Lobbyists

Update

Ah Xmas time. Between work, gift making, and holidays I feel rather like a rubber band approaching the big snap, but I somehow find myself just finishing my day's must-do list. Unfortunately that means to get everything else done I'm up late at night and have barely been able to update this blog for you as the world ends!!!

OK, maybe it's not quite that bad but the "free market" house of cards is collapsing in a hurry and most of us are not going to be able to get out of the way. In the meantime our tax dollars are now being openly shoveled into the open arms of the ultra wealthy in this bogus lie being called "The Bailout." Upper management is being paid bonuses with this money while investors and depositors are being bankrupted. That ain't right and it ain't American.

I know this sounds socialist because it kind of is: we need to strip the wealthiest Americans of their ill-gotten money and give it to the rest of us. These mind-bogglingly wealthy CEO's, hedge-fund managers, stock brokers, bank managers, hospital officers, etc. have segregated 90% of the nation's wealth by stealing it from the poor. Line them up, empty their pockets, and take possession of their houses, yachts, Ferraris, and jets and either convert them to something useful to those they've made destitute or chop them up for materials. This is not time to pretend these thieves are anything but thieves and they should be treated as the criminals they are. Burn the mansions to the ground and build ten single family houses on their ashes.

There are very wealthy people who have gotten there by providing something needed by people and in the process they've brought many other people along with them. They've provided health care for their employees, generous vacation and pensions, and generally a European standard of living. Our compromised Republican government has made sure those kind of business people don't stand a chance. The only way you can become ultra-wealthy these days is by screwing the poor and gaming the political system to ensure the ease of poor screwing.

At the top of this list I would place hospital CEO's, carefully pricing everything at the highest point the market will bear (assuring that more than half of us will be priced out) while "cutting costs" by skimping on cleanliness*, keeping pay for the people that clean up our shit and puke well below a living wage, and keeping fewer beds open than are needed in the best of times. As a result, not only is our healthcare system rated 72nd worldwide, but if we experience any kind of serious epidemic our healthcare system will be overrun before it starts. They already put patient beds in the halls of most large hospitals because the "management" has "cut costs" by "eliminating unnecessary additional capacity."

Right under the healthcare industry in the list of industries that are fucking up this country is the banking and credit industry in general. Between the subprime mortgage scams, fees, penalties, and credit card debt, the banking industry has made massive profits by fucking the poor in the ass and now that they've turned the ass into pulp they've moved around to the front and are taking our money through our taxes. We're carting wheelbarrows full of cash to the banks without any control over what they do with it, hundreds of businesses that have never been banks are suddenly calling themselves banks and are getting billions of dollars (what the FUCK is up with that?), and there is no effort whatsoever to stop it. So Barney Frank flaps his mouth but Henry Paulson has still handed out nearly a half a BILLION dollars with no strings attached. Meanwhile the poor are still subjugated to usuarous credit card interest rates (that can be raised arbitrarily or because you missed by a day a payment on something else), mindbogglingly high penalties for mistakes ($45-$60 per purchase for being overdrawn by a penny for the micro-second a computer takes to figure your end of day balance before crediting any deposits you've made, penalizing you for every single purchase made that day), and seemingly small things like ATM fees, or government fees levied in lieau of taxes on the wealhty.

I've already made a sketchy argument as to why the auto industry is its own biggest partner in fucking everything up. Add to that the education privatizers, the prison industry, and everyone else that intends to profit from that which should not be done for profit. Sometimes you just need to invest in a system to better the lives of all people. Education, clean energy, healthcare, criminal justice and law enforcement**, regulation of food and medicine, all these things are compromised when the profit motive is introduced. If that's socialism then I'm pretty sure it is proven to work better than capitalism.

I don't even know where I'm going with this rant. There is a huge injustice being perpetrated in this country and frankly I don't know how to fight it. Our government is firmly in the control of the wealthiest citizens and I'm afraid the only way to stop them is through violence. But they've got the really big guns in their pocket, don't they? Once the middle class has been completely destroyed will we rise up and stop the thievery that has been rife since the 70's? Can we reign in the military industrial, prison industrial, drug control industrial, health care industrial, private school industrial, evangelical religion industrial cabal that is buying our government officials and running the show?

*I own a house a few blocks from Louisville's massive hospital campus. From the front door I can see nine different hospitals. There is a public housing project behind my house and all day you can see exhausted people (mostly women) trudging home to their horrendous subsidized housing wearing the scrubs they will still be wearing when they return to the hospital. This is because to "save costs" the fuckwads that run the hospitals require their employees to wash their own uniforms rather than running a high quality sterilizing laundry service themselves. These people walk back to work in their scrubs, picking up germs all along their walk as well as from their crappy apartments and then they go clean up around people in critical care, with compromized immune systems or in a generally weakened state. It's little wonder that hospitals are the most likely place to receive an infection.

