2Truthy's Happy Friday Happy Hour: Armani Caskets

- Special Thanks to Chicago's Own 'Michigan Avenue Mel' Toast-

Ahmadinejad on the Treatment of Women and Homosexuals

Ladies Man Iranian President Ahmadinejacket Appears at Columbia University

During this time of overwhelming anti-war protest in the United States, Columbia University’s invitation to President Ahmadinejad to speak on campus did more to put a human face on the guy who has been referred to as ‘The Hitler of Iran’ by opening a dialogue between the People of the United States and the leader of the next country the Bush administration has been rumored to have its sites set on bombing. Here is the full transcript of the speech.


While the Ladies Man of Iran responded to Holocaust denier status by describing the 60 years of Palestinian oppression at the hands of Israel, what is his true position on homosexuality with this defensive non-answer (see below)? Does he have something to hide?



PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD: In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country. (Laughter.) We don't have that in our country. (Booing.) In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it. (Laughter.)


Here is where they cut him off…


Who told you that we have homosexuals like you have? Allah? Mike Wallace?
We would never, ever get our hands on one single ONE of those 72 virgins if we were homosexuals! What would the virgins think? Are you batshit crazy?


-2Truthy

Ron Paul

Dr. Congressman Republican Libertarian Presidential Candidate Ron Paul is a Mixed Bag

(This post has been updated)

There's Something About Ron Paul. 

 It seems Ron Paul is the GOP presidential gash with panache candidate who has a certain je ne sais pas…

He's a Libertarian Republican...a mixed bag! He is a physician, a man who appears to be of integrity. He is a persistent defender of the Constitution and champion of civil liberties. All good, all good. 

But what are his specific positions on American job outsourcing/insourcing, restoring high paying jobs to educated Americans who have watched them be sold to cheap imported, dubiously "skilled" foreign workers? Or strengthening public education, food and drug safety and raising the minimum wage?  ABC reports:

"Under a Paul presidency the departments of Energy, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce and Interior would cease to exist. Their elimination would slice about $179 billion from the federal budget and cut about 134,000 federal jobs.

Paul said his plan would not lay people off, but would transfer them to other departments until they retire.

Paul would slash funding for the remaining departments, including a 40 percent cut for the Food and Drug Administration and a 30 percent budget reduction for the EPA. The Department of Defense would see $832 billion disappear from its budget during Paul’s first term in office, most of which would stem from Paul’s plan to end all foreign wars and foreign aid."

Read how the military supports anti-war candidate Ron Paul in this exclusive from Wonkette. Then, read about how the "Christian Biblical Wingnuts" absolutely love him and much, much more.

And check out just how much Ron Paul wants to really, really sell out our jobs in this article entitled Ron Paul is NOT the Answer, posted at Bob Oak’s excellent blog NoSlaves.com.


 
-2Truthy

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and The Demise of America's Middle Class

The Shock Doctrine: The Demise of America’s Middle Class

Who is architecting the "shock doctrine" that keeps middle-class America paralyzed when it comes to throwing out corrupt politicians and demanding that "corporatist cronies" and their employees forge a democratic social contract? As wealthy corporate elites continue to drive out America's professional middle class by eliminating them in favor of cheap foreign labor, why can't our citizens -- particularly progressive and liberal Democrats --- address white collar labor abuses by structuring meaningful, enforceable laws to protect our jobs and wages against what Naomi Klein refers to as "disaster apartheid"? While the media rail about corrupt politicos, there is an odd silence from alternative media to investigate which corporate elites are screwing who.


In her new book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein describes how our government has been hijacked by crony capitalists who, with the complicity of think tanks and the media, have set out to destroy public and local institutions. With the largest segment of America's citizens (middle-class) allowing their jobs to be handed away, eroding infrastructures and healthcare now considered a luxury only meant for the ruling elite, this book inspires the question that every citizen of the United States should be asking of each presidential candidate:

Why Can't The United States Frame this Election on Our Disappearing Middle Class and Ask Who in Corporate Elite Circles are Responsible?

After all, politicians are merely the tools of these frat boys controlling what Klein refers to as the "corporate utopia" or executive management cabal which deems itself in charge to redistribute its profits to the third world by eliminating white collar jobs for over fifty million middle class American professionals. While the middle class continues to be sidetracked by social and ideological hot button issues (abortion, genocide and war on other continents, the skullduggery of the Bush administration), crony capitalists have just about picked off the professional middle class right out of existence with nary a whimper. So who are these corporate cronies who schmooze with our Democrat ic controlled Congress? Where are the investigative journalists to inform us of the actual people who are behind driving the middle class to extinction? Can investigative journalists begin to answer the very question "Who is Screwing Who?" that Molly Ivins put forth when she lavished this high honor on the talented, rising star populist political journalist and author David Sirota:

"Sirota is a new-generation populist who instinctively understands that the only real questions are "Who's getting screwed" and "Who's doing the screwing."

