Tuesday, January 31, 2012

To be savored: One of the best articles yet on the GOP primaries/candidates

I feel sorry for any intelligent conservatives (I actually know a couple) who are not being well served with the slate of characters (caricatures?) standing before them.  The following article is excellent in defining the stumbling-bumblings of both Romney and Gingrich, and is good for laughs. But the laughter is overshadowed by tears of incredulity. Is this the best the Republicans can find for leadership in our country?  OMG!!! If so, we are definitely doomed.

The Odd Couple: Romney vs. Gingrich

By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

31 January 12

 

How the GOP race became a showdown between a walking OCD diagnosis and a flatulent serial adulterer

hey may be shit for choosing a good candidate for the presidency, but say this for the Republican primaries: They're fast turning into the most luridly entertaining political spectacle of our time. In an inherently conservative, bottomlessly moneyed, scrupulously stage-managed electoral system designed to preclude chance or weirdness from playing any part in determining our political future, the unthinkable is happening: real drama. This isn't part of some clever but inscrutable master plan, put on by the hidden hands who run this country, to fool or distract the masses. This is an unscripted fuck-up of heroic dimensions, radiating downward from the highest levels of our society, playing out in real time for all of us to watch. Our oligarchy has thrown a rod.

If you're not a conservative voter with a dog in this fight, watching Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and whoever else is running for the GOP nomination this week try to hold on to front-runner status has been great slapstick, like watching a cruel experiment involving baboons, laughing gas and a forklift. No matter how many times you ring the bell, those poor animals are never going to figure out how to move that pallet of bananas - yet they keep trying, taking the sorry show from one state to the next, over and over, as if something is going to change.

The latest ape to fall off the heavy machinery is Romney, who in a single week before the South Carolina primary went from near-certain nominee to national punch line, in genuine peril of becoming one of America's all-time electoral catastrophes. The overwhelming expectation was that Romney would roll into South Carolina, kneel on the ball a few times, and run out the clock on the party's yearlong display of manic instability. Heading into South Carolina, he'd raised $32 million; none of his competitors appeared to have enough cash to keep the lights on for more than a few more weeks, let alone a whole campaign. This experienced national politician, who had run a superbly organized campaign for president in 2008, a man whose very trademark is inoffensiveness and caution, and who for the year has appeared dedicated to saying nothing in public more controversial than "God bless America," needed to hang on for only 10 or 11 more days after his decisive win in New Hampshire without completely wetting himself on television, and the nomination was his.

But he couldn't do it. Less than a week after New Hampshire, Romney committed a series of gaffes that revealed his crucial character flaw: He's a hypernervous control freak who flips out if you try digging around below the paper-thin veneer of his schlock patriotic presentation. The robotic Mormon financier looks like a walking OCD diagnosis, a trim coil of tightly wound energy with perfect coif and tie, seemingly living in permanent terror of a single hair falling out of place. For this type of anal-retentive personality, the messy chaos of South Carolina was a phobic horror. Faced with actual opposition, he lost his grip on everything. At a time when a quarter of the population has zero or negative net worth, when outrage against the financial elite is at an all-time high on both sides of the political aisle, Romney, it turns out, is so weirdly tone-deaf about his status as a one-percenter and bloodsucking corporate raider that any question in that direction sends his eyes pinwheeling. As his electably boring-mannequin act began to crumble, his carefully concealed true self - a deluded gazillionaire nitwit - was suddenly thrust naked onstage for all of America to gape at.

First he made the mistake, in explaining his income as a private-equity vampire, of insisting that the money he receives each year in speaking fees is "not very much." Romney's idea of "not very much" turns out to be $374,327.62 - a microscopic portion of his total earnings, but still a number that all by itself put him in the one percent. Then, in the crucial debate in Charleston on January 19th, he seemed to go into a mental tailspin. With both the debate and the primary slipping away from him, Romney reached into his bag of clichés for an "I'm not from Washington, I'm an outsider like you" speech. Only he ballsed it up: "If we want people who spent their life and their career, most of their career in Washington," he said, indicating his opponents, "we have three people on the stage who've..."

But as Romney looked to his left, he spotted long-practicing doctor Ron Paul. "Well, I take that back," he fumbled. "We got a doctor down here who spent most of his time in the, in the surgical suite."

The surgical suite? But wait, Paul was an obstetrician! "Well, not surgery," Romney corrected himself. "The birthing suite."

Then, as he looked pleadingly at CNN moderator John King, it was Dan Rather time. Dead fucking air. Romney's candidacy was literally dying in front of his eyes. He realized that he had forgotten King's original question, which was about why he had called Gingrich an "unreliable leader."

"Now, you asked me an entirely different question," he said to King. "What's..."

The crowd laughed as Romney looked around to the other candidates for help. Gingrich, who despite an utter lack of self-control is a cunning old crook with a keen instinct for combat, moved quickly to drive the knife in. "Beats me. I don't know," he said. "Where are we at, John?" The crowd roared.

Romney was never the same after that moment. The next day, in that very building, I watched as the level of panic in his campaign finally boiled over into violence. Throughout the race, Romney has been targeted by protesters from Occupy Wall Street, who have made it their mission to screw up his rope-line photo ops. In New Hampshire just a week before, Romney had tried to do the campaign-cliché thing and kiss a baby - only to have protesters shout at him, repeatedly, "Are you going to fire the baby? Are you going to fire the baby? Are you going to fire the baby?"

Romney typically has not responded to these provocations. But on the day of the Charleston debate, in a small nearby suburb, a protester asked Romney, "What will you do to support the 99 percent, seeing as how you're part of the one percent?"

At that perfectly reasonable question, Romney lost his cool and spun around awkwardly, arms in and head forward, like a bobbing harbor buoy, to face the protester. "Let me tell you something," he fumed. "America is a great nation because we're a united nation. And those who try to divide the nation, as you are trying to do here and as our president is doing, are hurting this country seriously."

The next day, after Romney took that beating in the Charleston debate, there was another rally at the same convention center. As if in response to his plunging poll numbers, Romney amped up the showmanship and the clich´-flogging, driving his tricked-out campaign bus into the building and adding a desperately bizarre patriotic singspiel component to his stump speech. "I love this country. I love this country," he said. "I love its beauty. I love its people. I love the hymns of our nation." And then he started reciting the lyrics to "America the Beautiful."

"'O beautiful, for spacious skies,'" he said. "'For amber waves of grain.'"

