Worship me or I'll hold my breath until I turn blue

Iraq: An Unwelcome Anniversary Approaches

There has been a hew and cry over the past few years that no major Wall Street honchos have gone to jail related to criminal acts leading up to the 2008 financial meltdown from which this country is still trying to recuperate. And so there should be. However, as much as I think these white collar criminals should pay for their crimes, and as much damage as they did to ruin the financial futures of millions of Americans, they did not send our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, off to a foreign country to kill and die under false pretenses.  

Ten years ago this March 19, President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. Aided and abetted by administration neocons Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney and others, Bush lied us into a war that went on for nine years, cost $3 trillion dollars, and resulted in the deaths of nearly 5,000 Americans and over 100,000 Iraqis. There were no WMDs, and Saddam Hussein was not working with Al Qaeda. What a decade of investigative reporting has uncovered, is that far from the blundering incompetents they are made out to be by some, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others knew they were starting a war under false pretenses. They had planned to topple Hussein from the earliest days of the Bush Administration.

If anyone should be tried for anything, it should be Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for instigating a disaster of epic proportions that continues to have negative ramifications for our country a decade later. These people are war criminals and should be treated as such. They used 9/11 as a pretext to rain war down on a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on America, and had the gall to ridicule and marginalize those who disagreed with their rush to battle.

The roadblock to justice is that there was such widespread collusion among America’s elites and the media that no one wants to open up that Pandora’s Box of embarrassment. Not to mention that even though he opposed the Iraq war, President Obama seems to have no desire to pursue criminal charges against an ex-president, especially now that he has drone blood on his hands.

I’m afraid our only hope is that we will have history on the side of truth, but even then, it’s a toss up at this point as to what the “official” history of the Iraq war will be. George Orwell knew well the dangers of relying on history for truth when he wrote, “He who controls the past, controls the future; and he who controls the present, controls the past.”

2013

I want to write a sequel to Orwell’s 1984. I’m going to call it 2013. Clever, huh?  Basically, it’s set in a country where the citizens are under the influence of very subtle and sophisticated mind control techniques that, like a drug, lull them into believing they live in the greatest country in the world, when in fact the government is very evil and corrupt.  

I’ve been jotting down some notes about this fictional country. It’s an updated version of Oceania, where the techniques used to control society are much more modern and sophisticated. Here are some thoughts:

• Although the government does not control the media outright, the major media channels—newspapers, magazines, television, radio—are all owned by a small group of companies that tightly monitor content. Despite the appearance of a free flow of information, messages are limited to those that support unfettered capitalism, corporate ideology and the status quo. Alternative views and dissenting voices are marginalized and ridiculed. 
• A huge, bloated military establishment is sold to the people as necessary for the country’s defense. It is unpatriotic to criticize the defense industry or its budget. Small-scale wars are fought continuously around the world to justify the trillions of dollars spent on the military.
• Whistleblowers, those who speak out against government and corporate abuses and excesses, are punished.
• Groups opposing the status quo are treated as terrorist organizations.
• The richest 1% of the population, the true elites, control the vast majority of the country’s wealth.
• Elections are tightly controlled so that only candidates who support the status quo and the aims of the capitalist elites are considered serious contenders to be the country’s leader.
• Leaders of the country claim the right to kill suspected enemies anywhere in the world at anytime.
• Intelligence agencies routinely monitor citizens by tapping telephones, intercepting Internet communications and mail, and infiltrating organizations based on nothing more than hunches and guesses. Presumption of innocence no longer exists.
• The government operates behind a thick veil of secrecy, which people are told is necessary for the country’s defense.

So what do you think? Too outlandish? I realize it is a stretch to create a country like this where the citizens would allow such treatment and not rise up in revolt, but stranger things have happened. 

Look at Obama's Actions, Not His Words

Many liberal publications have gone ga-ga over the President’s SOTU speech last night. “A liberal agenda for his last term.” A progressive road map.” People, people, people. Haven’t we been through this before? Like, oh, the 2008 presidential campaign? Change. Lofty ideals. Progressive buzzwords. Changing the way Washington works. Transparency. Bring the troops home. Help for the middle class. What did we get? Drone wars. Less transparency than the Bush Administration. An administration stacked with Washington and Wall Street insiders. Capitulation. Half-hearted economic policies.

The SOTU was the classic Obama bait and switch. He presses all the liberal and progressive hot buttons in his speech, but when he gets back to the Oval Office it’s Washington business as usual — more war, candy for Wall Street and the head-smacking insistence on trying to negotiate with an opposition party fighting intellectual battles the rest of the world moved past in the nineteenth century.  

Obama is no liberal. As Chomsky noted, Obama would have fallen into the category of moderate Republican not too many years ago. It is way too premature to get excited over a speech with lots of pretty liberal words. The President has given many speeches. It’s his actions that are important. We can start by looking at whom he’s appointing to fill open cabinet vacancies. It’s hardly a bunch of liberal firebrands, but old Washington war horses who have zero interest in changing the way things work in the nation’s capital.

