Police State Eliminates Basic Legal Protection

Findlaw reported the arrest of a public defender trying to represent their client:

"This is not Guantanamo Bay. You have an absolute right to have a lawyer with you when you're questioned."

It's the freedom switch and it's dimming daily.

Parent Obama's Fist

President Obama will not stand for justice or truth.  Those who reveal illegal activities conducted by the federal government must be punished.  Here are two theories.  One, such actions prompt the President's parental rage.  Such actions must be smashed by the full force of government power:

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

Obama's fist is never used on his friends, however crass, corrupt and deceitful.

“’If the president’s hair is on fire,’ he retorted, ‘I want to know who the f**k set his hair on fire.”

In theory one. Obama has his own lighter.  The second possibility is Obama is aloof and disconnected.  The rage comes from those below him, like Dennis Blair, John Brennan, former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Occam's Razor suggests the simplest answer is usually is the best.  Therefore, the federal government's retaliatory impulse is led by fist bumping Obama.  He appointed his side show of power freaks.  

Philadelphia Freedom is Gas

The new call for freedom is from Russian oil and gas dependency.  Philly.com reported:

As European and North American diplomats are inching toward new global free-trade deals, trade representatives from countries including Italy, Germany, Britain, Poland, the Netherlands, and Sweden visited Philadelphia on Nov. 6 for a tour of business sites. They were eager to learn more about importing cheap gas and other fuels and raw materials from Pennsylvania and other states.

"How many of your countries import gas from the Soviet Union?" asked Michael Krancer, a former Pennsylvania environmental secretary. He represents oil refineries and gas-fracking companies as head of Blank Rome L.L.P.'s energy practice.

"I don't need to tell you what energy development means for the good guys in the world," Krancer told the European envoys. "The energy business is centered here in Philadelphia. This is the place to invest your money."

The article closed with:

Krancer said he had recently received visits from would-be energy importers from France, Poland, and South Africa, while delegations from Azerbaijan, Brazil, Chile, and Norway have visited with Pennsylvania state officials.

"We'd love to export" more energy, Krancer said. "I think we have enough for the entire world."

Spoken like a true lobbyist, complete with significant factual errors and hyperbole. 

It's a good thing the "entire world" includes the Northeast U.S. given what Krancer told CNBC.

"Houston is not as close to the demand centers as Philadelphia is. The East Coast is an amazing engine of demand," said Michael Krancer, chair of the energy industry practice at Blank Rome law firm. 

Europeans wantinj to replace Russian energy should consider who they're dealing with.  Snake oil salesman.

Quarantining Freedom's Ghosts

Connecticut declared a state of emergency for people at risk of having and passing the Ebola virus.  Connecticut is one of the original thirteen colonies.  Peer Virginia employed smallpox blankets as method of war.

Connecticut's Governor empowered the Public Health Commission to take away someone's freedom for a deadly disease epidemic half a world away.  Fear comes in many sizes.  Ebola is a whopper. 

Update 10-12-14:  A Texas hospital worker contracted Ebola from the Index patient.  Texas' Public Health System has been decimated in the new millennium.  The world has seen mistake after mistake after mistake in Texas around Ebola.  It's indicative of a system without comprehensive capability.  Don't worry folks, it's safe to invest in Africa. 

By Killing

By killing their relatives we turned 3,000 al Qaeda into 30,000 ISIS/ISIL.   America's leaders don't understand how the cycle of violence expands exponentially.  We claim to be Christian, followers of Jesus Christ, yet we frequently unsheath our knife to push our ways, protect our possessions.  We invade new territories to open new markets and gain access to "our" earthly resources.

By killing their kin we'll turn 30,000 ISIS/ISIL into 90,000 what?  This way Presidents will always have a war to fight and they can all give variations of the same speech.

Update 3-18-15:  Obama realizes the connection, but his prescription is wrong.  He said we should generally aim, before we shoot.   He completely avoids "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" root cause.  Obama made the same mistake in Libya and is doing so in Ukraine.

Update 12-13-15:  By killing Russia says 30,000 ISIS/ISIL are now 60,000. 

