ThinkFast: October 9, 2008
ThinkFast: October 9, 2008
A draft version of the new National Intelligence Estimate “concludes that Afghanistan is in a ‘downward spiral’ and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban’s influence there.” The CIA has documented the worsening violence for nearly 2 years and “some in the agency say they believe that it has taken the White House too long to respond to the warnings.”
“Negotiations with some members of the Taliban could provide a way to reduce violence in sections of Afghanistan gripped by an intensifying insurgency,” Gen. David Petreaus said yesterday. He noted how Britain had helped reduce violence in Iraq through negotiations, remarking, “They’ve sat down with thugs throughout their history, including us in our early days.”
“Todd Palin talked with over a dozen state officials, many of them repeatedly, in his crusade to get a state trooper fired whom he considered to be a bad cop, a dishonest person and a threat to the Palin family, according to his sworn statement given Wednesday to a legislative investigator.” Andrew Halcro has a thorough analysis of Palin’s deposition here.
63.2 million: Number of U.S. viewers who watched the second presidential debate, easily surpassing the audience of the first debate (52.4 million). Forty-two percent of households in the top U.S. television markets tuned in to Tuesday’s match-up.
On the trail today: Barack Obama stops in the Ohio cities of Dayton, Cincinnati, and Portsmouth. Joe Biden campaigns in the Missouri cities of St. Joseph, Liberty, and Jefferson City. John McCain and Sarah Palin hold a town hall meeting in Waukesha, WI. McCain later holds an event in Mosinee, WI, while Palin talks to voters in Wilmington, OH.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) yesterday recommended a new $150 billion economic stimulus plan and said “she may call the House into session after the election to pass it.” Pelosi said “the stock market meltdown…was a factor in her recommendation.
After already doling out an $85 billion bridge loan in September, the Federal Reserve Board announced yesterday “that it would provide up to $37.8 billion to the embattled insurer the American International Group to help it deal with a rapidly dwindling supply of cash.” A Fed spokesman said “the new assistance was intended to keep the company from having to draw down the Fed loan so quickly.”
“A federal appeals court panel on Wednesday issued a temporary stay of a federal judge’s order that had directed the Bush administration to free 17 Guantánamo detainees by releasing them in the United States on Friday.” The court will review arguments by the Justice Department, which opposes freeing the detainees.
Delivering “a sharp blow” to the prosecution’s case against Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), a judge threw out two key pieces of evidence against Stevens yesterday. The judge presiding over the case faulted prosecutors for knowingly introducing false documents relating to work done on Stevens home. “There’s just no excuse for that whatsoever,” he said.
“Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law,” the New York Times reports today. The blocked voters “are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law.”
And finally: Congress is all a-Twitter. More than three dozen federal lawmakers now use the micro-blogging site, writing on everything from what press conferences they’re holding to more mundane topics, such as Rep. Chris Shays’s (R-CT) tale of getting stuck in traffic. The Sunlight Foundation has created a tool to track all of Congress’s tweets, and Congresspedia has a full list of twittering lawmakers here.
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Maryland Police Put Activists’ Names On Terror Lists
The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday.
Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July.
The department started sending letters of notification Saturday to the activists, inviting them to review their files before they are purged from the databases, Sheridan said.
“The names don’t belong in there,” he told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. “It’s as simple as that.”
The surveillance took place over 14 months in 2005 and 2006, under the administration of former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). The former state police superintendent who authorized the operation, Thomas E. Hutchins, defended the program in testimony yesterday. Hutchins said the program was a bulwark against potential violence and called the activists “fringe people.”
Sheridan said protest groups were also entered as terrorist organizations in the databases, but his staff has not identified which ones. Stunned senators pressed Sheridan to apologize to the activists for the spying, assailed in an independent review last week as “overreaching” by law enforcement officials who were oblivious to their violation of the activists’ rights of free expression and association. The letter, obtained by The Washington Post, does not apologize but admits that the state police have “no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime” by those classified as terrorists.
