3 days left of Bush II administration crimes under the color of authority!

Ed.--And it's still not coming fast enough. Let the hearings and investigations commence!! We're not taking "no" or "it's off the table" for answers anymore. That's done, it's over, and we're going to continue to demand and act on this. The public has had enough of this systemic-corruption.

Heads must roll, people must be investigated, and if found guilty, sent to prison. Where to start? Start anywhere, but let's finally begin getting to the bottom of the Bush II energy policy meetings and their role in the Wall Street crash. Then, we can party like it's 1929.

Quit fooling yourselves--the Democrats enabled a lot of this, and some of them are going to have to go as well, sentimentality-be-damned. The first thing President-elect Obama needs to do is purge the bureaucracy of every single appointment made by George W. Bush and--in turn--hirings made by those appointees.

The appropriate time for the creation of a Special Prosecution team is January 20th, the 21st at the latest. There can be no "putting the past behind us," as President-elect Obama stated recently on George Stephanopoulos's program "This Week:". It's an attitude that's unacceptable in a democracy after what's happened out in the open under George W. Bush, putting aside what we don't know. Three days left. It's too long.

Five days left in the eight year illegal occupation of the White House

Washington D.C.--And so, it's ending, and not with a whimper (except from Georgie boy). President-elect Barack Obama is going to do his darndest not to prosecute these bastards, trying to make us think that Congress can't do likewise. It's all just bait-and-switch, the oldest game there is aside from the shell game.

Demand, demand, demand the appointment of a Special Prosecutor armed with subpoena power and the immense resources that it's going to take to unravel the mess left by yet another criminally-inept Republican presidential administration and era.

This will happen again otherwise--if we're even able to emerge from this man-made economic crisis intact. Indeed, we all own our little part of this mess, but George W. Bush and his administration and a Republican Congress created the lion's share of the corporate crime wave we've been living under since 2000. Truth be known, it's been much longer in duration, stretching-back decades. That's how big this is, it's literally the end of an era and possibly of an order.

My hunch is that Obama and the rest of them in Washington are going to try to do things as they've always done, attempting to save a rotten barrel. When that doesn't work, they're going to keep fighting the reality that market capitalism is really and truly over, waste valuable time they could be finding constructive solutions, and drive us further down into a mess that's going to dwarf the Great Depression. Congress will also lend-a-hand in creating this catastrophe.

But there's a alternative: mount a massive and aggressive prosecution on the soon-to-be former Bush II administration's most obvious offenders. There must also be the formation of prosecution units to take-on Wall Street offenders, and there must be prosecutions, there must be accountability. No accountability means no renewal of faith in the financial and political system, and the evidence criminality will be found where it ran riot in government under the Republicans and in the private sector.

But we have to quit fooling ourselves. It's also going to be found in the ranks of Congress itself, the reason why there's no will to prosecute the outgoing Bush II administration. They were complicit with them, and they compromised themselves.

If President-elect Obama is the political hack that I suspect he is, he's in as much trouble as Alberto Gonzales already, which is saying a lot considering the fact that no law firm in North America will hire the disgraced former Attorney General. We don't need any repeats from the last eight years, America cannot survive it and remain America. Hope is great, but false hope is just cynicism by another name.

Songs from the Site Meter: The return of the turds from SAIC over Ret. Col. Ron Roughead

Site meter--They just keep coming, which is fine, they're spending money on something other than all the other evil, destructive shit they do--and with our tax-dollars! Maybe sometime they, Col. Roughead, and I, can sit down and have a little chat over tea. You know, a little explaining about why one of their operatives with a high level security clearance was calling Pamela Martin Associates (the late DC Madam's escort service).

$$$ In hoc signo vinces.™ $$$

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Marcus Schrenker, evil genius

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"--W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming (Slouching towards Bethlehem)."

Indiana--We've topped the 1920s in every respect. Once, dumb formerly-rich people used to jump out of windows, off of ledges, or off of bridges. This was fine, and it had the dignified sense of not leaving such a mess. Schrenker wasn't from aristocratic-stock--he couldn't be, he's leaving too much of a mess.

Things are more complicated these days: Now, crooked and unlucky businessmen get into a plane, radio in a false distress signal, bail-out (pun intended), hit the chute, then somehow head North 225 miles to a pre-picked location in Alabama...to a waiting, rented motorcycle at a rental storage shed, and they disappear. See simple jumping-off a ledge is? They were smarter in "good-old-days." This guy wanted to be Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, to be able to enjoy the fruits of being dead without all the hassle. Who can blame him when it's "fight or flight"?

Having lost a Federal District case against one of his wealth management firms in Maryland, and knowing his assets were going to be frozen after December 31st, the time had come to face the music. Maybe read Twain in High School, but I'd imagine the lessons were lost on him. Anyway, his wife wisely left the schmuck before the events that began on Sunday...

This guy reminds me of all the morons I had to endure in college, and not people that I knew directly back then, but the business majors and that curious species known as the free market advocate, the Young Republican, the Chamber of Commerce cardholder, but really, the eventual businessman. Schrenker was this last sort of individual, a real card, no doubt, and he never really became a "real"one. Being stupid hurts, and Schrenker appears to have been "the stupidest guy in the room."

At 38, Marcus Schrenker is a creature I've met and know all too well. If you've ever had the misfortune of working for someone like him or entrusted your investments with his used car salesman (future politicians) ilk, you have my sincere sympathy and condolences. I'm sure you want that part of your life back too. Schrenker is that special kind of Midwestern jackass--the boss and petit bourgeois personality who thinks that they're a god after they've made their first $1,000,000 (after taxes). Frequently, they start out in fast food, but that's a story for another time.