It was the Mormon-underwear version of Bill Murray's "Star Wars, Nothing but Star Wars" routine. All politicians engage in public fakery to some degree, but Romney's plastic-man act is so forced and grotesque, it's actually painful to watch. In this case, the crowd - a small contingent of clean-cut Romney volunteers herded into a convention hall halved in size by a curtain - tittered politely as Romney labored through his hymnal and an assortment of lounge-singer throwaways ("This is a great state - what wonderful people"). When the speech mercifully ended, Romney plunged into the crowd - and that's when the trouble began

I was maybe 10 feet away from him when a pair of Occupy protester-tormenters tried to ask him something. Suddenly, the space around the candidate erupted in commotion. A female police officer roared past me, dragging a young female protester named Adrianna Varedi by the neck. It was such an outstanding chokehold that Varedi's face had already turned purple. The cops rushed her to the exit and, in a moment reminiscent of the scene in Casino in which a gambler's head is used to bash open the exit door, Varedi and another protester were roughly tossed outside.

"I was just trying to ask him a question," Varedi said afterward.

Romney suffers from the same problem afflicting the likes of Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon: He's been living for so long with the delusion that the way he makes his money is fair and honest, he's started to believe not only that he deserves his wealth, but the converse - that the poor deserve to be poor. He's incapable of sympathizing with people who can't pay their bills, because their condition is tied too closely in his mind with the question of how he made his enormous fortune: If you ask Romney to imagine what life is like for someone who's broke, what he hears is you accusing him of making that happen. (In Romneyspeak, you've "attacked capitalism.") In short, he's a narcissist. They're all narcissists, these colossal Wall Street types - they have to be, because the way they make their money makes moral sense only if you're viewing things from the top of the heap. Asking them to step outside that comfort zone, into the world where the rest of us live, is an unthinkable outrage. It's hard to be likable when you can't even temporarily look at things from the bottom up, which is why it was no surprise that Romney flopped among voters in South Carolina who describe themselves as "falling behind" financially; they chose Newt by a margin of almost two to one.

In contrast, even some of the most rabid anti-Republican protesters express a begrudging admiration for Romney's surging foil, Gingrich, who throughout the campaign has demonstrated that he not only doesn't mind yapping with haters and detractors but actually seems to enjoy it. "His security people are pulling him away from us, not the other way around," says Michael Premo, an Occupy protester who riled Romney at a rope line earlier that week.

If Romney is a scripted automaton who could make it through a year's worth of marital coitus without one spontaneous utterance, Gingrich is his exact opposite - taken prisoner in war, Newt would be blabbing state secrets without torture within minutes, and minutes after that would be calling his guards idiots who lack his nuanced grasp of European history, and minutes after that would be lying to two of his captors about an affair he had with the third. In short, Newt versus Romney played out in South Carolina like a classic comic clash of pure psychological archetypes: oral versus anal, chaos versus order, Oscar versus Felix, with Felix throwing a snit and Oscar charging to a wild, messy victory.

As late as five days before the South Carolina primary, Gingrich was still trailing Romney by double digits in the state. His comeback began at the debate in Myrtle Beach, when he had an instantly viral exchange with African-American Fox commentator Juan Williams in which he triumphantly defended the idea that 11-year-olds should get jobs and that black people prefer food stamps to honest employment. The crowd was howling for blood, literally booing Mexico when Williams mentioned that Romney's father had been born there and then, in a moment that one had to see to believe, loudly booing the Golden Rule when Ron Paul sensibly suggested that we "don't do to other nations what we don't want to have them do to us."

You could almost see the light go on in Newt's head. He alone understood that during the primary season, one doesn't worry about how some vacillating Ohio independent might perceive one's rhetoric next fall: One carves up the bloodiest bits of red meat and hurls them at the immediate audience, and one does so with joy and a gleam in the eye. "Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear-cut idea about America's enemies: Kill them," Newt said. The debate, remember, took place in the Carolinas, not far from where Jackson's Trail of Tears genocide began, making Newt's remark almost comically offensive. But hey, the Cherokee vote is not a large one, for obvious reasons. The surviving, non-Indian audience cheered wildly.

At the debate in Charleston a few days later, when Gingrich launched into his lengthy tirade in defense of serial adultery, the crowd once again roared with delight. By then, Newt had settled on his winning formula: batter Romney over his personal finances, then get in Romney's face as often as possible, highlighting his "genuineness" in contrast with Romney's seemingly constitutional inability to give a straight answer about anything. A last-minute campaign event laid bare this dynamic. By a curious accident, both Romney and Gingrich had scheduled 10:45 a.m. campaign stops on primary day at a roadside restaurant called Tommy's Ham House in Greenville. The mix-up led to much speculation about a "Ham House showdown," and by 10 that morning the place was teeming with placard-waving supporters from both campaigns, in addition to what appeared to be all 10 million members of America's political media. But the "showdown" never happened, thanks to a classically reptilian cop-out by Romney: Despite his campaign's insistence that it intended to stick to its schedule, Romney showed up 45 minutes early, darted through the restaurant shaking hands Speedy Gonzales-style, and was back in his campaign bus 20 minutes before Gingrich even arrived.

When Newt finally showed up, his supporters greeted him like a Roman emperor back from a slaughter of the Gauls. As he strode into the Ham House, his supporters mocked Romney by erupting in clucking chicken noises. Newt, I'm quite sure, was never happier than he was at that moment in the driving rain and slop of Greenville on primary day. Looking like a king peacock or the mockumentary version of Joaquin Phoenix, gorgeously obese and enthralled with the wonder of himself, Newt plunged through the Ham House crowd, stood on a beer cooler and crowed, "I have a question. Where's Mitt?"

"He left!" someone in the crowd shouted. "He ran!"

Newt grinned ear to ear. "I thought maybe we'd have a little debate here this morning," he said. "I'm kind of confused!"

The crowd cheered again, and Newt settled down to his usual stump speech, about how he was the only choice to stop moderate Romneyism on the right and Saul Alinsky radicalism on the left. The crowd ate him up; everywhere you looked, you found people insisting they were smitten by the "real" Gingrich, as opposed to Romney, who South Carolinians increasingly believed was a closet liberal only pretending to be a heartless conservative.

"When you're being shaped and handled to sound like something you're not, you're going to sound plastic," said Colette Koester, a financial adviser who came out to the Ham House. "Newt's a real person. He's committed to what he says."

