DC Madam trial transcript links

Ed.-I posted these not long ago, it's just down the page a few posts, but to newer readers (?), this should make things easier: http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2012/12/dc-madam-trial-transcripts.html

 For reasons unknown, I was the first to post these online in their totality. Insofar as I can tell, no one else has followed suit. 

Trying to Get the Word out on the DC Madam case: Am I Being Hacked?

Ed.--This has been going on for more than a few months: I attempt to send an email to a journalist at one of their articles, say at The Telegraph, Disnfo.com, Huffington Post, Mother Jones, Talking Points Memo (this one took, no response--did it ever make it?), and numerous other progressive web sites and news publications. Either I cannot successfully send the filled-out form/message, or I get no replies, having no idea if they ever got the national security information about the DC Madam case I was apprising them of. I'm sure a few of them got it and reflected on their mortgages, sure. I've even had a semi-retired journalist who covered the intelligence beat who told me they contacted some of their other colleagues who are still working with no responses, no apparent interest. This, of course, is going on their word, a person I've never even spoken to on the phone, so there it is, I have only their word, and in these times, that ain't enough.

Do I know that I'm being hacked, can I prove it? No, but I was during the case and was surveilled, unquestionably, and it followed me onto Facebook and maybe now onto to Twitter, although it seems far more blunted. Now that we know Facebook was giving the NSA direct access, some of the harassment I was subjected to on there could be viewed in a new light. But like the victims of COINTELPRO and all the other government/private harassment programs targeting dissent in the US, I cannot prove it without herculean effort. We're talking numerous filings of FOIAs (Freedom of Information Act requests for documents on myself, whether I was being watched), but anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of this knows the Government isn't going to cough it up without one hell of a fight.

What I'm asking my readers is this: I need your help in sending out this form email that I'll paste-in below. I just attempted to send it to the journalist James Fallows at The Atlantic without any luck. It could be nothing, it could be a glitch on their part, there could be a cookie in my browser doing it, but I cannot get to the bottom of it, there seems to be no other solution then to have others send these emails on my behalf. There's nothing in this email message that I haven't written or published here on this blog, it's generalized. If you know a serious journalist covering national security issues, or you simply read on the subject a lot and have a reasonably secure email account, I need you to submit this letter to news sites, blogs, journalists, progressive web sites, and so on, I need your help and would appreciate it greatly. Thank you.

And without being too prolix, here's the text of the letter. Anyone who sends it off in my name, unredacted and unaltered has my full permission:  

Good day, I was a member of the DC Madam's defense team back in late 2007, early 2008. We were granted wide-ranging subpoena powers over the telecoms as well as the intelligence community by Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler, who, I might add, was shortly after that replaced without any explanation by a board of judges (a board she was on!) by former FISA Court judge James Robertson. He quashed all of that once on board for reasons that I think were obvious: the case involved surveillance, most likely of her escort service which had a large percentage of defense/intelligence contractors, military and intelligence officers, and a whole lot more. No one seems to want to touch this element of what was erroneously defined by the MSM as a simple sex scandal--it was not, it was far more. I don't expect you to answer because I'm always meeting a wall of silence on this.

I was hired as a general researcher by the late Ms. Palfrey in December 2007 and paid by the federal defender's office for my work, but I did far more pro bono after that month. Indeed, we were going through the subpoenaed phone records that had been provided by one of her carriers, Verizon, but AT&T and Sprint had yet to comply when Judge Kessler was abruptly replaced in the middle of the night in late November. But, we had the records that went much deeper into who had a phone number and a cell or landline--the whens and wheres--and came up with a stunning array that represented the national security state and their contractors and employees on both fronts. One of them was Ret. Col. Ron Roughead, brother to now-retired CNO Gary Roughead. The former worked for SAIC the last I knew and that firm came up in materials and outside of them so many times as not to be coincidental. I could go on and on with the very solid connections between players, but I will leave you with one example: there was one call, and one call only, from a former Verizon engineer with a Muslim name who was also an early war on terror arrest, in the DC area. I won't name him here, but his story was in the press and articles can be found online.

I should also add that we found some indications of intelligence activities in a hack of her email account going back to fall of 1998--yes, it could have been anyone, but they were being forwarded all of the ingoing and outgoing items in it, beyond the sophistication of the average internet user that year. It was a Yahoo.uk account. We got bounce-backs that I identified when the surveillance account was closed. Oddly, the bounce-backs contained the text of a 419 scam, a Nigerian one that's well-known, a fake barrister's note. This wasn't directed at us and was a clear glitch. It has been written that--and I cannot speak to the veracity of it--419 scams have been known to be used as covers for intelligence operations. And there is more, much more. I wrote an account on the case that's heavily-detailed and contains literally hundreds of emails between the late Ms. Palfrey, myself, and others, primary documents, court filings, etc., down to her autopsy report. The story's not cold, incidentally, since no one ever got to the real dynamics of it, other than myself and a few others. The press was ill-equipped to do so, or unwilling, but I cannot say decisively.

This NSA story, I believe, has a direct relation to what happened to Ms. Palfrey and her escort service. I've experienced strange online harassment, visits from contractors to my blog (http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com), hacking of accounts--you name it, outside of physical confrontation and/or shadowing. I implore you to at least consider this story in light of recent events, to look deeper, or to pass some of this along, and this is just the tip of the iceberg here.

Regards, Matt Janovic, writer and private researcher

Qualcomm being sued by NY State Comptroller over political donations

Without any prompting, Qualcomm came around my blog J to the Power of 7 on a word search over Montgomery Blair Sibley. This was around three years ago. I had no idea why they came around, but when I did a little research, I found that they also do intelligence and defense contracting…and they have a revolving door policy between their executives and those at Ernst & Young, a major corporate services firm that specializes in corporate audits, and yes, the books that get cooked.

