How Republicans Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Frogs

Republicans are piling onto Emperor Obama for his failure to attended the gathering of world “leaders” in a show of anti-Muslim unity Sunday in Paris. Media outlets were filled with the imagery of French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Israeli Megalomaniac Benjamin “Bibi” Netenyahu and various and sundry other human rights abusers and war criminals marching with linked arms in front of the procession. It was however all staged as has been reported by a number of independent websites including Liberty Blitzkrieg.

In a piece entitled “NOUS SOMME HYPOCRITES – Authoritarian, Anti-Free Speech Politicians Pose for Staged Photo Op in Paris” Michael Krieger nails it:

 As I was wrapping up my travels in Asia, an extremely sad event unfolded in Paris during which 12 people were murdered at the office of satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. Just four days later, another sad and pathetic event occurred. A swarm of politicians, many of whom are professional authoritarians, shamelessly descended onto the streets of Paris to “join millions of protesters” in a rally for free speech and solidarity with the victims of the barbaric attack.

As is typically the case, mainstream media stories were filled with powerful images of these political hacks marching arm in arm; faces austere, defiantly standing their ground on behalf of freedom and liberty the world over. You have doubtlessly seen many variations of the following:

 

Such images were commingled with photos of the real march, which was estimated to include an incredible 3.7 million people.

Such images can bring a tear to the eye of even the most hardened cynic. Politicians and citizens united for a noble cause! There’s just one minor problem. As the Huffington Post and Independent both noted, this is what the politicians’ march actually looked like:

While this pathetic and shameless photo op is embarrassing enough, what’s far more concerning and downright hypocritical is the fact that many of the participants are active authoritarians in their home countries.

Even less surprising that the whole “unity” scam was yet another political dog and pony show is how many of the Republicans have now learned to love the French, a people who normally are vilified by party hacks. In excerpting from the smarmy Dana Milbanks in his Washington Post column entitled “Republicans’ inconsistent attacks on Obama’s Paris response”:

A decade ago, Republicans in Congress were renaming French fries “freedom fries” and French toast “freedom toast” because of that country’s refusal to support the Iraq war. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld belittled the “old Europe” French, President George W. Bush mocked an American reporter for speaking French to the French president, and conservative critics called the French “weasels,” “appeasers” and worse. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, was ridiculed by the Bush administration for being “too French” and looking French, and his fluency in French was a liability in the campaign.

And now, that very same Monsieur Kerry, the secretary of state, and his boss, President Obama, are being condemned by conservatives for . . . not being nice enough to the French.

Quelle horreur!

The cause célèbre this time is the failure of the Obama administration to send anybody of higher rank than the U.S. ambassador to attend Sunday’s march in Paris showing solidarity against the terrorists.

“Our president should have been there, because we must never hesitate to stand with our allies,” proclaimed Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican agent provocateur from Texas.

Fox News’s Greta van Susteren said the absence was “embarrassing” and that “Obama should not have snubbed Paris.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — like Cruz a would-be presidential contender — declared it “a mistake not to send someone.” (For the record, neither Cruz nor Rubio attended the march.)

The grandstanding Cruz who passes himself off as a devout Christian should be asked whether he is down with the cover image from Charlie Hebdo that shows his lord and savior engaging an anal sex. While he is at it he can also weigh in on the “standing with our allies” – translation: Netanyahu – remark since the cat is now out of the bag that the entire world leader portion of the marched was yet another political farce. Nothing translates better than hypocrisy.

Neocons Hedge Bets in Backing Flaky Rick Perry

The very definition of a fixed horserace is when the same interests own both horses in that race. Such is the growing neocon push behind Texas Governor Rick Perry who has been cleaned up after his 2012 GOP primary season embarrassment to emerge as the Mexican bashing, American exceptionist promoting ringer in the upcoming race against neocon Democratic party candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. They even gave him Barry Goldwater style horn-rimmed glasses for his coming out party.

 The neocon central transmission beacon The Washington Post prominently featured an op ed allegedly penned by Perry entitled “Isolationist policies make the threat of terrorism even greater" in a broadside against the growing libertarian element in the party led by Senator Rand Paul. Make no mistake about it, the REAL enemy in the 2016 presidential and congressional elections are Americans who are fed up with our costly meddling in the world and the ongoing hatred that it generates – which is entirely justified when you consider that the military grade murder brought by the USA! USA! USA! – in foreign lands in which we murder innocent civilians for corporate profits and the spreading of “democracy” as a carpet bombing of enduring horseshit.

Dig the following from the Texas Governor’s WAPO propaganda spiel:

As a veteran, and as a governor who has supported Texas National Guard deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, I can understand the emotions behind isolationism. Many people are tired of war, and the urge to pull back is a natural, human reaction. Unfortunately, we live in a world where isolationist policies would only endanger our national security even further.

[First off Perry’s vaunted military service was not combat service, while not a draft dodger like the last Texas Governor to run for president Rambo Rick flew transport planes, like the line from Top Gun about “flying a cargo plane of rubber dogshit out of Hong Kong”. Even in a time where the cult of the uniform and the worship of all things military here in The Homeland Perry’s will be hard pressed to sell his military duties as something of valor – at least to those with any sense.]

That’s why it’s disheartening to hear fellow Republicans, such as Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), suggest that our nation should ignore what’s happening in Iraq. The main problem with this argument is that it means ignoring the profound threat that the group now calling itself the Islamic State poses to the United States and the world.

[Rand Paul supports the “terrorists” and if you vote for him so do you]

In the Islamic State, which came to prominence in Syria and now controls ample territory, weapons and cash in both that country and Iraq, the world is confronting an even more radicalized version of Islamic extremism than al-Qaeda. This group is well-trained, technologically sophisticated and adept at recruitment, with thousands of people with European passports fighting on its side, as well as some Americans.

