One of the reasons I started blogging was because of what I saw, and still see, as a failure by the main media to tell Americans the truth about…well…basically anything. Specifically, I was motivated by corporate media's collusion with the Bush White House in the run up to attacking the sovereign and non-threatening-to-the-U.S. nation of Iraq.

This U.S. media problem is not insignificant. Hundreds of thousands of dead people and a trillion dollar debt is what came from corporate media's active participation helping the Bush administration advance it's unscrupulous cause to attack a country rich in oil, but absent al-Qaeda.

To illustrate where the compromised corporate media is trying to lead us today, it is first necessary to remind readers of what the American people have repeatedly told pollsters….

September 22 polling…conducted by a Democratic/GOP research partnership….

•Opposition to cutting Social Security & Medicare is strong across party lines with 82% of Democrats, 73% of Independents and 58% of Republicans against cuts to reduce the deficit

•A wide margin of all Americans, 94% of Democrats, 82% of Independents and 64% of Republicans, would prefer to raise taxes on the wealthy than cut Social Security and Medicare

•By a 3 -1 margin, self-identified "fiscal conservatives" of both parties oppose cutting Social Security benefits to reduce the deficit and by a 2 ½ -1 to one margin, fiscally conservative voters oppose cutting Medicare benefits to reduce the deficit.

Those findings are not an anomaly. Poll after poll have resulted in similar findings.

In fact, not one political demographic, Democratic, Republican or Independent….is in favor of cutting SS and Medicare as a means of solving the national debt problem. Instead, all groups…including Republicans….would choose higher taxes on America's wealthy over cuts to the very popular entitlement programs.

With that backdrop in mind, here's how veteran Villager Charles Babington of the AP explains the failure of the Super Committee….

The supercommittee’s failure reflects the nation’s divide: Americans crave both the Republicans’ demand for low taxes and the Democrats’ insistence on protecting social programs.

According to Babington, Republicans and Democrats are simply reflecting the "nation's divide" over raising taxes and protecting social programs. Really? The "nation" is not divided over raising taxes on America's wealthy while sparing cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The "nation" is in favor of taxing the wealthy a bit more. The "nation" is against cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

But Village journalists, like Babington, don't care what the majority of Americans actually want. The job of "centrist" Villagers is to convince readers that neither political party's viewpoint reflects the view of "average Americans"…even when it is clear in the case of the debt reduction debate that the position of Democrats, in fact, does represent the voice of "average Americans."

Charles Babington, rather than tell the truth that the Democratic viewpoint of sparing entitlements from cuts and raising taxes on the wealthy actually does reflect the will of the majority of Americans, simply lies…simply makes stuff up. The supercommittee failure does not reflect the nation's divide. Not at all. The supercommittee failure, instead, reflects the unwillingness of Republicans to listen to the will of the American public.

Republican lawmakers respond to activists who overwhelmingly oppose higher taxes. And Democrats answer to activists who will tolerate no nicks in Medicare, Social Security and other programs without steeper taxes on the wealthy.

See how it's done? Republican lawmakers respond to activists who oppose higher taxes. Democrats respond to activists too. See? Both sides do it. Only, in this case, the "activists" who the Democrats are answering to are the majority of the American population. On one hand you have Republican elected officials, Grover Norquist and Pete Peterson's smallish band of billionaires….the activists Republicans are listening to. And on the other hand you have over 60% of the American people who Democrats, this time, are listening to.

To Babington…those two "activist" groups are equivalent.

Babington's bogus search for equivalency goes on to explain that the divide over the nation's debt, which Babington simply made up out of whole Village cloth, "stems from an all-too-familiar reality of modern politics." Which provokes The Reverend to respond that Babington's failure, or inability, to acknowledge the will of the American public on taxes and entitlements is an "all-too-familiar reality" of modern corporate media.

Republicans who hold office today are not in D.C. to do the will of the majority of the American people. They're not. If they were, they would realize that Americans want to raise taxes on the wealthy and take Social Security and Medicare cuts off the table….and act and vote accordingly. In that, nothing is really new.

What makes this stuff all the more confusing, however, is the fact that Village "journalists", like veteran Charles Babington, refuse to explain to readers that in this specific debt/deficit-debate case….the Republican position does not reflect the majority view of Americans. In this specific case, the Democratic position DOES represent the will of the people.

To me…given that our nation is a democratic republic….I would think that truth would be kind of important.

Back in the early goings of 2009, corporate media loved themselves some TEA Party. The hanging teabags. The Mel Gibson Patriot rent-a-costumes. The "don't tread on me" flags. The "taxed enough already" signs.

Teevee media was all-the-hell-over the TEA Party. Sister Sarah and the odd Glenn Beck embraced the TEAs early, Fox News became the TEA Party's promoter. Even "liberal" MSNBC's Chrissy Matthews, and others, were twitterpated by the enthusiasm of this allegedly grassroots conservative movement, championed by, according to Fox's Roger Ailes, the "hot" Sarah Palin.

