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Open Thread

Game, Set, Match?

The drama over the August break was largely predictable and for the most part has burnt itself out. The death of Ted Kennedy disrupted the news feed and it’s only in the last 24 hours that the talking heads have managed to refocus on the downside to throwing grandma off the train (or a Republican if that’s your preferred option).

In the meantime an article over on Politico has some interesting snippets of information. David Axelrod said in a telephone interview earlier today in response to questions about the healthcare reform agenda:

“We’re entering a new season, it’s time to synthesize and harmonize these strands and get this done. We’re confident that we can do that. But obviously it is a different phase. We’re going to approach it in a different way. The president is going to be very active.”

Politico goes on to suggest …

Obama’s specifics will include many of the principles he has spelled out before, and aides did not want to telegraph make-or-break demands. But Axelrod and others are making plain that Obama will assert himself more aggressively — a clear sign that the president will start dictating terms to Congress.

Thing is, an environment has been created wherein the public and standing members of the Senate have been calling for Obama to step up to the plate – to take the lead. It is difficult at this stage of the game to accuse Obama of ramming his own agenda down the throat of a hostile Senate. One could argue that this is the set piece in the game-set-match scenario. In support of this proposition I place before you a track record of Obama’s effectiveness in playing process, backed by the inside acumen of Rahm Emanuel, in a script penned by one David Axelrod.

Sept. 15 is the deadline that the White House gave Senate negotiators to seek a bipartisan bill. As Chris would say, ‘timing is everything’.

UPDATE: 3 SEP 2009

Obama is scheduled to speak to both houses of Congress on the 9 SEP 2009 during which it is being widely reported that he will spell out his expectations with respect to the shape of a final healthcare bill.

UPDATE: 09 SEP 2009

Barack Obama’s speech to the members of Congress.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32773968#32766830

506 replies on “Game, Set, Match?”

HELP!

I am being stalked!

Billbow first, now this:

Miranda Devine (mirandadevine) is now following your tweets on Twitter.

…that’s hysterically funny. I DETEST the silly woman.

OMG!!!!! I kinda understand Billbow but do you have any theory as to why you’d attract Miranda Devine?

…and perhaps you should just start using you’re obvious twitter magnetism for a bit of fun with your followers.

…and GO OBAMA! I so hope he can pull healthcare reform out of the bag. If he’s at the top of his game, it’s going to be great to watch.

Kirribilli – Miranda Devine is worse than ESJ !
What the hell are oyu doing on Twitter that is getting you so much attention??
btw – wanted to know what you think about the whole “Aus has escaped the GFC” line…

Agreed KatieLou – this is hopefully where we get to see whether the apparent brilliance of the man is just bling or the real deal.
You know which side I’m on …

Funny thing is I DO NOT TWITTER, I just registered my email nic so it wasn’t purloined by some twit (excuse the pun…not!)

They must have picked it up via a friend who picked it up…god, it sounds like an STD!

I’m still chuckling….Miranda Devine!

Jen…the structural faults in the US banking system are still there, piles of toxic debt they’ve swept under the rug of invisibility for now. Here, there’s still mountains of household debt.

Meanwhile governments all around the world have borrowed vast sums and the piper has not yet been paid.

In a word, no, I don’t believe this is over for a VERY long time, but hey, everyone seems to want to think so.

China, our supposed saviour, is in far worse shape than is generally understood, and I’m expecting their economy to show some serious stresses soon. Commodity prices will tank and we’ll go with them.

Or, everyone may convince themselves it’s business as usual and delay it all for another two years…but sooner or later, the deep structural problems of global finances will re-emerge. It’s just a matter of when.

thought so Kirri. I’m amazed at how quickly everybody thought this could be sorted. Feels like we haven’t even started to feel the real effects – and yet every MSM commentator that I’ve come across appears to be touting the line that we’re pretty much in recovery mode and the worst is over.

Confidence, though, is the key to the financial system. Money is a shared delusion – a good one. If we all agree that this piece of paper is worth x, then it suddenly becomes worth x.

Likewise, if people come to believe that there is no crisis, there will be no crisis, because shares for companies that were worthless on one day will suddenly become worth a lot on the next day … even though *nothing* has happened to change the “real” value. This is because there is no such thing as a “real” value.

I think that this is fundamentally why we have crashes and booms. There is nothing different except for confidence. When confidence is high, we boom; when confidence is low, we crash.

