybody officially says DADT is dead

And now we have a 60 day death watch because there is always some prick in Congress that has to have some little extra thrown in the deal.

Send Joe Lieberman to Guantanamo

Joe the Schmuck and his new gal Friday Kelly Ayotte have an opinion piece in the WaPo calling for all "terrist suspects" to be sent to Gitmo because they scare poor old Joe. They make his droopy old jowls quiver with fear at the thought they may be around. The very thought of those terrist supermen has kept Joe soiling his underwear since 2001.

Doesn't take a detective to uncover this gang.

From the pen of Ben Sargent


Wall St prepares for 2nd half of the Bush Depression.

Facing the prospect of either a default or a needlessly cruel austerity or potentially both, Wall St. in battening down the hatches and disposing of all the expenables before the storm hits.
Layoffs have returned to Wall Street as investment banks bemoaning economic malaise and disappointing revenues are moving to pare their payrolls, by far their largest expense.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have announced plans to eliminate hundreds of employees, UBS and Credit Suisse are reportedly preparing to cut thousands of jobs and Barclays Capital has already imposed two rounds of layoffs this year.

But as banks again resort to pink slips, they appear inclined to spare the most generously compensated executives -- the people who enjoyed the biggest gains from the bubble in mortgage-related investments that savaged the economy -- while instead dismissing less-expensive employees.

"Wall Street is a cutthroat business. That's how the capital market system works," said Sung Won Sohn, a former Wells Fargo chief economist who is now a finance professor at California State University Channel Islands. "The more seasoned, experienced, higher-paid people have a lot more connections and contacts. That is very, very valuable. Whereas junior, younger people are more replaceable."
I guess the layoffs will give the Banksters some sense of certainty in the marketplace.

When Republicans demand their right to breathe dirty air

Watch the video and guess who they support.


Joyeux anniversaire Mireille Mathieu

A French National Treasure and still singing.


Austerity is not a country south of Germany

It is an economic policy being foisted upon the publics of Europe and the US by a group of otherwise normal people who believe the current recession needs to be both deeper and longer. As Dr Krugman explains.
These are interesting times — and I mean that in the worst way. Right now we’re looking at not one but two looming crises, either of which could produce a global disaster. In the United States, right-wing fanatics in Congress may block a necessary rise in the debt ceiling, potentially wreaking havoc in world financial markets. Meanwhile, if the plan just agreed to by European heads of state fails to calm markets, we could see falling dominoes all across southern Europe — which would also wreak havoc in world financial markets.

We can only hope that the politicians huddled in Washington and Brussels succeed in averting these threats. But here’s the thing: Even if we manage to avoid immediate catastrophe, the deals being struck on both sides of the Atlantic are almost guaranteed to make the broader economic slump worse.

In fact, policy makers seem determined to perpetuate what I’ve taken to calling the Lesser Depression, the prolonged era of high unemployment that began with the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and continues to this day, more than two years after the recession supposedly ended...

For those who know their 1930s history, this is all too familiar. If either of the current debt negotiations fails, we could be about to replay 1931, the global banking collapse that made the Great Depression great. But, if the negotiations succeed, we will be set to replay the great mistake of 1937: the premature turn to fiscal contraction that derailed economic recovery and ensured that the Depression would last until World War II finally provided the boost the economy needed.
Rat begins to make more and more sense.


click pic to big

Thursday, July 21, 2011

The lower the woman the lower the risk of cancer

According to a British study, if your mum is short and you aren't, her risk of cancer is smaller than yours.
A new study published in The Lancet Oncology found that the shorter women are, the lower their cancer risk. Or, vice versa, the taller women are the greater their risk.

In fact, British researchers determined that the risk of cancer in women jumps 16 percent with each 4-inch increase in height.

To determine whether stature had anything to do with cancer risk, the researchers, led by Dr. Jane Green of Oxford University, followed 1.3 million middle-aged women from the United Kingdom for 10 years.

