BT!

Blue Texan!

Hi Ann in AZ…

375 days and counting…

Hi, Biodun and Blue Texan. I told them downstairs where they could find us. Now I go read the post. See y’all later.

Oh boy. Here we go again. o/` This is the end… o/`

Reminiscent of Nixon’s desperate and ill fated bombing campaigns in Cambodia etc.

I had the exact same thought re: comparison with WWII. We have occupied that country for 5 years. Five Years. And yet we are still bombing the shit out of it. I truly am ’shocked and awed’ that this is happening, and that the country doesn’t get it, or even seem to care much.

Of course we’re winning! Isn’t that great for the Republicans?

I suspect “remaining strongholds” to be the big lie. Re-emerging, or one of thousands….

McCain’s trying to fold the clusterfuck into WWII’s occupations is, of course, just eculapatory bullshit. No one in Japan or Germany was shooting at us, for the simple reason that they were utterly defeated, and had formally surrendered.

No one in Iraq has surrendered, and if the insurgency has been defeated, then who killed those 9 of our troops, 3 days ago?

And I’m pretty fucking sure that 5 years after they surrendered, we weren’t shovelling $3 bil a week in to Japan or Germany.

McCain’s logic in this, is straight out of LGF or Freepers. I can’t wait for Obama or Edwards to get their teeth into it.

Clinton? She can’t even gum on it, for the simple reason that she’s close to McCain, on the war and, and on a “responsible” withdrawal.

Fear not. The Great Surge is working, and Bush Was Proven Right. All we need to do is listen to General Petraeus, for he will lead us to Victory. It’s just around the corner.

Yes, and if you believe that, I know where there’s a bridge for sale in Brooklyn. I can get it for you cheap!

Average American Consumers (erstwhile citizens) don’t know any more than what the right wing media wants them to know. That McCain can say that he opposed the way the war was managed, but believes that a surge (the surge) is the right way to go is absolutely ridiculous. The Media allows this kind of crap to go on all the time. The surge is nothing more than more of the same.

Fear not. The Great Surge is working, and Bush Was Proven Right. All we need to do is listen to General Petraeus, for he will lead us to Victory. It’s just around the corner.

Yes, and if you believe that, I know where there’s a bridge for sale in Brooklyn. I can get it for you cheap!

Oops! Another server breakdown. This comment may be in double or triple digits by the time it gets published!

Since there is obviously going to be a lull, I might as well point out that there supposedly is a new policy operative in Iraq. That is, let the Iraqi’s do their own thing politically. Apparently we’ve finally realized that we can’t impose democracy at the point of a gun successfully. Then, yesterday, I was reminded of a fitting quote by Winston Churchill:

You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they’ve tried everything else.

Everything that happens, every event good or bad that occurs, proves the rightness of the Grand Plan. It’s what many people say about God, so it’s easy for those folks to transfer that notion to the President.

Two points, quickly.
1. In trying to lock the next president into the policy disaster which is Iraq, Bushie is really reverting to form. Not that he leaves a shitpile for others to clean up, but rather that he spent his professional career in the oil business getting land for others to exploit. He went out, found the people with the rights, and persuaded them to let him broker out the rights to others in the industry who’d exploit the resource. That’s what he and Deadeye have been doing in Iraq, just on a scale larger than snookering some widow in West Texas out of a well or two worth of oil.
Taking the Iraqi oil resource is all this war has ever been about, and a form of colonialism (but without any responsibility for the people in the colony) is the result.

2. It needs be noted that German media characterized the bombing yesterday as “carpet bombing” (”Bomben-teppich”). They know from carpet bombing - and they’re still digging up many tons of duds per year.

Not to quibble but

I’m pretty sure we weren’t taking casualties in . . . South Korea in 1958.

