New Developments III

[Greg]

Florida has a US Senate election in 2010. Marco Rubio is challenging Florida Governor Charlie Crist for the Republican nomination. If he wins the nomination, after saying something like this, I think the Democrats can count on picking up the seat.


GOP Senate Candidate Marco Rubio Calls For Suspending Congress For Two Years To Fix The Economy

Last night on CNBC, Marco Rubio, a right-wing Republican running for US Senate in Florida, told host Larry Kudlow about his “solutions to the high unemployment” and economic recession. Rubio chafed at responding with any actual ideas, policies, or solutions. In fact, Rubio proposed that if he were elected, he would call for “a two year recess or something” so no laws or reforms could be enacted:

KUDLOW: If you were elected Senator, what would you do about the 10% unemployment rate, which may or may not be 10% if and when you get in? But, what are your general solutions to the high unemployment and worries about the economic recession?

RUBIO: Well the problem is the people in Washington don’t understand what’s causing it. They think that Presidents and Senators are job creators and they’re not. The job creators are people who have access to money, whether it’s their own or borrowed, who use that money to open up a new business or expand an existing one. And they’re not doing that right now because of the tax chaos and all the regulatory chaos and all of this uncertainty created in Washington DC. Perhaps the most stimulative thing they can do right now is take a two year recess or something.


http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/13/rubio-dissolve-congress/

[OscarGuy]

I'm bound to get someone to pitch a fit at my re-posting that to Facebook, but the issue is a serious one and the cartoon is just plain funny.

[Greg]

Echoes of Denmark? Tea baggers send death threats to cartoonist

By Daniel Tencer
Friday, January 8th, 2010 -- 2:23 pm

An award-winning California-based political cartoonist says he is receiving death threats over a 90-second animated film he created that teaches viewers "how to speak Tea Bag."

Mark Fiore compares his predicament to that of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, whose cartoon depicting the prophet Mohamed caused rioting across the Muslim world several years ago, and an attempt on his life last week.

"Muslim extremist, meet Tea Party extremist. Tea Party extremist, meet Muslim extremist," Fiore writes on his blog.

Fiore's video, which appeared on NPR's Web site, causing outrage from some conservative commentators, offers a tongue-in-cheek 90-second lesson in speaking like a tea bagger.

"If you're having trouble understanding the words of others, use Tea Bag's stronger, more descriptive ways," the narrator suggests, to which a tea-bagger is seen responding: "Nazi! Nazi! Nazi!"

"When speaking Tea Bag, it's not polite to draw attention to others' campaign contributors or industry connections," the narrator says. "Remember, they speak Tea Bag just like you.

"Tea Bag: because other languages are just too hard," the narrator concludes.

That drew harsh criticism from Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, who attacked NPR for posting the video on its Web site. In a discussion of the video with another Fox News personality, O'Reilly wondered whether the Fiore video was a sign that the non-profit radio network is a "left-wing Jihadist deal. . ."


There is a link to the video at the end of the link to the source.

http://rawstory.com/2010/01/tea-baggers-death-threats-cartoonist/

[taki15]

While I agree with most that Obama and Reid's performance was less than stellar during the health care debate, I would like to play devil's advocate a bit.


Five cost controls in the Senate health-care bill

[Big Magilla]

As Ted Kennedy would have said something is better than nothing. Inching forward is better than standing still.

There is a provision that limits insurance company overhead, stating that 80-85% of premiums paid must go to health care - how you enforce something like I don;t know.

Harry Reid did a monumental job even if he had to give away half the store to do it. The Nebraska deal will be thrown out.

The Republicans are to blame here. This is partisanship at its lowest level. In the 1930s when FDR wanted social security legislation passed, the Republicans opposed it but eventually a number of them voted for it. Same with LBJ and Medicare in the 1960s. The Democrats, likewise knuckled under to Reagan's tax cuts in the 1980s after opposing them in early debate.

There is a sinister agenda here. It should be fairly obvious that the Republicans have been out to undermine the newly elected president from the get-go. They didn't support him on the stimulus, they didn't support him on health care and they are not going to support him on anything else.

[OscarGuy]

I have two words for Harry Reid: "Budget Reconciliation"...then I'd follow that with, "dumb ass"

Lyndon Johnson these guys aren't. But, I mostly blame Harry Reid. Although there are some disagreeable things in the House version, at least Nancy Pelosi had the balls to flog her caucus into shape and get something at least more interesting (though that Abortion language needs to be jettisoned).

