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."

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Who Will a President Obama Put on the Supreme Court?



It will not be Hillary.

Obama Snubs Hillary for Supreme Court

Thursday, October 2, 2008 12:08 PM

By: Jim Meyers

Bill and Hillary Clinton are only half-heartedly working to help elect Barack Obama president because he wouldn’t guarantee Hillary a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court if he wins the White House, sources told The New York Post.

One insider said: “Hillary wants an assurance that if she shows loyalty and goes out there like a good soldier, she will be rewarded with a nomination for the Supreme Court should a seat become available.”

A representative for Hillary sent an e-mail to The Post’s “Page Six” column on Wednesday calling the report: “Absurd. Nonsense. Rubbish. Hogwash. Malarkey.”

But The Post asserted on Thursday: “The problem is, we’re told, Obama ‘balked’ at promising Hillary the judgeship, perhaps because he still resents how the Clintons attacked him during the primaries.”

Bill Clinton has recently called Obama’s Republican rival John McCain a “good man” and a “friend,” and said he understands why GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin “is hot out there.”

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

83 comments:

  1. Wife calls the debate a draw, which in her case means Sarah did ok.

    Not a gaffe or a foot in her mouth.

    Biden, he was not as personable, but no gaffes, either.

    Won't change the campaign.

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  2. Well, I think the debate was not the deal breaker for the McCain/Palin campaign. She showed that she could hold her own for 90 minutes against a 35 year Senator. Despite the best efforts of the left to destroy her, she did very well.

    She came across as "real people" which may not be especially appealing to the elitists but certainly is to the average American who is royally perturbed with Washington and Wall Street.

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  3. she did wonderful...

    up yours messiah............

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  4. Won't change the campaign.


    I think it might reenergise the campaign and also reassure some flagging McCain supporters who had begun to doubt her ability.

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  5. I have to agree with trish, there are very few folk the REALLY vote for the VP.

    Ms Palin was reasonable and well spoken, to be sure. It may reinvigorate some of the base, it eased my wife's concerns, but ...

    It will not put more volunteer boots on the ground in VA or CO. Won't turn the tide in MI.
    Obama still has Team Maverick out organized and energized, or so it appears, from here.

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  6. Did Biden say it would be a 'national tragedy of historic proportion if he had to become President'?

    Thomas Lifson:

    Biden has just announced that there is no cyclicality to the earth's climate, since all climate change is man-made. What a doofus!



    Seems like she did fine. I didn't watch, was in the closet praying.

    Who would you rather have a beer with?

    :)

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  7. Ms Ifill certainly did a good job, without any obvious bias.

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  8. People are saying Biden's two minutes seemed a lot longer than Palin's two minutes.

    My wife thinks she did great.

    Shoulda watched, but chickened out. Actually I went to the casino.

    Gotta give her credit. That's about as intense as it gets. The kind of pressure only Ash could handle with ease. Whatever happens this year, she has helped herself for the future.

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  9. I have to agree with trish, there are very few folk the REALLY vote for the VP.

    That's usually the case for sure. But this year might be somewhat different. We've never had a pleasant, attractive, warm woman on the ticket before. Ferraro wasn't any of those things. And lots of women just might think, ya know, I kinda like that Palin, and it's time. I sure hope so.

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  10. Palin did great. She has been at this five weeks. Biden came off as the DC windbag that he is. That phony melodramatic tearing was plain vanilla schlock.

    The debate was successful because it will give those inclined to be open-minded about her to take another look. She has had the entire weight of MSM doing everything they could to destroy her and she undid that, but the facts are that this is McCain's race.

    He needs to put down his tired earmarks talks and DC jibberish. He needs to talk about the issues that matter to people, financial security and the corruption and incompetence of the government.

    He has to turn the Republican attack machine against the Left and put them off balance.

    This race is not about Obama. It is about the determined Left and their campaign to remold this country into their socialist model.

    The race got a reprieve, but a small one.

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  11. txvet2 said:

    Just to see if they were loading up the polls again, I dropped into the Daily Kos. The comments immediately after admitted that the debate was a tie, which in libspeak means she cleaned the floor with him, and they’re in shock.

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  12. I didn't watch either, bob. Just. Couldn't. Do it.

    But by my rough and ready estimate, there was no clear winner.

    Funny thing, though. The Corner crashed. According to KJL they had five times the traffic tonight over last Friday. Let that sink in. Five times the traffic for the VP debate. And it will probably end as a wash. We'll see in the morning.

