Putin, Pope Francis and Trump the Modern Day Saint George the Dragon Slayers

Democracy and Christianity died in America December 12, 2000 when elected government was overthrown and replaced with a think tank creation of American imperialism.  That feat could not have been accomplished without the consent of the two parties in American politics.

The New World Order that was birthed in the George W. Bush Administration and escalated under the Barack Obama Administration appeared unstoppable.  But then out of the ashes rose the unlikely trio of modern day Saint George the Dragon Slayers.  That trio is Pope Francis, Russian President Vladimir Putin and American Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump.

Who was Saint George the Dragon Slayer?  According to St. George’s Anglican Church:

Excerpt:

Saint George is the patron saint of Aragon, Catalonia, England, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, and Russia, as well as the cities of Amersfoort, Beirut, Fakiha, Bteghrine, Cáceres (Spain), Ferrara, Freiburg, Genoa, Ljubljana, Gozo, Milan, Pomorie, Preston, Qormi, Lod, Barcelona and Moscow, as well as a wide range of professions, organizations, and disease sufferers….

Isn’t it interesting that the countries that have adopted Saint George the Dragon Slayer as their patron saint, are the countries that have been in the crosshairs of the bloodied scope on the rifle of the Washington D.C. military industrial complex. 

The traditional legends have offered a historicised narration of George’s encounter with a dragon…  The modern legend… omitting the more fantastical episodes, to narrate a purely human military career in closer harmony with modern expectations of reality….

In the year AD 302, Diocletian (influenced by Galerius) issued an edict that every Christian soldier in the army should be arrested and every other soldier should offer a sacrifice to the Pagan gods. But George objected and with the courage of his faith approached the Emperor and ruler…  

George loudly renounced the Emperor’s edict, and in front of his fellow soldiers and Tribunes he claimed himself to be a Christian and declared his worship of Jesus Christ. Diocletian attempted to convert George, even offering gifts of land, money and slaves if he made a sacrifice to the Pagan gods. The Emperor made many offers, but George never accepted.

Recognizing the futility of his efforts, Diocletian was left with no choice but to have him executed for his refusal. Before the execution George gave his wealth to the poor and prepared himself.

After various torture sessions, including laceration on a wheel of swords in which he was resuscitated three times, George was executed by decapitation before Nicomedia’s city wall, on April 23, 303.

It would be comical if it weren't so tragic that the so called Christian Nations today are run by Diocletian values.  They sacrifice not only their soldiers, but soldiers recruited from nations they have destroyed to the pagan gods of the war industry.  These so called Christian Nations, especially America and Britain have denounced Pope Francis, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump repeatedly.

For instance, Pope Francis became Pope in the year 2013 and burst onto the world stage.  The Argentinian was the first Jesuit to become pope selecting the name Francis in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi.  Right from the start Pope Francis enraged Washington and London politicians with his so called “leftist” agenda.

The Pope’s first meeting with Putin took place in November 2013 to discuss the plight of Christians in the Middle East and the Syria.  It seems the foreign and domestic policies of Born Again Christian George W. Bush and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama have been devastating for Christians. From Russia Times:

Excerpt:

Putin and Pope Francis’s first meeting focuses on Christians’ plight in Mideast

Hopes were high for warmer relations between the Russian Orthodox and Catholic churches as President Vladimir Putin flew Monday to Rome for his first audience with Pope Francis. Topping the agenda is likely help for Christians in the Middle East.

Putin, an Orthodox Christian, has repeatedly said that he is a man of faith and his administration has consistently sought closer ties with the Russian Orthodox Church…

It’s not the first time Pope Francis has addressed topical political issues: before the Group of 20 Summit in early September, the pontiff implored Putin to seek a peaceful resolution to the Syrian crisis, along with other world leaders…

In recent months, violent attacks on Christians in Syria, Libya and other hotspots in the Middle East have featured increasingly in media reports.

Christians, who comprise about 10 per cent of Syria's population, are viewed as supporters of President Bashar Assad, fearing the Islamist ideology of some rebels…

“I believe it is all systematic and planned,” Sami Housni, a Christian priest in Damascus, told RT. “Forcing Christians to leave… In Iraq, for instance, less than 200,000 Christians remain.

We do have concerns, and we do hope to stay in our land, Syria, which is the cradle of Christianity. We also hope that the Pope and the heads of Christian denominations will call for the renunciation of violence and the adoption of dialogue.”

That was in 2013 and where are we today?  Three years after Pope Francis reached out to Vladimir Putin to help find a peace agreement in Syria, the cradle of Christianity has been practically obliterated by American made bombs.  America has been sold to the highest bidder, that bidder being Saudi Arabia.   According to John Myers writing at Personal Liberty:

Excerpt:

Bush and Obama sold America out to Saudi Arabia

The United States invaded the wrong country when it attacked Iraq. Saudi Arabia, not former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, financed the terrorists and aided and abetted the slaughter of thousands of innocent Americans on 9/11.

We have always known that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. That was just a coincidence, proclaimed Washington. But the evidence old and new is stacking up that Saudi Arabia, at the top levels of government, provided aid for that assault…

It all seems too incredible to be true. It would mean our government has been lying to the American people for well over a decade…

According to Global Research in September 2013, the United States will have spent between $4 and $6 trillion fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan…  the families of the 9/11 victims in a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia announced they have new evidence that agents of that government “directly and knowingly” aided the hijackers. It includes sworn testimony from the 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui.

Why in the world would two presidents cover up the most horrific attack on American civilians? I can give you two reasons: oil and money….

Those reasons might explain Bush’s cover-up. Obama may have more personal ones for protecting the country that holds two of Islam’s most holy sites, The Sacred Mosque in Mecca and the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina.

This may sound outlandish, but so are some of the things Obama has said regarding Islam, including his speech last week at the National Prayer Breakfast:

And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.

In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. Michelle and I returned from India — an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity — but a place where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs — acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation.

Yes, Mr. President, and let’s not forget about the evil inside Ancient Rome.

Washington’s imperial plans have had a major stumbling block keeping them from achieving world domination.  That stumbling block has been Russian President Vladimir Putin the Dragon slayer.  No lie, no accusation, no unsubstantiated claim about Putin has been too scurrilous or too outlandish for the press to breathlessly report as fact.  For instance, the charge de jour is “Putin is Corrupt.”  From Russian Insider:  

Excerpt:

'Putin is Corrupt' - Proclaims Most Corrupt Govt on Earth

Startling new evidence gathered by the US government shows the extent of Vladimir Putin's wealth and corruption…

The Moscow Times reported that Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the U.S. Treasury, Adam Szubin, accused President Vladimir Putin of corruption in an interview with the BBC's program "Panorama" on Monday:

Putin is corrupt and the U.S. government has known this for many, many years…

We've seen [Putin] enriching his friends, his close allies, and marginalizing those using state assets that he doesn't view as friends. Whether that's Russia's energy wealth or other state contracts, he directs them to people he believes will serve him and excludes those who don't. To me, that is a picture of corruption

As usual, Szubin offered no evidence whatever to prove his allegations -- not even low resolution black & white satellite photos of two black dots purported to be Putin passing illicit cash to one of his "cronies…" 

Hey Under Secretary Szubin, I have a real case of corruption and cronyism for the U.S. Treasury Department to investigate.  How about this one from the Intercept:

Excerpt:

How the Iraq War Financed a Beltway Real Estate Boom

Back in the DC real estate doldrums of the mid-1990s, before he helped pave the way for war in Iraq, Stephen Rademaker owned a modest condo in Arlington, Va.

