Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fight Back!

American Ghost Dancers

Nurses Rally for Robin Hood Tax on Wall St  (Robin, remember, shot them) More than 6,000 nurses and activists gathered at Daley Plaza in Chicago Friday to rock out with musician Tom Morello and call for a tax on financial speculation — a Robin Hood tax. This small sales tax on Wall Street trades could raise up to $350 billion a year in the U.S., money that American communities desperately need.  http://robinhoodtax.org/latest/national-nurses-united-bring-robin-hood-chicago

“The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.”   ― Gore Vidal

Congratulations on the publication of

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuisvfz3Aus

Hatred Brewing For Social Fascist Mandelaites and Tutu Fanatics and the ANC Mr. Sello was among tens of thousands of workers to walk off the job in the biggest wave of labor unrest to hit South Africa since the end of apartheid. Wildcat strikes by gold, platinum and iron ore miners have crippled one of South Africa’s most important industries, prompting the nation’s first credit rating downgrade in nearly two decades and a slide in the country’s currency, the rand, to a three-year low.
And the troubles are far from over. The truck drivers have ended their nearly three-week strike, but not before causing food and fuel shortages that sent shudders through an already struggling economy. The mine strikes have dragged on, and some municipal workers have announced plans to join the picket lines as well.
South Africa’s economy was already ailing. The crisis in Europe, its largest trading partner, has taken a grim toll. Amid the slump, hundreds of thousands of jobs have disappeared. Economists are cutting their already anemic growth forecasts for South Africa, the continent’s biggest economy.
Infighting among leaders of the ruling African National Congress has all but paralyzed the government’s response. Much of South Africa’s political elite are focusing on whether President Jacob Zuma’s deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe, or another rival will challenge him as head of the party and president of the country. In explaining its downgrade of South Africa, Moody’s said that it acted in part because of “increased concerns about South Africa’s future political stability.”
South African employers and unions have long had rancorous relations, and strikes are a common feature of life here. But this time seems to be different. While the unrest is specifically about pay, it has tapped a deep well of anger among the employed, who are frustrated with the African National Congress, which came to power in 1994 at the end of white rule promising “a better life for all.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/world/africa/unfulfilled-promises-are-replacing-prospects-of-a-better-life-in-south-africa.html?ref=global-home

October 14  1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U.S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane and its pilot fly over the island of Cuba and take photographs of Soviet missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads being installed and erected in Cuba.

1967 – The Vietnam War: The folk singer Joan Baez is arrested concerning a physical blockade of the U.S. Army’s induction center in Oakland, California.
1968 – Vietnam War: 27 soldiers are arrested at the Presidio of San Francisco in California for their peaceful protest of stockade conditions and the Vietnam War.

1983 – Maurice Bishop, Prime Minister of Grenada, is overthrown and later executed

The facts about the Grenada invasion  : The invasion of Grenada, more than 20 years ago, presaged many of the events that blowback on the US today: unilateral warfare, official deceit about the motives for war, a massive military moving against an imagined foe, stifling the press, leaders proclaiming their guidance from God, denials of human and civil rights, systematic torture and subsequent cover-ups-and a hero who refused to go along. Many of the players in the Bush administration who promise perpetual war today cut their teeth on the invasion of Grenada. It is more than worthwhile to review the events that lead to the upcoming trial.  http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/05/the-last-prisoners-of-the-cold-war-are-black/

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Chicago–the Strike is Over. Nationwide–back to producing the next generation of the empire’s warriors, workers, jobless, and prisoners.

What would You do if You Lived in Detroit and Had Kids? Most Parents would opt out of Worst School system in US (see the comments) Eight hundred residents were surveyed by land line and cellphone Sept. 22-25 by the Chicago-based Glengariff Group Inc. The survey, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, asked residents’ feelings about leadership, schools, transit, quality of life and overall optimism.
Of the residents polled, 79 percent said they would choose an option other than DPS for their child’s education, such as a charter school, a private school or a school outside Detroit.
Support for DPS has been strained as the district tries to redefine itself in the face of falling enrollment, low test scores and leadership turnover. School closures, teacher layoffs and academic changes also have frustrated parents.  http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121011/METRO01/210110335/1026/schools/Detroit-parents-embrace-school-choice-poll-says

