Larry Flynt's Blog, page 24

SEAN HANNITY

We know what you're thinking: Given all the raving lunatics on right-wing radio and TV, why choose a relatively moderate talk show host as Asshole of the Month? The answer is inherent in the question: The fact that Sean Hannity seems moderate only makes him that much more dangerous. After all, everyone knows that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are assholes. And in truth, Hannity is every bit as loony as they are.

Most recently Hannity renewed his rightwing- crazy credentials by proposing we reinvade Iraq and Kuwait as a way of dealing with rising oil prices. Here's part of what he said: "Why isn't Iraq paying us back with oil, and paying every American family and their soldiers that lost loved ones or have injured soldiers—and why didn't they pay for their own liberation? For the Kuwait oil minister—how short his memory is. You know we have every right to go in there and frankly take all their oil and make them pay for the liberation."

Tell us that's not nuts. Haven't we lost enough blood and treasure to those conflicts already? According to Hannity, Iraqis should be grateful that we invaded their country without cause and killed an estimated 100,000 to 1 million citizens. (Attention, Fox viewers: Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.) As for Kuwait, it did indeed repay us for its liberation: about $18 billion. Facts, as you can see, mean nothing to Hannity.

Here are some more examples of Hannity saying black is white:

•"It doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution this idea of the separation of church and state." In fact, the First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." And Article V stipulates: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust."•"[After 9/11, Bush and his team] made it clear that determining the causes of America's security failures and finding and remedying its weak points would be central to their mission." Actually, Bush opposed the creation of a special commission to probe the causes of the 9/11 attacks for more than a year, finally caving due to liberal pressure.

One of Hannity's most outrageous claims, it would seem, involves an organization he works closely with: Freedom Alliance. Hannity insists that every penny of the donations raised at the group's Freedom Concerts is applied to scholarships for wounded soldiers or children of soldiers killed during wartime. The Freedom Concerts' Web site claims more than $10 million has been raised for scholarships "in the last several years." But Melanie Sloan of CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) says no more than $2.5 million has been donated for such scholarships.

Political commentator Debbie Schlussel (DebbieSchlussel.com) reports that for the year 2008, Freedom Alliance took in almost $9 million in revenues but allocated just over $1 million (12%) in scholarships to wounded soldiers and children of the fallen.

Want to puke over the size of the donations to an individual wounded soldier? Freedom Alliance, which was founded by retired military officer Oliver North in 1990, gave one soldier whose face was blown off and who lost an eye $1,000. Another soldier who lost both legs and his left arm in a roadside bomb incident got a massive $200. Such generosity!

Both Hannity and North (Freedom Alliance's "honorary chairman") have been accused of siphoning off money from the "charitable organization." Schlussel says a Fox insider told her that when Hannity attends a concert, he demands and gets a Gulfstream 5 private jet, a fleet of Cadillac and Lincoln SUVs, as well as several suites of rooms for himself and his family at expensive hotels—all valued at approximately $200,000 per appearance. It's said that even Ollie North is offended by Hannity's outof- control greed."This is the kind of deceptive marketing that the FTC [Federal Trade Commission] looks very dimly at," Sloan is quoted as saying, according to Politico.com.

One thing is certain: Hannity has hit the big time since being plucked from an obscure radio station in Atlanta by Fox honcho Roger Ailes. The Fox show Hannity was destined to helm, you may remember, was called Hannity & Colmes. Alan Colmes, supposedly there to represent the Left, was a noodge whose true purpose was to be Hannity's floor mat. That charade continued until 2008, when Colmes departed after 12 years, and Hannity came into his own.

Reported to be raking in more than $20 million a year, Hannity is the go-to guy for wing nuts seeking credibility and softball questions. Nutcakes Sharron Angle and Sarah Palin have made repeated appearances on his TV program. Meanwhile on radio, The Sean Hannity Show is syndicated to over 500 stations nationwide.

All of that power makes this Asshole one of the key players in the right wing's plan to carve out a segment of America's population and feed it propaganda instead of facts. Rather than debate the left wing—something they usually lose at— right wingers have decided to create their own separate reality with its own "facts." In effect, they have balkanized the American people.

