In 2002 when neo-cons within the U.S. military and inside the Bush White House worked hard to deceive Congress and the American people into cheering for an unprovoked attack against the non-threatening nation of Iraq, steady and repetitive neo-connish messaging cleared the pathway to aggressive war.

Not only was Saddam Hussein's Iraq not a threat to the U.S. in 2002-2003….after a decade of harsh sanctions mainly affecting non-military Iraqis….but Hussein's military capabilities had never returned to pre-Iraq War I levels. The con by the…umm….neo-cons was to convince Americans who didn't know any better, and were still filled with vengeful hate from 9-11, that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were about to devastate the east coast of the U.S., as well as Israel and Europe…or all three simultaneously.

In 21st century America, it's all about the messaging. Veracity has nothing to do with any of it.

The Iraq Sequel.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that sanctions so far had not caused Iran's leaders to change their pursuit of nuclear capabilities.

But he said some Iranian officials appear more willing to conduct an attack in the United States if they feel threatened, citing last year's alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

"The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials – probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime," Clapper said in his Senate testimony.

"We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests overseas," he said.

Insert 2002 Bushie claim here. "Smoking gun-mushroom cloud", "grave and gathering danger", "there's no doubt Saddam is reconstituting blah, blah effing blah"…..you know how it works, or should by now. But Americans in the beginning of the 21st century have become a caricature of a "short attention span theater" skit…..can't recall what happened last week, let alone what happened almost a decade ago.

And so the deceptive and duplicitous neo-con message machine cranks up again. This time in order to dupe U.S. citizens into accepting yet another military assault on yet another middle eastern sovereign nation.

How it's done.

In October of 2011, U.S. officials launched a new propaganda message against Iran claiming that Iran planned an assassination attempt of the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Why Iran would risk nuclear annihilation at the hands of the U.S. and/or Israel over some cockamamie Mexican drug cartel/Quds Force story of clusterf*ckness…..was never explained.

Alireza Nader, an Iran analyst at the Rand Corporation, found it "difficult" to believe that Khamenei or Suleimani would order such an attack that "would put all of Iran's objectives and strategies at risk".

Reza Sayyah from CNN questioned the plausibility of the claim by asking, "Did an elite branch of Iran's military handpick a divorced, 56-year-old Iranian-American used-car salesman from Texas to hire a hitman from a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the ambassador to Saudi Arabia by blowing up a bomb in a crowded restaurant in Washington?"

Sure it's ridiculous…but then Saddam Hussein plotting to spray anthrax down on the eastern seaboard of the U.S….was a ridiculous notion as well…and yet that deceptive and ridiculous story reached the homes of millions of post-9-11, still-feeling-vengeful Americans.

See how DNI Chief James Clapper carefully constructs his misleading message meant to gin up support for a U.S. attack of Iran?

"The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials – probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime,"

Using the laughable, really, claim that a used car salesman from Texas, allegedly hiring a Mexican drug-cartel hitman, was about to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S…..and that the highest leaders in Iran were behind the laughable story….using that as his springboard of disinformation, Clapper then implies that Iranian leaders are…"probably", "more willing"…to do what?

"conduct an attack in the U.S."

See? Just like Saddam was about to do in 2002.

Of course, when disinformation…like Saddam spraying anthrax over New York using small prop planes…. doesn't carry quite the deceptive punch neo-cons are looking for…any DNI can always fall back on the old American standby….

"We're doing a lot with the Israelis, working together with them. And of course for them, this is, as they have characterized, is an existential threat," Clapper said.

I wonder if Iran considers the 200 nuclear-tipped warheads the Israeli government has pointed in their direction to be, you know, "an existential threat"?

The WTF-ness of this latest propaganda salvo ginning up support for an eventual military attack against Iran is found in this Clapper comment….

"We assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so," he said in written testimony. "We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons."

Iran does not have a nuclear weapon right now and Clapper admits that he and his smart guys don't know if Iran will "eventually decide" to make one or not, but those wily Iranian leaders are, you know, keeping their "options" open…..so who knows, right?