Mitt the Unfit and Obamagogue–the Same on Education Obama, Romney have similar basic views on education. Both candidates want test scores to be part of teacher evaluations, support extra pay for effective instructors and back the growth of charter schools.  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-president-schools-20121012,0,350788.story

Edu-Saps Pontificate on Obamagogue/Mitt-the-Unfit School “Debate” Both support expanding educational options for families. President Obama did this, for example, by encouraging states to get rid of unnecessary caps on public charter schools through Race to the Top [grants]. At the same time, Gov. Romney supports dramatically expanding choices parents can make about where to send their kids to school. But he doesn’t tie that increased flexibility to strong rules ensuring any school — private or public — that takes the public funds will be held accountable for student learning.
Jonathan Kozol (millionaire and Obamagogue backer)
Author whose books about education include “Death at an Early Age” (1967) and “Savage Inequalities” (1991). His new book is “Fire in the Ashes.”
As we saw in Wisconsin, there is a constituency out there that would like to do away with public-sector unions. The teachers are the loudest of those unions. Romney could not do away with teachers unions, but I think he will do his very best to move us in that direction.
President Obama simply wants to challenge the teachers unions to be more flexible in their demands but obviously recognizes they have a useful role in our society.
I regret the President’s apparent willingness to continue relying on standardized exams in evaluating teachers because I think it’s a simplistic way of judging what happens in the classroom and excludes so many aspects of a good education that are not reduceable to numbers.
The President recognizes that a demoralized teaching force is not going to bring passionate determination to the education of children — no matter how you measure them, castigate them or properly criticize them.

Diane Ravitch (police agent loved by the NEA, praising God and Country)
Education historian and blogger whose books include “Death and Life of the Great American School System” (2010).Both support charters, which is privatization, and which do not get better test scores than public schools.Both support test-based evaluation of teachers, which has never been shown to accomplish anything other than to demoralize teachers.
Both support carrots (merit pay) and sticks (closing schools like shoe stores that don’t make a profit). Merit pay has been tried again and again for nearly a century. It never works.
Both emphasize test scores as the measure of good education, which they are not. Neither talks about the impact that poverty has on children’s readiness to learn.
Three big differences:
1. Romney supports vouchers; Obama does not.
2. Romney embraces privatization; Obama has offered only half-hearted support via privately managed charters.
3. Romney wants to give the student loans back to the banks and provide no help for college students drowning in debt. Obama took the program away from the banks and understands that students need financial aid. All the talk about boosting college-going rates is hollow, if students can’t pay for it.   www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-schools-box-20121012,0,247129.story?page=2

Michelle Rhee (shabby hustling twit)
Chief executive, StudentsFirst; former chancellor, District of Columbia Public Schools  Both support expanding educational options for families. President Obama did this, for example, by encouraging states to get rid of unnecessary caps on public charter schools through Race to the Top [grants]. At the same time, Gov. Romney supports dramatically expanding choices parents can make about where to send their kids to school. But he doesn’t tie that increased flexibility to strong rules ensuring any school — private or public — that takes the public funds will be held accountable for student learning.

LA Extends Superintendent with Fake PhD L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy has received a one-year contract extension, but was unable to achieve ambitious performance targets that would have triggered a salary bonus.His contract now runs through June 2015, with an annual salary that remains at $330,000.   www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-deasy-20121011,0,2936197.story

They Dope Bicyclists, Horses, Ballplayers, and Children The pills boost focus and impulse control in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Although A.D.H.D is the diagnosis Dr. Anderson makes, he calls the disorder “made up” and “an excuse” to prescribe the pills to treat what he considers the children’s true ill — poor academic performance in inadequate schools.
“I don’t have a whole lot of choice,” said Dr. Anderson, a pediatrician for many poor families in Cherokee County, north of Atlanta. “We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive to modify the kid’s environment. So we have to modify the kid.”   www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/health/attention-disorder-or-not-children-prescribed-pills-to-help-in-school.html?ref=education

