Archive for category Conservatives
And Yet It Moves . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in Conservatives, Culture Wars, Religion & Spirituality on March 7th, 2010
MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN MODEL OF THE UNIVERSE
No more famous words were ever spoken in the clash between Science and Religion.
Galileo’s name is synonymous with the former, having been called “The Father of Modern Science“. But his deepest convictions regarding the scientific certainty that the Earth circled around the Sun (heliocentric theory) almost cost him his soul, placing him at odds with his own religion.
It was the year 1616, when the Catholic Church and all of mankind was still convinced that Earth was the center of the universe, and everything revolved around our world (geocentric theory). After a very long and openly contentious battle with the Catholic Church over this issue, Galileo was forced to publicly recant his belief that the Earth circles around the Sun in order to save his soul - thereby avoiding torture and excommunication from the Church. Legend has it that after he had “confessed” that the Sun revolves around the Earth, he reputedly whispered under his breath those famous words, ”And yet it moves” - referencing the fact that the Earth does move.
As ludicrous as it may seem that the Catholic Church held such antiquated beliefs back then, and even forced a man of science to be brought before a religious inquisition, we should not ignore the power of religion to keep our minds stuck in the “Dark Ages” even today. Case in point: a biology text that is currently being recommended for home-schooled children which attempts to refute Darwin’s classic Theory of Evolution by replacing it with Creationist theory – which a Federal Court has already declared unconstitutional for inclusion in public education curriculum, and further debunked as unscientific. Even worse is the fact that this “biology” textbook also contains a not-so-veiled threat in very stern terms warning young science students what they should believe if they want their souls to be saved.
Here is some of the text from that book:
[A] “Christian worldview … is the only correct view of reality; anyone who rejects it will not only fail to reach heaven but also fail to see the world as it truly is.”
So now ask yourself, does the Earth revolve around the Sun?
Be careful how you answer that question. The salvation of your soul may hang in the balance . . . as well as your child’s education.
Teabaggers Are Tards!
Posted by Lance Haley in Anti-government sentiment, Conservatives, Cultural Issues, Glenn Beck, Government, Politics, Populists, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, United States on March 5th, 2010
TEABAGGER ANTI-STIMULUS PROTEST AT WHITEHOUSE ON 2-27-09
OK.
Let’s analyze this Tard logic.
1) Teabaggers (members of the American Tea Party) are so incensed that Rachael Maddow calls them by that name – sarcastically referencing the sexually-perverted act - that they have filed 1,239 Indecency complaints with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)against MSNBC (subsidiary cable network of parent company NBC), the broadcaster of The Rachael Maddow Show.
2) The Teabaggers were the first ones to reference the term for political purposes in their February 27, 2009 anti-stimulus protest in front of the Whitehouse (see 2/27/09 post on web containing the picture above).
3) So now their politically-correct sensitivity is insulted?
Including the Teabaggers Chief Tard, Sarah Palin?
Hail to the Chief.
Harry Markopolos’ $50 Billion Dollar Failure
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Capitalism, Congress, Crime & Punishment, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Legal & Justice, Politics, Sarah Palin, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on March 2nd, 2010
![dumb and dumber [2]](http://screwedus.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/dumb-and-dumber-23.jpg "dumb and dumber [2]")
S.E.C. LAWYERS’ GRADUATION CLASSES: 1999-2008
If you hired a security guard to watch your house, and it kept getting burglarized – even after someone told him countless times who the thief was – would you let him keep his job?
Stupid question, you say? Really?
So why do we keep the same morons on our government payroll to watch the financial markets? Now that is a good question. And there really is a simple answer. The foxes make sure to instruct their under-lords to have those dumb sharecropper farmers whom they pay beggars wages to for working their land, to keep that same old deaf and blind dog guarding the chicken coop. This metaphor should not be lost on anyone.
Bernie Madoff may be a household word – and one of Time magazines 2009 Top 100 people who affected the world. But Harry Markopolus is just another quiet hero in a global financial market run by pimps and whores. Markopolus has a new book coming out today called, “No One Would Listen“. The book chronicles the story of how Markopolus doggedly pursued a fraud case against Bernie Madoff from 1999 through 2008 by trying to get the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawyers to investigate Madoff’s House of Cards. All to no avail.
WTF you might ask? At least that’s what I have been saying since this story first broke in early 2009 when Markopolus testified before Congress (you can read his testimony right here), and then was interviewed by CBS’s 60 Minutes.
