Jack & Jill Politics

EVENING OPEN THREAD IS UP

It's stories like the following that make me hard on Obama and Congress when it comes to creating a robust public option for EVERYONE:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/02/uninsu....

Handing 95 percent of America over to private insurance will not provide universal health care, nor will it protect the vulnerable from the vultures in private insurance.

Peace.

In spite of President Obama’s lobbying efforts, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) may have chosen to reject hosting the 2016 summer olympic games in Chicago due to the post-9/11 visa tourist policies established by his predecessor, George W. Bush. Michael Froomkin, Professor at the University of Miami School of Law, is convinced that the “the same stupid anti-visitor policy that is destroying American higher education” also sunk Chicago’s Olympic bid. Chicago was eliminated during the first round and received the fewest votes. A New York Times article points out:

In the official question-and-answer session following the Chicago presentation, Syed Shahid Ali, an I.O.C. member from Pakistan, asked the toughest question. He wondered how smooth it would be for foreigners to enter the United States for the Games because doing so can sometimes, he said, be “a rather harrowing experience.”

A “harrowing experience” may be an understatement. Immediately after 9/11, the Bush Administration began requiring fingerprints and photographs of tourists from all but 28 countries entering the US. President Bush required that all foreigners register online within three days of travel. Thirty-five (mostly European) countries now participate in the US Visa Waiver program, however tourists from the rest of the world still have to jump through the following hurdles:

- Pay hefty visa processing and issuance fees.

- Undergo an interview by a visa officer at the US Embassy.

- Provide evidence which shows the purpose of the trip, intent to depart
the United States, and arrangements made to cover the costs of the trip
may be provided.

- Present convincing evidence that an interested person will provide financial support if the applicant does not have sufficient funds to support him or herself.

The average wait for a US visa has risen to about three months. Brazil, which will host the 2016 Olympic summer games in Rio de Janeiro, has a reciprocal visa policy with all countries. US tourists are required to have a $130 advance visa before entry into the country and are fingerprinted and photographed upon arrival — matching US requirements for Brazilians.


Bush Admin. Tourist Visa Policy May Have Cost America the 2016 Olympics

Interesting.....

Barack and Michelle have insulted the history of American Presidents and First Ladies by begging for the Olympics to be held in Chicago. Both are great examples of what affirmative action is about.

Wow, I want to get on whatever Affirmative Action plan Sarah Palin is on! But there's just not enough Esoterica. Darn!

Get on the list for her new book ... still #1 at B & N and Amazon, and it's not even out yet!

I didn't notice the Affirmative Action column when I went to polling station.

Both are great examples of what affirmative action is about.

Unnecessary, Karmi...really

Fuck off ,you dim witted lower than lizard shit excuse for a human being.My apologies to the board but this POS needs to take some hillbilly heroin and just die.Its worthless ass will not be miss.

Foul mouthed one, don't blame me for you not being able to stand the TRUTH...

Talking to you, one cant helped being foul.You are worthless,our lives would have been better if the sperm donor would have pulled out so we would not had have the misfortune of being subjected to your idiotic rants.You bring nothing to the table other than hatred.So again fuck off.

No apology necessary for me, dj. Tear "it" up.

"Count me as one conservative who is disappointed that President Obama's hometown will not be hosting the 2012 Olympic Games.

Chicago is a beautiful city that would have made a perfect backdrop for the Olympics. The President was right to fly to Copenhagen to try to land the games, not for the sake of his city, but for the good of his country. The fact President Obama failed makes me respect him more for taking the chance, and the fact many right-wing figures opposed the President's mission shows just how narrow-minded partisanship makes us all."

Joe Scarborough thanks Obama for attempting to land Olympics

Alan Grayson on GOP on the Olympics: 'Someone should remind them what team they're really on':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPAtYGlgiqI

CYNTHIA TUCKER
Chicago loses. So does Obama’s image

11:51 am October 2, 2009, by ctucker

For a couple of months, at least, a conventional wisdom has been developing in Washington’s power circles that insists that President Obama is weak and wishy-washy. On a host of issues, from his deliberative process on Afghanistan to his refusal to push hard for a public option, his critics have hammered him for failing to instill fear in his opponents. That meme comes not just from hard right critics such as Charles Krauthammer, who hits him today on Iran, but also from so-called neutral arbiters, such as Dana Milbank, who also hammers the president today.

Now that Chicago has lost its bid to host the Olympics, despite Obama’s unprecented personal lobbying effort, the meme — the theme of presidential weakness — will harden. Jimmy Carter was never able to shake free of that conventional wisdom. Will the same happen with Obama?

http://blogs.ajc.com/cynthia-tucker/2009/10/02/...

