COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, June 02, 2008

What Would Obama Do?




International Herald Tribune
Taliban leader flaunts power inside Pakistan
By Jane Perlez
Monday, June 2, 2008

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: With great fanfare, the Pakistani Army flew journalists to a rugged corner of the nation's lawless tribal areas in May to show how decisively it had destroyed the lairs of the Taliban, including a school for suicide bombers, in fighting early this year.

Then, just days later, the usually reclusive leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, held a news conference of his own, in the same region, to show just who was in charge.

He rolled up in an expensive-looking Toyota pickup packed with heavily armed Taliban fighters, according to the Pakistani journalists invited to attend. Squatting on the floor of a government school, Mehsud, clasping a new Kalashnikov, announced he would press his fight against the American military across the border in Afghanistan.

"Islam does not recognize boundaries," he told the journalists, in accounts published in Pakistani newspapers and reported by the BBC. "There can be no deal with the United States."

Mehsud's jaunty appearance in his home base, South Waziristan, a particularly unruly region of Pakistan's tribal areas, underscored the wide latitude Pakistan's government has granted the militants under a new series of peace deals, and its impact in Afghanistan, where NATO and American commanders say cross-border attacks have surged since talks for those peace deals began in March.

The impunity of Mehsud's behavior has outraged the Bush administration, which is pressing the Pakistani government to arrest and prosecute him.

"Bringing Baitullah Mehsud, the head of this extremist group in South Waziristan — capturing him and bringing him to justice, which is what should happen to him," is what the United States wants from Pakistan, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said last month in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

But the Pakistani government, which at times has considered Mehsud an ally and is now fearful of his power, appears reluctant to hunt him down. Days before his news conference, Pakistani forces pulled back from his realm in South Waziristan as part of the peace deals.

American and Pakistani officials accuse Mehsud of masterminding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister, in December and sending scores of suicide bombers here and in Afghanistan, while forging a symbiotic relationship with Al Qaeda on Pakistan's frontier.

Interviews with former military officials and government officials, local residents and a former Taliban member who worked in proximity to Mehsud's inner circle portrayed him as a militant leader who is barely educated, attracts more knowledgeable people to his side and is ruthless in his goal of an extreme form of Islamic rule.

He and his main ally, Qari Hussain, whom officials and associates have described as a highly trained and vicious militant, have methodically built up strongholds in North and South Waziristan — killing uncooperative tribal leaders, recruiting unemployed young men to their jihad and filling the vacuum left by a lack of government services. Now, they also have lieutenants and allies across the tribal region.

In South Waziristan, they run training camps for suicide bombers, some of them children, according to the former Taliban member. Their realm is so secure that in April Mehsud's umbrella group, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, held a conference of thousands of fighters that culminated in a public execution, according to a local resident.

Local Pakistani authorities say they are helpless to deal with Mehsud's group. In a measure of their despair, on Wednesday the authorities in the Mohmand district, where the conference and public execution were held, announced a truce with the Taliban.

Mehsud was once a minor figure in the small Shabikhel branch of the fierce Mehsud tribe that lives in South Waziristan, whose inhospitable territory remained a sliver of imperial India left unconquered by the British.

But he managed to enhance his stature through the ambivalence — or protection, according to some officials — of the Pakistani authorities, say former Pakistani military officials and tribal leaders. His strength grew quickly after February 2005, when the military, then under the control of President Pervez Musharraf, signed a peace deal with him.

"That was when I knew the army was not serious," said a tribal leader who has dealt with Mehsud and would not be named for safety reasons. "If the army took firm action they could crush him in two months."

Instead, the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence, the overarching Pakistani intelligence agency, wanted to keep Mehsud "in reserve," said the tribal leader, who is also a former military officer.

In essence, the Pakistani authorities stuck to a long-standing policy of "strategic depth" in Afghanistan as a bulwark against its enemy India, and Mehsud was a tool in that game, he said.