The extent to which corporate power has taken over the country and is driving our middle class out of existence by handing over our jobs to cheap foreign labor ought to be the number one priority for each and every citizen who is not a corporate elite -- uh, which would be like 98% of the population. So why is it that in Europe, discussions about the economic blueprints architected and controlled by what Klein refers to as the think-tank infrastructure in this country, which is organized to leap into the chasm right away after disasters strike. The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute amass free market ideas in the same way that women amass closets full of shoes. Klein says that if there's anything the market delivers on, it is a stream of increasingly intense disasters. But here lies the shock and awe rub: The current economic model in America is a slow-motion train-wreck, but we just don't seem to hear about this from either MSM or alternative media. While most political journalists focus on delivering the message from a pay-to-play pulpit and are risk aversive when it comes time to reporting on "who's screwing who", the question becomes: is it the professional middle class en masse that just does not want to hear from journalists how they are being silently annihilated? Or is it that most political journalists control the message by investigating and reporting only so much in order to preserve their relationships with the powerful?


Democratic Social Contract. Is it really the media or are we to blame? At what point does compromise factor in when it comes time for the media to report "who's screwing who?" Or does it even matter? These are the types of questions that Klein raises; questions that leave us wondering whether we as a society really are demanding change at all or do we really, honestly, reject the concept of socio-economic civility entirely and at the end of the day, only want to preserve our individual places in line at the trough?

Technocratic Circles. While politicians schmooze with corporate elites in what Klein refers to as "technocratic circles" who lay off tens of millions of our white collar professionals and replace them with H-1bs, promote corporate tax shelters, gut our infrastructures, America's LIBERAL and so-called progressives idly sit back and ignore the key question of "who exactly is drawing up the blueprint to drive our middle class out of existence?" Which organizations quietly broker deals with politicians to throw out laws that were designed to strengthen the democratic social contract between corporate America and the citizens of this country? How do these organizations go about manipulating "shock doctrine" to control the plebes? One reason we don't read or hear about this silent middle class genocide is that many of our best and brightest college professors with tenure and fixed incomes, however modest -- have become immune to the problem facing millions of their non-academic, white collar neighbors as corporate America and their corrupt political counterparts sponsor "think tanks" to trump up data and churn out statistics in 'support' of handing over white collar jobs to cheap foreign labor, thus eradicating the middle class.


Technocratic Circles of Elites and how they influence "Disaster Capitalism." Follow the money. Klein explains that The SPP (Security Partnership Prosperity) is an example of shock doctrine, which she describes as "an agenda that would have been unspeakable in terms of integration with the United States before 9/11, and in the panic afterwards, in that shock " the SPP agenda moved forward in technocratic circles, and it was presented as a done deal." Note: Technocratic circles like to remain stealth and invisible to the public by keeping under the press radar. They can, however, typically be found schmoozing with each other either poolside behind their gated McMansions or on the Bombardier flex-jet en route to some exotic, lush South Pacific Island the rest of us never even knew existed. So who makes up these technocratic circles who affect how many of our professional jobs get handed over to H-1bs? For starters, look up "venture capitalist" in the Menlo Park, CA phone directory and if you are at a loss for who's name to start with, get a hold of undeclared candidate Al Gore who serves as an advisor to the board of pro-h-1b mascot GOOGLE and ask him just what he would plan on doing to reverse this war on America's educated middle class.. In case you didn't know, businessman Al Gore is chairman of his own London, England based company that brokers carbon credits to other wealthy elites and has ties to Silicon Valley and numerous green energy startups...Now can you spell "disaster capitalism"?


What Social Contract? Klein's shock therapy victim thesis begs the question as to why the professional middle class would allow businessmen with personal profiteering interests to run for office when our social contract is at stake. As the climate changes, why does America's middle class sit idly by while businessmen with stakes in unproven green technology start-ups (like ethanol) continue to benefit from tax subsidies at our expense? With aging public infrastructures that have been starved for almost three decades and erratic weather patterns, climate change undoubtedly is influencing this pursuit of short-term growth that is at the heart of the economic model, as more of these disasters may prove inevitable. If we aren't careful, each of these disasters offers the opening and a rationale for more disaster capitalism at a time when we are in need of a social contract.

Klein: "You can depend on capital to arrive at any vacuum and exploit any weakness. It is not the case that politicians need to facilitate this and fund it lavishly with taxpayer money. What is disturbing is the seamless alliance between government and capitalism."

Shock Doctrine at Work. Klein discusses how once Canadians began learning about the SPP they promptly rejected it. Last month's summit in Montebello, Quebec culminated with this press release "don't worry, nothing's going to happen here." (Note that this summit was closed to the public.) The Canadians did say that they would favor the SPP should there be a disaster-- (that "D" word again) such as a terrorist attack or other 'natural' disaster -- then they would implement tightened integration between security forces in all these countries. So the question becomes, "why can't the three countries coordinate security without losing their sovereignty? Haven't the three countries been doing this since the pony express? What - all of a sudden security in each country have lost their walkie-talkies and high speed internet access? The key thing to note here is that In Canada, the SPP August meeting made headlines where in the U.S., it did not.