    McCain oughta make a campaign stop down here, because they are desperate - and I mean desperate - for him to win. Better yet, send the Colombians north and they will knock on every door in every neighborhood in every district tirelessly for the next month, recounting in, variously, broken, non-existent, or better-than-yours English, the story of the past eight years for them.

    But all they really have to say, all they sometimes do, is, "Venezuela."

    The election isn't much about that and they grasp that as an intellectual matter, but as an emotional matter...well, that's something else entirely.

    I feel for them.

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  13. Palin, still rough around the edges. Much better than her interviews, but sounded scripted.

    Biden, crying on national TV? That kind of nonesense would have sent him home, if he was on my team.

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  14. Biden was boo-hoo-ing ?

    What about?

    Seeing the incarnation in front of him of how his youth has fled, and hid itself in the starry skies o'erhead?

    Shoulda watched.

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  15. Becoming a single parent, bob.
    The death of his wife, the injuries to his children, tugged at the heart strings.

    It surly did, my wife had to dab her eyes, herself.

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  16. Something about knowing what it is to have lost or having not had something. I wasn't following that closely, Bob. You have to be a special kind of masochist to really pay attention to that drivel. :)

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  17. Drudge poll:
    Biden--26%
    Palin--72%
    Polled: 169,475

    Listened while stacking firewood. Missed the crying scene, must have been when it got dark and I was packing up and heading for the house.
    Big storm coming in tomorrow. First precip in over 4 months.

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  18. Trouble is duece, McCain personifies "the corruption and incompetence of the government".

    How hard does he attack Mr Bush?
    Who also personifies "the corruption and incompetence of the government".

    Hard to run against 26 years of your own expertise and experience.
    To run against the last 8 years, while connected at the hip with George W Bush. Tough sledding, that.

    Team Maverick has to hold every State that Bush won. Every one of them. He is not getting that job done. Try as they may.
    Colorado, New Mexico, those are still the key States, for both Obama and McCain.

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  19. Ah. I see. Course, being the cynic I am, I'd suspect ol' Joe of jerking a tear for votes, everybody his age having suffered something of the grave and constant in human life.

    I've seen him pull that one before. But, then I'm prejudiced.

    I suppose Palin could have come back with a jerker about the tragedy of baby Trig, matched him boo-hoo for boo-hoo.

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  20. She already had played that card, bob.

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  21. In fact, if I recall rightly, Biden has lied about the accident that killed his wife, saying a drunk driver caused it, when in fact the guy wasn't drunk, and wasn't prosecuted.

    But it makes a good jerker of a story.

    Am I the only one here old enough to remember "Queen For A Day", from the golden age of TV?

    Warehouse full of goodies to the one with the best sob story, measured by some applause meter, as I recall. Can't remember the MC.

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  22. Special needs children, an issue close to her heart, that's in her proposed portfolio.

    She played the TV audience for all it was worth. Her diverse family, her family's lack of medical insurance, she hit the notes, pretty darn well.

    Avoided any question she did not want to answer, as did old Joe.

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  23. Second thoughts on your Nevada itinerary, Bob. Use your precious travel time to good advantage and skip the side trip to Searchlight. Just visualize a half-acre American flag flying over a world-class McDonald's mini-casino/gift shop/filling station perched on a knoll in the high desert. Instead, take the missus up to Pahrump and look in on Art Bell. Swing by Area 51, too. By then it should be coming on full dark, and you can point out to Mrs Bobal all the red flashing beacons. Guiding lonely tourists to the desert brothels.

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  24. Special needs children, an issue close to her heart, that's in her proposed portfolio.

    Nothing wrong in that. Close to my wife's heart too.

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  25. On to Tuesday, when Barack and John face off, again.

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  26. You are right, bob, nothing wrong in that, or in remembering the dead wife with a sniffle.

    Biden's moment was well done, have to say.

    GE has some polling data, everyone was a winner.

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  27. I've been to Pahrumps, before anybody knew about it, before Art Bell. Was kind of a nice little place then. Some irrigated agriculture as I recall.

    "The Kingdom of Nye" Art's name for his radio kingdom, comes from Nye County, Nevada. Lots of brothels, for sure.

    If I'd had money in those days, it would have been well invested in Pahrumps. About 50 or 60 miles from Vegas.

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  28. everyone was a winner.

