Month: December 2011

Are You Still Laughing?

College of Political Knowledge

My daughter jumped my case Sunday at dinner that I had not railed against the new cybersecurity bill and its implications…..on my defense I said that I was consumed with the idiots running for prez, the idiots that we have elected and the idiots…well just idiots in general….so to make her happy and to research it a bit more I will now post on the silliness that we are allowing to happen…..

People laugh and call me “paranoid” but as an aging radical from the 60’s & 70’s I spent a lot of time looking over my shoulder for the goon squad that was called COINTEPRO…..believe me in those days if you wrote openly about dissent and civil disobedience you were a TARGET……if you are 35 or under then you have little knowledge of this attempt to silence domestic political opposition….know just what was COINTELPRO?

COINTELPRO (an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States FBI aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.

COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; and illegal violence, including assassination.   Covert operations under COINTELPRO took place between 1956 and 1971; however, the FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception.   The FBI’s stated motivation at the time was “protecting national security,  preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order.

Their tactics included:

According to attorney Brian Glick in his book War at Home, the FBI used four main methods during COINTELPRO:

  1. Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. Their main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their very presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. The FBI and police exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents.
  2. Psychological Warfare From the Outside: The FBI and police used a myriad of other “dirty tricks” to undermine progressive movements. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by government agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists.
  3. Harassment Through the Legal System: The FBI and police abused the legal system to harass dissidents and make them appear to be criminals. Officers of the law gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They discriminatorily enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, “investigative” interviews, and grand jury subpoenas in an effort to intimidate activists and silence their supporters.
  4. Illegal Force and Violence: The FBI conspired with local police departments to threaten dissidents; to conduct illegal break-ins in order to search dissident homes; and to commit vandalism, assaults, beatings and assassinations.   The object was to frighten, or eliminate, dissidents and disrupt their movements.

And now, with bi-partisan support we have…..

The bill would clearly delineate the cybersecurity functions of the Department of Homeland Security by requiring DHS to evaluate cybersecurity risks for critical infrastructure firms and determine the best way to mitigate them.

“Cybersecurity is truly a team sport, and this bill gives DHS needed authorities to play its part in the federal government’s cybersecurity mission and enables the private sector to play its part by giving them the information and access to technical support they need to protect critical infrastructure,” said House Cybersecurity subcomittee Chairman Dan Lungren (R-Calif.).

By authorizing DHS to oversee civilian cybersecurity, the legislation aligns with proposals from both the Senate and the White House, but it is unclear how much authority DHS would have to enforce its security standards. Democrats have argued DHS needs some enforcement authority to ensure firms beef up their network protections.

In essence, this is just an updated version of COINTELPRO…back in my day there were NO PCs that could be monitored for content, they had to depend on snitches, writings, speeches, etc….but now they can go in an edit what you quote, sites visited, and virtually freeze out ALL dissent…..

Basically, your freedoms…like association, privacy and speech will be at the mercy of the people you elect…and you have done a shitty job of electing people in the past…if you do NOT fit in some “American” mold…you WILL be monitored and edited….how you like your democracy now?

A Depature From The Norm

I could spend an inordinate amount of time writing about Korea’s “Lil Kim” croaking…..or could wax poetic about the quality of the politicians we elect or ……crap!  Let’s do something completely different!

I know that I may seem like a bit of a stuffed shirt because I spend so much time on politics and economics….but I do think about other stuff….really!  I do!

Like today, there is a story about a woman (name omitted because of CRS) that is trying to be the first person to ski solo across Antarctica…..my first response was….WHY?  I mean think about it….who cares?  After ten years ask who was the first person to ski solo across Antarctica and the only time anyone will know is probably during Woman’s History month….which is March in case anyone is interested.

Think back….without the use of Google….who was the first person to climb Kilimanjaro?  Or Everest?  It will be some white guy that has guided to the top by a Sherpa….so I ask again who was the first person to climb Mt. Everest?

