Stinking Hypocrisy and Double Standard of U.S. Hard Right Reactionaries and Their Corp Media Enablers

Thoughts upon glancing at the title page of an article in The New Yorker, August 29, 2011, Annals Of Law, “Partners,” by Jeffrey Toobin,  about Clarence Thomas and his mate Virginia, the reactionary fanatic political operative:

Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and all the Federalist Society moles planted in the U.S. Judiciary are totally dedicated to pushing their POLITICAL agenda, under the thin guise of “law,” They make up specious legal “doctrines” with pretentious names to claim Authority for their totally political legal decisions. They have no problem totally contradicting themselves from one case to the next- it’s all about results, outcomes, for them. They are not impartially applying abstract legal principles derived from Holy Writ, the U.S. Constitution, or from reading  the minds of long-dead “Founding Fathers,” or even at times invoking the Bible or “divine” law from their “God.” Those are all just heavy stones to use to pound people down and accept their diktat.

Meanwhile, on the “other side” of the bourgeois political ledger, the “liberals,” all those not part of this fanatical movement intent on cementing their control over America, that is, just non-ideological bourgeois people, are handcuffed from doing anything reasonable because they are immediately accused of being “political.” The epithet “activist judges” was invented and is hypocritically applied to any judge who dares not toe the neofascist line. And the “liberals” submit. Not because they are “liberal,” they aren’t. They’re just opportunists and careerists. Hence we should not be surprised that they seem to lack backbone. What principles are they defending? None. So they don’t spit back in outrage, “YOU’RE the ‘judicial activists,” for example.

Pleasant Surprise In Libya

The "rebels" (oppressed majority of the people) have taken Tripoli easily. Looked like was going to be murderous block by block fighting like in Misurata and other towns. Taking Qaddafi's last redoubt, and the largest city, could have been a disaster for the attackers. Instead Qaddafi's forces have evaporated over the past months of fighting. Great news.

Unfortunately now "the West" is demanding that the Libyans hand over Qaddafi [he hasn't been found yet] and his two captured sons to the "International Criminal Court" in The Hague so Western "justice" can be administered, namely prison terms in a cushy European jail. (ABy contrast, in the U.S. black activist prisoners are routinely imprisoned in solitary for years, even decades. Of course, blacks who refuse to bow are much more evil than murderous dictators!)

The gall of "the West," for setting itself up as the moral arbiter over the entire planet. These imperialists have butchered countless millions over the centuries. The Qaddafis need to be executed. That can't happen at the ICC, which is oh so civilized and advanced that it has no death penalty. (These are the guys who spent a decade wringing their hands and waxing "concerned" over the Serbs rampages in ex-Yugoslavia, and eventually meted out not even life sentences to vicious mass murderers. The henchman at the top, Slobodan Milosevic, was still being tried- a trial that already had dragged on for an entire year- until finally dropping dead of a heart attack before the Eurofops could even reach a verdict. And the asshole Serbs thought he was murdered.)

"The West" will no doubt use extortion to get its way, by threatening to withhold aid for rebuilding the wreckage of Qaddafi's mad refusal to let go of his malign power unless he's handed over to the ICC for "proper" "justice." I hope the Libyans resist. They should get the oil flowing first thing and use those revenues to rebuild.

Wall Street Journal Continues Counterattack On Basic Morality

The Wall Street Journal has always been a foaming-at-the-mouth right wing rag on its editorial and op-ed pages. This preceded Murdoch's takeover by decades. Nothing has changed in that regard since.

So no doubt they would be rabidly defending "News" Corp. even if it wasn't now part of "News" Corp.

Today they're at it again (apparently this is going to be a daily thing going forward from now on), this time with an op-ed by a couple of legal hitmen from the GOP, name of David B. Rifkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, oppressors who operated out of the Department of "Justice" during the regimes of Reagan and Bush the Elder. They INSIST, bizarrely, that the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act DOES NOT APPLY TO MEDIA CORPORATIONS. (I know, it's ridiculous. It's not worth bothering repeating their pseudo-legal legerdemain here, much less refuting it.) The reason they are saying this is because some U.S, senators think "News" Corp. may have violated it by bribing British policemen. [In fact, bribing police in the UK would MOST DEFINITELY BE  a violation of the FCPA.]

So this is an attempt to head off at the pass any motion to investigate "News" Corp. for criminal violations in the U.S. Not to worry, the FBI is a rightwing political police who can surely be counted on to give "News" Corp. protection in this regard. And since the U.S. is in an advanced state of political degeneracy, totally dominated by reactionaries and neofascists, nothing will come of it. But reactionaries are nothing if not hysterical, thus the overreaction. The title of this commentary shrieks of "The New First Amendment Threat." See, raise a finger to enforce laws against Rupert Murdoch, and you're assaulting our precious freedoms!

Get bent, you right-wing dogs.

Murdoch Hush Money To Chief Phone Hacker Finally Stops

Turns out that all these years News International (corp. umbrella for all Murdoch's UK papers, headed until Friday by redhaired harridan Rebekah Brooks) was paying the legal bills for "private investigator" Glenn Mulcaire, the snoop convicted back in 2007 for hacking the "royals'" phones. At that time, Murdoch's minions and their co-conspirators in the Metropolitan police thought they had successfully contained the scandal with the cover story that two "rogues" did all the hacking, and that the hacking wasn't of 4000 victims, but just a handful.

Somehow, Brooks knew nothing about any of this. Didn't know her company was paying Mulcaire's legal bills all these years? Was that yet another rogue in the co. paying them on his own authority without telling anyone?

And Brooks and Murdoch are thick as thieves- she's described as "like a daughter" to him- he was in the dark. Just endless lies from these people- as well as fake pledges of  "internal investigations" and "cooperation" while they stonewall, cover up, and destroy evidence.

