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“The Beast” Hits 10 Downing! + a Wide-Open Thread

By SusanUnPC on April 2, 2009 at 11:23 PM in G20, Open Thread

Que pasa? What else is going on?

  • http://www.marklevinshow.com Seattle Moss

    This is the best looking limo so far…

    I remember standing outside 10 downing street as Kissenger walked by back in 73
    Bet I couldn’t do that today

  • TeakwoodKite

    The repub senate is holding up the C Hill nom for Iraq over North Korea…

  • TeakwoodKite

    The repub senate is holding up the C Hill nom for Iraq over North Korea…

    Kerry making comments in the Senate well.

  • WMCB

    Ah, yes, the Beast that GM built for the POTUS. What irony.

  • TeakwoodKite

    Biden is the chair of the Senate. Yikes.

    The budget.

  • TeakwoodKite

    The limo that has to do a three pointer.
    Not good.

  • http://www.marklevinshow.com Seattle Moss

    Obama gets to drive his limo, but like a good Leninist wants us all to drive this..

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/silvino/3221350492/

    One size fits all folks!

    • TeakwoodKite

      Can’t do the border with that thing Seattle.

      LOL

      • http://www.marklevinshow.com Seattle Moss

        HaHa!!!

        Everyone knows me at the Canadian border.
        If I was driving a jalopy they would be checking everytime

        • TeakwoodKite

          Any good roads in this valley?

          48° 1’37.11″N
          120°20’15.84″W

          ?

          • http://www.marklevinshow.com Seattle Moss

            Teak,
            I really enjoy the highway to Kelowna BC along Hwy 97 from Wenatchee.
            The most remote and beautiful countryside. The road skirts the boundary between two island continents that docked with the North American continent millions of years ago.
            I enjoy geology!

            What I enjoy more is securing most of the fruit business in central BC this year which is offsetting the drops I have been experiencing in other areas.

            • andrew191

              SM,

              How can I find out more about your plastics company? As a capitalist pig, I’m always seeking new opportunities to exploit the masses (provide goods to the people that want them). I sense some possible symbiosis!

              • http://www.marklevinshow.com Seattle Moss

                Andrew,
                A new area of interest for me is supplying government housing under the Obama plan.
                As the manufacturer of large industrial bags I feel that a great opportunity can be served by manufacturing bags that can be used as tents in the Obamavilles springing up all over the country.
                1 roll of bags can equal 100 tents at $2.00 per tent…What a deal!!
                I can even print the obama logo on these tents as a reminder of the kind of change that they are now experiencing.

                • andrew191

                  And our new capital could be called Bag-dad, to be ruled by a man/child with Hussein as a middle name. how creepy is THAT?

                  • http://www.marklevinshow.com Seattle Moss

                    Very creepy to see B Hussein run on retreat and defeat of America in Iraq.

              • http://www.marklevinshow.com Seattle Moss

                Andrew,
                Sometime I will give you a tour of the plant and we can have lunch at my favorite spot on Alki…The Cactus restaurant.

                • andrew191

                  I’ve done remodel work at Pegasus Pizza, and I sort of know the owner of Salty’s (we’ve often partied at my buddy Mac M’s house, just above Salty’s, that I also remodeled). I do know the Cactus, but I’ve never been there. I would love a tour, more like minds need to hang together, or surely we’ll hang separately, as the saying goes.

                  • http://www.marklevinshow.com Seattle Moss

                    Drop me an e-mail sometime
                    seattlemoss@comcast.net

                    I used to sell high end Pella windows to remodelers and builders back in the day.
                    I have seen the new Pegasus…
                    and I bet I know which house you are talking about up off California Ave.

                    • andrew191

                      It’s probably not the same house. After I did about 200 k worth of work on Mac’s house,(and it was the first house to the west of Salty’s) he sold it to the drummer from Pearl Jam who rented it out to a great couple. Eddie eventually sold the whole property to the city as a tax write off, and the city demolished the house in a greenbelt expansion. Go figure.

  • Patrick Henry

    I still think it was dragging someone behind it when it pulled out..

  • Patrick Henry

    If it was a Bobby…They could play…”Bob..bob Bobing Along’

  • Patrick Henry

    Obama is setting a good Example…very Thrifty Guy

    • FLDemFem

      Here is an article about how he is “greening” the White House. With some pious remarks about how he did the same in his other house, so why not this one too? The comments do mention, as the article does not, that perhaps turning down the temperature in the Oval Office would help.
      http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/29/effort-green-white-house-underway/

      • TeakwoodKite

        Was that Rezko wine cellar green too?

  • Patrick Henry

    Approved…largest Budget in History..

    Good thing we have all that surplus…

    • TeakwoodKite

      Cspan calls it a “blueprint”.

      Frakkin Autocad Congress.

    • cynic

      The alternative republican budget was voted down in the House today by a vote of 293 to 137. The numbers surprised me, given that there are 178 republicans currently serving.

      • Andy

        True, on the other hand the House vote in favor had many Dems voting against it since it passed 233-196.

