Jon Stewart, March 29, 10: "Skullfuck the baby-killers"

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Health Care Slime Machine
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Health Care Slime Machine
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Welcome to the Monkey House

Remember the last time you visited a zoo? Did you go into the Monkey House? If so, your dominant recollection will likely be of noise: the sheer, indescribable din of screeches, whistles, bellows, hollers, shouts, gibbers, yowls and thumps.

In the Primate House, as in the wild, the simians use their unique communication modes for a purpose: to maintain contact with their primary tribal group, and to continually reassure themselves of their status in the group. This is also the purpose of the so-called 'social media': to keep scattered members of human tribes connected with other members of their tribes and to constantly reassure themselves of their stature in those groups. This is the ultimate social mandate. Tweet, twitter, facebook, and such developments as have yet to emerge all function within and exploit this basic anthropoid instinct. It's a plaintive cry out of the chaos of the age: "Hey! Over here! Yeah, it's me and I'm with you guys!!!"

Remember, humans are a prey species. Not big, tough, well-armed, fast, or poisonous, we're all some other critter's lunch. Communication covers our flanks.

Helen Thomas Knocks Shamwow's Dodge of Israeli Nukes Query

In part one of his interview with Helen Thomas, longest-serving member of the White House Press Corps, Paul Jay asks her about her first question for President Obama. The question, asking President Obama to name all the countries in the Middle-East that have nuclear weapons, was avoided by the President, who claimed to not want to "speculate". Thomas claims that knowledge of Israeli nukes is very public in DC and Obama's answer shows a lack of credibility. She explains the importance of this question for U.S. policy in the region. Finally, she confides that she has not been called on by the President since that day, but that if she does, she will ask him whether or not he has found any more information about nukes in the Middle-East since their last encounter.

Lieberman/McCain Bill Would Permit Indefinite Detention

Infelicitously titled, this vid is nevertheless important in illustrating the extent to which the Congress is willing to abrogate civil liberties to persecute/prosecute alleged "terrorists." It would permit the USer military to detain and hold even American citizens without due process.

Arrest the Pope!

Recent revelations about the complicity of then-Cardinal Ratzinger (Ratzi, the Nazi; now Pope Benedict) in the centuries-long (really; first reports surfaced in the 4th Century, CE) cover-up of the global scandal surrounding the pandemic of predatory, priestly pederastic perversion suggest the then-director of the Office of the Inquisition was actively involved in covering-up the extent and scope of clerical sexual predation throughout the Church, in Ireland, Italy, Germany, and the USofA, of which there are details available, abnd probably elsewhere (why not?); involvement that may extend back perhaps even as early as his tenure as the Arch-bishop of Munich.

If true, and there is little doubt that it is, this would make the Pope either a co-conspirator or an accessory-after-the-fact in hundreds, perhaps thousands of felonies.

Warrants for the Pope's arrest or detainment should be forthcoming from every district or venue wherein there have been reports of priestly abuse.

Perhaps he wouldn't be arrested, but it would keep the evil fuck confined inh the Vatican like a fugitive.

Which couldn't be ALL bad.

A Colloquy

This is the exact transcript of a discussion on the Book today:

Michael D: Great article. Woody, I'm hoping to get your thoughts on something. Do you believe that the corporate control of our government and media is a conscious plot cultivated by a handful of people in power over the years, or just the natural and inevitable result of the capitalist system? I know you've spent a great deal of time on these issues, so I'd love to get your thoughts.
about an hour ago ·

Woody Aka-John Konopak That's a really good question, Michael. The answer is: Yes.

Yes, there is/are conspiracies. Of course there are. Why WOULDN'T people--wealthy, powerful people, with interests in STAYING wealthy and powerful-- conspire to use such influence as they had to affect events in directions which would redound to their benefit, and to preserve the system that advantages them so thoroughly?? Wouldn't you? It strikes me as peculiar to imagine there weren't such conspiracies.

