Friday Rant: Billion Dollar Men

Return with me now to the year 1972. That was quite a tumultuous time in America. The Vietnam War was winding down, a controversial new sitcom named All in the Family topped the Neilson ratings and had tongues wagging around water coolers all across the nation, a young filmmaker named Francis Ford Coppola scored his first big success with The Godfather, starring a young, unknown actor named Al Pacino…oh, and incumbent President Richard Nixon scandalized the nation by raising the then-unprecedented sum of $40 million for his reelection campaign, much of it from wealthy, fat cat donors.

Nixon, of course, got into hot water not so much for the obscene amounts of money his campaign raised that year but because his operatives used a portion of the dough to finance a succession of dirty tricks, including the Watergate break in, that ultimately resulted in his resignation in 1974. That same year in the wake of the scandal, Congress created the Federal Election Commission and placed a hard cap on the amount of money individual donors could give to campaigns. With periodic tweaking, the 1974 campaign finance measures remained the law of the land until the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, which effectively eliminated any limits on campaign donations and turned the clock back on 40 years of earnest but ultimately doomed attempts to eliminate the effects of big money on politics.

And now, during this first post-Citizens United election cycle we are already seeing the effects of the court’s ruling as the two major party candidates are engaging in a Romanesque orgy of fundraising that would have made even old Tricky Dick blush. Here is the Atlantic Wire with the story:

Mitt Romney's campaign has set a fundraising target of $800 million for this election cycle, setting up a race with President Obama that could see each side spending more than $1 billion by November. It also guarantees that, for the first time in a generation, neither candidate will accept public financing for their campaign.

The new "Romney Victory" fund — which we first mentioned yesterday — is a collaboration between the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee that, according to The New York Times, hopes to raise $500 million in donations from big-spending donors and "bundlers." They also hope to gain another $300 million in smaller contributions directly to the campaign. Add in another $200 million in Super PAC money (which is technically independent of the Republican effort, but will be spent by outside groups opposed to the President) and that could mean more than $1 billion spent in an effort to unseat the incumbent.

Of course, they have their work cut out for them. Romney, who had to fight a primary challenge against a large field of fellow Republicans, has "only" raised about $86 million so far. More money will certainly flow to him as the general election heats up and those who have been willing to support him so far latch on to the nominee. But President Obama has already raised around $350 million for his efforts, most of which has been sitting and waiting for an opponent that he can bury under it. He raised $53 million in March and he hasn't even really started campaigning yet. Considering that he raised $750 million in 2008, despite splitting Democratic support in a bitter primary fight himself, another billion from his side is also pretty likely.

No matter which side wins the money war, there's no doubt that this will be the most expensive presidential campaign of all time, dwarfing the races from even just four years. In that race, the two nominees — Obama and John McCain — set records by breaking the $1 billion mark between them, but that sum is no longer enough for even one candidate. And that doesn't even begin to account for the outside money that will also flood airwaves this fall. The totals have become so staggering that they almost defy complaints from those who wish to see someone put the brakes on money in politics. With so much being spent and seemingly no hope for reform, Americans may just have to resign themselves the fact that the money game is impossible to beat.

I never thought I would ever say this, but I agree completely with the Atlantic Wire on this one. The fact is that Americans DO need to resign themselves to the fact that the money game is impossible to beat. The only way Citizens United could be overturned is with a Constitutional Amendment, and that has zero chance of happening in a political environment in which no measure that does not have at least 61% support needed to end a filibuster has any chance of getting past the hopelessly gridlocked Senate. And even if it somehow managed to squeak through the two houses, it would still need 75% of the state legislatures to pass it in order for it to be adopted. I have about as much chance of landing a date with Megan Fox as that does ever happening.

The first takeaway lesson from all of this for the average American is that they should never, ever donate money to a political campaign. A puny $100 or even $1000 check will buy you exactly ZERO influence when there are billions of dollars at stake. How much harder do they need to hit the voters over the fucking head before they finally recognize the truth? Save that cash, or give it to a worthy charity if you must. Heck, buy a copy of my book. I swear I’ll only spend the proceeds on beer, which is a promise far more likely to be kept than anything which will emit from Obama or Romney’s pie holes during the course of the campaign.

The second lesson should be perfectly obvious and I’ve said it here many times, but I’m going to say it again because so few people have gotten it through their think skulls. The millionaires and the billionaires now own the political process lock, stock and barrel. Yes, the votes are still tallied up on Election Day, and with the exception of a few hanging chads or Diebold shenanigans, the candidate with the majority or a plurality of them usually wins. The problem is that it no longer matters regarding any issue of real importance who the winning candidate is. The game is completely rigged in the nomination process of the two major parties. The general election is nothing but an elaborate stage show put on for benefit of the partisan zealots, the hopelessly naive and the utterly distracted, who between them constitute the overwhelming majority of the voting public.

It is too early to say for sure how this election is going to shake out, but here is one prediction I will make with 100% confidence. On January 20, 2013, the president-elect will raise his right hand and take the oath of office with every intention of serving the interests of the wealthy elites who put him there over the interests of the tens of millions of voters who stupidly cast their ballots for him. The only thing we do not know for certain yet is which of the two major candidates will be the one who sells the rest of us down the fucking river for four more grueling years.


Bonus: Forgive me, but this song is too perfect NOT to use here

Friday Rant: Craven Miami Marlins Suspend Ozzie Guillen Over Fidel Castro Remarks

I’ll admit that I have a soft spot for controversial Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen. I grew up a fan of the hapless Chicago White Sox, and for my first four decades of life on this planet despaired that I would ever get to see my team appear in a World Series, let alone win it. Then in 2005 Ozzie was the manager who achieved what so many previous White Sox managers, including the legendary Tony LaRussa, failed to do: he led the Pale Hose to a baseball world championship.

Moreover, Guillen is not one of those purposely colorless athletic figures who give bland, unenlightening statements to the press in every interview hoping never to offend anybody. He is instead refreshingly brash and unafraid to speak his mind, even if he can at times be combative and quite often doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. As a fan, part of the attraction of having Ozzie manage your team is that you are never really quite sure what he is going to say or do next.

Unfortunately for Ozzie, he switched locales this past offseason from the chilly shores of Lake Michigan to the balmy climes of South Florida. And whereas jaded Chicagoans were much more inclined to just write off his more outrageous pronouncements as “Ozzie being Ozzie” especially as long as he kept winning, clearly Miamians, especially those of Cuban descent, have much less of a sense of humor.

So it was that Ozzie found himself in considerable hot water this past week for these remarks he made in an interview with Time magazine:

“I love Fidel Castro… I respect Fidel Castro, you know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that motherf****r is still here.”

The funny thing about this whole stupid media manufactured controversy is that what Guillen said is really not all that different from another comment he made back in 2008 in an interview with Men’s Journal:

"Fidel Castro," he said. "He's a bull---- dictator and everybody's against him, and he still survives, has power. Still has a country behind him. Everywhere he goes they roll out the red carpet. I don't admire his philosophy. I admire him."

Clearly, these are not so much political statements as expressions of admiration for a man who has been a survivor on the world scene for decades despite having many powerful enemies. And really, how can you NOT admire Castro at least for that? Was Castro a dictator who came to power through violent means? Absolutely. But he was not much different in that regard than the man he replaced, Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar. What’s more, by 20th century standards Castro was hardly the most brutal dictator out there, and in fact he was no worse than many other dictators that the United States has actually supported during that time.

So now, Guillen has been suspended by his team for five games and forced to apologize just for expressing a candid opinion while right-wingers cackle with glee. The same right-wingers, I might add, who would no doubt be outraged had Guillen been suspended for making some intemperate remarks about Obama—because it is only kosher for those assholes to complain against “political correctness” when it is being wielded as a weapon in their direction.

I initially tried to avoid writing about this story because it depresses me immensely, but it just kept mushrooming until I felt compelled to say something about it. First off, Ozzie Guillen is a baseball manager. He has absolutely no influence over American foreign policy, and his opinions count in the grand scheme of things for exactly the same amount as mine do…in other words they don’t count for jack shit. The idiots who were out there protesting his remarks need to get a fucking grip already. Or better yet, if they are so damned concerned about what is going on Cuba maybe they ought to just pick up and go back there.

