A Giant Step Towrd the National Security State: The Dirty Secrets of George H. W. Bush

Although, I'm always a little leery of ex-CIA or ex-intelligence, as I find it hard to believe former intelligence officials are allowed to expose anything, this documentary on former President George H. W. Bush is very interesting.

Recorded December 10, 1988



Here are some of the questions that former CIA Station Chief in Angola under Director George H. W. Bush, and author of "In Search of Enemies", John Stockwell addresses:

How does the United States economic and political system really work?

Why doesn't anyone expose the corruption/scandal?

How did the establishment ensure Jesse Jackson's failure in the 1988 primaries?

Ronald Reagan gave us the most corrupt administration in history with almost 200 people indited or jailed for corruption, so why didn't the Democrats--Governor Michael Dukakis--fight harder to win the 1988 election?

Why did Bush choose Dan Quayle? Impeachment insurance?

Read more...

Are We Slowly being Converted to a Part-time Worker Society?

To be sure, job cuts--and some might say, massive job cuts--are a daily event, but what about jobs created? According to the Household Survey, of the 953,000 jobs created in 2013, 77%, or 731,000 are part-time (full-time=35 hours or more per week, part-time=less than 35 hours per week) so as Zero Hedge has been saying for over three years, the workplace in America is radically changing right before our eyes, although, unlike Zero Hedge, I certainly don't think Obamacare is the reason behind the transition to a part-time work force. Jobs were sent away a long time ago and our current economy was/is a creation decades in the making. Don't forget that the financial crisis started under 'W' who started two wars, created the TSA, passed the Patriot Act, pushed for the bailouts, and spent more than every president prior to him.

Moreover, we're fighting for full-time jobs that should be paying at least 40-60k but are instead paying 15-30k with less benefits and no job security, not to mention, the huge student loan debt that most people have to pay off no matter what kind of job they get.

Sadly, for the first time ever, this generation will not be better off than its parents, and paradoxically, the cost of living can be higher, much higher for the poor, a segment of our population that is growing larger everyday, a segment of our population that our younger generations can look forward to inclusion because Good luck finding full-time employment!

Read more...

America Shouldn't Rule Out a Third Bush Administration

Yep, it's true.  An unholy trinity of Bush Presidents is not only possible, it's probable, as the Bush dynasty family - George H.W. the father, George W. the brother, and George P. the son - is urging Jeb Bush to run for President. George P. Bush had the nerve to say said, "Make no mistake about it, I think a lot of people sorely miss and would relish some sort of return of that type of approach to leading our country."

Read more...

Camp Fema

On April 1, 1979, President Carter signed Executive Order 12127, and created FEMA for the purpose of coordinating the response to disasters that occur in the US, and that overwhelm the resources of states.  FEMA absorbed the Federal Insurance Administration, The National Fire Prevention and Control Admin, National Weather Service Community Preparedness Program. FEMA was also given the responsiblity of overseeing national civil defense.

In 2003, FEMA became part of the Department of Homeland Security's emergency response and directorate. .

FEMA's implicit objective: to provide aid to victims of disaster, changed under the directive of former President George W. Bush to protect our nation from dangerous people. Wait. Isn't that what our military is for? Our local and state police?

Well, 90% of the populatin of New Orleans was displaced by Hurricane Katrina, but according to Michael Brown, the White House was fairly reluctant to support. After all, it was only a natural disaster...not the forces of "evil".

A government report on the response of FEMA to Hurricane Katrina, was that FEMA was so beyond repair...so dysfunctional, that the agency should be scrapped.  But, unfortunately, it's still with us.

Army Regulation 210-35 Civilian Inmate Labor Program

Since 1986, when this was secretly created, the number of civilian inmate labor camps have doubled from 12 to 24.

Read more...

$18.7 Billion Missing From Bush's Plane Full of $20 Billion in Shrink-Wrapped Cash

Six years, and three audits later, the US still cannot account for $18.7 billion of the $20 billion that George W, shrink-wrapped, stuffed into a C 130, and then hurled it like a ho for turning free tricks, overseas to Iraq for distribution. Oh, you thought it was $6.6 billion that went missing? Wrong. That figure has now tripled.

