Dude: Don't go to Chicago tomorrow, dude.

Chicago, Illinois--You know, once the home to my father until his family wouldn't pay protection money to "the Outfit" (Capone's former gang continued on without him...), Chicago is a place of ambivalence to me, and it always will be.

I love the town, don't get me wrong. It's an exciting place and I've had my share of great times there, but wow...how are they going to turn away all those people tomorrow? I mean, really, Chicago's closed. Chicago's going to be closed, man, game over, like NYC in 1975--who's going to tell them to drop dead when Gerald Ford still is? Does Rod Blagojevich's hair look so funny now folks? Of course it still does--he sports quite a pate--but that's not the point. Ask any scientist and most philosophers, and they'll tell you that there is no point (eat your heart out Michael C. Moynihan). I concur.

C'mon, Gerald Ford spared us from so much, you know. Like upholding law and order and allowing Nixon to be prosecuted fairly (no favors, no sentimentality, just the letter of the law) so we wouldn't be in the mess we're in right now with the executive branch. But to be fair, the integrity of all three are endangered now, so thanks, Jerry, for saving us from ourselves. Why celebrate Woodstock when you should be reflecting on Nixon's resignation 35 years ago? Pardon me. Where was I? Ah yes, Chicago, home to the water tower that Oscar Wilde loved so much...

So, if you want to go to a library, a city clinic, have your garbage picked-up--crazy shit like that--you're outta luck, babe, the social contract is over, and they put one on you. The cost-cuts (sounds commercial) being done with the City of Chicago only affect non-union and non-sworn union city workers, which to me just illustrates why we should be getting everyone unionized, just a thought. If union bosses had half-a-clue, they'd be unionizing every single illegal alien they could get their hands one, starting yesterday. And strikes? C'mon, people need work, but it's been 90 years since there was a general strike in a major American city, why not have one for yucks?

But don't go to Chicago tomorrow, on Monday, August 17th, 2009, things could go wrong. C'mon, most Chinese restaurants are closed on Mondays anyway! Monday= bad. They get it, man.

Don't get your hopes up too high: Ted Stevens loses his seat in Alaskan recount, while Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales await inevitable pardons

“Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the bastard is dead, the bitch that bore him is again in heat.” --Bertolt Brecht, "The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui" ("Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui," 1941)

Washington D.C.--To be sure, this is a time to breathe a little easier, until reality sets-in. Let's be honest with ourselves and each other and acknowledge that neither Congress, President-elect Obama, nor the Supreme Court are going to do anything to prevent the Bush II administration from leaving office scot-free. Why would they want to when the Bush administration and Vice President Cheney expanded the powers of the executive branch in ways that any American politician would slaver and drool over?

Journalists can write hundreds of exposes, we can have as many smoking guns as you want, and Congress especially, will do nothing of any substance before January 20th, 2009. Nothing that gets results, that is. Nothing succeeds like failure, especially when both major parties have no real commitment to democracy beyond the fact that it gets them elected. If only it were otherwise. What's sad is that these sell-outs, these corrupt scum who are going to take us over the cliff into the abyss understand better than the public that the public is the solution to all of this.

Small wonder that they hate the public so much--who would respect anyone who does nothing in the face of such obvious and open corruption? Look at Cheney: does it appear that he cares what the public ever thought about anything-at-all? What self-respecting citizenry would tolerate this? Americans, and it's shameful. But wait, it's not as if events aren't going to shift things radically, they are and they will continue to.

Pardons are going to come into question when the Bush II cha-cha line gets going in December and January. Luckily, he's used-up a few and there are limits to how many he can hand-out. Will he give one to Stevens? Doubtful, he's not useful to anyone in the GOP now, and he's just turned 85. Stevens almost became the first American senator to be elected with a felony on his record, congratulations Alaska, you can secede. He's over, it's done, and he probably only had so much of an insider's view into the Bush II administration. Obama may not have the will to clean-up this constitutional crisis, but Pardon me, Jerry!

There are no messiahs, only this life and a lot of people avoiding responsibility for the mess we're in. It's time that we all accepted that responsibilty and stop looking to someone else to shoulder it. There is such a thing as collective-guilt, just ask the Germans some time--while they and the rest of the developed world are busy blaming us entirely for the economic crisis. Were we paying attention to our political class and pushed them hard to behave, we wouldn't be in this mess. It takes two to tango.

It took a greedy, apathetic, and jaded electorate to birth the presidency of George W. Bush. We tolerated it, and we tolerated the inaction of the other two branches of government. We still are. At least nature and the laws of physics are going to correct all of us. The soil is still very fertile for another George W. Bush and all the other kinds of scoundrel that have inhabited the highest offices in the land. We're fighting learning much from the last eight years, but events are going to correct most of this.

