Ron Paul owns a fatty

I came across this short clip of Ron Paul in 1988 on something called The Morton Downey Jr. Show. If this doesn’t make you laugh and nod in approval, you have no sense of humor or liberty.

In New York Times, CEO rhetoric = unchallenged holy gospel

If you want to read a quintessential example of boilerplate political journalism, look no further than this canard-ridden New York Times article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jackie Calmes. The piece gives new unquestioned legitimacy to the idea that Barack Obama is anti-business, or is at least insufficiently pro-business because,

Nearly halfway through Mr. Obama’s term, the dearth of business and Wall Street types in his administration rankles many executives, if only as a proxy for their unhappiness with his policies and occasional antibusiness political speech.

I had to read this paragraph three or four times before I realized that these words, in this particular combination, actually existed. Before continuing, it should be pointed out that the only sources for this story are McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw, Honeywell CEO David Cote (who actually serves on Obama’s economic recovery board), former CEO for a real estate development company and current Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, and an unnamed “Democratic lobbyist” who says of Jarrett,

“In the Clinton White House, people in the business community turned to someone like Bob Rubin when there was discussion internally….It’s not an anti-Valerie thing; I just don’t think they believe that there is anybody inside with that stature and that view.”

This is one of those pieces that is cumbersome to refute, not because it’s true, but because it is premised in an alternate reality. It’s like trying to disprove Glenn Beck after he’s spent a half hour outlining an elaborate shit-show on his chalkboard. By the time he’s finished, what you’ve got in front of you is such a clusterfuck of grade-A craziness it’s hard to know where to begin.

Let’s first recognize that just about every Democrat faces the “anti-business” label at some point in their careers. Usually this epithet is hurled by an opponent or some bigshot business executive. The threshold for the application of this terminology is usually very low, and is used to describe anyone who supports policies like Card Check, higher tax burdens on bailed out banks, tougher Wall Street regulation, or anything else that businesses don’t like. Notice how no politician on either side is ever forced to fend off accusations of being “anti-worker,” for the simple reason that no such epithet exists in American politics, which is highly instructive and tells us something about what constitutes acceptable political discourse.

Honeywell CEO David Cote, who is quoted in the Times article, was on CNBC this afternoon shortly after he and two dozen other leading business executives met with Obama at the White House. Cote was very optimistic and said the meeting was “productive,” and at one point commented that it’s been a rough couple of years for business. And that’s strange, since on Tuesday his company’s stock hit a 52-week high, and since Obama took office Honeywell is up 57%. But let’s take a look at the broader equities picture since Obama’s inauguration. Since January 20, 2009, the Dow has gone from 8,280 to 11,457 (a 38% increase), the NASDAQ from 1,466 to 2,617 (a 79% increase), and the S&P from 850 to 1,235 (a 45% increase). This is just in two years. What about inflation-adjusted earnings? Well as Zero Hedge pointed out, those went from $7 a share in January 2009 to $60 a share just this summer—an 857% increase.

Furthermore, corporate profits in the third quarter of 2010 were the highest ever. As Stolberg’s and Calmes’ own paper noted last month,

Corporate profits have been doing extremely well for a while. Since their cyclical low in the fourth quarter of 2008, profits have grown for seven consecutive quarters, at some of the fastest rates in history. As a share of gross domestic product, corporate profits also have been increasing, and they now represent 11.2 percent of total output. That is the highest share since the fourth quarter of 2006, when they accounted for 11.7 percent of output.

And two weeks later the Federal Reserve reported,

[C]orporate cash balances spiked to $1.93 trillion—a 38% increase since the first quarter of 2009—representing $530 billion. This significant increase indicates companies are still accumulating cash rather than redeploying it, according to Treasury Strategies, a treasury consulting firm.

“From our work with clients, as well as survey data collected this week, we see that corporations have experienced very strong growth in cash flow from operations. Given that total corporate cash continues to grow, these findings together tell us that corporations are still not comfortable with redeploying their cash,” says Cathy Gregg, Partner of Treasury Strategies.

And to top it all off, Wall Street executives are once again poised to collect tens of billions of dollars in annual bonuses.