This was money that had come from Iraqi development fund - oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food programme and seized Iraqi assets.  Moreover, the documents of expenditure are missing. Who got it, where it was spent, or whether anything was actually built with the money is "unknown".  Yeah right, you can make a good faith bet that someone knows.   Just like someone knows where the $2.3 trillion missing, reported on 9/10/01, went. Such a coincidence that the very next day, three towers -- probably containing much of that information --  and thousands of people --  who most certainly had a clue -- dissolve into dust.

The bottom line is that the American government was responsible for safeguarding that money, and they did not. Yet, a bank-teller's drawer, is found to be one penny short, or over (as I learned long ago), and that person can potentially go to jail. Yes...to jail, if it's found out that he or she added or took a penny to break even.

Billions, and trillions of dollars go missing on a regular basis, since W entered office, and it's no big deal?!? Come on people! How much evidence do you need to figure out that stone-cold, straight up gangster thugs, rollin' deep, and bustin' caps in anyone who gets in their way, transformed the United States of America into their own personal Babylon? That is, if there ever was a United States of America. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Read more...

President George H.W. Bush Found Guilty of War Crimes?

Did you know about the International Tribunal that found former President George H.W. Bush guilty of 19 war crimes in his Iraq war? Because of  his war's "destruction of Iraq, killing at least 125,000 persons directly by its bombing while proclaiming its own combat losses as 148, and because it destroyed the economic base of Iraq and because its acts are still inflicting consequential deaths that may reach hundreds of thousands."

It's true.  On February 29, 1992, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium in New York, a 22 member International War Crimes Tribunal representing 5 continents, before a public meeting of 1,500 people (completely blocked out by the media in America) headed by former United States Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, wrapped up 12 months of gathering and reviewing evidence of the the Initial Complaint of the Commission of Inquiry dated May 6, 1991 against President George H. W. Bush, Vice President J. Danforth Quayle, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, and others named in the Complaint charging them with 19 separate crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in violation of the Charter of the United Nations, the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the First Protocol thereto, and other international agreements and customary international law.

The Tribunal found George Bush and others in his administration guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Okay, am I the only one who missed this historic event?

Read more...

Obama Flips Social Security Off Again.

Okay, if I know that Social Security has nothing to do with the $1.4 trillion deficit or the $13.8 trillion debt, President Obama certainly knows. In fact, he knows the SS surplus has funded President budgets for decades! Why? Because, once again, I know, and I'm not exactly the brightest bird in the flock.  I didn't even have to look it up...I just knew.

Yet, despite his obvious intelligence,  he continues to make statements like the following:

"Actually, I think that if you talk to economists, both conservative and liberal, what they'll say is the problem is not next year. The problem is, how are we dealing with our medium-term debt and deficit, and how are we dealing with our long-term debt and deficit? And most of that has to do with entitlements, particularly Social Security and Medicaid." - President Obama

You see, Social Security and Medicare represent the last vestige of an American society governed by the people and for the people...or at least, as much as that statement has ever held any truth. Therefore, they remain the targets of the Republican demolition squad. Why? Because to completely unravel the remaining tattered threads of the people’s “safety net" - those same threads that former President Roosevelt’s New Deal and former President Johnson’s Great Society wove together that created a network to cushion the blows that can result from occurrences beyond our control - completes their agenda to eliminate protection for the people.  But, President Obama is not a Republican. He is a Democrat...one, who promised he would work on behalf of the people for a change.

He knows we the people are already suffering from an economy that has devastated our savings, home values and retirement security, so why is he  trying to impose measures aimed at cutting working-class living standards? And falsely citing Social Security and Medicare as the biggest problems in dealing with the long-term debt and deficit? Especially, when it's not true.  Moreover, why has President Obama tried to put Social Security on the chopping block (Conrad-Gregg Commission) from the moment he took office?

Anyway, here's the truth: The $1.4 trillion deficit nor the nearly $13.8 trillion debt have anything to do with SS. SS has taken in more revenue each year than it has paid out in benefits for the last 30-years. The excess revenue has been invested in U.S. government securities that the federal government "borrows" from to spend on other things.

Yet, despite the innocence and contribution of social security, increasing the retirement age to 69, making citizens work longer so they pay more into the system, and then, in turn, giving them less when they retire, ranks up there as one of top solutions offered at the expense of the American public.

Read more...

