Over-Sensitivity To Barack Jokes: Is Obama Really Off-Limits?

Lovitz, Carvey Lament Lack of Comedians Targeting Obama
from brasschecktv.com: Comedians Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey shared a moment commiserating the roadblocks in place when attempting make jokes about or at the expense of President Barack Obama. Lovitz, who was filling in as host of Dennis Miller's radio show, asked Carvey what his thoughts were concerning that idea that certain groups - GLAAD being an example he gave - go after comics for their material by attempting to argue about what, exactly, constitutes as a "joke."

"Well, I think it's scary and dangerous," said Carvey. "I think free speech is probably the coolest thing we have in this country and, again, you can label it hate speech and dismiss it, and then you're allowed to censor it." Later, Carvey said he realizes there was a certain level of "sensitivity," as he described it, surrounding Barack Obama given that he is the country's first black president, but that "over time it becomes kind of knee-jerk and patronizing not to satirize the President."

Lovitz then asked Carvey what he thinks about the argument that SNL - their former stomping ground - doesn't make fun of Obama, and, what's more, will only make fun of Republican politicians. Carvey responded by saying that, in his own experience, he's had success with Obama jokes when he's been able to find a particularly funny angle to use as a platform, much like with his widely-known "not gonna do it… wouldn't be prudent" George H.W. Bush catchphrase. But when SNL attempted to poke fun at Obama in New York, the joke "bombed." He seemed to be saying that the problem was not the joke or its subject so much as the context and the audience present.

#MediaMemes: Hunger Game, Throne Change

Could Will You Survive the 'Hunger Games'?*
Hunger Games gets minor edits for UK release*
Third Horse’s Death Forces HBO's ‘Luck’ To Suspend Production With Animals*
Update: HBO's 'Luck' canceled after 3rd horse dies*
HBO's 'Game Change' promoted by same PR firm that represents Sandra Fluke*
Newspapers pull, move Doonesbury comic referencing abortion ultrasound bill*
After 244yrs, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses*
Video: Greg Palast says "We've got like a hypnotized nation. It's like Prozacistan here."*
'American Idol' Finalist Has 5 Active Arrest Warrants*
Jay-Z & Kanye West Settle Copyright Infringement Lawsuit*
Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead's Runaway Guitarist*
Ronnie Montrose, Guitarist, Dies at 64*
Jimmy Ellis, Trammps' "Disco Inferno" Singer, Dies at 74*
Steve Bridges, Comic impressionist, Dies at 48*
Frisner Augustin, Haitian Vodou Drummer, Is Dead at 63*
KONY 2012 Video: After Further Review By the Referees...*
#Kony2012 Director Jason Russell Arrested for Allegedly Drunkenly Masturbating in Public*
George Clooney arrested during protest at Sudan Embassy in DC*

media/memes: film future, deliverance, drift away

around the world in one movie - film financing's global future*
peter jackson, damien echols complete new 'west memphis three' documentary*
jonny greenwood to score paul thomas anderson's scientology movie 'the master'*
alan moore contributes to occupy comics anthology*
bill mckinney, character actor, 'deliverance' mountain man, dies at 80*
actor harry morgan of 'dragnet', 'm*a*s*h' dies at 96*
alan sues, 'laugh-in' regular as uncle al, dies at 85*
blues legend hubert sumlin dies at 80*
roy orbison's wife dies exactly 23yrs after roy's death*
soul singer dobie gray, of 'the in crowd' & 'drift away', dead at 71*

9/11 survivors lawsuit against united airlines given go-ahead

9/11 mother to make legal history suing over son's 21 minutes of terror before his doomed flight hit world trade center
from allgov: In the 10 years since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, thousands of survivors have settled their lawsuits against the airlines and other parties, and collected awards totaling billions of dollars. But one family has held out so it can have its day in court, and that time is finally approaching.

The plaintiff is the mother of Mark Bavis, one of the passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 175, the second plane to strike the World Trade Center. She is suing United and Huntleigh USA, the security company that screened passengers at Logan International in Boston, where the flight originated.

Bavis’ family contends that he and the other passengers would not have died had United and Huntleigh done their jobs and thus thwarted the hijackers who flew the airliner into the South Tower.

They blame United for ignoring government warnings about terrorist threats and Huntleigh for inadequate screening of passengers.