Actually that doesn’t top it off. What tops it off is the Fed’s past, present, and future rounds of quantitative easing in which it allows secondary treasury dealers to front run and push up their prices, coupled with ruinous zero interest rate policies that are crippling American savers, but enriching the banks in what is essentially an ongoing bailout via monetary policy. After all, banks borrow money from the Fed at 0% to 0.25% and then lend that money out at rates of 5%, 10%, 25%, or whatever, and make some easy arbitrage. Sometimes when banks desire safer instruments, they’ll buy treasury notes with yields higher than the rate at which they’re borrowing money from the Fed, making the entire operation a giant taxpayer-funded farce.

What we have here are soaring corporate profits, record amounts of corporate cash on hand, tens of billions of dollars to be doled out in bonuses, a policy of bank-friendly zero percent interest rates, and rigged asset purchases in which Goldman Sachs and other secondary dealers can sell the Federal Reserve—the American central bank—American debt at inflated prices.

If this is anti-business activity, I don’t want to know what pro-business policies look like.

But what about the initial criticism—that there aren’t enough business executives physically in the Obama administration? The unnamed “Democratic lobbyist” quoted in the article laments that there isn’t a Bob Rubin in this White House to act as White House/business sector liaison. That’s the same Bob Rubin who advised Bill Clinton that the derivatives market should be turned into an opaque speculative casino where the only players who know the actual price of the securities are the brokers, while the actual buyers and sellers are left in the dark, meaning the price discovery mechanism—perhaps the most basic concept in all of free market capitalism—was completely absent. The brainchild of this Rubin-aided philosophy was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Shortly thereafter, Rubin left government and received more than $120 million over the course of seven years from his subsequent employer Citigroup, which had lobbied for the CMFA because it just so happened to deal in massive amounts of derivatives.

That’s Bob Rubin’s main contribution to modern finance, and this is the kind of guy that the unnamed lobbyist in the article wants in the Obama administration. Wow. As Max Keiser would say, this guy must be smoking his own bellybutton lint. And don’t forget that Larry Summers was also in the Clinton administration and also advocated the passage of the CFMA. Summers of course, just resigned last month as Obama’s director of the White House Economic Council after nearly two years at the helm. And let’s not forget Tim Geithner’s Goldman connections.

I’ve written all this and I didn’t even mention the completion of TARP, TALF and the auto bailouts under Obama administration.

A lengthy retort to such insipid journalism should be completely unnecessary in light of the above facts which are well known, but unfortunately this “anti-business” mantra reverberates through the media echo chamber. Not because it makes sense, but because many reporters and editors are too eager put the words of important people to print no matter how ridiculous their claims. All it takes is a few CEOs talking on CNBC or giving an interview to the New York Timesto say, “Obama is anti-business,” and immediately the angle becomes a part of mainstream discussion. “Is Obama anti-business?” And off the pundits go all because a few billionaires said the president hasn’t sufficiently fellated them. It’s a sad state of affairs.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

ps: I’m not sure why, but I emailed this post to the authors of the New York Times article. I doubt I’ll get a response.

Property as bondage

In America, few things are cherished or sought after more than property, and few things indenture a person as much as the possession thereof.

Perhaps more than anywhere else on earth, here home ownership is a measure of a person’s worth, not just of material worth but of his value as a human being. No doubt this idea is hardwired to some extent in the brain of Homo sapiens; for the ability to provide is a trait valued throughout the animal kingdom. That a person owns a house is generally taken to mean that he can provide for himself and his family if he has one. In this way, a house serves not only a practical purpose, but a socio-symbolic one as well because it says, “This is the house of a person who possesses the power to acquire to such an extent that he was able to procure this dwelling.”

Of course, very few homeowners are able to purchase their homes outright in a single payment. Most people require a mortgage of some kind, over the course of which they will likely pay at least double the original cost of the home. The structure of the loan is dictated by the lender, and not the borrower, for the plain fact that the latter cannot acquire without the former, but the former can easily do without the business of the latter. If borrowers could somehow negotiate as a collective unit, rather than individually, matters would be different on this front. However, would-be homeowners must haggle with highly capitalized institutions as individuals, and therefore have little leverage with which to work.