All I can conclude about this clumsy, juvenile attempt to rah-rah the nation into another act of pre-emptive military aggression….is that the militaristic neo-cons who work so hard to deceive us into slaughtering more Muslims…..are in need of better script writers.

Many times I've heard Village spokespeople rhetorically ask…why did we go into Iraq? Why the Iraq war? These Village talking heads know the answer to that question, but in typical Village fashion, cannot explain it to the unwashed masses because then people like Bill Kristol, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the rest of the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) gang….all respected Villagers themselves…would be embarrassed, put on the spot, perhaps even arrested. Village members simply can't be treated that way.

So Village media personnel act as if the reason the U.S. attacked the non-threatening nation of Iraq is still a mystery….something better left to future historians. Sure, Villagers will tell us that WMD were not found there, lots of people died, Saddam was killed and so forth….but corporate media, to this very day, still refuses to explain the real reason why we invaded Iraq.

Perhaps corporate media Villagers missed this from General Wesley Clark in 2007…..

After recounting how a Pentagon source had told him weeks after 9/11 of the Pentagon’s plan to attack Iraq notwithstanding its non-involvement in 9/11, this is how Clark described the aspirations of the “coup” being plotted by Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and what he called “a half dozen other collaborators from the Project for the New American Century”:

Six weeks later, I saw the same officer, and asked: “Why haven’t we attacked Iraq? Are we still going to attack Iraq?”

He said: “Sir, it’s worse than that. He said – he pulled up a piece of paper off his desk – he said: “I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years – we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”

Clark went on to relate a conversation he had with Paul Wolfowitz in 1991….

Clark said the aim of this plot was this: “They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.” He then recounted a conversation he had had ten years earlier with Paul Wolfowitz — back in 1991 — in which the then-number-3-Pentagon-official, after criticizing Bush 41 for not toppling Saddam, told Clark: “But one thing we did learn [from the Persian Gulf War] is that we can use our military in the region – in the Middle East – and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran [sic], Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”

The answer to the question, why did we attack and occupy Iraq beginning in 2003?…is found in the long wishlist of a handful of hyper-hawks who make up the membership of PNAC, and apparently, much of the leadership of our military-industrial complex.

The following people signed on to PNAC's "statement of principles" in the 90's…..recognize any of the names?

Elliott Abrams
Gary Bauer
William J. Bennett
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush
Richard B. Cheney
Eliot A. Cohen
Midge Decter
Paula Dobriansky
Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg
Francis Fukuyama
Frank Gaffney
Fred C. Ikle

Donald Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Norman Podhoretz
J. Danforth Quayle
Peter W. Rodman
Stephen P. Rosen
Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld
Vin Weber
George Weigel
Paul Wolfowitz

After 9-11, with so many PNAC members working for the Bush administration, it doesn't take a Mensa member to figure out what happened. PNAC members took 9-11 as the opportunity they had been praying for….a "new Pearl Harbor event"….and the rest, as they say, is history.

The obvious problem with all of this is that no one bothered to explain to the American people why the PNAC'ers inside the Bush administration were leading us into what they were leading us into. Instead, the Bushies made stuff up to scare us with….WMD, al-Qaeda affiliation, etc. And the reason is obvious. The American people were rightfully exercised over 9-11…..but would the American people agree to accept a "long war" of middle east conquest and domination meant to pre-empt any future enemies from controlling the shipping lanes and valuable resources under the sands of the middle east?

The Bushies decided to make stuff up rather than explain what the PNAC Brotherhood was really up to. They calculated that they would have a better chance of getting what they wanted by tricking the American people and Congress using fear and lies…..and it worked.

This all helps in explaining recent comments by John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman over President Obama's removal of U.S. military forces inside Iraq. To the neo-cons who understand and embrace the principles of U.S. Empire as outlined by PNAC….leaving Iraq is, like W. said, "the only reason we could lose Iraq is if we leave"

The purpose of invading Iraq was to initiate the PNAC middle east policy of endless war. It was to begin with Iraq and spread, as Wolfowitz clearly told Wesley Clark, to at least 7 countries there. According to the PNAC outline, the U.S. was to dismantle regimes, set up U.S. military bases and proceed to project U.S. power throughout the region.