It was a nice speech last night, but Obama’s initial actions are not a promising start to a new term.

A Match Made in Hell

On the heels of his announcement he would be attending tonight’s State of the Union Address, rocker and NRA board member Ted Nugent made a startling revelation this morning that is sending shockwaves through the conservative pundocracy. According to a press release from Nugent’s publicist, he and author and right wing pundit Ann Coulter are engaged to marry.

According to Nugent, he and Ann met at a mock lynching of President Obama at a survivalist compound in Montana. “I have to tell you,” writes Nugent, “It was love at first sight. When she touched the barrel of my AR-15 I thought I was going to lose it. Fortunately, the safety was on.”

The Motor City Madman says that the wedding ceremony is set for August 15 and will take place at San Antonio’s Alamodome during halftime at the 2013 Monster Truck Marathon. “I’m a bit of a romantic,” says Nugent. “Everyone coming into the Alamodome will be given an air horn, and when Ann and I kiss after the ‘I do’s’, ten thousand air horns will go off. It’ll be epic.”

The press release also details the newlyweds honeymoon plans. Immediately after the ceremony, the lovebirds will fly to Haiti for a helicopter peasant hunt and then it will be off to Brazil for an adventure on the Amazon River stalking animals on the endangered species list. “It’ll be an awesome opportunity to kill things together and really bond as a couple,” says Nugent. Finally, the couple will fly to North Korea where they will be the guests of leader Kim Jong Un, who will detonate a nuclear device in their honor. “We have much to learn from these people,” said Nugent.

Attempts to reach Coulter for comments were met with death threats. 

Bush in the Bathroom

So someone hacked George Bush’s email and we are treated to two recent paintings by the former President, one of him in the bathtub, and one of him standing in a shower.

I am not a painter nor am I a psychologist, but that won’t stop me from looking at these paintings and asking WTF? Technically, the work is amateurish and almost childish, but, of course, that’s not what makes these pieces so interesting. It’s the subject matter.

Let’s just say that I had a hankering (we’ll pretend I’m a Texan) to start painting. After buying my canvases and brushes and paints, I need to decide on something to paint. Fine. What’s the first thing I think of? Perhaps a nice still life. You know, a vase with some apples and pears lying around on the table. Or a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Too boring? How about a nice landscape of the Texas hill country or the dramatic plains of West Texas? No? Okay, then what do you think of naked pictures of yourself in the bathroom?

You have to wonder what in the world George was thinking when he decided to paint pictures of himself lying in a bath and standing naked in the shower. Was it a joke? Is there some context to the pictures that we simply don’t get? Otherwise, huh?

Water, especially running water, is a symbol for spiritual cleansing. Think baptism. The water is running in both the tub and the shower pictures. In the shower painting, we see his face reflected in a small mirror. Cleansing. Reflection. Could these paintings be George’s inner desire to be cleansed for his past sins (of which there are so many)? Is he hoping the Almighty will forgive him if he washes his soul clean of his past worldly mistakes? Could he be suffering from a guilty conscience?

Not likely, at least not consciously. Perhaps the tub/shower paintings are part of a bathroom trilogy, and the third will feature Bush sitting on the toilet reading the latest issue of Guns & Ammo. Makes as much sense as any other explanation.

How Does Washington Work? It Doesn't.

Read a good Rolling Stone review of the book Bailout from one of my favorite political writers Matt Taibbi. Bailout was written by Neil Barofsky, the TARP Inspector General in the years following the 2008 economic blowout. What Taibbi finds most interesting about the book is not so much the procedural details involved in the bank bailouts following 2008, but Barofsky’s anecdotes about how Washington works; how people in positions of power do or do not interact with each other. As Taibbi notes in the article:

“… it's a bizarre, almost tribal mentality that rules our capital city – a kind of groupthink that makes extreme myopia and a willingness to ignore the tribe's ostensible connection to the people who elected them a condition for social advancement within.”

The article helped clarify my understanding of the idea that our government today is not really in the business of solving problems. Those of us in the outlands may think that our elected officials and the people they choose to run various government agencies are working night and day to fix things that are broken, but that is a naïve and simplistic view of how Washington actually works.

You see, solving problems means making decisions. When you make decisions, it means that there are going to be people who are happy and people who are unhappy. The question is always: Who will be unhappy with the decision I make? Who will I alienate? Now, foolish you might think that the primary question on the minds of our officials should be: Will this benefit the people of the United States or not? Silly person. As insider Barofsky makes clear, the real needs of the huddled masses outside the beltway are far down on the list of political priorities among our government bureaucrats.

If Washington is not about solving problems, what is it about? It’s about the appearance of trying to solve problems. Officials make adjustments, recalibrate, fine-tune, issue course corrections and modify policies in an attempt make it look like somebody is doing something, when in fact they are merely rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  

With the iceberg fast approaching, the captain and his crew are more worried about keeping the first class passengers comfy than steering the ship to safety.

