Memo from Long Island: Darth Vader Reduced to Petty Theft

No, really...the Dark Lord of the Sith robbed a Long Island bank yesterday.

We live in interesting times.

From Your Cold, Dead Hands

Today, in a 5-4 decision that should surprise absolutely no one, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that gun ownership is an individual right. I know. "Duh," right? Apparently, this is only news to constitutional scholars and the court system that draws it's members from them.

Apart from restating an obvious, on the ground fact, this ruling once again proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that John Roberts and Sam Alito are the bought, paid-for, and kept whores of the knee-jerk, Wrong Wing, conservative ideologues who handed them their jobs in the first place.

The court was considering a restrictive handgun law in Chicago and one of its suburbs that was similar to the District of Columbia law that it ruled against in 2008. The 5-4 decision does not strike any other gun-control measures currently in place, but it provides a legal basis for challenges across the country where gun owners think that government has been too restrictive.

"It is clear that the Framers ... counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty," Justice Samuel Alito Jr. wrote for the conservatives on the court.

[...]

Alito said that the court had made clear in its 2008 decision that it was not casting doubt on such long-standing measures as keeping felons and the mentally ill from possessing guns or keeping guns out of "sensitive places" such as schools and government buildings.

"We repeat those assurances here," Alito wrote. "Despite municipal respondents' doomsday proclamations, (the decision) does not imperil every law regulating firearms."

Sir, with all due respect (that is, none)...bullshit. And you know it. You know it, and you don't care, because you've spent your whole life imbibing this brand of NRA bullshit. The NRA's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, has already said, “We’re going to go everywhere cynical politicians attempt to pervert, defy or nullify the decision,” and they won't stop until they've got the whole chicken coop sown up. Hell, they won't stop until every one of this Empire three hundred and fifty million citizens has a Glock 17 strapped to their ass, ready to go at a moment's notice.

Today, the halls of Remington, Smith & Weston, and Charter Arms are ringing with jubilation. They've won, their butt-boys (like LaPierre) know it, and they're going to make sure they keep on winning, regardless of the human cost.

Not that that really matters. If you're a citizen of the West your hands are already covered in the invisible blood of your fellow man. Why not slather on a few more layers by "accidentally" shooting your wife and child in a fit of work-stress-related rage?

I used to favor gun "control" measures, whatever their source...then, one day, I realized favoring such policies is a self-defeating exercise in Playing The NRA's Game. It's a Game they've spent forty years rigging, and thanks to Our (former) Glorious Leader, George Jr., and the shaved apes he placed inside the Nation's Highest (and I do mean highest) Court, their efforts are finally paying off.

Except this Empire armaments industry has always reaped extraordinary benefits from careful manipulation of the "democratic" process. Hate a gun-control advocate? Brand him/her a communist terrorist socialist in disguise. Then, all you have to do is sit back and throw money at his/her Primary or General Election opponent(s). Should your candidate ever express concern about the amount of gun-related homicides in this country, or our massive cultural addiction to adolescent Rambo fantasies, all you have to do is remind them of how they got their job in the first place. And that they could loose it just as easily.

But assume the worst and suppose a gun "control" law actually makes it on the books. No problem. Sue. And sue. And sue. Tie up the local, state and federal judiciary for as long as it takes because, remember, you're right and they're wrong (whoever "they" are), so fuck them, their fat wives, and their so-called courts. Don't worry: if you need more lawyer money you can always tell the NRA's rank and file to "remember Ruby Ridge." Or Waco. And watch the money tree grow.

In mixed company its best to avoid mention of those unfortunate incidents. Instead, quote from Gospel of Reagan, chapter 6 verse 66. Repeat along with me, kids: "If Guns are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns."

(Bonus points if your handpicked Legislative lackies regularly decry "frivolous lawsuits"...you know, like those brought by individuals against corporations who've screwed them out of pensions, poisoned family members, or dumped toxic waste into the local water tables.)

The real irony is, Wayne LaPiere is right. Over a year ago he told the Conservative Action Committee "Our founding fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules." Thus our two hundred year history of genocide, frontier violence-as-justice, and our Do What We Say or Die foreign policy. Furthermore, the return of the Armed Maniac to the national, political stage (more of them every day, as seen in this campaign ad from the National Socialist State of Arizona) will only encourage those of us who honestly hate guns to go out and buy them. For personal defense, of course. This will, in turn, further enable the Iron Mongers among us, allowing them to pack "our" government with their handpicked allies, ensuring more Judicial homicide enabling. So it goes.

I'll let George Washington Universe law professor Paul Butler have the last word, he being a law professor and all.

It’s not every day when four justices of the Supreme Court accuse the other five of having blood on their hands. The majority opinion doesn’t immediately lead to any change in a specific law, almost like the court is afraid of what it is setting in motion. But the dissenters were correct. Sooner, rather than later, the blood will flow.

Artificial lifeform created: Microbe declares mankind "already dead."

Via the Daily Mail:

But the breakthrough, which took 15 years and £27.7million to achieve, opens an ethical Pandora's box. Ethicists said he is 'creaking open the most profound door in humanity's history' - with unparalleled risks.

There are fears that the research, detailed in the journal Science, could be abused to create the ultimate biological weapon.

And there are also warnings that one mistake in a lab could lead to millions being wiped out by a plague, in scenes reminiscent of the Will Smith film I Am Legend.

Like this

That fucking tears it. Every crap sci-fi film you've ever seen or even heard about is coming true. Soon, the killer robots will feast on our flesh side by side with all the victims of the zombie-sparkly-vampire-apocalypse virus, right before the killer tidal wave washes a bumper crop of giant monsters into the remains of our more-photogenic cities. Indeed, God help us all.

In Deference to Reason

...Reason Magazine, that is, we celebrate the First Annual Everybody Draw Mohammad day. And, since I can't draw, I offer you this blast from the past:

(The Prophet Mohammad defends Washington D.C. from the ravages of a giant, stone Abraham Lincoln. Circa 2001.)

Time Warner Gives USCG, Federal Courts, One-Fingered Salute.

In a strange twist of fate, Time Warner Cable threw itself under the anti-movie piracy bus today, stating publicly that it had no intention of complying with the 2,049 subpoenas generated by German crap-filmmaker Uwe Boll's suit against peer-2-peer downloaders. None. Zip.

I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, this is just one more example of the fact corporations can do whatever they want, and will do whatever they can get away with, employing any excuse. In this case, it's lack of manpower, and resources tied up in the parallel wars on Crime (remember that one?) and Terror.

"Copyright cases involving third-party discovery of Internet service providers have typically related to a plaintiff's efforts to identify anonymous defendants whose numbers rank in the single or low double digits," wrote the cable company. "By contrast, plaintiff in this case alone seeks identifying information about 2,049 anonymous defendants, and seeks identifying information about 809 Internet Protocol addresses from TWC."

Time Warner Cable does not have enough employees to respond to these requests. In a typical month, the company receives an average of 567 IP lookup requests, nearly all of them coming from law enforcement. These lookup requests involve everything from suicide threats to child abduction to terrorist activity, and the company says that such cases take "immediate priority."

On the other hand, I cannot support anyone, anywhere, exchanging money for a Uwe Boll film. Fuck Uwe Boll, and his horrible movies. Fuck the underwear models posing as lawyers on the U.S. Copyright Group's website. USCG has made a name for itself partnering with independent film studios, distracting the courts with these massive lawsuits in a futile attempt to roll back the technological clocks to 1995.

On the third hand, I can't support illegal file sharing, because I'm afraid I'll get sued if I do. And that, in case anyone was wondering, is how terrorism works.

The Policeman Will Shoot Your Pet

On February 12 of this year, police in Columbia, Missouri, serving a search warrant for narcotics, raided a man's home in full SWAT regalia, guns drawn. Acting on a tip that the man was some sort of Kingpin of Pot, the police handcuffed him and "accidentally" shot his pet corgi.



Via the very evenhanded (all things considered) Reason Magazine, which rightly points out raids like this go on all the time. The only difference is, this one was caught on film.

