Once upon a time, back oh, say, a year or so ago, back when ordinary public stockholders owned the car companies, it mattered a great deal. Now, maybe not.
At issue is whether a single state can implement pollution restrictions for cars that require national manufacturers to build one car for 49 states and another for the 50th. When, however, the 50th is California, population 38.6 million, the size of the market pretty much precludes manufacturers from any realistic option of walking away. That’s why they fought for years efforts by California politicians to impose fuel efficiency and emissions standards tougher than those that apply to the rest of the country.
It’s amazing the difference that a few months makes. On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency gave California permission to impose its own regulations. “This decision puts the law and science first,” said EPA administrator Lisa Jackson. Those are the buzzwords — law and science — that the Obama administration uses to gloss over serious philosophical disagreements, as it did with federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
Events have overtaken the issues of the debate. The House-passed energy tax will be far more consequential than anything California might have done to raise the cost of a single product. And the major car companies, Ford excluded, are owned by the government or the auto workers’ union. Its voice in opposition is largely silenced.
While the significance of this particular case has been diminished by the political shift, the fact remains that no company should be forced to manufacturer one product for California, or any other large-market state, and another that’s materially different for the rest of the country.
105 comments Add your comment
jt
July 1st, 2009
8:26 am
“While the significance of this particular case has been diminished by the political shift, the fact remains that no company should be forced to manufacturer one product for California, or any other large-market state, and another that’s materially different for the rest of the country”
I don’t think they are “forced to”.
Redneck Convert
July 1st, 2009
8:31 am
Well, if California was made to breathe the same dirty air and drink the same filthy water the rest of us do, the state wouldn’t have so many Fruits and Nuts. It might even turn Conservative. That’s why they ought to make a law keeping California from using diffrent air and water standards.
That’s my opinion and it’s very true. Have a good day everybody.
Freakenstein
July 1st, 2009
8:41 am
Well, that Al Freaken and Dimlib goons succeeded in stealing the election in MN. Note how they only went into heavy Freaken districts and challenged ballots that were not counted. What did the Republican’ts do? Sit back and do nothing as usual. These same Dimlib goons tried to steal the election in the same manner in Florida in 2000, but they didn’t get away with it and the Florida Supreme Court would have none of the shenanigans. But, this is going to be great to watch this idiot – who even sucks as a comedian – try to be a senator. I give him one term before Minnesotans wake up to their idiocy – and this idiot. But even with 60 seats, the Dimlib Pelosicrats already had a filibuster proof majority with jackals like those RINOs that voted for the Dunce Cap & Traitor Bill. But, you watch this as well: when these Dimlibs push all their socialist, draconian, economic-killing horse manure through, watch the wretched shiesters blame Bush and Republicans for their failures. Sorry jackals: you’ve already been running Congress for two and a half years now. You own it. You are responsible.
Aquagirl
July 1st, 2009
8:42 am
Gee, Jim, whatever happened to “States’ rights,” buzzwords used by right-wingers to gloss over serious philosophical differences?
If anyone needs to sit down and STFU, it’s Ford and other domestic auto companies. They couldn’t survive in the business world without corporate welfare. I have little sympathy if they whine.
Freakenstein
July 1st, 2009
8:48 am
“They couldn’t survive in the business world without corporate welfare.”
Idiot. Corporate “welfare” is government breaks given to companies who provide their EMPLOYEES with benefits such as child care assistance, education assistance, retirement/401k assistance, MEDICAL, DENTAL, and other benefits. What, do you knuckle-dragging libtards think those evil greedy corporations are just going to suck up those expenses themselves? MAN you people on the left are too stupid to get out of your own way of logical and factual thinking.
spence
July 1st, 2009
8:57 am
Franken won’t last long – someone will catch him in a toilet stall with Barney Frank and it will be over!
AmVet
July 1st, 2009
8:59 am
Jimbo, your Stars & Bars gang here ain’t gonna like that you advocate trampling all over their States Rights.
Aquagirl, shhh! The conned shuckers and grinners don’t wanna know anything more (at all?) about that dirty little corporate welfare secret that’s out now. (Though I guarantee you they’ve never even learned what it is, how sickeningly pervasive it is, the vast amount of ill-gotten money involved or the consequences to American consumers, share holders and tax payers.) They like taking it up the ___ from those cats.
Beats me as to why, I guess they learned it as children…
Aquagirl
July 1st, 2009
9:02 am
@ Freak: I beg your pardon. I missed the memo appointing you Official Definer Of Corporate Welfare.
And I’m not sure anyone will be watching Al Franklin as he takes his rightfully elected Senate seat. The Mark Sanford train wreck is beyond anything Franklin dreamed up for Saturday Night Live.
Aquagirl
July 1st, 2009
9:08 am
Oops—should have been “Franken,” it’s been a while since both the election and my viewing Saturday Night Live.
Munch
July 1st, 2009
9:13 am
Two points leap out from the latest “effort” from the (lamentably) unretired Wooten:
i) Complaint about the right of a state to establish its own policies — this is (or at least used to be) a cornerstone of conservative belief, that states have the right to establish their own policies. In practice, wingnuts like Wooten only support state’s rights when it is used to deny equal protection to minorities or labor.
ii) Wootie’s complaint about auto companies being forced to toe the California line on emissions standards stands in opposition to a core-conservative tenet, that being that the market determines how consumers and producers shall behave. If the auto companies find the California restrictions too onerous, they can walk. And leave that market share to the company that responds to the vacuum. But as with state rights, the hand of the market is to be admired selectively.