Yes, yes, I'm "just jealous"--it's true--but these folks know everything. Just ask them, but it's going to take a time machine to do it now, the hang-dogs. That's just how the market crashes, that'll learn ya'.

Time machine? No problem. The Republican Party has violated most human laws, so why not the laws of physics? They appear willing and able. Yes, some people have a "funny" way of not thinking, and it's not just me. But hey, Schrenker (say it fast, win a prize!) could fly an airplane, he just couldn't run a sustainable business, that's all, no big deal. Perhaps he might have focused on his flying-abilities as a career--just a thought--but the former-business aspirant is at least getting more air and sunlight and experiencing some self-actualization.

Funnier still, I'm familiar with the city he took-off from--blessed Anderson, Indiana--which is not exactly the kind of town fit for human life (nearby Muncie isn't either), but a great place to build a Church (CHOGS occupy the town), discriminate against a Black person on the way home from work, or burn a cross on those hot weekends when the nits are biting. That the people there have almost no real culture, personality, taste, or intelligence, is a given, but not atypical of Indiana. Hey, at least it's a place where one has plenty of time to contemplate. But Anderson is a squalid town in a squalid part of the Hoosier state. Expect it to die almost entirely with the American auto industry along with a whole string of similarly stagnant Midwestern towns.

As is well known by now, Marcus Schrenker's Icon Group ( along with his other "wealth" mismanagement "firms") was under an Indiana Securities Fraud investigation, partly because the fun is over with George W. Bush and most of the GOP leaving office, the other part because what goes up, must come down when you're selling lies and air. He chartered an airplane and flew it out of Anderson on Sunday, January 11th, ostensibly to fly down to Destin, Florida. Schrenker radioed a distress signal over Birmingham, Alabama. Unsurprisingly, he'd already rented a storage shed in Harpersville on that Saturday and placed a Yamaha motorcycle with loaded saddlebags. Maybe he's in Mexico by now.

Unlike during 9/11, military interceptors had actually been sent up promptly to--uh--intercept his plane; they got close to the aircraft before its crash, noting that a side-panel door was open and that nobody was inside, fancy that. FAA authorities authorized that the plane be safely put onto autopilot so that it could crash in an unpopulated area, God bless them. It was just one more mess left by the business community that law enforcement authorities are going to have to clean-up, an era of the lie. Lies are what this story is all about.

Like most of his life--and the lives and values of the average Indiana businessman--it was all a sad lie. He probably lied about the orgasms too. Schrenker wrote his neighbor Tom Britt: "I embarrassed my family for the last time. By the time you read this I'll be gone. ..."Hypoxia can cause people to make terrible decisions and I simply put on my parachute and survival gear and bailed out. [I] just made a 2 million dollar mistake...I did not tell them [the Alabama Police] about what happened as I was embarrassed and scared." You could take the email at face value, and his comments to Britt are still going to be ridden with half-truths and outright lies. Of course he'll embarrass his family again. No, this not is amazing, and the full original must read like a Burroughs-Gysin cut-up thanks to its twisted logic.

What's not amazing is that Schrenker is clearly a pathological liar who cannot stop lying whether it benefits him or not, even in an ostensible "suicide note." He premeditatively bought the rental shed, put an also rented motorcycle in it, and is presumably riding it right now after his escape from the very stupid Alabama Police whom he earlier lied to, telling them he'd been in a canoe accident. Exactly how do you get into a canoe accident and only end-up wet up to your knees? I would have noticed this, but I'm just being observant here. Unfair, I know. At that previous moment in Childersberg, he was 225 miles from the scene of the plane wreck in Florida.

Schrenker bailed-out (pun intended) of his plane D.B. Cooper-style (Cooper was smarter) and probably landed in a Florida swamp thanks to a trusty parachute he'd packed. There's every reason to believe he had some kind of vehicle waiting down there as he did in Alabama. The problem is, he didn't figure-in the fact that the FAA would take it all very seriously, or the fact that those investigating him were going put the word out there on him, that he was fleeing. Now, Federal Marshals are looking for him and he's left a very good trail for them to follow.

Now, in this, the final week of the Bush II administration, the SEC and numerous other state, municipal, and federal law enforcement investigators can untie their hands for the first time in eight years and actually start shooting all the ducks in the mostly GOP-constructed barrel.

Schrenker is just a footnote, but his behavior has made him a noteworthy coda to an era of unparalleled business corruption under the Republican Party's stewardship. He is a clown, but he's not the only one wearing a suit-and-tie and doing the ordering. Marcus Schrenker isn't likely to kill himself, he's too much of an egomaniac, he loves his ass too much.

Postscript, 01.14.2008: Told you so. He couldn't carry it out properly, and he embarrassed himself and his family again. Yes, he tried to kill himself by cutting his wrist, but you cannot be half-pregnant, he failed again. "dual personality" my ass, he was liar who led a double life, end of story. Good riddance to Reaganism, it's over folks, praise God.

$$$ In hoc signo vinces. $$$...

"Schrenker's wife issues statement," WTHR (NBC), Indianapolis, 01.14.2008:

http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=9672899&nav=menu188_2_8

"Delta filings unveiled adviser's shaky record," AP, 01.14.2008: http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/01/14/planeside.html

"Wanted pilot's life had been falling apart," AP, 01.14.2008: http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/01/14/planecrash.html


The statement from Michelle Schrenker's counsel:

"Michelle first contacted me this past summer to discuss a divorce from her husband because he was having an affair. At the time, she wanted to work on reconciling with her husband. However, he continued his affair and, as a result, on December 30, 2008, she filed a petition for dissolution of her marriage to Marcus Schrenker. Her decision to file for divorce was based on her husband's infidelity and in no way was based on the investment fraud of which he is accused. In fact, Michelle first learned of the allegations against him when, on December 31, 2008, the police and investigators came to her door to search her home. To Michelle's dismay, at the time her home was being searched, Marcus was in Florida with his girlfriend.