Then, a few years later, as a House staffer on the International Relations Committee, Rademaker wrote the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which called for regime change, a phrase that altered the course of history…

Things soon took a turn for the better, at least for Rademaker; he left government and went to work as a lobbyist, eventually joining countless numbers of retired government officials who cleaned up, directly or indirectly, by leading the country into war…

Rademaker, who was a strong backer of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and has generally never met a war he didn’t want, from Syria to Libya…

Also worth mentioning is that Rademaker is married to neocon Danielle Pletka, another former Hill staffer who is now senior vice president at the American Enterprise Institute, and who clings by her nails to the cliff’s edge of sanity.

She and her think tank were major proponents of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and last August, Pletka co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed that called President Obama’s response to ISIS “inadequate.” She demanded that Obama arm the Syrian opposition, send military advisers and trainers to Iraq “by the thousands, not hundreds,” and stop “blocking the delivery of much-needed weapons” to Iraq….

Resuming those shipments—which had been delayed by annoying human rights concerns, like widespread “politically motivated sectarian and ethnic killings” in the words of a U.S. government report—is one of the things that Pletka’s husband gets paid to lobby for, my source said, so it’s nice she can use the Journal’s op-ed pages to help him out.

In the meantime, Rademaker has taken a nice step up from the Arlington, Virginia condo that he sold in 1995 for $148,000. Now he and Pletka live in a 6,138-square-foot 6-bedroom home in McLean, Va.—big enough to fit a few of the over one million Iraqis who have been displaced or fled their country since the 2003 invasion. Rademaker and Pletka bought the house, currently assessed at $1.8 million, a year after the war began.

You know what the real kicker is?  Daniel Pletka isn’t even an American, she’s from Australia.  As a matter of fact many of the members of the American Enterprise Institute with their snouts in the American taxpayer trough are not Americans.  Makes me wonder about all the tortured intellectual contortions of the right wing to justify the Presidential candidacy of Ted Cruz.  

Cruz clearly is not eligible to run for President of the United States, he was born in Canada.  I wonder why they are so eager to eliminate the Constitutional requirement that the President and Vice President be natural born citizens.  Who do you suppose the AEI has in waiting?

I won’t hold my breath waiting for a U.S. Treasury Department investigation into the trillions of taxpayer dollars funneled into the pockets of the cheerleaders for war.  But how about investigating this Mr. Szubin?  From Global Research:

Excerpt:

Report Reveals $8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget

Yahoo Money’ The Daily Ticker  quoting a Reuters investigation that reveals that $8.5 trillion – that’s trillion with a “T” – in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996 that has never been accounted for.

You read that right. While Republican politicians  rush to slash food stamps for the 47 million Americans living in poverty – the highest amount in nearly two decades –  Republican U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has the audacity to complain that $20 billion dollars in automatic sequester cuts to the massive and secretive $565.8 billion Defense Department budget are “ too steep, too deep, and too abrupt,” all while the Pentagon and the Defense Department are overseeing massive fraud, waste, and abuse.

Yes, that is what a “Christian” nation does, starve their people to plow trillions of dollars into the “Defense” Department to maim and kill people across the world.  The media in America is trying to turn the people against Vladimir Putin because he is so corrupt, he rewards his crony friends.

The corruption accusation against Putin comes on the heels of their latest failed attempts to slander Putin.  The British and American media have bleated out the charge “Putin ordered the murder of Litvinenko.”  From Consortium News:

Excerpt:

Assessing a Murder Case Against Putin

Once Western media demonizes a foreign leader it becomes hard to assess allegations because if you express doubt, you’re dubbed an “apologist.” But careful analysis is still crucial as Russia Insider editor Alexander Mercouris offers on the British claim that Russian President Putin “probably” ordered a murder in London.

The Judge who headed the Inquiry was obsessed with proving the Russian state murdered Litvinenko.  In order to prove what he always believed he threw legal procedure out of the window and interpreted the evidence how he wanted.

In the end even he could not prove that the Russian state murdered Litvinenko, which is why he could only say they “probably” did.

In reality the facts – if looked at objectively – show the Russian state almost certainly did not murder Litvinenko and played no part in his death.

The Inquiry and its report actually say more about the pathological hostility to Russia of some sections of the British establishment than they do about the Litvinenko case.

Yep, the “Inquiry” says more about the “pathological hostility to Russia” in the Cameron Administration than about Putin.  And who is the only American candidate for President that is sane enough to avoid making wild accusations that Putin is a murderer?  You guessed it, Donald Trump.  From the Daily Mail:

Excerpt:

Donald Trump defends Vladimir Putin over Alexander Litvinenko murder insisting if 'he says he didn't do it...who knows who did it'

Republican presidential nomination speaking following inquiry into killing.  Trump says if Putin denies being responsible then he should be believed, added he will only make up his mind when someone is convicted of crime.  London judge concluded spy's 2006 death was 'probably state sponsored'

Imagine that, an American Presidential candidate that says Putin should be believed if he says he’s innocent until someone proves in a court of law that he is not.  What does that say about American politicians when they don’t believe in the basic tenant of you are innocent until proven guilty.

But people across the world are fed up with the Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire spewing hatred and lies as newsworthy facts.  Case in point, Germany.  From Russia Insider:

Berlin , Germany

Excerpt:

Germans Abandon Major News Sites in Anger Over Slanted Russia Coverage

Triggered by reader disaffection, internet traffic has collapsed for half a dozen major German media websites

Hmmm, what do you suppose happened there?

Der Spiegel – on its way out?

What's going on in the German media is huge.  It is one of the most popular subjects on our site.  The US and UK media have been hugely biased in their coverage of Russia, but German media has been far, far, worse, to the point which strains credulity.

Now it turns out that part of the reason is CIA fiddling with German media outlets.  Coming on the heels of the Snowden revelations, this has Germans seriously ticked-off.  Here's the latest revelation from our correspondent in Germany.

Since the publication of Udo Ulfkotte's “Gekaufte Journalisten“ in September – now a #1 Amazon bestseller, in which he charges that the CIA regularly bribes top German journalists, himself included, – German readers' disaffection towards their mainstream media appears to have crossed a point of no return.

Granted, sales of newspapers and magazines have fallen everywhere, not just in Germany. But this is different. This is a boycott that is affecting web traffic. Germans are steering clear of mainstream media websites.

Ha, ha ha.  I love it.  Good for you guys.  Gotta love the German people.  Stick it to them.  Talk about dragon slaying, I hope this trend continues worldwide. But that’s a tall order for Britain and America, two of the most corrupt nations in the world.  When I saw this article in Mint Press where Buzzfeed is being sued for defamation, I thought it was an article from The Onion at first.

Excerpt:

BuzzFeed Faces $11m Defamation Lawsuit From News Agency

Central European News and its founder Michael Leidig claim that an article titled ‘The King of Bullsh*t News’ deliberately set out to damage the business.

