Don’t Worry; Be Happy; Someone Else Will Fix Everything For You!
Perhaps You Can Judge The Inner Health Of A Land By The Capacity Of Its People To Do Nothing ..."
Before all else, be armed.
Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.
Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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MONDAY, JUNE 22, 2009
American Airlines Exposes Bush's Big Lie: Flight 11 DID NOT FLY on 911!
American Airlines itself is the source for information that AA Flights 11 (North Tower) and 77 (Pentagon) did not fly on 911. These flights are critical to the the government's crumbling cover up! Without those flights, Bush and his murderous co-conspirators will have to revise the big lie. They will have to concoct yet another cover story from the ground up! A cover up is on the brink of collapse when those guilty of capital crimes and high treason either turn on one another or are forced to revise the lie!
Already several demonstrable lies (many referenced in previous EC articles) are probable cause to begin a Federal Grand Jury investigation of George W. Bush's role in 911. Bush should be compelled by subpoena and Federal Marshals to testify under oath before an independent Federal Grand Jury. The AA revelations demand it!
WikiScanner discovered that American Airlines changed their Wikipedia entry to state that Flights 11 and 77 never flew on 9/11.
Original entry was:
Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: American Airlines Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and American Airlines Flight 11 (a Boeing 767).
New entry is:
Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and Flight 11 (a Boeing 767). Although these flights were daily departures before and a month after September 11, 2001. Neither flight 11 nor 77 were scheduled on September 11, 2001. The records kept by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (www.bts.gov/gis/) do not list either flight that day.
A Google search of the IP address that made the change - 144.9.8.21 - is located at American Airlines.
Why the change American airlines? Did the flights actually operate or did we just imagine all of that?
--LiveLeak
911 did not happen as we have been told. That AA claims that the two aircraft that are absolutely essential to the Bush administration's official theory were not, in fact, scheduled for flight and were, in fact, not in the air that day, is a big hole from which Bush may not escape.
According to Wikiscaner Americans Airliners changed their Wikipedia entry which now states that 'Flights 11 and 77 never flew on 9/11'.
Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and Flight 11 (a Boeing 767). Although these flights were daily departures before and a month after September 11, 2001. Neither flight 11 nor 77 were scheduled on September 11, 2001. The records kept by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (www.bts.gov/gis/) do not list either flight that day.
The entry had stated:
Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: American Airlines Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and American Airlines Flight 11 (a Boeing 767).
A Google search of the IP address - 144.9.8.21 - confirmed that the 'change' was made at American Airlines.
User talk: 144.9.8.21
This IP address is registered to American Airlines
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
My WHOIS lookup of the above IP address returned the following:
Location: United States [City: Ft. Worth, Texas]
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If neither flight was in the air as American Airlines itself has so stated, then numerous 'official versions' of the 'official conspiracy theory' are all a pack of malicious lies. That includes almost every statement made by Bush. These lies are especially pernicious because they have the effect of covering up the truth, protecting the guilty and obstructing justice. These lies are an insult to the families of everyone who died as a result of the event and the subsequent cover up. These lies aggravate the crimes of mass murder, terrorism and high treason for which the penalty must surely be death.
The official story is familiar by now.
At 8:20, Flight 11 stopped transmitting its transponder signal, and veered northward and departed dramatically from the westward heading of its planned route. The controllers concluded that the plane had probably been hijacked. 4 5 At 8:24, the following transmission was reportedly received from Flight 11: We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be okay .. we are returning to the airport.
..Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet. Nobody move please we are going back to the airport .. don't try to make any stupid moves. 6
Neither of the pilots pressed the distress call button. At 8:28 controllers reportedly watched the plane make a 100-degree turn toward the south. 7 Presumably, Flight 11 continued south along the Hudson River until it reached the World Trade Center, though documentation of this is sparse given the lack of public information.
According to NORAD's September 18 timeline, the FAA did not notify NORAD of the signs that Flight 11 was hijacked until 8:40, 25 minutes after the first signs of trouble. 8
--Flight 11, The First Jet Commandeered on September 11th, 911 Research
But --if Flight 11 did not fly that day, that's all a deliberate, criminal lie! If neither Flight 11 or 77 was in the air that day, then nothing in the 'official statements' with regard to the Twin Towers of the WTC can is true.