John Podesta, President Bill Clinton's former chief of staff, seems to agree. Addressing a Take Back America conference, he said,"I think when you get so distant from the facts as guys like Limbaugh and Sean Hannity do, yeah, I think that tends to…corrupt the dialogue." That was back in 2004. God knows Hannity has only gotten more partisan and more dismissive of reality since then.

If you think about it, this corruption of the political dialogue is the real evil of Sean Hannity; it's even more offensive and ugly than his apparent stealing from the troops and their families as described above. After all, Hannity's distortion of the truth is really an attack against exactly what makes America great. Fuck Sean Hannity!

 

PRESIDENT OBAMA:YOU ARE TOAST

The people who supported you in 2008 wanted someone who would fight for them. They wanted real healthcare reform, real banking reform, an end to the expensive wars we're waging and the restoration of our civil liberties. On issue after issue you've caved. Renewing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is the final straw. This was a fight you could have won without suffering any collateral damage—and you didn't even throw a punch.

I was delighted when you were elected. Now, like many other Americans, all I see is an ineffectual wimp. If you want a second term in office, you must win back the respect of the American people. From my vantage point it's hard to see how you can do that.

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN

from HUSTLER Magazine May 2011

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN

Say it ain't so, Joe! Tell us you're not the putrid scumsucker we think you are. Or just fess up and admit we've got you dead to rights.

Where do we start? How about the notion that you cost Al Gore the Presidential election in 2000? You remember that political contest, don't you, Joe? You had the Vice President slot on the Democratic ticket. But during your debate with Dick Cheney, the Republican VP nominee, he cleaned your clock.

And what about your pathetic attempt to run for President in 2004? You withdrew from the race without winning a single primary. Even Al Gore refused to support you, and that lack of public support wasn't just because of your hawkish stance on Iraq. A lot of it had to do with your sounding like a nebbish when you speak. You know that, don't you? You're kinda creepy, Joe. Then in 2006 there was your failure to be renominated as the Democratic Party's candidate for the U.S. Senate, where you'd represented Connecticut since 1989. You were forced to run as an independent. Sure, you retained your Senate seat for another six years, but it was just barely and only because it was a threeway race.

Although you were no longer a Democrat, the Democratic Party decided to let you retain your chairmanship of the powerful Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. You repaid them by campaigning for Senator John McCain (RArizona) instead of Barack Obama during their 2008 Presidential runs.

Let's consider that for a minute: Throughout most of the campaign, McCain seemed, well, confused and befuddled. Some thought he was suffering from senility. And there you were, Joe, whispering corrections in his ear. How do you think that made you look? Only a moron would support a senile candidate for the highest office in the land.

McCain lost, and still the Democrats refused to strip you of your chairmanship. We guess you could say that makes them assholes too, especially after you threatened to filibuster Obama's healthcare package if it contained the highly popular public option. (Indeed, you failed to support the healthcare bill even after the public option was removed.) Coming from the state of Connecticut, where so many health insurance companies are headquartered (and bankroll your campaigns), your decision was a safe one even though you had previously supported similar healthcare reform. But that was back when it didn't have a chance of passing. It's easy to be for the right thing when you don't actually have to put your ass on the line. (By the way, 60% of your constituents were for the public option, and—unlike the claim you made at the time—it would not have raised premiums and added to the country's debt.)

Then there's the rest of your dismal voting record: You voted against a bill that would have encouraged companies to bring their jobs back to the U.S.; against eliminating the tax loopholes of big oil and gas companies; against every effort to reduce U.S. troop presence overseas; against "too big to fail" legislation designed to impose limits on the size of financial companies; and you voted for a bill (McCain's) that struck the "Buy American" provision from Obama's stimulus package. There's more, but we've made our point. You don't give a rat's ass about the American people. Look, Joe, we could go on, but let's just cut to the chase: You are either an idiot or a douchebag. If it's the latter, that means you're willing to do and say anything just to advance your own interests regardless of the consequences for others. (FYI: That's how most people see you, explaining why your approval rating hovers at 33%.)