Clearly, Michelle and her three young children are victims of this man's deceitfulness as well. She is not guilty of anything other than trusting her husband of 13 years. Everyone should remember that Michelle and her children are suffering through a terrible time right now. Through no fault of their own, they are having to deal with the repercussions of this man's behavior and will be doing so for a long time to come."

Congratulations Senator Burris

The Midwest--Welcome to the Senate, congrats! And congrats to Governor Rod Blagojevich, don't let them take you without the ugliest fight in American political history (too late). Good show, and I'm sure that there's more to this whole media story than anyone would imagine. Congratulations.

Rod Blagojevich-3, The Illinois Legislature/Rahm Emanuel-0

Because that's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it.

George W. Bush's final press conference as president

Washington D.C.--What did you expect? It was always going to be pathetic. George W. Bush has always been the kind of personality who wanted to be liked. Based on this fact, it was strange to put someone in there to use-up all of his political capital and the public's goodwill for the purposes of making the few richer, and he's feeling the heat like never before.

He should be after being the one who did as much deregulation of the economy as he humanly (and illegally) could. George W. Bush has presided over what can only be called the largest corporate crime wave in American history, the list is almost endless. What's more, it probably has no other human precedent just based on its own sheer scale. But he had help, and it was bipartisan: Congress.

That he's "feeling the love" these days is good, and President-elect Obama is also being confronted to create a special prosecution to investigate the crimes of the Bush II administration from many quarters that cross the artificial boundaries between "left" and "right." Welcome to the electronic frontier, Mr. President-elect, we're watching. The honeymoon has already ended, and it's time to deliver, and fast. Yes, the economy needs top priority, but we're going to have to be insistent on a special prosecutor to investigate the crimes of the Bush II administration. That's why he was throwing his little fit today--he's got that hunted look in his eyes again, and it's something to treasure for the rest of our lives.

The majority of Americans want justice and accountability from this outgoing administration and aren't going to accept Obama's mealy-mouthisms of "putting the past behind us."

As the president blurted today: "Pathetic." Yes, that sums-up his tragic time holding office in the White House. It also sums-up the GOP and those loyal to her. Fun's over GOP, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. You and your cronies had a weird sense of victimhood, because it was fictional and based on your queer sense of entitlement to do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted to. Game over.

If the Republican Party doesn't change with the tenor of this new era, they're done for. I have no problem with this, but then it's going to be time to dismantle the Democratic Party.

To all members of the Bush II administration, both former and present: We'll be watching you and pursuing you in the world's courts--all the co-conspirators under George W. Bush's watch--for the rest of your natural lives if necessary. Think about that the next time you purchase an airline ticket to another country, or when you enter specific counties, New England towns, and a growing number of cities within the territorial United States.

There are already warrants for your arrests patiently waiting to be served in many of these places. Now, I understand that your former-and-disgraced Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cannot find a job with any law firm. Welcome to reality, because when large law firms do this, it's because they know the long arm of the law is coming, soon. Time to feel the love. What a terrible president, the worst that I'll probably ever live to see, and I can remember Nixon. Both Republicans, both embarrassing, neither were men, but stupid people have to vote too. Sometimes, they steal elections and manage to fight their way into office. Bye-bye, asshole!

The WWII-era mass grave in Malbork could have been a specific historical statement

Malbork, Poland--Polish workers digging in a WWII bomb crater at the base of the Teutonic Knights fortress last October have found what appears to be a mass grave containing the bodies of 1,800 ethnic Germans of the town that was once called "Marienberg" under German rule, now Malbork under the Polish. The discovery is both shocking, and raises more questions so far than it answers.

The original inhabitants of Marienberg from that era have been missing since those murky last days of WWII when Red Army troops shelled the town in their push to Berlin. After the war, the town was repopulated with Poles driven-out of areas of Poland claimed as Russian territory by the Soviet regime. Until recently, nobody has had any idea what happened to them. Millions of civilians went missing in the chaos of WWII and have never been found. The discovery was made on the site of a proposed luxury hotel where there had been some exploratory digging before construction.

It's unknown whether the construction of the proposed hotel will proceed or not, but more official excavations by Polish authorities are planned to continue until there's more certainty that these are the missing inhabitants of Marienberg from over sixty-years-ago. By all accounts, they are. Since the end of WWII, 1,840 German citizens of the town have gone missing, so the numbers are very closely matched at this writing.

There is every reason to believe that the victims were slaughtered by Red Army troops. More than a few of the bodies had been shot in the back of the head in an execution-style that echoes the victims of the 1940 Katyn forest massacre of the Polish officer corps, begging the question of whether Soviet counterintelligence (SMERSH) or the NKVD also had a hand in the killings. After April 6, 1918, the Red Army was accompanied by "political commissars," generally appointed by the Communist Party's hierarchy, separate from the military's. After 1942, political commissars were referred to as a "politruk"(политру́к).

Until 1991, every military leader in the Red Army's hierarchy had a political counterpart. Both officers would have to agree on an order or action for it to be "legally"expedited by troops on the ground. In other words, the Communist Party had to be part of the decision to execute the surviving citizens of Marienberg after the initial shelling of the town. According to Der Spiegel, one-in-ten of the bodies recovered so far had been shot in the head; all the dead were then buried naked without any belongings, not even shoes or identification papers.