Texas Schools Attack Un-Microchipped Students A school district in Texas came under fire earlier this year when it announced that it would require students to wear microchip-embedded ID cards at all times. Now, students who refuse to be monitored say they are feeling the repercussions.
Since October 1, students at John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School in San Antonio, Texas, have been asked to attend class with photo ID cards equipped with radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips to track every pupil’s location. Educators insist that the endeavor is being rolled out in Texas to stem the rampant truancy devastating the school’s funding. If the program is judged successful, the RFID chips could soon come to 112 schools in all and affect nearly 100,000 students.
Students who refuse to walk the school halls with the card in their pocket or around their neck claim they are being tormented by instructors, and are barred from participating in certain school functions. Some also said they were turned away from common areas like cafeterias and libraries.  http://rt.com/usa/news/texas-school-id-hernandez-033/

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

“Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war;

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth

With carrion men, groaning for burial”

Julius Caesar

Act 3, scene 1

William Shakespeare

750  Thousand Witless Nationalists Will Attend the Miramar Airshow this weekend and cheer the Wall of Fire—their Empire’s exploding Napalm military air shows aren’t really about extreme flying. They’re about recruiting, taxpayer support and a thank you to the public for all those care packages sent to the war zone and training flights that made the living room windows rattle.  http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/oct/11/blue-angels-the-star-of-air-show/

Never Forget

The US is arming Al Quada in Syria. Armed AQ in Libya, now spilling into Mali. Armed AQ in AfPak. It follows, a vote for Mitt-the-Unfit, or Obamagogue, is a vote for AQ. This man is winning. The US is mired in hopeless wars, bankrupt economically and morally as the empire bombs its way to oblivion

Radio Interview==James Petras on AQ and the US Dr. James Petras joins us to discuss the changing contemporary context of imperial domination, the demise of longstanding client regimes, and the previous significant ties between western imperial powers and Islamist movements and regimes, and how, faced with the ouster of Mubarak, in Egypt, Ali in Tunisia and Saleh in Yemen, mass protests in Morocco and Algeria, the US-EU have now turned to conservative Muslim leaders who are willing to work within the existing state institutional framework, uphold the capitalist order and align with the empire against anti-imperial movements and states. He shares with us his evaluation of the ‘Moderately Islamic’ Government of Turkey as an example of Israel-approved US-EU alignment against democratic and anti-imperial movements. Dr. Petras talks about the western-led operations and regime change in Libya, Syria as a collateral damage and more!  http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/tag/turkey/page/2/

Taliban Are Coming. Taliban Are Coming America’s longest war entered its 12th year Sunday, with the anniversary marked by a Taliban statement claiming that NATO forces are “fleeing Afghanistan” in “humiliation and disgrace”.
The US led the invasion on October 7, 2001 to topple the Taliban government for harbouring Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.The Taliban were quickly routed, but launched an insurgency that grew in strength over the years until NATO had some 130,000 troops from 50 countries defending the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
The troops have now begun pulling out and all foreign combat forces will be gone by the end of 2014 according to a withdrawal schedule agreed by the US and NATO.  http://www.france24.com/en/20121007-taliban-mock-us-afghan-war-enters-12th-year

US Military Hits Ground in Jordan, prepping for Syria The United States military has secretly sent a task force of more than 150 planners and other specialists to Jordan to help the armed forces there handle a flood of Syrian refugees, prepare for the possibility that Syria will lose control of its chemical weapons and be positioned should the turmoil in Syria expand into a wider conflict.   www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/world/middleeast/us-military-sent-to-jordan-on-syria-crisis.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

Bill Blum on the Farce at Democracy Now Democracy Now — long a standard of progressive radio-TV news — has been almost as bad as CNN and al Jazeera (the latter owned by Qatar, an active military participant in both Libya and Syria). The heavy bias of Democracy Now in this area goes back to the very beginning of the Arab Spring. The program made some unfortunate choices in its mideast news correspondents, seemingly only because they spoke Arabic and/or had contacts in the region. Where have you gone Amy Goodman? RT (Russia Today) has stood almost alone amongst English-language television news sources in offering an alternative to the official Western line.   Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research, notes that “Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria are but a sequence of stops on a global roadmap of permanent war that also swings through Iran. Russia and China are the terminal targets.” When the Syrian government is overthrown — and in all likelihood the Western forces will not relent until that happens — the al Qaeda types will be dominant in the Syrian version of Benghazi. The American ambassador would be well advised to not visit.  http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer109.html