During the 12 months beginning in November 1966, more than two dozen Americans were killed and scores more were wounded in combat. Artillery fire was used by ROK troops in April 1967 to repel a communist incursion in a battle that involved more than 100 men. In June of that year, a US 2d Infantry Division barracks was dynamited. September saw two South Korean trains blasted, one carrying US military supplies. In October, North Korean artillery fire sounded for the first time since 1953 when more than 50 rounds were fired at a South Korean army barracks. (5)

The action was by no means limited to the DMZ. In June 1967, four South Korean police and a civilian were killed in a battle with North Koreans near Taegu.(6) South Korean intelligence information indicated the communists were preparing an elaborate infiltration program for guerrilla warfare in the south and were hoping to enlist the masses for a full-scale subversive movement.(7)

EPU’ed off topic, but we need to kill this story, because we are going to face real issues of unreliable voting machines later.

LouCostello at 22 in the last thread wondered why there was a hand count versus machine count differential.

The reason, most likely, is that the difference reflects suburban/urban (where Clinton won 43/42-35/35) vs rural, where Obama won 39-34.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/20.....html#NHDEM

Rural precincts are more likely to hand count. I’ve been in the Dixville notch voting room, and I can assure you that all two dozen ballots are tallied by hand.
see the cnn exit polls.

I guess this is part of what’s going to raise bush’s numbers to 45% approval rating by the time he leaves the WH?

But St. McCain wants to stay in Iraq for another 95 years. Just look how petulant he gets when Ana Marie Cox presses him on that (h/t Greenwald). “Are we still in Japan? Are we still in Germany? Are we still in Korea?” shrieks St. McCain

I’m still waiting for a reporter to respond to that by saying, “And why is that?” Or “Ron Paul says that doesn’t make any sense either. Why ARE we still in Germany? Didn’t the wall come down? Why ARE we still in Japan? Isn’t that government stable now?”

There was a radio news report this morning about Bush’s ‘emotional trip to the Holocaust Memorial’ in Israel. He was very moved of course, and then called Condi over to tell her that we should have bombed Auschwitz in WWII. I’m not going to get into the merits of that - there may very well have been reasonable people at the time who advocated that. But the fact bombing the crap out of something is the first thing on his mind in a moving moment of tribute - well, to be frank it made me laugh because he has truly become a parody of himself.

375 days too many, but it will be the happiest day of my life. Really, I am not exaggerating.

dakine, if you are lurking, you’ve got mail.

OT but the email addy you left the other evening bounced on me.

markann at hotmail dot com? try it at gmail too

back home

in indiana

All we need to do is listen to General Petraeus, for he will lead us to Victory. It’s just around the corner.

I’m sorry, but I’m not familiar with that unit of time. Could you please translate this into Friedman Units?

Thanks.

In 10 days you can start your “shortimers calendar”.

The “surge” was a “success”: Heh. A perfect example of pure bullshit.

http://www.americanprogressact.....essreport/

The Center for American Progress’s Brian Katulis and Peter Juul write today that “Iraq at the start of 2008 is even more bitterly divided along ethnic and sectarian lines than it was at the start of 2007, increasing the possibility that the recent declines in violence may be a temporary lull.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....tml?sub=AR

…the sectarian cleansing that contributed to the recent decline in violence.

EPU’ed off topic, but we need to kill this story, because we are going to face real issues of unreliable voting machines later.

LouCostello at 22 in the last thread wondered why there was a hand count versus machine count differential.

The reason, most likely, is that the difference reflects suburban/urban (where Clinton won 43/42-35/35) vs rural, where Obama won 39-34.

But, what would account for the rural areas going for Obama? Intuitively, I would think the opposite would be true.

I call bullshit on McCain’s claims about new year’s eve in eyerack
he said people were in the streets it was wonderful…..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....02211.html

I guess if you are a creepy old guy this is your idea of “thousands in the street” where is the fact checking

Thanks - yeah the hotmail bounced.

We’re probably still in Germany and Japan because military contractors would like us to be.