There is the possibility that Stalin was indirectly or directly part of this decision--and many others of its kind--as he was intimately familiar with the political commissar structure. Stalin had been a political commissar during the Russian Civil War. The phantom of Katyn and other massacres of that era haunt the Marienberg event, the vagaries of war aside.

In the final days of the Soviet Union, President Mikhail Gorbachev revealed in 1989 that the NKVD had in fact expedited the slaughter at Katyn under Stalin's orders and that there were three killing-and-disposal sites located in the forest outside of Smolensk. Numbers of the murdered in this one instance hover at around 25,000. While the numbers slaughtered by totalitarian regimes during the 20th century were unprecedented, there is a long history of this kind of activity in the Baltic region, and there are clues in the historical record that point to the possibility that the killings in the then-Marienberg were symbolic and meant to send a message to ethnic Germans.

The location of the mass grave was certainly convenient, but it's placement before a Teutonic Knights fortress could be very telling.

700 years before the slaughter in Marienberg, the Teutonic Knights had invaded Russia at Novgorod, then were defeated by Russian Prince Alexander Nevsky and his troops at the "Battle of the Ice" ( Ледовое побоище) on April 5, 1242 at Lake Peipus. The Teutonic Knights were part of a coalition of Swedish, German Livonian and Teutonic orders, and Danish forces sent under the auspicies of the Vatican (Pope Gregory the IX) to subdue pagans and Eastern Orthodox ruling structures throughout the Baltic region in the "Northern Crusades." Outside of the expected killing incurred during warfare, liquidations occurred in the name of spreading the Catholic faith and monarchial influence, while extinguishing the pagan and Eastern Orthodox ones. The Iron Cross comes from the Teutonic Knights.

Was the Red Army contingent sending a historically-tinged message to Germans? Perhaps. German resistance in Marienberg had been especially vicious, so any vengeance message pointing-out a historical-parallel might have been accidental on the part of the Red Army contingent: Marienberg had been founded by the Teutonic Knights in 1274 when it was part of conquered pagan Prussia, just a little over thirty years after the Battle of the Ice. After its founding the town was the seat of the Teutonic Order, and it controlled access to the Baltic, levying tolls on the merchant shipping of various nationalities. Similar ambitions arose during the 20th century.

It was well known during WWII that Himmler's SS had consciously patterned themselves after the Teutonic Knights, with their own racialist and anti-communist rhetoric of "godless" Slavic enemies being barely distinguishable from their Medieval Catholic counterparts. The parallels between the SS system and the Teutonic Knights' expansionist feudalism, enslavement, their network of castles, and their own purges of civilian populations, are eerily similar.

Stalin and his NKVD (later, the KGB, now the FSB) had similar aims and utilized the same terror tactics, and on a comparable scale. Soviet troops had plenty of reasons to want payback that had nothing to do with crimes committed 700 years earlier, but it might have been a factor in their actions. Soviet archives could answer most of these questions. The Teutonic Knights still exist, with their seat in Vienna since 1809. History has a way of repeating itself, negating the necessity for reincarnation.

"Katyn Forst Massacre-Polish Deaths at Soviet Hands": http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/1791/

"Malbork Massacre: World War II Mass Grave Unearthed in Poland," Der Spiegel, 01.08.2008: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,600216,00.html

Obama: "Obviously we're going to be looking at past practices and I don't believe that anybody is above the law."

Fox News Universe--Just moments ago, Fox News reported the opposite of the above statement with the byline, "Obama: 'We're not going to prosecute Bush administration officials.' "

Whenever I want my sci-fiction and fantasy needs met, I don't go to the Sci-Fi Network™--no, no. I go to Fox News for the fantastical, the bizarre, and the outright fictional. It's true, literature has a hard time competing with the scions of the right-wing.

That they're strange is a given. That they lie is a given. But to believe one's own lies means mental illness, which has become the only thing that makes sense about them. Yet, like in all propaganda, there's that tiny kernel of truth in there. President-elect Obama's voting behavior on constitutional issues really is unimpressive. This is troubling for someone who lectured on constitutional law at the University of Chicago for twelve years, off-and-on, someone considered a professor of it.

Obama knows full-well that if the laws broken by the Bush II aren't investigated and prosecuted, that they stand as precedents. For those who value their personal liberties, that's alarming, to put it mildly. But, as I wrote to Rawstory's Larisa Alexandrovna, we're seeing a system in crisis rather than a mere "coup" that she and Naomi Wolf, Michael Moore, and others suggested was taking-place with the Wall Street bailout. It was a belated observation. But this is all really beside the point: Congress should be doing most of the heavy-lifting here, and cries of partisanship from the Republicans isn't going to matter in-the-face of an independent truth commission and the economic crisis they midwifed.

As they did with the Church Commission in the 1970s, the Democrats are standing down and doing very little to hold anyone accountable.

Excuses, excuses. The GOP in Congress has no other option but to cooperate in reconstructing the economy along with Democrats and Independents because their very survival depends on it. Democrats can--and will continue to--enable them and make as many excuses for inaction as they want predicated on the straw man arguments for "bipartisanship," but the reality is that Republican incumbents are already greatly disempowered and back in their minority-status where they belong for good. They are extremely vulnerable.

It's true that the Obama administration and Congress are going to have their hands full for some time, but they won't have to do the work of an independent commission--that's why you form one in the first place. With a new majority in the judicial and executive branches, excuses are going to be all congressional Democrats have when they don't act substantially to hold the Bush II administration accountable for crimes we all know were committed, there's no mystery to it. Only the scope is unknown.

