Monday, January 31, 2011

Reagan At 100: Here's 20 Things You WON"T Hear Fuck-All About

"Where's The Rest of Me?"

I posted this on the fifth anniversary of Reagan's (welcome) death, in 2009. Ronnie Raygun's most unintentionally revealing line, from his one non-B pic, King's Road, in which the RR character gets his legs amputated by a train. So as we approach the 100th Anniversary of Reagan's unlucky birth, here's "the rest of Reagan," (an incomplete list of ) 20 or so things the hagiographers won't mention this week...

I am resurrecting it now because this week marks the 100th anniversary of his misbegotten birth, and there will be shit-storms of mis- and dis-information about the grinning dolt's "accomplishments," among which will be alleged to be the "defeat of the Soviets and the rebirth of Murka.

To which anyone with even a scintilla of a nematode brain must reply "HORSE-SHIT!"


Tomorrow, Thursday, June 4, is the fifth anniversary of the death of Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States and arguably the author (in a Foucauldian sense, anyway) of more mischief upon the Nation than any other previous official, elected, political actor. No regime before his had more actively sought to overthrow, undermine, undo, obstruct, and otherwise hamstring the authority of the Congress, to suppress the rights of the people, and attack the Constitution in the pursuit of mere political advantage, without any appeal to, or concern for, the real good of "the People."

So I won't be listening to the radio, or watching SCUM TeeVee, either...

I wanted to spare my dogs.

Poor dumb beasts, they get worried when I hurl loud invective and obloquy--to say nothing about ash-trays and flower pots--at the disembodied voices on the radio.

And, given the outpouring of sanctimonious twaddle, gratuitous propaganda and lugubrious schmaltz over the anniversary of the death of Ronald Reagan which will surely occupy virtually the entire news spectrum of the day, I would have plenty of opportunity to launch barrages of vivid vituperation, epic expletive, and ubiquitous obloquy against both the dearly-departed "American Hero," and the obsequious drone of the sycophants who will be reciting their eulogies.

Lest we/you forget, I have assembled a list of some 20 of the most compelling reasons that Ronald Reagan SHOULD NOT BE so universally esteemed, his passing so mourned, and his memory so honored:

1) Treason: As a private citizen, and BEFORE the election, in contravention of both law and tradition, Reagan's minions and handlers illegally negotiated with the Iranians to induce them hold the American Embassy hostages until after the elections,to embarrass President Carer and to prevent his successful negotiation of an "October Surprise." Sent future VP George Bush, Sr., and future CIA chief William Casey to Paris to negotiate the deal.

2) Sent arms, including chemical weapons, to both Iraq and Iran during the decade-long Iran-Iraq war, making those two countries the two biggest US arms trading partners at precisely the time when it was illegal to trade with either due to both US and UN laws.

3) Iran/Contra: Used drug traffickers to transport illegal arms to Nicaragua, ignoring the contraband which was brought back on the return trip, creating a massive and immediate increase in cocaine trade in urban California. Illegally used the CIA to mine harbors and ferry Contra troops in Nicaragua. Eventually, several administration staffers were convicted of crimes ranging from lying to Congress to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. The scandal involved the administration selling arms to Iran and using proceeds from the sales to fund a guerrilla insurgent group in Nicaragua

4) Created alQaeda in Afghanistan to oppose the Soviet puppet/occupation there

5) Sponsored right-wing, State terrorism in El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, and Guatemala against indigenous insurgents who were fighting the dictatorial, hereditary regimes there. Illegally invaded and occupied Grenada, overthrowing the democratically elected President

6) Lied about ALL of this activity before Congress, and suborned his Secretary of Defense to perjury, as well.

7) Rescinded Carter policy that all US international financial support be based upon valid human rights records.

8) Took the world to the brink of nuclear war, putting nuclear weapons into Europe, violating the very provision that was the settlement to the Cuban missile crisis.

9) Instituted the so-called "Mexico City" doctrine, effectively barring recipients of U.S. foreign aid from promoting abortion as a method of family planning.