Everyone…ignore this new guy Freak. He is a regurgitator of the Hannity/Beck brand of bullshyte, and is not to be taken seriously. He will go away as soon as he has typed out all of the thoughts that he heard somewhere else but now believe to be his own.
Get Real
July 1st, 2009
9:28 am
“That’s why they fought for years efforts by California politicians to impose fuel efficiency and emissions standards tougher than those that apply to the rest of the country.” And what is fundamentally wrong with this Wooten? Like Aquagirl stated, you claim states rights for gay marriage, but not in this instance. Surely, you can’t be championing the interests of corporations that you wanted to go bankrupt anyway, over that of ’states rights’? Please take him a senior home.
Dr. Marti Hernandez Rojas
July 1st, 2009
9:32 am
Well, at least it has a more appropriately descriptive blog handle now.
And, you’ve got to admire the fortitude of Redneck Convert. He perseveres long after jbmlaw, Glenn and Dusty abandoned ship. By the way, is Wooten going for the record for longest farewell? Or maybe the whole “retiring,” thing was schtick, like the Dallas “dream season.”
Munch
July 1st, 2009
9:32 am
Just a quick corrective to the historical revisionism offered by Freak…
In the 2000 Florida recount, the Florida Supreme Court was prevented from enforcing the state laws governing recounts because George W Bush brought a suit to the US Supreme Court, which eventually issued its “one-time only” ruling that imposed an activist judicial outcome on the presidential election. Note this fact…it was Bush that filed suit to have the judiciary intervene, not Al Gore.
Wingnuts like to re-write history. Or put another way, they’re a bunch of damned liars.
1984
July 1st, 2009
9:35 am
AmVet, nice, calling bloggers stars and bars supporters. I guess I can assume you belong to the black panther party with all of your racist black friends. Troglodyte. Oh, I noticed how you used that word yesterday and thought to myself, didn’t CommunistAJC use that word? YEP! Moron.
Aquagirl, I’m guessing that you’ve never worked in the private sector before. That would explain your disdain for private companies. I’m also guessing that you hold a degree in one of the following: philosophy, pottery making, jogging, hemp studies or just maybe one of them general studies degrees that allows you to graduate due to a lack of accomplishments.
1984
July 1st, 2009
9:37 am
Munch, AL Gore lost. If he didn’t he would have fought it tooth and nail. Too bad because I’m guessing by now, if he’d been president, we’d have had over 100 terrorist attacks that he would call “man-made” disasters. Anyone who makes up $hit like global warming, all while driving 20 SUVs, flying 747s around the world, and lives in a 20 room mansion is the biggest liar I’ve ever seen. Then again, liberals are a bunch of pansy, lying pieces of dung anyway.
1984
July 1st, 2009
9:38 am
Dr. Marti Hernandez Rojas eats dead babies. She also works as a fake doctor with Pubs retard. They moonlight as surgeons at the local gay bar all while taking it up the poop chute with a four foot long dildo.
1984
July 1st, 2009
9:40 am
Munch is too much. “Hey everybody, lets ignore Freak.”
Girl, you are such a moron! Talk about stupidity. If you want to ignore someone you don’t scream “LETS IGNORE HIM WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, I’M A TWO YEAR OLD AND HE STOLE MY BALL, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Copyleft
July 1st, 2009
9:41 am
Those are the buzzwords — law and science — that the Obama administration uses to gloss over serious philosophical disagreements
And, by an amazing coincidence, they’re also the two areas that wingnuts have no hope of understanding!
Now just hush and sit in the corner, Republicans. You’ve been bad and you’re grounded.
1984
July 1st, 2009
9:42 am
Munch, at least Freak resonates with a larger audience. Not like MSNBC or CNN where their ratings are in the tank. I bet if pisses you off that FOX is having its best year ever.
Munch
July 1st, 2009
9:43 am
Orwell, I made no assertion about who won or lost. The fact is that Bush was the one who pulled an activist judiciary into the process and prevented the State of Florida from completing the process mandated by their own laws.
The rest of your drivel is just regurgitated Beck, unworthy of response.
Churchill's MOM
July 1st, 2009
9:44 am
Jim 2 in a row about California, look at the mess those men are making, you need to write about our next President. By the way Jenny is married to a realy stupid man, just goes to show a woman needs to marry up rather than down.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24392.html
***************Handel 2010***********Palin Sanford 2012**************
Munch
July 1st, 2009
9:44 am
Copyleft @9:41
Yeah, I loved Wooten’s cavalier dismissal of the concepts of law and science. I guess he is nostalgic for the Bush regime where such inconvenient notions were ignored.
Captain Freedom's Immortal Soul
July 1st, 2009
9:45 am
Enter your comments here
time for the truth
July 1st, 2009
9:56 am
Enter your comments here
jbmlaw
July 1st, 2009
9:56 am
Enter your comments here.
political foreskin
July 1st, 2009
9:57 am
Enter your comment here
Jackie
July 1st, 2009
9:59 am
@1984
Please, give us more of your profound insight.
