A Special Republican Family Values Edition of Around the Internets
You know, when I look at that picture, I don't immediately think of a bible thumping, anti choice, anti abortion even in the case of rape or incest, anti birth control kinda of a gal. I think more along the lines of "One hundred dollars?...Are you crazy? I can go sixty at best...Hey, no need for your big Mafia Aleut goon pimp to get rough with me I can leave on my own..." (Alleged nude photo at the Red Light District.)
Second, there's this potentially huge scandal on whether or not Sarah Palin is a grandmother and not a mother. The federal scandal has been kicked around at the Daily Kos for months now but if this scandal is true, well, her name would have to be withdrawn like Harriet Myers. Now, this could be a left version of the Obama birth certificate controversy (Of which there is none. In fact, the only person with a controversy is John McCain who isn't native born but he's such a horrible candidate who would want to eliminate him...) but in the world of not teaching your children about sexuality or birth control it makes perfect sense. And of course you would have to be ashamed about it. Anyway, here are the juicy parts of the Daily Kos story. It also has photos and videotape. This is the kind of journalism that papers used to do and this is also why papers are dying, deservedly so I might add.
Well, Sarah, I'm calling you a liar. And not even a good one. Trig Paxson Van Palin is not your son. He is your grandson. The sooner you come forward with this revelation to the public, the better...
People like to think the vetting process is secure, and completed months ahead of time, but ABC News has reported otherwise, painting a picture of a quick vetting process for Sarah by a small, but secretive group of McCain's legal staff. A proper vetting process under those circumstances would only go so far, and the true media vetting process has just begun.It doesn't come as a surprise that this story was never properly researched. Palin was never on the National scene for more than a few minutes at a time, and local reporting only goes so far on a governor with an 80% approval rating. However, the motivation to cover daughter's pregnancy aligns with her political standings. She valiantly did not perform an abortion, but fell into the fundamentalist way of thinking, and covered up for the illicit (but natural) action's of her daughter. There could be calls below to delete this information. Calls that this type of information is muckraking and 'below us'. The truth is not below any progressive, nor any citizen of the world that is one heartbeat away from having Palin as leader of the free world. We simply ask that she be forthright, honest, and not waste our time with such juvenile games that anyone with eyes can see as fabrication.
Bristol Palin rightfully should be able to embrace her child in public as her own, with no shame, and no quarter. And a mother should be just as accepting.
I guess we could ask for DNA tests just to clear things up. Here's a question: who's the real father?
Update: Daily Kos diary spills water on the rumor. Could you get the doctor to lie as well? Perhaps this isn't true. Only a woman could look at those photos and determine if she was five or six months pregnant.
I've always thought that Uncle Scam just doesn't believe in working within the system. And with this quote he comes out as a bomb throwing anarchist.
GOD DAMN THEM ALL. who the fuck are these assholes who think they have a right, a god damned right to make money by doing nothing? nothing but bullshit games with worthless paper money. and pay LESS tax on the profits than I do by spending precious hours of my life at a job, and I get to now pay more tax so these worthless god damned fuckers who should all be strung up can stay richer than god. fuck that. I hope this whole system crashes so god damned hard there'll be civil war, it's time we clean house on these rich brain damaged worthless fuckers once and for all.~justdrew
To quote C+ Augustus, otherwise know as JR., 'BRING IT ON!'
You know, that might work. I think the confederacy started the last civil war. How did that turn out? Why do you think you think dirty fuckin' hippies and peaceniks will win the war? I actually think we could too but...it won't be pretty. A civil war should be avoided at all costs. Of course, the funny thing is it seems clear that Blackwater is being developed as some kind of gestapo. They're at least 200000 strong and probably growing. I don't even know if the US Military, or at least the ones who won't shoot Americans if given orders, could beat Blackwater let alone dirty fuckin' hippies and angry black radicals and so forth. What's more likely is Blackwater will be sent to your house and you can choose to fight and die or be locked in some cell somewheres for the rest of your life.
Anyway, aside from looking like the entire two seasons of Jericho, I think an American Civil War would look like the last ten minutes of "Children of Men". Uncle Scam is that dread locked white guy and I'm the distinguished black actor. We're not going to do well. "Look around you...It's the Uprising!" Gutsy rebels with handguns vs tanks and air power. Yep. I bet they won because their cause was just...
Prologue: I still think think you need to vote tactically and you need to vote, or at least attempt to vote. This puts me at odds with Uncle Scam who openly yearns for another American Civil War or P! who wants us to vote no. (I guess I'm just a crazy optimist who thinks Obama is less likely to use Blackwater death squads to murder me but who knows.) Of course there's an excellent chance that you won't be allowed to vote even if you're a naive deluded person who thinks there's a difference between Gore and Bush or McCain/Obama. I'll take Al Obama if only for the courts and for tactical reasons again if they let me vote. Here in my home state of Pennsylvania a paper record of your vote is illegal. Democrats, who you would think would be smarter, have insisted that we use these machines. Pennsylvania could easily be the Ohio or Florida of 2008 and there would be no way to do a recount. But I'll try to vote. I'll try.
Also think this anonymous spoof vid about Ralph Nader spells out why you need to vote tactically sometimes. I ran it before and I think I'll run it again. Why not.
Main entry: It's really just this shirt. I thought I had written more but I hadn't.
Ok, I wrote this after the Joe Biden pick. It's very annoying in that Joe is just about as unchange as you can get. It's more than annoying in that it encourages The Man to put a bullet into you because he gets a better deal in the aftermath. Not so much with Richardson or the Kansas governor.
