War Propaganda Never Sleeps, Not Even For The War On Christmas

Did Iran seize and Iraqi oil well or didn't they? When the Iranian Cyber Army takes down Twitter, preventing millions of Americans from following the mundane activities of the people on their lists, who really benefits?

The Rich Man's News Network

In their continuing war against the working class, Fox News made the pronouncement that cutting minimum wage is good for workers. How? Well, according to Fox, lower wages creates more jobs, which is good for workers, because if they're making less than $7.25 an hour, they're going to need more jobs to able survive.
It seems to me that I've heard this before. Oh, yeah, that was the same claim that was made about Nafta, about how it was going to create all these new jobs. Well, we know how that turned out. It didn't.
As the middle class evaporates so that the top ten percent of the country can have more money, our corporatist legislatures are looking for more ways to screw the working people out of what little they have. The latest plan from the working people hatin' Republicans is eliminating unemployment benefits for the victims of the corporcratic economic policies.
I think there's a pretty good chance that our current congress is out of touch. With their heel-dragging on health care reform, and now this pronouncement, I don't think a lot of them realize that there are people who don't live in gated communities, drive SUVs, or have stock portfolios. People who are a paycheck away from total destitution. Or, more probably, they know it and just don't give a fuck, since people like that can never afford to donate money to the GOP.

2009:The Year Of No Change

Events of the past few weeks have only gone on to underline my underlying belief that our political system is a corporatocracy, that there is no real difference between Republicans and Democrats (although, oddly enough, I don't care for Republicans at all).
Matt Taibbi writes of how President Obama campaigned on a platform of change and reform , then replaced most of his staff with Wall St insiders once elected. No change there.
Sarah Palin praises President Obama's Peace Prize speech as something that could have been taken from the pages of her memoirs. Since Palin is an acolyte of neocon leader Bill Kristol, the man behind the Bush administration's foreign policy, once again, no change.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday he expected the international community to impose significant additional sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Even though there is no evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and has every right to seek nuclear power for peaceful purposes as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the US is still laying the ground work for some sort of military strike against Iran.Like I said, no change.

How To Write Books For Morons And Make Millions

President Obama, who won the last presidential election with not only a majority of electoral votes, but winning the popular vote as well, is perceived by many to be a liberal, or, if you will, a "progressive", even by those who voted for him. That must mean that by logical extension, a majority of Americans view themselves as liberals (or progressives). Following that same logical conclusion, therefore, those who consider themselves conservatives (or reactionaries) who hate liberals and claim to love this country (because liberals hate America)despise a majority of the people within it. Which leads me to the question: can you love a country while simultaneously hating most of the people who reside there?
Conservatives (really reactionaries) have built an industry of writing books about how liberals have destroyed America. Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and even god bless him, Joe the Plumber have written books about how much they love America and hate liberals. These books frequently make the best sellers list (with the exception of Joe the Plumber's book, which is now on the remainder rack at the local Bargain Barn), embraced by those who need reaffirmation that their political view is the sole acceptable view.
The latest entry into this market is by Fox News reporter John Gibson. His book, entitled How the Left Swiftboated America: The Liberal Media Conspiracy to Make You Think George W. Bush Was the Worst President in History. The problem is that for years those on the right have decried the "swiftboat" term as a 'hate term'. As Sean Hannity put it: "I am tired of this word 'swift boat' being used as a pejorative..When we talk about the Swift Boat Vets for Truth, these are brave American heroes." The point which sails over Hannity's head of course, is that so was John Kerry. The Swiftboaters, as they came to be known, were in fact funded by a donor to the Republican party.
Gibson's book tries to simultaneously change the perception that the Bush administration was an abysmal failure while blaming that perception on the "liberal" media. This from a "journalist" who works for a "news" outlet caught stage managing an anti-Obama protest. The "liberal' media didn't have to do anything of that nature, all it had to was honestly report on the Bush administration, as he was the worst president in history.

The Terrorist Attack That Never Was

No, I don't mean 9/11, but I've been following a story at TPM concerning one Tedd J Petruna who claims to have thwarted Muslim terrorists on a flight he wasn't even on. The FAA investigated and found no violations ever took place. The story goes like this: Muslims, in full attire create a ruckus and refuse to turn off their electronic equipment before take-off. When a flight attendant asked them to turn it off, one of them yelled "Shut up, infidel dog."

This is where I had had enough! I got up and started to the back where I heard a voice behind me from another Texan twice my size say "I got your back." I grabbed the man who had been on the phone by the arm and said "you WILL go sit down or you Will be thrown from this plane!" As I "led" him around me to take his seat, the fellow Texan grabbed him by the back of his neck and his waist and headed out with him. I then grabbed the 2nd man and said, "You WILL do the same!"

And how did he know he was a fellow Texan? He wore cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, a bolo tie, and had a giant belt buckle in the shape of Texas as he held his pistols in the air, like this fellow:
Mr. Petruna told his story in an email that was sent to friends and family members, including one Gene Hackemack, who passed it along with this introduction:
"the muslims are all getting very brave now, since they have one of their own in the white house." The story then was picked up by right wing blogs like this one where the misspellings in the comments section illustrate the average intelligence of those on the right.
This clearly illustrates how the right wing paranoia has taken over their party. Not only are "Muslims in full attire" taking over our airplanes, but our White House as well. Even though the alleged hijackers/terrorists violated many laws, they were allowed back on the plane. Probably by the Muslim in the White House. It's evident Mr. Petruna has a Rambo complex (he was able to overpower 11 men with the aid of a Texan saying those mighty words "I Got Your Back") And, like a Rambo movie, all the characters were stereotypes.

And They Wonder Why No One Trusts Their Judgement

Outside a small circle of Americans, Fox News, and far right whack jobs, no one really takes the Tea Party Movement seriously. And, honestly, how can you? Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachmann, and Sarah Palin, their de facto leaders have proven themselves to be a couple sandwiches short of a picnic. They claim to be Christian while displaying utter contempt for their fellow human who does not believe as they do.
And the name these conservatives chose for themselves? Well, now that they know it's other definition, Teabaggers don't like the label they have been given. By themselves. No body gave it to them, they chose it for themselves, and now, they don't like to be called it.
I can understand them not using the Urban Dictionary, after all, these people are suburbanites. And urban connotes something more akin to President Obama than they care to be at any given time. How out of the loop did they have to had been to not know what popular usage of the phrase meant? I'm sure they think that a hot karl has something to do with Karl Rove.
Conservatives like to play the victim when they're not in charge. But in this case, they're victims of nothing but their own ignorance.

President Obama Wants To Make Me Gay!

Of all the powers afforded the president by the Constitution, I didn't realize this was in there but apparently according to the Family Research Council, President Obama will impose homosexuality and silence Christianity. I realize he had the power to impose martial law, but homosexuality?
While the upside to this is I might get laid more often, or find a life partner I can share a wardrobe with, the downside is YOU CAN'T MAKE SOMEONE BE SOMETHING THEY ARE NOT!!!!
I have always found the Religious Right's homophobia to be a leetle bit suspect. Why fear queers when you can just say no? Unless you can't resist.