[Is the anti-Muslim fear-mongering EVER going to jump the shark? When you have right-wing media promoting alarmist tales of a southern border invasion based on a “Muslim prayer rug” that was found in Arizona that was really just a fucking soccer jersey isn’t it time to just call all of the anti-Muslim bigots out as being crazy and moving on to real issues?]

This represents a real threat to our national security — to which Paul seems curiously blind — because any of these passport carriers can simply buy a plane ticket and show up in the United States without even a visa. It’s particularly chilling when you consider that one American has already carried out a suicide bombing and a terrorist-trained European allegedly killed four at the Jewish Museum in Brussels

[Reference to the Jewish Museum shooting is a thinly veiled plea for Sheldon Adelson’s millions come campaign season]

Yet Paul still advocates inaction, going so far as to claim in an op-ed last month in the Wall Street Journal that President Ronald Reagan’s own doctrines would lead him to same conclusion.

But his analysis is wrong. Paul conveniently omitted Reagan’s long internationalist record of leading the world with moral and strategic clarity.

Unlike the noninterventionists of today, Reagan believed that our security and economic prosperity require persistent engagement and leadership abroad. He, like Eisenhower before him, refused to heed “the false prophets of living alone.”

Reagan identified Soviet communism as an existential threat to our national security and Western values, and he confronted this threat in every theater. Today, we count his many actions as critical to the ultimate defeat of the Soviet Union and the freeing of hundreds of millions from tyranny.

At the time, though, there were those who said that Reagan’s policies would push the Soviets to war. These voices instead promoted accommodation and timidity in the face of Soviet advancement as the surest path to peace. This, sadly, is the same policy of inaction that Paul advocates today.

In the face of the advancement of the Islamic State, Paul and others suggest the best approach to this 21st-century threat is to do next to nothing. I personally don’t believe in a wait-and-see foreign policy for the United States. Neither would Reagan.

Reagan led proudly from the front, not from behind, and when he drew a “red line,” the world knew exactly what that meant.

[Just like Pleasantville, there are no roads leading out of REAGANGRAD for the Republicans who have yet to find a successful ideology with widespread appeal – such as the one that Rand Paul and a new national policy of minding our own damned business would equivocate. Were this embraced then the GOP just might win another general election in the next fifty years instead of babbling Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan and clicking their heels together in the hope of a different result than another embarssing ass-whipping by incompetents like Obama]

The neocons have made no secret that they would be ecstatic at the prospect of a Hillary Clinton regime, they can finally return to the Democratic party from which they left in disgust back when the unwashed rabble who were protesting the Vietnam War chose George McGovern as their candidate. Nothing will facilitate that becoming a reality than a Rick Perry Republican candidacy, if this is the matchup then Adelson can just pocket his filthy blood money and go to his grave knowing that heads he wins and tails we lose – just like the casino business.

Obama Sells the Exceptionalist Snake Oil

President Barack Obama ‘s foreign policy speech to the corporate cannon fodder at West Point last week has been lambasted by the usual neocon warmongers for not being sufficiently bellicose for their world domination tastes. It was however a speech that while missing the bombastic rhetoric that is so beloved by the Dick Cheney-William Kristol rat pack doubled-down on that most obscene and dangerous concept of American exceptionalism. This idea so long that it exists - and particularly when the political class in the - USA! USA! USA! – toss it around so casually without regard to the consequences, and it will be the phrase of the next two and a half years in the never-ending election cycle  - will never allow for the sort of honest introspection that would allow for a change of course. Not that the Empire would want such a thing, that happened after Vietnam and it only took a few years to trot out the pitchman Ronald Reagan to make America feel good about itself again and get back to the business of killing others in foreign lands.

The exceptionalist concept is really very Aryan in nature when you think about it, William Blum pointed out the correlation correctly in observing that some common Nazi phrases apply rather well in The Homeland:

Seig Heil! = Hail Victory!

Arbeit macht frei = Work makes you free

Denn heute gehört uns Deutschland und morgen die ganze Welt = Today Germany, tomorrow the world.

Ich habenur den Befehlen gehortch! = I was only following orders

Deutschland über alles = Germany above all

Each of those are easily adapted to the American experience in the 21st Century along with:

War is Peace

Ignorance is Strength

Freedom is Slavery

2+2=5

And from Barack Obama’s West Point Address:

 I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.”

The speech could have been given by George W. Bush, so full of interventionism, bogus historical references and a call for US world domination – albeit a bit more subtle than the Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Michael Ledeen blitzkrieg of shock and awe. Obama in his speech continued to promulgate the falsehood of “democracy” in Ukraine omitting the $5 billion dollars spent by NGO groups to plot the overthrow of the corrupt oligarch Viktor Yanukovych by US sponsored fascist and neo-Nazi thugs only to install another corrupt oligarch in Petro Poroshenko aka “the Chocolate King”. Obama’s stem-winder was a wretched excess of fables, an orgy of lies and a bacchanalia of bullshit.

Former Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts, a prolific critic of the rottenness that emanates from Washington really nailed Obama’s peddling of exceptionalism in his most recent piece entitled “What Obama Told Us at West Point”:

At West Point Obama told us, to the applause of West Point cadets, that “American exceptionalism” is a doctrine that justifies whatever Washington does. If Washington violates domestic and international law by torturing “detainees” or violates the Nuremberg standard by invading countries that have undertaken no hostile action against the US or its allies, “exceptionalism” is the priest’s blessing that absolves Washington’s sins against law and international norms. Washington’s crimes are transformed into Washington’s affirmation of the rule of law. Here is Obama in his own words:

“I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.”

Actions indeed. In the 21st century “American exceptionalism” has destroyed seven countries in whole or in part. Millions of people are dead, maimed, and displaced, and all of this criminal destruction is evidence of Washington’s reaffirmation of international norms and the rule of law. Destruction and murder are merely collateral damage from Washington’s affirmation of international norms.