The latter firm is involved in uncovering such things in corporate institutions, but also have had allegations thrown at them on several occasions that they helped to cover it up. What does that have to do with the DC Madam? It might not be anything specific beyond the fact that her former prosecutor, Jeffrey A. Taylor, a Bush II interim appointee who was never fired by incoming president-elect, Barack Obama, and went on to a cushy legalistic job at Ernst & Young. Now, why would someone at Qualcomm do that word search on Mr. Sibley? I have no idea and have never expected a straight answer out of them–don’t have the resources, or the inclination to bother looking into it, life’s too short. But the fact remains that both firms are very closely-linked, Taylor works for Ernst, and someone felt compelled at the sister firm of Qualcomm to do research over Mr. Sibley. When I brought it to his attention, he seemed pretty interested–as interested as I was. It was just one more bizarre “coincidence” from the case. I don’t know if Taylor is still working at Ernst & Young these days, but I would assume so. What’s of interest to me is the connection not only to computer chips and CPUs made by Qualcomm, but their relationship with the Pentagon and American intelligence community, perhaps one similar to SAIC’s, another major league contractor. Qualcomm was never in Jeane’s phone records, but I believe someone fucked up here and showed their hand, for which I thank them!

And now, the Comptroller of NY State, Thomas P. DiNapoli, a Democrat, is suing Qualcomm over political donations to force transparency. NY State is one of the biggest shareholders in the corporation, and is asserting her interest in the firm. This is reasonable since the risks are very high to public investors, especially when so many were burned in the banking crisis of 2008 thanks to widespread securities fraud. This is a major reason for the economic crisis in countries like Greece, for example, just one of many. Consider that when politicians in DC start screaming for austerity measures because of the deficit. Hundreds of billions were spent to keep a lot of crooks afloat. That's called being robbed twice.

Here’s more at the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/nyregion/new-york-comptroller-sues-qualcomm-for-data-on-political-giving.html?hpw&_r=1&

And my observations on them in relation to the DC Madam case (the earliest are most pertinent): http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/search?q=Qualcomm

Nein, es wahrheit.

The book is finished, locked. 700 pages, counting title page, table of contents, and index. For the coloring and picture book crowd, sorry, Bernie Wrightson wasn't available to do a graphic novel version of the prose, very sorry. There will be no photos. Unlike Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, this is the real deal, a real historical account, and therefore, a part of the primary record of the case. No, this is true crime writing done with honesty, rather than being written by some shady cop, compromised D.A., or some other banal, money grubbing piece of shit.

"What a ride!" Jeane once emailed me, from Chicago, at O'Hare Airport between flights. This was fucking depraved in the context of what we'd been saying back-and-forth and when I was certain she was out of her fucking mind and suicidal. No one will ever know what this woman has put me through, and yet, I still pity her and mourn her death, for she was human, and they, her prosecutors and the U.S. Courts let her die.

Let me make this clear: You do not know as much as you think you do about this horrible case, the one that left a woman hanging by the neck by her own hand. I will terminate any conversation and/or interview the moment I detect someone's assuming that some mythical government operatives murdered Deborah Jeane Palfrey, because not only is it not factually true, it's completely baseless. Not one individual with an asshole (what they see in the mirror every morning) and an opinion (that has no value) has presented any solid evidence that Jeane was murdered. Her longest running legal counselor during most of the proceedings, Montgomery Blair Sibley, doesn't believe this "She were suicided" theory either, at least last I checked. Blair had a great deal of direct contact with Jeane, and I think he knows very well that there were some telltale signs. Maybe we miss things, I don't know, but I didn't from the moment I spoke with Palfrey on the telephone, this was someone rocketing towards imminent death. The book will address all of this in extremely graphic detail. Expect to shocked. No one will ever be as shocked as I was when I looked at the entire case and my experiences being involved in it, working for more than a few months doing general research for Jeane, advising her occasionally, offering my opinion when she hit me with questions, very specific ones mind you, and you should feel lucky for that. This book drained me of the last vestiges of my youth, and a whole lot more, but it was worth it. For a brief moment, we all charged the castles, and I'm not fucking around when I write castles, because we have a system of them in the US. (And yes, we can thank the American South for a lot of this.)

This book is bigger than me, and so are its themes. They're eternal ones. Until you confront power directly as I and others have, you just don't know the feeling of ecstasy it can bring, of liberation, a feeling of incredible elation that can only be called freedom. You have to liberate yourself, and we have to liberate each other. We still have a choice in America: Is going to be democracy, or tyranny? Jeane's case collided with the war on terror, she was in the thick of it, I am convinced. This wasn't merely a sex scandal, this was very big, bigger than you can possibly imagine. I can only hope that this account will stand as a document of the case and the era it took place in, a piece of the puzzle, part of a mosaic of our shared history, because this is a story that affects everyone directly, first in our pocketbooks. It's also a political testament. To have been part of a historical event was everything rolled into one. In the beginning, was the word.

RIP Jeane...

This isn't a five year or ten year benchmark, but considerable time has passed now, and I need to make my peace. Jeane, I tried my best to help save you, but as the months and years have passed by, I came to understand that there was no saving you, that you were doomed long before we crossed paths, before you came my way asking for help. I'm sorry you had the life you had, my heart was broken watching them destroy you, a human being, flawed, but not evil, not nearly as "criminal" as the people prosecuting you, who used Pamela Martin. No one is as evil as them, no one.

