TV News LIES

The stock markets in the US dropped 1.5% today from the renewed sturm und drang over the potential Greek bond default. The Euro zone is trying to force a 50% haircut on the holders of Greek bonds in order to avoid their default, but the catch is that it has to be “voluntary”. If it’s not, it becomes an “actual” default and those CDOs (credit default swaps) start kicking in.

The problem with these insane contract arrangements is that they can be triggered by any significant down turn, not just by a major default. A down grade in a credit agency’s rating of a bank or a nation state will do it. They’re all done in secret, so we have no real idea what the risk really is It was a cascade of derivative failures tied to consumer debt, mostly home mortgages, that brought us within a hair’s breadth of ending civilization in 2008.

It's been one wimpering bellow and simpering cacophony after another with these guys, all this empty and voidful claptrap called the GOP candidacy, or coronation, or whatever half-baked appellation you'd care to make of this clammy, hammy, clambake.

Now, to steal a dribble from basketball, welcome to Super Tuesday -- March Madness, Republican Style!  This is a most appropriate banner to stretch over these four lame and leftover horsemen of the GOP Apocalypse, all saddled up on their pygmy ponies, ready to joust with feather pillows.

When the government speaks daily about the existential threat from Iran, and urges an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, it ignores the existential threat that looms within. Reactionary elements lurk in many democracies. Ask the Dutch, the British, the Austrians, the French.

The Republican Party has flirted with several in this election cycle. But in Israel the threat is especially acute. And the concern comes not only from its most persistent critics. The former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert have both warned of a descent into apartheid, xenophobia, and isolation.

You know who they are…all those wanton women, those shameful creatures, the ones who actually have a sexual identity and dare to live the same kind of normal lives as men.  Yes, you know who they are, the women who hear themselves called "sluts" and "whores" and "prostitutes" if they dare to differ, to speak out, to argue, to protest, or to even think for themselves. Let’s hear it for them.

Let’s hear it for all the women who are vilified because they dare to want to control their own reproductive systems, - and who consider pregnancy prevention a vital part of their basic health. .Who would guess that this is the 21st century, and that this is the United States of America?

A battle over Irish agrarian tenants' rights 132 years ago, in 1880, contributed a valuable concept to the world, adding a noble word into the language, from an ignoble affair: Boycott.  It would surface again, 90 years later, strongly so, with Cesar Chavez in the 1970s, in nonviolent protests once galvanizing and unifying farm workers.

Chavez's birthday is coming up, by the way, March 31st, and is celebrated and observed in a handful of states.  It is one more good and fine day worthy of keeping alive in the hearts of everyday working people.

Can we please activate the Z-ray, or whatever, and right now, puh-leeze, so the nation will take a break from being so incontrovertibly insane? We find re-fishing these foul and fetid political waters disgusting.  We really dislike disturbing the decorum with, well, anything Santorum.

But, Mr. Ricky can't seem to shut his face, has to bite at the air everywhere, like a crazed snapping turtle, trying to find a flipper-hold, trying to get a hold of something.  So, here we are again, trolling these waters, holding up some more trophy whoppers we've pulled out of Liars' Lake.  Mostly, we're just perplexed at the run of little fish in this big pond.  Don't let any of this slop get on you while you're taking the pic.