Tuesday, April 28, 2009

In The Vernacular...

Seems “The Shit Has Hit The Fan” Concerning Torture As Policy
Because This Is What You “Allowed,” And Denial Is Now Impossible

Patriot 
The Stomach-Turning Truth About Bush's Torture Programs
Torture?  It Probably Killed More Americans Than 9/11
Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?
Demand a Special Prosecutor for Torture - Now.
“We Could Have Done This the Right Way”
Bracing for New Prisoner Abuse Photos
Countdown: Redefining Torture


This Modern World


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A “Below The Fold” Bonus Article...


“How Torture Worked to Sell the Iraq War”

by Steve Weissman via Truthout.org


Three cheers for Dick Cheney.  The former vice president has urged, however rhetorically, that the Obama administration release more of the torture memos.  "One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort," the former vice president told FoxNews.

"I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was."

News reports differ as to whether Mr. Cheney has formally made the request, but he is absolutely right that the American people need to see the complete record.  He is wrong about what the record will show.  From the material already released or ferreted out by journalists, it is clear that he and Mr. Bush succeeded in using torture, not primarily to secure needed intelligence, but to create the propaganda they used to sell their invasion of Iraq.

The evidence comes from a variety of sources, including the report on the military's treatment of detainees, which Sen. Carl Levin's Armed Services Committee has just released.  The report revealed that Pentagon officials began preparing to use torture - or "abusive interrogation techniques" - as early as December 2001.  This was less than two months after the start of the war in Afghanistan and eight months before the Department of Justice gave legal authorization in two memos dated August 1, 2002, and signed by Jay Bybee, then-assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.  The first memo redefined physical and mental torture and suggested that the president, acting pursuant to his constitutional powers as commander-in-chief, could override the federal anti-torture statute.  The second analyzed and approved specific interrogation tactics, including isolation, prolonged sleep deprivation, stress positions and waterboarding, which makes the victim feel that he is drowning.

If not the Justice Department lawyers, who gave the earlier go-ahead? The Senate report puts the onus directly on the decider-in-chief, President George W. Bush.  He issued a written determination on February 7, 2002, "that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban detainees."

Former White House terrorist adviser Richard Clarke has confirmed that Mr. Bush gave an informal go-ahead even earlier.  According to Clarke's account in his book, "Against All Enemies," Bush addressed his national security advisers late on September 11, 2001.  "We are at war and we will stay at war until this is done," Bush told them.  "Any barriers in your way, they're gone."  Later he added in a heated exchange with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass."

The Senate report also pointed the finger at Mr. Cheney and other top officials of the Bush administration.  "Members of the President's Cabinet and other senior officials participated in meetings inside the White House in 2002 and 2003 where specific interrogation techniques were discussed," the committee concluded.  "National Security Council principals reviewed the CIA's interrogation program during that period."

Why so much attention from the top?  McClatchy news has provided the obvious answer.  According to a former senior US intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist, the Bush administration wanted "to find evidence of cooperation between al-Qaeda and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime."

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," said the former official.  "The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11).  But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

In part to get that smoking gun, the CIA waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times and Abu Zubaydah 83 times.  But neither man told the interrogators what Bush and Cheney wanted to hear about Iraq and al-Qaeda.  That came from Ibn al Sheikh al Libi, whom the Bush administration sent to Egypt for what CIA Director George Tenet called "further debriefing."  As PBS Frontline reported back in November 2007, al Libi "confessed" - after being beaten repeatedly and locked in a small box for some 17 hours - that Saddam Hussein had trained al-Qaeda in chemical weapons.  Al Libi later retracted his statement and the CIA later rejected it as reliable intelligence.  But the torture of al Libi worked to sell the war in Iraq, providing the "evidence" that Secretary of State Colin Powell used when he spoke before the United Nations Security Council in February 2003.

"I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these [chemical and biological] weapons to al-Qaeda," Powell asserted.  "Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story."

Torture might not work as well as conventional interrogation to provide sound intelligence, but it certainly worked for Bush and Cheney in exactly the way they most wanted.



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Sunday, April 26, 2009

Best Article Of The Week...

Some Articles Just State Facts, This One Gives Perspective...

“Will Obama Reboot Capitalism Anew?”

by Thom Hartmann via CommonDreams.org


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There is a second article well worth your time - I just finished reading it myself...


The Banality of Bush White House Evil

by Frank Rich via The New York Times Opinion section


Enjoy a little reality-based, not to mention fact-based, truth...


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Thursday, April 23, 2009

Yeah, Right...

The Allowed Theft, And Its Ongoing Allowed Continuence Is Reality.
Because The Corporatist War-profiteers And Banker Thieves Know They’ve “Won.”

  -  “Thievery Under the TARP”
      The looting has been done, the only thing you can stop is the contin-
      ued allowing of the continuing theft transfer, and you can’t possibly
      pretend to say we weren’t warned.

  -  BoA was Pressured to Complete Merger With Merrill Lynch
      The Federal Reserve is a private corporation, not a part of the U.S.
      government.  And Merrill Lynch?  You do remember this - right?

  -  Obama And The Big Dogs...
      The big dogs of banking and finance are playing a rough game...
 Your Right

“As long as the greatest crime of the 21st century remains unprosecuted,
we all...  can only blame ourselves, and deserve our collective fates.”


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A“Below The Fold” bonus Article - Speaking of damage already done...  That you did allow...

EFCA Setbacks: A Familiar Story of Corporate Power vs. The Middle Class

by Amy Traub, via DMI Blog, April 23, 2009


The Employee Free Choice Act is key to rebuilding the American middle classnews of Senators wavering in their support for the bill revalidates a key truth about Congress: the main stumbling block to strengthening and expanding the middle class is corporate power.