Meanwhile one key witness, Sean Hoare, mysterious "dies" just in time to prevent his use in prosecutions. Hmmm. But it only took police a few minutes to say it wasn't "suspicious." A day later they insisted it was a perfectly natural death for a man in his 40s- although they couldn't give a cause of death, nor have toxicology tests been completed.

Kind of like how they "knew" that the phone hacking was down to just 2 people, and only involved the "royals."

Next Stop For Dominique Strauss-Kahn's Victim: Prison?

That would be ironic, but well within the realm of possibility. We've seen the unprecedented spectacle of a District Attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr. (spawn of Jimmy Carter's Secretary of State) of Manhattan publicly and thoroughly trash his own key witness, the victim herself. He's all but dropped the case already.

The victim has been caught committing immigration fraud (lying on an asylum application), tax fraud (claiming someone else's child as her own dependent for the extra deduction) and laundering money for drug dealers/counterfeit goods peddlers. At a minimum she's looking at deportation.

Which just goes to show, people with legal vulnerabilities CANNOT GO TO THE POLICE IF THEY ARE CRIME VICTIMS. Police and courts are ONLY for  WORTHY victims. That's nothing new in America.

Meanwhile DSK and his rich and power French elite cronies and backers will claim he was innocent, vindicated, a victim of a "barbaric" U.S. legal system. (Of course it is barbaric in many instances, but not this one.) They'll gnash their teeth at the "injustice" of DSK losing his cushy post as head of the IMF, an enforcement agency for international finance capital and enemy of millions of people.

His lawyers floated the story that the assault victim asked him for money afterwards, and he refused. Maybe that's when he bellowed "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" The way he looks at it, being used for his sexual pleasure is a privilege. Ungrateful Hottentot!

British Judge Quashed Case Against Murdoch Spies

Something really rotten in Albion. A British judge, who should be considered a criminal accomplice, quashed a strong case against Murdoch-hired spies who targeted top Labour party politicians. One of their methods was getting info from police databases via a corrupt cop.

The details are at The Guardian:

"Evidence of illegal data checks on Gordon Brown buried by 2005 ruling:
Judge ruled that proposed trial based on key discoveries by Plymouth police would be a waste of taxpayers' money"

at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jul/11/evidence-data-checks-gordon-brown

British Police Stonewalled PM On Murdoch's Spying On Him

Almost unbelievably, when then-Prime Minister of Britain Gordon Brown asked the police whether Murdoch's malevolent minions had spied on his telephone messages, the police STONEWALLED THE PRIME MINISTER OF THE COUNTRY to PROTECT RUPERT MURDOCH. So who's the real power in Britain? Obviously Murdoch.

See The Guardian: "Gordon Brown must have felt the Sun was out to destroy him: News that the Sun obtained details of the former prime minister's son's illness will confirm his entourage's worst suspicions"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jul/11/gordon-brown-sun-destroy

Dominique Straus-Kahn Beating Rape Rap

I was just thinking yesterday about how he was probably going to beat the rap, based on sliming the accuser/victim. Today the news hits that the prosecutors' case is falling apart, and they're changing bail conditions to free on own recognizance (he gets the bail money back, he's not under house arrest, he can fire his guards), because the housekeeper was caught in a number of lies. Lies about her activities, and about her asylum application.

Worse, she's mixed up with drug (marijuana) dealers. She called one in jail the day after the incident, which was recorded of course, during which she made a comment about turning it to her advantage. And $100,000 was laundered through her bank account. And she had 4 or so cellphones she hid from the prosecutors, claiming she had only one phone. So her credibility is shot.

None of which doesn't mean she wasn't assaulted. The fact is, there was no time delay between her "encounter" in the hotel room and her reporting it, apparently upset so her managers and the police and prosecutors all found her credible. She probably didn't know who he was. And he apparently didn't tell the police that he had consensual sex with her. Recall that his lawyers were saying IF there was sex, it WAS consensual. Doesn't sound like a consensual situation.

Imagine if instead the case was being mugged in the park, No witnesses, just the word of the victim vs. the robber. The robber says the victim 1) didn't give him any money, or 2) gave him a handout, or 3) gave him a loan. Show that the victim "has a history" of giving people money doesn't cause everyone to disbelieve the robbery victim! In such a case, the victim's word is believed, even if the victim isn't a perfectly pristine, upstanding, totally "respectable" citizen. Likewise with most crimes where there are no third party witnesses.

Somehow rape is different. The victim is always on trial.

Of course, it's possible that the sex was "consensual." That is one crafty, quick-thinking African hustler in that case. She would have immediately had to think to herself, "I'll have sex with him and then say I was assaulted." But why wouldn't she have had intercourse with him in that case? Wouldn't she figure it would be easier to prove sex occurred with his semen in her? I think so.

Latest Islamofascist Terrorist Atrocities

It's too bad the U.S. chooses to ally itself with the main terrorism-sponsors in the world, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. That makes it impossible to ever win. (Instead poor Cuba is on the State Department Shit List of "State Sponsors of Terrorism." The sick irony there is that Cuba is a long-time victim of U.S.-sponsored terrorism.) Of course, as with the "war on drugs," winning isn't the point. Having an endless war is. That way, the rulers and especially the numerous and ever-expanding secret police agencies of the U.S. have an excuse to constantly shrink our rights more and more, spy on and repress dissidents more and more, expand their global power to kidnap, torture and assassinate more and more. And the U.S. gets to bully other nations and coerce them into accepting military bases, as it has done on every continent except Antarctica, under the pseudo-moral chest-pounding rubrics of the "Wars" on Drugs and Terrorism.

Anyway, here's some recent atrocities by the Jihadist Jackals:

Afghanistan: Subhuman Taliban scum tricked an 8-year-old girl into carrying a bomb. When she got close to a police vehicle, they remotely detonated it, killing her. (Well, we already know what a high value Islamofundamentalist cavemen put on females.)

