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Cracks in the Ice

Reported in the AP, written up in the Weekend Australian, a couple of op-eds, and the NYT, but not a lot of attention …

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea called on Friday for an end to “the hostile relationship” with the United States, issuing a New Year’s message that highlighted the reclusive country’s attempt to readjust the focus of six-party nuclear disarmament talks.

Mechanismus cialis 20mg lilly erfahrung ein, der dem entstehen einer potenzpillenmann erektion. Kornealreflex eradin potenzmittel vestibulookulärer die bei der durchführung der behandlung, die in deutschland durch.

In the meantime, an interesting snippet from of the The Mainichi Daily News earlier today …

This year, the Obama administration will continue to take various actions on the nuclear issue. The U.S. and Russia are heading toward an agreement on strategic arms reduction. Meanwhile, the U.S. is working on renewing the country’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) for the first time in eight years, and is expected to incorporate anti-nuclear terrorism measures. The nuclear security summit this April will aim for an international agreement on enhanced protection of nuclear materials, and in May, a review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — held every five years — will take place in New York.

I may be too hopeful, too optimistic, but I don’t care …
Our world *is* moving to a better place.

1,804 replies on “Cracks in the Ice”

Michelle Grattan just kicked off Julia (I haven’t evén thought about it’) Gillard’s race to th top.
😆

I’m glad he’s coming in June Jen. ‘Coz he’ll come to Sydney, and he’ll bring all his best girls with him. My friend and I are already making plans to try to get his attention, involving an absolutely adorable 5 year old with a bunch of flowers. Whatever it takes.

Nate Silver has done an interesting piece on the surge in support for the Health Care Bill amongst Liberals – now it’s 83%. The change in tone on the blogs is quite remarkable over the past few weeks. I was worried for a while that progressives would through the baby out with the bathwater. Although it worries me he thinks it’s only a slightly better chance of 50/50 to get through. Come on Obama!

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/03/why-liberals-suddenly-love-health-care.html

Just a bit of humour for Friday morning:

I had Lunch with 2 of my unmarried friends.
One is engaged, one is a mistress, and I have been married for 20+ years.

We were chatting about our relationships and decided to amaze our men by greeting them at the door wearing a black bra, Stiletto heels and a mask over our eyes.
We agreed to meet in a few days to exchange notes.

Here’s how it all went.

My engaged friend:

The other night when my boyfriend came over he found me with a black leather bodice, tall
stilettos and a mask. He saw me and said, ‘You are the woman of my dreams. I love you.’ Then we made passionate love all night long.

The Mistress:

Me too! The other night I met my lover at his office and I was wearing a raincoat, under it only the black bra, heels and mask over my eyes. When I opened the raincoat he didn’t say a word, but he started to tremble and we had wild sex all Night.

Then I had to share my Story:

When my husband came home I was wearing the black bra, black stockings, stilettos and a mask over my eyes. When he came in the door and saw me he said…

“What’s for dinner, Batman?”

Ezra Klein on the ramifications of the Helath Care Bill being put forward by the Congressional Budget Office:

According to a Democratic source, CBO has finished its work and will release the official preliminary score later today. But here are the basic numbers: The bill will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years and reduce the deficit by $130 billion during that period. In the second 10 years — so, 2020 to 2029 — it will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. The legislation will cover 32 million Americans, or 95 percent of the legal population.

To put this in context, that’s more deficit reduction than either the House or Senate bill, and more coverage than the Senate bill.

How they got these numbers, and whether there are important qualifiers, will be easier to say once CBO releases its analysis. But the bottom line is that this is the exact sort of score that Democrats wanted, and is in fact considerably better than some had come to expect they would receive. Coverage is better than the Senate bill, which will reassure liberals, and deficit reduction is better than either bill, which will reassure conservatives.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/cbo_health-care_reform_bill_cu.html

Paddy,
have deleted your doubled-up First Dog post…mind you, he is worth the extra attention.
Have surfaced briefly from McNulty & Co…..what riveting viewing!! Even able to tolerate the violence by sheer force of superb writing and acting.
Thanks Ecky and Gaffy.
Now that Obi isn’t coming for a few months , can turn to McNulty for consolation. 🙂
Back to the popcorn….

I hate violence in movies and TV, but could watch The Wire with little problem. Except Season 4, which I found terrifying. Something to look forward to Megan.

