"It's all b******t, and it's bad for ya!"

So said the immortal George Carlin in his last HBO special back in 2008. It's even worse now.

And here we have a great example of that from our fearless leader President Barack Obama. It was during an interview last week with ABC's Jake Tapper. Here's what the President said:

The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side, and that we want to set up a system in which hard work, responsibility, doing what you’re supposed to do, is rewarded. And that people who are irresponsible, who are reckless, who don’t feel a sense of obligation to their communities and their companies and their workers that those folks aren’t rewarded.

"Those of us in leadership"? I haven't seen any kind of leadership in Washington, D.C. in years. We can't get judges approved, any kind of serious laws passed, no job reform, no sane budget reforms, just to name a few.

"We are on their side"? Let's see, Obama has generated more contributions from Wall Street than the Republican candidates combined. Two points here: The contributions sure would indicate that Wall Street is very happy with what Obama is doing and have confidence that he will keep on keeping on for the good of the financial industry. Secondly, who do you think Obama is going to cater to when he gets re-elected? Certainly not the 99%.

...people who are irresponsible, who are reckless, who don’t feel a sense of obligation to their communities and their companies and their workers that those folks aren’t rewarded...

This one's a softball. What about the "Irresponsible," "reckless" banksters who threw our country into a great recession and put millions out of work not being indicted? How about the British Petroleum oil company executives responsible for the Gulf spill last year not being touched? How about the Bush Administration's war crimes not even being addressed any more by Obama and the political elite (though the world, by which I mean everyone but the U.S., Israel, and England, believes war crimes were committed)? Not to mention, they are all now making a fortune hawking their books and doing interviews on the backs of those whom they killed or permanently ruined.

I could go on, but one gets the drift. The really sad part is that Obama, and really any of our political elite, can says prevaricating words like the above with a straight face, and no one, let me repeat, NO ONE, will bat an eye or at least throw follow-up questions challenging such lying statements. And I do mean lying statements.

So, bottom line, look at how much BS is packed in that one paragraph by Obama. Amazing, isn't it? Carlin's the man!

I know I'm repeating in this post the same old that have been said for years by the left, and more specifically the progressives, but maybe, just maybe, if enough people write and talk about it, something might just be done down the road. I have high hopes for the "Occupy" protests, and I really hope this is the beginning of the end of the select few decimating our country.

Key reasons behind OWS

There are some terrific graphs on Alternet.com that "shows exactly what motivates the Occupy Movement.

Some of the summary of the graphs:

1. "The productivity/wage chart says it all. From 1947 until the mid-1970s real wages and productivity (economic output per worker hour) danced together. Both climbed year after year as did our real standard of living. If you’re old enough, you will remember seeing your parents doing just a bit better each year, year after year. Then, our nation embarked on a grand economic experiment. Taxes were cut especially on the super-rich. Finance was deregulated and unions were crushed. Lo and behold, the two lines broke apart. Productivity continued to climb, but wages stalled and declined. So where did all that productivity money go? To the rich and to the super-rich, especially to those in finance."

2. "In 1970 the top 100 CEOs earned $45 for every $1 earned by the average worker. By 2006, the ratio climbed to an obscene 1,723 to one. (Not a misprint!)"

3. "To add financial insult to injury, the richest of the rich pay less and less each year as a percentage of their monstrous incomes. The top 400 taxpayers during the 1950s faced a 90 percent federal tax rate. By 1995 their effective tax rate – what they really paid after all deductions as a percent of all their income – fell to 30 percent. Now it’s barely 16 percent."

4. "Right now the number of unemployed for 26 weeks or more is at record levels. Many of the long-term unemployed will never work again."

These are just a few of what the graphs indicate. Most of us know about all this, but it's really discouraging to see it all in one fell swoop. Hopefully, Occupy Wall Street and the other Occupiers around the world can shake up the status quo enough that the people can regain control of our governments and have them work for us instead of the very, very few.

Democracy Now! - the people's news

The New York Times has a really nice article about the news show Democracy Now!. I am a faithful viewer of the broadcast, which airs live Monday through Friday at 8am EST on 950 stations.

In the article, the author brings up this point:

Last week, no United States television network covered the filing of a lawsuit in Canada by four men who said they had been tortured during the Bush administration and who are seeking Mr. Bush’s arrest and prosecution. But one of the men, Murat Kurnaz, a former prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, was interviewed at length by Ms. (Amy) Goodman and her co-host, Juan Gonzalez.

So typical. Leave it to the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM - thank you, Ray McGovern for that phrase) to leave the ex-President alone, even though there are millions around the world who believe this person is a major perpetrator of serious war crimes.

Thank goodness we have Amy Goodman and her crew to keep us informed of what is really going on. Not just what the FCM want us to know while keeping from us what we need to know.

Obama should look here before there

During President Obama's statement regarding the death of Qaddafi, he had this to say (emphasis mine):

And we call on our Libyan friends to continue to work with the international community to secure dangerous materials, and to respect the human rights of all Libyans –- including those who have been detained.

First of all, this is awfully patronizing. What... The Libyans were just about to violate the rights of THEIR detainees, but thank goodness Obama was there to shake them out of that sensibility? Of course, this is just more of the "American Exceptionalism" attitude that is thrust upon a world deemed beneath the U.S political insiders.

But more importantly, let's look at a glass house here. What human rights have we, the U.S., respected to those detained by us?

Have those imprisoned in Guantanamo had due process? I think not. Were they not tortured? And anyone who says that they have had their rights respected is either simply lying or grossly ignorant.