This information is not compatible with previous EC articles in which it was revealed that NTSB data placed Flight 77 at an altitude of 273, some 200 feet ABOVE the Pentagon at the time of impact, give or take a couple of seconds or less! Moreover, it's trajectory was such that those 'eyewitnesses' who claimed to have seen it could not possibly have done so. Neither scenario is good news for Bush. Both support the statement that absolutely no wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever found at the Pentagon. Moreover, photos of an engine rotor appear to depict a Rolls-Royce engine that is used in the Global Hawk, a payload carrying missile that was, in fact, flown from the US to Australia completely by remote control. It is certainly a much better candidate for what Rumsfeld called '...the missile that struck this building' than a 757. Here's what you need to know about the Pentagon.
- No wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever recovered.
- Only ONE engine rotor (seen in photos) was recovered! This rotor is about one third the diameter of a 757 rotor.
- A 757 has two rotors, each of which are nearly three times the size of the SINGLE rotor located at the Pentagon
- Engine rotors are made of a Steel/Titanium alloy to withstand high temps inside jet engines.
- Flight 77 could not have crashed into the Pentagon
The time has come to consign Bush's official conspiracy theory to the dust bin of history. The theory is not even a good cover story, surviving for as long as it did because millions of good Americans wanted to believe it. Millions of otherwise good Americans did not wish to believe the very, very worst about an administration that had claimed to represent and defend our interests. Millions of Americans chose to believe that the government was still responsible to us, that the government was still the defender of Democracy as we are always taught in school.
Recognizing lies for what they are is a part of the process of growing up! America, it is time to grow up! It is time to confront this heinous pack of lies! It is time to insist that the Obama administration begin a REAL investigation. It is time to insist that a Federal Grand Jury investigate every count of high treason, mass murder and domestic terrorism that was perpetrated upon the people of the US by the Bush administration, collaborators in the Pentagon, K-Street, the Congress and the leadership of the Republican party, Marvin Bush's 'Securacom', Larry Silverstein, General Myers, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and, of course, George W. Bush who was, at the time,m the 'Commander-in-Chief' and ultimately responsible for the orders given the US military to 'stand down'.
By Donald Rumsfeld's own admission, he was unaware of any threats to the Pentagon -- the building where he was located during the September 11th attacks -- until an aircraft crashed into the side of it, and he ran out "into the smoke" to see if it might be a "A bomb? I had no idea." (ABC News This Week, Interview 9/16/01).
Well, that's a pretty tall tale by any standard. The New York Times reported that by 8:13am, the FAA was aware of the first hijacking out of Boston. The Pentagon explosion, which Donald Rumsfeld claimed he had "no idea," did not occur until approximately 9:37am, nearly an hour and a half later, this after two of the tallest buildings in the world were devastated. Note that a plane hijacked out of Boston can reach Washington D.C. as easily as it can reach New York City.
It was widely reported that Pentagon personnel were indeed aware of the threats to their security, and they took security measures on that morning. But not the "Secretary of Defense." Why should the man charged with defending the United States of America concern himself with hijacked aircraft?
There is a set of procedures for responding to hijackings. In particular, these procedures were changed on June 1, 2001 while Rumsfeld was in power as our Secretary of Defense, in a document called: "CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF INSTRUCTION, J-3 CJCSI 3610.01A"
Additional resources:
- 'Lucky Larry' Silverstein Makes a Killing With 9/11 Terrorism!
- Explosives Found in 9/11 Dust
- Dutch TV show exonerates Osama bin Laden
- French professor sacked over 9/11 'conspiracy' theory
- 911 Security Courtesy Marvin Bush
- Marvin Bush: connections to 9/11
- 9/11 Commission Memo: 'Executive Branch Minders' Intimidation of Witnesses'
- Security, Secrecy and a Bush Brother
- Thermite
- Pentacon
- KS" I make up stories
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Wash. Times' Curl Reports Bush's Guantánamo Remarks, Ignores His Administration's Actions
June 22, 2009 6:57 Pm ET
SUMMARY: The Washington Times' Joseph Curl juxtaposed the Obama administration's initiative in "clear[ing] out" Guantánamo detainees with former President Bush's recent remark that "there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat," advancing the conservative claim that Obama is threatening to undo Bush's Guantánamo policies, which kept the U.S. safe.
In a June 18 Washington Times article about former President Bush's comments to a Pennsylvania business group, senior White House correspondent Joseph Curl uncritically reported Bush's remark that "there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that -- persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind." Curl then wrote: "The Obama administration has started to clear out some of the more than 200 detainees at the facility." But Curl did not point out that the Bush administration itself released at least 500 detainees from Guantánamo since its opening. In a December 16, 2008, press release, the Defense Department noted that "[s]ince 2002, approximately 520 detainees have departed Guantanamo for other countries." The release also pointed out that "[a]pproximately 60 detainees remain at Guantanamo who the U.S. government has determined to be eligible for transfer or release."