Her attorneys intend to portray the last minutes of the flight as sheer terror, based on phone calls made by other passengers. In a pretrial motion United’s legal team tried to keep Bavis from pursuing pain-and-suffering damages for the last moments of her son’s life. But a federal judge, Alvin Hellerstein, ruled this week that he is inclined to allow the trial’s jury to formulate an amount for such damages.

The wrongful-death case is expected to go to trial in November.

related 9/11 updates:
video: bushobama plan visit to new york on 9/11*
9/11 ceremony won't include presidential speeches*
robert de niro to host cbs 9/11 update*
calls to drop name 'ground zero' ahead of tenth anniversary of 9/11 attacks*
cancer-stricken ground zero worker edgar galvis gets settlement check for zero dollars*
mystery surrounds loss of records, art on 9/11*
flight 93 pennsylvania crash site marked by huge boulder*
9/11 inside job 'impossible to conceal,' says putin*
more insight into artist rick veitch and 'the big lie' comic book*
video: huckabee releases cartoon video on 9/11*

rallies have always been used to manipulate the masses

from kenny's sideshow: I finally saw the 1988 movie "They Live" today and realized what Peter Chamberlin is saying with his blog title 'There Are No Sunglasses'. I also saw a little of the Stewart and Colbert sanity/fear rally and you don't need the sunglasses to see through it.

The lefty counterpoint to the righty Glenn Beck hijacked Tea Party types. The lefties may be a little more fun but no less propagandizing. It's breaking us down into two groups that oppose each other as if that's all there is.

But most of us don't actually fit into this false duplicity. We're the ones who don't like Stewart and Obama, Beck and Palin. Using conventional terms we as individuals are a mix of conservative, liberal, moderate, radical or what ever you want to call it. Sort of 'mongrels' that don't fit what the media wants us to be.

A real rally for America would be anti-war, anti-imperialism and most definitely anti-criminal government and anti-wall street/banker syndicate. Basically it would be looking for the truth wherever it leads us. We haven't seen much of that in these controlled for TV gatherings.

Rallies have always been used to manipulate the masses. The crowd cheers "hooray for us" and goes home satiated. A lot of good people want to be involved, a lot of good people fall for the deceptions.

americans renounce citizenship to avoid irs

americans who swap passports
from financial times: At the US Embassy in London, there is a waiting list that none of the officials likes to discuss. On the list are Americans hoping to give up their citizenship, as they seek shelter from the Internal Revenue Service.

One lawyer fighting for her clients’ right to do so is Suzanne Reisman, a former civil rights campaigner, who is now a private-client lawyer in Mayfair, central London.

“You make a lot of sacrifices when you have to pay US taxes and live outside the country for a long time. But you also make a lot of sacrifices when you give up your passport,” she says.

Having lived in London since 1998, Ms Reisman herself has considered giving up her US passport. But she probably won’t. “I don’t think I want to die in the UK,” she says...

econocrash: fortune, fail & the fed + geopolitiks update

chris ware's rejected fortune cover paints honest,
dismal picture of american capitalism
from huffpo: When Fortune magazine asked comic book artist and Oak Park resident Chris Ware to design the cover of their "Fortune 500" issue, they were probably not expecting his "beautiful and Marxist" interpretation of modern capitalism. Chicagoist reported Friday that Ware was asked to design the May cover of the magazine, but his final product, which featured "Guantanamo Bay prisoners, Mexican factory workers, and a few potshots at business execs and money-grubbing politicians" was apparently not what Fortune had in mind--they killed the cover. Still, a high-resolution version of the Ware cover is making its rounds on the Internet - and fans are delighted.

rarewords.org: new 'media monarchy' illustration

mark burrier, an amazing illustrator & designer that i know from back east, has a new website called rare words dot org - a "collaborative blog where you submit words or a phrase that become the creative starting point for drawings." so, of course, i submitted 'media monarchy' for possible illustration; i'm happy to share his work with you ... thanks, mark!