Neo-conservatives still dominate our foreign policy and defense departments. And now they have set their sights on Iran.

It should be transparent to anyone who has been paying attention….but I'll say it anyway…. the United States is descending further into an authoritarian militarized country which features separate and distinct forms of justice for the haves…and the have-nots.

The haves….have unfettered and unquestioned rights. Their money is, in actuality, free speech. Their corporations pay cost-of-doing-business fines but are never held accountable and never admit to doing anything wrong….ever. Even though what the haves pay elected officials to do for them does not reflect the will of the American people, compromised elected officials do their utmost, anyway, to fulfill the wishes of the haves. The haves coax the politicians that work for them to pass more legislation which will further enrich them.

The have-nots, increasingly, are marginalized and denied their rights. Right before our eyes, the haves have convinced elected officials that a terrible economic crisis period is the right time for politicians on both sides to take stuff from the have-nots in order for the haves to benefit from even lower tax rates.

In all of this….corporate media have advanced the cause of the haves over the have-nots. This is understandable because corporate media is run by the haves, paid by other haves, for the sake of all of America's haves. In the soon-to-come, waste-of-time argument coming up over unemployment and payroll tax cut extensions….pay attention to how our 4th estate frames the "debate." No doubt, the haves will be pleased.

What media workers don't quite grasp in their urgency to please their haves-masters….is that the haves will turn on them just as they have turned on the 99% have-nots.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently helped to illustrates my premise when he ordered storm troopers to roll up the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zucotti Park.

During the more than six hours we spent at the raid last night, The Observer was unable to get closer than two blocks away from the protest. We assumed this was due to our lack of an official NYPD press badge, however, we also saw credentialed reporters from CNBC, CBS, the Wall Street Journal, NBC, The New York Times, Reuters and a Japanese TV station get blocked at the barricades.

It really would not be surprising in the future to see Have-Mayors, like Bloomberg, establish a new "embed" policy for the press….similar to the "embed" charade during the Iraq invasion and occupation. One of the ways that the haves control our democratic process, or what's left of it, is to control the information to which the have-nots have access.

And so it was that Bloomberg ordered the press away from any eyewitnessing of the Zucotti camp roll up by the Mayor's storm troopers.

Bloomberg went on to give his justification for denying the press access to his para-military invasion of the protester camp….

“The Police Department routinely keeps members of the press off to the side when they are in the middle of a police action. It’s to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect the members of the press,” Mayor Bloomberg said, adding, “We have to provide protection and we’ve done exactly that.”

Just "routine." Denying access to the press, the Authoritarian Have Mayor of New York explains, is simply standard operating procedure. Sure, the press has rights…..but the Have Mayor gets to decide when and how those rights can be exercised…and for how long.

The kicker to me is Bloomberg's explanation that in refusing press access to the storm trooper roll up, he was only acting for the purpose of "protect(ing) the members of the press." Bloomberg, apparently, acting as the Have-Daddy of New York City, must unilaterally deny the press access rights to keep the press safe.

Whatever rights you thought you enjoyed in America are now subject to our Have-Leaders determination of whether we are "safe" or not. You see, rights are fine and all….but when a situation is just "unsafe", then, Billionaire Leaders must insist on limiting or denying those rights for the greater good of "safety."

Allow me to expand. Americans electronic communications have always been guaranteed 4th amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure by the government. But no longer. Why? Because it is no longer "safe".

The right to due process? Another right granted by the Constitution which our Leaders have determined we can no longer safely respect. Sure, the Constitution says that every American citizen has the right to a trial by jury when charged with a crime…..but the President can no longer guarantee "safety" if he doesn't have the right to order the assassination of a U.S. citizen without….umm….due process.

