Thursday, December 31, 2009

OK...Jaun Cole put it all together here at Informed Comment

Top Ten Worst Things about the Bush Decade;
Or, the Rise of the New Oligarchs


By spring of 2000, Texas governor George W. Bush was wrapping up the Republican nomination for president, and he went on to dominate the rest of the decade. If Dickens proclaimed of the 1790s revolutionary era in France that it was the best of times and the worst of times, the reactionary Bush era was just the worst of times. I declare it the decade of the American oligarchs. Just as the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union allowed the emergence of a class of lawless 'Oligarchs' in Russia, so Neoliberal tax policies and deregulation produced American equivalents. (For more on the analogy, see Michael Hudson.) We have always had robber barons in American politics, but the Neoliberal moment created a new social class. At about 1.3 million adults, it is not too large to have some cohesive interests, and its corporations, lobbyists, and other institutions allow it to intervene systematically in politics. It owns 45 percent of the privately held wealth and is heading toward 50, i.e. toward a Banana Republic.

The List




____________________

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Grind the press...

via Bob Cesca:

Let's recap.

Obama administration officials said Fox News Channel "isn't news."

Outrage ensues from everyone including Fox News, Joe Scarborough, Jake Tapper and Dana Perino who referred to it as something "dictators do."


The Bush administration, on the other hand...


-Used reporters to out a CIA agent, then sat by and watched reporters go to jail to protect their sources.

-Paying Armstrong Williams, Michael McManus, and Maggie Gallagher and others for favorable opinions about WH policies or to attack opponents of the WH.

-Planting Jeff Gannon to lob softball questions.

-Fed reporters misinformation about WMD in Iraq, then used those reporters stories as corroborating evidence of the existence of WMD in Iraq.

-treated Helen Thomas like a leper.

-waged a coordinated campaign against NBC.

-kicked all the NY Times reporters off of their planes.

-the Pentagon Pundit program, which sold the war by planting former military officers on networks. Uncovering this story earned a journalist the fucking Pulitzer.

-Staged mock press conferences with FEMA employees pretending to be reporters.

-allowed Ari Fleischer to tell everyone (but directed at journalists) they needed to “watch what they say and what they do.”




________________

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Time-line: Bush-Wall Street Corrupt Housing Crisis

Time-line: Bush-Wall Street Corrupt Housing Crisis

2002=Video: Younger Bush Pushing "EASY Loans" on Minorities
2002=Bush Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNqQx7sjoS8&feature=related
2002=Bush Enlisted Investment Banks issue "EASY SURE FAIL" Mortgages
2002=Bush Proclaims Enlisted Fannie/Freddie to buy Garbage Mortgages
2002 FED+Bush Admin=high priority on "financial innovation"+Bush"s "ownership society"
2002 FED=Used housing boom to prop up economy after 2000 market collapse
2002 FED governor=warned: lenders breeding fast-growing risky mortgages
2002 FED examiners=­investigat­e mortgage lenders of WSBanks
2003+2004=FED analyst: deteriorating lending standards+higher defaults+ foreclosures
2003+2004=FED encourage development of alternative mortgages=sub-prime loans+ adjustable
2004=Comptroller Curr (OCC) used 1863Law=prevent enforcement state predatory lending laws
2004=OCC=prevent enforcing consumer protection laws against Big Banks
2004=Link:http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/02/spitzer-bush-administration-blocked.html
2007=FED+F DIC+OCC=is sue guide=No new loans to poor after 'teaser' rates expire 2-3 years
2007=FED+F DIC+OCC=Bl ock Half of Subprime borrowers from refinancing=Insure Casino Bets
2007=FED decisions=Help Banks win Casino Bets
2007-2009=20-30% Subprime didn't meet Refi thresholds,But 70-80% would without new rules
2007-2009=2Million teaser-rate loans expired without refi http://www.bloomberg.com
2002-2008=Graph of Housing Bubble showing straight up line 2003-2007 (below)

2007=Bubble fed by "Easy SURE FAIL" Mortgages BURST creating CRISIS
2008=Green span=saying FED ill-equipped to investigate deceptive lending=False
2009=Greenspan consulting gig PIMCO+asset manager GSE mortgages+senior bondholder
Graph=http://www.mortgagecalculator.org/images/us-subprime-mortgage-market-growth.png
Bush Ownership Society: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ownership_society




___________________


Sunday, October 4, 2009

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

ACORN in a government fraud perspective



click on pic for full view...




____________________

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Friday, September 25, 2009

Racisim Code Words



Great Post via Andrew Sullivan:

Of course they are screaming 'socialism'. They've been doing that since the 50s at least. They're not talking about economic redistribution of wealth - they never have been. They've been talking about redistribution of privilege this whole time. They called MLK a communist because he wanted blacks to have the same rights as whites, and to them that was a redistribution of the privilege that whites had 'earned'.

In their view, white, Christian, heterosexuals have earned something that gays, non-Christians, and non-heteros have failed to work hard enough at. It's been a class war from the outset, just not one based around income or net worth - mostly because the whites in the south were economically pretty bad off and blacks in the north were catching up to them.

This picture shows they were pushing the same buttons half a century ago that they are today. Anti-christ, communism - it's all the same as it is today and is well known code. It's why the protesters will decry socialism today but wouldn't have under Bush - it's all tied to race and other social objectives and has nothing really to do with taxation, deficits, and big government. You probably missed it when you came to the US, but this is pretty old game - particularly to guys like Carter that grew up around it.



____________________________

Thursday, September 24, 2009

driftglass...


click pic for full view


Oh yes she did!

she went to a foreign country and criticized the Prez during WARTIME...on foreign soil!

driftglass takes it from here...





_______________________

Monday, September 21, 2009

The Return of McCarthyism

A juxtaposition of the past and current use of McCarthyism.





____________________________________

Friday, September 18, 2009

Shoeman Speaks...

via NewsHoggers:

Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George W. Bush, is free and talking.


I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.

Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.




Iraq before and after the invasion.

We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.

Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents.


And he remains unapologetic:

As soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies, while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the blood that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.

The opportunity came, and I took it.

I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.

I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.


He is a hero in Iraq because a vast majority feels just as he does. Is this the success of the surge that the neocons are crowing about? And this is the very same "success" we are creating in Afghanistan.






_________________________________

Virginia Organizing Project Executive Director Arrested at Anthem for Asking About Insurance Rates

How dare he ask the corporate fascists why his rates were raised!

he was removed reprogrammed and then released.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow - Frank Schaeffer: GOP sub-culture is "a fifth column of insanity"

we have a subculture which is literally... bred from birth to reject facts as a matter of faith....Bleckkkkk spit.

a fitting follow up to the 40 mil 'Murkins that are functionally illiterate.




_________________

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Michael Moore Says Capitalism Killed Newspaper Industry



40 million functional illiterate 'Murkins....Yakkkkk!





_____________________________

Corporate Teabaggers Protesters Protest D.C. Metro Service

*Shakes Fist*

Keep the government out of my public transit system!

oy.


Protesters who attended Saturday’s Tea Party rally in Washington found a new reason to be upset: Apparently they are unhappy with the level of service provided by the subway system.

Rep. Kevin Brady called for a government investigation into whether the government-run subway system adequately prepared for this weekend’s rally to protest government spending and government services.


Seriously....

The Texas Republican on Wednesday released a letter he sent to Washington’s Metro system complaining that the taxpayer-funded subway system was unable to properly transport protesters to the rally to protest government spending and expansion.


“These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration,” Brady wrote. “These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them.”


A spokesman for Brady says that “there weren’t enough cars and there weren’t enough trains.” Brady tweeted as much from the Saturday march. “METRO did not prepare for Tea Party March! More stories. People couldn’t get on, missed start of march. I will demand answers from Metro,” he wrote on Twitter.


Brady says in his letter to Metro that overcrowding forced an 80-year-old woman and elderly veterans in wheelchairs to pay for cabs. He concludes that it “appears that Metro added no additional capacity to its regular weekend schedule.”

Link


latteliberal said:

"The DC Metro is not funded by tax payers in Texas. Perhaps the local community could fund more train service had the Republicans not destroyed the economy, spent trillions on an unnecessary war and give the wealthy one percent tax cuts."





_____________________________

Friday, September 11, 2009

silent observance




Click on the pic for full view.




















_______________________

Rumsfeld 2.3 Trillion Dollars missing Pentagon 1 DAY b4/9-11

Just a warm up for the Iraq quagmire.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Iraqi shoe thrower being showered by ‘offers and gifts’ upon his anticipated release from prison.


via Think Progress

Last December, Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi made headlines across the world when he hurled his shoes at President Bush during a press conference in Baghdad. Although al-Zaidi was originally sentenced to three years in prison, Iraqi courts recently decided to release him on Sept. 14 for “good behavior.” Now, the Guardian is reporting that al-Zaidi is being inundated “by offers and gifts” from all over his country:


From his prison cell, Zaidi has a sense of the gathering fuss, but not the full extent of the benefactors and patrons preparing for his release.

A new four-bedroom home has been built by his former boss. A new car – and the promise of many more – awaits.

Pledges of harems, money and healthcare are pouring in to his employers, the al-Baghdadia television channel.

“One Iraqi who lived in Morocco called to offer to send his daughter to be Muntazer’s wife,” said editor Abdul Hamid al-Saij.

“Another called from Saudi offering $10m for his shoes, and another called from Morocco offering a gold-saddled horse.


For his part, al-Zaidi has told the press that he plans to leave journalism and open an orphanage upon his release.


He can call it "The George Bush I'm Lucky to be Alive Orphanage"





_________________________

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

The FBI and a 14 year-old Phone Phreak

a fascinating tale.

via Rolling Stone:

The Boy Who Heard Too Much

He was a 14-year-old blind kid, angry and alone. Then he discovered that he possessed a strange and fearsome superpower — one that put him in the cross hairs of the FBI

By 14, Weigman was conning his way through AT&T and Verizon, tricking them into divulging insider information — like supervisor identification numbers and passwords — that gave him full run of the system. If he heard a supervisor's voice once, he could imitate it with eerie precision when calling one of the man's underlings. If he heard someone dialing a number, he could memorize the digits purely by tone. A favorite ploy was to get the name of a telephone technician visiting his house, then impersonate the man on the phone to extract codes and other data from unsuspecting co-workers. Once he called a phone company posing as a girl, saying he needed to verify the identity of a technician who was at "her" door. Convinced, the operator coughed up the technician's company ID number, direct phone line and supervisor — key information that Weigman could later put to nefarious use, like cutting off a rival's phone line.


There seemed to be no limit to what he could do: shut off your phone service, dig up your unlisted cellphone number, even listen in on your home phone — something only a handful of veteran phreaks can pull off. Celebrities were a favorite target. Weigman claims to have hacked and called the cellphones of Lindsay Lohan ("She was drunk, and my friend tried to have phone sex with her") and Eminem ("He told me to fuck off"). Last year, during the presidential campaign, Weigman heard a YouTube video of Mitt Romney's son Matt dialing his dad. Weigman listened closely to the touch tones, deciphered the candidate's cellphone number — and then made a call of his own. "Mitt Romney!" he said. "What's going on, dude? Running for president?" Weigman says Romney told him to shove the phone up his ass, and hung up.


read on...




______________________________

HypnObama

via Zaius Nation











_____________________________

Monday, September 7, 2009

Smart Dog Shoots Pool

don't let him drink more than one beer!




Watch it here.





------------------------------

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Speaking of Dim Some



via politicususa: Hong Kong Palin: Sarah's Latest 2012 Gimmick

In what’s been described as the "American Ding Dong goes to Hong Kong" by astute international posters, Mrs. Sarah Palin (failed beauty contestant, failed VP candidate, and aborted first term Governor) has been asked to speak at the CLSA Investment Convention in Hong Kong, where she will give a speech on a topic such as geopolitics.


