DonCoquixote
DonCoquixote's JournalFoundation renamed for all three Clintons
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/foundation-renamed-for-all-three-clintons-89759.htmlOK Billy, I understand there is a campaign to get your wife elected Queen, but to throw Chelsea into this?
Yes, Chelsea may work hard there, and many in the world work hard too, but she would be just another college kid if not for you. If you think we do not see you padding your daughter's resume for a dynasty, you are an idiot.
It sure does not help that a lot of what your foundation does is allow the bigwigs and pork-laden politicos cover as they play chess with our lives.
Why America owes an apology to the Mafia
inspired by:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023668480#post20
Okay, I am not fond of extortion artists, but I have what Johnathon Swift might call a "modest proposal."
America owes the Mafia an apology. The reason being, our government has done everything the Mafia does, and many things even the Mafia would not.
Take the example of Numbers running. It was a small, local lottery, with small payouts, but much better chances of winning than any state Lotto, much less powerball. The cops broke them up, and then ran their own "numbers" game. What is worse, they used the proceeds to lower taxes on the rich, taking funds not only from the poor, but from the schools.
Take the example of competence: Yes, if you are a Mafiosi, you can have power, but if you screw up, you sleep with the fishes, or at least get a broken kneecap. To be blunt, if Larry Summers, Karl Rove, or any numbers of the potentates and pundits that are wrong, again and again, were in the mafia, they would have been wearing cement shoes a long, long time ago.
Take the issue of Liberty: Wiretaps sounded like a great idea when it was used on Mafiosi, back when Google was just a number only professors cared about. Now, lo and behold, we are now getting it. Funny how these wiretaps do not get used a New England social Brahmins, or Good Ole Boy Southern social clubs.
Take the "crime" of gambling: Everywhere in Las Vegas, that heavily regulated place of Gambling, there is constant surveillance of all details, from much much damage can cards take before they must be thrown away, to whether the blackjack dealer claps his hands to show he is not cheating. There is even a whole branch of Math called Game theory, which calculates the odds of Dice. Every factor in gaming must be accounted for. There is even a class of "professional" gamblers who make it because they simply have studied the math, and can calculate right down to the decimal the odds of a card being drawn. Soem are so good they are banned from casinos, because the card games, being glorified Math problems, are predictable by those who can do Math in their head. Now, compare that do your average Wall Street derivative, or "AAA" stock. Standard and Poor has been caught being wrong, if not outright dishonest; the Mafia would never employ a Bookee our Accountant with the Track record of Wall Street.
Take the idea of Patriotism: The Godfather of a major city knows that if his city is poor, he will not get to milk much from the residents. Your current Wall Street types know that wealth is "Global" which is a very fancy word for "I can take my wealth elsewhere because I know I can." Hell, they know they can even export the jobs and still make money, not even having to corrupt a union. Even the Mafia realized you needed unions, even if they were part of a scheme, because only a strong union could intimidate the managers.
So, to La Cosa Nostra, I say, we owe you an apology. You may be scum, but you are honorable scum, which is far more than we can say for our current types in power.
There is a LOT of truth here, BUT
I truly loved this OP, as it explains a lot of the frustration I have with certain factions. I still remember being in Florida, having Nader voters yell at me after elections day, because they had heard the folks on right wing talk Radio brag about how they used the Naderites to make sure Gore Lost. Of course, their yelling at me was pre-emptive, even though I was holding back my "are you happy now" speech. As a note, I have heard all versions of the "Nader did not cost Gore the election" speech, and I will not ignore the simple math. Yes, a third party vote may be just fine in California, but as a resident of that one swing state, I KNOW I cannot treat voting as a game.
So when Obama turned out to be less leftish, I held my breath. After all, a lot of the Socialists still hate FDR with a passion, because he "saved capitalism" rather than let it die so that we could have that Fourth Communist International Comrade Trotsky promised us. Social Security was slammed as not being strong enough, yet it matured, so I was willing to see if ACA would bear the same fruit.
