Jack & Jill Politics

EVENING OPEN THREAD IS UP

rikyrah: TA-RYIN' this 1 mo' 'gain! :>)

rikyrah: Here's my take on the "usefulness/uselessness" of "The Ex-Gov.'s" alleged book -

+Building a BONFIRE 4 toasting marshmallows!:>) :>)

+SMORES - - anyone?? :>)

rikyrah: I'm showing up on DISQUS but NOT here. SORRY!!

S-U-R-E - - -NOW this appears! :>)

Fights @ the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/peopl...

OK, the thought of a 70-year old throwing down is a bit hilarious to me.

New From AOFBlog: Why You Should Participate in NaNoWriteMo – Yeah You! http://bit.ly/adQkm

GOP Rep: Health reform scarier than terrorism

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALe...

WASHINGTON — A Republican congresswoman says people have more to fear from Democratic health care legislation than from terrorists.

Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina made the comments in a speech on the House floor Monday.

Marine Commandant Defies White House on Gay Troops


The Washington Times is reporting that Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway is opposing President Obama's pledge to repeal "don't ask, don't tell." Citing a former senior Pentagon official, the Times says that General Conway, "has emerged in internal Pentagon deliberations as the most outspoken opponent of permitting gay men and women to serve openly in the U.S. military." According to the Times, the official says that "Conway has gone further than others in stating his opposition to a change in policy."

If nothing else, Conway's apparent resistance may be a warning shot to the White House by telegraphing arguments that opponents of repeal will invoke if the Senate holds hearings on "don't ask, don't tell." Given that we are fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, opponents will say, we just cannot take time out to focus on civil rights issues like gays in the military.

But there could be other implications to the case, some of which have higher stakes than the gays in the military issue. On one hand, even if the White House did not coordinate the leaking of General Conway's views, there is a way in which his opposition plays into the administration's hand. The President, of course, is strongly in favor of repealing the ban. His political reality, however, is that he has to deal with a range of other crises before turning to repeal. What better way to justify going slowly than a statement by the Marine Commandant that we cannot do this now?

On the other hand, even though Conway's apparent resistance may buy some time, it could carry some risk for the White House as well. Law professor Diane Mazur, for example, worries that Conway's opposition could raise thorny questions of civilian control over the military. "The President has declared which way policy is heading," she said. "There is no faster way for a Commander-in-Chief to lose the respect of those serving under him than to allow his Service Chiefs to march in an opposite direction." Mazur should know. She is a former military officer and a top legal expert on civil-military relations.

From this point of view, service members would rather follow a leader who pursues policies that they oppose than a leader who is not forceful enough to ensure than all his subordinates are following his plan, regardless of their preferences. To the extent that Mazur is correct, then it may be important for the White House to take Conway out to the woodshed.

As retired Air Force Colonel Dick Klass said this morning, "Clinton's mistake was to call the Chiefs into the Oval Office and ask them what they thought about gays in the military. What Clinton should have done, and what Obama should do, is call the Chiefs in, explain that repealing the ban is a matter of national security, and tell them that if they are uncomfortable with that, they should resign."

The bottom line is that, as Secretary of the Army John McHugh said last week, the military has a long history of adjusting its policies, and the typical pattern is that "predictions of doom and gloom that did not play out." Most military leaders understand that repeal is inevitable. Many agree that "don't ask, don't tell" is hurting the military, and that it doesn't make sense to fire gay Arabic linguists during a time of war. The question is when, not whether, repeal will happen.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-belkin/mari...

As former Marine the Marine Corps is BY FAR one of the most anti-gay environments that a gay person could ever experience. In some units I was in they didn't even want women around. Internally, the Marine Corps is going to fight this tooth and nail.

What is going on w/ this system today? It will not let you post unless you log on everytime.

I'm telling Jack right now. sorry.

Sarah Palin isn’t staying out of the Virginia governor’s race after all.

Less than 48 hours before voters head to the polls to elect a new governor, several Virginians reported receiving robocalls on Sunday from the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, urging them to “vote your values” on Tuesday.

But the recording makes no mention of the Bob McDonnell, the Republican gubernatorial candidate who has been reluctant to embrace Palin during the governor’s race, out of fear that she might alienate some of the independent voters who have helped him climb to a healthy lead in the polls over Democrat Creigh Deeds.

“Virginia, hello, this is Sarah Palin calling to urge you to go to the polls Tuesday and vote to share our principles,” the former Alaska governor says in the call, which was provided to CNN by one Democrat who recorded it. “The eyes of America will be on Virginia and make no mistake about it, every vote counts. So don’t take anything for granted, vote your values on Tuesday, and urge your friends and family to vote, too.”