The election-night festivities of the two leading candidates were a predictable study in extremes. Romney's event, at the South Carolina fairgrounds, was a morgue. The floor was half-empty, and the campaign barred some of the press from entering, feeding different excuses to different reporters (I was told I needed to RSVP; others were told there was no room in the hall). In the tomblike expanse of the press filing room, you had to pay three bucks for a drink, and all they had was soda.

Across town, meanwhile, half of South Carolina appeared to be packed into a Hilton ballroom that began to stink noticeably of sweat and booze long before Newt showed up. Bodies were stacked together like sardines, and the crowd slobbered over visiting dignitaries like Mrs. South Carolina, a busty blond hottie who seemed to symbolize the earnest possibilities of open marriage. "It's like free admission to Wrestlemania," chirped one attendee.

When Newt finally arrived, he plunged into a booming victory speech that used the same tired, redbaiting clichés trotted out by every candidate in the race. (Some, in fact, were the same clichés Romney used, the only difference being that Romney described Obama as taking his inspiration from Europe, while Gingrich also pointed the finger at San Francisco.)

Most ludicrously, Gingrich - virtually his whole adult life a confirmed Beltway parasite, as voracious a consumer of lobbyist money as has ever been seen in modern America, a man who in the past decade took more than 1.5 million consulting dollars from Freddie Mac alone - asserted that his victory was a triumph against the Washington insider. "So many people," he said, "feel that the elites in Washington and New York have no understanding, no care, no concern, no reliability, and in fact do not represent them at all."

The crowd roared, and Gingrich, in a thrilling demonstration of sheer balls, moved on to insist that he'd won the race not just because he was a peerlessly brilliant television presence, but because - get this - he represented good values. "It's not that I'm a good debater," he said, "it's that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people."

This, of course, was the final irony: that South Carolina - a nest of upright country church folk proud of their exacting morals and broad distrust of buggery, stem cells and Hollywood relativism - had chosen as its values champion Newt Gingrich, a man who has been unfaithful not just to two wives but also two religions (raised Lutheran, he is currently Catholic by way of Southern Baptist). We've all heard the various sordid stories from Newt's past - the divorce papers reportedly thrust in the lap of his hospitalized first wife, the alleged multiple affairs, the unpaid tax liens, the 84 separate allegations of congressional ethics violations, one of which landed him a $300,000 fine. This is a man whose campaign is being fueled almost entirely by gambling money contributed by Sheldon Adelson, a Vegas casino magnate and hardcore Zionist who handed Gingrich two $5 million checks - two of the biggest political contributions in American history. (Newt, in return, has dismissed the Palestinians as an "invented" people, remarks that Adelson reportedly approved.) There is a distinct odor of corrupt indulgence around Gingrich that may not bother sinners like you and me - but sure as hell ought to bother Southern evangelicals, who a decade and a half ago wore us all out wailing about the nearly identical personal failings of one William Jefferson Clinton, another flabby, smooth-talking hedonist who, in the pulpits of America's megachurches, was whispered to be the earthly vessel of Satan himself.

But evangelicals accounted for two-thirds of the South Carolina vote, and Newt cleaned up with them, beating Romney - a man whose genitalia has never even been rumored to be somewhere it shouldn't - by a margin of more than two to one. Even odder was the fact that this hilarious fraud was being perpetrated on behalf of a man who was consigned to the historical footnotes well over a decade ago. After all this time, it ends up being Newt Gingrich? Really? How can a guy who was kicked off the B list in the Nineties be the headline act in 2012? It's like finding out that Eric Roberts has been picked to MC the Oscars. In an era of popular revolts on both the right and left, it is sobering to think that the American power structure is so desperate, so bankrupt of fresh deceptions, that it is now forced to recycle the dregs of the dregs in its attempts to pacify the public.

The two other contenders in the race each had good reasons to be shocked by the sudden emergence of Gingrich as the standard-bearer for Republican values. Former senator Rick Santorum earned a place in American pop culture as the nation's leading pious, finger-wagging bore, the Anita Bryant of his time - he was famous for comparing homosexuality to bestiality, for opposing not only abortion but contraception, for calling it "radical feminism" when a mother worked outside the home. Yet for all his creepiness, Santorum at times has come across as the sanest, most human of the candidates, adopting the exact "Jesus, what a couple of disgusting assholes!" look that any of us would have if forced to stand on a stage next to Romney and Gingrich. Genuinely religious, with a genuinely working-class background, Santorum nonetheless was beaten senseless in the South Carolina polls, receiving fewer than half as many votes from evangelicals as the philandering Gingrich.

Then there was Ron Paul, whose unaccountable predicament was on display in the Ham House madness. As Newt stood in the packed restaurant, gloating over Romney's cowardice, a small contingent of Paul supporters crouched in the rain at a Hardee's parking lot across the street, seething over the latest slight to their candidate's dignity. "The machine would rather have Huey or Dewey or Louie or whatever," sighed Ted Christian, watching the media blitz at the Ham House.

During the past two election cycles, Paul supporters have literally been forced to party-crash other candidates' events in order to get their message out. In this case, Christian and his friend Michael Toppeta decided to blitz the "Ham House showdown" by showing off a pair of spiffy "Ron Paul 2012" campaign vans - one featuring a professional paint-and-stencil job, the other a pleasingly Mystery Machine-esque vehicle done up with $3 worth of finger paint from Michaels.

"It's a fiscally responsible design job," Christian proudly declared.

"I just wanted to show that we can do a professional job like that," Toppeta added, regarding the more high-end van. "That we're not just a bunch of hippies or whatever."

Both actually and metaphorically, the Paul campaign is forever being consigned to the parking lot outside the main event, despite the fact that Paul is the only Republican candidate with consistent, insoluble support across the country. Polls also show that Paul tends to fare much better against Obama than any candidate besides Romney: A recent CNN poll showed him in a dead heat with Obama in a one-on-one contest. Yet everywhere he goes, Paul is hounded by reporters asking him which of the other mannequins he's eventually going to throw his support to. The grown-ups in the party establishment and their lackeys in the press simply refuse to take Paul seriously, which is part of the reason Paul is so extraordinarily attractive to young people (in both Iowa and New Hampshire, he scored almost half of the under-30 vote).

But the Republican Party is not dominated by 22-year-old college students reading The Fountainhead for the first time and finally understanding what it is they've always hated about their ex-hippie parents. No, the party is dominated by middle-aged white suburbanites who hate Mexico, John King and the Golden Rule and are willing to flock to anyone who'll serve up the Fox News culture war in big portions and without shame or hesitation. Romney might have memorized a few I-hate-Obama sound bites, but voters simply don't believe him. Gingrich alone offers GOP voters the emotional payoff they want out of an election - an impassioned fight against the conspiracy, played out in thrillingly contrary three-hour debates on health care with the liberal Satan. Gingrich lives for confrontation: He was born for this sort of insurgent primary politics.