Democratic Socialism vs. Unchecked "Free-Market" Capitalism. At the heart of what is driving America's professional middle class to ignore this blueprint toward their socio-economic annihilation, Klein describes the key ideological distinction between Europeans and Americans in the following way: Americans are threatened by the prospect of what Europe understands intuitively and in practice: that social democracy demands corporations take responsibility for public policy that forges the socio-economic contract which provides its citizens a life of dignity and respect that includes health care, job protections, electricity, water, and housing. Did I leave out food? With democratic socialism, markets can indeed thrive in tandem with humane and productive corporate laws that guarantee the rights of its employees as citizens first through much needed civic minded socio-economic models that benefit the public. These socio-economic models currently benefit only a few corporate and political elites. Now, with the internet, we no longer have the excuse that "MSM" controls the message.


What to do? America's academic professionals need to reevaluate their alliances with think tanks that supply horseshit data that fuel American white collar hitmen like Compete America to corporatist cronies that is then picked up by the media as "fact". Our middle class professionals know this is happening and must unite to fight for the right to good jobs here; America's educated professionals deserve to earn more than plumbers per hour and live in good neighborhoods and afford to send their kids to good colleges. As Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) so endearingly said in Legally Blonde when she answered a question about the difficulty of getting into Harvard: "what’s so hard about that?”


But America's Democrats (not the faux ones like Hillary and Bill who crafted NAFTA) will have to unite against this socioeconomic shock and awe and lead this march. Who else is gonna do it? The Republicans? Corporate technocratic circles of elites? HA! And maybe one of these days, preferably not when pigs fly -- some rising star political journalist who has seen it all from the inside out will pick up where the others left off to establish a new precedent for reporting on the corporatist cronies who are architecting the shock doctrine. After all, when it comes to socioeconomic issues affecting our lives, the press has us looking one way when it's usually a sign to look in the other direction.

-2Truthy

General McCarthy “My lips Move With Bush” Petraeus

General McCarthy “My lips Move With Bush” Petraeus
-Very special thanks to the late, great Louis Armstrong-

Make no mistake: General David H. Petraeus is to George Bush what Charlie McCarthy was to Edgar Bergen.

The recent faux indignation hurled at MoveOn.org for their now infamous GENERAL PETRAEUS OR GENERAL BETRAY US? ad against the War in Iraq

http://pol.moveon.org/petraeus.html


is the latest in the Bush administration’s pull-out-all-the-stops against the Democrats and censure MoveOn


http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/09/20/370328.aspx

For a five-star General who has been touted as a nice guy (as “nice” I suppose, as one whose occupation involves killing people), Petraeus unarguably is serving this administration as the ventriloquist George W. Bush’s puppet. This false outrage is the same old rehashed, conservative stew served up to the plebes alongside a tainted salad of eroded civil liberties, unprecedented levels of social and economic inequality and injustice, and international wars against humanity waged by a secretive executive branch fanned by the private sector and fought for by a permanent, unwitting underclass. No wonder Bush wants amnesty for tens of millions of illegal immigrants…

This faux indignation knows no bounds as the collective American sleepwalking, citizen/consumer zeitgeist continues its nap while the media elite cook up these faux narratives that perpetuate the spawning of more corporate and military industrialist complex elite profiteering.

Petraeus? Bush? Not unlike McCarthy and Bergen -- two heads, one made out of wood and the other, er, also made out of wood. Same message.

“I’ll get more lovin’ from that old dumb, dumb, dummy, than I ever got from you…”

-Louis Armstrong

-2Truthy

Petraeus: "You'll Never Make Westmoreland Out of Me"

General Petraeus in Planet Of The Apes: The Senate Testimony Musical

Help! the General is trying to invade us

"Get your paws off me you diry old Congress!"

He can talk! he can talk! he can talk! he can talk

I CAN SINNNNNNNNGG!

Hey Petraeus Hey Petraeus

Can I do the surge a little more?

Well of course you can!

Well I couldn't before!

I hate every Senator I see

From Mike Crapo to Pat Leahy

Oh, you'll never make Westmoreland out of me

Oh no! I was wrong. It was a civil war all along

Guess you've finally made Westmoreland out of me!

I LOVE YOU! Hey Petraeus Hey Petraeus

I think you have WMDs

And I think you're Al Quaeda, too!
I think you have WMD's

And I think you're Al Quaeda, too!

You're also lazy.

-2Truthy

2Truthy's Happy Friday Featured Guest...Who Would You Rather Have a Beer With?

Ron "Tater Salad" White

The Labor Day "barbecue" (a sit-down, outdoor dinner here in the hills where over two hundred people feasted on ginger-stuffed quail and frolicked around the Disneyland-motiffed grounds that circle the pristine, gymnasium sized swimming pool ) I went to last weekend was hosted by friends whose recently divorced, thirty-something sister-in-law, Saffie Drinkwater, flew in from the East Coast.

Saffie was seated next to me and, as the conversation turned to politics, she started telling me that she was "very excited" about Fred Thompson hopping on the bus and then she asked me "Who would YOU rather have a beer with? Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson?"

Hmmmmmmmmm.....I thought about it (was leaning towards the Fred-head).

That's when I asked Saffie "Who would YOU rather have a beer with? Stephen Colbert or Ron 'Tater Salad'White?" Then I told her I would be SO conflicted that I would have to just tivo them both but she said with extreme conviction: "I would NEVER have a beer with that bum (Tater Salad.)"

