Moral Equivalency: Bombs = Barbarism

(Below, Afghan civilians collecting the earthly remains of some of their fellows.)


I cannot imagine how the following commentary by the redoubtable Chris Hedges, at Bob Scheer's TruthDig, escaped the attention of the SoCalledUnbiasedMedia (SCUM), but it did.

By Chris Hedges

The bodies of dozens, perhaps well over a hundred, women, children and men, their corpses blown into bits of human flesh by iron fragmentation bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes in a village in the western province of Farah, illustrates the futility of the Afghan war. We are not delivering democracy or liberation or development. We are delivering massive, sophisticated forms of industrial slaughter. And because we have employed the blunt and horrible instrument of war in a land we know little about and are incapable of reading, we embody the barbarism we claim to be seeking to defeat.

We are morally no different from the psychopaths within the Taliban, who Afghans remember we empowered, funded and armed during the 10-year war with the Soviet Union. Acid thrown into a girl’s face or beheadings? Death delivered from the air or fields of shiny cluster bombs? This is the language of war. It is what we speak. It is what those we fight speak.

Theirs is a more personal sort of barbarity, ours a more detached sort, but there is barbarity enough to go around, certainly. There is a cautionary note to conclude:

The U.S. fuels the bonfires of war. The more troops we send to Afghanistan, the more drones we send on bombing runs over Pakistan, the more air-strikes we carry out, the worse the unraveling will become. We have killed twice as many civilians as the Taliban this year and that number is sure to rise in the coming months...“If the Americans step up the war in Afghanistan, they will be sucked into Pakistan,” Dr. Fournot warned. “Pakistan is a time bomb waiting to explode. You have a huge population, 170 million people. There is nuclear power. Pakistan is much more dangerous than Afghanistan. War always has its own logic. Once you set foot in war, you do not control it. It sucks you in.”

Obama is the--perhaps unwitting--tool of the forces he (wrongly) thinks he can contain. This hubris will certainly bite us in the ass...which is, of course, what hubris does.

Three Questions About "The Two-Trillion Dollar Scam"

Ever since I heard the first announcement of the "offer" by the Health-Insurance Parasites (HIP--close relatives pictured above) and Big Pharma to "save" consumers/govt TWO TRILLION DOLLARS over 20 years, I knew it was a fucking hoax. If they can do it now, under the gun of potential competition from a "proposed" government plan, what about yesterday or last fucking DECADE?

I wasn't alone, apparently, as the reliably dubious David Sirota also expressed similar skepticism: :

So the big news today is President Obama's press conference with the health insurance industry touting the industry's "voluntary" commitment to slashing $2 trillion off Americans' health care bills over the next decade. The New York Times reports that this voluntary announcement is motivated by the health insurance industry's "hope to stave off new government price constraints that might be imposed by Congress or a National Health Board of the kind favored by many Democrats."

My three questions are really simple:

1) If the health industry is saying it can lower costs by $2 trillion over 10 years and remain highly profitable, isn't the industry admitting that it was planning to absolutely bilk consumers, and has been bilking consumers in the past? Put another way, isn't the industry admitting that it's entire business model is based on outright profiteering? (If true, why can't the Govt. go back and get a chunk of the TWO TRILLION the fuckers extorted over the LAST decade? W.)

2) Why should the American public believe the health industry is going to voluntarily do anything to cut into its profits? Health executives have a fiduciary responsibility to private shareholders to maximize profits. Voluntarily lowering those profits would violate that fiduciary responsibility. Are we really expected to believe these health executives will, out of the goodness of their hearts, violate their fiduciary responsibilities? What has actually changed to suggest that they will violate their fiduciary responsibilities and help health care consumers?

3) Isn't President Obama legitimizing voices that will use that added credibility later on to try to derail serious health care reform? Today's press conference has the President of the United States effectively saying that the health insurance industry should have a major seat at the health-reform table - and that it should be trusted. But any serious health care reform will need to take on the health insurance industry in a way that will make that industry unhappy. When that eventually happens, won't the previous efforts to legitimize the health insurance industry's voice add credibility to its opposition to reform? I think so, and agree with Ezra Klein who says, "The fact that the White House is making a big deal of [the health industry's] support means" the White House is suggesting that it "would be a big deal if they lost it."

Look, I have no problem with the industry making voluntary commitments about lowering costs - and if it follows through, then that's great. But I also have no illusion about industries making voluntary commitments to reduce their profits - those commitments usually aren't worth the paper they're written on. And so I worry that promoting such commitments as "major" can be politically dangerous and, frankly, counterproductive.

Obama's political calculus throughout his life has been to avoid making enemies. He seems to believe that he can make lots of different interests happy - and on many issues, that's certainly possible. But on some issues, like health care, it's a binary fight: Either you appease the health industry and preserve the status quo they are making big bucks off of, or you take on the health industry and make real change. Touting the industry's "voluntary" commitment to not rip off consumers seems more in the appeasing camp than in the "real change" camp.

Let's not get all dewy-eyed here. It's all a carefully organized, staged and produced SCAM, friends... The real political dynamic is this: If, by Sept, 2010, Obama does NOT have at least ONE "big win" about which to brag and pose for the benefit of the Hopey/Changey crowd, he'll be as good as gone. If he cannot point to ONE big success, he'll be a lame-duck by the beginning of the next Congress. "Health care" is the most 'public/populist' pledge he made when running last year. It is also the one crisis most amenable to propaganda/spin, the one about which the more said, the more apparent progress made.

