Monsters & Critics makes a "new" documentary on the DC Madam case

Ed.--I'm not sure anything surprises me anymore, and this "new" documentary Monsters & Critics (yet another entertainment media site) is no exception. I was never consulted because I don't (won't) support the ridiculous conspiracy theories peddled by right wing assholes and hungry media assholes who want to massage the facts or ignore them outright to fit their moron-narratives. 

Why do people want to lie about the DC Madam case? Because it sells. I myself could have sold many more copies of my account of the case had I adhered to these fabrications--and that's what they are, pure fiction, from the very tiny minds of morally-impaired idiots. I also have to say that a large-swath of the American public doesn't care about truth or facts and are also scumbags of basically the same ilk.

This is addressed to Harper Hill and her morally-impaired staff:

"Conspiracists and those who claim to know more about 'the list' say it was murder and not suicide." Let me guess--Wayne Madsen, for one? I'm sure Mr. Sibley had a few new dark comments without corroboration as well?  Oh, then there's the ever-credulous Infowars who were never players in the case as I was, only on-the-margins. 
The fact that Hill never contacted me for this "documentary" (safe to assume a bad collection of hastily-assembled clips supporting an erroneous thesis based on a desire for more site hits--money--with a dumb voice-over) speaks volumes for its general lack: lack of an overall array of the primary evidence; a steering very wide-of-the-mark away from contrary evidence (me, the primary records I still possess); and an obvious lacking of a desire for the truth, what really happened.
A Safe Prediction: There will be no new information in this documentary, and it will offer no new insights into the case. 
Therefore, there is no reason for this documentary to exist at all beyond the most obvious economic motivations. In short, one more gaggle of entitled assholes has come and shit upon the late Ms. Palfrey's grave, disrespecting her, her family, and what's left of her memory. Goddamn all of you. You are well-poisoners, the lowest form of human life.

I was going to post this in comments but their site insists that you register an account with Facebook, something I flatly refuse to do.

Upcoming Book Contest & Other issues from the flesh

I haven’t worked out all of the particulars yet, but I’ve set aside a few copies of the book for later. As you might have expected, I’m not making the parameters effortless, or easy for the contest. There will be a few hoops, but the winners will receive a free signed (as opposed to singed, what some of Palfrey’s former clients probably want) copy of the book, and my blessing, the latter of which means absolutely nothing whatsoever. Anyone capable of proving the DC Madam doesn’t need anything from me, not that I think that’s ever going to happen, like Jesus returning, nutty, crazy primitive-minded shit like that.

We’re only in the first week of the release of the book and I’ve already brushed up against more high weirdness. This brings me to other matters…

As a result of these little elves, pixies, and gremlins flitting about me yob, I’m going to make things crystal clear: I will not continue to live this nuttiness surrounding the Palfrey case and narrative. I am turning my back on it with the completion of this text. I will be more than happy to answer any serious questions. However, I don’t want to hear your gossiping about people who were part of or related to the case itself. Any logical corrections that can be proven/corroborated (your job, not mine) will be appreciated and noted. I don’t give a shit anymore about the story and owe nobody nothing regarding the DC Madam. That responsibility was discharged writing the book.

My role in this is over, done, unless there’s some burning reason otherwise. If you have questions, ask the book first, consult it. This isn’t to slam anyone with good intentions. I will discuss the case and am open to interviews. However, I’m not tolerating any bullshit, and it’s literally no effort for me to ignore you, the easiest thing in the world in fact. This isn’t my usual jokiness, it’s dead serious. If you don’t get it, I don’t care, but you’re going to be humiliated twice, first by yourself, then by me, and I will air it publicly naming names.

Anyone I’ve communicated with recently has nothing to worry about. The book is the best bargain the American public are likely to have for some time. You’re most welcome. Witche, ye haave been foun' guilty 'a commerce with thee Devile.

Proofing

The proof arrived today. It looks excellent. What surprised me the most was how great the cover came out. There's a teaser of it on the book's new blog @ http://letthedeadburythedead.wordpress.com. I also have a Twitter account under my name @ https://twitter.com/MJanovic. The book itself will be available at Amazon.com. I will be announcing a price and release date within a few days, no more than a week. The price of the book is not unreasonable and was determined looking at time and labor invested, printing costs, length of the text itself, and other related issues, a big book, a large trade paperback. I'll be putting it on sale, reduced, for a time, then periodically after that, either by Amazon, or me. I'm edging towards holding-off on an e-book right now, but I won't keep anyone waiting long on it. 

 I'm very interested in getting Let the Dead Bury the Dead into university collections and onto library shelves.

The book will also be available in the European Union. Regardless of what I do, the mainstream media's sure to go out of their way to avoid covering its existence. If serious journalist want to speak with me, I'm open to it. Now, if we can find any in the continental United States...

Without being too prolix: I will not speak to the conspiracy nut crowd, and yeah, you know who you are. Talk to the hand, read the book, interrogate it, and be sure not to waste my time on your way out. I shit on your opinions, show me facts, not what you want to believe, and the latter goes for everyone. I'm not concerned about them unless they're educated ones.

Will I be censored? For the most part, prior restraint isn't allowable in the United States, while libel and defamation cases are notoriously difficult to establish effectively. The outcome is rarely in favor of the plaintiff, and I'm not even taking into account how full the dockets are these days. There have already been attempts with the phony cease and desists. Someone has no respect for the First Amendment whatsoever and wants me to pull things out of the book and to take down most of what's related to the DC Madam from this blog. I will not be stopped. This book will go wide, as-is. There are no lies coming from me in this historical account. Are there inaccuracies, am I wrong about some things? It would be impossible for that not to be so, I am a man, not a god, and neither are any of us, contrary to moronic conceits making the rounds this aeon. As much as a human being can be, I was sincere, honest, and forthright in writing this book, and, it's my right to publish on it because these were my experiences. That's including my interaction with all of the information contained within it. Because I was a player in the case, neither the information and my interaction can be separated, they are one, finis. The book is as much me as it is the case. If there's something wrong with that, I must be, technically speaking, illegal. The public has a right to know, and will. No one's going to stop that, and I mean no one, none born of woman on this earth.

