It is not so much a war on women, but more like a war on women who want to have sex without having children and also get paid the same as their male counterparts…

The democrats are mostly silent because “sex” & “equal pay” are all “hippie” topics, and everyone knows that today’s Democratic party has re-branded themselves as the sane party of non-ideological business friendly technocrats that just support policies “that work” (for their big money funders). The last thing the “new” Democratic party wants is to be seen as champions of us DFH’s. So sure, they will be happy to pick up a voter or two fleeing the Talibanization of the Republican party, but they aren’t going to do anything to jeopardize their re-branding effort and the support of the funder class.

Interesting post Kevin. The issue really isn’t unmanned vehicles per say, in that they can’t really do that much more then can already be done with manned aircraft and helicopters- it is more the prospect of lowering the cost of aerial surveillance so that it becomes more attainable and widespread. And, as you point out, that in itself can be a double edge sword.

I’d be curious if there are any laws on the books that restrict the operation of say, “news” helicopters and other private surveillance aircraft- all those pretty google maps have to come from somewhere!

everybody’s just guessing at the outcome

Yes, and I’m sure they can count on the corporate media to spin it their way.

David, it is nice to know that they are paying enough attention to you that they felt they had to blow some more smoke up our asses- your doing a great job writing about this. Keep up the good work!

And yet our illustrious “liberal” pundits like Rachel Maddow are cheering the rise of Newt. Yea! he’s unelectable! all those disaffected Democrats will just have to vote for Obama now! And of course, Obama supporters are already happily running adds against Romney, thinking that they are all so Machiavellian. Look we’re just like Karl!

It’s so very sad, watching one “unelectable” Republican nutcase after another actually getting elected to office. You would think that maybe some of these “liberals” would care a little more about the future of the country rather than the future of one particularly compromised “Democrat” candidate.

but Obama would probably have to bring it up through surrogates or risk looking petty

Or worse, considering he just broke a campaign promise and approved the slaughter of horses for human consumption

And of course tonight I had to watch the sad spectacle of Rachel Maddow being all smug and giddy telling us how happy “liberals” were at the prospect of Newt being the Republican front runner. I wish someone could please inform her that whatever Neanderthal the Republicans nominate will have at least a coin flip chance of beating O’s lying ass, so she should really be careful in what she wishes for.

What I want to know is how low does Obama’s approval have to go before he drops out- you know, for the good of the party. Yes, it’s a trick question- The guy obviously despises the Democratic party and everything it used to stand for so if running with a 30% approval rating destroys the party I’d bet that he will gladly do it. You know he will be rewarded handsomely for throttling the left by his “savvy businessmen” friends regardless. I know that this is just an academic question as long as his approvals are in the mid 40′s but I’m thinking the coming supper committee capitulation just might put him back into the 30′s. We will see.

Why? because O wants a deal more than anything else. I sure that he thinks yet another “bipatisan” (i.e. capitulation to the radical right) agreement will bolster his bona fides with Wall Street and the rest of the corporate elite, while showing the idiot swing voters (all two of them…) what a reasonable centrist he is. That the corporate wing of the Democratic party is using the negatiations as an opportunity to stuff their pockets with money from the financial and insurance sectors by privately promising to continue the dismemberment of the social saftey net is just a bonus.

quite possibly- but really I think the pursuit of the mythical idiot “centrist” swing voter is just cover for Obama to do the things that his big money backers want done. He intends to buy his way to a second term, pure and simple.

I think that right now the only numbers that the Obama campaign really cares about is how much money they are raising for the campaign from the big money boys. They probably figure as long as they can raise their billion dollars from the vested interests that it doesn’t matter how low Obama’s approval ratings are- they will be able to make the Republican’s worse with mega add buys. Of course, you have to wonder how closely the rest of the Democrats will be with this cynical, essentially corrupt strategy as Obama’s overall approval numbers head into the 30′s…

At this point, I think the whole “centrist” strategy is a rouse for the Obama campaign’s real goal- which is to raise as much money as possible from Wall Street and other vested interests. They can pretend that their capitulations were designed to portray Obama is a “centrist”, when in fact they are intended as favors to the money class for “investments” in the campaign. So they trot out a pathetic political strategy as an excuse to cover essentially how corrupt they have become. In the end, these guys think that money is going to win the election, especially given the prospect of a flawed Republican opponent who will be vulnerable to “he/she’s so crazy/a flip flopper” 30 second attack ads.

Obama I think very early on figured out that he was in a unique position to run a variation of the “new democrat” con- liberals can be appeased by pretty words and progressive statements of policy goals while his funders, Wall Street and the rest of the corrupt status quo, do not pay much attention to his words but instead his actual policy results. That, in a nutshell, is Obama’s whole governing philosophy. And, as long as he doesn’t get called out on his cynicism by “mainstream” Democratic politicians, he will continue on with this mendacious strategy to all of our detriment. And unfortunately for us, most of them are in on the con as well.

The con Obama (and really most of our elected Democrats) run is to talk like progressives to the appropriate audiences while actually governing in support of the big money players who donate to their campaigns. Their basic calculation is that liberals will be happy with pretty words about principles and positions, while major campaign contributors (i.e. knowledgeable insiders) pay attention to only policy results. I think Obama knew from very early on that he was extremely well positioned to run this scam.

What these politicians fear is having their little con game exposed to the average voter, who pays very little attention to politics and gets most of their information from a corrupt corporate media that is smart enough to not play up the whole what Democrats say and what they do are two different things angle…

The thing is they may be dumb but they are (or will be) extremely well paid. Obama and his Wall Street cabal are all set for life with 6 or 7 figure salaries- that’s what they are trying not to fuck up. They would rather loose the next election than give up their lucrative post administration speaking fees. And as long as they don’t piss off you know who, they are going to be set. Yes, you know who is not us. Or even the Tea Party.

David, thanks for staying on top of our latest episode of “politicians behaving badly”. You are really doing an outstanding job covering this and I have to agree with you- no one really knows where this disaster is going to end…

Nice analysis dday. I think what is means is that without a viable primary challenger or third party, we are pretty screwed- assuming the rest of the party continues to want to jump off the “compromise” cliff with him.