Pirate fizzle-out. Maybe...

Can't wait for the Russians to get there! - d

Yeah, me too pal, but it looks like we may not get our fireworks show, dammit!

CNN/World

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- The Somali government has asked Russia to intervene against pirates who have seized a Ukrainian cargo ship, the Somali ambassador to Russia said Wednesday.

But the Russian navy issued a statement later in the day saying it had no intention of using force against the pirates, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

"The questions of freeing the ships and crew are being dealt with in line with the corresponding international practices," Interfax quoted Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo as saying. "For understandable reasons, the use of force would be an extreme measure because it could threaten the life of the international crew of the ship."

Aw, geez, what a time for the Russkies to go all warm an' fuzzy on us! What could possibly have been their motivation?


Stratfor

To sum up: the Russians announced that they were sending a warship to patrol off of Somalia’s coast, and dispatched it just two days before a Ukrainian ship loaded with Soviet-era weapons was seized by pirates. A week after the hijacking, the Somalian government announced recognition of South Ossetian and Abkhazian independence, and announced that they were in talks with the Russians for military training and assistance. (Somalia was allied with the Soviets during the Cold War, but relations fell apart after pro-Soviet President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.)

Setting aside the coincidence that Russia announced the deployment of an anti-piracy warship three days before the hijacking of the Ukrainian ship, the strategic issue is that the Russians are involving themselves once again in the Horn of Africa. They had been involved there during the Cold War, and they are returning — on a very small scale for now. The Horn of Africa is critical to U.S. counterterrorism efforts; the region is watched through Africa Command, headquartered in Germany, and Djibouti hosts the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

This follows the pattern Russia established with Venezuela: recruiting allies whose interests diverge from those of the United States. The primary function at this point is to irritate Washington, since the primary deployment is naval — and so minimal that it presents no threat to U.S. naval sea-lane control. At the same time, the Somalian announcement that the Russians are welcomed ashore in Somalia opens the possibility of a Russian land base in the region, and the possibility of Russian troops helping to assert government control over Somalian chaos — or at least trying to.

The fate of the hijacked ship is unknown. Kenya’s decision to buy T-72s from Ukraine is not unheard of. The timing of the announcement and the hijacking is entirely coincidental. We understand all of that of course. But in this bizarre affair what is clear is that the Russians are moving ahead rapidly to at least show the flag in diverse parts of the world, and are finding willing partners — maybe not of the first quality, but enough to distract the United States at least somewhat from more focused and pressing issues elsewhere.

I guess the best we can hope for is that there's a camera pointed at MV Faina when 30 or 40 previously unannounced limpet mines go off on her hull in a spectacular coincidence about two hours after the Russians show up.

Drat all this! I already bought the popcorn...

Cut, Kill, Dig, Drill

Excellent and quite long article on McBimbo in the ever-so-elitist London Review Of Books:

[...] In 1996, Pat Buchanan (‘The peasants are coming with pitchforks’) appealed to the same bloc of voters with a programme that was militantly Christian, white, nativist, provincial, protectionist and anti-Washington. In 2000, Karl Rove cleverly enrolled this quasi-Poujadist faction in his grand alliance of libertarians, born-agains and corporate interests. It’s worth remembering that in 2004 every American city with a population of more than 500,000 voted for Kerry, and that the election was won for Bush in the outer suburbs, exurbia and the countryside – peasants with pitchforks territory. For an organisation so wedded to its big-city corporate clients, the Republican Party has been hugely successful in mopping up the votes of low-income, lightly educated rural and exurban residents.

What is most striking about her is that she seems perfectly untroubled by either curiosity or the usual processes of thought. When answering questions, both Obama and Joe Biden have an unfortunate tendency to think on their feet and thereby tie themselves in knots: Palin never thinks. Instead, she relies on a limited stock of facts, bright generalities and pokerwork maxims, all as familiar and well-worn as old pennies. Given any question, she reaches into her bag for the readymade sentence that sounds most nearly proximate to an answer, and, rather than speaking it, recites it, in the upsy-downsy voice of a middle-schooler pronouncing the letters of a word in a spelling bee. She then fixes her lips in a terminal smile. In the televised game shows that pass for political debates in the US, it’s a winning technique: told that she has 15 seconds in which to answer, Palin invariably beats the clock, and her concision and fluency more than compensate for her unrelenting triteness.

Wasilla is what inevitably happens when there are no codes, no civic oversight, no planning, when the only governing principle in a community is a naive and superstitious trust in the benevolent authority of the free market. Palin’s view of aesthetics was nicely highlighted in 1996, a few months before she ran for mayor, when a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News happened to light on her in an excited crowd of five hundred women queuing up in the Anchorage J.C. Penney’s, waiting to snag the autograph of Ivana Trump, who was in town to hawk her eponymous line of scent.

‘We want to see Ivana,’ Palin said, who admittedly smells like a salmon for a large part of the summer, ‘because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.’

The blot on the Alaskan landscape that is Wasilla is the natural consequence of a mindset that mistakes Ivana Trump for culture.

By implication, then, big city people are unpatriotic (Palin’s last phrase was a sneer at Michelle Obama, a lifelong Chicagoan); they are insincere slackers and draft dodgers – in a word, liberals. The passage reminded Republicans of their party demographics, their strength in the exurbs, and prepared the ground for an assault on the metropolitan manners and mores of their Democratic opponents, in a depressingly effective piece of hokum.

The most likely cause of her undoing will – strangely – be the McCain campaign. In St Paul, unveiled as the goose who could lay for the Republicans the golden egg of the presidency, she brimmed with the inflated self-assurance of the small-world conqueror, and held a national audience in the palm of her hand as she recited the same confident platitudes that served her so well in Alaska. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and McCain and his advisers should have left well alone, left ‘Sarah’ to be her vote-winning self. Instead, they seem to be no less alarmed by her than liberals are, and have taken to force-feeding her, stuffing her gullet with ‘talking points’ on foreign and domestic policy. Under their frantic tuition, Palin has recently looked less likely to lay the golden egg than to produce inferior goose-liver pâté.

She may yet regain her poise. Her populist appeal is still enormous, and it’s far too early to start dancing on her grave, as some commentators have already tried to do. Palin’s campaign-trail mistakes will not calm that deep groundswell of public feeling of which she is now the national figurehead. But, for the last few days, as her education at the hands of her captors has proceeded, we in the cities, with our elitist liberal ideas and our stark terror of what further harm the United States might inflict on itself and the world under a third consecutive Republican administration, have been just a little less likely to wake up screaming at three in the morning.

I'm lucky - my bladder usually wakes me up quietly at 3AM.

Enjoy the rest.

What Bush Has Stolen From Us

Susan J. Douglas

I recently visited Australia and New Zealand, and it made me realize that we need mythic language — the kind that comes from oral cultures reliant on handed-down legends — to capture what has happened these past eight years. Like the Aborigines’ dreamtime stories, we need something more powerful than “the failed policies of the Bush administration.” I propose “The Stolen Years.”

It began, of course, with the stolen election in 2000. But just think how much has been stolen from us: our morality and, indeed, our sense of humanity.

These are not just policy failures. This has been a spiritual pillaging of any sense that the United States can ever aspire to, or represent, higher principles; that our nation is, or can be, a democracy, however flawed; that the government cares about citizens other than the really rich.

The Bush administration has seized all we hold dear and ground it into the dirt with its boot heels.

Most important has been the nation’s sense of its own morality. Few of us are deluded that the U.S. government was, before the Bush regime, a beacon of moral rectitude and social justice. The United States has overthrown many governments, mostly in secret, and supported repressive rulers. But when have our leaders publicly and adamantly rejected the Geneva Conventions and endorsed torture as a matter of national policy? It’s one thing for there to be a gap between national principles and government practices, and quite another for a president to deride those principles as no longer essential to the nation’s moral compass.

Please read the rest.