Treaties against the use of torture? Virtuous, perhaps, but no longer meaningful to Authoritarian Leaders who must deny rights to keep us all "safe."

As the great "shining city on the hill" sinks into the authoritarian sunset, it will be because safety (fear) wins out over bedrock constitutional rights. After all, if it is the job of our Authoritarian Leaders to keep us "safe"…..what pesky constitutional guarantees can be allowed to get in the way?

The Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed. The Anglo war led by NATO against the dictator has been successful in it's objective: regime change. Although the U.S. president told us that regime change was not the objective when he announced the U.S. involvement in the effort….that was the objective all along….just as in Iraq.

Regime change. It's what we do.

In Iraq…the excuse was WMD. In Libya….the excuse was "Gaddafi is slaughtering his own people."

Question. Ever see any evidence before or after Saddam Hussein's head was ripped off that he possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction? How about evidence that Gaddafi was slaughtering his own people? No doubt Gaddafi was a violent and thuggish dictator….but it's not like we haven't known that for…umm…40 years, or anything.

The U.S. coordinated NATO forces in order to remove Gaddafi from power….it was always about regime change.

So be it. No love lost here over the nutty, often violent, and now dead, Libyan dictator. Naturally, the question comes….what's next? Just like with Iraq, the U.S. leadership has no idea what comes next. Our leaders are making it up as they go along. I hope everything works out like in the movies and Athenian democracy breaks out like a rose all over Libya, unlike, say, what has happened in Iraq.

After President Obama announced 8 months ago that the U.S. would lead NATO in an effort to stop Gaddafi from mass murdering his own people….(still no evidence)….I blogged about the real reasons why Gaddafi had to go. Libya is the 9th leading oil reserve country in the world. France and Britain get a lot of oil from Libya…and Gaddafi, after normalizing relations in 2005 with the U.S. during the Bush administration was still reluctant to open his country to new and broader oil rights for foreign oil companies.

Through WikiLeaks, we learned that foreign oil company executives had been complaining through the State Department about Gaddafi's dithering in allowing those oil companies to gain access to Libya's more promising reserves. Gaddafi insisted the Libyan people, not foreign capitalists, should be benefiting from their nation's own oil and was demanding more from these oil companies. There was fear in 2008-2009 among some diplomats and oil executives that Gaddafi would actually nationalize the oil industry, thus preventing capitalist exploitation of their country's assets.

Libya's oil needed liberated….in the same way that Iraq's oil needed liberated. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. The U.S. and other Anglo nations did not steal Iraq's oil, nor will we steal Libya's oil. We liberate the oil. Our mighty military makes it possible for the oil in foreign nations to be set free from socialistic or dictatorial controls.

God has ordained that all marketable oil on earth be liberated…liberated to travel the free market unencumbered by concerns over whose oil it belongs to. That oil belongs to the divine hand of the free market….and the U.S. is only doing god's work setting the black tea..free.

Many readers disagree we me on this…and that's fine and all…..but Senator Lindsey Huckleberry Graham (R-SC), a member of the Three Amigo Diplomats, McCain, Lieberman, & Graham, who visited Mr. Gaddafi in 2009…..agreed with me yesterday….

One of the problems I have with “leading from behind” is that when a day like this comes, we don’t have the infrastructure in place that we could have. I’m glad it ended the way it did. It took longer than it should have. If we could have kept American air power in the fight it would have been over quicker. Sixty-thousand Libyans have been wounded, 3,000 maimed, 25,000 killed. Let’s get in on the ground. There is a lot of money to be made in the future in Libya. Lot of oil to be produced. Let’s get on the ground and help the Libyan people establish a democracy and a functioning economy based on free market principles.

"There is a lot of money to be made in Libya. Lot of oil to be produced…" Notice here, these are not my words. These are the words of one of the members of the Three Amigo Diplomats who traveled to meet with Gaddafi in August 2009.

You see, in 2009 the 3 Amigo Diplomats thought Colonel Gaddafi was A-OK.

Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends.

