$900 Billion

That would be the cost of the Iraq war. In terms people can better appreciate, that'd be 36 bail-outs of the auto industry, or 1.5 massive stimulus plans for the economy. All wasted on Iraq. All wasted because our president is an idiot, and the Republicans enabled him every step of the way. But we don't have money for Detroit, and we don't have money for health care reform. We only have money when the Republicans want to go blow up other countries in wars of convenience based on a lie. (Via Taegan) Read More......

Newt denounces Blago attacks

Gingrich is upset that Republicans are trying to link Obama to Blago. This is odd. It was interesting when McCain the other day said the same thing - but understandable from McCain - but Gingrich? Something is up. And quite possibly it's Gingrich's campaign to run against Obama in 2012. Perhaps Gingrich - the man who invented firebombs, now wants to be seen as the Barack Obama of the Republican party. The nice guy who who doesn't raise his voice and is beyond partisanship. You laugh? Gingrich, of 3 marriages, managed to portray himself as Mr. Family Values and the pathetic religious right accepted him, so why not redraw himself as Mr. Non-Partisan too? Okay, that made me laugh. Read More......

Corporate media says it needs to get tougher on Obama

When did they ever once say that about Bush?

NBC Washington bureau chief Mark Whitaker said that reporters have not been aggressive enough during Obama's post-election pressers.

"Our job is to hold him to account," Whitaker said, adding that he thinks "we're going to have to get tougher."

Newsweek's Jonathan Alter followed up: "We need the Sam Donaldsons of the world."

Actually, we needed all of you two wars, an economy, and a Constitution ago. Read More......

Obama picks Salazar for Interior, Vilsack for Agriculture

Obama is planning another news conference for tomorrow at 10:45 am. He still has a couple of cabinet appointments to make.

Apparently, Senator Ken Salazar has been chosen as the next Secretary of the Interior, which means another open Senate seat:

That prospect has set off a scramble among Democrats eager to fill out the remainder of Salazar's term, which runs through 2010.

Names floated as possible successors include Hickenlooper, U.S. Rep. John Salazar of Manassa, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter of Golden, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette of Denver, former U.S. Attorney Tom Strickland, outgoing state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and Bennet.

Hickenlooper, serving his second term as mayor, is considered a business-savvy Democrat. He declined to say whether he would be interested in filling Salazar's shoes.

And, this afternoon came word that the Secretary of Agriculture will be Tom Vilsack:

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack is expected to be named U.S. Secretary of Agriculture on Wednesday, a Democratic source told The Des Moines Register and the Associated Press reported today.

Vilsack, a former two-term Democratic governor who left office last year, had been mentioned as a consideration for Obama until last month, when he said he had not been contacted about the job.

The news adds the name of yet another onetime rival of Obama to the Democratic President-elect's prospective Cabinet. Vilsack, 58, briefly sought the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination but withdrew from the race after roughly three months. He also campaigned aggressively for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign until Obama clinched the nomination in June.

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Another Depression era economic record low hit

The worst part is that people like Bush and the GOP still think that they are right about economy, facts be damned. From MarketWatch:

U.S. consumer prices fell in November at the fastest rate since 1932, the Labor Department reported Tuesday.

The U.S. consumer price index fell by a seasonally adjusted 1.7%, the Labor Department reported Tuesday, the biggest drop since the government began adjusting the CPI for seasonal factors in 1947.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the CPI fell by 1.9%, the biggest decline since January 1932, at the nadir of the Great Depression.

The seasonally adjusted core CPI was flat in November.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch were expecting the CPI to fall by 1.4%. They forecast that the core CPI would rise by 0.1%.

It could be worse. We could be looking at the lowest housing starts since 1924 as they are seeing in the UK. Even worse, we could end up seeing Bush get a consulting job on Wall Street like his old chum Tony Blair. Is that a scary thought or what? Read More......

Once upon a time in a kingdom called America...

Sir Phillip writes:

The news that Lady Kennedy will be taking her uncle's seat in the US House of Lords will be greeted with pleasure by feminists everywhere. Unlike the UK which insists on the principle of male primogeniture, the US has for many years espoused the principle of equality in its feudal governance.