This brings us to the real point of naming you Asshole of the Month: the 2012 election cycle. You had a decision to make, sir! Should you retire or should you run for the Senate as a Republican? Your ability to run as an independent under the Connecticut for Lieberman Party banner has been usurped by your detractors who took over that vehicle after the 2006 election.

Given your approval rating in Connecticut, Joe, you certainly weren't going to secure the Democratic nomination. So that just left the Republican Party, and even with them your approval rating was only at 48%. So thank you for finally looking reality in the face. You've decided to give the rest of us a fucking break by not running for the Senate in 2012. Yes, you've done enough damage. It's time for you and Hadassah to go off into the sunset together. Goodbye and good riddance.

(Editor's Note: This is not the first time we have made Joe Lieberman our Asshole of the Month. He garnered that honor in the February '09 and April '10 issues as well. However, it's worth mentioning that nothing here repeats all the other reasons he's been considered worthy of that award. We've just added to his long list of "achievements" as a major league Asshole. Thanks to her decades of lobbying for pharmaceutical and healthcare firms, Joe's wife— Hadassah Lieberman—was an April '10 Fart in the Wind.)

Al-Vogue

Letter to the Editor

This letter is in response to the articles covering the civil unrest occurring in Egypt.

As a citizen of and believer in democracy, I applaud the efforts of the Egyptian people. Their efforts are similar to what happened following the election in Iran and the most recent revolution in Tunisia.

Believe it or not, one thing that trumps capitalism and political correctness in the United States is the right to have one's voice heard. This is the foundation of which our democracy is built on. The Egyptian people should continue to defy President Hosni Mubarak's powerful security forces so that Egyptian democracy can begin to thrive. It is unfortunate that the United States compromised on one of its most fundamental values in order to protect its economic interests in the Middle East; something that

happens all too often domestically as well. It is not the Egyptian people that are attempting to seize power but rather it is those currently in power who have engaged in intimidation to prevent the will of the people from being heard. Why else would they stoop to such underhanded tactics to block various means of communication among the citizens of Egypt? Why is the government in power utilizing such political strong-arm tactics as the use of violence?

President Mubarak, you have had thirty years to lead Egypt and have failed them by your own choosing. The days of the puppet regime are finally coming to an end as it appears the desire for freedom will continue to sweep among the Arab nations. Accordingly, let the call go forth among all citizens of Egypt that your brothers and sisters of democracy from all over the world are with you during every trial and tribulation you may encounter during this crisis. To the people of Egypt, the trumpet of freedom beckons you to rise in protest and ensure your voice to preserve your sacred heritage, promote your children's future and obtain the blessings of liberty we all cherish. As was spoken to an Egyptian Pharaoh many years ago {by another enslaved people}: Let my people go!

JOE BIALEK

Cleveland, OH USA

ANDREW BREITBART

from HUSTLER Magazine January 2011

He poses as a journalist and a publisher. In reality, Andrew (not so) Breitbart is a rightwing propagandist intent on bringing down the Obama Administration while advancing Republican objectives. Possessing a black belt in lying, this refugee from Hell's Internet will stoop to any trick or act of duplicity. That includes, most certainly, race-baiting.

Breitbart, a keynote speaker at the first National Tea Party Convention and a selfconfessed bitch of conservative blogger Matt Drudge, first came to our attention as a result of the ACORN scandal.You remember ACORN, right?

That grassroots organization helped the poor and disenfranchised with healthcare, affordable housing, voter registration and other social concerns. Back in 2009 James O'Keefe posing as a pimp (sort of) visited eight ACORN offices with an undercover camera and an accomplice named Hannah Giles, who played the role of a hooker (sort of). O'Keefe's footage wound up on Fox News Channel, which presented it as proof that ACORN staffers were willing to help individuals set up a prostitution ring. Due to the controversy, ACORN lost funding and eventually closed all of its offices.