'Untrammeled homosexuality can take over and destroy a social system. If you isolate sexuality as something solely for one's own personal amusement, and all you want is the most satisfying orgasm you can get - and that is what homosexuality seems to be - then homosexuality seems too powerful to resist. The evidence is that men do a better job on men and women on women, if all you are looking for is orgasm .... It's pure sexuality. It's almost like pure heroin. It's such a rush. . . . Marital sex tends toward the boring end. Generally, it doesn't deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does.'" [Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, Chaos, Law, and God: The Religious Meanings of Homosexuality, 2008]

Now, if the 'anointed one' has this kind of power, I just wish he'd use it to make me slimmer, but if he can make you gay, well, then you'd better bow down to him now, because it looks like he's already started.

Redefining Patriot

I've been hearing on the radio and seeing on the teevee a lot about a government supported program called Safelink, that provides free cell phones and minutes to the economically disadvantaged. Which is a good idea, I guess, that in an emergency people are able to contact help. Why a cellular over a land line? I don't know, perhaps so the homeless can use them as well.
But hearing and reading about this program started me to wondering: how did this program get started with out the Tea Baggers protesting against it? I mean, if they going to get their knickers in a twist over health care reform, a basic necessity, then why haven't they taken to the Capitol steps over this?
Well, they soon will be. A Google search about this program's origins led me to this website, where the blogger suddenly finds they have problems with the government running deficits. A person who had no problem with spending billions monthly in Iraq and Afghanistan to no end, spending millions more on unconstitutional spying on American citizens because they are a patriot, now has a problem with assisting those people being crushed under the weight of the economy run into the ground by these "patriotic" programs.
I think we really need to redefine "patriot".

The New Downing Street Memos

In 1 May 2005, official British governments documents were leaked to the press, heretofore known as The Downing Street Memos (or, as they were known in England, the Downing Street Minutes). Nothing more than writings on a piece of paper, notes taken at a meting, they stated clearly that the US (under the Bush administration) was intent on invading Iraq and "the intelligence and facts were being fixed [by the U.S.] around the policy" of removing Saddam Hussein. For many people in the anti-war(or pro-peace, if you like)movement, it was the smoking gun that proved that the war in Iraq was not a necessity, rather an undertaking of choice, by an administration eager to enrich political donors and cabinet members enough to deliberately falsify documents. It was roundly ignored by the right as well as the corporate media as everyone was making a buck from the Iraq war.
Now, years later, an equally damning leak has made it's way into the press. Called ClimateGate, it shows through emails and documents leaked from the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climate Research Unit that scientists were conspiring to falsify data to support an already arrived at conclusion, global warming climate change.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't think we should be dumping more pollutants into the atmosphere, but this seems less about protecting the environment and more about a select few becoming billionaires in the cap and trade carbon market (which shifts cost from polluters on to the consumer, and doesn't do much to end pollution)who seem to have a double standard about reducing one's carbon footprint. It's like selling low energy fluorescent bulbs on the premise of saving a few dollars to people too stupid to care about disposing of them properly.
The leaked emails, touted by the right as evidence that global warming climate change is all hype, will not even be published by the "liberal" New York Times, the same "liberal" paper that committed treason and aided Judith Miller in leaking the name of a CIA operative handed to them by a Bush administration official bent on punishing said operative's husband for declaring forged documents used to justify an attack against Iraq to be forgeries.
So I don't expect these leaked emails to be reported on by the corporate media anymore than they applied to Downing Street Memos. The agenda has been set, and not having fully drank from the global warming climate change Kool-Aid, I can see how they've been slowly selling people 'green' in much the same manner as they sold us the war in Iraq. Hopefully, the end result will not be the same.

The Annual Unbrainwashed Anti-Holiday Rant

I really have come to loathe this time of year. Of course, I mean the holiday season, which starts officially tomorrow, although some radio stations have been playing Christmas music since Halloween, which means that millions of innocent people have had to endure that one person who insists on listening to Christmas music until you're ready to vomit anytime you hear "Holly Jolly Christmas", "Jingle Bell Rock", and "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree", which seem to get played every hour and a half on these stations. And although 'officially' the 'shopping season' doesn't start until four o'clock tomorrow morning, some retailers, in an effort to prop up a dismal year, are letting you know they'll be open today, so that when Dad, Brother and Uncle Pete are relaxing post-meal on the couch watching the football game, Mom, Grandma, and Aunt Shirley can sneak off to KMart to buy more presents that will get lost in the post Christmas morning overkill, that is, after they've finished all the dishes.
And by this time tomorrow, we'll be inundated with stories of that one shopper who falls victim to the spirit of the season and is trampled to death by salivating shoppers pushing each other out of the way to have first dibs on some item they don't really need but couldn't pass up, because it was such a bargain.
This is also the time of year where advertising takes it's toll on me, and I can hardly stand to see another commercial with kids in their jammies waiting for Santa, elves, or dogs with 'reindeer' antlers on their heads. And it's also the time of year when Christ-centric fuckwads refuse to acknowledge that their might be other religions celebrating their various holidays as well, and threaten to boycott advertisers who do acknowledge it in the same breath as they do Christmas.
It's also the time of year when, despite warnings of anthropegenic global warning climate change, not to mention dire predictions of the arrival of peak oil, people cover their yards with displays consisting of so many lights they could be seen from space. Many communities erect Nativity displays, or allow them to be erected on public property.
Not any more in Chambersburg, PA, where every year the local garden club was allowed to erect an Nativity Scene on the ground surrounding the town fountain. That is, until the local Pennsylvania Non-Believers, an atheist group, stepped in. It seems they wanted to put up a sign for the solstice honoring Atheist war veterans. I mean, after the birth of Jesus, what could be more sacred than our soldiers?
Oh. wait a minute, this is a sign honoring our veterans, not our, troops, a difference indicated by where they are now, either over in Iraq and Afghanistan, making sure that the Good Ol' US of A gets first crack at what little oil there is left, or, over here displaying the symptoms of post traumatic stress syndrome, reminding those who gleefully sent them over there, that, yes indeed, war is Hell.
Anyway, the town council, sensing a political hot potato decided that, rather than allow a religious-free message be posted, decided to remove the Nativity. Score a point for the War On Christmas!

You're Still Here?

With all the attention being lavished on Sarah Palin now due to her recent book and tour, it's time ask ourselves: what about that other right wing nut-job from last year's campaign? No, I'm not talking about Joe Lieberman, I mean that other Joe, Joe the Plumber?
He popped up recently at a rally for Cherilyn Eagar, who's looking to unseat longtime Senator Bob Bennett and was interviewed by Editor & Publisher. In it, he hoped that Sarah Palin did not run for president in 2012, but praised her for writing nice things about him in her book. That's very nice of him since Palin is drawing large crowds to her book signings as Joe, not so much. Also, while Palin's book is sure to be on best sellers lists, Joe's book is in remainder bins.
Sam/Joe took used the interview as an opportunity to slam media coverage of himself, noting that the tax lien filed against him was sitting at the Ohio State Capitol in Columbus two months prior to his well-documented exchange with then-candidate Barack Obama over tax policy. He also criticized the media attempts to paint him as a wife beater and racist, but offered up no evidence to dispute these claims. He slammed journalists in general for making accusations at the same time he accused President Obama's policies as "unAmerican". Joe knows a lot about being a journalist following his ten days as a 'war correspondent" for the conservative Web site pjtv.com, where he failed to notice any of any of Israel's war crimes during Operation:Cast Lead.
Sam/Joe also criticized those who say Wurzelbacher is capitalizing on his fifteen minutes of fame. I mean, everybody gets book deals, record deals, journalism gigs, and appearance fees, right?

