Crime & Federalism

A retired general has stated that someone filed a missile off the California coast.  The Pentagon is claiming that it was not a missile.  Then what was it?  

"Thomas G. McInerney is a retired United States Air Force Lieutenant General. He is a command pilot with more than 4,100 flying hours, including 407 combat missions (243 in O-1s as a forward air controller and 164 in F-4C's, D's and E's) during the Vietnam War. In addition to his Vietnam Service, the McInerney served overseas in NATO; Pacific Air Forces and as commander of 11th Air Force in Alaska."

This story needs to go into the buzzsaw, and it's shocking that a mainstream media media performer like Sean Hannity is covering it: 

If this had been a man, he'd be called a stalker or danger to society:

(CNN) -- The decomposed body of a California doctor was found lodged in her boyfriend's chimney, several days after she had apparently attempted to get inside his home, police said.

Still, that has to be a horrible way to die.

Via RooshV:

Guess who said this:

‎"All that said, given the fundamental factors in place that should support the demand for housing, we believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will likely be limited, and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system."

Here's a hint: He said this in 2007.  Need another hint?  He was nominated to his position by former President George W. Bush.  Still unsure?  He was re-confirmed, over a year after making the above statement, by President Barack "Change" Obama.

The answer is current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke.

When you hear about quantitative easing on the news, remember that QE is Ben Bernanke's idea.  The same guy who did not expect "significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy" is today claiming that the United States needs to print $600 billion.  Ain't that a bitch?

On Monday, we'll examine an economics professor whom the media has declared an expert.  His comments on the subprime housing market's potential impact on the overall economy will be surprising to those of you who do not realize that macroeconomics is alchemy, and that an economist is no different from an alchemist.

Enjoy your Sunday.  Each day these morons are in charge makes it's more likely that today will be the best day of your life.  

There are many who think Americans will never take up arms against their oppressors, and that tarring-and-feathering will remain a figure of speech.  Do people who doubt a revolution is possible study history - or even listen to the Rolling Stones?  

There are many who claim that violence against Wall Street would be immoral.  How quickly Americans have forgotten that the United States was founded after a violent revolution, and was united after a violent civil war. 

The Civil War was precipitated by John Brown, who took up arms against Kansas slave owners:

John Brown was an American abolitionist, who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to end all slavery. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859.

John Brown's attempt in 1859 to start a liberation movement among enslaved African Americans in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) electrified the nation. He was tried for treason against the state of Virginia, the murder of five proslavery Southerners, and inciting a slave insurrection and was subsequently hanged. Southerners alleged that his rebellion was the tip of the abolitionist iceberg and represented the wishes of the Republican Party. Historians agree that the Harpers Ferry raid in 1859 escalated tensions that, a year later, led to secession and the American Civil War.

"John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic. His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light; his was as the burning sun. I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him." -- Frederick Douglas.

Wall Street has stolen trillions from American citizens, turning taxpayers into debt slaves.  The government, rather than prosecute the thieves, has declared that Wall Street is above the law.  Wall Street operates outside of the law and outside of morality.

What would happen if John Brown led a revolt on Wall Street?  Whose side would you be on?

The media would attempt to shame Americans into hating John Brown.  It would fail, as the Joe Stack's coverage showed.  (You'd almost forgotten about Joe Stack, hadn't you?  Isn't is interesting that the media dropped the story just as Americans collectively said, "While I'd never do that, I can understand why he did it...")  After realizing that Americans were siding with Joe Stacks, the corporate-controlled media dropped the story.

It's time to re-read American history.  America wasn't founded by apologists for the power elite.  Nor will America be saved by today's apologists.

A John Brown will march to Wall Street - which means that today is the day to start asking yourself: Whose side are you on, anyway?

It really is this simple.  

Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo!, is universally recognized as a moron and a failure. Yahoo!'s management, too, is regarded as a group of do-nothing, know-nothing failures. They have failed the company, and yet what is going to happen to them?

Carol Bartz earned $39 million.  For one year of "work."  She failed, and that's her punishment.

Meanwhile, she and her stooges are going to outsource over 1,000 American jobs. The people who showed up and actually worked are going to lose their jobs:

Yahoo managers are preparing to layoff 20% of the company, TechCrunch reports, citing two sources.

That, in essence, is American capitalism. A few insiders loot public companies. The working stiff gets fucked.

If you want to defend Bartz by citing the "free market" or whatever, my question is: Why?  Really, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Why defend overpaying a CEO and outsourcing American jobs?  How does American capitalism benefit you or your family?  Do you think you're going to be a CEO?  Really? 

Perhaps you'll claim to be an intellectual warrior who fights for what's right - even if what's right is to your own detriment. How does defending American capitalism further some Platonic sense of Justice or Fairness?  

Aren't there other things to fight for other than a system that allows people like Bartz and her cronies to loot companies while destroying the Middle Class? Why put "Defend Carol Bartz" on your intellectual to-do list?