Gun (debate) Control

Solid, straightforward, factual article in today’s Mother Jones refuting the top 10 pro-gun arguments you hear from the NRA and others. One of the problems in America with trying to have a reasonable debate on gun control is that the media, both FOX News and the mainstream outlets, allow opponents of gun restrictions to make outrageous claim after outrageous claim without challenging them to provide any research or data to back up their assertions. If you are not a well-informed viewer and you hear someone with a position of authority in the NRA or a congressperson make a statement as if it is a proven fact, you might be inclined to believe it is true. Anyway, the article is worth a read.

Civil Obedience

Thanks, Dan.

It's the Stupid, Stupid

It’s startling and apparently newsworthy when a prominent Republican says something that doesn’t sound like a quote from Forrest Gump’s evil twin. As the keynote speaker at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal chastised his party and its dismal performance in recent elections, saying, "We've got to stop being the stupid party. It's time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults. We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments. I'm here to say we've had enough of that."

Mmm, okay. Good luck with that.

Seriously Bobby, let me offer a simple observation: You will always be the stupid party as long as your party embraces stupid ideas. I’m afraid simply gagging the most obnoxious and outspoken Republican wingnuts isn’t going to quite do the trick. Just so you know I’m not merely a partisan hack, I am willing to offer you and your party some free advice that I believe will help you shed the, “I’m with stupid” vestments your party has worn since Lincoln…slept in Lincoln’s bedroom. Remember, don’t get discouraged. You have to start somewhere. Ready? Okay.

1.     The Economy: Trickle down economics doesn’t work. Gross income disparity is a bad thing. Policies that hurt the middle class are bad for the economy. Americans want to keep social security, Medicare and Medicaid financially strong entities run by the government, not private enterprise.

2.     Corporate America: Running the government and running a business are different. Government workplace regulations that protect workers are necessary. Unions have their place and should not be demonized. The private sector does not do everything better than government. It’s only right that corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes.

3.     War and Peace: It is not in our best interests to be the world’s police department. We need to spend less on our military and more on encouraging peace. We should stop being the world’s leading exporter of weapons. Supporting brutal dictators because we believe it is in our national interest is always a bad thing. Drone bombings, indefinite detention, torture—these actions do not win the hearts and minds of people in other countries.

4.     Security: We should never give the American intelligence community carte blanche to spy on anyone at anytime. Fences don’t work. Suppressing legal dissent or treating protestors as terrorists is wrong.

5.     Social Issues: America is not, and should never become, a theocracy. Christianity is not the national religion. Imposing your religious beliefs on others through public policy as a bad thing to do. More guns is not a viable solution. Health issues should be between a patient and doctor; the government should not be involved. The War on Drugs has been a colossal failure and should be ended.

6.     Misc.: The world is not 6,000 years old. Religious beliefs should not trump science. Man-made climate change is real and should be immediately addressed. FOX News is not your friend.

Wow. That’s enough for now. I know your mind is reeling, Bobby, but if you really want your party to stop being considered “stupid,” this is your chance. Start spreading the news today. No need for thanks. Just know I’ve got your back. 

A Day of Irony

The beautiful irony of today is that we observe the inauguration of an African-American President on Martin Luther King Day. I think this would be a very bittersweet moment for King if he were alive to witness the day’s events. Could he have imagined a black man in the White House within 45 years of his death? Perhaps, but I think he would be pleasantly surprised to know that we went from Jim Crow to Barack Obama in a single generation.

At the same time, I think he would be dismayed to see what has become of America in the intervening years. Were he standing at the dais giving a speech today, he would certainly be speaking out against the intolerable income disparity that exists in this country, where a small cabal of billionaires controls the vast majority of the nation’s wealth. He’d lament the weakening of labor unions and the ongoing hemorrhaging of investments and jobs to overseas destinations. He would heap scorn on the greed and avarice of Wall Street as it continues to turn its back on Main Street.

 And I have no doubt he would lament the extremist security and national defense policies that have been implemented since 9/11. He would surely scold Washington for creating a perpetual state of war that fulfilled the Orwellian prophecy declaring war is peace and dissent is treason. Drones, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, a bloated defense budget, it would all draw King’s ire and condemnation. As others have pointed out, King was a radical both by 1960s standards and perhaps even more so by today’s. Calling Obama a socialist is laughable. Calling King a socialist would be much closer to the mark. In his later years, he was more and more critical of the abuses inherent in modern capitalism and accurately predicted were our greed and arrogance would take us as a country if the problems of economic disparity were not addressed. And of course, they weren’t.

I think King would take time to celebrate today’s inauguration, and would, if he were here, no doubt be a featured speaker. But he would tell us that as far as we had come, we have a very, very long way to go to fulfill the promise of the America he once foresaw in a dream. 

Killer Toys for 2013

The United States Department of Defense, in conjunction with the CIA, unveiled the first die-cast metal toy in a new line of products being sold on Amazon under the name, “America Owns the World.” The initial offering is the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) RQ-1 Predator shown here. This indiscriminate killing machine has seen combat over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, and Yemen, killing and disfiguring women, children, and the occasional terrorist, since 1995.

