Maxine's Observations About Life in these United States

It seems that Maxine Waters is awake.  I speculate that she's awake because, if she's awake, she's talking.  And, as you can see, she's indeed talking.



Well, perhaps "blathering" is a more accurate description of what she's doing.  "That's life."  Seriously?!?!

With the investigation into her startling lack of ethics ongoing, you'd think she'd lay low instead of stepping into the OWS sewer.  I wonder when the outside counsel hired by the House Ethics Committee back in July will issue an opinion?  Seeing Maxine get slapped around a little like Charlie Rangel did (or, a lot more than Charlie Rangel did) would make something nice to be thankful for!

(H/t to Chicks on the Right)

Blogger Has Lost its Mind -- or Perhaps It's Occupied. Or Haunted.

Something is amiss with Blogger -- I think it's maybe had a little Occupy Overload.  Or a small stroke.

It won't keep me signed in, so I can't edit my posts.

As a consequence, I'm unable to add the video of the Occupants doing their litany for the City Council to the previous post (since it wasn't in the embed code I used there.  *Sigh*).  So, without further delay, Moogie presents the exciting, the riveting (the confused) Occupy NOLA Snarks:


And, as a little lagniappe, Moogie also presents another lizard pic!  I was driving down Tchoupitoulas this afternoon and this little guy started crawling across the hood. 

Fortunately, I didn't have a wreck while trying to photograph him.  Unfortunately, I don't think the little guy had a happy ending.  Last I saw him, he was disappearing over the edge of the hood, and there was a bit of a headwind . . . .

Apparently Moogie Was Preoccupied

See the follow up posted later for the City Council video. Stupid Blogger.



So, there appears to be a little more to the story that I didn't know about when I did the Occupy NOLA post yesterday.  And, it appears that I didn't imagine the swollen ranks of cops in and around City Hall -- they really intended to be prepared for an onslaught of community-organized  protesters.

Today's Times-Picayune reports that a dozen or so Occupants did make it into the Council Chamber.  I guess they came in behind me and decided not to be rowdy at precisely that moment.  Come to think of it, at least one lady in the video below looks familiar -- I remember seeing her enter the room with a rather surprised expression on her face.  Perhaps her expression can be attributed to the following from the article:

"About a dozen protesters entered New Orleans City Hall late Thursday morning to find themselves far outnumbered by uniformed and plainclothes police officers on hand to keep an eye on them.

When they got to the City Council chamber, where they had proclaimed they would hold a sit-in, they discovered it was nearly filled with uniformed military personnel on hand for the council's annual salute to the armed forces and the economic importance of local military bases.

The protesters sat quietly for the rest of the 'Military Day' program, including the playing of all five armed services' official hymns or songs . . . ."

Methinks the protesters made the right decision at the time -- there were more than a hundred men and women dressed in the uniforms of all of the services seated in the chamber, plus an armed joint color guard.  Except, maybe the Merchant Marine wasn't represented.  I'm sure they noticed.

Apparently, however, after all the military-type folk left the building, even though they abandoned the sit-in project, the Occududes found a slot on the consent agenda where one of them could sign up to address the Council.  Pretty impressive stuff (says Moogie as she tries to extract her tongue from her cheek). 

After the commercial and the Responsive Litany of Occufolk in the Council Chamber, you can see the several hundred who marched from somewhere around the Superdome to Lee Circle, snarling traffic and making at least one good point: the Fed needs to go.  Do you suppose they're aware that dissolving the Fed is one of the Tea Party's hot issues?  Nah -- I doubt it.


At least they had some pretty good musicians. 

I'm ready for them to go home now.

Do You Suppose They Were Preoccupied?

Weren't the Occupy dudes supposed to have some big, hands-across-America-ish, nationwide demonstrations today? 

Apparently, the New Orleans chapter either never received, or ignored, the memo.  (Okay, it wasn't a memo, it was an email from MoveOn.org -- yes I'm still undercover!)

I was at City Hall this morning to speak to the Council and Mayor on Military Day about ESGR. City Hall is right across the street from Duncan Plaza where the Occupy folks (and their homeless chums who were run out of Duncan Plaza a few years ago, but seem to have found their way back on the coattails of the Occupy Cognoscenti) have pitched their tents (and the city, being ever-prepared for parades and parties, has set out several PortaPotties).  There were a bunch of extra cops both in the entry area of City Hall and the Council Chamber, as if they expected a bunch of Occupiers to storm the seat of city government. 

When I arrived and saw all the cops I actually grew a little apprehensive about being able to get out and to my car after the session without encountering a mob of foolish, fragrant people -- our session with the Council began at 9:30 and was supposed to last until about 11:30; the Occupy Show of Force was supposed to crank up at 11:00 near a sign erected on the sidewalk across the street.  As I prepared to leave, I could see a sea of television news trucks through the front windows.  Hmmmm, I thought.

Then, I walked outside.  And saw this:

I think the news folk outnumbered the Occupy folk.  Here are the PortaPotties.

This whole Occupy thing is starting to get a little amusing to us irrelevant people who live in flyover country.  You know a thing has jumped the shark when The Daily Show starts gigging it:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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But, I think my very favorite jab at the Occupants so far is this:

Go ahead, Occupunks, make his day.

Occupy Theater of the Absurd

I don't remember where I stole it, but, Heh.  Such a good fit.