The same pattern emerges every year on TheMiddleClass.org.  Throughout the year, DMI uses the site to share analysis about the impact of Congressional legislation on Americans’ ability to gain – and hold onto – a middle-class standard of living.  Once a year, we take a step back and look at the big picture.  It often looks depressingly familiar: fiscal conservatives notwithstanding, Congress does fairly well when it comes to measures that simply involve spending more, but falls short – often far short – when powerful corporate interests clash with the wellbeing of the nation’s current and aspiring middle class.

In 2008, for example, Congress stood up for the middle-class on issues like providing more funds to higher education and passing a consumer safety bill that’s even been endorsed by the industry its regulating.  Virtually all Democrats voted for these bills, and most Republicans as well. Similarly in 2007, college aid did well and majorities from both parties in the House voted for common sense contracting reforms.

But Congressional support for middle-class Americans falls off precipitously as soon as major corporate interests are at stake.

In 2007, the Peru trade bill was the skunk at the garden party, provoking 64 percent of Senate Democrats and 48 percent of House Democrats (along with nearly every Republican) to vote for multinational corporations and large investors at the expense of their middle-class constituents.  Last year, it was a willingness to put banks before struggling homeowners, telecommunications companies before consumers, and those @%$& banks again before taxpayers.  These weren’t the only policy disappointments of the year for middle-class Americans, but they were the main cases where significant numbers of Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in selling out the middle class.

This year, I fear Thomas Frank is right when he predicts the same fate for EFCA. Sure, Congress will approve health coverage for low-income kids (an important boost for aspiring middle-class families in its own right) but when it comes to standing up for middle-class Americans against a full-scale corporate lobbying campaign, Congress may not have the guts.  That's terrible news for the middle class.


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Once Again, R-I-G-H-T...

Ahh...  Reality...  Ain’t It A Bitch?
Because Reality Has Been Smacking Us All Around For Some Time Now.

Read 
The Truth About Consequences ... And Accountability Moments
RFK Jr. Blasts Obama as 'Indentured Servant' to Coal Industry
Declassified Report: Bush Admin Solicited Torture ‘Wish List’
Purposefully Stiring up Violent Right-Wing Militants?
The Barbary Wars, Continued
Torturers Should Be Punished
We Don't Torture


Quotes of the Day


“Good Germans Americans who were only following orders”
are not exempt from the bar of justice.

“The world is a terrible place not because of the bad things that happen
but because of the good people who stand by and do nothing” -- Albert Einstein

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A “Below The Fold” Bonus Article...

The Gospel According To Fox News
by Deepak Chopra | April 22, 2009


It’s mysterious how swiftly a society can collectively change its mind.  As rapidly as the financial markets crashed, so has Fox News's credibility.  What was gospel to an entire segment of voters and viewers just a few months ago has become a desperate flapping in the wind.  Some may view this as part of the swing cycle that politics is heir to.  But from the Reagan era forward, certain truths were held to be self-evident, and far from inventing anything, Fox News simply put the high gloss of mass media on them.

If you tune in to Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, or the network’s humbler toilers in the vineyard, their tactics haven’t changed.  They must be shocked to find themselves stranded, all the more because it seemed to happen overnight.

In the spirit of Emerson’s dictum that evil is the absence of good, it’s worth recalling where good was absent just a year ago.  Here are the working beliefs of the Fox News credo.

Article 1: The worst aspects of human nature are actually cherished freedoms.
This is Fox News’s main rallying cry.  Hating minorities, despising gays, ridiculing women’s rights, and slandering the ACLU all fall under the rubric of precious liberties.

Article 2: God loves gun owners.
Fox News rabidly seizes the high ground when it comes to law and order, an issue that is seen primarily as a loaded gun under every pillow and a triple-bolted front door.

Article 3: Patriotism is the last refuge of ratings wars.
Here the old axiom that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels has been updated (but by no means abandoned).  Every Fox News commentator earns his battle scars by wrapping himself in the bloody flag, without ever personally endangering his own skin, of course.

Article 4: Ideology is way better than thinking.
Pre-chewed ideas are more easily digested than actual thinking.  But ideology goes one better by answering every doubt in advance.  Thus Fox News is never in doubt.  Truth is as automatic as a gum ball machine.

Article 5: The mind’s primary use is for bellowing.
I advise any prospective guest on Fox News to demand that there be no shouting.  This immediately decouples the mind of O’Reilly and Hannity.  Their most basic assumption is that any guest, once shouted down, has lost the debate.  (I tested this gambit out personally and can vouch for its effectiveness.)

Article 6: Shamelessness is next to godliness.
In other words, you can sin at leisure as long as you keep pointing out other people’s sins.  Long a tactic enshrined in the Book of Hypocrisy, Fox News has turned holier-than-thou into a moneymaker.

Article 7: Don’t bother me with the facts.  My mind is already closed.
This is really just a corollary to the belief in ideology, but it deserves its own chapter and verse because of the ironical light it casts on the Fox News logo, “Fair and balanced.”

Article 8: The little guy is always mad.
On the whole, Fox News tries to make the little guy feel that he is always right and those pointy-headed educated elitists always wrong.  But sometimes the little guy proves tricky, as when he doesn’t like Republican deficits and foreign wars.  Luckily, Fox News always has a fallback -- the little guy is always blistered about something, and a little kerosene is a marvelous accelerant, as they say in arson investigations.

Article 9: “They” are about to get you -- watch out!
The bulk of Fox News’s sanctimony rests on its pledge to look out for everyday working Joes.  Since there is no record of the network actually protecting something realistic like clean air, freedom from assault weapons, and safety in the workplace, what is really being safeguarded is the right to be freaking paranoid every minute of the day.

