Meanwhile Back in The Homeland

With the feverish 'all-in' push for the relaunching of the Cold War the NSA Stasi is probably delighted to be out of the spotlight for the time being at least. The waves of anti-Putin invective continue to roll out of the neocon dominated US propaganda machine over at the Washington Post, the latest war criminal on deck is former Bush administration National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  Like Dick Cheney and Colin Powell the lies of Ms. Rice were instrumental in making the case for the illegal and disastrous attack and invasion of Iraq, a country that did not remotely threaten the United States yet like the others she is afforded slavering treatment befitting a great and benevolent defender of human rights while outside of the bubble of The Homeland she would be just another accomplice to one of history's greatest crimes and should have had her day standing in the dock at the Hague. There were people who stood trial at Nuremberg and who were hanged for less than what Rice accomplished with her infamous "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" statement during an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

Following up the recent WaPo oped of her war criminal predecessor Henry A. Kissinger the 'Altair Voyager' penned a piece entitled "Will America heed the wake-up call of Ukraine?" in which she leads off with a convenient yet un-provable anecdote that:

 “Meet Viktor Yanu­kovych, who is running for the presidency of Ukraine.” Vladimir Putin and I were standing in his office at the presidential dacha in late 2004 when Yanu­kovych suddenly appeared from a back room. Putin wanted me to get the point. He’s my man, Ukraine is ours — and don’t forget it.

And followed by this call to arms –

This time has to be different. Putin is playing for the long haul, cleverly exploiting every opening he sees. So must we, practicing strategic patience if he is to be stopped. Moscow is not immune from pressure. This is not 1968, and Russia is not the Soviet Union. The Russians need foreign investment; oligarchs like traveling to Paris and London, and there are plenty of ill-gotten gains stored in bank accounts abroad; the syndicate that runs Russia cannot tolerate lower oil prices; neither can the Kremlin’s budget, which sustains subsidies toward constituencies that support Putin. Soon, North America’s bounty of oil and gas will swamp Moscow’s capacity. Authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline and championing natural gas exports would signal that we intend to do precisely that. And Europe should finally diversify its energy supply and develop pipelines that do not run through Russia.

Perhaps Condi is telling the truth – something that she failed to do while the costly in terms of blood and treasure Iraq debacle could have been avoided but it has more than a slight whiff of the normal bullshit that the high criminals of the new Evil Empire regularly trot out without ever being called on them.  The key though is the playing of the Keystone XL pipeline card, as a former Chevron executive her obvious lack of credibility due to conflicts of interest should be pounced on by journalists and a media that honors their duties in the traditions of the First Amendment. We don’t have one here – at least anymore and after the embarrassment of the outing of the unconstitutional NSA surveillance colossus thanks to the leaks from whistleblower Edward Snowden outgoing American Stasi Commandant General Keith Alexander hinted that there will soon be new measures (very likely of a Draconian nature)  implemented to deal with the reportage of the rogue NSA going forward. Oh, and Condi’s former employer Chevron who thought so much of her that they named a fucking oil tanker after her is in full party mode as the corporation just prolonged against an Ecuadoran judgment that got wiped out thanks to getting it thrown into the corrupt US judicial system which never had jurisdiction. It is exactly as journalist Greg Palast dubbed it - "the best democracy money can buy". 

And when it comes to buying "democracy" and according to The Guardian none other than "Yats" himself is going to be coming to America this week to visit the White House. He would be the pencil-necked little geek who was illegally installed as the Ukranian Prime Minister whose formal name is Arseny Yatseniuk. "Yats" is the term of endearment used by Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland during that intercepted phone call on an unsecured line (what a dumb bitch) as the US was lining up the coup d'etat that would oust democratically elected Viktor Yanukovych in favor of a rogue junta led by the former central banker who will be tasked with carving up Ukraine to be feasted upon by the global financial mafia.

"Yats" will undoubtedly be trotted out by Obama as the head of the 'freedom fighters' seeking to cast off the yoke of the evil bear as has been reincarnated by the spinners as Vladimir Putin's new Soviet Union - note how the same old shit is repackaged to suit the times - not that long ago it was the Islamic Caliphate. The neo-Nazis and fascists that "Yats" relies on as his enforcers are no different than those former 'freedom fighters' that were extolled by none other than the Gipper himself in the Latin American butchers known as the Contras as well as  the Islamist fanatic packed Mujahideen from which al Qaeda sprung forth. I can at some level understand Reagan's backing of murderous thugs given the decades long national trauma that was the Cold War but please explain to me why it is exactly that Obama and his neocons are using American taxpayer money to back a bunch of fucking neo-Nazis. There is no money for the extension of the benefits for the long-term unemployed in this country yet Barry and the boys are able to funnel billions to an illegally installed regime and neo-Nazis?

