The Obamanation

[xoxoxoBruce]

Not to worry, Romney will send the FERC the way of Big Bird.

We don't need no regulation
We don't need no bank control
No meddling with capitalism
FERC, leave them banks alone
Hey FERC, leave them banks alone
All in all it's just another brick in the wall
All in all you're just another brick in the wall

[Griff]

hmmm...

Actually, there were twelve terrorist attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities abroad during George W. Bush’s tenure — the most of any president in history — and eight of those occurred while Donald Rumsfeld was in office.

[ZenGum]

and eight of those occurred while Donald Rumsfeld was in office.

There is nothing more suspicious than a perfect alibi.

[Lamplighter]

Remember just a few weeks ago when Obama was being criticized for the high price of gasoline.
Where are those screeching critics now ?

Western Oregon had prices of $4.49 / gal for regular back then.
Today, on the price has dropped to $3.51.
Should Obama be praised for this ?

Obviously not... just as the earlier charges were outside of his control.

[Lamplighter]

Here comes Norquist, out of the woodwork again...

CGS This Morning
(CBS News) with on-line video
11/12/12

Grover Norquist: Obama's goal is to raise energy taxes on middle class

President Obama met with congressional leaders on Friday
to tackle the upcoming fiscal cliff and over the weekend,
several Republicans in Congress said there is momentum to make a deal before 2013.

As it stands, Mr. Obama has stated that he will allow the Bush tax cuts
for wealthier Americans to expire and Speaker John Boehner has said Congress
can generate revenue from tax reform and closing special interest loopholes.

Grover Norquist, an anti-tax lobbyist and founder of "Americans For Tax Reform,"
has led the conservative effort against the tax increase.
He has gotten nearly all the Republican members of Congress to sign his anti-tax pledge
and on Monday, Norquist shared his own ideas for resolving the fiscal cliff on "CBS This Morning."

<snip>
"I'd rather do growth than raise taxes, which slows the economy and damages things,"
Norquist said. "Obama is not interested in taxing the rich;
he admits there's no money there...his goal, as you saw after the election,
is to raise energy taxes on the middle class, not something he mentioned during the campaign."

The 5-minute video in the link above of his sophisticated interview is worth watching.

[SamIam]

I didn't know very much about our friend, Grover Norquist until now. He first came to my notice when I saw him on an interview with CNN. The interviewer was implying that any Republican who broke faith with Norquist's mandatory "no new taxes" pledge was dead meat as far as the Party was concerned. Norquist did a nice snake imitation, his eyes slithering here, slithering there - neither confirming nor denying anything.

I checked Norquist out on Wiki and discovered that he is the behind the scenes puppetmaster who pulls the strings on almost every Republican politician and is one of the Tea Party's biggest fans. He's helped shape Republican policies at least since the Reagan years and helped engineer W.'s election along with W.'s tax cuts for the wealthy.

Norquist's day job is to head Americans for Tax Reform, a non profit which is not required to disclose the identity of its contributors. However, according to CBS News, a significant portion of ATF's funding appears to come from wealthy individuals, foundations and corporate interests.

One of the few Republicans who has stood up to Norquist is former Republican Senator Alan Simpson, co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Simpson describes Norquist's position as "no taxes, under any situation, even if your country goes to hell."

I would say that Simpson appears to be correct.

[Lamplighter]

Here's some news the Republicans did not want to hear...

CBS News/ November 14, 2012, 9:30 AM
Brian Montopoli, Jill Jackson

Pelosi to stay on as Minority Leader

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California,
who has served as the highest-ranking female politician in American history,
will stay on as the top Democrat in the House during the coming 113th Congress, CBS News has learned.
<snip>

Maybe this will bring Merc back to The Cellar.
He was very fond of posting his thoughts about Pelosi.

[BigV]

*buckles up*

[Happy Monkey]

Not a joke.

Originally Posted by Mother Jones

President Obama is using a Cold War-era mind-control technique known as "Delphi" to coerce Americans into accepting his plan for a United Nations-run communist dictatorship in which suburbanites will be forcibly relocated to cities. That's according to a four-hour briefing delivered to Republican state senators at the Georgia state Capitol last month.

[Lamplighter]

a Cold War-era mind-control technique known as "Delphi"

My understanding and experience with the Dephi Method is almost the opposite of that description.

I believe that instead of mind-control, this method of decision-making
removes the influence of the more authoritative or well-known leaders,
and eliminates any "appeal to authority" by the reputation of individuals in the group,
It allows equal weight to the idea or proposal of each individual respondent in the group.

Here is a description from Wikipedia:

The Delphi method (play /ˈdɛlfaɪ/ DEL-fy) is a structured communication technique,
originally developed as a systematic, interactive forecasting method
which relies on a panel of experts.[1]

In the standard version, the experts answer questionnaires in two or more rounds.
After each round, a facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the experts’ forecasts
from the previous round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments.
Thus, experts are encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies
of other members of their panel.

It is believed that during this process the range of the answers will decrease
and the group will converge towards the "correct" answer.
Finally, the process is stopped after a pre-defined stop criterion (e.g. number of rounds,
achievement of consensus, stability of results) and the mean or median scores
of the final rounds determine the results.[2]

But then, re-defining words to mean just their opposite is a traditional tool of right wing extremists.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Remember just a few weeks ago when Obama was being criticized for the high price of gasoline.
Where are those screeching critics now ?

Western Oregon had prices of $4.49 / gal for regular back then.
Today, on the price has dropped to $3.51.
Should Obama be praised for this ?

Obviously not... just as the earlier charges were outside of his control.

Today, a story is emerging that the "shortage" of gasoline back then was phony.
The story is that the price hike was artificially caused by an announcement
that two refineries were "off line", and it was just a matter of "supply and demand".

The same source that helped bring down Enron is saying that "pollution" records
show that these refineries continued running and producing gasoline.

The Dept of Justice is being asked to investigate...

P.S. Today, the lowest prices for regular gas in PDX are at $3.41 / gal

[BigV]

it's about $3.25 / gal out here

[Lamplighter]

I did a bit of Googling, and found that this questioning of the refineries did come up last July.
I'm sort of surprised the media did not make more of it, but instead fed the attack-Obama frenzy.

Even the isolated coastal towns in Oregon have gas prices in the low, low $3.4X's now.