Or that such folks wouldn't avail themselves of such advantages they might have through birth or industry or cunning or cruelty have access. These are 'structural" advantages, advantages available only to folks who tread in pretty esoteric circles. Privilege. You know it when you have it. You can find an approximation in "white privilege."

And then there are what Foucault called 'discursive practices.' These are the textual/ritual habits of institutions, the practices for which there is no single, nameable author, but the authority of which are irresistible. The often unstated, but consensually understood, arrangements, agreements, deals. If you ever spent any time in a corporate hierarchy, you know what I'm talking about.

Liebling said "dogs bard; politicians lie." And gamblers will cheat if they get a chance. And the games we're talking about here, there's always a chance to cheat.

And that --that chance to cheat--is what's built into Capitalism, as Marx pointed out 150 or so years ago.

So, yes...okay?

Goldman Sucks

"They called Barney Frank the "F-word." What's that, Fat?

Your Mind On Bugs: Open Enough To Accept New Ideas; Not So Open Your Brains Don't Fall Out

Dept. of Don't Shit On My Head And Call It "Manna": Elizabeth Warren on "How WallStreet Got/Gets Away With MURDER!~"

The Real News: To Rob A country, You Need To Steal A Bank

William K. Black, author of THE BEST WAY TO ROB A BANK IS TO OWN ONE, teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri — Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He has taught previously at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law and a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement. Black developed the concept of "control fraud" — frauds in which the CEO or head of state uses the entity as a "weapon." Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined. He recently helped the World Bank develop anti-corruption initiatives and served as an expert for OFHEO in its enforcement action against Fannie Mae's former senior management.

What White People Fear?

In a word: Payback!

Even the most obdurately stupid and unreflective "White people" realize down in the deepest pits of their ignorance, that "white" people have behaved abominably in the workld, and they are--quite justifiably, in their own minds-- terrified of the chickens coming home to roost: that all, or even some significant fraction of, the black, brown, red, yellow, and spotted people whom 'whites' have oppressed, exploited, murdered, raped, and dispossessed over the past 500 years, if they ever got the power to do so, would use the opportunity to get even

It is, as you must know, what the White people--who hold grudges for fucking EVER-- would do if the situations were reversed. Robert Jensen is a (White) journalism professor at the University of Texas who has a history of asking troubling questions:

In the struggle for racial justice, it’s time to pay more attention to the fears of white people.

In a white-dominated world, that may seem counterintuitive. In the racial arena, what do we white people have to be afraid of?

There are lots of things to fear in this world, of course; race is not the only aspect of life in which people face injustice and inequality. A majority of people of all colors (including working-class and poor whites) struggles economically in a predatory corporate capitalist system, and all women, regardless of race, cope with gender discrimination and the threat of sexual violence in a male-dominated world.

But what fears could white people have as white people?

Understanding the fears behind the racial politics of both conservative and liberal whites can help guide strategy for changing a society in which wealth and well-being are still tied to race. And make no mistake, there is still a racialized gap between white and non-white America on measures of wealth and well-being—income, home ownership, graduation rates, access to health care, infant mortality, etc. In fact, the gap between white and black America on some of these measures is greater today than in the immediate aftermath of the major legislative achievements of the civil rights movement, and on some measures the rate of improvement is so glacial that it will be decades, if not centuries, before we reach equality. The legislative achievements that ended legal apartheid in America were a great victory, but the economic apartheid that remains is a reminder of our failures.

Put bluntly: The United States abolished a formal apartheid system but remains a white-supremacist society. After more than a decade of writing and speaking about these issues, which has sparked lots of feedback from all political angles, here’s what I have concluded about white folks and our fears.

