[P.C. DISCLAIMER:  Yes, I KNOW that every politician cannot be corrupt, but enough of them are at least looking the other way and keeping their traps shut that the whole class has to stay after school.]

The Great One has declared Swine Flu a national emergency?  How very convenient.  Better than convenient, actually, a Win-Win for the In Crowd.  National Emergency is a hop, skip and a march from Martial Law.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I am feelin’ like my Big Brother is a Bully.  Thankfully, in a you-have-to-survive-it-to-appreciate-it way, I have already endured and bested a Bully Big Brother.  I know how to clean their clocks.

In addition to an excuse to further crack down on a beleaguered citizenry, Swine Flu FEAR MONGERING is intended to stimulate demand for the mysterious new vaccine that Obama and his family are themselves avoiding.  Yep sir, I remember reading that THREE doses of the Magic Medicine would be recommended.  Cha-CHING.  Cha-CHING.  Cha-CHING.  Puts a whole new spin on TRIPLICATE, eh?  Imprudently setting aside the obvious economic arguments against artificial stimulation (some might say MANIPULATION) of the markets, a second but not secondary travesty lies in the uncreative and minimal-value-added ways in which they are going about it.  Government is NOT the innovation sector.  

Obama will wait in line like everyone else, is that what the Liar-in-Chief said?  Since WHEN does Obama roll like Common Folk?  Not since he entered that private — nay, EXCLUSIVE — high school in Hawaii.  The one where he struggled for B’s, while writing poetry and shooting hoops (per Suzanne Malveaux’s biography piece on CNN), and from which he was accepted into venerable Columbia University.  With low-end B’s.  I’m still waiting to hear the tab for his Campaign-O-Rama Secret Service.  The Great Gun Grabber, it seems, was afraid of being killed and so obtained more taxpayer-funded Secret Service earlier than any presidential candidate in our history.  Is that incorrect?  I’m willing to learn, as Eddie Izzard brilliantly said in I-forget-which standup routine.

The American People have cause aplenty to not believe a single word that emanates from Officialdom or Corporatedom. That is Truth, with God as my witness.  Let the First Chicago I-Didn’t-Know-Anything-About-Widespread-Corruption Family get shot up with vaccines drawn from a drum of random samples.  Reality TV, baby.  Lead by example, for a Change.

That’s just ONE bit of Dementia Du Jour.

SEVEN AND A HALF BILLION HERE-YA-GO DOLLARS OF TAXPAYER MONEY TO PAKISTAN?  The Middle Eastern countries that AREN’T being blown to kingdom come oughtta be paying US at this point.  Protection money.  Just like American taxpayers are FORCED to pay.  How ’bout this?  How ’bout we suspend ALL foreign aid while we teeter on economic ruination, and also while we figger out who our friends REALLY are?  Lemme guess, it’s more complicated than I realize.

Blah blah blah, sez Congress about Whatever.  Yada yada yada, sez Obama about Everything.  But the proof is in the pudding.  SEVERAL Wall Street Journal front-page headlines have BROADCAST that it’s Business As Usual on Wall Street . . . albeit with “more exotic” investment vehicles.  Those with a penchant for Exotic Investment Vehicles might should consider RICKSHAWS.

The same people who oversaw our descent into financial mayhem are at the helm of the “Recovery.”  Y’know, the Recovery that does NOT feature jobs, that does NOT feature sales and shipping, that does NOT feature Middle Class Prosperity and that does NOT feature emotional upswing.  The foxes are not only still in the henhouses, they are hoarding cash AND whining about the reluctance of investors.  It’s not a Credit Crisis, it’s a C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-C-E Crisis.  And rightly so.  See above, re: foxes still in henhouses.

Is Stanley O’Neal, DISGRACED CEO of Merrill Lynch tied up in depositions and hearings?  No, he is not.  E. (for Earnest, if you can believe it) Stanley O’Neal went seamlessly from overseeing the demise of “Rock Solid Market Wise” Merrill Lynch to sitting on the Board of Directors of ALCOA Aluminum.  All the while hobnobbing with The Swells in New York City. Wanker owes me some money, and Ken Lewis and I are gonna have a word about that before HE beats a premature retreat at the end of this year.