But make no mistake: it's just another sell-out by the "leaders" to the "owners." The extent to which HIP and Big Pharma "cooperate" with this scheme--which is NOT "Universal Care"--to that extent the People will be getting fucked--again!

So bend over, gratefully, like good little proles, all of you, and thank your stars you installed St. Barry, the Beige: because unlike the Pukes, he'll mebbe use a little lube on the filthy, splintered plunger handle he shoves up your collective asses. You know you love it...

Obama & Education: Faulty Assumptions, Based on "Wrong" Data

I've admired Gerald Bracey's work in and around the field of education policy analysis and criticism for close on 25 years. He's been overwhelmingly correct about 95% of the time, and I cannot even remember the exceptions. Here, via Susan Ohanian's vital and necessary blog, he addresses a dilemma "thePrez" might have to confront, if he were actually honest about his education positions:

On Education, the Obama Administration Veers Off Course

by Gerald Bracey (Huffington Post, 2009-05-11)

How can the Obama administration get it right in education when its data are all wrong and its assumptions about its faulty data are flawed?

President Obama told the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, "8th graders have fallen to 9th place." That statistic comes from the 2008 round of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. It's true. But there were 45 nations in the study so being in 9th place means being ahead of 36. More important, when TIMSS first began in 1995, American eighth graders finished 28th among 41 nations. Over 13 years, we have "fallen" up 19 ranks. Many would consider that extraordinary progress.

The President also said, "Only one third of our thirteen- and fourteen-year olds are reading as well as they should." This is a finding from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP reports results in terms of the percent attaining the Basic, Proficient, and Advanced levels. It is true that only about one third of American 13- and 14-year olds reach the Proficient level. Is this awful? One study asked, How many students in other countries would reach this level? The answer for Sweden was, about one third. Sweden scored higher than any of the other 35 nations in the study.

Another investigation asked the same question about NAEP math and science in 45 countries. Only five nations would have small majorities of their students scoring at the Proficient level in mathematics and only two would clear that barrier in science. "Proficient," as defined by NAEP, is something that very few students in any country can attain.

NAEP data distort our perceptions of achievement. We can see this from a recent study from the U. S Department of Education wherein 80% of high school seniors who scored at the NAEP Basic level in mathematics attended 2- or 4-year institutions of higher education. School critics and the public interpret "Basic" as "illiterate" in reading and "can't calculate" in math. Yet 49 percent of the students scoring at the Basic level attained a bachelor's degree and another 9 percent received an associate's degree. The NAEP achievement levels do not reflect the true achievement of American students.

According to the President, "Of the 30 fastest growing occupations in America, half require a bachelor's degree or more." First off, that means that half do not require even a bachelor's. More important, the fastest growing occupations never account for many jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the occupations accounting for most jobs are low-paying service sector jobs. Retail sales alone accounts for more jobs than the top ten fastest growing jobs combined. For every systems analyst Microsoft lusts after, Wal-Mart and other retailers put about 15 sales associates on the floor.

Here are the occupations the Bureau projected as those with the most jobs from 2006 to 2016: retail sales, cashiers, office clerks, registered nurses, janitors and cleaners, bookkeeping clerks, waiters and waitresses, food preparers and servers, customer service representatives, and truck and tractor drivers. Shouldn't we focus at least in part on providing these tens of millions with living wages and health benefits?

Turning his attention to standards, the President contended, "Today's system of fifty different benchmarks for academic success means fourth-graders in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming and getting the same grade." The only test that students in Wyoming and Mississippi share in common is NAEP. In 2007, Wyoming's fourth graders score 225 on NAEP reading and Mississippi 4th graders 208. That is a big difference on the NAEP scale, but it's 17 points, not 70.

No matter how Wyoming and Mississippi might differ, does the difference come, as the President asserts, from the difference in the two states' educational standards? Perhaps, but I'd put my money more on poverty. Thirty percent of public school children in Wyoming are eligible for free or reduced price lunches. In Mississippi, it's 68 percent. And, as the President himself observed, "a stubborn gap persists between how well white students are doing compared to their African American and Latino classmates." Only 1.5 percent of Wyoming's public school students are African American. In Mississippi, the figure is 50.8 percent.

Everyone agrees that American education can be improved and should be improved, especially in areas of high poverty. But the right policies and right programs cannot issue from bad data and faulty assumptions.

— Gerald Bracey

It doesn't help that Arne Duncan is a corpoRatist lackey in the (ideological) employ of the test Nazis, privatizers, and text-book publishers.

You Don't Need "God" To Be Good!

This simple sentiment is at the heart of an emerging constitutional struggle in Bloomington, IN, where the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign is endeavoring to legally compel the Bloomington municipal bus authority to attach advertizements quoting that sentiment to their busses.

The good burghers of Bloomington--a relatively liberal place in the middle of central/south Indiana/midwestern fundie-fucknozzledom (due to the presence there of a large, prestigious university: the State's flagship, indeed)--refused the buy because the sentiment expressed was, to their tiny little parochial minds, "too controversial."

ReligionClause today reports (in brief) on the situation:

The Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign (IABC) was organized to eliminate the stigma of atheism. Building on campaigns in Canada and the UK, its goal was to place ads promoting its views on city busses. However the Bloomington (IN) public transit system rejected IABC's ad, which read "You Can Be Good Without God." The company based its refusal on the transit system's policy that excludes controversial public service announcements or ads on controversial public issues. (Atheist Bus Campaign press release.)

