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.

The Two Tiered Justice System Works Again (But Only For Those On The Top)

This is what America has become. Bill Clinton commits perjury while president of the US, and leaves office to make millions of dollars; you get in a fight with your boss and get tasered to death by police officers. While Exxon still refuses to pay damages for destroying the Alaskan shoreline, the federal government gang up on Ed and Sylvia Brown for refusing to pay taxes. The system is not for you and I, we merely work the long hours to fund a system that is rigged against us.
Such is the case with Rush Limbaugh. Already caught, doctor shopping to feed his oxycodone addiction, smuggling drugs with a false prescription Rush keeps adding to his list of crimes. Last month, we ran this story about Rush's conspiracy to commit vote fraud, now it seems he wants to add inciting a riot at this summer's Democratic Party convention in Denver to the list of criminal charges he will never be prosecuted for. Rush claims he wasn't trying to start trouble but...........

".....riots in Denver, at the Democratic Convention will see to it we don't elect Democrats. And that's the best damn thing that can happen to this country, as far as I can think," Limbaugh said.

Sure he has the right to free speech, just make sure that if he's in the same movie theater as you that you're seated close to an exit in case this lout decides to yell fire.

Let Them Eat War

America is a nation of suckers. We all are. Every morning millions of us arise, go to work, purchase items and pay our taxes for what we consider to be the best government on the planet. Every two years, we vote on people who will lead our country on to glory, and will do what is best for all Americans, regardless of race religion or political affiliation.
Some of us are bigger suckers than other, however. Gullible people who are sucked in because their candidate decides to wear a flag on their lapel, they believe said candidate must be patriotic. These people are Republicans, bizarre occupants of opposite land, where bad is good, slavery is compassion and failures are successes. Fear is freedom to them and all those they fear must be bombed into submission, no matter the cost in dollars or human lives.
Not all Republicans are suckers. The people who lead are very crafty indeed. They don't really care about this country (which, one would think, would qualify them as being unpatriotic)and yet their followers, brainwashed by lapel pins and empty rhetoric, feel that they are truly the most patriotic. But the truth is:Dick Cheney doesn't give a fuck about America.
Confronted with the fact that nearly two thirds of Americans think the war in Iraq was a bad idea.
"So?"
Reaching the milestone of 4000 dead soldiers,
"They volunteered."
Dick Cheney has turned his position as vice-president of this country as not an apparatus for doing good, but merely as a cash machine. Sure, all those Halliburton no-bid contracts were signed before Cheney even ran for VP, but in his position as VP, he has pressed the case for pointless wars that have filled his personal coffers.
But it doesn't end there:(via Information Clearinghouse)

Is Cheney betting on Economic Collapse?

By Mike Whitney

07/04/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Wouldn’t you like to know where Dick Cheney puts his money? Then you’d know whether his “deficits don’t matter” claim is just baloney or not.

Well, as it turns out, Kiplinger Magazine ran an article based on Cheney’s financial disclosure statement and, sure enough, found out that the VP is lying to the American people for the umpteenth time. Deficits do matter and Cheney has invested his money accordingly.

The article is called “Cheney’s betting on bad news” and provides an account of where Cheney has socked away more than $25 million. While the figures may be estimates, the investments are not. According to Tom Blackburn of the Palm Beach Post, Cheney has invested heavily in “a fund that specializes in short-term municipal bonds, a tax-exempt money market fund and an inflation protected securities fund. The first two hold up if interest rates rise with inflation. The third is protected against inflation.”

Cheney has dumped another (estimated) $10 to $25 million in a European bond fund which tells us that he is counting on a steadily weakening dollar. So, while working class Americans are loosing ground to inflation and rising energy costs, Darth Cheney will be enhancing his wealth in “Old Europe”. As Blackburn sagely notes, “Not all ‘bad news’ is bad for everybody.”

This should put to rest once and for all the foolish notion that the “Bush Economic Plan” is anything more than a scam aimed at looting the public till. The whole deal is intended to shift the nation's wealth from one class to another. It’s also clear that Bush-Cheney couldn’t have carried this off without the tacit approval of the thieves at the Federal Reserve who engineered the low-interest rate boondoggle to put the American people to sleep while they picked their pockets.

Reasonable people can dispute that Bush is “intentionally” skewering the dollar with his lavish tax cuts, but how does that explain Cheney’s portfolio?

It doesn’t. And, one thing we can say with metaphysical certainty is that the miserly Cheney would never plunk his money into an investment that wasn’t a sure thing. If Cheney is counting on the dollar tanking and interest rates going up, then, by Gawd, that’s what’ll happen.

The Bush-Cheney team has racked up another $3 trillion in debt in just 6 years. The US national debt now stands at $8.4 trillion dollars while the trade deficit has ballooned to $800 billion nearly 7% of GDP.

This is lunacy. No country, however powerful, can maintain these staggering numbers. The country is in hock up to its neck and has to borrow $2.5 billion per day just to stay above water. Presently, the Fed is expanding the money supply and buying back its own treasuries to hide the hemorrhaging from the public. Its utter madness.

Last month the trade deficit climbed to $70 billion. More importantly, foreign central banks only purchased a meager $47 billion in treasuries to shore up our ravenous appetite for cheap junk from China.

Do the math! They're not investing in America anymore. They are decreasing their stockpiles of dollars. We’re sinking fast and Cheney and his pals are manning the lifeboats while the public is diverted with gay marriage amendments and “American Celebrity”.

The American manufacturing sector has been hollowed out by cutthroat corporations who’ve abandoned their country to make a fast-buck in China or Mexico. The $3 trillion housing (equity) bubble is quickly loosing air while the anemic dollar continues to sag. All the signs indicate that the economy is slowing at the same time that energy prices continue to rise.

It goes on, but what it really means are that the billionaires are looting the country and sticking taxpayers with the bill (Must be the 18% who still approve of Cheney). We're also getting stuck with the check for a war that nobody wants any more. Isn't democracy wonderful?

Elections For Sale

Diversification is the key of any large multi-national corporation. general Electric, which makes home appliances also is a major defense contractor. It also owns NBC The same can be said for Westinghouse, which owns CBS. Gotta put those war bucks somewhere, right? Why not control the information that most Americans receive nightly?
Not to be outdone United Technologies initiated a hostile takeover of Diebold makers of voting machines, which have been found to be easily rigged to throw elections. (Anyone remember 2004, when the then CEO and Bush supporter promised to "deliver Ohio to Bush?) Why waste time feeding propaganda to the masses when you can just rig an election to the guy who promises to throw you the most bones?