Let that sink in for a few minutes, and if you're not cringing yet, here's some Sarah Speak to jog your memory:


“Oil of coal, of course, is a fungible commodity and they don't flag, ya know, the molecules where, where it's going to, where it's not, but and in the, in the sense of the Congress today they know our very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first. So I believe that what Congress is going to do also is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it's Americans who get stuck holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here; it's gotta flow into our domestic markets first.”

That, of course, was her “answer” to a question regarding ….oh, well, it doesn’t really matter what the question was, does it? Wink, wink. It’s worthy of a luminary, no? That person can talk about geopolitics, sure, no problem, you betcha!


“Our keynote speakers are notable luminaries who often address topics that go beyond traditional finance such as geopolitics,” CLSA company spokeswoman Simone Wheeler said in a statement.

However, The Asia Sentinel wasn’t quite as generous:


“Former US Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who is viewed with equal fervor as an ignorant fool or the voice of the common man by those who either loathe or love her, is coming to Hong Kong to seek international street cred.

The decision to bring in Palin as keynote speaker has been met with incredulity from many among the business community in Hong Kong.

"Honestly? This isn't a hoax?" asked the managing director of a Hong Kong business chain. "It's entertaining perhaps, in a road accident sort of way! Now I've seen everything."


read more hilarity




_________________________






Saturday, August 29, 2009

in case you need some signs





Republicans Are A Disease

Download these ANTI REPUBLICAN signs. Print them out. Hand them out. Put them in your car's back window, or you home's windows. Put them up on telephone poles. Tell your neighbors how you feel about the criminals in the GOP who have been running our country into the ditch for all these years! - Reaganomics Has Failed Big Time!

Tell everyone you know about RepublicansAreADisease.com. Let them, and their friends get their signs here too! The more we are in "their" face the better. Republicans are a disease AND THEY KNOW IT. If any Reublicans don't like your sign(s) tell them to go make their own country. Call it Torture-Land.





RepublicansAreADisease.com





Saturday, August 15, 2009

WE are all torture victims now....

I'm somewhat thankful I live in a state that doesn't allow officers to carry tasers ...

a frightening but worthy read on the "Cult" of Law Enforcement via Digby at Glenn Greenwald:

Like Glenn, I write a lot about civil liberties, which have been at the heart of the national conversation since the beginning of the War On Terror and the expansion of the national security state. But my interest in civil liberties predates 9/11 and until then was usually pointed at the far more prosaic issues of police and prosecutorial misconduct (and the inevitable conclusions any study of those things brings to the issue of the death penalty). Nowadays, the theme of civil liberties seem to be a sub-plot to a James Bond flick rather than "To Kill A Mockingbird." And yet, I think the two are intertwined much more closely that we think. In our apparent acceptance of torture as a legal method of interrogation, the bar of civilized official behavior has been lowered to the point where we are accepting torture in everyday life as if it's nothing. Indeed, we are using it as a form of entertainment.

I'm speaking of the ever more common use of the Taser, an electrical device used by police and other authorities to drop its victims to the ground and coerce instant compliance. The videos of various incidents make the rounds on the internet and you can see by the comments at the YouTube site that a large number of Americans find tasering to be a sort of slapstick comedy, the equivalent of someone slipping on a banana peel, with a touch of that authoritarian cruelty that always seems to amuse a certain kind of person. "Don't tase me bro" is a national catch phrase.

Tasers aren't benign however. They kill people. Nobody knows exactly why some people die from being tasered, and they certainly don't know how to tell in advance which ones are at risk. But there have been hundreds of deaths similar to the one below, which nobody can adequately explain:


read on.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*


In related NJ News...Bob Dylan managed NOT to get tased in Long Branch for walking the streets without ID. PFFffffffttt.






Rock legend Bob Dylan was treated like a complete unknown by police in a New Jersey shore community when a resident called to report someone wandering around the neighborhood.

Dylan was in Long Branch, about a two-hour drive south of New York City, on July 23 as part of a tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp that was to play at a baseball stadium in nearby Lakewood.


read the full report here.



*******************







_________________

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Doctors Are Mad As Hell



You CAN handle the Truth
There's no nice way to say it. The financial cost of health care is killing our citizens, hobbling our economy, crushing small business, and threatening the solvency of our government. In the meantime, the Health Care Industry is spending almost two million dollars a day lobbying Congress and manipulating public opinion to accept “reform” legislation that leaves a vicious, for-profit system intact. The "public option" is a trap. We need real reform that finds immediate savings, controls costs, and accomplishes the moral imperative of true Universal Access. A Single Payer plan is the only real path to a Health Care System that is socially, ethically and fiscally responsible. And yet, our elected officials refuse to even discuss the possibility of a Single Payer plan!


Heh.


'Bout time and Welcome to the club.





___________________

Sunday, August 9, 2009

20 largest cases of companies bilking the government.

via skippy the bush kangaroo:

These are pikers, unrepentant white collar criminals.The same people who fuel the lunatic right wingnuts.

1) tenet healthcare -- $900,000,000 under the false claims act
in july 2006, tenet healthcare (formerly known as nme, see #9 on this list) agreed to pay the federal government $900 million for billing violations that include manipulation of outlier payments to medicare, as well as kickbacks, upcoding, and bill padding.

2) hca -- $731,400,000 under the false claims act
in december 2000, hca the healthcare company (formerly known as columbia hca), the largest for-profit hospital chain in the united states, pled guilty to criminal conduct and agreed to pay more than $840 million in criminal fines, civil penalties and damages for unlawful billing practices. ....note that the december 2000 agreement does not resolve allegations that hca unlawfully charged the u.s government for the costs of running its hospitals, and that it paid kickbacks to physicians to get medicare and medicaid patients referred to its facilities.