Angry Populism Is About To Explode

'Bout fuckin' time. Robert Reich with a 'must read':

An important distinction here. While more Americans are coming around to "supporting" the bailout bill, the vast majority still hate the idea of bailing out Wall Street. They're for the bailout bill now only because they fear that a failure to pass it will have worse consequences -- drying up credit at a time when Main Street is struggling. But make no mistake: America is mad as hell. They resent what they perceive as extortion by the Masters of the Universe.

But whatever it's called and however it's financed, it's still an outrage. America's foreign policy is made no more flexible by going into deeper hock to the Chinese and the Middle East. And the deal still subjects American taxpayers to some risk, especially if the housing market doesn't bounce back for many years. Worse, the bill can't help but prop up the earnings many Wall Street executives whose malfeasance, greed, and stupidity got us into this mess in the first place. And it does nothing for average Americans except avoid economic calamity. (The provision ostensibly helping distressed homeowners is to be used at the discretion of the Treasury Department, so it's mostly a sham.)

The larger economic outlook is not encouraging. All signs point to the economy worsening, bailout or no bailout. Unemployment will continue to rise. Median earnings will continue to drop, adjusted for inflation. More Americans will lose their health insurance.

The Era of Angry Populism has only just begun. Let's hope Obama wins, and is able to mobilize the anger into fierce pressure on Congress to get his agenda enacted, as well as reform Wall Street and Washington.

If he wants to. Let's hope so.

Shit, I coulda told 'em that...

LONDON (AFP) - Cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, according to a report by a research charity Thursday, which called for a "serious rethink" of drug policy.

The Beckley Foundation, a charity which numbers senior experts and other academics among its advisors, said banning cannabis has no impact on supply and turns users into criminals.

"Many of the harms associated with cannabis use are the result of prohibition itself, particularly the social harms arising from arrest and imprisonment," it said.

Nothing new. Studies have shown this for years. I'm glad it's comin' around again, but it's kinda like inventing the wheel over and over again.

On the other hand, the truth has no relationship to, or effect on, the desire of governments to oppress their people for smoking untaxed plants for fun without regard to either Puritan sentiment or corporate commerce.

Fire or Knife?

Paul Krugman

On Olbermann a few minutes ago (that basement classroom with the heavy paper over the windows and camera sure has come in handy lately!) a phrase popped out of my mouth: “Stockholm Syndrome”, with regard to the bailout rescue.

Here’s the thing: it’s very hard for Congress to originate complex financial rescues, so it’s normally up to the executive to put things together. Unfortunately, Paulson came up with an awful plan. Ideally, the Dems would have ripped the thing up and started over, but that was never realistic. So instead they made it significantly better, but still building on the original, misconceived structure; it became better than nothing, but not good.

And then it failed in the House, so the Senate has larded it up, with stuff like SEC. 503. EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN.

I think that Congressional leaders know that it’s a bad bill, but feel compelled to defend it, because they’re (rightly) scared of the financial consequences of a second rejection. And to some extent economists like myself are in the same position; I think I called it the “hold your nose caucus.”

So am I for the bill? Yuk, phooey, I guess so. And I’m very angry at Paulson for putting us in this position.

Reminds me of a show I watched last night about an outlaw motorcycle gang. They had thrown a guy out and he hadn't done the right thing and blacked out the full-size tattoo of the club patch on his back. They gave him the choice of 'fire or knife?'. He chose fire and they burned it off him with a cutting torch.

At least he got a choice before the pain was inflicted, unlike us.

Also from PK, in a lighter vein:

On a lighter note, great story in the WSJ about how canned mackerel has emerged as the medium of exchange in America’s prisons. Sure to be a case study in the next edition of every single principles of economics textbook.

Mackereleconomics. Smells fishy to me...

What's your poison, citizen?

Mark Morford

How can you know? How do you possibly choose? How to decide which is your favorite cruelly disheartening tidbit of news to slide down the national gullet like a rancid oyster this past week?

Is it the wretched and touching fact that no one, not Repubs, not Dems, not animals or bacteria or flowers or rocks or the very air itself, no extant entity anywhere trusts George W. Bush as far as they can hurl him back to Crawford, Texas, in a quivering lump of historic failure? Is it his utter powerlessness and uselessness and ineptitude in the face of the biggest and most volatile fiscal crisis in 20 years? Might be, might be.

But wait, that's not all. Perhaps your attention is split between Bush and the crisis in D.C. and other delightful tidbits, such as John McCain's heroic "suspension" of his campaign so he could be parachute in to Washington like GI Joe's crotchety grandpa and unify his sour party and wrangle the crisis to the ground like it was an uppity "gook"?

Which do you prefer, that his silly suspension stunt was no suspension at all (his campaign kept right on going), or that his thuggish fiscal meddling only made matters worse and quite possibly fractured the vote even further, which makes it all disgustingly obvious that he's clearly willing to sabotage the country's health and stability if it will get him into the Oval Office?

Hmm. What might that be? What else could possibly be happening right now in the bleak corridors of power that's more freakishly entertaining than Congress in a fistfight or Wall Street going up in flames? Is there maybe some sort of soap opera-ish circus sideshow featuring guns and skinned moose and shiny lipstick and speaking in tongues and rumors of witches in the belfry?

Ah, yes. Sarah "Don't Ask Me Anything" Palin. What a sheer joy it's been to watch this bubbly train-wreck of a grand mistake shimmy her way into history, no? Screw the doom 'n' gloom of Bush and the end of Wall Street. At least this nutball creationist knows how to get her freak on, am I right?

It's now obvious that the McCain campaign is so desperately embarrassed by Palin and her shocking ignorance of all things complex and political and worldly, they are simply terrified of letting her speak to any media anywhere. She is being shielded like the deformed stepdaughter, like the cute puppy they bought on the cheap at the mall only to get it home and realize it's got incurable parasites and a wonky eye and pees in its sleep and will require very expensive surgery if it ever wants to digest actual food.

So, which will it be? The strangely satisfying feeling of unity brought on by universal disdain for our failed president? McCain behaving like a nearsighted Rambo stabbing the nation in the foot, accidentally on purpose? The disquieting sense that your bank and your investments are about as stable as Lindsay Lohan at Oktoberfest? Or is it Palin's girly show o' patronizing silliness, full of witches and gobbledygook responses and tales of cavemen riding the backs of dinosaurs?

I know, it's tough to choose a favorite, particularly when all appears to be one big, repellent joke. On us.

Yeah, funny. Har-dee-fuckin'-har.

Surprise ...

Gord linked us to Kathleen Parker's surprise at how the wingnuts turned on her yesterday. Today, Athenae asks her some questions:

...

These are the people who laughed at Katrina victims, who mocked them as they drowned, and who said to people standing on rooftops in rags in the days after, tough rocks, your own fault, and by the way fuck you, for still being alive to shame me.

They said they'd shoot them, if they could.

What did you think they would do to you?

These are the people who called a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer a murderer.

These are the people who laughed at the idea of Timothy McVeigh making a detour to the New York Times Building.

These are the people who called Jill Carroll a traitor. After she was kidnapped. Held captive. Tormented.

These are the people who said Pat Tillman's family should shut up and go away. That Cindy Sheehan was a whore. That Valerie Plame was a criminal. That Richard Clarke was a monster.

These are the people.

...

Did you think it would be different for you? You did, didn't you. You poor, deluded thing. You thought your time in Wingnuttia would buy you out of jail. Would buy you the right to say something contrary. Would give you the benefit of the doubt. Some wiggle room, with them. You thought you were immune; when they threatened journalists and laughed at the death of "the dinosaur media" and fantasized about killing the people who disagreed with them, they didn't mean you. Surely not you. They meant other people.

...

Welcome to our world, Ms. Parker.

And you can't even see Russia ...

From Sarah Palin's house:

Just when you thought the whole "I can see Russia from Alaska" thing couldn't get any funnier...CNN's Gary Tuchman delivers the goods: it turns out that Sarah Palin has never seen Russia from Alaska.

Tuchman went up to the part of Alaska from which you can actually see Russia, a remote island called Little Diomede located just 2.4 miles from it's Russian twin, Big Diomede.