This is so wrong that there just are not sufficient words to describe it and while the state-corporate media has blasted out months of anti-Putin propaganda to back the filthy overthrow of the sitting government in Ukraine it is no excuse because the truth is out there if people would just get off of their lazy asses and bother to look for it.

 (Image: Dusseldorf Germany parade/US News)

The Exceptional: We Honor Our War Criminals

In another example of just how exceptional that we are in the American Homeland the state corporate media aired an extended interview with one Richard B. Cheney on 60 Minutes yesterday. The interview, conducted by celebrity physician Dr. Sanjay Gupta was puff piece that put a good amount of lipstick on a pig to always accentuate the positive by turning the rotten old bastard into some sort of national model on cardiac health. Cheney’s recent heart transplant – one has to wonder how many less well-heeled and connected recipients were leapfrogged - allowed for his continued presence upon this mortal coil. It is somehow grossly wrong that this man whose policies have resulted in well over a hundred thousand deaths as well as the implementation of a vast domestic fascist police state is not being trotted out on national television as some sort of sympathetic elder figure. It should be noted that Cheney was also pimping his new book, the latest in a series of writings by former Bush regime figures that keep the money rolling in as they tour the country feted as beloved champions.

We honor our war criminals here in America. Look at another former Bush aide, Condoleeza Rice whose lies about the potential for a smoking gun as a mushroom cloud helped to sell the war in Iraq and who has been tabbed as a member of the new NCAA college football playoff selection committee. The best public relations that money can buy is a contemptible and corrupt media propaganda machine that normalizes the abnormal and always promotes the post September 11, 2001 national religion of eternal war. Rice and Cheney should have been tried a the Hague and both should currently be rotting in prison cells but that isn’t the way that we roll in the USA..USA..USA. The Cheney hagiography, outside of serving as a national public health forum was also notably disturbing in that it provided additional insight into the diseased mind of a paranoid.  Cheney revealed that he was concerns that a “terrorist” may have had thoughts about hacking his pacemaker. A story in the beltway edition of Inside Baseball Politico states:

Dick Cheney’s heart problems are well known.

What isn’t widely known is that the former vice president had the wireless feature of his implanted defibrillator disabled so nobody could attempt to assassinate him by hacking into the device.

During a “60 Minutes” interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta scheduled to air on CBS this Sunday, Cheney said his cardiologist feared a terrorist could send a signal to the device to make him go into cardiac arrest.

“And it seemed to me to be a bad idea for the vice president to have a device that maybe somebody on a rope line or in the next hotel room or downstairs might be able to get into— hack into,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner said, according to the show’s transcript. “And I worried that someone could kill you.”

During the interview Cheney reveals that he watched an episode of Showtime’s “Homeland” last year in which a terrorist kills the vice president by sending a fatal signal to his cardiac implant.

“Because I know from the experience we had and the necessity for adjusting my own device that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible,” the former vice president said.

This lunatic was within a heartbeat of the nuclear launch codes but arguably with George W. Bush as president Cheney likely had already circumvented the chain of command. On hearing this latest tidbit from the former veep we should all be down on our knees thanking God today that he never got that wild hair up his ass and went balls out General Jack D. Ripper rogue, launching a global thermonuclear war. The fears of the heart hack are not the only exhibits in the gallery of the mind of a madman. I recall a 2006 Vanity Fair article on Cheney admitting that he always traveled with a biological weapons protective suit within reach:

National Editor Todd Purdum reports that Cheney travels with a chemical-biological suit at all times. When he gave his friend Robin West and his twin children a ride to the White House a couple of years ago, West commented on the fact that Cheney's motorcade varied its daily path. "And he said, 'Yeah, we take different routes so that "The Jackal" can't get me,'" West tells Purdum. "And then there was this big duffel bag in the middle of the backseat, and I said, 'What's that? It's not very roomy in here.' And [Cheney] said, 'No, because it's a chemical-biological suit,' and he looked at it and said, 'Robin, there's only one. You lose.'"