Lady Kennedy will be raised to the peerage by Governor Paterson of New York, a local petty warlord who was himself appointed to the position after his predecessor was criticized for over paying a prostitute.

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Fed is now giving away cash

This is simply nuts. Cutting to 0.25% or 0% is not going to resolve any problems other than the banks who will continue to get whatever they want since Congress - Democrats and Republicans alike - want nothing to do with helping out average Americans. It's all about giving away cash to Wall Street and the spineless wonders in Congress don't care at all.

The Federal Reserve cut its target for overnight interest rates to zero to 0.25 percent, bringing it closer to unconventional action to lift the economy out of a year-long recession.

With the Fed's key rate now essentially zero, the central bank is moving into uncharted territory. Nonetheless, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has made it clear the Fed isn't running out of ammunition to fight the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

It is exploring using tools—other than rate cuts—to revive the economy. New insights on that front could be revealed when Bernanke and his colleagues wrap up a two-day meeting Tuesday.

"The message is simply the Fed stands ready to do everything in its power to stop the economy's free fall," said Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research.

Sure. Anything you say Richard. This economy is a rudderless ship that's drifting and they threw out the option that has been proven to fail by the Japanese after their bubble. How many days until Bernanke is gone? Read More......

Some of Pat Boone's best dead friends are gay!

What a dweeb.

Pat Boone has penned a column entitled "I love gays," after he wrote an earlier column comparing those who opposes Prop 8 in California to the terrorists who murdered hundreds in Mumbai a few weeks back. Pat says that the "politically correct" crowd shouldn't get so upset that he compared civil rights activists, and regular moms and dads, to terrorists because he didn't compare us to them at all! Then he did it again:

I drew a comparison between the violence that killed almost 200 innocent people in Mumbai, perpetrated by jihadists trained to hate and kill indiscriminately, and the turbulent, abusive mob events in our streets and in front of our churches. If you read the column, you'll see that I carefully stated. "Oh, I know the homosexual 'rights' demonstrations haven't reached the same level of violence, but I'm referring to the anger, the vehemence, the total disregard for law and order and the supposed rights of their fellow citizens. I'm referring to the intolerance, the hate seething in the words, faces, and actions of those who didn't get their way in a democratic election, those who proclaim loudly that they will get their way, no matter what the electorate wants!"

My whole point, stated clearly, was that "hate is hate, no matter where it erupts. And by its very nature, if it's not held in check, it will escalate into acts vile, violent and destructive." If I'm wrong about that, show me.

Yeah, Pat invoked the Mumbai massacre not to compare us to the terrorists, but rather to compare our intolerance, hate, faces, and actions to known terrorists. Get the difference?

Pat then goes on to say that some of his best friends are homosexuals, though many of them are apparently dead homosexuals, so I'm not sure if that counts (or maybe it counts twice in Pat's twisted world). Pat's first gay friend was a guy who - surprise! - tried to cop a feel (I mean, really, who HASN'T had to fend off the pawing hand of a lecherous homosexual friend?)

I met my first homosexual friend while I was in high school. He was a Navy veteran who had come back to finish his schooling. He put his hand on my thigh while we were parked at a fast food drive in. I was a cow milker with a vise-like grip, and after I nearly squeezed his wrist off, letting him know he had the wrong guy, he said, "I guess you'll tell everybody, and I'll get kicked out of school." I assured him I wouldn't, and I told nobody. I really felt empathy for him, because he obviously was not a happy man.

Pat added, oddly, that he was "a cow milker with a vise-like grip." (I'm not sure, but I think that's a fetish in San Francisco.)

Lucky for the Navy vet, he's one of Pat's living homosexual friends. The others didn't do so well.

First we get the story of Pat's dying AIDS friend in the VA hospital. His teeth were falling out. Then we get to hear about how Pat laid hands on Rock Hudson's "bony chest" as he uttered his last breath (no word on whether Hudson tried to cop a feel too). In case you missed the pattern here, gay = AIDS to people like Pat Boone. But he really loves us, really he does, as he sends us all to heaven, or wherever.