The Fox story is wishful thinking in a way, because they understand that while they cannot be pushed into recognizing the public will very often, the Democrats can. They also know that the charges will stick if things go far enough, making for a one-two punch to an already embattled and criminal GOP. This is exactly what should and can happen, but the missing-ingredient--once again--is the American public, their outrage, and their thoughtful action. The factors of anger and action are growing exponentially every day as once cherished values of the marketplace are shown to be the hollow theories they always were. This is because, "It doesn't affect me, so I don't care," is no longer a reality.

Both parties embraced these notions of the marketplace and force-fed them to the public for almost an entire generation. At least two generations have been ruined by this, their minds poisoned with the drivel of the Chamber of Commerce and all the rest of the right's literary output. Systems have a way of playing-out, it's an immutable fact of human history, yet they're still going to try to save their rotten barrel, repeating the actions of all tyrants in all eras. This is the reason behind the president-elect's seeming apathy in prosecuting George W. Bush and his fellow travelers.

This peculiar apathy towards holding the Bush II administration is only going to engender a well-earned cynicism in his direction, and he's going to feel tempted to abuse these new powers of the executive when the going gets tough. If he does utilize them, he's going to be letting not just Black Americans down, but the rest of the world and himself. There will be no transcendent or transformative moment except in the negative, and history will record he was just another ass holding power in another era.

We've already had enough of that, but the choice is his and Congress's to make, a choice between honor and ignominy, of being thought of warmly by future generations, or having one's name spat-out by them as George W. Bush is going to be (we haven't had to wait on that one). What Obama and Congress don't want to admit to the rest of us is that it's implicit to uncover as many of the crimes of the Bush II administration as humanly possible to fix the mess we're in right now, but they're busy trying to save the rotten barrel that produced that mess, all the ingredients for a failure that could grow into a catastrophe.

It was never about George W. Bush. Protecting him and his co-conspirators is protecting a bad system whose time has come. Again, that missing-ingredient is the public. Get angrier, get louder, and start demanding a truth commission, but be good. Let those in power break the law, as it's their wont to do; it makes them more vulnerable than you think.

The real exchange between George Stephanopoulas and Barack Obama: http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/01/obama-leaves-do.html

Steely Dan

WWW--After eight years of Bush II, and twenty-eight years of Reaganism, their lyrics should make more sense and not seem cynical at all to the average American. But hey: at least it's ending!

"Paul, why do you persecute me?"

Because you're: a liar, a crook, a murderer of gods and men, an exploiter, a rapist, but worst-of-all, a hypocrite. Heal thyself.

The U.S.S. George H.W. Bush: Obsolete before it ever leaves port

Norfolk, Virginia--Costing over $6 billion before all the other fittings and aircraft, the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush was not applauded as it was commissioned today in the presence of its namesake, his mentally retarded son and his family, President Dick Cheney, and the largest gathering of Village People fans in human history.

The gathered dignitaries were applauding themselves and the fact that they were still bilking the American public for defense contractors and corporations everywhere, their latest contribution coming in the form of a now-obsolete weapons platform, the aircraft carrier.

Why is the aircraft carrier obsolete? The U.S.S. George H.W. Bush is the last of ten in the "Nimitz" "supercarrier" class, the kind of hulking behemoth that was rendered useless the moment the Enola Gay dropped its payload on Hiroshima to keep Soviet influence off of the Japanese mainland. Subsequent weapons platforms have made the obsolescence of the aircraft carrier a strange part of the arsenals of many nations, but it's good for the gander. Like the former president it's named after, the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush is part of a dying order, a hangover left to us from the WWII generation.

What's so remarkable is that the ship isn't even finished, but far be it for the Bush dynasty not to have an occasion to cry for themselves, never mind their victims. All that said, naming a boat after just one more executive war criminal and systematic human rights violator doesn't seem such a bad idea, since it's emblematic of the dead-end of a militarized society and economy. War and the unleashing of violence by the Bush dynasty have been its hallmarks, it's history, and a big part of America's history in general. Naming it after a washed-up warmonger with his draft-dodging son present in his last days as president has all the airs of reality parodying itself. How Bush of them.

When the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush is finally torpedoed, sunk by a low-yield nuclear device, or simply destroyed when it's anchored in port, nobody's going to care. When there's no more money to help the American public in an unprecedented economic crisis, it's going to be because of the frivolous spending on worthless weapons systems like this one, and the wars in the Middle East.

It would behoove the incoming president-elect to shutter these types of programs that are currently in the developmental stage, such as the longstanding "Star Wars" (aka "Missile Defense Shield Part I") space defense program that scientists have told us "does not work, and will never work" for over twenty years. The Star Wars program has cost an estimated $107 billion since the 1980s, just one more gift from Ronald Reagan and his cohorts, many of whom will be leaving and entering the White House after January 20, 2009.

The Bush II administration increased spending on the Star Wars program by 20% during its tenure. It's unlikely that a President Barack Obama will end the program--or others like it--however, because nothing succeeds like failure. But, with money running as short as it's appearing to be, he and Congress might have no other alternative. The Senate can enable all it wants, and the GOP incumbents in it can obstruct all they want, but eventually that wall called reality is going to rear its ugly head. The horse and pony show will be over. That time is coming very soon.