Article 10: If I just said it, it must be right.
Here, as in several other places, Fox News is indistinguishable from a drunken frat party where not only is bellowing a sign of intelligence, but never backing down, however cockeyed your last statement may be, shows that you are a man.

I am not a communicant in this particular creed, so I’m sure I’ve left out some key passages in the gospel.  For full knowledge one would have to delve deep into the Old Testament of Fox News (i.e., the minutes of the John Birch Society 1958-date).  Daily viewing will keep one abreast of new anathemas (i.e., socialism) and potential saviors (Sarah Palin).  Or you could take the easy way out and celebrate the waning of Fox News’s belief system and the cleaner air left behind.

[ Above title is a direct link to the Article. ]



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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Okay...

Let Me Try And Get This Straight, Just So I Can Understand...
by The Old Hippie Because I Thought Seeing Truth Would Help, Obviously Not.


Hacker
{-The Way Many Picture Me-}
 

You knew they lied our nation into war, and you allowed it.  You knew they tortured human beings, some just children, and some even died under the torture, openly admitted to by the Pentagon, and you allowed it.  You knew the wealth transfer was going on, you knew it was nothing more than theft, and you allowed it.  You knew they spied illegally on Americans, and you allowed it.  You knew they purposefully heavily damaged the Constitution, because it was in the way of their profiteering, and you allowed it.  You knew they created "free-speech" zones for single purpose of diminishing free-speech, and you allowed it.  You knew they openly consolidated the media down to just five corporations to control free flow of knowledge to the people, to diminish the peoples acceptance of their right to know, and you allowed it.

But the worst part of all?  You know you are still allowing them to do it all, and you know you are going to allow them to go unpunished for their crimes.  How do I know this?  Simple, you know you have allowed the worst case scenario of our nation being destroyed from within, without a whimper - Without real protests - Without revolt.  The proof of this is the fact that President Obama made it clear when he said there would be no investigations, no punishment - And you did not hit the streets in even the weakest of protests, or revolt.

So, to summarize...  You know you knew.  You know you allowed it all.  You know it is still going on.  And you know you still haven't done a single thing 'real' about it.

Okay, I think that about covers it - Right?

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The following is reprised, because not much has really changed as far as the ongoing denial
of the insane “allowing” of the theft by the-very-few is concerned...

It, the insanity, of the “allowing,” is getting worse, in fact it is much worse already.

Go look at all of the MSM’s headlines, at their websites, then compare what you see there with the reality as rationally reported by reality based independent news sites.

If that simple comparison doesn’t open ones closed eyes of denial, nothing will.

To help you remain sane, and not too deeply depressed, you should end your “session of reality” by stopping in at some of the better editorial humorists’ websites - It couldn’t hurt.

That is my main personal method of doing research for this blog - Check in with the right and the right’s insane, then study as much of the reality-based news sites as possible, then check in with the humorists.  I then sleep on it, do it again, and then post what I have learned, observed, or was stunned by, to first, share it, and second, to get it off my chest so that I can remain sane myself.  All the while, trying my best to keep a reality-based perspective in these historically insane times.


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Friday, April 17, 2009

Speaks To The True Danger...

If You Still Don't Get The Danger Of “Allowed” To Evade Punishment.
by MSNBC, via Crooks and Liars


[ A Windows Media video, right-click for Zoom, etc. controls.  Original Here. ]

















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If this “Special Comment” does not speak for you, then why are you here?


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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Your Moment Of Zen...

For Obvious Political Reasons...



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I do hope it brought a smile.

Especially since the teabagging parties, brought to you by the GOP & FOX, had to do with nothing more than convincing the arrogantly ignorant that "they" where/are protesting the raising of the taxes on themselves.  Which, (as anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention at all well knows,) is actually raising the taxes of the rich, and lowering the taxes of the middle-class and poor of this nation, so... They, the GOP & FOX, are making "the people," (the easily manipulated arrogantly ignorant,) protest what is good for themselves, and bad for the rich - Well maybe "bad" is the wrong word, maybe "fairer" - As in fairer taxation of the rich.

But that is a concept that the arrogantly ignorant can't seem to grasp.  As they have well proven, particularly over these past eight years, by continuing to "patriotically" not only allow, but even support, their own self-destruction, to the profit of those, "the-very-few," that are in truth destroying their lives and livelihoods through the greatest theft in history, the ongoing wealth-transfer within this nation.

As illogical and insane as that sounds, that is exactly what is happening, and it is effecting, and affecting, many more peoples' lives than just the arrogantly ignorant in it wake.



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Sunday, April 12, 2009

Let’s See. . .

Just How Insane Your Denial, And “Allowing,” Has Gotten?
by The Old Hippie Because I Thought Seeing Truth Would Help, Obviously Not.


Hacker
{-The Way Many Picture Me-}
 

Domestically Obama is doing all the “right” things to calm the majority of the masses, returning to taxing the rich, rather than the just the middle-class, (what’s left of it,) and poor, and environmentally he has begun making the “right” moves to try and repair and/or mitigate much of the damage of the last eight years of the profits-over-even-life polices of the corporatists, that were openly “allowed” to be protected by Bush/Cheney.  But with “our” foreign policy?  At least he’s actually going after the real enemy, rather than a nation that never attacked us, nor was of any threat to us... but outside of that one “right” aspect, Obama’s foreign policy is identical to the Bush/Cheney mime of “imperial presidential power.”  The old “Keep 'em happy at home, but do “what’s needed” to the rest of 'em.”  Which has always worked in the past.

