I found this looking for something else. (About Mayor Rivera)

Posted on March 7, 2009 by Brother Jonah

I couldn’t embed it but here’s the link to the video.

I was looking for something that came up in the inevitable angry political discussion on the City Bus yesterday.

Actually, nobody was angry with or against each other.

We’re all just a little teensy tiny itty bitty small bit P.O.’d about the “Lower Class” being bought and sold like so many hummm… what’s that Minor Piece in a chess game, you know, the ones that always get sacrificed to save or capture a Chessman of higher rank, oh yeah… Pawns…

But it seems Our Illustrious Mayor has once again applied his own foot to his own mouth…

On the subject of cutting bus routes.

The bus in question is to one of the medical districts.

Which is getting a large percentage of Budgetary axe.

The other parties to the conversation were a retired lady and a lady who makes her living as a Teacher.

The Mayor, allegedly (but, for some strange reason, I believe every syllable of it) His Dis-Honor has made what he thought was an unrecorded remark that he doesn’t really care what bus passengers think because “The only people who ride the bus are bums and alcoholics”

This was supposed to be posted to YouTube after having been caught on a cell-phone camera.

I haven’t found it, YET.

Strangely, I have a lot of confidence that I will, and I don’t doubt for a moment that His Dis-Honor said that, simply because he has a long and rich history of making disparaging remarks about the Lower Classes, who, unlike himself, actually do the Labor that provides the wealth of Our Nation and more directly, his own Portfolio.

AND, about the soldiers who came back with pieces missing, both of body and mind, from the War of Conquest which benefits, directly, His Stock Portfolio.

One of the ladies, the schoolteacher, is blind. I had located the information she wanted on the Bus Route and schedule changes she had tried to ask the bus driver about.

The bus is the one she and the other lady use to go between their homes and, well, Everywhere Else.

I, as usual, was going to a doctor’s appointment.

One of the other bus Route Cancellation, 3 of them in fact, involve getting within a half-mile of Peak Vista Health Care, the El Paso County Health Department, and a Memorial Health Systems facility across Parkside Drive from Peak Vista.

In other words, facilities that serve the Disabled and Poor.

It’s not really a coincidence that those two groups merge at several points.

Also, in an entry into Jonah’s Museum of Spectacularly Bad Ideas, it seems the budget crunch was made an order of magnitude Worse by the reversal of the usual order of the Financial Universe,

Instead of issuing Municipal Bonds and having OTHER PEOPLE invest in the City, the City has been using Our Tax Money to ~~GAMBLE~~ errr… “invest” in the Stock Market, under the tutelage of Our Own Resident Pre-Chimpanzee Douglas Bruce.

The one who makes Les Freres Bush et menages look like Intellectual Giants by comparison.

I wonders, yes I does, if these Parasite Class Heroes bought, with our money, a whole bunch of those Mortgage Notes?

They could sue me for “Definition of Character” and if they win they would get everything I own.

At a net loss of the vast majority of the costs of hauling it away.

I guess they’re used to losing investments anyway.

There is much grumbling among the Working Class to the tune of a Recall Election to unseat these vermin.

As usual, Jonah speaks only for Jonah, but I think we should take that idea and run with it.

Israel, the welfare terrorist state

Posted on March 5, 2009 by Tony Logan

Look at all this freebie money they get, just to go out and terrorize others for Uncle Sam. Israel, U.S. formally sign new defense aid agreement …’Under the new aid agreement, the U.S. will transfer $30 billion to Israel over 10 years, compared with $24 billion over the past decade.’

Colorado Springs own cloud maker

Posted on March 5, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Last week’s POWER SHIFT 09, where 12,000 student environmentalists converged on Washington, culminated with a protest of a DC power plant which still produced 40% of its electricity from coal. A threatened largest act of mass civil disobedience pushed Washington legislators to order the plant converted completely to natural gas. What a contrast to the awareness level in our own Colorado Springs, where the city wraps around a single coal power plant which consumes two coal train loads a day, its billowing stacks, local moms describe to their kids, give it the name “cloud maker.”

From a Capitol Climate Action PDF:

Ten Problems with Coal

1. Coal Fuels Global Warming
Coal is the largest single source of global warming pollution in the United States. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that global warming threatens human populations and the world’s ecosystems with intensifying heat waves, floods, drought, extreme weather, and by spreading infectious diseases. Furthermore, it is conservatively estimated that the climate crisis will place a $271 billion annual drag on the U.S. economy alone by 2025. According to the IPCC, the United States and other industrialized countries need to reduce global warming pollution by 25–40 percent by 2025 to avoid the most severe impacts of the climate crisis.

2. Coal Kills People and Causes Disease
According to the American Lung Association, pollution from coal-fired power plants causes 23,600 premature deaths, 21,850 hospital admissions, 554,000 asthma attacks, and 38,200 heart attacks every year. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 12,000 coal miners died from black lung disease between 1992 and 2002.

3. Coal Kills Jobs
The coal industry is one of the least job-intensive industries in America. Every dollar we invest in coal is a dollar we can’t spend creating jobs in the clean energy economy. In fact, the country’s wind sector now employs more workers than the coal industry. Investing in wind and solar power would create 2.8 times as many jobs as the same investment in coal; mass transit and conservation would create 3.8 times as many jobs as coal.

4. Coal Costs Billions in Taxpayer Subsidies
The U.S. government continues to subsidize coal-related projects despite its impact on health, climate and the economy.

5. Coal Destroys Mountains
Many coal companies now use mountaintop removal to extract coal. The process involves clear-cutting forests, using dynamite to blast away as much as 800–1000 feet of mountaintop and dumping the waste into nearby valleys and streams. Mountain-top removal has leveled more than 450 mountains across Appalachia. Mountain-top removal destroys ecosystems, stripping away topsoil, trees, and understory habitats, filling streams and valleys with rubble, poisoning water supplies, and generating massive impoundments that can cause catastrophic floods.

6. Burning Coal Emits Mercury
Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of man-made mercury pollution. Mercury can interfere with the development of babies’ brains and neurological systems. Elevated levels of mercury in Americans’ blood puts one in six babies born in the United States at elevated risk of learning disabilities, developmental delays, and problems with fine motor coordination. Already 49 U.S. states have issued fish consumption advisories due to high mercury concentrations in freshwater bodies throughout the country, largely due to coal emissions.

7. There’s No Such Thing as “Clean Coal”
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), or what the coal industry is marketing as “clean coal,” is a hypothetical technology that may one day capture carbon dioxide from power plants and store it underground. However, the scheme has never been successfully demonstrated at a commercial scale, is wildly expensive, and can’t deliver in time to help with the climate crisis. Nationwide, approximately $5.2 billion in taxpayer and ratepayer money has been invested in the technology, but a recent government report found that of 13 projects examined, eight had serious delays or financial problems, six were years behind schedule, and two were bankrupt. Even if engineers are able to overcome the chemical and geological challenges of separating and safely storing massive quantities of CO2, a study published recently shows that CCS requires so much energy that it would increase emissions by up to 40 percent of smog, soot, and other dangerous pollution.

8. Coal Kills Rivers
Last December, a billion gallons of toxic coal sludge broke through a dike at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee and flooded the Emory and Clinch Rivers, tributaries of the massive Tennessee River system. Within hours, ash laden with mercury, lead, arsenic, benzene, and other toxic chemicals had contaminated the river and fish were washing up dead on the shore. The spill, which was followed days later by another coal ash spill at a TVA facility in Alabama, soon became a national symbol of the reality of “clean coal” and led to hearings in Congress; legislation is pending to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste. The TVA recently estimated the clean-up costs from this one spill to be up to $825 million, with higher costs possible as a result of a variety of pending civil suits against the TVA.

9. Coal Plants Are Expensive
Communities considering construction of new coal-fired power plants are seeing these impacts first-hand. During a recent debate over building a new coal-fired power plant in southwest Virginia, state officials estimated that building a new plant (which would employ just 75 people permanently), would cost 1,474 jobs as businesses laid people off to pay the higher electricity costs from a new coal plant. With the United States running a huge deficit, we’ve got to make sure that whatever investments we do make pack the biggest job-creation bang for the buck.

10. Acid Rain
Acid rain, a byproduct of burning coal, destroys ecosystems, including streams and lakes, by changing their delicate pH balance. It can destroy forests, devastate plant and animal life, and eat away at man-made monuments and buildings.

Ft Carson is Burnt Acres not Green Acres

Posted on March 4, 2009 by Tony Logan

For several years now Colorado Springs has watched in incredulous dismay as the Pentagon has tried to represent its local terrorism training center, Fort Carson, as being some sort of Green Acres to Coloradans. Incredibly, the local group of Democrats at the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission have done their part in playing part of the game with the military in this regard, as they held joint meetings with the military and even printed up some of their propaganda about being ‘Green’ in their quarterly newsletter.