The only problem is, he's a bloviating, egomaniacal hog clinging to a third marriage who suffers from incurable diarrhea of the mouth and, according to polls, is one of the most intensely disliked politicians in America, making him an utterly absurd choice for the general election. If Gingrich ends up winning the nomination, Obama will essentially be running against the political version of Gilbert Gottfried or raw garlic - strong tastes that some like quite a lot, but many more can't stand to even be near. If that happens, every Democratic flack from Leon Panetta to Obama himself will have to wear restraints to keep from publicly crying out in joy.

All of which makes the goofball theater surrounding the GOP primaries seem even crazier. With a weak economy and a vulnerable president in the White House, the Republican Party had a real chance to reseize power, if it could only have grasped the gravity of the situation and put forward a plausible candidate. And a plausible candidate would have been better for everyone, not just Republicans, because the nation will suffer when Obama cruises to victory next fall on a sea of open-marriage jokes, instead of having to face a cogent argument against useless bailouts, endless wars and economic mismanagement.

But the GOP chose to snub any semblance of substance, floating one candidate after another - from Donald Trump and Michele Bachmann to Herman Cain and Rick Perry - who could not hold on to the lead for more than a few hours before tripping and falling into the machinery. It now appears that whoever winds up winning the Republican nomination will be a reform-hating friend of the one percent who will happily gobble whatever hundreds of millions of dollars Wall Street has left over to donate to the GOP, after it's finished lavishing its election-year tribute on Barack Obama. The best we can hope for, it appears, is some truly high-quality reality-show drama. The campaign is a circus like we've never seen before. We may get worse candidates, but at least we're getting a better show.

 

Comments  

 
+2 # Rick Levy 2012-01-31 18:19
The rethulicans not only don't understand the reality of life for the 99%. They don't understand reality period. It's a chilling thought that the best candidates they can offer are the likes of these two bozos.
 
 
0 # dloehr 2012-01-31 20:58
What are the odds that those few with REAL power in or over the Republican party are using these spectacles revealing the candidates as idiots, fools, sociopaths and just plain weird -- what are the odds that these clowns are preparing the way for a new candidate, who can mobilize the majority of Republicans to pick HIM as presidential candidate: Jeb Bush. So Jeb shows up as the -- perhaps even reluctant -- savior, to rescue the party from being consigned to the loony bins of history. Right now, it's making the most sense. Or am I missing something?
 
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Monday, January 30, 2012

The gullibility of right wing voters

They vote against their own interests, believing the politicians who tell them that supply-side, "trickle-down" Reaganomics works--even in the face of decades of proof that it DOESN'T work! Ronald Reagan was a disaster for our country -- but Republicans revere him.  A sad state of affairs.  Read the following essay by Robert Parry to understand better what has happened in our country -- and how we have been brought down by this kind of misguided thinking. 

Any rational assessment of America’s economic troubles would identify Ronald Reagan’s reckless “supply-side” economics as a chief culprit, but that hasn’t stopped Republican presidential hopefuls, led by Newt Gingrich, from selling this discredited theory to a gullible GOP base, reports Robert Parry.

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/27/selling-the-supply-side-myth/

EXCERPT
:
Despite Newt Gingrich’s claim that “supply-side” economic theories have “worked,” the truth is that America’s three-decade experiment with low tax rates on the rich, lax regulation of corporations and “free trade” has been a catastrophic failure, creating massive federal debt, devastating the middle class and off-shoring millions of American jobs.

It has ”worked” almost exclusively for the very rich, yet the former House speaker and the three other Republican presidential hopefuls are urging the country to double-down on this losing gamble, often to the cheers of their audiences — like one Florida woman who said she had lost her job and medical insurance but still applauded the idea of more “free-market” solutions.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Strange Sounds Map and Videos at this link

These loud sounds are occurring all over the globe.  Some suggest it's a hoax.  But it's improbable that all these reports and videos would be hoaxes.  It's a phenomenon without a satisfying explanation.  My guess is it has something to do with HAARP. 

New Worldwide Map Of Bizarre Sounds
and videos

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Andy Borowitz: How dare Obama use facts in his speech!

January 25, 2012

Obama Risks Alienating Republicans By Using Facts

Radical Tactic Sparks Outrage

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – In what some critics are calling the most radical tactic ever employed in a State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama risked alienating congressional Republicans last night by repeatedly using facts.

Mr. Obama stirred controversy throughout the speech with his relentless references to facts, data, and things that have actually happened, all long considered the third rail of American politics.

As the President made reference to tax rates and unemployment numbers, as well as sixteen separate mentions of Osama bin Laden, congressional Republicans’ blood began to boil.

After the speech, a furious Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, “It’s been a longstanding tradition in our politics not to use facts in a State of the Union Address, a tradition the President chose to ignore in an outrageous way tonight. I won’t stand for it and the American people won’t stand for it.”

“We want to work with the President for the good of the American people,” added House Speaker John Boehner. “But he’s going to have to take facts off the table. That’s a deal-breaker for us.”

The President did not mention any of his GOP presidential rivals by name in his speech, but at one point said that government should be “leaner,” a blatant jab at former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Food for Thought -- Right-wing Reflections

For all those who are determined to put a Republican such as Gingrich, Santorum, Palin, Perry, or Bachmann in the White House, here are a few things to consider regarding the far right wing philosophy and where it leads:

DEATH OF AN ORDINARY HOUSECAT
By RJ Eskow

There's nothing to see here. Move along. Nothing, that is, but this report of a minor incident in Russellville, Arkansas: "Democratic Congressional candidate Ken Aden's campaign manager returned home to find his family pet slaughtered, with the word 'liberal' painted on the animal's corpse."

A statement from the Aden campaign describes the cat as an adult mixed-breed Siamese and included a graphic description of the pet's injuries.

The statement said that the four children of campaign manager Jacob Burris "discovered the gruesome scene as they exited the family vehicle to enter their home" after "the perpetrators scrawled 'liberal' across the cat's body and left it on the doorstep of Burris' house."

"To kill a child's pet is unconscionable," the candidate is quoted as saying.

