Holy Joe and Iraq under Obama

Senator Lieberman has nothing but praise nowadays for the "Marxist" he was trashing alongside Palin a mere month ago.

Holy Joe predicts that the war in Iraq "will not be a divisive issue" within the Democratic tent and that "more normal times" are ahead. Michael J. Smith has a spot-on analysis of Holy Joe's comments:

TEXT

win Ben Stein's money by Andy K.

August 18 2007, Peter Schiff is being laughed at because he predicts that Wall Street is about to crash because of the subprime credit mess. Ben Stein tells Peter that he's full of shit. Then Ben Stein tells the viewer to go buy shares of stock in: Merril Lynch. Ben Stein says that Merril Lynch "is an astonishingly well-run company." When Ben Stein made this prediction, it was trading at $76 per share. Today, Merril is at $11 per share.

update on the U.S. dollar by Andy K.

The U.S. dollar has been doing very well since August (price of oil has crashed). It's a temporary illusion, and the U.S. dollar is about to crash. The reason that the dollar has done so well recently is because investors have fled the stock market as stocks have become worthless. Foreign investors are hoarding U.S. cash, but pretty soon that will be worthless too.



Things are about to get much worse...

upset by Obama's torture policy

Andrew Sullivan was rabidly pro-Obama. But he's appalled that torture apologist John Brennan is apparently on Obama's shortlist for CIA director...

TEXT

Bill Kristol approves

"His selection of Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff suggests that Obama’s not going to be mindlessly leftist," - Bill Kristol, (editor of the Weekly Standard and apologist for all things Zionist).

The Fox Guarding the Henhouse by Andy K.

On Wall Street [and Las Vegas], the term "leverage" refers to an investor who takes out a loan and gambles with the borrowed money. Astonishingly, this reckless behavior is considered to be civilized and respectable. Ever since 1975, the law said that banks could not be leveraged more than 12 to 1. (For every $1 the Las Vegas drunk owned, he borrowed $12 to gamble with.) This 12 to 1 limit was called the "net capital rule." Starting in 2000, the big banks lobbied the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) to remove the net capital rule. The SEC changed the rule in 2004, but not for the small banks; the new deregulation only applied to the biggest of the big banks, because the wise men who run the biggest banks are the most responsible. By 2008, Bear Stearns was leveraged 33 to 1; Merril Lynch was leveraged 40 to 1.

So who was the man who spearheaded this deregulation? Who was the man who personally lobbied the government to give Wall Street the rope it needed to hang itself with?

HANK PAULSON!!!!!!!!!!

"We and other global firms have, for many years, urged the SEC to reform its net capital rule to allow for more efficient use of capital. This is the single most important factor in driving significant parts of our business offshore, so that our firms can remain competitive with our foreign competitors risk-based capital standards must become the norm. The SEC has made it clear that risk-based capital rules can be implemented only when the Commission is confident that firms employing value-at-risk models have robust credit and risk management policies in place."
-Goldman Sachs CEO Henry M. Paulson's testimony to the SEC on Feb 29, 2000

He's a wise man worthy of our trust and respect. He'll spend that $700 billion responsibly.

what the Dems (and Palin) won't tell you about oil

(U.S. energy policy in a nutshell: we are forced to buy oil from Saudi Arabia because our Texas oil is going to Singapore)



from Reuters:

American oil companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries. A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department.

The biggest share of U.S. oil products exported went to Mexico, Canada, Chile, Singapore and Brazil.

The surge in exports appears to contradict the pleas from the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration for Congress to open more offshore waters and Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

"We can help alleviate shortages by drilling for oil and gas in our own country," President Bush told reporters this week. "We have got the opportunity to find more crude oil here at home.

But environmentalists disagreed. "It doesn't look good to say: 'We need more oil.' But then export the refined products that you're getting. It doesn't seem to be consistent," said Jim Presswood, energy lobbyist for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

U.S exports of diesel fuel in April averaged 387,000 barrels per day, up almost seven-fold from 59,000 barrels a day in the same month a year earlier.

U.S. gasoline shipments in April averaged 202,000 barrels a day, the most for the month since 1945, when America was sending fuel overseas to ease supply shortages in other countries during World War II. Gasoline exports in April 2007 were almost half at 116,000 barrels per day.

Daily U.S. gasoline exports to Canada skyrocketed to 41,000 barrels in January-April this year from 9,000 barrels in 2007.

Lieberman's whisper

Here is St. John McCain in Jordan this week mistakenly referring to Iranian extremists as al Qaeda terrorists. Poor St. McCain, he doesn't know Shia from Sunni. We're not exactly sure what Holy Joe Lieberman whispers in St. McCain's ear, but it was probably something along the lines of: "John, Iran is Shia and al Qaeda is Sunni, and they fucking hate each other."

