Thinking Right

By Ragnar Danneskjöld

November 26, 2008 9:07 AM | Link to this

Good morning all. The one hard rule of economics is that “markets clear.” The two-word natural law means that neither manufactured shortages nor manufactured surpluses exist, so long as markets set prices freely. So Jim is correct when he suggests that allowing a price mechanism for one lane would clear one lane. Anyone who promises more than that willfully deceives us.

Curious minds want to know, who is getting the taxpayers’s $147 million? And how do I get a cut of that? (All right, I’ll assume around $100k for each bus; that gets us to just $3.6 million, so there is still $143 million and change missing in the report.) Sounds to me like someone is manufacturing a graft pool, about $10 million per interstate mile. (Intriguing numbers: $1 million for every 528 feet, $100k for every 52.8 feet, $10,000 for every 64 inches.) I think Jim nailed it with his last phrase, without regard to where the overlords sling the tidbits.

By catlady

November 26, 2008 9:10 AM | Link to this

The important part of this is that the lanes have ALREADY BEEN BUILT WITH TAX MONEY ALREADY PAID BY ALL TAXPAYERS. So how can that which we have already bought be taken and “given” to those who would pay extra??? Build those who want to pay a new lane—fine. But leave “free” the lanes we have already paid for!

At the airport, the new “express” security lanes. Build and staff new lanes for those who want to pay a premium. But adequately staff those already built and paid for so those of us who don’t pay extra can use what we have already paid for.

For those who want premium service, let them pay the FULL cost of premium service. But don’t cut back on service to the rest of us that we have already funded.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 9:10 AM | Link to this

SAXBY ECONOMICS

So much for too big to fail.

Citigroup, the financial services behemoth that once embodied the term, showed it was too big to prevail, running to the government during the weekend to get a bailout of $20 billion in cash and $300 billion in loan guarantees. That’s in addition to the $25 billion in already got under the first phase of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Citi’s second bailout was as inevitable as its first. No other institution peddled as much toxic swill.

As part of the deal, three federal agencies — the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — will share in a massive cesspool of bad mortgages, credit card debt and commercial real estate loans.

Citi is working on the ultimate special purpose entity, just like those vehicles it helped create at Enron and just like those that it used to hide debt during the mortgage crisis. In the government, it has found the perfect patsy investor for its off-balance-sheet deals.

Three hundred billion is a lot of money, but it’s a pittance against Citi’s $2 trillion in assets, which doesn’t include another $1.2 trillion of junk so rancid Citi already moved it off-book.

About $306 billion has been earmarked for this Citi sewer so far. The company would eat the first $29 billion, and 10 percent of any losses after that.

Meanwhile, the Treasury would take the hit for the next $5  billion, under the cover of the TARP. In exchange, Treasury gets $4 billion of preferred stock paying 8 percent interest.

That part of the deal tells us just how putrid these assets are. The terms show the government is expecting to pay the full $5 billion, bringing the total losses to $34 billion.

But wait, there’s more. After the TARP money is drawn down, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. steps in with another $10 billion guarantee and after that the Federal Reserve gets stuck with another $100 billion for which it gets nothing in return.

Oh, and Citi keeps all of the ownership interest in the sludge investments, so if they should increase in value, it gets the upside.

If the government really wanted to protect taxpayers, it would have demanded some sort of a sliding scale for returns that would have increased the government’s equity stake in the company as the value of the assets declined.

As it is, Citi has every incentive to zero out the value of the cesspool as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, the government is left with warrants to buy Citi stock. Those shares have plunged to a 16-year low, which could be a good deal for the government. Or not, given that Citi’s stock is now trading for less than the change found under the average couch cushion. Besides, the warrants are already underwater. They were priced at more than $10 a share. Even with Monday’s bailout boost, Citi’s shares were selling at less than $6.

The deal is great for Citi’s failed executives, all of whom get to keep their jobs. Such is the good life for execs in the Citi.

The bank’s beleaguered shareholders, though, will see their investment diluted as the warrants convert, and see their dividend cut, as stipulated in the government’s terms, to no more than a penny a share from 16 cents. A year ago it was 54 cents.

While Citi’s shares rose by $2.31 a share since the news of the deal, the stock remains catfish bait, a sign that investors aren’t impressed. After all, the preferred stock amounts to more debt.

As bad as all that may sound, it gets worse. The money probably won’t be enough. Even after the government programs, Citi still has almost $3 trillion in on- and off-books assets, and there’s a good chance at least some of them as every bit as rotten as the stuff the government is guaranteeing.

In other words, the government’s plan will halt Citi’s decline about as well as a wall of Kleenex will stop a runaway locomotive. It might as well change its name to Boomerang Bank, because once it burns through this latest bailout, it will be coming back for more.

Citi obviously wasn’t too big to fail. Unfortunately for taxpayers, it wasn’t too failed to bail, either.

By Redneck Convert

November 26, 2008 9:10 AM | Link to this

Well, turkey day is coming up and the missus done laid in a 20-pounder. I reckon me, my dotter, and little Sonny Zell George can handle a couple lbs. of it and the missus will take care of the rest as snacks. It’s for sure she’s forgot about her diet lately. She’s up to 360 lbs. and showing no signs of loosing any of it.

I got to thinking about it and decided our body is just like a truck engine. If you fill up a truck and burn the gas, what don’t burn up gets turned into gunk in the engine. Pretty soon the engine gets all stopped up with gunk and don’t run good no more. Same thing with people. If they don’t burn all the food they eat, the rest gets turned into gunk in the body and it just builds and builds and the old engine gets ready to blow. We got a whole bunch of people in GA ready to blow, and some of them work in Dr. labs that are suppose to keep us healthy. I ain’t mentioning no names but you know who you are. It’s high time to get off of the food blogs and start burning up that fuel you been gobbling up. It’s OK to be kind of dumb, but fat is no way to go thru life.

Anyhow, I’m with Raghead. I hate all taxes including taxes on traffic jams. And I ain’t paying more taxes to use a lane my taxes have already paid for. The guvmint needs to hold bake sales and such to run on and stop stealing from our paycheck. Maybe a lottery could help pay for any road work we need. If people want to be rid of traffic jams they ought to move up here to Forsyth County or maybe Dawson County or even White County. Just don’t be taxing me for MARTA or gas and all the other stuff the libruls try to push on us in order to get free rides. I won’t even get started on the capital gains tax, but I’m sure Raghead will find some way to work it in to the argument. He always does.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. And if you want to know what you should be thankful for, just give some thought to what would happen if the librul Democrats won all the races a couple of weeks ago. We would be turned into a godless nation lickety-split, that’s what.

By Republican socialists

November 26, 2008 9:15 AM | Link to this

LOL! Look at the Republicans —“enjoying a service that government should be obligated to provide anyway”. Can they be demanding a handout? Sounds like socialism to me: expecting the government to fix the problem. Stay at home; take public transportation; use a different route. You have choices.

By Churchill's MOM

November 26, 2008 9:16 AM | Link to this

Who cares about how much Atlanta Pols are going to steal from this Federal Gift.. Here’s the latest about our Gal. I am going to Augsta to catch her in the morning then Marietta to see her.* Tuesday morning, I’ll be voting for MARTIN, Saxby is a coward & crook*

Sarah Palin to cap off Saxby Chambliss’ campaign Tuesday, November 25, 2008, 09:32 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss this morning announced that Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska and the former GOP vice presidential nominee, will cap off his U.S. Senate runoff campaign with a series of Monday appearances.

Four rallies have been scheduled for Dec. 1: 8:30 a.m. in Augusta, 11 a.m. in Savannah, 1:30 p.m. in Perry, and 4 p.m. in north metro Atlanta. Details to come.

While the selection of Sarah Palin for the GOP ticket may have been poor strategy in September, it works in a runoff — when turnout of one’s base is the paramount concern.

Political analyst Charlie Cook has posted the following, via MSNBC:

Among the broad American electorate, Alaskan governor and recent Republican nominee for vice president Sarah Palin certainly seems to be damaged merchandise.

In a Nov. 7-9 Gallup Poll of 1,010 adults (margin of error +/- 3 percent), 45 percent of Americans agreed they would “personally like to see Sarah Palin be a major national political figure for many years to come” — but 52 percent said they would not like to see that happen. In the pre-Election Day Gallup poll testing Palin, she had a 42 percent favorable rating but a 49 percent unfavorable. In the newer, post-election study, her favorable was 48 percent and unfavorable 47 percent among all Americans.

But, and there is usually a but to such things, 76 percent of Republicans would like to see her a major figure in the future, and she had a whopping 83 percent favorable among them, compared with just a 13 percent unfavorable rating.

Cook goes on the tackle the topic of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and race, which is worth reading. But he but adds this about Palin:

But the Palin question is a different one. Even since some of these surveys were conducted, the Alaskan chief executive has begun a concerted effort to repair image problems from the campaign. Whether it works or not remains to be seen, but Republicans have to wonder whether they are going to start off with a frontrunner for the GOP nomination who, at least at first blush, looks unbeatable for the nomination and unelectable in a general election.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 9:20 AM | Link to this

Saxby Economics, take care of the FAT CATS

Uncle Sam’s $351 billion rescue of Citigroup isn’t stopping the bank’s top brass and board members from indulging in office renovations, first-class flights and pricey cuisine.

Insiders tell The Post that Citi is undertaking expensive remodeling of top officials’ offices at the bank’s tony headquarters at 399 Park Ave. even as the sprawling financial institution was on the brink of collapse over the weekend.

Those same executives also are making frequent use of a high-end executive dining area used by senior officials and managing directors to entertain high-profile clients at Citi’s Manhattan digs.

One source notes that “executives of the bank enjoy an elaborate breakfast buffet every morning,” and seafood and steak meals for lunch.

Citi’s board of directors and senior executives also are allowed to take first-class flights - despite a company-wide ban on luxury airfare, one source notes.

“Our exemptions granted to senior executive first-class flights are granted on a case-by-case basis,” said Citi spokeswoman Christina Pretto, who would not name which executives have been given an exemption.

Pretto added that executives are required to pay for their own meals when not being accompanied by a client in its high-end dining area.

As for the renovations, she says they are part of a larger plan to consolidate offices at Citi’s various Manhattan locations.

The consolidation includes vacating pricey leased space Citi holds at Bloomberg Holdings headquarters on Lexington Avenue and its namesake Citigroup Center on East 53rd Street in order to bring senior management closer together at 399 Park Ave.

“[Our renovations] are part of an overall plan to put more people in less space, Pretto said.

To be sure, Citi’s use of money wouldn’t come into question during normal times. But the troubled bank’s balance sheet is receiving intense scrutiny after the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. helped craft a hurried plan over the weekend to cover Citi’s losses.

The government agreed three days ago to guarantee a mind-boggling $306 billion in residential and real-estate mortgages and hand out $20 billion in funds to Citi. That’s on top of the $25 billion already provided to the giant bank as part of a broader government move to grease the skids for lenders stricken during the growing credit crisis.

American International Group, which was taken over by the government in mid-September in a rescue now costing taxpayers $150 billion, also has been chastised for extravagant spending after it received a government lifeline.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 9:24 AM | Link to this

The great Number Crunching game The bailout numbers keeps getting better and better… (especially with the news announced today).

The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion….. Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion….. Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion….. S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion….. Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion …..The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion….. (Est) Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion….. Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion….. NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

The bailout cost with the latest Citigroup addition is about $5 trillion.

By Steven Daedalus

November 26, 2008 9:26 AM | Link to this

Don’t worry about Sarah Palin campaigning i Georgia, she’ll probably never find her way here anyway.

By ron

November 26, 2008 9:26 AM | Link to this

Good morning,I just don’t understand Jim sometimes.Why wouldn’t he want the toll money to go into the General Fund along with money from tobacco?Then the state could borrow against future payments like they did with the tobacco settlement and find themselves in a position where they have to help tobacco companies succeed in order to assure future payments.They’ll have to drive more and more cars onto the toll roads in order to collect borrowed against future payments.Hell of a system. Like Ragnar said,”the markets work”.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 9:28 AM | Link to this

Saxby Economics

Title insurer LandAmerica Financial Group said it has filed for bankruptcy protection and its bigger rival Fidelity National Financial will buy two of its underwriting units.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 9:29 AM | Link to this

Saxby Economics

After Citigroup shares tumbled last year on the bank’s subprime mortgage woes, angry investors sued for fraud. Now, stockholders are due to file a new version of their lawsuit as their losses have become much more stark.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 9:31 AM | Link to this

Saxby ECONOMICS

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation reported Tuesday that it added 54 banks to its list of troubled institutions in the third quarter, a 46 percent increase that reflects the escalating problems in the banking industry.

