"INVISIBLE HAND" IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING PULLS WOOL OVER COUNTRY'S EYES

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has webbed feet, molts, gives birth to ducklings, and looks like a hunter's decoy, forget the lips. Read this article: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-snowden.html?pagewanted=1&hp

If Edward Snowden was so misguided, how was he able to ferret out the one individual already experiencing the harassment and intimidation he feared government secret surveillance programs would unleash?

I'LL TAKE "PATRIOTS" FOR 100, ALEX.

Final Jeopardy answer: In countries with corrupt governments, patriots, rather than traitors, face criminal prosecution.

Q: Who are, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, and Edward Snowden?

That's correct!

OR GET OFF THE POT

Republican politicians, rather than spending all their time and energy trying to take Obama down, ought instead to devote some of that vast intellectual capital to constructive pursuits. Politics in America has devolved into nothing more than a pissing contest where neither party wins and only the public gets wet.

THEY TAKE DRIVING TESTS, DON'T THEY?

I live in a college town and, like all college towns, it supports a diverse community. As my landlord said so long ago, referring to the different cultures represented here, "The school brings 'em in."

I see a lot of people in the course of a day and am at liberty to observe how they interact with one another. It is unfortunate that no one was there to observe George Zimmerman on the night of February 26, 2012. 

Everyone knows who killed Trayvon Martin, and why. The man who shot him to death was acquitted because to convict him we would have to admit to the George Zimmerman in ourselves. Fortunately, we have devised a Rube Goldberg for the purpose of obscuring ugly truths, like the individual and collective responsibility we bear for the society we (actively or passively) create. We call our Rube Goldberg "the Legal System", and it never disappoints. 

I've thought of a test by which we may learn something about ourselves, with respect to racism. I urge every member of society to take it. The test is this (and I use "black" and "white" because it is the classic form of racism in Western society):

If you are "white" and whenever you meet a "black" person, you think, "This is a black person", but whenever you meet a "white" person, you don't  think, "This is a white person," guess what.
Own it.

CROW EXPECTED TO JOIN THE ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST AS REPUBLICANS GIRD THEMSELVES FOR A FEAST

The apparent success in New York of the Affordable Care Act has Republican leaders scampering for place settings, and the rank and file struggling to find a champagne that goes well with feathers.

"I knew this would happen", claimed one insurance broker. "How can my family pork down prime rib when they know I'm dining in the aviary? Huh? Answer me that, Edward R. Murrow." 

Deeply concerned over how he was going to live on 15% of one-third the premium, he added, "All because the whiney-ass public doesn't think it should foot the bill. Thank God my wife owns sixteen-hundred thousand shares of Oneida."

American consumers, however, jubilant now that the fix is no longer in, are taking an interest in that which the 1% (and their brain-washed parrots) have derisively termed, "Obamacare." 

"The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is in the pie, and the pie is all over your face, mutherf . . ." a 99%-er is reported to have told a 1%-er. Unfortunately, the pie makes the crow almost palatable. Yes, Virginia, the light shines on the just and the unjust.

FORMER INDIANA GOVERNOR EXPOSED AS FASCIST PIG

It's one thing to call Howard Zinn a grandstanding, leftist fanatic. It's quite another to use the office of head of state to circumvent the First Amendment.

Enter "Stilt" Daniels, Purdue President and former Indiana Governor who sought to use his elevated stature as Governor to cut the 6' 4" Zinn down to size. That he would stoop so low was nothing short of tiny, little smallness. "Who does he think he is? Governor of Indiana?", remarked an upset alumnus.

Daniels' self-aggrandizement is not to be overlooked. Small abuses of power, left unchecked, lead to big abuses of power like those of former Presidents Bush and Clinton: gutting Social Security to ramp up a war machine in order to launch a world-wide campaign of murder and destruction on an unprecedented scale, and extra-marital affairs. I shudder to think of the devastating consequences another extra-marital affair would have on perceptions of America.

SENATE FREES HOSTAGES!

The American public got a last-minute reprieve today as Senate Leaders agreed to foster the appearance of consumer protection. 

The public, beaten down and narcotized by the banking and pharmaceutical industries, is expected to have forgotten about it all by the time football season rolls around.
"They should be ripe for another sucker punch by spring," said Former Presidential hopeful, John McCain. "Please remember, I spent six years as a prisoner of war. I believe the good people of America could have taken it up the wazoo a while longer. But who am I to argue, so long as the GOP comes out on top."

Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, when tapped for a response, stammered a moment, then lapsed back into a coma.

All in all it was a good day in Washington, as some of the guys got their picture in the paper and everyone had a good laugh when an intern brought up the bailout.