Sunday, June 30, 2013

DOUCHEBAG OF THE WEEK: THE ZIMMERMAN PROSECUTORS

Even the most biased critics have looked at the Zimmerman case this week and commented how piss poor the Zimmerman case is going for the prosecutors. But now they have reached a new low which puts them square at the top of this list, and that means they beat a US government that is killing whistleblowers now. Let us see those runner ups.

1)Lindsey Graham- This toad of a human being opened his at mouth again this and exposed him for the fascist he is. This is the same person who said people like me are not journalists and deserve no protection as a result. Nevermind the fact that I have worked in both TV and print news previously and the only reason I don't still work in either field is the downsizing of middle America where people with far less experience are hired in our places for far less money. Senator Dumbass has also in the past demanded more and more fascist policies and has stood by the NSA snooping scandal but has now gone full Nazi in his latest tirade. He has proposed reading all snail mail for "security purposes." When will this fascist crap end? Hopefully with Graham being shown the door as anyone still voting for this man is a traitor to this country and should be dealt with as such. This kind of nonsense has to stop and if we have to resort to exposing idiots for the choices they make so be it. I would suggest taking out a billboard with a picture of some republican dumbass and make EVERYONE know how they voted. The other step would be to impeach everyone involved, from the President, to Congress to the Supreme Court. Throw all the bums out at this point.

2)Fox and Friends- Possibly the only three people in history that could make Sarah Palin look like a Rhodes scholar, the three stooges this week his a new low, which is incredible in and of itself. In a segment this week, these three retards said that Mr. Rogers was the devil because he taught children they were special. They then linked this, erroneously, to schools today that give "participation awards" to all students. And while I would agree that this type of awards for all mentality is stupid and damaging, Mr. Rogers had NOTHING to do with that. Mr. Rogers told all kids they were special, which they are. Every child is special in some way and Fred Rogers was trying to get all kids to feel included and not alone. The school system is trying to homogenize everyone into a single layer which is not how the real world works. It is this system that is making the younger generation a bunch of narcissistic, out of touch wannabes who desire fame and fortune over substance. However, Mr. Rogers is not responsible for this, was a great man who did lots of good things for children and to call him evil is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

3)Judge Howard Shore- Speaking of calling out someone who is a douchebag of the highest order comes this bit of nonsense from a judge in San Diego. Jeff Olsen is on trial for scribbling washable chalk messages on the sidewalk in front of the Bank of America. He faces 13 years in prison. WTF? Even more incredible the judge has slapped a gag order on discussion of the case and any mention during the trial of the 1st amendment. According to the judge, vandalism is not protected by free speech, which seems to fly in the face of what that amendment actually says. I understand if the talk is vulgar, obscene or without merit, none of which applies here. Plus, Skank of America claims it cost them $6000 to remove the chalk writing, which is odd as a guy with a hose would have had the same result. This case shows how much power banks have over us as they demanded he be prosecuted, even though the DA and Mayor didn't want to. The DA capitulated for some unknown reason, although it is telling that the lead prosecutor, Jan Goldsmith, has received money from the bank for her campaign running for mayor in 2016. Hmmm, no bribery there. It also denies the aspect that sidewalks are public property and not owned by any company, bank or not. Bank of America is a fascist company and no one should be doing business with them ever.

4)Aaron Hernandez- This could quite possibly be the dumbest man on the face of the Earth. Nevermind the fact he threw away a $40 million contract and a life of luxury, his attempt at being a criminal mastermind fell somewhere between a James Bond henchman and a guy attempting to rob a donut shop filled with cops. First off, why didn't he get rid of the body? He had planned this obviously but just left the body half a mile from his home? Why? The victim was easily tied back to him and made him suspect number one right off the bat. Second, if you are going to get rid of security footage from your own house, get rid of the incriminating evidence. Dumbass erased eight hours of footage but forgot to get rid of the video of him coming home after the shooting with a gun. Now is he is being looked at for two additional murders as well. He is going to get life in prison. Good.

5)White House Down- This movie is failing big time, most likely due to the fact that the exact same movie came out three months earlier, Olympus has Fallen. Even with it's R rating, that film still made over a $100 million domestic and near nothing overseas. Down will not make back it's budget which is too bad as the film doesn't look that bad. Too many action films all at once are diluting the market when some of these should have been staggered out better. With even more action movies on the way, this trend will continue. Which big budget film will fail next? Despicable Me 2 has gotten poor reviews so far so that one to watch to tank.

6)The Supreme Court- The Court had a wildly uneven week by upholding gay marriage for states that want it (and opens the door for challenges in states that do not) while also telling black people to get to the back of the bus. After throwing out the Voter Rights Act of 1965 because "it was outdated," seemed to have missed all the times states have tried to take away voting rights from minorities so they will win elections. As minorities vote democratic overall, getting rid of their votes is paramount to republicans staying in power. Two hours after the ruling, Texas started legislation for Voter ID laws, gerrymandering and other ideas that will keep the state from going blue where it is actually headed due to the large number of Hispanics who want noting to do with red state policies. Welcome back Jim Crow laws and the Court that allowed it.

7)Texas- This week Wendy Davis and 400 supporters helped stop a draconian law that would prevent abortion after 20 weeks, close down most of the clinics that provided those type of services and demand doctor supervision to even take the morning after pill. Rick "Niggerhead" Perry said he would call for another special session to take up the matter as soon as tomorrow. If this passes, I hope the good people of Texas get out and vote these morons out en masse in the next election. If not, there are an awful lot of guns in that state. Just saying.

8)Republicans- These jackals just threw the college kids of this country to the wolves when the student loan rate is set to double tomorrow. The Senate's version couldn't be passed by the douchebags in the House, whose own bill would actually triple the rate if it passed which it didn't. Harry Reid said "This is one of those rare times when it would actually be better to do nothing than pass this bill." So for all you college kids who failed to vote in the last election: you owe more money now as a result. If you don't vote, you will pay down the road. Every single person should be voting out the GOP in the next election, unless you don't care about gays, minorities, women or young people. So stay home but don't bitch when you owe thousands of dollars, jailed for not paying and have your life ruined as a result.

9)SWAT teams- These forces are going way out of control. In Virginia this week, a SWAT team arrested a college girl after they swarmed her car, minus any identification because they suspected she has beer which she didn't. She spent a day and a half in jail before being released for assault on the police when she tried to flee what she thought was a carjacking. Do we really need SWAT harassing college girls for beer purchases? Expect a major lawsuit to follow.

10)US Government- With the death of Michael Hastings looking more and more like an assassination, we have now officially entered an era where whistleblowers will be killed rather than arrested. Snowden should be looking at this with some alarm and knowledge that there may indeed be death squads after him. All the evidence with Hastings point to his car being hacked and driven into a wall at high speeds, as mountains of evidence are coming foreword that he was working on a story about the FBI, CIA and NSA that was going to be explosive. We can only hope that some of that may still surface. The US is learning the hard way that we are not the only superpower in the world anymore. When we started leaning on Ecuador to not give Snowden asylum, the State Department kept a trade deal over their heads as leverage. Ecuador responded by telling the US to fuck off and to take the trade deal and cram it with onions. This scandal has done real damage to the US and the EU who have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar, as recent reports suggest we have shared a lot of stolen data with our allies. The turn toward fascism is alive and well and reaching it's end point soon.

11)Paula Deen-This racist bitch is going to lose 80% of her income. Good. Her southern Belle grandmother act is just that: an act. Considering how much damage her ill conceived, butter drenched recipes have done to the black community, I am thrilled she is going away.