Once a mortgage contract is entered into, it is commonly assumed that even though the borrower does not own the home outright, he is nonetheless the master of it. This assumption, however, reverses the situation. The borrower is not master of the house, but the house is master of him. If he is like most Americans, the bulk of his labors are directed toward fulfilling his contractual obligations with the lender and toward all of the necessary upkeep that accompanies the acquisition of a home. In addition to his mortgage and other home-related bills such as utilities and property taxes, he must expend a great deal of time and money to maintain the functioning and appearance of his home. When necessary, he must mow his lawn, rake leaves in fall, shovel snow in the winter, and clean the gutters. If he does not have a sewer connection (for which he pays a sewer bill) he must have his septic tank pumped from time to time. He may find it necessary to paint his house every few years or weatherize it in some other way. He may take it upon himself—or his wife may instruct him—to undertake any number of domestic projects under the guise of home improvement, when in reality the projects are merely changing the scenery in what has become a mundane household whose members lead mundane lives. Hence the constant need to rearrange furniture, to repaint walls, to remodel, to re-accessorize the house with any number of inane amenities including but not limited to houseplants, handcrafted chairs, end tables and ottomans, as well as mass-produced paintings of pastoral scenes that represent some idyllic alternate reality. And when the inhabitants of the house grow weary of the décor, a new arrangement will be hashed and the process will repeat itself.

The holding of property also produces a ball-and-chain effect which makes it far more difficult to change abodes than if one were simply renting. A renter need only wait until his lease expires before relocating. Or, he may move during his lease and suffer only a relatively minor penalty depending on the contract. But the owner of real estate who wishes, or in some cases must relocate, is burdened with not only finding a new dwelling, but with fetching a buyer for the house he wants to abandon. Depending on the change in value of the home from the time he bought it, he may lose a good deal of money on the transaction, especially if he does not own it outright.

Then there is the possibility that the homeowner must refinance, and this may be necessary for a plethora of reasons: layoff, expensive medical treatment for a sick family member, other unforeseen expenses, or some other fortuitous change in circumstance. In which case, a restructuring of the loan will act in his favor only insofar as it may allow him to pay less on a monthly basis, but more overall than what he was paying under the original mortgage. In some cases, it may be more practical in the long run to move than refinance, but that prospect is often a daunting one psychologically.

All of this is exacerbated by the presence of a spouse or children. It is one thing for a person to decide for himself to up and leave, but the family man or woman must take into consideration the feelings of others and determine whether uprooting the family would be worth the inconvenience and instability that often accompanies such transitions.

Even with real estate prices down, the trend of stagnant wages and rising costs associated with basic living (food, health insurance, college) is enough to make home ownership for future generations an exercise in neofeudal bondage. The banks will own the homes and land, and the inhabitants will till and toil for decades in the hopes of someday owning the property outright. It is not to be doubted that millions of Americans desire a house with a lush green lawn, but it would be wise to ask whether this is a natural ambition, or one that is manufactured by certain social institutions. As an instrument for maintaining the status quo favored by the Establishment, the idea of property is an invaluable tool. It convinces the rabble that they might have a stake in the country, but in order to acquire it they must assume substantial debt. The burden of debt and the fear of not being able to pay it, is more than enough to keep many Americans docile, lest they become unemployed and unable to achieve what is colloquially called the American Dream.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Car driving royal welfare bums attacked in London

Where’s Margaret Thatcher when you need her?

LONDON—In Britain’s worst political violence in years, furious student protesters rained sticks and rocks on riot police, vandalized government buildings and attacked a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, after lawmakers approved a controversial hike in university tuition fees.

Demonstrators set upon the heir to the throne’s limousine as it drove through London’s West End shopping and entertainment hub. Protesters who had been running amok and smashing shop windows kicked and threw paint at the car, which sped off.

Boston Globe

Apparently I’m the only one applauding this development. Here you have thousands of students protesting the recent measure approved by Parliament to triple tuition in the United Kingdom to £9,000 ($14,000) per year, and in the middle of these demonstrations, one of the biggest welfare bums in Britain just happens to be driving through. Prince Charles, his family, and their insanely lavish lifestyles are subsidized by the taxes of the British people to the tune of £41.5m or about $65 million per year, not including the costs of security details. That’s enough money to pay for a year’s tuition of over 4,600 students under the new rates. It isn’t much, but it would be a start.