CommonDreams
“Fringe people”-are being defined as “terrorists” because “we believe killing is immoral” Which means protesters are seen by the police as common criminals.
The Senators are stunned, my answer to that is where the hell have you been for the last eight years. Or are they really that stupid.. Police State, coming soon, to a former Democracy near you!
October 9th, 2008 at 9:00 amAfter already doling out an $85 billion bridge loan in September, the Federal Reserve Board announced yesterday “that it would provide up to $37.8 billion to the embattled insurer the American International Group to help it deal with a rapidly dwindling supply of cash.” A Fed spokesman said “the new assistance was intended to keep the company from having to draw down the Fed loan so quickly.”
Yeah, those $400,000 parties can eat into the cash flow pretty quickly.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:08 amGen. David Petreaus said yesterday. He noted how Britain had helped reduce violence in Iraq through negotiations, remarking, “They’ve sat down with thugs throughout their history, including us in our early days.”
WTF? Is Petraeus talking about the revolutionary war? Ummm, they didn’t sit down with us, they waged war on us. This doesn’t add up, I must be misreading something. Or is Petraeus taking the same meds McIIIrd is?
October 9th, 2008 at 9:17 amThe execs at AIG should be fired and prosecuted. Period.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:17 amAIG and Goldman Sachs had $20 billion in interlocking instruments. If AIG failed, the spillover on Goldman could have been significant. This fact came from House testimony on CSPAN.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:17 amstateofthedivision Says:
AIG and Goldman Sachs had $20 billion in interlocking instruments.
___________
So is it safe to say that a large part of the current financial disaster was caused by these dummies simply trading their own “funny money” back and forth?
October 9th, 2008 at 9:21 amAmerican
International
Greed
$120,000,000,000 of taxpayers’ money to ’shore up’ a company that hit a brick financial wall from practicing GREED.
Alan ‘Greedspan’ supported & encouraged credit derivative trading. Mr. Greedspan is hard to find nowadays, but ‘The Oracle’ still contends he was correct in supporting these unregulated Wall St stink bombs.
Wall St…socializing losses while privatizing profits.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:23 amTodd Palin’s actions outlined in the deposition story reveal a most obsessive and dysfunctional man and family. He’s an uneducated and uneducable hick who has never accomplished anything in life, and probably never will.
Good reading!
October 9th, 2008 at 9:24 amRUCerious Says:
WTF? Is Petraeus talking about the revolutionary war? Ummm, they didn’t sit down with us, they waged war on us.
____________
Perhaps the phrase “They’ve sat down w/ thugs throughout their history, including us…” is that ever-so-polite British way of saying “we gave up and went home…”.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:24 amIolair Says:
After already doling out an $85 billion bridge loan in September, the Federal Reserve Board announced yesterday “that it would provide up to $37.8 billion to the embattled insurer the American International Group to help it deal with a rapidly dwindling supply of cash.” A Fed spokesman said “the new assistance was intended to keep the company from having to draw down the Fed loan so quickly.”
___________
Uh… I seem to be missing something here… we give them even more money… so they won’t have to ask for more money right away… and this is somehow seen as stopping them from getting more money…
Sheesh… that’s it’s… I’m becoming an “investment banker”… I don’t have to produce a profit… I don’t even have to make sense… and I get to ask the Fed for bailout after bailout, to keep me from needing the next bailout…
Woo hoo!!! It’s BRILLIANT!!! Whattascam!!!!
October 9th, 2008 at 9:28 amThe current crisis exploded when “insurance” for debt from the big money boys went crazy. The ghost of credit past visited Wall Street the week of September 15th.
The boys ran to Hank Paulson to drive him away. The solution? Take the same practices that got us into this mess and have the government enact them.