Most of my day was spent looking over how the proof turned out. As I wrote, it's looking very close to what I hoped for. Title page, table of contents, chapter headings, paragraphing--they all look up to a level of quality that I can live with. I believe this book is something to be proud of. With virtually no resources, I was able to accumulate some extraordinary information on Jeane's prosecution, and not merely my part of it, there were too many players to even begin mentioning. That would take another book by itself, as well as one on Montgomery Blair Sibley, who, I think, the culture should pay a little more attention to, since he's unquestionably an interesting man. Most Americans don't really know who he; is; the answer always comes from who your ancestors were. I believe his questioning of the validity of President Obama's birth certificate is wrong-headed, but his family history is our nation's. Maybe one day I'll write a book on one of the Sibleys, or Blairs. I have no intentions of writing another book on the DC Madam. I do hope that others involved in the case, the escorts most of all, would come forward with more information. So far, none of them have in any meaningful sense.

 A number of people have come forward to help me--I thank you all, and to my sources as well. All told, including additional research, editing, and revisions, the book required four years to write. In reality, there was just me, that is, Matt, and no three droogs. I had to do everything. Working in the case while it was happening was unpleasant enough, but to add on more years is prison. Real writers write because they have no choice. I had no choice. To not have written this, to not have gotten what happened off my chest in this manner, would have killed me, I found the whole thing so terrible, so tragic. Jeane didn't need to die, but now I can bury her, me, the living. 

Expect a release date within a few days. We might be pulling the trigger before the end of the month on this.

Ladies & gentlemen, if there are any left out there, be forewarned: I spare nobody in my account. Not even myself. If you are easily frightened; and if you have a tendency towards anxiousness, nervousness, and paranoia; this ride is not for you. Keep your hands and feet below the marked safety bar. Watching a national mythology come crashing down before one's eyes is never easy, I know. Enjoy the ride, when there's no more road left on dead end street, yo, top that.

media & prospective interviewers

As I've made clear in these past postings, I'm running the show. There will be review copies sent by request and no preview copies. I'm not concerned about your opinions on that either. This will be accompanied by an agreement not to illegally disseminate copies. I have a way of tracking this too, so don't think it's going to float if you have any weird ideas about that.

To sum it up: Any question I don't care to answer, I won't. If you push the issue, the interview is over, done, forever, don't contact me again. Serious inquiries only. Mainstream media--if any bother to cover this, which I doubt for reasons that are expanded upon in the book--will have to go buy a copy, unless they can give me a compelling reason why not. I have close to zero respect for any of that, like the rest of the public, I don't trust you, and go "balance" yourself to check yourself.

Not that I expect anyone to do their homework as I have on this subject, and we're talking five years running now,  how exactly can any of you accurately assess what I experienced? That comes down to who you trust and what you uncover. Yes, there are likely many more pieces of information I haven't, and there are other players in the event with their own opinions who were privy to other parts of the story, we know this. You're objective, neither am I, and don't insult my or anyone's intelligence trying to kid us that you are, or that you're more objective, you're not. I'm not a nihilist, but you're not going to find the ultimate truth of whole swaths of this case. With the state of journalism today, I'm on solid ground. Ever attempt has been made to corroborate what's in the book.

If you want to conduct interviews, I'm here, contact me via the profile page.

let the dead bury the dead release date & other issues surrounding the text

This is still up in the air. I'll be prepping a standalone site for the book. It should have an excerpt, no you cannot quote from it or republish without permission, period. Written requests will be fine, and granting use will be completely at the author's discretion. There is no middleman here.

On the media, interviews, reviews copies, etc.: There will be no advance copies, period, and serious inquiries only. Not to be a dick (or to be one to the right people), but I'm not made of money. No free rides, I would if I could. Also, the idea of someone reviewing a book on something so personal seems pretty laughable to me outside of the technical side--style, format, depth, things that are logical and sincere rather than someone playing games. You'll be kicked to the curb immediately the moment I detect you're fucking me around, it's not going to play. That written, I expect the mainstream media to go out of their way to ignore this book because so much of it is about them and how disgusting they truly are, you have no idea.

Even in death, they keep killing her, mark this. CNN is one one of the major offenders: they will occasionally throw a blurb out there on the case either in a crappy documentary on prostitution (often upscale, with the rich & powerful), and the results speak for themselves: a willfully superficial misrepresentation of the case to protect what it was really about, their usual mercenary MO.  For this reason, even were they to somehow contact me, they'd have an uphill battle on their hands, and that's putting it mildly. I don't expect to hear from any of them no matter how well the books sells.

You didn't just walk into McDonald's, and no, you cannot have fries with that. I don't value most of your opinions, because you weren't involved. I don't even value those of many others who were, as the book will make plain as day. Yes, they're my opinions, and they're more educated than yours about the case. The only people who probably know more are the former prosecutors and judges, and they're compromised. Don't expect anything honest out of most of them, and many of them cannot tell you anyway thanks to confidentiality agreements. My role was far looser, so I can tell more, much more. But, you don't care about the truth anyway, my whole point here and in the book...

On the cult of personality & writers: When I was a kid, over a generation ago in the 1970s, there was no access to the Internet by the general public. You frequently didn't know what an author looked like, what their life was like or where they'd been, and so on, unless you did a lot of looking and research, and that was costly. Now, it isn't, it's all a few keystrokes away. What's the same between then and now is the cult of personality, which I hate and view as part of the disease of this dying culture and nation. People to others for answers are at the top of my shit-list, so, don't come looking to me for any, that's not my job, it's everyone's. The individual has to look within. Fools don't, cowards won't, and I don't have time either, not one moment, so save the effort. I know almost every trolling approach too, so again, don't bother, I will detect it and you will be removed or ignored. If you don't take a hint, if you harass me, for whatever reason is in your head, as compromised as some of them are, law enforcement and the courts will be brought into play. I'm not fucking around ask people who know me, they'll tell you. They'll also tell you that if you cross the line far enough that I'll be coming for you until I'm satisfied.

On Mark Capansky: I believe this little shithead has been harassing me. Any phony or actual cease and desists without a court order will be duly ignored. And, if I have to publish the book out of some Siberian shithole, I will, maybe even out of Iceland if necessary. I will not bow, because, unlike most of you out there, I have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

However, if Mr. Capansky wants to explain why his number (or parents') was in the DC Madam's phone records, I'm all ears, and we can keep it off the record. On the other hand, if the dialog devolves into threats--if you even piss me off--it all goes online unredacted. I'm not fucking around here at all. If you want to fuck around, do it with the stupid women that are attracted to such a retard. By the way, I'm not jealous, as the book will make starkly clear. I don't share your hollow values and view America as a criminal, white supremacist nation, and hence, a large part of why it's crumbling, it's dysfunctional. This country sucks, you definitely suck, and go fuck yourself...