At least once a week I think about how this all affected your mother, maybe one of the most painful things I have to consider in all of this. That's why I have left her in peace. You did the best you could with a rotten life in a bad culture, a sexist, exploitative nation that appears as doomed as you were. Your case made you a proverbial canary in the coal mine--a victim of the final stages in the construction of a police state in America, the end of a good dream, maybe the end of everything. Perhaps you were lucky to go when you did, I don't know, but the future doesn't appear a bright one for the rest of us, the "survivors".

All I can hope is that you're at peace, and that hope is hardly in vain. Whether there's something after this (I find this doubtful) is irrelevant: you are free, they can no longer harm you, and you won, you beat the "bastards," as you referred to them so accurately. Jeffrey Taylor, Cowden, Butler, Connelly, Rakestraw--everyone involved in investigating and prosecuting you--will have to carry this around with them for the rest of their lives. If it doesn't bother them, they have bigger problems, like being a deranged psychopath, like the people they serve, and that's not the public, hardly. One day the entire truth will be known and people will gasp at the horror of what was done to you.

Rest in Peace, Jeane, you earned it. Soon, they're going to get a taste of payback simply by my telling the truth.

Down to the last updates on the DC Madam book...

Work is about done: the final touches to the index--yes, index--have been expedited, it's finished and makes the book searchable. I don't understand why more non-fiction texts omit this feature. Perhaps the authors don't want anyone being able to fact check them easily? Yes, it requires some very detailed and time consuming work, no question, but it should go without saying that not to have one undermines the credibility of the work, the research, and if there is any, the analysis within it.

On proofing, revision and suffering: this has been a learning experience in every aspect. The book is an account. It's not going to be perfect. Yet, enough effort has been expended to make it something approaching a very polished text and it will be an easy reading experience for the curious. This is a work on true crime, an historical event the author was a party to, and it contains the author's take and analysis. It makes no claims at being the last word on the DC Madam event which was a branch of the "Hookergate" scandal, of that I'm adamant about. I am hardly alone in this assertion.

The amount of effort involved can never be justified economically. Even were this book to make well over $100,000 USD, it would only begin to pay for the time, resources and actual labor involved. This has always been about servicing the historical record and setting things straight from the point of view of the author. The assertions are my own and it's my right to publish on them, primary materials inclusive. I've interacted and analyzed the data for five years now. I know it better than almost anyone else, and I have access to materials that individuals like Alex Jones never had, never will, not merely the public record. This has been a kind of a labor of love, my love of the truth, however painful it may be to express it.

No one will ever know the pain this project brought to my life, it has been an ordeal. I haven't experienced overt harassment, albeit there has been some online incidents that weren't accidental or my paranoia--that's now legal, what was once necessary to hide, the harassment of dissidents in the United States. None of it has been significant or impaired this text or its writing. In fact, it's only added to the richness of it and confirmed many of my own hunches, going so far as to prove them outright. Draft after draft has come, and in the interim, I have to assume that government contractors within the text have come around to cause problems. Occasionally, they've succeeded, but in the end all they did was expose themselves and their methodology.

There has never been and will never be a book like this one. I wish that was comforting, but it's not. Take the DC Madam narrative as a kind of a "canary in the coalmine," an indicator of where we're heading as a nation. From my conclusions, the future doesn't look bright at all. The only prognosis I can in fact see as hopeful is collapse of the current system. As my account makes plain, we're looking an awful lot like the former Soviet Union these days, and not in the sense that those on the far right are constantly contending. You can learn a lot from a microcosmic event like the DC Madam saga. The macrocosm, the bigger picture, becomes apparent in the details that form an overall mosaic. 

As weak as their beginnings have been, I think the Occupy Wall Street crowd in NYC have shown us part of the way out. We have a new context without all the past effectiveness of red-baiting. Along with the Occupy movement we have an opening to renew the growth of labor unions. Americans seem to thrive best when their backs are up against the wall. Let the Dead Bury the Dead will speak to all of this, the dark political moment we're in right now, poised for disaster as the irrelevant 2012 elections come, then pass. The DC Madam narrative unfolded publicly right before the 2006 midterms. The GOP appointed prosecution team worked overtime to limit the damage to Republican incumbents when they moved on Deborah Jeane Palfrey. The charges were always political, let's be frank for a change. Expect nothing but brutal frankness in my account of a political travesty that played out before our eyes. The reality-bending machine known as the mainstream media worked overtime to make sure we couldn't see what was right in front of our faces: solid evidence of widespread influence peddling in Washington D.C. with all three branches of government involved in papering over it, defending it, preserving it.

On media inquiries: I expect this book to be ignored all across the media landscape, in nearly all mediums. Why? It's not digestible, it cannot be explained away and absorbed. It stands factually in defiance of the assertions of "conventional wisdom," the standard lines, the empty memes, the safe talk mistake for actual discourse in American life.

I will speak with independent media. You will not be allowed to service your own agendas. I will not expend resources or effort in this endeavor besides my time. The rest is up to you if you want a story or content emanating from me as a subject and a source. Rest assured that I know when someone's serious and when they're pulling my leg or out of their depth. You'll be dealt with accordingly and kicked to the curb. I will not communicate with right wing media without very definite conditions. All that written, I don't expect to be approached by almost anyone. I have in the past, perhaps there will be follow-up, but I am not concerned about this in the end other than getting the primary information within the text out to the public.As a student of history I always wanted to one day be a chronicler to a major event. Be careful what you wish for.