But what’s the real story about this supposedly lean, green, terrorist cell near by? Are they out to save Mother Earth through the military-industrial complex as they claim? If you are a True Believer in this Pentagon propaganda offensive, then take a look at this news item then… Fort Carson fire consumes 6,500 acres

It turns out, not surprisingly, that the military dropping bombs during heir ‘exercises’ is what started this fire out. These boy toys are noted for being just like that, but burning money off through weaponry is the American economy and so this Blood Red group must expand! Nothing green about it except for the American dollars being consumed so stupidly. It’s simply time to stop this bombs away, burn Mother Earth away machine. If you care about ecology, get out and show your concern by protesting the continuous and constant US military presence here in Colorado Springs.

It takes a lot of nerve to try to pass the pentagon off as Green, humane, and Earth loving, doesn’t it? But these Pentagon lairs get a humongous propaganda budget from American taxpayers to do just that. If your military backed job depends on it,t hen you might be the type of dunce to buy into this hogwash? If not, it’s just another reason to be sick of what the total militarization of America is doing to us.

*** Note that the fire pictured was a wildfire from last year at Fort Carson and not this year’s fire.

Once again, the sick Catholic Church is in the news

Posted on February 27, 2009 by Tony Logan

Pope Ratzinger Benedict The sick Catholic Church just never ceases to amaze! Italy is now embroiled in its very own Terry Schiavo case, and the Catholic Church is trying to bring murder charges against a father for allowing his brain dead daughter to finally die after 17 years passed in a vegetative state. Can you imagine people any more cruel than this? Despite the change in the Pope’s views about evolution, this Pope and this church seem to have less brains than a herd of spider monkeys does! Death probe for coma case father and see also…

‘At an emotional press conference on live TV, Premier Silvio Berlusconi vowed to save Englaro`s life. A law on living wills sparked by the Englaro case has started its way through parliament and the government hopes it will be passed by the summer. There is currently no legislation governing living wills in Italy. A living-will law passed by a conservative-dominated parliament would be extremely restrictive, observers say, although it could be open to charges of breaching the Italian Constitution. Berlusconi has said the law will “forbid any sort of euthanasia“. It would also prevent doctors from removing feeding tubes from people “unable to take care of themselves“, he said.’ from ELUANA FATHER PROBED FOR MURDER

It’s the Italian Catholic Church behind this semi-fascist Italian version of Dubya the chimp, Silvio Berlusconi, but this case is not the only one in the news this week that demonstrates the sick Catholic Church’s lunacy! Travel to Brazil and we see where the one half way sane priest in the Church get’s canned by his pedophile hiding archbishop this week! Do you think that the creepy Pope Rat will reverse this? Not a chance! He’s going to side with the pedophile hiding archbishop, that’s what! See Brazil priest suspended for views

…The BBC report doesn’t let you in on that this archbishop was in the news in 2002 for covering up for his pedophile priest under investigation who later got convicted despite his active opposition to the police’s investigation! Sick! And in contrast, the punished priest’s supposed crimes? He advocated that condoms be used during sex! And he had the nerve to say that homosexuals shouldn’t be discriminated against.

Here is the Archbishop now back when he was a mere bishop relatively unrewarded for his service to the Catholic Church hierarchy….

‘Brazil Fr. Sebastiao Luiz Tomaz 13 – Nineteen girls between the ages of 10 and 16 reported some type of sexual contact with the priest in exchange for clothes and money. Later the same year, Bishop Aldo Pagotto was denounced by the Public Ministry of Ceara for attempting to coerce this priest’s victims to change their testimony. By July 2002 21 victims had come forward, and nine claims had been proven with medical evidence.14’

from SEXUAL ABUSE & MISCONDUCT IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH Note though… This archbishop is a biggie in the movement to criminalize all abortions in Brazil, so Pope Rat certainly will be helping the archbishop out in his dispute with the liberal priest. Immoral people preaching morality to others… That’s the church! They make one want to vomit up Holy Wafers big time!

Mark 6TH YEAR of Iraq Occupation with profiteers Boeing, Lockheed, GD and KBR

Posted on February 27, 2009 by NMT

A.N.S.W.E.R.’s March 21 MARCH ON THE PENTAGON to mark the sixth year of the War in Iraq will be directed not only at the US Department of Defense, but at the war profiteers for whom 2007 was a record year, among them Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and KBR. In Colorado Springs the merchants of death can be visited on one corner.

On March 21, 2009,
March on the Pentagon and the Corporate War Profiteers

The March on the Pentagon on Saturday, March 21 is shaping up to be a dramatic and highly significant demonstration. Many thousands of people are coming to Washington, D.C. to make their voices heard.

March 21 will culminate in a dramatic direct action where hundreds of coffins—representing the multinational victims of militarism, Empire and corporate greed—will be carried and delivered to the headquarters of the Corporate War Profiteers and Merchants of Death.

From the Pentagon, we will march to the nearby giant corporate offices of Boeing Company, Lockheed Martin Corporation, General Dynamics and KBR (the former subsidiary of Halliburton).

The march will start close to the State Department in Washington, D.C. (assemble at 12 noon at 23rd St. and Constitution Ave. NW).

Please make an urgently needed donation today by clicking this link to donate online through our secure server, where you can also find information on how to donate by check.

These are the Corporate War Profiteers and Merchants of Death. They are the vultures who profit off the death and suffering of the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, and off of the thousands of U.S. soldiers and marines who have died or been wounded in these wars of aggression. They are anti-worker and anti-union.

The march will be led by a large contingent of veterans and family members of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and from earlier conflicts.

Militarism and Corporate Capitalism
We will march on their slick-and-shiny corporate offices that are located less than a mile from the Pentagon. Their location in the very shadow of the Pentagon speaks volumes about the intimate connection between militarism and corporate capitalism.

When the Pentagon brass retire, they rotate out of their Pentagon offices and directly into the Corporate boardrooms and office suites of the Death Merchants. It is a very cozy and very profitable relationship for the elites—in and out of uniform. They make the profits, others do the bleeding.

Last year was a great year for the Corporate War Profiteers and Merchants of Death. Profits soared even as the rest of the economy neared collapse. The CEOs of the four corporations that we will be visiting on March 21 received more than $319 million in compensation in 2007 alone (and remember, that’s just for four individuals). “We the People” paid the bill for the high tech weapons that were used against occupied people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. The Corporate Executives laughed all the way to the bank while grieving parents and children buried their loved ones from Baghdad to Kabul to Gaza to Detroit.

A quick examination shows that the CEOs of the Military-Industrial Complex contributed to both the Democratic and Republican Party candidates in almost equal amounts. They favor a system that ensures that politicians will come and go every four years but the military machine—that fusion of industry, banks and the Pentagon brass—will remain as is.

We Need Jobs & Schools – Not War!
The same banks that are being bailed out to the tune of trillions of dollars even while they foreclose families who can’t pay their mortgage debts are double-dipping from the national treasury by making huge profits in their investments in Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and KBR.

War is just good business for these corporate executives. Every F-16 bomber, attack helicopter, cruise missile and Drone bomber is a source of profit. If the wars stopped they would be out of business.

The people of this country are fed up with the status quo. They want decent-paying jobs, and affordable health care and housing for all. Students want to study rather than be driven out by soaring tuition rates. People want a complete—not partial—withdrawal of ALL troops from Iraq. They want the war in Afghanistan to end rather than escalate. They are increasingly opposed to sending $2.6 billion each year to Israel.

People are coming to Washington, D.C. on March 21 from college campuses, high schools, and cities and towns throughout the United States.

It is time for real change. Unless the movement for change stays in the streets, the powerful corporate and banking interests will certainly dominate the politics of this country. That is unacceptable. That is a path toward endless war and occupation abroad, and a massive transfer of wealth to the already rich at home.

All out for March 21! Jobs Not War! Schools Not War! Occupation is a Crime!

From pentagonmarch.org:

Meet the Corporate War Profiteers and Merchants of Death

W. James McNerney Jr.
CEO of Boeing.

2007 Total Compensation: $19 million. Value of Boeing Stock Owned: $25.7 million

Facts about Boeing:
Boeing currently produces numerous jets and bombers, including the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber and the F/A-22 Raptor, as well as multiple surface-to-air missiles and various bombs. Boeing also produces the bolt-on JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) that turns gravity bombs into “smart” munitions.

Boeing supplies Israel with various weapon systems, including the F-15 Eagle fighter jet and A-64 Apache attack helicopter, as well as numerous types of bombs and missiles. It was these weapons that helped to kill 1,017 Palestinians killed in the Israeli invasion of Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.

In 2008, Boeing made $2,225,947 in campaign contributions. 58 percent of these contributions were to Democrats, and 42 percent were to Republicans. In 2008, they spent $16,610,000 on lobbying.

Despite massive profits, Boeing opposed raises for plant employees, and attempted to outsource union jobs so that the company could be “more flexible.”

Robert J. Stevens
CEO of Lockheed Martin

2007 Total Compensation: $37 million. Value of Lockheed Martin Stock Owned: $33.8 million

Facts about Lockheed Martin:
Lockheed Martin currently produces the F-117 Stealth Fighter that was used in the brutal “Shock and Awe” bombings of Iraq, as well as the F/A-22 Raptor fighter jet. They also produces various missile systems, including the Hellfire and Javelin, and various nuclear weapon designs. Lockheed supplies fighter jets and other weapon systems to Israel.