Moreover, by presenting Bush's warnings about Obama's actions regarding Guantánamo while omitting the Bush administration's policies that preceded those actions, Curl offers another example, identifiedby Media Matters for America, of media advancing the claim that Bush's Guantánamo policies kept the country safe, and that, if the United States is now less safe, it is solely due to the Obama administration's actions. In fact, the suggestion that Bush administration policies with respect to Guantánamo "kept us safe" has been challenged on several grounds; indeed, there is evidence that the opposite is true.
For instance, experts and former military officials have stated that terrorists have successfully used Guantánamo as a recruiting tool. Also, McClatchy Newspapers has reported, citing "former U.S. Defense Department officials" who "acknowledged the problem" and interviews with 66 former Guantánamo detainees, that terrorists held at Guantánamo played a role in radicalizing other detainees, motivating some who had not been terrorists prior to their detainment to engage in suspected terrorist activity after their release. Moreover, several security and military officials who served in the Bush administration have disagreed with the claim that Bush's Guantánamo policies made the United States safe and that Obama, by ordering the prison's closure, will make the country less safe.
In addition, in reporting that Bush said, "Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind," Curl did not mention that, as ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper noted in a June 18 blog post, "it was the Bush administration that sent some Gitmo detainees to a Saudi jihadi rehabilitation camp -- called the 'Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Centre for Care and Counseling.' To decidedly mixed success." Indeed, in its April 2008 "Country Reports on Terrorism 2007," the State Department praised Saudi Arabia for "implement[ing] an effective model rehabilitation program for returning jihadis to turn them against violent extremism and to reintegrate them as peaceful citizens." The department noted that "Saudi prisoners repatriated to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo Bay underwent a similar rehabilitation program before reintegration into Saudi society."
From Curl's June 18 Washington Times article:
Mr. Bush weighed in on some of the most pressing issues of the day: the election in Iran, the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, and his administration's interrogation policies of terrorists held there and elsewhere. The former president has not commented on Mr. Obama's decision to ban "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding, which the current president has called "off course" and "based on fear."
"The way I decided to address the problem was twofold: One, use every technique and tool within the law to bring terrorists to justice before they strike again," he said, adding that the country needs to stay on offense, not defense. On Guantanamo, which while in office Mr. Bush said he wanted to close, the former president was diplomatic.
"I told you I'm not going to criticize my successor," he said. "I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind."
The Obama administration has started to clear out some of the more than 200 detainees at the facility.
Repeating a mantra from his presidency, he called the current war against terrorism an "ideological conflict," asserting that in the long term, the United States needs to press freedom and democracy in corners across the world.
From the June 19 broadcast of The Washington Times' "America's Morning News":
McCASLIN: Well Monica Crowley, could we see a Tiananmen moment in Iran with massive bloodshed. And if so, could that blood be on Barack Obama's hands?
CROWLEY: I think you are going to see a major crackdown of the kind we saw in Tiananmen Square in 1989, where those especially young people were agitating for greater freedoms in China. The Chinese communists rolled in the big guns, fired on the crowd, and you had death and blood and mayhem in the streets. We already in Iran have death and bloodshed and mayhem. The question is, is it gonna get worse? And based on what I saw with the Ayatollah this morning and his statement, which was completely tone-deaf and completely out of it, with no grasp on what was happening right under his feet, it tells me that yes, in fact violence is gonna escalate. They will encircle the capital with these 20,000 Revolutionary Guards troops from outside Iran and perhaps even outside of the country, meaning foreign troops that they're bringing in, meaning Hamas and Hezbollah, who have no qualms about firing on the Iranian people.
Your question about blood on Obama's hands? I think this is a very serious question because in the early days of this crisis, Obama was exceedingly cautious, and everybody said let's see how the dust settles. Let's see how it shakes out. Now we know how it's shaking out and it's not good. And for the President of the Untied States, who represents a country that is a shining beacon light and democracy in the world, for those protestors are looking toward us with pleading eyes. For the president to remain silent on this or morally equivocal, meaning the people on the street are just as equal as the Iranian government and those prehistoric Islamic thugs who run that government. That I think is a grave injustice to what is happening here. And if there is increasing bloodshed, yes, I think that the blood will be on the president's hands.