12)The Zimmerman Prosecutors- They have had a bad week as most of their witnesses have imploded on the stand, with some eviscerated in cross examination or others stating the defense point of view that Martin was beating Zimmerman. All in all, it looks bad. And considering the racial implications of this case, the chances for another riot situation after the Rodney King verdict is very high if and when Zimmerman walks, which looks likely at this point. In response, the prosecution is going to start character assassination of Zimmerman as a known racist using innuendo and questionable witnesses. One that may hit the stand tomorrow is a relative of Zimmerman who allegedly molested her as a child and that him and his family were devout racists. Nevermind the fact that there is zero evidence for any of this or even relevance to the case. The molestation crap should not be allowed in court as it has no bearing on this case and the racist aspect has no solid proof other than her word which is suspect. There are all sorts of reasons, money mostly, why this woman may be lying and without some sort of corroborating evidence, this shouldn't be allowed to be heard. If it is, expect this situation to be eve worse if he gets acciquited when Black America riots over it. This is literally throwing gasoline on a fire to get a verdict that still won't go their way. These prosecutors are putting the lives of all American at risk to get a conviction that they shouldn't have charged him with in the first place. So congratulation Zimmerman prosecutors you are indeed douchebag of the week.

Friday, June 28, 2013

PAULA DEEN, THE ZIMMERMAN TRIAL AND WHY RACISM IS ALIVE AND WELL EVERYWHERE

Let us make no mistake about this one fact: racism as a whole has diminished dramatically over the years. However, these types of gains are still masked by the fact that white Southerners still seem bent over the Civil War and slavery while the black community seems overtly hostile to white people in general. Neither of these views are acceptable in today's world and all races need to start looking at what they are saying and stop snap judgements about others.

Let's start with the obvious one: Paula Deen's meltdown. Even people like Charlie Sheen and Michael Richards are watching this woman plummet to the earth and thinking that maybe now might be the best time to just shut up about the whole thing. I swear every time she opens her mouth, another sponsor is horrified by what comes out of her mouth and drops her. After the freefall of sponsors over the last few days, Kmart, Sears and Walgreens joined in and dropped her products as well. Only her books and restaurants seem to be doing okay meaning people in this country are too dumb to know when someone is laughing at them not with, which is exactly what Paula Deen has been doing for years.

I am very adept at reading people and I am rarely wrong anymore about what kind of person someone is. Most likely I developed this method after getting screwed over and over by people I trusted who always inevitably stabbed me in the back. I came to realize certain traits that liars project, also called micro-expressions, and now I am human lie detector. But facial and body language is even less obvious than what someone says which can tell you everything. Paula Deen exposed herself for the fraud she is when she gave an interview to Matt Lauer this week and actually said this "I is what I is and I'm not changing." Anyone else see the problem with that statement?

First off, anyone who says "I is what is," should be punched for bad grammar alone. Why does she sound like Popeye? Who talks like that ever even in the south? But then check out the rest of the statement "and I'm not changing." People rarely mix grammatical errors so she should have either said "and I is not changing," or "I ain't changing." However she used am instead of is. Why? If you know the correct way of speaking is am rather than is, why is it in the beginning of the sentence and then used correctly later. You wouldn't as no one talks that way except for someone like Deen who I suspect is putting on an act. I am certain that the grandmother, Southern belle attitude she projects is a lie and she is a lot more shrewd than she is letting on. In other words, she's pretending to be this stereotypical Southern redneck, when she is probably more Donald Trump. And the rubes are eating it up. I always found it fake and recent events suggest I may be right and I truly believe she is a lot more racist than she is letting on. Her depositions and subsequent interviews suggests her views toward black people are not as nice as everyone thinks. Be warned.

And then there is the George Zimmerman trial which isn't going well at all for the prosecution. I said months ago, the evidence they had was weak at best and trying to prove second degree murder was going to be near impossible. Had they gone for manslaughter like they should have, a conviction would have been far more likely. So far, the witnesses for the prosecution have been terrible, with most confirming Zimmerman's take of events. The ones that have said otherwise, such a neighbor and a very unfortunate Precious looking black teen who is caught in the crossfire, have both been discredited by a solid defense attorney. The one neighbor barely saw anything and was eviscerated when her description of Martin was way off. Her version said Martin looked like his picture on the TV which we found out later was years old and in no way what Martin looked like at the time suggesting she really didn't see anything and made the whole thing up. However, the other witnesses have all said they saw Martin on top of Zimmerman, effectively destroying the prosecutions case so far. It's been a sad spectacle.

But Rachel Samara, the friend of Trayvon Martin, has been getting a raw deal from all sides when she was being questioned. A letter she wrote turned out to be written by someone else, and not revealed as such earlier, when the defense asked her to read the letter in court. She couldn't read cursive it turns out, something happening more and more in schools today. The letter was ripped apart as a sanitized version that left out key statements she had made earlier that did not paint Martin in a good light. He said things like "a creepy ass cracker was following him," and "nigga," none of which make Martin sound like a good kid but a dangerous thug with a hatred for white people, something his social media posts also suggest. Why is it black people go nuts when the N-word gets used, but shrug off the use of cracker and honky. I hate to break it you, but that's racist too. Just because you are black, doesn't mean you are immune to racism and the fact that this view is rampant in black communities is horrifying. If we don't stop labeling one another and start building an intelligent conversation on this matter, nothing is ever going to change and black people are never going to get out of the rotten neighborhoods they have been abandoned in.

Much has been made over why Samara didn't call the police. As someone who has had awful experiences with police departments, I wouldn't call the cops unless my life depended on it and even then I might give pause. Samara is no different. When you have bad experience after bad experience with police, and the black community is up their eyeballs in that, you would never call the cops. This is white people living in ivory towers wondering why the peasants are revolting. They live in two worlds and this trial is demonstrating that to a tee.

When this is all done, Zimmerman is going to walk on the most serious charges with a chance that some lesser ones might stick but know that either way, black people are going to riot when he is cleared. They won't see this as justice because it didn't go their way, but the way the case is going Zimmerman is going to be a free man. And how non-racist will black people be then? Will they escalate things to a race war or burn their own neighborhoods down again? I'm hoping neither and that cooler heads prevail. White people are not your enemy. Rich people are. And until we combine our forces together to stop them from enslaving us all, we will continue to kill one another as the elites watch and laugh.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

DOMA, THE SUPREME COURT, TEXAS AND OTHER JUSTICE RELATED NEWS

Whereas yesterday was a dark day for minorities when the Voting Act of 1965 was struck down, today is champagne and caviar for those who are gay, pro choice or both. The Supreme Court struck down the 1996 DOMA law that outlawed gay marriage at the federal level finally giving much needed to equality to the last minority group that was being discriminated against. And a filibuster was used in Texas to prevent a draconian anti-abortion law that the Republicans down there tried every fascist trick in the book to block.

Regular readers know I am a huge supporter of gay marriage. I have had gay friends in the past and they were fine upstanding individuals. And while the two bi-sexual men I knew were both giant douchebags, I doubt that holds true for all bi-sexual men. All people have assholes within their community and I had the misfortune of meeting two of them at roughly the same time. But unlike the bigots out there, I didn't lump all individuals of this sexual preference into the same mix.