Lockheed’s 2008 first-quarter revenue was $9.98 billion–an increase of $700 million from the year prior. By 2015, the F-35 program alone could represent more than $16 billion in annual revenue for the company.

Lockheed’s former vice-president, Bruce Jackson, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.

In 2005, Lockheed received $65 million every single day of the year from the U.S. government. That year, Lockheed garnered $228 in federal tax money from every household in the United States.

In 2008, Lockheed made $2.6 million in political contributions—49 percent to the Democrats and 51 percent to the Republicans.

In 2004, Lockheed spent nearly $10 million on more than 100 lobbyists. From 2001-2005, only Philip Morris and GE spent more money lobbying Congress. By 2008, that number was $15.8 million.

Nicholas D. Chabraja
CEO of General Dynamics

2007 Total Compensation: $60 million. Value of GD Stock Owned: $154.2 million

Facts about General Dynamics:
General Dynamics currently produces dozens of weapon systems, which include the Stryker Armored Combat Vehicle and the M-1 Abrams Main Battle Tank series, as well as other highly devastating artillery systems and the Trident Nuclear Submarine.

General Dynamics has supplied Israel with various weapon systems, including the F-16 Falcon fighter jet.

In 2008, General Dynamics made $1,682,595 in campaign contributions—58 percent to the Democrats and 42 percent to the Republicans.

Also in 2008, General Dynamics spent $8,562,439 lobbying for government contracts.

Fueled by sales of business jets and military-combat equipment, General Dynamics reported a 32 percent jump in first-quarter profits for 2008, to $573 million. The backlog of work not completed far outpaced revenues, growing by 14 percent to nearly $50 billion.

Analysts think General Dynamics and Mr. Chabraja will do even better next year, noting the “upside potential” of the combat-systems group, which is benefiting from the U.S. Army’s restocking of equipment lost, damaged or worn by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, in addition to a $12 billion backlog of orders for corporate jets.

William P. Utt
CEO of Kellogg Brown & Root.

2007 Total Compensation: $3.29 million. Value of KBR Stock Owned: $6.5 million

Facts about KBR:
There are roughly 14,000 KBR employees inside of Iraq that provide logistical support to the U.S. military. KBR has made billions off of “reconstruction” contracts within Iraq.

KBR is the largest non-union construction company in the United States. It has won many contracts with the U.S. government, including $100 million to build a U.S. embassy in Afghanistan, as well as $216 million for the construction of several base camps and training foreign troops from the Republic of Georgia.

Despite at least a dozen former employees alleging they had been raped by co-workers in Iraq and other employees saying co-workers regularly stole gold, artwork, and weapons, KBR remains in the Pentagon’s good graces. In mid-April, it received a 10-year, $150 billion contract to support the military overseas.

CEO William Utt called 2008 an “outstanding year,” saying KBR posted record profitability.

Despite many scandals and controversies, KBR reported that its first quarter net profits for 2008 more than tripled, from $28 million the previous year to $98 million.

ANSWER Coalition Responds to President Obama’s Iraq Speech of Friday, February 27

With his speech today, President Obama has essentially agreed to continue the criminal occupation of Iraq indefinitely. He announced that there will be an occupation force of 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq for at least three more years. President Obama used carefully chosen words to avoid a firm commitment to remove the 50,000 occupation troops, even after 2011.

The war in Iraq was illegal. It was aggression. It was based on lies and false rationales. President Obama’s speech today made Bush’s invasion sound like a liberating act and congratulated the troops for “getting the job done.” More than a million Iraqis died and a cruel civil war was set into motion because of the foreign invasion. President Obama did not once criticize the invasion itself.

He has also requested an increase in war spending for Iraq and Afghanistan, and plans to double the number of U.S. troops sent to fight in Afghanistan.

President Obama has asked Congress to provide more than $200 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars over the next two years, in addition to increasing the Pentagon budget by four percent.

Based on President Obama’s new budget, the Pentagon would rank as the world’s 17th largest economy—if it were a country. This new budget increases war spending. Total spending in 2010 would roughly equate to an average of $21,000 a second.

This is not the end of the occupation of Iraq, but rather the continuation of the occupation.

There is only one reason that tens of thousands of troops will remain in Iraq: It is because this is a colonial-type occupation of a strategically important and oil-rich country located in the Middle East where two-thirds of the world’s oil reserve can be found.

Obama’s speech was a major disappointment for anyone who was hoping that Obama would renounce the illegal occupation of Iraq. Today, the U.S. government spends $480 million per day to fund the occupation of Iraq. Even if 100,000 troops are drawn out by August 2010, that means the indefinite occupation of Iraq will cost more than $100 million each day. The continued occupation of Iraq for two years or three years or more makes a complete mockery out of the idea that the Iraqi people control their own destiny. It is a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and independence.

It is no wonder that John McCain came out to support President Obama’s announced plan on Iraq. McCain was an supporter of former President Bush’s and Vice President Cheney’s war and occupation in Iraq.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld—the architects of regime change in Iraq—never had the goal of indefinitely keeping 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. They wanted to subdue the Iraqi people and exercise control with a smaller force. The Iraqi armed resistance prolonged the stationing of 150,000 U.S. troops.

Bush’s goal was domination over Iraq and its oil supplies, and domination over the region. This continues to be the goal of the U.S. political and economic establishment, including that of the new administration.

President Obama decided not to challenge the fundamental strategic orientation. That explains why he kept the Bush team—Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Generals Petraeus and Odierno—on the job to oversee and manage the Iraq occupation. They will also manage the widening U.S. war in Afghanistan and the aerial assaults on Pakistan. There have been over 30 U.S. bombing attacks in Pakistan in the last two months.

We are marching on Saturday, March 21 because the people of this country are fed up with the status quo. They want decent-paying jobs, and affordable health care and housing for all. Students want to study rather than be driven out by soaring tuition rates. The majority of people want a complete—not partial—withdrawal of ALL troops from Iraq. They want the war in Afghanistan to end rather than escalate. They are increasingly opposed to sending $2.6 billion each year to Israel and want an end to the colonial occupation of Palestine.

Consumer confidence men

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Eric Verlo

The more I see pundits scoring Barack Obama’s performance based on Wall Street’s reaction, according to how much hope Obama is able to infuse into the public’s faltering confidence in the economy, I have to ponder the uncomfortable etymology of the term CON ARTIST. Con Man is short for Confidence Man, itself a now obscure euphemism for chiseler, defrauder, grifter, scammer, swindler, gouger, or fraud. But the term is still charmingly descriptive.

While even the disreputable economists now admit that Americans can expect much worse from our economy, Bill Clinton is publicly counseling President Obama to come across with more confidence about our nation’s financial prospects.

The ex-president formally known as Slick Willy is talking about your confidence to spend, without regard to whether you may lose your job, your home, your health, or your life savings.

It’s money that makes the world go round. They need everybody’s, including yours. All the better if you have to borrow it, because you really are of little use to a monetary system unless you take out a loan and pay interest.

Otherwise, with what is anybody going to laugh all the way to the bank?

The following are a few relevant dictionary definitions. Actually, I thought they were going to be more tangential:

consumer confidence
The degree of optimism that consumers are expressing for the state of the economy through their saving and spending activity.

con·fi·dence
Trust or faith in a person or thing.

confidence man
A swindler who exploits the confidence of his victim.

confidence game
A swindle in which the victim is defrauded after his or her confidence has been won.

confidence trick
A swindle in which you cheat at gambling or persuade a person to buy worthless property.

toxic asset
Not in the dictionary. Not even Orwell’s 1984. Could this be the balance sheet doppelganger to the “good-for-you liability?” Does it share the value of a “profit-net-loss” as n approaches zero? The meaning of toxic asset would be recognizably oxymoronic, if it weren’t for the fine suits worn by the FED’s confidence men. Literally, shouldn’t a carcinogenic nutrient translate, currency-exchange wise, into Funny Money?

Much as the banks want to disguise it, a Toxic asset sounds to me like Spilt Milk, an idiom for which we already know the recourse. A chorus of cries from Bernanke, Volcker, Paulson & Rubin would not then be able to convince us to put it back in the bottle and pay for it again.

Murdoch puts Obama on public notice: white men licensed to kill bad monkeys

Posted on February 20, 2009 by Eric Verlo

The page in the New York Post before this cartoon featured a photograph of President Obama signing [writing] the Stimulus Bill. Putting aside the offensive connotation, does the cartoon work on any level? Is there a joke in linking the Chimpanzee gone native in Connecticut to the Stimulus Bill? What is it?

Is the cartoonist drawing on a third association, to the big laugh line from Die Hard, when an helicopter full of FBI guys, snotty agents who didn’t want the assistance of our hero, explodes, and an LAPD regular says: “I guess they’ll have to get some more FBI guys.”

What is it? The Stimulus Bill was written by a monkey? It was argued and reshaped by a dueling phalanx of legislators. It may have become disfigured, but was it by any stretch engineered by a monkey?

Certainly the moneyed class, which Murdoch represents, objects to giving any of the treasury to middle America. It can go to banks, or CEOs, or in the form of tax cuts to the multi-billionaires, but craft an economic solution that puts jobs or financial relief in the hands of ordinary people and the corporate press is not interested. So the bill author would be a bleeding-heart, or a sentimentalist, or Rainman for that matter. But where does the analogy work as a monkey?