CEN and Leidig allege that BuzzFeed maliciously intended to damage the news agency in order to “obtain a greater share of the market for viral news in Great Britain and elsewhere around the world”.

They are seeking $5m each, as well as a further $1.04m for lost business opportunities, and further punitive damages.

“The BuzzFeed story accuses Mr Leidig, an experienced and award-winning journalist, of the worst thing you can accuse a journalist of – fraud,” said Harry Wise, the New York-based lawyer representing CEN and Leidig. 

“It is unfortunate that BuzzFeed refuses to recognise that its story is completely unfounded, and has done terrible damage to Mr Leidig and his company. We look forward to demonstrating those things in court.”

Leidig, CEN’s chief executive, claims that when BuzzFeed originally contacted him about writing a piece it was under the guise of wanting to write a feature on CEN’s “laudable investigative journalism”.

He launched his legal action after failing to get BuzzFeed UK to remove the article.

Ha ha.  Of course I had to read the article that BuzzFeed wrote called “The King of Bullsh*t News” to see what egregious lies they wrote about Central European News and their crackerjack chief executive Leidig.  This excerpt caught my eye.

Excerpt:

In recent years, CEN has become one of the Western media’s primary sources of tantalising and attention-grabbing stories. They’re often bizarre, salacious, gruesome, or ideally all three: If you’ve read a story about someone in a strange country cutting off their own penis, the chances are it came from CEN.

The firm’s business model, like that of many other news agencies, is to sell a regular stream of stories and pictures to other media companies, which publish them under the bylines of their own reporters. In CEN’s case, these include a string of stories from relatively remote parts of China, India, Russia, and other non-Western countries. 

They tend to depict the inhabitants of those countries as barbaric, sex-crazed, or just plain weird. And often they are inaccurate or downright false.

The story is here if you’d like to read it.

Donald Trump is a Dragon slayer, and will be the next President of the United States unless the two parties can figure out a way to stop him.  So far, he is Teflon Don.  Trump has stepped into the belly of the beast, the Republican Party. 

Once the proud Party of Barry Goldwater the GOP is now a parody of itself.  Wanting to legislate every bedroom and boardroom across the world.  Must have strictest of moral values, not for the actual members of the GOP but for everyone else.  Espousing the “Christian/Judeo” values of war, death and destruction, and salvation through starvation the GOP is a sight to behold.

It appears Reason Magazine agrees with me:

Excerpt:

Donald Trump Is the Harbinger of the Republican Party Apocalypse

And the GOP paved the way for its own destruction.

We may be witnessing the collapse of the Republican party, or at least the Republican party as we know it. And if so, then Donald Trump is the harbinger of its apocalypse.

The signs of the party’s weakness and disarray are everywhere. Trump is the GOP’s presidential front-runner by most any measure: FiveThirtyEight, which recently published a long essay looking at the GOP’s breakdown as a party, gives him a 55 percent of winning the nomination, based strictly on the polls. Yet the candidate is now in open warfare with two of the right’s most influential media platforms: National Review and Fox News.

Last week, National Review published a special issue devoted to denouncing the candidate, with an unsigned editorial labeling him “a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.”

Then on Tuesday, Trump announced that, because Fox refused to comply with Trump’s demand that moderator Megyn Kelly—who has feuded with Trump for months—be removed, he would not participate in the network’s forthcoming presidential debate.

National Review isn’t the party, of course, and neither is Fox, but they are important player on the right, and they wield considerable influence within the Republican party.

No Mr. Suderman, I disagree with you, the National Review and Fox News are the Republican Party.  What’s even worse is that the Obama Administration is the bastard child that resulted from the consummation of the two parties into a monolith.  Look at the disastrous foreign policy that has been a continuation of the Bush Administration’s belligerent, ignorance.

From the Russia Insider:

Excerpt:

Lavrov's Snub Was a Signal to More Than Just Nuland

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a meeting in Zurich, Switzerland, last Wednesday, January 20, with US Secretary of State, John Kerry….

One of the Kerry delegation was Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian affairs.  She is one of several Washington officials directing the war against Russia on the Ukraine front.

In her arsenal, Nuland’s mouth has been used to attack European governments reluctant to join her war, as her “Fuck the EU” remark to US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, revealed at the start of 2014, before President Victor Yanukovich was ousted in Kiev.

The sequence of stills showing Lavrov greeting the US delegation for the press, ahead of the Zurich talks...  Lavrov’s hand  shakes every US official introduced by Kerry (1), except for Nuland.

Her hand was extended (2), then slipped, or slapped past, as Lavrov turned to his left to greet each of the junior US officials lining the wall. As he did so, Lavrov presented Nuland with his right shoulder. Nuland’s mouth fell open (3); the microphones recorded that nothing came out… 

One day later, at the Zurich meeting…   Minutes before the meeting commenced... a Russian cameraman’s warning that the Russian standard was flying on its flag-pole upside down.

These images have been interpreted in the international media as indicators of Russian, also American animus towards each other, as the war to topple the Russian government enters its third year….

Nuland’s moves revealed her belief that she can conduct warfare without risk to herself. Her gape registered shock that she is a target

I sure hope that President Donald Trump purges the State Department and Pentagon of these petulant, ignorant neocons left over from the Bush Administration.  Really, flying the Russian flag upside down, how embarrassing for America.  Victoria Nuland is an international embarrassment as well as a war criminal who belongs on trial in The Hague.

As the celebration of Saint George the Dragon Slayer nears, we remember the story of how Saint George came to slay the Dragon.

Excerpt:

In the fully-developed Western version, which developed as part of the Golden Legend, a dragon makes its nest at the spring that provides water for the city of “Silene” (perhaps modern Cyrene) in Libya or the city of Lydda, depending on the source. Consequently, the citizens have to dislodge the dragon from its nest for a time, to collect water.

To do so, each day they offer the dragon at first a sheep, and if no sheep can be found, then a maiden must go instead of the sheep. The victim is chosen by drawing lots. One day, this happens to be the princess. The monarch begs for her life to be spared, but to no avail.

She is offered to the dragon, but there appears Saint George on his travels. He faces the dragon, protects himself with the sign of the cross, slays the dragon, and rescues the princess. The grateful citizens abandon their ancestral paganism and convert to Christianity….

In the medieval romances, the lance with which St George slew the dragon was called Ascalon, named after the city of Ashkelon in Israel.

So our modern day Saint Georges have an enormous and powerful dragon to slay.  The Dragon has engorged itself on the blood and treasures of nations globally.  But fear not, the Dragon slayers have goodness and righteousness on their side. 

The French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville said “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”  Donald Trump has vowed to make America great again, and I for one believe him.

By Patricia Baeten

Banning Donald Trump from United Kingdom: Cameron Turns UK into Police State under Sharia Law

The United Kingdom under David Cameron has turned into a police state where hate laws are used to ban political opponents of David Cameron from entering the country.  Under the tutelage of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and now David Cameron it is illegal to question the actions of the ruling government in U.K. and the only logical conclusion is that the U.K. is now governed under Sharia Law.

The definition of Sharia Law as defined by Wikipedia is:

Sharia law around the world (as of 2013)

Sharia law (Arabic: شريعة) is the body of Islamic law. The term means "way" or " path"; it is the legal framework within which the public and some private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Islam.