One problem with the above: It was all precipitated by lies, largely the result of trick editing. (ACORN has since been exonerated by the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the attorneys general of California and Kings County, New York.) Guess who put O'Keefe up to stinging ACORN? Andrew Breitbart. Because of him, a noble institution went down the tubes.

Shirley Sherrod was the target of a similar sham. Once again, Breitbart in an alleged collaboration with Fox News released a highly doctored tape. This one seemingly revealed a federal employee using her position to discriminate against whites. As with ACORN, that charge has since been proven completely false.

So you must ask yourself: What kind of person is so lacking in morals and ethics that he would ruin a person's life with lies and distortions?

Breitfart, as some refer to him, got his start as a suck-up to Matt Drudge, who also treats the truth as if it were Silly Putty something to be molded any which way you choose. What Breitbart did for Drudge isn't entirely clear because the former protegé refuses to talk about it. We're guessing it had to do with Drudge's laundry and housekeeping. (We wouldn't want to talk about that either.)

Breitbart worked with Drudge for the better part of ten years. Then, with his brain sufficiently addled by Drudge's upside-down, reversed-mirror politics, he parted ways with his mentor. Afraid to go solo, Breitbart coproduced a documentary about the suicide of Clinton Administration appointee Vince Foster.The account was so inept, the History Channel never ran it. Then he coauthored Hollywood, Interrupted , a book you can buy on Amazon for $1.99.

Finally, after an apparent failed interlude with Arianna Huffington, Breitbart found the courage to go it alone. He launched Breitbart.com, then the Web sites Big Hollywood, Big Government and Big Journalism—all, in Breitbart's own words, aimed at bringing down the "institutional left." Meanwhile, Breitbart.com comes across as an attention deficit disorder schematic. (The Web mogul has reportedly been diagnosed with ADD.) Since the site is successful, it's fair to say Breitbart has, in effect, crawled up his own ass and built a cathedral.

Breitbart thinks he's intelligent because he has a talent for hurting people with falsehoods and half-truths. Too bad there's no test that considers lying to be a valid measure of intelligence. If there were, we admit, Breitbart would be an off-the-charts genius. Since there isn't, we see only a sick and confused ego rampaging through the media and blogosphere like a bull (with mad cow disease) in a china shop. Discredited by the public at large, Breitbart faces at least one lawsuit for libel (from Shirley Sherrod), with more to follow we suspect. (Those ACORN people are plenty mad.)

Message to Andrew Breitbart: Remember all those teachers and classmates who told you what a pathetic loser you were back in school? The ones you have spent your whole life trying to prove wrong? They were right! You are a loser, Andrew. Mrs. Sherrod should have little difficulty in proving malice for what you did.And that could cost you a fortune.That very fragile house of cards you've built may come tumbling down on you and your family.

Like your right-wing minions, you seem to believe the truth is malleable. You cannot say black is white, or up is down, or sweet is sour. Well, you can say it, but you'd be wrong. And when you slander people, there are legal consequences.

You've dug a deep shithole for yourself, Andy boy, and now you'll have to try climbing out of it. Too bad your Republican friends have pulled up the ladder and turned their backs on you. They see the writing on the wall, and by now so should you.

Finally, Mr. Breitbart, here's a lesson on libel law: You, sir, are an Asshole.We can say that without fear of contradiction or legal

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SEX, DEATH & HOLLYWOOD BUT NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER

by Mamie Van Doren

from HUSTLER Magazine January 2011

MOVIE STARS ARE TOO COOL TO DIE.

"Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me."

—Emily Dickinson

"People are dying who never died before."

—Ernest Hemingway

No one ever dies in Hollywood. There's just too much to do. There is lunch with your agent and a text from your publicist and a red-carpet event that you need to attend. There's a court appearance for your latest DUI or a meeting with your accountant. Who has time to die, and if you did, who would know? There are endless reruns of your movies and perpetual syndications of your last TV sitcom.

The obvious limitations aside, death can be a shot in the arm to one's career. Witness recent sales of Michael Jackson's music or the ongoing releases by Tupac Shakur since 1996. Personal appearances can be a bother, to be sure, but there are always celebrity lookalikes to take up the slack. The poster boy for death-as-career is, of course, Elvis. Since his death in 1977, he has morphed into more than a star; he has become a religious icon.

