Thank You

We PUMA people have given up a good portion of our lives for the righteous cause of decency in our democracy. The outcome was set in stone long before we cried out and got to work, simply put, the fix was in. That does not diminish the research, response, road warrior mentalities of most of this auspicious and brilliant bunch of rebels with a cause. But occasionally, it is good for the soul to put down the poisoned pen and be grateful for our fortune as Americans.
It is Thanksgiving and for me it is a day when I choose to reflect on what exactly I have to be thankful for. Of course, family comes first. My blessing consumes my life and the pride I have for him is immeasurable. Yet this year, I need to express my gratitude for the not so obvious...
- Thank you, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for our collective awakening as women and men compromising 18 million who all rallied for you, fought for your right to be treated with dignity, and decried a most foul process. Through it all, you have remained dignified and stoic and put our country first, though it may not always seems as such to PUMA's who needed you to denounce the Pres.(S)elect. You had an agenda, and by playing the political game from D.C. to Chicago, you will be our representative around the world as Secretary of State. No one will pull your strings for you are too brilliant to be puppet-ized. You set down your demands, and ensured that your detractors in the new administration would never cross your path nor have a role there. You still reign supreme and I will sleep a little better knowing that your hands are in the muddle of hell that surrounds our national security threats.
-Thank you, FOX News. My daily feed consisted of MSNBC, CNN, and a variety of print and online publications, including the ABOMINABLE HuffPo. FOX became home base for the PUMA's for they were all too willing to expose the truth without spinning to the left. They recognized us and what more could a grassroots movement ask for.
-Thank you, President George W. Bush. Yes, I said thank you. For almost seven years, our President has served in the most perilous of times and has been the recipient of scorn, ridicule, mockery, and thrashing. No, I do not agree with all that he has done, including the war in Iraq. I am also tired of everyone second guessing the administration's decisions. We did not see the intelligence reports, nor were we privy to that which the public is never made aware of. What I do know is that Pres. Bush has kept our country safe since 9/11. As a lifelong New Yorker and someone who felt the loss of a friend in the WTC, I am eternally beholden for the job he has done in thwarting attacks, intercepting terrorist chatter, and having the Guantanomo Hotel as a respite for those precious terrorists and their friends. I fear the closing of this facility, and I believe the fools who voted for the incoming pres will live to regret their decision.
-Thank you to fate. As we view the horror of the latest terrorist attacks in Mumbai, we should take pause. Think hard and be honest with yourselves. If you are like me, you are unspeakably grateful to be born in a country that allows you to be a dissident, fight the system, and cry foul without fear of imprisonment. We have been the living embodiment of this privilege.
-Thank you, fellow PUMA's. What a ride this has been and will undoubtedly continue to be as we follow the broken promises of the man who would be king. Hillary found her voice, but SO DID WE. This is groundbreaking and without precedent, and I implore all of you to stop and smile tomorrow as you celebrate our day of thanks. Remember to thank yourselves.
Luv,
Petunia

MSNBC- Slam Dunk, Game Over

Downtown Tina Brown ( ok, downtown London?) adds her usual flair to morning joe. as ever, Joe stands up to the NBC brass, Ms. Brown lashes out at the borderline insane coverage of Clinton/Palin. Makes me wanna burn my bra. Seriously.


Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and contributor to The Daily Beast, a most worthy site (which in these times means, honest), speaks in candid terms borne of info and introspect, regarding Hillary's choices. Palpable arguments. I still say, bring it on, Madame Secretary.