But now, gay marriage is the law of the land and Prop 8 is going right along with it as the Court sent it back to the federal court where they had previously struck it down, effectively killing that bill too. California has stated they will implement gay marriage as soon as possible because of it. Any state with same sex bias laws will all be thrown out of court as well, meaning gay can now marry in whatever state they want and very soon, federal laws will be protected against any further bias. This is a huge step forward for the gay community and I am very happy for them. What the bigots out there don't understand either is that this will bring an epic economic boom as gay marriages tend to be extravagant and expensive, helping an ailing economy. Now if we can only get pot legalized, we might actually begin to start digging ourselves out of this ever expanding hole we are in.

Recent data shows that the average salary for the bottom 90% is now at around $31,000 or $10,000 less than you would have made in 1970. How come that isn't on the nightly news? Oh because corporate America is still telling you that the recovery is right around the corner which we have now been officially hearing since 2007. There is no recovery unless you are part of the 1%. The rest of us are getting screwed.

Speaking of screwing people, the republicans in Texas tried everything they could to break a filibuster in Texas that would have prevented anyone from getting an abortion in the state. The draconian laws would have closed 90% of the abortion clinics, demanded a doctor be present even if taking the morning after pill and would have driven women's rights back to the 19th century. According to the stupidest rules I have ever heard of for a filibuster, the person must remain standing the whole time, not take bathroom breaks, lean on anything, and, my favorite, "stay on topic." First off the filibuster law as originally written makes no mention of topic and in the past some have gone on reading the phone book. Now, at least in Texas, any senator can claim the speaker has gone off topic for any reason and ask the Speaker of the House to end the filibuster, which is exactly what the rightwing douchebags in Texas tried to do at the last minute.

Wendy Davis did a phenomenal job and the off topic bullshit was just that when both times she was talking about abortion rights when some ass claimed she went astray. The Right wingers, who will cheat, lie or steal if they can, did their best to kill the filibuster, until the one thing they hadn't counted on happened. The people in the audience erupted in fury and caused such a commotion that the filibuster vote to end it didn't happen until after midnight, killing the bill. That is democracy in action and I hope that every single one of these assholes goes down in defeat in the next election. But as they will be rigging their Voter ID laws stat, they may not happen for some time.

Now as these lowlifes have proven to do every unethical trick in the book, expect them to do something underhanded to get this loathsome law passed and if it does, demand impeachment of any involved. If that doesn't work, Texas has more guns than anywhere on Earth and I hope they use them to demand justice. These idiots cannot be allowed to continue on their path of destruction and I hope anyone reading this makes others realize the folly that is the GOP. They are going to kill us all if they get their way as their policies demonstrate. Unless you have tons of money or a religious lunatic, the right no longer speaks for you. Demand more from your politicians like the people of Texas just did, and in a way that is both non-violent and effective. We need more moments like this.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

THE 1965 VOTING ACT DISSOLUTION, RADICAL ISLAM, CLIMATE CHANGE AND OTHER SIGNS THE END IS NEAR

If you ever wanted to watch society devolve to an unrepairable state, just put on the evening news and see what is really going on, even as seen through the corporate lens all major media possesses. Ed Snowden is being treated like a terrorist rather than a whistleblower, which is hardly surprising as Obama has been the absolute worst president when it comes to these kinds of people who he has jailed in record numbers. His claims of more transparency through two terms is laughable at best at this point. In all honesty, he has been barely better than Bush, but let's be clear, President Romney would have been much, much worse.

And that is why we are so screwed. There is no political party that is not corrupted by big money at this point and that means we are headed for a full blown fascist state; one that won't conceal it's intentions anymore because it won't have to. When guns are removed, when lies become truth and when military-like thugs patrol out streets we will be fully there. For now, these things are just shadows but they are rapidly becoming reality and anyone supporting the Republicans at this point are just asking for this to become true. Don't believe for a second that the right won't turn around and confiscate guns once they get into power if benefits them. Obama to his credit has done less for gun control than his predecessor, except for lip service and common sense bills that should have passed if the GOP wasn't hell bent on their own destruction.

The Supreme Court took another step toward this by giving the Republicans the chance to disenfranchise millions of minority votes when they struck down the 1965 Voting Acts Bill that was recently re-voted on by Congress in a rare unanimous vote. We will see how many of these people vote again that way when this reaches Congress for an override. What this means is that minorities in Republican controlled states will find it even harder to vote and will be effectively cut off by overly stringent rules, few polling stations and severe voter ID laws. Democracy has been taken down another notch by our out of control Supreme Court. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea is an idiot, a traitor and, most likely, Sarah Palin.

But we are not the only group circling the rim as recent studies show just how much the world HATES radical Islam, and all of Islam as a result. This has mostly been brought on by themselves who continue to treat every non-Muslim as a target, including women and children which most decent folk try not to harm. It came to my attention this week that the last great religion not to be sullied by this stain on humankind, Buddhism, has thrown in the towel and started it's own brand of radical thought. I have studied Buddhism extensively and it is the most peaceful, non-violent religion on the planet. Even they have had enough with attacks on innocent civilians in countries like Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia where this new form of worship includes death threats to all of Islam. As a result, attacks on innocent Muslims is skyrocketing in these countries.

As I have said time and time again, if you keep doing stupid shit, eventually someone is going to get really, really pissed and smack you. Islam has become that now. Everyday we hear about some atrocity committed in the name of Allah, whether it be huge numbers of killings of Christians in Nigeria, bombing worldwide, attacks by the Taliban in Afghanistan, it never ends. And trust me, that has a psychological effect on viewers worldwide and not the good kind if you hail from the Middle East.

We stand at a time not seen since the early part of the twentieth century when one lone man killed Archduke Ferdinand, albeit part of a larger group, and started two world wars that killed hundreds of millions of people through war, famine and disease. One guy started the Apocalypse. The way things are they could happen again.

All we need is one lone Muslim lunatic or group to do something so heinous, so disgusting, the world is going to rise up and squash them from the Earth. Say one idiot detonates a dirty bomb in Times Square. The US would destroy every single Muslim living in this country before the death toll was even announced. The world would react the same. This scenario leads less to a world wide and more to the complete extermination of an entire religion, most likely resulting in the deaths of at least a hundred million people. This is what radical Islam is leading to and anyone from these areas better be spending mucho time trying to stop this from happening because their lives are most definitely on the line from a panicky, lethal public. The only alternative would be mass incarceration of all affected, which is barely better than death on the street.

And then there is Climate Change that some are still saying is not occurring all the while the west burns to the ground as a beetle infestation, caused by changing climate, is destroying the forests. Add in the GOP cutting funding for firefighting by 30% in most states and you have the recipe for the fires consuming Colorado right now. Some idiot posted some sort of graph that suggested ocean temperatures are falling which is bullshit. I have seen the best info available and ocean temperatures are skyrocketing, not falling. Be very careful on which site you read information on as many of them literally just make stuff up. They say "Here's this graph that I made up and looks official but is in reality total bunk." Climate change is happening and all signs point to real problems on the very near horizon.

The end is near. Take economic, political. religious or environmental reasons and fear what is going to occur. Only we can change this and no one seems to be doing anything. Stand up and demand more. Or prepare for the end. Your choice.

Monday, June 24, 2013

THINK YOU LIVE IN A FREE COUNTRY? CHECK OUT THESE FORECLOSURE HORROR STORIES.

A recent poll by Gallop showed a huge slide in trust in many organizations in this country with Congress bringing up the rear as always. When you have to choose between two losers to elect, the people are getting screwed and faith in this country continues to ebb. It doesn't help that neither side seems to have any interest in protecting the little guy with the GOP all but saying they want us all dead. The worst part is things are happening every day that is not being reported by our corporate controlled media, the same apparatus screaming for Snowden's head even though Dick Cheney was guilty of the same thing when he outed Valerie Plame and CIA operatives died in droves because of it. Snowden is in the wrong here, apparently because he told the public what was going on, a no no in today's fascist state which we do actually live in. Don't believe me? Check out these stories about people across this country and foreclosure procedures used against them.

