Larry Craig Halloween Poetry Reading: The Raven

The Copper

The Copper

Once upon an airport dreary, while I sat there, old and leery, Through a quaint and spurious peering - peering through the bathroom door,
While I nodded, clearly crapping, suddenly I started tapping, Just like some old geezer rapping, rapping at his chamber door.`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at your chamber door -Only this, and nothing more.'





Ah, distinctly I remember it was in that airport shitter, And each separate writhing member wrought its gaydar to the floor.Eagerly I formed my widestance - vainly I had sought to distanceFrom my briefcase on the commode – the commode behind my bathroom door.
For the rare and radiant copper whom the angels named – “Dumbledore!” Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken glad loud certain flushing sound from each stall door Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -This it is, and nothing more.

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; My defense, said I, “I wasn’t tapping”, how do you know I wasn’t crapping? And so quickly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming mortal means ever dared to dream before But the silence was unbroken, I believed the copper wasn’t jokin’,And the only word there spoken was the whispered words, “Dumbledore”,This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the words, “Dumbledore”-Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,Soon again I started tapping somewhat louder than before.`Surely,' thought I, `surely that is something at my loafer’s lattice;Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery through the door-Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -'Tis the shoe and nothing more!'

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,In there stepped a hunky copper equipped I hoped with lots of butter.Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;But, with mien of some Headmaster perched above my chamber door -Perched upon a bust of Phallus just above my chamber door -Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this hot copper beguiling my big fancy into smiling,By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,`Though thy crest be quite a whopper, thou,' I said, `art surely a copper. Ghastly grim and youthful copper, wandering around my bathroom door-Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Stall’s Plutonian shore!' Quoth the copper, `Nevermore.'

Much I marvelled this ungainly fuzz to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing buff cops above his chamber door -Cops or beasts above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,With such name as `Nevermore.'

But the copper, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only, That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he uttered - not Miranda Rights that he sputtered -Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have blown before -On the grand stand those charges shan’t dog me, as I have blown before.'Then the cop said, `Nevermore.'

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,`Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught likes some old gay Headmaster whom unmerciful disasterFollowed fast and followed faster till his sting one burden bore -Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore Of "Never-nevermore."'

But the copper still beguiling all my bad soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled a toilet seat in front of cop and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous cop of yore -What this trim, unportly, buff, and ominous cop of yoreMeant in croaking `Nevermore.'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the cop whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, with my head and ass reclining On the toilet’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er, He shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the filthy floor.`Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent theeRespite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of “Dumbledore!”,Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost “Dumbledore”-Quoth the copper, `Nevermore.'

“Oh Shit!”' said I, `thing of evil! – “Oh Shit! You little copper devil!” -Whether ensnarement, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, in this airport stall enchanted -From this stall by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore! 'Quoth the copper, `Nevermore.'

`Oh Shit! ' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if cop or devil! Be that Halloween bends over for us - by that God we both adore -Tell this soul with unfair trapping, within the distant Free Speech wiretapping,It shall clasp a demented judge whom the angels named “Dumbledore!”Clasp a rare and radiant Justice whom the angels named “Dumbledore”? Quoth the copper, `Nevermore.'

`Be that word our sign of parting, cop or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting -`Get thee back into the bathroom, behind the Stall’s Plutonian door!Leave no copped plea as a token of that lie thy hand hath spoken!Leave my slovenliness unbroken! - quit this bust above my door!Hear my tapping as a fart and take thy bust from off my door!'Quoth the copper, `Nevermore.'

And the copper, never flitting, still is sitting, while I’m shitting, On the pallid bust of Phallus just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him peering through the small crack in the door; And my foot from out that stall space that lies floating on the floorShall be lifted - nevermore!

-2Truthy

India and The Gap Exlpoit Child Slave Labor

The Gap: Hillary Clinton, Queen of the “Free-Trade” Outsourcing Lobby

Still buying the flatworldian line about how “free trade” is so great for us and is lifting all boats? Or how all that cheap crap from job outsourcers like the GAP make this world a better place?