Once A Quitter..........

Looking for "Real America"? Look no farther than this video, which shows an angry mob booing Sarah Palin after she left before signing their books on her recent book tour. What Palin doesn't get is that these people own her, they waited in the rain, and while some staunch supporters may make apologies for Sarah stiffing them, there's also a certain percentage that will never buy a Palin endorsed product again.
I would have liked to have been in that bus as it sat their idling, her supporters outside chanting, but what went on in that fabulously ornate mobile billboard, we'll never know. Did her handlers hold her back as Sarah ambled to the door, not wanting to let her people, the real Americans, down? Or, did her handlers insist she go out and finish the job while Palin demonstrated why she is a rogue by refusing to meet and greet any of those people she will surely come to despise by the end of this tour? Whichever it was, I'm sure it was the real Sarah Palin, not the one she presents before the cameras, oozing contempt for the very people who will make her the next president of the United States.

Sarah Palin's Coming To Town

Resigned ex-Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin kicked off her 2012 Presidential Campaign book tour today here in my hometown, with a book signing at Barnes and Noble, and lots of Grand Rapidians lined up to gawk and help push her ghost written tome on to the best sellers list. This is not surprising, as this is one of the most conservative parts of that state, a place where John McCain has been removed from McCain-Palin bumper stickers (like he was the weak link in that train wreck)on the back of elderly driver's Buicks, leaving Sarah, Plain and Tall. In fact some "news" networks went as far as to edit in old campaign footage to bolster the claims. I'm sure it was just because it's so much cheaper than sending a news crew out to film a bunch of obese and wrinkled septuagenarians who took time off from their busy schedule to stand in line.
Palin's book tour is focused on the "real America", because somewhere in the faltering brain cells of those few people left who still refer to themselves as Republicans, small cities and rural areas are more American than say, California or New York City. This is her way of saying that if you live in these outlying regions, and as long as you vote Republican, then your vote counts, darn it. And if you the other 78% of Americans, well, darn it, you're just not real enough to deal with everyday problems, such as your daughter's baby daddy posing for Playgirl, or being interviewed by Katie Couric as a political candidate, instead of as one working mother to another like you thought. Whatever it is, she's not going away anytime soon. You betcha.

So Much Useless And Pointless Noise Adding Up To A Giant Waste Of Time And Energy

By now, the pattern is familiar. Whatever President Obama does, no matter how trivial it may seem, is cause for criticism from the right. Obama becomes elected president, he isn't even an American citizen. Obama carefully weighs his options on Afghanistan, he is criticized for not making a decision, "whether or not it is right". The administration announces it's holding the trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in NYC, the right brings out loser Rudy Giuliani.
It's to the point of ridiculousness now. During his state visit to Japan, President Obama bowed to the emperor, and the right wing noise machine goes apoplectic. Some infer that Obama must have grown up watching The Golden Girls.
How soon they forget.

The homophobes on the right never had a problem with Bush kissing the Saudi prince, of course, they'd even have Bush give him a rim job if it meant cheaper oil which with for them to fuel their gas sucking SUVs.
Now I'm not saying we shouldn't be able to criticize President Obama, once again, that was the right wing during the Bush administration, admonishing the left for criticizing the president during a time of war. Well, those wars that Bush started are still going on, so what has change but the party affiliation of the president, and the color of his skin?

The Easiest Job In The World Is Fact Checker At Fox News

..Mainly because they don't check facts, they merely make shit up. They already went to court to protect their right to lie to people and shield advertisers from negative publicity, after they won that case, well, you know the rest of the story.
recently, Sean Hannity aired a segment on Michelle Bachman's most recent tea bagger gathering. In order to inflate the numbers, someone edited footage from one rally that had a large number of lunatics onto one for Bachman's smaller lunatic fringe gathering. After being busted, not by media watchdogs, but a comedy show, Hannity weakly offered up this apology:

we screwed up - we aired some video of a rally in September, along with a video from the actual event,...It was an inadvertent mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

Yes, someone inadvertently took one piece of file footage from another file and put it in with another accidentally. Happens all the time. On Fox News.
Now I seem to remember the professional prevaricators at Fox getting their tighty-whities in a bunch when Dan Rather reported on the Killian Documents, which were criticisms of George W Bush by his former commander in the National Guard.
Sean Hannity on the lack of media ooutrage over the documents, which were later found to be forgeries:

I was just thinking to myself, you tell me if I'm wrong here, if Republicans had forged documents or had gotten forged documents and gave it to a news organization, and they turned out to be false, wouldn't this be a much bigger story in the mainstream media?

Isn't this the same form of misrepresentation you're guilty of Hannity? More:

An article in The New York Observer today revealed some new information about the CBS investigation into the "Memogate" scandal. According to the story, freelance producer Michael Smith, he taped many of his conversations with CBS investigators and executives in the weeks after the scandal broke.

Smith told The Observer that the tapes of his conversations proved that nobody at CBS, quote, "seemed interested in the truth."

And, so it seems, is anybody at Fox News.
Rather was run off CBS News by the right for his mistake. I think it only fair that Hannity be held to the same standard.
Contact Fox News here and demand they fire Hannity for such an obviously unfair and imbalanced piece.

Happy Veteran's Day!

Because Rupert Murdoch Cannot Have Enough Money

Now he's going to turn all his online News Corpse sites into subscription only. Good luck with that. People I know all over are clamoring to put money down on a web site to read the news.
To make his point, Murdoch says now his online newspapers will be "invisible" to Google users.
How will they find his online papers?
Murdoch thinks that because people demanded and pay for Fox News on their cable systems, that people who like that sort of propaganda will look for it online as well. Idiot. People won't look for it online because it would tear them away from Fox News, require them to get out of their comfy chairs, and require them to read. Fox News better because reading done for viewer. Viewer not even have to think, just do as Glenn, Bill or Sean tell them to. Viewer no like computers, computers reek of intellectualism.
Rupert knows you have two coins in your pocket, he can hear them clinking around. And, by God, he's going to find away to get them from you, even if he has to torpedo his own websites to get them.