President Obama: Man of the People? Captive of the Ruling Elite? Political Genius? Or All Three?

After President Bush tripled the size of federal government, shredded the Constitution, our civil liberties, our global reputation, and millions of lives, worldwide, Americans finally had enough.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Barack Obama, almost a messiah-like figure, emerged on the scene, and surprisingly, without too much trouble from the GOP, won the election. It seemed too good to be true.

On the one hand, the wars continue, the secrecy continues, the lies continue, the torture continues, Wall Street continues to triumph, the rich continue to get richer... and now President Obama gave into the GOP's blatant terror tactics and agreed to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for two more years. Why? In order to prevent the GOP from forcing a tax increase on all income levels and to keep them from preventing the extension of jobless benefits. So, even though the deal still has to be approved by the House and Senate, President Obama gave into the little terrorists despite the fact that 60% of Americans do not want tax cuts extended for those making over $250,000 per year.

However, on the other hand, what if President Obama decided to fight the GOP?  More than likely, he would not have won the concessions from the GOP that are extraordinarily important to the people suffering right now.

As part of the deal, expiring unemployment benefits for millions of Americans will be extended for 13 months. Just as importantly, there is now a real prospect that the Senate will act on repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and ratification of the START treaty before this month's lame duck session ends.
[...]
There's also a longer term calculation at work. Note that the deal also includes a reduction in the Social Security payroll tax and an expansion of the earned income tax credit and the college tuition tax credit. This is on top of the extension in unemployment benefits. These measures have one thing in common: They are stimulative in nature. (So, for that matter, is the fact that middle class Americans won't face a tax hike -- something that would have happened had Obama balked at the deal and played a long-term game of chicken with the GOP).

Below Senator Al Franken gives a great speech.  During the speech he said that the IRS published a study analyzing the tax returns of the wealthiest 400 Americans. As their "income rose an average of $81 million -- in a single year", they paid an average effective tax rate of little over 16%.

Read more...

FBI Raids Against Antiwar Activists Setting Dangerous Prescedent.

The Bush Administration established the pattern of "firing, intimidating and defaming anyone who has had the courage to tell the truth," coining the term, intimigate, in other words, treating dissent as treason. It appears the Obama administration is not only refusing to do anything about curbing this practice, they are taking it to a new level... dozens of US Citizens on Assassination List?

The recent arrests of of antiwar activists in the US by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force concerning the "material support of terrorism" is setting the stage for a future crackdown on dissent. In fact,  It could be said the stage was set long ago with the introduction of "The Patriot Act", and this is the crackdown which is only going to accelerate. Why pick on peace activists? Because we the people have always mistrusted peace activists, therefore they're the perfect scapegoat to pave the way and condition the people for further attacks on dissent.

The "war on terror" is purposely vague and broadly defined as is the accusation of, "material support", thus allowing federal authorities to arbitrarily interpret our words and actions as they see fit.  Hence, if fostering peace = material support of terrorism,  then dissent = material support of terrorism. 

Key to this process of imposing control is making we the people feel as though, the preyed upon, deserve the "treatment", because there is something wrong with them, not with the system. And then if somehow that backfires, and the people see through the power agenda, layers of arbitrary and intricate bureaucracy exist to take the heat and camouflage the real perpetrators.

"And though the time is always right for an act of conscience, perhaps the best time of all is when the voices of power are howling that dissent is treason. A crowd marching for principle voices a different kind of power, saying what power itself doesn't want to hear: Americans have a right to dissent. Civil liberties are not a village that you save by destroying." -- Erika Munk, adjunct professor at the School of Drama, about her efforts to organize a protest march in her article "Saturday is the Time To Speak Truth to Power," Newsday (New York), March 20, 2003.

However,  closely examine  this "war on terror", and see if you don't start to wonder who is terrorizing who.  Especially when you consider the 32% civilian fatality rate in drone attacks since 2004. We're certainly not winning hearts and minds, and it's beginning to appear as if our government doesn't care about hearts and minds of anyone, either here or abroad.

The antagonism to U.S. policies in the region does not spring from general anti-American feelings. Almost three-quarters of the people in the tribal area said that their opinion of the United States would improve -- most by a great deal -- if the United States increased humanitarian aid and visas to work or study in the States. While hating the American drones above them, the people of FATA would welcome the chance to have the ground of America beneath their feet.

