State of the Union

Guest Post by Jim Kunstler

It’s conceivable, in a nation that absolutely can’t make sense of itself, that Mr. Trump’s annual report to congress will be as incomprehensible as this year’s Superbowl halftime show. Even the weather in Atlanta was a complete mystery with Maroon 5’s front man, Adam Levine, capering half-naked in tattoo drag amid artificial fires-of-hell, and then local hero rapper Big Boi’s triumphal entry in a limo, nearly lost inside what looked like the pelt of a giant ground sloth — an eight-year-old’s idea of what it means to be important. Or maybe it was just all code for two sides of the climate change debate.

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The State of Our Union: A House Divided, Enslaved & Mired in the Mistakes of the Past

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

History has a funny way of circling back on itself.

The facts, figures, faces and technology may change from era to era, but the dangers remain the same.

This year is no different, whatever the politicians and talking heads may say to the contrary.

Brush up on your history, and you’ll find that we’ve been stuck on repeat for some time now.

The United States of America in the year 2018 is not so far different from the United States of America during the Civil Rights era, or the Cold War era, or even the Depression era.

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Restate of the Union

Guest Post by John Stossel

President Obama sure is consistent. His State of the Union address sounded like his other speeches: What I’ve done is great! America is in a much better position. We’ve created a manufacturing sector that’s adding jobs. More oil is produced at home. I cut deficits in half!

Give me a break. The deficit is lower now not because of any prudence on Obama’s part but merely because the $800 billion stimulus spending blowout didn’t continue. All the president does is increase spending: free community college, free Obamaphones, free birth control, etc. Yes, our annual deficit is lower, but it’s still $488 billion! Our $18 trillion national debt increases by $3 million every minute!

Yes, more oil is produced at home, but that’s in spite of the administration. Oil production is down on public land.

Yes, the manufacturing sector added jobs, but that’s mostly because of cheaper natural gas created by fracking, which Obama’s cronies opposed. Also, America is finally recovering from recession. Obama’s policies probably slowed that recovery.

Does the President delude himself when he takes credit for oil production, lower deficits, etc.? Or does he mislead on purpose? I don’t know.

More recently he bragged, “I created the lowest unemployment rate in years.” He created it? He must know it’s “low” only compared to the 10 percent reached during the recession — and because millions have simply given up looking for work. This recovery is the slowest in 70 years.

If Obama gave the State of the Union address I’d like to hear, he’d say this:

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WE MADE SOME WALL STREET FOLKS RICH

Facts are so inconvenient to douchebags like Obama and his lapdog mainstream media minions. Zero Hedge absolutely obliterates his entire 59 minutes of lies, misinformation, propaganda, and touchdown dancing. 

‘Everything Is Awesome’ SOTU Post-Mortem: “It’s Not Government’s Job To Make Everybody Rich”

Tyler Durden's picture

The only thing we did not get from tonight’s State of The Union speech was a “Mission Accomplished” flag… oddly some of the 6,493 words (the lowest word-count of his Presidency) were not entirely ‘factual’…

“Make A New America”

 

Some color…“The shadow of crisis has passed” – so why are Treasury yields at record lows and why does The Fed have ZIRP and keep threatening QE on every 5% drop in stocks?

 

“the stock market has doubled”

“our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999”

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WHAT WOULD YOU RATHER DO THAN WATCH OBAMA’S STATE OF THE UNION?

I haven’t watched a State of the Union Address in the last ten years. It is the phoniest load of bullshit among a blizzard of phony bullshit in Washington D.C. You have a bunch of bought politicians cheering their side like high school kids at the homecoming game. You have fake displays of affection and sickening displays of faux patriotism. Whatever flavor of the month is hot will be honored by getting to sit next to the first lady. Maybe we’ll have a cartoonist and a Muslim flanking Moochelle tonight. Maybe a Muslim cartoonist. Maybe Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin’s mothers. Their fathers can’t be located. Maybe Oprah, to jump start ticket sales for Selma. Maybe Obama will announce a Selma stimulus package by spending $1 billion for “free” tickets for inner city yutts.

