"There is no doubt this is a difficult election," Obama said. "This is a tough political environment." It's a lesson Obama learned firsthand in Massachusetts this year when he swept in to make a last-minute appeal for Martha "Marsha" Coakley, the Democrat seeking to succeed the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. Despite Obama's backing, Coakley lost the special election to Republican Scott Brown.
Asked about the why of todays visit by Barack Obama on his behalf, Gov. Deval Patrick said, Hes the president of the United States. I havent been doing this so long that it doesnt excite me that the president of the United States would come along and take up our cause. Other good Democrats, running in other parts of the country, have not been so eager to be side-by-side with this president. But, hey, this is Massachusetts and if Obama didnt do much to save the Senate campaign of Martha Coakley, well, that wasnt his fault.
Political competition is a wonderful thing. To wit, it is even making a more honest politician out of Barney Frank--well, sort of.
Mr. Frank is facing his first serious electoral challenge since 1980 from Marine officer and business executive Sean Bielat, and the liberal baron is making some remarkable concessions to the public mood.
For example, he seems newly sympathetic to the plight of small business, saying that he now favors repealing ObamaCare's infamous new Form 1099 reporting requirements for detailing purchases with any contractor above $600. Mr. Bielat has been hammering away on the issue since Democrats in Congress have refused to repeal the provision, but Mr. Frank now calls it "a mistake" and claims he's "determined" to ensure that Congress repeals it.
Right up to the moment the lame duck session starts ...
Also in the Political Wonders Department, Mr. Frank is conceding at long last that he missed the looming disasters at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "I was late in seeing it, no question," he told the Boston Globe, though in his redoubtable fashion he also has an excuse.
According to the Globe, Mr. Frank "said in an interview he missed the warning signs because he was wearing ideological blinders. He said he had worried that Republican politicians and the Bush administration were going after Fannie and Freddie for their own ideological reasons and would curtail the lenders' mission of providing affordable housing." We'll see what voters think of this Bush's-support-for-reform-made-Barney-oppose-it explanation.
He missed it, he blew it, he helped cost our economy hundreds of billions of dollars, so let's give him another two years!
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Ideological blinders is why we are in the state we are in, it is why the Tea Party is in existence, it is why this nation is one step away from the third world, it is in the state it is in because of you Mr. Frank, you self centered ass hole. You should worry about going to jail for what you did to this once great nation instead of you election. We must rid the halls of congress of the failures like you and then we can rebuild this nation. For the record, I could care less if a dem, republican, or independent take your office. I just want you gone from our government forever, you tried and you failed, good by!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/16/2010 0:52 Comments ||
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#2
I call bullshit. Frank didn't miss anything - he knew it was coming down. He just wanted himself and his friends to squeeze it for all its worth and blame it on Bush. F-k the little guy.
#3
Follow Gorelick's trail to see what is really going on in our government. Hand in hand with Frank. And keep an eye open for WilmerHale's fingers in various pies. Can you say shadow government?
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
10/16/2010 7:18 Comments ||
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#6
What a crock of shit. Peasants, Barney will always know best, Barney will always consider himself the smartest guy in the room. And he won't hesitate to let you know about it.
Bielat's giving him a nice run. I'd love to see him pull it off. He's actually forced Barney into buying TV ads. TV ads! After seeing how pissed he was about not getting the Fire Island ferry senior discount, that must've really fried his ass.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/16/2010 12:19 Comments ||
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#11
Affordable housing my ass. What did a house cost before Fannie and Freddie went into operation and what does the same house cost now? Bullshit. Be gone you fat old sodomite.
#12
If the mods sinktrap that last remark I'll understand. I'll stand by the part about housing being far more expensive now than it was before Fannie and Freddie went into operation. That's why I start to see red any time any of these politicians say anything about "affordable housing". It's a lie. It has never been anything but a lie and a scam perpetrated on the American people by the likes of Congressman Frank. I'll settle for describing him as a disgusting, odious little man.
#16
It is very difficult for all of us when we try to comment about one of the men (?) that are responsible for the failing of America. Just because he did not see it coming does not mean he is not, or should not be held responsible for what has happened in this country. We are choosing the our words carefully, but nothing he is called here is near what this man is or deserves to be called.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/16/2010 16:08 Comments ||
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#17
is Corrupt Gibbering Pillowbiter off-limits?