They blew up a hospital in a remote area in Afghanistan too, killing pregnant women, children, medical personnel. 37 deaths and counting. (Hey, Afghanistan has so many doctors and hospitals, they can stand to lose a few!) The Taliban denied it was them. ("Bomb civilians? Who, moi?") Who knows, maybe it wasn't them exactly. Maybe it was one of their twins, like the "Haqqani network," or "Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin," or some other jackass jihadists with a Holier-than-everybody name. Makes no difference. Look, the Taliban may blow up 8 year old girls to try and kill some cops, but they have their principles! Don't accuse them of attacking a hospital! Oh wait...

There was a Taliban bombing of the main military hospital in Kabul in April, killing a bunch of trainees. They bragged about that one. Blowing up a military hospital still constitutes a war crime. Funny, I didn't hear any outraged squeals from all the lefties who go into a tizzy every time some civilian bystanders get killed by NATO. (Or the even more despicable hard leftists who repeat Qaddafi's lies about NATO bombs killing thousands of Libyan civilians. I don't think so, Crazy Q.)

The Afghan Defense Ministry also got bombed, killing 2 soldiers. That one was an inside job. The Afghans just made a dozen arrests, including a colonel and a major, and people in the Interior Ministry as well. Kind of reminds one of South Vietnam again, how "the enemy" had the U.S.' puppet regime totally wired.

In Nigeria, another gang of fanatical sharia-ite creeps calling itself Boco Haram bombed a beer garden, killing 25 people, and have been bombing regularly. They particularly target police. Boco Haram is a name in the hausa language that means "Western Education Is Forbidden." Oh, ok. At least their goals are clear. I guess "western education" is code for "living in the 21th century." They prefer the 12th, or maybe the 9th.

I Wonder what the "sharia" punishment is for "western education"? Amputation? Beheading? Burying people up to their necks and having a mob throw rocks at their heads until they're dead? Those are typical Islamic fundamentalist "sharia law" punishments. Just wondering. The U.S.' Saudi pals use the first two, by the way. Including against foreigners.

Nigeria's Inspector General of Police, some blustering fool named Hafiz Ringim, made a dumb boast/threat shortly before the latest failures of Nigerian police to protect people from this terrorist scourge; he promised to wipe Boco Haram out in 10 days. (He may have to move that deadline ahead a bit- try 10 years,  Bigmouth.) His toughtalk cost three people their lives when Boco Haram responded in their native (other than hausa) language: with a bomb in the parking lot of police HQ in Abuja, just missing Ringim. Good lesson here: You should never poke a rabid animal with a stick. Don't make threats. Just do what you have to do. If you can.

They're still at it in Iraq too, the country the neocons "liberated." On June 24 they detonated 3 bombs in Baghdad, murdering 23 people and wounding over 80, many no doubt with life-changing injuries. Guess Donald Rumsfeld was right: "Freedom is untidy and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."

Freedom to commit crimes. Maybe I'll go rob a bank. Don says I'm free to.


Meanwhile, in Terrorism Central, that is, Pakistan, the Holy Warriors like to bomb markets and such. Maybe they don't like vegetables.

Such a joke to see the U.S. government and media fretting about Yemen becoming a "haven for terrorists." I really don't think Yemen is your problem, boys. (Yemen's record of serving as a launching pad for devastating attacks on the U.S., to date: some Nigerian jerk set his underwear on fire trying to blow a hole in a jetliner, and some toner cartridge dud bombs didn't manage to blow up a couple of commercial cargo planes. The response- everyone has to get x-rayed or groped to fly. (Don't ask what our "protectors" are going to do to us when a terrorist takes the next logical step and hides explosives in his rectum.) You see, it's all just another opportunity for the rulers to systematically degrade and debase the populace, conditioning them to docility, helplessness, resignation, and SHIT-EATING.

The terrorists have a haven. It's called Pakistan. And the terrorists include the ISI, who keep launching terrorist attacks against India. They slaughtered 163 people in Mumbai, including American Jews, who they deliberately targeted (if Iran or Hamas ever did that, the U.S. would start carpetbombing). They attacked Indian's Parliament, They have waged a terrorist campaign for years in the one-third of Kashmir that is Indian. (The U.S. media, bending over backwards to be buddies with the Pakis, never mentions that Pakistan already has a third of Kashmir, and China has the other third.)

Did I mention that Pakistan has nuclear weapons? And that it sold nuclear weapon technology to the U.S. friends, North Korea and Iran, and Libya, and who knows who else? Oh wait, the U.S. puts people in prison for "materially aiding terrorists." Maybe they should indict their Paki pals.

No, the U.S. is a punk empire that only takes on those WAY weaker than itself.

U.S. Anxiety Over Afghanistan Showing

Notice who keeps talking about  "negotiating" in Afghanistan, and how "a political settlement is the only solution." It's the U.S. Even U.S. generals are quoted to this effect. The U.S. keeps talking about negotiating with the Taliban. Funny, you don't see the Taliban showing the slightest interest in negotiating. (Although there was a con man who pretended to represent the Taliban, to whom the U.S. stupidly gave a big payment to- why the hell they would do that, beats me. The con man quickly absconded with his suitcase of loot. Kind of careless of the American apparatchiks. Oh well, it's not their money. It's OURS. Our taxes. Same as the billions frittered away on "development," much of it stolen by Karzai and his kleptocrat cronies.)

The weakness of the U.S. is showing. The U.S. keeps talking aloud about negotiating with the Taliban, hoping the Taliban will show some interest. It's like some pathetic teenager pining for a phone call from an unrequited love object they're mooning over.