Changiness We Can Believe In
Joe Biden. Meh. Yes, there are a lot of prudent reasons to go with Joe Biden but we seem to be hearing this a lot whenever the O man moves right, which is all the time. He is noticing that his poll numbers are plummeting right? He's still raising lots of money but so what if you lose. Republicans lose all the time when they have money because people see through them. He does know that he has to attract white liberals and white liberals tend to read stuff. In fact, they tend to get their news online. Where else would they go, Fox News? Thomas Friedman at the Times?
There's also encouraging the crazy people to put a bullet in you because if you shoot the black guy we get white regular guy Joe Biden. Thanks for energizing the Krazy Klan with a gun segment of the population. No thanks. Really. Ignore the history of this country putting bullets into black leaders. Remember: You're special and nothing bad will happen to you.
I wrote this before the pick. No Obama doesn't pay attention to anything because I'm a dirty fuckin hippy or angry black radical. Whatever.
Well, I heard a rumor that Caroline Kennedy would get the vicepresidential nod from Obama. I think she would be a great choice. The only problem is that the rumor came from The Evil One, officially a member of The League of Evil Bloggers and who should join the Evil League of Evil because, let's face it, the Instapundit is qualified. I'm just saying that if Glenn is spreading the rumor then that means incriminating photos are on hand about Caroline.
But a Kennedy would be an inspired choice. She's actually more liberal than either Obama or Hillary. You know, the problem with Obama isn't with the black base, its with white liberals who are pissed off about FISA and the immediate backtracking on offshore drilling. You add a conservative vice presidential pick and that's a third strike recipe for trouble. Just for the record, I'm pissed off about those things too. Its about his word. What good is it if the face of oppression is black?
Evan Bayh (early supporter of the Iraq War), Joe Biden (hustler for the credit card industry) and Sam Nunn (Look, why not go with Tom Ridge...he's more liberal.) would all be depressing. I can't even say a Hillary nod out loud. Why not just appoint a knife at your back? Would be simpler. A Kennedy, or someone to his left, would be really nice and, I think, make him a lot safer. Richardson would be a good choice as well. If you look at the history of recent presidential assassinations (and these wonderfully timed plane crashes that only kill Democratic Party Senators and one liberal republican senator from Pennsylvania..) then you don't want a Lyndon Johnson or Sam Nunn as your backup. You want Dan Quayle. Everybody knew the first George Bush was safe because we were all scared of Dan. You know what's interesting about that? The older and better George Bush used to run the CIA and he might have known what happened in the Kennedy assassination. He didn't pick Lyndon Johnson or anybody competent that would inspire a "replacement" scenario. You don't want anyone to say "You know, if something Bad were to happen to Obama I bet Nunn or Hillary would get that draft started that we want so much..." Downgrades the predictable racists with guns scenario if a woman or a latino are next in line...takes away all the fun. Of course, someone who's a black man and thinks he can win the presidency of this country is probably an optimist at heart. He would have to be. "Oh, they won't shoot me and I won't have problems with my plane. I'm special."
Al Gore would be good too. This means that we're probably getting Evan or Sam. Ack.
Another thing wrong with the Obama campaign is that his ads have no kick. Let me guess: the candidate that will be backed by the Hollywood Left won't use any of their expertise during the election. Just great. I do like his middle class first theme.
You will never hear Herbert Spencer's attitude about patriotism in America today.
Some years ago I gave my expression to my own feeling – anti-patriotic feeling, it will doubtless be called – in a somewhat startling way. It was at the time of the second Afghan war, when, in pursuance of what were thought to be “our interests,” we were invading Afghanistan. News had come that some of our troops were in danger. At the Athenæum Club a well-known military man – then a captain but now a general – drew my attention to a telegram containing this news, and read it to me in a manner implying the belief that I should share his anxiety. I astounded him by replying – “When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves.”
This is for you paid fucks, you G-men wannabe contractors and the real agent man who watches this board, smoke it...
Cindy Sheehan Catches Phone Bugger in the Act at DNC
Infowars August 25, 2008
The following is an excerpt from a report posted by Cindy Sheehan at the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center:
The most troubling thing happened, though, when I arrived back to my hotel. We got back early because the altitude and sleeplessness were starting to take a toll on us. We did not march after the rally, so we decided to rest before the next event at 7pm. As I walked toward my room, I noticed that the door was opened with the security bolt blocking the complete closing of the door. I knew immediately that I had not left the door open, and I double checked to make sure it was the right room because, as a frequent traveler, I have been known to forget my room number, but it was the right room. I was upset at first thinking that housekeeping had made a mistake and left my room open and I was worried that something might be missing. So I walked into my room and bigger than life, there was a man standing by my desk holding the room phone with a screwdriver in his hand! I immediately said; “What the hell are you doing? Are you putting a bug on my phone?” He looked like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and stammered out: “N–no, we are having problems with the phone.” I told him to get out of my room because my phone was fine and I called the front desk and the person at the front desk stammered something out about “problems” with some of the phones. This room was reserved soon after we got to Denver last night because the room we had was inadequate for 3 people. The room was reserved under my campaign manager’s name with a CFC debit card. By the time we left for the march, it could have very well been ascertained that I was the one in this room, and the room we did reserve could be bugged, also. I am confident that that’s what was happening when I walked in on the “maintenance” man and I am becoming more shocked every day with what the ruling class are capable of….that’s why… My phones are in the room fridge. Let them listen to refridgerator noise…
Also see, Speaker of the house, Cindy Sheehan, catches Phone Bugger in her hotel room.
It's Friday night. You're tired and don't want to cook.
Some friends had invited you over for dinner. But they're pretty weird, you think, and you don't recognize what they say they're having. You declined.
You decide to go out to eat. You go downtown to a block that used to have twenty restaurants, but nineteen are boarded up. The line to get into the only one still open is endless.