By catlady

November 26, 2008 9:31 AM | Link to this

We should have the guy next door deciding about these bail-outs, not the totally-connected-at-the-hip bigwigs of Pres Bush who are throwing the steak to their friends. All this back scratching, and NONE of it will “trickle down” to us regular work-a-day folks who are paying for it. The American taxpayers are afraid to howl because they have been told they will REALLY suffer if these bailouts don’t take place, but look around and see how much “better” it is now than 7 weeks ago. Not much, huh? The big boys continue to rake in the gravy, saying that they need “a little more” because they are “too big to fail”. Well, they are too big to save, too!

Your lack of prudence does not constitute an emergency on my part.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 9:32 AM | Link to this

Saxby ECONOMICS

The financial crisis could eliminate 225,000 New York jobs and cost the state $6.5 billion in tax revenue related to the securities industry over the next two years, according to estimates from New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 9:33 AM | Link to this

Saxby ECONOMICS

As a number of American banks resist calls to rein in executive pay, the unthinkable is happening — at least in Switzerland, where three former officials of UBS, the troubled Swiss financial giant, said on Tuesday that they would forgo more than $27 million in compensation.

By Ragnar Danneskjöld

November 26, 2008 9:36 AM | Link to this

“Who cares about how much … Pols are going to steal from this Federal Gift… Tuesday morning, I’ll be voting for MARTIN…” Sure, it fits.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 9:39 AM | Link to this

SAXBY ECONOMICS, I told him to read the Wall Street Bailout Act but he said he had got over $2.5 Million from WALL STREET LOBBYIST & that was more important

The first operational audit of the $700 billion financial rescue plan, to be delivered to Congress next Tuesday, is expected to be critical of the Treasury Department’s failure to set up ways to track how its bailout money is being used in the marketplace,

By The Anti-Wooten

November 26, 2008 9:40 AM | Link to this

Wootenanny,

The citizens of the Atlanta area have been and continue to insist that transit be made a priority. Those of us that have lived or visited where transit IS a priority know what a boon it is for all of us.

You, along with so many of the backward and ignorant have made a point of fighting against transit for quite some time now. This is the new REPUBLIC

By The Anti-Wooten

November 26, 2008 9:42 AM | Link to this

Wootenanny,

The citizens of the Atlanta area have been and continue to insist that transit be made a priority. Those of us that have lived or visited where transit IS a priority know what a boon it is for all of us.

You, along with so many of the backward and ignorant have made a point of fighting against transit for quite some time now. This is the new REPUBLIC party’s way of addressing the desired transit needs. Allow some private vendor to become wealthy at the public trough. Seems very “par for the course” to me.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 9:42 AM | Link to this

Saxby Economics NO FAT CAT LEFT BEHIND

The Federal Reserve and the Treasury announced $800 billion in new lending programs on Tuesday, sending a message that they would print as much money as needed to revive the nation’s crippled banking system.

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 9:45 AM | Link to this

SAXBY ECONOMICS

Former American International Group executive Joseph Cassano is under investigation by U.S. prosecutors for possibly misleading auditors and investors about subprime mortgage-related losses, Bloomberg News reported.

By Mort Merkel

November 26, 2008 9:56 AM | Link to this

Congestion will clear up in the next 12 months as the foreclosed upon build shanties near their new “green” public works jobs and ride their stolen bicycles back and forth.

By Churchill's MOM

November 26, 2008 9:58 AM | Link to this

Ragnar Danneskjöld 9:36 AM

Why did you edit my post to eliminate the word Atlanta? It is obvious that Jim Martin is not only the only honest man in this race but does NOT repesent ATLANTA. SHAME ON YOU

By Jason

November 26, 2008 10:17 AM | Link to this

Roads that have already been paid for? Those roads were built using BONDS, which have to be paid back! They haven’t been paid for yet and thanks to our Governor’s Fast Forward program, we’ve already spent the money from the Federal government for road building for the next thirty years. Unfortunately that money might not continue flowing because road spending is far exceeding gas tax revenue which has required continued infusions of billions from the treasury into the highway trust fund. When the Feds lower the amount they send to the states because of this shortfall, it will be up to the state to find a way to make up the difference.

Meanwhile, state funding is in the hole too, with GDOT needing several billion just to start projects they’ve already green lighted. They certainly don’t have money for building new projects.

Anyone who does the slightest bit of research will find that roads don’t pay for themselves and haven’t for decades. We’ve just borrowed more and more to cover the difference between gas taxes and the costs of roads. Eventually the credit line runs out, which is happening now. Our roads and highways have been one of the biggest experiments in socialism and has had the typical bad result.

As far as being able to pay for congestion “relief”, either there is going to have to be a HUGE increase in the gas tax (think triple the current tax), or more ways of subsidizing roads through property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes etc. These new taxes will be in addition to all the ways those tax sources are already being used to pay for roads.

Georgians were sold a false dream. A dream in which roads cost next to nothing, gas taxes are low, and commutes over long distances are congestion free. Unfortunately, reality is flexing its muscles and we’re all going to get a mighty ugly beat down.

By Ga Values

November 26, 2008 10:17 AM | Link to this

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: November 25, 2008 I spent Sunday afternoon brooding over a great piece of Times reporting by Eric Dash and Julie Creswell about Citigroup. Maybe brooding isn’t the right word. The front-page article, entitled “Citigroup Pays for a Rush to Risk,” actually left me totally disgusted.

Because in searing detail it exposed — using Citigroup as Exhibit A — how some of our country’s best-paid bankers were overrated dopes who had no idea what they were selling, or greedy cynics who did know and turned a blind eye. But it wasn’t only the bankers. This financial meltdown involved a broad national breakdown in personal responsibility, government regulation and financial ethics.

So many people were in on it: People who had no business buying a home, with nothing down and nothing to pay for two years; people who had no business pushing such mortgages, but made fortunes doing so; people who had no business bundling those loans into securities and selling them to third parties, as if they were AAA bonds, but made fortunes doing so; people who had no business rating those loans as AAA, but made a fortunes doing so; and people who had no business buying those bonds and putting them on their balance sheets so they could earn a little better yield, but made fortunes doing so.

Citigroup was involved in, and made money from, almost every link in that chain. And the bank’s executives, including, sad to see, the former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, were clueless about the reckless financial instruments they were creating, or were so ensnared by the cronyism between the bank’s risk managers and risk takers (and so bought off by their bonuses) that they had no interest in stopping it.

These are the people whom taxpayers bailed out on Monday to the tune of what could be more than $300 billion. We probably had no choice. Just letting Citigroup melt down could have been catastrophic. But when the government throws together a bailout that could end up being hundreds of billions of dollars in 48 hours, you can bet there will be unintended consequences — many, many, many.

Also check out Michael Lewis’s superb essay, “The End of Wall Street’s Boom,” on Portfolio.com. Lewis, who first chronicled Wall Street’s excesses in “Liar’s Poker,” profiles some of the decent people on Wall Street who tried to expose the credit binge — including Meredith Whitney, a little known banking analyst who declared, over a year ago, that “Citigroup had so mismanaged its affairs that it would need to slash its dividend or go bust,” wrote Lewis.

“This woman wasn’t saying that Wall Street bankers were corrupt,” he added. “She was saying they were stupid. Her message was clear. If you want to know what these Wall Street firms are really worth, take a hard look at the crappy assets they bought with huge sums of borrowed money, and imagine what they’d fetch in a fire sale… For better than a year now, Whitney has responded to the claims by bankers and brokers that they had put their problems behind them with this write-down or that capital raise with a claim of her own: You’re wrong. You’re still not facing up to how badly you have mismanaged your business.”

Lewis also tracked down Steve Eisman, the hedge fund investor who early on saw through the subprime mortgages and shorted the companies engaged in them, like Long Beach Financial, owned by Washington Mutual.

“Long Beach Financial,” wrote Lewis, “was moving money out the door as fast as it could, few questions asked, in loans built to self-destruct. It specialized in asking homeowners with bad credit and no proof of income to put no money down and defer interest payments for as long as possible. In Bakersfield, Calif., a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000 and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $720,000.”

Lewis continued: Eisman knew that subprime lenders could be disreputable. “What he underestimated was the total unabashed complicity of the upper class of American capitalism… ‘We always asked the same question,’ says Eisman. ‘Where are the rating agencies in all of this? And I’d always get the same reaction. It was a smirk.’ He called Standard & Poor’s and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate prices fell. The man at S.& P. couldn’t say; its model for home prices had no ability to accept a negative number. ‘They were just assuming home prices would keep going up,’ Eisman says.”

That’s how we got here — a near total breakdown of responsibility at every link in our financial chain, and now we either bail out the people who brought us here or risk a total systemic crash. These are the wages of our sins. I used to say our kids will pay dearly for this. But actually, it’s our problem. For the next few years we’re all going to be working harder for less money and fewer government services — if we’re lucky.

By Gator Joe

November 26, 2008 10:21 AM | Link to this

Wooten: Re: “Taxing Traffic Congestion,” how long do you think it would be before we would be paying to drive in what would become a congested “express” lane.? Having moved from S. Florida recently, your highways and public transit are far superior. The long term solution is to remove cars from the roadways, by building rail connection to MARTA from the major outlying cities. Expensive yes, but not as expensive as pollution, unnecessary energy consumption, and lost productivity.

By Johnny's NEXT

November 26, 2008 10:23 AM | Link to this

U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson may have some shoring up to do before he runs for re-election in 2010.

The survey firm found:

…a high level of ambivalence toward first term Senator Johnny Isakson from Georgia voters. Only 30% of voters approve of his job performance but there isn’t a large mass that disapproves either- a plurality have no opinion of him one way or the other.

Isakson has not done much to appeal across party lines during his first term. His approval among Democrats is just 8%. The problems with the economy may be hurting his appeal as well. Among voters who name it as their top issue just 27% approve of him with 29% disapproving.

The firm conducted two hypothetical match-ups with two Democrats: Isakson (45 percent) vs. state Attorney General Thurbert Baker (39 percent); and Isakson (47 percent) vs. U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall of Macon (38 percent).

By woodie

November 26, 2008 10:25 AM | Link to this

Well the taxpayers already pay for the roads. So they want more tax money to pay for the roads and they have come up with a clever way to do it. I think we need to fix government waste first, then talk about paying less tax, not more. I’d start with Bush’s war, then I’d move on to bank bailouts and oil company subsidies. Give me $700 billion. I’ll fix transportation for the next 200 years.

By ron

November 26, 2008 10:28 AM | Link to this

Let us now move on to the meat of the problem,namely $200 billion to the credit card companies.It’s like financing the Mafia.Legalized loan sharking.Any government worth it’s salt would be giving nothing to the credit card industry but grief and horror.They’re leeches that prey on the sick ,lame , and lazy.Wait a minute,that statement fits both parties.

I’ve managed,by hook,crook, and other methods to keep a credit card with no balance.Now it seems as if somewhere in the not too distant future I’ll be taxed to pay for this gift to my would be nemesis.

General Motors is in Europe with the same pitch given to Congress.Money.Money to keep running.How many car companies in the U.S. have failed since the invention of the horseless carriage?What’s one more?It will be years before General Motors can even begin to be competitive.If it’s necessary to invest in cars,let’s put our money where it will get a return.Let’s help a viable company.One that isn’t going to go belly up.Let’s take the $200 billion destined for the credit card companies and give it to Toyota.

By Chip Shirley

November 26, 2008 10:35 AM | Link to this

In case anyone hasn’t seen The Sarah Palin Turkey Massacre Interview, here’s a link. Will somebody please insert Chambliss’ head in place of the Turkey in this video and re-post it on youtube? Please!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/results?searchquery=palin+turkey+interview&searchtype=

By getalife

November 26, 2008 10:35 AM | Link to this

The gop are raising taxes.

Fire suxby for accountability

By Curious Observer

November 26, 2008 10:39 AM | Link to this

I’ve managed,by hook,crook, and other methods to keep a credit card with no balance.Now it seems as if somewhere in the not too distant future I’ll be taxed to pay for this gift to my would be nemesis.

Ron: Don’t be too surprised if you get a letter from your credit card company notifying you that your credit limit has been reduced to $100 or that the card has been cancelled altogether. It’s the latest trend among banks that are strapped for cash and dealing with paid-off credit cards, even the cards of people with the highest credit rating. It frees up money for other purposes. If you want to keep your credit card, I suggest using it once a month and paying the total billing once it arrives. Inactive cards are prime targets for cancellation.

By SOUTHERN ATL

November 26, 2008 10:44 AM | Link to this

WILL THE REAL SARAH PALIN PLEASE COME FORWARD…

http://alaskansfortruth.blogspot.com/

By Texas Pete

November 26, 2008 10:53 AM | Link to this

I look forward to flying by you broke dumb @sses while I’m sitting in my Lexus lane. Thank God we finaly moved in the right direction by letting people with money and power side step the stupid masses.

By Disgusted

November 26, 2008 10:59 AM | Link to this

Texas Pete @10:53: For Pete’s sake, say the Right direction, not the right direction. This is, after all, yet another Republican proposal that seeks to tax us without taxing us. Next up: sidewalk utilization fees.