Secondly, regarding the craven ownership of the Miami Marlins, it would be one thing to put out an official statement affirming that the opinions expressed were the personal opinions of Ozzie Guillen and not the Miami Marlins baseball club. But by suspending Guillen they have set a very bad precedent in which any fringe group with a chip on its shoulder will demand a suspension for anyone in their organization who says something they perceive as offensive. Considering that the team employs a large group of rich young male athletes—a demographic not exactly known for its sensitivity, particularly towards women—they really should have thought this action through a little better.

But lastly and most importantly, this incident has once again aimed the direct spotlight at America’s absolutely asinine foreign policy towards Cuba. The last time that tiny island nation posed any legitimate threat to the United States was when President Kennedy stared down Nikita Khrushchev and forced him to withdraw the Soviet nuclear missiles that were being installed there. Since the end of the Cold War and the loss of its Soviet patron, Cuba has essentially lost the ability to project its power or even much influence beyond its own borders.

The country today, where the aged and infirm Castro is no longer even the president any more, has little significance on the world stage. And as for the regime still being technically “communist,” like in China and Vietnam that term no longer has much if any remaining relevance. Cuba is certainly not a democratic society, but given just how tightly the billionaire oligarchs control American politics and how most U.S. government policies involving support for big business, war and empire change little if at all no matter which party is in power, one could reasonably make the same exact argument about this country.

It is long past time or America to get over its petulance about its failure to dislodge Castro after he thumbed his nose at us after the revolution. His side won and the side of the Cuban exiles in Miami lost. In that they are no different than the losers of any war throughout world history, and in fact are living much better lives than do most unfortunates who have ever found themselves in that situation. They can continue to whine and moan about the downfall of the corrupt, gangster-ridden regime Castro replaced, but the rest of the world has rightly moved on. As for Ozzie Guillen, if because of this stupid flap he stops running his yap he'll become just another supremely uninteresting sports personality.


Bonus: A sweet little tune from the criminally underrated Florida indie rock band, The Silos, off of their classic 1987 album, "Cuba"

Friday Rant: Bush Family Appalled By A Political Climate They Did So Much To Help Create

Remember Willie Horton? He was the convicted murderer who back in 1986, while participating in a Massachusetts prisoner furlough program, went on a wild crime spree down in Maryland, committing rape, aggravated assault and grand theft auto before being shot by the police and recaptured. His case was tragic for his victims, but really should not have been of much interest to anyone other than those directly involved. Two years later, however, Lee Atwater, presidential campaign manager for then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, decided to make Horton in his words a “household name” by using the killer in a nationwide series of attack ads against Bush’s Democratic opponent, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.

Dukakis had not been in office when the Massachusetts prison furlough program was established, though in fairness he did support the prisoner rehabilitation thinking behind it. As such, he certainly deserved to be asked some hard questions about the program during the campaign so that there could be a reasonable national discussion about whether such prison furlough programs were at all beneficial given the risks involved.

But that isn’t how it played out. Instead, the Bush campaign played the “Willie Horton…Willie Horton…Willie Horton” drumbeat over and over again in a relentless smear against Dukakis. That Horton was black was an added bonus, helping Bush to play the divisive race card without actually having to say anything overtly racist. It all worked beautifully, of course. Bush sailed on to win election to the presidency in his own right, aided and abetted by Dukakis’s manifest unfitness as a candidate.

Of course, it didn’t end there. The Willie Horton ads proved so effective in changing the political climate that four years later, when then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton was challenging Bush’s reelection, he made a point of interrupting his campaign in order to fly back to Arkansas to oversee the execution of convicted cop killer Ricky Ray Rector, who had effectively lobotomized himself during a suicide attempt. In our brave new, post-Willie Horton world, showing any compassion towards a mentally challenged prisoner was now unthinkable.

It is probably no exaggeration to say that the 1988 presidential campaign was a huge milestone along the way to America now having the most draconian criminal justice system of any non-authoritarian state in the world. With that one campaign, Bush and his minions basically created a political climate in which it became impossible for any politician to discuss crime and punishment issues rationally without fear of being labeled “soft on crime.”

Such hardball political tactics became the norm for the Bush family. When George Bush the Lesser launched his own presidential campaign in 2000, Atwater’s protégé, Karl Rove, perfected his mentor’s divide-and-conquer political strategy. Since no Democrat with national political ambitions would ever again let himself or herself be seen as being on the wrong side of the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" mentality, the targets instead diversified to include gays, Muslims, atheists, “feminazis” and anyone else who could effectively be tarred as “un-American” in simple-minded attack ads. Looking back on their sorry ass record, it is evident that there is no single entity more responsible for the coarsening of public discourse and the dumbing down of American politics during the past quarter century than the Bush family. Even Richard Milhous Nixon himself probably would have blushed at some of Rove's antics.

Which makes it even more appalling to hear that this group of entitled, arrogant, elitist bluebloods masquerading as Texas rednecks now professes to be horrified by the rhetoric coming out of this year’s presidential campaign. First there was this quote in the Huffington Post a few weeks ago from former Florida Governor Jeb Bush:

"I used to be a conservative and I watch these debates and I'm wondering, I don't think I've changed, but it's a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people's fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective and that's kind of where we are," said the former Florida governor Thursday while answering a question from the audience during a speech in Dallas, according to Fox News. "I think it changes when we get to the general election. I hope."

Wow, those are some pretty amazing words coming from the guy whose daddy and idiot older brother made their political careers, “appealing to people's fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective.”

Not to be outdone was Jeb’s mother, the matriarch and, if you believe what the aforementioned Nixon said about her, the real hater in the family. Here is what Barbara Bush had to say from a recent CNN report:

Former first lady Barbara Bush on Monday said she was not a fan of the current presidential race.

"It's been, I think, the worst campaign I've ever seen in my life. I hate it," Bush said at a conference at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "I hate the fact that people think 'compromise' is a dirty word."

Her comments, recorded by CNN affiliate WFAA, came during a conference on the impact of presidents' wives.

With her daughter-in-law, former first lady Laura Bush, sitting by her side, Mrs. Bush argued the level of political discourse has declined over the years.

"I think the rest of the world is looking at us these days and saying, 'What are you doing?'" she said.

Actually, Barbara, I think much of the rest of the world was already asking that question when we allowed your alcoholic, coke addled, draft dodging, loser eldest son to be installed into the presidency twice despite his lifelong record of being a complete fuck up and then rallied behind the little prick as he blundered us into a completely unnecessary and disastrous war of choice. In fact, given all of the damage wrought upon the country by your family and the fact that at least one of your clan ought to be on trial for war crimes, it would really be just dandy if all of you would at the very least just keep your fucking mouths shut from here on out and spare us your mendacious opinion about the deplorable state of American political discourse.


Bonus: There are a number of excellent anti-Bush songs out there, but perhaps none is more biting than this one from hippie singer-songwriter Todd Snider

Friday Rant: Billionaire Mark Cuban Has Some Money Making Advice For The Young Uns

I haven't done a Friday Rant in awhile, so hopefully I'm not out of practice. For those of you who don't follow the NBA, Mark Cuban is the owner of the world champion Dallas Mavericks. His net worth is in the billions of dollars, and apparently he is a flaming asshole to boot. That's the only explanation I can come up with for what compelled him to write the article below for Business Insider:

Every kid needs to make some money, right? You want a job. You can’t get a job. You need experience. You got no experience. High School and College kid problems.

But fear not. Not every job has to be a career. Money plays. You don’t need brilliant ideas. Sometimes you just need to make some money for the summer. Or to pay for your braces. Or to pay for the phone bill your parents killed you on. Whatever you need cash for, it's always a problem that needs solving.

To solve your big money problems, sometimes you only need to solve simple problems. Sometimes you just need to be creative. I’m going to give you 2 ideas any student going to any school can do to make more than minimum wage.

1. Shoelaces.

Say what? Shoelaces. I said it.

I guarantee you that if you go to the parking lot of any high school or college football game with a bunch of shoelaces in team colors that you bought for 2 bucks a pop, and put up a sign and 2 chairs, you can make money. Not football season? Go to where ever there are people in your community. Flea Market. Basketball Game. Dance recital. Wherever people who go to your school show up, you show up. You set up your sign and your chairs.

On the sign you put something like ”Get in the YOUR-SCHOOL spirit.” I will re-lace your shoes with “YOUR-SCHOOL” color laces for $10 (small schools), $20 bucks (big schools with more drunk alums or lots of rich people). If you want to make it even more fun, you can add “I will lace them in 5 minutes or they are free”. If you are really enterprising, you can put up on the poster about 5 different ways to lace the shoes and charge a premium for anything but “Missionary” lacing.
Easy money. Guaranteed.