You wait patiently in line for two hours and finally get seated. The waiter brings you the menu - a post-it note with only two items: fresh shit on a shingle and leftover shit on a shingle.
There's only one waitron and the place is mobbed. The little bot finally comes back after an hour. You ask, "Anything besides shit on a shingle?" It says, "Let. Me. Ask. Cook." and whirs off. Comes back in an hour. "We. Had. More. Choices. Too. Expensive. You. Want. Fresh. Or. Leftover?"
With a sigh, you order fresh shit on a single. Another hour later, Tron squeaks up with a six-inch-round styrofoam saucer holding a small scoop of a rancid, stinky, lukewarm, lumpy brown substance. And your check. $120. Mandatory 20% gratuity tacked on. Tron intones, "Out. Of. Fresh. This. Leftover. Bon. Appetit." It's now 3 am.
Well, you've hung in there so far, so what's another bad meal? You stuff a couple of napkins in your nostrils, fire up the ole' iPod, and gag it down (literally).
Walking home, your breathing becomes labored, your limbs become rigid, and you begin to hallucinate. Darth Nadir at a presidential podium flanked by Veep Smackdown adVentura and AG Paris Hilton.
The last thought before you lapse into a coma is, "Maybe carrot souffle, grilled fava beans, and brown rice pudding with my friends wasn't such a bad idea. Maybe they'll invite me in early November".
Libby questioned on forged letter linking Saddam to 9/11
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) issued letters of inquiry Wednesday to Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, regarding a forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks.
The Michigan Democrat also sent letters to senior former Bush intelligence officials, including Robert Richer, former CIA Deputy Director of Clandestine Operations, who claimed that Cheney's office pushed the CIA to develop a phony letter to aid their argument for a preemptive strike on Iraq. The letters were copied to RAW STORY.
"I have become very concerned with the possibility that this Administration may have violated federal law by using the resources of our intelligence agencies to influence domestic policy processes or opinion," Conyers wrote Libby, who was convicted of obstruction of justice in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. "The law specifically provides that "[n]o covert action may be conducted which is intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies, or media."
Conyers' letters come in the wake of claims by author Ron Suskind, who quotes Richer in his most recent book as saying a forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was ordered on White House stationery.
Great. I'm sure Libby is shaking in his $3000 loafers.
The continuing story: find out what the products are being manufactured via what amounts to slave labor for pennies on the dollar (everything from lingerie to bull whips). Our corporate propagandists also tend to recommend investing in prison stocks. There's big money involved in putting your ass in the big house.
Slavery in America never ended. The industry was retooled for "kinder, gentler" markets.
What caused prisons to be a growth industry in California? Did Californians suddenly become lawless? We need look no further than the CCPOA, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. "The Power this prison guards’ union wields inside our prisons, legislative chambers and governor's office disturbs me. It should disturb every citizen." ~ Judith Tannenbaum, formerly an English teacher at San Quentin State Prison
Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861–1865 Civil War a system of "hiring out prisoners" was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else’s land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery – which were almost never proven – and were then "hired out" for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads.
The tradition continues. The nation needs a way to fill the prisons which provide a source of cheap labor. Surely the criminal justice system can be of help here, and indeed they are.
...
Don't they have a conflict of interest in dealing with parole and extended sentences when their economic interest calls for higher prison occupancy? Isn't there a danger that the drive for profits will lead to hiring unqualified and inadequately trained personnel and the mistreatment of prisoners?
the political revolving door, and the emergence of a new "prison-industrial complex."
The comment after the article states: 02/25/2008 Prisons in Texas Seems to me the prisons follow the NAFTA trans-texas mega highway. that should work for them, huh?
think so?
Try to imagine, what it would be like to spend time in a place like this...23 hours a day
Imagine living in an 8-by-12 prison cell, in solitary confinement, for eight years straight. Your entire world consists of a dank, cinder block room with a narrow window only three inches high, opening up to an outdoor cement cage, cynically dubbed, "the yard." If you're lucky, you spend one hour five days a week in that outdoor cage, where you gaze up through a wire mesh roof and hope for a glimpse of the sun. If you talk back to the guards or act out in any way, you might only venture outside one precious hour per week.
You go eight years without shaking a hand or experiencing any physical human contact. The prison guards bark orders and touch you only while wearing leather gloves, and then it's only to put you in full cuffs and shackles before escorting you to the cold showers, where they watch your every move.
You cannot make phone calls to your friends or family and must "earn" two visits per month, which inevitably take place through a Plexiglass wall. You are kept in full shackles the entire time you visit with your wife and children, and have to strain to hear their voices through speakers that record your every word. With no religious or educational programs to break up the time or elevate your thoughts, it's a daily struggle to keep your mind from unraveling.
As US corporations pare white collar salaries by 15 percent, and eliminate half their blue collar workforce , while wholesale prices climb at 9 percent, construction- related commodities rise by 20 percent and technology equipment soars by 35 percent(!), America is setting up the Great White Father Scenario, with all the poor kids, grandkids, nephews and nieces visiting rich, old, retired Grampa in their Chevy's and Tata's, while Gramps is driving his goldrim A4 around WPB. Maybe Gramps will treat them all to a hamburger, before they drift off back to their freeway overpasses and dumpsters for the night, diving for dollars. The new motto on the US $1 coin is "primo luogo presentino, primo luogo servito, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. It's back to the rez all over again!
Our kids will wear Saudi dogcollars, and bark in Mandarin around the OWO (One world order) mil bases while reading nothing but the bible, and only the bible, king James. ( W/apologies to usarps...) Praise J. R. "Bob" Dobbs!
The traitors and war criminals who have taken over our government are dancing with joy this evening, and rightly so. Earlier today, a Federal Court of Appeals in Washington granted them legal immunity for every criminal action they have taken while in office.