Obama is a lame duck. None of the bullshit ideas he bloviates about tonight will happen. It will be his standard class warfare and race warfare agenda. At least he is predictable. The only thing he’ll get cheers for is more spending for our wars of choice, more spending to crush Russia, more spending to defeat our vaporous enemy – TERRORISM, and more spending to militarize the Barney Fifes across the land.

I won’t be watching, so my blood pressure will remain under control. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing, but here are a few things I’d rather do than watch the Savior tonight:

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TUNING OUT OBAMA

You don’t see Obama’s pliant MSM talking too much about the fact his State of the Union, which was on 13 stations, drew the lowest rating of any presidential state of the union address in history. The country does not care what the lying son of a bitch has to say. They know he is the teleprompter president who makes promises and never delivers. He’s an empty suit. There is no substance, intelligence or integrity. He is a complete and utter failure. This was his fifth state of the union address and the ratings have fallen every year, from 32.5% in 2009 to 20.7% this week. The graph looks like the inverted chart of the number of people leaving the workforce and number of people signing up for Obama’s most successful program – SNAP.

Obama was on 13 stations and attracted 33 million viewers. I’m sure only a fraction of that number watched more than 15 minutes of the kabuki theater. The Grammy Awards were on the night before and attracted 28 million viewers on one station. Last year’s Super Bowl got a 46% rating and attracted 108 million viewers. Duck Dynasty regularly attracts over 11 million viewers on a crappy cable channel. American Idol gets 13 million viewers a couple times per week.

The country is no longer listening to the savior. He is nothing but a bloviating windbag. This is another sign that the ruling class and the peasants are getting closer to conflict. The people no longer care what the talking heads in the legacy media are saying. Their ratings are also at all time lows. No one trusts the corrupt snakes in Congress. Their approval rating is lower than syphilis. No one trusts the Wall Street shysters, as the average person is out of the market. The disconnect between the ruling class and the plebs has never been wider. Time is growing short. There will be further financial turmoil, boiling anger, violence and eventually war. The ruling class isn’t using their NSA surveillance and DHS arming of police forces around the country for nothing. They know what is coming.

The tuning out of the public to the lies and propaganda being spewed by Obama, lowlife captured politicians and the corporate media is a sign of coming retribution for the guilty and presumed guilty. There will be blood.

State of the Union, Jan. 28, 2014

Networks Combined Household Ratings No. of Households No. of Viewers (P2+)
CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, Azteca, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Al Jazeera America, Galavision, Mun2, UNI* 20.7 23,949,843 33,299,172
Source: Nielsen
*Tape delay.

Below is a historical look at past State of the Union addresses.

