Chick Fight In 2012?

With the Obama administration unable to follow through on any of it's promises, from reforming health care, to ending the war in Iraq (or Afghanistan), ending the torturous practices of the previous administration, and generally failing to deliver the hope of change that was the theme of it's campaign, is someone looking ahead to 2012? Of course, I mean Hillary Clinton, who is still keeping a small political team from her campaign staff. For someone who believes the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes (and not by the will of the voters, who hope they'll keep their promises) to be so close to the top might be a temptation even such a spiritual person as Ms. Clinton can not resist.
And in this corner- Sarah Palin, able to garner support from 80% of the rich old white men at NewsMax in a 2012 presidential run. (I say old men because 80% of advertising is aimed at fat unhealthy seniors). She used her farewell speech as a foundation for her 2012 campaign. Who else dos the GOP have? Tim Pawlenty? "Bobby" Jindal? (I can see the base that refers to Barack Hussein Obama going for a guy whose first name is Piyush) George (or what ever his first name is)Huckabee? Mittens? Just read these pro-Palin comments and you can see what the base likes about her-she's good looking, especially lined up against a long-in-the-tooth hag like Clinton will be in three years.
Just face it. Even with a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, Barack Obama is not going to change anything. America is fucked up the way the corporocratic masters want it fucked up. So if politics can't serve the will of the people, the least it could do is offer us some entertainment.

Will Clinton Pull A Powell?

In 2002 it was much easier to sell a war. Our corporate controlled Congress co-mingled nicely with our corporate controlled media to sell us many reasons we needed to invade Iraq, from Saddam has a cheesy mustache to his feet stink really bad and he hogs all the covers at night. Throw that together with an American audience angered at the delay of the release of the new Spiderman movie while the Twin Towers were digitally erased, and you have a recipe for war.
But you have to give the Obama administration points for trying. On NBC's Beat The Drums today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Iran's pursuit of nukes futile. What's really futile is the War Party's constant lies about Iran even after Director Of National Intelligence Dennis Blair's statement about Iran not re-starting it's nuclear weapons program. Perhaps the politically minded Clinton should remember what happened to Colin Powell after he lied to the UN about Saddam's non-existent nukes.
While Iran may possess defensive missiles, the only way that could endanger the television watchers is if Iran used them to take out Octomom before her reality show hits the air. So the media plays out the birther thing longer than it needs to be (started by a group of people who had no problem with a Bush administration full of people with dual citizenship and loyalty) it's important to remember who is the threat here and who only wishes to defend it's people from a fate similar to it's neighbors to the west.

We All Just Became Peasants

Our country is broken, and I don't just mean economically. We have a congress willing to spend $50 million, borrowed from our children's future on utter nonsense that benefits the agenda of a few evil rich men while millions go wanting for health care. But that's not even the root of the problem.
No, the problem is we have people so lock stepped with political parties so out of touch with reality that Nancy Pelosi can declare $350,000 the new middle class. This makes the president slightly upper middle class now, but he doesn't have to pay taxes on his free health care, (or his free security,his free lodging, or his free public transportation), but his plan wants you to consider your health insurance (if provided by your employer) as " taxable income".
But if $350K is the new middle class, is $175K lower middle class? That would explain why there has been so much credit default lately, somehow, while we were busting our asses, paying our bills, and providing for our families, we all became poor. Someone moved the goal line while we were still on our own 30 yard line.
But you can't blame Pelosi, or the rest of congress, for taking advantage of people stupid enough to keep voting against their own interests-that's capitalism.
As insane and out of touch as Pelosi's statement is, it is more in touch with the Republicans, who last year were ready to vote for a guy who thought $3 million was middle class. The reality is that as long as we keep playing the corpocracy's game of Democrats vs. Republicans, we will all remian what they want us to be: peasants.

