Obama Announces Reelection Bid - 582 Days Away

It is 582 days until the 2012 Presidential Election and Barack Obama is in.  With a fitting recycled logo and staff of elite consultants he's off and ahead of the field in the 2012 race for the White House.  

Obama launches this effort amid much tumult and if not economic depression certainly a ubiquitous psychological depression in the minds of Americans.  This malaise, albeit similarly acute in the 1970s, has for the first time (since professional polling began) shown more American's to be pessimistic about the idea that their children's future will be brighter than their own.  

Since its passage the American public has consistently rejected Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment – most want Obama's health care reform repealed.  Real unemployment as opposed to government numbers is around 18% frankly meaning those able to work are not, regardless of whether they are on the proverbial dole, disgruntled, underemployed, or have taken early retirement.  The end result is these people are not producing and in a country where we love to spend, the math doesn’t look good.

On the international stage, although many are confoundingly reticent to admit Obama has engaged us in yet another “war” in the Middle East, there is consensus that he most certainly has had trouble extricating our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. Moreover, this failure to deliver on a key campaign promise is magnified after another embarrassing and demoralizing gaff paralleling George W’s Abu Ghraib fiasco at the hands of the "rogue" US Stryker Team in Afghanistan.  Additionally the ex constitutional scholar not only took direct marching orders from the UN, but didn’t even consult Congress before engaging in his “kinetic military action.”  What a line!

The atmosphere is much different for Obama than it was in 2008. The national anxiety was palatable then, the Republicans and George W. Bush had to go, America was ready for change.  Barack Obama and Co. hijacked that feeling and manifested it in campaign slogans, songs, and chants around the country, but after the last 2 1/2 years it is unlikely those bombastic slogans and soothing earth-blue tones will drum up the same command and euphoria they once enjoyed.

According to Marc Ambinder of the National Journal:

“The trajectory of Barack Obama’s presidency was supposed to be vertical. He would reform the way Washington worked, restore a sense of pride in government, and bolster the liberal nostrum that government can be effective, efficient, and helpful. He would reform health care and use his Democratic majorities to put a price on carbon. People would feel better.”

The fact is while Obama has served up a different dish than George W. Bush the diet is still the same; unhealthy bloated government sticking their hands in places they don’t belong.  Unfortunately the crux of Ambinder’s hope that things would have changed in Washington, that somehow Americans after centuries of distrust for government would have some how come around to finding a “sense of pride in it” and that Obama with all the powers vested in him could convince anyone that “government can be effective, efficient, and helpful” in the face of a mountain of contemporary and historical evidence to the contrary is as naïve as it is benighted.

Obama will be a one-term president and he knows it.

Ex CIA Officer Outlines Libya Fraud on CNN

The American Dream
April 4, 2011

Every once in a while, establishment control of the mainstream media cracks for a moment.  In an effort to achieve higher ratings, mainstream news programs will invite guests on that promise to be “interesting”, but then they will say something that is not part of the script and the entire system will go into a state of chaos for a moment. One example of this happened recently when two CNN “infobabes” interviewed former CIA officer Michael Scheuer about the situation on the ground in Libya. They asked Scheuer some questions regarding the role of the CIA in Libya, but the interview rapidly moved in some directions that the “infobabes” were not anticipating.  Instead of sticking to the “Republican” or the “Democrat” script, Scheuer ripped both parties and he detailed many of the reasons why we should have never gone into Libya at all.

The “infobabes” grew increasingly uncomfortable as Scheuer described how large numbers of the resistance fighters in Libya have fought against U.S. troops in the Balkans, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.  They did not seem pleased at all when Scheuer declared that the civil war in Libya is “none of our business” and that to the rest of the world this conflict looks like “Americans killing Muslims for oil” all over again.

The funniest part of the interview was when Scheuer accused one of the “infobabes” of “carrying the water for Mr. Obama”.  After that statement, the female anchor that Scheuer was addressing was visibly flustered and quickly went to a commercial.

Video of this CNN interview with Michael Scheuer is posted below.  This is a video that should be shared with everyone you know….

Wasn’t that hilarious?

When a big time establishment news network such as CNN goes “off script” it can be a beautiful thing to watch.

Of course Scheuer was exactly right.  We never should have gotten involved in the civil war in Libya.  It was none of our business.  When the rebels picked up arms and started shooting at government forces, they should not have been surprised when Gadhafi’s forces started shooting back.

Over the past few decades, there have been some very real genocides happening all over Africa, but the U.S. never seemed to care about any of those.

But now the mainstream media has been trying really hard to spin the civil war in Libya into a “great humanitarian crisis”.

Well, that might fool some of the American people, but as Scheuer aptly pointed out, the rest of the world sees this as just another U.S. war in the Middle East for oil (and banking).