Bush Consumed By Envy

"I must say, I'm a little envious. If I were slightly
younger and not employed here, I think it would be a
fantastic experience to be on the front lines of
helping this young democracy succeed. It must be
exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some
ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really
making history."

-George W. Bush in 2008 describing his envy of US
soldiers serving in Afghanistan


"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a
shotgun in order to get a deferment, nor was I willing
to go to Canada, so I chose to better myself by
learning to fly airplanes."

-George W. Bush in 1994 describing why he avoided
Vietnam

Women Are Safer Without Legal Rights - by Andy K.

As we learn more about Eliot Spitzer's $4,300 splurge
on a two-hour date (not to mention his cumulative
$80,000 tab with the escort agency), the American
pundits are condemning the progressive sex worker
activists who want to decriminalize the world's oldest
profession. To quote R.L. Blader's essay over at
CounterPunch.com: "The 'need' for prostitution, is, at
its core, misogynistic" and "it degrades the status of
all women by affirming the pathology of associating
sex with property."

(Presumably adult gay men are perfectly capable of
negotiating sex for money because I'd be surprised if
Blader considers consensual gay prostitution to be yet
another form of misogyny. But maybe Blader would
disagree).

Buried in the prohibition debate is the upsetting
reality of being a sex worker in a society which
criminalizes sex work. Two economics professors at
the University of Chicago made this appalling
discovery: not only is it rare for a hooker to be
arrested by the Chicago police, but in fact it is more
common for Chicago prostitutes to be coerced into
providing "free services" (rape) to police officers.
The only thing worse than being raped by a pimp is to
be raped by a cop. If this isn't a compelling
feminist argument for legalization, I don't know what
is. The alternative is to engage in the bizarre
ideological fantasy that corrupt cops don't exist, and
that women are safer without legal rights.

Apparently the two go hand in hand: you can't have
rampant police rape without prohibition, and you can't
have prohibition without rampant police rape.

The Press Secretary and the Falling Dollar

WHITE HOUSE PRESS BRIEFING, MARCH 7, 2008

REPORTER: I’d like to follow up on their refusal to
talk about the dollar, if I could. I mean, we’re in a
kind of a bad situation here, when OPEC says the
reason for $105 or $106 a barrel of oil is the falling
value of the dollar — and you won’t address that
issue. Where do we go to find out who is right?

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY DANA PERINO: Well, as he
just said, the Treasury Secretary is where you go to
talk about the dollar. It’s a longstanding policy that
predates this administration, and I’m not going to
change it today. But Treasury can talk about it.

REPORTER: I don’t expect you to change it, but I do
expect you to be able to say whether OPEC is
completely wrong about this, or whether there is at
least something to their claim that the dollar is
responsible for the high price of oil right now.

MS. PERINO: WENDELL, I'M UNDER STRICT INSTRUCTIONS,
AND HAVE BEEN FROM THE BEGINNING, TO NOT TALK ABOUT
THE DOLLAR, AND I'M NOT GOING TO GET FIRED TO SATISFY
YOUR QUESTION.

Bush Feels Your Pain At the Pump: Tax Cuts = Cheaper Unleaded

TRANSCRIPT OF FEBRUARY 28 PRESS CONFERENCE

REPORTER: What's your advice to the average American
who is hurting now, facing the prospect of $4 a gallon
gasoline, a lot of people facing --

PRESIDENT BUSH: Wait, what did you just say? You're
predicting $4 a gallon gasoline?

REPORTER: A number of analysts are predicting --

PRESIDENT BUSH: Oh, yeah?

REPORTER: -- $4 a gallon gasoline this spring when
they reformulate.

PRESIDENT BUSH: That's interesting. I hadn't heard
that.

REPORTER: Yes, sir.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes. I know it's high now.

REPORTER: And the other economic problems facing
people. Beyond your concern that you stated here, and
your expectations for these stimulus checks, what kind
of hope can you offer to people who are in dire
straits?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Permanent tax -- keep the tax cuts
permanent, for starters. There's a lot of economic
uncertainty. You just said that. You just said the
price of gasoline may be up to $4 a gallon -- or some
expert told you that -- and that creates a lot of
uncertainty if you're out there wondering whether or
not -- you know, what your life is going to be like
and you're looking at $4 a gallon, that's uncertain.
And when you couple with the idea that taxes may be
going up in a couple of years, that's double
uncertainty. And therefore one way to deal with
uncertainty is for Congress to make the tax cuts
permanent.

