Abortion Profiteering and Mitt Romney

itt Romney's refusal to reveal his income taxes, is based on more than the fact that for some years he did not pay a dime.  His base would be fine with that.  Oh, they might not love it, but it would not seriously hurt. It bothers them not one whit that Romney, a trust baby, who began life with millions of dollars, who persecuted gays boys at his elite private school, now evades paying any taxes at all, while you and I are up to our elbows, struggling to pay our mortgages to the pig banks.and the IRS.  No, conservatives like that about Romney. But there is another reason.  A reason that would force his base to weep great salty tears whenever they heard his name.  A reason which, if proven beyond a reasonable doubt, would end his entire campaign overnight.  And his campaign people are running as fast as they can to put out the little fires that would blow this into a huge conflagration.

Oh, the flat-out mutha-lovin' hypocrisy!

This is good!

Really good.

Ever hear of a company called Stericycle?

Stericycle is a medical waste clean up company.  As in cleaning up after an abortion.  Abortion?  Yes.

Abortion.

Mitt Romney and company have tried their damnedest to distance themselves from Stericycle.  They have tried to claim that Mr. Romney was no longer associated with Bain Capital Equity Group at the time that Bain owned controlling shares of Stericycle.  But they can't make it stick. Mother Jones sent a request to the SEC for copies of original documents tracing the ownership of Stericycle to Bain throughout the very years Romney's people are trying to claim he just wasn't there.

Those claims turn out to be just another bald faced lie, of which there have been far too many lately.  So let's just clear the air:  A vote for Romney is a vote, not for Pro-Life issues, and not even for abortion.  

A vote for Romney/Ryan is a vote for abortion profiteering.  Let me say that again.

Abortion Profiteering / Mitt Romney!

Romney made millions upon millions on Stericycle.  How could he not?  They have more than 475, 000 accounts.  Now the next question is this: Why the Republican owned media has fumbled the ball on this issue? Not so much as a a peep from the New York Times.  Not a hint or a clue from the Gannett owned Statesman Journal here in Salem, OR, the Capital city of the great state of Oregon.  Nada from the conservatively owned Oregonian in liberal Portland.   Not entirely Zero but close.
 

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Tactics of Gangsters

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he Republican Party should be ashamed of themselves.  Running around desperately restricting the rights of voters.  If Republicans had a photon of decency, they would not countenance such outright villainy.

 Specifically in the states of Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.  So far.  And this is over the strenuous objections of the federal Department of Justice.  Those conservative officials seem to enjoy thumbing their noses at the Feds on this issue.

In America, for Christ's sake!

It is a series of moves by state governors and legislators, those which are predominantly conservative, which points to desperation.  It says, very loudly, that there is the head-banging realization followed by the palpable, throat-grabbing fear, that the only way the Republican Party can win is by cheating.  Last time, the Republicans cheated by fixing the Diebold voting machines.

Oh, puh-leez, don't even think about denying it.  Everybody knew!  We even have the statement from the CEO of Diebold promising that he would do anything to guarantee Bush election. So what we have is a Party of Dunces who can achieve nothing without willfully destroying the Spirit of Democracy.  And whose members have so relinquished their moral compass that they've descended to the level of snake in the grass;  and this time they make no bones about the fact that they are doing this sort of thing.  In Ohio, for example they are extending the hours of voting polls in Republican districts.  But they are shutting down the polls in Progressive districts early.  And the statements uttered by the Secretary of state are so absurd it makes one woozy to contemplate the chutzpah he brazenly demonstrates to the world.

This is the way of the bully, the fraud, and thug gangster.  One feels embarrassment for the poor creature even if he himself is beyond such emotions himself.

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 As they say in the Deep South: a man who will lie to you, will steal from you.  And a man who will steal from you will kill you.