On writing a book that's non-fiction, true crime, & a historical document: I don't recommend it. There are no ground rules. Reconsider if it looks like it will take up a stage of your life. I was in my thirties when this began, now I'm rocketing towards the bad side of fifty, fuck you very much.

On literature: The book is very literary. For me, this isn't the usual approach. I do read a lot of fiction, but most of my reading is historical and non-fiction. I have been more of a student of history than anything else. A lot of reading in my life is packed into this book. The reader might find this not to their liking, or anything in-between--these are not my concerns, and unless it's constructive, I don't want hear your opinions beyond pointing-out factual errors, typos, and so on. The case, as the primary materials in the book will show, was riven through with literary references. I wasn't looking for them. They announced themselves. That brings me to...

Occult references & themes in the DC Madam case: These were also present and announced themselves. I wasn't looking for them. However, as Jesus said, for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, and I do, and did. Most aren't attuned to this, I am, and once again, I'm not interested in the expressions of your egos, only in fact and truth, which the vast majority of you wouldn't know either were they to bite you in the ass extracting a pound of flesh. You couldn't miss this, especially considering the well-established fact that Jeane was fascinated by American Spiritualism (yes, seances, no, I am not a believer).

The case was archetypal on its own. I didn't see anything that wasn't there or implicit to it. Again, your opinions are irrelevant, and I don't care unless they augment and add something to the story, understanding, illuminate it more, whatever, but other than that, don't care.

On the former Pamela Martin escorts: I don't have a lot of respect for these women. Some wrong-headed types do for reasons that escape me, but I'm sure have to do more with gender and identity politics and wishful thinking. Once again, I don't care what you're opinions are unless you somehow had contact with them, know previously unknown aspects and facts about the case, or you have an angle on it I never considered for some of the aforementioned reasons. Beyond that, I don't care and don't want to hear your ego flexing, it won't play and I'll kick your ass to curb.

I'm sure most of my sources have withheld things from me--that's normal, human behavior. I'm not a believer in human nature or unicorns. We have tendencies. Those tendencies come out under certain circumstances and conditions. I'm intolerant of mythmakers and believers of myths. None of these women were saints. Yes, they were paid inadequately--welcome to the contemporary world, welcome to the United States and a world that's primarily ordered along patriarchal lines. I didn't make this world, you didn't, most of us didn't, and I'm not a supporter of it. In fact, I'm one of its victims, fuck you very much. You can beatify these ladies all you want, but when the truth came out, you'd look like the genuine fools with an opinion that you really are. Welcome to the human jungle, now think more often before you open your trap, or when you post something online. We all make mistakes. None of us is made of light, we all shit every morning, if we're lucky. That gut you have going is all the proof you should need that you're not a god. We're all imperfect, we all die one day, and the rest is games, lies, deceit, and horrendous, tragic, stupidity.

Insofar as I have been able to ascertain, no one, and I mean no one, has been able to find and interview these women and get some new relevant information from them, and to publish on it, nary a soul. Only one of them has come my way--allegedly, Andrea Detty who's alleged to be an alleged journalist now--and they may not even be one of them, perhaps a fake online identity, and of course, they weren't willing to convey anything of value whatsoever that I didn't already know. That's because, and this should be no surprise to anyone with their higher functions still intact, they were prostitutes and there's a reason why the term "lying whore" came into being, which I learned from direct experience in the case. Not one of them has had the courage and credibility to come forward and to follow through. One of them approached journalist Ken Silverstein during the proceedings, his moronic secretary lost the phone number they left (why not search of the phone calls that day at Harper's?), and they never reestablished contact. Thanks for fucking us, lady, but at least you tried. The rest stand as rats as far as I'm concerned, the real whores, not Palfrey, and they have earned this derision. Ever heard of confidentiality agreements with journalists, ladies? Quit kidding yourselves that you have credibility. Your silence speaks volumes.

On Jack Burkman of Focus on the Family & a lot more: There's an entire chapter devoted to dear Jack, as a template for the average Republican player in Palfrey's phone records. Expect fireworks. Expect what you suspected and knew--that he's a pathetic asshole, a scumbag, and a hypocrite.

On SAIC's presence in the phone bills and elsewhere: They're key to whatever was behind the case and the charges moving forward, not the actual solicitation by Jeane and the girls, which was what was really the incidental side of it. They're emblematic of the crisis in government today of runaway spending and war profiteering by contractors and politicians. They're connected to so many players in all this that it does have meaning to the case in ways that I never expected, not was looking for, but once again, there it was, winking at me over and over.

On the CIA's role in the case: This will get more of a factual airing than previously, although, regardless of what you might think of him, Montgomery Blair Sibley, Jeane's longest running counselor during the proceedings, has done a good job addressing in his own text, Why Just Her. I recommend it and consider both our accounts complimentary of each other. I'm not going to defend his public behavior. Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler granted wide-ranging subpoenaing power to the Palfrey defense that covered virtually the entire intelligence establishment. Ask yourself why the mainstream media never covered this, then go ask them, over and over again, until they cry uncle.

I'll have more to say later. Search the labels on this article for more. I cannot see a release date of later than late November, but no later than some time in December. That is all.

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.

"Assassinated" Arizona congressional Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is UNDEAD

She has become Ligeia, every simultaneously living and dead character straight out of Poe's short stories. The press disagrees all over the place: She's alive, she's dead, she's in critical condition--no, no, wait, she's dead, really, we mean it this time, really.

Welcome to the (mis)information age. One story has it that she's alive one moment, the next, that she is dead. No one needs to be told to jump to conclusions when the press has already done it for them in this era of instant gratification.

Nothing is true, everything is permitted--under copyright law. Welcome to the 19th century, it's back, and everyone's an expert on anything you can name, regardless of whether they have any credentials or not.

Breaking News: Gabrielle Giffords is undead, undead, undead, undead...

http://news.google.com/news/story?hl=en&q=Arizona+congresswoman+dead&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dyWPwW5FGhNgspMMUxFOa5u4-U5_M&ei=vMkoTZ6OOISq8AahufT8AQ&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQqgIwAA

CNN reports dumb-assed Al Qaeda salad bar/buffet plot after GOP stalls Food Safety Act for months

Is there not a better sign of the end of an Empire and a nation in serious trouble? Just don't tell the Obama-holdouts, they might get upset. Who on God's gray earth would believe this horseshit but a Republican or a Libertarian, all of them with serious emotional and intellectual issues regarding reality? "Al-Qaeda plot threatens America's salad bars and buffets." You gotta be kidding, right?

It beggars the imagination that someone without the ability to imagine would believe something a ten year old could see through or do a better job of concocting.

