Fuck Obama

[sunny]

Obama’s motorcade fills up in the U.K. — at a BP station

Even the president’s car needs to pull into a convenience store every once in a while.

And according to astute observers at a UK gas station who documented the visit of President Barack Obama’s motorcade yesterday, it apparently doesn’t matter if the gas station of choice carries the BP logo, or that the fuel costs the equivalent of about $8.40 a gallon.

The London Evening Standard reports that the White House rang up a 350 pound tab — that’s roughly $570 — buying gasoline for seven cars at a BP-branded station in Pimlico, England. The automobiles apparently included the armored limousine that has ferried Obama around the United Kingdom, as well as vehicles that carry support staff, Secret Service members, reporters and others.

Onlookers didn’t spot Obama at the station, which sells gasoline at 136.9 pence per liter — or around $8.40 per gallon, if our back-of-the-envelope calculations are correct. That exceeds the U.S. average of about $3.81 per gallon of unleaded gasoline, according to AAA.

There’s plenty of irony in the presidential motorcade’s visit to a BP filling station, since the London-based oil giant owned the Macondo well that blew out in the Gulf of Mexico last year, killing 11 people and unleashing the nation’s worst oil spill.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2011/05/25/obam ... p-station/

[2012 Countdown]

Obama, in Europe, signs Patriot Act extension
GOP's Paul, some Dem senators express alarm over renewal of terror-fighting provisions

WASHINGTON — Minutes before a midnight deadline, President Barack Obama signed into law a four-year extension of post-Sept. 11 powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists.

"It's an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat," Obama said Friday after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

With Obama in France, the White House said the president used an autopen machine that holds a pen and signs his actual signature. It is only used with proper authorization of the president.

The law, enacted after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, has drawn criticism from the right and the left over what's viewed abuses of privacy laws.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43180202/ns ... s-security

[seemslikeadream]

Welcome to the Violent World of Mr. Hopey Changey
Friday 27 May 2011
by: John Pilger, Truthout

When Britain lost control of Egypt in 1956, Prime Minister Anthony Eden said he wanted the nationalist President Gamal Abdel Nasser "destroyed ... murdered ... I don't give a damn if there's anarchy and chaos in Egypt." Those insolent Arabs, Winston Churchill had urged in 1951, should be driven "into the gutter from which they should never have emerged."

The language of colonialism may have been modified; the spirit and the hypocrisy are unchanged. A new imperial phase is unfolding in direct response to the Arab uprising that began in January and has shocked Washington and Europe, causing an Eden-style panic. The loss of the Egyptian tyrant Mubarak was grievous, though not irretrievable; an American-backed counterrevolution is under way as the military regime in Cairo is seduced with new bribes and power shifting from the street to political groups that did not initiate the revolution. The Western aim, as ever, is to stop authentic democracy and reclaim control.

Libya is the immediate opportunity. The NATO attack on Libya, with the UN Security Council assigned to mandate a bogus "no fly zone" to "protect civilians," is strikingly similar to the final destruction of Yugoslavia in 1999. There was no UN cover for the bombing of Serbia and the "rescue" of Kosovo, yet the propaganda echoes today. Like Slobodan Milosevic, Muammar Qaddafi is a "new Hitler," plotting "genocide" against his people. There is no evidence of this, as there was no genocide in Kosovo. In Libya, there is a tribal civil war; and the armed uprising against Qaddafi has long been appropriated by the Americans, French and British, their planes attacking residential Tripoli with uranium-tipped missiles and the submarine HMS Triumph firing Tomahawk missiles, a repeat of the "shock and awe" in Iraq that left thousands of civilians dead and maimed. As in Iraq, the victims, which include countless incinerated Libyan Army conscripts, are media "unpeople."

In the "rebel" east, the terrorizing and killing of black African immigrants is not news. On 22 May, a rare piece in The Washington Post described the repression, lawlessness and death squads in the "liberated zones" just as visiting EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, declared she had found only "great aspirations" and "leadership qualities." In demonstrating these qualities, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the "rebel leader" and Qaddafi's justice minister until February, pledged, "Our friends ... will have the best opportunity in future contracts with Libya." The east holds most of Libya's oil, the greatest reserves in Africa. In March, the rebels, with expert foreign guidance, "transferred" to Benghazi the Libyan Central Bank, a wholly-owned state institution. This is unprecedented. Meanwhile, the US and the EU "froze" almost US$100 billion in Libyan funds, "the largest sum ever blocked," according to official statements. It is the biggest bank robbery in history.