“American exceptionalism” also means that US presidents can lie through their teeth and misrepresent those they choose to demonize. Listen to Obama’s misrepresentations of the Putin and Assad governments:

 “Russia’s aggression towards former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe . . . In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe .” Obama misrepresents Assad as “a dictator who bombs and starves his own people.”

Did any of the cadets in Obama’s West Point audience wonder why, if Assad is a brutal dictator who bombs and starves his own people, the Syrian people are supporting Assad instead of the American-backed “liberation forces,” the combination of imported jihadists and al Qaeda fighters who object to Assad’s government because it is secular? The US military is taught to respect its civilian commander-in-chief, but if West Point cadets actually do obtain an education, it is remarkable that Obama’s audience did not break out in laughter.

The reference to Soviet tanks rolling into Eastern Europe is a reference to the Hungarian (1956) and Czech (1968) “revolutions” when the Hungarian and Czech communist leaders attempted to assert independence from Moscow. It is doubtful that Washington’s response to countries attempting to exit NATO would be any different. A few months ago Washington responded to political talk in Germany and England about leaving the EU by informing both governments that it was not in Washington’s interest for them to depart from the European Union.

Obama used the image of Soviet tanks in order to color Russia with the Soviet Threat, to mischaracterize Russia’s response to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia, and to misrepresent Crimea’s vote in favor of reunification with Russia as “Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea.” These lies are still a mainstay in the US media and in Washington’s official propaganda.

Obama’s speech is probably the most disingenuous ever given by a Western politician. We could have fun for hours with all the crimes that Washington commits but buries in rhetoric directed at others. Perhaps my favorite is Obama evoking a world in which “individuals aren’t slaughtered because of political belief.” I am sure Obama was thinking of this just world when he murdered without due process of law four American citizens “outside of areas of active hostilities.”

Another favorite is the way Obama flushed the US Constitution of its meaning. Obama said, with reference to bringing the Guantanamo prisoners to the US, that “American values and legal traditions don’t permit the indefinite detention of people beyond our borders.” No, Obama, the US Constitution prevents the indefinite detention of US citizens by the US government anywhere on earth, especially within our borders.

By detaining and by murdering US citizens without due process of law, Obama has violated his oath of office and should be impeached. It was only a short time ago that President Bill Clinton was impeached by the US House of Representatives (the Senate saved him from conviction) for lying about his sexual affair with a White House intern. How times change. Today a president who violates his oath of office to protect the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic gets a free ride. The Constitution has lost its power to protect citizens from the arbitrary power of government. The US is the Constitution. Without the Constitution the US ceases to exist, and the country becomes a tyranny, both at home and abroad.Today the US is a tyranny cloaked in the garb of “freedom and democracy.”

Instead of laughing our way through Obama’s ridiculous speech to what apparently was a dumbed-down West Point graduating class, lets pay attention to Obama’s bottom line: “America must always lead on the world stage. . . . The military is, and always will be, the backbone of that leadership.”

In other words, Washington doesn’t use diplomacy. Washington uses coercion. The favorite threat is: “Do as you are told or we will bomb you into the Stone Age.” Obama’s speech is a justification of Washington’s criminal actions on the grounds that Washington acts for the exceptional Americans whose exceptionalism places them and, thereby, their government above law and international norms. In this way of thinking, only the failure to prevail constitutes failure.

Americans are the new ubermensch, the new master race. Inferior humans can be bombed, invaded, and sanctioned. Obama’s West Point speech asserts American superiority over all others and Washington’s determination to continue this superiority by preventing the rise of other powers. This arrogant hubris was not enough for the Washington Post editorial board. The newspaper’s editorial damned Obama for binding US power and limiting its use to “a narrow set of core interest,” such as direct threats to America.

The American “liberal media” object that Obama’s claim of exceptionalism is not broad enough for Washington’s purposes. Obama’s address, the Washington Post wrote, bound “US power” and “offered scant comfort” to those militarists who want to overthrow Syria, Iran, Russia, and China.

The world should take note that the most militarily aggressive American president in history is considered a wimp by the neoconized American media. The media drives wars, and the American media, firmly allied with the military/security complex, is driving the world to the final war.

HEAR! HEAR!  Now that is something to salute!

The narcotic of exceptionalism is what leads to a population that has been brainwashed by years of propaganda, indoctrinated in the mythology of a national destiny and greatness as surely as Germany was circa 1933 and enamored with war and hegemony in a way that makes acceptable the crucifixion of a soldier who questioned the morality of it all – Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl – to a red, white and blue cross of sick hypocrisy dipped in national glory.

Salute the Flag, Drink the Kool Aid, Drop the Bombs – USA! USA! USA!

Biden Goes to Kiev as America Goes to Hell

Vice President Joe Biden made a highly publicized trip to Kiev on Monday in a show of support to the unelected, coup installed government of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk or “Yats” as he has become affectionately referred to by the US regime changers. The Easter “truce” was shattered when what was likely US backed neo-Nazi militias (or mercenaries ) engaged in a gunfight near Slavyansk resulting in at least three deaths. The corrupt US state-corporate media had the backs of the occupying junta in Kiev though and blamed it on Russia and that horrible, horrible man Vladimir Putin. By now anyone with an inkling of sense can fully see that just about everything that comes out in the US media are the lies of neocon propagandists itching to put some American boots on the ground in East Ukraine – just not theirs. When it comes to a cowardly lot of bitches and bastards who are always foaming at the mouth to send the sons and daughters of others to murder, torture and be killed or maimed themselves there are none more adept than the embedded neoconservatives who have like termites eaten their way into what was once an admired and honorable democracy. The neocons have company now in the liberal interventionists and their “improve or we’ll kill you” crusade to make the world into a ‘better’ place – according to their vision. Together they are a  toxic and volatile mix that may prove to be fatal barring the miraculous backing down by a renegade US government led by the petulant narcissist Barack Obama.