And then there's sex. In Hollywood everyone from the valet at the Ivy to the star of this weekend's top grosser is poking or being poked, often at the same time. There are movie stars, pool guys, porn stars, housewives, rock stars, chauffeurs, Laker legends, cat burglars, sex symbols, script doctors and, occasionally, real people out there bonking away day and night, answering the ancient call of procreation. Sometimes you would think that there is little else going on.

Death, on the other hand—although as universal as sex—is seldom discussed with the same interest. That is, unless it happens to someone while having sex.

I receive e-mails all the time asking my opinion about Marilyn Monroe's death in 1962. Was it suicide or murder? Had Bobby just left when Papa Joe Kennedy helicoptered the death squad in to dispatch her? People love the idea of a good, juicy Hollywood homicide, and the story—like Marilyn's spirit—refuses to die.

My old friend, the late Sam Yorty—the flamboyant mayor of L.A. at the time Marilyn died—once told me that there were many things about her death that the public would never know. He hinted strongly that Bobby Kennedy was somehow indirectly involved. Sadly, so many people have claimed over the years to have known Marilyn intimately and to know the truth of her death that the real story is permanently obscured by lies.

Death among the beautiful ones is something I have written about many times. I once made a list of some 20 Hollywood sex symbols or glamour girls who met with early and tragic deaths. The list has continued to grow over the years. There is a kind of continuum, from Thelma Todd's mysterious death after a party at the Trocadero nightclub to Anna Nicole Smith's sad demise in Florida and Farrah Fawcett's long fight with cancer. If you are a Hollywood goddess, if glamour is your game, you'd better watch out because tragedy is waiting for you.

I never thought too much about death in my early years. I was more interested in sex. (In fact, I still am. I would much prefer having a good nooner than spending time contemplating my final reward.) When you are young, death is an intellectual reality. Your mother, father, aunts and uncles are expected to pass on in the normal scheme of things. You know it will happen to you eventually, but you do your best to ignore it while avoiding moving vehicles and leaning too far over the railing for a foul ball at Dodger Stadium.

But add a few years and you begin to look at death with a bit more interest. It's one thing for your relatives to die, but when friends and contemporaries begin stepping up to that final cashier's window, you start taking this thing seriously. The movie reruns may go on, but you won't. The bell isn't tolling for you just yet, but the bell ringer has his hand on the rope.

Mamie Van Doren, who starred in such films as Untamed Youth, Teacher's Pet and High School Confidential, chronicles her amazing life at MamieVanDoren.com.

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WHY FRANK SINATRA MATTERED

by Alex Bennet

from HUSTLER Magazine January 2011

AT HIS BEST THE

CROONER HAS NO

CONTENDERS.

For around a year or so I have been obsessed with Frank Sinatra. It started when I programmed him into my iPod. I would put it on shuffle, and as it played I would click past my other choices, past Amy Winehouse and Elvis Costello, until I reached a Sinatra track. Finally saying, "Fuck shuffle!," I just played nothing but Sinatra.

There's something about the singer that never gets boring. Listening to him at his prime—the '50s and '60s—he's utterly amazing. Sinatra may have had the most perfect voice ever. The interpretation, the control, his use of the voice as an instrument and the absolute attention to craft are unbelievable.

You'd think having all that talent would have made Sinatra's life complete bliss. However, in reading about the man, you discover he was absolutely miserable most of his life. Perhaps it was that pain that made him amazing. You take the bad because it influences the good.

The early Sinatra—the late '30s and '40s—is quite uninteresting. Sure, the voice was pure, but it wasn't until the 1950s— after his career took a dive—that he became great. He was dropped by both his movie studio and his record company, divorced his wife Nancy and married actress Ava Gardner. He even ruptured his vocal cords, temporarily rendering him unable to sing. Worst of all, he lost his confidence. I recently saw him in a 1950 Bob Hope TV special, and he came across as a real honest-to-goodness, washed-up has-been.