Stating The Obvious

In the debate over health care reform, one question that has been asked time and time again is, where will the money for single payer health care from?
Taxes. that's right, Obama wants to raise your taxes. Good thing we voted for more taxes because with the economy is full-on depression mode, the one thing working people need to do is pay more taxes. How else could we fund such a massive government undertaking?
Ron Paul has an idea. If we end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and cut our defense budget in half, we'll have all the money we need for a health care program. Of course being a libertarian, (and a doctor), Ron Paul opposes nationalizing the health care industry, but "you don’t want to cut under these [economic] conditions medical care from poor people who have been dependent, or the elderly." That this makes sense is all the more likely that no one in congress will actually do anything about it.
Take Afghanistan. Please. (That is, if you can. No country has ever successfully been able to take that piece of real estate, and that vote-for-me-and-hope-for-change guy isn't going to have anymore success, no matter how many more troops he sends into that quagmire.) And what are we fighting for In Afghanistan? Liberty! The liberty to build a pipeline that only benefits big oil, essentially socializing the army for a select few (who then complain about having to pay taxes). The liberty to increase opium production so the police can have the liberty to arrest heroin addicts at home. The liberty to set civilian death records, liberating Afghanis from this mortal coil. Oh yeah, then there's that whole 9/11 thing, of which the Taleban, as with the people of Iraq, did not partake in at all, but being that America was founded on liberty, we can take all the liberties we want.
Of course, it's noted, that right after Paul made his pronouncement, the "liberal" media changed the subject. Can't have the truth slip out on the news shows, the sheeple might get angry.

Methinks Thou Doth Protest Too Stupidly

Wait a minute, wait a minute. So the US condemns a video of a soldier captured in Afghanistan? Why? Is he stacked up naked with other prisoners while a burqa wearing female points at his genitalia? Is he forced to stand naked while dogs snap at his body? Is he being forcibly sodomized by a guard? No? Than really what do we have to condemn?
Oh. I see. It's a violation of international law. While I feel for the soldier, and his family, for the understandably traumatic experience they are having to endure, the US lost it's right to complain about international law violations a long time ago. This is why anti-torture advocates have been so vociferous following the revelation of the US using "enhanced interrogation techniques". Because, someday, sooner or later, our soldiers, fighting in the global war for enduring hegemony, are bound to be captured by the enemy, and perhaps, they won't be forced to eat rice and bread, drink tea, and wear traditional grey, loose-fitting Afghan shalwar kameez clothing.
The US, under the Obama administration, had an opportunity to change the way that the US operates, but, as with much else with in our foreign policy, has opted to continue the same policies of the Bush administration. (So much for "change we can believe in). So the current administration, as with the previous, can blather on about how our troops are handled as if they really care. But the truth is, if they really cared, they would put an end to this policy before some other serviceperson is captured by a group that cares even less than we do about international law. Fortunately for us, the only other country that cares less than we do about international is Israel, and they are our ally.
Cross posted at American Insurgency

You Can Dish It Out, But You Can't Take It

It started innocuously enough.
I had posted a link to this on my Facebook page. I did it for two reasons. One, I was trying to let Fred know that it was indeed me putting in a friend request. (He rejected me anyway. Bastard.) The other reason was to counter my brother, who uses his page to post opinion pieces from the NY Times. (Get a blog!) But I forgot.
One of my friends is a conservative. Well, not a conservative, but a Limbaugh spouting parrot, as exampled by his comment:

Hope and Change, Yes we Can I was inspired, and it proved I'm not racist

Of course, I know that not to be true, having been a friend of his for sometime now. I didn't respond, because, really, there was nothing to respond to. A day later, he posted another comment:

Just giving ya a hard time, looks like a regular from Snug

(a place we used to work together)
Still, no response from me, as I felt no response was necessary. All in good fun, he tried to bait me, and was unsuccessful. In the meantime, another friend posted a comment:

Oh, yeah. I'm looking for the joke with a microscope, missing my sense of humor.

Still, no reason to respond. Then, for some reason, last night, the first friend posted two more comments:

wow, sorry, lets get back to dogging bush.

and

can't wait for the new taxes, we'll finally get all those evil rich people

Now, he's fully OT, and so, I felt the need to respond in the same spirit as my friend:

I had to go back and check, but yeah, I don't think I dogged Bush at all in that link. Nor do I believe I mentioned anything about taxing those evil rich people. I merely pointed out how conservatives sense of humor isn't very funny at all, just a little racist and/or macabre.
I mean, how stupid are conservatives? They don't want to spend any money to help those people who have no health insurance, but don't seem to have a problem socializing our defense department and spending billions of dollars in Iraq fighting a war against a country that posed no real threat to the US, had no links to al Qaeda, and wasn't involved in 9/11, all for the benefit of a few, dare I say it, evil rich people.
But that's okay. Just keep listening to Rush Limpballs and parroting his talking points, waving your flag and driving your gas sucking pig of a car. Maybe in 2012 you can vote
for Palin, and maybe she'll stick the job out this time.

That was this morning, and now I find that I have been deleted as his friend. Did I go over the line? I don't think so, I was merely responding to his taunts and baiting which were OT. We've always had a difference of opinion when it came to politics, but could agree on most everything else. While I did vote for Obama, I'm sure, being the astute political type he is, he would notice that there is no difference in foreign policy between Bush and Obama, which means we're both suckers for the corpocracy.
Or, maybe, I should just let it go.