I know, I know. It's not the most important story in the news this week. In a time of war and financial crisis, there are a lot bigger stories to report than the death of a house cat. It was just an ordinary pet like millions of others, a playmate to some children and a companion to their parents.

Nor is this an electoral scandal. The Aden campaign said they "did not believe the Womack campaign to be responsible," adding that "before Christmas... a (radio) station owned by Womack's father, actually promoted a toy drive held by Aden's campaign for children in the Third District."

People, especially conservatives, will rush to say it's an isolated incident of random violence that could've happened to anyone. They've said that before. Lots of times, in fact.

The shooting of churchgoers at a liberal Unitarian church in Knoxville was an isolated incident.

The shooting of police officers in Pittsburgh was an isolated incident.

The shooting of deputies in Okaloosa, Florida was an isolated incident.

The killing of a Tucson man and the shooting of his wife and daughter (the nine-year-old was shot in the head at point-blank range) was an isolated incident.

The murder of an African-American woman and the raping and wounding of her sister, followed by the killing of a homeless man, was an isolated incident.

The killing of an African-American security guard at the Holocaust Museum was an isolated incident.

Except...

The man who shot those Knoxville Unitarians had these books on his bookshelf Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder by Michael Savage, Let Freedom Ring by Sean Hannity, and The O'Reilly Factor, by Bill O'Reilly. Michael Savage said the ACLU "will kill us all," that "the white male has nothing to lose... you haven't seen him explode... his ugly side," and that "the radical left and the radical Muslim are blood brothers." Hannity has a book called Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism. O'Reilly calls liberals "Nazis" and encouraged al Qaeda to attack liberal San Francisco.

The killer said he shot those people because "liberals" are "destroying America." Hmm. Wonder where he got that idea? "Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate and House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book." That would be the book entitled The 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America. (Hint: None of them are conservatives.)

The man who killed those Pittsburgh police officers was afraid that Obama would take away his guns and deprive him of other rights.

So was the man who killed those deputies in Florida.

The accused killers of that Tucson man -- including a woman who was identified by the little girl who was shot in the head -- were extreme right-wingers in the anti-immigration movement.

The man who killed that woman, raped and wounded her sister, and then murdered a homeless man was a right-wing white supremacist. He was on his way to a Jewish Community Center when he was arrested.

The man who shot that security guard was a right-wing tax protester.

The people who were killed in these acts of are human beings, not pets. Their absence is still being felt every day -- by family and friends, by co-workers, by an entire community. Nobody will mourn a little housecat from Russellville, Arkansas -- nobody except four children and their parents.

So why does it matter? The Talmud says that destroying a single soul is like destroying "a universe entire." Who can doubt the living souls inside the creatures that live among us and share our experiences? Killing a pet is a sick act. The dehumanization of psychopathic human beings often begins in childhood with the torture and killing of animals.

The same gradual dehumanization can take place in a society, too. After Gabrielle Giffords was shot I refused to raise the volume or turn up the heat on our rhetorical divide, and opted for a "moment of silence" instead. But just as there's a time for silence, there is also a time to speak.

Even if it's about a cat. If we don't speak now, when will the dehumanization stop? But if people can't see the common thread of life that binds human beings together -- liberal and conservative, immigrant and native-born, black and white -- how can they see the force that binds us to other life?

Of course, the cat's killers don't represent an entire movement. But where's the outrage within the right over the violent and extremist rhetoric? Where was the outrage when people died, over and over?

Here are the kinds of statements that are still tolerated by the conservative movement without censure or criticism:

Ann Coulter said "the only way to talk to a liberal is with a baseball bat," that "We need to execute people like John Walke... to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too," and "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building." (That last comment's a two-fer: She wanted him to kill journalists and that's her "only regret," meaning she doesn't regret the murder of Federal workers, other people visiting the Federal building that day, or the children in the onsite day-care center in that Oklahoma Federal building.)

"Even Islamic terrorists don't hate America like liberals do," said Coulter. Sure, she's getting increasingly strident as her star continues to fade. But she's got plenty of company.

Leading conservative publication Human Events has a regular "Guns & Patriots" section.

Andrew Breitbart said "We outnumber (liberals) in this country, and we have the guns... I'm not kidding."

Rush Limbaugh said "I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus -- living fossils..."

Rep. James Hansen said of President Bill Clinton, "Impeach him, censure him, assassinate him."

Michele Bachmann said she wanted her supporters "locked and loaded" and "on the front side of the political battle."

CNN commentator Erick Erickson suggests that "mass bloodshed" might be appropriate if the Supreme Court's rulings on abortion aren't to his movement's liking.

Glenn Beck says liberals are "the enemies of God," coming "for the kill on religion," and are "enemies of freedom." He also said he was "thinking about killing Michael Moore... I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it... No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong?"

If liberals are Nazis, fascists, mass murderers, enemies of freedom, if they should be shot, hanged, choked, beaten, killed, then what's wrong with killing a liberal's cat?

It's true that not all the violent rhetoric is on one side, but it's vastly greater on the right. And the violence has been directed against the left. Coincidence? We report, you decide.

Full disclosure: When I wrote about bank crimes a while back one or two commenters began mentioning violent acts against Wall Street executives. But they're commenters, not leading voices. And I immediately toned down my rhetoric, which wasn't violent but was strong.

Here's what I keep thinking: If someone were ever hurt by anyone who'd read something I'd written I'd be devastated. I'd devote a large part of my life to reflecting on what role I might have played in the violence, and to helping reduce the violence from that moment on. I think bankers should be investigated, and the lawbreakers among them should be prosecuted. But if one were hurt, especially because of anything I'd done -- however unintentionally -- I'd be heartbroken.

Wouldn't you?

But there wasn't a single moment of reflection, much less remorse. Not from Hannity. Not from O'Reilly. Not from Savage or Goldberg. On the contrary, Hannity was outraged when I laid some of the responsibility for the Unitarian killings at his feet. (A true totalitarian to the end, he raged and screamed on the air and said I should be 'fired' from the Huffington Post.)

Now a cat is dead. Not a first responder or a churchgoer or a toddler in an Oklahoma day-care center. Just a cat. We don't know if it was male or female. We don't even know its name.

If there wasn't any remorse or reflection after those deaths and injuries in Knoxville, there certainly won't be any over the death of a tiny creature in a little Southern town. The town was Russellville, Arkansas, in Pope County, population 27,000 or so. Bet you didn't know it's the county seat.

They'll probably arrest some teenagers sooner or later. Just kids. Just kids who learned this behavior somewhere.