Sharia deals with all aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business law, contract law, sexuality, and social issues….

David Cameron’s reign over the UK has subjected the people of the UK to harsh, ugly rules built on a foundation of sand that shifts with David Cameron’s mood swings.  For instance according to Global News, Cameron’s latest edict is Muslim women must improve their English or face deportation:

Excerpt:

David Cameron says Muslim women ‘must improve English’ or face possible deportation

LONDON – Britain’s leader says Muslim women must improve their English to better integrate into British society, arguing that improved national cohesion is the best antidote to extremism.

Prime Minster David Cameron on Monday pledged to fund English language classes for Muslim women immigrants, and warned some could be deported if they fail to reach certain standards. The 20-million-pound ($28.5 million) fund will help tens of thousands of women facing social isolation and discrimination and emphasize that Britain has expectations for those who want to live in the country, Cameron said…

But the British leader faced an immediate backlash from critics – including some within his own party – who challenged his decision to link language abilities to extremism.

Prime Minster David Cameron on Monday pledged to fund English language classes for Muslim women immigrants, and warned some could be deported if they fail to reach certain standards.

“This lazy and misguided linking, and what I saw once again as stereotyping of British Muslim communities, I felt took away from what was a positive announcement,” Warsi told the BBC….

“I think to threaten women and say to them that ‘unless you are of X standard we will send you back, even if you have children in the U.K. who are British and your spouse is British’ is, for me, a very unusual way of empowering and emboldening women,” she said.

The program aimed at women is meant to end what Cameron called the “passive tolerance” of discriminatory practices and to challenge the “backward attitudes” of a minority of men. He said some 190,000 Muslim women in England speak little or no English.

Ha, ha.  Talk about a backward attitude.  David Cameron’s attitude toward Muslim women makes King Salman of Saudi Arabia look enlightened.  Singling out Muslim women for deportation unless they speak English to a standard set by David Cameron sounds like hate speech to me. 

And speaking of Hate Speech, the British Parliament is taking a vote on whether to ban United States Presidential candidate Donald Trump from entering Britain.  From BBC:

Excerpt:

Banning Trump from UK 'would do him good' says Salmond

Alex Salmond has backed calls for Donald Trump to be banned from the UK.

The US Presidential candidate must be treated the same as anyone else making anti-Muslim remarks, the ex-SNP leader said, and a ban would "do him good".

MPs will debate a petition on Monday urging action against Mr Trump after he called for Muslims to be denied entry to the US on counter-terrorism grounds…

But the former Scottish first minister, who once courted Mr Trump but whose relationship with him has deteriorated in recent months and who has been involved in a war of words with the tycoon, said he believed there were grounds for excluding him.

"My view is that, yes, I would probably ban "The Donald" because it would do him some good. He wants to ban all Muslims from the US. I want to ban all Donald Trumps from Scotland."

The UK home secretary has the power to ban people from entering the UK on grounds of national security, if they are thought likely to incite racial hatred or if they are deemed not to be "conducive to the public good".

Well there’s the problem, according to Mullah Cameron and Mullah Salmond, if Trump had called for the temporary banning of all Muslim women rather than all Muslims, i.e. Muslim men, it would not be hate speech.  So who are some of the other people “Banned in Britain” due to the horrific terror inducing hate speech? From World Weekly News:

Excerpt:

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN BANNED FROM BRITAIN

LONDON — Bruce Springsteen’s concert in London’s Hyde Park ended in controversy after The Boss’ microphone was cut off.  He has now been banned from England.

Springsteen performed 29 songs, playing for more than three hours with several special guests as part of the Hard Rock Calling concert series. The set was already 30 minutes past its 10:30 p.m. curfew when Springsteen began the Beatles hit “Twist and Shout” with Paul McCartney.  Before the song ended, the microphones had already been turned off.

Steven Van Zandt, the lead guitarist for Springsteen’s E Street Band, vented on Twitter after the concert ended.

“One of the great gigs ever in my opinion. But seriously, when did England become a police state?” he tweeted.

That was a bit much for British authorities.  On Sunday, British Parliament voted to ban Bruce Springsteen from England – forever.  

“We will not tolerate anyone, and I mean anyone, breaking our curfew.  We live in dangerous times now and we must be vigilant.  Mr. Springsteen had complete and utter disregard for our curfew and the safety of British citizens,” a top member of Parliament told WWN.

London Mayor Boris Johnson supported the decision, saying at first that the musicians should have been allowed to “jam in the name of the Lord.”   But he reportedly later said that he agreed with the government that Bruce and the E Street Band should never return to England.

So Mullah Boris Johnson the London Mayor said Springsteen should have been allowed to “jam in the name of the Lord,” sounds like Sharia Law to me.  And guess what happened to Steven Van Zandt, the lead guitarist for Springsteen’s E Street Band, who tweeted “But seriously, when did England become a police state?”

Miami Steve was arrested for his Twitter comments, but was released early Sunday morning.  In addition to the E Street Band being forbidden from ever playing in England again, Miami Steve is banned, personally, from ever returning to the country. 

“These Jersey boys think they can come to the Motherland and insult us, we’ll that’s not going to happen.  Our country will be alot better off without the likes of Mr. Van Zandt,” said a source inside Parliament.

Ha, ha, ha.  Please stop, my sides hurt.  Ok, who else is banned in the United Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?  Oh, that West Coast, San Francisco based radio talk show host, MichaelSavage.  So what violation of Sharia law did he commit?

Excerpt:

Michael Savage: Banned in Britain

The outspoken San Francisco radio personality is among 22 people who have been barred from entering the nation as 'hate promoters.'

LONDON — Britain has just two words for controversial California radio talk-show host Michael Savage:

Keep out.

The San Francisco-based Savage, known for his fiery right-wing views, is one of 22 people who have been banned from entering Britain since October, when the government here concluded that they were agents of extremism and intolerance.

Officials Tuesday publicly identified most of the people on the blacklist, in keeping with the national penchant for "naming and shaming" anyone guilty of a crime, a gross injustice or an outbreak of really bad manners.

Really, you can be banned in the United Kingdom for the crime of “really bad manners?”

Jacqui Smith, Britain's home secretary, said she made the decision to publish 16 of the names because potential visitors ought to be aware of what British society considers acceptable behavior….

Savage told the Internet site WorldNetDaily that he was considering legal action against Britain.

"Darn! And I was just planning a trip to England for their superior dental work and cuisine," he joked to the website. "Then it sank in, and I said, 'She said this is the kind of behavior we won't tolerate? She's linking me with mass murderers who are in prison for killing Jewish children on buses? For my speech? The country where the Magna Carta was created?' "

Really indeed, banned in Britain for bad manners, breaking curfew, if they are thought likely to incite racial hatred or if they are deemed not to be "conducive to the public good?"  Well I’ll tell you one thing that kind of crap would never go down in the good old U.S. of A.   Wait, what, did you say, it has?  Oh, yeah I forgot John Lennon was banned from the U.S. for his hateful song “Imagine.”  From Wadiyan:

Excerpt:

U.S. SENATE TABLES BILL TO BAN JOHN LENNON’S ‘IMAGINE’

More than 40 years after its conception, John Lennons’s classic track ‘Imagine’ is still stirring nationwide controversy. In the ongoing senate session, the republican candidate from Texas Senator Lee Tiralo argued that Lennon’s magnum opus has ‘inflammatory lyrics’ with a potential to ‘stir up major political conflicts’ particularly in the strife prone Middle East.