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/16/2010 16:25 Comments ||
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#18
Wasn't his old main squeeze in the top echelon of Freddie or Fannie? (Can't remember which one.) No wonder he didn't want to look too closely....would have made dinnertime conversations a mite uncomfortable, I suppose.
#20
nothing, except that his boyfriend was a Fannie Mae exec. That makes it personally enriching, same as that prune-faced Maxine Waters and Chollie Rangel, both hetero
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/16/2010 17:17 Comments ||
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#21
Interesting. I seem to remember, but I can't provide documentation, the Bill Clinton tried to reighn in Barney, too. He had as much sucsess as Bush. BVarney is in it for Barney and his But-Buddies.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
10/16/2010 19:27 Comments ||
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[Al Jazeera] Following the only scheduled debate between two candidates in a race many consider to be a bellwether for the United States' upcoming midterm elections, neither Democratic leader Harry Reid nor Tea Party favourite Sharron Angle seemed to have scored a decisive blow.
He is a professional politician with decades of experience, she is not. If he didn't wipe the floor with her, he lost.
Yup. All she had to do was show she belonged on the stage with him, and she did that.
During the roughly hour-long contest in Las Vegas, Nevada, Angle, a Republican former state assemblywoman running to unseat longtime incumbent Reid, sought to paint her opponent as a stereotypically tax-raising liberal and career politician out of touch with the world outside Washington, D.C.
"I'm not a career politician. I'm a mother and a grandmother," she said.
Reid, who has been a US senator since 1987 and the leader of the majority Democrats since 2007, avoided any major gaffes and emphasised job creation, but came off stiffer than the upbeat Angle.
"I am a fighter. I will continue to fight for what I believe is best for the American people," he said during his closing statement after struggling to find his notes, according the Los Angeles Times' liveblog of the debate.
The race between Reid and Angle is the closest in the nation - Reid has a less-than-one-per cent lead, according to the website Real Clear Politics - and political observers say it reflects the overarching theme of the upcoming November congressional elections in the United States: embattled Democrats trying to avoid a Republican victory fuelled by cut-thoat Tea Party enthusiasm.
Political writers expressed their boredom with the debate in real time on Twitter. John Dickerson, a contributor to the Slate website and CBS News, wrote: "They pump oxygen into the Las Vegas casinos but clearly not the debate room."
Paul Brandus, who writes the well-followed West Wing Report from the White House, wrote that the debate was "so bad, it's good".
But Jon Ralston, an influential Nevada political journalist, gave the victory to the mistake-prone Angle for doing "what she needed to do, looked credible, delivered message".
Angle had previously been quoted as saying she wanted to "privatise" Social Security, a retirement security net that has been administered by the government since its creation in the 1930s as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
During Thursday night's debate, she changed course, saying she wanted to "personalise" it by giving Americans private savings accounts of their own.
Republican operatives in Washington "privately joke that if they could just send Angle on a vacation to a faraway island until Election Day, Angle would be the next senator from Nevada," the Politico's David Catanese wrote before the debate.
To be sure, Angle has not conducted a well-tailored campaign by national standards, maintaining a Sarah Mama Grizzly Palin-like avoidance of major media outlets. She has said she would counsel a victim of rape and incest who is considering an abortion to make "what was really a lemon situation into lemonade"; she accused the B.O. regime of "overreacting" to the Gulf oil spill; and she threatened to sue Reid's campaign for posting an archived version of her campaign website after posting a new one that edited out some of her more conservative positions.
But Angle has also raised $14m since July, an amount nearly three times as large as any other high-profile Republican candidate. And Nevada voters do not view Reid with any great affection: Under his watch, the state now leads the nation with 14.4 per cent of its residents unemployed.
"She's running the worst campaign in the country, and she could still win," James Carville, a longtime Democratic strategist and former adviser to Bill Clinton, told Politico.
Republicans are on course to take other races throughout the country. Real Clear Politics, which averages multiple polls, shows Republicans leading in enough races to gain seven seats in the senate, leaving Democrats with a 52-48 majority. In the House of Representatives, Republicans look set to win 211 seats to Democrats' 185, with 39 still considered toss-ups.