Let's Excise All Unpleasantness To Keep Up Our Lives As An Illusion

I took my kids to see a movie yesterday, using movie passes my brother's girlfriend had given me almost a year ago as a thanks for helping her move into my brother's apartment. Given Hollywood's crappy output this past year, it took us that long to find a movie we could all finally agree on seeing. Our choice was The Men Who Stare At Goats, based on the book of the same name, mainly because Wilbur really wanted to see it, which meant of course his little brother wanted to as well.
The film centers on a journalist who stumbles on to the story of a lifetime as he investigates a psychic unit within the US Army. The unit is first run by Lt. Col. Bill Django as a new age alternative to standard military operational procedure, and uses psychic means.One scene, which takes place after Django has been kicked out of the military and Larry Hooper has taken over, concerns Hooper's experiments with mind control using LSD. After dosing a recruit and exposing him to flashing lights and loud noises, the recruit walks stark naked into the middle of the base and begins shooting aimlessly as other soldiers march and drill. The point of this scene is to illustrate not only the evilness of Larry Hooper, but of how use of techniques can have unintended consequences when used not for good, but for evil. No soldier is shot, but they do scramble for safety when the soldier begins shooting.
Well, now some people feel the scene should be edited from the film following the tragedy at Ft. Hood. Considering early reports indicating multiple shooters, this isn't very close to real life at all.
It's funny how sensitive Americans are when it comes to tragedies close to home, but when a tragedy occurs somewhere else, the insensitivity comes shining through.
I would say this is a recent development, that somehow, Americans became stupider or wimpier, but even The Manchurian Candidate was pulled from distribution because of it's eerily similarity to the Kennedy Assassination (You know, brainwashed patsy, part of conspiracy to assassinate a president)as well as scenes of the Twin Towers being excised from the first Spiderman movie.
But IMHO, this is being brought up to reinforce the single shooter theory, and negate any stories of second gunmen. Better the people thinkl it was due to the suspect having to misdiagnose cases of PTSD than think there was any sort of conspiracy.

Another Big Fuck You To The American People

It's nice to know that as the Republicans and Democrats waste time bickering in a non-rush to offer health care to millions of Americans that they can set aside their differences long enough to condemn the Goldstone report , because, even though it condemns the actions of both Israel and Hamas, it is still "biased". Why is it biased? Because Hamas, with their rockets their barely reach their target are much worse than the Israeli government dropping white phosphorous on civilian populations, targeting schools and other numerous infractions of international law.
So the Obama administration, which has sided with the criminals in the Bush administration, who tortured and committed numerous other crimes, has once again sided with the bad guys (okay worse guys) once again.
The report, which will go before the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, is just another in a long list of reasons Israel has used to stall peace talks. Israel also refuses to stop building illegal settlements, destroying Palestinian homes, and ravaging Palestinian crops until a peace agreement has been made, which gives them all the more reason to oppose a settlement.
But how about those assclowns in Congress? Seriously, it's almost as if the taxpayers don't exist. "Sorry your beloved family member had to die, but we had to protect more criminals who receive your money and have their health care taken care of by the US government.

The Selective Amnesia Of The Cheney Family

Does Dick Cheney have Alzheimer's? Did he contract it from his years of association with Ronald Reagan? In recently released FBI documents of an interview with then Vice President Cheney, he claimed that he has no idea" who leaked Plame's name to Bob Novak, he does not recall any discussion with Libby of perceived nepotism associated with Wilson's selection for the CIA assignment, and that the vice president is relatively certain that he spoke to someone about the article but he cannot remember exactly who it was.(UPDATE:A list of 22 things Cheney can't recall about the Plame affair) Which is pretty much the same testimony Reagan gave in the Iran-Contra case.
Well, if Alzheimer's isn't contagious, it certainly is hereditary. Take Cheney's daughter, Liz (Please). When President Obama went to Dover AFB to honor returning fallen soldiers, she shot back "I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras. And I don't understand sort of showing up with the White House Press Pool with photographers and asking family members if you can take pictures. That's really hard for me to get my head around...It was a surprising way for the president to choose to do this."
What she fails to remember is that President Bush never met returning caskets at Dover, EVER. Neither did her father. With cameras, or not, the previous administration loved to send US troops to die, make money for their crony friends doing it, and never having to be reminded of the end result of their handiwork. In fact, in 2004, Bush wanted to slash over one billion dollars from the Veteran Affairs budget.
So I guess it's okay for Liz Cheney to blather on about things she chooses not to remember, it's her right as an American. The problem here is that in their mad rush to torpedo the efforts of the Obama administration to undo all the evil inflicted by the previous administration (which is certainly no mad rush unto itself), the Fox "news" organization will put anyone on who is willing to lie or selectively remember events to cast an unflattering light on them to further their corporate right wing agenda.

Satan Is Better Than Jesus

Why, you may ask, and I will tell you.
Studies have proved that intercessory prayer doesn't work, that in fact, God and Jesus either don't have all the magic powers that their followers claim they do, or they really don't give a fuck about humans.
However, Halloween candy prayed over by witches are chock full of demons. So if God/Jesus can't do anything about the demon filled candy offered for free to good little Christian children, they must not be as powerful combined as Satan is on his own.
And if Satan is more powerful than God/Jesus, using the same system used to determine which football team is better than another by virtue of number of victories incurred during a season, that means that Satan is better than Jesus.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I feel compelled to dress up as The Dude and mooch Milk Duds from my neighbors.......

The Pinnacle Of Retardation

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) and 75 other House Republicans have introduced a resolution "expressing gratitude and appreciation to the individuals and families who participated in the Taxpayer March on Washington on September 12, 2009".
I'll let that sink in.



The irony of wasting taxpayer money "honoring" people who protested "skyrocketing deficits, taxpayer-funded bailouts, pork-barrel projects", in other words-wasting taxpayer money, is proof that the Republicans are more interested in embarrassing the Obama administration than actually accomplishinganything that falls beyond their limited abilities.
I mean, sure, those people should be commended for listening to some guy on television who told them when and where they should go, and what they should do when they get there. After all, we are not truly free until we blindly follow the commands of our favorite "journalists" on our favorite "news networks". And it was important to get these people off their couches, into the fresh air where they could walk on, drive on, or fly to taxpayer funded streets, sidewalks and airports to complain about taxes.
Good for you, Republicans, for acting like the self-involved and self-important people we always knew you were.

The Perfect Career Choice For A Prime Motivator

George W. Bush, a motivational speaker? Surely, a former alcoholic and cocaine abuser who skated through life on his famous father's political and business connections has no clue about motivation. Until you think about it.
After all, he motivated citizens of two great cities in two different countries (Baghdad and New Orleans) to find a new place to live. He motivated defense contractors to overcharge the US taxpayers for services in Iraq by cutting their taxes and stopping any oversight. He also motivated a group of cronies to loot money from the Iraqi people.
His lack of oversight within his own administration motivated the office of the vice-president to commit treason and out a CIA operative as retaliation for the people who were motivated to forge documents to start a war being exposed as the motivated liars they are by her husband in a NYT op-ed.
The Bush administration were also motivated not to regulate the banking industry, leading us into the economic mess were in now. Fortunately, he wasn't too much of a motivator that the alleged opposition party dare investigate any of the motivation behind his criminal acts.
And now, in the end, he has motivated the Cheney family and friends to fight to keep Dick out of jail for war crimes he authorized while Bush was off motivating the whole left blogosphere to rise up against him. So, for $100,000 a pop, Bush can motivate people to acquire an approval rating of 22%, just like he had.
And people wonder why the economy's in the toilet.

