Republicans demand further cuts to Social Security before agreeing to calendar change.
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Nothing to fear – Republicans will block this.
My latest piece is here in today’s CounterPunch
I marched with Occupy Oakland last Saturday, but I’ve had a change of heart. I’m joining the One Percent.
The One Percent have fun. They have jobs and money. Or just money, because when you have a lot of money, you don’t need to work. They live in houses, not tents.
The One Percent have a government that actually listens to them. Lockheed needs a war to sell goods and services? Coming right up! Former Homeland Security Head Michael Chertoff wants to sell some porno-scanners? Get in (a very short) line – or no line at all if you’ve bought that exemption from TSA screening! Taxes too high? The One Percent’s government will lower them for the rich. Too many 99 Percenters declaring bankruptcy? The One Percent’s government will just make it harder for them. Bought toxic, mortgage-backed derivatives? Don’t worry, your government will bail you out if you’re in the One Percent. Bought a toxic mortgage? It’s your “responsibility,” if you’re in the 99 Percent.
Another reason to join the One Percent is that the One Percent have their own media mouthpiece — more like a bullhorn. The One Percent funded those meager Tea Party protests, and the One-Percent-owned Media covered them religiously. And I mean religiously: the media proclaim stuff about the movement that defies reality, such as how The Tea Party was a really big, grass roots, populist movement, and that it wasn’t racist. The Tea Party hate Obama for his “socialist” policies, not his skin color.
I also like how the One Percent-owned media have covered the Occupy movement. They treat the Occupiers as oddities, like circus animals — Cirque du So What. Paid-off pundits talk about the First Amendment with the sense, “No way, this archaic language can’t really stop OUR OMNIPOTENT GOVERNMENT from doing what it wants, can it?” To find out if the New York City Police honored Occupiers’ First Amendment rights, CNN asked … a former New York City Police Commissioner, who assured viewers that the New York City Police honored those rights (ridiculous and so-pre-9/11 as those rights may seem!).
The One Percent don’t have school loans or credit card debt. When they get into financial trouble, they get bailed out by the Big Government they claim to hate. They get saved and protected from The Market they claim to love. They changed the rules that kept their businesses from getting too big, and when they ended up failing, they got deemed “too big to fail.” And at the same time, the One Percent get to say they are looking out for “the little guy” on Main Street! Unlike they Occupiers, they get to say that without getting their mouths, eyes, and nostrils filled with pepper spray.
And no one ever dares call the One Percent “traitors,” “anti-American,” etc. No, they’re “patriots” who ask what their government can do for them, not what they can do for their government. No one ever says, “Bailing out Banks to save us from socialism is like f—ing to save virginity.” That would be rude, and no one is rude or even slightly impolite to the One Percent.
Except the Occupiers, who get battered by police for their rudeness. In fact, the One Percent get to have police beat down Occupy protesters and pepper-spray them for no reason, and without fear of getting into trouble. Police pepper-spray defenseless students in front of hundreds of out-in-the-open cameras. Lesson: If you can’t join the One Percent, you should at least work for them.
If an Occupier ever tried to defend himself and/or toted a gun, police would shoot him to death. But Tea Party guys get to bring their guns to protests and to make not-so-vague allusions to shooting President Obama. They never had to worry about cops crushing their skulls or pepper spraying them!
So I’m joining the One Percent. A friend said I’d regret joining and quoted Three Dog Night, who sang that one is the loneliest number. No, it’s not, not when you’ve bought off the government and the news media. In the United States, 2 + 2 = 5, and 1 > 99.
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Police, Occupy protesters head for Ore. showdown – Yahoo! News
“[Portland, OR] Mayor Sam Adams had ordered the camp shut down, citing unhealthy conditions and the encampment’s attraction of drug users and thieves.”
Three things:
1. Let’s apply the same reasoning and shut down our government, which is also full of drug users (and dealers) and thieves — and sex harassers, torturers, and war criminals.
2. Sam Adams is a disgrace to his namesake.
3. Sam Adams should make a beer honoring the Occupy movement, because now their brew leaves a bad taste in my mouth: fascism. Maybe the brewers should sue the mayor for ruining their good name?
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Lawyers With Borders intends to release a statement about the Penn State scandal “soon,” according to Lawyers With Borders Executive Director Brian J. Foley.