The ruling, made by a panel of three judges in dismissing an appeal in the case of Valerie Plame [photo], absolves government officials of individual accountability for any actions taken in an official capacity, regardless of whether those actions violated federal law or jeopardized national security. In effect, it legalizes treason, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
As a nine-year old Samson pulls down the pillars of the mighty US empire, as everything crashes down upon our heads, all we can do is pray that Putin and Hu show us more mercy than we show the children of Iraq or Palestine.
As for moi? I don't give a fuck anymore... However, life has taught me, that when I dehumanize and objectify someone else, it is because I myself am dehumanized and feeling objectified. And if we can collectively do it to another, we will have no qualms about doing it to our own here at home. Grep wot I'm sayin?
Related, and on a comics tip (like my "young people" talk?): Animated version of the Watchmen, greatest book ever especially if you're trying to get people to read books, at youtube parts one, two and three. It's great. We should all talk like Rorshack but let me leave filth like you to your fornication and child pornography...Part one below:
...having been in the media business one way or another for almost 40 years, and having watched it increasingly take on a life of its own, I know that nothing of significance in the news is what it appears to be. This is not the result of some media conspiracy, mind you, but rather that the people working in the media have internalized the process so thoroughly they do not even know they are conditioned creatures in a larger corporate/state machine. Put simply, Katie Couric and the dumbshits grinding out your local paper actually believe they are in the news business. In today's system, everybody is a patsy for the new corporate global order of things -- the well-coiffed talking head, the brain dead audience, even the terrorists themselves. All play out their parts in our holographic image and information process.
All Americans, regardless of caste, live in a culture woven of self-referential illusions. Like a holographic simulation, each part refers exclusively back to the whole, and the whole refers exclusively back to the parts. All else is excluded by this simulated reality. Consequently, social realism in this country is a television commercial for America, a simulated republic of eagles and big box stores, a good place to live so long as we never stray outside the hologram. The corporate simulacrum of life has penetrated us so deeply it now dominates the mind's interior landscape with its celebrities and commercial images. Within the hologram sparkles the culture-generating industry, spinning out our unreality like cotton candy.
You can hear a great interview with Joe Bageant above...
Amazing revelations have emerged concerning already existing government plans to overhaul the way the internet functions in order to apply much greater restrictions and control over the web.
When it happens (and it's going to happen) Uncle $cam will be signing off...
This is Horseshit by CINDY SHEEHAN Counterpunch - Wednesday, Aug 6, 2008
It is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists will we be?
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
You know, I don’t care if it’s not proper for a Congressional candidate to say: “horseshit.” I don’t care if it is not a good “tactic” to get kicked out of a Congressional non-impeachment hearing that was just a bunch of horseshit anyway. I don’t care if I get accused of being too “extreme” for bucking the (cyst)em by doing everything form camping in a ditch in Crawford, Tx to non-violent civil disobedience to, lately, running for Congress as (oh no!) an independent.
If people can’t see how this nation is teetering on the precipice of financial ruin and dragging the rest of this planet down with us as we destroy our ecology, too…and if people don’t realize how desperate our situation is, then I must say, that’s horseshit!
I am angry. No, I am incensed that hundreds of thousands of people are dead, dying, wounded, displaced from their homes or being imprisoned and tortured by the sadists that reside or work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with the approval of their accomplices down the road in Congress. I am furious that I buried my oldest son when he was 24 years old for the unrepentant lies and the unpunished crimes of the Bush mob. Are you incensed? If not, maybe you should ask yourself: “Why?” Hypothetically: “Why am I not enraged that my country has killed or hurt so many people for absolutely no noble cause in my name and with my tacit approval?”
I am steamed that the working class has to, once again, pay for the excesses of the capitalist criminals that feeds its rapacious appetite with the flesh and blood of our children and won’t rest until it owns every penny in this world and has all the power.
You may say, “But Cindy, it is not polite to be angry or to use such strong language in public.” Horseshit! In my opinion, every citizen in this country should rise up in anger and DEMAND that George Bush and Dick Cheney not only be impeached and removed from office, but be tried and convicted for murder and crimes against the peace and humanity!
We should all walk off of our jobs and refuse to work and refuse to be cogs in the wheels of psychotic consumerism until our troops, military contractors and permanent bases are removed from Iraq and Afghanistan. We should, but most of us won’t. We won’t because it may mean that we would lose something of “value.” Material possessions are so transitory, as are our lives. We can leave a lasting impression by our courageous activism and moral sacrifice, or we can leave a pile of rusting metal or rotting wood. I choose the former for myself.
We should come out of our comas of too much TV news and not enough non-biased information to push for alternatives to fossil fuels that are clean and renewable and protest nuclear facilities and off-shore oil drilling like we used to in the olden days when people actually cared enough about not poisoning our world to get off of their couches or (today) out from behind their computer screens to do something constructive instead of complacently shelling out hundreds of dollars a week for gasoline and food.
I get so pissed off when one of my supporters has a tooth ache and can’t afford to go see a dentist to fix it or when my sister has had a cough for almost two years and doesn’t have the health insurance she needs to get fully well. And when I think that almost 50 million people in this country are non-insured or under-insured, I see red. Why, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, do some have the “privilege” of being fully insured and healthy, when health care is a basic human right, not a privilege for the elitists? My heart hurts every night when the men who sleep propped up against my campaign office, huddled under their blankets against the San Francisco chill, wish me a “good night” and I can’t choke the same words back to them, or do much of anything but give them coffee to keep warm and books to read to help pass the time. My campaign office is being visited on a daily basis by Iraq war vets who can’t access the help they need to get physically or mentally healthy—and I am “extreme” because I actually want things to really change and choose to act on this desire and not sit around passively pretending that this horseshit doesn’t exist?
