I just heard the guy who voted for Franken but also wrote in "Lizard People" as a joke/candidate has been tossed out.

So it's good to hear Franken might get in anyway!

Steve: I think your question about the choice for Rick Warren was a good one, fwiw. It called forth some important questions and discussion, which I hope continues.

You were not at all "obsessing" IMO. I think it truly was a mis-step, albeit in the long run likely not a huge or significant one.

But, sheez--talk about bad timing.

And to be an "American President" does not require giving the spotlight to all the world on issues that are of grave import for many of us.

The Bush administration is considering an "orderly" bankruptcy for the ailing U.S. auto manufacturers.

He (Bush) revealed one other consideration — that Obama will become president in just over a month.

"I thought about what it would be like for me to become president during this period. I believe that good policy is not to dump him a major catastrophe on his first day in office," Bush said. (From AP)

Now Bush decides to worry about dumping major catastrophes on his successor!??!

I suspect Bush's idea of an "orderly bankruptcy" is one that preserves the fortunes of executives, wealthy shareholders and suppliers but screws current and former workers.

"considering an "orderly" bankruptcy" I had not thought of a way to keep the executives drawing high pay and still break the union. Good job GW. Barack, consider taxing the oil companies on their excesiive profits and funnel it back to the Big 3. They are the bastards that make sure our American cars get poor mileage so make them pay for it.

* Yet another rough day on Wall Street, with the Dow falling more than 200 points, and the other major indexes down about 2% each.

* The Bush administration is considering an "orderly" bankruptcy for the ailing U.S. auto manufacturers.

Is there a connection here ?
Bush wants an 'orderly bankruptcy' ?
Isn't that 'playing with fire'

Bush has been talking to Mitch McConnell too much
He wants to break the union contracts
If Detroit fails, their suppliers wil fail and we get pushed into a depression

Brought to you by the same clowns who advertized 'Mission Accomplished' somewhat prematurely

And stupidly challenged 'Bring it on'

What a 'legacy'

"The Bush administration is considering an "orderly" bankruptcy for the ailing U.S. auto manufacturers." Oh please, please I can't wait for the 21st of January... we are fed up with this lame-duck president of stupidity.

Otherwise, do you know this site?
http://what-a-fuck-oh.labrute.fr/
funny and addictive...

* The news comes on the heels of Chrysler announcing its plans to shut down production at its 30 U.S. factories for at least a month, starting tomorrow. -- Steve Benen

But, even though 46K workers will spend their holidays trimming their spending instead of having turkey with trimmings and wondering whether the factories will, in fact, reopen after the 30 days, the really good news is that all of the upper echelons (from managers up) will continue to receive full pay, uninterruptedly. I'm sure the blue collar workers will take comfort from that. Nothing says "Christmas spirit" louder than rejoicing in the fact that your betters are doing fine, even if you and your family have to skimp to survive.

On that Franken roller-coaster, here's the late update from TPM EC:
Late Update: Norm Coleman's apparent lead has been cut to a mere five votes at the close of business today, according to the running vote count from the Star Tribune, down from a 358-vote lead last night. Al Franken seems poised to take the lead tomorrow as the state canvassing board sorts through the remaining hundreds of ballot challenges from the Coleman campaign, which have been mostly frivolous attempts to throw out Franken votes.

And Joanne, @17:34,

Even though they refused to count the Lizard People ballot for Franken, they did count the one where someone voted for Al Franken (stin). Can't say the Board doesn't have a sense of humour, *or* is much bothered by poor spelling.

exilibra: I still don't get why the stupid person who scribbled "lizard people" on the ballot but nonetheless made it clear he/she was voting for Franken (as opposed to a non-existent candidate) was discounted. Did they give a reason?

Steve -

Hopefully Nurse Chapel has been reunited with the Great Bird. She seemed like a nice lady.

