The coming meeting at the White House of all living presidents, Dick Cheney...and Donald Rumsfeld

Washington D.C.--George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney...and Donald Rumsfeld are meeting at the White House in what's a very rare occasion indeed. The meeting is being announced as having the ostensible purpose of "helping President-elect Barack Obama in his transition" in extraordinary times. OK, I can buy that--but why Rummy?

The meeting is scheduled to take place on January 7th, 2009, with just thirteen days left in second presidential term of George W. Bush.

I think there's a very strong possibility that they're going to start talking about international law and the issue of war crimes and human rights abuses emanating from the Bush II administration's conduct in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the war on terror domestically and internationally. This would mean Donald Rumsfeld's role in abuses, as well as Dick Cheney's, and perhaps the roles of others in Bush II foreign policy.

Jimmy Carter is bound to have some comments ready on human rights, which he'll be sure to whisper so that he might be overheard. Bill Clinton? He'll smile a lot and slap a lot of backs. I'm sure he'll have some constructive advice for the president-elect.

Rumsfeld's role in creating a "smooth transition" for the incoming Obama administration has a hollow-ring to it, he's a wild card here in some way. The story is being put out there that Cheney and Rumsfeld are being brought in to advise the incoming administration--Rumsfeld was President Gerald Ford's (still dead, so he won't be able to make it) chief of staff, Cheney succeeded him.

Both are well-known friends and associates.

Certainly, they're going to acquaint the incoming President-elect with "the ropes" of running an administration, although considering the disastrous ones that they all led or served under cannot be good examples. But, nothing teaches better than failure so they should have a lot to offer. Still, it nags-the-question: why Rumsfeld? War crimes issues? Executive privilege and legal issues? Who to fire at the Pentagon? Surely, these are going to be some of the topics. It's a very curious meeting. Will it be a "Mad Hatter's Tea Party"?

With Henry Kissinger having advised the current-and-outgoing president in the last few years, it just looks like another indicator of a lack of leadership in the White House, a final collapse, the crashing of a facade. We've been leaderless for a very long time.

Spanish Business Consortium "Grupo Santander SA" and leaser of Indiana Toll Road hit with losses in Madoff Ponzi scheme

Indiana--This is pretty hilarious. Grupo Santander SA, the 75-year leasers of a major Indiana Toll Road (US Highway 31) has taken a financial hit in the Madoff "Ponzi" scheme according to the AP:

A variety of investors have been identified as having lost money in the scam, including Spain's Grupo Santander SA, Britain's HSBC Holdings PLC and New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon. More victims emerged Tuesday, including Rye Investment Management, of Rye, N.Y., which lost $3.1 billion, almost all of its clients' funds, and Austria's Bank Medici, which had two funds with $2.1 billion (1.5 billion euros) invested with Madoff. ("SIPC chief: Madoff falsified books to hide losses," AP, 12.16.2008)

Sure, it breaks my black little heart that they might have to sell-off their share in our highway that was virtually sold by our current governor, Mitch Daniels.

Daniels was an economics adviser (budget director) to President George W. Bush in his first term of office from 2001-2003. Isn't our economy in great shape? In the elections--which he miraculously won--Daniels bragged widely that our state's budget had been saved by the sale of US 31 and his wondrous economic policies. He can't claim that now with our unemployment fund expended and Elkhart, Indiana having the highest unemployment rate for a city in the entire United States.

With no state money left for unemployment payments, he's had to go to the federal government for the funds.

Daniels has long-held the same views you would expect from the GOP: an over-emphasis on government deregulation, their fictional take on the "rules of the marketplace" (except for my backers, heh-heh), and as little social spending as humanly possible. Wait, it gets worse.

Daniels headed the ultra-right think tank, The Hudson Institute, which advocates radical deregulation and still says that the economy is working just fine. As you might have guessed, Daniels did his best to deregulate across the entirety of federal agencies through his control of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) and its head, John Graham.

Daniels considers himself an "outsider" in politics--like John McCain claimed after his 26 years in office. In a way, Daniels is right, he is an "outsider": it's reported that he received campaign contributions from DC Madam client Randall Tobias for his campaign this year, now a know whore-monger. Did he contribute to Daniels' campaign? He should have, he considers Daniels a "close friend." Well yeah, nepotism and the world of crony appointments is all about friendship.

It wouldn't be surprising if Eli Lilly handed the Daniels campaign plenty, but Bristol-Myers Squibb definitely did so--Daniels was a semi-competent business executive at Eli Lilly, just as Tobias was as its CEO. The ghost in the machine continues on, wreaking its havoc. It should be remembered that George H.W. Bush was once a board member of Eli Lilly and was remonstrated by the Supreme Court for illegal lobbying on their behalf while president. He ignored them.

Mitch Daniels: like Fred Thompson and Richard Nixon, he also appears to have been fashioned out of mud. This economic crisis is partly his fault. May it devour him and the rest like him.

"SIPC chief: Madoff falsified books to hide losses," AP, 12.16.2008: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081216/ap_on_bi_ge/madoff_scandal_records

http://mitchrealitycheck.com/

"Girls & Corpses Magazine"

WWW--There was a "Girls and Guns" (really a parody in the Texas underground magazine "Thorazine"), which was right up my alley.

Anyway, they've been around three years, weirdly beginning as an Internet-based magazine and now moving onto the racks of grocery stores everywhere soon. It is what it is, but the corpses are not real--I repeat--the corpses are not real, but the girls are.

Founder/maniac Robert Steve Rhine has created a combination of MAXIM and...I don't know what, maybe postmortem medical texts? Wow. Sex and death: it don't get more profound than that, 'Bubba. Rhine's been writing horror-comedy stories for a long time, as well as the scripts for several comic books of the same type.