A retired brigadier, Mehmood Shah, said the 2005 peace deal amounted to a total "surrender" to Mehsud, from which he had advanced virtually unhindered. Against his advice, Shah said, army checkpoints in key areas of Mehsud territory — in particular, the Makin bazaar, a favored Taliban hangout, and the strategic Karama mountain range — were abandoned after the 2005 agreement.

During the January offensive against Mehsud, he hid among the civilians around the Makin bazaar, using them as shields and making it tricky to capture him, said Major General Athar Abbas, the spokesman for the Pakistani Army.

Much of Mehsud's strength lies in his alliance with Hussain, a militant groomed in the anti-Shiite group Laskar Jhangvi. Hussain, who turned up to greet the journalists, is younger than Mehsud and more confident. He belongs to the more prominent Behlolzi clan of the Mehsud tribe, Shah said.

Hussain organized the training schools for suicide bombers and a production site for making violent propaganda DVDs designed to encourage young men to join the cause of jihad, the former Taliban member said in an interview.

Introduced to The New York Times by an intermediary who vouched for his credibility, the former Taliban member, in his early 20s, could not be named for fear of retaliation.

Not all of what the former Taliban member said could be independently corroborated. Major points of his account conformed with public events and with details provided, separately, by former military and civilian officials.

He said he had worked in the propaganda wing of Mehsud's cohort from May 2006 to May 2007, and left after Hussain ordered the killing of eight of his relatives in a dispute. But he remained on friendly terms. "Baitullah Mehsud is nothing without Qari Hussain," he said.

He described Hussain as a kind of enforcer, a deputy to Mehsud who would order killings of tribesmen and often personally slit a person's throat. Fighters traveling to or from Afghanistan usually consulted with Hussain first, he added.

Hussain ran the school for suicide bombers where he would indoctrinate boys as young as 10, the former Taliban member said. "He called every child by his name, and talked to him about life in the next world," he said.

By the time the army began its assault on the Mehsud forces in South Waziristan in January, the results of which it showed off to journalists on the tour in May, Hussain was one step ahead of them, the former Taliban member said. Hussain had already moved the suicide bombing school to North Waziristan, he said. There, he said, Mehsud and Hussain enjoyed the protection of Sirajuddin Haqqani, a leader of the Afghan Taliban based in Pakistan who has ties to Al Qaeda, according to American intelligence officials.

The relationship between Mehsud and Al Qaeda was secretive, with Al Qaeda the dominant partner that treated the Taliban as supplicants, the former Taliban member said.

He described Al Qaeda as "the Arabs" who would help the Taliban in South Waziristan with military training. Taliban who wanted the training would be blindfolded so they would not know where they were going, he said.

In recent months, Mehsud's deputies have become entrenched in the tribal areas far from South Waziristan. Another deputy of Mehsud's, Fakir Mohammed, is in control of much of Bajaur Agency, the northern-most point of the tribal region, according to officials in Peshawar.

In the Khyber region, a transit route for NATO fuel convoys bound for Afghanistan from Karachi, Mehsud's allies have organized tribal killings.

The spread of the Pakistani Taliban threatens even Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province bordering the tribal areas, the inspector general of police, Malik Naveed Khan, warned.

"They are now on the periphery," Khan said in an interview. If nothing is done, it could be "a matter of months" before Peshawar falls, he said.

To woo young men away from the Taliban, he wants to create a broad "conservation corps" to employ 300,000 men — approximately one from every family — to build roads and bridges in the impoverished tribal region. The men would get a stipend to counter the generous 13,000 rupees (about $200) the Taliban pay some members each month.

"The economic effect will be immediate," said Khan, who says he is impatient with a slow-moving $750 million five-year American aid program that began a few months ago. He recites his ideas to the many American development experts who come through his door offering to help.

The Americans all say about his employment plan, modeled after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s: " 'We are thinking about it,' " he said. "I say: 'Don't think about it, do it.' "

ht: Sam

49 comments:

  1. What would Obama do?

    Not much more than Bush has done, which is not much, at all.