For conservative white people, the dominant fear is of someday living without the privilege that comes with whiteness. Polite conservatives defend the primacy of “Western civilization.” More reactionary whites are openly racist about the threat that non-white peoples pose to “our way of life.” Both versions defend the existing distribution of wealth and power, even though many of the working-class and poor whites who endorse such views have access to precious little wealth or power. Race is used by white elites today, just as it was in the nation’s formative years, to drive a wedge between people who would otherwise come together to challenge those elites. Divide-and-conquer strategies, it seems, never go out of style.

Liberals are quick to denounce both the thinly veiled and the openly reactionary conservative racism. But what of the fears of liberals? White liberals might reject the very idea that they are afraid, citing their support for diversity and multiculturalism. But my experience suggests that while white liberals reject assertions of white supremacy, many fear the loss of white centrality. They are willing to renounce the idea that white people are superior, as long as they are allowed to live comfortably in a world where white is the norm.

In short, both the conservative and liberal positions are based on the same underlying assertion: “I’m white, and I’m special.” Conservatives are more likely to say it openly, while liberals tend to offer platitudes about racial justice while avoiding the risks required to make good on anti-racist principles.

What remains obscured is the distinctly uncivilized nature that Europeans and European Americans exhibited during their barbarous conquest of much of the world. The inherently fragile sense of white self-importance that emerges from that history is at the core of white fears—at some level, we all know that the truth of the depravity of white supremacy belies claims of white superiority.

There's lots more...go read!

Yes, In YOUR Fucking Name! By Your Kids! With Your Guns!

Tim Wise, excerpt: From the DVD:The Pathology of Privilege, Racism, White Denial & the Costs of Inequality

Part 1 (of 6): Wise deftyly introduces and discusses a topic which the vast majority of White folks steadfastly deny the existence of: White Privilege.

For years, acclaimed author and speaker Tim Wise has been electrifying audiences on the college lecture circuit with his deeply personal take on whiteness and white privilege. In this spellbinding lecture, the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son offers a unique, inside-out view of race and racism in America. Expertly overcoming the defensiveness that often surrounds these issues, Wise provides a non-confrontational explanation of white privilege and the damage it does not only to people of color, but to white people as well. This is an invaluable classroom resource: an ideal introduction to the social construction of racial identities, and a critical new tool for exploring the often invoked - but seldom explained - concept of white privilege. "

Indeed, back in the late 80s and through the 90s, I used Wise' materials in many classes I taughyt at LSU, and later at U of the Okies...

Michael Moore Is NOT A "Licensed Pundit" & He's Fat. But He's Fucking RIGHT!

Nothing I can do to improve upon this:

The Green They Steal, The Greed They Wear
...a St. Patrick's Day lament by Michael Moore

Friends,
It was amazing. Every story on the front page of Monday's New York Times told the story of the Age of Greed during which a system known as capitalism is slowly, but surely, killing us:

Insurance company greed: "Millions Spent to Sway Democrats on Health Care"
War profiteers: "Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants"
There's no profit in repairing our infrastructure: "Repair Costs Daunting as Water Lines Crumble"
China, the bank: "China Uses Rules on Global Trade to Its Advantage"
You mean NAFTA didn't improve life in Mexico: "Two Drug Slayings in Mexico Rock US Consulate"
What happens when Big Food profits from hurting kids: "Forget Goofing Around: Recess Has New Boss"

There's now a daily parade of news like this -- well, not really "news," more like the media division of large corporations shoving your face into the dirt that is your life. You already know the schools are a disaster and the war is a boon for the Halliburtons and a bust for you. You don't need a newspaper to tell you the roads and electrical lines and the local sewage plant is in miserable disrepair.

And by now you've figured out that you don't really have any say in this, that what we call the "democratic process" is mostly a sham, pretty words that get repeated in the hopes we will all still fall for it. But the fix is in and we don't fall for it anymore. Admit it: Wall Street owns "our" Congress lock, stock and big barrel o' campaign cash. You want a say in this? Well, I don't see you on the Forbes 400, so shut the f@*& up and go fetch me another bottle of bubbly.

