The Daily Show's Jason Jones

interviews a first lady expert,

an obligatory moron at a bar,

and Elizabeth Kucinich in his latest

installment of "Is America Ready For A..."

In this segment, Jason explores FLILFs

(or at least fantasizes that he could)

   more »

The fix is in. The Oligarchy has done its work well. Nothing will change, even if the next president is a Democrat. True, there will be some superficial changes.

Where Republicans swung a naked broad sword, Democrats will drape theirs in velvet; where conservatives crowed, liberals will coo; where the right swaggered, the 'left' will soft-shoe, but it will still be the same old shit.

The only substantive difference is that when they screw the public, they will feel its pain; you never did.

Whether a Democrat or Republican occupies the Oval Office, the first presidential priority will be the care and feeding of the Corporatist State and the Military-Industrial Complex that protects its overseas interests.

Eduardo Galeano has aptly described our nation’s capitol as “a workplace of the hired hands who sell their legislative services to the highest corporate bidder.”   more »

From the totalitarian point of view, history is something to be created rather than learned.

A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible.

But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened.   more »

I have been following the financial markets for more than 30 years. Crises have come and gone, but the one unfolding since August and which intensified last week is the most serious.

It is not just that its impact is cascading around the world because of the new interconnectedness of global finance, it is that the authorities, particularly in Britain and America, have lost control and do not have the means to regain it as quickly as we might hope.

With an oil price approaching $100 a barrel, we are in an uncharted and dangerous place.

After more than 15 years of extraordinarily benevolent economic conditions worldwide - cheap oil, cheap money, growing trade, the Asia boom, rising house prices - things are unravelling at bewildering speed.   more »

In August, a 2 a.m. phone call from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice helped pull President Pervez Musharraf from the brink of declaring a state of emergency in Pakistan. Two days ago, Rice made a similar plea. This time, the Pakistani president was not swayed.

Musharraf's decision to suspend his nation's Constitution and declare emergency rule Saturday poses a sharp setback for U.S. efforts to push Pakistan toward democracy, and it calls into question Bush's unstinting support for Musharraf despite the general's growing unpopularity and inability to counter hard-line militants.

The United States now finds itself with few good options and dwindling power to influence events in the nuclear-armed state, particularly because experts believe Musharraf's actions may have ensured his demise as a national leader.

"The train is derailed and off the tracks," said Stephen Cohen, author of "The Idea of Pakistan." "We have to give ourselves a share of the responsibility for this. We placed all of our chips on Musharraf."   more »