    The American Way! :)

    And we should try to make it so. Argument over how.

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  29. Can't think of the highway number, but it's called the alien highway or something like that. Remember it from long ago. Get way out there, little pit stop of a place, same old flying saucer there by the gas station, just a few years ago. Highway skirts around Nellis Air Force Base.

    And there's an old oil well down in the middle of Nevada, only one I know of. Last time I was through there, the three or four pumps were still rocking up and down, pumping away, just like in the fifties. You can smell it from seven or ten miles away in the desert if you have a good nose.

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  30. I passed that way, drivin' to Reno, bob, couple four years ago.

    A long piece of not to much.
    The gas station/rest stop was still there. Airman from the base hangin' around.

    Good place to have a dependable vehicle.

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  31. Good place to have a flying saucer, too.

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  32. Who would you rather have a beer with?

    Exactly! I mean that's what it's all about really. C'mon guys, she was way more relaxed and personable than Biden the butt-fuck. Fuck that guy. I'm looking forward to the new RCP averages tomorrow.

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  33. Art Bell swears up and down, he and his first wife were out in the yard in Pahrumps of an evening, when this massive, triagular ship floated over, perfectly silently. He swears this on a stack of Bibles, or korans, or whatever you want. He says it with such conviction, and his wife concurred, I almost believe 'em. He says, it was either from outer space, or Area 51, not sure which, but if from Area 51, our guys got some neat stuff. Said it drifted over real slow like. Then, off over the mountains, ne'er to return.

    Other folks have reported massive, silent triangular craft too.

    Art figures if it's ours, we got some anti-gravity gear from somewhere.

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  34. Hail Mary vs. Cool Barry
    By Charles Krauthammer

    Obama understood that the magic was wearing off and the audacity of hope wearing thin. Hence the self-denial perfectly personified in his acceptance speech in Denver. He could have had 80,000 people in rapture. Instead, he made himself prosaic, even pedestrian, going right to the general election audience to project himself as one of them.

    Ordinariness was the theme. His self-told life story? Common man, hence that brazen introductory biopic that shamelessly skipped from Hawaii grade-schooler to Chicago community organizer with not a word about Columbia and Harvard. His riff on American concerns? All middle-class anxieties. His list of programs? All pitched as his middle-class remedies.

    He's been moderate in policy and temper ever since. His one goal: Pass the Reagan '80 threshold. Be acceptable, be cool, be reassuring.

    Part of reassurance is intellectual. Like Palin, he's a rookie, but in his 19 months on the national stage he has achieved fluency in areas in which he has no experience. In the foreign policy debate with McCain, as in his July news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama held his own -- fluid, familiar, and therefore plausibly presidential.

    Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously said of Franklin Roosevelt that he had a "second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament." Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self- definition -- do you really know who he is and what he believes? Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president.

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  35. So low he could almost reach up and touch it. Right over his transmitting antennas.

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  36. That tri-angle flying thing, that's what was seen here, in the sky above Phoenix, a few years ago.

    The truth is out there.

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  37. Debate Wrap: Palin Wins By Not Losing
    Posted by TOM BEVAN

    ST. LOUIS - Entering tonight's debate, the overriding question was whether Sarah Palin was up to the task or not. Would she acquit herself well - or at least well enough - to put to rest many of the doubts about her that have been percolating among the public? Or would she crash and burn, potentially sending the McCain camp down in flames with her?

    Though opinions may vary about who won the debate, it's safe to say Palin did not crash and burn. For that reason alone she probably walks away with more from tonight than Biden, even though Biden did everything that was required of him.
    ...
    Strip away the spin from both sides, however, and this much is true: Sarah Palin and the McCain campaign had an awful lot riding on tonight's debate. After suffering through a bad couple of weeks, a disastrous performance by Palin tonight could have caused the bottom to fall out. The McCain campaign can at least leave St. Louis tonight satisfied in knowing that didn't happen, and that they live to fight another day.

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  38. "I may not answer the way you want to hear but I'm going to talk straight to the American people"

    -SP

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  39. The Ponzi-Plus Plan

    To paraphrase the late and great old war-horse of the senate, Everett Dirkson of Illinois (1896 - 1969), a trillion here, a trillion there, sooner or later you're talking about real money. Except in the case of the Great Bail-out of 2008, maybe it's more like... sooner or later your money is no longer real.