Then Boone goes on to say about some other presumably living non-diseased homosexual friends that he actually wrote some books with homosexuals! I have to admit that I scratched my head and asked "what living, non-pawing homosexual would write a book with someone like Pat Boone?" But the answer quickly came to me. A very screwed up one. More from Pat:

Later (you may be surprised to learn), I really went out on a limb and wrote two books, about and with homosexual friends. The first was "Joy: A Homosexual's Fulfillment," and the second "Coming Out: True Stories of the Gay Exodus." They were written with a longtime lesbian, a former very promiscuous male homosexual and with a transsexual man who had emasculated himself in an effort to be a woman. They'd been down the whole road and back again, and they told me their stories and how they'd each been able to leave the homosexual lifestyle. This was not expedient for me as an entertainer, but I did it out of real love for gays. I do care.

Yes, Pat loved us so much, he tried to cure us.

Anybody got a shoe to throw? Read More......

Duck.... duck... Bush!

An inspired new Web site.

Read More......

Poll: Iraq is doing better, it was a mistake, now get out

A new poll continues to show that Americans are sick and tired of Iraq, and agree with Obama's position:

Americans are more upbeat about U.S. prospects in Iraq than at any time in the past five years, but nearly two-thirds continue to believe the war is not worth fighting and 70 percent say President-elect Barack Obama should fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw U.S. forces from the country within 16 months, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

I think Americans reached their limit on Iraq a long time ago. Past that point, it no longer mattered how we were doing. And the economic crisis only made things worse - people don't want to fight a two-front war of "where are we're more screwed." Though, we're still seeing that wonderful American bipolar view of foreign policy - I hate the war, we need to pull out, but not quite yet.

[T]here is some division about how quickly he should move on that promise. A majority of those who say the war is not worth its costs want Obama to focus on the pullout immediately, while those who support the war think he should move more slowly, if at all.

Make up your minds, people. Read More......

Off with Martha Raddatz's head!

I think Bush wanted to throw a shoe at her:

BUSH: Clearly, one of the most important parts of my job because of 9/11 was to defend the security of the American people. There have been no attacks since I have been president, since 9/11. One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take ...

RADDATZ: But not until after the U.S. invaded.

BUSH: Yeah, that's right. So what? The point is that al Qaeda said they're going to take a stand. Well, first of all in the post-9/11 environment Saddam Hussein posed a threat. And then upon removal, al Qaeda decides to take a stand. And they're becoming defeated and I think history will say, one, the world was better off without Saddam, two, along with the Iraqi troops we have denied al Qaeda a safe haven because a young democracy is beginning to grow, which will be an important sign for people in the Middle East.

RADDATZ: Just let me go back because you brought this up. You said Saddam Hussein posed a threat in the post-9/11 world. They didn't find weapons of mass destruction.

BUSH: That's true. Everybody thought they had them.

RADDATZ: So what threat?

BUSH: Saddam Hussein was the sworn enemy of the United States. He had been enriched by oil revenues. He was a sponsor of terror. I have never claimed like some said that he -- you know, oh, that he was directly involved with the attacks on 9/11, but he did support terrorists. And, uh, Saddam Hussein had the capability making weapons of mass destruction.

I did not have the luxury of knowing he did not have them, neither did the rest of the world until after we had come and removed him.

Read More......

Final ballots will be counted this week in Minnesota Senate race

It's down to some remaining absentee ballots and the challenged ballots in the Minnesota Senate race between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken. Today, the five-member Canvassing Board starts sorting through the challenged ballots of which there are now approximately 1,500. It's not certain where we'll be at the end of the week, but, two analyses think the results could favor Al Franken:

The Star Tribune has performed its own analysis of the challenged ballots by relying on a virtual "canvassing board" of more than 26,000 readers who examined at least some of them. There appeared to be widespread consensus that Franken won slightly more disputes than Coleman, enough to theoretically erase the incumbent's narrow lead by late Monday.

