Who Is The 2014 Dick of the Year? You Get One Guess

Posted by on December 26, 2014 at 10:46 am. 1 Comments :

It is with profound relief that we bid farewell to 2014, a year that was consumed by Ebola panic, the rise of ISIL, and the midterm political wrangling with all of the animosities and hyperbole that go along with it. And so to send this year into the anus of history, we pay tribute to the one person who most obnoxiously exudes the foul stench of loutish, self-aggrandizing repugnancy, in the service of lies, discord, and worldwide misery. News Corpse presents…

The 2014 Dick of the Year

Considering all of the worthy candidates, and there were many, there is only one who rises to the level of boorishness required to walk away with the prize. And, conveniently, he was anointed at birth with the name for which the prize is known. He is our very own Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney. Here are a few of the memorable episodes in the Cheney melodrama that secured his victory in the competition for this award.

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The Senate Intelligence Committee published its executive summary of their findings after an exhaustive investigation into the use of torture by the CIA and other national security agencies during the Bush administration. The report detailed the horrific tactics employed that were a clear violation of both domestic and international law. The New York Times saw the report as justification for bringing the culpable parties to trial for their crimes and specifically singled out Cheney. Cheney’s response?

“The report’s full of crap.”

This coming from the man who said that it was “pretty well confirmed” that the 9/11 terrorists were working with Saddam Hussein; that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger; that aluminum tubes could only be used for nuclear centrifuges; that we would “be greeted as liberators” upon invading Iraq; and who still believes that Hussein was hoarding weapons of mass destruction. Cheney’s defense of his misconduct was a thinly veiled play for pseudo-patriotism wherein he asserted that publishing the facts about these atrocities was more damaging than committing them.

Dick Cheney CIA Torture

Always one to encourage fear and foreboding, the Dark Prince of Halliburton made certain that his pessimism was broadcast to the masses who could then be as frightened of the future as he is. So in his media tour to announce the launch of his very own SuperPAC, Cheney once again predicted a flaming demolition of untold thousands of Americans.

“I think there will be another attack. And the next time, it’s likely to be far deadlier than the last one.”

Uh oh. How many thousands of victims does Cheney foresee in his apocalyptic prophecy? How many towering infernos will crumble to the ground? And how imminent is this catastrophe? Well, if the past is any indicator of the future, America can breathe a sigh of relief, because Cheney has been predicting doom for many years with a profound measure of inaccuracy. And his latest prognostication that Al Qaeda has acquired havoc-wreaking Gizmos that they plan to detonate in front of the Fox News building is just as likely to fail.

Fox News - Dick Cheney

Following a speech by President Obama at West Point, Cheney hobbled over to Fox News to tell Sean Hannity that Obama is “a very, very weak president. Maybe the weakest, certainly in my lifetime.” It was discussion that could have been viewed as an invitation to terrorists to launch an attack as soon as possible. But in addition to the near treasonous rhetoric, Cheney re-wrote history to his liking, while mangling it beyond recognition.

“Remember there was a time back in the eighties when the United States was supporting the Afghan Mujaheddin against the Soviets. We had help from others doing that. We ultimately succeeded and then everybody turned around and walked away from Afghanistan. And, of course, then they had a civil war, the Taliban came to power. Ultimately Osama Bin Laden found safe haven there.”

Is it possible that Dick Cheney is so irredeemably delusional that he’s forgotten that Osama Bin Laden was the Mujaheddin leader that the U.S. was supporting in the fight against the Soviets? Bin Laden didn’t just find safe haven in Afghanistan, as if he stumbled over it. He was instrumental in toppling the previous government and installing a friendly new regime (the Taliban), with aid from the Reagan administration. But perhaps the most stupifyingly brain-dead remark in the whole bitch session with Hannity, was Cheney’s assessment of Obama’s grasp of history:

“It’s as though he wasn’t even around when 9/11 happened.”

Seriously? This is coming from the de facto head of an administration that, both literally and figuratively, was not around when 9/11 happened. They ignored an intelligence report with the actual headline “Bin Laden Determined to Strike In U.S.” This arrived a month before 9/11, while President Bush was on a month-long vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Then, while allowing Bin Laden and other Taliban leaders to escape, they started another war in Iraq that had nothing to do with 9/11.

