“Give him the woiks!” This staple of 1930s gangster movie dialogue comes to mind when reading a NewsAlert comment on a story about Patrick Fitzgeralds reopening a case of systematic torture by South Side detectives in the 1980s to obtain confessions. Why is Patrick Fitzgerald intersted in ancient history? Because Richard Daley is part of it. A Huffington Post piece of a few months back noted:
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald finally has done what Richard M. Daley should have done 26 years ago: He has indicted retired Chicago Police Detective Jon Burge for leading a band of brutal white cops who tortured hundreds of African-American suspects in criminal cases….
It was 1982, when Daley was the state’s attorney of Cook County, that he was first reliably informed — by Chicago Police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek — what Burge and company were doing. What went on — plastic bags over heads, shackling to hot radiators, gun barrels in mouths, electrical shocks to ears, nostrils and genitals, cigarette burns to arms, legs and chests — is now well known, having been cited repeatedly in court opinions. (Even Daley, belatedly, branded the torture “a shameful episode in our history.”)
Rather than acting, as was his duty at the time, Daley and his top assistant, Richard Devine, who is the current state’s attorney, joined a conspiracy of silence that has cost city taxpayers upwards of $50 million in legal costs and civil settlements.
And when skeletons are walking abroad in Chicago, everybody gets nervous. Just ask Blag. Rick Moran observed that Chicago politics makes for strange alliances, such as the one between Richard Daley and Barack Obama. According to Moran, Daley was facing a serious electoral challenge in 2007 from “Dorothy Brown, Clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court. Brown was an attractive candidate out of the reform mold, beloved of white liberals and just the sort of citywide office holder that might be able to bridge the gap between the south and west side black communities.” Daley was afraid Brown would be endorsed by “a major black politician being mentioned as a possible presidential candidate”. So he pre-empted Brown.
It seemed a given that the squeaky clean Obama would endorse the candidate promising to clean up city hall. Then, in late December of 2007, the tumblers all clicked into place and Daley made his nearly unprecedented endorsement of Obama for president. About the same time, it was announced that his brother Bill would be going to work for the Obama campaign. … So what did Obama promise in return? In effect, Obama surrendered to the Machine by promising to endorse its corrupt mayor rather than his reform minded challenger (commentary in parenthesis):
But should the public expect any better? Politics is the art of the deal. Winston Churchill famously suggested he would make a deal with the devil if it helped him defeat Hitler. “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” But it is well to remember that for all its supposed virtues — whether of the diplomatic or municipal varieties — deals often mean that someone is sold down the river. The object floating face down on the current in 1945 was Eastern Europe. Maybe it was Dorothy Brown in 2007. Someone is almost always left holding the bag for the ‘greater good’ when a deal is made. When you hear the words ‘I will negotiate with our enemies to bring world peace’ ask yourself: where do I fit in? All one can really hope for in this dealmaking world between being born and shuffling off your mortal coil is that you don’t wind up being the fall guy.
Who would have thought, for example, that the Chicago Mob would take the side of gun control activists in outlawing firearms? But Steve Bartin at NewsAlert notes that Alderman Fred Roti(i), who was named as “Chicago Outfit’s” man on the city council, sponsored a handgun ban in order to make it easier for his associates and relatives to ply their trade.
Alderman Roti got his gun ban because he used Chicago’s City Council chambers to help his racketeering enterprise.The Chicago Sun-Times further clarifies the status of Alderman Roti:
The Roti family’s union power goes back to two late organized-crime figures, Ald. Fred B. Roti and Chicago Outfit boss Anthony Accardo, according to union investigators. Bruno and “Toots” Caruso are nephews of Roti. The three were among 47 men identified by the FBI in 1999 as “made” members of the mob. “Made” mobsters, according to the report, pledge loyalty to the Outfit “and would carry this oath of commitment and silence to the grave.”
It’s always a concern when politicians pass gun ban ordinances to make life easier for Bruno, Toots and Joey the Clown, but if you need to get along a few compromises are going to be made along the way. Everybody’s happy as long as they can get out of the room in one piece. The greatest sin in politics is to get caught or wind up on the short end of things. Coach Red Sanders of the UCLA Bruins, in a moment of candor captured the spirit perfectly when he confessed to his team that games weren’t all about sportsmanship. “Men, I’ll be honest. Winning isn’t everything. (Long pause.) Men, it’s the only thing!”
Mark Tapscott notices that Hilda Solis, D-CA, Barack Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Labor, may have trouble answering why “she approved funds to pay for congressional lobbying by a union-supported non-profit group on two bills she co-sponsored” when she was in fact “treasurer and a member of the board of directors of” that very same group, “American Rights at Work (ARW), the 501c4, non-profit group that has received at least $1 million in contributions from labor unions”. The ARW “also spent thousands of dollars on television spots described by the group in its report to the FEC as “electioneering communications.” Since as treasurer, Solis is required to approve all ARW spending, she must have signed off on the spots. This may well put her and ARW in violation of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002. Among the Republicans targeted by ARW were incumbents Norm Coleman, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Gordon Smith, and John Sununu.”
But who cares? The answer to everything these days is ‘I won’. And if there was a deal, just console yourself in the belief that a larger good has been served. And anyhow, look, it could be worse; always remember that as you go through life, no matter what your goal, keep your eye upon the donut and not upon the hole.
(i) typo fixed
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219 Comments
1. Insufficiently Sensitive:Whoda thunk that the 2008 election greatly raised the possibility of the whole country being run according to the principles of the Chicago mob?
And who can think of a way to reverse the process?
Feb 5, 2009 - 4:31 pm 2. presbypoet:Does end justify means? If your children are starving what would/should you be willing to do?
Read a book about the siege of Leningrad in WWII. Three hundred executed for cannibalism. People ate dirt from a burned food storage building, for sugar in the soil. In time of crisis, we do things we would never do in ordinary times.
Yet with Obama, his choices were not in time of crisis. His choice was pure evil. We know who sent him. This is all we need to know about Obama, and who we have had selected to rule us.
Prayer seems appropriate.
Feb 5, 2009 - 4:34 pm 3. PA Cat:Well, there’s one answer to the problem of what to do with the Gitmo detainees– relocate them to Chicago.
Feb 5, 2009 - 4:43 pm 4. Mark:Fitzgerald is the gift that keeps on giving. I’ll see you Scooter and raise you a Barack.
Interesting that Barack has two tricks: rhetoric and Alinsky-ite attack. But he’s in new territory so he doesn’t quite know how to employ them. Embarrassing.
Feb 5, 2009 - 4:58 pm 5. RWE:.”..plastic bags over heads, shackling to hot radiators, gun barrels in mouths, electrical shocks to ears, nostrils and genitals, cigarette burns to arms, legs and chests …”
Big deal. They didn’t waterboard anyone did they? Has anyone explained to Fitz the new standards for torture? If they didn’t do it at Gitmo it ain’t torture.
And as for Hilda Solis, it turns out that her husband had tax liens against his business for over $6000, some of which were outstanding for 16 years. Claimed they didn’t know a thing about it until USA Today published the fact. And hey, it wasn’t her business, it was his, so no foul on her, says DC.
Interesting that when Zoie Baird had to drop out from being Clinton’s Attorney General when they found out that she had not paid the taxes for a nanny it was used by the feminists as an example of how bad the child care situation had become. BUT now that Obama’s picks for his cabinet have all kinds of tax problems, their supporters are not saying it is an example of how complex our tax code has become.
Feb 5, 2009 - 5:00 pm 6. Gordon:And … years ago there was JFK’s mob hooker Judith who carried briefcases between him and the Mafia.
If you’re in a crooked poker game and haven’t spotted the sucker … you’re the sucker. As our host said, just make sure you get out in one piece.
Feb 5, 2009 - 5:44 pm 7. Armeggedon Rex:Have the foundations of American society crumbled? I wonder!
With the recent elevation of a self admitted tax cheat to head the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department when he should have been fired, fined and possibly imprisoned.
With the resent bonuses paid out to disgustingly foolish bank and finance executives who helped drive their corporations into the ground when they should have been fired, disgraced, bankrupted (no pun intended) and possibly prosecuted in civil and / or criminal court.
With the recent re-election of law breaking and short sighted politicians such as Barney Frank, Senate banking chairman Christopher Dodd, and representatives Rangle, and Murtha, have we despaired of seeing justice for, or responsibility from our cultural elite?
Do we now have two sets of laws, one for our “elite” and a second for the average citizen shmoe?
It appears we do. As more confirmation hearings are held for Obama administration appointees, it appears many of them are filthy dirty in one or more ways. Am I alone in believing that most people, having committed similar crimes, but possessing less wealth and without lofty friends would soon be in prison?
Please show me at least a handful of smart, competent, squeaky clean, straight arrows up for appointment before the Senate. What are we Mexico? Are we now no better than some third world African joke of a nation? (That was a rhetorical question only!) These revelations are destroying whatever patina of credibility we yet have for good governance. If our financial situation is dire now, just wait until investors worldwide begin to further doubt the scrupulousness of our government. I had a waking nightmare about U.S. Treasury Bonds used for post it notes! I do not believe this is the hope and change 52% of Americans voted for.
If I remember correctly, our ancestors started an armed revolution because they couldn’t get a fair shake from their cultural elite (in London at that time). How deeply must we let them push our faces in their manure before American voters will stand up and throw the rascals out at election time?
Feb 5, 2009 - 5:45 pm 8. Gordon:oops–should have said ‘briefcases full of money.’
Feb 5, 2009 - 5:45 pm 9. Doug:Survivors of Chicago Cop Jon Burge’s regime of torture speak out …
Feb 5, 2009 - 6:25 pm 10. Doug:Burge Video
Feb 5, 2009 - 6:25 pm 11. Doug:Burge Arrested
Links on this page:
A Good Day For Justice
Faith Restored
Read the indictment
Timeline of Burge Torture Accusations
State’s Attorney Report
Judge Faces Torture Claims
Archive of Burge Stories
Feb 5, 2009 - 6:32 pm 12. Doug:“The two parties have combined against us to nullify our power by a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ of non-recognition, no matter how we vote … May God write us down as asses if ever again we are found putting our trust in either the Republican or the Democratic Parties.” — W.E.B. DuBois (1922)
Maybe the Time is right for Neo Communists to make their move?
Feb 5, 2009 - 6:36 pm 13. bob:Al Capone for President, he’d at least keep the country safe.
Feb 5, 2009 - 7:29 pm 14. Agoraphobic Plumber:“Have the foundations of American society crumbled? I wonder!”
Two days ago I would have taken that as a rhetorical question and read on. But–true story–for the first time in my life yesterday, I was reading something and the thought actually came into my head that perhaps I will outlast the USA. It wasn’t a what-if or a fantasy, but for the first time, I actually considered the proposition as a viable alternative.
I began to investigate. I checked out a few survivalist and economist websites that I hadn’t visited before. I looked at charts, read what people were saying, looked at the histories of the sites and so forth.
My conclusion terrifies me, and I plan to spend this weekend talking to some family and friends and trying to come up with a viable plan for making it through what I fear is going to be a not-so-good time in North America and probably around the world. It’s already started in many places overseas, in fact. Russia. Greece. The UK. Others.
I’m not generally one to panic. I sort of yawned at the Y2K thing, and I’m a software developer. I doubt there’s anything special about 2012 outside of a peculiar astronomical alignment, and I’ve never gotten too excited about other doomsters and their tales.
But this crap is very different. There are things happening in meatspace that don’t make sense to me, which puts me on edge. How is it that people could scream about spending a trillion over 5 years of war, and then the very same people blithely look the other way while that much is about to be spent EVERY SINGLE YEAR outside of normal appropriations in relative peacetime? Who’s really footing the bill for this? What will they want as collateral/payback? What if they just take a powder?
How is it that tax cheats suddenly seem to be the only ones appointed to high office? Why did the new president make his first act to force people to pay for other people’s abortions, knowing that that is abhorrent to a huge bloc of voters, including many centrists? It goes on and on.
For the first time, I’ve seriously begun to wonder whether going off the information grid might not be an intelligent thing. Get rid of my credit cards, get off the electric/sewer/whatever grids, pay off all debts, start taking a paper check at work, close my bank accounts, deal in cash and money orders only. Get a wood stove in my house. A year or two’s worth of canned and dry goods. Solar panels. A windmill. Batteries. Maybe some livestock. Maybe a tractor with some more land. And underground fuel tanks. Some non-hybrid seed. Lots of guns and ammo. The works.
Of course, nobody can do all of that in a flash, but I can do some of it pretty damn quick, and I bet I could get the rest done in a year or two. And for the first time I’m feeling like maybe I should be.