We have fast and cheap credit with huge liguidity injections, artificially low interest rates that don’t adequately price risk, and Treasury borrowing some $3 trillion to deal with the meltdown. America-subprime nation
October 9th, 2008 at 9:32 amPalin’s idiotic husband had more information from his wife’s administration than should have been legal and she DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT IT? Come on, what a bunch of crap! I don’t believe she didn’t know for one second if they are as close as they say they are.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:33 amMy daughter just told me that some of her friends who thought they had registered while at an event are in fact not registered at all, and now it’s too late. What do you want to bet this was some Repug bs to keep young voters from voting for Obama?
October 9th, 2008 at 9:35 amInside Account of US Eavesdropping on Americans
US Officer’s “Phone Sex” Intercepted, Recorded, Shared Across NSA Listening Post
Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.
Intercept operators allege the NSA is listening to citizens’ phone calls.
“These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones,” said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA’s Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.
Kinne described the contents of the calls as “personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism.”
She said US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and “collected on” as they called their offices or homes in the United States.
Another intercept operator, former Navy Arab linguist, David Murfee Faulk, 39, said he and his fellow intercept operators listened into hundreds of Americans picked up using phones in Baghdad’s Green Zone from late 2003 to November 2007.
“Calling home to the United States, talking to their spouses, sometimes their girlfriends, sometimes one phone call following another,” said Faulk.
The accounts of the two former intercept operators, who have never met and did not know of the other’s allegations, provide the first inside look at the day to day operations of the huge and controversial US terrorist surveillance program.
“There is a constant check to make sure that our civil liberties of our citizens are treated with respect,” said President Bush at a news conference this past February.
But the accounts of the two whistleblowers, which could not be independently corroborated, raise serious questions about how much respect is accorded those Americans whose conversations are intercepted in the name of fighting terrorism.
Read all of this stunning expose (too long to post):
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5987804&page=1
**OMG…I never would have IMAGINED that the NSA would abuse their UNCONSTITUTIONAL powers to eavesdrop on average Americans! Do you think they pop popcorn and pop cold ones before sitting down to “review” these obviously threatening calls? Can anyone count up how many constitutional rights we have left–I am sure it is much shorter that those that have been taken away from us!
October 9th, 2008 at 9:40 am#2 Iolair Says:
After already doling out an $85 billion bridge loan in September, the Federal Reserve Board announced yesterday “that it would provide up to $37.8 billion to the embattled insurer the American International Group to help it deal with a rapidly dwindling supply of cash.” A Fed spokesman said “the new assistance was intended to keep the company from having to draw down the Fed loan so quickly.”
Yeah, those $400,000 parties can eat into the cash flow pretty quickly.
Good Morning :) Since they are hosting another one next week for 150 agents, I can only image how large that bill will be. Congress better demand that they cancel it.. No partying on my money allowed..
Good to see you!!
October 9th, 2008 at 9:45 amAfter already doling out an $85 billion bridge loan in September, the Federal Reserve Board announced yesterday “that it would provide up to $37.8 billion to the embattled insurer the American International Group to help it deal with a rapidly dwindling supply of cash.” A Fed spokesman said “the new assistance was intended to keep the company from having to draw down the Fed loan so quickly.”
Is Bernanke a crappy Fed chief needing ouster by an Obama pick, or does this Federal Reserve need to be abolished altogether and its functions transferred to congress?
October 9th, 2008 at 9:45 amMeanwhile, back at the Mansion, McThird & Scarah are claiming Obama hangs with domestic terrorists.
Luckily, Sean Hannity is exposing the truth about Obama.
William Ayres was Chicago’s ‘Man of the Year’ in ‘07. Do you think Hannity will devulge that little factoid?
Republicans are running like chickens with their heads cut off. They just may give the Dem majority a ’super majority’ in ‘09.
Thanks guys…you are what you do, not what you say’.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:46 amAfter already doling out an $85 billion bridge loan in September, the Federal Reserve Board announced yesterday “that it would provide up to $37.8 billion to the embattled insurer the American International Group to help it deal with a rapidly dwindling supply of cash.” A Fed spokesman said “the new assistance was intended to keep the company from having to draw down the Fed loan so quickly.”