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The French elite are enthusiastic robbers and bombers. Nicholas Sarkozy's imperial design is for a French-dominated Mediterranean Union (UM), which would allow France to "return" to its former colonies in North Africa and profit from privileged investment and cheap labor. Qaddafi described the Sarkozy plan as "an insult" that was "taking us for fools." The Merkel government in Berlin agreed, fearing its old foe would diminish Germany in the EU, and abstained in the Security Council vote on Libya.

Like the attack on Yugoslavia and the charade of Milosevic's trial, the International Criminal Court is being used by the US, France and Britain to prosecute Qaddafi while his repeated offers of a cease-fire are ignored. Qaddafi is a Bad Arab. David Cameron's government and its verbose top general want to eliminate this Bad Arab, like the Obama administration killed a famously Bad Arab in Pakistan recently. The crown prince of Bahrain, on the other hand, is a Good Arab. On 19 May, he was warmly welcomed to Britain by Cameron with a photo call on the steps of 10 Downing Street. In March, the same crown prince slaughtered unarmed protesters and allowed Saudi forces to crush his country's democracy movement. The Obama administration has rewarded Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive regimes on earth, with a $US60 billion arms deal, the biggest in US history. The Saudis have the most oil. They are the Best Arabs.

The assault on Libya, a crime under the Nuremberg standard, is Britain's 46th military "intervention" in the Middle East since 1945. Like its imperial partners, Britain's goal is to control Africa's oil. Cameron is not Anthony Eden, but almost. Same school. Same values. In the media-pack, the words colonialism and imperialism are no longer used, so that the cynical and the credulous can celebrate state violence in its more palatable form.

And as "Mr. Hopey Changey" (the name that Ted Rall, the great American cartoonist, gives Barack Obama), is fawned upon by the British elite and launches another insufferable presidential campaign, the Anglo-American reign of terror proceeds in Afghanistan and elsewhere, with the murder of people by unmanned drones - a US/Israel innovation, embraced by Obama. For the record, on a scorecard of imposed misery, from secret trials and prisons and the hounding of whistleblowers and the criminalizing of dissent to the incarceration and impoverishment of his own people, mostly black people, Obama is as bad as George W. Bush.

The Palestinians understand all this. As their young people courageously face the violence of Israel's blood-racism, carrying the keys of their grandparents' stolen homes, they are not even included in Mr. Hopey Changey's list of peoples in the Middle East whose liberation is long overdue. What the oppressed need, he said on 19 May, is a dose of "America's interests [that] are essential to them." He insults us all.

[Nordic]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/26/s ... an-blasts/

Seven US soldiers killed in Afghan blasts

KABUL – Seven soldiers killed in a bombing in southern Afghanistan on Thursday were Americans, the Pentagon confirmed, adding that they died after successive blasts struck them at the same location.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said the soldiers were killed by two blasts in Shorabak district in Kandahar province. The attack was confirmed by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

[Bruce Dazzling]

This comment from the most recent Chris Hedges post sums things up quite nicely (Jack Riddler's brilliant analysis of the same piece notwithstanding).

By Litl Bludot, May 27 at 2:48 pm

To quote the article: “The liberal class at once was betrayed and betrayed itself.
And it now functions like a commercial brand, giving a different flavor, face or
spin to the ruthless mechanisms of corporate power. This, indeed, is the
primary function of Barack Obama.”

This is the central point of his article. Hedges won’t repeat himself. He expects
you people to understand him. Reading most of these posts, it’s clear that you
don’t.

Until you understand what a lethal fraud Obama is, until you understand the
slick branding that you willingly accept, this country and the planet is
going to be on it’s way to the complete annihilation of intellectual freedom,
factual based reasoning, and then, ultimately the death of the diversity of all
living systems.

“Ruthless mechanisms of corporate power” is an exact and unequivocal phrase.
Let me spell it out for you. Obama is the most talented and by far the most
effective personality the corporate fascists have found for their ongoing
parasitic infection of disaster capitalism, which is resulting in the ongoing
destruction of all forms of meaningful life on this planet.

It is a parasitoid ideology that views life as a commodity, to be sucked dry of
sustenance until there is no “value” left. Humans and all of life are objects to be
sold for units of imaginary value. All our ecosystems are being decimated, ripped up, cut down, dug up, “extracted”, “harvested”, etc. All life is being irradiated by
nuclear isotopes now in our oceans and air; poisoned by countless toxic
chemicals being introduced into our ground, air, water and food: bombed,
murdered, tortured for war profiteering and energy resource wars; spied on,
lied to, defrauded, and ripped off by corporate oligarchs free to abuse us at will.

This is “ruthless corporate power”. This is what Barack Obama sells to you. This is what you have bought.

[Nordic]

I wish people understood "branding". Then again, if they did, it would be a lot more difficult to sell to them!

So .... who's ever gonna let them in on it?

In the corporate/marketing/PR world, branding is everything.