The Taxed Enough Already motto should have been the tip-off that the TEAs shouldn't be taken seriously. Federal tax rates were, and still are, at 60 year lows and President Obama had, early in 2009, rolled back 2% of an employee's side of the payroll tax. The TEA's Taxed Enough Already motto seemed strangely disconnected from reality. Early on, The Reverend called the TEA's message, incoherent, a denial of reality.

But the teevee media nurtured their own love affair with the TEA protest movement. Would Sarah ride the TEA wave to the presidency, many Serious, Professionals in media asked repeatedly and breathlessly. And even if taxes are at 60 year low rates….they COULD go up…so there.

For 2 straight years, teevee media carried water for the incoherent, astroturf, TEA group. Media "stars" rarely asked what "taking their country back" meant. Few pointed out that Obama had not raised taxes, but lowered them.

The TEAs were never about taxes, or smaller government or "taking their country back." The TEA movement was all about electing more, and more extreme, Republicans into halls of power. That's what the TEAs meant when they said they were "taking their country back"…..they simply forgot to include the "from the Democrats", part.

However, with all of the manufactured, ahistorical nonsense of the anti-Democratic Party TEAs, the one crucial issue that the TEAs and their corporate media sponsors never brought up was the banking crisis.
Not once did I here a TEA representative speak negatively or even excitedly about holding the banksters responsible for the terrible financial situation they had put the country in.

In fact, while the nation was shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs per month in the first half of 2009, and a record number of houses were being foreclosed upon, the TEAs helped spread yet another phony meme that the new recession had all been the fault of Barney Frank, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and, of course, Fanny and Freddy. The housing foreclosure nightmare, as far as the TEAs were concerned, came about because Democrats had forced Wall Street banksters to sell mortgages to millions of Americans who could not afford them. It was the government's fault, we were told, not those greedy banksters.

Alan Greenspan and numerous other government and former government officials from the world of finance testified under oath that the fault for the recession fell on bankers and various paper shuffling entities who had been left alone to police themselves. Greenspan said that he had been proven wrong….a belief he had held all of his life….that bankers could be trusted to act ethically and morally without oversight. Greenspan said under oath that he had been proven wrong.

No matter to the TEA Republicans. It was the Democrats fault…..liberalism, to be precise….and no facts, testimony or evidence would ever change their opinion.

Today, the TEAs are disapproved of by 46% of Americans while only approved of by 28% of Americans. It took awhile for Americans to decipher teevee media's code-of-bullsh*t about the TEAs….just as it did after the Iraq crime was launched…..but after the debt ceiling hostage situation, Americans have finally caught on, and the apparent love-affair with the incoherent, Democratic Party protest…is over.

So, the teevee media, ever the pimps of the rich and powerful….have simply refocused their attentions on another protest movement. This time it's the Occupy Wall Street protest. I'll be reviewing later the culpability of Wall Street in much of what is wrong with our national economy….but for now….take a look at this clip of teevee media personalities commenting on the OWS protesters. This three minute clip goes a long way in explaining why American voters are so often confused.

Warning: the arrogant and smug condescension exhibited by teevee personalities towards peaceful protesters on Wall Street may cause uncontrollable swearing by viewer…

TribToday.com…..reporting on the nation's first state prison sold to a private company…

Lake Erie Correctional Institution in northeastern Ohio's Ashtabula County is the only one of five state prisons up for sale that will be sold, state officials said Thursday. Corrections Corporation of America will buy it for $72.7 million, more than the $50 million needed from the privatization effort to balance the state's prison budget.

The CCA said it plans to add 304 prison beds to the prison.

Pure coincidence, I'm certain…..but look who LittleJohn Kasich chose as one of his first appointments after he became Ohio's governor….

After John Kasich won the Ohio gubernatorial election last fall, one of his first appointments was Gary Mohr to be the state Director of Rehabilitation and Corrections. Prior to his appointment, Mohr worked as managing director for the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA),

Think Progress….

Though Mohr recused himself from the selection process of which corporation would buy the prison, Ohio lobbying records show that the CCA met with Mohr to lobby him just one month into Kasich’s tenure…

The AP on LittleJohn's, again, coincidental hiring of a CCA lobbyist.

(CCA's) Ohio lobbyist, Don Thibaut, served as Kasich's chief of staff when he was in Congress. The company retained Thibaut's new lobbying firm in mid-December. State prisons director Gary Mohr spent five years as a consultant to the firm.

You may find it interesting, or simply coincidental, that another lobbyist from CCA, Corrections Corporation of America helped put together the Arizona racial profiling law, SB1070…..

In April of this year, Pearce then introduced ALEC’s template as the infamous SB1070 law. Notably, the ALEC task force which helped Pearce devise his racial profiling law included Laurie Shanblum, a lobbyist from the mega-private prison corporation Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) which previously played a role in privatizing many of Texas’ prisons. An investigation from Arizona’s KPHO-TV found more ties between SB1070 and the private prison industry: Paul Senseman, Gov. Janet Brewer’s (R-AZ) deputy chief of staff was a former lobbyist for CCA (his wife is still a lobbyist for CCA) and Chuck Coughlin, Brewer’s campaign chairman, runs the lobbying firm in Arizona that represents CCA.