AmVet
July 1st, 2009
10:00 am
Ahhh, 1984, and you were doing so GOOD! For a couple of posts anyway where you actually dropped the sheer venom and personal attacks and insults. I predicted correctly it wouldn’t last.
Did you suffer any internal damage trying to be non-cretinous?
I personally enjoy you better this way. I suppose most here do. Rather than that silly, transparent charade of a being a reasoned, relevant and civil-tongued “libertarian”.
Keep the laughs coming…
Tricky D
July 1st, 2009
10:20 am
Hey Jim, OVER HERE!!! What about the financial mess Georgia is in? Sonny is about to withhold funds to state agencies by Executive Order. Don’t you think that has more of an affect on your readers than anything Cali does?
Churchill's MOM
July 1st, 2009
10:23 am
Why are men so interested in throbbing thighs on our next President?
Tell me about a memorable run during the campaign that really stands out.
Oh, my gosh, the one that really stands out I’m embarrassed to death to repeat. I went for a run at John McCain’s ranch a couple of days before the debate with Joe Biden. My favorite thing in the world is to run on hot, dusty roads. I don’t get enough of that in Alaska. So I was in heaven and there were plenty of hills so I knew my thighs were going to just throb and my lungs were going to burn and that’s what I crave.
I like running alone and having the Secret Service with me added a little bit of pressure. I’m thinking I gotta have good form and can’t be hyperventilating and can’t be showing too much pain and that adds a little more pressure on you as you’re trying to be out there enjoying your run. Then I fell coming down a hill and was so stinkin’ embarrassed that a golf cart full of Secret Service guys had to pull up beside me. My hands just got torn up and I was dripping blood. In the debate you could see a big fat ugly Band-Aid on my right hand. I have a nice war wound now as a reminder of that fall in the palm of my right hand. For much of the campaign, shaking hands was a little bit painful.
***************Handel 2010***********Palin Sanford 2012**************
Big Bucks GOP doing the Lords work
July 1st, 2009
10:25 am
As General Motors and the auto-parts company Magna International
struggle to conclude a deal for Opel, G.M. is talking to other
potential buyers in a bid to win better terms.
Big Bucks GOP doing the Lords work
July 1st, 2009
10:26 am
Beijing Automotive Industry Holding, Geely Automobile Holdings of
China, and at least one “Western industrial group” remain interested in
Ford’s Volvo car unit,
Big Bucks GOP doing the Lords work
July 1st, 2009
10:27 am
Nomura Holdings, Japan’s largest brokerage, said it agreed to acquire
Citigroup’s Japanese trust banking unit for $196 million to bolster its
asset administration business.
Big Bucks GOP doing the Lords work
July 1st, 2009
10:29 am
A war of the words is on between Goldman Sachs and Rolling Stone’s Matt
Taibbi, who wrote an article subtitled: “How Goldman Sachs took over
Washington by engineering every major market manipulation since the
Great Depression.”
Big Bucks GOP doing the Lords work
July 1st, 2009
10:31 am
George Soros, the billionaire financier and hedge fund manager,
predicted a “stop-go” economy for the United States, saying fears of
inflation will drive up interest rates and choke off growth.
Big Bucks GOP doing the Lords work
July 1st, 2009
10:33 am
A federal judge on Tuesday revoked bail for R. Allen Stanford, the
Texas billionaire accused of masterminding a $7 billion fraud, sending
him back to jail to await trial.
Big Bucks GOP doing the Lords work
July 1st, 2009
10:33 am
J. Ezra Merkin, the New York financier who lost billions of his
clients’ money in the Madoff scheme, agreed to sell his famed art
collection for $310 million in a deal that could pave the way for a
future settlement with New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo.
Big Bucks GOP doing the Lords work
July 1st, 2009
10:34 am
Shareholders of the American International Group got apologies but
little else at the insurer’s annual meeting, a day after the company
disclosed that more material losses could still be coming.
Logical Dude
July 1st, 2009
10:47 am
So, Jim, You agree that the States Rights are invalid? Why is it that when States try to make decisions, only some of those decisions should outweigh Federal decisions, and some are chosen the other way around? You’re confusing me here regarding the power of the State vs. power of the federal government.
Jefferson
July 1st, 2009
11:01 am
Resistence is futile.
Pubtards Continue to Lose
July 1st, 2009
11:17 am
This is an important question, because it could have infinite/endless ramnifications and in the courts may raise a Supremacy/pre-emption challenge that could be granted cert. by the Supremes.
However, I can’t help smiling because Mr. Wooten’s party–what’s left of it–has always traditionally insisted on states rights except when Bush, Cheney, Addington, Yoo, Bradford chose to trash the Constitution.
Gay marriage? Abortion? Leave it to the states says Wooten’s party smugly. And states are beginning to pass the legislation.
A number of other questions the Pubs want to leave to the states. Abortion is one, if they can’t get rid of it all together. That’s going to be unlikely with the first of 3 probable Obama appointments to the Court. Currently states pass imbecilic laws chipping away at abortion. Georgia has tried to pass one that will eliminate many biotech research companies in this state and the climate has already discouraged many from locating here when they can locate in a supportive climate that allows emb stem research (to the limited extent the Obama administration has said they’ll free federal grants for it–as predicted, NIH is dragging its feet setting up guidelines that could have and should have been done before Obama announced the executive order that has so far done nothing.