This is beyond a comedy of errors. This is Dumb and Dumber, The Three Stooges, and Beevis and Butthead all working in concert to unwittingly thwart one another while the criminals continued to steal from us with unbridled impunity. Now is that not a terrifying image? Meet your S.E.C., America. Wall Street owns these guys.
Starting in 1999, Markopolus made several attempts to give the most fundamental proof of Madoff’s fraud to numerous investigators at the S.E.C. - all of which was either willfully or woefully ignored (Markopolus calls them “idiots” – that is too kind, don’t you think, Sarah Palin? I would have called them retards). By 2007, he was fed up with their wanton stupidity, and decided to document it by submitting a nineteen (19) page memorandum to the S.E.C. outlining the basis for his claim. That too, was ignored.
View the complete 60 Minutes interview with Markopolos - or just watch the real BOMBSHELL from minute 7:25 to 8:18 of the interview. That brief one minute segment is incomprehensible. And you wonder why so many investors were “Madoffed” by Bernie?
So after all this, has anything changed?
Hell no!
Harry Markopolus is still trying to settle his first big whistle-blower case, he has spent years living in fear, and yet he remains undeterred in his dogged pursuit of financial racketeers and corporate fraudsters. Of course, his new book should help keep his wife and young boys fed until payday comes. Ironically, Markopolus refers to himself as a “$50 Billion dollar failure”- because he could not get the S.E.C. to listen. One might conclude that he is being flippant, since he all but beat them over the head with his evidence. However, he is serious about characterizing this as his “failure” - he honestly takes it very personally that all these people were hurt by Madoff’s fraud in the face of the S.E.C.’s utter incompetence.
You just have to love this man. After all this, the crooks and the “police” shirk responsibility, and the hero feels guilty? And you wonder why it seems the world has started spinning in the other direction?
Meanwhile, back at the S.E.C., they are still re-disorganizing the deck chairs on the U.S.S. Financial Titanic, and there should be smooth sailing on the calm seas of Neo-Capitalism all the way back to port. No need to worry. They have their securities regulation minions fast asleep on night watch while the next massive financial iceberg awaits in the darkness. And brace yourself, because this next one’s really going to be a doozy folks.
In the meantime, bring them some Dom Perignon, the exquisite pate’, and that rare Russian escargot they just had imported, all paid for with your financial bailouts. And don’t forget to put that on a silver platter.
Oh, they almost forgot to mention it. You can ignore the water rising on the Italian marble dining room floor. That’s just from the watered-down financial regulation reform we are about to get from Wall Street’s wholly-owned public subsidiary, Congress. They have the S.E.C working on that minor leak down in the hull right now.
One Final Note: please do not bother counting the number of lifeboats. Those seats have all been reserved.
Enjoy the cruise. 
P.S. They saved several seats in the lifeboats for the S.E.C. lawyers. You didn’t really think the Financial Terrorists were going to row those things themselves, did you?
Michael Smerconish Leaves Republican Party After 30 Years of Unwavering Allegiance
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, Budget & Deficit, Campaigns, Centrists, Conservatives, Logic & Reasoning, Media & Communication, Middle Class, Moderates, Politics, United States on February 27th, 2010
WOW!
If you do not know who Michael Smerconish is, you are not alone.
Smerconish is well known in political circles as a Conservative columnist and radio talk show host in Philadelphia, PA. He frequently makes guest appearances on some of the cable news shows, and his insight into Pennsylvania politics was of great interest during the 2008 Presidential primaries, as well as the general election. There is no other media personality in Pennsylvania that has a better finger on the pulse of that state’s politics. Although I was skeptical of his politics when I first saw him in 2008, he won me over as time went on, and I took great interest in what he had to say regarding the political landscape of a state that was very diverse in it’s political leanings.
That is why his announced “resignation” from the Republican Party this past week is very shocking, and should not be lightly dismissed by party leaders, nor Conservative pundits. Particularly the manner in which his decision was made – while standing in line at the drivers license bureau, when prompted by a bureaucrat as to whether he would like to declare an affiliation with either political party.
Such a seemingly spontaneous act was obviously not a decision that was either taken lightly, or consciously contemplated. After all, he had publicly and openly sworn allegiance to the Republican party and it’s principles for the last 30 years. And in the course of 30 seconds, while standing in line at the drivers license bureau, all of that changed. If you want to understand why, read his statement.