The 3 Amigos even told Gaddafi they would try to help provide the military equipment he needed….can you imagine?

He (McCain) stated that he understood Libya’s requests regarding the rehabilitation of its eight C130s [a transport plane] and pledged to see what he could do to move things forward in Congress. He encouraged Muatassim (Gaddafi's son) to keep in mind the long-term perspective of bilateral security engagement and to remember that small obstacles will emerge from time to time that can be overcome.

Apparently…access to Libya's oil fields was not a "small obstacle."

Today, again, we are hearing from one of those 3 Amigos…Huckleberry Amigo…and he is telling us that with Gaddafi now gone, there's a lot of money to be made by U.S. companies through Libyan oil exploitation.

Free at last, free at last, hallelujah, Libyan oil is free at last.

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?

I've taken a lot of guff from my more conservative readers about using "hostage taking" language to describe the Republican approach to governance. But now those criticisms of The Reverend's take on our illustrious conservative cult can be put to rest….

Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell….

"I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting. Most of us didn't think that. What we did learn is this — it's a hostage that's worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done."

Pimping for the rich and powerful for so many years has left the Droopy Dawg look-a-like, McConnell, a bit, you know, jaded. McConnell, fresh off his successful caper to steal money from the weak and powerless in order to coddle banksters and the like with more and lower tax cuts, fully admits that "some members…thought…the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting."

Some Republicans, McConnell openly admits, wanted the U.S. to default on it's debt obligations….some Republicans actually wanted to "shoot..the..hostage."

Consider what Droop said. He candidly told the Washington Post that "some of (the GOP) members" wanted to destroy the economic future of the U.S. by purposely defaulting on debt many of those same Republicans had voted to incur. McConnell has admitted that "some" of the GOP, at least, are an outright enemy of the United States of America. I don't know how anyone could characterize it any other way.

If elected officials want the U.S. to default on it's debt and have it's debt vehicles, it's Treasury bonds, relegated to junk status…..how could those Republicans be considered anything other than domestic economic terrorists? Seriously.

And of course, that's just what this "some" in the GOP have been sent to D.C. to accomplish. Tea Party-elected GOP'ers were elected to go to Washington to tear the place down. As Mitch McConnell said…."some" of his colleagues wanted to shoot the hostage. "Some" of McConnell's GOP colleagues wanted to do damage to the United States.

But, naturally, not Mitch McConnell. Mitch is an experienced political prick who knows better than to actually shoot the hostage of the debt ceiling. Where "some" Tea Party Republicans wanted to pull the trigger of the gun they held on America…..McConnell was for, as he states himself…"ransoming" the hostage.

McConnell, without hesitation, told WAPO that the debt ceiling issue was "a hostage that's worth ransoming." Couldn't be clearer. Yes, Mitchy says…not raising the debt ceiling would damage the U.S., perhaps irreparably,…and because not raising the debt ceiling would do damage to the U.S…..McConnell tells all that the debt ceiling was a "hostage worth ransoming."

TPM's Brian Beutler….

This captures the legislative dynamic on Capitol Hill with blunt honesty. When they won an extension of the Bush tax cuts in December 2010, before their newly elected members were sworn in, Republicans settled on a strategy that works — and they'll have plenty of opportunities to employ it again in the months ahead.

How is all this not a new civil war….just without guns? Why are the actions of the GOP not to be considered treasonous? Why aren't Republicans being labeled as insurrectionists for continuing to threaten the United States of America? How can the GOP escape being placed on the list with other terrorist groups?

Republican leaders are openly telling Americans, and with some glee, that their plan moving forward from the scene of their last ransom crime….is to commit even more hostage taking crimes against the American people.

Why not this then: If Obama and the Democrats don't agree to privatize Medicare, GOP state governors will end Medicaid services in their states….leaving thousands of poor to rot and die in misery. Or, if the Democrats and Obama won't agree to revoking the Affordable Care Act entirely….Senate Republicans will work with GOP state governors to re-segregate public schools in red states.