[Bruce Dazzling]

Dylan Ratigan recently interviewed Glenn Greenwald.

Listen at the link link.

Radio Free Dylan Episode 57 – Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com

Is it cruel for a leader to cultivate false hope from cynical voters, only to flip the script and crush those hopes two years later? Is what we were promised in 2008 being delivered on in 2011? To dig in to that topic, we’re bringing one of our Radio Free Dylan favorites, Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com.

“The promise of his candidacy, the reason why young voters and new voters became so energized by his campaign, or the reason people became so “hopeful” to use his word — the central promise was that things would actually be different, the central promise of his candidacy was radical changing of these dynamics. And not only has the critique been that he’s failed to change it, that he hasn’t changed it quickly enough or fundamentally enough, it’s that he’s doing the opposite. He’s moving it in the other direction. He’s bolstering it and intensifying it and strengthening it, and I think that’s the real complaint,” says Glenn.

As we all remember, the promises of the Obama campaign were lofty. ”The real irony and the real tragedy of the Obama presidency is that there were so many speeches where he talked so insightfully about the cancer of cynicism that was infecting the body politic, that people really believed that there was no point in participating in politics, that the political system was stacked against them inherently, that politicians were intrinsically corrupt. And the promise of his campaign was to eliminate the cynicism and to restore in all kinds of factions of the citizenry who lost it. And by raising people’s hopes that greatly, only to then crush those hopes, that has done more to intensify cynicism than any other single event. It let people who had been jaded and cynical believe that they had finally found a reason to be hopeful. Then to dash those hopes, maybe of an entire generation to give into cynicism forever. I think you saw that in 2010, and you’re seeing it in his approval ratings now,” says Glenn.

Even more serious than that, says Glenn, is the president’s inaction towards prosecuting corruption in big business and government, and the protection of those who actually have committed crimes.

“He’s shielded the most powerful people from the most egregious crimes. He’s shielded the telecom industry when they broke the law by cooperating with George Bush’s illegal, warrantless eavesdropping program… He has ensured that virtually no Wall Street tycoons who caused the worst financial crisis that reverberated around the world — and still reverberates — has had any repercussions. Even when banks got caught stealing people’s homes, the Justice Department has stood idly by and done nothing about it, even though there’s clear criminality,” says Glenn.

Most concerning to Glenn is that when ‘Candidate Obama’ was running for president, he said that whistleblowers were patriotic and courageous and need to be encouraged. What he delivered, though, could not be further from that pledge.

“It has been clear for quite some time that he has been the single most aggressive president in persecuting whistleblowers; people who expose government wrongdoing even though it commits no harm to the country. So he’s enabling and bolstering the secrecy regime, while shielding the world’s most powerful factions from any form of accountability,” says Glenn.

So, what’s the reason behind Obama flipping the script on his supporters and his campaign promises? “Administrations, presidents in particular, are very reluctant to investigate criminality on the part of other government officials, because that’s how they protect themselves. It’s part of a gentlemen’s agreement whereby presidents know they can break the law and not be investigated because no subsequent presidents will investigate them. So, those presidents can also act with impunity. So part of it is just self interest. If you’re an elite, and especially a political elite, you want this impunity for political elites to be sustained because that enables you to do what you want without ever having any accountability,” says Glenn.

“The nature of powerful factions is that they wield power. That’s what makes them powerful. And so, if you’re a politician, you don’t want the nation’s most powerful factions working against you and trying to sabotage your power and undermine your policies and work towards your defeat. You don’t want the permanent military industrial complex — as Dwight Eisenhower warned fifty years ago would be more powerful than any democratically elected official — working against you or trying to undermine or sabotage you. You want to accommodate them and keep them on your side. And “good” politicians instinctively accommodate rather than challenge power,” says Glenn.

[Bruce Dazzling]

Every Word He Utters Is a Lie
Arthur Silber
JUNE 22, 2011

I watched Obama's speech. For its brief duration, I kept thinking that George W. Bush could have given exactly the same speech. (Ah, I just remembered that John Caruso demonstrated this truth two years ago, in an exceptionally astute and clever manner.) In fact, and this is the point of significance, no man or woman is going to ascend to the office of president unless he or she will utter precisely the same empty phrases and offer the identical meaningless assurances.

The underlying problem is identified in this post's title. When an individual lies to you repeatedly and systematically, about matters large and small, and especially when he does so over an extended period of time, there is only one method by which an adult will proceed in the future. Very simply, that is to treat everything he says as a lie -- or, if you prefer an alternative, "softer" version of the same idea, to believe nothing he says absent independent corroboration. Sadly for all of us, there are very few adults in America, and only four or five of them have blogs.