"An orderly bankruptcy" amounts to union busting and my friend Nick claims that Bush only pretended he was going to bail out the auto makers so legislators would not pass the auto bailout bill thinking they could fall back on Bush going ahead and giving them treasury money.

Bush had no intention of giving the auto makers that treasury money and never did. If Dems hadn't believed that he would maybe they would have made more of an effort to pass the auto bailout bill. It failed to pass because 7 democrats either voted no or didn't vote. Thanks to a few republicans they had the numbers. If they had voted for it then dems would have had the 60 votes for it to pass. Many republicans voted for it.

If Bush had not suggested he would use treasury bail out money already on hand to bailout the auto makers if the bill failed then maybe more republicans would have voted for it.

btw...screw you Rick Warren and the Jeebus you rode in on. Political debates held in a mega-church moderated by a pastor who lied openly on the air, nationally televised. What gives them the right to push their religion into my government. Promoting killing the president of Iran and removing the rights of minorities...go to your own church and get the hell out of our government. A Christian 'Taliban' is still a 'Taliban' and religion has no place in our government. Thinking yours is the only 'true' religion and condemning all others makes you a danger to democracy which you see as the freedom to convince all others to believe as you do and removing the rights and demonizing those who don't.

It's not politically 'savy' to cater to these fanatics by giving them a national voice. We elected you to change the policies these wingers were promoting not to cater to their beliefs.

Saying "It's not a red and Blue America it is the US of America" is grand rhetoric but right now it has turned mostly blue from bright red which almost wrecked America. Don't think the same people who wrecked America are capable of fixing it when they are focused on preventing you from initiating change or having a successful presidency. Stop listening to those who are out to end our democracy turning it into a theocratic corporatocracy which is akin to fascism.

Warren??...geez Obama...what the hell were you thinking?...I no longer need the support of those who got me elected?? I'm starting to worry about your Judiciary nominees now. It's like promoting that religious hypocrite who fleeced millions...Pat Robertson, the billionaire rapture freak. I wouldn't care ...if he just kept it to himself.

Are they gonna' pray for torrential rains again?? "And now, the magician from Saddleback, who right now is being kept in a room off stage with no access to what I'm saying...(What's that? He's standing right behind me? Quick, put a sheet over him)...like I said...being kept in a far away room with no access to these proceedings..." How demeaning.

joanne - Here is the lizard ballot. In addition to writing "Lizard People" on the ballot, the voter either put an "X" and then filled in the Franken circle, or filled in the circle and then X'ed it out. Apparently , the board decided they weren't sure which.

"The Bush administration is considering an "orderly" bankruptcy for the ailing U.S. auto manufacturers."

Duh. That is what bankruptcy is for, when companies can't meet their bills, to sit down under established laws to rejigger thier debt to their creditors. It's about time someone stopped throwing freebies at the Big 3 Execs and let them be treated same as you and me.

The Bush administration is considering an "orderly" bankruptcy for the ailing U.S. auto manufacturers

In other words, say good-bye to the UAW as one of the first acts taken after bankruptcy will be ripping the contracts to shreds.

news.bbc.

**has a picture of Bush with two shoes at top of the picture - a toy gun pointed to center of forehead.

"Bush Shoe-ing Worst Arab Insult" 12-15-2008

*according to the article, because the reporters couldn't smuggle in anyting, al-Zaidi decided to just throw his shoes.

Bush doesn't realize how lucky he was.

Apparently, in California - the senate passed a bill to charge a .39 fee on each gallon of gasoline

And, get this, to tax your income taxes.

So, oil has fallen to below $40 per barrel ($36+change):
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/business/19markets.html?hp

Seem fitting; if it keeps falling, maybe, by Jan 20 '09, it will have reached the price it had been when Bush took over 8yrs before. He'll be able to say then, that he'll leave at least one thing as he'd found it...