By Jason

November 26, 2008 11:19 AM | Link to this

I’m confused. They’re going to take an existing lane and restrict it to people who pay a toll to use it? Will they put up a partition between this lane and the others? If not, how will enforcement work? Won’t this system create more congestion, eliminating a perfectly good lane for those unwilling or unable to pay? I live in town, so I have no idea.

By Texas Pete

November 26, 2008 11:25 AM | Link to this

A partition would be great, but I think we will use our police forces to be the stupid masses back. I hope they use heavy fines and high penalty points on anyone that uses the Lexus lane without paying for it.

By Simple Answers

November 26, 2008 11:26 AM | Link to this

Shorter Wooten: While I hold firm to my principles that reducing government to a bare minimum of activity is of paramount importance, I insist that government do everything in its power to ensure my right to congestion relief and an easy drive in my pickumup truck.

By Peter

November 26, 2008 11:35 AM | Link to this

Gee wasn’t the Jerk Lame Duck Bush suppose to balance the Budget?

Republican’s ALL Liars and all with out a CLUE !

Worst President ever, Biggest Liar ever !

Keep Republican’s out of office every where !

By Cornbread Fred

November 26, 2008 11:38 AM | Link to this

Living way out in the country and having a long but uncongested commute there is little I can add. C’mon, Jim, let’s go get drunk!

By Ragnar Danneskjöld

November 26, 2008 11:43 AM | Link to this

Dear Mom @ 9:58, I was magnifying your morality, not that of Mr. Martin, so “Atlanta was no more essential to the argument than the other words I omitted. I do believe that one – such as you - can vote for democrats only if one has no regard for the amount the politicians will steal from the public, and your post conveniently tied those ideas in a bow. The shame is yours.

Dear GA Values @ 10:17, it is true, is it not, that every member of Obama’s financial team (excluding Paul Volker, undoubtedly a man of integrity, who has taken a figurehead role) is a former member of one of Mr. Rubin’s teams? I fear we are in for “Chicago-style” governance, meaning everything of value not nailed down will be taken. The real question of the day is, why did the government not require resignation of every member of the board of Citicorp?

Dear Next @ 10:23, as a conservative, I hope a conservative wins the Republican senate primary in 2010.

By Glenn

November 26, 2008 11:44 AM | Link to this

Good morning, Mr. Wooten. And a Happy Thanksgiving to all.

One point political, the other structural-constitutional.

Politically, I’d think it best to see what the Obama Administration and its Congress will offer, in, say, the first 100 days, in the way of federal financing for both transit and (now, with Detroit imploding) transportation. Without the prudent wait, gridlock patches such as this one may fall under the familiar category of throwing good money after bad.

Structurally, it continues to astound this correspondent that Georgia divides itself into no fewer than 159 creatures and subdivisions, each of which is principally responsible for delivering vital public services such as transportation, law enforcement, health care and pedagogy. The essential problem with this constitutional formula is that each of those services is hyper-politicized due to election requirements not only for county commissioners but especially for e.g. sheriffs (and their innumerable deputies), and the inevitably incompetent school boards. I therefore cannot recommend strongly enough a constitutional revision for Georgia, and believe that such a revision, also provided for in the State Constitution, could favorably proceed next year, in concert with the federal Constitutional Convention. Such a revision would, presumably, constitute a smart, first move toward redress of Georgia’s terrible problems with transportation planning.

By Texas Pete

November 26, 2008 11:47 AM | Link to this

Why is is that only the poor dumb people whine about things? The wealthy people are better than all of you and we do deserve a special lane to let us escape you dumb @sses.

Happy Thanksgiving

By daved'

November 26, 2008 12:04 PM | Link to this

36 buses?! Are you kidding? Do you think that will even make a dent? We need RAIL LINES! Every MAJOR city that is successful has them! We need rail lines running all the way up 400 from Atlanta to Dahlonegah, from Atlanta running up 75 right to the border with TN. On 85 from Atlanta right up to SC. South of Atlanta we need rail lines running down to Macon.

People in NYC can live 60 miles away from the city and sit in a comfortable train and surf online, read the paper or a book…and get to work on time. Atlanta ALWAYS had this option. It STILL does. It’s time to use every single PENNY that needs to help transportation in the metro area to extend Marta and light railways outward. The idiots that are driving SUV’s in Atlanta need to learn from the cities that have successful rail lines. Somehow they think trains and buses are for poor people. Do you have ANY CLUE as to how may multi-millionaires use the trains in NYC and the outlying suburbs? Do you think the ones that live in Greenwich CT. that are worth 10 million dollars drive their cars to Manhattan? No…they don’t….they take the train.

Atlanta will NEVER be on the same page as NYC, London, Paris, and all other major cities until it expands railways in all directions. More roads and more lanes are NOT the answer.

The reason WHY it’s not happened STILL? RACISM… As racism is STILL alive and well in GA. 3rd rate city in a 50th rate state….

By Mike D

November 26, 2008 12:04 PM | Link to this

There needs to be a law that makes it illegal for people to use the highway system if they don’t have a job. They aren’t paying taxes to build and maintain it anyway. Actually I would like to see those that use and abuse government services use special Shame Lines everywhere.

By ATLien

November 26, 2008 12:11 PM | Link to this

Our law enforcement officers don’t enforce the current HOV lanes as it is. In addition, the HOT lanes will not eliminate the problem; instead it will just temporarily ease congestion. The real, and obvious solution is to build a better mass transit infrastructure in the city of Atlanta and the surrounding areas, like many other metropolitan areas. The South is and always will be ‘slow’.

By ron

November 26, 2008 12:14 PM | Link to this

Dear Curious Observer——-I’m onto that trick.I use my card periodically for a small purchase just to let them know I’m still alive. I keep the balance at zero when the bill arrives.

By GTFAn

November 26, 2008 12:14 PM | Link to this

Jim Martin - Lied about the 23% tax that Saxby wanted to impose, raised taxes on Georgians, padded expense public expense accounts and was partly responsible for the death of two children when his department sent them back to abusive homes. All Martin can do is call telling the truth as “misleading”.

If you can vote for Jim Martin, your conscience must be on a permanent vacation.

By Jason

November 26, 2008 12:15 PM | Link to this

“There needs to be a law that makes it illegal for people to use the highway system if they don’t have a job.”

That’d kinda make it hard for them to get a job, wouldn’t you say?

By Mike D

November 26, 2008 12:16 PM | Link to this

daved,

I don’t want that nasty MARTA system coming to my area. All it does is bring crime and dirty poor people in. Look at Perimeter mall, it used to be nice now it looks like Little Haiti.

By Turbot

November 26, 2008 12:16 PM | Link to this

Solution to too much traffic congestion? Then reduce the # of available lanes! Then tax the lanes. Then spend the tax money on more traffic!

I dont see one possible problem with that plan. Genius at work somewhere. (Lets send him to Russia.)

By daved'

November 26, 2008 12:21 PM | Link to this

Mike… are you NUTS!? What about those that are “retired”…i guess when we look at your faulty logic they can’t use the highways…what about the dumba$# soccer mom that drives a gas guzzler while her husband is taking his assistant out to a motel for lunch….does HIS stay at home mom not have the right to use a “free-way”….WOW…I can SO TELL you are one of the 20% that still thinks bush is doing a good job….

By ron

November 26, 2008 12:30 PM | Link to this

Not to worry Jim,Word has it that all proceeds will be used to run the taxing system.Georgia officials don’t necessarily see a profit from taxing the HOV lanes.They won’t be called HOV lanes after that as high occupancy vehicles will be kicked off in favor of one rider paying vehicles.No sense in having four in a car when you can have four paying cars.

By Texas Pete

November 26, 2008 12:33 PM | Link to this

Can’t we just send the poor and stupid people to Mexico? I don’t mean the nice coastal parts of Mexico but the inland areas. I know this would probably mean the end to the Democratic Party,

By Churchill's MOM

November 26, 2008 12:40 PM | Link to this

Ragnar Danneskjöld 11:43 AM

I know know why the others on this board call you a raghead idiot. Save our country vote for a HONEST MAN, JIM MARTIN

By Jason

November 26, 2008 12:42 PM | Link to this

“Solution to too much traffic congestion? Then reduce the # of available lanes! Then tax the lanes. Then spend the tax money on more traffic!”

Ha! So I’m not the only one who is completely baffled by the logic behind this proposal.

Methinks this is the Republicans’ attempt at raising taxes without “raising taxes,” even though the costs associated with the program will surely erode most of the revenue.

As it turns out, we need those evil taxes to pay for stuff. Crazy how that works.

By Peter

November 26, 2008 12:44 PM | Link to this

Texas Pete you are obviously a jerk, and more or less an animal……..happy holidays…..

Republican’s all liars…….

By Turbot

November 26, 2008 12:46 PM | Link to this

Traffic is the great equalizer. THe colt .45 used to be TGE, but now it’s the Dodge Colt, which gets 45 mph, and can run circles around the p-holes who drive Hummers who themselves can then drive circles around the a-holes who drive garbage trucks, buses, and fire engines. Everyone is oraficially equivalent thanx to Farfenugen, VW babies, and those countdown traffic lights which warn you of just how long you have to floor it. Here’s to flipping off traffic in all kinds of weather.

signal left

By findog

November 26, 2008 12:48 PM | Link to this

Jim,

What this really does is allow people willing to pay to not car pool to enjoy the incentive created to reduce the number of cars on the road. The HOV Lanes were supposed to help reduce air pollution, which is why hybrid car owners were allowed in the lanes. How does allowing people willing to pay to use spare capacity reduce air pollution. For 110-million I would say when traffic is that congested allow anyone with a Gwinnett or DeKalb tag to jump on over to the HOV lane.

Consider this: safety. Have you driven up the stretch of road they want to tool? The inside emergency lane is maybe four feet. So now when the criminal element decides to use the HOV/TAX lane law enforcement will have to shepherd them across six lanes of traffic.

By daved'

November 26, 2008 12:48 PM | Link to this

MikeD, YOU are the “problem”… you’re racist…it’s that very racist reason as to why Marta never stretched out as far as it needed to. Funny how those in the other major cities of the world (like NYC) don’t have a problem with mass transit reaching out to the affluent suburbs. If someone wants to rob your home…or you…they’ll get there. They’re NOT going to take a train back home! (to use as a “gettaway car)! You are probably one that still thinks Al-Queda is going to be lurning outside your suburban door. Just remember…the attack that took place…well it happened on the watch of the very one you voted for.

Stop fearing those that are born a different color or nationality than you…most crime in YOUR AREA>….well it happens by those just like YOU! White republican, gun owning morons that watch Fox News…

By Texas Pete

November 26, 2008 12:50 PM | Link to this

Peter, Peter, Peter,

Why the name calling? Did I hit a nerve with you? Are you and your family poor dumb @ss democratic idiots waiting for government handouts? I guess your blog entry identified you as so. I’m sorry I insulted your sorry @ss.

Happy Thanksgiving.

By ron

November 26, 2008 12:51 PM | Link to this

One more thing about road tolls today.The transponders used to signal usage use flash memory,meaning they can be programmed.And they can be hacked.So don’t be surprised to find you paid for two trips this morning or that your credit card has extra charges on it.It’s a growong business for thieves.Guess what?It doesn’t bother the transit authorities.

By Churchill's MOM

November 26, 2008 12:52 PM | Link to this

This is what’s going on up here BIGGER than the Tech/Georgia game,, it would be funny if it did not involve murder..

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/112608/new_359887963.shtml#mdw-comments

By Mike D

November 26, 2008 1:01 PM | Link to this

daved,

Wow, you pulled the race card out like a professional. It is truly sad when that is the only thing you have in your rebuttal arsenal. My family will continue driving SUVs, and we will pay to drive faster in the HOV lanes while shooting you poor slobs the finger while doing so. If you love NYC so much, why are you here?

By Bill Shipp

November 26, 2008 1:06 PM | Link to this

As long as I have covered politics, I never realized until now that one of the most powerful people working the government scam right under my nose was a seemingly meek, bleeding-heart Democrat named Jim Martin.

Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss and his sidekick consultant Tom Perdue (no kin to Gov. Sonny) have set me straight. Their TV ads tell me Martin is responsible for the state’s highest tax increase. As a state legislator, Martin raised his own expense account by 27 percent, they inform me. He has been the villainous manipulator of so many irresponsible and greedy power grabs that I cannot possibly list them here, Saxby’s folks say.

Wow! How could I have missed Martin? There I was wasting my time trying to fathom what Zell Miller or Tom Murphy might do next. I worried over Sen. Paul Coverdell and Gov. Jimmy Carter. In my rush to splash ink on these notables, I barely noticed Martin. I never thought of him as a behind-the-scenes power. I thought he was just another back-bench lawmaker and later a bureaucrat whose moderate politics were much too soft to compete with Georgia’s killer Republicans. Now I know differently. Martin misled me. He apparently was, in reality, the ever-devious Boss Jim, wearing a disguise worthy of Lon Chaney.