Living in America, I thought my compatriots would sympathize with the students, but it seems that the anti-monarchy sentiment here isn’t what it used to be. Check out some of the comments on the Boston Globe’s website about this story:

Socialism gone wild. I guess going bankrupt is better for the country then trying to fix the problems.

aceriley82

Looks like trouble in socialist paradise. Time to pay the tab

Irecliner

Nothing to see here just more mobs of far left anarchist “peace” protestors smashing things because they have to pay for their education

UnplugYourselfFromTheMatrix

Granted this is a small sampling, but we can expect some fervid denunciations of the protestors’ actions from the media in due time. But right now I want to ask, what does it say when some people can observe college students protesting what is essentially a tax hike juxtaposed with a fucking royal prince driving through in an antique car, which, along with everything else in that guy’s life is funded by working stiff Britons, and conclude that the problem here is socialism that benefits the students?!!!

It just goes to show how well some Americans have been trained into thinking that the rich must never be the targets of populist anger, even if those rich bastards owe their wealth to the working class. The situation is not all that different in the United States, except instead of subsidizing a monarchy, we pay for the unofficial oligarchy.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Salon news editor attacks media's false narrative on tax cut compromise and replaces it with one of his own

Standard vanilla beltway hack

Salon’s news editor, Steve Kornacki, has published a truly remarkable exercise in establishment liberal-centrist sophistry concerning Barack Obama’s tax cut compromise. To this point, the preferred media narrative about this is that by agreeing in principle to a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts, Obama has alienated his “liberal base.” The problem with that assessment, as I pointed out the other day, is that it completely ignores the fact that according to a CBS poll, a majority of Americans wanted the cuts to be extended only for those making less than $250,000 a year, and that 67% do not want the cuts extended for those making more than that. Since that post, Bloomberg—obviously a news organization that caters to wealthier readers—confirmed these results with a poll of its own which “shows that only a third of Americans support keeping the lower rates for the highest earners.”

Ignoring this data, Kornacki wrote a bizarrely titled apologia for the Obama administration, “Obama’s Silent Majority,” in which he attacks the media’s portrayal of the deal as a sellout of his liberal base. According to Kornacki, it turns out that not only did Obama not sell out the base, Obama didn’t really sell out anybody! Apparently, the only ones who are feeling left out in the cold after this compromise are “[l]iberal commentators and activists and interest group leaders.”

How does he know this? Because, “their rage has not trickled down to the Democratic voters (and, in particular, the Democratic voters who identify themselves as liberals), even though they’ve been venting their grief for the better part of two years.”

Kornacki then goes out to note how Obama’s approval rating among Democrats has remained static throughout 2010 before concluding:

Obama, in other words, seems to have developed his own silent majority. Rank-and-file liberal Democrats may not agree with everything he has done, but they do not share the sense of abandonment and betrayal that has defined liberal commentary throughout so much of his presidency. The party’s liberal base still very much likes him; it’s the elites who have turned on him.

The only poll numbers Kornacki cites are the president’s approval ratings among Democrats. He says nothing of the polls which demonstrate that a two-thirds majority of Americans—not just Democrats—do not want the tax cuts to be extended for those making over $250,000 a year. Given this fact, where exactly is Kornacki finding this silent majority? Or do two-thirds of Americans comprise those elites he was talking about?

Citing polls showing how Democrats have continued to support Obama even after he’s wussed out on a myriad of occasions—including closing Gitmo, caving on the public option, and extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, among other capitulations and failed promises—does not impress me in the least. Democrats overwhelmingly favor closing Gitmo, favored the public option, and want the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire. On these latter two issues, Democratic opinion is in step with a majority of Americans in general. That Obama’s approval rating has remained steady among liberals suggests that either liberals aren’t paying enough attention to see the gap that exists between their ideas and the president’s policies, or, what is a more likely explanation, that liberals see no viable alternative. As such, they are often disappointed by Obama, but in the context of the American left/right paradigm, he looks good by comparison. At a time when the right is led by the likes of wackdoos Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, it’s easy for Obama to seem like the last, best hope for American liberalism. He is after all, the president. But looking like a liberal compared to say, Mitch McConnell, is a hardly a noteworthy achievement. So Kornacki can point to Obama’s approval ratings among his “base,” but it doesn’t change the fact that more often than not, on major issues Obama has gone against them. Apparently, for Kornacki this is not relevant. What’s relevant is that Democrats endure one disappointment after another, only to keep coming back to Obama like an emotionally scarred woman who always goes back to her abusive husband because she’s convinced that he’s the only one who could possibly love her.