Look around your back yards. Ask yourself, what are your local police doing? Do you even know? Quick, who's your local Commissioner Gordon? Mine's the mayor, Sam Adams. He just fired Chief Rosie Sizer two days ago, officially taking the helm of a police department he'd delegated to city commissioner Dan Saltzman. Saltzman must've drawn the short straw. He got the task of apologizing to the family of James Chasse Jr, who died in September 2006. Portland police officers broke 16 of his ribs in the process of tackling him, puncturing his lungs.

And my friends tell me the drug war is over. Barack Obama is supposedly going to save us all. But how long will this naivete allow our nation's cops to take out their pent up aggression on the nation's defenseless pets?

Answer: As long as Pakistani's trying to set off bombs in Times Square.

Question: Why in God's name would anybody want to blow up Times Square?

Answer: Because nothing's changed. Two wars going nowhere fast, U.S. sanctioned torture, spying, environmental catastrophes...sounds like 2005 to me. Where are we again?

I would communicate with others...

...but I'm in school. I'll let Professor Chomsky explain that to you:

The Cartoons that Shook the World

As I'm sure everyone knows by now, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone received several (not-so) veiled death threats over the very idea of depicting the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon his name) in their show's two hundredth and two hundredth and first episodes. The later, which aired last Wednesday, ended with a multi-character "I-learned-something-today" speech, a callback to nearly every South Park episode of the first six-or-so seasons. A series of drawn-out, audio "bleeps" completely obscured the content of these speeches in what I first took to be a meta-joke on the boy's part. Then I read their statement @ South Park Studios:

We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn't some meta-joke on our part. [Show's what I know. - ed] Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear.

Well, shit on that idea. Intimidation and Fear rule the land, and the creators of South Park are in a better position than anyone to realize it. Their battles with the MPAA are legendary. Yet their home network has always backed them previous to this.

Comedy Central's decision to be chickenshit corporate scumfucks, and then hide behind some delusion that they're "protecting their employees" (as Jon Stewart, loyal company man that he is, put it) reveals a truth even the South Park boys probably haven't guessed. For all their excessive obscenity and supposed irreverence, things have only gotten worse in the fourteen years since their debut. The nine years since they last depicted the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon his name) certainly seem to have been one long, downward spiral of censorship and intimidation. We had Janet Jackson's breast in 2004, the original Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in 2005, a flare up one year later, and just last year Yale University Press beat Comedy Central to the punch, preemptively removing all Muhammad cartoons from their upcoming book, titled...The Cartoons that Shook the World.

Were I a more conservative commentator, I might suggest the terrorists are winning. After all (and I'll say it again, because this bears repeating), Yale University Press decided to remove all Muhammad cartoons from a book titled Cartoons That Shook The World. Only Fear and Intimidation could inspire such a colossally stupid decision. But of course there are no terrorists...only a few crazed maniacs on the one hand and clutches of toothless, suit-wearing shills on the other.

So, in solidarity with Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Kurt Westergaard, Roger Köppel, various members of the Danish People's Party's youth wing, and all artists the world over who labor under the threat of religious intolerance and extremism, I offer this pictorial depiction of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon his name):

along with a fervent prayer to all the messiahs of the world, whatever their affiliation:

Lords, save us from your followers. They know not what they do, but we know very well what they'd like to do. Especially to those of us who don't want to turn the clock back to the eleventh century. Help us, Super Best Friends. Like the sign in The Crow: City of Angels said, "Save us."

What Every Person Should Know About War

Via WikiLeaks ("The intelligence network of the people.") And God bless the Pentagon for finally talking about them, allowing the mainstream media permission to do so as well. I would've never heard about the damn site if not for the fact that it's suddenly everywhere. All over an incident that took place two years ago, in a little country no one really talks about very much anymore. Almost as if we share a new national hope: if we just close our eyes and click our heels often enough, the whole sordid, evil nightmare will just go away...

There's no place like Iraqi. Unless you count Afghanistan.

Health Scare: The Final Friday

Dateline: Constantine's Rome, U.S.A. After a year of fearmongering, deception and compromise, our bought-and-paid-for political system at last knelt on the Great Toilet Bowl and squeezed out a fibrous chunk of a bill, now being sold as “the most important piece of social legislation since the 1960s”.

That from David Frum, a “fellow” at the right-wing, non-think tank, the American Enterprise Institute...who lost his job yesterday after he dared criticize the Republican Party's flailing, and ultimately failed, strategy of Fear and Surprise, Surprise and Fear.

Yes, the battle is over, and the narrative is already set. One must either embrace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 as a milestone carved from gold and set at the latest American Crossroads...or despise “Obamacare” and everyone who supported it, “baby-killers” and “assholes” that they are. This bill with either usher in a new bumper crop of healthy, wealthy and wise American citizens...or bring about the “Apocalypse” We've been marinating in Right Wing fear-juice for so long now, I'm not surprised by any of this...only saddened that, as usual, those of us who don't align our thinking along what Jon Stewart called “the Hannity-Olbermann Scale” are not allowed to sit and talk at the Big Kid Table. Can't something be “the most important piece of legislation since the 1960s” and a massive corporate welfare boondoggle? In today's Washington, these are not mutually exclusive things. It seems like giving free money away to corporations is about the only thing the two wings of our one-party state can agree on.

At least the Republicans remain honest to a fault. They have the stones to brazenly declare, loudly and proudly for all who might hear, “Yes: we are the party of eternal warfare, greed, fear mongering, and bigotry.” The Democrats try to look like they feel bad about eternal warfare, greed, fear mongering, and bigotry, even as they tacitly support all of those things in a continuing bid to Right-flank the Republicans. Because bourgey suburbanites are the only people who bother to vote any more, and they're so mean and stingy they'd rather bankrupt themselves putting their kids through private school than pay another dime in taxes that might go to help brown people.

I do not cast my tar with a wide brush. I am not Glenn Beck...though, if you believe him, I am a Cancer on the American Political scene. If only I could metastasize a few members of Congress...I'm sure Joe Liberman would get stuck in my throat...but what if I dissolved him first, in some sick, twisted, pre-digestive process...then again, why waste good vomit drop? Liberman's so desperate to be noticed these days he'd probably get a kick out of the free publicity:

“The Huffington Post received word today that Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Himself) will convene a press conference in the Senate Briefing room at three p.m. There, a strange combination of human being and house fly, a freakish, bastard child of Science Gone Horribly Awry, will dissolve the Senator's face with what the estate of esteemed Canadian physicist Seth Brundle described as, 'a corrosive enzyme.' Pundits from Faux News to the General Electric Pseudo-Liberal Primetime Lineup are already speculating that this may be Liberman's first act in a 2012 bid for the White House.”

Meanwhile, back in the real world...there actually are eighty-three out-and-proud, real-life Progressives in the Congressional Progressive Caucus—including my Representative, Earl Blumenauer. They are not the malignant, flesh-consuming disease that Glenn Beck would have you believe. They did all they could to keep their yuppy-fied “allies” in the Corprocrat Party from turning the bill into an even bigger hand out to medical supply industry. But their efforts were largely in vain. They'll be no “public option,” for anyone. No universal health care. No socialized medicine. Not even its shammiest sham of a cousin. Merely a requirement we all buy into the same, piece of shit, for-profit plutocracy that's killing us now. Hillary Clinton loved the "individual mandate" system (it's got the word "individual" in it - it must be good). Candidate Obama decried it...but the people who get money from medical insurance companies (hospitals, corporate drug dealers) loved it, and those are the people who put money into politician's coffers. It's not a Donkey vs. Elephant thing: don't think of either. The corporatocracy doesn't care. It throws its cash around wherever power resides, hedging every bet against the chance of a real socially-democratic revolution in this country.