When Martin finally decided to reveal his true identity and run for the U.S. Senate, Saxby and his corporate buds wasted no time in exposing Martin for who he is - a ruthless, care-not Democrat with untold powers over taxes and expense vouchers. They also tell us Martin is a big buddy of Barack Hussein Obama, just elected president of most of the United States.

I should have known that Sax would let the cat out of the bag. Remember the first time Chambliss ran for the Senate and ordered up a series of informational ads?

In those remarkable spots, Chambliss ran photos of incumbent Sen. Max Cleland with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. He let Georgians know that Max sort of hung out with those bad guys. Never mind that Cleland left three limbs on the battlefield of Vietnam when he was an American infantry captain. Sax, of course, whipped Max good at the polls.

Now Chambliss makes campaign appearances with a triple-amputee (not Max) seated on the platform just to show he has no hard feelings. Of course, Sen. Chambliss somehow missed the Vietnam mess. He said he couldn’t go because he had a hurt knee. I certainly understand how he felt. I have bad knees, and nothing hurts worse. I think I injured them while I was guarding the Rhine River against Chinese Communists during the Korean War.

Sorry, folks. An old man’s mind wanders. Back to Sax and Boss Jim. Since (as some of you know) I am a betting man, I have just wagered $50 on Chambliss to win the Dec. 2 runoff election. I had to give to the bookie 1,000 votes and Martin. I feel pretty good about my wager. Saxby has outspent Martin on TV commercials by a wide margin. Georgia still is a deep-red state. Despite all, Saxby is a decent-looking candidate with just enough gravitas to be a senator but not a windbag.

Still, I worry about Sax when he gets back to D.C. for his next term. He may get a bit lonesome on the Hill. W. won’t be there to cheer him up and advise him on how to vote. His little buddy, Johnny Isakson, the other Cracker senator, is in the same boat. He has an “R” by his name, too. Lucky for Johnny, however, he has not quite earned the kind of reputation Saxby has. The ruling Democrats will be on the lookout for Saxby just so they can slam the door in his face when he approaches or hang up on him when he calls. Johnny hasn’t made enough of a mark for the Obama organization to be laying for him.

When you look at Saxby and Johnny, you have to wonder how Georgia could have ended up with these two guys in Washington to represent them in these dire times. They’ll be lucky to get appointments to the window-washing and elevator-maintenance committees.

You also ought to keep in mind that what Saxby does in Washington in his second term will stay in Washington. It sure as heck won’t make it back home to help Georgians - not after he beats Boss Jim, who is indeed a pal of the Barack bunch.

By Ragnar Danneskjöld

November 26, 2008 1:09 PM | Link to this

Off topic generally, but still interesting. Obama’s “change,” so far, has been recycling Bush policies and Clinton appointees. Holman Jenkins argues persuasively that Obama soon will face a Rube Goldberg moment on the auto bailouts.

By Chad Harris

November 26, 2008 1:09 PM | Link to this

Appropriately President Obama talked to the nation about the economy and Moron Bush pardoned a Turkey this morning and keep Moron Palin the Turkey out there—we love to use her to fire your Wingnut Senators. Keep on being Stupid Wingnuts. We can count on you and Jimmy the Woo Woo for that.

By Glenn

November 26, 2008 1:28 PM | Link to this

Texas Pete,

Speaking strictly for myself, I ain’t rich. I poo-ur ‘s dirt, ma freend. De-vorce pour, an’ that’s ‘s pour ‘s pour gets in these ports.

Besides, bro, I’m mower Texious than you, so ah say we gang up on the Stupids instead. Naoh, howbowddit?

And happy dam turkey day…

By Peter

November 26, 2008 1:31 PM | Link to this

Texas Pete I am none of the above……. Business owner for over 20 years, I have totally made my own way, and never ever received a hand out…!!!!!!

I am also Independent……. most definitely…. Not a Democrat…….

But after watching the Republican LIES, and how they cannot account for their spending, I voted the way of Common Sense……

But as a Human Being, I have empathy for the less fortunate…… Obviously the @SS is what you see when you look in the mirror !

You seem to have a big mouth……. don’t choke as you gorge your fat @SS tomorrow !

By Mort Merkel

November 26, 2008 1:36 PM | Link to this

Texas Pete comes from Winston-Salem, N.C. There’s a lot of old money Carolina snobs there, not that Pete’s one of them.

By daved'

November 26, 2008 1:46 PM | Link to this

MikeD, YOU are the “problem”… you’re racist…it’s that very racist reason as to why Marta never stretched out as far as it needed to. Funny how those in the other major cities of the world (like NYC) don’t have a problem with mass transit reaching out to the affluent suburbs. If someone wants to rob your home…or you…they’ll get there. They’re NOT going to take a train back home! (to use as a “gettaway car)! You are probably one that still thinks Al-Queda is going to be lurning outside your suburban door. Just remember…the attack that took place…well it happened on the watch of the very one you voted for.

Stop fearing those that are born a different color or nationality than you…most crime in YOUR AREA>….well it happens by those just like YOU! White republican, gun owning morons that watch Fox News…

By Mort Merkel

November 26, 2008 1:54 PM | Link to this

Glenn, many published authors (which you may well be) discourage use of dialect. Hogwarsh, sez I. That wuz some good’uns ya done back thar.

By F22 Guy

November 26, 2008 2:01 PM | Link to this

Bill Shipp 1:06 PM

Thanks, this what I have been writing for weeks, Obama and Gates will Kill the F22 and I will ne out of a job, so will the thousands of Georgians who work on the F22. Vote Martin & save the job of thousands of Georgia workers, Saxby’s Fat Cats can take care of themselves.

By Peter

November 26, 2008 2:05 PM | Link to this

The real reason Bush pardoned the Turkey………

He is a Drug dealer from TEXAS !

By Ga Values

November 26, 2008 2:10 PM | Link to this

Today I have had 6 Robo calls & 2 live calls fron the Georgia Republican Party (although they were from out of state) Keep it up you are generating Martin Votes.

By Mike D

November 26, 2008 2:15 PM | Link to this

daved,

I’m going to name you “one track daved” I’m thinking you blamed all of the problems in your entire sh1tty life on racism. Now unfortunately that will be ending. No one will take pity on your sorry @ss now that we have shown a black man can become president. In fact you will probably stand out as a lazy no good POS because you aren’t doing better in life.

Happy Thanksgiving

By Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 2:19 PM | Link to this

SAXBY ECONOMICS, WHAT”S GOOD FOR THE FAT CATS IS GOOD FOR SAXBY

The economic consequences of October’s financial slump continued to unfold on Wednesday.

Report on Jobless ClaimsConsumer spending, the workhorse of American economic growth, dropped a full percentage point last month, the biggest monthly decline since after the terrorist attacks in September 2001, the Commerce Department reported.

The grim news is particularly painful for retailers, who are starting a holiday shopping season that, in good years, can provide up to 40 percent of their yearly revenue. This year, sellers are bracing for low demand and overstocked inventories.

The falloff in spending could also drag down the nation’s economic growth, already in negative territory from July to September. The significant spending decline in October signals that the fourth quarter could be far worse.

It was the fourth consecutive month that Americans reversed the free-spending habits that dominated for much of the last decade. But the decline also represented an acceleration of this worrisome trend: spending was down 0.3 percent in September, and 0.1 percent in August.

Consumers are cutting their spending for many reasons, but high on the list is the weakening employment picture. Even Americans who still have jobs are pinching pennies amid the constant news of cutbacks and layoffs. Consumer confidence ticked down again this month, according to a University of Michigan survey released on Wednesday.

By Ga Values

November 26, 2008 2:22 PM | Link to this

Bo Chambliss LOBBYIST 9:24 AM

Thanks, I have done a cut & paste off it goes to all my address book.

By Bo Chanmbliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 2:25 PM | Link to this

SAXBY ECONOMICS, Here’s why Saxby took over $2,500,000.00 from Wall Street LOBBYIST

Evidence also emerged that could bolster fears of deflation: prices fell 0.6 percent in October after rising 0.1 percent in September, according to the Commerce Department. Personal income rose 0.3 percent, and prices that exclude food and fuel were unchanged.

The housing market has also taken its lumps amid the current market turmoil. A small sales increase reversed itself in October, with sales of new homes dropping 5.3 percent to an annual rate of 433,000, more than erasing a 0.7 percent rise in September. Much of the decline came from weaker sales in Western states, the Commerce Department said.

The median price of a new home sold in October was $218,000, down 7 percent from a year ago. Home prices are falling at the fastest pace in decades and have reached levels not seen since 2004.

Inventories remain high as well, which contributes to the decline in prices. At the current sales rate, it would take 11.1 months to sell off the backlog of newly constructed homes. New homes account for about 10 percent of the overall housing market.

By Texas Pete

November 26, 2008 2:31 PM | Link to this

Peter,

Did you have to ride the short bus to go to school? You write like you may be slightly retarded. Does your business get work because it receives minority status therefore doesn’t have to compete in the real world?

As for the unkind words about my looks and fitness, your remarks seem childlike and show you to be very simple.

By Glenn

November 26, 2008 2:49 PM | Link to this

Mort Merkel,

Wha hay-ell, Winston-Salem? Onliest thang ah know ‘bout that place is that ah once married one of them Reynolds people. Worst damn family in America. Been robbin’ and rapin’ each other for whole gene-RA-tions.

And I only hope the cancerous b******* try to sue me again, seeing as how they lost the last two times.

(Yes, my victory money went to the sharks.)

By Bo Chanmbliss LOBBYIST

November 26, 2008 2:50 PM | Link to this

SAXBY ECONOMICS, let them eat cake

Fueled by rising unemployment and food prices, the number of Americans on food stamps is poised to exceed 30 million for the first time this month, surpassing the historic high set in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.

The figures will put the spotlight on hunger when Congress begins deliberations on a new economic stimulus package, said legislators and anti-hunger advocates, predicting that any stimulus bill will include a boost in food stamp benefits. Advocates are also optimistic that President-elect Barack Obama, who made campaign promises to end childhood hunger and whose mother once briefly received food stamps, will make the issue a priority next year.

“We soon will have the most food stamps recipients in the history of our country,” said Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, a D.C.-based anti-hunger policy organization. “If the economic forecasts come true, we’re likely to see the most hunger that we’ve seen since the 1981 recession and maybe since the 1960s, when these programs were established.”

The Agriculture Department is set to release the new numbers as early as this week. Agency officials declined to confirm the figures but outlined them in a briefing last month for advocates and administrators of state food stamp programs. Breaking the symbolically important 30 million mark comes on the heels of government data showing that 11.9 million people went hungry in the United States at some point last year. That included nearly 700,000 children, up more than 50 percent from the year before.

By Cindy

November 26, 2008 2:56 PM | Link to this

Ragnar, you’re such a joke. Obama isn’t President, yet. What has Bush done since Nov 4th? Let the economy slide more????

By recycling political experience, Obama will be better able to navigate within the beltway to more quickly implement his programs. Without this experience, he would have to first learn the navigation process, then schmooze, then implement. He has one of the best group of people for fast action I have seen a President bring in in many, many, many years.

By Glenn

November 26, 2008 3:01 PM | Link to this

With respect, what are you talking about, Cindy? They’ve both been busy as bird dogs since the Fourth. And, as an old Goldwaterite, that just worries hell out of me…

By Peter

November 26, 2008 3:14 PM | Link to this

Texas Pete your verb-garbage, with complimenting adjectives tell your story.

Your humility and kindness, starting with the Mexican People tell of the @SS you are when you look in the mirror.

In Connecticut we walked to school.

You describe yourself @SS you are !

By Glenn

November 26, 2008 3:18 PM | Link to this

Well as I say, Peter, I’m more Texious bah for. And our Texan president shows — and like it or not, People, he’s still the one we got — hang-ups regarding Mexicans and their Mayan neighbors are strictly Old Sombrero.

By Texas Pete

November 26, 2008 3:32 PM | Link to this

Peter,

I employ quite a few fine people of Mexican heritage in my company that cleans out foreclosed properties. Most of the Mexicans I know are hard working individuals. I’m just saying we can trade our lazy sloth like Americans in for hard working Mexicans. I just don’t want to have the stupids near the resort areas my family vacation at.

Also you may want to have your self checked out for anger management. You seem like a very angry person.

By Peter

November 26, 2008 3:52 PM | Link to this

Texas Pete if you are not part of the solution……….you are part of the problem………

Your kindness is again showing your heart and colors…….

The name calling all started with you…..as we can read you continued garbage…….. “Lazy American’s” “stupids” .

Typical Republican……. Me ……is the word you like best !