Yeah, losing the Olympics is a real image buster. Not speaking incoherently, giving other world leaders neck massages, blowing up countries for the hell of it, villainizing anyone who doesn't agree 1000% with you. Losing the Olympics does.

Ole'!

HOLD THE PHONE!

That meme comes not just from hard right critics such as Charles Krauthammer, who hits him today on Iran, but also from so-called neutral arbiters, such as Dana Milbank, who also hammers the president today.

Dana Milbank neutral?? Is this chick serious? The same Dana Milbank who was CAUGHT IN A LIE when he attributed a quote to Obama that he never said, and when he said Nico Pitney asked a planted question at a WH presser? Chile, PLEASE. Tucker's credibility is shot with that one, and shows that she's just following her master's voice in furthering this "Chicago losing the Olympics is a blow to Obama's presidency" meme.

Ms.Tucker is part of the village.She wants to get paid so like $5 dollar crack hooker,so she will tell her johns what they want to hear.

Cynthia this also occurred on the same trip:

COPENHAGEN - At a pivotal point in the administration's Afghanistan strategy, President Barack Obama and his top Afghan war commander met privately aboard Air Force One on Friday for a talk the White House described as productive.

Cynthia do me a favor. STFU!!!!!!

No, No, we can't sweep this under the rug Angee cause it's for real, for real. We gotta figure out a way to lift Obama up out of this damned defeat. Barrack-the-Magic-Negro done lost some of his magic today baby.

Oh no, say it ain't so. I think this is his FIRST real defeat. With this one, I would just have to go ahead and railroad healthcare down Congresses throat, not to have another defeat. His slope is slippery now.

I am mad at Barrack for stepping backwards and getting into local politics knowing South America had not EVER, NEVER, EVER host an Olympic game. If someone had said to you/me that South Americans had NEVER hosted an Olympic Game, that would smack me right in the face of racism. Well, why not? Wouldn't you ask why brown skinned people speaking spanish had never gotten a bid? If I was Obama, I would have said hell-to-the- naw I ain't getting into that and hell-to-the-naw I aint going to Copenhagen. Let them host the games, fair is fair. But naw, he stepped azz backwards into Chicago local politics and got SMACKED WITH DEFEAT. You should have played fair, thought fairly, stayed at home Barrack. Showing defeat on his face and that ain't good. Now how those of us on these blogs supposed to justify you azz out of this move. We gotta work fast to figure out how to lift his azz back up so he won't be JIMMY2

Geez......and ain't I a woman?

The reason why successful people accomplish things because they try. You are the of type person that sits on the sidelines when people try to better themselves and when they fall on their face you laugh at them. Obama is an American. He is not from South America. He is not from Brazil. He doesn't have to take into account that there are "brown skinned" people in Brazil. The President must use his acclaim and influence to help the United States. Some people in this country are complete Toolbags. How many people in Brazil do you think were hoping for Chicago to get the Olympics? SMH

no comment

Of course not, it's impossible to rebut the truth.

Love you too.

"you are the type of person that..."
(judge and be not judged)

The Olympics was a stretch. Michelle, Oprah, Valerie and Melonie could handle that.

The loss isn't a real loss. A reality check but not a real loss for him; Daley's cronies and their pocketbooks yes. Hopefully we'll get a managment shakeup. Everyone agrees he can't do everything but he does have to pck and choose his battles. In picking and choosing his battles doesn't mean he cuts back his program. It means he moves on a broad front presenting himself for battle in places where he can have maximum effect. His political aides and advisors must be more forth coming and present.
Take the healthcare debate. Where is Ramhbo he isn't a Golem or we wouldn't have this fight w/ his blue dogs? Where is David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, Joe Biden, Gary Lockhart and Kathleen Selibus? You'd think they're ghosts as scarce as they are on the National scene. Why aren't Grayson and Weiner being called to the WH or at least getting the hi ho from the WH w/ a leak to the public that let's the public know "PBO says we got his back".

It's a reality check. Time to sit some folks on the bench, cut a weak player or two, find a strong free agent and put the coach on notice. He's the President damn it.

I hope that post was a joke.

unfortunately..................

The School Issue: High School
The Inner-City Prep School Experience

By MAGGIE JONES
Published: September 25, 2009

In the Southeast section of Washington, a public boarding school sits on four compact acres, enclosed by an eight-foot-high black metal fence. Behind the fence, the modern buildings of the SEED School are well scrubbed and soaked in prep-school culture. Pennants from Dartmouth, Swarthmore and Spelman decorate the hallways. Words that might appear on the next SAT — “daedal,” “holus-bolus,” “calamari” — are taped to bathroom and dorm walls. And inside the cafeteria hang 11-by-15-inch framed photos of SEED grads in caps and gowns, laughing, clutching diplomas.

