Just Wondrin What Happened

2011-05-07T06:56:00.001-07:00

http://www.alternet.org/story/150868/the_devos_family%3A_meet_the_super-wealthy_right-wingers_working_with_the_religious_right_to_kill_public_education?akid=6932.250061.1Bs__z&rd=1&t=2
The DeVos Family: Meet the Super-Wealthy Right-Wingers Working With the Religious Right to Kill Public Education
By now you've surely heard of the Kochs. Meanwhile, the powerful, wealthy DeVos family has remained largely under the radar, while leading a stealth assault on America's schools.
May 6, 2011
Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks
Since the 2010 elections, voucher bills have popped up in legislatures around the nation. From Pennsylvania to Indiana to Florida, state governments across the country have introduced bills that would take money from public schools and use it to send students to private and religious institutions.

Vouchers have always been a staple of the right-wing agenda. Like previous efforts, this most recent push for vouchers is led by a network of conservative think tanks, PACs, Religious Right groups and wealthy conservative donors. But "school choice," as they euphemistically paint vouchers, is merely a means to an end. Their ultimate goal is the total elimination of our public education system.

The decades-long campaign to end public education is propelled by the super-wealthy, right-wing DeVos family. Betsy Prince DeVos is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the notorious private military contractor Blackwater USA (now Xe), and wife of Dick DeVos, son of the co-founder of Amway, the multi-tiered home products business.

By now, you've surely heard of the Koch brothers, whose behind-the-scenes financing of right-wing causes has been widely documented in the past year. The DeVoses have remained largely under the radar, despite the fact that their stealth assault on America's schools has the potential to do away with public education as we know it.

Right-Wing Privatization Forces

The conservative policy institutes founded beginning in the 1970s get hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy families and foundations to develop and promote free market fundamentalism. More specifically, their goals include privatizing social security, reducing government regulations, thwarting environmental policy, dismantling unions -- and eliminating public schools.

Whatever they may say about giving poor students a leg up, their real priority is nothing short of the total dismantling of our public educational institutions, and they've admitted as much. Cato Institute founder Ed Crane and other conservative think tank leaders have signed the Public Proclamation to Separate School and State, which reads in part that signing on, "Announces to the world your commitment to end involvement by local, state, and federal government from education."

But Americans don't want their schools dismantled. So privatization advocates have recognized that it's not politically viable to openly push for full privatization and have resigned themselves to incrementally dismantling public school systems. The think tanks’ weapon of choice is school vouchers.

Vouchers are funded with public school dollars but are used to pay for students to attend private and parochial (religious-affiliated) schools. The idea was introduced in the 1950s by the high priest of free-market fundamentalism, Milton Friedman, who also made the real goal of the voucher movement clear: “Vouchers are not an end in themselves; they are a means to make a transition from a government to a free-market system." The quote is in a 1995 Cato Institute briefing paper titled “Public Schools: Make Them Private.”

Joseph Bast, president of Heartland Institute, stated in 1997, “Like most other conservatives and libertarians, we see vouchers as a major step toward the complete privatization of schooling. In fact, after careful study, we have come to the conclusion that they are the only way to dismantle the current socialist regime.” Bast added, “Government schools will diminish in enrollment and thus in number as parents shift their loyalty and vouchers to superior-performing private schools.”

But Bast's lofty goals have not panned out. That's because, quite simply, voucher programs do not work.

The longest running voucher program in the country is the 20-year-old Milwaukee School Choice Program. Standardized testing shows that the voucher students in private schools perform below the level of Milwaukee’s public school students, and even when socioeconomic status is factored in, the voucher students still score at or below the level of the students who remain in Milwaukee’s public schools. Cleveland’s voucher program has produced similar results. Private schools in the voucher program range from excellent to very poor. In some, less than 20 percent of students reach basic proficiency levels in math and reading.

More at link above

9 Things The Rich Don't Want You To Know About Taxes | Economy | AltWeeklies.com

2011-04-16T08:10:00.000-07:00

9 Things The Rich Don't Want You To Know About Taxes | Economy | AltWeeklies.com
How long does it take to conclude that a policy has failed to fulfill its promises? And as you think of that, keep in mind George Washington. When he fell ill, his doctors followed the common wisdom of the era. They cut him and bled him to remove bad blood. As Washington's condition grew worse, they bled him more. And like the mantra of tax cuts for the rich, they kept applying the same treatment until they killed him.

•1: Poor Americans do pay taxes.
•2: The wealthiest Americans don't carry the burden.
•3: In fact, the wealthy are paying less taxes.
•4: Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all.
•5: And (surprise!) since Reagan, only the wealthy have gained significant income.
•6: When it comes to corporations, the story is much the same -- less taxes.
•7: Some corporate tax breaks destroy jobs.
•8: Republicans like taxes too.
•9: Other countries do it better.

10 of the Biggest Corporate Tax Cheats In America | AlterNet

2011-04-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

10 of the Biggest Corporate Tax Cheats In America AlterNet
Google fun-fact: Google rents 200 goats, complete with goatherd and a border collie, to keep the grass nicely trimmed at Google HQ. Oh, and this week Bloomberg reported that the Federal Trade Commission is considering launching a major investigation into Google's anti-competitive practices.

The GOP Budget's Attack On Older Americans: Their Most Radical Move Yet, Explained With Six Slides | OurFuture.org

2011-04-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

The GOP Budget's Attack On Older Americans: Their Most Radical Move Yet, Explained With Six Slides OurFuture.org The GOP Budget's Attack On Older Americans: Their Most Radical Move Yet, Explained With Six Slides By Richard (RJ) Eskow April 5, 2011 - 1:43am ET Back when I analyzed health plans and other benefits for a living, I asked a famous CEO what his goals were for the corporation's employee benefit plan. "I want to give them less and make them think it's more," he said. The new Republican budget proposes to radically restructure the country's relationship with its citizens. They're using bogus economics to confuse people into thinking these extreme cuts will somehow leave them more money. But they're really offering less - much less. We'll deal with the politics later. The policy is astounding enough. But we'll throw in a little context: The top 25 hedge fund managers made a collective $22 billion last year. If they had been taxed under the same rules as cops, firefighters, nurses, and teachers, and if the President's proposed tax changes for the wealthiest earners had passed, these 25 people alone might reduced the Federal deficit by more than five billion dollars in a single year! But Rep. Ryan and his party prevented that from happening. "Party of deficit reduction"? Gosh, I don't think so. A Radical Attack Since all the specifics aren't in, we ran some rough preliminary numbers. Here's what we found: Within ten years of this plan taking effect, most Americans would be spending all of their Social Security income just to pay for their health care or going without coverage. The Republicans claim their budget will cut $4 trillion from the Federal budget. But it will take much more than that out of everyone's pockets. The Republican proposal wouldn't just end Medicare as we know it - although it would certainly do that. It would also end Social Security as we know it. In the end America's seniors would pay more and get less as their social safety net was gradually eliminated. Their Social Security income would essentially evaporate as they were forced to spend it on previously-available health care coverage. That also means it would be redirected into the large corporations that dominate our health care system. Slow Bleed The new budget is being presented by Rep. Paul Ryan, based on a proposal he co-wrote with economist (and long-time "entitlement" opponent) Alice Rivlin. It would dismantle Medicare and Medicaid starting in 2021, when Medicare's system of guaranteed, comprehensive health coverage would be replaced with "vouchers" under what's known as a "defined contribution plan" - exactly what that CEO foisted upon his hapless employees. The "voucher" would be based on Medicare's 2012 cost per enrollee, increased by the general rate of inflation plus 1% every year. How would this change affect Medicare-eligible people? Read the rest a link above

Why We Must Raise Taxes on the Rich, ASAP! | | AlterNet

2011-04-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

Tax cuts for millionaires = pay cuts, job cuts, and benefit cuts for everybody else!

Why We Must Raise Taxes on the Rich, ASAP! | | AlterNet

The Social Security Scam: How Media-Driven Misdirection is Being Used to Hijack Your Future | | AlterNet

2011-03-31T08:22:00.000-07:00

The Social Security Scam: How Media-Driven Misdirection is Being Used to Hijack Your Future | | AlterNet
The Social Security Scam: How Media-Driven Misdirection is Being Used to Hijack Your Future
The assumption that deficit reduction can be achieved through cuts to Social Security benefits is ubiquitous -- and also totally false.
March 30, 2011 | LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?
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TAKE ACTIONPetitions by Change.org|Get Widget|Start a Petition � As the budget battle rages in Washington, calls to cut Social Security benefits are ramping up. Pundits pushing ‘conventional wisdom’ say that doing so is prudent for a nation facing large deficits. This solution is endorsed by congressional majorities, along with virtually every talking head on television (with varying degrees of rhetorical eagerness or caution, depending on party affiliation). The assumption that deficit reduction can be achieved through cuts to Social Security benefits is so ubiquitous that most Americans would be dumbfounded to learn that this assumption is totally false.

In terms of our deficits and debt, cutting Social Security benefits is exactly like raising the limit on one of our credit cards. You can transfer other balances using the Social Security surpluses, or buy new stuff, but it won’t change total debt. While you’d expect this to be a major issue in the debate, it’s not. It is ignored because debate starts with the assumption that this “solution” works. Here we can thank our media, which obscures debate rather than illuminating it.

The presentation of views from a limited cross-section of our two political parties (usually conservative Democrats and most Republicans) typically creates the impression of full coverage — “both sides” — while leaving key information and assumptions unexamined. With Social Security, this is done by marketing, as gospel, the idea that there is broad agreement from the left and right about the efficacy of cutting it, best exemplified by the media worship of the “bipartisan” deficit commission. So questions concerning the fairness or feasibility of reducing deficits with cuts to Social Security are moot, and debate can jump straight to political soap-opera mode: “Does Congress have the guts to go after Social Security? Will doing so help raise the political capital of Republicans or Democrats?” The protagonists and antagonists are the parties and their personalities, with the only point of consideration being whether there is sufficient political will “to do what must be done.”

More at link

NationalJournal.com - Senate Passes Resolution Calling for No-Fly Zone Over Libya - Tuesday, March 1, 2011

2011-03-31T07:14:00.000-07:00

For all those who claim that the President didn't consult anyone in the Congress on this matter.

NationalJournal.com - Senate Passes Resolution Calling for No-Fly Zone Over Libya - Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Senate Passes Resolution Calling for No-Fly Zone Over Libya
By Dan Friedman

Tuesday, March 1, 2011 | 9:19 p.m.
The Senate unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution on Tuesday calling for the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and urged Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi to resign and allow a peaceful transition to democracy.

The resolution, offered by Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., has no force of law. And its symbolic impact on U.S. posture toward Libya is uncertain. But the resolution puts the full Senate on record behind an aggressive posture and could bolster a growing number of calls for the United States—which has already sent warships carrying hundreds of Marines into the region—or its allies to take limited military steps in support of Libyans seeking to overthrow Qaddafi. Earlier on Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told lawmakers that all options to address the Libyan crisis are on the table.

“There is a bipartisan consensus building to provide assistance to liberated areas of Libya and to work with our allies to enforce a no-fly zone," Kirk said in a statement.

The resolution condemns "gross and systematic violations of human rights, including violent attacks on protesters demanding democratic reforms," by Qaddafi and urges him to "ensure civilian safety" and "guarantee access to human rights and humanitarian organizations." It also applauds a move by the U.N. Human Rights Council to recommend Libya's suspension from the council and calls for the U.N. General Assembly to vote in support of that step.

More at link above

Tennessee residents fear nuclear radiation to blame for cancer cluster

2011-03-29T09:15:00.000-07:00

Tennessee residents fear nuclear radiation to blame for cancer cluster
Tennessee residents fear nuclear radiation to blame for cancer cluster
March 18th, 2011 joshua

While one part of the world fears nuclear radiation contamination, one small town in Tennessee is working to hold a power company accountable.

The residents of Erwin, Tenn., recently gathered to discuss the possibility of joining a class-action lawsuit against Nuclear Fuel Services because of nuclear contamination in the area.

According to the Bristol (Tenn.) Herald-Courier, some residents are blaming their recent cancer diagnoses. At least 50 people attended the meeting.
An attorney who led the meeting believes Nuclear Fuel Services’ constant non-compliance with federal regulations and citations for numerous safety violations gives residents more than enough ammunition to join a lawsuit against the energy company.

He added that Erwin’s “cancer epidemic” is “extremely relevant” to Nuclear Fuel Service’s rogue way of conducting business.

A spokesperson for Nuclear Fuel Services told The Herald-Courier that it doubts its business practices have led to a cancer outbreak in the Erwin area, and claims to operate within state and federal regulations.

BBC News - China 'to overtake US on science' in two years

2011-03-29T09:05:00.000-07:00

BBC News - China 'to overtake US on science' in two years
Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, chair of the report, said he was "not surprised" by this increase because of China's massive boost to investment in R&D.

Chinese spending has grown by 20% per year since 1999, now reaching over $100bn, and as many as 1.5 million science and engineering students graduated from Chinese universities in 2006.

"I think this is positive, of great benefit, though some might see it as a threat and it does serve as a wake-up call for us not to become complacent."

The report stresses that American research output will not decline in absolute terms and raises the possibility of countries like Japan and France rising to meet the Chinese challenge.

"But the potential for China to match American output in terms of sheer numbers in the near to medium term is clear."

The Real Story of Our Economy: Why Our Standard of Living Has Stalled Out | | AlterNet

2011-03-29T08:52:00.000-07:00

The Real Story of Our Economy: Why Our Standard of Living Has Stalled Out | | AlterNet
From 1947 to 1975, our output per worker hour grew by more than 75 percent. At the very same time, the real wages of the average worker rose by nearly the same amount. The rise of productivity and the rise in real wages turned our working people into the largest, most vibrant middle class in the history of the world. This dramatic upward movement in material conditions gave America its supreme bragging rights in the Cold War. No one could deny that democratic capitalism delivered the goods to working people, not just to elites.

Until it didn’t.

Neo-liberalism and the stalling of middle-class income

This upwardly mobile economy changed during the 1970s, and it wasn’t an accident. That’s when our nation’s leaders embarked on a series of policies that were supposed to break down stagflation and rebuild our economic miracle. We now call it neo-liberalism. That’s when we decided to unleash innovation through deregulation, especially financial deregulation. That’s when we lowered taxes on the wealthy. That’s when we pushed forward globalization. That’s when we stopped raising the minimum wage. That’s when we undercut the labor movement. All this was supposed to make the economy boom and reignite the post-WWII economic miracle.

These policies, not the blind actions of markets, broke open the cookie jar of productivity. And there was plenty in there to take: Since 1975, productivity increased by nearly 180 percent – meaning that we almost tripled what we could produce per hour of labor. But unlike the post-WWII period, it wasn’t shared. Here are the brutal facts:

Maddow: It's Not About the Budget; Republicans Take Care of Their Own on the Backs of the Poor and Middle Class | Video Cafe

2011-03-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

Maddow: It's Not About the Budget; Republicans Take Care of Their Own on the Backs of the Poor and Middle Class | Video Cafe
Maddow: It's Not About the Budget; Republicans Take Care of Their Own on the Backs of the Poor and Middle Class
.Rachel Maddow took a whack at the hypocritical Republicans in Wisconsin and the Republican governors across the country who will spare no expense when it comes to taking care of their own -- especially big business and their wealthy campaign donors -- and at the same time are willing to raise taxes on the poor and the middle class.

Case in point, we have Stephen Fitzgerald, the father of Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald and State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. The elder Fitzgerald, who after losing his election for Dodge County sheriff by a 2-to-1 margin, somehow got appointed as the head of the State Patrol.

And as Rachel noted, in the midst of the potential recall of a number of Wisconsin Senators, there is "another patronage scandal blossoming today."

Senator's girlfriend had help getting job:

Even though the state is supposedly broke, top officials in Gov. Scott Walker's team were able to scrape together enough money to give a state job to the woman identified as Sen. Randy Hopper's girlfriend.

Anything for a political ally.

Valerie Cass, a former Republican legislative staffer, was hired Feb. 7 as a communications specialist with the state Department of Regulation and Licensing. She is being paid $20.35 per hour. The job is considered a temporary post.

Cass previously had worked in the state Senate and for the GOP campaign consulting firm Persuasion Partners in Madison. She also was paid for campaign work for the state Republican Party and U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner before that.

"Ms. Cass' name was among many forwarded to DRL by the Governor's Transition Team as potential candidates for positions with the department," said David Carlson, the agency's spokesman. Read on...

Rachel summed this up rather nicely.

MADDOW: But apart from the awkwardness for the State Senator here, there's also the awkwardness of whether or not Wisconsin state government is so broke because of all those greedy state employees, right? I mean for the Senator already facing the likely prospect of recall, this is not a positive development. But is also really handy as a reminder about the whole nature of this fight in Wisconsin, and why it is resonating nationally.

The Republican justification for the union stripping business in Wisconsin is that it was all about the budget, right? But then something like this comes along and we're all reminded that if it were all about the budget, people hired by the state would not be getting $12,000 raises, whether or not they were State Senators' girlfriends.

She wrapped it up with letting her viewers know about some of Think Progress' Wonk Room reporting on the GOP governors out there and their willingness to raise taxes on the working class while giving their wealthy campaign donors a break -- REPORT: In 12 States, GOP Plans To Slash Corporate Taxes While Increasing Burden on Working Families:

ThinkProgress has been documenting conservative efforts to shift the burden of record budget shortfalls onto middle-class Americans, while simultaneously doling out tax cuts to corporations. While progressive governors have proposed raising revenue from those who can afford it, alongside painful cuts to programs, Republican governors have unveiled budgets that cut taxes for corporations and raise them on the middle-class and working poor. In this report, ThinkProgress evaluates the priorities conservatives have set in twelve states:

NEW JERSEY: Last year, Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) budget raised taxes on the working poor and middle-class by cutting the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit and homestead rebates — yet still found money for lucrative corporate tax cuts. This year, Christie’s budget calls for $200 million in business tax cuts, while cutting mental health services, $540 million from Medicaid, and witholding property tax rebates for seniors until public workers give up many of their health and pension benefits. Many New Jerseyans have said they prefer a tax on millionaires to Christie’s draconian cuts.

MICHIGAN: Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R) budget would make Michigan’s already regressive tax system even more unfair for the state’s poorest residents. The plan cuts taxes on business by more than 86 percent while slashing $1.2 billion in funding for “schools, universities, local governments and other areas.” Snyder also wants to raise personal taxes by 30 percent — an increase that will fall disproportionately on Michigan’s lowest income residents.

GEORGIA: Last week, the Georgia House passed an austerity budget that will increase health insurance costs by more than 20 percent for state workers, teachers and retirees and cut funding for state universities by $75 million. The House has already gutted the state’s HOPE scholarship program, and is now considering implementing a regressive new tax system that would lower income taxes for the rich while raising the sales tax on basic necessities. House Majority Leader Larry O’Neal (R), meanwhile, has introduced a bill that would implement a flat income tax rate and cut corporate taxes by 33 percent.

FLORIDA: At a Tea Party rally last month, Gov. Rick Scott (R) unveiled his budget, telling supporters he would make the state the most “fiscally conservative” in the nation. The budget would slash corporate income and property taxes, lay off 6,700 state employees, cut education funding by $4.8 billion, and cut Medicaid by almost $4 billion.

OHIO: Gov. John Kasich (R) has proposed cutting 25 percent of schools’ budgets, $1 million from food banks, $12 million from children’s hospitals, and $15.9 million from an adoption program for children with special needs. A Kasich staffer revealed yesterday that these cuts are more about politics then budget-balancing, telling the Cincinnati Dispatch that “even if there weren’t an $8 billion deficit, we’d probably be proposing many of the same things.” The plan includes tax cuts for oil companies, a repeal of the estate tax and an income tax cut for the rich that former Gov. Ted Strickland (D) halted last year because of the state’s fiscal crisis.

IOWA: Gov. Tom Branstad (R) began this year proposing a budget that included a $200 million tax cut on commercial property taxes and corporate income but would freeze spending on schools, cut $42 million to state universities and lay off “hundreds” of state workers. Since then, the Governor has already begun laying off state nursing home workers and frozen funding for mental health services. The budget is now moving through the politically divided legislature, where Republican-controlled House committees have gone even further, approving tax refunds for upper-income Iowans while cancelling infrastructure investments, eliminating preschool for 4-year-olds, closing Iowa workforce development offices, and making even deeper cuts to public universities.

PENNSYLVANIA: Gov. Tom Corbett (R) presented a budget last week that would cut taxes for corporations, while freezing teacher salaries, cutting dental care for Medicaid recipients, and eliminating more than half of the state’s universities. Yet the state has lots of revenue potential in northern Pennsylvania, where out-of-state energy companies’ “fracking” of natural gas has reaped them hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. Corbett has refused to tax these companies, many of which helped fund his gubernatorial campaign, and has instead opted to lay of more than 1,500 state workers.

MAINE: Despite calling for “shared sacrifice” Tea Party Gov. Paul LePage’s (R) budget would cut income taxes for Maine’s wealthiest one percent, while actually raising property taxes for the state’s middle class. This so-called “jobs budget” freezes healthcare funding for working parents, cuts money for schools and infrastructure and raises the retirement age for public workers. Yet LePage was still able to find more than $200 million in tax cuts for large estates, business and the rich.

WISCONSIN: The tax cuts Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed earlier this year worsened his state’s fiscal condition, so now Walker is planning to raise taxes on the poor, eliminate $26 million in tax credits for seniors and single mothers and cancel property tax rebates for low-income Wisconsinites making less than $24,000 a year.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has proposed ending the state’s corporate income tax, even while she calls for cutting physical education, K-12 schools, and Medicaid. Haley has received pushback from Republican colleagues: last week the legislature rejected her plan to force state employees to pay more for health insurance.

KANSAS: Facing a $493 million budget shortfall, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has called for eliminating the corporate income tax while proposing a $50 million cut to education. With majorities in both Houses, Republicans have proposed a cut to the federal Earned Income Tax Credit that would push 6,500 families below the poverty line.

ARIZONA: Last October, as she ignored 26 other possible funding solutions, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) implemented painful cuts to the state’s Medicaid program, which resulted in 2 deaths and left 98 Arizonians waiting for transplant funding. After months of protests, Brewer finally agreed to set aside $151 million in an “uncompensated-care pool to pay health-care providers for ‘life-saving’ procedures, including transplants.” However, House Republicans refused to restore funding for organ transplants because, as House Appropriations Committee chair Jon Kavanagh (R) said, “not enough lives would be saved to warrant restoring millions in budget cuts.” Then, while peoples’ lives were in danger, Brewer eagerly signed tax cuts for businesses that will cost the state $538 million.

As they noted, I'm not sure how that's anyone's idea of "shared sacrifice" when the only ones being asked to sacrifice are the working class.

If anyone here is a regular reader of Think Progress' site, and you don't check into the research being done at their sister site, The Wonk Room, you''re missing a whole lot of great information that their site posts daily and that doesn't always get front paged.

Why Does Gas Cost So Much Right Now? Shameless Wall St. Betting on the Price of Oil | | AlterNet

2011-03-22T08:12:00.000-07:00

Why Does Gas Cost So Much Right Now? Shameless Wall St. Betting on the Price of Oil | | AlterNet

How You End Up Bankrolling Fox News: News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch Weasel Out of Paying Taxes | | AlterNet

2011-03-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

How You End Up Bankrolling Fox News: News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch Weasel Out of Paying Taxes | | AlterNet
How You End Up Bankrolling Fox News: News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch Weasel Out of Paying Taxes
When giant, prosperous, multinational corporations get out of their tax obligations, ordinary citizens are the ones who are forced to make up the shortfall.
March 21, 2011 | A few weeks ago video pimp and propagandist, James O’Keefe, released heavily edited and deliberately deceptive video that purported to expose an institutional bias at National Public Radio. It was quickly debunked and denounced as a fraud by analysts across the political spectrum, including those at Glenn Beck’s web site, The Blaze.

Nevertheless, partisans in Congress and agenda-driven conservatives in the press continue to behave as if the video were legitimate. The House of Representatives, on a party-line vote, passed a resolution to defund NPR -- a purely symbolic gesture as the Senate is not likely to concur.