So Happy Friday! Let's raise our beer mugs to Saffie and toast Ron Tater Salad White!

-2Truthy

Larry Craig: SENATE SEAT OR TOILET SEAT?

(Click HERE for In The Navy Special Thanks to the Village People)

IN THE SENATE

by 2Truthy

Where can you go Horatio

To give a cop felatio

Search the world for blowjobs

Behind every bathroom stall

Where can you begin to make your dreams all come true

In the can or on the sea

Where can you learn to lie

Play some footsie and jive

Study choosing toilet seats

Sign up for the Senate

Or sit in the grandstand

You’re not gay to tap your feet...

(Chorus)

IN THE SENATE
WE CAN DO WHAT WE PLEASE
IN THE SENATE
WE GET DOWN ON OUR KNEES
IN THE SENATE
IF YOUR PLANE’S RUNNING LATE
IN THE SENATE
FIND SOMEONE TO FELATE
IN THE SENATE
AND STILL GET TO THE GATE

IN THE SENATE

IN BETWEEN QUORUM CALLS

IN THE SENATE

WE GET BLOWN IN THE STALLS

IN THE SENATE
YOU CAN MAKE A QUICK CONNECTION
WITH AN OFFICER’S ERECTION AND STILL HAVE TIME TO MAKE IT TO YOUR PLANE

IN THE SENATE
YOU CAN SIT IN THE CAN
IN THE SENATE

WHERE YOU CAN JOIN YOUR FELLOW MAN

IN THE SENATE

WHEN WE'RE DONE WITH DEBATE

IN THE SENATE

FIND SOMEONE TO FELATE

IN THE SENATE
SAY YOU'RE STRAIGHT WHEN YOU'RE NOT
IN THE SENATE
JUST TRY NOT TO GET CAUGHT
IN THE SENATE
WHERE’S A STRAIGHT MAN TO GO
FOR A BLOW – BLOW – BLOW -BLOW

-Very special thanks to the Village People-

-2Truthy

Larry Craig: FOOTSIEGATE Exclusive - 2Truthy

"Watch My Feet Move..."

-Larry Craig, Anti-Gay, Gay Republican Senator

FOOTSIE GATE: THE LARRY CRAIG BATHROOM STALL ADVENTURE
- 2Truthy

They got a saying in Texas: It’s time to let the horses out of the barn.

Certainly, no one can accuse the Republicans of 'not having their shit together' when it comes to amassing a voting bloc of hypocrites—especially the anti-gay gay, repressed voters and Congressmen.

From the Party of Family Values: Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig can’t seem to keep his ‘lil doggies or “feet” to himself, as his recent bust by an undercover agent working the Minneapolis St. Paul airport revealed. Hell Bent for Leather!

Read here


http://tootruthy.blogspot.com/2007/08/larry-craig-man-in-glass-stall.html


There definitely seems to be a pattern here – Republican elected officials seem to have a hard time ropin’ in their doggies and then acting like they are the gods of “Family Values.”


New Rule: ALL Republican candidates must undergo MANDATORY sexual rehabilitation prior to seeking public office.

-2Truthy

Larry Craig: Man in the Glass Stall

The Man in the Glass Stall

Larry Craig: The Making and Breaking of a Self-loathing Republican Senator from Idaho

What is it about Republicans – Craig, Foley, Haggard, etc. when it comes to sex – especially the gay ones --- that makes them, above ALL other parties ---(as in ‘the only other one’) SO hypocritical?


http://www.armchairsubversive.org/


“He got feet down below his knees”…Turns out that Republican Senator Larry Craig, was busted in June for playing footsie in the bathroom at the Minnesota Airport with an undercover police officer.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20467347/



Talk about “toe jam football”…The arrest was made after the undercover officer was seated in a stall next to a stall occupied by Craig, where Craig allegedly began tapping his foot -- a signal the officer “recognized as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct.” So then guess what? The undercover officer tapped his foot back, too! Does that make him gay? Call me crazy, but aren’t there better things for cops (overt or covert) to be doing around airports these days, like say, looking for terrorists than playing footsie with Senators in bathroom stalls? Meanwhile, Larry Craig has a website which purportedly addresses his anti-gay views under “Idaho Family Values”


http://www.idahovaluesalliance.com/news.asp?id=481


“Hold you in his arms yeah, you can feel his disease”…When it comes to hypocrisy, the Republicans really know how to hit one out of the park! As my hero Al Franken queried, Can you guys explain this to me? You‘re Republicans. What is about anti-gay gay Republicans? What is that strain?


http://www.godspokefilm.com/forum/?p=47


The Man in the Glass Booth. In a strikingly similar case of how self-loathing is rooted in hypocrisy, Maximillian Schell’s smack-down performance in his starring role in “The Man in the Glass Booth”, where he plays a self-loathing Jew comes to mind.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Glass_Booth

The Republican Party tends to attract a disproportionate number of Cotton Matherish, self-loathing, closet leaning bunch that generates voters who actually vote in a very anti-gay way. As Democrat and Minnesota Senatorial candidate Al Franken notes, “I mean, and it‘s just—it does—I got to tell you, it strikes people who believe in gay rights as just odd -- our gay guys don‘t vote like your gay guys.”