The same with America….who discovered America?  Let me interject…..how do you discover some place people already live?  So who really discovered America?

These so called “records” are nothing but ego trips by people with more money than brains…..NO ONE really cares!  If you want to be impressive then be the first to cure cancer or hunger or be the first to find D.B. Cooper….but skiing across Antarctica?  NO ONE cares!

Just once I would like to see these self-centered megalomaniacs do something that will improve society or the world…but that is out of the question….they just cannot take the time to do anything that will benefit anyone but themselves….and that is the human condition.

And now we return to our regularly broadcast content…….and just in the nick of time….huh?

Target Acquired!

We all know just how pissed off most people are over the realization that for decades they have been the tools used by the greedy to acquire massive wealth…..and we know that almost a third of the country is now considered near poverty or below poverty……

Based on the new measure, of the 51 million “near poor,” more than 50 percent were pushed down from higher income levels: more than eight million by taxes, six million by medical expenses, and four million by work expenses like child care and transportation, according to the Times.

In another revelation, using the new measure the percentage of seniors who are either poor or near poor rose from 22 to 34 percent, which is slightly less that the share among children, 39 percent. High medical costs are likely to account for the increase for seniors.

Now the banks were using taxpayer money and such as a casino for their secretive financial dealings and in doing so they alone crashed the economy and since these, at least some of them, were using questionable tactics you would think that the DoJ would be hot on the heels of those people that were acting in a shady way…..right?

Think again!

Going after criminal cases targeting fraud has come down to what’s easier to prosecute for the Obama administration.

While Americans of all stripes have clamored for justice in the wake of the financial crisis, the U.S. Department of Justice has chosen to not pursue jail time for banking executives whose decisions wreaked havoc on the financial industry and the economy. The reason: Building cases against bankers is just too hard to do and carries too much risk of failure in the courtroom.
Instead, the Justice Department has allowed the Securities and Exchange Commission to pursue civil cases directed at banks that can yield large financial penalties, but no criminal prosecutions.
With bank fraud out of reach, federal prosecutors have reached for lower-hanging fruit—namely, food stamp cheaters.
The lousy economy has resulted in a surge of Americans on food stamps and a corresponding increase in those fraudulently using the assistance, according to administration officials. More than 46 million people are receiving about $75.3 billion in help from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (aka food stamps). Of this amount, more than $750 million may be spent fraudulently, says Obama’s people.
Seven hundred and fifty million dollars is nothing to sneeze at. But compared to the total expenditure for food stamps, the amount of potential fraud going on amounts to only 1%.
–Noel Brinkerhoff

Obama Administration Targeting Food Stamp Fraud as Program Reaches Record Highs (by Ed O’Keefe, Washington Post)

This is just sick!  Fat Cats lounging around on a yacht or the place in the Hamptons with NO worry of prosecution………yeah, let’s worry about a family that gets $100 too much in food stamps and let the real criminals live in the lap of luxury with their ill gotten gains…..sounds like justice to me (that is sarcasm in case you missed it)……

If you like writing letters to the editor or congresspeople then by all means write and bitch….bitch so much they cannot ignore you….we need to take back the government from the bastards that are playing it like their personal game of Monopoly!

Get involved!  Make some noise!

Has “GOD” Been Found?

A last day of Zen and since it is Sunday, I thought I would post a quasi-religious article…..

For centuries people have been in search of God and none so far have actually concrete proof of the existence….but has all that changed?

The leaders of two experiments, Atlas and CMS, revealed their findings to a packed seminar at the CERN physics research centre near Geneva, where they have tried to find traces of the elusive boson by smashing particles together at near light-speed in the Large Hadron Collider.

The experiments generated such excitement by independently reaching very similar conclusions. But the scientists were quick to warn that their results have not yet reached the level of certainty that would let them claim a discovery — hence Higgs’s caution.

Under what is known as the Standard Model of Physics, the boson is posited to have been the agent that gave mass and energy to matter after the creation of the universe 13.7 billion years ago – leading some to nickname it the “God particle.”