The latest attack comes from former NPR correspondent, and confessed bigot, Juan Williams, in an op-ed for The Hill. After first conceding that “NPR is an important platform for journalism,” Williams joins his conservative comrades in calling for federal defunding of NPR. But he also reveals his self-serving and vengeful motivation by slandering NPR in saying that…

“They’re willing to do anything in service of any liberal with money. This includes firing me and skewing the editorial content of their programming.”

Nowhere in the article did Williams support his contention that “liberal money” was behind either his termination or any of its reporting. This is nothing more than a personal vendetta on Williams’ part. He is merely using the funding debate to strike his own blows against a former employer for whom he obviously bears a deep resentment.

However, if the right wants to introduce the issue of federal funding of the media into the public debate, they should be prepared to see their own Fox gored. Fox News has been the beneficiary of government largess for years and it is time stop it and make Fox pay its own way. As far back as 1999, there have been reports documenting how News Corp, Fox’s parent company, exploited loopholes in tax laws that permitted them to avoid levies that all other citizens have to pay. From The Economist:

“…News Corporation and its subsidiaries paid only A$325m ($238m) in corporate taxes worldwide. In the same period, its consolidated pre-tax profits were A$5.4 billion. So News Corporation has paid an effective tax rate of only around 6%. By comparison, Disney, one of the world’s other media empires, paid 31%. Basic corporate-tax rates in Australia, America and Britain, the three main countries in which News Corporation operates, are 36%, 35% and 30% respectively.”

The article goes on to describe how News Corp used a complex network of accounting dodges including as many as 60 shell companies that were incorporated in such tax havens as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Netherlands Antilles and the British Virgin Islands. More recently, an investigation by the New York Times revealed that…

“By taking advantage of a provision in the law that allows expanding companies like Mr. Murdoch’s to defer taxes to future years, the News Corporation paid no federal taxes in two of the last four years, and in the other two it paid only a fraction of what it otherwise would have owed. During that time, Securities and Exchange Commission records show, the News Corporation’s domestic pretax profits topped $9.4 billion.”

When giant, prosperous, multinational corporations weasel out of their tax obligations, ordinary citizens are the ones who are forced to make up the shortfall. That is effectively a tax subsidy for the corporations funded by you and me and all of the indignant Tea Partiers who claim to oppose special interest favors for the elite.

What’s more, federal bailouts to corporations like General Motors and Citigroup provided them with billions of taxpayer dollars, some of which are eventually spent on advertising that appears on Fox News, in the Wall Street Journal, and other Murdoch assets. Additionally, financial institutions that receive bailout funds use some that money to acquire shares of News Corp and to finance and insure News Corp activities including billion dollar motion picture projects like Avatar and capitalizing mergers and expansions.

USUncut is mounting a campaign to expose this sort of corporate welfare. They should add News Corp/Fox News to their list. But why aren’t there more voices objecting to these handouts? Why aren’t Democrats in Congress drafting legislation to prohibit bailout and stimulus funds from being used to enrich partisan political operations like Fox News by funneling cash into their accounts disguised as advertising expenditures. Every time you see a commercial on the Fox News Channel for a Chevy Tahoe or a Citibank Visa you are watching your tax dollars flow into the pockets of Rupert Murdoch and his wealthy associates.

The right wants to defund NPR despite the fact that they have utterly failed to demonstrate any journalistic bias on the part of NPR. On the other hand, Fox News has been documented to be brazenly one-sided over and over again, yet they receive hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer financed subsidies. The American people should not be forced to bankroll right-wing PR on Fox News.

IRS Would Audit Abortions Under GOP Anti-Choice Bill | AlterNet

2011-03-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

I thought these Republicans were all about small government, keeping the government and the IRS out of our lives, but obviously they only meant a select few elite.

IRS Would Audit Abortions Under GOP Anti-Choice Bill | AlterNet

Class Warfare, the Final Chapter

2011-03-17T07:49:00.000-07:00

Class Warfare, the Final Chapter
From the article;
Wealth is the value of everything you own minus debt.
Disparity of Wealth
In 1933, the wealthiest one percent of the population held 33.3 percent of the wealth. In 1974, the wealthiest one percent held 19.9 percent of the wealth.
In 2007, the wealthiest one percent held 65.4 percent of the wealth.
In 1933, the bottom 90 percent held 66.7 percent of the wealth.
In 1974, the bottom 90 percent held 80.1 percent of the wealth.
In 2007, the bottom 90 percent held 34.6 percent of the wealth.
Federal Tax Rates (after custom-made individual deductions)
1974 Capital gains tax rate: 35 percent
1950 Highest marginal tax rate: 90 percent
2005 Capital gains tax rate: 15 percent
2005 Highest marginal tax rate: 34 percent
Average Real Income Change 1973-2000
Average real income of bottom 90 percent: -7 percent
Average real income of top 1 percent: + 148 percent
Average real income of top 0.1 percent: + 343 percent
[4]

Average Amount of Wealth Held by Persons: 2009 Census
Single Black Women: $100
Single Hispanic Women: $120
All White Men: $43,800
All White Women: $41,500
All Black Men: $7,900
Amount of Wealth Held by Families: 2009 Census
1986 Black Family Wealth: $2,000
2009 Black Family Wealth: $5,000
1986 White Family Wealth: $22,000
2009 White Family Wealth: $100,000
Full-Time Minimum Wage, Adjusted for Inflation
1968: $18,262
2004: $10,712

Daily Kos: We're Going To Destroy A Bank (UDPATED)

2011-03-11T13:58:00.000-08:00

Daily Kos: We're Going To Destroy A Bank (UDPATED)
389 Comments

Ladies and Gentlemen,

M & I Bank of Wisconsin has committed an unpardonable offense. This bank took bailout funds and thanks to the magic of Citizens United our own tax dollars flowed through their executives hands into the coffers of Scott Walker's gubernatorial campaign. We haven't dug deeply yet, but I think when we do we're going to find that we no longer have Russ Feingold's voice in the Senate because of this as well.

The mainstream media isn't covering it, but I'd like to show you a few images of what poetic justice looks like ...

.Click on link for pictures

What these pictures show are six hundred ordinary citizens descending on the M&I branch near the Wisconsin Capitol after learning of their purchase of the gubernatorial election last November. Two firefighters with old school ideas about saving had over $600,000 between the two of them and they demanded cashier's checks on the spot.

Not everyone has the purchase price of a couple of homes sitting in the bank, but if the 60% of Wisconsin that's sick to death of Scott Walker's behavior simply go close their accounts the bank will crash and they'll have stripped him of the funds he needs to fight the recall next January.

A couple of people have the documentation and my money is on @Karoli over at Crooks & Liars getting the job done first. I'll come back and post the first good piece I see. I'm trying to get this out and keep it tidy - look in one of the comments and I'll provide some of the links the researchers sent me, so those inclined to do their own digging can get started.

You know what really chaps my ass here? All week we've been seeing Tea Party trolls saying "It's not fair that public employees take our tax dollars and use them in elections."

According to this other rec list diary Bank that funded Walker, now closed, the specific branch near the Capitol is closed to avoid a run and the amount withdrawn by the firemen was only $192,000. I think that means random citizens pulled another $400,000 out on their own.

Looks like Susie Madrak over at C&L got to them first with Wisconsin Unions Call For Boycott Of Local Bank Over Walker Support, Withdraw Funds

Sen. Ketron: TN should study creating alternative to federal currency

2011-03-09T14:45:00.000-08:00

My goodness. How embarrassing!

Sen. Ketron: TN should study creating alternative to federal currency

Sen. Ketron: TN should study creating alternative to federal currency
Posted on March 1, 2011 by Nate Rau State Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, has filed a senate joint resolution to study whether Tennessee should adopt its own currency in case of a breakdown of the federal reserve system.

The resolution would create a special joint committee to look at the issue.

Ketron’s proposal mirrors efforts to study the issue in states such as South Carolina and Georgia.

This isn’t the first unique proposal from Ketron this session. He has also backed controversial legislation aimed at addressing illegal immigration in Tennessee and at criminalizing the following of Shariah law.

OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: Limbaugh/Hannity Parent Company Admits Hiring Actors to Call Radio Shows

2011-03-08T10:06:00.000-08:00

OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: Limbaugh/Hannity Parent Company Admits Hiring Actors to Call Radio Shows

Scott Brown Begs David Koch For Money

2011-03-08T09:34:00.000-08:00

Scott Brown - Just Another Koch Whore

Ed Schultz: The Economic State of the Middle Class is Tied to Union Membership | Video Cafe

2011-03-05T10:12:00.000-08:00

What do the Chamber of Commerce, BBB, AMA, ABA, and other such groups have in common? They are UNIONS!
Ed Schultz: The Economic State of the Middle Class is Tied to Union Membership Video Cafe

Hmm. Prominent Conservative Radio Hosts Planted Scripted Actors Among Callers | Crooks and Liars

2011-03-05T10:08:00.000-08:00

Hmm. Prominent Conservative Radio Hosts Planted Scripted Actors Among Callers Crooks and Liars
March 04, 2011 04:00 PM
Hmm. Prominent Conservative Radio Hosts Planted Scripted Actors Among Caller
By Susie Madrak
Well, looky here! From the Columbia Journalism Review:

Well, here’s a shocker: Some of the people who phone in to talk radio shows (that caller with the pitch-perfect rant, provocative comment or burning question) may actually be hired actors reading from scripts. I’m not an angry listener, but I play one on radio!

Via Tablet Magazine:

If [the actor] passed the audition, he would be invited periodically to call in to various talk shows and recite various scenarios that made for interesting radio. He would never be identified as an actor, and his scenarios would never be identified as fabricated—which they always were.

“I was surprised that it seemed so open,” the actor told me in an interview. “There was really no pretense of covering it up.”

Curious, the actor did some snooping and learned that Premiere On Call was a service offered by Premiere Radio Networks, the largest syndication company in the United States and a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, the entertainment and advertising giant. Premiere syndicates some of the more sterling names in radio, including Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity. But a great radio show depends as much on great callers as it does on great hosts: Enter Premiere On Call.

“Premiere On Call is our new custom caller service,” read the service’s website, which disappeared as this story was being reported. “We supply voice talent to take/make your on-air calls, improvise your scenes or deliver your scripts. Using our simple online booking tool, specify the kind of voice you need, and we’ll get your the right person fast. Unless you request it, you won’t hear that same voice again for at least two months, ensuring the authenticity of your programming for avid listeners.”

Ensuring the authenticity of your programming… with paid, planted callers.

OpEdNews - Article: The "Budget Crisis" is the Product of a Tax Avoidance Scam By The Very Rich

2011-03-03T14:08:00.000-08:00

OpEdNews - Article: The "Budget Crisis" is the Product of a Tax Avoidance Scam By The Very Rich
The "Budget Crisis" is the Product of a Tax Avoidance Scam By The Very Rich

By Richard Clark (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)
opednews.com

Everywhere you look, from the federal government to the states, to your hometown, "budget crises" abound. Services are being slashed. Politicians and pundits from both parties tell us that the good times are over, that we've got to start living within our means.

But more than anything else the problems we face are the result of a tax-avoidance scam by the very rich that's been going on for nearly 50 years.

As Ted Rall points out in a new article, there are two places that best illustrate the problems we're up against:

■California, where new/old governor Jerry Brown is trying to close a $25 billion shortfall with a combination of draconian cuts in public services and a series of regressive tax increases, and
■Wisconsin, where right-winger Scott Walker says getting rid of unions would eliminate the state's $137 million deficit.

Never mind the economists, most of whom say an economic death spiral (such as we are currently in) is the worst possible time for governments to cut spending: Pro-austerity propaganda has, at least temporarily, won the day with most of the American public. In fact a new Rasmussen poll finds that 58% of likely voters would approve of a shutdown "until Democrats and Republicans can agree on what spending to cut."

But the budget "crisis" is a scam. It's the product of the rightwingnut "starve the beast" (i.e. starve the government) effort that they've been engaged in for 30 years or more. There's actually plenty of money out there--but the pols just don't want to take it from the rich. Why not? Because the rich are their bread and butter. The rich are their primary campaign fund contributors! And as far as the Repugs are concerned, it's much better to break the unions, for they are still a significant source of Democratic fund raising, and may (if not put to death now) come roaring back at some point, much to the disadvantage of Republican candidates all over the country.

Consider this: If we could tax the rich at the same rate they are taxed in northern Europe, there would be no need to lay off a single teacher, close a single library for an extra hour, or raise a single fee by one red cent. Every government could then not only balance its budget, but wind up with a surplus.

And why shouldn't their taxes be increased?! Over the last 50 years, tax rates for the bottom 80% of wage earners have remained almost static. Meanwhile, over that same period of time, the rich have received tax cut after tax cut after tax cut! For example, the tax rate paid by the top 0.01% -- these are people who each currently receive at least $6.5 million a year in income! -- fell by half (from 70 to 35%).

Times are tough. Someone has to pay. So why not start with those who can most afford it because of all the very generous tax cuts they and they alone have received over the past half century?!

Europe has the world's best food, its best healthcare system and a vastly more generous vacation and sick-leave policies than does the US. It also has one of the fairest ways to generate revenue for government: a wealth tax. In Norway, for example, you pay 1% of your net worth in addition to income tax.

So what if we imposed a Norwegian-style wealth tax on the top 1% of US households? And by the way, who are these people, economically? We're not talking upper middle class here. We're talking way above that: the "poorest' among them is worth a $8.3 million. This top 1% owns 38% of all assets in the United States. (The top 10% own 71% of all US assets.)

"Such a wealth tax on just the top 1% would raise $191 billion each year, a significant attack on the deficit," Leon Friedman writes in The Nation. "If we extended this 1% wealth tax to the top 5% of income receivers, we could raise $338.5 billion a year."

But that's just the beginning: Wealthy individuals are nothing compared to America's money-sucking corporations. More at the link above

The Fluoride Deception exposes the truth about water fluoridation and th...

2011-03-01T12:06:00.000-08:00

Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels Suggests Health Care Rationing | Crooks and Liars

2011-03-01T11:40:00.000-08:00

Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels Suggests Health Care Rationing Crooks and Liars
Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels Suggests Health Care Rationing
By Nicole Belle

Consistency and those niggling little details are the bugaboos to the conservative ideology. It's easy to say that you want to privatize Social Security for future recipients, but that leaves the very real budget problem of knowing how to pay for current recipients, doesn't it? Where does that money come from? And if you allow those 20 year olds to take those FICA taxes to some private, non-government backed entity, what exactly happens if at 70 years old, their 401ks (or whatever vehicle is chosen) are worthless because the financial institutions have failed, like they did just over two years ago? Do you tell those 70 year olds, "Gee, that's a shame, but thems the breaks?"

Likewise, when you're dealing with Medicare, it's very easy to say that it's more efficient to offer vouchers to recipients...but then those niggling details crop up. For as much as Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels likens Medicare to a top down monstrosity, the reality is that Medicare is a non-profit enterprise. Unlike private insurance companies, whose sole purpose is to spend as little money on your medical costs as possible so as to offer a bigger profit to their executives and shareholders. So what happens when you need expensive care? For Daniels, maybe there needs to be a conversation about how your life just isn't worth the cash required. But who is in charge of making that decision, Mitch?

Daniels says that it should be up to the patient, but that isn't the way it would work. How many health insurance companies let their customers decide the care they want? So we come back to the absolutely unacceptable notion of rationing health care, based on what? Your income/socio-economic level? Your age? Even the statistical analysis of outcomes or underwriting depersonalizes and dehumanizes people in need of treatment. How would you feel if these companies told you your life isn't worth the expense?

WALLACE: You talked about Medicare 2.0, private vouchers, not a government program?

DANIELS: It will be a government program, but instead of a top- down monstrosity that we have today, once again I would divide the program and say to those who are in it or who are about to be in it, nothing will change for you.

But I think for the young people coming up who are going to shoulder the bill, we ought to trust them to make more of their own decisions. You could, again, concentrate the resources on the poorest people, and also in this case the least healthy people, people who are better off --

WALLACE: But you'd give them a private voucher so they could choose their own insurance plan?

DANIELS: I would.

WALLACE: You even say the government should put limits on end- of-life care. Are you talking about what Sarah Palin called the death panels?

DANIELS: No, I didn't say government should put limits on this, but what I'm worried about is the government making these decisions. I just stated what I think is a simple fact. I wish it wasn't, but I think it is. We cannot afford in an aging society to pay for the most expensive technology every -- for every single person regardless of income to the very, very last day.

WALLACE: Who makes that decision?

DANIELS: I think it has -- at least a part of it has to be the family and the patient himself or herself. I mean there --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Does the government at some point say we can't afford to give the 92-year-old the liver transplant?

DANIELS: Chris, I've told you, I think with some specificity, what I think ought to happen in Social Security and Medicare. I just answered the question honestly. I think this problem will have to be addressed. I don't pretend to have an exact answer to this one, except that autopilot won't work.

And surprisingly, it's Chris Wallace who points this out to Daniels, who, realizing he's been caught in the very details that make his plan unworkable, just refuses to respond any more.

WALLACE: ...And at the CPAC conference two weeks ago, you talked about the greatest threat facing this country. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIELS: We face an enemy lethal (inaudible) and even more implacable than those America has defeated before. I refer, of course, to the debt our nation has amassed for itself over decades of indulgences. It is the new red menace, this time consisting of ink.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: I want to do a lightning round because we have limited time. Quick questions, quick answers. What would you do about Social Security?

DANIELS: I would bifurcate it. I would say those in the program or approaching it, a deal is a deal, you're good to go, nothing changes. For the young people who are paying for today's retirees and tomorrow's, we want you to have something when you retire. We will need a brand new compact. I think it starts with means testing, which is to say we shouldn't send a pension check to Donald Trump. We should concentrate the resources on those who are going to need them the most.

I think we should in the future raise the retirement age to catch up to the medical reality of our time. I think we should protect the benefits against inflation, but not overprotect them.
Chris, as I said many times in the past, that is my cut at it. If somebody has another route that gets us with assurance to the same results, I would like to hear it, because I just want to see a solution to this before it destroys the America we know.

WALLACE: You talked about Medicare 2.0, private vouchers, not a government program?

DANIELS: It will be a government program, but instead of a top- down monstrosity that we have today, once again I would divide the program and say to those who are in it or who are about to be in it, nothing will change for you.

But I think for the young people coming up who are going to shoulder the bill, we ought to trust them to make more of their own decisions. You could, again, concentrate the resources on the poorest people, and also in this case the least healthy people, people who are better off --

WALLACE: But you'd give them a private voucher so they could choose their own insurance plan?

DANIELS: I would.

WALLACE: You even say the government should put limits on end- of-life care. Are you talking about what Sarah Palin called the death panels?

DANIELS: No, I didn't say government should put limits on this, but what I'm worried about is the government making these decisions. I just stated what I think is a simple fact. I wish it wasn't, but I think it is. We cannot afford in an aging society to pay for the most expensive technology every -- for every single person regardless of income to the very, very last day.

WALLACE: Who makes that decision?

DANIELS: I think it has -- at least a part of it has to be the family and the patient himself or herself. I mean there --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Does the government at some point say we can't afford to give the 92-year-old the liver transplant?

DANIELS: Chris, I've told you, I think with some specificity, what I think ought to happen in Social Security and Medicare. I just answered the question honestly. I think this problem will have to be addressed. I don't pretend to have an exact answer to this one, except that autopilot won't work.

GOP War on Women: If You Have Sex, Republicans Want to Pry In Your Private Parts | | AlterNet

2011-03-01T07:41:00.000-08:00

GOP War on Women: If You Have Sex, Republicans Want to Pry In Your Private Parts | | AlterNet
"The bill, which is a variation of Rep. Bobby Franklin’s annual attempt to pass a law banning abortion, grabs attention by distilling so perfectly the panties-sniffing sensibilities of the anti-choice movement. In Franklin’s perfect world, every woman who miscarries or even menstruates forsakes her right not to have law enforcement digging through her private business, just looking for an excuse to throw her in jail. Luckily, Franklin’s miscarriage bill has little chance of passing, but many other state legislatures are considering viable bills that echo the same belief that women forsake the right to basic privacy the second they make the choice to have sex."

Koch Whore: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker

2011-02-23T10:13:00.000-08:00

Scott Walker takes call from reporter pretending to be David Koch and colludes to bust unions.

OpEdNews - Article: Common Sense

2011-02-23T08:06:00.000-08:00

OpEdNews - Article: Common Sense

Common Sense
By Kathy Malloy (about the author) Page 1 of 1 page(s)

There's a lesson to be learned, Truthseekers, from our former countrymen in Great Britain. The media here isn't covering this, for obvious reasons, but England is experiencing a very different kind of Tea Party uprising and we would do well to take notice.

Unlike the bizarro backward movement here, where otherwise normal Americans are taking to the streets to protest policies that would further cut their wages, benefits, health care coverage, and public services they rely upon, in England the protests are against (gasp!) the corporations and pro-corporate government policies that are ravaging their economy.

Now, doesn't it make more sense to speak out against tax-evading Big Corporations who have created the recession than attack the very progressive policies that attempt to improve our standard of living?

Johann Hari thinks so, and that is the topic of his very thoughtful, very important article How to Build a Progressive Tea Party, which appears in the current issue of The Nation magazine. Please read it. In light of President's Day, Thomas Paine couldn't have said it better himself.

A People’s History of Koch Industries: How Stalin Funded the Tea Party Movement - By Yasha Levine - The eXiled

2011-02-23T06:22:00.000-08:00

A People’s History of Koch Industries: How Stalin Funded the Tea Party Movement - By Yasha Levine - The eXiled
April 17, 2010
A People’s History of Koch Industries: How Stalin Funded the Tea Party Movement
By Yasha Levine
This article was first published on Alternet.org

“I would rather live under a bridge than live under socialism”

—tea bagger slogan

Everyone knows that Tea Party revolutionaries fear and hate socialism about as much as the Antichrist. Which is funny, because the Tea Party movement’s dirty little secret is that it owes its existence to the grandaddy of all Antichrists: the godless empire of the USSR.

What few realize is that the secretive oil billionaires of the Koch family, the main supporters of the right-wing groups that orchestrated the Tea Party movement, would not have the means to bankroll their favorite causes had it not been for the pile of money the family made working for the Bolsheviks in the late 1920s and early 1930s, building refineries, training Communist engineers and laying down the foundation of Soviet oil infrastructure.
The comrades were good to the Kochs. Today Koch Industries has grown into the second-largest private company in America. With an annual revenue of $100 billion, the company was just $6.3 billion shy of first place in 2008. Ownership is kept strictly in the family, with the company being split roughly between right-wing brothers Charles and David Koch, who are worth about $20 billion apiece and are infamous as the largest sponsors of right-wing causes. They bankroll scores of free-market and libertarian think tanks, institutes and advocacy groups. Reason magazine, Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute are just a few of Koch-backed free-market operations. Greenpeace estimates that the Koch family shelled out $25 million from 2005 to 2008 funding the “climate denial machine,” which means they outspent Exxon Mobile three to one.
I first learned about the Kochs in February 2009, when Mark Ames and I were looking into the strange origins of the then-nascent Tea Party movement. Our investigation led us again and again to a handful of right-wing organizations and think tanks directly tied to the Kochs. We were the first to connect the dots and debunk the Tea Party movement’s “grassroots” front, exposing it as billionaire-backed astroturf campaign run by free-market advocacy groups FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity, both of which are closely linked to the Koch brothers.
But the Tea Party movement—and Koch family’s obscene wealth—go back more than half a century, all the way to grandpa Fredrick C. Koch, one of the founding members of the far-rightwing John Birch Society which was convinced that evil socialism was taking over America through unions, colored people, Jews, homosexuals, the Kennedys and even Dwight D. Eisenhower.

These days, the Kochs paint themselves as true-believer Libertarians of the Austrian School. Charles Koch, the elder brother who runs the family business in Wichita, Kansas, quotes the wisdom of proto-libertarian “economist” Ludwig von Mises, but also sees himself as a thinker in his own right. In 2007, Charles made his contribution to the body of free-market thought with an economic theory he calls Market-Based Management® (trademark protected, of course), which he lays out in a book titled the Science of Success. A Forbes reviewer seemed a bit disturbed by Charles’ overt socialist leanings, writing that the “author professes an almost Marxist faith in the ‘fixed laws’ that ‘govern human well-being.’”

