Satirist Jonathan Pie Skewers the News Media

Watch this hilarious send-up of a supposedly straight news report. The comedian is Tom Walker of the UK; his alter ego is "Jonathan Pie." Absolutely brilliant. No surprise that this video has gone viral.

Trump - Clinton - What's the Difference?

The Clintons at Donald Trump's wedding. If you don't see that the ruling class is the ruling class in this country, regardless of party affiliation, you have your head in the sand.

TSA to force people through scanners

As many people have discovered from the latest news, the Department of Homeland Security has suddenly decreed publicly what anyone with reasonable observational skills knows they've been planning from the get-go:  that the TSA will, at whim, force passengers through the strip-search scanners.I repeat that this has been the plan from the beginning. I said so at a now-defunct group blog where I used to write called Cogitamus, long before TSA News existed. Those who made predictions to the contrary have been proven wrong. 

Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson Slams U.S. Empire

If this video doesn't knock you on your ass, I don't know what will. 

Let me rephrase that -- many of the people watching this video already get it. But to see and hear a retired U.S. Army colonel, former National Security Advisor in the Reagan administration, former advisor to Colin Powell, dyed-in-the-wool Republican, saying this stuff, pointing out that the emperor is wearing no clothes, that, as he puts it, "this ship is sinking" -- well, I'd like to say it should make an impression on all the naysayers. But in fact I know it won't. 

They'll find a way to discredit him just as much as they discredit people such as Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky. I know it won't make a dent. I'm posting it anyway. I hope people will share it.

Baltimore: Mistrial, Hung Jury in First Freddie Gray Case Trial

As everyone knows by now, a hung jury led Judge Barry Williams to declare a mistrial in the case of Officer William Porter, the first police officer of six to be tried in the Freddie Gray case.

Despite the slavering of the mainstream media for violence, there wasn't any. Neither was there a hint of it, anywhere in Baltimore, over this development. That didn't stop so-called reporters and news hosts from implying that violence was ready to break out at any minute. There was a small -- very small -- number of protesters downtown. And an overwhelming police presence. (I wasn't there, as I saw no need to protest. A mistrial is a mistrial. It's a fool's errand to try to read too much into it.) 

Land of Lunatics

I know I keep saying it, but you can't make this shit up. Once upon a time, this story would've been parody. Fodder for Saturday Night Live, The Onion, The Daily Show, any number of comedians. But you can't do parody anymore. Reality has surpassed it.

To wit: 

Yet Another Active Shooter(s) -- the Fuckupedness of the USA Continues

How can we not be simultaneously horrified and bored by yet another active shooter/shooters, this time in San Bernardino, California? I'm writing this on Wednesday, December 2, 2015, at 2:55pm EST, as this thing is unfolding. At least 12 victims so far.

These so-called "active shooter" situations now average 16 a year in the U.S., according to the Secret Service -- that's more than one a month -- though we just had one last week in Colorado Springs and another one only a few weeks before that in the same town.

But hey, gotta have our guns! After all, this is the USA!

The abject fuckupedness of this country continues.