PETER PHILLIPS AND MICKEY HUFF FOR BUZZFLASH

“There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.”
            –– Charles Dickens

We face what appears to be a military industrial media empire so powerful and complex that truth is mostly absent or reported in disconnected segments with little historical context. A case in point: The London Times reported on June 5, 2010, that American troops are now operating in 75 countries. Has President Obama secretly sanctioned a huge increase in the number of US Special Forces carrying out search-and-destroy missions against al-Qaeda around the world? If so, this increase is far in excess of special-forces operations under the Bush administration and reflects how aggressively Obama is pursuing al-Qaeda behind his public rhetoric of global engagement and diplomacy. Somehow this information didn’t make it into the US media.

The US, in cooperation with NATO, is building global occupation forces for the control of international resources in support of Trilaterialist—US, Europe, Japan— corporate profits. A New York Times report on the availability of a trillion dollars  in  mineral wealth in Afghanistan, on top of the need for an oil/gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea, suggests other reasons for U.S objectives in the region. Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service writes on June 15, 2010, “The timing of the publication of a major New York Times story on the vast untapped mineral wealth that lies beneath Afghanistan's soil is raising major questions about the intent of the Pentagon…Blake Hounshell, managing editor at Foreign Policy magazine, says that the US Geological Service (USGS) already published a comprehensive inventory of Afghanistan's non-oil mineral resources on the Internet in 2007, as did the British Geological Survey.          

Much of their work was based on explorations and surveys undertaken by the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s.”Given the previous reports, there is nothing new about resources in Afghanistan that the Pentagon and US multinational corporations didn’t already know. On the contrary, the public should consider whether the surfacing of this resource story is a managed-news press release being done at a time of sensitive concerns regarding NATO’s mission in Afghanistan. A deliberate news insertion such as the mineral wealth story is designed to create support for a US/NATO global empire agenda.

JACQUELINE MARCUS FOR BUZZFLASH

We occasionally get E-mails and comments from readers criticizing BuzzFlash for posting articles or commentaries that they disagree with.  BuzzFlash tries to represent a range of progressive views.  Our editorials and editor's blogs state are our official positions. We found this commentary from occasional contributor and regular reader Jacqueline Marcus thought provoking, although BuzzFlash may not agree with every nuance of it. BuzzFlash would be rather authoritarian and boring if we only published commentary with which we agreed on every word.

As the oil continues to gush—so too does our rage.

When President Obama did a photo-op with Mississippi’s Governor Haley Barbour, slurping an icy on the beach, while toxic crude oil poisons and pollutes the Gulf of Mexico, I wished at that moment that Bill Clinton were President again. Bill Clinton said in his interview with Wolf Blitzer/CNN 07-03-10 that the Navy can stop the leak by blowing up the well. If Clinton’s right, the oil leak could have been solved at the start—and that makes me fuming mad at Obama.

We all remember how former President Bill Clinton literally attacked problems with his intellectual powers and practical experience, unrelentingly, until those problems were solved in the best interest of the people’s welfare. Clinton hardly slept given his devotion to solving problems with the goal of getting real results.

When this oil disaster happened, I asked myself if Bill Clinton would be off to campaign parties, golfing trips, and fancy dinners during the worst environmental catastrophe in our history. Would he leave this disaster entirely in BP’s hands to solve—as Obama did?

I doubt it. The former President, and I assume Hillary, would not leave it all up to BP; nor would they be singing songs with Paul McCartney. They’d be on this catastrophe 24/7, allowing experts abroad to employ their technology/ships for cleaning the oil. Not that I have anything against Paul McCartney, but when our country is under attack, and our food, water and air are being perpetually poisoned from a chemical explosion of crude toxic oil and methane, singing “Michelle” at a White House party seems untimely and inappropriate.

SHEILA SAMPLES FOR BUZZFLASH

"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress...but then, I repeat myself." --Mark Twain

Much has been written -- argued heatedly by ideological TV pundits -- over the past several years about the inability of members of Congress to agree on anything. Republicans stomp around like elephants in a china closet, shouting "No! No! Hell No!" no matter what legislation comes before them. Democrats, in a timid effort to reach across the aisle, stumble and fall down, where they just sit, plaintively begging, "Please don't hurt me..."