SWAT teams are being used for all sorts of purposes now, completely obliterating the reasons the Supreme Court said they could use them for. According to the law, SWAT can only be used if they believe it is the only way to remove a violent criminal or if evidence is being destroyed. Nowhere does it say they can use SWAT for bee keeping, liquor licenses, or most recently, suspicion of owning a AK-47 (which they did not find but found two grams of coke instead). Now they are being used to remove people from foreclosures, as happened to family in Atlanta in 2012 when armed police threw them from their home in the middle of the night.

Another thing that banks are doing is letting you pay a reduced rate on your mortgage and then foreclosing on your home because your payments were not enough. That is some sick shit. Worse, some are getting caught in paperwork hell where they spend months being transferred from person to person to no avail. Some are having their houses taken from them but somehow still have to foot the tax bill for a house they no longer own, forcing many into bankruptcy.

Bank of America is one of the worst, foreclosing on houses of people who don't owe any money. How is that possible? How is that legal? Well guess what, it is as many have fallen prey to this type of theft which you have no legal recourse over. Good luck suing as it will cost millions to fight it in court.

Here's the story of a woman who wanted nothing more than a payment history of her mortgage. This is the response she got:

“Let me enlighten you, Kathy. First of all, there’s nothing in your contract with us says we owe you any history, now, next year, five years from now or the next time…I’ve begun foreclosure today. I bet you’re sorry now that you made that phone call. I don’t need to put up with your crap, OK?…Bottom line, I’m doing nothing for you now.”

I may preach non violence but if I gotten that message I would have tracked this fucker down and shot him until I could see through the holes. Until we stand up and demand justice from actions like this we are nothing more than sheep and way too many of us are bending over and taking it.

Bank of America has also seized houses it doesn't own as one MA couple found out last year after the house they paid in cash for in 2005 was seized for reasons unknown. They have since filed a suit against the bank which will no doubt drag on for years.

All this says is that if you take a loan through any bank, make sure it isn't Bank of America, JP Morgan or the like and stick with smaller credit unions and local banks that are less likely to screw you. At this point any douche doing business with the big banks deserve whatever hell they get as they are nothing more than big business loan sharks at this point. And more people need to stand up and say ENOUGH. If anyone comes to take your home, especially if you don't owe money to anyone, defend it at all costs, even using violence if needed. Send enough of these douchebags to the morgue and see change happen then. The Supreme Court is on your side here. The end result otherwise is you homeless living in the street. Which sounds better to you?

Sunday, June 23, 2013

DOUCHEBAG OF THE WEEK: THE WORLD ELITE

If recent events are any indication,  the so-called "Arab Spring" is rapidly becoming the World Spring as country after country is falling to mass protests over rampant inequality that people are fed up with. How soon until it reaches out shore? Let's see those runner ups.

1)Gabriel Gomez and special elections- Anyone not living in the MA area probably has no idea who this guy is. He is the Republican candidate for John Kerry's seat, vacated when he became Secretary of State. His opponent, Ed Markey, is up twenty points in the latest poll, at least any poll that matters. Proving that the GOP has learned nothing these past few years, they are still relying on internal polls that skewer the data something fierce and are never right now matter how much they may wish it. Those polls killed them in the last election and they are still using them. Incredible. Gomez has tried to pander to the largely blue state but still comes across like a dangerous lunatic beholden onto a party line of pure insanity. He has no chance come Tuesday. And as for these special elections, can we please go back to the old way where Governors appointed people until their term was up. I've had it up to here with elections as we seem to have had 27 in the last few years. It has been non stop political ads since 2008. I do not know how much more of this I can take. Thank god it's all over Tuesday and I will get a brief break before next year's election rolled around. Sigh.

2)McDonald's- It's bad enough they pay their workers nothing but now some franchises are paying their worker with fee riddled debit cards. A class action lawsuit has been leveled against a fast food chain franchise owner in PA for illegal practices by paying workers like this. Check out the fees as listed by AOL:

Natalie Gunshannon (the person who instigated the civil suit) reportedly was to be paid $7.44 per hour, a little more than the minimum wage. But as the TimesLeader.com reports, the payroll card had several fees, including $1.50 for ATM withdrawals, $5 for over-the-counter cash withdrawals, $1 per balance inquiry, 75 cents per online bill payment and $15 for lost or stolen card.

This is a violation of state law that says workers can request to be paid by check or cash and is just another case of rich folks screwing people over because they can. Let us hope that this case gets some attention because I can see other companies thinking this would be great idea.

3)Darryl Issa- The Republican House member from NY got spanked this week when he was shown to be the liar he is. After weeks of claiming he had evidence from closed door hearings about Obama's involvement with the IRS "scandal," fellow congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) released the full transcipt from the hearings proving Issa a fibber. Not only does the record contain no comments from anyone linking Obama to the IRS, the guy who started the whole thing is a hard core Republican who took responsibility for the whole thing and said conservative groups were never targeted specifically. That is far cry from treason to nothing happened and Issa knew it. He is a douchebag of the highest order, trying to make a scandal where there was literally nothing. Anyone voting for him in the next election is no better.

4)Right wing groups- After the failure of the IRS scandal, now right wing groups are claiming the EPA is charging them money for FOIA documents while liberals groups are given a free pass. What is not understood from this is that liberal groups make ten times less the documents wanted compared to the overwhelming nature of the Tea Party who have all become arm chair sleuths, and terrible ones at that. If I am getting flooded with the same requests from dozens of Tea Party groups for the same info, yeah, I am going to charge them too. Climate Change is occurring. Get over it.

5)Steve Stockman- Speaking of right wing lunatics comes this gem from the idiot right. Stockman (R-TX) is one of several congressman trying to kill the SNAP program. Paul Ryan wanted to add an amendment to the farm bill (currently dead in the water) that would make it illegal to get food stamps if you have a car worth more than $5,000. Another add on was to drug test recipients, even though that has been found to be unconstitutional in every state in the country. Funny how these guys are so rock hard for the Constitution except when it says something they don't like. Just like the Bible. But now comes this ass who wants to cut $20 billion from food stamps because we give way too much for poor people. Even by his own admission, the average person gets $4.50 per day for food or roughly $28 per week to live off of. He then went on a shopping spree and spent the allotted money on these items:

Two boxes of Honeycomb cereal
Three cans of red beans and rice
Jar of peanut butter
Bottle of grape jelly
Loaf of whole wheat bread
Two cans of refried beans
Box of spaghetti
Large can of pasta sauce
Two liters of root beer
Large box of popsicles
24 servings of Wyler’s fruit drink mix
Eight cups of applesauce
Bag of pinto beans
Bag of rice
Bag of cookies
Gallon milk
Box of instant oatmeal

First off, there are no fruits, vegetables or protein on the list, contributing to the obesity epidemic sweeping out nation. Second, and more importantly, there is no way he spent $28 dollars on that unless he was buying expired food from dollar stores and even that way seems like a stretch. My guess is much like Darryl Issa and most of the Republican party, he's lying. Even more hypocritical, Stockman was homeless for a year in his youth and used the same social programs he is now trying to get rid of. Voters should make him homeless again when he comes up for re-election next year. Or you can starve to death. Your choice.