1708
Thanks for that Megan.
And in keeping with our OT but amusing Friday musings here in ticster land.
From Bernard Keane’s twitter feed…….
Python predicted yesterday’s QT performance from Gillard. http://bit.ly/18cyUf 😆

Breaking news:
Oh praise the lord and pass the ammunition. :mrgreen:
The Poison Drawf gets the arse from News?

Glenn Milne gone from News? The automated email response from News Limited gallery hack Glenn Milne delivered the news: “Please be advised that as of the 13/03/2010 I no longer work for News Limited Sunday Papers, I still work for The Australian.” Milne is directing correspondents to a Gmail account, presumably because his role at News is now as Australian column contributor only.

http://is.gd/aO8Om

I found this very interesting.

For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately “roughed up” the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko’s to upload clips from computers that couldn’t be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt “very strongly” that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.

continued here..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/18/viacomyoutube-secrets-to-_n_503809.html

Great to see you in such fine form, KL. 🙂

And go megan! Series 1,2 and 3 blong Hussey. Kudos to him for the trust!

http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/vow_of_silence_a_cartoon_from_austria_20100318/

http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/the_heircut_20100318/

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/83430

Johnny nails it again!
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/83452

Terrorists-R-Us: How governments frighten their citizens into giving up their liberties in the name of Protection. ( anyone been to greet guests or see off friends at an Australian provincial airport recenty? ) Despite the FACT that there have been ZERO incidents at any of these airports in say….. the last 70 years, everyone who enters a terminal is treated as if they are potential Terrorists. Everyone!

In our Brave New World there is Darkness at Noon. We are herded like cattle and make wisecracks at peril of arrest and detention. Then we are wished by the functionaries in uniform with the phoneyness of rehearsed Auto-Sep to:

“Have A Nice Day!”
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/83203/

And with the silence of lambs and the compliance of sheep we cop it sweet.
Proud Australians all!!

Ecky, the History of Amercia cartoon makes even more sense if you caught Jon Stewart yesterday (ABC 2, at 7.15pm, I think). There’s been drama over the Texas school board education committee being dominated by red necks and making curricula decisions accordingly.

Remember “Diff’rent Strokes”? Watch the opening titles with different music, and see what you think. It’s very interesting….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr-e3qGQ884&feature=player_embedded

Gillard gets media free ride: Bishop

When asked by ABC News Online whether she thought female voters would be in favour of a Gillard ascension to the top job, Ms Bishop (of the Concrete Complexion not the Death Stare) replied: “I would see her being from the left wing of the Labor Party, truly a socialist who has taken to wearing pearls.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/19/2850553.htm

Julie Bishop gets more odious by the minute. I had to check the story to see whether that quote was just you being hilarious Ecky but no, it’s just Bishop showing her true colours – various shades of green.

KL, missed Jon S. on ABC 2, couldn’t find it on ABC2 archives. Found this one though on Comedy Central.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/collection/262110/the-daily-show—a-history-lesson/114636

Orwell got it pretty close in 1984 re “history”:

Who controls the past controls the future.
Who controls the present controls the past.

And yes, isn’t it amazing in the Diff’rent Strokes clip how a soundtrack can make a perfectly decent guy appear like a pedophile.
Propagandists from Leni (“reality doesn’t interest me”) Riefenstahl to Fox’s finest Faux Sparks have used such distortions to keep the masses subdued and ready for violent harvest. ( Reichstag fire, 9/11 etc.)

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/leni_riefenstahl/

Has Rahm’s Assumption about Progressives been Vindicated?
by Glenn Greenwald

Politico’s Ben Smith yesterday suggested that one important aspect of Rahm Emanuel’s health care strategy — to ignore the demands of progressives on the ground that they would fall into line at the end no matter what — has been vindicated. Smith points to a new poll showing near-unanimous support for the bill among liberals as well as the fact that not a single progressive member of the House (not even Dennis Kucinich) will oppose this bill even though the prime progressive objections were ignored.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/18-9

Hussen, this is an alternate argument from Nate Silver:

Before Scott Brown’s victory, I think a lot of people assumed — wrongly — that a health care bill was inevitable, and that it wasn’t a question of whether a bill would pass but which one would pass. Many of the liberal criticisms of the bill are valid — but the argument that the bill was worse than the status quo (in terms of accomplishing any of the objectives that liberals normally care about) was never persuasive. Now that it’s been made clear that the status quo really is the alternative, indeed, we see just how unpersuasive that argument was: if PPP’s numbers are correct, then only about 3 percent of liberals still buy it.