    If viewed from a results perspective.

    Can US assets, in Afghanistan, be supplied ALL their needs through an air bridge?

    If not, we just have to kiss that Pakistani ass, to get our supplies to NATO and US assets.

    Could Afghanistan become the Chosin Reservoir of the 21st century? The Chosin Reservoir where 30,000 US and UN troops were cut off, well behind enemy lines.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- A massive blast targeting the Danish Embassy in Pakistan Monday killed at least six people and wounded more than a dozen, authorities said.

    Confusion lingered about the extent of the casualties hours after the blast in the capital city of Islamabad.

    Police at the scene said a suicide car bomber pulled up next to the embassy about 1 p.m. and detonated explosives. But Senior Superintendent of Police Ahmad Latif told CNN that authorities could not immediately label it a suicide attack.

    Likewise, a medical personnel told CNN that the explosion killed eight people, including a young child and at least one foreign national.

    But Latif put the number of fatalities at six and said none of the dead were foreigners. Among the wounded, he said, was a Brazilian citizen of Pakistani descent.

    Authorities differed on the number of wounded as well, with figures ranging from five to 18. No embassy official was seriously hurt, Latif said.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hewitt:
    Our North Korean strategery seems to be broken. Your assessment of whether or not the deal that we entered into has been honored by North Korea?

    John Bolton: It’s not been honored by North Korea, it won’t be honored by North Korea, they don’t honor their deals. I’m told some weeks ago, President Bush had a small meeting where he asked the Director of National Intelligence what he though would happen in the wake of what seems to be the latest deal with North Korea, and was unhappy when he was told the intelligence community’s assessment is North Korea won’t uphold their end of the bargain. I think that shows we’re drifting into the latter stages of a presidency where inconvenient facts don’t get through.
    ---
    Frank Gafney shocked Hewitt when he refered to U.S. envoy Christopher Hill as "swine."

    Seems the Bush admin has now defaulted to the Clinton stance wrt to keeping Nukes out of the hands of terrorists.
    Leave it for the next guy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "You will be risking your lives... whilst I will be risking an almost certain Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Now raise your right hand for the pledge... RIGHT hand!

    Now repeat after me:
    I,

    Cast:
    I,

    Your name,

    Cast:
    Your name,

    Smucks!

    Pledge allegiance,

    Cast:
    Pledge allegiance,

    To Hedley Lamar..."

    ReplyDelete
  5. Police at the scene said a suicide car bomber pulled up next to the embassy about 1 p.m. and detonated explosives..... but Senior Superintendent of Police Ahmad Latif told CNN that authorities could not immediately label it a suicide attack.

    Sounds like the L.A.P.D.
    ------------


    What will Obama do?

    Since he's a b.s. artist, he'll b.s. his way around things, doing nothing, until something bad happens, then he'll turn to a gutted military to do something.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ahmadinajad is on a big mouth flap today, breathing fire. What will Obama do? Nada.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The Mexicans pour over the border. What will Obama do? Make 'em citizens. Be active there.

    This cap and trade crap is scary. It seems every week the Congress is up to or debating some insane proposal. It just wears a person down. Lieberman/Warner cap 'n Trade. Great idea.

    ReplyDelete
  8. NADER CAMPAIGN HAS RENTED A CAR

    June 2, 2008
    www.votenader.org
    www.officialnaderstore.com



    Last week, we asked for gas money to fuel the first leg of Ralph Nader's East Coast Tour.

    You came through with flying colors and filled our tank.

    Thank you.

    Now, we need gas money to fuel the second leg of Ralph's East Coast Tour - this time through New England.

    Nader/Gonzalez has rented a car and Ralph and his entourage will be traveling starting Thursday from Ralph's home in northwest Connecticut to Kennebunkport and Portland, Maine, on to Cambridge, Massachusetts, south to Providence, Rhode Island, over to Middletown, Connecticut and then back home.
    Check out the schedule below.