    What we're seeing in this fiasco, among other things, is a lesson in the diminishing returns of technology. This is a train wreck of investment vehicles so complex that they could only be created with the aid of computers. The result is that hardly anyone -- perhaps even nobody in or out of Wall Street -- really understands what they represent. In fact, this alphabet soup of engineered securities -- CDOs, CDSs, MBSs, SIVs, etc -- was cooked up from a recipe of Ponzi algorithms. They were designed to be mathematically indecipherable, except by computers, in an alternative universe of model-making that bore only a superficial relation to the real world. That was their dirty secret. And the dirty secret of the Great Bail-out is that, in the real world, we will never be able to discover the actual trading value of these things at any number above zero. This is why they are called "toxic."

    The big effort of Mr. Paulson and his working group has been to ram through legislation that at all costs avoids any attempt to place a reality-based value on this bad debt. He managed it by holding a gun to Congress's collective head, telling them in plain English that a genuine "work-out" of these "toxic" investments would set in motion a fatal cascade of credit default swaps which would leave the entire banking landscape a smoldering wasteland -- with the result that virtually every retirement account and pension fund would go up in a vapor, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC would melt away to twin piles of goo, scores of millions of lives would be ruined, and the USA would be left a basket case among nations, making us envy even the fate of Haiti and Zimbabwe. Talk like that might prompt a congress-person to do any fool thing.
    .
    .

    http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/

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  40. Who Will a President Obama Put on the Supreme Court?


    Surely it's past time for a muzzie on the Supreme Court, in our multi-cultural society, where all laws are equal and the Constitution should be interpreted anyway anybody wants.

    The storm gathers.

    Certainly am happy Sarah Palin did well tonight.

    That was satisfying.

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  41. De Void might’ve let the whole thing slide were it not for this concluding sentence: “They drive away, united in their certainty that the sky is hiding something.”

    Actually, if you really think the sky is the only thing hiding something, try getting your hands on Air Force radar records and jet fighter flight logs from January over Stephenville, Tex. That’s when the Federal Aviation Administration tracked a huge UFO approaching President Bush’s ranch.

    The public information office number at Carswell Field, Tex., is 817-782-7170. Seriously, LA Times, they like hearing from the media over there.


    Lousy Phone Call

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  42. More On Obama's Psychological Disorder

    Writer mentions his lack of humor, which I've noticed too.

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  43. Heard an eye witness account of the Phoenix Lights incident on c2c. Folks were driving along I-10 south of the city. Something huge floated overhead, NW to SE out around Casa Grande. Blanked out the stars. I'd been making some frequent trips down to Tucson about that time and knew the scenery pretty well.

    I'm still waiting for that nordic gal to call back, Bob.

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  44. How did Biden seamlessly work in a 30 year old family tragedy?
    ...or was that one of Gwen I'mfilledw/shit's questions?

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  45. I thought Veronica was that Nordic gal....

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  46. Yet Dr Kraut thinks he'd be just fine, LaBob, preserving his credentials with the Girl Men "Conservatives" at NRO that Wilt under a harsh word from Coulter.
    Associates with Terrorists?
    Raised and Trained by Communists?
    Went to a Jew Hating, Race Baiting Racist Black Liberation Theology/Victimology, Hate Chapel for 20 years w/o realizing it?

    Perfectly suited, to be my president, Doc!

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  47. Talk about Gibberish, 'Rat!

    In a World of Suspended Common Sense, I guess it flys.

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  48. Every great debate needs some time set aside for the emotional, Doug.

    Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, heck, all our greats should blubber right on cue for the folks.

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  49. The question was:
    How did he work it in?

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  50. Forgot, you didn't watch either!

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  51. Here ou go, doug.
    Ms Palin opened the door to family issues, discused at the kitchen table.

    IFILL: Let's talk conventional wisdom for a moment. The conventional wisdom, Governor Palin with you, is that your Achilles heel is that you lack experience. Your conventional wisdom against you is that your Achilles heel is that you lack discipline, Senator Biden. What id it really for you, Governor Palin? What is it really for you, Senator Biden? Start with you, governor.

    PALIN: My experience as an executive will be put to good use as a mayor and business owner and oil and gas regulator and then as governor of a huge state, a huge energy producing state that is accounting for much progress towards getting our nation energy independence and that's extremely important.