I will not do a speaking tour. Who am I? I'm not known to the public which ends that question before it's put out there. What I do expect is a certain level of interest, but of the level I cannot predict, it's impossible to. There is no literary agent. There is no big house publisher. There is me and CreateSpace and the book. One of my hopes is that it will be seen online by university library acquisitions across the United States and made a part of those collections for the historical record. I never thought that I'd finally write a book, but there it is, I have. I never in my wildest imagination thought it would be on this subject matter. Some of this was experienced reluctantly, but once you open a door...you know. Wish us all luck. We're going to need it in the intervening years before the big event.

Addendum: There has been talk coming from some quarters requesting signed copies of the text. This would be costly to the author. In that case, if there is enough demand, I'll attempt to make this possible. However, there will be an additional charge as this will require having copies printed, shipped to me, then the recipient, and so on, more cost involved. If the demand is there I'll make some signed copies available.

The book will be trade paper, no illustrations, no photographs. It clocks in at 505 pages at this point including blank pages, the title page, the preface and the index. At this point I don't expect the price to exceed $27.95 USD.The book is 99% finished. For those interested in the scandal it won't disappoint and could well be the first accessible, free-standing work on the subject. This isn't a book filled with legalese. It's present, but explained, and doesn't dominate the text. It tells a narrative, a story, from the perspective of a participant. It's not the last word, but it does reach some conclusions that the author feels will endure.

DC Madam book update

Things are wrapping up: Work is about to commence on a cover design as well as a stand alone website or the book, separate from this blog. At this point, the book is clocking in at 504 pages+ an  index and a table of contents. The length is based primarily on the fact that it's packed with primary information related to and from the case from correspondence, the public record, court documents, and more, much more. This is a view into the case that--other than in Montgomery Blair Sibley's Why Just Her--no one has ever seen. I was in a privileged position to experience, view and analyze information that few outside of the defense have ever seen let alone heard of.

The primary data isn't so much as explosive as my own own take, my analysis of it. While these are my opinions, they're the opinions of someone intimately involved in the case, therefore, this is a historical accounting as well as opinion and analysis. There will never be a book quite like it, rest assured, and it might just stand as a clear-eyed testament to this troubled era in ways that many of the observers of the case at the time never quite grasped, hindsight being everything of course. You would never want to experience what I and others did. While he's been quite reviled in relation to the case, I can only imagine the hell that counselor Sibley experienced. I was fortunate not to get too close and still got my wings singed.

 
The prosecution of Deborah Jeane Palfrey was a nightmare case if there ever was one. It was without any legal precedent in American jurisprudence. No one can recall anything like it ever happening, and I doubt there will ever be one quite like it ever again, power nailed that lid shut as thoroughly as possible. Incredible forces were marshaled to shut her down, to prevent more exposure of influence peddling related to defense/intelligence contracting by members of Congress, the executive branch, and yes, even the judiciary who enabled them. As this book should make clear, we're in a lot of trouble as a nation with no hope of actual reform. I believe we're headed in the same direction as the Soviet Union. Perhaps after that there can be a real chance at rebuilding American democracy. That's at least my hope. As it stands, under the current order, there can be no reform and we will continue to push towards the brink of what could be major catastrophe.

Ironically, only government can fix these things. This wasn't just a story about a sex scandal, it was about institutionalized corruption by officeholders who are in fact criminals. The media lied, and lied, and lied, and fulfilled their usual role of protecting power from public scrutiny. Small wonder no one wants to pay to be lied to anymore. More than a few institutions will be put under scrutiny in this account. The picture's not a pretty one and the myth of democracy is revealed as just that. It's one thing to assume, it's another to have your worst fears and cynicism confirmed. Expect a spring release.

Postscript: All of the important DC Madam entries from this blog have been extracted and archived. There have been some alarming clusters of activity around the blog and I'd neglected to create copies of some of them. This is no longer the case, and I suspect that some of them faced potential removal in the current political climate. Future editions of the upcoming text could possibly include a DVD-r containing them as well as other primary materials not included in the text from the case.

Cheech & Chong, live @ The Morris Performing Arts Center, April 11, 2010 (review)

What do you expect from a Cheech & Chong concert? A lot of pot jokes, right? Some of the old routines from the albums, how the boomer and gen-x crowd (the latter being my generation), some Q&A, some songs, etc., right? That's pretty much what the show was, with some interesting surprises and insights from two of the most recognizable counterculture's personalities.

Even though the war on drugs is hardly over with the election of Barack Obama, it's safe to come out, and the duo beckon everyone to do likewise. Fear and loathing were not the main themes of the night. For most of us, Cheech & Chong were untouchable icons who were over and done with after the 1986 album "Get Out of My Room," a pretty lackluster coda at that, and their movies weren't especially funny by then either.

But imagine it: Cheech & Chong haven't done a show in South Bend, at the Morris since 1977. 1977. That's 33 years ago, an entire generation. The world is beyond changed from that time after the Reagan blight (still ongoing). The next year, the comedy duo would foist "Up in Smoke" on the world, grossing $100 million at the box office and holding the record for the most successful comedy for a little over two decades. Americans still smoke a lot of pot, but I have to wonder if a film like Up in Smoke would do as well today. Very possibly looking at the polls when it comes to legalization! The real treat of the night for me was when Cheech began talking about Tommy Chong's days up in Vancouver during the early 1960s when he was playing with the R&B combo of Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers (one of their sometime stage names was rumored to be "Four Niggers & a Chink"). Cheech had fled the United States in 1967 along with a lot of other Americans to avoid the draft.

