Wonkette
- House Republicans congratulated themselves on their united opposition to the stimulus bill, which still passed overwhelmingly. [Washington Post]
- Shimon Peres and the prime minister of Turkey had a very public dispute onstage during the World Economic Forum, but don’t worry, Israel is not going to bomb Turkey. (Yet!) [AP]
- Gross domestic product figures for Q4 come out soon; expect them to be horribly depressing. [USA Today]
- Republicans elect their national democratic chair today. [Detroit Free Press]
- Wall Street executives are coming under heavy fire for continuing to collect bonuses even though they lost hundreds of billions of dollars on behalf of their employers last year. [Bloomberg]
- Stressed-out soldiers are commiting suicide at unprecedented rates. Many experts suspect that interminable overseas deployments have not helped. [Los Angeles Times]
Such a difficult decision for the Republicans since all of the candidates are proven losers. Decision must be based how they want to lose next. I think they should go with the Michigan guy since he has shown an ability to screw up local, congressional and state-wide races while “delivering” fewer votes to the Repub national ticket each election.
Of course, Erdogan could also be spelled as O’danger, or perhaps No Grade. I’m not sure what that means, either. Shimon Peres is just a wanker. Always was.
I just read that LAT article, and it is depressing, y’all. Can you guys post cute baby pictures at some point today?
Or something??
About a third of suicides occur during deployments abroad, a third after deployments and a third among soldiers who never deploy.
“We all come to the table believing stress is a factor,” said Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the Army’s vice chief of staff.
In other breaking news, the sky is blue, the pope shits in the woods, and Ted Haggard is still a cock goblin.
Dear Republicans,
You might want to reconsider the celebration of failure.
R N Nixon
“How about those House Republicans?” cheered Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) . . .”
Why do the R’s hate America so much?
OK, so here is a list of headlines from the washingtonpost.com. They were all under or next to each other:
“U.S. Economy Falls 3.8 Percent at Year’s End
Economic Signs Turn From Grim to Worse
Exxon Mobil Shatters Record With $45.2B Profit
NEC to Cut 20,000 Jobs
Asian Markets Retreat
Honda Cuts Forecast, Profit Tumbles 90%”
Want to play which of these things doesn’t belong? Must be nice to be a friend of Bush/Cheney.
RE: military suicides: it is not just active duty. Apparently, West Point, too:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/29/AR2009012904135.html?hpid=moreheadlines
What were the skies like when you were a young Boehner? Little fluffy methane clouds?
Word is the President will offer Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) the post of Commerce Secretary. If he takes it that could give the Dems a 60-seat Senate. If he refuses it’ll make the GOP look like sore losers since it proves Obama would reach across the aisle.
Strategic change I can believe in.
I honestly think the Wall Street guys are living in a different universe than we are. Drive your company bankrupt, crash the global economy, then buy a new jet and give everyone bonuses.
They have to be smoking something.
chascates: Hopey keeps coming up with these genius moves. He is just incredible.
Doglessliberal:
Bush really did a lot for service men and women, didn’t he?
GDP dived at a rate of 3.8% last quarter, worst in 25 years it was just announced.
Possibly because so many of us are unemployed?
Even Dame Peggy says this morning:
“There’s a sense among many, certainly here in New York, that we somehow had it too good too long, a feeling part Puritan, part mystic and obscurely guilty, that some bill is coming due.”
But the GOP are unwilling to pay that bill.
Terry: It’s a carry over from the Bush adminstration, where fucking up royally meant that you were doing your job. The most spectacular fuck ups got medals of freedom.
I had a gross domestic product, and it was depressing because the plunger was in the other bathroom.
Gaaah! Is it too early to start drinking? More topless Hopey pics after this, plz…
I’ve said if before and I’ll say again, what the fuck color is the sun where the Party of Rushbo lives?
ANGLIA (AP) - Representative Canute (R-England) had his throne carried to the seaside today and declared victory as he and the rest of the Republican caucus voted unanimously against the tide. The Democratic caucus largely voted in favor of the tide, which came in anyway. Canute says he and his fellow Republicans are very happy with the unity they showed, even though they’re drenched from the knees down.
OT, I know Peggy Day celebrations have yet to begin, but I cannot contain myself. She is saying Prezzy Hopemaster is “overexposed.” Perhaps this is a continuation of her Afrikan fantasia? What delicious dreams must the Pegmeistress be having. Apologies dear Wonkette overlorden. I retreateth to my lowly cubicle.
Kudos to Republicans! Everyone knows that marching in a straight line is more important than preventing global economic armageddon.
Terry: what, starting a war based on a lie, undersupplying the troops and not sending enough troops, and then denying returning soldiers psychological counseling or medical help are NOT ’supporting the troops’? But, he kept us safe! He was our Commander in Chief! Mission Accomplished! Right…right…?
House Republicans congratulated themselves …
It is futile to fart against thunder. An entire party of Denis Kucinich’s. Cool!
Q: What’s the sound of the House Repubs Self Congratulating themselves?
A: FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP…
“This war will not be another Vietnam.”
By turning their collective backs on the living dead returning from combat and collapsing the global financial markets, the Bush/Cheney administration may be the beginning of the end for the GOP.
