THE RAPE OF AMERICA

by Bruce David

Editorial Director Hustler

They are destroying our country. Who, you ask? Wall Street, the multi-national corporations, the oligarchs. We’re watching it happen right before our eyes and yet we barely comprehend what we are seeing. Our country is being looted. The Wall Street bailout is a perfect example. Seven hundred billion dollars of our tax money is going to pay the very people who caused our financial crisis while their corporate CEOs and CFOs continue to get their huge bonus’s and their share holders continue to collect their dividends. But it’s even worse than that. 

Did you know that Goldman Sachs, which got ten billion dollars in debt guarantees from our government in October, made 2.3 billion in profit this past year, according to Bloomberg.com? Shouldn’t all that profit go back to the American people? Apparently our government is only getting back 1 percent of it, since the rest of that money is hidden in off shore accounts and countries with lower taxes. Wouldn't you love to be taxed on only 1 percent of your income? But, of course, only the fat cats — i.e., the crooks who run this country — get away with that kind of bullshit.

Then there’s Senator Robert Corker (R-TN), the guy who torpedoed the Detroit auto loans. He blamed the unions for the auto manufacturers mess, arguing that Detroit’s unions should give back some of the gains they’ve made over the last sixty years. Of course, the unions have already made concession after concession. We’re only a few more give backs away from seeing the destruction of all unions in this country. (When Reagan took office, approximately 25 percent of America's jobs were unionized, today it's 7 percent.) And that’s exactly what the GOP wants; a corporate America unconstrained by organized labor, able to pay as little as they want, no matter what conditions laborers are forced to endure. 

The real corker -- if you will -- about the Senator’s position is that he supported the $250,000 per job (of taxpayer money) Nissan received to build a plant in Tennessee yet he voted against the Detroit bailout knowing it would only amount to $5000 per job. The latter would (hopefully) save America’s manufacturing base while the Nissan bonanza rewards Japan. In essence, Corker's position is un-American.

Now, as that piece of shit George W. Bush leaves office, he is issuing a bunch of “rules” which include granting immunity to drug companies (so you can’t sue them when your child dies because of their negligence) and railroad companies (should a train carrying toxic waste tip over onto your house). Bush has even been so bold as to issue a rule saying it’s okay if a Wall Street broker sells you something without disclosing a conflict of interest. He is, in effect, legalizing corporate crime.

The net result of all this: You and I have less money, our corporate masters have more. Or, pretty soon, the way things are going, they will have it all.

Stand up America! If you don’t fight now -- if you count on Obama to save us while you sit on the couch watching American Idol -- you deserve what you get. Unfortunately, you’ll take me down with you.

PS: For more on Bush’s rule changes go to: http://oklahomacity.injuryboard.com/fda-and-prescription-drugs/wall-street-journal-bush-rule-changes-could-block-productsafety-suits.aspx?googleid=249438

PPS: Fuck Albert Reinoso

More Nostalgia for Richard Nixon

Here a contribution from long time fan and friend Tom Yamaguchi

Paul Krassner has said that the presidency of George W. Bush has made him nostalgic for the Nixon years. Remember those Good Old Days of Watergate with Nixon on tape talking about hush money for the Watergate burglars? "We could do that," Nixon said, "but it would be wrong." That shows the difference between Nixon and Bush, according to Krassner. At least Nixon knew what he was doing was wrong.

As this election year of 2008 draws to a close, let us celebrate more reasons to be nostalgic for Nixon. For instance, remember how John McCain and the Republicans called Obama a socialist for wanting to end Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy? Obama wants to redistribute the wealth, they said. Historians have noticed the irony of McCain calling our progressive income tax a socialistic system while gushing that Teddy Roosevelt was the President he admires the most. TR is largely responsible for the creation of our modern income tax. Yes, Teddy the Republican wanted to tax the rich. He called himself a progressive and would later seek the presidency as a nominee of the Progressive Party. But even as a socialist, Nixon has Teddy beat. When he ran for President in 1968, Nixon had a plan he called the New Federalism. A part of that plan was a negative income tax or Guaranteed Annual Income. Those who failed to earn the minimum amount that kept them out of poverty would be paid the difference by the government. Everyone would be guaranteed an income. Or, as the Republicans today would say, Nixon wanted to redistribute the wealth.

So Nixon was a socialist? How about Communist? Nixon did go to Communist China and opened up trade with the Communist Chinese government. But don't feel too bad Republicans. By going to China, Nixon may have ended the Cold War. At least that is the way Al Haig sees it. Haig was Nixon's Chief of Staff and Reagan's Secretary of State. In a recent interview with the conservative new magazine Newsmax, Haig says that Nixon had more to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War than anything Reagan did. In fact, Haig admits that Reagan did little during his presidency, having never fully recovered from the assassination attempt. Haig goes on to admit that the Soviet system was doomed to failure anyway. The collapse was only a matter of time. But he credits Nixon, not Reagan, for the hastening of that collapse, telling Newsmax, “I happen to think China and that initiative is the most important foreign policy event of the century, and has proven to be so."

Haig blames the neocons for the mess we are in today, including our deteriorating relations with Russia and the disastrous handling of the Iraq War. Nixon was definitely not a neocon. That's probably the best reason to be nostalgic.