- Max Canning

max.canning@gmail.com

FBI foils FBI terrorist plot.....Again!

The alleged target

Many Americans have been unsettled by two supposed terrorist plots foiled by the FBI in less than two weeks. Back in late November, Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested in Portland, Oregon for allegedly setting off what he thought was the detonator to a bomb at a public holiday gathering, when in fact the FBI had supplied fake explosives for the plot. This was the culmination of an eight-month long undercover sting, the continuity of which was made possible thanks to the FBI preventing Mohamud from traveling to Alaska for a summer job.

The media is of course quick to laud the feds, but Glenn Greenwald over at Salon had a more cautious and skeptical take:

It may very well be that the FBI successfully and within legal limits arrested a dangerous criminal intent on carrying out a serious Terrorist plot that would have killed many innocent people, in which case they deserve praise…

But it may also just as easily be the case that the FBI—as they've done many times in the past—found some very young, impressionable, disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist; and then patted itself on the back once it arrested him for having thwarted a “Terrorist plot” which, from start to finish, was entirely the FBI’s own concoction. Having stopped a plot which it itself manufactured, the FBI then publicly touts—and an uncritical media amplifies—its “success” to the world, thus proving both that domestic Terrorism from Muslims is a serious threat and the Government’s vast surveillance powers—current and future new ones—are necessary.

That was not two weeks ago, and today we were informed that incredibly the FBI had prevented yet another terrorist attack from happening, this time at a US Army recruiting center in Maryland. The story contained familiar themes:

A Baltimore man who is a recent convert to Islam has been charged with plotting to blow up a military recruiting office in Catonsville, Md., authorities said Wednesday, but the bomb was a fake provided by the FBI.

Antonio Martinez, 21, who changed his name to Muhammad Hussein when he converted, was charged with the attempted murder of federal employees and the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. property. He faces life in prison if convicted.

Martinez was arrested Wednesday morning after he tried to remotely detonate what he believed to be explosives in a vehicle parked in the Armed Forces recruiting station parking lot, federal authorities said.

Washington Post

What caught the attention of the FBI were postings Hussein made to his Facebook page. The worst of those seem to be:

“The sword is cummin the reign of oppression is about 2 cease,” (posted Sep. 29)

“Any 1 who opposes ALLAH and HIS Prophet Peace.Be.upon.Him I hate u with all my heart [sic].” (posted Oct. 1)

According to the FBI’s affidavit, it was on the basis of these two postings that an undercover agent initiated contact with Hussein. Are these postings the sincere ravings of a radical Muslim hell-bent on jihad, or just venting from a disillusioned 21 year old construction worker? We can’t know for sure, but we do know that up until his association with undercover FBI agents, Hussain seemed to be all talk, and that it took the intervention of the feds to turn a talker into a doer, just like on previous occasions, including the case of Mahmoud in Oregon.

The FBI is beginning to look like an exterminator who puts rats in other people’s houses just so he can come in and show everyone how useful he is. Either that or the United States is run by the Norsefire Party:

- Max Canning

max.canning@gmail.com

ps: Doesn’t the FBI ever try to get a respected imam to talk to any of these would-be terrorists to see if they can be redeemed? Or how about instead of paying for these broke-as-shit potential terrorists’ living expenses while cultivating their nascent jihadist fantasies, the FBI tries to find them gainful employment? Might not these at least be worth trying before conducting elaborate stings that seem to turn nothing into something?

Obama capitulates on tax cuts and the media creates a predictably false narrative about it

Apparently, support of 67% of the American public doesn’t get you what it used to.