“The lines, Imagine there’s no countries, would incite unnecessary tension in the already volatile Israel-palestine zone.” He adds, “the opening lines Imagine there’s no heaven, are outrightly, impudently blasphemous.” According to the senator, “this is just another example of Lennon’s extremely subtle contradictory style:  as if heaven were a product of imagination instead of being a solid fundamental reality.”

The bill has found support in various quarters. The National Rifle Association has hailed this bill. “We have been complaining since years about Lennon’s anti-freedom stance,” says Larry Prattle, chief of the NRA. “The rifle is the emblem of a free man. Lennon’s lines nothing to kill or die for, disregard American citizens’ right to self-defence.”

The Wall Street also welcomed this bill as an important step in a continuing war against anti-capitalist propaganda. “Who would want a world without possessions?” says media mogul and noted philanthropist Donald Trump referring to the song lyrics Imagine no possessions. 

“Possessions are what define us,” agrees fifth avenue designer Staccoci, ‘specially clothes.’  Stacocci had already launched a blog on the all time worst-dressed rock stars and “John Lennon and Yoko, with their flowing tresses and white pyjamas” definitely take first place.

In all this brouhaha, Smooth, the toilet paper manufacturer has decided to withdraw its spring ad campaign. According to a spokesperson who refused to be identified, the images of sprouting greenery and a blonde model  blowing bubbles holding a ball of toilet paper,  swishing to the tunes of ‘Imagine’ can no longer be considered appropriate. “We apologize for offending religious and materialistic sentiments.” 

Well, imagine that Donald Trump who did not condemn the banning of John Lennon in America for the lyrics to the song Imagine is now being banned in Britain for the same reason.  Just goes to show how nuts this is.  Under George W. Bush, Cat Stevens was banned from America.  From CBS News:

Excerpt:

Cat: Why Was I Banned From U.S.?

Puzzled and angry at being barred from the United States, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens returned to London on Thursday vowing to find out why.

Surrounded by a throng of reporters at Heathrow Airport, Yusuf Islam said it was ludicrous that he was on Washington's no-fly list for having suspected ties to terrorists, and he said he would challenge the decision to block him from entering the country…

"Half of me wants to smile, and half of me wants to growl. The whole thing is totally ridiculous," said Islam, whose string of hits in the 1960s and 1970s included "Peace Train," "Wild World" and "Morning Has Broken." He said he was on flight because he was on his way to Tennessee for a recording session.

"Everybody knows who I am. I am no secret figure. Everybody knows my campaigning for charity, for peace…"

U.S. authorities provided few details about Islam's alleged connection to terrorism or when he was added to the watch list…

Well OK, but that was under the George W. Bush Administration, surely that ended when Obama came into office.  Right?  Ooops, guess not, it actually got worse.  Well who are all these people who have been banned from the United States of Saudi Arabia under Bush and Obama?  From Wikipedia: 

Lily Allen – British singer, banned in 2007 from the U.S. after her U.S. work visa was revoked following her arrest earlier the same years on charges of assaulting a photographer in London.

Luke Angel – British teen who sent a curse-laden e-mail message to the White House directed at President Barack Obama is banned for life from the United States…

Boy George – Boy George (real name George O'Dowd) was denied a visa in 2008 by US immigration officials while facing trial in the UK in November of that year. The singer had been ordered to clean the streets of New York as community service in 2006 after pleading guilty to falsely reporting a burglary.

Yusuf Islam – British singer formerly known as Cat Stevens was denied entry into the United States on 21 September 2004, and would remain banned until December 2006… Islam."

Madchild (né Shane Bunting) – Canadian rapper, who, in early 2011, was banned from entering the United States, due to alleged ties with the Hells Angels biker gang. Bunting stated that he had been detained at a U.S. airport for approximately eight hours before being told he could not enter the U.S…

Pogo, born Nick Bertke, is a South African-born Australian electronic music artist/producer. He was incarcerated for three weeks – two weeks in a county jail and another week in a federal detention centre – after being apprehended without a working visa while touring in America in September 2011…

Amy Winehouse – British singer banned from the USA in 2009 for drug convictions and for assault.

It occurs to me that not only the United Kingdom but the United States has enacted Sharia Law.  Makes me wonder if the “hate speech” laws that have been enacted in Britain and the United States are being used by our governments to control the outcomes of elections more than to protect citizens against terrorist acts caused by hate speech. 

So, I’ll leave you with that thought for the day along with the music of some of the most notorious purveyors of hate through music.  Enjoy.

By Patricia Baeten

The Real State of the Union: America, She’s Come Undone

President Barack Obama gave his last State of the Union address and if the truth be told the real state of America is she’s come undone.  Glen Ford at Black Agenda Report described the State of the Union speech as such:

Excerpt:

Swan Song for a War and Austerity President (Who is Also Black)

“Obama reserves for the U.S. the right to kill as many foreigners as it sees fit, and still claim to be technically at peace.”

It was like Reagan with a case of diversity. Instead of “Morning in America,” Barack Obama summed up his presidency as an arduous climb out of the Bush abyss, a return to sanity that is now threatened by the gathering darkness of Trumpist barbarity.

Obama’s fictional – and, thankfully, final – State of the Union address seems coherent only when juxtaposed with Republican counter-fictions. Together, the two interlocking narratives describe a nation and world of complete fantasy.

For the ruling class installed by Wall Street banks, life couldn’t get better.  They are ready to install the next generation of privileged few to make the laws that they themselves need not abide by. 

The primary election and the debates where the corporate media decides who will get a slot in the debates and who is not worthy of prime time is like a WWF wrestling match, all hype and fakery.  Nothing more than a reality show that seems surreal.  One thing is certain, the two parties hate Donald Trump and they hate Hillary Clinton and will do everything possible to ensure their defeat.

Obama doubled down on the policies of George W. Bush and took a bad situation and made it worse.   There is no difference between the Bush/Cheney regime and the Obama/Biden regime, they are one and the same.  So let’s look at the great “accomplishments” achieved by Obama/Biden that the next Wall Street approved Administration will build on.

Under his guidance, “we recovered from the worst economic crisis in generations” (by further consolidating the hegemony of the banks, pumping tens of trillions into the accounts of the Lords of Capital, and finally admitting that Wall Street was too big to jail);

In the 2008 primary campaign, Obama refused public financing which opened the door for Wall Street banks to funnel three-quarters of a billion dollars into his campaign, $300 million in pre-paid, untraceable $200 or less credit cards during the month of October 2008 alone.  And what did the banks get from Obama and Biden?  From International BusinessTimes:

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Gets Pay Raise After Raking Up $25 Billion In Legal Fees

             Excerpt:

US Treasury Got $117B From The Fed In 2015; $19.3B To Fund Federal Highway Bill

The U.S. Federal Reserve sent a record $117 billion to the Treasury in 2015, it announced Monday, surpassing the record $96.9 billion in 2014….

The Fed had a net profit of $100.2 billion in 2015….