On May 5, the ACLU, on behalf of IABC, filed a federal lawsuit challenging the transit company's ad policy as unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. The complaint (full text-pdf)) in Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign v. Bloomington Public Transportation Corp., (SD IN, filed 5/5/09) seeks a declaratory judgment and an injunction. An ACLU May 7 press release (Word.doc) as well as IndyChannel on Friday reported on the lawsuit. IABC announced today that, in contrast to Bloomington, the Transpo bus system in South Bend (IN) will run their ad.

Those who have paying attention to the latest news in God will remark, perhaps, on the apparent irony of the latter fact: South Bend, home of uber-Catholic Notre Dame University--where there has developed a brouhaha over an invitation to "thePrez" to address the commencement there--apparently will permit the ads to be mounted on their busses, while the more (comparatively; this is Indiana, home of the modern KKK) secular town 200 miles south proves to be the bigger and worse, bunch of wankers.

Ave-- Atque Vale?-- Maria, Florida, USofA

I always wondered about this. Via Religion Clause:

Beginning this week end, the Naples (FL) Daily News is running a lengthy 3-part investigative series titled Ave Maria: A Town Without a Vote. According to the article, when legislation creating the new town surrounding Catholic Ave Maria University was enacted, it also contained unusual provisions giving ongoing control to the town's founder, former Domino Pizza owner Tom Monaghan, and and to local landowner Barron Collier Cos. The paper reports: "The law makes landowners, not registered voters, the ultimate authority in Ave Maria. The law ensures Monaghan and Barron Collier Cos., as the largest landowners, can control Ave Maria’s government forever." The web page linking to the series also contains links to numerous primary source documents relating to the governmental structure of the town, and to its legality. [Thanks to Liam Dillon for the lead.]

"Holy Warriors"? Wholly Fucked!

The following are examples of evangelical proselytization practices detailed in the Harper’s Magazine cover story in the may issue, by Jeff Sharlet, titled "Jesus Killed Mohammed." US soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines take an oath to defend the Constitution but, being fundi-evangelist/wackloon/theocratic fucktards, they see no contradiction in their serial violations of the mandated separation of church and state.

* An Easter Sunday raid on Iraqi insurgents in 2004. Special Forces Officers, inspired by a showing of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, wrote the words “Jesus Killed Mohammed” in Arabic on their Bradley Fighting Vehicle and shouted the saying in both English and Arabic to entice Muslim soldiers into the open before embarking on an attack to put down the insurgency.
*
* A meeting of an underground all-male, cadet-led prayer group at the U.S. Air Force Academy where members discuss, among other things, the deceptions necessary for missionary work in China. The author attended the group’s meeting under the promise that he would not publish the group’s name out of fear that: “Those who do believe in separation of church and state might interfere with its goal of turning the world’s most elite war college into its most holy one, a seminary with courses in carpet bombing.”
*
* Interviews with Lieutenant Colonel Bob Young in which he defends and shows no remorse for stating that it would be better for a black to be a slave in America and know Christ, than to be free and not know Christ.
*
* A speech given by Army Lieutenant Colonel Greg Metzgar before the Officers Christian Fellowship – a group with 15,000 active members at 80 percent of military bases – in which he stressed: “Christian soldiers must always consider themselves behind enemy lines, even within the ranks, because every unsaved member of the military is a potential agent of ‘spiritual terrorism.’”
*
* Excerpts from a book published in 2005 by Lieutenant Colonel William McCoy, Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel, which describes an “anti-Christian bias” in this country he seeks to counter by making the case for the “necessity of Christianity for a properly functioning military.” McCoy’s book was endorsed by General David Petraeus, who said: “Under Orders should be in every rucksack for those moments when soldiers need spiritual energy.” General Petraeus, while claiming his statement was not meant for the public, has never recanted his statement.

The most egregious violators of the separation rule seem to be officers of the highest rank. These fuckers, these utterly useless, vile, seditious "brass-hatted" shitwhistles deserve to be court-martialed, stripped of rank, and sent to prison for life, because they're too dangerous to be set loose.

Mikey Weinstein's vital blog, the MRFF (Military Religious Freedom Foundation), is an invaluable resource in this battle against these so-called "soldiers of god" for the secular soul of the USer military. The vid here demonstrates again just how common and wide-spread is the attitude that the chaplaincy exists mainly for the purpose of proselytizing, either to hapless, helpless troops, or to the indigenous populations where troops are stationed.

The Failing Mexican State: Blame NAFTA, Part 1 & 2

You say we "Blame America First." Indeed. For it is truth.

And not its stoners, either. The USer/global mega-corporations like Smithfield Farms, Con-Agra, and 3M are the real culprits behind the collapse of internal Mexican security.

The indigenous agriculture economy collapsed, corporate farms destroyed subsistence economy, the prices of staples (mainly corn) sky-rocketed, and the net result was that the peons--poor, unschooled, untrained, unsophisticated, bloody-minded peasants--were thrown off their lands, abandoned by the State, more or less forced into the arms of the narco-trafficers.

And blame the Drug War, too, while you're at it.

Via The Real News Network.

Part 1:


Part 2:

This is pretty damning.

Nobody with the intellectual capacity greater than that of a carrot DOESN'T think Israel has territorial ambitions in Arab Palestine. How about a nice, sea-side cottage, marble counter-tops, wood floors, refrigerated air, Arab olive groves for firewood; you know, the amenities...



It's clear, innit, that real estate sellers are just as mendacious, grasping, venal, odious and obnoxious in Palestine (the country), as they are in Palestine, IL.