Today I watched Barack Obama’s quasi-impromptu press conference where he made a few canned remarks about his compromise in principle with Republicans on extending the Bush tax cuts for everyone for two years. Before I get into the media’s reaction, I want to highlight a CBS poll conducted a week ago. A whopping 67% of Americans say that the Bush tax cuts should either be allowed to expire for everyone, or expire just for those making more than $250,000 a year. Below is the exact breakdown. I have added the data in the bottom row which shows what percentage of Republicans, Democrats, and independents want (at the very least) the tax cuts for the $250,000-plus crowd to expire. This is done simply by adding rows three and four:

CBS Poll conducted 11/29-12/01	All	REPS	DEMS	INDS
Continue for all	26%	46	10	25
Continue for households <$250K	53	41	70	47
Expire for all	14	11	14	17
Expire for >$250K (at very least)	67	52	84	64

Most amazing of all, notice how a majority (52%) of self-identified Republicans think the tax cuts for those making over $250,000 should expire.

Watching the news, you would never know that two-thirds of Americans are in favor of not extending the tax cuts for these wealthier Americans. Meanwhile, a straight 53% say the tax cuts should be extended just for those making under $250,000. And you wouldn’t know this because every media outlet I have seen report on this tax cut compromise—whether CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and so on—has presented this as an instance of Obama defying his “liberal base” and nothing more. See for yourself:

But it’s just the newest chapter of an old fight, and despite the liberal base’s fury, it’s evidence that Obama is trying to re-center himself before the 2012 elections.

CNN

He made clear he was willing to alienate his liberal base in the interest of compromise, more interested in crafting measures that can pass to the benefit of the middle class than waging battle to the end over principle.

New York Times

Even as liberals complain, White House officials believe independent voters will reward him if he’s seen as leading Washington to results.

Wall Street Journal

By cutting the deal they have, the White House has likely concluded that it is more important to cozy up to the middle than it is to keep it’s left-leaning base happy, probably believing that it has no where else to go and will, therefore, stick with Obama through 2012.

US News & World Report

As we just saw in the CBS poll, which merely confirmed similar results in previous polling on this issue (see here and here), two-thirds of Americans do not want tax cuts extended for anyone making over $250,000. And yet the American media would have us believe that in striking this deal, Obama dealt a cold serving of mainstream political reality to his überliberal critics. Except that unless Obama’s “liberal base” is that aforementioned two-thirds of the American population who are against extending the tax cuts for the wealthy, this analysis makes no sense whatsoever.

What this sorry episode shows is that our media is incapable of or unwilling to present serious political and economic issues in a way that goes beyond a convenient, narrow, and usually false left-right dichotomy. This narrative reminds me of the health care debate—based on the media coverage of which, you’d never know that 60% of Americans wanted a government health insurance option to compete with private coverage. Now once again, we are being told that the political realities being what they are, there’s just no possible way to extend tax cuts for the middle class while allowing them to lapse for the wealthy because only a majority of the American population favors it.

Perhaps this really does mean that a majority of Americans are in that “liberal base” the media keeps talking about.

- Max Canning

Swedish "rape" charges against Julian Assange are a fabrication

Revolutionary

In August the Swedish government mulled indicting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on rape charges, but ultimately decided against it due to lack of evidence.

Of course, that charge was re-filed recently and Sweden sent out a warrant for his arrest via Interpol for sexually assaulting Sophia Wilen and Anna Ardin in separate incidents. Very few media outlets have looked into the allegations against the 39 year old Australian, and as far as I can tell no American news organization has, instead uncritically reporting them as the reliable propagandists they are. But according to the (Australian) Melbourne Herald Sun, the charges are a complete joke:

APPARENTLY having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for Rape.

That was the basis for a recent revival of rape allegations against Wikileaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity….

Both [Wilen and Ardin] boasted of their of their respective celebrity conquests on internet posts and mobile phones texts after the intimacy they would now see him destroyed for.

Ardin hosted a party in Assange’s honour at her flat after the ‘crime’ and tweeted to her followers that she was with the “the world's coolest smartest people, it's amazing!”

Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these and thereby destroy evidence of Assange’s innocence She has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends.