White Collar Criminals belong in federal penitentiaries, I AM capital-R Right about that.  By ANY measure of relative harm, White Collar Criminals are a MUCH greater menace to society than pot smokers or gun toters.  NOT Club Fed, prison CELLS.  Where they can teach letters and numbers to the largest prison population on earth.  The one with the unspeakably low literacy rate.

All this anti-hate and pro-gay crapola?  We already HAVE laws that protect people of whatever persuasion.  Gay-This-Gay-That is ‘cuz we have a bunch of Closet Queens in government.  My opinion, which I am yet free to express.  The anti-hate baloney is a setup to mitigate criticism of Officials — and of course, as ever, to buffer Israel.  My opinion, which I am yet free to express.

Redundant Legislation = Billable Hours 4 Big Law.

I believe Big Law is Public Enemy Numero Uno.  It’s Big Law what keeps Besuited Bad Guys outta prison.

I could go on and on, and quite frequently do.  The further down the rabbit hole I go, the weirder it gets.  I am conjuring a scene from Peggy Sue Got Married, when Peggy Sue and the bad but brilliant biker Michael Fitzsimmons go for a literal and figurative ride.  He waxes on about Jack Kerouac, free spirits, rejecting convention and authority . . .

A writer’s life is his work. Jack Kerouac doesn’t have to kill a bull to have something to write about. I mean, man, he’s out there burning, feeling, grooving on life . . . I’m going to check out of this bourgeois motel, push myself from the dinner table and say, “No more Jell-o for me, mom!” 

It’s like that.

To say that Israel is in my Dog House is not exactly tough talk, I realize.  But others must realize — rather, admit — that, for some people, Israel has always been in the Dog House.  For some people — let us PLEASE be candid for once in our cowardly lives — Israel is in the Dog House just by its existence.  There are people who hate Jews, period, and would continue to hate Jews even if Israel were, as is apparently the hope of certain Whacko Extremists, annihilated.

I am not one of those people.  Nor do I have a bugaboo about Blacks.

Therefore, I do not fear the Anti-Semite card.  Nor do I fear the Racist card.

But with its sustained hard-hitting . . . strike that, PULVERIZING . . . attack on Gaza, Israel has lost the natural benevolence that I, as a rational person, am predisposed to have toward people who are, again naturally, determined to define and protect their own sovereignty.

When I say that I have not previously harbored animosity toward Israel, I do NOT mean to say that I have always approved of their policies.  Their policies are their business.  I have NOT always supported policies of OURS that support policies of THEIRS — which, by the by, IS my business.

It has been obvious to me for some time and by several means that Israel has disproportionate representation in American governance and that Israeli interests are disproportionately served by  American politicians.

We’re up for Change, remember?  Enough is enough.  

I declare my belief that Israel’s launch of a WILDLY LOPSIDED OFFENSIVE into Gaza during America’s Changing of the Guard is below-the-belt, beyond-the-pale dirty pool.  I declare my belief that, in their limitless self-absorption, this pulverization of Gaza is to establish for all the world that America’s Excellent Adventure In Change doesn’t mean diddly-squat where it really counts — read that, with Israel.  Read that, America has got Israel’s back NO MATTER WHAT.

Count me out.  

Israel is in my Dog House.

I would add this:

NOT AN EFFING DIME OF FOREIGN AID FOR REBUILDING GAZA
JUST LIKE ISRAEL WILL NOT PAY FOR OUR WRECKAGE IN IRAQ

And this:

RAHM EMANUEL ON STAFF & SCORNED WOMAN CLINTON AT STATE
POURS FUEL ON FIRES & GUARANTEES THE FAILURE OF DIPLOMACY 

Like Columbo, and another thing.  One Israeli Made-in-America missile nailed FIVE daughters from a single Arab family.  I’ll bet dollars to donuts that Georgie Porgie Bush and Mamby Pamby Obama would re-think their unthinking No-Matter-What support of Israel if THEIR privileged and protected, some might say spoiled, daughters were among the dead.  

