In the past three months, Sanford’s criticism of the stimulus plan has transformed him from a conservative Republican governor little known outside South Carolina to a powerhouse with a growing profile among party stalwarts nationwide.

Sanford as a “party stalwart.” Yeppurs, the Party of No is on a roll. Won’t be long and it’ll be on the event horizon of a singularity.

re Obama “I’m a New Democrat”….

The Senate New Democrat Coalition was founded in the spring of 2000 by Senators Evan Bayh (Indiana), Bob Graham (Florida), Mary Landrieu (Louisiana), Joe Lieberman (Connecticut), and Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas).

Gee, the after-meeting party must be ‘off the hook’. blergh.

I still think Bristol Palin home-birthed Trig Palin at her Aunt & Uncle’s house and that is why there is no record of the “Governor’s baby” being born at the Mat-Su hospital where Sarah said she gave birth to Trig in.

And…it’s rumored that Levi Johnston has another Baby Momma in his midst too.

How about wearing a condom, Levi? Oh wait! You wingnuts believe in abstinence where gawd is your birth control! Spit.

Bowers isn’t the only one who called it.

…your birth control! Spit.

Yep, if only she’d have spit, she’d never have gotten preggers.

*on edit*

(Inserting apologies)

Gov. Sanford is afraid the stimulus is going destabilize the SC economy. He loves the stability that comes from 10.4% unemployement.

The Party of Family Values controls the great state of Texas, which is on track to execute one person per week. It’s already 1 over. The vast majority of weapons used by the drug cartels in Mexico come from the over 6000 gun stores near the border. Lessee, we Americans are the biggest consumers of the cartels products, we Americans are the biggest supplier of the weapons used by the cartels and we say that Mexico has a drug problem?

showboating a**hole

Seems like two wars is not enough for Lieberman and mcShame
http://www.opednews.com/articl…..311-6.html

g’morning everyone!

off topic, my mobile browser now crashed on this site and this site only, something is running that’s not compatable with opera mobile, been happening now for two days

good point, I’m in the deregulate or legalize camp, take away the criminals incentive.

from one of the links;

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on Wednesday became the first governor to reject some of his state’s share of President Obama’s economic-stimulus money, spurning $700 million that Sanford said would harm his state’s residents in the long run.

didn’t jindal try this gambit?

you can’t refuse part of the stimulous, you can refuse all of it or follow the probram, that’s the deal, it’s take it or leave it

this has been tried before, are they gonna make believe everyone that tries it is “the first to refuse the stimulous”?

I’m interested in what the new Drug Czar is going to do. The former police chief of Seattle has long been an advocate of education and treatment programs in conjunction with law enforcement. For way too long the idiots in deecee have tried to rely on an enforcement only policy with only lip service to anything else. More money got thrown at police depts and fed agencies that way. For every street corner crack dealer they locked up at least 10 lined up to take his place. Stupid fucking policy.

from another link posted by bt;

the chairman of the RNC seeming to advocate a pro-choice position on abortion rights.)

this is steel saying he wants out, that’s all it is

in my opinion he should have taken rush with him instead of the abortion issue but I guess that’s too late

he sees the writing on the wall and he thinks he can get out his way

You didn’t read far enough. The stim bill allows legislatures to override those govs who want to refuse the money.

Showboating and getting the money. Bush could not do it better.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., crafted a clause in the $787 billion stimulus bill that enables state legislatures to bypass governors who reject the money

I would deregulate use and criminalize profit

I would force users to aqcuire though a government clinic, that would force the profit model down, yes there would be some who bought from those who got the drug from the clnic but the seller would be a criminal the buyer would not be

we could even do incentives where the buyer could earn a bounty for turning their dealer in

Drug War to Focus on Treatment

Choice of drug czar and emphasis on alternative drug courts signal a shift from incarceration.

I’m sorry but that doesn’t make any sense at all.

I don’t want personal use to be a crime, but I also don’t want the marketing that goes with legalization, the alcohol marketing, the tobacco marketing

I don’t know how to eliminate the kind of marketing you might see in product placement, things like that so I would like to figure out a method of taking profit out of the industry

I have no idea what would make sense but taking profit out of the industry I think needs to be the goal

Just sell the stuff at the liquor store and tax it.

Do you really think drugs could be advertised like cigs or liquor? How familiar are you with the realities of the drug trade? Not what you see on TV but what actually goes on on the street. Ever dealt with a real live crack head or dealer, a heroin addict or dealer? That’s what we’re talking about, not marijuana.

I don’t think that’s workable, that will allow for marketing just like tobacco and alcohol, I really think we need to take the profit model out of drug use

that’s the real problem by the way, the profit signature, there would be hardly any drug abuse issues in this country if the profit signature wasn’t so profound

sd, tobacco and alcohol are drugs, they aren’t any differant then most of the recreational drugs we’ve simply ligitimized that particular drug

off to work all

Per Andrew Sullivan:

But at every time, the Israel lobby has challenged [Obama] directly to reassert that no change will occur in the US-Israel relationship, he has backed the AIPAC line 110 percent.

He did so by firing Robert Malley; he did so by hiring Dennis Ross on the Iran question; by hiring Clinton as secretary-of-state; and by humiliating his own intelligence chief, Dennis Blair, on Freeman.

But if you know Obama, you know he always gives away the shop-window to his opponents, while retaining the store for his own counsel. I believe he has the national interest at heart and genuinely wants to assess intelligence with as much open-mindedness as possible. He will be denied a true contrarian to challenge the old way of thinking, but I have faith that he will not be bamboozled by groupthink the way Bush was.

