In response to the dire financial situation the Irish Government finds itself in due to poor fiscal policy and the actions of fraudulent banksters, a new budget was outlined that had some of the most severe cuts in them ever imaginable. Severe cuts that is, to the working class and the poor. Things like a decrease in minimum wage. An increase in the VAT. An increase in student fees (the new govt in the UK has suggested that idea too, the students there aren't quite done yet expressing their feelings apparently). The loss of almost 25,000 public jobs. Pension reductions. You know, basically shredding the public safety net.
What about the rich corporations you ask? The people that caused this whole fucking mess in the first place? The new 'austerity measures' make sure that the corporate tax rates stay the same. Wouldn't want to scare away jobs by taxing the job-creators, right?
My arse.
This is the first of many 'austerity measures' that will be suggested by many other governments in the not too distant future that will have one purpose, and one purpose only; to lay off the massive debt caused by corporate fiscal malfeasance onto the shoulders of the working class. In America, 'We The People' have been saddled with TRILLIONS of dollars of debt (the real number still hasn't been figured out, or if it has been it hasn't been released) to bail out the banks that drove the US economy to the verge of collapse through theft and fraud. Make no mistake, what the banks did in the US were real, proper crimes, but instead of perp-walking their multi-million dollar a year CEO's straight to jail, the public was sold a bill of goods by the bank-owned whores in D.C. who artfully managed to stiff the US taxpayer with the bill for the clean-up. That in turn drove up the deficit, and the bank-owned whores in D.C. now say that in order to pay that down so that the US remains credit-worthy (because China is becoming less and less eager to buy our debt when we're paying them less than 1% in interest) we have to make budget cuts. Public education, transportation, Medicare, Social Security are all on the chopping block to be cut in order to reduce the deficit. What isn't being considered (other than the staggeringly bloated defense budget, that will never, EVER be cut)? Increasing taxes on the bastards that got us into this mess in the first place. Wouldn't want to scare away jobs by taxing the job creators, right?
My arse.
It all comes down to the age-old truism 'He who makes the gold, makes the rules'.
That has never been more true than now.
Happy Thanksgiving indeed....
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Breaking News!!! Bristol Palin snubbed by Dancing with Stars voters!!!...oh, and war's about to break out in South Korea too...
...Good thing that the M$M media in the US has their priorities right. This week the corporate news has been choc-a-block full of conspiracy theories, and counter-conspiracies about how in the world the eldest Palin spawn made it to the finals of 'Dancing with People We No Longer Give a Shit About'. Accusations have been raised that knuckle-dragging supporters of her wolf-killing mother have been busy jamming the interwebs with votes for Bristol. The blogosphere lit up too, full of folks that are miffed that the "integrity" of the show has been ruined (integrity? really?) and that they will forever eschew themselves of the pleasure of watching has-beens try to bump and grind their way out of obscurity if she were to win. All this because of a 'reality' show (if by reality you mean my version of a living hell) that invited this talent-free un-wed mother to be on their show.
Now, I've been accused of being a bit of a cynic in the past, but I think you'd have to be incredibly naive to think that she was invited to be on the competition because she was a good dancer. She isn't. Not really. Not when it could be reasonably said that she had all the style and grace of a Clydesdale in spandex. No, the only reason she was invited on was because her pig-ignorant mother gets ratings. The Half-Term ex-Governor of Alaska is despised and reviled as fervently as she is worshipped by her minions, and all that passion means more eyeballs on the telly, higher ratings for the network, and more money for the corporation that put this whole charade together in the first place. It's almost like the network planned it that way...
Naaah....couldn't be that simple could it?
Oh, and in other news North Korea lobbed some shells into South Korea, the US is sending an aircraft carrier task force to the region in support and the South Korean Premiere is talking about a full-scale response to the attacks. Nothing major really, just another possible war and the reality that hundreds of thousands of innocent lives hang in the balance because the midget in control of North Korea also has nukes, but let's stay focused on the important shit, you know, Bristol Palin and the TSA gropings at your local airport (more about them anon).
Oy vey...sometimes it's enough to drive me to drink...(most times I just walk though)...
Peace.
Now, I've been accused of being a bit of a cynic in the past, but I think you'd have to be incredibly naive to think that she was invited to be on the competition because she was a good dancer. She isn't. Not really. Not when it could be reasonably said that she had all the style and grace of a Clydesdale in spandex. No, the only reason she was invited on was because her pig-ignorant mother gets ratings. The Half-Term ex-Governor of Alaska is despised and reviled as fervently as she is worshipped by her minions, and all that passion means more eyeballs on the telly, higher ratings for the network, and more money for the corporation that put this whole charade together in the first place. It's almost like the network planned it that way...
Naaah....couldn't be that simple could it?