After Giving Peace Prize to War Criminals Kissinger and Obamagogue, Nobel Awards Euronazis Thomas Kirchner in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung describes the EU as a “quarrelling bunch of more or less bankrupt states” and says the Nobel committee “must be careful if it wants its decisions to be taken seriously for much longer”.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19936165

Libya, Obamagogue’s War, Disintegrating After Libyan Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur named a cabinet which entirely cut out the pro-NATO bloc, his days were numbered. Just days later, the Libyan parliament has passed a vote of no confidence, forcing him from office.  Abushagur was only prime minister for a few weeks, having been elected on Sept 12 and finally proposing his cabinet last week. Faced with protests, he was given 72 hours to name a new cabinet, and when that failed the vote of no confidence was held.
His ouster means the Libyan National Congress will have to find a new prime ministerial candidate, who will likewise struggle to satisfy the independent-heavy parliament with a broad cabinet.
There are no indications so far who the next candidate will be, but the pro-NATO bloc the National Forces Alliance is said to be in contact with the Muslim Brotherhood on a mutually acceptable candidate.  http://news.antiwar.com/2012/10/07/libyan-national-congress-ousts-new-prime-minister/

Who Lost Kandahar? A suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up at a local intelligence office in southern Afghanistan, in the deadliest of three attacks that left at least nine people dead on Saturday, officials said. Six people — four Afghan intelligence officers, a coalition service member and a civilian employee working for the coalition — died in the bombing, which took place in the Maruf district of Kandahar province.   www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/blasts-in-southern-afghanistan-kill-2-afghan-policemen-3-intelligence-officers/2012/10/13/6de08702-1525-11e2-9a39-1f5a7f6fe945_story.html

HillBillary Dodges Hearing on Lies About Benghazi Ambassador’s Death Clinton will not appear at a Wednesday oversight hearing on the Libya attack, where House Republicans have said they will question the State Department’s security preparations and the administration’s account of the attack. The State Department will instead send a trusted career diplomat along with three security officials.   www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/benghazi-attack-may-mar-clintons-legacy/2012/10/09/b7a8e382-1220-11e2-a16b-2c110031514a_story.html

Brits Stored Weapons In US Libya Consulate (they’re gone now) There have already been plenty of reasons to question the US decision to leave their Bengazi consulate entirely unguarded for weeks after the September 11 attack. Apparently rocket launchers are now among them.  The site, which wasn’t particularly well defended to begin with, was apparently used by the British government to store its weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, after Britain had decided to abandon the city.
Unsurprisingly the consulate, which was subject to considerable looting over the ensuing weeks, wasn’t such a great storage location, and Britain is now reporting that the weapons are “missing” with no clue where they might have gone.
Britain’s decision to flee the city because of soaring violence had already been a major question for the US State Department, in asking why they decided not only to say, but to refuse to increase security at the consulate.

Merc Firms Guard Consulates on Lowest Bidder Basis–Libya: Lost amid the election-year wrangling over the militants’ attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya, is a complex back story involving growing regional resentment against heavily armed American private security contractors, increased demands on State Department resources and mounting frustration among diplomats over ever-tighter protections that they say make it more difficult to do their jobs. which the United States ambassador and three other Americans were killed, come at the end of a 10-year period in which the State Department — sending its employees into a lengthening list of war zones and volatile regions — has regularly ratcheted up security for its diplomats. The aggressive measures used by private contractors eventually led to shootings in Afghanistan and Iraq that provoked protests, including an episode involving guards from an American security company, Blackwater, that left at least 17 Iraqis dead in Baghdad’s Nisour Square.
The ghosts of that shooting clearly hung over Benghazi. Earlier this year, the new Libyan government had expressly barred Blackwater-style armed contractors from flooding into the country. “The Libyans were not keen to have boots on the ground,” one senior State Department official said.
That forced the State Department to rely largely on its own diplomatic security arm, which officials have said lacks the resources to provide adequate protection in war zones. ….Only the American Embassies in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are exempted from awarding security contracts to the lowest bidder. Dangerous posts are allowed to consider “best value” contracting instead, according to a State Department inspector general’s report in February.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/world/africa/private-security-hovers-as-issue-after-embassy-attack-in-benghazi-libya.html