That is why it is so consequential. His leaving is evidence of a quiet tsunami of voters who are likely not even aware of their subconscious preparations to abandon their parties, and demand a return to political and economic sanity in a country that has apparently gone quite mad. They feel alienated and abandoned – by both of the parties and the political system.
Most importantly for both parties is this: My politics and Mr. Smerconish’s diverge on a number of issues, none of which are relevant to the subject at hand. Nonetheless, we now both consider ourselves independent voters. What I divine from his public statement of why he is abandoning his party is that he is a man of reason and logic. A person who can clearly see that things are not always so clear cut. A man who is certain of the uncertainty of the future of this country. A citizen who refuses to participate in a process that will bring about the destruction of this great nation. But most importantly, an American who is willing to put his country ahead of his own personal political beliefs, without sacrificing the principles that underlie those beliefs.
That Michael Smerconish and I can find agreement on what the most important issue is that the majority of voters believe this country must immediately address speaks volumes.
Quite simply . . . STOP THE MADNESS!
Were Dick Cheney’s Chest Pains and Terrorist Najibullah Zazi’s Guilty Plea in NY Federal District Court Earlier Today Just a Coincidence?
Posted by Lance Haley in Conservatives, Crime & Punishment, Dick Cheney, Government, Legal & Justice, National Security, Politics, U.S. Attorney's Office, U.S. District Courts, War on Terror, al Qaida on February 22nd, 2010
It would take a really big washrag to wipe that huge grin off my face right now.
Click here and here – then read ScrewedUS.com Memo to Dick Cheney.
Don’t you just love life’s little ironies?
Why Good Non-partisan Politicians Like Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Dennis Moore (D-KS) Throw in the Towel
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, 2012 Election, Campaigns, Conservatives, How and Why We Get Screwed, Uncategorized on February 16th, 2010
These two men are the “poster children” for what’s really wrong with Congress and American Politics
You only need to look at their recently announced retirements – Bayh’s came yesterday and Moore’s was back in November 2009 - in order to divine that something is seriously amiss.
They are NOT Liberal Democrats. These are both very mainstream Centrists, at times even leaning a bit to the Conservative side. Moreover, it is highly unlikely either one of them would have lost their seats in the next election cycle. They were both very popular – especially with independents and Republican moderates – and they both have huge campaign war chests.
So why quit?
Evan Bayh’s stated reasons given at the press conference for his retirement announcement yesterday speaks volumes:
“There is too much partisanship and not enough progress — too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving,” he said yesterday. “Even at a time of enormous challenge, the peoples’ business is not being done.”
And although Dennis Moore has not stated the same sentiments publicly – and I have known Dennis for a number of years – I have a very strong visceral instinct that such is the case. If so, we are witnessing the disappearance of the political Centrists/Moderates, and an even greater polarization of the political spectrum.
Moreover, the inexplicable hatred of President Obama by the Right Wing - and blanket criticism of everything he does (or does not do) – defies logic and reason. Because of this insane hatred and the incendiary punditry, we are now treading down a very dangerous pathway; it does not bode well for the future of our country, or the security of this nation.
Are you listening America?
Memo To Dick Cheney: Me Thinks Thou Doth Protest Too Much
Posted by Lance Haley in 9/11, Conservatives, Dick Cheney, Politics, War in Afghanistan, War on Terror, al Qaida, foreign policy on February 14th, 2010
Shoe Bomber Richard Reid – Poster Child for Dick Cheney’s Hypocrisy
This morning on NBC’s Meet the Press, Vice President Joe Biden responded to former Vice President Dick Cheney’s attacks on the Obama Administration’s handling of accused Christmas Day terrorist bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. As Biden accurately stated, Cheney is “”not entitled to rewrite history. He’s not entitled to his own facts“, correctly pointing out that the Bush Administration also prosecuted shoe bomber Richard Reid in a civilian court. This author just commented this past week on the duplicity with which you and other Republicans are terrorizing the American people over this nonsense, after your Administration tried over 150 terrorists in civilians courts – including one of the 9/11 co-conspirators.
This blog contains a number of entries addressing Cheney’s constant attacks on the current Administration, and why he has absolutely no standing to criticize Obama; particularly because of the hypocrisy pertaining to the decisions and policies of the Bush Administration – specifically, their failure to prevent the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and the subsequent blunder that led to Osama bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora, Afghanistan ninety days later.