Just because the GOP is on the ropes doesn't mean the same problems aren't out there. They're going to bide their time when the American public loses its mind again and swings towards more self-destruction. Life's a bitch, brothers and sisters, and she's in heat again. The system just got a new face, a new mask--a brown one. The maggots, the rot, and the offal are still there behind the new facade.

[Ed., 11.19.2008--The AP is reporting that Stevens has stated he will not ask President Bush for a pardon. I think he knows he wouldn't get one.]

Was Tim Russert a Divinely Inspired Hack?

Our Generally Crappy Mainstream Media--Perhaps eclipsing the death of the last Pope, Rudolph Valentino, JFK, RFK, and Gerald Ford (still dead), we got an earful about the allegedly wonderful Meet the Press host over the last several days. The litany was endless over what a "great guy" Russert was, and just what an incredible journalist he'd been...except that he wasn't, and expect them to keep braying. And where's Russert's Oswald? It was his heart, it betrayed him after he betrayed all of us.

Granted, he cast a charming Irish spell on those of us who want to feel reassured by a journalist who doesn't ask the "hard" questions of public officials--something he rarely ever did, if ever. I never noticed any substantial questions. For those of us who don't want things to change for the better, and for those of us who are afraid of a truly dynamic democracy where there's supposed to be acrimony and disagreement, Tim Russert was Jesus.

There is one thing, and one thing only that the late Tim Russert should be remembered for: he and his counsel resisted testifying over his involvement in the Plame scandal, an incident that needs no explaining to anyone paying attention. Russert had crucial information on the outing of a CIA officer by members of the executive branch as part of a disinformation campaign surrounding the pretext for the war in Iraq, and he withheld it. So much for patriotism or principles, Russert was a crusader-in-disguise for creeping authoritarianism:

Russert was aware that a special prosecutor probing the leak of a CIA operative's name knew of his summer 2003 telephone conversation with Libby, and that Libby had released him from any promise of confidentiality. [Ed.-My emphasis.] But Russert, the Washington bureau chief for NBC News and host of "Meet the Press," and his attorneys argued in previously sealed court filings in June 2004 that he should not have to tell a grand jury about that conversation, because it would harm Russert's relationship with other sources. ("Russert Resisted Testifying On Leak," the Washington Post, 01.10.2006)

As this site has always contended, the livelihoods and careers of these so-called journalists are their main priority, and they believe in nothing. The "Fourth Estate" aren't concerned or worried about our rights, and therefore feel no connection to the social contract or the common good. What they care about is themselves only, but orders are orders. But man, the coverage of his death! Oh, the coverage! Wall-to-wall, just breathtaking.

CNN and other major television news outlets even told us that there was a rainbow shining during Russert's funeral, strangely begging the question that he--like El Presidente--was somehow touched by God (more like in the head).

Mark this, and mark it well: whenever this system props-up a supplicant like Tim Russert for public deification, something is amiss, and the lies are flying. Court jesters had more courage than this clown ever did. Mediacrit.com sums-it-up best:

Being favored by Dick Cheney’s handlers doesn’t sound like a case for the journalism hall of fame, though.

In the case of Russert, we should consider what small impact “public affairs” journalism like Meet the Press has in these days of The Daily Show, social networking on the Internet, and Obama’s nontraditional campaign. I think the New York Times’ Media Equation columnist David Carr got it right when he observed that the mourning seemed not only for Russert, but an attempt to celebrate and shore up the increasingly irrelevant establishment political journalism. ("Mourning in America," Mediacrit.com, 06.19.2008)

All hail the death of establishment journalism. No, there's no reason at all to think of Tim Russert as anything but an American version of a commentator for Pravda under the Soviet regime, or a voice-over from a creaky old Nazi propaganda film. He was a stooge, a lapdog, and a moral coward without a shred of credibility.

Not that that makes him any different from his peers who attended his funeral this week, endlessly expounding on his (and their) fictitious merits as a journalist. His passing really is only relevant in relation to the Plame scandal.

Like most working within the world of the mainstream news media, he was not a man, but he was a traitor to himself, his family, and his nation. He will not be missed by those of us with the ability to reason, and history will judge him harshly. We're all born, and we all die. Tim Russert was no exception to this rule, and therefore, not special. Mourn the people he could have saved, save it. See you in the Emerald City, the Populists are off to meet the Wizard!The only problem is, they're shelling the Emerald City.

"Russert Resisted Testifying On Leak," the Washington Post, 01.10.2006: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/09/AR2006010901745.html

Mediacrit knocks it out of the park, June 19th, 2008:

http://mediacrit.com/mourning-in-america