Within days, the House of Representatives will vote to pass the Senate health care "reform" bill. This bill is a joke. It has NOTHING to do with "health care reform." It has EVERYTHING to do with lining the pockets of the health insurance industry. It forces, by law, every American who isn't old or destitute to buy health insurance if their boss doesn't provide it. What company wouldn't love the government forcing the public to buy that company's product?! Imagine a bill that ordered every citizen to buy the extended warranty on all their appliances? Imagine a law that made it illegal not to own an iPhone? Or how 'bout I get a law passed that makes it compulsory for every American to go see my next movie? Woo-hoo! Who wouldn't love a sweet set-up like this windfall?

Well, the insurance companies -- get this -- don't like the Democrats' bill! That alone should be reason enough to vote for it.

Now, you would think these thieves would love this bill -- but they are actually fighting it. Why? Because it doesn't give them ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the what they want. It only gives them... 90%! YOU SEE, pure greed demands all or nothing.
The insurance industry hates this bill because it puts a few minor restrictions on them. Six months after its passage they won't be able to deny children coverage if they have a pre-existing condition. How awful! Government interference! SOCIALISM!
But, hey, they'll still be able to deny these children's parents coverage until 2014! So if a parent gets sick and dies in the next four years, I'm sure someone will step in and raise these already-insured orphans.

And how big will the fines be if the insurance companies do deny someone coverage for having a pre-existing condition? Are you sitting down? A hundred dollars a day! That's it! So if you're the insurance company, and Judy is a customer of yours, and Judy needs an operation that will cost $100,000, what do you do? You take the fine! Let's say Judy lives another year after you've sentenced her to death, your $100-a-day fine will only cost you $36,500! That's a savings of $63,500! And trust me, my friends, that's EXACTLY what's going to happen.

There are some good things in this bill. Parents will be able to keep their children on their policy until the kids turn 26. A few things like that. So, yes, pass that.
But don't insult me and 300 million Americans by calling this "health care reform." At least you've stopped calling it "universal health care." We will not have universal health care or anything close to it.

I wish the president and the Democratic leadership would just stand up and say, "We're sorry, America. We didn't get the job done you sent us here to do. We're weak and scared and unable to communicate the simplest of messages to the American people. Therefore, our bill will guarantee that 12 million of you will still have NO health insurance. And that's because we have decided to leave the greedy, private insurance industry in charge of our system. Forgive us for this and for continuing to allow profit to be the determining factor as to whether a patient gets the help she or he needs."

Please, Democrats -- just say that -- then pass this poor excuse of a bill. Pass it because, if President Obama takes a fall on this one, I don't know if he'll be able to get back up. And then NOTHING will get done. We can't have that. (And thank you Dennis Kucinich for hanging in there right up to the end and being the only one out of the 435 members to speak the awful truth.)

On the front page of yesterday's New York Times, the dateline was, sadly, once again, "Flint, Michigan." The story was about how doctors are no longer accepting Medicaid patients. Which means tens of thousands of poor can no longer go to the doctor. Last year, the State of Michigan also prohibited doctors from accepting Medicaid patients who had anything wrong with their vision, their hearing, their feet or their teeth. In a 16-county area northwest of Flint, there will soon be not one single hospital that will allow you to give birth there if you're on Medicaid. The official unemployment rate in Flint is 27% (unofficially, closer to 40%).

This is an American tragedy. And, as I've warned you for years, this tsunami is heading your way -- if it's not there already.

I've just turned on my new iPhone and it informs me that it has "apps" it would like to suggest I buy. One is called "Scanner." It will allow me to listen in on police scanners anywhere across the country. I buy the app. I see that the Flint police scanner is part of this. I turn it on out of curiosity. And this is what I hear, at one in the morning: A woman is being beaten by her husband... A home invasion is taking place ("16-year-old black male, wearing a white skull cap")... A child has been missing since noon today... Another woman is being beaten by her boyfriend... A diabetic, obese man is having trouble breathing and needs to be rushed to the hospital (there will be three more of these obese diabetics in the hours to come; the entire town is ill)... One more woman calling, screaming for help, "officers urged to use caution..."