Re:

Rural precincts are more likely to hand count. I’ve been in the Dixville notch voting room, and I can assure you that all two dozen ballots are tallied by hand.

Well that’s interesting… CNN reported 17 votes there. So did Brad Blog. You saw 24 votes getting counted? Omigod, SOUND THE FRAUD ALARMS! Mike Gravel wuz robbed!

Filed under Ahem:

JERUSALEM — President George W. Bush, on an emotional tour of Israel’s Holocaust memorial, stopped in front of an aerial photo of Auschwitz on Friday and told his secretary of state that the U.S. should have bombed the death camp to stop the extermination of Jews there, the memorial’s chairman said.

Fear not. The Great Surge is working, and Bush Was Proven Right. All we need to do is listen to General Petraeus, for he will lead us to Victory. It’s just around the corner.

I think they know it is hopeless..but now the strategy is to keep saying things are getting better until the Dems take over..same with the economy. Delay the disasters until after 01/20/09….One term Dem President. Happy days again for the Thugs..01/20/13

Scribe@15; that about bush trying to lock in the next president to his insanity, is spot-on.

And the hell of it is, it looks like he’s succeeded. Except for Paul, the repubs are arguing about who supported the surge the earliest, and the dems just don’t want to seem to want to talk about it.

Of course, there is the thing of them not wanting to shoot off their ammo in the primaries.

Most importantly, 6 months from now, in the middle of the election, I’m thinking that the Iraqis will know that they have george bush’s balls in that bench-vise, and they will start to squeeze.

As ever; gonna be a hell of a year.

I guess we’ll find out if Kucinich can raise the money for a recount. And then we can put this to rest. If there’s no there there about our concern with the counting of votes we’ll find out. I think it speaks volumes that so much money and energy has been put into making recounts difficult if not impossible. Reminds me of people who say about being surveilled, I have nothing to hide so why should I care? Bush/Cheney and thugs want to hide everything, but we supposed to trust them with all of our info including our vote.

We’re constantly being played with this phony Surge/escalation being part of the absolute contempt we’re held in by this administration. It’s a sad day when the only thing you can be sure of is that the administration is lying. Meanwhile the destruction of Iraq continues probably with uranium tipped missiles contaminating the land for thousands of years.

And Chimpy has now weighed in with his own tears:

Bush twice had tears in his eyes during an hour-long tour of the museum, said Yad Vashem’s chairman, Avner Shalev, who guided Bush through the exhibits.

(Same link as my 32.)

I would add a third diabolical point: the fact that Bush gets to leave for his successor a Chinese puzzle that lets the next administration share in the blame for the mess in Iraq and maybe, ultimately, for blowing up the ME to the point of WWIII.

Re:

Why ARE we still in Germany? Didn’t the wall come down? Why ARE we still in Japan? Isn’t that government stable now?”

Have you read Zbigniew Brzezinski’s “The Grand Chessboard”? How about the Project for a New American Century’s “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”?

If you had read those documents, you would not need to ask your questions. You would know that the answer to every question about our military, national debt and crumbling infrastructure has but one answer:

THE EMPIRE DEMANDS IT!

OT–

Giuliani is going broke:

Filed at 10:39 a.m. ET

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) — About a dozen senior campaign staffers for Rudy Giuliani are forgoing their January paychecks, aides said Friday, a sign of possible money trouble for the Republican presidential candidate.

”We have enough money, but we could always use more money,” contended Mike DuHaime, Giuliani’s campaign manager and one of those who now is working for free. ”We want to make sure we have enough to win.”

JayT; george bush has two Friedman’s left. At which point, he can dump the flaming bag of shit into the democrats laps, and they will have to use a LOT of Friedman’s, so that bush and the goopers won’t be able to talk about leaving the dems with “mission accomplished”, and they fucked it all up.

Only, I don’t think there are enough Friedman’s left in Thomas’s desk, to protect the dems from that little…inheritance. If they let junior get out of town and leave it to them, they’re up shit creek every bit as much as he is now.

