Watch yourself…its a mess out there.
Posted: January 26, 2011 Filed under: Barack Obama, Breaking News, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Global Financial Crisis, just because, Middle East, open thread, We are so F'd | Tags: Keith Olbermann, Middle East Uprising, SOTU, US budget, winter storm 29 Comments »
Okay, there is a lot going on and I thought I would post an update of sorts to the Wednesday Reads. There is a big storm on the way to the Northeast, the Olbermann has landed on his own FOK News Channel, and more…
On the SOTU front, more reactions to last nights feature: The Three Stooges meet A Teleprompter
Rep. Weiner: ‘I just needed a drink’ after GOP response – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room
One Democratic congressman says he was ready to hit the bottle after hearing the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union Tuesday night.
This is for Dak: It is written by Ross Douthat. The Politics of Evasion at the State of the Union – NYTimes.com
If you were a visitor from Mars, watching tonight’s State of the Union address and Paul Ryan’s Republican response, you would have no reason to think that the looming insolvency of our entitlement system lies at the heart of the economic challenges facing the United States over the next two decades. From President Obama, we heard a reasonably eloquent case for center-left technocracy and industrial policy, punctuated by a few bipartisan flourishes, in which the entitlement issue felt like an afterthought: He took note of the problem, thanked his own fiscal commission for their work without endorsing any of their recommendations, made general, detail-free pledges to keep Medicare and Social Security solvent (but “without slashing benefits for future generations”), and then moved swiftly on to the case for tax reform. Tax reform is important, of course, and so are education and technological innovation and infrastructure and all the other issues that the president touched on in this speech. But it was still striking that in an address organized around the theme of American competitiveness, which ran to almost 7,000 words and lasted for an hour, the president spent almost as much time talking about solar power as he did about the roots of the nation’s fiscal crisis.
This bit about the US deficit:
CBO: U.S. budget deficit to reach $1.5 trillion in 2011, highest ever
The weak economy and fresh tax cuts approved last month will help drive the federal budget deficit to nearly $1.5 trillion this year, the biggest budget gap in history and one of the largest as a share of the economy since World War II, congressional budget analysts said Wednesday.
Well, we all knew that he would be back:
Keith Olbermann | FOK News Channel | Deviltry And Mayhem | Mediaite
Maybe you remember Keith Olbermann from the show Countdown, which ran for several years on cable news’ MSNBC? These days, of course, Olbermann’s perhaps best known as the “The Proprietor” of a new Twitter-based news organization called the “FOK News Channel. At least, he’s been billing himself that way since, well, yesterday.
Olbermann, boasting a loyal group of over 208,000 Twitter followers, is clearly showing every sign of leveraging his tweets.
The sidelined star added a second Twitter account ahead of Tuesday’s State of the Union address, dubbing it “FOKNewsChannel” and quickly attracting more than 18,000 followers (or “Friends of Keith,” hence FOK). According to the account’s bio line, FOKNews can be described this way: “Smokestacks Belching News On Twitter Since January 2011.”
Ah, more proof on Obama’s continued MO, copy crap from someone else and add your own cliches as an added touch.
Obama Cribs David Brooks and Thomas Friedman in State of the Union Speech | Firedoglake
If I were President Obama’s English professor, I would take points off for not footnoting his sources. These are guys Obama most certainly reads regularly.
Oh, and it looks like Egypt is becoming more intense:
Pictures: Anger in Egypt – Middle East – Al Jazeera English
Clinton urges calm, reform in Egypt amid protests | ajc.com
Sharpening the U.S. response to massive demonstrations in the Middle East, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that Egypt must adopt broad reforms and not crack down on the crowds demanding the end of the American-backed authoritarian government.
BBC News – Egypt denies clampdown on Twitter and Facebook
And here we go again, the weather channel is calling this a category 1 hurricane…with snow…is it another snowicane?
Active Watch/Warnings – NOAA’s National Weather Service
I know it is mostly links, and not much commentary, but I wanted to get this posted as quick as possible.
This is an open thread, have at it!
Sima
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
fiscalliberal
grayslady
JJ Lopez Minkoff
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
quixote
Great collection of links, Minx!
