Lieberman likes expressions of American power. A few years ago, I was in a movie theatre in Washington when I noticed Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, a few seats down. The film was "Behind Enemy Lines," in which Owen Wilson plays a U.S. pilot shot down in Bosnia. Whenever the American military scored an onscreen hit, Lieberman pumped his fist and said, "Yeah!" and "All right!"

Did anyone have the visceral response to this horror that I did? This person is in a position of leadership?? I used to see such outbursts as signs of seriously arrested development, but they have become the norm in our culture. It is one of the many signs around us of an empire in decline.

An oligarchy freed from the fetters of the law, trying to use brute force to compel the world to continue submitting to the status quo, while bankrupting its own nation in the process, as the public face of that group behaves like stupid, grasping, angry children.

He has been spending money lately on ads all over the place and emailing everyone in the state, touting what he calls his fight for Indiana's workers. What crap. As his "fight" consists of corporate-friendly policies that have not changed one bit since he has been in power, you can imagine what shape Indiana's workers are in. But this bogus campaign has been an attempt to distract us all from the fact that he is firmly against health care reform and that he and his wife (who sits on the board of some health care megacorp) have been greatly enriched by the vicious system that is currently in place. So I answered his jolly email by telling him what a total disgrace he is. He didn't answer.

Their pens (or keystrokes) are their swords. See sig.

I refer to the fourth musketeer as D'Igby. :)

Believe it or not, I still struggle with twinges of conscience over my initial skepticism towards Obama rising to the level of settled repugnance.

HA HA! Wonderful!

Gee, America's foreign policy is hypocritical.

Thank you for being such a great exemplar of my illustration at sig. What would we do without people like you to tell us that you are all-knowing and all-seeing.

Outrageous.

Obama is just trying to quell the rising anger of progressives. A number of (actual, not David Gregory-type) reporters, including Robert Reich here at Salon, have noted that this admin has assured Big Pharma and the insurance industry in secret that there will be no public option in the final bill.

Obama just wants to appear to be trying to do the right thing, so he can have an excuse. This whole bipartisanship smoke and mirrors game is a part of that. The senators are mostly in on the game. I just saw some Dem senator on Maddow say that if the bill doesn't get 65 votes, "it's not legitimate." This same senator won his own election with a mere 51 per cent. The amazing thing about all this is that these bastards think no one can see through them.

Considering this president's appalling record so far, I believe Reich. People who are still hoping for something from Mr. Hopey Changey Bait and Switch are living in La La Land.

*slap*

I am digging you tonight.

Carry on...

How the World Really Works

In other news, Olbermann has announced at Kos that White-Teeth Wolffe is back:

Firstly, as I said when issues about Richard's other work were first raised in August of this year, he wouldn't appear on the newshour until we straightened them out. I'm confident we've done that now. Among other managers, the broadcast network's very tough practices exec vetted this other job (and as indicated, the work he's done for us), found no interrelation, and believes as I do that the failure was in the area of disclosure.

Thus will his appearances be limited to areas that don't overlap with his non-journalistic work. Those that could even seem to present a conflict of interest will also be off-limits. Each of his appearances will mention his private work and viewers will be directed to the web for fuller elucidation of what he does - and doesn't - do there.

As his biography outlines:

In April 2009, he joined Public Strategies as Senior Strategist at the business advisory firm that serves some of the world’s largest corporations, non-profits and associations.

His Public Strategies work involves offering communications advice to senior executives. He consults on how to manage their relationship to the public and their community in the broadest sense. Public Strategies is led by Democrats and Republicans, and does not have political clients. Wolffe is not a lobbyist for any clients. He does not use his TV commentary or writing to speak for his clients, nor does he use it to advocate for their interests. In fact, he recuses himself from any TV appearances that involve his clients. For more on Public Strategies, please visit its website: www.pstrategies.com.

I understand that the government's job is simply to facilitate the ever increasing shift in wealth from the 95% of us who are worried about our employment to the 1% who now have more wealth than the 95% of us combined. Did I get that wrong somehow?

First they handed everything to the banks, and now our benevolent government is going to mandate that we turn the rest of our money over to the insurance companies. And of course, there are the trillions that go to the military-industrial complex, which also ends up in the pockets of those rich white one-percenters at Halliburton and Blackwater.

Violence in various forms may be right around the corner, but I am sure the 1% can afford armed guards and great security systems. So everything is right with the world in the good old USA.

been raided by tea baggers and other assholes of that ilk? What the hell.