Link to Newmax.com interview with Alexander Haig:
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/haig_obama/2008/12/14/161751.html?s=al&promo_code=749A-1

The Blame Game

By Rick Snay

The reports are NOT good: the U.S. economy lost more jobs in 2008 than it has since 1974 (after 6 years of Republican leadership). Of course, no one on the Republican side is blaming George W. Bush or his supply-side economic policies (which add up to "supply the top one percent of wealth-holders with more and more wealth"). No, as usual, they're casting around for places to put the blame other than on the people who have been in charge for eight years.

Just before the election, I spoke with a Republican who told me we were in trouble if Obama won. What we needed, she told me, was for John McCain to get in there and continue the policies of the Bush administration because, after all, our current economic problems all started under Bill Clinton. 

Now, those who know me best will tell you I have major issues with a LOT of what Clinton did while in office, but there is NOTHING he could have done that could have taken eight years to wreck the economy this bad. True, he did some things that contributed to the atmosphere under which the economy collapsed, but Bush continued and enhanced those errors and added many, MANY of his own. 

Blaming someone else for everything is a standard Republican tactic, though. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he implimented "trickle-down" economics on America. He managed to give the appearance of a healthy economy by what amounted to writing bad checks. He ran up a HUGE deficit, bigger than all other presidents COMBINED. When a recession hit two years into his presidency, the Republicans said it was due to Jimmy Carter's policies. Thus was born the idea that anything that happened during a presidency had to be attributed to the four years prior. 

What followed the Reagan years was a deep recession under George the first. So that was Reagan's fault, right? Don't we have to blame that on the guy who was in office four years before it happened? No, the Republicans said...it was the Democrats in Congress. 

Following Bush, Clinton took office. He managed to repair the economy and get America back to work. Of course, that old rule of "the guy before" suddenly applied again, as the Republicans said it was really the policies of George H. W. Bush that were just then starting to work. When George W. Bush followed Clinton and the economy tanked, they called it "the Clinton recession". 

Now, after eight years, the economy is worse than it ever was. Since Bush was in office four years ago, we have to blame him, right? Nope. It's still Clinton. OR, in some Republican circles, it's due to the "flawed leadership" of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid, who took over only last year. This is especially ridiculous considering the fact that very little of what the Democrats have tried to do since gaining the majority in both houses of Congress has gotten through.   The constant filibuster threats from Republicans have effectively obstructed any kind of agenda the Dems might have had. 

When Barack Obama takes the oath of office in January, he will face the largest deficit in the history of the planet. He'll face an economy in meltdown and a jobless rate that is downright frightening. It will take time to right the wrongs. But how much do you want to bet that within months Republicans will be blaming Obama for the poor economy? And how much more would you like to bet that by the end of his first term, when (as always happens) the Democrat has repaired the Republican damage and the nation is again on a healthy path, those same Republicans will be saying the credit should go to Bush?

Obama Blows It!

Rick Warren is a religious hustler.  He runs a mega-church out in Lake Forest, California called The Saddleback Church from which he preaches his self indulgent Gospel.   Having written a 30 million copy best seller "The Purpose Driven Life" that is second in sales only to the Bible, he was thrust into the national limelight.   From there he has been on a quest to be the next Billy Graham.   The only problem is that he really has the potential to be the next Jerry Falwell with whom he shares an uncanny likeness.

What makes the guy so creepy, besides the fact that he is a religious hustler, is that his right wing opinions are of the sort that if there was a God he would be struck down on the spot.   First of all he is against gay marriage.  Compounding this, in a recent interview he said "you wouldn't want an older man marrying a child or a man marrying a horse".   Imagine that, equating being gay with pedophilia and bestiality.   That's good 'ol Rick for you.  Add to this his allegiance to creationism which amounts to scientific stupidity and his stand against a woman's right to choose.  In short, he's a fuckin' sleezebag to anyone who feels that he and his beliefs are totally immoral.

If Rick Warren did his thing and kept to himself and his flocked sheep, then I suppose that is something between them.   But he is now inflicting himself on Americans like you and me.   During the election he hosted and moderated an evening with Barack Obama and John McCain.

It wasn't a debate.  Each candidate sat with Warren individually.  How he got this coup is beyond me as I have always believed that there is supposed to be a separation between church and state.

Now this whole scenario has taken an ugly turn.  President-Elect Obama on December 17th asked him to give the invocation at the inauguration.   What the hell was Obama thinking?  Is he nuts?   It's bad enough that religion has a place at a federal function but to invite a homophobe-creationist to give the invocation makes you begin to wonder if Obama is really this other person than the one we voted for.

Obama claims that he always said he wanted to be the President of all Americans and to seek inclusion of everyone.   Does this then include the KKK or the American Nazi Party?  Of course not because they are intolerant of others just like Rick Warren.

Gay groups feel betrayed and justly so.  People like myself are having second thoughts about the guy and he hasn't even taken office.

In California Proposition 8, the anti gay marriage measure, went down to defeat.   Many feel the reason it did was the black vote which was higher than usual due to Obama's candidacy. It was said that 69% of the black voters voted against gay marriage thus putting the measure over the top.  The reason given was the high church going among blacks, couple this with a general prejudice by black males against gay men.

I'm not saying that all this is necessarily true.  But if so, then Obama comes into this category of a church going black male who by the way has said he's against gay marriage.   That is probably the reason why he sees nothing wrong with Rick Warren.

Obama should really rethink this thing.   He's getting off to a bad start with the very people who cared about him.   This was a disastrous decision  on his part and if he can make such a bone-headed move like this so early on, what's going to happen when he has the power.

I'd hate to think that we've been fooled again!