Then Sinatra garnered 1953's best supporting actor Academy Award for his performance in From Here to Eternity. With the confidence of that win, he came back better than ever. The pain had added something to his abilities. The boy was now a man. It was one brilliant album after another. This was his "golden age." It was perfection, and for no small reason. The man strove for it. He wanted to be the best there ever was.

With a few exceptions, really famous performers today don't have that devotion to craft. They aren't trying to be the best there is. They settle for popularity and tons of cash. Take Amy Winehouse. At her best she's remarkable, very reminiscent of Billie Holiday. But she seems to have no respect for her talents. Not giving a shit, she's letting it all fall apart. In the end this attitude may wind up killing her.

Very few performers can hold on to those powers as long as Frank did. In their heyday the Rolling Stones were the best rock 'n' roll band ever. In them I heard that same perfection you find in Sinatra. But he retained it for 25 years; the Stones couldn't.

Sinatra's career spanned longer than six decades, although his final 15 years saw a pathetic loss of his powers. Woody Allen once said that by the time he finally got to meet his idol, Groucho Marx, the man had suffered three heart attacks. By then, Allen said, "There was nothing left." It was depressing, he elaborated, to see that no matter how much talent you have, one day it will be taken away from you.

I remember feeling that way the one time I actually saw Sinatra perform live. It was in May 1992, six years before he died. My acquaintance, comedian Tom Dreesen, was in the San Francisco Bay area opening for Sinatra at the Circle Star Theater, so he invited me to see the great man at work. I was supposed to meet him that night, but no such luck. Tom told me Sinatra's best friend Jilly Rizzo had died that day, and the grieving singer wasn't seeing anyone, although he forced himself to do the concert. But the figure onstage was depressing. I remember thinking that when the light hit him just right and he hit a note on target, I was seeing the old Sinatra. But mostly I was just seeing the old Sinatra.

At one point I thought Frank was staring at me as he sang. Then I realized I was sitting behind one of the teleprompters that surrounded the stage, and he was reading from it. "She gets too hungry for dinner at 8, Jack," he sang. On the teleprompter I saw the word Jack had been inserted in an effort to evoke his past hipness.

On my iPod I once had a bootleg of a Sinatra concert recorded in Milan, Italy, in 1986. When you hear him sing the first lines of "Night and Day," he's off-key. There's nothing left of him. Historically, it is known as the worst concert he ever gave. I have deleted it from my playlist.

Today's entertainers should learn from Frank Sinatra: Strive for perfection. That would be the one true

Alex Bennett is a longtime HUSTLER contributor. The two-time Emmy winner, who broke into broadcasting as a teenager, can be heard on Sirius Left. 146 (9 a.m. to noon ET) and XM America Left 167 (midnight to 3 a.m. ET).

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HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT ELENA KAGAN?

by Nat Hentoff

from HUSTLER Magazine January 2011

OUR NEWEST SUPREME COURT JUSTICE

MAY BE A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING.

As soon as a President nominates anybody to the Supreme Court, I start my research into that person hard and deep. I wholly agree with the late Chief Justice Earl Warren that "the preservation of our [individual] civil liberties [is] the most fundamental and important of all our governmental problems. … If we ever permit those liberties to be destroyed, there will be nothing left in our system worthy of preservation."

Elena Kagan, former dean of Harvard Law School, is now one of the nine potentates whose decisions—or refusal to review Constitutional rulings by lower courts—will affect millions of us for years to come.The common synonym for the John Roberts Court she joins is "conservative." So, as has often occurred, when there's a 5-4 decision, will Elena Kagan be a champion of the Bill of Rights or a soul sister of Antonin Scalia?

How much do you know about the Court's newest member? Kagan's Senate confirmation hearings were customarily shallow, and the press in all its forms did very little digging of its own. Worse yet, as weekly national columnist and radio commentator John Whitehead accurately observed: "The average American…lacks even a rudimentary knowledge of the Constitution or Bill of Rights. … Martial law…may be one terrorist attack away."

Think of what remnants of the Bill of Rights would have been blown to bits if the would-be Times Square car bomber had been successful.