Also there is this one very disturbing fact...  Obama’s administration seems to be in the process of actually protecting the bankers/Wall Street thieves - Why?  This is not only dangerous, it is also unquestionably questionable - Right?  It simply makes no sense.  The thieves do not, in any way, deserve any protection from “us.”  But, of course, they will continue to be...  If you “allow” it.

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The following is reprised, because not much has really changed as far as the ongoing denial
of the insane “allowing” of the theft by the-very-few is concerned...

It, the insanity of the “allowing,” is getting worse, much worse.

Go look at all of the MSM’s headlines, at their websites, then compare what you see there with the reality as rationally reported by reality based independent news sites.

If that simple comparison doesn’t open ones closed eyes of denial, nothing will.

To help you remain sane, and not too deeply depressed, you should end your “session of reality” by stopping in at some of the better editorial humorists’ websites - It couldn’t hurt.

That is my main personal method of doing research for this blog - Check in with the right and the right’s insane, then study as much of the reality-based news sites as possible, then check in with the humorists.  I then sleep on it, do it again, and then post what I have learned, observed, or was stunned by, to first, share it, and second, to get it off my chest so that I can remain sane myself.  All the while, trying my best to keep a reality-based perspective in these historically insane times.


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Saturday, April 11, 2009

And Even More, R-I-G-H-T...

Ahh...  Reality...  Ain’t It A Bitch?
Because It’s Beginning To Smack Many Of Us Around.

Read 
Go Back To Taxing The Rich?!?  The GOP & FOX Will Teabag Ya!
It’s No Longer Possible To Mince Words, Or Pretend We Didn't...
Magically Picking Your Pockets To Pay Off Some Of The Richest.
Water Crisis Rocks LA, Mexico City;  Who's Next?
Changing The Rules Of The Blame Game
Living Large And In Charge
Making Banking Boring


Quote of the Day
by Clay Bennett

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A “Below The Fold” Bonus Article...

Is Inciting Sedition The Latest Republican Strategy?
by Stephen Rose | April 10, 2009


Back in June of 2008 I wrote a blog entitled, “Surround Barack Obama With Protective Energy.”  Most of the over 2000 readers “got” the point, the need to protect by any means a man who, by his very nature, would incite many against him.  After all, he was half Black, and his liberal-leaning ideas would most assuredly seem threatening to many within the economic “Establishment” and, by definition, the right wing.  Little did I know at the time just how important the need for protection might become.

I didn’t realize the extent of the forces that would align against him no matter what he said or actually did.  I didn’t know the Republican Party would so viciously and systematically go after Obama simply because he won the election.  I didn’t as yet understand how pathologically desperate the right wing is to be “right,” nor did I know how firmly and totally they embrace the ideology that there are only two kinds of people in the world, those with them and those against them, basically those who are them, and those who are not!

And why is the right wing so offended?  The Republicans deserved to lose the presidential and congressional elections.  After eight disastrous years of pushing their own agenda under the “leadership” of the Bush Administration and its congressional enablers, they left the nation in tatters.  The voters at least got it! -- Ah denial.

A fairly reasonable person might have guessed that the Republicans would regroup, lick their wounds, and at least make a show of working with the new Administration to get the nation and citizens back on their feet, if for no other reason than to make the errors of the past eight years seem less egregious and blameful.  One would also expect that the Republicans would honor a period of transition in which the new administration would be dealing with a most difficult situation, one that they had no solutions for themselves.

Instead, their strategy is immediate lie-fabrication and fact-distortion while creating an atmosphere of “imagined” mistakes way before the effectiveness of policies can be measured.  Are they attempting to incite many of the most unstable and paranoid people in our society to sedition?!?

Rush Limbaugh says he wants Obama to fail, an idea mimicked by other right wing mouthpieces.  Ostensibly, says Limbaugh, this is because Obama is a socialist and will turn the nation into a socialist society.  Apparently Limbaugh, his mimickers, and dittoheads don’t understand true socialism, but it’s always a great right wing talking point, along with “no new taxes.”  (The fact that both Reagan and Bush Sr. raised taxes because they had no alternatives just ain’t important.)  The right wing never met an “ism” they didn’t love to use against their opposition.  True meaning is irrelevant.  They only care about some label they can turn into a rallying cry for those Limbaugh often refers to as individual thinkers (cough); the same “group” that follow his every word like he is the gospel.  Does dittohead really sound indivualistic? -- talk about oxymorons!

Meanwhile, as that loony congresswoman from Minnesota, Michelle Bachmann, warns that many in Congress (liberals of course) hate America, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) “…Makes List Of 17 Socialists In Congress.”  This is somewhat reminiscent of Joseph McCarthy and fictional character Senator John Yerkes Iselin, in the original movie “The Manchurian Candidate;” both scammed a Communist witch hunt in the Congress.

In summary, we have many on the right hoping Obama fails, ergo the nation, representatives in Congress accusing other members of Congress of hating America and/or being socialists, and right wing talk show hosts like Sean Hannity and Glen Beck telling their viewers and listeners 24/7 to “take their country back.”  In addition, the minority and obstructionist “Party of No” in Congress is literally and figuratively saying no to any and all legislation put forth by the majority party just elected by the people of America and charged with the recovery of the nation.

Countless right wing politicians and pundits of all sorts are busy decrying, ad nauseam, that our nation is under serious attack, our liberties are endangered, and the First and Second Amendments are threatened.  They are purposely doing this at a time when all too many people are already feeling vulnerable and insecure.  Many Americans are presently under grave stress, fearful for their families and futures and perhaps more susceptible to manipulation by fear mongers disguised as people who care, but who, in reality, are more interested in themselves, their money and power.  We are told that corporations, yes the same ones requiring and requesting multi-billion dollar bailouts because they admittedly screwed up so terribly badly, are in danger of losing their sovereignty while socialists and America haters abound.  In short, according to the right wing, the American way of life faces the worst threat in its history.