And Obama picks up another endorsement–from a woman governor:

Filed at 10:33 a.m. ET

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is endorsing Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president, The Associated Press has learned.

Napolitano planned to make her intentions known during a conference call Friday, according to an individual familiar with her plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because she hadn’t publicly discussed the decision.

The endorsement is a major gain for Obama in his race against chief rival Hillary Rodham Clinton. One of several female governors, Napolitano is in her second term.

Biodun@39; not to worry; Judith can hock her $8,000 Louis Vuitton grab-bag to help pay the Rudester’s staffers *G*:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj0wS63_pO4

Bombing the country does wonders for winning hearts & minds. /snark

the votes are what they were. The last place I’d expect to see fraud is a town meeting place like NH or VT. Things are just too open, responsibilities too diffuse. You can see it in the methods themselves. No touch screens awarded under a shady contract. Paper trails.

That’s close to the neocon mantra: “We’re converting the whole world into democracies - one bomb at a time.”

MSNBC reporting that The Ghoul’s workers are “foregoing” their paychecks for January. The Ghoul, however, says that he’s got plenty of money, all’s well, not to panic, etc.

Uh-huh.

eCAHN: I have an OT question for you. People always say we recognize recession only when we’re no longer in it. If true, why?

U.S. should have bombed the death camp to stop the extermination of Jews there, the memorial’s chairman said.

reply

Why didn’t we bomb? That question raises a lot of other ugly questions about the US and the Holocaust.

See my 39.

The last place I’d expect to see fraud is a town meeting place like NH or VT.

Oh, I agree. If there was fraud (and I’m not saying there was), it was with the Diebold optical scanners in the urban areas, not the other way around.

Re:

But, what would account for the rural areas going for Obama? Intuitively, I would think the opposite would be true.

I had exactly the same thought. It’s counterintuitive for the NH rural vote to go to Obama. If anything it seems that would be a McCain stronghold.

The Surge = Polishing a Turd

Share the blame? Bush and the Republics are never going to accept any blame. They will spin a story about how well things were going while they were in charge and the new Admin messed everything up. The sad thing is that the Democrats are so innept that the Republics will get away with it.

Tom Segev, a leading Israeli scholar of the Holocaust, said the Bush comment, which appeared spontaneous, marked the first time an American president had made this acknowledgment.

“It is clear now that the U.S. knew a lot about it,” he said. “It’s possible that bombing at least the railway to the camps may have saved the lives of the Jews of Hungary. They were the very last ones who were sent to Auschwitz at a time when everybody knew what was going on.”

(Same link as my 32.)

See my 39.

Oh.

Never mind.

I’m a little slooow this morning.

http://img.photobucket.com/alb.....olish2.gif

Polishing a turd…I thought that was what Rover was working on for Bush’s legacy.

I’m still waiting for a reporter to respond to that by saying, “And why is that?” Or “Ron Paul says that doesn’t make any sense either. Why ARE we still in Germany? Didn’t the wall come down? Why ARE we still in Japan? Isn’t that government stable now?”

Anyone care to take a stab at an answer to those questions highlighted?

Don’t I remember talk of removing our troops from Germany being resisted by the Germans. The more $ we spend on a base on their territory presumably for their protection, etc., the less they have to spend. Simple, I think the bases in Germany represent a cash cow to their host country.

Isn’t the excuse for bases in Japan pretty much the same, except that they are not allowed by treaty to have an armed force. So our bases are meant for their defense. For that matter, are the Germans allowed to have their own armed force? I need an education here, so those who know for sure, please feel free to put your two cents in and make corrections to my presumptions and speculations, please.

Sorry, my number 58 is meant to reply to Scribe’s number 15.

We’re probably still in Germany and Japan because military contractors would like us to be.
reply/

If you had read those documents, you would not need to ask your questions. You would know that the answer to every question about our military, national debt and crumbling infrastructure has but one answer:

THE EMPIRE DEMANDS IT!