...And on and on and on. This is what I have listened to before going to bed. I am filled with despair and helplessness as I hear my former neighbors crying out for help. I hate it. I have to turn it off. I start to cry. Thank you, iPhone. Thank you, Democrats. I'll sleep better knowing that you're looking out for all of us.

Bastards.
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. I'll continue my jihad today on Dylan Ratigan (MSNBC, 4pm ET) and, for the first time together in the same studio since our, um, 2007 debate, I'll join Wolf Blitzer live in his CNN Studio (5-8pm, ET). I'll also be on live for the entire 11am hour this morning on the wonderful Diane Rehm Show on NPR. You can listen live online here.
The rest of the day I'll spend wandering the halls of Congress with my shillelagh and shamrocks, doing my best impersonation of St. Patrick as I try to drive the snakes out of Capitol Hill. Wish me luck...

Luck o'the Irish to ya, Mick, me b'y! And to all of us...

They're HERE! The Top 25 Most Ignored Big Stories of '09

Top Censored Stories of 2009/2010

1. US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street--Worse than you EVER knew, but you knew that.
2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s--Worse than you imagined; it's not an accident.
3. Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates--Toxic, illegal, mid-ocean dumping kills off fishing industry.
4. Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina--You DIDN'T know? Ooooops...
5. Europe Blocks US Toxic Products--Including frankenfoods; smart fellas, them Euros
6. Lobbyists Buy Congress--Worse than you thought, by many, many magnitudes of badness..
7. Obama’s Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past--Worse than you remembered; they're a gang of international gangsters.
8. Bailed out Banks and America’s Wealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions--What's the point of having enormous wealth & power if you can't cherat with it?
9. US Arms Used for War Crimes in Gaza--War Materiele-R-USA: That it's the Israelis exterminating Arabbs is pure lagniappe..
10. Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate--A good move, long ovedrdue, and portentious, but nervy.
11. Private Corporations Profit from the Occupation of Palestine--In ways you don't WANT to know.
12. Mysterious Death of Mike Connell—Karl Rove’s Election Thief--The GOP's Top IT Guru bought under curious circumstances.
13. Katrina’s Hidden Race War--Death squads patrolled Algiers. This has been known for a LONG time.
14. Congress Invested in Defense Contracts--Corruption goes ALL ways.
15. World Bank’s Carbon Trade Fiasco--Ask 'Cui bono?"
16. US Repression of Haiti Continues--And we STILL hold their marker for Duvallier debts.
17. The ICC Facilitates US Covert War in Sudan--Indictment justifies military interference, regime change.
18. Ecuador’s Constitutional Rights of Nature --Declared national constitutional rights to nature, thus codifying a new system of environmental protection.
19. Bank Bailout Recipients Spent to Defeat Labor--BoA uased TARP money to sponsor anti-EFCA conference.
20. Secret Control of the Presidential Debates-- Campaigns jointly negotiated a detailed secret contract dictating the terms of the 2008 debates.
21. Recession Causes States to Cut Welfare--Nobody has said jack-shit about this; cf. NM Tortilla tax.
22. Obama’s Trilateral Commission Team--11 members occupy senior posts, similar to Bushevik PNAC numbers.
23. Activists Slam World Water Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud--Which it was.
24. Dollar Glut Finances US Military Expansion--To no one's surprise, but it does LOOK bad when you DEMAND your allies fund your wars.
25. Fast Track Oil Exploitation in Western Amazon--The 'culture war' for oil in paradise.

ART, Imitating Life, Imitating Art Imitating Life, Imitating...-

GOPuke's Planning Layed Bare (Stet)

Pap's acerbic, and very good at this kind of stuff.