Palin robocalls urge Virginians to 'vote your values'

What values would those be? Leading Neo-Klan rallies? Being stupid? Quitting your job because of criticism? Fighting with teenage boys in the press? (Possible) Embezzlement? Ethics violations every day? Strutting around in a wet towel in front of men who aren't your husband? Winking, shimmying and shaking during a vice-presidential debate? What exactly are these values that Virginians are supposed to share with Palin?

One of the things you have t be careful w/ in attacking Sarah Palin. People keep hitting her on class reasons; she went to six schools, winks and flirts-at least she acknowldeges sex is supposed to be fun. You have to point out she is a quitter and careless. Attacks on her as a working mother or irresponsible don't resonate with her supporters. It is almost the same way racial attacks on President Obama galvanize AA supporters.

Fox News Chris Wallace, took on his critics on Sunday, claiming he acts as a mouthpiece for Republicans, by conducting a feel-good love fest interview with hate talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. Wallace, putting on display his “fair and balanced” interview skills, asked a series of softball questions, allowing the controversial Limbaugh to hurl 30-minutes worth of outrageous and largely unchallenged attacks against President Obama.

After the interview, Wallace, acting like a giddy schoolboy with a crush, described Limbaugh, the daily purveyor of hate and bigotry, as “very nice, very sweet,” and “vulnerable.”

During Wallace’s sycophantic interview, Limbaugh repeated his race-baiting smear that President Obama was a “man-child,” attacking Obama, as “narcissistic,” who went to honor our fallen soldiers at Dover for a “photo-op,” and stating, “I also don’t think he cares” about Afghanistan, the soldiers and their families.

Limbaugh also likened health care reform to the “biggest snatch of freedom and liberty,” claiming Obama and his “radical leadership” is destroying the country’s economy “on purpose.” The hate talk radio host also derided Obama as a one-term President, who poses a “threat to liberty and freedom,” because of health care and cap and trade legislation, which Limbaugh described, as a “global warming fiasco track.”

Limbaugh also claimed that former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, who quit in the middle of her first term of office, is ready to become President of the United States right now.

Fox News Wallace: Limbaugh ‘Very Nice, Very Sweet,’ and ‘Vulnerable’

So Chris Wallace is Big Pharma's bitch, eh?

Who knew?

Slurpin' that Lim-Bah milkshake..."puke"!

The total absence of local journalism in many markets, and the fixation of what news reporting there is on a handful of crime and celebrity stories helps conceal from the public the real price of global empire and the Wall Street Bailout, or how the privatization measures widely undertaken by state and local governments to relieve their financial pressure have been a cavalcade of corruption, a cascade of scandal and failure that make the rich even richer and the rest of us... well, you know....

The real costs of the $17 trillion bankster bailout, along with the untold trillions more spent for wars in the Middle East and America's global empire have come home. States and counties can no longer pay for the ordinary functions of government. Cities and towns can't repair streets and bridges, maintain water systems or fund libraries. Since the war and the bailouts are massively unpopular, you could say the ultimate cause of it all is a lack of democracy.

But the solution local and state governments, encouraged by Wall Street and the business class automatically reach for is even less democratic, and far more costly. That so-called solution is privatization of public assets and even the core functions of government.

The public policy information clearinghouse ProgressiveStates.Org has released another update to its ongoing series of analyses on the evils of privatization, including accounts of recent privatization disasters, accounts of some of the true costs of these boondoggles, sweetheart deals and outright thefts, the positive steps some cities and states are taking to undue and prevent future privatizations, along with research tips and talking points for local groups trying to keep public assets functioning and public.

In a political system where the careers of politicians who award and renew the privatization contracts are financed by campaign contributions of the business class, corruption in privatized contracts is automatic and absolute. When politicians sit down to do the deal with contractor/contributors, there's never anybody at the table, or even in the building looking out for the public interest. The result is a never-ending string of privatization-related fraudulent claims, scandals and civic disasters, most of which are ignored by the mainstream news outside the local areas in which they occur.

National Wave of Privatization Scandals and Disasters Ignored By Media, Concealed From Public

RobM,

this is for you and me....we ask this all the time.

Maria Cantwell: I'm "Not Sure" Why Geithner Still Has Job (VIDEO)

A Democratic senator said on Monday that she's "not sure" why Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner still has his job, calling his financial reform plans "appalling."




Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/02/maria-...

I'v been receiving emails all day about Fredo, many orginating at huff and puff starting w/ Dylan Ratigan blog. People are finally figuring it out. I honestly thought because he was at the NY FED and knows where the skeltons are he would go JOe Kennedy on them whn President Obama picked him.
the good thing is people are making the difference between the bonuses and the policies that allow them. the more they see what is going on they don't like it.
Media Alert its 4:11pm and Paul volker is coming on CNBC. I'll post the video went becomes available.

Gibbs: Karzai Is The "Legitimate Leader"

The Obama administration said on Monday that it now considers President Hamid Karzai to be the "legitimate" leader of Afghanistan, despite widespread concern over the corruption in that country's electoral process.