This magazine skewers just about everyone and everything in our boring, sexist (and dying, so it's apropos) consumer culture by its mere existence. "Girls and Corpses," mocking the mockery known as life. Wow.

Needless-to-say, someone's going to be offended, which is the best reason to do a magazine like this.

http://www.girlsandcorpses.com/

http://www.edgeincollection.com/

Constantine vs. Janovic

WWW--Alex is on his third-installment of a two-part piece (don't ask) about me. You know, what's so unfortunate about all of this is that I probably agree with him on numerous points on far-ranging topics.

But there's one point I doubt I'll ever agree with over--barring credible, tangible new evidence--and that's the suicide of Deborah Jeane Palfrey.

Perhaps I've been wrong about his motives and he's just writing about it on some kind of tangent, I don't know or care. [Ed., 12.22.2008--Call it a "retraction," or whatever you like, but I no longer think his motive was for money.] He has his issues and I have mine. But I believe that he and others couldn't be more wrong. [Ed., 12.22.2008--On this I'll never waver unless some solid evidence is forthcoming.] I got to know this woman over the period of ten months, mainly through emails and less than a handful of phone calls, and I pitied her, I empathized with her.

Mr. Constantine can make all the defamatory allegations he wants to--they're baseless, and he should watch what his hands are typing a little more closely. These kinds of half-assed theories won't help us get any closer to the truth of this story, but that's not what I think they're designed to do. What are they designed to do? To feed someone's ego.

At this writing, I have yet to be presented with any solid proof that Jeane was murdered, zero.

That hasn't stopped several of these "conspiracy researchers"from clutching-at-straws. For example, I'm aware of Blanche Palfrey's inconsistent comments early on that she didn't notice any desperation or suicidal behavior in her daughter prior to her death. I have it on good word that Mrs. Palfrey's health and memory are in decline. Since May of this year she's corrected herself on this in the press, probably with the assistance of her remaining family members and counsel. She's 76 and has a long-term heart condition. I wish her and her family well.

Also at this writing, I have good reason to believe Mrs. Palfrey is no longer the executrix of her daughter's estate and that it's now being administered by Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe's Preston Burton, the late DC Madam's former and final criminal defense counsel. Burton was appointed (imposed might be a better term, but Palfrey accepted him) at the end by the Court with the removal of Montgomery Blair Sibley as civil/criminal counsel by the defendant.

After that, Burton did some furious jockeying to run the Palfrey Estate, even causing a commotion at her funeral, something I have on good word from a reliable source.

Why was Sibley removed? Palfrey told me she wanted it and that "things were said that cannot be taken back." It was our final telephone call, in January 2008. As much as she tried to paint the split as acrimonious, she didn't sound convincing. There are other factors: who was whispering in Palfrey's ear that his defense strategy was imperiled? In the case of why Sibley was removed--a matter of sealed court records--I also have good reason to believe this is related to her suicidal behavior and a specific utterance she made in the presence of counsel that created a legal situation. It's unknown if she made similar utterances in the presence of Preston Burton at any point.

A suggestion to Mr. Constantine and other researchers: look into the period that Sibley was replaced as counsel, it's crucial and it was unusual as most of the entire legal proceedings and trial were. There's another narrative here, and it's not the accepted one that was swept under the rug by the press, prosecution, and the Court. You might want to look into the strong possibility that Palfrey under-reported her earnings in a major way, perhaps the easiest thing to prove in a case with charges of money laundering, misuse of the mails, and the presence of the IRS in the investigation.

Why wasn't she charged with under-reporting her income? Her properties and assets don't jibe with the accepted narrative that she made $2 million from 1993-2006, it doesn't fit. There are reasons to believe she might have had offshore accounts and that the government was and is aware of them.

Why not take a look at what we do know? Why not look at the smoke rather than concocting something unprovable--blank hearsay--out of whole cloth? Because it's easy. That's all I have to say about Alex Constantine and his dubious theories regarding the suicide of Deborah Jeane Palfrey.


Postscript, 12.22.2008: Alex is now writing on his site that I've "defamed" him, even while he's called me a "liar" over and over again, which could easily fit into that category. My personal take? He has no more basis than anyone to claim injury, I could just as easily claim it from him. But I won't, because I respect the right of others to their opinions and that speech is free and protected under the First amendment. Nothing I wrote about Constantine was done with knowing intent--I never wrote anything I knew for a fact to be wrong, the blank truth.

All this said, I would be happy to share various pieces of information from the Palfrey case itself with Mr. Constantine, he might be able to offer his own insights. I'm willing to admit that they could be very valuable. It's his call. Again, it wasn't a murder, he and others have it wrong, he and others have nothing solid to prove the assertion with, and yes, there are issues of real importance that should be dealt with like having a rudimentary knowledge of the Palfrey saga. I don't believe Alex Constantine does by a long shot, and that's OK.

But, hey, at least Constantine has written recently about Jeffrey A. Taylor. That's what bothers me so much about all this--we probably agree on a lot more than we don't. In fairness, we have both been wrong in our approach to all things Palfrey. But it hasn't just been about him, and I no longer think his motives were necessarily "bad," just wrong-headed and reactionary.

The majority of my comments have been directed at multiple-theorists, including Alex Jones, Kurt Nimmo, and Jeff Rense, so Constantine shouldn't feel left out, I've written on them as well and in even starker terms. I am not out to get him, but the theory is flat-out wrong. That's my opinion. I'm entitled to it like anyone else. What kind of message he's trying to send by threatening to sue someone for disagreeing strenuously with him on specific points about the death of someone is beyond me.

Free Muntather al-Zeidi (shoe thrower)!

WWW--Here's the text of the petition. He threw shoes and was beaten for it. That's unjust. Al-Zeidi was just doing what every reasonable human being has wanted to do to George W. Bush in-person for a very long time, only not with shoes.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/montather/

"'This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog," shouted Muntather al-Zeidi in Arabic as he threw his shoes at Bush during a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Dec. 14th.