David Koch is the highbrow brother who lives in New York. He ran as the Libertarian party candidate for president in 1980 and says that his dream is to “minimize the role of government, to maximize the role of private economy and to maximize personal freedoms.” Apparently everyone’s a free-market enthusiast at Koch Industries, including their spokeswoman, who recently wrote a letter to the New York Times stating that “it’s a historical fact that economic freedom best fosters innovation, environmental protection and improved quality of life in a society.” It might be true somewhere for someone, but not for the Kochs—they owe it all to socialism and totalitarianism.

Here is a better historical fact, one that the Kochs don’t like to repeat in public: the family’s initial wealth was not created by the harsh, creative forces of unfettered capitalism, but by the grace of the centrally-planned economy of the Soviet Union. This deserves repeating: The Koch family, America’s biggest pushers of the free-market Tea Party revolution, would not be the billionaires they are today were it not for the whim of one of Stalin’s comrades.

The story of how the Koch family amassed its socialist wealth starts at the turn of the 20th century with the birth of Fredrick C. Koch. Fred was born in a tiny town in north Texas town to a Dutch immigrant and newspaper publisher. The historical record is not clear about the family’s wealth, but it appears that great-granddaddy Koch was not hurting for cash, because Fred Koch turned out to be a smart kid and was able to study at MIT and graduate with chemical engineering degree. A few years later, in 1925, Fred started up the Winkler-Koch Engineering Company with a former classmate, quickly developing and patenting a novel process to refine gasoline from crude oil that had a highe-yield than anything on the market. It was shaping up to be an American success story, where anything was possible with a bit of elbow grease and good ol’ ingenuity.

The sky was the limit—until the free market rained on Fred’s parade.

See, Fred was living through the Roaring Twenties, a time of big business, heavy speculation and zero government regulation. Much like today, cartels were free to form and free to fix—and so they did. Sensing a threat to their royalty-revenue stream from Winkler-Koch’s superior refining technology, the reigning oil cartel moved in to teach the young Koch how the laissez-faire business model worked in the real world.

“[W]hen he tried to market his invention, the major oil companies sued him for patent infringement. Koch eventually won the lawsuits (after 15 years in court), but the controversy made it tough to attract many US customers,” according to Hoover’s Company Records service. Just like that, Winkler-Koch Engineering found itself squeezed out of the American market. They had a superior product at a cheaper price, but no one to sell it to.

Luckily, there was one market where opportunity beckoned—and innovation was rewarded: the Soviet Union.

Stalin’s first Five Year Plan was just kicking into action a nation-wide industrialization effort, and the Soviet planners needed smart, industrious college grads like Fred Koch. The Soviet Union was desperately trying to increase its oil refining capacity, so oil engineers were especially in high demand—and well paid, too.

“We are the world’s greatest market, and we are prepared to order a large amount of goods and pay for them,” Joseph Stalin told an American journalist in 1932. Stalin wasn’t kidding. From 1926 to 1929, the Soviet oil industry bought $20 million worth of equipment from America. And Koch was about to get in on the action.

In 1929, after hosting a delegation of Soviet planners in Wichita, Kansas, Winkler and Koch signed a $5 million contract to build 15 refineries in the Soviet Union. According to Oil of Russia, a Russian oil industry trade magazine, the deal made Winkler–Koch into Comrade Stalin’s Number One refinery builder. It provided equipment and oversaw construction:

The first Winkler–Koch plants were set up in Tuapse in 1930. The cracking unit operated commendably, and would in the future be the type preferred by the heads of the Soviet Union’s petroleum industry when purchasing new cracking equipment.

In 1931, two Winkler–Koch cracking units were launched in Baku, another two in Batumi, and six at once in Grozny; the last had a combined refining capacity of 900,000 tons per year. In 1932, a Winkler–Koch unit commenced operations in Yaroslavl.

At the time, the Soviet Union’s oil industry was a total mess. Equipment built by Western engineering firms was always breaking down or didn’t work at all. Western engineers were constantly being accused of espionage or sabotage, real or imagined, and booted out of the country. Soviet workers suspected of colluding with the foreigners were simply taken out back and shot. Winkler-Koch made sure they were running a tight, effective operation. Unlike their Western competitors, Koch pleased his Soviet clients by ensuring top quality and helping the cause of socialism.

Koch lived up to the slogan: “Work hard enough for Comrade Stalin to thank you!”

The Soviet oil planners were delighted with Koch’s refineries, which “operated commendably, and would in the future be the type preferred by the heads of the Soviet Union’s petroleum industry when purchasing new cracking equipment.” The Communists were so impressed they kept giving Winkler-Koch business and regularly sent Soviet engineers to train in Wichita. It was a sign of growing mutual trust.

By the time he got out in 1933, Koch earned $500,000, which was a ton of money for a kid fresh out of college. This nut of money served as the foundation for the family’s future wealth, which Koch no doubt started acquiring at rock-bottom prices. After all, 1933 was one of the two worst years of the Great Depression—all assets were priced to go at 90% off. In the end, the capitalist-hating socialists ended up treating Koch fairly, way better than the monopolistic thrashing he got from his native land. So you’d think he’d at least something good to say about the Soviet Union when he got home?

Nope, not at all. He hated the Commies real bad. But for some reason he kept it to himself until the late 1950s (possibly because he was still doing work for the Soviet Union). Then, after coming back from a trip to the Soviet Union in 1956, he flies off the handle. According to a 1956 AP article, Fred Koch was among eleven prominent residents of Wichita, Kansas, “left for Moscow by plane today in an effort to convince the Russian people that Soviet propaganda about capitalists is untrue.” Sounds like the perfect cover for a business trip.

It’s not clear what he was actually doing there. But whatever the outcome—maybe he didn’t get the contract he was expecting or maybe he got swindled out of some investment or maybe he plain ol’ hated the thaw of post-Stalin Russia—Fred Koch came back a pissed-off anti-Communist freak and joined up with the right-wing Bircher freak show. He bankrolled a John Birch Society chapter in Wichita and attempted to open a Bircher bookstore, which wasn’t too popular and had to close.

He warned of a massive Communist conspiracy to take control of America, saying that the Reds were eroding American universities, churches, political parties, the media and every branch of government. “Maybe you don’t want to be controversial by getting mixed up in this anti-communist battle,” Koch said in a speech to a Women’s Republican Club in 1961. “But you won’t be very controversial lying in a ditch with a bullet in your brain.” Strong words for a strong Stalin Queen—must’ve rocked the stockings off the Bircher groupies.

In 1961, Koch published a pamphlet called “A Businessman Looks At Communism,” in which he recounted his travels with a “hardcore Communist” named Jerome Livshitz. It was from him Fred Koch had first learned about the commie conspiracy to take over America:

The government detailed a little man by the name of Jerome Livshltz to go around to our various installations with me. Livshitz had taken part in the revolution of 1905, and had spent twelve years in the U.S.A. as a revolutionary, most of the time in jails….

In the months I traveled with him he gave me a liberal education in Communist techniques and methods. He told me how the Communists were going to infiltrate the U.S.A. in the schools, universities, armed forces and to use his words, “Make you rotten to the core.” I believe that due to his American experience he was one of the original architects of the Communist plan of subversion of the U.S.A.

My associate and I pulled him from under an overturned car in Tiflis, and he was amazed. “Why did you save my life?” he said. “We are enemies. I would not have saved you. Perhaps when the turn there, I will spare your lives.” He told me that if his own mother stood in the way of the revolution he would strangle her with his bare hands. This is the mark of a hard-core Communist. They will do anything—anything.

Fred Koch’s paranoia continued to spiral out of control until his thumper quit in 1967. But by that time his son, Charles G. Koch, had already taken over control of the family business. He appropriated his father’s Communist paranoia and made it the basis for the family’s free-market business philosophy.

“Once, my father ran a business in the ex-Soviet Union, and all engineers who worked with my father were imprisoned by Stalin later. My father, who had experienced this, became an anti-communist and thought the value of economical freedom and prosperity was more important than ever before,” Charles said during an interview with a Korean newspaper in 2008, leaving out the part how evil socialist cash is the foundation of the Koch family’s wealth.

Once he took over, it was clear that Charles had big plans for Koch Industries. He was going to push the limits of corporate growth by plowing 90% of the company’s profits back into till and diversifying to the max. It worked. The company expanded at an unreal rate: its revenues increased from $100 million in 1966 to $100 billion in 2008—that’s 1,000-fold growth!

Today, it operates thousands of miles of pipelines in the United States, refines 800,000 barrels of crude oil daily, it buys and sells the most asphalt in the nation, is among the top ten cattle producers, and is among the 50 largest landowners. Koch Industries also plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into right-wing organizations like Institute for Humane Studies, the Cato Institute, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Bill of Rights Institute, the Reason Foundation, Citizens for a Sound Economy and the Federalist Society—all of them promoting the usual billionaire-friendly ideas of the free market, deregulation and smaller government.

If that expansion looks too fast to be legit, that’s because it was.

William Koch, the third brother who had a falling-out with Charles and David back in the ’80s over Charles’ sociopathic management style, appeared on “60 Minutes” in November 2000 to tell the world that Koch Industries was a criminal enterprise: “It was – was my family company. I was out of it,” he says. “But that’s what appalled me so much… I did not want my family, my legacy, my father’s legacy to be based upon organized crime.”

Charles Koch’s racket was very simple, explained William. With its extensive oil pipe network, Koch Industries’ role as an oil middleman–it buys crude from someone’s well and sells it to a refinery–makes it easy to steal millions of dollars worth of oil by skimming just a little off the top of each transaction, or what they call “cheating measurements” in the oil trade. According to William, wells located on federal and Native American lands were the prime targets of the Koch scam.

“What Koch was doing was taking all these measurements and then falsifying them on the run sheets,” said Bill Koch. “If the dipstick measured five feet 10 inches and one half inch, they would write down five feet nine and one half inches.”

That may not sound like much, but Bill Koch said it added up. “Well, that was the beauty of the scheme. Because if they’re buying oil from 50,000 different people, and they’re stealing two barrels from each person. What does that add up to? One year, their data showed they stole a million and a half barrels of oil.”

In 1999, William decided to take his brothers down. He sued Koch Industries in civil court under the False Claims Act, which allows whistleblowers to file suit on behalf of the federal government. William Koch accused the company of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in oil from federal lands.

The band of brothers settled the case two years later, with Charles agreeing to pay $25 million in penalties to the federal government to have the suit dismissed. It turned out to be a great deal for Charles and David, considering that in the 1980s their “adjustments” allowed Koch Industries to siphon off 300 million gallons of oil without paying. It was pure profit–free money–to the tune of $230 million.

At the trial, 50 former Koch gaugers testified against the company, some in video depositions. They said employees even had a term for cheating on the measurements.

“We in the company referred to it as the Koch Method because it was a system for cheating the producer out of oil,” said one of the gaugers, Mark Wilson.

Ah, finally! We’ve stumbled upon the secret to the family’s success! At the bottom of it all, the Koch Method that funds all the libertarians is nothing but good old-fashioned plunder. Or, as Koch hero Ludwig von Mises might say, “The Koch Method is just an unceasing sequence of single scams.”

Yasha Levine is a mobile home inhabitin’ editor of The eXiled. He is currently stationed in Victorville, CA. You can reach him at levine [at] exiledonline.com.

Further reading

1. The investigation that broke the Tea Party movement wide open: “Exposing the Rightwing PR Machine: Is CNBC’s Rick Santelli Sucking Koch”

2. CNBC Bitch-Slaps Santelli Into Line, FreedomWorks Admits It Organized “Grassroots” Tea Parties, Jon Stewart Cancels Santelli & Megan McArdle Queefs On Our Founding Fathers

3. How FreedomWorks Gave Teabaggers a Dirty Sanchez

4. AstroTurf Revolution Dispatch: Activists Teabag Media

In Budget Bill, Wisconsin Gov. Walker Pushing for No-Bid Sales of State-Owned Power Plants | FDL News Desk

2011-02-22T06:38:00.000-08:00

The fight in Wisconsin is over Governor Walker’s 144-page Budget Repair Bill. The parts everyone is focusing on have to do with the right to collectively bargain being stripped from public sector unions (except for the unions that supported Walker running for Governor). Focusing on this misses a large part of what the bill would do. Check out this language, from the same bill (my bold):

16.896 Sale or contractual operation of state−owned heating, cooling, and power plants. (1) Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state−owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).

As Mike Konczal explains, this would allow the state to make no-bid sales, overriding public interest concerns, of heating, cooling or power plants. This rider is just an invitation to corruption, and part of a familiar pattern of selling off state-owned property to fill a budget gap in the short term, with disastrous consequences in the long term. See the sale of Chicago’s parking meters. Hat tip to Ed from Ginandtacos on this one, who writes:

"If this isn’t the best summary of the goals of modern conservatism, I don’t know what is. It’s like a highlight reel of all of the tomahawk dunks of neo-Gilded Age corporatism: privatization, no-bid contracts, deregulation, and naked cronyism. Extra bonus points for the explicit effort to legally redefine the term “public interest” as “whatever the energy industry lobbyists we appoint to these unelected bureaucratic positions say it is.”

He rightly connects the Koch Brothers, who have been active in purchasing power plants and who basically funded Scott Walker’s gubernatorial run, to this rider. This is corporate cronyism of the worst order.

We can get into minutiae about the pay of state employees or percentages of pension fund liabilities over time. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that this is a naked power grab to fatten the coffers of corporate benefactors, in addition to busting the only worker-led counterbalance to that inevitability.

In Budget Bill, Wisconsin Gov. Walker Pushing for No-Bid Sales of State-Owned Power Plants | FDL News Desk

OpEdNews - Article: How Angry Are You? Time To Channel and Say It Smartly

2011-02-20T09:21:00.000-08:00

OpEdNews - Article: How Angry Are You? Time To Channel and Say It Smartly

OpEdNews - Article: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Thugs Used 'Terror Tools' for Disinfo Scheme Targeting Me, My Family, and Other Progressives

2011-02-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

Really chilly, scary, stuff!

OpEdNews - Article: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Thugs Used 'Terror Tools' for Disinfo Scheme Targeting Me, My Family, and Other Progressives
In addition to Barr's email offering personal information on me and my family, the H&W scheme by Team Themis, created for the U.S. Chamber, also included a Power Point presentation in which I am personally highlighted, with photograph, along with my wife "Martha" and "2 boys, James and John Friedman" at our "home at 1055 Raywood Ln, Silver Springs, MD."

"Of course, I'm not married and have no children and don't live in MD, but these are the huge private firms receiving millions, if not billions, in U.S. tax-payer dollars to target terrorists, after all, so why let such details like accuracy, or targeting innocent people, or citizens and journalists exercising their right to free speech get in the way of a potential $2 million dollar per month contract from the U.S. Chamber get in the way? The Chamber, of course, is also funded by the world's largest corporations who receive billions in tax-payer bailout dollars and subsidies from the U.S. Government. Can you feel the synergy? Team Themis certainly did...
Much more, scary details at the link...

Health Authorities Want Depression-Causing Drugs Added To Water Supply | Health Freedom Alliance

2011-02-16T09:04:00.000-08:00

"Only last week, George Lundberg, MD, the editor of MedPageToday, which is a mouthpiece for the American Medical Association, wrote an op-ed entitled, Should We Put Statins in the Water Supply?

In May 2008, renowned cardiologist Professor Mahendra Varma called for statins to be artificially added to drinking water.

Putting statins in the water supply was also considered during a November 2008 discussionwhich featured Robert Bonow, M.D., of Northwestern University in Chicago, Gordon F. Tomaselli, M.D., of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and Anthony De Maria, M.D., of the University of California at San Diego.

Also in November 2008, CNBC aired a segment lauding the effectiveness of statins, after which one of the hosts remarked, “Why don’t they just put statins in the water supply,” to which CNBC’s medical expert replied, “A lot of people have said that and they are in the water in fact.”

Health Authorities Want Depression-Causing Drugs Added To Water Supply Health Freedom Alliance
Health Authorities Want Depression-Causing Drugs Added To Water Supply
Submitted by Annie White on February 15, 2011

As if flouride and hexavalent chromium in public water supplies aren’t bad enough, health authorities are now pushing for the addition of drug statins as well. Drug companies claim that statins will lower cholesterol and prevent heart attacks and strokes, but researchers have proven that the drugs only benefit a quarter of people taking them. There are some very troubling side-effects, especially if there is no history of heart problems.

A new study by the Cochrane Library is highlighted in the following article. Their review of statin trials found symptoms of “short-term memory loss, depression and mood swings,” that were purposely minimized by the drug companies funding the research. Statins have also been linked to a greater risk of liver dysfunction, acute kidney failure, cataracts and muscle damage.

The pharmaceutical companies’ powers are overflowing; we can actually see their influence trickling into federal health administration, down into municipalities, and flushing into our local water treatment centers

Health authorities are pushing for drugs to be added to public water supplies that cause depression and memory loss, as a new study shows that the dangers of statins have been deliberately underplayed by drug companies, in a chilling throwback to how the population in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World were mass medicated with Soma to keep them docile and easy to control.

Statins are taken by tens of millions of people worldwide, a boon for drug companies like Merck, whose chief executive Henry Gadsden back in 1975 dreamed of being able to sell a drug to people who had no immediately identifiable illness, or as Mike Adams writes, “They needed a way to sell drugs to healthy people.” Statins were born and the financial windfall for Big Pharma quickly followed.

Drug companies claim that statins have been proven to lower cholesterol and help prevent heart disease and strokes, leading many health experts to insist that they be artificially added to public water supplies, but dangerous side-effects buried by drug companies conducting statin trials have now come to light, in addition to the fact that “for three quarters of those taking them, they offer little or no value.”

A new study published in the Cochrane Library, which reviews drug trials, examined data from 14 drugs trials involving 34,000 patients and found evidence of “short-term memory loss, depression and mood swings,” that had been deliberately underplayed by the drug companies funding the research.

The researchers warn that, “Statins should only be prescribed to those with heart disease, or who have suffered the condition in the past. Researchers warn that unless a patient is at high risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke, statins may cause more harm than good.”

However, despite the fact that statins have also been linked to a greater risk of liver dysfunction, acute kidney failure, cataracts and muscle damage, health authorities have been pushing for the drug to be added to public water supplies as part of a mass medication program that is not only illegal without consent, but also threatens a plethora of unknown consequences.

Only last week, George Lundberg, MD, the editor of MedPageToday, which is a mouthpiece for the American Medical Association, wrote an op-ed entitled, Should We Put Statins in the Water Supply?

In May 2008, renowned cardiologist Professor Mahendra Varma called for statins to be artificially added to drinking water.

Putting statins in the water supply was also considered during a November 2008 discussionwhich featured Robert Bonow, M.D., of Northwestern University in Chicago, Gordon F. Tomaselli, M.D., of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and Anthony De Maria, M.D., of the University of California at San Diego.

Also in November 2008, CNBC aired a segment lauding the effectiveness of statins, after which one of the hosts remarked, “Why don’t they just put statins in the water supply,” to which CNBC’s medical expert replied, “A lot of people have said that and they are in the water in fact.”

The idea of adding drugs to the water supply to biochemically manipulate the thoughts and emotions of populations has gone from the realm of science fiction in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where people were mass medicated with Soma to keep them docile and easy to control, to an imminent reality.

Indeed, during a March 20, 1962 Berkeley University speech, Huxley spoke of how humans would be made to “love their servitude” via the state-sponsored introduction of mind-altering drugs.

“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution,” said Huxley.

In a 2008 paper titled, “Fluoride and the Future: Population Level Cognitive Enhancement,” Oxford professor Julian Savulescu explored how populations of the future could be mass-medicated through pharmacological “cognitive enhancements” added to the water supply.

In December 2009, we reported on how Japanese health authorities were considering adding trace amounts of lithium to public water supplies as a “mood stabilizer” in a bid to lower the suicide rate. Fox News medical expert Dr. Archelle Georgiou gave the concept tacit approval when she labeled the study an “interesting concept” and refused to even mention the moral aspects of mass drugging people against their will.

In his 1977 book Ecoscience, current White House science czar John P. Holdren also advocated adding sterilant drugs to the water supply as part of a program of “involuntary fertility control”.

Of course, a huge number of Americans are already being mass medicated against their will, from which one of a myriad of debilitating health effects includes lowered IQ and increased docility. Indeed, as Joseph Borkin documented in his book The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben, the first occurrence of artificially fluoridated drinking water on Earth was found in Germany’s Nazi prison camps. The Nazis explained that the reason for mass-medicating water with sodium fluoride was to sterilize women and coerce the victims of their concentration camps into calm submission.

By: Paul Joseph Watson

http://www.infowars.com/health-authorities-want-depression-causing-drugs-added-to-water-supply/

An Interview With a Target of the FBI's Anonymous Probe

2011-02-12T07:54:00.000-08:00

The agent in charge of my particular warrant actually asked me if I owned a Guy Fawkes mask. I told him no and then asked him if he was disappointed that he wouldn't have a picture of "a real live Anon's mask" to hang in his office. He actually said yes.
An Interview With a Target of the FBI's Anonymous Probe
— The feds are taking Operation Payback seriously: In response to the Anonymous attacks on Paypal, Mastercard, Amazon, and other corporations that severed ties to Wikileaks in the wake of Cablegate, the FBI has served more than 40 search warrants and subpoenas as part of an ongoing grand jury investigation into the attacks based in San Jose, Calif. We spoke to one target of the investigation, a 19-year-old woman who lives on the West Coast, anonymously about the FBI raid on her home, her participation in the movement, and the FBI's fundamental cluelessness about the nature of Anonymous.
More at link

US Chamber's Lobbyists Has Firm To Investigate Opponents' Families, Children | | AlterNet

2011-02-12T07:40:00.000-08:00

US Chamber's Lobbyists Has Firm To Investigate Opponents' Families, Children | | AlterNet

Think Progress / By Scott Keyes
US Chamber's Lobbyists Has Firm To Investigate Opponents' Families, Children
New emails reveal that the private spy company investigated the families and children of the Chamber's political opponents.
February 12, 2011 |
Earlier today, ThinkProgress published an exclusive report that the law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a right-wing trade association representing big business, is working with set of “private security” companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress. According to e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber hired the lobbying firm Hunton and Williams. Attorneys for the firm solicited a set of private security firms — HB Gary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies (collectively called Team Themis) — to develop a sabotage campaign against progressive groups and labor unions, including ThinkProgress, the labor coalition Change to Win, SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com.

New emails reveal that the private spy company investigated the families and children of the Chamber’s political opponents. The apparent spearhead of this project was Aaron Barr, an executive at HB Gary. Barr circulated numerous emails and documents detailing information about political opponents’ children, spouses, and personal lives.

One of the targets was Mike Gehrke, a former staffer with Change to Win. Among the information circulated about Gehrke was the specific “Jewish church” he attended and a link to pictures of his wife and two children (sensitive information was redacted by ThinkProgress):

Another target was Brad Friedman, co-founder of The Brad Blog. Barr’s profile of Freidman included information about his life partner and his home address (sensitive information redacted by ThinkProgress): (Brad's site was hacked and down for a whole day)

This tactic of targeting opponents’ personal lives and family was not simply a random event. Rather, it was a concerted and deliberate effort to use anything possible to smear the Chamber’s political opponents. To dramatize his firm’s intimidation tactics, Barr sent an email to Hunton & Williams attorney John Woods that contained personal details about fellow Hunton attorney Richard Wyatt, who was representing the Chamber. The email was intended to show Woods and Wyatt how “vulnerable” they are:

More at link

We risk our lives to save yours. Support your Fire Fighters and Paramedics.

2011-02-11T08:04:00.000-08:00

Republicans think they should be able to steal the firemen's pensions. I'd like to see Beck or Stossel go into a fire.

