TV News LIES

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.

We’re all pissed off in some form or another. No question. No one can sit idly by with any level of consciousness and not be ticked off by the insanity, inequities and atrocities going on around us. That’s righteous anger and there’s nothing wrong with it.

But we must keep it in its place.

The targeted audience? The general populace is being set up and baited for violent response.

Before the Affordable Care Act came to pass almost fifty million Americans were uninsured. Now that the Supreme Court has upheld President Obama's signature health care law … 26 million Americans will remain uninsured. But how many more millions of Americans can barely afford the coverage they now have?

Depending on your personal outlook on life … the glass is half full or half empty. But who wants a sip? Where I live it is unimaginable that people can’t afford health coverage. it is unthinkable that a person can’t get health care.