12/31 newspurge: out like a lion

biowars/envirohealth:
top scientists share their future predictions*
mailman to deliver aid if anthrax attacks*
green police: is your neighbor wasting energy?
there's an app for that*
comics help cdc pitch vaccines to kids*
world health org chief not vaccinated against swine flu*




econocrash:
tidal wave of retirees could break the bank*
al gore's website covers un's world currency coins*
video: gop & lobbyist attempt to hijack tea party movement*
are poorest states also most religious?*
how goldman made 10s of billions from econocrash in 4 easy steps*

geopolitiks:
video: was the afghan bomb attack on the cia an inside job?*
iran nuke document was forged - just like iraqi 'yellow cake' document*
top norwegian diplomat admits attending bilderberg group*
video: 'superpower' documentary*

media/memes:
james cameron: marxism for thee, but not for me*
an 'avatar' awakening*

obamessiah updates:
now, michelle obama is sliding in the polls, too*
obama ends bush secrecy policy, launches 'declassification center'*
video: 'fraud' trailer*

warwhores:
arab dictatorships take 4 of top 5 spots in purchase of US weapons & services*
are america's mercenary armies really drug cartels?*
danger room's top 10 stories from a world gone nuts*
judge drops charges against blackwater guards accused of massacre*

9/11 anniversary updates: past, present & future

'safe america' announces national 'drill down' for 9/11;
terror tests for pandemic preparedness

9/11 drill for simulated plane crash 5min before pentagon attack
from history commons: Five minutes before the Pentagon was hit on September 11, 2001, a training exercise being run by a US intelligence agency just over 20 miles from the Pentagon was set to include the scenario of a small private jet plane crashing into a building. It is unclear whether the scenario was played out, or if the exercise had been called off by that time. Important details of the exercise, which was being conducted by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) at its headquarters in Chantilly, Virginia, are revealed in a document obtained by the 9/11 Commission. The document, titled “Early Morning Flight Activity September 11, 2001,” was part of a series of 9/11 Commission records moved to the US National Archives at the start of this year... The Associated Press has revealed that no real plane was going to be used in the exercise, and the crash was to be the result of mechanical failure, not terrorism.

nyccan submits 28k more signatures for 9/11 investigation on nov ballot; ny allows petition to go forward

kurt sonnenfeld, fema videographer on 9/11, blows the whistle
from voltairenet: As official videographer for the U.S. government, Kurt Sonnenfeld was detailed to Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, where he spent one month filming 29 tapes: "What I saw at certain moments and in certain places ... is very disturbing!" He never handed them over to the authorities and has been persecuted ever since. Kurt Sonnenfeld lives in exile in Argentina, where he wrote "El Perseguido" (The Persecuted). [Here] is an exclusive interview by The Voltaire Network.

arianna huffington: i 'despise' 9/11 truthers

working toward 2013 opening for 9/11 museum
from newsday: The worn New York Giants T-shirt and Penn State baseball cap were among the prized possessions of Richard Caproni, a former North Babylon High School football captain known for his fierce team loyalties and booming laugh. Already, they are part of the permanent collection of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum - a gift from his parents. "What we donated were things very dear to Richie," his father, Richard Caproni, 67, a former North Babylon resident, said in a telephone interview from his home in Ocean Pines, Md. "They had significant meaning to us, but we knew it would be better to have it preserved there for eternity." Construction of the museum, as with many elements at the World Trade Center site, is behind schedule. But there has been progress, with officials working toward a 2013 opening. The foundation work has been completed and some of the permanent artifacts - including the Survivors' Stairs and the Last Column recovered from the trade center rubble - were installed at the site in the past nine months.

flashback: the abc's of numerology -
new york, 9/11; madrid, 3/11; mumbai, 7/11

nyc buildings graft shocker:
mob-tied building inspectors in bribe & drug scandal
from nypost: At least six city building inspectors - some with ties to a powerful crime family - were videotaped taking bribes at construction sites, and some were seen dealing cocaine and prescription pills while on duty, The Post has learned. The corrupt Department of Buildings workers - who lined their pockets by ignoring violations or expediting construction and building work permits - will be arrested later this month, along with about two dozen Luchese crime-family captains, soldiers and associates, sources said...

The nearly two-year probe grew out of a 2007 New Jersey case involving a Luchese faction that ran a staggering $2 billion-a-year gambling operation and supplied drugs and cellphones to Bloods gang members in state prisons. That probe - which netted 32 wiseguys - soon spread across the Hudson River into the family's Big Apple hierarchy, prompting surveillance and wiretapping by the NYPD and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office, the sources said. The probers, who made hundreds of hours of recordings, quickly found mobsters taking bets and conducting loan-sharking operations worth tens of millions of dollars...