Branding Ironies

Last week next door, on The Pond, I posted excerpts from a piece by Brit essayist John Pilger on the phenomenon of "Brand: Obama." Though I do not now recall the first iteration of it, this is obviously a meme, now, as it's been picked up and elaborated elsewhere, notably by AdAge as long ago as February, 08. Early this week, all-american columnist/combat-reporter/doomsayer (I LIKE his style) Chris Hedges offered his measured contribution to the analysis:

...
Brand Obama offers us an image that appears radically individualistic and new. It inoculates us from seeing that the old engines of corporate power and the vast military-industrial complex continue to plunder the country. Corporations, which control our politics, no longer produce products that are essentially different, but brands that are different. Brand Obama does not threaten the core of the corporate state any more than did Brand George W. Bush. The Bush brand collapsed. We became immune to its studied folksiness. We saw through its artifice. This is a common deflation in the world of advertising. So we have been given a new Obama brand with an exciting and faintly erotic appeal. Benetton and Calvin Klein were the precursors to the Obama brand, using ads to associate themselves with risqué art and progressive politics. It gave their products an edge. But the goal, as with all brands, was to make passive consumers mistake a brand with an experience. (Emphasis supplied. W.)
(...)
Obama, who has become a global celebrity, was molded easily into a brand. He had almost no experience, other than two years in the Senate, lacked any moral core and could be painted as all things to all people. His brief Senate voting record was a miserable surrender to corporate interests. He was happy to promote nuclear power as “green” energy. He voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He reauthorized the Patriot Act. He would not back a bill designed to cap predatory credit card interest rates. He opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872. He refused to support the single-payer health care bill HR676, sponsored by Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers. He supported the death penalty. And he backed a class-action “reform” bill that was part of a large lobbying effort by financial firms. The law, known as the Class Action Fairness Act, would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits and deny redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporate challenges.

(To say NOTHING of his documented betrayal of working folks on the Bankruptcy Bill of 2005, in which he played a central, but often ambiguously portrayed role. Read David Sirota on the matter. W)

One thing about a product, like Obama: they don't do any more than they are DESIGNED to do...

Berserkely Offers To Finance Green Retrofits

From that bastion of commie/pinko/hippie-dom, Berkeley, CA, comes news, via Grist's Todd Woody, of a civic initiative that anybody and everybody can get behind: the City will finance the purchase cost and installation of any home-owner who will install green/solar technology for energy conservation:

Berkeley is Fox News’ nightmare. The city’s political spectrum runs from center left to left of Lenin. Malcolm X not only has an elementary school named after him but his birthday is a public holiday. The best pizza in town comes from a workers’ collective (veggie only) located across the street from Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse—she who would smash the agricultural-industrial state. And did I mention Breast Freedom Day at People’s Park?

Hippie-Central! People's Park! Solar Collectives! Yay, Berkeley!!@!

But this hotbed of East Bay Bolshevism has also become a wellspring of municipal eco-capitalism that’s serving as a model for less leftist locales. As you may have heard, Berkeley will finance a solar array for any home or business that wants one, tacking on a surcharge to the owner’s property tax bill for 20 years to recoup the cost. If you sell your house, the assessment rolls over to the new owner.

In one fell swoop, the city removed the chief roadblock to going solar—steep upfront costs that can run $20,000 or more for a rooftop system. When the Berkeley FIRST (Financing Initiative for Renewable and Solar Technology) website went live it took all of nine minutes for the 40 slots in the pilot program to be sold out.

But the story behind that story is how this experiment in state-sponsored solar spurred the founding of an innovative green financial startup. A startup that in turn has developed a business model to nationalize the Berkeley blueprint with the aim of creating a multi billion-dollar market for “green municipal bonds” to finance the decarbonization of the country.

Add to this initiative the 'green labor' movement of the likes of Van Jones "Green For All" activism, across the Bay in Oakland, and it might begin to look like the leading edge of the American energy renaissance is bubbling up in the cities by the Bay.

Green For All's founder Van Jones was just named one of TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world!

Congratulations Van! We're so proud of this remarkable accomplishment.

Beyond the recognition of Van's visionary leadership, this is a major achievement for all who are working to build a green economy for all. Because of our collective efforts, "Green Jobs Now" has gone from a movement's rallying cry to a key part of President Obama's agenda.

Read the rest, and check out Van Jones, too.

This could well go with my buddy Phila/Buophonia's weekly "Good News" post. And stuff like this could make a difference. It would have been GREAT if it had been begun 25 years ago, of course. And it's probably too late. But you gotta LOVE Berkeley...

Wanna Silence Debate? Arrest Your Opponents

Via Democracy Now

Doctors, Activists Confront Senate Panel for Ignoring Single-Payer Healthcare

On Capitol Hill, a group of doctors and activists directly challenged Democratic senators Tuesday for their refusal to discuss single-payer healthcare. The action came at a Senate Finance Committee meeting on healthcare reform. None of the fifteen witnesses called to testify support single payer, and the committee’s chair, Senator Max Baucus of Montana, has dismissed single payer as “off the table.” One by one, eight single-payer advocates stood up to challenge Baucus and call for single payer.

Mark Dudzic: “Unions that have endorsed single payer, why are their voices not being heard? Every healthcare lobbyist in America is at the table. When are the American people going to be heard? We need healthcare now! Put single payer on the table now!”

Adam Schneider: “We need to have to have single payer at the table. I have friends who have died, who don’t have healthcare, whose healthcare did not withstand their personal health emergencies. It’s only when the people that are living in the park and the people that are living on Park Avenue have the same healthcare that everybody will have high-quality healthcare. Single payer now!”

All eight single-payer advocates were arrested. The action was organized by the groups Single Payer Action and Healthcare-NOW!