Grow Up, It's Halloween

The United States has become a haven for overly sensitive, namby-pamby cry babies whose sensibilities are easily offended any time some one dares to make a joke.
Take The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. They've become deeply offended by an 'illegal alien' Halloween costume. the costume features an orange jumpsuit stamped 'illegal alien', a rubber alien mask, and a green card. While I will fully admit the costume isn't clever, or funny, only the most sensitive of types would be offended by it.
Like Jorge-Mario Cabrera, the director of communications for CHIRLA. who thinks because the costume comes with a green card, that it's "an ignorant attempt to poke fun at a small community." Yes, but a small community of criminals who have entered the US illegally. Now, I am not opposed to immigration. Everybody in this country has ancestors who have emigrated from some other place. What I am against is those who operate outside the law, and yet seem to want to claim so sort of legal protection. I'm sorry, but you're a fucking criminal, no better than the previous presidential administration we had, which placed itself above the law as well. And if you're offended-good, you should be ashamed. Don't do disrespectful things then demand my respect.
1 in 6 Americans are living in poverty, there is no work in California, and the real unemployment rate in this country is at 16%. An influx of more unemployed people who are willing to work for less flooding the labor pool is the last thing we need. So don't cry to me if some uncreative redneck decides to wear a costume poking fun at your illegal activity. I'm sure they would find it just as funny if you wore a toothless mask with singed eyebrows and went as a meth-head.
After all, it's Halloween!

Gang Raped By The Corporatocracy In The Permanent Terror-Security Industrial Complex

Remember back in 2000, when George W. Bush was running for the presidency, and a number of female Republican politicians stood up and told us repeatedly that "W stands for women!"?
Or how about last year, when John McCain cynically chose Sarah Palin as his running mate because the Democrats had abandoned women by choosing Barack Obama as their presidential candidate over Hillary Clinton?
Of course, we all knew it was bullshit. The Republicans only care about women when they're white, pregnant, of hooked up to a life support machine. The rest of the time they could careless about women, unless they're trying to keep their wives from discovering their mistresses.
When Sen. Al Franken added an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would not allow the US to do business with corporations that will not let their employees seek legal action in rape cases, 30 Republican Senators voted against that bill, including that guy who last year wasn't going to turn his back on women, Sen. John McCain.
So while right wing bloggers make a big deal about Hollywood liberals defending Roman Polanski, there seems to be a lack of outcry from the right about Jamie Leigh Jones who was brutally drugged and gang raped by her co-workers. Keep in mind, Franken wasn't asking these companies to change their policies, he was asking the tax payer funded government from funding more atrocities by denying companies that condone gang rape any more government contracts.
Guess we know where the right really stands on the issue of women's rights. They're not as important as the right of the corporatocracy to rape them with impunity.

Scannon's Corollary To Godwins' Law

"As an [online] discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches."-Godwin's Law
Any online discussion about Israel will end with the probability of anyone critical of the state of Israel being called an anti-Semite-Scannon's Corollary to Godwin's Law
We weren't always the bad guys. back in WWII, we faced down evil and triumphed, only to become what we feared most, the governmental embodiment of evil.
And no, this is not directed at President Obama, who has been called a Fascist/socialist/communist by the same people who supported the country's shift to the right, extreme far right, under the previous administration.
Right now, the US is considering a reassessment of the 2007 NIE that stated Iran had abandoned it's nuclear weapon program in 2003. Thge terror-industrial complex needs a new monster to shake at us, now that Saddam Hussein is dead and Osama Bin Laden is more than likely passed on as well. That "monster" is Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, a man so scary to millions of people that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Iran that "the world will not wait indefinitely" for Iran to meet it's obligations on it's nuclear plans. Iran has, of course, repeatedly stated that they are seeking nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and has opened up it's nuclear sites for inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has found no evidence that Iran is doing anything except building a nuclear power plant thereby meeting it's "obligations" on it's nuclear ambitions.
In the meantime, the US has thrown it's support behind Israel, which has been accused of 37 different war crimes under the UN Goldstone report. The US, ready to impose economic sanctions on Iran for...absolutely nothing wrong, was one of the six countries voting against a resolution on the so-called "Goldstone report", which accuses both Israel and Hamas militants of war crimes committed during the 22-day Gaza conflict last December and January. Once more becoming part of the terror-industry complex.
Similarly, Israel has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and open it's nuclear sites up for inspection. And, by US law, according the the Symington Amendment, the US is forbidden to send aid to Israel until it does sign the treaty and open up it's sites to inspection.

So now we are the bad guys, the evil empire, ready to terrorize the world or our own people to meet our ends. WE threaten one country with sanctions for obeying the law while simultaneously enabling another to break every law of decency we used to hold as an ideal for the rest of the world.

Community Organized Television Is Coming....................................................Look Out!

Born At The Crest Of The Empire had a link to this post of how the television networks are jumping on the I-Participate bandwagon next week, with 60 television shows mentioning the program, or writing it into their scripts.
Which, since it's an Obama initiative, means once again the cries of "indoctrination" are rising from the right. Funny, I don't remember any complaints pre-Iraq war from these people about the propaganda foisted on the American people. But now, it's different, with that no Xmas celebrating secret Muslim in the White House.
But for me, the humor lies in the comment section over at Big Hollywood.
"I'd like to avoid this nonsense even if it means boycotting all TV for a week."-Oh, don't take such drastic measures. I'm sure Fox News isn't involved.
"I don't watch TV (except Fox news) anyway"-Ladies and gentlemen, the root of the whole problem.
"When coerced, it is not volunteerism, when service is involuntary or unpaid, it is slavery.
It is bad enough that the government is stealing our freedom, now they want us to help. "-Yes, we must do what the television tells us because we are all mindless zombies.
"Voluneerism is something that we should all be compelled to do because it is the Christian thing to do...it is expected of us. Certainly not because Pres. Opompous orders us to do it so it, like everything else, must reflect positively on him (because in Obamaland....EVERYTHING is about him!)."-Ladies and gentlemen, a true display of Christian love and understanding. Everything in America should be compelled to be about Jesus!
"I think someone should plan a counter campaign to turn off the tv during this period. Instead everyone should spend time with their families. I pledge to not watch tv during this period. I will instead enjoy the outdoors, spend time with family, or actually help another person without expecting payment in money or political credit."-As opposed to the rest of the year when you stay indoors, watch television ignore your family and don't do a thing without expecting financial enumeration for it.
It goes on and on, with people bemoaning their inability to watch television without being offended by someone actually asking them to be part of making a better society (oops, that's Socialism)and being indoctrinated into that whole community thing. In all this is a little less sinister than television participating in Nancy Reagan's Just Say No To (Some) Drugs program(which I'm sure they whole heartedly endorsed) back in the 1980's.
I know I will be watching very little of it, not because I hate Obama, but because television is a time thief, and 99% shit anyways. If you define yourself by what you watch on television, you are really nothing at all

2012

End Timers have been making a big deal lately about the Mayan Calendar which "predicts" the end of the world in 2012. While it may not signify the apocalypse, it's a fairly safe bet that the United States Empire will be gone by then, and not because voters will elect Sarah Palin as president.
What we'll begin to see very quickly is the wholesale looting of our country as the dollar loses reserve currency status. That means all those petrodollars the world bought from us to buy oil will be leaving the world's central banks and coming home to roost, drowning the banks we have left here in too much capital. This will spur a round of hyperinflation not dissimilar to what was seen at the end of the Weimar Republic. Foreclosures will increase, but this time it won't just be the lower classes suffering. Unemployment will increase as people scramble to take any job available.
So while the economy has been tanking, and the brokers have been looting, the corporate media lackeys in this country have been dutifully keeping the public distracted with protests against the wrong people, celebrity worship and too much sports coverage to notice that the ship is sinking.
Why is this happening? Because somewhere, someone decided that they didn't actually have to manufacture a product to make money, all they had to do was to convince the brainwashed masses into believing they needed a product bad enough that they'd mortgage their future to keep ahead of their neighbors. Fortunately for them, they had a Congress on their payroll that was only concerned with getting re-elected and so they would do anything they were asked to keep those campaign contributions rolling in. And why wouldn't you want to be a politician when you can work two and a half days a week, make $165,000 a year, and invest in wars you support. So now uniquely American products like the Hummer will be built in China.
And finally, when the American people wake up because their cable television has been disconnected, they'll take to the streets against the crooks who robbed them (the ones still in this country anyway) they'll find that the criminals will be protected by police who have evolved from Andy Taylor into something resembling Robocop. Good luck with that.

