"Shut Up," He Explained

"No. No. No. No. No. No. Nono, nuh-no,non, n...n...nonono. NONONONO. NO! NO -NO-NO!"

  Temp Emp (emperor pro tem) Obama is usually sanguine about hecklers, but only when he's parachuted down into Flyover Country and mixing with the lumpen-proletariat where they live. He is not OK with interrupters when he invites them to his house (formerly known as The People's House) to eat his snacks and drink his booze in their capacity as human props for a White House propaganda event.

Obama's pride was hurt at a reception for Gay Pride activists in which an activist got verbally active, demanding that he stop imprisoning and deporting  transgender political refugees back to Central American countries where there's a brutal history of  not taking kindly to such folks. (Democracy Now! has more on the activist, Jennicet Gutierrez.)

"O-bam-A, O-bam-A," bleated the LGBT crowd, who booed Gutierrez as Joe Biden tenderly rubbed Barry's back in manly solidarity. The poor president was reduced to having to ask Security to escort the woman out. Usually, the Secret Service completes such human refuse removal tasks without being told, allowing Obama to appear above the fray. During carefully orchestrated closed receptions, the security detail is probably not as highly alert as they would be in a public space. After all, visitors to Obama's castle have already gone through metal detectors and gotten pat-downs at various checkpoints before finally being allowed in his august presence. The Palace Guard was asleep at the switch during Wednesday's event. Maybe it was all that free booze the Temp Emp was bragging about. Truth be told, with all his stammering No-nos and playground bully language (This is MY house, nonny nonny boo boo) the Temp Emp seemed half in the bag himself.

"Shame on you," scolded Obama. prissily wagging his finger (index, not middle for a change)  half-seriously, half-mockingly. Was he addressing the protester, or his bouncers?

"This is really what the White House is all about. It’s the People's House," Michelle Obama once burbled.

Yeah. As long as The Peeps don't make a peep once they're inside.
 

"Sweetie, aren't you getting a little ahead of your skis?"

(optional soundtrack here)

Today in Chutzpah: Bank of America Issues Human Rights Credit Card

Just when you thought they couldn't get any more brazen....


If you sign up for a usurious credit card from foreclosure fraudster, too-big-to-exist, bailed out corporate welfare leech Bank of America, they will donate 25 whole cents out of every hundred bucks you borrow to the LGBT lobby, a/k/a "The Human Rights Campaign."


In other words, they will make a profit of about a thousand percent off the APR backs of liberal do-gooders who still have enough credit to qualify for this scam. Has the Human Rights Campaign no shame for partnering with a global financial crime cabal responsible for creating human misery on a scale not seen since the Spanish Inquisition? This is the same bank, remember, that tried and failed to charge customers $5 for using their own debit cards, so we definitely know the financiers in this partnership have no shame. It is a moral characteristic absent in sociopaths. If corporations are people, then BofA is a person with an incurable personality disorder.


And what about this Human Rights Campaign? (not to be confused with Human Rights Watch, which I wrote about yesterday) According to Wikipedia, it is the largest LGBT advocacy and political lobbying group in the United States. It supports the re-election of, among others, Barack Obama (who is still "evolving" on gay marriage and recently passed on signing an executive order forbidding workplace discrimination against gays by government contractors.)


HRC came under hefty criticism for making a deal with President George W. Bush during his campaign to privatize Social Security: the lobby agreed to go along with his scheme in exchange for same-sex partners becoming eligible for benefits.  HRC was also slammed for giving high corporate marks to tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds a few years ago. As you may recall from yesterday's post, the R.J. Reynolds family has also been very, very generous over the years to the Democratic Party and Obama.


And, as you probably already guessed, Bank of America itself has been a big contributor to the campaign coffers of Barack Obama. As much as the corporate media try to claim that newly-populist Barry has been rejected this cycle by Wall Street, he is still raking in the banking cash. Ninety-one individual employees of BoA have already given him almost $60,000 this year alone, according to Open Secrets. And when the president speaks at the Democratic National Convention in an anti-union state this September, the venue will be Bank of America Stadium. So, folks, be sure to get your BofA Human Rights credit card today and use it to get cash back in hotels and restaurants and bars, and for balloons and bumper stickers and escort services campaign bling in Charlotte! Those two bits going to Gay Rights for every hundred bucks you spend will surely find their way into the pocket of our amazing evolving president. It's the endless cycle of neoliberal public-private partnerships. The only ones left out of the money loop are the taxpayers who foot the bill.


If the thought of this North Carolina orgy of crony capitalism is bumming you out, there will be alternate events, including a "March on Wall Street South" to coincide with the Democratic Con. Here's the website where you can get information on attending. You can even make a non-BofA credit card donation to help secure parade permits and other bureaucratic nonsense already being put in place to stifle dissent.


And don't forget May Day this Tuesday. If you are unable to attend a protest, don't have a job to call in sick to, don't have money not to spend, don't have a TV to turn off to avoid the propaganda, more ideas can be found here.


The solidarity promises to be severe. No credit cards are required.

Don't Leave Home Without It