    But right now, we need gas money to fuel this leg of Ralph's speaking tour.

    Please donate whatever you can now to fill up our tank.

    You can give up to $4,600.

    But $500, $100, $50 - whatever you can donate is what we need.

    Your contribution could be doubled. Public campaign financing may match your contribution total up to $250.

    Help us fill 'er up.

    So we can get 'er done.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ahmadinajad is on a big mouth flap today, breathing fire. What will Obama do? Nada.

    Ahmedinejad is so 2007.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The public's anger at Ahmadinejad for his disastrous economic policies has now found expression in the upper reaches of Iran's power elite.

    Maybe they'll shut him up, get someone new. The nuclear weapons program will continue apace. What the Supreme Leader says, goes.

    But, we're all into HOPE these days.

    ReplyDelete
  11. And, in the spirit of HOPE, we should all tune to C2C tonite--

    Mon 06.02 >>
    Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Dr. George Vaillant will discuss his work on the scientific effects of positive emotions, as well as his new book Spiritual Evolution

    Actually, this might be a pretty good program. Only a sad sack would be against all positive emotions.

    A wonderful day to you all! I mean it!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Think positive, Rufus. Think Maxine Waters and a nationalized oil and gas industry.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oooh, I need a drink. :(

    ReplyDelete
  14. Looks like Hillary may be getting ready to throw in the towel--


    Clinton plans New York speech


    RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton will give her post-primary speech in New York Tuesday night, a rare departure from the campaign trail.
    Staffers who have worked for her on he ground in Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana have been invited to attend the event or go home for further instructions, campaign aides said. The New York senator had no other events Tuesday. She planned to address AIPAC Wednesday in Washington.

    But she is under increasing pressure to cede the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama after the final primaries. There was a sense of denouement in the campaign. She planned to rally with husband and former President Clinton and their daughter Chelsea in South Dakota Monday night—a reunion usually reserved for election nights.

    and

    Clinton Clue: Staffers Urged To Turn In Receipts

    Clinton Campaign staffers and former campaign staffers are being urged by the Clinton campaign's finance department to turn in their outstanding expense receipts by the end of the week. That's a sign, to them, that the campaign wants to get its affairs in order soon. If Clinton were staying in the race, there'd be no real reason to collect these receipts now; she'd still be raising and spending money from the same primary campaign account. The campaign is in arrears to the tune of about $11 million.

    and

    Habu takes a hit at Maggie's Farm

    H:
    Why are you always looking for a fight, walking around with a chip on your shoulder? This site is not about you, nor is it your personal IM account, nor your blog, nor your shrink, nor your billboard, nor your vomitorium.
    Our offering a comment section is offering a priviledge. We do not have to offer it. You abuse it. Nobody else ever has.
    Final warning: If you persist in acting like a drunk troll with too much time on your hands instead of like a respectful, friendly, continent, decent, on-topic good-citizen commenter - you will be history.
    So, as the man says, shut the f- up unless you have something intelligent and civil to say. Enough said.
    #6 BD on 2008-06-02 12:36 (Reply)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Are Baitullah Mehsud & Qari Hussain enemy combatants of criminal suspects?

    Are they insurgents, in Pakistan, or are they part of the ruling elite?

    If they are enemy combatants, and are part of the Pakistani ruling elite, the US should be at war, with Pakistan.

    Obviously, we are not.
    They are part of the ruling elite, or those agreements would not have been signed by the Pakistani Government.

    So the US must not consider them enemy combatants?

    ReplyDelete
  16. trish wrote (in the other thread):

    "I think my mother is right: Another brutal, and excrutiatingly close, election."

    I beg to differ- My prediction: A pretty clear to landslide win for Obama. McCain, too old, too much baggage and way to burdened by the war in Iraq.

    ReplyDelete
  17. p.s. but, yes, it will be brutal.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Looks like the same group of erudite, opinionated, informed bar flies I saw in here last time.

    Looks like somebody waxed the floor and that busted window is fixed. New overhead lights.