**So, this is “on top of” the $800 billion we handed over already? I can’t imagine what the final price will be. Weigh that against how much the average citizen is getting and it’s easy to understand why more and more people are pulling their money out of the investment markets. They (corporate crooks) already stole it once and we are giving them seconds? What is wrong with this picture???
October 9th, 2008 at 9:47 amHe [Petraeus] noted how Britain had helped reduce violence in Iraq through negotiations, remarking, “They’ve sat down with thugs throughout their history, including us in our early days.”
What a weird thing to say!
But more importantly he’s confirming what the neocons refuse to accept, which is that if you want to achieve a political objective ( or indeed and economic objective) then you’ll do much better by negotiating with words, not bombs and bullets.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:52 amthe Lone Voice of Reason Says:
My daughter just told me that some of her friends who thought they had registered while at an event are in fact not registered at all, and now it’s too late. What do you want to bet this was some Repug bs to keep young voters from voting for Obama?
They’ve done it before. Set up a registration table (at an event for young people, as I recall) and then tore up and threw out any registration form for a Democrat. It wouldn’t surprise me at all, frankly.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:53 amZimzone: Thanks guys…you are what you do, not what you say’.
In the Republicans case they both say and do a lot of BS so, you are wrong there :)
October 9th, 2008 at 9:54 amTens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law,” the New York Times reports today. The blocked voters “are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law.”
Get a provisional ballot or don’t leave the polling place. Any attorneys out there who want to help challenge this illegal shit?
October 9th, 2008 at 9:56 amSince the Bush team trashed past laws on spying on Americans, what can he do with the newly approved satellite surveillance system and a domestic combat brigade?
October 9th, 2008 at 9:59 amgummitch Says:
They’ve done it before. [...] It wouldn’t surprise me at all, frankly.
__________
Funny, and more than a little annoying, innit? The very ones (the GOOP) complaining ENDLESSLY about voter fraud are the very same ones ENDLESSLY engaging in it. You’d think their pointy little heads would ’splode from the internal conflicts and cognitive dissonance, wouldn’tcha?
October 9th, 2008 at 9:59 amI’m afraid I do not know how a provisional ballot works, RUCerious. Please edify so I can tell my child. These kids are very upset over this.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:00 amOn AIG: It is now being reported that the spa junket had been organized ages ago and besides none of the executives attended (they insist).
This excuses nothing!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:01 amWHERE IS THE FAUX OUTRAGE AGAINST PETRAEUS??? HE JUST REFERRED TO AMERICA AS A NATION OF “THUGS”!!! TO QUOTE THE GREAT GOVERNOR GIDGET…ER…PALIN, “THIS IS A MAN WHO THINKS HIS COUNTRY IS SO IMPERFECT” AS TO LABEL ITS CITIZENS THUGS!!! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!!!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:02 amWell yeah, I mean, the economy’s crashing down around us, they supposedly need a bailout…but you can’t expect them to reschedule a SPA JUNKET! Do you have ANY idea how long it takes to get a reservation for that many people at one of those? It would be a logistical nightmare!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:03 amWall St…socializing losses while privatizing profits.
Zimzone, I applaud you sir/ma’am (sorry, I’m not really sure)
I think that is the best summary of the current financial crisis and the Bush administration’s economic policies I have ever seen.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:06 amLone Voice of Reason:
Provisional Ballots should be available at the voting both.
ID rules vary among states but bring along a signed photo ID (license or passport) which should have your address on it too, AND a recent bill with your name and address on it.
Last time I voted the voting staff didn’t know what a provisional ballot was for and tried to tell me I was out of luck, so I had to tell them (very bad training).
October 9th, 2008 at 10:06 amThank you very much, I will tell her as soon as she comes home!!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:07 amCan the kids who thought they had registered at that event get a provisional ballot and vote?
October 9th, 2008 at 10:07 amIgnore #33 then- posted before I saw your reply.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:07 amliberal traitor Says:
WHERE IS THE FAUX OUTRAGE AGAINST PETRAEUS??? HE JUST REFERRED TO AMERICA AS A NATION OF “THUGS”!!!