10) Instigated trickle-down/voodoo economics, which was the beginning of what has recently culminated in the crash of the bubbles. Here is a subset of his regime's economic sins:
a) Within the first year of the policy, we were in a depression caused in large measure by the policy. The "historic" 27% tax-cut was skewed two to one in favor of those making over $200,000 per year, in percentages, and far more in real dollars. By the end of the second year, increases in state and local taxes more than replaced the cuts for the middle class.

b) Wages throughout Reagan/Bush remained stagnant in real dollars for the next 12 years, the longest and worst growth performance in middle class wages in US history. Average national growth was the lowest since the early 30s.

c) Conspired with corpoRat and congressional allies to sustain spending by loosening credit, to replace the wages they were not going to increase.

d) Named Ayn Rand acolyte and free-market apostle Alan Greenspan as Chief of the Federal Reserve.
11) The HUD/DoI Scandals: Samuel Pierce and his associates were found to have rewarded wealthy contributors to the administration's campaign with funding for low income housing development without the customary background checks, and lobbyists, such as former Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt, were rewarded with huge lobbying fees for assisting campaign contributors with receiving government loans and guarantees. Sixteen convictions were eventually handed down, including several members of the Reagan administration.

12) Appointed some of the "worst" Federalist Society/strict constructionists to the federal bench, including Scalia, Kennedy, and O'Connor, ALL of whose votes were crucial in (illegally) installing GW Bush in the presidency in 2000, and named Rehnquist Chief Justice.

13) Ordered the revocation of the FCC regulation called "the Fairness Doctrine," and opened up the Press to the rash of consolidations which has led, now, to a compromised, toothless, stenographic, lap-dog "Fourth Estate."

14) Initiated the attack on labor unions by attacking PATCO, the Air Traffic Controllers union, creating a crisis in airport control towers nation-wide, and importantly, started the slow erosion of US worker wages and benefits.

15) Through the appointment of James Watt, who claimed that the environment was "expendable" since the "second coming of Christ was at hand,", Reagan reduced clean water and air standards, reduced labor, mine, and industrial safety standards,and cut funding to supervisory and regulatory agencies charged with monitoring those industries.

16) Increased the defense budget to 240% previous levels.

17) Systematically ignored the beginning of the AIDS/HIV epidemic, blaming the victims publically.

18)The S&L collapse: Reagan's "elimination of loopholes" in the tax code included the elimination of the "passive loss" provisions that subsidized rental housing. Because this was removed retroactively, it bankrupted many real estate developments made with this tax break as a premise. This with some other "deregulation" policies ultimately led to the largest political and financial scandal in U.S. history: The Savings and Loan crisis. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around USD$150 billion, about $125 billion of which was consequently and directly subsidized by the U.S. government, which contributed to the large budget deficits of the early 1990s.

19) Called ketchup a vegetable for the purposes of school-lunch funding and reduced early education and head-start funding.

20) Symbolically ripped the solar panels, installed by Pres. Carter, from the WhiteHouse,and blamed trees for causing air pollution.
No, I do not miss the son-of-a-bitch. To the extent that the coverage of the anniversary of the demise of this traitorous, vile sock-puppet ignores or ignored these "tiny missteps," that is the extent to which I would have been obliged to disturb my dogs with my curses.

I would without compunction defile his grave.

If either Jon Stewart of Colbert has the stones to cover the memorials "unfairly," I could be tempted. C'mon, Jon, Stephen! TEMPT ME!!!
Two more things the psychopathic fellators will certainly overlook in the rush to canonize this grinning fuck:
1) they won't describe in any detail is how his decision to open his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, was a conscious gesture to locate his campaign in the very HEART of festering racial antagonisms, where civil rights workers Shermer, Goodwin & Chaney were murdered by crackers in 1964, and
2) how doing so encouraged the vitriolic recrudescence of racialist rhetoric in the country, wiping away the gains achieved under the regime of "political correctness."
I would have died a happy man had I been able, in my life-time, to take a runny shit on Reagan's corpse. I loathe, detest, and despise him more than ANY political figure in my life-time, period...