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Party Boss Rush Limbaugh's : GOP Slouches Toward Irrelevancy
"The best way to convince a fool that he wrong is to let him have his way."
The potential long-term political implications of fustian talk radio host Rush Limbaugh's current stranglehold on the Republican Party and by proxy, the conservative movement, should perhaps be viewed by thoughtful progressives as a tragic-comedy in that it is both sad and amusing. Progressives for the most part, understand that the megalomaniacal Limbaugh's obvious compulsion to be acknowledged of his significance, and his chronic need to feel relevant both politically and socially -- traits that are obviously rooted in his past experiences -- are currently fed by and derived from his comparatively vast listening audience of millions of "ditto heads."
The area where some progressives perhaps find their cheekiest gratification lay in the knowledge that the underlying reason both rank and file and leadership Republicans fear Limbaugh is because they themselves are fully aware that nearly all those ditto heads follow an irrational, insecure powder keg. Indeed, the image of hip-hop lingo slinging Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele begging forgiveness for "dissing" -- by describing as an "entertainer" -- the GOP’s Big Boss Man and his millions-deep following of ditto heads, provides a splendid example of what many progressives find smirkingly amusing about the level of post-rational behavior within the base of the GOP. Behavior which has at this point, elevated a talk-show host to a status of influence within the GOP above that of the party's own National Chairman.
Who knows? Maybe the shock and awe of George W. Bush's decimation of their party has driven many Republicans to conclude that compared to G-Dub, Limbaugh actually represents a step up for their party in the leadership department.
It is something worth pondering. Right now who, other than Limbaugh, could more easily convince the base that it is objectionable for much of the world to now views the U.S. with respect rather than hold it in contempt, or, more successfully argue that a forceful repudiation of torture by the current Administration somehow makes this country more vulnerable to acts of terrorism?
In any event, Steele, who (like Limbaugh) has always struck me as somewhat of a buffoon, has usually managed to stop just short of ignorant. As such, the party's incongruous new chairman certainly understands the significance of this month's Gallup poll showing that not only do just 50 percent of Republican voters have any idea whatsoever as to who leads his party, but that among those who went ahead and took a wild guess, Limbaugh was tied with Newt Gingrich for the top spot. Rush Limbaugh? For old-school Republicans, this may qualify as one of their party's "Reagan is rolling in his grave" moments.
Nevertheless, the facts clearly indicate, as syndicated columnist Peggy Noonan forthrightly pointed out in the Wall Street Journal recently, that it is Limbaugh's, not Steele's words on which the Republican base cling these days. "Mr. Steele was forced to grovel in apology because Rush is more powerful than he is." asserted Noonan. "When Michael Steele gets up in the morning ... people don't want to hear his opinion."
Be that as it may, the fact of the matter is, Steele's characterization of Rush was essentially spot on. Although technically, Rush would be defined as a pundit, his presentation is far too tabloid to construe him as anything more than an entertainer. In fact, that tag has always been Rush and his followers' cover in situations where his comments have been particularly outlandish or incendiary. The fact of the matter is, the word "pundit" is a terrible mis-calculation -- made many years ago by the GOP -- of what Limbaugh, in essence, truly is.
Perhaps Republicans need to be reminded that those umbrellaed under the category of “entertainer” include, among others, circus clowns. This brings us to one of the many takeaways here, which is: If you are part of a political party that, in essence, takes its cues from individuals whose primary responsibility is to enrich themselves by generating high ratings and boosting advertising revenue, you are clearly not part of a viable political party. This is what I find saddening; the far-reaching political ramifications of the descent of a hapless GOP into benighted irrelevancy, pulled there by the weight of, among all things, a churlish and rapacious, radio personality.
Limbaugh-Republicanism
From the perspective of a progressive who relishes authentic deliberation on the pros and cons of new ideas and/or opposing political points of view, and who loathes the legitimate apathy that (at least prior to 2008) has engulfed local and national politics, the scope of the GOP's stunning decline into self-inflicted political irrelevancy -- hastened by its tighter embrace of Limbaugh-Republicanism resulting in a further exodus (or, in some cases, a purging) of its moderate conservative base -- is a truly sad turn of events.