...

No Alaskan governor has ever visited Little Diomede, though indicted U.S. Senator Ted Stevens has made the trip. The town's residents barely knew who Palin was, and one of them didn't know she was the VP nominee. [my em]

...

Lucky bastids.

...

It's going to be fun watching McCain-land spin this one, and it's going to be even more fun watching Tina Fey parody it.

Can't wait. Now, I could deal with Tina Fey as a VP candidate ...

Great thanks to Oliver Willis for the link.

Crime doesn't pay ...

One set of pirates are gonna get their ass handed to 'em by the Russkies. Another bunch seem to have hijacked the wrong cargo:

A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates.

...

Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.”

The vessel’s declared cargo consists of “minerals” and “industrial products”. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels.

...

Oh, bad luck, fellas. I wonder what's worse; dying horribly, painfully, from some weaponized chemical or gettin' blowed out the water by a buncha Russian conscripts who need the target practice? Shoulda opted for a career in fishing.

See yas in Hell.

Quote of the Day III

POP:

Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a time when you trusted the government enough that you didn’t dread hearing the news in the morning, for fear that something else had gone to hell?

Indeed, sister.

Piracy Update

Following up on my earlier post:

Telegraph(UK)

The Somali government has invited foreign powers to attack the pirates holding a Ukrainian cargo ship loaded with tanks hostage in its waters.

A Russian navy warship armed with marines and special forces commandos has already left for the Gulf of Aden, where a US guided-missile destroyer with air support is just a few miles from the captured MV Faina.

"The international community has permission to fight with the pirates," said Mohamed Jama Ali, the foreign ministry's acting permanent director. "Permission to use force was given."

Hmmmm. Russian ship...marines and special forces commandos...permission to use force.

Arrgh, mateys! If those fuckin' outboards still run, you better use 'em or you're shark shit. You'll have so much Russian lead in you your bros might dredge up what's left and sell you to a battery factory.

Also from the Telegraph:

The pirates are reported to have turned on each other and fought a gunbattle, killing three of their comrades, as helicopters from a flotilla of ships deployed by the US Fifth Fleet buzzed the Ukrainian ship, the MV Faina. The dispute was believed to be about what to do with their haul.

A US defence official in Washington corroborated the reported shooting, but the pirates denied there had been any such incident and said they were happily celebrating Eid, the Islamic festival which marks the end of Ramadan. Their spokesman did not say whether the crew had been invited to the feast.

Heh. That last sentence was some great tongue-in-cheek humor in the finest tradition of British drollery..

I guess it's customary to empty your Kalashnikov into yer bros to celebrate religious holidays. Whadja do fer Rosh Hoshanah?

Bailout narratives

Paul Krugman is working overtime lately. Thank you, Paul.

There seem to be two prevailing narratives about the bailout plan(s). Both have elements of truth, but are fundamentally wrong.

One narrative is that of the Wise Men and the Destructive Yahoos. According to this narrative, men who Understand What Needs to be Done put together a plan to save the world, but they did a bad job of communicating, and a mob of ignorant people stands in their way.

The other narrative is that of the Evil Plotters and the Righteous Uprising. According to this narrative, the same people who sold us the Iraq war have tried to bully Congress into adopting a plan that is, in essence, a cynical ripoff — a scheme to transfer vast wealth to the rich and cripple the next administration.

My view, which I think is now shared by many economists, is that Paulson grabbed hold of the wrong end of the stick — he should have been seeking to expand bank capital, taking an ownership share in compensation, rather than trying to push up the value of toxic paper. In the end, that’s what we’ll probably do.

On the other hand, the way that Paulson et al have been blundering around puts the lie, I think, to the idea that this is a cynical ploy. Ideology certainly played a role — it’s probably a lingering distaste for Evil Socialism that made Treasury go for buying toxic waste rather than injecting capital. And if the Bush years have taught us anything, it is that sometimes conspiracy theories are right. But in this case the performance has been more Keystone Kops than Star Chamber.

So now what? Like Jamie Galbraith, I’d rather see Dodd-Frank-Paulson, which is much better than the original plan, pass than not. The true cost to taxpayers will probably be close to zero, and it would buy some time. But I’m not passionate about this. The real financial rescue still lies in the future, probably under the Obama administration.

From your lips to God's ears.

PK Update:

Death by plastic?

Watch:

The First Day of the McCain-Palin Presidency

Leaked Memo of McCain Camp's Future Hail Marys

Media Bloodhound

Tactic: In addition to claiming McCain invented the Blackberry, assert that he also invented the wheel, sliced bread, fire, the missionary position, whiskey, apple pie, sliders, cleavage, Beanie Babies, oxygen, blow jobs, sunlight, bikinis, pasteurization, nuggies, the handshake, ice cream, poll dancing, Penicillin, the wave, hot dogs, the Theory of Relativity, beer nuts, New Journalism, indoor plumbing, low-rise jeans, Method Acting, rap, Twister, funnel cake, the printing press, soft pretzels, the phrase "dude," the color blue, moving pictures, "bringing sexy back," nougat, and baseball.

Strategy: Highlights McCain's superior record of accomplishment. Bonus: no time left in the campaign season for media to fact-check effectively.

Tactic: Palin speaks only in tongues for remainder of campaign season.

Strategy: Couldn't be worse than what she's said in English.

Many more. Enjoy.

Get This Man An Atlas!

From Crooks and Liars. Links at site.

Aravosis at AmericaBlog noticed this one…I guess that McCain should thank his lucky stars that most GOP are low info voters, so hopefully not many of them picked up on this:

This, two weeks after he said that Spain was in Latin America. Here’s the video from McCain’s economic forum that just took place today - Ben Smith has the transcript:

I think I see McCain's 'foreign policy expertise' - everybody but us is goddam foreigners and they're all out to get us so be afraid. Doesn't matter where they are.

Speak correctly, or build a big bunker

Kathleen Parker

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a Dumpster, but since she didn't, I should "off" myself.

Those are just a few nuggets randomly selected from thousands of e-mails written in response to my column suggesting that Sarah Palin is out of her league and should step down.

The picture is this: Anyone who dares express an opinion that runs counter to the party line will be silenced. That doesn't sound American to me, but Stalin would approve. Readers have every right to reject my opinion. But when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different than one's own, then we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk. (I hear you, Dixie Chicks.)

Our day of reckoning, indeed, may be upon us. Between war and economic collapse, we have enormous challenges. It will take the best of everyone to solve them. That process begins minimally with a commitment to engage in civil discourse and a cease-fire in the war against unwelcome ideas.

Now you see how your own side rolls, Ms. Parker. Lovely, huh?

Speaking as an ol' Jarhead, the only meaningful 'cease fire' happens when there is no return fire coming from the other side because they're out of ammo, surrender, or best of all, they're all dead.

The Sarah Palin pity party

Da wimmens is unloadin' big time on McBimbo. It's Rebecca Traister's turn in a 'recommended read':

Everyone seems to be oozing sympathy for the fumbling vice-presidential nominee. Please. Cry me a freaking river.

I guess I'm one cold dame, because while Palin provokes many unpleasant emotions in me, I just can't seem to summon pity, affection or remorse.

Don't worry Sister, she kinda numbs me out too. It's for our own mental protection.

When you stage a train wreck of this magnitude -- trying to pass one underqualified chick off as another highly qualified chick with the lame hope that no one will notice -- well, then, I don't feel bad for you.

When you treat women as your toys, as gullible and insensate pawns in your Big Fat Presidential Bid -- or in Palin's case, in your Big Fat Chance to Be the First Woman Vice President Thanks to All the Cracks Hillary Put in the Ceiling -- I don't feel bad for you.

When you don't take your own career and reputation seriously enough to pause before striding onto a national stage and lying about your record of opposing a Bridge to Nowhere or using your special-needs child to garner the support of Americans in need of healthcare reform you don't support, I don't feel bad for you.

When you don't have enough regard for your country or its politics to cram effectively for the test -- a test that helps determine whether or not you get to run that country and participate in its politics -- I don't feel bad for you.