Quite frankly….I don't see how America governs itself from this point forward. My thoughts on the open insurrection which is today's Republican Party used to center around the idea of a domestic "cold war." Kind of an agreed-to mutual standoff. I don't think that any longer. Perhaps Republicans have been emboldened by the Citizens United aberration. Perhaps the thuggishness of the Tea Party brownshirts has stiffened Republican spines.

Whatever the cause….I do not think that the United States will be able to break this downhill cycle into utter incoherence and chaos. We have become an ungovernable nation. What possible good can come form such a situation?

If your debt servicing costs (interest payments) amounted to 1.6% of your total monthly take home pay, would you be panicked over it? Not likely, right?

Then why is it that so many Villagers, Partiers and GOP Thieves officials are oh-so-hysterical over the interest the federal government is currently paying on it's national debt?

1.6%

That's it. The U.S. is paying less, percentage wise, to service it's debt today…than it did under Ronald Reagan, Bush the Elder, and Bill Clinton. During those administrations it cost the country over 3% of GDP to service its debt.

What neither side seems to recognize — or at least acknowledge — is that what matters about the debt isn’t the dollar amount per se, but how much it costs us to service it. And by that measure, the debt isn’t nearly as big a problem as it’s being made out to be.

Yes, the federal debt has grown by nearly $3 trillion dollars in the past three years. And yes, the dollar amount of that debt is quite large (in excess of $14 trillion and headed toward $15 trillion should the ceiling be raised). But large numbers are not the problem. The U.S. has a large economy (slightly larger than that debt number). And, crucially, we have very low interest rates.

Because of those low rates, the amount the U.S. government pays to service its debt is, relative to the size of the economy, less than it was paying throughout the boom years of the 1980s and 1990s and for most of the last decade. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that net interest on the debt (which is what the government pays to service it) would be $225 billion for fiscal year 2011. The latest figures put that a bit higher, so let’s call it $250 billion. That’s about 1.6% of American output, which is lower than at any point since the 1970s – except for 2003 through 2005, when it was closer to 1.4%.

Under Ronald Reagan, the first George Bush, and Bill Clinton, payments on federal debt often got above 3% of GDP. Under Bush the second, payments were about where they are now. Yet suddenly, we are in a near collective hysteria.

I point this out not because we shouldn't take our national debt seriously…..but to illustrate the fact that the over-the-top, hysterical, theatrical performances of elected officials over the debt, primarily from the GOP, as cheered on by the Village Idiots……is nothing short of ridiculous.

What we have been witnessing this summer is the biggest farce since the totally bogus campaign from the Bushies to attack Iraq back in 2002-03. Just as there was no legitimate reason to attack Iraq, so too there is no legitimate reason now to insist on multiple trillions in spending cuts before the debt ceiling is lifted.

The reason for the Iraq fraud was to please the PNAC neo-conservatives, the oil industry and the leaders of our military-industrial complex. The reason for the current farce over debt is for the purpose of pleasing very rich Americans and multi-nationals who don't want their taxes raised in order to pay for the damage many of their fellow class warriors did to the national economy when they gambled the country into oblivion.

Always keep in mind as we move into the final weekend before D-Day….what we've been witnessing is a contrived farce….play acting….insincerity….kabuki theater.

As the Time article is entitled: The U.S. Is Not Drowning In Debt. And we're not. We are not bankrupt, Social Security and Medicare are not bankrupt. The cost to service the debt we have is lower than during three of the last 4 presidents. Hardly a reason to put on a Tea Party-hysteria face.

Finally….because interest rates are at historic lows….now is the very time when the federal government should be borrowing a couple more trillion dollars for direct job creation. The only way out of this marathon recession is for the masses of Americans to have more money to spend. Because demand has shrunk, there's nothing the private sector can, or is willing, to do. That only leaves direct job creation by the federal government. And there's plenty of work that needs done throughout this nation.