Dick Cheney

When Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced a sensible cut to the Pentagon’s budget as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were winding down, Cheney called his pal Sean Hannity to feverishly sound the alarm that Obama was plotting to make America militarily impotent. It was a charge that he couldn’t supoort with substance, so he resorted to his impending doom routine that he has perfected over the past several decades. And in this instance he even managed to throw hungry Americans overboard.

“[Obama] would rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military.”

Of course, that also happens to be the position of most of the American people. Currently approaching $700 billion dollars, the U.S. defense budget is greater than the combined military budgets of the next ten largest spenders. And even after making the proposed cuts, we will still be allocating more money to defense than China, Russia, the UK, Japan, France, and Saudi Arabia combined.

In addition to the obvious logic of cutting spending when we have the opportunity, it is a policy that is favored by most Americans. This is particularly apparent when compared to the public’s support for programs that benefit the needy. A majority of Americans (59%) favor maintaining spending on programs for the poor over deficit reduction. But when asked about maintaining defense spending, a majority (51%) would rather cut the deficit.

Fox News

There are certainly more examples of Cheney’s dickish and deserving accomplishments this year. But these are more than enough to establish his righteous place in the Dick Hall of Fame. As we begin a new year, Cheney will be the one to beat for the many contenders who enviously eye his throne. But look for Jeb Bush, Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, and Sarah Palin, to make strong moves for their own slice of immortality.

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The Bestest, Most Honest Christmas Carol Ever

Posted by on December 24, 2014 at 7:26 pm. NO Comments :

For all of those who are not huddled around a dead tree this evening or digging through piles of colorfully wrapped packages looking for the ones addressed to you; for the cynics who won’t accept the notion that the birth of an alleged savior is an excuse to exchange material goods or fruitcakes that nobody likes; for outcasts and rebels and nonbelievers who are puzzled by the greed and commercialism of a season that is sold as one of peace and goodwill…Here is snippet from the classic Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens:

Christmas Carol

And here is Miles Davis and Bob Dorough performing the heartwarming traditional Christmas ballad Blue Xmas:

* * * H A P P Y * H O L I D A Y S * * *


Bill O’Reilly Thinks America Has Millions Of Cop Killers Running Around

Posted by on December 23, 2014 at 10:08 am. 9 Comments :

The sad story of two New York police offices ambushed by a nut case as they sat in their patrol car has had the effect of driving many self-serving politicians and pundits nuts as well. The incidents of these brazenly exploitative hacks dishonoring the fallen officers is astonishing, even in these highly partisan times. It is unconscionable that so many insensitive and biased people effectively pardon the murderer by shifting the blame to everyone from President Obama to Al Sharpton to Eric Holder to Bill De Blasio to every well-intentioned protester who mourns for the lives of victims of police brutality.

For the benefit of those deliberately incendiary cretins, it is possible for people of good will to support the work of the majority of good police officers while at the same time criticizing the failings of the bad apples. In fact, it is the duty of citizens and officials to make that distinction and not cover up the misconduct of the few.

Weighing in on the side of the mental cases who can’t delineate between good and evil is Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. In an utterly unhinged rant that he delivered by phoning in to his own TV program while on vacation, O’Reilly went on at length about the responsibility of New York City Mayor De Blasio, who he accused of being incompetent and impotently demanded that “this is an individual who should resign today.” Then immediately after conceding that nobody but Ismaaiyl Brinsley was responsible for the murders, he contradicts himself again and charges the protesters with aiding and abetting him.

“Now Brinsley is the only one responsible for the deaths of the two police officers. No one else has blood on their hands. I want everybody to be clear about that. Aiding and abetting Brinsley and other maniacs – those protesters who yelled we want dead cops.”

So no one else has blood on their hands – except that a few blockheads out of some 25,000 marchers, who were elevated by O’Reilly to a status far beyond their actual impact, were de facto accomplices. Never mind that Brinsley probably never even knew they existed because he likely was not a Fox News viewer. From there O’Reilly fingers what he calls the “true villain in the case,” and according to him it isn’t Brinsley.

“Bill De Blasio, as I said, is incompetent. He was elected in an election in which few people voted. He is a machine politician. And he is an anti-police individual. […] This is an individual who should resign today – TODAY!