ThinkProgress » CHAMBERLEAKS: US Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Firm To Investigate Opponents’ Families, Children

2011-02-11T07:56:00.000-08:00

They have target bradblog.com and published his address and phone number. They have hacked and shut down his web site. They don't want truth to be published. The US Chamber of Commerce is one of the most ANTI-American organizations there is. They even give seminars on how to outsource!
ThinkProgress » CHAMBERLEAKS: US Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Firm To Investigate Opponents’ Families, Children

Dept. of Better Late Than Never? New York Fed Realizes Crappy Bankruptcy Bill Made Mortgage Crisis Worse | Crooks and Liars

2011-02-11T07:39:00.000-08:00

Hey, I've been saying this for years! Common sense! When interest rates rise, that means not only that people have less to spend on things like food and utilities, but that it's harder to make the payments! Now, with the bill, crafted by Bank of America, (as reported by the book, Maxed Out) set so that debt to these banks comes before even child support. AND, actually settling the debt is a lot harder.
These banks seem to have deliberaately caused a financial crisis. Remember when Bush was pushing to privatize Social Security? Maybe these banks wanted to get their hands on that money to hide their bad investments. Just sayin...
Dept. of Better Late Than Never? New York Fed Realizes Crappy Bankruptcy Bill Made Mortgage Crisis Worse Crooks and Liars

Dept. of Better Late Than Never? New York Fed Realizes Crappy Bankruptcy Bill Made Mortgage Crisis Worse
By Susie Madrak

In 2005, the Billionaires for Bush stumped for the new bankruptcy bill.

See how well that worked? And isn't funny that the NY Fed had to take all this time to figure out what so many of us already knew?

WASHINGTON -- Economists at the New York Federal Reserve have concluded that a controversial 2005 law backed by banks and credit card companies pushed more than 200,000 people into foreclosure and exacerbated the subprime mortgage crisis.

Consumer advocates fought hard against the law, which made it much more difficult for individuals to alleviate credit card debt in bankruptcy. This inability of homeowners to eliminate other debts, the New York Fed economists conclude, in turn made borrowers unable to pay off their mortgages, spurring foreclosures.

Despite opposition from public interest groups, the 2005 law easily cleared both chambers of Congress and was signed into law by President George W. Bush. In a paper released Tuesday, New York Fed researchers Donald P. Morgan, Benjamin Iverson and Matthew Botsch determined that the law sparked about 116,000 additional subprime mortgage foreclosures a year after going into effect.

What's more, they note, these foreclosures pushed home prices down, which may have lead to additional foreclosures. When the value of a home drops below what a borrower owes on the mortgage, it becomes nearly impossible to get out of the loan by selling the house or refinancing, making foreclosure more likely if they become unable to afford the monthly payment.

"By making it harder for borrowers to avoid paying credit card debt, [the 2005 bankruptcy law] made it more difficult for them to pay their mortgages, so foreclosure rates rose," the economists wrote.

Although borrowers have been unable to alleviate mortgage debt in bankruptcy since 1993, they remain able to discharge credit card debts by filing for bankruptcy. But the 2005 law made it much more difficult for consumers to file for bankruptcy at all -- and then limited their ability to reduce credit card debt burdens once they did.

10 Historical 'Facts' Only a Right-Winger Could Believe | | AlterNet

2011-02-11T06:49:00.000-08:00

10 Historical 'Facts' Only a Right-Winger Could Believe AlterNet

AlterNet / By Roy Edroso
10 Historical 'Facts' Only a Right-Winger Could Believe
Facts, including historical ones, are 'biased' against the right's worldview.
February 11, 2011 | As you may have noticed by following their writings, conservatives are not sticklers for historical accuracy, especially when they have a point to defend and not a lot of evidence to support it. Get a load, for example, of John Podhoretz explaining how the pro-choice Rudy Giuliani reduced abortions in New York City (though, um, not really) because he cut crime, which is one of "the spiritual causes of abortion."

Yeah, deadline pressure's a bitch. But there are some bizarre notions of American history in which conservatives have become so invested they've adopted them into their worldview. The best-known example is probably Jonah Goldberg's notion of "Liberal Fascism"; nowadays anytime a conservative talks about, say, Woodrow Wilson or Hillary Clinton, you may expect him to mention their resemblance to Benito Mussolini. They don't even have to think about it, even when normal people are gaping at them open-mouthed like audience members at "Springtime for Hitler" -- it's part of the folklore that helps them understand the American experience.

There are plenty of others. I've picked out 10 such ideas that are widespread enough to qualify. (In the nomenclature I have treated "Republican" and "conservative" as synonyms because, come on.)

10. The Robber Barons weren't robbers -- they were capitalist heroes.

The overarching task of the conservative historian is to rehabilitate the image of capitalism, even at its most red-toothed and -clawed. Not a hard job, as both our history and culture ceaselessly celebrate the innovative dynamism of American business.

But one of the rare areas in which history teachers are allowed to criticize unfettered capitalism is the Gilded Age of the "robber barons" -- Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Fisk, et al. These men, many of whom first rose to prominence through unseemly wartime speculation, built enormous fortunes on the exceedingly generous terms of the times, which included bribery, monopolies, and stock manipulation, perverting the alleged power of the free market on their own behalf. They were kind of like the Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers of their day -- except they never got caught.

Most of us still look on this as a shameful thing. But historians of the conservative-libertarian persuasion such as Thomas E. Woods, Lawrence W. Reed, and Thomas J. DiLorenzo (better known now as a neo-Confederate) look at the robber barons' dirty records and ask: So what? J.P. Morgan built a nice library!

They tend to skirt the smelly stuff, and talk instead about how Carnegie's machinations drove down the price of steel -- surely you're not against low prices? And if Jay Gould and Cornelius Vanderbilt paid off legislators to acquire land for their railroads, the railroads got built, and that's what counts.

Why do they so eagerly defend the robber barons even at their worst? Maybe because, as economist Brad DeLong has noted, the grotesque inequity in American wealth that characterized their era has only one equivalent in U.S. history -- that of our own time. And if one's business is excusing the perfidy and criminality of today's speculators and swindlers, it is helpful to make heroes of the speculators and swindlers who are their models.

9. Sputnik bankrupted the Soviet Union.

This one comes from the top of the conservative food chain: Sarah Palin. In her Fox News rebuttal to President Obama's recent State of the Union, Palin said that the Russians' "victory in that race to space... incurred so much debt at the time that it resulted in the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union."

It has been pointed out that Palin's version of history is confused on many points. But don't tell that to conservatives. Among them, Palin's charisma is so overweening that her bizarre POV is yet defended -- in some cases, on the grounds that her "larger and more important point about history" was misunderstood (which then mutated into "Palin was right"), and in others just because, as a poster at Lucianne Goldberg's site put it, "The left will have puppies because of it."

More at link

FAN's Comments to DHHS: The Time Has Come to End Fluoridation Completely

2011-02-10T08:07:00.000-08:00

Click on the link to add your name to the letter
FAN's Comments to DHHS: The Time Has Come to End Fluoridation Completely
FAN's Comments to HHS:
The Time Has Come to End Fluoridation Completely
Fluoride Action Network
February 4, 2011

In January 2011, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommended reducing the levels of fluoride added to drinking water based on national survey data showing that 41% of American adolescents now have dental fluorosis (a visible sign of fluoride toxicity). The HHS has proposed reducing the level of fluoride added to water from 0.7 to 1.2 parts per million (ppm) to 0.7 ppm, and is now soliciting public comment. (Comments are due by February 14).

While HHS's decision is a baby step in the right direction, it is not good enough. Even at the new recommended level, millions of infants will continue to be regularly over-exposed to fluoride, millions of American children will continue to develop dental fluorosis, and millions of Americans -- children and adults alike -- will remain at risk to the health effects caused by fluoride.

The Fluoride Action Network (FAN) is calling on HHS to follow the path of western Europe and end water fluoridation completely. Of particular concern is a growing body of research indicating fluoride's ability to damage the developing brain, including 24 studies associating fluoride exposure with reduced IQ in children, 6 studies linking fluoride to other neurotoxic effects in children, and over 100 animal studies reporting that fluoride directly damages the brain.

FAN's comments are reproduced in full below (pdf version of submission).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To HHS and Honorable Secretary Sebelius,

In response to your request for comments on the recent change in your recommended level of fluoride added to community drinking water, I respectfully submit the following points supporting the stance that a reduction in fluoride levels is not sufficient, and that the United States should follow the approach of western Europe and end water fluoridation completely:

• Fluoride is not a nutrient, nor is it essential for healthy teeth. No study has ever revealed a diseased state resulting from lack of fluoride, including dental caries. (1,2) No American is, or ever was, “fluoride deficient.”

• Using the water supply to mass medicate the population is unethical. The public water supply should not be used as a drug-delivery system without regard for an individual's age, weight, health status, or knowledge of how fluoride will interact with other drugs they are taking. No informed consent is requested or given, and no medical follow-up is offered.

• The benefit and safety of ingested fluoride has never been proved by accepted medical standards. The HHS has failed to inform the public that there is not a single randomized controlled trial (the gold standard of medical research) that demonstrates the effectiveness of water fluoridation. (3) HHS has also failed to inform the public that the Food and Drug Administration has never studied, or approved, the safety of fluoride supplements and continues to classify all fluoride supplements as “unapproved new drugs.” (4, 5) Lastly, HHS has failed to inform the public that tooth decay rates have declined at the same general rate in all western, industrialized countries, irrespective of water fluoridation status. (6)

• Any benefits of fluoride are primarily topical, not systemic. The CDC has acknowledged this for over a decade (7). The Iowa Fluoride Study, funded by HHS, has reported little, if any, relationship between individual fluoride intake and caries experience. According to the study (the largest of its kind): “achieving a caries-free status may have relatively little to do with fluoride intake, while fluorosis is clearly more dependent on fluoride intake." (8)

• Americans will still be over-exposed to fluoride at 0.7 ppm. According to EPA’s recent documents “it is likely that most children, even those that live in fluoridated communities, can be over-exposed to fluoride at least occasionally. (9) At present, nearly 41% of American adolescents aged 12-15 have some form of dental fluorosis (10), an outwardly visible sign of fluoride toxicity. Reducing the fluoride levels to 0.7 ppm will not remedy this problem as national statistics clearly show that dental fluorosis remains significantly elevated at 0.7 ppm. (11) Drinking water is just one source of ingested fluoride; others include foods, beverages, dental products and supplements, pesticides and pharmaceuticals. For communities that practice artificial water fluoridation, this is the easiest source of fluoride to remove.

• Infants will not be protected. Infants fed formula made with fluoridated tap water—at the reduced level of 0.7 ppm—will still receive up to 175 times more fluoride than a breast-fed infant. In their supporting documents, EPA has not calculated the risks to the bottle-fed infant. In fact, infants from birth to six months of age were completely excluded from any consideration by EPA, despite HHS’s own admission that “The period of possible risk for fluorosis in the permanent teeth…extends from about birth through 8 years of age." (12) As the most susceptible subpopulation, the potential for long-term, irreparable damage to developing infants must be seriously considered, and should extend beyond just their teeth.

• African-American children and low-income children will not be protected. HHS’s reference (p. 2386) to the study by Sohn et al. (13) failed to mention that African-American and low-income children were found to consume significantly more total fluids and plain water, and thus receive more fluoride from drinking water, than white or higher-income children. African-Americans have been shown to have an increased risk of developing dental fluorosis, and are at higher risk for suffering from the more severe forms of this condition. (14) Despite receiving high intakes of fluoride, low-income and minority children living in fluoridated communities continue to suffer from rampant and severe dental decay (15-18)—undermining the common premise that fluoridation will prevent these problems. Additionally, low-income children have a greater risk for suffering from all forms of fluoride toxicity, as poor diet exacerbates the detrimental effects of fluoride. This is clearly, therefore, an environmental justice issue.

• HHS has failed to consider fluoride’s impact on the brain. Over 100 animal studies have observed fluoride-induced brain damage (19), 24 human studies have reported lowered IQ in children exposed to various levels of fluoride (20), and at least 6 other studies have found non-IQ neurological effects such as impaired visuo-spatial organization. (21-26) One study of 500 children in China observed reduced IQ at a water fluoride level of 1.9 ppm (27, 28) and another reported a reduction in IQ at even lower (mean=1.3 ppm) water fluoride levels. (29) HHS’s new recommendation of 0.7 ppm offers no adequate margin of safety to protect all of our children, including those with iodine deficiencies (30-32), from experiencing similar neurological damage.

• HHS has failed to consider fluoride as an endocrine disruptor. The 2006 NRC report (33) states that fluoride is an endocrine disruptor, and even at low levels can be detrimental to the thyroid gland. Pre- and post-natal babies, people with kidney disease, and above-average water drinkers (including diabetics and lactating women) are especially susceptible to the endocrine disrupting effects of fluoride in drinking water.

• HHS has failed to consider or investigate current rates of skeletal fluorosis in the U.S. According to EPA's supporting document (34), there is a general lack of information on the prevalence of stage II skeletal fluorosis in the U.S. Yet, many of the symptoms of stage II skeletal fluorosis (e.g. sporadic pain, stiffness of the joints) are identical to arthritis (35-40), which affects at least 46 million Americans. People with renal insufficiency are known to be at an elevated risk for developing skeletal fluorosis (33), as crippling stage III skeletal fluorosis with renal deficiency has been documented in the U.S. at water fluoride levels as low as 1.7 ppm. (41) Since skeletal fluorosis in kidney patients has been detected in small case studies, it is likely that systematic studies would detect skeletal fluorosis at even lower fluoride levels.

• HHS has failed to consider fluoride as a potential carcinogen. Bassin et al. (42) reported a significantly elevated risk of osteosarcoma in boys living in fluoridated communities, and thus fluoride may be a carcinogen. Chester Douglass, who has serious conflicts-of-interest concerning fluoride research, has stated that a subsequent study will refute these findings (43), but no publication has appeared in the five years since he made this claim. As EPA has still not completed carcinogenicity testing for fluoride, HHS should not support the addition of a potential carcinogen to our drinking water.

• HHS has failed to confirm the safety of silicofluorides. Despite being used in more than 90% of artificial water fluoridation schemes, no chronic toxicity testing of silicofluorides has ever been completed: “No short-term or subchronic exposure, chronic exposure, cytotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, teratology, carcinogenicity, or initiation/promotion studies were available” for the toxicological summary for silicofluorides, as prepared for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. (44) However, recent epidemiological research has found an association between the use of silicofluoride-treated community water and increased blood lead concentrations in children (45) – a link that is consistent with recent laboratory findings. (46) HHS has failed to inform the American public that the fluoridating agent used in drinking water is a hazardous waste product from the phosphate fertilizer industry, and can be laced with arsenic and radionuclides, (47, 48) which are known carcinogens. HHS should not support the addition of a non-tested substance to our drinking water.

Most of the arguments listed above are covered in far more detail in the recently published book "The Case Against Fluoride" by Connett, Beck and Micklem (Chelsea Green, 2010). We urge director Sebelius to appoint a group of experts from HHS, who have not been involved in promoting fluoridation, to provide a fully documented scientific response to the arguments and evidence presented in this book. Were director Sebelius to do this we strongly believe that neither she nor these experts will want to see the practice of water fluoridation continue. The practice is unnecessary, unethical and hitherto the benefits have been wildly exaggerated and the risks minimized. A scientific response to this book from a HHS team would allow the public to judge the cases both for and against fluoridation on their scientific and ethical merits.

FOX NEWS INSIDER: “Stuff Is Just Made Up” | Media Matters for America

2011-02-10T07:47:00.000-08:00

“For the first few years it was let’s take the conservative take on things. And then after a few years it evolved into, well it’s not just the conservative take on things, we’re going to take the Republican take on things which is not necessarily in lock step with the conservative point of view.

“And then two, three, five years into that it was, we’re taking the Bush line on things, which was different than the GOP. We were a Stalin-esque mouthpiece. It was just what Bush says goes on our channel. And by that point it was just totally dangerous. Hopefully most people understand how dangerous it is for a media outfit to be a straight, unfiltered mouthpiece for an unchecked president.”

FOX NEWS INSIDER: “Stuff Is Just Made Up” Media Matters for America

USA Swaps Outsourcing Offshore with Prison Labor: Corporations Provide Correctional Training & Prison Work for Inmates

2011-02-09T10:54:00.000-08:00

USA Swaps Outsourcing Offshore with Prison Labor: Corporations Provide Correctional Training & Prison Work for Inmates
USA Swaps Outsourcing Offshore with Prison Labor
Corporations Provide Correctional Training & Prison Work for Inmates
Dec 2, 2009 Frank W. Hardy

An ingenious method used by businesses to maximize profits, while keeping work inside American boarders, is to pay low wages and forego benefits by utilizing prisoners.

The concept of offshore outsourcing has received considerable attention the last several decades; however, silently in the background a new idea has arisen. The implementation of national outsourcing, the utilization of incarcerated persons as cheap labor, has gained a strong American foothold. Many jobs no longer go to China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Vietnam but to Greenwood maximum security prison, Mississippi correctional institute and Virginia Federal Penitentiary.

In the past when American workers used the word outsourcing, highly emotional feelings created a mental image of good paying jobs heading south of the boarder. MIT professor, linguist and philosopher Dr. Noam Chomsky identified the perception of outsourcing, in the documentary Project Outsourced, as “…jobs leaving the United States…only to surface in [some] other nation.” Further insight implied that these nations were “…third world countries commanding low salaries [and]…poor working conditions.”

However, recent data shows that a large number of outsourced jobs to low paid workers never leave the USA. In a for profit adaptation of the 1950’s concept of the chain gang chopping weeds along a country road, Patricia Werhane of the University of Virginia wrote in her thesis, Maquiladora Industry and General Motors.... By “…outsourcing to maquiladoras factories in Mexico [corporations]…substitute work for profit for public service work.”

Computer Network Support Down Time Means Lost Revenue Request Custom Network Consultation www.Integracon.com/Support
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Ads by GoogleJon Swartz, reporter for USA Today said on July 6 2004, “…3.5% of the 2.1 million prisoners in the USA produced goods and services worth an estimated $1.5 billion in 2002.” Currently prisoners in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin do some form of work for profit for private companies at well below minimum wage. 26 other states are examining the idea.

The Corporate Players
•TWA – started the trend when it moved one of its call centers to Ventura Correctional Center, California in 1985. Reporter Betsy Wade of the New York Times wrote on November 9th 1997, that “Prison wages are far below market wages and there are no benefits, so such workers mean great cost savings,” to TWA.

•Omega World Travel Agency - with headquarters in Fairfax, Va. outsourced reservation jobs to female inmates at the high-security prison (Leath Correctional Institution) in Greenwood, South Carolina. According to John Barkle, South Carolina Department of Corrections spokesman, quoted in the Times, “The inmates' pay…starts at 50 cents an hour [and]…will go to a fund for them and their children.”

•Remy International (formerly Delco Remy International) – utilizes prisoners throughout the nation. They employ 150 prisoners from the Virginia federal prison system, 62 in West Virginia state penitentiaries, 45 inmates in various Mississippi state prisons, 18 in a Florida prison and 15 in Pennsylvania pens all making auto parts for Remy.

•Perry Johnson Consulting Company – based in Southfield, Michigan uses inmates from the medium-security prison at Snake River Correctional Institution in Oregon to arrange business meetings from the prison call center. Tony Daley, research economist for the CWA is quoted in the USA Today article, "The pay isn't great – $120 to $185 a month…. Quite literally, [business is] taking advantage of a captive audience.”

Read on
Arts-in-Corrections Dies in CA Budget Crisis
Educational Programs for Inmates
Computer Jobs Enrich India
•Timlin Industries – of Oregon employs prisoners from the Snake River facility to sell promotional materials to business. Recently they have approached correction service managers in Canada and Mexico according to Swartz.

•Niki – Former Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix asked the shoe manufacturer to bring business to the state. "There won't be any transportation costs; we're offering you competitive prison labor," Mannix urged, according to author Vicky Pelaez in her article in Global Research Magazine on March 10th 2008.

•State of Mississippi – started the state-owned corporation Mississippi Prison Industries Corporation. MPIC CEO John Miller told the Mississippi Business Journal on July 28th 2003, “One of the biggest things we can do to help companies…is to…do a joint venture utilizing inmate labor.”
Next Step Unions
Swartz quotes an unidentified Federal Bureau of Prison official, “Inmates earn 11 cents to 36 cents an hour.” University of Oregon political science professor Dr. Gordon Lafer said to Swartz, this "…is as disingenuous as farming jobs overseas…. [Corporations see] inmates as an opportunity to skirt the offshore controversy and still save money."

Will the next step be to unionize the prisoners and demand better wages? Can a prisoner ask for that? According to Philip Glover, president of the National Council of Prison Locals, they sure can.

Read more at Suite101: USA Swaps Outsourcing Offshore with Prison Labor: Corporations Provide Correctional Training & Prison Work for Inmates http://www.suite101.com/content/america-outsourcing-employment-to-prisons-a175933#ixzz1DUP4Ag6W

Devils & Angels

2011-02-09T08:05:00.000-08:00

Hilarious!!!

The Associated Press: House rejects extensions of Patriot Act provisions

2011-02-09T07:49:00.000-08:00

I say let the whole damn thing expire! This bill was unConstitutional and nothing more than an attempt to crush and instill fear into Americans! Why should law enforcement be allowed to peek in on people's phones and homes without real warrants?

The Associated Press: House rejects extensions of Patriot Act provisions
House rejects extensions of Patriot Act provisions
(AP) – 20 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Tuesday failed to extend the life of three surveillance tools that are key to the nation's post-Sept. 11 anti-terror law, a slipup for the new Republican leadership that miscalculated the level of opposition.

The House voted 277-148 to keep the three provisions of the USA Patriot Act on the books until Dec. 8. But Republicans brought up the bill under a special expedited procedure requiring a two-thirds majority, and the vote was seven short of reaching that level.

The Republicans, who took over the House last month, lost 26 of their own members, adding to the 122 Democrats who voted against it. Supporters say the three measures are vital to preventing another terrorist attack, but critics say they infringe on civil liberties. They appealed to the antipathy that newer and more conservative Republicans hold for big government invasions of individual privacy.

Earlier on Tuesday, Republicans also pulled a bill from the floor because of dissatisfaction about extending trade benefits for three South American countries while continuing a program that helps retrain Americans who lose their jobs to foreign competition.

The Patriot Act bill would have renewed the authority for court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones. Also addressed was Section 215, the so-called library records provision that gives the FBI court-approved access to "any tangible thing" relevant to a terrorism investigation.

The third deals with the "lone-wolf" provision of a 2004 anti-terror law that permits secret intelligence surveillance of non-U.S. people not known to be affiliated with a specific terrorist organization.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., the former Judiciary Committee chairman who authored the 2001 Patriot Act, urged his colleagues to support the extensions, saying they were needed as a stopgap until permanent statutes could be agreed upon.

"The terrorist threat has not subsided and will not expire, and neither should our national security laws," he said.

But Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said Republican supporters of the tea party movement should show their opposition to big government by joining Democrats in opposing the measure.

"How about the Patriot Act, which has the broadest reach and the deepest reach of government to our daily lives?" he asked.

The defeat means that Republicans may have to bring the bill back to the floor under regular procedures that only require a majority for passage but allow for amendments. Time is of the essence: The three provisions will expire on Feb. 28 if the House and Senate can't agree on how to proceed.

The House had pushed for a nine-month extension to give lawmakers more time to come up with an approach that would give the measures permanent legal status. The Senate is considering longer-range ideas.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., last month introduced legislation that would extend the three provisions through 2013 while improving oversight of intelligence-gathering tools. Leahy would also phase out, at the end of 2013, the use of national security letters, FBI demands for information that do not need a judge's approval.

The Senate also has on its legislative calendar a bill by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would reauthorize the three measures through 2013 and a Republican proposal that would make them permanent.

The White House, in a statement, said it did not object to the House bill but "would strongly prefer" extending the provisions to the end of 2013, saying that "provides the necessary certainty and predictability that our nation's intelligence and law enforcement agencies require."

Leahy, who introduced a nearly identical bill last year that the Senate did not take up, said in December that he had received a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder saying that the Justice Department was implementing several oversight and civil liberties measures included in his legislation.

Those included requirements that the government show relevance to an authorized investigation when seeking library or bookseller records, and similarly that the FBI show that information it is seeking with a national security letter is relevant to an investigation.

Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union, said she was "glad to see there is bipartisan opposition to the Patriot Act 10 years later." The ACLU is a strong opponent of the three provisions, saying they lack proper and fundamental privacy safeguards.

The bill is H.R. 514.

