I found my post file by going through the comments section of another member's old post.  Is that the only way to do it?  How do I restore my avatar?  Edit my profile? etc.

In what appears to be a cover letter for Robert Gibbs's job,  Dowdy largely agrees with Gibblet's meme that we "Lefties" are a bunch of crybabies who wail because we didn't get everything we wanted for Christmas.

She drags out the tired, oft-disproved argument that MSNBC is the liberal version of Fox News, yawn.

Her only beef with Gibblet seems to be he doesn't kiss enough media ass.

Then in her last sentence seems to make a pitch for the job.

You go girl.

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

Watch the video and, if the spirit moves you, contact Mr. Perrone at IBM.

mpp@us.ibm.com

 

 

 

Doing a little research on Margolis shows he's quite the 'janitor' at DOJ for administrations of both parties.

Re: Margolis.  Am I the only one who finds it ironic that margolis is issuing an opinion the current WH wants about lawyers who issued an opinion that former WH wanted?  I think the DOJ IG should investigate Margolis.  I. E., why did Gonzo single out Margolis in his DOJ farewell ceremony:

http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2007/ag_speech_070917.html

He also presented Margolis with an award right at the time of the US attorney firings investigation:

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2006/September/06_ag_612.html

Mr. Margolis also had alot to do with spreading false rumours about US attorney Iglesias's alleged incompetence:

http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s0809a/chapter6.htm (go to 2nd and third 'margolis' search results and take it from there)

In a late Friday release, the DoJ downgraded Yoo, Bybee et. al to 'poor judgement.'  They released it about an hour after the FBI 'officially closed the file' on the 2001 Anthrax Letters case.  Coincidence?  Was today 'to do list day?'

Share your thoughts, please.

In today's news:

After a four-month search, federally-rescued CIT, one of the country's largest small business lenders came up with this guy?

Does the Fed or the Admin have no say in this?  Another ex-Goldman Sachs(24 years) guy?  This is the guy who was going to use public bailout funds to redesign his executive suite!  Then, after driving Merrill into the ground, left the firm with a $44million golden parachute.  It's not certain whether he had a hand in concealing Merrill's huge losses from B of A shareholders before the merger.

He was a major supporter of crazy train McCain and ailin' Palin and on the rumoured shortlist for SecTreas if the daft duo had won.

Un-fucking-believable!

 

Mainstream journalism doesn't get more mainstream than the AP, their often vapid 'on one hand, but on the other hand' style of reporting, particularly political reporting, set new low standards in stenography and incuriousness.

But, sometimes the sun shines even on a dog's ass.  Today, the AP reports that after an earlier report of their looking into the use of cadmium in children's costume jewelry, Disney, and their exclusive retail partner, Walmart, were recalling two made-in-China promotional pendants for the movie 'The Princess and the Frog'.  Ironically, the story revolves around kissing the frog!

Though not mentioned in SecState Hillary Clinton's speech today, the US Chamber of Commerce joins China in blocking sanctions on a nuclear relcalcitrant Iran.

I am not a journalist, but if I were, I would be trying to elicit reactions from the likes of AIPAC and Jewish-American CEOs to see if they support the Chamber's stance.

Whether it's corporate 'free speech', blocking healthcare reform, or endangering Israel's very existence, the Chamber has a funny way of making friends!

The NY Times just reported that GOPers unanimously voted against raising our nation's debt ceiling and "pay-as-you go" legislation, which McCain and 5 other GOP senators had supported in the past.

If the debt ceiling bill had failed it would have caused the US to default on its debt for the first time in its history.  Why does the GOP hate America?

Some excerpts:

"The measure, which is always politically unpopular but essential to avoid default, needed 60 votes to pass and got not a vote more, for a 60 to 39 tally. The House is expected to pass the measure next week.

Republicans were united in opposition as a protest of Obama administration spending programs. But Democrats, in debate, noted that most of the debt reflected the accumulation of annual deficits in the years that Republicans controlled the White House and Congress until 2007."

"Five Republicans who voted on Thursday against the pay-go requirement had supported similar measures in the past, including Mr. McCain."

If the assenting SC justices decided, as they did in Citizens United v. FEC, to unilaterally broaden the decision to the clear benefit of corporations, unions, and PACs, shouldn't these justices have had to recuse themselves at that point because they own stock in ANY corporation?

The plaintiff had made no request that the decision be broadened.  On the contrary, they actually withdrew the part of their argument that dealt with the braoder question of corporate financial participation in the electoral process.

It was the assenting justices who, prior to rendering a final decision, broadened the case in order to overturn precedential rulings restricting corporate 'free speech'.  At this point, the case takes on not only the future fate of Citizens United but the broader fate of myriad unnamed corporations wishing to influence electoral outcomes TO THEIR BENEFIT.

It is because the possible beneficiaries are unnamed that recusal should be expected from any and all justices who own stock in any and all corporations.  Unlike, say, Kelo v. City of New London, wherein possible beneficiaries of the verdict were known throughout the case(developers, Pfizer) Kennedy, in his thrall, may have opened up a door for a challenge by leaving 'victims' ill-defined and unnamed.

'Blues Brothers' Nazi

US Chamber of Commerce Chairman Tom Donohue

Roger Cohen's slathering over how great China is  in today's Times comes across as some kind of post-coital euphoria after a night on the town with senior Party cadres.  I hope he makes sure to pick up some non-bootleg tetracycline in the hotel apothecary!

Sadly though, he is on to something in that, on their respective current trajectories, China and the US (EU too?) will meet, in the not-too-distant future, at a point called corporatocracy.

Long live Stability!

Looks like Wall Street doesn't believe in "Plan B"

 

Health Stocks Pull Market Higher as Mass. Votes

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: January 19, 2010

Filed at 4:24 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- Investors moved back into stocks on hopes that an election in Massachusetts will weaken Senate Democrats and make it harder for President Barack Obama to make changes to health care.

The vote Tuesday to fill the seat of late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy could shift power in the Senate if Republican Scott Brown wins. That would give Republicans the 41 votes necessary to block Democratic proposals, including the health care bill.

The prospect of a logjam in Washington over health care eased concerns that profits at companies like insurers and drug makers would suffer. Rising health stocks pulled the broader market higher.

Is this a turning point?  Doubtful.  Will 'western' multinationals and their respective lapdog governments begin to reevaluate and reconsider 'engagement' policy vis a vis China?  Don't bet on it.  'Engagement' was a fraud from the time the phrase was coined.  Corporations had been longing to regain access to cheap Chinese labor ever since China was 'lost' in 1949.  When Deng opened the door, corporations quickly discovered a manufacturing heaven; not only was the labor cheap but unable to complain about anything and easily replaced should they have the temerity to do so.
What if the 'West' spent 30 years investing in the USSR after the end of WWII, strengthening its economy and its ability to challenge us around the world?  Well, wake up people, China is challenging us everyday in the UNSC(Iran, Sudan), in resource-rich developing nations around the world(laissez-faire FDI, bribes), etc.
'Western' FDI created China.  The real danger is that we become more like China than the other way around.  Keep a weather eye out for words like 'stability', 'appropriate', 'harmony', 'security' when politicians, controlled by their corporate masters, start making excuses for surveillance laws, anti-union laws, censorship laws, 'free speech zones', obstacles to freedom of assembly.  Oh wait, some of that has already happened.