The Talking Dog "Sure, the dog can talk…but does it say anything interesting?" He ain't The Man's best friend

R.I.P. Habeas Corpus

I try to be sanguine about these things (our pretensions of not being a dictatorship ended around eight years ago with the S. Ct.’s ducking of Padilla, as I saw it)… but Candace pronounces Habeas Corpus officially dead now (as the Supreme Court ducks all seven D.C. Circuit cases for which review was sought), and I can’t disagree. (When she posted that yesterday, Candace didn’t even know the pretty much foregone result in her own client’s case (scroll down to this case: 06/12/2012 Civil Action No. 2010-1020, ABDAL RAZAK ALI V. BARACK H. OBAMA, ET AL. Doc No. 1500 (memorandum...

Continue reading...

Simple solutions for a rational system

Since we don’t have a rational system– merely one designed to serve its most powerful members at the expense of everyone else, though “everyone else” will merrily go along with what the elites want (just so long as a few buttons get pushed along the way, and, of course, the WonderBread and NASCAR/Jersey Shore Circuses keep flowing)– none of these devilishly simple and comprehensive solutions will likely be implemented any time soon on these shores. But the great Charles Hugh Smith is such a visionary, I feel compelled to shout out his stuff… particularly his current trilogy: Income Tax Solution:...

Continue reading...

It’s the Kleptocracy, Stupid

Wendy Kaminer raises an interesting question: might Barack Obama’s shameless fawning on Wall Street oligarchs (via expansion of the all-important national security state,manifested “on the ground” with the surveillance of, spying on, labeling of as “terrorists”, pepper-spraying, etc. upon (mostly) youths who dare to question the social order even to the extent of shaming) not merely be evil and stupid and wrong in every sense of the word– might it actually be bad politics? In a razor-thin electoral margin situation, Obama’s deliberate targeting of members of his own base… just might not be the greatest of ideas in terms of...

Continue reading...

Pretend democracy, meet pretend constitution

I don’t know what to make of the Grey Lady’s op- ed lamenting an unsuccessful House bill to dial back part of last year’s National Defense Authorization Act providing for… wait for it… due process of law (by civilian law enforcement) for Muslims dark-skinned people terrrrrrrrrorism suspects. The Grey Lady’s op-ed rightly lauds a decision from Manhattan federal court Judge Katherine Forrest striking down certain portions of the loathsome NDAA. Good for Judge Forrest. I agree, Still… my problem with the whole tenor of these stories is that, now, ten years after September 11th and the demonstration project known as...

Continue reading...

Feliz Cinco de Mayo

Alrightie then. First, a huge shout-out to our friend the Unseen Editor, who is under the weather. We know what that’s like. As the Presidential election campaign season gets going (the “outcome” is irrelevant; Big Finance has bought and paid for both major party candidates; new Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson isn’t going to be elected, nor is anyone who will not keep the wars going and the financial criminals un-indicted), one supposes things might turn on “the economy.” And so, we’ll turn to this supposedly “wonky” (but actually incoherent) piece by Ezra Klein on unemployment, which can’t seem to explain...

Continue reading...

Happy Easter

It’s a nice day; let the President play golf, says I (after we lay out our preconditions to talks with Iran presumably to assure that there won’t be any.) Sadly, long-time CBS news staple Mike Wallace passed way, though at 93, he certainly had a nice run. Of course, given the reports of the potential for the spent-fuel rods at Fukushima , Japan to discharge perhaps 85 times the radiation released from Chernobyl, and likely take out much of Earth’s life… he may be among the luckier ones. Also, the fact that their home might soon be uninhabitable should give...

Continue reading...

April First Greetings

Obviously, since this is my April 1st edition, everything I write here is some kind of April Fool’s joke. That’s how it’s been pretty much through the run of this blog. But I’m not going to go give you, say, a blockbuster April Fool’s Day interview, like I have in the past with, say, Rumsfeld, Cheney or Palin. Just, you know… interviewed out. So this year… I’m going to “keep it real,” and just give you April Fool’s Day… straight up. So, for example, the [hilarious!] idea that it would be House Republicans trying to curb the terms of the...

Continue reading...

Expressway to perdition

Just as the Constitution-shredding NDAA, rushed through Congress and signed just hours before midnight on New Year’s Eve formally codified the de jure dismemberment of the Bill of Rights (essentially using unilaterally declared “military emergency” as a justification to kill or en-dungeon anyone, anywhere at the President’s sole whim), we now get an executive order (the “National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order”) that, in any circumstance in the mere “interest of national defense” authorizes the President to enslave anyone and commandeer all property, including food and water. I’m more sanguine about all of this than others because, well, I’ve been...

Continue reading...

Don’t mess with the Man

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Alrightie then. Those who don matador outfits and take out red capes to go bull-fighting against sacred bovines would do well to recognize the risky nature of the business. When doing so under the seemingly protective cloak of “big media” legitimacy, sacred-cow-fighters must realize the possibility that Money will fight back– and let’s face it: Money fights dirty. Remember that Money liked George W. Bush, a lot. Bush repaid them with tax cuts, 99% of which pretty much went to the 1%, the deficit went to the moon, and the rest takes us to where we...

Continue reading...