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Take A (Mid-Level) Fascist Fuck With You

Back in the halcyon days, I stumbled upon a plan by which we could reduce the influence of the Murkin Fascisti, one fucktard at a time. I suggested a program I called TAFFWY, or "Take A Fascist Fuck With You." By means of this program, I hoped to entice folks with terminal, impendingly fatal illnesses to--instead of spending all their remaining resources to stay alive--devoting those resources to eliminating one or more of the really malign figures in public life who are standing in the way of measures to spare the human species and prevent the further fucking up of the life-world.

Below, via Treehugger blog you would find a "Rolling Stone" list of 12 likely candidates (to which I would add the five Opus Deists on the SCROTUS):
The vast majority of scientists -- even American ones! -- agree that human beings are pumping too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and that this is causing the global climate to warm. So why aren't we trying to do anything about it? Well, we are. Millions of concerned citizens, climate activists, scientists, business leaders and policymakers understand the grave threat climate change poses, and are actively working to find the best ways to curb our emissions. But these 12 people -- very, very powerful people -- are doing their damnedest to stop them. And it's working.

Here's Rolling Stone's list, the Top 12 Politicians and Execs Blocking Progress on Global Warming -- the abridged edition...

12. Fred Upton -- The moderate-representative-turned-Tea-Party-favorite who now sits as the Chairman of the House Energy Committee. He'll lead the charge in dismantling the EPA.

11. Bjørn Lomborg -- Danish climate skeptic who traffics in making misleading but vaguely believable (to the layperson) claims about global warming, arguing action isn't needed.

10. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) -- Chairman of the House Oversight Committee who's making "investigating" climate scientists who have already been exonerated numerous times one of his chief goals.

9. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) -- Claims to want to fight climate, but is intent on blocking the EPA, and is integral in keeping the coal industry powerful.

8. Ken Cuccinelli -- "Here's a novel strategy to make sure nobody thinks too hard about the risks of global warming: Criminalize climate science. Cuccinelli, Virginia's ultraright attorney general, is using his prosecutorial power to harass and intimidate those who are raising the alarm about climate change..."

7. Tim Phillips -- As leader of AFP, a corporate front group that funnels cash to the Tea Party, Phillips is on a mission to convince Americans that global warming is a plot hatched by Al Gore to take away their freedom and destroy the economy....

6. Rex Tillerson -- The CEO of Exxon, Tillerson helms the biggest carbon-polluting company in the world. He directs millions towards lobbying against climate action.

5 Tom Donahue -- As head of the US Chamber of Commerce, Donahue is one of the nation's most powerful opponents to climate legislation, directing millions of dollars and untold influence against it.

4. Gregory Boyce -- The owner of the world's largest publicly-owned coal company--the infamous Peabody Coal Company..

3. Sarah Palin, Retired half-term governor, Alaska -- 'Nuff said.

2. Charles and David Koch -- The notorious billionaire brothers who bankroll just about every effort to block climate progress imaginable -- these guys need no introduction. (In case they do, see this brief synopsis of their wide-ranging influence)

1. Rupert Murdoch -- "No one does more to spread dangerous disinformation about global warming than Murdoch. In a year of rec­ord heat waves in Africa, freak snowstorms in America and epic flooding in Pakistan, the Fox network continued to dismiss climate change as nothing but a conspiracy by liberal scientists and Big Government."
I feel no remorse for suggesting "targeting" this band of gunsels, murderers and thieves. I wouldn't shed a single snivel for the whole feculent lot of 'em, were they ALL to perish tomorrow...

Sunday, January 23, 2011

"For The Love Of God, Shut The FUCK Up!"


