the right wing has been aggressively launching inaccurate attacks against the House stimulus bill, claiming that progressives want to waste “hundreds of millions on contraceptives.”

If only they were spending “hundreds of millions on bronzing creams”, Boehner would be happy.

And more good news for the upstate NY economy.

BushCo is truly the gift that keeps on giving.

The Siena Research Institute found Paterson leading Cuomo by only 2 percentage points in a hypothetical matchup, down from December when Paterson led by 23 points. Among Democrats, Paterson beats Cuomo, 35 percent to 33 percent.

Hey there Patterson you reap what you sow. By appointing a DLC, right wing tyro to the open Senate seat Patterson has, hopefully , cooked his own goose. aaaawwwww.

I’m pretty disgusted with this caving on the stimulus package. Does Obama not understand that the American people want a dem solution to the problem? Instead of caving, get your talking points in order and everybody hit the news shows.
I saw Biden Sunday, he did a great job on explaining raising unemployment benefits vs eliminating the income tax on those benefits. Same result but one will be immediate and the other will take a year. So simple and concise. Others didn’t do as good a job on the contraceptive part. Hold a training session, practice interviews, whatever it takes. Then convince the American people rather than caving.

Morning everybody! I guess this also goes under the category of “Who could’ve ever expected ?” But the horrendously sloppy reporting on the CBO “report” still pisses me off to no end. Not only did they report as news and as fact horseshit that was spoon fed to them by Republican assholes, but wghat happens now? Corrections? Retractions? “Updates” even? No freaking way. yesterday’s new’s cycle. time to move on to more “news.” Like I’m not pissed enough already, let me go read the Glen Beck link.

The number the RWNFs were quoting was “$100 million for condoms” This morning the number had somehow jumped to “$200 million for condoms”. It did not matter though Obama was ready to cave at $100million. Good to see they are taking a principled stand /*s

The contraceptive thing has been a disaster. Maybe not in the long run but it has the Dems off balance a little. Obama needs to hit the road and use the bully pulpit. What do you guys think? That to attract enough R votes they’ll add more tax cuts and strip some spending?

In my section of CNY, I haven’t actually seen any job losses other than Circuit City. Of course, there’s almost no industry left to downsize. The big employer is a gun manufacturer (Remington Arms). We lost most manufacturing jobs years ago. So, I’m not seeing what the rest of the country is enduring…..yet. To my knowledge, CC is the only retail store to close thus far.

Not surprising th R’s are pushing the condom thing. They are, after all, scumbags themselves.

I tried to use the White House Contact Us page but if you hit Enter/Return to start a new line it sends the message. Can we send our backstage folks to the WH to show these bozos how to set up a website?

“I won” my ass. The Rethugs say jump and Obama asks how high. Fuck that.

Where I want the spending is on turning everything green. You get manufacturing, construction and better energy. It’s not even being emphasized. The freeking dems are always off balance.

Do we know for a fact that a clear, concise, convincing argument can be made that support for contraceptives serves as a timely economic stimulus. I agree with you that the arguments I saw on this were not convincing, but I don’t know if they can be. I think to most of the public, it appears as a reversion to old time liberal goals, similar to the Republican one trick pony of tax reduction. My immediate reaction was to be glad if it were put aside, like wearing a flag pin. I’m strongly on the administration’s side, and if I can’t be easily convinced, it seems like a loser at this time.

Think of how organized the repubs were with their mushroom cloud bullshit. Their roll-out was a thing of beauty. Everyone, everywhere was pushing that issue. Why can’t the dems be as successful?

Haggard the Horny! Masturbator of Gawd! Gawd might forgive him but I don’t if his Christian friends will.

After the Haggard scandal in November 2006, Haas said he contacted the church immediately.

The church has said it struck a legal settlement with the man — it has not named Haas — in 2007 that paid him for college tuition and counseling as long as he did not speak publicly about the relationship. Brady Boyd, Haggard’s successor as pastor at New Life, called it “compassionate assistance — certainly not hush money.”

According to documents Haas provided KRDO, he is to be paid $179,000 through 2009. Haas claimed the church didn’t follow through on promises to pay for counseling and medical treatment.

“Their main focus was, you know, cover it up, don’t say anything,” he said. “You’ll regret it if you come forward.”

You think so? I don’t know that I’d go that far, SoDrag. Yet. But starting out saying thew he wanted 80 votes in the Seante for the stimulus package was just plain stupid and a guarantee for a piece of shit bill. Hopefully, he’ll move off that. I’m not at al encouraged by teh line being fed to progressives who want a better stimulus bill “Let’s pass the piece of shit now and we’ll come back and do it right later.” Not gonna happen.

not strictly a stimulus but how about prevention of sexually transmitted diseases? isn’t that an investment in the infrastructure of the population’s health?

ok, i’m stretching the use of the term infrastructure – but not really that much, imo.

And it would help the states by reducing their medicaid spending.
So much goes back to healthcare. Have a universal program and a lot of problems disappear.

I’d rather get things like that later. To me, the connection is not clear enough when you’re trying to bail water from the lifeboat. It leaves cheap shot openings for Republicans which can readily erode Obama’s current public support.

I’m off. See everyone later.

If he used the 80 vote statement to set the Rethugs up for a whoopin’ in 2010 that’s one thing but to pander to the hard-right assholes like Boner and Granma McConnell is a waste of time. One of the main goals of the contraceptive thing was to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. The Rethugs still regard HIV/AIDS as a punishment from their vengeful God. Fuck that too. Man, both Siun and BT’s posts pushed my buttons this mornin’. Fuckin’ politicians.

but this thing is going to be so huge, there’s always going to be something the R’s can cherry pick. I thin k Obama really has to double down on this and emphassize the unprecedneted (at least in the last say, 70-75 years) nature of the situation and paint the R’s as offering old ideas that just won’t cut it under the circumstances. One problem is he’s already loaded up the vbill wityh alot of tax cuts that it’s got palenty of the old approach, too. I guess he’s gotta say that the tax cuts are focused for the little guy.