    But it wasn't just that experience tapped into, it was my connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills? About times and Todd and our marriage in our past where we didn't have health insurance and we know what other Americans are going through as they sit around the kitchen table and try to figure out how are they going to pay out-of-pocket for health care? We've been there also so that connection was important.

    But even more important is that world view that I share with John McCain. That world view that says that America is a nation of exceptionalism. And we are to be that shining city on a hill, as President Reagan so beautifully said, that we are a beacon of hope and that we are unapologetic here. We are not perfect as a nation. But together, we represent a perfect ideal. And that is democracy and tolerance and freedom and equal rights. Those things that we stand for that can be put to good use as a force for good in this world.

    John McCain and I share that. You combine all that with being a team with the only track record of making a really, a difference in where we've been and reforming, that's a good team, it's a good ticket.

    IFILL: Senator?

    BIDEN: You're very kind suggesting my only Achilles Heel is my lack of discipline.

    Others talk about my excessive passion. I'm not going to change. I have 35 years in public office. People can judge who I am. I haven't changed in that time.

    And, by the way, a record of change -- I will place my record and Barack's record against John McCain's or anyone else in terms of fundamental accomplishments. Wrote the crime bill, put 100,000 cops on the street, wrote the Violence Against Women Act, which John McCain voted against both of them, was the catalyst to change the circumstance in Bosnia, led by President Clinton, obviously.

    Look, I understand what it's like to be a single parent. When my wife and daughter died and my two sons were gravely injured, I understand what it's like as a parent to wonder what it's like if your kid's going to make it.

    I understand what it's like to sit around the kitchen table with a father who says, "I've got to leave, champ, because there's no jobs here. I got to head down to Wilmington. And when we get enough money, honey, we'll bring you down."

    I understand what it's like. I'm much better off than almost all Americans now. I get a good salary with the United States Senate. I live in a beautiful house that's my total investment that I have. So I -- I am much better off now.

    But the notion that somehow, because I'm a man, I don't know what it's like to raise two kids alone, I don't know what it's like to have a child you're not sure is going to -- is going to make it -- I understand.

    I understand, as well as, with all due respect, the governor or anybody else, what it's like for those people sitting around that kitchen table. And guess what? They're looking for help. They're looking for help. They're not looking for more of the same.

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  52. $33 Million in Pork for Samoa.
    Where most of the employees work for Starkist, connected to Paul Pelosi, Millionaire Businessman also benefitting from the Minimum Wage Exemption that Congress granted Samoa!

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  53. James says O'Reilly Tore Barney a New One:

    Hope it's well placed for comfortable Sex.

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  54. Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self- definition -- do you really know who he is and what he believes? Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament.

    Yessiree, Doug, that's prima facie evidence that Doctor Charlie has lost his mind.

    If we don't know "who he really is" at least we can be sure he has a "first class intellect, and a first class temperament."

    Yessiree suzie.

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  55. Obama SCOTUS

    As this article by Neil Lewis of the New York Times reflects, Yale law school dean Harold Koh is widely regarded as a leading contender for a Supreme Court appointment if Barack Obama becomes president. What sort of a justice would Harold Koh be?


    Let’s begin with Koh’s status as one of the leading proponents of transnationalism, and specifically of judicial transnationalism.


    Koh

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  56. Malkin:

    As I noted in my liveblog, Gwen Ifill failed to disclose her book and financial conflict of interest at the start of the debate.
    It’s a travesty.
    Andy McCarthy (whose terrific column blasting Ifill/PBS’s “Do as I say-ism” is here) adds:
    …it was an unmitigated disgrace for her to be presiding — and she is smart enough to know that, so not stepping aside was a culpable act.

    Spot on.

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  57. Nancy Pelosi exploits native Samoan labor, it's the truth.

    But you won't hear it on KGO.

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  58. Might as well put the whole turd on the Table, LaBob:

    "Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament.

    That will likely be enough to make him president.
    "

    The Temperment to send his girls to Sunday School of Hate.

    The Temperment to run all his competitors off with lawyers, including his mentor and long time Democrat of choice in the district he decided to run over, Acting as lawyer for the biggest Vote Fraud Organization in the country.

    Whata first-class guy!

    ...at least by Weatherman Standard.

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  59. Wasn't all that impressed by Palin. Obvious where she was serving up rote talking points, often parroting McCain's flaws in the process. Any VP has to mouth some of the big-dog's platitudes, but there's a danger she's such a blank slate on some of these issues she'll grow into his positions for real, for lack of strong contrary views.