Playing armchair psychologist is fraught with dangers of misdiagnosis, as well as the tendency towards over-generalization of certain symptoms as definitive indicators of a specific pathology. Nevertheless, and admittedly at the risk of the cognitive dissonance in ignoring my own advice to the contrary, I will venture a psychological explanation on why Dick Cheney’s persistent revisionist history reveals the depth of his pathological dissonance. Which may be why Cheney is rated the most unpopular Vice President in modern history – even surpassing Dan Quayle (say it ain’t so Dick).
“If an action has been completed and cannot be undone, then the after-the-fact dissonance compels us to change our beliefs.” What most often occurs in the aftermath of undeniable factual evidence of an action that betrays our personal beliefs or opinions is a growing increase in dissonance in direct relationship to “the importance of the subject to us, how strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict, and our inability to rationalize and explain away the conflict.
In other words, when we cannot reconcile our beliefs and opinions with the undeniable existence of facts that contradicts them, we defend our position even more zealously. Denial of the Holocaust by people like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – who ironically may be Jewish - is a stark example of this behavior.
It is William Shakespeare’s often misquoted poetic commentary [as in the body of the subject line of this entry] that is the most famous historical observation on this human condition:
“The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.”
Thank Goodness Obama Healthcare Reform is Dead? Caveat Emptor . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, 2012 Election, Bailouts, Banking, Budget, Budget & Deficit, Budget Deficit, Business and Money, Campaigns, Capitalism, Conservatives, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, Healthcare Reform, How and Why We Get Screwed, Medicare, Sarah Palin, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on February 12th, 2010
This is the face of the future for Republican Health Care and Social Security Reform – memorize it!
Now remember all of those terrifying Town Hall meetings in the Summer of 2009, where all you heard about on a daily basis were “Death Panels” and Medicare cuts, and Big Brother’s government bureaucrats making decisions about both the quality and quantity of health care you were going to receive?
You have nothing to worry about. Obama’s Health Care Reform is likely all but dead, and many of you will try to vote the Republicans back into power in this Fall’s mid-term elections so that they can protect you from Obama’s scary Socialist Big Government. Hip, Hip, Hooray (or is that Horror?) for their brand of Capitalism and individual freedom.
Except for one thing. The Republicans do not intend to protect you from anything (remember, that’s the point of shrinking government support). Including going broke in your retirement years from either rising health care costs, or diminishing retirement income. Think I am kidding? This is not hyperbole!
Ignore what follows at your own peril . . .
At the 2009 CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) - this is the Superbowl of Conservative power-brokers, with Glenn Beck as their 2010 Keynote Speaker - Republican Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposed that Medicare be completely dismantled, and replaced by a system of vouchers for seniors to purchase health insurance in the private sector.
Make no mistake about it: this will be the platform for the Republicans’ answer on how to reform health care once they are back in power. Do you doubt that? Well, Fox News reported that Ryan has been annointed as “the leader of future of the conservative movement.” That’s code for Republican Presidential nominee. He is their visionary, and here is his vision for American retirees’ Medicare and social security safety nets.
According to The Economist magazine, and an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Ryan’s “daring plan” will stimulate both the health insurance industry, as well as the health care industry, while slowing the growth of government health care spending; which is great if you are a Republican rising star like Ryan, who receives almost 40% of his political campaign contributions from health-related industries and their beneficiaries.
What’s not so great for retirees is that the CBO analysis shows why this is so great for the government and those industries: the dollar value of those vouchers you are going to get under Ryan’s plan will not rise as quickly as the projected costs of health care. Which means retirees will have higher out-of-pocket expenses as time goes on. And you can be certain that if those costs are going up, your private health insurance will also be going up at an equally rising rate – after all, they have to make a profit. That’s Capitalism. Right?
Another great thing about this plan – but not so great for retirees – is that the cost to the government will continue to grow more slowly because, as the CBO projections show, people will use less health care when they have to increasingly pay more and more out of their own pockets. Remember last summer when Sarah Palin and the Teabaggers scared you about the government rationing health care? Now you can do it to yourself!
In essence, Ryan’s Republican plan would make the government go broke more slowly than American retirees will, while temporarily keeping this growing health care crisis at bay another decade or two, and increase the profits of health-related industries along the way, forcing you to resort to receiving less and less health care as you grow older.
