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annamissed commented on the blog post Late Night FDL: What Do They Want?
The thing is, Newt is so damned suave.
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annamissed commented on the diary post The 99% Choir goes Christmas Caroling by Cynthia Kouril.
The Billmon of late would have called this one a “contrast gainer” for the obvious reasons that the “giftee” in this case comes across as the paranoid scrooge protected police state droogs they are, compared to the earnest holiday choir.
The Backbone Campaign (again) does this with major competence.
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annamissed commented on the blog post Condoleeza Rice Wants a Do-Over After Destroying Iraq
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annamissed commented on the blog post Late Night FDL: Cleaning Up After the Houseguests Are Gone
Agreed, it’s not a big leap, but It’s a chicken or egg question as to provocation – is it a last ditch (self preservation) move by Iraqiya against Maliki (oh! where have you gone Jefferson Davis) or is Maliki simply responding to the gathering storm of partition?
Frankly, I’d put my money on Maliki being able to pull this off because warring mafia’s aside, the Iraqi people don’t want to see the country partitioned and Maliki will ride on this popular sentiment.
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annamissed commented on the blog post Late Night FDL: Cleaning Up After the Houseguests Are Gone
Nice summation Swopa. Although I’m not so sure what Maliki is up to is simply a predictable continuation of Shiite consolidation, or worse, a brazen attempt to go dictatorial, or an unprovoked attack on his political enemies. Certainly, those political enemies could very well have (active) ties to the former insurgency. But especially, in the last couple of months no less than 4 Iraqi Provinces (Basra, Diyala, Anbar, and Salahuddin) have made bids for autonomy and Iraqiya is no doubt driving this agenda (except in Basra). It makes sense that Maliki would crack down on his Sunni political enemies behind this initiative in a sort of Lincolnesque effort to preserve national unity in the face of secession. I thought it interesting, if not self incriminating that the the most spectacular (and deadly) bombing the other day was at Maliki’s Integrity Commission who was tasked with the investigating the charges of terrorism against the Sunni leadership. Pretty agile response to Hashemis arrest, no?
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annamissed commented on the blog post Sadr Opposes Extension of Rival Militia’s Presence in Iraq
I think your characterization of the U.S. as a (rival) “militia” is so spot on that it ceases to be metaphor or hyperbole. In spite of the fact that we’ve essentially played this role since square one is symptomatic of doing Iraq on the cheap, while talking big (COIN) and placing US in the position of playing the other rival militia’s against one another as some kind of misbegotten force multiplier. The net result of which is that reliable trustworthiness is compromised into
a function of immediate utility as opposed to laying a foundation of ideological and political synchronicity.
At some point we’ll realize that we’ve been playing their game, if not more so forcing them to playing ours. It is after all, their tavern we walked into. -
annamissed commented on the blog post President Lashes Out at the Left: “This Country Was Founded on Compromise”
For most of the 20th century, the tax rate on the top percentile was between 70% and 90+%. Now seeing that we’re in the midst of a depression, with a democratic president balking at raising (back up) a tax rate from 34% to 36% you got to wonder what the hell this fool is thinking. Record deficits two pointless wars, a collapsed real estate market, near 20% (real) unemployment and this guy is so worried as to not raise taxes a few percent on those who can afford it most?
If he capitulates on this things a guaranteed and locked in to only get worse in the short run and the long. It will finish him, the democrats, and all the rest of us in one fell swoop. -
annamissed commented on the diary post Death of a Generation Marks Death of America’s Middle Class by Jim White.
In that case, I guess we’ll soon enough see what would have happened if Hoover had beaten FDR. And it ain’t gonna be pretty.
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annamissed commented on the diary post Death of a Generation Marks Death of America’s Middle Class by Jim White.
Glad to see someone else pick up on the similarities between now and the 20′s – but sadden at your circumstance. Here’s a list of similarities I made recently at my blog (same as my name): 1 ) 3 consecutive Republican business friendly administrations (the modern counterpart would be economic policies of Clinton, Bush,& Obama) [...]