Since Casey died, even though every day I am filled with pain and longing, I have tried to be the poster-mom for this pain telling my neighbors and fellow Americans how it feels to be profoundly hurt by the Military Industrial Complex and that it wouldn’t be too long before the cancer of BushCo would strike every American home and now that this prediction is awfully coming true, I see more and more apathy and less and less action.
Three years ago today, I first sat in a ditch in Crawford, Texas and three years later, we are in dire straits, my friends, and the prognosis is not good, unless we all make a conscious effort to sacrifice some of today’s comfort for the sake of our children and grand-children’s futures.
Sixty-three years ago today, the monsters of the US war machine dropped a WMD on hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children and since then, this nation has just descended into a further spiral of war and profiting from war and preparing for war and more profiting from war; which is destroying every aspect of our society and we MUST reclaim our very souls from the Military Industrial Complex before it is too late.
Please don’t wait for November, or January or for the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius because every second we allow this demented pattern to continue, is one second too long!
It's really disgusting how, if you go over to, say, Dailykos, people just seem to despise her more than they despise Bush and McCain.
They call her a "backstabber", a "nut", "crazy" ......
They seem to think she somehow betrayed them (????) and was personally out to get them or something.
It's the strangest, most neurotic sort of anti-projection that I've seen.
It's not hard to believe if you recall some elements of the 2000 election and this one.
McCain was the neocon favorite then, William Kristol either being his chief of staff or his chief political advisor, can't remember now which. He was also the media's favorite by far, until the South Carolina primary, when Karl Rove ambushed him with the black baby, and basically ended his 2000 run. The neocons then jumped on the Bush bandwagon. Now, Kristol is and insider/outsider of the McCain campaign, being a sort of conduit to McCain neocons like Podhoretz, et al..See here...
This time, the neocons again jumped early on the McCain camp, but jumped off when McCain became ridiculous and dropped like a rock after his trip to Baghdad. The neocons then jumped on the Giuliani camp, but fled when Giuliani collapsed with mistress/Kerik problems. The neocons lost no time in jumping back to McCain, by then fully rehabilitated in the media, and his clowning in Baghdad forgotten, and here we are.
The media love fest with McCain will jump into high gear in September, after the conventions, and after the period of softening up Obama has developed into the full blown campaign. If you think you've seen media hackery at work, wait till September/October.
McCain is way more dangerous than Bush. Believe it.
that's why they will steal the elections... besides the neocons have had a hard on for Russia for decades....
Most U.S. Corporations Pay no Federal Income Taxes August 12th, 2008
Via: AP:
Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.
The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.
Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO’s estimate.
Why? WTF? You telling me that their billions are not worth taxing as much as my thousands?
Author Ron Suskind says he will release transcripts of his interviews with a top CIA official that will confirm his story that in 2003 the White House ordered the agency to fabricate a phony document linking Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.
The letter, written by an Iraqi intelligence official under the control of the CIA, according to Suskind, ...
Police raid mayor's house, shoot dogs... opps, or was it?
Sing it w/me yall! Who let the dogs out; woof, woof, woof, woof bam! bam! bam!; paramilitary home invasions with concomitant fatal shooting will get you at least a paid vacation.
Oh, and just because I'm an over reactive asshole, we'll throw this one in for shits and giggles... Boy falls from bridge, breaks back, then tasered by cops!
To many, I suppose, especially to those with strong religious beliefs and those who cling to a prejudicial mythology, the term "spiritual atheism" is oxymoronic, even blasphemous. "Ridiculous", they would say, "How can you be both?". Interestingly enough, I think that many atheists think the same thing, rejecting notions of spirituality as "illogical".
In fact, as thousands of atheists, freethinkers, humanists, and rationalists have "come out" in recent times, mainly as a reaction to the powerful and nasty irrationality of religious zealots ("fundamentalists" is a mad misnomer - the zealots will have nothing to do with the fundamental teachings of Christ), too many, I fear, resort to the same reactionary ridicule and hate displayed by their now-"enemies".
I have this image: a crowd of crimson-faced religionists on one side screaming, "Tastes great!!" A rowdy crew of blue-faced non-believers on the other, taunting, "Less filling!!!"
I am neither an angry nor a militant atheist. I am not "against" god. How can I be against something that doesn't exist? I don't hate or vilify religion. I'm not "against religion", although its power to destroy and divide and deceive scares me. I'm not "anti-christian", I just don't have the time for that. Hate no longer energizes me. I'm not intending to convert anyone. I am anti-stupid, but stupid ain't really something I can do much about.
I simply do not believe in god. That doesn't mean I don't believe in anything, however. I personally reject nihilism as forcefully as I reject religion.
It is a mistake to insist that "spirit" and spiritualism presuppose the existence of a god or gods. Indeed, many atheists, myself included, have come by our atheism, at least in part, through our personal experiences of religions as decidedly non-spiritual or worse, as so co-opting and narrowing the concept as to stifle human spirituality.
I do believe in power and spirit that encompasses humans and everything else. I decidedly do not believe in "a Higher Power". However, to not believe in power and spirit greater than self, or even humanity, is insane. Only a crazy person would stand in front of a fast-moving train and think she can stop it through will-power.
Like all christians (and all humans, for that matter), atheists come in a lot of different flavors. As a group, we have as many different attitudes and prejudices and personalities as, say, christians or muslims, from raging, hating fundamentalism to gentle, caring, and giving altruism. I'm more likely to proselytize or vilify a nasty atheist than a gentle, non-Zionist jew.
Is it a struggle against religion? No; rather it is a struggle in favor of tolerance, in favor of the separation of church and state, in favor of the freedom to believe or not believe. The spirit is no one's private property, nor is freedom.