Instead of staging grand political theatrical productions to confuse the cabbage-heads at home watching their flat screens….Washington players need to start borrowing more money to actually solve the problem at hand. America needs jobs. That's the sum total of our "problem." Government can create jobs….but conservatives will have none of it. Conservatives would rather cut spending so deeply that even more jobs are lost….and all over some make-believe hysteria.

Helluva way to run a country.

In theory, political parties are supposed to represent constituents….the "for the people" part of our democracy. In the U.S. we have two major political parties, neither of whom represent the citizens of our country.

Case in point is the disgustingly corrupt vote taken yesterday in the GOP-Tea House of Representatives.

House Republicans brought a bill forward yesterday that would have raised the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion….something which must be done before August 2….and something which both sides have agreed must be done. The debt ceiling increase bill was "clean." Nothing added to it, no riders, no amendments…..just a straight bill to increase the debt limit.

The reason Republicans introduced the bill was not to pass it…..just the opposite…..it was to defeat it while baiting House Democrats to vote for it. In the end all Republicans voted against their own bill and only 97 Democrats voted for the clean debt ceiling increase…..82 Democrats voted with the Republicans.

The GOP's cynical plan was to try to make some political hay over Democrats who voted for raising the debt ceiling in an unencumbered bill….I suppose….by accusing those Democrats of not being serious enough about the debt and deficits to condition a debt ceiling increase with draconian austerity measures.

Perhaps you've noticed….House Republicans recently proved their status as morons, incapable of leading the nation, by forcing their members to go on record in favor of abolishing Medicare and Medicaid while further slashing taxes for millionaires and billionaires. The Speaker Moron, John Boehner…..made the huge mistake of introducing for a vote Paul Ryan's Roadmap to Ruin budget…knowing full well that the Senate and the President would reject it.

Since that vote, over 70% of Americans polled have voiced their displeasure over the GOP's desire to scrap Medicare and Medicaid. Democrats have promised to make Republicans own their vote in next November's election.

Yesterday's House vote was a feeble attempt by the GOP not-ready-for-prime-time-players to implicate Democrats in their schoolboy mistakes. 82 Democrats….a little less than half of all House Democrats….took the amateurishly offered bait, and voted against the will of the people, basically agreeing with moronic Republicans that the debt ceiling must not be raised without the demand of a ransom from the elderly, the sick, the children and the disabled.

Republicans had hoped their legislation would embarrass Democrats while demonstrating their willingness to force the United States into default on its fiscal obligations, but because the legislation included a partisan attack blaming President Obama for the debt accrued under President Bush and because Republicans privately assured their corporate backers that the vote was a charade, nobody is taking the vote seriously. For example:

And for all the talk of economic crisis should Congress fail to raise the debt ceiling by August, the financial markets are likely to yawn at this vote — if only because Republican leaders have privately assured Wall Street executives that this is a show intended to make the point to Mr. Obama that an increase cannot pass absent his agreement to rein in domestic programs.

“Wall Street is in on the joke,” said R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

"Republican leaders have privately assured Wall Street executives" that it's all just kabuki. Just how today's Republicans roll.

If that is not discouraging enough…..if that isn't a sufficient example proving that our Congressional overlords are willing to risk the full faith and credit of the United States on childish political machinations…let me share Droopy Dawg's latest with you.

Senator Droopy Dawg Mitch McConnell has an even better plan.
In a classic "what should we do now that we've f*cked stuff up" move….the shifty GOP Senator from Kentucky went on the Sunday Morning Republican "news" shows and told the few viewers on a Memorial Day weekend that GOP Senators would not vote to increase the debt ceiling without slashing Medicare.

"To get my vote, for me, it's going to take short term [cuts, via spending caps]… Both medium and long-term, entitlements.," McConnell said, as quoted by TPM. "Medicare will be part of the solution."

Asked point blank whether he would vote against increasing the debt limit if Medicare isn't also cut, he responded, "Correct."

Droopy is pissed. He is angry that the American people have rejected Republican plans to abolish Medicare and Medicaid while further cutting taxes on millionaires and billionaires, Droopy's constituents. So now, McConnell has a plan to drag Democrats down into the moron quicksand which GOP Speaker Moron over in the House did to House Republicans with the Ryan budget vote.

