Things I Make While Not Bashing NeoCons - Part 2

Since I haven't posted any of these in a while - Dust Collectors:

More here: Things I Make While Not Bashing NeoCons - Part 1

(Click on images to view larger versions.)

America's New President

Visit the new White House Web site.

I hope this means we can say Goodbye to Cowboy Diplomacy, Robber Baron Economics, Perverted Justice, Partisan Science and Poison Food.

Bush Recap

As the last days of the Bush administration grind to a long overdue and tedious end it behooves us to recap the timeline of chaotic events which led us to this fateful week.

An interesting overview of the Bush Years:
The Farewell Chronicles at The Daily Beast

Israel secretly requests weapons, refueling equipment, and permission to fly over Iraqi airspace in order to target suspected enrichment and weapons sites in Iran. Contrary to official rhetoric towards those ends, the administration says "Hell No!":
U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site at The New York Times

With unemployment at a 30 year high, health care costs rocketing beyond the means of many, and employer provided benefits for the working class reduced, Bush is now concerned about health care for those who are "not his base"?
Expansion of Clinics Shapes Bush Legacy a NYT piece via The NC Reflector

Could it be that, at long last, a bit of introspection and logic has permeated this lame duck presidency and is this an overly tardy concern for their legacy, have they simply grown less callow or, like a stopped clock twice a day, the odds were that something had to eventually go right in this dysfunctional administration?

So whadda ya gonna do about it?

While reflecting on the last year, and possibly a few more as well, I can't help but breath a bit easier knowing that BushCo has been partially ejected from the engineers seat of the speeding train of social and economic upheaval; yet watching Democrats flagellate their way into self-destruct mode leaves little hope for improvement. I certainly hope that one of the major components of Change I Can Believe In as promised by the Obama administration involves Getting Their Act Together. It's not looking so good thus far...

One of the primary issues confronting the US is the imploding economy which has been listing progressively for years. Contrary to common assumption this current state of affairs was not unforeseeable, nor was it unavoidable. Most of your elected leaders have consistently kowtowed to the interests of greed and high profit margins by allowing millions of manufacturing jobs to vacate the country; leading to multi-trillion dollar deficits with Mainland China. They have allowed speculative smoke and mirror trading bubbles and ponzi schemes to topple Wall Street and they have blatantly ignored billions in fraud, waste, and incompetence while bleeding the public till in the name of "National Security". In short, the majority of your beltway insiders are corrupt, incompetent, and utterly complicit. They are serving those who elect them - K Street corporate interests with buckets of money to throw at elections - not you or I. Joe the Plumber isn't even on their radar, with the sole exception of verbal crumbs of hope they toss out at election time - which are quickly forgotten once back in session. These people are primarily concerned about maintaining their cushy positions in Congress, their taxpayer-funded lifetime heath care, and "growing" their portfolios of favoritism and insider dealings. Most have become so bold, so arrogant, so unapologetic concerning their unethical, crony dealings that a common response in today's political climate is "Don't like it? Whadda ya gonna do about it? And by the way, I'm going to get you fired if you don't leave this alone". Illinois' Blogojevich and Georgia's "Sonny" Perdue both demonstrate an eerie resemblance in this regard. While Illinois residents are a bit quicker to catch on to such skullduggery, Georgians are notoriously poor at spotting, or holding accountable, the crooks they (re)elect on a regular basis. Which explains why the GOP has such a strong hold on and invests so much energy into the south. Georgia is also one of the most predatory, citizen and consumer rights unfriendly states in the nation.

While Blogo may eventually be ousted, Perdue continues to flagrantly violate the public trust by selling public use lands to private developers. His latest land grab for corporate interests involves Jekyll Island, a barrier island off the coast of GA. Under the guise of "revitalization", miles of prime, public oceanfront property is being turned over for the next 50 years to Linger Longer, a company owned by Mercer Reynolds. Reynolds is a well known Republican fundraiser who contributed several hundred million dollars to the Bush 2004 reelection campaign, and of course, lesser amounts to Perdue himself. What does the public get, you ask? 1% of net condo sales, 3.5% of motel/hotel rental receipts - but only after 4 years of profits; 10 years on food and beverage. This is NOT a good deal for the citizens of GA who will lose all free access to these public park lands. Add this to the Oaky Woods debacle and several crony deals involving Florida developers, and you can plainly see who is zoomin' who. But ignorant Georgians would rather argue about Rebel Flags and Them Uppity Blacks than their own well being; and the press presents a virtual blackout - Big Surprise.