Its discovery would fill the last remaining hole in the model. However, that does not mean it must exist, and some eminent physicists such as Stephen Hawking believe it does not.

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, a vast underground particle accelerator that costs 200,000 Swiss francs ($215,000) an hour to run, is designed to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang to allow particles such as the Higgs boson to be found and studied.

While the boson’s discovery would cement current knowledge about particles such as electrons and photons, proof that it does not exist would undermine the foundations of accepted theories of the make-up of the universe.

The particle is so short-lived that it can only be detected from the particles that it decays into. In the course of millions of collisions, the scientists are hunting for a significant excess of a particular combination of decay particles.

Okay it is a particle and not the actual deity….but it is still a big leap for the big bang!  Wait!  Are they saying Hawkings was wrong?

Now It Is Robo-Cops!

Think back about twenty or more years and the hit movie, “Robo-Cop”…..now fast forward to today’s techno world…..

Robot guards with sensors to detect abnormal behaviour will soon begin patrolling South Korean prisons to ease the burden on their human counterparts, researchers said on Thursday.

A group of scientists has developed the robot warders under a one billion won (£546,000) project organised by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.

The robots – 1.5 metres (five feet) high and running on four wheels – will mostly be used at night.

They can connect prisoners with officers through a remote conversation function, according to a statement from the Asian Forum for Corrections (AFC), a South Korea-based group of researchers in criminality and prison policies.

It pioneered the project with the justice ministry’s co-operation.

The robots’ sensors will enable them to detect abnormalities such as suicidal behaviour and violence and report it to officers in charge, the statement said.

Okay, I am officially a paranoid!  I realize that advances in robotics is inevitable….but I also see the chance that somewhere, someone will find a way to abuse the advancements…..and then society could become a movie of the week on SyFy.

Could these little shits become something like the Minority Report…..where we have people being arrested for crimes that they could commit in the future?

Where Did The Vile Come From?

WE all have heard all the vile coming out of Washington….the name calling, the personal attacks and all the playing loose with facts….but where did it come from?

The truth is that most all presidential races have had some form of negativity about them since the beginning, well not with Washington because he was next to God after the War, but from then on political opponents have used all sorts of tricks and lies to try and sway people’s opinion and vote….but nowhere that I can recall in all my historical readings and studies has a Congress been so vile to its opponents…..maybe in a local election but Washington was for the most part a bi-partisan approach to government….

If that is true, then where did all this vile originate?

Most of it can be tracked back to 1994 in a memo entitled, “Language:  A Key Mechanism Of Control” (FOX sure knows how to use this information)…..and you may not know it but that memo was sent out by one, Rep. Newt Gingrich!  The memo was sent out to illustrate the words to be used when describing GOP opponents, Democrats.

Words that were instructed to be used to describe Dem policies and politicians were……decay, failure (fail), collapse(ing), deeper, crisis, urgent(cy), destructive, destroy, sick, pathetic, lie, liberal, they/them, unionized bureaucracy, “compassion” is not enough, betray, consequences, limit(s), shallow, traitors, sensationalists, endanger, coercion, hypocrisy, radical, threaten, devour, waste, corruption, incompetent, permissive attitudes, destructive, impose, self-serving, greed, ideological, insecure, anti-(issue): flag, family, child, jobs, pessimistic, excuses, intolerant, stagnation, welfare, corrupt, selfish, insensitive, status quo, mandate(s), taxes, spend(ing), shame, disgrace, punish (poor…), bizarre, cynicism, cheat, steal, abuse of power, machine, bosses, obsolete, criminal rights, red tape, patronage…….

Take a second look at the words…..do any of them sound familiar to the descriptions that Repubs are using today?