And who is attacking us?  “The terrorists?” The “Axis of Evil?”  Lord Voldemort?  Sauron?  Extraterrestrials?  No -- nothing nearly so mundane.  The real threat, of course, is Barack Obama and the dreaded liberals in government.  What do the voters know?  Those delusional souls claiming to know better are the same people who brought us a disaster called the (Neoconservative) government between 2000 and 2008.  Guess who?

Hell, the editor of my local newspaper, The Paradise Post, recently authored and published a column entitled, “Freedom’s death march.”  The first paragraph will give you the gist of the anger/fear-inciting article: “The President of the United States has done a fine job in less than three months of dismantling economic freedom, firing CEOs of private corporations, threatening to send goon squads to those same CEO’s (sic) and attacking his own country from abroad.”  I love the “less than three months” part.  It’s key to the bogus nature of the present right wing attack on the Administration, the fact that Obama has not been president nearly long enough to judge the merits or results of the direction towards which he is headed.

What matters is that this article is by no means atypical of the kind of paranoid disinformation and fear mongering being spread all around the land by the same sore losers and whiners who enabled the crippling of the nation in the first place.  They had no solutions then, and have none now, but that doesn’t stop them from unmercifully attacking the new president who is forced to attempt new and drastic measures while approaching problems he inherited from them.  Now, instead of giving the new Administration the time and support to turn things around, they seem Hell bent instead on encouraging its failure by any means available.

Where is the line drawn between the exercise of Free Speech, the right and need to criticize, and the actual inciting of some sort of insurrection?  Desperately hoping for the failure of the president before he has even created dust motes in the White House, passive-aggressively perpetuating questions about whether or not he is a Muslim (whilst we are engaged in two wars against Muslim radicals) or even a natural born American, and encouraging audiences of tens of thousands to (somehow?) “take their country back” are collectively borderline at best.

Have we learned nothing of the dire consequences of driving people to emotional stress by spreading lies intended to make them fear the loss of the rights/things they hold dear, and usually in the pursuit of political advantage or economic profits?  One example might be the ongoing right wing mantra, no doubt encouraged by the NRA, that liberals want to ban the Second Amendment guaranteeing Americans the right to bear arms.  Though I’ve heard arguments for re-instating the expired ban on assault rifles, I’m not aware of anyone proposing legislation that would ban the Second Amendment or take away peoples’ guns.  The fact that the state of the art weapon at the time this Amendment was drafted was a single shot musket, not rifles shooting hundreds of bullets per minute, seems non sequitur to those making a case for putting assault rifles in the hands of everyone and everybody who wants them.

Some news sources have recently alleged that Richard Poplawski, 23, who recently killed three police officers in Pittsburgh, PA, might have been motivated by fears that the present government intended to ban the right to bear arms in America.  According to an article entitled, “Pittsburgh Cop-Killer Reportedly Feared Gun Ban,” ‘Poplawski had feared “the Obama gun ban that's on the way” and “didn't like our rights being infringed upon,” said Edward Perkovic, his best friend,” and, ‘Another longtime friend, Aaron Vire, said Poplawski feared that President Barack Obama was going to take away his rights, though he said he “wasn’t violently against Obama.”’

Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines sedition as “incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.”  Incessantly telling anyone who will listen that the Congress is full of people hating America, and otherwise purposely creating an attitudinal climate that coaxes people into believing America is on "Freedom's death march,” that rights will be unjustly banned, and that they should hope the government fails, all the while telling them they are threatened by their own government in ways that warrant them to “take their country back” is not only dangerously irresponsible, but should have consequences.

Sending these messages into the airways 24/7 with the desire to destroy an administration newly in office and not yet guilty in any way of harming the nation (unlike the previous administration), has little to do with Free Speech.  Does it instead have everything to do with unjustly inciting open rebellion of “some sort,” and at a time when the nation is already seriously hobbled by the “real” mismanagement of government over the past eight years?  The next elections are two and four years off.  The present Republican strategy seems more focused on immediacy.  It doesn’t appear to me to be aimed at gathering strength before those elections occur so much as to actively promote some sort of extreme visceral, emotional and ultimately physical reaction before those elections.  We have all painfully learned that the nation has no shortage of angry, fearful and violent people on a short fuse; we know exactly to whom this sort of skullduggery is aimed.

_______
"He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."

[ Above title is a direct link to the Article. ]



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Friday, April 10, 2009

R-I-G-H-T...

Ahh...  Reality...  Ain’t It A Bitch?
Because This Is What You “Allowed,” And What You Are Still “Allowing.”

Patriot 
Military Budget Surpasses Bush-era Spending By $21 Billion
The Rise of Glenn Beck's Bizarre [Dangerous] Media Militia
Where Did the Worst of Bush's Cronies Go? [To The MSM]
Obama's Top Economic Adviser Is... Highly Compromised
It’s the Global Economy (Stupid) – or Is It?
The Climate Change Lobby Explosion
Revolving Door, Bailout Edition
Terminator Planet


Quote of the Day via The Seminal

The group warning us about the New World Order is actually being led by the people they are supposed to be against.

It seems the Republican Party, after having been abandoned by the Christian Coalition, thought it could go after the Ron Paul supporters by pretending to be “just plain folks.”  Yup, the Forbes and DuPont familiies, Westinghouse, Prudential, Aetna and McDonald Douglass along with thousands of lawyers working for every crooked industry and phony front group in America, all suddenly “libertarians” supporting “the little guy” against big government and the rich.