    Yep looks good...been mak'in solid progress and now it's darn near fully respectable ... hadn't seen the head yet, I hope they got two ply now.

    Deuce, you've done a darn fine job.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Bobal,

    The story needs context. I worked damn hard to get banished from that place.

    Caning me? Now she's Kim whatever. Say I used Possumtater but she's used how many now(I don't look in too often)...I did see the other day she was resigning from the board or something.

    Hey girl, I still say those Marines on Guadalcanal weren't murdering Japs like you said..it was a war. I'll take a caning if you'll cease blogging..fair enough?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Oh, sure; after starting a brawl that left nary a stick of furniture recognizable as anything other than kindlin, you shine your shoes, press your pants, mend the tear in your cleanest dirty shirt, and show up at the door of the EB all smiles, and shining in your newfound benevolence, and good fellowship.

    Yeah, we saw what you did to poor old Maggies' place. (did the 'Tater actually chew a hole in BD's pants, and steal his wallet during the brawl?)

    Man, I was over there while ago, and some of the drunks were still brawling out in the parking lot. BTW, they're trying to figure out what happened to their cash register; you wouldn't know anything about that, would you? Nah, didn't think so.

    Well, have a seat, brother; tell us all about it. Uh, . . no bar tabs, I'm afraid, though. Deuce and Whit decided that the comments section at EB is an invitation - not a "privilege," but they damned well insist on being treated with respect (no lesser light, bs,) and getting paid for the booze. And, none of that having P'Tater chomping down on the dog's tail, and then slipping out the door, tab unpaid, during the uproar (if you can call having the laziest hound dog on the planet peeing on the floor, and runnin and hidin behind the juke box while whining piteously an "uproar.")

    Anyway, first round's on you. What's your side of the story . . . . . uh, on second though, How bout them gas prices, huh?

    ReplyDelete
  21. Good to see you Habu. I like to keep abreast of the havoc you leave in your wake, just a past time of mine. Hope you hang out here for awhile. If that Hu fellow's a drinker, bring him along.

    When you've been fighting the griz, and eating human in Montana, it's hard to decompress. I've had to do so myself at times. This here's the place to do that.

    By the way, I saw big Big Bill 'Bubba' Clinton in Missoula not long ago. Same lying son of a bitch as always, only kind of grandfatherly now. Hundreds of brain dead zombies cheering and clapping. A real experience for me, a first.

    You can buy a silencer in Missoula, if you show ID and get fingerprinted. Lots of 'em right there in the display case, if you need to shoot the griz, and not wake the wife.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Cap & Trade, bob, that's the McCain Program.

    Some of the Dems lessor lights" proposed a carbon tax to replace the FICA withholding taxes.

    But at this point it's all just hot air.

    ReplyDelete
  23. What if he wants to shoot the wife and not wake the Griz?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Bo Diddley, a Rock ’n’ Roll Pioneer, Dies at 79

    The singer and guitarist invented his own name, his own guitars, his own beat and, with a handful of other pioneers, rock ’n’ roll itself.

    Songs That Use Diddley’s Beat

    Pioneer of a Beat Is Still Riffing for His Due (Feb. 16, 2003)

    Slide Show

    Times Topics

    Readers Comments (46)

    Audio & Photos

    ReplyDelete
  25. Cap & Trade, bob, that's the McCain Program.

    Right, I was just listening to Lars Larsen--the Lieberman/Warner was sponsered by McCain, the name changed to protect the guilty, stuck old Warner in there as a substitute.

    It's not going anywhere, for now. After the election, Hannah hold your hat.

    We need a new political party. The USA Party or something. Keep the word National or Nationalist out of it.

    I know, you'll say we already have one--called the Libertarians.:)

    See bob's 11:36 above to put a new lift, life, love and hope in your daily grind, folks.

    ReplyDelete
  26. What if he wants to shoot the wife and not wake the Griz?