On the schedule for release this spring is 1/12 scale replica of a CIA waterboarding operation, complete with paid mercenaries, buckets and leaders of the international community standing outside the facility covering their eyes and ears.

Future releases include a model black site prison in Bosnia (includes pliers and death metal CD), the Abu Ghraib hooded prisoner doll, and “My First Shredding Machine” with copies of the Constitution, Bill of Rights and other useless documents for your child’s shredding fun.

To Pee or Not to Pee, That is the Question

More and more states are considering drug testing as a condition for receiving unemployment benefits. Bills are being introduced in statehouses across the country by Republicans who offer a variety of muddled rationales for their actions that defy the simplest tests of logic. As civil liberty activists have pointed out time and time again, Republicans are spending taxpayers’ time and money addressing a non-existent problem.

This drug-testing frenzy is an interesting and telling contrast to one of the top stories of the moment, gun control. On the one hand, you have fervent gun owners who insist that any infringement on their right to own weapons is government intervention and intrusion of the worst kind, while on the other you have Republican state legislators wanting to know what you’re doing in the privacy of your own home while you collect unemployment benefits.

The irony is painfully apparent. Although Republicans claim to be the party of personal freedom and limited government, they have no problems using the federal or state government to pursue their ideological goals, whether it’s drug testing or abortion or prayer in schools.

Actually, I’m all for drug testing, if it includes our state and national political representatives. Pee away.

Barack, we hardly new ye

How are we to understand Barack Obama’s transformation from an idealistic, highly intelligent, progressive, socially conscious young American black man to today’s marionette of the industrial/military complex’s puppet masters? 

Today’s issue of AlterNet features and article by Alex Kane, “5 Ways President Obama Has Doubled Down on Bush’s Most Tragic Mistakes.” One of the primary reasons why many of us voted for Obama in 2008 was the clear indication in his campaign that his administration was going to move in a new direction AWAY from the previous eight years of secrecy, militarism, isolationism, antagonism, and aggression. However, as Kane points out in his article, not only has Obama extended many of Bush’s most reviled policies, in many cases he has expanded on them. Programs related to the use of drones, warrantless wiretapping, proxy detentions, Guantanamo and indefinite detention have all been expanded under Obama.

And now, as his second term administration begins to take shape, we see Obama once again going to an establishment-friendly, change abhorrent list of nominees like John Brennan, a Bush era supporter of that President’s most controversial anti-terror tactics, as new Central Intelligence Agency director, and conservative Republican former senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. This was Obama's modus operandi at the beginning to his first term, as well, much to the dismay of his supporters.

Why? Why has this president gone out of his way to endorse policies and nominate cabinet members that so glaringly represent everything that was and is wrong with American domestic and foreign policy? I can’t explain it. There are days when I feel like I’m reading a Tom Clancy novel about an idealistic new president who is threatened into compliance by an evil cabal in Washington, D.C. to do their bidding. I’m not sure what other explanation makes sense. The Obama who sits in the Oval Office today is not the Obama I voted for in 2008. That person never made it to the White House.

Dawn or Dusk in America?

I wish I felt more optimistic as I watch the dawn of a new year unfold. Unfortunately, as the “Whew” factor many of us felt after Obama won reelection fades, we’re faced once again with the overarching reality of our present condition — rather than a “dawn,” we’re watching the sun setting on a once great democracy.

A short quote from an upcoming interview with Matt Damon in Playboy brought me back to reality. He says, “It’s easier now more than ever in my life to feel the fix is in, the game is rigged and no matter how hard you work to change things, it just doesn’t matter.” Not an earthshattering insight, but it nonetheless drives home the fundamental state of our nation. Corporate interests — Wall Street, the Fortune 500, defense contractors, gas and oil companies — drive national policy through their many tentacles wrapped around Washington, D.C., and their primary interest is not with the welfare of American citizens or even with the health of our economy, but with profit.

Like others, I was caught up in the moment of Obama’s recent victory, thinking that the good guys had won and they were gonna ride into town, clean out the riff-raff and save democracy, but I came down from that acid trip pretty quickly. The “fiscal cliff” lunacy looms over us, but that’s only one symptom of a serious illness that has infected the body politic in America. Our government is a corporate subsidiary. Forget the quotes of Washington or Jefferson or Lincoln. The only quote that continues to carry any weight, and the one quote that should be chiseled into the monuments and porticos of D.C. is from Charles Erwin Wilson, Secretary of Defense under Eisenhower and CEO of General Motors in the 1950s, who said, “What’s good for GE is good for America.” This is the mindset that is dragging this country down to its knees.

Change? It’s not in the cards, at least, not in the near future. What kind of a country have we become when the Occupy Movement, last year’s minor blip of protest against the current political machine, was treated as a domestic terrorist group by the FBI? In today’s world, simply protesting the status quo can get you lumped together with those organizations that would blow up planes or perpetrate suicide attacks. Our phone conversations and Internet usage are monitored, our movements tracked, our privacy stolen.