Reality Check. Hillary Will Win the Nobel Prize

It wasn't long ago when we all mourned the theft of Sen. Hillary Clinton's nomination for the Presidency. No need to belabor what we PUMA's know. She won, fairly and with the majority of votes, sans superdel payola and caucus fraud. We bought stock in Kleenex's parent company (pre-market crash) and sickeningly debated whether we wanted her to be offered the veep spot. I'd gauge the PUMA response to be 50/50. After self deliberation, I wanted our girl to have that spot, not as "that one's" underling, but as someone who could redefine the role, a less sinister Dick Cheney if you will. The media was faklempt. After all, the now President (S)elect clearly stated that Hillary would be on ANYONE's short list....anyone's but his. It took awhile before the news broke that the winner of 18 million popular votes was not even vetted for the post. Vetted? This coming from Austin Obama Powers, Man of Mystery? Cut to the election, cut to the aftermath (sigh).
Andrea Mitchell, NBC reporter and host of an hour block of daytime viewing on MSNBC, wife of Alan Greenspan, former Fed chair, partially responsible for our economic tsunami, broke the story that Sen. Clinton was en route to Chicago to discuss the Secty. of State position in the Obama cabinet. My own reaction consisted of a combination of anger ,"why the hell is he the President making these decisions", to hmm, she surely has the gravitas to hold such a high ranking position. Since then, the usual not-ready-for slime time players such as Matthews and Olbermann, have been re-raking Hillary over the coals as to her credentials and Pres. Clinton's associations and monetary issues regarding his world initiatives. Oh yes, who would want the husband of the Secty. of State running charitable organizations to ease the plight of the less fortunate around the word. Puleez. Anything Clinton tends to bring frothing at the mouth disease in these misogynistic sadists.
What saddens me even more is the number of PUMA's who are urging Hillary NOT to take the job if offered. Now let's examine this position. "They" say she is being used and kept in check by being a cabinet member where she can do very little harm to Obama. "They" say that she will be relinquishing her right to run for the Presidency in 2012. "They" say that she is a larger force as the Jr. Senator from N.Y. ( the state where I was born and lived most of my life). "They" say she should wait for the Senate Majority Leader's position in 2009. STOP THE PRESSES. Whose life is this anyway? Firstly, yes we recognize that the economy is our most dire problem, but let us be realistic. The terror chatter is high, and we are a nation in waiting for the next attack. To think otherwise is to live in a very phantasmagorical land of fantasy. Do you trust the messiah with the keys to the car? Not I. Secondly, the position of Secty of State does not preclude a run in 2012, and frankly, anything can happen between now and then. Thirdly, her one request which was to head a Senate subcommittee on health care has been denied by Sen. Kennedy. Do you think she is amongst friends? She is surely amongst backstabbers. What exactly is the pressing need in the Senate that should keep her from being our face around the world, our woman of valor, our negotiator who will not allow the "one" to meet despots without pre-conditions? Fourth, Harry Reid aka King Moron, is going nowhere.
I see PUMAnista's imploring Hillary to just say no. Let me be very clear here. Straight talk. I lived through 9/11 in N.Y. in a very personal way. Like him or hate him, Pres. Bush has kept us safe for seven years. We did not vote for Obama, did we? Isn't one of your reasons that you did not trust him to keep us safe? Well, it should have been. I am not worried about social issues, transportation problems, and other daily doings that the Jr. Senator will be continuing to deal with. Yes, she serves on some very prestigious committees, but wouldn't her true value be better utilized as one of the first officials to see the intelligence reports as they come in? Perhaps if she did the last time, instead of Condi, there wouldn't have been a 9/11. Call me selfish. I want my Hillary to run the foreign relations show, so that I can sleep at night, and through that 3am call. Lrt's face it, our Hillary will win the Nobel Prize should she be given the right to serve. This is one woman who knows how to keep the peace.

Barack To Reality (oops, there goes sanity) <3 Hitchens

Barack to Reality
Obama's victory didn't magically eliminate America's problems and enemies.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Nov. 10, 2008, at 11:30 AM ET