Israel & Palestine - War

www.worldfocus.org today's program - see video
said Palestine is practicing, it showed them setting up IED's, with RPG

said Palestine is ready for all out war because they have no gas, electricity, water or food.

sorry, it's worldfocus.org

**UN stopped food,cash deliveries today.

I'm disappointed about Dean. It sounds like Dean and Wes Clark are going to be persona non grata with Obama. Apparently its Republicans who put Obama in power not people to the left. That's according to his cabinet picks. And so much for hiring for competence. Guess,Clark wasn't competent enough in Bosnia. Apparently if more Americans had been kia he would have been more competent.

Steve Benen with the non-comment "comment" of the week:

Obama held a press conference earlier, and there wasn't a single question about Blagojevich.

No duh. We know what all the comments were about.

Is Jeremiah Wright going to be at the inauguration? I sure hope so. I'll buy him a bullhorn just to hear him say this magical phrase:

God damn Barack Obama.

Wow-- this Warren choice is far worse than I thought after watching Olbermann and especially Maddow. Now I'm learning that Warren equates incestual relationships with gays-- and equates abortion with the Holocaust murders--yikes!
_____________________________________________

This is really a sad statement for a choice for the invocation--during such a historic and staged moment when clearly all eyes are on the world.

I'm just not sure why Obama would want to give him that much credence. I mean--if you want to go for reaching out--then have him over for a white house dinner or something.

But an Invocation for the world to view? By a man who believes, preaches and sells his position on the stance that women have no say with their bodies if they become pregnant-- and that the GLBT community are all doomed to hell?

Thanks for broaching the topic, Steve--as disturbing as it is, we need to keep abreast of everything.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

And the last piece of Maddow's show depressed me beyond belief--any worker can just deny meds on a so called "moral" basis? Say what?

This is why we need to be careful to not give credence to the likes of Warren--although I'm sure Obama feels otherwise.

At least Mayor Gavin Newsom gave Obama the benefit of the doubt--most of us are still banking on the fact that he'll initiate policy that protects folks from these issues. I sure hope so.

But whew! I'm so glad for this blog and the Olbermann/Maddow exposes! But I do need to sort of take a deep breath after learning all this--or maybe scream loudly in a car with the windows closed.

oops--meant to say "All eyes of the world will be on Warren" during such a high profile event.

Those who still believe that Obama will bring change despite the recent actions by the President elect are just hoping. Perhaps when Obama talked about change and hope, he meant precisely this: if he is elected you will always be hoping for change.

Nothing he has done so far suggests that he is really going to be a friend of the liberals. So watch for switcharoos or smoke and mirrors during the next four years.

Very disappointing so far. I would love to be wrong.

Just last week Paulson said he wouldn't need the last $350 billion from TARP

Now that the Madoff scheme has left wealthy investors penniless - all of a sudden he says he may need the money.

People need to call the congressional leader, flooding their offices with calls not to give up the last $350 billion.

Anyone heard about Goldman Sacks going to pay l% taxes only cuz they have taken their money (and they got plenty of bailout money) OFFSHORE?

That is just incredible.

I bet there will a lot of people refusing to pay their taxes. If there are enough of them, the govt will have to outlaw all this offshore stuff (as they should).

Disgusting. Looks like there will have to be another Boston tea party. Of course when we're totally owned by China that may be a little more difficult.

No, there were no Blago questions. However, following that briefing on "1600 Avenue", Schuster had four panelists - Three of them, including Jonathan Alter never mentioned Blago - However, the first to speak was Mark Whitaker, the DC Bureau Chief for NBC News - He said, once again, that Obama had missed an opportunity for not addressing the Blago "issue". Whitaker is obsessed with this non-event.

I like the idea of Chuck Todd covering the WH for MSNBC. Those traditional beat reporters simply aren't doing anything as of late other than repeating whatever spin the WH feeds them, and don't be fooled, the Obama administration will be feeding them spin as well, though I anticipate most of their spin will at least be based in reality and some essence of truth. Having an analyst, like Todd, in there covering might help MSNBC cut through some of the spin.