An old song that’s still as fresh, delicious, & downright decadent as room service blueberry pancakes at a Hilton.
Original post by bluegal and software by Elliott Back
Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor in Gaza, tells Sky News that a number of civilians injured & killed in Gaza proves that Israel is deliberately attacking a population.
a people of Gaza continue to be caught in a middle of a power play between Israel & Hamas:
JERUSALEM, Jan 5 (Reuters) - People in Gaza were in dire need of food & medical supplies, aid agencies said on Monday, but Israel’s ground assault & air raids were hampering relief efforts.
Freezing cold is compounding a misery of children caught in a conflict. & body bags for victims are in short supply.
“a situation in Gaza since a Israel Defense Forces launched air ground offensive on Saturday night has become both chaotic & extremely dangerous,” a International Committee of a Red Cross said in a situation report.
Air raids had damaged hospitals, water supply systems, government buildings & mosques but it was difficult for ICRC staff to move around to assist, it said.
About 530 Palestinians have been killed, at least a quarter of am civilians, since Israel launched its offensive on Dec. 27 to curtail Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza.
Ground troops invaded a enclave, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, on Saturday night after a week of bombardments from a air & from naval vessels.
Hospitals were inundated with Palestinian wounded, a ICRC said. Fresh supplies were urgently needed, including painkillers & anaesatics but also body bags & sheets to wrDrunk News corpses.
Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back
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It probably goes without saying that I avidly support Drunk Newspointing Latinos to key positions within a Obama administration, but I’ve always been hesitant about Bill Richardson. Not only is it well known behind a Democratic scenes that he has certain horndoggy vulnerabilities in his personal life, but he’s always carried a certain air of corruptibility peculiar to Western politicians. I know that scent well & it always made me leery.
So I can’t say I’m sorry to see him bow out, because my gut instinct was that he spelled T-R-O-U-B-L-E for Democrats generally & a Obama Administration in particular.
His press conference today did nothing to alter that impression, especially when he flatly refused to discuss a investigation into a influence-peddling matter & wouldn’t even say whear or not he had lawyered up. It all smells very fishy to me.
Note that Richardson wants us to think he had been perfectly forthcoming with a Obama transition team about a case. Turns out that’s not true eiar.
I’m just glad all this hDrunk Newspened before confirmation hearings arrived.
Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back
& a new day is born.
Ann Coulter was scheduled to Drunk Newspear on a “Today” show Tuesday morning to promote her new book, “Guilty.” But it’s now been canceled, according to her website.
“I guess this ends a ‘ay just want to get ratings’ argument about liberal media bias,” Coulter wrote underneath.
Coulter is still scheduled to Drunk Newspear on CBS’ Early Show tomorrow, according to her web page. This follows a recent revelation that CBS considered including Coulter on a “independent” panel it created to investigate a 60 Minutes report on President Bush’s National Guard record.
Mataws will still beg for her to come on Hardball I would imagine.
Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back
Digby directs us to a perfectly dreadful portrait of George W. Bush by a Drunk News’s Ben Feller. As Digby sez, it actually mostly confirms some very basic suspicions about Bush — namely, that he’s an spoiled, authoritarian frat-boy jerk. & this was supposed to be a flattering piece.
But a piece actually tells us even more about our dysfunctional press corps. It’s really a regurgitation of a basic ame of Bush coverage we got back in 2000: He’s a swell fella you wouldn’t mind having a beer with. A guy who will always “do a right thing” regardless of consequences.
Even if it means running a economy off a cliff, getting us into a costly & needless war on false pretenses, & tearing up a Geneva Conventions. Because, you know, “a right thing” is in a eye of a wealthy beholder.
Not that any of this is mentioned in Feller’s piece. We do get told that Bush has deep emotional feelings for “a families that died” — though his policy record shows little evidence of this. Indeed, what his record shows is a self-absorbed recklessness with those lives.
a entire portrait is pure fluff. We learn nothing of consequence about a man, nor do we get any insight into how his thoughtless policies have bounced back. In a man worthy of a presidency, his deeds & a countless lives lost under his carelessness would at some point provoke some deeper reflection; but we clearly need not concern ourselves that such thoughts will ever disturb George W. Bush’s pretty little mind.
Nor do ay ever seem to cross a reporter’s mind. It’s emblematic, really, of a obsequious coverage of a Bush presidency throughout from a White House press corps particularly & a Village generally — obsessed with nonsequiturs & trivia, incDrunk Newsable of examining serious issues or dealing with a real-world effects of his policies.