Oh, and in other news North Korea lobbed some shells into South Korea, the US is sending an aircraft carrier task force to the region in support and the South Korean Premiere is talking about a full-scale response to the attacks. Nothing major really, just another possible war and the reality that hundreds of thousands of innocent lives hang in the balance because the midget in control of North Korea also has nukes, but let's stay focused on the important shit, you know, Bristol Palin and the TSA gropings at your local airport (more about them anon).
Oy vey...sometimes it's enough to drive me to drink...(most times I just walk though)...
Peace.
Friday, November 19, 2010
I am offended that the Whitehouse is offended...or further proof that they just don't get it..
Democratic bulldog and former Clinton advisor told on off-colour joke at a breakfast meeting he was having the other day. He suggested that if Hillary Clinton lent Obama one of her balls, they'd both have two. Whether you find that funny, sexist, demeaning or just plain offensive you have to admit, he wasn't wrong.
After being swept into office on a massive wave of euphoric jubilation, promising hope and change, telling us that things would be different from the eight long years of right-wing oppression we had just suffered through, Barack Obama promptly fumbled the ball on the one-yard line.
He had almost the whole country behind him. He had the whole world on his side. Whitehouse press conferences would once again include complete sentences and proper syntax. The word 'nuclear' would be pronounced properly. His party controlled both chambers of Congress, and what did he do? He dropped the fucking ball. He asked the republican party permission to govern. Totally ignoring the absolutely emphatic mandate given to him by the American people, he asked the very same people that had driven the countrys' economy straight off the cliff, if they'd like to help him steer the wheel.
That's not "change", that's "doing the same fucking thing again".
His racist opponents on hate radio ably aided by the rabid attack-dogs on Fake News spewed ever-more venomous and vile accusations at him, and those around him. And the Whitehouse stayed silent.
They didn't get "offended" when the FBI fessed up that thousands of people had been illegally wire-tapped.
They didn't get "offended" when bush admitted that he personally gave the order to commit war crimes.
They didn't get "offended" when the gop time and again called him a commie or a socialist, or a Kenyan.
They didn't get "offended" when the gop shut down the extension of unemployment benefits.
They didn't get "offended" whenever (insert right-wing loudmouth here) called him (insert baseless accusation/insult here).
No.
They choose to get "offended" because of something someone said about his balls.
If there is a clearer example of this Whitehouse and this President being damned near clueless, this is it.
(and for what it's worth, I'm surprised Carville only credits Mrs. Clinton with having three....)
After being swept into office on a massive wave of euphoric jubilation, promising hope and change, telling us that things would be different from the eight long years of right-wing oppression we had just suffered through, Barack Obama promptly fumbled the ball on the one-yard line.
He had almost the whole country behind him. He had the whole world on his side. Whitehouse press conferences would once again include complete sentences and proper syntax. The word 'nuclear' would be pronounced properly. His party controlled both chambers of Congress, and what did he do? He dropped the fucking ball. He asked the republican party permission to govern. Totally ignoring the absolutely emphatic mandate given to him by the American people, he asked the very same people that had driven the countrys' economy straight off the cliff, if they'd like to help him steer the wheel.
That's not "change", that's "doing the same fucking thing again".
His racist opponents on hate radio ably aided by the rabid attack-dogs on Fake News spewed ever-more venomous and vile accusations at him, and those around him. And the Whitehouse stayed silent.
They didn't get "offended" when the FBI fessed up that thousands of people had been illegally wire-tapped.
They didn't get "offended" when bush admitted that he personally gave the order to commit war crimes.
They didn't get "offended" when the gop time and again called him a commie or a socialist, or a Kenyan.
They didn't get "offended" when the gop shut down the extension of unemployment benefits.
They didn't get "offended" whenever (insert right-wing loudmouth here) called him (insert baseless accusation/insult here).
No.
They choose to get "offended" because of something someone said about his balls.
If there is a clearer example of this Whitehouse and this President being damned near clueless, this is it.
(and for what it's worth, I'm surprised Carville only credits Mrs. Clinton with having three....)
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Is it tea time yet? (republicans block extension of benefits to the unemployed)
To all of the ignorant, backward-ass, gullible, dumb as-a-bag-of-hammers, 'Obama's a communist', red-neck, toothless cousin-fuckers that voted for the republican party this past election, may I offer my first piece of evidence proving that you just got royally fucked?
They aren't even in office yet as the majority, but the party of rich white men is already signalling that the poor might as well take a flying fuck at the moon if they think they are going to get anything remotely close to help or compassion whilst the gop have the reins. They even had the nerve to suggest that they couldn't in good conscience (like any of them actually possess one) vote to extend the benefits without cutting from somewhere else in the budget, conveniently forgetting that they are the same bunch of arrogant assholes that are demanding that the bush tax-gifts to the rich be extended whatever the cost ($700 billion).
I'd laugh if it wasn't so goddamned sad.