This will be the latest scandal to rock the city's Department of Buildings, which is still reeling from its failures at the doomed Deutsche Bank tower that contributed to the deaths of two city firefighters in August 2007.

doonesbury slams 9/11 truth

islamonoia: 'is another 9/11 set to unfold?'*
world architecture news publishes article:
conspiracy theory or hidden truth? the 9/11 enigmas*
the irrefutable case for 9/11 truth*
too many 9/11 commission questions still left unanswered*
charlie sheen's fantasy meeting with obama over 9/11 cover-up*
video: sheen's message to obama*
national geographic does 9/11:
another icon debased in service of big lie*
video: the world wildlife fund & the 9/11 tsunami*

updates from 9/11/9:
obama, in first 9/11 as president,
honors victims' memory with moment of silence*
this 9/11, obama has the bullhorn on terrorism*
video: informant says fbi threw away chance to catch atta*

mouse meet spider: disney to buy marvel entertainment for $4b

from ap: The Walt Disney Co. is buying Marvel Entertainment Inc. for $4 billion in cash and stock, bringing such characters as Iron Man and Spider-Man into the family of Mickey Mouse and WALL-E. Under the deal, which was announced Monday and is expected to close by the end of the year, Disney will acquire the rights to 5,000 Marvel characters. Many of them, including the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, were co-created by the comic book legend Stan Lee. Disney CEO Robert Iger said Marvel's comic books, TV shows, movies and video games amounted to "a treasure trove of content." Iger said the deal would bring benefits like the ones Disney got from buying "Toy Story" creator Pixar Animation Studios Inc. for $7.4 billion in stock in 2006. "The acquisition of Marvel offers us a similar opportunity to advance our strategy," Iger said, and "to build a business that is stronger than the sum of its parts."

chicago tribune cartoon 1934: planned economy or planned destruction?

media/memes: public enemy, gi joe and 'angels & demons'

public enemy tells coachella crowd about 'obama deception'
from paul joseph watson: Public Enemy - one of the most influential rap groups in music history - took an opportunity at the Coachella 2009 festival to warn their audience about “The Obama Deception,” in reference to Alex Jones’ recently released underground blockbuster documentary. The L.A. Times reports that Public Enemy member Professor Griff, who himself appears in the film, “made repeated references to the 'Obama deception,'” during the concert in California at which Paul McCartney, Morrissey, the Cure and Leonard Cohen also performed. Public Enemy’s 2005 album was entitled 'New Whirl Odor'... The band were at their peak in the late 80’s. Their 1988 album 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back' peaked at #42 on the Billboard 200, and at #1 on the Billboard R&B/Hip hop Album charts and is routinely ranked in the top 50 albums of all time, being regarded as one of the most influential and groundbreaking records in history. Public Enemy, along with N.W.A., were two of the seminal acts in the organic explosion of hip-hop during the latter 1980’s, when the grassroots of the genre was all about black people becoming informed, empowered and strong and breaking free from stereotypical associations with poverty and drugs. As soon as hip-hop became a vehicle for political and personal awakening, it was seized and devoured by corporate America and MTV, before being gradually deformed into what we see on television today - where black icons rap not about fighting the man or standing up to the system, but about how much money and sex they have while girls with giant buttocks wiggle around behind them. We continually hear about huge music stars using their gargantuan public platforms to educate the public about the new world order at concerts and gigs. At the internationally renowned Reading festival in August 2006, Muse front man Matt Bellamy donned a T-shirt emblazoned with the words 'Terrorstorm,' wearing it for the band’s headline performance which was watched collectively by tens of millions of people worldwide. Watch 'The Obama Deception' for free by clicking here.

1 in 10 video gaming youths could be addicted
from usatoday: Can you become addicted to video games? A new research article out today in the journal Psychological Science suggests that the answer is yes. Nearly one in 10 children and teens who play video games showed signs of what could be considered addiction to games in a January 2007 Harris poll that the research is based upon. The poll of 1,178 U.S. kids and teens (aged 8 to 18) found that 8.5% of those who played video games exhibited at least six of 11 addiction symptoms such as skipping household chores or homework to play games, poor performance on tests of homework because of playing, and playing games to escape problems.