But beyond the officials, who give no hint of embarrassment at their own treason,  are the conservative voters themselves, who have made no outcry protesting such blatant attempts to circumvent the US Constitution and abridge the right of voters, regardless of said voters political persuasion.  Such lack of sanguine response to chicanery and outright knavery, speaks volumes about the moral fiber of the rank and file conservative voter themselves.

My new definition of a Republican is one whose political purview causes one's soul to cry out to be murdered in his sleep.

Dominionists and The New Theocracy

nthinkable as it is to me, there is a group of Christians, so called, the Dominionists so twisted in their cult-think that their main effort, their raison d'étre, is the destruction of the U.S. Constitution so as to replace it with the Bible.  And there is a great deal of money behind the movement.  People we have a lot of work to do.  To think that there are so many people in America who's heads are so twisted that they would desire to destroy the very country which allowed them the freedom to come together in the first place.

This is madness.

Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich are indicative of the ilk they would choose for their leaders.

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What will these people do when they finally discover that they, themselves are the false prophets and Anti-Christ they so much fear?  That the Bible is just a collection of old war stories and love songs, rants and fallacious histories?  In the meantime while it is most often counterproductive to ban a cult such as this, Christianity is now more detrimental to the welfare of our community than it is positive.

The Unitarians came out of the Enlightenment.  In fact, the Unitarian Universalists are the Enlightenment.  The same Enlightenment which produced the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

     

Slave Labor In America

y strong suspicion is that much of the gay population is a useful canary in the coal mine.  For more than four decades, macho gays have acted out --- in their sexuality --- the very stuff which is now coming to light as an aspect, a decidedly hideous aspect, at that, of government in America.  The sexual game of Master and Slave once confined to the bedroom is now to be found in Corporate Boardrooms as well as Federal and state agencies.  Well, hasn't it just blossomed into BDSM, throughout middle American Christian bedrooms?!

Of course, the gays boys dressed it all up in black leather.  In fact, they invented an iconic look using the sleek animal texture of the leather to emphasize exaggerated masculine body parts.  The look was adopted and perfected, in the pornographic drawings of  the great gay porn artist Tom O'Finland.  Much of Tom's work now resides in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

The Black Leather look of BDSM was so sexy, so hot, so flattering, that the straight world got so turned on, they appropriated the look and called it their own.  Now, Christian ladies everywhere throughout the American Mid-West, give themselves up to the whims of their cruel masters in black leather chaps, chest straps, harnesses, or, lately, latex outfits. But then --- that is what straight people have always done.  Stolen whatever the gays were up to and then pretended that they, the straights actually had the creative juice to create something so stylish and forward looking.

They don't, of course.  But they like to think they do.  But this is old news.

The real news is that the Corporate State has privatized the prison system; and since one in every hundred American is now in prison, we now have what Corporations have longed for all these decades: SLAVERY.  Yes, boys and girls, the ugly face of master/slavery has not really ever gone away.  It simply went underground and now in this utterly corrupt era, it feels free to show itself.

The Military Industrial Complex has created a work force which costs them less than Chinese labor and no shipping costs.  Journalist Mike Elk, who is a specialist in current Labor Practices explains how the Military Industrial Complex (hereafter MIC) has co-opted the prison system.  Remember those 2 judges who were caught in Pennsylvania illegally sentencing young people to slave labor prisons, for which they were generously compensated by the Corrections Corporation of America.  That Corporation by the way, is still very powerful.  The onus fell on the judges and not the Corporation.

Never the Corporation.  Take a look at this video.
 

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Even Republicans give Romney a thumbs down

ot that I would have voted for him anyway.  But here are some core Republicans expressing so succinctly why nobody should vote for Romney.

The man is a total disgrace.  He is the very embodiment of the reason why Republican Crony capitalism is through.

Finished in America.

The Romney campaign is trying to claim that old Mitt is a job creator.

What lies!

What liars!

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Bain Capital is a prime player of vulture capitalism, Rick Perry says.