On the Net:
■Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov

OpEdNews - Article: Recognizing the Language of Tyranny

2011-02-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

..So do the inhabitants in southern West Virginia, where coal companies have turned hundreds of thousands of acres into uninhabitable and poisoned wastelands. Poverty, repression and despair in these peripheral parts of empire are as common as drug addiction and cancer. Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis and Palestinians can also tell us who we are. They know that once self-delusion no longer works it is the iron fist that speaks. The solitary and courageous voices that rise up from these internal and external colonies of devastation are silenced or discredited by the courtiers who serve corporate power.
OpEdNews - Article: Recognizing the Language of Tyranny

Health-related money continues to flow to members of Congress

2011-02-08T07:02:00.000-08:00

Health-related money continues to flow to members of Congress
Health-related money continues to flow to members of Congress

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 6, 2011; 7:06 PM

A two-term Republican from a rural district in Tennessee, Rep. Phil Roe, became a magnet during the last election for more than $90,000 in contributions from medical professionals from across the country, including thousands of dollars from political action committees representing ear and foot doctors in October and November.

The funds weren't urgent: Roe's Democratic opponent did not report spending anything, and Roe's seat has been in the hands of the GOP for more than a century. Roe even sent $4,500 back because he has long refused PAC contributions.

But the congressman, a physician who is now chairman of a House labor and health subcommittee, is considered a kindred soul by the medical industry, partly because he has twice introduced legislation to remove a provision in President Obama's health care law that is meant to rein in the growth of Medicare payments.

While it is well-known that health-care and health-insurance providers and companies donated heavily while the bill was being drafted, a new study of campaign spending makes clear that the health-care and health-insurance industries continued to give steadily after its approval, an apparent effort to influence its fate this year.

Roe's late-arriving contributions were part of a windfall of more than $42.7 million in health-care and health-insurance industry funds that have flowed to current Republican and Democratic lawmakers after each chamber voted on the Obama bill, according to the study of spending for that period.

That investment reflects the conviction of those affected by the bill that the fight over its consequences and key provisions is not over - it is just beginning. The steady spending late last year makes the donors well-positioned now to call on the members they helped reelect to assault or defend elements of the reform that matter to their bottom line.

The study, conducted for The Washington Post by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, also shows that Republicans have been heavily favored in this period. While Democrats got just more than half of the industries' money before the bill was approved in spite of uniform Republican opposition, the Republican attracted 60 percent after the votes were counted. The Republican total for that period was $25.7 million, while the Democrats was $17 million.

Of the more than 60 bills introduced in the current session on health care and related insurance, most have come from Republican lawmakers; at least 19 of the bills use the term "repeal."

It demonstrates that the industry "found a better date for the prom," said Sheila Krumholz, the center's executive director. "This is the party that showed they were clearly willing to go to bat for the industry's agenda. . . . I'd say they are going steady now."

More at link

Horrifying: New GOP-Backed Bill Will Let Doctors Refuse to Save the Lives of Pregnant Women | AlterNet

2011-02-05T08:14:00.000-08:00

Horrifying: New GOP-Backed Bill Will Let Doctors Refuse to Save the Lives of Pregnant Women | AlterNet
Horrifying: New GOP-Backed Bill Will Let Doctors Refuse to Save the Lives of Pregnant Women
Sometimes there really aren’t words for what passes as “pro-life” in the United States. The “Protect Life Act” overrides the requirement that ER doctors treat every patient and do what’s necessary to save the patient’s life, regardless of the patient’s identity or ability to pay — the Act allows doctors to refuse necessary care to a pregnant woman if that care will kill the fetus.

In other words, it gives doctors the green light to let pregnant women die if they have a life-threatening condition and need an emergency abortion. We know that women’s lives have been saved by abortion (and that some number of people don’t approve of the whole life-saving thing). It’s not surprising that a few religious blow-hards think it’s better for women to die instead of receiving therapeutic abortions, but to encode the view that you don’t have to save a pregnant woman’s life into federal law? That is truly sick — and shockingly cruel, even for the usual “pro-life” suspects who regularly use their ideology as a tool to punish women.

Also? It’s not like letting the pregnant woman die saves the fetus, so there’s no “protecting life” here. When the woman dies, the fetus dies too. The entire purpose of this bill is to allow ideologues to refuse necessary, life-saving care to patients, if those patients happen to be pregnant. It’s disgusting. I hope, at the very least, that this will be widely publicized, and will show the rest of the country what a far-right “culture of life” really looks like — it’s not particularly life-affirming to anyone with a uterus.

By Jill Filipovic | Sourced from Feministe

FOXLEAKS: Fox Caught Scripting Socialism Attack | Media Matters for America

2011-02-04T07:55:00.000-08:00

FOXLEAKS: Fox Caught Scripting Socialism Attack | Media Matters for America
FOXLEAKS: Fox Caught Scripting Socialism Attack
February 03, 2011 10:00 am ET by Oliver Willis

"Isn't that what they do in socialist countries?"

Steve Doocy's question sounded like a spontaneous reaction to what he apparently saw as the threat Barack Obama would pose to freedom of the press.

It wasn't.

The Fox News host's inflammatory question had, in fact, been scripted the night before in an email sent by a Fox producer.

The incident, which occurred on the October 27, 2008, edition of Fox & Friends, came during what appears to have been a network-wide campaign to tie Obama to socialism in the month leading up to the presidential election. Internal Fox documents obtained by Media Matters and a review of the network's pre-election coverage show that Fox hosts, producers, and other journalists were involved in the effort.

October 27 was also the day that Fox's then-deputy managing editor Bill Sammon sent an internal email referencing what he described in the subject line as "Obama's references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists in his autobiography, 'Dreams from My Father.' " Sammon appeared on multiple Fox shows to discuss his "research" and also wrote a FoxNews.com piece about Obama's "affinity to Marxists."

The events leading up to Doocy's "socialist" question began four days earlier, when WFTV (ABC's Orlando affiliate) anchor Barbara West interviewed Joe Biden. During the interview, West suggested Obama's infamous exchange with "Joe the Plumber" -- in which Obama had advocated, "spread[ing] the wealth around" -- was a "potentially crushing political blunder."

West then asked: "You may recognize this famous quote: 'From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.' That's from Karl Marx. How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"

"Are you joking?" asked a stunned Biden. "Is this a joke?"

"No," said West. "That's a question."

In response to West's interview, the Obama campaign reportedly cancelled a planned appearance by Jill Biden on WFTV and told the station, "This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election."

On the evening of October 26, a Fox producer named Elizabeth Fanning emailed an outline of the next morning's Fox & Friends to numerous staffers at the network. The document, obtained by Media Matters, listed five separate segments about the WFTV interview that were scheduled for the October 27 show. For each segment, the document listed an identical series of questions, including: "Isn't this what happens in communist countries?"

And that's almost exactly what Doocy said on the air. Interviewing Fox contributor Michelle Malkin, Doocy asked, "Isn't that what they do in socialist countries?"

Here's how the document described the segment featuring Malkin [emphasis added]:

8:15 (B-BLOCK) - MICHELE MALKIN - CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST & FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR - OBAMA CAMPAIGN CUTS OFF TV STATION, AFTER BIDEN ANGERED BY QUESTIONS. IS THIS A PREVIEW OF THINGS TO COME? WILL THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS ROOM BE LIKE THIS? CAN YOU NOT ASK TOUGH QUESTIONS? WILL THEY SUPPRESS THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS? ISN'T THIS WHAT HAPPENS IN COMMUNIST COUNTRIES? ((DENVER, CO)) ((STEVE AND GRETCHEN))

And here's Doocy's actual exchange with Malkin:

DOOCY: And after that line of tough questioning the Biden camp called the TV station in Orlando and said, "You are not getting any more interviews for the balance of the election cycle." Michelle Malkin is joining us right now. Of course, she is a conservative columnist and a Fox News contributor. She's out there in Denver right now. All right,Michelle, they pulled the plug on any future interviews because of that tough line of questioning. Your observations, please.

MALKIN: There's a chill wind blowing, and I think that this does signal what the future of the White House press corps would be under an Obama-Biden administration. How dare Barbara West of WFTV confront Joe Biden with some basic, simple questions that anyone who wasn't totally in the tank for Obama would feel comfortable asking? And --yes, so she's been blacklisted, and apparently the station has been bombarded by Obama cultists who are offended that she was so quote-unquote rude and quote-unquote combative to the increasingly erratic and super-gaffe-tastic Joe Biden.

[...]

DOOCY: Well, you know, Michelle, the whole thing is -- a couple weeks ago, a tough question was asked about "spreading the wealth around" by Joe The Plumber. What happens to him? He gets investigated. Now, Barbara --

GRETCHEN CARLSON (co-host): West.

DOOCY: -- West out in Orlando, she asks some hard questions, and the station gets shut down. You know, your comment about a chill is perhaps accurate because people will think twice before they ask something like that. But isn't that what they do in socialist countries where, you know, "I don't like that, you're done"?

MALKIN: Yeah, like I said, this is a preview of things to come. And I think it's particularly interesting timing, this Barbara West interview with Biden at the same time that now we have this 2001 tape, as you guys mentioned this morning, where Obama is musing about how best to redistribute wealth. It's not about whether it's a good thing or not, whether it's American or not, it's whether he should do it through the courts or legislatively.

But Fox wasn't done with the West-Biden interview. That night, West appeared on the October 27 O'Reilly Factor, where Bill O'Reilly noted that West had "used some buzz words like 'Marxism' " but declared that her "questions were fine":

WEST: I went into the interview with the mindset that we had some serious questions and serious issues in this country that need to be answered. And we're running out of time to getting the answers to those issues.

O'REILLY: But you used some buzz words like "Marxism." I thought your questions were fine. I don't know whether I would have phrased them quite that way because you gave him a little wiggle room to do a couple of things. There's no doubt that income redistribution is controversial. And I brought it up with Barack Obama myself. But he wanted to paint you as a far right person just by the tone of your questions. Do you see what he wanted to do?

WEST: Yes, indeed. I -- I think that he would like to still do that. But, I am not. I am a reporter who works for a television station that asks probing, penetrating, straightforward, challenging questions. That is our job.

"You did your job," said O'Reilly. "I didn't have any problem with it."

The following morning, West was back on Fox News, this time appearing on the October 28, 2008, Fox & Friends. Co-host Gretchen Carlson declared it her "favorite story of the day."

"You're completely professional," Carlson told West at the conclusion of the segment. "I know that you were labeled as 'unprofessional' by the Obama campaign after that interview. Very professional."

Former Sen. Norm Coleman: We Should ‘Absolutely’ Consider Gutting The Voting Rights Act

2011-02-04T07:48:00.000-08:00

Can anybody question that these right wingers would gut voting rights for all but the elite? They don't want people to vote. They want to prevent the average person from voting as "little people" tend to vote in the interests of everyone, whereas the elite tend to vote only in ways that benefit them.

Former Sen. Norm Coleman: We Should ‘Absolutely’ Consider Gutting The Voting Rights Act
Former Sen. Norm Coleman: We Should ‘Absolutely’ Consider Gutting The Voting Rights Act .
Friday, 04 February 2011 08:48 .As state legislatures gear up for the decennial process of congressional redistricting, one of the few obstacles preventing excessive gerrymandering in a handful of southern states is the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Still, despite the legislation’s massive success in preventing racism, many conservatives are dead set on dismantling the longstanding civil rights law.

In December, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) sounded the rallying cry. During a press conference, Cuccinelli declared that Virginia had “outgrown” institutional racism, and therefore ought to be exempted from the Voting Rights Act. (Virginia is one of nine southern and western states that must get their new redistricting maps pre-approved by the Justice Department in order to prevent discrimination against minority voters.)

Now, one of the architects of the Republican redistricting efforts, former Sen. Norm Coleman, wants to “reconsider” the entire Voting Rights Act. In an interview with ThinkProgress, Coleman argued that it was “absolutely” the right move to loosen the Voting Rights Act’s provisions that prevent legislators from drawing redistricting maps with a clear racial bias:

TP: I know some of the leaders in states like Virginia said they feel like their state has outgrown the racism of the past that led to them being subject to the Voting Rights Act in the first place. Do you think that’s the case, that we don’t really need some states like Virginia and others to be subject to the Voting Rights Act and get pre-clearance for their redistricting plans?

More at link..

Is This the Year America Wakes Up to Its Prison Disaster? Why Conservatives Are Finally Jumping on the Bandwagon | | AlterNet

2011-02-04T07:43:00.000-08:00

Is This the Year America Wakes Up to Its Prison Disaster? Why Conservatives Are Finally Jumping on the Bandwagon | | AlterNet
Still, as their states bleed red ink, some of them are shifting from "tough on crime" to "smart on crime." Leading the charge is a newly formed advocacy group, Right On Crime, endorsed by big conservative names including Gingrich, taxpayer advocate Grover Norquist, and former drug czar William Bennett.

Based in Texas, Right On Crime is touting the success the Lone Star State has had with sentencing reform to make such reforms more palatable to conservatives. In 2003, the state passed legislation ordering that small-time drug offenders be given probation instead of prison time, and in 2007, the state rejected prison-building in favor of spending $241 million on treatment programs for offenders.

Crime rates declined at the same time the incarceration rate did. And the state has saved about $2 billion by not building an additional 17,000 prison beds it once thought it needed.

Now, conservatives in other states are pushing similar reforms -- Right on Crime identifies 21 states it says are engaged in "conservative" sentencing and corrections reforms.

More at link above

The Egyptian Uprising Is a Direct Response to Ruthless Global Capitalism | | AlterNet

2011-02-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

The Egyptian Uprising Is a Direct Response to Ruthless Global Capitalism | | AlterNet

OpEdNews - Article: This Ain't Ike's Grand Old Party

2011-02-03T07:58:00.000-08:00

"Being a good Republican, he adhered to the notion of first paying the bills, and so tax increases were necessary. Tax rates on the upper brackets of income soared to the 90-percent range, but people paid it and still prospered. Ike also presided over the extension of Social Security Disability Income coverage to handicapped and disabled people and approved the first steps to establish civil rights for African-Americans.

In recalling the halcyon days of Eisenhower, marked by the first positive actions in furthering our United Nations efforts to keep the peace in Korea, and the rumblings of the Communists in Vietnam, he -- and we -- continued strong in our determination to build a better world, no matter the cost. In that light, the Republican Party of today becomes an oxymoron.

Eisenhower realized that a prosperous America depended on a happy and healthy populace who would be ready and able to mobilize in support of whatever national emergency should arise. Today's Republicans show absolutely no empathy with the plight of the working man, much less the poor and the aged. They operate on the Golden Rule: He who has the gold -- rules."
More at link...

OpEdNews - Article: This Ain't Ike's Grand Old Party

OpEdNews - Article: Debts Should be Honored, Except When the Money Is Owed to Working People

2011-02-03T07:51:00.000-08:00

"However, when the government signs a contract with workers, it doesn't have to pay the workers' pensions if it proves to be inconvenient."
There has been a recent barrage of "op-eds" stating that states should be allowed to go into bankruptcy. Hmmm. We, the little people, have been backed into our respective corners respecting debt. If we're a day late with a credit card payment we are harrassed mercilessly and of course, charged fees that escalate.
Personally, I see a direct connection to the 2005 bankruptcy law, allegedly written by Bank of America, and gleefully signed into law by Dubya, and recent economic downturns.
After that law was passed, mailboxes were flooded with credit card offers, limits were raised, and promises were made that the rates would NEVER go up. They were practically shoving money at us - if we signed on the dotted line. After a couple of years things changed draastically. Suddenly, mortgage ARMS started rising drastically, making discretionary spending "not an option". Then credit card rates started rising also, with rates reaching over 30%, taking more of that money out of our pocketbooks, meaning we could no longer spend on things other than the now crushing debt. The credit card reform did help a little, but never addressed the rising interest rates, which are often inflicted with no reasonable reason.
Most people's interest rates and creditworthiness is determined by a FICO score, which we, the mere consumer, can only access if we are turned down for credit, or pay a fee to see. That score is affected not just by how you repay your obligations, but also by how often your credit history "inquiries". Several times I have received notices that my rate has been raised or my limit lowered because there were too many inquiries. What happened was that the banks who I had credit with, or some who wished to extend credit, routinely look at my credit score. I don't give them permission-they just do it on a regular basis. Every time they inquire about my creditworthiness it lowers my FICO score, meaning they are intentionally lowering my score so they can penalize ME because they looked at it. Then they raise rates, which means I have less in my pocket to spend on such extravagances as say, FOOD!
Interesting article posted in Op-Ed News, a portion of which is posted below. It's worth the time to read.

'Let's see if we can find a pattern here. When families take out a mortgage in the middle of a housing bubble, which may have been misrepresented at the time of sale, the homeowner has an obligation to repay the money to the bank. When people take on credit card debt, they absolutely have an obligation to repay the bank -- even if it means changing the rules after the fact.

However, when the government signs a contract with workers, it doesn't have to pay the workers' pensions if it proves to be inconvenient. Of course, we may also throw in the fact that when the flood of bad mortgage loans issued by the banks threatened to push them into bankruptcy, the Treasury and the Fed give them trillions of dollars of loans at below market interest rates."

OpEdNews - Article: Debts Should be Honored, Except When the Money Is Owed to Working People

9 New Laws in the GOP's War Against Women | | AlterNet

2011-02-02T08:05:00.000-08:00

So much for "getting the government out of our lives" Republicans. What hypocrites! They want to turn women into subjugated property with no control over their own bodies.
"The following pieces of legislation are not the only efforts that could quash women’s rights this year, but they are indicative of a bold, cruel and determined Republican-led movement happening across the country. If successful, these laws will make it unimaginably more difficult for women to access basic health care."
9 New Laws in the GOP's War Against Women | | AlterNet

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism: Item #1 -- There's No Such Thing as a Free Market | | AlterNet

2011-01-31T11:36:00.000-08:00

The free market doesn’t exist. Every market has some rules and boundaries that restrict freedom of choice. A market looks free only because we so unconditionally accept its underlying restrictions that we fail to see them. How "free" a market is cannot be objectively defined. It is a political definition. The usual claim by free-market economists that they are trying to defend the market from politically motivated interference by the government is false. Government is always involved and those free-marketeers are as politically motivated as anyone. Overcoming the myth that there is such a thing as an objectively defined "free market" is the first step towards understanding capitalism.

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism: Item #1 -- There's No Such Thing as a Free Market AlterNet

Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts It Down - PCWorld

2011-01-30T08:33:00.000-08:00

Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts It Down - PCWorld
Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts It Down
Does your government have an Internet kill-switch? Read our guide to Guerrilla Networking and be prepared for when the lines get cut.
By Patrick Miller, David Daw, PCWorld Jan 28, 2011 6:50 pm

These days, no popular movement goes without an Internet presence of some kind, whether it's organizing on Facebook or spreading the word through Twitter. And as we've seen in Egypt, that means that your Internet connection can be the first to go. Whether you're trying to check in with your family, contact your friends, or simply spread the word, here are a few ways to build some basic network connectivity when you can't rely on your cellular or landline Internet connections.

Do-It-Yourself Internet With Ad-Hoc Wi-Fi
Even if you've managed to find an Internet connection for yourself, it won't be that helpful in reaching out to your fellow locals if they can't get online to find you. If you're trying to coordinate a group of people in your area and can't rely on an Internet connection, cell phones, or SMS, your best bet could be a wireless mesh network of sorts--essentially, a distributed network of wireless networking devices that can all find each other and communicate with each other. Even if none of those devices have a working Internet connection, they can still find each other, which, if your network covers the city you're in, might be all you need. At the moment, wireless mesh networking isn't really anywhere close to market-ready, though we have seen an implementation of the 802.11s draft standard, which extends the 802.11 Wi-Fi standard to include wireless mesh networking, in the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO laptop.

However, a prepared guerrilla networker with a handful of PCs could make good use of Daihinia, an app that piggybacks on your Wi-Fi adapter driver to turn your normal ad-hoc Wi-Fi network into a multihop ad-hoc network (disclaimer: we haven't tried this ourselves yet), meaning that instead of requiring each device on the network to be within range of the original access point, you simply need to be within range of a device on the network that has Daihinia installed, effectively allowing you to add a wireless mesh layer to your ad-hoc network.

Advanced freedom fighters can set up a portal Web page on their network that explains the way the setup works, with Daihinia instructions and a local download link so they can spread the network even further. Lastly, just add a Bonjour-compatible chat client like Pidgin or iChat, and you'll be able to talk to your neighbors across the city without needing an Internet connection.

Back to Basics
Remember when you stashed your old modems in the closet because you thought you might need them some day? In the event of a total communications blackout--as we're seeing in Egypt, for example--you'll be glad you did. Older and simpler tools, like dial-up Internet or even ham radio, could still work, since these "abandoned" tech avenues aren't being policed nearly as hard.

In order to get around the total shutdown of all of the ISPs within Egypt, several international ISPs are offering dial-up access to the Internet to get protesters online, since phone service is still operational. It's slow, but it still works--the hard part is getting the access numbers without an Internet connection to find them.

Unfortunately, such dial-up numbers can also be fairly easily shut down by the Egyptian government, so you could also try returning to FidoNet--a distributed networking system for BBSes that was popular in the 1980s. FidoNet is limited to sending only simple text messages, and it's slow, but it has two virtues: Users connect asynchronously, so the network traffic is harder to track, and any user can act as the server, which means that even if the government shuts down one number in the network, another one can quickly pop up to take its place.

You could also take inspiration from groups that are working to create an ad-hoc communications network into and out of Egypt using Ham Radio, since the signals are rarely tracked and extremely hard to shut down or block. Most of these efforts are still getting off the ground, but hackers are already cobbling together ways to make it a viable form of communication into and out of the country.

Always Be Prepared
In the land of no Internet connection, the man with dial-up is king. Here are a few gadgets that you could use to prepare for the day they cut the lines.

Given enough time and preparation, your ham radio networks could even be adapted into your own ad-hoc network using Packet Radio, a radio communications protocol that you can use to create simple long-distance wireless networks to transfer text and other messages between computers. Packet Radio is rather slow and not particularly popular (don't try to stream any videos with this, now), but it's exactly the kind of networking device that would fly under the radar.

In response to the crisis in Egypt, nerds everywhere have risen to call for new and exciting tools for use in the next government-mandated shutdown. Bre Pettis, founder of the hackerspace NYC Resistor and creator of the Makerbot 3D printer, has called for "Apps for the Appocalypse," including a quick and easy way to set up chats on a local network so you can talk with your friends and neighbors in an emergency even without access to the Internet. If his comments are any indication, Appocalypse apps may be headed your way soon.

Tons of cool tech are also just waiting to be retrofitted for these purposes. David Dart's Pirate Box is a one-step local network in a box originally conceived for file sharing and local P2P purposes, but it wouldn't take much work to adapt the Pirate Box as a local networking tool able to communicate with other pirate boxes to form a compact, mobile set of local networks in the event of an Internet shutdown.

Whether you're in Egypt or Eagle Rock, you rely on your Internet access to stay in touch with friends and family, get your news, and find information you need. (And read PCWorld, of course.) Hopefully with these apps, tools, and techniques, you won't have to worry about anyone--even your government--keeping you from doing just that.

Patrick Miller hopes he isn't first against the wall when the revolution comes. Find him on Twitter or Facebook--if you have a working Internet connection, anyway.

David Daw is an accidental expert in ad-hoc networks since his apartment gets no cell reception. Find him on Twitter or send him a ham radio signal.

Ayn Rand Railed Against Government Benefits, But Grabbed Social Security and Medicare When She Needed Them | | AlterNet

2011-01-29T07:37:00.000-08:00

Her books provided wide-ranging parables of "parasites," "looters" and "moochers" using the levers of government to steal the fruits of her heroes' labor. In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O'Connor (her husband was Frank O'Connor).

Ayn Rand Railed Against Government Benefits, But Grabbed Social Security and Medicare When She Needed Them | | AlterNet

Fire on the Mountain: FBI! Memphis SWAT unit! All for 20 people at a meeting!!

2011-01-28T07:26:00.000-08:00

Fire on the Mountain: FBI! Memphis SWAT unit! All for 20 people at a meeting!!
We in Memphis, like people in nearly 50 cities around the country, felt it important to do our part. We had no idea we ourselves would wind up in the middle of what appears to have been a surreal exercise in state overkill directed at free speech and political activism.