I am utterly SMITTEN by this young woman, a Romanian emigre, I believe; Eastern European, in any case. She reveals a subtlety of perception and a clarity of analysis that her apparent youth might belie, and are probably unmatched by any other "web"-lebrity within 15 years of her age.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Black Folks "Offended" By Use of "Gringo" In NPR Interview? BWAHAHAHA

Where Woody lives, "Gringo" is tame. Hereabouts, the dominant latino culture refers to us Anglos as "gabachos" (gabacho = French idiot), "güeros"(pronounced 'wheros' = light-skinned), "bolillos" (white-bread, French roll they love) and "yanquis" (imperialists), and my friend Cheeser from El Modena came up with anglosangrones (Anglo assholes)...


Cenk IS correct about this: The FRucktard Right is gearing up to bring down NPR/PBS, and O'Bama will fold on that issue, if the GOPukes press it really hard, like he's folded on EVERY OTHER big GOPuke point, like the empty fucking suit he is.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Who Votes For These Cretinous Moronic Fucknozzles, Anyway?

A story on AOLOnline today caught my eye. It reports that approximately 49% of 'elected officials' couldn't correctly answer even HALF of the questions.
For five years now, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute has been conducting a national survey to gauge the quality of civic education in the country. We've surveyed more than 30,000 Americans, most of them college students, but also a random sample of adults from all educational and demographic backgrounds.

Included in the adult sample was a small subset of Americans (165 in all) who, when asked, identified themselves as having been "successfully elected to government office at least once in their life" -- which can include federal, state or local offices.

The survey asks 33 basic civics questions, many taken from other nationally recognized instruments like the U.S. Citizenship Exam. It also asks 10 questions related to the U.S. Constitution.

So what did we find? Well, to put it simply, the results are not pretty.

Elected officials at many levels of government, not just the federal government, swear an oath to "uphold and protect" the U.S. Constitution.

  • But those elected officials who took the test scored an average 5 percentage points lower than the national average (49 percent vs. 54 percent), with ordinary citizens outscoring these elected officials on each constitutional question. Examples:
  • Only 49 percent of elected officials could name all three branches of government, compared with 50 percent of the general public.
  • Only 46 percent knew that Congress, not the president, has the power to declare war -- 54 percent of the general public knows that.
  • Just 15 percent answered correctly that the phrase "wall of separation" appears in Thomas Jefferson's letters -- not in the U.S. Constitution -- compared with 19 percent of the general public.
  • And only 57 percent of those who've held elective office know what the Electoral College does, while 66 percent of the public got that answer right. (Of elected officials, 20 percent thought the Electoral College was a school for "training those aspiring for higher political office.")

* * *
Are you smarter than an elected official?
If you can correctly answer five or more of these basic Constitution-related questions, congratulations! You're smarter than the average elected official! (Answers are below -- but no peeking!)

1) What are the three branches of government?
A. executive, legislative, judicial
B. executive, legislative, military
C. bureaucratic, military, industry
D. federal, state, local

2) What part of the government has the power to declare war?
A. Congress
B. the president
C. the Supreme Court
D. the Joint Chiefs of Staff

3) In the area of United States foreign policy, Congress shares power with the:
A. president
B. Supreme Court
C. state governments
D. United Nations

4) The United States Electoral College:
A. trains those aspiring for higher political office
B. was established to supervise the first televised presidential debates
C. is otherwise known as the U.S. Congress
D. is a constitutionally mandated assembly that elects the president
E. was ruled undemocratic by the Supreme Court

5) What impact did the Anti-Federalists have on the United States Constitution?
A. their arguments helped lead to the adoption of the Bill of Rights
B. their arguments helped lead to the abolition of the slave trade
C. their influence ensured that the federal government would maintain a standing army
D. their influence ensured that the federal government would have the power to tax

6) The phrase that in America there should be a "wall of separation" between church and state appears in:
A. George Washington's Farewell Address
B. the Mayflower Compact
C. the Constitution
D. the Declaration of Independence
E. Thomas Jefferson's letters

7) The Bill of Rights explicitly prohibits:
A. prayer in public school
B. discrimination based on race, sex, or religion
C. the ownership of guns by private individuals
D. establishing an official religion for the United States
E. the president from vetoing a line item in a spending bill

8) Identify one right or freedom below guaranteed by the first amendment.
A. Right to bear arms
B. Due process
C. Religion
D. Right to counsel

9) Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the federal government. What is one power of the federal government listed below?
A. Make treaties
B. Make zoning laws
C. Maintain prisons
D. Establish standards for doctors and lawyers

10) Who is the commander in chief of the U.S. military?
A. Secretary of the army
B. Secretary of state
C. President
D. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

The answer key is in comments, below.
?