Obama’s peeps got one thing right: Hillary loves outsourcing our jobs AND all of the other good stuff that NAFTA “free-trade” deals allow: like Indian child slave labor that keeps a few wealthy GAP executives in Prada pantsuits while exploiting poor children from other lands. When you are an insulated elitist, it doesn’t matter anymore where you live or what nationality you are -– exploitation and slavery are just one elitist lobbyist phone call away.

There’s a “gap” alright between certain insulated candidates, America’s working class, and child slave labor that global elites of all stripes just don’t seem to care about.

Bill and Hillary are BFF to wealthy, super outsourcing fundraisers from India who run in fast circles of elites who seek to profit by replacing our jobs with Indian citizens at any human cost. Not only is presidential candidate Hillary Clinton beholden to corporate interests at the expense of working class Americans (like people not living off of stock dividends) as she accepts corporate gifts, financial rewards and favors in exchange for her commitment to selling our jobs to foreign elites from India, but HRC is the number ONE candidate that Indian lobbyists rely on for support in their elitist race to the bottom.

Hillary’s support for UN-FAIR trade agreements that promote corporate "guest worker" programs used to replace American white-collar workers with imported cheap, foreign labor has made her the darling among Indian elites who have everything to gain by outsourcing.

According to this Washington Post article "A Quiet Rainmaker", Hillary and Bill are tied to Indian “super fundraisers” who apparently are just not that into us – not just here, but in other countries like India where greedy elitists are creating a global ruling caste with a gap between the rich and poor so wide as to make the Plantation Society Days of yore look like Christmas.

No, with ‘friends’ like Hillary and Bill and 'Blah', the rest of us stand to lose in this global race to the bottom…which makes Hillary the absolutely worst candidate the Democrats could run.

Special Note: Good going for John Edwards, who today announced that he is going to stand up for American workers. Hallelujah! (Edwards is now officially out of 2Truthy’s doghouse.)

Hillary clearly does not belong in the White House. The insulated Clintons have reaped significant financial rewards from their gluttonous relationship with the Indian community, both in their personal finances, all the free curry that clogged Bill’s ticker and almost sent him to an early grave, and Hillary’s campaign fundraising.

Hillary Clinton, who is the co-chair of the Senate India Caucus has drawn criticism from anti-offshoring groups for her vocal support of Indian business and unwillingness to protect American jobs. She is no friend of the American people – or of the Indian slave labor children who her wealthy global corporatist supporters rely on to widen the gap between rich and poor through disastrous outsourcing practices.

-2Truthy

Larry Craig To Claim Sting Arrest UNCONSTISHOESONAL

Craig to Claim Sex Sting Arrest "UNCONSTISHOESONAL"

Seems an anti-gay gay Senator from Idaho can’t tap a shoe and take a dump at the same time without getting the book thrown at him. But now, Craig has had enough.

“That’s it. Hauling me in for foot tapping is just downright UNCONSTISHOESONAL!”

The Senator from Idaho confirms he will argue before an appeals court that Minnesota’s disorderly conduct law is unconstishoesonal as it applies to his allegedly misplaced size 13 loafer in the now legendary MSP airport bathroom stall scandal. He added

“How did you really know I was hand signaling and foot tapping and not just crapping? Huh? How do you know that?”

If Hands Could Talk. In a surprising twist, the newly emboldened Senator is coming back swinging, no small thanks to his new BFF, the ACLU, who have offered an ingenious defense. In an earlier friend-of-the-court filing, the ACLU argued that Craig's loafer tapping and hand gesturing under the stall at the MSP airport are protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech.