Give due where due is due (too many uses of the word “due”)……..the GOP frontrunner (that is today), Newt Gingrich has given us the vile language of today’s grid lock in Washington…Thanx Newt….Thanx for NOTHING!  Repubs need to stop bitching their leaders started the whole damn thing……

The Land Of Hungry Children

You have heard of the Land Down Under or the Land of the Free or possibly the Land that Time Forgot…..but there is another that is NOT reported so much by the mainstream media….poverty and hunger in the US….with all the crap that the economic collapse has given us there is one that is NOT acceptable, at least in my way of thinking……child poverty!

Black listed news was compiled an excellent list of horrible consequences……

#1 Child homelessness in the United States is now 33 percent higher than it was back in 2007.

#2 According to the National Center on Family Homelessness, 1.6 millionAmerican children “were living on the street, in homeless shelters or motels, or doubled up with other families last year”.

#3 The percentage of children living in poverty in the United States increased from 16.9 percent in 2006 to nearly 22 percent in 2010.  In the UK and in France the child poverty rate is well under 10 percent.

#4 A higher percentage of American children is living in poverty today than was living in poverty back in 1975.

#5 The number of children living in poverty in the U.S. has risen for four years in a row.

#6 There are 10 different U.S. states where at least one out of every four babies is born to a family living in poverty.

#7 Since 2007, the number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30 percent.

#8 According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4% of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1% of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6% of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6% of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.

#9 In the United States today, more than 35 percent of all African-American children are living in poverty and more than 33 percent of all Hispanic children are living in poverty.

#10 There are seven million children in the United States today that are not covered by health insurance at all.

#11 Today, one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#12 It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.

#13 In 2010, 42 percent of all single mothers in the United States were on food stamps.

#14 There are 314 counties in the United States where at least 30% of the children are facing food insecurity.

#15 In Washington D.C., the “child food insecurity rate” is 32.3%.

#16More than 20 million U.S. children rely on school meal programs to keep from going hungry.

These show the extent of how bad the recession is on the kids….yes, it is bad for everybody (with the exception of Wall Street) but how bad does it have to get to force our politicians to face this problem?  I thought children were our future, if so the future is pretty damn bleak!

We have an election coming up soon……now would be a good time to show your distaste for the policies coming out of Washington……

Bringing Back Chain Gangs

The state next door has enacted a brutal anti-immigrant law, Alabama encase you are interested, and since the law immigrants have been fleeing the state faster than rats from the Titanic…..and now the geniuses in the political sphere are starting to think they may have pissed in their chili……farmers are crying that they cannot find workers to harvest their crops and they may well rot in the fields…..

First…let me pause here to laugh my ass off!

Wait!  Are these the same jobs that the immigrants were taking from us poor Americans?  For years now I have heard red necks bitch and moan about all the jobs these people were stealing from us hard working Americans……so far I have not seen a crush of Americans rushing to apply for any of these jobs……..

Another pause here……….

But now the legislators are considering changing the wording of the law and the Obama admin has filed a suit to stop the implementation of the law…….is there an answer to the problem of the exodus of immigrants?

We know Americans will not rush to the aid of the farmers……so short of admitting that they, the politicians, screwed up….what could be the answer for the problem?

Alabama farmers have proposed using prisoners to work their fields to replace migrants who fled the state after it passed the country’s harshest anti-immigration law, officials said Tuesday.

The Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industry officials met Tuesday in Mobile with farmers to discuss their proposal, a spokeswoman for the department told AFP.

“The suggestion to use prisoners who are eligible for work release programs was made as a way to help farmers fill the gap and find sufficient labor,” said Amy Belcher.

A statement by the department said the meeting with the farmers was convened “to help solve the chronic labor shortages created by Alabama’s new immigration law.”

Why not?  That has been the answer for centuries in the South…..forced labor….and the farmers will pay convicts less than they paid the immigrants……so basically the problem is…..finding CHEAP labor!

Merits Of A Romney!

We, Americans, have been bombarded with endless accusations that Obama and most Dems are some how socialist….some think that are closet socialist and others think that they are outright…..and then there are those like Romney that are scared of using the term and try to cloak the accusation in doublespeak…..

Romney got about as close to suggesting the current president wants to bring pure socialism to America as one can without actually saying the word.