Update 2-26-22:   Jacobin noted Obama's dalliance with Neo-Nazis in Ukraine.

It’s a story of liberal, pro-Western protesters, driven by legitimate grievances but largely drawn from only one-half of a polarized country, entering a temporary marriage of convenience with the far right to carry out an insurrection against a corrupt, authoritarian president. The tragedy is that it served largely to empower literal neo-Nazis while enacting only the goals of the Western powers that opportunistically lent their support — among which was the geopolitical equivalent of a predatory payday loan.

Peter Beinhart noted the U.S. is not sin free in invading other countries and causing widespread death and misery.

Update 3-3-22:  Former President George W. Bush released a statement condemning Russia's heinous invasion of neighbor Ukraine.   Comedian Jon Oliver suggested Bush sit this one out given his Iraq war background.  Violence, intentional death and destruction, is ungodly.  Lying to go to war is evil.

Profit of Yet Another Self Servant

The obnoxious voice of the Pentagon became BP's harpy in September 2011.   Two years later Geoff Morrell landed a BP Senior Vice President position.  Morrell's new job included Government and Public Affairs and Federal & International Affairs.  

Geoff leads the BP team playing hardball with the various groups damaged by the company's 2010 Gulf Oil Spew.  One of those is the Oil Spew Claims Administrator.    

“This case may well serve for years to come as a disincentive to companies looking to do the right thing in response to an industrial accident,” Geoff Morrell, BP spokesman and senior vice president, said in an e-mail, “and that would be a bad outcome all around, including for individuals whose only option may then be years of litigation and for the taxpayers who may be left holding the bag.”

That's the Freedom Switch.  Taxpayers always hold the bag in America's Government-Corporate Monstrosity (GCM), Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex on trillions in federal budget steroids.   Congratulations Geoff on getting your hand in the bag on both sides of the GCM.

CV Veteran Died Like Match Girl

Every story must be told in its time.  Here is an update to The Little Match Girl, courtesy of The Guardian.

David Clapson was found dead last year after his benefits were stopped on the grounds that he wasn't taking the search for work seriously. He had an empty stomach, and just £3.44 to his name. Now thousands of other claimants are being left in similarly dire straits by tough new welfare sanctions.

We know that David Clapson was actively searching for work when he died because a pile of CVs he had just printed out was found a few metres from his body. The last time he spoke to his sister, a few days before he died, he told her he was waiting to hear back about an application he had made to the supermarket chain Lidl.

But officials at the Jobcentre believed he was not taking his search for work seriously enough, and early last July, they sanctioned him – cutting off his benefit payments entirely, as a punishment for his failure to attend two appointments.

Clapson, 59, who had diabetes, died in his flat in Stevenage on 20 July 2013, from diabetic ketoacidosis (caused by an acute lack of insulin). When Gill Thompson, his younger sister, discovered his body, she found his electricity had been cut off (meaning that the fridge where he kept his insulin was no longer working). There was very little left to eat in the flat – six tea bags, an out-of-date tin of sardines and a can of tomato soup. His pay-as-you-go mobile phone had just 5p credit left on it and he had only £3.44 in his bank account. The autopsy notes reveal that his stomach was empty.

 Consider the man and his life's arc:

She (the sister who discovered his body) is at pains to describe her brother as someone who had worked for 29 years, anxious to stress that he should not be seen as "scrounger". He spent five years in the army, two of them serving in Belfast, 16 years working for BT and another eight at other companies before he stopped working to care for their mother who had developed dementia.

Soldier, longtime worker and family caregiver, yet these facets mattered not in a system that required compliance and performance.  

The Little Match Girl died in a dehumanized system, as did The CV Veteran.

Note that financial securitizations are non-taxed and private equity underwriters (PEU) keep their preferred carried interest taxation which makes their firms virtual nonprofits.  Obviously, elected leaders believe these group's have earned and deserve the government's help.

I have seen so many people -- particularly those in their 50s - 70s -- taken apart by what has happened in their industry as greed has hollowed out the economy. These are people took pride in their jobs and held themselves to this invisible standard that we all just took for granted, but is being wiped out.

Others, like the people mentioned above, not so much.