DNC Finances in Shambles

And these are the same people who say Republicans

are irresponsibly funding our government?

FORTUNE -- There's another budget crisis in Washington, and it's unfolding inside the Democratic party. The Democratic National Committee remains so deeply in the hole from spending in the last election that it is struggling to pay its own vendors.

It is a highly unusual state of affairs for a national party -- especially one that can deploy the President as its fundraiser-in-chief -- and it speaks to the quiet but serious organizational problems the party has yet to address since the last election, obscured in part by the much messier spectacle of GOP infighting.

The Democrats' numbers speak for themselves: Through August, 10 months after helping President Obama secure a second term, the DNC owed its various creditors a total of $18.1 million, compared to the $12.5 million cash cushion the Republican National Committee is holding.

Several executives at firms that contract to provide services to the party -- speaking anonymously to avoid antagonizing what remains an important if troubled client -- describe an organization playing for time as they raise alarms about past-due bills falling further behind...."

Don’t worry, America. Congress will still get paid.

Naked DC

"No matter what happens over the course of the next 72 hours, you can officially relax, America. Because while you might lose your social services and lesser government workers may end up having a few unpaid days off work, in the event of a government shutdown, Congress still gets their paychecks, so it’s all going to be just fine. 

'We are also hearing that Members are starting to ask increasing administrative questions about the well being of their staff…and privately, asking questions if they can use their own salaraies [sic] to pay staff if there is a shutdown. This is an interesting question…as Members ARE paid if there is a shutdown. That’s because the 27th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits a “varying” of pay for House and Senate members…without an intervening House election. During the ’95-’96 shutdowns, there was a voluntary suspension of pay for members...."

"Technically, most of them probably don’t deserve to be paid while Congress is in session, so paying them not to work when it’s out of session isn’t a vast difference. A government shutdown only affects things the government deems “non-essential” or “discretionary,” which includes most departments not immediately and explicitly authorized by the Constitution. While we might consider Congress non-essential, it’s highly unlikely that the current group of bipedal apes running the legislative branch will agree." 

A Good Monday Morning

70 Years of America's Democrat Statesmen : A Retrospect

....and the slope just keeps gettin' steeper.

Middle Finger Symphony Theater

* No Tuxedo Required*

Obama “Won’t Negotiate With People Who Have Bombs Strapped To Their Chests.”

Oh look, he’s bowing again.

____________

True Blue Liars

Paul Joseph Watson

"In a wide-ranging interview published today by the Guardian, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh  savages the US media for failing to challenge the White House on a whole host of issues, from NSA spying, to drone attacks, to aggression against Syria. Hersh added that the Obama administration habitually lies but they continue to do so because the press allows them to get away with it....."

“It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama],” Hersh told the Guardian. During the rest of the Guardian interview, which is well worth reading in its entirety, Hersh lambastes the corporate press and particularly the New York Times, which he says spends “so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would.”

“The republic’s in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple,” concluded Hersh."

Read the Complete Interview 

Israel TV: Iran will have enough uranium for bomb in 2 months

Talk Straight - Hours after an Israeli newspaper quoted a government security source saying that Iran already has at least one nuclear bomb, Israel’s leading Arab affairs analyst offered only a slightly less dramatic assessment, saying the regime in Tehran was no more than “one to two months away” from having sufficient 92% enriched uranium to build its first bomb.

Ehud Yaari, the veteran analyst of Israel’s top-rated Channel 2 TV News, added that Iran also had more sophisticated centrifuges becoming available soon that could cut that time down to just “two or three weeks.”

But I thought the Iranians promised Obama and Kerry that they only wanted nuclear power for electricity or some other peaceful, helping the little folks reason.

I mean, they wouldn’t be calculating and so sinister as to pretend to be nice and friendly just so they can be afforded the time, by a couple of gullible bafoons, to complete a nuclear bomb. Naw! That’s just silly.

Fishnet Friday

Abortion Diva Goes for Texas Governor's Seat

The Associated Press reports Davis, who is scheduled to announce her political plans Oct. 3, will jump into the race to succeed Republican Gov. Rick Perry. The AP story is based on two unnamed Democrats with knowledge of her decision.

