Vindication Again: Wow, That Was Fast

On November 8, 2008, I warned a couple of people that Rahm Emanuel, Obama's new Chief of Staff, believes deeply in the federal government's right to impose unconstitutional — in fact, dictatorial — compulsory civilian service on Americans. They both replied that, "Emanuel is not the president; Obama is," I thereupon replied that Obama himself believes in compulsory civilian service too.* I knew that it would not be long before legislation mandating compulsory service would be introduced. Both of the people I warned told me that I was paranoid. In fact, one went so far as to say, "I agree with [the other recipient of your message]. The paranoia is a bit much." I replied, while biting my tongue, "Paranoia has absolutely nothing to do with it. ... People who do their research in a relatively scholarly manner and who have also studied the trends of the past century or two in great detail are not paranoid. They are educated. I am not theorizing based on personal bias. ..."

And so on and so forth. In short, my warnings (for what little they were worth) fell on deaf ears. Now, on March 20, 2009 (a mere 132 days later), I hereby present for their perusal (if they ever check this site anymore), the following (the wording of which comes straight from the bill itself, which is available, complete online, at the House of Representatives' very own web site):

House Passes Mandatory National Service Bill

"Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act" (aka the "GIVE" Act), was passed by the House of Representatives on March 18, 2009, by a 321-105 margin. It next goes to the Senate, where the senators there will almost certainly violate their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution too.

Lest anyone think that I am reading too much into that title, here is the relevant excerpt from the bill:

Section 6104. Duties. Subsection B6: In carrying out its general purpose under subsection (a), the Commission shall address and analyze the following specific topics: ... "Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.

"Part III, Section 120 b 3 B: YOUTH ENGAGEMENT ZONE PROGRAM. Service-learning is a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency."

The following is for anyone who might still deny that Obama would support this: *Quote: "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded." ••• Candidate Barack Obama, Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 2008. *Obama's change.gov website originally stated that Americans would be "required" to complete "50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year." After large numbers of people read it and protested, Obama's staff changed the wording from "required" to "encouraged." Obviously, with the passage of the "GIVE" Act, the wording has been changed from "encouraged" back to "required" again (as realists fully expected). For more on this, read the following article in the Saint Louis Examiner of November 07, 2008: Obama's Compulsory Service Proposal Becomes Explicit.

P.S. Why is the federal government using the word "volunteerism" to describe "compulsory service"? I'd laugh at their stupidity if I didn't live in the country whose freedoms are being destroyed by those worthless losers (it's times like these that I really wish I had a foul mouth).

Gullible Obama Fans Rejoice

The blatantly open (almost tragicomic) conspiracy continues:

Citigroup's top economist tapped for Treasury post Posted by David Kramer at 11:03 PM Yes, you read that right. The latest news in Bizarro World is that the top "economist" from Citigroup (you know, the company that needed a multi-billion dollar bail-out from the Federal Government) is going to work at the Treasury Department to help fix the current financial mess that Citigroup played a part in creating. ... [Read the rest.]

But will most Obama supporters, even those who were given ample advance warning, eventually admit they were duped? Never. No way on earth. For them, pride endureth before, during and after a fall, same as it is with evangelical republicans. As another astute observer says:

Obama ... came to power amidst the hosannas of the left, who saw in him the capacity to achieve all their dreams, whatever they were. But all he has done is extend the corporate fascist policies of George Bush – the same way that FDR extended the corporate fascist policies of Hoover.

The current challenge concerns the $165 million in bonuses that A.I.G. is paying its top employees, even while it has received $180 billion in taxpayer money, and even while the recipients of that money have been the largest banking firms such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. The populist anger is rising. The Obama administration is protesting, but claims that its hands are tied. You might think the left would bolt, and some surely have.

But there are always second thoughts on the left. We are starting to actually hear defenses of A.I.G.'s practices. ...

Reliably, then, the bulk of the left will support the policies of Obama, no matter how much they violate the supposed principles of leftist theory. ...

FDR was indeed the predecessor of Obama, as his White House eventually became one big open conspiracy of big banks, big corporations, and big unions working together to fleece the American taxpayer. They ate from the corpse of a once-productive economic structure as it grew ever thinner, making sure that they got theirs while everyone else suffered. ...

Some people will bail from the left in light of the evidence that Obama is serving the cause of regimentation and the power elite. ... But for the most part, I think we can safely predict that the Obama experience will do one other thing that the FDR experience did: totally corrupt its partisans.

Very true. Furthermore, most of the American people have been far too successfully brainwashed by the false left-right paradigm ever to recognize (much less feel a need or desire to stop) our descent into a fascist (i.e. corporate), totalitarian state.