Chong had started up a blues club in Vancouver in 1962, began playing with the Vancouvers not long after that, and in a few years, they were discovered by the management of the Supremes and on Motown records, charting at #29 on the R&B charts for Chong's co-written "Does Your Momma Know About Me?" The Supremes went on to do a rendition of the song that Cheech later saw a copy of, and noticed the co-writer was a "T. Chong," right before he met Tommy. Rumors that Jimi Hendrix played with the Vancouvers are unfounded according to Chong, but he played his song during the show with Cheech accompanying him on vocals. What was a little sad is how it became evident that Cheech & Chong began as a musical duo and kind of wanted to do that mainly, but that nobody knew when they were kidding or not simply because they were and are entertainers who are just inherently funny.

This was the case at the Morris when they did this song--some audience members actually began laughing at what was a fairly heartfelt rendition of a really great song, but oh well, they got to enjoy being a musical act anyway. What makes them funny is what makes Mel Brooks and a lot of the comedy of the 1970s funny: obvious, dopey (in their case, literally) humor. Sketches like "Dave," "Let's Make a Dope Deal," "Blind Melon Chitlin," and even trotted out the character "Hairy Palms," a real treat! The sketches were also a reminder that the majority of C&C sketches aren't funny because they're about drugs.

Chong's chops as a guitarist were excellent and Marin showed that he does indeed have a very pleasant voice and put it to good use. Besides that, the duo did fine renditions of "Save the Whales" (from the opening of the movie "Nice Dreams," a favorite of mine), "Basketball Jones" (1973), "Earache My Eye" (1974, just the song, not the entire sketch), "Born in East L.A." (which is really closer to a solo thing for Marin), "Beaners" (from "Next Movie"), "Mexican Americans" (ditto), and a few others I was too stoned to remember at the time, or even now.

But the show basically began with Shelby Chong conducting a kind of Q&A about where they'd been all these years, Chong's time in prison, the state of the nation and the war on drugs, and even a few personal tidbits about the comedy team that were both funny and sometimes harrowing to hear. Chong seems pretty unfazed and unafraid to speak out against marijuana prohibition thanks to his nine months in federal prison and spoke of how easy it was "to kick" smoking pot when he went inside and extolled the health benefits of the soft drug as did wife Shelby. Cheech was unapologetic as well and has said in recent months that he realized he was "never going to escape" the legacy of Cheech & Chong. So be it.

To say that there are a lot of "heads" in Michiana would be an understatement: the place was packed and you could see nearly everyone heading on foot to the venue imbibing in the sacred plant, so really, you didn't even need to bring anything since a contact high would have probably done you straight anyway. My mother saw C&C in 1972 at the Morris, so this was truly a full circle affair. Was it a good show? Did we laugh? Yes we did, and sometimes at the most innocuous things Cheech & Chong said about themselves and their lives. A good evening out all around, catch them if you can...literally. They still got it folks, they still got it, and people shouldn't have to apologize for being heads, it's harmless. They were unapologetic, as it should be.

http://www.cheechandchongtour.com/splash.html

Is there really a Tea Party Movement?

No, there is not. There's a loose conglomeration of the reactionary right, conservative (whatever that means) senior citizens who have been mislead in thinking that their Medicare is going to be cut, closet racists who had no problem with eight criminal years of Bush II but don't like having a black president, tax protesters, gun rights activists, the rural and suburban unemployed, wacko evangelicals, Libertarians, disgruntled former Republicans, militia nuts, neo-Nazis, and a lot of other people I'd never invite over for a drink or a cookout anytime soon.

What the so-called "Tea Party movement" is constitutes reactionary, rightist populism. In other words, misguided, misdirected populist rage that's apparently not willing to be "co-opted" by the GOP let alone the DNC.

In some crucial sense, they're the opposite side of the coin to the progressive left, meaning the majority of the public when you look at the polls regarding social issues and the spending to combat social problems. The majority is for a leftward reformist model, not a rightward trend. Where does that leave these red-headed stepchildren of the right? As far as anyone can tell, an ineffectual demographic minority that, yes, gets it that Wall Street is the problem, yet doesn't like the idea of New Deal reforms and progressive taxation of the wealthiest.

You know: the dumb assholes who still cling to the American Dream.

There is an off-chance that some of these folks will have that "road to Damascus" conversion and actually see that their own interests are best represented in joining the antiwar and progressive left in the streets (as well as on the Internet), in joining together to stop the corporate assault on our rights, but so far it's a pipe dream. Instead, we all harp on more fringe elements of this demographic, and while that's not entirely misplaced in its importance, it's not all about the problem children, it's about the overall group that's been labelled as "Tea Party." Some have implied that many of these self-styled "Tea Baggers" could only attend many of these events by being small business owners, and indeed, there's a kernal of truth to this. But it's not the entire story, some are simply retired baby boomers.

I'm not really sure why the GOP would even want this disparate gaggle of the terminally confused, but what else do they have left as a base? Yet, as stated before, the demographic is fundamentally mistrustful of the entire political establishment and stubbornly resists being used, of being co-opted. Regardless of that, they have been used pretty effectively by both the GOP and DNC to assist in a creating a smokescreen so that bogus health reform could be passed. It doesn't surpise me that this pseudo-movement began with Texas congressional representative Ron Paul since it's as confused in its viewpoint and message as much as he is. To add to the confusion, the mainstream corporate media affixed the labels to them and let things fly, and fly they have, right out the window.

Is there really a Tea Party movement? I don't think so, and it's not going to decide any national elections anytime soon. What it will do, and has done, is to provide one more spectacle, one more distraction, from the worthwhile goals of reformists and the dreams in the hearts of American populists of every stripe. The Mesopotamian priests used the corruption of language to control the builders of the Tower of Babel--but it went bust, and no one could understand each other anymore, and the pillar that was the society of that time, the work towards real civilization, remained unfinished and the people disbursed. The show was effectively over. Funny that religion is part of the equation again, but if it's broken don't fix it when it comes to holding onto power.