I am decided that certain World Leaders — in the manner of Pied Pipers attended by Rasputins — have rendered the fabled Pursuit of Happiness IMPOSSIBLE, verboten, to men and women of Reason and Conscience.  I contend that my Constitution — which ensures my right to pursue Life, Liberty AND the Pursuit of Happiness — trumps the plots and plans and schemes and scams of the Perpetually Insecure and Insatiably Greedy. 

Anyone but me up for an old-school class-action lawsuit?

Favreau Cops Feel

I take it from Obama’s silence that this is considered just funnin’ around?

Would everyone be equally blase if a drunken Clinton speechwriter was fondling Obama’s crotch . . . not his REAL crotch, of course, just a cardboard facsimile?

After all, in the final analysis of the big picture of the bottom line at the end of the day, it really IS about enjoying our brief time on this planet, is it not?

I guess, then, my only question is whether mock fondling perpetrated by an underling on the Secretary of State might undermine our negotiating position with Iran.

If Obama doesn’t sit in that chair that looks too big for him and tell us how much he regrets dismissing an ace speechwriter on the cusp of a brilliant career, then he better keep his trap shut when someone does something comparable to likenesses of his wife and daughters.

Barack Obama was in the Illinois state senate in 2002.  He says he was unaware of the corruption charges.  He’s either not telling the truth, or he’s not very smart.  Same thing I said when he said he was unaware of Reverend Wright’s incendiary remarks.  Same thing I said when he said he wasn’t aware of Rezko’s shady dealings.

Slimebag Blagojevich, thankfully, makes one clear-cut statement that Barack Obama, gadummit, was the one legislator that Blagojevich couldn’t muscle or buy.  Lucky break, eh?  Like Jesse Jackson accidentally distancing himself from Obama when he didn’t know the microphone that he was WEARING was on.

If y’all are buying this bullshit, you might also be interested in some Made In America subprime derivative junk bonds and/or a bridge Made In Alaska.

AP

PARTY ON

I don’t know what the hell is going on in my capricious and heavy-handed country, but last night I was banned without warning from an ostensibly LIBERTARIAN internet forum, for letting loose with a series of concise and strongly worded sentiments — think bumper sticker compactness — about audacious Powers That Be contriving in an “emergency session” to bend the law in Washington DC, in honor Obama’s inauguration, such that Party Goers can guzzle more alcohol at more hours of the early morning.

Right on.  That there’s some Change we can believe in, eh?

Directly upon reading about the latest practice-what-I-preach decadence of hypocritical High Flyers . . . bearing in mind that, for me, to drink is to die and that, for me, just like for the Inauguration Crowd, life in America without any relief whatsoever is quite frankly unbearable . . . I composed the following posts in rapid-read-that-impassioned sequence:

DE-CRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA, YOU HYPOCRITES
OR WE WILL MOVE TO REINSTATE PROHIBITION

DE-CRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA, YOU FUCKING HYPOCRITES
OR WE’LL GIVE YOU A SECOND CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

ARE WE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE RULING ELITE
IS ONCE AGAIN ABOVE THE LAWS THAT BIND US?

WHAT THE HELL KIND OF MESSAGE
DO WE MEAN TO SEND THE KIDS?

WHAT THE HELL KIND OF MESSAGE
DO WE MEAN TO SEND THE WORLD?

THE MORE PEOPLE TALK CHANGE
THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME

WE ARE AT WAR WITH A NATION
THAT FROWNS ON DRINKING
People are dying.

I’ll grant that there were two others that were suitable only in the Wild West of the blogosphere.  Offensive, depending your bugaboo, but not spam.  Spam is the equivalent of junk mail, thrown in willy nilly to disrupt a conversation.  To WHAT conversation could de-criminalization of marijuana be more pertinent than one about “legal” addicts contriving to get bombed all night long, impervious that pot smokers are castigated, penalized and IMPRISONED for “taking the edge off” with considerably more restraint and decorum.   Sorry, but I’m gonna have to go with something on the No Dice – Screw You spectrum.

Then suddenly, unexpectedly — poof — someone whose world view feels threatened flips a friggin’ switch and, just like that, I am denied access to a Board at which I have been posting with integrity since September, which was when I finally threw in the towel on the Board That Shall Not Be Named, an ostensibly LIBERAL board engaging in DIFFERENT methods of censure.  I am pissed.