When Craig’s hand was asked what it thought it was doing when it reached under the stall, its response was unarguably simple:

“I was trying to pick up a piece of paper on the floor that looked a little like the United States Constitution. Or toilet paper. ”

-2Truthy

Muslim Prisoners Sue For Millions After Eating Ham Sandwiches For Ramadan

FROM THE DESK OF QUINCY

Winning the War on Pork

Leeds, England. Culinary critic and internationally acclaimed Pigs Rights champion, Quincy, stopped in England over the weekend on his way back from reporting on the Gay Vatican scandal.

“I’ve always enjoyed England in the fall”, noted Quincy, adding “I especially like riding around London with the smell of all that diesel fuel. Did you know that biodiesel smells like french fries?”


Reporting live from Leeds, Quincy, clad in a form fitting burqa, confirms that two hundred outraged Muslim inmates at a prison in England were forced to eat ham sandwiches during Ramadan for dinner. The menu items were apparently disguised as “cheese sandwiches” but actually contained boiled ham – something that should “never, ever, EVER” happen to anyone during Ramadan or “anywhere else”, according to Quincy, explaining

“It’s not just about ‘boiling’ ham. This most egregious rights violation signals an international disturbing trend. Not only is it a human rights violation to serve Muslims ham sandwiches at Ramadan, but this unsavory event is a global Pigs Rights issue of the highest order and must be stopped if Pigs are to achieve the same parity and equal rights as everybody else – from Muslim inmates, Monty Haulers and limo drivers, this is an issue that affects us all worldwide.”

Unsatisfied with the Prison’s official yet “feeble and flimsy” excuse of a menu printing error, Quincy grilled the Warden:

“Must we all be Meat Shields? Who needs a ham sandwich when we can have a Sara Lee cheesecake?

In retaliation for the menu offense, the Muslim prisoners are now demanding ten thousand pounds each in compensation, which Quincy describes as

“There is no price one can put on a pound of flesh.. As long as it’s not ten thousand pounds of ham or the OTHER white meat, it’s OK with me.”

What will the outcome be in the War on Pork? Quincy concludes

“Whole worlds of choices lie before us and yet, we as a global society continue to fall prey to the unseemly appetites of Muslim prisoners and Nation Cruise chefs when we could instead rise above the fray. After all, life is more than a forced dietary menu consisting of ham. What we all need to do right now is remove any traces of ham from our diets once and for all. Veto the pork!”

-2Truthy

Suspended Vatican Priest Has List Of Gay Colleagues

FROM THE DESK OF QUINCY

Holy See, Batman! Quincy’s Exclusive Report From The Curia, Vatican City, Rome

Quincy, the savant journalist formerly from North Carolina, has confirmed early this morning that a monsignor identified during an undercover teevee broadcast who allegedly had his “gaydar going off all over the place while the cameras were rolling only he didn’t even KNOW about it” did indeed make overtures to some guy he chatted with on the Italian internet and to whom he insisted “gay sex was not sinful.”

Quincy has now learned that the not-supposed-to-be-gay gay Vatican monsignor, Thomasso Stenico -- whose job was to act as enforcer of proper, priestly service --- now says that he knows “a whole bunch of other gay priests who he doesn’t want to have to sqeal on.” Facing the distinct possibility of not making Bishop over this not so holy look and see, the pair has nonetheless become good friends during the scandal, prompting Quincy’s expression of deep concern for the monsignor, carefully noting

“Tommy is visibly distraught over the threat of becoming defrocked – which, in laymen’s terms, is serious Italian hankycode for “losing your shirt for good around here.”

Quincy reports that Tommy got sick and tired of the unfair interviewer lady asking him if “it is a sin to be gay” over and over again so many times that he basically kicked her sneaky ass out of the Curia as he “showed her the lift.”

Quincy’s skyclad attempt to gain access to the exclusive and extensive Italian gay priest list has had the pair sporting around Rome all day in a leased, 1961 black De Soto which Quincy briskly says is “just like driving the Batmobile.” Well into the evening, the two have reportedly spared no expense as they wined and dined at Il Pastorello on the Vatican expense account.