But back to the employment dilemma. These mobsters have been complicit in the gutting of the country's infrastructure of manufacturing; iron, steel, textiles, electronics, phone support, toys, printing, plastics, machine parts and equipment, tools, screws and nails, and even the much lauded savior of the early 2000 economy: Information Technology. It's Gone. And now we argue over why there is rising unemployment? Get serious. There is no easy cure for the gasping chest wound that was once the US economy as this situation has been years in the making, but a good start would be a cost of living tariff on imported goods. US workers cannot compete with 50 cent an hour workers - Ever. (Perhaps if housing, food, fuel and power were to drop to 1910 levels, but I don't foresee that happening anytime soon.) Small businesses are disappearing in lieu of large corporate interests, and staggering mediocrity, low wages, and poverty are the end result.

Is any real, meaningful reform likely to occur? Probably not, and we will continue to dole out grossly inflationary, stop gap measures such as hundred billion dollar bailouts that serve only those who created the problem in the first place. The best thing that has happened as of late is Wall Street collapsing like the house of cards it is and hitting a few of these maggots in the wallets. Perhaps it will wake a few people up before it is too late - if it's not already. Short term thinking, avarice, and vulture capitalism is methodically destroying this country brick by brick; family by family. What happened to common sense and patriotism? It long ago took a back seat to profit. Take a look at Dick Cheney's investment portfolio to see just how hopeful these folks are about the future of this country.

So whadda ya gonna do about it?

Bayer Knowingly Sold HIV-Contaminated Vaccines

In the preceding vein of unethical and corrupt corporate behavior, we have this dated but relative little tidbit:
Bayer Knowingly Sold HIV-Contaminated Vaccines, Say Internal Documents

Here's a little-known truth about Bayer that needs to be revisited. In 2006, it was discovered that Bayer found out a vaccine it was selling in the United States was accidentally contaminated with HIV.

In order to cover its tracks, say the journalists in this video (below), Bayer pulled the vaccines off the market and sold them to consumers in Japan, France, Spain and other countries, where hemophiliacs were then contaminated with HIV due to the vaccine.

Video: Bayer Sells AIDS-Infected Drug Banned in U.S. in Europe, Asia

Unearthed documents show that the drug company Bayer sold millions of dollars worth of an injectable blood-clotting medicine - Factor VIII concentrate, intended for hemophiliacs - to Asian, Latin American, and some European countries in the mid-1980s, although they knew that it was tainted with AIDS. Bayer knew about the fact that the drug was tainted and told the FDA to keep things under wraps while they made a profit off of a drug that infected its patients. If these allegations are true, then both Bayer and the FDA are at fault for this catastrophe. FDA regulators helped to keep the continued sales hidden, asking the company that the problem be 'quietly solved without alerting the Congress, the medical community and the public,' according to the minutes of a 1985 meeting.

Which begs the question, Just how much money do you need before you stop killing for profit? Apparently, quite a bit. Criminal.

Republicans Reduced to Potted Plants

"Republicans Reduced to Potted Plants" screamed the headline in the unsolicited email from NetRightNation. It seems that an unidentified prankster signed me up for this drivel, which arrives just in time for the spam filter to dump it where it belongs - the bit bucket. Curiosity got the best of me, however, and I decided to find out just where this crap originated. One name is prominent, aside from the Adam Bitely bylines: Carter Clews.

Seems Mr. Clews has an exciting history of questionable business practices and vacillating loyalties centered around the Republican party, in addition to being the registrant of record for the domain NetRightNation.com. Why anyone would consider this appropriate for my edification remains a mystery, even more so than The Drudge Report which has been shoved in my face more times than I care to recount.

So go have a look at Carter Clews background and watch for his tripe in your inbox.

And for the record, I think that most GOP members are quite lucky to be treated as well as potted plants. I would have drawn and quartered the lot of them for treason - just before planting them 6 feet under.