Even after accounting for the women’s different lifestyles and socio-economic backgrounds, there was still a significant jump in cancer risk associated with increasing stature. And it wasn’t just one kind of cancer. Taller women were more likely to develop cancers of the breast, ovary, uterus and bowel, as well as leukemia and melanoma.
But her chances of being run over by a bus are greater.

Which side AARP you on


Obama is not caving in this time

He has come out of the closet and is totally selling out his Democratic Congress to make a deal.
A Congressional aide briefed on ongoing negotiations between House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama says the two principals may be nearing a "grand bargain" to raise the debt limit which would contain large, set-in-stone spending cuts but only the possibility of future revenue increases.

"All cuts," the aide said. "Maybe revenues some time in the future."
Has any president ever "crossed the aisle" in mid term?

The White House press guy tweeted that BO won't go for a deal without revenue, but he is so deniable it means nothing.

Where they belong

From the pen of Pat Oliphant



click pic to big

Raise the debt limit

From the PCCC


Desperately seeking stupid

The Discovery Channel has come up with an idea for a new show.
The Discovery Channel has greenlit, so to speak, a new reality show to debut this fall that follows the owner of a medical marijuana dispensary, according to a report published Wednesday morning.

Focusing on Steve DeAngelo (pictured, left), proprietor of the Harborside Health Center in Oakland, Weed Wars looks to strip the mystique off the emerging, legally ambiguous world of retail marijuana sales.
Must Not See TV

Steal a man's wallet and do hard time

Steal a man's home and his neighbor's too and you may be forgiven your past transgressions despite evidence that you have not stopped your evil ways but continue doing the crime.
State attorneys general are negotiating to give major banks wide immunity over irregularities in handling foreclosures, even as evidence has emerged that banks are continuing to file questionable documents.

A coalition of all 50 states' attorneys general has been negotiating settlements with five of the biggest U.S. banks that would include payment of up to $25 billion in penalties and commitments to follow new rules. In exchange, the banks would get immunity from civil lawsuits by the states, as well as similar guarantees by the Justice Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development, which have participated in the talks.

State and federal officials declined to say if any form of immunity from criminal prosecution also is under discussion. The banks involved in the talks are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, CitiGroup, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial.
Too big to fail, too big to control and too big to prosecute. And too poorly run to benefit shareholders.

Todays proverb comes from Russia

A full stomach likes to preach about fasting.
Go ahead, send it to your favorite congresscritter, just for fun.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Your Dylan Dally Moment

Dylan and Bernie talk about the Usual Gang of Six Idiots and other problems.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


Quote of the Day

The sad thing is America no longer has a two-party system. One of our two parties has morphed into kind of a cult driven by a singular fixation and obsession: preserving tax breaks for the wealthy at all costs.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)

Over the last 70 some years

Republicans haven't changed a lick. Roosevelt knew them then and we should know them now.



Thanks to Matt Stoller & h/t to AmericaBlog

Labels:


Teabagger apologizes for being a shit to Wasserman-Schultz

And acts like a shit when he does. And Wasserman-Schultz, in an interview with Mrs. Alan Greenspan,suggested that Allen West can't handle the pressure. This would explain why he embarrassed the Army before moving on to embarrass the Congress.

Needs no explanation

From the pen of Tom Toles



click pic to big

Sauce for your goose but not their gander

If you are one of the freshman class of Republican/Teabaggers in Congress, you have probably shown your true colors in your hunt for monies for your district.
Freshman House Republicans who rode a wave of voter discontent into office last year vowed to stop out-of-control spending, but that has not stopped several of them from quietly trying to funnel millions of federal dollars into projects back home.

They have pushed for dozens of projects in their districts, including military programs opposed by the president, replenishing beach sand lost to erosion, a $700 million bridge in Minnesota and a harbor dredging project in Charleston, S.C. Some of their projects were once earmarks, political shorthand for pet projects penciled into spending bills, which Republicans banned when they took over the House.

An examination of spending bills, news releases and communications with federal agencies obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows that nearly two dozen freshmen have sought money for projects that could ultimately cost billions of dollars, while calling for less spending and banning pork projects.