Just as they did under Bush II, being a venerable asset of Empire and the GOP, CNN is selling a very lame-assed scare story to boost another war criminal's sagging popularity ratings as well as providing some cover for corrupt food growers and processors who wanted the Food Modernization Act. Apparently, high school never ended and life has now become Facebook. How is this different from all the times that George W. Bush cried "WOLF!" (not CNN's Blitzer, or even Donner) with the terror alert warnings to save his own ass, for political ends? It's not at all and it's not the only example, Obama's just less obvious about it than the last clown.

Seriously: President Barack Obama is the same as George W. Bush, wake up assholes, pull your heads out of your collective-ass and stop having this.

CNN's talking-neck was barely able to read the salad bar/buffet headline it was so stupid, so nebbish, so moronic and transparently unimportant pap that was probably lifted from a surveillance log of someone simply toying with the idea of joining a terror cell...after a few bong-hits or a lift from some meth. Get real, quit insulting our intelligence with your counterintelligence, your disinformation predicated on scaring the dummies that over-populate every nation so that we hand over even more of our rights to a predatorial establishment.

Great, someone was going to "poison" salad bars and buffets across America...and somehow they weren't American food growers and producers who routinely employ illegal immigrants, who then lobby the GOP all of the time for fewer regulations on food safety. Yes, it was a smart timing to run the bogus Al-Qaeda story just hours after the GOP had stalled the Food Safety Act for months, very wise, well-timed. How long did they stall its passage? Since March of this year, nine whole months, which is roundly un-American.

Besides the GOP's tail-dragging on to poison the public, or not to poison it, these were some of the major opponents of the very reasonable bill--unless some of us prefer a little e-coli with our spinach, watermelons and potatoes (take that Dan Quayle!), and TEA:

Freedomworks

Competitive Enterprise Institute

American Mushroom Institute

National Potato Council

National Watermelon Association

Produce Marketing Association

United Fresh Produce Association

The John Birch Society

National Cattleman's Beef Association

Western Growers

American Academy of Microbiology

Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund
(http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-510)

Any familiar names here? It passed the Senate on November 30th of this year anyway, but there was more stalling from the GOP.

And you Democratic incumbents: You can stop with the good cop, bad cop act. We're on to you. We know this is all just political theater and we're about to call bullshit on this whole clown show. We're not having it anymore, you're done. For a moment, I thought they were saying that Jimmy Buffett was being targeted by terrorists, which makes just as much sense and is just as credible...

"I am not a witch" is added to the political lexicon

Did people react like this during the Great Depression? Did they vote for dimwits like Christine O'Donnell? Sadly, they nearly did, there being no real "good old days" in the real world. As a matter of fact, people acted about as crazy as they are now, albeit with better results. True, the New Deal didn't go far enough--thanks to the business sector--but at least they voted for FDR.

Americans are a pretty nutty bunch, and O'Donnell just reminds us of this fact. Being "nutty" is alright at parties, but not likely to get good results as a congressional representative, especially a Senator. Yet, nutty is what we tend to elect. O'Donnell is another kind of nutty altogether, however, not that she's hateful.

Fine, lots of young women screw around with the Occult during their teen years, sit on a Satanic altar on their first date...they don't? Really? Whoopsie! Hey, when I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Remember 1999? Me either! What were you having for lunch on June 21st of that year? Me either! Remember the impeachment hearings of Bill Clinton? Remember unlimited credit disguising the fact that Americans were making shit wages, even then? What a time! But it had to end, like all false Edens.

O'Donnell said this on her 1999 Bill Maher appearance (apparently, she blew the entire production staff, starting with Maher): "One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that," she says. "We went to a movie and then had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar." As nutty as it sounds, I know of a woman from college who did this! "A little blood"?! OK, we don't want to start throwing the blood libel around here. Would this be tolerated from a Democratic candidate or anyone on the Left? Of course not.

Let's be clear: this isn't "normal" behavior, even to someone like myself who doesn't even believe in the Christian cosmology and certainly doesn't believe in the Devil, Belial, Cheeseburglar, and all shim's other supposed guises. Interestingly, we've gone from denying that we're actually the Devil (Nixon, during the Watergate hearings in 1973) in our politics to denying that we're a holder (witch) of the franchise license (O'Donnell), like a local businessperson who owns a Howard Johnson's (who?). OK, fine, you're not a Republican, just nuts...

So, here were are, 37 years later from the Watergate hearings, and somehow, some way, the GOP is still around. We've gone from "I am not a crook," to the obvious detached insanity of "I am not a witch." If that's not a warning sign with the bodies of dead canaries littered all around it, I don't know what is. What a fuckin' bimbo in our political stasis and limbo. We probably deserve her winning the election. Now dance, bitch...er, witch.

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.

On this date: CNN's Rick Sanchez is spot-on truthful, unbiased, and accurate!

CNNiverse--Yes, on this day, this wonderous day, CNN talking neck Rick Sanchez stated emphatically: "I'm a pseudo-intellectual." The waters parted. The clouds lifted. The birds sang from the highest trees and the prophets-in-hiding cried out from the mountaintops that truth had been spoken. Then things went back to normal with the usual leading questions and ignoring all the elephants in the room...

A healthy reminder: David Corn's 9/11 truth article from March 2002 and some personal observations

WWW--This is an oldie but a goodie and is still sadly relevant. Corn had this op ed out in the March 2002 issue of the Nation, the publication he still edits from Washington.

Corn wrote presciently at the time:

There are always national security misdeeds to be mad about. They may not be as cinematic in nature as a plot in which shady, unidentified U.S. officials scheme to blow up the World Trade Towers to gain control of an oil pipeline in Central Asia. But dozens of dead Hondurans or twenty or so Afghans wrongly killed ought to provoke anger and protest. In fact, out-there conspiracy theorizing serves the interests of the powers-that-be by making their real transgressions seem tame in comparison. (What's a few dead in Central America, compared to thousands in New York City? Why worry about Negroponte, when unidentified U.S. officials are slaughtering American civilians to trigger war?)

Perhaps there's a Pentagon or CIA office that churns out this material. Its mission: distract people from the real wrongdoing. Now there's a conspiracy theory worth exploring. Doesn't it make sense? Doesn't it all fit together? I challenge anyone to disprove it. ("When 9/11 conspiracy theories go bad," The Nation, 03.02.2002)

Good luck proving him wrong! You know, I had a kind of lame experience during the DC Madam scandal with Corn, but I don't fault him these days (at the time, it was quite the opposite). He asked me about the presence of Ronald Roughead in the late madam's records and why it was relevant. He was skeptical, and that's fine, as he should have been. I remarked that it was relevant since Roughead was violating the terms of his security clearance at the time he made the calls in late 2005. Such an activity is forbidden. Corn never replied back. Palfrey had hooked-me-up with him, lamely, and without any good context. She would continue to do such things as time bore on.