By Conservatives for Martin

November 26, 2008 4:09 PM | Link to this

What will Chambliss do for you? What will Martin do for you? How do they differ? I voted for change in our Presidential election, not for a party. Oh yes, I am aware of the fact that in my choice I ended up voting for a party. I believe in government that the need for a check and balance system should be at its core. On that note, where has this system been for the last eight years? Out to lunch, on a jet, at a resort getting a massage. If anyone believes that richer got richer and the poorer just got poorer (or worse) then voting for change needs to continue. Palin is a non issue, she did John McCain a disservice by agreeing to be his Vice President. An honorable man who made the biggest mistake in his political history. Don’t allow this person to continue to assassinate the intelligence of the America people any longer. Please vote for continued change. We are broke America and will be broke for at least another two terms. Vote for a more prosperous America not for a dumber one!!!

By cc

November 26, 2008 4:26 PM | Link to this

i’ve been trying to tell everybody that if you don’t feel obligated to pay enough taxes for roads, bridges, etc, that the government will get it from you one way or the other. starve the beast concept confirmed that. get ready for more roadblocks, speedtraps and toll roads. a police state that you asked for. i don’t like excessive taxes but i do feel that paying a justifiable tax for my country’s benefit is patriotic. it’s how we pay our military.

By Turbot

November 26, 2008 5:39 PM | Link to this

These bailouts are inflationary. 2009 will scare the bottom out of the market.

Anytime a government just prints money, inflation can go to 1000% or higher.

Every fed move lately has been reactionary, and desperate. These latest moves are supreme folly. Notice how they keep redefining the justification for the big credit crunch 700 billion dollar bailout? They dont even know what to do with the money, or why they thought it was necessary, even though it was sold as a way to stave off “catastrophe, disaster, floods, flat tires, locusts, running out of gas, and to prevent relatives coming in from out of town, and it wasn’t our fault, please bail us out, (camera to John Belushi down on one knee to Nancy Pelosi, he peeks up at her through his sunglasses, she acquiesces, and says, “Oh, Jake”……

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, and beyond, I have long had dreams about the early years of the twenty-first century, and how the numbers, 2001, 2008, 2009 would look to history, like the way our generation looked at 1914 (WW1), or 1929, as ominous sounding numbers.

Well, 2009 is about as ominous-sounding as it gets. How anyone can give support to just printing money, or bailing out failed business models, or giving artificial respiration to a failed economic paradigm like “capitalism” which can only work if there’s war, constant war, is beyond understanding or forgiveness. We dont have time. We dont have the money. We have only the upper class pirating our treasury and telling us it’s for the common good. Marx wasn’t right, but I am. If we continue along the same thread that fueled the economy in the last fifty years, as the bailout would perpetuate, then we will destroy ourselves with capitalism’s siamese twin: war, because war is upwardly mobile now, and even little girlie-terrorists have WMDs. People, listen: War has become the american dream, (thank you, cheney), when war takes on the entrepreneurial spirit of capitalism, then the jihad will boil over and consume us all. We have a choice: Justice or Capitalism. justice is the way to peace. Capitalism is a dead end.

As our government prints money and as we sink into the most inflationary period in our history, then people are going to ask, “Upon what capitalistic basis did you bail out failed banks and redeem failed business models? Why resusitate a Terry Shiavo economic model? Why not refigure what motivates all americans to go to work.”

People insist that if we didn’t have capitalism, then people wouldn’t be motivated to work, well, I clean toilets for a grocery store for minimum wage, and I get up at 5am and I get to work, (after coffee, scottish oatmeal, thank you oprah, i’m regular again, and a half hour of blogging). It’s nonsense that only the no-rules freedom of a wild-west capitalistic society could generate prosperity and peace. All it generates is class warfare and ethnic warfare, and sectarian warfare, and jingoism and nationalism, and penis envy, (hey, how’d that get in there?), and the jihad, and it’s almost certain that we’re going to get nuked soon. How did capitalism cause this jihad? Read “when east meets west” in any history book. See how we treated the arabs for centuries. Check out Winston Churchill’s occupation of Iraq. Oh, the justice he denied the Iraqis. If that were us, we’d be the jihad.

This is the real motivation of the bailout: The upper class, who are just a relative handful of folks, are taking the money before the bomb goes off. I dont know what city it will destroy. I almost hope it’s the one I live in. After we get nuked folks, expect the worst hell you ever imagined. Notice how even Nancy Pelosi talks and acts like she’s convinced a nuclear incident is about to unfold, changing everything.

The only way to avoid getting nuked is for America to show how much it loves, respects and reveres Islam. If we do that, then the motivation for the jihad would die on the vine. This is a religious war. The jihad is grounded in Islam. Have you hugged a Mullah today? Did you know that Abraham is a big man in Islam? Religion branched off at Abraham, because of all the babies this clown sired. I mean, WTF? of course sibling rivarly is going to produce different ways to worship. We dont have any time. The doomsday clock, which is made by Diebold, (BTW), is at one second to midnight. (Fact. The doomsday clock is actually set to Greenwhich Village People Time, which means that dont even think about turning gay at the last minute and nobody finding out about it.

Anyone notice Cheney’s indictment? Anyone? Is it too late for a pardon from W? Cheney would have to fast forward his case and plead guilty and then hope for a late pardon on the last day from W. If that happens, then justice will have been denied.

Cheney: Our Stalin.

Cheney: The reason we stink.

By Turbot

November 26, 2008 5:57 PM | Link to this

Glad you liked the material. Feel free to steal. Then folks’ll think that YOU’RE the genius, instead of the time-lapsed ooze of olestra marks on anyone’s BVD’s that you TRULY are!

By Turbot

November 26, 2008 6:02 PM | Link to this

D’OH!

By None Too Soon.

November 27, 2008 9:15 AM | Link to this

Interesting verdict in the bully/suicide computer case of Lori Drew vs Tina Meier, who committed suicide after Lori Drew bullied her online over at myspace.

Unauthorized use of computers. Like accessing someone’s harddrive by hacking in and sending messages from that IP address like maybe some of the trolls here do? I wont mention any names, cant think of anyone off hand….who could it be? .

So let the liability chips fall where they may.

What the case shows is that some chatrooms commenters can be manipulated emotionally to the point of committing suicide. The power of words, my friends.

The vulnerability comes with someone who expects friendship or romance online, gets it, and then has it withdrawn abruptly. The Movie “Dangerous Liasons” had a similar theme, of love given and taken away causing death, because who among us can live without love?

By Jim Jr

November 27, 2008 11:02 AM | Link to this

Things to look forward to
1st – Democratic President
2nd - Democratic Senate
3rd - Democratic House
4th - Republican Bush tried for war crimes before World Court 5th - Republican Bush convicted of war crimes by World Court 6h - Ummmmmmmmmmm

By zeke

November 27, 2008 11:14 AM | Link to this

Correct me if I am wrong! Does not the law as currently exists forbid charging tolls on existing roads built by taxpayer money?? First of all HOV lanes are useless! Get rid of them and you will increase traffic flow from 16% to 25% without any additional cost! Who are these imbecils running the state and federal dot’s! Get rid of them all!

By Conservatives for Martin

November 27, 2008 11:23 AM | Link to this

For All Georgia Voters! Georgia: Please Add Peanut Policy/Windfalls to Senate Race!

As Georgian’s, before you vote again for Senator, explore Senator Chambliss’s true record, by first reading the USDA report “Peanut Backgrounder” for some insight. See how Chambliss and his friends changed the no cost peanut program into a $3.5 billion dollar peanut windfall, directed to peanut insiders at taxpayer expense.

This classic unexposed “Congressional windfall”, for the friends of Chambliss was listed as a peanut buyout and a change to a market driven system. Yet it was anything but market driven, only subsidy cash driven with bankable cash, in some cases even, non-taxed land exchanges/purchases. Including taxpayer’s picking up the storage and handling fees for six U.S. peanut crops and annual subsidies of about $150/acre. Paying off about 70,000 historic peanut quota holders for a cost of $1.5 billion to taxpayers. Yet the report shows we only had about 9,000 peanut farmers to begin with. Who were also bought out but still raise peanuts today and under the farm bill, continue to receive more subsidies.

Then while 47 million American’s lived without health insurance, Chambliss and friends focussed there time on crop insurance. Insuring, 250 million acres of subsidized crops like corn soybean’s wheat and others with ever increasing revenue protection from taxpayers. All while the press focussed on the 2002 and 2008 farm bills perennial costs and guaranteed direct payments of $5.2 billion annually sent to farmers even in the best of times. While Chambliss and friends dealt out more insurance subsidies of $5.7 billion for all types of crops grown in 2008. Reducing the Farmers crop insurance premium by about 58%, giving the Farmer $4 billion in premium reductions for all insured crop production grown in 2006-2008. Ignoring this period of record crop income, which shows the farmer could have easily paid his own insurance premiums in this government profit and price guaranteed program.

Then conclude your research on the true record of Senator Chambliss and friends by reading the Inspector Generals “interim report” on peanut price reporting. Which has USDA delivering two different peanut price reports each week. In November 2008 the reports show a $171/ton difference in the price offered for runner peanuts compared to the price reported as received to USDA. Which allows peanut farmers to be subsidized without the Inspector Generals Auditors able to verify the reported prices. Which under 2002 farm bill generated huge subsidy checks to peanut Farmers. Yet today private sources say the 2008 peanut crop is no longer a free market crop, but a contracted crop with a guaranteed price in the upper range of the reported data or about $500/ton. Which is higher than the 2008 farm bills target price for peanuts of $495/ton, yet still subsidized as a open market crop under the 2008 farm bill.

So Georgia, vote with facts and figures in hand this time and not with sound bites and attack ads. For voters seldom get a chance to do it right the second time around. So make this vote count for people and not peanuts.

To see these reports go to www.CongressionalChange.com

By Jim Jr

November 27, 2008 11:27 AM | Link to this

First SISSY SAXBY questioned Max Cleland’s courage. Now he says Jim Martin is soft on crime. But Georgia’s police officers support Martin, not SISSY SAXBY.

By Republicans4Martin

November 27, 2008 11:29 AM | Link to this

I think Saxby can thank the ignorance of the Republican middle class for getting elected in the past, but we’re awake now. We’ve been going along blindly believing he has been looking out for us. Perhaps when he plays golf next, he can contemplate how unhappy we are with him and all that he has done in the name of special interests and the wealthy. It’s not about you Saxby!! It’s about the people you are supposed to represent!!! You just aren’t doing it for us middle class folk.

I want to see change in Washington and the only way to do that is to vote in Martin.

By MOTHERS AGAINST SAXBY CHAMBLISS

November 27, 2008 11:30 AM | Link to this

And to add to the fact that Chambliss when he has head of a GOP PAC committee, he held fundraisers at a troubled all-white country club located up in the Philadelphia suburbs. The New York Times ran a story on this country Club back in 1993, as well as USA Today. I saw the story on a Political Blog (Think Progress) With Chambliss was Tom DeLay & Bob Ney. Both were convicted of corruption & lost their seats in 2006.

By Republicans AGAINST SAXBY CHAMBLISS

November 27, 2008 11:33 AM | Link to this

It is not political. It is survival! Georgia’s people will need help from Obama’s Administration in these terrible economic times! Saxby can’t do it. Martin can! Simple as that. Saxby did well with Bush, but he won’t get a plug nickel from Obama. South Carolina did send a democrat senator this time. Who do you think will get more money from Washington? Georgians have to think of themselves first! Party BS is simply BS!

By SAXBY FOR SAXBY

November 27, 2008 11:35 AM | Link to this

Have you ever noticed how Saxby is always clapping for himself at these rallys with other rejects.-Saxby just loves Saxby.-The old coot actually thinks people admire him for being a Bush rubber stamp.Saxby is a legend in his own greedy mind. Does he have the capability to fool the people a second time around?-Let’s hope not.

By Chad Harris

November 27, 2008 11:37 AM | Link to this

**Chambliss marketing to totally stupid uneducated white bigots will bring in a stupid uneducated white bigot to incentivize all the stupid uneducated white bigot Wingnuts to go to the polls and vote for a stupid uneducated white bigot.

Meanwhile in the comedy category, two more stupid white lawyers have wasted time and money with insane breifs to try to unseat President Obama with cert. petitions in the Supreme Court. They have lost every step of the way. One is David Berg. One assertion is that Obama’s mother had baby Obama in Kenya and rushed him to Hawaii to “register the baby.” LOL

The other is that his father was Kenyan so he isn’t a citizen.

The morons would have a better chance at traikning Palin to take the 3rd part of the National Medical Boards by Sunday.

What fools.

Meanwhile on a serious S. Ct. note, the Civil Rights division of DOJ actually argued a case (as opposed to getting cert. denied as will happen in the other two cases above next week) Wednesday to expand the Voting Rights Act that the 3 judge panel found Moron Handel to have violated (although she lied in AJC and asserted that the district court had vindicated her). Wrong Karen you collegeless idiot. The 3 Judge panel reversed the stupid ruling that supported you and made Jack Camp sign the order. Try Reading 101 and get the coursde for your idiot lawyers.

Yee Haw Jimmy the Woo Woo.