Contractors and Militarists Sentenced in Another Huge Fraud Scheme A federal judge gave two former civilian Navy employees and three North County defense contractors prison sentences ranging from 18 months to more than three years for their roles in a years-long bribery and fraud scheme at North Island Naval Air Station.
U.S. District Court Judge Larry A. Burns also sentenced two other former Navy workers to probation that included spending 30 consecutive weekends at the downtown federal jail.
The sentences came in a case in which prosecutors said more than $1 million in gifts — including cash, gift cards for Home Depot, Lowe’s and the Apple store, and home remodeling work — was given to the Navy employees over at least a six-year period. And the case is far from over.
The owners of two of the defense contractors involved in the scheme have also been indicted on bribery, money laundering and fraud charges.
The case is also widening. On Oct. 3, federal prosecutors charged a fifth Navy worker, Kenneth Ramos, with conspiracy to commit bribery and bribery of a public official. Court records said from 2007 to 2011 he received more than $10,000 in cash, jewelry and electronics from one of the defense contracts, keeping some for himself and distributing some gifts to others at the base.
The most severe sentence Burns handed down on Tuesday was for Donald Vangundy, 54, of Chula Vista, who received 41 months in prison. Prosecutors say he took $413,000 in gifts from defense contractors over the years, pressuring them to provide the goods in order to keep doing business with the Navy.    http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/oct/09/navy-employee-gets-41-months-prison/

US/Iran at War in Cyberspace (since 1979) American intelligence officials are increasingly convinced that Iran was the origin of a serious wave of network attacks that crippled computers across the Saudi oil industry and breached financial institutions in the United States, episodes that contributed to a warning last week from Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta that the United States was at risk of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor.”   www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/world/middleeast/us-suspects-iranians-were-behind-a-wave-of-cyberattacks.html?ref=global-home

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqVWZ-VOwWw

How Wall Street Thinks. We are Smarter, better and richer than You: Ira Glass
And you found these guys, and you recorded conversations. And these guys very much felt like they are the victims. They are being scapegoated by the federal government.
Bar Patron 1
The government must, must, must have an enemy. Because if they don’t have an enemy, they’re the enemy. So Wall Street is the current enemy, OK?
Adam Davidson
So it was three guys, and it was actually kind of moving. It’s right after September 11. They all worked together in, I think it was, the second tower of the World Trade Centers. On September 11, they’re on the 58th floor, One guy was saying that he didn’t want to leave the building. And the other guy told him he had to leave, so every year they have a drink. He buys his friend a drink for saving his life. They now all work for different companies, but they get together around September 11 every year.
Ira Glass
Now, I’ve listened to this tape before. We walked into the studio, and we’re just going to play snippets here. But it was interesting. It’s interesting hearing it, how at no point will they cop to the notion that they benefited from the government’s actions. Even once.
Bar Patron 2
You think everybody that works on Wall Street has money from the bailout? Is that what you really think?
Jane Feltes
I think the reason Wall Street still exists, in this form today, where you’re all sitting in a bar drinking beers–
Ira Glass
Now, I should say you guys are shouting not because you’re angry, but because it’s just really loud.
Adam Davidson
Yeah, it was a really loud bar. It was packed. And we’ve been arguing with these guys. We’ve been going back and forth for quite awhile at this point.
Adam Davidson
So you’re an institutional investor, you work for a credit rating agency. What do you do?
Bar Patron 2
I work in a bank on Wall Street.
Adam Davidson
All right. I can guarantee your bank would’ve gone under. Your stock valuation would’ve collapsed. Your credit rating agencies–
Bar Patron 3
Are out of business.
Adam Davidson
–would’ve been out of business. All three of you directly benefited from the bailout.
Bar Patron 3
What?
Bar Patron 1
You’re crazy!
Adam Davidson
How am I crazy?
Bar Patron 1
You’re crazy, babe! So what do you do? Don’t bail it out? That’s the question. Do you not bail it out?
Jane Feltes
I don’t know.
Bar Patron 1
OK. So you let it tank. It’s up to you.
Jane Feltes
I would like to bail it out, and I would like to walk into a bar in lower Manhattan, and have one of you thank me. Thank you, I still have my job and I appreciate it.
Bar Patron 1
Why do you want that?
Jane Feltes
You guys still have your jobs.
Bar Patron 2
Because I’m a smart person.
Jane Feltes
And you think you got to keep your job because you’re smart? You got to keep your job because you guys got bailed out. You guys got bailed–
Bar Patron 2
No, no, no, no, no. That’s not what happened with my job. I mean, survival of the fittest.
Bar Patron 1
Because I’m smarter than the average person.
Adam Davidson
And even if the government bails out your industry that failed, you still say it’s because you’re smarter.
Bar Patron 1
No. The government bailing out an industry was out of necessity for whatever the situation was. The fact that I benefited from that is because I’m smart. I took advantage of a situation. 95% of the population doesn’t have that common sense. The only reason I’ve been doing this for so long is because I must be smarter than the next guy. www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/415/transcript