If You Don't Want Be Called An Asshole..........Don't Act Like One

The British Parliament is considering passing a law to make it a criminal act to call Jews Nazis. Just because Israel walled up Palestinians in the equivalent of a ghetto and have been systematically eliminating them through military force and siege like behavior doesn't make them Nazis, it just means they learned from the Nazis. But, in the effort of fairness, and to not give one group extra rights over everyone else, perhaps it should be criminal to call some one an anti-Semite when they publish a piece are critical of anything short of the Jewish religion itself.
But why stop with just Zionists? Why not criminalize any comparison to the Nazis? The left would no longer be able to refer to the GOP as the "Reich Wing", and Limbaugh and all his mindless shittohead followers would be forbidden to use the term 'feminazi'. This might even elevate political discourse on the net and eliminate Godwin's Law.

The US Plans To Attack Another Nation That Had Nothing To Do With 9/11 In It's Continuation Of The Alleged War On Terror

Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which guarantees it the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It also requires Iran to open up it's process to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which it has done, and fully co-operated with in it's performance of it's job. The IAEA has found that not one grain of the uranium Iran has enriched has been diverted to any other program. The US has also signed the same treaty, which requires that the US not interfere with any country developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
So why has the G-8 set a deadline for Iran to accept negotiations over its nuclear ambitions or else face tougher sanctions? Is it because Iran is ruled by a bunch of thugs who murder foreign leaders? Oh wait, that's the United States. Has Iran threatened any body in the world with military action? Once again, that's the US which has shown that the Obama administration is no different than the Cheney/Bush regime when it comes to sending troops to die for big oil.
Now Israel has stepped into this as well, promising the international community to offer concessions on the formation of a Palestinian state as well as on its settlement policy and "issues" with Arab neighbors, in exchange for international backing for an Israeli operation in Iran.As a matter of fact two Israeli warships sailed through the Suez Canal within cruise-missile range of Iran earlier this week. Couple that with the Israeli Air Force joining the USAF in a training exercise, and you can almost hear the bombs falling on Tehran as Us media types report on the damage while computer generated flags wave in the background as stirring pseudo-patriotic music plays. Why watch Michael Jackson get burned when you can watch Iranian women, children and men get bombed?

Conservatives Are Funny People, It's Just That You're Not In On The Joke

Oh, those poor misunderstood conservatives. It's not that they're not funny, it's just that nobody "gets" their sense of humor, with the exception, of course, of other conservatives.
Take the wonderfully open minded folks at the Free Republic. Please. When some comments there made comments about Malia Obama looking like a "street whore", it was a joke made out of fear that soon, their daughters, like President Obama's, will be forced to dress like a common street trollop instead of the high-class hookers they want them to dress like. And asking them to apologize for it would be liking David Letterman to apologize for any inappropriate jokes he may have made about Sarah Palin's daughter. Except people actually watch David Letterman. I don't know anybody who would admit to visiting the Free Republic, except to catch updates on the homosexualagenda.
Even funnier is Pat Buchanan, dear old Uncle Pat to some people, which is why I don't understand why no one got his joke about how Todd Palin "ought to take Levi down to the creek and hold his head underwater until the thrashing stops.” Such wit and wordplay going on there! Levi, is of course, Levi Johnston, father to Todd Palin's bastard grandchild, and he made the mistake of actually speaking his mind, which is not funny in conservative circles. And Buchanan, former speechwriter for President Nixon, was probably recalling the good-old-days when political opponents were taken down to the Tidal Basin and drowned on a regular basis.
But by far, the funniest conservative is pro-assassination analyst Wayne Simmons who stated that Dick Cheney would never break the law. Sure, he may commit treason, get drunk and shoot his hunting partner in the face, fabricate intelligence to lead the US into an illegal war, lie about connections between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, and run a top secret assassination squad out of his office, but he would never break the law.
So the next time you hear a conservative reel off a really tasteless statement, just remember, it's just a joke. And don't expect them to apologize for your obvious lack of a sense of humor.
(Cross posted at American Insurgency)

Why Do I Have To Pay For This?

A Review by the government of the warrantless wiretapping declares it of little value in the so-called 'war on terror', but it must have had some value for the Cheney regime. While it held no value in fighting "terrorism", it did help them gather dirt on political opponents. It also helped them plug leaks with regards to the governments involvement in 9/11.
It is perhaps the information gathered by the Cheney regime that keeps him from jail for concealing a secret "counterterrorism" program from congress, probably the executive assassination ring. But, instead of going to jail, what does Cheney get for his criminal actions? Six more months of secret service protection. Security authorities in Dallas, Texas decided to cut back on former President George W. Bush's protection amid increasing costs, and he was the fucking president. So once again, the Cheney regime has gotten a pass from the Obama administration. Makes me wonder what kind of information they have on Barack?