As may be the case elsewhere in the United States, dissatisfaction and even anger with incumbents in an era of major healthcare and financial reform may determine the outcome of congressional races.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2010 00:00 ||
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(KUNA) -- President Barack B.O. Obama was scheduled to meet at the White House on Friday with former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss a range of issues, White House deputy front man Bill Burton said.
Oh, to be a fly on that wall! The president will find it a learning experience. She has an awful lot of experience handling students like him. Plus she's done real things in the real world. She is, in fact, everything he pretends to be, except for the marriage and children part.
Rice was in Washington to address the National Press Club as part of a book promotion effort she has been engaged in this week.
"She was going to be in town, and the President obviously could not make her book party later today," Burton told news hounds traveling aboard Air Force One with the President. "But he wanted to bring her in and have a chat with her. I am sure they will talk about a wide range of foreign policy issues".
The meeting will last about 30 minutes, Burton said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2010 00:00 ||
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#2
It gives me a queasy feeling. The only way I would meet with our current President would be if a gun were held to my head. I have no confidence in anyone who has held a highish position in government in the last 30 years. Except Rummie. And maybe Cheney.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
10/16/2010 7:24 Comments ||
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#3
If one where a fly on the wall at this meeting, youd hear the President lament, Condie, why didnt you tell me that all of my years stapling fliers to telephone poles in Chicago wouldnt prepare me for this job.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
10/16/2010 9:42 Comments ||
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#4
Typo above:
If one were a fly on the wall at this meeting, you'd hear the President lament, "Condie, why didn't you tell me that all of my years stapling fliers to telephone poles in Chicago wouldn't prepare me for this job".
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
10/16/2010 9:44 Comments ||
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#5
Condi is a class act. I didn't agree with everything she said or did (and said so here at the time) but I admire her.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/16/2010 10:05 Comments ||
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#6
a) Asks her to retrieve Churchill bust.
b) Asks for advice on handling Michelle.
c) Asks how Bush endured 06-08.
d) Hits on her for a job in the NFL Commissioner's office.
#7
The Washington Post reports that subsequent to the meeting, Professor Rice refused to criticize the president, nor to question his actions or his patriotism, and she was supportive of her successor. Good for her.
A star of the tea party movement, Angle was tough and salty throughout the hour-long session, taunting the Democratic leader for living in a Washington luxury hotel and questioning how he could afford a high-end lifestyle on a government salary. She even slipped a dig into her answer to a Social Security question.
"Man up, Harry Reid," Angle said to Reid. "You need to understand we have a problem with Social Security." What an insult. And a deserved one.
#1
Another article in the Post spun the debate as a draw. The MSM will be bitterly clinging to their masters for a couple weeks. Nothing new, but it's really going to be obvious.
Multi-term veteran US Senator, Senior Party Leader of the Senate vs a grandmother from Reno. This ain't boxing. Draw is a kind way of saying the man was skunked.
"Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out."
#3
I heard quite a bit of it. Reid sounded like a stumble bum. She sounded like a woman trying somewhat patiently to correct a child doing poorly at some task.
I saw a clip somewhere with Harry talking about pink football helmets and mammograms (you know, the things the gummint now says are useless), and he looked/sounded like an IDIOT.
In other words, himself.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/16/2010 14:07 Comments ||
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#5
Casey at the Bat, P2k!
"And now the pitcher holds the ball
and now he lets it go
and now the air is shattered
by the force of Casey's blow."
"The score stood four to two with but an inning left to play" ... I can't remember all of it.
Sorry, Fred.
The Outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Casey could get but a whack at that -
We'd put up even money, now, with Casey at the bat.
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.
But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped-
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.
From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And its likely they'd a-killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two."
"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.
"Phin"
Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
I think my Dad had a record of Barrymore reading the poem. I loved it.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/16/2010 22:18 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
"There is no doubt this is a difficult election," Obama said. "This is a tough political environment." It's a lesson Obama learned firsthand in Massachusetts this year when he swept in to make a last-minute appeal for Martha "Marsha" Coakley, the Democrat seeking to succeed the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. Despite Obama's backing, Coakley lost the special election to Republican Scott Brown.
Political competition is a wonderful thing. To wit, it is even making a more honest politician out of Barney Frank--well, sort of.
