I was watching Ahmadinajad on CNN and I have to agree with most everything he said...then the arrogant cowards, like so many cockroaches scurrying about, from the US walked out on him...truth was too much to bare for them, I guess. Then shortly after that, CNN started to flash on the screen their own "detractions" against Ahmadinajad while he spoke...and then CNN finally cut in and cut him out of the broadcast with some ridiculous hypocritical smirking news anchor.

Ahmadinajad is more truthful than Obama ever was. He called a criminal fascist country and their criminal murderous and torturous exploits for what they were and are. We are all victims of the exploiting and murderous ruling elite now....it's not just the poor and downtrodden victims of our greed in third world countries anymore. We, the people, are being sucked dry by the parasites that have wheedled their way, by hook, crook, or just plain luck, to the top.

You are praising Ahmadinajad ? Pathetic and disturbing ! Why not move then and try to speak your mind over there ?

It is true that speculation is the major driver of oil costs in this country. And this makes sense, concerning the Kochs and their escalating fortune. Then stop for a moment and think about who these guys are. It isn't just about polluting the environment: they are also polluting the political environment.

The Kochs backed the John Birch Society, which was a precursor to the bigger Tea Party of today. Tea Party addicts read the books by Skousen ("The Naked Communist") and believe them. This is old paranoia from the '50s and '60s and the Cold War Era. This is ultra-far-right shifting that harkens back to the Koch brothers' father who left the Soviet Union after being screwed by Stalin. It's like this old grudge that turned into a right-wing movement.

All totalitarian movements started in a just such a hard-right political shift according to Sheldon S. Wolin, professor emeritus of politics at Princeton and author of 2008's "Democracy, Inc." Are we witnessing such a shift (think: pre-Hitler Germany) in America today? And now it is funded and led by these radical right-wing, ultra-wealthy purveyors of paranoid politics.

Republicanism, going back to one of its founders, Machiavelli, has NEVER been partial to populist movements. Republicanism is always pro-aristocrat and anti-populist. So is the TP really a "populist" movement? It isn't. It is simply millions of people who are being duped out of fear. Or, as one pundit put it: They have the football, but they're running toward the wrong goalpost.

HEY LOOSER, what do you think they do with there money eat it?

If you want to really hit these guys where it hurts, authorize a hundred new drilling permits and open Alaska areas now prohibited and get that cross Canada pipeline going. Oil prices will drop like a rock and these guys, just like the Hunts with silver in the 70's? will have their corpulent bodies scrubbed raw. But of course, the Democrats consider oil drilling evil and if that means the Koch's et. al. making billions, it is a small price to pay. Besides that, Democrats ride bikes and the oil price does not impact them. (Last line is sarcasm for those that can not tell.)

It's much worse than that they just "place bets" on the price of oil.....
They intentionally set out through the pure force of money, to game the system and rob us all by manipulatively distorting the basic free market price discovery factors of supply and demand--- through massive, unregulated buying and selling of paper oil futures (which also happens to impact the ongoing cost of energy to the world).
It's a pure gambling operation using essentially counterfeit chips, ie. promises to buy or sell at a specific price in the future... whether or not they will actually be able to do so and stay in business (think AIG). It's the dirty little secret of how market insiders in many markets prosper by manipulatively exploiting the process to the detriment of everyone else.
The same kind manipulations in gold and silver markets has produced an increasing disconnect of blatantly finagled futures prices-- from those of the actual physical metal itself. The difference is that in manipulating the price of oil, a resource essential to America's national security and well being, the whole country (and world) is made to suffer solely to further enrich an insatiably voracious few.

It's time to draw a line in the sand, starting with the 2012 elections. The real problem is the news media from the press to t.v. and radio is controlled by the right wing, much of which is financed from fats cats like the Koch brothers. The right wing needs to become a bigger player in these markets to inform people of the danger represented by the real enemies of this country such as the Koch brothers. We need more Thom Hartmann's and we need to expand coverage for people like Thom. The worst nightmare for such people is exposure and factual information. Let's start with getting more people to donate to programs such as Free Speech t.v. What I do with everyone I know who preaches the Republican talking points is to give them copies of sections of "Unequal Protection" and it shuts them up.

And if you all think that Obama is finally starting to turn around and fight for us against Wall Street and the banksters you are being fooled yet again by Obama's slick tongue lies. It is just last minute political blather in a last ditch effort to win some of his original (jilted) supporters back to his side. Jobs bill? Increasing taxes on the rich? Yeah, right! ha ha lol...

The Republicans would rather have a Republican President and majority in congress but their puppetmasters, the ruling elite, know that even if they don't get a Republican...they still have..maybe something even better...a Republican who says he's a Democrat and makes a few speeches pretending to tax the rich while ending up stabbing us all in the backs as he has proven to have done already.

Obama was the trojan horse that threw us all off guard and let everything the Republicans wanted slide by without a mass uprising. Had the Republican won instead of Obama...they would have had a lot of opposition (at least the Democrats would not have felt any obligation to support a real Republican President as they did in supporting the fake Democrat President) and maybe even riots in the streets when they tried to bail out the banksters and Wall Street.

I definitely agree that they are not "job creators". the true job creators are a well educated and paid work force through their buying power. Through the destruction of jobs and the so called "creation" of low wage jobs that barely provide for the basic necessities of life, they have nothing left for discretionary spending. We the people are the "producers" of the goods that the "job creators" buy, thus creating more jobs and so on.

Doesn't this sound illegal to anyone? Aren't athletes criminalized for betting against their team--manipulating scores or outcomes? Wouldn't being in the business exclude the Kochs from "tampering" with prices? What is REALLY wrong with this picture?

In my battles with right wing nuts, I have been inspired by Elizabeth Warren to use arguments like

"You keep missing the whole point. I am not in the position to want or ensure that Hersey pays equal to or less than it's fair share of tax. Maybe the tax they paid in 2010 includes what they owed from prior years? We have no idea and it doesn't matter. The tax structure that Bush set up pushed all the tax onto the middle and working classes for the sake of the job creators. Then the job creators left town while we are stilling holding the mortgage. It's like a skip. All corporations are skips. And when they skip on America, I pay and I can't afford un-American companies any more. The budget isn't big enough and I have to make cuts.

I do get a big kick out of this tho. (I am a free-lance writer) Ah ha! That's why this is play."

Hershey has hired a lobbyist about the "foreign exchange student" scandal at the chocolate packing plant 400 students were paid subprime wages to pack chocolates. The students organized and protested. I was objecting to paying for the lobbyist.They said I didn't pay. I do, cause corporations pay no taxes, so I have to pick up the slack and I'm tired of it. So this guy gets some numbers and it looked liked Hershey paid about 37% in taxes in 2010. Big deal I argue that what you want me to pay for a good tax accountant too now?

It really was hysterical. But now, I'm feeling it's real too.

I am all for free enterprise as are most Americans, but the taxes that used to spread prosperity to all Americans that contributed either directly or indirectly when innovation was happening in all the aspects of our lives, better foods, better transportation, better clothing, better technologies ... infrastructures were needed to get these products to not only the American people, but outside our country to other countries. That was a huge investment and now that we have, railways, ships and planes moving all this product all over the world, the corporations feel no need to contribute any more for maintenance. Thank you very much people, we're good now, we're moving on to reduce our costs.

First they went to other states to lower their costs and now they have moved right out of the country.

humph !

I would have to agree with your observations of todays Republican party. What I have also noted is that Todays Republicans are making the same disasterous desicions made by countries in the past. Chile and privatization, Germany and its embrace of authoritarian government. It will take an inormous effort by the sane in this country to avert a complete meltdown of our Democracy.