It's easily the largest issue facing us now and for some reason C&L isn't giving it much attention. This downturn has barely gotten started.

It's a foreign debt problem, I've said that 1000 times here now easily. Obama recently acknowledged it too.

Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ‘Unsustainable’ (Update2)

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206010...

No we can't because they cut up our credit card last January, that's right China isn't buying our debt like they use to. Sadly Obama's policies fly in the face of his words. He is spending like never before. Bush drove us the cliff and Obama is making sure we go over it.

Gerald Celente Trends Alert - The Bubble to End All Bubbles

Kingston, NY -- The biggest financial bubble in history is being inflated in plain sight, said Gerald Celente, Director of The Trends Research Institute. "This is the Mother of All Bubbles, and when it explodes," Celente warns, "it will signal the end to the boom/bust cycle that has characterized economic activity throughout the developed world."

http://www.yonkerstribune.typepad.com/yonkers...

"The Worst Is Yet to Come": If You're Not Petrified, You're Not Paying Attention
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/248398/

It bums me out to say but I think C&L has turned into a bit of left agenda driven pom-pom waving site instead of insisting on the truth like it use to.

Fox has hired Dana Perino.

Will another Republican governor reject Obama's promotion? R.I.P. to the one of the last journalists who dared to deal with reality. Leno helps the unemployed cope in Ohio. A judge has to forces parents to treat their cancer-afflicted child. One of the UCLA guys into illegal body part dealing is convicted.
Paneta is totally full of shit when he says: "Let me be clear. It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress,"..."That is against our laws and our values." A court thinks making money off hate crimes is fine and dandy. Arnie puts California on the chopping block.
Alan Keyes is into tea-bagging. Foreclosures went up by 32% last month. A Wyoming governor has no problem with nepotism. Mexico's ex-Pres wants marijuana to be legalized.

Marcy's been superb lately. Well deserved, indeed.

From the AP:

NEW YORK – A Gallup Poll released Friday found that 51 percent of Americans now call themselves pro-life ..

The findings, obtained in an annual survey on values and beliefs conducted May 7-10, marked a significant shift from a year ago.

A year ago, 50 percent said they were pro-choice and 44 percent pro-life — in the new poll, 42 percent said they were pro-choice.

On the face of it .. it is bogus.

In one year's time Americans are going to change from 50-44 to 42-51 about ANYTHING?

Let alone such a galvanizing issue?

That's a 15 point shift.

Here are two interesting things I happened upon last night:

http://www.progressive.org/wx051409.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/15/ignacia-m...

She had all the time to go after Bush's indiscretions when he was in office; but she acts now when Obama desperately needs to focus on saving the country from economic disaster. Yes, I too believe that certain fuckheads need to go down, but that's not going to happen now anymore than when Pelosi and Reid gave the American public a pretense of "oversight" during the latter years of Bush's second term. Not because there's no desire for it to happen, but because Pelosi's clearly not prepared for any political blow-back. How else can she explain being caught on discussing "interrogation techniques", and then trying to argue that she was oblivious to the specifics of what was going on back then, and then only act "outraged" five years after we already knew they were a Bush policy?

So the only thing I can surmise from all this is that she's doing this to save her own ass in the next round of mid-terms. Think about it: Congress is still suffering from crappy approval ratings; Repugs are no longer the easy targets at the polls; and so, voters are going to clean up house on any Dems who appear to be fucking them over in favor of corporate lobbyists.

Furthermore, Pelosi's no longer the center of attention, now that Obama's taken her place as the Dem spokesperson. So she's clearly yesterday's news, and she knows it. Hell, the only reason she won her last mid-term had more to do with people voting anyone but Republicans than her own popularity. Otherwise, none of her competitors would've gotten more than 10% of the vote. And yet, together, they got nearly 30% of the vote; that's got to be a warning sign, especially in light of the fact that Lieberman whizzed through his race by only a majority of 10%.

So my theory is that she's bringing up this whole torture issue to co-opt the Sheehan crowd by making her case that she's so liberal, that she's even more liberal on torture proceedings than Obama. She's clearly hoping her district will forget about kissing Bush's ass, because her "progressive" record is at stake. In addition, if this tactic fails, then she'll be able to create the image of dissension in the party; and voters desperate for cooperation will get so frustrated, they might kick out the decent Dems in favor of Republicans who pretend to be "bipartisan". And any possible shift in the majority might convince voters not to "rock the boat" by picking Sheehan or her equivalent, for fear that they might suffer another '94-type mid-term loss.

So there's no fucking way Pelosi's suddenly changed her tune. She's not doing this to hold anyone accountable, since she's not telling us anything we don't know already. This whole cat-and-mouse game with the CIA is just PR for 2010, and that's all there is to it. So let's not fall for her bluff; let's instead work on her replacement.

he he obama furthers his republican base , and picks another repuke for another repig for a job in his republican lite administration! in your face folks!

Jon Huntsman...Ambassador to China

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/15/jon-...

Ha! Great daily show last night.

This link is to the full episode but in the first five minutes he eviscerates Obama for his recent policy reversals.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/ind...

For those who are interested, the PBS show To the Contrary (which focuses on women's issues and has a panel of all women pundits and leaders to talk about them) is going to have a segment on the relationship of the GOP to women. I don't know if they're either going to talk about how the GOP can court women voters and politicians, or if they're going to talk about the (abnormal, imo) psychology of women who are attracted to the GOP.

Should be interesting.