1984
July 1st, 2009
11:34 am
Jackie, touche my dear. Touche.
AmVet, you still do not get me, do you?
1984
July 1st, 2009
11:41 am
Why I will never ever ever vote for racist butt pirate democrats.
Shocking video of NY Democrats sitting through the Pledge of Allegiance
http://ow.ly/ggXq
Peter
July 1st, 2009
12:06 pm
Hey 1984….How many dictators around the world should the USA attack ? I guess according to you we should be in at least 6-10 wars by now ?
Makes lots of sense since you hate dictators, and love it when American’s get bilked by their own government !
Elephant Whip
July 1st, 2009
12:33 pm
1984:
What was it about the year of 1984 that you liked?
1984
July 1st, 2009
12:41 pm
Peter, how many dictators should we attack? Depends on the threat level to us and our allies around the world. Again, you have this problem with assumptions. I’m guessing that you were breast fed until you were 10. Explains a lot.
Elephant Whip, the 84 Olympics in LA.
Elephant Whip
July 1st, 2009
12:51 pm
1984:
What else do you remember about 1984?
1984
July 1st, 2009
12:54 pm
Elephant Whip, greatest TV commercial ever made. Apple Mac Ridley Scott spot that ran once. I also remember Reagan. Why do you keep asking me?
Munch
July 1st, 2009
12:54 pm
Hey there politicos…lost your way at the ballot box? Have your ideas lost their appeal? Can’t seem to muster a coherent argument against your liberal betters?
NO WORRIES!!!!
Just gin up some fake outrage over a faux controversy like this Pledge of Allegiance kerfuffle and hope that nobody notices that you haven’t had a new idea since Reagan came up with the idea to traffic with drug dealers to raise money to send arms to Iran. And Iraq. (Oh yeah, and to Osama bin Laden, who was a creation of the Reagan team in that glory year of 1984.)
Presto! You no longer have to worry about being beaten on the field of ideas…you can simply bluster and sputter about some cheapjack nursery rhyme and whether somebody has their flag lapel pin on straight.
Dipshytes.
Munch
July 1st, 2009
1:02 pm
So the other night I was getting it from behind by Michael Moore and Sean Penn when I thought, hmmm, I wonder if they are wearing eco-friendly condoms. I just can’t bare the thought of my anus taking a deep plunge by non-eco-friendly condoms. It just chapped my hide, no pun intended.
Peter
July 1st, 2009
1:04 pm
Munch, I have the same problem with my orgies with a couple of gay activists from Decatur. I just can’t get the word out loud enough that eco-friendly condoms are the way to go. Oh well, off to the free clinic. Again.
Elephant Whip
July 1st, 2009
1:20 pm
1984:
Funny. A link to YouTube in reference to that Apple commercial came up on a Google search of “1984.” And everyone, especially Reaganites, knows Reagan was president that year.
1984
July 1st, 2009
1:36 pm
Elephant Whip, so what’s your point?
Munch
July 1st, 2009
1:38 pm
Like the way Orwell slunk away from the flag pledge bullshyte?
Yeah, me too.
Peter
July 1st, 2009
1:44 pm
Hey 1984……You have not made a point about the dictators, and the 10 year old thing was again like a little school kid calling someone names.
So no point in bantering with a child !
1984
July 1st, 2009
1:46 pm
Munch, I posted my thoughts. I didn’t “slunk” away from anything. If I were you I’d head for the doctors office right away. Sounds like you have a lot of problems on your hands, or a$$ I mean.
Yet ANOTHER reason government doesn’t work.
Social Security audit finds dead people getting checks
WASHINGTON — The Social Security Administration has continued to pay millions of dollars in benefits to dead Americans, and other elderly U.S. residents are at risk of losing badly needed aid because they’re improperly recorded as deceased, federal investigators warn in a new report.
The consequences of either bureaucratic error can be severe.
“The addition of erroneous death entries can lead to benefit termination, cause severe financial hardship and distress to affected individuals,” investigators with the Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General noted in the report, which was quietly released on Sunday.
The mistakes cost taxpayers and individual beneficiaries in different ways. Taxpayers are losing money when benefits are paid to the deceased. Individuals get into trouble when they’re prematurely pronounced dead.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/politics/story/71069.html
1984
July 1st, 2009
1:47 pm
Peter, you should try reading my post above. Again, you assume and make an ass out of yourself.
Here is what I said at 12:41.
Peter, how many dictators should we attack? Depends on the threat level to us and our allies around the world.
Moron.
1984
July 1st, 2009
1:48 pm
Peter, your talk of having orgies are disturbing. I’m not prude but dang man/woman, that is just gross. Get yourself checked out before you end up giving other people aids or herpes.
Peter
July 1st, 2009
1:57 pm
1984…..Childish……. The “Other ” Peter brought up the Sex crap…. Not my style……
Make a real statement for a change !
1984
July 1st, 2009
2:00 pm
Peter, is this some sort of announcement about about you coming out of the closet?
Elephant Whip
July 1st, 2009
2:01 pm
1984:
Don’t mind me; I’m just collecting information for Big Brother. By the way, what’s your favorite Van Halen album?