I cannot believe how quickly and how obliviously people engage in the very practices they decry.

Come to learn I was banned by a 27-year-young A Little Bit Of Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing RON PAUL devotee.  That’s right, Devotee.  Que paso con Liberty?

FOR FUCK’S SAKE, PEOPLE.  NO ONE PERSON HAS ALL THE ANSWERS.  NO ONE “PARTY” IDEOLOGY WILL WIN ALL HEARTS OR SAVE ALL DAYS.  YES, I DO APPRECIATE THE IRONY OF MY SAYING THAT WHILE I SPOUT OFF LIKE A KNOW-IT-ALL.

When we were kids, we ran loose in the neighborhood and played with a passel of other neighborhood Baby Boomers.  Kick the Can, Steal the Flag, whatever, the more the merrier.  Mercifully not dozens of times but more than once or twice did my father shout out the front door, drunk as you please, “Maude, quit being so bossy.”

If he had always shouted at Maude, that would be one thing.  But he alternated between Maude and my real name, not that there was any rhyme or reason to Maude being laughable but, believe you me, it was.  Ergo, not only did he humiliate me in front of the entire neighborhood on the bossy charge, he broadcast to neighborhood KIDS — kids being commonly noted for their cruelty — that there was also a moniker by which I might be tormented if a kid ever needed extra ammo.  Well done, Dad.  Thanks.

Bossy, absolutely.  But also smart.  And pissed.  This business of me getting hollered at and crapped on and regulated and fined and harassed and taxed and pestered and penalized and minimized and marginalized, so we can keep this Political Farce going — the scandalous and decadent uber rich feasting on the bankruptcies of the poor and ignorant masses who, reduced to abject dependence, agitate for assistance and settle for scraps.  And then there’s me over here, getting trampled like the hapless worker who opened the door at Wal*Mart.  

Okay not like, but like.  Emphatically, I do NOT make light of the man’s death — on the contrary, I am horrified.  The Consumers who stamped the breath of life right out of him?  THE ABLE-BODIED PROCEEDED TO SHOP.  But that dude went straight to Heaven or its equivalent — he is out. of. pain. — while I proceed to die a thousand deaths or go softly into that good night, I can’t tell which. 

No sirree Bob.  My countrymen and I?  My government and I?  We’re gonna have us a word.

I’ll start by adding the following sentiments in remark upon Official Hypocrisy that grows more brazen and more imperious by the week:

LEGALIZE, REGULATE AND TAX MARIJUANA
OR REINSTATE THE PROHIBITION OF BOOZE

CONCERNS ABOUT VIOLENCE IN CAPITOL TAINTING INAUGURATION
PROMPT EMERGENCY SESSION OF CONGRESS TO RECTIFY TRAVESTY

Let’s get this straight. I am essentially a peaceable person. I do not advocate violence.  Me, I think we have no business but business in the Middle East. 

HOWEVER, comma, surveying the courtly pageants of the Ruling Elite, then using history as a guide, I apprehend a Ruling Elite of self-important, self-serving, self-indulgent, greedy, corrupted, capricious, high-flying, moralizing, judgmental, punitive, imperious, impervious, unapologetic carpetbaggers who whip the combustible masses into superficial excitements and who stoke fires of frustration with their ungodly displays of conspicuous consumption against a backdrop of widespread economic suffering.

Think, let them eat cake.

I’m not foolin’ around here.  I am calling my country on its bullshit.

I thought the boy wonder and president elect HAD a healthcare plan.  If memory serves, he RAN on his healthcare program.

What’s this new business of asking the public to do for free the jobs that other people are paid to do?

Mainstream Media is the same way — send us your photos, send us your scoops, send us your news.  So that, what?  The Sender feels all warm and fuzzy when his unremunerated name is read on TV?

As bloggers are wont to say, “Do your own homework.”

But I’ll give PEBO a tip.  Health is not meant to be a for-profit scheme.

Ditto Justice.

In addressing the affordability part of Affordable Healthcares, it is an exercise in futility without taking on the skulduggery that is made amply manifest in Big Insurance and Big Law — the parts of healthcare that have nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with profiteering.

This isn’t much of an introduction to McPolitics, and I apologize for that.