There are a LOT of newbies on some of the survivalist forms asking very specific questions about how to do things. Many more than there were in, say, 2003, to judge by forum histories. And they aren’t asking like they’re just mildly interested.
Damn. I’ve actually begun to feel a little actual fear for the future of this country and its people. And for me and mine personally.
Feb 5, 2009 - 7:37 pm 15. Walt:Well geez, whatever happened to
Feb 5, 2009 - 7:38 pm 16. BT:The thought boys will be boys
Especially in Chicago town
The pride of Illinoise
What did we ’spect of BHO
Career was on the line
Should he have taken the high road
And everything’d be fine
We know the answer to that one
The good guys finish last
Just look who voters just ignore
Like this November past
$6,000 tax lien – that is chump change. It just goes to show what amateurs the Democrats are. It sounds about as serious as Sara Palin’s tax problems.
These are all just side shows. Its easier to take someone down on this stuff than to do the hard work of going through the policy issues.
Feb 5, 2009 - 7:43 pm 17. Tcobb:More and more I’m begining to think that the American political class doesn’t have the minimum mental or moral faculties needed to run a small time whorehouse, let alone the country.
As to the solution, who knows? Perhaps the answer was given in an old science fiction story by Robert Sheckley, the title of which escapes me. In essence, bombs were strapped to the elected leaders, and when public displeasure with them reached a certain percentage the bombs were detonated. Alas, I think we would need a Constitutional Amendment to put such a scheme in place.
Feb 5, 2009 - 8:37 pm 18. Doug:CBO: Obama stimulus harmful over long haul
President Obama’s economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.
CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.
Feb 5, 2009 - 8:47 pm 19. Doug:Survior’s Poker – Let’s make a Deal
Obama to Meet Families of 9/11, Cole Victims
Move comes as US plans to drop charges on terror suspect.
One 9/11 activist told the Washington Post that “fireworks” could fly at the Obama meeting.
Feb 5, 2009 - 8:50 pm 20. SpeakEasy:AgPlumber,
Feb 5, 2009 - 8:52 pm 21. whiskey:Don’t forget the ammo. You may not have much time left for that.
Obama is a Muslim. You don’t honestly think that as the First Muslim President he’ll allow the killer of US Sailors to be punished now do you?
He’s also planning to surrender in Afghanistan — he ordered Gates to deep-six the planned increase of 30K troops there. Presumably, to initiate a surrender there, as soon as possible.
He’s a Muslim, that’s what he does.
I hope the 9/11 and Cole Families stage a giant protest, daily, charging Obama as a Muslim President is on the side of Muslim terrorists and freeing them, inviting attack.
Feb 5, 2009 - 8:57 pm 22. buddy larsen:well all this begs the question, are we better off with an honest dumbass or a crooked brainiac? What? We have a crooked dumbass? Awww, fuuuuuuug.
Feb 5, 2009 - 10:02 pm 23. buddy larsen:ok walt. you’re too good to callenge, to anyone with any dignity anyways.
where o where is elliot ness,
his old stomping ground is again a big mess
when we loved the Sopranas
it cost us our mannas
now whatever we had, we got less
Feb 5, 2009 - 10:08 pm 24. Doug:Insufficiently Sensitive said…
Q__” Whoda thunk that the 2008 election greatly raised the possibility of the whole country being run according to the principles of the Chicago mob?”
Whoda thunk that the 2008 election greatly raised the possibility of the whole country being run according to the principles of the Chicago mob?”
Ans__ John Kass
Feb 5, 2009 - 10:35 pm 25. buddy larsen:even less dignity than minutes ago;
FDR said our fear is but fear
BHO says that’s wrong ’cause it’s here;
Franklin wanted to recover
Barack just wants to cover
the sheep so they won’t see the shear
Feb 5, 2009 - 10:44 pm 26. Doug:Underground links likely to resurface for Obama
John Kass
I’ve always been fascinated as to how the radical underground stop running and get jobs in academia.
Is there a Terrorist Patronage Office for Rich WhitePeople?
And how did a convicted Dohrn get hired to teach at a law school?
“I am afraid I don’t know an answer to that,”
NU spokesman Alan Cubbage said.
“The person who was the dean at the time is no longer with the lawschool. And the person who was the president at the time is no longer thepresident. So I just don’t know.”
Cubbage did not mention that Ayers’ late father – Commonwealth Edisonboss Thomas Ayers – was an NU trustee and former board chairman.
UIC spokesman Mark Rosati couldn’t help either, but suggested I file a Freedom of Information Act request to find out how terrorists get hired by taxpayers.
“It’s nothing personal,”
Rosati said.
How amusing.
Feb 5, 2009 - 10:45 pm 27. Dave:They don’t want to explain how terrorists were hired, so they know nothing.
Well Unca Buddy, I really hope that it is true that Obama is trying to give us a ruined/socialist economy.
Stop and think about it. Is that not better than somebody trying to give us a utopian one.?
Since neither can succeed———-.
Feb 5, 2009 - 11:07 pm 28. buddy larsen:dave, agree with you premish as far as it go, but Alinskiers always have a far goal and always out there near there is something standing in the way thwarting the Dream even in its own dream. The dream can’t ever find a way around it, even in its fantasy or fantastic state. That Thing is the United States Military. so, “…trying to give us a ruined/socialist economy” is to order the Big Mac but not to chomp down on it. Ruin the economy, bust the Dollar, doo dah doo dah. but feint and fool the Thing out of position, while using the economic crisis and tear streaked snot splashed five hankie speeches about some specific agony that’s In Pain and Needs Money, in order to defund the edge the Thing has over “others” (such as ma and pa and grandma’s little political party), all the while confusing and demoralizing all the parts of the Thing you can mesmerize and/or Evil Eye, now thAT’s a STRATegy you can believe in! or, the first part of one, anyways.
Feb 5, 2009 - 11:26 pm 29. buddy larsen:Watercooler counterbattery with the New & Improved proximity fuse!
Feb 5, 2009 - 11:33 pm 30. Walt:Buddy — Limericks pretty darn good. Regards, Walt
Feb 5, 2009 - 11:44 pm 31. buddy larsen:thanks walt –tho you’re being nice –here i improved:
FDR said to fear is for naught
BHO says wrong that we ought
Frank wanted Recovery
Barack just ass covery
while us sheep lead ourselves to the slaught
Feb 6, 2009 - 12:14 am 32. Dave:Buddy, did you ever read any Gordon Dickson
works? Your description of Alinsky is awfully similar to Gordy’s fictional Bleys Ahrens. Fair to middling accurate too.
An earlier work, and one that works like a time bomb on your abilities was about Cletus Graeme. Called “Tactics of Mistake”.
Between The Dorsai and Professor Bernardo de la Paz, I got some hunches on how to hand these bastards some stinging defeats.
One thing would be for Texas and other like-spirited states to drop their pants, give the Obamaroids one big moon shot and tell him to use his stimulus in lieu of Preparation H.
I am dead serious. Those folks who
are denied this great benefit will pull through in far better shape than Obmama’s favorites. Another variation would be to horsetrade back of Harry Reid’s back and throw a great deal of that money at Yucca Mountain, coal-fired plants, laser-assisted drilling righs, etc.
I know I am crazy. Only thing that keeps me from going insane.
Feb 6, 2009 - 12:23 am 33. Doug:Mob boss’ tale offers peek at city’s ‘secrets’
During the Family Secrets trial, the connection between Chicago politics and the Outfit came up often.
In one bit of testimony in 2007, Mayor Richard Daley’s friend Fred Bruno Barbara, the trucking boss and Rush Street investor, was identified by Nick Calabrese as a willing driver for mob boss Angelo “The Hook” LaPietra on bombing runs.
Daley got so angry when asked about Barbara that he turned purple and shrieked. The governor of Illinois could have called him “cuckoo.”
For generations, the Outfit has formed the base of the iron triangle that runs things, and no understanding of politics in Illinois is complete without them.
Sentencing of other bosses continues on Monday. The dancing monkey show in Springfield will be over by then, but if the national media wants to understand Chicago, they should show up in federal court to see how the apes behave.
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:08 am 34. Doug:That wasn’t a monkey dancing on a string. It was an ape. The kind of ape that pulls the strings on the dancing monkeys.
His name is Frank Calabrese, the former Chicago Outfit Chinatown crew boss, convicted of racketeering conspiracy involving seven murders in the FBI’s historic Operation Family Secrets case of 18 unsolved hits. Six other bodies were attributed to Calabrese at his sentencing.
Calabrese, 71, wore a wrinkled orange jumpsuit, with old man glasses attached to his head with a thick felt strap. Yet when he’d raise his paws you could see they were once powerful enough to strangle a man until his eyes popped out. Or stab him to death. Or beat him to death. Or pull a trigger. Or set off a bomb and more.
One of the victims was Paul Haggerty, who was 27 in 1976 when the Calabrese crew picked him up to question him about missing jewels. Haggerty was handcuffed, his eyes and mouth taped shut and tortured. Frank strangled him with a rope. They cut his throat and dumped him in the trunk.
On Wednesday, Haggerty’s widow, Charlene Moravecek, confronted Calabrese as a parade of victim families told their stories to U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel.
“God bless you!” Calabrese told Moravecek.
She rounded on him, shouting,
“Don’t you mock me! Don’t! Your honor, I don’t want to hear from him.”
Calabrese’s own son, Kurt—a convicted Outfit loan shark—appeared before Zagel as a victim, saying his father beat him, belittled him, threatened to bite the nose off his face and kill him.
—
Frank Calabrese finally got his say, insisting he never killed or beat anyone, that he helped Connie’s Pizza, not merely charged them street tax, and that his juice loans were more user-friendly than payday loans.
“I’m not no big shot,” he said. “I’m not nothing but another human being.” He added that his brother Nick was a coward. “Which is why I called him Alfredo, from ’ The Godfather,’ ” speaking of the fictional Corleone who betrayed his own brother.
Zagel gave Frank Calabrese life in prison, saying he’d never seen a case in which two sons and a brother testified against a father. “Perhaps you didn’t have a loving family,” Zagel said. “Your crimes are unspeakable.”
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:10 am 35. Doug:“I’m not no big shot,” he said.
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:13 am 36. Doug:“I’m not nothing but another human being.”
—
The Messiah must have missed his lessons on humility.
Obama unstained by Chicago Way
“I know there are those like John Kass who would like me to decry Chicago politics more frequently, and I’ll leave that to his editorial commentary,” Obama said.
Not the politics, just the corruption, I said then, wishing silently that he had decried it all, that he’d stood up years ago and pointed to the list of sleazy deals, pointed an angry finger at the Duffs, the white, Outfit-connected drinking buddies of Daley who received $100 million in affirmative action contracts through City Hall.
That’s an easy political commercial for the Republicans: Mobbed-up white guys party at the old Como Inn with Daley, and they get $100 million in city affirmative action contracts and Daley doesn’t know how it happened and Obama endorses the mayor in the name of reform.
Obama had nothing to do with the Duff deal. But he kept mum. He has endorsed Daley, endorsed Daley’s hapless stooge Todd Stroger for president of the Cook County Board.
These are not the acts of a reformer, but of a guy who, as we say in Chicago, won’t make no waves and won’t back no losers.
Obama the reformer is backed by Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Daley boys. He is spoken for by Daley’s own spokesman, David Axelrod. He was launched into his U.S. Senate by machine power broker and state Senate President Emil Jones (D-ComEd).
As a candidate, Obama will do what he has to do to win. My argument is not with him–but with the national political media pack that refuses to look closely at what Chicago is. They’re fixated on what it was, and they think it’s clean now.
Feb 6, 2009 - 3:38 am 37. Doug:Midwestern Presidential Pathway: Dixon, a shining city upon a hill
Feb 6, 2009 - 3:41 am 38. ridgerunner:Obama’s place in the nexus of Chicago politics is the best lever with which to pry away twenty percent of the Caucasians who voted for him. And his vulnerability to ridicule will energize white males who didn’t bother to vote against him.
Feb 6, 2009 - 4:03 am 39. Doug:Some Messiah’s have thinner skins than others.
Chicago mayor refuses to release stimulus project list…
Feb 6, 2009 - 4:15 am 40. Doug:So Much For Hope Over Fear
Feb 6, 2009 - 4:26 am 41. Doug:Charles Krauthammer
ht – Deuce
Pakistan Frees Nuke Scientist
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:00 am 42. Don51:A.Q. Khan, Was Under House Arrest For 5 Years For Selling Nuke Secrets
“Have the foundations of American society crumbled? I wonder!”