Now, THAT'S how you handle dissent in the Congress of a democracy, if your constituents embarrass you: Lock the fuckers UP! That'll larn'em...

One theory I have heard as to why the Big Three are now the targets of the united CorpoRat vilification campaign is that, for economic reasons, they had more or less signed on with the Universal Health Care agenda, and were therefore going to be destroyed for their apostasy...

P.S: Jawbone had a piece on this protest/arrest, yesterday up at Corrente, with a vid.

What's Pashto For "Git Ready, Cuz The Shit's Gonna Hit The Fan"?

ZP Heller, on OpenLeft, has grim tidings from the East:

The situation in Pakistan is deteriorating by the hour. This nuclear-armed nation already plagued by political and economic turmoil now faces a massive humanitarian crisis, as 500,000 people flee the Swat valley in the face of armed conflict between Pakistani authorities and Taliban extremists who have taken control. As President Obama prepares to meet with Pakistani President Asif Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai tomorrow, the question becomes what the U.S. can do to prevent all-out war in Pakistan.

One could imagine that firing missiles with deadly effect into the homes of sleeping villagers from low-flying drones piloted by remote control from Pasadena or Las Vegas might count for something. I wonder if "thePrez" has thought of that? Cuz there seems to be some agreement that that's at least part of the problem:

An article in The New York Times today presents three potential strategies for the Obama administration to pursue in the coming weeks: 1) hasten the long-term strategy of retraining the Pakistani army to fight the counterinsurgency while upping nation-building efforts; 2) rely on more Predator drone strikes and covert ground attacks; and 3) make sure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure from the extremist threat. While it's clear the Obama administration has its back against the wall, authorizing more Predator drone attacks is a disastrous option that must be avoided at all cost.

As David Kilcullen, the counterinsurgency expert who designed Gen. Petraeus's Iraqi surge, recently told the House Armed Services Committee, "We need to call off the drones." This covert plan, first approved by Bush (and continued by Obama) to skirt Pakistan's refusal to allow U.S. troops into the country, uses unmanned aircraft remotely controlled by the CIA to hunt down suspected terrorists and insurgents. But as Kilcullen claimed, it's backfiring, prompting more Taliban extremists to take up arms against the U.S.-backed Pakistani government and driving them deeper into the country.

At least 700 Pakistanis have died under the drone onslaught. Hundreds of thousands have been made refugees from the dorne attacks and the Taliban activities the drones are supposed to attack.

In addition to the 700 innocent Pakistani civilians killed, the UN estimates drone strikes have displaced hundreds of thousands more people. One can only imagine the inordinate amount of chaos and devastation caused by more drone strikes, as they become a recruiting tool for Islamic militants spurred into action against the Pakistani government and U.S. interests.

Robot warriors RAWK! They are the one reliable way to the hearts and minds of your opponents' supporters, fer sher.

Well, that and converting the locals from their demon religion and welcoming them to Jesus' love.

Just in time for 'em to join the blessed martyrs to the one, true faith, at the hands of their former friends and families. Christians flat LUV them some kinda martyrs...

Plastics!!!

Do not EVER fall into the delusion that Congress legislates for the benefit of citizens. Congress acts to preserve and protect the interests of the owners of the country, and if there accrues some small benefit to the People, well, shit happens.

Jane Hamsher connects the dots:

Plastic People: Frank, Pelosi Don’t Want Credit Card Interest Rates Capped

By: Jane Hamsher Monday May 4, 2009 9:40 am

The Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights passed the House last week, and now we have an answer to the question -- Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank don't want caps on credit card interest rates. This despite the fact that TARP recipients like B of A and JP Morgan (Chase) have received billions of dollars in taxpayer bail out funds and have doubled credit card interest rates on some customers.

As I wrote last week, a bill gets to the floor because the Rules Committee says it can. The Rules Committee pretty much just rubber stamps what the Speaker and the Committee Chair want -- in this case, Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi. Funny enough, no amendment which would have capped interest rates made it to the floor, despite the fact that many were offered; among them:

• Edwards, Donna, #15: Would impose a cap on increases of no more than 10% APR per year, applying only to new debt, and requires issuers to provide clear, written notification to consumers explaining the APR increase.
• Edwards, Donna, #17: Would place a cap on credit card interest rates at the prime rate plus 10%.
• Hinchey(NY)/Welch (VT)/ Tierney (MA)/ McDermott (WA), #3: (WITHDRAWN) Would cap credit card interest rates at 18 percent.

None of these amendments made it to the floor.

Ergo, Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank didn't want interest rate limits capped. Nor do they want House members having to take an embarrassing vote on the matter. Small wonder -- I've been going through the campaign contribution and lobbying records, there's tens of millions flying around to keep it from happening.

This is the way the agenda gets controlled by the banks -- just enough gets done to make it seem like Congress did something, but the banks actually get to dictate the terms of what that "something" is. Now on to the Senate, where nobody thinks the situation will get any better.

Speaker Pelosi's office: (202) 225-4965
Barney Frank's office: (202) 225-5931

It is interesting to regard the comments to Hamsher's post. The outrage is palpable! And so predictable. They're Shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you.

Non-Prophet

A piece on Alternet today offers the happy intelligence that the number of 'non-believers' in the United States is 1) larger than you might expect, 2) growing, and 3) fast approaching a critical mass.

Can I have an "Aaaa-HEM!?

According to the latest American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) of more than 54,000 adults, between 2001 and 2008 the number willing to identify themselves as atheist and agnostic has gone from under 2 million to 3.6 million. Small numbers compared to the whole, of course, but most notably it’s a rise of 85% of those willing to describe themselves as living without God during the years of our most overtly religious presidency!