I disagree with Ben Smith, by the way, about his contention that this would “seem to vindicate the White House’s fundamental approach … to take the left for granted as much as possible and focus on courting marginal members of the Senate.” Of course, messaging always needs to be slanted toward the median voter: there are a lot more people in the middle of the political spectrum than at the tail ends of the Bell curve. But, even that small percentage of liberals who had doubts about the bill — maybe a quarter of liberals, meaning about 4 percent of the electorate overall — can move the numbers at the margins. A Congressman is going to have a much easier time swallowing a bill that’s polling at 43-47 — too close to call, he might tell himself — than one that was at 39-51. (Nor is he likely to check to see where the opposition is coming from, even it’s been clear enough for some time that some of the opposition was from the left.) The lukewarm reaction among many liberals to the bill may therefore have contributed to the delays in enacting the legislation — which in turn meant that it was still a couple yards short of the goal line at the time of Brown’s surprising win in Massachusetts.The lesson for the White House, I think, is that liberals (like any other voters) react as much to tone as to substance. A bill might not meet every objective on the liberal checklist, but so long as you’re Fighting Like Hell for it, liberals are usually going to be willing to fight for you too.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/03/why-liberals-suddenly-love-health-care.html

Now Katielou, I hope you’re not going to fall into the Gouldian routine of quoting Nate Silver’s fuzzy numbers to me. I will ask you the question which Harry dodged yesterday, how many seats will Republicans lose on the back of this bill?

Hussy

I thought i did answer your query yesterday. If you want a seat count of the next election, i’m sorry but i can’t help you there.

What i do know is that Obama has just, or is about to, get thru a Healthcare Bill. Something the previous Dem administration failed dismally at. A bill that actually helps 30 million mainly poor people.

Yes , we would all like it much better, yes we’d all like to detonate a roadside bomb up the repulsive Rahm’s backside…yes we’d all like to do a million things. But the powerful control Washington, the media, the whole box and dice.

I’m sure we all know where each of us is coming from here.

The Dems are a pathetic bunch of corporatists….but if they don’t pass a Healthcare Bill, yes even this one…then they are toast…and we have The Uglies back in charge.

IMHO, this Bill helps a lot of mainly poor people. I would LOVE it to HURT the insurance industry more but it doesn’t for reasons we all know.

The Rude Pundit gives you an idea of whether the Repugs think it benefits them in his post from yesterday 17/03/10 “The end is nigh”:
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

1730
HarryH
That’s a pretty fair roundup from my point of view.
I would not be surprised if Franken or Grayson still have something up their sleeve yet.

Megan
Glad you like it. Not too much popcorn tho!

By the way Hussy, i agree completely with the merits of Greenwalds argument at #1725, but the Progressive caucus just doesn’t have the numbers.

Even though there are more Democrats than Rebublicans, there are more corporatists than progressives.

On this Bill, and frankly any Bill,

If the progressives vote No then the corporatists win because status quo remains.

That friggin hurts…but it is true.

At the end of Obama’s hopefully 8 years, what i will judge him on mainly is what he has achieved and how that balance of progressives v corporatists is addressed in the Democrat Party.

I am not hopeful….but i am hopeful.

And i think ALL parts of the Left blogosphere can help this….

Hopefully.

Friday Night Medley: folk, rock, ballard and jazz, y’all! 🙂

“There was music in the cafes at night
And revolution in the air”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn3iybtxNZw

Looking for the man who will love his woman
Looking for the woman who will love her man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7JosdLWeeY&feature=related

http://3.media.tumblr.com/QOTdBDAQoe4o1yj6SNwqjJd9o1_500.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAqmHgL8lmM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4UWfPPh-OA

Barry may be too busy to come at all even in June.
EC’s vision of armed to the teeth redneck Seppos could be arguing with the CIC for a few months after the bill passes.
Be a good opportunity to call martial law and round up a few shock jocks and faux news announcers.
Will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

Sounds like King is calling for a revolution, doesn’t it? As it turns out, that’s exactly what he says he wants if health care reform passes. Eric Kleefeld of TPMDC reports that King is hoping for something akin to the uprising that overthrew the Communists in Prague in 1989. “Fill this city up, fill this city, jam this place full so that they can’t get in, they can’t get out and they will have to capitulate to the will of the American people,” King said in an interview with the Huffington Post.

http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=108764

1728 HusseinStWorm How long is a piece of string? You could never work that out. The health bill is just one piece in the puzzle. It will definitely help the Democrats in November. 1% 2% 5%? No on knows.