Historical State of the Union Addresses

Date Networks Combined Household Rating Combined No. of Households Combined No. of Viewers President
2/12/2013 FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Azteca, UNI, MFX, CNBC, CNN, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Current, Centric, GALA 21.8 24,767,047 33,497,607 Obama
1/24/2012 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, TEL, TF, UNI, CNBC, CNN, FBN, FOXNC, GALA, MSNBC and MUN2 24 27,569,423 37,752,613 Obama
1/25/2011 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, TEL, UNI, CNN, Centric, CNBC, FOXNC, and MSNBC 26.6 30,871,688 42,789,947 Obama
1/27/2010 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, TEL, UNI, CNN, BET, CNBC, FOXNC, MSNBC 29.8 34,182,725 48,009,595 Obama
2/24/2009* ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC, TELEMUNDO, UNIVISION 32.5 37,185,000 52,373,000 Obama
1/28/2008 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC, TELEMUNDO^, UNIVISION 24.7 27,702,000 37,515,000 G.W Bush
1/23/2007 ABC, CBS, FOX**, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC, TELEMUNDO**, UNIVISION ** 29.6 32,968,000 45,486,000 G.W. Bush
1/31/2006 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC 26.9 29,578,000 41,699,000 G.W. Bush
TELEMUNDO, AZTECA AMERICA, TELFUTURA, TELEMUNDO 8.4 950,000 1,480,000
2/2/2005 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC 25.2 27,699,000 38,382,000 G. W. Bush
TELEMUNDO, TELEFUTURA 6 660,000 1,050,000
1/20/2004 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, CNBC, FOXNC, MSNBC 28 30,286,000 43,411,000 G. W. Bush
1/28/2003 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, CNBC, FOXNC, MSNBC 38.8 41,447,000 62,061,000 G. W. Bush
1/29/2002 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, CNBC, FOXNC, MSNBC 33.6 35,547,000 51,773,000 G.W. Bush
2/27/2001* ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC 27.6 28,201,000 39,793,000 G.W. Bush
1/27/2000 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC 22.4 22,536,000 31,478,000 Clinton
1/19/1999 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC 31 30,700,000 43,500,000 Clinton
1/27/1998 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, CNBC, FOXNC, MSNBC 37.2 36,513,000 53,077,000 Clinton
2/4/1997 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN 28.4 27,600,000 41,100,000 Clinton
1/23/1996 ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN 29.6 28,400,000 40,900,000 Clinton
1/24/1995 ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN 29.5 28,100,000 42,200,000 Clinton
1/25/1994 ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN 32.9 31,000,000 45,800,000 Clinton
2/17/1993* ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN 44.3 41,200,000 66,900,000 Clinton
Source: Nielsen

OBAMA USING EXECUTIVE ORDER TO GIVE A 39% RAISE TO GOVERNMENT DRONES

According to the Washington Post, our Savior/President/Dictator will ignore Congress and give a 39% raise to government drones. He unilaterally wages war across the globe with his drone army. He unilaterally collects electronic data on every American. He unilaterally enforces or ignores the Obamacare law which Congress passed and he signed. He uses Executive Orders to bypass the other branches of government and disregards the will of the people. As he continues to unilaterally run this country, we inch ever closer to full dictatorship. We are one major crisis away from this sociopath declaring himself ruler for life.

Obama now decides the salaries of government drones based on nothing. His reasoning is beyond question. The wage should be $10.10. Not $9.50. Not $10.20. Obama knows the right salary for every American. Especially when it’s your tax dollars used to pay whatever he chooses.

“Hardworking Americans — including janitors and construction workers — working on new federal contracts will benefit from the Executive Order (EO),” the White House said in a statement. “Some examples of the hardworking people who would benefit from an EO include military base workers who wash dishes, serve food and do laundry.”

Fifteen senators wrote to Obama in the fall, saying that “profitable corporations that receive lucrative contracts from the federal government should pay all of their workers a decent wage.”

We all know that politicians know exactly what a decent wage is. Just like they know what a decent education is. Just like they know which Arab country to invade.

Obama will blather for over an hour tonight about his vision of America during his State of Disunion address. The morons in Congress will act like trained chimps, applauding, giving standing ovations, and generally confirming the fact they are nothing more than corrupt idiots representing special interests. I will not watch one second of this kabuki theater. I’d learn more watching Honey Boo Boo or Duck Dynasty.

This will be the 6th time Obama has promised the economy will be getting better next year. It seems next year never comes, as we spiral downwards at an accelerating rate.