A chimp-faced lampoon worked for Bush, because of the resemblance, and the mental acuity, and verbal skills. The Stimulus Bill can be plenty of wrong things, was it dumb?

II.
Here’s the apology the NYPost offered for their cartoon. What they said, or left unsaid, certainly didn’t match their bad taste to argue their cartoon wasn’t about Obama, but naming the piece THAT CARTOON.

Wednesday’s Page Six cartoon – caricaturing Monday’s police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut – has created considerable controversy.

It shows two police officers standing over the chimp’s body: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” one officer says.

It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.

Period.

But it has been taken as something else – as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.

This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.

However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past – and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.

To them, no apology is due.

Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon – even as the opportunists seek to make it something else.

III.
This note came in from Rita Ague:

What’s wrong with this picture?

Of course there’s racism out there, but be careful not to fall victom to spin. Rupert M. is one of the giants in the neo-con coup d’etat. The loss of a free press to military/industrial/corporate interests, and resulting news being turned into spin and hate mongering, is but one of many reasons I’ve put back on my old legal and journalist hats.

We are in such a hell of a mess, and we’re passing that mess onto and into the rest of the world. I’m not sure we can dig ourselves out. We may not see relief, and the kind of change we of good hearts and good minds so long for, come about in our lifetime.

Let’s pray constantly that some Karl Rove and Rupert Murdoch induced bigot, or a neo-con agent posing as same, does not shoot or do away with Obama. The cause of the killing will, of course, be blamed on racism. But the real reason will be the fear the neo-cons have that our new president is going to take away their power and control, and quash their currently-being-exposed incredible greed.

My fear is that Murdoch, by and through his New York Post newspaper, FOX spin and hate channel, and all the other mass media he and his Neocon cohorts own and/or control, is spinning us to believe that some forthcoming assassination, when it occurs, was inevitable and based on a rise on racism and hatred, when it was truly based on more evil, Karl Rove-like Machiavellian (the end justifies any means) manipulation.

God help and protect us all, particularly Barack Obama.

Rita followed it up with this plea to MoveOn.org:

I need your help, Marc, in getting out the warning through Move-On’s far reaching Internet connections:

BEWARE! THE GIANT (military/industrial/corporate) NEO-CON SPIN MACHINE (formerly known as the “liberal mass media”) IS CRANKING UP

OBAMA, BAR THE DOOR!!!

I’m scared, Marc. It wasn’t accidental that the Post ran the dead ape cartoon with it’s deadly caption. Nor is it an accident that we are suddenly hearing more and more about all the racism and all the ‘racist’ assassination attempts being planned and made on Obama.

My intuition/precognition will be supported if and when we hear more of this racism and hate against “The Man” jive. As the old advertising saying goes: ‘When you think they’re tired of hearing about it, that’s when they’re just beginning to catch onto what you’re trying to tell/sell.”

I could be wrong about this “IT WAS A RACIST THING THAT DID HIM IN” campaign, but just in case I’m right, shouldn’t we be safe rather than sorry, and get a Move-On Campaign and heavy duty word of mouth going through the net, that we’re onto what’s being spun in the mass media, and why it’s being spun.

For sometime now, my slogan has been UNDO THE (military/industrial/corporate) COUP! Now I think we’d better come up with a new slogan, and start spreading it, as far and as wide as we can. It could be something like:

KEEP OBAMA ALIVE AND WELL – TELL THE PRESS TO GO TO HELL!

Who is going to tell Obama no more war?

Posted on February 17, 2009 by Eric Verlo

I miss the old days of 2008 when we’d get word that Candidate Obama was visiting Colorado and we’d head up to put our antiwar message under his nose. These days he visits Denver to sign the new Stimulus Bill –why Denver, is the Denver Mint doing the honors printing the money?– and we sit flat-footed in front of our TV. On the same day the UN reported that civilian casualties in Afghanistan are up 40% over last year. On the day the Pentagon has announced a “remissioning” of 8,000 additional US Marines, and 4,000 US Army men to Afghanistan, as part of Obama’s surge. And we can’t say Obama hadn’t made his Afghan warmongering intentions clear.

What’s the matter? The term redeployment didn’t cut it? “Remissioning?”

I am the soldier who slept in your home.

Posted on February 17, 2009 by Eric Verlo

When Voices For Creative Nonviolence activist Kathy Kelly visited Colorado Springs, she spoke of survivors of a family in Gaza who returned to their home to find a message left etched on their wall by an IDF soldier, it read “Sorry.” Kelly saw in it the glimmer of hope that Israeli soldiers were beginning to show some humanity. Hasbara efforts have taken this gesture a reservist’s letter step further. You can read it below uncut. Does it look to you like these propagandists need some counseling advice? Probably the rapist is the last person who should be asking his victim to be calm, especially by recounting the details of the violation, and especially if the rapist is unrepentant and laying out the justification for his act. Parental Advisory: Graphic Insensitivity.

Holy Fucking Shit you will not believe it! It’s one thing for us to tolerate pedantic lectures online, quite another if the bastard had quartered in our home in the meantime.

From AISH, via Israel Activism and the Hasbara fellowships. Seriously, this is a letter the Israeli press is touting to try to reach Gazans with the message that they must blame Hamas.

DEAR CITIZEN OF GAZA: I am the soldier who slept in your home.

Hello,

While the world watches the ruins in Gaza, you return to your home which remains standing. However, I am sure that it is clear to you that someone was in your home while you were away.

I am that someone.

I spent long hours imagining how you would react when you walked into your home. How you would feel when you understood that IDF soldiers had slept on your mattresses and used your blankets to keep warm.

I knew that it would make you angry and sad and that you would feel this violation of the most intimate areas of your life by those defined as your enemies, with stinging humiliation. I am convinced that you hate me with unbridled hatred, and you do not have even the tiniest desire to hear what I have to say. At the same time, it is important for me to say the following in the hope that there is even the minutest chance that you will hear me.

I spent many days in your home. You and your family’s presence was felt in every corner. I saw your family portraits on the wall, and I thought of my family. I saw your wife’s perfume bottles on the bureau, and I thought of my wife. I saw your children’s toys and their English language schoolbooks. I saw your personal computer and how you set up the modem and wireless phone next to the screen, just as I do.

I wanted you to know that despite the immense disorder you found in your house that was created during a search for explosives and tunnels (which were indeed found in other homes), we did our best to treat your possessions with respect. When I moved the computer table, I disconnected the cables and lay them down neatly on the floor, as I would do with my own computer. I even covered the computer from dust with a piece of cloth. I tried to put back the clothes that fell when we moved the closet although not the same as you would have done, but at least in such a way that nothing would get lost.

I know that the devastation, the bullet holes in your walls and the destruction of those homes near you place my descriptions in a ridiculous light. Still, I need you to understand me, us, and hope that you will channel your anger and criticism to the right places.

I decided to write you this letter specifically because I stayed in your home.

I can surmise that you are intelligent and educated and there are those in your household that are university students. Your children learn English, and you are connected to the Internet. You are not ignorant; you know what is going on around you.

Therefore, I am sure you know that Qassam rockets were launched from your neighborhood into Israeli towns and cities.

How could you see these weekly launches and not think that one day we would say “enough”?! Did you ever consider that it is perhaps wrong to launch rockets at innocent civilians trying to lead a normal life, much like you? How long did you think we would sit back without reacting?

I can hear you saying “it’s not me, it’s Hamas”. My intuition tells me you are not their most avid supporter. If you look closely at the sad reality in which your people live, and you do not try to deceive yourself or make excuses about “occupation”, you must certainly reach the conclusion that the Hamas is your real enemy.

The reality is so simple, even a seven year old can understand: Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip, removing military bases and its citizens from Gush Katif. Nonetheless, we continued to provide you with electricity, water, and goods (and this I know very well as during my reserve duty I guarded the border crossings more than once, and witnessed hundreds of trucks full of goods entering a blockade-free Gaza every day).

Despite all this, for reasons that cannot be understood and with a lack of any rational logic, Hamas launched missiles on Israeli towns. For three years we clenched our teeth and restrained ourselves. In the end, we could not take it anymore and entered the Gaza strip, into your neighborhood, in order to remove those who want to kill us. A reality that is painful but very easy to explain.

You must lead a civil uprising against Hamas.

As soon as you agree with me that Hamas is your enemy and because of them, your people are miserable, you will also understand that the change must come from within. I am acutely aware of the fact that what I say is easier to write than to do, but I do not see any other way. You, who are connected to the world and concerned about your children’s education, must lead, together with your friends, a civil uprising against Hamas.

I swear to you, that if the citizens of Gaza were busy paving roads, building schools, opening factories and cultural institutions instead of dwelling in self pity, arms smuggling and nurturing a hatred to your Israeli neighbors, your homes would not be in ruins right now. If your leaders were not corrupt and motivated by hatred, your home would not have been harmed. If someone would have stood up and shouted that there is no point in launching missiles on innocent civilians, I would not have to stand in your kitchen as a soldier.