Multiple sources in Baghdad confirmed that Mr. Al-Zeidi was heavily beaten right after the incident. (He can be heard shouting in pain in this video). And after beating him, the Iraqi authorities arrested Mr. Al-Zaidi.

Here is a statement issued by Al-Baghdadia (the TV channel he works with):

www.albaghdadia.com/
(rough translation)

Al Baghdadia asks the Iraqi authorities to immediately release our employee Montather Al-Zaidi in line with the Iraqi and US promises of democracy and freedom of expression. Any action taken against Montather Al-Zaidi will remind us of the behavior we experienced during the time of the dictatorship era that when we witnessed violence, arbitrary arrests, mass graves and the confiscation of public freedoms and private.

We also call for press and media institutions and the Arab world to stand in solidarity with Montatger Al-Zaidi and call for his release.

(end translation)

Please sign this petition to demand the immediate release of Mr. Al-Zeidi"

Man throws shoe at outgoing President George W. Bush at Iraq press conference

"This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog!"
--Muntadar al-Zedei, displaying more courage than the entire American public since the 2000 inauguration.

Baghdad, Iraq--Where was the Secret Service? Guarding the real president, Barack Obama back in the states.

Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi did what no American has had the moral courage to do since the 2000 inauguration when the public threw ice-balls, snowballs, and rocks at the then president-elect: throw things at George W. Bush out of a well-earned disrespect. The Al-Baghdadia television correspondent did what most of us have wanted to all along (if not much more), this time not throwing something at a television screen but the actual source of irritation.

Disappointingly, he almost connected, and didn't, but it sums-up the president's relationship with Iraq and the world. This must be some kind of hell for a man who has always prided himself on being liked.

Unfortunately, the president's intelligence on the shoe size and its trajectory were a little off. But his experience in baseball and his indefatigable ignorance saved the day--he ducked the spitball. Hey, they dragged Al-Zeidi away by force (authorized by Congress in 2002), so he's making sure everyone knows he's still "fearless leader," our great Generallisimo, until January 20th, 2009. Still, where's the blame for the CIA in this one? That leads us to...

Statistically, a mere sect (located somewhere in West Virginia-by-way-of Idaho), a cult, still supports the war in Iraq in the United States. They're overeager believers with a pinch of fear, paranoia, and desperation. That's because something should happen to people like them.

Throwing the full weight of the law on top of Bush would be more appropriate, or simply enforcing it, but that's inconvenient and could be messy.

As Bush stated so ineloquently but accurately, "So what if the guy threw a shoe at me?" Right, so what? He knows that he's done enough to warrant far worse and that at minimum he should be before the Hague, not a press conference in Baghdad for a bye-bye visitation with his victim, Iraq. From 2003 until now we went from Iraqis throwing shoes at toppled statues of a dictator, to an Iraqi throwing his shoes at the real deal, a strange kind of progress, but progress nonetheless.

Now Al-Zeidi's action is there for the ages, making him as immortal as Gavrilo Princip taking aim at the Archduke...and missing, but trying again until he hit his target. George W. Bush is going to have to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life, and eventually, the bill will come due. His nail-biting anticipation will be punishment enough, but these precedents must be rolled back.

Future generations will look at us as we look at past ones: "How did they put up with it? Why didn't they do something more? What were they waiting for?" Exactly. What were we waiting for all this time? The cavalry, of course, and it never came because life isn't a movie.

The lowest insult throughout the Middle East is to call someone a "dog," they're fighting words, and Al-Zeidi was echoing what nearly every single Iraqi feels. They will never give up, and they will never stop fighting to remove America or any foreign power from the region.

A message to Senate Republicans

We're on to you. Even your base is on to you. Soon, very soon, the economy is going to take an even greater hit and we're going to place most of the blame where it belongs: with you, the GOP. This isn't to say that we don't understand the Democratic Party's role in this crisis--we do--but first things first, since you're the greatest single threat to peace and stability.

Your unending insistence on deregulation that gave us the current economic crisis, to the gerrymandering and disenfranchisement of the poor, of Black Americans, and of homeless veterans, to your illegal war predicated on a lie, you time is ending.

Not only that, but we're coming for you with the legal system, with the courts. That time is coming soon. Observers like myself have waited for the day when the American public had no other choice but to deal with you, the real terrorists, the real internal criminal threat to the security and prosperity of the average person worldwide.

There won't be any more copping-out, no more cable television, no more shopping, no more, over, done. Without runaway consumerism to divert the public's attentions away from the real problems and the glaring inequality, you don't have much left except force.

That force will work for a short time, and then the public will stop tolerating it and absorb it in the groundswell that's coming--as it should--spontaneously, not directed from above. We know that the most extremist elements of the political world will label self-defense as "terrorism," just as they have so many time in the past, but it's not going to work. Why? You can't even accomplish what you want effectively, with any lasting-impact, which is a blessing.


You have:

--Increased the power and size of the federal government in ways you never wanted to, thank you.

--Created an economic crisis that's sure to place you back firmly as the minority political party for another fifty years, thank you very much.

--Run a cha-cha line of corruption into our courts and jails that would shock the citizens of the worst banana republics in this hemisphere.

--Far too many candidates and incumbents who appear to have very serious sexual issues such as pedophilia and closeted homosexual urges, as well as serial-adultery and the solicitation of prostitutes.

--No ideological foundation left as a party, the reason for this belated-move towards "conservatism" (a faux-version) in the auto "bailout," really a loan, but being misreported by your allies in the media.

--No morals, no beliefs, and no soul.

--The markings of criminals in almost every respect.

--To be broken-up as a national party due to endless criminal behavior,
an aversion for rehabilitation, and a lack of remorse.