In 2009, arguing on a case before the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan actually said:"Whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of speech against its societal costs." In all the writings of James Madison, the Father of the First Amendment, you'll never find such broad and vague censorship of free speech. Who has this power to cripple free speech? The High Court on which Kagan now sits!

And dig this Kagan disemboweling of our rule of law. It never came up in the confirmation hearings or in the press—except from Harvey Silverglate in the Boston Phoenix. A Constitutional lawyer I've been learning from for years, Silverglate is coauthor of The Shadow University, the book that first exposed collegiate administrators' ruthless attacks on the free speech of free-thinking students and professors on campuses nationwide. These "speech codes" have since been regularly exposed and shamed by FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), which Silverglate cofounded. (I'm on its Advisory Committee.)

Silverglate tells of two black men in Iowa who were caged for 25 years before they learned that the key testimony against them had been beaten out of the so-called witnesses. And to make sure the defendants would be convicted, the prosecution had lawlessly withheld exculpatory evidence favorable to them.

At long last the case reached the Iowa Supreme Court, which threw out one defendant's conviction and cut the other's sentence to time served. Naturally, citing the rawly clear violations of their Constitutional rights and the government's theft of all those years of their lives, these Americans betrayed by our legal system sued for damages.

Their case ultimately reached the Supreme Court of the United States, where a crucial question focused on the accountability of the prosecutors who so cruelly violated the defendants' Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial. In a friend-of-the-court brief, Elena Kagan—then Obama's Solicitor General (the President's representative in matters before the Supreme Court)—insisted that there be "absolute immunity" for those lawless prosecutors!

Kagan told the Justices, who are now her colleagues, that making those Iowa prosecutors accountable for this blatant false imprisonment (my words, not hers) would result in "untold social costs." Like what? Preventing the conviction of the innocent?

Our new Supreme Court Justice claimed there should be no penalty for so callously violating the Bill of Rights. There wasn't a peep of disagreement from her boss—then and now. It's getting harder and harder to believe that Barack Obama once taught Constitutional law at the University of Chicago.

I'm not surprised. In April 2010 the New York Times reported that during a chat with reporters on Air Force One, Obama had imperiously criticized the Earl Warren Supreme Court for going out of its proper way by decisions that overruled elected officials. This was the Supreme Court that decided to exclude from trials any evidence illegally obtained by investigators (Mapp v. Ohio) and also established the Miranda right of any American arrested to remain silent. And to keep the core of the Constitution functioning, the Warren Court— in New York Times v.Sullivan —nailed down the First Amendment right to criticize public officials.

That is the Supreme Court Obama says went too far. Now he's comfortable with Elena Kagan on the Roberts Court. He's also delighted, I expect, that his choice for the Court, during her confirmation hearings, agreed with Obama (as the New York Times reported) that "people suspected of helping to provide material support to terrorists" should be subject to battlefield law— including detention without trial—even if they were not captured in a battle zone.

"Material support"? Talk about a model of broadness and vagueness of incriminating language!

This President has also been insistently advocating his power to imprison terrorism suspects indefinitely if he can't put them on trial before military commissions or in our federal courts because the evidence against them was extracted by our having tortured them. It's called "permanent detention."

If Obama gets the legislation to do that— thereby showing the world again how distorted our rule of law has become under Bush, Cheney and Obama—the President will have a cheerleader on the Roberts Court for his mocking the Declaration of Independence's insistence that "we have a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." And a decent respect for ourselves.

Nat Hentoff is a historian of the Constitution, a jazz critic and a columnist for the Village Voice and Free Inquiry. His incisive books include The First Freedom: The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America ; Living the Bill of Rights ; and the forthcoming Is This America?

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FOXES CONTINUE TO RUN HENHOUSE

by Robert Scheer

from HUSTLER Magazine January 2011

ROBERT RUBIN GIVEN PASS FOR KEY

ROLE IN DESTROYING ECONOMY

One of the hallmarks of American power elites—in contrast to those of, say, Japan—is that they never seem to be held accountable for their crimes and incompetence. Instead of committing hara-kiri, they just lay low for a few months and then pretend they had nothing to do with any of it.