So the video gives us some insider's view of how Mitt Romney sees the world.  And I for one, tremble at the prospect of a Mitt Romney/Return of the GOP presidency for four years look at the damage George W. Bush did in fours years and then the stupids began chanting "Four More Years!" and he finished off the entire American economy.    

Now take a look at Robert Reich as he clears the flatulent air of Republican lies with the bothersome (to Republicans) dart of shining reality.

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Thanks to all who come here and actually read my blog.  Please feel free to leave a comment or many comments, if you wish.  I love feedback.

United States of InJustice

Here is a terrible story of appalling injustice.  And the worst thing about it is that the agencies involved are the very ones we depend on to make our country worthy:  The Dept. of Justice at the top, which considers itself so beyond reproach that it is totally unaccountable.  Then there is the Department of Homeland Security.  Now there is an agency which should never have existed in the first place. That one is due to the crookedness of the Republicans in Congress when George Bush and his buddies pulled off the 9/11 attack on the WTC.

These are the Umbrella agencies of the Border Patrol which what we are considering here.  A large group of Border Patrol agents murdered a Mexican man, a father of 5 children, and the husband of a Mexican woman.  All of the actions of the officers involved were provocative and all of them conspired to murder a fellow human being.

And they murdered the man in cold blood.

If there were any justice in the world, there would have been a massive investigation by the Department of Justice.  Instead, the DOJ has slammed the door shut on all who seek to discover the truth surrounding this despicable crime.  The video below is almost sickening in what it suggests about the corruption of Border Patrol officers and their bosses and oversight agencies.  

Watch Crossing the line at the border on PBS. See more from Need To Know.

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(letter to a friend in Boston who sent the link to an article in the Globe) 

 any thanks for sending such a good article by a really good writer. I'll try to remember Brian McGrory.  Oh, the irony; an Irishman (Scot?) writing scathingly about another Irishman.  The Celtic people and their barroom brawls.  They never stop fighting; if it isn't the English, it's each other.  My favorite barroom sign about the Irish is this:  "The Lord made whiskey so the Irish wouldn't take over the world." 

Of course, anybody with a delightfully Irish name like Tim Kelly deserves $50,000,000 a year.  Or more properly understood, $24,000 an hour.  I wish I did not want as much as they do, to have lots of money to throw around.

What the article misses saying, as do most complaints, is that the damage such an atmosphere of obscene recompense does is that it cheapens money itself. And everyone suffers.   

Jane Fonda, for example, is worth how many millions --- and I heard her say this last night in an interview, 

"At last," said Jane, "at the age of 73, I feel I am a whole person." 

Well, it is the right values in the wrong person.  If only she did not come from great wealth and pursue great wealth and spend all that time working obsessively on the body beautiful.True, she looks simply amazing at the age of 73.  But then, too, Ted Turner still kicked her out of bed after what --- 50. She spent years worrying that he would and then he did.  

Very few get past the era without being soiled by the perverted values of the age.  Look at the people who have embraced the disgusting values espoused by Ayn Rand. That is true evil. 

And it will pass.  

But will it pass before it does more and permanent damage?  Perhaps I am dreaming. I am not trying to say that happiness and wholeness of personhood cannot be attained unless you walk away from money.  But I do think real truth is always at risk when unlimited amounts of money are available.  Money is the root of evil because what it most buys --- which poverty cannot buy,--- is a mirror which only reflects us as we wish to be seen and as we believe ourselves to be worthy.  

The cult of money is the Culture of Narcissism.■

  

Republicans Rethink Health Care

o the Republicans announced at a press conference that they are preparing for the Supremes to reject Obama's health Care Reform bill.  There are several excellent ironies at work here. Perhaps the most laughable is the fact that the health care reform bill is the very one which was originated by the Republicans themselves, and which, from the moment the words passed over Obama's lips, is now referred to by right-wingers as Obamacare; and, of course, this is delivered matter-of-factly with only the slightest screwing of the upper lip and adjacent facial muscles into a sneer.  In the manner of an excessively delicate lady catching the smell of dog shit on her shoe.