Sacred Cows - Part II

This entry into the Georgia Hall of Shame is dedicated to P. Harris Hines, ex-Cobb County Superior Court Judge, and George H. Carley, ex-Georgia Appellate Court Judge - both of which now park their crony butts on the bench of the Supreme Court for the state of Georgia. These two rubes were appointed to the bench by Zig Zag Zell Miller in 1993/1995 as probable repayment for their kowtowing to the Republican powers that existed in Cobb County, Georgia in the late 80s. While the primary participants in an outrageous scheme to protect a lying, perfidious ex-assistant US attorney and his serial arsonist son from prosecution for approximately 10 fires and concomitant insurance fraud were subsequently run out of town, along with most of the crony members of the county school board, these two fraudulent legal hacks remain, presumably still issuing rulings which blow in the wind towards the well-heeled. The courts of Georgia are truly blind, measuring but one truth. And that truth would be Gold.

These legal hirelings wrongly dismissed a civil suit against a GOP crony and his criminal, asocial family. The issue in question was whether they were legally liable for the plaintiff's arrest and imprisonment for the crimes of the son, and for the father's malicious attempts to utilize his connections with the local legal system to protect the son at the plaintiff's expense. Hines dismissed not only a criminal Grand Jury indictment against the arsonist defendant, but a civil suit as well - in a clear conflict of interest from which he should have recused himself. Of course, fellow Emory classmates gotta cover each other's backsides, eh? While a visiting judge from Rome reviewed this case and was apparently going to stick it to the defendants, leave it to the crooks and liars of the Cobb County judicial circuit and the utterly malignant Cobb Bar Association to subvert the law, precedent, and due process to protect well-oiled criminals and a meddling dead state Senator. And of course, they had to pull in an ex-assistant US District Attorney, P. Bruce Kirwan, in order to swing more weight around to protect the various criminal offspring of school board associates Tocco and Still. According to public records, the collective works of these asocial offspring includes multiple counts of arson, perjury, insurance fraud, aggravated assault (knife stabbing), simple assault, underage in possession, assault on police officers, resisting arrest, multiple DUIs, indecent enticement of a minor, supplying alchohol to a minor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, concealed weapons charges, and attempted extortion of the citizens of Clearwater, Florida over gumball real estate scams.
What a collection of privileged asshats.

Additionally, after the Superior court suit was dismissed, coinciding with an arson which destroyed the plaintiff's property, cash, tools, and source of income, they evidently used this fire as further ex-parte evidence against the plaintiff - even though the circumstances surrounding this fire were tantamount to more insurance fraud and rank collusion. Deputies were on hand when the appeal was filed with the appellate court clerk, and Carley subsequently upheld the bogus ruling proffered by the lower court with a signature-less ruling. This suit was pursued to the Supreme Court of Georgia, and no justice was ever forthcoming from the political minions of this politically rancid carcass of a state. Judges, Navy recruiters, ex-doctors, Georgia politicians, military industrial consultants, supposed friends, lawyers, insurance brokers, and much more were involved in this vile maneuver - guiding the lamb to slaughter at their temple of avarice, corruption and malfeasance.

Even worse, the unwanted interference in the plaintiff's life continued for 18 years beyond this incident. Moving to another state didn't help a bit, and darned if they didn't follow the victim to Florida as well, involving family members and various other Emory graduates placed within the Florida state government. Cripes, how far away must one move to escape these filthy people and their moronic, collusive, Republican, fuel-screw, banker worshiping ways?

People, your courts and political systems are corrupt lairs of filthy, self-serving hyenas who will destroy anyone, anytime it pleases them. There is no justice and there is no remedy for those who become victims of the pay to play, stacked deck of legal treachery known as your judicial system. Avoid it at all costs.

The legal system's apparatchik environ explains much of its contempt for the rule of law. Someone who has risen through the ranks of a system that prizes political loyalty above all else isn’t likely to balk at considering manufactured, ex-parte evidence, bribery, collusion or blantant treachery to disenfranchise ordinary citizens or suppress potentially damaging investigations of fellow cronies. As Franklin Foer of The New Republic has pointed out, in College Republican elections, dirty tricks and double crosses are considered acceptable, even praiseworthy. Thus we see this whole malignant scenario played out on the national front as well. Stuffing the Federal District and State Courts, scandals concerning the political ousting of US Attorneys, voter suppression, fraud, collusion, theft, lies and deceptions are their hallmark - anything is acceptable in order to maintain a grasp on power and money.

