Morning Christy,

Hatch is another ass gall

It cannot be said enough times that the GOP and the Right are deathly afraid of the passage of progressive policies because they know that progressive policies not only work but are popular with the vast majority of working Americans. Hatch speaks for the elitist minority that want more tax cuts for themselves on the backs of those “[edited by mod]”.

[Mod note: please take care in the use of racially charged terms]

As you know though Christy, for all his foppery, Lord Blakeney, actually was doing something positive.

GOoPers? Not so much.

All together now for Hatch and his disapointments: AWWWWWWW. That’s really too bad. You had the chance and..blew it. Some times it’s better to take the deal rather than walk away from the table.

I absolutely love that movie. I know it’s total teevee movie of the week trashy romance hilarity, and I should love the original with Leslie Howard because it really is a classic. But Anthony Edwards takes this role to new heights of hilarity and the mytery of how they got Jane Seymour to look like she has bosoms cracks me up.

Love it. Have been waiting and waiting for a way to work a Percy Blakeney reference into a post for ages. *g*

Jane Seymour

Be still, my beating heart.

The trickle down folks just think that we need to keep giving our kids money to the rich and then the system will take care of all. What we need to worry about is LGBT and making sure everybody has guns.

AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Hardin Smith and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

As one who works in the health care delivery system and will soon be relying on that system to keep me alive so I ken pay taxes for Wells Fargo’s purchase of 11 billion dollars of worthless assets, I am tired of the muderers and extortionists telling the rest of us what’s good for us and our children. The huge numbers of children who need health care coverage are the direct result of the exploitation and theivery of the money changers and slave masters who have run the modern world economy through the multinational corporations.

ENOUGH!! I love President Obama but I am fed up with extending the hand of concilliation and compromisde to the monsters who are responsible for the terrible mess we’re in…so nationalize the banks, liquidate every corporation in the country and confiscate their remainin assets, bring RICO charges against every family in the oligarchy so as to gain access to the cash that has been stolen over the last 8 years (28 years actually) and send the Bush administration to the Hague for trial.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE FUCKIN’ AMMUNITION, NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY!!

Morning Christy. The R’s never fail to impress me with the whining they get away with in the media, and it all gets promoted like theirs is the only opinion that counts. Can’t the Dems learn from this hackery with a little PR blitz of their own? Seems like the only folks standing in front of cameras are the R’s complaining about taxes & fiscal responsibility (well, with the exception of Barbara Boxer this AM). Our Dems really need to learn to blitzkreig with the panache of the R’s, maybe then they will get some media attention.

Well said. And I know there’s more.

We do seem to lack the ability to push a decent, easy-to-follow narrative into the media for some reason, don’t we? And I don’t get why that is, given that this story is about public health and safety and the welfare of children whose families have fallen on hard times and the greedy bastards who’d rather help hedge fund managers.

Good lord, that has really good story for the masses written all over it, doesn’t it?

Well, Ds could start by thinking about a catchier name than SCHIP. Part of the Ds’ too-dumb-to-live wing that they haven’t done it yet.

Boner and McConnell are all over the teebee. Where the hell are Pelosi, Reid and any other Dem (Blue Dogs excluded) who can speak in complete sentences?

Hatch’s brand of political hackery is always a sight to behold.

He went all starry eyed and nautical on us yesterday in his praise of Geitner

Lest we not forget:

In her testimony Friday, the 35-year-old Professor Hill said that Judge Thomas made references to her about a movie actor called “Long Dong Silver.” Today, Senator Hatch asked Judge Thomas, “How could this quiet, retiring women know something like ‘Long Dong Silver?’ Did you tell her?”

“No,” Judge Thomas replied. “I don’t know how she knows.”

Senator Hatch then advanced his own theory. Apologizing for the language, he read from a Federal District Court case, Carter v. Sedgwick County, Kan., in which the plaintiff accused the defendant of presenting her “with a picture of ‘Long Dong Silver,’ — a photo of a black male with an elongated penis.”

“I’m sure it’s available there at the law school in Oklahoma,” Senator Hatch said. “And it’s a sexual harassment case.”

Waving a copy of “The Exorcist” before Judge Thomas, Senator Hatch then recounted what Professor Hill had testified was the “oddest episode,” when, she said, the nominee asked her, “Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?”