Speaking just hours after Karzai's main challenger, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew his name from a potential runoff election, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs moved swiftly (but with careful wording) to position the administration alongside the technically re-elected president.

"President Karzai has been declared the winner of the Afghan elections and will head the next government of Afghanistan," said Gibbs, "and so obviously he is the legitimate leader of the country."



Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/02/gibbs-...

------------------

Come on, NOW.

Winner?

puleeze.

The Karzai BrothaZ...lol!

Karzai is yet another BUSH appointee being allowed to retain their position in the Obama administration. He was selected for President just like...erm Bush was!

"The Obama administration said on Monday that it now considers President Hamid Karzai to be the "legitimate" leader of Afghanistan, despite widespread concern over the corruption in that country's electoral process."

The "legitimate" leader?! Karzai can't even leave the confines of Kabul! He committed widespread fraud in the general election and there was every indication that the same would have happened in the run off. And they wonder why we don't have credibility in the Middle East and S. Asia. As long as we continue to prop up and support despots who do nothing but kill, pillage and loot from their own people, we should expect not to be trusted or considered honest brokers.

Who Will Love The Black Child?: Each day Black children cry out for love and guidance and what do they get in return? If the violence and drug use that commonly occurs in urban neighbourhoods were instead happening in a suburb filled with White children, you can be certain that there would be a nation wide task force charged with finding a solution. The news reports on the grim events and it serves as a form of voyeuristic entertainment that neither gives rise to sympathy or concern. These are not the children of Whiteness that lay cold in a morgue. These are not the children of Whiteness that have a serial prison number rather than a name.

How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.

Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.

Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws.

"The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion," said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor who's proposed a massive overhaul of the nation's banks. "This is fraud and should be prosecuted."

John Coffee, a Columbia University law professor who served on an advisory committee to the New York Stock Exchange, said that investment banks have wide latitude to manage their assets, and so the legality of Goldman's maneuvers depends on what its executives knew at the time.

"It would look much more damaging," Coffee said, "if it appeared that the firm was dumping these investments because it saw them as toxic waste and virtually worthless."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/77791.html

Vitter Confronted By Rape Victim Over Franken Amendment Vote



First Posted: 11- 2-09 09:32 AM | Updated: 11- 2-09 11:36 AM

Last month, Senator David Vitter (R-LA) opposed a congressional measure to prohibit the government from working with contractors who deny victims of rape or assault the right to bring their cases to court.

And now, the issue isn't going way. Vitter, who was one of only 30 Republicans who actually voted against the amendment, was pilloried in local newspapers, and has also seen the issue become an early focal point of his re-election contest.

At a town hall meeting this past weekend, meanwhile, the Senator was confronted by a constituent who, after recounting her tale of being raped, demanded to know why he opposed Sen. Al Franken's (D-Minn) amendment.

The exchange was contentious, heart wrenching, and potentially damaging.


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/02/vitter...

FROM COATES

Joeidiocy
02 Nov 2009 02:00 pm

You can watch Lieberman talk about his willingness to kill health care reform over the public option. I don't think you should though. Frankly, I just don't believe him. And I don't believe Harry Reid, either.

I was in the camp of people who thought that Lieberman shouldn't be punished for his endorsement of McCain. I was very wrong. Lieberman now says he will endorse other Republicans in upcoming election. I don't see how you allow a guy like that to remain in any sort of position of power. I just don't see it. If he wants to be an independent, that's fine. But make him an independent.

This isn't about chasing out moderates, or chasing out independents. It's about chasing out sanctimonious politicians who'd rather indulge their bruised feelings, than play their position. It's worth re-reading Rick Hertzberg definitive commentary on what motivates Joe Lieberman. Here's Hertzberg discussing Lieberman's half-assing during the Gore campaign:

Lieberman's seat was up that year, and he decided to run simultaneously for senator and Vice-President. Lyndon Johnson had taken out a similar insurance policy forty years earlier, but there was a difference. The governor of Texas in 1960 was a Democrat, so when Johnson resigned his Senate seat after the election a Democrat was appointed to replace him. The governor of Connecticut in 2000 was a Republican. If Lieberman had made way for the state's popular Democratic attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, who would have won easily, and if the Supreme Court had allowed Gore to take office, then the new Senate would have split 50-50, with Vice-President Lieberman breaking the tie in favor of the Democrats. But, by insisting on having it both ways, Lieberman single-handedly guaranteed that the new Senate would be Republican--either by a 51-49 margin under a Gore Administration or (as it turned out) by the tie-breaking vote of Vice-President Dick Cheney. This was more than just routine political expediency. It was what was known that year as a character issue.


A character issue. Joe isn't out for "real America." Joe isn't out for "the political center." Joe isn't out for moderates. Joe Lieberman is going for delf. It's that simple.