They get what they pay for. The whole Health Scare debacle just goes to show you can have all the Committee Chairmanships you want, in both Houses of Congress, plus the White House, and every left-leaning weirdo in whole country at your back (as Obama did, this time last year) and still cave in on everything the people who put you in office held dear, thanks to venial, virulent vermin like Bart Stupid (with his need to control women's internal organs) or Joe Sleezeberman (with his vindictive temper-tantrums – hey Joe, Ned Lamont may be a playboy millionaire, but at least he's not a complete dickhead). Our esteemed Progressive members still have only the same number of votes as those two jackasses. And there are a lot more Stupak's than Blumenauer's in the Democratic Party's ranks.

As a nation, we're over-worked, drugged-up, nail-bitingly paranoid, and (more than likely) not making enough to scrape by, petrified by the possibility of our job disappearing into the wilds of India, China, or Taiwan. So it's no wonder we're reacting to all this with name calling, death threats, and random shots into the air.

At least 10 House Democrats have had to request additional security since Sunday's health-care vote. Someone left a coffin on the lawn of Rep. Russ Carnahan's home in Missouri. Glass doors and windows were broken at the district offices of Reps. Louise Slaughter of New York and Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona. Vandals have damaged Democratic Party offices in Wichita, Cincinnati and Rochester, N.Y.

And Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, whose last-minute compromise on abortion funding guaranteed final passage of the reform act, has received a flood of abusive phone calls at his office and home. Someone faxed him a drawing of a noose. One voice mail, subsequently posted on the Internet, was left by a woman who wanted Stupak to know that "there are millions of people across the country who wish you ill." Another caller was more direct: "You're dead. We know where you live. We'll get you."

Indeed. Check it out, people: it's getting dangerous out there. So stay in your homes and let Super Rockin' Mr. Magic entertain you. After all, according to that great storehouse of modern journalism, Access Hollywood, those White House party crashing yuppies we were all supposed to care about months ago are set to appear on Real Housewives of D.C.

According to The Daily Beast, they also have a tell-all book in the works, which will “set the record straight” on the rumors that have surrounded them since their uninvited adventure.

“People will be surprised when the truth about the Salahis is finally told,” literary agent Sharlene Martin told the Beast.

Meanwhile, the real housewives, house-husbands...real people, in fact, of all genders and social situations...seem poised to catch one final “fuck you” before “our” Congress goes to its Easter recess. After proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are terminally disconnected from the tribulations of really-real Americans, none of the "leadership" in Congress seems to mind that unemployment benefits, flood insurance, and all manner of things that actually provide real, immediate help to real, immediate people...the ones they supposedly represent...are set to expire. Again.

Last week, the House approved a $9 billion measure containing one-month extensions of unemployment insurance, COBRA health benefits and federal flood insurance. Senate Democrats hoped to have their chamber approve the same bill Thursday. But Republicans refused, complaining that the bill is not offset with spending cuts elsewhere.

They said the same thing in early March, when Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) brought the chamber to a halt for five days over another extension that wasn't offset.

Senate Democrats and Republicans spent hours negotiating among themselves and with each other to find a compromise. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) discussed the possibility of a one- or two-week extension of benefits that would be fully paid for, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was opposed to the idea, according to two Senate aides.

As a result, the House and Senate will leave town without further action. COBRA and flood insurance will expire March 30, and unemployment benefits will expire April 5. The Senate will return to session April 12.

Meanwhile, AIG CEO Robert Benmosche took home a cool $7 million this year, along with $3.5 million in bennies and stock options. This is the “socialism” Glenn Beck keeps yammering about. This is a “redistribution of wealth” on a grand scale. For a year and half I've watched these bastards feed at the public trough and all I see are the rich getting richer while the rest of us get stuffed.

Six of eight [AIG] managers who had their 2009 awards set by Feinberg, the Obama administration’s special master on executive pay, had their overall packages increased this year, according to a Treasury Department report [released on the 23^rd].

As “special masters” go Feinberg's sure made a mess of things. His “socialist takeover” of America's businesses looks a hell of a lot more like a giant cash-grab. Corporate welfare. Socialism for High Society. That's the real danger, lurking out there in the noise fields. And unless people wake up and realize that corporatist politicians (whatever the consonant next to their name) aren't going to ride in on their white horses and save us, we'd all better get ready. Things'll get a lot worse before they get any better.

With the Great American Health Scare “debate” tabled for Easter, our national Infotainment Complex will have to flail about until it finds the Next Big Thing to distract from how badly we're getting fucked. Sure, it's a mid-term election year, but who cares about those races anyway? Osama bin Laden just put out another mix tape, threatening to...gasp...harm Americans he's supposedly holding prisoner. (Gee, what a surprise. And here we thought you'd just sit them down for a nice, hot meal and a discussion of the Theodicy Problem, O-man.) Sister Sarah has returned to the headlines yet again, swooping down from Alaska to try and save old man McCain's ass from a loony, disingenuous, teabagging primary challenger. Election 2010 icons are already appearing across this great Web of ours. And that new Twilight movie's coming to a theater near you. God must be in his heaven, and all is truly right with the world. More wine, please? Thank you...I think I'll go for a garden stroll, my path lit by bodies of a few burning terrorists. Oh, sure, they call themselves “martyrs,” but what the hell do they know? Then we've got the orgy at three...and that bribery session at four...what's the point of Easter if I can't go home to extorting some more cash out of my past contributors?...And what the hell is that sound I hear in the distance...is that...Mel Brooks shouting something...what could it be?

“Gentlemen! We've got to protect our phony-baloney jobs!”

Well said, Mel. Well said.

Jon Stewart's "Con-serv-ative/Li-bert-arian"

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

Just when I thought it was safe to write a send-up of Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart does my job for me. Damn you, Stewart! Stop reading my mind. Bastard.

Health Scare #5: Eric Massa Admits Love of Grabass on Glenn Beck

Gay Bashers of Not-Too-Distant Future Claim Apocalypse Imminent, Obama-era Navy Full of Gay

Rep. Eric Massa's resignation from the House of Representative's is a intergalactic bummer on a lot of fronts. For one thing, his tales of a vast, left-center conspiracy to oust him from office over health care "reform" made him the new It Girl of the Rupert Murdoc's noise machine, Faux News. Every time Glenn Beck interviews a guest, somewhere, a kitten dies.

But what an interview. And what a wonderful opportunity to showcase a madman and claim, “He is a gigantic Progressive,” as Beck did. “And I think I'm pretty clear on where I stand with Progressives.” If nothing else, it's a good excuse to laugh at Glen Beck's demagogic style. But first, the apparent facts:

Former representative Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) has been under investigation for allegations that he groped multiple male staffers working in his office, according to three sources familiar with the [Congressional Ethics] probe.

The allegations surrounding the former lawmaker date back at least a year, and involve "a pattern of behavior and physical harassment," according to one source. The new claims of alleged groping contradict statements by Massa, who resigned his office on Monday after it became public that he was the subject of a House ethics committee investigation for possible harassment.

I'd like to propose a joint investigation into allegations I've just made up that Representative Massa is completely out of his gourd. How else can you explain his statement that, “I wasn't forced out. I forced myself out,” which came in the same breath as this: “And goodness only knows what kind of allegations they're gonna throw at me.” They?

"If someone on my staff thought I was un-Congressional, that I was inappropriate, I own that. That's why I resigned." But he seemed to have no trouble blaming anonymous “attackers.” Glenn displays little interest in figuring out who these attackers actual are during the interview, seemingly more concerned with being a total bastard. Rather than wring an actual accusation out of his guest, Beck implores Massa to think of the “damage” he's doing to “your lovely wife" his children and "the country.”

Massa thankfully avoids this proto-fascist trap and repeatedly apologizes...while simultaneously making sure we all know he's the real victim here. “What my attackers don't get—and trust me this is all planned and calculated—we'll leak this, we'll leak that—”

Despite Beck's stupidity, its not hard to figure out which attackers former-Congressman Massa might be thinking of. Rahm Emanuel's showertime fun, whether true or not, is now a story for the ages, and a mental image I'd rather get out of my head. Does Rockin' Rahm just wander the halls naked, ravaging interns and lobbyists, foaming at the mouth and spouting obscene, Lovecraftian gibberish unfit for human mouth parts to pronounce?