What is the purpose of policing the state? Who benefits? Well, if it's not obvious already, it's the people who profit from the war machine and those who reap the enormous rewards of corporate profits. Because when  over half  of what we pay in taxes funds the war machine and when corporate and Wall Street profits soar, while at the same time, we're constantly told that there is not enough money to fund health care; to fund unemployment;  that Social Security benefits need to be cut back or privatized; that  Medicare benefits need to be reduced; that the retirement age needs to be increased to 70; that states, who unlike the federal government, have to balance their budgets, are on their own; that Sarah Palin must slash state funding for a program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live...well, sooner or later, the "iron fist" will have to dispose of the velvet glove.

Links:

Political Dissent can bring federal agents to your door.

The War on Dissent Widens

Black Helicopters? The GOP's Police State.

Read more...

Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Will Fuel Economic Cesspool.

If the Bush tax cuts are extended, there is no doubt that more wealth concentration will occur.  At at time when a  growing percentage of our population faces economic hardship, can we really afford to let money, the life blood of our economy,  stagnate like water in a polluted cesspool?  

Because clearly, money at the top stays at the top, creating, if anything, burstable bubbles that can further destabilize our economic future.  It certainly doesn't  trickle down to create jobs, otherwise unemployment would have fallen, considering, currently, the money hoarders at the top - as more money than ever before is accumulating in the pockets of the rich - will continue to hoard.

Even if  "trickle-down" worked before (it did not - think Reagan's wealth redistribution towards the affluent), now that the wealthy have gone global and no longer limit their investments to America,  cutting their taxes is ludicrous.

This year  "the price of admission to the [Forbes] 400 is back up to the $1-billion mark" proving, once more, the rich are not investing in America.  The whole point of capital formation is to inject large amounts of money to increase flow, not to accumulate lots of it in a bank and short circuit economic flow.

Essentially we have transferred economic planning from government to the financial sector. Financial engineering creates an abundance of financial overhead - interest, dividends, fees, commissions, sky-high management salaries, bonuses, stock options, “capital” gains, etc. - that does nothing more than make money from money that doesn't even exist, thus draining, rather than creating value.

The casino games the financial sector plays reduces the value of our money.  If the rich truly believed in America, they would support taxation. 

Links:

The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review

Read more...

Be Wise as Serpents but Innocent as Doves.

We certainly don't have to, nor should we employ Machiavellian amorality. However, considering the growing number of disinformation campaigns, red herrings, and the continuous lies and deceit of the upper echelon, who face no consequences for their corrupt behavior, it's more important than ever to possess the wisdom to realize and understand when this ferocious lack of morality is aimed in our direction.

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene filters and condenses 3,000 years of the history of power into 48 laws, which incorporate  philosophies from Machiavelli to Sun-tzu.

Amongst those "laws of power", I believe our government, corporations, and many other powerful institutions use the following one to manipulate the people continuously.

Use selective honesty and generosity to  disarm, as one sincere move will serve to cover dozens of dishonest ones.

There is nothing like a seemingly open-hearted gesture to break down and penetrate the defenses of suspicious people in order to exploit and suppress.

Read more...

We the Whale Can Take On Jaws IF We Unite Our Minds.

The Whale that Ate Jaws:

In 1997, just off the Farallon Islands, a group of whale watchers witnessed a never-been-seen-before act of nature when a killer whale took on and killed a great white shark, and then arose to the water's surface with the great white in its mouth, holding it there for 15 minutes.

How did the whale kill the shark? Well, it seems he outsmarted the shark by discovering its weakness, and that is, sharks are rendered helpless when turned upside down, a state called "tonic immobility.” They will suffocate if held in that position for any length of time.

It was noted that after Orca killed the Great White, all the sharks, hundreds of them, in the area hightailed it out of there, swimming 2000 miles away to Hawaii, which goes to show that the biggest predators are usually the biggest cowards once you discover, expose and/or exploit their weakness.

"The Whale that Ate Jaws" should stand as a metaphor for we the people's [whale] struggle to take back our nation from the self-serving, all-powerful, ruling class [sharks] and the corporations which the elites depend to protect their wealth. Even though, like the sharks, the power elite's (corporate, political, inherited, etc..) teeth are sharper, pocketbook fatter, and conscience severely lacking; we, like the whales, can make up for this by the simple fact that we, by far, outnumber the bastards.