But that is far from all of the fragrant irony.  There is also the video of a certain Republican Congressman, who held Town Hall meeting not so long ago, where he invited large numbers of his constituents into a school gymnasium or something similar.  In a voice dripping with triumph, he announced the Republican agenda to dismantle all sorts of government programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid; and then, unable to constrain his glee, unveiled the master plan to abolish Obamacare.

How dumbfounding and disappointing it must have been when an outraged constituent stood up and demanded the one thing the lawmaker was ill-prepared to answer.

"What," the man said, "are you going to replace it with?"

How infinitely rude!

The man did not just ask the one question but plowed on with his brief but brutal discourse.  "You want to take away our Safety Net!  We need that Safety-Net simply to live.  Do you want to kill us?  Is that what you and your party are really up to?"

"NO," said the Congressman, "Heavens no!"  Suddenly the crowd turned angry eyes whose pupils were tiny dots of fury, and they were focused on him.

The lawmaker could only stammer and run for cover.

Now, the Republicans are at it again.

At least the three Stygian witches of mythology had an eye amongst them; but these neo-Republicans seem not to have a brain amongst them. Every move they make inspires one more group of voters to walk away.  Their disgraceful conduct as the party of NO, lost more would-be constituents than it tickled.  Their attacks designed to make Obama look bad, backfired more often than not.  Obama came out smelling sweet as a rose.

Now once again, they are the far-right wing partisan Supreme Court 5 are taking their time not quite sure which way to go with the health care reform bill. Should they declare the whole thing unconstitutional or just the part where it says that everybody has to have health insurance.  If they reject it wholesale, it is tantamount to saying what critics of the entire bill have said all along.  It is lame and unconstitutional to boot;  AND it was the best the Republicans could come up with, since, as we all know they dreamed it up in the first place.

But here is the part that made me sit down and bang out this post:  They have chosen this moment to announce that they are seeking to create an all new health care reform plan.  And perhaps they are.  And I am sure it will be as ugly and as outright stupid as Paul Ryan's budget proposal where he takes money from the poor and hands it to the rich. But that as we know is the goal of all Republican thinking.  But with the thinking about a new health care plan and the announcing of such thinking, that are sending out a signal to the ultra-conservative Bush-appointed majority of the SCOTUS that they would like to have the entire bill rejected.

Needless to say, this will only complicate the right-winger justices dilemma.  They are, if anything, viewed throughout the voting population of the USA as being more divisive, more partisan, and ultimately more destructive of American values that made this country great than even Congress itself.  And polls now show that out of a hundred points voters across the USA give Congress around 6 points.

That's dangerously low.

That could spell fighting-in-the-street rebellion.

I hope so!

 
     
  

Mediator Rules In Favor of Killer Cop

bviously, the title says it all.  Two years ago, a Portland, Oregon police officer, unprovoked, shot an unarmed young man in the back. When questioned, the officer of course, claimed that he feared bodily harm or worse.  Fear of bodily harm is all it takes.  They don't even need to fear threatened for their life.  The officer was suspended with pay, it seems.  And City Hall promised to look into it.  And managed to drag their feet doing so.  But citizen's groups stormed City Hall demanding that, at the very least, the officer be fired.  They claimed wrongful death at the least.  City Hall was able to stall for several years.  But finally, they had to deal with it --- so they called in a mediator.  Actually, one ought to say, a MEDIATOR.  But I won't say that.  The mediator heard the case; read the reports; and ruled.

In favor of the cop!

One thing we know about mediators.  They usually find in favor of the company they work for.  The reason for this is not hard to discern.  If they don't find in favor of the company writing the check, 9.99 and 9/10 % of the time, they won't be asked to mediate again.  This applies to any dispute you care to mention.  And it is especially true when dealing with City Hall.