2. Become an expert in programming All-in-one T.V. remote controls. People are buying a single remote control to replace all the remotes they have. No one really wants to take the time to figure out all the options. No one wants to take the time to learn how to program the stupid remote. In fact it pisses them off that it takes far more time than they have to do something they bought the stupid remote to do.

To help solve everyone’s problem, go to a local electronics store and find out what remotes they sell. Go to the local Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc, etc. if the grocery store sells remotes go there too. Find out what the most popular sellers are. How do you find out which are the most popular? You ask someone.

Then, you become an expert in programming those remote controls. The worlds best expert. Once you know your shit, go back to the store with business cards with your email/cell phone number on it and the following:

Your Name
I will program any Remote Control for $20
I Have a Phd In Remote Control Programming
Cell #/Email/Website

Then you go to all the stores and tell them that their customers will be far happier if they send them to you to program the remote. You will program it exactly like they want it, connecting to any and all devices. All the store has to do is let you put up a stack of cards next to the remote control; maybe a little sign. Then you give a sheepish grin to the manager of the electronics or remote control section of the store and tell them how this is really important to you and how you will do a great job, you promise. Then every couple days you go back to the store and talk to the salespeople who work there and remind them about your PHD in Remote Control Programming and how if they send you enough business, you might be able to spiff them a commission.

Then you damn well do a great job or some other kid is going to steal your remote control programming business.

There you go. Easy breezy money. Nothing fancy. Nothing complicated. Just some hard work, some customer service and the ability to be nice to people and thank them when they pay you and tip you.

I don't think I have ever in my life read such an arrogant, condescending pile of fucking rubbish. Shoelaces and universal remotes? That's this psychopath's advice to young people who need to raise tens of thousands of dollars just to be able to afford a college tuition these days? It sounds like something a bitter, dried up old prune confined in an assisted living facility might say right before they serve him his tapioca pudding, but according to his Wikipedia page, Cuban himself is only 53 years old.

I'm not saying it is bad advice for young people to be industrious or entrepreneurial, but could Cuban have picked two more inane supposed money making schemes for his article? How much of a fucking market could their possibly be for colored shoelaces at a sporting event? Great, let's get 'em started early peddling cheap shit people don't need. That's how we got into this fucking mess in the first place.

And exactly how would you react if some kid you don't know handed you a business card saying he could program your remote control for $20? Even if you are so inept that you can't follow the instructions, would you trust him to come to your house? Or would you more likely suspect that he might be wanting to case the joint so he could rob you later?

Take this tripe for what it is, an attempt by someone who is looking to morally justify why he has billions of dollars while others are destitute. "Hey, I gave 'em some advice as to how they can work hard and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, so what the fuck else do they want from me?"

Actually, I have a better idea, Mark. How about we tax the living fuck out of rich pricks like you so that maybe young people won't have to become debt slaves just getting a college degree or going to a trade school? After all, those who are the most successful in any society should have an obligation to give the most back to that society that enabled them to have such success. I'd really like to put that proposal to a vote in a free and fair election in which you and your 0.00000001% billionaire buddies are prevented from financing political attack ads against it.

Yep, "let 'em sell shoelaces" has become the new "let 'em eat cake," with the difference being that the latter is an unfair smear against the person who supposedly said it. We can always hope that someday billionaire asshole extraordinaire Mark Cuban will share the fate of the unfortunate French Queen.


Bonus: Turning Kirsten Dunst into Marie Antoinette (soundtrack by New Order)

Friday Rant: Bipartisanship Strikes Again

It’s a common theme whenever pundits discuss our dysfunctional political system and the “gridlock” in Washington. Oh, how horrible it is that the two parties are at each others' throats all the time. Shame on all of them for not being able to work together on behalf of the voters who put them in office and fix the problems they were elected to fix. If only we could elect more “centrists” who care more about getting things done that they do about pandering to their respective bases—THEN we could start making progress and get the country rolling again.

To which I very bluntly and emphatically say: bullshit. It is precisely when our so-called “leaders” of both parties get together and agree on a particular piece of legislation that we the people get fucked the hardest. Since this ridiculously naïve (or duplicitous) theme just doesn’t seem to want to die despite its sheer absurdity, let me recount some of the more notorious examples of “bipartisanship” from the past couple of decades:

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 1994 – As I have said before on this blog, “free” trade is only free for the elites who reap the profits from the lowering of trade barriers. Working and middle class Americans are the ones who have paid dearly for NAFTA as well as other such measures like the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades through the loss of tens of millions of good paying jobs that have been sent to places like Mexico, India and China. The potential loss of such jobs was easily predictable beforehand, and yet NAFTA was passed back in 1994 in a bipartisan vote that included a total of 166 Republican Senators and Representatives and 129 Democrats before being signed into law by a Democratic president (Clinton).

Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, 1999 – Probably the most damaging piece of financial legislation in recent times was the repeal of the Great Depression era banking law and the removal of the barriers between investment and commercial banking. The demise of Glass-Steagall was a huge contributing factor in the financial crash of 2008. And yet, the final version of this horrendous piece of legislation was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of 362-57 in the House and 90-8 in the Senate. It was then signed into law by a Democratic president (Clinton), effectively thumbing his nose at a key regulatory provision enacted under the revered lion of his own party, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The Patriot Act, 2001 – The greatest single legislative curtailment of individual liberties in United States history was, of course, passed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks when a politicians across the political spectrum declared that the terrorists “hate us for our freedom” even while they worked to curtail much of that same freedom. The act created the Orwellian-named Department of Homeland Security and set the tone for all of the Constitutional abuses (electronic surveillance, militarization of police departments, “free speech” protest zones, intrusive airport scanners, etc) that have followed. And yet the final bipartisan vote on the act was 357 to 66 in the House and 98 to 1 in the Senate (the 1 “Nay” being my personal hero, former Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin).

Iraq War Resolution, 2002 – Anyone who was paying attention and actually had a conscience (not always the same thing, unfortunately) knew that the Bush administration was blatantly lying about its case for going to war against Iraq after 9/11. One wag even commented that it was as if in the wake of Pearl Harbor, America had declared war on Mexico. Our so-called “leaders” who presumably had access to most if not all of the real intelligence on Iraq were better positioned than even the average citizen to know that the case for war was complete bullshit. And yet, the final tally in favor of launching an unjustifiable attack on Iraq and butchering several hundred thousand of its citizens was 297 to 133 in the House (including 82 Democrats) and 77 to 23 in the Senate (including 29 Democrats). Even such alleged far left “liberals” as Hillary Clinton voted for the resolution.

The Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) law, 2008 – After Congress’s previous bipartisan screwup in repealing the Glass-Steagall Act helped lead to the financial crash in 2008, they decided to compound their error by giving $700 billion in taxpayer money to bail out the big banks and Wall Street. After the initial effort to pass the TARP failed in the House (with the far left and the far right of each party most opposed), the “leadership” of both parties engaged in political arm-twisting and gamesmanship until they secured enough votes to pass the bill in the face of overwhelmingly negative public sentiment. The final tally was 263-171 in the House and 74-25 in the Senate. A total of 211 Democratic Senators and Representatives as well as 126 Republicans voted “Yea” on a measure that was then signed into law by a Republican president (Bush). Moreover, had you opposed the TARP law as a voter you had no one to vote for in that November’s presidential election as both Republican candidate John McCain and Democratic candidate Barack Obama voted in favor of it.

And now we have the most recent example of this hideous dynamic in action with the bipartisan Senate vote to allow the U.S. military to indefinitely detain citizens suspected of “terrorism” anywhere in the world. If this awful measure becomes law, you might as well take the 235-year-old “damn piece of paper” that is the U.S. Constitution and run it through the shredder because it will have been rendered invalid. As reported by the Huffington Post, here is one of the more outrageous quotes in support of the proposal:

Backers of military detention of Americans -- a measure crafted by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) -- came out swinging against Udall's amendment on the Senate floor earlier Tuesday.

"The enemy is all over the world. Here at home. And when people take up arms against the United States and [are] captured within the United States, why should we not be able to use our military and intelligence community to question that person as to what they know about enemy activity?" Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said.

