Busy for a while. A little inspiration for your discussions:

Open Thread.

Too funny:

[The Occupy protests] are similar in their lack of focus, in their inchoate nature, and above all in their refusal to engage with existing democratic institutions. In New York, marchers chanted, "This is what democracy looks like," but, actually, this isn't what democracy looks like. This is what freedom of speech looks like. Democracy looks a lot more boring. Democracy requires institutions, elections, political parties, rules, laws, a judiciary, and many unglamorous, time-consuming activities, none of which are nearly as much fun as camping out in front of St. Paul's cathedral or chanting slogans on the Rue St. Martin in Paris.

Much more democratic to chant slogans at a campaign rally. There is a reason people don't read Slate anymore (I got this from Greenwald.) The stupidity is breathtaking. Dumber than Scarborough.

Speaking for me only

At Daily Kos, Big Tent Democrat interviews his 17 year old daughter about why she joined Occupy Wall Street. What a smart, articulate young woman.

Q: What do you think the goals of Occupy Are?

A: To help wake America up to the fact that the country can't go on focused on the needs of the few over the needs of the many.

The movement has passed its one month anniversary, raised $300,000.00 and grown globally into Occupy Together. Reuters reports a new poll shows most New Yorkers support the protest. [More...]

Busy again. But read John Judis' review of the Ron Susskind book.

And yes, Geithner should have been fired.

Open Thread.

Herman Cain, the newest Republican flavor of the week, told those attending a Tennessee rally yesterday about his response to a someone who had challenged his pro-border fence position on his call-in radio show. Cain said he responded:

When I'm in charge of the fence, we going to have a fence. It's going to be 20 feet high. It's going to have barbed wire on the top. It's going to be electrocuted, electrified," Cain said. "And there's going to be a sign on the other side that says it will kill you."

Today on Meet the Press, he said he was joking: [More...]

Open thread.

Nate Silver writes about Herman Cain:

The other litmus test is Iowa, where there have been few credible polls conducted in recent weeks. But the former leader in Iowa, Mrs. Bachmann, has since seen her numbers slump badly in national polls. Tim Pawlenty has dropped out of the running, meanwhile, while Mr. Romney has yet to fully commit to the state for fear of raising expectations.

Mr. Cain’s winning Iowa would be a potential game-changer. Iowa has not historically been as important for Republican voters as for Democrats, but a win there would give rank-and-file Republicans — many of whom like Mr. Cain but are not convinced that he is viable — confidence that a vote for him would not be wasted.

I don't believe that for a second. Herman Cain has no chance of winning the nomination. He is a vanity candidate with no organization, skill or seriousness. He would have no chance of winning a general election. These "predictive" models have value when judging credible candidates. But Herman Cain is not a serious candidate. Only Rick Perry has a theoretical chance of beating Romney. I say theoretical because Perry is a terrible candidate. Here is a predictive model I believe in - terrible candidates will campaign terribly. Romney knows what he is doing. Perry doesn't. Perry's hope is that the Media (especially Fox) decides to go after Romney. Fox has settled on Romney I think and the rest of the Media seems unlikely to completely turn on him. There will be no NBC October 2008 type debate to try and topple Romney. Absent some Romney scandal emerging, I think the GOP race is over. More . . .

I've been writing for two years about the ever-increasing power given to the DEA and its involvement in sting after sting with no connection to drugs coming to the U.S. From the DEA's Excellent African Adventures to the case of Russian pilot Yuri Yaroshenko to Viktor Bout. (Two of the defendants in the Yaroshenko case were acquitted and sent home to Africa.)

The judges in the Southern District of New York have continuously defeated claims of manufactured jurisdiction, allowing the cases to proceed. The crimes are instigated by the DEA, don't come to fruition, and yet we (the taxpayers) end up funding their missions and then paying to incarcerate those snagged for the 20 plus year sentences they ultimately receive.

The newest Iran case is no different. The DEA is now a global police force, with offices in 83 countries and a budget in the billions. They are global holy warriors. [More..]

Our earlier open thread is filling up. What else is in the news? More federal medical marijuana raids in Colorado. On a lighter note, Colorado's state champion goat was disqualified for failing a drug test.

Anyone else getting error messages trying to upgrade a PC to Apple's iOS5? Apparently, I'm not alone.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

The provisions of the Affordable Care Act intended to provide affordable long term care assistance have been scrapped. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (correctly in my view) says it wouldn't be economically viable. Premiums would be too high, healthy people and young people wouldn't enroll.

There are no plans to revamp it. It certainly was not an entitlement:

It would have been financed with premiums paid by workers, through voluntary payroll deductions, with no federal subsidy.

[More...]

I'll be in court most of the day, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

The Colorado State Patrol announced they will begin removing protesters from Occupy Denver at 11 pm. They want people to go home at night and come back the next day. They said they will issue citations and make arrests if necessary. Paramedics are on the scene in case of injuries.

Here is a live feed of the site. It's now 11:10 pm. The Denver Post has some great photos here.[More...]