Both parties are adrift; cut loose from their moorings -- in total disarray. Much of the chaos is a result of the previous administration lighting a myriad of fuses before slinking into the shadows, setting off a string of political and financial explosions designed to blow this republic all to hell. What they failed to consider -- and what the bumbling members of Congress have yet to realize is -- when the ship of state sinks, everybody on board is going down with it.

Which appears to be what the race-baiting Rush Limbaugh, the self-appointed "leader" of the Republican Party, is feverishly attempting to provoke. Anybody who doubts that Limbaugh hasn't been in racist meltdown since 2007 when it became obvious that Barack Obama was a threat to White-Wing Limbaughesque "values" just hasn't been paying attention. Throughout the campaign -- from constantly airing the insulting Barack, the Magic Negro jingle to calling Obama and actress Halle Berry "Halfrican-Americans," to accusing Obama of "disowning his white half and deciding to go all in on the black side" -- Limbaugh led the pack.

TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH

C’mon, his parents overdid it, doncha think?

Mull this over a bit & you’ll conclude that’s

Like observant Jews naming their son Moishe

Ben-Gurion Schlomo Goldbergstein Katz.

http://www.democraticunderground.org/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8656341

Hmm, having seen the press conference when John Boehner, "criticized the financial overhaul yesterday, describing the attempt to regulate financial institutions as being like 'killing an ant with a nuclear weapon.'", Boehner didn't actually look or sound like he was dealing with a full deck.  I wonder if this latest tidbit has anything to do with his persona when he talked to the press: "It's not reported, but so many Republicans tell me this is a guy that is not the hardest worker in the world," said Scarborough on Wednesday's edition of Morning Joe. "Every Republican I talk to says John Boehner, by 5 or 6 o'clock at night, you can see him at bars. He is not a hard worker."

With his usual magnificent rhetoric, Frank Rich, Op-Ed columnist extraordinaire of The New York Times, recently laid out a grand agenda for President Obama and his administration, in order to deal with the mass disaster left behind for our nation by eight years of Bush-Cheney.  Frank said, in part:

"Logan...CBS’s chief foreign correspondent, said that she wasn’t sure that she would have used the story Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone writer, had in his hands after spending time with General Stanley McChrystal and his crew." 

Just goes to prove, conservative mainstream corporate media picks and chooses what they want the public to know.  Logan's subtle use of words to psychologically form the wrong opinion is absolutely why we the people do not get real news from MSCM! 

Logan's suggestion that Hastings is a liar:  Hastings, Logan said, “if you believe him.”  

Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone is a true journalist and we thank him for reporting as it should be.  If only we the American people had more reporters of the same fabric as Michael Hastings.

Jeff Sessions Uses Camera Time To Call Elena Kagan A Liar:  "I guess what I'm saying is the overall picture that she portrayed of the situation seems to me to be disconnected to the reality of it," Sessions told reporters during a break in the hearings this morning. "I believe a Supreme Court justice has got to show clarity of mind, the ability to rigorously analyze complex situations and state them clearly and accurately with intellectual honesty."

The "reality" here is Sessions is a jerk, he has no clarity of mind , he cannot analyze complexities, and he certainly is not honest.  He is a radical Repuglican with an axe to grind, and his self indulgent vengeance is obvious.

My condolences go out to the family of Senator Robert Byrd.  The Senate has lost a true patriot and West Virgina has lost a favorite son.

Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal editorial board rewrites history to mislead its readers.  No longer a bastion of truth in the financial world, the Wall Street Journal is just another Fox News fabricating the facts to fit a twisted ideology.  There are no scruples, no ethics, no morals in American politics or in American finance or in American Journalism anymore.  It's become a dog eat dog, money grubbing, me first kind of world.  Democracy is imploding from the inside out, self-destruction is the name of this game and the Repuglicans lit this fuse of annihilation.

Jeff Sessions still has his panties in a knot because:

In 1986, Sessions was a 39-year-old U.S. attorney in Alabama. His nomination to be a U.S. District Court judge was troubled from the start because of controversy surrounding his prosecution of civil rights activists for voting fraud.  Sessions' fate was sealed after Democrats called several witnesses who accused him of a pattern of racial insensitivity -- including calling a black lawyer "boy" and civil rights groups such as the NAACP "un-American." 

Sooooo:  Sessions: 'It's Conceivable A Filibuster Might Occur' Against Kagan

Would someone please put him out of his misery and tell him, he LOST.