The important thing is not to give those crazies even a scent of a chance in November. DO NOT TAKE A STEP BACKWARDS. If the Repugs get half a chance, the Democrats will never recover and the liberals will have no chance of making any change. Win in November along with a few more liberal seats and a good strategy for the future. Anythings possible.

We will see a lot more of this the closer we get to November.
——————————————————————————
New DNC Ad Rips McConnell As “What’s Wrong With Washington”.
video on The Plum Line

Health Care. They have the votes!
****************************

Momentum on Democrats’ side for health care vote. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is apparently optimistic about Sunday’s vote.

“It’s looking good,” she said smiling to reporters on Capitol Hill.

Indeed, if all of the remaining undecided Democrats were to vote as they did when health care reform first passed the House in November, the final legislation would pass on Sunday with a handful of votes to spare.

“It’s over,” declared Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. The bill “will pass [the] House.”

Obama will be there to bask in the glory and to rub the Repugs noses in it! More here…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/19/health-care-whip-count-li_n_505709.html

Here’s why.
**********

Democratic lawmakers, from the leadership on down, are facing what many describe as an unprecedented amount of political pressure as the party scrambles to pass health care reform.

In recent days, the message has been conveyed throughout the caucus that the failure to pass legislation into law would be a cataclysmic misstep. It goes beyond the certainty that activists in the base would be demoralized, that the president would be weakened or that Congress would seem entirely ineffectual (if not so already). The damage to the party would be so far-reaching, lawmakers have been told, that even the big-time donors who have long supported Democratic causes would be less inclined to contribute.

“The party is on a precipice,” said one longtime Democratic donor who asked to speak on the condition of anonymity. “If they pass this [bill], people will be jubilant. If they don’t, there are going to be a lot of us who consider just staying home in 2010.”

more here…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/19/dems-scared-into-action-b_n_505757.html

You don’t think the Democrats will be motivated in November? How about stopping the Repugs from reversing the health bill?
************************************************

“I have, in the last week, seen folks in the grassroots and the netroots and the donor community threatening to [stop supporting Democrats] if they don’t get this done,” said Paul Begala, a longtime Democratic strategist who consults many party officials. “You rarely get all three of them together on the same page.”

same article as above…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/19/dems-scared-into-action-b_n_505757.html

Obama offering to make the health bill more progressive down the road.
****************************************************

Lynch Says Democrats Have the Votes
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), who switched from “yes” to “no” on the health reform bill, “is insisting that his vote will not kill the legislation, noting that the House Democrats have the votes to pass the measure this weekend without his support,” Mother Jones reports.

Said Lynch: “I don’t think they would be calling the bill up on Sunday if they didn’t have the votes. if I had a bet on it, yeah, I’d probably bet that it would pass.”

He also said that during a meeting with President Obama yesterday, the president “failed to win him over with a promise to make the reform package more progressive down the road.”

http://politicalwire.com

Gaffy. They haven’t got that much intelligence. I suspect they would be a bunch of rednecks anyway.

Pundits said purist liberals would kill the health-care bill, but it turns out the left, led by Dennis Kucinich, played smart politics. Eric Alterman on why progressives came around.

“If my vote is to be counted, let it count now for passage of the bill, hopefully in the direction of comprehensive health-care reform… Something is better than nothing—that’s what I keep hearing from my constituents.” So sayeth Rep. Dennis Kucinich during what will probably be the only live-on-cable press conference he will ever enjoy, following his tête-à -tê te with the president on Air Force One about the fate of Barack Obama’s health-care bill, and not incidentally, his presidency.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-18/kucinichs-smooth-moves/?cid=hp:mainpromo5

Chris- Phillip is on Radio National every weekday afternoon and evening on Late Night Live if oyu want to hear him.

1750
Chris
They should get it one way or the other.
Grayson has his bill in as well and calls it a Public Option.
Grayson is too smart for them.

A BILL
To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide
for an option for any citizen or permanent resident of
the United States to buy into Medicare.
1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Public Option Act’’
5 or the ‘‘Medicare You Can Buy Into Act’’.

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h4789ih.txt.pdf

It seems like while Captain Catholic the Clown in charge of the circus of maggots here are taking a leaf out of the Retard Teaparty oppose everything schemes, The Retard Teaparty is now copying the “utegate” process of forged documents to discredit the Democrats.
They are so wonderfully predictable with their slimepit playground antics.