You defend American capitalism because you are an idiot - a useful idiot who has been told that "free markets" are the source of American liberty.

Enjoy your freedom to purchase cheap goods at Wal-Mart, which you'll pay for with your $12/hr. service job.  

Meanwhile, academic frauds and apologists for "free markets" will continue earning hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollar a year. Tyler Cowen and his ilk at the Mercatus Center are evil, but they aren't idiots.

While working at taxpayer-supported institutions, they'll continue convincing you to support policies that hurt you. Meanwhile, those same apologists for "free markets" will continue suckling from the taxpayer teat - all-the-while enjoying the protection of unions and tenure.  

The same people who tell you to support "free markets" earn over $150,000 a year in taxpayer money. They pad their salaries with consulting and speaking fees from banks and other large corporations. They enjoy tenure protection - which means guaranteed lifetime employment.  Any economist or law professor who isn't earning $250,000 a year is doing something wrong.

Why are you listening to their arguments?  If "free markets" are so great, why have they gone to such lengths to insulate themselves from a free labor market?

Someone fired a missile off the California coast. The Pentagon either doesn't know who did it, or they aren't saying. There are huge stories here. If the Pentagon doesn't know who fired a missile off the California coast, what does that say about the government's ability to protect the American people?  The defense budget is nearly $1 trillion, and is the largest portion of federal spending.

Where is this money going?  Why are we giving so much money to people who can't answer basic questions about an attack near American soil?  An honest, inquisitive reporter could write dozens of articles.  And yet they will not.  Why not?

I've recently begun reading Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press.  I thought I was cynical and nihilistic enough to enjoy it.  The book is infuriating, and I should probably put it down for my blood pressure's sake.  This awesome book review explains why:

Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press might well have been subtitled The Worst of ProjectCensored.org. There were several disturbing stories about stories that were self-censored by owners and publishers of newspapers and television stations. One involved the roadblocks set up to prevent investigating and reporting on the possibility that a missile from the surface of the sea may have blown TWA flight 800 out of the sky, killing 230 people. The official "accident" report was done by the FBI, with the help of the CIA, and it says that a fuel tank exploded due to a wiring problem. Why the National Transportation Safety Board didn't control the investigation, since the explosion was supposedly due to something within their purview, remains unanswered. Why 116 of 134 eyewitnesses say they saw something fiery going from the sea to the sky and then the explosion, which contradicts the CIA animation (based on what?) created to show fiery debris going from the sky toward the sea, remains unexplained? Most important, why was it so hard for critics of the FBI investigation to get taken seriously by those who control the media? 

The story about a missile being shot off the California coast went into the buzzsaw.

This was a hard book to finish, although I'm glad to have read it.  It was a challenging read because there is nothing more revolting to me than a passive-aggressive - and the characters themselves are all passive-aggressive.  Yet it's fodder for the meta-oriented.  

Isn't civility really a form of slave morality?  Imagine a prosecutor files false charges against your client.  Filing criminal charges is devastating to the client.  And yet if the client's lawyer wrote a letter saying, "You're a scum bag mother fucker and I hope you die," he'd have a judge up his ass for incivility.  Yet what is truly uncivil - ruining a guy's life by falsely accusing him of a crime, or writing a snarky letter?

In today's narcissistic world (which is no different from the 1800's scenes depicted in Pride and Prejudice), appearances supersede substance.  If someone fucks you over, you're supposed to smile at him.  Thus, we can best understand civility as being a slave's virtue.

After all, only a master would demand civility.  If you treat people appropriately, there will be no need for incivility.  If you don't want a guy flipping you off, don't cut people off in traffic.  If you don't want me yelling at you, don't make a right turn into the crosswalk when I have the right-of-way.  And if you do, don't dare say I'm the bad guy for verbally abusing you in front of your wife.  No, you won't get out of the car, and she notices that.  Next time, do the right thing.  You can only be humiliated when you do thinks worthy of humiliation.

Deliberate or not, the addition of zombies added a deep element to the original text.  The women were not just fighting zombies: They were fighting each other.  Isn't argument a form of fighting, and yet why are fighting methods used differently?  

When dealing with zombies, the women were aggressive-aggressive.  They were remarkable and respectable women.  Yet when dealing with each other, they were passive-aggressive.  Imagine living with these shrews?  I'd rather fight zombies.  When is it appropriate to man- or woman-up, and deal with someone aggressively?  Why must we be so polite with others socially?  And is going to a ball so great that we dare not offend someone lest we not get invited again?  You mean my punishment for offending you is that you won't invite me back?  The horror.

The status angle - the balls and invitations - coincides perfectly with the New York/status scenes depicted in the must-read Bonfire of the Vanities.  The two books are nearly 200 years separated.  What's changed?  Anything?

One could write a grad-school essay exploring these themes, but I limit my posts to 15 minutes.  I do recommend the book, which takes substantially longer than 15 minutes to read.