"Opinion: The First Cut is the Deepest," The Harvard Crimson, Dylan R. Matthews, 12.03.2008:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=525673

"5 Reasons the Aircraft Carrier is Obsolete," NewWars.blogspot, Mike Burleson, 09.04.2007: http://newwars.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-reasons-aircraft-carrier-is-obsolete.html

On art and innovation

No matter what medium you work in, you cannot innovate on purpose unless it's on accident.

Conspiracy LLC.™

WWW--This is likely to be the last thing I'm going to write about this species of bottom feeder (no, not Bill Bastone, another fish-to-fowl). The vast majority of these people who write on so-called "conspiracies" tend to be completely off--not just in their contentions, but in their minds. Many of them and their readers are--flatly-put--mentally ill individuals who are so messed-up that they created a new religion.

Their writings will never accomplish much of anything substantial, except diverting people's attention from what really needs to be done to change things. They will never spawn a real or constructive political movement with any real results. What they accomplish is to demoralize people, making genuine social and political problems into a mythology of hopelessness and demoralization. Some of them are definitely on the payroll of the FBI, the CIA, and other aspects of the intelligence community, either as assets or as operatives, just as some journalists are.

That they're pathetic is a given. LavaCocktail's Jay Beldo summed it best for me today: "Conspiracy itself has become a bottom line commodity no different than I-Pods or Nike tennis shoes, sold by various fear/profit mongers." Yes, the primary motive here is sales, primarily of books, but also mugs, t-shirts, DVDs, CDs, and other worthless collectibles for the desperate. How is this any different from fundamentalist Christian hucksters? It isn't. I like Jay, he gets it. He understands we have to keep our minds positive and clear, and we have our own paths to take. I recommend his website highly.

Sure, Alex Constantine will probably try to bait me on this again, but rest assured that he and others have got their work cut-out for them. There was no defamation on my part, I wasn't the one who yelled "liar" over and over again on my site. My right to the opinion that Constantine and his ilk are pricks, bastards, assholes, morons, and scum, is secure in the First amendement. It's also my opinion that these arch-conservative turds have very little respect for the right to free speech, unless it applies to them. The Bolsheviks and German National Socialists held the same attitudes.

Ron Asheton (1948-2009)

Ann Arbor, Michigan--Last night, it was announced that Ron Asheton, primary guitarist for the proto-punk group the Stooges, had died. Apparently, Asheton had been dead for a few days of natural causes. He was 60.

Asheton, James Osterberg (Iggy Pop), and Scott Asheton formed the nucleus of the Stooges from 1967-1974 when the band imploded over a lack of interest and the vagaries of heroin-addiction. There's nothing like that first time hearing their three albums from that era, it's a stunning experience, and nobody has sounded quite like them, either before or since.

My own personal favorite album is "Fun House," from 1970, which still sounds like the future. The Stooges were the "sister" group of the politically radical MC5, a band whose ranks have been decimated since 1991 with the death of lead-singer Rob Tyner.

Ron Asheton's place in rock and music history as an influential guitarist is secure. While too many lousy garage bands were spawned from his style (which really, was inimitable), those rare successes were worth it, from Killing Joke, to Minor Threat, to groups like the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and even Joy Division, Asheton's style has and will continue to endure.

He was an unsung-part of punk, one of the true founding fathers of what was once a viable and important musical form, and he sat on the sidelines while others made a fortune copping his style. Asheton was beyond mere punk rock, a cultural form that ossified long ago. That's been over for a long-time, and now it's truly over. In 2007, the Stooges released what will be their final album, "The Weirdness," barring another barrage of "unreleased" material. Anything else will be posthumous, after-the-fact. It's barely known to most, but Ann Arbor and the environs of Detroit produced the earliest forms of what's known today as punk rock. That was forty-years-ago.

Think what you want of the Midwest, but we've produced a lion's share of relevant American culture over the last 100 years. Rest in peace, Ronnie, it should have been Ted Nugent. Three albums that changed the world: "The Stooges" (1969, produced by the Velvet Underground's John Cale), "Funhouse" (1970), and "Raw Power" (1973).

Postscript, 01.08.2009--NPR corrected itself today at the end of a program, noting that they had played a song from "Raw Power," which Asheton only played bass on. The main guitarist at that time was James Williamson, who last reported, was a business executive. So, NPR did an outro of "I Wanna Be Your Dog," which became incredibly subversive with the voiceover of all the contributors (money) to the show. I didn't expect anyone at NPR to know the difference, but they tried, they tried.

Porn industry wants a bailout

WWW--You gotta be kidding me. OK, I assume as everyone else does, that pornographers tend to be moral imbeciles with no sense of how corrupt and disgusting they really are, granted. But this is something: Larry Flynt and "Girls Gone Wild" owner Joe Francis want part of the bailout money. Will they get it? Get real.

I'd like to thank Larry Flynt for doing virtually nothing in assisting the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey. He didn't need to prove to me or anyone else that he's a greedy little creep who exploits women for their bodies, and in every way he can get away with. That he's scum is a given.

Francis is a little turd with tiny dick and no brains. Word has it that Larry once fucked a chicken--at least according to Al Goldstein, yet another pornographer, although he hit-the-skids ages ago around 2002. Compared to Larry Flynt, Al's a fucking aristocrat, a gentleman. At least he read Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave," and even understood it! Flynt? Francis? Forget it.

In the words of Al: "Eat a leper, fuck you," Larry Flynt.

"Porn industry seeks federal bailout," CNN, 01.07.2009:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/07/porn-industry-seeks-federal-bailout/

A February 2007 email between Deborah Jeane Palfrey and AUSA William Cowden

Ed.--I've held-back on publishing this particular email, and it's overdue. Here, Jeane is practically begging AUSA (Assistant U.S. Attorney) William R. Cowden to look into his heart and consider the nature of her prosecution. It was a pointless action to take, and probably the reason A.J. Kramer left as her counsel, among other reasons related to the core issue of a suicidal client.