3) hca -- $631,000,000 under the false claims act
in june 2003, hca, inc. (formerly known as columbia/hca and hca the healthcare company) agreed to pay the united states $631 million in civil penalties and damages arising from false claims submitted to medicare and other federal health programs.

read on






______________________________

...a reminder from Naomi Klein via Buzzflash:

Republicans Use Chaos as a Shock Doctrine to Create Authoritarian Rule



_________________________________

Friday, July 31, 2009

Orlando Brewing Choir - Beer Parody

Beerspit!



and even funnier via Mock, Paper,Scissors

How Do you plan to celebrate...





More "Beerisms" under "The Audacity of Hops."






___________________

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

New 'shock' report into Irish church sex abuse

A shocking new report has identified hundreds of victims of child sex abuse by Irish Catholic priests, officials said Tuesday, two months after a landmark study found "endemic" mistreatment.

A government-appointed commission of investigation headed by a judge has been probing allegations of abuse by priests in the archdiocese of Dublin -- the country's biggest -- since March 2006.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has warned that the report -- presented to Justice Minister Dermot Ahern on Tuesday -- would "shock us all."


raw story

Former CIGNA Executive Hails 'SiCKO' on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!

“They Dump the Sick to Satisfy Investors”: Insurance Exec Turned Whistleblower Wendell Potter Speaks Out Against Healthcare Industry



read the entire transcript here


************************************************************

Tip of the iceberg...


"We think we make a fair and reasonable profit. I think people dramatically overestimate the amount of profit that we make. We make about 6 percent after tax, which we think is a fair and reasonable number. And we believe we can bring more people in -- that we can be more efficient -- and really offer them a product at a lower price." - Ron Williams

FierceHealthcare reports the following top 10 CEO salaries for 2008
* Ron Williams - Aetna - Total Compensation: $24,300,112.


http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/05/pm_aetna/





_________________

Thursday, July 16, 2009

A Secret Exposed -- Medicare Works Better Than Private Insurance

Nothing better symbolizes the corruption of the debate about healthcare reform than the rhetoric about "government-run" healthcare. Or, for that matter, the related argument that we need a "uniquely American" solution which precludes a public system like Medicare for all.

Two reports that notably received scant coverage from either the media or even those advocating the public plan "option" in Congress, reveal the seldom told truth.

Medicare is a "uniquely American" solution, and it works.



* National Nurses Movement's diary


As we approach the 44th birthday of Medicare July 30th, nurses, doctors, and healthcare activists will gather in Washington to celebrate its successes and lobby to extend them by expanding Medicare to cover everyone.

The rally, sponsored by the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Healthcare, is July 30, at 1 p.m. at Upper Senate Park across from Congress. Check here for more details:

Recent surveys, from the journal Health Affairs and from the Department of Health and Human Services, offer reminders of Medicare's success.

In a May study reported in Health Affairs, Commonwealth Fund leaders found that:

compared to people with private insurance, Medicare enrollees have greater access to care, fewer problems with medical bills, and greater satisfaction with their health plans and the quality of care they receive.


Those findings are especially significant, the report notes, considering that Medicare patients are in the very demographic that has the highest likelihood of poor health, and also tend to have lower incomes.

Yet, only 15 percent of Medicare beneficiaries reported such problems as not being able to pay a medical bill or being hounded by a collection agency, compared to 26 percent of non-Medicare enrollees who have employer-paid health plans.

And, 61 percent of those on Medicare reported they received "excellent or very good quality of care" in the past year compared to less than half those with private insurance.

One of the biggest misleading attacks on Medicare by the anti-government crowd is that it restricts "choice." But the study found that:

Only 10 percent of Medicare beneficiaries said their physician would not take their insurance compared to 17 percent of those with employer coverage.



Perhaps, most important,

"elderly Medicare beneficiaries were also significantly more likely to report being very confident that they could get high quality and safe medical care when needed, and very confident that they would be able to afford the care they need."



read more...





_______________________

Friday, July 10, 2009

Dennis Kucinich Sets Dr. David Gratzer Straight

Dennis delivers a nice hot cup of STFU to the Manhatten Ist. small fry ... gratzer.


I did not know....one out of every four INSURED Americans go without treatment due to high insurance and medical care costs!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Lying Liar and the Lies she tells me...

via The Daily Dish:

The Odd Lies Of Sarah Palin: A Round-Up

After you have read these, ask yourself: what wouldn't Sarah Palin lie about if she felt she had to?

Palin lied when she said the dismissal of her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, had nothing to do with his refusal to fire state trooper Mike Wooten; in fact, the Branchflower Report concluded that she repeatedly abused her power when dealing with both men.

Palin lied when she repeatedly claimed to have said, "Thanks, but no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere; in fact, she openly campaigned for the federal project when running for governor.

Palin lied when she denied that Wasilla's police chief and librarian had been fired; in fact, both were given letters of termination the previous day.

Palin lied when she wrote in the NYT that a comprehensive review by Alaska wildlife officials showed that polar bears were not endangered; in fact, email correspondence between those scientists showed the opposite.

Palin lied when she claimed in her convention speech that an oil gas pipeline "began" under her guidance; in fact, the pipeline was years from breaking ground, if at all.

Palin lied when she told Charlie Gibson that she does not pass judgment on gay people; in fact, she opposes all rights between gay spouses and belongs to a church that promotes conversion therapy.

Palin lied when she denied having said that humans do not contribute to climate change; in fact, she had previously proclaimed that human activity was not to blame.

Palin lied when she claimed that Alaska produces 20 percent of the country's domestic energy supply; in fact, the actual figures, based on any interpretation of her words, are much, much lower.

Palin lied when she told voters she improvised her convention speech when her teleprompter stopped working properly; in fact, all reports showed that the machine had functioned perfectly and that her speech had closely followed the script.

Palin lied when she recalled asking her daughters to vote on whether she should accept the VP offer; in fact, her story contradicts details given by her husband, the McCain campaign, and even Palin herself. (She later added another version.)

Palin lied when she claimed to have taken a voluntary pay cut as mayor; in fact, as councilmember she had voted against a raise for the mayor, but subsequent raises had taken effect by the time she was mayor.

