New Ebola Case Derails Obama Administration Spin Machine

Just as the Obama administration had managed to successfully manage the news cycle to play down the danger of the Ebola virus another case has manifested itself. This time in New York City. Such a thing in the most overpopulated city in America – and probably one of the most unsanitary – will be a serious problem if not contained.  The primary crisis of the Ebola problem, at least to the thoroughly rotten Obama regime has been in how to best contain the political damage in an election year. I strongly suspect that this is why El Presidente tabbed a longtime party hack with no medical experience as Ebola Czar last week - to serve as a perception manager.

The corrupt state-corporate media then began to smear those critical of President Ebola as tin-foil hatters, truthers and the always effective chosen pejorative of the powerful: conspiracy theorists. What better way to boost the Democrats than politicizing what is a serious national health crisis. It was working wonders too, allowing for the focus to shift back to the pitched battle to keep the Senate under the control of former Nevada Gaming Commissioner Harry Reid but then came Thursday. Craig Spencer, a physician from the relief group Doctors Without Borders who was working in Africa was admitted to a Big Apple hospital. According to a report from The Guardian entitled “Ebola crisis: Doctor at New York hospital tests positive”:

A physician who recently returned to New York from Ebola-ravaged west Africa has tested positive for the disease, officials announced.

Craig Spencer, 33, a doctor who lives in the Harlem neighbourhood of the city, was taken to hospital in New York on Thursday after displaying symptoms consistent with those caused by Ebola, including a fever of 103F (39.5C).

A preliminary test on Thursday confirmed that Spencer, who arrived back in New York from Guinea on 17 October, has the virus. Federal officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has sent a team to New York City to assist city and state officials in the response, will carry out a further test to confirm the result.

Officials told a press conference at Bellevue hospital on Thursday that they were monitoring four people with whom Spencer had contact. His fiancée, Morgan Dixon, and two friends had been quarantined, while the fourth person, a taxi driver, was not considered to be at risk.

Spencer took several trips on the New York subway in the past week, visited the Gutter bowling alley in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn on Wednesday night and took an Uber cab, all before he began to display symptoms, officials said.

Nice screening procedures at JFK airport. Wasn’t this just being touted as a way to keep Ebola out? There are reports that Spencer was able to successfully enter the U.S. despite the JFK airport screenings. Maybe it is now time for Plan B which likely is nonexistent considering Obama's track record. It is also good to see that the doctor lived in Harlem, if there were ever a place that could be a perfect incubator for a mass pocket of Ebola it would be there. There is surely no shortage of dirty needles and unprotected sexual activity in Harlem to assist in spreading the virus. It’s also nice to see that the CDC is sending a crack team to assist with the response to this latest case of Ebola despite the glaring fact that the institution is thoroughly incompetent. How is that for reassuring?

I am sure that the White House will be sending a team of seasoned propagandists as well to manage the news during Dr. Spencer’s period of treatment.  The Democratic party operatives will probably find some way to play the racial angle on this case as well. This is especially likely when according to McClatchy News that the party is frantic over a lack of enthusiasm exhibited among black voters disgusted with Obama. That is the Dems though, they pander to identity groups like they really “share their pain” and then shit all over them once the votes have been counted and the asses of the politicians are sitting upon their thrones.

One would have to be a complete cynic to draw the conclusion that the latest Federal Reserve boost to the crack-ho markets, the drop in gas prices and nipping Ebola in the bud were all coordinated to manipulate public opinion before a critical election. But when you realize that the power structure of this country is thoroughly packed with cynical connivers and self-motivated scumbags such things would not be outside of their area of expertise. The real cynics turn pro and enter into the political realm and there is no bigger one than President Ebola himself. The fish does rot from the head down as the old Greek proverb puts it.

I wonder if the new Ebola Czar may even start to show up at meetings now.

Financial Times Predicts Bright Future for Libertarians

An article in the online version of the Financial Times, “The tide is rising for America’s libertarians” by Edward Luce provides some valuable insight in that younger Americans, coming of age in the era of the abject failure of big government to do anything but subsidize Wall Street casinos, wage war and spy on everyone are turning away from the corrupt two party system. The system, now past any reasonable expectation of ever being fixed and getting worse by the minute cannot be fixed and while things are bleak for those of us who are currently entrapped by it the future belongs to the libertarians. 

The "Millennials" are faced with the dismal prospects in terms of finding satisfactory employment due to the failure of the preceding generations to ensure that the economic might of a post-war America, once the envy of the world would be preserved. Yet the system was hijacked by a self-centered political class, unethical corporate and financial interests and a bloated military that should be cut down to size but never has been due to the failure to heed President Eisenhower’s warning of the dangers of the military industrial complex. So here we are at the brink of collapse, millions of well-paying jobs offshored to third world countries for their low labor costs, an economy that has never recovered from the Wall Street triggered 2008 implosion and Janet Yellen moving into the Marriner S. Eccles Building to accelerate Chairman Ben Bernanke’s printing presses and a looming catastrophic war with Iran thanks to a pack of treasonous renegades in the Senate. It is no wonder then  that the young are turning away from the two-party criminal syndicate that supports only the interests of a small and very powerful oligarchy.