Will the punishment fit the crime? Well, my guess is he’s goin’ down” oh wait – I guess he already did that…but while the Gay Old Party trolls the halls of bathroom stalls to the Capital, no one can accuse the Republicans of not having their shit together when it comes to amassing a voting bloc of hypocrites—especially the repressed ones.



Am I glad Idaho Senator Larry Craig got busted? You betcha. The more ‘Family Values” cocksuckers exposed, the better.

-2Truthy

Grace Slick: "It Ain't What You Want It's What You Need"

- Jerry Garcia, lead guitar on "Sketches of China" with Jefferson Starship and Friends- Portrait by Grace Slick

"What is the great American sin? Extravagence? Vice? Graft? No; it is a kind of half-humorous, good-natured indifference, a lack of "concentrated indignation" as my English friend calls it, which allows extravagance and vice to flourish. Trace most of our ills to their source, and it is found that they exist by virtue of an easy-going, fatalistic indifference which dislikes to have its comfort disturbed....The most shameless greed, the most sickening industrial atrocities, the most appalling public scandals are exposed, but a half-cynical and wholly indifferent public passes them by with hardly a shrug of the shoulders; and they are lost in the medley of events. This is the great American sin."

-Joseph Fort Newman, Atlantic Monthly, October 1922

Baron Von Toll Booth and The Ballad of the Chrome Nun has got to be Grace Slick's magnum opus of studio recordings on record. Listen to the finest, most extraordinarily beautiful and bewilderingly magnificent "Sketches of China"

http://play.rhapsody.com/paulkantner/baronvontollboothandthechromenun/sketchesofchina

-2Truthy

2Truthy's Lunch Break: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

“Human Dignity has gleamed only now and then and here and there, in lonely splendor, throughout the ages, a hope of the better men, never an achievement of the majority.”

–James Thurber

NEW YORK—Bob Newhart, this one’s for you! The deadpan comic and sit-com star was one of three finalists announced today for the Thurber Prize for American Humor, a literary honor named for the famed author and humorist James Thurber.



http://www.mercurynews.com/celebrities/ci_6679678?nclick_check=1



A very special mittyesque salute from LOSING THE WAR ON HUMOR today to all comics of genius, both here and now departed. Watch Danny Kaye perform in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, who must be Jim Carrey’s silver screen mentor. A master of physical comedy with a cerebral twist, Kaye’s over the top performance in this Thurber story is a gem.

“You are a glockenspiel in disguise!”…………………

-2Truthy

Latin America is Kicking Butt. Why Can't We?

Latin America is Kicking Butt. Why Can’t We?

These are exciting times for the people of Latin America, as elected leaders like Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and Brazil’s Luiz “Lula” da Silva are uniting to fight back against greedy and corrupt corporate America. After decades of being treated by the United States as its own “backyard”, Latin America has put up strong resistance to the U.S. agenda of corporate-led globalization trade policies that have impoverished its citizens and destroyed much of their valuable ecosystems.


http://www.alternet.org/audits/60080/?page=1



As the people of Latin America have united en masse and created real alternatives on the ground, one might ask

“Why can’t citizens of this country unite against the corporatocracy here?”

After decades of passively allowing big-business and political cronyism to be hoisted off to We the People as “government”, isn’t it time for the people of America to stand up to this band of thugs, or the corporate elite and their corrupt elected officials who enable them?

Here’s a short list:

1. Impeach Bush and Cheney
2. Reform harmful “free” trade policies that displace our own professionals and drive down wages
3. Get out Iraq
4. Universal Health care
5. Strengthen fair trade economic relations with Mexico human rights immigration policies
6. Close corporate tax loopholes and tax shelters
7. Invest in viable clean energy solutions and infrastructures

In other words, how about a little respect?


The current Latin American revolution and its lessons for democracy offer a glimpse into what is possible when people have been suppressed and discarded for too long. Granted, millions of Latin Americans have not had the luxury of a super-sized lifestyle that a great many citizens of the United States have enjoyed, however heavily mortgaged and beyond their means, but now more than ever, it is time for the people of the United States to rise up and demand the kind of social and economic change that stops rewarding the greedy smug, frat boys and wannabes running and ruining the social and economic fabric of this country.

-2Truthy

Were You Born An Asshole?

They Deserve It

“We will bring transparency and openness to the budget process and to the use of earmarks, and we will give the American people the leadership they deserve.”

-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

What is it about most Americans, on both the left and right -- that makes them so passive? Above is the picture of an ad that Intel placed which reflects the modern day American mindset. From asshat media whores and hustling political authors to corporate blowhards and politicians, everybody wants to be a frat boy, like the smug creature pictured in this discriminating ad or they at the very least want 'access' to them. Swell.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-court/intels-slave-ship-ad-i_b_60615.html

But what is it about Americans who fall in line with jerks like this? Is it their big, oversized SUV's where they park their big, oversized derrieres when they're not watching their big, oversized TV sets while feeding on their big, oversized portions of anything they can get their big, oversized mitts on? While the War on the Middle Class rages on with the subprime lending scam, impending recession and a Congress and presidential candidates committed to selling off what's left of our disappearing white collar jobs, our House Speaker cavorts with technology executives and other Plutocrats like Ted Kennedy and Al Gore to cook up a bill behind closed doors that will raise or remove the H1-b cap and open the floodgates to get rid of your neighbors, friends and family members' jobs -- jobs that they have heavily invested in with their educations.