They weren’t so awfully eager to borrow a shitload of money to give to the Nation’s biggest banks and corporations when Bush proposed it, either.
One of the more depressing daily briefings in a long while. What a great legacy that George W. Bush leaves us.
About Wall St execubots coming under “fire” from critics about the size of their bonuses. I was kinda hoping it would under “a hail of gunfire and surrounded by a mob carrying pitchforks and torches.”
Stressed-out soldiers are commiting suicide at unprecedented rates. Many experts suspect that interminable overseas deployments have not helped.
I’m waiting for Rush Limbaugh to call these guys “phony soldiers” and for the Pentagon to refer to their suicides as “asymmetrical warfare.”
Back in the day, failed executives had the common decency to throw themselves out of windows, giving us satisfying ’splats.’
We need the Crimson Permanent Assurance.
First…do not f&%k with the Turks. I find it ironic that they acuse Israel of being good at killing for their incursion into Gaza, but seem to forget about their incursions into Iraq/Kurdistan. Save maybe for ROK Soldiers, you will be hard pressed to find a nastier fighting force.
Second…two soldiers from the battalion I deployed from have committed suicide. I knew one fairly well. Imagine everything that can go on and go wrong if you were shipped to the other side of the moon for a year. Your wife forgets who you are…and may actually be happier about that. Your kids may not even KNOW who you are when you get back. “Jody”, your best friend, is always their to “help” your wife/gf and family. Short of a death in your immediate family, you will not be allowed to go home. Oh, and you cannot drink, look at porn, gamble or have sex…and the Army finds a million other ways to make you miserable while you are deployed (ask me about a SOF Commander pouring out aftershave because he thinks people are hiding alcohol, who thinks that FHM and other “lad mags” are porn and “speeding tickets” on Disney Drive in Bagram). Oh, and to top it all off…there are really mean people who’s sole job is to try and kill you.
I call it the trifecta of deployment depression and I consider myself fairly well adjusted.
Servo: WIN.
Stephen Colbert hasdthe best idea last night. Since the Republicans voted against the stimulus package on principle, they should, on principle, refuse to accept any stimulus money for their districts.
“Many experts suspect that interminable overseas deployments have not helped.”
Now that’s just crazy talk. Soldiers love stop/loss, never seeing their families, being exposed to depleted uranium and 140° summers.
There must be some other explanation, like They Hate America.
Last night I heard an interview on NPR with some R house rep. He was railing like a maniac against the stimulus bill, and when he got done the interviewer asked what he would propose as an alternative and he stuck his finger up his nose and proclaimed, “TAX CUTS” and he was serious.
Mustang: Tax cuts for booger-pickers!
Republicans like to say they’re the Daddy Party (strong and manly–Dems being, of course, the weak effeminate Mommy Party). This is true if by Daddy Party you mean they slipped the country a roofie, beat the bejasus out of it, knocked it up, and now refuse to pay child support on the grounds that the country is a slut.
What did America do to Republicans to deserve this shit?
El Pinche: John “Man Tan” Boehner and the Two Santa Claus theory: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Two-Santa-Clauses-or-How-T-by-Thom-Hartmann-090129-720.html
AfghanVet:
Was your CO, Douglas Neidermeyer from Animal House?
AfghanVet:
God bless you, really.
We have members of the military who’s lives are torn up in a number of fundimental ways and a military structure that is over-obligated and stuck in some crappy situations that may not be winable.
But didn’t George look good in that bomber jacket, surrounded by happy faces?
mad mom: Heh, that’s pretty good analogy. It makes me glad to think that my own dad wasn’t a dick, because I know some guys who are. And their sons are growing up with a certain dickishness about them.
AfghanVet: I hope Karma really IS a bitch.
AfghanVet:
Ironically, dumping a C-17 full of porn into the Iraq and Afghanistan may be the best defensive weapon.
“Fight the infidels or butter my corn today? Hmmmmm.”
Those Wall Street financiers who got big fat bonuses despite it all should be one of the first people up against the wall when the Revolution comes
According to a lot of the pundits out there, the Republicans won the whole stimulus thing by spurning all of Hopey’s bipartisan outreach. I’m not sure, however, if they mean win in a real sort of way or win in a special olympics kind of way
A good idea on executive bonuses in the financial sector:
Credit Suisse Group AG’s investment bank decided last month to reduce the risk of losses from about $5 billion of its most illiquid loans and bonds by using them to pay employees’ year-end bonuses.
The Zurich-based company’s leveraged loans and commercial mortgage-backed debt will fund executive compensation packages.
Perfect–Hey, Mr. Managing Director, remember all those mega illiquid loans that your 25 year old spreadsheet jockey convinced you to buy because they couldn’t all go bad at the same time? Well, good news–here is a big hunk of them, try flogging them to the next sucker for your bonus.
“Republicans elect their national democratic chair today.”
The job includes a blindfold and cigarette.
@ManchuCandidate:
“Q: What’s the sound of the House Repubs Self Congratulating themselves?
A: FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP…”
Actually, I think it sounds more like this:
A: FAP FAP FAP FAP “You’re over 18, right?” FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP…
Gayer Than Thou:
“You’re over 18, right?”
LOL, riiiight… like a Republican has ever cared about that!