“We have checked with every Democratic office, no one has ever seen it. It did not come out of a Democratic office,” the aide said, adding that media outlets printing the memo have not checked with leadership offices if the memo is authentic. A second Democratic leadership aide confirmed the memo was not sent by the Democrats. A third Democratic aide also said the memo is fake, citing the “draft” stamp and saying no one uses such things.

http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=108846

Gaffy, who will have greater success, Alan Grayson with his public option or Kate Ellis with her opt-out option? Or are both parties engaging in disinformation?

Looks like Labor have hung on in South australia and Labour will probably form a minority govt with the Greens in Tas.

Suck it up Tone.

Interesting results in SA and Tasmania.

The only predictable outcome is that Pollbludger is still a cesspool where only a few gems still shine through the murk.

Hope all you Nth Queenslanders are in one piece this morning – looks like it got pretty wild.

And Go you Good Thing Nick in Tassie :mrgreen:

hi asanque !

It was a non event here in Townsville Jen.
Airlie Beach to Mackay copped the brunt of it.

Glad you missed the Devil Wind up your way, gaffy. Don’t mind the XS aqua, but the surging/waning gales take a powerful psychic toll after >3 days.

Indeedy, asanque, popped over to PB for my first geeze in months and your gems in a cesspool observation holds true. But what a great result for the Greens in Van Dieman’s Land! Wish they could cart that sort of clout across Bass Strait to the artifice adjacent to Lake Burley Bloody Griffin. BOP in the Senate would be a fillip for Oz fer sure.

And Jenners 🙂 , the better you fare against Sophie in FedEl, the greater claims you will have for a spot on the Greens senate ticket in Vickers! Fuck me dead, if Fielding can stumble in, you’d be pretty close to a cert by the time you hit the No.1 spot on the the ballot.

Senator Jen! I like that!! 🙂

Our old mate Poss, using Newspoll data and a sample of ~1500 was a tad out in his SA predictions. In the punditariat, that odious toady, Chrissy Pearson, came closest.

Glad you are in one piece Ecky – we should do an audit of how many severe weather events Ticksters have been involved in since our inception.
So far Ferny got his roof blown off, my family and I were in Black saturday, massive floods affected some of you in Q’ld and you’ve copped the cyclone… I’m sure there are others that have slipped my mind.
Imagine what it would be like if there really was anything to this global warming nonsense 🙄
p.s. I was on the Vic Senate ticket last election (no. 2) and I’m afraid I’m a long way off the mark at this point. Good fun though!

Victory within reach, President Barack Obama rallied House Democrats on Saturday for a final health care push, and party leaders appeared confident they had overcome a flare-up over abortion funding restrictions in the legislation.

Building on Democrats’ momentum, House leaders decided on a straight up-or-down vote on Obama’s top priority and the defining issue of his first year in office, backing off a much-challenged plan to vote on the bill indirectly. With the vote scheduled for Sunday, the battle tilted in Obama’s direction as more Democrats disclosed how they would vote.

The president decided to make a final personal appeal with a Saturday afternoon visit to the Capitol. He spoke after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., reassured House rank and file that the Senate will complete the legislation. More than 50 Democratic senators have signed a pledge to do, Reid’s spokesman said.

“Is this the single most important step that we have taken on health care since Medicare?” Obama asked lawmakers. “Absolutely.”

continued here…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/20/obama-quotes-lincoln-to-h_n_507124.html

My father was in Seaforth (North of Mackay) for the big blow, sheltering a yachty or two. I spent most of last night trying to follow the elections as well as keeping an eye on the BoM site and phoning in updates on the cyclone.

Even though he was at least 50km away from the action, I could hear the wind over the phone. Having had a passing encounter with a cyclone in my youth, I didn’t envy his position at all.

Fortunately, only cosmetic damage to his surroundings, though the yachty with him had his (far away) roof blown off. Sadly, they are currently cut off by water, so the yachty’s wife is home alone with four walls.

Is Rasmussen accurate?
*******************

That’s a question usually asked by Democrats. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com earlier this year discussed Raasmussen’s supposed right-wing bias, saying in part, “They have a knack for issuing polls which tend to dovetail with conservative media narratives.” But Time Magazine too questioned their impartiality, once describing Rasmussen as a “conservative-leaning polling group.”

continued in article on John McCain…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marlene-h-phillips/could-mccain-lose-his-pri_b_505090.html

Good stuff to use against the Repugs in November
****************************************

Tea Party sign threatens gun violence if health care passes.
————————————————————————–
Tea Party activists have gathered on Capitol Hill today for a “Code Red” rally against health care reform. Speakers at the event included Republican Reps. Steve King (IA), Michele Bachmann (MN), and Mike Pence (IN). The gathering was organized by Tea Party Profiteer organizations like FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity. ThinkProgress attended today’s rally and spotted a sign threatening violence if health care passes. The sign reads: “Warning: If Brown can’t stop it, a Browning can,” referring to Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) and a Browning firearm:

picture here…
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/20/code-red-gun/

Gaffhook @ 1762
Jon Stewart is amazing in that clip – definitely worth watching ticsters!