ADRIFT AT SEA

 “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

 

The big story this past week, besides the annual State of the Delusion speech by Barack “It won’t add a cent to the deficit” Obama, was the fate of the passengers on the Carnival Triumph as their skyscraper sized ship was left adrift at sea for days without power. This 900 foot long, 100,000 ton goliath is one of the largest passenger cruise liners in the world, carrying 3,400 passengers and 1,100 crew members in luxurious splendor through warm Gulf of Mexico seas to sun drenched exotic isles. These ships are practically floating countries, with passengers treated to an endless American buffet of never ending quantities of bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, waffles, pizza, cheesecake, soda, beer and the rum drink of the day. It’s as if all 3,400 passengers have a SNAP card with no limit. There are retail stores, restaurants, bars, ice skating rinks, movie theaters, showplaces, and staff waiting on you hand and foot. No cash changes hands. You charge everything to your room number and then just pay with one of your 13 credit cards at the conclusion of your voyage into debt. Then you pay 18% interest on the 25 Funky Monkeys you consumed for the next 14 years. Cruising captures the essence of America as we traverse our voyage to hell.

The ordeal at sea of the Carnival Triumph and the leadership displayed by the Carnival management and executive officers is a microcosm of our declining empire. The $420 million Carnival Triumph was put into service in 1999 and has run continuously for the last fourteen years, with only periodic dry dock maintenance. These massive ships are replenished within hours of docking and depart within twelve hours of dumping their 3,400 passengers back onshore. The CEO and top management of Carnival care only about ROI and whether their stock options are vested. Their goal is to bilk the passengers out of as much cash as possible, while paying their foreign slave labor crew members as little as possible. The ships are registered in foreign countries for tax purposes and the crew members are mostly from third world countries. Carnival executives and shipboard officers have a history of recklessness, mismanagement, and willingness to endanger its passengers in its greedy thirst for short term profits. Ask the families of the 32 passengers killed in the sinking of the Costa Concordia.

The engine room fire that disabled the Triumph was not an isolated instance. This was the fourth engine room fire on a Carnival owned ship resulting in a loss of power, the others being the Tropicale in 1999, the Carnival Splendor in 2010, and the Costa Allegra in 2012. The Carnival Triumph should not have been at sea. It had been plagued with mechanical problems for weeks prior to the engine fire. Voluntarily taking the ship out of service would have hurt the 1st quarter earnings per share of this public company, therefore the leadership of Carnival told the engineers to patch it up and get it back out on the seas. Two weeks prior to the engine room fire the Carnival Triumph experienced propulsion issues that caused it to be five hours late returning to its Galveston home port on January 28, 2013 and delaying the ship’s departure for its next cruise until 8:00 pm that night. The ship departed, but the problems had not been fixed. The Associate Press reported a story about that cruise that provides a different assessment than the public relations drivel released the corporate office:

An email informed Debbi Smedley and other passengers that the propulsion problem would prevent them from docking at two ports. “Due to the limited cruising speed, our itinerary will be impacted. Depending on the progress of the repairs, we will either visit Progreso or Cozumel,” stated the email, signed by Vicky Rey, vice president of guest services. Smedley said the ship was in poor condition overall. During her five-day cruise, a water line broke in the hallway ceiling near her cabin, and a separate sewer line broke outside the main dining hall, she said. Metal was protruding from handrails on the staircases, and the elevators often did not work. Rather than docking in Progreso for only a few hours as planned, the ship stayed in the port for two days, and cruise workers repeatedly told passengers they were waiting for parts to fix a mechanical problem, according to Smedley.

Carnival’s public relations machine then admitted to an electrical problem with the ship’s alternator in the last voyage before the fire, but claimed it was repaired. What they didn’t reveal is that it was a Coast Guard inspection that revealed there was a short in the high voltage connection box of one of the ships generators causing damage to cables within the connection box. A directive with a compliance due date of February 27, 2013 was issued following the inspection requiring that “the condition of the ship and its equipment shall be maintained to conform with the regulations to ensure that the ship in all respects will remain fit to proceed to sea without danger to the ship or persons on board.” The Coast Guard Marine Information Safety and Law Enforcement System showed that this deficiency remained unresolved at the time of the subsequent fire and loss of power while at sea on February 10. So you have a company PR maggot lying and you have another useless Department of Homeland Security branch not enforcing regulations that are supposed to protect passengers. This is par for the course in our corporate fascist states of America today.