I was raised a Christian. My feelings about this are neither bitter nor angry - quite the opposite. I owe much of what I am, or what I try to be, to the Christian , and therefore to the Christian (in my case Catholic) church. My morality has scarcely changed at all since my pious years. Nor has my sensitivity . . .[pp ix-x]
The essence of Comte-Sponville's work is to make a distinction between "faith" and "fidelity". And he very effectively makes the case that fidelity is the foundation of community . . .
It remains for us to explore what is meant by communion. Here is how I define it: To commune is to share without dividing. This may sound paradoxical. Where material goods are concerned, it is indeed impossible. People cannot commune in a cake, for instance, because the only way to share it is to divide it. The more people there are, the smaller each person's portion will be, and if one person has more, the others will have less. In a family or a group of friends, on the other hand, people can commune in the pleasure they take in eating a delicious cake together: All share the same delectation, but without having to divide it up! . . .[pg 15]
He goes on to say . . .
Faith is a belief; fidelity . . . is more like an attachment, a commitment, a gratitude. Faith involves one or several gods; fidelity involves values, a history, a community. The former calls on imagination or grace; the latter on memory and will . . .
Frankly, do you need to believe in God to be convinced that sincerity is preferable to dishonesty, courage to cowardice, generosity to egoism, gentleness and compassion to violence and cruelty, justice to injustice, love to hate? . . .[pg 22]
My definition of "spirituality" is quite simple and "old-fashioned": it is, "Acting from the consciousness that there is something greater than my Self, of which I am a part, and which is a part of me." Spirituality is present in a human to the degree that narcissism is absent.
Note that "acting" is the operative word here. It really just doesn't matter what I believe. It matters what I do. It is true that my beliefs inform my actions. But I have found that my actions inform my beliefs even more powerfully. If I suspend a belief and act for the common good, in spite of or even in contradiction to the belief, my belief is liable to change from a new experience. "You do what you do - you get what you get." As I say, simple.
Believe me, I'm no goody two-shoes. As some of you know, I've done my share of very nasty and destructive things. I've battled drug addiction, alcoholism, mental illness. Even sober and "sane", I've robbed, cheated, hated, manipulated, insulted, judged, betrayed. My (post-) political writing here is often cutting, sarcastic, condescending, and cynical. I'm frequently guilty of contempt and prejudice. Many of my actions are based in fear. I wish I was a better person. I'm no shining example. I wish I did better. And more and more these days, I do. I just do.
Here are the questions I must ask myself before I act: "What are the likely consequences?" "Will this be helpful?" "Am I being constructive or destructive?" "What other ways might I act that would be more helpful?" I won't always know the answer. I'll make mistakes. I'll do harm sometimes. Nature of the beast called "life".
One question I don't ask myself is, "Will doing this get me into Heaven?"
As you might have guessed, I have some deep concerns about how many of my fellow non-believers behave. Although I admire the intellect of Dawkins, Hitchens, PZ Meyers, and other visible, outspoken "leaders", I am too often put off, not so much by what they say, but how they say it. Michael Merritt, at PoliGazette, in "The New Atheism", shares my misgivings:
Has atheism become too radicalized and militant? Some people think so. After the jump, I’ll discuss why some atheists have become disgusted with the modern face of the movement, and talk about what I’ve seen in my own experience . . .
For the most part, I believe atheists are fine, moral people who simply do not believe in a deity. Despite what some social conservatives may try to argue, atheists can be upstanding citizens who contribute to society and follow the rules of that society. However, I don’t deny that many of the values we hold come from the Judeo-Christian tradition, though I’d argue a lot of these values can be found in other belief systems as well. For instance, “thou shall not kill” is pretty a universal value.
On the other hand, there does appear to be a new movement among some atheists that I think is anathema to the message of atheism. This group of atheists, who among their number seem to be a lot of young people around my age, believe that simply not believing in a deity is not enough. Rather, they feel that those who do believe are not only misguided, but must be ridiculed for their beliefs. Similar to some “prepare for fire and brimstone” evangelical Christians, these atheists may suggest that believers are either brainwashed or ’stupid’ for believing in a religion . . .
In his piece, Merritt quotes still another blogger named Freddie, writing "I am not you, atheism" at L'Hôte:
I don't believe in God, I guess, in any conventional terms, and I'm non-religious. But Jeezy Chreezy, the public face of atheism turns my stomach. It is an unrelenting, never ending foray into self-aggrandizement, debasement of one's opponents, and ridicule of things one doesn't believe in. If someone was a political commentator, and operated the way Meyers, Richard Dawkins, or Christopher Hitchens did, would anyone listen to them? No. As much as the success of the Ann Coulters of the world suggests otherwise, we largely understand that a basic level of decorum, mutual respect, and the assumption of good faith should under gird our national dialogue. Indeed, without these assumptions, the dialogue is not worth having . . .
The new atheism has made its challenge, then. And here is my answer. I don't believe in God, in any meaningful way. I am not a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Jew, or whatever else you will. In questions of public policy I feel religion has no place, and rational discourse has to rule. I don't want religious artifacts in the public square, I don't want creationism taught in public schools, and I don't want any religion privileged in any way by government. I am, in most every way that matters, a natural ally of atheism.
But atheism has expelled me. It has expelled me because it has in its heart contempt and loathing and fear of the other. So I reject it. I don't reject all atheists; many atheist are uninterested in ridiculing the religious-- they simply want to be left in peace, and not have religion forced on them or on the law. That, to me, is a principled atheism, and one I am happy to coexist with. But this new atheism, this anti-theism, has only contempt at its heart, and I reject it as thoroughly as it has rejected me.
This is powerful stuff. As atheists, I hope we're listening to some of this and learning from our own mistakes as much as we think we're learning from others'.