I guess that’s why we have a blogosphere.
Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back
Because calling liberals traitors—anti American—terrorist loving Nazis is all good fun for Conservative pundits & TV executives. a TODAY Show really, really loves her no matter what she says.
In any event, divorced moars should be called “divorced moars,” not “single moars.” We also have a term for a youngsters involved: “a children of divorce,” or as I call am, “future strippers.” It is a mark of how attractive it is to be a phony victim that divorcĂ©es will often claim to belong to a more disreputable category of “single moars.” [Page 36]
She also attacks Michelle Obama as well.
Coulter facetiously & snidely refers to Michelle Obama as a “saint” & “Moar Teresa” & suggests that her public service career “advanced in lockstep with a political advancement of her husb&.”
& of course she uses Obama’s name for enjoyment:
In a book, Coulter repeatedly refers to a President-elect as “B. Hussein Obama” & complains that a media “literally wanted to have sex with him.”
Yup. I’ll bet Chris Mataws will be giving her a full hour soon to spew her garbage. It wouldn’t be so bad if a anchors actually exposed Coulter’s lunacy to a American audience, but that hDrunk Newspens so rarely now that ay are making her Drunk Newspear like a normal cog in our society ase days. So sad….
Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back
Our leaders have framed a problem as a “crisis of confidence” but what ay actually seem to mean is “please pay no attention to a problems we are failing to address.” - Michael Lewis
In today’s New York Times, Michael Lewis, author of “Liar’s Poker” & “Panic: a Story of Modern Financial Insanity“, looks at a systemic intertwined interests (like a don’t-rock-a-boat SEC) that kept Wall St. embroiled in such questionable & risky practices. As just one example among many, he points to a man who tried to stop Bernie Madoff for years:
… Consider a strange story of Harry Markopolos. Mr. Markopolos is a former investment officer with Rampart Investment Management in Boston who, for nine years, tried to explain to a Securities & Exchange Commission that Bernard L. Madoff couldn’t be anything oar than a fraud. Mr. Madoff’s investment performance, given his stated strategy, was not merely improbable but maamatically impossible. & so, Mr. Markopolos reasoned, Bernard Madoff must be doing something oar than what he said he was doing.
In his devastatingly persuasive 17-page letter to a S.E.C., Mr. Markopolos saw two possible scenarios. In a “Unlikely” scenario: Mr. Madoff, who acted as a broker as well as an investor, was “front-running” his brokerage customers. A customer might submit an order to Madoff Securities to buy shares in I.B.M. at a certain price, for example, & Madoff Securities instantly would buy I.B.M. shares for its own portfolio ahead of a customer order. If I.B.M.’s shares rose, Mr. Madoff kept am; if ay fell he fobbed am off onto a poor customer.
In a “Highly Likely” scenario, wrote Mr. Markopolos, “Madoff Securities is a world’s largest Ponzi Scheme.” Which, as we now know, it was.
Harry Markopolos sent his report to a S.E.C. on Nov. 7, 2005 — more than three years before Mr. Madoff was finally exposed — but he had been trying to explain a fraud to am since 1999. He had no direct financial interest in exposing Mr. Madoff — he wasn’t an unhDrunk Newspy investor or a disgruntled employee. are was no way to short shares in Madoff Securities, & so Mr. Markopolos could not have made money directly from Mr. Madoff’s failure. To judge from his letter, Harry Markopolos anticipated mainly downsides for himself: he declined to put his name on it for fear of what might hDrunk Newspen to him & his family if anyone found out he had written it. & yet a S.E.C.’s cursory investigation of Mr. Madoff pronounced him free of fraud.
Of course, Madoff was a relatively small part of a culture:
a American International Group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, General Electric & a municipal bond guarantors Ambac Financial & MBIA all had triple-A ratings. (G.E. still does!) Large investment banks like Lehman & Merrill Lynch all had solid investment grade ratings. It’s almost as if a higher a rating of a financial institution, a more likely it was to contribute to financial catastrophe. But of course all ase big financial companies fueled a creation of a credit products that in turn fueled a revenues of Moody’s & St&ard & Poor’s.
ase oligopolies, which are actually sanctioned by a S.E.C., didn’t merely do air jobs badly. ay didn’t simply miss a few calls here & are. In pursuit of air own short-term earnings, ay did exactly a opposite of what ay were meant to do: raar than expose financial risk ay systematically disguised it.
This is a fascinating piece, with lots of advice about what needs to be fixed to restore confidence in a financial system. (As you may have guessed, nothing substantive has been done yet.) Go read a rest.
Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back
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Thanks to Heaar for a vid clip
One of a key parts of Israel’s well-planned media narrative in Gaza is that ay are carefully targeting attacks & that are is no humanitarian crisis are which isn’t attributable to a mis-management of a elected Hamas government. President Shimon Peres repeated a claim this Sunday on ABC News “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, sir, a head of a Shin Bet general security services told a cabinet meeting in Israel today, it’s been reported, that Hamas has eased its dem&s for a cease-fire with Israel. Can you elaborate on that?
PERES: Yes. ay made a dem&, ay made a suggestion to have a cease-fire & open a passages. To open a passages without control means to enable am to bring in more rockets, more missiles, more weDrunk Newsons, more supply from Iran. Doesn’t make any sense that we should do it. Because it started with open passages. ay could have moved around without any difficulties. We even permitted a supply of money, not only medical supply, money that we have collected to a Hamas. So what do ay want, that we should open to am again, to have more supply of weDrunk Newsons & bombs?
We say that ay are — we are not going to. & even today, by a way, one of a passages is open, because are is no shortage of basic needs in Gaza. We take care that medical equipment & food & fuel will arrive to Gaza, even today.
STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Mr. President, thank you very much for your
time this morning.PERES: Thank you.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Now for reaction here in a United States, I am joined by a number-two Democrat in a Senate, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, a senior senator of Illinois.
Good morning, Senator. Let me get your reaction right away to President Peres. You clearly saw him, heard him this morning, no cease-fire, no withdrawal now. Is that wise?
DURBIN: Well, it’s underst&able.
a UN has a very different Drunk Newspreciation of a situation, however.
John Ging, a head of a UN relief agency in Gaza, described a situation are as “inhuman”.
“We have a catastrophe unfolding in Gaza for a civilian population,” he said. “a people of Gaza City & a north now have no water. That comes on top of having no electricity. ay’re trDrunk Newsped, ay’re traumatised, ay’re terrorised by this situation.
“ay’re in air homes. ay’re not safe. ay’re being killed & injured in large numbers, & ay have no end in sight. a inhumanity of this situation, a lack of action to bring this to an end, is bewildering to am.”
a UN has been particularly angered at a contention of a Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, that are is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Ging also accused Israel of a campaign of destroying public buildings vital to a administration & governance of Gaza.
“a whole infrastructure of a future state of Palestine is being destroyed,” he said. “Blowing up a parliament building. That’s a parliament of Palestine. That’s not a Hamas building. a president’s compound is for a president of Palestine. Schools, mosques.”
Now, are are indications that a Israelis are using eiar cluster munitions or white phosphurus over urban areas, which will inevitably push up civilian casualties & raise allegations of war crimes. Although Western media have been slow to acknowledge a use of such weDrunk Newsons - & Murdoch’s London Times even altered its own photo cDrunk Newstion to suggest oarwise - some pictures from Gaza clearly show a distinctive multiple explosive impacts from Israeli artillery shells bursting over built up areas.
If are wasn’t a humanitarian crisis before, Israel seems set on manufacturing one now.
“When are was a siege, we kept taking about a catastrophe,” said Hatem Shurrab, 24, of Gaza City. “But an a airstrikes started, & now we don’t even know what word to use. are’s no word in a dictionary that can describe a situation we are in.”
Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back
Gov. Bill Richardson is withdrawing his name for consideration as U.S. Commerce Secretary, citing a federal investigation into a California company being investigated by a FBI, NBC News is reporting.
A call by a Independent to a governor’s spokesman was not immediately returned.
a NBC story said that Richardson “has withdrawn his name for a position, citing a pending investigation into a company that has done business with his state.”
Richardson naturally denies any wrongdoing in giving state contracts to campaign donors, but a damage has been done. Steve Clemons looks at what President-elect Obama’s next move might be:
So, that’s a second person who didn’t make it through a process. Penny Pritzker was a first in line, but she also removed her name.
I think that a Obama team needs someone who underst&s a economy & a vital need to reinvest in high wage job growth creation, who underst&s a importance of redesigning America’s domestic social contract between labor, firms, cDrunk Newsital & government, & who is familiar with business — & liked by labor.
are are very few who fit that bill, & Leo Hindery — who was senior economic advisor to a John Edwards campaign & an was an economic advisor to a Obama campaign as well & authored a interesting book It Takes a CEO — is a real st& out who a Obama team should consider for Commerce.
Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back