Davis has become a Democratic Party sensation across the country for her marathon filibuster in June against a bill to restrict abortion. Though the Fort Worth lawmaker temporarily succeeded in blocking the bill, the measure eventually passed the Legislature and was signed into law by Perry.

Despite her near-celebrity status among Democrats, Davis would have an uphill fight in a campaign for governor. No Democrat has won a statewide Texas office since 1994.

An Absolutely Priceless Performance

H/T Mad Jack

The U.N. Convenes for Annual International Circle Jerk

It’s late September, so that means the United Nations has convened its annual General Assembly and International Circle Jerk / Political Masturbation conference in New York this week. Right now world statesmen are gathering together to make speeches, eat expensive food, and enjoy New York's finest Ladies of the Evening and gay night clubs. They certainly won’t be solving any problems, because as everybody knows the UN isn’t for that. It’s for, … talking and paying transnational bureaucrats extravagant salaries, bashing Israel and occasionally endorsing wars.

Is that overly cynical? Maybe. I don’t know. Probably not. It’s hard to care as the UN is, officially, totally rubbish as the Brits would say. I believe General Secretary Ban Ki-moon said as much himself the last time a bunch of blue helmets returned from a rape expedition in Africa, Although he didn't actually say it that way, of course.

At the opening of the General Assembly in Manhattan on Tuesday he made the following declaration in his opening address:

“This is an era of wondrous opportunity. Ours is the first generation that can wipe poverty from the face of the Earth.”

Given that Mr. Ban is 69 and is statistically likely to pop a tube within the next 8 years (the average male life expectancy in South Korea is 77.4) this can only mean that he has secret knowledge about a cure for the endemic inequality that has beset our species since time immemorial. If he really does know how to end poverty I’d like him to call me, and urgently, because I want to buy a new car but can't afford the one really want.

Alas I fear he was talking rubbish.

The rest of Mr. Ban’s speech meanwhile consisted of worthy platitudes about empowering women, the environment, the horrors of war, etc, all of which are things he and the UN are powerless to do anything about. Why he insists on talking about them, year after year, I am not sure.  Oh wait: It’s his job.

A few years ago, the UN was at least a source of mildly amusing headlines. I remember well that in 2009 batshit crazy Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinerjacket showed up and started waffling on about the Islamic messiah, the Mahdi. Last year he also rambled on about the End Times, inviting mankind to prepare the way for the “Hidden Imam.”  This year his replacement Hassan Rouhani is in town and lots of journalists and politicians are pretending that this signifies an important change. There’s lots of pointless blather about why Obama will not meet with him, and why we should'nt all be really concerned because of course Obama’s “strategies” for the Middle East have all been staggeringly successful so far, haven't they?

Then there was the year Gadhafi talked for 90 minutes in an astonishing stream of consciousness. That was amusing too, so long as you weren’t one of his subjects. But of course Gadhafi’s gone now, lynched by angry Libyans, with a little help from US bombers of. The mention of Gadhafi brings to mind one of the other things the UN does, which is to vote to decide which of America’s wars are officially awesome and which are un-awesome. Actually, only the handful of countries on the Security Council gets to decide on the awesomeness of each war, but you get my gist. The logic governing UN decisions as to what makes a war awesome or not is very mysterious. Or maybe there’s simply no logic to it whatsoever.

Well, at least the General Assembly is not about making war. Rather, a bunch of people talking. Apparently the UN has 193 members and each one of them gets a chance to ramble on the main stage about… you know… Israel, American imperialism… whatever.

North Korea, Norway, Canada, Saudi Arabia: free or un-free, groovy Social Democratic paradise or woman-oppressing theocratic nightmare zone, all are equal in the eyes of the UN and each statesmen will get at least 15 minutes to sound off. And sound off they will, until next Tuesday, when the last of the speakers will finish waffling and everybody will go home again.

Well, let’s look on the bright side. At least it’s a year until the next one.