**At this point in time, most police departments in this country have become victim of the profit motive, persuing the arbitrary enforcement of drug laws in pursuit of federal money despit the lack of proof that it does any good. Most broad studies of the issue show that our current draconian drug law enforcement is detrimental to society not only monetarily but societally as well. Other than the politicians that are elected on bullshit "get tough" agendas, the owners of pirvate prisons, and the cops that get nice toys to bust more people with, who profits from long prison times and arbitrary arrests of minorities for the use, possession, and distribution of drugs? Prohibition doesn't work. Give people the fucking drugs and let them use them as they wish and give them treatment when they want to quit. It must be cheaper than the enforcement and imprisonment method we're using now.

Banksta Please!

www.sinfest.net

Musicians Tell Republicans to Stop Using Their Music

When introducing the Nazi witch Sarah Palin as vice presidential candidate, the Republicans played the song "Barracuda." Heart were not happy. Neither was the band Van Halen happy about them playing "Right Now" as McCain walked on, and Jackson Browne was really pissed that they* used his song "Running On Empty" in a commercial. Also used without permission were the band Orleans's song "Still the One" (one of the co-writers is now a Democratic New York Congressman), and Franki Valli's song "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You."

What do you think McCain & Team's reaction was to the demands from the artists that they stop? Anyone? It was the same thing Republicans have said to everyone not "in the fold" for over a decade: "Fuck you." "Barracuda" is still pumping out at campaign stops featuring the wicked witch of the far north.

Heart
Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart have informed the McCain/Palin Campaign that Universal Music Publishing and Sony BMG have sent a cease-and-desist notice to not use one of Heart's classic songs "Barracuda," as the congratulatory theme for Sarah Palin. The Republican campaign did not ask for permission to use the song, nor would they have been granted that permission.
"We have asked the Republican campaign not to use our music. We hope our wishes will be honored."**

Van Halen
"Permission was not sought or granted nor would it have been given."

Jackson Browne
"We are confident that Jackson Browne will prevail in this lawsuit. Not only have Senator McCain and his agents plainly infringed Mr. Browne's copyright in Running On Empty, but the Federal Courts have long held that the unauthorized use of a famous singer's voice in a commercial constitutes a false endorsement and a violation of the singer's right of publicity," Lawrence Iser of the Santa Monica, California law firm Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert said in a press release. "In light of Jackson Browne's lifelong commitment to Democratic ideals and political candidates, the misappropriation of Jackson Browne's endorsement is entirely reprehensible, and I have no doubt that a jury will agree."

*Officially the Ohio State Republican Party in an ad against Obama.
**The song is still in use because the Republicans paid ASCAP, a corporation established to provide income from radio and other musical performance. Have I mentioned that our copyright laws are designed to enrich the ultrawealthy and have nothing to do with the artists that created the music?

CEO Madness

Check out this chart listing the 100 highest paid executives.

Note that number two raked in over 25 million dollars while running a company with $19 million in profits.


"Hi! I got stinking rich while causing the value of your retirement savings to collapse!"

Numbers six and seven are the CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collecting over $14 million each while losing $2 billion and $3.1 billion respectively. Closer examination shows that ten of the 100 top-paid executives worked for these two companies.

Looking at the amount all these people get paid makes me really angry because I know that there are hundreds if not thousands of workers under each of these people that are getting screwed one way or another and in many cases (like the health related and financial companies) there are millions of Americans being bankrupted or left destitute due to their practices. When the revolution comes their gated communities will not keep them safe.

Nasty Little Pig

Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch

This guy may be the perfect emblem of the Shrub administration. He has obstructed justice, perverted our elections, and has completely subverted the mission of his office. Despite appearing to be (or maybe because of being) a closeted fag, his first action upon taking office was to refuse to investigate discrimination based on sexual preference.

Will this finally be the damning link in the chain that will lead to the impeachment of the man that installed him? For two reasons it will not: 1) this Congress put the SOB in office. 2) not even taking us to war based on lies is enough.

It is too bad there will not be a revolution because it would be nice to see people like this guy, Ashcroft, Gonzalez, Bush, and Cheney lined up against the wall. It won't happen, though. We've got too many morons in pickup trucks that hate people that can think more than 8 hours into the future that believe narrow minded fuckers like these are somehow on their side.

We are a nation of imbeciles.

Can't Make it Up...

Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital

By Joe Bavier Tue Apr 22, 1:24 PM ET

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.

"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.

Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.