But instead of getting a balanced view of the war in Libya, most of the time the corporate media has focused on an endless parade of establishment Republicans and establishment Democrats that fully endorse the war.  Of course the Republicans all try to score some political points by questioning how Obama is going about doing things, but in the end most Republicans and most Democrats are fully on board with what is going on in Libya.

Nearly everyone in the mainstream media seems to be fully on board with this war as well.

Why?

Well, because virtually all of the major media outlets are owned by the establishment, and the establishment wants this war.

Have you ever noticed that the news seems to have the same “flavor” no matter what channel you turn to?

There is a very good reason for that.

In an article that I previously authoried entitled “Who Owns The Media?“, I explained that six incredibly dominant corporations control most of the news that we see today….

Back in 1983, approximately 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the United States.  Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations.  These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day.  They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don’t even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest.  Most Americans don’t really seem to care about who owns the media.  But they should.  The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media.  The average American watches 153 hours of television a month.  In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something.  Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.  The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal.  Together, the “big six” absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the United States.

Read the full article posted at End of the American Dream.

The CIA's Libya Rebels

The Same Terrorists who Killed US, NATO Troops in Iraq

Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
TARPLEY.net
March 24, 2011

Washington DC, March 24, 2011 — The current military attack on Libya has been motivated by UN Security Council resolution 1973 with the need to protect civilians. Statements by President Obama, British Prime Minister Cameron, French President Sarkozy, and other leaders have stressed the humanitarian nature of the intervention, which is said to aim at preventing a massacre of pro-democracy forces and human rights advocates by the Qaddafi regime.

But at the same time, many commentators have voiced anxiety because of the mystery which surrounds the anti-Qaddafi transitional government which emerged at the beginning of March in the city of Benghazi, located in the Cyrenaica district of north-eastern Libya. This government has already been recognized by France and Portugal as the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people. The rebel council seems to be composed of just over 30 delegates, many of whom are enveloped in obscurity. In addition, the names of more than a dozen members of the rebel council are being kept secret, allegedly to protect them from the vengeance of Qaddafi. But there may be other reasons for the anonymity of these figures. Despite much uncertainty, the United Nations and its several key NATO countries, including the United States, have rushed forward to assist the armed forces of this rebel regime with air strikes, leading to the loss of one or two coalition aircraft and the prospect of heavier losses to come, especially if there should be an invasion. It is high time that American and European publics learned something more about this rebel regime which is supposed to represent a democratic and humanitarian alternative to Gaddafi.

The rebels are clearly not civilians, but an armed force. What kind of an armed force?

Since many of the rebel leaders are so difficult to research from afar, and since a sociological profile of the rebels cannot be done on the ground in the midst of warfare, perhaps the typical methods of social history can be called on for help. Is there a way for us to gain deeper insight into the climate of opinion which prevails in such northeastern Libyan cities as Benghazi, Tobruk, and Darnah, the main population centers of the rebellion?

West Point study reveals the nationalities of foreign fighters

captured in Iraq. Per capita, Libya leads the way, eastern 

Libya, Benghazi and Darnah to be more precise.

It turns out that there is, in the form of a December 2007 West Point study examining the background of foreign guerrilla fighters — jihadis or mujahedin, including suicide bombers — crossing the Syrian border into Iraq during the 2006-2007 timeframe, under the auspices of the international terrorist organization Al Qaeda. This study is based on a mass of about 600 Al Qaeda personnel files which were captured by US forces in the fall of 2007, and analyzed at West Point using a methodology which we will discuss after having presented the main findings. The resulting study¹ permits us to make important findings about the mentality and belief structures of the northeastern Libyan population that is furnishing the basis for the rebellion, permitting important conclusions about the political nature of the anti-Qaddafi revolt in these areas.

Read the rest of Dr. Tarpley's article at Tarpley.net

Fed Released 29,000 Pages of Records

Bloomberg was recently victorious in their lawsuit against the Federal Reserve leading to today's release of formerly propriety knowledge the Fed withheld from the American public regarding its involvement in the 2008 bailout.  Immediately obvious was the over $100 trillion in discounted loans of which the largest was made to the European bank Dexia in the amount of $31.5 billion.  According to Ron Paul the largesse involved and gravity of the issue at hand is worse than he could have imagined.  Congressional hearings to be held by Rep. Paul on the Federal Reserve will take place over a month from now when a full assessment is anticipated to be complete.

Democracy is Overrated

In Glen Greenwald's recent article at Salon.com, Billionare self-pity and the Koch Brothers, resides an apt portrayal of the trying attitudes of those whom, as Greenwald puts it, ride "the carousel of self-victimhood."  Who wants to hear a billionaire whine anyway?  It kind of comes off like Brad Pitt complaining about a pimple.

The Koch Brothers, pronounced “coke”, privately own the second largest company in the nation, Koch Industries specializing in, well – everything from oil to finance (yes I picked the two most despised and potentially megalomaniacal sectors of the economy for effect). 