I know of one major national institution that has kept faith in their country and not a party. I know that while not perfection, they have shown remarkable ability to clean their own house. Under unrelenting and foul criticism, they have brought upon this world a new nation conceived in liberty and democracy. If we are to believe Shakespeare, thrice Caesar was offer the crown, thrice Caesar refused it. When does the undesirable become the desirable?
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:19 am 43. peterike:My oh my, His Highness done went and had himself a hissy fit.
Obama, speaking to about 200 House Democrats at their annual retreat at the Kingsmill Resort and Spa, dismissed Republican attacks against the massive spending in the stimulus.
“What do you think a stimulus is?” Obama asked incredulously. “It’s spending — that’s the whole point! Seriously.”
The economic ignorance of his remark is, of course, staggering. But not a bit surprising.
I like this little bit even better.
“When you start hearing arguments, on the cable chatter, just understand a couple of things,” he [Obama] said. “No. 1, when they say, ‘Well, why are we spending $800 billion [when] we’ve got this huge deficit?’ – first of all, I found this deficit when I showed up, No. 1.
“I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.”
Ahh yes, what a genius. So the way to save a man dying from a bleeding stab wound is to stab him five more times. Thus ever is the logic of Socialists.
Well, I’m sure he’s gonna save a ton of money on defense spending. Peace Dividend II anybody?
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:30 am 44. Doug:Give us a break peterike:
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:36 am 45. Pseudo-Polymath » Blog Archive » Friday Highlights:Only 1 percent of those billions is wasteful spending.
The POTUS tells us so.
[...] One consequence of Obama in the WH, Chicago dirt is getting some light. [...]
Feb 6, 2009 - 7:36 am 46. Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e53v5:[...] One consequence of Obama in the WH, Chicago dirt is getting some light. [...]
Feb 6, 2009 - 7:36 am 47. buckets:I have been voicing approval of Fitzgerald even before the Blago stuff broke (<— pats self on back). I think Fitz is doing good work, tough work, and I’m glad of it.
I will, however, temper my enthusiasm for the man with by noting its entirely possible Fitz played politics with the timing of the Blago announcement to protect O and his team. As much as that would disgust me, it could be that Fitz did it in return for carte blanche to drain the cesspool. Again, we don’t know what really happened, so I’m not quite ready to accuse him of playing politics.
And yes, its true, Alderman Roti, who led the fight to ban guns in Chicago, was a made member of the Chicago Outfit. If you think about it, it makes a certain sense, and just goes to show that pretty much all evil forces in the world want to control an unarmed populace. There are some decent and humane impulses behind the gun control movement, but you have to question yourself if you share the same goals as the Chicago mob’s man in government.
Feb 6, 2009 - 7:58 am 48. Peter Boston:Dear Leader said last night that we cannot continue the old and tired policies of the last 8 years that doubled the national debt and wrecked the economy.
What does Dear Leader propose? Doubling the national debt in his first two weeks.
This single piece of legislation is bigger than India’s entire economy. It’s bigger than the GDP of 168 other countries, and if the Senate plan is voted as written will move into the world’s top 10.
Feb 6, 2009 - 8:13 am 49. barry 0351:The Night Chicago died.
Feb 6, 2009 - 8:52 am 50. geoffgo:Back in the bad old days.
And now, they’ve dropped ALL chrges on the Cole bomber!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One family of a service member who was killed refused an invite to the WH. 1 day’s notice.
Feb 6, 2009 - 9:43 am 51. Clioman:“I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.”
And who controlled congress–meaning, who controlled federal spending–for several years before The One was anointed?
Feb 6, 2009 - 9:54 am 52. steveaz:Guys, in another thread I misstated the energy stocks’ recovery data a bit and thought I’d drop my correction here. Hope you don’t mind.
Crude and NG stocks haven’t recovered to their March ‘08 levels – that would put them back in “bubble” territory.
Instead, they’ve recovered to their pre-bubble, 2007 levels, and held.
Some examples are Southern Company (SO) and Pioneer SW Energy (PSE).
The domestic liquified fossil-fuels’ sector (including recovery, transport and storage) seems less susceptible to engineered market swings. In fact it could be our economy’s unflappable resting norm, the one sector not conveniently in crisis right now.
I wonder: how much has media-leveraging of elites’ “preferred” markets, like “Green” technology and “Fair” trade ones, served to distort the local “in-the-street” energy, political, manufacturing and financial markets in Britain, italy, America, Brazil and France? And to what end?
Feb 6, 2009 - 9:55 am 53. kevIN:I’m waiting for the sounds of heads exploding once 0’s poll ratings drop below 50%. I think he’s heading for a record at this clip.
Feb 6, 2009 - 10:03 am 54. Peter Boston:To be fair about it:
The charges were dropped “without prejudice” which means that they can be filed again at any time in a different forum. So far as I know there is no plan to release the Cole bomber.
Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted the Blind Sheik, says that the military tribunals have been handing out very lenient sentences in the cases that they have concluded. He also says that almost any judge in the 2nd Circuit (New York) would have tripled the sentences on every one of those convicted defendants.
It would seem that political correctness and the desire to avoid controversy is higher in the military tribunal system than it would likely be in the regular trial courts.
If Obama releases the Gitmo bunch then that is another matter entirely.
Feb 6, 2009 - 10:06 am 55. RWE:Peter Boston: Yes, every time I hear them rail against “the failed economic policies of the Bush Administration” I want to ask “which ones?”
The Bush Admin pushed for low interest rates and attempted, but in the end did nothing, against the Community Reinvestment Act and the insanity of Freddie and Fanny (which we now know was driven in part by Barney’s Fanny). And no, they have no problem with that. Which leaves “Tax cuts for the rich,” as a “failed policy” and if I hear that many more times I am going to grab my .303 Enfield and 500 rounds of ammo and go find a clock tower where I can utilize both my First and Second Amendment rights.
Has anyone seen any evidence that this bag of crap they put in the Stimulus Bill was in any way designed to stimulate the required areas of the economy?
At best, this thing looks like what would happen in the Pentagon when we would ask the field what they needed for infrastructure investments and we would get stuff like “Enlarge the golf course on Ascension Island from 9 to 18 holes.” I.E., Everybody’s unconstrained wish list. The Republic will fall if Virginia Beach does not get some new tennis courts. At best this is an attempt to prop up the construction and real estate industries, which built their own problem and even now are in desperate need of serious culling.
At worst it is a bunch of political payoffs. “Change” means putting the graft right out in the open.
Feb 6, 2009 - 10:23 am 56. joe buzz:POTUS’ chief of staff says “you never want a good crisis go to waste” and everybody acts surprised when we get loads of special interest spending. Fitzy and his crew have been working in a target rich environment for quite some time. Who calls the shots?
Feb 6, 2009 - 10:50 am 57. peterike:With unemployment at 7.6 percent, will anybody — ANYbody? — talk about shipping back the millions of illegals still taking millions of jobs (which, presumably, many Americans now WILL do). Not to mention culling the H1-B visa crowd, as one tech company after another lays off thousands.
Feb 6, 2009 - 10:54 am 58. geoffgo:RWE,
Sorry – did not mean to give the impression the bomber was being freed. I’m outraged that the process was interupted.
Will the defendent get off becuase he didn’t get a timely trial?
Feb 6, 2009 - 10:57 am 59. Mongoose:Hey folks, look at this:
http://www.financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090203/REG/902039977/1003/TOC&template=printart
Feb 6, 2009 - 11:00 am 60. Triton'sPolarTiger:@ 56. pererike
It seems in the Atlanta area that this is occurring as a result of the falloff in the construction trade – a couple of coworkers who live in Gwinnett County tell me that the number of kids waiting for school buses along their morning drives looks like it’s fallen by over 50%. The guess is that many of the illegals in the metro Atlanta area have packed up and headed home… I wonder how many of them were drafted into the voting booth by ACORN in 2008? Maybe enough of this and a few states turn back to red in 2012?
Triton
Feb 6, 2009 - 11:01 am 61. Steve:Richard:
Feb 6, 2009 - 11:03 am 62. Eggplant:Thanks for linking me.Anyway let me correct a typo for you “Alderman Charles Roti”.It should be Fred Roti.For those interested in greater detail on Chicago Democrats and The Chicago Mob click on the following link.
http://nalert.blogspot.com/2008/03/chicago-democrats-and-chicago-mob.html
The recent economic news is beyond dreadful (unemployment at a 16 year high) but the Dow is up 175.62. Can someone explain to me why the stockmarket is going up when all the financial news is terrible?
Feb 6, 2009 - 11:08 am 63. Roderick Reilly:A question for everyone:
Do any of you think that we are turning into a plutocracy?
I don’t know myself, but the signs that I can see are pointing in that direction.
Some of you will be moved to say “but we’re already a plutocracy!” but I would dismiss that because I’m talking about a bona fide plutocratic form of government.
To date, we’ve morphed from a republic into a democratic republic, and now we’re a hybrid of a democratic republic and a social democracy. I think we may be turning into a “democratic” plutocracy.
Feb 6, 2009 - 11:08 am 64. Triton'sPolarTiger:@ 58. Mongoose
You know, I’ll probably never make “that kind of money.” By I’ll be d@mned if I’d EVER attempt to prevent someone else from doing so. While we might be guaranteed equality in opportunity, to then guarantee equality of outcome is a violation of too many moral tenants to list. At a minimum, to forbid someone from achieving all he can labor for / negotiate for / etc, IS THEFT.
Forget this so-called stimulus package sinking us – the brain/skills/education flight that this sort of legislation would cause, would herald the arrival of a stagnation… I’m so pissed off I can’t even finish my thought.
RWE, got some room for another in that clocktower?
Triton
Feb 6, 2009 - 11:09 am 65. Mongoose:Trinton: Really scary. A direct assault on property rights. Makes me wonder what they have planned for eminent domain issues.
And do not worry, they will get around to your pay grade soon enough.
Feb 6, 2009 - 11:14 am 66. RWE:Peterike: Headlines in today’s Florida Today: “Pentagon Expecting Big Cuts”
Geoggfo: Tweren’t me. Peter Boston brought that up.
Feb 6, 2009 - 11:15 am 67. steveaz:#62 Eggplant,
RE the DOW, another ‘funny’ thing happened last month.
Up till now, a slowing economy put downward pressure on crude futures. But, ’round the end of January ‘09 when the DOW lost over a hundred points one day, for the first time since the ‘08 “bubble” popped, the price of crude futures did not drop with it. It advanced instead.
It could be because the OPEC cuts are being adhered to (thanks, OPEC!). Or, maybe America’s own forced scarcity of domestic crude is finally biting bone. Or, maybe the Feds are refilling the strategic petroleum reserves – which puts a distorting, intermittent buyer into the market place. But something’s up.
This new countervailing trend of fossil fuels-futures against general DOW prices signals that something just snapped, And, it makes it easy to predict that, as Americans enter the energy markets each day to buy their favorite types – ranging from LP to NG to gasoline to lamp-oil, we will find that these popular domestic sources are going to get more expensive soon.
Feb 6, 2009 - 11:55 am 68. always right:#43 Peterike – (Obama said:)
first of all, I found this deficit when I showed up, No. 1.
“I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.”
No, it couldn’t have been. The Messiah JUST found out about the deficit on his Day 1?
Didn’t he attack President Bush on doubling/tripling our national deficit during his whole campaign in the past two years? What was it? ‘$10b a month spent in Iraq that should have been spent on the struggling American working families’?
The whole point of people electing him is the libs’ portrait of ‘incompetent’ Bush. What did he think he is going to inherit?
Feb 6, 2009 - 11:56 am 69. buddy larsen:Eggplant @ #61; why mkts up on bad unempl report –egg, it’s two things, 1) unempl is a backlook and a lagging indicator too –there’s optimism in the mkt looking forward, based on several uptics in biz activity –China recovery, bank fix announcement coming Monday, other stuff. 2) banks and financials have been in panic all week up to yesterday, over fear of nationalization. Barney Frank then came out with aa hint that ”mark to market” (rule 157) “may need looking at” –traders are hooking that to the scheduled monday reveal of the ‘new plan to rescue banks’. BAC hit $3.77 early yesterday before the 157 talk and is now at $6.50 -ish and climbing. That’s a two day double in freaking Bank of America for chrissake –a huge move and a sea change on a major issue –frankly (heh) astonishing, and revealing of much nore, which i’ll post up later when i can’t keep the zombie attack out of my brain any longer.
Feb 6, 2009 - 12:18 pm 70. buddy larsen:i picked a helluva time to quit amphetamines
Feb 6, 2009 - 12:27 pm 71. buddy larsen:from ”airplane” movie, Lloyd bridges –anyhoo if anticipated mark to market change has been powering the financials (which has been powering the whole mkt) for two days, foxBiz just announced that “indi=ustry sources” are saying any change in the TARP 2 announcement Monday (in a Geithner speech) is “unlikely”. Sooo, look for this 240 point DOW gain today to sag by close in the next hour and a half.