In case Mr. Constantine--if I may deign to refer to a parnoiac and spastic twit in such a manner--is wondering, this is just one more piece of primary material that underscores the fact that Deborah Jeane Palfrey committed suicide, that her prosecutors were acutely aware of the possibility that she would carry-out doing the same as Britton had, and that the fight would be a long one. She was good for her word, it was bond. Alex Constantine and several others of his ilk made some very broad statements regarding the issue of Ms. Palfrey's suicide without presenting any tangible evidence. Go figure in parapolitical land. I present some more evidence here, now.

Contacting AUSA Cowden was certainly a naive move on Palfrey's part, and not appropriate for a defendant. But it's what desperate people who are being viciously prosecuted sometimes do, especially when the basis for it is lacking and prosecutorial misconduct is present.

Jeane all-but implies a very dramatic intent by enclosing the February 1, 2007 Baltimore Sun article on the suicide of Brandy Britton, and delivers here, another major suicidal cue. There is a subtext to what she's writing here, doing so without spelling-it-out. What was the public benefit of running Britton and Palfrey to their respective deaths? To protect swinging-dicks like David Vitter from themselves so that they can continue servicing power, naturally. Why did a counterterrorism unit crash into Britton's home during her legal proceedings?

Why did they keep bugging her phones and entering her home without a warrant? Not even Palfrey wanted to know these things; she spoke of Britton dismissively to me, stating, "Let the dead bury the dead."

That we're a "sick society" is a given. All hail patriarchy, burn the witches, ruin the scarlet women, and never allow them to sell their bodies without express and written permission. There were no paragraph-breaks in this email of Jeane's--it's being published as it was originally written and sent...to a dessicated finger on a crumbling, dead hand. The timing of this email is crucial, context being everything. It was "murder," alright. It was murder, facilitated through the misuse of federal law enforcement, a federal prosecution team, illegal-leaks, and the misuse of the federal courts.

This was all done publicly, no "conspiracy" here.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeanne Palfrey
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 10:25 AM
To: 'William.Cowden@usdoj.gov'
Subject: Jeane Palfrey (US vs. 803 Capitol Street)...

Dear Mr. Cowden… attached please find an article published in this Tuesday’s Baltimore Sun. The parallels although not completely on-point with my case, are nonetheless sufficiently salient. The piece here was forwarded to me by a concerned individual NOT to cheer me up (obviously), but to underscore via the attorney’s remarks the senselessness of my current dilemma, i.e. the tragic destruction/waste of a viable human being. Of course, I cannot and will not expand upon my position/defense in this correspondence without benefit of counsel. I understand theinappropriate nature of such an act. In fact, I fully appreciate the inappropriateness of this communiqué and equally comprehend your ethical duty to “report me” to both Mr. Sibley and Mr. Kramer (I am braced to deal with their wrath). However, before matters compound even more and perhaps irrevocably so, I must take this opportunity to ask that you and your colleagues take a very hard look from a moral stance, if none other at the matter at hand. I know for a reality others certainly will question the justification for this effort to prosecute me. The publicity generated from the unsigned search warrant posted on the online tabloid rag www.thesmokinggun.com alone last October, gives testament to the interest and subsequent scrutiny a high-profile case like mine spawns. When Googled, the coverage at its height was seven plus pages. And the only reason the publicity online (exclusive of other media at the time– ‘Inside Edition’, ‘Hard Copy’, local news – here and there - and a myriad of news organizations and newspapers, nationally AND internationally all in hot pursuit of me) was kept to a mere seven pages was because I evaded everyone/anyone after being apprised initially of the situation (ironically from The Smoking Gun) while in Germany. It also should be noted the initial coverage last fall was based solely upon one side of the story and correspondingly did not bode well for me. As we all know though from life’s adventures, there is always a flip side to every coin and surely in time, this other side will be reported in the more legitimate press. Again, I realize the anomalous nature of writing to you. And I apologize for any discomfort this may cause you. Regardless, I simply cannot emphasize to you the terrible and quite unnecessary ramifications this case (civil and/or criminal) will set off, if permitted to advance for both sides. The press will have a field day at each of our expense. Despite my aforementioned disclaimer not to comment upon my case, let me say this. The attached item rings more true than false when juxtaposed to my situation. Unlike Ms. Britton however, I am ferocious fighter when need be. Knowing my intense makeup as I do, far more than even my attorneys comprehend at this juncture and my belief in the solidness of my case, I can state with unequivocal certainty this situation will be a very long and unpleasant one; this despite, the sickening and humiliating additional lambasting I expect to receive in the media. Please reflect soberly upon my various thoughts, here. This is all I ask. –Sincerely, Jeane Palfrey

The February 1, 2007 Baltimore Sun article on the suicide of Brandy Britton: http://www.scapa-lv.org/news/Former_professor%27s_tumultuous_life_ends_with_suicide.htm

An open letter to Brent Wilkes, convicted briber of former GOP Rep. Randy Cunningham

Mr. Wilkes,

Now that you're out on appeal, it struck me that it was time to write this: I was told on several occasions by Deborah Jeane Palfrey (aka "The DC Madam") that you called her escort service, Pamela Martin & Associates. Ms. Palfrey informed me that you utilized Shirlington Limousine, owned by a shady individual named Christopher D. Baker to pick-up her escorts.