        Here is one explanation as of why the Republican budget got so many repubs. votes against it:

        But a Republican alternative fared poorly in the House, where 38 GOP lawmakers voted against a plan supported by their own leadership. Officials ascribed much of the opposition to a provision that called for eliminating traditional fee-for-service Medicare for individuals who reach age 65 in 2020 or later and replacing it with coverage from private insurance companies.

        On a long day and night, the House was first to vote, and approved its version of the budget on a 233-196 roll call that fell largely along party lines. It calls for spending of $3.6 trillion for the budget year that begins Oct. 1, and includes a deficit of $1.2 trillion.

        The Senate acted a few hours later, with Vice President Joe Biden presiding. The vote was 55-43 for a slightly different blueprint that calls for spending $3.5 trillion and forecasts a deficit of $1.2 trillion.

        http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/02/senate-passes-trillion-budget-blueprint/

      • Andy

        Here is more. Note Evan Bayh voted against it in the Senate!

        The House budget drew opposition from 20 Democrats as well as all 176 Republicans who voted.

        In the Senate, only two Democrats — Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska voted against the plan, along with all 41 Republicans. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., did not vote.

        Also note the bold part below (gasp):

        The House plan called for spending $3.6 trillion in the budget year that begins Oct. 1, according to the Congressional Budget Office, compared with $3.5 trillion for the Senate version and $3.6 trillion for Obama’s original plan.

        The House plan envisioned a deficit of $1.2 trillion for 2010, falling to a projected $598 billion after five years. The comparable Senate estimates were $1.2 trillion in 2010 and $508 billion in 2014.

        Obama’s budget would leave a deficit of $749 billion in five years’ time, according to congressional estimates — too high for his Democratic allies.

        To reduce the red ink, Democrats pared Obama’s proposed spending, ignored his call for another $250 billion in bailout money for the financial industry and assumed that his signature tax cuts of $400 for individuals and $800 for couples would expire in 2011.

        And also:

        Major battles lie ahead, particularly over health care and energy. And while Obama made a series of specific proposals to fund his initiatives, congressional budget-writers avoided taking a position on his recommended curtailing of Medicare spending, for example, or imposing hundreds of billions of dollars in new costs on the nation’s polluters.

        http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/02/senate-passes-trillion-budget-blueprint/

  • Patrick Henry

    Do we Qualify as a BANANA Republic yet…?

  • Patrick Henry

    Yeh…The Heat from the Printing Press running day and Night is proving enough Heat…

    • http://www.marklevinshow.com Seattle Moss

      Patrick
      I will never forget what a Trillion looks like

      http://www.zee.me/blog/2009/03/what-does-one-trillion-dollars-look-like/

      • Patrick Henry

        Yep…Boggles The mind..all those Poor Trees..BUT The Money is GREEN…

        • andrew191

          Hey, money is actually made from cotton, not trees. WTH, why does the image of slavery suddenly come to mind?

          • http://www.marklevinshow.com Seattle Moss

            I have always said that the dollar is only cloth and linen and it’s value depends on the confidence of the value for which it represents.

            • andrew191

              And now the government wants the shirt off my back, I guess to make more money.

      • TeakwoodKite

        A football field or two full of double stacked …

        I had the chance to see a Armoured Guard money pen…

        They were moving money around on pallets with forklifts, like a stack of Home Depot furniture…real casual like.

        How many wheel barrels would it take, is what I want to know.

        • http://www.marklevinshow.com Seattle Moss

          Teak,
          Each pallet is 44.45 cubic Ft
          Each wheelbarrow is 6 cubic ft

          You need 7.408 wheelbarrows for 100 million
          You need 74 wheelbarrows for 1 billion
          You will need 74080 wheelbarrow loads for a Trillion

  • Babs

    Can’t wait to hear how much the Obama contingent of 500 traveling to Europe cost the taxpayer. A personal chef? Come on, the hypocrisy of this fraud astounds me.

    • cynic

      Personal chefs come cheaper these days than food tasters.

      • WMCB

        I did hear he’s not getting any volunteers for nominations for Food Taster. No, wait, that was the Treasury Dept….

        Same difference.

    • lorac

      And they brought “The Beast” with them, which must weight a zillion tons….. Can’t you rent a bullet-proof limo in other countries……? (of course you can)

  • Patrick Henry

    Maybe thats what The “O” meant by intending to go “Green” Eh..?

  • QUEENIE

    Kucinich – I Simply Cannot Endorse a Budget or a Plan that Authorizes the Expansion of War

    http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?Docu...

    “Washington D.C. ( April 2, 2009) – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today issued the following statement after voting against H.Con.Res 85, setting forth the Congressional Budget for the fiscal year 2010:

    “I am committed to doing everything I can to put our community and our nation on the path to economic stability. I led opposition to the bank bailout program TARP, I worked vigorously in favor of the stimulus package, and I have worked to save the automotive, steel and aerospace industries in America.