That speech at 1776 is off the cuff.
Don’t you just love it that Joe Liebermann is irrelevant in the final HCR push? What an asshole.

KatieLou at 1776;

in a butcher’s shop What Counts is meat on the slab (sans thumb on scales);

for a Gallilean named Thomas, it was slipping his digits into the ribside spearwound of Joey The Chippy’s boy…. following his alleged resurrection prior to his skyward spiral.

in footy, it’s points on the board when the final whistle(ok paddy, siren) sounds;

in the Sep Senate it’s votes on the day and the subsequent legislative document-signing by POTUS.

Only then will I believe that a modicum of social justice has been bestowed upon the impecunious of Seppodom. 🙂
Sweet talk is cheap. SHOW THEM THE MONEY!

Naturally, one will be expecting a whole lot more should The Kid prevail on this one.

We are not bound to win,
but we are bound to be true!

Et d’accord, Joey “The Weasel” Lieberman is most assuredly a MAJOR LEAGUE asshole. He needs to be whipped like an egg-sucking dog.

1776
KatieLou, the kid’s not just a speech maker, he’s a marvel. 🙂
Not only does he appeal to their better instincts, he also tells them it’s the winning political strategy.
Armed with *his* remarkable record in politics, they really have to listen.
Plus, I think I detected a few glimpses of steel in his remarks, that pointed to some back room arm twisting and hinted at painful consequences, for those Dems who felt that they didn’t need to get with the program. 👿
It was a cracker of a speech!!

Gday asanque

Indeed PollBludger is still a cesspool. Unfortunately it is only a few who do make it a cesspool though.

BillBowe has booted and then allowed back cesspoolers like GP, Bob1234 and lately TheTruthHurts.

But he continues to let shitflingers like Growler, Gusface and Ron to pollute his blog. FFS they still think they are fighting the commo’s in the old DLP wars.

Partisanship is fine, but if BBowe would de-cess his blog of a handful of sewerage throwers it would be a fantastic read.

Natalie is very good if you haven’t seen her.
**********************************

NATALIE Tran is a typical university student with one big difference – she’s one of the most viewed people in the world on YouTube.

The 23-year-old Sydneysider has made it to the list of the 20 most-watched videos of all time on YouTube, and her site has attracted 224 million hits globally, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

Her most popular video is “How to fake a six-pack” (see right), a parody of an ad which demonstrated how women could achieve the look of a six-pack by using make-up products.

That video has so far racked up 20 million views and counting.

continued here..
Natalie Tran article

1782 HarryH William will never change. He’s always allowed the same problem to exist. That’s why we’re here.

Looks like it is all set to happen while we are all flogging tha kapok tonight.
The GOP ammendments got the kyber and it is full steam ahead down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

The House Rules Committee has cleared the way for the full House to take up health care legislation. The committee rejected 80 possible amendments, and passed a rule allowing for separate votes on the Senate health care bill and the reconciliation bill. The House returns at 1pm ET to take up health care.

Reports that a deal has been done with Stupak and his group of anti-abortionists to get them to vote yes – basically no fedeal funding except for rape, incest or risk to mother’s life, which I understand is the current position.

Stupak has done a press conference to say he will vote yes. The deal is done. This bill will go through.

David Frum is a conservative commentator. Extracts below but the whole thing is worth a read. Bottom line: Fox News is doing the Republicans no favours.

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure………

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?……..

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo

1796
Katielou
That is a good read and it beggars belief that so called educated people can get so entrenched with ideology that it clouds their brains so much that they are led by the nose by Roo and his shrills.

I can see the same thing happening here as the MSM are full blown bucketing on Labor and telling us how good the Liebrals are.
It has become so saturated that people must surely be getting a big turn off from listening to it.
There is so much negative carping and reporting it is a total joke.

I am watching some procedural voting on C Span and after all Obis pep talks and addresses there are still Democrats voting with the Retrards. Not enough to upset the apple cart at the moment but you would think, that if the health care bill finally becomes law, those Dems that vote against it would surely be imperriling their chances of re-election.
Whether they are Dems in a strong Retard area or not i would certainly not be supporting them if they failed to support my chances of having health care.

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