Their sms texts to each other show a plan to contact the Swedish newspaper Expressen before hand in order to maximise the damage to Assange.

They belong to the same political group and attended a public lecture given by Assange and organised by them.

The exact content of Sophia Wilén’s mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and generally positive content about Assange has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors.

The consent of both women to sex with Assange has been confirmed by prosecutors. Niether [sic] Wilén’s nor Ardin’s texts complain of rape.

So this is what the Swedish authorities, under pressure from the United States government, is basing its charges on. This is standard operating procedure for governments when dealing with a person who so threatens the powers that be. Assange is such a well-known public figure at this point, that it is simply not feasible to assassinate him without provoking an international uproar. Therefore, he must be personally discredited and his reputation must be destroyed. The optimal outcome for the affected governments in this fiasco is that he be arrested and charged with some trumped up accusation and found guilty, thereby silencing him and his organization

The rape charges against Assange are so damn convenient for the American government, that ipso facto we should be suspicious of them.

As for Assange’s accusers, back in September Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett of Counterpunch cobbled together what little information there is about them. There are some potentially interesting angles that may suggest a coordinated effort to take down Assange.

I’m going to be following this story very closely because this is the most blatant example of political persecution to come down the pike in a long time. Julian Assange should be hailed for blowing the cover off government secrecy, not called an “enemy combatant” and threatened with death.

ps: Here is a YouTube video allegedly featuring the two accusers. It is from the seminar in August where Assange allegedly found time to sexually assault both women in separate incidents. Supposedly, Wilen is the one with the ponytail, wearing a pink shirt and glasses at the 3:42 mark, and Ardin is the one carrying the microphone at 5:45.

- Max Canning

High school football player gets flagged for praying

I could sit here and say that even as an atheist I find this penalty ridiculous. I could also say that a player shouldn’t be penalized for a modest celebration or gesture whether religious or not. Furthermore I could say that this referee was being a bit too sensitive to the rules governing unsportsmanlike conduct. I could say all of that. But I’m not going to say that because it’s just too easy, goddamn it.

Damn straight you got a flag, buddy. You think busting an awesome touchdown run complete with great cutbacks and broken tackles entitles you to kneel and point to the sky? After the game, Mr. Play-and-Pray tried to explain himself:

“I do that to give glory to my heavenly father, Jesus.”

Oh really? Let’s see how the referee called this one during the game:

“Personal foul: praying to a supernatural deity whose existence cannot be empirically verified. Fifteen yard penalty will be assessed on the kickoff.”

Ok, so I made up the ref’s quote. But maybe we rationalists should start carrying little yellow flags around to throw at people who commit penalties against reason. Although this could be dangerous because living in America, I think I’d tear my rotator cuff.

ps: I’ll give this kid a break when he starts to give god credit for his failures as well as his successes.

- Max

The theocrackpots are whining yet again

“Waa. Waa.” - Bill Donohue

On multiple occasions I have noted that those who most fervently claim belief in a ubiquitous and all-powerful deity tend to be those most easily disconcerted by perceived affronts to that deity’s honor (see here and here). One would think that a truly robust faith in the veracity of the underlying precepts would obviate the compulsion to lash out at instances of blasphemy.

But clearly this is not the case.

The most recent example of theocratic encroachment on free society involves a favorite target of religionists: a “controversial” work of art housed in a publicly funded museum. This time the piece in question was a four-minute video assembled by the late avant-garde artist David Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS in 1992. The video came into existence with no public funding whatsoever and the exhibit itself at the National Portrait Gallery—a branch of the Smithsonian Institution—was privately funded. I say was because the theocrackpots succeeded in imposing their religious agenda and the display was removed.

What exactly is so horrifying about the artwork, “A Fire in My Belly,” that has some Christians foaming at the mouth? You may watch the full video here, but it sufficeth to say that the main offense is the portrayal of Jesus on a crucifix covered in ants. Far be it from me to point out that Christians seem to revel in describing the tremendous suffering Jesus experienced, and that having ants walk all over him would have been kinder and less deadly fate than the one he actually endured.