Shit Happens

George: Aha. Aha. Could it be because you don’t want him to know that you have a friend who pees in the shower, is that it?!

Elaine: No, that’s not it!

George: Oh, I think it is! I think that’s exactly what it is!

Elaine: Why couldn’t you just wait?

George: I was there! I saw a drain!

Elaine: Since when is a drain a toilet?!

George: It’s all pipes! What’s the difference?!

George Costanza would have enjoyed sailing on the Carnival Triumph as passengers were left to piss in showers and shit in red plastic bags for days. It finally became socially acceptable to pee in the shower. Most of the ship’s electrical power went down after the engine room fire, causing extensive breakdowns of vital shipboard mechanical systems, including taking out sanitary systems. Passengers reported sewage sloshing around in hallways, flooded rooms and trouble getting enough to eat. Passengers waited in line for three hours to get a lousy hot dog. On the lower decks sewage came up through the shower drain, pooling in the sinks and flowing into the hallways. The allegory of the poor people on the lower decks being inundated with feces and living in wretched conditions, while the rich people living in luxury on the upper decks are blissfully ignorant of the fate of their fellow passengers is so easy to apply to our society in this day and age. The 1% glory in their stock market gains, while 20% of U.S. households are on food stamps.

These direct quotes from passengers and pictures taken onboard this voyage from hell provide a taste of what our future portends:

“We have to urinate in the shower. They’ve been passed out plastic bags to go to the bathroom. There was fecal matter all over the floor.”

“They’re walking around in a lot of urine and fecal matter, and the sewers are backing up.”

“The sanitation situation was gross and the stench was awful.”

“Just imagine the filth. People were doing crazy things and going to the bathroom in sinks and showers.”

“A lot of people were crying and freaking out.”

“We are trapped aboard a floating petri dish without power, air conditioning, or fresh water.”

“It’s degrading. Demoralizing, and then they want to insult us by giving us $500″

 Disgust: Guests were being forced to defecate into plastic bags and place it outside their rooms as toilets on board the Triumph backed up following the electrical failure Foul: Passengers on board the Carnival Triumph reported that floors were being flooded with raw sewage from overflowing bathrooms

 Where's my charger: After days without power a generator was airlifted unto the ship today and many people took the opportunity to charge their phones

After reading a number of articles describing what happened before, during and after the engine fire aboard the Carnival Triumph, the parallels between this Ship of Horrors and our Ship of State become self-evident. You have the CEO and top executives of Carnival only concerned about their wealth, power and control of the company. Rather than thinking long term and making decisions that might be detrimental to their short term quarterly earnings, but insure the long –term financial health and reputation of the company, their decision was driven by their true masters on Wall Street. Instead of taking the ship off-line to make vital repairs and  necessary investments, they just papered over signs of an imminent disaster and turned to public relations spin and propaganda as there preferred course of action. When disaster “suddenly” struck, the management and executive officers were unprepared, slow to react, and more concerned with their reputations than about the health, safety and welfare of the passengers. Much more could have been done to alleviate the misery of the 3,400 passengers. Carnival could have had a large generator helicoptered onto the deck and used to produce enough electricity to run some lights, ventilation, refrigeration and toilets. It appears that this ship had two engine rooms and only one was damaged by fire. They could have restarted the undamaged engine room and would have had enough power for most normal functions in the cabins of the ship, and probably some capability to propel the ship towards port. The disgraceful lack of urgency and refusal of top management to attempt every possible solution to this crisis is a lesson to be learned by passengers and citizens alike. They don’t care about you.