Because every single bit of major TV networks, radio, and newspaper is a propaganda machine for BigMoney/Repub interests.

We’re helping change this and have had some success, but it is still overwhelming, and I don’t envy a Liberal having to go up against this.

Having said that, I do think they could be more brazen on whole, but I don’t really know anything about the particulars with this bill yet.

Whenever I hear the Rs griping about specific spending items that would actually like, you know, help people, I wonder whether we are cutting back on spending on things like Blackwater and building detention camps on US soil or developing databases and server farms for spying on us.

Others didn’t do as good a job on the contraceptive part.

The ones I’ve seen talking about it have done (pardon the French) a shit poor job! And now, of top of that, there’s talk the Dems are gonna cave on it….whether there’s any truth to that rumour or not, who knows. :-(

what do you think is the most important part of the stimulus package (either included or what you would like to be included)?

Yeah. Like I said in my #5, my buttons have been pretty much pushed ,too. And you’re right about the AIDS/HIV thing. He’s trying to push amn economic stimulus bill an it’s getting sidetracked on that shit. Who said above that it was a great job by the R’s? Absolutely right. Combined with a shitty job by “our people” (wonder about that sometimes, it’s not good.

I think they will be able to do that in the House. The Senate is the issue. I just think it would have been easier and left greater support if it were, as much as possible, hard hat, bread and butter, jobs stimulus.

Good morning.

Let’s start an blog poll on how long it will take for Obama to cave on everything.

Left ya a couple downstairs. Prolly didn’t explain myself very well, though. It’s hard to explain.

Obama’s “I won” = revised form of sternly worded letters?

In general, I would have preferred just New Deal type expenditures, new electrical grid, highway/bridge repair, etc. I agree that we shouldn’t have conceded so much on tax reduction.

Go give Cohen some love on his advocating torture criminals be given a lullaby.

BT, I think Turley is jumping the gun on this torture prosecution thing in that we need an attorney general before we can do much of anything on the last administration.

agreed. they’re not going to be able to get that in any “Round 2″.

Canjprski’s on WJ explaining that the Congress doesn’t know shit. Good job. /s

I was in Nordstrom Sunday, and they had about half the inventory they normally do. Very few shoppers.

that’s the first I heard exactly what the threat to the system was that required the immediate bailout in the first place.

The problem with that type of expenditures is then the thugs hit ya with the “it doesn’t produce an immediate stimulus effect”. As usual, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t and I’m with Dragon and BfL — so far past pissed you couldn’t get there from here. :-(

Oh you know the Rs had to go through it with a fine-tooth comb to find something they could turn into a wedge issue “see, look, the liberals want to spend money encouraging people to fuck.” They don’t have anything constructive to contribute and that is obvious and I hope President Obama and his supporters will point that out to them without going on the defensive about why providing contraceptives is good. Is it just condoms or all constraceptives they are against? I think we should make them explain exactly why they are choosing that particular line item to criticize and then laugh at them.

gotcha. thanks SD.

… back later for the gates hearing (9:30am)

as I understand it he was responding to something that had already been raised in the campaign (not sure what. anybody? was it their bullshit argument that he wants to cut taxes for people who “don’t pay taxes’?) Anyway, he was making the point that we’ve been over that and he was telling them taht since he won, tey should move on to something new, if you have anything new to offer. But it wasn’t boastful or talking trash.

Yep. That, anyhow, was worth listening for. However, “an electronic run on the bank” is close to how Krugman describes it in Depression Economics.

We’ll see. The stimulus bill should be a good indication of how the administration is going to function with Congress.

what was said? what i’ve heard previously was about the run on the money market funds (by institutional fund managers) that went critical on sept 15 (? or was it the 16th?).

Well, it sounds like he’s goin’ downhill rapidly. :-( What is this asshole’s forkin’ agenda?…….it sounds like he’s got an “R” after his name vs. “D”.

You’ve read that already? Damn. Amazon’s out of stock so I’ve got to wait to order it.

Got another take of that one from some fundie blog I stumbled on…..they were raisin’ all holy hell about D’s being against “growing” the family.

Think there’s something wrong with amazon & that book. Did you order it by clicking on the FDL button? I got that bogus notice from amazon that they “couldn’t fill my order,” so I bought it at a bookstore, where there were plenty in stock.

Yeah, I know, darlin’ but that sure ain’t the way it’s been reported ad nauseum (sp?).

he talked about the specter of an electronic run on the bank
see eCAHN

more mouths to feed during a prolonged recession. brilliant. I keep forgetting to disconnect logic circuits in brain before considering these issues.

When I ordered Plunder and Blunder Sunday Depression Economics was one of the titles shown as something I might be interested in. When I clicked on it the blurb said “ships in 1 to 3 weeks.” One of the other commenters said it might be that the demand for it exceeded the publishers expectations. I’ve prolly got enough to keep me occupied for the next 3 weeks and with the little dust I make saving 10 bucks on a book is a big deal.

Christy upstairs

in a way, i kinda like it the way it as being reported as nauseum. smackdown.

Here is a good one: MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

SUBJECT: Freedom of Information Act

A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike.

Gaza Horror: Updated Large Photo Gallery of Gaza Massacre by Israel
(takes some time to open)

DIGG is open.

pup34