Here is an excellent post script from Karen de Coster (one of my favorite columnists/bloggers):

... Sticking Citigroup's economist in the Treasury Dept. is just one of a series of moves on the part of the Wall Street Elite to take over key government roles (they own the Treasury Dept.). ...

Goldman Sachs-Citigroup, oops, I mean the Treasury Dept., now has unprecedented powers to steal and spend taxpayer dollars without any oversight from the congressional body. These people are so taken with themselves, so drunk with power, and so brazen, they don't even care about the response of rage all across America because they actually believe that they can't be stopped now. The Federal Reserve has got their back, after all, and the president - Bush, Obama, doesn't matter - has given his nod of approval. [Read the Rest.]

Hooray for Obushma

This needs no intro:

The More Things "Change," Episode 1,723 Posted by Mike Tennant at 08:23 AM at LewRockwell.com Obama, who ... correctly criticized President Bush for having issued signing statements nullifying portions of bills he'd signed, just "issued one of his own, declaring five provisions in the spending bill [which he signed] to be unconstitutional and nonbinding, including one aimed at preventing punishment of whistleblowers."

It's a race with the clock. Will average Americans snap out of their fairy-tale fantasies before the elections of 2012? Of course they won't. By my even asking such a silly question, I could correctly be accused of living in a fairy-tale fantasy myself. Even if their favorite political heroes personally stole their houses from them and smacked them alongside their heads with a 2x4, most Americans would still cling to their fairy-tale fantasies — while also continuing to laugh at, malign, demonize and/or ridicule the one or two politicians who actually want to save this country and the Constitution upon which it was founded.

Obama Speech - Teleprompter Goes Out

Here is a timeless classic that I just now found, two days after posting my previous entry in which I wrote of this very thing. It seems that I wasn't just making it up after all. LOL. You will forgive me for not being able to bear watching this myself. I read several of the comments instead and got the gist of it. One of those 1,600-plus comments is posted below the video. The commenter has had the same experience that I had. YouTube commenter (with punctuation, capitalization and one crude word corrected by me): "This almost confirms what I said before this man was elected. Within my circle of friends I was almost accused of being racist 'cause I said that Obama is gonna be same [@#$%] different face, just like in the past. I think I was right, and I think I'll continue to be right. Until the Federal reserve system is dissolved, every US president is going to be more of the same. ..."

Obama Retains Another of Bush's Evil Dictatorial Powers

ITYS ... YA:

Supreme Court urged to drop enemy combatant case Yahoo! News, Wed Mar 4, 6:00 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Wednesday renewed its request that the Supreme Court ... not rule on whether a president can indefinitely detain terror suspects in the United States. ... [Click here to read the rest.]

Aw, but it's completely okay if Obama does this sort of thing, because, unlike Larry Moe Curly Soprano-Bush, Obama is civilized and sophisticated and liberal. Right? Evil isn't evil if the leaders committing it are civilized and sophisticated and liberal and supposedly photogenic and supposedly charismatic and supposedly intellectual.

And it doesn't hurt if they are also able to read meaningless rhetoric off of a teleprompter in a supposedly appealing, mesmerizing and inspiring manner.

Oh, and the perpetrators of these evil-for-the-sake-of-good acts must only be members of the U.S. federal government (or members of American law enforcement agencies, or members of foreign governments that have the U.S. government's temporary blessing), because U.S. leaders are the duly self-appointed "good guys"; and the duly self-appointed "good guys" are always allowed to commit evil acts if they are spun as "good causes." Besides, they have been trained (by their very own agencies, mind you) to know "the difference" between "justifiable" and unjustifiable evil far better than anyone outside the U.S. government could ever hope to grasp "the difference."

Yep, that's "hope" and "change," all right. If only I had known that Obama wasn't using those words in the same sense(s) that the dictionary defines them, I might not have been so skeptical about him during the presidential campaign. Well..., Actually, I would have, because every carefully selected presidential candidate is merely a temporary PR manager for a permanently entrenched power elite (aka unelected bureaucracy) that never changes its policies.

Great Question

"All the hardcore, Jim Jones kool-aid drinking Obama supporters never really cared about ending the wars. They just wanted a Democrat to micromanage them. Obama has made it abundantly clear his policies are no different than Bush's. So why then, did all these Obamabots hate Bush so much?" ••• JesseKantstopolis, who wrote it as a comment on this excellent YouTube video on March 4, 2009.

More Inspirational "Change"

Obama has decided to stick to the Bush administration's view on the State Secrets Privilege. Read the rest.