Naturally, Catholic League president and serial whiner Bill Donohue led the charge by citing that the Gallery and its staff are publicly maintained:

“This is not the first time the Smithsonian has offended us,” he said. “I’m going to cast my net much wider. Why should the government pay for this? ... How dare they take our money to fund attacks on (our religion).”

It seems there is nary a time when Bill Donohue is not indignant at someone or something that dares to treat his beloved religion with any hint of irreverence. Five hundred years ago, a scoundrel with his level of fanaticism and blind loyalty to the Vatican would have made for a highly esteemed Grand Inquisitor with near dictatorial powers. I suspect that the sheer number of screams a medieval Donohue would have elicited from the tortured throats of his heretical victims could have put Torquemada to shame. Today, however, such men are reduced to canting at public officials via email and telephone to say how much their feelings have been hurt by some offense to their Christian faith.

Sadly, Donohue’s inevitable involvement is not the most grotesque part of this story. Indeed, it is bad enough that the National Portrait Gallery capitulated to his theocratic whims, but the situation becomes even more absurd now the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives has involved itself in the matter:

GOP leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor spoke out against the display Tuesday, an exposition entitled “Hide/Seek.” The video in question was created by AIDS victim and late artist David Wojnarowicz.

“Smithsonian officials should either acknowledge the mistake and correct it, or be prepared to face tough scrutiny beginning in January when the new majority in the House moves [in],” Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said.

Cantor also demanded its replacement, and called it “an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season.”

For his part, Georgia congressman Jack Kingston was given an expectedly amiable audience in the form of Fox & Friends, a show whose hosts assume a childlike innocence that always morphs into shocked disbelief when they are “presented” the latest Beckian conspiracy theory centered on the nefarious machinations of liberals. On the show, Kingston wailed,

“This is a museum that gets $5.8 million in taxpayer dollars and in the middle of a high deficit, 15 million unemployed Americans, they decide to have money to spend like this. This is a museum that, by the way, has next to it a display of the American presidents, on the other side, Elvis, and then you go through this—which is really perverted, sick stuff—ashes of an AIDS victim, in a self-portrait, eating himself. Male nudity, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her own breast - lots of really kinky and really questionable kind of art.”

The line about deficits and the museum’s funding are completely disingenuous because both the artwork and the exhibit of which it was a part were privately funded. This pretense is simply a backdoor way of passing judgment on an individual work of art that Kingston et al. either do not like personally or because they think it offends their respective constituencies. Kingston himself is gunning for the chairmanship of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, and it would not surprise me if Kingston were simply grandstanding in this fashion in an attempt to garner support to that end.

The religious fascists have won this round thanks to the cowardice of the National Portrait Gallery in the face of relatively light opposition. People have the right to feel offended when viewing a work of art they find obscene, but they do not have a right to dictate the terms on which that art may be displayed. The right to take offense at art both begins and ends in the mind and speech of the individual. Any action that goes beyond is censorship.

- Max

Holy Moses! What the hell is this?

Why are the Governor of Massachusetts and two state legislators lighting a menorah inside the statehouse?

It looks like I’m going to have to declare war on Chanukah as well as Christmas.

Apparently, it’s customary at the Massachusetts statehouse for public officials to ceremoniously light a giant menorah at the beginning of Chanukah. As a resident of Massachusetts it pains me to say I knew nothing about this, although I was aware that a Christmas tree—or what has officially been dubbed a “Holiday tree”—is placed and lit on the statehouse lawn each December. Truth be told, I’m uneasy about the Holiday tree because of its inherent Christmas association, but the menorah lighting is way beyond the pale.

The worst part of it is, according to the present Supreme Court, neither the tree on the lawn nor even the ostentatious menorah in the statehouse itself would seem to constitute a violation of the Establishment Clause. As SCOTUS ruled in Van Orden v. Perry (2005), a statue of the Ten Commandments displayed on the lawn of the Texas statehouse does not constitute an explicit endorsement of religion, and therefore the display was ruled constitutional. Furthermore, the majority opinion in that case was rife with vague references to “the strong role played by religion and religious traditions throughout our Nation’s history,” which is a quasi-subtle way of claiming that Christianity has played a strong role in American life.

Can I get little help on this from principal architect of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights on this?

Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.

James Madison (Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822)

Thanks, Jimmy.

- Max