[Sonic Youth]

No, it's the Democratic party's fault because they have no brains, no spine and no balls, and they capitulate to everything... as we've learned from the days of the Bush administration. Republicans are going to be Republicans and centrists are going to be centrists, we know that already. But there's no reason why a large majority in congress and a (formerly) popular president could only come up with this glass of water, unless they're weak and inept. Would Lyndon B. Johnson have put up with Leiberman's shenanigans? I doubt it.

[OscarGuy]

You mean the health care bill that will force everyone to get insured, giving the insurance industry millions of new customers while not doing a damned thing to bring down costs?

I'm disappointed and it's all Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and Joe "douche" Lieberman's faults.

[Sonic Youth]

Senate finally passes health care bill

Introducing the new status quo. How depressing.

[taki15]

During the last days of Health Care debate, liberals must be feeling like they are living through a bad remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".

White House thanks Lieberman but criticizes Howard Dean!

House Dems want to avoid votes on "controversial bills" for gays, labor & Latinos next year

Between Taibi's devastating article and these later developments, I really can't blame the Democratic base, especially the young ones, if they feel disgusted and sit on their hands during next years elections.

[Greg]

Nev. brothel aims to offer 1st male prostitutes

LAS VEGAS – The owner of a brothel more than two hours' drive from Las Vegas said she hopes to hire Nevada's first legal male prostitutes within a month, now that state health officials have approved a method to test men for infectious diseases.

The world is ready for women, or even other men, to legally buy sex, said Shady Lady Ranch owner Bobbi Davis. Plus, being the first to offer male service could boost business in tough economic times, she said.

"With so many other male revues going on in Vegas, we thought it was time to give this a try," Davis told The Associated Press.

Until now, men have been effectively barred from legally plying the world's oldest profession in Nevada by the specificity of a state health law requiring prostitutes to undergo frequent cervical testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

The health board approved a regulation to allow urethral testing for men — a crucial rule change by the state agency with ultimate power over whether prostitutes can or can't work.

For more than 25 years, no licensed female prostitute in Nevada has contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, said George Flint, a Reno wedding chapel owner and longtime lobbyist for the Nevada Brothel Owners Association.

"My concern is that we continue to maintain that kind of record," he said.

Davis, Flint and Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo all acknowledged Friday that Davis still needs county approval to become the first of the state's 24 legal brothels to offer a lineup of men.

"We're going to look at it. We have some concerns," said DeMeo, who serves as a voting member of both a county health commission and a board that oversees alcohol, gambling and brothel licenses.

"The ramifications of this are going to be statewide," he said. "We're going to have to deal with it at our other six brothels in Nye County if they want to offer the same service. We want to make sure we protect customers and make sure the industry is regulated with clarity and understanding."

Prostitution has been legal in rural Nevada counties since 1971 under strict state health board oversight but is against the law in the Las Vegas and Reno areas.

Flint said he feared the idea of male prostitutes serving male clients could spur a legislative backlash. He said he works to make the brothel industry socially acceptable to both libertarians and conservatives.

"I think the Legislature is really going to give me some heartburn over this," Flint said in a telephone interview after appearing before the state Health Board in Carson City on Friday to endorse the Shady Lady proposal.

"But I think it's an inevitability," he added, "and the brothel association has reluctantly agreed to support this as a test."

Davis said she wants to add two men to the three women she currently has living and working at her compound of trailers off U.S. 95 about 150 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

She said the women usually charge about $300 per hour for the five to 20 customers who visit on any given night.

"We don't know how to structure the men's pricing yet," Davis said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s...._nevada

[taki15]

If Obama's detractors want to find some REAL ammunition against him, then they should look no further than Matt Taibi's article from "Rolling Stone".
It's a really devastating piece that will make ill even the most cynical of people.

Obama's Big Sellout

"The president has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway

MATT TAIBBI

Posted Dec 09, 2009 2:35 PM

Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers "at the expense of hardworking Americans." Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it's not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. What inspired supporters who pushed him to his historic win was the sense that a genuine outsider was finally breaking into an exclusive club, that walls were being torn down, that things were, for lack of a better or more specific term, changing.