Palin lied when she insisted that Wooten's divorce proceedings had caused his confidential records to become public; in fact, court officials confirmed they released no such records.

Palin lied when she suggested to Katie Couric that she was involved in trade missions with Russia; in fact, she has never even met with Russian officials.

Palin lied when she told Shimon Peres that the only flag in her office was the Israeli flag; in fact, she has several flags.

Palin lied when she claimed to have tried to divest government funds from Sudan; in fact, her administration openly opposed a bill that would have done just that.

Palin lied when she repeatedly claimed that troop levels in Iraq were back to pre-surge levels; in fact, even she acknowledged her "misstatements," though she refused to retract or apologize.

Palin lied when she insisted that the Branchflower Report "showed there was no unlawful or unethical activity on my part"; in fact, that report prominently stated, "Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act."

Palin lied when she claimed to have voiced concerns over Wooten fearing he would harm her family; in fact, she actually decreased her security detail during that period.

Palin lied when asked about the $150,000 worth of clothes provided by the RNC; in fact, solid reporting contradicted several parts of her statement.

Palin lied when she suggested that she had offered the media proof of her pregnancy with Trig to "correct the record"; in fact, no reports of her medical records were ever published; and the letter from her doctor testifying to her good health only emerged hours before polling ended on election day, even though there was nothing in it that couldn't have been released two months earlier.

Palin lied when she said that "reported" allegations of her banning Harry Potter as mayor was easily refutable because it had not even been written yet; in fact, the first book in that series was published in 1998 - two years into her first term - and such rumors were never reported by the media, only circulated as emails.

Palin lied when she denied having participated in a clothes audit with campaign laywers; in fact, the Washington Times later confirmed those details.

Palin lied when asked about Couric's question regarding her reading habits; in fact, Couric's words were not, "What do you read up there in Alaska?" or anything close to condescension.

Palin lied when she mischaracterized the "$1200 check" given to Alaskans as the permanent fund dividend check; in fact, that fund had yielded $2,069 per person, and she claimed otherwise to obscure the fact that Alaskans also received a $1200 rebate check from a windfall profits tax on oil companies - a tax widely criticized by Republicans.

Palin lied when she claimed to be unaware of a turkey being slaughtered behind her during a filmed interview; in fact, the cameraman said she had picked the spot herself, while the slaughter was underway.

Palin lied when she denied having rejected federal stimulus money; in fact, she continued to accept and reject the funds several times.

Palin lied when she claimed that legislative leaders had canceled a meeting with her to hold their own press conference; in fact, they only canceled it after being told she would not participate, and the purpose of the press conference was very different from the meeting's.

Palin lied when she announced on the news that she never holds closed-door meetings; in fact, she had just attended a closed-door meeting with the legislature earlier that day.

Palin lied when she said that former aide John Bitney's "amicable" departure was for "personal" reasons; in fact, Bitney said he was fired because of his relationship with the wife of Palin's friend, plus a Palin spokesperson later claimed "poor job performance" for his firing - without elaborating.

Palin lied when she said she kept her running injury a secret on the campaign trail; in fact, her bandaged hand was clearly visible in photographs and the story was widely talked about.

Palin lied when she claimed that Alaska has spent "millions of dollars" on litigation related to her ethics complaints; in fact, that figure is much, much lower, and she had initiated the most expensive inquiry.

Palin lied when she denied that the Alaska Independence Party supports secession and denied that her husband had been a member; in fact, even the McCain campaign noted that the party's very existence is based on secession and that Todd was a member for seven years.




Thank you Andrew Sullivan, for keeping track of this shite.


____________________________

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Republican'ts should never read ...

d r i f t g l a s s




LMAO!



________________________

Weapons expert Dr David Kelly was writing a book ....




at the same time he decided to off himself.Stink.

via the daily express:

WEAPONS inspector David Kelly was writing a book exposing highly damaging government secrets before his ­mysterious death.

He was intending to reveal that he warned Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq weeks before the ­British and American invasion.

He had several discussions with a publisher in Oxford and was seeking advice on how far he could go without breaking the law on secrets.

Following his death, his computers were seized and it is still not known if any rough draft was discovered by investigators and, if so, what happened to the material.

Dr Kelly was also intending to lift the lid on a potentially bigger scandal, his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa.


US television investigators have spent four years preparing a 90-minute documentary, Anthrax War, suggesting there is a global black market in anthrax and exposing the mystery “suicides” of five government germ warfare scientists from around the world.


Director Bob Coen said: ‘‘The deeper you look into the murky world of governments and germ warfare, the more worrying it becomes.


“We have proved there is a black ­market in anthrax. David Kelly was of particular interest to us because he was a world expert on anthrax and he was involved in some degree with assisting the secret germ warfare programme in apartheid South Africa.”


Dr Kelly was found dead in woods near his Oxfordshire home on July 17 2003. His apparent suicide came two days after he was interrogated in the ­Commons over his behind-the-scenes role in exposing the flaws in the “sexed-up” Number 10 dossier which justified Britain going to war with Iraq.


Conspiracy theorists have claimed he was murdered.

British author Gordon Thomas said last night: ‘‘I knew David Kelly very well and he called me because he was working on a book.

“He told me he had warned Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction. I advised him that as he had signed the Official Secrets Act life could get ­difficult for him.

“I gained the impression that he was prepared to take the flak as he wanted his story to come out.”

Anthrax War will be screened ­privately in London on July 17, the sixth anniversary of Dr Kelly’s death.

_____________________________________

Michael Connell said...

"There are things we will be doing on Election Day that haven't even been dreamt of yet."





Michael Connell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly implicated in the rigging of George Bush’s 2000 and 2004 elections, was killed last night when his single engine plane crashed three miles short of the Akron airport. Velvet Revolution (“VR”), a non-profit that has been investigating Mr. Connell’s activities for the past two years, can now reveal that a person close to Mr. Connell has recently been discussing with a VR investigator how to tell all about his work for George Bush. Mr. Connell told a close associate that he was afraid that the George Bush and Dick Cheney would “throw [him] under the bus.