Fighting the German/Euro Attacks on their Lives, Greeks recall the Fourth Reich For left-wing parties that often rail against the United States, Germany has already become the new target here. Anti-Merkel chants echoed through the streets of Athens on Tuesday, and the searing scent of tear gas lingered. A walkout by state workers temporarily shuttered schools, hospitals and transit stations. Some protesters carried banners depicting the German chancellor in an SS uniform, under the words, “No to the Fourth Reich.”
Along with the usual cast of protesters were well-dressed, middle-class Greeks such as Monolis and Anastasia Moraitis. The two retirees, in their mid-60s, have seen their pensions cut 35 percent under several waves of German-backed austerity here, and they came out to vent their rage.
“I believe the Germans have been and still are the enemies of the Greeks,” said Monolis Moraitis as his wife and other bystanders nodded in agreement.   www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/germany-faces-image-problem-in-greece-thanks-to-its-growing-clout/2012/10/09/5d39d49c-115d-11e2-9a39-1f5a7f6fe945_story.html

Wells Fargo Joins the Looter List The U.S. government is going after a further alleged scoundrel from the housing bust. The victim, as in earlier cases, is the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which paid out millions in claims on loans that never should have been issued. What may surprise people is the alleged villain: Wells Fargo (WFC), the bank that counts Warren Buffet as its largest shareholder.
In a civil mortgage fraud lawsuit, filed on Oct. 9 in U.S. District Court in New York, Wells Fargo is accused of fraudulently approving government-backed mortgages, then turning around to collect government insurance when the dubious loans defaulted.
At first glance, one might assume this is just another symptom of the headache the bank inherited with Wachovia, the failing rival it acquired for $15.1 billion four years ago. But as my Bloomberg News colleagues Chris Dolmetsch and Dakin Campbell note, any culture at fault here would stem from Wells Fargo. The complaint points to “a longstanding and reckless trifecta of deficient training, deficient underwriting, and deficient disclosure, all while relying on the convenient backstop of government insurance,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.   www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-09/is-wells-fargo-another-bad-actor-in-the-housing-crisis

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

China Builds Nationalist Frenzy vs Japan. Man in Toyota attacked by mob, paralyzed. China censors video of attack Although the video has yet again been deleted [censored], still I’m going to post a set of photos: Remember this face, it is this guy who used a U-shaped metal lock to brutally beat the Xi’an Japanese car owner Li Jianli’s head, while Li Jianli was even saying “I’m also Diaoyu Islands activist/supporter, I’m also anti-Japan”, but in vain, and the sound of bone breaking could be heard. Right now the right side of Li Jianli’s body is paralyzed, and has lost a part of his speaking ability. The most frightening thing was not the violence, but the violence being called natural and just.   www.chinasmack.com/2012/videos/xian-japanese-car-owner-beaten-video-exposed-then-censored.html

Another Drunk, Degenerate Secret Service Agent (who has an Uzi) A member of US President Barack Obama’s security detail has been handed over to the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility after cops in Miami caught the secret service officer passed out on the sidewalk in a drunken stupor early Friday.
Officer Aaron Francis Engler of the US Secret Service was arrested in Miami, Florida at around 7 a.m. Friday morning after local authorities spotted him lying on the ground near an intersection with bloodshot eyes and smelling strongly of alcohol.
According to the police report, Mr. Engler seemed passed out drunk but became aggressive when officers came to check on him.
“[Engler] started arguing with me and throwing his arms around while I was conducting a pat down,” the arresting officer writes in the official report. “At this point motorists traveling in the area were stopping to watch his actions.”  http://rt.com/usa/news/secret-service-miami-engler-318/

Solidarity for Never

AFGE Secretary Pleads out On September 14, Gloria Dickinson, former secretary-treasurer of American Federation of Government Employees Local 421, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to entering false statements in financial records of the Washington, D.C. union. She had been charged on September 6. The charge and guilty plea follow an investigation by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards.