Feb 6, 2009 - 12:38 pm 72. Mongoose:Buddy: well thanks you for finally getting through to those red diapered Numbskulls about that mark to market business. I knew you could do it.
Did you see that link i just put up?
Feb 6, 2009 - 12:42 pm 73. always right:As more ‘polls’ show % support drops continuously, could it (market upswing) be because it seems less likely the stimulus package (Porkus miximus, the current version) is going to be passed?
Feb 6, 2009 - 12:43 pm 74. buddy larsen:‘course the Obamas, or the O’s, or , phonetically, the Oz (or using the zero as it needs no shifting) the 0z, will claim the rally for the ‘zact opposite reason, always right. But i think you’re right, i mean, correct (you’re clearly ‘always right’).
mongoose, no, i saved it –gonna read it & the chi town link directly –no i’m afraid the push ag/ M2M is awilt. Did you know that that rule was in effect during the Depression? when did it go into effect? dunno yet, but it was in effect when new pres FDR quickly quashed it. get this, it was reinstated in 2007, just before the S started HTF.
oh, there’s more –there’s so much more.
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:01 pm 75. buddy larsen:back to eggplant @ 61 –egg, when you hear the word ‘discounted’ re mkt movements, it can mean price up as well as price down, it really just means ‘factored in’. So, you’ll hear things like, “today’s unemployment numbers were already discounted” meaning the flirtations below 8000 lately were at least in part discounting the anecdotals re layoffs that’ve been flowing into the news stream relentlessly apace in real time. so when the report by calendar becomes ‘official’ (tho usually revised at the margin, later), traders assume all the discounting on that item is done already, meaning any movement on that item in the near future can only be up. They refer to this paradox (well, apparent paradox) as “buy on the drums, sell on the trumpets”. that’s probably an old market saw from the town square of Jericho, where folks got caught ‘long’ instead of ’short’ when Joshua showed up.
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:13 pm 76. always right:On another note, President Obama should not have complained too much about the crisis situations he’s been inheriting.
It could be used as a perfect excuse to ’shut down’ opposition, in a national crisis.
That (the current fiscal crisis) or truly forbid, another attack.
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:18 pm 77. Doug:Rule of Thumb, Eggplant:
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:18 pm 78. Mongoose:Heavily Discount any advice you get from Buddy.
except for the music critics, buddy.
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:30 pm 79. steveaz:Buddy, I’m more optimistic RE the market recovery. Discount this: one reason I’m seeing sunshine is the rise in lay-offs.
When you start seeing lay-offs increasing it’s a good sign the recovery is afoot. Managers are starting to make the hard decisions that are an essential part of any industry restructuring, and the released workers flood the job market with their acquired skills, which, in turn, lowers the cost of labor and dampens that dreaded inflation that usually accompanies a rebound. (Done right, this’d put Barney Frank’s regulatory committee out of a job.)
Right now’d be a good time to hunt for that new office manager or IT gal, guys. It’s a buyers’ market, you could name your price. And if you’re an investor, a company’s recent layoffs may be a good sign.
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:42 pm 80. Doug:Buddy,
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:42 pm 81. buddy larsen:What are you refering to re:
“China recovery?”
Read a bunch of articles last nite about cutbacks in exports.
Taiwan 50%(? not sure)
Korea, Japan, 30%
Said Chi-com economy is at a standstill?
eggplant, always trust doug’s advice.
Marcopolos, harry, ON FOXbizNews coming up –soon–maybe minutes –teasers don’t tell –i mean them not me –
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:44 pm 82. Mongoose:lol (beat me to it)
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:51 pm 83. buddy larsen:doug, re china, start here
http://www.thestreet.com/_rmnav/story/madmoneywrap.html
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:52 pm 84. Doug:Chevron Makes Big Oil Find Off Texas
Feb 6, 2009 - 2:13 pm 85. Walt:Buddy — Just caught up with your amended limericks. Must inform you limericks usually include the word Nantucket.
Feb 6, 2009 - 2:13 pm 86. no mo uro:“As to the solution, who knows? Perhaps the answer was given in an old science fiction story by Robert Sheckley, the title of which escapes me. In essence, bombs were strapped to the elected leaders, and when public displeasure with them reached a certain percentage the bombs were detonated. Alas, I think we would need a Constitutional Amendment to put such a scheme in place.”
Tcobb-
Don’t we already have this one (2nd Amendment), for all intents and purposes?
What would it take to exercise it, if ever?
Feb 6, 2009 - 2:16 pm 87. buddy larsen:limericks, said walt, need nantucket
sounds sound, as advice, so i tucket
now see here, walt
if still you find fault
then i think i’m ok to say “fuket!”
Feb 6, 2009 - 2:28 pm 88. oldsj:Buddy, who’s in favor of the mark-to-market rule and why? Thanks.
Feb 6, 2009 - 2:39 pm 89. Susan Ochoa:I’ve been lurking at this site and others for awhile without commenting, but the other day I had an epiphane about how the world works. I was watching the Sopranos, and the episode was about how the mob, in conjunction with a local alderman, got the leader of a non-profit to help them all defraud the HUD for affordable housing that no-one had any intention of building. It hit me like a ton of bricks – I was looking at Rezko, who along with Blogojevich, was working with Obama to screw the Feds, about ten years ago. I see a lot of talk that this inflated stimulus bill is payoff for democratic unions, etc., but I really think that the big beneficiaries are the crooks.
Feb 6, 2009 - 2:56 pm 90. Peter Boston:CIC = Crook in Chief
Feb 6, 2009 - 3:03 pm 91. buddy larsen:oldsj, like everything in creation, it has two sides. in an up market, it creates wealth on balance sheets. That’s the only thing i can think of. evidently we’re having a second go-round with the rule –the run up to the ‘29 crash being the first. then FDR had to kill it foir the same reason we got to now, to stop the leveraging of asset value loss. as to why we haveen’t killed in six montha ago, when we had already learned materially everything we needed to know to identify what it was doing, i just cannot figure out, at least under the prmise that no one wants to wipe out wealth. I guess a true Red with short sight might want to, in that bringing down prices is good for the proletariate –but –who and what will capitalize the certain need sooner or later for more supply? Answer, no one –that’s why one way or another coerced production will become the state’s activity. this is aka ‘’slavery”, and i guess we’ll have another civil war over it sooner or later.
Feb 6, 2009 - 3:37 pm 92. joe buzz:“And when skeletons are walking abroad in Chicago”:
The Irreplaceable Michelle Obama
February 6, 2009 12:36 pm McLaren 1 Comment
Some employees are simply irreplaceable. Take Michelle Obama for example. The University of Chicago Medical Center hired her in 2002 to run “programs for community relations, neighborhood outreach, volunteer recruitment, staff diversity, and minority contracting.” In 2005 the hospital raised her salary from $120,000 to $317,000 — nearly twice what her husband made as a U.S. senator. Oh, did we mention that he had just become a U.S. senator? He sure had. [He] requested a $1 million earmark for the UC Medical Center, in fact. Way to network, Michelle!
But now that Mrs. Obama has resigned, the hospital says her position will remain unfilled. How can that be, if the work she did was vital enough to be worth $317,000? We can think of only one explanation: Roland Burris’s wife wasn’t interested.
National Review, print version 9 Feb., 2009
Feb 6, 2009 - 3:58 pm 93. Doug:At the Real Revo: http://therealrevo.com/blog/?p=4433#comment-8965
Smart Power @ State and Defense.
Feb 6, 2009 - 3:58 pm 94. Doug:We need Smart Power to Guide Our Economy @ Home.
Joe,
Feb 6, 2009 - 4:02 pm 95. buddy larsen:She did such a great job, we all can be assured that staff diversity and minority contracting is here for the duration.
Smart Outreach saves money over the long haul.
here’s some things to mull:
1) the accounting rule stayed suspended between FDR’s quash, and the year of our Lord 2007. This fact needs some fill-in, which are likely to be as hair-raising as the line up of the president’s new executive order signed today creating the “Economic Recovery Advisory Board”. There is much to be said about this board, but just as pertains to the last couple days, if you caught the Harry Marcopolos testimony, you will know that the SEC is going to take the “I’m sorry, I’m just a poor businessman” approach that detectives will tell you white collar criminals invaribaly take when caught. So, Chris Cox of SEC is fall guy for uptic, 157, madoff, much else, and i’m sure he deserves it, but he was William Donaldson’s boy, Donaldson was the previous SEC chief who handed it off to Cox (put a patsy in place) in mid 2005. Donaldson is the Donalsdson of Donaldson, Lufkin, Jenrette, brokerage firm which sold itself to Credit Suisse in 2000, the year Bush was elected; Credit Suisse is the Swiss bank already deeply involved (including some scandals, see it and new envoy to Pakistan Richard Holbrooke) with the UN NGO wing of the Democratic party, the NGOs which on your matching and grant money do whatever they want to and in other nations (see maurice strong, see un scandals) and the UN elite kleptocracy. Donaldson is also a friend of Bernie Madoff, whom SEC would not look at, ree Marcopolos, for many fat years of ripping off wealth from history’s usual first canaries in the coal mine, the Jews, while dealing also in some yet to be known way with the ‘russian mafia’ (aka kremlin, kgb, putin) and Latin American drug cartels (i’m thinking hugo and evo must be in) which brings this little scherzo back to the front.
Oh, and also on the president’s new council, the CEO of UBS, the giant swiss bank (ah, the Davos crowd) which was paying the unprecedentedly huge bonuses (you know, the big bonuses that Oba calls “shameful”) to lure the top brokers who were then tasked with injecting the subprime poison deeply into western Europe. So, natch, UBS on the council, along with Credit Suisse, of the president who is so ashamed of the mess the republicans made.
I’ll stop here because i have to go break down somewhere dark. search these items, please –don’t take my word for any of it –
Feb 6, 2009 - 4:59 pm 96. buddy larsen:also, Barney Frank, the wizard of subprime, seems to have the pencil which makes rule 157 come and go as needed per his design. Also on the council, Limo Lib Penny Pritzker inheritress of the Hyatt Hotels and fundraiser fantastic to Oba, plus top chiefs of AFLCIO and SEIU (which means ACORN), of “banckrupt American industry” fame.
Feb 6, 2009 - 5:11 pm 97. Mongoose:Rumor has it no senate vote tonight.
Feb 6, 2009 - 5:28 pm 98. Possumtater:Miztah Buddy,
Feb 6, 2009 - 5:37 pm 99. joe buzz:hab you done been eat’n dem ampetomines again. lawdy,lawdy , you dun rit mo tan i seen you rit for two year. lawdy,lawdy i hopes da devilain’t jump on yo soul
Dang my Texas buddy, easy on that dot connecting. Dont want you to end up like:
Feb 6, 2009 - 5:59 pm 100. joe buzz:http://markinmexico.blogspot.com/
whatever happened to him anyway?
The unions and their honorable representatives are pressing hard for this stimulus. During the campaign all of this socialist posturing seemed like a bad joke now it feels like a bad dream morphing into a true to life episode of “24″.
I need to “open a socket” right after another bottle.
P-tate, ol buddy and wretch been on quite the roll of late. All this activity has even caused Triton’s P-tiger to surface as well! Where you got habu tucked away? Up in a den tree or down in a fox hole?
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:06 pm 101. Oh, bother:Roderick Reilly asks at 62, “Do any of you think that we are turning into a plutocracy?” No, Mr. Reilly, I think we have already turned into a kleptocracy. Soon we will be a socialist kleptocracy if we are not careful. But I repeat myself; all socialists are kleptocrats.
Somehow, 53 million of us went off into some La-la Land and elected an inexperienced, socialist Chicago Democrat to the White House. The rest of us are not surprised to find that things will be done the Chicago way for a while. It’s interesting to learn some Obama voters are already experiencing buyers’ remorse. And it seems to me that in a lot of comment threads on various center-right to right blogs the troll count is down. How to capitalize on this?
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:17 pm 102. buddy larsen:taint socialism that’s giving me the willies –it’s National Socialism.
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:22 pm 103. Wadeusaf:limericks, said walt, need nantucket
sounds sound, as advice, so i tucket
now see here, walt
if still you find fault
then i think i’m ok to say “fuket!”
In a thread, fill’d with dread accounts Larsenous.
Its difficult see to fault such Preposterous-ness,
But when eyes delicate,
Read the nonsense sobriquet,
Who’d believe, twas bequeathed us by buddy no less?
(What grammar?)