Rev. Wendell Gill’s experience onboard the Triumph provides a glimpse into our future. He immediately recognized the leadership of the ship was non-existent and it would be up to people helping people if they were to make it through the ordeal:

“What you had was a tale of two ships. You seldom saw a deck officer. I never saw the captain. Some of the people in the upper areas had plenty of air, but down below, it was unlivable. It was like a sauna of sewage. It was the people on the boat that saved Carnival. In an adverse situation, most people will rise to help — that’s just the human spirit.”  

Reverend Gill and his wife noticed that no one from Carnival was stepping up to help the elderly and sick get around. The Gills, along with other concerned passengers, decided to take matters into their own hands, carting mattresses and bedding up from the lower decks. They witnessed the worst side of human nature in the inaction of Carnival leadership, along with some people becoming drunk, disorderly and fighting over food. But they also witnessed people coming together under difficult circumstances, with many in the upper cabins sharing their space with those from the lower uninhabitable decks. The passengers created their own shanty town of tents on deck and in the cooler hallways. The vast majority of people acted like decent human beings. Kindness, sharing, and helping one another won the day. This voyage through hell is a precursor of what lies ahead for everyone in this country. When vital systems fail, the lights go out, and your beloved government leaders are nowhere to be found, how will you fare? Don’t count on someone from the government to lead when we are set adrift in a sea of chaos created by them. The politicians, bankers and bureaucrats will be scrambling to save themselves. Your family, friends, and neighbors will be the only people you can rely on. Your caring government doesn’t really care about you.

Cruisin for a Bruisin      

“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.” Friedrich Nietzsche

The similarities between the horrific voyage of the Carnival Triumph and the tragic voyage of the dysfunctional ship of state we call America are many. We have a ruling class consisting of the President, Congress, Judiciary, Central bankers, Media titans, and goliath corporation CEOs who care not for the citizens of this country. You are ignorant peasants in their eyes. They only care about maintaining and expanding their wealth, control and power through the complete capture of our financial markets, political system and media propaganda to the masses. The health and welfare of the peasants isn’t even on their radar screen. The ruling class steering this ship of fools have no interest in the truth or the best long –term interests of the country. The vast majority of the passengers on this impaired listing ship prefers to believe the propaganda and lies spewed by the captain and his minions. They prefer the illusion of safety and security to the truth about the real condition of this ship. When the engines of this ship come to a grinding halt, their illusions will be shattered. Big government will come up small when it counts. The government propaganda and public relations will be revealed as nothing but hot putrid air and fecal matter.

Michael Ramirez Cartoon

Speaking of fecal matter, President Obama’s State of the Union address, which was watched by 33 million (down from 52 million in 2009) believers, was a perfect reflection of the thinking that led to the Carnival Triumph disaster. The reality facing the country is: $220 trillion of unfunded entitlement liabilities; a $16.5 trillion national debt; annual deficits exceeding $1 trillion; 48 million citizens on food stamps; 11 million people on SSDI; a true unemployment rate of 23%; true inflation exceeding 5%; record high gasoline prices; 0% interest rates for senior citizen savers; free money for criminal bankers provided by their sugar daddy Bernanke; not one criminal prosecution of a Wall Street executive for the greatest financial fraud in history; a war department that spends $1 trillion per year and fights undeclared wars around the world; a chief executive that invokes dictatorial executive orders to murder Americans with his fleet of predator drones and imprison citizens indefinitely without charges; and a bureaucratic nightmare called Obamacare that will drive up deficits, drive up healthcare costs for every family, enrich the healthcare industrial complex, drive doctors into retirement, and drive small businesses into bankruptcy.

Rather than deal with this reality, Obama chose the Carnival Cruise Line method of public relations, misinformation, denial and delusion. He has embraced the Big Lie concept as if he had created it. With a straight face he proposes “investments” in infrastructure, new jobs programs, new education initiatives, more green energy projects, pollution control schemes, bailing out more underwater mortgages, and raising the minimum wage, all done for the children – and it won’t add one cent to the deficit. Instead of leveling with the American people and explaining the dire economic issues confronting our nation that require sacrifice, reality based thinking, and tough choices, we got more platitudes, class warfare, divide and conquer, phantom spending cuts, disingenuous twisting of the truth, intellectual dishonesty and fuzzy math. Public relations spin created by Madison Avenue maggots and pronounced grandly by corrupt puppet politician hacks will not prevent the catastrophic engine failure that will leave this country adrift in a sea of its own feces.