(Although obviously the crashes and booms can be accentuated by structural problems, fraud et cetera)

On healthcare, this was a positive look at it:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/09/optimistic-about-healthcare

“Nearly every Democrat now has a stake in seeing healthcare reform pass. The devil, of course, is in the word “nearly,” but at this point even Ben Nelson probably doesn’t want to be the guy to sink a deal if he’s literally the 60th vote to get something done. It’s usually possible to pass a bill when everyone’s incentives are aligned, and right now they’re about as aligned as they can be. That’s why, on most days, I remain optimistic.”

6
Kirri that is interesting because you are not the first one i have heard say that part two will happen in a little while down the track.

On the economic outlook front I have a couple of things to offer up. The first one is an article that has some really helpful graphs the provide a window into where we are in the US economy and the scale of the problem (data mainly dealing with foreclosure projections and foreclosure sources).

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/coming-foreclosure-wave

The article wraps up with a sort of caveat…

If unemployment rises sharply or the commercial real estate market collapses — as many economists fear — the banking system could again lose its footing, the panel says in a report to be released Tuesday.

Which brings me to the subject of the commercial real estate sector, the following article is an interesting read in that it paints a very understandable picture of what has been happening and how this particular bubble is set to burst.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/119236-commercial-real-estate-bubble-is-set-to-burst

And for anyone who wants to get really depressed – take a listen to an interview with Gerald Celente from back in February this year – and given some of the stuff unfolding above together with the other things he’s predicting, well, damn, it’s ain’t suitable for nursing mothers or small children if you know what I mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nJ7LM3iyNg

By Post Author

I was invited to join this group from my apparently interesting profile on Microsoft’s new search engine named after the machines that go bing! In hospitals Bing.com It looks legitimate. So if anyone wants to join, I don’t think their is any barriers. It has a Google PR ranking of 5, which means that if you say something important it will be noticed.
http://changents.com

6 Kirribilli Removals I’ve heard different on China. Their growth rate is still 8%. Their banks are completely separate from the same bad influences that the USA has. But against that, the bad apples in the USA have gone out and got jobs doing the same high risk things all over again.

Catrina.
======
It is difficult at this stage of the game to accuse Obama of ramming his own agenda down the throat of a hostile Senate.
=====================================
Fox News certainly would. 😈

Dunno much about History, even less about the French I took and a whole lot less about Economics but it would appear that the pundits and their handlers who are hollerin’ the loudest about green shoots becoming greenacres…. are the same pundits who assured us that the GFC was never gonna happen in the first place.

Mutha-fuckas got a low credibility rating on Ecky Street.
Still reckon the stock market has hairs on it too, Ticsters.

(saw Randi at Mass last sunday, Kirri, she’s totally nutty about you and is saddened that you’re playing hard to get)

Sept 3:
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/tony-auth

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/75191

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/75205

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/75069/

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/75135/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmILOL55xP0&feature=PlayList&p=0A8C8458543B4762&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=8

Sept 3:
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/doonesbury

http://news.yahoo.com/comics/mike-luckovich

I’m going to ask for my money back. I’ve seen this Afghanistan movie before. The first time, Vietnam was in the title.
As in an early scene from the Vietnam version, U.S. military officials are surprised to discover that the insurgents in Afghanistan are stronger than previously realized.
And our protagonist, Gen. Westmoreland – sorry, I mean McChrystal – sees the situation as serious but salvageable. As Westmoreland did with President Lyndon Johnson, McChrystal is preparing to tell President Barack Obama that thousands of more troops are needed to achieve the U.S. objective – whatever that happens to be.

http://www.commondreams.org/print/46542
———————-

Cat, if Obama squibbs it in his address to Congress he’ll be forever viewed as a doormat. Time so see what he’s made of, this man who leads the USA. Rattlesnakes and House GOPpers don’t respond to etiquette and makin’ nice. Ditto Blue Dogs.