I was appalled during the Soviet attempt to drag that feudal backwater kicking and screaming into the 20th century, by the U.S.-sponsored jihadist war. The U.S. saw it as payback for Vietnam. Like the Soviets made the U.S. savagely assault that poor nation. The mindless anti-socialism of the U.S. caused it to vastly increase the power of backward Islamic totalitarian fundamentalism, along with their terrorist Paki pals (who are now screwing them) and the Saudis, the bankrollers of backwardness and jihadist terrorism. Even today, creeps like yahoo Congressman Charlie Wilson is lionized for his cheerleading role in empowering the Islamofascist fanatics. 

That's it, U.S. rulers, don't ever learn anything from history.

"Saving" Greece

The top level ruling elite of the planet (as they fancy themselves) are applying their standard modus operandi to Greece. Put a nation heavily in debt with crooked deals with the target nation's political rulers, out of sight of the people of that country. Threaten the country with dire consequences when repayment becomes a problem. Then force the country to sell its public assets to capital vultures at depressed prices, and squeeze the lifeblood out of the populace (euphemised as "austerity") to funnel billions more to the finance capitalists. It's happened to numerous Third World countries.

Now the "white" people of Europe are discovering they are no different from Third Worlders (of usually darker complexions). This now is the fate of Greece, and Ireland, and Portugal, and maybe Spain. Moody's, one of the finance capital clan's hitman outfits, cynically called a "ratings agency,"  has suddenly "downgraded" the debt of Italy's banks, causing their stocks to plummet. Suddenly we're reading articles in the media about Italy's cruddy finances. (Which is nothing that hasn't been true for years.) Target: Italy.

Moody's, remember, is a criminal co-conspirator in the Collateralized Debt Obligation scam, whereby junk mortgages were packaged as AAA "debt securities" instead of as junk. Moody's is an aider and abetter of frauds, whose principals belong in jail. Instead they are now helping to attack countries and bring them to economic ruin.

To be sure, I am not defending irresponsible fiscal policies by venal, corrupt, entrenched political classes, as in Greece and Italy. The problem is obviously a dearth of democratic governance- governance in the interets of the people of a country, not a parasitic ruling elite, and a MEGA parasitic financial elite, with its enforcement arms the IMF, World Bank, CIA, and ultimately U.S. military.

What's being "saved" is not Greece. Greece is being destroyed. It's economy is being pushed deeper and deeper into depression, as it's corrupt politicians, headed by "Socialist" George Papandreou, carry out the diktat of high finance. What's being saved is the investments of the financiers, who refuse to give up a penny (contrary to all the talk of "shared sacrificed" shoveled down our throats by politicians and corporate media propagandists everywhere). Greece isn't being "bailed out." The financiers are being bailed out, as is their vulnerable house of cards system, which apparently can collapse if a tiny economy like Greece has to so much as stretch out repayment of its bonds.

In the case of Ireland, the country is run by slavish sycophants to big business, who refuse to raise taxes on big corporations, while at the same time transferring the busted, bad, PRIVATE investments of Irish banks onto the backs of the population, forcing yet another mass exodus of Irish people from their homeland. (For how many more centuries are the Irish going to be forced to flee their own country?)

At least there are signs of popular resistance to this mass assault on people's lives, on economic, class warfare of the superrich against most everyone else. Unfortunately it is unorganized, lacking a clear ideological understanding of the problem, and facing the armed violence of the state, in every country. So far, in order to maintain the illusion of being different from the Third World, the so-called "security forces" in Europe and the U.S. have contented themselves with using tear gas and clubs, and boots and fists, to mete out punishment to protesters, not yet resorting to mass murder as in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria- and the various hellholes of Latin America not very long ago. But don't worry- if the protests become revolts, become rebellions, and start to look revolutionary, America and Europe have a long history of mass murder. The rulers still know how to do it.

Obama Sets Definite Date For Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan

U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama has just reconfirmed that U.S. forces will retreat from Afghanistan (euphemised as "turn over responsibility for security to Afghan forces") in 2014. ("Remarks by the President on the Way Forward in Afghanistan," June 22, http://www.whitehouse.gov/) He has helpfully provided the Taliban with a timetable- 10,000 troops to leave by yearend 2011, 33,000 by summer 2012. All the Taliban terrorists have to do is hold tight.

The U.S.' British, French, and German lackeys immediately chimed in by announcing their own troop withdrawals- now that the Godfather was pulling out, it was ok for them to do the same.

Of course, Obama isn't doing this to help the Taliban. I'm sure he'd like to "win" in Afghanistan. But with Pakistan backing the terrorists again, just as they did when the Soviets tried to drag that awful place kicking and screaming at least into the 19th century, the medieval female-enslaving terrorists can't be defeated unless one is willing to kill millions. (Maybe they should have Sudanese thug "President" Bashir do it for them- he doesn't mind killing millions of people.) There is much jabber about the "requirements" and "progress" of Afghan "security forces," in terms of training, weaponry, organization. But the most important thing is never mentioned, the will to fight. If only more Afghans had the will to fight the cavemen fanatics, the problem would be relatively easy to solve.

Most Afghans apparently enjoy enslaving women, including their own daughters, keeping them as ignorant as possible and just using them as chattel to produce offspring and do endless drudgery. They like living a feudal existence.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has placed its bet on an ungrateful egomaniac (Hamid Karzai) and his Kleptocracy, absurdly called a "government," even though it does no governing, provides no services, and is 90% funded by foreigners. This clique just looted Kabul Bank of a few hundred million bucks- Karzai's brother was one of the main looters, although a special "investigating commission" appointed by Karzai just exonerated his bro- and the thieves had the gall to suggest as a solution that the U.S. taxpayer reimburse the robbed depositors for their losses. Of course the Karzai clique of kleptomaniacs has been stealing the foreign aid and "reconstruction money" for a decade now. It's no wonder that Karzai's public insults of the U.S. get more and more nasty- he must figure by now that his foreign backers will eat any amount of shit.