These are not the replies I would expect McCain to make, but I’d like to hear what that reply would be. And some followup.

Nothing irks me more than the fact that we have a well defined, imperial foreign policy and never, ever get to talk about it. Nobody ever explains why we are in Japan, Germany, Korea. It’s just taken for granted.

And that’s the plan for Iraq. Get the US casualties levels down, and then leave 50-75K unwelcome troops there indefinitely. Without ever having a policy discussion as to why.

I feel dead inside. Somebody tell me there were no children, no families, no young girls looking forward to a little joy in their hard lives, no young men learning a trade ——————————

I think you’re referring to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which took upon itself to be the arbiter of recession dating, and is now universally recognized to do so. In order to date recessions, you need data. Data are published after the fact, and since economic data are noisy, you need enough history to present an unambiguous picture. This takes a long time.

But that’s only the official record. Everyone involved in the economic forecasting business makes prognostications long before the NBER comes out with the official dates. And as for U.S. consumers, they recognize recessions contemporaneously, as evidenced by the consumer sentiment data.

I like your line of reasoning.

OT–

This morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Tweety, responding to Baba Wawa’s criticism of him for gender- baiting, bias, and bashing Hillary, said “I respect Barbara Walters a lot. But she’s wrong on this one. Don’t read the blogs. Don’t read Media Matters. Read something I can argue with.”

Unfortunately, there are plenty to go around.

Re:

Things are just too open, responsibilities too diffuse. You can see it in the methods themselves.

That’s not the layer where the potential problems lie. We need to think “Chain of Custody” on the data. For example, in Iowa if I understand correctly, the precinct captains called in their caucus totals to a central tabulation office… in Florida…. run by an Israeli company… which interfaced with the MSM. Do you think there might be a layer here where fraus is undetectable to the fine people of Iowa? I sure do.

And in New Hampshire, it’s all well and good for the fine folks who hand count the ballots and can see these total votes by precinct matched in the state’s listed totals. But what of the machine counted ballots? There is no audit on that 80% of the votes, at least none prior to Kucinich’s request for a hand recount. The weak link here is the propriety software in the tabulation machinery serviced by a rather notorious and unliked vendor.

Brad Blog has the scoop here:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5544#more-5544

Wow, sorry again. That was my #58 should be a response to jayackroyd January 11th, 2008 at 7:53 am #19.

Is that like as in bomb those who were getting exterminated…brilliant…one stop shopping….besides his grandfather was an American Nazi.

Speaking of all this, whatever happened to the vetoed defense spending bill?

You mean teeming metropolises like Nashua? Seriously, the political culture would make this very hard to do.

As carmen says, if Kucinich wants to pay for a recount, he should of course be able to do so. I’d prefer hand counted paper ballots in all precincts IAC.

And it matters much more in a primary that is not winner-take-all for the counts to be correct.

All that said, if someone screams fraud at every vote, then it’s just gonna be seen as partisan maneuvering and not concern for an open and effective process.

Thanks for that. I understand now. I could have gone to wiki, but I knew I could count on you…*g* You done skiing for the day?

Ray and Bilbo.

DO note that Dixville Notch went overwhelmingly for Obama.

Re:

I have an OT question for you. People always say we recognize recession only when we’re no longer in it. If true, why?

I’m not eKAHN, but I do know that recessions are generally known with about a 4 month drag due to reporting lags. So, if a recession started in September, it will be MSM news in January. And indeed that seems to be the case.

Recessions can last a varying number of quarters, so some brief ones are announced after the fact, but almost always they are reported mid-stream.

When I heard about that bombing yesterday, all I could think of was the terror the civilians of Iraq are experiencing. I wonder if these were depleted uranium bombs..