In my defense, the bullshit comes so quick and thick that spending much time…read that, expending a principal asset…on craft of composition and aesthetics of publication is an investment of debatable value. Spending hours pawing through research, then hours carefully constructing readable sentences, then time proofreading and editing…re-thinking and re-writing…is to drop right out of the loop.  A day or two spent in contemplation?  Outta the question.

By every measure, this is a JUMP situation.  It shouldn’t be too difficult to persuade myself that The Situation, title credit to CNN, is better characterized by a burning building than an icy pool.

President-elect Barack Obama, a.k.a. PEBO, resigned his seat in the Senate.  Finally.

I believe that a person should have to resign from one public office in order to run for another.  What other person in what other field could run around in full-time petition of a better position whilst being paid by their current employer?  It is preposterous on its face.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained…that is the wisdom of the ages, yes?  It’s called Risk Taking, and I would draw attention to how we underwrite unwillingness to pay the price of a bad bet in politics the same way we underwrite unwillingness to pay the price of a bad bet in business.  Gamble big, win big.  

In theory.  But because we are a Democratic society willing to incur the considerable cost of maintaining the illusion that we give a shit about people and that life can be rendered risk-free with enough of Other People’s Money, if your big gamble results in sufficiently big losses, we will extend to you a hand out AND a hand up via gargantuan bailouts funded by Ordinary Taxpayers.  GO FOR IT, we’ve got your back. 

Mike Flannery has been covering Chicago politics since 1973.  He was answering questions on C-SPAN about Obama’s resignation from and his replacement to the Senate.  The kingpin in Barack Obama’s replacement in the United States Senate is Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich who is hounded by, say it ain’t so, corruption charges.  According to Mike Flannery, Governor Blagojevich has a paltry 13% approval rating among all voters, but a FORTY percent approval rating among black voters.  What’s THAT all about, Changelings?  The previous Illinois Governor, George Ryan, is already in prison following conviction on EIGHTEEN corruption charges.       

Hey…why not, right?  Change doesn’t mean change EVERYTHING.  I once saw a birthday card the front of which depicted a monk at transcription and the text of which said something like ‘CelebRate!  The word was CELEBRATE!  Someone dropped the R!!’  Maybe there was a misunderstanding at the beginning? Charge, Change…it’s a simple mistake, anyone could make it.

Ted Bridge-To-Nowhere Stevens, CONVICTED on corruption charges, had the audacity to run for re-election and the citizens of the great state of Alaska, incredibly, rewarded his risk.  Pervy Larry Craig returned to the Senate by the citizens of the great state of Idaho.  William Money-In-The-Freezer Jefferson continues to be sent to Congress by the citizens of the great state of Louisiana.  Smarmy Tom DeLay returned to Congress how many times by citizens of the great state of Texas?

Great States, it would appear, constitute a conflict of interest with United States.

You know what I think?  I think that Barack Obama has raised and spent enough money for and on himself that he could set an honorable precedent by reimbursing the American Taxpayers his Senate compensation package for these past two years wherein he has CLEARLY not been working as a Senator.

Certain of television appearances seem to corroborate what I read somewhere and heard somewhere else, that Barack Obama is kicking it with more-than-usual Secret Service, and that he has been doing so since earlier-than-usual.  I think he oughtta be picking up the tab for that out of his colossal campaign stash, too.  It is my understanding that there are quite a few millions of dollars between what he raised and what he spent during Campaign-O-Rama. 

Cost effectiveness isn’t sexy and glamorous and exiting, the way launching a new product is.  But cost effectiveness speaks to short-term stability and long-term growth.  Cost effective leadership will want, I think, to excite less passion in the Minority and more respect from the Majority.

“You said…”

“Unh uuunh, you said…”

Senator Obama avoided answering the very first question of the debate, an opening bell for the minuet of equivocation and prevarication that ensued.

Debate?  More like serial soliloquies.

Again and again, despite repeated advisements from Tom Brokaw, both candidates disregarded the “rules” they had both “signed off on.”  Arrogance.  Rules don’t apply to me.  Some people are more equal than others.  Where have I encountered all this before?  The same thing…as in, no change.