Although it is evening in Rome and Quincy is no longer answering his iPhone, stealth, live videocam sources reveal that the monsignor and Quincy are now zooming into Milan to shop around for some scalped Armani sport jackets and if time permits, a drive over to the Pirelli’s majestic villa for a nightcap and to pick up a tire for the one that blew out on the De Soto.


In keeping with the Law of Threefold Return and in a move not unlike returning the head of Bobafet, Quincy vows that his expressed mission is to

“secure the gay priest list and return it safely to the Pope before the Associated Press “get their sticky neopagan fingers on it.”

In a brief meeting with the Pope, Quincy reveals that he deflected the entire question of whether Tommy should get his old job back since it was unfair that he was being filmed when he didn’t think he was:

“Pope, Father Sir, Just because Tommy is gay but not supposed to be in order for him to get to be Bishop is no reason to give him the sack”, implored Quincy.

When asked what Quincy would be going as for Halloween upon his return home to San Francisco, he hinted

“I’m not sure yet, but after meeting with the Pope, I’m thinking about going as Jesus, or maybe Larry Craig’s loafer.”

Ciao bella, Everybody!

-QUINCY

Chelsea Clinton: What's A Hedge Fund Got To Do With It?

Chelsea Clinton: What’s A Hedge Fund Got To Do- Got To Do With It?

The Clinton’s Triangulation Strategy: And Chelsea Makes Three

If I had a dollar for every email I have received inquiring about what Chelsea Clinton is up to these days, well, I’d have a few more than I do now. But now that Hillary is hogging up all of the Clinton Family limelight, let’s take a look at how the family of three that plays together stays together – from Chinatown to Silicon Valley to Mumbai to Dubai --- and then back.


Over the years, Hillary Clinton’s exhaustive overuse of the word “triangulation” has led many in the Democratic party to stand up and declare, in the words of Molly Ivins

“Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.”

Molly Ivins said this right before she died last year, when she proclaimed her non-support of Hillary as she cited Hillary’s “pragmatic” resistance to pulling out of the War On Iraq. Now, if only the media and so-called “progressive” blogosphere devoted their attention to shift to the real problem here at home: A collusion of corporatist po$$er and political heft that is dismantling our middle class. And who is this Democratic Holy Trinity blowing through the Beltway leading the Crusade in this WAR ON THE MIDDLE CLASS?


Ah, the White House and all of its perks…Bill’s been there, Hillary wants the top job, but what’s (Chelsea) a hedge fund got to do with it? Throughout their political careers, Bill and Hillary Clinton have repeatedly associated with people whose objectives seemed a million miles away from "a place called Hope.” But we knew that.


Senator Hillary Clinton has ardently supported American corporations and Indian outsourcing companies’ requests to open up the floodgates of hell for a massive influx of H-1b visa legislation. This week, legislation is being presented to the Senate floor to reintroduce the SKIL BILL which has a massive H-1B increase to sell out our white collar jobs. Why is Hillary leading the pack on the Great American White Collar Job sell out?

In the November 5 The Nation, Russ Baker and Adam Federman probe Hillary’s Mystery Money Men, probing her connection to Harken Energy and BCCI (The Bank of Credit and Commerce) and raise widespread speculation as to her strange bedfellows, including Alan Quasha and his menagerie--including “Saudi frontmen, a foreign dictator, figures with intelligence ties and a maze of companies and offshore funds”:

"That Hillary Clinton's campaign is involved with this particular cast of characters should give people pause," says John Moscow, a former Manhattan prosecutor. In the late 1980s and early '90s he led the investigation of the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) global financial empire--a bank whose prominent shareholders included members of the Harken board. "Too many of the same names from earlier troubling circumstances suggests a lack of control over who she is dealing with," says Moscow, "or a policy of dealing with anyone who can pay."