Go to the link above to read.
How dare the "little" people get together to discuss PEACE! This is a must read, considering that people like Tony Shipley want to be able to search your house on grounds of "reasonable" suspicion rather than "probable" suspicion. Don't they always lie to intimidate citizens? Why do these police need heavy artillery to use against citizens?

Tea Partiers Taken for a Ride by Billionaire Moguls and Small Time Hustlers | AlterNet

2011-01-28T07:09:00.000-08:00

Tea Partiers Taken for a Ride by Billionaire Moguls and Small Time Hustlers AlterNet

If they weren't so nasty most of the time I'd start to feel sorry for the Tea Party. They are getting taken for such a ride by hucksters, snake oil salesmen and billionaire puppeteers that it's getting sort of pathetic.
You might think I'm talking about Michelle Bachman last night. But no. It's this:

The story rocketed around New York City when streets went uncleared after the Dec. 26 blizzard: Sanitation workers, angry about job reductions, had deliberately staged a work slowdown...

And it occurred because one man, Councilman Daniel J. Halloran, Republican of Queens, said five city workers had come to his office during the storm and told him they had been explicitly ordered to take part in a slowdown to embarrass Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
But the more that investigators look into Mr. Halloran’s story, the more mystifying it becomes.

Mr. Halloran said he had been visited by two supervisors in the Transportation Department and three workers in the Sanitation Department. But the two transportation supervisors did not back up his story in interviews with investigators, according to two people briefed on the inquiries. And Mr. Halloran has steadfastly refused to reveal the names of the sanitation workers.

Mr. Halloran expects to testify this week before a federal grand jury looking into the question of a slowdown, according to a person familiar with his intentions, and it is not clear whether prosecutors will try to compel him, under oath, to divulge the workers’ names.

Meanwhile, investigators had hoped that extensive publicity would bring out others with knowledge of the purported plot. That has not happened, according to the people briefed on the investigations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigations are continuing. This leaves prosecutors with no proof that anything occurred.

Guess what?

He campaigned as a conservative Republican with the support of Tea Party organizers, advocating personal responsibility and limited government. As a councilman, he has taken on the usual local causes, like pushing to keep a community pool open, but he has also pursued issues with a more personal dimension.

Read on to find out all about his bizarre fixations, personal vendettas, money problems, lies and schemes. He's obviously some sort of political nut/con man.

I'm sure there are plenty of sincere Tea Partiers out there who are getting fleeced all the time by these types. And while it's tempting to say they deserve it, it still isn't right. They are just trying to exercise their democratic right to organize and they are being manipulated and conned by a bunch of billionaire media moguls and small time hustlers. I guess that's part of the bargain too, but it's distasteful to see it happening anyway.

Still, conservatives were all too willing to believe that union workers --- their own neighbors --- were deliberately endangering the safety of the people, so I'm not going to waste any more breath worrying about them. Maybe if they has just a little bit more empathy and common sense, guys like this wouldn't be able to take them to the cleaners --- along with the rest of their city. Look how much this stupid lie is costing the taxpayers.

AP Passes Off Dishonest Editorial About Social Security's Finances as a News Story | AlterNet

2011-01-28T07:02:00.000-08:00

Yes, the Trust Fund grew last year, is growing this year, and will continue to grow for several more years, until it reaches a projected $4.2 trillion dollars. Back to the AP misinforming the public:
..But what's unsaid is that the Social Security's revenues aren't limited to current tax receipts, thanks to the interest earned on those T-Bills in the trust fund. They earned 5.1 percent in 2008, and 4.8 percent in 2009. When you include that earned interest, as any honest reporter must do, the program has not "gone into the red," and -- if we define "going into the red" as total annual outlays exceeding total income, including interest income -- it won't until at least 2018, according to the Trustees' latest report (PDF).

AP Passes Off Dishonest Editorial About Social Security's Finances as a News Story AlterNet
The insidious ways that conservative narratives bleed into our mainstream economic discourse as objective truths is a dominant theme in my book, and this story by the Associated Press's Stephen Ohlemacher -- ostensibly a piece of reporting rather than opinion -- is one of the most egregious examples I've encountered. Check out the lede:

Sick and getting sicker, Social Security will run at a deficit this year and keep on running in the red until its trust funds are drained by about 2037, congressional budget experts said Wednesday in bleaker-than-previous estimates.

Is it "sick"? Social Security has $2.5 trillion in T-Bills sitting in a trust fund, is financed through 2037 and if nothing were to change it would still be able to pay out higher benefits than it does today, indefinitely.

Is it getting sicker? Well, the 2000 Social Security Trustees's report (PDF) projected that the trust fund would run out in ... 2037. But the 1997 report (PDF) expected the trust fund to be depleted by 2029 -- 8 years earlier than currently projected. So in that sense, it's "healthier" today than it was 13 years ago. More from the AP's thinly veiled editorial:

The massive retirement program has been suffering from the effects of the struggling economy for several years. It first went into deficit last year but had been projected to post surpluses for a few more years before permanently slipping into the red in 2016.
This year alone, Social Security will pay out $45 billion more in retirement, disability and survivors' benefits than it collects in payroll taxes, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said.

OK, this is just incredibly dishonest. Let me explain why.

When he says the program is "in the red" what he's talking about is that current tax revenues being paid into the system have fallen below current benefit payments. Which should be unsurprising with wages stagnating and an unemployment rate of 9.4 percent.

But what's unsaid is that the Social Security's revenues aren't limited to current tax receipts, thanks to the interest earned on those T-Bills in the trust fund. They earned 5.1 percent in 2008, and 4.8 percent in 2009. When you include that earned interest, as any honest reporter must do, the program has not "gone into the red," and -- if we define "going into the red" as total annual outlays exceeding total income, including interest income -- it won't until at least 2018, according to the Trustees' latest report (PDF).

Yes, the Trust Fund grew last year, is growing this year, and will continue to grow for several more years, until it reaches a projected $4.2 trillion dollars. Back to the AP misinforming the public:

That figure nearly triples - to $130 billion - when the new one-year cut in payroll taxes is included.
Congress has promised to replenish any lost revenue from the tax cut, but that's hardly good news, either, adding to the federal budget deficit. In another sobering estimate, the congressional office said government red ink this year will increase to $1.5 trillion, the most in U.S. history.

Could any ordinary citizen reading that possibly know that, by law, Social Security's financing is separate from the rest of the federal budget, and that the program has not added a single penny to the deficit?

These are two wholly separate issues -- there's Social Security's financing, which has been in surplus since 1983, and then there's the federal budget, which is in deficit because of the downturn, tax breaks showered on the wealthy and trillions in war spending. (Note: unlike the Social Security program, we don't have a War Trust Fund with its own dedicated revenue stream.)

The AP then turns the program's greatest strength into a weakness. Behold the sleight-of-hand:

Social Security has built up a $2.5 trillion surplus since the retirement program was last overhauled in the 1980s. Benefits will be safe until that money runs out. That is projected to happen in 2037 - unless Congress acts in the meantime.
No, Congress could raise taxes to cover the shortfall anytime -- nothing need be done in "the meantime."
But more to the point, this narrative ignores the fact that the Trust Fund had a specific purpose: to ease the glut of baby-boomers entering the system. As I wrote in September, it "was a far-sighted act of governance."
At the time, the oldest boomers were 37 years old, and the youngest were just 19. In 2037, when the fund is projected to be tapped out, the oldest baby boomers still kicking will be 91 and the youngest will be 73 years old. Not to be morbid, but given that the life expectancy of Americans is 78.1 years today, that means that the “glut” of baby-boomers receiving benefits will be receding in the nation’s rearview mirror. In other words, the trust fund will have done exactly what it was intended to do.

This point never seems to wind up in the conversation.

But it gets even worse, as Ohlemacher advances perhaps the most dishonest spin in the entire debate -- that the trust fund is not a huge pile of T-Bills, but just "IOUs" -- that the funds have been "borrowed" by the government.
The $2.5 trillion surplus, however, has been borrowed over the years by the federal government and spent on other programs. In return, the Treasury Department has issued bonds to Social Security, guaranteeing repayment, with interest.
Again, this conflates two wholly separate issues. Let's run it down.
The national debt is (approximately) $14 trillion. None of that debt is a result of Social Security, which is fully funded and has run surpluses for years.
The federal government issued $14 trillion in T-bills to cover its budget shortfalls -- that's the national debt. It exchanged those $14 trillion in T-bills for cash (which it spent on programs other than Social Security). It must pay back that cash, with interest, as those T-bills are redeemed.
So, yes, it borrowed money -- it borrows money by issuing Treasury Bills, which are held by individuals, institutions and governments.
One of those institutions happens to be the Social Security Administration -- $2.5 trillion of those T-Bills were exchanged for cash paid into Social Security by workers (and the interest is earned). Which is good, as it's a safe investment for the surpluses that have been generated. They couldn't just stick those trillions under a mattress.
But those T-Bills could just as easily have been exchanged for cash from China, or from private pension funds -- there would be no difference at all.
That would have happened if there had never been a Social Security program in the United States. The $14 trillion in debt would be exactly the same -- it doesn't matter who holds the T-Bills.
All of the above is why the deficit has nothing to do with SS -- they are two completely separate issues being conflated by the "entitlement crisis" crowd. And no "neutral" reporter should ever write a story that simply carries their water for them.

Rachel Maddow: In America Today, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower Would Be Bernie Sanders in the U.S. Senate | | AlterNet

2011-01-28T06:45:00.000-08:00

"Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things, but their number is negligible and"--and the president says--"their number is negligible and they are stupid."
Rachel Maddow: In America Today, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower Would Be Bernie Sanders in the U.S. Senate AlterNet
The huge ever rapid shift rightward makes Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon look like lefty radicals today.
January 28, 2011
The following is a shortened version of Rachel Maddow's opening monologue from her show on Wednesday on MSNBC:

For the next hour, we begin with the president of the United States addressing the nation and calling for a massive investment in this country's infrastructure, rebuffing the idea of giant tax breaks for the richest Americans, and warning anyone who would dare touch Social Security to keep their hands off.

You want to talk about red meat for the base? Listen to some of the language the president used. "Workers have a right to organize into unions and to bargain collectively with their employers. And a strong, free labor movement is an invigorating and necessary part of our industrial society." Wow.

How about this one? "Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of their right to join the union of their choice."

Listen to the way he goes after the right here. "Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things, but their number is negligible and"--and the president says--"their number is negligible and they are stupid."
That is not what Barack Obama said last night. That is way to the left of any national Democrat at this point. That was all Republican President Dwight David Eisenhower. That was all the stuff he said when he was president.

Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, president when the top tax bracket for the richest people in this country was 92 percent. President Eisenhower defended that tax bracket. He said we cannot afford to reduce taxes until, quote, "the factors of income and outgo will be balanced." Eisenhower insisting there must be a balanced budget and that taxes on the rich are the way to balance it. Dwight Eisenhower, you know, noted leftist.

The Republican Party platform of Eisenhower's 1956 called for expansion of Social Security, broadened unemployment insurance, better health protection for all of our people. It called for voting rights--full voting civil rights for D.C. It called for expanding the minimum wage to cover more workers. It called for improved job safety for workers, equal pay for workers regardless of sex.

This is the Republican Party circa 1956. The Republican Party.

The story of modern American politics writ large is the story of your father's and your grandfather's Republican Party now being way to the left of today's leftiest liberals. If Dwight Eisenhower were running for office today, he would have to run, I'm guessing as an independent, and not as some Joe Lieberman, in between the parties, independent. He'd be a Bernie Sanders independent.

In 1982, who passed the largest peacetime tax increase in U.S. history? That would be Ronald Reagan.

Who called for comprehensive health reform legislation during in a State of the Union address in 1974, a program that was well to the left of what either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama ultimately proposed? That would be Richard Nixon.

Eisenhower and Reagan and Nixon--they were not the liberals of their day. They were the conservatives of their own time.

But the whole of American politics has shifted so far to the right in the last 50 years that what used to be thought of as conservative, what used to be thought of as a conservative position, is now considered to be off-the-charts lefty.

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens pointed out this whole phenomenon of American politics shifting to the right when he told "The New York times" this--he said, quote, "Including myself, every judge who's been appointed to the court since Lewis Powell in 1971 has been more conservative than his or her predecessor, except maybe Justice Ginsburg." That was the one exception he could come up with.

Over the past half a century, the center in American politics has gone further and further and further to the right. Halfway through Barack Obama's first term, his State of the Union address last night is being pretty universally hailed as centrist, as not too liberal, not too conservative, but right down the middle of American politics.

And that is something that Americans like to hear. The instant reaction polls to President Obama's speech last night were almost comically positive. CBS reported that 92 percent of the people who watched the speech approved of Mr. Obama's proposals, 92; CNN reporting that 84 percent of people had a positive response.

Those sorts of numbers do not happen in politics. Those are crazy numbers.

Historically, the process of a Democrat trying to find the center in politics has seen Democrats chasing the center as it moves to the right. The thing that's different about the left and the right in this country is that there isn't an equal and opposite force on the left that's anything like the conservative movement on the right. The conservative movement exists outside the Republican Party, and it serves to constantly pull the Republican Party further to the right.

So, when you have a president like Bill Clinton who found popular centrist decisions by splitting the difference between where the Republicans were and where the Republican--where the Democrats were and where the Republicans were, and the Republicans kept moving further to the right because they're being pulled there by the conservative movement, when you have a president who triangulates like that, what you end up with is a president who as a Democrat moves the country further to the right, because he shifts to the right every time he takes another centrist position.

Is President Obama doing the same thing?

The dynamics on the right are the same as they've ever been. The right word drift of Republican politics from Eisenhower to Nixon to Ford to Reagan to Bush, Sr. to Bush, Jr., it's less of a steady drift now than a fast rightward jerking motion. The rightward movement in Republican politics is going faster, I think, than it ever has before.

For example, George W. Bush, he ran for president on a platform of comprehensive immigration reform. He ran for president saying that he has supported the assault weapons ban. But by the time he was president, supporting the assault weapons ban was no longer all that tenable, so he let that ban expire. He did try for immigration reform, and then he abandoned it.

Then his entire party ran against him on it by the time they needed a new presidential nominee. It was a quick turnaround.

You know, it was only 2008 when John McCain and Sarah Palin ran for office by saying they supported a cap-and-trade energy program. Remember that? Cap-and-trade used to be their idea, used to be a Republican idea.

The individual mandate for health reform--that used to be a Republican idea.

The DREAM Act on immigration--that was sponsored by John McCain once upon a time. But by the time Democrats brought it up for a vote, John McCain had turned against his own idea. Why? Because Republican politics are jerking so fast to the right that Republicans are being forced to turn against their own policy positions when the new right wing position dictates it. They can't even keep up within their own careers.

On the right, the process that has dragged the political center to the point where Dwight Eisenhower would be denounced as a socialist now, Ronald Reagan wouldn't even pass a Republican purity test, he'd be the guy they excluded from the debates for being a wingnut, that process is still very much in tact. On the right, things are working sort of the way they always have, if not faster.

But heading into last night's State of the Union address, the question was: would President Obama continue to change Republicans to the right? There are two ways to approach this, right? There are two ways to claim the 92 percent instant approval rating of sounding like the man in the center.

One way is the Clintonian way--to let your policies just drift right because the Republicans drifted right, too.

But there's another way. A way we heard about last night. It is to claim the center, to claim the political spoils you get for sounding like you're in the center, that 92 percent CBS rating, right, but to put the center back vaguely somewhere where center actually is.

Breakthrough promises $1.50 per gallon synthetic gasoline with no carbon emissions

2011-01-27T08:03:00.000-08:00

Breakthrough promises $1.50 per gallon synthetic gasoline with no carbon emissions
UK-based Cella Energy has developed a synthetic fuel that could lead to US$1.50 per gallon gasoline. Apart from promising a future transportation fuel with a stable price regardless of oil prices, the fuel is hydrogen based and produces no carbon emissions when burned. The technology is based on complex hydrides, and has been developed over a four year top secret program at the prestigious Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford. Early indications are that the fuel can be used in existing internal combustion engined vehicles without engine modification.

According to Stephen Voller CEO at Cella Energy, the technology was developed using advanced materials science, taking high energy materials and encapsulating them using a nanostructuring technique called coaxial electrospraying.

“We have developed new micro-beads that can be used in an existing gasoline or petrol vehicle to replace oil-based fuels,” said Voller. “Early indications are that the micro-beads can be used in existing vehicles without engine modification.”

“The materials are hydrogen-based, and so when used produce no carbon emissions at the point of use, in a similar way to electric vehicles”, said Voller.

The technology has been developed over a four-year top secret programme at the prestigious Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, UK.

The development team is led by Professor Stephen Bennington in collaboration with scientists from University College London and Oxford University.

Professor Bennington, Chief Scientific Officer at Cella Energy said, “our technology is based on materials called complex hydrides that contain hydrogen. When encapsulated using our unique patented process, they are safer to handle than regular gasoline.”

Prominent Conservative Threatens "Mass Bloodshed" | AlterNet

2011-01-26T07:11:00.000-08:00

Those who wish to write on the front page of RedState must make the same pledge. The reason for this is simple: once before, our nation was forced to repudiate the Supreme Court with mass bloodshed. We remain steadfast in our belief that this will not be necessary again, but only if those committed to justice do not waiver or compromise, and send a clear and unmistakable signal to their elected officials of what must be necessary to earn our support.

Prominent Conservative Threatens "Mass Bloodshed" | AlterNet

Republicans Will Accuse Democrats of Destroying Social Security While Doing it Themselves | AlterNet

2011-01-25T06:34:00.000-08:00

Republicans Will Accuse Democrats of Destroying Social Security While Doing it Themselves AlterNet
Republicans Will Accuse Democrats of Destroying Social Security While Doing it Themselves
In a wide ranging discussion on Fareed Zakaria's show today of various "deals" that are to be made between the President and the Republicans in the next two years, David Frumn let the cat out of the bag:
Frum: As Republicans become the party of the elderly,you reflect the interest of your constituency. The elderly are the greatest beneficiaries of the American social welfare state

Zakaria: Are you saying that Republicans have become ... are the demographics clear?

Frum: If you look back at the middle of 1980's the election of 1988, which is a good baseline. Your not going to remember all these numbers exactly, but the Democrats dominated among over 65s. In this past congressional election, which is a smaller electorate and the presidential one the Republicans dominated among people over 65. Well that has been in the 1980s Republicans were dominant among people under 30 and the Democrats are now dominant among people under 30.

Zakaria: This is fascinating so the Republicans now have their base and their ideology in two different places. The base wants all these benefits for the elderly and their ideology says we have to cut them.

Frum: And that is why, you know, the two worst things about the president's health care plan were that it increases the deficit and number two that restricts Medicare. And you will hear people on the floor of the House say that and, they're not completely irrational because ... I hope the technocratic path you predict is the right one. It really is possible to get 17 wise people in a room with a good flow of hydration and have them work out a technical deal that will put us over a period of years on a path to sustainability and economic growth.

Frum doesn't really explain why they are not completely irrational, but I will: they know that sounding irrational doesn't matter. They know they can easily demagogue "entitlements" one day and be the staunch defenders of Medicare the next because they just won over 60 seats doing just that.

The Republicans are not going to abandon their ideology. But they will certainly pander to their base of elderly citizens by accusing the Democrats of destroying social security and medicare even as they destroy them. We know this. It already happened. Now perhaps that wouldn't be a problem if the elderly were not the most reliable voters in the nation (and younger voters the least) or that Democratic ideology is completely bankrupt and empty if they do weaken the safety net out of some short term desire to appease a bunch of spoiled Wall Street princes. But if you actually care about the programs this is a recipe for disaster.

And yes, it would be much tidier if we could get some super-duper politicians and elite insiders in a room to map out a bipartisan plan for peace and prosperity, but sadly, the super-duper people don't have much of a track record recently. I think I'd rather trust my future to David Frum's apocalyptic scenario:

What is more likely is this: we have a huge burden of adjustment that is coming. It has arrived at a state and local level and it going to arrive at the national level. There are going to be losers. We're all going to be losers, some will lose less. Who should the bigger losers be and who should the smaller losers be and that will be resolved in a furious episode of intense politics.

That doesn't bode very well for the 95% of the people who aren't vastly wealthy, as we know. But I can guarantee you that if it's left up to the technocrats of both parties going into a back room and "making a deal" that 95% is well and truly screwed.

By digby | Sourced from Hullabaloo

Posted at January 24, 2011, 7:12 am

GOP Timebomb: How Republican Star Paul Ryan's Radical "Roadmap" Would Dynamite Social Security and Medicare | | AlterNet

2011-01-25T06:28:00.000-08:00

"the Ryan plan proposes large cuts in Social Security benefits -- roughly 16 percent for the average new retiree in 2050 and 28 percent in 2080 from price indexing alone." It "initially diverts most of these savings to help fund private accounts rather than to restore Social Security solvency." ..MIDDLE CLASS TAX INCREASES: Citizens for Tax Justice found that Ryan's Roadmap would raise taxes on 90 percent of taxpayers and drastically lower them for the richest Americans.
GOP Timebomb: How Republican Star Paul Ryan's Radical "Roadmap" Would Dynamite Social Security and Medicare AlterNet
GOP Timebomb: How Republican Star Paul Ryan's Radical "Roadmap" Would Dynamite Social Security and Medicare
Republicans are elevating Rep. Paul Ryan, whose disastrous conservative economic "roadmap" will gut the social safety net and put money in the hands of the rich.
January 24, 2011
Republicans announced last Friday that Rep. Paul Ryan (WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee, will deliver the GOP's response to President Obama's State of the Union address tomorrow. According to reports, GOP leaders chose Ryan because he is supposedly a "champion of slashing government spending." The seven-term Wisconsin congressman gives Republicans a "chance to emphasize their core message: government spending must come down to reduce the nation's annual deficit and long-term debt." House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Ryan -- who has been given "stunning and unprecedented" power to shape the budget -- is "uniquely qualified to address the state of our economy and the fiscal challenges that face our country." Ryan is known as the GOP's numbers guy in the House, and he laid out last year what he calls a "Roadmap" to fiscal health. But as the Washington Post's Ezra Klein notes, "The more they elevate Ryan, the more they elevate Ryan's Roadmap. And that document is a timebomb for them."

PRIVATIZING ENTITLEMENTS: Ryan's Roadmap puts Americans on the path of privatizing entitlement programs, such as Social Security. The plan boasts about "the creation of personal investment accounts for future retirees" that are "the property of the individual." (Emphasis in the original document). "Individuals will be able to join the investor class for the first time," the Roadmap says.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) notes that "the Ryan plan proposes large cuts in Social Security benefits -- roughly 16 percent for the average new retiree in 2050 and 28 percent in 2080 from price indexing alone." It "initially diverts most of these savings to help fund private accounts rather than to restore Social Security solvency." CBPP also notes that the Roadmap "would eliminate traditional Medicare, most of Medicaid, and all of the Children's Health Insurance Program" by creating a private voucher system that won't keep up with the cost of health care.

By 2080, under Ryan's plan, the Medicare program would be reduced by nearly 80 percent below its projected size under current policies. CBPP summed up Ryan's plan: The Roadmap's cuts "would be so severe that CBO estimates they would shrink total federal expenditures (other than on interest payments) from roughly 19 percent of GDP in recent years to just 13.8 percent of GDP by 2080. Federal spending has not equaled such a low level of GDP since 1950, when Medicare and Medicaid did not yet exist, Social Security failed to cover many workers, and close to half of the elderly people in the United States lived below the poverty line."

MIDDLE CLASS TAX INCREASES: Citizens for Tax Justice found that Ryan's Roadmap would raise taxes on 90 percent of taxpayers and drastically lower them for the richest Americans.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) recently reported that the rates for the middle class would be higher than those for the rich under Ryan's plan. "Middle-class families earning between $50,000 and $75,000 a year would see their average tax rate jump to 19.1% (from 17.7%) under this plan -- an increase of $900 on average," EPI says, while at the same time, "Millionaires would see their average tax rate drop to 12.8%, less than half of what they would pay relative to current policy."