Please, march Bushco off to the Hague. Please. Dear God, end the reign of terror by the Bush Administration on the world. Hear my prayer.

tunnel light and tunnel vision for thoes basking media’s bomb glare.

Meanwhile, the Dem Congress is to try, and try again:

Filed at 11:10 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats controlling Congress are looking at tax rebates, extended unemployment benefits and more food stamps to stimulate the sagging economy.

But even as momentum builds behind those ideas — with President Bush increasingly open to proposing a stimulus package later this month — the effort is fraught with election-year risks for both Democrats and Republicans.

Nope, haven’t gone out yet. Snowing & blowing, but expected to clear later, so I’m waiting a bit to see what happens.

It really is inapproporiate to denigrate McCain in the way you do. You can disagree with him sure. But he is an entirely different person than Bush, Lieberman, etc. I suggest you visit where McCain spent a number of years in Hanoi and survived it with distinctive honor. He will never be a “creepy old guy”.

A big impetus as well is the world-domination philosophy of the neo-cons.

ray, it’s just a optical scan. worrying about this is like being suspicious the SAT is rigged.

it’s just a faster counting method.

yes, I saw that link in the last thread. He’s got nothing to support this position other than the Diebold name.

DHinMI has the definitive analysis.

Re:

Why didn’t we bomb? That question raises a lot of other ugly questions about the US and the Holocaust.

This makes no sense to me. These were prison camps. Most were hidden in rural locations and not known until Allied infantry forces stumbled upon them. Besides which, how insane is it to bomb a prison to save the people you’ve just blown to smithereens?

The Iraqi’s live their own 9/11 every fucking day, because Bush has declared Jihad on them. Why is Bush still the President???? Why are people asking him his opinion????

OT
McCain has a daughter and the little princess has a blog.
Lots of pictures,some are a good snapshot of the College republican types.
She is kinda cute,in a spoiled rotten, rich little airhead princess kinda way.

H/T Firestarter5 for the find. BTW, Firestarter5 is Canadian.

Speaking of all this, whatever happened to the vetoed defense spending bill?

The bill is sitting on Bush’s desk, he won’t sign it.

The idea would be to save the lives of all others not yet sent there. But that’s crazy, as they could have just bombed the train tracks.

There were people in the US who knew what was going on and were contributing…IBM for one - the Bush family for another.

The Iraqi’s live their own 9/11 every ####### day,

Isn’t that the truth. It’s disturbing how we in the US can think our pain is greater than another country’s.

I suggest you visit where McCain spent a number of years in Hanoi and survived it with distinctive honor.

Then he returned home to the wife who had waiting for him all of those years and promptly divorced her for a newer model.

get off my lawn

FDL toobz acting up! Repetition of comments…

The big camps, which the U.S. knew about, were too far away (in Poland) for bombers of the day, which were based in England.

Not to mention the point about bombing the prisoners to save them.

I am glad to see this post and the preceding one. The current meme of the White House dutifully promoted by a complicit press is that the surge has been a success and that the situation in Iraq is improving. This is only true if you ignore that the surge was to pressure the Iraqi government into achieving a series of benchmarks and providing the conditions for an overall and permanent political settlement. However, essentially none of the benchmarks were met. The Iraqi parliament took a month long vacation in August just before the supposedly make or break Petraeus appearance before Congress in September. The response of the Administration was to fudge on movement on the benchmarks, while at the same time blaming Iraqis for lack of progress on them and de-emphasizing their importance. This process has continued to the present point where “Iraqi solutions to Iraqi problems” is used as cover for giving up on both benchmarks and the political settlement.
What has happened on the ground, the success that Bush and the media are talking about, is that casualties Iraqi and American are down. The principal reason for this are two truces, one with the Sunni insurgency and with the Shia Mahdi Army. Both came about independently of the surge. On the Sunni side, the truce was the result of a tribal versus jihadist conflict. The Shia truce followed as Sadr’s militia decided not to become the principal focus of American operations and also as a public relations move after some disastrous Shia on Shia violence. Another important factor in the decrease of Iraqi casualties was the success of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad. American casualties also declined as a change in tactics as the US military shifted from large ground sweeps to a greater reliance on air power. This can be seen in the current operation, the first such in a while, where initial action on the ground produced American casualties so there was a switch to the much ballyhooed 40,000 lbs (or about eighty 500 lb bombs) of bombs dropped.
What all of the Administration’s talking points and media coverage miss and have missed is that the Iraqi civil war never went away. It is still there. This is the reason that no political progress has been made. Neither Bush nor Petraeus has ever recognized that to get to a political resolution the civil war needs to be addressed. They continue to see the conflict as between a weak central government and an insurgency. It is not. The real power in Iraq resides in the Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish militias and it will only be by brokering a deal between them, a dubious but necessary enterprise, that a political settlement will eventually be reached.