_________
Sheehs… my level of respect for Petraeus just went up… a smidge*…
*and that – a smidge – is somewhere between a tad and an iota…
October 9th, 2008 at 10:10 amliberal traitor:Do you have ANY idea how long it takes to get a reservation for that many people at one of those? It would be a logistical nightmare!
Gosh, when you put it that way I can see what a tragedy would ensue. I had no idea! Obviously I know far less about economics than I thought! Thanks for setting me straight! :)
October 9th, 2008 at 10:11 amHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) yesterday recommended a new $150 billion economic stimulus plan and said “she may call the House into session after the election to pass it.” Pelosi said “the stock market meltdown…was a factor in her recommendation.
Nancy’s hail mary to get re-elected. Sorry, but at this late juncture I’m not buying her concern for the American People. She should have been thinking about us when she took “impeachment off the table”. Hopefully, the voters in her district cast their ballots for Cindy…
October 9th, 2008 at 10:15 amMy daughter just called from school because she had forgotten something so I was able to tell her about the provisional ballot–thank you very much!! There is a “Barackstar” meeting after school and she is going to get the word out. Thank you so much again :)
October 9th, 2008 at 10:19 amliberal traitor Says:
5th Estate Says:
——————————————————————————–
On AIG: It is now being reported that the spa junket had been organized ages ago and besides none of the executives attended (they insist).
This excuses nothing!
Well yeah, I mean, the economy’s crashing down around us, they supposedly need a bailout…but you can’t expect them to reschedule a SPA JUNKET! Do you have ANY idea how long it takes to get a reservation for that many people at one of those? It would be a logistical nightmare!
While I agree that these junkets are gilding the lily, I think it interesting to note what this whole crisis is doing to the service industry. I’m not defending trickle down economics on a whole but here we have a trickle down, or rather dry up, effects in the service industry. How many companies have these ‘junkets’ to fancy resort spas? What happens to those spas when the ‘junkets’ are cut out?
Just pointing out how severe this crisis is and no, I have no solution.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:20 amGood morning Freb!
CINDY FOR CONGRESS!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:21 am“Negotiations with some members of the Taliban could provide a way to reduce violence in sections of Afghanistan gripped by an intensifying insurgency,” Gen. David Petreaus said yesterday.
And if that doesn’t work, we can just start paying them to stop shooting like we did in Iraq. Bush has known for over 6 months that they need more troops in Afghanistan, but they won’t be there until sometime in February. By then, it will probably be too late.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:22 amClusterTim Says:
________
Seriously, folks… innit time to start flagging this one en masse every time it shows up?
STOP TRYING TO USE THE SITE TO SELL YER CRAP…
October 9th, 2008 at 10:22 amJohn McCain and Sarah Palin hold an invitation only town hall meeting in Waukesha, WI. McCain later holds an event in Mosinee, WI, while Palin talks to a hand picked set of voters in Wilmington, OH.
There, I fixed it for you.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:23 amFreedom Rebel…Nancy’s hail mary to get re-elected.
Well it would depend on what’s in the package ( Abs-ercizers?). Spending another $150 billion of public money might not be that popular…though on the other hand Pelosi doesn’t seem to be terribly astute when it comes to political decisions. I hope she gets canned too (and Reid as well). Both are bloody useless.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:23 amlivelongandprosper: What happens to those spas when the ‘junkets’ are cut out? Just pointing out how severe this crisis is and no, I have no solution.
Fair enough, which then begs the question of the value of work and the ratio of service industries to production industries in the US economy.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:33 amliberal traitor Says:
Wall St…socializing losses while privatizing profits.
Zimzone, I applaud you sir/ma’am (sorry, I’m not really sure)
I think that is the best summary of the current financial crisis and the Bush administration’s economic policies I have ever seen.
Good morning, liberal traitor, & thanks for the kind words.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:38 amI’m male by gender, btw, but can see why my user name could cast doubt.
