Contemplating Reality vs. Our Perceptions

By Jolly Roger, Reconstitution 2.0
Saturday, June 27th, 2009

This isn’t normally a place that comments on celebrities; the problems of our country, and the world, are too serious, and too menacing, for me to spend a lot of time on “Jon and Kate,” or Lindsay Lohan, or Britney Spears, or any of the other tools the MSM has used on us over the last few years to keep us away from what the moronic monkey was doing to us.

But I think that there are parallels in our reactions to the death of Michael Jackson and the situation our nation faces overall.

[Read the rest at Reconstitution]

Could it be more obvious?

I applaud the Iranian people expressing their desire for change. We certainly have that in common. I mean, take Obama. Please. You can have him, because he used that desire to become the new front man for the Oligarchy that has the real power and control. A mafia and their consigliere.

We also have in common that no matter what we do, short of complete refusal to allow the machinery to continue to operate, we will not get anything remotely close to change for the better. We'll get propaganda. We'll get continuing wars by whatever means -- media manipulation, fomented problems (election theft, currently), brain-washing storylines, and solutions that have already been decided upon -- new freedom-limiting laws, new wars, less tolerance for dissent.

Iran's election and three towers falling at free fall into their own footprints have much in common -- lots of behind the scenes activity directing events into a confluence that erupts into the media and your consciousness as the latest outrage by those Middle Eastern haters of freedom.

Predictably, the solution to Iran's internal problem, of which so far there is far less proof than the two stolen elections by the U.S. "Council of Experts" (2000) and by U.S. extremists (2004), is the same as has been the plan all along -- isolate them, i.e. soften them up before sending in the military.

Obama, Merkel Say Iran May Face Global Isolation

By Roger Runningen and Kate Andersen

President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Iran’s government to halt the violent crackdown on demonstrators and said the Persian Gulf nation must be blocked from gaining a nuclear weapon.

Obama, speaking at a joint news conference with Merkel at the White House, called the Iranian government’s response to protests over the June 12 presidential elections “outrageous.”

“A government that treats its own citizens with that kind of ruthlessness and violence and that cannot deal with peaceful protesters who are trying to have their voices heard in an equally peaceful way I think has moved outside of universal norms,” Obama said.

Merkel said the Iranian people have a right “to have their votes be counted” and to see that the election results are substantiated.

Both leaders said Iran must not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and that there will continue to be attempts to engage the government in Tehran on that issue. Obama repeated his warning that a nuclear weapon in Iran would trigger an arms race in the Middle East that would destabilize the region.

Merkel said the Iranian nuclear program “must be stopped.”

more

Kudos to WhatReallyHappened.com

The web site that brought you the fat Osama and numerous other attempts to help you trust that your eyes aren't lying exposes embarassing, agenda-driven mistake by BBC on the Iran kerfuffle.

The site took BBC to task for labeling a photo of an Ahmadinejad rally as a Mousavi rally. And it notes the LA Times did the same thing with a slightly different photo of the same rally.

See the amazing details here. You won't believe your eyes.

Your Tax Dollars At Work
-- by Dave Johnson

Hey, suckers, take a look at where your money is going: Goldman to make record bonus payout,

"Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year..."

The bailouts were a wonderful corporate feast. They thank you.

more

Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM
by Greg Palast
Monday, June 1, 2009

Screw the autoworkers.
They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.

Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders – led by Morgan and Citibank – expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.

The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.

I smell a rat.

Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.

When a company goes bankrupt, everyone takes a hit: fair or not, workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get fragments of what's left. That's the law. What workers don't lose are their pensions (including old-age health funds) already taken from their wages and held in their name.

But not this time. Stevie the Rat has a different plan for GM: grab the pension funds to pay off Morgan and Citi.

Here's the scheme: Rattner is demanding the bankruptcy court simply wipe away the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance. Cash in the insurance fund would be replaced by GM stock. The percentage may be 17% of GM's stock - or 25%. Whatever, 17% or 25% is worth, well ... just try paying for your dialysis with 50 shares of bankrupt auto stock.

Yet Citibank and Morgan, says Rattner, should get their whole enchilada - $6 billion right now and in cash - from a company that can't pay for auto parts or worker eye exams.

Preventive Detention for Pensions

So what's wrong with seizing workers' pension fund money in a bankruptcy? The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it's illegal.


In 1974, after a series of scandalous take-downs of pension and retirement funds during the Nixon era, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. ERISA says you can't seize workers' pension funds (whether monthly payments or health insurance) any more than you can seize their private bank accounts. And that's because they are the same thing: workers give up wages in return for retirement benefits.

The law is darn explicit that grabbing pension money is a no-no. Company executives must hold these retirement funds as "fiduciaries." Here's the law, Professor Obama, as described on the government's own web site under the heading, "Health Plans and Benefits."

"The primary responsibility of fiduciaries is to run the plan solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits."

Every business in America that runs short of cash would love to dip into retirement kitties, but it's not their money any more than a banker can seize your account when the bank's a little short. A plan's assets are for the plan's members only, not for Mr. Dimon nor Mr. Rubin.

Yet, in effect, the Obama Administration is demanding that money for an elderly auto worker's spleen should be siphoned off to feed the TARP babies. Workers go without lung transplants so Dimon and Rubin can pimp out their ride. This is another "Guantanamo" moment for the Obama Administration - channeling Nixon to endorse the preventive detention of retiree health insurance.


more

We don't have a left and right party in this country anymore

We have a center-right party and a crazy party
--Bill Maher

"Shouldn't there be one party that unambiguously supports cutting military spending? Straight up in favor of gun control, gay marriage, higher taxes on the rich, universal healthcare, legalizing pot, and steep, direct taxing of polluters?"

"These aren't radical ideas. The majority of Americans are either already for them, or would be if they were properly argued and defended; and what we need is an actual progressive party to represent the millions of Americans who aren't being served by the Democrats."

via Raw Story

"Not even Jesus could reverse the decline in the US"

The world economy is not only showing few signs of recovery, but we are also looking at the end of the American century, according to German author and economist William Engdahl in an interview with Russia Today. That's courtesy of the Oligarchic grip on our government that Bagman Obama is facilitating.