The Justice Department on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to uphold Congress’ 25-year extension of the key part of federal voting rights law that requires many states and local governments to get clearance in Washington before they change their election laws or methods. That is Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

In a reply brief filed in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Mukasey (08-322), U.S. Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre asked the Justices to rule without even ordering written briefs and argument, summarily upholding a three-judge District Court ruling in favor of the extension. The motion to affirm is here.

The challenge to Section 5’s validity has been a major cause for some conservative activists, who argue strenuously that the law has outlived the problem it was intended to solve, and thus exceeds Congress’ power under either the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments.

The Solicitor General argued on Wednesday that “the constitutionality and scope of Section 5 of the VRA is undeniably important, but the three-judge district court’s unanimous, correct and careful disposition of the questions presented does not warrant plenary review here.”

First, he said, the lower court was right in concluding that the Austin utility district was not eligible for a “bailout” that would allow it to come out from under Section 5.

And, second, on the constitutional question, Garre said that “Congress collected extensive evidence demonstrating that discrimination against minority voters continues to exist in covered jurisdictions and that Section 5 remains an effective means of preventing, deterring, and remedying that discrimination. Congress’s factual findings are entitled to substantial deference, and the three judge district court carefully reviewed and upheld those findings.”

The fact that the utility district had filed its challenge as a “facial” one — that is, contesting the law as written, not as applied to a specific situation — increases its burden in seeking to strike down Section 5, “and reinforces the validity of the district court’s conclusion in this case,” Garre wrote.

Because the case reached the Court from a three-judge District Court, it bypassed the usual review in a Circuit Court. In this form, the Court cannot dispose of it by simply declining review; it will take the votes of five Justices to dispose of it finally. The Court has the option of “noting jurisdiction” and giving the case full review, or it can affirm the District Court or dismiss the appeal, without more.

Under the Court’s rules, the utility district’s appeal and the government motion to affirm will be distributed to the Justices no less than ten days from Wednesday. The district is entitled to file a brief answering the Solicitor General, but that would not put off the distribution.

Thus, it appears that the Court could consider the case in time for a ruling during the current Court Term, even if the Justices opt for full briefing and review instead of disposing of it summarily without further briefs. The Court has spaces left on its argument calendar for this Term.

By kenny boy

November 27, 2008 12:11 PM | Link to this

Maybe Palin can see Cuba from atop the Peachtree Plaza. Or maybe she can fall off.

By None Too Soon.

November 27, 2008 12:31 PM | Link to this

How about all the brew-haha at the Taj Mahal, eh? They first thought it was an Al Queda terror attack, but now it turns out the Mahi sent a wrecking crew. He wants to flip the house. He’s been watching This Old House and got carried away. “Look, I can get all the imported Ivory from Home Depot and do it myself, and save a fortune, but I’ve got to tear out some walls quickly, that’s all. Sorry if 100 people were keeled, but I dont want to make any more mortgage payments than I have to and I’m in a hurry. If I price it right, it will sell.”

By ThrowOut with the Bath Waterr

November 27, 2008 1:09 PM | Link to this

Saxby help dump my retirement that I earned after 35 plus years of work. My reduced rate is now provided by the government that my ex employer gave them.

By Chad Harris

November 27, 2008 1:26 PM | Link to this

Suxbutt Chumpass is a chickensh*t white bigot draft dodgers. How fitting he is having the moron in to campaign for him.

Guilliani—helped usher 300 plus firemen to their death by being too stupid to coordinate police, fire, and EMTs on their frequencies and chopper frequencies.

Guilliani got his stomped in the Rethug Wingnut primary.

McCain got his butt kicked decisively and blamed the economy for his miserable loss.

And now Morniva comes in as a symblo of stupid uneducated white bigotry.

She of the killing unarmed wolves and one of the most gental animals on the planet —the moose.

She could see Russia but the dumb b*tch couldn’t see Turkey’s being slaughtered 5 feet from her. Too funny.

By Cookies?

November 27, 2008 1:41 PM | Link to this

Rush Limbaugh is broadcasting today. He’s still trying to use the word conservatism correctly in a sentence. He says, “big Government” every seven seconds.

They say that life is only possible if it’s lived in total denial of reality. Reality is very cold. We’re all just going to fade away in nothingness. But isn’t it great that we’re lighter skinned than darker skinned people? And isn’t is great that we’re in the top half of the socio-economic scale of the caste system which has divided us into the Haves and the Half-wits?

Capitalism defaulted into Big Government. The last three months would have been impossible twenty years ago. Reagan would never have allowed government ownership of so large a block of our economy.

The global danger is this: As each country uses it’s own government’s constitutional authority to guarantee credit, in order to perpetuate failed business models, then as the guarantee itself fails, these governments will crumble, and a world without borders will emerge.

A world without borders is prime for a global leader. Some new figure can emerge and completely take over. Some type of leader we’ve never seen before. Something that astonishes others by it’s very essense. A new hybrid? A man with new features never before seen? A mutant dna freak, or the very first new human that would comprise the next step in evolution.

What would the new attribute be? Three eyes? Two heads? Something that would spark fear in mankind. Yet it would have to be human.

Now, descriptions of the anti-christ are undecipherable. I mean, certainly seven heads are impossible. The beast. Historians claim that Hitler’s contemporaries swore that he had antenae that no other man had about what people were feeling and thinking. Hitler then could play against those emotions and hit incredible home runs when making speeches.

Perhaps the attribute of the impending world leader is antennae, that is, the ability to feel out an audience and understand their set, and manipulate obedience, trust, and co-operation.

A world government could emerge. Imagine just one hand on all the buttons. This is what the logical outcome of government bailouts of capitalism can be.

Imagine if the USA refused to redeem your Savings Bonds. They couldn’t or wouldn’t pay it. Wouldn’t that be the end of America? Wouldn’t you stop trusting any bank? Wouldn’t you expect war?

We are close people. The people at the very top are making egregious errors of judgement. They are risking everything to bailout the rich.

Happy Thanksgiving. (the first act of the new world leader will be to outlaw thanksgiving, thus ensuring that none of us will ever have to hear about Triptophan again. Hooray for the antichrist. He’s got my vote.)

By NO GREED LEFT BEHIND FOR SAXBY

November 27, 2008 2:33 PM | Link to this

IMPERIAL SUGAR WORKERS AGAINST SAXBY,..Chambliss interrogated the employee who warned about potential disaster at the Port Wentworth Plant,what a jerk. $axby was trying to protect the Fat Cats responsible so they would keep lining his greedy pockets.

By Mike K.

November 27, 2008 4:45 PM | Link to this

Now can we get “user fees” imposed for the jail, the court system, Grady Hospital, etc?

By Chad Harris

November 27, 2008 4:53 PM | Link to this

Rush Limpbutt the drug dealer who paid millions to Roy Black to get him off because his stupidity sells to other idiots who worship his radio show should be gutted, slaughtered and forced fed to the moron PALIN who should then be gutted, slaughtered, and left in the snow for the wolves to finish off.

By AJC/DNC Management

November 27, 2008 5:09 PM | Link to this

By JAY BOOKMAN November 27, 2008 2:28 PM Management, you know what? Grow up or go away. Preaching Jesus Christ while simultaneously spewing bile and contempt is an insult to the religion you profess to follow. Please don’t post again until Monday. And have a happy Thanksgiving.

By JAY BOOKMAN November 27, 2008 4:36 PM Management, we can do this one of two ways. You can cease posting until Monday, and then resume after that. Or you can continue posting until Monday, forcing me to pull them down individually, and also forcing me to have you banned from any future posting altogether once I return to work Monday. Your choice. The first way would be easier for me short-term; the other would be easier for me long-term. But it is your choice. If you force it to be MY choice… well, don’t tempt me.

There is now way to know if I actually did go “bile” and “contemptuous* because the angry blog god pulled the posts down and labeled them however he felt like labeling them, but since many of you know me already and have seen what I posted on the various Holidays before, I’m sure that you can see that Bookman did not at all appreciate me pointing out that he did not once mention God in his Thanksgiving column.

It’s nothing new, I have one set of rules to follow while everybody else that uses these blogs has another, no biggie, but what does tee me off is this lib pulling this post and calling it “bile:”

And for those of you who stand strong in the defense of freedom and liberty in faraway places and are unable to be with family and friends on this day of Thanksgiving, be comforted by the knowledge that the blessings we are thankful for would not be possible without your sacrifice, your courage, your bravery.

God Bless each and every one of you.

“Contemptuous” indeed.

By Chad Harris

November 27, 2008 5:16 PM | Link to this

User fees are already imposed for the court system, jail, and hospitals and have been for more years than you have been alive @ Mike.

In addition to the fines and the percentage taken by the court system, White Racist Jawjaw is one of about 3 states that criminalizes traffic misdemeanors because the greedy county managers want their high fine money.

A 10 mph over the limit or lane change conviction (and most plea guilty and pay the fine to avoid going to court) can bring a $1000 fine and a year in the slam. Further, the law generated by the Suprmee Court in Alabama v. Shelton mandates each defendant be informed individually and on the record or in language that white bigots can understand one by one outloud and with a takedown, that they have the full right to an attorney.**

This has never been done in Jawjaw. In Fulton State court, a stone throw from Leah Ward Sears’ chair, these case laws are vilated each and every minute of each and every day.

Alambama v. Shelton, 2000 WL 1603806 (5/19/00).

Barnes v. State, 275 Ga. 499 (2002) and Jones V. Terry 279 Ga. 623 (2005).

Comically, the law clerk for Harold Melton, formerly Sonny Perdue’s counsel was too dumb to get the style of Shelton correct (I corrected it), but in Jawjaw you’re doing good if the law clerk can read My Weekly Reader.

Sears’ law clerk wrote in the opinion she signed:

“and that a trial court must also ascertain whether a defendant knowingly and intelligently waived the right to the assistance of private counsel of the defendant’s ownchoosing.10 In addition to an indigent defendant’s right to court-appointed counsel, Georgia precedent recognizes an independent and broader “constitutional right to be defended by counsel of [one’s] own selection whenever [one] is willing and able to employ such counsel.”11 The right to private counsel attaches in all criminal prosecutions — not merely those resulting in imprisonment or a fine — and is firmly rooted in our State Constitution.12 Whether that right to counsel has been waived is an independent and separate inquiry from whether the right to court-appointed counsel exists.”

By AJC/DNC Management

November 28, 2008 8:05 AM | Link to this

Look at this POS:

By GayGrayGeek November 27, 2008 11:16 AM Apparently, we sit around at the kookman household being thankful for the government Andy, could you give it a rest for just ONE day? OK, maybe two days - today, and again 28 days from now?

By GayGrayGeek November 27, 2008 2:22 PM Andy, you used your usual epithet “kookman” in your 9:43. We’re asking you to Give It A Rest today, as well as 4 weeks from today. Please? Or is that just Too Much To Ask of you?

By GayGrayGeek November 27, 2008 3:09 PM | LNo, Andy, You claim to be a Christian. For this one day, and another one exactly four weeks from today, please act a little more Christ-like. Please?

By GayGrayGeek November 27, 2008 4:16 PM Midori, it’s quite apparent that Andy feels that The World Revolves Around Andy, and that anyone pointing out how boorish, childish and just plain bratty he’s acting is mounting an “attack” upon him. Though it’s as much of an “attack” as it would be if we pointed out that Water Is Wet, or Fire Is Hot, or Ice Is Cold, or…Andy, please - Give It A Rest. Jay very politely asked you to not post in his blogs until Monday. Please act like the Christian you claim to be, Turn The Other Cheek, and abide by our blog host’s request.

By GayGrayGeek November 27, 2008 8:33 PM Corporal, please don’t think that Jay came down on Andy’s head hastily. In short, Andy started with insults, then proceeded thru several posts to one that was a mixture of proclaiming What A Good Christian he was while flinging invective and Just Plain Nastiness on a day, and in a blog posting, where none was really necessary.

All day long, from morning until night, this CS sat around on Thanksgiving whining and moaning and emailing the AJC about one comment I made on the Bookman blog, that being this-

Apparently, we sit around at the kookman household being thankful for the government

Something like this shouldn’t even concern this GayBaitGeek but he made it a day long Holiday Crusade, a wanker for the ages this CS is.

And how exactly does this violate the AJC user’s agreement?

So now we know the standard operating procedure for the AJC blogs, if a comment is made that you don’t like but it violates no user agreement, email the AJC, call them on the freaking phone, day or night, or on Thanksgiving even, and whine and moan until they ban the blogger that you don’t like, real fair ain’t it?

~~~~~

After all of the hysterics from the Urinal/Jihad about the Iraqis wanting us out of their country now, and how they “endorse” the Oblahmi timetable, how many million gallons of ink were spilt, how many lies were told, how many tons of carbon did the Urinal spew into the atmosphere spreading their al Qaeda propaganda rag far and wide, and sure enough-

Iraq OKs U.S. exit timetable- Completely out by Jan. 1, 2012: Iraqi parliament factions compromise, reach deal on U.S. troops’ withdrawal.-Urinal/Jihad

3 more years?

The Iraqi government requests the temporary assistance of U.S. forces to help maintain security and stability in Iraq, including cooperation in operations against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, outlaw groups and remnants of the former regime.

Sounds to me like it’s the Bush plan, don’t it?