A ll that said, he wasn't willing to move forward on it, and who can blame him when you look at Palfrey's behavior during all of that saga towards the press? She jerked everyone around and tried to use jornalists and bloggers to do the investigating for her, to exonerate her. That's fine, but you don't send people down blind alleys, you have something relevant to tell them. That's not to excuse their laziness and jadedness in the mainstream media, but Corn, as an editor, had to prioritize where to put his limited resources to investigate a story. The Nation--in case you didn't notice--isn't made of money. Yes, he'd found Roughead in the phone records but probably knew he and his staff could investigate the whole mess for years without that many real breakthroughs, and besides, people like me can grind away at finding the primary historical documents that they and others can examine in the aftermath (or vice versa). Surely, he had to know that Roughead was the brother of CNO Gary Roughead! No, it wasn't simply about "big names," there were other issues at play.

What do I think the significance of SAIC's Ronald Roughead was, his being in the DC Madam's phone records, a former Defense Attache, former director of the Iraqi Media Network, an investigator at the Kenya Embassy bombing, and likely an employee of defense/intelligence contractor SAIC? I can't draw any final conclusions, but it's pointing towards illegal lobbying practices, not that he would be a final indicator or it. His very presence is the answer. Corn hasn't had access to the defense materials I and others have, but he surely knew that it would practically take a congressional inquiry to get to the bottom of what appeared to be evidence of corruption beyond the mere issues of government and elected officials frequenting hookers.

In short, he asked me the wrong question, but not out of malice or apathy when he mistakenly focused on one man. The patterns are what count in this story, but again, he hasn't seen everything I have. A lot of people have dismissed this 2002 article as being jaded, but it's not, he's right. People have been wasting an incredible amount of time and energy chasing ghosts. I have done my share of this, but that's part of these times and part of investigating events like the DC Madam story where there have been a number of blind alleys. Even the House Judiciary Committee was interested in investigating whether Palfrey's 6th Amendment rights were being violated during the proceedings; but as happened again and again, they got cold-feet and gave no answers as to why.

It's almost hopelessly complicated and obscured, but there were a few peeks behind the curtain that were more than tantalizing and even a little revealing, about how business is done in Washington D.C. But a conspiracy? All I saw was incredible incompetence from the prosecution and the Court, and even from the investigators that likely created the whole mess to begin with.

"When 9/11 conspiracy theories go bad," The Nation, 03.02.2002http://www.alternet.org/story/12536

Gimp of the perverse: The loves of Jack Burkman, Part I

The Beltway--Where does one even begin with someone like this? At least he's complicated, and if you think not, read on. I've established contact with several former (what would the word even be? lovers? victims?) women who have endured the unfortunate attentions of lobbyist and GOP media pundit, Jack Burkman, Jr. The deeper you dig into the lives and behaviors of people like this, the more you begin to realize how damaged they are and that behind all of the bluster is a very sad individual who needs help. Where do the problems begin? Where else but in the home, during child-rearing.

Not that it's some kind of immutable law, but the "Jr." part of his name itself suggests a patriarchal family culture, and indeed, my suspicions were confirmed by one woman who dated Burkman nine years ago when he was just becoming known as a media figure, thanks-in-part to people like Bill Maher (thanks for nothing, Bill) for putting him on their programs for the sake of "fairness" and "balance." Had they really meant it, they wouldn't have bothered in the first place. It should be noted that Maher himself is well known for his own womanizing and has illustrated some arch-conservative tendencies over the years that don't speak well for him. Burkman represents all kinds of institutions and individuals as a lobbyist as well as in his role as a conservative (I use the term very loosely here since he's assisting selfish interests in gorging at the public trough) pundit. If only this was all he did.

Burkman's past support and shilling for the Rev. James Dobson's "Focus on the Family/The Family Research Council" is consistent with a patriarchal demeanor. But there are some indications that he's bored with it all and yearns for a modern woman with intellect, wit, and some kind of a sense of self somewhere in the mix, and he wasn't alone in this with the other privileged former clients of the DC Madam's prostitution ring, Pamela Martin & Associates which catered to men wanting "intelligent and educated" escorts. Some of the women he's dated are impressive, smart, witty (not merely attractive), and he warms to this to some extent. You could say that the dirty politicians and lobbyists are intellectually-sexually starved and find their fiefdoms in hell boring and confining, like anyone with a meaningless career or job.

A very recent date of Burkman's conveyed this to me:

He also acted genuinely surprised to find out that I wasn't a whore, and that I did not want his money. It makes me feel sorry for the man, but he dug his own grave with that one. He started talking to me about marriage (on the second date!) and told me repeatedly, "Honey you should get married. I can't believe you're not married, a girl like you.I can't believe a guy hasn't married you yet." So weird. Then he asked me if I wanted children. It scared me.

He told me honestly that I wasn't a whore, and that so many girls he met were whores (well if they're prostitutes ...) and I said something about having a nihilistic view on life and he jumped as if surprised to learn I knew the meaning, or as he said, "the correct meaning of that word," and that it had been so long since he had been with a girl who knew the word, at least the correct meaning.

But it depends on who's he "dating" at the time, and old habits die hard. The cynicism seems to rear its ugly head first. Does this sound like someone who's torn? But he was impressed with this woman's intellect and warmed to it. This speaks well for him in a general sense and raises the question of whether he feels trapped in the life he's been drawn into as a conservative media pundit and an advocate for things that he probably doesn't believe in, maybe just marginally and out of convenience rather than actual conviction. As the lady stated, "he dug his own grave with that one." The bars may be gold, but a cage is still a cage, and he has the intellect to appreciate this.

Yes, Burkman has a dark side as well, as strange as this is going to read to people aware of his general demeanor since for many that's the only side they ever see. One recent (this year) "paramour" put it like this:

I don't think in his mind, he thinks that there is anything wrong with what he does. His morals are screwed up. He treats women like whores but he promotes family values, he even did work for the FRC. After I called him a wolf, he looked a little mad and disappointed and said, "You looked me up." That is when he got really defensive and told me he did proposition those girls, but so what, anyone would have, but that he never payed [sic] for prostitutes [sic] in his life, that he would never pay for sex. [a patent lie on his part] I didn't say anything after that because he obviously did not see the connection between the two.