Unfortunately the article itself is behind a pay wall but a limited number of articles are available if you happen to actually sign up (no guarantee that GCHQ won't grab your ip address though ) for the most baic package. While respecting the FT as a valuable news source I feel that in the service of a greater good I am going to excerpt some pieces of what is a fairly short article at length here starting with the opening:

Robert Nozick, the late US libertarian, smoked pot while he was writing Anarchy, State and Utopia. He would applaud the growth of libertarianism among today’s young Americans. Whether it is their enthusiasm for legalised marijuana and gay marriage – both spreading across the US at remarkable speed – or their scepticism of government, US millennials no longer follow President Barack Obama’s cue. Most of America’s youth revile the Tea Party, particularly its south-dominated nativist core. But they are not big-government activists either. If there is a new spirit in America’s rising climate of anti-politics, it is libertarian.

The right to smoke pot (which should not be illegal) is an individual one and the prohibition against it is yet one more example of rampant government and societal hypocrisy. Alcohol which is probably the most damaging drug that exists in terms of addiction, health and family problems is both legal and widely available. There stands to be much money lost (campaign contributions) if there were to be a national legalization of marijuana. Such a thing would adversely affect alcohol sales as well as the budgets and profits of two of the greatest blights on 21^st century America: the failed and costly war on drugs as well as the for profit prison gulag system, one so vast that it would put anything that Stalin ever had to shame. Regarding gay rights and gay marriage the government has zero business in what consenting adults do in their own bedrooms and this is an area where far too often political pandering to intolerant zealots and narrow-minded bigots deprives a group of Americans of their Constitutional rights.

Fortunately the young are much more tolerant than their forebears who will be dropping like flies with each passing electoral cycle. There has also been an interesting trend where the young are becoming less religious, rejecting the judgmental hatred that has infiltrated and destroyed the Christian church in America. This is a very good thing because religion is one of the most potent tools that the state is able to wield in order to justify their ongoing Middle Eastern wars of aggression. Notable is the popularity of the books of Ayn Rand and the adoption of her philosophy of individualism. While I personally have little use for Rand and Atlas Shrugged, a boring tome that is  a bit too versed in a cruel form of Social Darwinism I do admire her rejection of religious dogma. What is rarely if ever suggested is that a large part of her allure is that it seems to be a gateway to questioning of the existing religious belief systems. Her most admirable trait is that she was an unrepentant atheist and as such she offers a bit of a gateway or an alternate belief system that is not based upon the primitive superstition that has been bastardized for centuries by kings and popes for their own needs to seize or cling to power and wage wars against the interest of the larger population. It is also impossible to economically compete in a modern global world of emerging high technology with the millstone of religion tied around our necks. Religion promotes subservience and a surrender of the individuality as well as the enslavement of one’s mind and it is encouraging to see this trend towards reason.

The FT piece particularly points out the extremist religious right that has for too long had inordinate control over the Republican party and particularly references Rick Santorum (man on dog sex) and the Texas Zamboni Ted Cruz, a very dangerous man with a snake handler for a father. The GOP, particularly the Karl Rove establishment has long nurtured the irrational beliefs and festering hatred of the religious right demographic and it effectively hijacked the libertarian lead tea party movement that once was largely populated by Ron Paul supporters, turning it into a political arm and effectively poisoning the brand. But while the young may be turning away from the radical clerics and their ultimate goal of having their hands on the NSA apparatus to go after their ample list of enemies it is also Obama who has badly lost the young.  I excerpt the following:

What does it mean for the Democrats? In terms of social values, libertarians are almost identical to liberals. Smoking pot and same-sex marriage both meet with big approval. The same is not necessarily true of guns. In spite of recent school massacres, 40 US states now have “concealed weapons” laws – many passed in the past 12 months. Again, millennials are surprisingly sceptical of gun control, say the polls. But it is on economic policy where they really part company with liberals. The Great Depression helped forge a generation of solid Democrats. The same does not appear to be true of the Great Recession. Franklin Roosevelt helped dig people out of misery in the 1930s by providing direct public employment. Mr Obama, on the other hand, has stuck largely to economic orthodoxy. He may have missed a golden opportunity to mould a generation of social democrats.

He has also inadvertently fuelled scepticism about the role of government. Mr Obama came to power in 2008 on a surge of voluntarism. He did so in part by appealing to youthful idealism about public service. That now feels like a long time ago. Distrust in public institutions has continued to rise during his presidency – most strongly among the youngest generation. The share of voters who identify as independents, rather than Democrats or Republicans, recently hit an all-time high of 42 per cent, according to Gallup. This is bad news for established figures in either party – and, indeed, in any walk of life. Hillary Clinton should beware. So should Jeb Bush.