It's not only in Ohio and Arizona where CCA lobbyists are, surely by pure coincidence, pushing for stricter immigration laws…..similar efforts by CCA have been going on in Tennessee, Oklahoma, Colorado and Florida.

CCA is set to receive well over $74 million in tax dollars in FY2010 for running immigration detention centers. In a presentation given earlier this year, Pershing Square Capital, a hedge fund with a large financial stake in CCA, suggested that CCA’s profitability depends on increasing numbers of immigrants sent to prison. Many of the legislators helping to earn CCA more profits with radical anti-immigrant bills mirroring SB1070 have been recipients of private prison industry cash or have worked closely with the CCA-funded ALEC organization.

And of course, the common denominator here is…..money.

According to JPI (Justice Policy Institute), the private prison industry uses three strategies to influence public policy: lobbying, direct campaign contributions, and networking. The three main companies have contributed $835,514 to federal candidates and over $6 million to state politicians. They have also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on direct lobbying efforts. CCA has spent over $900,000 on federal lobbying and GEO spent anywhere from $120,000 to $199,992 in Florida alone during a short three-month span this year. Meanwhile, “the relationship between government officials and private prison companies has been part of the fabric of the industry from the start,” notes the report. The cofounder of CCA himself used to be the chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party.

Summarizing: For-profit, private prison corporations donate millions to the campaigns of specific state legislators……$6 million to be exact…plus another $835,514 to federal candidates. Then, there are all of the expensive lobbying efforts by these same private prison corporations…

CCA has spent over $900,000 on federal lobbying and GEO spent anywhere from $120,000 to $199,992 in Florida alone during a short three-month span this year.

As a result…or perhaps only by coincidence, state legislators push new and stricter state immigration laws. The stricter immigration laws mean more "customers" for these for-profit, private prison corporations. In Ohio, a 'too close to be coincidental' relationship between Governor LittleJohn Kasich and CCA lobbyists meant the first state sale of a prison to a private enterprise.

To me, all of this looks like corruption. Campaign cash and lobbyists influence lawmakers to pass laws that are advantageous to private prison corporations. New and often radical state immigration laws are proposed and, sometimes, passed…..laws which primarily mean more prison customers, and therefore, more profit for private prison corporations.

This is a prime example of how our democratic process has been perverted by money. Wall Street outfits, like Pershing Square Capital, invest in for-profit prison corporation stock. In order for public corporations, like Corrections Corporation of America (CXW…common stock) to make more profit, states need to supply the prisons with more new customers. Private prison corporations lobby lawmakers to write new laws guaranteeing private prisons and detention centers get new customers in order to make continued profits.

That is how money in politics corrupts democracy. The sad part is that CCA is but a tiny speck in the corruption sewer we call our legislative process.

The stunt known as the "super committee" of 12 congressional figures, 6 from each political party, has been purposely designed by both sides to avoid party and lawmaker responsibility for passing legislation which a wide majority of American citizens do not want passed.

That's what bipartisan has come to mean. Passing stuff the electorate is overwhelmingly against….no matter how many stunts are needed to get the job done.

Here are a few sentences from 3 members of the super committee. Try to figure out whether the people who signed on to this op-ed are Republicans or Democrats…..

Trillions of dollars in private capital are sitting on the sidelines because businesses are not yet confident enough in our economy or in their lawmakers to invest in the future.

Let's take it one piece at a time. In the first sentence the assertion is made that the reason big, flush corporate shakers are "sitting" on "trillions" rather than investing those dollars in new job creating enterprises is because they are not "confident enough" "in their lawmakers to invest in the future."

Sounds like something a Republican would claim, no? Government is bad. Private sector is good. The good private sector is being held back from spending any of the $2 trillion they are hoarding because they are oh-so-not-confident in "their lawmakers."

That is a claim St. Ronnie…..or Newt Gingrich…..or Steve Forbes…or Larry Kudlow….would make. Only it wasn't Republicans who wrote those lines. It was Democrats. Senators, Patty Murray (D-WA), John Kerry (D-MA), and Max Baucus (D-MT) co-authored the words found in the Wall Street Journal op-ed.

And therein lies the problem America faces. Quite frankly, it is a problem to which I can't see a solution.
Both political parties have been co-opted, and thus, compromised, by their fealty to a very small group of very wealthy and powerful corporate owners on whom both parties depend for their electoral campaign futures. Those who are "sitting" on a couple trillion in cash are the same players who pay for the campaigns of elected officials from both parties.

That explains why three corporate-sponsored Democratic senators would start out their WSJ op-ed by defending the bogus claims of the rich and powerful. Unless your brains are, in fact, made of cement….you know that the reason flush corporations are sitting on cash rather than investing in their businesses, and more importantly, creating new jobs….is because demand for goods and services has plummeted during the deep recession.