When your project is reliant on gaining the support of women whose reproductive rights you would limit, whose access to birth control and sex education you would curtail, whose healthcare options you would decrease, whose civil liberties you would take away and whose children and husbands and brothers (and sisters and daughters and friends) you would send to war in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and wherever else you saw fit without actually understanding international relations, I don't feel bad for you.

Palin is tough as nails. She will bite the head off a moose and move on. So, no, I don't feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for women who have to live with what she and her running mate have wrought.

I think Palin was the perfect choice for McCain, but then, I want him to lose.

Welcome to Gilead, Governor Palin

Cynthia Boaz draws a parallel between McBimbo and "The Handmaid's Tale".

Does any of this sound familiar? It should. Governor and Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin is the Gileadian "Aunt" manifested. Her sudden emergence onto the American political scene, accompanied by a burst of enthusiasm on the part of many American women, is a surreal example of life imitating art. Much of Palin's rhetoric, tactics and personal philosophy seem to be taken directly from the Auntie training manual. By accepting the position on the GOP ticket despite her astonishing lack of qualifications, Palin signaled that she was prepared to be used - on the basis of her sex alone - in exchange for the promise of status and power. Refer to Palin's RNC convention speech, which was mostly a fawning homage to McCain's patriotism and leadership, sprinkled with condescending references to Obama as "our opponent." Although the lines were delivered with Palin's own folksy vernacular and over-enunciation, it was not Palin, but McCain - or more accurately, the GOP elders at whose feet he finds himself on election eve - who wrote the speech and whose voice echoed through the hall that night in St. Paul. Women who find themselves drawn to Palin because they think she epitomizes the classic "woman who has it all" might want to take a closer look. Sarah Palin was picked for the ticket solely because of - not despite - the fact that she is female. By keeping her sequestered from the media, McCain has confirmed he does not have faith in an unscripted Palin's ability to represent the campaign to the world. By going along with it, Palin is telling us that she's perfectly fine with being controlled by her male superiors. And by portraying herself as the candidate of the empowered woman (while simultaneously promoting policy that is openly hostile to the interests of working and middle-class American women), she reveals the sad truth about how little progress we've actually made.

More.

Quote of the Day - II

"Can anyone say with a straight face that Sarah Palin is the best and the brightest we have in this country? Would anyone dare insult America like that?"

—— Cenk Uygur at Huffington Post - Go read . . .

Intolerance ...

I haz it.

COURIC: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?

PALIN: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media —

COURIC: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.

PALIN: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.

COURIC: Can you name any of them?

PALIN: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.

I'm sorry, but my tolerance for stupid is excruciatingly low. It's one thing to be stupid and have a regular job, but to be an idiot and intend to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency of the United States is unconscionable. We've had 8 years of Moron-in-Chief and look what it's got us.

Why is it, in this country, we think being a dumbass is a good thing?

And by the way, Katie Couric is no bright light either. If you can't hold your own with her, you might as well give up.

And another reason people telling me they have a college degree doesn't impress me. The Chimp has an MBA, McLame went to Annapolis, and Palin has a degree in journalism.

Quote of the Day

Maru:

... What about "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,' you senile old geezer? ...

How we shoulda did it ...

Krugman, in toto:

Iceland has just bailed out Glitnir Bank, with the government putting in 600 million euros — $859 million — in return for a 75% stake.

Iceland has only a bit more than 300,000 people, about 1/1000th the population of the United States. So this was, per capita, the equivalent of an $850 billion bailout here.

Notice, by the way, that it was an equity injection rather than a purchase of bad debt; I approve. [my em]

So do I. Think someone in Washington will listen and take notice? Me neither.

GOP Crackup Watch

Raw Replay

The New Republic’s Christopher Orr observes, “You know things are getting dicey when the RNC goes on the air with an ad attacking the very bailout plan that, 24 hours ago, was the centerpiece of John McCain’s claim of economic leadership.”

Orr says that this shows that the “RNC either isn’t coordinating with the McCain campaign or is doing so very poorly.”

Wonkette also mocks the “SILLY RNC.”

Show some class for once, Johnny-boy. Yell 'Yahoooo....' while yer ridin' 'er down, like Slim did.



Come hell or high water, I'm lovin' it!

Wheels, grinding slowly

Eugene Robinson

With Wall Street's fate hanging in the balance, and with Sarah Palin's incoherence sparking interest in Thursday's vice presidential debate, it was easy to overlook a major story that got less attention than it deserved yesterday. The Justice Department released a nearly 400-page report with this jaw-dropping bottom line:

"Our investigation found significant evidence that political partisan considerations were an important factor in the removal of several . . . U.S. attorneys."

Jaw-dropping indeed! That Bush's Justice Legal Cover-up Department would even come close to admitting what we all knew!

In releasing the report, Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced that he had ordered a new investigation to "pursue this case wherever the facts and the law require," including possible criminal charges. By most accounts, Mukasey has taken pains to cleanse Justice of the partisan taint that Gonzales left behind. Whatever ultimately comes of this disgraceful episode, however, we already know enough to put it in context.

The people who have been running our government for the past eight years have nothing but contempt for government. They believe only in politics and ideology, in that order. First, win elections by any means necessary. Second, once in a position to act in the public good, govern with the ideological conviction that government is either irrelevant or harmful to the public interest.

You can draw a straight line between firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons and turning a blind eye to the ruinous excesses of Wall Street. What's impartial justice against the possibility of gaining political advantage? Why shackle the hallowed free market with government oversight?

And, if you want to draw the line a little further, who cares if the prospective vice president appears to know nothing about anything?

Well, I do. There's a hell of a lot more than one thing this criminal administration has done, is doing, and will do to 'care' about, not to mention their running dogs in Congress and our fraidy-cat yellow ones.

Woo-Woo Camp

CNN Political Ticker

Gov. Sarah Palin will now spend two and a half days near Sedona, Arizona, to prepare for Thursday's debate, instead of prepping in St Louis, as originally planned.

Sarah Palin will be at John McCain's rustic creek side home outside Sedona for what a top aide calls "debate camp."

Click here to be transported to Sedona's only cyber-vortex. Explanation of vortexes here.

This is the Hail Mary move of all time! The McRovians are hoping two and a half days under the influence of Spiritual Energy will get The Flight Attendant From Hell ready for prime time without a teleprompter. Fat chance.

I'm hoping for more. I hope the ancient spirits kick the fundie crap right outta her vacuum brain and she emerges from the vortex as a real New Age Sedona Woo-Woo - bare feet, no bra, tinfoil hat, crystals, hairy armpits, and reeking of patchouli oil and incense. Not to mention the sorta glazed eyes and give-a-shit demeanor of Those Who Have Seen. Put that on TV!

Quote of the Day

Krugman:

...

So what we now have is non-functional government in the face of a major crisis, because Congress includes a quorum of crazies and nobody trusts the White House an inch.

As a friend said last night, we’ve become a banana republic with nukes.

Boo-hoo ...

Boner Boehner today after Congress' big fail:

"I believe we could have gotten there today if it weren’t for Speaker Pelosi’s partisan speech."

The Rethugs started backing away from this bill as soon as McCain crash-landed in Washington. This was just an excuse.

Tanks, but no tanks

As we speak, Uncle Sam's Canoe Club is monitoring a pirated Ukrainian ship loaded with Russian-style T-72 tanks off the coast of Somalia. I say 'Russian-style' because the tank has been in service since 1971 and has many variants from all over Eastern Europe and elsewhere, so no telling where they originated without more info.

There is a little confusion as to whether the destination was Kenya or Sudan, but either way I think these tanks were primarily to be used in a crowd-control mode around whichever presidential palace.

Telegraph UK

There were also unconfirmed reports of two other Western warships close to the captured Ukrainian ship, the MV Faina. Russia said it was also sending a naval vessel from the Atlantic to Somalia.