Just as in Vietnam, backing a useless, venal, client regime guarantees U.S. failure. And all the fools who joined (or were drafted in the case of Vietnam) the U.S. military to "fight for their country" and nobly "defend our freedoms" have died or been maimed for nothing. As soon as the U.S. leaves, the primitive oppressors will take over again, backed by the Pakistani military as before.

Obama's speech, like all his speeches these days, landed with all the impact of a raindrop, forgotten after a day. Filled with empty platitudes and absurd falsehoods, it is hardly worth analyzing or refuting. Obama is a political animal through and through, so all his words reveal are the obsessive political calculations of a lifelong manipulator whose ONLY GOAL at this point is his own reelection. Good luck with that, Mr. Change You Can Believe In (if you're a chump).

New York To Subsidize Bigots

GOP State Senators in NY are currently negotiating with Governor Andrew Cuomo over a bill to legalize marriage by same-gendered people. The proposed bill currently exempts churches from having to perform abominable gay marriages. But that's not good enough for GOP reactionaries. They say the "religious protections" are inadequate. They want to make sure that marriage counselors, adoption agencies, etc. have their "freedom of consciences" protected.

Unmentioned in the corporate media coverage of this matter is the fact that the State SUBSIDIZES  these "social service agencies. In other words, every taxpayer gives them money, AGAINST THEIR WILL, regardless of the consciences or principles of the taxpayers.

So NY State will be forcing its citizens to subsidize bigotry and bigots.

But the only time you hear it said that its unacceptable for a dime of taxpayer money to go somewhere based on moral objections is when abortion is involved.

Cuomo Extorts Money From NY State Workers

A union representing a third of New York State's public workers surrendered to coercion by Governor Andrew Cuomo (son of Mario "Maximum Unction" Cuomo, a former NY State Governor) and agreed under duress to make its members poorer. Specifically, no raises for 3 years- meaning inflation will cause them to get poorer- larger payments for health insurance- which should be nationalized anyway- and pension cuts to those already retired- i.e. reneging on contracts with those workers. 2% pay raises are promised in years 4 and 5- which if they're lucky, will mean the workers will just not get any poorer in those years, assuming inflation is no higher than 2%. Of course, promises by rulers to the people are meant to be broken. And also 9 unpaid "furlough" days a year. (Speaking of inflation, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board, which sets rent increases for a million apartment in NYC that the rulers haven't managed to remove from rent stabilization controls yet, is proposing the next yearly increase in rents to be 3% - 5.75% for a one year lease renewal, and 6-9% for a two year renewal. Oh, and for new tenants, there's the standard "vacancy allowance" of 17.75-20% on  top of that.)


The threat Cuomo used to coerce the concessions was to fire 10,000 workers if he didn't get what he demanded. So Cuomo "collectively bargained" the union's surrender. Whereas GOP Governors, like Scott Walker in Wisconsin (a billionaire Koch brothers' stooge) and Mitchell Daniels in Indiana had their Red Chinese-type GOP legislatures pass laws abolishing collective bargaining by the public unions so they can impose their cuts by fiat.


All this is class warfare of course. As U.S. GDP and accumulated wealth is greater than ever, as there are more billionaires and multimillionaires than ever, and as the wealth of the Forbes 400 for example is greater than ever (over a trillion dollars combined!) it is an absurd pretense for the media and politicians to tell people that "times are tough" and "there's no money." In fact, there is plenty of money. The greedy plutocrats who rule behind their politician frontmen simply can never satiate their greed.

As to the GOP lie (never refuted by the "Democrats") that MORE tax cuts for the rich will create jobs: currently the companies in the S & P 500 are hoarding 1.9 TRILLION dollars in cash. They don't use cash to hire workers UNLESS THEY NEED TO. With demand muted, and "productivity" (value squeezed out of workers) ever higher, they have no need to hire people. They don't employ people out of compassion. It's a business decision. But the Democrats, terrible con men who pretend to represent working stiffs, never attack the lies of the Gang Of Plunderers (GOP).

The Denouement of "Weinergate"

The daily, ferocious media assault on ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner, complete with juvenile sexual double entendres on the front pages of  New York City tabloids and elsewhere, juiced by the rightwing semi-underground's daily drip-drip-drip of one photo at a time into "the discourse," combined with virtually all the other politicians turning on him, finally forced Weiner to resign after almost 3 weeks of ridicule, humiliation, abasement, and vituperation. Given the prominence of "the story," and the high dudgeon on display, you'd have thought he was a pedophile or something.

Left unanswered was exactly how the likes of Andrew Breitbart and the neofascist cadres sometimes referred to as "the conservative blogosphere" got the photos in the first place, including supposedly one of Weiner's naked genitals which Breitbart had on his cellphone.

We were treated to a porn movie "actress"/"exotic dancer"  named [pseudonymly?] "Ginger Lee" expressing her disapproval of Weiner sexting her (what does she expect from men? Isn't that exactly what she invites from them, sexual ardor?) being treated as a serious, major news story, even in the august New York Times (June 16). Ms. Lee's media foray was made on June 15, the day before Weiner threw in the towel (so to speak- oops, there I go!). Why the opinion of some professional slut should be more than a footnote in the matter- she added no new information, insight, or knowledge to the affair- is left unexplained.