The Standard & Poor's downgrade of America's credit rating was an unprecedented wake-up call for those who have for too long acted as if overheated rhetoric and dysfunction in Washington has no consequences for Main Street and working families. The shockwaves that roiled financial markets after the downgrade was a condemnation of Congress's inability to address the unsustainable trajectory of our current fiscal policies.

Remember….these are the words of Democrats. Democratic senators are defending S&P's U.S. bond downgrade. S&P has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are untrustworthy. S&P was not only asleep at the wheel when Enron and WorldCom scams were being perpetrated during the early 00's, but S&P, as an investigation concluded, was the "gateway" to the mortgage meltdown crisis….still listing Lehman Brothers as a AAA company ONE MONTH before Lehman went belly up.

S&P has no credibility and exists only to do the bidding of corporations. Yet, three Democratic senators pretend that S&P's recent downgrade of U.S. debt, a ridiculous move by a proven failure in the ratings business, is to be taken seriously. The claim of "shockwaves" that shook financial markets is equally ridiculous. Yes, stocks have taken a beating since S&P's stunt…..but the very debt vehicles that S&P downgraded, that is, Treasury bonds……have seen RENEWED demand. The 10 year Treasury set a record low this week with it's yield breaking down through 2% and moving as low as 1.9%. That means that investors are flocking to buy Treasuries…in record numbers. If our debt vehicles were, as S&P stated, not quite as good an investment as they used to be…..investors would be selling treasury bonds. Instead, it's just the opposite.

Yet compromised "super committee" Democrats are defending S&P's bogus analysis and ignoring S&P's proven record of irresponsibility by attempting to leverage the S&P stunt to convince unknowing Americans into accepting another $1.5 trillion in spending cuts….during a time when the government should be spending hundreds of billions more to create jobs.

We know that our goal is to reduce spending. But we also know that America faces not just a budget deficit but also a jobs deficit. Nobody on this committee would be happy if we reduced the budget deficit but even more Americans end up losing their jobs.

Of course, the total paragraph is incoherent. It takes government spending to create jobs….yet, the "super committee"'s job, according to three prominent Democratic members, is to "reduce spending." But is that the committee's real job? Of course not. The job of the committee is to work towards deficit reduction. Deficits, obviously, can be reduced by increasing revenue through the tax code. So, what we have here is three Democrats agreeing with the bogus Republican construct that their "goal" as an unconstitutional "super committee" is to "reduce spending."

Given this sickening and completely dishonest explanation from Democats on the committee…..the best hope average Americans have is for the committee to fail to arrive at an agreement.

I am convinced now that Barack Obama's only real goal as president is to satisfy the movers and shakers of Wall Street. I suppose in the modern American era, that's the primary goal of all elected presidents. Wall Street and multi-nationals pay for the presidential campaigns, and so all modern presidents find themselves beholding to the ones who brung them to the dance.

The evidence proving that Barack Obama is really only a hired hand of Wall Street crooks and multi-national corporations has been on display in the contrivance formerly known as raising the debt ceiling.

Tea Partiers, corporate Republicans, and Obama, himself, worked hard to make the lifting of the debt ceiling an opportunity to cut government spending. Never before in American history have strings been attached to lifting our credit limit. Why now? Because a Democratic President Obama wanted strings attached.

Obama wanted a "grand compromise"….a "big deal"…..where government spending in the midst of 9% unemployment would be severely cut. Obama, a Democrat, is the guy who offered up cuts to Medicare and even Social Security when he and Speaker Boehner were conducting their private behind-closed-doors meetings.

In other words, what we ended up with was basically what President Obama wanted. $2.4 trillion slashed over 10 years, $1.5 trillion of that cutting to be determined by a undemocratic and unconstitutional "super committee" whose recommendations cannot be filibustered or amended…and whose recommendations will be guaranteed a congressional up or down vote.

If the "super committee" cannot agree…something which is not likely with Democratic Senator Max Baucus on the panel….then automatic spending cuts to defense and the federal budget will commence immediately.

But while the unconstitutional committee is doing their dirty deeds…..what will President Obama do? Many silly teevee pundits have been saying that the president needs to "pivot" to jobs, jobs, jobs…..which would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton….

I’m told White House political operatives are against a bold jobs plan. They believe the only jobs plan that could get through Congress would be so watered down as to have almost no impact by Election Day. They also worry the public wouldn’t understand how more government spending in the near term can be consistent with long-term deficit reduction. And they fear Republicans would use any such initiative to further bash Obama as a big spender.

Having muddied the entire "debate" up by insisting that the federal government was just like an average family when it came to debt…..the White House is now fearful that if they insist on spending money to directly create jobs…the public will be confused and poor Barack won't be re-elected. Having stood before the nation explaining how that our deficit and debt were, somehow, preventing job growth…preventing our economy from growing…..Obama, now, doesn't want the American people to be hearing mixed messages.

All I can say is…..you have got to be kidding me.

However, if you are president…and your number one goal as president is to please Wall Street and the multi-national players who pay for your re-election campaign…then this all seems perfectly normal.

