When one goes to alternative sources for news and information on the evil doing Internets, one is likely to discover a whole host of information that will routinely never make it to the local, national evening news or cable TV.
The posts below, for example, are certainly fit to print and air but somehow, because of the powers that be in the corporate owned media, much of it has been fed through the buzz saws and the shredders of the gatekeepers who control particular messages and agendas.
Thanks to the interactive Internets and You Tube, bloggers can disclose news that is largely unnoticed or ignored in the mainstream.
Halliburton/KBR Rewarded for Deaths of U.S. Troops.
According to an article written by Jeremy Scahill for The Nation magazine, Kellogg Brown and Root received bonuses for work that had in fact killed American troops.
First, from the Texas wing of The Party of Torture and Tax Cuts.
Senator John Cornyn, prominent member of the Party of Torture and willing player in the Bush Administration's
Journey to Depravity must think Democrats are quaking in their boots because, according to The Huffington Post he attempted to bully and blackmail them on the torture issue.
Cornyn apparently prefers to sweep the recent revelations of torture under the rug. That or pin the blame on Democrats who served on the Foreign Intelligence Committee at the time, and/or stick it to low level military and CIA officers at the bottom of the torture chain of command.
If Democrats insist on probing the Bush administration's program of detainee torture, they'd better be careful, a senior Senate Republican said Tuesday, because they might find blood on their own hands as well.
"To sit quietly and to let this happen and then to come back later and say people ought to be prosecuted criminally, not just here in the United States but perhaps internationally, to me is inconsistent, to say the least," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
It seems that certain members of the Republican Party, specifically former Texas U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, created mechanisms by which very wealthy Americans could cheat Uncle Sam by hiding their incomes in off shore tax havens. Unfortunately for Joe and Jane the Taxpayers (that would be you, clueless Republican tea baggers, and me), we are the go to folks who have to pony up the mind numbing shortfall.
Apparently there is no end in sight to the Bush Administration and its Republican Party's pillage and looting of every existing piggy bank whether it is that of the federal government, Republican dominated states and local governments, the private sector including formerly revered and respected banks and investment firms, corporations and small businesses. The insatiable and pervasive tentacles of reckless irresponsibility, greed and corruption spread like a lethal and uncontrollable cancer.
Diarist Muzikal203 over at Daily Kos uploaded a video clip of Keith Olbermann's rant on tax evaders last night. Olbermann has every right to howl about this. We all should be doing the same.
(I suck. I really, really do. Libby has graciously agreed to join us regularly on the TK front page. I'm very excited by this addition to our staff of writers, and thank her for her patience with my sluggish updating of her profiles.
It seems that some of these naughty, nasty boys charged their palling-around-with-call-girl activities on their corporate credit cards.
Uh oh. Are these guys still in charge of their businesses? Are they the ones who received the bailout money?
The scandal may have happened pre-TARP, but this kind of behavior should make us wonder about what kinds of scumbags and whackos we have bailed out.
According to Raw Story and ABC News today these boys used a $2,000 per hour call girl service where the "firm's" Madam disguised the charges as business related, e.g. "computer consulting, "roofing construction," etc.
Kristin Davis, the madam in question, went public to ABC News this week; ABC will be broadcasting her interview Friday at 10 pm. Davis says she has a list of 9,800 clients, many of whom she says New York prosecutors deliberately avoided when taking her case, even though she offered them her annotated client list.
In what's sure to create a media firestorm parallel to that of when a Washington, DC madam announced that she was publishing her client list (which included at least one senator), Davis' comments come at a time where incredible ire is already focused on Wall Street and banking executives. The pressure for her to release the list will certainly be immense.
As we all know, this week is the last of the G.W. Bush Administration. Given a national Democratic landslide election and George W. Bush's recent approval rating, there is little doubt that there is more than a tad of dancing taking place in a plethora of streets throughout the U.S. and the world.
For much of their eight year term in office, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have remained tightly entrenched behind iron gates. They avoided the press and media as much as possible. They steered clear of the public and chose to helicopter in and out of their homes and offices whenever feasible. And yet for the past two weeks both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have been parading around on the Sunday morning talk and political news circuits. In their final days in office both men desperately tried their darnedest to re-write history. I imagine at this time, after Bush's farewell address, both men are securely ensconced back in their delusional bubbles in undisclosed locations.
With regard to Presidential exit interviews, former Press Secretary Scott McClellan is one of many who offered commentary on Bush's farewell address.
"It's hard to talk about moral clarity when you have tarnished our government's moral standing in the world," McClellan said. "If you look at the speech it was really a feel-good farewell speech. It was designed one final chance to burnish his legacy by highlighting his humanity, showing his humanity, his compassion, his inner decency and good intentions."
But "there are really two problems they don't seem to get," Bush's ex-press secretary remarked. "First of all, the public trust. The president long ago sadly lost the public trust. They are no longer listening to what he has to say or buying what he is selling. Unless he is willing to come out and talk candidly about his own mistakes, his own policy mistakes, and address those issues openly with the American people they are not tuning in."
Remember when you were growing up & you marveled at our nation and believed our civilization would last forever? Our ideals & our belief system would transcend time & carry forth into the Universe and make order?
This optimistic, hopeful attitude showed up in our culture, our books, our movies, our television. We created campy, cheerful shows that just felt like shots of sugar in our system. It was an idealistic culture that created utopian universes like the one ruled by the orderly and egalitarian Starfleet.
Today the culture that once created the utopian & always hopeful Starfleet has now created Borgs which threaten it.
What happened? When did we start producing nightmares?
If you missed Olbermann's takedown of Rummy on Countdown last night, here it is!
Uh mah gawd, as the inesmitable TRex would say.
Transcript of the commentary below the flip in case you are unable to watch the video from work. But dial this up when you get home. Really, it's that good.
I love KO - one of the few journalists left in the media. He should be required viewing for all Americans.
Olbermann brought Carlos Mencia of the Comedy Channel to talk about Bush's Immigration (Scandal Distraction) Speech.
I'm waiting on the transcripts but Olbermann & Mencia ridiculed Bush's plan.
Addressing Bush's ID plan, Mencia lampooned it because, well, who's gonna make the IDs? The Mexicans!
As for the 6000 National Guards, Olbermann put it in perspective: that's 1 National Guard every 6 footbal fields. And all they can do is point.
As Mencia pointed out, this is completely ineffective & the only people who are going to benefit are the Coyotes - the smugglers who bring Immigrants here & can now charge alot more because "it's so much tougher" (wink wink).
I'm watching the response to Bush's speech & every single one of them is negative.