Glad Hillary released a slightly more substantive statement and that it’s supportive of the people rather than the government.
And of course Obama copied from others. He’s just a cheater.
Thanks Zal, The news is pumpin’ today. So I just wanted to get some of the stuff on the front page.
Olbermann Starts New ‘FOK News’ Twitter Feed, Will Live-Tweet State Of The Union
More on FOK.
Should be FUK — f#$%k U Olberman!
http://twitter.com/#!/search/Rick%20Sanchez%20TV
Well you can find Rick Sanchez News and Rick Sanchez TV on Twitter too.
Voiceleaks
H/T to Woman Voter, I do not know what this woman is shouting, but it is compelling none the less. So as you take a look at the links, just keep in mind we don’t know what she is saying.
MM,
The VoiceLeaks as far as I can tell has been set up by WikiLeaks supporters to keep the information flowing out. During the Tunisia Revolution Protests information was blocked and there is evidence via Al Jezeera that Anonymous Ops is helping as the photo suggests:
One thing that is very clear, is that these protests are being supported by Generation X and Generation Y and the protesters are educated, tech savvy and have asked for support via the internet. The Anonymous Ops people have taken up their cause and are offering assistance in getting the messages/information out.
The driving force behind the large participation is the growing poverty, the staples that have risen so rapidly that families are having a hard time feeding their children and the realization that the top 1% are reaping all the goods/money, including some foreign aid for those disadvantaged. Women seem to be out in force because they can’t feed their children and want change and Freedom and are tired of oppression.
In Tunisia there was a small group of fundamentalists but it was clear that the people aren’t interested in Iran type of oppressive governance.
Thanks woman voter! I was unsure about it, and did not know what she was saying so I put that in the comment as sort of a disclaimer. Then the family started to complain about being hungry, so I had to sign off and cook dinner. Thanks again.
I didn’t watch the SOTU, but some are saying BO dissed Hillary again when she was ready (or looked predisposed ) to shake his hand. Did any one else catch this? I wonder is this has anything to do with 2012?
I dunno…Hillary and O look to be on as good terms as one could expect to me. I’ll add a couple pics in a moment…
Here:
I think she is saying…”Your SOTU, it stinks!”
Maybe she’s saying “You’re doing a great job Skippy.”
When I got up this AM – it was snowing – it is 4:15 here in Northern NJ and it’s still snowing – we’ve gotten approximately four inches of snow today and it doesn’t look like it’s about to stop any time soon – they (the infamous they) say it’s not going to stop until 3:00 AM tomorrow.
Or she could be saying “Don’t worry, it will soon be over – only two more years and I’ll take over”
If only….
BTW – we already had a foot and a half on the ground before this snowfall started. My hubby’s theory is that whenever the snow get’s dirty we’re going to get more to keep it clean – it certainly has worked that way so far!
A foot and a half? I have a good 4-1/2 feet in my driveway with another foot coming tonight. I have no place left to put the stuff.
Good grief – I do know that many of the folks here have run out of places to put the snow.
Good luck – stay warm and dry
Snowing like crazy here. Maybe another four inches so far.
You stay warm and dry too. I don’t plan to go out anywhere until Friday. I’m hoping to pay someone to shovel this time.
I think it’s hilarious that Obama plagarized from Brooks and Friedman. Or at least Jon Favreau did. What a loser! It figures he’d copy from right-wingers too.
How can anybody copy anything from Tom Friedman? He’s such a bad writer.
So is Obama.
‘Yes You Can’, OK, tongue and cheek, but maybe they ran out of copy.
And the lady gets a cigar! Yes, Obama is a bad writer….
Heard this one before? Obama speech borrowed from Obama
McClatchy does a good job checking Obama vs Obama.
No wonder it all sounded so familiar and Republican, from David Brooks to Newt.
Ha, that made me choke on my water! What the hell? Obama is such a loser.
OMG. Do you suppose Obama read Newt’s book?
Egypt may deny the clamp down but the map shows otherwise on the blocks that just went up a couple of minutes ago. Oh, that darn technology.