O’Reilly must get awfully tired of being ignored. Obviously De Blasio is not going to resign, nor should he. And while O’Reilly was right about the low voter turnout (something that is sadly too common in this country as evidenced by the midterm election last month), De Blasio received a whopping 73% of those who voted. But O’Reilly is only an advocate of democracy when his side prevails. It is typical of the deranged extremism for which he is so well known. And his brand of rancid hyperbole was in full effect last night when he painted a dystopic picture of America as a buzzing hive of cop killers.

“And there are millions of Brinsleys running around. Millions. Because our society in America does not hold them accountable.”

Bill O'Reilly

For the record, there were 27 police officers killed in the line of duty last year (of which only five were killed by ambush, Brinsley-style) according to FBI statistics. That is a tragedy for each and every one of those officers and their families, but it does not support the lunatic assertion that “millions of Brinsleys” are running around. And where O’Reilly gets the notion that cop killers are not held accountable is a complete mystery. They are among those who receive the harshest punishment of any criminal act. That is, if they even survive to stand trial.

Once again O’Reilly has managed to distort reality in a way that inflames his dimwitted audience and exacerbates division and unrest. He is incapable of grasping the intricacies of the social relationships between citizens and law enforcement. He only sees things through the prism of his elitist, wealthy, white privilege, which he insists does not exist. And, as usual, his contributions are hallmarked by ignorance and hatred and are counterproductive, if not overtly destructive.

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It’s A (War On) Christmas Miracle: A World Without Rupert Murdoch

Posted by on December 22, 2014 at 12:06 pm. 8 Comments :

Subscribers to the Dish Network woke up this weekend to find that the level of ignorance and dishonesty that is pumped into their homes by their television provider had dropped precipitously. Due to a contract dispute between Dish and Fox News the network pulled their programming depriving the Dish subscribers of the feast of lies and propaganda that dominate Fox’s schedule.

Wonderful Fox-Free Life

For many viewers it is a Christmas wish come true. Of course, for many others it is like being unable to connect to their supplier of wingnut crack.

Fox is mounting a campaign to denigrate Dish and blame them for the stalled contract talks. But what Fox isn’t tell you is that they are using the negotiations to add new Fox networks to Dish’s service and triple the fees for their sports channels (which would likely result in higher rates for customers as those increases are passed on). Neither of those issues are a part of the current contract that is up for renewal. So this is a case of Fox attempting to strong-arm Dish into capitulating to their demands and using Fox News as the cudgel. Further evidence of this is that Dish offered Fox a short-term extension to keep the network on the air while negotiations continued, but Fox turned them down.

Unfortunately, this holiday good news has been tempered by an utterly boneheaded decision by Dish to temporarily replace the blacked-out Fox News channel with Glenn Beck’s The Blaze. That’s a little like pulling a fork out of your eye and replacing it with an ax. And you can rest assured that Beck will take full advantage of this accidental good fortune to escalate his lunacy to much larger and dumbfounded Fox audience. That oughta be fun.

Still, the notion of a Fox-free Christmas holds some appeal. It means that Dish subscribers will have to look elsewhere to be indoctrinated into the latest Fox scams. The result for many families is that their holiday gatherings may be free of Fox-itized relatives dampening the festivities with their conspiracy theories, hoax peddling, and hate mongering. It’s a prospect that was brilliantly imagined by the comedy team of Fry & Laurie (yes, that was Hugh Laurie of TV’s “House” fame). They produced a hilarious short film inspired by the classic “It’s A Wonderful Life,” that had a look at the world if Rupert Murdoch had never been born.

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And have yourself a merry little (war on) Christmas.


NAUSEATING: Fox News Absolves Cop Killer Of Responsibility For Murders

Posted by on December 21, 2014 at 11:06 am. 13 Comments :

Conservatives have long portrayed themselves as the voices of personal responsibility. They insist that the traditional values encompassed by patriotism and faith demand that individuals be accountable for their actions. But when it comes to the brutal assassination of two New York police officers, Fox News exploits the tragedy to lay the blame on innocent people that they regard as political adversaries.

Fox Nation

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The blinding hatred that Fox News has for New York Mayor Bill De Blasio and Al Sharpton doesn’t justify splashing the blood of dead officers on people who had no part in their demise. Other cretinous pundits have gone so far as to indict President Obama for this horror. The only thing that sort of vile and false condemnation achieves is to reveal the rancid bigotry of the accuser.