The tech industry lobbies hard for more visas for high-skilled temporary workers. But in reality, the program is dominated by low-wage workers with rank-and-file skills. Rather than preventing work from going overseas, the program is speeding it up. In a recent article published in the American Prospect by Ron Hira, he offers a few suggestions for this reversible scam against educated Americans.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=how_guestworkers_promote_outsourcing

What are voters going to do about this come election time? Vote for another corporte welfare whore? Who cares? By the looks of things with Americans across the country, it is A-OK with this loutish lot and the enabling assholes in media, (with the exception of Lou Dobbs and a few citizen journalists like Citizen Carrie of Carrie's Nation, the Sherlock Holmes of H1-b scam exposure) who make sure we don't get any "real reporting" on this issue and others that matter in the lives of middle class Americans.

http://carriesnation.blogspot.com/2007/08/pearl-street-scam.html

What's wrong with Kansas? Drive around the country and ask the average person, say, in Kansas, what they think about this and they will basically tell you that since corporate CEO's are generally smarter and work longer hours, they actually deserve to bag a zillion times more $$$ than their lowly selves. What's the response to this, other than "you're one stupid, sorry S.O.B."? Is it too late to overthrow this "group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs who came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People?"

http://www.henryholt.com/holt/whatsthematter.htm

The master/slave relationship in America is alive and well, no thanks to the Kool-Aid swilling assholes in the media, who cavort with this band of elected thugs and corporate elites. How is it that, over the past fifty years, we have elected politicians who have jammed corporate welfare policies that work to our detriment as we keep rowing and shout out "keep it coming, master, we're sooooo not worthy?"

http://www.washtech.org/news/industry/index.php?result_start=0&page=1

Yo ho yo ho a pirates life for me...Indeed.

Like Nancy "Impeachment is off the Table" Pelosi says, the American people get the leadership they deserve.

-2Truthy

Ann Coulter, Mistress of Mangling Civility

"I'm a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it." -Ann Coulter

Breaking news...

One who participates in cross-dressing, although not morally wrong -- should not question the sexual orientation of others. The Mistress of Mangling Civility is back on the lecture circuit.

Ann Coulter, often referred to as "MAN" Coulter in certain literary circles of haute high-jinx,

will be making an appearance next month at St. Xavier University in Cincinatti, Ohio on September 6. While there, MAN will deliver a speech to students and faculty seeking vitriol, bigotry, and intolerance, who simply have nothing else to do but drop $5 for the pleasure.

But a D.C. based organization called People For the American Way (PAW) is asking progressives to chip in $5 to support groups like Xavier’s Gay-Straight Alliance, Amnesty International, Habitat for Humanity, and Earthcare

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/

and has launched a mass emailing campaign to supporters, requesting they spare $5 to support the very communities Coulter routinely attacks, which I think incudes everybody from John Edwards, to gays, to Clinton, and on and on...

http://tootruthy.blogspot.com/2007/06/ann-coulter-blows-lines-and-flushes-her.html

PAW's message reads “Can you spare just $5 to support the same communities Coulter regularly bashes for pay?” While Coulter is speaking, PAW, other students and activists “will participate in a rally on Xavier’s campus, where we will counter Coulter’s divisive message and present a check to Xavier’s progressive student groups for the total amount raised.”

Coulter’s next book, “If Democrats Had Brains, They’d Be Republicans,” is due out in October.

-2Truthy

Continued Chinese Threats To U.S. Economy: China To Trademark All U.S. Restaurants

Breaking News...

(Reuters)—Hu Jintao, Leader of the People's Republic of China and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China issued a scathing communiqué earlier today denouncing the “scheming, capitalist mongrels who, with their sulfurous belches have stolen the heritage, the birthright and the egg rolls of our beloved Motherland.” In a move certain to have profound effects on the dining habits of customers from San Francisco to New York, the American public is bracing for what appears to be a user fee the Chinese government has imposed on every food item of Chinese derivation from fried rice to egg foo young. A list of over four thousand items was drawn up by the Glorious and Supreme Council of Chinese Food and Beverages and, as of press time, it was still unclear whether or not number 573 on that list, Fried Crap with Big Awful, was a typo.