    Can do that too.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I thinking about trying to go to this--

    Public informational meetings to be held for proposed power plant

    Meetings June 10 in Mountain Home and June 16 in Glenns Ferry to answer questions


    June 2, 2008
    For more information, contact:
    Martin Johncox, IEC spokesman, 208-658-9100
    Don Gillispie, CEO, 208-939-9311

    Idaho Energy Complex representatives will hold public meetings on Tuesday, June 10 and Monday, June 16 to inform the public about their plans to build a 1,600-megawatt nuclear reactor in Elmore county.

    The June 10 meeting will be held from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Mountain Home Junior High School Gym, 1600 East 6th South in Mountain Home. The June 16 meeting will be held from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Glenns Ferry Opera House, 208 East Idaho Avenue in Glenns Ferry. Boise City Councilman Jim Tibbs will moderate the meetings.

    Don Gillispie, president and CEO of the Idaho Energy Complex, noted Idaho Power’s recent decision to raise rates by an average of nearly 11 percent, in part because the company was forced to buy electricity out-of-state to meet demand last year.

    “Idaho seriously needs in-state generating capacity to keep our costs down,” Gillispie said. “Our homes, farms, factories and businesses need it and Elmore and surrounding counties will especially benefit from the economic impact of the plant.”

    An economic study calculated the IEC would grow employment in Elmore and Owyhee counties by 25 percent and produce total annual labor income benefits in Owyhee and Elmore counties of $52.3 million during operation. Building one reactor would contribute $2.6 billion to the State’s economy, boosting it by nearly 6 percent, while its operation will generate $74 million in state tax revenues a year.

    The Idaho Energy Complex (www.idahoenergycomplex.com) will be a 1,600-megawatt; $4.5-billion advanced nuclear reactor with low cooling water requirements located about 65 miles southeast of Boise, in Elmore County. The plant will also include a biofuels component, using excess reactor heat to produce fuels from local ag waste and crops. Company officials plan to submit a Combined Operating License Application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009. The approval process is expected to take three years and cost $80 million. Construction could begin as soon as 2012 and finish with power generation beginning in late 2016.

    P2

    ReplyDelete
  28. "I've been voting for 40 years," said Deborah Foster, a gray-haired gym teacher from Long Island, N.Y., after she was ejected. "Those idiot bosses in there have given me two winners in 40 years. And now they're going to tell us how people are voting and take votes away? The party elite sucks."

    Displaying a bruise on her arm she said had been inflicted by DNC goons, Foster described how she'd been among a pro-Clinton contingent that started chanting "Denver! Denver!" when security "swarmed down" and told her, "Let's go. You've had your last chance."


    The Revenge of the Post-Menos

    Elite democratic "goon squad" condemned.

    ReplyDelete
  29. It is unrealistic to expect the opposition to make the government's case just because the Prime Minister is too weak to make it with much conviction himself. But the Tories have no position at all on the matter.

    Anyone expecting to be credible in government must sometimes say things that, while unpopular with some voters, have the virtue of being true. We cannot wait for rosier times before putting the environment at the heart of economic policy.

    The climate is changing and, unlike David Cameron and Gordon Brown, it is doing so without consulting opinion polls.


    Environment Must Stay at the Heart

    ReplyDelete
  30. Cavuto had some dude on this morning who said Clinton's gonna throw in the towel tomorrow night.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Throw in the panties and bra.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Rumor denied--

    Clinton Spokesman: She Won't Drop Out Tomorrow


    SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- A Hillary Clinton spokesman told reporters on a flight over South Dakota that Clinton has no plans of dropping out of the race at her election night celebration in New York City tomorrow night.

    “She is in this race until we have a nominee, she still believes there is a path for her to become that nominee,” said spokesman Mo Elleithee. “I think it's pretty clear that she is not conceding.” When asked "Will you deny that she is dropping out tomorrow night?" Elleithee responded, "Yes."

    Elleithee went as far as to say that the campaign is currently working on the upcoming schedule saying they are “putting it together now, we’re looking to where we may go.”