This was the “dirty tricks” front group Karl Rove used during the campaigns, the ones that pumped out all thsoe [sic] stories we later learned were lies.


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A “Below The Fold” Bonus Article...


“Tough Sanctions”

By David Sirota via OurFuture.org


I read this encouraging rhetorical stance from the G-20 in last week’s AP dispatch:

An estimated $7.3 trillion is stashed in offshore financial centers worldwide by corporations and wealthy individuals seeking to shield their operations and lessen their tax burdens.  Now these havens are under scrutiny like never before.  Leaders of the Group of 20 nations meeting in London warned Thursday that countries refusing to share tax information would face tough sanctions.  Hammered by the financial meltdown, the world’s richest countries say they are serving notice they won’t tolerate shady offshore operations anymore.

There’s just one problem: rather than such tax havens “facing tough sanctions,” we might see a big one - Panama - face the opposite of “sanctions.”" We might see it be rewarded with a coveted corporate-written trade pact from the United States, a G-20 member.

Trade and tax expert Peter Riggs long ago started asking why the United States would liberalize trade with a country that would likely use trade preferences to increase its tax haven business.  Now, as the G-20 says it wants to crack down on tax havens like Panama, we’re going to see if there’s a difference between tough rhetoric and legislative reality.  Should the Obama administration move the Panama Free Trade Agreement forward after participating in the G-20 meetings that resulted in such anti-tax-haven tough talk, it will have a lot of ’splainin to do.

NOTE: Dow Jones reports that Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI), top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, “says one of the major obstacles [to the Panama FTA’s passage] is the fact the country is a haven for companies seeking to avoid paying U.S. tax.”  So congressional opposition to the pact may, in fact, be organizing specifically around this tax-haven issue.



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Wednesday, April 08, 2009

More Reality Links...

I don't Know Why I Keep Thinking Americans Will Wake Up...
by The Old Hippie Because So Many Are Still, Insanely, “Allowing”...

  -  Obama’s Administration Quietly Expands Bush’s Legal Defense of...
      Warrantless Wire tapping.  Filing on Friday, Obama lawyers are claiming they
      are shielded from lawsuits by a ‘sovereign immunity’ clause in the Patriot Act.

  -  Obama Sides With Banks Accused of Racism
      Question: “Wake the fuck up?”  Answer:  “May be too little and too late.”

  -  Gutierrez Pushes Payday Lending Bill Legalizing 391% Interest
      As Brer Rabbit would say, “Please don’t throw me in that briar patch!”
 Read

Global Economic Shock Worse Than Great Depression
[ direct link to full article. ]

Wake The Fuck Up!


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A“Below The Fold” Bonus Article -

Where Is Obama Taking Us?

After the public outrage generated by the AIG bailout and bonus give-a-way, [which was nothing compared to, “This Will Piss You Off”...] a rational human being would think the administration wouldn’t let it happen again, but it has.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the quasi-government mortgage providers, who had two heavy hands in creating the crisis, are now giving themselves bonuses, too.

According to
The Wall Street Journal, 7,600 employees will be getting $210 million in “retention” bonuses [which was nothing compared to, “This Will Piss You Off”...] for their incompetence.  The maximum retention bonus for any individual executive will be $1.5 million.

[ Above title is the direct link to the full article. ]

The - [which was nothing compared to, “This Will Piss You Off”...] - is my input, not the author’s.


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Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Yeah, Right...

As If The Theft And The Damaged Constitution Isn’t A Done Deal.
by The Old Hippie Because As Far As They Are Concerned, The Rest Is Just The Gravy.

  -  “If We Don't Stop The Rapacious Looting...”
      The looting has been done, the only thing you can stop is the contin-
      ued allowing of the continuing theft transfer, and the damage to the
      Constitution, and environment, or do you just not get it yet?

  -  “...the financial industry's "liar's loans” ... ?
      “The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One.”  Fraud is deceit.
      The essence of fraud is, “I create trust in you, and then I betray...”

  -  Obama’s DOJ Embraces BushCo FISA Argument...
      And Takes It Even Further. 
[Wake the fuck up, too little, too late.]
 Your Right

“As long as the greatest crime of the 21st century remains unprosecuted,
we all...  can only blame ourselves, and deserve our collective fates.”


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A“Below The Fold” bonus Article - Speaking of damage already done...  That you did allow...

by Brian Handwerk, for National Geographic News, April 6, 2009

Arctic Has Lost Enough Ice to Cover Texas


“Arctic Ice Got Smaller, Thinner, Younger This Winter”
Turns out there is such a thing as being too young and too thin.

Arctic ice continued its decline this winter, with hardy, thicker old ice increasingly being replaced with quick-to-melt, thinner young ice, according to a new report by NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

This winter’s maximum Arctic sea ice extent was 5.85 million square miles (15,150,000 square kilometers)—about 278,000 square miles (720,000 square kilometers) less than the Arctic average between 1979 and 2000.

“That's a loss about the size of the state of Texas,” said Walter Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.

“We used to have a winter ice maximum about twice the size of the lower 48 United States,” Meier added.

This year’s ice cover was not a record low, but it did continue a dubious streak.  The past six years (2004-09) have seen the least Arctic ice at the time of maximum cover, in winter, since satellite records began in 1979.

Young and Thin

Ice a year or more old—thicker, hardier, and less prone to melting than younger ice—was at an all-time low at the end of this past winter, the new report says.

Ice older than two years once accounted for some 30 to 40 percent of the Arctic’s wintertime cover and made up 25 percent as recently as 2007.