Beyond the fence, the scene is a different one. Despite some recent development, Southeast’s Ward 7, where SEED is located, and neighboring Ward 8, remain the most impoverished parts of the city, with more than their share of tired liquor stores and low-slung public housing. In all of Ward 7, the 70,000 residents have just one sit-down restaurant, a Denny’s.

Every Sunday night, 325 students in grades 6 through 12, most of them African-American, most from single-parent, lower-income families in Southeast and Northeast, pass through the gates of SEED — the first inner-city public boarding school in the country, with admission by lottery. And for the next five days they do what other prep-school kids do: in uniforms of pressed khaki pants and polo shirts, they take classes in Spanish, precalculus, U.S. history and other subjects. They meet with staff members at the school’s College Café to talk about college applications. They spend their afternoons in chess clubs, on the basketball court or in poetry workshops.

Then, after school on Friday, they head back home, lugging duffel bags, suitcases and garbage bags serving as suitcases. For 48 hours, they leave SEED’s protected, grassy campus to return to their neighborhoods — the ones that created the need for charter schools like SEED in the first place. That ongoing transition, from school to home and back again, symbolizes the school’s unwritten requirement of its students: to juggle and to navigate two different and often conflicting worlds.

At 7:20 on a Friday morning in a bathroom in the girls’ dorm at SEED, Reneka Blackmone, who is 17, was standing in front of a mirror, surrounded by posters of Queen Latifah, Beyoncé and Naomi Campbell, brushing her teeth. Witty and self-deprecating, Reneka often performs her way through her day, dabbing beauty marks on her soft, dimpled cheeks with a mascara wand, imitating models on catwalks and freestyle rapping. But this morning she was preoccupied with the busy day ahead: Spanish class, an oral presentation on Charles Darwin for world history, classes in business management and music. Then there was the weekend to think about. At 3:30, the last bell of the week would ring and Reneka would be freed from the beige brick dorms, the study halls, the uniforms, the dining-hall food, the no-MySpace, no-Facebook, no-TV rules. She would also be freed from the reminders that teachers, administrators, counselors and resident assistants rain on her and other students 15-plus hours a day: tuck in your shirt, raise your hand, talk with respect, get to class on time, be nice to your classmates, study for your test, turn the lights out, get some sleep.

“Come on, baby, it’s late,” said a resident assistant, hands on her hips and old enough to be Reneka’s mother, as she stood in the doorway. Like all SEED students, Reneka belongs to a cluster of 12 to 15 students that is named after a college or university. The Howard House room Reneka and Quadidra Taylor shared was small and spare, with a desk, dresser and bed for each girl and a shared computer.

At 7:35, five minutes past the deadline to go to the dining hall for French toast, orange juice, apples and boxes of Golden Grahams, Reneka pulled on her uniform of khaki pants and a pale blue polo shirt. No plunging neckline, no huge hoop earrings, which are violations of the dress code. SEED’s 116-page Student-Parent Handbook, however, did say it “is not the intention of the school to regulate every aspect of a student’s individuality.” So Reneka put on her faux Chanel rhinestone earrings, slipped on a chunky chain bracelet and spritzed her body with perfume, from her neck to her ankles. She was ready for the school day.

The night before, I asked the girls about their weekend plans. “Chillin’, talkin’, walkin’,” Quadidra said. For Reneka, Friday nights were often catch-up time on all she missed during the school week: four- to five-hour stretches of MTV, VH1 and cable-TV karaoke, her favorite steak-and-cheese sandwich and 11 or 12 hours of sleep a night. By Saturday morning, she would be at her aunt’s apartment in Northeast, in jeans, strappy sandals and tidy cornrows, before heading out again, past the drug dealer in the stairwell on his cellphone, down the street lined with two- and three-story brick apartment complexes, including the one where a man killed his girlfriend and her children, until she landed at her friend’s house. There, she would sit on the front porch as her friend, who graduated from high school last year, braided her 1-year-old son’s hair. Reneka and her friend would talk about, among other things, the kinds of girls they were not: “rollers — skates with no brakes,” hopping from one boy’s bed to another.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27Bo...

Obama and the 2016 Olympics - THE US COMES IN 4TH (out of 4)!!!