Americans are complacent and deluded, and it will take a much larger shock to the system than even the 2008 financial crisis to shake them out of their trance. If nothing significant changes in Washington, D.C., and there’s no reason to believe it will, that catastrophe will happen. The only questions is; will it be too late? 

George Will: The Eloquent Buffoon

Conservative columnist George Will cracks me up. Here’s a guy with the vocabulary of an English Professor, but the mental capacity of a chimpanzee (apologies to chimps everywhere). He’s a gold-plated Timex. A Neanderthal in a tuxedo. In a recent editorial, he argued that low voter turnout in U.S. elections was actually a good thing and no one should be concerned about it, especially not our intrusive, bumbling government, which could one day mandate voting.

He uses high-point Scrabble words and a quote about Carl Sandburg to argue that one of the pillars of a true democracy, citizens voting in elections, just isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, and people who are apathetic, people with “weak motivation,” shouldn’t be voting anyway. And of course, he drags in the Nazis. He seriously argues that high voter turnout is not necessarily a good thing because the Nazis won elections in Germany with high voter turnout.

Let’s start with the fact that 60 million adult citizens in America are not even registered to vote. Then consider that in the 2012 presidential election, only 57.5% of registered voters turned out at the polls. Do the arithmetic and it means that 94 million eligible Americans did not cast ballots for the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet. Ninety-four million. And to George Will, this isn’t an issue.

Well, gosh. I certainly ain’t as smart as Mr. Will, but it just doesn’t make any sense to say that low voter turnout is a good thing in a democracy. Unless you’re a Republican. Traditionally, the lower the voter turnout in an election, the better Republicans do. George Will wouldn’t possibly be arguing that up is down and black is white simply because he’s a card-carrying Republican, would he? He wouldn’t be trying to enchant us by wrapping a partisan, undemocratic turd of an idea in satiny words, would he?

Maybe we should just do away with elections altogether or — and this is probably an idea that Will would embrace — we only allow citizens of a certain high net worth cast ballots for our leaders. George Will could make even that idea sound good.

Maybe the world did end

Best headline of the day: NFL Star Offers Kids Financial Advice. Mmm. Who on the planet would I never, ever want to take financial advice from? Bernie Madoff, John Boehner, my Uncle Al, and…any professional athlete. Maybe the world did end and I’m living in a parallel universe. If I see the headline, Rush Limbaugh To Teach Logic and Critical Thinking at Harvard, I will know the Mayans were right.

Goodbye everybody

Well, it’s been a busy last day. I quit my job, closed out my bank accounts, maxed out my credit cards, sent goodbye emails to all of my loved ones, made my ascension clothes out of an old bathrobe, and I’m writing this from a mountaintop near Sedona, Arizona. I will ring in the apocalypse with finger symbols and generous quantities of scotch. My only source of concern is that I don’t know which direction to face. I don’t want the end of the world to happen behind me. There are several people up here with me, all obviously tripping on acid.

I’ve been chanting and drinking all night. Sun’s just now starting to come up.

A lot of people told me I was crazy, but

Will We Finally Come to Our Senses on Gun Control?

As you would expect, there has been no shortage of insensitive, offensive and downright ridiculous statements from conservative pundits regarding the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Anyone who says that those children died because there wasn’t a Bible in the classroom or a cross hanging on the wall should be involuntarily committed. However, the most Orwellian war-is-peace claim is one we’ve heard before after tragedies like this; if teachers had guns, the murderer could have been stopped sooner.

More guns would have helped. Right. On the surface this is a genuinely illogical argument. But let’s go just a step deeper. Police carry guns, but they also have extensive training in how to use these weapons, and perhaps more importantly, they have training and experience in how to react in stressful situations. Showing a teacher where the safety is and how to aim a weapon is only one part of the equation. Are they also going to go through training on how to react in the event someone enters their classroom and begins shooting? Will they be confident and calm enough to NOT start spraying the room with bullets? Expecting teachers to act rationally and with restraint in an irrational, highly emotional, life and death situation is a fantasy.

More guns in the hands of more people is absolutely not the answer. And I am guardedly optimistic that the horror of Sandy Hook may actually motivate our leaders to start implementing some common sense gun laws in this country. We are, unfortunately, a violent country when compared to other first world nations. We need to do a far better job of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.

Just one related note. On the same day that Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children and six adults in Connecticut, a man in China attacked school children with a knife. There were 23 injuries, but no deaths. The Chinese children will be scarred for life, both mentally and physically, but they are still here to grow up, have families, find rewarding careers and live long lives. The 20 Sandy Hook children are gone forever because instead of a knife, Adam Lanza had a gun. 

The Criminal Side of Political Correctness

Two years ago, someone held up a bank in Sterling, Virginia wearing a Hillary Clinton mask. Yesterday, the same branch was robbed by a person wearing a Mitt Romney mask. As a precautionary measure, bank employees have been given photos of all known national third party candidates and Ralph Nader. 