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:22 pm 104. buddy larsen:le Possumtater! Where is yo fren Habu? Hope he be workin on his place up to Montana an thet that place ain’t nowhars near the Greasy Grass in the Valley of the Little Bighorn River.
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:30 pm 105. Wadeusaf:there is a blurring of the stirring limmereical vent,
betwixt buddy’s bad rhymes and my 2 cent.
while fix’n this script,
triggered a finger shift,
the text now appears un-bold, not as meant.
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:40 pm 106. peterike:Ahhh Buddy old chap, if there were one tiny iota of dignity or honor left alive at the NY Times and the Wash Post, then the top 50 reporters at each rag would be working 24×7 spelunking in the dark caverns you outlined at #94 and #95. Alas, there are no such iotas, and thus are economic giants gelded.
For want of the press, the nail was lost… and so on and so on.
My kingdom for an honest press.
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:44 pm 107. peterike:In addition to Collins, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he would vote for the bill.
Oh my stars and garters! Collins and Specter voting for the bill? No way! That’s as surprising as the sun coming up in the morning.
Both should die in car crashes tonight. A curse on them forever.
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:48 pm 108. Oh, bother:Buddy, I agree. Both transnational socialism and nationalist socialism are on my mind. Perhaps I didn’t want to appear extreme. But since that may not be a problem, let me close with this: “The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Thomas Jefferson, of course.
Nice Capitol building they got there. It’d be a pity if something happened to it.
Feb 6, 2009 - 6:51 pm 109. Doug:Try to keep the criticism of Arlen down, peterike, Buddy made the case for keeping the Old Buzzard around right here on these premises.
Feb 6, 2009 - 7:33 pm 110. Wadeusaf:…well, actually, it was at Wretch’s old abode.
What gets to me is when the President, with out explaining how his package is intended to work to put the economy back on track, states that he won’t listen to the same tired old ideas…
…And yet the one idea he gives is (to paraphrase) that the idea of stimulating the economy is to spend money.
So where is the difference between the opponents of the stimulus package and the bill as currently on the docket?
In President Obama’s bill, it is the government doing the spending, spending our money, in a ten or more step trickle down economic phenomenon that bypasses local banks, local businesses and local needs while butressing bureaucracies and other government and non-government (NGO’s)entities. The money allocated gets spent sometime somewhere down the road. The only shovel ready aspect of the measure is what is being spent in the attempt to gather support from the people for what was not debated, for what was not allowed to go through the vetting process that legislation needs to go through if we are to retain at least a semblance of democratic republic.
What the opposition to the bill whats is a fair chance to be heard and a fair chance to air the differences to the public, in other words a real debate. The spending they support is the kind of spending done by citizens in pursuing success and happiness (not to be confused with those government instigated spending and finance schemes that got us into the current mess). If we need action now, there is no better, faster nor surer way than to let the citizens spend their hard earned dollars and not having the government spend those dollars for them. It has been proven time and time again, individuals make better decisions than government does.
Feb 6, 2009 - 7:34 pm 111. buddy larsen:Tired Policies? Hell, President Obama, don’t use made up facts, use real ones. You will disavow socialism faster than you can say, “Merci beau coup?”
wade, i didn’t think anyone could write worse limericks than i –but yer doin’ GREAT at it!
doug, i never agreed with Specter’s policies, i just thought he was cute. no really, the idea was to keep Pelosi & Reid in the minority. the great Bush Reach Across the Aisle admittedly became the grating Bush retching in denial.
Wade again, yes, the bill was a major gamble, reminds me of the beer hall putsch that didn’t fail. now no one has to sit in Landau prison a few months writing a book, so i guess we’ll never know what would’ve been in it.
Feb 6, 2009 - 8:23 pm 112. Wadeusaf:Buddy,
Thanks! Should I keep practicing? Har.
More of what was in the first two, I would hazard a guess. Damn, leave it to A. Specter to mess up another literary moment.
Feb 6, 2009 - 8:36 pm 113. buddy larsen:I understand he would have entitled the third tomb, “The Grace Of Wrath”. With a inspirational nod to Hillery and Alinsky.
“Mein Co-opt” ?
Feb 6, 2009 - 9:21 pm 114. ledger:“…keep your eye upon the donut and not upon the hole.” -Wretchard
I think Barney Frank would rather keep his eye on the hole.
Feb 6, 2009 - 9:28 pm 115. Doug:I’d never knock Arlen for a lack of gumption after his fight against the big “C”
Feb 6, 2009 - 9:43 pm 116. buddy larsen:Anybody that could use Ted Kennedy as a way to get back in fighting trim gets a tip of the hat.
otoh, now it looks like he’ll fall for dinner with Obama as his price.
Glad McCain didn’t do what I predicted.
lord a mighty. if only the three would’ve held out another day or two, the Party of Polls would’ve HAD to say something about the plummeting public support. this is so bad. has anyone in congress taken note of interest rates? this bill guarantees that our gov’t debt buyers are gonna pay less for it –which is ‘rising interest rates’, which is the surest kill for the nascent bottoming of housing prices. this means less consumer spending, which means more layoffs, which means more need for more gov’t borrowing. i think the dollar is the target, the three dominos behind it the economy, the built up small-holder wealth of America, and finally, in the final phase, the military. already cut by 105, as the nasties arm agin us –does anyone wonder why the Bill is about spending more, FRANTICally spending more ASAP because the economy is collapsing –but the nation’s ongoing defense program has to be cut –because we can’t afford it?
Feb 6, 2009 - 10:23 pm 117. buddy larsen:105 = 10%
Feb 6, 2009 - 10:26 pm 118. buddy larsen:re #115, by all accounts, credit has been loosening for a gfew weeks now –maybe that partly accounts for the 50% rise in yield on the benchmark 10 year, and the 50 basis point rise in the 30 yr fixed benchmark mortgage rate, over the last few weeks, abd accellearting in the last week. but this bill –well, don’t be surprised if you start hearing very soon about a “bursting bubble in the Treasury market”.
We’re in deep doo-doo, i mean existentially deep doo doo –and it’s all, 100% all, on account of gov’t policy –including a policy of ignoring financial crime, from A to Z. What happened in the so-called ‘’subprime mess” –it’s what RICO is FOR, with just about the right sort of bright lines that are clearly prosecutable. but it’s as likely as a cow jumping over the moon.
Feb 6, 2009 - 10:38 pm 119. Dave:@Ledger #113: To paraphrase Burt Prelutsky;
You want your cavity examined by a dentist.
The Massachusetts Hotdog has his examined by a proctologist.
Feb 6, 2009 - 11:54 pm 120. buddy larsen:Homer’s Trojan War, you see,
was fought over Helen’s face beautee
then millenia later
a suspected straight-hater
pulled the trojan horse ploy to a T
Feb 7, 2009 - 12:04 am 121. Possumtater:Buy T.I.P.S. cause we soon gonna see Robert Mugabe’s picture on our very own million dollar bill.
Man we ain’t never gonna dig outta da hole they just dug.
California is already issuing IOU’s to retired state employees instead of real money. Wanna bet they do that to Social Security?
Feb 7, 2009 - 12:19 am 122. buddy larsen:naw, they’ll print. how do i know? search “Federal Reserve buying Treasury Bonds”. In the quaint olden days, that is six months ago, (*whisper*) every once in awhile, rarely, Fed would damp a gap (to keep rates from a scare) by buying thru a secret not so secret Goldman account. now it’s wide open. This of course is not the old “move money from one pocket to another”, this is having one pocket filling with magic cash while the other pocket eats your reproductive organs.
Feb 7, 2009 - 12:45 am 123. buddy larsen:[revised, for the sake of posteriorty]
Homer’s Trojan War, you see,
was fought over Helen’s face beautee
then millenia later
a suspected straight-hater
with the trojan horse ploy burnt DC
Feb 7, 2009 - 12:51 am 124. Doug:Gotta admire his logic, tho.
Feb 7, 2009 - 1:20 am 125. Doug:Possum:
Feb 7, 2009 - 1:38 am 126. Mongoose:Calif is giving IOU’s to ALL TAXPAYERS that overpaid.
Them that got the Gold make the rules, even if it’s yours.
(not legal, but that isn’t much of a problem these days, for govt work.
…long as it’s for the greater good.)
Doug: I wonder if there is federal recourse.
Those Iou’s are worthless. They will never be truly repaed. There might be a transfer from the fed for momentary relief–and a momentary relieve of political pressure–but it is an illusion. The system is crashing. Finally.
Feb 7, 2009 - 4:07 am 127. Mongoose:*federal LEGAL recourse*
Feb 7, 2009 - 4:08 am 128. slade:who and what will capitalize the certain need sooner or later for more supply? Answer, no one –that’s why one way or another coerced production will become the state’s activity. – buddy
Maybe. Mat (Mika) observed at Elephant Bar that markets “seem” to be ignoring housing and financials, which would also explain some of the recent activity, although I don’t know that any of it can be called positive so much as coy. But the possibility is intriguing – that new market drivers are emergent on the event horizon so to speak. My guess would be nanotech applications and biotech. Whether these developments happen fast enough to radically change market fundamentals in my lifetime is unlikely. Very hard to remain optimistic over the next decade. Highly likely that the forces of destabilization will exploit the numerous entry points in the near future.
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:05 am 129. slade:Nanotech has the potential to make all materials dirt cheap – essentially wiping out entire markets, including housing, but that is well into the middle of this century. My ashes will be deposited in the mud bed flats of the Missouri River.
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:09 am 130. Jay:Susan, I saw that Sopranos episode on tape when I visited an old friend in Tucson. He is politically naive. It is the way the mob and they “liberal” developers work.
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:38 am 131. Doug:The ordinary blacks keep allowing themselves to be played for suckers for small change. The black fat cats like Jesse are millionaires.
And in Los Angeles, they turn a blind eye to the killing of innocent young black children by Illegal Gangs.
If black ex-police chief Parks, now a city councilman, turns a blind eye, Jesse probably doesn’t even hear of the ethnic cleansing going on in once-black communities where blacks now go only at the risk of their lives.
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:52 am 132. Doug:In Wretchard’s Dreams
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:53 am 133. Doug:Stills
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:54 am 134. Jay:There is open gang warfare in the northern Mexican border with Texas at CA. Killer gangs are roaming southern and central Texas. The politicians are afraid to talk about this but the police are doing what they can to prevent these gangs from entering the center of our larger cities.
Feb 7, 2009 - 7:14 am 135. geoffgo:The Marine Corps is now preventing the grunts from going across the CA border for some R&R. Several strategic analysts have written that Mexico could be taken over by a coalition of drug gangs.
Happy Days are Here Again as long as Wall Street barons prosper. Note that the salary caps do not apply to the goons who took the billions in bonuses. They shared their loot with the phony POTUS and his merry men.
Friday morning on FoxNews, Dick Morris said that if the Dems reached across the aisle and induced 3 RINOS to vote for this disaster, that would mean the end of the Republican party having any influence in DC, ever again.
Guess we’ll see.
Feb 7, 2009 - 7:39 am 136. bob:The whole thing is a big bunch of patronage, and that’s the story. Go on, and live your own life. Try to keep away from the government. We have no Constitution anymore, it’s been trashed. We need to build it back up. Next election, come out and vote your conscience. Work for the good candidates. Until then, relax with some Maria McCool
Buy guns, ammo, food too, cause whiskey is right, the mideast is gonna blow. Stick with your family and your church, if you have one. Live your own life, be true to yourself and your thought.
Support a movement for states rights, without the old racism, in your area.
Much can be done in that area.
Feb 7, 2009 - 7:49 am 137. slade:A sound model of how money and debt are created makes it obvious that we should never have fallen for the insane notion that the financial system should be self-regulating. All that did was give the Cavaliers a licence to run amok, with the consequences we are now experiencing yet again—150 years after Marx described the crisis that led him to write Das Kapital. – Steve Keen, Roving Cavaliers of Credit
The financial community knew exactly what it was doing.
Feb 7, 2009 - 9:46 am 138. peterike:The financial community knew exactly what it was doing.
Again, who sent Obama? And why? And how deep and wide is the collusion? And to what end?
Is the goal for the US to default and devalue the currency? What if we get all the way to the point of declaring the dollar invalid, now to be replaced with Obama-dollars. For every 100 dollars you have, you get one Obama-dollar. And then, for the sake of “fairness,” those over a certain wealth level will be charged 500 dollars per Obama-dollar. Or 1000. Or 10,000.
Selected key Party personnel and influential friends, of course, will swap their dollars one-for-one. Or one-for-100.
And then they’ll have everything they want.
Feb 7, 2009 - 9:54 am 139. Alexis:I do wonder why Chicago conservatives can’t make common cause with reformist liberal such as Dorothy Brown to overthrow the Chicago machine.
