Video of attempted murder of Scott Olsen

Below is video of the Oakland, CA., Terrorist Force throwing a concussion grenade into a group of protesters attepting to assist Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen after he was shot in the head with a "non-lethal" projectile. Scott Olsen is now in critical condition.

Democracy and capitalism don't mix, part deux:

On the heels of this mornings rant, this story from counterpunch.org:

If you’re a Wall Street behemoth, there are endless opportunities to privatize profits and socialize losses beyond collecting trillions of dollars in bailouts from taxpayers. One of the ingenious methods that has remained below the public’s radar was started by the Rudy Giuliani administration in New York City in 1998. It’s called the Paid Detail Unit and it allows the New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street corporations, including those repeatedly charged with crimes, to order up a flank of New York’s finest with the ease of dialing the deli for a pastrami on rye.


The corporations pay an average of $37 an hour (no medical, no pension benefit, no overtime pay) for a member of the NYPD, with gun, handcuffs and the ability to arrest. The officer is indemnified by the taxpayer, not the corporation.

New York City gets a 10 percent administrative fee on top of the $37 per hour paid to the police. The City’s 2011 budget called for $1,184,000 in Paid Detail fees, meaning private corporations were paying wages of $11.8 million to police participating in the Paid Detail Unit. The program has more than doubled in revenue to the city since 2002.

Like I said, democracy and capitalism don't mix. Capitalism and fascism, on the other hand...

What Goes Unsaid...

While our alleged media wastes endless hours and days over Palin's Revere revisionism and Anthony Wiener's wiener, important shit keeps being ignored. Among those things that shall not be discussed by the chattering classes is the fact that, thanks to Bush and Obama, it is now totally and completely legal for the executive branch to do the things that got Nixon into trouble. Thanks to Bush and Obama there is absolutely no check on the power the President wields. We now live in a defacto fascist state. Daniel Ellsberg had legal recourse - Bradley Manning does not.
There is no "freedom' anymore in the "Land of the 'Free'"

The Great Insurrection - Linton Kwesi Johnson

Winter in America....

This video of activist Adam Koresh being attacked and beaten by uniformed terrorists is all over the internet right now.

In it we witness the violence of the waning days of an empire. Truly nothing justifies this ridiculous use of state sanctioned terrorism. We now live in a police state where even the most banal and pedestrian manner of protest is met with an overwhelming display of state brutality. Ironically, it all takes place at a memorial built to honor a man who once said "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."

It brought me to mind of this elegant song by the now departed American hero, Gil Scott-Heron, titled "Winter in America".

The Constitution
A noble piece of paper
With free society
Struggled but it died in vain
And now Democracy is ragtime on the corner
Hoping for some rain
Looks like it's hoping
Hoping for some rain

And I see the robins
Perched in barren treetops
Watching last-ditch racists marching across the floor
But just like the peace sign that vanished in our dreams
Never had a chance to grow
Never had a chance to grow

And now it's winter
It's winter in America
And all of the healers have been killed
Or been betrayed
Yeah, but the people know, people know
It's winter, Lord knows
It's winter in America
And ain't nobody fighting
Cause nobody knows what to save
Save your souls
From Winter in America

This is what's wrong with America

From Americablog,  This article shines light on ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council .
What is ALEC? It is the fountain from which flows nearly every rightwing legislative act aimed at increasing corporate power and disempowering and disenfranchising working people. In a nutshell, ALEC is a national right-wing group that writes "model" legislation for its members. Who are its members? Republican state legislators and private organizations (think ExxonMobil).
Ever get the feeling that the rash of anti-union legislation sweeping over several states is coordinated? That is because, as outlined in this NYT article, it is - coordinated, in fact, by ALEC:

A group composed of Republican state lawmakers and corporate executives, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is quietly spreading these proposals from state to state, sending e-mails about the latest efforts as well as suggested legislative language.

NPR also has an excellent article on ALEC. Quite a coincidence that NPR's funding is now on the chopping block, dontcha think?The NPR article explains how it all comes together:

Only 28 people work in ALEC's dark, quiet headquarters in Washington, D.C.  And Michael Bowman, senior director of policy, explains that the little-known organization's staff is not the ones writing the bills. The real authors are the group's members — a mix of state legislators and some of the biggest corporations in the country.
"Most of the bills are written by outside sources and companies, attorneys, [and legislative] counsels," Bowman says.

Here's how it works: ALEC is a membership organization. State legislators pay $50 a year to belong. Private corporations can join, too. The tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp. and drug-maker Pfizer Inc. are among the members. They pay tens of thousands of dollars a year. Tax records show that corporations collectively pay as much as $6 million a year.
With that money, the 28 people in the ALEC offices throw three annual conferences. The companies get to sit around a table and write "model bills" with the state legislators, who then take them home to their states.

This, my friends, is why our 'democracy' has become a sham. You and I have absolutely no power to change it. We are not part of the process. The process is money, and we ain't got none. Read it all.
Then weep.

The Fascist Regime

Inside The State House, Madison, Wisconsin, 3/11/2011

Fascism in action

Video of the fascist denial of basic human rights in Wisconsin:

This is What DemocracyFascism Looks Like

The TBTB (Tea Bag Terrorist Brigade) has successfully denied unions in Wisconsin the ability to bargain collectively by removing the provision from the budget and presenting it to committee on it's own. Here's how and why: In Wisconsin, the Senate must have a quorum to vote on budgetary issues. (20 senators would constitute a quorum) There are 19 TBTB Senators and 14 Democratic Senators - this is why all 14 Democratic Senators left the state, to filibuster. The TBTB then stripped the collective bargaining clause from the budget brought it to committee and voted for it. Since there were no budget items, no quorum was needed.
As to the why:
Prior to the vote, the Associated Press reported: "Democratic Sen. Bob Jauch says he thinks Republicans plan to 'ram through' parts of the bill that take away collective bargaining rights but that don't cost any money."
State Sen. Jon Erpenbach, who has been in exile in Chicago, expressed his outrage to the Wisconsin State Journal. "They have been saying all along that this is a fiscal item, we've been saying it is not," said Erpenbach. "They have been lying. Their goal is to bust up the unions."
State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R), the Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader,Today, on FAUX:
"If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin."
Thankfully, unions in Wisconsin are discussing a General Strike. For all of our sakes, I hope they go for it.

That Damn Liberal Media...

100,000 in the streets of Madison, Wisconsin. (population 235,000) Protests in support around the nation. Wisconsin police join protesters occupying state house. The lead on CNN? Two year anniversary of the fucking fascist Tea Party Terrorist Brigades. Sure makes me wanna throw a fucking brick through a fucking window.

Required reading: We're broke, cry the rich. Make the poor pay!!

From the Fabulous Glen Ford Of Black Agenda Report:
“If Wisconsin is broke, it is because the GOP has chosen that it be so in order that multinational corporations can remain rich.”

Can we get some justice up in this bitch?

Not only has he "forgotten" to claim his wife's income for TWENTY STRAIGHT YEARS, (quite an omission for someone who supposedly is an expert on the law), he did not recuse himself from the Citizen United case even though they spent $100,000 campaigning for his nomination to the Supreme Court.
I-M-P-E-A-C-H the bastard already. Sheesh.