Too big to fail. Too big to prosecute. Too big for justice.

British-based HSBC, the largest bank on the planet, laundered billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels and sanctioned governments like Iran. But no one will go to jail. Instead they have been ordered to pay a fine. Granted, the fine is $1.92 billion, but for an institution that has assets of $2.5 trillion and yearly profits of $22 billion, it’s a write off.

U.S. prosecutors decided that actually punishing the white-collar criminals who oversaw these illegal transactions would ruin the bank’s reputation and destabilize world economic markets. So the British and U.S. executives at HSBC who took part in this criminal enterprise get to stay in their mansions, keep their Rolls Royces and sleep in their satin sheets.

If I go out on the street today and get caught selling an ounce of coke, I would face a mandatory minimum 5- to 20-year jail term, with a possible maximum term of life imprisonment.

I’m too little to win.

Republicans have created a monster

Writing in the Huffington Post today, Bob Cesca makes a good post-election point in his blog. Republicans have spent the past thirty years creating the fear ridden, fact denying, corporate shilling, religiously fanatical, conspiracy loving, racist, homophobic base, and now, like Dr. Frankenstein, they are faced with the reality that they created a monster that cannot simply be ignored or traded in on a new model.

What you sow, so shall you reap, says the Bible, and Republicans are learning that what they have reaped from their efforts is a fanatical and uncompromising core of voters who in no way represent the views of the majority of Americans. The dilemma is if they stick with their monster, they will never generate enough votes at the national level to win the presidency, but if they turn toward the center, they will alienate their valuable cadre of blindly obedient foot soldiers as well as the billionaire corporate ghouls who fund the whole shebang.

It will be interesting to see in which direction the Republican party goes in the next few years, and how the Democrats respond. 

A High-Five for Washington State

California in general, and San Francisco in particular, are about to lose their cult status among Conservatives as the Mecca of liberal madness as Washington state decriminalizes the possession of marijuana and legalizes same-sex marriages. Wow. Bill O’Reilly is going to bleed out his ears over this. Glenn Beck will need a blackboard the size of a tractor trailer to connect all of the evil dots inherent in this master plot to overthrow his Father Knows Best hallucinations about America.

            As many of us have noted for years, most politicians and the U.S. Government in general are way behind the curve on both of these issues. The war on drugs has been a violent, money-sucking, crime inducing failure from the moment the words were first uttered by Nixon in the seventies. This futile fire has been stoked by a wide array of people and institutions that have no interest in the logic of the policy itself: politicians afraid of looking weak on crime, police departments who take in millions from confiscating money and property from the accused, the prison industry, the wine and beer industries, and the military. Finally, finally, after nearly 40 years of this lunacy, the people are starting to be heard, and despite the bluster from the feds, this is a ship that is simply too big to be turned around.

            This is equally true of same-sex marriage. The incoherent arguments of the Religious Right have lost even their entertainment value as people realize the simple truth that love cannot be confined in archaic parameters imposed by the few on the many.

            I came of age in the 1960s and it was a tumultuous and eventful era full of progress, but I would argue that those of us alive at this moment in time are in the midst of an equally momentous time as we experience the slow and painful demise of the white patriarchal cultural hegemony and enter a new period of progress, equality and acceptance.

North Korea, unicorns and the free market

Many people are surprised to learn that blogging is not my main source of income. Although I could certainly live comfortably from my earnings as a nationally beloved political pundit, it is an unfortunate reality that writing will never be as lucrative as my primary business: smuggling unicorn horns out of North Korea for an Armenian revolutionary group.

Called a criminal organization by the U.N., I’ve found the members of the Armenian Socialist syndicate (A.S.S.) to be ethical, hardworking businesspeople who happen to work in an environment where carrying weapons is an unfortunate necessity. They were early entrants into the unicorn horn market in the late 1990s, initially promoting it as an additive in commercial glittery and sparkly products and a value-added ingredient for cutting heroin. After several years of research and development, they created a family of sex toys from the horns that became extremely popular among the wives and mistresses of top Chinese officials, and that has been A.S.S.s bread and butter product line ever since.

My work necessitates spending a lot of time in North Korea, particularly in Pyongyang where the “unicorn lair” was recently rediscovered by North Korean researchers. When I use the word “smuggling,” people tend to assume that my work is done behind the back of the government, but nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve gotten to know the young leader of the country Kim Jong Eun quite well, and when I arrive in the capital city in our Boeing C-17A Globemaster III filled to capacity with missile parts and pastries, we are greeted as dignitaries.

There are those in the international community who are trying to ban the sale of unicorn horns, claiming that the unicorn is a rare and priceless animal that is close to extinction. To these people, I say pshaw. The harvesting of unicorn horns is done under the strictest of international animal safety laws with ultra-hygienic saws and pliers. North Koreans treasure their unicorns and raise them on a strict diet of four-leaf clovers, fairy dust and ground peasants. And, according to officials in the Unicorn Division of the Institute of Propaganda, cutting out a unicorn horn from the animal’s head is completely painless, and unicorns grow back their horns in the same way a lizard can grow back a tail.