-2Truthy

The Last Days of Democracy: Elliot Cohen Speaks Out

“I think the journalists associations and the schools of journalism need to start making a unified stand that, you know, journalists need to be vanguards of democracy. We need to get back the Fourth Estate, and we can’t simply support these large corporations allowing this go down the tubes and that’s exactly what’s going on.” – Elliot Cohen, "The Last Days of Democracy"

James Harris and Josh Sheer of Truthdig spoke with Elliot Cohen, author of “The Last Days of Democracy,” who argues that the United States is in political and cultural decline, with media and telecommunications giants engaged in “a well-organized effort to hijack America.”


http://www.truthdig.com/interview/page3/20070802_last_days_of_democracy/

Cohen proceeds to remind us of the royal corporate owned MSM family tree and just how much it absolutely has no expressed intention in a bazillion years of ever telling us the truth:

“When you look at the media and its interests, its bottom line is its major interests. And how does it attain its bottom line? Well, it does it through military contracts, for instance. Because these companies are not just newsrooms, they are giant conglomerates. Take, for interest, General Electric. General Electric has interests in producing jet engines for military contracts with Lockheed Martin. And the war in Iraq is something that builds up these revenues, and when it comes to advancing the media ownership, how many cross-ownership markets and how far can you advance your national market? Well the FCC is the one that grants those wishes and ... so there’s lots of reasons why, not withstanding tax incentives and other little government perks, why the media would be beholden, you know, to the politicians who hold the reins of government. And when you have such an aggressive government as we do, which is ideological and has this desire to control and amass great power, then you have really a recipe for dictatorship. And that’s what we have: We don’t have an independent Fourth Estate doing its job. And we have problems there.” In short, our days of decline are economically motivated by a few journalists (both MSM and alternative) who suck up to corporate elites.

But Cohen holds out hope for the internet, suggesting that the Fourth Estate can somehow conceptually hold its own with progressive voices dedicated not to lining their pockets but to conveying truth – those who would refuse to hold court with the arrogant corporate elitists that guard the gate. With the big bloggers (whoever they deems themselves to be) wielding their snouts into the corporate trough, the pay-for-play system where blogger “bandwidth” is evaluated not by journalistic expertise “dealing in truth” or quality of information disseminated, but rather its capacity to reach lots of people seeking specific spin on information that MSM outlets have omitted. Like those corporations with the deepest pockets which can control the truth better than those without, the same motivations exist for alternative media outlets that schmooze at the same trough. Click link below to read

Journalists and Politicans do the Hussle


http://tootruthy.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html


The political and cultural decline of our last days of democracy, as Cohen describes them in this article, indeed is attributed to the collusion of media (both MSM and alternative) and telecommunications giants in their well organized play to “hijack America”; but it is rooted in the greedy, final push to the trough by corporate elites who will have succeeded in taking us into the Third World splendor of a Have and Have Not, caste system society that eradicates the competitive middle class. The ruse that ‘we the people’ can “take back America” with this corrupt, two-party system of corporate owned, bipartisan politicians and the MSM and sycophant alternative media that feed off of them begs review. Look for the 2008 candidate who picks up the slogan

"IT’S NOT THE ECONOMY, STUPID. IT’S YOUR JOB.”

Right now, there is not ONE candidate standing up for the middle class, with one possible exception of Kucinich. As the incongruent John Edwards -- bought off by technology elites who says on one hand he is "pro-worker" yet then says he is for selling out our technology jobs for the educated middle class

http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_213145503.html

throw a wrench into his credibility as the "people's candidate." Unless he doubles back on that like he did on his Iraq vote, all Edwards is doing right now is speaking in support of people at the poverty level when the majority of educated Americans (with college degrees and advanced degrees) are the very citizens that this government, with its collusion from corporate elites (Technology, Wall Street, Big Pharma) have MSM and ‘big bloggers’ to thank while they control the message to the growing numbers of truth seekers who have long since trashed the local rags.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/48988/?page=1

Watch how the subprime lending heist, our disappearing jobs and plummeting wages, Iraq, civil liberties, infrastructures and corporate tax shelters play out in your neighborhood. Have wages gone up? Are we out of Iraq? How are those mortgage lending rates and home foreclosures coming? And then write about it. After all, the glorified internet with its progressive blogger gatekeepers haven’t been totally hijacked. Not. Yet.

Eric Burdon And The Animals: It's My Life

JAWD: JOBS AMERICANS WON’T DO

“We no longer live in a society, we live in an economy, where right and wrong is determined not by fairness, but by profitability -- and where the law no longer dictates corporate behavior, but corporate behavior dictates the law.” - Kelly Overton, Executive Director of People Protecting Animals & Their Habitats

WASHINGTON – In this dirty old part of the city, where the sun refused to shine…An “immigration-enforcement package”, whatever that means, was unveiled today by the Bush administration and "has angered the very people who have stood behind the president on this issue for years – and was greeted with a mixture of optimism and cynicism by those who have opposed him" because who knows what else is stuck in there to stick it to the animals down on the farm

http://www.ocregister.com/news/immigration-employers-administration-1805305-security-enforcement


In other words: WTF? It’s no secret that the corporate elite welfare regime on both sides of the aisle value profits over we the people, who are to them, nothing more than a nation of animals.