And in a repetition as farce of Andrew Breitbart's hijacking of Weiner's first press conference in which he tearfully 'fessed up to tweeting naughty pics and lying about it, a clown working for the vulgar lout Howard Stern, posing as a constituent, yelled "pervert" and other abuse at Weiner during his resignation announcement. This lowlife lackey, named, supposedly, "Benjy Bronk," explained helpfully to reporters that "I'm trying to get to the truth and, uh, get on camera." Unfortunately the New York Times buried this information in the last 2 paragraphs of a lengthy story that started on page one. Instead, the Times played along with the Stern stunt by referencing it in its headlines without letting you know it was purely  cheesy showbiz fodder for Stern's "show." On page one it read: "In Chaotic [false!] Scene, Weiner Quits Seat In Scandal's Wake- Vulgar Shouts During Announcement in Brooklyn- Relief for Democrats."
Well yes, but the "vulgar shout" were just staged by an entertainment-business clown on orders of his boss, a grotesquely overpaid peddler of crude, coarse titillation. Why legitimize and dignify that? Why elevate it to important news worthy of headline treatment?

The Times did the same thing on the jump page, page 30, with the headline there: "Amid Chaotic [again that falsehood- the photo showed no "chaos", nor does the article describe any] Scene in Brookly, Congressman Resigns in Wake of Online Scandal." Note to Times: one attention-hungry asshole on a mission from a professional exhibitionist-smut-peddler does not constitute "chaos." "Howard Stern Sends Lackey to Harass Weiner At Resignation Announcement." If you really think it's that important to put in a headline, that's what you should have said. But then, NY Times headlines are more often than not misleading, disingenuous, or downright disinformative.

 I will leave it to you, dear reader, to reflect on the irony of Howard Stern, a lewd panderer whose entire "career" consists of talking smut and having sluts strip for him in his studio, sending a flunky to call Weiner a "pervert." And of the oh-so-prim NY Times aiding and abetting one of his sleazy, callous stunts. (This is a paper that leaves you guessing what curse words they're referring to when they reference them in some incident or other. Not even a hint.)

Interestingly, AFTER Weiner was successfully defenestrated by the media (the politicians are captive creatures of the media and dance to their tune, as they have no real popular support and are just hired hands for big money interests, and thus are totally dependent on the corporate media to present them in a positive light and exist in morbid dread of negative media coverage- obsession with avoiding "gaffes" being a symptom of this dread), on June 18, a Saturday, which is the least read day of the week for the paper, the New York Times buried a story on page A15 (suddenly Weiner is no longer page one news) about a cabal of neofascist stalkers who tried to entrap Weiner online. ("Fake Identities Were Used on Twitter in Effort to Get Information on Weiner," a totally misleading headline.) One of these fanatics posed as a 16 year old girl and tried to inveigle Weiner into being her "prom date." With his accomplices, he tried to create a drumbeat of people badgering Weiner into agreeing to this. Another fake identity was created as her "girlfriend."

Later, when tracked down, one of the plotters posed as the "girl's" "mother" and sent a fake California driver's license and fake school records to a reporter from the blog Mediaite. (How much you want to bet that "the authorities" don't even investigate these forgers? James O'Keefe, a serial stalker and libeler of social service organizations, got caught inside the offices of U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu with wiretapping equipment, and was let off scotfree by the Obama regime, after all. And rightists have long had carte blanche in this country to commit politically-motivated crimes, including arson and murder, with impunity. The KKK murdered thousands of people in gruesome fashion, and anti-abortion terrorists have committed thousands of assaults, arsons, bombings, vandalizations, and some murders, mostly unprosecuted, for example. So this is small beer for the right.)

The fascist stalking group is on Twitter as #bornfreecrew. The fake Twitter accounts for the "girls" were later deleted.

None of this was revealed until the media ran the fascists' ball across the goal line and ousted Weiner.

To be sure, Weiner's behavior was juvenile and irrational. But basically harmless and trivial. And if his wife is so uptight that this is "devastating" to her, she needs therapy as much as he does.


It was the same thing with ACORN,  with Shirley Sherrod, and USDA employee libeled by Andrew Breitbart and fired within the day by the Obama regime, with the attacks on Planned Parenthood and NPR. (an NPR executive and a consultant immediately fell on their swords because of some mild remarks the consultant made to fascist spies misrepresenting themselves as donors to the effect that NPR would be better off without Government funds- what a scandalous thing to say! Makes no sense, as that is exactly what the reactionaries say too. You'd think they'd applaud.) In fact, fascist purges have operated like this at least since the 1950s purge era. (Aka "McCarthy era," a way of false pretending it was all the doing of one Senator, not an entire reactionary establishment, and that it was an aberration. In fact, U.S. history is FILLED with political persecutions, from the very beginning.)

Sometimes the purge demands come from Murdoch's minions, as when Fox "News" redbaited White House adviser Van Jones and Obama immediately fired him. Apparently Obama wants Fox News to endorse him, or thinks if he appeases reactionaries by firing who they tell him to, he'll get their votes. What a cowardly jackass. Obama's consistent pattern is to always punish his supporters and reward his enemies.

Media Pit Bulls Finally Force Weiner To Resign

Congressman Anthony Weiner was just ridiculed out of office by the corporate media. Like dogs gnawing on a bone, they wouldn't let go of the trivial story until they drove Weiner from office.

Of course his fellow politicians piled on too- because they could see the media wouldn't let it go, making Weiner a liability to his party. And as various media stories pointed out, he never made friends with the other pols, so no one liked him.

To be sure, his behavior was adolescent, like that of a horny teenager. But put it in perspective: he sent revealing photos of himself to adult women. In a sexually schizophrenic society like the U.S., which is simultaneously licentious and puritanical, this apparently is a capital offense career-wise, for a politician. (Different standards apply to celebrities. And media propagandists? Do you ever even hear about their sex lives? Guess why not! The propagandists stand above all others, whom they judge.)

Comparisons were made to the case of GOP Congressman Christopher Lee, from an upstate NY district. The comparisons only mentioned the similarities between the two cases- well, the ONE similarity, that both sent barechested photos. The differences went unmentioned, to whit: 1) Lee lied about who he was to those he contacted; 2) Lee was trolling for dates, and, we can assume, actual sex; 3) Lee was a typical right-wing chestbeating "family values" Republican, thus making him a flaming hypocrit and betrayer of his political/ideological beliefs. Nothing Weiner did contradicted what he represented his political beliefs to his constituents to be.