You don’t have money, you tell me? You have more than you can imagine.

Even before Hamas took control of Gaza, during the time of Yasser Arafat, millions if not billions of dollars donated by the world community to the Palestinians was used for purchasing arms or taken directly to your leaders bank accounts. Gulf States, the emirates – your brothers, your flesh and blood, are some of the richest nations in the world. If there was even a small feeling of solidarity between Arab nations, if these nations had but the smallest interest in reconstructing the Palestinian people – your situation would be very different.

You must be familiar with Singapore. The land mass there is not much larger than the Gaza strip and it is considered to be the second most populated country in the world. Yet, Singapore is a successful, prospering, and well managed country. Why not the same for you?

My friend, I would like to call you by name, but I will not do so publicly. I want you to know that I am 100% at peace with what my country did, what my army did, and what I did. However, I feel your pain. I am sorry for the destruction you are finding in your neighborhood at this moment. On a personal level, I did what I could to minimize the damage to your home as much as possible.

In my opinion, we have a lot more in common than you might imagine. I am a civilian, not a soldier, and in my private life I have nothing to do with the military. However, I have an obligation to leave my home, put on a uniform, and protect my family every time we are attacked. I have no desire to be in your home wearing a uniform again and I would be more than happy to sit with you as a guest on your beautiful balcony, drinking sweet tea seasoned with the sage growing in your garden.

The only person who could make that dream a reality is you. Take responsibility for yourself, your family, your people, and start to take control of your destiny. How? I do not know. Maybe there is something to be learned from the Jewish people who rose up from the most destructive human tragedy of the 20th century, and instead of sinking into self-pity, built a flourishing and prospering country. It is possible, and it is in your hands.

I am ready to be there to provide a shoulder of support and help to you.

But only you can move the wheels of history.

Regards,
Yishai, (Reserve Soldier)

I’m actually unconvinced this was a real soldier. Too many of the GIYUS Megaphone talking points are woven into the letter. Singapore even!

It would surely be anti-Semitic to conclude easily that the Israeli propagandists are this dumb. The true motive of this letter cannot be to win Palestinian hearts, but to spread the effect of the state terror. The IDF couldn’t defile every Gaza home before being forced to cut their incursion short. With such letters the Israeli soldiers can make felt that violation by all Gazans.

Was the IDF incursion/invasion about stopping the rockets or about terrorizing the Gazans until they are driven from the land?

Economic pie in the sky

Posted on February 16, 2009 by Marie Walden

Costa Rican rainbow Central Highlands Eric and I had fun in Costa Rica playing with a rainbow in the hills outside Santa Elena. We traveled down a narrow bumpy road until the bright double rainbow appeared to end in the backyard of the only house in sight. An inspiring illusion to be sure, but still only an illusion. Rainbows are like that, aren’t they? Manipulable to a point; there, but not, depending on your vantage point; seen by all, fully comprehended by few. As kids we dreamed of finding the promised pot of leprechaun gold, but we never could quite get there. The promise forever remained only a promise.

Chasing rainbows has become our financial pastime of late. Golden parachutes, speculation, valuation, debt forgiveness, creative accounting, off-book transactions, suspense accounts, slush funds, contra accounts, accruals, clean opinions, full disclosure, extraordinary items, going concerns, immateriality — I could go on for hours. We have a financial system that’s impossible to discern, is largely illusory and widely un-understood. Even by its makers.

The fractional reserve system, patently illegal not so long ago, means that our money isn’t a paper representation of what actually is, it is only what they say it is, which is whatever it is, I suppose. I’m told it’s lost 50% of its value in the past decade which means, I guess, that it’s now something other than what it was. And who knows what it will be tomorrow?

It would seem that printing off billions more crisp banknotes to give to soulless corporate people, whose paper assets and liabilities can be altered with the stroke of a pen, means little to anyone except the publicly-traded rich.

Is it any wonder that no one – which includes everyone – can get their arms around this mess? We don’t understand what’s really going on so we keep doing what we do, which is whatever that is, on any given day. Today Obama is coming to Denver to sign his economic stimulus plan into law — 1588 pages of freshly-printed unread paper that will solve our economic crisis and put us back on the road to financial prosperity.

I can’t recall where the momentous event is to take place, but I imagine it’s somewhere over the rainbow.

If, as IDF claims, there was a sniper…

Posted on February 16, 2009 by Brother Jonah

Then the mystery sniper they never found, would have been doing exactly what the IDF used as justification, he would have been DEFENDING HIS NATION AND HIS HOMELAND AGAINST ARMED FOREIGN INVADERS INTENT ON CONQUEST, AND WHO WERE MURDERING ANY WHO REFUSED TO BOW TO THEIR ARROGANT CLAIM OF HEGEMONY.

Again, no actual evidence beyond the statement by the IDF that a sniper actually existed.

What, the Gazans were supposed to Instantly Obey their IDF Masters?

We are the Master Race, How DARE you Subhuman Untermenschen resist and refuse to Obey our Imperious Commands?

That brings out another point…

Which of the following were Patriots, and which Traitors?

Those Nazis who blindly followed every command given them by Hitler and his regime…

Or those who resisted, who sabotaged factories and rail lines, refused the Call to Arms, Refused to take part in the Hate Crimes of Adolf Hitler and his minions?

Our Trolls say we have to Blindly Obey and even basically Worship George Bush and Cheney, or we’re Anti-American.

Israeli dissidents, like Netanyahu’s own nephew, who REFUSE to participate in the Murder Spree of their Puppet Dictatorship, are jailed and called “anti-Israeli” and even Anti-Semitic.

Jews in America and Europe who don’t support the Murder Spree are labeled the same way.

Other Jews, like Wolfowicz and Jonah Goldberg, and Bill Kristol(nacht) who sign on to a plan that includes urging Israel to take a nuclear strike in order to give them justification for THEIR plans of conquest, or to have Israel take a hit from Chemical Weapons,

And have signed on to another aspect of the same plan that involves a Biological Warfare agent that’s “tailored to a ‘certain genotype’…”

The SAME genotype that every Jew in the world ALSO shares…

To be unleashed on the Middle East… You remember the Middle East, right?

The one where Israel is physically located?

Yeah, that one.

The brothers of Ex-president Mad King George, his president in charge of vice, his secretary of state, his secretaries of “defense”, “Justice” “truth and the American Way”… his closest advisers, his Team, also signed on to the Project for the New AMERICAN Century, yet we’re supposedly Anti-Israeli and Anti-American when bastards like that attempted to use Our Government, a perverted view of Our Constitution, Our Money and Our Army to take over the world.

The plan hinged on a Quick and Decisive victory in Iraq.

It also hinges on Israel NOT being an independent state.

New “American” century, ring a bell there?
They would either make kowtow to the PNAC imperialists or be destroyed.

Apparently, they chose to make kowtow.

But we’ll be called Anti-Israel and Anti-Semites for saying that.

“Ollie North warned of Osama threat, Gore scoffed” and other LIES.

Posted on February 16, 2009 by Brother Jonah

Seems even the Coward Colonel wouldn’t attest to this lie
Seems the Truth about it, while widely publicized, just not on certain Right Wing media outlets, would have been too embarrassing.

I received the same email from well-meaning but not-generally-prone-to-researching-stories-before-forwarding-them relatives and friends.

The times Osama bin Laden was mentioned in the Senate hearings on the sale of American Weapons to Iran in order to finance Terrorist Thugs like the Contras and CubanlColombian coke merchants provided a money-laundering and Delivery Service for the Contras and their American-supplied weapons of Church Destruction…

And the Marines killed in Lebanon by people armed by Ollie North, the “Marine”…who sold Real Marines to their deaths…

But the crazy-dazey part of the whole rumor is, when bin Laden WAS mentioned in those hearings…

It was because Ollie and his Demented Murderous Accomplices in Treason called him a Freedom Fighter against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Seems like the Puppet Masters sometimes have too many Marionets going and the strings get a little tangled.

He’s now a contributing editor and host of a show on DumFox Noose Nutwerks.

ChickenHawks run in packs.

There’s also a rumor of a combination of Sesame Street and “Mickey Mouse” on Arabic TeeVee.

Funny thing about that, the entire concept of Talking Animals offends Fundamentalist Christians and Fundamentalist Jews AND… Fundamentalist Muslims alike.

It’s part of a concept of Witchcraft called “a Familiar Spirit” usually taking the form of a doll or an animal.

Dolls and other graven images are supposed to grant you power over the person or devil represented in the Image.

A Doll fashioned on an Animal would be particularly offensive.

I knew an Assemblies of God preacher (the same denomination as Sarah Palin attends and pretends) who preached that Walt Disney was going directly to Hell because of his Talking Animals… and that the Wonderful World of Disney teevee show came on at the same time as Sunday evening services.

Cotten Mather, the one who the Right Wing worships like he’s the Right Hand of God, George Bush kept harping on the “city on the hill” sermon… had CHILDREN killed as witches for playing with dolls.

It’s fairly common across Fundamentalism.