A little over a century ago, a similar coalition overthrew Tammany Hall in New York City. One key member of the coalition was a Republican who was named as police commissioner. His name was Theodore Roosevelt.
Feb 7, 2009 - 10:20 am 140. NahnCee:“…but feint and fool the Thing out of position, while using the economic crisis and tear streaked snot splashed five hankie speeches about some specific agony that’s In Pain and Needs Money, in order to defund the edge the Thing has over “others” (such as ma and pa and grandma’s little political party)…”
So no one thinks there are other manipulative factors than that little ma and pa political party? That there are at least three major categories of humans out there in the Real World who are inimicable to the United States of America and who have been trying to overthrow us for a hundred years — the Russians, the Chinese, and the Arabs. That between them, those peoples might just be as smart as the Chicago mob and certainly could probably dredge up enough money to fix both our market and our economy buying from the outside and then manipulating by buying and selling.
How happy that we now have a President currently installed who will not ever be interested in looking behind the scenes to see who is buying what when, and who is selling what then. Indeed, we have a President currently installed who has no problem PRINTING more money a la Mugabe, if it will cause our financial system to teeter even more dangerously. Makes you wonder who his economic advisors *really* are.
If you look at the question of why the market is rising while simultaneously unemployment numbers are also rising, it seems to me that that could equally be a fire sale with outside entities taking advantage of really cheap prices on shares of lots and lots of basic American interests.
If you want to take over the economy and/or force America into bankruptcy would the percentage of American unemployed be of any interest at all to you, other than a happy indication that it’s working?
The question then becomes “who will go bankrupt first: Russia or America (or maybe the MIddle East)” and “who’s going to feed Europe, Africa and the rest of the world when America is fighting with Mexico over ownership of our farming lands”?
(Love the limericks.)
Feb 7, 2009 - 10:21 am 141. Mongoose:Peterike: yes I think that that is it, or at least one of he main objective.
I also think they want to split up the USA one way or another.
If there is some sort of attack on US soil, you can expect Martial Law too.
They do not even have to stage it, just let the Muslims in the door.
Feb 7, 2009 - 10:22 am 142. Mongoose:Nahncee: Yu read my mind.
Funny thing is, I am not given to conspiracy theories at all–I generally find them beneath my contempt–but the chain of events is just too much to pass off as coincidence. It is too weird.
How did Obama raise close to a billion dollars for his campaign? Are they the same people funding it that you mention? Is that just the tip of the iceberg i terms of funding? Is this why there are no real investigations into the shenanigans in the markets of the last 8 months or so? Why are the democrats throwing caution to the wind and ignoring the will of even their own constituents? Why would they be so blantant about organization like Acorn, organizations that are so foreign to the US experience? Why the suppression of american Oil resources? Why the budget pull back on the DoD?
Just what do they have planned?
Just what is going on?
Feb 7, 2009 - 10:31 am 143. buddy larsen:she read mine too, mongoose. there’s just shit piled up everywhere you look. Unknown-source campaign money? O’s website was deliberately rigged to let the money in while keeping the identity out. Normal SOP intewrnet credit card protocols had to be deliberately removed. Er, isn’t that like, a HUGE ISSUE???? Except that it’s not. Nobody even knows about it. And that’s just one itty bitty thing, mentioned only bec/ nahncee raised that campaign funding issue.
Feb 7, 2009 - 11:13 am 144. geoffgo:Mongoose,
The Demos don’t even have to wait for the Muslims to round up the ammo and the courage. Just letting those 20-50 MILLION new mexican refugees in when our neighbor(s?)to the south collapses (with all of them claiming asylum from narco-terrorism) will surely topple our country. Even though we won’t be able to call it that…trademark violation.
Just how will 16,000 border patrol be able to stop the onslaught? Instead of picking it, the illegals will be eating it. And there’ll be no doubt that without it, they’d all starve.
Talk about an economic disaster, on it’s way.
Feb 7, 2009 - 11:18 am 145. Mongoose:Buddy: Not to mention that it is illegal! The NRC should file some lawsuits. This month is just what they think is reasonable, much worse is coming.
This is just what I am talking about, they have never before had this completely blantant and open disrespect for our laws, our history, our culture, and our traditions, whatever they hold in their hearts.
JFK, no matter his faults, would not have anything to do with them. Even FDR would be disgusted. They would not sell us out like this. Not actually dismantle the nation, not actually destroy the wealth of our history.
Geoff: Sure you are right.
Feb 7, 2009 - 11:53 am 146. buddy larsen:Funny thing is, I am not given to conspiracy theories at all–I generally find them beneath my contempt–but the chain of events is just too much to pass off as coincidence. It is too weird.
Exactly. me, too, mongoose. But, & i know i’m repeating myself here, but here’s major UN rainmaker & inside player, you might say the Tranzi of Tranzis, the publicly unknown that is *publicly unknown* green movement founder Maurice Strong, in a 1990 series of interviews with a Canadian reporter named Daniel Wood:
“Each year the World Economic Forum convenes in Davos, Switzerland. Over a thousand CEOs, prime ministers, finance ministers, and leading academics gather in February to attend meetings and set the economic agendas for the year ahead.
What if a small group of these word leaders were to conclude that the principle risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? Will the rich countries agree to reduce their impact on the environment? Will they agree to save the earth?
The group’s conclusion is ‘no.’ The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?
This group of world leaders form a secret society to bring about a world collapse. It’s February. They’re all at Davos. These aren’t terrorists – they’re world leaders. They have positioned themselves in the world’s commodity and stock markets. They’ve engineered, using their access to stock exchanges, and computers, and gold supplies, a panic. Then they prevent the markets from closing. They jam the gears. They have mercenaries who hold the rest of the world leaders at Davros as hostage. The markets can’t close. The rich countries…?” and Strong makes a slight motion with his fingers as if he were flicking a cigarette butt out of the window.”
(Says Daniel Wood) “I sat there spellbound. This is not any story-teller talking. This is Maurice Strong. He knows these world leaders. He is, in fact, co-chairman of the Council of the World Economic Forum. He sits at the fulcrum of power. He is in a position to do it.”
back to me, buddy. No, i do not fret that maurice strong is under my bed with a garotte and murder in mind. But i think if five people, say two picked pols and two picked financial titans and Bernie Madoff (the only one currently in legal trouble) could be interviewed under sodium pentothol and the results published, it would change, in a matter of days if not hours, the financial and polittical leadership of the world.
Feb 7, 2009 - 11:54 am 147. geoffgo:If my calculations are close (Buddy feel free), then we could have bought a “controlling interest” in every one of the Fortune 500, plus a majority shareholder position in the next 300 companies on the list, for $800+ BILLION.
Of course the methods the Dems are using assures they will never have to offer anything like fair market value.
Feb 7, 2009 - 11:56 am 148. buddy larsen:they’re stealing the giant production machine. Our TARP and Stim Plan trillions are just a forced purchase of a right to earn daily bread in the gov’t salt mines. The next TARP will buy us our little tin mess kits, with which we will stand in line every spare moment to get a bite to eat. that is those of us who aren’t “troublemakers”.
Feb 7, 2009 - 12:06 pm 149. Leo Linbeck III:There once was a man named Barack
Who brains he did surely not lack
But with experience nil
He soon sounded shrill
While he panicked and gave us a smack.
——–
There once was Obama, the Cool
Who caused all the young folks to drool
But when times became tough
And folks saw he was fluff
Then he began to be seen as a fool.
——–
I can hear buddy now: “I know Walt. Walt is a friend of mine. And you’re no Walt.”
You are correct, sir.
L3
Feb 7, 2009 - 12:17 pm 150. Walt:Damn! Youse guyz are getting good.
Feb 7, 2009 - 12:41 pm 151. buddy larsen:the mysterious fellow named Walt
writes peerless poetry sans fault
tho Sir Walter Scott
i think he is not
he’ll do in a pinch, like salt
Feb 7, 2009 - 12:45 pm 152. Mongoose:Well, in Chavez or Putin merely had to seize the oil industry. We ave a mixed economy so of course it is Wall St. Soon it will be energy, health care, teh Auto Industry.
Soon military purges no doubt.
One would think that there would be peers in the battle that want to save what they have. Perhaps they will over reach. Nothing has ever been attempted ike this before. Perhaps they will over reach.
It behooves us all to get this out. It is not a done deal yet. They are relying in ignorance and apathy/
Feb 7, 2009 - 12:50 pm 153. buddy larsen:throw out questions, questions that can be asked re factuals in the public domain. wonder what the full page ad in the NYT cost those soros morlocs?
Feb 7, 2009 - 1:00 pm 154. Walt:Slightly OT, but the events of last night have caused such anguish I had to get this off my chest.
The spectre of death lay before them
The Democrat bill breathed its last
The GOP, let us adore them
Had vowed it would never be passed
Then happened expected behavior
A few GOPs joined their hands
And danced as the Democrats savior
Accompanied by tootling bands
The oompahs played Hail Pennsylvania
Accordions played Lady of Maine
Cheering Dems joined in the mania
With mostly Olympian disdain
The spectre of death had been banished
Replaced by the Specter of old
The GOP win quickly vanished
The vict’ry thrown out in Maine’s cold
So now we are stuck with Obama’s
Bloated old pork spending bill
That even your dads and yo mommas
Would recognize as stinking swill
What can we do with such people
Always on the other side
Why can’t they be swung from a steeple
Or staked to a beach at low tide
Of course that is frustration seething
Of course we’d do naught of the kind
But as long as there’s patriots breathing
I think we should keep it in mind
Confession: Arlen Specter is my Senator, and I voted for him, not because I agreed with him, I often didn’t, but because the alternative was a liberal Dem. But I’m through with him now, not that he cares.
Feb 7, 2009 - 1:03 pm 155. marymcl:The thing that’s been bugging me all week about this pork-barrelpalooza is what’s the hurry? It’s been characteristic of Obama’s campaign that he’s been waved through from the beginning – none of the usual vetting etc. – because it had to be Him, and it had to be now, and so on. We still have nothing more than Nancy Pelosi’s word to prove he meets the minimal Constitutional requirement for office but what does it matter now, right? It’s unseemly to even mention it. Counterproductive, whatever. “I won”
And now we have this bill he says MUST pass before the end of next week, or else the sky will fall. What’s so special about next week-end? And why is he acting like a frightened adolescent? I don’t think much of him to begin with, but all this peevishness betrays something more than just immaturity.
I dislike conspiracy theories and I surely don’t have one to expain where Obama came from but it’s damned difficult not to believe something wicked’s afoot. All sorts of unholy alliances are possible – the possibilities among the Arabs alone are enough to drive anyone to drink. The thing that stands out to me about the current legislation is the *urgency* of the timing. Once again, we’re supposed to pass over the usual time-consuming routines and just do as Obama requires – but what for? I can’t shake the feeling that our newly anointed leader is sweating over someone else’s timetable. Weird indeed.
Feb 7, 2009 - 1:07 pm 156. Mongoose:Well it is pretty obvious what the hurry is about.
Feb 7, 2009 - 1:15 pm 157. buddy larsen:Marymcl, on the premise that this game is fixed: Geithner has a big speech noon Monday –TARP and the ‘bank fix” –one hurry on StimPlan vote might be because this ‘bank fix’ is a problem if mkts respond positive and StimPlan becomes clearly less critical to “avoid catastrophe”.
So, that’s easy, says conspiracy theory, come Monday noon just have Geithner bollox the fix and let the mkts break down for the week.
BUT, just for starters, more and more critical eyes are falling on these birds, so that may be risky. So they may feel it is time to throw the world a bone.
This whole problem can be made to disappear if the vote is *before* the speech.
Feb 7, 2009 - 1:39 pm 158. buddy larsen:h/t cannoneer #4, please see this, and note that the oppo continues to confound us with the context trick.
Elizabeth Warren, Harvard law prof and brought in to head a congressional oversight of TARP1, is all over the air now claiming that the first ten transactions (she does not mention, but we know, Paulsen/Bush) “gave away” 78 bbl. “Why, and to whom?” she asks (IOW, Bush stole, so it’s our turn now) thing). Missing context: the first 10 transactions actually were under emergency conditions (regardless of why, LIBOR was frozed solid for a fact) to stop exactly the free fall emergency in fact, that one trillion is being asked for to do the same NOW.
Missing context, one tiny example. But, point, if we just listen to them inside that frame, inside the “missing context” frame, the memetic counter just pops out all by itself –these people, despite their rude tones and derisive manner, are weak in truth, i mean weak in the position of the truth, and can be made to pay in encounters with that truth. best done cheerfully.