"They should not be read their Miranda Rights. They should not be given a lawyer," Graham said. "They should be held humanely in military custody and interrogated about why they joined al Qaeda and what they were going to do to all of us."

Yep, here you see the very worst of bipartisanship in action—a conservative Republican Senator from the Deep South rhetorically creaming his jeans in support of a piece of legislation drafted by a supposed northern “liberal.” Senator Graham is the worst kind of bloviating conscienceless windbag. There has not been a successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil in more than a decade, and yet in response to the miniscule possibility of another one he wants to subject all American citizens to being taken off the street at anytime, anywhere, based upon any spurious allegation made by a jealous ex-lover, spurned former business partner or aggrieved neighbor. Bill of Rights? We don’t need no stinking Bill of Rights, even though it has served America quite well for more than two centuries.

The final vote tally was 61 Senators voting in favor, including 16 Democrats, and only 37 opposed. Only two of the “Nay” votes were Republicans, to include Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. The only hope we have now to defeat this provision is that President Hopey-Chagey claims he opposes the measure and has threatened to veto it. But we have seen time-and-time again how easily Obama backs down in situations requiring him to take a strong moral stand, so I wouldn’t bet on it.

There you have it folks, bipartisanship in all of its appalling glory. At this point, it won’t take too many more bipartisan measures to destroy this country completely. So the next time some pundit or officeholder gets up on Fox News or MSNBC and decries the partisan rancor in Washington and imploringly asserts the need for bipartisanship, you’ll know that not only are they completely full of shit, but they probably have in mind some nefarious plan designed to grab you the citizen by the neck, forcibly hold you down and sodomize you like Marcellus Wallace in the basement torture scene from the movie, Pulp Fiction.

Friday Rant: Yes, Virginia, Our State Will Suffer Most from Defense Spending Cuts

I'm a 20-year resident of the Old Dominion, but I don't expect anyone to play the world's smallest violin for my state upon reading this recent article from Bloomberg.com:

Virginia, Hawaii and Alaska may suffer the most economic harm from defense cuts of as much as $1 trillion during the next decade, a Bloomberg Government study shows.

Those three states are the most dependent on U.S. military spending, the study found. Virginia, home of the Pentagon and the Norfolk naval base, tops the list with 13.9 percent of its gross domestic product derived from defense spending. Hawaii ranks second, at 13.5 percent, and Alaska is third with 10.7 percent. All other states are in single digits, the study showed.

Bloomberg Government examined military spending by state as Congress considers budget cuts that might threaten the economies of states such as Virginia, where the Defense Department spent $56.9 billion in fiscal 2009, the last year for which comprehensive data were available. The spending came in the form of payroll, contracts and grants.

“It is a big-ticket item for Virginia,” said Richard Brown, the state’s secretary of finance. “That would be quite a blow to Virginia if there would be a major hit.”

So where is the bulk of all that cash to Commonwealth going, anyway?

The Defense Department awarded $38.7 billion in contracts in Virginia in 2009, including $5.3 billion to Northrop Grumman Corp. of Falls Church, Virginia, $1.6 billion to Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. of McLean, Virginia, and $1 billion to CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Virginia.

Ah, so that explains all the damn McMansions they seem determined to build on every square foot of undeveloped land around here, or why the upscale Tysons Corner shopping mall is chocked full of the types of overpriced, useless shit people who have too damn much money to spend like to buy. Oh, well, that's the way is goes. Let's get hacking on that defense budget shall we?

Why no, we can't do that or the terrorists will win, or your children will be forced to speak Chinese, or something like that. Or so sayeth Obama's Secretary of Defense:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned of a “hollow force” if a congressional supercommittee fails to produce a 10- year plan that can pass Congress, which would trigger automatic spending cuts. Defense budget cuts might reach $1 trillion in that scenario, which the Pentagon says would hurt national security.

“It’s a ship without sailors,” Panetta said at a Nov. 10 Pentagon hearing. “It’s a brigade without bullets. It’s an air wing without enough trained pilots. It’s a paper tiger.”

Fucking-a, Leon, and it's about goddamned time America stops speeding towards bankruptcy at 200 MPH just to appease you fuckers in the Pentagon. Or perhaps you've never taken in the wisdom of the 16th President of the United States. You know the one...waged a war in which over 600,000 Americans became casualties? Got himself assassinated in the process. Yeah, that guy knew a thing or two about war making. Here's what he he had to say:

“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.” - Abraham Lincoln

And guess what, Leon, that is just as true today as it was when Honest Abe said it more that a century-and-a-half ago...even more so. Yeah, some madman in Russia or China could someday decide to launch the nukes in our direction, but all they would get out of that is atomized, not a drink from the Ohio River. Instead, we ARE committing suicide, just like Lincoln warned. Only it is FINANCIAL suicide and you and your ilk are the ones holding the gun to our collective temple and squeezing the trigger.

If there are any of you out there reading this blog who still maintain event a latent bit of support for Obama, I want you to read and reread scumbag Panetta's quotes above until they sink in. Whether you meant to or not, THAT is what you voted for, not peace and love and hope for all mankind.

And don't say, "but it wasn't Obama who said it," or I swear I take you over my knee and paddle your behind. Obama appointed this fucker. Panetta is now the official spokesweasel for the military-industrial complex. He is mouthing Obama's true policy position of defense war spending at the expense of everything else. Vote for President Hopey-Changey again next year, and THIS is what you'll be voting for, only without the excuse that you had no idea what Obama was going to do once he got into office.

So don't cry for us here in Virginia. Even though my state stands to suffer the most from proposed cuts in defense spending, I still have one thing to say to soulless cretin Leon and his perverted array of push button generals entrenched in that five-sided monstrosity on the banks of the Potomac River: Bring 'em on!

Friday Rant: Retail Drones "Fight Back" Against Early Black Friday Store Openings

image: a holiday tradition, Americans give thanks right before trampling each other in an orgy of mindless consumerism

Seems like some of the retail workers expected to come in on Thanksgiving night to allow their employers to get an earlier-than-ever jump start on this year's "Black Friday" are none too pleased about the prospect:

As more retailers try to turn Thanksgiving Thursday into Black Friday — some employees are fighting back.

More than 7,000 people signed an online petition on change.org asking retail giant Target to reverse its decision to open its doors on Thanksgiving Day — and allow workers to spend the holiday with family and friends.

There are hundreds of comments on the petition supporting retail workers’ rights to Thanksgiving Day off, including this one from Caroline Hemenway: “This is absurd! Corporations are treating their workforce like serfs and fomenting a toxic consumer culture. Pure, unadulterated greed.”

Ummm...yes they are, Ms. Hemenway...cause that's the AMERICAN way, don't you know. What are you, some kinda socialist?

Here is what the organizer of this effort had to say:

The campaign was launched by Anthony Hardwick, a Target employee from Omaha, Nebraska, following news that the company’s management had moved the standard Black Friday opening time from 5 a.m. on Friday to midnight on Thanksgiving. The new opening time will require employees to arrive at work by 11 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

“All Americans should be able to break bread with loved ones on Thanksgiving,” said Hardwick, who works as a part-time parking attendant at a Target store in Omaha. “With the midnight opening, employees like myself will have to leave for work right in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner. We don’t mind hard work, but cutting into our holidays is a step too far.”

“If Target doesn’t reverse its decision and allow associates to spend Thanksgiving holidays with their family, they might suffer from a fast-growing consumer backlash,” Hardwick added.

Will they? After Target, Macy’s, Best Buy and Kohl’s announced plan to open at midnight on Thanksgiving – the biggest fish of them all — Walmart — decided to go even further and open at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

Sadly, I agree with the author of this article in questioning whether there will be any backlash whatsoever against the box stores, or whether it is more likely instead that millions of slackjawed, drooling consumer zombies will be trampling each other at the stroke of midnight all across this once-great land trying to get $20 off on that loss-leader video game. Any employees who fail to show up for work as instructed will no doubt be shitcanned. After all, with the real unemployment rate well into the double digits, they can easily be replaced.

I found this article to be profoundly depressing. "Black Friday" has gone from being a quaint tradition that even my own family enjoyed when I was growing up to being a shameful annual display of the worst aspects of our mindless consumer culture. Look at the crazed idiots in that picture above from one of the notorious trampling incidents that seems to be an annual feature of this sick ritual. You just want to shout at these people: what in the FUCK is WRONG with you? Are your lives REALLY so fucking empty that you think the only thing that can possibly fill the void is the latest hot toy cheaply made in China?