And it was 'just' a cat. It was just a companion for an Arkansas family and a playmate for its children. The kids will cry but life will go on. The rhetoric won't change and the incident will be forgotten by tomorrow.

There's nothing to see here. Move along. It was an isolated incident.
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Monday, January 23, 2012

Interview re. Weird Sounds, plus a few videos

atch?v=xlKG2X4stog

Interesting speculation takes place in this interview regarding what these sounds might be...  Who knows?


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50 years after JFK assassination--and obfuscation continues

Just more proof about who is really running things in our world -- and how they keep the lid on their own nefarious actions...forever.

The Deaths of JFK and RFK and the Silence of the Lambs
By Russ Baker


EXCERPT:
None of the films that Hollywood seems willing to tackle touch on what the great, great mass of careful investigation, research and scholarship has shown over the years--the extremely high likelihood that JFK's death was a covert operation engineered by exactly the kinds of people whose profession was to displace leaders and carry out military-precision operations under cover. (My own book, Family of Secrets, has four chapters of new, abundantly documented and heavily footnoted material on the Kennedy assassination, including the answer to why George H.W. Bush cannot remember where he was on Nov. 22, 1963--and there are many other fine books, both recent vintage and released over the years, which carefully lay out enough evidence to settle the matter to all but the most closed-minded. Examples here, here, and here.)

Nearly half a century after the death of a president who took bold steps against abuses by the one percent of the one percent, we are still in denial about how and why he died. Our leading institutions and individuals are not only scared to talk about the truth, but glad to cynically profit from tired lies and evasions.

So where are we when it comes to our own boldness and advanced self-awareness? This year, we may be headed toward a presidential general election contest between a wealthy predator and a putative reformer who has made his peace with the most powerful, wealthiest circles in America. If not that wealthy predator, then perhaps a demagogic blowhard of the extreme mercenary variety.

Wonder what Jack and Bobby would have to say?
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Sunday, January 22, 2012

Strange Noise heard in Germany sets off car alarm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CNql-wSfM0A

These strange sounds are being heard all over the planet, but no one has yet identified what they are. So many guesses...but it's not being reported in mainstream media. Too scary and would raise too many questions that can't/won't be answered.  Check out the right sidebar when you go into this link -- there are so many other reports...WHAT IS THIS?
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Saturday, January 21, 2012

Liberian war criminal Chas. Taylor worked for CIA

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/20/alleged-war-criminal-charles-taylor-worked-for-cia-report/
Oh, my goodness! What a shock! (NOT!)
A privileged glimpse into the obvious is more like it!  These guys are only allowed to flourish if they obey what is commanded by the U.S. (by the ruling forces behind the facade of our government).  Those powers don't care how many millions get killed -- in fact, their agenda is to cull the human herd, so whatever is done in this way is happily lauded by them.  The Charles Taylors and Idi Amins of the world are puppets, just doing their dirty work for the real rulers -- and getting paid for it.  Until it's time to pay the piper; then they are done away with in whatever manner works best at the time.

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Friday, January 20, 2012

Great article about the Republican candidates debacle--So true!

Romney Bombs, and Other Thoughts on the GOP Debate

By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

20 January 12

 

have an article about South Carolina and the GOP race coming out in Rolling Stone soon, so I can't say too much about that race here. But I do have a few quick notes about last night's debate in Charleston, which I had the misfortune to attend.

• I was astonished to wake up this morning and read, in this morning's Wall Street Journal, this assessment of Romney's performance: "Mitt Romney turned in one of his strongest debate performances, defending his business record and laying into President Barack Obama as aggressively as he has in any previous debate."

I don't know Journal writers Patrick O'Connor or Neil King, so I can't say for sure if they were there last night, but if they were, were they watching the same event as the rest of us? I thought Romney was a disaster and last night very nearly achieved the impossible: sharing a stage with Newt Gingrich and looking like the bigger asshole.

To me, the exchange where he fell overboard mid-answer and had to ask moderator John King what the question was ("But you asked me an entirely different question?") came close to being an Ed Muskie moment.

The most interesting part of seeing these guys up close is seeing the way people like Rick Santorum and Gingrich respond to Romney in person: They appear to find him physically repulsive, their noses even scrunching up at him when they address him, like cops opening up a trunk with a body in it. And I think it's real, I don't think it's an act. Romney is so totally insincere and calculating and soulless, it physically offends other politicians. It's incredible to watch.

• I've given up trying to predict this race. Watching the events of last night, I saw plausible nomination scenarios for all four candidates. Don't forget that if the merry-go-round of incompetence continues much longer - if Romney and Newt and Santorum keep hot-potatoing frontrunner status and primary victories - Ron Paul is going to waltz into the convention with a mass of delegates and a legit argument that he was the strongest and most consistent candidate.

• Standing next to the bloodless corporate cipher Mitt Romney and the pompous, bloviating egomaniac Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum - creepy religious lunatic Rick Santorum! - came off like Clarence Darrow breaking up a Klan rally. "Rick Santorum, en fuego!" cracked one of the reporters in the media room, during Santorum's tirade about Newt's "grandiosity."

• After the revolution comes and the Show Trial/Firing Squad period of our history begins, someone from CNN is going to have to answer some very tough questions about "Kevin," the cheesy guy the network brought onstage before the debate to warm up the crowd and introduce John King. Casual viewers at home did not have to see this performance, so I won't share anything about it here, but if anyone among the press or the audience from last night has an explanation for me about that whole business, please write to me and let me know, because I'm very confused.

Anyway, I have to get back on the road to a Mitt rally. More later ...

P.S. I'm giving away a hi-res "Starve The Squid" poster to the reader who comes closest to calling tomorrow night's election results. I'm guessing:

Gingrich 31

Romney 23

Santorum 23

Paul 23

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What are these weird sounds being heard around the globe?

VERY STRANGE -- Go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5XsVZ8OgTs   What do you think might be causing these sounds?  Check out the right sidebar at this site for several more instances of this sound. It's been heard in London, Los Angeles, Maryland, New Jersey, Mexico, Russia, Romania, Alaska, Canada, etc., etc. This phenomenon Is making the news in local papers, radio stations, and TV channels -- but, of course, the corporate-owned major media will not allow reporting on it. 

I suspect it may have something to do with HAARP (High
Frequency Active Auroral Reasearch Program).  For more info. about the infamous and insidious HAARP program located in Alaska, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnRPZOUVhJ4   When you learn what this program is about and what it can do, you will be alarmed at its far-reaching impact/import for our planet and its inhabitants.   The consequences of this program can be devastating to us and our Earth. 