Heh. Note to the Suez Canal gatekeepers: You will see the Russian's bow wave with just enough time to throw open the gates and GTFO of the way! I recommend you do not try to collect the toll. Maybe they got exact change...

A spokesman for the pirates which seized the ship and its 21 Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Russian crew said on Sunday that the Faina was surrounded by three foreign warships, but he said his men were ready to fight to the death to protect their catch.

My first thought was that the tanks' destination should be the sea floor directly beneath the ship's present position, but our guys can't very well sink a Ukrainian ship with Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Russian crew members.

We will see what the Russian skipper thinks about this.

Keeping in mind that the foremost purpose of the world's navies is to protect commerce, I think the Somali pirates are well on their way to Paradise, perhaps by a joint infusion of Russian and American ordnance. Wouldn't that be something?!

As for the tanks, after doing a little research, I say let 'em reach their destination. Watch what happens when they shoot one of these things:



Fuckin' hilarious!

Also, go see the Eastern European counterparts of Fixer & Gordon road test a T-72.

I probably shouldn't find this deal as entertaining as I do, or at least admit to it, but I'm just plain sick of McCain, Palin, the Bailout, etc. and require a little harmless diversion.

Update:

Video from NTV Kenya.

Bailout Plan

After a ten-minute wait in line for it to come up, here's the House Financial Services site with the 109-page Failed Capitalism Lifeboat Act Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Good luck.

Update:

Never mind. Didn't pass. The finger-pointing will now commence...

Oy!

Sorry I been out of touch but my cable modem shit the bed yesterday afternoon. I finally got things back together and I'll be on later.

Good Sarah Speaks

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Saturday Sunday whorage

I'm finally back in the groove ... sorta.

In case you didn't know, my 'retirement' lasted a little over a month.

Been busting my ass in the house since we came back from Europe.

And the next chapter of Birthright is up at The Practical Press.

And a little blues from a couple masters:

Count Basie & Oscar Peterson - Slow Blues

Poor Boy Blues

Entertaining train video. Not enough tunnels, but that's the whole point of the song I think.

If this is The Blues, I'll take two! Enjoy.

MISTER Chester Atkins and some Limey guitar picker

Fareed ...

Zakaria gets it right about Palin and McCain:

...

Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory. There is an ongoing military operation in Iraq that still costs $10 billion a month, a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is not going well and is not easily fixed. Iran, Russia and Venezuela present tough strategic challenges.

...

Obviously these are very serious challenges and constraints. In these times, for John McCain to have chosen this person to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true.

She's a moron and he's insane for picking her as his running mate. They're both unqualified.

Great thanks to Mr. Aravosis for the link.

Like I said ...

Nothing to see here. Move along please ...

At a Harvard panel discussion yesterday, economics professor Ken Rogoff made an interesting point: The liquidity crisis isn't real. Or, to restate it: Any liquidity crisis is caused by the promise of a government bailout. Ken said that his many friends in investment banking said that there is plenty of money to invest in financial services, but right now it is "sitting on the sidelines." Why? Because the financial services industry does not want to pay the terms demanded. As he put it, why do business with Warren Buffett who will negotiate a tough deal, if you believe that the government will ride in soon with cheaper cash?

...

The only thing our legislators should be doing is tightening up the rules for these mofos.

Obama Receives Kiss of Death!

We Now Know Who the Next President Will Be - Bob Shrum

If Shrum ever tells me I'm lookin' good, I'll just walk down to the marble orchard and turn myself in.

The most spine chilling McCain video you will ever see.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Sometimes ya has ta make a choice. Sometimes ya dasn't. Sometimes ya can't. I narrowed it down to these two after an agonizing (yeah, right!) hour watching videos posted this week. I think maybe I ain't the only person happily obssessed with this young lady.

Emmylou Harris & Dave Matthews - My Antonia

Emmylou with Albert Lee and Tammy Rogers - When I Was Yours

Thank you to GainControlAgain whom you should go see.

Debate prep ...

The Rude way:

Lehrer to Obama:

"How do you answer your critics who say you lack the experience necessary to be President?"

Obama's response:

...

"Now lemme say somethin' here directly to Johnny Maverick. Your America failed. Your version of this country, where we go and fight bullshit wars and where rich people are gonna be all generous with their money and where businesses will take care of themselves, that shit failed. It's done, Johnny Maverick. And this fuckin' wreckage is owned by the Republican president and the Republican Congress, and that includes you, motherfucker. You still stink of this shit, and no matter how hard you try to run, those gimpy little legs can't get you far enough away so that you don't smell like Uncle Sam just took a dump on you. You own this. You think you can just put it aside like some out-of-wedlock baby and wait for the DNA test to make you pay child support? No, motherfucker. You broke it, you bought it, you gotta carry it around with you. Every time you got down on those broken knees in front of George W. Bush and was first in line to take his dick in your mouth, you owned another piece of it, and now that he's come, you wanna spit? Fuck you. Swallow that shit, bitch.

...

That would be entertaining as a motherfucker. Unfortunately, Ol' Barry won't say that so I'm going to bed and catch the lowlights on the news at 0400.

Another one...

Not shown are the quart of French Vanilla ice cream and the bottle of Caramel Syrup.

Cake is from the Treat Box, owned by Lee who learned to bake in the Navy. Luckily he got over it.

Maverick

Good News, Bad News

Mark Morford. Links at site.

The good news: Proposition 8, the November initiative that would permanently congeal the state's lingering residue of homophobia and prohibit gays from ever getting married lest plagues of designer locusts and rainbow-colored frogs and sweet-natured gay math teachers who wink menacingly at your innocent virgin boy-child in algebra class rain down upon the land, appears to be failing.

Support now hovers somewhere around 38 percent of the state's sexually terrified and confused and old, most of whom live in Orange County and the farm belt and who, perhaps tellingly, say that they also support less reading in schools, an increase in half-off sales on week-old salami logs at Pepperidge Farm at the Northtown mall, and more shooting of those damn teenagers in the kneecaps for playing that gul-dang hippity-hop music so loud that it shakes the baby Jesus figurines right off the TV.

The bad news: Upon losing the election, John McCain himself will quickly retreat from the national spotlight, but there's a chance Palin will cause nightmares for years and decades to come (perhaps replacing hateful Ted Stevens as Alaska state senator), given how she's just young and intolerant enough to convince the hard right that they've finally found a "real" woman they can actually support, despite how she's basically Dick Cheney with a hair bun, and is about as friendly to the feminine cause as a reef shark to a menstruating mermaid.

The good news: The countdown of Bush's final 100 days in office begins October 11.

The bad news: The count-up of the years of savage economic, environmental, ethical and spiritual repercussions we are to suffer as a direct result of his administration's historic ineptitude is only just beginning. But hey, at least you have that new purple vibrator. Yes?

No. My new vibrator is red & chrome and says 'Royal Enfield' on the gas tank.

Much more. Enjoy.

Why Congress Is Failing America

Slate. Links at site.

The financial catastrophe and the WaMu collapse reveal that Washington bureaucrats can handle an emergency but politicians can't.

Last night, the troubled financial system had to absorb two fresh blows: the failure of Washington Mutual and the failure of the White House and Congress to reach a consensus on a proposed bailout package for banks like Washington Mutual. The big irony? The failure of a bank with $307 billion in assets, the largest bank failure ever by far, is causing the tiniest of ripples, while the failure of business as usual—who could have imagined that the Bush administration would be unable to bring along its allies in the House and Senate?—is inducing rage and panic among CNBC talking heads.