Here is one of the best features of the Occupy movement.  The general citizenry is no longer content to sit back and let the "authorities" do whatever they like --- as long as everybody smiles for the camera.

So a large group of outraged citizens showed up at City Hall to protest the mediator's extremely unfortunate decision.  Now City Hall has to grin and try to maintain its authority in the face genuinely righteous anger.  The news media can try to slant this so as to make the demonstrators look like kooks, and they will do.  But I, for one, am happy to see the public get involved in what is very apparently a corrupt decision.

Europe's Financial Crisis Explained

requently, complex political and economic situations become clear when comedians address them and exploit the laughter inherent.  Think George Carlin, or Jon Stewart; or, my very favorite, Lewis Black.

Here, two British comedians --- very dry, but very funny, --- take on the European economy.■

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Sorry, I just couldn't resist this one, where Lewis Black discusses

George Bush's overwhelming need to amend the US Constitution so as to make it illegal for gays to marry.  Out of all the problems of his administration, this is the one he chooses to obsess over.  This is the important one.

Ri-i-i-ght! 

Enjoy.

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Crime Profiteering and Slavery

Profiteering from another person's incarceration is a racket.  Every thing about it is foul.  It besmirches everyone, including those who stand by and allow it to happen.  Yet it seems to be a burgeoning market.  As Americans we must denounce this entire concept.  Or else we will fall as the most corrupt culture ever to arise on planet earth.  Yet Republicans really like the idea.  My own take is that privatization of prisons and the resulting profit is nothing more than Republican Masturbatory pornography.

The imprisonment of human beings at record levels is both a moral failure and an economic one — especially at a time when state governments confront enormous fiscal crises caused largely by bloated and unnecessary prison spending. But mass incarceration provides a gigantic windfall for one special interest group: the private prison industry. As current incarceration levels harm the nation as a whole, for-profit prisons obtain taxpayer dollars in ever greater amounts. Private prison executives, meanwhile, bring in multi-million dollar compensation packages.

Kevork Djansezian | Getty Images Inmates at Chino State Prison exercise in the yard December in Chino, Calif.

Today, the United States incarcerates 2.3 million individuals — more people, both per capita and in absolute terms, than any other nation in the world including Russia, China and Iran. The current incarceration rate deprives record numbers of individuals of their liberty, disproportionately affects people of color and has at best a minimal effect on public safety. The crippling cost of imprisoning more and more Americans — non-violent offenders in the majority of cases — saddles governments with escalating debt.

This social ill — mass incarceration — is the private prison industry’s bread and butter. Private prison companies openly admit that their profits depend on locking up more people. For example, in a 2010 annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the largest private prison company stated: “The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by ... leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices ...”

David ShapiroStaff Attorney
American Civil Liberties Union

As incarceration rates skyrocket, the private prison industry expands at exponential rates. The number of inmates in private prisons increased by roughly 1600 percent between 1990 and 2009. In 2010, the two largest private prison companies alone took in nearly $3 billion in revenue, and their top executives each received annual compensation packages worth well over $3 million.

• Embrace Competition to Lower Costs, Improve Performance in Prisons

While the for-profit prison industry touts the idea that governments can save money through privatization, private prisons often fail to deliver demonstrable fiscal benefits — and can even cost taxpayers more than publicly operated institutions. Numerous studies by researchers, state governments and federal agencies contradict the supposed economic benefits touted by industry supporters.

As state governments across the nation confront deep fiscal deficits, the notion that private prisons demonstrably reduce the costs of incarceration is more than untrue — it is dangerous and irresponsible. Inflated assertions about cost savings threaten to lure states into privatization, rather than reducing incarceration rates and limiting corrections spending through serious criminal justice reform.