Or Chris Christie now exposed as a foul and despotic type who more resembles Tony Soprano than a man who can be entrusted as a leader who won't make things even worse than the current occupant of the White House. On Obama and the youthful voters I can recall in 2008 when a friend of mine who is a good deal younger than myself bought into the public relations campaign of Obama, one of the greatest frauds in American political history to the degree that it won a series of awards as well as the Nobel Peace Prize for the first President who has authorized the extrajudicial murder of an American citizen. In year five of the Obama era it is pretty safe to say that the man is a phony, a product professionally packaged and sold to the gullible just like toothpaste, tortilla chips, beer or dog food. He squandered a historical opportunity to end the wars, reign in the out of control surveillance state and bring the irresponsible gamblers in Wall Street under control, not preside over a system that subsidized these failed and corrupt institutions to the tune of 85 billion dollars a month. Rather than reign in moral hazard and allow capitalism to function properly by letting poorly run businesses fail Barry has only accelerated the collapse. 

The Millennials who were conned into supporting the narcissist elitist Obama have much reason to be turned off and to feel the bitter sting of betrayal but a rejection of the existing big con of two-party politics puts them light years ahead of their parents and grand parents who bought into it all and now at the time when they are most helpless have been utterly betrayed by a government gone rogue.

While this all isn't much help in the short term perhaps the coming generations will be able to right the ship, that is if there is anything left of it.

(Image from The Financial Times)

Obama's Pathetic Team America Style Commando Raids

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

-H.L. Mencken

When things appear at their most dire never fear, the essential elements of the government – our blessed military and special operations hit squads will deliver the bacon for the establishment. With the economy being driven closer to implosion thanks to the latest ‘my dick is bigger than your dick’  jousting between Barry and Boehner ordering up the military apprehension of a couple of "terrorists” in two daring raids is a certified crowd pleasing news grabber.  Omitted from any of the triumphant tales of U.S. intelligence and special ops prowess in landing two of Al-Qaeda’s big fish is the inconvenient truth that this country is currently funneling money and support to their cohorts in Syria.  That would of course spoil the narrative of Team Obama World Police and the apprehension and rendition of two of those bad ass bogeymen over the weekend in Libya and Somalia one of the kidnapped is allegedly the mastermind of embassy attacks in Africa fifteen years ago. I mean come on now, with the world's preeminent spying and killing machine if the guy was such a dangerous and critical target wouldn't he have been taken out years ago? Especially given Barry's itchy trigger finger. This is just another distraction from an administration that has taken phoniness and stagecraft to another level entirely after they allegedly popped bin Laden. It is all just like a movie now and just perfect for a TV addicted populace filled with schmucks, suckers and other gullible types. Wake up people, the national security state has hundreds of these guys constantly under the watchful eye and ready to haul in to much hoopla whenever the need arises.

In a reported third raid by U.S. forces, the vaunted Seal Team Six was chased out of Barawe, Somalia with their tails between their legs when their mission to rendition a reported al-Shabab "terrorist" allegedly associated with the recent Westgate Mall carnage blew up - seems like the "skinnies" can shoot back on occasion.  The timing of this bit of daredevilry of which Secretary of Skull and Bones Kerry boasted that "they can run but they can't hide" which pretty much applies to everyone on the Obama regime's planetary surveillance grid.  It was as ridiculous as the Bush era color-coded charts and whenever some dumb ass miscreants who fell for government entrapment schemes and then were arrested and paraded out in front of the state media as proof that their unconstitutional and trillion dollar black budget programs were actually working. Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com nails it again on this one in his piece Libya and Somalia: Foreign Policy as Political Theater from which I excerpt:

The US government may be in "shutdown" mode, but the American Empire is still operating at maximum capacity: this was underscored over the weekend by twin raids in North Africa, one that ended in the capture a high-profile Al Qaeda leader in Libya – wanted for the 1998 attacks on American embassies in East Africa – and the other failing to nab Ahmed Abdi Godane, a.k.a. Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr, purported leader of the shadowy Al Shabaab, Al Qaeda’s Somalian affiliate.

These raids are being touted by the President’s partisans as a great double-headed victory, a triumph of Obamaism in the foreign policy realm, and a welcome diversion away from the budget standoff. As usual, these cheerleaders of the Royal Court not only exaggerate but also invert the real significance of the events. For the reality is that both "victories" in our endless war on terrorism underscore the abject failure of America’s foreign policy of global intervention, and specifically the more subtle variety espoused by the present occupant of the White House.

Exactly. There is always money for war and other foreign shenanigans and it has bipartisan support, I have yet to hear one member of this most rotten of congresses line up to salute this as the complete farce and waste of taxpayer money that it is. The raids are drawing condemnation as well as questions of legality in the affected countries. In the story an anonymous diplomatic source is quoted - "This is knee-jerk stuff and smacks of a massive failure of intelligence. Are extrajudicial killings and covert kidnapping raids the best way of dealing with the problem? Why is the international response so feeble?"  The answer of course is that in 2013 kidnapping, extrajudicial killings and of course torture have become emblematic as symbols of America rendering quaint and obsolete those silly concepts of justice, judiciousness and fairness.  Hell, if you aren't down with it you yourself might just be a "terrorist" who just may end up on Barry's  kill list, that one that he reviews over a bowl of Captain Crunch and a glass of orange juice each morning and future date with either a hellfire missile or the American Gestapo.

USA! USA! USA!