6)The PRISM program- This program is costing us billions, making us a worldwide pariah and has yet to show one single case that was stopped by these methods. Foreign countries are upset that everything they say or email is being intercepted by the US and with good reason. The information gathered could be used to destroy international markets or expose spy networks. Journalists are reporting that whistleblowers have all but dried up as no one wants to get droned to death by Obama's flying death robots, which is technically what they are. They are doing a full court press for Ed Snowden who is now in Russia as they will NEVER extradite him and is currently seeking asylum in several countries. Nancy Pelosi was booed at a recent town hall meeting for her support of the system and this came from a democratic crowd. Some in the crowd suggested Obama was Bush's fourth term which actually isn't that far off. Those actions prove that the president is more figure head than world leader and someone else behind the scenes is pulling the strings, someone no one elected or even knows about. That is really scary.

7)Donald James Smith- This fuckwad is the lowest of the low, raping and murdering an eight year old girl in Florida. This dirtbag offered to help the mother, obviously poor and struggling, buy a dress at Walmart for her eight year old daughter. At some point he slipped off with the little girl, Charish, while the mom was busy with her other two kids. The worst part is this ass is a registered sex offender who was let out to fill the prisons instead with "worse" people like those who do drugs or have committed some sort of Internet fraud. Nationwide, we are releasing rapists and murders because of mandatory minimums and draconian fraud laws that give huge jail times for minor offences. As long as we keep doing this, stories like will continue.

8)Private Prisons- The support by states for private prisons is ending as study after study show that the cost benefits promised were lies and the endeavor is actually much more expensive than state run ones. Texas, Mississippi and Idaho have all ended contracts with the largest private prison group CAA over allegations of mismanagement, understaffing and use of gangs to control the populations. Food is supposedly even worse than I remember it being (prison food is also given to local colleges and trust me it is inedible) and that is saying something. I survived a year of college on cereal, frozen yogurt and fresh fruit as the cooked food was disgusting. These places cannot go away fast enough.

9)Aaron Hernandez- The tight end for the Patriots did his best OJ Simpson impression this week and is being looked at for the fatal shooting of a guy dating his girlfriend's sister. It didn't help that he is currently under investigation into the shooting of a guy in a Miami nightclub that led to over a million dollars in surgeries. Helpful hint dumbass, if you kill someone linked to you directly, don't dump the body half a block from your house. We had an eerily similar OJ moments when helicopters followed his white SUV all over and ganged up on him when he stopped to get gas. This guy is known for having a violent temper according to inside sources, and few are surprised by the allegations. Way to fuck up your career and your freedom.

10)Connecticut- I fled the state some years back like it was on fire because of rampant corruption from all sides and an ever increasing tax base that was getting ridiculous. Current governor Danial Malloy is following the same program as his predecessors, one of which was jailed for a year for bribery. I know that actually happened because John Rowland's people blackmailed my company for four million dollars and caused it to go belly up as result. Now they are raising taxes, such as a huge hike in the already outrageous car tax program. My friend and I have vehicles from roughly the same year. He paid $225 for his, up $25 dollars from last year, while mine declined to $47. And they wonder why no one stays. Now comes word that due to the idiotic anti-gun laws passed in the wake of the Newtown tragedy, another gun manufacture is leaving, taking 41 jobs with it. Worse, they expect to expand to 100 jobs and these are good paying jobs, not the usual low wage crap we see everywhere. Gun manufacturing has been in CT since the Revolutionary war and every single group is at the very least looking at leaving and with it thousands of good paying jobs. Talk about biting the hands that feed you.

11)The World elite- These guys better be scared because recent events suggest that the world has had it with a small group of douchebags controlling all the wealth while the rest of us starve. Brazil is the latest to erupt into violence after years of tax hikes have finally pissed the middle class off when they realized that their tax dollars were being used against them. The rich play by a separate set of laws that in some places seem to be ending. Italy recently sent fashioners designer Dolce and Gabbana to prison for tax evasion that was over a billion dollars in lost revenue. Whether they will actually see prison is whole other matter as many well connected convicts appeal their conviction over and over till the whole thing goes away. That is much like here where only people like Bernie Madoff go to jail and that's because he ripped off his fellow elites. The world is standing up and saying enough and a world wide revolution is more likely know than at any point in human history. The rich are stealing everything they can from us and it has to stop. If peaceful protests don't work, and they aren't, the alternative is too terrible to contemplate. The elites better stop their fanatical greed and start paying people a livable wage because the other option is a a sharpened guillotine. So congratulation world elite you are indeed douchebag of the week.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF MICHAEL HASTINGS

Usually, I find 99% of conspiracy theories full of holes. Everytime something happens, it's a false flag or a grand conspiracy that is just not possible in scope. The fact that there are still people on this Earth that think Newtown and the Boston Bombings were faked (which they absolutely weren't) is shocking in its gullibility. I live in the area and trust me, they happened. Alex Jones is losing a lot of his reputation by suggesting otherwise on his otherwise interesting sites.

But now comes the death of Michael Hastings, a reporter for Rolling Stone and one of the last great magazines out there for investigative reporting. Hastings is best known for writing the article that got General Stanley McChrystal fired and was reportedly working on a story involving the CIA, FBI and the NSA. That all came to an end when his car turned into a fireball and exploded. That in and of itself is a little unusual as Mercedes Benz vehicles don't usually imitate the Ford Pinto without some kind of external help. As a matter of fact the model he was driving was rather new and considered to be very hard to detonate like this.

Still, I was wary because maybe it was possible he was driving 200 MPH on a side street, in the dark, late at night. Unlikely but possible. That was until Wikileaks released this statement:

Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 19, 2013

That is a clear sign that something is up that is not quite kosher. This reminds me of an investigative reporter, and Pulitzer Prize winning author, Gary Webb who was investigating into child pornography rings run from the highest level of government. This was seen briefly in the media in 1980 as a kiddie porn/gay prostitution ring was allegedly being run out of the White House. The story collapsed over time as everyone connected with the story died under mysterious circumstances. A documentary about the subject, scheduled to run on PBS, was pulled and never aired for reasons never explained. It is now available on the web however and is well worth watching. Webb died of a suicide by shooting himself twice in the head which still seems like a stretch to believe in. It was also a sign that there are forces out there will kill any one who gets in their way.

Many conservatives still say the death of Andrew Brietbart was murder. The fact that his coroner died soon after has led many to suspect foul play. But as he died of a heart attack, had a history of heart problems and didn't seem to be that much a threat to anyone as most of his stories were pure bunk, I lean toward natural causes on that one.

Thus the skepticism I first took of Michael Hastings as any good researcher should. But having looked at the pictures which show a car with no front end and burned beyond recognition, I have to say it doesn't look like a typical car accident. As for the sheet covering the front end, I would guess that Hastings' charred body is still in the front seat and not someone trying to cover up evidence. I discussed this possibility with a friend who's job is accident recreation for a major insurance company. Giving him the type of car and details from the crash he said that in his twenty years of doing this he has never seen a car explode like that from a crash without some sort of external action. ZERO! That is telling.

Now it is possible that for someone insane reason, Hastings decided to barrel through a suburban neighborhood doing a zillion miles an hour but how likely is it? Add to that the fact that he was working on a story involving the ever threatening FBI, and dies hours later is VERY suspicious.

I know what I write is dangerous and this proves it all the same. If the powers that be decide to get rid of me, they will. It's also why I tell everyone I know I am NOT suicidal, I would never kill my girlfriend in a jealous rage and am not an international drug dealer with kilos of heroin lying around my house. If I am arrested or found dead for any reason that seems suspicious, I was framed or killed for what I am writing about. This column takes bravery and more than a little foolhardiness. What are you doing to fix things?