The poisonous hydra of the US media is doing their damned level best to continue to agitate for the confrontation – and eventual toppling of Putin which is a fantasy and the provocations continue, now there is the tale that the sanction twins Obama and the stammering goon John Kerry are going to go after $40 billion of Putin’s own dough. It is ridiculous that the parasitical global finance mafia and their military arm in Washington would go so far as to steal the money that Putin allegedly skimmed from his own people. Recall after the fall of the Soviet Union that there was a US sanctioned looting of Russia by chosen oligarchs under the cartoon figure of the drunken Boris Yeltsin. It is truly a symptom of the now cancerous late stage of looter capitalism as exemplified by the ruling class of the US of A that everything has to be monetized, including revenge.

Hell, with the way that the lies continue to pile up – including that debunked story of forced registration of Jews in East Ukraine that keeps popping up in the US media – it is questionable whether Putin even has the money in that Swiss bank account or it will be created out of thin air or otherwise temporarily shifted from the black budget to provide the illusion that will drive the media coverage. Personally, I don’t think that Putin is that fucking stupid to stash the money where it could be easily found by the jackals in Washington, London and New York. There is also once again the serious hypocrisy of the US, which has one of the most corrupt political systems that now exists with a millionaire occupied Congress having the moral high ground to wag that big red, white and blue finger at anyone. 

While Biden breaks bread with "Yats" and his neo-Nazis and fascists in Kiev the job of selling what may well be the coming slaughter by extremist right-wing militias, some who lionize the fiendish WW II Nazi collaborator and mass murderer Stepan Bandera the disinformation machine in The Homeland continues to be set on high. In the most recent whopper, the New York Times, our nation's 'paper of record' has now reached back into the Judith Miller days to sell the war on Russia via Ukraine.  Michael Gordon, a collaborator of the disgraced Miller whose work on behalf of Dick Cheney and the neocons in spreading the lies that led to the ongoing blood soaked attack on Iraq is at it again. I regularly read the work of Robert Parry of Consortium News who is a true investigative reporter of the likes that are no longer tolerated in the debased domestic media. I excerpt from his latest piece which calls into question the NYT and Gordon for what for all intents and purposes is yet another bullshit story. The Parry piece is entitled "Another NYT-Michael Gordon Special?" from which I excerpt:

There is now a pattern to New York Times “investigative” stories that seek to pin the blame on some nefarious foreign enemy, as in the 2002 article on Iraq buying aluminum tubes for nuclear centrifuges; the 2013 “vector analysis” tracing sarin-laden rockets to a Syrian military base; and now a photographic analysis proving that Russian soldiers are behind unrest in eastern Ukraine.

All these stories draw hard conclusions from very murky evidence while ignoring or brushing aside alternative explanations. They also pile up supportive acclamations for their conclusions from self-interested sources while treating any doubters as rubes. And, these three articles all involved reporter Michael R. Gordon.

The infamous aluminum tube story of Sept. 8, 2002, which Gordon co-wrote with Judith Miller, relied on U.S. intelligence sources and Iraqi defectors to frighten Americans with images of “mushroom clouds” if they didn’t support President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. The timing played perfectly into the administration’s advertising “rollout” for the Iraq War.

Of course, the story turned out to be false and to have unfairly downplayed skeptics of the nuclear-centrifuge scenario. The aluminum tubes actually were meant for artillery, not for centrifuges. But the article provided a great impetus toward the Iraq War, which ended up killing nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Gordon’s co-author, Judith Miller, became the only U.S. journalist known to have lost a job over the reckless and shoddy reporting that contributed to the Iraq disaster. For his part, Gordon continued serving as a respected Pentagon correspondent.

Gordon’s name also showed up in a supporting role on the Times’ botched “vector analysis” of Sept. 17, 2013, which nearly helped get the United States into another Mideast war, with Syria. That story traced the flight paths of two rockets, recovered in suburbs of Damascus after the Aug. 21 sarin gas attack, back to a Syrian military base 9.5 kilometers away.

The article became the “slam-dunk” evidence that the Syrian government was lying when it denied launching the sarin attack that killed several hundred people.

AND

The Times reported, “Now, photographs and descriptions from eastern Ukraine endorsed by the Obama administration on Sunday suggest that many of the green men are indeed Russian military and intelligence forces — equipped in the same fashion as Russian special operations troops involved in annexing the Crimea region in February. Some of the men photographed in Ukraine have been identified in other photos clearly taken among Russian troops in other settings.”

The Times apparently accepts the photos as legitimate in terms of where and when they were taken, but that requires first trusting the source, the post-coup regime in Kiev which has a strong motive for making this argument as a prelude to violently crushing the eastern Ukrainian protests.

Secondly, one has to believe that the fuzzy photographs of the circled faces are the same individuals. They may be, but it is difficult to be sure from what is displayed. The principal figure shown is a man with a long beard and a cap sometimes pulled down over his forehead. He could be a Russian special forces soldier or a character from “Duck Dynasty.”

And the resemblance of some uniforms to those worn by Russian soldiers is also circumstantial, since military gear often looks similar or it could have been sold to civilians, or the men could be veterans who kept their old uniforms after leaving the military. The fact that these men are adept at handling weapons also could mean that they have prior military experience, not that they are still active.

For the Times to cite the Obama administration’s endorsement of the Kiev regime’s claims as some kind of verification is also silly. Anyone who has followed the Ukraine crisis knows that the U.S. government is wholeheartedly on the side of the post-coup regime, trumpeting its propaganda and dismissing any counterclaims from the Yanukovych camp or from Moscow.

The rest of the piece can be read here and I would strongly recommend the fine work at Consortium News as an invaluable resource to those seeking to understand where it all went wrong in the US of A, particularly in the huge archives section which is filled with must read stories. From the CIA assimilating Nazi war criminals after WW II to The October Surprise to Iran-Contra to the present this is an essential source of information that you will not find in establishment organs such as the New York Times or Washington Post.

