I don’t know maybe it is that what we have is what people want. If it is---then we are neither a republic nor a democracy---we have and maybe are an oligarchy. At first blush, those crazy rich oligarchs would seem to have not much sense and then you realize it really is all “about the money” eh, or control.
Public Citizen:
Stunning Statistics of the Week:
• Amount the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent on lobbying in 2009: $120 million
• Amount Chamber spent daily to defeat health care reform in the weeks before its passage: $800,000
• Amount Chamber plans to spend to influence the fall congressional elections: $50 million
http://us.mg2.mail.yahoo.com/dc/launch?.gx=1&.rand=bd6mumra8q3d3
Billions to Afghanistan and Pakistan---hey it’s only money and someone has to create the next boogey-man besides why should Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater suffer just because we do?
As one White House official put it bluntly, 'Since just telling us to f--k off seemed to do the trick,' why should the Pakistanis change their strategy?" The CIA, in tracking Bin Laden, had desperately—and foolishly—turned to its old ally the ISI, which had been so useful during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
A Brief Refresher on the Taliban's Worst-Kept Secret
The "most damning collection of data" in Wikileaks' massive trove of secret documents from Afghanistan are 180 files that show the Pakistani intelligence service helping Taliban insurgents in their fight against US forces. The documents are dark reading indeed: They describe Pakistani agents meeting directly with the Taliban, supporting commanders of the insurgency, and even training suicide bombers. But for anyone versed in the contemporary history of Afghanistan, they are hardly news. The Wikileaks data dump is just the tip of the iceberg; ISI black ops and double-crosses date back at least three decades. Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, is merely feeding a monster it helped create back in the 1990s—with the full knowledge of the United States. Indeed, in concert with the CIA, the Pakistani spy agency also helped create Al Qaeda, and continued to support it long after it had gone astray of US interests.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/07/wikileaks-taliban-afghanistan
…and all Israel has done is occupy, terrorize, kill and destroy in Gaza, the West Bank and Golan Heights?
Israeli air strike kills Hamas commander in Gaza
Israel carried out the air strikes after militants in Gaza fired a rocket into Ashkelon on Israel's Mediterranean coast, blowing out the windows of an apartment block and damaging parked cars in a residential area.
http://www.globalpost.com/breaking-news/global/israeli-air-strike-kills-hamas-commander-gaza
While Six Flags has been holding these events since 2000 for the 42-year-old Muslim nonprofit, apparently this year, it's getting more attention, both because it falls on the weekend of Sept. 11 and also because of the ongoing controversy about the Muslim center planned a few blocks away from Ground Zero in New York.
Tea Partiers Freak Over Six Flags "Muslim Day"
The Six Flags amusement park chain has had its share of bad press lately, what with kids getting decapitated or having their feet chopped off on roller coaster rides, filing for bankruptcy and other Dan Snyder-related disasters. But the latest flap is more political. Tea partiers and other anti-Islam activists are freaking out about a Muslim Family Day planned for several Six Flags parks around the country on Sept. 12, the day after the World Trade Center attacks. The event, sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), offers Muslim families a chance to hang at the amusement park and be catered to by modestly dressed employees and halal food vendors.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/07/muslim-day-six-flags
Texas Red
McCall quotes longtime Texas Monthly political writer Paul Burka’s description of Connally as “the greatest Texas governor of the century” because, Burka said, Connally “saw the dark side of the Texas stereotype—a self-satisfaction, a narrowness, a confusion of size with greatness, and an obsession with myth that kept the State from realizing its full potential. What’s more, he said so. He made Texans see that they weren’t as good as they thought they were.”
Who Runs Texas?
A LONG STANDING ARGUMENT IS that the lieutenant governor of Texas is more powerful than the governor. It’s that way by design. During the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, Texas had to endure the concentration of power in the governor: who removed local, elected officials that had been part of the Confederacy; appointed district judges, district attorneys, county treasurers, mayors and aldermen; and imposed martial law on counties. After Reconstruction, writers of the new Texas Constitution vowed to disperse power among the lieutenant governor, the speaker and the governor. The revised constitution also made numerous other positions elected instead of appointed by the governor. Several other former Confederate states did likewise.
http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/who-runs-texas
The Rope, the Chair, and the Needle: Capital Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rope,_the_Chair,_and_the_Needle:_Capital_Punishment_in_Texas,_1923-1990
The authors argue that the execution rate in Texas is a symptom of the "cultural tradition of exclusion" in the Southern United States. They found there was an inverse relationship between the number of executions and lynchings. When the number of lynchings declined, the execution rate went up. Executions, they argue, are a way to continue to "dehumanize" and "exclude" certain groups from normal society
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rope,_the_Chair,_and_the_Needle:_Capital_Punishment_in_Texas,_1923-1990
Crack cocaine and powder cocaine disparity in sentences 100 to 1 now 18 to 1 what a joke. One more example of the rampant discrimination in this country.