Even though my business dealings may not please everyone, and I am unable to travel to many countries for fear of arrest, I am a proud capitalist, entrepreneur and spreader of magical, glittery love sprinkles. Regulations being considered by the international community to protect the unicorn are nothing more than thinly veiled attempts to stifle the free market and handcuff the economic risk takers of the world. Stand with me. Don’t let them turn the unicorn into a mythical creature seen only by the North Korean elites, eight year-old girls and people on hallucinogenic drugs.

Thank you in advance for your support.

It’s the end of the world as we know it….

So the world is ending in about two weeks. Regrets? I’ve had a few…but I did it my way. At least I don’t have to worry about Christmas shopping. The question is, how should I spend my remaining time on earth? I’ve got about 14 days to accomplish the things that I’ve been too lazy or incompetent to achieve over the past five decades. I have thought about it, and here is my list of “Must Dos” before I’m incinerated in an earth-sized fireball or whatever it is the Mayans said about the end. I know my aim is high, and my goals may seem impossible, but hey, I’m going to give it my best shot.

1. Make the Nazi zombie beach party porn musical film I’ve got in my head
2. Wiggle my nose like Elizabeth Montgomery in Bewitched
3. Buy something advertised on a television infomercial
4. Twist Rush Limbaugh’s ear until he apologizes for every breath he’s ever taken
5. Dance naked Gangnam style through the Mall of America
6. Become an Iron Chef
7. Give Al Pacino a noogie
8. Find Waldo
9. Learn to speak Urdu
10. Increase the fiber in my diet

The Obama Conspiracy Game

Tired of trying to look busy at work? Need a break from online shopping? Bored with eavesdropping on your cubemate’s personal phone calls?

It’s time to play the Obama Conspiracy game.

It’s easy. Just pick the one answer in each category that is NOT a genuine conspiracy being promoted by the delusional, fear-fueled conservative noise machine. Yay. And as a bonus, feel free to claim the as yet virgin conspiracy theory as your own and spread it far and wide on the Internet. You might just get interviewed by Glenn Beck!

Good luck!

1.

Obama’s shady background:

a.      Was a Black Panther

b.     Is the son of Malcolm X

c.      Was secretly married to a Pakistani man

d.     Learned Klingon before English

e.      Was born in Kenya

f.       His mother and father were communists

2.

Obama’s real politics:

a.      He’s a socialist and/or a Marxist

b.     Is owned by the Muslim Brotherhood

c.      Placed his hand on a copy of Mein Kampf instead of the bible during swearing in ceremony

d.     Once aided the mujahideen

e.      Refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance

3.

Obama the person:

a.      Is gay

b.     Can’t speak in public without a teleprompter

c.      Used hypnosis and subliminal messages to win votes

d.     Lost his U.S. citizenship

e.      Wears a ring with a Koranic verse on it

f.       Is Muslim

g.      Has a tattoo of Stalin’s face on his right buttock

4.

Obama’s long reach:

a.      Caused the BP oil spill

b.     Personally caused Hurricane Sandy

c.      Faked Bin Laden’s death

d.     Secretly trained to overthrow the U.S. government

e.      Is going to bring 100 million Muslim’s to the U.S.

f.       Responsible for the 2011 Japanese tsunami

5.

Obama the criminal:

a.      Had Andrew Breitbart killed

b.     Served time in a Russian prison for child trafficking

c.      Was behind the Aurora, Colorado massacre

d.     Was part of a cocaine/gay sex/murder/orgy cover up

e.      Ran campaigns that were funded by drug money

6.

Obama’s plans for the future:

a.      He will fake an assassination attempt to institute martial law

b.     Has plans for a third term in office

c.      Wants to outlaw Christmas and Easter

d.     Is coming to take your gold

e.      Will put your children in youth reeducation camps

1 d, 2 c, 3 g, 4 f, 5 b, 6 c

The Burger Wars Get Ugly

A photo from the latest in a string of Burger King fires.

Happy Thanksgiving

Time For Some Outrage

What is more undemocratic, more un-American than trying to steal an election? For a moment, forget about Citizens United and negative political ads and the truckloads of money spent on presidential campaigns. These are all serious issues, but even these pale in comparison when measured against outright theft, or the attempted theft, of an election.

I’ve known about the problems inherent in electronic voting machines for years, but after reading Anonymous, Karl Rove and 2012 Election Fix? by Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks at Truthout, I’m convinced that someone in the federal government should be investigating the activities of Karl Rove and his minions and their connections to SMARTech.

The evidence against Rove is circumstantial at this point, but very compelling and warrants deeper investigation. We Americans send poll watchers to various countries around the world to help verify the legitimacy of their elections, while our own results are highly suspect. There are a lot of things related to U.S. political campaigns that should elicit outrage, but none more so than the attempted theft of an election. We can’t allow this to happen.

Romney: Why I Lost. Really.