By uniting our brain power, we can destroy the grip of the financial aristocracy and their unburdened psychopathic minds, who only know how to get what they want: absolute power, control, and freedom to feed their desires, whatever those desires.

And no, not all psychopaths are violent serial killers...far from it. Psychopaths are as varied in their interests as you and I. The vast majority have no desire to get down and dirty or bloody their hands ...they hire, manipulate, and sometimes, if necessary, coerce others to do that for them. But there is no doubt that there are many lurking amongst those who rule.

Those at the top of the food chain have a few things  in common besides their contempt for anyone outside their circle: obstructing justice and shielding criminals of the worst kind.   Distracting attention from the growing evidence of their guilt which range from mass murder (9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc..) to murder (state sponsored execution, lack of health care, driving people to suicide, etc..) to the the economic disparity and global poverty that continues to grow in a world of plenty consumes these sharks and they will stop at nothing to get what they want.  What do they want?  Everything!  All the "wealth".  All the power. All the glory.  In other words, absolute possession of control or command over others.

This absolute power grab will continue to escalate. Why? Because those in power are scared. They know for the first time in history, we the people, not just of this country, but of the world at large, have, a weapon of mass "Great White" destruction; that is, the tools to converge and collaborate: instant communication and a vast network of knowledge at our fingertips.

The digital revolution is making the job of silencing witnesses and protecting the guilty much more difficult than in past generations. If we're savvy enough to recognize and utilize it,  is the tool that can serve to destroy the elite monopoly that is currently making life hell on earth for the great majority.

Here's the thing. We don't understand them, but they understand us all too well. They know they are not like us. We don't know that they are not like us.

Rise like lions after slumber, in unvanquishable number –
Shake your chains to earth like dew,
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many – they are few.

Percy Shelley, 1817

Read more...

Remember Who Authored this Tragic Script..

As NPR's  Chris Satullo   so eloquently authored and voices in A driller's lament, President Obama is not the "author of this tragedy".

Most of us can agree, I'd imagine, that the Obama administration has made a political hash out of the Gulf oil spill.

The president hasn't nailed either half of the required theatrics: the righteous rage toward BP and the rest, of the Clintonesque quivering lip that shows he feels the Gulf Coast's pain.

But we do understand a few things, don't we? The latest Gallup Poll suggests that many of us do. Such as:

The inability to stem the leak is a technical issue, not one of political will. It is a failure of engineering know-how, not leadership.

It's not that people aren't trying to stop the oil from gushing. They've tried everything they could think of, and nothing worked.

And that's the scary thing.

Which drives you back to deeper points. What in the world were we doing letting corporations drill this deep if we couldn't curb the damage should something go wrong? And why let corporations follow their own judgment when it comes to keeping things from going terribly wrong?

Those mistakes date back to long before the current president.

Some people now deem it very bad form to point out that any current calamity is very significantly the fault of George W. Bush. Of course, many of the people who say that have spent the last 40 years blaming everything that goes wrong in America on a couple of Supreme Court decisions and a few hairy protesters back in the 60s.

Fact is, we do have political parties in this country, and they are different.

Only one party has made a national project out of limiting rules on business and defanging the agencies that enforce those rules. Only one party chants Drill, Baby, Drill!

As you may have heard, the agency that was supposed to help prevent calamities like the spill is a mess, a watchdog put to sleep by bribes as cheap as tickets to a football game.

Ask yourself: Which president was himself a driller, who made it his agenda to to put industry executives in charge of the agencies that regulate industry?

Hint, it wasn't Barack Obama. It was that guy before him.

Just thought I'd mention that before we all swallow hole the emerging media theme that the spill is Obama's Katrina.

Read more...

When Will We Start to Hold the Power Elite Accountable?

While poorly paid, hard working Americans face relatively severe consequences should they engage in any type of misconduct no matter how small, government officials, bankers, CEOs, oil executives, in other words, the power elite, who are responsible for catastrophic damage, not only escape consequences of their misconduct, they often reap rewards for their egregious behavior.