He just posts enough of a statement to make it seem legitimate for him to be posting. I and others have asked him nicely to stop it.
Flag him at every post.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:42 amMany warned beginning with the run up to the Iraq invasion that Afghanistan might become a major problem. The ideological bunglers and conspiratorial criminals of the administration have needlessly wasted lives and treasure.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:44 amPetraeus recommending talking with the enemy? His words will fall to earth unheeded by the diplomatically tone death Cheney-Bush ideologues.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:47 ammccain can’t get a break from people on his side of the isle. It’s obvious that the right is all over the map and if you want something that makes sense you must listen to a progressive.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:48 amPalin and Palin should face rough sailin’ ahead for usin’ the governor’s office for interferin’ in in an official disability case for reasons clearly smackin’ of revenge and meanness, not that the trooper comes off as bein’ a prize apple either.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:49 amBefore loaning AIG another cent of taxpayers’ money they should have required the AIG executives pay back the company treasury for the week of pampering at a cost to shareholders of nearly half a mill and return some of the bonuses that went to Sullivan, Willumstad, and most especially Cassano!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:54 amUighurs: justice delayed is justice denied, again!!!!!!!!!!!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:55 amHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) yesterday recommended a new $150 billion economic stimulus plan and said “she may call the House into session after the election to pass it.” Pelosi said “the stock market meltdown…was a factor in her recommendation.
I detect a whiff of desperation…vintage “too little, too late.”
I prefer the “impeachment” variety.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:00 amAt a shocking press conference this morning, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama announced that he has a half-man half-bat half-brother: Obatma.
“Obatma shares my DNA and will be uniquely qualified to understand some of the difficult issues facing mutants in this country and around the world.”
October 9th, 2008 at 11:07 am5th Estate Says:
livelongandprosper: What happens to those spas when the ‘junkets’ are cut out? Just pointing out how severe this crisis is and no, I have no solution.
Fair enough, which then begs the question of the value of work and the ratio of service industries to production industries in the US economy.
Yes 5th, the value of work is a very good question. Whose work can be worth 50 million a year? What sort of service industries are people who make > 1 million supporting? What sort of service industries are people who make < $50,000 supporting?
You can even break down the service industry into local and distant categories. Local being your restaurant down the street that is suffering because the locals (read – middle class) can’t go out anymore. Distant being the Spa Resort that is suffering because corporations (read – upper class) can’t send people there anymore.
How about the source of wealth of America. It used to be built on making stuff, but America isn’t a nation of makers like it was. More and more the wealth has come from banking and making “vehicles” for making banking richer and richer. Now that has come tumbling down.
Anyway, it’s a mess. My economic knowledge is next to nothing and I hope that the next administration has the insight to look forward and correct this mess.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:14 am“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) yesterday recommended a new $150 billion economic stimulus plan…” It didn’t work the first time what makes you think it will now?
“Negotiations with some members of the Taliban could provide a way to reduce violence…Gen. David Petreaus said yesterday”
Hmmm wonder how John McCain feels about his hero David today! Talk about appeasement! I also wonder what exactly is wrong with talking and finding diplomatic solutions!
October 9th, 2008 at 11:17 amInteresting and disgusting fact’s….Before the bail out vote AIG was found to have 28 BILLION in off shore account’s….Why did they need to be bailed out.?.Why should all these slim bag’s be allowed to have a party on us.?..
Well it’s Thurday, just another day in Paradise….
Great post’s all…..P.B.& J
October 9th, 2008 at 11:18 amSorry I forgot to ask why Nancy Pelosi(Democrat-CA) is actually offering up an old REPUBLICAN-BUSH policy that did not work?
October 9th, 2008 at 11:22 amjpmdevildog Says:
Since you have absolutley nothing to say.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:23 amflagged
TROS, Fred; I flag clusterphuck every time I see one of his bs posts. I just flagged this asswhole a minute ago and asked TP to ban the shit-for-brains.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:32 amjpmdevildog Says: “Obatma shares my DNA and will be uniquely qualified to understand some of the difficult issues facing mutants in this country and around the world.”