With a disgusted look, Senator Hatch read from the novel: ” ‘Oh Burke,’ sighed Sharon. In a guarded tone, she described an encounter between the Senator and the director. Dennings had remarked to him in passing, said Sharon, that there appeared to be an alien pubic hair floating around in my gin.’ “

Senator Hatch said it was puzzling that Professor Hill never told investigators of “anything about ‘Long Dong Silver’ or pubic hair,” and only brought out those details when asked Friday by Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Delaware Democrat who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to provide details of Judge Thomas’s alleged unwanted sexual behavior toward her.

The movie? You need to read the book(s) by Baroness Orczy. Quite entertaining and you can envision your own historical movie characters (mixing Leslie Howard and Jane Seymour for example).

707, Mr. Former Nice Guy.

Our leaders need to learn the old lesson that the message is in the massage.

Trying to remember if I’ve ever read the book and I don’t think I have…I’m sensing a trip to the library when our roads stop being so icy…

“in case folks inside the Beltway hadn’t noticed.”

Kids and families needing help right now? Bwahahahahaha! You silly liberal goose! /s

Let’s keep Pelosi & Reid out of the kleig lights – they step in it every time.

A little “judicious access” to the White House press room will go a long way in getting the message out, maybe even changing the tune to a more “amicable” level. Imagine what the media masters would have to go through to explain why they were barred from the press room, or that their questions were ignored. Let them stick to the propaganda then. For a moment imagine Fox snews unable to report the WH. What would they do then? There is no constitutional guarantee their right to access.

I know but they are the Speaker and Majority Leader. Hmmm, maybe we would get more attention if the media was constantly having to ask Dems where the S and ML were? Hmmmm, evil mind thinking of new media strategy for Dems.

Dems & strategery – interesting concept.

Oh, that would surely underline Obama’s lip service to transparency and change. /s

No, no, I was thinking of strategy. Then we tell the Dems what to do.

I’m going to check, but if I recall, Hatch voted for SCHIP last year. I know it had some R support in the senate and a few of the votes surprised me. If I’m right wouldn’t that confirm that he is a hypocritical head-to-toe, walking, talking asshole ?

You needed confirmation?

Ds listening to their constituents. Another interesting concept.

For a moment imagine Fox snews unable to report the WH. What would they do then?

Make stuff up, just like they do now. You’d never notice a change, except for possibly some additional whining.

He did vote for it — he’s whining because the Dems upped the provisions in this one instead of offering the same old deal from last year. A deal which isn’t nearly sufficient given the current economic numbers, and Hatch knows it.

If you click through the link, you can see the whole of the whining. It’s classic Hatch malarky.

Damn, I gotta lotta work to do on this. *g*

We approach perfection iteratively.

*g*

Sorry I didn’t read the link first, Christy. My bad. I just skimmed this and saw he was railing against SCHIP and hit the keyboard. He’s still an asshole, though.

The Dems only respond to the R’s – they don’t care what we have to say. It’s all just a big game of checkers and we are always getting jumped.

Hatch is disappointed? I guess he thought the dems would back down on this like they always do.

I’m going to need to see a lot more of this from the dems before I believe they understand they won this last election.

Hatch is a plutocratic putz.

-G

No problem. The thing that really irked me with this is Hatch’s preoccupation with the legislation being the same — as if events in the economy have been operating in a vaccuum for thelast few months. Wake up and smell the Postum…

Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone with fresh thoughts thru the Blagometer on how the D’s could screw up anything…

No, no, I was thinking of strategy. Then we tell the Dems what to do.

standing up and cheering!

one thing that came home to me (again) after listening to some of the “house” debate last night was that while the Rs were batshit crazy as per usual, what really has me concerned is that the Ds seem incapable of stating, let alone making a coherent case for, what we actually need.

we have a lot of problems to address, and right now, with the presidency, the senate and the house in democratic hands, our main impediments to getting stuff done are no longer the republicans – it is now the democrats

……

p.s. welcome home christy, great to have you back.

And Foxidiots like Gretchen Carlson stumbling over al-Arabiya….

the bimboness, it burns….

We seem to have an interesting medical care gap here among children….one is the “have” group who is “overtreated” with antibiotics and whose gold standard of care harms us all as bacteria become resistant. The other is the “have nots” who will possibly suffer longterm major consequences from undiagnosed/treated strep infections.

There are some analogies in there that remind me of our current economic mess.

This crowd in Congress seems immune themselves — to ever foreseeing real long term consequences,

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I loves me some Matt Taibbi…

the Ds seem incapable of stating, let alone making a coherent case for, what we actually need.