Empirical studies also show a heightened level of violence in some private prisons. With every incentive to slash salaries so as to maximize corporate profits, private prison companies in some instances fill their facilities with inexperienced staff. After an infamous escape from an Arizona private prison in 2010, for example, the Arizona Department of Corrections reported that at the prison “[s]taff are fairly ‘green’ across all shifts,” “are not proficient with weapons” and habitually ignore sounding alarms. Private facilities have also been linked to atrocious conditions. In a private juvenile facility in Texas, for example, auditors reported, “[c]ells were filthy, smelled of feces and urine.”

Now is the time for serious criminal justice reform, not privatization schemes. The private prison industry feeds off the mass incarceration problem and cannot be part of the solution. The only real way to cut prison spending is to cut the number of people we keep in prison.

Shapiro is a Staff Attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. He litigates cases and engages in advocacy regarding prison and detention conditions, including immigration detention, access to information about prison conditions, the right of prisoners to communicate with the outside world and to practice religion, and the freedom from arbitrary body cavity searches. Prior to joining the ACLU, Shapiro worked as an associate at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, where he litigated First Amendment cases in federal trial and appellate courts, and served as a law clerk to Judge Edward R. Becker, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Shapiro is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School and studied as a Fulbright Scholar in Moscow, Russia.

Alternet's article of the Breitbart's death

lternet did a very respectable and respectful article on the death of Andrew Breitbart.  By the end of the article I was ready to puke.  The article seemed to go out of its way to avoid mentioning the fact that the biggest headlines of Breitbart's career were all illegitimately cooked up.  After all the hoopla, it would come out that he had maliciously twisted the facts so violently that they came out in the wash as nothing more than made up stories in which he exploited innocent people fraudulently to make himself look like a real journalist.  

He was not.  

Breitbart was a cheap Repuke sock-puppet; and like all mainstream media Repukes: Savage, Beck, Hannity, O'Reilley. etc. he didn't care who he fucked over, or how brazenly he lied, so long as he could squeeze some points and hefty checks out of the most mean spirited right wingers. His attitude was that of an opportunist and a hustler.  

As for right wingers,  we all know they are colossally mean spirited. Famous for it.  David Brock wrote about his epiphany as he talked to a right wing Federal judge who had no shame in displaying the torrent of his mean-spiritedness.  Brock had attacked Anita Hill in an article during the Clarence Thomas debacle in Congress with his little phrase, "she was a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty,"  Although he gained mountains of praise from right wingers, he had qualms about the fact that he had destroyed a good woman without ever even meeting her. 

And for what?  

For the likes of Clarence Thomas?  

Long Dong Silver of the bench?  

And that moment of revelation was all it took to launch Brock's departure from the Republicanism for which he had become such a high performing sock-puppet writer, and reclaim the Liberal outlook he had so assiduously fought against at Berkeley.

But the author of this article doesn't really spend time on Brock's recovery of his own sense of decency.  Something which Breitbart never troubled himself about. None of them, the conservatives, I mean, cared or care anything about reality so long as they could twist facts into a narrative which would stoke the vast boiling cauldrons of their hatred.■

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Further considerations on The FED

ere, in the link below is a passageway to one of the most lucid and well researched essays on the fraudulence perpetrated by the Federal Reserve I have yet seen.  If the public knew of how they were being scammed by both government and major banks there would be outrage such as has never been seen.  But the propaganda machine keeps on hypnotizing those already deep in slumber from womb to tomb.  You certainly won't read of it in any mainstream media.  After all, media, all of it, is owned by the banks; hereafter referred to as banksters. The banksters are far worse than the Capone gang in Chicago.  You always knew where you stood, or didn't stand, with the mob.  Banksters are more like the Wizard of Oz, who stands behind the curtain, pulling the levers of power.  They do their best to keep their identity hidden.  Who for example, would ever suspect that the Federal Reserve, the bank which likes to give the impression that it is a part of the government, and which prints our very dollars, is not only private, but is owned not by the so-called Board of Directors, but by the Queen of England and the Rothschilds. And they have one and only one mission in mind and that is to turn you and your children and their children into debt slaves. Serfs.  Do yourself a big favor and learn something about The Fed:

http://www.webofdebt.com/excerpts/introduction.php

My own recent experience with the banksters has to do with my Sears card debt.  Some background:  After ten years of retirement my supplemental income has dwindled to the point where Social Security is my sole means of support.  And the same is true for my wife.  And despite the fact that I worked from the age of fourteen to 62, I never really made a lot of money.  I devoted my life to art; and then to helping other people raise funds for hospitals and other worthy community charities.