Seriously, though, I can believe Rahm is a dick. He may, in fact, be exactly the kind of dick George W. Bush found in Dick Cheney. Those not rendered impotent by the thought of arguing with Naked Rahm in the Congressional showers, I ask you, join me in solving the overpopulation crisis and consider arguing with Naked Dick Cheney. There. Now you all know my pain. Stew in it.

But you'll have to watch the whole interview to really enjoy the pain. Let it settle in there. The centerpiece comes when Massa pulls a photo album out for Beck. Identifying several photos, he declares, “It looks like an orgy in Caligula, and anybody who's been in the Navy knows it.” Cue the Village People and expect Pat Robertson to jump on this new evidence of the Gay Navy, set to bomb Colorado Springs with absolutely fabulous Tomahawk missiles.

The worst part of all this? Massa may have once believed in a single payer health care system, yet at one point he plainly states, “We're never gonna get there,” conceding the debate before it even begins. In this he's the perfectly groomed “Progressive”: bloodless, devoid of balls, and stupid enough to go on Glenn Beck's TV show and admit the Navy gave him a life-long love of playing grabass.

It's no wonder Emanuel went after him, in the showers or otherwise. Bullies have uncanny senses. They can sniff out psychological weaklings across miles of swampy ground, and our capital is the biggest swamp going. Your nearest grade school can provide all the examples of this that you need. And Rahm Emanuel is nothing more than a sixth grader who can't let go of that time his older brother paid someone to beat him up, back in third grade, and must now beat your ass in turn.

In the grand tradition of small minded jocks from sea to shining sea, Rahm views politics as a game. He talks of “scorecards,” “winning,” and “loosing.” He's called his boss' natural constituency “fucking retarded,” when they dared try and do his job for him and twist some Conservative Democrat's arms. Note that he apologized to the head of the Special Olympics rather than those whom he actually declared “fucking retarded.” One would think intelligent {rogressives would take a hint from this: Rahm Emanuel is not our friend. Never was and never will be. This is the man who strong-armed NAFTA past the few Progressives who doubted its wonderfulness back in 1994. He does not give two shits about us.

In his year in office, Emanuel's displayed a Machiavellian willingness to play paddy-cake with whomever he can, regardless. The man has no principals. He's not even a man. Rahmbo is an Aristotelian political animal, a so-called “realist,” who'll sacrifice it all for the “big win.” Whatever that means to a millionare Richard Daley fundraiser, Bill Clinton adviser, and former-Freddie Mac director. As my old St. Louis connection used to say, “Never trust a politician from Chicago.”

Or...never trust a politician. The conservatives are all theocratic monstrosities, and “progressives” like Massa make even Teddy Roosevelt look like a rational being (albeit a racist, ecocidal one). At least Teddy's “muscular Christianity” propelled him to get the occasional Big Thing done. Would he knuckle under to every threat the American Taliban threw at him? Or is it Rahm who, scarred by his experiences in Clinton's White House, reacts with shame a horror at the thought of every little conservative backlash? Is he the one tossing red meat to the mouth-breathers while reducing “our” so-called “team members” into rambling shells of themselves with showertime shakedown sessions?

Many have called for Emanuel's replacement, from Sarah Palin to Michael Moore (who's agent, Ari Gold, oddly enough, is Rahm's brother). I'd echo that sentiment if I thought it went far enough but I say, throw all of them out, from our Glorious Leader on down to the last, yellow-bellied, slime-sucking lobbyist on K Street. March every white man with a suit and tie out of Washington and lead them, like the Piper, into the sea. I think I know a song that might get them all going.

In the Navy
by scorpiomusic

Health Scare #4: Profits Matter More Than People

Nothing could be more truthful than the fact that I don't want "government run health care." But I don't want for-profit health care either. So, as usual, I'm left with nothing. No options, no outlets. Trapped out in a world where Onion stories come true with remarkable ease and depressing regularity. Like this gem from last year:

WASHINGTON—After months of committee meetings and hundreds of hours of heated debate, the United States Congress remained deadlocked this week over the best possible way to deny Americans health care.

"Both parties understand that the current system is broken," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday. "But what we can't seem to agree upon is how to best keep it broken, while still ensuring that no elected official takes any political risk whatsoever. It’s a very complicated issue."

"Ultimately, though, it's our responsibility as lawmakers to put these differences aside and focus on refusing Americans the health care they deserve," Pelosi added.

The legislative stalemate largely stems from competing ideologies deeply rooted along party lines. Democrats want to create a government-run system for not providing health care, while Republicans say coverage is best denied by allowing private insurers to make it unaffordable for as many citizens as possible.

"We have over 40 million people without insurance in this country today, and that is unacceptable," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said. "If we would just quit squabbling so much, we could get that number up to 50 or even 100 million. Why, there's no reason we can't work together to deny health care to everyone but the richest 1 percent of the population."

(Congress Deadlocked Over How To Not Provide Health Care, The Onion, August 19, 2009)

The bald-face, plain-as-day fact remains: people are dying, right now, from lack of health care. While Our Glorious Leader and his Randian hack "opponents" sit around a table and spar over bullshit talking points, people are dying. Yesterday, today, every day. It's gotten so bad even the New York Times finally noticed:

As members of the Obama administration and Congress met on Thursday to try to find common ground on health care, a new report warned that without comprehensive legislation, more than 275,000 adults nationwide will die over the next decade because of a lack of health insurance. Nearly 14,000 of those deaths would occur in New York State. [Emphasis mine.]

An earlier study by the Institute of Medicine estimated that 18,000 people died prematurely in 2000 because they lacked insurance; the Urban Institute updated that figure to 22,000 in 2006. The new study, by liberal advocacy group Families USA, applied the same methodology used in the previous reports to drill down and calculate, on both a national and state-by-state basis, the latest figures.

“This is only the tip of the iceberg, and the most severe consequence, which is death,” said Kathleen Stoll, director of health policy at Families USA. In addition, thousands of other citizens, perhaps millions, are experiencing a reduction in the quality of their lives and their health because they lack insurance, she said.

Unfortunately, the Time's reveals its real concerns by burying all of those horrible numbers in its websites Health section, safe from the prying eyes of everyone who isn't already and old fart, or an old-fuck-at-heart (like your humble narrator).

On the more-prominent U.S. page we find a more typical example of the media's Health Care "Reform" coverage under the headline Pelosi Struggles to Corral Votes for Health Care Bill:

The future of President Obama’s health care overhaul now rests largely with two blocs of swing Democrats in the House of Representatives — abortion opponents and fiscal conservatives — whose indecision signals the difficulties Speaker Nancy Pelosi faces in securing the votes necessary to pass the bill.

The article is a prime example of Horse Race Journalism, a genre that now dominates American political writing thanks to years of pressure from the mouth-breathing media whores on the Right and the more-intelligent but (apart from Michael Moore) ideologically hamstrung media whores of the "Left." That is, the politically empowered "Left," symbolized by Pelosi, Reid, and Our Glorious Leader, the president, who are little more than rich, privileged shills for the very power structure left-wing politics are supposed to oppose.

This creates the twin phenomenons of political "centrism" and policy "triangulation," rhetorical red herrings meant to mask what the economist John Williamson identified (way back in 1989) as the "Washington consensus."

Being an economist, Williamson saw nothing particularly seedy or evil in this term (at least, not at the time...he has since recanted his choice of words for all the usual, wrongheaded reasons). At the time he originally coined the phrase he was attempting to outline a complex of economic ideas that everyone in Washington could agree upon, regardless of their politics. These included deregulation, unfettered access to credit, trade liberalization, the privatization of state assets, the deification of private (which, in most cases, means "corporate") property, and the destruction of even the the shadow of a functioning "welfare state." All of this motivated by a free market fundamentalist belief that economics can do more for people than politics.