Don’t believe me? Do the math. It’s really that simple.
And Remember: Under the Republican Healthcare Reform Plan you will NOT even have Medicare supplemental insurance to fall back on. You wanted government out of your life . . . you got it!
So be happy you are not going to get Health Care Reform from Obama. I don’t mean to alarm you – especially after the Republicans scared you sufficiently enough to ensure health care reform would not get passed. After all, now they are free to begin selling you their notion of a “free market” alternative. Caveat emptor (”buyer beware”).
And recall the proverbial admonishment: “Be careful what you wish for . . . you just might get it.”
Happy retirement, America.
P.S. Ryan’s “free market plan” also calls for Social Security to be completely dismantled, and privatized. Surely the impact of that policy is not lost on anyone after the global financial markets collapsed for the second time in a decade – losing almost 40% of their value in both downturns, with average investment returns for the past ten (10) years of about 1%. What if your social security safety net was invested there? Hint: it’s not a “free market” proposal - the government will limit your choices on how you can invest your social security retirement. Are you really so naive as to think Wall Street won’t have their greedy fingers in that enormous financial pie? They own Washington, D.C.!
Wizards of Moronic Destruction (WMD) in Louisiana Watergate Have Assured Senator Landrieu’s Re-election
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, 2012 Election, Campaigns, Conservatives, Crime & Punishment, Glenn Beck, How and Why We Get Screwed, Legal & Justice, National Security, Politics, crime on February 11th, 2010
Well if you are too young to remember the Watergate scandal, it almost tore America apart at the seams. In fact, our country has never been as close to a Constitutional crisis as it was back in 1974, when President Richard Nixon was serving his second term in office. With impeachment proceedings looming, Nixon was forced to resign as President of the United States for his participation in the Whitehouse’s cover-up of a burglary of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) offices in the Watergate office building in Washington, D. C. by Republican operatives at the direction of staff members of the Nixon Administration.
This is certainly not to insinuate that anything as remotely sinister as the Watergate scandal crimes against the country took place down in Louisiana near the end of January. However, there are some very strange similarities that cannot be overlooked in respect to the Watergate burglars and the perpetrators of this political criminal escapade in Louisiana.
First, in both cases at least one of the men had a relatively cozy relationship to a U.S. intelligence agency. E. Howard Hunt was a former C.I.A. officer, and one of the Whitehouse operatives who planned and helped execute the break-in of the offices of the DNC. In the present case, it was reported today that Stanley Dai was the assistant director of the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence program at Trinity Washington University, a small Catholic college in Washington D.C., – a program completely funded by the National Intelligence Agency. Moreover, Dai was listed as the principle contact for a symposium that featured officials of the National Intelligence Council, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the C.I.A.
Second, in both cases one of the participants has a “relationship” to a federal law enforcement agency. In Watergate, it was the still-infamous G. Gordon Liddy, a former F.B.I. agent who assisted Hunt in the planning and execution of the burglary. In the Louisiana case, one of the participants is Robert Flanagan, the son of Shreveport-based acting U.S. Attorney Bill Flanagan.
Third, it should come as no irony that in each of these cases the actors were low-level political hacks obviously trying to infiltrate offices of Democratic party members and engage in politically-motivated espionage in order to win an election. It should not be lost on anyone that for these petty criminals, democracy is far too dangerous to be left in the hands of the your political opponents.
Finally, the participation in the Louisiana case by one of the principles in the political “sting operation” to discredit ACORN - a molehill that looks bigger than a mountain to Glenn Beck’s deranged mind – should give a whole new meaning to political karma.
To James O’Keefe: a word of advice - acting like a big pimp when you are just a little political whore will eventually catch up with you.
Running the U.S.A. With Crib Notes and Giving the Country a Hand Job
Posted by Lance Haley in 2012 Election, Campaigns, Conservatives, Politics, Sarah Palin, Tea Party on February 10th, 2010
. . . and Teabaggers and Conservatives are worried about how Obama is running this country?
When Whitehouse Press Secretary Robert Gibbs used crib notes scribbled on his palm in a tongue-in-cheek imitation of Sarah Palin’s speech to the Teabag Party Convention this past weekend, it was a mockery of Palin that ranks up there with some of Tina Fey’s material -
Here is a close-up of Palin’s hand at the Teabagger Convention.
Please, Please, Please Republicans! Run her in 2012. Pleasssssssssssseeeee?