TSA Abuse Whitewashers Sought

Have you been groped, strip-searched, inappropriately fondled, or otherwise abused at the airport by a TSA goon? Senator Chuck Schumer has a solution! In an effort to prevent the victims of state-sanctioned assault from running to the newspapers every time they're forced to remove their clothing to prove that their colostomy bag isn't a bomb, or their breast prosthesis isn't hiding a gram of pot, he is calling for "passenger advocate" TSA employees in every airport.

Their real purpose will be to nip the complaints in the bud, whitewash them, and above all, prevent adverse publicity for the Security State. The new staffers can be at the side of travelers at a moment's notice to assure them that they were not assaulted at all, that they are simply being terrorized to prevent terror, and that the $15-an-hour gropers are trained professionals, after all. 

Rather than have the TSA be put in the embarrassing position of claiming that all the accusers are either psychotic, drunk or pathological liars, the new hires will likely receive a crash course in psychological testing. Hysterical victims will be asked to name the president, what medications they are taking, the year, and to count backward from 100 . Once they flunk their mental competency tests, the TSA propaganda department will be able to give instant analyses and plausible denials about every new allegation the media inquire about.

And, just as soon as the holiday rush is over and the TSA has finished ripping open everybody's Christmas presents in a hunt for weapons and drugs, it will institute a toll-free complaint hotline for manhandled fliers. If you are abused, who you gonna call? Not the police! Not the ACLU! Not the Times! Not CNN!  Call the same people who assaulted you in the first place! The same way the family of any rapist deserves that first courtesy call.

According to Schumer and another New York Democrat, State Senator Michael Gianaris, the proposed in-house airport advocates would be summoned immediately by a passenger feeling he/she had been "inappropriately searched" (as opposed to the vast majority of the ovine public who are just fine with the grope).

When the horrific experiences of three Kennedy Airport passengers were publicized last week, Schumer did what he does best. He inserted his corpus in front of the TV cameras. My first reaction was: "At last! The TSA has gone too far this time and he'll announce an overhaul to the whole sadistic system!"

Well, I was wrong of course. Schumer is the same politician who thinks the NYPD should be searching subway passengers before they're allowed to board trains... in rush hour. As far as the latest TSA outrage is concerned, he had this to say: “While the safety and security of our flights must be a top priority, we need to make sure that flying does not become a fear-inducing, degrading, and potentially humiliating experience."

Schumer and all members of Congress are exempt from the TSA screening, so he has not had the pleasure of degradation and humiliation. The only thing he has to fear is fear itself of losing his own cushy seat. Because we all know that no federal lawmaker, no matter how right-wing lunatic fringe Teapublican, would ever, ever bring a weapon or bomb aboard an airliner.  They take an oath to act in the interests of the American people, you see.

Homeland Security Homeboy.... Chuckie Cheese Schumer

Us vs the Plutocracy

In case you missed it, here is where to sign Bernie Sanders' petition to support a stronger Constitutional Amendment to overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court decision giving personhood to corporations. The Sanders measure is identical to the proposal filed by Rep.Ted Deutsch (D-FL) last month.

A different proposal introduced by Democratic Senators Tom Udall and Michael Bennett gives the federal government explicit power to regulate election-related spending by candidates, unaffiliated individuals and corporations. According to In These Times, the Sanders-Deutsch measure goes much further, declaring that the Constitution only protects the rights of “natural persons,” and not “private entities established for business purposes"--

That kind of language is likely to be supported by many liberals and the Occupy movement, whose general assemblies often feature signs calling for an end to “corporate personhood.” Yet because Sanders’ proposal could be interpreted to deny all organizations—including not-for-profit advocacy groups, religious establishments and unions—any protection under the First Amendment, or the rest of the Constitution, even in nonelectoral circumstances, it will also probably raise vigorous objections from civil libertarians on the right and the left. The ACLU, for example, officially supported the Citizens United decision because it opposed the original (and much less restrictive) limits on speech in the McCain-Feingold (campaign financing) law.