“This has been a difficult week for Lawyers With Borders,” Foley said. “The facts have been fast-moving, and it’s been unclear where public opinion is. We’re waiting for some sort of Gallup Poll to see which side we’ll take.”
There has been some outpouring of sympathy for the victims of Coach Jerry Sandusky, “but not enough where we can confidently say we oppose child abuse,” Foley said. “I mean, the pendulum might swing to encourage support for what many attorneys see as the real victims in this case: Penn State’s attorneys.”
“Penn State’s administrators have also had an enormous amount to deal with. Who’s thinking of those victims, who’ve have to decide what is the best PR move for Penn State, and how to fire Joe Paterno without causing a domino effect that could result in a lawsuit by him and a loss of donations from alumni?” Foley asked.
“The money from football at Penn State must be kept flowing, because it’ important and necessary. It’s used to support football,” Foley said.
“What will make this easier for Lawyers With Borders is if someone, even aggrieved students or alums who want to sue the University for infliction of emotional distress, would step forward and pay us to take a position,” Foley said. “The truth is, until we get a handle on public opinion or a cash retainer, Lawyers With Borders is also a victim of this scandal.”
Foley said he was about to call the scandal “disgraceful” but that he refrained “out of respect for any potential clients or donors [to his non-non profit] who might have a more nuanced view of the alleged incident.”
LAWYERS WITH BORDERS is a for-profit non-governmental organization (NGO) modeled after Doctors Without Borders, except that its members are juris doctors, not medical doctors, and Lawyers With Borders does not help people without regard to borders, travel distance, or other jurisdictional issues, or for free. No person or entity has paid for or requested a Statement of Support in this case; rather, Lawyers With Borders issues such Statements or contemplates their issuance in hope that the subject(s) or potential subject(s) of the Statement will retain Lawyers With Borders.
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Many Floridians are lamenting the outcome of Saturday’s game, in which the University of Georgia scored 24 points and the University of Florida scored 20 points. However, Floridians should hold their heads up high, because the score says just one thing: Georgia has better socialized football than Florida does.
What real American would ever want to “win” at state-funded football? What real American would ever step onto the gridiron wearing government-bought pads and helmets, coached by government employees? Socialism is anti-American, and it’s a huge football-cleated kick in America’s face for socialism to be any part of this supremely American game.
In fact, Florida should continue Saturday’s victory — and what is wrongly called its four-game “losing streak” – by ending government-funded football altogether.
If we don’t draw a line in the grass here, then we risk that some socialists, emboldened by the loud cheers for socialized football at Everbank Field on Saturday, will turn the NFL into the Nationalized Football League. Or that football will become what it’s become in (socialist) Europe: a bunch of guys without pads kicking a round ball.
I was raised to believe that kicking is for sissies, which means it’s anti-American.
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Adolf Hitler & sister Aryan Nation remain in foster care after 33 months; parents fight for return.
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Today I dusted off my 1960s Establishment Playbook and hurled some classic insults at protesters.
“Get a job, hippie freak!”
Ball one: Protesters want jobs.
“You’re all on drugs!”
Ball two: Big Pharma needs to keep Americans (especially the richest one-percent with health insurance) pumped full of Prozac, Ritalin, and Viagra. And Wall Street itself is fueled by mountains of coke and other drugs (probably sold by the CIA).
“America: Love it or leave it!”
Ball three: Major “American” companies that wrap themselves in the flag have already left America, firing workers and off-shoring operations to avoid paying tax. Take GE: It paid no federal income tax last year, and its job-cutting, off-shoring CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, is President Obama’s Jobs Czar.
“I hope you get drafted (and shipped to Vietnam)!”
Ball four: The Military Industrial Complex does NOT want to bring back the draft — that would lead to widespread public opposition to U.S. imperial wars. And many protester’s jobs have already shipped out to ‘Nam.
Dang.
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Maybe The Establishment doesn’t need to hurl propagandistic insults. Unlike in the 60′s, our President can just call protesters “terrorists” and bomb them with drones. He can herd any survivors into Guantanamo and waterboard them into confessing that they’re the ones who: wrecked our economy by fraudulently selling mortgage-backed derivatives; lied us into Iraq; failed to prevent 9/11; and refuse to fund our schools and rebuild our infrastructure and create jobs.
Nixon, eat your heart out!
Or the corporate media can just ignore the protests and spew out more American Idol.
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