What I wonder is, how could the SAME people who scream about the Muslims rioting over an Image of the Prophet would turn right around, and make the absurd claim that the same people objecting to the images of Muhammad would somehow put aside that aversion in favor of a Talking Teddy Bear.

Guess the teaching of Logic never reached their primitive school system.

Blackwater changing name to “Xe”….

Posted on February 14, 2009 by Brother Jonah

Erik Prince, Killing Korporation CEO and founder, is Allegedly a Christian.

Throws in gratuitous references to “Knights Templar, USA” on his website.

Nothing new in all of that.

Speculation is rising that “Xe” means Christ Everlasting.

They’ve got a training base near the intersection of Teller (county) One and Teller Eleven, on the western downslope from Cripple Creek.

It’s only secret in that they don’t acknowledge it, either Blackwater or the Army.

They are probably also the contractors guarding Peterson AFB who threatened to have Miss Johnnie arrested when she went to get her ID card a year and a half ago…

And they’re reported to be the staff at the new ICE “detention” center at Ft Carson.

You’ve just got to use your Magic Decoder Ring to see it but Jesus said in The Sermon on the Mount

“…fook ’em all, kill imprison and torture them and make money doing it. And contributions to the Republican Party count as your Tithes…

Suffer, little children, SUFFER!!”

You’ve also got to be wearing your X-Ray glasses…

And an amulet on a necklace made of human hair and half a box of Lucky Charms cereal.

And the skin of a human baby…

And nothing else…

And at a Corner Shrine dedicated to John Wayne.

With black and purple candles.

While saying the Lord’s Prayer sideways.

Human Sacrifice is optional.

But recommended.

Rolling on the ground, smearing yourself with feces and foaming at the mouth means you’re doing the incantation correctly.

District 11 Colorado Springs cutbacks get to rolling

Posted on February 12, 2009 by Tony Logan

I went to one of the District 11 cutback hearing meetings where the Administration pretends to solicit community input for decisions they pretty much already have planned to make, and shared the auditorium with about 700 other concerned but utterly confused folk. It’s cutback time here in the city since the School District put itself in a very deep hole taking out loans whose interest payments now eat up huge chunks of money.

At a little over $63 million interest service on loans per year, that adds up to 1/2 billion dollars over every 8 years by my calculations taken from the School Districts own data. See my earlier comments about these figures on the commentary here about district 11 school district corruption

One half billion dollars every 8 years in debt service? Good grief! One would think that it would get mentioned by somebody at least at these meetings, and it was fully my intention to bring it up.

In fact I did, as I was being kicked out of the school with my big sign that said… DISTRICT 11- GRADE F I was told that no signs were permitted on Private Property by the ten or so cops on the scene. What the Heck?

“I thought my kid was getting a public education,” I responded.

But in a country where torture is legal and legalisms are torture the public in this case is classified ‘private’ per the cops! When I try to take a sign into the City Council public meetings they tell me I can’t do it because it’s public property. That’s America for you, isn’t it? You can’t do it on public or private property, either one, if it has to do with Free Speech. Amazing how so few people actually know that about our Fantasy Land though! They seem to think that we’re in the land that guarantees that Free Speech flourishes! Not exactly, Folk. I had to put my sign away and then try to sign up as a speaker. I did and never got to speak.

So no signs, no flyers, no nothing. That was my 3 hours spent in the auditorium. You see, handing out flyers with info not controlled by the D-11 administrative team would amount to giving them actual input, the parents input, and the teachers input. But D-11 merely wants to pretend that it is asking for public input, not actually get it. I almost got arrested for clapping for one speaker while standing up! That”s how tightly run this charade actually was. I kind of feared getting tasered but merely got ordered to sit down instead! It was a super mannerly assembly.

I really ran into trouble, too, there when I said I was ‘pissed off to an Administrative type in the John, who then lectured me on language! He didn’t seem upset at all that the public was pissed off though, just that I used bad language! He looked so horribly angry at me… He and I were the only ones in the John.

Colorado Springs is just that type of city though with just that type of people. Many of those speaking said that their schools were just fabulous and that the District should close some other school down instead. The meeting was not exactly solidarity forever… lol… It did seem like boredom forever though. What a charade. We all love our schools..blah/blah/blah.

Jerry Heimlicher, Council Member District 3 got to speak next to the last one allowed, and used his time to say that he wanted to be a good partner with this school district management that is refusing to ‘fess up to the real reason they are putting up to 8 public schools on the chopping block. See More details on D-11 restructuring plans Good Ol’ Jerry, wants to play the team player with everybody since he’s always the consummate play liberal politician in town.

I caught Jerry going out the door where I verbally asked him why he didn’t expose the interest servicing that the School District was hiding away from telling the public about? After all it is the real reason for cutbacks being made, and not the pretend reasons which can be found here… ‘If your child goes to a District 11 school, that school could soon be closing. The district is looking at closing at least eight schools and re-configuring several others. They say lower enrollment and budget cuts are to blame.’ …at KKTV Parents Weigh In On Possible District 11 School Closures See how D-11 forgets to mention that $63 million per year servicing of debt interest payments that are the real cause of the distress?

Jerry said that he didn’t want to talk to me about it, and stiffly headed towards his car. Shame on all of the D-11 administrative hacks, and shame on Jerry Heimlicher too for covering up for their crooked asses! The children will suffer because of the banks pulling off this gigantic haul, and this is just the beginning of the school cutbacks that will be coming our way most soon enough. The city too is already cutting services, and the layoffs are a coming. Who’ll bail the people out? All we have are cons in office these days.

the short end of the stick

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Marie Walden

hazelwood tally stick It was one of the greatest heists in history. The scene? London, 1660. The perpetrator? England’s King Charles the II. The loot? All the gold he could con out of the country’s goldsmiths, bankers and businessmen. The tool?

A tally stick.

Tally sticks were a brilliant invention, but they were also insidious as they formed the foundation for the fiat currency systems we still have today. One where the root of a currency’s value is in a promise from a faceless institution, and not in the actual value of an object.

Put into use about a thousand years ago, they were a common sense solution for a young gold-and-goods economy where gold was scarce. By the time of the heist they were used in everyday transactions.

Here is how it worked. When a loan was made, the debt was carved in a standard fashion on the surface of a small (preferably hazelwood) stick, and then the stick was split in half through the center of the carving. The longer end of the IOU was given to the purchaser, and its handle was called the “stock” — the root of the word’s use in today’s markets.

Even a mostly illiterate public could read the amount scratched into the wood, and the stick would only fit perfectly with its original other half. That way, when the debtor returned with the money (or goods) owed, the sticks would be matched and the debt would be “tallied.”

In that fundamental use, they worked perfectly. But of course, as is governments’ way, the King was tempted to stretch those bounds.

Charles II ruled at a time when royal power was still based on a divine mandate. His government and institutions — and indeed he himself — saw the king as the Chosen One, which was a real shame for him because it bound him to the laws of Christendom. And Christianity at the time still forbade lending or borrowing with usury (interest). When financing several failing wars against neighboring countries depleted royal coffers, Charles II needed some quick cash to continue living in kingly fashion.

King Charles II turned to the trusted tally and the keen idea of selling his (government) tallies (debt) at a discount. That way he could allow his lenders to profit without charging interest — the basis for government debt being sold at a discount today.

And the King could issue advance tallies for emergency spending, an idea that proved all too tempting. He sold the tallies collected by his Exchequer (tax collector), essentially trading future tax receipts to the country’s goldsmiths (bankers) for quick cash.

The tallies were receipts for taxes to be paid later in the year. This is a crucial part of the story: they weren’t trading on the value of the objects being traded, but on the cost of waiting for a return and the government’s ability to collect taxes and stay honest. If the government is not honest, this is an outright Ponzi scheme, one where new debt issue could theoretically pay for passing bills. For a while.

The King realized that he’d stumbled onto something big. He could wage all the war he wanted and pay his bills with the gold he got for hazelwood. The King spent and spent, and the goldsmiths’ vaults filled up with more and more sticks.

Goldsmiths were handing out certificates for fractional gold reserves and inflating the young economy in a con all their own. And since the King played along with their early building of a banking system, they played along with the sticks-for-gold investment strategy.

Over time, the market got wise to the game. Buyers started attaching larger and larger discounts to the King’s debt to offset the perceived risk in loaning money to the King. The discounts prompted the King to issue even more tallies, promising out more future tax revenues just to meet his short-term spending desires. But remember only the discount was changing here. So the mountain of taxes to be redeemed in order to pay off his debts grew in comparison, soon overwhelming the King’s income.

By the time the whole Ponzi scheme came to an end, the King’s sticks were trading at a 10% discount (to put that into perspective, short-term T-Bills are currently trading with discounts of one-tenth of one percent or less). The payments on his newer issues trading at that discount soon outmatched all the Kingdom’s tax revenues, effectively bankrupting his Exchequer and threatening to put the monarchy in the poorhouse.

So with the stroke of a pen, the King simply declared those debts illegal and ceased payment.

With that single stroke he stole most of England’s gold — having already spent it — and forced the young economy to fall flat on its face. The King’s various creditors ended up on “the short end of the stick” and all credit in the country evaporated very nearly overnight.

Pretty scary, huh? I’m glad such a thing could never happen today.