Then he got elected.

What's taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside."


It's long but well worth your time.

[Greg]

Between the lines, an expansion in Pakistan
President quietly authorizes action against al Qaeda, Taliban militants

By David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt

updated 5:34 a.m. ET, Wed., Dec . 2, 2009
WASHINGTON - President Obama focused his speech on Afghanistan. He left much unsaid about Pakistan, where the main terrorists he is targeting are located, but where he can send no troops.

Mr. Obama could not be very specific about his Pakistan strategy, his advisers conceded on Monday evening. American operations there are classified, most run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Any overt American presence would only fuel anti-Americanism in a country that reacts sharply to every missile strike against extremists that kills civilians as well, and that fears the United States is plotting to run its government and seize its nuclear weapons.

Yet quietly, Mr. Obama has authorized an expansion of the war in Pakistan as well — if only he can get a weak, divided, suspicious Pakistani government to agree to the terms.

In recent months, in addition to providing White House officials with classified assessments about Afghanistan, the C.I.A. delivered a plan for widening the campaign of strikes against militants by drone aircraft in Pakistan, sending additional spies there and securing a White House commitment to bulk up the C.I.A.’s budget for operations inside the country.

The expanded operations could include drone strikes in the southern province of Baluchistan, where senior Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, officials said. It is from there that they direct many of the attacks on American troops, attacks that are likely to increase as more Americans pour into Afghanistan.

“The president endorsed an intensification of the campaign against Al Qaeda and its violent allies, including even more operations targeting terrorism safe havens,” said one American official. “More people, more places, more operations.”

That was the message delivered in recent weeks to Pakistani officials by Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser. But the Pakistanis, suspicious of Mr. Obama’s intentions and his staying power, have not yet agreed.

'Epicenter' of Al Qaeda
General Jones was one of a series of American officials who arrived in Pakistan in recent weeks with the same message: no matter how many troops the president commits to Afghanistan, the strategy will founder unless the safe haven inside Pakistan is dealt with.

However, the United States does not have much leverage and is counting on a new attitude and a huge acceleration of efforts from a weak government. Making matters worse, the president, Asif Ali Zardari, is often at odds with the nation’s powerful military and intelligence establishment.

The question about Mr. Obama’s Pakistan strategy is whether the new commitment of troops and resources can ultimately make America safer at a time of an evolving terrorist threat. Mr. Obama insisted that was his central focus. . .

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34234777/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times/

[Greg]

Many continue to oppose troop buildup, threaten to block funding



While President Obama on Tuesday attempted to persuade the American public that his strategy in Afghanistan would prove successful, an equal challenge lay in winning over skeptics within his own party.

Democrats on Capitol Hill remain divided over the troop expansion outlined by the president, with some suggesting they would mount an effort to cut off funding for the 30,000 additional troops.

"Rather than nation-building in Afghanistan, we should be doing a little more nation-building at home," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).

Many Democrats, however, supported the president's decision and urged their party to keep dissent to a minimum.

"This is a very difficult and complex situation with no guarantee of success," said Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.). "I am glad that the president has taken the time to maximize the chances that we will succeed."

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, praised Obama for setting a start date for withdrawal, a move the previous administration resisted. "We couldn't get a timeline out of Bush," Levin said.

For others, that was not enough.

"While I'm encouraged that the president laid out clear goals and a responsible timeline for completion, I remain skeptical about a commitment of 30,000 of our servicemen and women," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

Others said that although they agreed with several aspects of Obama's strategy, such as expanding a strategic partnership with Pakistan, they still could not back the troop expansion.

"I support the president's mission and exit strategy for Afghanistan, but I do not support adding more troops," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) said Obama's decision carried "eerie echoes of Vietnam."

For some Democrats, opposition to the troop increase could lead to an attempt to block supplemental funding to cover the $30-billion price tag of the buildup. Levin said a vote on such a supplemental measure could come early next year.

http://www.latimes.com/news....4.story

[Sonic Youth]

Any reaction to the NY Times article today, which says Obama's speech tomorrow is going to be framed around the exit strategy from Afghanistan, even while it ups the troop level for a temporary period? That seems to me to put the lie to "we're going into a quagmire", but most people don't even appear to be reacting to it.

What exit strategy? All I heard were benchmarks.