Yes, yes, yes. I, too, took pleasure in standing in line and in exchanging pleasantries and greetings with the amazingly courteous staff at my polling station and the many citizens of my delightfully diverse Washington neighborhood. I, too, am still wearing my lapel sticker, with the jaunty words "I Voted." And I found it pretty easy to cast a vote that told the Republican Party, for which I recommended a vote last time, not to try any of this shit again. No more McCarthy tactics; no more stumblebum quitting of the campaign trail and attempting to pull out of the first presidential debate in order to wind up voting to save Lehman Bros.; no more driveling Christian fundamentalism; no more insinuation that only those silly enough to endorse them are "real Americans." No more sneers at San Francisco as if it weren't a real American city. McCain and his preposterous running mate will just have to believe in an afterlife in which they can live down the shame of what they attempted this year.
But I might possibly have voted for them all the same, clothes pin clamped over my nose in the voting booth, if only because of the crucial struggle for a free Iraq and an autonomous Kurdistan. And, in such a case, I would have been very annoyed at the suggestion that my vote was a racist one. "Historic," yelled the very headline across the top of my morning newspaper. (Just the news, please, if you would be so kind.) Would the letters have been so big for the first female vice president? And isn't it already historic that millions of white Christians voted, win or lose, for a man with one Kenyan parent, that parent having been raised as a Muslim?
John Dickerson described how Obama bent the arc of history.
So let us not over-egg the pudding. And if you think our own press and media are too uncritically adoring, just spend a second or two exposing yourself to the overseas version. On election night, I spent a little time on British and then on Australian television. For expressing a few mild doubts about the new president-elect, I was forcibly reminded in one case that the first 14 (I think it was) presidents of the United States could have owned Barack Obama, and was informed in the second case that just 40 years ago, he would not have been allowed to vote in the election, let alone win it.
Well, as it happens, our new president has no slave ancestry, and neither branch of his parentage could have been owned by anybody, or at least not by anybody American. (Muslim-run slavery, though, is an old story in Africa as well as a horribly contemporary one.) And there were not a few elected black American representatives 40 years ago, even if mainly in Northern states. The objection I make is therefore twofold. First, the election of Obama is the effect not the cause of the changes. (One of my questioners appeared to think that our president-elect had been responsible for the decision in Brown v. Board of Education.) Second, a Republican victory would have had absolutely no effect on the legal or political standing of black Americans, which is a matter of our law and our Constitution and cannot be undone by any ephemeral vote or plebiscite.

The recognition of these obvious points should also alert us to a related danger, which is the cousinhood of euphoria and hysteria. Those who think that they have just voted to legalize Utopia (and I hardly exaggerate when I say this; have you been reading the moist and trusting comments of our commentariat?) are preparing for a disillusionment that I very much doubt they will blame on themselves. The national Treasury is an echoing, empty vault; our Russian and Iranian enemies are acting even more wolfishly even as they sense a repudiation of Bush-Cheney; the lines of jobless and evicted are going to lengthen, and I don't think a diet of hope is going to cover it. Nor even a diet of audacity, though can you picture anything less audacious than the gray, safety-first figures who have so far been chosen by Obama to be on his team?

There is an element of the "wannabe" about all this—something that suggests that, if the clock were to be rolled back, every living white person would now automatically stand with John Brown at Harper's Ferry and with John Lewis at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. All the evidence we have is to the contrary: Abraham Lincoln ringingly denounced John Brown, and John F. Kennedy (he of the last young and pretty family to occupy the Executive Mansion) was embarrassed and annoyed by the March on Washington. In other words, there is something pain-free and self-congratulatory about the Obama surge. This has happened before, of course, with the high-sounding talk about the "New Frontier," the "Great Society," and "Morning in America." It's just that this time it's more than usually not affordable. There are many causes of the subprime and derivative horror show that has destroyed our trust in the idea of credit, but one way of defining it would be to say that everybody was promised everything, and almost everybody fell for the populist bait.

More worrying still, there are vicious enemies and rogue states in increasing positions of influence throughout the world (one of the episodes that most condemned the Republican campaign was its attempt to slander Sen. Joe Biden for his candid attempt to point this out), yet many Obama voters appear to believe that the mere charm and aspect of their new president will act as an emollient influence on these unwelcome facts and these hostile forces. I can't make myself perform this act of faith, and I won't put up with any innuendo about my inability to do so.

Change? Cronyism and Favors. The Messiah's Cabinet

Enjoy! This is a new feature I've stumbled across and I'm still trying to work out the nuances. More importantly, click on the link in the embedded widget that takes you to the actual article from whence this came. Take note of the names of the Chicago cronies, the DC butt kisser's who betrayed HRC, the liars who endorsed the messiah to gain a place in so called history. Note the various titles that are being proposed. You will be viewing a prototype of the change agent's cabinet. Pass the valium, and get some sleep. We're in for a long ride.

Rock-A-Bye Barack

With under two hundred days as the junior senator from Illinois, bebe stole the keys to the White House. Instead of getting a time-out or an early bedtime, this wacky land that we live in decided to give bebe an early Christmas present! Scores of lil punims were born and named for this dude who's inspired a generation with empty platitudes and more promises than my last boyfriend gave me as to why I didn't get the princess cut I wanted. Ohhhhhhhhh Moishe! Look at little Barack, our blessed child born in the manger of Chicago (or was that Kenya). Okay, I can see naming your child after Elvis, at least he was entertaining when he wasn't eating. But Barack? I know, it's "history"....I keep forgetting that it was never about the qualifications. It's the race, stupid! So with my usual impending nausea, I peruse the NY Slimes online, and sure enough, here it is.