Reich, again…

So rather than fight for a bold jobs plan, the White House has apparently decided it’s politically wiser to continue fighting about the deficit. The idea is to keep the public focused on the deficit drama – to convince them their current economic woes have something to do with it, decry Washington’s paralysis over fixing it, and then claim victory over whatever outcome emerges from the process recently negotiated to fix it. They hope all this will distract the public’s attention from the President’s failure to do anything about continuing high unemployment and economic anemia.

Instead of actually fighting for working families…..Obama wants to "keep the public focused on the deficit drama….to convince them their current economic woes have something to do with it."

That is pure sickness. Cynical, yes…..but deeply sick.

Tell me. Obama wants Americans to focus on deficits and debt…..how is that any different from what the Know Nothings in the Tea Party want Americans to focus on? Or the Republican Party?

At a time when the nation’s eyes were on him, seeking an answer to what was happening, he chose not to talk about the need for a bold jobs plan but to talk instead about the budget deficit – as if it were responsible for the terrible economy, including Wall Street’s plunge. He spoke of Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade the nation’s debt as proof that Washington’s political paralysis over deficit reduction “could do enormous damage to our economy and the world’s,” and said the nation could reduce its deficit and jump-start the economy if there was “political will in Washington.”

Obama is worse than a weak president. He is a highly cynical politician who despises most of his own political party members. His only goal coming into the White House was to please the very culprits who destroyed our economy…. the Wall Street banksters. Obama surrounded himself with Wall Street players at the very same time that Wall Street banksters had exploded the economic futures of millions of Americans.

Now, just like any crooked bankster, or deranged Know Nothing, or Republican corporate pimp, Obama wants average Americans to focus on deficits and "super committees" delegated to cut even more spending in the midst of 9% unemployment. Focusing on all those needed jobs right now….according to the president….would only confuse voters ahead of next year's election….and that's a chance Obama isn't willing to take.

Scream or spit…you decide.

The role of ratings agencies in the mortgage meltdown….

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported in January 2011 that: "The three credit rating agencies were key enablers of the financial meltdown. The mortgage-related securities at the heart of the crisis could not have been marketed and sold without their seal of approval. Investors relied on them, often blindly. In some cases, they were obligated to use them, or regulatory capital standards were hinged on them. This crisis could not have happened without the rating agencies. Their ratings helped the market soar and their downgrades through 2007 and 2008 wreaked havoc across markets and firms."

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz….

“I view the ratings agencies as one of the key culprits. They were the party that performed that alchemy that converted the securities from F-rated to A-rated. The banks could not have done what they did without the complicity of the ratings agencies.”

Standard and Poor's (S&P)….was one of those three ratings agencies.

It seems obvious, then, that there is no good reason to pay much attention to the stunt S&P pulled last night when they downgraded U.S. debt from AAA to AA+.

Go here to read about the changes being implemented in the regulation of ratings agencies in the Dodd-Frank bill. It seems to me that S&P may be actually threatening…extorting…concessions from the government on the implementation of some of these new regulations….and using their "power" to rate debt as a weapon.

From my understanding of Dodd-Frank vis-a-vis ratings agencies….the agencies could now be held legally accountable by investors bringing lawsuits if their ratings were constructed irresponsibly….as they were just before the mortgage derivative market meltdown. Perhaps S&P is seeking leverage over implementing these new accountability rules by threatening the U.S. government. Maybe not.

The one thing that is clear about S&P is that no one should take their ratings or analysis seriously. After S&P's utter failure before the mortgage meltdown, why would anyone look to them for economic analysis ever again?

But there's something else which S&P included in their AAA-AA+ "downgrade" of U.S. debt…which I found interesting.

Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.

If there are those conservatives out there who still insist on taking S&P seriously….then those conservatives should recognize that at least part of S&P's justification for downgrading U.S. debt is
the fact that Republicans will never permit taxes to be increased.

For a long time, economists of all stripes have been stating that we can't possibly deal with national debt and deficits without new tax revenues being part of an overall package. Yet the Tea Party controlled Republicans insist that taxes can never be raised again…ever. All but a handful of congressional Republicans have signed Grover Norquist's anti-tax oath…which includes rejecting closing any tax loopholes as well as rejecting any tax rate increases.

It is THAT fact….that over 230 House Republicans have taken an oath never to raise taxes…which led S&P to downgrade the creditworthiness of the U.S.A.

This is yet another example of how the Tea Party fringers, made popular by a corrupt corporate media intoxicated with the novelty of teabagged hats and patriots carrying loaded guns to political events, are helping to destroy the nation.

In an American era when what voters want has absolutely no meaning,…carries no weight whatsoever….almost anything can happen.

Our overlords have just agreed to permit Congress to appoint a 12 member Patsy Committee to take the blame for cutting Social Security and Medicare. No new taxes, of course, will be considered……and no tax loophole closings either….because if taxes were raised on the rich or loopholes closed for the rich…then America would not be free. Islamic extremists hate us don'tcha know…..because of our freedoms…..so, increasing taxes on the rich would, in fact, be appeasing our enemies. See how that all works?