The butcher who assassinated two NYPD officers yesterday was a deeply disturbed and violent man with a long record of criminality. And despite news reports that sensationalized a few comments on social media that referenced Eric Garner and Michael Brown, his motives are still not clear. He may indeed have had opinions as to the injustices in those cases (as did millions of righteous Americans), but it is impossible to spin his shooting of his girlfriend in Baltimore prior to traveling to New York as part of a vendetta against the police. Plainly there is something else that is darkly lurking beneath the surface of this still unfolding drama.

One thing for certain is that the only person responsible for the murders is the perpetrator. It is wholly inappropriate to shift the blame to others who are just as repulsed by this as those feverishly pointing their sanctimonious fingers in other directions. That sort of flailing rebuke not only slanders the targets, it pardons the guilty. And it is particularly disgusting when the intent is such a brazen act of partisan politics.

You have to wonder why there was no similar condemnation of the treasonous Tea Party brigades that flocked to Nevada to defend tax cheat Cliven Bundy. Among their ranks were a couple who later went to Las Vegas and executed two police officers as they ate their lunch in a diner. The Tea Party cop killers failed to meet the Fox News criteria for condemnation because they were a white, Christian couple from Indiana. Consequently, Fox quickly dropped the story without any sermonizing about responsibility.

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On the other hand, right-wingers were quick to mock Garner and Brown, for whom rallying cries reflected their final moments with utterances of “Hands up, don’t shoot,” and “I can’t breathe.” These unintentional epitaphs became fodder for the conservative martinets of virtue to disregard the human tragedies and shift the blame to vague criticisms of black culture, families, and values. The spokesmen for these deliberate distractions were paraded across Fox News along with the absurd and insensitive notion that the victims caused their own deaths. The conservative viewpoint was that responsibility for their fates was their own and that the people protesting ought to accept that as a fact.

Now, suddenly, responsibility is no longer attributable to an obvious offender, but is shamelessly cast on perceived enemies. It’s such a Christian thing to do in this season of peace and goodwill. And it’s just another hypocrisy by malicious jackasses who care more about their own spiteful prejudices than the very real losses suffered by both police officers and citizens whose lives are stolen too soon and without reason.


Obama’s War On Men: Media Rattled By Women Reporters At Press Conference

Posted by on December 20, 2014 at 2:07 am. 8 Comments :

President Obama held his last press conference (CSPAN video here) for 2014 on Friday. It being a volatile time in the world there were questions that reflected the many serious issues facing the nation and the world. They spanned from North Korea to Cuba to tax reform to Keystone XL to race relations. But you’ll never guess what the media focused on at the conclusion of the affair.

Fox Nation

Apparently, the breaking news that sprung out of the press conference was that Obama only called on women journalists. That fact trumped everything else that was said about the other major issues of the day. The very first comment by Gretchen Carlson of Fox News after the event ended was about the gender makeup of the questioners. She also found it curious that Obama didn’t call on any reporters in the first row where the TV network correspondents sit.

Funny, I don’t recall ever hearing anybody take note that only men asked questions in prior press conferences. Particularly back when there weren’t any women at all in the White House press corps (with the exception of Helen Thomas). But for some reason this was regarded as newsworthy and even historic.

There was a clear implication that Obama had deliberately orchestrated this in order to advance his “War on Men.” Plus, the pundit class seems to believe that women would ask less confrontational questions. That’s an opinion that also extends to the reporters sitting behind the network stars in the first row.

To be fair, it wasn’t just Fox News. Other networks and numerous print news outlets made the same observation. But what sets Fox apart are the comments on their Fox Nation website that castigate this “gender discrimination” as more proof that Obama is weak, or gay, or committed to destroying God’s natural order of white, male, Christian supremacy. And that ugliness ought to be more newsworthy than the gender scoring that the self-obsessed media is engaging in.

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A Tip Of The Hat To The Now Immortal Stephen Colbert

Posted by on December 19, 2014 at 10:29 am. 1 Comments :

The moment that America was dreading has come. And while parting is said to be a sweet sorrow, the finale of Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report leaves open the possibility of a future meeting. In the meantime we will need to console ourselves with our memories of the past and our hopes for a “Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.”