After all the masks and excuses are used up (coming tomorrow), there will only be the reality of what held this American order together all along: the threat of naked force.

This time, it's going to meet up with a sociological explosion mightier than all the atomic weapons on earth, and it will lose. See you in 2010 when the playing field has changed even further away from your agenda, and hope many of you aren't sitting in prison at that time.

And don't think for a moment that we didn't notice you throwing loans to the auto industry to your lame duck president, since he's on his way out. You're next. Even the rednecks are getting sick of you and your shit and Black Americans are going to continue voting regardless of your efforts. Unions are going to be making a comeback, and most of the economy is going to become nationalized.

Sen. David Vitter one of four GOP Senators blocking auto bailout

Washington D.C.--It's official. Louisiana Senator David Vitter is filibustering passage of the legislation authorizing the loans--not a bailout--to the big three auto manufacturers along with Sens. Richard Shelby, pone'-fed Mitch McConnell, and Jim Demint. What a guy. You think he drives a foreign car when he's out hunting for prostitutes?

Again, if they're all willing to take full-responsibility for what happens after the collapse of the auto industry, then by all means keep obstructing. A Black President was a good run-up for the collapse of the Republicans as a national party. Keep doing what you do best and don't go changin'.

Question: why didn't the GOP throw-in Larry Craig? He's an equally worthless pariah.

Whatever, you all have a date with repeating 1929-32, meaning exacerbating an economic calamity that you created into an unprecedented Great Depression by neglect, indifference and inaction. Attempting to block the unions isn't going to work anymore either.

The Republic Windows and Doors workers have won their sit-in strike, and more strikes are coming, more than you ever imagined possible. Welcome the return of history and the death of Reaganomics, if not capitalism itself.

A Requiem for the Ramp at "Ground Zero"

New York City, New York--It was an exquisite ramp, a 460 foot-long one that ferried construction and recovery workers into the gaping 80-foot-deep chasm that used to be the foundation of the World Trade Center, but its time had come.

It was a sad day when they made the announcement on December 10, 2008: No more photo-ops, no press junkets, and no more political careers would be built across its span and on the bones and the ashes of the victims whom they were inhaling on their visits. George W. Bush, the Nazi Pope, President-elect Barack Obama--just about all the somebodies came out of the woodwork to be photographed visiting ground zero.

The end of the Bush II era is the filling of this grave and in the construction of a new building complex there. The Bush II administration built two illegal wars, Guantanamo, illegal rendition, illegal domestic surveillance of the American people, torture, and a lawless chaos in government at home that could become a fully-functioning police state. Oh yes, and they were instrumental in wrecking the economy, yet somehow we're still not calling for impeachment in Congress, it's shameful.

The mythology behind 9/11 can no longer be milked as it was in the immediate aftermath of the event, and future attacks are probably coming from the imbecilic overreactions that followed the September 11 attacks. Reacting the same way--with military force--will continue to prove disastrous. The best way to prevent terrorism is to stop engaging in it abroad militarily. If President-elect Obama thinks he's going to use 9/11 in the same way as George W. Bush, he'd better think twice.

The Cult of the Dead Soldier has morphed into the Cult of the Dead Terrorist Victim (never mind the Cult of the Dead Cop). That's a very risky iconography to be toying with, deifying the dead to use as a rallying cry for war. Watching that ramp go is a good thing, its time had come.

The Bush II administration will leave behind no triumphal arches, no libraries but a presidential one to hide his sins a little longer, no parks through public works, no cleaner air or water. While they ruled, all they had to offer was the grave, a hole in the ground in Manhattan. All the warning signs were there. No one heeded them, revanchism (and the ability to profit from it) won out. So mote it be.

Our dying mainstream media: Asking the wrong questions about the Blagojevich scandal, so you don't have to!

WWW--"How will this scandal affect Barack Obama?" asks the television news outlets over and over again, like a chorus in nearly perfect unison. Is that the real question we should be asking? It's one of them, but being the smart ass I am, I have to ask this:

How does the Blagojevich scandal affect President George W. Bush's and Vice President Richard Cheney's chances of being impeached and/or criminally prosecuted for greater crimes?

This is no less a "trick" or a "loaded question" than the one asking how Blagojevich's charges are going to affect President-elect Obama.

OK, got that? Great, have nice day, you've got some thinking to do. Cognitive dissonance hurts, I know, so be patient.

Obstructionist whore-monger Sen. David Vitter wants the American auto industry to crash

Washington D.C.--And so, this is what the GOP saved horn-dog Senator David Vitter for-- to obstruct in the saving of a vital American industry from itself.

Sen. Vitter was spurned by the rest of the electorate and the majority party, then spake:

Congressional Republicans, left out of negotiations on the package, expressed grave reservations. A handful in the Senate promised to block the measure, which could delay a final vote for days.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La. said the package has an "ass-backwards" approach to curing what ails the U.S. auto industry giving carmakers money immediately, and only later demanding that they restructure. ("Hill Sources: Democrats, White House get auto deal," AP, 12.10.2008)

Smartly dressed journos should be asking the senator if he ever rode with Shirlington Limousine for trips to the Westin and the Watergate (Condi has an apartment there, and so did Monica Lewinsky! Oh yeah, and there was a break-in there once...). In light of the comments of the prosecutors of Deborah Jeane Palfrey that they felt "bad" about her suicide, we should be asking Vitter how he feels about it.

Would it surprise anyone that the investigation into the DC Madam began thanks to Vitter's philandering? How pathetic would that be?

"Ass-backwards." He would know. If they're dumb enough to pull-the-trigger and take the responsibility for the collapse of the auto industry (they won't), then the inevitable collapse of the rest of the economy, then be my guest. Obstruct away. Vitter and the rest of the GOP are anachronisms. Dangerous ones.