Two Wars We're Not Fighting

Does anybody remember the war on drugs? You know, the multi-billion dollar enterprise started during the Reagan administration to rid the world of the scourge of drug use. We passed tougher laws, suspended suspects rights, all in the name of protecting our children from the very evil and nefarious type who would push their dope upon them. Same with the war on terror. How's that working out?
Not too good. It seems that Hamid Karzai, US puppet "president" of Afghanistan pardoned five heroin traffickers, and his brother has been linked by the US military to Afghan drug lords. Meanwhile, prisons here in the US are filled with pot smokers, who might buy Grateful Dead recordings, tie dye perfectly good white tee shirts, and grow hideously unsanitary dread locks. Why are they locked away? Well, we're told that some of that drug money goes to fund terrorism.
And what exactly is terrorism? The calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious. So when Newt Gingrich proposes US sabotage against Iran's oil and gas infrastructure, that qualifies as terrorism. Except that the money for this proposed act isn't filtered through pot smokers. No, this comes directly from the US taxpayer.
Imagine you're working at one of Iran's many gas and/or oil structures, not really liking your job, or your government for that matter, but hey, that's capitalism. Suddenly, through no fault of your own, your body and limbs are rendered from each other and you find that the promise of paradise wasn't for real. Americans got real pissed when Neda was shot on camera, this is the same thing, except, we're killing in the name of Jesus based capitalism, so that makes it OK.

A World Class Memorial In A Third World State

"We are asking fans of Michael Jackson to help contribute to a world-class memorial for a world-class superstar by helping contribute to keeping this place safe."-Matt Szabo, press secretary to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
So who should pay for the spectacle that was Michael Jackson's funeral? The state is broke, it certainly can't afford the extravagance. You can't ask the family to pay for it, they're too busy fighting over his financial legacy.And even though his estate is looking to reap profits from record breaking record sales, don't expect them to contribute anything to this "world class ( somehow, to me, Michael Jackson and class are opposite ends of a spectrum) memorial.
That leaves Jackson's fans, the enablers, the apologists, and the idiots who bought into that whole "King-of-Pop" bullshit and believed that Michael was something more than a gifted singer and dancer and believed he changed the world by making pop music videos, dressing in pseudo-militaristic garb, and mutilating his face beyond recognition.
It is said that Michael Jackson bridged a gap in our culture between black and white, and in the end, it was his wealthy celebrity friends who got to participate in this "world class memorial" with out contributing a dime. But by asking his relatively pauper fans to foot the bill, the state of California has crossed the line.

Hypocrisy As Official Policy

As I round the corner into my fifth year here (Five years? It seems like twenty)one of the things that has really grated my cheese has been hypocrisy. I know that everybody has a bit of it in themselves, it's only human. But when it becomes official policy, that's a different story.
Glenn Greenwald has a piece about how that bastion of all things media, the official paper of record won't use the term torture when describing US 'enhanced interrogation techniques'. However, in an article about Iran's use of torture to extract confessions about those attempting to topple that brutal theocracy under a 'velvet revolution', what term do they use for techniques milder than what we ourselves (well, not really us, just the people who have forgotten who they work for, our government)? Torture! And politicians and publishers wonder why newspaper circulation is dwindling. Maybe it's because the NYT has hypocrisy as an official editorial policy that has caused people to throw their collective hands in the air and say "They expect me to pay for this shit?"
One of the many changes not brought forth by the people who promised you lotta change is the official government policy of hypocrisy. Joe Biden, today on one of them Sunday mornin', nobody watchin' did-he-really-say-that talk shows:

the U.S. "cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do."

What he meant was that although the US can tell Iran to abandon it's nuclear power program, it cannot tell Israel not to attack Iran because of Israel's paranoia about Iran's alleged atomic weapons program. And, I'm fairly sure, that after Israel attacks Iran, the Us will probably tell Russia and China, who trade regularly with Iran, not to retaliate against Iran.