Freezing the elderly to death in America

Posted on February 6, 2009 by Tony Logan

incarnati Most of us have heard about the 93-year-old man in Bay City, Michigan who had the utility company freeze him to death when they turned the power off. He had not paid his utility bill of $1,000 outstanding, but he had a will donating $600,000 to another corporation, the McLaren Health Care Corporation which controls the administration of the local hospital (Bay Regional Medical Center) near by.

Poor man. And here is the news that the national media did not report, and that is that this corporation that this poor gentleman donated his money to pays its CEO around $2,500,000 salary per year! That’s his picture up there.

Around 600 people per year freeze to death each Winter in the US, which is not too bad for a capitalist country when you consider that much smaller Hungary (another country with a capitalist government) loses almost the same number of poor each Winter, too. The info about that number is in this article about the man who just froze to death Michigan Investigates Freezing Death of 93-Year-Old The salary report of the hospital chain’s chief where his donation will go can be found here… Philip Incarnati, McLaren Health Care Corp., $2,391,269

Philip Incarnati may actually make much more than the figure quoted though? See Philip A. Incarnati Appointed to Theragenics Board of Directors

Notice the connections of CEO Incarnati to a whole bunch of locales other than just the simple looking hospital where poor frozen to death Marvin Schur donated that chunk of money, too? Philip Incarnati is just as much part of this story as the Utility Company is.

Do not be misled by these hospital chains that try to hide their real data, and try to make themselves look so saintly that one might want to actually trust them in to Biog money in your will perhaps? They are just not what they seem at all, and the way they treat the elderly in this country is obscene! Not even having $600,000 dollars was enough to save Marvin Schur.

That’s a picture of Philip Incarnati, CEO of McLaren Health Care Corporation… YES… He’s making a killing, but I’m sure he’s hoping that nobody will see this info about him and connect the lines together again for poor Marvin Schur! He did not donate to ‘a charity’ as was mistakenly reported by much of the press, but instead donated to a hospital run by McLaren Health Care Corporation! Marvin Schur leaves ‘everything’ to Bay Regional Corporate World posing as charity downs WW2 vet…

Pentagon War Machine now spends close to $5 billion/year rigging the press

Posted on February 6, 2009 by Tony Logan

military-pr In 2009 the Pentagon will employ 27,000 people just for recruitment, advertising and public relations — almost as many as the total 30,000-person work force in the State Department.

“We have such a massive apparatus selling the military to us, it has become hard to ask questions about whether this is too much money or if it’s bloated,” says Sheldon Rampton, research director for the Committee on Media and Democracy, which tracks the military’s media operations. “As the war has become less popular, they have felt they need to respond to that more.”

See AP Impact: Pentagon ups public relations spending

That’s a lot of people and we can also directly see its junior Israeli shadow at work right here on this blog, as the Internet Megaphone military propaganda spam machine organized by the Israeli government, continues to bombard us with their shtick.

What we get with both propaganda machines is a job welfare scheme add-on that self perpetuates itself. These propagandists will simply continue to grow and grow in number until they literally self destruct. I can’t hardly wait ’till that day, can you?

“Persecution” of White Christian Males…

Posted on February 6, 2009 by Brother Jonah

And of Course, either Black, Hispanic, Asian etc Christian males aren’t persecuted or they’re not considered as “good” in the Kingdom of God as the White Ones.

I personally believe the second half of that sentence is the correct interpretation.

But…

It’s taken on an absurd level to which even I did not believe the Wreligious Wrong would sink.

First they fill our heads with “facts” like W.C.M.s make more money than the rest of combined.

Ok, that part actually is probably true.

Then they say “W.C.M.s give more money to Charity than all others combined”

That starts the Fudge Factor going a little.

First their definition of Charity includes such Noble Acts of Righteousness as

starting Young Republicans chapters,

throwing a Chastity Ball (for those of you who aren’t in Colorado Springs that’s a Father-Daughter Formal Dance and Medieval Pseudo-Religious Ritual)

and providing ~~Political Propaganda~~ “educational materials” for groups as diverse as Military Recruits, Kindergartners and Prisoners, books like “Jesus says to obey your Masters or Burn in Hell Forever”

Then of course, given Point 1 about W.C.M.s having more money than everybody else combined the Parable of the Widows Mite comes into play.

AND NOW…

They’re claiming that 9/11 was an act of Religious Persecution.

By “attacking the symbols of our Economic Mastery and Capitalist Empire”

I can see it.

World Trade Center WAS a religious institution, an Idolatrous Temple dedicated to worship of the lower case “g” god of this world,

the almighty yankee dollar

They even call it “The Almighty”

Hardly a Christian Concept.

But at least, they’re partially admitting that their god means more to them than God.

A fine mess you got us into, said the fat man to the little man

Posted on February 5, 2009 by Eric Verlo

I’m convinced the economic “mess” we find ourselves in, is of the Laurel and Hardy variety. The iridescent definition of “mess” leads us to infer that our predicament-mess, results from a clutter-mess of options. To hear the parade of experts, our financial mess is a chaotic tangle to dumbfound even a string theorist. I think it’s more like a job for CSI. This “mess” is painted to obscure an entirely un-messy crime scene. The common American is in a mess alright, we’re staring at a bare bank vault floor.

Sleuths can trace a fugitive’s ATM visits, and every bank transaction above $2,500, do you think they can’t follow the money when it’s in the twelve figures, if they wanted to?

The mess may be a clutter of fingerprints and a tangle of wire transfers to Switzerland. Maybe we face a daunting defensive line of corporate lawyers. The press is no helping any, choosing to interview the usual odd-footed pundits, instead of the over hundred economists trying to beat down the door to oppose the various economic stimulus bank heists.

The entire public discourse is being dumbed down. The MSNBC text title beneath Obama as he gave his Daschle mea culpa, read “IS CHANGE TOO DIFFICULT?” By the way, couldn’t the President of the United States have enough clout to answer each question about Tom Daschle with a quick admission and segue to a pitch for his proposed stimulus package?

Next the spotlight moved to Joe the Plumber, the Senate Republicans inviting him to a closed door session where he could brief them on his Middle East junket, the stimulus, and party strategy. Joe the Not Even Licensed Plumber?

I was beginning to suspect Sarah Palin had been selected as a ruse to give the American people no choice but to elect a black man to the presidency. Now it appears the GOP was purposefully courting idiocy, and realizes now perhaps that it hadn’t aimed low enough. Maybe it hopes to recreate its success in the shoes of Dumb George.

To Joe the Plumber, every problem is not going to look like three quarter inch pipe in need of a wrench. Problems like the economy, or how to use your watch to calculate how to get to a political rally on time, are going to look like powerful quandaries. And the media hopes to use Joes like Joe as a Greek Chorus, or in modern parlance, a focus group of one, to demonstrate to the public beast that Joe the Everyman Us is stumped.

Does Obama have the votes to pass this or that? Even with a Democratic majority, polls will show that if Joe Public can’t count it on the fingers of both hands, he’ll believe the pundits when they say Obama doesn’t.

Noted American economist says entire government ‘Bailout’ strategy is flawed

Posted on February 2, 2009 by Tony Logan

Buffett throwing dollars Well what do you know? Noted American economist, Joseph Stiglitz, says that the whole US government ‘Bailout’ strategy is seriously flawed! I never would have guessed it, would you? I thought that throwing $$$ TRILLIONS of paper money at the problem probably would work, but now I’m just not so sure? Hold the presses! Is the Entire Bailout Strategy Flawed? Let’s Rethink This Before It’s Too Late Yes, Please…

Opposition to Public Education

Posted on February 2, 2009 by Brother Jonah

Why Republicans HATE Public Education.

In the Words of THEIR prophet Hitler “Universal Public Education is the most virulent toxin that Liberalism can inflict upon itself. It only makes the Lower Classes think more highly of themselves than they ought, and leads to discontent with their position in life. Truly, they only need enough education to be Efficient Coolies for our industries”
(Liberties taken with the exact English phrases, the Original was in German)

We often are accused of “ignorance” when the Anti-Semitic Supporters of Killing Palestinians, for example, or the one who calls him/herself “Friend” posts… publish their reactionary Angry Hate Speech on Not My Tribe.

In a slightly backward twist we are often accused of being “intellectual Elitists”, but Still ignorant.

Or “idiots”.

Without Public Education we would be left with home-schooling, or Parochial Education.

Those of us who weren’t born with silver spoons in our mouths would be left out in either case.

“Keep ’em Ignorant”

And for not just nearly but EXACTLY the same reason American Slaves were forbidden to learn to read and write.

I’m sure the Republican’t respondents will argue that it’s not like that, I’m just spouting Marxist Propaganda again, the Repukelickin’ Party doesn’t actually engage in class warfare or racism blah blah blah blah…

My grandfather was a cowboy.

Not like George Bush with his “ranch” and 5 cows bought and maintained by his Trust Fund, a trust fund which I’m once again going to point out came from an enterprise his family engaged in called Slave Trading.

They’ll say that, Yankee Puritans they claim to be, their family didn’t actually own slaves. Nor did their favorite “charity” the Yale Foundation.