You want to know why our democracy is failing? Because the same millions of people who cannot see how fucking absurd it is to spend the wee hours of Thanksgiving night elbowing each other and standing in long lines at godforasken, ugly ass box stores are the same fucking bozos who complacently go to vote for the parade of shit that is on the ballots on election day. They don't pause to reflect any more about just how awful their choices are at the polling place than they do about how Madison Avenue's soulless marketing cretins manipulated them into those stores in the first place. To be successful, any representative form of government needs informed citizens capable of critical thinking. Here's your proof as to how little of that we have these days.

So I while I certainly wish the retail employees who are signing this petition the best of luck, they have to know that if they seriously challenge the consumerist steamroller they are going to get flattened. And if the economy continues to get worse, no doubt next year the big box stores will be open at 8:00 on Thanksgiving, or 6:00. Or hell, why not just open them at noon? That way you can take your Thanksgiving dinner with you in a picnic basket to eat while you are waiting in line. That's a win-win if I've ever heard one.

The otherwise pedestrian filmmaker George Romero hit upon one genius idea back in 1978 when he set his second zombie movie, Dawn of the Dead, in a shopping mall. But even Romero must these days be amazed at just how apt his snarky metaphor has become. I get sick and tired of hearing clueless conventional liberal and progressive commentators who are always coming up with unworkable political ideas as to how we can "save" our economy. What are we saving, exactly? This? I say let it all fucking burn.


Bonus: The Dead are already walking the Earth.

Friday Rant: Chrysler's New $40,000, Gas Guzzling Boondoggle

You would have thought that when the Obama administration raped the taxpayers used taxpayer money to bail out dinosaur automakers GM and Chrysler that at the VERY LEAST it would insist that the two companies get serious about focusing on building more fuel efficient cars. After all, gasoline prices spiked to above four dollars a gallon the summer before the Mighty O's election, and the resulting market crash was a big factor in the country consenting to be governed by a guy whose last name is merely one letter away from "Osama."

Well, if we've learned anything about President Hopey-Changey these past three grueling years, it's that he will doing ANYTHING to maintain the illusion of business as usual and won't lift a finger to change the ways of big corporations, even after giving those corporations billions of dollars to save their asses. The latest example of this depressing dynamic in action was reported this week:

The special edition Wrangler will hit showrooms next month for a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $36,495 for the two-door model and $40,070 for the four-door (Jeep Wrangler Unlimited) model, not including destination fees. Regular 2012 Wrangler models start at $22,045.

Sounds like just the kind of vehicle we need on the roads to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, doesn't it? Paint that sucker lime green while you're at it, cause that's a "planet-saver" right there.

But wait, it get worse when you consider the mentality of the people to whom they are trying to sell this new monstrosity:

Chrysler Group LLC is taking its Jeep partnership with video game publisher Activision to a whole new level with "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3," according to officials.

In preparation for the game’s midnight release, the Auburn Hills-based automaker Monday launched a “groundbreaking campaign for the 2012 Wrangler Call of Duty: MW3 Special Edition.”

“This is more than an advertising campaign, this is a true experience that captures the excitement one feels when playing ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’ and when driving the all-new 2012 Jeep Wrangler Call of Duty: MW3 Special Edition,” said Olivier Francois, Chrysler chief marketing officer.

The campaign dubs the Wrangler as, “The toughest vehicle in the world. Any world.” Ads will introduce the new tagline, as well as the soon-to-be released special edition version of the brand’s popular vehicle.

That's right, Chrysler took your tax money and mine so it could develop a car that costs more than one-and-a-half times the median annual American income in order to sell it to well-to-do alleged adult human beings who spend much of their free time playing a hyper-violent video game. Can you say, "professional athletes?" I KNEW you could! By the way, I seriously doubt that anyone with a highly pretentious name like Olivier Francois would ever be caught dead doing something as lowbrow as playing Call of Duty video games.

Have you never had the "pleasure" of playing one of the Call of Duty games (I haven't), the image above of a modern city being blasted to pieces is a screen shot from it. Not that I don't have my own guilty pleasures, but none of them have ever filled me with a burning desire to go out and buy an outrageously expensive car to advertise the fact that I have too much money and not enough brains.

Worse yet as far as real world effects on our dwindling oil supplies go, according to the Department of Energy this new $40,000 monstrosity will get exactly 17 MPG in the city and 21 MPG highway. I hate to break it to the many delusional souls who will no doubt rush out to be one of the first to own one of these hideous abominations, but when the gasoline supplies run out in the not-too-distant future, you are not going to be the badass hunter, but rather the sitting duck hunted. Because in real life, the game is played for keepsies.

Friday Rant: Why the “Americans Elect” Third Party is Another Really Bad Idea

Public opinion poll after public opinion poll have clearly shown that an overwhelming majority of Americans are absolutely fed up with the two major parties. Certainly with good reason: ever since the economic crash of 2008, our so-called “leaders” have been making a grand spectacle of themselves, exchanging barbs and insults like petulant schoolchildren while doing little to alleviate the very real economic suffering being experienced by millions. In that spirit, many people dream that a third party will somehow rise up and be able to ride this wave of discontent right into the White House next year.

Some are no doubt pinning their hopes on Americans Elect, a third party effort that plans to nominate a candidate for president via the Internet. If you haven’t yet heard of this group, here is the Los Angeles Times with the details:

But there's likely to also be a wild card in this election. Americans Elect, a well-funded "virtual third party," plans to put a centrist presidential candidate on the ballot in all 50 states, and while he or she is unlikely to win the presidential election, the presence of a third candidate could still have a major impact on the outcome.

Americans Elect is a collection of Republicans, Democrats and independents who say they're fed up with the polarization that has poisoned American politics.

So far, so good, right? I mean any entity that has enough juice to at least throw a scare into the Donkey and the Elephant has to be a positive thing, right?

Oh come on, Bill, I hear you saying. Certainly you’re not going to heap your usual generous helping of scorn and derision upon this effort, right?

Sorry to disappoint you, but that is exactly what I intend to do. And here’s why:

Who will its candidate be? Bloomberg is frequently mentioned, even though he says he doesn't plan to run. So is Huntsman, even though he says he's only interested in the Republican nomination. It might be former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer, who has been trying to break into the Republican race; former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who retired after denouncing both parties; or independent business figures such as Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who has called on his fellow moguls to stop giving money to politicians.

If that list does anything whatsoever to inspire you, I seriously suggest you go get yourself a check up from the neck up as soon as possible. Let me knock down these sitting duck targets one by one if I may.

First of all, you simply cannot be taken seriously as a “reform” movement if your preferred candidate is billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Not only is the man a one percenter among the one-percenters, it was his thuggish cops, led by the notorious Tony Baloney, who set the precedent for abusing peaceable Occupy Wall Street protesters. If you support this guy thinking he is going to represent any change in direction from President Hopey-Changey, someone needs to do an intervention and take your voter’s registration card away because you are clearly a danger to yourself and others.

As for former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, he is currently polling within the plus or minus margin of error of zero among the Republican contenders, so I hardly see how he would throw a scare into Obama or his Republican opponent. Similarly, although former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer has been saying the right things about the corrupting effects of money in politics, he hasn’t shown enough support to even be allowed into the Republican debates.

From the other side of America’s alleged partisan divide is former Indiana Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, the kind of mealy-mouthed corporate centrist who gives centrism such a bad name. Bayh "denounced" both parties after enthusiastically voting for the Iraq War authorization, repeatedly voting for the Patriot Act and also voting for the TARP law bailing out the big banks and Wall Street. Clearly, his little tantrum was because he was miffed that the two parties don't work together OFTEN ENOUGH to fuck over the rest of us.

And do I really need to waste the pixels stating why nominating Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz is a bad idea? Am I supposed to give this guy props because he doesn’t want to donate any of his millions to regular politicians anymore? Excuse me, but fuck him. Starbucks is a scourge, blighting the landscape with thousands of ugly stores selling overpriced swill to hipster douchebags and pretentious yuppies who wouldn’t know a good cup of coffee if someone poured it over their heads.

At the risk of beating my point straight into the ground, it ought to be painfully obvious by now to anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together that there is NO hope for any meaningful change to arise within the conventional political process. A third party founded and funded by a few disaffected one-percenters has no more legitimacy than do the Republicans or the Democrats.