Feb 7, 2009 - 1:56 pm 159. buddy larsen:oops!
Feb 7, 2009 - 2:00 pm 160. Doug:“And even friends acknowledge that Mr. Holbrooke is intently focused on his own legend. (Many people have personal trainers; Mr. Holbrooke has a personal archivist.) ”
Feb 7, 2009 - 2:00 pm 161. Wadeusaf:—
Should be a good match for a guy that wrote two Autobios in his adolescent years.
“A little over a century ago, a similar coalition overthrew Tammany Hall in New York City. One key member of the coalition was a Republican who was named as police commissioner. His name was Theodore Roosevelt.”
Another was a fellow named TH Nast. originator of the modern vision of Santa Claus, the GOP Elephant and a stubborn donkey to represent the Dems. Through his simple depictions of what was going on the whole of the country knew what Tammany was and that it was not a good thing. Of course that was for Harpers newspaper, not the Gray lady and editorially the harpers staff then had mucho grande cojones, and the paper had a large circulation. The tribune couldn’t even get the real story about the certain real estate deals. choosing to believe that one time Resko made a straight deal was with then state Senator Obama.
The difference between a bank robber and this crop of Politicians is that bank robbers engage in a higher, more respectable level of criminal activity. What A. Specter did does not surprise me. That he let someone else get there first does puzzle me though.
I expect that not all the pubs and dems are crooks, and we will know soon enough who else is and who is not.
Upon chasing the bull from the field,
Frank-in-Dodd said,’da bears need to heal”,
No meds, nor private pensions,
One mind, NO deviations,
Remember, its for the children we steal.
Feb 7, 2009 - 2:35 pm 162. Doug:I wasn’t aware at the time, but key to Rudy cleaning up NYC was his understanding what he was dealing with:
Alinsky tactics.
Doubt if any of the other candidates had heard of him, much less already had EXPERIENCE in dealing with them as a US Prosecutor.
Given that, in retrospect I think it is clear that Rudy would have been just the man for the job.
Feb 7, 2009 - 3:05 pm 163. Doug:I think there are quite a few Pubs that aren’t crooks,
but very few that understand how the game is played.
Thadeus McCotter may be one, he’s young and certainly bright enough.
Sadly, he’s white, and BALD.
…slo Joe proved that hair plugs trump intelligence.
Feb 7, 2009 - 3:08 pm 164. Doug:In search of Perfection,
Feb 7, 2009 - 3:14 pm 165. Doug:we reaped the sewer.
Leo 149,
Here’s the way the New York Times sees it:
Partisanship Is a Worthy Foe in Debate on Stimulus
Feb 7, 2009 - 3:33 pm 166. buddy larsen:that was a great limrick, wade. you fergot to mention that Thomas Nast gave us the word ‘nasty’ –so i did, that’ll be fifty cents, please.
doug, if you or anyone else can figure out why Rudy and Matt (and lesser extent Fred) dropped out so early and with so little fight, i’d like to know. your holbrooke post sent me to search for his Swiss bank links, and right off the bat i see this –how did i not know this?
re your holbrooke ref, catch the Joe Biden quote at the bottom (more here.
*****
Then i came across this (snip):
Other analysts warned that regulators were likely to consider forcing financial institutions to demonstrate tighter controls of the complex — and often vast — investments handled by small groups of traders.
“From the viewpoint of financial stability as a whole, regulators are likely to see the (current) situation as unacceptable,” said Cubillas Ding at Celent.
“A limited number of individuals handling esoteric instruments can have the capacity to wipe out a disproportionate chunk of a bank’s profits,” he said.
****************
(…while wondering about Sarbox, and why rule 157 of it is referred to as having been reinstated in 2007 when i knew Sarbox was the result of the Enron case of 2002-2003. Light is thrown here (snip):
Only a week following the announcement of UBS’s involvement in the Enron affair, Credit Suisse First BostonCredit Suisse First Boston was originally the trading name of the Financière Crédit Suisse-First Boston, a London-based 50-50 investment banking joint venture formed in 1978 between the First Boston Corporation and Credit Suisse.
….. Click the link for more information. was named in a class action suit filed by clients who lost millions of dollars when Enron shares plummeted last year.
It is the second Swiss bank to be caught up in the fallout from the collapse of the energy giant. A similar suit has been launched against UBS’s American banking subsidiary, Paine Webber.
********
…and I finally found the rule 157 disconnect here (snip):
The key players in this battle are the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has largely focused on enforcing the rules; the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), a panel of accounting experts that has written much of the existing accounting rulebook; the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a regulator created to oversee audit firms; the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), a professional organization with membership that includes sole practitioners as well as CPAs in industry; the public accounting firms; and the business lobby.
The catalyst, of course, is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Not only did it mandate the creation of the PCAOB, but in an effort to create greater accountability in financial reporting it sought to more clearly define the roles of all accounting rule-makers.
Five years later, the SEC has emerged as the clear winner in that reshuffling. While the commission has always had nominal jurisdiction over FASB, and was granted clear jurisdiction over the PCAOB under the terms of Sarbox, only recently has it begun to exercise its sway over both. Under the energetic leadership of Christopher Cox, who was appointed in June 2005 by President Bush, the SEC is letting the accounting world know that it is calling the shots.
This creates plenty of uncertainty for businesses on at least two counts. First, the SEC is led by political appointees, raising the specter of a boom-and-bust cycle for business-friendliness. (Not that it’s terribly predictable: despite his GOP roots, Cox has not appeared to bow to corporate wishes as much as many had anticipated.) Second, the SEC’s push for a single set of global, principles-based accounting standards may achieve its stated aim of benefiting both businesses and investors by ushering in a clearer and simpler financial-reporting regime — but not without mandating an overhaul of current practices that will make the changes wrought by Sarbox seem trivial.
Setting the Standards
For a taste of the new, more assertive SEC, one need look no further than to its relationship with the PCAOB. When asked about the PCAOB’s independence at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee in June, Cox characterized the relationship as “collegial.” At the same time, he noted that the SEC has both budget and operational oversight of the board. “We don’t want to breathe down their necks. We want to let them do their jobs and supervise it,” said Cox. “We do not want to micromanage them.”
Steven Scholes, a former SEC attorney who is now a partner at McDermott Will & Emery, says the relationship between the two agencies is a work in progress. “The PCAOB is so new that it’s still trying to figure out its role,” he says.
But other observers are more stark in their assessment. The board operates as “a wholly-owned subsidiary of the SEC,” according to Jack Ciesielski, publisher of the newsletter The Analyst’s Accounting Observer. Since the board’s creation in 2002, he says, “the SEC has pretty much set the agenda.”
That certainly seemed to be the case when the PCAOB attempted to rewrite….”
(back to me, buddy; read as much as you can stand, follow other links, the Story Is Out There. But brief thumbnail, our past and new Dem pols connect in world forums and UN and NGOs with the Swiss banks that were part of the Enron attack on the financial system that created sarBox, which has damaged American business with onerous costs even before one of its rules was shelved for 4 or 5 years until the final phase of the housing blowoff was taking off, at which point it was dusted off and stuck back into the part of law being actually followed, and there used, along with the simultaneously quashed Uptic Rule to massively short and naked short [illegal in statute but not illegal in practice?] the financial system, becoming a bearish ‘fundamental’ which immediately post election became such concentrated, timed, sequenced bear raids that in a few sessions raised the entire month’s short tading volume to half the entire exchange, or ten times normal, busting out the banking system and “forcing” the government start taking control.to take it over. except for the massive final bear raid on banks, all this took place in the months before the November election, massively undercutting the GOP candidate.
Design? Coincidence? hand of God?
Feb 7, 2009 - 4:32 pm 167. buddy larsen:I wonder if Harry Marcopolos has any ideas on that?
Feb 7, 2009 - 4:46 pm 168. Doug:Buddy,
Feb 7, 2009 - 4:48 pm 169. Doug:My 158, was Holbrooke the guy?
from your link:
desert rat said…
The answer, again based upon rufus’s and Steve Forbes opinion, is to repeal the ‘Mark to Market’ requirements and allow the mortgage backed securities to be valued on a cash flow basis.
This would ease the the regulators demand for ever increasing capital reserves from the banks.
But not amongst the ‘reforms’ that I’ve seen promoted by either Team Obama or Team Pelosi. Just more SEC type mismanagement, the Federals working at cross purposes, either by design or default, does not really matter which. It’s the performance that matters, more than the motive.
Feb 7, 2009 - 4:53 pm 170. buddy larsen:So, the Credit Suisse First Boston joint venture was registered in London in 1978, about the time congress passes the Community Reinvestment Act?
No wonder they hated Reagan! No moolah tsunami until they got Clinton in. Then, damn those American voters –won’t anyone rid them of these troublesome people? –along came Bush! No wonder they hated Bush! Then come 2006, (*pant pant, droool*), do we REALLY have to keep getting exposed to these silly GOP candidates? Then come 2008, and the answer was “no”. Next comes 2010 and…?
Katrina and Abu Grabe and OIF proved they could lie massively without penalty, and the 2008 election proved they could just ignore every new event and every piece of history that didn’t help them, and gain massively.
So, what’s next?
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:00 pm 171. buddy larsen:oh, what’s next is now in the senate: “Stick ‘em up. Gimme all yer money.”
Then what? The camps?
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:03 pm 172. Doug:Buddy,
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:06 pm 173. buddy larsen:Does mark to market mean that if next month in California ALL sales were foreclosure sales, the entire housing stock would be valued based on those sales?
doug, read it and weep.
http://www.complianceweek.com/article/3666/mark-to-market-or-to-myth-fas-157-worries
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:17 pm 174. Doug:Uh, subscription based.
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:26 pm 175. buddy larsen:Maybe you could post a bunch on a week old post by Deuce, and then delete it after we get it?
…I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.
some other –the second is a little turgid, but the first is breezy NYT style and lays out the pro and con as it stood late last year.
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/debating-the-merits-of-mark-to-market/
http://books.google.com/books?id=EGwWmEjL6hoC&pg=PA261&lpg=PA261&dq=is+mark+to+market+applied+by+region%3F&source=bl&ots=RjSwtic3m3&sig=4rU0NSdrUn4Ae345Ts5lhthfDG4&hl=en&ei=BCSOSZ_HKdKgtweSvtSNCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA268,M1
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:26 pm 176. buddy larsen:what do you want over there –just that one, or are others glitchy –?
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:28 pm 177. Doug:Just that last one.
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:32 pm 178. buddy larsen:Mind-Blowers:
1) look at the people on the new Economic Recovery Advisory Board, in light of all this 18 month old black swan and what you can find jus dicking around on the et and sticking with respectable sources. “Hiding in plain sight”.
2) for starters, one of ‘em is the CEO of UBS –the bad bunch all the way back to Enron (at least) and the guys who paid those enormous bonuses –beyond the pale –to leave Merril Lynch and come over and push the leverage up and the volume up and the velocity up on the subprime poison that proved the fuse –and all this AFTER they pulled the world’s largest pump-and-dump with Enron? and got caught on Enron? And our brand new Hillary-appointed ambassador to Pakistan, which just released Mr. How To Build Nuclear Bombs AQ Khan –worked (works, more likely by far) for these banks? and would not answer congress when it interviewed him re these banks? in a criminal investigation?
oh crap, i had 67 more bullet points but it’s almost dark and i have to go check the claymores –i mean, have to go for a walk.
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:41 pm 179. buddy larsen:ok 177 -i’ll put it under the Marco/SEC evil clown illo
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:43 pm 180. Doug:NYT
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:45 pm 181. Doug:“The House version of the stimulus bill emphasizes helping states and localities avoid wide-scale cuts, while the Senate plan focuses more on tax cuts.”
—
In the Fun House Mirror where funding the Welfare State is a “Tax Cut.”
Good place for it, I had not read Rufus’s comment which led to my question.
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:46 pm 182. Doug:Problem over there, I rephrased my request.
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:59 pm 183. buddy larsen:Cure-by-disease file: first read the link @ # 167, now, Cox of SEC, on board just in time for SHTF and now gone, was installed by SEC predecessor William Donaldson, founder of brokerage Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette, which was bought by Credit Suisse in yr 2000, connected [just friends?] to Bernie Madoff [search the two names] –and just appointed to the new Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Please, re-read the above six times, and i promise you will scream.
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:03 pm 184. NahnCee:Doug and Buddy – you’re confusing me. Are you saying that the Dem’s have already thrown in and sold America to Davos / Swisse international players, starting with Enron, and were just waiting for an opportune time and moment (which the election of Obama has been) to complete their Goldfinger-ish takeover of America?
So that in effect Obama and the Democratic Party are busily selling the United States of AMerica to the highest overseas bidder(s). One big huge plot.