Most of the income was derived from interest on securities acquired from the open market. The Fed holds a big portfolio of assets such as Treasury bonds, as well as mortgage and debt instruments. Since the financial crisis, remittances to the Treasury have grown significantly from $31.7 billion in 2008…

With the economy recovering, an increase in interest rates is expected and when that happens, the Fed will have to pay out more money to other banks that deposit money with it. The central bank will also eventually reduce its investment, which has grown to about $4.5 trillion from $900 billion in 2008.

My, my, my.  Let me see if I have this right, the Federal Reserve Bank had a net profit of $100.2 billion in 2015 which was income derived from interest on Treasury bonds, then they lent the U.S. Treasury $117 billion of those profits they received from those bonds to fund things like the Highway bill.  Man, you can’t make that shit up.  So what else did Obama/Biden chalk up as accomplishments?  Back to Glen Ford’s piece in BAR:

“reformed our health care system” (through his 2009 bait-and-switch that further embedded corporate insurers and drug monopolists and set back true “universal” single payer health care, possibly for a generation);

And how has the Wall Street profit driven Obamacare worked out for everyday Americans?  From Kate Randall at World Socialist Web Site:

Excerpt:

Obamacare enrollment deadline: Fines mount for failure to buy costly, barebones insurance

Tuesday was the last day to choose a health plan under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for coverage beginning January 1. Penalties for those who fail to obtain insurance coverage for 2016 will rise dramatically—more than sevenfold—compared to the first two years of the ACA.

The “individual mandate” of Obamacare, as the ACA is popularly known, requires people who are not insured through their employer or a government program to purchase coverage from private insurance companies on the health care exchanges set up under the legislation….

The Obama administration is seeking to use the spiking penalties to browbeat those uninsured… This coercion for the benefit of the insurance giants is yet another exposure of Obamacare, which aims to force people to buy coverage from for-profit insurers under financial threat.

Meanwhile, people on the insurance exchanges are finding that the least expensive ACA plans come with massive deductibles, co-pays and other out-of-pocket costs…

According to the government’s own projections, ACA enrollees face on average a 7.5 percent premium rate increase in 2016. Other sources predict rate hikes in excess of 20 percent….

The Fiscal Times reported last month that bronze deductibles for 2016 will average over $5,700, a nearly 10 percent rise. The deductible must be paid in full before any health coverage kicks in, except for those services deemed “essential” by the ACA…

For a patient suffering from a debilitating disease, restriction to an HMO likely means he will no longer be able to visit a specialist, such as an oncologist or rheumatologist, with whom he has established a relationship over months or years. The impact is potentially life-threatening.

At the same time, Obamacare prepares the way for the privatization of Social Security and Medicare and their transformation into voucher programs…

Yes the Obama/Biden Administration are frauds posing as Democrats but in reality they are Reagan Democrats ready to slash all social programs to preserve Wall Street bank profits.  During the 2008 primary contest Obama/Biden attacked Hillary for her healthcare plan.  From Fact Check.org:

Excerpt:

One of Clinton’s signature claims has come under fire from political foes, quoted by the Boston Globe, who say she doesn’t deserve credit for expanding federal health insurance for millions of children.

We review the record and conclude that she deserves plenty of credit, both for the passage of the SCHIP legislation and for pushing outreach efforts to translate the law into reality…

“Narrator:  She fought for universal health care long before it was popular. Got health insurance for six million kids, and expanded access to health care to the National Guard. Now she’s the only candidate for president with a plan to provide health care for every American. A top economist calls Hillary’s plan the difference between achieving universal health coverage – and falling far short.”

We had not previously had reason to question her role in the creation of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) during her husband’s administration, but last week the Boston Globe ran a story with the headline, "Clinton role in health programs disputed."

The Globe said Clinton "had little to do with crafting the landmark legislation or ushering it through Congress, according to several lawmakers, staffers, and healthcare advocates involved in the issue."

This was quickly picked up and amplified in various political blogs accusing her of exaggeration and even "lying..."

How much you want to bet those lawmakers, staffers and healthcare advocates were from the Obama/Biden camp?

The pro-Republican Washington Times newspaper credited (or perhaps more accurately, blamed) Hillary Clinton for the program in a 1997 article. The paper said it had obtained documents from 1993 showing that the White House "plotted" to push a "Kids First" insurance program if Mrs. Clinton’s universal health care proposal failed.

Washington Times, Aug. 6, 1997: The plan signed into law yesterday by Mr. Clinton and pushed by the first lady is a duplicate of the 4-year-old health care task force idea, except that it is paid for by a 15-cent tax on cigarettes…

Years later, when Clinton was first running for the Senate, Kennedy’s aide Littlefield was still giving her credit. The New York Times quoted him as saying, ”She was a one-woman army inside the White House to get this done.” 

He said that when President Clinton himself was showing reluctance to back the new legislation out of fear it would upset a budget deal with Republicans, "We went to Mrs. Clinton and said, ‘You’ve got to get the president to come around on this thing,’ " and she did…

Moreover, Hillary Clinton took a major role in translating the new law into action….

Kennedy, of course, is now backing Clinton’s rival, Barack Obama, for the nomination.

What else does Glen Ford have to say about Obama/Biden and the State of the Union speech?

In every State of the Union address, Obama poses as a champion of Social Security and Medicare. But, in January, 2009, before even taking the oath of office, the president-elect told the editorial boards of the Washington Post and the New York Times that “all entitlements,” including Social Security would be “on the table” for chopping during his administration. 

He proceeded to seek a $4 trillion “Grand Bargain” with the Republicans, the scope of which was revealed in a leaked 2011 memo described by author Bob Woodward on NBC’s Meet the Press:

“...what it shows is a willingness to cut all kinds of things, like TRICARE, which is the sacred health insurance program for the military, for military retirees; to cut Social Security; to cut Medicare….

In 2013, Obama took another stab at cutting Social Security, with an attempt to change the way benefits are calculated. Had he succeeded in his premeditated assaults, we would have watched him brag, last night, that he had “saved” the nation’s premier social safety net, trimming it down to affordable size. Social Security is fortunate to have emerged relatively intact from seven years of Obama.

Yes, the Obama/Biden legacy is the final chapter that Republicans have tried for years to achieve, the Reagan Thatcher dream.  Joe Biden has always been the banker’s man, he likes to come across as an everyday “Joe” but it’s Joe Biden you can thank for enslaving a whole generation to a staggering trillions of dollars in student loans debt that can never be forgiven, not through bankruptcy nor death.  Biden was chosen for VP by Obama as a quid pro quo.  From The New YorkTimes in 2008:

Excerpt:

Obama Aides Defend Bank’s Pay to Biden Son

During the years that Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. was helping the credit card industry win passage of a law making it harder for consumers to file for bankruptcy protection, his son had a consulting agreement that lasted five years with one of the largest companies pushing for the changes, aides to Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign acknowledged Sunday….

Campaign officials acknowledged that the connection between the Bidens and MBNA, the enormous financial services company then based in their home state of Delaware, was one of the most sensitive issues they examined while vetting the senator for a spot on the ticket….