“If you’re always angry and shouting, like O’Reilly or Beck, folks learn to tune out. However, as in Obama’s case, if you’re known for your calm, then anger, used judiciously, can be devastatingly effective. As a parent to young kids he must know that. When they’re really out of line you have to shout. You have to discipline. Kids constantly test the boundaries of their powers and will take over a household if the parents aren’t stern enough. Republicans are the same way. Republicans in the minority are cranky and thin-skinned and shrill. But they are not in charge anymore.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trey-ellis/passion-and-anger-are-pot_b_275289.html

Pfizer only has to pay the Whistleblower $51.5 mil,. and $2.3bil in civil and criminal penalties;

Taking on corporate giants can feel like tilting at windmills, but John Kopchinski’s six-year legal battle against Pfizer Inc just made him a rich man……………………………….snip
“We’re going to be staying right here in San Antonio in the same house, and my wife tells me when we go to the movies we’re still getting one tub of popcorn — the large tub,” Kopchinski said in a telephone interview.

Kopchinski, appalled by Pfizer’s tactics in selling the pain drug Bextra, filed a “qui tam” lawsuit in 2003, sparking federal and state probes that led to Wednesday’s agreement by the company to pay $2.3 billion in civil and criminal penalties and plead guilty to a felony charge for promoting Bextra and 12 other drugs for unapproved uses and doses.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN021592920090902?sp=true

Jen
I found this while drifting in the net.
Knowing how much you adore Sarah i thought it my duty to let you know that the Goss on Sarah will be out soon in Vanity Fair Mag. :mrgreen:

For “Me and Mrs. Palin,” Johnston tells Vanity Fair his story about life with the Palin family—with whom he lived for two months after the election—over the course of his two-and-a-half-year relationship with Bristol. He turns a number of commonly held beliefs about the former governor—the purportedly loving mother, devoted wife, and prolific hunter—upside down.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2009/09/levi-johnston.html

8 David G – suggesting that confidence is what makes capitalism and money markets work is a bit off the mark. Its the very essence of boom bust bubbles that people believe and act on nonsense and greed (=confidence?) rather than fundamentals. And the market economists have no idea – pull out the predictions about the $A from a few months ago – most saw it going down from about 70c at the time. Its about time that the money markets were ripped apart so that the general economy is not at their mercy. The big players in money markets can make money both in boom and bust – and what is the use of that to producing goods and services.

MICkey Peenac’s Prayer:
Sweet Lord of Brimstone, deny not these people your deific gift of freedom because inside every Raghead…. is An American just dying to bust out!
Oh, Mighty Moloch, eschew the Public Health Option and deliver us instead, war without end, amen.

“Of course, the reason the Post editors and their war-loving comrades can so blithely advocate more war is because it doesn’t affect them in any way. They’re not the ones whose homes are being air-bombed and whose limbs are being blown off. That’s nothing new; here’s George Orwell in Homage to Catalonia (about the Spanish civil War,1936-39) describing (without knowing) Fred Hiatt in 1938:
The people who write that kind of stuff never fight; possibly they believe that to write it is a substitute for fighting. It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda-tours.
Sometimes it is a comfort to me to think that the aeroplane is altering the conditions of war. Perhaps when the next great war comes we may see that sight unprecedented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him.”

This point was made equally well by Chuck Hagel (former GOP Nebraska Senator and Purple Heart recipient) today, in a Post Op-Ed, comparing his actual first-hand experiences in Vietnam to the ongoing waste in Afghanistan:
Too often in Washington we tend to see foreign policy as an abstraction, with little understanding of what we are committing our country to: the complications and consequences of endeavors. It is easy to get into war, not so easy to get out. Vietnam lasted more than 10 years; soon, we will slip into our ninth year in Afghanistan. . . .
The U.S. response, engaging in two wars, was a 20th-century reaction to 21st-century realities. These wars have cost more than 5,100 American lives; more than 35,000 have been wounded; a trillion dollars has been spent, with billions more departing our Treasury each month. We forgot all the lessons of Vietnam and the preceding history.
No country today has the power to impose its will and values on other nations. . . . Bogging down large armies in historically complex, dangerous areas ends in disaster.”

WTF would ex-Sgt.Chuck Hagel know anyway? Chucky Boy was one sick puppy in ‘Nam….developed a taste for cannibalizing Vietnamese babies with John Kerry in the Mekong Delta before they were rotated back in the world to spare their families furthur shame.

~Rush Limbaugh

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/03/afghanistan/print.html

Ashes to Ashes.
The Poms will keep them coming.

A lady walked into a Police Station at Liverpool and the desk Sergeant said “Can I help you?”

“Yes” she said, “I’d like to report a case of sexual assault”.

“Where did it happen?” the Sergeant asked.

“In the park just down the road” she replied.