Consider, for example, the bank teller, who is lucky to make $10/hour. If she inadvertently violates bank policy she can face relatively severe consequences. However, if she is a little more deliberate, and let's say adds a penny to balance out her cash drawer at the end of the day, she could possibly face jail time. That's right...jail time! For contributing her own money!

So, what are the latest reports of "misconduct" regarding the teflon coated, crème de la crème?

Well, it appears the Physicians For Human Rights author of "The Torture Papers" discovered evidence indicating that the Bush Administration conducted illegal and unethical human experimentation and research on detainees in CIA custody.  Experiments in Torture is the first report to reveal such information.

This evidence, of course,  could possibly open the door to potential additional legal liability for the CIA and Bush officials.  Nothing, as of yet, has materialized indicating that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel determined that the alleged experimentation and research performed on detainees was lawful, as it did with the “enhanced” techniques themselves.

Escaping accountability for wrongdoing just because you're wealthy and powerful defies the rule of law. And it appears the current administration has no intention of preserving the equality of all its citizens before the law, as it is clear that those who reside at the lofty peak of American society are exempt.



Links:

Former President Bush said, while speaking to the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, Michigan that if he had it [deliberate undermining of the Geneva Conventions] to do over, he would.

"Yeah, we water-boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," Bush said of the terrorist who master-minded the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. He said that event shaped his presidency and convinced him the nation was in a war against terror. "I'd do it again to save lives."

Interview with the lead medical author of the report, Dr. Scott Allen.

U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

"Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks, Wired.com has learned.

SPC Bradley Manning, 22, (left) of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged."

Read more...

Firearms: Prosthetics for Defective Courage?

Back in March I wondered why guns were considered so manly. After all, anyone from a little child to an old woman can aim and fire, and with any luck, kill, so what's with all the machismo? And yes, I have fired a short barreled 44 Magnum and a .45 Magnum, at random times, and other than maybe a little tingling, I can't say it was all that brutal.

Anyway, here's my update to that oh so profound and inspiring post:

The Violence Policy Center began an ongoing research project to identify and tally killings in five separate categories, beginning in May 2007 to the present by individuals with concealed handgun permits. As the result of a massive campaign led by the gun lobby, almost all states maintain a veil of secrecy around those who have been issued permits to carry concealed handguns. Therefore, the VPC is forced to rely primarily on news accounts for reports of killings by concealed handgun permit holders and subsequent legal proceedings.

Concealed handgun permit holders have killed at least nine law enforcement officers and 98 private citizens (including 12 shooters who killed themselves after an attack) since May 2007

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

I don't get it. Why do guns make for a manly man? With the exception of Dirty Harry, I don't see it. At least Dirty Harry made "good" use of his gun and tried to right wrongs by pursuing wrongdoers. Whether or not his actions were justified is another issue for another time.

However, firearms - pistols, self-loading assault rifles, shotguns, etc - were created in order to protect and defend us from danger...in other words, from what we fear.

Firepower allow us to feign self-confidence, and mask terror in bravado, sometimes desensitizing ourselves to what we fear. So many times, the weapons we stockpile are useless in the face of what we really fear, our own mortality. The truth is everyone of us is more fragile, limited, helpless, and dependent than we would like to admit. That in this great big world, all it takes is one small hiccup from nature, and in less than one millisecond, we could all evaporate as if we never existed.

I'll even go as far as to say, it would have been far manlier, if Dirty Harry carried a knife, brass knuckles, or the most manly of all, relied on his bare knuckles, rather than carry such a user-friendly, metal contraption that shoots deadly projectiles, so easy to use, even Paris Hilton could take over, and just might, if she thought that by doing so, she would attract more followers.

NRA "from my cold dead hands" gun owners, so quick to label gun-control liberals as sissies, must wear these "bravado" masks to cover up the trembling men of fear that they really are underneath. Gun ownership, in this country is more often a sign of cowardice than bravery, as they are an easy way to assuage fear for people too frightened to face the world without a a prosthetic device that allows them to remain erect and stand "strong".

Unless your address is 123 Front Line Blvd, Brutal Warzone, Planet Earth, 45678, it's hard to understand why a big, strong, courageous, manly man needs to stockpile pistols, self-loading assault rifles, and shotguns, for any other reason than he's a big ol' sissy, afraid of his own shadow, or perhaps, he is compensating for something lacking in size or potency.

