Mob bosses, Russian assets and war criminals. Twitter was abuzz and upset that Trump pardon the 4 Blackwater killers and rightly so. However I questioned if there was a difference between a pardon and not charging people for crimes against humanity and getting away with even more heinous crimes. Kill 19 civilians in a 'war' zone and you get sent to prison. Kill hundreds of thousands and set up events where over a million are killed and you get rewarded with your country's highest honor.

Bush 1 pardoned 4 people involved in Iran-Contra while Reagan was never charged for his role in it. Clinton pardoned Bush 1 for murdering 10,000 Iraqi troops on the Highway of Death during Iraq war 1. Bush 2 pardoned Clinton for murdering 500,000 Iraqi children and who knows how many adults from sanctions which Madeline said there was nothing wrong with doing it.

Here is a blast from the past. Can you guess who wrote it?

Democrats (not all of them of course, but enough of them) enabled the Bush administration in some of the worst crimes against humanity in modern history: the illegal invasion of Iraq, the shameful atrocities at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo and elsewhere, kidnappings, torture, murders, assassinations, double-taps such as that shown in the Chelsea Manning video and on and on.

These crimes are well documented. Even though the CIA illegally and outrageously destroyed video evidence and have told a million shameless lies to try to cover it up – everybody knows what they did – what WE did. Everybody knows that the United States stooped to the lowest and most disgusting forms of human behavior - that we committed outrageous crimes against humanity. And that we stand in denial and have done absolutely nothing to atone for it. It is obvious to everyone that we are utterly without honor or human decency.

These crimes will never be forgotten and pretending like they never happened is an insult to the whole world – and a shameful doubling-down on our complicity. We correct these wrongs or we own them.

The outrageous failure to prosecute the criminals in the Bush administration is a stain on democracy and makes the USA, as a whole, and both parties in particular, complicit in the Bush administration's crimes. And if we in the rank and file of either party put up with this horrendously low standard of behavior, we're complicit too.

My judgment is especially harsh for the Democratic Party because the whole world looked to them for justice and were denied. Justice is what we owed the world. JUSTICE!

This is not political, it's criminal. They stole trillions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury and lied us into invading what they knew damned well was the wrong country costing hundreds of thousands of lives, creating untold human misery and creating ISIS and a global jihad. And they did it on purpose so they could have their precious forever war and a Military Industrial Complex wet dream. And they only got away with it because the Democratic Party enabled them, aided and abetted them and then let them slide. All for filthy lucre. What could be more shameful?

There is no moral high ground left for us, we've pissed it all away. We stand before the world naked in our hypocrisy. Torturers, thieves, bullies, murderers - not exactly the legacy most of us hoped for.

Here's a comment on Trump self pardoning himself:

The fact is that only Republicans will ever need to do this since they are the crooks. So the Republican court won’t mind setting this precedent — no Democratic president will ever need to use it.

In this person's mind it was okay that Obama destroyed Libya on false pretenses. Went on to overthrow Assad in Syria and went so far as to arm, train and fund the very enemies that Bush 2 declared were our enemies which according to the constitution is treason. Trump let Obama slide on that as he did on all the other crimes Zero committed. But Trump. Again it is only Trump that broke the laws of the country even though Obama was much worse than Trump in some areas. Oh well. Let's continue the tribalism where our shit don't stink like theirs does.

This is a good response to the above quote even though it was made 5 years ago:

We were infiltrated. And the infiltrators have been highly successful.

We need to not look away. So let's be real clear.

The Democrats didn't fail The right wing assholes who infiltrated the Democratic party for the purpose of advancing the agenda of Wall Street against that of labor, environmentalists, and social democrats, has done more damage than the Republican party every will.