    Also obvious when she was dealing with a subject she was familiar with, more impressive there. A good deal of populist crap, although that isn't a surprise considering the image she's trying to project and the tone in Washington...but once again too early to tell her true beliefs from the pandering.

    Biden projected confidence, smoothness, and general maturity, but also threw in some whoppers. Overall, I agree with Jonah Goldberg that it was mesmerizing how smooth Biden could make his lying - he seems the type who actually begins to believe his own bullshit. Remains to be seen whether the average non-politics obsessed voter buys it, of course some of it was accurate responses to the rote talking points.

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  60. Ginsburg, Souter, and (?) Barry's models to strive for.

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  61. David Brooks, PBS:

    When he talked about his family and the death of his wife, that is a moment people remember, what they remember about the debates is the moment when you think you see the person and that was a moment where I thought you saw Joe Biden.



    What a load of crap. I've seen Biden pull that maybe three times, and I don't watch much tv. And, he lies about it. Guy wasn't a drunk driver. So he uses the incident to pull our heart strings. Over and over again.

    I quess it is true, that was a moment where I thought you saw Joe Biden.

    Like one of those frauds in Huckleberry Finn, playing the audience.

    gnite

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  62. Who Would Barack Obama Nominate to the Supreme Court?

    Orin Kerr, February 26, 2008

    When asked back in a November primary debate to say what kind of Justice he would want to nominate to the Supreme Court, Barack Obama responded:

    I taught constitutional law for 10 years, and . . . when you look at what makes a great Supreme Court justice, it's not just the particular issue and how they rule, but it's their conception of the Court. And part of the role of the Court is that it is going to protect people who may be vulnerable in the political process, the outsider, the minority, those who are vulnerable, those who don't have a lot of clout.
    . . . [S]ometimes we're only looking at academics or people who've been in the [lower] court. If we can find people who have life experience and they understand what it means to be on the outside, what it means to have the system not work for them, that's the kind of person I want on the Supreme Court.



    volokh

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  63. Brooks has a long string of loser articles.
    What passes for "Conservative" in the Beltway Culture comes off as HyperElitists to normal people.

    ...or to exceptional people like Steyn, who still sees authenticity and common sense as a virtue despite his incredible breadth of knowledge and education.

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  64. "I taught constitutional law for 10 years, and . . . "
    ---
    I read that he DIDN'T, but taught Racial Crap instead.

    Never wrote a lick on law.
    (betcha Aeyers had a hand in his books)

    ReplyDelete
  65. More:

    We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges.

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  66. ...or to exceptional people like Doug, who still sees authenticity and common sense as a virtue despite his incredible breadth of knowledge and education.

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  67. Mat,

    The Ponzi-Plus Plan

    Good catch.

    ReplyDelete
  68. Paulson on his knee in front of Madam Pelosi in that White House conference room.

    The image persists of Pelosi dressed in black leather with heels and flogger.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Yeah, I'm right up there in Steyn's League, Linear, thanks!
    (for the laugh)
    ---
    A Law Professor on Biden.
    (might as well be Obama, too: They both think outcomes are more important than the Constitution)

    Brian Kalt Couric Interview Illustrates Palin-Biden Divide, and Biden Comes Out Worse -

    Biden's instrumental approach to the law is (to me) worrisome. His perspective is that the most important thing he can do is to pass laws that advance worthy social goals.
    If the courts pursue a different tack, and judge the laws according to the constraints that the Constitution requires, then they are wrong.

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  70. 800 Billion here,
    800 Billion next year,
    (Barry's planned added expenditures)
    pretty soon you're talkin real money.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Biden Secret Service Code Name 'Assassination Insurance' -

    Obama was not merely wrong on Fannie Mae:
    He is owned by Fannie Mae.
    Somehow Obama managed to become the second biggest all-time recipient of Fannie Mae political money after only three years in the Senate.

    The biggest beneficiary, Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, had a 30-year head start on receiving loot from Fannie Mae -- the government-backed institution behind our current crisis.

    How does the Democratic ticket stack up on other major issues facing the nation, say, gas prices?

    Shockingly, Sen. Joe Biden was one of only five senators to vote against the first Alaskan pipeline bill in 1973. This is like having been a Nazi sympathizer during World War II. If Sarah Palin does nothing else, she has got to tie that idiotic pipeline vote around Biden's neck.