They aren't even in office yet as the majority, but the party of rich white men is already signalling that the poor might as well take a flying fuck at the moon if they think they are going to get anything remotely close to help or compassion whilst the gop have the reins. They even had the nerve to suggest that they couldn't in good conscience (like any of them actually possess one) vote to extend the benefits without cutting from somewhere else in the budget, conveniently forgetting that they are the same bunch of arrogant assholes that are demanding that the bush tax-gifts to the rich be extended whatever the cost ($700 billion).
I'd laugh if it wasn't so goddamned sad.
Obama gives Medal of Freedom to Bush Sr...or why any 'hope' of 'change' has now been terminated..
In what for many will be the final insult to those that supported him, Barack 'Bipartisan' Obama has decided that George H.W. Bush, the architect of the 'October Surprise', the lynch pin in Iran-Contra and the architect behind the first gulf war, should be awarded the highest civilian honour in the land, the Medal of Freedom.
Look, I know that this comes at a bad time attention-span-wise for the average Yank, after all there is all sorts of outrage over the fact that ThunderThighs Palin is through to the final on Dancing with the (Z-list) Stars because the slavish, Teahadists followers of her mother have figured out how to game ABC's voting system. Plus everyone is all a-twitter over a couple of rich twenty-something Brits finally planning to say 'I do' next year in a bloody great big church, but when Barack Obama, a man widely thought to not only possess a brain, but also know how to use it, says that it's a good idea to honour someone like this, I have to say that for me, it is time to get off the 'Hope and Change' Express.
I knew from the start that Obama was only going to be a 'liberal' when viewed from the angle of where we had just come from. He always was a centrist, a mediator not an idealist, but I had hoped that, if for no other reason than his upbringing, we would have had at least the semblance of an effort to right the wrongs of the previous administration. The first indication that things weren't going to go that way was his choice of Rick Warren, a known gay-basher, to lead the inaugural invocation. Whilst the gathered crowd cheered, along with tens of millions of others at homes across the nation, as Bush the Lessor was escorted out of national governance and back to the pig farm from whence he came, the wheels of capitulation had already started to turn.
Hopes for a quick end to the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were quickly dashed when troop numbers actually increased in the 'Stan. When knowledge of yet more torture and abuse by the previous administration came to light, the President and his Attorney General refused to even consider investigations, never mind prosecutions of the offenders. As the news that the FBI had knowingly violated the privacy of thousands and thousands of American citizens during the bush years via illegal wire-taps came to the fore, the constitutional law-scholar from Harvard didn't raise a finger to bring those responsible to account, or even bother to gather assurances that the practice had ceased. Even now, when you have to subject yourself to being publicly groped by a stranger in order to get on an airplane, a blatant violation of civil rights, the President won't so much as raise an eyebrow.
I knew he wasn't a liberal, but come on, enough is enough. Maybe Bill Hicks was right, but all I know is this: this ain't the "Change" I asked for.
Look, I know that this comes at a bad time attention-span-wise for the average Yank, after all there is all sorts of outrage over the fact that ThunderThighs Palin is through to the final on Dancing with the (Z-list) Stars because the slavish, Teahadists followers of her mother have figured out how to game ABC's voting system. Plus everyone is all a-twitter over a couple of rich twenty-something Brits finally planning to say 'I do' next year in a bloody great big church, but when Barack Obama, a man widely thought to not only possess a brain, but also know how to use it, says that it's a good idea to honour someone like this, I have to say that for me, it is time to get off the 'Hope and Change' Express.
I knew from the start that Obama was only going to be a 'liberal' when viewed from the angle of where we had just come from. He always was a centrist, a mediator not an idealist, but I had hoped that, if for no other reason than his upbringing, we would have had at least the semblance of an effort to right the wrongs of the previous administration. The first indication that things weren't going to go that way was his choice of Rick Warren, a known gay-basher, to lead the inaugural invocation. Whilst the gathered crowd cheered, along with tens of millions of others at homes across the nation, as Bush the Lessor was escorted out of national governance and back to the pig farm from whence he came, the wheels of capitulation had already started to turn.
Hopes for a quick end to the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were quickly dashed when troop numbers actually increased in the 'Stan. When knowledge of yet more torture and abuse by the previous administration came to light, the President and his Attorney General refused to even consider investigations, never mind prosecutions of the offenders. As the news that the FBI had knowingly violated the privacy of thousands and thousands of American citizens during the bush years via illegal wire-taps came to the fore, the constitutional law-scholar from Harvard didn't raise a finger to bring those responsible to account, or even bother to gather assurances that the practice had ceased. Even now, when you have to subject yourself to being publicly groped by a stranger in order to get on an airplane, a blatant violation of civil rights, the President won't so much as raise an eyebrow.
I knew he wasn't a liberal, but come on, enough is enough. Maybe Bill Hicks was right, but all I know is this: this ain't the "Change" I asked for.
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