The Campaign Begins Today

...we can ALL learn from our selfless Troops... they're bold, they don't give up....-Sarah Palin (from the SarahPAC website)
This land, blessed with clean air, water, wildlife, minerals, AND oil and gas. It's energy! God gave us energy.
Much speculation has been raised about yesterday's sudden announcement by Sarah Palin that she is stepping down from her job as governor of the State of Alaska with a year and a half yet to go on her term of office. Some say there's a scandal looming, others offer more spurious explanations.
it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out.
But between the lines of her SarahPAC post, she indicates that, although she is quitting, she is not a quitter.
I'll work for and campaign(emphasis mine) for those PROUD to be American, and those who are INSPIRED by our ideals and won't deride them.
Yes, the Palin campaign for the Republican party's nomination has begun in earnest! No more being stuck way up there in Alaska, far from the national forum on issues and stuff, not having to answer to voters will allow Sarah to be Sarah. And, I know what you're thinking: won't quitting her job when the going gets tough make her look, well, like a quitter? That depends on who she's trying to woo.
The world needs more "Trigs", not fewer.
Yes, she is out to appeal to the retards, the Tea Baggers, and those people who believe that shooting moose and abortionists is not only a God given right, but a patriotic move as well.
I thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks... travel around the state, to the Lower 48 (maybe), overseas on international trade... So you see, rather than spend the remainder of her term as governor traveling around and campaigning for the presidency, she's going to quit her post so she can commit to it full time without feeling the guilt of "milking it". And this bold move has been successful so far, like Nirvana, she has succeeded in knocking out Michael Jackson.

Double Standard Time

How long is too long? German doctors today cleared suspected Nazi death camp guard fit to stand trial as an accessory in the murder of 29,000 Jews. John Demjanjuk, a retired autoworker was extradited from his Seven Hills, Ohio home in May of this year to stand trial even though he has bone marrow and kidney diseases.
The great irony here is, if Demjanjuk is guilty of the crimes he is accused of,while he certainly should be punished for them, they happened over sixty years ago. At the same time Obama was sending this 89 year old to trial, he was announcing his intentions not to prosecute anybody for the torture carried out by the Bush/Cheney regime, because, as he said, it was time to move forward.
So we're straight: Demjanjuk, a prison guard who merely followed the policies of the Nazi regime (if, indeed, he is guilty) and did not create the policies, gets prosecuted, even though these events happened in the past?
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, etc., don't get prosecuted for their crimes, even though they are the ones who created the policy that led to illegal acts being carried out, because, even though they happened within the past eight years, it's time to look forward?
So when it comes to war crimes, it's better to create the policy than to carry them out? Would Obama have given Hitler a pass as well?

News Flash:John Bolton Is A Tool

I don't watch much television news. These days it deems reporting every bit of minutia concerning the death of Michael Jackson more important than a US Congress women taken hostage by a foreign nation.
Newspapers are struggling these days, and why not? They are as about as useful as a Republican politician lecturing to us about morals.How trustworthy can a paper that offers access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors for a token fee of $25,000?
Even worse is when the very same paper publishes an opinion piece by neocon tool John Bolton advocating an Israeli strike against Iran. The reasons are both spurious and complete fabrications, starting with Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program, and continuing on with the disputed election results from last month's elections. Never mind that such an action would be illegal under international law, Bolton (and Israel) have no use for international law, except when it serves their purpose.
As for that whole "democracy" thing, when Hamas won the majority of seats in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council, the US, (as part of the Quartet on the Middle East) voted to cut funding to the PLC. There you go, that's what you fucking get for exercising freedom of choice.
So if the newspapers are struggling, maybe they should focus less on Michael Jackson (that's why we have supermarket tabloids) and focus less on propaganda for that next big war. However, online newspapers do provide good links for bloggers, and I will continue to link to them even if some crazy judge thinks the practice should be banned to save newspapers.

Chances Are That If You Are Reading This, You're a Political Extremist Dickweed

Or maybe it's just me. Maybe you're the political extremist, and I'm the digital dickweed.
Whatever we're doing, we're pissing off the corporate media because we lack the legitimacy of capital earned by fellating corporate sponsors and favored political hacks.
Now just to be sure, the CEO of News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, home to the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly, call us political extremists? I guess a political extremist is anyone to the left of Adolph Hitler. But it doesn't end there. No, John Hartigan suggests that bloggers be jailed as they are in oppressive police states like China and Burma. Because freedom of the press should only be available to those whom would use it to try and shape the agenda for an illegal war (while still maintaining that whole "fair and balanced" facade).
Less serious is the charge from CNBC host Dennis Kneale, who responded to bloggers who have called him "unwatchable", among other things, by referring to them as "dickweeds". Hey, I may be a dick weed, but at least I still have my soul.
Which is more than I can say about anybody working for the corporate media.