video: gi joe & nwo propaganda


catholic league claims ron howard is lying in 'angels & demons'
from alex constantine: The subject of Ron Howard's film is the "Illuminati," a clutch of "utopian" thinkers, intellectual forbears of socialism, based in late 18th century Bavaria and forced out of existence by the 19th, often scapegoated in contemporary right-wing (whacked) conspiracy theories. It's a schizophrenic concept: this alleged communist secret society is composed, Birchers claim, of (despised) Satanists and (cherished) Founding Fathers. Brrrr. Supposedly, the "Illuminati" are still with us - a secret conspiratorial alliance of Jews, Masons and Communists that only exists in the right-wing imagination, popularized by the Birch Society, a fascist front secretly financed in the '50s by Nazi survivors of WW II. It is a Hitlerian propaganda concept, designed to advance the aims of the far-right, and bears no relation to reality. Howard muddles history by confusing "Illuminati" with Freemasonry - the equivalent of mistaking the Knights of Malta with the Vatican, to draw a comparison - and the League has taken advantage of this confusion by issuing a blanket denial. Galileo (1564-1642), a Freemason, was indeed hounded by the church for supporting Copernican cosmology, but Howard has him living in the wrong century.

donald duck & the taxes you pay to international banksters

from kurt nimmo: It’s that time again, time to pay the bankers what is owed at gunpoint. Back in the day, when fear of the IRS was not as prevalent as it is today, the government employed Hollywood propaganda to make the plebs feel good about forking over their hard-won earnings. In the cartoon here, produced in 1943 during the Second World War, Donald Duck is pressed into service to make Americans feel good about paying taxes. Donald’s cartoon was rolled out the same year Milton Friedman, a Treasury Department economist at the time, came up with the idea of imposing a withholding tax.

Hollywood no longer needs to make cartoons to convince us paying taxes to international bankers is the “patriotic” thing to do. Millions of people accept this federally enforced fleecing operation with a mixture of resignation and fear. In fact, decades of propaganda have reduced many Americans to the point where they believe forking over a huge share of their earnings is a positive thing. Of course, they have no idea the money is going to the bankers. Just less than half of U.S. residents asked say the amount of federal income taxes they pay is 'about right,' a Gallup Poll reported on April 8, according to United Press International. Donald Duck’s services are no longer required.

obamessiah updates: banksters, nukes & comic books

obama economic advisors linked to banksters
from politico: Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, pulled in more than $2.7 million in speaking fees paid by firms at the heart of the financial crisis, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America Corp. and the now-defunct Lehman Brothers. He pulled in another $5.2 million last year from D.E. Shaw, a hedge fund for which he served as managing director from October 2006 until joining the administration. Thomas E. Donilon, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, was paid $3.9 million last year by the power law firm O’Melveny & Myers to represent clients, including two firms that received federal bailout funds: Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. He also disclosed that he’s a member of the Trilateral Commission and sits on the steering committee of the super-secret Bilderberg group. Both groups are favorite targets of conspiracy theorists.

g20 moves the world a step closer to a global currency
g20 supports imf plan to raise funds by selling 403 tons of gold*
my manhattan project: how i helped build the bomb that blew up wall st*
house approves $3.6t budget blueprint*
unemployment soars to 8.5%; 13m jobless*

obama pledges to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons
from latimes: President Obama vowed Sunday to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons from the planet, telling a cheering throng in Prague that the United States is ready to lead an international effort to reduce atomic arsenals and the threat they pose. Speaking only hours after North Korea launched a multistage rocket... Obama outlined a plan to work toward a goal that he acknowledged remains decades away.

barack obama's new world order
washington post sees neocon hope in obama*
smooth criminal transition from bush/cheney to obama/biden*
new world order: still a conspiracy theory?*
the first bricks in a new world order*
obama’s zero nuclear weapons speech & ufology disclosure*

obamacomics: 'barack the barbarian' & 'drafted: one hundred days'
from chicago tribune: Is the presidential sword mightier than his pen? Two new comics with characters based on President Barack Obama may tell us. "Drafted: One Hundred Days" and "Barack the Barbarian: Quest for the Treasure of Stimuli," will feature Obama prominently on their covers and in their stories, according to Chicago-based Devil's Due Publishing. Both are due out in June. The first tells the story of a leader whose future is stunted "when a race from beyond the stars drafted our planet into intergalactic war," reads a company synopsis of the comic, part of the "Drafted" series. The book's Obama is further challenged by an injury that robs him of his greatest strength — speech... Devil's Due founder and President Josh Blaylock, an Obama fan, says the company took inspiration from a half-dozen other Obama comics, including the president's appearance earlier this year with Spider-Man, as well as from the president's own fondness for collecting "Conan the Barbarian" comics... "Barack the Barbarian" also includes a sword-carrying vixen with a striking resemblance to a certain former Republican vice presidential candidate. The apparent faux Sarah Palin is drawn wearing a chain-mail bikini, complete with bookish glasses and a dead-wolf drape. Quest for the treasure of stimuli, indeed.