If you happen to be rich, then, yes, it can. If you're poor, well...fuck you running. It's your own fault for not playing the proper Horatio Alger game. You must be out of favor with the Invisible Hand of the Market, what Jello Biafra called "God Incorporated." Did you eat meat on Friday? Sacrifice the wrong goat? Whatever it was, it certainly can't be the fault of a system that threw you overboard before you were even born. In any case, the System couldn't care less. It's far too busy bribing Congress with one hand and slapping their pitiful excuses for "reform" back with the other:

Anthem Blue Cross, a unit of WellPoint, recently informed subscribers in California that premiums for individual insurance policies would rise an average of 25 percent, with some rates going up as much as 39 percent.

“Raising our premiums was not something we wanted to do,” [WellPoint CEO] Ms. [Angela] Braly said [in her testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday]. “But we believe this was the most prudent choice, given the rising cost of care and the problems caused by many younger and healthier policyholders dropping or reducing their coverage during tough economic times. By law, premiums must be reasonable in relationship to benefits provided, which means they need to reflect the known and anticipated costs they will cover.”

Translation? It's not our fault we're so rich, or that we're legally bound to do everything we can to get richer. It's those damn doctors and their damn hospitals. It's the damn old people and their stupid needs for care. It's the damn young people jumping ship because they can't afford our base rates in the first place, only to slink back like beat dogs when something goes wrong.

According to Reuters, Ms. Braly pulled down over $9 million last year. Now that she's Chairman of the Board as well as President and CEO she can expect a raise this year, at the very least. The other witness quoted by the Times, Lauren Meister of West Hollywood, can expect to supply Braly with that raise now that WellPoint has pushed her premiums up by two hundred dollars:

“We saw what deregulation did to the cost of utilities in California,” Ms. Meister said. “We saw what the lack of regulation has done on a national level to our financial and banking system. Well, it’s doing the same thing to our health care system.”

Ms. Meister added: “The City of West Hollywood, where I live, regulates how much landlords can raise the rent each year to keep rents stabilized. Why can’t the federal government regulate how much health insurance companies can raise their rates per year, in order to stabilize premiums?”

Well, Lauren, it's got a lot to do with the insane amounts of money the health care industry has used to grease our government's wheels. Since 2005, that's been a $46.6 million investment, counting publicly-disclosed campaign contributions…who knows how much more cash changes hands away from the cameras? It's all a matter of profits over people, power of progress, and money over matters of life and death. So rejoice and be exceeding glad: they'll be no "government run" health care in this country. Not until the greedheads and glandhanders figure out how to run it straight into the pockets of their true constituents.

Health Scare #3: Limbaugh, Beck, Ingraham Laugh at Toothless Woman, Flash Everyone With Evil Underbelly of America

Thanks to David Brock's penance, Media Matters, even those us who consciously chose not to amerce ourselves in the Right-wing noise machine get to learn (as if we needed a refresher) just how evil a nation the United States really is.

During her turn at health care summit, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-New York) talked about plenty of stuff. But because our media is full of sensationalist bullshiters, the only comment of her's with any legs turned out to be the story of a constituent so poor she "wore her dead sister's teeth."

The store grew gams thanks, in part, to the noise machine, a prime example of political symbiosis that keeps this country deadlocked into a uneven tug-of-war between centrist and rightwing crazies. A so-called "liberal" tells a horrible story in public. So-called "conservative" voices respond to it with ridicule, vitriol, and spite. And we can already here liberal voices rising in a chorus of indignation (MediaMatters holding the baton) at the Rightwing mouthpiece's callous indifference to the suffering of their fellow Americans. As if something like this:

LIMBAUGH: You know I'm getting so many people -- this Louise Slaughter comment on the dentures? I'm getting so many people -- this is big. I mean, that gets a one-time mention for a laugh, but there are people out there that think this is huge because it's so stupid. I mean, for example, well, what's wrong with using a dead person's teeth? Aren't the Democrats big into recycling? Save the planet? And so what? So if you don't have any teeth, so what? What's applesauce for? Isn't that why they make applesauce?

should come as a surprise. "Let them eat cake," Marie Antoinette shouted. Well, no, she didn't, but never mind. Evil people have shouted it ever since, whenever they wanted to display their complete contempt for the rest of the human race.

While discussing the probably results of privatizing Medicare (sick, old people tossed out of hospitals, into the streets, to join the legions of crazy people already tossed out in '80s), Rep. Slaughter declares, "We're better people than that." Well, I'm sorry, Congresswoman, but we're really not. Have you seen Glen Beck's ratings? I have. More people watch his rambling civics-lesson-tirades in one night than visited these pages last year. Surely all of them are sincere, red-blooded Americans, hoping to keep pace with the endless treadmill that is the News. And maybe they like their current events served up in silky, semi-sweet Beckness. Who am I to begrudge them?

Such was my thinking. Until I heard this:

On his February 26 radio show, Glenn Beck played an audio clip of Slaughter's account then said, "I am wearing George Washington's dentures right now. I'm wearing his teeth right now." He later added, "I just like wearing dead people's teeth. But in America -- I'm sorry, I didn't know that that was -- I've read the Constitution before. I didn't see that you had a right to teeth." Echoing Limbaugh's remarks the previous day, Beck stated, "The environmentalists should be all over Slaughter. 'How dare you say that?' My gosh, they're just recycling. They're just reusing."

You can hear Beck and his "sidekick" break out into frat-boy giggles when Rep. Slaughter says, "she wore her dead sister's teeth." Now I want to be clear, here: I respect Glenn Beck's right to laugh at the pain and suffering of Rep. Slaughter's constituents. All I ask in return is that he, and everyone else, respect my right to fantasize about his parent company's (owner's) destruction at the hands of an angry mob. That makes me giggle.

After all, Glenn Beck's program is taped at the News Corporation office studios, 1211 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue to the rest of us) New York, New York, right down the street from MSNBC's 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

So imagine, if you will, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow leading a torch-wielding procession of correspondents, line producers, key grips, camera operators, runners, ADs, journalists, bloggers, and talking-heads through the night streets of Manhattan, singing "All Hell Can't Stop Us," or "I Wanna Free Miss Liberty" or some other fine selection from the IWW's Little Red Songbook. They storm News Corps' offices, overwhelming security. Rent-a-cops shit themselves in fear as red-eyed, foam-mouthed, Brooks Brothers-outfitted lefties, fed up with years of taking conservative shit, break down the revolving doors and pour in. Shattered glass twinkles in their frosted, TV hairdos.

Enmass they rush raving up the narrow stairwells, pouring out like a latte-fueled wave into the live studios. Sound men battle with boom mikes for bo staffs. Camera men's faces are driven into teleprompters by rebellious runners. Studio and viewing audiences keep their seats, shocked into rigidity by the sight of liberals actually doing something for a change. Other than bitch on endlessly about how dirty, evil and mean are those ol' conservative media whores, dag nab them.

Bill O'Reily, dragged from behind his desk, exposes his rubber-ducky emblazoned, $2000 silk boxers to a stunned and horrified world. He declares the whole "fucking thing sucks" as he's carried out to the streets on the shoulders of Chris Matthews Show interns, who proceed to tar, feather, and set Bill marching south, down Sixth Avenue, with instructions not to stop until he reaches the Village.

Meanwhile, back upstairs, Maddow stomps Laura Ingraham into bloodied unconsciousness with a pair of Manolo Blahnik's alligator boots, while Beck looks on, enraptured. Not by the girl fight. No, our man is caught by the visionary's paralysis. Like the audience itself, he is enrapture by the sight of his own worst fears made flesh. In a last ditch moment of egoism sure to make his spiritual grandmother, Ayn, proud, Beck has just enough time to stand and declare, "See? I WAS RIGHT!" before an Ed Schultz boot-to-the-naughty-bits reduces him to a simpering ball of well-dressed muck...

Whew. Sorry. Blacked out there a minute. And now I've got old union songs stuck in my head. What was it we were talking about?

Oh, yeah. Right. Fantasy.