Living In Retarded Times

These are definitely interesting times we are living in right now. Despite continuing the war in Iraq, expanding the war in Afghanistan into Pakistan, and threatening Iran, President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Then, following this announcement, Rush Limbaugh agrees with the Taliban (a move that would have him removed from the air at the height of the Bush administration), putting the alleged "patriot" on the side of the enemy in Afghanistan, what with al Qaeda pretty much removed from that country.
Code Pink, an anti-war organization, has announced it's rethinking it's anti Afghan war stance. I guess now war is acceptable, if it fits within your feminist agenda. But how feminist is it when you're sending men to women's rescue?
There is now a movement under way (by Republicant operatives, naturally) to Impeach Obama. Not for any high crimes or misdemeanors, mind you, but for "Obamaism", whatever the fuck that is.
I woke up one morning last week to find those that claim to be the most biggest patriots in this country cheering because the US lost a chance to host the Olympics. The jobs this would have created and revenue generated would go a long way towards helping lift the US out of the Second Great Depression we are in now.And make no mistake about it, we are in a Great Depression. And while jobs are being lost and people are struggling, these asswipes who pretend to be patriots are cheering, not so much for the failure of Obama's programs, but because Bush and eight years of Republicant policies so destroyed the economy that there's nothing that can be done to fix it. The middle class is slowly disappearing, worker's rights are slowly being lost, but rich white men are getting richer and whiter, all because stupid white men are getting stupider and stupider. And n one of this pettiness and bickering will restore us to the former flory that was once the greatest democracy on the planet.

Conservapedia Presents: The Ten Commandments-Revisited

In yesterday's post, there was a story about how Conservapedia was planning on deleting the "liberal" bias from the Bible. But why stop there? As you'll see, they seem to pick and choose which commandments to follow as well.

It's Not In The Bible Anymore

Does the Bible have a liberal bias? Of course it does, which is why the nice folks at Conservapedia have decided to delete the liberal bias from the Bible. No more of the love shit for them, now it's just going to be fire and brimstone and the wrath of God. That'll make for some exciting reading for them.
But why stop there? Why not make the Innkeeper a free market entrepreneur who was well within his rights to make those moochers Mary and Joseph sleep in the stable. Or portray Judas as having a keen business sense and as being loyal patriot for betraying Jesus for a few pieces of silver? There's a lot of Jewish people in the Bible,couldn't an anti-Semite just delete them all, and make Jesus a nice Christian boy who grew up worshipping himself?
It would appear that the wonderful Christians over at Conservapedia don't love Jesus as much as they hate "liberals", which I believe puts them squarely in violation of the whole "Thou Shalt Not Have Any Other Gods Besides Me" commandment. These twisted souls have shown how utterly useless their Bible is by changing the word of their God to fit their belief system, as opposed to changing their behavior to fit the word of their God. But, you would expect as much from the same people who changed the Constitution to allow torture, illegal wiretaps and indefinite incarcerations.

Who Runs This Country?

Or, better yet, who should run this country, seeing how were a republic and all? Lindsey Graham thinks that if we let the bloggers run the country than our best days are behind us. Uh, dude, our best days are behind us.
Who are these elusive bloggers I hear criticized by the people on the right while appearing on the news? Most blogs, big, small, and miniscule (like this one) are run by tax paying citizens who read and report the news that the corporate-owned media refuses to report, or buries while devoting more and more time and space to celebrity gossip or sports "news". Why would we, as a democracy, want the actual people deciding the future of the country. We have let the corporations run this country for too long now and we have rampant unemployment, a stagnant economy and two government sponsored quagmires on our hands. It's been great for the corporations, but bad for 99% of other people in this country.
But who does run this country? Who has been pushing for another war based on lies? The bloggers. or the people who "run" this country? Who is threatening to impose sanctions on Iran for obeying the NPT all the while violating the Symington amendment?
Most bloggers are people of conscience, and blog out of a sense of duty, or outrage at how far we have strayed. very few make a profit, if at all, and are not media darlings or part of the cultural elite. We are, however, citizens, and when the citizens no longer run this country than we have ceased to be the democracy we claim to fight for while dropping bombs on dark skinned people in democracy's name.

How To End The "Stealth Jihad"

I think I was vaguely aware of this but once again, to reiterate, the Muslims are taking over the country! They have one of their own, a secret Muslim fascist communist socialist, as president, and now they're taking over everything else. I know they took over a dollar store down the street, and possibly a corner gas station.
Do I sound paranoid? Probably, but not as paranoid as one Canyon Clowdus, a candidate for congress from Texas (of course! All the wing nuts with funny names are from Texas). Mr Clowdus feels we are experiencing a "creeping sharia" and a "stealth jihad" in this country, and so he wants to bar any more Muslim immigrants from entering this country. Sure, we can stop more from entering the country, but what to do to protect our country from being overrun by this whole "creeping sharia" thing?
What we need is a law, some sort of Constitutional amendment, that would provide for the prevention of establishing laws based on one's own personal beliefs. That would certainly halt the stealth jihad we as Americans are experiencing right now. Of course, that would mean that Mr. Clowdus wouldn't be able to put his God back in government either, but it's all a small price to pay to protect us from the creeping sharia we are experiencing now, wouldn't it? Besides, I don't believe there ever was a time when there was a "God" in our government.

A Tale Of Two Nuclear Programs

The Obama administration has been making much political hay played up for the propaganda push in the press for an attack against Iran because of the revelation that Iran has a secret nuclear facility. Not any more they don't. But Iran has already agreed to open the site up for inspection by the IAEA. It's sole purpose is not a nuclear weapons facility, but is another nuclear enrichment site for it's reactor at Bushehr.
President Obama has accused Iran of "breaking rules that all nations must follow". All nations?
No, there is one nation that has nuclear weapons and has refused calls for it to sign the NPT and open their nuclear sites up for inspection. This nation of moochers has attacked a US naval ship and yet still receives billions of dollars in aid from the US annually. That's enough to fund health care for every American citizen. Meanwhile, this nation commits war crimes and is violation of numerous UN resolutions, and yet still has the audacity to cal for war against the "mad" regime in Iran. (By US forces, of course.)
So why are we planning to attack one regime for obeying international law when another flaunts that very same law?
One word:oil.