So I am eligible for the minimum amount that Social Security pays.  That combined with the fact that my debt ceiling has continued to rise even as my income has steadily dwindled has led to a crisis:  I cannot any longer pay my credit card and Paypal bills.

This circumstance has led to a lot of telephone activity from my bank creditors.  They call with astonishing regularity every other morning starting at eight AM.  And continue into the evenings and even on 4 or 5 times on Sundays.

When Citibank realized that I was living solely on SSI, they passed me on to a guy who was eager to "help."  His plan was to get me to agree to automate my payments on a certain day of the month, of my choosing and then they would sit back and collect oh, a hundred and fifty or so each month.  In return for this open handed reach into my bank account they would collect not only the original amount but also a percentage of interest, at 28% , that would be, in addition to their original outlay of $3,750.  As I said to one of the Collections people:  "Oh, for the good old days when the Mafia only charged 25%."  But she probably hears that sort of moaning and groaning 6 times every hour.

Compounded monthly about $14,000 over a period of five years. And of course, it goes without saying, that my credit card account would be closed.  And of course, considering my situation and my age, it would be very difficult for them to lower the interest rate.  After all, what guarantee could they have that I might not die before they had bled me dry?  So all of the money goes one way.

To Citibank.

Also, they would need access to my bank in case I decided that enough was enough and simply walked away from the debt.  With my consent to automate the payments they could keep on collecting ad infinitem.  With or without my permission.  And I would never again, in this lifetime, be able to scrape together enough money to buy a movie ticket.  Citibank is just one of my creditors. Paypal is another.  Wells Fargo is another.

Add to this information that I have only recently recovered from a double by-pass open heart surgery, along with advanced diabetes and obesity, which I seem unable to do anything about, the specter of my demise is immanent.

My good days are gone; even the bad ones of my old age are numbered.  I doubt that I have more than five years left on the planet.  Does any of this resonate with anybody out there?

None of this solves the problem of my debt.  These are just factoids.  But reading the article helps me to understand that I am not alone. That everyone is, as is said, in the same boat.  And further, that there is a reason why we are all in debt. Including the Federal Government.  And the banks, themselves.  Of course, the banks have only to claim that they are too big to fail, and run with their hands out to the Federal Government who gives them everything they want or ever could want.  And the Federal Reserve Bank simply prints some more money.That is their primary function.

The Fed prints all the money they want.

And with the principle of Fractionated Money, the banks can lend ten times the amount of money which they actually have.  Thus, all the major banks in America are leveraged out to the breaking point. ■  

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BP and big oil are let off the hook

ny deal which allows big oil to continue with business-as- usual is execrable for us, the citizens of the world, but excellent for big oil and its handmaiden corporations like Halliburton, KBR and the like.

The latest update on the BP trial is that we are now told that BP has agreed to a settlement for damages for the lawyers and the families, (if the families can pry the money loose from the lawyers dead fingers.) And that the figure agreed to is somewhere around $7.81billion.

 There those who think this is a very generous figure.

 And then, there are those, like ME, who find this pathetic; bordering on insulting. Myself, I would like to see the big banksters in a place, dark and austere, where they will be getting fucked regularly from both ends and nobody has to buy them dinner and roses the next day.  And even though that may not happen during my lifetime, I know that it will eventually happen.  The big banks have been running the show for much too long.  They will, at some point in the near future, step over the line and public opinion will force the government, however reluctantly, to bring them all to actual trial and find them guilty of crimes against humanity.  It is something I have no control over, and neither do they. It is just the way the cookie crumbles.  The big cosmic Pendulum has begun moving in the other direction now.  After nearly 35 years of calling the shots, Republicanism is sliding rather quickly down the tubes.  Even at the zenith of their Power, the crooked corporations are already beginning to fail.