Yep. We see this time after time. The Caroline Kennedy debacle…whatever your take on the merits. Absolutely no concise articulation of why she wanted to be Senator.

This all stems from muddled leadership. Where is LBJ when you need ‘im?

Hatch only wants to represent to the base that Dems are giving healthcare to illegals – reality is the farthest thing from the truth.

May I just say that the 1934 Leslie Howard/Merle Oberon Scarlet Pimpernel comes to the classic movie channel every now and then, and is well worth watching. Anthony Andrews stole a bunch of Leslie Howard for the version above.

Beyond frustrating, isn’t it?

Me, too! Really discovered him via his appearances on Imus, since I had stopped reading RS long ago.

Cliff Schecter on bipartisanship in today’s Guardian…

In other words, there is no problem sitting down with the likes of George Will and John Boehner to try and charm the opposition – although I might recommend a body condom and inoculations just for safety’s sake. But publicly expressing your wish for 80 votes in the Senate in favour of your economic stimulus bill (which means getting the votes of slightly more than half the Republican caucus) and agreeing to more and more tax cuts that only serve as a stimulus for those who have forgotten to take their erectile dysfunction pills in corporate boardrooms and conservative conference halls is too large a price to pay with an economy on the precipice.

There is an oft-repeated truism that good policy makes good politics. Then it should be no surprise that kowtowing to a group of blowhards with whom 15-25% of the public identifies on any given issue makes absolutely no sense.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comm…..rtisanship

I think we should send our Dem critters to the Blago school of PR.

Right. Struck me too. He’s been around. How can he (and Grassley) possibly say that they expected – or that the Dems promised (impliedly???)- to not change legislation from 2007. Especially when the D’s have more votes! Now,one more general question, how are things going to work with last session’s approach that 60 votes are needed to pass a bill? we won’t need to peel off as many R’s to reach that now.

It was instructive to watch the media over the course of yesterday… we should hang on to the Hardball tape of Pence and Ensign…their statements about made powerful arguments that fit right into single payer healthcare. Wish now I’d’ve paid closer attention for exact quotes.

i actually don’t think it’s a leadership problem – imo it stems from the contradiction of depending on one constituency for $$$ and other for votes. in this i think it is similar to coalition the Rs put together with their corporate backers and the rightwing fundamentalists. only the difference between us and the Ds’ corporate backers is that we are actually more at odds with the corporate backers over policy.

but there is no reason our pols should listen to us so long as they know they can count on our votes. until now there has been nothing for them to lose by ignoring us.

Larry Flynt needs find some pics of Orrin, Mitch McConnell, and Lindsey Graham in a late-night strategy session and post them posthaste.

We need more of this, Obama needs to can this unity schtick & play for keeps.

STAT!

OT here is a live coverage of World Economic Forum from Davos for all econ wonks out there. ;-)

Live: World Economic Forum 2009

Live coverage of the first day of the 2009 World Economic Forum at the Swiss mountain resort of Davos. We will be bringing you news, insights from BBC correspondents, some of your emails and Twitter, and the best of the blogs. (All times GMT, CET -1)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/bus…..853752.stm

The Blue Doggers: To the Democrats of this century what the Dixiecrats were to FDR.

The whole reason FDR didn’t dare push civil rights was because the Dixiecrats would have bolted his coalition, thus killing the New Deal before it got started.

I have to say that I’m now about as discouraged and depressed as I was when W was prez. The Rs are just as nasty and the Ds are just as powerless, despite the change in the numbers. Obama’s postpartisanship seems like just a fancy way of being spineless. Too little, too late seems the order of the day for the economy.

Greg is throwing up in his mouth a little.

-G

fyi – just starting now: al gore on the hill to testify on climate crisis (hearing list and links are at oxdown).

Indeed. As Schecter says at the end of the piece:

“What would Dick Cheney do if Pat Leahy were approaching him in the Capitol with a hearty handshake and a smile.”

Old Mitch is siting that the Dem SCHIP bill defines low income up to $88,000 income… blah blah …..in KY they would not consider that poverty…..provisions up to 300 times of poverty…..isn’t there anything we can do for the lies?

Sez a lot when you think you have to depend on Larry Flynnt to save the U.S. political system.

The audacity of hair.

-G

Gore is up
link here

R’s have always made lies reality, because D’s never show up to refute them. I’m with eCAHN – don’t really expect anything to “change”.

well the hearing is, have to go through the pntificating

BTW, Holder vote is up on CSpan3

Take it you didn’t see what Rachel did to him last night.