It is a tale of two systems. One system, the one used to process failed and faltering banks, works really well. It's been in place and evolving for 75 years, since the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was founded (over the opposition of bankers, it must be added). Since then, not a penny of depositors' money has been lost, and the banks continue to insure themselves against their own incompetence. The FDIC insurance fund contains about $45 billion, and analysts had feared that the failure of a bank the size of WaMu (it had $188 billion in deposits) would swamp the fund. But the FDIC has a professional staff, run by a highly competent and intelligent manager, Sheila Bair. Having already handled a baker's dozen of failures this year, the FDIC has the drill down. There are also, thankfully, a few competent bankers left in the world. Many of them work at J.P. Morgan Chase, which has agreed to acquire WaMu's business. WaMu's failure will cause real dislocation—stockholders and many bold-holders are likely to be wiped out. But WaMu's depositors will be made whole. The FDIC won't have to dip into the insurance fund. J.P. Morgan Chase is assuming WaMu's troubled mortgage business. It will take a charge for those bad debts and raise new capital from the private sector to deal. It's a big headline and a big story, but in the scheme of things, a blip. A large boat slipping silently below the sea while all the passengers escape with their lives. This system is a force for order.

The other system—the process by which Congress and the White House make legislation—is an OK system in the best of times and a completely FUBAR one at the worst. It has many competent and well-meaning professionals in it. But it also has a bunch of incompetent malefactors. For the past week, this system has been lurching toward a proposal to bail out banks by raising taxpayer funds to purchase bad assets. The plan, released last Friday, was the brainchild of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and was instantly endorsed by President Bush and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Last weekend, Congress got involved. And throughout the week, all parties involved gave the outward impression that they were moving toward an agreement. On Wednesday, a senior official involved in the talks assured a group of journalists that the grownups were in charge. Only they weren't. Democrats, who control Congress, were unwilling to pass what amounts to a massive tax increase on their own. Senate Republicans signaled their willingness to go along, but House Republicans said they wouldn't provide any votes. Nonetheless, Wednesday night President Bush addressed the nation, warning of dire consequences unless the bailout plan was passed. He proclaimed an era of good feeling—"there is a spirit of cooperation between Democrats and Republicans and between Congress and this administration"—but didn't seem to expend much effort whipping House Republicans in line. John McCain suspended his campaign and parachuted into Washington, forcing Obama to attend a staged meeting at the White House. Throughout Thursday, word was leaked that the contours of a deal had been agreed upon. The markets rallied. Last night, the word came that there was to be no deal. The evening ended with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson begging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to save the economy but conceding that the real problem was his fellow Republicans. This morning, the markets were emitting a primal scream. This system is a force for chaos.

The difference is simple: the bureaucrats just do their jobs. The pols are pandering all over the place to get re-elected.

What McNext?

Slate predicts McCain's next 10 Hail Mary stunts.

1. Returns to Vietnam and jails himself.
2. Offers the post of "vice vice president" to Warren Buffett.
3. Challenges Obama to suspend campaign so they both can go and personally drill for oil offshore.
4. Learns to use computer.
5. Does bombing run over Taliban-controlled tribal areas of Pakistan.
6. Offers to forgo salary, sell one house.
7. Sex-change operation.
8. Suspends campaign until Nov. 4, offers to start being president right now.
9. Sells Alaska to Russia for $700 billion.
10. Pledges to serve only one term. OK, half a term.

Do you have an idea for McCain's next campaign stunt? Send it to us at NextMcCainStunt@gmail.com, and we will publish the best ideas. E-mails may be quoted by name unless you indicate otherwise.

OK, how about declaring himself the winner of tonight's debate before even announcing he will attend?

Yeesh. McMeltdown, and I'm positively enjoyin' the shit out of it.

Where Are the Grown-Ups?

This whole financial 'crisis' confuses the crap out of me. First, it's not a crisis if you see it coming as many did, it's the predicted end result of a failed Repuglican philosophy of unfettered greed. Do I want our treasury sacked to reward rapacious capitalists for poor judgment and utter mismanagement? No. Do I give a shit about the big financial firms that did this and their lackeys in Congress who let them? I wish they'd all die. Do I want to see Great Depression 2.0? No. Do I want to see the dirt shoveled in on top of the Repugs in the hole they've dug? Yes. Do I like being in the hole with them? I'd rather do the shoveling. Do I like the Bush/Paulson bailout plan? Of course not. Do I like the modified Dem plan? Not much. Do I like the House Repug 'more of the same' plan? Good grief, NO! Do I think something needs to be done? Yes, but what? Do I think politics is being played at our expense? Damn right I do and it sucks, but that's tough shit, that's the way it is. The cards have been dealt from a stacked deck. As usual.

Has this directly affected me? Yes. Mrs. G has a money market account for $55,000 that is locked down for the moment to prevent a run on the investment firm. Luckily, we don't need the money right now, but I know there are folks who do need their money who are unable to access it at present, so this is hurting people.

What to do, what to do? If it was up to me, I'd call in multiple air strikes on Wall St., K St., the Capitol, and the White House, and raise a new political/financial system out of the rubble. And hey, as long as the planes are in the air I'd direct the disposal of unexpended ordnance by dropping it on Dick Cheney just fer shits'n giggles. Sigh.

Until I figure this shit out and fix it, I'll just go with Paul Krugman.

Many people on both the right and the left are outraged at the idea of using taxpayer money to bail out America’s financial system. They’re right to be outraged, but doing nothing isn’t a serious option. Right now, players throughout the system are refusing to lend and hoarding cash — and this collapse of credit reminds many economists of the run on the banks that brought on the Great Depression.

It’s true that we don’t know for sure that the parallel is a fair one. Maybe we can let Wall Street implode and Main Street would escape largely unscathed. But that’s not a chance we want to take.

So the grown-up thing is to do something to rescue the financial system. The big question is, are there any grown-ups around — and will they be able to take charge?

It’s true that we don’t know for sure that the parallel is a fair one. Maybe we can let Wall Street implode and Main Street would escape largely unscathed. But that’s not a chance we want to take.

The bottom line, then, is that there do seem to be some adults in Congress, ready to do something to help us get through this crisis. But the adults are not yet in charge.

And not likely to be any time soon if at all, and probably not in time. Please read the rest of Krugman's piece.

Basically, I think we're just plain screwed. The question is, how deep and how dry?

Update:

Sometimes ya speak of the devil and up he jumps with good news. About the time I hit 'publish', Mrs. G informed me her account is no longer frozen and that we are going today to the healthy French bank she just retired from and get it the fuck out of where it is and put it there.

Quote of the Day

From a post by Steve Young entitled "Palin Suspends Vice Presidential Campaign: Rushes Back to Alaska to Keep an Eye on Russia":

In other suspended campaign news, while attempting to chew a piece of Doublemint gum, Republican Presidential candidate, John McCain stumbled and fell off the curb.

The real crisis ...

Is what the Rethugs are trying to do to the Dems:

...

Blinded by Wall Street contributions to [the Dems'] campaigns, they publicly declared that 'something must be done' and followed the lead of the most despised president ever like sheep.

They attached a bit of window dressing to the Paulson plan but left out any real issue progressives should care about like the mortgage modifications in bankruptcy courts.

Yesterday evening the Republicans pulled the rug and the deal is off.

These Republicans and McCain will now be able to tell their constituency that it was them who protected the taxpayer and that the Dems and Obama were indeed the people who wanted to throw money at Wall Street.

...

Now that is the best explanation I've heard yet. Nothing but the usual, run-of-the-mill Rethug ratfucking.

...

Karl Rove must be laughing his ass off.

Move along. Nothing to see here ...

Heh ...

Pic stolen from our pal UL. Click to embiggen.

Your letter has been filed ...

It's nice to have a representative in Washington who's anxious for your input.

So McCain's lyin' about that too?

Cafferty: Don't cancel the debate

My curmudgeonly role model Jack Cafferty on the upcoming (maybe) debate and Bush's Chicken Little 2.0 speech on his hoped-for upcoming (maybe) Treasury heist:

Cafferty asked: "Is he going to warn us about all the dire consequences if they don't do this the way he warned us about all the dire consequences if we didn't invade Iraq?

"With all due respect to the President, he couldn't sell snow in South Africa in the middle of July, I don't think. If this is another, you know, 'give us $700 billion to do with what we want because you should be very afraid that if you don't do it your world will come to an end,' I don't know how well that's going to play. He's done this before--he's done it for eight years. They've used fear to pressure and leverage the Congress and the public into getting whatever they wanted on a whole raft of issues."