Well, I been saying it. When it was made known out of 1000 years of Olympic Games they have NEVER gone to South America, it was going to be an affirmative action pick. I don't care if the US is a superpower - FAIR IS FAIR. Of course, its going to be and indictment against the first AA President but I don't think if Bush or Jesus had represented the US, we would have gotten the bid. Rio de Janero over Chicago, shmon, gimme a break? Plus how many times has the US hosted the games? Why continue to be "greedy guts" US? I do hate it for Obama, but I do believe he was just in the right place as President at the wrong time. Obama's biggest critics will get him because he is playing local politics while on the national stage (I don't care if it was a US bid, it was Chicago carrying the water and not the federal government). And this being the first time that Barack-the-Magic-Negro has lost anything, might start the balling rolling toward more defeats.

Jack Cafferty just said the same thing I've been saying. Obama should have had his azz in Chicago telling the AA community that "not snitching" is not the thing to do right now. Come forth and hang the thugs that trounced Derrion to death...hang 'em on the hood corner square.

Excuse me for a second.

The words of Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign manager last year:

"I think that she has talents. But my honest view is that she would not be a winning candidate for the Republican Party in 2012, and in fact, were she the nominee, we could have a catastrophic election result."

Then why the hell did you even allow her to enter the picture?

This might get me out of my blog semi-retirement.

Because you are redumblicans.You worship idiocy and degrade intellect.You think talking to peoples fears is good but hope is bad.Your party is racist and xenophobic instead of celebrating the differences that makes us stronger.Your party preaches hate instead of love.That's why you love the sno-ho

That'd be a valid comment, even though it's kinda Borg-ish ("you are redumblicans?")...

...except just about everyone here knows how I feel about the former governor of Alaska. When I said I'd rather work for Obama in '12, I wasn't kidding.

But you still want them in power?Go figure

Not her.

Course, if you read what I wrote, you'd know that.

Too much devil weed this morning, perhaps?

She is what defines your party.Ignorant ,racist,xenophobic all in all Know nothings.Maybe you need to take a toke to see the light.

If you got it, pass it.

Been one of those days.

LOL!!! If I indulge tonight, my first toke will be in your honor my brother.

Okay, so this woman on Trya is in love with the Berlin Wall and the Eiffel Tower, she MARRIED the Eiffel Tower? WTF. *turning the channel*

this is funny, in case you missed it Stephen Colbert says to send your unpaid medical bills to Max Baucus

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report...

Perfect:
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/glenn-b...

"We've known all along that Glenn Beck is a two-bit phony. Now we see how Glenn Beck gets himself properly weepy for the cameras: A little Vicks Vaporub."

No surprise here.

THEY'RE PAPER TIGERS! NO, THEY'RE TAKING OVER! NO, THEY'RE ...

Right-(sorta)-centrist he-man David Brooks doesn't think the wingnuts are so tough. Look, he says, at the '08 GOP primaries:

It is the winter of 2007. The presidential primaries are approaching. The talk jocks like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and the rest are over the moon about Fred Thompson. They're weak at the knees at the thought of Mitt Romney. Meanwhile, they are hurling torrents of abuse at the unreliable deviationists: John McCain and Mike Huckabee.

Yet somehow, despite the fervor of the great microphone giants, the Thompson campaign flops like a fish. Despite the schoolgirl delight from the radio studios, the Romney campaign underperforms.

Meanwhile, Huckabee surges. Limbaugh attacks him, but social conservatives flock.

Along comes New Hampshire and McCain wins!

... McCain wins the South Carolina primary and goes on to win the nomination. The talk jocks ... can't even deliver South Carolina!

Brooks thinks he's proved that the crazies don't have as much clout as they think they do. In fact, all he's proved is that they lose some clout when they're not all rowing in the same direction. Some, as he said, liked Thompson, others Romney. And there were further divisions: Sean Hannity was continuing his bromance with Rudy Giuliani, as was Pat Robertson.

The lack of a coherent, relentlessly reiterated single message from the usually highly disciplined GOP noise machine left the rank-and-file to think for themselves -- and some of them, yes, acted in ways their leaders didn't like. Many evangelical voters ignored the Huck's-a-squish talk and persuaded themselves that Huckabee would bring a much-needed theocracy to America. Military-minded righties responded to McCain's saber-rattling -- which he seemed to made the focus of his campaign almost unwittingly, as if he didn't quite realize that the best way to win over modern GOP voters was to out-butch his opponents on the war, disregarding the fact that the mainstream commentariat said the war was broadly unpopular.

Brooks goes on to argue that wingnut talkers failed on immigration:

Back in 2006, they threatened to build a new majority on anti-immigration fervor. House Republicans like J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf, both of Arizona, built their re-election campaigns under that banner. But these two didn’t march to glory. Both lost their seats.