Overlords will be overlords….and so with tax increases off the table before the table is set up….foolish and Slinky-spined Democrats think that the $1 trillion annual defense budget..you know..might have a bit of fat in it. Perhaps the Mighty Patriots of Extortion will accept a few cuts in the bloated and rotted Defense Department. If non-economic terrorists on the Super Duper Committee of Twelve can't offer up any tax increases in the $1.5 trillion mandated cut to spending they are supposed to agree on for fear of being tagged with the new name al-America….maybe, just maybe….they will see their way clear to trimming the Defense budget.

Or maybe not….

LIEBERMAN: I want to indicate today to my colleagues that Senator Coburn and I are working again on a bipartisan proposal to secure Social Security over the long term, we hope to have that done in time. To also forward to the special committee for their consideration. So, bottom line, we can’t protect these entitlements and also have the national defense we need to protect us in a dangerous world while we’re at war with Islamist extremists who attacked us on 9/11 and will be for a long time to come.

Naturally….Lieberman is an a**hole. That's a given. But Ole' Joe is considered by the Village nutters as a moderate centrist whose take on issues is just like the "just right" bowl of porridge in the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story.

Joe's a neo-conservative who has always been very vocal about supporting the needs of Israel over the needs of the United States. Some might call that a contradiction…him being a U.S. citizen and U.S. senator, and all….but to the rotted and diseased Village, Joe is a true statesman.

But you see….according to Statesman Joe….America can't afford Social Security checks for geezers while chasing down less than two dozen Islamic radicals in northwest Pakistan. Damnest thing….but we can't do both. I guess it's really, really, really expensive to track down a couple dozen suspects.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta declared Saturday that the United States was "within reach" of defeating Al Qaeda as a terrorist threat, but that doing so would require killing or capturing what he called the group's 10 to 20 remaining leaders.

"10 to 20 remaining leaders". Mighty Joe proudly states that we'll be at war against these Islamic extremists for "a long time to come." That must be because our mighty military machine is the most powerful and efficient killing machine in all of history….or maybe not.

So what we have after all the Tea Party "no taxes" and the neo-cons 'oh my god, we can't cut defense spending because there's 20 bad guys still alive'…..is making American seniors' lives more miserable by cutting "entitlements."

And that's exactly what we'll get. Medicare and Social Security are all that will be "on the table" for the Galactically Important Super Congress of 12 Stooges to consider as they seek to fulfill their mandate to cut another $1.5 trillion from federal spending during the worst recession American has been in since the 1930's.

Again….Joe Lieberman says that we "can't" protect entitlements and still be able to kill those 20 bad Islamic guys. Can't do both. Can't afford to do both. It's one or the other. Either the American geezers take a hit….or the 20 Islamic bad guys will take over America and most of the free world.

A reasonable person might think…."what Lieberman is saying sounds like a crock of bullsh*t." But a reasonable person would be mistaken. Lieberman is a Mighty Serious Statesman from the Three Amigo Serious Statesman Group. Whenever there's even a whiff of a threat to Mother Israel, the Villagers wheel Ole' Joe out to shake his fists at another Muslim nation…..so he just has to be taken Seriously.

So, if you are looking for the Catfood Commission 2….I mean, the Super Congress of the Serious….to be, you know, balanced, or fair as it wheels the slasher knife on government spending……DON'T.

Obama wants to "reform" entitlements. Republicans want to privatize entitlements. Villagers, like Joe Lieberman, want to slash entitlements in order to maintain low tax rates on his rich associates and still be able to increase spending for the Mighty Battle Ahead of Us….to eliminate 20 Islamic thugs.

Which "want", do you think, will win out?

Don't look now but we are in the middle of another Iraq moment. Though it happened over 8 years ago now, I remember it as if it were yesterday. Corporate media, working hand in hand with the Bush White House members, waged a campaign of propaganda against the American people, convincing a wide majority that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9-11. The overarching message from a power-serving media during that period was anything but unclear: Iraq's Hussein was a direct and immediate threat to the United States and the only course of action to take was U.S. military invasion and occupation.

Not one bit of it was true. None of it. 4500 U.S. troops died and 30,000+ were wounded…all because of a complete fabrication, a falsehood. 100,000 Iraqis (at least) lost their lives as a direct result of the U.S. invasion of a non-threatening Iraq. All caused by the repetition of a lie by the unholy alliance of corporate media acting as stenographers for a deceptive administration.

Now we're in the final scenes of yet another Iraq moment. Our current moment is about war by other means. But make no mistake, powerful administration officials, working hand in hand with corrupt corporate media, have been, again, purposely lying to the American people. This time the WMD's are bond vigilantes and confidence fairies. This time the "direct threat" is the "out of control" deficit and debt. This time, programs for the most vulnerable in our society must be invaded and blown up. This time the New Deal must be removed from power because, we are being told falsely, the New Deal is a direct threat to our nation.