It looks like the real losers with this tragedy of a bill are poor, poor, Big Agribusiness along with the small farmers who are barely surviving by enslaving illegal immigrants who make up social security numbers (dunno about the rest of you, but if they make up mine, I am grateful for them to pay into my SS account) then get caught, and are paid sub-human wages without benefits only to be fired and sent on their way to who cares where. Now that’s an All American, “win/win” plan but somehow, it just doesn’t quite smack of “by the people for the people” to me… And just who are all those farm subsidy checks going to, anyway? To wealthy billionaires that nobody knows


http://tootruthy.blogspot.com/2007/06/farm-subsidies-for-rich-taxpayers-get.html


Oh, the tears... Diane Feinstein is grieving loudly over the anticipated loss of her morning glass of freshly squeezed O.J. and had this to say:

“The administration's approach is a Band-Aid that will not stop the looming crisis American agriculture will face this fall,” said Feinstein, D-Calif. “The crisis is that crops will not be harvested.”

Hmm...Crops won't be harvested? Wanna see that the crops get harvested real fast, Mrs. Feragammo loafer Feinstein? How about calling up all those millions of downsized and unemployed citizens of the United States, deemed by George Bush as JOBS AMERICANS WON’T DOERS -- JAWDoers ---and have them roll up their sleeves and start picking for $50/hr?

Talk about a Great Labor Shortage myth. (Didn’t some compelling progressive journalist somewhere put some spin on that once upon a time?)

“It’s a hard world to get a break in
All the good things have been taken…
But girl there are ways to make certain things pay

Though I'm dressed in these rags I'll wear sable

Some day Hear what I say"

-Eric Burdon and The Animals

-2Truthy

2Truthy's Happy Friday Dance

Groove Is In The Heart

-Dee Lite

Is John Edwards The New Marie Antoinette?

Is John Edwards the New Marie Antoinette?

John Edwards wants to get tough on lobbyists, as he challenged his two frontrunner rivals, Clinton and Obama, to not accept lobbyist money at last week's Yearly Kos Convention. Sounds great, right? Read more below. But first, a word on his hair: So what if John Edwards gets a $400 haircut...If mega multimillionairre Edwards can't get a $400 haircut, who the hell can?

The real scandal would be if he got a $10 haircut and didn't leave a tip...

Time to get off that tired, hypocritical, Bolshevik bandwagon and recognize that the guy actually earned his money -- unlike some silver-spooned, trust fund morons we know who inhabit the Big House...But where does Edwards stand on selling out our white collar jobs with H-1B? He never talks about it -- only about 'poverty', which is of course good. If you take a closer look at the Dem candidates, Dennis Kucinich is really the only one who pulls no punches when it comes time to speaking truth to power for middle class, working America.

Back to John Edwards, who so valiantly challenged his two rival frontrunners, Clinton and Obama, to not accept lobbyist money at the Yearly Kos convention.

But what does that mean? Does this mean that corporate money is going to just suddenly stop getting into the campaign coffers of candidates like Edwards to do their bidding against the middle class? Oh really? How would that work? Hmmm...Instead of having a lobbyist deposit the loot, all guys like Edwards would have to do is have a secret little schmooze fest with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group that the media miraculously eludes covering someplace either at Google HQ (otherwise known in these parts as "The Dump") or at one of the frat boy VC's gated and moated McMansions and pick up the check. That'll work!

Get tough on lobbyists, John Edwards! The plebes can choke that right down along with the cake!

Now that corporations like Darth Google, for example -- one of the major H1-B outsourcer/insourcers replacing educated Americans with cheap foreign labor, what about the corporations who he is taking money from, especially the technology corporations who lie and spin the 'GREAT LABOR SHORTAGE MYTH' and the 'GREAT EDUCATION MYTH' like Google, Oracle, Cisco and Microsoft?

Edwards seems to intend to be silent on H-1B unless he is addressing lobbyists at private meetings. Everything points to Edwards deliberately avoiding the subject of H-1B in order to deceive his supporters. Big deal that he says he won't take lobbyist money; but he will be happy take corporate money by other means. This week, Edwards discussed the problem of American job losses on Lou Dobbs and was never challenged.

Where are the progressive journalists to investigate the otherwise noble Edwards' stand on selling out our jobs? Where are the journalists to grill ALL of the candidates on this pressing issue facing millions of Americans who will lose their jobs to the third world in this upcoming recession that analysts predict will hit by 2010? What candidate will be in the White House then, high-fiving the sociopathic corporate elites and venture capitalists who have rigged these myths to create a society of haves and have nots on the backs of the middle class?

Great that he says he wants to essentially boycott lobbyists -- a good start --- but what we need is a candidate who wants to stop taking money from corporations, period. Edwards says it's time for change? How about changing the way corporations get rid of American middle class white collar jobs and outsource and insource to get cheap labor. Are middle class Americans really ready for change or just more status quo B.S. from candidates and journalists who profit from the corporations who buy them at our expense? So far, the ONLY thing Edwards is talking about doing is expanding welfare at the poverty level while he conspicuously leaves out any mention of reforming the H1-B program that is ridding our citizens of white collar jobs. He voted on this before -- what makes us think he won't do it again?

I really want to believe that John Edwards will tell the greedy corporations to shove their money with the VC's they rode in on, but why do I think that just won't happen? Perhaps John Edwards is not the People's candidate after all, but just another globalist's puppet who has hit the Kool-Aid stand. With a good haircut.

The candidate that stands up for working middle class Americans gets my vote. Maybe that's no vote at all.

"Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may." - Mark Twain

-2Truthy