Wow! Big victory for the forces of reason! That must be why the Bush administration's immigration reform effort passed with flying colors! ... Er, what's that? It didn't? Oh, yeah, right.

As Brooks says:

Just months after the election and the humiliation, everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They pre-emptively surrender to armies that don't exist.

Right. That's the point. If people think you have power, if they defer to you because you seem to have power, you, um, have power.

Besides, it's different now. This isn't a primary season with multiple preferred outcomes. It's not even a right-wing battle against a right-wing president whose position on one issue doesn't jibe with that of his party's base.

There's a Democrat in the White House and there are Democratic majorities in Congress. There's one enemy. There's one target. And much of what's being pursued by the Democrats is economic, so the fat cats and lobbyists are out front, and the Christians are rowing in the same direction as the fat cats (because it's always easy to get them to believe their interests and the fat cats' interests coincide), and the right-wing talkers have talking points exquisitely crafted by the finest artisanal talking-point crafters in the lobbying community.

So, no, David, the bloviators aren't paper tigers.

****

Peggy Noonan has a very different message today:

When William Safire died the other day, we lost one of the Elders of journalism and the argumentative arts. We've been losing a lot of them lately: Walter Cronkite, Bob Novak, Don Hewitt, Irving Kristol....

You know the current media environment. You think I'm about to say, "Boy, what's said on cable, radio and the Internet now is really harmful and dangerous." And you're right, and it is. Some of the ranters don't have the faintest idea where the line is....

It is a daily agitating barrage that coarsens and inflames. It tears the national fabric. But it could wind up doing worse than that.

This is why, I think, so many people ... are worried that our elected leaders are not safe, that this overheated era will end in some violent act or acts.

... knowing where the line is, matters. Seeing clearly the lay of the land, knowing the facts of the country and your countrymen, matters.

Which gets us back to Safire and Cronkite and Novak and the rest. They knew where the line was.

Safire? Novak? Kristol? They knew where the line was? The hell they did. They were the transitional generation: they watched the crazies rise up -- and happily worked hand in glove with them. They gave them mainstream cred. They used their Georegetown-cocktail-party reputations to blur the distinction between right-wing bomb-throwing and business as usual.

If a politician or a large number of workers in a federal building end up dead sometime soon, the late lamented alleged line-observers will not be exempt from responsibility.

SO he's speaking now, he's running on reverse CPT

So Obama is already back at the WH, that took way less than 24 hours. He's going to be making a statement around 4

LMAO@ that video. And to think, I used to think Big Bird was a nice guy

Halloween is still a month away, but ghouls, ghosts and other grotesque creatures are already roaming America's streets, possibly preparing to knock at your door. What makes them so scream-out-loud horrifying is that they are the newly issued spawn of -- shriek! -- Wall Street.

The very same greed-fueled bankers who brought us the disaster of 2008's financial crash have created another exotic financial horror to replace their securitized subprime-mortgage packages that exploded all over us.

Wall Street wizards have been down in their corporate basements working furtively to fabricate some new, get-rich-quick financial gimmick, and -- Holy Frankenstein! -- they've done it.

It's a scheme based on the mundane (but huge) life insurance market. Wall Street intends to tap into the $26 trillion-worth of life insurance policies that Americans hold, using a financial mechanism called "life settlements."

Often, the ill and elderly need cash for assisted living or myriad other reasons, and a small network of insurance brokers exists to offer them a sizeable pile of money in exchange for being named the beneficiary of the policy. A broker might pay $400,000 for a million-dollar policy.

Wall Streeters intend to turn these life settlements into a big boon for investment banks and super-rich speculators. First, they will take over the broker side of the business, setting up extensive networks of heavily advertised, life-settlement agencies across the country to entice sick and old folks into settlements. You can imagine the come-ons: "Free Cash!" "Cash-in BEFORE You Die!" "You CAN Cheat Death!"

Wall Street Plans to Tap into $26 Trillion Life Insurance Market, Cashing in When People Die

A U.S. senator and three congressmen plan to meet Friday with Honduras' interim leader in defiance of official Washington policy barring contact with the architects of the military coup that ousted the nation's president.

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint intends to meet with interim President Roberto Micheletti as well as members of the Central American nation's Supreme Court, election officials and business and civic leaders during the fact-finding trip, said Wesley Denton, a spokesman for the senator.

The visit comes as President Barack Obama's administration seeks to isolate the interim government and use other forms of pressure – including suspending aid and canceling the visas of some members of the country's wealthy elite – in hopes of returning ousted President Manuel Zelaya to serve the remaining months of his term.

