March 8, 2010 archive

This is a followup piece to my diary about the MSM noticing that on March 4, 2010 college kids all over the country were protesting the drastic tuition and fee hikes they are facing in order to try to continue their educations.

“It did get a bit disruptive”

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

Here in CA the state is raising tuition 32%,  while cutting funding to state colleges and universities by a total of 1.4 billion dollars.  Community colleges are also facing drastic cuts in funding for classes, meaning that there ARE no classes for 200,000 students.  

 In that diary I had a bit of a time getting a short little video to embed of protesting students in Oakland, who had marched several miles then got up onto the 880 freeway, which showed a view of the freeway, shot from above and at a distance out of somebody’s apartment window, with the cars stopped in the distance and the protesters were huddled up on the exit ramp below by the police. (thanks to Edger for fixing it)  

The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.

Henry VI, Part 2; Act 4, Scene2

The New York Times editorial gets it right.  The Right is attacking DoJ lawyers who once represented Gitmo detainees.  The Times correctly points out that this is a smear for political gain that undercuts justice in this country.

In the McCarthy era, demagogues on the right smeared loyal Americans as disloyal and charged that the government was being undermined from within.

In this era, demagogues on the right are smearing loyal Americans as disloyal and charging that the government is being undermined from within.

Afghan president to host April peace conference

Is this just show from our puppet, or rather cheney’s cabal hand picked leader, or does he really care and wants to end the devisions and violence leading to the occupation forces pulling out but helping in finally rebuilding, and promised some nine years ago, what has long been a destroyed country under constant war.

From Clarissa Martinez de Castro, Director, Immigration and National Campaigns at the National Council of La Raza, posting at HuffPo:

Last Friday, the Associated Press reported that President Obama will meet on Monday with Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and is “looking forward to hearing more about their efforts toward producing a bipartisan bill,” according to White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro.

But let’s be clear. If the meeting is just to “hear more,” it’s not going to cut it. The president had a meeting with Republican and Democratic members of both chambers in June 2009, and in August held a White House summit, hosted by Secretary Janet Napolitano, with a large number of representatives from faith, labor, business, law enforcement, immigrant, ethnic, and civil rights groups. Around that time, Schumer and Graham started working on a bipartisan proposal, and Schumer announced he would have the parameters of a proposal ready by Labor Day 2009.

With the Congressional legislative runway getting crowded and time running out before the November elections, it is time to land this plane. Monday’s meeting must be followed by a clear, bipartisan proposal and a firm timeline for Senate action. Anything less will be regarded as more stalling by the tens of thousands coming to DC to march in two weeks.

So today President Obama will meet with Senators Schumer and Graham.  Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on that wall?

This is breaking on the HuffPo and at FDL.  

Before you say, oh, ARC, don’t be silly-  let me tell you, I went digging around independently in the nether regions of the Facebook Heathers when he announced he was retiring, because of the Politico smear, and they are calling for digging up dirt on other Congresspeople who voted against the health care bill, so they can force them to resign, too.

Now think again, which political party and which political ideology practices deep public sexual hypocrisy, and tell me this doesn’t have a certain Chief of Staff’s little fang mark’s all over it ?

Bipartisanshipthingee, much ?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

a staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid and his points were clear and his words were far more colorful than that. And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and said, ‘Well, what I really ought to be doing is fracking you.’ And then ( I ) tossled the guy’s hair and left,

Massa also spoke about what he sees as connections between the timing of the disclosure of these sexual harassment allegations and his reluctance to vote yes on health care reform.

“Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill,” Massa said, “and this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill. And now they’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass. You connect the dots.”

Sounds like (colorful language deleted for hypocrites) an attempt at entrapment to me.  

Who is the staffer and has he worked for a Blue Dog ?  Does he have a consulting business on the side, like a lot of them do ?   Because if he has, it’s over.  Not for Rep. Massa, who is a cancer survivor, Navy veteran, and a stand up guy who was willing to say what needed to be said about the Iraq War and George Bush a long time before anybody else would dare to.