And we should look at what is, as usual, a bit of a double standard when it comes to treatment of "liberals" vs. "conservatives." What Weiner did was a peccadillo. He didn't "cheat" on his wife. Personally I think his behavior was creepy, weird, and immature. Maybe he has too much time on his hands. Clearly he was rendered politically ineffective, so quitting is for the best. But GOP Senator David Vitter of Louisiana is a known patron of prostitutes. He still "serves."  GOP Senator John Ensign of Nevada had an affair with the wife of a close aide, then had his parents pay the man hush money. Finally, facing possible criminal charges, he was forced to resign. Do you remember that scandal being a huge media story day after day after day? Me neither.

Let's take the contrasting case of 2 governors, the crusading reformer Democrat Eliot Spitzer of NY, and reactionary Republican Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Spitzer was exposed by the FBI (helping their Wall St. masters, who despised Spitzer for enforcing some ethical rules on them when he was NY State Attorney General, something the feckless lapdog SEC never does, nor the DOJ), and forced to resign. Mark Sanford, caught having an affair with an Argentine firecracker, and lying pathetically about it (he claimed to be on a hike while he was really secretly trysting with her, for example) wasn't. And him a Holy Christian Man!

On the day when Weiner's public humiliation was complete (June 16), the latest nail in his coffin, hammer in by the media, was news of a "press conference" by a porn "actress" cum "exotic dancer," who revealed that- get ready to be shocked- Weiner instructed her to lie. Gee, how awful. Of course, this highly ethical, upstanding, er, slut, I guess, feels this reflects badly on Weiner, I suppose. I mean, lying is so terrible. No one should ever lie. Most people never ever lie, right? To think, Weiner wanted to hide his behavior instead of immediately fessing up like the bad little boy he is!

Oh grow up, America.

One more scalp on the belt of the rightwing hitmen. In this case, Andrew Breitbart, a pathological liar, serial slanderer, and egomaniac who vastly overrates his own world historical significance.

7 GOP Giants Debate

Actually it wasn't a debate at all. That is, they didn't take issue with one another, but just tried to outdo each other in extremist prattle.

And they're giants in the eyes of the corporate propaganda system (aka "the media") ONLY. Like top of p. one in the NY Times (June 14, 2011), with a big photo of the phonies waving triumphantly with huge fake grins on their faces like they're on laughing gas.

Dems of course are "dwarfs." This was the epithet applied by the corporate propagandists a few years back when a bunch of  Dems were vying for their party's Presidential nomination. (That time a similar number of  Repubs were running. In fact, as many as fourteen Repubs have run for President at the same time.)

Washington D.C. ruling class elitist Cokie Roberts (who was born into her post, she never had to get elected to it- that's "Democracy" U.S.-style)  even invoked the "dwarf" epithet for those long-ago Dems a few months ago on NPR, the Government propaganda network emanating from the empire's Capital.

It's one of the propaganda system's common annoyances, namely a blatant double standard right in your face, and pretending it's not there. Another example is when Time magazine cattily referred to some old Soviet ruler as "younger," putting the word in quotes. This when Ronald Reagan, who was older than the Soviet ruler at the time, was President.

Of course, the most blatant double standard is U.S. criticism of repression by dictators they don't back. The vicious crimes of dictators they DO back are either ignored or greatly minimized in U.S. media "coverage." Perfect example right now- a 20 year old poet in Bahrain just got sentenced to a year in prison- after being viciously tortured of course- for reading a poem at a democracy rally that the rulers didn't like, and the U.$ media has ignored it.

Let's do a thought experiment: what is CHINA had sentenced a poet to a year in prison? How would the U.$. media (and lackey media like Europe's) have covered it? Well, we actually know, since we just had the case of Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei being arrested- not tortured, and not sentenced yet. This was a major story for days in the "prestige" U.S. media, with the non-prestige media copycatting as they always do.

Of course, the U.S. doesn't have a naval base in China. It has one in Bahrain, however.

The Solution To Anthony Weiner's and the Democrats' Problems

Simple. Weiner should quit the party and declare himself an independent.

This solves both his and the Democrats' problems. The Dems want to disassociate themselves from him, just as they threw ACORN, Planned Parenthood, Shirley Sherrod, Van Jones, overboard as soon as they came under rightwing attack.


Weiner is a lone wolf as it is. With $4 mil. in his campaign chest, he doesn't need the Dems anyway. If his constituents want to reelect him, they can. The Dems can say he's not one of them. And he can be the only politician on Capitol Hill to talk back to the neofascist GOP. (Something the Dems are too cowardly to do.)

Kindly give me credit if you use this idea.

Bill Keller, Accessory To Murder

"I've long argued that every budding journalist should have the chastening experience of being written about.[sic]" -Bill Keller, New York Times Magazine, June 19,2011, p. 12.

Well Bill, you're hardly budding at this stage, but better late than never. So this is for you.

U.S. Establishment apparatchiks will never stop lying about the 1963 coup that murdered then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Since the Warren Commission was convincingly refuted almost as soon as it came out as a pathetic pack of transparent lies, and since then voluminous evidence has dribbled out proving the CIA (with help from the FBI, U.S. military, and Dallas PD, and complicity of the corporate media) carried out the assassination, you'd think the smart thing to do would be to avoid talking about it and waiting for people to just die off. Instead they engage in a chronic campaign of disinformation and ridicule to create a false historical record, a la in George Orwell's 1984. Not only are the absurd lies of the Warren Commission treated as gospel- without examining them of course- but people who challenge it or merely repeat inconvenient facts are ridiculed as kooks, nuts, and "conspiracy theorists."