Thomas Mukoya/Reuters
In Kisumu, an area in Kenya where relatives of Barack Obama live, at least 43 children have been named after the Obamas since Election Day, including Josephine Ochieng’s newborn son.
In a related story, a new mother is quoted as saying,
“I love Barack Obama, and I love the name,” said Ms. Williams, 31, who came to the United States as a refugee from Liberia in 2003. “In Africa, we call it a blessing. That is a good name.”

Yep, that's exactly what I was thinking. Barack is such a blessing.

Kool-Aid in Sippy Cups

Remember that beautiful Whitney Houston tune, "I believe the children our are future...."
Well, we have entered ObamaZone, where children are seen, heard only when the indoctrination has succeeded, and bamboozled by their teachers into submission. Dissenters and those who question authority will receive poor grades and community service, commencing at the age of five. Exaggeration? I'm beginning to think not.

Witness this "shockingly" biased teacher, tormenting her young disciples into drinking kool-aid for lunch instead of milk.

Move Over, Lady. You're Not Wanted Here.

Here I am on a Saturday night, reflecting on what might have been. I haven't been able to contemplate a social life filled with the requisite amounts of merriment and mirth since I watched HRC get shellacked in the primaries. Sometimes I console myself with the conviction that if she gets to enact one huge law for the betterment of society in America, it will be her twenty years-in-the making, health care reform.
Those forty seven million uninsured, give or take a few hundred who hang at Grand Central Station, would find themselves in the statistics of those with prolonged lives due to decent and affordable health care. As we all recall, one of the platforms that she ran on was just that, and her mandated system trumped the benefits laid out by the messiah's copy cat, spark noted, wannabe so called plan sans mandates. Countless medical professionals gave Hillary the nod, touting her plan as the most beneficial to the patient, and probably the most damaging to the bloodsuckers known as insurance companies and pharmaceutical lobbyists. When Sen. Clinton first put forth legislation during Pres. Clinton's tenure in the WH, it was treated like piddle papers are for a puppy in training, otherwise known as, thrown out with the trash. This has been her life's work, and her passion for it helped this accomplished, brilliant woman with solutions to WIN the Demodud nomination. Is it too late to make a citizen's arrest against the Pres. (S)elect?
Well, you're wondering why the hell I'm rehashing old news, eh? The following article lifted from the rag known as WaPO will astound you, sicken you, and bring back the still fresh memories of why we had this fucking election stolen by the boys' club and the women who love them (that means you, McCaskill, Napolitano, Sebellius, Piglosi).
Posted at 5:12 PM ET, 11/ 7/2008
Hillary Denied Bid to Take Charge of Health Care? Written by Mary Ann Akers

Ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) apparently has rebuffed a bold bid by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to take over health care policy in the Senate when the new Congress convenes in January.

Sources tell the Sleuth Clinton had approached Kennedy, who chairs the Senate health committee, and Democratic leaders about creating a new special health care subcommittee, one she would chair.

Her hope was to draft the legislation that would fulfill her presidential campaign promise - and President-elect Barack Obama's - for a sweeping health care overhaul plan.

But sources say Kennedy is cool to the idea. So is his top health care aide, Michael Myers, Kennedy's staff director on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

Myers tells the trade publication
InsideHealthPolicy that Kennedy will continue handling health care policy at the full committee level. Asked if that meant Clinton would not be tapped to head a new health subcommittee as rumored, Myers said that was correct.

Kennedy, who is continuing treatment for brain cancer in Washington, has already been working on health care legislation in recent weeks. In fact, Kennedy and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) are both scheduled to brief Obama on health policy this week.

"In the end," Myers told InsideHealthPolicy, "it's President Obama who's going to lead the effort for us."

Democratic sources close to the health committee saw Clinton's entreaty to chair her own subcommittee as an attempt to hijack health care policy, an issue dear to Kennedy's heart and one he has championed for decades.

She won't get a subcommittee chairmanship as a consolation prize for losing the Democratic presidential race, they say.

"No one here gets preference because they ran for President," one senior Democratic aide tells the Sleuth, adding, "Sixteen current senators - six on the HELP Committee alone! - have run for President."