"Hill Sources: Democrats, White House get auto deal," AP, 12.10.2008:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081210/ap_on_go_co/congress_autos

"Eli, Eli lama sabachthani?" Dude?

Ed.--A pal forwarded this. I find it very funny. Who can't relate to his sentiments? Why else would he have yelled, screamed, and wailed, "Lord,Lord, why has thou forsaken me?" Some think he was calling out to the prophet Elijah, which makes more sense than the orthodox reading (I prefer the unorthodox one myself). Crying out, "Oh God! Oh God!" in agony doesn't really jibe well with the rest of the story and the other gospels too well, does it?

Thankfully, that's a Synoptic problem for another time...

Illnois Governor Rod Blagojevich's arrest today

Chicago, Illinois--Let the chips fall where they may, I have no sentimentality for the Democratic Party of Illinois, or otherwise.

You have to wonder if Blagojevich knew Fitzgerald was closing in on him when he went down to the Republic Windows and Doors plant to announce his solidarity with them and also stating that he was doing the almost unprecedented act of halting all business with Bank of America in the state of Illinois until they were compensated.

I think he really did know it was over. Yes, I believe he's guilty, but these are also very peculiar times, one never knows.

What Blagojevich didn't know was what else to do but try to appeal to the people directly, it was all he had left, surveying what might have been. He may continue to do so. If he felt this way, it was too late, as it usually is with scoundrels. He leaves a sad legacy.

What does this event tell us? That corruption is a bipartisan affair. And let's be honest--this is Chicago at its finest, this is what keeps the place going. I don't believe Obama had anything to do with Blagojevich's actions.

Why anyone's shocked by his language in the wiretap transcripts is beyond me. Listen to the JFK tapes, LBJ's, and Nixon's. "Cocksucker" is a favorite, including several variations of "fuck." Like everyone else, they're human beings with all of the same frailties. Remember that due process should be honored in all of this. As hard as it might be for us to believe, the GOP didn't invent corruption and they're not the only ones engaging in it. Let the chips fall where they may, although the evidence appears solid.

One thing's certain in all of this: Rod Blagojevich has always had strange hair. His "alliance" with labor will be seized-upon by GOP and Chamber of Commerce cockroaches, but none of it will matter because he's the one who blew it. His visit to Republic Windows must have presented him with a picture of "what might have been" watching the real solidarity of workers engaged in a sit-down strike. Then he went on to his last hours as Governor of Illinois, before his new status as a "perp."

At 6 a.m., the FBI made their courtesy call. "Is this a joke?" he asked. No, no joke, said the FBI. Look, he had to check. Wouldn't you? Will Rod Blagojevich contemplate how it all came to this? All the tireless years of effort to reach the position of governor? Will he reflect on how all of his supporters over the years are going to feel? Nah, but since he's not a Republican, he's going to be intelligent enough to resign shortly.

President-elect Obama appears to be coming out clean in all of this so far. This all has a ring of "Huey Long" to it, just another broken human dream while others emerge into reality, a shadow on cave walls of what might have been. Blagojevich acting Populist at the very end is both sad and tantalizing, and begs the question, "Why not all of the time?" Blagojevich's possible exposure is part of the answer.

Why shouldn't the governor of a state side with the workers of that state for the common good, and why isn't this more common? The answer is in the workers of Republic Windows and Doors--they stood up and demanded just the things they were owed, which sets them apart from the rest of us and Blagojevich. The governor wanted more, much more, than he was due, and now the GOP are having their brief moment where they're not running their cha-cha line into the courts over corruption charges.

Obama's endorsement of the Republic Windows and Doors sit-down is historic

Chicago, Illinois--Just as FDR finally relented in 1935 and backed the right of the UAW, the CIO and other national unions to legally organize and recruit, Obama's support of this strike is a very real step forward. The passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was a momentous step in our history that guaranteed the legal right of collective bargaining with ownership, and the right is being reaffirmed. There's nothing "socialist" or "communist" about this, the desire for workplace democracy is as American as apple pie.

It could only have happened because the workers--the laid-off no less--of that factory said, "No more, we want what's due to us."They've used their collective-heads and found that they aren't cowards and that they have guts. There really is strength-in-numbers, which is why employers in this country have done their best to keep us all divided. This is because they were always redundant.

The business in Chicago was shuttered giving Republic workers just three days notice, rather than the sixty required by law. Bank of America now holds the debts and obligations of the company but won't pay them. Republic's "bankrupt" owners appear to be in-hiding.

Several politicians have smelled the opportunity that escapes the average American, and have come down to show their solidarity with the workers there who are getting stiffed out of their benefits. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has also thrown-in, stating that Bank of America is under a statewide business injunction until Republic workers receive these benefits.

...We have contacted all of our agencies across state government and as of right now, every agency has been ordered to suspend doing any business with the Bank of America. The Bank of America received $25 billion in taxpayer money as part of the financial bailout. This is exactly, precisely the kind of thing that isn’t right -- when one the one hand, powerful special interests get the help of taxpayer money to bail them out -- the banks -- and yet the purpose of that money was supposed to be to provide a line of credit to businesses like this to keep workers working and keep people employed. And yet the Bank of America has yet to step up and say that they are going to be helpful to this company and keep these workers working. ...

This all sounds like the 1930s again, doesn't it? It's almost been that long since any American governor would dare to say such things towards the business sector. Unionization is coming back, bigger and better than ever, it's coming, and it's time to recognize the opportunities. Make it happen if you want a future. Many of the Republic Window and Door employees are Hispanic, and the UEW (United Electrical Workers) is doing a very good job indeed in lending their support. Solidarity must continue to cross racial and cultural-lines.

In this mix, Obama's endorsement is a very refreshing breath of air, it's going to have a very big impact. He's set himself up for a follow-through. Being the party of big business, the GOP will do their best to ensure he doesn't do this, because the last thing they ever want to do is assist the American worker in anything but emptying their wallets without too much fuss.

