This strikes me as an important development. I'm hoping this means good things.

McClatchy is reporting that Iran's most senior Islamic cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said, "No one in their right mind can believe" the official results from Friday's contest

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iran/story/70155.html

 

"A government not respecting people's vote has no religious or political legitimacy," he declared in comments on his official Web site. "I ask the police and army personals (personnel) not to 'sell their religion,' and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before God."

I'm thinking that Obama's pick of Hillary at State must have been obvious for a man who knew he'd need her to reassure the Israelis while he reaches out to engage the non-Israelis who have an interest in cradle of civilization.

From what I understand, Hillary Clinton had cred with Israel that Obama desperately needs over the next . . .  however long it takes to get a sane dialog started.

Any thoughts on where this is going?

 

I'm sorry, but I feel like I'm witnessing the ebodiment of class war in the rhetoric surrounding Sotomayor right now.

Anyone else feeling it?

The current economic crisis in large part grew from honest businesses with a group of rouge capitalist that were willing to say anything to "demonstrate" a huge profit in order to justify even huger bonuses.

When AIG sold credit default swaps, they were selling insurance when they had no insurance (cash reserves) to sell.  That's fraud.
To recall a more familiar expression,
They wrote checks their asses could not cash.

The problem in proving it, is that it was not simple fraud.
The, cover they laid was pro forma at best, but they played the game.
Insurance relies on models, and AIG CDS traders most likely hired mathematicians and software engineers to build them models that would "justify" the bet. 

Of course the model relies on the input -- as long as property values continue to grow at 20%/year the CDS was a great bet!
Each party in the conspiracy had a pretty good idea what the collective was doing, but they could all claim they were just doing their jobs: making the sale, doing the math, providing market analysis - and the bonuses kept coming.

Without question, we know that these people participated in fraud in order to enrich themselves.  But proving fraud requires proving intent - and if you thought AG Gonzolez's performance was impressive. . . . . how many times to you really want to listen to "I don't know what I did or why I did it" . . . only to learn that even if you could get a fraud conviction they already spent all their money on ice sculputure and hookers.

I've been watching the progression of Republican "leaders" apologizing to Rush Limbaugh.
And I'm beginning to believe that after 8 years of apologizing for such sins as standing in front of his shotgun blasts, the cream of the Republican party is feeling a little lost without without Dick Cheney to tell them how naughty they've been.

For some choice apologies : http://www.dccc.org/content/sorry

When Josh Marshall quoted TPM reader PD on the subject of bitch-slap jujitsu, I couldn't help but contemplate the magnitude of Rush's impact.

I wondered, "The bigger he is, the harder they fall?"

   

Now we're hearing that McCain is dropping the Barak <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/222237.php">*Hussein*</a> Obama bomb.

Has anyone asked McCain  (or his surrogates) what's changed since February 2008 when McCain felt obliged to <a href="http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/02/mccain_apologizes_for_radio_ho.html">apologize</a> that Bill "Willie" Cunningham, a conservative radio talk show host in Cincinnati emphasized Barak *Hussein* Obama

Any word whether

It sounds like the McCain campaign is going to settle on
"America Workers" as their final answer for the meaning of "fundamentals".

When Wall Street bankers were still getting $100 million bonuses you thought the economy had made great progress.

When your benefactor John Thain got a $15 million bonus from Merrill in 2007, and went on to bundle several $100 thousand for you, the fundamentals where solid.

And the day Merrill Lynch disappeared, the checks had just started rolling into your campaign and I heard you felt the fundamentals were pretty strong.

Yesterday you noticed that the workers of America are unhappy about something, and that you'd better call them strong too, so you said that they were the "fundamentals" which you were referring to all this time

And it is true, the workers of America ARE the fundamental thing that makes the American economy work.

And that is why it's fundamentally wrong that American workers are getting screwed in the economy the Republicans built these last 7 years.

Americans are not whining but describing a very simple economic reality. This economy has been harder and harder on American workers every year since Phil Gramm got rid of all those regulations, and Dick Cheney got rid of those pesky "worker rights", and George Bush decided he wanted to have a war.

Maybe they'd whine a little less if some of the financial gurus out there were put out of work, so those $100 million bonuses and $10 million salaries could be better spent on $70,000 salaries.

This is an old CNN interview with McCain about cheating on his wife. 

At about 3:12 into this interview John McCain is responding to a question about being a 41 y/o married man lying about his age and marital status in the hopes of hooking up with a 24 y/o girl.

He says, "I lied." and starts laughing about it.

I think it might make an effective montage if someone with video editing capability  would cut together some of McCain's better whoppers, each followed by 1.5 seconds of McCain laughing about his lying ways.

If McCain starts crying foul, and saying that clip isn't referring to his current lies, then we will be forced to ask which lie he is referring to.

Gov Palin is clearly dedicated to having children.
Even becoming Governor didn't stop her from fulfilling God's promise one more time.

Does she intended to take measures to prevent a pregnancy during the time she may become President? And if she does become pregnant again, and she does becomes President does she think that she could handle the stress of the Presidency and childbirth at the same time?

Our we within our bounds to ask her this question

Not hubris we can believe in.

It seems the pinnacle of hubris to apply for a job, yet decline to submit yourself for an interview.

There is quantifiable and significant likelihood that a 72 year old former POW who has had multiple melanomas removed will die in the next 4 years. 

So essentially, the McCain campaign is asking us to give Gov Palin one of the most important jobs in the world, but we're not even allowed to interview her for the job????

Of *if* we are allowed to interview her, it will be on the terms teh campaign lays down.

It's been awhile since I last applied for a job, but isn't it usually considered poor form to tell your potential employer to go #% them selves ?

Not hubris we can believe in.

It seems the pinnacle of hubris to apply for a job, yet decline to submit yourself for an interview.

There is quantifiable and significant likelihood that a 72 year old former POW who has had multiple melanomas removed will die in the next 4 years. 

So essentially, the McCain campaign is asking us to give Gov Palin one of the most important jobs in the world, but we're not even allowed to interview her for the job????

Of *if* we are allowed to interview her, it will be on the terms teh campaign lays down.

It's been awhile since I last applied for a job, but isn't it usually considered poor form to tell your potential employer to go #% them selves ?

The Republicans are like the spoiled spouse who responds with sarcastic snark when you suggest they stop buying shoes so you can afford to buy the kid a car to get to work.

Please!

When Obama points out that we can save a measurable amount of gasoline (and money) with zero risk and 79 cents expense, the Republicans respond with sarcasm and ridicule. Compensating much??? 
Why would we want to save money and defund terrorist when we could spend more and complain about it.

Californians use nearly 30% less energy per capita than they rest of the country -- this despite a strong growing high tech economy. 
This is because they've spent the last 3 decades investing in simple high-return, low risk projects to save energy.  Proper, inflation of your tires is but one of these.

If Republicans want to pout and act like children when presented with common sense solutions, then maybe it's time for the grown-ups to take over.

I accept that Liz Trotta has apologized, but I still need to understand something. . .

So I have one more question Liz Trotta or her employers over at Fox News:

What exactly if *supposed* to be funny about the image of Osama bin Laden, and Barak Obama dead together?

I get "bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran", it sounded like a song! I see why it was funny, har har.

But wtf?
Can we get Liz or the folks over at Fox News to explain why that's funny. . . why "knocking off Obama" is a joke to them?