 Public Enemy Number One is Big Oil; and Public Enemy Number Two is the Big Banks.

People who ingest marijuana are sent up the river for ten, twenty, thirty years by an inflexible and fraudulent ethical code of justice.  Well, then simply change the laws.  Prod Congress to legalize it.  Well, guess what?  We tried that.  But then the Big Banks started buying up the prisons, privatizing them.  Offering the poor states some much needed cash in exchange for their prison systems.

Why did the Big Banks suddenly find the privatization of prisons so attractive? Well it turns out that manufacturing corporations are frustrated with the price of labor in China.  It's just so darned expensive to pay a buck a garment, then bringing it to market for about--- oh, take Liz Claiborne's ratio of price of factory manufacture to point of purchase, is from $1.75 including materials and labor; throw in another 25 cents for shipping, brings the final price to about $150.00.

Whew! You can hardly make a dishonest buck anymore.

So the banks through their privatized prison labor are able to make that more profitable by paying the workers less than the slave labor wages paid in China and it cuts out the whole  cost of shipping.

Why am I mentioning all of this and what does it have to do with legalizing marijuana?

Marijuana an invaluable and highly effective palliative, which does its job quickly and delightfully; and very importantly, it has no side effects at all, unlike the poisonous pills of Big Pharma; along with guaranteed pain relief, marijuana is an excellent mood altering plant, which tends to add spiritual insight into the user's mind stream.

Well, since more laborers are needed to work as slaves in the privatized prisons owned really by the Banksters, the Banks send their lobbyists to meet with members of Congress to push for harsher laws so that more people will go to jail and serve much longer sentences as a part of the slave work force.

Sounds diabolical doesn't it?

But if you steal the natural resources of the earth which belong to all people, destroy the earth's treasures, its oceans, and manage to kill, nay, murder, from 11 to 25  people in the process, you are treated like Mister Big Shot and governments vie for your favor.  Admiring crowds elbow each other in their haste to touch their foreheads or their tongues to your jackboots.

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So now, regarding this deal where Big Oil gets to literally ruin a huge part of the world, and kill all the workers, for which they will agree to pay less money in fines than they make in a single quarter in profit,  do I think this might be a bad deal?

Hmm. Um, yeah, sorta. ■

Banksters Killing Europe, We're Next

how hands, please! Who did not know that the International Banksters are the most criminal class on the planet?  Those who did not know this need to watch this video.  Thom Hartmann is always a pleasure anyways.  But here is one of his very most important and insightful reports.  Since John Perkins spilled the beans and blew the whistle on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund the banksters have come out of the closet to show themselves as the criminals they truly are.

If you want to know why marijuana is still criminalized; yes, even medical marijuana, look no further.  The banks!  Why the banks?  They make a lot of money buying up prisons around the country and privatizing them. Then they lobby state and federal legislators to increase the penalties for marijuana busts. The legislators for their part, are always happy to oblige the banks, since it means more under the table money in their pockets.  

Thus, the prisons are kept full of otherwise innocent people.  Then the corporations walk in and say Hey, paying a dollar a day to Chinese workers and then shipping costs --- that's too expensive, I want slave labor.  Well, as close as you can get to slave labor without actually setting foot on the ground.  Prison laborers are paid 20 cents an hour for hard labor, thus giving corporations even cheaper labor costs than China. And no shipping cost.      

So the banks are imposing austerity measures on the Greek citizens.  And as Thom H points out it isn't working.  It has never worked.  Ever.  Austerity is the preferred method for destroying a sovereign nation.  Literally.  But watch the seven and a half minute video for a quick lesson in bankster crime.  And the USA is on the short list.■

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