Here's Bernie on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night. He admits a constitutional amendment will be a long hard slog, but we have to start someplace.

Also, be sure to read the Gail Collins column in today's Times for a sobering account of just how seditious some of our bought-and-paid-for lawmakers are.  And then read "Pauline NYC's" comment in response. (first in reader recommendations)  With chilling brevity, she warns of the fascist internal coup taking place right before the complicit eyes of the mass media and Democrats.  Her final paragraph: 

"It is time to start calling this out for what it is and to wrench back control of the narrative from the Koch brothers and Faux News. Do the neo-conservative Democrats, led by their placater-in-chief, have the insight to see what is occurring, or the backbone any longer to face it down, or the courage for such a stand?"

Yule Gruel

It’s right before Christmas and all over the news

Politicians are vying to earn the most boo’s.

Occupy’s camped out in D.C. to dare

Anonymous donors their faces to bare.

Candidates practice their lies in their heads

While a fourth of all children go hungry to bed.

Mitt Romney wears flip-flops, Newt Gingrich a sneer,

The truth is not something they’re willing to hear.

When they go on TV, they preen and they pander --

Their purpose in life is to get up our dander.

The latest Not-Romney so hateful and brash,

In two months or less he will burn and he’ll crash.

This goon squad will soon have more places to go,

On book tours, TV shows, to keep the cash-flow

When, what to our wondering eyes will appear --

But a Forbes billionaire on a platform of fear!

It’s Mayor Mike Bloomberg, that Big Apple prick

(We know in an instant it sure ain’t St. Nick)

More rapid than most trades his insults they came

As he whined and he sniffed and he cast about blame.

“Now teachers, now firemen, each union and student

The rich can’t pay taxes, it just isn’t prudent,

For my millionaire friends, for the Street that’s named Wall

I have rid parks of campers, and smashed one and all.”

But as dry leaves that before wild hurricanes fly

When we meet with an obstacle mount to the sky

Throughout the country, our Occupy grew

With hearts full of outrage and a mic check or two

And thus in a twinkling a new hope is born

We’re just saying No to political porn

But Mike won’t give up and he’s gone on a tour!

In hopes that the Oligarchs still will endure.

He’s the face of the Third Way and fiscal restraint,

And as for his running, he insists that he ain’t.

But Shrillionaire Mike in his plea for austerity

Is making quite sure of his place in posterity.

And the Ghost of Ayn Rand, a right crabby old elf

Haunts Congressional Halls with her Cult of the Self.

Cut off their food stamps, cut off their heat!

Make the poor suffer from their heads to their feet.

With holidays coming, the Pubs get enjoyment

From refusing to fund any more unemployment

They claim that the poor are too lazy to work.

While they fill their own pockets with government perks.

But by laying their thumbkins in front of their nose

Treating voters like garbage and rich people’s foes

They’ve caused a revolt and are getting epistles.

Human rights manifestos are flying like missiles.

We shall hear them exclaim, as they flee out of sight:

We won’t run again! Adios, and Good Night!

Morning After in America

When I read the news yesterday that the Obama Administration had nixed the FDA ruling that approved over-the-counter purchase of the so-called "morning after" birth control pill for girls under the age of 17, that old Maureen McGovern song started a senselessly annoying run inside my head. You might remember it as the Oscar-winning theme from that cheesy 1972 disaster epic, "The Poseidon Adventure"....

"There's got to be a morning after
If we can hold on through the night", etc.

What I did not realize until I hit Wikipedia was that the original title/lyrics were "Why Must There be a Morning After?" This downer of a title was deemed at the time to be too realistic, cynical and depressing by the producers.  Instead of concentrating on the cast of thousands which sank to a watery grave in the movie, they thought it would be better to reflect on the lucky few who were rescued in the end -- maybe one percent of the passengers. This worldview eventually become the Reaganesque "Morning in America" canard: celebrate the good fortunes of the few and  their riches will eventually trickle down upon the rest of us.  