Copyleft
July 1st, 2009
2:15 pm
I love it when “1984″ has to resort to childish namejacking. It always demonstrates how thoroughly he’s lost the argument and his utter inability to THINK.
Which makes him a perfect libertardian, of course.
1984
July 1st, 2009
2:21 pm
Copyleft, I love it when you come out of nowhere to make false accusations against someone all while pretending to be a caring high and mighty libtard.
Elephant Whip, not a big fan of Van Halen. Sorry.
Peter
July 1st, 2009
2:22 pm
Funny stuff Copyleft……..yes 1984 has little to say, and can’t help the childish name calling. He is someone to ignore !
1984
July 1st, 2009
2:26 pm
Peter, if I am someone to ignore, then ignore me instead of writing about me.
1984
July 1st, 2009
2:29 pm
I’m terribly sorry for my immature behavior on this blog. I will endeavor to do better in the future and so respect to all.
1984
July 1st, 2009
2:29 pm
I drink earl grey tea from fancy china cups with my pinkie sticking out.
1984
July 1st, 2009
2:34 pm
Wow, for all the complaining from Peter, Copyleft and Munch, one of the three idiots blogged as me. Too bad your attempts are pretty retarded. Oh, and please prove that I stole your blog handles. Morons.
Copyleft
July 1st, 2009
2:35 pm
Peter, come on over to my house and we can play dress up. I have a few toys I want to use on you. Tee hee.
Peter
July 1st, 2009
2:36 pm
Copyleft, sure thing. I have some make up I want to try out. But I have to warn you, my butt is sore from last night. I had to put some cream on it to soothe the burning.
david wayne osedach
July 1st, 2009
3:16 pm
The State of California is not sate to make any demands on car emissions. They are just getting by paying their employees with I.O.U.’s.
Copyleft
July 1st, 2009
3:19 pm
Just remember, folks: As soon as 1984 starts his crybaby namejacking routine, you know you’ve beaten him. Libertardians always run away crying when confronted with simple logic. It’s their cry of surrender, and it’s a sweet, sweet sound.
Pubtards Continue to Lose
July 1st, 2009
3:20 pm
A lot of confusion on the part of pubs as to what’s actually happening. Obama’s court positions are to the right of Bush so far, because Emanuel and Craig are calling the shots. Not 1/1000 Republicans understands this unless you bump into a lawyer who follows federal appeals by the administration or their briefs in cases they’re in.
The bills that are being passed or voted on that Wooten is trying to follow like cap and trade are a great example. Wooten mourns when they pass. He shouldn’t be mourningthem. He doesn’t read them–Wooten listens to right wingnut radio like Mark Levin or Faux. The bills that are passing have little to do with their title. They are watered down pieces of crap pandering to get the votes of some pubs and the blue dog dems who are worthless.
The energy bill had hundreds of pieces of pork specific to pub and blue dogs’ districts. It resembled nothing at all that was in the original. The Senate could water it down more.
And the 60 while symbolic is hardly accurate. Let’s look at the whip count. Kennedy and Byrd are very very sick. They hardly ever can show up to vote now. Saunders is an independente and very liberal and progressive–he’ll vote with the dems. Leiberman is a phony piece of crap and lies all the time. He never votes with Dems. Leiberman pissed and moaned about spending but he has voted for every single supplemental and every bailout.
Specter is not voting Dem–he’s voting pubtard. He cynically switched his party affiliation to stay alive for re-election and his race is up in the air only because of his fund raising ability.
David Brooks the conservative columnist for NYT nailed it yesterday:
Vince Lombardi Politics
The Republican AG in S.C. has opened a criminal investigation of Sanford’s stealing public money to pay for his nookie trips after saying he wouldn’t. The move to put Sanford in prison so he can continue his loveletters is ongoing and Sanford will resign soon.
1984
July 1st, 2009
3:26 pm
Copyleft, how did you defeat me? You never even put up a debate in the first place.
Munch
July 1st, 2009
3:45 pm
Copyleft..
even better when the wingtards pretend to be somebody else hijacking their own name, and then they respond to themselves-as-someone-else-being-themself (????) to puff up their well-earned low self-esteem.
I think the lit crits call this going meta. But you’re right…you can smell the fear.
1984
July 1st, 2009
3:47 pm
Munch, paranoia has gripped you and Copyleft. Now, if you want to debate fine, if not, STFU!
Munch
July 1st, 2009
3:48 pm
Pubtards Continue…
I must object to your calling the good Senator from Connecticut a “piece of crap”. This does a disservice to honorable and decent pieces of crap everywhere, very few of whom descend to the depths of dishonesty, egotistical piety, and utter worthlessness of Holy Joe.
Munch
July 1st, 2009
3:49 pm
Stamp your little feet, Nancy, and declare yourself the winner.
bwahahahahaha
Dipshyte.
1984
July 1st, 2009
3:57 pm
Munch, did one of your orgy buddies from the pride parade leave your arse chapped? I mean, it’s not like you’re on your period or anything. I guess I could assume its MANopause.
1984
July 1st, 2009
4:00 pm
Looks like Obama Hussein took his marching orders from the Lesbo of State.