Yesterday, That’s Going Too Far! was sent a copy of confidential notes that were taken during a meeting held by Romney’s top campaign consultants the morning after last weeks election results were known. The free wheeling brainstorm meeting was held to discuss Romney’s reaction to the loss. As we now know, the winning excuse was that Obama bribed voters to support him with government “gifts.” Here are some alternative responses that were apparently considered but rejected by Romney.

1. I was the victim of a liberal media/Jewish/NWO/ socialist/ACORN conspiracy.
2. Obama used secret Kenyan mind control techniques his father taught him.
3. Mysterious “smart people” showed up at polling places in traditionally “dumb” precincts.
4. White people were afraid that if they didn’t vote for Obama, he’d come to their houses and beat them and rape their women.
5. I was tricked into debates where questions about politics were asked.
6. My Mormon underwear was in the dirty laundry on Tuesday.
7. Electronic voting machines worked the way they were supposed to.
8. Michael Brown sent me an email on the eve of the election that said, “Don’t worry, Mitt. I’ve got everything under control.”
9. I was having an affair with David Petraeus.
10. I was just too brutally honest, and people couldn’t handle the truth.

Please welcome the newest third-world country: Texas

Secession is today’s word. Since Obama’s victory last week, some 30 states have petitions out to secede from the United States. Although I don’t really understand this, apparently Texas has enough signatures on its petition that it now requires some kind of official response from the White House. Here is the response I wish President Obama would give:

Dear citizens of the great state of Texas,

Your petition to secede from the United States of America is granted. Please turn off all the lights before you leave, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

President of the United States

Friday funny...for cat people

America Beats Back the Haters

One additional thought on Obama’s victory Tuesday night.

The efforts to unseat the President began much earlier than the night Mitt Romney was chosen by Republicans to run for America’s highest office on their behalf. It began the moment Obama was declared the winner in the 2008 election. On that night, someone at FOX News went to the basement and turned a key, and the hate machine sputtered to life. Fueled by the Right Wing media, the Tea Party, Christian Evangelicals, panicky billionaires, cranky old racist white guys, the Supreme Court, the NRA, conservative politicians, and an ill informed, easily manipulated slice of the electorate, and abetted by the mainstream media, the machine began cranking out bile and bunk by the truckload, painting Obama as a socialist, Kenyan, Muslim, American apologist, liar, ineffective leader, communist, Manchurian Candidate, racist, radical and enemy of true Americans.

Billions of dollars, hours and words were spent on spreading Obama hatred throughout every corner of the country. It was organized and incessant, without a day going by when we didn’t hear a new incendiary charge from Limbaugh or Beck or Brooks or Trump. Anti-Obama movies and documentaries were made. Books were written. The Right Wing megaphone gave us hour by hour headlines — fake birth certificate, born in Kenya, apology tour, pals around with socialists, Benghazi, hates American values, sympathizes with Muslims, wants our enemies to win — the list was endless. And the mainstream media, instead of repudiating the vile stream of lies, obliged its corporate masters by either burying its head in the sand or playing the “one-side-says-this-the-other-side-says-that” game, so as not to alienate any particular demographic. The news, after all, is a profit-driven venture.

And what do they have to show for what has to be the longest, most expensive ongoing propaganda campaign in the history of a democracy? Nothing. Zip. It didn’t work. Obama won reelection despite their best efforts. The merchants of hate are now shaking their heads in disbelief. How could this happen? How can we have failed? One reason was that as time went on, conservatives started to believe that the fantasy world they had created was, in fact, reality. They believed their own lies and ended up conning themselves.

Obama’s victory was noteworthy on many levels, but none is as important as the national repudiation of the power of America’s hate mongers, racists, misogynists, bigots and liars. Obama not only won reelection, but they lost. Big time.

Fed up with liberal America? Your new Eden awaits you.

A lot of conservatives are really, really upset that Obama won reelection, and there have been more than a few overwrought conservative bloggers and pundits threatening to leave the United States. My first reaction is, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” but then I wondered where on this planet would they go? Who would welcome our Calvinist Wingnuts into their communities?

Canada? Although our giant neighbor to the north has listed to the political right in recent years, it still has a long history of experimenting with socialism and openness that I think would make many of our gun-toting evangelical Tea Baggers uncomfortable. Latin or South America? Lazy brown people with tainted drinking water. Africa? Hahahahahahah. Australia? There’s a possibility. Oh wait. They have compulsory voting, universal healthcare, no death penalty, evolution is taught in schools and the PM is a female, unmarried atheist. Not working for us. Europe? Ground zero of the secular, socialist, one world government experiment? Don’t think so. Russia? Nyet. Let’s just check Asia off of our list right now.

Okay, what does that leave? Ah, right. There is one part of the world that might work. Women are second-class citizens. Check. Religion dominates all aspects of society. Check. Guns and other weapons are prevalent and easy to obtain. Check. Men dominate government and dictate laws. Check.

Welcome, evangelical Americans. Welcome to the one part of the world where you will feel completely comfortable and at home: The Middle East.