Open Thread

If you want a good laugh, MediaBloodhound reports that Mark Penn has a new client. And, they deserve each other.

What else have we got to laugh about? Read the rest of this post...

China continues the argument on Tibet

Playing to the home crowd and annoying the rest of the world. Hey, it worked for Bush a few years ago when he had most Americans believing Saddam was ready to attack the US at any minute. Of course, times have changed and that approach failed the test of time even with the US public who eventually woke up. Hu and his government have a major PR catastrophe with the rest of the world but instead of addressing that, they just keep telling everyone else to go to hell.

China has done an impressive job in recent years of growing their economy but the reality is that the average income in China is still only a few thousand dollars per year so they have a long way to go before they have a middle class on par with the west. If China wants to remain an insular country, great, go that route. With that approach they can watch all of the growth decline and the communist regime can have it's own little world to rule. If they want to be part of the global community, they are going to have to adjust and open up. Whining every day about how mean everyone else is when they're the ones busting heads is hardly a winning approach. If their goal is to scare aware investment, they should continue their current approach. When that happens and the money train ends, this regime will really be clinging on for dear life. Read the rest of this post...

Hillary needs to explain to the SuperDelegates how she can beat McCain in the fall when she can't even beat Obama in the spring.

Discuss amongst yourselves. Read the rest of this post...

Writedown fever to hit Wall Street, again

The best and brightest (or shall we say the greediest and biggest freeloaders?) keep telling everyone that the worst is behind us. The truth is it's not. A few more big names are ready to post hideous losses, yet again, and the ones who aren't going to post losses will deliver ugly numbers. Lehman Brothers just liquidated a few billion of rubbish thanks to the Fed bailout (i.e. on the backs of US taxpayers) so they may be able to avoid complete destruction.

With all of this bad news, what is it going to take to motivate Congress to demand change? Any agreements that may exist need to be torn up and shredded. The rules are now different since Wall Street has had to be bailed out. At the moment it's the US taxpayers who are funding the lifestyle of Wall Street millionaires. Wall Street wouldn't recognize the free market if it hit them in the ass and it did, but we bailed them out. Nobody wants to see Wall Street collapse but dammit, why are we funding their luxurious lifestyle? We are paying for their salaries and excessive bonuses and don't even get the upside of lower lending rates. Most Americans would love to have seven or eight figure incomes but most Americans actually have to work for that. Why is Wall Street being treated differently? Enough already, let's see some action on this. Read the rest of this post...

Bush likely to be a wimp with Tibet crisis

If only China was a small country that had oil, then Bush would be at the front of the line to pick a fight. What a complete fraud. Bush and the GOP are always up for big talk, telling people about freedom and democracy, but as soon as they face someone other than a 98 pound weakling they go running for the hills. Bush brings a whole new meaning to "shock and awe." Read the rest of this post...

Clinton delivers GOP attack against Obama

Never underestimate the power of Hillary Clinton to say anything -- anything -- even if it abets the Republican party. Today, she launched an attack on Obama that could have come right from the RNC. Ben Smith has Clinton's quote and notes:

Now, this is more a general election wedge than a Democratic primary one, and Hillary Clinton may not be the world's best messenger on the Second Amendment. But it's a preview of things to come.

"General election wedge" from Hillary Clinton. Thanks, Hill. And, there will be more to come. Her mission is to destroy Obama.

Also unbelievable:

In Indianapolis, Clinton says that she doesn’t think most Americans are “bitter,” says “what I hear are real concerns about unfair trade practices that cost people jobs.”

Would those "unfair trade practices" include NAFTA, which was supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton? And, how about the Colombia trade agreement supported by Bill Clinton and Mark Penn? Will anyone in the punditry note the hypocrisy in that attack?

And, if Hillary doesn't think people are bitter, she might talk to some of the creditors owed large sums by her campaign. I imagine some of them are bitter since they're now talking about taking Hillary's campaign to collections. But for Hillary to talk to real people means she would have to step out of the overly-scripted, focus group tested, elitist, out-of-touch bubble that she's lived in for 16 years. Instead, she's just delivering GOP talking points in order to hurt our chances of beating McCain in the fall. Read the rest of this post...

Obama needs only 33% of SuperDelegates to get nomination

The reason every single top blog has had it with Hillary is because she already lost the nomination, she knows she already lost, and now is throwing a Hail Mary pass that threatens to divide our party and jeopardize our chances against John McCain in the fall. You have to wonder how well Hillary's staff is sleeping at night, knowing they lost this thing two months ago, and are now simply doing the Republicans' bidding. I suspect most Hillary staffers are good Democrats, simply doing their job. But at some point, your loyalty to the party, to the cause, needs to kick in. They're not just wasting their time, they're hurting their own party and all of us. And that's nothing to be proud of.