Burkman apparently also walks with a limp, like some perverse character out of Gothic literature, rather than a middle-class man with an Ivy League education. However, Burkman's not a physically unattractive man by any means and suffers from a foreshortened leg and soul, which is why you would associate him with someone as nefarious as the ectomorph Rev. James Dobson and the lamentable Bush-Cheney campaign of unfortunate years past. The list of his righist hack credentials is substantial as even a brief visit to his website will illustrate, and he was even intimately involved in the attempt to impeach former President Bill Clinton for the very behavior he and his peers on the right engage in regularly.

In 2000:

I first met Jack in the bar at the Capital Grille (a popular lobbying/political hang out). I didn't notice the limp then, but when I picked him up for our dinner date I saw that it appeared like he was dragging one foot behind. I asked if he had recently hurt himself and he said he was born with one foot shorter than the other (why he doesn't wear a corrective shoe is beyond me). So he has a very distinct gait.

This is just my amateur armchair analysis, but I'm guessing he has a lot of anger and desire to prove himself (last kid picked for sports, teased about it, etc.). I can't prove any of that but he has this angry drive about him flavored with a lot of sarcasm & cynicism. [this indicates unhappiness with the state of things] I also made a comment about how women look to see how their boyfriends treat their mother as an indication of how they'll be treated and he absolutely howled at that, telling me "[H]oney, you're barking up the wrong tree then."Not a fan of Mom.

But his father must have called him 25 times one night when I was over. He let it go to the answering machine every time. His father was watching political talk shows and calling Jack every few minutes with a comment or opinion.Very close to his father.

I'm not a member of the psychiatric community either, but some things are simply obvious here, and I should add that Burkman's not a very good liar when he's occasionally exposed to genuine scrutiny, spouting half-truths when he's cornered as most scoundrels tend to do. But that's how liars and criminals behave, and he's represented more-than-a-few in the last decade. I believe these women and what they have had to say. Incredible resources and effort are constantly being marshaled to protect these men from scrutiny, something one would associate with the apparatchiki of the Soviet system.

Indeed, it's good to have friends in the corporate-owned mainstream media to cover for you and your misbehavior, and political appointees in the federal bureaucracy to pressure law enforcement to stand down. By admitting in his public denials of being in the DC Madam's phone records and admitting that he spoke to mainstream media-outlets who then took him at his word, he has basically lied on multiple occasions. The first lie is certain: He was in the DC Madam's phone records, and it's even money that mainstream journalists really did talk to him and were told to stand down either by their editors or the owners of those publications and/or wire services. Why? To keep the game going, to keep money coming from the public trough to dirty corporations and government contractors, and even towards rightist religious institutions. To preserve the unaccountable power of criminals.

What a waste of a man. What a waste of an education. What a waste of this, the final democratic experiment in the history of the human race, a species assuredly headed for oblivion thanks to people like Jack Burkman, Jr. and the people pulling his strings. How can someone like this live with themselves? Therein is part of the reason behind the sexual addiction. Sad. Pathetic. True.

The End?

On the "boy in the balloon" non-story

WWW--Boy, I sure miss a lot when I don't bother to watch television or the 24 hour news networks, don't I?

Again...who gives-a-shit? People without a life? These very bald examples of media white-outs (namely, regarding Afghanistan, we can presume) are beginning to irk me. This isn't news, it's entertainment-at-best. At worst, they're put out there to crowd out real stories that the public needs to know.

Does this story warrant any attention? Did the bigfoot one emanating from Georgia a few years ago? The press sent over 100 representatives "just in case" it turned out to be "true." What the fuck does that mean? There's no such thing as bigfoot any more than there was a Virgin birth or a Paul Bunyan ferchrissakes, gimme a goddamned break. I'm not going to miss the mainstream media when it finally croaks...

The "Why Women Have Sex" articles and the Save-your-life bra

WWW--Because they're horny? Both the Guardian and Newsweek have been writing puff pieces on some very unimportant books and studies on this, so it must have been a slow news week, meaning there are important stories to do a news white-out on. That means pulling a story out of your ass and wracking your brains to remember something from your High School science class, then wrapping it in a lot of inflated verbiage to keep your whorish, dumbass job at Newsweek to feed some equally banal lifestyle because you're entitled.

At the age of 41, I can honestly say that I don't give-a-shit why women have sex. It's usually obvious anyway, and probably akin to "Why do people itch themselves?" and "Why did so-and-so just sneeze?" I could go into scatological examples, but I'm sure at least 10% of my readership (and that's a magic number) already raced to them like me, and sadly, it's just as valid as these stupid articles that don't even rise above this or many other blog postings. You get a dumbbell system out of dumbbell people.

Has Newsweek ever heard of the Kinsey Institute here in pansexual Indiana? Indeed they had, feeling the need to cover their asses at the end of the piece and the gaping-maw of a fact that their article says nothing new and that the study they were covering is hardly epic-in-scope (1,000 online-participants) or even very scientific. In other words, like Michael Moore, they were telling us (and selling us) what we already knew. What turns women on? Sigmund Freud (who was right about far more than most feminists care to admit, hence why they quote him so much) couldn't figure it out, and neither can most women come down to it, not that I care. I should add that with more women employed right now, and with the economy in the shitter, feminism just doesn't resonate that strongly these days. "But why? Why do you women have sex?" they ask us, the readers, making me wonder what their informational role is. They should, especially the ladies, since one would assume they have all the answers to this burning, itching question.

It could be: Money; power over a mate in a relationship; ego-boosting; material items; that stunning posture and moves of the insensate and cocksure beefcake; a man in uniform; a woman in uniform; someone they feel "sorry" for (pity fucks); a well-told joke; the tie someone was wearing that day; someone's personality; a good day; a bad day; frustration; naivete; a confluence of events; a rush of hormones or drugs; a bad childhood; a good childhood--gimme a break. The most galling thing about the Newsweek piece is their offhand contention that most studies haven't ever asked women what makes women want to have sex. Again, didn't the Kinsey Institute cover that ground decades ago? Here's a suggestion: try doing actual research for your article before it goes to press. Women are people, and people are complicated and not easily quantified or understood by science.

More importantly, this week, a Ukrainian-born woman in Chicago invented a bra that can also act as a gas mask, something I consider both genius and uproariously funny. But...but, why did she invent it? Luckily, this won't require any grants or lab time:

Elena Bodnar, who lives in Chicago, got her start as a scientist in Ukraine, when she witnessed the devastating effects of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in 1986. She noticed, among other things, that women were wearing bras that may have been lacy but were certainly not life-saving.