Even more newsworthy, when the widely-scorned labels “atheist” and “agnostic” are replaced with specifics about beliefs (“There is no such thing” as God, “There is no way to know,” or “I’m not sure,” and added to those who refused to answer) it turns out that over eighteen percent of Americans do not profess belief in a God or a higher power.

According to ARIS, then, there could be as many as 40 million adult nonbelievers in the United States!

First step: let's get "God" off the currency.

Four Dead In Ohio

In a hyper-mediated environment, the State doesn't actually have to kill many of its citizens to make the point. Just kill a few of them, but make sure it's on tape, and endlessly recycle the lesson...

39 years ago last week, news broke that Nixon had spread his war against Vietnam to Cambodia. Far from 'ending' the war, as he had promised during the campaign, Nixon and Kissinger were expanding it.

The anti-war movement responded furiously, all across the country.

39 years ago today, May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard occupied the campus of Kent State University, in Kent, Ohio. They were carrying "live" rounds.

Eventually some members of the occupying Guard unit opened fire, killing four innocent students, wounding others. No weapons were EVER found or even alleged to be harbored among the student demonstrators. The dead students were not even members of the protest. They were just kids.

Dead kids.

On tape.

Souter Retires; Specter Switches: What's the Connection???

(If Obama Even Names A REAL "Liberal," I'll Eat A Hat!!!

And if Specter's switch confers ANY benefit to the People's interests, I'll eat a fucking bug!)

The blogosphere is churning this week with the news of the impending retirement from the Supreme Court of Justice David Souter. Souter’s departure, expected once the current term ends in late June, would give President Barack Obama his first chance to nominate a justice. He is not now expected to remain on the bench until a successor is confirmed.

Meanwhile Arlen Specter, feeling pressure on his rightard flank for his expected run for re-election (even though he's 80 and shot through with cancer), announced he's switching his party affiliation--though not his loyalties, strangely--to the Dims.

Souter’s retirement is no more likely to change the "ideological balance" on the closely divided court-- because Obama is almost certain to replace the liberal-leaning justice with someone with similar views--than Specter's departure from the GOPuke fold will significantly alter the balance of power in the Senate. There is no evidence that I am aware of that the GOPukes can command 41 votes on a whim, if so ordered. Specter's defection only ADDS to the number of DINO/BleuDawg-Vichy Dims, which now numbers between 12 and 15 members (depending on the issue). That's 25-30% of the entire caucus. It actually gives them MORE power, especially since Al Franken's seating seems likely not to occur before the 2010 elections.

A story on ThinkProgress the other day itemizes the characteristics Obama would seem likely to nominate if he were (just this once) true to his campaign pledges:

Obama's Qualifications: Someone "Like" Souter, Believes In ‘Right To Privacy,’ Empathizes With The Powerless (Think Progress)

From his time in the Senate and statements during the Democratic primary, Obama appears committed to nominating someone who recognizes that the Constitution provides Americans with an inherent right to privacy, someone who can empathize with the “less powerful,” and perhaps someone who understands “what it means to be on the outside.”

Much speculation swirls over the identity of the next Justice: Will it be (another) woman? A latino (there's never been one); A latino woman (ditto)? A gay person (never been one of those, either, though Souter is 69-year-old "bachelor")? An atheist (none of those, so far, either, afaik)?

One thing I will guarantee (tho' obviously I have no power to effect it in any way): Whomsoever is selected, that person will NOT be a "libera," or a "progessive." And if the one selected IS a latino, that probably means another fucking mackerel-snapper (Roman Catholic) added to the FIVE (Aside: just HOW-the-FUCK did a secular, religiously diverse country get FIVE "practicing/devout" Catholics to sit on its highest Court?)

But religious preference aside, in ANY case, the sort of person "thePrez" apparently plans to nominate, therefore, is just EXACTLY the sort of person practically guaranteed to bring the fucktards of the Flying-Monkey right--secular and religious--to a full frothing boil, and make passage by the Senate no sure thing.

Which makes Specter's transmogrification all the more puzzling, especially due to a quirk in the Senate rules that requires one member of the minority to carry the nomination forward. Specter was the ranking member of the commmittee. His departure weakens the minority position by one vote, but the remaining members of the committee are, it seems, to me to be unlikely to do anything to assist the Obamanistas put anyone to the left of Ed Meese on the Court. With the departure of Specter, Hatch becomes ranking member. The rest of the Pukes--Grassely, Kyle, Sessions, graham, Cornyn and Coburn-- do not inspire confidence in the eventual outcome for ANYone not regarded as a safe, right-of-center pick.

Looking at these factors, I do not see where the Dims OR Obama (presuming their interests are not synonymous, as they evidently aren't) gain from the re-alignment, especially since apparently several quite significant accomodations were made to finalize the deal. There is no way, of course, that it didn't occur without the express consent and connivance of "thePrez" either.

The only explanation I can think of is that everybody in the political classes are jumping erratically to strings pulled by the county's owners sowing distrust among the proles for the whole political class, now as much for the Dims as for the Pukes hitherto.