The financial services industry began seeking relief from Congress in the mid-1990s from an increase in bankruptcies that was cutting into its profits….  During that time, executives at MBNA, which was bought in 2006 by Bank of America, began donating heavily to both major political parties and many national politicians, including Mr. Biden…

He was one of five Democrats in March 2005 who voted against a proposal to require credit card companies to provide more effective warnings to consumers about the consequences of paying only the minimum amount due each month…

Mr. Biden also went against Mr. Obama to help defeat amendments aimed at strengthening protections for people forced into bankruptcy who have large medical debts or are in the military;

In many of these battles, Mr. Biden’s Democratic colleagues often voiced their frustration with the big financial interests arrayed against them. Senator Paul Wellstone specifically cited MBNA during a floor debate in March 2001 over his call for stronger protections for debtors forced into bankruptcy because of medical bills — an amendment that Mr. Biden would later vote against.

“It just so happens that the people who find themselves in terrible economic circumstances through no fault of their own — major medical bills, they have lost their jobs, or there has been a divorce — it is my view as a former political scientist and now a senator for the State of Minnesota that those people do not have the same kind of clout that MBNA Corporation has,” Mr. Wellstone said.

Yes that’s old black hearted Joe Biden, voted against any protections for people in bankruptcy due to illness or military service.  This is especially revolting because Joe is a war hawk, who was instrumental in overthrowing the government in Ukraine.  And guess what old Hunter Biden is up to now, he and John Kerry’s stepson Chris Heinz are have million dollar jobs running Ukraine’s energy industry.  From Boiling Frogs:

Excerpt:

BFP Exclusive-Stench of Corruption a Ukraine Oligarch Shale Gas Civil War & Baby Biden

Hunter Biden & A Dodgy Company Called Burisma

Ukrainian politics has had the stench of corruption since the free-for-all to loot the country following the declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. However today, some five months after the gangster-led Washington-orchestrated coup d’etat that put the present regime illegally in power in Kiev, that stench is becoming unbearable. Now it involves the case of Ukraine’s deposits of shale gas.

According to a survey done for the US Department of Energy two years ago, Ukraine could have 42 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of shale gas resources technically recoverable from 197 tcf of total shale gas in place….

So some shrewd Ukrainian businessmen along with the ever-politically engaged Royal Dutch Shell—the Dutch-UK energy giant, decided they would drill that shale and frack it like they are doing in Texas today. Here is where it gets really interesting.

The Ukrainian company that has grabbed (literally) the lease rights to the lion’s share of Ukraine’s shale area is called Burisma Holdings. Burisma Holdings is Ukraine’s largest natural gas producer so that in itself is not that surprising. But wait. It gets smellier.

Burisma Holdings is the company that raised eyebrows a few months ago when they announced they had hired the son of the US Vice President to handle their legal division and all international relations of the company. Hunter Biden was also given a seat on Burisma’s board of directors…. 

Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden came under fire back in 2005 when Joe Biden was an influential Senator before becoming Vice President. MBNA, then the world’s largest private credit card issuer hired Baby Biden as the company’s Vice President.

At the same time Senator Biden was then receiving his largest campaign contributions from MBNA and, conveniently for MBNA, was lobbying other Senators to pass bankruptcy reform legislation supported by MBNA. US media referred critically to Senator Biden at the time as the "Senator from MBNA." 

But it gets far worse in Ukraine. This April Hunter Biden agreed to join the board of one of the most politically-charged, scandal-ridden companies in scandal-ridden Ukraine just as his father, Joe, is up to his eyeballs in US illegal operations with the State Department’s Victoria Nuland in orchestrating forced regime change in Ukraine.

The Biden board post at Burisma was made public at the same time Vice President father Joe was in Kiev wheeling and dealing with the new US-installed regime there.

And son Hunter also sits on the Chairman’s Advisory Board for the National Democratic Institute (NDI). The NDI is a project of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the taxpayer funded organization that does what the CIA did covertly 25 years ago, according to one of its founders, Alan Weinstein.

Burisma Holdings is part of the vast business empire of Ukraine’s second richest billionaire oligarch, Ihor Kolomoisky. Joining Hunter Biden on the Burisma Board of Directors is no less than Aleksander Kwaśniewski, named in January just weeks before the US Kiev coup.

Kwaśniewski was President of the Republic of Poland during the G.W. Bush presidency. Chairman of Burisma is a Wall Street former Merrill Lynch investment banker named Alan Apter. Finally, Burisma also at the same time named to the board Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s partner at a US investment firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, and a manager of the family wealth fund of Secretary of State John Kerry’s wife Theresa Heinz Kerry, widow of Henry Heinz III….

Burisma itself seems very dodgy as a company. It is based in Cyprus and little information about the business is possible to find. The company lacks a profile in Bloomberg, and had no Wikipedia presence whatsoever.

So with these two board appointments in April, Burisma gained the son of the Vice President of the United States and the financial adviser to the family of the Secretary of State. Not bad for an almost unknown Ukraine-Cyprus company

Not bad indeed, seems that Hunter Biden always fails up.  Hopefully Burisma Holdings doesn’t have a drug screening requirement, as Hunter loves to blow the snow.  So what else did Obama/Biden claim as their “great accomplishments?”

Excerpt:

Obama brags that “we’re in the middle of the longest streak of private-sector job creation in history.” Yet, most of them are bad jobs, at low wages and no security – a surge in the long-term capitalist Race to the Bottom, which will accelerate if Obama succeeds in passing his grotesque Trans Pacific Partnership corporate trade treaty.

The outgoing Corporate Servant-in-Chief admits that “these trends have squeezed workers, even when they have jobs,” but he prescribes the usual bromide: education. As if what’s wrong with the economic system is that Americans are ill-educated, rather than globalized capital’s inability to provide good jobs at decent wages.

It’s the same garbage that has been shoveled to Black Americans for generations. According to this logic, Black people must be twice as badly educated as whites, since African American unemployment has been twice as high for more than half a century.

So is Glen Ford right about the “Corporate Servant-in-Chief”?  Are the jobs created under Obama/Biden “low paying, low wage, no security?”  Are Obama and Biden escalating a Race to the Bottom?   Oh, oh what’s this?  From World Socialist Website:

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Saturday proposed a set of changes to the U.S. unemployment insurance system that he says would offer more security to out-of-work Americans and encourage experienced workers to rejoin the workforce, even if it means taking a pay cut….

The president's proposal would require states to provide wage insurance to workers who lose their jobs and find new employment at lower pay. The insurance would replace half of the lost income, up to $10,000 over two years. It would be available to workers who were with their prior employer for three years and make less than $50,000 in their new job…

The proposal comes as U.S. businesses, outside the manufacturing sector, are experiencing strong demand and adding employees. A recent government employment report showed that employers added a net 292,000 jobs in December as the unemployment rate held at 5 percent.

Experienced workers on average see a pay cut of 10 percent when they lose their jobs. Workers with more than 20 years on the job see an average 25 percent pay cut, according to the White House.

Obama's proposal will be included in the budget proposal he's set to send to Congress next month.

So the Obama/Biden prescription at a time when “U.S. businesses, outside the manufacturing sector, are experiencing strong demand and adding employees” is to maximize their profits by forcing states to purchase “employment insurance” to subsidize their low paid workers. 