One More Time And I'll Be Marching With The Teabaggers

When then-President Bush announced the Wall Street bailout, I was very much opposed to it. These "free-market" devotees should practice what they preach, and if the market couldn't support them, they deserved to go under.
When the automakers bailout came out, I had mixed feelings, being from Michigan where almost every other person (an exaggeration) is involved in the auto industry. But in the end, anyone with enough foresight could have seen this coming when many jobs in the auto industry were shipped to Mexico and Canada. (that whole NAFTA thing) The service industry jobs lauded to replace manufacturing don't pay enough for people to afford $25,000 cars.
Now, they want to bailout newspapers. This is too much.
On any day in the fair city of Grand Rapids, you can walk into your local supermarket, and see a representative of the Grand Rapids Press, standing at a lectern, ready to sign you up for delivery and hand you your free copy of the Press. There aren't many takers, as the copy given you is fresh out of coupons and is all content-if you can call wire service reports and local sports scores news. I don't know how good your local paper is, but here, in the heart of Conservia, it plain sucks.
On January 15, 2003, when protesters around the globe gathered to protest the US intentions on invading Iraq, the Press gave it a tiny square on the back of page one. In the meanwhile, the local Clear Channel gathering to "support our troops" got the full front page of the Metro section.Liberal media bias, no doubt.
I finally gave up on the Press when, after having been banned from submitting letters to the editorial page, I submitted one using a pseudonym in 2005. In the letter, I referenced the Downing Street Memo, or Minutes, as they are known in the UK. A damning piece of evidence that stated that "....the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy..." of invasion for Iraq. You know, the forged Yellowcake Uranium documents from Nigeria, the weather balloon station portrayed as a mobile chemical weapons lab, etc, etc. I received, later that day, a request from the editor of the paper of a link to this "memo", which should have been front page news, but, and this is something for you Teabaggers to keep in mind, dissent against the Bush regime was akin to treason, and exposing the lies they perpetrated was tantamount to sedition. Can't let the people know they're sending their children over there to die for a lie.
So now I can add this to the growing list of things my tax dollars going for that I oppose. The endless quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, the upcoming excursions into Iran and Pakistan, bailouts for billionaires, and now propping up the propaganda. Fuck them all.

Republicans want To Kill Net Neutrality. I Wonder Why. (No, I Don't)

There is no blog topic more unglamorous than Net neutrality. But, it is an important one. Net Neutrality is the notion that a neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as one where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams. What it means, essentially, is that all users have equal access to the internet.
But there are some people who feel Net Neutrality is a bad thing. They don't like the Obama administration's recent ruling defending Net Neutrality because they feel it will lead to more "regulation". To these corporatists, regulation is a bad thing. Just ask the folks in California, who had to deal with rolling blackouts during their energy deregulation, or look at how the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act led to the deregulation of our banking system, and the ensuing problems that has created. The corporatists are defending the major corporations, who claim that telecoms have no intention of blocking content or degrading network performance, but if that is the case, why has GOP Senators , who want to add an amendment to a bill denying funding to the FCC for any initiative to uphold Net Neutrality.
What a surprise. The GOP, in recent weeks following the Teabagger protests, have tried to portray themselves as the party of the angry taxpayer, but instead, have shown that they are just as much in the pocket of the large corporations who want to restrict what information you can read on the internet as the Democrats who want to use your hard earned money for handouts to bankers who robbed us while no one was looking (regulating). I wouldn't be surprised at all if some spineless Democrats (a redundancy, I know) joined in, as it is close to an election year, and the corporate campaign contributions go a long way towards suppressing any opponent who might want to try to bring back a government for the people. And if the corporatists have their way, you wouldn't even be able to read about them on the 'Net.

Guilty Dinner Party Girls

How much is a dinner with Sarah Palin worth to you? Factoring in, of course, the cost of the trip to Alaska, would you pay $63,500, proceeds of which go to Ride 2 Recovery, an organization that helps our "wounded warriors" cope with losing a limb in a pointless war designed to line the pocket of Republican Party donors? Well, Cathy Maples of Huntsville, Ala did just that. Ms. Maples is a "big advocate" for Palin, and would love to see her as president. I guess Maples isn't counting on Ralin quitting when things get rough, like she did when she was governor of Alaska. (Notice the article refers to her as former Republican vice presidential candidate and not as the job quitting former governor of Alaska)
In these tough economic times, brought on in part by reckless government spending in a war against a country that posed no threat to the US, very few of us can make a one time payment of that much money, plus round trip air fare to dine with the Retardican Party's icon of dimwittedness, but not everyone is struggling in this economy.
So what does the unassuming Ms. Maples do for a living that affords her such a luxury when many Americans are taking to the street feeling the pinch of an oppressive government taxing them to death? Why, she's a defense contractor, one of the people who are still manufacturing something this country still exports, death and mayhem. I'm not sure how much she is raking in as the government exploits stupid people's paranoia, but it only seems fair that to those who sacrificed a limb to make sure Iraq's oil is denominated in petrodollars and UNOCAL can build a pipeline through Afghanistan, that the people who profited from it give a very little back. Oh, and so profiteers like Cathy Maples can still spend frivolously on meals with whacked out politicos like Sarah Palin. It's a small sacrifice to make so that so few can live so much better than the rest of us because of our socialized defense department.

Teabagger Smackdown

I'll admit I was a little bit confused about last weekend's Tea Party (Teabaggers) Protest in Washington DC last weekend. Just what are they protesting? Government spending? Where were they when the Bush administration was spending more money than any previous administration combined? Health Car Reform? Do they like the possibility of being denied by their carrier for pre-existing conditions? Do they care so little for fellow Americans that they'd like to have them die because they are unable to afford health care? Or is is taxes? Did they not notice while in DC that everything around them, every symbol of our country's (former) greatness was built and maintained using tax payer's money? Or is it because they didn't mind all this stuff when we had a white president?
It was last night, while the kids were watching WWE Smackdown (for the sole purpose of mocking it) that it hit me: Teabaggers are the political equivalent of wrestling fans. Ignorant people being cynically manipulated and exploited for their stupidity. They both carry signs that stretch the boundaries of their ability to write legibly and spell correctly. They both are angry when their "guy" loses a fight/election. These people are not the bottom of the gene pool, they're whatever is left after the gene pool has been drained and plowed over to make a subdivision of McMansions.
Like the wrestling fans who insist that it's all real and nothing is sripted, Teabaggers are blind to the obvious as well. As Bill Moyers points out:

"Something these marchers who came to Washington at Armey's urging could hardly be expected to know. For most of his adult life, their leader has benefited from just the kind of government tax-supported health care he's fighting to keep them from having too."

Only Vince McMahon can be more cynically exploitative.