With the reference from the propagandistic series Homeland I would think that Mr. Cheney watches too much television, not that an immersion in a fantasy world is something that is rare in this sordid, collapsing society. I suspect that Dick as an avid fan of the enormously popular Fox torture infomercial "24" back during his days in office. CBS should be ashamed of their polishing up of Cheney's legacy to be anything other than the Machiavellian, paranoid, torture loving, war mongering monster that he is - were such a thing as shame to actually exist in the corporate-state media which it doesn't.

Dick Cheney Soiree Attendees Make Torture Jokes

If you want to understand how America’s moral high ground was squandered look no further than the Dick Cheney celebrity roast. This disgusting soiree according to accounts took place earlier this week and is a profound indictment of the imperial rot that has dragged our once great country to the brink of collapse.  I am sad to say that this story is not soemthing out of The Onion, The Borowitz Report or some other satirical website – it is the truth and it is as dark as the proverbial black steer’s tookus on a moonless prairie night. In this country we now honor war criminals, the more sadistic and contemptuous  towards the principles embodied in the Constitution the more celebrated that they become. Look at Cheney who is treated as a precious elder statesman despite his instrumental role in transforming the United States which we live in and once had legitimate reason to be proud of into a global pariah, a torture state and one with a failed government and the fascist infrastructure to go along with it.

According to the story by Ben Smith at Buzzfeed:

Conservatives gathered at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan Monday night to roast the former vice president at an event where many of the biggest laugh lines touched on the most controversial policies of a key architect of his administration’s war on terror. At the gathering, hosted by Commentary, figures including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey drew a mix of chuckles and winces with jokes that left few lines uncrossed, according to three guests.

Former Sen. Joe Lieberman “said something to the effect that it’s nice that we’re all here at the Plaza instead of in cages after some war crimes trial,” recalled one person who was there.

In a decent society Lieberman and the rest of his warmongering, above the law miscreants would be occupying 6 x 6 cages at Gitmo, that is if this country were to have any respect for justice. The Cuban concentration camp would have to undergo a massive expansion if it was transformed from an establishment serving legal limbo for those who cannot be brought to legitimate trial as their testimony was compelled by the torture that the filth at the Cheney event stamped their own “MADE IN AMERICA” trademark upon. Dick Cheney certainly does not belong on the dais at some tony Manhattan locale but rather in the dock at the Hague and those who showed up to honor this most disgraceful of all of American political figures are complicit in the man’s crimes.

One unnamed guest was quoted in this story for the Atlantic Wire as expressing disgust at the swinish gathering and all of its moral debauchery:

"I can see the case for enhanced interrogation techniques after Sept. 11 but I can’t really endorse sitting there drinking wine and fancy dinner at the Plaza laughing uproariously about it," an attendee told Smith. The crowd watched a video (which perhaps needs more explanation) that put Cheney's head on other people's bodies. Podhoretz said he would release it for $1 million.

Some people have a seriously sick sense of humor that is especially manifested  in the circle of psychopaths and sycophants that a “man” like Dick Cheney attracts like horseflies circling a rotting dog carcass. It was during the reign of Cheney that one of the most disgusting exchanges in modern American history took place when former Bush administration legal fixer John Yoo admitted during a 2006 debate that the president had the legal grounding to crush a child's testicles:.

It has now come out Yoo also had a hand in providing legal reasoning for the President to conduct unauthorized wiretaps of U.S. citizens. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole wrote, "Few lawyers have had more influence on President Bush’s legal policies in the 'war on terror’ than John Yoo."

This part of the exchange during the debate with Doug Cassel, reveals the logic of Yoo’s theories, adopted by the Administration as bedrock principles, in the real world.

Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

John Yoo was rewarded for his legal justifications of the monstrous torture policies of the Bush-Cheney regime with a professorship of law at the University of California at Berkeley.  Many other architects of the moral abandoning of America during Cheney’s torture fest have also been rewarded. Book deals, think tank appointments, cable news celebrities and perverted examples of respectable statesmen, it pays to have influential friends.  The grotesque affair of Monday night is a pox upon our national dignity, whatever scant remnants of it are left after Cheney and his ilk rode roughshod over two and a quarter centuries of democracy and abdicated the moral high ground that was paid for by the blood of our better generations who sacrificed all fighting the same type of ideologies that were exalted during the Cheney roast in that exclusive setting on Monday.

The only place that Richard B. Cheney should be roasted is on a spit in the bowels of Hades and the sooner that he gets there the better that this country will be.