Colbert’s send off included a segment of his take off on Bill O’Reilly’s Talking Points Memo that Colbert transformed into “The Word.” The premise of the piece titled “Same to you, pal,” was his observation that nothing much has changed in the nine years that he has been doing the show. But no matter the sly references to ongoing wars and political debates, things definitely won’t be the same. There was a Colbert Report then, but there isn’t one now. That’s a big difference.

Stephen Colbert

Colbert was much more than a comedian, more than a satirist, more than a late night talk show host, and more than a commentator on contemporary culture. What set his program apart from any that had come before it was the way he integrated his fake persona into real life. It wasn’t good enough to throw punch lines at society’s targets. That would have been way too easy. Colbert interacted with them, and in doing so, made points that could not have been made any other way.

For instance, when he appeared at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner in 2006, he came in character. He broiled both President Bush (who was sitting a few feet away) and the entire audience of media elites. He noted that he was “appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president’s side, and the vice president’s side.” But the coup de grace was the indictment he served up in the form of a tribute (one of his specialties):

“Over the last five years you people were so good — over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn’t want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

“But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know – fiction.”

The “journalists” in the audience (along with such notable guests as Morgan Fairchild, Tommy Lasorda, Mitt Romney, Anna Kornikova, and “Dancing With the Stars” winner Drew Lachey) were caught in a frozen gasp as they tried to comprehend what just took place. Many of them rushed home to pen bitter criticisms of Colbert’s performance that they regarded as unfunny. But that didn’t salve their woulds.

Colbert also transported himself into Congress, again in character, as he lobbied on behalf of migrant farm workers. As usual, his shtick was as serious as it was humorous. When asked by Rep. Judy Chu why he chose to address this issue he said that…

“I like talking about people that don’t have any power. And it seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work, but don’t have any rights as a result. Yet we still invite them to come here, and at the same time ask them to leave.”

When Colbert decided to do a piece on how Super PACs allow politicians to skirt campaign financing laws and enrich themselves without any reasonable oversight, he didn’t just rant on television about it. He started his own very real Super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow. It raised more than a million dollars that was donated to charity.

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There is so much more that could be recalled here, including the historic event in Washington, D.C. with his friend and producer, Jon Stewart: The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. It was a biting satire of Glenn Beck’s lame Restoring Honor rally, from a man who has never demonstrated any. But the best way to remember the Colbert Report is by letting the show speak for itself. So here is one of my favorite segments that skewers Glenn Beck’s debut on Fox News by asking “How far up your own ass are you willing to go?”

Colbert’s finale also saw him slaying the Grim Reaper, thus making himself immortal. So there may be more to come. At least we can look forward to Colbert’s return to television as the host of CBS’s The Late Show, succeeding David Letterman. You can rest assured that he will revolutionize the genre, as he did with the Colbert Report. Till then we will have to be satisfied with the bittersweet farewell he gave on his final program. The ending featured a cast of dozens of former guests and friends of the show singing the song “We’ll Meet Again.” But you have to wonder whether that selection was a wily reference to the ending of the film Dr. Stangelove, where the song had an ironic twist.


So You Thought President Obama Would Be A Lame Duck, Did You?

Posted by on December 17, 2014 at 7:14 pm. 10 Comments :

Six weeks ago an election concluded that brought what every Republican, and many Democrats, thought was the deathblow for the Obama administration. There was no phrase that was uttered more often than “Lame Duck” as pundits rushed to write the epitaph of Obama’s presidency and agenda. They were convinced that the Obama era was dead and, with apologies to Monty Python, it had…

“…passed on. It is no more. It has ceased to be. It’s expired and gone to meet it’s maker. It’s a stiff. Bereft of life. It rests in peace. It’s pushing up the daisies. It’s metabolic processes are now history. It’s off the twig. It’s kicked the bucket. It’s shuffled off it’s mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible. This is an ex-presidency.”

Obama Lame Duck

Well, in the subsequent forty-two days the President has demonstrated a stubborn resistance to complying with the conventional wisdom. He has defied his critics’ forecasts of an untimely demise, as well as their conviction that he is incapable of leadership. Here is a brief summary of some of the achievements that have come to pass since November 5, 2014, beginning with an historic announcement today:

  • Normalizing relations with Cuba.
  • Deferring deportation for certain undocumented immigrants.
  • Passage of a spending bill that averts another government shutdown.
  • Confirmation of his Surgeon General nominee.
  • Confirmation of twenty-seven federal judges.
  • Climate agreement with China.
  • Protection for Bristol Bay, Alaska from future oil and gas drilling.