DeMint, one of a number of U.S. conservatives who have defended Zelaya's ouster on June 28 in Central America's first coup in more than a decade, supports the interim government plan to hold elections Nov. 29.

DeMint Honduras Trip Planned In Defiance Of U.S. Policy

Hopefully Sen. DeMint and the three Congressmen will be nice and safe ...

The funniest thing about that article is reading the comments.

How the hell does this equate to "treason?" And where the hell did all these "experts" on the sujbect come from? I've heard more about treason, sedition, and other "high crimes and misdemeanors"-in one person or another's opinion-in the 9-10 months of PBO's admin than I heard during the previous eight years of Bush's admin.

Com'on, D!

He's talking to a gov't not recognized by our gov't OR the countries who surround it. It was a military coup. DeMint is going to talk to the 'heads' of the gov't in question, and per his agenda will encourage that gov't to resist the U.S. gov't's stance(s). That sure as the fuck borders on treason to me.

Besides I see Morphus explains it better than I just did. And brings in the Logan Act, which has been mentioned as well.

Ok, illegal? Possibly (I'm not that familar with the Logan Act).

But treason? I'm still not getting there.

The redumblican party is guilty of treason.bush,cheney and your dance partner turdblossom is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.Your party is nothing more than a shit stain on a pair of fruit of the looms.That is all.

Yeah because nobody argued whether he and John Yoo were guilty. Most people just went along because they were rightfully terrified of being put on a watch list or a visit ot Gitmo.

Did you see this comment?

De Mint is violating the Logan Act which bars American officials from acting against the interest of our government. He is supporting a military dictatorship in Honduras that the US officially opposes and this is no different from what many on the far right want to see happen in this country. The extreme right only believes in democracy when they win; when they lose, they want a coup. Fortunately, our military isn't listening to them, otherwise we would be facing the same situation here.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

Only crime defined in the Consitution.

So how do we get from a "fact-finding mission" (which is vague in itself) to giving "aid and comfort" to an enemy or making war against the US? Someone walk me down that path.

And before anyone trips, it's not just the left; it's my people as well.

Maybe the treason is shorthand for treasonous behavior?

Demint's end runaround of the State Department's objects treats this country's standing policy with Honduras in a highly treacherous fashion.

...no different than Jesse Helms' support for Pinochet.

shakes head***

Sometimes I just wonder

The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse

10/02/2009
Regarding Polanski and the Rule of Law:
The Rude Pundit wasn't going to comment on Roman Polanski case because it's a ridiculously simple thing: fugitive rapists should be brought to justice. That would seem to be an absolute. As for the high profile people defending Polanski, well, shit, just because your friends like you, it doesn't mean you're not a criminal. Hell, you could probably find insane religious zealots saying that Elizabeth Smart's rapist should go free because God wanted him to rape Smart. Mostly, though, it's a waste of time, even a few people you would normally think have better sense have said dumb things along the way.

However, there's a bizarre moral equation going on among some (not all) on the right that because a petition calling for Polanski's release has been signed by a bunch of well-known movie people, it means liberals as a hegemonic whole want to just let Polanski go. For instance, because of what Whoopi Goldberg ("it's not rape-rape") and Feminist Majority founder Peg Yorkin (especially surprising) said about Polanski, Rush Limbaugh belched, "That's where the feminazis are today...Just like there was no compassion for Paula Jones, where's the compassion for that 13-year-old girl? Juanita Broaddrick, alleged rape by Bill Clinton, who said he said, 'Put some ice on your lip.' They went after Juanita Broaddrick, not Bill Clinton." Now that's a fucking leap in moral equivalency, but it's really the only exercise Limbaugh gets.

And Limbaugh might be on to something if he wasn't utterly and completely wrong. Outside of show business, virtually every feminist writer and pundit has been squarely on the side of the victim. Kate Harding in Salon, Katha Pollitt in The Nation, you get the idea. When you're dealing with Limbaugh, though, facts never get in the way of some random point you think you're making. (And Limbaugh condemning someone for evading the law is a little like John Wayne Gacy saying clowns are scary.)

There's also attempts to tie the Polanski case to other supposed liberal excesses. On Morning Starbucks on MSNBC, Mika Brzezinski, dominatrix sneer in full swing, compared Polanski to David Letterman confessing to having sex with employees under some general "Hollywood" banner. Over at the Heritage Foundation, the blog is using Polanski as a way to condemn Kevin Jennings, the assistant deputy secretary of education for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools and the latest victim of the right's witch hunt in the Obama administration. Gary Bauer somehow shoehorns ACORN and abortion into his discussion of Polanski.