As EPI's Andrew Fieldhouse concluded, under the Roadmap, "a long tradition of progressive taxation would be abandoned; millionaires and Wall Street bankers would pay significantly lower tax rates than middle-class workers. ... Income inequality would soar." In another giveaway to the rich, the Roadmap calls for a total repeal of the estate and corporate taxes and would introduce a national sales tax. Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) said this idea "would eat up a much larger percentage of total income for poor and middle-class families than wealthy families" because the former "spend most or all of their income on consumption," while "high-income families are able to save much more of their income."
More at link above

Arizona shootings: Gun laws were tougher in old Tombstone - latimes.com

2011-01-24T11:24:00.000-08:00

And one fact is usually ignored: Back then, Tombstone had far stricter gun control than it does today. In fact, the American West's most infamous gun battle erupted when the marshal tried to enforce a local ordinance that barred carrying firearms in public. A judge had fined one of the victims $25 earlier that day for packing a pistol.

Arizona shootings: Gun laws were tougher in old Tombstone - latimes.com
Reporting from Tombstone, Ariz. — A billboard just outside this Old West town promises "Gunfights Daily!" and tourists line up each afternoon to watch costumed cowboys and lawmen reenact the bloody gunfight at the OK Corral with blazing six-shooters.

But as with much of the Wild West, myth has replaced history. The 1881 shootout took place in a narrow alley, not at the corral. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday weren't seen as heroic until later; they were initially charged with murder.

And one fact is usually ignored: Back then, Tombstone had far stricter gun control than it does today. In fact, the American West's most infamous gun battle erupted when the marshal tried to enforce a local ordinance that barred carrying firearms in public. A judge had fined one of the victims $25 earlier that day for packing a pistol.

"You could wear your gun into town, but you had to check it at the sheriff's office or the Grand Hotel, and you couldn't pick it up again until you were leaving town," said Bob Boze Bell, executive editor of True West Magazine, which celebrates the Old West. "It was an effort to control the violence."

A national debate over gun control has flared since a gunman killed six people and wounded 13 others, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, two weeks ago in Tucson. The suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, is accused of firing 31 shots from a Glock semiautomatic pistol with a high-capacity ammunition magazine.

Hours after the rampage, Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik appeared to partly blame Arizona's lax gun laws for the violence, saying he opposed "letting everybody in the state carry weapons under any circumstances that they want, and that's almost where we are."

"I think we're the Tombstone of the United States of America," he declared.

Dupnik's dig didn't go down well here.

Deep in the desert southeast of Tucson, Tombstone is tucked in a sere landscape of gullies and gulches, sagebrush and sorrel. About 1,500 people call it home, though the population swells each day as tourists clomp down wooden sidewalks, munch buffalo burgers and shop for cowboy kitsch.

Dupnik has "bank robberies and murders every week up there," fired back Ben Traywick, 83, a Tombstone historian who keeps a pistol on his desk and a shotgun nearby. "And he's bad-mouthing us? If you wanted to commit a crime, would you go to a town where everyone carries a gun? We have no crime."

But that's another Tombstone myth.

Local crime is low by big-city standards. But given the size of its population, with two rapes and 10 assaults in 2009, the last year for which figures are available, the town's violent-crime rate was higher than the state's average on a statistical basis. Similarly, with 88 crimes total, the town's crime index per 100,000 was higher than the national average, 475.5 compared with 319.2.

Arizona's gun laws are among the most lenient in the nation. Under legislation passed last year, guns are permitted almost everywhere in the state except doctors' offices and some businesses. It is one of three states, along with Alaska and Vermont, that allow people 21 or older to carry concealed weapons without a permit. Concealed guns may be carried into bars as long as the gun owner isn't drinking, and guns are permitted on school grounds as long as the weapon is unloaded and the owner remains in a vehicle.

Any law-abiding citizen 18 or older may buy or possess a rifle or shotgun. To buy a handgun, federal law requires a minimum age of 21. Firearms may be sold 14 hours a day, seven days a week, except Christmas.

Arizona's love of guns is rooted in its rugged rural history and enshrined in the state's constitution, drafted in 1910. "The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself or the state shall not be impaired," it reads. The state celebrates its independent spirit and a culture of individual rights and distrust of government.

Given its lurid past, Tombstone may not be a typical community. But it provides vivid evidence of what state law allows in practice.

"In this town, pretty much everyone carries a gun," said John Wiest, 65, a storekeeper who patted a Ruger semiautomatic pistol on his side.

"I carry it into the bank when I go in to make a deposit each morning," said Dave Ericson, 60, a California native who moved here last year and wears a working reproduction of an 1873 Colt Peacemaker in a hand-tooled holster on his hip. "No one even looks up."

A few shops and restaurants in the historic district, including Big Nose Kate's Saloon, remain true to the Old West gun ordinances that were common on the frontier and have posted "No Weapons Allowed" on their doors. A block away, the OK Corral gunfight site similarly bars anyone from bringing a real gun to the fake gunfight.

Still, many here view the idea of gun control — even restricting sales of the extended-ammunition magazine used in the Tucson shootings — as little better than cattle-rustling.

"Once you take something away, it's just a foot in the door," said G.T. Amell, 64, who retired here from North Carolina and who wore a leather-fringe jacket and a handlebar mustache. The Tucson killer, he said, "is just one nut in 310 million people. It's just going to happen."

Out on Boot Hill, where rocky graves still mark the remains of the three men killed in the 1881 shootout, as well as others who were shot, stabbed, hanged and, in one case, "taken from the county jail and lynched," Janet Presser, a 47-year-old Nevada visitor, was also skeptical of curbing gun sales.

"My view is any kind of rule limiting guns only limits honest people from getting weapons," she said, snapping photos of Tombstone's tombstones.

In its heyday, Tombstone was a rough-and-tumble silver mining town with more than its share of saloons, gambling dens and prostitutes, then known euphemistically as "soiled doves." But so were lots of other Old West settlements.

So what made it famous? On Oct. 26, 1881, the three Earp brothers and Doc Holliday faced off against four supposed desperadoes in a 15-foot-wide alley between two buildings a block from the OK Corral. "We have come to disarm you," warned Virgil Earp, the marshal, seeking to enforce the town gun ordinance. It was never clear who fired first, but when the dust cleared, three of the cowboys lay dead and their leader, Ike Clanton, had run away.

The gunfight was little known until the 1920s, when a pulp novelist dubbed it the "Gunfight at the OK Corral" and Hollywood turned it into a symbol of the Wild West. That too was a kind of myth.

"Believe it or not, Tombstone had one of the few stand-up fights where men squared off and just shot it out," said Marshall Trimble, Arizona's state historian. "That kind of thing was really rare. Also, it was named Tombstone. If they had fought it out in Bisbee or Benson, we might never have heard of it."

Congressman Cohen elaborates on the danger of lies

2011-01-20T08:17:00.000-08:00

The Plum Line - Dem Rep: No apology for saying GOP mendacity is worthy of Goebbels

2011-01-20T08:15:00.000-08:00

The Plum Line - Dem Rep: No apology for saying GOP mendacity is worthy of Goebbels
Posted at 5:13 PM ET, 01/19/2011
Dem Rep: No apology for saying GOP mendacity is worthy of Goebbels
By Greg Sargent
Uh oh. Dem Rep. Steve Cohen has no intention to apologize for insisting in a controversial broadside on the House floor that GOP lies on health reform are worthy of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. In a lively interview with me just now, he doubled down on the claim -- hard.

"I don't think calling out liars is uncivil," Cohen told me. "No reason to apologize. You have a duty to respond. if they were telling the truth and I said they were lying, then I would apologize," Cohen continued, referring to Republicans.

In case you missed, it, on the House floor last night Cohen unleashed a head-turning series of claims, arguing that the "government takeover" claim by Republicans is "a big lie, just like Goebbels." He added: "The Germans said enough about the Jews and the people believed it -- and you had the Holocaust."

Conservatives have expressed outrage today and demanded that Dems condemn the comment, but Cohen has no intention of backing off. In our interview he rejected the idea that he had compared Republicans to Nazis.

"I said Goebbels lied about the Jews, and that led to the Holocaust," Cohen said. "Not in any way whatsoever was I comparing Republicans to Nazis. I was saying lies are wrong...I dont know who got everybody's panties in a wad over this statement."

Cohen insisted that the invocation of Goebbels was legit, given the larger context: He said that Repubicans had, in fact, repeatedly used a big-lie technique on health care.

"There have been so many lies about the health care bill," Cohen said, citing "death panels," the GOP rejection of the Congressional Budget Office's finding that repealing reform would hike the deficit, and the claim that health reform represents a "government takeover."

"You can't stop them from saying that lie," Cohen said of the "government takeover" line. "It's their mantra. They go to bed with it. They do Yoga with it."

Pressed on whether such rhetoric was appropriate, given that Dems and liberals are trying to get Republicans to condemn incendiary and "eliminationist" rhetoric on the right, Cohen didn't back down. He argued that "civility" was a matter of content as much as tone, and suggested that mendacity itself is uncivil and particularly immoral in the context of the health care debate.

"Lies are being spread, and it's wrong," Cohen said. "Goebbels was the master of political lies...to lie to take health care away from people is despicable."

Asked whether such a reference risked giving the right ammo to claim that "both sides do it," Cohen reiterated that he wasn't calling Republicans Nazis.

"In no way did I call them Nazis," he continued. "I did say they've been using a big lie."

UPDATE, 6:05 p.m.: Here's video of Cohen's entire speech, which puts the Goebbels and "big lie" charges into the context of a much longer and substantive presentation:

Also: The above post has been edited slightly from the original.

The sun rises two days early in Greenland, sparking fears that climate change is accelerating | Mail Online

2011-01-20T08:09:00.000-08:00

Experts say the sun should have risen over the Arctic nation's most westerly town, Ilulissat, yesterday, ending a month-and-a-half of winter darkness.
But for the first time in history light began creeping over the horizon at around 1pm on Tuesday - 48 hours ahead of the usual date of 13 January.

The sun rises two days early in Greenland, sparking fears that climate change is accelerating Mail Online
The sun rises two days early in Greenland, sparking fears that climate change is accelerating
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:29 PM on 14th January 2011
The sun over Greenland has risen two days early, baffling scientists and sparking fears that Arctic icecaps are melting faster than previously thought.

Experts say the sun should have risen over the Arctic nation's most westerly town, Ilulissat, yesterday, ending a month-and-a-half of winter darkness.
But for the first time in history light began creeping over the horizon at around 1pm on Tuesday - 48 hours ahead of the usual date of 13 January.
The mysterious sunrise has confused scientists, although it is believed the most likely explanation is that it is down to the lower height of melting icecaps allowing the sun's light to penetrate through earlier.
Climate change? The sun rose in Ilulissat, Greenland, two days early on Tuesday, ending a month-and-a-half of winter darkness. One theory is that melting ice caps have lowered the horizon allowing the sun to shine through earlier
Thomas Posch, of the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Vienna, said that a local change of the horizon was 'by far the most obvious explanation'.
He said as the ice sinks, so to does the horizon, creating the illusion that the sun has risen early.
MICHAEL HANLON: So did 2010 break the global warming record?
This theory, based on the gradual decline of Greenland's ice sheet, is backed by recent climate studies.
A report by the World Meteorology Organisation shows that temperatures in Greenland have risen around 3C above average over the last year.
It also reported that December was much warmer than usual with rainfall instead of snow recorded for the first time in Kuujjuaq since records began.
Low horizon: The fishing town of Ilulissat is Greenland's most westerly habitation. Temperatures in Greenland have risen 3C above average over the last year
It has even been suggested that the sun's early appearance could have an astronomical explanation.
But Wolfgang Lenhardt, director of the department of geophysics at the Central Institute for Meteorology in Vienna, scotched this theory.
He said: 'The constellation of the stars has not changed. If that had happened, there would have been an outcry around the world.
'The data of the Earth's axis and Earth's rotation are monitored continuously and meticulously and we would know if that had happened.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1346936/The-sun-rises-days-early-Greenland-sparking-fears-climate-change-accelerating.html#ixzz1BamQP3ar

Sorry Tea Partiers -- The GOP Only Cares About Their Corporate Paymasters and Wealthy Elites Like the Kochs | | AlterNet

2011-01-20T07:59:00.000-08:00

Tea Partiers - the party's over! You've been had as your "party" was never about helping out the average person. It was always about manipulating those who let fear and bigotry take over their brain so that their corporate masters could achieve their agenda.

On opening day of the 112th Congress, beaming members of the new Republican majority entered the House chamber, accompanied by their proud families. But the moment did not belong to members alone.

Also entering the Capitol for the swearing-in ceremonies was David Koch, the multibillionaire industrialist and laissez-faire extremist who bankrolled much of the tea party/GOP victory last fall. What symbolism! The members were taking office, but Koch and his corporate agenda were taking power.

Sorry Tea Partiers -- The GOP Only Cares About Their Corporate Paymasters and Wealthy Elites Like the Kochs AlterNet

Seymour Hersh unleashed | FP Passport

2011-01-20T07:42:00.000-08:00

"We're gonna change mosques into cathedrals. And when we get all the oil, nobody's gonna give a damn.'.."it's a crusade, literally. They see themselves as the protectors of the Christians. They're protecting them from the Muslims [as in] the 13th century. And this is their function."..."They have little insignias, these coins they pass among each other, which are crusader coins," he continued. "They have insignia that reflect the whole notion that this is a culture war. … Right now, there’s a tremendous, tremendous amount of anti-Muslim feeling in the military community.”"
...I've given up being disillusioned about the CIA," Hersh said. "They're trained to lie, period. They will lie to their president, they will lie certainly to the Congress, and they will lie to the American people. That's all there is to it."

Seymour Hersh unleashed FP Passport

Posted By Blake Hounshell Tuesday, January 18, 2011 - 1:34 AM DOHA, Qatar—David Remnick, call your office.

In a speech billed as a discussion of the Bush and Obama eras, New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh delivered a rambling, conspiracy-laden diatribe here Monday expressing his disappointment with President Barack Obama and his dissatisfaction with the direction of U.S. foreign policy.

"Just when we needed an angry black man," he began, his arm perched jauntily on the podium, "we didn't get one."

It quickly went downhill from there.

Hersh, whose exposés of gross abuses by members of the U.S. military in Vietnam and Iraq have earned him worldwide fame and high journalistic honors, said he was writing a book on what he called the "Cheney-Bush years" and saw little difference between that period and the Obama administration.

He said that he was keeping a "checklist" of aggressive U.S. policies that remained in place, including torture and "rendition" of terrorist suspects to allied countries, which he alleged was ongoing.

He also charged that U.S. foreign policy had been hijacked by a cabal of neoconservative "crusaders" in the former vice president's office and now in the special operations community.

"What I'm really talking about is how eight or nine neoconservative, radicals if you will, overthrew the American government. Took it over," he said of his forthcoming book. "It's not only that the neocons took it over but how easily they did it -- how Congress disappeared, how the press became part of it, how the public acquiesced."

Hersh then brought up the widespread looting that took place in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. "In the Cheney shop, the attitude was, ‘What's this? What are they all worried about, the politicians and the press, they're all worried about some looting? ... Don't they get it? We're gonna change mosques into cathedrals. And when we get all the oil, nobody's gonna give a damn.'"

"That's the attitude," he continued. "We're gonna change mosques into cathedrals. That's an attitude that pervades, I'm here to say, a large percentage of the Joint Special Operations Command."

He then alleged that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC before briefly becoming the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and his successor, Vice Adm. William McRaven, as well as many within JSOC, "are all members of, or at least supporters of, Knights of Malta."

Hersh may have been referring to the Sovereign Order of Malta, a Roman Catholic organization commited to "defence of the Faith and assistance to the poor and the suffering," according to its website.

"Many of them are members of Opus Dei," Hersh continued. "They do see what they're doing -- and this is not an atypical attitude among some military -- it's a crusade, literally. They see themselves as the protectors of the Christians. They're protecting them from the Muslims [as in] the 13th century. And this is their function."

"They have little insignias, these coins they pass among each other, which are crusader coins," he continued. "They have insignia that reflect the whole notion that this is a culture war. … Right now, there’s a tremendous, tremendous amount of anti-Muslim feeling in the military community.”"

Hersh relayed that he had recently spoken with "a man in the intelligence community... somebody in the joint special operations business" about the downfall of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia. "He said, ‘Oh my God, he was such a good ally.'"

"Tunisia's going to change the game," Hersh added later. "It's going to scare the hell out of a lot of people."

Moving to Pakistan, where Hersh noted he had been friendly with Benazir Bhutto, the journalist told of a dinner meeting with Asif Ali Zardari, the late prime minister’s husband, in which Hersh said the Pakistani president was brutally disdainful of his own people.

Hersh described a trip he made to Swat, where the Pakistani military had just dislodged Taliban insurgents who had taken over the scenic valley, a traditional vacation area for the urban middle class. Hersh said he asked Zardari about the tent cities he saw along the road, where people were living in harsh, unsanitary conditions.

“Well, those people there in Swat, that’s what they deserve,” the Pakistani president replied, according to Hersh. Asked why, Hersh said Zardari responded, “Because they supported the Taliban.” (Note: Hersh's conversation is not recounted in his 2009 New Yorker article on Pakistan's nuclear weapons, presumably because it coudn't be verified.)

The veteran journalist also alleged that the CIA station chief in Islamabad, who was recently recalled after his name surfaced in Pakistani court documents and in the lively Pakistani press, had actually been fired for disputing the plans of Gen. David Petraeus, who took over the Afghan war last summer after General McChrystal was summarily dismissed.

"When Petraeus issued a very optimistic report about the war in December that he gave to the president," Hersh said, the station chief "just declared it was bankrupt... internally. He just said ‘This is completely wrongheaded. The policy's wrongheaded.' Off he goes. Out he goes."

"I've given up being disillusioned about the CIA," Hersh said. "They're trained to lie, period. They will lie to their president, they will lie certainly to the Congress, and they will lie to the American people. That's all there is to it."

Hersh was speaking on the invitation of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, which operates a branch campus in Qatar.

Protest Against Koch Bros

2011-01-17T06:12:00.000-08:00

Angry Progressive Coalition to Protest Billionaire Gathering Hosted by Koch Brothers, Major Tea Party Funders
Progressives are planning a huge event to raise awareness about the Kochs and their billionaire cronies, and peacefully marching to give an alternative to their hard-right agenda.
January 16, 2011
Increasingly, Democrats, liberals and progressives are coming to understand that the Koch brothers, a secretive right-wing billionaire family that pours limitless money into virtually every destructive anti-democratic initiative affecting tens of millions of Americans, are "Public Enemy Number One."

More and more, leaders and activists are shifting tactics and confronting the Kochs face-to-face, challenging their efforts to steal the American Dream and drown out the voices of ordinary Americans by buying our democracy, and trying to take control of civic and economic life. The Kochs' goal appears to be nothing short of transforming America into a radical right-wing, corporate, third-world-like country, crushing social safety nets, and letting the destructive "free market" reign supreme.

The Koch brothers are bringing their super-wealthy friends to the California desert to a private gathering to strategize how they will dominate American political life, and bring a hardcore right-wing government to power in the U.S. In response, on Sunday, January 30, thousands of activists and concerned people are expected to travel to Rancho Mirage, a wealthy enclave adjacent to Palm Springs, to say no to the Koch brothers' plan. People will be educated about the Kochs and their cabal of rich friends, and peacefully march to offer an alternative to the greed and right-wing agenda that aims to roll back consumer protections, including the environment, health care, credit cards, banks and more.

"We can't sit back while a few billionaires destroy the fragile fabric of democracy and the protections that are so necessary for the health of our society," says Jodie Evans of CodePink, one of the organizations planning the protest. "It is time for the progressive community to gather together and say no more, and what better place than where the Koch brothers are plotting their next moves."

The Koch brothers protest signals a new stage among concerned Americans from many areas and organizations. An impressive tally of progressive leaders will speak at the gathering, including Van Jones, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, and California Nurses Association co-president DeAnn McKewan. Marchers will come from a wide range of organizations including the California Nurses, Common Cause and the Courage Campaign.

The Kochs control the second largest private company in America and are among the richest men in the world. Along with their wealthy allies, they funded the Tea Party to use as a hammer to drive American politics further to the right. Through their various organizations, and often secretly, the Kochs have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into efforts to deny climate change, undermine financial reform, unleash unlimited corporate money in elections via the Citizens United decision, destroy unions, and make it far more expensive for students to get loans. And recently in California, Koch Industries pumped $1 million into elections last fall to try to roll back the state's global warming law with Prop 23.

They have been major underwriters of the Tea Party and its efforts to disrupt congressional town hall meetings to give the insurance companies control over our health care. The Koch brothers used their wealth to finance scurrilous attack ads -- and recruit others to do the same -- in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling that allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of secret money on politics. Their goal is to undermine our democracy so they can increase their profits and control and corrode our standard of living.

http://www.alternet.org/story/149546/angry_progressive_coalition_to_protest_billionaire_gathering_hosted_by_koch_brothers%2C_major_tea_party_funders

Tennessee Tea Partiers: Scrub History Textbooks | AlterNet

2011-01-15T08:31:00.000-08:00

Tennessee Tea Partiers: Scrub History Textbooks AlterNet
Tennessee Tea Partiers: Scrub History Textbooks
The neverending battle over schoolbook censorship moves to Tennessee, where legislators were presented with demands by--who else--the Tea Party, eager to scrub history textbooks of the less pleasant realities of American history.

This includes the flaws and foibles of our founding fathers--which were manifold--and the experiences of oppressed groups. Citing "an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another" the group released its manigesto with the following explicit wording:

"No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership."

Around the blogosphere, of course, this move is being met by outrage. First of all, of course, any efforts to erase or "de-emphasize true facts from history is reprehensible in and of itself. Secondly, to understand our country's flawed history is to give us the tools to make it better, and to be able to recognize cycles repeating themselves as they so often do.

But putting these essential critiques aside, from the perspective of being proud of our history and national identity, the move is still outrageous. Yes, in many ways the Founding Fathers transcended their times--but their humanity, their flaws, is what puts their moments of greatness into relief. Adams was better on slavery but worse on executive authority than Jefferson; their debates and interactions and (failed) efforts to better themselves each other are part of what make them the fascinating historical figures they are. To whitewash these men is in fact, to diminish them and our country's history.

When the Outside Voice Takes Over

2011-01-14T07:34:00.000-08:00

When the Outside Voice Becomes the Inside Voice.
Posted Wednesday, January 12, 2011 by driftglass

Responsible people leave neither loaded guns nor paranoid, eliminationist ideologies laying around for the mentally ill to play with.
What an eerie resemblance!
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2011/01/when-outside-voice.html

David Brock on the Right-Wing War Against Obama - The Daily Beast

2011-01-13T09:08:00.000-08:00

David Brock on the Right-Wing War Against Obama - The Daily Beast

Art of War, Media Messages, and Conservative Terrorists | Crooks and Liars

2011-01-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

"We will maintain a constant barrage of criticism against the Left. We will attack the very legitimacy of the Left. We will not give them a moment's rest. We will endeavor to prove that the Left does not deserve to hold sway over the heart and mind of a single American....We will use guerrilla tactics to undermine the legitimacy of the dominant regime. We will take advantage of every available opportunity to spread the idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with the existing state of affairs. For example, we could have every member of the movement put a bumper sticker on his car that says something to the effect of "Public Education is Rotten; Homeschool Your Kids."

Art of War, Media Messages, and Conservative Terrorists Crooks and Liars
Art of War, Media Messages, and Conservative Terrorists
By karoli
The debate rages on, and thanks to media spin and constant false equivalencies, at least one poll has 57% of its respondents rejecting any possibility of inflammatory speech having any influence over Jared Lee Loughner's actions on Saturday morning. Welcome to the confluence of media echoes and denial.

It was predictable, this la-la-la response. Kneejerk, even. No one wants to believe that words can influence, because that would require individuals to own their own words. God forbid.

This is true in every context but politics, it seems. I believe there are some things one doesn't say to their spouse unless they really mean it. Words like "I want a divorce", "I hate you", "I want to be with someone else" are not things one says unless they're prepared to follow through with the appropriate actions. This is because once that barrier is broken, it cannot be rebuilt. The foundations of that marriage are forever weakened and possibly broken. Matt Taibbi takes that one step further.

Which makes sense. If we're being honest with ourselves, we in the media understand that our job descriptions do not entirely overlap with the requirements of good citizenship. If you're in a marriage, or are a parent or living with parents, or have brothers or sisters or close friends, when you argue over a difficult issue, you don't just take out all the weaponry in your arsenal and blast away. In the interests of preserving the relationship, and because you respect and love the other person as a human being, you argue as politely and respectfully as possible. And your goal in arguing is always to fix the actual problem -- there's no other, ulterior motive.