Since when is brute strength, virility, honor, chivalry, bravery, and/or any other manly qualities, required to operate most firearms? Any grandma with enough strength and coordination to operate an old-fashioned can opener, more than likely, can pull a trigger. Shouldn't big strong, courageous manly men, living in a civilized society, be able to function without the protection of so many powerful artificial devices of courage?

Former President George W. Bush would definitely disagree, as "a federal judge blocked a last-minute rule enacted by President George W. Bush allowing visitors to national parks to carry concealed weapons."

Read more...

Obfuscating the Real Issues.

While everyone is waxing hysterical over the manufactured controversy regarding President Obama's speech to schoolchildren, clearly a non-issue, there are real controversial issues that need to be addressed.

For example, why is President Obama continuing some of the Bush administration's disastrous policies, specifically retaining Blackwater (rebranded Xe pronounced “z”obviously a ploy to operate in the shadows rather the limelight of their murderous past), which is owned by right-wing religious fanatic, and "Christian" crusader, Erik Prince, who is currently accused of murder.

Why isn't Obama doing more to reverse the Bush Administration's destructive courses of action and instead relying on what can only be called, "Bush-era tactics." ?

Why isn't he doing more to stop the senseless bloodshed...to stop the hiring of mercenaries from "for profit" war corporations, who currently comprise more than half of all military forces in U.S. war zones?

Why does the Congressional research group, report civilian contractors working for the Pentagon in Afghanistan not only outnumber the uniformed troops, but also form the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel recorded in any war in the history of the United States?

What happened to the Stop Outsourcing Security Act? , which would have phased out the use of private military contractors? Open Congress reports that secure it's interests regardless of costs in collateral damages.

Could it be that war profiteering is just too profitable to the corporate elite to put a halt to mercenary armies?

Do we really need a new super-sized U.S. embassy in Islamabad that rivals the scale of Bush's giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million?

So, why not hire private contractors, especially when our military is stretched so thin in various places around the world?

Jeremy Scahill eloquently answers this question and I will do my best to paraphrase. He basically says, when it becomes a necessity to hire an army of people to fight a war, it’s not a reflection of the will of “we the people”. If this were truly a war of national defense, people would willingly sign up, and the government would impose a draft. In this situation, however, imposing a draft would almost certainly put an end to this war as it would surely serve as the fuel needed to fire "we the people" up.

180,000 private contractors are in Iraq right now working for "for profit" war corporations. There are only 150,000 US soldiers. There are 630 corporations on the US government payroll in Iraq. 40% of the money being spent on the occupation in Iraq goes directly to these corporations.

This administration has circumvented the democratic process in order to keep a draft off the table. They have replaced a system of negotiation or international diplomacy or coalition of willing nations with a coalition of corporations. This not only violates democratic principles in the United States, it violates the sovereignty of nations around the world because they are hiring people from countries who are against the war.

On of the gravest matters regarding this issue is that the contractors have not been held to the same standards as the military. They are not held accountable under any system of law whatsoever. 70 soldiers have been court marshaled on murder related charges alone since the beginning of the Iraq war. Not one armed contractor has been prosecuted for any crime under any legal system.

Our soldiers are lucky if they're earning $40,000/year. Their families are at home saving their own money to buy body armor, meanwhile these contractors are making six figures and have much better equipment than our soldiers, manufactured by one of the companies that make up the Prince global empire. In addition, our soldiers often pay the price for the misconduct of the contractors, as they are above the law.

It wasn't all that surprising to see our government stoop so low as to hire Blackwater contractors take on the truly "dangerous" .... dying cancer patients, when Bush was in office, because, after all, President Bush was in office. However, it is surprising to see the escalation of some of Bush's most controversial policies under President Obama.

The bottom line is we need to differentiate between real issues and manufactured issues designed to steer us away from what is in our best interest.

Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)

Contracts to Blackwater USA from 2000-2008

Triple Canopy and DynCorp.

Read more...

Did Bush Set Precedent For the Palin Administration?

I posted this back in early December, however since then, President Obama has made it clear he will not pursue the crimes of the Bush administration when he said, "I don't believe that anybody is above the law," he responded, but "we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards."

If that's true, than why bother investigating any crime? President Obama, more than anything else, reestablish the "rule of law" as that is what makes this country great. Ignoring the Bush Administration's blatant disregard for the law sends the opposite message...that as long as you are rich enough, powerful enough...the law does not apply to you.