On October 31, Mr. Connell appeared before a federal judge in Ohio after being subpoenaed in a federal lawsuit investigating the rigging of the 2004 election under the direction of Karl Rove. The judge ordered Mr. Connell to testify under oath at a deposition on November 3rd, the day before the presidential election. Velvet Revolution received confidential information that the White House was extremely concerned about Mr. Connell talking about his illegal work for the White House and two Bush/Cheney 04 attorneys were dispatched to represent him.

read on



_________________




Monday, July 6, 2009

The Golden Boy Destroyer....



...Who's middle name is Strange.No, it really is Strange.
Robert S. McNamara died in his sleep at his home in Washington early this morning, family members said. McNamara, who served as secretary of defense during the Vietnam war under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, was 93.

He was preceded in death by

58,000 US Soldiers killed

3,000,000 Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed

************************************************************

Apocalypse Soon
By Robert S. McNamara
May/June 2005
It is time—well past time, in my view—for the United States to cease its Cold War-style reliance on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. At the risk of appearing simplistic and provocative, I would characterize current U.S. nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous. The risk of an accidental or inadvertent nuclear launch is unacceptably high. Far from reducing these risks, the Bush administration has signaled that it is committed to keeping the U.S. nuclear arsenal as a mainstay of its military power—a commitment that is simultaneously eroding the international norms that have limited the spread of nuclear weapons and fissile materials for 50 years. Much of the current U.S. nuclear policy has been in place since before I was secretary of defense, and it has only grown more dangerous and diplomatically destructive in the intervening years.Read more.


The Fog Of War...watch it free on google video.

This is one of the most
truthful and undisguised documentary form interviews from a top level cabinet member I have ever expected to see.Please watch it.Twice.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Glenn Beck Agrees US Needs Another Al Qaeda Attack To Protect Us From Immigrants?

" The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. "

and a Happy Independence Day To You Too!

via Kos:

If this was said by a Democrat, Progressive or Liberal, or even an independant or moderate, that person would have been publicly tarred and feathered and then ran out on a rail by Fox News and the rest of the Right Wing leaning corporate media.

But instead, it was said on Fox News airtime, during the Glenn Beck show, and the only major media outlet to say peep about it was John Stewart's Daily Show.



Really, what a bunch of traitorous pikers.


_______________

Madoff Investor Received 1000% Return.?.

Client Jeffry Picower allegedly withdrew $5.1 billion from accounts

It is rare these days to see Bernard Madoff's name in print unaccompanied by the word "Ponzi." Yet recent allegations raise the possibility of one key difference between Madoff's crimes and those of legendary con artist Charles Ponzi. While Ponzi's scam was under way, Ponzi himself was its biggest beneficiary. It now appears that the biggest winner in Madoff's scheme may not have been Madoff at all, but a secretive businessman named Jeffry Picower.

Between December 1995 and December 2008, Picower and his family withdrew from their various Madoff accounts $5.1 billion more than they invested with the self-confessed swindler, according to a lawsuit filed by the trustee who is trying to recover money for those Madoff defrauded.


In contrast, shortly after he confessed, Madoff declared his household net worth to be between $823 million and $826 million, according to court documents. While the Madoffs clearly lived opulently, no evidence has emerged that their combined assets and expenditures approached the amount the Picower family is alleged to have withdrawn from the scheme.


In an era when billions of dollars are being tossed about in financial collapses and government bailouts, remarkably little attention has been paid to Jeffry Picower's extraordinary success with Bernie Madoff. If Picower has penetrated the popular consciousness at all, it is as a Madoff victim. The victim narrative is buoyed by testimonials from the nonprofits who received funding from his charitable foundation — which quickly closed on the heels of the swindler's confession. For this reason, ProPublica decided to take a closer look at both Jeffry Picower and the complaint filed against him by Madoff trustee Irving Picard.


read on




_______________

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Pessimistic executives cash out of shares


via FT:

Growing pessimism about the prospects for a global economic recovery sent stock and commodity prices tumbling yesterday while new data showed that leading US corporate executives were cashing out of their share holdings at a rapid pace.

US government bond yields followed equity prices lower, confounding analysts who had expected that Treasury rates would rise this week as the federal government auctioned off a record $104bn of debt.

Analysts said the market mood was captured by a World Bank report that said the global economy would contract 2.9 per cent this year, compared with a previous estimate of a 1.7 per cent fall. A White House spokesman said later in the day that the US unemployment rate was likely to rise to 10 per cent in the next couple of months.

The downbeat commentary reinforced the view that investors should be more worried about the impact of economic weakness on corporate profits than the possibility of higher inflation and interest rates.

"We have had a great run in equities, emerging market currencies, credit and other risky assets, now people are struggling to justify lofty valuations," said Alan Ruskin, strategist at RBS Securities. He added: "The 'green shoots' argument for the economy was very tentative to start with."

Executives in charge of the largest US companies sent a signal of their concerns by selling far more shares than they bought this month, according to data based on Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Share sales by so-called company insiders are outstripping purchases so far this month by more than 22 times. TrimTabs, the investment research company, said insiders of S&P 500 listed companies have unloaded $2.6bn in shares in June, compared with $120m in purchases.

"The smartest players in the US stock market - the top insiders who run public companies - are not betting their own money on an economic recovery," said Charles Biderman, chief executive of TrimTabs.

The S&P 500 index fell 3.06 per cent to 893.04 - its first close below 900 this month. Analysts noted that the index closed below its 50-day and 200-day moving averages. "This is evidence that the rally since March has been a correction and not necessarily the start of a meaningful multi-year rally," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell 10 basis points to 3.68 per cent. Crude oil prices fell $2.62, or 3.77 per cent, to $66.93 a barrel.

Earlier, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index slid 2.6 per cent while London's FTSE 100 index fell 2.3 per cent. Emerging market equities also fell sharply, with Russia leading the retreat.