Despite it's venerable reputation, The New York Times cannot be trusted and it is not because of any sort of phony "liberal" bias but an establishment bias that supports the American war machine no matter which criminal party is technically in power, allowing Gordon to continue to prostitute himself out as a mouthpiece is as damning as any bullshit on it's editorial page inhabited by the likes of set for life country clubber elite insiders the likes of Thomas Friedman, David Brooks and Nicholas Kristof.  Gordon has joined the pantheon of professional imperial bullshitters with his latest, right up there with NBC's insipid David Gregory who on Easter Sunday continued to push the hoax that was the Donetsk Jew registration leaflets after they had pretty much been exposed as a fraud. In an interesting and revealing footnote a story came out that the network had hired a "psychological consultant" for the host of their sinking Sunday morning flagship. 

The presstitutes continue to do their job in squealing like war pigs although it has yet to be seen as to how effective this latest pack of lies will resonate. Regarding Ukraine, according to a poll (that is if you can believe such things) a whopping 84 percent of Americans don’t know where the hell that it is even located on a map. I think that is way too high though, I  personally wouldn’t put it much above 70 percent or so.

Finally in a bit of great news the 2014 Boston Marathon was run today and nothing blew up, now can we just get over the whole “Boston Strong” thing? 

Somebody Had to Punch the Bully

Barack Obama is going to Europe and America is going to Hell. Still smarting over the audacity of the newest devil of The Homeland Russian leader Vladimir Putin's pretty much telling Barry and the boys to go and fuck themselves and annexing Crimea despite the empty threats and howls of protestation from the political class El Presidente is soon to be on his way across the pond to meet with the heads of US client states over the next move. You have to give it to the man, he never gives up and never learns from his mistakes, January 2017 cannot possibly get here soon enough provided that Obama and his moronic foreign policy team don't get all of us nuked in the interim. I used to think that George W. Bush was a slimy, narcissistic bastard but he has nothing on Obama, at least Bush got a clue in his second term and somewhat distanced himself from the ruinous neocon pack of jackals and their plots for global dominance and after all he did send me $600 which I promptly spent unlike the long-legged lame duck who has spent the past five years stealing money from the taxpayers to subsidize the reckless gambling of his cronies on Wall Street.

The egotistical one is infuriated over Putin's incredible failure to understand where exactly his place is - a footstool to the global finance mafia with thousands of NATO missiles surrounding him - in the new world order of the coming fascist corporate dictatorship. The twin humiliations of Putin's saving of former government contractor turned NSA whistleblower from America's black site torture prisons followed up by his sweeping in to save the day after Obama and Secretary of Skull and Bones John Kerry had nearly succeeded in selling yet another illegal war in Syria stuck in dear leader's overly sensitive craw. The Russian backlash against the western backed and instigated overthrow of the democratically elected leader of Ukraine, with the assistance of mobs of neo-Nazis and other vicious thugs despite the big bad wolf's huffing and puffing in refusing to go along with the neocon putsch in Kiev was just too much to take. Whatever Obama may have been or could have been (I would suggest the following: an egomaniac ass, an unqualified dupe, a stooge of the oligarchy, an pompous teleprompter reading wonder who somehow managed to hit the political jackpot and an clear chronic fuck up) he has now become the tool of the now resurgent neocon dreams of global conquest. Hitler had nothing on those guys - he didn't have nukes or television.

With Obama now fully out of control in a desperate attempt to remain relevant after having been force fed a borscht and shit sandwich with a vodka chaser by Putin has gone mad having had drunk from the poisonous chalice of the neocons. It is at first inconceivable that so many who had been wrong about so much could still hold as much sway over the ultimate destiny of the United States and by extension the world - particularly those on the ample target list but they never really went away. Robert Parry who runs the great website Consortium News has been on the job while the rest of the pathetic excuse for a domestic media has been speculating about a missing jetliner, feasting like vultures on the flesh of the latest celebrity turned murderer Oscar Pistorius and reciting the daily anti-Putin talking points. Parry's recent piece "Neocons Have Weathered the Storm" is a must read from which I excerpt:

In Election 2006, GOP congressional candidates took a pounding because Bush and the Republicans were most associated with the neocons. In Election 2008, Sen. Hillary Clinton, a neocon-lite who had voted for the Iraq War, lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Sen. Barack Obama, who had opposed invading Iraq. Then, in the general election, Obama defeated neocon standard-bearer John McCain to win the White House.

At that moment, it looked like the neocons were in serious trouble. Indeed, many of them did have to pack up their personal belongings and depart government, seeking new jobs at think tanks or other neocon-friendly non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

More significantly, their grand strategy seemed discredited. Many Americans considered the neocons’ dream of more “regime change” across the Middle East — in countries opposed to Israel, especially Syria and Iran – to be an unending nightmare of death and destruction.

After taking office, President Obama called for winding down Bush’s wars and doing some “nation-building at home.” The broad American public seemed to agree. Even some right-wing Republicans were having second thoughts about the neocons’ advocacy of an American Empire, recognizing its devastating impact on the American Republic.

The Comeback

But the neocons were anything but finished. They had positioned themselves wisely.

They still controlled government-funded operations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED); they held prominent positions inside think tanks, from the American Enterprise Institute to the Council on Foreign Relations to the Brookings Institution; they had powerful allies in Congress, such as Senators McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman; and they dominated TV chat shows and opinion pages, particularly at the Washington Post, the capital’s hometown newspaper.

 Since the late 1970s and early 1980s when they first emerged as a noticeable force in Washington, the neocons had become “insiders.” They were both admired and feared for their intellectual ferocity, but — most important for their long-term survival – they had secured access to government money, including the slush fund at NED whose budget grew to over $100 million during the Bush-43 years.