Clinton urged Obama to talk tough on Iran
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged President Obama for two days to toughen his language on Iran before he did so, and then was surprised when he condemned Iran’s crackdown on demonstrators last week, administration officials say.
At his June 23 news conference, Mr. Obama said he was “appalled and outraged” by Iranian behavior and “strongly condemned” the violence against anti-government demonstrators. Up until then, Mr. Obama and other administration officials had taken a softer line, expressing “deep concern” about the situation and calling on Iran to “respect the dignity of its own people.”
Behind the scenes, the officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were discussing internal deliberations, said Mrs. Clinton had been advocating the stronger U.S. response, but the president resisted. When he finally took her advice, the aides said, he did so without informing her first.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/01/clinton-urged-obama-to-talk-tougher-on-iran/
Peter
July 1st, 2009
4:28 pm
Hey Jim it looks like another Republican in a leading Government job has failed yet again.
So could Sarah Palin run California ?
Big Bucks GOP doing the Lords work
July 1st, 2009
4:35 pm
Latest Palin Controvery Just a Subset of War Over Direction of GOP
By Dan Balz
The Palin wars have erupted again inside the Republican Party. Leaks followed by trash-talking followed by recriminations.
The latest eruption began in Vanity Fair, with a lengthy article by Todd Purdum examining the Alaska governor’s past and future. The controversy migrated instantly to the web and the blogs–it was, in fact, made for the viral communication of today’s politics–and became even more intense, nasty and personal. Jonathan Martin provided the fullest account for Politico.
There are several elements to this controversy. One is over Palin and her fitness as a possible presidential candidate in 2012. The pretext is her suitability to have been John McCain’s vice presidential nominee, but the real issue is the sharp division within the Republican Party over where she goes from here.
Another element of the controversy is the future of the party itself. How much must the GOP adapt and change to assure its vitality as a healthy alternative to the Democrats? Palin is only a proxy in this larger debate that is consuming many Republican strategists and elected officials.
Finally there is the after-action war over John McCain’s failed presidential campaign that still rages among a handful of GOP insiders. To those who were on the inside, there was virtually no way for McCain to defeat Obama in a year when George W. Bush’s approval rating was below 30 percent, when more than eight in 10 Americans thought the country was off track. To those on the outside, McCain’s defeat may have been likely, but their view was aided by mismanagement and poor strategy atop the campaign.
The criticism of Palin in Vanity Fair, and the strong reaction by Palin defenders, echoed the breakdown that occurred at the end of the campaign. Never has there been such a moment of internecine warfare just as a losing candidate is exiting the stage as there was in the days following Obama’s victory last November.
For several days, the two camps fired at one another at the expense of both Palin and McCain. The charges and countercharges aimed at Palin were, to many Republicans, shocking and inexcusable, a messy end to a dispiriting campaign. Would that it would have ended there. Instead the Palin controversy has become a staple of the Republican story in the months since.
There’s no surprise that Palin remains a controversial figure with the public at large. Her performance in the campaign created a wide gulf in public opinion between those who found her fresh and appealing and those who found her shallow and unready. What has been surprising is the degree to which she has divided Republicans–at least Republican strategists, insiders and talking heads–and how virulent their disagreements have become.
This was that foundation upon which the latest exchanges have taken place, with William Kristol of the Weekly Standard and Steve Schmidt, who was one of McCain’s top advisers, carrying on a public argument over whether Schmidt had privately criticized Palin in the Vanity Fair piece and whose credibility should most be called into question.
The exchanges were vicious, if perhaps of interest to a small community of GOP insiders. But they continue to keep alive the debate over Palin. She is, in the estimation of many Republicans and even some Democrats, the most charismatic Republican in the country. But she also has generated a small cadre of detractors inside the party who question her capacity and her judgment, particularly as a possible 2012 candidate.
Beyond Palin, however, is the question of whither the GOP. Schmidt caused a stir earlier this spring when he publicly urged the party to rethink its position on gay marriage. He argued that in a nation that is both more diverse and more tolerant, Republicans must not appear to be rigid in their judgments of how people live their lives.
Other Republican strategists who don’t necessarily agree with Schmidt on that particular question nonetheless see the GOP as a shrinking enclave. They see a party that has lost its footing among moderates and independents in need of a major overhaul. They worry that, given present demographic trends, the party must modernize, as the British Conservative Party has done, or risk a long-term period in exile.
Others within the GOP family believe that a combination of a return to first principles, the addition of some fresh faces who can attractively repackage a conservative agenda and a few stumbles by President Obama will help start the GOP comeback.
They remember what happened after Bill Clinton won the White House and how Republicans hunkered down, created a wall of resistance to Clinton’s agenda (particularly health care) and successfully stoked the anti-government sentiment around the country. The result was the landslide of 1994 that drove Democrats from power in Congress.
All of this comes together in the persona of Sarah Palin. She is an irresistible personality around whom the arguments about the Republican future will continue to swirl. Some of this is truly about Palin past and future, but the noise also symbolizes deeper arguments about a party attempting to regroup under difficult circumstances.
1984
July 1st, 2009
4:47 pm
Peter, who is the failed governor? You can’t possibly be talking about AHNOLD! He wasn’t born here.
Nice try though.