Check out the strange formation of clouds being seen around the world also.  They are very unnatural and are apparently being caused by an electromagnetic force of some kind.  See these clouds on youtube.  Here's one site, and you can find many more in the sidebars:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=UjkakKP1btk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZYMCE3qbrE&feature=related

We owe it to ourselves and our children to inform ourselves about these events occurring all over our planet.  Please watch the DVD "Thrive" made by Foster Gamble and his wife. Gamble is an heir of the Procter-Gamble corporation.  You can watch "Thrive" for $5 on the website www.thrivemovement.com or buy it for $20 on amazon.com.  You will be amazed/astounded and probably very concerned when you learn about what is being done to us, without our knowledge, by the ruling forces on Earth.  You may want to dismiss this as just "quackery" or "junk," but I urge you to watch the film Thrive and then see what you think, after having reviewed its information.  The credibility of this film and all of the scientific, government and military experts and witnesses who appear in it cannot be denied. After watching it, you may want to share its information with friends.  We are all in this together. 

We need to wake up and realize what is happening, folks!  Watch "Thrive" and other documentaries that have been prepared by those who have woken up and are trying to alert the rest of us to the dangers we and our planet are in!  Isn't it better to know about these things and try to do something about it, than to hide our heads in the sand?




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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Newt: The Family Values Guy (testimony from his 2nd wife)

So, it seems that one part of that juicy ABC News "bombshell" interview with Marianne Gingrich concerns one of the "big ideas" that Newt Gingrich, hive of constant innovation, had during the period of time the former House Speaker was out of office: he wanted Marianne, his second wife, to enter into an "open marriage" arrangement, so that he could continue to consort with Callista Bisek. (You know, the third wife that introduced him to Catholicism.)

ABC's Brian Ross interviewed Gingrich about the matter:


GINGRICH: I said to him, we've been married a long time. And he said, yes, but you want me all to yourself. Callista doesn't care what I do.

ROSS: What was he saying to you, do you think?

GINGRICH: He was asking to have an open marriage, and I refused.

ROSS: He wanted an open marriage.

GINGRICH: Yeah, that I accept the fact that he has somebody else in his life.

ROSS: And you said?

GINGRICH: No. No. That is not a marriage.

Of course, to a certain extent, this is something we've already basically known. Let's recall that in the August 2010 Esquire profile of Gingrich, Marianne offered this account of their marriage's last days:

Early in May, she went out to Ohio for her mother's birthday. A day and a half went by and Newt didn't return her calls, which was strange. They always talked every day, often ten times a day, so she was frantic by the time he called to say he needed to talk to her.

"About what?"

He wanted to talk in person, he said.

"I said, 'No, we need to talk now.'"

He went quiet.

"There's somebody else, isn't there?"

She kind of guessed it, of course. Women usually do. But did she know the woman was in her apartment, eating off her plates, sleeping in her bed?

She called a minister they both trusted. He came over to the house the next day and worked with them the whole weekend, but Gingrich just kept saying she was a Jaguar and all he wanted was a Chevrolet. "'I can't handle a Jaguar right now.' He said that many times. 'All I want is a Chevrolet.'"

He asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused.

So, the new wrinkle here is that Marianne Gingrich is characterizing this as a desire on Newt's part to have an open marriage, rather than just have his wife tolerate his affair on the side. In many ways, this is a distinction without a difference, though I suppose it now makes a lot of his new demonstrations of Catholic conversion to be ... well, I suppose the phrase we're using these days is, "pious bologna."

Newt Gingrich has yet to weigh in on these new allegations from his ex-wife. In the past, he's written off his infidelities as events that occurred while he was too busy loving America.

UPDATE: There's been a mad dash to break these Marianne Gingrich scooplets, and the Washington Post has their own interview with Marianne Gingrich on the matter of this "open marriage." (This is the "exclusive print interview" with Marianne Gingrich, by the way.)

The fun part is that we learn that the day after Newt Gingrich asked Marianne for a divorce, he gave a lecture to the Republican Women Leaders Forum titled, "The Demise of American Culture" in which he decried the way liberals "talk about values," suggesting that they would not prefer that "young people" to "learn that George Washington was...A man of standards, a man who earned the right to be father of this country?"

As Marianne Gingrich told the Post:

“How could he ask me for a divorce on Monday and within 48 hours give a speech on family values and talk about how people treat people?” she said.

I mean...has she met Newt Gingrich?

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Mitt feels our pain

A Letter from Mitt Romney

About My Finances


SOUTH CAROLINA (The Borowitz Report) – Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney has released the following letter to the American people:

Dear American People:

Over the past several days, my personal finances have been distorted into a grotesque caricature by the mainstream media, pundits, and other people who can count.  I am writing to you to set the record straight by explaining my finances in terms the American people can relate to.

Let’s say you bought a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982 for $5,000.  A couple of years later, what do you know, you sell that same bottle for $10,000.  So you just made a profit of $5,000 through your own hard work.  How much of that should you pay to the government?  I’d say fifteen percent.

Now let’s say you have a fellow mowing the lawn at your 7,000 square foot home in La Jolla, and he turns out to be an illegal.  You say, “No way, Jose” (Jose is actually his real name) and send him packing.  He doesn’t deserve his full paycheck, since he lied to you in Spanish, but it wouldn’t be fair to give him nothing, either.  So you pay him fifteen percent.

Now let’s pretend the United States of America is like one big restaurant.  Not a fancy restaurant, mind you, but one that only gets two Michelin stars.  And let’s say that you order a meal of Beluga caviar, white truffles and gold shavings, washing it down with your favorite beverage, Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982.  The bill arrives and it’s quite a hefty one for a working stiff who only made $375,000 last year in speaking fees.  (That’s right: minimum wage.) So when it comes to toting up the bill, how much should I tip the waiter, who in case you’re having trouble following this metaphor is the IRS?  You got it: fifteen percent.

I think I’ve now shown, using these real-life examples that everyone can relate to, that no one should ever pay more than fifteen percent on their taxes.  If you have been paying more than that, you should get rid of your loser accountant pronto.  That’s another thing I have in common with regular Americans: we like firing people.

So – now that I’ve laid it out in simple terms that even you can understand, do you agree that you and Mitt Romney have a whale of a lot more in common than you thought?  I’ll bet you ten grand you do.