“Can you describe what happened?”

“Yes, I was walking along the footpath in the park near the trees when a man jumped out of the
bushes and dragged me in there, removed my underwear then he dropped his pants to his knees
and had his way with me”.

“Could you give me a description of him?”

“Yes, he was wearing white shoes, long white trousers, a white shirt and he had these two big
long pads from his feet up to and over his knees, one on each leg”.

“Sounds to me like he was a cricketer, most probably a batsman”, said the Sergeant.

“Yes”, said the lady, “He was an Aussie Cricketer”.

“That’s very observant”, said the Sergeant, “You worked that out from his accent?”

“No”, she replied. “I worked it out because he wasn’t in for very long”.

Wakefield at 26,

You said, “suggesting that confidence is what makes capitalism and money markets work is a bit off the mark. Its the very essence of boom bust bubbles that people believe and act on nonsense and greed (=confidence?) rather than fundamentals.”

I do not think that I disagree with any of the above. In fact, I think that this is what I explicitly stated.

People will not act on fundamentals. Thus, encouraging them to believe that the market is good will in fact make the market good. This is what happens over and over again. It is the basis for our whole economy. And who ever said that producing goods and services is the point of the economy? 😉

U.S. slashes $30 million in aid to Honduras.
====================================
The State Department’s decision Thursday to cut $30 million in aid to Honduras swiftly drew reaction from lawmakers who have been split on the issue since the June ouster of President Manuel Zelaya.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who met for an hour with Zelaya on Thursday, announced the termination of the aid that had been suspended after Zelaya was removed from office.
continued on The Hill

Nothing like a preemptive strike and i wonder if he has emailed a copy to Bazza.

‘My Fellow Americans…’: The Speech President Obama Should Give to Congress Next Week;

So let me add this: If Congress does not pass these two bills by the end of the current session, in time for the holiday recess in December, I will declare a national emergency because of the recession and the huge rise in the uninsured that it has caused, and will issue executive orders implementing both these measures. It’s not the way I would prefer to see things done, but if Congress cannot act, I promise you and the American people, I will.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/-My-Fellow-Americans—-by-Dave-Lindorff-090903-694.html

26 Wakefield and
30 Gouldie.
What about chucking this suggestion from C1971 in to the mix.

So, It is time to tax the currency speculators on their transactions. Currency speculators trade at a rate of over a trillion dollars a day. If we tax these trades it will generate a great deal of money for the people and it will help limit speculation.

Remember, the speculators are the ones that brought you nearly $5.00 a gallon gas last year. These are the same people that have also helped bring about our current economic collapse.

http://grantlawrence.blogspot.com/2009/09/revolutionary-tobin-robin-hood-tax-on.html

If anything the last month has been a very good lesson and reminder as to what a bunch of crooks liars and arse holes the Republican Party is and how they need to be wiped off this planet.

36 Gaffy

Taxing the Wall Street speculators?

Sounds like a mighty fine idea……..but if Barry did that he’d be deader than a dead Kennedy on a sunny Texas day.

I really can’t see a way for Uncle Sam to cure itself.

Stick a fork in it…..it’s done.

43
HarryH

Stick a fork in it…..it’s done.

Reminds me of my cooking prowess H, When it’s brown it’s done, when it’s black it’s fucked. :mrgreen:

gaffhook at 46
From the link …

The vehicles are lightweight, personal compartments that can transport up to three passengers, according to Unimodal. Travelers board the pod-like vehicles and type their destinations into a small computer. Using intelligent control system software, SkyTran will run non-stop point-to-point service without interrupting the flow of traffic, the company said.

Ever watched Minority Report?
gaffhook at 47

a hard burned egg

Oh the shame.

🙄

By Post Author

One good reason why Barrie could only be a one term POTUS.
Instead of cleaning up the voting machines problem they have compounded it IMHO.

More importantly, the lapse in business standards in tandem with the absence of such laws make it all the more possible for a lone techie, a company insider to slip some crafty little program code into the election program mix. As long as this techie stays smart and keeps the win within the margin of error he or she can effectively alter and even spot control election results.

Consider the technical challenges experienced by these two companies. Nine states reported voting problems with their Diebold equipment, including: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Maryland, Ohio, Utah, Virginia. Eight states reported problems with their ES&S voting equipment: Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. And five states reported voting problems with both ES&S and Diebold voting equipment: Florida, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas. (2)

http://www.opednews.com/articles/ES-S-Acquires-Premier-Elec-by-Lani-Massey-Brown-090903-993.html

Brave Conservatives Battle to Rescue Your Children from Obama’s Sinister Cult of Learning.