Dennis Blair has also been humiliated – publicly, by both the Israel lobby and by the White House. He may react to that humiliation by surrendering independent judgment, or by being even more skeptical of the forces that demanded Freeman’s smearing and removal from government. I suspect the latter. Be careful what you ask for …

Interesting stuff!

In the 1960s, before drug enforcement became the name of the game, marijuana sold for about $100/kilo at the street level. Today you can’t buy an ounce for $100. Criminalize anything the price goes up automatically. Prohibition is another example.

Thanks for answering my question.

So, let’s prohibit homes to end the meltdown in real-estate values.

but I also don’t want the marketing that goes with legalization, the alcohol marketing, the tobacco marketing

Actually, I think that the comedic potential is huuuuge…

Cheech and Chong could have a whole new career.

lol!

LOL!

lol.

OT -watching the fire here in downtown Indy from my vantage point is interesting. I look out, and see white smoke, but can’t see more because the Scottish Rite Cathedral blocks the view.

So – it could just be a depth-perception problem, but it appears that maybe we have a new Pope…

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool. Wonder how long I’ll be before they send me home again.

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

I hope nobody catches this bug I’ve got. Not fun.

Namaste

Good morning all;

perris,

The “War on Drugs” was America’s first ‘endless’ war, the trial-run of intentional scapegoating (as in, “these people are not like us, they are scum and a threat to all good and decent Americans, and they deserve only the most draconian and brutal of ‘reactions’.”) and the deliberate expansion of police powers (at the expense of reason and the Constitution, not to mention a ‘winning’ strategy, politically, for any who chose to make use of it, for over seventy years).

Your suggested solution merely shifts the paranoia ‘game’.

Besides, if ‘free market’ ideology is good enough for those “too big to fail”, why should it not be the ‘new democrat’ model for the innovative perception that enforcement, alone, does not and has not worked? An ideal example of government working alongside the private sector is what we need, if merely to convince the right that we are NOT sauntering down the primrose path to a much-dreaded ’socialism’ etc. etc.

Further, how will we improve ‘potency’ if American ingenuity and inventiveness, in ALL its exceptional-ism, is stifled by excessive and arbitrary regulation as well as thwarted by heavy-handed, and essentially, moralistic, government intrusions?

Prohibition does not work, even if it empowers certain of the Politicall Cla$$. If anything, the Political Cla$$ needs its untoward power diminished, that the people may have more.

(In between flights of silliness, I am trying to make several serious, and I hope, thoughtful suggestions, here, perris … I am assuming that the same applies to your comment, as well?)

Digging a little deeper into Yikes, one finds an interactive RealtyTrac map detailing foreclosure rates across the nation.

Medical marijuana is the answer. Holder’s already said he won’t be busting the clinics.

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah. All the little javascript apps (e.g. show text) are now working with Firefox once again. Thank you, thank you, thank you, FDL.

Medical marijuana is the answer.

I forgot the question.

dammit.

fyi – today’s hearing list is at oxdown:

Geithner will be testifying before the Senate Banking committee this morning, but I’m probably going to watch the House Foreign Affairs hearing on “U.S. foreign economic policy in the global crisis.” Usually Berman is really horrible, especially on ME issues, but today Lori Wallach of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch (who I hope and expect will be good) and also Simon Johnson will be testifying. Johnson’s bio (Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship, Global Economics and Management (GEM), MIT Sloan School of Management, Former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund) is the kind of thing that would make me suspect he is a member of a the axis of evil (the IMF definitely has been), but I’ve been reading his blog, The Baseline Scenario, and have been pleasantly surprised. Here’s how he introduced himself at a talk he gave last month with Martin Feldstein at MIT, “Challenges to the Global Economy” (my transcription):

I’m a blogger. Actually, that’s my primary… I’m trying to get people to introduce me, not as an MIT professor, but as a blogger. Somehow they don’t want to do that yet, they still talk about the MIT connection for whatever reason. They think it has more legitimacy. I think the blogosphere has more legitimacy for this sort of thing.

Christy’s up!
Dear Mr. President: Getting to Yes on Judicial Nominees

oh, thanks selise, good mornin’ to ya

Simon Johnson and The Baseline Scenario are top notch. Baseline is one of the first places I visit each morning. He has also appeared on Bill Moyers’ program. Another excellent economic blog is Yves Smith’s naked capitalism.

agree. been reading them both (and lots more) for months now… after the TARP passed in October, i went looking to add to my regular list of econ blogs.

good morning to you too!

looks like i epu’ed myself again. guess that’s what i get for being late *g*

Sanford turned down the federal money despite new data showing that his state’s unemployment rate had risen to 10.4 percent, the second-highest in the country.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.c…..ect12.html

Hey Dummy 10% unemployment and you want to turn down cash to help people without jobs. What kind of a Sanford are you!
Only a dummy would think that kicking people when they are down will get him the votes to be president.
Unless you plan on being the next Stalin or Mussolini.

“As South Carolina’s unemployment rate is rising to double digits, parents are losing their jobs and families are losing their homes,” Clyburn said. “Governor Sanford will sleep well at night because he has improved his ‘conservative record’ and raised his national profile.”

http://seattletimes.nwsource.c…..ect12.html

A real leader thinks of the people first for they are the base of his power.
A leader who wants to be powerful thinks of how to use the people to be powerful.
A tool treats the people the base of his power as tools to get the job done (getting him powerful) and then discards the tools he beat on.
A craftsman knows his livelihood depends on his tools and takes care of them like a good sheep herder watches his flock.