Health Scare #2: We've Already Lost. They've Won

In the lead-up to tomorrow's health care "summit" (i.e., pointless political show-pony piece), the quixotically-named Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington released a wonderful (pdf) list of just how much health care cash each of the participants has received. Ranked from highest to lowest, reading it is an exercise in "Oh...now I understand. That's why John Boehner, Harry Reid and Steny Hoyer have been acting like such god-almighty dicks this past...zombie Jesus, it's been almost a year already. Where does the time go?" Straight down the drain, along with any chance you ever had of affordable health care.

From CREW's website

According to CREW’s study, the five summit invitees who have received the most health care dollars since 2005 are:

• Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), who has received over $2.5 million in contributions, $777,113 from the pharmaceutical/health products sector alone;

• Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has received over $2.2 million, $802,500 of which came from doctors, other medical professionals and their trade associations;

• Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), who has received nearly $2 million, $483,750 of which came from the insurance, HMO and health services industries;

• Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), who has received almost $1.9 million, $572,237 of which was contributed by hospitals and nursing homes; and

• Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who has received over $1.8 million, and like Sen. McConnell, received a large portion of that -- $709,261 -- from health professionals

So. We see the bribery wheel continue its Grand Round. Where she stops, nobody knows, but odds are good it won't be anywhere you (you less-than-filthy rich, politically disconnected, more-or-less completely disenfranchised person, you) would want to go.

And lest any of the ten or so people who actually bother to read these notes (not that I have anything but love for all you wonderful lurkers who come to steal my screen shots from Godzilla the Series) think Our Glorious Leader is somehow, magically above all this, CREW reminds us all that, "Additionally, President Obama received over $18.6 million during his presidential campaign."

Since precious few of us will ever see any side of $18 million, I took a quick walk around the internet and found that such a chunk of change is:

• the total amount raised by Bono's Product Red campaign for The Global Fund, despite a year's worth of endorsements from every supposedly-conscientious celebrity from Stephen Spielberg to the Mad God, Oprah. (Called a "meager $18 million" by the industry shills at Ad Age...which just goes to show you what world they really live in. Big hint: it ain't ours.)
• the amount of stimulus money the AARP received last year for the Senior Community Service Employment Program ("Hello! Welcome to Wal-Mart! Been a nice winter, hasn't it?")
• the rumored sale price of the Fire Island Pines resort. And if you don't know what that is, congratulations: whatever doubts, masturbatory fantasies, or drunken, back-seat-of-a-car "experiments" you might've had in the past, I hereby declare you straight. Go forth and sin some more.
  
• (and) the amount of money allocated for a upgrade to one (that's one) government website. Which one? Recovery.gov, of course. Because its not really "irony" until you feel that knife twist a bit.
  

Happy political theater, everyone. How's that "Canadian system" looking?

John Yoo's "Bloodshed of the Two Torture Memos"

Two Decembers ago, former Vice President Dick Cheney said,

"we don't do torture."

And the authors of the two most-famous Bush-era "torture memos"--the ones advocating "enhanced interrogation techniques" including waterboarding and the forced consumption of Brittany Spear's albums--were just cleared of any and all misconduct by an internal Justice Department review. So we must not "do torture."

And yet, on February 14th, Cheney brazenly admitted "I was a big supporter of waterboarding."

So just so we're clear, here...

You're the Office of Legal Council to the President of the United States. The Vice President's office sends word down that we're fightin' a new type of war and all, and maybe that ol', moth-eaten Geneva Convention really don't apply to the people we catch up in this war. Maybe we just need to, oh, I don't know...start letting the CIA kidnap people, throw them in some hole in the ground somewhere...like Morocco...or Cuba...and start torturing them, ya know? The Vice President's representative asks you to whip up a way this might be accomplished. What do you do?

Do you:

(a) Politely thank the Vice President's representative (probably his lawyer, David Attington), show him out the door, immediately grab the phone, call the President, and inform him his Number Two is a raving mad asshole who wants to undermine that greatest of great myths of ours: the rule of law, warping the character of this great nation into a grinning, horrible, schizophrenic parody of itself. Or do you

(b) Inform the Vice President's man that you'll do everything in your power to see that such a policy conforms to the laws of the United States, as proscribed by the Constitution and determined by the courts, or

(c) Inform the Vice President's man you'll be sure to write a memo equally sure to abandon "fundamental practices of principled and balanced legal interpretation,” fail "to cite highly relevant precedent, regulations, and even constitutional provisions," and misuse "sources upon which it does rely," conveniently ignoring everything else in a hard-line, insane drive to vest the Executive Branch of this country with unrivaled power. After all, we're at war. No time to be liberal pantywaist and wring our hands over "the laws". It's time to go all Howard Roark on these Camel Jockey assholes. Tell you what, screw writing up a legal case. You've decided to join up with the U.S. Marines right now, because that'll be the shortest distance between you and you ventilating terrorist scumbags.

Or do you

(d) Call a meeting with other senior lawyers from the Attorney General’s office, the White House counsel’s office, the Departments of State and Defense, and the National Security Council regarding whether the Geneva Convention applied to members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Inform the Vice President's man that, at these meetings, you and your lawyer pals will do everything in your power to draft a memo sure to abandon "fundamental practices of principled and balanced legal interpretation,” fail "to cite highly relevant precedent, regulations, and even constitutional provisions," and misuse "sources upon which it does rely," conveniently ignoring everything in a hard-line, insane drive to vest the Executive Branch of this country with unrivaled power.

(These quotes come from a 2007 critique of John Yoo's torture memo written by Dawn Johnson, currently head of the OLC under Our (new) Glorious Leader, President Obama--so suck on it, Johnny.)

Said memos will be sure to justify the Vice President's stated wishes, producing documents the President, Vice President, SecDef and Attorney General will spend the next eight years (Yoo wrote the torture memos back in 2002) hiding behind. Remember when Bush and Dick used to go on and on, when they were all, like, "Nope, we good. It's all legal. We've got these memos from the OLC, and they say it's fine. Foggedaboutit, not problem. Stop trying to coddle the terrorists and grow your balls back, you liberal pantywaist." Weren't those great times?

And it'll be okay. Really. No one will ever hold you accountable for providing a legal cover to the Bush Administration's obviously-adamant wish to torture people. You can even write a book all about it and no one will even bat and eyelash.

Let's be clear: Dick Cheney's valentine this year? Waterboarding. Fuck Liz and the kids, right? Sick fetishist is all about strapping men down to tables, putting washcloths over their mouths, and dribbling two-gallon milk jugs full of water onto them until their gag reflex makes them puke, or pass out, or both. Former Vice President Dick is a self-described "fan" of this. A "big" one. Sweet bleeding Jesus.

But wait: it gets worse. Lawyers for a Tunisan Gitmo prisoner, Rafiq Alhami, have just filed a lawsuit alleging that CIA kidnapper-spooks were torturing people as far back as December, 2001

In his lawsuit, Alhami stated, as the Associated Press described it, that, from December 2001, he was held in three CIA “dark sites,” where “his presence and his existence were unknown to everyone except his United States detainers,” and where, at various times, he was “stripped naked, threatened with dogs, shackled in painful stress positions for hours, punched, kicked and exposed to extremes of heat and cold.” He also stated that his interrogators “sprayed pepper spray on his hemorroids, causing extreme pain.”

[...]

Moreover, although the OLC memos dealt specifically with a “high-value detainee” program that began with the capture of Abu Zubaydah on March 28, 2002, it’s also clear that the administration began working out how to deal with prisoners outside of existing legal frameworks within days of the 9/11 attacks. Most of this centered, at the time, on expanding the program of “extraordinary rendition” developed by the CIA under Bill Clinton in order to deliver “terror suspects” to third countries, where they could be interrogated by proxy torturers or even “disappeared.”

This in itself was enormously worrying, of course. The Clinton-era program occupied a horribly gray area, in which “terror suspects” — mostly Egyptians — were seized by the CIA and rendered to the custody of the Egyptian government, which was then free to kill them, torture them or imprison them after show trials, but it was at least a carefully controlled program, involving 13 prisoners between 1995 and 2000, according to research undertaken last year by Peter Bergen for Mother Jones, and a detailed paper trail that required the existence of a sentence by a court, even one handed down in absentia by a government with a disturbing human rights record.