mother jones asks: should obama control the internet?
gates planning major changes in defense programs & budget*
gates readies budget ax for monday swipe*
russia's medvedev hails 'comrade' obama*
obama unable to shake muslim myth*
why is obama getting a pass on the afghanisurge?*

letterman finally plays censored last appearance of bill hicks

from undercover black man: If you’re a standup comedy fan – or a student of pop culture more largely – something happened last Friday night you should know about. Bill Hicks – who died of metastatic cancer 15 years ago – performed on “The Late Show with David Letterman.” The comedy routine was taped in October of 1993, but it was never shown... until Friday night. Letterman accepted blame for banning the performance in the first place. And he apologized to Hicks’s mother, face to face. The “censoring” of Bill Hicks by Letterman – who had been his biggest champion – was a major event in Hicks’s legendary life. Letterman didn’t know at the time that Hicks had pancreatic cancer and would be dead within months. When he passed at the age of 32, Hicks had secured a reputation as the most groundbreaking, risk-taking American satirist since George Carlin. Watch this ferocious set... and Letterman’s comments at the end. You’re bound to imagine what the George W. Bush years would’ve been like with Bill Hicks still around.

cobra commander offers you a financial bailout

'mindbender' trailer #2: the federal reserve, the new world order & cobra commander team up to bring your family a financial bailout
from revelations media: Running low on cash? Can’t afford groceries? Have no fear, The Federal Reserve, The New World Order, and Cobra Commander have teamed up to offer you and your loved ones your very own economic stimulus package. Sick of hearing about Wall Street getting bailed out? Well… your worries are over. This financial rescue is custom made for “Main Street”. Cobra Currency in the form of the Amero… coming soon.

'mindbender' trailer #1: g.i. joe & the war on terror
from revelations media: The first official trailer to the documentary MindBender. Watch as events from 9/11 unfold in a cartoon from 1985. "The War on Terror" in cartoon form.

obamessiah: drills, pledges, comics & consequences

red team, blue team? bush/obama officials hold security drill
from reuters: Officials from the Bush and Obama administrations crossed paths at the White House Tuesday to participate in a homeland security exercise. The scary hypothetical scenario was how the federal government should respond to a terrorist attack using improvised explosive devices on the transportation infrastructure and other economic targets in major U.S. cities. They also looked at responses to other disasters like pandemic flu and hurricanes during briefings, including time spent in the White House basement “Situation Room” where national security crises are handled.

obama to send more troops to afghanistan
from washington post: President-elect Barack Obama intends to sign off on Pentagon plans to send up to 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, but the incoming administration does not anticipate that the Iraq-like "surge" of forces will significantly change the direction of a conflict that has steadily deteriorated over the past seven years. Instead, Obama's national security team expects that the new deployments, which will nearly double the current U.S. force of 32,000 (alongside an equal number of non-U.S. NATO troops), will help buy enough time for the new administration to reappraise the entire Afghanistan war effort and develop a comprehensive new strategy for what Obama has called the "central front on terror."

hillary won't rule out military force on iran
from dpa: US secretary of state-designate Hillary Clinton on Tuesday would not rule out the possible use of military force by the Obama administration to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. 'We are not taking any options off the table at all,' Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Comittee during her confirmation hearings to become the top US diplomat.

video: congress officially certifies obama as president-elect

obama’s energy czar: socialist agent for world govt
from paul joseph watson: Barack Obama’s “climate czar” Carol Browner has been exposed as being a member of Socialist International, a highly influential group headed by a Bilderberg Group luminary that calls for the implementation of global government, despite Socialist International’s attempts to seemingly “memory-hole” information about Browner on their website. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that Obama and his cabinet are preparing to exploit fearmongering about global warming to push new measures of taxation, regulation and internationalism. Obama himself has vigorously promoted the revival of a bill that would slash carbon emissions by 80 per cent, a move that would inflict a new Great Depression, cost millions of jobs, and sink America to near third world status. Obama has also publicly stated his intention to create a new infrastructure of “green brigades” and informants to regulate every aspect of our behavior in the name of saving the planet under the guise of a “national civilian security force,” a cadre we are guaranteed will be as strong or stronger than the U.S. Army.

obama picks cia vet brennan as counterterror adviser
from washington post: Barack Obama has picked John O. Brennan as his top adviser on counterterrorism, a role that will give the CIA veteran a powerful voice on the government's use of security contractors and on other sensitive issues in which he recently has played a private-sector role.