But last year it represented only 14 percent of the maximum.  This year the figure fell to 10 percent.

The team did report one ray of hope.  In winter 2008-09, more new ice (in this case from winter 2007-08) had survived the summer than in years past.

“From a record low last year of 5 percent or less [it was] back where it used to be, in the 10 to 15 percent range,” Meier explained.

But he remains skeptical that enough of the younger ice could survive coming summers to make up for losses of older ice.

“This is not something that can be done in a couple of cold winters.  We’re way below where we used to be, and it would take many years to get back to where we were in the 1980s.”

(Also see “Arctic Ice Isn’t Refreezing in the Winter, Satellites Show.”)

Side Effects

The Arctic’s ice holds enough water to fill both Lake Michigan and Lake Superior.  But since the ice floats atop ocean waters, its loss would not directly raise sea levels.

Even so, vanishing sea ice poses severe hardships to Arctic plants and animals—including humans—that have evolved to coexist with the ice.

The great Arctic melt may also worsen global warming.

In summertime Arctic ice reflects sunlight back into space.  When the ice melts, newly exposed, dark ocean waters absorb that heat, with unpredictable consequences for wind and ocean circulatory systems worldwide.

The New Normal?

The new data are not surprising, said Sheldon Drobot of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

“It’s almost like the new normal is a time frame where we’re setting records or near-records every year,” said Drobot, who was not involved in the research.

Comprehensive Arctic satellite data stretches back some three decades, though some regions near Alaska and Siberia have been otherwise closely monitored since the 1950s.

Data from the rest of the 20th century, and previous centuries, are far less comprehensive.  But scientists do have reports of ice cover from shipping records and other historic documents.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen so much open water,” said Ron Lindsay of the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center.

“It really is unprecedented, what we’ve been seeing, for centuries and maybe thousands of years.”

The new study comes on the heels of a report released last week by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean.

That study used computer modeling and ice-level decline data to predict that most of the Arctic’s summer ice could be gone in 30 years.


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Monday, April 06, 2009

Let’s See. . .

Just How Insane Has Your “Allowing” Gotten?
by The Old Hippie Because I Thought Seeing Truth Would Help, Obviously Not.


Hacker
{-The Way Many Picture Me-}
 

I keep waiting for my nation’s citizens to say “I get it now, they are all dangerous criminal thieves that have raped our wealth and Constitution, and have destroyed the lives of millions, for nothing more than the profiteering “of and by and for” the-very-few.” [apologies to Abe,] and to finally pickup the pitchforks. . .

Even the president openly stated, “Only I stand between you and the pitchforks...” directing the remark to our nation’s enemies-from-within that are the thieves that are destroying our nation - He gets it - Why don’ you?  While I'm asking...  Why the fuck is he protecting them, from us?

When the destruction reaches you, and it will reach you ...

if it hasn’t already, do you really think they’ll let you, and yours, into “Their” protected enclaves?
Or into “Their” hospitals?  Or into “Their” colleges?  I say “Their” ... because you simply can't afford them now, or won't be able to very soon, because you did “allow” them to rip all of your wealth into their very-few-pockets.  In fact...  You.  Are.  Still.  Allowing. . .  Why?  Why?!?

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The following is reprised, because not much has really changed as far as the ongoing denial
of the insane “allowing” of the theft by the-very-few is concerned...

It, the insanity of the “allowing,” is getting worse, much worse.

Go look at all of the MSM’s headlines, at their websites, then compare what you see there with the reality as rationally reported by reality based independent news sites.

If that simple comparison doesn’t open ones closed eyes of denial, nothing will.

To help you remain sane, and not too deeply depressed, you should end your “session of reality” by stopping in at some of the better editorial humorists’ websites - It couldn’t hurt.

That is my main personal method of doing research for this blog - Check in with the right and the right’s insane, then study as much of the reality-based news sites as possible, then check in with the humorists.  I then sleep on it, do it again, and then post what I have learned, observed, or was stunned by, to first, share it, and second, to get it off my chest so that I can remain sane myself.  All the while, trying my best to keep a reality-based perspective in these historically insane times.


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Sunday, April 05, 2009

Thank You Ladies...

It Still Speaks To, And For, Many Us...

The words of three very brave women, words that still reverberate with many of us.



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“...but I’m still waiting...” definitely says it all - Right?


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Saturday, April 04, 2009

R-I-G-H-T...

Ahh...  Reality...  Ain’t It A Bitch?
Because It’s Beginning To Smack Us Around.

Read 

[To Paraphrase:]  Why The Fuck Is Obama Protecting The Bankers?
Has America Finally Gotten Wise to the Media’s Right-Wing Game?
China Hates Us - How Much Longer Will They Back Our Debt?
The Government’s “No Banker Left Behind” Program.
The Crisis of College Affordability
The Times May Be Changing
Saving Obama


Quote of the Day

“If you put a group of Asians on a desert island, they will get together and build a boat.  If you put a group of Americans on a desert island, they will start arguing about property rights.”  --  by Peter Goodchild, via The Crisis Papers


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A “Below The Fold” Bonus -video- Article...


Noam Chomsky: On US Expansion of Afghan Occupation,
the Uses of NATO, and What Obama Should Do in Israel-Palestine


A Democracy Now! video interview with Noam Chomsky, prolific author and Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  As NATO leaders gather for a sixtieth anniversary summit in France, Chomsky says, “The obvious question is, why bother celebrating NATO at all?  In fact, why does it exist?”  Chomsky also analyzes the Obama administration’s escalation of the Afghanistan occupation and reacts to the new Netanyahu government in Israel.


