HIS FRAUDULENCY'S "INSIDE OF THE INSIDE" IS NOT VERY HAPPY, METHINKS, WITH THE LATEST NUMBERS showing where wholesale inflation may be on the rampage, and with a venegance.

Witness where just-released, scientifically-calculated estimates show producer-price inflation to be @ an annualised rate of 7.5%, perhaps the worst since October 1981 (some ten years after the United States closed the "gold window" as essentially ended the last links to a gold standard vis-a-vis the dollar, it turns out).

As if that weren't enough, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for February fell to 75.0, way down on a revised January reading of 87.3--exactly five years, it turns out, since said index fell to 64.8, its worst ever level.

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IN A RELATED VEIN, PERHAPS, IT APPEARS AS IF MINNESOTA GOVERNOR PAWLENTY HAS BECOME HIS OWN WORST CRYBABY with the Legislature overriding his own veto of essentially-needed transportation funding in the form of gas tax increases and authorisation of sales taxes to fund transportation initiatives.

Even if Governor Pawlenty's playing his Club For Growth-influenced bromide and platitude of "protecting families" from high taxes, let alone morals and decency, he needs to see Reality for once.

He needs to realise that the serious deterioration of roads and infrastructure across Our Beloved Minnesota cannot simply be repaired by all manner of "band-aid" quick fixes forever "just to protect families" based on his low taxes=jobs=socioeconomic stability argument--itself nothing less than lily-gilding discredited "supply-side" socioeconomic thought.

Not to mention dropping further hints of Governor Pawlenty's being an unconscious psychopath whose ability to discharge the powers and duties of his office may be seriously affected.

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THE GOP'S SUPER-SECRETIVE "DIRTY TRICKS" SQUADS, AS TRAINED BY THE "CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY," must probably be looking for ways to have whoever succeeds His Fraudulency (so long as the GOP has sure victory, which they hope to achieve "by whatever means necessary," no matter how corrupt or depraved) emulate the depraved excesses of outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin as discussed in the following BBC report:

Russian freedom of speech is "shrinking alarmingly" under President Vladimir Putin, says Amnesty International.

The murders of outspoken journalists go unsolved, independent media outlets have been shut and police have attacked opposition protesters, said the report.

It also said "arbitrary" laws were curbing the right to express opinion and silencing NGOs deemed to be a threat by the authorities.

The report comes ahead of Russian's presidential elections on 2 March.

The director of Amnesty International UK, Kate Allen, said: "The space for freedom of speech is shrinking alarmingly in Russia and it's now imperative that the Russian authorities reverse this trend."

She said dissent could be a matter of life or death in the case of outspoken journalists like Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in Moscow two years ago.

The 52-page Freedom Limited report warned any opposition demonstrations could suffer heavy clampdowns in the coming days, as Amnesty said had happened in the run-up to past elections.

First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, whom President Putin has named his favoured successor, is expected to be elected in this Sunday's poll.

Which begs the question of what sort of patsies and platitudes would be resorted to to excuse such arbitrary measures of fear and intimidation on the GOP's part and parcel--measures, methinks, based on forgeries and crude stereotypes of the poor, homosexuals and other National Minorities.

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AND HOW SURE ARE WE THAT the photo showing Democratic Presidential wannabe Barak Obama wearing traditional African tribal dress currently making the rounds in Certain Weird and Unwholesome Circles isn't really a Photoshop-generated forgery solely to discredit the Obama campaign and its intending supporters?

(Let alone the possibility that the photo may have been the byproduct of racist and white-supremacist types.)

Speaking of which, the Southern Poverty Law Centre's Hatewatch blog notes where racists and white-supremacists are getting all the more nervous of the prospect of Obama's winning the Democratic nomination (note where certain necessary deletions have been made, for those of you who may accuse me of Bowdlerism):

With the selection of Barack Obama as the first black Democratic nominee for president seeming more possible by the day, racists and white supremacists are posting increasingly ugly and even threatening remarks on the Internet.

"OBAMA WILL DIE, KKK FOREVER," concludes a Feb. 15 post by "Rodney" to a blog run by a person identified only as Strider333. Above that signoff, Rodney wrote: "The KKK or someone WILL assassinate Obama! If we get a [N4BSK] President all you [N4BSK]'s [sic] will think you've won and that the WHITE people will have to bow to you[.] [N4BSK] THAT."

On traditional white supremacist and neo-Nazi sites, there are lengthy discussion threads about what would happen if Obama were elected president. Dozens of those posts are derogatory and employ all kinds of racist slurs. Others speculate that such an Obama victory would kick off a race war between whites and blacks. And some even raise the possibility that he could be assassinated. But talk like that is rare and extremely careful—probable evidence that the "white nationalists" who inhabit these sites are deeply concerned that their comments are being monitored by law enforcement for any criminal threat relating to the presidential race. In fact, Obama reportedly received federal Secret Service protection unusually early in the campaign season because of concerns about a racially motivated attack.

The most heated anti-Obama talk appears to be on Internet sites that allow people to post messages anonymously. One such site, JD Underground, is a list ostensibly devoted to lawyers, although further details were not available. It has carried a particularly venomous thread, entitled "[N4BSK] President," that has stretched from January into this month.

"I'm hoping someone will do his public duty of putting a bullet through Obama's head," said a poster identified as "Kill Da [N4BSK]." Another poster suggests "bring[ing] back lynchings" and concludes with a warning: "LOOK OUT [N4BSK]. THE KLAN IS GETTING BIGGER!!!!!!" And a third, using the screen name "amerikkkan," says only, "The deep south is making plans."