Disinformation

One of the deepest (and most chilling) tenth anniversary Iraq War analyses is written by Gary Leupp, entitled: The Victory of the Noble Lie: The Neocons Won. Read below the fold...

One of my favorite though admittedly depressing quotes of wisdom:

“Hope was the last temptation of Christ.”

This being Easter it seems relevant. Read below the fold...

"President Obama will under no circumstances agree to put your retirement at risk by privatizing Social Security, and he will reject any plan that slashes Social Security benefits."—Obama Campaign “Truth Team,” October 6, 2012 Read below the fold...

Here are some “realpolitik” excerpted takes on Obama’s State of the Union Address from Glen Ford, Norman Solomon, Barry Grey, Pepe Escobar, Matthew Rothschild:

Glen Ford of BAR in “Obama’s State of the Corporate Union”:

It was an impassioned performance by a cynical politician who offers little but corporate tax incentives and continued austerity. Barack Obama peppered his State of the Union address with up-tempo buzzwords about illusory “progress,” but the president’s substantive message was that he is determined to complete the austerity bargain he struck with the Republicans in 2011. ...

snip

Obama’s jobs program is almost entirely a corporate tax incentive scheme, to bribe corporations to send home the jobs they sent offshore, where they have also hidden tens of trillions from taxation – a subject not deemed worthy of mention in a national discussion of shared sacrifice and patriotic obligations.

snip Read below the fold...

Did anyone else notice the beautiful play the Obama Admin. pulled on the Senate Intelligence Committee? It was one of the most beautiful political cons I can remember ever witnessing. Releasing the OLC determinations to the Committee just prior to the Brennan hearing completely neutered the Committee’s ability ask any substantive questions. Here’s how the con went down… Read below the fold...

Have we as a citizenry ever gotten a good answer on why the U.S. went after Iraq when a whopping 15 of the 19 Al Qaeda hijackers in the 9/11 attacks (according to wikipedia) were citizens of Saudi Arabia? (The four others were from Egypt, Lebanon and the UAE.)

Have we ever gotten a good answer as to why negative focus has never been directed by U.S. administrations or corporate media against the despotic monarchy of Saudi Arabia (our main weapons customer) while it oppresses its own people and enables other despotisms to oppress theirs? Read below the fold...

Mirah Riben has a provocative article on dissident voice entitled “Statistics, Politics and Solutions in the Gun Discussion.” The following is a listing of many of Riben's enlightening facts and revelations.

1. FBI statistics for homicides in 2011:

Total homicides:                                  12,664
Firearm homicides:                               8,583
Hammer and Club homicides:               496
Knife and other blade homicides:        1,694

2. "2009 findings for homicides by the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes state that 66.9% of all homicides in the U.S. were from using firearms."

3. "More than a million Americans have been killed by guns since 1968 – more than in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and various smaller conflicts, combined."

4. "More than half of all gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides and not included in numbrers above. Nor are accidental fatalities by guns of all kinds included." Re report from National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, January 2013.

5. “The United States suffers far more violent deaths than any other wealthy nation, due in part to the widespread possession of firearms and the practice of storing them at home in a place that is often unlocked, according to a report released Wednesday by two of the nation’s leading health research institutions.” Re report from National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, January 2013. Read below the fold...

Business Roundtable CEOs announce their proposal to impose Austerity "fix the debt." This is grotesque.

(1) push eligibility age to 70 (SSI and Medicare)
(2) chained CPI
(3) some vague "means testing" for "some people"
(4) a goody for private health insurers (not again!): they get to compete with Medicare. Read below the fold...

Read below the fold...

Starving child covered in flies

It appears a lot of people are as sick to death as I am of the World Vision and Tear Fund TV ads featuring starving, fly-infested African children. Read below the fold...

The word “deficit,” when applied to the Government financial accounting of a monetarily sovereign nation, that is, one that issues a non-convertible fiat currency, with a floating exchange rate, and no debts in a currency it doesn't issue, is a problem, because the label “deficit” when applied to such a Government doesn't mean what most people think it means. As Michel Hoexter points out: Read below the fold...

Mohammed Omer, Palestinian journalist based in Gaza who in 2008 won the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, writes:

“Air strikes are bombing everything that moves. Everything that moves in the streets is being bombed and attacked. ... One thing that we ought to talk about here is the humanitarian situation in the Gaza strip. This is a situation of targeting a population of civilians, exactly like Israel is shooting in a fishbowl. And there is no shelter, and there is nowhere to run for the general population. Gaza is living in a very dire situation.”

Bill Van Auken of wsws writes: Read below the fold...

After further reading, I felt that I had "mis-conflated" Mr. Clinton's words to refer to the Special Minimum Benefit.

I will address the importance of the 'Special Minimum Benefit' and the 'Hardship Exemption' in a later post. It really should be important to all of us, for several reasons. The foremost reason is that 'we' should collectively care about the most vulnerable members of our society, and this benefit is essential. Secondly, we need to realize that the PtB are "out there" strongly implying that the proposed increase in this benefit, is one reason that it is necessary for the rest of us to "take a haircut." And this is absolute hooey.

Indeed, his reference to 'how his Social Security benefit might be lowered, or done away with,' clearly demonstrates that his intended reference was to the (B-S) Fiscal Commission's recommendation that Social Security benefits be subjected to progressive price indexing, or 'means testing.'

This glaring error demonstrates that 'it is best not to start writing a blog at almost midnight.' ;)