_________________

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Mark Jacoby - Head of CA GOP Voter Registration Firm Pleads Guilty to Voter Registration Fraud


Mark Jacoby, another convicted Republican who received nothing more than a slap on the hand.


Read this juicy nugget from Brad Blog:


What's perhaps most interesting here is what isn't mentioned in this story, as written on the Los Angeles Times' "L.A. Now" blog. First, here's their entire blog item...

The owner of a voter-registration company pleaded guilty Tuesday to voter-registration fraud, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Laguna Beach resident Mark Jacoby, who collects signatures for petition drives, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to three years' probation and 30 days of service with the California Department of Transportation.

Jacoby, owner of Young Political Majors, registered to vote at Los Angeles addresses that were not his own. State law requires petition circulators to be qualified voters. Jacoby will also be required to show proof he is registered at his correct address.


And what they didn't bother to mention in that story?...Amongst other things, the fact that Jacoby and Young Political Majors were hired by the California Republican Party to head up their voter registration efforts in the state. Jacoby had been arrested for Voter Registration Fraud last October, smack dab during the media's orgasmic heights of last year's phony GOP ACORN "Voter Fraud" hoax, even as Fox "News" (and the other news outlets who similarly fell for the scam) was going wall-to-wall with unsupported insinuations about voter fraud by ACORN, Democrats, and Obama.

I heard the news about the arrest of Jacoby just as I was heading out for an appearance on Fox "News," so I was able to break the news on-air in my own "Fox 'News' Alert." (Video originally posted here, reposted at bottom of this item.)

Given the way the LA Times blog "covered" the story of Jacoby's plea --- not even mentioning the fact that this guy and his group were hired by the California state Republican Party --- I'd say it's a fair bet Fox wouldn't even have bothered to mention the original arrest at all had I not been on air and forcing them to do so myself. Much as they are unlikely to bother reporting Jacoby's plea today.

Ya think if the head of ACORN had made such a plea (or even been arrested at all) it might have been covered just a bit on Fox "News"?


_____________________________


Here's the video from my appearance on Fox with inveterate GOP voter fraud hoaxster John Fund, on October 19, 2008. I broke the news of the arrest of the head of the CA GOP's voter registration outfit, which I had just received from the CA Secretary of State's office, in my own "Fox 'News' Alert"...

youtube fox/brad video


UPDATE: I hadn't noted it originally (though it's available in a number of the links in the story above), but though Jacoby pleaded guilty to the most benign offense, in fact, his company is alleged to have changed thousands of registrations from Democratic to Republican, assuring that those voters would not be able to vote, as expected, in the Democratic primary. When they didn't outright fake voter signatures on change of registration forms, they used tricks to get voters to give their signature, fooling them into thinking they were signing a petition against child molesters or for cancer hospital funding.

And since it's not clear to so many of the wingnuts linking into this post, allow me to underscore again that this was the head of the firm, which is also under investigation in three other states for similar activity. That all, of course, is a very different situation from ACORN where it was a handful of workers who were accused of registration fraud, and defrauding ACORN themselves, before being turned into official by ACORN themselves! Clear on that now, wingnuts? In the meantime, while voters were unable to cast votes at all thanks to Jacoby and YPM, there is not a single allegation of any actual voter fraud having been committed by, or at the behest of ACORN. They are, however, guilty of registering thousands upon thousands of low to middle income voters, who tend to vote Democratic, and thus, they continue to be the target of phony, baseless attacks from the desperate rightwing.




________________________


Here's another good take on this from Paul Lehto at Alternet:



Here's What Vote Fraud Really Looks Like

California Republican Party's sponsorship of the firm YPM is a voter fraud oak tree compared to the innocent ACORN.

Extensive national media coverage of alleged voter registration fraud by ACORN has fanned fears of "voter fraud" by Democratic forces. Given this fact, it's more than a little remarkable that the media has not seen fit to present more balanced coverage. The media could easily do so by reporting, at the same level as ACORN, the far more serious, documented and provable story of election fraud by Young Political Majors, LLC (YPM). YPM's owner Mark Jacoby was recently arrested in California on two felony counts of voter registration fraud and two counts of perjury, as reported in the LA Times October 20. But these 4 charges are the tip of the YPM iceberg. The omission of YPM from the national debate is helping to set the general election on a course of confusion and disfranchisement -- consistent with YPM's undisputed record of disfranchising voters in primary elections earlier this year. As with the case of Tiffany Hofstetter, YPM's activities even include wholesale forgeries of real voters' registration affidavits, that results in them losing their right to vote.

Unlike ACORN's issues (which are almost exclusively the rejection of submitted registration applications that never actually make it onto voter rolls), YPMs frauds are not scrutinized, remain on the rolls, and are therefore far more serious. YPM also differs from ACORN in the following other respects:

(1) YPM usually works directly for the Republican Party, usually in late summer and fall after the primaries are over, even though its main activity seems to be switching Democrats and Independents to Republican status;

(2) The California Republican party admits it knew of YPM's sordid history of alleged fraudulent practices when it hired them, which is available on the internet;

(3) YPM's un-scrutinized frauds continue to impact the voting rights of perfectly legal voters, limiting the ability of Democrats to Get Out the Vote of their own supporters.

(4) YPM in California has twice as many registrations accepted (70,000+) as ACORN has merely submitted (39,570 in California)

(5) YPMs registrations still affect the registration rolls, erroneously listing some voters as absentee who are not, changing addresses, and altering party statistics which influences fundraising for candidates, whether districts are considered "competitive" and influencing what election results mean or whether they are considered suspicious.

read more


a comment from alternet puts it into perspective:


"Why haven't we heard of this organization before? Why haven't we heard of this allegations (and prosecutions) before?

ACORN was completely vilified for incomplete and inaccurate voter REGISTRATION but they haven't been formally accused (as in, by any government law agency) of voter fraud.

Yet, verifiable examples of voter fraud by the republicans is covered up? Way to drop the ball, liberal media. Too bad it's this late in the game to really make a difference.'