[ Above title is a direct link to the video. ]


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Thursday, April 02, 2009

This Will Piss You Off...

Think The AIG Bonuses Angered You?  Wait ’til You Read This.
Because You Keep Allowing Them Their So Easily Accomplished Theft.


“And This Is The Type Of Stuff The AIG Scandal Was Meant to Hide.”

Patriot 

In its last days as an independent company, Merrill gave performance-based bonuses exclusively to employees earning $300,000 a year or more and holding a rank of vice president or higher, according to their financial statements.  $3.62 billion was handed out to these executives - a sum equal to 36.2 percent of the $10 billion in taxpayer funds that were allocated to Merrill as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) before the bonuses were paid.  [Told you it’d piss you off.  It DID piss you off - Right?]

[ h/t to The Smirking Chimp Blog for the above.  Full original article at Truthout.org linked here. ]

Video Quote of the Day via Crooks and Liars

As their website makes clear, FPI [Foreign Policy Initiative] intends to re-brand and mainstream-ize neoconservatism as a “reasonable” and “moderate” — and of course “serious” — alternative to the rising tide of isolationist sentiment in American politics (the fact that no such tide of isolationist sentiment is rising in American politics is entirely beside the point.)  This strategy was evidenced in the morning’s first panel, as Robert Kagan praised President Obama’s “gutsy and correct decision” on Afghanistan, but warned that “the United States is at a tipping point between desire to maintain extensive engagement in the world, as it has done since World War II, and the temptation to pull back…[Obama] has decided to maintain the commitment.”


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A “Below The Fold” Bonus Article...


Is Obama's Car Czar Plotting to Crush the Auto Unions?

By David Sirota, posted March 1, 2009.
Obama put corporate raider Steve Rattner in charge of overseeing the
auto industry and his “plan” seems to be to crush the autoworkers.

Remember Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall Street?  Specifically, remember how Gekko’s en- tire scheme for the airline industry was based on crushing the blue-collar union that Bud Fox’s dad (Martin Sheen) was part of?  Welcome to a real life version of that story, starring corporate raider Steve Rattner, who President Obama appointed to head the White House team now overseeing the auto industry (and don’t say you weren't warned).

As the Wall Street Journal reports, Rattner’s strategy is to use the government’s leverage to try to specifically crush auto workers and force them to accept even more contract concessions than they’ve already agreed to:

DETROIT -- President Barack Obama’s recovery plan for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC appears to take aim at union retirees, a usually reliable Democratic constituency.  After studying the plight of the companies, the president’s auto task force concluded GM and Chrysler’s survival is dependent on greater concessions from the United Auto Workers union.

The White House has total leverage over the situation because the UAW knows that if the indus- try doesn’t get the loans it needs, it will be forced into bankruptcy court, where judges will shred labor contracts (somehow, AIG bonus contracts are sacrosanct, but union worker contracts can be shredded in a heartbeat).  Indeed, many analysts believe this is the administration’s ultimate goal.

IMHO, The most immoral part of this is the specific targeting of retirees.

As opposed to younger workers, retirees often can’t get another job or go back to work because of obvious physical limitations.  As one retiree said, “What 85-year-old can go out and get another job?”

I'm not saying that the auto industry’s legacy costs are sustainable - not at all.  But I am saying that when you put Gordon Gekko in control of government policy overseeing an industry, you are inevitably going to get a policy that assumes workers are the big problem.  If you had a different kind of team, you may have a policy that says, for instance, we have to create a robust universal health care system before throwing retirees off their existing health care.

Last I checked, we have enough money to create that system just lying around ready to be handed out to Rattner’s Wall Street friends.  Hell, $8 trillion will get us a damn good universal health care system, won’t it?  Yes, it will - but it will also buy a lot of yachts for AIG execs, and when you have Gordon Gekko making public policy yachts come before health care.

David Sirota is a best-selling author whose newest book, "The Uprising," was just released this month. He is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network -- both nonpartisan organizations. His blog is at www.credoaction.com/sirota.

[ Above title is direct link link to the original article. ]


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Wednesday, April 01, 2009

More Reality Links...

It’s April Fools’ Day, But These Articles Are Not Jokes...
by The Old Hippie Because So Many Are Still, Insanely, “Allowing”...

  -  ‘Sore Loser’ Getting A Pass From The Media.  Why Is That?
      But in all this legal rigamarole and hocus pocus they are using, why are the
      media,
[at least the “MSM,”] ignoring this story?  It's unfathomable.

  -  Small Change and the Mendacity of Hope
      One of the fastest betrayals of the Democratic Party base in modern memory.

  -  Why The Blatant,
[Purposeful?,] Bailout Double-Standard?
      Wall Street Bankers As Compared To The U.S. Auto Industry.
 Read

“An Excellent Question”
by Abby Zimet

Conservative attacks are mounting against Dawn Johnsen, President Obama’s progressive nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel, who has blasted Bush-era arguments in defense of torture as “outlandish” and “shockingly flawed.”  But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (Dem.- R.I.) notes that GOP charges of partisanship, given the “long dark days of degradation” of the office, are what Jon Stewart recently, rightfully called “disingenuous at best, and criminal at worst.”

“Now suddenly they come forward with concerns,” he said.  “Where were
you when those incompetent, ideological opinions were being issued?”


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A“Below The Fold” Bonus Video Article -
[ I strongly suggest following the link, and watching the video. ]

Seymour Hersh:  Secret US Forces Carried Out Assassinations in a Dozen Countries

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh created a stir earlier this month when he said the Bush administration ran an “executive assassination ring” that reported directly to Vice President Dick Cheney.  “Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or to the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving,” Hersh said.


[ Above title is the direct link to the full video article. ]


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