Conspiracy nut Alex Constantine writes about...little old me!

WWW--If the exposures of COINTELPRO, CABLE SPLICER, CIA assassinations, FBI break-ins (all covered by the Church committee in the 1970s), and the mid-December 2005 revelations of the NSA's warrantless surveillance of millions of Americans doesn't convince you that conspiracy theorists are redundant, then nothing will. We know things are a mess and that our liberties are in jeopardy, we know already.

Conspiracy guru Alex Constantine has join the ranks of the illustrious with the Libertarian "Reason" magazine (paradoxical name) in writing about...me, again. You see, several weeks ago I got tired of reading all these baseless comments by a bunch of nimrods who have no connection to the Palfrey story whatsoever, and who never even spoke with her. I started doing some web surfing--something I rarely ever do--and found that some of these same bozos were still trying to sell the snake oil that Deborah Jeane Palfrey was "murdered," ostensibly by the government and/or former clients.

The problem--of course--is that it's not provable, and certainly not in a court of law. And that's the whole point to my mind: their theory plays-into-the-hands of the government's prosecutors, because I believe they're in a lot of trouble (de jure) for driving a mentally unstable woman to her death. I also believe that they first deprived the defendant of her of her right to due process by leaking information (an unsigned warrant) to Bill Bastone and the Smoking Gun, thereby creating the whole media circus in the first place.

Additionally, I believe that they and the Court knew full well that Palfrey was suicidal, or at least suspected it enough to warrant a competency hearing.

That's right--by suggesting that the government murdered Palfrey, these conspiracy nimrods let them off-the-hook for gross negligence, abuse of office and the law, and extraordinary incompetence. Alex Constantine? Alex Jones? Kurt Nimmo? Jeff Rense? Who are they? I can prove that I've never worked for the federal government--either as an employee of or as an "asset"--but can they? Can Bill Bastone or Judith Miller for that matter?

Like all good conspiracists, Constantine gives me a lot of power and it sounds like a good gig (if you can get it)!

Off the cuff, I think Janovic is attempting to silence me with bogus arguments - he also cites as unimpeachable proof of "suicide" that she had stated, "They'll never take me alive." I interpret this to mean that she would fight to the death - could be wrong because I'm not a post mortem mind reader (neither is Janovic) - or bravado, possibly, but certainly not concrete "proof" of "suicide." ... ("Researcher Matt Janovic Misrepresents DC Madam 'Suicide' (PART ONE)," Alex Constantine's Blacklist, 11.26.2008)

She did "fight to the death" in case you didn't notice, but being Alex Constantine, you probably wouldn't. [Ed., 12.15.2008--If only her final criminal defense attorney had fought a smidgen as hard as she had. He didn't, he stood down. She shouldn't have listened to him at the end. Finally, Burton was imposed on her.] And exactly how do I--a very little guy mind you--"silence" the great Alex Constantine? That's absurd. He accuses me of what he does for a living, namely making "bogus arguments," when he must know better. Since I know better and know what I experienced on my end with Palfrey, I'm saying that he's not used to being so accurately and effectively challenged.

There's no need to read the mind of anyone when it's obvious that the woman was suicidal during her legal proceedings, from an preponderance of evidence. If Constantine has any clue and has seen the materials from Palfrey's early 1990s arrest and conviction in San Diego for pimping, he would know that she expressed thoughts of suicide when she was in jail back then too, she reported it in a letter to the Court. I could go on and on. She was suicidal, and you're not going to disturb the sleep of the dead to sell merchandise, that's it.

Alex didn't get the desperate emails. Alex didn't watch someone disintegrate over the period of ten months, granted that it was from a physical distance. Alex didn't get the frantic emails of someone shifting-gears in several 180s as to how the investigation into her began. Lastly, Alex wasn't there at all, he wasn't someone Palfrey confided in at times, I was. Yeah, he's Alex Constantine, that guy who wrote the "Psychic Dictatorship" books that I never bothered to read because Oscar Wilde seemed to have something more constructive to offer. Big deal.

Look, if the Church committee's report during the 1970s doesn't give you an indication that we've been going in the wrong direction for a very long time, nothing will. The output of these conspiracy theory people is pretty questionable when they'll jump at any little scrap and making wild leaps of logic as they have now with Palfrey's death, a definite suicide.

So, blah-blah-blah, Constantine writes a two-parter that focuses on a comment I posted on his own site stating that he and the rest of them are making baseless statements and are full of it regarding Palfrey. That's because they are full of it, and they are making baseless statements for dollars. In the second part of the dopey piece he tries to undermine Dan Moldea's comments that Palfrey told him she'd kill herself if she lost the case, never mind that if you read her public comments from 2007 and 2008 it's obvious that she's periodically expressing suicidal themes, the Tarpon Springs Police Department's final report on her death--no, we're all CIA operatives, something silly like that. Who are they? Who's Constantine? Great, if you don't agree with him, you're CIA, or a liar, how logical.

The biggest problem with the "She were suicided" theory is what I've already pointed-out: Constantine's "big bad government" -->Űber theory serves the interests of the prosecution under Jeffrey A. Taylor, providing a distraction and a cover for what could very well be incompetence, abuse, and negligence under the color of authority. You would have to ask him directly if this was his purpose, but it's my opinion that that's the real world effect it has.

Here's what I posted at Alex's site today, who knows if he's going to publish it. Frankly, I don't really care...

Mr. Constantine,

Like most of your ilk of parapolitical ambulance chasers ($$$), you just want to sell your merchandise. You're no different from Geraldo, George Lincoln Rockwell, Ted Nugent, Father Coughlin, Gerald L.K. Smith, or any number of demagogues in the storied history of America.