“He seeks to replace our merit-based society with an entitlement society,” Romney told an audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s candidate forum.

He explained that Obama’s vision for the country is some kind of meritless-free, government-controlled superstate straight out of the pages of Orwell.

Was it humor?  Or maybe Mitt giving us his vision of what “HIS” America will look if he is EVER elected?

I know that most Americans prefer their politics boiled down to bumper sticker slogans or 30 second sound bytes….but they need to pull their heads out of their butts and listen to what these people are saying there is more to it than a sound byte….and if they cannot accomplish this feat then this whole system that they are so proud of is a doomed exercise in futility……

As an observer of political theory, I see a message embedded in the statement by Romney.  When he said “He seeks to replace our merit-based society with an entitlement society,” he is giving us a look into his idea of our society in his plan……to me, he is championing a “Meritocracy”……

Right about now most readers are asking….HUH?

Meritocracy is a system of government or other administration wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their “merits”, namely intelligence, credentials, and education,  determined through evaluations or examinations. The “most common definition of meritocracy conceptualizes merit in terms of tested competency and ability, and most likely as measured by IQ or standardized achievement tests.”

Meritocracy itself is not a form of government, but rather an ideology.   In government applications, individuals appointed to a meritocracy are judged based upon certain merits which could range from intelligence to morality to general aptitude to specific knowledge.

Supporters of meritocracies do not necessarily agree on the nature of “merit”, however they tend to agree that “merit” itself should be a primary consideration during evaluation.

Is that what Romney has planned?  A country where intelligence, education or morality…in other words, only certain types of people will be tolerated……. all others will be subjects to the will of a few……

Maybe we voters need to take a closer look at all those pertaining to be concerned about the direction of the country…..Pay attention to what is said!  There may be a clue to what you may be really voting for……Just a thought!

2011 Anal-Ocity Award Nominees

It is that time again!  It is December and I have put together what I feel are the most anal statements made by any person in the news.  I ask my readers to look over the list and vote for the one that they feel is the most anal……the one that gets the most votes will be declared the most anal statement of the year….I have my choice but this is for my readers and their vote counts as much as mine….so please check the nominees out and vote for the most anal statement and add any comment you would like……

Remember the winner will be sent an email from Info Ink to congratulate them on their win…..and will be added to the Hall Of Handy Wipes…..which include such notables as Paris Hilton (2007), Sen. John McCain (2008), Sarah Palin (2009) and a unidentified Muslim cleric in Iran (2010)…..now who will join this list of esteemed a/holes for 2011?

The nominees are…….

1–Newt Gingrich—“You have a very poor neighborhood. You have students that are required to go to school. They have no money, no habit of work,” Gingrich said. “What if you paid them in the afternoon to work? What if they became assistant janitors, and their job was to mop the floor and clean the bathroom?”

2–John McCain– when asked about the wildfires in Arizona–“substantial evidence that some of these fires have been caused by people who have crossed our border illegally.”

3–Rep.  Paul Broun of Georgia–“In fact, Franklin Delano Roosevelt sent his advisors, his close friends, his cabinet people to go visit with Stalin in communist Russia to study what he was doing, what Stalin was doing there so that FDR could replicate it here in the United States.”  (emphasis because it is such a damn lie!)

4–Karl Rove (Bush’s brain)–“American troops have never been under the formal control of another nation.  Why should we start now?”  Does this show a sad lack of knowledge or what?)

5–Newt Gingrich (again)–“I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”

Okay I lied!  I had the list of nominees done when someone just had to upset it the cart!

6–Rep. Paul Ryan–“Tax cuts were never intended to be permanent, besides they have done nothing for the economy”  (paraphrase)…..he was added because after years of championing tax cuts he has an about face when it is for the Middle Class only….anal!

Like I have said, this is for my readers to decide who the winner will be….it is my desire for my readers to become as much a part of Info Ink as the writer….so, please, look over the list and vote for the most anal statement of the year.