After 9/11, however, all these restraints were abandoned. Within 12 days of the attacks on New York and Washington, a Yemeni named Jamal Mar’i, who worked for a Saudi charity in Pakistan, was kidnapped from his house in Karachi and rendered to Jordan, one of several countries with whom the Bush administration had swiftly established arrangements involving “extraordinary rendition” and torture. In the ten months that followed, before the OLC issued its indefensible opinions, at least 25 more prisoners were rendered to torture in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Syria, and we now know, from one of three more OLC memos released two weeks ago — written in May 2005 by Steven G. Bradbury, the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and revisiting the OLC’s August 2002 torture opinions — that, after the CIA brought torture in-house in August 2002, 94 prisoners in total were held in secret CIA custody.

The fact I can even cut and paste these words without my head exploding, gumming up the keyboard with fragments of skull and brain goo, just goes to show you how far down the moral-evolutionary ladder eight years of Dick Cheney has really pulled us. Congratulations to us as a nation and as a culture: we've re-branded torture and once again made it cool by embracing it in absentia, through our "elected leaders." Great job all around.

Maybe next we can bring poisoning wells with dead bodies back to good. Quick, someone think up a name for that that won't scare people when they hear it on the six o'clock news. Something boring and bland, like the rest of American politics..."enhanced...water treatment techniques"?

Obviously, the correct answer to the above is (d), since torture memo authors John Yoo and Jay Bybee were ruled "not guilty" of professional misconduct. The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility did what the government does best and issued a report about it on Friday. Remember when your kid told you about that flunked Math test on the trip home from Six Flags? Well, the DOJ just pulled one of those one us. With Congress out until Monday (thanks, President's Day) and nobody important watching TV Friday night, they knew they could get away with giving Johnny and Jay a cute little smack on the wrist. Bad, bad boys, you two; letting that mean-old Mr. Cheney talk you into writing things. That gets you in trub-ble!

This sends a clear and concise message to conscientious men and women within the American government, and, indeed, all free governments of the world: suck-up, brown-nose, and bend over backward to please your powerful superiors. Not only will this allow you to twist and mutilate the law, but if your superiors are evil enough, you'll even get to twist some human beings along with it.

Christ sake, these two won't even be disbarred. Bybee will go right back to his day job as a federal judge (of all things), while John Yoo gets right back to the business of molding young minds at...Berkeley...of all the goddamnedest places in the Universe. Yoo, at least, has out-and-proud admitted he fixed the law to justify his "client's" (the Administration's) wishes. In the middle of bitching about Obama's decision to close Guantanamo Bay (and, one year out, what the hell's going on with that anyway?) Yoo even let slip the fact "President" Bush himself personally authorized waterboarding "three times in the years after 9/11."

(Sidenote: you know the Spirit of the 60s is well and truly dead when the man who literally wrote the book [and, first, the memo] on American torture programs can remain in his job at UC Berkeley with, apparently, no loss of life, limb, or property. God, the political Left in this country really is a coalition of toothless, bourgeois hypocritical fucks. He's authorized waterboarding for goddsake. C'mon Berkeley radicals: the least you could do is trash the man's office.)

Obviously, at this point, no one in the Obama Administration is the least bit interested in investigating the crimes of their predecessors. Why should they be? President Clinton was equally obliged to let the previous Bush Administration get off scott-free. It's not as if moral, ethical, or even legal concerns are foremost in Our Glorious Leader's mind. You noticed all this "extraordinary rendition" bullshit (when FARC does it it's just called "kidnapping" but I guess American "doesn't do that" either) started under Bill Clinton, didn't you? Good ol' Slick Willy sure stabbed us in the back on that one. The point is, all this is bigger than one evil, little man...or one evil, god-all-mighty-stupid presidential administration.

Let's be clear: U.S. torture policies grow out of fundamental assumptions of U.S. foreign policy. Foremost is the assumption that we, as the U.S., have the power to do whatever we want, whenever we want to do it. And get away with it. Until we get over that little canard, there's not a damn thing voting for your favorite corporate puppet is going to do about all this.

Just FYI.
(Within the Empire is supported in part by a grant from Dick Cheney Foundation: doing what Dick Cheney says, before he shoots us in the face. And by the annual financial support of Dick Cheneys like you. Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney. Go fuck yourself right up the butt.)

"take my pound of flesh and sleep well"

Around nine o'clock this morning, central standard time, a man named Joseph Stack set his house on fire, stole a Piper Cherokee from a nearby Georgetown, Texas airfield, and crashed the plane into an Austin office building, the Echelon I.

Echelon I is home to both the FBI and IRS field offices. Two people are in hospital. One is currently missing. Joe Stack is, rather obviously, dead, and already he's been christened the new Grey Champion of his age. Or the new Osama bin Laden.

Whichever way you lean, copies of Stack's suicide note/exegesis are now available in a variety of places, for the informing of your opinion. Titled "Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well," it paints the portrait of man driven out of his mind by fifty-four years of good ol' American hypocrisy. Signed, "Joseph Stack 1956-2010. 2/18/10," it shows deliberation, for all its short comings of coherent rhetoric (which its author freely admits). At once autobiographical and firmly political, Stack's note is scathing indictment of American political culture, sure to be swept under the rug at the first convenient opportunity.

In his note, Stack narrates of a life of repeated failure, with IRS bureaucrats, repeatedly cheating him out of his retirement savings. He rails against government bailouts of big business (GM, the airlines, the drug and insurance companies who grow fatter by the day thanks to "the joke we call the American health system") and big business' corruption of government ("there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say"), tacking right off the deep end of America's political spectrum with a new, violent populism, which is really as old as this continent. He justifies his heinous actions (which we at Within the Empire would never in any way condone, defend or advocate) by concluding

"I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along."

In other words, watch out, America. Your citizens are growing desperate, dangerous, and crazy. Not that we've ever been otherwise. But under certain strained circumstances, we have historically been moved to act on our national inclinations.

Personally, I'm putting everything I've got into canned food and shotguns.

Memo from the Climate Scientists: We're All Screwing Ourselves

Via Climate Progress, "a project of the Center For American Progress Action Fund," overseen by Dr. Joseph Romm (author of Hell and High Water) comes a chart n' graph-laden Illustrated Guide to the Latest Climate Science everyone interested in facts should at least glance at sideways before opening their mouths.

The gist? We're screwing ourselves as a nation, as a species, and doing it faster and more thoroughly than even the most pessimistic number crunchers ever though possible. But with all that snow on the ground, don't try to tell anyone about global warming. No. Obviously God Himself has answered those effete, elitist scientists with a triple handful of "treacherous," continent-ravaging storms. That's what we get for letting evil secularists study problems without their partisan blinders firmly stapled into place, and issue uncensored reports.

My dentist paused in the act of torturing my teeth to reveal his own ignorance. "Well," he said, glancing out the window at dead, Midwestern grass, "the climate's changing all the time."

Sure, Doc. But that's not the point. It's changing faster and more radically because of what we do. We, the collective entity known as "the human race" are senselessly murdering our biosphere thanks to a combination of ignorance, willful-stupidity, gross incompetence and greed. Blithely labeling this problem "Global Warming" or (as it was re-christened under Bush) "Global Climate Change," is itself a symptom of our wider, cultural myopia and unwillingness to confront the problems we create for ourselves.

Personally, I told my dentist, I like to cut through all the bullshit and lies and just call the problem what it is: the Apocalypse. Or, at the very least, an Apocalypse. As Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel spent years trying to teach us, there's always another Apocalypse around the corner. Only the concerted efforts of those fighting the "good" fight prevent them from destroying us hundreds of times over.