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

THE ECONOMY, JOBS, THE MEDIA AND OTHER REASONS NO ONE TRUSTS ANYTHING ANYMORE

As shown in a recent Gallup poll, trust in government, big business, and mass media is at record lows and that is not without good reason. We have a government hell bent on searching out every last bit of information they can wring out of us. We have businesses that have zero interest in protecting their workers as they steal every last penny they can and reward it to themselves. Lastly, we have a mass media that is proving to be no better than North Korea, with a plethora of empty headed talking suits desperately trying to make hay out of the most mundane circumstances while simultaneously missing whatever big story is actually happening at the moment.

This is a recipe for disaster, If trust continues to erode, eventually, everything will fall apart. That is inevitable. Obama hit the nail on the head when he said recently, "If you don't trust us, we are in big trouble." Exactly, Mr. President and you and the rest of the elites in this country are in for a big surprise if you keep walking down this path. Just look to Brazil, Greece, Turkey and Egypt as to what happened when a disgusted public gets pushed too far. And unlike those countries, we have guns and lots of them. A civil war looms and unless both sides of the aisle get their heads out of their asses and start accomplishing something, anything at this point that is totally retarded, these rounds of violence will happen here too.

Gallup came out with another poll that should shake this country to the core, if it was actually reported by out crap newsfests. Turns out, seventy percent of American workers hate their job. Think about that number: more than 2/3rds of the people in this country hate what they do and do it as piss poor as possible because of it. This is costing companies $550 billion in lost productivity, not an insignificant number. The main reason most people hate their job is the low pay, long hours and having to deal with middle management straight from hell. No one is allowed to make any decisions without approval from above which can make Congress action look quick in comparison. Older Americans and those with college degrees were the most unhappy and with good reason. Most of these people expected to be making a decent living and instead are stuck in some dead end, low pay career that is sucking the soul from their very existence. I've worked these jobs and it is worse than being in excruciating pain from a rabid weasel nibbling on your testicles. You work forty plus hours in a week, make less than $20,000 a year, and have to deal with an slave driver boss who demands you work hard all day long for pennies on the dollar while he makes a multi-million dollar salary. Fuck that. And that is what many Americans are saying.

The ironic part is that it is because we have destroyed unions, with public support, that has led to this rampant inequality where the executives get all the money while you get whatever they happen to drop on the way to the bank. That is trickle down economics at it's best and the right is still saying it works when it fantastically doesn't.

Here is another truth you won't hear on any newscast: America is falling further and further behind on all almost every level. We used to have the best health care system on Earth. That's long gone. We used to have the best education system. Not anymore. Now comes another study that shows that America's once #1 ranking in the richest middle class has fallen to a dismal 27th. That's right, the middle class of such powerhouses as Qatar, Cyprus and Iceland all fare better than here, with Australia being number one now, with Luxembourg and Japan close behind.

Here's a list of other things that dozens of countries now do better than us from Alternet.com:

  • We don't have real universal healthcare. We pay more and still have poorer health outcomes than all other industrialized countries. Should a serious illness strike, we also can become impoverished.
  • Weak labor laws undermine unions and give large corporations more power to keep wages and benefits down. Unions now represent less than 7 percent of all private sector workers, the lowest ever recorded.
  • Our minimum wage is pathetic, especially in comparison to other developed nations. (We're # 13.) Nobody can live decently on $7.25 an hour. Our poverty-level minimum wage puts downward pressure on the wages of all working people. And while we secure important victories for a few unpaid sick days, most other developed nations provide a month of guaranteed paid vacations as well as many paid sick days.
  • Wall Street is out of control. Once deregulation started 30 years ago, money has gushed to the top as Wall Street was free to find more and more unethical ways to fleece us.  
  • Higher education puts our kids into debt. In most other countries higher education is practically tuition-free. Indebted students are not likely to accumulate wealth anytime soon.  
  • It's hard to improve your station in life if you're in prison, often due to drug-related charges that don't even exist in other developed nations. In fact, we have the largest prison population in the entire world, and we have the highest percentage of minorities imprisoned. “In major cities across the country, 80% of young African Americans now have criminal records” (from Michelle Alexander's 2010 book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness).
  • Our tax structures favor the rich and their corporations that no longer pay their fair share. They move money to foreign tax havens, they create and use tax loopholes, and they fight to make sure the source of most of their wealth—capital gains—is taxed at low rates. Meanwhile the rest of us are pressed to make up the difference or suffer deteriorating public services.
  • The wealthy dominate politics. Nowhere else in the developed world are the rich and their corporations able to buy elections with such impunity.
  • Big Money dominates the media. The real story about how we're getting ripped off is hidden in a blizzard of BS that comes from all the major media outlets...brought to you by....
  • America encourages globalization of production so that workers here are in constant competition with the lower-wage workers all over the world as well as with highly automated techonologies.
And why have we fallen so far? Because of the rampant deregulation of Wall street that has led to an unsustainable death spiral that may actually end the world as we know it. Here more from Alternet.com as to the exact reason why:

  • The corporate change during the 1980s to make shareholder value the ultimate goal.
  • The deregulation of Wall Street that allowed for the creation of a vast array of new financial instruments for gambling.
  • Allowing private equity firm to buy companies, load them up with debt, extract enormous returns, and then kiss them goodbye.
  • The growth of hedge funds that suck productive wealth out of the economy.
  • The myriad of barely regulated world financial markets that finance the globalization of production, combined with so-called "free trade" agreements.
  • The increased share of all corporate profits that go to the financial sector.
  • The ever increasing size of too-big-to-fail banks.
  • The fact that many of our best students rush to Wall Street instead of careers in science, medicine or education.
  •  
    All of this has led to a wealth bubble that will eventually pop and take us all out when it does.
     
     
    Check out this graph which shows that the only place where wages are increasing are in the financial sector while the rest of us have been shorted for over forty years. Why are people not more pissed about this? Have we become such sheep that we can be robbed for decades and just shrug and say "meh?"
     
    The media is helping to shape people's opinions which is why anyone believing anything that comes out of Fox News, MSNBC or CNN should be committed for stupidity. These corporate shills are terrible are getting beyond the superficial and a recent interview with Russel Brand was hilarious in its' ineptitude. Brand is a lot smarter than he seems and while appearing on Morning Joe, began the interview with this statement, "This is a hotbed of neurosis and psychosis… I’m grateful to be here.” This of course sailed over the heads of the talking heads not accustomed to a discussion that required actually intellect. After going off for far too long on what Brand was wearing and his chest hair, Brand went on to explain his new comedy tour where he will discuss how people like Jesus, Gandhi and other icons have been hijacked by people wanting to prove their points that these figures never would have. A good example would be the GOP who is supposedly Christian but wastes no time in screwing over the poor at every instance. Something tells me Jesus would not approve of that stance.
    The media has fallen off as a way of getting news as even casual readers of this site will be far better informed than someone who watches Fox news 24/7. I report the truth wherever that truth may bring me. Corporate media brings you the news that they spin the way they want. And the US public is not as stupid as they make us out to be as polls show we don't believe them at all anymore.
     
    We are entering a dangerous period. All civilizations fall and we seem to be entering that period stat. The final three stages are apathy, anger and revolution. We passed apathy a decade ago, are getting well into anger and revolution is looking more and more likely. As long as we have a public determined to keep electing Republicans into office that have no new ideas and no hope of fixing anything, that dark day of revolution is coming quick. If the readers out there do not start demanding more from their jobs, their government and their press, we will deserve whatever hell is headed our way.
     