No, they wouldn’t soil their own hands with the whips and chains necessary to “earn” their money for them…

They just owned a fleet of Slave Ships.

That and Grand-poppy Prescott Bush laundered money for the Nazis, which they don’t

a) apologize for

and

b) they’re still spending the money they got from BOTH enterprises.

No, Grandpa Brown was a REAL cowboy. So was his brother Loy and their brother-in-law Tom.

In Texas in those days that meant Impoverished.

Cowboys were just then being romanticized in the public IMAGINATION through those new-fangled movin’ picture thingies.

Uncle Tom wound up being the foreman of the Rolling Hills Ranch in Keene, Texas, until the ranch was sold to Halliburton in the late 70s to make a Game Ranch.

Like the one where Former Vice President and Current Active War Criminal Richard Cheney shot his friend in the face while they were “hunting” captive, hand raised “Wild” ducks.

They also have or had a website wherein you could with a click of your mouse or joystick “hunt” and actually kill actual formerly live animals (until you put the mouse pointer over them and clicked)

Uncle Tom described it as a place where they bought old, diseased “wild” zoo and circus animals dependent upon your actual skill level they would drug the animals or even chain them up for you so you wouldn’t miss.

That way you could go on an African Safari without ever leaving Texas.

Really swell, wonderful Republican People, they are.

But with a family background like that, working class all the way, impoverished…

Without Public Education how would I have ever risen to the position where I could contend with so many Noble Rich American (and Israeli, if you believe their story) Aristocracy like “Friend” and the Megaphone Users?

The short answer is that I wouldn’t.

Nor would most of us who oppose their monstrous schemes, we would simply have to take their word on any subject or issue, they would pat us on the head and bid us go back out into the cotton fields like good little childishly ignorant Peasants.

While they can’t do it literally, they do, in fact, precisely that by sneeringly dismissing anything we write, anything we Learn and then Share as being “ignorance”.

And sneeringly claim that we must be “idiots”.

But it’s not Racism or Class Warfare or Big Brotherism. No, it’s “all for your own good”

But in their underestimation we’re just too stupid and “ignorant” to recognize it.

Colorado’s collapsing Medical Care

Posted on February 1, 2009 by Tony Logan

kildare promo still The Denver Post ran an article this Sunday that paints a pretty sad picture of what’s going on in Health Care as the Obama Regime stands by. Health services in distress- Newly jobless seek aid in “astronomical” numbers

Health services being shut down even as demand goes up, as the economy is just not getting the job down for what people actually need! Meanwhile, Big Business run local, state, and federal government sits idly by watching the on rush of disaster without responding to it in any meaningful manner. This is Hurricane Katrina unfolding once again, but on a national scale and a scale of national corruption that dwarfs the mess that Bush made out of Southern Louisiana and Southern Mississippi. The levees have burst wide open, because the money was spent elsewhere rather than in reinforcement of these vital services. Where’s the CHANGE?

Guantanamo highlights the colossal collapse of legality in US legal system

Posted on January 31, 2009 by Tony Logan

(Judge) Leon declared… “Simply stated, faithfully serving in an al-Qaeda-affiliated fighting unit that is directly supporting the Taliban by helping prepare the meals of its entire fighting force is more than sufficient to meet this Court’s definition of ‘support.’” He added, “After all, as Napoleon was fond of pointing out, ‘An army marches on its stomach.”

Thus, Judge Lion declared in his Wonderland ruling that the cook was a terrorist cook! Blame the Chef- How Cooking for the Taliban Can Get You Life in Gitmo By ANDY WORTHINGTON

Humpty Dumpty has fallen and cannot be put together ever again, Barack, at least not with you as Head of State. You cannot restore accreditation for The US Establishment to the US Legal System now after 7 years of US torture and illegal jailing there of POWs. Sleight of hand just won’t do it and the whole world is watching.

Instead of doing away with the GWOT (Global War on Terrorism) nonsense of calling POWs ‘enemy combatants, you are seemingly continuing the entire illegality of the fallen US Legal Establishment. How about a new classification for the POW cook? You can now call him an ‘enemy non-combatant’, and there are many others jailed and tortured by the government you head up now who fall into just this category.

And further, since you are supporting Israel’s terrorist definition of ‘terrorism’, why not just go ahead and classify the children of Hamas as ‘enemy combatants’ and enemy ‘non-combatants’ as well? No need to change American Law to do that since the American Legal System is already totally on board with the Wonderland approach.

I bet you a lot of those murdered IDF Palestinian children in Gaza were cooks, too? Cooking for Hamas would certainly be ruled on by American Judge Leon as terrorist participation and grounds for torture and elimination. Yeah, that’s right! And Israel was right to legally use White Phosphorus to light up the situation in a legal manner so that these tiny terrorists might be stopped in their shoes (though some might have well been bare foot). Terrorists should be seen for just what they are, even if they are tiny cooks, too!

Obama, I know that you can’t turn America around just like that. I’m willing to give you time to show how sweet and good you are. Will 4 years be enough time now for you? Or will you need 8?

Guantanamo highlights the colossal collapse of all but pretense of legality in the American Legal System. There is no real reality now, since America is without real law in the land, as nothing but money and might now rule. Barack Obama’s bought Presidency is part of all that. It is part of the cooking.

A little break for the AIPAC ChickenHawks Flooding the Site..

Posted on January 30, 2009 by Brother Jonah

Something more the War-mongering Freaks can bitch whine and snivel about, Welcome back, David Haddad errr “Mary”

So, since unabashed ChickenHawks like Glenn Beck like to “donate” Tax Deductible stuff like free airtime on their “news” shows, and the USO is begging for money for the families of the troops…
How, then, can the Recruiters claim in other (taxpayer funded) advertisements that the Military is a Good Career?
A few background items, if you will.

Glenn Beck, Chickenhawk, in 2007 participated in a “charity” Auction and one of the articles he donated (For a Tax Break…) a really really butt-ugly painting.

The bidding on it at the point where I tuned in, was 3400 dollars.

That means, for a few minutes of his time, about $10 worth of paint and a $30 canvass, he was getting a Tax Break to the tune of $3400.00

And publicity for his show, which consists almost entirely of licking Government Boot for an hour at a time.

He ~~earns~~ Is GIVEN his pay for Promoting The War and thus the very poverty/slash/hardship conditions the Military Personnel have to endure.

An Establishment Media Whore like that then gets to Pretend that he gives a damn about the Soldiers, their wives and children/slash/widows and orphans…

Gets paid to spew his drivel on the Air and then gets paid again by “donating” something to the USO.

His equally Cowardly Loud-mouthed War-Monger Friend who bought the painting also got to take an equal tax deduction

So far, that was $6800 dollars taken off their taxes,

The Same Taxes Which Form The Basis For The Costs Of The War

So they’re not only getting OTHER People to Fight for their ~~Obscene profit Margins~~ Ooops I was supposed to say “our Freedom”, thus putting the Soldiers and their families in dire financial straits…

They’re Getting Paid To Sell the “necessity” of THEIR War to those of us who DO pay taxes, and thus PAY THEIR BILLS for THEIR War…

On a show that gets Government Subsidies as well,

And make a huge Show of Concern for those poor families of the Soldiers.

The Soldiers who are being aggressively recruited even before they leave high school, whose Parents are being told several times an hour to ~~support the decisions of their sons and daughters~~ Sign The Papers Allowing Their Underage CHILDREN to drop out of school and join the Killing Machine.

Because being an Imperial Storm Trooper is such a Good Economic and Educational Opportunity.

It’s Payday today. because the 1st is on a weekend.

Since the middle of the month Military families have been seeking donations to just feed the kids until the end of the month.

People who get Food Stamps.

That’s not a slur against the families or the soldiers themselves.

The “Welfare Cadillac” Food Stamp Queen (who is invariably depicted as Black, although our Republican “Friend” tells us that the propaganda they put out is not Racist at all in any way, shape or form) Is And Always Was a Mythological Construct.

People don’t get rich off being on welfare.

Although the Right Wing Professional Liars, like for instance Glenn Beck, tell us that they do.

Remember though, in the Information Age, their lies about How Righteous and Noble the War is, how we’re obviously Winning the War, how Everybody in the Army Loves The War, How Great a Career The Army is…

Get shown simultaneously with advertisements begging for relief for their families, ads for the Army recruiting CHILDREN to quit school, give up any chance of a real educational opportunity, and Join The Storm Troopers… because they can’t retain enough of the soldiers who are already in their Glorious Wonderful Marvelous Career to keep fighting a war that was supposedly won 5 years ago.

Excuse me, that last figure is inaccurate… it was 5 1/2 years ago.

I wonder if the AIPAC Anti-Semitic types who post all these long letters that say “blah blah blah Israel is always right blah blah blah you’re ignorant to say otherwise blah blah blah how DARE you criticize people for being Babykillers blah blah blah”

I wonder if they’re getting a tax-break for it, or maybe just making money from the “Defense” Industry which is supplyin’ the (Israeli Puppet) Army with the tools of the Trade?

Or is it

D) All Of The Above.

Pardon, your hypocrisy is showing.

Not My Tribe

The Myth of Middle Ground

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