Saturday, January 08, 2011

Listen to this Lying, Skeevy, Worthless Piece of SHIT Ratiocinate

Rep. Hurt (R., VA) will "support" repeal of the Obama health insurance reform. You heard him say so. Meanwhile he has no compunction about accepting his OWN grift/package.

Were the microphone in my hand, I would have asked him if his soul were so full of shit that he didn't have a tiny piece of it which regretted such SPECTACULAR fucking hypocrisy.

If he's YOUR representative, I hope you know where the motherfucker lives, and you can deliver your own personal greeting to him. If he were MY 'representative,' I'd deliver a big, steaming bag of dog-shit onto his porch.

Please, don't hurt the livestock; they're not responsible.

Thursday, January 06, 2011

The (Slightly Bowdlerized) "Story Of Suzy," A Believer


Created by "ThinkingAtheist," on July 18, 2009, Lil Suzie's garnered just over 100 THOUSAND views on YouTuve, with 3,101 likes, and 98 dislikes.
The original edit of "The Story of Suzie" video was wildly popular. Unfortunately, someone felt it was "inappropriate for minors," almost certainly due to an animated scene of a church shooting.

I've contested the flagging with YouTube, but to make "Suzie" (and the debate about Jesus) accessible to an unrestricted audience, I've re-produced the video and censored the shooting segment.

The message is still very plain and clear. And my hope is that those who disagree will simply comment and move on, rather than attempting to quash any opinion that contradicts their own.

Enjoy.

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Project Censored, 2010: The Top Ten Most Important, Least Reported Stories of the Year


These are the stories which, despite their importance, implications, and entailments, no one other than a total news-junkie would recognize, because they NEVER made it to either "Page 1" or the TV Nooz.

None of these stories literally "bleeds," so there's that!

1. Global Plans to Replace the Dollar
Nations have reached their limit in subsidizing the United States’ military adventures. During meetings in June 2009 in Yekaterinburg, Russia, world leaders such as China’s President Hu Jintao, Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev, and other top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation took the first formal step to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The United States was denied admission to the meetings. If the world leaders succeed, the dollar will dramatically plummet in value; the cost of imports, including oil, will skyrocket; and interest rates will climb.

2. US Department of Defense is the Worst Polluter on the Planet
The US military is responsible for the most egregious and widespread pollution of the planet, yet this information and accompanying documentation goes almost entirely unreported. In spite of the evidence, the environmental impact of the US military goes largely unaddressed by environmental organizations and was not the focus of any discussions or proposed restrictions at the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. This impact includes uninhibited use of fossil fuels, massive creation of greenhouse gases, and extensive release of radioactive and chemical contaminants into the air, water, and soil.

3. Internet Privacy and Personal Access at Risk
Following in the steps of its predecessor, the Obama administration is expanding mass government surveillance of personal electronic communications. This surveillance, which includes the monitoring of the Internet as well as private (nongovernmental) computers, is proceeding with the proposal or passage of new laws granting government agencies increasingly wider latitude in their monitoring activities. At the same time, private companies and even some schools are engaging in surveillance activities that further diminish personal privacy.

4. ICE Operates Secret Detention and Courts
Agents of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are holding thousands of US residents in unlisted and unmarked subfield offices and deporting tens of thousands in secret court hearings.
“If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008.

5. Blackwater (Xe): The Secret US War in Pakistan
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives inside and outside Pakistan. The Blackwater operatives also gather intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus
Six thru 10, along with the links, can be found on the Project Censored page. They are:
6. Health Care Restrictions Cost Thousands of Lives in US
7. External Capitalist Forces Wreak Havoc in Africa
8. Massacre in Peruvian Amazon over US Free Trade Agreement
9. Human Rights Abuses Continue in Palestine
10. US Funds and Supports the Taliban
All of the top 25 are here, in descending order.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Excuse Me, Please. I Need TO GO Weep For My Dying Country

The creator of this vid sez:
The quotes are real.

