TV News LIES

You know the expression:  If it's not one thing after another, it's the same damn thing, over and over again.  The over-and-over part:  being on deathwatch, then losing another family member.  The damn thing, in this case:  Cancer.

It's the way these things go for those who survive:  Too many events are suspended in the fog of the surreal.  The sequence of events rubberizes and freezes clocks, stretching out and shrinking time.  Gravity is too variable, but almost always heavy-handed -- trying to run, or move quickly, makes one feel submerged to the neck in bread pudding.

In June, the private sector added 84,000 and government cut 4,000 jobs. The good news is that with government revenues stabilizing, there are signs that the massive losses in public employment may be coming to an end. Still, since May 2010, the government sector has cut 1.04 million jobs.

At the same time, since February 2010, the private sector has added 4.35 million jobs. The thing is that most of these government job cuts occurred in the Red states, and they are same states that aren’t producing private sector jobs either. Blue states are even adding government jobs as their economies start to recover.

Forget Bernie Madoff and Enron’s Ken Lay—they were mere amateurs in financial crime. The current Libor interest rate scandal, involving hundreds of trillions in international derivatives trade, shows how the really big boys play. And these guys will most likely not do the time because their kind rewrites the law before committing the crime.

Modern international bankers form a class of thieves the likes of which the world has never before seen. Or, indeed, imagined. The scandal over Libor—short for London interbank offered rate—has resulted in a huge fine for Barclays Bank and threatens to ensnare some of the world’s top financers.

Initial Jobless Claims are down again this week putting in doubt the prognostication that we’re going into the double dip recession. That would be the recession that the Republicans have been working so hard to engineer before the election.

Jobless Claims are in fact down 15% from this time last year. This is of no comfort for those who have become permanently unemployed under the universal corporate policy of never hiring people who are unemployed. A permanent oblivion that workers can be cast into focuses the minds of the Neo-feudal serfs.

Don't be confused, and don't let anyone tell you that you shouldn't talk about this. TO BE CLEAR: THE PUBLIC HAS BOTH THE RIGHT TO INSPECT BALLOTS AND THE RIGHT TO A SECRET BALLOT

We have a right to BOTH. Some election officials have been conflating these two issues, claiming that if we examine ballots we can see how people voted. Now, this raises a stunning question: If this is so, that means that election officials and vendors can also figure out how you voted.

We all need to grab a cleaver and chop these two rights into the two distinct rights that they are. The right to inspect; the right to privacy.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is after the our friends over at JP Morgan Chase for rigging wholesale electricity prices to the tune of $73m. You thought that activity went away with the collapse of Enron? These crooks will steal anything that isn’t nailed down, well okay, they will pry up the nails too.

They aren’t the only people the FERC has been going after, Obama was delayed in appointing people by Republicans in the Senate, but things are finally starting to happen.