~~~~~

PDS infests the Urinal/DNC:

Sarah Palin is juggling offers to write books, appear in films and sit on dozens of interview couches at a rate astonishing for most Hollywood stars, let alone a first-term governor.

She must be pretty popular, huh?

In her two months on the national stage, Palin energized the Republican base but turned off moderates and independents, according to some surveys. Flubbed answers in national television interviews raised questions about her competence. She was tripped up by the disclosure the RNC spent at least $150,000 for designer clothing, accessories and beauty services for her and her family.

The right book or movie deal could help Palin reintroduce herself to the nation, on terms she could dictate. -Urinal/PDS

You know, if I were to guess, the Urinal/DNC seems awfully worried about this woman.

With the looming failure of Oblahmi on the agenda, I would be too, if I were them.

~~~~~

All is not happiness and “hope” in the Pinko Nation-

As Summers stayed on to ensure passage of deregulatory laws that enabled enormous banking greed, Rubin was rewarded with a $15 million-a-year executive position at Citigroup, a job that only got more lucrative as the bank went from one disaster, beginning with its involvement with Enron in which Rubin played an active role, to its huge role in the mortgage debacle. It is widely acknowledged that Citigroup fell victim to a merger mania, which Rubin and Summers made legal during their tenure at Treasury.

Yet despite that dismal record of dismantling sound regulation, Summers has been picked by Obama to be the top White House economic adviser and another Rubin disciple, Timothy Geithner, is the new Treasury secretary. Geithner, thanks in part to the strong recommendation of Rubin, had been appointed chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank after working for Rubin and Summers during the Clinton years. Once at the New York Fed, he was the main government official charged with regulating Citigroup, a task at which he obviously failed. Yet over the weekend, it was Geithner who hammered out the Citigroup bailout deal with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and a very actively involved Rubin.-Robert Schneer, SF Chronicle.

Not the “change” we were “hoping” for, eh?

By Yule Fool

November 28, 2008 8:32 AM | Link to this

Retardo-rama

By GayGrayGeek

November 28, 2008 8:50 AM | Link to this

Nice, but typical, out-of-context stuff from you, Andy. Especially dragging stuff from one blog to another. Your apparent self-persecution complex is nothing but sad, I’m sorry to say.

Though your reaction to “It’s Thanksgiving, please give it a rest for Just One Day” seems to be more “telling” of you than of me.

By AJC/DNC Management

November 28, 2008 9:08 AM | Link to this

GayGG- I have no idea who appointed you the blog whiner nor do I see anything in the AJC user agreement that I cannot have opinions differing from liberals on Thanksgiving.

Nothing I said yesterday concerned you in the least bit, in fact, up until yesterday I never paid you any mind at all.

I tell you what, whiney boy, yesterday says more about you than it did me, I pointed out that kookman did not mention God in his Thanksgiving day blog and then I went on to praise God in two separate posts.

I did not use vulgarity, I did not cross any boundaries of civility, I simply pointed out the truth.

But you spent the entire Holiday, as I shown above^^, whining about me, emailing the AJC and as far as I know, calling them on the phone.

Good job, GFY (good for you,) but what you are not going to do, diaper filler, is paint me as something I am not.

I challenge the AJC to put those posts back up, in a separate blog, just like you did for the racial comments made by another blogger, and let’s just see what is so “horrible” about them.

I’m willing to be the focus of attention, go ahead and let’s make the subject of my “bile” and “contempt” open for public comment.

You have my permission.

And at the same time, let us all see exactly what I did that was in violation of the AJC user’s agreement.

By GayGrayGeek

November 28, 2008 9:19 AM | Link to this

Andy, you spent the entire day starting at “kookman” and then going downhill.

The fact that you would drag your persecution to another blog does, as I said, tell us more about you than about anyone else.

By Bob Eubanks

November 28, 2008 9:21 AM | Link to this

thank you George Bush for lowering the price of gas. I paid $ 1.59 last night. I notice how people find it difficult to thank him for all that he has done right. He is a good man and far more qualified than the incoming idiot. My only hope now is that oblama will take up Chenney on his offer to go hunting.

By Yule Fool

November 28, 2008 9:35 AM | Link to this

Here is data for compassionate conservatives: The latest bills from a cancer patient for imaging of the tumors: 23 thousand dollars for MRIs, and Petscans over a three day period.

We pay 1500 dollars a month for our family plan with blue cross. SOmehow we manage to afford that.

By Bob Eubanks

November 28, 2008 9:43 AM | Link to this

Yesterday I was thankful for great Americans such as , Hannity, Rush, Bush, Chenny, Palin, Ollie North,Boortz, even though the ignorant masses in this inbred state cannot realize these people understand the concept of freedom and liberty, words that make liberals wet their pants. I love the line from oblama, “People lay awake at night worrying about their car payment, mortgage and other bills and this is not right” Heaven forbid someone actually be responsible for their own lives when super government man oblama is here to save the day. You have a problem, let the gov. set up a new dept. and spend billions on a solution. This state has the worst education in the nation and you losers send your kids to the gov. for an education.

By AJC/DNC Management

November 28, 2008 9:58 AM | Link to this

By GayGrayGeek November 28, 2008 9:19 AM Andy, you spent the entire day starting at “kookman” and then going downhill. The fact that you would drag your persecution to another blog does, as I said, tell us more about you than about anyone else.

Why don’t you let it go, blog nanny, is this all too much for your weak mind?

What a life you must lead, huh whiney boy, spend an entire Holiday weekend blubbering about another blogger.

By Penurious

November 28, 2008 10:05 AM | Link to this

Gay is Andy is Gay is BE. (nobody’s fooled, you moron, just in case you thought you were rolling, you weren’t, you dont, you never do, you just stink, and I mean stink.)

It is remarkable how badly a man can stink on a blog, you know? I mean stink itself is it’s own reward. And you get the stink prize, andy. It’s like the car companys invented a car that runs on steam, which is clean smelling, but the compassionate conservatives wont let us have them, they WANT us to smell the stink of regular cars. You cant escape the stink and now the stink has infected you, andy stinkboy, and boy do you stink.

Now I dont mind dirty, or soiled, or rotten, but I do mind putrified stinking filth. Filth is so pervasive in our society that most minds are filled with stink and filth. So you, Andy, are like most minds, a dime-a-dozen filthy stinkpots, and boy do you stink.

You stink.

By GayGrayGeek

November 28, 2008 10:17 AM | Link to this

Andy, you’re the one going on, and on, and onandonandon about this topic, dragging it to another blog where it really has no place.

I asked you over in Bookman’s blog to give it a rest for one day - ONE day. How that’s me being a “nanny” just simply Does Not Compute. How-some-ever, have The Last Word you’re obviously desperate to have.

Penurious - My apologies for keeping Andy stirred up. He’s as predictable as the DustBuster and The Esquire, and once I saw his first post this morning about me I should have known that he’d show a need to join OnAndOn Anon concerning this topic.

By AJC/DNC Management

November 28, 2008 10:47 AM | Link to this

By Penurious November 28, 2008 10:05 AM You stink.

Polly: I’ll take that as a compliment, o.k?

After all, as anyone knows, I do not make it my mission in life to have the liberals think fondly of me.

I’ll leave that up to McCain, et al.

~~~~~

*By GayGrayGeek November 28, 2008 10:17 AM I asked you over in Bookman’s blog to give it a rest for one day *

Well then email the AJC again, whiney boy.

It’s your sorry life that’s being put upon, apparently.

I wouldn’t stand for it either, what, another blogger having the nerve to disagree with your narrow, weak minded world view?

You should start a campaign, whiney boy, call the owner of the AJC and tell them that no one can post anything with out first getting approval from you, Head AJC Whiner and Blog Posting Approval Queen.

Put your foot down, hero.

By David Brooks

November 28, 2008 1:17 PM | Link to this

DAVID BROOKS Published: November 28, 2008 Over the past year, the federal government has poured money into the economy hundreds of billions of dollars at a time. It has also guaranteed investments, loans and deposits worth about $8 trillion. Barry Ritholtz, the author of “Bailout Nation,” points out that this project constitutes the largest infusion in American history.

If you add up just the funds that have already been committed, you get a figure, according to Jim Bianco of Bianco Research, that is larger in today’s dollars than the costs of the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the New Deal, the Korean War, Vietnam and the S.&L. crisis combined.

Is all this money doing any good?

The financial system seems to have stabilized, but bank lending is minimal, home prices keep falling, consumer spending is plummeting, and the economy continues to dive.

It could be we just have to endure some fundamental adjustments. Housing prices have to reach a new level. Consumption has to settle on a new trajectory. Until those fundamental shifts are made, no federal sugar rush is going to restore economic health.

That’s not a recipe for doing nothing. It’s a recipe for skepticism. And it leads to some guiding principles for those designing the $500 billion stimulus plan the next administration seems set on: Don’t just throw more money into the sugar rush. Spend money on projects that will enhance the long-term economic health of the country even without a crisis. Do what you would do anyway, just do it faster.

To understand how the short-term response might serve the country’s long-term economic interest, I called up Michael Porter, the competitiveness guru at Harvard Business School. Porter wrote an outstanding overview of America’s long-term economic challenges in the Oct. 30 issue of BusinessWeek.

Porter wrote that the U.S. economy has historically benefited from several great assets: an unparalleled environment for entrepreneurialism, a tremendous infrastructure for scientific research, the world’s best universities, a strong commitment to competition and free markets, decentralized regional economies, and efficient capital markets.

But, Porter continued, these advantages are starting to erode. The U.S. has an inadequate rate of reinvestment in science and technology. America’s confidence in free markets is waning. Lack of regulatory oversight has undermined capital markets. Universities have not sufficiently increased graduation rates. American workers do not have a credible safety net. Regulations and litigation have inflated the cost of business. Most important, there is no long-term economic strategy to organize responses to these problems.

I asked Porter how this short-term crisis might serve as an opportunity to address those long-term problems. First, he said, the Obama team will have to avoid a few temptations: Don’t just try to throw out money as fast as possible to stimulate demand. Don’t spread the spending around too thinly. Don’t try to save jobs that are going to disappear anyway.

Then he threw out a bunch of ideas that could be part of a stimulus package:

Send federal money to the states, but make sure a lot of it goes to state universities. There’s going to be increased demand for their services at the same time their budgets are cut. We can’t weaken that link in the social mobility chain.

Extend unemployment insurance, but also create vouchers and loans so workers can get the skills they need to move on.

Extend the Cobra period another 12 months to head off a rise in the uninsured during the recession.

Adjust the capital gains rate to give people the incentive to become long-term investors. Right now there’s a tension between the real economy, which is gradual, and the financial system, which is manic. Low rates shouldn’t kick in until an investment is held three to five years.

Accelerate depreciation on energy efficient goods and services. Increase tax credits for energy efficient buildings and appliances.

Porter’s basic message was that President-elect Barack Obama should do nothing in the short term that doesn’t serve a long-term goal.

To which I would add just one idea: Create a network of social entrepreneurship investment banks. These regionally operated semi-public funds would invest in the best local community organizations, so they could bring their ideas to scale.

These funds, first proposed by the group America Forward, would supplement the safety net and employ college grads entering a miserable job market. They’d have a powerful psychological effect on a country that desperately wants to feel mobilized and united.

This is a mental recession as well as an economic one. Solving it means getting more and more people involved in a fundamental rebirth.

By Andy's Mom

November 28, 2008 1:17 PM | Link to this

Oh dear. My poor Andy is having another one of his episodes. His doctor is out of town. I’m at my wits end.

Please Gay Geek, show some compassion for my Andy. These blogs are Andy’s life, he gets very lonely during the holiday season, would it be too much to ask for a little pity? Take a look back, you will find Andy on the blogs Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, you name it. YOU ARE THE ONLY FRIENDS he has.

You liberals that claim to have big hearts, stop being HYPOCRITS. Show some compassion.

God Bless.

By Michael Mandel

November 28, 2008 1:25 PM | Link to this

Americans tend to buy imported products � aiding economies abroad By Michael Mandel Business Week updated 1:04 p.m. ET, Wed., Nov. 26, 2008 President-elect Barack Obama has made a promise: to save or create 2.5 million jobs over the next two years. Estimates of the cost of his high-powered spending program to rescue the U.S. economy start at $500 billion and go way up from there.

But a giant issue lurks: How much of Obama’s mammoth fiscal stimulus will “leak” abroad, creating jobs in China, Germany, or Mexico rather than the U.S? This is a question with big economic and political implications â�� and no easy answers.