I guess there is a chance that some genuine, viable grass roots political movement might arise from the Occupy protests. It is too early to tell at this point. But if it does, those who nurture it along must be ever vigilant lest it get co-opted and derailed like every other such third party effort has throughout American history.

Friday Rant: A World of Shit

Last Saturday, I wrote a blog post about the travails of actress Lindsay Lohan and how the white-hot glare of fame caused her rapid descent into the living hell of hopeless narcotics addiction. Though her fans may have thought she had it all and her detractors may demonize her for throwing it all away, it is pretty clear that poor young Lindsay Lohan is very much living in a World of Shit.

In that she is no different from millions of her fellow countrymen. People whose lives are being torn asunder by forces of which they are neither aware nor are able to comprehend. Because America has entered the era of permanent peak oil-induced economic contraction, they have lost their jobs and will likely never be meaningfully employed again. These aimless and idle citizens of the empire have been cast adrift in a brave new World of Shit.

Countless young Americans have graduated from college since the spring of 2008. Many of them took on huge amounts of student loan debt in order to obtain that coveted degree because they were conditioned to do so by our so-called “leaders’ and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media. Some of these unfortunate young people are right at this very minute occupying various sites around the country in protest of their plight. But many more have likely succumbed to an abject feeling of sheer helplessness and now realize that rather than being young men and women of great expectations they are instead debt slaves in a World of Shit.

Even more countless Americans are among the many millions who lack even basic health insurance coverage. For these poor souls, any major illness or injury that should happen to befall them means financial destitution and possibly even premature death. So that the profit margins of the corporate interests which control the American health care system not be unduly affected, these unfortunate suffering human beings now find themselves in a painful and uncaring World of Shit.

Other Americans have overstretched themselves financially—borrowing huge amounts of money in a vain attempt to live the kind of lifestyles their teevees tell them they ought to be living. In their hopeless quest to keep up with the Joneses they have instead found themselves evicted, bankrupt and destitute. These delusional citizens who foolishly believed in the American Dream have woken up and discovered that their new reality is actually a nightmarish World of Shit.

But there are still many others…those with the good fortune to still be employed and who are largely oblivious to the suffering of so many of their fellow Americans. They continue to carelessly consume and revel in our celebrity-obsessed culture, twiddling on their electronic gadgets and never once giving thought to the evils perpetrated on the natural world and on citizens of other nations in order that they be able to maintain their comfortable and insular existence. They heed not the cries of those already in need, nor the warnings that their way of life is utterly unsustainable. Most of them will never wake up to what is happening all around them until that inevitable day of reckoning comes when they too find themselves being forcibly ushered into a permanent World of Shit.

Friday Rant: Obama Doubles Down on Clinton’s Bad Globalization Bets

It ought to be plainly apparent by now that globalization is the worst thing that ever happened to America’s working and middle classes. Hailed by big business and Wall Street as an engine of economic growth, the free trade policies of the past 30 years have instead lined the pockets of the rich while destroying America’s manufacturing base. The corporations love it because the fewer the trade barriers, the more American workers find themselves in direct competition with their foreign counterparts who do the same work at a fraction of the wages.

Along these lines, one of the signature “accomplishments” of the administration of President Bill Clinton was getting the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) passed back in 1993 during the first year of his presidency. The fact that more Republicans than Democrats in Congress voted to pass a measure pushed by a Democratic president should have been the biggest clue that it was a raw deal for the average American. Just like with the subsequent bipartisan votes on the Patriot Act, the Iraq War authorization and the TARP law, it is when both parties jointly agree regarding a particular piece of legislation that the rest of us need to keep a firm grip on our wallets.

The damage wrought by NAFTA was already very apparent years ago, as documented in a 2003 article entitled, “The High Price of Free Trade,” by Robert E. Scott:

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1993, the rise in the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico through 2002 has caused the displacement of production that supported 879,280 U.S. jobs. Most of those lost jobs were high-wage positions in manufacturing industries. The loss of these jobs is just the most visible tip of NAFTA’s impact on the U.S. economy. In fact, NAFTA has also contributed to rising income inequality, suppressed real wages for production workers, weakened workers’ collective bargaining powers and ability to organize unions, and reduced fringe benefits.

NAFTA is a free trade and investment agreement that provided investors with a unique set of guarantees designed to stimulate foreign direct investment and the movement of factories within the hemisphere, especially from the United States to Canada and Mexico. Furthermore, no protections were contained in the core of the agreement to maintain labor or environmental standards. As a result, NAFTA tilted the economic playing field in favor of investors, and against workers and the environment, resulting in a hemispheric “race to the bottom” in wages and environmental quality.

The whole article is quite lengthy, but well worth a read. Given that such grave doubts have been raised for years about the so-called benefits of NAFTA, you would think that our “leaders” might pause to reflect before pushing any additional such measures. This should be particularly true when it comes to the Democrats, who are supposed to be the party that supports the working and middle classes. But of course, you would be wrong about that. Once again, we see the spectacle of President Obama selling out those who most ardently supported him, as reported this week by AFP:

US President Barack Obama sent long-stalled free trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea to Congress and pressed lawmakers to approve them "without delay" after years of hold-ups.

The pacts, signed under former president George W. Bush, are expected to boost US exports by $13 billion and benefit US agriculture and manufacturing, and will form part of Obama's plan to cut reduce unemployment.

"These agreements will support tens of thousands of jobs across the country for workers making products stamped with three proud words: Made in America," Obama said in a statement.

The move, instantly applauded by Obama's Republican foes and the US business community, came after a nearly three-year feud fed by market-access and labor worries and a fight over aid to US workers displaced by overseas competition.

There were immediate signs that the pacts could provide a rare moment of bipartisanship in deeply divided Washington.

Check out that last sentence. There is that awful phrase again, “bipartisanship.” Now you know why the inside-the-Beltway pundits are always harping on Obama that he needs to be more bipartisan. What they really mean is that if all the politicos get together in a big group hug, they’ll be able to provide cover for each other when they screw the masses on behalf of their corporate masters.

This past weekend I saw a video interview with a couple of Occupy DC protesters (the movement is still pretty small around these parts) who told the interviewer that they believe Obama should be reelected. Needless to say, I about threw up in my mouth when I heard that.

So let me just take a moment if I may to address the supporters of Occupy (Your City Here). What you are really fighting against is NOT a matter of Republican vs. Democrat; conservative vs. liberal; Fox News vs. The Daily Show; or any of that other phony left vs. right bullshit that is so skillfully used to keep you from noticing who the real enemy is. That enemy is not only the corporate and Wall Street criminals who crashed the economy and have been given free reign to strip mine the assets of the working and middle classes, but their political hand puppets of both parties, including and especially President Hopey-Changey himself.

Go back to the top of this page and read through this article again. Obama is clearly demonstrating for about the one-thousandth time since he took office that, to paraphrase the immortal words of George Carlin in describing all politicians, “HE DOESN”T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU.” Never did, never will. All he cares about is his stinking professional resume and the doors of opportunity to fame and wealth it opens for him. Until you wake up to that very basic fact, you might just as well put down your protest signs and go home, because you will never accomplish anything of substance as long as you continue to treat the man who is at present the one screwing you over the worst as if he is your savior.

Listen, I know it’s hard to free your mind of all the propaganda that's been dumped into it your whole life that elections really matter and that there is a substantive difference between Republicans and Democrats. I was a political science major myself, and it took me nearly a quarter-of-a-century to wake up to the cold, hard reality that my vote doesn’t really count and that no matter who wins the result is the same. But it is an absolute necessity that you come to this realization if you have any hopes of avoiding being played for a sucker again the way so many were in 2008.

Many dumb fuck pundits have been looking down their noses at the recent protests and saying they lack a coherent message. Well, here is one issue that should immediately become a top priority of the Occupy Wall Street movement. This latest batch of free trade agreements should be forcefully and vociferously opposed by everyone who cares about economic justice in America. The message needs to be repeated over and over that free trade is only “free” for the elites, and it’s the rest of us who have to pay the very steep price for it.

Friday Rant: Yo, New Jersey, Y U B Giving Snooki a Tax Break?

The state of New Jersey has been hit hard by the financial crisis. Like many other troubled states, it has struggled to reduce spending in state programs as tax revenues decline. Last spring, Governor Chris Christie battled publically with the state’s teacher’s unions over pay raises and layoffs. In January, the unfortunate city of Camden laid off HALF of its police force, with predictable results as reported by the Huffington Post:

New Jersey's most crime-ridden city has been even worse since nearly half the police force was laid off in January.