NED, which was founded in 1983, is best known for investing in other countries’ “democracy building” (or CIA-style “destabilization” campaigns, depending on your point of view), but much of NED’s money actually goes to NGOs in Washington, meaning that it became a lifeline for neocon operatives who found themselves out of work because of the arrival of Obama.

While ideological advocates for other failed movements might have had to move back home or take up new professions, the neocons had their financial ballast (from NED and many other sources) so their ideological ship could ride out the rough weather.

And, despite Obama’s opposition to the neocons’ obsession with endless warfare, he didn’t purge them from his administration. Neocons, who had burrowed deep inside the U.S. government as “civil servants” or “career foreign service officers,” remained as a “stay-behind” force, looking for new allies and biding their time.

The lunatics are now running the asylum, I would recommend visiting Consortium News for more of this sort of insight and coverage of things that really matter, trust me. Now unfortunately, the rest as the saying goes is history and so are we unless the current power play is somehow repelled, I have to admit that things are not looking good now that Obama has gone totally rogue and the human gaffe machine Joe Biden is sliming around over in Europe talking shit about US military exercises in a region that thanks to neocon meddling and Obama administration incompetence is already a pile of gasoline soaked tinder just waiting for some idiot to throw in a match.

While I am used to being in the minority of my fellow Americans on many things, first and foremost being that I am an atheist (actually agnostic but people are too damned dumb to understand such a thing) with left libertarian views and an aversion to foreign wars and nation building so it is no big deal to me that I am rootin’ for Putin. With the absorption of Crimea into the Russian Federation and a wonderfully blistering denouncement of US and western hypocrisy the Russian President has finally stood up to the big, bad bully and delivered a long-deserved punch in the nose. The United States or more appropriately The Homeland is nothing but a desiccated husk of what it once was, the country that my own grandfather and his fellow citizens took fire and in many cases died for in World War II no longer exists. The end of that war - the “good war” in the parlance of the profiteering blood barters and paper changers who need the mythology to continue to cash in – allowed a parasitic elite and the political class which it serves to effectively overthrow the American system. The United States of America may still exist but all of that flag-draped righteous persona is nothing but an exo-skeleton, having long been usurped by the Deep State which is the greatest menace to the planet in world history.

I am ashamed to be an American and I am goddamned proud of it too.

I cheer against the Americans at the Olympics, refuse to acknowledge the Star-Spangled banner jingoism at sporting events and consider the Pledge of Allegiance to be the worst type of indoctrination, far surpassing that of the demonized Commies that the neocons and their allies in the so-called tea party confederacy of dunces so decry. There will always be plenty of fools willing to blindly salute whatever horseshit that this rotten to the core and now fully bought and sold government runs up the flag pole. I however am not one of them. 

Hell someone tell me exactly what the fuck there is to be proud about considering what this place has been turned into?

Nice Job Neocons: Now What?

Nothing can be more exceptionally American than the shock and arrogance expressed by the US political class in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. They are outraged, I tell you, outraged that the loathed Russian President Vladimir Putin would call their bluff and refuse to sniff the glove after they had pissed on his prized showcase of the Sochi Winter Olympics and then with assistance of fascists, neo-Nazis and assorted other anti-Semitic miscreants toppled the democratically elected government that sits on his borders. The nerve of Putin to not submit to having yet more NATO missiles surrounding mother Russia and to dare to sign off on the absorption of Crimea and then to give a speech blasting US hypocrisy, just who in the hell does this guy think that he is?

Nice job to the neocons who pushed all right buttons of the idiotic overmatched dupe that is Barack Obama, it was just as easy as having Cheney and Rummy goading Dubya into attacking and invading Iraq over resentment towards his old man. Now like the 2003 “Shock and Awe” campaign that brought chaos and sectarian vengeance to Baghdad and its surroundings, where the stars and stripes flew proudly over Saddam’s torture gulag at Abu Ghraib prison next to an ‘under new management’ sign the very same cadre of mouthy embedded deep cowards have gotten us into the mother of all messes. They have no shame about it either, the chickenhawk leader of the movement William Kristol, a modern incarnation of Joseph Goebbels just published a screed in his vile propaganda organ The Weekly Standard that called out Americans for not being sufficiently enthusiastic about World War III. Like all of the others with the exception of the fanatical war criminal John McCain whose acts of wartime bravery consisted of dropping jellied fire on Vietnamese women and children and Lindsey Graham whose USMC service consisted of flying a desk ALL neocons are chickenhawk cowards. Kristol likes to toot his own horn, in particular when advocating for the children of American mothers to be fed into the meat-grinder for his on aggrandizement yet his copious biography is strangely (or not so) devoid of military service. 

I excerpt the following from Kristol (whose amazing proclivity for being wrong about every aspect of American foreign policy just landed him a gig at ABC) and his piece "War Weariness as an Excuse":

Are Americans today war-weary? Sure. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been frustrating and tiring. Are Americans today unusually war-weary? No. They were wearier after the much larger and even more frustrating conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. And even though the two world wars of the last century had more satisfactory outcomes, their magnitude was such that they couldn’t help but induce a significant sense of war-weariness. And history shows that they did.

So American war-weariness isn’t new. Using it as an excuse to avoid maintaining our defenses or shouldering our responsibilities isn’t new, either. But that doesn’t make it admirable.

What a preening little shitbag, if he is so hellbent on war then give the man a rifle and send him to Ukraine, or Iran, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela, Somalia, Egypt, Libya or any of the other countless dozens of countries that the American war machine is meddling in. I will tell you what is definitely not admirable and that is driving the US of A and its citizens into a state of indentured servitude to continue to finance the splendid little wars of cowardly bastards like William Kristol and his ilk. Included in his company is the current stammering ass of a Secretary of State John Kerry who is doing his damned level best to create the conditions for a global thermonuclear war when Russia fights back - this is not some dipshit little country like Iraq and they are not going to just roll over.