Driving Over the Cliff

By Paul Craig Roberts CounterPunch ...To whose agenda is President Obama being hitched? Writing in the English language version of the Swiss newspaper, Zeit-Fragen, Stephen J. Sniegoski reports that leading figures of the neocon conspiracy--Richard Perle, Max Boot, David Brooks, and Mona Charen--are ecstatic over Obama’s appointments. They don’t see any difference between Obama and Bush/Cheney. Not only are Obama’s appointments moving him into an expanded war in Afghanistan, but the powerful Israel Lobby is pushing Obama toward a war with Iran. The unreality in which he US government operates is beyond belief. A bankrupt government that cannot pay its bills without printing money is rushing headlong into wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, the cost to the US taxpayers of sending a single soldier to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq is $775,000 per year! Obama’s war in Afghanistan is the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. After seven years of conflict, there is still no defined mission or endgame scenario for US forces in Afghanistan. When asked about the mission, a US military official told NBC News, “Frankly, we don’t have one.” NBC reports: “they’re working on it.” Speaking to House Democrats on February 5, President Obama admitted that the US government does not know what its mission is in Afghanistan and that to avoid “mission creep without clear parameters,” the US “needs a clear mission.” How would you like to be sent to a war, the point of which no one knows, including the commander-in-chief who sent you to kill or be killed? How, fellow taxpayers, do you like paying the enormous cost of sending soldiers on an undefined mission while the economy collapses? Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. [Read the rest here.]

Obama's Justice Department backs Bush secrecy on renditions suit

Stephen C. Webster Published: Monday February 9, 2009 RawStory.com An attorney for President Obama's Department of Justice has told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that it supports the Bush administration's controversial state secrets defense in a lawsuit over the prior president's "extraordinary rendition" program. [Read the rest here.]

35 Inconvenient Truths

The errors in Al Gore’s movie. Published by the Science and Public Policy Institute. Click here to read those 35 inconvenient truths. People who are truly open minded (aka "interested in the truth, not political correctness," will have no fear of clicking that link (as well as the one below). I was entirely on Al Gore's side until I built up my courage and did my own investigating. If that isn't enough for you, then watch this excellent documentary produced by Britain's Channel 4 Television: The Great Global Warming Swindle (not your typical "loony conspiracy-theorist" gang, eh?). Obama, of course, is continuing the lie.

Obama to Overthrow a U.S. Puppet?

Eric Margolis Contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada February 3, 2009 Washington is rife with rumors that the Obama administration plans to dump the US-installed president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, and replace him by one of four CIA-groomed candidates. The problem is, three new stooges won’t be any better than one old stooge. London is warning Washington both against a precipitous change of regime in Kabul that would be widely viewed as crass political manipulation. ... Obama’s dismaying eagerness to expand the war demonstrates political inexperience and a faulty grasp of events in Afghanistan. ... The Afghan War will have to be ended by a political settlement that includes the Taliban-led nationalist alliance that represents over half of Afghanistan’s population, the Pashtun people. There is simply no purely military solution to this grinding conflict – as even the Secretary General of NATO admits. But instead of diplomacy, the new administration elected to stick its head ever deeper into the Afghan hornet’s nest. The bill for an intensified war will likely reach $4 billion monthly by midyear at a time when the United States is bankrupt and running on borrowed money from China and Japan. ... Why is President Obama, who came to power on an antiwar platform, committed to expanding a war where there are no vital US interests? Oil is certainly one reason. The proposed route for pipelines taking oil and gas from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea coast run right through Taliban-Pashtun territory. ... The US and its allies cannot be seen to be defeated by a bunch of Afghan tribesmen. Coming after the epic defeat in Vietnam and the trillion-dollar fiasco in Iraq, defeat in Afghanistan is simply unthinkable to the military-industrial-petroleum-financial complex that still seems to be calling many of the shots in Washington. [Click here to read the rest.]

Obama Continues Crime of CIA Rendition

The role of the CIA's controversial prisoner-transfer program may expand, intelligence experts say. By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times February 1, 2009 Reporting from Washington -- The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba. But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool. Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States. [Read the rest.]

Already - Three Promises Broken (at the very least)

A slightly expanded version of the following for clips is included at the end of this post.

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Obama airstrikes kill 22 in Pakistan The Sunday London Times, January 25, 2009

US pours cold water over hopes of Iran deal The London Times, January 30, 2009

In America, Speaking the Truth is a Career-Ending Event Counterpunch, January 26, 2009