Whether the White House's reason for restricting Plan B for younger girls is also a canard, I don't know.* I am not a medical professional. Then again, neither is HHS Secretary Sebelius, nor is her boss. The scuttling of the FDA rule certainly does seem to be a political one, designed to soothe away the worries of the fence-sitting voters of the religion-clinging class. Its reasoning is also sickeningly close to all those "health and safety concerns" given as reasons for shutting down Occupy camps. It is also in keeping with Obama's totally gratuitous and multiple invocations of Jesus during the Christmas tree lighting ceremony last week. 


Intoned the president this morning:  "As the father of two daughters, I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine."


As the mother of one daughter who knows the lingo: "Whatev."  I am sick of talking about him and his paternalistic patter, his calls for shared sacrifice and austerity. Let's get back to that other Morning After theme I started in on before going off my tangent.


The oligarchy and the Style section of the New York Times may not realize it yet, but fully one third of Americans are now at or near poverty.  A lot of us have drastically simplified our lives more out of necessity than choice -- and have found the painful experience to be a gateway to rebellion and resistance. For some people anyway, hard times that don't include an illness or homelessness can be invigorating, a spiritual reawakening, a reassessment of what really matters. We have moved on to our own "Plan B's", our own Mornings After. The Occupy movement encompasses this new philosophy born of necessity. The many heartfelt, thoughtful and inspiring comments from the readers of this blog reflect this philosophy.


The anti-materialism movement is also reflected in a piece by Naomi Wolf posted on Al Jazeera. Wolf, too, sees the glass half-full in the surprising upside to a lousy economy:

After two wars and a half-dozen undeclared conflicts in the past decade, the US has entered a period of unprecedented cultural hibernation.
Gardening, scrapbooking, knitting and cooking have all become newly shabbily chic. In the urban neighbourhoods to which the young and hip are moving, city garden plots and heirloom tomatoes grown in window boxes have replaced Lexuses and Priuses.
Other young hipsters have moved farther out into the country in search of an idyllic new narrative fantasy. The young couple - he with a beard and she in a sundress and rubber boots - are homesteading in the Hudson River Valley with a flock of chickens, or in New Mexico in an ecofriendly straw-bale house. They have replaced the young couple of five years ago - he with the hedge fund, she with interior decorators - in a McMansion in Westchester County.

The Occupy movement is also the outright rejection of despair and a repudiation of politics as usual. As Chris Hedges writes in "Death of the Liberal Class",

As those who retained their identity during slavery, or the long night of twentieth century fascism or communism discovered, resistance will be reduced to small, almost imperceptible acts of defiance. Music, theatre, art, poetry journalism, literature, dance and the humanities, including the study of philosophy and history, will be the bulwarks that separate those who remain human from those who become savages.

Hedges was wrong about only one thing. Resistance is huge, and the defiance is global. Welcome to Morning After in America. It's the sweetest hangover.


*Update: Definitely a canard. At the time I wrote this post, I had not read that Obama claimed girls would be able to walk into a store and grab this medication off a shelf between the batteries and the bubblegum.  I read some of the Times comments and became newly enraged at this pandering politician.

Occupied Oratory



The One Emerges: All Hail!



The president emerged from his hole today, looked around, saw the shadow of the 99% looming over his re-election, and officially announced the early arrival of The American Spring. Punxsutawney Phil has been eclipsed by Osawatomie Obama. Oh say what to me?  Oh sock it to me?  Shades of Nixon seeing the writing on the wall during the Vietnam protests and going on Laugh-In to display his stiff populist cred?  Obama, unlike Tricky Dick, is a natural politician with a tongue of gold. Never one to let an opportunity for political theater go to waste, he jetted out to the Heartland of Kansas, to his mythical roots, to mount the ghostly bully pulpit of the original Bull Moose.