One of these escorts attempted to contact journalist Ken Silverstein to confirm this and other things, but Mr. Silverstein either lost his courage and fell on his sword, or he's telling the truth and his secretary lost the phone number. Had he bothered to isolate the day and time of the original call, he might have discovered who this former Pamela Martin escort was, but I assume like the rest of the media and our flabby journalistic class, he didn't want to know. Shame on him and you.

Ms. Palfrey probably wasn't able to establish your calls, although presumably they still exist, submerged, in her voluminous phone records that are still available online at this writing. I don't expect you to do the right thing--one would assume you wouldn't know what that is or what it entails, but a woman is dead, and you own a small piece of that.

Surely, it's a lost cause to ask or demand that you come forward to confirm these contentions of the deceased, but you should. It would behoove you and redeem you to help uncover a system of bribes-for-contracts in our nation. The short time you're going to serve--inside or outside, it doesn't matter in the end--is less important than the American people and the common good.

Journalist and editor of The Smoking Gun.com, Bill Bastone, grilled Ms. Palfrey in early October of 2006, accusing her of having connections to you and Randy Cunningham, the former-and-convicted GOP congressman whom you bribed--he was utterly convinced of it at that time and kept pushing the late Ms. Palfrey on this issue.

How would Bill Bastone have known this? It could have been leaked to him by federal prosecutors. I leave it to you and your counsel to weigh-out this information, because it could be an example of prosecutorial misconduct in your case and in the case of the deceased Ms. Palfrey. It's food for thought, and I'd consider its weight. You aren't the only one suffering under prosecutorial misconduct these days. The former governor of Alabama and Ms. Palfrey were recent victims.

regards, Matt Janovic, private researcher and writer

Joe the plumber™ (really Sam, but "Joe" sounds more iconic) to be 10-day war correspondent in Israel-Gaza conflict

The Gaza Strip, Palestine--It would be a damn shame if he was killed by "friendly fire," a damn shame. The plumbers' unions of Toledo would hang the flags at half-mast for weeks, honoring a scab who had that hint of charm so often found in retarded people. Oh sure, he's Ernie Pyle, only he comes of like Mr. Clean™ running on two brain cells--and Joe the Plumber is a fictional character.

Oh yeah: Russia has stopped all natural gas shipments via-pipelines through the Ukraine to Europe. Just thought I'd mention it, since the press doesn't think it very important. Please, make Sam Wurtzelbacher head of the RNC, I want to see the GOP collapse faster.

A message to Hamas: aim for the head, then the wallet.

A suggestion to President-elect Barack Obama for a Sec. of Commerce replacement

Washington D.C.--Now that New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson is out--Ralph Nader, and for every reason you might imagine. Vetting Nader? You wouldn't even have to, he's cleaner than the busboys in the nation's capital, never mind the congressional pages.

The man is more than qualified, honest, incredibly disciplined and can handle the workload. Ralph Nader has done more good for the American public than any single politician in our history without being one, and because he's definitely not going to be in the pockets of Wall Street, the banks, the business sector, and so on.

He's your man, which is why I know you're never, ever going to pick him, sad.

Accused Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich loses Homeland Security Clearance--what other accused politicians have?

Washington D.C.--There's no indication that former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens lost his security clearance during the legal proceedings in his own case, so why the move on Blagojevich's? To hurt him, to make him appear "bad," to assassinate his character. Yes, yes, one was a senator, the other a governor--except that Stevens was under investigation for a very long time as Blagojevich has been (years), and there was every indication that he was guilty, just like the Governor of Illinois.

Great, they have a lot in common...except in how they're being treated. At least Ted Stevens is going to have a hard time practicing law in Alaska, but does it matter? He's in his eighties. Stevens got the kid-glove treatment for far longer. Yes, there have been "ongoing investigations" into Blagojevich for years, which is not simply odd but smells of someone gunning for someone.

On Stevens's last day in the Senate, he was given a standing ovation. It wasn't reassuring that anything was about to change in Congress anytime soon. This is an individual--not a man--who was convicted of seven felonies by a jury of his peers. You read that right if you didn't somehow know it already: seven felony convictions. Stevens was also on committees and subcommittees that dealt directly with the DHS.

There's no indication from the record that he was ever stripped of any of his security clearances at any point until it was clear he was convicted and leaving office.

That's not the case with Blagojevich, and yet, the Bush II administration must be behind some of it--they still have sixteen days left in office, not the Obama team. Surely, they requested it--someone did--and it's safe to assume that it was for political reasons that cross party lines into the realms of class loyalty and preserving a rotten barrel. By all appearances, Ted Stevens retained his DHS security clearance (and his general security clearance as a sitting representative) until he was indicted in July 2008. Blagojevich hasn't even been indicted yet, but the calls to move quickly in unseating him stand in stark contrast with the treatment of other politicians accused of criminal behavior.

That's a matter of procedure at that point, but it should have been stripped from Stevens much earlier than it was, but Republicans can do anything they want.

Somehow, a man with seven felony convictions deserves a standing ovation before the Senate of the United States, while a standing governor of Illinois deserves no presumption of innocence until proven guilty, including the removal of said clearance, and so on. If that's not a contemptible attitude for due process to serve political ends, then nothing is. Republican senators did their best to block stripping Stevens from holding leadership roles on committees for exactly one year after the FBI raided his home. His indictment forced their hand.

Governor Blagojevich hasn't even technically been indicted yet and U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald is asking for "more time" to shore-up one. Curious, that--all of it. Perhaps we'll all be singing "The Wreck of the Patrick Fitzgerald" before long.

Revised 01.04.2008