The longtime member of elitist swine that is Yale’s Skull and Bones society,  Mr. Kerry has that certain sneering contempt of the elite, particularly with his ongoing asinine threats of economic sanctions and his snobbish revisionist history that fails to include the United States out of the list of countries who illegally invade and occupy countries while killing their inhabitants for the spoils of war. It is the same sort of flagrant dismissiveness that in a previous period of history led a similarly holier than though and corrupt ruling class marched to the guillotines. We could never be so lucky as to have such a sentiment manifest itself within the television addled hive minds of the lethargic lemmings that populate this woebegone land of war and dumbness.

“Yats”, our man in Kiev, acting every bit the pencil-necked little bureaucratic lickspittle who hit it big isn’t helping matters either. The unelected puppet of the western backed global finance mafia has ordered Ukranian troops to shoot to kill as of today. Infused with hubris over his recent visit to the White House Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a typical four-flushing little dipshit risks an ugly fate if he is unable to deliver to the global predatory capitalists the prize of Ukraine without the very lucrative chunk of Crimea missing from what was to be an enormous bounty. It would be nice to see him suffer the same fate of Nicolae Ceausescu or better yet the prototype fascist Benito Mussolini when economic hitmen/women the likes of Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland are passing out cookies to the crowds outside his window. When you make a deal with the devil you had better be damned sure that the man gets paid.

Just when you would think that it couldn't get any worse that moronic asshole Joe Biden has shown up in Lithuania to commit the US to engaging in Baltic region war games to further push Russia into a corner.

Now about those guillotines.....

A Narcissist Scorned: Obama Throws Another Tantrum

Despite weeks of saber rattling and threats from our dear leader Barack the Feckless and his bull in a China shop Secretary of State John Kerry, the Skull and Bones pedigreed stammering ass whose brief tenure has now put the US on a path to a war with Russia the referendum in Crimea that they had so desperately wanted to avoid went down on Sunday. With the third body blow to dwindling US prestige now having landed – the first two being Russia’s offer of asylum to former government whistleblower turned NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden followed by the humiliation of Russian leader Vladimir Putin intervening to prevent the neocon’s splendid little war on Syria the vote in Crimea has assholes puckering this morning. The poor aggrieved star bellied Sneetches in their mighty kingdom inside the DC beltway are apoplectic that the people of Crimea have given Obama the middle finger and voted to rejoin Russia. How is that coup d’etat going for you today Mr. President?

Not that you can blame Crimea considering that the western orchestrated overthrow of democratically elected Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych set the country on a course towards corporate exploitation by the global finance mafia and that fascists and neo-Nazis had key roles in the puppet government. It is not an argument that Putin is any kind of great humanitarian figure but better the devil you know than to be beggared as the new world order carves up your homeland like a Thanksgiving turkey and the US corporate mercenaries such as Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland turn a blind eye to packs of marauding neo-Nazi militias. They got out while the getting was good making the world safe for McDonalds and at a larger level for Monsanto, Cargill and Chevron has nothing to do with that exalted horseshit of “spreading democracy” that is always invoked when it comes to raping an overseas country for its natural resources. Just look at what is going on in Iraq – the neocons were going to bring “democracy” to those who were under the boot of once reliable US puppet Saddam Hussein  and it is a charnel house that far exceeds the worst days of Saddam. Don’t look for any of this in the corrupt US state-corporate media though although there has been some small leakages of the real story as of late.

So what is the pope of hope to do but stamp his feet, hold his breath and launch a wave of economic sanctions against Russia which is as Ron Paul recently said is an "act of war" and this is not going to end well considering the hubris of the arrogant cancer on the Potomac, the think skin of Obama and the imperial hubris of a rapidly declining world power. Russia is not Iraq, Iran or any of the other shitty little countries that can be kicked around by the militarized to the teeth global bully, it is a large nation with a long history and a sense of pride unlike anything that exists in the United States of Dancing With the Stars and it's borderline moron population. This too is going to end up blowing up in the face of the titular President Obama, defacto President John McCain and all of the holier than thou dumbasses and dipshits in their orbit. It is only a matter of how much damage will be done, all of it of the self-inflicted nature that The Homeland has become accustomed to.

Whoever got the idea of a ridiculously conceived overthrow of a democratically elected leader, backed by corrupt western interests and carried out with the help of ruthless gangs of right-wing extremists, fascists and neo-Nazis (from which likely came that sniper fire that provided the impetus for the ouster) during the Sochi Winter Olympic games all to stick it to Putin should just do the honorable thing and perform harakiri. Ritual suicide is an act of honor in Japanese culture and the ongoing clusterfuck in the aftermath of the botched coup demands that there be people held accountable before the weakling Obama and the neocons get all of us incinerated. The way that this thing is unfolding I wouldn't put the ultimate act of stupidity of starting a nuclear war past these imbeciles. Those responsible should just do the right thing and do so quickly. 

Too bad there is neither honor nor accountability in this collapsing house of cards that is The Homeland. 

Ron Paul Calls Out Neocon Meddling in Ukraine

Retired Congressman Ron Paul has been a consistent critic of the neocon domination of US foreign policy that with the western backed overthrow of the democratically elected leader of Ukraine that come roaring back into vogue. Never underestimate the neocons, they were thought to have been permanently discredited and for all intents and purposes dead and buried after the Iraq fiasco but they are back with a vengeance - you can say that they never truly went away. Like the cockroach, the neoconservative seems to be virtually indestructible primarily because unlike the permanently tainted American political system and its two contemptibly corrupt parties it has an underlying ideology, much like Communism or Nazism, both of which are borrowed from to form neocon dogma. With the now mortally wounded lame duck Barack Obama about to have inflicted upon him and America yet another brutal geopolitical embarrassment with the western backed, neocon orchestrated coup d'etat against President Viktor Yanukovych having disintegrated into a fiasco as Crimea is today holding a referendum on breaking away from the illicit central puppet government to return to Russia. Despite all of the threats and posturing by a truly feckless Obama and his moronic Secretary of State John Kerry the vote is going down now and the Washington elitist establishment is squealing like stuck pigs.