    “This budget is a statement of principles for the upcoming year, and I cannot accept it in its entirety. I will not vote for a budget that ties military spending to the operational funding of our government. This year, the budget includes $130 billion for war funding. The Washington Post reports today another 10,000 troops may be sent to Afghanistan, bringing our total number of troops there to as much as 78,000 by 2010 – a more than 100% increase from today’s troop levels. This budget is a plan that authorizes the expansion of the war. I simply cannot endorse a budget or a plan that sends more of our brave men and women to Afghanistan, a conflict which has the potential to become this generation’s Vietnam.”

    • WMCB

      I disagree with Kucinich on tons of stuff, but I do give him credit for standing by his principles. He votes what he believes. He may be batshit crazy about some things (IMHO), but he is not a pandering weasel for his party.

      I feel the same way about Ron Paul. Don’t agree, but give him props for being honest about what he thinks, and backing it up with his votes.

      • rw

        Can’t remember, was it Kucinich or Ron Paul who asked for a recount of the NH primary….

  • QUEENIE

    They knew: AIG was a Ponzi scheme plain and simple
    on Thu Apr-02-09 11:57 AM
    They knew:
    http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/04/aig-before-cds-the... /

    “In fact, our investigation suggests that by the time AIG had entered the CDS fray in a serious way more than five years ago, the firm was already doomed. No longer able to prop up its earnings using reinsurance because of growing scrutiny from state insurance regulators and federal law enforcement agencies, AIG’s foray into CDS was really the grand finale. AIG was a Ponzi scheme plain and simple, yet the Obama Administration still thinks of AIG as a real company that simply took excessive risks. No, to us what the fraud Bernard Madoff is to individual investors, AIG is to the global financial community.

    “As with the phony reinsurance contracts that AIG and other insurers wrote for decades, when AIG wrote hundreds of billions of dollars in CDS contracts, neither AIG nor the counterparties believed that the CDS would ever be paid. Indeed, one source with personal knowledge of the matter suggests that there may be emails and actual side letters between AIG and its counterparties that could prove conclusively that AIG never intended to pay out on any of its CDS contracts.

    “…These were not valid contracts as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Geithner and Economic policy guru Larry Summers claim, but rather acts of criminal fraud meant to manipulate the capital positions and earnings of financial companies around the world.

    “…Seen in this context, the payments made to AIG by the Fed and Treasury, which were then passed-through to dealers such as Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), can only be viewed as an illegal taking that must be reversed once the US Trustee for the Federal Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York is in control of AIG’s operations.”

    much more at:
    http://us1.institutionalriskanalytics.com/pub/IRAstory….

  • http://www.marklevinshow.com Seattle Moss

    Obama signals to the world the end of American dominance
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/alex_spillius/blog/2009/04/02/obama_signals_the_end_of_american_dominance

    Scroll down and read some of the comments

    • Docelder

      Yes, Obama is telling the world what they want to hear. That we aren’t so great a nation anymore. But we already knew his feelings as he shared those same sentiments to a 7 year old girl during the campaign. We elected him anyway, so it must be what 52% of us wanted to hear as well. If Obama succeeds in convincing the rest of the world to spend like there is no tomorrow… then there will literally be no tomorrow and the world will enter a massive world depression like we have never seen. But so long as 52% either can’t see, or don’t care, or are vindictive to the rest… whatever the reason… then we don’t deserve the freedom we have had, and it won’t be with us for long.

  • politicalidentitycrisis

    The beast hits…Did they mean the Limo, or Obama????

    • politicalidentitycrisis

      Maybe even MEMEMEchelle?

      • rw

        lol, Michelle. That’s who I thought the article was going to be about when I read the headlines. Don’t they already call her mighty Michelle in the UK..

        Her faces keeps changing, don’t know if members of her entourage take turns do her make-up, but I can see her transforming into the beast.

        On the beast,ie pres. car, why was it transported on the trip, wasn’t Obama going to heal the world, famine would end, terrorist would halt. What bull shit the US public was fed between the lines during the primaries.

  • http://noquarterusa No-nonsense-Nancy

    I live not too far from the Franklin Mint outside of Philly but I must have missed all the truckloads of bales of cotton going there to print up all the trillions more of money. Another thought, maybe that’s why it cost me so much money yesturday to buy all of my granddchildren an outfit for Easter. All that cotton.

  • http://noquarterusa No-nonsense-Nancy

    Not only did they airlift the “beast” over there it took so many air force planes and personnel to transport all the 500 people,etc., that the airforce had to contract out to get supplies into Afghanistan at a very great cost to US the taxpayers. Not to mention the disrespect to our troops over there. The French Revolution needs to happen to Non-president O-nobody.

  • Palm Tree

    WHY??? Why is no one getting the parallel of the Obama bow to the Saudi king – Saud, where women live under gender apartheid – and the sexism/misogyny directed at Hillary Clinton during the primary???

  • Docelder

    The moderate Taliban in action. Public flogging… at least no body parts were cut off. Hopey changey for the Taliban… provided you are born male.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/02/taliban-pakistan-justice-women-flogging

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