Politicians have long advocated for projects on behalf of individuals and businesses back home, even without earmarks. Several lawmakers said they were merely providing a constituent service. But since many of the freshman Republicans campaigned on a pledge to cut spending and to change Washington’s time-honored ways, their support of spending projects suggests that in many cases ideology can go only so far in serving the needs of people back home.
Their parochial avarice is a curious position if they won't vote to raise the debt ceiling to pay for their pet pork projects. I guess it just goes to show that Smart is not a Republican/Teabagger value no matter which side of the vote you are on.

Breitfart to answer for his crimes

Noted character assassin, slimeball and all around stinking piece of shit Andrew Breitfart is preparing to defend himself in court against a suit brought by Shirley Sherrod who was mecilessly defamed by the aforementioned liar Breitfart. Oh, to be on the jury that decides that case,

No doubt because it is such a lovely place

As the end date stipulated in the 2008 SOFA nears, the Obama administration has been quietly but vigorously nudging the Maliki administration to ask us to stay just a little bit longer.
Several Iraq experts and former defense officials, including people who were involved in the formulation of the original 2008 agreement that permitted American troops to remain in Iraq, said the administration appears to be wary of the consequences of leaving Iraq in full, or with too few troops left in place – and is in the process of seeking a new pact with the Iraqi government.

"At the time of the negotiations it was made clear that it would not be the last agreement, it would be the first," said a former defense official with knowledge of the talks over the 2008 pact, known as the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

"Subject to conditions on the ground in 2011 there might be revisiting of the agreement -- if not as a SOFA then as part of the Strategic Framework. But there was never a contemplation that we would walk out of Iraq at end of 2011 like we did at the end of Vietnam. The SOFA was a bridge document to get us to end of 2011."

President Obama has repeatedly pledged to adhere to the original terms of the deal and withdraw all of the nearly 50,000 American troops still in Iraq by the end of the year, save, perhaps, a handful in embassies and other select locations.

But in recent months, the U.S. has let it be known that it is willing to consider staying in significant numbers -- if the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki requests it.
Maliki of Iraq has two very good reasons to be careful and cautious about this. The first is his ruling coalition which relies heavily on its large Sadrist component. The Sadrists most definitely do not want any Americans troops to stay. And the second, unmentioned in the article is that if he asks the US to stay, we will become a permanent part of Iraq. We will not leave Iraq in his or his children's lifetimes. It is hard to say if he understands this last point.

All the hearings may be exciting but

The latest from LulzSec may do more to bring down the Murdoch crime cartel than all the investigations.
Online hacking group LulzSec said Monday night it had obtained a large cache of emails from the servers of News International, the News Corp. subsidiary which oversees global media baron Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers.

Along with the emails, LulzSec said it had unearthed the email logins and passwords for News International executives, including former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, who was arrested recently in connection to the paper's phone hacking schemes.

A Twitter account connected with the hackers said they planned to release the emails online tomorrow. Also unearthed were phone numbers for News International officials, along with personal information about an online content editor.
Their hacked post of Ruperts obit may have been premature, but maybe by not that much.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Alan Grayson is looking for 100,000 Good Americans

To sign his petition for SSI, Medicare & Medicaid. Are you one?


If He's Chasing You...

Cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Let’s think about this.

Medicare helps to heal people who are old and sick. Medicaid helps to heal people who are poor and sick. And for most people, without Social Security, they would have to work until the day they die.

These are not things that I want to cut. But some people do.

Who are these people who want to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? I know some of them. For two years, I sat with them in a room – the Floor of the House – for several hours a day.

I got to know some of them quite well. I can summarize their views in six short words: “Let the Devil Take the Hindmost.”

“Let the Devil Take the Hindmost” refers to a situation where the Devil is chasing us. Some of us – the young, the fit, the healthy -- are able to run away from the Devil. And those others – the old, the children, the sick and, frankly, the scared – they can’t run as fast. They’re the hindmost. They’re the ones that the Devil catches, and destroys.