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives...

America, stop sucking up to Israel
By Gideon Levy
Tags: barack obama, peace process

Barack Obama has been busy - offering the Jewish People blessings for Rosh Hashanah, and recording a flattering video for the President's Conference in Jerusalem and another for Yitzhak Rabin's memorial rally. Only Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah surpasses him in terms of sheer output of recorded remarks.

In all the videos, Obama heaps sticky-sweet praise on Israel, even though he has spent nearly a year fruitlessly lobbying for Israel to be so kind as to do something, anything - even just a temporary freeze on settlement building - to advance the peace process.

The president's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, has also been busy, shuttling between a funeral (for IDF soldier Asaf Ramon, the son of Israel's first astronaut Ilan Ramon) and a memorial (for Rabin, though it was postponed until next week due to rain), in order to find favor with Israelis. Polls have shown that Obama is increasingly unpopular here, with an approval rating of only 6 to 10 percent.
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He decided to address Israelis by video, but a persuasive speech won't persuade anyone to end the occupation. He simply should have told the Israeli people the truth. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who arrived here last night, will certainly express similar sentiments: "commitment to Israel's security," "strategic alliance," "the need for peace," and so on .

Before no other country on the planet does the United States kneel and plead like this. In other trouble spots, America takes a different tone. It bombs in Afghanistan, invades Iraq and threatens sanctions against Iran and North Korea. Did anyone in Washington consider begging Saddam Hussein to withdraw from occupied territory in Kuwait?

But Israel the occupier, the stubborn contrarian that continues to mock America and the world by building settlements and abusing the Palestinians, receives different treatment. Another massage to the national ego in one video, more embarrassing praise in another.

Now is the time to say to the United States: Enough flattery. If you don't change the tone, nothing will change. As long as Israel feels the United States is in its pocket, and that America's automatic veto will save it from condemnations and sanctions, that it will receive massive aid unconditionally, and that it can continue waging punitive, lethal campaigns without a word from Washington, killing, destroying and imprisoning without the world's policeman making a sound, it will continue in its ways.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1124928.html

Only a Jewish person could get away with writing something like that even if it's the truth. If anyone else would have wrote this the ADL would have already released a statement calling them an anti-semite. The only way there is going to be real progress on Israeli/Palestinian issue if both sides concede to meaningful concessions. The Bush Administration's one sided and hands off approach ironically didn't make Israel more secure. I'm sure the author loves Israel just as much as any Jewish person he just has a different way of looking at the world.

It's funny if go on the haaretz website and read some of the comments from the article it reminds me when black conservatives try to give their opinions. Not only is nothing in article even taken seriously the author is called a "traitor and self-hater" Doesn't that sound familiar. It's unfortunate how in some communities and my own if you offer an opinion that doesn't fall in line with "the gospel" you are shunned and mocked.

02 Nov 2009 02:22 pm
What Happens In NY-23 Now? Ctd

Josh Marshall hits the nail on the head:

Every non-hard-right congressional Republican will have this episode in mind going forward the next year -- it will shape votes, positions on key issues. And what happened in this race will be the backdrop for every primary contest between a mainline and hard-right Republican this cycle -- think particularly of the Crist/Rubio contest in Florida, which hard-right Republicans are already pointing to as the logical place to repeat the Scozzafava/Hoffman pattern.

This is the electoral equivalent of those brief moments earlier this year when prominent Republicans issued tepid criticisms of Rush Limbaugh only to be forced into craven apologies hours or days later. The hard-right of the GOP just got a much stronger lock on the institutional Republican party than it had before. And, let's face it: the lock was pretty strong to start with.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily...

Nov 2 2009, 12:35 pm by Chris Good
Mem-wars: More Americans Want To Read Rice's Book Than Palin's, Bush's

Sarah Palin's memoir has the buzz--it even has a liberal-authored spoof on the way--and President Bush has been out of the public eye since flying away in a helicopter on the day of President Obama's inauguration, meaning his upcoming book will be the first that most Americans have heard from him in the past nine montyhs.

But more Americans actually want to read former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's upcoming memoir, according to a poll by Vanity Fair and CBS.

When asked which memoir they would be most likely to read, 46 percent said "none of these"--an apparent testament to the popularity of political memoirs today--but Rice's came in first with 22 percent; George W. Bush in second with 11 percent; Sarah Palin in third with 9 percent; Laura Bush in fourth with 7 percent; and Dick Cheney in last with 4 percent.

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/11/mem-war...

I wonder about these "polls". We will see how the sales end up.

The wingnuts will buy Sarah's book by the truckload and dump them off in a storage unit to drive her sales figures her.

Unfortunately, Town I really think there are millions of numbnuts who really want to read Sarah's book of nonsense. These are the same retards who voted for Bush twice.