It is also certainly something that should have been easily foreseen. The impact that the Party bosses' harebrained choice of Sarah Palin as Sen. John McCain's running mate had in sparking a defection of untold millions of Republican moderates into the Obama camp came relatively late in the game. What's puzzling is how the GOP, failed to recognize and appropriately adjust to the stagnant fallaciousness of the Limbaugh-Republicanist political calculus when, prior to its colossal Palin error, Rush, for all his supposed influence on the body politic, had failed in his campaign to prevent McCain from capturing the nomination in the first place. But, here we are. It is, as the saying goes, so ironic that it's un-ironic; yet so un-ironic, it is.
In other words, once again, the GOP proves that it rarely misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Politically speaking, it seems clear that during a time in which the Democratic Party and the nation as a whole is experiencing its first black president and the unique perspective that he brings, there is also an unprecedented opportunity for a truly viable Republican Party that authentically promotes genuine core conservative fiscal and social values to re-emerge.
It's an opportunity that could help achieve an outcome -- resulting from a bona fide philosophical debate with the Obama Administration -- that could potentially embody aspects of both progressive liberal and enlightened conservative philosophies in finding solutions to our current, multi-layered national crisis. In addition to possibly sparking a social and economic revival, such an achievement could also become the point at which the restoration of the credibility of this country's political process begins.
Indeed what could be any more ideal -- politically speaking-- than having at least two vibrant and viable political parties from which solutions to the challenges facing America can be intellectually fleshed out by means of legitimate analysis of each party's philosophical approach, followed by spirited, honest debate by all sides eventually leading to a workable consensus? There's no telling where such an exercise would lead, but as far as the process goes, from its zealous followers to full-blown wonks, it would amount to political utopia.
Yet, this potential for a sustained political rush (no pun intended) and some real solutions to the nation's ills is now seriously undermined due to the mindless pandering in which Republicans have indulged their party's grandiloquent de facto leader, Rush Limbaugh. If the presumption is that it's unthinkable that the Grand Old Party would be willing to commit political suicide rather than risk offending a few million politically and socially out-of-step ditto heads, think again. It's happening right now.
Misguided Populism
Examples abound of a politically and socially off-kilter contemporary Republican Party intent on communicating its ideals in a manner that appeal only to its base. This intense focus by the GOP to manage and maintain a dwindling (for them) voter demographic, seems to have resulted in an approach to politics that in no way represents what mainstream conservative Republicans recognize as their party's traditional core values. Even those outside the party may not find it difficult to conclude that what we have today is a sort of vapid, out-of-step, often ugly and somewhat bootleg form of Republicanism.
Setting the standard of course, is Limbaugh, whose pronouncements on all things Republican serve as a sort of rhetorical template for what eventually become generalized Republican talking points. The problem is, most often, they simply don't make much political sense.
For example, Limbaugh, whose Operation Chaos campaign during the Democratic primary was -- from the perspective of one who believes that gender issues ingrain the Right's longstanding philosophical issues with Hillary Clinton -- a gender-divisive campaign targeting Mrs. Clinton. Today, Republicans, perhaps most notably, Newt Gingrich, are channeling Limbaugh's latest attempt to bring down yet another (potentially) powerful female, Sonia Sotomayor, this time via fairly easily refutable charges of incompetence and racism. Thus, in one fell swoop, Limbaugh-Republicanism manages to alienate both women and Latin-Americans. Newt eventually saw the handwriting. Within days he recanted the racism charge.
Earlier this year, there was a similar mis-step surrounding the Wall Street stimulus package. Many Republicans were fairly tripping over themselves to join Limbaugh in criticizing the Obama Administration over the president's opposition to attempts by CEOs of some corporate receivers ofstimulus funding -- your and my tax dollars -- to use some of that money to award themselves millions in bonuses. How populist is that?
As if alienating the voter mainstream through misguided populism isn't enough, the GOP has generated even further estrangement from the mainstream as a result of its refusal to flatly repudiate Limbaugh's rhetorical excesses. Asked to submit a 400-word statement describing what his hope is for the Obama administration, Rush's response included the following: "I don't need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails."
It's perhaps fair to presume that the patriotic Americans whom the Republicans claim to represent could argue that Rush, in essence, is rooting against America. From this perspective, it is also an indication that in rooting for Obama's failure, Rush and his Republican followers endorse the notion that it is preferable for America to fail than to acknowledge and move on from the failure of the previous eight years of Limbaugh-Republicanism. In any event, the absence of widespread Republican repudiation of Rush for essentially trying to popularize the the idea that America should fail in it's recovery efforts is quite revealing.