Under Democrat infiltrators we got media consolidation.
Under Democrat infiltrators we got anti-labor anti-environment trade agreements.
Under Democrat infiltrators we got massive cuts in social spending.
Under Democrat infiltrators we got no prosecutions of top level crimes - by politicians, bankers, defense companies, attorneys (remember attorney-gate).
Under Democrat infiltrators we got laissez faire deregulation of the bankers that allowed the complete crashing of the financial system which allowed a tiny few to essentially buy the world.
Under Democrat infiltrators we got deregulation of the energy markets which led to Enron almost bankrupting California and Grandma Millie's electric bill going up 1000%.
Under Democrat infiltrators we got a continuation of the neocon war to establish military dominance in the Middle East
And lastly, under Democrat infiltrators we got a dramatic increase in real Republicans because electing fake Democrats helps Republicans win elections.

This list is just a glimpse of some of the right wing policies made possible by the fact that they were enacted under Democrat infiltrators, and therefore went largely unopposed by liberals who just 'love me some Democrat.'

Depending on how we define "Democrat" these days, I would say they have been highly successful. Depending on how we define "Democrat" these days, I would say its been a fucking coup.

Oh, and speaking of not looking the other way, one of the right wing asshole infiltrators is named Barack Obama.

Out of all the infiltrators, he has been the most effective at advancing the interest of sociopaths on Wall Street.

One of the reasons he's been so effective is the cowardice of liberals who are apparently afraid of merely SPEAKING HIS NAME.

The stuff that guy has gotten away with. Like making a deal with the Republicans and cutting a TRILLION DOLLARS in federal spending in the middle of a depression.

Under the ruse of "the sequester", Obama effectively pushed through right wing economic policies the poor Republicans have been trying and failing to pass for years. (just like Clinton did. sd

And, incredibly, the entire American Left barely uttered a peep.

That is the model of his entire presidency. And yet liberals walk on eggshells. There's so much dirt on this guy, but to research any of it, don't bother reading the liberal press. They won't touch him. Even Matt Taibbi cowers in the face of The Obama Fan.

Fascism. The new and improved version.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were the more effective evil as Dore keeps pointing out. Clinton set to destroy the social safety nets which Obama continued. Bill offshored our jobs through NAFTA, Obama tried with the TPP which Biden is probably going to bring back because of China. The best thing Trump did was kill Hillary/Obama's TPP. But he has done a ton of damage to federal workers that Biden will either fix or let the government continue to be hollowed out.

All Trump did was to take the mask of America and show the world who we are. But for people who already saw that during Obama's tenure they weren't surprised. Biden's MAGA like Trump's is just empty platitudes. Return the 'soul of the country'? That ship full of souls sailed long ago. People need to see that. The latest COVID bill has opened up a lot of eyes to see that the US government is the overseer of the global hit squad and is empty of........ fill in the blank.

7 years, but still worth a read.

US politics' true bipartisan consensus: capitalism is untouchable

Beyond cycles, capitalism's more long-term problems, such as tendencies to produce great inequalities of income and accumulated wealth, lead Democrats to propose very modest government redistribution programs. Minimum wages, progressive tax structures, food, housing and other subsidies, and freely-distributed public services exemplify Democrats' Bandaids meant to protect capitalism from its own potentially self-destructive tendencies.

Dr. West was one of Obama's biggest critics and so he became person non grata over yonder and still is today. One rule of the site is that you do not criticize democrats under any circumstances or the dawg pile team will pile all over you.

Speaking of crimes, the Sackler family committed many when they were pushing for doctors to write for oxycontin that has helped fuel the opiod epidemic of deaths and addictions. They got fined $8.1 from the company, but the family was only fined $225 million which is 2% of how much money they have. Sackler boosted sales by rebates for pharmacists and insurance companies based on overdose deaths.

But then if they were charged and found guilty how many would spend a day in prison with congress making sure that they won't. Chevron has killed thousands or more through environmental poisons and destruction and they still are fighting their fines. No criminal charges though. That's for the wee folks who aren't special.

Once you couldn't profit from your crimes. Well on paper that is supposed to be true.