Barack Obama may not choose to indulge in the dangerous legal precedent the Bush administration has set, however, unless that legal precedent is overturned, it's very likely, that a President, like, let's say, Sarah Palin, will cite George W. in an attempt to push her agenda forward.

More than three decades ago, David Frost asked Nixon to respond to the following:

"So what in a sense, you're saying is that there are certain situations, and the Huston Plan or that part of it was one of them, where the president can decide that it's in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal."

Nixon: "Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal."

23-years later, we emerge from an imperial presidency - no doubt, inspired by former President Nixon's statement, 31-years ago, that he is above the law. If 13 words from an impeached president, who resigned in disgrace, can bring on eight years of a president who declares himself immune from the "rule of law"...imagine what might foment in the future if we allow the precedent of illegal wire-tapping, suspension of habeas corpus, and systematically justifying torture as legal dogma, to stand.

Scott Horton, a New York attorney specializing in international law and human rights, who wrote the cover story in the latest issue of Harper's Magazine, " Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration" believes a presidential commission of inquiry would be the swift, clear way to proceed. Normally, the justice system conducts such investigations, however as Horton points out, the justice department itself is the crime scene in this case.

President Bush is doing as much damage as he can on his way out. These are not the actions of a man who will redeem himself - if that's even possible - in the future. However, whether President Bush repents or not is not the issue. If it were, we could afford to let him off the hook, and concentrate on repairing what his administration destroyed, however, this goes far beyond what President Bush, the individual deserves or doesn't deserve and has everything to do with
renewing our nation's commitment to the rule of law.

On June 10, 2008 Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and Robert Wexler cosponsored 35 articles of impeachment for indicting George Bush. Included in the list of impeachable offenses:

• Authorization and encouragement of torture as official policy
• Fabrications about Iraq’s nuclear weapons
• Lies about Iraq’s connections to al Qaeda
• Retaliation against those who tried to tell the truth
  
• Direct responsibility for extraordinary rendition
• Illegal detention of U.S. citizens and foreign captives (including the imprisonment of children)
• Warrantless wiretapping
• Failure to protect the U.S. by heeding pre-9/11 warnings
• Failure to protect soldiers in Iraq with proper armor
• Failure to protect the residents of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina
• Instructing subordinates to disregard congressional subpoenas
• 1,100 signing statements releasing him from carrying out even those laws passed during his own administration.

Faces of the Fallen

Read more...

What's The Real Story Behind Eliot Spitzer?

I've always thought there was more to the Spitzer scandal than met the eye, considering his aggressive plan to fight the corruption in the financial industry. Well, it looks like the House Financial Services Committee is planning to hold hearings on the motive behind the Bush Administration's investigation of Eliot Spitzer.

According to Greg Palast, “Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet” right around the time the scandal broke out and three weeks after Spitzer's editorial appeared in the Washington Post.

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.
ad_icon

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.

When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.

Read more...

Will Billionaires Save the World?

Will President Bush move to Haiti and minister to the poor, January 21, 2009? Will Wall Street repent and give half their earnings to hard-working, tax-paying Americans? If history is any indication, the answer is, not a chance.

Nevertheless, there is a first time for everything.

Of the world's approximately six-billion residents, one in every four lives on less than a $1 per day and one in every 850 is a millionaire. Of those seven-million millionaires, one in every 134 has assets of over $30 million and of those 152,000 with assets over $30 million, one in every 100 is a billionaire.

These statistics are not likely to change any time soon, however, Matthew Bishop, author of Philanthrocapitalism (How the Rich Can Save the World) seems to think otherwise. Forbes.com interviewed him regarding How to be a Good Billionaire.

Read more...

More Proof That Bush Paulson Panic Was An Act.

The Washington Post reports that the limits placed on executive compensation in the $700 billion financial bailout package are meaningless due to a last-minute loophole President Bush inserted into the legislation.

How can we let them get away with demanding auto workers accept lower wages and less benefits as part of their industry bailout? A bailout that is a small fraction of what the banks received. Meanwhile, the Fed refuses to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion.

I wonder how long they rehearsed the panic-stricken rush to rescue the economy through the Wall Street bailout?

Read more...