Leaving Iraq? Not On Your Life

CounterPunch, January 23, 2009

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I Told You So Palitone Press, January 25-30, 2009 For those of us who stand outside the pathetic sham that is American two-party politics and study it objectively, the future under the faux intellectual, Barack Obama, and his cabinet of warmongers is ENTIRELY predictable (almost as if we are reading directly from "the establishment's" game plan — which, basically, we are). But trying to point this out to Americans who unquestioningly believe in that sham is like trying to talk sense to members of a cult who are excessively arrogant and self-righteous due to their cult's long history and almost universal acceptance. The first time you try to convince members of this cult to, at the very least, investigate objectively all cult leaders — including their favorite ones — in order to discover that they are all frauds, the "cultists" look at you with smiles (or frowns) of supreme condescension, as if you are either a harmless, but deluded, blasphemer or a potential nuisance. If you continue to try to convince them, they will become annoyed and ignore you. If you persist beyond that, they will become openly hostile and shut you out completely. No amount of rational debate or proof is going to convince them to doubt their favorite leaders or their own deeply ingrained, highly partisan perceptions of reality. To them, the phrase, "open-minded, scholarly investigation," is just a trick to get them to read the "loony, biased opinions of deluded fringe groups." "Luckily," the newest cult leader (Obama) has already started to break his promises to his devoted cultists (even if they refuse to see it), as we tried to tell them he would. Severe disillusionment among his followers is predicted for the not-too-distant future. This I welcome, as disillusionment often leads to a recognition, once and for all, that American two-party politics is, indeed, a sham — a sinister sham. Update: According to the January 26, 2009, edition of the London Daily Mail, Fifteen percent of Americans appear to have become disillusioned with Obama already. Contrary to what most Obama supporters may think, I think these people have given him more than a fair chance. He just blew it in record time. However, I realize that he has promises to keep to the sleazy establishment that put him in the presidency. Making promises to them is like making promises to the Mafia. You break them at your own risk. That is the sham that is two-party politics. P.S. Of course, it is always possible (actually, highly probable) that millions of liberals will either deny, ignore and/or justify Obama's broken promises throughout his entire presidency, just as millions of fanatical conservatives continued to deny, ignore and/or justify Bush's actions throughout his entire presidency. As always, in such cases, the permanent beneficiary is our massive, increasingly Orwellian federal government, that continues to function like clockwork, regardless of party.

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Expanded version of the above four titles/links:

Obama airstrikes kill 22 in Pakistan The Sunday London Times, January 25, 2009 Islamabad is the first to get a taste of the president’s ‘tough love’ policy. ... The airstrikes were authorised under a covert programme approved by Obama, according to a senior US official.

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US pours cold water over hopes of Iran deal The London Times, January 30, 2009 The White House warned Iran last night that military action is still one of its options despite the "hand of friendship" offered by President Obama.

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In America, Speaking the Truth is a Career-Ending Event Counterpunch, January 26, 2009 Paul Craig Roberts The Bush regime was a lawless regime. This makes it difficult for the Obama regime to be a lawful one. A torture inquiry would lead naturally into a war crimes inquiry. General Taguba said that the Bush regime committed war crimes. President Obama was a war criminal by his third day in office when he ordered illegal cross-border drone attacks on Pakistan that murdered 20 people, including 3 children. The bombing and strafing of homes and villages in Afghanistan by US forces and America's NATO puppets are also war crimes. Obama cannot enforce the law, because he himself has already violated it.

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Leaving Iraq? Not On Your Life

CounterPunch, January 23, 2009 By Ron Jacobs (retitled by MW of Palitone Press) ...Since he was elected, Mr. Obama has hedged on this promise [to bring the troops home from Iraq]. Since he was inaugurated, the Pentagon and its civilian boss, Robert Gates, have hedged even more. Now, they insist, US troops should remain. ... Even if Barack Obama overrides the Pentagon and Mr. Gates ... there will still be around fifty thousand US troops in Iraq. This is because Obama's call to bring all troops home from Iraq that began his campaign somehow morphed into a call to bring home only those troops determined to be "combat troops."

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The More Things "Change" ...

London Times Online January 23, 2009 President Obama 'orders Pakistan drone attacks' Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W. Bush has not changed. ... locals also said that three children lost their lives. [Read the rest.]

Update 1 of 2, 8:38 AM, January 24, 2009:

Obama Dips His Hands in Blood Posted by Lew Rockwell at 07:28 AM Obama seemed like a decent guy, but as president, he has no hesitation in killing a group of people in Pakistan, including three little children. But what is murder in the private "sector is just public policy for the state, and Obama is head of state, so he wields his terrible, swift Predator on people he doesn't know, and of whom he knows nothing. During the campaign, he famously said that if missiles were endangering his daughters, he would "do anything" to stop them. Think anyone else feels the same way? (Via Antiwar.com)

Update 2 of 2, 8:38 AM, January 24, 2009: I say: Obama "finally" has some innocent blood on his hands; and he even broke international law to accomplish it too. What an enlightened soul. Of course, like most war criminals Obama can always say, "I was only following orders." However, if he really believes that then he didn't need to run for president in the first place, because he knew what he was getting himself into. If he didn't know from the beginning, then it should have become abundantly clear by the time he was the sole remaining democratic presidential nominee.