So it is that CNN pundit Fareed Zakaria, who suffered no apparent shame or career consequences for initially backing the biggest U.S. foreign-policy blunder since Vietnam—the invasion of Iraq, can be paid to blithely toss softball questions on national television to Robert Rubin, key backer of the most destructive domestic policies in the same time period: the deregulation of the banking industry.

Ah, television "journalism."

On this particular Sunday, I was trapped on a treadmill in front of an overhead television and unable to turn the thing off in time to avoid this assault on my mental and physical health. As a result I was forced to hear Rubin, Treasury secretary under President Clinton, insist he always favored regulating toxic derivatives and is therefore not at all responsible for the ensuing economic meltdown.

Rubin was responding to the sole critical question from the CNN host, who quoted a question by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman: "Did all the senior members of the [Obama] economics team have to be protégés of Robert Rubin, the apostle of financial deregulation?"

Unfortunately, Zakaria just rolled over when his guest simply lied in response: "First of all," Rubin said, "I am not the apostle of financial deregulation. Quite the contrary. On derivatives…I developed a deep concern about the systemic problem that was created. When I was back at Goldman Sachs, it was a concern I had…a concern I had when I was in government. And, in fact, when I wrote my book in 2003, I was so concerned about it that I actually included that discussion in there."

Zakaria ended the show recommending it as his book of the week: "He [Rubin] wrote a great memoir that covered his two distinguished careers, both…on Wall Street and in Washington. … It was written with Jacob Weisberg, a great writer, the [former] editor of Slate, and the two men weave a compelling tale that has many lessons for today."

To be charitable, I will assume that Zakaria has not actually read that book, which omits any discussion of the radical deregulation legislation that Rubin ushered through Congress and got the President to sign. Clinton is on record stating he got bad advice from Rubin and his handpicked successor, Lawrence Summers, on derivatives regulation: "On derivatives, yeah, I think they were wrong, and I think I was wrong to take [their advice]," Clinton told ABC News in April 2010.

Rubin and Summers were responsible for forcing Brooksley Born out of the Clinton Administration because, as chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, she had the temerity to suggest regulating the mortgage- backed securities that eventually proved to be so toxic. Instead, Rubin and Summers pushed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which Clinton signed into law before his last month in office, categorically exempting those suspect derivatives from any government regulation.

By then, Rubin had moved on to a $15- million-a-year job at Citigroup, which became a prime exploiter of the subprime housing market. As a result of its massive involvement with toxic securities, Citigroup— with Rubin in a leading role until early 2009—had to be bailed out by the federal government with a $45-billion direct investment and a guaranteed Fed protection for $306 billion in potentially toxic assets.

Citigroup, a merger of the old Citicorp and Travelers Group, was made legal only by the Financial Services Modernization Act, which Rubin backed while serving as Treasury secretary.

Then, in one of the most egregious conflicts of interest in U.S. history, Rubin went to work for the new bank, which took advantage of the changes in the law to buy up the infamous subprime lenders, beginning with Associates First Capital. The Economist magazine questioned whether investors would see Citi's bold new venture "as something smart, such as 'evolved credit extension,' or something seamy, such as loan-sharking."

Rubin was a major proponent of the firm's seamy expansion into the mortgages that proved to be toxic, and by 2007 Citigroup was the second-largest subprime servicer, after the only slightly more infamous Countrywide.

There is much more, and I haven't even touched on Rubin's shameful role in Enron's shenanigans. Enough said, though, to question not only Fareed Zakaria's journalism but, far more important, Barack Obama's leadership in first turning to Rubin as a key campaign adviser and then putting his disciples in charge of the U.S. economy.

Before serving 30 years as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Robert Scheer spent the late 1960s as Vietnam correspondent, managing editor and editor in chief of Ramparts magazine. Now editor of TruthDig.com, Scheer has written such hard-hitting books as The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America and his latest, The Great American Stick-Up: Greedy Bankers and the Politicians Who Love Them.

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