A Camden County Prosecutor's Office report obtained by The Courier-Post of Cherry Hill and the Philadelphia Inquirer shows there have been 79 aggravated assaults with a firearm this year in Camden, up from 22 during the same period in 2010. Shootings nearly doubled, increasing from 16 to 30.

Given the above, you would think that the “leaders” of the Garden State would be extra careful about not only about spending, but also who gets awarded any business tax credits. Well, as has happened so often before on this blog, your common sense assumption sadly hits well wide of the mark. Here is Talking Points Memo with the rather gruesome details:

A number of New Jersey lawmakers are outraged that the state has awarded a $420,000 production tax credit to the hit MTV reality show "Jersey Shore" because, as one GOPer put it, "I can't believe we are paying for fake tanning for 'Snooki' and 'The Situation', and I am not even sure $420,000 covers that."

On Wednesday, NJ.com reported that taxpayers would be paying the credit for the show's first season in 2009, as approved by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

But wait…before you run into your kitchen to retrieve a salad fork with which to stab out your own eyeballs, there’s more:

But, Christie's office said, "the Governor cannot veto EDA action that is in compliance with non-discretionary, existing law....The bottom line is that the governor has not been in favor of this tax credit, and this and other applications were in the pipeline from the prior administration.

Okay, now you can head for the kitchen. It’s all right; I’ll wait.

Because that is the only sane reaction one can possibly have upon reading this story. I just love how all the politicians in New Jersey are standing around with their thumbs up their asses pointing fingers at one another while claiming there is nothing they can do to stop this particular fiscal abortion. Gubbner Christie was a acting like a big ol' tough guy last spring, throwing his not inconsiderable weight around and calling the leaders of the teacher’s unions thugs and whatnot. But apparently all Snooki has to do is flex her bicep and bat a fake eyelash and suddenly he turns into a tub of goo.

Memo to Chris Christie: the last time I checked, that little “R” that appears after your name stands for Republican. And exactly when did the party whose most recent President once infamously referred to the Constitution as a “damn piece of paper” start giving a flying fuck about the rule of law? We can hold prisoners indefinitely at Guantanamo without trial, but you say you can’t veto a business tax credit for an utterly dim-witted reality television show? Give me a fucking break already. Even President Hopey-Changey had the balls to tell Congress to go fuck themselves when they started moaning on about the War Powers Act during the Libyan bombing campaign.

Could this be any more of a glaring example of just how far out of whack the priorities are in this country today? It was bad enough when Rutgers University used student tuition funds to pay a speaker’s fee for Snookie to come and give a talk on campus, but now we find out that apparently the entire New Jersey state government is made up of Rutgers alumni. Where is Tony Soprano and his crew when you need them? THAT guy was one Jersey dude who wouldn’t have been intimidated by the likes of Snooki.

(Editor’s Note: the title of this post is a tribute to the late author and blogger Joe Bageant, whose last ever blog entry before he succumbed to cancer early this year was so memorably titled, “America, Y Ur Peeps Be So Dum” We miss you, Joe.)

Friday Rant: Obama’s Jobs Proposal is Nothing More Than the Same Old Shit Again

One of the silliest political flaps of Obama’s presidency was the derision heaped upon him for using a teleprompter while making his speeches, as if we were back in the days when men still wore top hats out in public and politicians routinely delivered two-hour speeches from the back of a train car to rapt audiences that they actually composed themselves rather than relying upon a whole team of speechwriters. The manufactured controversy resulted in some labeling Obama the “Teleprompter-in-Chief,” which is actually a very fitting label, just not in the way it was intended by its originators. The phrase could instead be better interpreted as meaning that Obama is really just all flash and rhetoric, but utterly without substance, which is pretty much my take on the man 32 months into his presidency.

Obama demonstrated yet again that he is nothing more than an arrogant, empty-suited con man getting by on his exceptional gift of gab last night during his long-awaited jobs speech. I say “long awaited,” merely because that’s how the media insisted upon describing it. Personally, I wasn’t waiting for it at all because I knew it was going to end up being just what it turned out to be: a whole lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Let’s put aside the finer details for a moment and look at the big picture. At the beginning of his presidency, Obama pushed through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act at a total cost of $787 billion, most of which has already been spent. Even is this age of trillion dollar budget deficits that are well beyond the cognitive comprehension of most people, that’s a lot of damn money. So what did we get as a result of all that federal largess? Anemic 2011 GDP numbers and an August monthly jobs report that came in at a big, fat zero net jobs created. Clearly, the tired old liberal trick of throwing tons of money at a problem to make it go away doesn’t work anymore.

Nevertheless, the headline for Obama’s “new” jobs proposal announced that the package was going to cost around $450 billion—or around three-fifths of the amount pumped into the economy by the Recovery Act. Upon seeing that number, the very first question that ought to pop into any thinking person’s head should be: if $787 billion didn’t revive the economy, how can we expect spending far less than that amount to work? The second question then should be: how in the hell are we going to pay for it at the same time the deficit reduction commission is planning to recommend more federal budget cuts in November?

But the inadequacy of the plan is even more obvious when you peek behind the headline number at some of the sordid details. Of the $450 billion cost of the proposal, a substantial portion will come from extending and increasing the payroll tax reduction passed last December and by extending long term unemployment benefits. I’ve written in these pages several times about how the payroll tax deduction is merely hastening the day of the Social Security program’s ultimate demise, and while maintaining long term unemployment benefits in the wake of our ongoing jobs crisis is certainly the humane thing to do, the fact is that we’re already doing both of these things without any discernible effect in turning the economy around.

So the real figure for new programs in the proposal beyond what is already being done is only about half of the headline total, or in other words less than one-third the amount of the utterly ineffectual Recovery Act. Additionally, most of the rest of the proposal contains a similar mishmash of infrastructure projects and aid to the states that made the Recovery Act such a colossal boondoggle. No word yet as to whether there are any other fraudulent but politically connected solar panel manufacturers with their hands out waiting to steal some of this loot.

If he had a single honest bone in his body and wasn’t actually a complete and utter fraud, President Hopey-Changey would have simply called this his “No Hope” speech, as that is essentially the real message he’s sending to the unemployed. But because so much of the American electorate still has its head planted so firmly up its ass, there are no doubt millions of delusional souls out there who took comfort and saw this speech as evidence that their president really cares about their plight.

So now comes the really big farce—the political fight in Congress over getting Obama’s proposal passed. Oh joy. The Republicans get to pander to their base about the cost of the program at a time of deficit reduction while the Democrats will yell and scream that the Republicans are actually in favor of “killing” the economy. The spectacle will be good for nothing more than providing the grist for partisan fundraising letters as well as for endless farcical talking head shouting matches on Fox News and MSNBC.

We in the peak oil community should take solace in the knowledge that we won’t be fooled into thinking any of this has any relevance whatsoever. The end of cheap oil means the end of the long era of economic expansion. We’ve now entered the age of permanent contraction, and no jobs program based upon defunct economic models assuming that it is possible to have infinite growth in a finite world is going to have any chance of succeeding. It would have been far better, of course, if Obama had leveled with the public about our true predicament so that people can begin to make the necessary adjustments to their lives. But since there is exactly zero chance of that ever happening, I guess we have no choice but to just kick back and enjoy the freak show.

Friday Rant: They Made a Biographical Movie About Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and Christine O’Donnell – Back in 1995

“You aren't really anybody in America if you're not on TV. On TV is where we learn about who we really are. Because what's the point of doing anything worthwhile if nobody's watching? And if people are watching, it makes you a better person.” – Nicole Kidman as Suzanne Stone Maretto, To Die For (1995)

There are certain movies that were way ahead of their time. Back in the 1970s, for example, the Academy Award winner, Network, predicted not only how the news media would become completely sensationalized, but also how big corporations were going to essentially erase national borders in their quest for global economic domination. Three Days to the Condor, meanwhile, predicted with great accuracy the extreme lengths that the U.S. government would go to in order to secure oil supplies during an era of encroaching resource depletion.

There are numerous other examples I could cite, but today I’m going to focus on such a film that often gets overlooked—Nicole Kidman’s 1995 acting tour-de-force, To Die For. Featuring easily the best performance of the Australian actress’s career, the movie uncannily predicted the rise of vacuous, attention-driven American politicians like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and Christine O’Donnell.