    Meantime, CBS News Chief Political Consultant Marc Ambinder reports that a prominent Democrat who spoke to Clinton today was told by her directly that she will not drop out tomorrow.

    The notion that the Clinton campaign is continuing to look forward to the general election is hard to swallow given the fact the Barack Obama is 46 delegates away from clinching the party’s nomination. When asked if Clinton would accept the 2,118 delegate number as the threshold to capture the nomination, Elleithee vaguely left open the possibility that the campaign may challenge the Michigan ruling at the convention.

    Elleithee also denied reports that the Obama and Clinton campaigns have been in conversations on how to end the race. Elleithee said Obama called Clinton last night to congratulate her on her win in Puerto Rico and categorized the call as “very short, very pleasant.”

    ReplyDelete
  33. BoBal , Rufus, DR, Deuce hail hail

    My side...pure as the snow ...

    Short version.
    You know I can be argumentaive.
    I argued a point with one of their writers, A Roger De Hauteville back about a month manybe two ago. Ended up badly chack mating him ,,he no likee.

    May 18 he writes an entire thread on basically calling me a low life SOB..kool enough. I misssed it at the time it was written but after reading it I went after him .... I was told that he was basically "untouchable" , that he was a "hero" and a "benefactor" .....well if that's not red meat I've never seen any..

    On Saturday (I think it may still be up over there I can't even view the site) there was a "peasnat revolt with a good many of thebloggers asking the pooh bahs just WTF was up with jump'in my shit and then complaining that I defended myself.

    The gallows were being constructed I could see that but geez, if ya don't go for it you end up like TR said "with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

    THE STRAW:
    Last night after a thread had sat all day without a comment I made one..on topic and included a picture of a 1957 Ferrari Pontoon Fendered TestaRossa ,which I captioned " a car any real man would want to drive fast" The article was about real men and had mentioned Steve McQueen, a personal favorite.

    This morning the pics been pulled along wiht another car pic I put up.

    I asked Why? ...got no answer..now this is two , manybe three weeks after they get this guy to upgrade the site so posters can us tags, one of which was images.

    Asked again ,as did a few other's..why no pics now and why no notice?

    Then I was given the quote Bobal cited ... basically just fall in line, don't rock the boat, etc...more of what I wasn't gonna do ... rope over neck, short drop...fade to black..


    dropped in here to see if Teresita was still posting as I had seen in one of my drive bys her in a snit and demanding she be taken off the board etc...

    then I saw bobal had the tom toms already work'n

    so a site has ban me, an eclectic site that had pictures of flower gardens and liked to talk about how to cure cast iron skillets.

    such is life.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Oh yeah Rufus .. I had to really restrain the 'Tater ..

    he was do'in the teeth chatter'n thang with some sidemouth foam show'n ..he'd a hurt some folks..it was really just a kerfuffle ..... I think I wasn't eclectic enough or could it have been diplomatic skills? Hmmm

    ReplyDelete
  35. I wasn't beanting the toms toms Habu, just reporting. I'm one of your supporters. ( mostly:) )

    ReplyDelete
  36. So what's their recommendation,
    re:
    Curing the skilets?

    ReplyDelete
  37. Maybe they could organize, get folks together to share ovens, thereby curing global warming while curing the skillets.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Demonstrate the Healing/Curing Power of a co-operative blog collective.

    ReplyDelete
  39. bobal

    Sorry ..didn't mean tom tom beating in any negative sense. I know you've spoken up for me before and it's always appreciated.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Doug,

    I didn't do much participat'n in cure all skillet jaw jaw. I just always turn the burner on high and let'r rip ...

    ReplyDelete
  41. The "King of Vegas" rounds out the Libertarian ticket as their VP choice, and has something to offer, suggestions as to how to beat the house in Vegas.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Wayne Allyn Root, Libertarian VP choice, is a self promoter who spends a lot of time in the self promoting Capital of the World, Vegas.

    But, hey, if he can pick the ponies....

    ReplyDelete