As authors Baker and Federman summarize:

“With an international man of mystery like Quasha, it’s nigh impossible to definitively identify his endgame,” they admit. “But one thing he seems to have a stake in is free rein for hedge funds --- –and preservation of the low rate at which their profits are taxed.”

So what’s Chelsea got to do with it? Could hedge fund money laundering, contract manipulation, anti-American workforce “free-trade” policies like NAFTA under the banner of globalization and nuclear pacts just be the epigenetic link keepin’ it all in the Family?


Every Democratic candidate, with the exception of Dennis Kucinich, has pledged to sell out millions more white collar American jobs -- you know, the ones that Americans "won't do": like Computer Scientist, Financial Analyst, Doctor, Nurse, etc. --- and yet citizens of this country continue to look away. It is no wonder these candidates are all clamoring to open the floodgates of immigration so that the "whiny" middle class will just finally go away and drown under their weight. Despite this, what kind of “Democrat” would vote for crusader Hillary in this WAR ON THE MIDDLE CLASS?


You know the ones: The same old elitist, Us vs. Them, “I Got Mine” crowd that has everything to lose in keeping you and me from them.

-2Truthy

Give This Kid An Oscar!

"Pollution is profitable business, you know, which means obscene profits paid for by taxpayers' kids and your sorry-ass grandkids. Hehe." -Dubya

Click HERE to download George W. Bush imitation video and see what one kid from Salem, Oregon, has to say about it...

-2Truthy

Larry Craig: Romney "Threw Me Under" Campaign Bus

For Immediate Release: What do Mitt “Muskrat Love” Romney and Larry “Lothario Bathroom” Craig have in common?
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Still thinking? Tap your feet and sing along to IN THE SENATE.
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Yes! It’s the GOP (Gay Old Party) bumper sticker that reads:

WE’RE ALL GAY SO YOU CAN’T BE, TOO!

Hypocritical? Of course not! The GOP really, really wants to offer up their Gay Old Partying ways on a crucifix by saving the Senate one maybe oh-so homosexual at a time so you don’t have to.

Today on Alternet, another homosexual GOP scandal unfolds as blogger Pam Spaulding reports on “The so-called party of family values really needs to do a lot of housecleaning.” Read more.



-2Truthy

A Few Good Creative Men

"We write ads, son. We write ads or peope die. It's that simple. Are we clear?"...

Courtesy Michigan Avenue's Own Gash With Panache Mel Toast Taking The Blogosphere By Storm... One Drainpipe At A Time.

-2Truthy

2Truthy Proudly Introduces Guest Blogger Mel Toast

Mel Toast’s Bio

Mel Toast has been a pain in the ass at Draftfcb for what now seems like an eternity to the brass. He’s been given more than his share of warnings as he continues to produce an unending train wreck of linguistic and creative gaffes for such clients as: S.C. Johnson (Drano; Edge; Shout; OFF; Oust and Windex), John Deere, Coors, Taco Bell and Brookfield Zoo.


Before being allowed in the front door, Mel was required to submit urine and stool samples, both of which he inexplicably carried with him in a torn gym bag to his interview. (Test results were inconclusive but experts concur Mel is either missing a chromosome, or shares DNA identical to that of a ring-tailed waddlesnout.)


Mel worked at an outfit called Feldman’s, and it is truly a wonder that they let him write any copy at all. What little he did for Applebee’s merchandising arm amounted to the pathetic yet ultimately accurate tagline Mi Carne de Gato, Su Carne de Gato and the thirty-second commercial featuring a homeless man vomiting outside the drive-up window, which Mel Toast breathlessly described to an Ad Age reporter as “an edgy, angst-filled journey into the decaying American urban landscape, where fast food and societal breakdown merge at the psychotic intersection of French fry and fuck me.”


He’s a loser.