Of course it is possible that for many die-hard Republicans, the price to be paid for refuting Limbaugh-Republicanism is far too high. Enlightened conservatives such as Colin Powell, have found themselves essentially written out of the Party by the likes of Limbaugh-Republicanists such as former vice-President Dick Cheney, or as in the case of moderates like Olympia Snowe and Charlie Crist, have been marginalized.
As Snowe, noted in Salon this April: "You certainly haven't heard warm encouraging words about how (Limbaugh-Republicans) view moderates. Ultimately, we're heading to having the smallest political tent in history."
Even the repulsive Arlen Specter -- whom one might assume has amassed sufficient party cred given his role in securing the Supreme Court seat for the even more repulsive Clarence Thomas -- has fallen off with the GOP's Limbaugh-Republicans. After having garnered little support for re-election from fellow Republicans who favored Club for Growth conservative Pat Toomey, Specter switched to Democratic Party in April, a defection that further weakens the GOP since it gives the Democrats in congress a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority.
But it goes even further. Moderate party members like Snowe acknowledge that convincing the voting public that the Republican brand remains viable after eight harrowing years of the Bush Administration is an ever-increasing hard sell. Yet rather than attempt to re-brand itself into something it once was; a big tent Party, not of circus clowns, but of Abe Lincoln, the RNC -- still led of course, by the now appropriately humbled Steele -- took into consideration a resolution to re-brand the Democratic Party into something it is not; Socialist. To its credit, the RNC eventually voted down their resolution to begin formerly calling the Democratic Party the Democrat Socialist Party, but still managed to chump itself by going on to pass a resolution condemning the Democrats for leading the country into "socialism."
Cult-like Rhetoric
But, other than engage in childish political tantrums, the question that must be raised is where, from these Limbaugh-Republicans, are the traditional Republican ideas for resolving problems in the housing, health care, or financial market sectors? In fact, where are the ideas, period? Substance has been substituted with either a steady mantra of "NO!" from the GOP to literally every Obama Administration proposal designed to address such issues, or, has been submitted in the form of comically absurd proposals such as the four-pages long "solution" to the nation's health care crisis (containing no numbers) announced by House Republicans in mid-June this year.
That move followed an earlier GOP fiasco involving an alternative federal budget plan hastily assembled by Republicans amidst charges that the GOP had become the "Party of No" and as a response to challenges from critics to either put up or shut up. The result? A plan so anemic not just in numbers but overall substance, that the 19-page document, presented in March, was likened to a "glossy pamphlet" which, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs pointed out, "took me several minutes to read."
The GOP's enormously insipid responses and actions on these and other issues appear to extend beyond what might be considered "normal" political dis-ingenuousness. They seem to reveal an almost feckless insouciance about issues ordinary Americans consider acutely important.
Dan Gurley, who was the Party's national field director until 2006, laments what he sees as the Party base's willingness to allow the GOP to devolve from a national to a "regional" political entity.
"It seems like the base of the Republican Party is doing everything it can to drive everyone away from the party who is not in 100 percent agreement with them" Gurley asserts in an article recently published in Salon.
"It's not a party," concludes Bob Herbert in a New York Times column he wrote last month titled Out of Touch. "It's a cult." According to Herbert, as a party, the GOP "doesn't seem to care about anything other than devotion to a set of so-called principles that never amounted to more than cult-like rhetoric."
On the subject of cults, a parallel could be arguably drawn between the GOP's seemingly fratricidal behavior of today and that of the People's Temple back in 1978. That religious cult was led, of course, by Rev. Jim Jones, whose image of himself as a leader/savior seemed rooted, as appears the case with Limbaugh, in an axiological sense of paranoia and insecurity.
Not surprisingly, Jones, who perished along with hundreds of his followers during mass suicide in 1978, shares other similarities with Limbaugh. Both shamelessly covet unthinking devotion; were/are extraordinarily ego-centric; and known to be heavy narcotics users. The People's Temple began as a small church of altruists who, after having become slavishly swept up into what became a cult of personality involving Jones, reached its zenith as an independent colony in Guyana, named of course, "Jonestown" after its leader. Today, all that's left of Jonestown is a legacy of the cadaverous consequences blind idolatry can bring.
"Half-Brained" Republicanism
Could Rush Limbaugh be the Rev. Jim Jones of the Republican Party? That's arguably far-fetched. But certainly, a continued hearty embrace of Limbaugh-Republicanism by GOP politicians can't possibly bode well for the party's long-term survival. Undoubtedly, to hard-core ditto heads, be they GOP leaders or the party's Rush Republican voter base, Limbaugh's current media omnipresence debunks this notion. For them, the current back and forth between their leader and the Obama Administration provides further proof of the self-sustaining relevancy of Limbaugh and his ideas.