Bill Keller, a particularly loathsome example of a bourgeois propagandist, has just been replaced without explanation as chief editor of the New York Times, an organ that fancies itself as the combined Tass and Pravda of the U.S. ruling class. His new job there is akin to what the mass murderer Abraham M. Rosenthal, one of his notorious predecessors, did after he stepped down from that post, namely to act as a sort of chief ideologue at the Times.

Keller, in his first post-editor screed in the Times Sunday Magazine, (a major platform at that rag), once again repeats the tired trope that anyone who doesn't drink the Kool-Aid and dutifully repeat the Establishment line on the JFK hit is a nutty conspiracy theorist. [6/5/11] (Conspiracies apparently are in the same category as unicorns and UFOs, namely mere superstitions, purely imaginary. Apparently the only conspiracies that exist are those imputed to people persecuted by the U.S. legal system- drug sellers, political dissidents, arms dealers who fall out of favor with the U.S., ex-U.S. allies now considered "terrorists," and assorted and sundry criminals. U.S. conspiracy laws are so broad and vague that prosecutors can use them in virtually any situation- even against single defendants, as long as they assert the existence of "unindicted co-conspirators," unindicted conveniently freeing the prosecutors of having to prove anything against those individuals. But a conspiracy by the U.S. rulers? You must be insane to think any such thing is even possible!)

He starts his column- placed right in the front of the rag- with an excerpt from someone who made the mistake of trying to reason with him about the FACTS of the JFK hit. This person's reward is to be used as an example of human irrationality and borderline mental illness.

Keller, and other Times hack propagandists, lately keep linking belief in JFK "conspiracies" with 9/11 delusions and "birthers," white racists whose need to reject the legitimacy of a (half) "black" President leads them to insist that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Never bothering to refute, they throw into one category obviously false and irrational beliefs (like "birther" nonsense- but the media, including the Times, was happy to give Donald Trump obsessive and big coverage pushing that crap- and speculating that Trump might run for President, when he obviously wasn't going to- the same media that blacks out legitimate opposition candidates like Ralph Nader, who actually DO run for President and DON'T spout nonsense). So they can discredit truth by lumping it in with crackpotism, without having to engage the facts, without having to have an honest debate. Meanwhile they pose as sober and responsible arbiters of what is real and what isn't.

Nothing better proves the essentially propagandistic nature of the Times and all its ruling class media ilk, and the fanaticism that motivates them, then the treatment of the JFK assassination/coup.

RIght Wing Felon Granted Tax-Exempt Status By Obama's IRS

Right wing wiretapper James O'Keefe has just gotten IRS approval for a "nonprofit" organization he set up.

This is the same reactionary hatchetman who was caught redhanded trying to wiretap the phones in the offices of a U.S. Senator, Mary Landrieu.

I predicted at the time he would get off easy, because reactionary criminals virtually ALWAYS get away scot-free or nearly so for crimes that progressives get long prison sentences, in harsh conditions, for. (For that matter, progressives are framed up for crimes they didn't commit, and get sent away.)

Once again we see it makes no difference which corporate party controls the executive branch. In fact, Obama has been savage in attacking the fools who are the Democrats' allies.

Obama helped O'Keefe and the GOP and corporate media destroy ACORN. ACORN's crime? Registering poor people to voter. The GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) figured they'd vote Democratic. You'd think the Democrats would thus defend ACORN. No way. Because the Democrats hate the idea of the population becoming politically mobilized as much as the Republicans do. All the Dems want is for the people to be like sheep and just dutifully go to the polls every 2 years and pulls the Democratic levers. (Or vote on the GOP's crooked electronic machines, which steal elections.)

And the corporate media covered up the kid glove treatment of the wiretapper O'Keefe. In fact, he's a media darling. Even the "liberal" NY Times covered up the wristslap, mentioning it only once, deeply buried in a long article. Their report on the IRS favor for this thuggish creep criminal never even mentioned his wiretapping or Obama letting him get away with it.

Contrast the kid glove treatment of the Democrat's enemy, O'Keefe, with how Obama is treating Tim DeChristopher. He "disrupted" a U.S. land auction in Utah for oil and gas drillers by bidding at the auction. He was charged with the felonies of making a false statement to the federal government and with violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act, which establishes a competitive bidding process for oil and gas leases. The Bureau of Land Management in the Department of the Interior refused to accept his offers of payment for his bids. At trial in the kangaroo court, the Judge, as is the usual practice in political railroad cases, refused to allow him to defend himself. Specifically, he was barred from preventing evidence of his raising money to pay for the bids. His "defense" was banned from talking about anything other than what happened on that day. And is de rigueur in U.S. political railroads, he could not discuss his motives. Only the prosecutors could do that, to show his "criminal intent." Duly convicted, Obama is looking to lock him up for 10 years. (Vs. not a single day in jail for the rightwing wiretapper of a Senator O'Keefe.) "Ironically," Obama's corrupt Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, a party hack, subsequently decided not to auction the lands for drilling after all! (The auction process had started under the Bush regime.)

The vindictive U.S. government always puts its political prisoners in especially harsh confinement. "Ecoterrorists," for example, (that's the Government's term for environmental activists they convict of vandalism, arson, etc.) are locked up with Muslim "terrorists" either in the inhuman "supermax" prisons, which are like coffins, or in "Communication Management Units." That's a euphemism for cutting off the prisoners from the outside world, with almost no visitation, phone, correspondence "privileges." The idea is to make them unpersons, get the outside world to forget them, prevent political organizing around them.

On the other hand, Bernard Madoff, sentenced to 150 years for a massive Ponzi scheme, isn't even in a regular maximum security prison! He's in one of those camp-like detention centers. Not locked in a cell during the day. Free to give lengthy visitors to all manner of journalist, visiting and by phone. No "communication management" for him.