Before this groundbreaking endeavor, Mel Toast was an account executive for a line of Midwest adult bookstores called Lion’s Breath. Mel was not a great AE. The worst, in fact, the industry had ever seen. Against both his superior’s and his client’s wishes, he willfully insisted upon using straight ammonia to mop out the peep show stalls instead of Pine-Sol, the one with the refreshing, revitalizing scent of the great outdoors.


Mel’s open disdain for authority, and his habit of jamming the token returns with chewing gum, cost Melvin a lucrative career in the adult service industry and he was forced to find work elsewhere.


After many months of soul-searching, and brought low by a bout with alcoholism and a tortured and embittered sex life with a woman from Kentucky, he had considered the priesthood, but Mel was finally forced let go of that idea only after his mother insisted that he was, in fact, Jewish.


Hard up for cash, he robbed the ticket taker at Second City, a woman with whom he later established a lasting romantic relationship. She had always maintained that she was quite taken by the way he took the time to tuck his shirt meticulously into his trousers after emptying the cash register drawer of forty dollars and change.


After years of mopping the floors for Shirley’s dad, the owner of Second City, Mel produced a revue call “Hooked on Hookers” which confounded the critics and opened to rave reviews from the city’s homeless community. The rest, is history, man.

How does he do it?

______________________________________________

Please give Mel a warm round of applause and for all of you who have been waiting for that other guest blogger, QUINCY to come back, don't worry. Ever since QUINCY covered the San Francisco Gay Parade a few weeks ago, he has been spending an inordinate amount of time hanging around the Castro when he's not fly-fishing in Idaho waiting for an exclusive interview with Larry Craig.

-2Truthy

Cohen & Grigsby: Serfing The Net And Making Excuses

“A man can be an imbecile and survive, but as soon as his heart stops functioning, the creature is dead.” (‘House’ did not say that)
-Jean Jacques Rousseau

In this day and age when the term Social Contract is synonymous with a myriad of sociopathic activities like the Bush Regime’s business dealings with Blackwater and Corporate America’s legalized, highly orchestrated collusion with the Department of Labor to discriminate against America’s professional middle class, where is the righteous indignation from our citizens (are you listening progressive blogosphere?) and the spineless Democratic frontrunners who seek our votes in 2008?


This week, Cohen & Grigsby is defending its feudal practice to instruct corporations on how to make abject peasants out of American engineers by avoiding to hire them in the first place. Despite their “ill chosen” language, the law firm maintains that it gave proper advice. Here is some of that proper advice from Lawrence Leibowitz, the V.P. of Marketing as captured on Youtube:

"Our goal is clearly NOT to find a qualified U.S. worker... our objective is to get this person a green card…”

While the United States continues to rack up its unemployed computer scientists and educated professionals who are replaced by outsourcing and H-1B foreign labor here, "free trade" economists who recommend suppressing wages and wiping out the middle class assured us at the same time that America was “benefiting greatly” from the work visa programs and outsourcing.


In the now infamous, must read article entitled Pearl Street Scam, blogger friend Citizen “Sleuth” Carrie revealed how the DOL conspires to help companies reject American employees by running phony job ads on behalf of the cheaper, coveted H-1B workers. How might a brokering law firm retained by H-1b sponsoring companies profit from such noble activity?
But what else is it that makes corporate America hate their own neighbors so much to devise these schemes to sell out the middle class? As Naomi Klein points out in her discussion with John Cusack about her new book Shock Doctrine, one need look no further than to the corporate and enabling media players; who are these complicit tech players and self-described progressive media who profit?


In his article entitled “The Great American Job Sellout”, Thomas Heffner confirms what everyone else outside of the Silicon Valley venture capital community doesn’t hear about -- the pressure from Feudalist Empire inspired, elitist, “free trade” venture capitalists who prefer to hire foreign workers than their peers while oh-so-coincidentally, State Department officials officially look the other way:

“The mindless chatter continues. Just the other day Ambassador David Gross, U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy in the State Department, declared outsourcing to be an economic efficiency that works to America's benefit. There is no sign of this alleged benefit in US jobs statistics or the US balance of trade.”