You weren't a part of her story. I was, and did my best to assist her and did general internet research for her in December of last year. This is something I can prove--can you prove any of your straw man assertions? Your "witnesses" are full of crap, incidentally.

I stand behind the February 28th email that she forwarded to just about everyone on the defense team between her and journalist Jason Leopold where she stated "the bastards aren't taking me alive." Others who interviewed her have told me directly that they thought she was acting unbalanced and expressing suicidal themes.

Thanks, you are comparable to Roy Cohn as well, I left him out there, my slip. Your evidence for a Palfrey murder barely meets the standards of the circumstantial.

Yes, I've also looked at the comments of her former condo manager (he's a crank as well), the interviews you're mentioning, but I know otherwise because I had direct contact for ten months with the deceased. She fired at least a couple of her lawyers because they knew she was suicidal. There should have been a competency hearing, and the government prosecutors are guilty of gross negligence in this area. The Court might be as well.

The problem with you Alex is that you only see what you want to see because there's money in it, period. Your readers read it because they want a simple explanation to a complicated modern world. That's shameful. If there would be one lesson learned from the current economic crisis, it's this: "they" aren't as in control of things as you would LOVE to believe because the alternatives are personal responsibility to yourselves and others. That's more complicated than "there's been a coup!" There was one long ago, grow up.

There are very real parapolitical themes to her saga, no doubt, but this contention of murder has no solid evidence whatsoever. You have nothing, nor does that crank Alex Jones, Kurt Nimmo, or the pathetic Jeff Rense who faked a death photo and put it on his site for more hits and sales.

Sell your conspiracy snake oil somewhere else, we know the system's corrupt, we don't need you. By the way: a link to the right of this article misspells Edgar Allan Poe as "Allen," that's incorrect. Never mind...

yours, Matt Janovic

PS: It's funny how you completely ignore and fail to address the February 28th email. Also, it should be known that I never had contact with Dan Moldea during the proceedings, I don't agree with his take on the RFK assassination, and don't respect his or Mr. Constantine's work.

"Researcher Matt Janovic Misrepresents DC Madam 'Suicide' (PART TWO) - DAN MOLDEA IS A SHILL WITH CIA/FAR-RIGHT SPONSORSHIP," Alex Constantine's Blacklist, 11.28.2008: http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2008/11/part-two-researcher-matt-janovic.html

"Researcher Matt Janovic Misrepresents DC Madam 'Suicide' (PART ONE)," Alex Constantine's Blacklist, 11.26.2008: http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2008/11/dc-madam-researcher-matt-janovic.html

[Ed.--On a final note--isn't it strange how much power these kinds of people ascribe to the federal government? If only they did have these powers, then we might actually be able to fix things!! The oppressed and their shepherds have a way of giving their masters more actual power than they have, but that's a slave for ya.' Whatever, shut-up little man.]

Revised 12.15.2008

The silver-lining of the economic crisis: the death of the management class

The Tomb of Frederick Taylor--You can't feel sorry for them. They've worn the brown-lipstick, they've kissed-up, and they've done their best to ensure that American workers have no say in hows and the whys of production or what a business delivers as a product or a service. Why ask the people on the ground?

No, they won't listen to anyone but ownership, and often, they won't even do that, amazing as it sounds. This is why they're all going to be kicked out soon. Apparently, corporations aren't "immortal entities" after all. "Management" is just another word for "overseer" when it comes down to it.

Watching this particular species of social animal croak is a delight, the height of schadenfreude. Any American who's worked under a tyrannical boss knows these bastards for what they are: pea-brained roadblocks to fairness and innovation in the workplace. The most any of them have accomplished is dividing the social bonds between people and running the institutions so badly that they crash. Their time has finally come...to push the mops that have always been beckoning to them to come back home to their true vocations, namely shoveling shit.

These shovels, the sponges, dishcloths, irons, and garbage cans are calling out to them like the Sirens did to Odysseus, longingly. Finally, these little men are going to have to shut-up and have their share of crow as so many former apparatchiki did when the Soviet system collapsed. The public is already beginning to demand accountability, making probes and trials a real possibility.

Will Congress save the day and deflect the forces of law and order from apprehending the Bush II administration? The same with Wall Street's corporate crime wave? Who's going to be the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb? To be sure, it's going to be someone.

But what's going to be the best is watching the many of these types who were stupid enough to break the law under the duties of their self-appointed jobs being arrested. Certainly, they're going to cling-to their kingdoms in hell for a short time, but then the subpoenas and the criminal and civil suits will come. Most of them will simply be discarded along with the rest of the American working-class, that group they stupidly convinced themselves that they were never a part of.

The only thing management has ever cared about is the perpetuation of management.

That's not a solid platform for any system as we have ample-proof of today. Even bad ideas die hard. Taylor posited the theory that human beings are naturally lazy--indolent--and had to be driven to work if they were going to work at all. This meant the imposition of an authoritarian culture in the workplace, something that wasn't exactly new 100 years ago! Taylor's writings--at best--read like a tract by Ebeneezer Scrooge and Lenin, with a dose of your senile old uncle who drools in the corner at family-gatherings.

Taylor was a High Priest of business Bolshevism; contemporary business/tech/financial elites hold values that aren't especially different from Taylor's and his robber baron "acolytes." Like the phenomena of Social Darwinism, Taylor was just giving a more pointed voice and direction to what was already the overriding spirit of his time. That Americans must work so hard merely to survive is a testament to the anti-humanist and authoritarian nature of forced production in the United States. Why it would behave any differently having its roots in the days of the robber barons, a time when there was virtually no regulation of the economy whatsoever.

Taylorism was adored by the Soviet system's architects, admirers of American authoritarian methods of production.