So Obama wants to address America’s schoolkids next week, and the batshit has hit the fan. Media Matters has a fantastic roundup of conservative crazies screaming that he wants to indoctrinate America’s children into his Communist Hitler Youth so all concerned parents should keep their children home so they don’t get Teh Brainwashed by his seductive liberal wiles. Or something.

As best as anyone can tell, Obama’s subversive join-me-and-we-can-rule-the-universe-together message is something along the lines of “Stay in school, study hard, drink your milk, don’t do drugs” – it’s like an afterschool special without the goofy plot and stilted line readings. But the wingnuts are flipping right the hell out like Obama’s the Pied Piper of Berlingrad come to drown their children in the river Wiser*.

Setting aside the surely ludicrous notion that conservatives are infuriated that an excessively-pigmented Democratic president is the one delivering this alarming message to the impressionable youth of America, I can think of only two rational explanations for the uproar:

Cartoon included…
continued on Firedoglage

Top Bush-era lawyer ‘can be sued’.
==========================

A former US attorney general can be sued by an American citizen held as a witness suspected of having information in a terrorism case, a court has ruled.

Abdullah al-Kidd accuses John Ashcroft, attorney general from 2001 to 2005, of violating his constitutional rights in 2003, when he was held for 16 days.

The court said detention of witnesses without charge after the 9/11 attacks was “repugnant to the constitution”.

The US Department of Justice said it was reviewing the court’s order.

A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals also said the government’s policy was “a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”

————————————————————————————
continued on the BBC News
One down plenty more to go.

Twitterers defy China’s firewall.
=======================

On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen killings, social networking sites such as Twitter and the photo-sharing site Flickr were blocked in China in an attempt by the government to prevent online discussion on the subject.

But Chinese twitterers proved that there are ways to get round the great firewall of China.

Frequent twittering from users in China has contributed to Tiananmen becoming one of Twitter’s most discussed topics during the anniversary.

One twitterer wrote: “I cried when I watched a video about 4 June 1989. All my memory came back. We are living inside a big wall, like in prison.”

Another one recalled the events of 1989: “I was fifth grade at school that year. There were students gathering in the town square. I could feel that there was a different atmosphere in our small town, but I couldn’t understand why. It wasn’t until I went to university that I learned about what had happened.”

————————————————————————————-
continued on the BBC News

Shit happens and sometimes you just can’t help bad luck.
But it is ironic that the roadside bombs being used in Afghanistan could well be those which were supplied to the Taliban in a previous shit fight.

But the Taliban commander’s claim is contradicted by evidence from the U.S. Defence Department, Canadian forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban itself that the increased damage to NATO tanks by Taliban forces has come from anti-tank mines provided by the United States to the jihadi movement in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48324

36, 43 Tobin tax on spec money movement makes a lot of sense. When for every $1 of trade in goods and services there is > $100 trade in currencies and money shuffling then the world is in trouble. The tax would only need to be small to raise a lot of money – we had something similar with the bank transactions tax. And if it frightened off a few speculators then good. We don’t need a big bloated financial services sector to be a successful economy.

David Brooks must be having some kind of “road to Damascus” upheavel.
Actually reads like he is batting for Baz.

If I had a magic hour with the president, I’d tell him this is his ninth-inning chance. He can stay on the current path. He might be able to pass some incremental bill that extends coverage. But he won’t have tackled the fundamental problems that first drove him to this issue. He won’t have cut health care inflation. He won’t have prevented a voracious system from bankrupting the nation, defunding the schools, pushing down wages and impoverishing the young.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/opinion/04brooks.html?_r=2&em

Nothing like a good bit of solid bonding when you are a civvy security employee in Ghan.
Makes the crossing the line ceremony look trivial.

The images come from Camp Sullivan, the quarters of the security personnel for the US Embassy in Kabul, only a few kilometers from the embassy complex in the Afghan capital. They show naked men, employees of the security firm, whose genitals are only barely covered with a kind of black beer mat. The men are drinking, dancing naked around a fire, licking each others nipples and grabbing each others testicles. They perform sex acts, pour vodka down each others’ naked backs and drink it from the buttocks.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,646977,00.html#ref=nlint

Where is the loyalty, I ask you?!