Heffner explains that, as a consequence, tech jobs in the U.S. are falling as a percentage of the total and raises the question everyone should be asking: if our corporations and venture capitalists don’t want to hire their neighbors, why should American taxpayers subsidize employment for foreign labor from India and China? The answer may rest with Rousseau’s telling, quaint notion of intelligent local community being at the very heart of commerce and civility –- something that elite corporatists and media prefer to kill. In Chapter II “The Death of the Body Politic” from The Social Contract, Rousseau observes:

“The principle of political life dwells in the sovereign authority. The legislative power is the heart of the state; the executive power is the brain, which sets all the parts in motion. The brain may become paralyzed and the individual still live. A man can be an imbecile and survive, but as soon as his heart stops functioning, the creature is dead.”

Psssst…Wanna make a fast buck and live the high life? Forget about the noble study of engineering or computer science. Go to law school and learn how to throw your neighbor under the bus, brag about it – hell, even make a video about it. Or, at least that’s the credo that Lords of the Manor law firms like Cohen & Grigsby and their smug corporate Kings appear to be living by, as they facilitate the demise of America’s middle class for their own personal gain.

Ain’t that America?

Our politicians may be deplorable, but what’s passing for business and media “leadership” these days is the twenty-first century social contract equivalent of soulless, sociopathic, Gambino/Soprano styled “made” pompous men and women who are complicit in this modern day Death of the Body Politic.
-2Truthy

James Carville Makes Sausage Out Of Brad Pitt Movie

For Immediate Release: James Carville knows something about making sausage!


As the NY Daily News tells us, James Carville has a cameo in Brad Pitt’s new movie "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" where campaign consultant James Carville has a pivotal role playing Missouri Governor Thomas Crittenden.

According to the Daily News, Carville “gives a crisp performance” in a scene where he tells Ford (Casey Affleck) that he wants gunslinger James dead. But director Andrew Dominik swears he'll never work with Carville again.

"I didn't want to hire him in the first place," Dominik said. "He came unprepared. He couldn't get his lines out right. It's like he has ADD. It took us three hours to shoot that one small scene."


Carville invokes his First Sausage Amendment Rights Below:

"Hey, someone called me and asked if I wanted to be in the movie. I flew out to Calgary. I'd come from four other things. Did I nail it the first time? No, it took a little while. Casey Affleck helped out a lot. But I think we had fun…. (here comes the best part)

"No one is going to confuse me with Laurence Olivier…who cares how the sausage is made? It's how it tastes!"

“Who cares how the sausage is made?”

Enough about that boring and tasteless e-coli tainted beef patty recall story that made twenty-five people in eight states really “sick” (code for got the shits really, really bad and probably worse) by bacteria that contaminated 21.7 million pounds of ground beef (special thanks to some grind shop out of Elizabeth, New Jersey.)

Can’t wait to see the movie!


-2Truthy

Tom Friedman: 9/11 Is Over (And We Wish Your Column Was, Too)

-Tom Friedman Boring The Hell Out Of Brandeis College Students-

Will Somebody Clip His Mouse Ears?

Sunday’s NY Times Op-Ed featured an article entitled "9/11 Is Over" by Billionaire Blowhard Tom Friedman asked the following question: “If Disney World can remain an open, welcoming place, with increased but invisible security, why can’t America?”

This is an article that that puts the insufferable Friedman in league with George W. Bush as both have no problem insulting us and are embarrassing and a disgrace to our national character.