Mass claimed Steny Hoyer did not tell the truth about the investigation

http://news.firedoglake.com/20…

Massa also accused Steny Hoyer of lying about the investigation when he said that he told Massa’s office to file the allegations with the Ethics Committee. “Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me at all, never, not once. Never before in the history of the House of Representatives has a sitting leader of the Democratic Party discussed allegations of House investigations publicly, before findings of fact. Ever.”  

And that he got the Rahm Treatment

Later in the show, Massa addressed events in his Navy career which a right-wing radio host blogged about, insisting they were misunderstandings. And he detailed a conversation with Rahm Emanuel after the climate change bill vote:

“When I voted against the cap and trade bill, the phone rang and it was the chief of staff to the president of the United States of America, Rahm Emanuel, and he started swearing at me in terms and words that I hadn’t heard since that crossing the line ceremony on the USS New Jersey in 1983,” Massa said. “And I gave it right back to him, in terms and words that I know are physically impossible.”

“If Rahm Emanuel wants to come after me, maybe he ought to hold himself to the same standards I’m holding myself to and he should resign,” Massa said.  

Now, you know and I know that the Senate never had any intention of passing a cap and trade bill.  This is just more Kabuki Theatre Political Loyalty Performance Testing.

The strategy for passing health care insurance bail out:  hoping Democrats in Congress who wanted universal coverage and true reform sicken and die first, and then smear their reputations afterwards-  look at all the old crap on the Kennedy’s they dug up when Ted Kennedy passed, and the smear they did on Carolyn when she thought about asking to be appointed to a Senate seat.  Look at how Martha Coakley, the world’s worst Senate candidate, wouldn’t even bother to commit to a Public Option while running in Massachusetts to replace Ted Kennedy, the ultimate, in- your – face diss of implemented social liberalism.   Social liberalism, as it’s good enough for all of our NATO allies in Afghanistan, but don’t even think about having a non predatory financial market on the medical and mortgage businesses in this country when it comes to protecting citizens who need shelter and medical care. No protection from equity fund vultures and hedge traders more interested in passing bets around on things and services of no real world value other than the top of the pyramid scheme gets the payoff.  No protection from the oil companies expecting us to run mercenaries for mid east oil producers, in perpetuity, on credit and tax cuts for the rich, or they’ll jack up the commodities market in petroleum products and the resulting high gasoline, diesel, and heating oil prices will spike up another recession on top of this one.  

Rep. Massa should fight these outrageous smear charges, and we should have his back.

If the Senate wants their bill, the Senate should PASS THE HOUSE VERSION FIRST and then make a promise they’ll do reconciliation afterwards.  If the White House wants their historic photo op, put the Public Option back in the bill and quit smearing veterans, or they can be another one term wonder of all blow and no show, looking at a Republican controlled Congress their last 2 years.

________

edited to add youtube video at 12:45 pm 3/8/10

First, Krugman argues that debt isn’t a problem.

(adjusts eyeballs back into sockets…)

Second (and woe to us), Krugman argues that more important than fundamentals is “confidence” in the political system.

So what determines confidence? The actual level of debt has some influence – but it’s not as if there’s a red line, where you cross 90 or 100 percent of GDP and kablooie; see the chart above. Instead, it has a lot to do with the perceived responsibility of the political elite.

What this means is that if you’re worried about the US fiscal position, you should not be focused on this year’s deficit, let alone the 0.07% of GDP in unemployment benefits Bunning tried to stop. You should, instead, worry about when investors will lose confidence in a country where one party insists both that raising taxes is anathema and that trying to rein in Medicare spending means creating death panels.

The fundamentals blow donkey dick.  Now, the man is arguing for confidence in the political system?  

Let’s have a look at that 9 mm, thank you.  It fits in my mouth perfectly.  Sure, put it on my credit card!