inaugurate this: waiting for obama

spidey goes to washington
from nytimes: Among the millions expected to converge on the nation’s capital for Inauguration Day on Jan. 20 will be at least one superhero: Marvel Entertainment is publishing a comic book in which Spider-Man meets President-elect Barack Obama and foils a scheme by the Chameleon to ruin the Inauguration. The six-page story, written by Zeb Wells and illustrated by Todd Nauck and Frank D’Armata, finds the wall-crawler in Washington, where he uncovers a plot to undermine the incoming president. Mr. Obama has previously stated that he is a comic book fan, and a Spider-Man fan in particular. The story will be part of Amazing Spider-Man No. 583 and arrives in stores on Wednesday. Another comic book company embracing the president is Dark Horse, which will be sending him 30 collected editions of comics featuring Conan the Barbarian. Mike Richardson, Dark Horse’s publisher, said he hoped the comics would provide “just a bit of escape in those brief moments away from the office.” The delivery is something of a family affair. It is being orchestrated between Ari Emanuel, a Hollywood agent who represents Dark Horse’s film properties, and his brother Rahm Emanuel, the president-elect’s chief of staff.

obama warns of dire consequences without stimulus
from ap: President-elect Barack Obama warned of dire and long-lasting consequences if Congress doesn't pump unprecedented dollars into the national economy, making an urgent pitch Thursday for his mammoth spending proposal in his first speech since the election. "In short, a bad situation could become dramatically worse" if Washington doesn't go far enough to address the spreading crisis, the Democrat said as fresh economic reports showed an outlook growing increasingly grim.

new year's clearinghouse

end of the year or end of the world (as we know it)?
from global research: [A]n end-of-year essay of sorts is in order, especially so given the bumpy ride capitalism has bestowed on us this past twelve months. And the portents for 2009 look to be even worse as capitalism, desperate to shed over-valued assets, descends into the abyss. Look at it this way: after the Crash of ‘29 and the launch of the New Deal, it took some six years to engineer the outbreak of WWII, the surefire way of literally burning up surplus capital in awesome quantities. And if history has any lessons for us, some equivalent global conflagration is now in order. However, is this possible under these new circumstances and over what timescale can such a capitalist catastrophe be engineered?

chronology: major world events in 2008: part1 & part2

and a few other last-minute downers...
sewage & drinking water mingle in texas*
automatic speed-limiting devices should be fitted to cars*
nobody frightens children like the tsa*
US/japanese bioterrorists recreate 1918 flu*
nixon/kissinger celebrated ‘72 bombing of north vietnam*
henry kissinger: eminence noire*
lbj's treason tapes*
did poppy bush kill kennedy & frame nixon?*
new proof of lies/deception by US/uk & the sinking of the lusitania*
holocaust love story a fabrication*
ex-army employee pleads guilty to acting as israeli agent*
cdc to oregon: why aren't you taking our yummy shots?*
defense contractors see $$$ in cyber security*
new year’s eve security enhanced in nyc*
national guard soldiers to usher in new year at times square*
US stocks suffer worst year since great depression*
blackout looms in time warner/viacom fight*
kathy griffin says 'dicks' during live cnn new year's show*
this modern world 2008 year in review, part1: goodbye to all that*
this modern world 2008 year in review, part2: the end of an error*
2008: the year the US media lost relevance*

money murder meeting meltdown more

'economic 9/11' exacting grim psychological toll in US
from afp: The murder-suicide of a Los Angeles financial manager who shot dead five members of his family before killing himself has highlighted the psychological toll of the economic meltdown. The bodies of Karthik Rajaram, a 45-year-old business school graduate, and his wife, three children and mother-in-law, were discovered at his home in an upmarket gated community on Monday. In a letter to police, Rajaram said he had been driven to murder because of his dire economic situation: already unemployed for several months, his remaining finances were reportedly wiped out by Wall Street's collapse. Rajaram's tragic case has become a grim symbol of the US financial crisis. Or as Los Angeles deputy police chief Michael Moore put it, "a perfect American family destroyed by a man stuck in a rabbit hole of absolute despair." The Los Angeles case came less than a week after a 90-year-old woman in Ohio shot herself as she was about to served an eviction notice on the home she has lived in for the past 38 years. The two harrowing incidents have drawn attention to the mental-health impact associated with the most serious US financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, experts say.