Merritt ends his own essay with:
I also think that at its core, atheism is not a thing that you can equate with hate. However, the problem comes when some of the leaders of the movements, the Dawkins’ and Hitchens’ of the world, feel that religion is not simply wrong, but its followers are delusional.
In the end, the world would be a better place if these atheists could do what they often argue some religious people don’t: keep their beliefs simmered down into well reasoned arguments, and not troll-worthy bashing. For my part, saying that someone is delusional for having a belief in a deity is no better than a religious person saying that an atheist is doomed for an eternity of fire and brimstone. It certainly doesn’t advance intelligent discourse, and only spreads enmity.
Hear! Hear!
I have to admit that my nervousness about Dawkins deepened today. A few days ago, I spied and saved a link to an article on Dawkins' site called "Embracing goodness, without God". I didn't read it right away, but intended to include it here, by way of redeeming Richard. When I tried the link today, I got a 404. I looked around Richard's site - nary a bit nor byte. I tracked it down at its source, so you can read it here. But the mystery of its all too brief appearance Chez Dawkins remains.
Coming full circle, I must say that Merritt and Freddie embody Comte-Sponville's notion of spirituality - one too which we all may aspire. Or. Not.
Although its emphasis on paper trails and audits is misplaced, this is a powerful and important statement from the TIMES, whose overall record on the issues of election fraud and vote suppression is dreadful. (Someone should compare the paper's coverage of those issues with the space that it devotes to video games.) So hats off to Adam Cohen for this landmark editorial.
Note also that the piece refers, obliquely, to the latest revelations re: the stolen Georgia races in '02. The whistle-blower that Cohen refers to is the same one that RAW STORY has just mentioned----the same one whose experience has been confirmed by super-whistle-blower Stephen Spoonamore. (The media---both mainstream and left/liberal----has yet to mention Spoonamore's astonishing and all-important stories on BushCo's election fraud conspiracy throughout the last eight years.)
Also, this latest whistle-blower is not the first one to tell the story of the software patch illegally deployed in Georgia. He is, in fact, the third. So maybe it is time, at last, for some extensive coverage of that scandal (among others) in theTIMES's own NEWS pages?
1. The 2002 Georgia Senate and Governor Races — Senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, was defeated for re-election and Gov. Roy Barnes, a Democrat, was unseated. Polls had suggested that both men would win.
The votes were cast on Diebold A.T.M.-style machines. A whistle-blower who helped prepare the machines reported that secret “patches” — software intended to fix glitches — were installed late in the process without being certified by the state, as the law required.
The unexpected outcomes were likely because of heavy turnout by rural whites, prompted by a Confederate flag dispute, not faulty voting machines. Still, skeptics wonder if the patches contained malicious software that changed votes. Because the Diebold machines did not produce paper records, there is no way to put those doubts to rest.
Lesson: Electronic voting makes large-scale vote theft easy. A patch slipped onto voting machines or centralized vote tabulators can change an election’s outcome. Every piece of software must be scrutinized by neutral experts. If there is not enough time, election officials need a backup plan, such as conducting voting entirely on paper ballots.
2. The 2006 Congressional Race in Florida’s 13th District — The machines said that Republican Vern Buchanan defeated Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes. But in Sarasota County, a Democratic area, up to 18,000 ballots, about 13 percent of the total cast, did not record a vote for Congress. That is extraordinarily high; in Republican Manatee County, only 2 percent of ballots didn’t contain a vote for Congress.
Sarasota’s low vote may have been because of a bad ballot design, which made the Buchanan-Jennings race hard to find. But the Jennings campaign said it received hundreds of complaints that the machines would not accept a vote for Ms. Jennings, or recorded a vote for her as a vote for Mr. Buchanan.
Did Ms. Jennings lose a seat in Congress because of a glitch? Could there have been sabotage? We’ll never know, because there are no paper records.
Lesson: Electronic voting machines must produce a voter-verifiable paper trail for each vote so voters can see that their choices register properly. In a disputed election, the paper, not the machine tallies, should decide who wins.
More than half the states require votes to be recorded on paper, but many still don’t. These include battleground states like Virginia.
3. Alabama’s 2002 Race for Governor — Former Gov. Don Siegelman has been in the news because it appears that federal prosecutors may have put him in prison for political reasons. The controversy has brought attention to the odd way he lost the governorship.
Mr. Siegelman went to sleep on election night thinking he had won. But overnight, Republican Baldwin County reported that a glitch had given Mr. Siegelman, a Democrat, about 6,000 extra votes. When they were subtracted, Republican Rob Riley won by roughly 3,000 votes.
James Gundlach, a professor at Auburn University, crunched the numbers and concluded that Mr. Siegelman lost because of “electronic ballot stuffing,” possibly by an operative who accessed the computers and “edited” the results, though others dispute his analysis.
Baldwin County used paper ballots that were then read by an optical scan machine. Mr. Siegelman says local officials gave him permission to count the paper ballots by hand, but the attorney general threatened to arrest anyone who did. No count was done.
Lesson: Paper ballots alone are not enough. There must be strong audit laws that mandate comprehensive hand recounts when an election is close.
After the 2000 election debacle, Americans demanded a better system of voting. What we have gotten is new technology with different flaws. If the presidential race is close, this year’s “hanging chad” could be a questionable result on electronic voting machines that cannot be adequately investigated.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) said on Friday it has held meetings with U.S. store managers warning them of issues that could arise if Democrats win power and pass a law that would make it easier for workers to unionize, but stressed it was not telling workers how to vote.
Wal-Mart opposes proposed legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize by signing a card rather than holding a vote.