"[McCain] hasn't cast a vote in Congress since April," Cafferty balked. "He's not going to be working on the legislation. The debate is scheduled between the two men who want the job of running the country. I don't understand the logic of saying 'let's cancel the debate.' I want to hear what these guys have to say about what they're going to do about the problem that the country has."

"The public wants to know which one of these men is capable of leading the country," he added. "They'll learn more about that by listening to them have a debate about the issues."

That's exactly one of the reasons McCain wants to cancel the 'debate': the American electorate is liable to start paying attention and it'll take 'em about ten seconds to see he's got bupkis.

The other reason is that he would like to postpone this event until it can be scheduled in place of the veep 'debate'. McBimbo's got even less bupkis.

I'm sorry. I couldn't resist...

SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A man has been charged with battery on a police officer for allegedly passing gas and fanning it toward a patrolman.

If I'da done that, the cop wouldn'ta been in any shape to charge me with anything.

Lipstick on a pig is as nothing compared to...

Raw Story

It's not cheap to get John McCain's 72-year-old face ready for prime-time.

John McCain, whose ads skewer Barack Obama for his "celebrity" status, has his own close ties to show business, the new issue of Us Weekly reports exclusively.

The 72-year-old was recently made TV-ready by makeup artist Tifanie White who's worked on So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol.

McCain paid the 2002 beauty-school grad $5,583.43 for her services, according to the Federal Election Commission.

I can dig the need for some touch-up. McCain's normal coloring is roughly the same as a spark plug reading indicating near-stoichiometry. That color is known to mechanics as 'Mortician Gray'. I think most of the money paid to that young lady went for Bondo. My own sanity rests* in not dwelling on what parts of him are rusted out...

*I was gonna say 'Depends', but that's another subject. See 'rusted out'.

Note to Johnny-boy: Save yourself some money. Go get a pre-paid funeral and get the guy to throw in some pre-need cosmetological service. Who knows, maybe you can go directly from the debate, if you show up, to the grave without any more makeup.

Saving the wealthy with socialism, conservative-style

Thomas F. Schaller, Baltimore Sun

Like it or not, we're all socialists now. You can thank those free-market conservatives and their deregulatory idol, George W. Bush, for that. Conservatives love to wield the word socialism like some all-purpose, liberal-slaying sword. Redistribution to the poor, the right to unionize and affirmative action are decried as anti-market, unfair advantages for filthy socialists who can't compete and fail to appreciate the almighty, equalizing power of self-determination and an unfettered market. To social conservatives, Darwinism is merely an unproven "theory" about how our species evolved. But "social Darwinism" is an ineluctable fact: The smart and hardworking prosper, while the stupid and lazy fail. Yet notice how those same chest-thumping capitalists of talk radio and at the corporate-funded think tanks often fall silent in the face of fixed markets, no-bid contracts, bailouts and subsidies for the very corporations that demand less government oversight when things are going well, then turn to Washington when things go horribly wrong. The hypocrisies abound.

Those of us who work hard and pay our taxes are getting screwed. Our Christmas bonus this year? The privilege of covering the tab for greedy executives in the deregulated insurance and mortgage industries who scoff at safety nets for you but demand a safety trapeze for themselves.

As I said, we're all socialists now. Too bad all that filthy, pinko socialist redistribution is moving up, rather than down, the economic food chain.

The 'trickle up' may turn into a flood, accompanied by a sucking sound from our grandchildren's wallets.

Microsoft Announces Merger With McDonald’s, Christianity

Red Tractor - USA

In what is being hailed as the end of the free world, Microsoft, McDonald’s, and Christianity have joined forces to form a single $300 billion/1.9 billion adherent corporate-religious entity known as McRosoftianity. The resulting mega-church/corporation is projected to manage virtually every aspect of the global economy and culture in just a few short months.

“We are absolutely thrilled because together we can control the world in ways that any one of us could have only dreamed of,” said Bill Gates, now high chairman-priest of McRosoftianity. “Our goal is to bring people together by making McRosoftianity the world’s sole provider of food, technology, and spirituality.”

“To assure quality, your food will be compiled by only the fastest processors, and any misinterpretations of your order will be addressed by our patented Stained Glass Windows Updater as the Crucial-Fixes become available,” continued Gates. “Version 3:16 should be very stable, but if problems persist, simply offer a McPrayer to the Lord and MS Paint some RAM’s blood over your doorpost.”

Ever so much more. Go read about the future.

Good ideas and lies

Pauk Krugman

Daniel Davies, in one of the great blog posts of this era, laid down a key principle:

Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance.

He was talking about the selling of the Iraq war, but it applies more generally.

So, this morning Hank Paulson told a whopper:

We gave you a simple, three-page legislative outline and I thought it would have been presumptuous for us on that outline to come up with an oversight mechanism. That’s the role of Congress, that’s something we’re going to work on together. So if any of you felt that I didn’t believe that we needed oversight: I believe we need oversight. We need oversight.

What the proposal actually did, of course, was explicitly rule out any oversight, plus grant immunity from future review:

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

I’m not playing gotcha here. This is telling: if Paulson can’t be honest about what he himself sent to Congress — if he not only made an incredible power grab, but is now engaged in black-is-white claims that he didn’t — there is no reason to trust him on anything related to his bailout plan.

Paulson and Bush's Chicken Little plan for the bailout didn't panic Congress into passing his plan quick enough. Maybe they've learned something since falling all over themselves to let Bush start his criminal war:

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.

Dear Fellow Americans ...

For the past 8 years, I, along with the rest of the folks who walk around with their eyes open, have suffered through the lies, obfuscation, and overt bullshit from the Bush administration.

For the past 4 1/2 years, we here at the Brain (along with about a thousand other bloggers) have been running around with our hair on fire, warning anyone who would listen how bad things would be once the Chimp was done screwing up the country.

In '04, we had to sit and watch as you assholes voted for the moron once again, gullible motherfuckers swayed by Rovian bullshit; bullshit that should have been obvious to anyone with two working brain cells - it should have been obvious in '99. You fell for all the crap ("you don't change horses mid-race" - even though the rider was one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse), even Democrats ("you don't change leaders in the middle of a war", "I just don't like John Kerry"), they wanted you to fall for.

Do me a favor this time. Don't fall for it again just because the Loser-in-Chief came on the TV last night and told you this is 9/11 and Katrina rolled into one. He is lying. The Bush administration is lying like they have since Day One and I demand you idiots don't fall for it again. My esteem for you is inversely proportional to the contempt I have for you all. Try to bring it up a few notches.

My fellow Americans have disappointed me dearly over the past 8 years and have turned this country over to a group of criminals whose only goal is to get away with as much as they can. They tried to get Iraqi oil by force and failed, the cost (a trillion dollars into the Big Catbox, 4000-odd American lives wasted, and tens of thousands changed irrevocably) borne by you and me. Now, after manipulating the markets to their own benefit, they come calling on us with their hand out. Don't fall for it. It is a lie.

They are doing this now because they are worried the guy on deck is more inept than the current batter. They are doing this because even if he does get elected, he will either fuck up so royally it'll hurt the fat cats too, or that he'll die in office and that brainless twit will take over. They want their payoff now.

Please, please, do not fall for this current ploy by John McCain. It is all part of The Big Republican Lie. It is a grandstand stunt that hopefully will not work, unless you let it. If you fall for this crap, both from the Chimp and McCain, again, you deserve what you'll end up with. John McCain is not a war hero. He got shot down because of his own arrogance and was locked up for 5 years. Brutal treatment? Yes, and I won't take his suffering away from him, but that in no way qualifies him to be the President of the United States. He is a hypocrite and a pandering liar. He is no better than the current moron and probably worse.

Bottom line: Stop falling for The Lie.

Back to sanding ...

Quote of the Day

POP:

...

Remember over the years we have talked about george bush failing at everything he tried and his dad or his dad’s friends always bailed him out of his poor business decisions. We have even wondered who would save his ass after the debacle he has created these past eight years. Well now we know the answer to that question. Your money and mine has been summoned to do just that.