One problem is that over the past 25 years the U.S. has become the “consumer of last resort” for the world economy. Imports have risen from the equivalent of 9 percent of gross domestic product to almost 19 percent. Even more astonishing, the value of imported goods now is equal to almost 40 percent of the output of U.S. manufacturing. For some types of consumer goods, such as clothing and consumer electronics, it’s increasingly difficult to find items that were not made abroad. As a result, fiscal stimulus that boosts consumer spending in the U.S. may be diffused through the global economy, reducing its impact on jobs here.

At the same time, Obama will face intense political pressure to make sure his intended spending on infrastructure, health-care modernization, and green technology creates manufacturing and service jobs in the U.S. Federal procurement is already governed by a complicated welter of laws mandating minimum “domestic content” for many types of federal purchases, including the Depression-era Buy American Act. That’s why, for example, steel for federally funded transit projects typically has to be made in the U.S.

No sideshow The scale of the fiscal stimulus will likely ensure a frenzy of lobbying to tweak the existing domestic content rules and add new ones. But the more rules and earmarks that are built into the package to ensure domestic jobs, the more expensive it will get and the more the U.S. will look as if it’s retreating from free-trade policies. “Job leakage will continue,” says Susan Houseman, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute. “For better or worse, Obama and Congress will be under tremendous pressure to plug that leak.”

The coming debate over “Buy American” restrictions in the fiscal stimulus is no sideshow. The financial crisis was caused, in large part, by U.S. consumers borrowing trillions of dollars from the rest of the world to buy imported cars, clothes, and gasoline, even as jobs slipped overseas. As long as the U.S. is running a big trade deficit and borrowing from abroad, a fundamental cause of the crisis remains.

Now, whether Obama’s stimulus package creates 2.5 million jobs or not, economists believe it is a good idea, given the ferociousness of the downturn. “Without it, you could get a protracted period of negative or weak growth,” says Nariman Behravesh, chief economist of IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass. “With it, you could get the economy coming out of recession in the third quarter” of 2009.

Vanishing factories Yet given the U.S. appetite for imports, hitting the Obama jobs target will be tough. When President Ronald Reagan cut taxes during the deep recession year of 1982, the U.S. was still a relatively closed economy. That meant when consumers started spending, the jobs showed up in this country.

Over the past 10 years, however, the number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. has plummeted, going from 17 million in 1997 to 13 million today. The part of the Obama plan that props up consumer spending will not bring back those lost factory jobs.

In fact, Obama does aim to get money into the hands of consumers, through extended unemployment benefits and aid to state and local governments that might otherwise lay off workers or raise taxes. J. Fred Giertz, a state budget expert at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, notes that in 2003, $20 billion of federal assistance was allocated to states, with about half earmarked for Medicaid. How much this time? “Something in the range of 5 percent to 10 percent of the stimulus package would be a good guess,” says Giertz.

The advantage of these types of spending is that they are fast-acting. The disadvantage: They support the same “U.S. as consumer” mentality that got us into trouble in the first place, along with purchases of imports.

What about spending on infrastructure, health-care modernization, and green technology? All these tend to produce less leakage overseas than consumer spending. But even jobs in these areas have a tendency to slip over the border unless carefully constrained. Spending on infrastructure such as rail transit is more likely to create domestic jobs, in part because it is already covered by federal legislation that mandates a certain level of purchases of U.S.-made goods.

For example, new public transit vehicles generally must have 60 percent domestic content and be assembled in the U.S. Electric streetcars â�� a mass transit option to cut pollution that’s favored by cities such as Denver and Salt Lake City â�� would likely be imported from other countries if it weren’t for the “Buy American” requirements attached to federal funding.

Furious lobbying Such restrictions are not new. The original Buy American Act, still in effect, was signed by President Herbert Hoover on his last day in office in 1933, requiring the federal government to prefer U.S.-made goods. Over the years the law has been riddled with additional exemptions and waivers and partially superseded by other laws governing trade.

The existing legislation means much of the spending in the fiscal stimulus package � including for green infrastructure � will be subject to intense lobbying to ensure that the money creates jobs in the U.S. and not overseas. Paying someone to better insulate a home will clearly create a domestic job. But how much of the insulation will come from China, a major producer? Or what levels of domestic content will solar panels have to include?

Many of the biggest solar and wind power companies wouldn’t be affected by domestic content rules, because they are already setting up operations in the U.S. for business reasons, says Michael McNamara, an analyst at Jefferies International in London. For example, very large components such as wind turbine blades are expensive to transport long distances. Adds Ralph Wiechers, chief economist of the German Engineering Federation, the association for the machinery industry: “The Democrats know how important world trade is.”

A lot depends on how the rules are written. German-owned factories in the U.S. “are often dependent on suppliers from Germany,” says Wiechers. “Then it’s a question of the definition. Is a machine made in the U.S. if 50 percent or 60 percent of the value is created in the U.S.? That wouldn’t be a problem.”

Another possibility is to take a long-term approach and opt for more spending on education, research, and health care. These are all areas that create domestic jobs and are crucial for future competitiveness and innovation � but take a lot longer to ramp up.

Hiring teachers could have a double benefit, creating jobs while boosting the productivity of future workers. “The rate of return to early childhood education is around 10 percent â�� a very, very healthy investment,” says James J. Heckman, a Nobel prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago “Leaf raking, job corps, and sports stadiums lack such a return.” Similarly, Clair Brown, an economist at University of California at Berkeley, is arguing for increasing basic research funding from the government to U.S. universities, which would create jobs in this country. “The competitiveness payoff will be with us for years to come,” says Brown.

Obama’s political task will be easier if other countries spend big to jump-start their economies as well. Then a rise in export-related jobs in the U.S. could make up for any jobs that leak out. Indeed, this is the best course for the global economy, with each nation supporting the others. “All of these countries affected by collapses in asset prices and facing a very severe recession have to put in fiscal stimulus,” says Richard C. Koo, chief economist at the Nomura Research Institute in Tokyo. “And it has to be a global effort and not just an American effort. We all have to do it.”

The announcement by Britain on Nov. 25 of a $30 billion fiscal stimulus package is a start. But, writes George Magnus, senior economic adviser for UBS Investment Bank, “so far the European initiatives have been disappointing and halfhearted.” Wiechers of the German Engineering Federation is critical of the German government’s reaction so far. “Every day there’s a new proposal on the table. If they’re going to do something, they should do it fast.”

Back in the U.S., Obama faces an enormous challenge. He needs to push through smart, targeted investments that create real jobs, avert a potential deflationary spiral and economic depression, and renew the American economy for another run of long-term prosperity. It’s going to take all of Obama’s political smarts â�� and plenty of luck â�� to navigate successfully through this crisis.

By CJ

November 28, 2008 1:51 PM | Link to this

This is a moronic proposal! All 6+ lanes north on I-85 during rush hour are clogged. By taxing the HOV lane, drivers who do not want to pay or cannot pay, will shift into the already congested right lanes, thus clogging traffic even further. This will only benefit those willing to pay the toll. And, if everyone wants to pay the toll, then the HOV lane will be as clogged as the rest!

Did anyone think this through longer than 2 seconds before signing off on it?

By AJC/DNC Management

November 28, 2008 3:07 PM | Link to this

(This post has not yet been approved by the Blog Nanny and Thumbsucker, GayGrayGeek, but it if shouldn’t offend any of your tender sensibilities, you are more than welcome to KMA)

The Gates selection is an implicit endorsement of President Bush’s “surge” in Iraq and its military architect, General David Petraeus. More broadly, it recognizes that America will continue to deal with a daunting post-9/11 security environment. As a member of the Iraq Study Group, Mr. Gates was against the surge before Mr. Bush made support for it a condition of his taking the Pentagon job. But at Defense since late 2006, Mr. Gates has supervised the successful new counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. He also championed a new generation of military leaders, chiefly General Petraeus, who now commands U.S. forces in the Mideast, and he has poured additional resources into Afghanistan.-WSJ

What, nobody from Code Pinko?

By GayGrayGeek

November 28, 2008 3:48 PM | Link to this

Mom @ 1:17 - I’se so sorry. I’ve been treating your poor, pitiful son like a cat - I toss the Bright Shiny Thing, kitty chases the Bright Shiny Thing, I toss it, kitty chases, lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum.

To the cohort - the “discussion” (as it were) of which I’ve been a part, today, rightly belonged over in Bookman’s blog starting on Monday. My apologies to all who have been bored or offended by my part in this. And my sympathies to those who found humor in this. Andy’s rants concerning what happened yesterday on Bookman’s blog were pointless and completely, totally, utterly off-topic here, and I’m sorry I kept prodding him along today.

By getalife

November 28, 2008 3:51 PM | Link to this

Stop humping GGG’s leg Andy.

Sorry Andy’s mom.

“GA pundit: Why would voters elect Chambliss in dire times?

Bill Shipp, a top GA pundit, notes that “when you look at Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, you have to wonder how Georgia could have ended up with these two guys in Washington to represent them in these dire times. They’ll be lucky to get appointments to the window-washing and elevator-maintenance committees.”

Fire suxby

By ron

November 28, 2008 4:19 PM | Link to this

I did read some of the aove,much to my displeasure.Not to the posters,mind, but displeasure toward myself for being so stupid.

Bob Eubanks——-I never thought George Bush was the cause of high gas prices and I surely don’t think he’s the cuse of low prices.Something to do with demand,speculation,greed,and finally,lack of demand.See, you can’t even find the letters for George Bush’s name in there.

By AJC/DNC Management

November 28, 2008 4:33 PM | Link to this

Yeah, sure thing, al-Gitmo.

~~~~~

(This post has not yet been approved by the Blog Nanny and Thumbsucker, GayGrayGeek, but it if should offend any of your tender sensibilities, you are more than welcome to KMA)

There is both growing public reluctance to make personal sacrifices and a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the major international efforts now underway to battle climate change, according to findings of a poll of 12,000 citizens in 11 countries, including Canada.

Less than half of those surveyed, or 47 per cent, said they were prepared to make personal lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions, down from 58 per cent last year.

Only 37 per cent said they were willing to spend “extra time” on the effort, an eight-point drop.

Enter the dimwit liberals and their carbon tax, as the world gets smarter, we get uh, screwed.

Oh well, who needs prosperity, anyway?

By Chad Harris

November 28, 2008 4:39 PM | Link to this

@AJC

Keep drivin’ the guzzlers. Soon we’ll be back to $5 and climbing a gallon. The 2 UVs in the AJC today get clusterfck sht milkage.

Bring in the Moron Palin. She and Rudy the 911 f*ckup did so much for the Wingnutian ticket. They Kicked butt and took names.

The more she talks, the more we win.

In August, when Maria Bartiromo (aka Money Honey who was taken off a private jet after conducting an affair with the owner while married) wanted to move her interview with Sarah Palin about oil, energy and drilling from the governor’s office to outdoors into the oil fields, Sarah who was wearing her own suit and heels, needed some outdoors duds, so a staffer was dispatched to buy a jacket and hiking shoes for the location shoot, though appears from photos that Bartiromo had an appropriate outfit with her.

Palin reported the $300 worth of clothes as a gift on her disclosure form.

Another nifty fact obtained under the Freedom of Information Act: Each attendee at the Republican governors’ meeting last spring received a pair of $1000 custom cowboy boots.

By Politics Aside

November 28, 2008 5:00 PM | Link to this

The turkey yesterday was tough and stringy. The stuffing was good. The mash potatoes, so so. The corn awful. The greenbean cassorole average. The pumpkin pie average.

All in all, there was only one thing to be thankful for: ingratitude.

By Oz Mirage

December 14, 2008 1:06 PM | Link to this

We should send a big “THANK YOU” to GM and the rest of Big Auto for their tireless efforts at keeping us addicted to petroleum based transportation. Our smoggy skies are a testament to their prodigious efforts at eliminating electric rail mass transit. It matters little that we’ve become trapped into a most wasteful mode of transit. Why, we’re RICH. We can afford importing 70% of our oil. We can consume more fuel per capita than any other nation. We have more cars per capita than any other nation. Perhaps we can send the Governor a BIG Thank You for not supporting Georgia’s crying need for alternatives to the gridlock, fume spitting nightmare that typifies the commute in the Atlanta Metropolitan area. It takes real courage to resist utilizing the existing heavy rail network for commuter passenger service. And it takes fortitude to bar electrification of heavy rail tracks, despite saving 66% per unit energy consumed. For those who fear urban mass transit, be grateful that the leaders of this state will not be deflected from their opposition to any frugal streetcar / tram network in the gracious capital city. It matters little that each train car replaces up to 1150 vehicle trips per day. We’re RICH, we can afford to waste fuel, surface area, breathable air, and water fouled by the petroleum waste and related residue washed into the watershed. Why, just think of all the lost revenue from empty parking lots. We have much to be thankful for. (Sarcasm flag off)

By bestes kasino

December 31, 2008 7:14 AM | Link to this

prizewinning pneumatic affixed barbarities?ambrosial - Tons of interesdting stuff!!!

By bestes kasino

December 31, 2008 7:15 AM | Link to this

prizewinning pneumatic affixed barbarities?ambrosial - Tons of interesdting stuff!!!