Spy versus Spy

s3.documentcloud.org/documents/238963/huge-c-i-a-operation-reported-in-u-s-against.pdf

The Magical Mystery Tour

Einstein–Religion is a Product of Human Weakness A letter in which Albert Einstein dismissed the idea of God as a product of human weakness is being sold on eBay for a starting price of $3 million.
The letter, handwritten in 1954, a year before Einstein’s death, was addressed to philosopher Eric Gutkind. In it, Einstein discussed his views on religion, including calling “the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”
An anonymous collector who bought the letter in 2008 is putting it on sale on online auction site eBay from Monday. The auction closes Oct. 18.
Eric Gazin, a spokesman for the sale, said Sunday: “With the interest in Einstein, along with the questions this (letter) touches on, we feel it is well worth the price.”   www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/10/07/world/europe/ap-einstein-letter.html?_r=1&hp

Rabbi Sentenced for Selling Fake Holocaust Torahs Jewish donors opened their pocketbooks wide to Maryland Rabbi Menachem Youlus, the self-proclaimed “Jewish Indiana Jones.” He spun cloak-and-dagger tales of “rescuing” sacred Torah scrolls lost during the Holocaust, but those tales were lies.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/maryland-rabbi-who-peddled-fake-holocaust-torahs-sentenced-to-four-years-for-fraud/2012/10/11/fd1ca612-13d1-11e2-bf18-a8a596df4bee_story.html?hpid=z6

Missionaries Raped by Hookers Two Chrisitan pastors in Nigeria claimed they were raped by prostitutes while on a mission to a local brothel.   The incident, which has been discovered by the pastors’ home church in the Delta State, occurred when the two men went on a mission to try to convert sex workers in the town of Cable Point near the Niger River delta, a notorious stop-over for hoodlums, according to The Nigerian Voice.
This is not an unusual circumstance but the event did take an unusual turn. While preaching, the men of the cloth were allegedly seduced by the prostitutes, whose charms were apparently enough to overwhelm even the most devout.   www.ibtimes.com/prostitutes-rape-pastors-burn-their-bibles-nigeria-377648

Italy’s Organzied Mystics to be Taxed??? aly’s Catholic Church will be forced to pay taxes starting in 2013 after the EU pressured the country’s government to pass a controversial law stripping the Church of its historic property tax exemption.
The Catholic Church in Italy is excluded from paying taxes on its land if at least a part of a Church property is used non-commercially – for instance, a chapel in a bed-and-breakfast.
“The regulatory framework will be definite by January 1, 2013 – the start of the fiscal year – and will fully respect the [European] Community law,” Italian premier Mario Monti’s government said in a statement on Tuesday.
The move could net Italy revenues of 500 million to 2 billion euros annually across the country, municipal government associations said. The extra income from previously exempt properties in Rome alone – including hotels, restaurants and sports centers – could reach 25.5 million euros a year, La Repubblica daily newspaper reported.  http://rt.com/news/italy-church-tax-exemption-339/

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

Cows With Guns

Don’t Eat Bugs til you Die As a Florida medical examiner tries to determine how 32-year-old Edward Archbold died after eating insects during a contest to win a snake, people around the country are asking: Why?
Why would anyone eat a live cockroach? Why did he die when several others in the contest ate the same bugs without incident? What inspired Archbold — who was described by the snake store owner as “the life of the party” — to shovel handfuls of crickets, worms and cockroaches into his mouth?   www.freep.com/article/20121009/NEWS01/121009079/roach-eating-contest-winner-dies-florida?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

October 14  2003 – Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman becomes infamously known as the scapegoat for the Cubs losing game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series to the Florida Marlins. This has become known as the Steve Bartman incident.

So Long