White collar Joe Scarborough & Co. display their elitism

Joe Scarborough this morning commented on Rod Blagojevich's sentence of fourteen years calling it "total BS." Of course, it's not unexpected since he and his group swim among the white collar elite. Perish the thought that they would accept such a sentence to one of their own.

White collar criminals get away with far too much. You know that what Blagojevich was convicted for was not the only time he had his hand in the cookie jar. Who knows how many people have been hurt by Blagojevic­h's chicanery? Who's in power due to Blagojevich's receiving bribes to get them in? What have the people in Illinois have been deprived of because Mr. Blagojevich peddled his influence? We'll never know, but people who get in due to bribes are NOT the type of persons who will work for the people. And those good candidates who actually would work for the people are deprived of the offices.

What really amazes me is that we have all these draconian laws and sentences for the 99% such as three strikes laws, severely harsh drug laws (I believe all drugs should be decriminalized and treated as a major health issue) or, as an excellent example, a woman getting three years in prison for lying on a federal application while no wall street executive even goes to trial for the fraud they perpetrated on the American populace.

As for the Morning Joe crew's comparison to child molesters averaging "only" 9.5 years. That's apples and oranges. I agree that 9.5 is way too short for those creeps, but that is an issue that needs to be addressed on its own terms. Blagojevich's judge should NOT be comparing sentences for other crimes (same with the crew's Conrad Murray's conviction re Michael Jackson's death argument) when considerin­g Blagojevich's sentence.

Unfortunately, that's the problem with white collar crime. Nothing immediately tangible can be gleaned from their reprehensible actions. No blood, no body, etc. Yet, I would submit the damage the white collars cause is among the worse of the worst: violating the people's trust and literally destroying thousands of lives in one fell swoop. All in the name of bribery or profiteering from the power of the office.

We need to continually impose harsh sentences on all these charlatans to let future potentiall­y corrupt politician­s know that the book will be thrown at them HARD if they're caught. We need to hammer them and hammer them hard. Maybe that will make them think twice before violating the trust of the people and breaking the law.

Best news I've heard all day

George W. Bush cancels visit to Swiss charity gala over fears he could be arrested on torture charges

Mr Bush was due to be the keynote speaker at a Jewish charity gala in Geneva on February 12.

But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the country.

Criminal complaints against Mr Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials said.

I'm one of those that believes what goes around comes around. I'm waiting for the "comes around" for Bush and his evil cronies...

World copes with upheaval, Americans get anxiety

This really frosts me. Time magazine has put out the Dec. 5 issue on its web showing the covers for different areas of the world. Europe, Asia and South Pacific get a cover with the shot of a man wearing a gas mask with his fist raised over his head. In big, bold letters in the center of the magazine are the words "Revolution Redux."

I can get into that. I mean we have the Arab spring, the Occupy cities and such. Nice to blast the masses with that kind of cover.

Now...what do you think the cover is here in the United States? A cartoon with the headline, "Why Anxiety is Good for You"! Say, what? Sort of reminds of the George Carlin bit on manly Football versus pansy Baseball ("In football, you have TOUCHDOWNS!" "In baseball, you run for home...")

Excuse me, but that's ridiculous! Revolution is certainly in the wind around the world, and the common folk are trying to put a stop to the "haves" stomping on the "have nots" throats... Yet the American people get an anxiety cover? ...And it's good for you!?!?

Does Time think that we're too ignorant or perhaps uncaring enough to warrant a revolution cover? Maybe the staff at Time just believe that we are all so wrapped up into ourselves and our anxiety that they will sell more magazines with that headline as the American lead. Who wouldn't want to be mollified from the fear mongering rhetoric coming from our leaders? I mean, maybe they think we don't give a rat about the uprisings around the world. Only in America!

But I must admit that cynical me thinks it's that they don't want to give we, the people, any blatant ideas that might possibly harm the power elite's status quo. Sort of like telling us that it's OK for the politicos to instill fear in us. Thus we must keep on abridging our civil rights in the name of fear because it's so good for us to be very anxious and afraid... Thank you, Time! I feel so much better now that I know my anxiety is so good for me!

Gee...DOJ decides lying to the people is not a good idea

I would like to say this is great news, but why on earth did we have to go this far in the first place? So the Department of Justice is backing off on trying to be able to lie to the Ametrican people. How noble!

The Department of Justice has canceled a controversial planned revision to Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) rules that opponents said would have allowed federal agencies to lie about the existence of records.

I would love to know the name(s) of the maroon(s) who thought up this crazy idea in the first place. He/she/they actually thought that the ability to lie to the American people was good for our democracy?

In probably one of the most understatements of the year the DOJ said this:

...the DOJ wrote that the proposed rule “falls short” of its commitment to transparency, and it “will not include that provision when the Department issues final regulations.”

Really? I certainly hope that these creative DOJ officials who came up with the crazy idea in the first place will be named. Obviously, they are not working in our interest and should be removed.

"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.