California Primaries, Bin Laden Found, For Real?

Tony Judt
Carlo Strenger
Gail Collins

"We have been entertaining ourselves with theories about how this election year is going to be all about voter anger. Or Washington insiders. Or health care. Or TARP. But, really, it’s going to be about money. Gobs of cash falling on campaigns like tar balls on a beach." - Gail Collins

"Women won big in California, Arkansas, Nevada and South Carolina. These are exciting times. I can remember when only rich white men could buy elections. Now women can buy them, too." –Jay Leno

"You know who performed at the Rush Limbaugh wedding? Elton John. Isn't that amazing. It proves that there's absolutely no ideological gap that a million-dollar check can't bridge." –David Letterman

This should have been part of yesterday's post, but the news came out this morning, that 429 people were arrested in 16 states, recovering 17 pounds of methamphetamine. Eric Holder called it the largest drug bust so far and vows that there will be more. Good for him. But I'm not holding my breath, since this is a drop in the bucket, and may be just a public relations moment. For those who believe in conspiracies, American Idol and methamphetamines are part of a plan to keep Americans dumbed down, addicted, and entertained so that they won't notice the takeovers by the insurance lobbies, the banking industry, the Wall Street lobbies, and the oil company lobbies. Unfortunately, recent events have conspired to reveal the extent that these groups have taken over our government agencies and make policies. Time to turn your anger at BP and AIG into laws that will protect us from their mistakes.

california primaries...

But the primary results don't give us much hope. In California, Meg Whitman spent $71 million to win her primary, and she has said that it won't bother her to pitch in another $150 million towards the election in November. She touts herself as a tech businesswoman, but she ran an auction site, which is a pretty old fashioned concept. I remember when it first started, e-mailing bad code to the people putting it together, because it was so buggy that even a dork like myself could catch things. I also tried to get a lot of dishonest people kicked off, but ebay didn't seem to care at that time if you got ripped off or not, because they made their money from the seller listing items, not from any buyer. It wasn't until more public outcry and threat of criminal investigations for mail fraud that ebay was forced to revamp their policies. So, Meg isn't anyone special, she's not forward thinking or innovative, and condones the practice of ripping people off until she is publicly embarrassed, so she'll be old-style politics as usual in California. She made her fortune much like the casinos make their money, by taking a bit out of the profit on each item sold. Meg is running against Jerry Brown, who has held every office there is in the state of California, including governor twice before. He doesn't have the money to go against her, but all it should take for him to win are a few debates against her. He has more substance and knowledge of how the state works, and just might find a way out of the incredible boondoggle that is the California economy and dysfunctional legislature. In this case, proposition 14 is a good thing.

Carly Fiorino is even more dysfunctional, I don't see how she can make claims to have been a successful businesswoman. She got kicked out of HP after almost running them into bankruptcy, and she also has been spending her own money on her campaign. After her cancer treatments, she has become dippy and flaky in her public statements, and it was her campaign that made the wolf in sheep's clothing commercial, with a guy walking on all fours in a sheep's costume with red, battery-lit eyes. It became known as the demon sheep commercial and went viral on YouTube. She got recognition for it, but not in a good way. Carly is running against Barbara Boxer, who has run out of money and the energy to fight a tough campaign, so Carly actually does have a decent chance of winning in November.

Why anyone wants to be in charge during these next few years is beyond me. The next two years will be worse and worser, as the small surpluses that cities and counties had get used up and they have to keep on making budget cuts by the millions. The local economies haven't made any job recoveries, and neither party has been coming up with any answers to help families get back into small businesses. Why would anyone elect someone who is anti-government, like the various tea part candidates? That there are candidates from this ilk says more about their egos than their philosophies... I do wonder what it is about politics that attracts whack jobs, who are out of touch with reality, then they go to Congress and make whacked laws, reinforced by whacked interpretations by a whacked Supreme Court... No wonder so many people were hoping that Obama had the strength to change all that...

bin laden found?...

UPI reports that Osama bin Laden has been living for the past five years in a remote Iranian town, and that the Turkish Prime Minister has been aware of it: "Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is aware that bin Laden, his chief lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri and five other high-ranking al-Qaida leaders have been living under Tehran's protection for the past five years, military intelligence Web site Debkafile reports.


The leak that Erdogan is aware of bin Laden's location is intended to show the Obama administration the extent of Erdogan's ties to Iran, Debkafile says. The location of the al-Qaida leader was pinned down by a Kuwaiti newspaper that identified Sabzevar as the town where bin Laden has been hiding."

It seems that the serves a two-fold purpose: "On May 13, American intelligence sources reported in detail that senior al Qaeda operatives living in Iran had been allowed to leave the country through Syria to orchestrate terrorist attacks on American targets. Among them was Saif al-Adel, who is believed to have been assigned with planning an attack on the world soccer games opening in South Africa on June 12.
Those sources noted that Saif al-Adel had received his instructions directly from Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri but did not reveal knowledge of their presence in Iran.
DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources disclose that the purpose of airing their precise whereabouts at this time, aside from implicating the Turkish leader, was first, to warn al Qaeda's leaders that their hideout was blown and they had better move on - which would make them easier to catch; and, second, to nudge US president Barak Obama into a decision to go after them.

A rare opportunity may now be building up to capture the world's most wanted terrorist, DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report. Last December, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged the United States has not had any good intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts in years. Until recently, the elusive master-terrorist was generally thought to have gone to ground in the wilder parts of Pakistan-Afghanistan border region."

Remember that Osama's last wife and children are being held hostage in a compound outside of Tehran. This is why Iran never had problems with al-Qaeda. If bin Laden is once again on the move, it will give US forces a chance to catch him. It will be a very different world if he gets caught, then the Palestinian state is agreed upon within the next couple of months. We might actually have a chance for some peace before Israel and Iran try and nuke each other off the face of the planet... It will be interesting to find out what he now uses to make his beard so viral and black... Anyway, let's see if there's some reality to this item, if the other news media picks it up or if I end up blowing smoke...





David Letterman's "Top Ten Things Overheard At Rush Limbaugh's Wedding"

10. "Is this my fourth of fifth wedding?"
9. "Mrs. Palin, please, enough with the celebratory gunfire"
8. "Do you take this woman to be your future ex-wife?"
7. "Oh crap. I'm sitting next to Bill O'Reilly"
6. "They have a tent in case it rains. No wait, those are Rush's pants"
5. "Oh crap. I'm sitting next to Sean Hannity"
4. "I missed the bridal bouquet, but I hope to catch the prenup"
3. "Oh crap. I'm sitting next to Ann Coulter"
2. "It's ironic that a guy named 'Rush' takes 20 minutes to walk down the aisle"
1. "Did he just eat the whole cake?"