What's fucking funny is that all of these people who write the lie about how squishy liberals want to set Polanski free get into a righteous froth when liberals say that people who committed torture during interrogations should be investigated and brought to justice. This is not some vague analogy. See, some of us believe in principles, not just politics. One of those is that criminals should pay for their crimes, no matter if they're famous movie directors, CIA agents, or Vice Presidents. We can argue about what the punishment should be. But no one should be excused from answering to the law. It's the right that's always too ready to excuse criminals when it suits their ideological purposes.

all those hollywood stars coming to roman's defense just want a role in his next movie.

I for one when the story broke tried to make excuses.I was wrong.That is all.

Guilty as well. I was wrong. Read the smoking gun files if you have any questions.

Just read this over at Crooks & Liars.

For $503 A Year,
Members of Congress Have A Top-Notch Hospital On Call
In The Capitol.
But They Don't Want 'Government Care'?

Fuck! I'd pay $503 annually for this.

I'll bid $2100 for my fmily of four.

The chickenhawks,aipac and the warmongers heads just exploded

By Warren P. Strobel and Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers
GENEVA — Iran agreed in principle Thursday to ship most of its current stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be refined for exclusively peaceful uses, in what Western diplomats called a significant, but interim, measure to ease concerns over its nuclear program.

The agreement was announced after seven and a half hours of talks in Geneva that included the highest-level official U.S.-Iranian encounter in three decades.

Iran also pledged that within weeks it would allow the inspection of a previously covert uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom, and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, announced that he'd head to Tehran to work out the details.

In Washington, President Barack Obama said the talks marked "a constructive beginning" and showed the promise of renewed engagement with Iran, but added that "going forward, we expect to see swift action. We're not interested in talking for the sake of talking."

Obama pointedly said that Iran must allow unfettered access to the Qom facility within "two weeks."

Envoys from Iran and the other nations that met here — the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany — agreed to reconvene before the end of October, raising prospects for sustained negotiations after 15 months of no talks and rising tensions.

Despite the hopeful signs, however, Iranian nuclear envoy Saeed Jalili gave no ground on demands that Tehran halt the enrichment of uranium, which can be used for both civilian nuclear power and nuclear weapons, according to U.S. and European officials who were present.

"The overall problem of Iran's nuclear program remains," said a senior U.S. official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.

Indeed Iran, which insists it isn't seeking nuclear weapons, got much from the meeting: help with its ostensibly peaceful nuclear program, no concessions on the enrichment issue and an opportunity once again to put its aspirations for a major global role on display.

The Obama administration has reversed its predecessor's course and steadily reached out to Iran since taking office. But U.S. officials, along with Israel and many lawmakers on Capitol Hill, worry that Tehran will string out diplomacy with small concessions while it continues covert work toward fashioning a nuclear weapon.

During a lunch break at the villa outside Geneva where the diplomats gathered, Undersecretary of State William Burns, the State Department's No. 3 official, met for about 45 minutes with Jalili. At that session, which officials described as businesslike, Burns broached the Qom facility as well as Iran's human rights record, the senior U.S. official said.

In a separate exchange with the Iranians, another U.S. diplomat, who wasn't identified, raised the issue of three U.S. hikers that Iran took into custody after they strayed over the border from Iraq.

The U.S. broke diplomatic ties with Iran in early 1980, shortly after Islamic radicals seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 and took 66 Americans hostage, 52 of whom remained captive for 444 days.

There have been sporadic U.S.-Iranian contacts in the ensuing three decades, official and unofficial, secret and overt — but no one-on-one meetings at such a senior level as Thursday's.

Jalili, at a Geneva press conference later, made no mention of his meeting with Burns, repeated Iran's long-standing demands to nuclear technology as its "right," and said nations that already have nuclear weapon should disarm.

Under the tentative uranium deal, Iran would ship what a U.S. official said was "most" of its approximately 3,000 pounds of low-enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be further refined, to 19.75 percent purity. That is much less than the purity needed to fuel a nuclear bomb.

French technicians then would fabricate it into fuel rods and return it to Tehran to power a nuclear research reactor that's used to make isotopes for nuclear medicine. Iran says the old reactor, which dates from the Shah's era, is running out of nuclear fuel.

A second senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity, said that Iran doesn't have the technology to convert the fuel rods back into bomb-making material.

U.S. officials, who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly, said the arrangement could set back the date by which Iran could acquire a nuclear weapon, because it had been feared Tehran would attempt to transform the same low-enriched uranium into the highly-enriched substance needed for a bomb. They said that Israel had been kept apprised of the deal.

The deal hinges, however, on Iran following through, as well as assurances that the country has no other covert nuclear facilities — which is again in question because of last week's revelation of the Qom site.