They came from Obama administration officials, Obama himself, Organizing For America staff, Obama supporters, newspaper columnists, various bloggers, progressive activists and progressive critics.


"It's Preferrable That People Know Where You're Coming From"

The "Objectivity" of the press was a lie fostered and used by Hearst to shove a shitty stick in the eye of his major competitor, Pulitzer. Hearst claimed his papers had it, and Pulitzer's didn't. It has NEVER existed except as a marketing ploy designed to give advertizers the appearance of NOT being allied with unpopular opinion. American media may not portray an obvious "political" bias (pace, Fox), but they all betray the same "economic" bias (pro business, pro-status quo), the political implications of which they are continually at pains to ignore, deny and/or conceal. What it conceals, of course, is the incredible narrowness of the range of acceptable opinion in the USer "press."

Here, NPR's David Folkenflik reports from Britain, where the pretense of "objectivity" is recognized for what it is. E.G.:
The Battle Of What Makes News

On the wintry day I visited the Houses of Parliament, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron was taking questions from his foes in Parliament. It's a weekly exercise in public accountability and political theater.

Labor leader Ed Miliband accused Cameron of being out of touch with working-class Britons: "It's no wonder that today we learn the foreign secretary describes this gang as the children of [former Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher. It sounds just like the 1980s."

Cameron's retort was greeted with cheers: "Let me say this: I'd rather be a child of Thatcher than a son of Brown."

The exchange was in all the newspapers the next day with Cameron as the winner. Each had a distinct take:

The conservative Daily Telegraph said, "Time after time Mr Miliband hit a weak serve, trotted to the net in the hope of an easy volley, and was blown away by a merciless return from Mr Cameron."

Compare that with the left-of-center Daily Mirror's analysis: "David Cameron yesterday showed his true colours ... declaring his love for a woman who took the axe to industry, destroyed local communities, crushed unions and threw thousands on the dole."

Those are just a couple of examples that help illuminate what many see as a key difference between British and American media.

Guardian Editor-in-Chief Alan Rusbridger argued that British papers give more room than their American counterparts to voices that challenge conventional wisdom.

"I think it's quite a striking thing about the British press that you get this polemical battle over the basis for what news is, which I feel is to a large extent missing in the American scene," Rusbridger says. "No judgments are free of ideologies, so who you choose to quote and how you structure stories are highly political judgments. I think that's the problem with trying to place too much faith in something called objectivity."

Rusbridger points to coverage of the push for war with Iraq in advance of the 2003 U.S. and U.K.-led invasion. He says British coverage was more skeptical of the justification for war because the range of acceptable opinions is far broader in British newspapers.
This was/is the first in a two-part series heard on the programme, "Morning Edition." The second installment, focusing on the USer press

Monday, January 03, 2011

Higher Taxes on Wealthy = More Productive Economy

If they don't like it, there ought to be a way to remind them that if they're not WILLING to accede to the greater good, there are ways to make it involuntary.

I suggest taking their children hostage, and sending back the odd bit if they displease us.

Sunday, January 02, 2011

Guns and Butter - "Banks, Bailouts and Manufactured Market Crashes" with Max Keiser.

This appearance on KPFA may be Max Keiser's Public Radio breakthrough. I certaqinly never heard him before, outside AlJazeera and R/T. In sum:
Stock price manipulation through electronic high speed trading; global totalitarian oligarchy; HSBC & JP Morgan manipulation of the silver market; stock market crashes more profitable than growth periods for traders; computers set up to steal; financial terrorism; suicide bankers; Fed policy that benefits the top 1%; growing social unrest; plague of mortgage fraud; IMF leveraged buy-out of Ireland, Greece, etc.; outsourcing of money creation; control through debt.