Au revoir,

Mitt

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Monday, January 16, 2012

Why the Republican's View of Success Is a Path to Self-Destruction

Republicans, at their peril, are ignoring the shift away from sole self-interest that is taking place in society. A growing awareness of interconnection is happening all over the planet--in science, in social/political issues, and in religions/spirituality.  Read this wise article by Douglas LaBier to see how those who ignore this change are contributing to their own demise:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/douglas-labier/republican-party-success_b_1207521.html

EXCERPTS:
The prospect of a societal shift towards a more inclusive view of success and how it can contribute solutions to our challenges is heightened by trends in that direction already visible. Some examples:

• A growing movement towards serving common good through charity and individual acts.
• The application of scientific research to building compassion and diminishing egocentrism.
• The simple expression of a little girl who, in this video, instinctively "gets" the reality of interconnection.
• New management philosophies about sustainability and leadership.
• The growing merger of new psychological perspectives about emotional health, ancient spiritual teachings about the authentic self, and the discoveries of modern science, as Deepak Chopra and others have written about.

BUT
the Republican candidates embrace a self-interest-oriented, wealth-based view of success. It maintains that success and stability occur and prevail through unfettered pursuit of self-interest and in the absence of government regulations. It includes the failed policies of deregulation, lower taxes for the wealthiest and reducing the deficit. It also includes social and religious values that are acceptable to them as necessary for a successful life, as they define it.

In short, the Republican candidates' view of success is exclusionary, anti-inclusive, and opposed to serving the common good. Consistent with that view, Romney sees any criticism of it and of the financial inequality it creates as simply "envy" of the rich. But describing its negative consequences isn't "putting free enterprise on trial," as Romney likes to claim. Nor is it a stepping stone to a "European-style social welfare state." In fact, the recent polls showing opposition to the growing inequality between the rich and the rest of society reflect increased awareness of the negative impact the singular view of success had, the one that Republican candidates willingly embrace.

Until recently, that is. By attacking Romney's work at Bain Capital as "vulture capitalism" and destructive to people's lives, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have -- perhaps unwittingly -- heightened public awareness of the damage created not by capitalism, per se, but by different kinds of capitalism, as E.J. Dionne pointed out in his recent Washington Post column. It's the contrast between the goals of extracting value vs. building something that generates value; "vulture" vs. "creative" capitalism.


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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Bill Hicks -- a great comedian who told the truth -- and died young

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11Fl9ZVJ7B8
Bill Hicks on the JFK assassination.  It's so true that we are being dumbed down by the establishment/power cabal, which doesn't want us questioning them about anything--and delivers the Soma of gladiators/sports/reality shows on TV.  Sadly, Bill Hicks died of pancreatic cancer at age 32.  
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Oh how I miss George Carlin -- speaker of Truth

George Carlin on The Truth About Republicans:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlKMy65dyz4&feature=related

EXCELLENT Carlin piece:  On the Iluminati and the New World Order and Why You Are in Debt:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PkWf9M3rUw&feature=related  Carlin says "Nobody notices, nobody seems to care..."  Oh, how true that is!  Just try to tell someone about the Illuminati, about the Federal Reserve, about chemtrails, about the corporate-owned major media that doesn't tell the truth, about 9/11 and the purposeful taking down of the buildings, about how we are owned and it doesn't matter who is elected, because the puppeteers are running everything--- and see the reaction.  It's usually either denial, ridicule or a yawnCarlin was a man ahead of his time who saw clearly--and I empathize with him.


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Monday, January 09, 2012

Other Candidates Fib to Rick Perry as "Humane Thing to Do" (Andy Borowitz humor)




   
January 9, 2012

Other Republicans Agree Not to Tell Rick Perry Where Next Debate Is

‘Only Humane Thing,’ Candidates Say

CONCORD, NH (The Borowitz Report) – In a move that they are calling “the only humane thing to do,” the other Republican candidates for President have agreed not to tell Texas governor Rick Perry where the next debate is being held.

The candidates reached the decision after a two-debate weekend in which Mr. Perry put in a performance that, in the words of former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, was “brave, but painful to watch.”

Immediately following the final New Hampshire debate on Sunday morning, an awkward scene unfolded onstage as Mr. Perry asked the other candidates, “So, where is everyone going now?”

“Um, I don’t know, Rick,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, looking down at his shoes.

“Isn’t there going to be another debate after this?” Mr. Perry persisted.

“Not that I know of, Rick,” said former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, pretending to text with his phone.  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

After Mr. Perry left the stage, Mr. Romney told a reporter that he “felt bad about fibbing to Rick,” but added, “Putting him out there onstage again would just be cruel.”

Elsewhere, in the NFL on Sunday, God defeated Satan in overtime.

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Sunday, January 08, 2012

A Campaign Pruned of Bushes

By Frank Bruni, NY Times

You never hear any of the present GOP candidates mention either former president Bush, #41 or #43. You'd think they'd never existed; they've just been erased by today's Repugs.  Wonder why?  Read on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/bruni-a-campaign-pruned-of-bushes.html?_r=1
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Should be read by everyone -- Will the left support Obama?

Will the Left Support Obama?   (Be sure to read the Readers' Comments at the end -- they represent a cross-section of disappointed Progressives.)
By Bob Burnett
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bob-burnett/40614/2012-will-the-left-support-obama

EXCERPT:
...the American social contract is broken -- the economy does not work for the benefit of all the people and the political system is deadlocked.

Most of the 99 percent agree the root cause of this failure is the increased power of corporations in American society. The most recent evolution of capitalism, multinational corporate capitalism, is at odds with democracy. Global corporations don't want to be restricted by the common-sense rules and obligations that democracies require in order to survive. The 1 percent wants the U.S. government to operate as a plutocracy where the corporate CEOs and the wealthy call the shots. In contrast the 99 percent wants the government to operate as a democracy for the common good.

For the 30 years since Ronald Reagan took office there has been a widening gap been the right and the left. 2011 saw this become an insurmountable chasm. The year began with an extreme faction of the right, Tea Party Republicans, seizing control of the GOP majority in the House of Representatives. Republicans ignored the jobs crisis, a feckless war in Afghanistan, global climate change, and other daunting problems, and dogmatically focused on "fiscal austerity," their claim the U.S. is going broke because government is cause of all our problems. As a consequence, Washington ground to a halt and the common good of the 99 percent was ignored.

The left responded with the Occupy Wall Street movement.  (Read rest of article at: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bob-burnett/40614/2012-will-the-left-support-obama )
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