Perhaps they overlook the possibility that at this particular juncture in history, it's Limbaugh's sheer irrelevancy -- indicated by the absence of actual data showing mainstream support for the "principles" which constitute Limbaugh-Republicanism -- that generates for someone of Rush's stature as a politically-involved entertainer, one last fleeting moment of relevancy as the living contrast to a changed political landscape.
Whether that analysis is correct or not, based on present trends, it is clear: unless the Republican Party weans itself from its attachment to Limbaugh-Republicanism very soon, by the end of President Obama's first term, there will be no Republican Party as it was known during, for example, the Reagan era. Just a Lyndon LaRouche-type outfit consisting of Limbaugh, Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin and a bizarre collection of a few million socially-regressed ditto heads.
Certainly Ronald Reagan, the GOP's sainted "Great Communicator" no longer speaks from the Oval Office or from anywhere for that matter. The "Gipper's" apparent linear replacement now speaks from a broadcast studio awash in the ostentatious glow of a gold microphone -- his own personal Guyana. From there the suddenly stale Kool-Aid of half-brained, bootleg Republicanism is ladled out to what's left of the party's base by a talk show host who has no qualms about letting his ditto head followers know that when he communicates with them he does so with "half my brain tied behind my back."
Look Who's Joining Tancredo and Buchanan to Build A New Majority
By Kyle | June 17, 2009 - 2:42pm
Given the recent insulting and offensive statements made by Pat Buchanan and Tom Tancredo about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, coupled with the recent revelations about Marcus Epstein, executive director of The American Cause, you'd think that other right-wing activists would be doing everything in their power to disassociate themselves from this group of toxic bigots.
Of course, you'd be wrong, as people like Phyllis Schlafly and Ken Blackwell are still happily participating in a conference hosted by The American Cause and featuring Buchanan and Tancredo this weekend:
When: June 20 8:30 AM-6:00 PM
Where: The Ritz Carlton * 1700 Tysons Boulevard * McLean, VA 22102
Admission: $75 per person * $35 students * $1,000 co-sponsor
Speakers Include:
* Patrick Buchanan
* Tony Blankley
* Tom Tancredo
* Phyllis Schlafly
* Terry Jeffrey
* Ward Connerly
* John Hostettler
* Ken Blackwell
* Christopher Horner
* Richard Scott
* Lou Barletta
* Peter Brimelow
People like Buchanan, Tancredo, Schlafly, Connerly, Blackwell, and Barletta are relatively well-known, but the Southern Poverty Law Center provides some good background on Brimelow, founder of "the white nationalist hate website Vdare.com":
[Brimelow] described the role of race as "elemental, absolute, fundamental." He said that white Americans should demand that U.S. immigration quotas be changed to allow in mostly whites. He argued that spending tax dollars on anything related to multiculturalism was "subversive." He called foreign immigrants "weird aliens with dubious habits."
He worried repeatedly that his son, with his "blue eyes" and "blond hair," would grow up in an America in which whites had lost the majority.
Once a relatively mainstream anti-immigration page, VDARE has now become a meeting place for many on the radical right.
One essay complains about how the government encourages "the garbage of Africa" to come to the United States. The same writer says once the "Mexican invasion" engulfs the country, "high teenage birthrates, poverty, ignorance and disease will be what remains."
Another says that Hispanics have a "significantly higher level of social pathology than American whites. ... In other words, some immigrants are better than others." Yet another complains that a Jewish immigrant rights group is helping "African Muslim refugees" come to America.
Brimelow's site carries archives of columns from men like Sam Francis, who is the editor of the newspaper of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, a group whose Web page recently described blacks as "a retrograde species of humanity."
Generally speaking, rational people immediately decline an invitation to share the stage with people like Tancredo and Buchanan at an event being hosted by an organization run by a man who, not too long ago, pled guilty to attacking a black woman and calling her "nigger."
But then again, rational people also don't claim that women can't be raped by their husbands or equate gays with arsonists and kleptomaniacs, so I guess it is really not surprising that Schalfly and Blackwell would see nothing wrong with attending this gathering.
Panetta Continues The CIA's Culture Of Covering Up Abuses And ...
By Mel Goodman
And on the third hand, as much as he might want to, he cannot publicly blame the CIA's involvement onBush/Cheney without giving away all of the above that I just mentioned. Reply to this comment. Comment by Animal Control | 2009-06-21 ...