O-gasms echoed throughout liberal land.  Robert Reich called it the most important speech ever in Obama's career.  MSDNC is running reruns upon reruns.  The man we elected is b-a-a-ck. Fool me once, fool me twice, fool me ad infinitum, fool me ad nauseum. The man has made the earth-shaking announcement that Reaganomics is a big fat lie.  Riches do not trickle down after all. He has given Democrats permission to be Democrats.  What chutzpah, coming from the original Closet Republican!

It may have been a break-out speech, but its talking points were hardly original. It borrowed liberally from Bernie Sanders's marathon filibuster speech one year ago this month, that blasted income inequality and the president's own cave on the Bush tax cut extensions. Obama channeled the righteous indignation of cast-aside Elizabeth Warren. He echoed the existential angst of Chris Hedges.  The chameleon skin of this president has taken on the populist stripes of all things Occupy.  This man was all too aware of the protesters penned in like cattle by the NYPD outside of his cash bash last week, holding their signs calling him a corporate puppet. It was turning into a personal political crisis not seen since the Jeremiah Wright kerfuffle. It was Time. For. A. Speech.

Barack Obama is a master at pretending that he hasn't actually been in Washington these past three years. It was the "folks in Congress" who failed to rein in the Wall Street greedheads. Here is a representative snippet from the nearly one hour long speech:

We shouldn’t be weakening oversight and accountability.  We should be strengthening them.  Here’s another example.  Too often, we’ve seen Wall Street firms violating major anti-fraud laws because the penalties are too weak and there’s no price for being a repeat offender.  No more.  I’ll be calling for legislation that makes these penalties count – so that firms don’t see punishment for breaking the law as just the price of doing business.
The fact is, this crisis has left a deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street.  And major banks that were rescued by the taxpayers have an obligation to go the extra mile in helping to close that deficit.  At minimum, they should be remedying past mortgage abuses that led to the financial crisis, and working to keep responsible homeowners in their home. We’re going to keep pushing them to provide more time for unemployed homeowners to look for work without having to worry about immediately losing their house.  The big banks should increase access to refinancing opportunities to borrowers who have yet to benefit from historically low interest rates.  And they should recognize that precisely because these steps are in the interest of middle-class families and the broader economy, they will also be in the banks’ own long-term financial interest.  (Bolds mine).

Woulda coulda shoulda... but we'll be sure to beg, ask, push, cajole.  I was happy to hear him say that he will call for legislation to punish fraudulent behavior that is now, for all intents and purposes, just business as usual. But who's he gonna call? Harry Reid? Mitch McConnell? Will he run it by his Wall Street donors? I would have preferred an actual introduction of legislation, written by him and his "team", with a time stamp on it.  I actually would have preferred the acceptance with regret of the resignation of Tim Geithner. Or that the Justice Department was issuing subpoenas even as he spoke. Or that he was announcing an immediate moratorium on foreclosures.

And as Dave Dayen complained, why oh why does he always have to spoil these inspirational speeches by calling for freaking austerity at the end? You'd think that with 25 percent real unemployment, a third of all people in or close to poverty, record foreclosures, 50 million uninsured, he would have stuffed the belt-tightening and deficit crap down the crapper where it belongs.  But no. He seemingly cannot help himself:  

And it will require all of us to take some responsibility to that success. 
It will require parents to get more involved in their children’s education, students to study harder, and some workers to start studying all over again.  It will require greater responsibility from homeowners to not take out mortgages they can’t afford.... That’s why we’re cutting programs we don’t need, to pay for those we do.  That’s why we’ve made hundreds of regulatory reforms that will save businesses billions of dollars.... When times get tough, the workers agree to give up some perks and pay, and so do the owners.

He was basically calling for the One Percent and the 99 Percent to just get the hell along and re-elect him, already.  We are all in this together, America.  Share the pain. Because if Congress doesn't get things done, the wife and kids will have to take a separate jet to their 17-day Hawaii vacation ahead of him. Tighten your belts, pretend you're in the middle class, and feel guilty while you're at it. And send him $5 for a chance to win a dinner.  