Big Bucks GOP doing the Lords work, I would love to see Sarah Palin win just to see you and other liberals have simultaneous heart attacks all at once.
Tricky D
July 1st, 2009
4:52 pm
The AJC should rename this blog 1984 and his un-intelligent rants. Wooten is just focusing on California to divert attention from Georgia’s financial woes. The result of a Republican governor and legislature, but he’ll only blame the economy for everything. Georgia would be scrambling like Cali if it weren’t for those stimulus funds, eh?
1984
July 1st, 2009
4:56 pm
Tricky D, or they could just hire more libtards like you or Copyleft to tank the AJC even more.
1984
July 1st, 2009
5:03 pm
Big Bucks GOP doing the Lords work secretly plays with herself when she is at home alone in her mom’s trailer.
Pubtards Continue to Lose
July 1st, 2009
5:26 pm
There is nothing charismatic about stupidity, and that’s the point of Purdum’s article. Republicans have picked up a large majority of poorly read, lazy stupid people. And the small percentagie of Pubs who think Palin is “charismatic” are stupid, and she’s stupid. The Dems would love to see you run Palin. The debates would be halarious beyond anythioneng Tina Fey could have done to her. And Tina Fey or anyone in the SNL cast can discuss issues better than Palin, condiderably better. Bill Maher has yet to have someone from the entertainment world on his show that isn’t exponentially better informed than Palin. She simply doesn’t grasp the issues and no amount of cramming or coaching or reading material is going to make much difference for her. She rejects cramming because she knows its hopeless.
Pure and simple Sarah Palin is a Borderline Personality much in the mode that John Gunderson the psychiatrist at Harvard has written about prolifically for many years. She has an insatiable craving for attention, while displacing the blame for her screwups on anyone but her.
The things Palin continues to do to get attention are pathetic, and they don’t help her or the pubs or the brand whatsoever. You don’t have enough people now who believe in the bigotry and stupidity you are selling. Saying she could beat Obama in a footrace is pathetic. It was reckless and stupid of McCain to put her next in line when he was a 4 time metastatic melanoma patient, and his last bout was probably a IIIB although McCain refused to release any meaningful medical records in that mass of crap he released. His last treatment was a radical neck procedure, and the chance for mortality for someone , like McCain is significant. McCain wasn’t going to win because he embraced much of the stupidity of Bush and flip flopped comically during his entire campaign. The only place the pubs can get significant votes is in the cracker largely ignorant South, and it’s not going to get a moron like Palin elected.
She hasn’t helped herself or the Republican party. When Purdom says she’s kept her distance from the media let me rephrase him. Palin doesn ‘t dare do an interview unless it’s in a superficial context. Gretta van Sustrand knows plenty of questions she could have asked her but didn’t. Van Sustrand considers Palin a right wing interview “get” to the extent she’s willing to toss any scintilla of “journalism” aside.
I’ve said it hundreds of times and I’ll say it again. No one is going to see Palin get elected to anything that is public office ever again. No one can name anything substantive she’s done in Alaska, and if you read the quotes in the Purdon article, major Republicans in Alaska have completely washed their hands of her. Major Republican handlers hired by SarahPac to promote her have bailed and booked because they can’t stand the stupidity of Palin and those close to her and know its a lost cause.
Palin has been absent at key times when someone competent (not her) should have been governor of Alaska. A significant percent of their population is starving at this moment. Palin has been absent because she can’t stop her Borderline impulsivity and insatiable need for attention.
It’s been halarious to me to see the superficial airhead Republicans quack about Franken as a SNL comedian. He was a comedian. However, he did 3 hours of interview 5 days a week on the radio, of a number of non-partisan people and they were serious interviews. Franken graduated cum laude from Harvard majoring in political science. To do the interviews he did required plenty of preparation, and he’s going to be damaging to the Republicans in the Senate. He communicates well. Anyone who underestimates Franken does so at their own peril. He will hit the ground as one of the best informed people in the Senate anda lot of the individuals he interviewed had no specific political agenda.
Sarcastic Clapping Family
July 1st, 2009
5:27 pm
(clap) (clap) (clap) Oh, 1984…please continue… it has been, what? 25 min since your last post?? Please, don’t keep us waiting for more of that stunning insight and stinging wit.
Munch
July 1st, 2009
5:31 pm
Note that Great van Sustern is married to the man who works for Sarah Palin to run her PAC. No surprise she gets the interview with Palin; Greta knows how to toe the line.
Seriously, any woman who loses a battle of the wits with Katie Couric doesn’t have the intellectual power to run a girl scout troop.
1984
July 1st, 2009
5:45 pm
Munch, so why all the fuss over her? I mean, if she’s an idiot just let her be. Oh but wait, you libtards are scared to death of her because she stands for everything you’re against. Freedom.
Tricky D
July 1st, 2009
5:56 pm
1984
Riight, and you’ve been posting since 9:45 this morning. Get a job mane.
1984
July 1st, 2009
6:01 pm
Pubtards Continue to Lose, Palin didn’t bring down Macs campaign. Macs idiotic managers did along with his crappy moderate message. Take Sarah out and he would have lost 20 million voters. He ran a $hitty campaign. Suck on that a while fake doctor.
Chad Harris isn’t really a doctor but he plays one on AJC.
