Tuesday, December 1, 2009 Prefabricated Fascists: The FBI’s Assembly-Line Provocateurs (UPDATED, 12/8) “Valhalla” at work: FBI undercover asset Hal Turner, who was tasked to infiltrate and radicalize the “far right,” speaks at a rally sponsored by the FBI-controlled National Socialist Movement (left); below, left, Turner holds forth at an event in Washington, D.C.; below, right, […]

Tuesday, December 8, 2009 The Thin Blue Whine, Pt. I: Petulant Police Demand Impunity Stand up for thuggery! Hundreds of Portland, Oregon police officers and supporters surround City Hall during a protest march on behalf of Officer Chris Humphreys, who was placed on administrative leave (that is, paid vacation) following repeated use of unnecessary force […]

Wednesday, August 5, 2009 The Plague of Punitive Populism “Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there.” — Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath In Virginia, police officers raid a baptismal party for two small boys. Without cause or provocation they assault the grandfather who owns the home, tasering him three […]

Monday, December 14, 2009 The Thin Blue Whine, Pt. II: The Crybaby Thugs of Maricopa County (Second Update, December 18) Uniformed thug as “political prisoner”: Maricopa County Deputy Sheriff Adam Stoddard strikes a martyr’s pose for the camera after a few days in “jail.” Stoddard was found in contempt after stealing a document from the […]

Sunday, December 20, 2009 The Thin Blue Whine, Pt. III: Who Mourns the Murdered Mundanes? (Update) The Brotherhood in Blue (and Red) Gathers at the Tacoma Dome during a memorial service for four police officers recently murdered in an ambush in Washington (above, and below, right). More than 20,000 police officers, including 1,000 members of […]

Friday, December 25, 2009 The Truce of God (This essay was originally published in The New American magazine.)In August 1914, Europe’s major powers threw themselves into war with gleeful abandon. Germany, a rising power with vast aspirations, plowed across Belgium, seeking to checkmate France quickly before Russia could mobilize, thereby averting the prospect of a […]

Wednesday, December 30, 2009 The Old “False-Flag Trick”? “Ahem — yeah, well, we’ll take it from here”: Government security personnel take suspected terrorist Umar Farouk Abdelmutallab into custody in Detroit after passengers did all the hard stuff — subduing him when his “lap bomb” failed to detonate and extinguishing the incendiary device. You know, Chief, […]

Wednesday, January 2, 2008 “Turbo”-Charged Idiocy About Torture Roughly thirty years ago, the late Johnny Carson unveiled the masterpiece in his collection of sketch-comedy characters: Floyd R. Turbo, the plaid-wearing people’s pundit. Imagine a genetic experiment that produced a hybrid of Elmer Fudd and George W. Bush (especially the familiar vacant stare) and you’ll get […]