    Monday, June 17, 2013

    THE IMMIGRATION BILL, THE FED, OBAMACARE AND OTHERS REASONS WHY EVERYONE HATES CONGRESS

    Recent polls show Congress approval ratings at historic lows, barely in double digits anymore. Yet somehow, 90% of Congress gets re-elected. How stupid a people are we? Talk about the very definition of insanity: we keep voting the same assholes over and over and expect different results. How do people from the right keep voting in people like John Boehner, Eric Cantor or Scott Walker? How does the left justify their support of people like Charles Rangle, Dianne Feinstein or Nancy Pelosi? The answer is terrifying in it's simplicity: it doesn't really matter who you vote for as both parties are designed to ultimately subjugate you to corporate control that now has all the power of a true fascist state.

    We no longer live in a democracy, at least not the kind out we started with. Citizen's United was the death knell of a free society and we now live in a true pseudo-democratic state, like Russia or China. Both of those countries have "free" elections but the results are rigged and we have become the exact same. As it doesn't really matter which party is in power, the corporations have complete control over us. The Republicans are just a little more obvious and impatient with the whole thing and want a slave class to call their own again. Anyone who is black, Hispanic or gay and votes Republican are indeed the dumbest people on the planet as they are literally voting their own extinction. Poor white people, who seem to voting for the GOP in huge numbers are no better. Until we start standing up and demanding more from our politicians, nothing is going to change and we are going to get the same kind of bills over and over again.

    The GOP has become the party of stupid and should be headed for the dust bin of history if they keep it up. But their idiocy is destroying bills that are being watered down or eliminated to a point of irrelevance. Take Obamacare for example. Many of it's provision are quite good. Some are not. Take the price point for purchase rule. Someone making say $21,000 a year could be forced to buy insurance that would cost that person around 9.9% of their salary. In this case that would be $175 per month, which is most likely too low to find adequate care and too much for the individual to afford even if a health care plan can be found for that price. We still have a shortage of primary care doctors which has nothing to do with Obamacare by the way and everything to do with skyrocketing malpractice costs that can reach into the hundreds of thousands per year on top of the medical bills one accrues going through school. Most can only afford to become doctors if they find a lucrative, specialized practice which being a primary care physician isn't. The democrats have scrapped plans to overhaul malpractice suits because the ABA and individual lawyers are top money makers for the left. Because of money again, nothing is being fixed and this will continue until we either remove it from the equation, or wait until the whole house of cards blows over.

    Obamacare needs tweaking but all the fuckwads of the right want to do is piss all over it with absolutely no plan to replace it. The old system was not working and many, including myself, have gone bankrupt dealing with sky high medical bills. If I lived in Europe, I'd still have my job, I wouldn't have paid a fortune for my medical care and I wouldn't be living in near poverty. That is a fact. But the idiot right is only doing what is best for them and not the country and any asshole still voting for these putzes are every bit the traitors they are. Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security were tweaked at least five times apiece after implication to fix unforeseen circumstances. Obamacare has been modified a grand total of zero. And then the Republicans jump up and down and say "see it's not working." The only reason it's not working is they don't want it to and for all those who live in Southern states like Tennessee, if you get sick, pray for a rout of the right in 2014 because your life literally will hang in the balance.

    Anyone who voted for the Republican party in Colorado whose house burned down can blame themselves because the right cut funding for brush removal and climate change research. Anyone who died or lost a child in Oklahoma during the tornadoes who voted Republican might as well as just killed themselves because that vote meant no shelters for schools or homes and again, climate change research. Anyone who's sick in states like Texas and Tennessee better hope they get well soon or die quick because the alternative is a lot of money out of pocket and some voted to have this happen to themselves.

    Another fiasco in the waiting is the new immigration bill. I have no problem with the DREAM act or allowing those here illegally to have a chance to become American citizens. The main reason we have so many Mexicans in the first place is because of the ill advised drug war which is the big reason people are still coming here. Illegal immigration has dropped dramatically over the years mostly due to the fact that there are fewer jobs here than in Mexico. Police opening are a dime a dozen but the chances of you and you family dying in a hail of bullets is surprisingly high.

    But as always the bill that is being debated contains several right wing provisions to get their support that are not the best ideas. One of the biggest is the the fact that the right and Big Business have specifically asked for low skill workers to be allowed a chance to stay as they will be the easiest exploited and can be paid the least. This will drive down wages and take away jobs from low skilled US workers as the corporations will skirt the minimum wage like they always do and hire these people at a fraction what they pay you or me. If you are poor and black, this may be a death knell for their job prospects. As their employment is around 24% for those being black and lack a GED, expect that number to double.

    While all this is being debated, most of you probably missed this story that the FED is missing some nine trillion dollars. Inspector General Liz Coleman, when questioned before Congress last week, said she had no idea where that money was. Funny, how that didn't make a single news story anywhere, print or TV. On the other hand, I have mentioned it several times on this site when the facts came out last year and was also ignored by everyone. Incidentally, my research suggested that most of that money went to foreign banks and people's pockets. We are being stolen from on a level unheard of in human history and no one seems to care. People will care when the economy collapses and this easy free ride we have taken for granted is pulled away. How well do you think the average person will fare if society collapses? I predict a hundred million dead in this country the first year alone. And we are rapidly heading for that cliff.

    Congress is killing us. The right in particular has lost their minds as well as anyone voting for these dirtbags. We need new faces in Congress and people like Elizabeth Warren are the kinds of people we should be voting for. Since taking office, she has done nothing but stomp on corporate greed and banking malfeasance. We need 99 more just like her in the Senate.

    Sunday, June 16, 2013

    DOUCHEBAG OF THE WEEK: THE US GOVERNMENT

    Yes that's two weeks in a row for a bunch of lying, lowdown dirtbags who can't tell us the truth if their lives depended on it. And it's getting dangerously close to that if they continue to drive this country into the ground. Let's see those runner ups.

    1)Drunk Driving Laws- Yes I know a lot of you out there are probably outraged by this statement as drunk driving laws save lives and prevent assholes from getting behind the wheel. The truth is most of the people driving drunk are the same people over and over, including one guy in 2010 who got three DUI's in the same evening. It's also against the fourth amendment and because of this exception we have been subjected to random drug tests and increased surveillance overall. It's also being abused regularly by the police. A recent case in Surprise, Arizona (the ultimate name in irony for this story) talked about the arrest of a man who blew a 0.0% on a Breathalyzer and was still arrested because he had bloodshot eyes. When the man said he had just come from a pool, the officer still brought him in. He had recently had surgery for hip replacement just two days before and was forced to sit on the ground handcuffed as police went through his car. After being brought into the station, blood tests revealed no alcohol and he was released. He is now suing for $500,000. Another recent case involved a guy getting arrested because he ate a breath mint right before the police pulled him over and they thought that signified alcohol, which it didn't and he is now also suing for false arrest. This is what drunk driving laws really do: give cops a reason to rough you up and then get sued costing tax payers millions nationwide. The alternative is to eliminate drunk driving laws and only stop people weaving all over the road or involved in an accident. And if you do get caught drinking and driving, I hope you like jail because after your first offense, that's where you should be headed. And if you get caught again, the jail time should be severe. If we did that, drunk driving will be cut even further than today's screw everybody policy.