Stanford, 6, Rice, 0

The ubiquitous and studiously, politely acerbic Scott Horton, of Harpers' No Comment blog, gives us this account of the confrontation between former (disgraced, incompetent) Bushevik SoS/NatSecAd Condi ("The Terror Tanker") Rice and a bunch of bright, edgy, hip, skeptical Stanford dorm students last week, in a piece he calls "Condi's Really BAD Day!":

In a meeting with Stanford students at a dormitory reception on April 27, the school’s former provost got off to a shaky start and ended in a train wreck. She may in fact have her last words in the exchange quoted back to her some day in a law court. (One may devoutly HOPE so, anyway...W)

Always the gentleman Horton foreswears the fountain of profanity, invective, and obloquy which were my response to watching of this clip, and merely suggests:

Let’s fact-check Rice’s claims (six of them, all either patent falsehoods or evasions, or wanton misunderstandings of questions posed; hence the "score"):

(1) She perpetuates the Abu Ghraib myth (“Abu Ghraib was not policy”), even as the Senate Armed Services Committee report demolishes it. The words she uses are essentially identical to those she uttered to me at a group meeting in the White House in May 2004. But the efforts to delink the abuses in Iraq from the formation of policy in Washington—a process in which Rice played a focal role—have gone flat. The Senate report makes clear that the abuses at Abu Ghraib flowed directly from policy choices made in the National Security Council that Condi ran.

(2) In Condiworld, the threat of Al Qaeda was greater than the threat faced by the United States in World War II, as demonstrated by the 9/11 attacks. This suggestion demonstrates an astonishing failure of reasoned judgment. U.S. fatalities in World War II totaled 405,400. The student’s point was that in the face of what might legitimately be termed an existential threat (World War II), the American government did not turn to torture. (Well, not officially, at any rate. W.) That’s correct, and Rice doesn’t seem able to come to grips with it.

(3) Rice insists that no one was tortured at Guantánamo. She cites an OSCE report that called it a “model medium security prison.” But, as the report’s author stressed, this was a characterization of the physical facility. How about the treatment of the prisoners? On that score, the OSCE had a different conclusion: it was “mental torture.” The Red Cross did complete two studies of detainees at Guantánamo, and Condi’s characterization of them is false. The first report concluded that the treatment of prisoners, particularly isolation treatment, was “tantamount to torture.” The second examined the use of the Bush Program and concluded it was “torture,” no qualifications. Rice was furnished copies of these reports. Did she take the time to read them? (Did she read the Aug 11, 2001, PDB? Nobody in the Bushevik regime read ANYTHING, apparently. W)

(4) Rice claims that the Bush Administration’s efforts to try the Guantánamo prisoners were blocked by the Supreme Court. In fact, the years of delay in bringing charges resulted from the Bush Administration’s own policies. The Supreme Court concluded that the jury-rigged military commissions system the Bush Administration put in place without Congressional authority violated Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions—the view that the overwhelming majority of legal authorities in the United States advanced. Had the Bush Administration followed the recommendation of career military lawyers and proceeded to military commissions based on the U.S. court-martial system, no Supreme Court review would have been necessary. So the cause of the delay rests squarely with the Bush Administration, not with the Supreme Court.

(5) Rice (repeatedly) insists that waterboarding is not torture. Why? Rice pulls a Nixon. It was not torture because the president authorized it. In Condiworld, apparently, “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” What lawyer was advising Rice through this process? That’s a pressing question--the Senate Intelligence Committee suggests that legal counsel at the National Security Council was guiding her at every step–and evidently giving her some very peculiar ideas about the law.

(6) Whereas the Senate Intelligence Committee’s summary shows Rice giving authorization for waterboarding, Rice has a different recollection. “I didn’t authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency.” This is dicing things very finely. But I think I know how Judge Garzón will understand this: Rice just confessed to a focal role in a joint criminal enterprise.

Nixon White House counsel John Dean, who has a lot of first-hand experience with the legal issues in play, had the same take: Rice just admitted to her role in a conspiracy to torture, a felony under 18 U.S.C. sec 2340A. Catch Dean’s comments below:

Dean's comments follow. While sampling anymore of this foetid stew of Ricean delusion, consider how the vile, vapid, villainous bint disclaims ANY responsibility for her role in it.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

So I score this: Stanford student 6, Rice 0. Rice needs to do some homework before her next appearance on campus. But first perhaps she’d better hire a good lawyer.

Stanford pitched an shut-out, and Rice is gonna get penalized. Yeah, TEAM!!!

Souter Retires; Specter Switches: What's the Connection???

(If Obama Even Names A REAL "Liberal," I'll Eat A Hat!!!

And if Specter's switch confers ANY benefit to the People's interests, I'll eat a fucking bug!)

The blogosphere is churning this week with the news of the impending retirement from the Supreme Court of Justice David Souter. Souter’s departure, expected once the current term ends in late June, would give President Barack Obama his first chance to nominate a justice. He is not now expected to remain on the bench until a successor is confirmed.

Meanwhile Arlen Specter, feeling pressure on his rightard flank for his expected run for re-election (even though he's 80 and shot through with cancer), announced he's switching his party affiliation--though not his loyalties, strangely--to the Dims.

Souter’s retirement is no more likely to change the "ideological balance" on the closely divided court-- because Obama is almost certain to replace the liberal-leaning justice with someone with similar views--than Specter's departure from the GOPuke fold will significantly alter the balance of power in the Senate. There is no evidence that I am aware of that the GOPukes can command 41 votes on a whim, if so ordered. Specter's defection only ADDS to the number of DINO/BleuDawg-Vichy Dims, which now numbers between 12 and 15 members (depending on the issue). That's 25-30% of the entire caucus. It actually gives them MORE power, especially since Al Franken's seating seems likely not to occur before the 2010 elections.