Why do the Tea Baggers, militia nuts, and screechers get more coverage?

This seems to perplex a lot of people, and it's understandable: why would a truly lunatic fringe movement get this kind of airtime when the public opinion is almost completely against them on social issues like health care reform and all the others?

Why? The reasons are manifold and go back to that other period of near anarchy, the 1920s. But it took time after the Republicans handed the airwaves to business, though on a thin legal leash. There was that post-New Deal chipping away, but the big first was when we lost the Fairness Doctrine at the FCC in 1987 thanks to Republican President Ronald Reagan. The doctrine wasn't law, but it guided the broadcasting standards of the United States for decades and allowed for a more equitable access to the airwaves for differing opinions and viewpoints, and it worked. There was at least some variety, not that it was stellar or truly representative of the social/cultural landscape, but it was better.

It also worked because the structure it brought about would never have allowed for the existence of the current echo chamber of the right we now inhabit, and that's including CNN and the major networks that were already traditionally to the right thanks to ownership. This is why Republicans and enemies of free speech everywhere don't want anything approximating a return to something like the Fairness Doctrine. Never mind that the public technically owns the airwaves and has from the start, the interests of big business are more important. But day after day, we see the right-wing nuts on the idiot box. Why?

It's not that complicated, and there's another reason why all the useless flailing is all over the airwaves: it's because the Tea Baggers, the militia nuts, white hate groups, Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin, lost white girls, the "birthers," the operatives like James O'Keefe (the "ACORN pimp"), and yes, the multimedia gaggle of mumbling, anti-abortion nuts, Libertarians, babbling morons like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, both of whom have resorted in recent weeks to all but advocating acts of violence against the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, aren't a genuine threat to the status quo in America.

In reality, these mutants and wackos are badly needed by a pro-big business and finance Republican Party that has nearly lost its entire base over the administration of George W. Bush. After that, all you have remaining are the wackos, the fringe, and crumbling establishments often reach for the closest set of cranks when the curtain's about to close on them (including within the political establishment). Some say this is "all part of the plan" (which one?), but I disagree. You couldn't make this shit up, and that's why even the GOP cannot control them. These babbling jackasses, these morons, these throwbacks to the time of the Frontier hick and the lynch mobs that once ran riot in America are, in fact, in many cases, their very descendants. Yes, there is an element of "astroturf" to a lot of it, but these goobers are here, now, and they've been with us, hobbling the rest of us, from the beginning of this nation and will for the foreseeable future.

The message? There is no message coming from these people except, "More of the same." That's pretty pathetic considering many of them are now or are going to be the victims of the very policies they're advocating. Some of us simply like to shit where we eat because it's easier in the beginning. Of course, there is the underlying racism in these protests and the movement, and for many of these lost fools, the biggest fools alive on this rock called earth, it's the only reason they're at a Tea Party rally or why they were at a health care protest against reform: they're angry that a "nigger" is president. The thread connecting the economic elites of America and the white underclass is that they're all Eurotrash and can never truly be "European," no matter how much they prattle on about their respective heritages. Why wouldn't we see them on television, print, and Internet media all of the time?

These idiots are really chasing after an America that never was, but everyone likes watching a spectacle, even me. That'll learn 'ya (or not, maybe ever)!

Some more thoughts on the word "retarded"

Now that Sarah Palin's tried very feebly--as is her wont in all endeavors--to control our language when she can't even control her own, it's time to pull our collective-heads out of our collective-asses and realize that this is just a word and that the context it's used in and the intent behind it are what's important. The word itself is unimportant, and mature adults know this and accept it for what it is. People say hurtful things, get over it, grow-up.

But we's a reactionary people--bawss--and we go off half-cocked all the time since many of us "natives" (Eurotrash) are descended from lynch mobs, though that's another fairy tale for another time. Does it have to be said that this is just a word? Yes, apparently, it does: it's just a word, folks. You can't shield yourself or your kids from everything, and sometimes, sometimes, we have be tolerant and take our licks like everyone else. That's life, and part of being a real adult. You accept that there are things that are never going to go away and that you cannot get rid of them.

When you stampede like a wild herd of mindless buffaloes (OK, that's unfair to the bison), as many of us did in the immediate aftermath of the events of September 11th, 2001, you start fucking-up all over the place. We all blew it, myself included, for various reasons. In my own case, I should have been far more defiant and opposed to the Bush II administration even in the aftermath of that event. I was not, and I was not alone, not by a long-shot. And wasn't the manipulation of language at the core of their misrule for eight very long years that the Tea Baggers (Tea Tards) seem to have missed entirely? Words like "terrorism," "weapons of mass destruction," "mushroom clouds," "attacks," "suspects," "terror alerts," and so many others, were injected with and took on new and very hollow meaning to whip-up fear in an already reactionary society and culture.

The bastards knew their marks well, and they not only rifled-through our wallets, but convinced many of us to hand over our hard won rights as Americans. This was not only stupid, it was, and still is, pathetic, and stinks of a people who probably don't deserve their liberties, if they ever did. That's not to say we can't fix what happened, but we have our work cut out for us, and that means endlessly demanding of the current administration, and probably the one after it, that there are real investigations into the crimes known or suspected of being committed by the administration of George W. Bush. We're either a nation of laws, or merely one of words, and now we seem to even want to hand over one of the last things that makes us truly unique as a nation: a historically rare and wide-ranging freedom of speech and press.