Was a time when a self-respecting, non-violent druggie could get him/herself time-out from the ghettos, projects and slums of America for three squares a day, a warm place to kip and a decent education in law-breaking.
And the keepers of their brothers and sisters could expect a steady employment-type situation going forward.

Not any more……….

Cash-strapped states revise laws to get inmates out as Mandatory sentencing laws are relaxed, parole is accelerated, and time off for good behavior is increased as states scramble to save money.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-prison-release5-2009sep05,0,5705309.story

Fair dinkum, the irony of economic decline leading to an upsurge in social juctice is one that bears some meditation. Be interesting to get the ethnic breakdown of released inmates in CA, but I’d bet my blue booties that emancipees are predominantly of African and Hispanic-American ethnicity………for similar reasons that Aboriginal Australians are incarcerated in hugely disproportionate numbers in our State prisons especially N.T., W.A., and the State named after Her Royal Brittanic Majesty Victoria, Queensland.

61
EC
I read an article about two or three months ago where Arnie was advised to release , i think the figure was close on half a mil, non violent internees and i think it gave some rather startling figures on what the savings would be.
Right now a dollar in Arnies coffers is a much sought after commodity.

Forget about ‘death-panels’ – think about the possibilities of a ‘death-marketplace’! After heading over to the NYT to read the article KatieLou posted at 60 above, I came across this little item – Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance:

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

It’s a fascinating read if even a little bit of you is into the dark side.

By Post Author

SHORTAGE OF BELIEVERS:

The difference between parties and movements is simple: Parties are loyal to their own power regardless of policy agenda; movements are loyal to their own policy agenda regardless of which party champions it. This is one of the few enduring political axioms, and it explains why the organizations purporting to lead an American progressive “movement” have yet to build a real movement, much less a successful one……..

…..The effort involved a sleight of hand. These groups (movements) begged their grass-roots members—janitors, soccer moms, veterans and other “regular folks”—to cough up small-dollar contributions in return for the promise of movement pressure on both parties’ politicians…..

……….. union dues underwrote Democratic leaders who today obstruct serious labor law reform and ignore past promises to fix NAFTA. Green groups’ resources helped elect a government that pretends sham “cap and trade” bills represent environmental progress. Health care groups promising to push a single-payer system got a president not only dropping his own single-payer promises, but also backing off a “public option” to compete with private insurance. And anti-war funding delivered a Congress that refuses to stop financing the Iraq mess, and an administration preparing to escalate the Afghanistan conflict……

http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20090903_progressives_pay_the_price_for_confusing_a_party_with_a_movement/

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

“People with hearts full of hope were entertained by The Monkees, but the totally manufactured affable foursome wern’t really the kind of change that Hopeful Americans could BELIEVE in.”

~ Mr. Piranha

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=951571

One of Bazzas top men down the schute.

Van Jones Resigns; Left To Hang By Obama For Cursing Republicans and Signing 911 Truth Statement?

Jones issued a statement just after midnight, early on September 6th, stating,

“I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today. On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.

I have been inundated with calls — from across the political spectrum — urging me to ‘stay and fight.’ But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.”

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Van-Jones-Resigns–Left-T-by-Rob-Kall-090906-519.html

WORDS-R-Us

*detainee* = prisoner

*providers* = health care sellers

*privatization* = corporatization

*medical malpractice reform* = restricting the legal rights of wrongfully injured people by hospitals and doctors, or limiting the liability of these corporate vendors when their negligence harms innocent patients.

*free trade* = corporate managed trade (which) lowers barriers between countries so that cartels, unjustified patent monopolies, counterfeiting, contraband, and other harmful practices and products can move around the world unhindered.

*death tax* = estate tax aka billionaire’s tax.

“What is remarkable about the constant use of these words is that they permeate the language even if those who stand against the policies of those who first coin these euphemisms. You’ll read about “detainees” and “providers” and “privatization” and “private sector” and “free trade” in the pages of the Nation and Progressive magazines, at progressive conferences with progressive leaders, and during media interviews. After people point out these boomeranging words to them, still nothing changes. Their habit is chronic.

A lot of who we are, of what we do and think is expressed through the language we choose.”

And narry a perception manager, a bullshit artist or a spin doctor in the house disagreed!

http://www.commondreams.org/print/46660

Jennifer is definitely the far more photogenic candidate. That must stand for something. Just ask Maxine Mckew.