NO QUARTER - http://www.noquarterusa.net/
Jane Hamsher: 238 Members of Congress Disagree with Obama: The Fed ...
By Jane Hamsher
As a result of Grayson's efforts to whip cosponsors, 47 have signed on in the past two weeks alone, including Donna Edwards, Carol Shea-Porter, Jackie Speier, Dennis Kucinich, Heath Shuler, Jim McGovern and Jared Polis. Grayson's efforts to bring accountability .... Obama has worked for them as a young man, and has received funding by them during his election campaign-- more funding came to his campaign from the financial sector of the economy than from any other source. ...
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
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-In Iraq, Journalists Who Cover Corruption Are Buying Guns to Protect Themselves
By Uthman al-Mukhtar, Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Journalists in Anbar no longer fear al-Qaeda and its affiliates but instead believe they are being targeted by political factions. Read more
The American Empire Is Bankrupt
Posted on Jun 14, 2009
By Chris Hedges
This week marks the end of the dollar’s reign as the world’s reserve currency. It marks the start of a terrible period of economic and political decline in the United States. And it signals the last gasp of the American imperium. That’s over. It is not coming back. And what is to come will be very, very painful.
Barack Obama, and the criminal class on Wall Street, aided by a corporate media that continues to peddle fatuous gossip and trash talk as news while we endure the greatest economic crisis in our history, may have fooled us, but the rest of the world knows we are bankrupt. And these nations are damned if they are going to continue to prop up an inflated dollar and sustain the massive federal budget deficits, swollen to over $2 trillion, which fund America’s imperial expansion in Eurasia and our system of casino capitalism. They have us by the throat. They are about to squeeze.
There are meetings being held Monday and Tuesday in Yekaterinburg, Russia, (formerly Sverdlovsk) among Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The United States, which asked to attend, was denied admittance. Watch what happens there carefully. The gathering is, in the words of economist Michael Hudson, “the most important meeting of the 21st century so far.”
It is the first formal step by our major trading partners to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. If they succeed, the dollar will dramatically plummet in value, the cost of imports, including oil, will skyrocket, interest rates will climb and jobs will hemorrhage at a rate that will make the last few months look like boom times. State and federal services will be reduced or shut down for lack of funds. The United States will begin to resemble the Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe. Obama, endowed by many with the qualities of a savior, will suddenly look pitiful, inept and weak. And the rage that has kindled a handful of shootings and hate crimes in the past few weeks will engulf vast segments of a disenfranchised and bewildered working and middle class. The people of this class will demand vengeance, radical change, order and moral renewal, which an array of proto-fascists, from the Christian right to the goons who disseminate hate talk on Fox News, will assure the country they will impose.
I called Hudson, who has an article in Monday’s Financial Times called “The Yekaterinburg Turning Point: De-Dollarization and the Ending of America’s Financial-Military Hegemony.” “Yekaterinburg,” Hudson writes, “may become known not only as the death place of the czars but of the American empire as well.” His article is worth reading, along with John Lanchester’s disturbing exposé of the world’s banking system, titled “It’s Finished,” which appeared in the May 28 issue of the London Review of Books.
“This means the end of the dollar,” Hudson told me. “It means China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran are forming an official financial and military area to get America out of Eurasia. The balance-of-payments deficit is mainly military in nature. Half of America’s discretionary spending is military. The deficit ends up in the hands of foreign banks, central banks. They don’t have any choice but to recycle the money to buy U.S. government debt. The Asian countries have been financing their own military encirclement. They have been forced to accept dollars that have no chance of being repaid. They are paying for America’s military aggression against them. They want to get rid of this.”
China, as Hudson points out, has already struck bilateral trade deals with Brazil and Malaysia to denominate their trade in China’s yuan rather than the dollar, pound or euro. Russia promises to begin trading in the ruble and local currencies. The governor of China’s central bank has openly called for the abandonment of the dollar as reserve currency, suggesting in its place the use of the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights. What the new system will be remains unclear, but the flight from the dollar has clearly begun. The goal, in the words of the Russian president, is to build a “multipolar world order” which will break the economic and, by extension, military domination by the United States. China is frantically spending its dollar reserves to buy factories and property around the globe so it can unload its U.S. currency. This is why Aluminum Corp. of China made so many major concessions in the failed attempt to salvage its $19.5 billion alliance with the Rio Tinto mining concern in Australia. It desperately needs to shed its dollars.
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