On the side, the brothers lavishly support various “conservative” and “libertarian” (delineate them properly!) groups and causes, e.g. the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Reason Foundation, Americans for Prosperity (the Tea Party support apparatus which garners the consistent ire of liberals), etc.  The brothers also give directly through their PAC to politicians and it is through this mechanism, which they have received so much opprobrium from the left recently.

Regardless of the Koch brothers’ stoical disposition or lack thereof or whether they are the bane of our national existence or not, both are moot points as Greenwald submits:

“I mostly regard them as little more than a symbol of the death of democratic values in the U.S. -- the way in which the possession of vast financial resources is an absolute prerequisite to making any impact on the national political process, and conversely, how those without such resources are politically inconsequential and impotent (short of their fomenting serious social unrest).”

Really, a “symbol of the death of democratic values?”  If you can excuse Greenwald’s melodrama for a moment, when can you remember a time when money and influence didn’t have an effect in American politics?  What past democratic utopia is Greenwald referring to?   I love this country as much as the next guy, but I would charge Mr. Greenwald with finding me that part of our history when American leaders sat down with the poor and disenfranchised and allowed their opinion to drive the political process.

This democracy, what was once referred to more often as a Republic, is not some jukebox everyone simply puts their two cents into and gets to hear their favorite song.  Our Republic was crafted as a safe deposit box, as it were, for those rights and liberties, which had been trounced and smothered throughout history.  “Democracy” was rightly subdued through the 10^th and 17^th Amendments, an independent judiciary, bicameral legislative process, etc. for the same reasons a monarchy was rejected – they both in their purest forms result in tyranny.

The best way of looking at unbridled democracy is through mass psychology, ten heads is not necessarily better than one.  This is why screaming “fire!” in a crowded room is frowned upon and many times illegal, why economic bubbles are created, and why any “gold rush” favors the guy selling the pick and shovel versus the miner.  America has its own sordid history with mass hysteria from the Salem Witch Trials to The Second Red Scare and that is why the Founders attempted to design the Constitution the way it was.  A model of government with a determined balance of orders or powers blended together with a differentiation of functions, repeatedly devolved to the states, and ultimately enshrined in a simple and unambiguous form requiring only the impulse of popular consent to lend it life and the private ambitions of its citizens and the public accountability of its representatives to keep it in motion.

This is why Americans traditionally are not very political or prone to identify themselves with groups rather than as individuals, why George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had a distaste for political parties, and this is why we used to sincerely refer to our politicians as “civil servants” as it was supposed to be a simple job (standing guard for liberty), as boring as jury duty, and something all of us might one day fulfill.  We all know now the halls of Congress are a very different place.

…In the same article Greenwald lambasts the Koch brothers for calling Obama a “dedicated egalitarian” (a nice way of calling him a socialist) when apparently he surrounds himself with “pro business” elements.  In my next post “Why Obama is Both a Corporatist and a Socialist” I’ll explain why the two are many times inextricable…

MSNBC RON PAUL GAFF: Ron Paul in MSNBC Graphic Represented as Rand Paul

In an interview with Tim Pawlenty yesterday, MSNBC "fudged" a polling graphic halfway through the spot illustrating Tim Pawlenty's low poll numbers thus far.  Ron Paul is shown with 6%, 3 percentage points above Pawlenty, except, MSNBC used Rand Paul's (Ron Paul's son's) picture!  


In the same vein FOX News "mistakenly" misrepresented last month what was a jubilant reaction by the audience at the 2012 CPAC straw poll result by playing a year old video clip embedded in a portion of the crowd ostensibly supporting Mitt Romney.  The clip featured his supporters booing and jeering amidst a larger crowd in thunderous applause.  In a subsequent follow up interview on Fox NEWS with Rep. Ron Paul FOX mislead the American public and even Ron Paul himself (whom wasn't present at the announcement of the results) in believing his victory was rebuked by those in attendance to one of America's most conservative gatherings.  


Yesterday, MSNBC subtly sabotaged the Paul's by not lending them the respect of corresponding face with name!  With all of the press Ron and Rand Paul have received over the last two years is MSNBC expecting us to believe those who created this graphic don't know the difference between father and son?  See below...

MSNBC, negligence or deliberate disrespect?  You be the judge. 

BIDEN: Readmitted To Hospital for Chronic Foot In Mouth Disease!

With unparalleled conviction Sen. Biden gives us a lesson in constitutional government, but will he abide by those principles he so eloquently and succinctly espoused in 2007?  The things that come out of this guy's mouth over the years are priceless!  Alas, this is indicative of our politicians since the dawn of government; say one thing and do another, Republican or Democrat it is all a sham.  Obama's entry into Libya, at the behest of the UN no doubt, is a doubly impeachable offense.  March 2011 will go down in infamy; the year our Republic was unquestionably commandeered by world government!  Ladies and gentlemen we are no longer a sovereign state.  


Meanwhile...


America watches March Madness, the Obama's are on vacation, and Charlie Sheen implodes to success.