The bromide declares, "Old age and treachery beats youth and skill." Believe it.

Click Here for Overview and Legal Documents

Sacred Cows

Meet State Senator John Carl Harrison - a low-life piece of GOP trash from Smyrna, GA, and the proprietor of Harrison Glass on Atlanta Rd. He is dead now, ostensibly from a heart attack brought on from his sordid involvement with a cover up concerning his pal Richard H. Still, Jr., the Nixon era ex-assistant US District Attorney turned $500,000 a year Cobb school board attorney, pictured below, and his idiot, illiterate, redneck serial arsonist son. They are but a small part of the criminal GOP types that invaded Cobb County GA back in the 60s/70s.

Every time some contemptible politico such as this drops over dead, his enablers line up to wax poetically of their alleged virtues. In reality however, the objects of their affection seldom measure up to the praise - save for the favors they have passed along to their sycophants.

And one thing you can always count on is the old standby line, "But he cared so much for the children." Resembling nothing more than a quivering lipped Sally Struthers in a bad informercial begging for contributions to a corrupt charity, they know that no one is inclined to complain about what may have been done "for the children" - although in reality it was likely nothing at all.

As well, the lip service given to principles such as freedom, justice, honor and moral integrity I find to be nothing but vacuous window dressing intended to conceal the true motivation behind their mortal impetus - greed and self-interest.

It was never my intention to involve certain individuals in a civil law suit against the ousted county school board attorney and his serial arsonist son - a civil action which resulted in a rampage of arsons, cover-ups and collusion. I was not even particularly aware of his involvement, but knew him only as a guy from whom I bought windshield installation kits from 10 years previous. But since my alleged two-faced "friends" insisted on defending the malicious actions of the attorney and his illiterate son by mentioning the schools and parks named after him - public works which turned out to be named, not after the attorney, but his dead state Senator relation - they first opened the door. Birds of a feather and all...

Even after a 5 year civil suit which I was condemned to lose from the outset due to corruption within the judicial and political community, although reason, logic, and legal precedent favored its success, I never once mentioned his name. But after surviving a veritable tsunami of oppressive threats, homicide attempts, lies, treacheries, deceptions, and otherwise being molded into a complete misanthrope, I now feel the need, the absolute obligation, to expose this hollow sham for what it is.

Which brings us to this:

This is Harrison High school, located in a particularly numb section of West Cobb County, Georgia. Named after the late Republican Senator John Carl Harrison, it is the result of a legion of sycophants who wished to honor the name of a man who helped them achieve their personal fortunes on the backs of taxpayers. Cronyism, overpriced school board attorneys, subversion of the courts to protect asocial criminals, stuffing the school board with unsavory friends, insurance fraud, avaricious ambulance services, military industrial favoritism, industrial parks, and storage warehouse facilities were his claims to fame - that and rushing through last minute legislation to assist in obtaining a doner heart to replace his own failed and blackened heart. I suppose Karma extracts its own price for collusion and destructive manipulation of a private citizen's jobs, life, and legal endeavours. While many of the thieves and low-lifes on the school board were subsequently run out of town, many still remain, and some were vaulted to higher positions of power within the state, including the Supreme Court.

As far as I'm concerned, the lot of these crooked bastards should drop dead, including the legions of two faced sycophants such as lawyer Edwin Marger, the tools Steven Marks and the master of insurance fraud Sam Parker, ex-lawyer Laurie Davis, lawyer Herbert Rivers and his hooker/spy Arlene Einhorn, lawyer Emory C. Clark, the bulk of the Cobb judicial circuit and Bar Association, and several governors of the filthy, white trash state of Georgia. These bastards owe me a house, the tools of two professions, 22 years of my life and the income lost due to their acts of arson and interference in my life subsequent. Still's skanky, lying, psychotic freak of a daughter and his trampy cougar wife, both of which now live in Port Charlotte, FL may blow me (again) as well. Get the hell out of my adopted state, you filthy scumbags - I want out of this ignorant, inbred state and I want to go home. No one invited you to follow me to Florida - JUST LEAVE. And don't you EVER show up in front of my residence with your idiot spawn again, you worthless husks of human garbage.