Iran agreed to the deal "in principle," U.S. officials said, and there's to be a meeting in Vienna on Oct. 18 to work out details.

During Thursday's talks, the U.S. and five other countries reiterated a June 2008 offer to halt the imposition of economic sanctions if Iran suspends its uranium enrichment program.

"We did not get a complete response today," said Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief.

Thursday's meeting between Burns and Jalili is the latest attempt by the Obama administration to engage Iran, which Washington also has threatened with "crippling" sanctions if it doesn't suspend the nuclear work.

The State Department allowed Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, to visit Washington on Wednesday, waiving regulations that usually confine Iranian diplomats within a 25-mile radius of the U.N. headquarters in New York. Mottaki didn't meet U.S. officials, but visited Iran's interests section, which is overseen by Pakistan, because the U.S. and Iran have no diplomatic relations.

The talks here took place at the Villa le Saugy, situated with a breathtaking view of the Swiss Alps and Lake Geneva. After a lunch that included trout almondine, creme brulee, wine and coffee, the diplomats scrapped a second planned formal session and huddled in small groups throughout the afternoon.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/76369.html

The agreement was announced after seven and a half hours of talks in Geneva that included the highest-level official U.S.-Iranian encounter in three decades.

Diplomacy is about education, isn't it? That's why these dimwits don't like IT. Because you cannot be performing knee jerk reactions.....threatening to blow 'em up to the gottdamned stone age & shit.

Chicago loses, Rio wins. What did folks expect? The IOC likes to place the games in "emerging" locales--South America is such a continent and Brazil is one of the world's largest economies, an anchor of world culture, etc. I wouldn;'t be surprised if 2020 is in India. Frankly I don't think Chicago had a chance. Would have a nice place to spend Stimulus $ (and aint that why anyone wants the Olympics--money?) But seriously, can you thinkof a more exotic place to visit that's in this hemisphere (even tho it'll technically be wintertime)? The Olympic mascot will be a thong...

I just wish the President would try to quell expectations every now and again, and be a bit more folksy about his influence, rather than let the starpower stuff run wild. Is it stupid people think his star is a bit "faded" by this? Sure. But the perceptions are what rule. Stop giving the opposition cheap victories.

Get to the bad chair a thong for a masot. With that kind of thinking the water sports will be au naturel and take place in the ocean leading to the lowest times ever as they work off their hangovers.
Can you get a medal for team drinking on the beach, best samba line?

Move over Chris I hear the Green Lady coming.

Hey,Rio may have won the Olympics but Chicago still has the best hot dogs and deep dish pizza in the world.I prefer Edwardo's spinach but Giodanos is good to.

I'm more of a Zachary's fan myself.

Zachary's I'm not hip to that spot.Is in the Chi give me an address and I will check them out the next time I'm home.

I don't see this as an opposition victory...for the exact reason you named: given the chance to be in an emerging nation, the IOC will take that over our commercialization any day (at least, I'd like to think so). Anyone with a bit of sense (yeah, I know, so don't say it) sees that.

I've heard there's a couple African countries that are going to push for '20 and '24. That would be interesting.

...given the chance to be in an emerging nation, the IOC will take that over our commercialization any day ...

... given the chance to [gain access to more hookers and drugs], the IOC will take that over our commercialization any day ...

The legacy of the collective dump bush and redumblicans took on the world has come back to deny us the games.Mission Accomplished

But Obama the Messiah went, and he was supposed to deliver the Games unto us, right? Since he didn't, his presidency is a failure!!

</snark>

Do we really have to politicize sports? Have things really sunk to that level? Let's just all enjoy the Games in four years, and-as Chris said-the thongs (sorry, ladies).

Damn d it's crowded on the chair w/ your big ass.

Have you not seen the reactions? That's pretty much what IS said!

That's exactly what is said, and it illustrates the irrationality of racism. It also shows how racism can cause people to make absolute clowns of themselves. They really think they're "getting back" at somebody, rather than causing the world to look at them and think "How can anyone be this idiotic?". "Patriots", indeed. LOL.

EXACTLY. They're so focused on Obama failing . Nothing else-no solutions, no bipartisanship, despite some of these policies benefitting EVERYBODY, they'd rather scare
their followers with the something is being taken from YOU meme.

LOL.

It's rare that we agree.

I know.

And I also know (think?) djchefron's not serious in what he said...so I was just engaging him back.

Ah, OK. :)

The Olympic mascot will be kidnapped and held for ransom by a local Brazilian drug gang.

the thong or the girl or given this is rio...
Stop Green lady stop....

in Kentucky....