I read in one of yesterday’s newspapers an analysis of their truth-stretching, distortion and outright lying.  Instance after instance.  LYING.  Hello?  I keep saying only because it bears repeating: LIARS LIE.  IT’S WHAT THEY DO.  Liars lie even when they don’t have to.

Is it only me?  They are both documentable liars, and they both ducked out of the first Senate vote on the Great Bailout…that, my friends, is cowardice.  How many times did John McCain say “my friends” in that town hall of self-aggrandizement?  John McCain is so not my friend.

But neither is Obama, I fear.  FEAR.  More fear.  I am sick and tired of feeling violated and afraid.

It seems so straightforward to me that either one, lying OR cowardice, constitutes conduct unbecoming an officer.  A one-two combo?  For our Commander-in-Chief?  For real?  I will argue that the American People have been purposefully and steadily reduced…as by dastardly architecture much facilitated by a vapid and mercenary press…to a meaningless choice between rubber stamps for Business And Bullshit As Usual. 

I mightily object.  I declare my right to an alternative to being lorded over by either of these models of mediocrity.

As with the lunatic and larcenous bailout legislation, American voters are being rushed.  That sounds laughable, I realize, in light of a two-year campaign but my time traipsing up and down California and back and forth across the nation says that most people have only just started paying attention.  Americans are fourth quarter competitors.

Vote early!  Vote early!  That is the new battle cry, is it not?  Why?  

I get it why CANDIDATES want “their” people to vote early…so no one can change their mind.  But why would PEOPLE vote early, when conditions on the ground are plainly changing faster than CEO’s and stock option plans?  What a ridiculous notion, to decide ahead of time to stick to guns that are cocked on incomplete information…it is the very height of closed-mindedness.

One can speculate…and should, given rampant chicanery in American politics…that the cheerleading for early voting has also to do with dicey voter registrations.

Vote early and…what the hay…for the same price, vote often!  America is very big on two-for-one specials.

I strongly encourage my countrymen to solidify behind sanity, reject this charade of “choice” and demand the re-printing of November ballots to include alternative tickets that will not damn our country to kicking off the most harrowing four years of our modern history with roughly half the country hating the other half.

This is manipulated madness for which the people fall…duking it out with one another, the sick and tired fighting the oppressed and downtrodden, while the Ruling Elite take “much-needed” vacations to international resorts in order to rejuvenate themselves after the “unpleasantness” and “unrest” at home.

It is time for the Great Majority to get off its knees, and it is time for the Old Guard to stand down.  The Old Guard does not know from generalized peacetime prosperity…the Old Guard doesn’t even recognize it as a noble goal.  The Old Guard is not Right.

Feed the classes, dine with the masses.  Feed the masses, dine with the classes.

You know what America likes better than revering people? Knocking them off of “their” pedestals. Exaggerate a single person’s talent/reach/significance beyond human capability, correspondingly exaggerate society’s expectations of them, then rip ‘em to shreds for failing to live up to “their” reputation…it’s practically a national pastime.

For all our talk about being a Christian nation…I, for one, will believe it when I see it…we are, in the main, kinda mean-spirited. I believe that is because we are, in the main, manipulated by a skewed System to spend a lifetime toiling without rest or reward astonishingly near the brink of catastrophe. The Great Majority would be wiped out by a one major accident, natural disaster or catastrophic illness and, believe you me, there is NOTHING Christian about that.

Obama should propose an Aristocracy Tax of 85%…after, say, the first hundred million…on THE ACCUMULATED RICHES OF DEAD MEN. Some of the Robber Barons will start kicking the bucket pretty quick here, and there is ample evidence that society does not much benefit from the transfer of magnificent fortunes to spoiled stroke-of-luck-at-birth offspring. Consider the “principles” with which they are hard-wired, and know that the trickle-down effects will be meager indeed.

McCain, on the other hand, might win the whole shebang by announcing categorically and unequivocally that he will not seek a second term. Anyone who gives one minute’s thought to the length, expense and extravagance of Campaign-O-Rama HAS to know that, without assurance of a one-term tour of duty, America can expect politicking for re-election to commence on Day Two. Campaigning and Lobbying have become virtually a market sector…no good can come of it.