The GOP ransom note is now becoming legible. If Democrats in the Senate do not present a debt ceiling increase measure which also slashs funding for the infirm, the elderly, and the vulnerable…..Droopy's GOP Confederate Army will ransack the full faith and credit standing of the United States government….possibly sending the nation down into an unrecoverable depression.

Either granny gets it or everybody gets it.

Our government has either been taken over by mobsters….or bad B-movie actors.

I was interested in my blog bud's recent post chastising Indiana Supreme Court members for ruling that citizens in Indiana "have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes."

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry.

"We believe … a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," David said.

Da King was incensed that the 4th amendment to the Constitution was being trampled by these Indiana Supremes…..many angels danced on heads of pins in the ensuing discussion in the comment thread.

Yesterday, the Major League Supreme Court issued a new ruling basically putting an exclamation mark to the end of the 4th amendment.

The Supreme Court on Monday gave police more leeway to break into homes or apartments in search of illegal drugs when they suspect the evidence might be destroyed.

The justices said officers who smell marijuana and loudly knock on the door may break in if they hear sounds that suggest the residents are scurrying to hide the drugs.

Stripsearch Supreme, Sammy Alito wrote the majority 8-1 opinion and had this to say….

Residents who "attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame" when police burst in, Justice Samuel Alito said for an 8-1 majority.

Basically the only progressive jurist left, Ruth Ginsburg, said in the lone dissent….

"The court today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement in drug cases," Ginsburg wrote. "In lieu of presenting their evidence to a neutral magistrate, police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, never mind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant."

Well….yeah Ruth. Who has time to fool with warrants when the ends justify the means in post-9-11 America? There's not a Dick Cheney second to lose. And hell…..I'm sure that trained law enforcement officers know just what evidence destruction sounds like and would, therefore, never abuse such power…..so, no worries then. After all, police are only concerned about our safety.

Much of the 4th amendment has long ago been sacrificed in the so-called war on drugs. A fictitious "war" with no end and no purpose other than to maintain a bloated law enforcement-prison industrial complex. With this latest ruling, the Supremes are simply tying up any loose ends.

At this juncture I would ask the Kiefer Sutherland-Dick Cheney question……'if there's a one percent chance that the rustling sound I'm hearing inside that house could be "terrorists" destroying documents….or WMD….or even maybe some hashish….AND if there's even the slightest chance that the people making that rustling sound inside that house have information about an imminent threat to American lives….anywhere…..wouldn't you want police officers to just bust the door down to keep us safe?'

Immediately after 9-11….Americans responded with a resounding 'Hell, yes.'

There's no sense in looking back and second guessing now.

When the fictitious war on terror was announced by the, as yet, unindicted war criminals, Bush and Cheney….Americans had their 4th amendment rights rescinded. It was no longer safe for Americans to not have their federal overlords spying on all their communications. After all, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Sometimes safety must come before fidelity to a "goddamn piece of paper", as the Decider put it.

In particular, neo-con Americans felt so unsafe after 9-11 that when W's illegal-wiretapping-of-all-electronic-communications program was leaked they wanted to arrest the New York Times writers who spilled the beans….still do. Our Protectors were so concerned about our safety that it wasn't safe for us even to know how safe they were keeping us…..too risky.

Anyone who is troubled or experiencing mild forms of second guessing over the means by which our Protectors, you know, protect us…..and are just now wondering about 4th amendment protections……and what happened to those protections…..I insist that you read the latest from The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, "The Secret Sharer." It is most definitely a must read.

If you are a person who says you are concerned at all about Big Gub'mint taking away your rights….and particularly if you are one whose libertarian feathers were ruffled recently over erosion of 4th amendment rights…..then you need a good, hard-hitting, refresher course on how we arrived at where we are today.

Where we are….is exactly where neo-con worry warts and pearl clutching libertarians wanted to take us.