If you haven’t seen this visionary flick, let me just give you the synopsis right out of the Internet Movie Database:

Suzanne Stone (Maretto) knows exactly what she wants. She wants to be a television newscaster and she is willing to do ANYTHING to get what she wants. What she lacks in intelligence, she makes up for in cold determination and diabolical wiles. As she pursues her goal with relentless focus, she is forced to destroy anything and anyone that may stand in her way, regardless of the ultimate cost or means necessary.

Ummm…I haven’t wanted to sacrifice the number of brain cells it would take to slog my way through Palin’s hideous Going Rouge, but were you to just change the name in the above quote, that description sounds like it ought to be right on the damn dust jacket. At one point during the movie, Suzette even says, “It's nice to live in a country where life, liberty... and all the rest of it still stand for something.”

The scary part is that when I first saw To Die For in the movie theater back in the mid-1990s, I was chilled by Kidman’s portrayal of Suzanne but comforted by the thought that she was so transparently and ruthlessly ambitious that she could have only succeeded in a world of cinematic make believe. Well, here we are a mere decade-and-a-half later and one of Suzanne Stone Marretto’s spiritual heirs was the most recent Republican Vice Presidential nominee while another was just placed on the cover of Newsweek and is being treated as a serious presidential candidate. In an even more uncanny parallel, Palin herself was a sportscaster before she became a politician, while O’Donnell cut her teeth as a media figure by on appearing on MTV and as a frequent guest on Bill Maher’s old ABC show, Politically Incorrect.

What it really comes down to is that in modern America, with an imploding economy rapidly eroding the conventional avenues of upward mobility for the working and middle classes, the one remaining route to riches is to become famous. It no longer matters what you become famous or infamous for (just so long as you avoid serious prison time), only that you get people to pay attention to you. We’re a culture that gives out prime time television gigs to the likes of Snooki and Kate Gosselin while elevating manufactured musicians Miley Cyrus, Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga to the top of the pop music charts. People with real talent and creativity need not apply.

Regrettably, this slavish celebrity worship has spilled over from the entertainment world into our politics thanks to an electorate that puts more thought into who should win each season’s American Idol than who they are going to vote for in November. As a result, we’ve taken the next step down from the nepotism that allowed George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton to become national political figures, which was bad enough, to the point where fame itself is the only qualification you need to run for a major elective office. I mean seriously, I like Matt Damon, too, but I was appalled to read last week that he was being touted as a potential presidential candidate by people who weren't laughing their asses off when they suggested it.

I’ve written before about how the late author Joe Bageant used to refer to our media as The American Hologram, used by its corporate masters to keep the masses fat, dumb and complacent while the predatory elites steal their country right out from under their noses. It strikes me that the Hologram has now done its job so effectively that a vast majority of the population really believe, as Suzanne Stone Maretto said so memorably in the quote at the top of this page, that if people are watching you it makes you a better person.

With that lament, I leave you with an appropriate lyrical excerpt from the song “Go On Home,” by the greatly underrated singer-songwriter Chris Knight:

I don’t go online
I don’t watch tv
‘Cause I know all I’m gonna see
Is something stupid going on

Stupid’s in the water these days
They’re gonna drink it up anyway
‘Cause they don’t know right from wrong

Laugh if you want to
Call me a backwards fool
But I ain't taking this ride

You all just go on ahead and go
Leave me out by the side of the road
'Cause all I wanna do is go on home

Friday Rant: Hey, Senator Inhofe, It's HOT Outside

There are a lot of cretinous scumbags running around in Washington these days, which is pretty obvious given just how fucked up things are. Few, however, are in a league with the utterly contemptible U.S. Senator from the great state of Oklahoma, James Inhofe, who is perhaps the leading voice of Climate Change denial in Congress. Here's a little tidbit from Wikipedia to give you an idea of what this alleged human being is all about:

In a 2006 interview with the Tulsa World newspaper, Inhofe said regarding the environmentalist movement, "It kind of reminds... I could use the Third Reich, the Big Lie... You say something over and over and over and over again, and people will believe it, and that's their [the environmentalists'] strategy... A hot summer has nothing to do with global warming.

In addition:

Inhofe had previously compared the United States Environmental Protection Agency to the Gestapo and he compared EPA Administrator Carol Browner to Tokyo Rose.

There he goes again with those completely inappropriate Nazi comparisons. Can we please, once and for all, put to rest the comparing of anything in modern American life to Hitler, the Nazis and/or the Holocaust? Because it is often painfully obvious that people who invoke such comparisons have little actual understanding of Nazi Germany beyond what they may have seen once on the History Channel.

Since Senator Inhofe clearly falls into this category, let me take a moment if I may to 'splain a little something to him. "The Big Lie" was in fact told in Nazi Germany by Josef Goebbles and his minions in the Propaganda Ministry, who had a total MONOPOLY on the entire German media. There was no ability to dissent from The Big Lie, and if you were foolish enough to try they hauled your ass away and threw you into a concentration camp. Just the fact that you, Senator Inhofe, are free to open your big fat ignorant yap about there supposedly being a "Big Lie," in connection to global warming without being bundled up and sent off to Guantanamo proves rather conclusively that IT DOESN'T EXIST.

(Deep breath) Sorry, I was getting a little hot under the collar there, if you'll pardon the pun. Back to the topic at hand.

So, according to the above quote by the "Honorable" Senator Inhofe, Global Warming doesn't cause a hot summer. Hmmm...I guess that would also mean that a cold or snowy winter wouldn't necessarily prove that Global Warming DOESN'T exist, either. Am I right? Only seems fair, doesn't it? So maybe Senator Inhofe would care to explain this little item that was published by CNSNews.com on February 10, 2010:

The family of Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) had some fun at former Vice President and global warming spokesman Al Gore’s expense over the weekend after record snowfall blanketed the nation’s capital.

The family spent Saturday and Sunday building an igloo near the U.S. Capitol building, and the Oklahoma senator posted photos of their handiwork on his Facebook page. They added signs to the snow dwelling that read, “AL GORE’S NEW HOME!” and “HONK IF YOU (LOVE) GLOBAL WARMING.”

The Inhofe family, including the senator’s daughter and grandchildren, built the igloo after a large storm system dumped more than two feet of snow on the Washington, D.C. metro area on Friday and Saturday. The National Weather Service measured a record 32.4 inches at Dulles International Airport. Another 6 to 16 inches are predicted to fall on the capital on Tuesday and Wednesday.

HaHaHaHaHaHaHa - what a card that Senator Inhofe and his bunch of over privileged, snot-nose little progeny are. Don't they just sound like the kind of people it would be great fun to hang out and get an ice cream cone with?

Pay no attention to the fact that more moisture in the atmosphere, causing greater and more powerful storms, is one of the key indicators of Global Warming--nor to the fact that after each of those mammoth snowstorms, the temperatures in the DC-area rebounded into the 30s rather than plunging down into the teens and single digits like they used to do after such storms. Irrelevant trivia, all of that noise.

But hey, the troglodytes had their fun a year-and-a-half ago, and goody for them. Now it's time for me to have mine. This past week, I happened to run across a news item from the website The Extinction Protocol with this little quote:

Sweltering may have reached a new record last month, as Oklahoma racked up the country’s highest monthly average temperature ever. That’s the highest average temperature, for any month, for any state, associate Oklahoma state climatologist Gary McManus said. According to automated weather recording instruments, the state’s average for July was 89.1 degrees. That tops an average of 88.1 set in July 1954, McManus said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Monday reported that last month was the fourth hottest July on record for the U.S. and that Texas and Oklahoma had their warmest months on record. “We’ve been beating temperature records left and right, from the 1930s Dust Bowl drought and the 1950s drought,” said McManus, who admitted that’s not the kind of record you put on a Chamber of Commerce promotion.

So to recap, Okalahoma's record for the highest monthly temperature ever recorded was just smashed by an astonishing one full degree Fahrenheit. And yet, there was nary a peep about it from the esteemed Senator Inhofe and his merry band of inbreds.

All of this almost makes me wish I lived in Oklahoma. During July I would have had this very strong desire to go find Senator Inhofe's house, wait until about four o'clock in the afternoon, and then break open a couple of eggs and fry them right on his front walk. Then I would have held up my own sign for all passersby to see: "Pray for Cooler Weather...Maybe that Will Help."