Nancy Pelosi:Looking Out For Everyone Named Nancy Pelosi

One man's liberty is another man's slavery
In a previous post, I noted that sometimes in order to get the attention of our public servants, all one needs is a vagina. Well, what if the public servant in question already has a vagina, and has no use for another?
Another thing politicians like, and crave almost as much as vaginas is money. Lots and lots of money. Take your beloved Speaker of the House. No sooner had she taken the public option for health care reform off the table did she suddenly become the recipient of a fundraiser from a private health insurance lobbyist. How convenient.
I'll bet her grandchildren love visiting their grandmother because Pelosi has a reputation for taking things off the table. She took censure for Joe Wilson off the table. (Not the Joe Wilson who exposed the Bush administration's Iraqi yellowcake uranium lie, but the one who exposed himself to be a hypocritical exposer of lies, having sat silent through many congressional addresses by President Bush that were packed full of lies waiting for someone to point their finger at the president and say-"You lie!")And, when she first grabbed the gavel as Speaker of the House, immediately took impeachment off the table.
Now, to be fair, the event is open to anyone. Anyone who can cough up $2,400 per person ($5,000 if you represent a PAC). Yep, that's me and you and probably that homeless guy I pass everyday on the way home from work.
Now, I could come up with $2400, but having recently lost my health insurance coverage, that money is about equal to a month and a half of COBRA for me and my kids. So for me, and the other 45,999,997 people with out health insurance, we really have no option, which means democracy doesn't work for us. And ultimately, that means that democracy doesn't work under capitalism at all.

Just What Are You Trying To Say?

This must be a good time to be pharmacist, what with all those tightly wound right wing nuts living in a state of constant fear, I'm sure they need a myriad of prescriptions. There's the anxiety caused by socialized medicine, the fear of rising tax rates, sleepless nights caused by illegal immigration, and now the awful truth of Muslims moving in and taking over.
Well, thank goodness for the red, white and blue, that's how you can tell a super patriot from just an "American". Wearing the stars and stripes on everything means you really, really, really, really, love this country, even though you can't stand half the people living in it. I would really be interested in hearing their solution to the "Muslim" problem.
Another thing I don't understand is what exactly these protests are against, or what they hope to accomplish with them. As someone who stood against the war in Iraq before it began, let me tell you, protesting doesn't really accomplish anything, except maybe giving the corporate media an opportunity to make protests look ridiculous. So are they protesting the Wall Street bailouts? No, because they started with Bush, and none of these people were angry about it then. Are they protesting the out-of-control spending by our government? NO, because if they were really concerned they would have opposed the out of control spending by our government for the war in Iraq. So what are they against? Non-existent "death panels"?
No, simply put, these are people who haven't gotten over that so many "Americans" would betray the country and elect Barack Hussein Obama president because "He's running this country into the ground".
Where have these idiots been for the last eight years? Watching Fox News!

(Once again, picture poached from Born At The Crest Of The Empire Thanks Mike!)

They Get Laid, We Get Screwed

With millions of people with out health care, (including now, myself), or unable to afford it, do you ever wonder what it takes to get the attention of our politicians? Well, if you're CA State Assemblymen Mike Duvall, all you need is a vagina.
Duvall, a married Republican from Orange County, was caught on tape bragging about a graphic sexual encounter with a female lobbyist for energy company, Sempra Energy. Duvall is vice chair of the Committee on Utilities & Commerce. No word on whether or not their arrangement was quid pro quo, but their relationship was "the worst-kept secret in Sacramento". The revelation has caused Duvall to resign his position, but now has back pedaled and said that he was only involved in "inappropriate storytelling." way to man up, Mikey.
It need not be said that Duvall is a family values Republican, who opposes gay marriage, and is a hypocrite, any combination of the two is merely a redundancy. In my previous post, I mentioned an unnamed still-sitting Democratic congresswoman, videotaped in a same-sex tryst being blackmailed by a foreign government, so piggish behavior is not limited by gender and/or party. The only thing they have in common is they happen to be politicians and that leads me to my point.
For years, before my health insurance ran out, I was paying into a fund, and not using it, because I am somewhat healthy. Now that I no longer have this carrier, does that mean I get a refund? No, of course not. I just wonder if maybe that money, when not going to CEO bonuses or to bureaucrats trying to find a reason to deny other people's claims, was being paid to a lobbyist to fuck some fat-assed gray haired dickwad family values Republican hypocrite, who then graphically describes his encounter to anyone in earshot because that's the kind of uncouth lobbyistfucker he is, to oppose any health care reform at all. That seems to be the way our system works these days. Giant corporations take our hard earned money and buy politicians who enact laws that benefit these large corporations at our expense. And if you don't like it, move to Canada.
At least you'd have health insurance.

Stray Thoughts...........

......do the people who had a problem with Obama's speech to children today as some sort of indoctrination also oppose military recruiters at schools?
...have any of the Republican fear mongers ever read 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf'?
.....can we vote away health care for congress?
.......who is the unnamed, currently-serving, married Democratic Congresswoman said to have been video-taped in a Lesbian affair by Turkish agents for blackmail purposes according to testimony by Sibel Edmonds?
.......how many other congress members are also being blackmailed?
........why do people still listen to Sarah Palin?
.... is the right wing policy of yelling and over reaction sustainable into the next election cycle?
..... with all this yelling and screaming, have the Republicans put across any doable ideas as solutions to the problems facing America?
......why are all Right Wing Obama attacks, i.e., death panels, indoctrination speeches, based on obvious lies?


Just wondering.

Two Thoughts So Terrible They Could Cost You Your Career

So many times were told that America is a great country because of our liberties, one of which is our freedom of thought. We can think any idea to be true, no matter how insane it may be. We are able to think that President Obama, for instance, was born in Kenya, and his mother merely had his birth announcements placed in Hawaiian newspapers because she knew someday that he'd be elected president, where he could foist his radical secret Muslim socialist oligarchic agenda on an unsuspecting people. You can think President Obama's speech to school children will brainwash them to socialism, and hell, CNN will give you all the air time you want because these views are important, and worthy of being aired on national television.
You can believe a lot of things, and have the freedom to express your faith in anything, Elvis, Jesus, Mohammed, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the ability of free markets to lift all boats, and that's okay. You can believe Sarah Palin is a maverick qualified to be president because she quit her job half way through her term, gays and lesbians being married will some how destroy your marriage, or that swine flu will be really, really bad this year because the fear mongering media keeps telling you it will.
No, there are two things that you can't think. One, is that Republicans are assholes. Let me see, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, John McCain, Michelle Bachman, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, John Sanford, stop me when I get to one that hasn't displayed assholish behavior on a regular basis.
The second terrible thought is that the previous administration allowed 9/11 to happen to further their agenda. Let me see, Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton, who had to have his Halliburton stock pried from his cold, stiff, and half dead fingers allowing the worst terrorist attack on American soil to happen which benefited, uh, Halliburton, and people are shocked? The truth is that with the fall of communism at the start of the nineties, the defense contractors (like Halliburton) needed a justification for the half a trillion dollar annual defense budget of the United States. They needed a new perpetual enemy and a new Pearl Harbor. And, most importantly, they needed a way to keep the masses in fear so they could continue to loot the country for their own benefit without anybody paying too much attention. So excuse me for thinking that 9/11 was an inside job, and I'll excuse you for thinking that a bunch of cave dwellers half way across the globe had the intelligence and foresight to be able to penetrate our defense systems, force NORAD fighter jets to stand down, and fly over the most secure airspace on the planet with impunity. And in that same extent, perhaps we should look more into Van Jones' beliefs as well, since his beliefs are personal, and in no way interfere with his position as "Green Jobs" adviser to the Obama administration.