The Star Tribune analysis relies on readers who chose to respond to its Ballot Challenge on StarTribune.com, and there is no assurance that partisans didn't distort the results. But large numbers of respondents from around the nation participated, and each of 15 respondents who viewed the largest number of disputed ballots gave Franken the edge by 3 to 5 percentage points. There was a broader consensus as well. Only 200 of the 6,500 ballots failed to draw a consensus from at least 75 percent of reviewers. Among the others, reviewers decided slightly more in favor of Franken.

Coleman holds a 188-vote lead going into the board's review of the challenged ballots.

The conclusion is consistent with an analysis done by the Associated Press, which showed that Franken netted enough votes from several thousand easily resolved disputes to erase Coleman's lead.

A Franken win would mean 59 Democrats in the Senate. More importantly, Franken is a progressive and we surely need another one of them in the Senate.

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

We're going to have another Obama press conference today. He's going to name his Secretary of Education at 10:45 a.m. Central Time. That job is going to Arne Duncan who has been running the Chicago School System.

Your president-elect is also meeting with the members of his economic team today. That team has its work cut out for it considering the enormous damage inflicted by the Bush administration and its GOP allies. And, we still have over 30 days for Bush to continue his assault on America.

I think between the press conferences and high level meetings, Obama has already done more constructive work since he was elected than Bush has done in years.

Anyway, let's get started.... Read More......

Russian media warned against speaking of crisis

To be fair to the new regime, it's not as though they have thrown anyone in jail for discussing the economic realities. Not yet, at least. From Reuters:

The financial crisis is presenting Russia's ruling elite with the most serious challenge to its power in a decade.

The Kremlin has responded by offering a bailout package and economic stimulus measures between them worth over $200 billion.

But journalists and critics say the Kremlin has deployed another weapon too: using its grip on the media to try to prevent ordinary people from finding out how bad things really are.

Russia's sovereign debt was downgraded by Standard & Poor's for the first time in 10 years on Dec. 8, stocks have lost about 70 percent of their value since May, and the central bank has spent $160.3 billion in a bid to support the rouble.

A reporter for a major Russian newspaper said editors told staff at morning meetings to exercise care when reporting on the impact of the crisis inside Russia.

"It comes from the top, via the meetings the top editors have with the government and the Kremlin," said the reporter, asking not to be named because he feared he could lose his job if he spoke publicly on the issue.

"The reasoning is to prevent panic from spreading inside Russia. We can still report on the crisis but we have to be very careful of how we term things, so it is a way of reporting rather than an outright ban."

At the end of last week Russia's chief macroeconomic planner was overruled by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin after saying Russia was already in a recession.

Within hours, Putin told a different story, trumpeting growth of around 6 percent for 2008 and predicting Russia would weather the financial storm.

Read More......

Cholera deaths near 1,000 in Zimbabwe

Disgraceful. In these times it's no wonder people are targeting Mugabe's close allies. They could care less what happens to the population who are starving when they're not getting sick from cholera. At this point, it's all about clinging to power for Mugabe out of fear for what may happen once they are out of power.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said 978 people have died and 18,413 suspected cases have been recorded.

U.N. figures have been compiled since August.

The latest death toll is reported amid claims by one of Zimbabwe's top officials blaming the cholera outbreak on "a genocidal onslaught" by Zimbabwe's former colonial ruler -- Britain.

"Cholera is a calculated, racist attack on Zimbabwe by the unrepentant former colonial power, which has enlisted support from its American and Western allies so that they can invade the country," Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told reporters.

Britain ruled the country as a colony until 1965.

Ndlovu's claims triggered quick and pointed reaction from Britain and the United States.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Rob McInturff called Ndlovu's accusations "patently ridiculous."

Referring to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, McInturff said Friday that, "Mugabe is clearly unwilling to take any meaningful action (to stop the cholera outbreak)."

On Thursday, Mugabe said "there is no cholera in the country." His spokesman later said that Mugabe was sarcastically ridiculing what he believes are Western designs to invade the country.

I believe there are plenty of examples of post-colonialism in Africa as well as racist policies from the West, but this claim by Mugabe is complete rubbish. Read More......

CNN: The fact that there's no hint of Obama having done anything wrong with regards to Blago-gate, well that just means maybe Obama did

It's so cute when the media suddenly decides to get aggressive again, now that a Democrat is coming back into office. Read More......