No, what I mean is …
honestly you two! Surely in this day and age to take such a misogynistic approach to politics is puerile in the extreme.
I personally vote for the candidate with the best policies and the longest staying power.

and just checked out Jennifer – she doesn’t do it for me I’m afraid. Bit too Julie Bishop for my taste.

It’s no use hiding Mister Kirribilli. You intrigue me beyond the bounds of civilised constraint…. you really are a fascinating man. At the very least though, you could return my twitters! 😳

Just found a wonderful quote on a blog:

‘If the US government had been involved in 911, it:
a.) Would have cost 10 times as much;
b.) Would have been 10 years behind schedule; and
c.) Wouldn’t have worked.’

😉

Ah Miranda!
Welcome.
We just so love intelligent women on this site.
Hmmm.
Well, perhaps we can make an exception for you.

Chris B,

This is the guy who you said was finished due to the revelations about his ‘keep women in the home and gays out of everywhere’ uni thesis.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2009/governor/va/virginia_governor_mcdonnell_vs_deeds-1055.html

If the polls are right, he is going to be the next governor of Virginia. And the Democrats are going to lose New Jersey, too, by the looks of things. It is a good job that this is not an election year for Congress, I’m thinking …

Dear Ms. Devine, perhaps it’s best if you spare yourself furthur embarrassment. The Removalist is not for turning.

Cat, this toony ties in with the big red unemployment splotches in the NYT chart you posted upthread . Most of the damage on that chart which measured to March 09 was done in the preceeding twelve months but professionals like our good selves know that Sep unemployment has worsened since March 09.
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/20090906_happy_labor_day/

Sept 6:
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/tony-auth

Sept 6:
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/tom-toles

Katielou, how’d it go at last night’s course and have you noticed any ideological slant from the lecturers?
————————————————

How Washington is Screwing Up Health Care Reform – and Why It May Take a Revolt to Fix It

“Let’s start with the obvious: America has not only the worst but the dumbest health care system in the developed world. It’s become a black leprosy eating away at the American experiment – a bureaucracy so insipid and mean and illogical that even our darkest criminal minds wouldn’t be equal to dreaming it up on purpose……..

………..Congress has made sure to cover itself, sabotaging the bill long before it even got to Baucus’ committee. To do this, they used a five-step system of subtle feints and legislative tricks to gut the measure until there was nothing left.

STEP ONE: AIM LOW

STEP TWO: GUT THE PUBLIC OPTION

STEP THREE: PACK IT WITH LOOPHOLES

STEP FOUR: PROVIDE NO LEADERSHIP

STEP FIVE: BLOW THE MATH ”

http://www.commondreams.org/print/46671

74 Jen Who mentioned gender? Not me. I said photogenic. Arthur Calwell was not photogenic and it cost him a Prime Ministership. He may very well have had the better policies and longest staying power. It counted for zero.

Chris B,

Not yet. The elections for both governors are, I believe, on 4 November this year. As I said, if the polls are right it looks as though those two elections are going to be won by the respective Republican candidates. There are two months to go, and that is a very long time in politics, of course. But at present the Democratic candidates are not doing all that well in those two races.

84 Enemy Combatant. How did you find that article EC. It has no Google value what so ever. Which is why it must be linked to an important site. That way others can find this article. Especially important people. Like Pelosi and Obama.

Gaffers- glad to see that you acknowledge your mistake. Miranda is just trying to undermine the finer sensibilities of P101 (just see CB @77) and we do not need her to lower the tone.
we do it well enough ourselves.
😎
And thanks for FirstDog… Paddy is derelictious in his duty, but we can forgive him. For now.

94 David Gould Wow! Great news. Didn’t see that one coming. Now all they need to do is ban whaling and we’ll all be friends.

Yes, David, that’s excellent news indeed fro the new Japanese PM, Yukio Hatoyama. Pity Rudd and Obama couldn’t have shown similar leadership going into Copenhagen.

Go Yukio you good thing you!

It might pressure Rudd to go for 25 per cent – although Waxman only goes to around 15 per cent, and it is hard to see how Obama can get a tougher bill passed.

94 David Now what would they want to do a thing like that for? See what happens when the commies get in charge. They use actual scientific evidence! The bible doesn’t allow that sort of thing!

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