"We believe EFCA is a bad bill and we have been on record as opposing it for some time," Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said. "We feel educating our associates about the bill is the right thing to do."
The Wall Street Journal reported that about a dozen employees who attended meetings in seven states said executives told them employees would be required to pay hefty union dues and get nothing in return, and warned that unionization could force Wal-Mart to cut jobs as labor costs rise.
The Journal report said Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings do not specifically tell attendees how to vote in November's presidential election, but they make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in.
"If anyone representing Wal-Mart gave the impression we were telling associates how to vote, they were wrong and acting without approval," Tovar said.
"We have this gun see, and we're going to have to shoot you if Obama is elected. It's really not our choice you see. We don't want to shoot you, but a President Obama forces our hand. It's not even HIS choice but yours, so you would really be the one pulling the trigger if Obama wins, not us. You. We can't tell you how to vote, but we thought we'd let you know you're the one making all the decisions here."
This is the icing on the cake right here. Banks, due to deregulation, got into investment banking, and into brokerage firms. Three arms of a corrupt octopus. A textbook example of how labor and energy is harvested, and turned into wealth and power...
Now they are going to use "your" money to protect the profits "they" already took from "you". All this bailout money is your taxes ya know...your labor and energy.
They "took" when they issued the fraudulent loans, they "took" with their investment banks, and they "took" when they profited obsenely with their brokerage firms by carving up the loans and selling them to unsuspecting victims, such as pension funds.
Even if you don't have one of the loans they are now "taking" from you too by giving "your" tax dollars to these people to protect "their" profits.
It isn't even being refuted on the mainstream (sic) news channels that this is a scam. They call it fraudulent on a regular basis. So far "we" haven't heard one word about "they" who are involved having to pay the piper. This is about as in "your" face as it can get...
Welcome to the Uncle scam...
Fed extends emergency loan program for Wall Street
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it is extending its emergency borrowing program to Wall Street firms and is taking other steps to ease a severe credit crunch that has hobbled the national economy.
(they have some of the most creative terms for "stealing" from "you" until you are lame and crippled don't they?)
The Fed said the program, where investment houses can tap the central bank for a quick source of cash, will now be available through Jan 30. Originally the program, started on March 17, was supposed to last until mid-September.
(read: "They" need more time to pilfer "your" wallet for one of the largest transfers of wealth in history...uhhh, yes that would be from "you" to "them". Say thank you, since they won't, somebody has to be polite! That is "your" labor and energy "they" are taking. "They" hate work. Starting to see how this works?)
Another program, where investment firms can temporarily swap more risky investments for super-safe Treasury securities also will continue through Jan. 30, the Fed said. And, it also will let commercial banks, in a separate program, bid on cash loans that last longer — for 84 days, besides the 28-day loans now available.
(Read: "They" have a special program that allows them to throw their cash in the garbage, in order to drag yours through the garbage and out to them, and keep it all... Its like fishing, using cash, instead of worms...Wonder how "we" sign up for a deal like that?)
The Fed said it was taking these steps "in light of continued fragile circumstances in financial markets." The Fed said that the emergency borrowing program for investment houses and the program that lets investment firms temporarily borrow Treasury securities would be withdrawn should the Fed determine that conditions in financial markets are "no longer unusual and exigent."
(Exigent? Dang I had to look up that synonym for "urgently protecting their profits". 1. requiring immediate action or aid; urgent; pressing. 2. requiring a great deal, or more than is reasonable. Its "almost" amusing that they actually tell "us" exactly what "they" are doing and "we" usually don't realize it. "Fragile circumstances in the market" Read: Their profits not secure yet"..."emergency borrowing" Read: Fishing your cash out of your pocket, as fast as they can... "investment houses" Read: Fishing pole..."financial markets" Read: Your bank account... "no longer unusual and exigent." Read: They are rushing, in case you discover how unreasonable this is before they get your money, and they consider it unusual and exigent that they don't have all the cash collected yet that they have lined up for pilfering...)
The biggest smash & grab in U.S. History...
there ought to be blood in the street over this shit. I can not believe this bullshit bailout. I'm mad enough to stomp grapes. How dare they. and this isn't going to "help" any normal person at all. All it's going to do is let them stay in a house they can't afford a little bit longer. The best thing these people could do is walk away from the house and tell the banks to fuck right the hell off and declare bankruptcy. Stupid motherfuckers. Now we're well and truly fucked. since it's clear they're going to do NOTHING about controlling these ass-monkeys who made this mess in the first place.
GOD DAMN THEM ALL. who the fuck are these assholes who think they have a right, a god damned right to make money by doing nothing? nothing but bullshit games with worthless paper money. and pay LESS tax on the profits than I do by spending precious hours of my life at a job, and I get to now pay more tax so these worthless god damned fuckers who should all be strung up can stay richer than god. fuck that. I hope this whole system crashes so god damned hard there'll be civil war, it's time we clean house on these rich brain damaged worthless fuckers once and for all.~justdrew
To quote C+ Augustus, otherwise know as JR., 'BRING IT ON!'
Also see this story, (but also note: For those who are astute, this, the following article, speaks volumes, and read in the right way can be used to see the template of the master plan of how they intend to fuck you.)
"America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.
"Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight."
--James Ellroy, American Tabloid
Ensure a Free and Fair Election (Ban Paperless Voting Machines
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
You know, when I look at that picture, I don't immediately think of a bible thumping, anti choice, anti abortion even in the case of rape or incest, anti birth control kinda of a gal. I think more along the lines of "One hundred dollars?...Are you crazy? I can go sixty at best...Hey, no need for your big Mafia Aleut goon pimp to get rough with me I can leave on my own..." (Alleged nude photo at the Red Light District.) 
It's Friday night. You're tired and don't want to cook.
AND THIS...
Post a Comment