At the ceremony, Bodnar demonstrated her invention, which she said could have prevented people from breathing in Iodine-131 in the wake of Chernobyl. She graciously gave pink bras (each of which can turn into two gas masks) to actual Nobel laureates (yes, even the men, who now have the option to enjoy the bras without shame--not to mention any likely real effect--in the privacy of their own homes).

That's right, men can wear them too. Well yeah! What would the Kinsey Institute say about that one?

My real question is this: would it be appropriate for men with pot-tits to wear them in public, and where can I get a grant to study the phenomena?

"Introducing the bra that is meant to be taken off," CNET, 10.02.2009: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-10366730-247.html

AP: "Movie theaters cut print show times as Web gains"

WWW--You think they'll take ads for unrated movies now? I mean it, really. Who's laughing now? Me, and all the indie filmmakers the newspapers have screwed over the years. Good riddance, die already, will yah?

Kansas City-based AMC helped shine a spotlight on the trend last month when it pulled its listings from The Washington Post, prompting the newspaper's ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, to deflect readers' ire in his blog.

"Most readers believe that it was the newspaper's decision," Alexander wrote, comparing it to The Post's recent move to cut back on the newspaper's television listings. "In fact, movie listings in the print product are paid advertising, and it was AMC's decision to stop paying."

The Post declined further comment, and Alexander wrote in his column that the newspaper wouldn't tell him either how much revenue the AMC ads provided.

AMC spokesman Justin Scott said daily movie listings are expensive and the theater chain believes that that money would be better spent promoting its value programs or other theater events.

"In an era when many moviegoers are using alternative resources to access show times, AMC has chosen to reallocate its show-time information methods," Scott said.

Scott wouldn't say where else AMC has cut its listings and how much it has saved. But he said "so far we've seen no impact on attendance."

Regal, based in Knoxville, Tenn., said its in-theater and online surveys found 60 percent to 80 percent of respondents saying they received their movie listings online. ("Movie theaters cut print show times as Web gains," AP, 08.22.2009)

And you, Hollywood: there's something called the Internet. You can't keep people from watching independent cinema like you used to, not anymore. People can and do watch movies on iPods, laptops, and their own home cinemas. Soon, very soon, most people will be able to download what they want to watch and bypass what they don't want to watch.

DVDs have opened-up most of the history of cinema to young people and many of them know where the movies have been and what's possible. When they look at the usual Hollywood fare, they're unimpressed, unmoved by it, because it generally sucks. The party's over, welcome to that brave new world you boors knew was always coming, a viewing public with considerably more savvy. Let's be honest: that was always the case, but you had a captive audience. That's over.

You used the newspapers to keep foreign film and indie cinema from competing at all; you got legislation passed that subsidized your bottom-line, shut-out the smaller distributors, and got you subsidized advertising in foreign markets. People are tired of most of your product, they want more. Eventually, you're going to have to deliver or go away, like the rest of the corporate monoliths that are toppling right now. With the rapid death of the newspapers, media conglomerates are going to keep taking major-hits. This can only be a good thing. Does consolidation sound so good now? All fall down.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/tec?guid=20090821/4a8e29d0_3421_13345200908211073774666

Right wing columnist Robert Novak belatedly dies at the age of 78

WWW--He was a demagogue, a player, a hater, and just one-of-many jackapes screeching in our collective-ear for the last 30+ years, ramming a failed and moronic rightist agenda down all of our throats. At the end of his very pathetic and partisan career as an ostensible journalist and political commentator for old and young fools alike, he outed an active CIA officer for political purposes, for the Bush II administration. That's not a columnist, a journalist, or even a talking head. That's a political mercenary who deserves no respect whatsoever, a hack like Tim Russert or former NYT journo, Judith Miller.

But you wouldn't know any of this listening to NPR today, those scions of ass-licking. I expected this since they're as predictable as a Rush Limbaugh monologue, but they were gunning for a new low today and their rush to the bottom was achieved. When NPR offers the same drivel as the rest of the mainstream media--which is generally free--why pay for it at all? Thankfully, few are, and jazz fans are going to have to deal--all 10,000 of them.

Whenever I feel the slightest twinge of guilt over never having contributed to public radio, it's days like this that remind me that it was always a good move. But NPR are hardly alone in this bizarre adulation of this not-a-man, this moron, this careerist slimeball. No, we shouldn't be mourning Robert Novak, we should be mourning the perfectly viable cancer cells that had to die with him, it's not fair. That he was intellectually bankrupt is a given. That he was annoying is a given. That he was a liar is a given. There's no reason to celebrate him anymore than it would have been when some clone-like apparatchiki died in the former Soviet Union. Good riddance.

Nixon's former counsel John Dean (no, not Howard Dean, former DNC chair) once told the late President Richard Nixon that, "There's a cancer on the presidency," referring to the Watergate burglars. He was far too optimistic--Nixon was that cancer. When thinking of the late conservative columnist it just brings-to-mind the obverse: "There's a Robert Novak on the cancer." Poor cancer. He wasn't a journalist, he was just some asshole powerful people gave a soapbox to, and for far too long. Thanks for reminding me that mortality's not so bad, Bob, thanks for the reminder (thanks God!). At least you die too.

And what should be his epitaph? We already know: Valerie Plame, and the fact that he did a hit-and-run on someone, went to the doctor, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. That seems to sum-up the reactionary right. Finally, I and millions of others don't have to tell this asshole to shut the fuck up.

"S.C. GOV. SANFORD: 'I HAVE SCREWED EVERYONE I COULD IN S.C."

South Carolina--He didn't have to tell anyone (cue "Dixie"). He won't resign until he's gotten a little bit more leg, folks, it's not over 'til it's over...

More cries of "coup," this time regarding AIG from Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone Magazine--I haven't read a copy of RS since 1992, so you probably know from this fact that they don't elicit much respect or admiration from me.

At best, the publication has been patently mainstream from its inception, a cheerleader of the consumer model, and a part of what's gotten us into the economic crisis we're now inhabiting.

Occasionally, the dinosaur ownership realizes at RS how inane and unimportant that they've become (once, the criticisms came from old school RS writers like the late Hunter S. Thompson) and pays someone to write something substantial about where things are at.

Their political articles are often belated pieces that would have had a better impact had someone commissioned them when the corruption and crimes were everywhere--occurring literally out in the open, down the street from RS's NYC offices--but advertisers don't like political coverage, especially when they're involved in the mess, and that would mean spending the money on a full time investigative team.