Or are you saying there’s an internal Dem plot to turn America into a communist Utopia, AND simultaneously an overseas plot to buy America and bankrupt it? Two different plots happening simultaneously.
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:05 pm 185. Doug:I’m just floundering away, Nahncee, sorry I can’t help.
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:09 pm 186. Doug:Buddy,
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:12 pm 187. buddy larsen:Cox was once a well-regarded “conservative”
…I guess Donaldson knew him better than we did.
He sat on his hands for some time.
—
Please read my new request @ Marco/SEC
me too, nahncee, i’m the next flounder over fron doug, the one wondering if i’m on my way to the frying pan, or already in it, or have already been et, or am just a stupid fish imagining things.
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:14 pm 188. Doug:There ain’t much left for the imagination these days.
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:16 pm 189. Doug:We just hate to admit what we see.
Single user, one year: $1,199
…In case you’d like to subscribe, Nahncee!
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:21 pm 190. Mongoose:doug: yea really. Those are not even close to tax cuts. More like trasfer payments.
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:27 pm 191. buddy larsen:It just takes more people off the tax rolls.
will paste it over there, doug –
nahncee, as we know, big groups act together without formal deliberate conspiracy –if i had to finger what shivers me, is that that two disparate factions, 1] enourmous money power in hands of tiny number of people–some domestic, some foreign, some enemy of USA or part of USA, some at tops of gov’ts, doing like stuff in like time on like premise with like moral idiocy, and 2] the religious zealot ‘reduce humanity in number and appetite’ greens in power-places internationally, both having if not the same goal then the same target. that’s just a rough post –i gotta get outta hewre for awhile. i’ll try to refine it later. meantime –what do YOu think? anybody? if i sound crazy i don’t care if you say so –i’m used to it, i have an ex-wife.
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:28 pm 192. joe buzz:buddy, you should not need to check your claymores…you will know when one or more deploys. Do a sketch, ie document how you set each one. Documentation is the key.
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:29 pm 193. Doug:About three years ago I had this nagging wake up in the middle of the night urge to move what little I had in the market to buy gold. I ignored it. 48 years young and see no retirement now in my future. Shit fishing is overrated. I live just up out of the floodplain on one of the most scenic rivers in the US but the few small fish that have survived the die-offs of the last few years are deemed inedible. What has become of this once great Nation?
…great, I was about to try a virtual rolling pin to your head!
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:30 pm 194. Doug:(me to Buddy over my request for a text paste)
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:32 pm 195. Doug:“some domestic, some foreign, some enemy of USA or part of US”
—
Breitbart reminds us that Hollywood now makes more money overseas than they do on the domestic market.
And investors come from Russia, the Muzzies, and gawd knows where.
So Medved was wrong all along when he said they were sacrificing profits for ideology/respect of peers.
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:40 pm 196. buddy larsen:Follow the money.
Mind Blower:
Mad rush emergency we all gonna die hurry hurry pass it passit –on pa$$ing the trill bill.
(but)
on rule 157, at root of the shebang –(*chirp*) crickets ho hum….(yawn)…..
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:40 pm 197. buddy larsen:refundable tax credits –just make the welfare payment thru IRS instead of HHS and you can ‘truthfully’ call it a RTC. even tho in both cases the money comes from the same tax receipts. It’s Alinsky –fug wit de language, fug wit de thinkin’.
ok, now, me out for awhile –y’all are too damn stimulatin’!
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:47 pm 198. Doug:Buddy,
I alerted the gang to save it while it’s hot.
Thanks a lot.
Feb 7, 2009 - 6:47 pm 199. peterike:And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
Feb 7, 2009 - 7:24 pm 200. peterike:So take that look out of here it doesn’t fit you
Because it’s happened doesn’t mean you’ve been discarded
Pull up your head off the floor—come up screaming
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can’t stay here with every single hope you had shattered
I’m not expecting to grow flowers in a desert
But I can live and breathe
And see the sun in wintertime
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover’s voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
In a big country dreams stay with you
Feb 7, 2009 - 7:33 pm 201. buddy larsen:Like a lover’s voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
Stay alive
Joe Buzz, don’t give up dangit –change bait!
peterike, good stuff –real good stuff –
we need more poetry. i do anyways –for the lift.
Feb 7, 2009 - 11:23 pm 202. NahnCee:On the one hand, I don’t like coincidence. I don’t like all the little indicators throughout the system and the current multiple meltdowns that seem to interlock and affect each other like a ginormous economic Rube Goldberg device set off by one or two offstage actors.
On the other hand, I keep thinking all the current conservative sturm and drang is EXACTLY what the Democrats were spouting after Bush won in 2004 — that the government was going to take away all our rights and sell us down the river to some really bad guys, and not only that, but the sky was also gonna fall.
I’d feel a whole lot better about things, though, if one or two or three commissions could be set up to delve into things like where did Obama’s overseas funding come from, who owned Bear Stearns stocks and caused that crash, and are the same people as who got undeserved home-loans currently working for ACORN.
Feb 8, 2009 - 12:01 am 203. buddy larsen:i know whatcha mean, nahncee. the human mind is always organizing patterns –for obvious mental-efficiency reasons, we want to recognize asap what ’sort’ of thing is that thing, so we can go on to the next thing. It’s a great tool but so is a hammer and a hammer ain’t for cr*p if you need to cut paper.
but i could sure come up with 20 questions a Special Prosecutor ought to be asking.
Feb 8, 2009 - 3:01 am 204. Doug:In Florida, Despair and Foreclosures
Fort Myers
Residents remember the boom for its noise, with dump trucks lining the streets and power tools heard in nearly every neighborhood. Housing prices doubled, then tripled, and jobs were plentiful, nearly all of them tied to real estate.
Signs of trouble were ignored. “Sometimes houses would sell three or four times in a few months, and no one would move in,” Mr. Elliott said.
Then in 2007, it all went quiet. Houses stopped selling. Foreclosures multiplied. The median home price in the Fort Myers area dropped to $215,200 in December 2007, from a peak of $322,300 in December 2005. It had fallen to $106,900 two months ago.
—————
And home sales in Lee County are picking up, running roughly even with foreclosures.
“Six months ago, you might get one out of 20 houses with a multiple offer,” said Kevin Williamson, a real estate agent who has lived in Lehigh Acres for 22 years. “A couple of weeks ago, I had one with 13 offers.”
But no one here would describe Lehigh Acres as out of the woods. Real estate agents said the homes that are selling here typically go for only about $45,000, a third of what they cost to build. They predict that foreclosures will continue to keep prices low for two more years.
Feb 8, 2009 - 3:28 am 205. Doug:Porsche Moves to Reverse VW’s Wild Ride
Shares of Volkswagen fell sharply Wednesday after its controlling shareholder, Porsche, took steps to ease a squeeze on short sellers that had caused VW’s stock to quadruple, making it for a time on Tuesday the most valuable company in the world.
On Tuesday, Volkswagen’s stock soared to as high as 1,005 euros a share, about $1,258, before closing at 918 euros. The shares ended last week at 210 euros.
Feb 8, 2009 - 3:59 am 206. Mongoose:Nachcee: well perhaps this is a job for BC’ers, to rationally delve into this and see if there is a case to be made at all, and not just pound out paranoid musings like the left does?
This all seems a more concrete and localized in time and process that the “facts” that “support” the wacko stuff from the Left the last eight years. At worse it would resolve to some rational and reasonable questions that remain unanswered.
In any event, it would revealed how interlink this all is, and what the elites attitudes are toward government and the rest of us. This alone serves a purpose.
Thoughts?
Feb 8, 2009 - 7:11 am 207. marymcl:I read somewhere once a description of history as being a natural selection of accidents.Buddy’s idea of different factions with different agendas going for the same target makes a lot of sense to me. Actually that wouldn’t be a bad way to describe the Democratic party itself, but it would apply to forces outside the US that work against us – the jihadis, OPEC, Iran, the Russians, the Greens, even – you name it.
I have to confess a lot of this conversaton is way over my head – much that is obvious to buddy, mongoose and others is greek to me, as I suspect it is to many others also. So keep going guys – we’re all in your debt and learning all the time. Whoever may be pulling the strings here and whatever their plans for the rest of us, they are surely counting on a fair degree of ignorance or apathy or both on our part.
Feb 8, 2009 - 9:06 am 208. Doug:They have their Messiah,
Feb 8, 2009 - 10:56 am 209. NahnCee:We have Buddy,
The all-knowing, all-seeing, all-caring, el Buddo.
mongoose, isn’t the problem that the information we would need to look at these issues (i.e., Obama’s overseas campaign donations) either coded and secret or company-confidential and also secret?
So that to access and start pulling apart the myriad threads it would take a key-smith with the power of a Congressional committee.
However, spilling secrets to the NY Times and the Washington Post has always been a favorite past-time of liberal progressives, so perhaps there *are* some conservative bureaucrats and/or internet techies out there who would be willing to forward a secret or two to Wretchard for him to spill here on Belmont Club. After all, not only is he on the internet which is kind of untouchable, but he’s also in Australia which would make it real hard for Obama to lock him up for treason.
Feb 8, 2009 - 11:03 am 210. Doug:Probly figure a way to have him incinerated while covering the Great Bush Fires of ‘09.
Feb 8, 2009 - 11:25 am 211. Doug:The Mainstream rag I read yesterday had the inadvertent leak right below the headline.
Why hide it?
…change has already occured!
Feb 8, 2009 - 11:35 am 212. Doug:Steele Hit Job [Steve Hayward]
The Washington Post has quite a hit job on Michael Steele on the front page this morning, with an above-the-fold story alleging he violated a number of campaign-finance rules.
Despite the purple language and frothy allegations of the story, my in-house (literally) campaign-finance expert says it is far from clear that Steele actually violated any of the increasingly arcane and impossible-to-explain federal campaign finance laws, but of course as we all know it’s the appearance of impropriety that counts for Republicans.
Feb 8, 2009 - 11:37 am 213. Doug:Michael Calderone’s Blog Report Coulter under investigation – Politico.com
Feb 8, 2009 - 11:42 am 214. Wadeusaf:Somewhere Swift must be involved, with OS money transfers. Getting to the ins and outs of this and that will be neigh on impossible, with or without a court order, much less order in the court. Who is going to prosecute? Who will set the fines? Well, who sent the money might be a place to start, but who will be authorized to investigate.
Of all those leaks, how many came from honorable people, to be published by honorable men? ZIP
So ya think PJ TV could qualify for a Press ticket to the Press Conferences. Put a Joe in every confab and brief, and question, real hard and factual questions. No puffballs, no softballs. And no black heliochopter stuff. Hey, it would be right, under the fairness doctrine, right?
Feb 8, 2009 - 11:46 am 215. Mongoose:Nahncee: well sure. I may not have said it well, but what i meant be getting to the point of deducing a credible point. I did not imagine that we would have access to all the facts. The formula, as it were than rather the actual data. Plausible secessions. As buddy says, 20 questions for the DA.
The point being that someone else could either take it from there, or do their own work. Or not, if it was all just hooey.
There is no reason to believe that there are not people that read this blog that could take it further. You might be surprised at the people who read BC. (well, probably not).
Feb 8, 2009 - 12:30 pm 216. Mongoose:Doug: what I am hearing about Steele is that it was a allegation by a convicted felon in some sort of deposition, or something like a deposition.
So odds are that it is little more than a formal form of a rumor. There appears to be no DoJ allegation at all about it.
Just more oppo research BS. Someone at justice should loses his/her job though (Fat chance).
Hope that Steele comes out swinging. It is a good place to contrast reporting about the corruption of dem vs. GOP people, and he can also dig the corrupt dems.
We need to keep doing that. After awhile they may find it more damaging to slander us than to keep their yaps shut.
Feb 8, 2009 - 12:37 pm 217. Doug:Yeah, a $40 Million dollar Fraudster has such great creds and credibility.
Coulter, otoh, is charged with voting in the wrong state.
Feb 8, 2009 - 2:03 pm 218. NahnCee:…not that ACORN would know anthing about that.
I wonder how pissed off the CIA and its lifer-bureaucrats might get at being bypassed and sidelined by O in favor of the NSA. And if there’s any way to encourage an annoyed spook to pass along overseas wiretaps discussing financial transfers into the American Presidential campaign, if there was any such thing.
After all, the spooks do have authority and permission to listen in on ANYthing happening outside the United States.
Feb 8, 2009 - 3:52 pm 219. gjbuilder:Nahncee #217
There is the former spook @ http://formerspook.blogspot.com/
He seems to be on the right leaning side of the political isle.
Feb 8, 2009 - 10:12 pmSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.