Clinton ranks eighth in seniority on the committee and would be leapfrogging over the likes of two other ex-presidential candidates, Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), if she were to get a special subcommittee to call her own. (To be sure, none of them got as close as Clinton did to securing her party's nomination.)

Clinton's spokesman, Philippe Reines, would not discuss the senator's private talks with Kennedy or others. He said only, "Senator Clinton has told her HELP Chairman Senator Kennedy, as well as Leader Reid, that she stands ready to help President-elect Obama in any and every way she can to enact comprehensive health care reform, which she has sought for nearly two decades."

All we know is that even as Democrats are relishing this week's smashing victory at the polls, tension already is brewing within their own ranks. If Clinton really hoped to carve out her own subcommittee, it sounds like she can - as some of her New York City constituents might say I - fuhgeddaboutit.

"A decision was made years ago to keep healthcare policy at the committee level. And I can't imagine that will change anytime soon," says one veteran Democratic Senate aide.

Ok, if by now, you are not heaving, let me get the bucket for you, because you will be soon.

Lame Elmer, Act One, Scene One

Elmer Fudd Obama held his breathlessly awaited first press conference today. The world watched as the drooling reporters plotzed for five hours ( I exaggerate, a little)just to see the man who would be King. "What will he say? Will he fix the market? Will he pay everyone's mortage? Will he bring world peace before inaugural day? Will all foreign leader's gather 'round and kiss his imaginary ring?"
No, No, No, G-d damn anticipation! The One stammered, studied his cheat sheets while speaking, looked visibly nervous ( he SO doesn't want to work so hard), and in a feeble attempt at humor, managed to insult the wife of one of the most popular and revered former and deceased President's of our country, Ronald Reagan. Poor Nancy, I wonder if her son Ron Jr. had a moment of clarity when he heard the man he endorsed, mocking his mommy. Will libs ever learn? I did, that's why I'm a "former" lib.

Obama takes shot at nancy reagan
by dollarsandsense123

O'Surrogate Calls Him, "Not Politically Courageous!"

Jerrold Nadler, as a Jewess, I am deeply ashamed to belong to the same tribe as you. Should we overlook the lack of political courage in a time of national crisis? Let's examine this speculative theory. Iran continues its enrichment program in preparation for nuclear weaponry. This has been decried by the United Nations, and every civilized country in the world. What will O'great one do in the face of imminent disaster? Will he give Iran the old carrot without the stick handshake? "Um, uh, err, let me ask my 300 advisers." Political Courage. New Yorker's know the meaning of political courage. When the WTC was taken down by islamic jihadist's, Mayor Rudy Giuliani faced an unparalleled crisis never before seen in the United States. Little Barack was playing Chicago Monopoly whilst Rudy was a powerhouse in the aftermath of an attack that paralyzed the financial center of the world, left almost three thousand dead, brought the country's emotions to its knees, and put us in a state of fear that we have thankfully avoided since. Let's face it, Al-Q had more than one trip in mind. The fat lady didn't sing, and the terror chatter is high on a daily basis. Shall we elect a leader with NO POLITICAL COURAGE? What would Obama do to avoid another attack on our soil? Hanging pics of Che Guevara in his Chitown office is not the answer. Joe Biden is not the answer, since he has been wrong on countless numbers of foreign policy matters, including opposition to the surge. ( By the way, Biden DID vote to authorize the Iraq invasion.)
Our economy has been *the* campaign issue for the past weeks. However, do you notice that when McCain's numbers are up, so goes the Dow? Do you think this is a coincidence? Now, what did Obama do when the market went into a free fall? He, lacking POLITICAL COURAGE, ran with his tail between his legs. He told those folks in D.C., "Hey, if you need me, call me and I'll be there." Is this the kind of courage and willingness to take a stand that we want to elect as our leader? Former Pres. Bill Clinton addressed it best while stumping with Obama in Florida. I paraphrase, "I know Barack might be mad at me for saying this, but when he didn't know what to do about the economy, he called Hillary and me."
Hello? Is anybody out there? It's great to ask for help and tutelage when you are making crucial decisions. But wait, this guy knows nothing! He doesn't only need help, he needs people to MAKE the decisions *for* him! No background to speak of, no accomplishments on the record, holes in his character and shady ties amongst his circle.
Tomorrow, I will cast my vote for the man with more POLITICAL COURAGE than any President I can recall.
Sen. John McCain. G-d help us, please.