So what should the ones who run faster do? Should they grab hold of the hindmost, lift them up, and help them to run to safety? Or should they just let the Devil take the hindmost, while they escape?

You know what Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity would do in that situation. And Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. They would let the Devil take the hindmost.

But you wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t.

The phrase “Let the Devil Take the Hindmost” is a venerable phrase; it just celebrated its 400th birthday. It comes from a 1610 play called “Love Lies a-Bleeding.” (All you Elton John fans now know where the song “Love Lies Bleeding” comes from.) Shakespeare didn’t write the play, but it was performed by Shakespeare’s theatre troop, The King’s Men.

In Act V of “Love Lies a-Bleeding,” the people rise in rebellion against a bad government. The character Thrasiline questions whether the people can remain united, however. Thrasiline says that even when a mere “toy” clicks at the people’s heels, “they run all away, and cry, ‘the devil take the hindmost.’”

Dion responds to Thrasiline this way: “Then the same devil take the foremost too, and souse him for his breakfast! If they all prove cowards, my curses fly amongst them, and be speeding!”

(“Sousing” is cooking a cut of meat until it is well done, pulling the meat off the bones, and then mashing it.)

And that’s the point – the 400-year-old point. If the Devil is chasing us, there is no reason to think that he’ll ever be satisfied just taking the hindmost. The Devil will take the foremost, too. Mash them up, and eat them for breakfast.

The Devil in America today is poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, bigotry, selfishness, ignorance, disease and death. When the Right Wing says that we have to cut Social Security, cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, cut unemployment insurance, cut education, cut food stamps, what they’re really saying is “let the Devil take the hindmost.”

I think that we’d all be a lot better off if we stopped running, we all turned on the Devil, and we fought back together. At least we would have a chance.

I’d rather fight, not run away.

What about you?

Courage,

Alan Grayson

P.S. Please sign our petition at www.No-Cuts.com. And pass it on to every friend you have. Let’s stop running, and fight back together.


Some imported music for Tuesday


Where the freshman Republican/Teabaggers come from

That would be small towns like Gould, Arkansas where the people running the town are even smaller, if that is possible.

And the door to another dimension opens

In the eleventy seven dimension chess that is DC budget negotiations, another door has opened and another beast has been unleashed on the unsuspecting public. This time it is everybody's favorites, the Gang of Six or Whatever This Week.
President Obama heaped praise on a deficit-reduction proposal produced by bipartisan group of senators known as the "Gang of Six," calling it a "significant step" and arguing that members on both side of the aisle are beginning to coalesce around a balanced approach involving cuts to entitlements and tax increases.

"We're in the same playing field and my hope is that we start gathering everybody in the next couple of days" on an agreement, Obama told reporters in a brief appearance in the White House briefing room Tuesday.

"...We're seeing the potential for a bipartisan consensus around [the Gang of Six proposal]...but there are still a lot of difficult negotiations to get something done," he added.

Obama called on all Congressional leaders to support the proposal that includes both significant cuts and revenue raisers (i.e. tax increases and loophole closures.) He also said the plan proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is necessary to consider but only as a backstop if agreement on a broader deal falls apart.
As I try to follow all these budget things it strikes me that Republicans must be born with Teflon assholes because their elected officials are always trying to stick up there. Democrats would need an awful lot more lube to take it that often.

Even the Fuhrer feels such tsoriss

Over the new Snowflake Snooki film, The Undefecated. Go ahead, you know you want to see it.

How much lower can we go?

From the pen of Tom Toles


God Bless Dr Elizabeth Warren

Rachel interviews the good Dr. who shows the passion we want from leaders.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


Art imitating life

They have finally made it to market. Frito-Lay will market Cheesy Poofs beginning August 28. Apparently you will have to go to Wal-Mart to get them. Oh well, at least we all remember the Cheesy Poofs jingle.

I'm pretty sure we don't have poop gills

The nations concern as we approach the Bullshit Ceiling.

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