In addition to the above, Obama has also presided over record enrollments in the second year of ObamaCare, and the deflating of Russia’s economy. And all the while the U.S. economy is performing better than any other major nation, and most indicators are firmly in positive territory.

Of course, there is still much room for improvement, but that cannot be achieved without the cooperation of Congress. There is not likely to be much of that in the next couple of years, but Obama has proven that he is able to attend to the interests of the American people even when Congress refuses to do so. And the 2016 cycle is shaping up to heavily favor Democrats.

In fact, 2016 holds decidedly bad news for Republicans and their new senate majority. The GOP will be defending 24 seats, as compared to only 10 for the Democrats. Nine of the those GOP seats are in states won by Obama in 2012. So are all of the Democratic seats. With a larger and more representative electorate it is almost a certainty that the senate will flip back to the Democrats.

It will be interesting to see where we go from here as the new congressional session begins next month. What we already know is that with Republicans in charge the Congress has set a new record for laziness. It has spent more time on vacation than working (239 total vacation days in 2014). Plus, it was the least productive session in history. It took that trophy from the session just prior.

Much of the blame has to be laid at the feet of John Boehner, the Tea Party, and the GOP’s inability and genetic aversion to governing. But if anyone is still holding onto the belief that Obama has become an irredeemable lame duck, the evidence of the past six weeks ought to shake that conviction. It is clear that Obama has no intention of being hobbled by an antagonistic Congress that cares more about their own grasp on power than they do the welfare of the people they are supposed to representing.

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A Solution To Sony’s “The Interview” Dilemma That Thwarts The Terrorists

Posted by on December 17, 2014 at 12:17 pm. 1 Comments :

Hackers that stole private information from Sony Pictures and released some of it publicly caused an enormous amount of embarrassment and significant damage to the studio’s relationships with their employees and business partners. But what came next is far more troubling than embarrassment. The hackers behind the data theft have now threatened to attack movie theaters that show the film.

“We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places “The Interview” be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to.
Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made.
The world will be full of fear.
Remember the 11th of September 2001.
We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time.
(If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)
Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
All the world will denounce the SONY.”

The one thing that this message makes clear is that whoever wrote it is a moron. After all, how will the world see what an awful movie it is if, as the terrorists wish, nobody sees it? It is idiocy like this that makes me tend to discount reports that North Korea is behind the hack or the threats. It sounds much more like a disgruntled ex-employee (or a group of them) who is seeking personal revenge. The fractured English looks deliberate as they managed to correctly punctuate the contraction “you would” while elsewhere emulating the syntax of Yoda.

Particularly revealing is the reference to greed as what offends the hacker. If the North Koreans were responsible it would be the perceived insult to their leader, Kim Jong-Un that would have incited them. But even that is a stretch because the film makes fools of the Americans, which is something that the North Koreans would welcome. And why would North Korea suddenly get so upset by this low-brow comedy? Why wouldn’t they have long ago threatened to blow up all of the media outlets that have been harshly critical of their country? Why wouldn’t they have aimed their wrath at hundreds of other more significant criticisms? Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity have said far worse things about North Korean than this film does.

However, now that this has devolved to terrorist threats for whatever reason it is an utterly unacceptable demand. If Sony capitulates to this threat they open the door for future terrorists to effectively control what American filmmakers (and any other product manufacturer) can produce and distribute. And, of course, that also means that the terrorists control what American citizens are permitted to see or buy. That is a power that must not be granted to the cretins who plotted this affair. And Sony has it within their power to thwart them.

Sony Interview

Some theaters have already decided to pull the film from their screens. Sony has told all exhibitors that they will be allowed to do so. Consequently, the film’s profit potential in the theatrical marketplace has been effectively ruined. So why doesn’t Sony just take the next step and announce that they will make the film available for free to everyone. They can release it themselves on the Internet. They can distribute it to cable television operators for free broadcast.

By doing this they keep the means of distribution in their own hands. They can inset advertising to generate revenue. And the ad rates could probably be unusually high due to the abnormally strong level of interest that this film will likely have. As a result, whatever motives the hackers had to suppress the film will have not only been thwarted, it is very likely that more people will see it than if none of this had occurred.