We have been told for going on 4 years now that the bond vigilantes were almost to the gates of our financial house…..soon to wreak havoc by bailing on U.S. Treasury bonds. The reason for the WMD bond vigilantes, we're told, is because our nation's debt and deficits are outrageous. So outrageous that investors would lose their appetite for our debt-floating Treasury bonds and we would all be buried under a thick cloud of anthrax inflation, or similar.

It's been 4 years. They still haven't arrived. The bond vigilantes, that is. The yield on the 10 year Treasury bond yesterday closed at 2.89%. Mortgage rates, which are based on the yield of the 10-year Treasury, are, after 4 years, still hovering around 4.5%. Not only have the bond vigilantes not arrived….but just the opposite has happened. There is an extremely big appetite among investors for our debt instruments. Investors are buying bonds, not selling.

But to listen to the politicians and the media who serve their every desire…..those vigilantes, just like Saddam's WMD, are just around the next bend.

If it hasn't been the bond vigilantes….it's been the confidence fairies. Last December we were told, falsely, by Serious Professionals, that very rich and important movers and shakers were "uncertain" about the future under the socialist Obama. Too many "uncertainties" out there about tax rates and Obama's evil plan to extend health coverage to all Americans. Those "uncertainties" were preventing those movers and shakers from expanding their capitalistic kingdoms or hiring any new American workers. They just didn't have the "confidence" necessary to…well…move and shake our recessionary economy in spite of the fact that they were sitting, collectively, on a trillion and a half in cash.

But the Very Serious people kept telling us that if that "confidence" was restored….translation: continuing tax breaks for the richest and regulation stripping for the conglomerates….then and only then, could our overlords feel comfortable enough to once again begin shaking their entrepreneurial booties.

It's all a big fat lie. All of it. And just like with Iraq, Americans cannot resist the daily Orwellian onslaught of deception.

The truth is this:

First: The federal government needs to be borrowing more right now to put into direct job creation. Borrowing more….not cutting. The marketplace is suffering for lack of demand. The rich are not willing, or able, to increase demand and the American people are suffering under 9.2% unemployment. In addition, government borrowing rates will never be this low.

Instead of borrowing more, we're about to have an austerity package of deep cuts to government spending put in place by the Serious.

Second: Social Security, which does not and has not added to the nation's debt or deficit problem, is up on the chopping block by all the Very Serious Professionals. There is no evidence, whatsoever, of economy-destroying debt-weapons within Social Security….but no matter….the Serious just know those weapons are hiding inside Social Security, somewhere. The SS program is good until 2037 and even then, without any changes, could pay between 80% and 90% of it's obligations. No mushroom cloud, no smoking gun….nothing.

And so, predictably, Social Security is on the table for chopping. Serious Bipartisan Blowhards want to trim $18,000 from a Social Security beneficiary's average lifetime by changing the pricing index used to calculate cost-of-living adjustments. Remember….just like with the bond vigilantes and confidence fairies, there's no evidence that Social Security is part of the debt and deficit problem….but no matter….it's getting invaded anyway. And at a time when we shouldn't be trimming Social Security checks…we should be increasing them.

Lastly….in spite of the fact that the Bush administration had the worst new job creation numbers in modern history AND the lowest income and capital gains tax rates….Serious Professionals from both sides insist, falsely, that cutting taxes even more will be the answer to our jobless recovery. Throughout our history, most of our high-growth-and-high-employment periods were marked by our highest income tax rates on the wealthiest.

But instead….we are being constantly bombarded with the deceptive lies that lower taxes will get us out of our unemployment mess.

Just as we did with Iraq…..we are about to do the wrong thing with our economy. We were lied to back in the run-up to invading Iraq….and we're being lied to now. Just like with Iraq, powerful people stand to benefit. But it's our country which will suffer in the long run.

Deregulated mortgage brokers, real estate appraisers, and Wall Street sellers of derivatives and credit default swaps loosely conspired to bring the largest economy in the world to it's knees.

The only people punished were average Americans who lost homes and home equity, jobs, health care, retirement savings…and hope.

Bogged down over 3 years in a terrible recession which was entirely preventable, elected officials from both political parties have turned their backs on any further initiatives to relieve the suffering of millions of Americans and have, instead, turned towards numerous austerity measures which will only make the misery worse.

Despite the fact that during the Bush administration Congress voted to raise the national debt ceiling seven times, today's Congress has already missed the debt limit deadline (May 16th) without a vote. Furthermore, today's Republicans are suggesting that the United States can actually default on it's debt without enduring serious consequences, arguing that Treasury Secretary Geithner's August 2nd absolute default date is not to be taken all that seriously.

House Republicans, who promised nothing but jobs, jobs, jobs before Tea Party voters put them in the majority last fall,….since being elected, have responded by not introducing one House bill to address the nation's lack of jobs. Instead, these House Republicans have focused on bills limiting a woman's right to choose and weeks of arguments over defunding PBS and Planned Parenthood.