Obama Expected To Ease Crack-Cocaine Sentencing Disparities (Maybe not)
ROBERTS: Well, there was someone who did speak against the law, Representative Lamar Smith of Texas. He's the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. He said the 1986 law, the one that brought in this very low threshold for crack possession, was enacted to prevent violence.
He said: Why do we want to risk another surge of addiction and violence by reducing penalties? Why are we coddling some of the most dangerous drug traffickers in America? What's your response?
Mr. NACHMANOFF: Well, this is about as far from coddling as you could possibly imagine. People who are prosecuted in federal court for drug trafficking, whether it's crack cocaine, powder cocaine or other drugs are still facing serious and substantial penalties. The idea that crack offenders are more dangerous than other kinds of drug offenders simply has not been borne out.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128872762
Howard Zinn's FBI Files Reveal A Boston University Official's Efforts To Oust Him
In perusing the 423-page FBI file that the FBI kept on Howard Zinn, who was a life-long activist and political science professor at Boston University from 1964-1988, we discovered something interesting: someone in the upper echelons of the university's management was an FBI informer who reportedly plotted to oust Zinn in 1970.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/howard_zinns_fbi_files_reveal_a_boston_university.php?ref=fpb
But as local reports suggested and TPM confirmed, law enforcement in the area had no idea where the bogus story came from.
Right-Wingers Stand By Their Fabricated Mexican Drug Cartel Raid Story
But as local reports suggested and TPM confirmed, law enforcement in the area had no idea where the bogus story came from.
According to anonymously-sourced reports pushed by right-wing blogs last weekend, members of Mexico's notorious Zetas drug gang crossed the border into Texas and, "in what could be deemed an act of war," seized two ranches near the border town of Laredo. The situation was dire, wingers warned, but a government enforced media blackout kept knowledge of the raid from the general public.
Really?
No, not really.
Here's the thing: the "raid" never happened.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/right-wingers_stand_by_their_fabricated_mexican_dr.php?ref=fpb
Such is the state of the oligarchy presently.
Hasta Siempre,
More:
Mexicans and Mexicans the U.S. Palestinians or the new N---gers?
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-18764-San-Antonio-Public-Policy-Examiner~y2010m5d15-MexicanAmericans-and-Mexicans-the-US-Palestinians-or-the-new-Ngers
Public Policy: Bill of Rights repealed by the “mainstream” led by Arizona’s Joe Arpaio
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-18764-San-Antonio-Public-Policy-Examiner~y2010m7d30-Public-Policy-Bill-of-Rights-repealed-by-the-mainstream-led-by-Arizonas-Joe-Arpaio
Any connection to reality is coincidental---wait---there are no coincidences….
Public Policy: America the Beautiful, “…give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…” & the neocons
https://feed.examiner.com/examiner/admin/EntryController.cfm?data=WFhjRXNraUxnRUwwa0Y1aWZKSjl6c1ZETjlEa3ZmbStGanFxT2NXVyt3QT0%3D&CFID=112284633&CFTOKEN=76112656#
There are so many issues in so many places at once. The tentacles of the nihilistic oligarchy reach out much as they always have encircling the entire globe. Its death grip tightens in an effort to sate its voracious, seemingly unlimited appetite. It doesn’t seem to understand that once it’s done, it’s done.
DEPT. OF HOMOPHOBIA
IT'S BEEN JUST OVER A YEAR SINCE FORT WORTH POLICE, with Texas Alcohol and Beverage Control agents in tow, stormed into the Rainbow Lounge, a gay bar. They arrested seven patrons for public intoxication, sent one to the hospital with a head injury and caused a national firestorm. The timing couldn’t have been worse: The raid fell on the 40th anniversary of the anti-police harassment uprising at the Stonewall bar in New York, which touched off the modern gay-rights movement
http://www.texasobserver.org/pi/rainbow-raid-revisited
America the Oligarchy -You are free to do what they tell you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK7DRPyNAHA
'Open Veins of Latin America' author Eduardo Galeano on Democracy NOW! 2006 (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shTJosdsM_0&feature=PlayList&p=42140946F0DB2A02&playnext=1&index=24
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