financial terror updates from daily dose of terror

bush to summon leaders to emergency finance summit
from telegraph: In an effort to shore up the world's battered financial institutions, President Bush plans to summon global leaders to an emergency economic summit, as the Federal Reserve effectively loaned billions of dollars to banks in another bid to unfreeze credit markets. The Fed's move, which is putting tens of billions of dollars' worth of taxpayer money at risk, is the latest desperate attempt by the U.S. government to open up the global financial system and avert a full-blown deep recession. Bush underlined that message personally on Tuesday in conversations with other world leaders, the London Times reported Wednesday. Bush, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, have all spoken with Bush by phone, the paper said. All of them have agreed to a meeting if details can be worked out. In the meantime, Bush urged his European counterparts to coordinate efforts to solve financial crisis spreading around the globe.

lehman ceo got punched in the face
from consumerist: Dick "It Wasn't My Fault" Fuld, the CEO of bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers, (seen here being heckled after testifying on Capitol Hill) was apparently punched in the face while working out in Lehman gym on the Sunday following the bankruptcy, according to CNBC's Vicki Ward. Fuld testified before the House Oversight Committee yesterday, blaming everyone but himself for Lehman's collapse, an attitude that prompted Ward to confirm reports that he'd been punched in the face and to side with the attacker: “From two very senior sources – one incredibly senior source – that he went to the gym after … Lehman was announced as going under. He was on a treadmill with a heart monitor on. Someone was in the corner, pumping iron and he walked over and he knocked him out cold. And frankly after having watched this, I’d have done the same too.”

british govt moves to prop up banking sector
from washington post: Britain's mammoth new bank bailout plan, potentially nearly as large as the rescue package in the United States, failed to calm European investors Wednesday after its early morning emergency announcement. All over the continent, stocks dropped sharply again and even some of the banks the plan is meant to stabilize suffered new sell-offs.

people line up to buy gold in britain

US debt grows too big for national debt clock

from thinkprogress: The National Debt Clock in New York’s Times Square — first erected in 1989 when the debt was less than $3 trillion — cannot keep pace with the growing national debt, now at more than $10 trillion. NBC’s Brian Williams reported last night that “the debt has been piling up so fast lately they had to drop the dollar sign to make room for an extra digit.” A new clock with two extra digits will go up next year. Recall in September 2000, during President Clinton’s last year in office, the National Debt Clock had the reverse problem. It was shut down because “it started ticking in the opposite direction, shaving off roughly $30 a second.”

america sinking, new world order from meltdown?

after bailout, aig execs head to california resort
from abcnews: Less than a week after the federal government committed $85 billion to bail out AIG, executives of the giant AIG insurance company headed for a week-long retreat at a luxury resort and spa, the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California, Congressional investigators revealed today.

update: aig cancels post-bailout party in cali, says it will have no more

video: suze orman works for fdic campaign to blame you for the financial crisis

new world order is the endgame, says glenn beck
from daily newscaster: “There is a global meltdown coming. It is global depression. And one world currency and one world financial system is the endgame... China said last week they want one global currency. France said yesterday … they want one world order - a new world order at the end of this event."

bankers want world economic govt to solve financial crisis they created
from paul joseph watson: The world’s central bankers are gathering this week at the IMF-World Bank conference in Washington DC and are expected to grease the skids for the creation of a machinery of world economic governance under the pretext of preventing a repeat of the financial crisis, a global economic policeman to patrol a de-facto financial dictatorship. Bilderberg member and recently appointed UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson argued last week that new global solutions are needed because “the machinery of global economic governance barely exists”, adding: “It is time for a Bretton Woods for this century,” reports the Telegraph, noting that “Opinion is now hardening around the case for a new global architecture to enforce rules that ensure lessons are learnt.”

damn it feels good to be a banksta*
russian stocks plunge by nearly 20%, worst daily loss ever*
video: US economy collapsing*
financial dictatorship comes to america*
video: a look at wall street's shadow market*
the fleecing of america*
video: the day americans went broke*
preparing for economic collapse*
shock & awe: bipartisan beltway terrorists launch economic 9/11 on the american people*
it’s all your fault the economy is going down the tubes *
video: larouche: 'they will kill you!'*
lehman creditors want to investigate jpmorgan role*
house passes financial bailout 263-171*
wachovia dumps citigroup, agrees to merge with wells fargo*
will wall street meltdown turn america into a police state?*