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Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies

Barack Obama’s approval ratings are at an all-time low. A recent Gallup poll found that half of the Americans polled said Obama did not deserve a second term. Weary of the corruption that gushes from the White House faster than a Gulf Coast oil spill, voters are ready to put a cap on smear campaigns, pay-to-play schemes, recess appointments, and Chicago politics.

In the updated paperback edition of her #1 New York Times bestselling book Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, Michelle Malkin says, ?I told you so,” citing a new host of examples of Obama’s broken promises and brass knuckled Chicago way.

Culture of Corruption proves once again this isn’t just any politics. It’s ?boodle”-clogged, dissent-squelching, redistributive Chicago politics. The 2010 elections promise to be an anti-corruption referendum for the history books. ?After all,” Malkin says ?You can’t reform corruptocrats, but you can vote them out.” New revelations in the updated Culture of Corruption:


How Obama has declared war on independent government whistleblowers?with unannounced firings, smear campaigns, and forced silence?when their findings expose his political allies.
How First Lady Michelle Obama’s campaign against childhood obesity is less about reducing our youths’ waistlines and more about swelling SEIU coffers with nearly 400,000 new food service workers.
How, despite the exposure of ACORN’s illegal practices and subsequent defunding, ACORN still remains?and why the Obama White House remains tight-lipped on the future of ACORN.
How Obama is using recess appointments to install politicos when both Democrats and Republicans have torpedoed the nominations.
How the White House is manipulating key races across the country, including endorsing such candidates as Alexi Giannoulias?a mob-linked, scandal-tainted banker from Obama’s hometown.

Powerful, damning, and comprehensive, the paperback edition of Culture of Corruption reveals the ever-growing mountain of sleaze and self-dealing that the Obama administration would rather you not know.

photo by bucky

Saturday night I went to Austin for the Chaos in Tejas fest. I was there to see one band and one band only: LOS CRUDOS. their set was nothing short of absolutely amazing, hot, sweaty, circle pitting, stage diving fun. a truly inspirational experience. i love this band with all my heart.

Los Crudos was an influential Chicago-based Latino hardcore band. They paved the way for later Spanish-speaking punk bands and helped to increase the presence of Latinos in a predominantly white subculture. They have been described as "one of '90s punk's truly great bands" and "one of the greatest hardcore bands of the ’90s (um, I mean, ever)." Kennedy describes them as "very popular in both the 'crusty' and Emo/straight edge scenes in North America."

The band formed in the early 1990s. Their lyrics were almost always sung in Spanish; the song "We're That Spic Band" (written in response to an audience member calling them a "spic band") is the sole exception. Los Crudos' lyrics were explicitly political, addressing issues such as class, police brutality, homophobia, and California ballot propositions directed against immigrants. At concerts, singer Martin Sorrondeguy would often speak at length about the songs' meanings between songs, partly as a way of getting around the language barrier (audiences weren't always happy about this). Their music was loud, fast, and energetic with songs built around three chords or fewer. "We're That Spic Band" and "Asesinos" (about "the disappearances of radical youth during military dictatorships in Latin America") have both been described as their most well-known song.

The band's first shows were in Pilsen, the Latino neighborhood in Chicago where the band members lived, and many of their lyrics were first sung there. Sorrondeguy has said that, "One of the main reasons for singing in Spanish was to communicate directly with kids in our neighborhood." In Pilsen, the band also worked closely with community agencies such as Project Vida, an AIDS prevention organization, and Project Hablo, a domestic violence support group.

Los Crudos incorporated DIY ethics into every aspect of the band's existence, including promoting and booking shows, recording music, touring, and silk-screening T-shirts. They toured Mexico (in 1994), South America, Europe, and Japan, as well as touring the US many times. The band's recordings were released on independent record labels such as Flat Earth Records, Ebullition Records, and Sorrondeguy's label Lengua Armada Discos.

Los Crudos played its last shows in October 1998. After the band's breakup, Sorrondeguy became the vocalist for Limp Wrist, as well as releasing a documentary about Chicano and Latino punk (Beyond The Screams: A U.S. Latino Hardcore Punk Documentary).

The band played an unannounced reunion show in June 2006 at Southkore (America's first and largest Latino punk festival), in Chicago's Little Village. The festival attracted more than 400 fans. They are also slated to play 2008's Chaos in Tejas festival in Austin, Texas.

I probably should have worn this shirt last Wednesday, when I attended a public debate meeting on the Isreali-Arab conflict. But I don't really wear this shirt as a political statement (well, I guess it is political, and it may even be why I bought it in the first place), but I just put it on whenever it reaches the top of my stack of clean t-shirts. That is, I wear it at random times.

However, since I happened to wear it today, I would like to remind people that there is a conflict going on in Palestine, and that people--jews, muslims and atheists alike--are suffering from it. I would also like to point out that one of the parts is being occupied, while the other is the occupant, and that for every death on one side of the conflict, there are ten times as many on the other (while the ratio of deaths reported in the media is four to one in the other direction). And that the only way to resolve the conflict is to talk to your opponent.

In What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank pointed out that a great number of Americans actually vote against their own interests. In The Political Mind, George Lakoff explains why.

As it turns out, human beings are not the rational creatures we’ve so long imagined ourselves to be. Ideas, morals, and values do not exist somewhere outside the body, ready to be examined and put to use. Instead, they exist quite literally inside the brain—and they take physical shape there. For example, we form particular kinds of narratives in our minds just like we form specific muscle memories such as typing or dancing, and then we fit new information into those narratives. Getting that information out of one narrative type and into another—or building a whole new narrative altogether—can be as hard as learning to play the banjo. Changing your mind isn’t like changing your body—it’s the same thing.

But as long as progressive politicians and activists persist in believing that people use an objective system of reasoning to decide on their politics, the Democrats will continue to lose elections. They must wrest control of the terms of the debate from their opponents rather than accepting their frame and trying to argue within it.

This passionate, erudite, and groundbreaking book will appeal to readers of Steven Pinker and Thomas Frank. It is a fascinating read for anyone interested in how the mind works, how society works, and how they work together.