A story on ThinkProgress the other day itemizes the characteristics Obama would seem likely to niminate fi he were (just this once) true to his campaign pledges:

Obama's Qualifications: Someone "Like" Souter, Believes In ‘Right To Privacy,’ Empathizes With The Powerless (Think Progress)

From his time in the Senate and statements during the Democratic primary, Obama appears committed to nominating someone who recognizes that the Constitution provides Americans with an inherent right to privacy, someone who can empathize with the “less powerful,” and perhaps someone who understands “what it means to be on the outside.”

Much speculation swirls over the identity of the next Justice: Will it be (another) woman? A latino (there's never been one); A latino woman (ditto)? A gay person (never been one of those, either, though Souter is 69-year-old "bachelor")? An atheist (none of those, so far, either, afaik)?

One thing I will guarantee (tho' obviously I have no power to effect it in any way): Whomsoever is selected, that person will NOT be a "libera," or a "progessive." And if the one selected IS a latino, that probably means another fucking mackerel-snapper (Roman Catholic) added to the FIVE (Aside: just HOW-the-FUCK did a secular, religiously diverse country get FIVE "practicing/devout" Catholics to sit on its highest Court?)

But religious preference aside, in ANY case, the sort of person "thePrez" apparently plans to nominate, therefore, is just EXACTLY the sort of person practically guaranteed to bring the fucktards of the Flying-Monkey right--secular and religious--to a full frothing boil, and make passage by the Senate no sure thing.

Which makes Specter's transmogrification all the more puzzling, especially due to a quirk in the Senate rules that requires one member of the minority to carry the nomination forward. Specter was the ranking member of the commmittee. His departure weakens the minority position by one vote, but the remaining members of the committee are, it seems, to me to be unlikely to do anything to assist the Obamanistas put anyone to the left of Ed Meese on the Court. With the departure of Specter, Hatch becomes ranking member. The rest of the Pukes--Grassely, Kyle, Sessions, graham, Cornyn and Coburn-- do not inspire confidence in the eventual outcome for ANYone not regarded as a safe, right-of-center pick.

Looking at these factors, I do not see where the Dims OR Obama (presuming their interests are not synonymous, as they evidently aren't) gain from the re-alignment, especially since apparently several quite significant accomodations were made to finalize the deal. There is no way, of course, that it didn't occur without the express consent and connivance of "thePrez" either.

The only explanation I can think of is that everybody in the political classes are jumping erratically to strings pulled by the county's owners sowing distrust among the proles for the whole political class, now as much for the Dims as for the Pukes hitherto.

Calling Jane Harman?

I can't be the only one who hears echoes of Harman's recorded conversations with the Israeli spy in this, can I? Too bad the decision about heading the Intelligence Committee is already in the can:

Feds dropping charges against pro-Israel lobbyists

By MATTHEW BARAKAT, A, Associated Press Writer – 30 mins ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Federal prosecutors moved Friday to dismiss espionage-related charges against two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of disclosing classified U.S. defense information, ending a tortuous inside-the-Beltway legal battle rife with national security intrigue.

Critics of the prosecution of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee accused the federal government of trying to criminalize the sort of back-channel discussions between government officials, lobbyists and reporters that are commonplace in the nation's capital. AIPAC is an influential pro-Israel lobbying group.

Acting U.S. Attorney Dana Boente said the government moved to dismiss the charges in the drawn-out case after concluding that pretrial rulings would make it too difficult for the government to prove its case.

Mission: Accomplished.

Varmints, Beware!

Thanks to the inexpressably odious stupidity (or callousness; I am not sure which is worse), even more grief and pain has now been heaped on the memory and family of Matthew Shepherd, even on the eve and the day of the passage by the House of a Bill that bears his name. The source of that unforgivable offense stares smugly at you from the margin here.

In the discussion surrounding that landmark act, an incredibly, unspeakably vile piece o' shit from North Carolina, one Rep. Virginia Foxx (R.-N.C.), an opponent of all such legislation, claimed that the 1998 execution-style murder of Shepherd, a gay university student, by a couple of drunk "cowboys" near Laramie, WY, was not a "hate-crime" but rather was "just a robbery gone horribly wrong" and that the 'hate-crime' ASPECT of the story was a "hoax." Her word.

When the story blew up on the blogs, she hastily retreated from the 'hoax' word, but maintained she still didn't regard the killing as a 'hate-crime.' She also issued an apology to Shepherd's family:

"I am especially sorry if his grieving family was offended by my statement," she added.

"if"?

"IF"?

"IF"????

That's not an apology, you vile, vicious vilifying slag.

It is, rather, a perfect paradigm of the classic "not apologizing for shit" apology perfected over the last eight years--but really since Nixon--by a parade of shit-head politicians, mainly on the Right, who have managed to offend sensibilities and then glibly pass off their bias with a brisk statement that always contains the word "if."

There's nothing I can write--no curse, no profanity, no invective, no expletive, nothing--which would do justice to my revulsion, disgust, and gut-sickness that I have to breathe the same air as this feculent, reeking, dripping, foul, stupid, self-righteous, self-pitying excrescence of a 'woman.'

I wouldn't trust myself in the same room with her.

Her contention was belied by testimony in the trial, when one of the killers tried to invoke "gay-panic" in his own defense.

But there is one thing more which speaks louder than words on the subject.

I've lived in the west most of my life, and I recognized--as any westerner would--one particular signal the killers sent which stated their intent more clearly than any words: They strung/slung/nailed their victim's body across a stock-fence. This is the way the knuckle-dragging, slobbering rancher contingent disposes of the carcasses of the 'varmints'--coyotes, wolves, etc--they kill.

They claim it 'sends a message' to other critters..