In the case of Obama, I could offer the words of one prescient observer. In response to Obama's wildly applauded speech on race, this person wrote:

Almost every politician lies, and most politicians lie repeatedly. Yet in one sense, Obama's speech is exceptional, rare and unique -- but not for any of the reasons offered by Obama's uncritical, mindless adulators. It is exceptional for this reason: it is rare that a candidate will announce in such stark, comprehensive terms that he will lie about every fact of moment, about every aspect of our history that affects the crises of today and that has led to them, about everything that might challenge the mythological view of America. But that is what Obama achieved with this speech. It may be a remarkable achievement -- a remarkable and detestable one, and one that promises endless destruction in the future, both here and abroad.

Oh, yeah. I wrote that -- in March 2008. I think perhaps 12 or 15 people agreed with me. Most of you schmucks didn't. I would say the laugh's on you, but given the devastation and death Obama has caused -- and he's very, very far from done -- I don't think anyone feels much like laughing about any of this.

But having said that, I must note that in the speech this evening, Obama offered a brief passage containing nothing but fall-on-the-floor whoppers. Here you go:

We are a nation that brings our enemies to justice while adhering to the rule of law, and respecting the rights of all our citizens. We protect our own freedom and prosperity by extending it to others. We stand not for empire, but for self-determination.

I love "while adhering to the rule of law." And, "We stand not for empire..." Those three sentences in their entirety are gold-plated comedy material.

Couldn't you just die? You might.

I'm working on an article which will discuss further (among other things) this issue of not crediting a single word uttered by Obama, or by any member of the national ruling class. These are just a few preliminary notes, occasioned by this distinctly forgettable address.

To be continued in the next day or two.

P.S. You'll find more about the specifics of the Afghanistan part of the speech here. The overriding conclusion is one I've stated repeatedly: WE ARE NOT LEAVING.

Yes, I wrote that post yesterday. I'm a thoughtful guy that way.

[freemason9]

"Is it cruel for a leader to cultivate false hope from cynical voters, only to flip the script and crush those hopes two years later?"

I saw "Dylan" in the header, and read "Glenn" in the body.

Fuck it, I'm having another drink. But kudos to whomever composed this sentence, because it tells a vast story.

[Gouda]

Obama awards Defense chief Gates Medal of Freedom
Molly O'Toole
WASHINGTON | Thu Jun 30, 2011

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/ ... LC20110630

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama awarded retiring Secretary of Defense Robert Gates the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a farewell ceremony on Thursday morning.

"A humble American patriot; a man of common sense and decency; quite simply, one of our nation's finest public servants," Obama said of Gates.

(...)

Gates was emotional as he began his response but joked of Obama, "We should have known a couple months ago you're getting pretty good at this covert-ops stuff."

Holder drops broader CIA torture probe to focus on two detainees

By Stephen C. Webster
Thursday, June 30th, 2011

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/30/h ... detainees/

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday that the Department of Justice was opening an investigation into the deaths of two prisoners who allegedly perished in the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) custody.

The decision, however, means the end of a broader probe of the agency's use of torture during the Bush administration.

Leon Panetta, the outgoing CIA director who's slated to lead the Department of Defense, praised the decision and expressed relief to reporters "that the broader inquiries are behind us."

He added that "our primary responsibility is not to the past, but to the present and future threats to the nation."

In announcing the probe of the two men's deaths, Holder insisted that further investigation into other torture claims was "not warranted."

"The men and women in our intelligence community perform an incredibly important service to our nation, and they often do so under difficult and dangerous circumstances," he said. "They deserve our respect and gratitude for the work they do."

[sunny]

"The decision, however, means the end of a broader probe of the agency's use of......"

I wonder how many times this sentence has been used in newspaper articles about the CIA?

[Bruce Dazzling]

He (Panetta) added that "our primary responsibility is not to the past, but to the present and future threats to the nation."

It's so amazing to me that this has become a perfectly acceptable response to what seems like 98% of Americans.

I mean, fucking seriously, Panetta, Obama, and Holder might as well just cock-slap every American in right in the face.

[Jeff]

A year old, but this bit is new to me. About ten minutes in....

If there's any doubt about the leadership our military is showing, you just need to look at this F-18 fighter. The army and Marine Corp have been testing this vehicle on a mixture of biofuels. And this Navy fighter jet, appropriately named the Green Hornet, will be flown for the first time in just a few days, ON EARTH DAY.

[Laodicean]

^that one has me scratching my head. The "colonial" remark he made however has irony written all over it.

[8bitagent]

Wow, just love how we're seeing the "lefty eco"ification of military fascism. "We're now blowing up them Muslims with renewable energy and alternative fuel...plus the gays can join in on the fight too!"

Thankfully a lot of the left is waking up to what's going on...just sucks the loudest anti Obama voices are the racist Tea Party/GOP idiots