Indeed!

Walking and chewing gum ...

Seems McLame can't do two things at once:

I missed it at first, but McCain is actually suspending his campaign, not just skipping the debate. That reeks of desperation, and indicates that his campaign and the candidate are unable to deal with multiple problems simultaneously. When you are losing in the polls on the economy, and your opponent is lashing you for your support of the policies and employment of the people who got us into this mess, perhaps it looked smart for McCain to run and hide from the next haymaker.

The guy hasn't made a roll call vote in five months, but suddenly wants to come back to Capitol Hill and inject himself into a debate that didn't need him? [my em]

...

You want this bastid running the show?

On second thought ...

Maybe I'm wrong:

The director of the Congressional Budget Office said yesterday that the proposed Wall Street bailout could actually worsen the current financial crisis.

During testimony before the House Budget Committee, Peter R. Orszag -- Congress's top bookkeeper -- said the bailout could expose the way companies are stowing toxic assets on their books, leading to greater problems.

"Ironically, the intervention could even trigger additional failures of large institutions, because some institutions may be carrying troubled assets on their books at inflated values," Orszag said in his testimony. "Establishing clearer prices might reveal those institutions to be insolvent."

...

Maybe we should get all this crap out into the light of day? Let all the shit float to the surface so we can skim it off.

Great thanks to Oliver Willis for the link.

This is why ...

This bailout shouldn't go forward. Dday:

...

Basically, gimme gimme gimme or the economy gets it. And while Bush appeared to accede to a lot of the steps sought by Congress - vague limits on executive compensation, some ability for taxpayers to cash in on the upside potential, and some manner of oversight - he drew the line at any re-regulation of the companies who got us into this mess, saying that it could "come later." And indeed, most of the talk was about the failure of borrowers to pay their bills, not the predatory practices of lenders to shuttle people into loans without explaining the circumstances (and through yield spread premiums, actually getting bonuses for that). [my em]

...

Basically, I don't trust them as far as I can piss into a Force 9 gale.

Attention: New Yorkers

The lovely, talented, and wonderful Encino Lady (we're cousins by marriage ... somehow) alerts me to a rally in NYC tomorrow. If you're close, go there. The email is reprinted below - F.:

This week the White House is trying to push through the biggest financial theft in world history with nary a stitch of debate. They're asking for a blank check for over 1 trillion dollars to bail out George Bush's Wall Street cronies who created this economic crisis in the first place.

If this passes, we can forget about any money for environmental protection, to counter global warming, for education, for national healthcare, to rebuild our decaying infrastructure, for alternative energy.

This is a historic moment. We need to act now while we can influence the debate.

Let's rally against the bailout in the heart of the financial district!

Gather at 4pm, this Thursday, Sept. 25 in the plaza at the southern end of Bowling Green Park in New York City, which is the small triangular park that has the Wall Street bull at the northern tip.
(Not in New York City? Organize a rally in your neck of the woods.)

What: Say NO to the Wall Street bailout
When: Thursday, September 25: 4pm
Where: Southern end of Bowling Green Park, in the plaza area
What to bring: Banners, noisemakers, signs, leaflets, etc.

Do whatever you can for this historic event and contact all your groups and friends. This proposed financial bailout is without precedence and we have to stop it!
We have everything we need to create a large, peaceful, loud demonstration.

Together, let's get started.

- Seriously yours,
Billionaires For Bush

He is a uniter ...

Avedon says the Chimp did something right ... for once ... sorta ...

A uniter at last - Bush has finally brought us together, and we all agree that things are not getting better - it's post-partisan!

The best news ...

I've heard all week.

They are talking about kicking Connecticut Junior Senator Joe neocon Lieberman to the curb tonight ...

Breaking: John McCain to suspend campaign

Channel 15, ABC News, Phoenix

Republican presidential candidate John McCain is reportedly suspending his campaign to return to Washington, D.C. for bailout talks, according to FOX News and NBC News.

FOX News reports McCain is asking for Friday's presidential debate in Oxford, Mississippi to be postponed to help focus on the domestic front and is asking Obama to suspend his campaign as well.

Gee, d'ya think McCain knows Obama is gonna blow his ass outta the water if they 'debate'?

Actually, it ain't so much McCain 'going to Washington to work on the bailout' as it probably is his campaign staff who are needed to lobby desperately for it, leaving ol' Johnny-boy with no one to hold his hand or mis-inform him as to what to do.

Suspend away, old man. It's a good career move. Your moron base can fumble along just fine without you and the bimbo, and neither of you will have to answer any questions for a while.

Besides, I'm sick of lookin' at the both of yas and listening to your lies. Thanks for the break.

The great bailout: Paulson plan is ‘reverse criminal action’

Cursor

...Treasury's plan for Wall Street,' which is likened to "a reverse criminal action where you give restitution to the criminals and put the victims in jail,"...

The Minnesota Independent

For some consumer-rights advocates, the great Wall Street bailout is starting to look like a heist for the ages (my em). Prentiss Cox, a professor of law at the U of M and former assistant attorney general, calls Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s bill “outrageous.” Wall Street was the cause of the problem, he says. “And now they want a bailout completely on their terms? It serves the very wealthy and completely ignores the homeowners victimized by this. It is appalling.”

My Way

The FBI is investigating four major U.S. financial institutions whose collapse helped trigger a $700 billion bailout plan by the Bush administration, The Associated Press has learned.

Two law enforcement officials said Tuesday the FBI is looking at potential fraud by mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), and insurer American International Group Inc. (AIG) Additionally, a senior law enforcement official said Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEH) also is under investigation.

Over the past year as the housing market cratered, the FBI has opened a wide-ranging probe of companies across the financial services industry, from mortgage lenders to investment banks that bundle home loans into securities sold to investors. Mueller has previously said the FBI's hunt for culprits in the nation's subprime mortgage crisis focused on accounting fraud, insider trading, and failure to disclose the value of mortgage-related securities and other investments.

The investigations revealed Tuesday come as lawmakers began considering whether to approve emergency legislation that would give the government broad power to buy up devalued assets from troubled financial firms.

This may turn out to be the biggest RICO case ever. Let's hope.

FBI probes finance giants for fraud

Raw Story

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed Wednesday that it is probing allegations of fraud by 24 Wall Street firms, without naming investment giants believed to be under investigation.

US media said late Tuesday that the FBI has set its sights on investment titan Lehman Brothers, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and insurer AIG.

The wide-reaching inquiry comes as lawmakers rush to agree a 700-billion-dollar government bailout of the troubled US financial sector.

Heh. No wonder Paulson wants the $700B so fast with no questions. His Wall St. bros need the money quick! For legal fees/getaway money!

Also no wonder that these assholes absolutely need McCain to get elected so they can shut down the investigation. His campaign manager Rick Davis was getting paid by Freddie Mac until a few weeks ago.

This is sounding more and more like an inter-related criminal conspiracy by the Bush administration, Treasury, Wall St., and the McCain campaign to sack our treasury and make sure it stays sacked with no recourse for us.

You needn't go read this since he's backing Paulson's plan, but Warren Buffett is calling the meltdown 'an economic Pearl Harbor'. Very apt analogy.

Let me assign a few roles here: The investment banks are taking the role of Kido Butai, the strike force of aircraft carriers that launched the attacking planes, represented by their employees, the loan marketers, secondary marketers, bundlers, leveragers, and the janitor. Paulson is, of course, Admiral Yamamoto who planned the attack, for right now, although this part has rotated amongst several bad actors.

The people who foresaw the upshot of the attack on our financial system take the roles of the two radar operators on the North Shore of Oahu who saw the planes coming. In right-on and spectacular typecasting, Congress and the regulatory agencies play the military leaders who ignored them until it was too late, the difference being that this time they were told to ignore them by Bush and lobbyists.

(Wiki) The first wave was to be the primary attack, while the second wave was to finish whatever tasks remained

The bailout plan is the second wave.