So, for an obviously corrupt and moronic woman and former politician like Sarah Palin to tell anyone what they can and cannot say is absurd and should be met with horselaughs from all corners of American society. The upside of this is that she's actually accelerating the demise of the GOP and causing incredible division in the ranks of the Tea Party (bowel) movement, a group comprised mostly of reactionary small business owners who, until very recently, were either apolitical lumps who flunked civics class, or outright ignoramuses. Instead of the Boston Tea Party, these misguided morons invoke the memory of the same kinds of idiots that gave us the Teapot Dome scandal, courtesy of the gift that keeps on giving, the GOP, a party that makes no bones about being for the big-shots and conglomerates.

Yet many of these same turds that gave us some of the mess we're in think they have the answers when they clearly don't at all. To say that these petty bourgeois fools shit where they eat would be redundant and their reactions are just that: the dysfunctional flailing of retarded children. Put that in your meth-pipe and smoke it tonight, Bubba.

The time has come for a national strike and groundswell, the time is now...

For those of us on the progressive left (meaning the majority), the time has come to make ourselves heard. The majority of Americans want socialized medicine, a special commission to look into 9/11, a special prosecutor to investigate serious crimes committed by the Bush II administration, relief aid for the growing-ranks of the unemployed, deep and meaningful reforms in the financial sector and how it does business, and general restoration of New Deal controls and protections that have served the public well for over 75 years, like the Glass-Stegall Act. Who got rid of Glass-Stegall, a barrier that kept banks from running amuck? A Republican controlled Congress, blue dog Democrats, and the Clinton administration, that's who. It gave us much of the economic crisis we're inhabiting right now. The time has come to rollback these policies, the time is now to mobilize.

If those on the right really love their country as much as they say they do and wish to join us in a common cause, they need to drop their bizarre obsessions about race, immigration, and other ideological fetishes that are going nowhere fast and will never fix the problems we're facing right now. But don't think that disruption's going to be tolerated. Don't think that you're going to hijack anything, because we're wise to you and your games and your agenda. We can spot you in a moment. You won't be accepted and will be driven out, and quick. The time has come for all of us to realize that the common enemy is concentrated wealth and the abuse of it. The time has come for Americans to quit shopping at Wal-Mart (fine, get the cheap drugs there if you have to). The time has come for the return of the boycott, the general strike, and the shutting down of everything for a few days to send a political message to unaccountable power. We are that accounting, we are the government, and we are the answer to our nation's problems. Politicians cannot and will not do this, at least not without the application of incredible pressure to do so. The time has come, the time is now, and there are no more valid excuses.

Call in sick. Afraid of losing your job? When did that become a new thing? Don't buy anything for a week except the barest-of-necessities. For the love of God, quit using credit cards all the time, use cash. Don't even use checks. Make the banks scream for mercy. Keep writing, phoning, faxing, and haranguing your representatives. Educate yourself on their pasts. Give them hell, give them an earful like they've never had it before. But don't break the law and keep it as civil as possible and adhere to non-violent civil disobedience when the time comes, it's key.

The best part? For many of us, we won't have to do anything--that's actually the point: to stop engaging in negative behaviors that keep empowering the rich through what we eat, what and how we often we drive, work, and what our daily routine is comprised of. Grow a garden. Drive less, a lot less. Quit watching TV so much. Get your news from the Internet and read multiple-sources, including the foreign press. We have everything to gain by asserting ourselves in a civil manner and showing power that we're not kidding around at all.

Arlen Specter surprises again: Reintroduces legislation to allow 9/11 lawsuits against Saudi ruling-class to move forward

Washington D.C.--If there's anything one can say about the senator from Pennsylvania, it's that he's unpredictable and probably really does have this nation's best interests at-heart--in his own mind at least. We'll set aside the magic-bullet theory for a moment...

This week--on December 21st--Specter called on the floor of the Senate for the passage of legislation that would allow lawsuits initiated by thousands of survivors (as well as the families of those killed and insurance companies) of the terrorists attacks on September 11, 2001 to move forward, and introduced the proposed bill with bipartisan support from no less a non-man than Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), although I'm sure it's purely a political move on his part since it's not likely to pass, at least not on his watch.

That would require will and real support, something Graham and others in both major parties aren't inclined to do since there's a lot of money at stake, never mind the destabilizing effects actual justice directed at the Saudi ruling-clans would have on the world's oil supply and the global economy. The coverage in the mainstream media--once again--has been virtually non-existent.

It's not his first time, and he began this road in late 2003 with roughly the same reaction, meaning indifference if not obstructionism. On October 25th, 2007, Specter introduced the "Saudi Arabia Accountability Act" that was designed to accomplish essentially the same aims, meaning dragging the Saudi government and various institutions and charities into the light and allowing lawsuits to proceed that are currently being barred by the State Department (the executive branch) and questionable Federal Circuit Court rulings, more recently in the 2nd Circuit:

Specter (D., Pa.) said the legislation would clarify that lawsuits by U.S. citizens could go forward without a sign-off from the State Department.

A federal appeals court in Manhattan last year dismissed claims against the Saudi government, saying such litigation can proceed only if the State Department finds that the Saudis provided financial aid and other assistance to terrorist groups.
Besides clarifying the law, the bill would reinstate those lawsuits.
The Philadelphia law firm Cozen O'Connor has sued Saudi Arabia, members of the Saudi royal family, and more than a dozen Islamic charities, alleging responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. The Cozen lawsuit, on behalf of dozens of U.S. and international insurers that lost billions of dollars at ground zero, accuses the Saudi government of financing charities that in turn laundered money into al-Qaeda. ("Specter looks to revive 9/11 suits against Saudis," Philadelphia Inquirer, 12.24.2009)

This is all very new since Americans have never been allowed to sue a foreign power without the permission of the executive branch through established channels at the State Department. In other words, this is a new right that Senator Specter is proposing, an expansion of legal recourse for the American people that should have been in-place generations ago.