HOWEVER, the problem is, Obama turned into Bill Clinton, which is to say, someone who really, really thinks the Right is just misguided, the idea that "there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America." The bad part of that is, it prevents us from healing the really deep flaws, namely the money worship and sacrament of war. Until Money and War are seen as tools, and not our reason for being, we can and will drift rightward, because we are playing the right's game on their turf, where they have the table tilted rightward. Obama has proven that he is not interested in replacing the table, he may do about 60 percent of the right thing, but only after a LOT of PRESSURE is placed, and even then, he always tries to curry the favor of those mythical "centrists" that the right has successfully compromised.
So,I have no problem putting pressure, because that is what works, that includes criticism,and my wallet. However, just because I see that the DLC is full of shit does not mean I do not see where people will use the FRONT of criticism just to snipe at everything not them.
Let me be real Blunt:
Jane Hamsher, I look forward to you making excuses for Hillary Clinton when she governs to Obama's right, doing things you would have made cute Racial jokes about Obama for doing.
Glenn Greenwald: All your civil liberty crap will mean nothign when the companies you like to worship do everything the Feds do and far, far worse. Until you apologize for your defense of Citizens United, which downgraded the very value of a person to just another corporate asset, I will not take you seriously, even if you drunkenly stumble into truth.
Medea Benjamin: I admired you until you made that valentine to Ron Paul. Care to explain to women why you had to enable one of the strongest Anti-Choice advocates? You could have easily called RP that "broken clock right twice a day" without a Valentine.
Arriana Huffington: You sure love giving Grover Norquist and Mark Penn space to bash Obama. If you think that I will forget the days when you were the Belle of the Right Wing ball, you are wrong.
Ted Rall: The supposed hard left communist that whines that the internet ruined his payday, and who slammed OWS and the Egyptians because they did not kill people. Who made use of the right wing slurs like calling Obama an example of "affirmative action."
I could go on and on, especially with Ralph "I have no problem taking right wing money" Nader.
And it is not that I do not see we need a hard left, but sadly, we have a lot less Bernie Sanders, people who try to explain to people what is happening, and a LOT more Dennis Kucinich, someone who will gladly take a payday on Fox network because it gives them a point to slam Obama, even though they hear Karl Rove popping champagne in the back room, because we load our circular firing squad again!
Red Lobster ‘None (N-word)’ Customer Receiving Threats, Denies Writing Racial Slur
"Whoopsie! For those of you following the story of the Red Lobster server, Toni Jenkins, who was left a receipt with no tip and a racial epithet, it turns out the name of the customer was printed on the receipt, in addition to his signature, and has spread around the Internet."
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/09/14/red-lobster-none-ngger-customer-receiving-threats-denies-writing-racial-slur/
Of course, what was Red Lobster's response?
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/09/12/red-lobster-suspends-waitress-who-received-none-nr-as-a-tip/
"Instead Of Standing By Their Employee, Red Lobster Suspends Waitress Who Received ‘None N****r’ As A Tip"
LOVELY....
About Putin's NYT editorial
"the best lack all conviction, the worst are full of passionate intensity" - William Butler Yeats "The Second Coming."
As usual, the worst from all sides came out to howl at this. Let's put the emotions aside.
First off, Putin did not say anything that was not true.
No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.
Now,is any of that a lie, NO. Granted, it is possible to throw a lot of good solid rebuttals to this, as Russia and China have disagreed with the UN when they did not have the same interests, but now, since they are in sync, seem to stand by the UN. Yes, it SHOULD be brought up that Putin is NO champion of human rights. However, just because someone says the sky is Blue, do you insist it is now purple? No.
Facts, are facts. Truth be told, the UN has been compromised for a long, long time, because the big nations use it as a toy, especially the so called "permanent members." Part of the reason there is so much war is because all nations have done whatever they can to hamstring the UN. Of course, the UN does not help matters; such it when it kept denying there was any link between the cholera epidemic in Haiti and the troops they sent there fresh from a Cholera epidemic. When even a disaster-ridden nation like Haiti distrusts you when you bring help, you have a serious problem. The UN has it's own credibility issues, which is why neither Israel nor Palestine is willing to trust them to broker peace.
And that is right where we run into the "exceptional-ism" thing. Look, every nation has ideals, including and especially US, all nations fall far short of those ideals, including and especially US. France is invading Mali, Canada is building the Keystone pipeline, and indeed, any and every nation will have some moral failure that others can and will point at, without exception. None of that removes us from the responsibility to try and live up to those ideals. If we want to be exceptional, we will have to act it, and that includes telling the people that offer the same old solutions to shut up. There is no need for any sort of national gotcha or shame.