Sharing the Sacrifice, Feudal States of America-Style



Meet the Press: Rotten to the Core

I just made the mistake of watching a replay of today's Meet the Press, in which host David Gregory revealed his infatuation with the word "core".  As in, does Mitt Romney have one, or not.

But what is a core, anyway?  Most people, me included, think of it as the inner part of a fruit, containing seeds -- such as the apple core. Or one's innermost moral being. But another archaic meaning is much more fun. As defined by Olde Hoblyn's Dictionary, a core is "the slough which forms at the central part of a boile."

So, was Gregory wondering if Mitt is the middle of an avocado, or was he wondering if he is a puddle full of pus?  Maybe the script will tell.  Here are some snippets from the official transcript taken just a tad out of context, of the segments with David Axelrod of the Obama campaign going first, followed by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. Video is at same link.  Watch if you must, and you will see I am not making this dialogue up!

(Videotape, October 30, 2011)
MR. DAVID PLOUFFE:  He has no core.  And, you know, every day, almost, it seems to be we find another issue.

(Videotape, Thursday)
REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-FL):  They need to understand that this is a person who has no moral core, no conviction, willing to, to change his position based on the political winds and the way they blow.
(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  No moral core, no core.  I mean, this is a man whose (sic)been married over 40 years, who has been, in effect, a priest in his faith, as a bishop in the Mormon church.  Is this not underlying what is the politics of personal descript--destruction?

MR. AXELROD:  Look, I--and, and, and I admire, I admire his, his family and I admire his...

MR. GREGORY:  What is this about no core?

MR. AXELROD:  Well, let me just, let me, let me, let me make, let me make this point about what happened last night.  Last night Governor Romney said that the, the EPA was the president's tool to crush the private enterprise system.

MR. GREGORY:  What is this about no core?

MR. AXELROD:  This is about, this is about public character.  This is about public character.  And, by the way, it's not just Democrats, but most of the Republicans who are making the same case, David.  Jon Huntsman's running ads, or his supporters are in New Hampshire on that right now.  We got another example of it again last night on, on the Fox segment that--with Mike Huckabee.

MR. GREGORY:  Well, you think it's an overstatement they just say no moral core, that Mitt Romney has no moral core?

(slight break. Blah, blah, blah. then....)

MR. GREGORY:  Newt Gingrich, does he have a core?  Is he a formidable candidate that the president faces?

MR. AXELROD:(blah, blah, Well he is a formidable character, David, blah.

MR. GREGORY:  We're going to leave it there.  David Axelrod, thank you very much, as always.
MR. AXELROD:  Good to be with you. F--, I mean Thank you.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me turn now to the chair of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus.
Welcome back to MEET THE PRESS......

MR. GREGORY:  Campaigns are tough, they've already gotten tough.  How do you respond to Mr. Axelrod on the moral core question for Mitt Romney?

MR. PRIEBUS:  Well, for the first time I, I've seen David tongue-tied.  I think he's living in an alternative universe here.  Blahmumblemumblechuckle.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me just...

MR. PRIEBUS:  This president has been a disaster to this country, David.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me just--let me just ( pleeeeeze let me say core one more time) button up one thing.  I mean, we talk about how tough these campaigns can be.  You just said a moment ago this president is not real, and that's how Americans are perceiving him, as not real.  You've heard Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair, say that Mitt Romney has no moral core.  David Plouffe saying he's got no core.  David Axelrod saying the same about Mitt Romney.

(Me to TV: Not true, Gregory, you steaming pile of slough! You're the one keeps saying the damn core word!)

MR GREGORY: Fair to say, on both sides of the ledger, we're headed for a very personal and pretty nasty campaign?  (Me to TV: Gotta get in the false equivalence. Both sides are doing it, only they're not. I see only one Core Whore on this show, and it's not any of the guests).

(big break here about some other really stupid stuff, but nothing hardcore)

MR. GREGORY:  Newt Gingrich says he's the inevitable nominee.  Do you agree with that?