My problem with Dr. Romm? He (and thus, his organization) have fallen into a trap. By critiquing the Bush-era's Apocalyptic policies, decrying the "politicization" of a global crisis (as if global crisis' occur in the Ideal universe of Plato's Eternal Forms, far removed from politics) he, his organization, and the PAC that funds it, have all fallen into the very trap they hoped to set at Dubya's feet. They have politicized themselves by entering the arena of America politics. And bloodier, more unforgiving stage you will not find this side of Restoration-era England. They have ceded the high ground, because the American System (to use Henry Clay's term) as its currently constituted, requires them to get down in the mud, with paleolithic assholes, like the Republican Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell. Who, in his White Presidential Power rally response to Our Glorious Leader's State of the Union Address, brazenly declared (in a nod to Dominionist voters across the Old Dominion and throughout the national TV audience):

We are blessed here in America with vast natural resources, and we must use them all.

Because obviously, if we don't, the terrorists will win.

This Apocalypse is not insolvable. The simple fact is, the vicious plutocrats who control the ruling institutions of American (and, to a large extent, global) society do not care. They don't give a high, holy fuck about you, me, the plant, or anything on it unless they can turn a profit by converting whatever-it-is (you, me, our homes, our fellow citizen's lives) into a market derivative. Forget the politicians, as Saint Carlin said,

"Politicians are put there to give you the illusion you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long-since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State Houses, the City Halls, they've got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control all the news and information you hear. They got'cha by the balls. They spent billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well we know what they want: they want more for themselves and less for everybody else...They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking...You know what they want? They want obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it..."

So what are you doing reading this? Time to climb into your S-Fuck-UV, sit in traffic for an hour, making sure to kill your quota of polar bears, show up five minutes late to your designated cube and waste another ten minutes getting a multisyllabic reaming from your asshole boss, who's surely in the same sinking boat as you, as all of us, are. But may all the gods lend you aid in getting him to recognize that fact. After all, "The climate's changing all the time." Nothing wrong here. Go back to sleep.

In Honor of President's Day

we offer this critique of the Obama Administration by special guest columnist Friedrich Nietzsche:

Hope. Pandora brought the jar with the evils and opened it. It was the gods` gift to man, on the outside a beautiful, enticing gift, called the "lucky jar." Then all the evils, those lively, winged beings, flew out of it. Since that time, they roam around and do harm to men by day and night. One single evil had not yet slipped out of the jar. As Zeus had wished, Pandora slammed the top down and it remained inside. So now man has the lucky jar in his house forever and thinks the world of the treasure. It is at his service; he reaches for it when he fancies it. For he does not know that that jar which Pandora brought was the jar of evils, and he takes the remaining evil for the greatest worldly good--it is hope, for Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man`s torment.

--Human, All Too Human (1878) #71
(Photo by Photo by Pete Souza, whitehouse.gov)

The Empire's Collapse Continues Unabated (2009 In Review)

The Supreme Court finally came off the bench today (pun most certainly intended), firing yet another salvo in the all-but-officially-declared Class War the United States' corporate masters have spent decades waging against we mere mortals.

The decades-old system of rules that govern the financing of the nation's political campaigns was partially upended by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued just ahead of the pivotal 2010 midterm congressional election season.

Thursday's landmark decision, approved by a 5-4 margin, could unleash a torrent of corporate and union cash into the political realm and transform how campaigns for president and Congress are fought in the coming years.

[...]

The new ruling blurs the lines between corporate and individual contributions in political campaigns. It also strikes down part of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that banned unions and corporations from paying for political ads in the waning days of campaigns.

Even before the court's decision, national political campaigns had been growing increasingly expensive. Watchdog groups worry that by removing limits on expenditures by corporations that are not coordinated with candidates' campaigns, the court will boost the role of special interests in politics.

That last sentence is the kind of “no shit, Sherlock” reporting you can only find on NPR, a paragon of mainstream media tedium. Nevertheless, the implications of this ruling are so blatantly obvious even Nina Totenberg felt compelled to admit, “[The ruling] will undoubtedly help Republican candidates since corporations have generally supported Republican candidates more.”

Occasional liberal hero Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) seems to be the only member of “our” Congress capable of seeing the implications of all this through the fog of lobbyist cash:

"If we do nothing then I think you can kiss your country goodbye," Grayson told Raw Story in an interview just hours after the decision was announced.

"You won't have any more senators from Kansas or Oregon, you'll have senators from Cheekies and Exxon. Maybe we'll have to wear corporate logos like Nascar drivers."

Grayson said the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling -- which removes decades of campaign spending limits on corporations -- "opens the floodgates for the purchases and sale of the law."

Nice words, and Grayson at least has the courage to do what his position allows: In the lead-up to this decision, he introduced five bills with wonderful names like the Business Should Mind its Own Business Act, intended to plug the new holes Justice John Robert's court seems intent on burning into our Constitution. Yet Grayson still appears blind to the essential problem of “our” democratic institutions. Within this little Empire of ours, there is no law that can't be overturned by the influx of cold, hard cash.

Add to this the fact that Our Glorious Leader has renominated Ben Bernanke to his apparently-sacrosanct position as head of the Federal Reserve. The merest hint of a delay in his reconfirmation sent the jackals, vultures and vampires of Wall Street into an uncontrolled, three-day orgy mass nappy-soiling, despite the soothing promises of Senate Banking Committee Chairman, former presidential candidate, and all-around toothless, corporate hack, Chris Dodd.

Add to this the fact that, over a month ago, on December 13, Our Glorious Leader's top financial-industry waterboy and former Laura Ingraham date, Larry Summers, won the unofficial Within the Empire Holy Shit Award when said, live, on CNN, that “everyone agrees that the recession is over,” a comment that certainly holds true for the billionaires he's helped enrich throughout his entire career. The rest of us are faced with one, undeniable message from America's ruling class: “Bend over, shut up, and take your medicine, you fuckin' crybabies. Don't act like you don't like it.”

Meanwhile, the lunatic asylum more commonly known as the U.S. Congress has shelved any further discussion of health care reform until former nude model Scott Brown takes Ted Kennedy's old seat in the Upper House, providing him a greater vantage point from which to join his fellow Republicans in their by-now-year-long campaign to demonize President Obama and piss on the non-billionaire citizens of this country. Their fear-mongering intransigence, along with the opportunism and stupidity of their Democratic “rivals,” has destroyed any chance at meaningful health care reform, ensuring that, whatever legislation eventually appears on the president's desk, it will include a massive give-away to the insurance industry.

From Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) comes conformation of my worst expectations, among them that,

at the highest levels of the Senate and the White House, there's still no plan, and he doubts whether President Obama will insert himself forcefully into the process.

Of course he won't. Our Glorious Leader has two foreign wars to fight, plus the domestic propaganda war against the paleo-conservatism. Hamstrung by his own post-ideology ideology, he seems incapable of realizing the scope of this last war, perhaps the most important one of his first term. With three years to go, the score is a rather obvious 0-1, and no amount of rousing speeches in Ohio or on television are going to change that, Mr. President.

Mr. Obama's appearance coincided with new state figures showing Ohio's jobless rate climbed last month to 10.9%, from 10.6% in November, nearly a full point higher than the national average. National figures released Thursday showed a jump in the number of Americans who applied for jobless benefits, with claims rising 36,000 to 482,000 last week, the third straight week claims increased. Analysts had expected new claims to slip to 440,000.

I offer these comments with no wonkish solutions to the crisis this country faces. Mass firings of those responsible for our current financial crisis would only a trigger another, for which Our Glorious Leader would, in true “liberal” fashion, fall all over himself to take the blame, even without an opposition ready, willing, and clearly able to foist it all upon him. Despite all the myths surrounding President Obama, he is and always has been a conciliator, a self-conscious shill for the status quo. That is the awful truth at the heart of his non-ideological ideology: a truth that, by its ability to please the robber barons that truly own this country, ensured his election in the first place.

How Obama won over the managers and money movers of this country remains the great untold story of the 2009 campaign. The results of this marriage between the centrist politics and the robber barons are visible on any street in the country not named “Wall.”

Outside the corridors of power, the status quo is quickly becoming unmanageable. Now, from the series of tubes comes word that Our Glorious Leader has agreed to cut his party's throat, announcing a freeze in discretionary spending...except for that which is sure to disappear down the military-industrial complex's black money hole across the Potomac River from his house, otherwise known as the Pentagon.