When a grown man or woman says something so delusionally childish, he or she should seek immediate medical attention.
God luck with your brain injury.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:34 amWitch1 Says: Interesting and disgusting fact’s….Before the bail out vote AIG was found to have 28 BILLION in off shore account’s….Why did they need to be bailed out.?.Why should all these slim bag’s be allowed to have a party on us.?..
Bush throwing a final perty for his greedy pig friends?
I read last night that AIG has asked for even more money.
Yeah, like the initial bailout that let them spend half a million on massages and booze really helped the economy…
October 9th, 2008 at 11:38 amLone Voice @#25
October 9th, 2008 at 11:52 amWhen you are challenged, you ask the precinct poll worker for a provisional ballot. They are supposed to give you one.
Then, in most states, the next day after the election, you go to the appropriate county office (Auditor in Snohomish, WA) and prove your residency and eligibility, then they are required to count your ballot.
I am so very angry over the despicable behavior of McCain/Palin. I’m sick to my stomach with rage, that these evil barstids would tacitly encourage and cheerlead such awful racist lynch mob behavior. I’m just sick at heart over this.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:54 amMorgan Stanley is dog food as the big money boys continue not lending to each other.
What upset Hank and company on September 18th, just went into hyperdrive. Take a look at the cost to “insure” Morgan Stanley debt. It’s in the stratosphere as of today.
9-10 $300,000
October 9th, 2008 at 12:03 pm9-15 $450,000
9-18 $900,000
9-19 $560,000
9-22 $498,000
9-24 $790,000
10-2 $975,000
10-7 $1,800,000
10-9 $2,500,000
And in one final ironic twist, the Bush administration is considering going big government liberal -maybe even commie:
The Bush administration is considering taking ownership stakes in certain U.S. banks as an option for dealing with a severe global credit crisis.
An administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no decision has been made, said the $700 billion rescue package passed by Congress last week allows the Treasury Department to inject fresh capital into financial institutions and get ownership shares in return.
White House considers ownership stakes in banks
I guess being a commie-pinko, big government advocate, regulation-hungry liberal is a bad thing -unless your cronies need taxpayers’ money to bail them out of their own inep decisions
October 9th, 2008 at 1:32 pmGregor, I remember Bush saying he was going to shrink govt and all he did was move it around to make his pet agencies huge (and didn’t Reagan do the same ?)
To me, the interesting thing is that we are giving the companies money without taking ownership. Repubs are always saying they want govt to work like a business.
Well no business is just gonna give another business money for the fun of it. Instead, a business will give another money but in return get a certain percentage ownership of the business (stock, so to speak). Then if the recipient repays the money, they get their stock back.
So why didn’t Congress go with partial ownership of the banks as was floated as a Stock Injection Plan (which appeared one day and disappeared the next) ?
October 9th, 2008 at 2:27 pmMapleStreet Says: So why didn’t Congress go with partial ownership of the banks as was floated as a Stock Injection Plan?
Because that would cut into the cronies’ bottom line.
And remember, it’s welfare for the poor, and “incentive package”, and “tax breaks” for the cronies.
C’mon… get with the program… ;-)
October 9th, 2008 at 3:07 pmI’ve been saying this for months..You heard it from me first…Betrayus thinks we should bribe the taliban also, which is the logical equivlanent of what we’re doing in iraq. Yeah, when you’re paying everyone from low level thugs to the high level command and control of your enemy, you arent going to have very enemies left….paying our soldiers killers to stop shooting at them is Betrayus’s method of operation, and somehow this makes him an amazing military leader…
October 9th, 2008 at 5:59 pmGregor – touche’. I just can’t make my mouth move to those lies.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:03 pmIn my lifetime, I would like to see it be common knowledge that our incessant bombing is inherently destabilizing and the results will never be any different.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:09 pm