May He Rest In Peace: William F. Buckley, Jr.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
Nov. 24, 1925 to Feb. 27, 2008

Mr. Buckley at his best:

"Legal practices should be informed by realities.
These are enlightening in the matter of marijuana.
There are approximately 700,000 marijuana-related
arrests made every year. Most of these -- 87 percent --
involve nothing more than mere possession of small
amounts of marijuana. This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10
billion to $15 billion per year in direct expenditures
alone. Most transgressors caught using marijuana
aren't packed away to jail, but some are, and in
Alabama, if you are convicted three times of marijuana
possession, they'll lock you up for 15 years to
life. The thunderers who tell us to stay the course can
always find one man or woman who, having taken
marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But
that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of
saying that every rapist began by masturbating."

-William F. Buckley, Jr. circa June, 2004


Mr. Buckley at his worst:

"The central question that emerges is whether the
White community in the South is entitled to take such
measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and
culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate
numerically? The sobering answer is Yes--the White
community is so entitled because, for the time being,
it is the advanced race. The question, as far as the
White community is concerned, is whether the claims of
civilization supersede those of universal suffrage.
The British believe they do, and acted accordingly, in
Kenya, where the choice was dramatically one between
civilization and barbarism, and elsewhere; the South,
where the conflict is by no means dramatic, as in
Kenya, nevertheless perceives important qualitative
differences between its culture and the Negroes', and
intends to assert its own. National Review believes
that the South's premises are correct. The great
majority of the Negroes of the South who do not vote
do not care to vote, and would not know for what to
vote if they could. Universal suffrage is not the
beginning of wisdom or the beginning of freedom. The
South confronts one grave moral challenge. It must not
exploit the fact of Negro backwardness to preserve the
Negro as a servile class. It is tempting and
convenient to block the progress of a minority whose
services, as menials, are economically useful. Let the
South never permit itself to do this. So long as it is
merely asserting the right to impose superior mores
for whatever period it takes to effect a genuine
cultural equality between the races, and so long as it
does so by humane and charitable means, the South is
in step with civilization, as is the Congress that
permits it to function."

-William F. Buckley, Jr. circa August, 1957

Fox News Porn

by Brave New Films

Nader on Obama & Clinton

Viet Cong Torture Victim: The Honorable Sen. John McCain by Andy K.

Earlier today the U.S. Senate approved a bill banning
the CIA and 15 other government agencies from using
waterboarding as an interrogation technique.

“Anyone who knows what waterboarding is could not be
unsure. It is a horrible torture technique used by Pol
Pot and being used on Buddhist monks as we speak,”
said Sen. John McCain at a campaign stop in Iowa on
October 25, 2007. McCain, who was tortured during his
5 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, added:
“People who have worn the uniform and had the
experience know that this is a terrible and odious
practice and should never be condoned in the U.S. We
are a better nation than that.”

Five Republicans joined the Senate Democrats to pass
the torture ban, but Senator McCain was not one of
them; the Arizona Senator voted to allow the U.S.
government to continue waterboarding.

US subsidizes Iran's nuke program; Lou Dobbs goes berserk

A priceless Lou Dobbs tantrum. At the end of the
video clip, Dobbs goes berserk on-camera. He's upset
because US taxpayers are subsidizing a Russian science
institute which is helping Iran enrich plutonium while
Bush threatens war against Iran for enriching
plutonium. (Poor Lou is apparently unaware of the
spare parts for the F-16 fighter jets that the
Pentagon supplies to Iran.) Dobbs can't believe that
this is happening and he doesn't understand why he's
the only one upset about it.

the problem with John Edwards

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI):

"The candidate who is the most problematic is [John]
Edwards, who voted for the Patriot Act, campaigns
against it. Voted for No Child Left Behind, campaigns
against it. Voted for the China trade deal, campaigns
against it. Voted for the Iraq war … He uses my voting
record exactly as his platform, even though he had the
opposite voting record. When you had the opportunity
to vote a certain way in the Senate and you didn't,
and obviously there are times when you make a mistake,
the notion that you sort of vote one way when you're
playing the game in Washington and another way when
you're running for president, there's some of that
going on."

fear-mongering, Bush/Cheney style

from the New Yorker magazine:

Sen. Hillary Clinton told a New Hampshire audience
that if Obama were elected, Al Qaeda would strike
America to test him. "I don't think it was by
accident that Al Qaeda decided to test the new Prime
Minister," she said, of the attempts in Great Britain
to plant bombs after Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair.

Rudy's astute analysis of Iowa

REPORTER: "Does your loss in Iowa worry you?"

RUDY GIULIANI: "None of this worries me -- Sept. 11,
there were times I was worried."