Obama vs Putin "winning?"
Let me be blunt, I am getting tired of hearing people say that Obama or Putin "won" the game of chicken on Syria. Both are wrong.
Yes, Putin did turn Kerry's gaffe into a move, but Russia knew that Assad was going to keep charging headlong into the abyss, and eventually, he could have faced another Slobadon Milosevic scandal where Russians looked like the protectors of scum. It sure did not help that, while he had capital thanks to Snowden, he blew that capital by letting the Olympic games become a gay-bashing ceremony. It became popular to dislike the Russians again.
Yes, Obama was wise enough to take advantage of Kerry's gaffe. However, Obama followed the same series of moves that ruined his first term, only offer to do the right thing after you try to placate the right wing, Bibi Netanyahu, and others who want that war in the Middle east. He used the red line talk, which made him look like W.
Both of these fools could have done the right thing years ago. Putin could have offered to help xfer chemical weapons into UN custody, and Obama could have proposed it, long before his then SOS had to do her little macho talk about how "Assad must go." It says a lot when Kerry bumbles and makes peace, where Hillary was clear, and went full steam ahead in the war effort.
No one deserves any Halos here, but frankly, I will take an UGLY win over a pretty loss. If getting these idiots drunk would make for world peace, I would vote on pouring Jack Daniels and Vodka down all their throats!
PS: to all the Putin praisers, I will remember you during the Winter Olympics. I guess both Obama haters and Obama lovers can drive the Bus over LGBT, true equality!
An odd thought about Syria and Hillary
If Hillary was still SOS, she would not have made kerry's gaffe.
Which means we would be at war.
Nice thought.
NBCU Switch-Up: Esquire Network to Take Over Style, Not G4 (Exclusive)
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nbcu-switch-up-esquire-network-624127You may ask why this is political, but it is a fine example of those brilliant "job creators" at work, and how stupid they are. It also links to politics as these are the same geniuses that run MSNBC.
Step One: take G4, and admittedly troubled network, but one that is catering to younger techies, and has a lot of very nasty political satire on it's main two shows, attack of the show and X play. It had programming defending drug legalization, among other more liberal topics. Force both shows to cancel, and put nothing but cheap reruns.
Step Two; replace it with the "esquire network" which is a "men's network." Wait, isn;t there a tons of supposedly Men;s programming, sure, but this will be for upscale types, focusing on cooking, travel and fashion. Wait a minute, isnt there food network and style?
Step Three: instead of using G4 for Esquire, kill a women's network, Style.
Of course, you gutted all of G4's original programs, and most of the people you fired have found work elsewhere where they make more money than you ever paid them. Oh, and you just killed a woman's network for this "men's network" that somehow believes that Men will watch your fashion and cooking shows when they are already served well elsewhere. You isolate the young gamers who support an industry making billions, and make sure that instead of watching TV, they go to the internet.
Step four: Do not even try to get back some of your old talent, or bring back the TV shows you cancelled.
See how this illustrates the wisdom of those "job creators?"
Here is a toast to the Zimmerman fan club
All those people here that bent themselves backwards to say Tray was a criminal and the GZ was justified, you ignored the domestic abuse he got himself out of before, and you will ignore this. Why, because you want to keep your guns to use against the people that scare you. Oh no, I am not calling you racist, as I am sure you would like to shoot at people of whatever race you happen to be as well.
You know that GZ is a symbol of a lot that has gone wrong with this country, and that one day, when he finally runs out of luck, and when someone else is possibly dead by him, that you will own him.
To those that say "we can't just let these people get gassed."
First off, we have been allowing chemical weapons to be used on our own citizens for years. Granted, we call it pollution, but the deaths are as real as any other death.
Second, the reason that Assad is getting away with things is because we have allowed the UN to become a shield for thugs. If we want a safer world, we need to make one where yes, all people, can have as much stake as the folks that won world war II and the chinese. Until then, all the empires will cultivate pet dictators: we will cultivate Netanyahu, China will feed the Kims, and the Russians will feed their monsters.
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Member since: Thu Apr 17, 2008, 05:51 PMNumber of posts: 13,616