MR. PRIEBUS:  I think it's going to be up to the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina and Florida.

MR. GREGORY:  All right.  How about a harder one.  Do the Packers go undefeated?

MR. PRIEBUS:  You guys are going to have the cheeseheads coming out of your ears pretty soon.

MR. GREGORY:  (That'll be fun, since my head is made of Swiss Cheese. I'll have sloughs of heads coming out of my head holes.)   Chairman Priebus, thank you very much.

The rest of the show was a panel discussion about Newt Gingrich. David Gregory tried mightily to find a happy medium between Good Newt and Bad Newt. Harold Ford's favorite phrase was "Newt Might Implode".  Ford was a little bemused that Newt hates child labor laws.... but hey, give the guy credit for at least talking about childhood poverty, right?  And the Manchester Union Leader editor thinks Newt is getting a bum rap about this childhood janitorial crap.  I think he really meant to say that Newt really would love to rap some children's bums. His education program will be called No Child's Behind Left.




The best is still at hand - to lance the sore/And cut the head, for till the core is found/The secret vice is fed and gathers ground . (John Dryden)

 For further reading: Is David Gregory a Vegetable?

Conspiracies

Conspiracy theories have abounded since a series of seemingly coordinated, militarized police attacks began on various Occupy camps throughout the country last month, all in the space of just a few days. One of the more vocal proponents of the theory that Homeland Security has had its puppet-stringy tentacles stretched out, outsourcing/coordinating the national crackdown, is writer Naomi Wolf. Her Guardian article on the subject last month was almost universally panned. The main problem was her dearth of sourcing -- although as someone who was arrested by the NYPD and threatened with a permanent record with DHS, her theory is most likely correct. She just can't prove it to everyone's satisfaction.

 Her original piece is here.  A rebuttal from AlterNet's Joshua Holland is here, and next comes her sur-rebuttal, and finally (I think), here is Holland's counter-rebuttal to Wolf's sur-rebuttal. 

Meanwhile,  from writer Max Blumenthal comes this exposé (thanks to Kate Madison for the link) which tends to vindicate Wolf in its connection of the thuggish tactics of police during Occupy protests with special training provided by Israeli anti-terrorist forces.  It is a pretty chilling read. "No wonder our Occupy cops are so violent," Kate writes. "They learned from the 'Harvard anti-terrorism school' of dealing with our Occupy protesters."

Unrelated, or maybe semi-related, but every bit as chilling, is Glenn Greenwald's Salon piece about the Senate vote last week that overwhelmingly approved detention without trial of American citizens suspected of being terrorists.  Although President Obama has threatened a veto of the bill, it is not because of any particular allegiance to the Constitution or civil liberties.  As Greenwald has consistently been pointing out for a long time, Obama already approves of such detention (not to mention assassinations) -- he just wants it to remain a unitary executive power and does not welcome or need any legislative stamp of approval.

A bipartisan group of only seven of the 100 Senators voted against the bill, and for civil liberties. They are Sanders, Coburn, Wyden, Paul, Harkin, Lee and Merkley. 

The other 93 are what Greenwald calls war addicts, true believers that the whole world is a battlefield and due process can fly out the window in the name of safety.  Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina spoke for his fascist compatriots:

"It has been the law of the United States for decades that an American citizen on our soil who collaborates with the enemy has committed an act of war and will be held under the law of war, not domestic criminal law.In World War II it was perfectly proper to hold an American citizen as an enemy combatant who helped the Nazis. But we believe, somehow, in 2011, that is no longer fair. That would be wrong. My God, what are we doing in 2011? Do you not think al-Qaeda is trying to recruit people here at home? Is the homeland the battlefield? You better believe it is the battlefield."

Wow. And the so-called "progressive" Democrats are falling dutifully in line with this thinking. Now, that's a conspiracy we can all believe in. Keep Occupying!

Japanese-American Internment Camp During World War II