So what do you say, Sony? Do you want to allow terrorists to dictate what Americans can produce and consume? Or do you want to turn a horrible situation around to slap the perpetrators in the face and deter future attempts of this sort of extortion? This solution denies the bad guys a victory at the same time as it rescues the studio from a certain loss.


Jeb Bush Plans To Run For President As Drug Dealing Charges Emerge

Posted by on December 16, 2014 at 5:22 pm. 15 Comments :

The big news today that surprises no one is that Jeb Bush is seriously considering a run at the presidency in 2016. He says that he will launch an exploratory effort to test the waters, but that is a well known artifice that politicians commonly use to disguise or delay their true intentions. Bush has been hinting at running for some time and he is keenly aware that there will not be too many other opportunities. If he passes on 2016, and the next president serves two terms, Bush will be 70 before he could run again.

One of the reasons politicians seek to put off official announcements of candidacy is that they will begin take fire from all sides. Already the conservative wing of the GOP is lashing out against Bush. Another reason they delay announcing is that doing so brings on a whole new level of scrutiny. And Bush’s announcement has produced a perfect example of that risk. A report now circulating in conservative circles is questioning whether Bush was a drug user and dealer while attending prep school at Andover.

Jeb Bush

The allegations stem from an article written by John LeBoutillier, a former Republican congressman and currently a co-host of Fox News Channel’s Political Insiders. Under the title “The Jeb Bush Illegal Drug and Liquor Distributorship at Andover,” LeBoutillier wrote that…

“Jeb Bush and one other fellow student back then ran an illegal drug and liquor distributorship on the Andover campus. When the heat started coming down, Bush ratted out the partner to the school authorities and saved his own skin. Jeb got away with it, was never caught, never punished, graduated unscathed and went on to the University of Texas at Austin.”

If this account is true then Bush was not only engaged in unlawful activities, he was also an untrustworthy associate who will steamroll over others to avoid personal responsibility for his own conduct.

Some will say that these allegations are dredging up a distant past that holds no relevance to the present. After all, Bush went on to complete two terms as governor of Florida without any suspicion of substance consumption or commerce. But we must not forget the manner in which President Obama was harassed by wingnut critics who mined his past back to even his birth.

Conservative conspiracy theorists hatched plots that involved Obama’s parents fabricating a birth certificate to secure his U.S. citizenship. They accused him of being indoctrinated by early childhood influences from Muslim Madrassas to alleged communist subversives like Frank Marshall. They went into his college days at Columbia and Harvard to make tenuous connections between him and his lefty professors. They went totally bonkers over his attendance at the church of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And, of course, they veritably salivated over reports of his youthful indulgence in marijuana.

If Obama’s drug use was considered an election issue by Republicans in 2008, then certainly Bush should be subjected to the same inquiries today. And as LeBoutillier noted in his article, even if the use of drugs were to be excused, Bush has been accused of trafficking, a far more serious offense. These kinds of tabloid assertions were a staple of the campaigns against Obama. But will the so-called liberal media apply the same standards to Bush?

Don’t count on it. The media is already demonstrating its hypocrisy by making a controversy out of Hillary Clinton’s wealth. They assert that due to her financial status she cannot relate to average Americans even though she was never wealthy until after leaving the White House. But they have yet to question Bush’s riches or their effect on his ability to relate, despite the fact that he was born to great wealth.

Similarly, the media is obsessed with the matter of dynasty. However, the Clinton’s hardly qualify as a dynasty since there is no multi-generational component to their public service. It is simply Bill and Hillary. But Bush is the brother and son of a president, and the grandson of a senator, and the father of an officeholder in Texas. That’s four generations of Bushes in politics. Which is more than the Kennedys. Nevertheless, the media treats the two families the same. Not even Jeb’s mother does that. She was famously quoted saying that “We’ve had enough Bushes,” when asked to comment on a prospective Jeb candidacy.

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Personally, I don’t put much stock in the charges against Bush. Even though the source is more reliable than the fruitcakes that were cooking up plots about Obama, there should be more evidence and corroboration before anyone makes decisions based on them. I am also not a fan of ancient history being exploited as a weapon against people whose current lifestyles do not exhibit any misbehavior. However, I do believe that the press should be, as they say, fair and balanced, and if they go after Democrats like Obama and Clinton, then they need to do the same to Bush and any other Republican candidate. That does not seem to be the case so far.