    The Senate passed the 1973 Alaskan pipeline bill by an overwhelming 80-5 vote. Only five senators voted against the pipeline on final passage. Sen. Biden is the only one who is still in the Senate -- the other four having been confined to mental institutions long ago.

    The stakes were clear: This was in the midst of the first Arab oil embargo. Liberal Democrats, such as senators Robert Byrd, Mike Mansfield, Frank Church and Hubert Humphrey, all voted for the pipeline.

    But Biden cast one of only five votes against the pipeline that has produced more than 15 billion barrels of oil, supplied nearly 20 percent of this nation's oil, created tens of thousands of jobs, added hundreds of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy and reduced money transfers to the nation's enemies by about the same amount.

    The only argument against the pipeline was that it would harm the caribou, an argument that was both trivial and wrong. The caribou population near the pipeline increased from 5,000 in the 1970s to 32,000 by 2002.

    It would have been bad enough to vote against the pipeline bill even if it had hurt the caribou. A sane person would still say: Our enemies have us in a vice grip. Sorry, caribou, you've got to take one for the team. But when the pipeline goes through and the caribou population sextuples in the next 20 years, you really look like a moron.

    We couldn't possibly expect Couric to ask Biden about a vote that is the equivalent of voting against the invention of the wheel.

    But couldn't she have come up with just one follow-up question for Biden on FDR's magnificent handling of the 1929 stock market crash?

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  72. Listening to the debate out by the woodpile, I kept seeing Pinocchio when Biden was answering.

    Buddy Larsen is alive and (apparently) well.

    Good night.

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  73. Yon on AfPak:

    Death in the Corn Part I of III

    Death in the Corn Part II of III

    Death in the Corn Part III of III
    ---
    Brit Wuss can't lift his Weapon!

    Wuss at Play


    Back in 2003, General David Petraeus realized that the Iraq War was as much about politics and money than anything else. After he took command in early 2007, we saw victory in Iraq. (General Petraeus will not declare victory in Iraq, but I will do it for him.) General Petraeus also realizes that the AfPak war will largely be fought in the politosphere. Once General Petraeus has a chance to fully take the reigns at Centcom – which is exactly where America and our allies need him – a wise person will do well to listen closely to what he says.

    General Petraeus has ordered a Joint Strategic Assessment Team (JSAT) to evaluate Centcom’s area of responsibility. He did this upon assuming command in Iraq, and that JSAT significantly contributed to the new strategy that proved successful beyond our wildest dreams. Heading the Centcom effort will be Colonel H.R. McMaster, a brilliant officer whose command of 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar in 2005 was seen as a model for counterinsurgency in Iraq. The JSAT will be an opportunity for General Petraeus to develop a new strategy for AfPak, while not ignoring our responsibilities in Iraq, and elsewhere.

    One of General Petraeus’ first challenges in AfPak will be organizational, creating at least unity of action, if not unity of command (which at this point is beyond his power), in order to better coordinate the strategic efforts of the different forces engaged in Afghanistan. More than forty nations are here to “fight” the Taliban in Afghanistan. While Centcom only controls the American contingent, General Petraeus’ political and diplomatic skills will be needed in order to keep the alliance together and make it more effective. His experience in mentoring the Iraqi Security Forces also should prove valuable in fielding a stronger Afghan counterpart.
    ---
    The Independent reported that “troops serving in Helmand had a one-in-36 chance of not surviving a six-month tour of duty. During the Korean War, the death rate stood at one in 58. In Vietnam, it was one in 46; during the Falklands War it was one in 45.”

    We cannot win a war of attrition in Afghanistan.

    Furthermore, the war is not just in Afghanistan, and should more appropriately be called the AfPak war.

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  74. What the Media Isn't Reporting
    Oliver North

    General David Petraeus has ordered Central Command to quietly review the disposition of U.S. forces in his theater – and equally important – NATO roles and missions in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the September 20, Marriott Hotel suicide bombing in Islamabad, the Pakistani government is renewing efforts to reign in Islamic radicals.

    Last week Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak urged creation of a combined Afghan, Pakistani, U.S. Security Force for the porous, mountainous and largely ungoverned Afghan-Pakistani border region where 10-15,000 Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents have havens. Pakistan’s new President Zardari apparently likes the idea – as do U.S. commanders in the field.

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  75. I want Dolly Parton on the Supreme Court. She supports Palin and she's got another couple of big qualifications too.

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