From Forbes:

These calculations still leave Barack Obama more than 100 delegates short of the total needed for the nomination. So let’s go to the superdelegates.

At present, 315 superdelegates are still up for grabs. Using our Delegate Calculator, it becomes clear that Obama would need to win just 33%, or 104, of the remaining 315 superdelegates to get over the top.

Read the rest of this post...

Please give Jesus' General some love

Great blog, snappy writer, funny as hell. He's doing a fundraiser. Help him out, please, if you can :-) Read the rest of this post...

Chris Matthews and David Shuster on the politics of coffee v. orange juice

Not kidding. Read MissLaura's post at DailyKos. And, as you read it, keep in mind that Chris Matthews gets paid $5 million a year to spew these pathetically crappy "insights." Unbelievable. $5 million year. Read the rest of this post...

More talk, talk, talk about CEO pay

Obama and Hillary are both chiming in and sure, giving shareholders some say is an OK start, but it's non-binding. It's more than what is there today, but pretty useless. The problem runs much deeper than a vote, but is directly connected to the chummy board members who take care of their friends regardless of performance. This is yet another issue that the GOP will never address yet many GOP voters are just as angry about this as Democrats. It cuts through party lines, especially when the economy is going belly up.

I have no issue with executives getting paid a ton of money provided the rest of the employees are seeing benefits rise on par with their own position. This doesn't mean that everyone in the company should get the same pay as the GOP spin will like to suggest, but it's about time we see growth through businesses and not just as the top. Anyone who thinks the current mindset can't be altered via taxes - increases and decreases - is kidding themselves. It would be nice to see candidates exploring options that might make a serious difference with this problem. And to those who say the government can't control such costs, nonsense. The tax code is littered with perks available to the select few so they're already getting a helping hand but the rest of us schmucks just aren't in that league. Read the rest of this post...

Attack from multi-millionaires (Clinton & McCain) on Obama backfires -- big time.

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton and her friend, John McCain, teamed up to attack Obama. It was another frivolous -- and disingenuous -- attack over remarks Obama made describing the lives and frustrations of real Americans. As if Clinton and McCain have any concept of the real lives of real people. Both of them are extremely wealthy. Both of them have been living in bubbles for years. Both of them have been surrounded by people who pay to be near them or are paid to be near them for years and years. Neither has any concept of reality.

Al Giordano deconstructs Clinton's baseless screed in a post titled, "Clinton to Rural Pennsylvanians: 'You Can Be Victims, Too!'” while Cliff Schecter does a number on McCain's hypocrisy in a post titled, "John 'Married into Beer Wealth' McCain calls Obama 'elitist.'"

A CNN panel comprised of Jeffrey Toobin, Gloria Borger and Jack Cafferty also obliterated the Clinton/McCain attack. Obliterated. Seriously. Watch this:


And, then, watch Obama. Because that's what you'll want to hear from a President. Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Beautiful day here in DC.

Check out this week's poem of the week: Nichol. Written by Jamaican poet Kwame Dawes, Nichol is "part of a series Dawes wrote about his home country's battle against HIV/AIDS." Real and Relevant. Dawes teaches at the University of South Carolina.

We'll get back to the news in a bit. Read the rest of this post...

Nuweiba cat

This is one of numerous cats we met while in Sinai last summer. They were all the most lovable cats you could meet. You can see a few cuts in her ear, one of which came from a sun down battle with a moray eel in the shallows. As the sun goes down the eels and other fish swim through the shallows looking for food and she thought she struck gold and went for an eel who bit her ear and tried to drown her. Somehow she made it and now sticks to hunting unguarded dinner plates. Read the rest of this post...

China outraged by US resolution for peace in Tibet

I'm sure the Japanese people were pretty outraged a couple of years ago when there were anti-Japanese riots in China that somehow (gosh, I wonder how?) were tolerated by the usually strict government. I'm also pretty sure that the people of Tibet are outraged that the communist government in Beijing doesn't respect human rights or cultural heritage. China has repeatedly criticized the US for it's bad policy and that's fine, that's how the game works. The government is in desperate need to figure out the whole global politics game because at the moment, they are failing miserably and only infuriating the rest of the world.

Is the communist government really that naive to think they will find sympathy for cracking heads and killing people? Do they know so little about their existing perception in western countries where manufacturing jobs have disappeared and moved to China? Really? Seriously? Someone please educate that government because real or not, people already perceived China to be a threat to their jobs and future, even before the recession. Instead of looking like an important world player, they just look silly and it's getting worse by the day. Save the outrage for people who care because that stops at the border. Read the rest of this post...