This doesn't fit into all the wonderful business models of recent times, so they don't have one, because since the introduction of CBS's "60 Minutes," the news is supposed to be profitable and entertaining.

Somehow, in this peculiarly adamant pro-business environment, we're being entreated to ditties from the Fourth Estate itself that "democracy will be inhibited without newspapers," yet when we had all of them they did little to protect it, making for a zero-sum loss in the age of the Internet. Yes, coverage will definitely become deeply "impaired" for a time, and there will likely be further consolidations of media, but what future will the survivors have in a generally wrecked economy? Being king is fine, but king of the garbage dump doesn't sound very grand to these ears.

One might also factor-in how hard it is to do business during widespread strikes and insurrection, but that's what defense contractors are for.

Into this bloody fray comes a Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibbi on AIG and--please bear with me--the notion that the Wall Street bailouts have been a "coup."I don't believe that it's that simple, that many of these critics have been dangerously naive about our system and its promises because of their own "successes" ("You're just jealous."), and that they're finally discovering how America really works. You know: the American people are usually the last to know, because there are "unknown knowns," in the thankfully inimitable words of Donald Rumsfeld.

...["]When one considers the comparatively extensive system of congressional checks and balances that goes into the spending of every dollar in the budget via the normal appropriations process, what's happening in the Fed amounts to something truly revolutionary,” a kind of shadow government with a budget many times the size of the normal federal outlay, administered dictatorially by one man, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. "We spend hours and hours and hours arguing over $10 million amendments on the floor of the Senate, but there has been no discussion about who has been receiving this $3 trillion," says Sen. Bernie Sanders. "It is beyond comprehension." ... ("Back to the Big Takeover," Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone, April 2, 2009 issue)

If it's a "shadow government," it's only because Congress delegated those powers to the executive branch and consciously did so over a period of decades. The article at least makes this point clearly enough. It should be added that Sec. of Treasury Bernanke has to answer to the President of the United States, ultimately, since he might have problems with how the money gets spent...or not. Taibbi is wrong--it really is all about money, the only thing Americans can be roused to action by. In other words, the Treasury Department isn't a separate branch of government, although Taibbi and others seem to be suggesting that it is. Were it that simple.

But this has been a real point-of-contention with me, since a "coup" means a real world transfer of power, generally to people who weren't originally "in-charge," with at least some essence of "finality" to it, however fleeting. Paradoxical--yes--and welcome to the world of power politics where language and logic break down above the atomic level. Sure, the Treasury Department and the Fed have significantly more power at the moment, that's true, and that's really an expansion of the power of the executive branch in the end. Former Vice President Cheney must be proud of his contribution to all of this.

Not since Hitler has so much confusion been sown in the halls of a modern government. It helped to have enablers and other fellow travelers along the way. So, these calls of a "coup" are more than a little belated--they actually sound weird coming at this moment. Habeas corpus has been nominally restored through the courts, but significant breaches in our Constitution are still there. There were many voices on the left who warned about the economic crisis and the war on terror's rollback of our rights from the start, and a few on the right, and so on.

But they weren't especially passionate voices, and they were ignored as they usually are.

Where were all these cries from the right and the mainstream media during the passage of the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act? Off making money at the time, they couldn't be bothered to care at the time. When I question some of the "coup counters," they tend to settle on the term "paper coup," and neglect to go into any further details. A real world analog would help, like Yeltsin's creation of the Oligarchs through the Russian State granting them mineral rights, or similar moves in South America during the last sixty years. That would have been a business luncheon for the Bush II administration.

Perhaps it just sounds good to the ears, that "c-word." It gives one the appearance of being prescient, prophetic, like Ronald Reagan (in appearance only). Granted, the term "coup" is taking over (pun intended) throughout the political spectrum.

Taibbi continues:

...The state is now being asked not just to call off its regulators or give tax breaks or funnel a few contracts to connected companies; it is intervening directly in the economy, for the sole purpose of preserving the influence of the megafirms. In essence, Paulson used the bailout to transform the government into a giant bureaucracy of entitled assholedom, one that would socialize "toxic" risks but keep both the profits and the management of the bailed-out firms in private hands. Moreover, this whole process would be done in secret, away from the prying eyes of NASCAR dads, broke-ass liberals who read translations of French novels, subprime mortgage holders and other such financial losers. ... (Ibid)

And this is new in American history, because...? Frankly, I don't get it--these are the very same people in control of the system in the end (the original ones, the ones whose names are being withheld on TARP payout papers), the same super rich "investors" and business bureaucrats inside and outside of our government who played, and lost. Welcome to the inherent ( il)logic of our economy, you missed the memo. Was there some arch-conspiracy, or some kind of a plan to this? Were you paying attention?

This makes a grand leap of logic that these people on Wall Street were and are competent.

Are you kidding? Does it really look like they're good at anything done above board, legally? They aren't good at business, they cannot rule or govern effectively or sustainably, and it will all crash no matter how much they attempt to leave the rest of us with the bill. Their time is up, it's a given, even with these machinations that induce the apathetic, cynical, and gullible, to ascribe godlike powers to a bunch of Wall Street (and truth be know, Main Street) clowns.

That they're not good at business is a given, but that most of them are criminals has yet to be proven, but will be. They're going to keep playing the same games because it's all they know, and when the rules don't favor them they change the rules. Does that sound sustainable? Let them have their fun, playing with their Monopoly money, but if they get their way, any recovery is going to be short-lived in a system whose time came at least a generation ago, the rest being mythology.

Americans have often wrongly measured their freedoms and liberties through economic indicators and their ability to purchase while neglecting the very existence of a quality of life and the social contract. There will be plenty of time to reflect on that now.

"Back to the Big Takeover," Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone, April 2, 2009 issue: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover

Michael Phelps and bong hits

WWW--Yeah, I know, I know: we don't want to know anything about the smoking gun evidence regarding torture under the war on terror, it's too icky. I won't even go into the details of Phelps smoking dope a year ago, it's stupid and asinine of the mainstream media to keep this story alive. I'm here to kill it right now.

Phelps is a young man in his twenties who's in college. What else do you need to know? We know Sarah Palin's daughter rejects abstinence--we knew it well before she ever uttered it. Young people do these things and should be allowed time to screw-up since that's what learning is all about, that's how one grows-up. LEAVE HIM ALONE, THERE IS NO STORY.

Now, you journalists need to go smoke a fat one, you need it more than the rest of us. Imagining Phelps's lung-capacity just makes this writer cry... ;0)