:snort:




________________


Saturday, June 20, 2009

Mission Accomplished!



Iraqi Oil Minister accused of mother of all sell-outs



To public fury, the country is handing over control of its fields to foreign companies

Furious protests threaten to undermine the Iraqi government's controversial plan to give international oil companies a stake in its giant oilfields in a desperate effort to raise declining oil production and revenues.

In less than two weeks, on 29 and 30 June, the Iraqi Oil Minister, Hussain Shahristani, will award service contracts to the world's largest oil companies to develop six of Iraq's largest oil-producing fields over 20 to 25 years.

Senior figures within the Iraqi oil industry have denounced the deal. Fayad al-Nema, the director of the South Oil Company, which comes under the Oil Ministry and produces most of Iraq's crude, said on the weekend: "The service contracts will put the Iraqi economy in chains and shackle its independence for the next 20 years. They squander Iraq's revenues." Mr Nema is reported to have since been fired because of his opposition to the contracts, which he says is shared by many other officials in Iraq's state-owned oil industry.

read on


_________________________

Friday, June 19, 2009

The jokes are writing themselves...again.

Judge to review Cheney interview in CIA leak case


WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge said Thursday that he wants to look at notes from the FBI's interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney during the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan's decision to review the documents followed arguments by Obama administration lawyers that sounded much like the reasons the Bush administration provided for keeping Cheney's interview from the public.

Justice Department lawyers told the judge that future presidents and vice presidents may not cooperate with criminal investigations if they know what they say could become available to their political opponents and late-night comics who would ridicule them.

"If we become a fact-finder for political enemies, they aren't going to cooperate," Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Smith said during a 90-minute hearing. "I don't want a future vice president to say, `I'm not going to cooperate with you because I don't want to be fodder for 'The Daily Show.'"


Sullivan said the Justice Department must give him more precise reasons for keeping the information confidential than they had in previous court filings.

Cheney agreed to talk to FBI agents in June 2004 as they were investigating the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters the year before. Her name was revealed after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, criticized the Bush administration's prewar intelligence on Iraq.

The leak touched off a lengthy inquiry that led to Cheney's former top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, being convicted on charges of obstruction of justice and lying to investigators. During his trial, jurors found that Libby lied to the FBI and a grand jury about his conversations with reporters. Bush commuted Libby's sentence, and he never served prison time.

Libby was the only person charged in the case. No one was charged with leaking Wilson's name.

read more



________________________

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Great Pic!






We can learn a lesson from the freedom loving Iranian people and ...d r i f t g l a s s





________________
UPDATE!

06/19/09 ...all reports agree...

tomorrow there will be blood.



________________

Following the Iran news through "Andrew Sullivan's - The Daily Dish."



________________

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Bill O'Reilly 'Goes Nuts' On Joan Walsh of Salon.com Over Dr. Tiller Controversy

That's the way ya do it Joan.

Watch till the end where he admits and apologizes for the Tenn. church shooter.


a little background on Dr. McHugh via hufpo blogger DrJulienArbor:


Joan may have a difficult time challenging Dr. McHugh, but I'd be glad to do it... and I also don't care how prestigious of a position he held or what university he was affiliated with. The following links are some examples of Dr. McHugh's work...

http://www.psycom.net/mchugh.html

http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/index.php/tag/paul-mchugh-md/

http://www.dana.org/news/features/detail.aspx?id=13798

http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/paul-mchugh.html

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Bailey/McHugh/McHugh%20on%20Transsexualism.htm

This are some of the most outrageously irresponsible claims that I have ever seen by someone in the "mental health care" system. Not only is his agenda blatantly obvious... but he's DEAD WRONG regarding dissociation, repressed memories, the epidemic of child sexual abuse including ritualized abuse. And when it comes to Charcot... he either doesn't read French, is ignorant of Charcot's history... or he IS lying!

He's correct about one thing though... the number of psychiatric diagnosis in DSM should be reduced. As a matter of fact... the entire DSM should be ELIMINATED!




___________________

Friday, June 12, 2009

Krugman on CONservative Driven Hate and Murder

Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.

Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.


Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).


But let’s not neglect the print news media. In the Bush years, The Washington Times became an important media player because it was widely regarded as the Bush administration’s house organ. Earlier this week, the newspaper saw fit to run an opinion piece declaring that President Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,” and that in any case he has “aligned himself” with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.


And then there’s Rush Limbaugh. His rants today aren’t very different from his rants in 1993. But he occupies a different position in the scheme of things. Remember, during the Bush years Mr. Limbaugh became very much a political insider. Indeed, according to a recent Gallup survey, 10 percent of Republicans now consider him the “main person who speaks for the Republican Party today,” putting him in a three-way tie with Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich. So when Mr. Limbaugh peddles conspiracy theories — suggesting, for example, that fears over swine flu were being hyped “to get people to respond to government orders” — that’s a case of the conservative media establishment joining hands with the lunatic fringe.


read on


via a hufpo blogger:


"You don't see Democrats wanting to invade countries under false pretenses, diverting our national wealth to cronies at Haliburton, Big Pharma, the oil companies, trashing the constitution, corrupting the Department of Justice, demanding unrestrained capitalism that threatens our democracy.
To suggest that responsible government involvement, a return to its rightful place in governing is a move to Marxism is insane."

another:

"I was heartened to learn that 3 of the indictments of Rwandan war criminals in the Hague were for radio broadcasters. Not only did they gin up hatred toward the Tutsis, they coordinated the attacks by telling Hutus it was time to go and kill their neighbors. They were all convicted on various counts of genocide and conspiracy, though I don't know what happened on appeal.

Read about the convictions here:
http://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/5622?show=full

The article below, about the original indictments, also mentions the fact that Streicher, publisher of Der Sturmer, which incited hatred of Jews in 1930's Germany, was sentenced to the gallows at Nuremberg.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/163/28824.html

It appears that something awful -- not just one murder here and there -- has to happened before people get called to account. It would be nice to nip it in the bud, for a change."




________________





__________________