Just another Wall Street banker give away.  He’s putting this proposal in his budget he’s sending to congress where his buddies Paul Ryan and Patti Murray will ram it through, along with the Trans Pacific Partnership.  Yes, the Obama/Biden reign has devastated America, but the Bidens are doing very well.  So what else did Obama/Biden brag about?  Back to Glen Ford’s article:

Excerpt:

“Obama has become the greatest privatizer of schools in history.”

To improve general educational levels and, presumably, make Blacks more employable, Obama has become the greatest privatizer of schools in history, through charters, resulting in unemployment for many tens of thousands of Black teachers.

In 2014 The Hill published an article calling on the Justice Department to investigate Obama/Biden’s charter school scam:  

Excerpt:

Charter schools, civil rights and the theft of education funds

As one means of fixing what is broken in our nation's public school system, the Obama administration, as well as a majority of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, supports the rapid expansion of publically financed charter schools.

However, given the startlingly large sums of money some in the charter school sector are stealing from taxpayers, and the disproportionate impact the expansion of such practices has on the civil rights of black, Latino and poor schoolchildren, it may be time for the judicial branch of government to question the unchecked expansion of this largely unregulated sector of the educational system. It seems clear that neither Congress, nor the White House, currently has the political will to do so.

For example, this past May, two nonprofit groups issued a research report titled "Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud And Abuse." Jointly authored by Integrity in Education and the Center for Popular Democracy, the report warned that the lax system of federal oversight of the rapidly expanding charter industry has led to the theft of more than $100 million due to fraud, mismanagement and outright theft…

However, despite such abuses, both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, as well as both major political parties, continue to support the largely unregulated expansion of charter schools.

Just this past April, Congress voted 360 to 45 to pass the Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act (H.R. 10), which, as stated in the bill, will "strengthen the Charter School Program and allow successful charter school models to be replicated nationwide to support choice, innovation, and excellence in education…."

If fraud and theft are not sufficient reason for the judiciary to become involved, perhaps the possibility of civil rights abuses will pique their interest….

As a result, the federally supported policy of aggressive charter school expansion now disproportionately impacts the educational futures of black, Latino and poor students much more often than it impacts students who are white.

And did Obama/Biden heed the advice of The Hill in 2014 and launch an investigation into the fraud, theft and civil rights abuses of the “unregulated” charter schools?  Fast forward to 2015 from Truth in Media:

Excerpt:

Exclusive: FBI Whistleblower and Teacher Expose Islamic Gülen Movement Infiltrating U.S. Through Charter Schools

The imam, Fethullah Gülen, came to the United States in 1999 due to cited health problems and has stayed in the United States after gaining his visa with help from former CIA officials. The FBI previously resisted granting permanent residency status to Gülen. According to leaked cables, parts of the U.S. government believe that Gülen “is a ‘radical Islamist’ whose moderate message cloaks a more sinister and radical agenda…”

Gülen-inspired schools are the largest charter network in the U.S. and receive approximately $150 million a year in taxpayer money. There are about 130 of these charter schools in 26 states where the majority of the teachers are from Turkey, as well as many of the contracts for construction and operation have gone to Turkish businesses. Those actions have raised red flags for the U.S. government.

Why Are My Tax Dollars Funding an Islamic Movement?

In the United States, many of the Gülen schools have long waiting lists. But that comes at a price for our American teachers:

“Our tax dollars are paying for them to come over here and take our jobs,” said Mary Addi, a teacher. “They want to give you the impression that they’re just hard-working guys over here to try and educate our kids, because American teachers are just too stupid…”

Gülen brings in foreign teachers and then takes a cut of their salary. She learned this after marrying a Turkish teacher. She said that after he was paid. He’d cash the check and return 40% of his salary back to the school for a secret fund used by the movement.

These allegations have caused the U.S. government to investigate for immigration fraud as well as misuse of taxpayer money. It has also caused many to wonder about the actual intent of the Gülen school…

We have multiple reliable reports that the Gülenists use their school network (including dozens of schools in the U.S.) to cherry-pick students they think are susceptible to being molded as proselytizers and we have steadily heard reports about how the schools indoctrinate boarding students.”

And when Donald Trump says we need to stop all Muslims from coming into this country until we can find out what the hell is going on he is vilified.  From CNN:

Excerpt:

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on," a campaign press release said….

His message comes in the wake of a deadly mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, by suspected ISIS sympathizers and the day after President Barack Obama asked the country not to "turn against one another" out of fear….

"Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine," Trump said in a statement. "Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life…"

The release pointed to an online poll from the controversial Center for Security Policy, which claimed that a quarter of Muslims living in the U.S. believe violence against Americans is justified as part of a global jihadist campaign….

Obama's deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes reacted to Trump's call Monday on CNN, calling it "totally contrary to our values as Americans" and pointed to the Bill of Rights' protection of freedom of religion and pointing to the "extraordinary contributions" Muslim Americans have made to the U.S…

Yes, the two parties’ condemnation of Trump came fast and furious.  They will do anything to keep Trump from becoming President of the United States.  But their hatred of Trump pales in comparison to their hate of the Clintons.  This is from a CNN interview with Joe Biden, who despises Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton:

Excerpt:

Washington (CNN) Vice President Joe Biden offered effusive praise for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders Monday, lauding Hillary Clinton's chief rival for doing a "heck of a job" on the campaign trail and praising Sanders for offering an authentic voice on income inequality.

And while Biden said Democrats had a slate of "great candidates" running for president, he suggested Clinton was a newcomer to issues like the growing gap between rich and poor….

"It's relatively new for Hillary to talk about that," Biden continued, acknowledging that Clinton has "come forward with some really thoughtful approaches to deal with the issue" of income inequality.

"Hillary's focus has been other things up to now, and that's been Bernie's -- no one questions Bernie's authenticity on those issues," he said.

So Joe Biden says it’s relatively new for Hillary to talk about issues like rich and poor and she’s not authentic like Bernie.   I guess Joe was busy at a cocktail party at MBNA when First Lady and President Clinton championed things like the Family Leave Act.  From National Partnership:

Excerpt:

The FMLA was introduced in Congress every year from 1984 to 1993 and was blocked repeatedly by entrenched, well-funded opponents. For years we built and nurtured a strong, broad-based coalition and led fierce and tireless advocacy. Congress passed the legislation in 1991 and 1992 — but it was vetoed both times by President George H.W. Bush.

However, under the leadership of former president, Judith L. Lichtman, today a senior advisor to the National Partnership, former legal director counsel, Donna Lenhoff, and current president, Debra L. Ness, we remained undeterred. And we got the job done — with help from a broad-based coalition, thousands of activists, and newly-elected President Clinton, who wholeheartedly supported our vision.

It’s the 2008 Presidential Primary all over again, with Obama/Biden attacking Hillary every chance they get.  When Bill Clinton was President, it was Hillary who got the Family Leave Act passed, it was Hillary who got Children’s Health Insurance not only passed but implemented.  The establishment hates the Clintons and will do everything they can to ensure she is not the candidate.

So one thing you can be sure of is that Obama and Biden are working behind the scenes anonymously claiming Hillary will be indicted, Hillary is a liar, Hillary has no credibility, and Hillary is unlikeable.  Making and repeating these claims will enable the Super Delegates to override the will of the American voters just like they did in 2008.

And that is the State of the Union, America, she’s come undone.

By Patricia Baeten