as they could have just bombed the train tracks.

Yep. See my 54.

The President has Sovereign Immunity from the Hague or any other International Treaty with most of the civilized countries of the world under Status of Forces agreements.

Another thought. Had they been bombed the concentration genocide camps, it would have erased the evidence. That may be behind Bush’s thinking. Interesting that you almost describe what is going on now with the black sites….Same old, same old….These are the same people…just a couple generations down the road….same people…

Re:

Nothing irks me more than the fact that we have a well defined, imperial foreign policy and never, ever get to talk about it. Nobody ever explains why we are in Japan, Germany, Korea. It’s just taken for granted.

I would strongly encourage folks at this cyberwatercooler to consider the Chalmers Johnson Trilogy:

Blowback

Sorrows of Empire

Nemesis

You will be amazed at what you don’t know and what Johnson can teach you about the realities of American foreign policy.

Oh, by the way, Johnson is more-or-less convinced tha the American Republic is dead. We are an Empire now. But not for long, the decline and fall are already in progress. Look for it in the panic of the FRB, in the ballooning National Debt and the rolling recessions of 2008.

And, biodun, on recessions, since they are defined as two consecutive down quarters, the EARLIEST the NBER could declare a recession is six months after it starts. And, of course, there are data revisions three months back most of the time.

Besides, we were too busy firebombing Dresden and all the civilians in every German city. It was more important to bomb German civilians than to bomb the Jews. Once again, the Jews became second class citizens.

DO note that Dixville Notch went overwhelmingly for Obama.

Sure, but the remaining concern is this: Did the entire state go overwhelmingly for Obama? And I’m no fan of Obama, believe me. Look, like I said above, I’m not saying there was fraud. I don’t know. But I’d just like to see some reasonable explanation for the pretty blatant dichotomy between hand-counted and machine-counted ballots.

Thanks, Ray, for the bradblog link.

So since Consumer sentiment is at record lows would one deduce that we are now in a recession?

Sorry, OT….

RD

This is a reply to your comments on an earlier thread. Paul Starr is a progressive treasure, starting with founding The American Prospect, perhaps the best monthly magazine of progressive policy analysis. While I respect the great work that Carl Bernstein did in his salad days, his recent biography of Hillary Clinton was a hack job, and nowhere near the fine journalism he has done in the past or is capable of doing in the future.

Read the entire Starr piece about HillaryCare. The point of the article, written by someone who was there, is that it was Bill’s plan, and she took the blame for it. Then, after you’ve actually read it, and not dismissed it out of hand because it criticized someone you admire (who might have deserved the criticism), then we can have a conversation about how to go forward to achieve universal health care in a new Democratic administration.

Here at the ‘Lake, we take seriously the obligation to educate ourselves and our fellow commenters about the issues. The Starr piece was one of several pieces in TAP about the 93-94 debacle. Read Young Ezra Klein, who blogs there, for substantive criticism of everyone’s plans for health care reform.

Prescott Bush supported Hitler. That is one reason nobody did anything about the camps. They supported Hitler’s policies.