Tom Friedman wants the rest of us to know that 9/11 (in case we didn’t know) is over and suggests that we better start smiling and hit the kool-aid stand while his corporatist cronies keep driving down our wages and selling off our white collar jobs to the third world. Since many of our corporations continue to outsource jobs and move their companies out of the country, exploiting cheap, third world labor abroad has never been “sexier”. Oh- and don’t worry about where all of that profit goes – although I’ll take a stab here and say not to the Minneapolis Department of Public Works and those guys who are supposed to fix the roads and bridges but somehow, there's no money for it…No, those profits go straight into the pockets of all those Beltway enabling Mousketeers, a few hedge fund managers, executives and needy billionaire blowhards like Friedman. Check.

Once again, Jolly old billionaire Tom would have us believe that if it weren’t for the damned, needy plebes, visitors and businessmen would be breaking the doors down to visit the United States (even WITH its shitty LaGuardia airport, as Tom points out) when it is precisely because of the corrupt and greedy NAFTA and labor policies his Beltway and corporatist cronies have architected that have brought shame on the national character which once attracted people here from all around the world.

How can America be a shining beacon of “hope” to international populations when they clearly see that our government kicks its own citizens to the curb by exporting our jobs so that a few wealthy elites can profit? When international communities see how the United States denies healthcare even to its middle class and its poorest children while it continues its gluttonous love affair with a Military Industrial Complex intent on sacrificing peace and prosperity at home for private corporatist personal gain?

Grandiose columnists like Friedman -- insulated from over forty-five million educated, middle class citizens who are struggling with plummeting wages, disappearing jobs and no access to healthcare have insulated themselves from America's devolution into the third world.

In the article, Friedman takes a stab at Rudy Giuliani by telling us how stupid we are to think about 9/11 as he proceeds to blame our citizens for the fact that foreign tourists don't want to visit anymore… because we 'think' about 9/11. He attempts to rub it in by admonishing us: "Our government has been exporting fear, not hope: Give me your tired, your poor and your fingerprints ” and then - get this --- blame the rest of us for poor, poor, citizen Microsoft being forced to move to the next big town over (Vancouver) in Canada because Gates can readily hire more cheap labor from India there and continue to drive down wages here for software professionals.

What hypocrite Friedman neglects to tell us is that while the economy is performing for Wall Street, Main Street is tanking faster than you can sing "Now it’s time to say goodbye to all our family…" By citing a travel study that concluded that “the U.S. entry process has created a climate of fear and frustration that is turning away foreign business and leisure travelers and hurting America’s image abroad,” Friedman turns the truth upside down by actually blaming the economic fallout of NAFTA policies that are responsible for making wealthy elites like himself get wealthier on the rest of us while the economy tanks. Nor did he mention anything in support of increasing taxes on his wealthy stock portfolio or for toughening tax codes that aid his corporate friends who make digital fingerprint technologies which he must have a few shares of by now.


War on the Middle Class. For billionaire columnists like Tom Friedman, being propped up like an overstuffed Disneyland mouse and serving as the NY Times Mainstream Musketeer allows him easy access to America's wealthy corporate "thought leaders" and Washington D.C. based think tanks who purport myths such as the Great Labor Shortage Lie and then invent said mythical statistics in support coordinated efforts between corporate America and colluding Beltway pols to fight the middle class here so that they don't have to fight the third world over there.

D.C. based New America Foundation, with a who's who Fortune 500 cast for its board of directors sums this commitment to pick the pockets of America's middle class by deporting their jobs to "build a large and sustainable global middle class":

" New America identifies and promotes the main elements of a new international economic strategy that enables emerging economies to evolve into successful, middle-class societies. " NEF even has its own Global Middle Class Program link here.
So WTF is Friedman telling us when he says "If Disney World can remain an open, welcoming place, with increased but invisible security, why can’t America?"

This Race to the Bottom column by Friedman is yet another reminder of how insulated he and his band of corporate elites really are from the rest of us and how much we need to cover our eyes and ears when insufferable elites like him pretend to speak for the good of our citizens while they insult us. Yes, Tom. 9/11 is over. And we wish your column was, too.

-2Truthy