1984
July 1st, 2009
6:02 pm
Tricky D aka Copyleft aka Peter aka Munch, so have you, co*ksucker. Get a job and move out of your mom’s trailer.
Pubtards Continue to Lose
July 1st, 2009
7:13 pm
I used to watch Gretta and Roger on the court show on CNN back in the day. I lost respect for her when I realized she and the husband are such superficial right wingnuts. If Greta every ran a decent cross in a courtroom, she left all her skills behind in interviewing dim bulb Palen. I’m sorry but putting Palen in a national campaign for VP was beyond the pale. And jokes about Biden or not, atBiden did pretty well in the Senate, and his ocassional foot in the mouth comment doesn’t eclipse his qualifications.
I can’t imagine what SarahPac hopes to accomplish–I suppose to payoff the legal fees in defending the ethics complaints she brought on herself including the one as to the legality of SarahPac. They should take the money and hospitalize her in the McLean clinic so Gunderson and his staff can treat her Borderline personality.
Pubtards Continue to Lose
July 1st, 2009
7:28 pm
In Jawjaw how you say it? Yee Haw Haw.
I’m a “Runner”–Sarah Palin
Tell me about a memorable run during the campaign that really stands out.
Oh, my gosh, the one that really stands out I’m embarrassed to death to repeat. I went for a run at John McCain’s ranch a couple of days before the debate with Joe Biden. My favorite thing in the world is to run on hot, dusty roads. I don’t get enough of that in Alaska, so I was in heaven. And there were plenty of hills, so I knew my thighs were going to just throb and my lungs were going to burn, and that’s what I crave.
How come whackjob Sanford and whackjob Palin didn’t hookup for some nookietime?
1983 and 1/2
July 1st, 2009
7:39 pm
Why is it that name-jacking would-be libertardians who don’t know the difference between a Mexican and a Puerto Rican, cry like little girls when they get owned? and owned again, and again and again? I suppose the reason 1984 hasn’t commented on California is because he doesn’t know where it is.
As for today’s topic, I too have noticed the selective application by Conservatives of the mantra of “States Rights” to include only those things Conservatives happen to already approve or dissapprove of. Apparently the Conservative definition of “States Rights” is that states have the right to do only what consrvatives want them to do.
Some other Conservative definitions : “Personal Responsibility”- the right for Conservatives to hold Liberals or victims of Conservative policy personally responsible for Conservative failures. “Free Market”- The market should be free to reward the rich for stealing while screwing everybody else.
Pubtards Continue to Lose
July 1st, 2009
8:58 pm
Well said 19831/2. We could add the absurd term “legislating from the bench” to that list of selective pub use. Opinions they like are strict constructionist intepretations, and ones they don’t are “legislating from the bench.”
stepchild
July 1st, 2009
10:37 pm
Uhm, you libs still trashing Sarah Palin? Why exactly? Please… expand your mindless horizons and tell us why when you people on the kook left run all of Washington now. Inquiring (thinking) minds wanna know……….
Pubtards Continue to Lose
July 1st, 2009
11:20 pm
Stepchild–
We like crushing you all, but we’d prefer to do it with candidates that have a modicum of intelligence.
You all ran thits moron without vetting her and two more morons, Chambliss and Perdue praised her to the skys. Could your party have gotten any dumber or more incompetent. It seems so. The melt down continues. And Franken didn’t steal an election. Coleman didn’t get enough votes in a close election, and Franken has infinitely more command of issues foreign and domestic than Coleman and the bufoon Imhoff and as much grasp as any pub Senator you can name.
Purdum nails it pretty well in the VF article; you can use google or bing and read the article. The woman was an imbecile, and it drove the McCain campaign crazy. It was insulting of McCain who was no prize himself to chose her. Then McCain began serial implosions. Bush and the Pubs had flown the economy into the ground, and McCain began making a fool out of himself with the so-called “suspension.” Actually in meetings on the imbecilic bailouts, McCain sat at the table in catatonic silence. For McCain, the economy has always been one big WTF. Economy in McCain’s mind is money he gets from dominant sugarmama in his fake marriage to shut up while she lives with her boy toys in California. Beer inheritance doesn’t even live in Arizona, but pubtards are the ones who talk about marriage and wouldn’t know marriage if it bit them in the butt.
Pubtards Continue to Lose
July 2nd, 2009
12:07 am
Additionally stepchild–Palin is a quintissential untreated Borderline Personality (google it with John Gunderson’s name and you’ll get there), and I linked the definition above. She’s remarkably unstable, n’and she disintegrated explicity in the last two months of the campaign and in the only two softball interviews from Gibson and Couric that she was allowed to submit to in the campaign. And this mess wanted to be next in line to an individual who had 4 metastatic melanoma episodes, the last a IIIB which required a radical neck.
This was a pahtetic insult and the irony is the Republicans are known for rigid, disciplined campaigns. Palin was a basketcase who wasn’t even speaking to her McCain handlers and literally went out of her head when they refused to keep polling Alaska. Palin had no concept whatsoever of what the US was, or that she was running in a national election. The morons who cheered on her viscious hate speech were gasoline on the borderline personality fire that raged in her brain.
The worst is that her followers actually revel in her ignorance. Cool to be dumb and incompetent is their mantra.