Granted, this is just a new submission of essentially the same legislation he's been proposing since as early as 2003, but he's not giving up, and neither should anyone concerned at getting to the bottom of what happened. The problem for the "truther" movement is that this doesn't fit the anti-government agenda or many of their theories that go in the same direction (nowhere), so we can expect a general lack-of-enthusiasm let alone any noise over this from them. They're hardly alone in the business: there are extremely powerful players in the financial and political sectors whose ties to the Saudi regime run deep. Instead, hundreds-of-thousands are running around in denial with their science fiction theories that would never stand the legal test in a court of law.

This is why the last administration did everything it could to keep these things from going anywhere, and likewise for the new one. Rather than actually protecting the American people then, what we have is a sham in the so-called war on terror, making it blatantly reminiscent of that other failed war, the war on drugs. Who's side are they on anyway? Do we really want to get to the truth at all? If not, we need to stop talking about concern over the victims and using them as a political hot-potato, now. Frankly, it was always distasteful, but this is probably another reason that Graham signed-on with Specter as a co-sponsor, to cover his and the GOP's ass for the next elections hoping everyone's forgotten their real role in all of this.

Here are a few things remarked on by Specter when he introduced a similar bill in 2007 that "truthers" (their "truth" being highly-selective) tend to ignore:

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, evidence has emerged indicating that support for al-Qaeda, Ramas, and other organizations has come from Saudi Arabia.

Testimony presented to several Congressional committees, including the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Judiciary Committee, and Intelligence committees in both houses, has indicated that Saudi Arabia is an epicenter for terrorist financing. These committees have also found the Saudi government's cooperation in investigations into the al-Qaeda terrorist network has been lackluster.

In the 108 Congress, as a member of the Governmental Affairs Committee and as a member of the Judiciary Committee, we worked to establish a basic point that anybody who knowingly contributes to a terrorist organization is an accessory before the fact to murder; so when people contribute to al-Qaeda or Hamas, knowing that both organizations employ suicide bombers, they are accessories to murder.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373, adopted in 2001, mandates that all States "refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts,'' take "the necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist acts,'' and "deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts.'' There is mounting evidence that Saudi Arabia has not been compliant with this resolution.

The 9/11 Commission interviewed numerous military officers and government officials who repeatedly listed Saudi Arabia as a prime place for terrorists to set up bases and found that "Saudi Arabia's society was a place where al-Qaeda raised money directly from individuals through charities.''

The Council on Foreign Relations concluded in a 2002 report that "for years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important source of funds for al-Qaeda, and for years, Saudi officials have turned a blind eye.''

There are indications that, since the May 12, 2003, suicide bombings in Riyadh, the Government of Saudi Arabia is making a more serious effort to combat terrorism. That said, I would like to draw attention to the following findings recanted by organizations which have studied the record of the Saudis.

In a June 2004 report entitled "Update on the Global Campaign Against Terrorist Financing,'' the Council on Foreign Relations reported that "we find it regrettable and unacceptable that since September 11, 2001, we know of not a single Saudi donor of funds to terrorist groups who have been publicly punished.''

A joint committee of the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives issued a report on July 24, 2003, that quotes various U.S. Government personnel who complained that the Saudis refused to cooperate in the investigation of Osama bin Laden and his network both before and after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

It should be remembered that the Saudi regime executes their own citizens publicly in Riyadh with beheadings and amputations for violations of religious laws in what is a theocratic dictatorship. Interestingly, there's no entry for the legislation for either December 21st or the 24th (the date of the Philadelphia Inquirer coverage) on his own web page, but the story is gradually getting out there. This pretty much spells-it-out in a clear and basic form that should be understandable to anyone who can read and comprehend, and Specter is hardly a radical.

Neither is Charles Schumer (D-NY). What's radical in the current political culture, however, is for this legislation to go anywhere at all. Is this about justice or agendas? Go ask Alex Jones. Go ask the Obama administration. They're against any such moves that the senator from Pennsylvania is suggesting. But Specter appears to feel that the prospects for the bill and its main-thrust are good, stating, "I think it will pass." Let's hope so since the Saudis aren't about to stand down anytime soon without sanctions. Think what you want, but government is the only answer in all of this, surely not oil companies and trusts.

"Specter looks to revive 9/11 suits against Saudis," Philadelphia Inquirer, 12.24.2009: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/homepage/20091224_Specter_looks_to_revive_9_11_suits_against_Saudis.html

Arlen Specter's Floor Statement on the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2007, introduced October 25, 2007: http://specter.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=NewsRoom.ArlenSpecterSpeaks&ContentRecord_id=f6853748-1321-0e36-baae-0e4b60c0cd96&Region_id=&Issue_id=bd50d272-7e9c-9af9-72de-559d0e9aeed9

Songs from the Site Meter: The return of the turds from SAIC II

Site Meter--"But Matt, why do you hate A'murka, why don't you want to play nice with these defense/intelligence contractors?" Because we don't need them and they're draining our economy and eroding our rights? Two visits, short, routine. But it's to illustrate that, yes, they do care what we the people think. They should, we're pissed.

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And...

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And Qualcomm came by for Jeffrey A. Taylor and to say "hi" (hit labels for more background):

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