The one important bill passed by House Republicans included a proposal to abolish Medicare within a larger budget bill which would simultaneously cut tax rates on millionaires and billionaires. Despite the indisputable fact that health care costs for everyone have been rising much more than inflation rates in recent history….the Medicare program, itself, is being singled out for blame and bludgeoned unto death by Republican representatives of Big Insurance. Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has promised to torpedo any debt ceiling vote if Medicare is not somehow eviscerated. Villagers called the proposal "courageous."

House Republicans have responded to the American peoples' rejection of their "abolish Medicare" plan…..if you can believe it….by pushing a new bill to fully privatize Social Security. Even though George W. Bush could not move his Wall Street friendly plan to privatize America's most popular government program through a Republican House and Senate….couldn't even get a bill introduced……today's impetuous Republican House, in yet another example of irresponsible Republican political theater…..are swinging for the wingnut fences.

For the first six months of this year the national "news" discussion,.. when not sidetracked by extremely important "breaking news" like Twitter pictures, birth certificates, or who's the GOP Grifter of the day,…..has been repetitiously expounding upon the "need" to cut government spending. Austerity measures have been the rage. Anyone who objects to total austerity dominance is not considered to be Serious.

And yet, all evidence, whether in European countries, or here in Tea Party governed states…..where deep spending cuts are being made is that doing so only is making economic and job matters worse. Market demand has not returned with any gusto…..and so cutting government spending at such a time guarantees that lack of demand, lack of jobs, will only increase.

A corollary to that apparent insanity of doing the very opposite of what we should do…..is that the reason given for all the spending cuts has been to get a handle on our "out-of-control-national-debt". But just seven months ago, both political parties agreed to add $2 trillion more to our debt by extending tax cuts. And all of this is happening while Americans continue to enjoy the lowest federal income tax rates in 60 years.

After 9-11, Americans were placed on watch lists, were made to take off shoes and belts and be subjected to invasive searches at airports. The FBI was given new invasive and illegal powers to issue "national security letters" instead of obtaining warrants. Library and financial records were searched without probable cause or due process. 4th amendment rights shredded. All because our leaders said they just had to keep us safe after failing to protect us from the worse attack ever on U.S. soil.

Yet, after all of that….those who our protectors have placed on terrorist watch lists and no fly lists are still permitted to purchase guns,….semi-automatic if so desired. Republican elected officials, long ago, sold their souls to the anti-American NRA. As a result, you have to take your shoes off at airports and have all of your electronic communications captured and examined by government computers…..but those suspected enough to be placed on a watch list for potential terrorism can purchase and own all the guns they could ever want or need.

I need some answers. How does any of what I've explained inspire confidence in the American experiment? How can any of this apparent insanity be justified? Yes, democracy is messy with so many interest groups pulling and tugging in different directions….but I don't think that explains what looks to me like a total breakdown of a once-functioning government.

If our government is failing, perhaps fatally…..can anything be done? Should anything be done?

Should America's richest citizens be able to purchase the faculty hiring rights at state universities?

In other words, in a democratic society, should one rich person decide who teaches at a state university and what the curriculum of that state university will be?

A foundation bankrolled by Libertarian businessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University's economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting "political economy and free enterprise."

Florida State is a state university, funded with public money. What about academic freedom?

The power of university faculty and officials to choose professors without outside interference is considered a hallmark of academic freedom.

Under the agreement with the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, however, faculty only retain the illusion of control. The contract specifies that an advisory committee appointed by Koch decides which candidates should be considered. The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it's not happy with the faculty's choice or if the hires don't meet "objectives" set by Koch during annual evaluations.

Is buying the rights to choose a university's faculty members, you know, standard operating procedure?

Most universities, including the University of Florida, have policies that strictly limit donors' influence over the use of their gifts. Yale University once returned $20 million when the donor demanded veto power over appointments, saying such control was "unheard of."

Jennifer Washburn, who has reviewed dozens of contracts between universities and donors, called the Koch agreement with FSU "truly shocking."

Said Washburn, author of University Inc., a book on industry's ties to academia: "This is an egregious example of a public university being willing to sell itself for next to nothing."

Read the entire linked article….it's really hard to believe….but it's true.

Buying the rights to propagandize students in a state university's economics department in order to…

advance their belief,….. that government taxes and regulations impinge on prosperity.

Maybe Operation Rescue, the radical forced pregnancy lobby, should be permitted to purchase faculty hiring rights and determine the curriculum for a state university's pre-med department.

Think of the many possibilities.

Exxon-Mobil could own our university's geology, energy and scientific research departments……paying for the right to screen faculty and determine what is and what is not taught. Goldman Sachs could buy the rights to all the universities finance and business departments…..choose the instructors and streamline the courses to fit their preferred biases.

Is this simply more evidence that if a citizenry wants to maintain their democracy…..they must control the wealthy few who would take it away from us?

Or is this evidence of the way forward for a modern republic? A republic where he who has the gold makes the rules….just as the divine "market" intends.

I am interested in hearing what readers have to say about this.