I have not had the chance to review the Sunday morning propaganda shows yet - just looking at the published list of the degenerate fascist shills for the neocon permanent state of war abroad and oppression at home had me queasy but will have to dutifully review the cacophony of the keening chickenhawks sooner or later. All four major TV networks and the cable outlets as well are trotting out the big guns this morning for the initial barrage of bullshit upon which the coming weeks warmongering talking points will spring from. There will be the whore chasing Democrat from New Jersey Robert Menendez, the deranged Texas Congressman Michael McCaul who is already exploiting the mysterious disappearance of that Malaysian jetliner as "terrorism" which will be used by the Heimat Security boss as an excuse to further gut the constitution and more. There will be the lunatic from Long Island, Congressman and anti-Muslim bigot Peter King, a supporter of the terrorist wing of the Irish Republican Army whom ABC's "This Week" will be lucky if he isn't already half drunk for St. Patrick's Day as well as the pride of Michigan's 8th Congressional District and living proof of the 'tyranny of the minority" Mike Rogers and even John McCain, perhaps live from Kiev where he is palling around with neo-Nazis again. It is a veritable All Star Team of fascists, swine and scum and to top it all off none other than arch-neocon William Kristol who just landed a gig there despite the blatant conflict of interest, he is the Joseph Goebbels of the neoconservative fifth column in America.

But I digress.

Ron Paul has always been right about the dangers of the neocons and their proud proclamations of world dominance enforced by the US military. In a piece from The Guardian that featured both Ron and his son, Senator Rand Paul the venerable former public servant once again called it as it is in that sanctions against Russia are an "act of war" and that:  “The evidence is pretty clear that the NGOs [non-governmental organisations] financed by our government have been agitating with billions of dollars, trying to get that government changed”  and “Our hands are not clean.” Indeed not clean is an understatement, soaked in the blood of innocents is more like it and when you have a high ranking member of the US State Department like Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland being caught on a telephone call in the act of picking winners of the overthrow of an elected leader it is pretty obvious that the Ukraine operation comes with the highest degree of official sanctioning. Nuland is a Bush regime holdover and a former aide to Dick Cheney as well as being married to Project For the New American Century (PNAC) co-founder Robert Kagan so her motivations should be questioned - especially with her handing out of fucking cookies to anti-government demonstrators.

Back in 2003 when the Bush-Cheney-Rove Axis of Evil and their winged monkey squadrons were using the big ass club of 9/11 with which to pummel critics of the American war machine and the looming catastrophe of the Shock and Awe attack on Iraq "unpatriotic" and "terrorist appeaser" Ron Paul had the stones to call them out for what they were. In an astonishing floor speech in the House of Representatives he blasted the neocons as exactly what they were. The link to his famous "Neoconned" denouncement is here and the really good stuff starts at around the 11 minute mark, the transcript is posted here, a brief sample of which I excerpt below:

There is abundant evidence exposing those who drive our foreign policy justifying preemptive war. Those who scheme are proud of the achievements in usurping control over foreign policy. These are the neoconservatives of recent fame. Granted, they are talented and achieved a political victory that all policymakers must admire. But can freedom and the Republic survive this takeover? That question should concern us.

Neoconservatives are obviously in positions of influence and are well-placed throughout our government and the media. An apathetic Congress put up little resistance and abdicated its responsibilities over foreign affairs. The electorate was easily influenced to join in the patriotic fervor supporting the military adventurism advocated by the neoconservatives.

AND –

At the end of the Cold War, the neoconservatives realized a rearrangement of the world was occurring and that our superior economic and military power offered them a perfect opportunity to control the process of remaking the Middle East.

 It was recognized that a new era was upon us, and the neocons welcomed Frances Fukuyama's “end of history” declaration. To them, the debate was over. The West won; the Soviets lost. Old-fashioned communism was dead. Long live the new era of neoconservatism. The struggle may not be over, but the West won the intellectual fight, they reasoned. The only problem is that the neocons decided to define the philosophy of the victors. They have been amazingly successful in their efforts to control the debate over what Western values are and by what methods they will be spread throughout the world.

There is much more including the naming of names, many of which are involved in the current push for waging war against Putin and Russia including William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Dick Cheney and others Paul also pointed out the role of Rupert Murdoch in promoting the state of permanent war after September 11, 2001:

The money and views of Rupert Murdock also played a key role in promoting the neocon views, as well as rallying support by the general population, through his News Corporation, which owns Fox News Network, the New York Post and Weekly Standard. This powerful and influential media empire did more to galvanize public support for the Iraqi invasion than one might imagine. This facilitated the Rumsfeld/Cheney policy as their plans to attack Iraq came to fruition. It would have been difficult for the neocons to usurp foreign policy from the restraints of Colin Powell's State Department without the successful agitation of the Rupert Murdock empire. Max Boot was satisfied, as he explained: “Neoconservatives believe in using American might to promote American ideals abroad.” This attitude is a far cry from the advice of the Founders, who advocated no entangling alliances and neutrality as the proper goal of American foreign policy.

Again Murdoch and his media empire are playing a critical role only now they are joined by a united and coordinated array of every so-called mainstream 'news' outlet as the drumbeat for the rebooting of the Cold War reaches a level that is deafening. Ron Paul had a serious set of cajones in speaking this in 2003, this speech among many other things had him permanently placed on the unofficial enemies list of the neocons. It is shameful that there are none there to take his place in denouncing this very anti-American ideology and those who adhere to it in a similar manner as the doomsday clock continues to tick.