    2) Trent Franks (R-AZ)- Proving my point that the Republican party is filled with people not smart enough to have any sort of critical thinking ability whatsoever, Trent Franks talked about rape again in a way that is sure to doom his next election. Ignoring the fact that this kind of talk is taking down right wing politicians faster the Dick Cheney with a shotgun filled with bird shot, this idiot put both feet in his mouth and probably doomed any chance he has in an upcoming election. While defending his position on the recent House approved bill outlawing abortion after twenty weeks and not containing an exception for rape or incest, Captain Dumbass had the gaul to say that he couldn't support the exception because "pregnancy from rape is actually very low." In a sense he is right. According to a 1996 study, only 5% of raped women get pregnant. Now while 5% sound like a low number, it actually represents just over 33,000 women. That is not an insignificant number. But as people like Franks have the equivalent of a third grade education, they just see the number five instead of 33,000 and ignore the rest. This guy is far too stupid to be in Congress and shame on anyone voting for him.

    3)Rick Scott- Two of the most dependable people to be in this column week after week both have Scott in their name: Scott Walker and Rick Scott. This week Uncle Fester returns with a terrible new law he and the other Gestapo right wingers have cooked up.  Beginning July 1st, it will be a felony to possess a bong or other glass type drug paraphernalia. Nevermind the mess this is going to cause the justice system and the already overcrowded prisons, hundreds of people are losing their jobs who make these things. Also included are pipes, screens and anything else a headshop would have. The Florida Justice Impact Committee met over this new law and said this: "The bill may have a negative fiscal impact on state and local governments. It may have a negative prison bed impact on the Department of Corrections. The bill does not appear to have any impact on state revenues." So the bill will cost the state more money, increase the prison population and add nothing to state revenues. Oddly, possession of weed is actually a lesser crime now than the tools needed to smoke it. Way to go Florida. Way to go.

    4)Oklahoma- Acting like Florida's mentally challenged brother, Oklahoma went a step further in their ill advised anti-pot crusade. In order to stop the scourge of pot drivers causing accidents on a grand scale, and isn't really occurring, the governor recently signed a bill that stated ANY amount of pot in your system is enough to charge you with driving under the influence. See why I hate drunk driving laws. They are using it to arrest ANYONE smoking pot in the state of Oklahoma as pot can remain in your system for up to sixty days even though the intoxicant has long worn off. A recent study by a large insurance company found that stoned drivers are actually safer drivers than sober ones because they don't speed and pay attention to everything around them. This is your tax dollars at work and again congratulations to anyone voting Republican in this state because those that did and smoke pot, you just made yourself a criminal in the eyes of the law. Mazel Tov.

    5)Capistrano School District- I hate to keep piling on the Republicans when there have been some real winners on the left, but we will get to them in a minute. These brainpowers recently rejected a school text book for "being too liberal," and ignoring such people as Milton Freedman, Edmund Burke and other non-historical figures. The text books also gave "too much credence to global warming and an inaccurate portrayal of Russia invading Poland." Here's a quote from one of the district members from Patch.com:

    “Some of the things Dr. Evers mentioned are exceedingly troubling to me,” Bryson said, citing the omission of Friedman and like-minded free-market economists. She said if more students studied conservative economists, perhaps California wouldn’t be in bad financial shape.

    Nevermind the fact the book on World Civilizations is widely used across the country and no one else has had a problem with it. But get a bunch of right wing nutjobs in the room and history has got be rewritten to fit their "facts." We saw that first hand when Wikipedia kept getting altered to suggest Paul Revere was trying to warn the British to align with what Sarah Palin had erroneously said earlier. These assholes are trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and telling everyone that's the way it is supposed to be. It's also telling that Milton Freedman's economic policies have been a dismal failure while the right ignores the fact the Freedman was an atheist who preached about the legalization of drugs. Much like the Bible, they pick and choose the facts they want to believe.

    6)Dianne Feinstein- It's time to send career politicians like her to the dust heap in history where she belongs. In a previous column, I showed that this corrupt whore is lining her pockets with tax payer money while making sure the lot us are under constant surveillance. Her defense of her anti-gun stance made Ted Cruz look good and that guy is a raving loon. Can we please get a democrat into office who isn't this bad?

    7)Marco Rubio-Trying his best to lose in 2016, this possible presidential hopeful is doing far better than Ted Cruz whose popularity rating is somewhere between herpes and Kanye West's ego, but is still sabotaging his run at every move. His latest gaffe is his statement that he will not support any immigration law that has equal rights for gay people. That's right, he's fine with not discriminating against Hispanics, unless they are gay, and then they go fuck themselves. This will not win him any election on a national scale any time soon.

    8)Angela Merkel- The German chancellor recently gave the same advice as the right wingers do here: if you want a job move to where the jobs are. First off, if you don't have any money, you can't move. Moving is expensive and beyond the reach of at least one third of any country. Second, what jobs? Merkel went on to say that they can't find enough skilled workers to fill the jobs they have, which is a similar problem here. The issue in the US is that out schools are pumping out the stupidest people who lack the skills needed for these jobs and thus can't be filled. But as blue collar jobs have jumped the shark here and abroad (everything is made in China, Bangladesh, or the like), people with limited education can no longer make a good living and are being forced to live off or less and less.The right keeps calling people lazy which is so far from the truth as many would rather have a decent job that pays well than sitting at home living in poverty making near nothing. Trust me, I've done it and it sucks. There will always be the lazy among us but they are not in the earth shattering numbers the right keeps imagining.

    9)Syria- Talk about being caught between a rock and hard place. Recent evidence suggests that Syria used chemical weapons in a limited but still lethal fashion, crossing Obama's so called "red line." Russia has wisely stated they don't believe the evidence as the US has already been caught several times lying about reasons for war from The Gulf of Tonkin to the more recent Colin Powell UN debacle that got us into Iraq again. The Russians say they don't trust us and who can blame them. I don't trust the government at all and I live here. Obama has gone on to say that he will arm the rebels which didn't work out so well for us last time in Afghanistan. Truth be told, there are no good actions here. We can't arm the rebels, we can't get a no fly zone, and we can't get rid of Assad as what replaces him may be far worse if radical Muslims get ahold of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile. The best bet is to level Syria, Lebanon and Iran to the ground, but that would probably start WW3 so that is not likely to happen yet. No matter how you slice it, this is bad all around.

    10)The US Government- This week, person after person was trotted out to lie to the American people. We wore told that a warrant would be needed to listen in on domestic calls. Not true said a democrat, Jerald Nading (D-NY) who was part of a classified briefing. He was actually surprised how many low level operatives were listening in on calls in real time. This is NOT what we heard before Congress this week. Both Dianne Feinstein and Mike Rogers this week said that the NSA WAS NOT doing this, and I would suggest immediate impeachment hearings for both for lying to the American people about a severe breach of the fourth amendment, which would constitute treason. The Washington Post yesterday revealed another program called NUCLEON that intercepts all calls to a database if certain trigger words are spoken. This is project Echelon 2.0 which did the exact same thing. Now some are claiming that several terrorist attacks were stopped by this program. However the examples they used have been debunked by several senators and investigators as untrue. The phone evidence was used after the fact, not before, and the rest of the so called thwarted attacks have not been made public to either the Congress or any news media as of this writing. Considering the cost of some of these programs, plus the fact that they seem incapable of stopping any terrorist attack at all, should give anyone pause over this program. This data has incredible ways for it to go bad and little if any reason to stop what it says it is trying to stop. The war on the American people is here and we are losing. So congratulations US government, you are indeed douchebag of the week.