We can share crying towels. Misery luvs company. *g*

thanks! i was just setting up to record the audio from the committee webstream.

…don’t really expect anything to “change”.

here’s where i part company. i don’t expect the dems in gov to make enough of a change on their own. if there is to be the change we want, it is up to us.

Well, I ain’t so sure about pelosi and reid being able to speak in complete sentences; ymmv *g*

Trying to stay away from the teebee due to it being overrun by mouthbreathing thugs but I got the impression yesterday there were some so-called reporters who seemed to have their noses rather out of joint because Obama had given his first formal interview to a middle-east publication. Suck on that, you worthless batch of stenographers!

AAAAhhhhhh The Scarlet Pimpernel

My first in-the-flesh movie crush, first crush was Mowgli from Jungle Book-who is a cartoon.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025748/quotes
has many quotes from the movie

The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
Percy Blakeney: They seek him here, they seek him there, / Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. / Is he in heaven? Or is he in hell? / That damned elusive Pimpernel!

Percy Blakeney: [before reciting his poem to Winterbottom] Slap me, I’m bubbling over with good humor this morning. Would you believe me, I’ve just written a masterpiece.
Col. Winterbottom: Who, sir? You, sir?
Percy Blakeney: Me, sir
Col. Winterbottom: No, sir.
Percy Blakeney: Yes, sir. All about this mysterious Pimpernel fellow. How it came to me Heaven only knows, because it was the busiest moment of the day. Damn me, I was tying my cravat.

http://www.blakeneymanor.com/poem1.html
The Scarlet Pimpernel
by P.D.Q. Blakeney, not Sir Percival

There was a fop from London Towne,
The Dandy Prince was he,
The richest man in all the land,
And his name was Blakeney.
-snip-

electric blinking on and off, so, computer keeps crashing, so, don’t know how long i’ll be on here.
snow-then ice storm-still raining and adding ice -and 2-4 ” snow to come…trees exploding all around from the weight of the ice already-can’t imagine what’s going to hapen when the snow is weighing on the trees too. level 3. spent the night listening to popping and crashing of trees, and calming the cats and dog. never heard anything like it.

my huge pines are bent over like limp rags, hope =========holy shit!!!! a (half-dead?)walnut tree just went down right in back…..went out to look, but realized it’s not safe to be out there, there are two trees right next to/above my deck….man. trees down already, this is freaky.

i was really mad when the electric company butchered a 30 foot right of way through the entire neighborhood a few months ago, now, i’m thinkin’ maybe it was a good idea.

Hatch is talking to the old thug base with the same old song — Dems are giving your hard-earned money to Black People who don’t work and immigrants who don’t pay taxes. Problem is this time out, that poor white constituency is out of work, too. It doesn’t resonate so loud when they are being bailed out. The Thugs are going to have to retool their line. Their constituents have joined the ranks of the bailees.

FYI -

O to talk about economy in about 15

I have never understood the desire to prevent other people from having medical care.

Forget the cruelty.

Just look to the stupidity: tuberculosis and bird flu and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus are hitching a ride on poor uninsured people in this country.

They’re coming, and they’re getting bigger and badder thanks to the cruel stupidity that sneers at the idea of a poor person (of any age) getting to see a doctor when he or she is sick.

And, Mr. Hatch, the day those strains become stronger than medicine, they won’t care that your grandchildren have health coverage when they all attend the same rock concert together.

Hey, Orrin!

We won. You lost.

To quote a favorite political filosofer of yours,

Elections have consequences.

You got that?

Remember, we won, you lost.

And just exactly where did your parents come up with a name like Orrin? Did they pull Scrabble(r) tiles out of hat at random?

Shorter summary:

The economy sucks. Pass my economic stimulus package, even though 1/3 of it is pandering to the likes of Boehner and Hatch.

You’re using “logic.”
That doesn’t work on these people. I’ve tried.

After reading the second quote (and verifying that it really is a direct quote from the HHS website), I’m glad that I don’t have to get my “ensurance” from the gov’t.

Orrin is Irish for “green,” [edited by mod]

- someone with a son named Kieran

[mod note: Please do not insult other commenters. Thank you.]

If evidence is ever found, it will show up here.

http://blogactive.com/

Some more of this and perhaps the MSM will be forced to start telling the truth. Obama just might be the one who manages to break them. How great that would be. If MSM dependent Americans had a clue as to what has been going on in their country, they would put Bush’s approval at -100 and dropping; retroactively. The video went viral; especially on Middle East websites.