Our cruise of illusions and delusions is headed for troubled water. The math challenged citizens on this ship have been enjoying the 24 hour pizza buffet without the labor required to pay for the bounty. When your leaders boldly lie and tell you we don’t have a spending problem, refer to proposed spending increases as “investments”, and hail $1.6 trillion of spending cuts that did not happen, you’ve got a ship that will be signaling SOS in the imminent future. Both political parties are laughable in their blathering about spending cuts as Bush and his Republican cronies drove spending from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to $3.0 trillion in 2008 with their unfunded wars, unfunded new entitlements (Medicare Part D), Wall Street bailouts, and creation of police state agencies (DHS); while Obama and his Democrat co-conspirators have driven spending up to $3.8 trillion in four years with new unfunded entitlements (Obamacare), expansion of warfare in the Middle East (they sit on top of “our” oil), $800 billion stimulus handouts, $60 billion hurricane relief pork handed out for $25 billion of uninsured losses, and bailing out banks, auto companies, homeowners, and other gamblers who took undo risks and lost to the tune of hundreds of billions. Politicians and the inhabitants of this country have forgotten there are consequences to their actions and inactions.

Carnival Cruise Line is trying to buy off the passengers with refunds and $500 bribes to keep them quiet and sedated, while protecting their continued hundreds of millions in profits and million dollar bonuses for their executives. The ruling class in the United States has bought off the American people with entitlement promises that can’t possibly be honored, food stamps, SSDI, tax rebates, homebuyer tax credits, loan modification programs, Cash for Clunkers, payroll tax cuts, $1 trillion of taxpayer financed student loans, taxpayer financed subprime auto loans, and a myriad of other handouts designed to keep the masses sedated, while the ruling class continues to pillage the national wealth. It’s as if the entire country has been charging their food, drinks, excursions, and purchases to their room number and the bill has reached $16.5 trillion, rising by $3 billion per day. This voyage is reaching an end and the bill is coming due. The engine is on fire but the captain is telling us all is well. Eventually, everyone will know the captain lied.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Leonard Cohen – Everybody Knows

 

survival seed vault

WHAT WOULD YOU RATHER DO THAN WATCH OBAMA TONIGHT CONTEST

Tonight the Liar in Chief will enter the Den of Thieves and Dullards and spew propaganda, lies and misinformation to a wilfully ignorant populace. The corporate mainstream media mouthpieces will dutifully report this drivel and instruct the ignorant masses how they should think and feel about the crap they just heard. There are 115 million households in the country. Only 27 million tuned in to last year’s State of the Union address. That was down from 31 million in 2011, 34 million in 2010, and 37 million in 2009. Do you sense a trend? I will go out on a limb and predict that under 25 million households will tune in tonight. This means that 80% of the people in the country don’t give a flying fuck what Obama has to say.

I will not watch one moment of this farce. I started thinking of things I’d rather do than watch this egotistical douchebag blather on about jobs, green energy, and protecting the children from guns. Maybe the entire student body of Sandy Hill Elementary can sing Hail to the Chief.

I’d rather stick a pin into my eyeball than watch Obama tonight.

I’d rather have my teeth cleaned by Zell than watch Obama tonight.

I’d rather have sex with Hillary Clinton than watch Obama tonight. Maybe that is going too far. If Bill won’t do it, who would?

I’d rather eat a giant cockroach than watch Obama tonight.

If you can think up something more creative to do you can win the contest.

The winner gets to experience the pleasure of free Obamacare for the rest of their lives starting in 2014.