Lenin and other leaders of the Soviet Union displayed even greater enthusiams for Fordism [standard-parts put together on an assembly line] and Taylorism than the Americans had. When the Soviet Union embarked on a Five-Year Plan that specified mammoth regions of technology based on hydroelectric power and prodigiously rich stores of Siberian natural resources, it turned to American consulting engineers and industrial corporations for advice and equipment. The Soviets constructed entire industrial systems modeled on the steel works in Gary, Indiana, and hydroelectric projects on the Mississippi. (Hughes, Thomas P. American Genesis, University of Chicago Press. 2004. P.8)

Work, work, work, and more work, because there's work to be done and nations to be built. Except that that's not the case any more, at least not in the "developed world." Things need repairing and maintenance, but nation building is over in North America.

What happens when the justifications for work are only in-place to perpetuate a hierarchy? That system eventually falls over its own internal paradoxes, just as the Soviet system belatedly did in the early 1990s. But no, the candidates tell us, "Work, work, work--you're gonna have to work harder than ever!" Why? Just to be able to live, to have shelter and be able to eat? That's a violation of a human being's basic human rights.

With a genuinely scientific approach, Americans wouldn't be working the hours they do because there would be an efficient division of the work, making it more manageable with greater rewards for every contributor. Most major industrial production should be nationalized, or more accurately, owned and directed by the American public. A logical distribution of wealth would also make for a more stable economy, a dynamic one instead of the historical pattern of boom-bust cycles.

This isn't how ownership and employers want you to think, but if this economic crisis should teach us anything, it's that they're the parasites, the exploiters of our labor, and that we don't need them. We never needed them, and their claims of ownership are shoddy. Management has been their flesh column to block the progress of everyone else. If anything, management has been an obstacle of efficiency in production in meeting the essential needs of American workers. This class has been a general drain and an authoritarian roadblock to natural change in the workplace, a buffer between ownership and workers.

Now, these individuals have taken their system over the cliff. This was the natural result of dissolution, when ideas and practices that no longer work and rarely ever did, stop working. With the practically inevitable nationalization of Ford and General Motors, we're seeing the end of "Fordism" and "Taylorism" as core principles in production and the structure of private business and financial organizations.

Are we a "body politic" again? It remains to be seen. Society isn't a machine, but an organism, and organisms require that we're flexible to change.

Future social institutions will have to embody a reasonable degree of this flexibility through an expansion of workplace democracy through the support (allowing it to happen) of the federal government, but not necessarily under its direction. Innovation has been repressed for far too long and the road ahead is a high-tech one with a green-lining. The "Socialists are taking over"? Authoritarian ones did long ago in the United States, and the Cold War was just a matter of competing power structures, a game of semantics and straw men. Similar games are being played (badly) today.

Why do so many of us fear freedom and liberty? Because that means more responsibility and accountability for all, and equality under the law. We have only ourselves to blame for not fighting corporatism in America as we should have. That's reason enough to make up for lost time.

Step 1: Attention management! Clear-out your desks, you bums, and get out. You're fired. Have a nice day, m'kay?

Those folks in Chicago are going to win their strike. The world will take notice of this and workers in other nations are going to emulate it, even in China. You have to make a new day in America happen, and the world can change. Make it happen.

"Speak Out For A Special Prosecutor For Bush/Cheney At The Obama Change Site" by the Pen

We Were Promised Change, And Change Is What We Will Hold Our New

President To

Of all the things that must change, the FIRST thing that must change

now is that the rule of law and respect for the Constitution must be

fully restored. Obama has set up a site where he professes to want to

know what his priorities should be. Therefore let us all go there and

make the number one idea this one.

Appoint a Special Prosecutor for the Crimes of the Bush

Administration

The direct link is rather longish, so we have set up a special action

page that will open up a new window and forward you directly (or else

look for the link at the very top) to the page where you can vote for

this most critical idea.

Special Prosecutor Voting Link:

http://www.usalone.com/special_prosecutor.php

Important: To cast a vote, when you get to the voting site, click on

the box with the current number count to the left of the main header

for the idea, NOT on the widget on the right hand side of the page

lower down, which just reloads the same page.

President-elect Obama recently said, "If I found out that there were

high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws,

engaged in cover-ups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I

think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law."

Attorney General-designate Eric Holder recently said top Bush

Administration officials "authorized the use of torture, approved of

secret electronic surveillance of American citizens, secretly

detained American citizens without due process of law, denied the

Writ of Habeas Corpus to hundreds of accused enemy combatants, and

authorized the use of procedures that both violate international law

and the United States Constitution."

We must now hold them to honor their words of accountability.

The Bush administration has refused to investigate its own crimes and

President Bush may issue blanket pardons before he leaves, indeed we

fully expect him to even try to pardon himself. But that is all the

more reason why we must keep as much heat as possible on the

potential for real post inauguration prosecutions. No pardon could

possibly be broad enough to exonerate the entire litany of the crimes

of the outgoing White House without itself raising serious

constitutional questions.

President Obama must appoint a Special Prosecutor - ideally Patrick

Fitzgerald - to fully investigate these crimes and prosecute those

responsible to demonstrate that we are truly a Nation of Laws and no

one - including the President - is above the law. And you can make

sure that happens by going to this link and helping to make the

appointment of a special prosecutor the number one idea on the Obama

"change" site by a very large and dramatic margin.

Special Prosecutor Voting Link:

http://www.usalone.com/special_prosecutor.php

And then after you vote, if you haven't requested your "Impeach

Both!!!" cap yet (we just shipped out another 1000 this week), if you

want to go back and get one the page left behind by the link above

will allow you to do that. Because anyone who thinks that the Bush

administration has even now finished committing high crimes has

greatly misunderestimated their depth of incorrigible malfeasance.

Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it. Our new

president has asked us to be involved in telling him what to do. Let

us find out if that was for real or not, by continuing to speak out,

in greater numbers than ever before.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed

to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.