That's just not the case in either journalism (and I should know-- more on that momentarily) or politics. In politics, you don't need to treat everyone with decency and humanity, just 51% of the crowd. Actually, given that half or less than half of all people don't vote, the percentage of people who require basic decency and indulgence is probably even lower than that, maybe 20-25% of the population. There's plenty of power and money to be won by skillfully stimulating public anger against some or all of the rest, and there are few rewards for restraint.

This idea of "skillfully stimulating public anger" has been a long-held prong of the right-wing strategy. Call it "stochastic terrorism" or media manipulation. Whatever it is, Eric Heubeck spelled it out in a Free Congress Foundation essay in 2001.

"We will maintain a constant barrage of criticism against the Left. We will attack the very legitimacy of the Left. We will not give them a moment's rest. We will endeavor to prove that the Left does not deserve to hold sway over the heart and mind of a single American. We will offer constant reminders that there is an alternative, there is a better way. When people have had enough of the sickness and decay of today’s American culture, they will be embraced by and welcomed into the New Traditionalist movement. The rejection of the existing society by the people will thus be accomplished by pushing them and pulling them simultaneously."

The principles in this essay are foundational to the teachings of Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute which churns out young conservative soldiers at an alarming rate, and it is clearly framed in violent, warlike terms, even summarizing their "movement" as one which "serve[s] as a force of social intimidation in its intermediate stage..

We will use guerrilla tactics to undermine the legitimacy of the dominant regime. We will take advantage of every available opportunity to spread the idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with the existing state of affairs. For example, we could have every member of the movement put a bumper sticker on his car that says something to the effect of "Public Education is Rotten; Homeschool Your Kids." This will change nobody's mind immediately; no one will choose to stop sending his children to public schools immediately after seeing such a bumper sticker; but it will raise awareness and consciousness that there is a problem. Most of all, it will contribute to a vague sense of uneasiness and dissatisfaction with existing society. We need this if we hope to start picking people off and bringing them over to our side. We need to break down before we can build up. We must first clear away the flotsam of a decayed culture.

This is a structure carefully built on the shoulders of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. It is intended to create a culture of distrust and instability -- a culture which can and does contribute to the views of people like Jared Lee Loughner.

This is why they seize on issues like illegal immigration, allow birthers to continue with their ridiculous nonsense, and view the success of the health care bill as the rise of the antiChrist. Especially the health care bill, because in their eyes, it represents victory of a "leftist" view over the traditional right-wing view; that is, the idea that people have a right to access health care. This is why it's so important to them that a repeal/de-funding effort be undertaken right away, and it's why they continue to be so vile in their attacks on it. It's not about health care. It's about the victory of a perceived left-wing idea over right-wing philosophies.

Erick Erickson at RedState says he's "tired of talking about Arizona", because it isn't about left or right wing politics. It's only about the fact that Loughner was delusional to him. He goes on to evangelize for the cause of Christ (this, from a guy who had no compunction or remorse about calling a sitting Supreme Court justice a "goat-f*cker), claiming there's a "great chasm in this world between the saved and the damned."

Erickson is spouting the language of the Palin/Bachmann/O'Donnell Dominionists who believe beyond all else that they are entitled to inhabit the halls of government because they were chosen. It is a dangerous kind of cult-religion, the C Street kind of religion that harbors a true belief in their entitlement, and anger that it has been wrenched away from them from a mixed-race guy who might not even be a Christian. His goal is to pivot the discussion away from facts and toward some ephemeral faith-based acceptance of the mayhem wrought by the right-wing chaos tactics and one young man's disturbed thought life.

Just another diversion to pivot attention away from the truth, which is this: Inflammatory, eliminationist rhetoric surely carries an impact. A mental health professional speaking to Greg Sargent had this opinion:

"We know the manifestation of mental illness is affected by cultural factors," Dr. Swartz said. "One's cultural context does effect people's thinking and particularly their delusions. It gives some content and shape to their delusions. While we don know whether there was a specific relationship between the political climate that he was exposed to and his thinking, it's a reasonable line of inquiry to explore."

Asked whether Loughner's mental illness invalidated questions as to whether his behavior might have been partly caused by the political climate or by violent rhetoric and imagery, Dr. Swartz said it shouldn't.

"Studying the cultural influences on people's delusions or persecutory thinking, and looking at different aspects of culture and how they effect people's behavior, is a legitmate area of inquiry," Dr. Swartz said.

The crux, lost in the national din. It's not a direct cause-effect, despite the best efforts of many to say so. Palin's graphic probably didn't trigger Loughner's outrage, but she and her advisors understood its intent, which is why they were so quick to scrub it. The daily "barrage of criticism" does pack a punch, as does intentionally creating a culture of "news-speak" where people are led on a daily basis to believe "something is wrong."

Our corporate media is a handmaiden of the right's strategy, and it's not just Fox News. It runs the gamut, from the Sunday talk shows to Chuck Todd's idiotic commentary on MSNBC. They begin with a presumption of truth from conservatives, and work from there to deflect or just outright lie about liberals' claims. It enables chaos and hate on a daily basis, whether for power or for money, or for both. But most importantly, it's part of a larger and more destructive strategy to destroy liberals.

Bonus: Media Matters' David Brock on the coming storm. Bottom line: We ain't seen nothing yet.

Bonus #2: Today a man named Charles Turner Habermann was arrested for making threats against California WA Rep. Jim McDermott. Habermann is a constituent of Mary Bono Mack (R-CA). The FBI affidavit is here (PDF). Read the affidavit for a flavor of how ingrained these right-wing talking points are.

Tags: climate, manipulation, media manipulation, priate, soldiers

Gabrielle Giffords' Arizona shooting prompts resignations

2011-01-13T08:55:00.000-08:00

He said constant verbal attacks after that election and Internet blog posts by some local members with Tea Party ties made him worry about his family's safety.
"This singular focus on 'getting' Anthony (Miller) was one of the main reasons I chose to resign,"

Gabrielle Giffords' Arizona shooting prompts resignations

A nasty battle between factions of Legislative District 20 Republicans and fears that it could turn violent in the wake of what happened in Tucson on Saturday prompted District Chairman Anthony Miller and several others to resign.

Miller, a 43-year-old Ahwatukee Foothills resident and former campaign worker for U.S. Sen. John McCain, was re-elected to a second one-year term last month. He said constant verbal attacks after that election and Internet blog posts by some local members with Tea Party ties made him worry about his family's safety.

In an e-mail sent a few hours after Saturday's massacre in Tucson that killed six and injured 13, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Miller told state Republican Party Chairman Randy Pullen he was quitting: "Today my wife of 20 yrs ask (sic) me do I think that my PCs (Precinct Committee members) will shoot at our home? So with this being said I am stepping down from LD20GOP Chairman...I will make a full statement on Monday."

Pullen was in Washington, D.C. and not available for comment, an employee in his office said. State party spokesman Matt Roberts said he could not discuss details of the district's disputes but, "Anthony has been a good Republican and was really involved in LD20."

The newly-elected Dist. 20 Republican secretary, Sophia Johnson of Ahwatukee, first vice chairman Roger Dickinson of Tempe and Jeff Kolb, the former district spokesman from Ahwatukee, also quit. "This singular focus on 'getting' Anthony (Miller) was one of the main reasons I chose to resign," Kolb said in an e-mail to another party activist. Kolb confirmed the contents of the e-mail to the Republic.

More at link.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/ahwatukee/articles/2011/01/11/20110111gabrielle-giffords-arizona-shooting-resignations.html#ixzz1Aw2Opl00

Armed hero nearly shot wrong man in Ariz. - Slate.com - msnbc.com

2011-01-13T08:18:00.000-08:00

Armed hero nearly shot wrong man in Ariz. - Slate.com - msnbc.com
By William Saletan
Slate.com Slate.com
updated 1/11/2011 9:39:33 AM ET 2011-01-11T14:39:33
Does the Tucson massacre justify tighter gun control? Don't be silly. Second-Amendment advocates never look at mass shootings that way. For every nut job wreaking mayhem with a semiautomatic weapon, there's a citizen with a firearm who could have stopped him. Look at the 1991 slaughter in Killeen, Texas, where 23 people died in a restaurant while a patron's handgun, thanks to a dumb law, was left outside in her car. Look at the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, where 32 people died because under the university's naïve policy, nobody in the invaded classrooms was allowed to carry a firearm. Guns save lives. So the argument goes.

Now comes the tragedy in Tucson. And what do gun advocates propose? More guns. Arizona already lets people carry concealed weapons without requiring permits. The legislature is considering two bills to expand this right, and as Slate's David Weigel reports, the Arizona Citizens Defense League is preparing legislation that would require the state to offer firearms training to politicians and their staff. The bill is tentatively titled the Giffords-Zimmerman Act in honor of the wounded congresswoman and her slain aide. "When everyone is carrying a firearm, nobody is going to be a victim," argues the state's top pro-gun legislator. Beyond Arizona, at least two members of Congress say they'll brings guns while traveling their districts.

The new poster boy for this agenda is Joe Zamudio, a hero in the Tucson incident. Zamudio was in a nearby drug store when the shooting began, and he was armed. He ran to the scene and helped subdue the killer. Television interviewers are celebrating his courage, and pro-gun blogs are touting his equipment. "Bystander Says Carrying Gun Prompted Him to Help," says the headline in the Wall Street Journal.

But before we embrace Zamudio's brave intervention as proof of the value of being armed, let's hear the whole story. "I came out of that store, I clicked the safety off, and I was ready," he explained on Fox and Friends. "I had my hand on my gun. I had it in my jacket pocket here. And I came around the corner like this." Zamudio demonstrated how his shooting hand was wrapped around the weapon, poised to draw and fire. As he rounded the corner, he saw a man holding a gun. "And that's who I at first thought was the shooter," Zamudio recalled. "I told him to 'Drop it, drop it!'"

But the man with the gun wasn't the shooter. He had wrested the gun away from the shooter. "Had you shot that guy, it would have been a big, fat mess," the interviewer pointed out.

Zamudio agreed:

"I was very lucky. Honestly, it was a matter of seconds. Two, maybe three seconds between when I came through the doorway and when I was laying on top of [the real shooter], holding him down. So, I mean, in that short amount of time I made a lot of really big decisions really fast. … I was really lucky."

.When Zamudio was asked what kind of weapons training he'd had, he answered: "My father raised me around guns … so I'm really comfortable with them. But I've never been in the military or had any professional training. I just reacted."

The Arizona Daily Star, based on its interview with Zamudio, adds two details to the story. First, upon seeing the man with the gun, Zamudio "grabbed his arm and shoved him into a wall" before realizing he wasn't the shooter. And second, one reason why Zamudio didn't pull out his own weapon was that "he didn't want to be confused as a second gunman."
This is a much more dangerous picture than has generally been reported. Zamudio had released his safety and was poised to fire when he saw what he thought was the killer still holding his weapon. Zamudio had a split second to decide whether to shoot. He was sufficiently convinced of the killer's identity to shove the man into a wall. But Zamudio didn't use his gun. That's how close he came to killing an innocent man. He was, as he acknowledges, "very lucky."

That's what happens when you run with a firearm to a scene of bloody havoc. In the chaos and pressure of the moment, you can shoot the wrong person. Or, by drawing your weapon, you can become the wrong person—a hero mistaken for a second gunman by another would-be hero with a gun. Bang, you're dead. Or worse, bang bang bang bang bang: a firefight among several armed, confused, and innocent people in a crowd. It happens even among trained soldiers. Among civilians, the risk is that much greater.

We're enormously lucky that Zamudio, without formal training, made the right split-second decisions. We can't count on that the next time some nut job starts shooting. I hope Arizona does train lawmakers and their aides in the proper use of firearms. I hope they remember this training if they bring guns to constituent meetings. But mostly, I hope they don't bring them.

CDC adjusts fluoride poisoning of America's water supply to a lower level

2011-01-10T09:37:00.000-08:00

CDC adjusts fluoride poisoning of America's water supply to a lower level
NaturalNews) The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) today issued a startling report that admits 2 in 5 children in America show signs of fluoride poisoning (streaking, spotting or pitting of teeth due to dental fluorosis). The agency concluded that fluoride levels need to be lowered in municipal water supplies, reducing fluoride to 0.7 milligrams per liter (the previous recommended upper limit was 1.2 milligrams per liter).

This ends over five decades of the U.S. government recommending up to 1.2 milligrams of fluoride in every liter of water. But even the new lower levels are still more than enough to cause serious harm to children, and when mothers make infant formula using fluoridated tap water, they inadvertently poison their infants with hundreds of times the level of fluoride that would normally be found in healthy human breast milk.
Rest of article at link above.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030952_CDC_fluoride.html#ixzz1AegDPTrA

Scientists uncover truth about fluoride and other water contaminants

2011-01-10T09:35:00.000-08:00

Scientists uncover truth about fluoride and other water contaminants
NaturalNews) There have been numerous studies highlighting the adverse effects of water fluoridation and other drinking water contaminants, but a slew of new scientific findings have sparked even more opposition to these chemicals than ever before. Most shockingly, a study has even linked fluoride to lower IQ in children. In the same vein, deadly carcinogens have been found in cities across the United States. Hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6, is a deadly carcinogen that was found in the drinking water of 31 U.S. cities. With the surge of new information exposing our drinking water as toxic sludge, a question arises. Could this information put a stop to the pollution and fluoridation of the public water supply?

Fluoride is added to 70% of the U.S. water supply. Kids who drink this water suffer from decreased cognitive function, according to research published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The study followed 512 children between the ages 8 and 13, with varying degrees of fluoride exposure. One group lived in a Chinese village with high fluoride levels, and the other in a Chinese village with low fluoride levels. The scientists conducting the study even eliminated other variables that may have affected brain health, such as iodine deficiency and lead exposure. With these variables eliminated, researchers found that the number of intelligent children in the village with low fluoride levels was 350 percent higher than those in the high fluoride village. Even more disturbing, 15% of the highly fluoridated children scored low enough to indicate mental retardation, verses 6% in the other village.

According to Paul Connett, Ph.D., director of the Fluoride Action Network, "This is the 24th study that has found this association, but this study is stronger than the rest because the authors have controlled for key confounding variables and in addition to correlating lowered IQ with levels of fluoride in the water, the authors found a correlation between lowered IQ and fluoride levels in children's blood. This brings us closer to a cause and effect relationship between fluoride exposure and brain damage in children."

In the first ever public analysis of hexavalent chromium in drinking water, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) uncovered even more disturbing information regarding the quality of the country's drinking water. The EWG found that hexavalent chromium was present in the drinking water of 31 U.S. cities. This is a chemical that was labeled a "probable carcinogen" in 2008 by the National Toxicology Program. Despite causing cancer in laboratory rats, the federal government allows for a "safe" level of total chromium. This "total" chromium figure also includes trivalent chromium, which is a mineral that the body can actually utilize. What this means is that in many cases, hexavalent chromium could have made up the majority of total chromium in the water supply. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case for many of the 31 U.S. cities tested.

In Noman, Oklahoma, the water contained 200 times what California has declared to be the "safe" level of this carcinogen. California legislatures set this level at 0.06 parts per billion in their recent public health proposal, which means that Noman had around 12 parts per billion. Bethesda and Washington were next on the list with 0.19 parts per billion, more than three times the California limit. The rise in hexavalent chromium is most likely tied to its industry use, with Pacific Gas & Electric forced to pay $333 million in damages due to leaking the carcinogen into the water of a California town. The federal government, however, is not being forced to pay the millions of people in this country who are regularly consuming deadly tap water.

While fluoride and hexavalent chromium are cause for concern, there are other substances in the country's drinking water that also warrant concern. The first of which is lead, which can enter the water supply through corrosive pipes or improper water treatment. Pathogens, which are infectious agents, can also be found in many cities worldwide. Chlorine, while a hazard itself, actually reacts with other chemicals to create even more poisonous substances. Trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids are two such by-products, which have been linked to cancer and reproductive problems. While it is not possible to discuss the long list of drinking water toxins in depth, as it is too extensive, arsenic and radon are among the other primary chemicals found in the water.

It is important to remember that exposure to these chemicals is not limited to simply drinking the water. Showering and bathing in tap water will lead to the absorption of these substances through the skin, and can account for even more toxic buildup than drinking the water.

The studies are conclusive, and the information is being compiled more steadily than ever before. Water fluoridation and pollution now stands as a mainstream issue that must be addressed. The solution is simple, and all it takes is activism. The citizens of many countries around the world have successfully eliminated water fluoridation through petitioning their respective governments, and the same can be done in the remaining countries. When the people loudly voice their opposition to the chaotic state of their drinking water, it will be the end of governmental water contamination.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030948_fluoride_water.html#ixzz1AefkF7Wj

China Improves Energy Efficiency By 20 Percent In 5 Years

2011-01-10T09:23:00.000-08:00

All this while many in the U.S. make a religion of hating Al Gore. Brainwashed by the corporate masters that are making money by keeping us in thrall to the oil companies, they are in denial that there can be a better way.

China Improves Energy Efficiency By 20 Percent In 5 Years
BEIJING — China met a five-year target to improve energy efficiency by cutting power to industry and imposing rolling blackouts, even though a massive economic stimulus increased energy use.

Energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product was reduced by 20 percent from 2005 levels by the end of 2010, said Zhang Ping, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission. It is China's top economic planning body.

The official Xinhua News Agency quoted Zhang on Thursday as saying detailed data have yet to be released.

Top Chinese officials said last year reaching the goal might be difficult because China sought to recover from the global economic crisis with a stimulus that focused on upgrading infrastructure that used steel, cement and other energy-intensive products.

China cut energy intensity by 14.4 percent in 2009, but its economic rebound pushed energy intensity back up by 0.09 percent in the first half of 2010, the first such increase since 2006.

Meeting the energy efficiency target was seen as a key marker of China's commitment toward fighting global warming. It has surpassed the United States as the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, largely because its economic development over the past three decades has relied on labor- and energy-intensive growth.

Beijing's leaders issued stern orders to meet the energy-savings targets in the second half of the year and sent inspectors to see the orders were carried out in the provinces. About 2,000 steel and cement mills and other factories with poor environmental controls were closed.

Local governments took drastic measures, such as power cuts at steel mills and factories and rolling residential blackouts. One prosperous eastern city turned off street lights and ordered hotels and shopping malls to cut power use.

However, public anger forced a backlash, and the NDRC scolded local government officials for punishing ordinary citizens with power cuts.

China is hoping emerging clean-energy industries will reduce its surging need for imported oil and gas and promise economic growth and jobs.

The energy intensity targets for the next five years are still being deliberated, but media reports have suggested the new targets could be around 17 percent.

OpEdNews - Article: The Real Reason Fannie and Freddie Lost So Much Money

2011-01-07T13:15:00.000-08:00

OpEdNews - Article: The Real Reason Fannie and Freddie Lost So Much Money
The Real Reason Fannie and Freddie Lost So Much Money

David Fiderer (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)
opednews.com

How did Fannie and Freddie lose so much money? There are many reasons, but the two most important ones are Alt-A and interest-only loans, which generated most of the losses. These are not products for low or moderate-income borrowers. But they are products that invite fraud. Reports by the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the St. Louis Fed lay it all out in context. Once again, we see how the root causes of the real estate bubble are traceable to interest rates and fraud.

Interest Rates: Greenspan's Boom/Bust Cycles

The chart below from the St. Louis Fed is one of the best illustrations anywhere of how Fed policy creates predictable boom/bust cycles in the mortgage lending business. It could be titled, "What Alan Greenspan Wrought."
more at link above

CIA Used Sweden For Wikileaks

2011-01-04T07:10:00.000-08:00

WMR has learned from a long-time Republican Party consultant that the CIA used Sweden to launder the transfer to Wikileaks of carefully screened and redacted State Department cables and the subsequent release of the cables to pre-selected corporate news media entities. Sweden was chosen because of its so-called “press freedom and freedom of expression” traditions in an effort to make the release of the cables by Wikileaks appear to be unconnected to a covert CIA and Pentagon psychological operations program designed to place further controls on the Internet.

The Wikileaks operation was conducted with the help of two leading Swedish political leaders, both of whom have maintained a long association with the CIA and associated U.S. government entities. One of the conspirators is Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt who was discovered in high school in Sweden by U.S. Republican Party operative Karl Rove. Rove, a former executive director of the College Republicans, was, in the early 1980s, a GOP campaign consultant who also began conducting overseas operations for the International Republican Institute (IRI) after its founding in 1983 as an overseas outreach branch of the Republicans –thanks to funding from the CIA-connected US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy, as well as the State Department.

More at http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17324&Itemid=41

Why Washington Hates Hugo Chavez

2011-01-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

Chavez then cleared out the presidential palace and turned it into living quarters for 60 people, which is the equivalent of turning the White House into a homeless shelter...The law also stipulates that 5% of pre-tax profits of all banks be dedicated solely to projects elaborated by communal councils. 10% of a bank´s capital must also be put into a fund to pay for wages and pensions in case of bankruptcy.

Why Washington Hates Hugo Chavez
Why Washington Hates Hugo Chavez

by Mike Whitney

Global Research, January 2, 2011

In late November, Venezuela was hammered by torrential rains and flooding that left 35 people dead and roughly 130,000 homeless. If George Bush had been president, instead of Hugo Chavez, the displaced people would have been shunted off at gunpoint to makeshift prison camps--like the Superdome--as they were following Hurricane Katrina. But that's not the way Chavez works. The Venezuelan president quickly passed "enabling" laws which gave him special powers to provide emergency aid and housing to flood victims. The disaster victims are now being fed and taken care of by the state until they can get back on their feet and return to work.

The details of Chavez's efforts have been largely omitted in the US media where he is regularly demonized as a "leftist strongman" or a dictator. The media refuses to acknowledge that Chavez has narrowed the income gap, eliminated illiteracy, provided health care for all Venezuelans, reduced inequality, and raised living standards across he board. While Bush and Obama were expanding their foreign wars and pushing through tax cuts for the rich, Chavez was busy improving the lives of the poor and needy while fending off the latest wave of US aggression.

Washington despises Chavez because he is unwilling to hand over Venezuela's vast resources to corporate elites and bankers. That's why the Bush administration tried to depose Chavez in a failed coup attempt in 2002, and that's why the smooth-talking Obama continues to launch covert attacks on Chavez today. Washington wants regime change so it can install a puppet who will hand over Venezuela's reserves to big oil while making life hell for working people.

Recently released documents from Wikileaks show that the Obama administration has stepped up its meddling in Venezuela's internal affairs. Here's an excerpt from a recent post by attorney and author, Eva Golinger:

"In a secret document authored by current Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Craig Kelly, and sent by the US Embassy in Santiago in June 2007 to the Secretary of State, CIA and Southern Command of the Pentagon, along with a series of other US embassies in the region, Kelly proposed "six main areas of action for the US government (USG) to limit Chavez's influence" and "reassert US leadership in the region".

Kelly, who played a primary role as "mediator" during last year's coup d'etat in Honduras against President Manuel Zelaya, classifies President Hugo Chavez as an "enemy" in his report.

"Know the enemy: We have to better understand how Chavez thinks and what he intends...To effectively counter the threat he represents, we need to know better his objectives and how he intends to pursue them. This requires better intelligence in all of our countries". Further on in the memo, Kelly confesses that President Chavez is a "formidable foe", but, he adds, "he certainly can be taken". (Wikileaks: Documents Confirm US Plans Against Venezuela, Eva Golinger, Postcards from the Revolution)

The State Department cables show that Washington has been funding anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that pretend to be working for civil liberties, human rights or democracy promotion. These groups hide behind a facade of legitimacy, but their real purpose is to topple the democratically elected Chavez government. Obama supports this type of subversion just as enthusiastically as did Bush. The only difference is the Obama team is more discreet. Here's another clip from Golinger with some of the details on the money-trail:

"In Venezuela, the US has been supporting anti-Chavez groups for over 8 years, including those that executed the coup d’etat against President Chavez in April 2002. Since then, the funding has increased substantially. A May 2010 report evaluating foreign assistance to political groups in Venezuela, commissioned by the National Endowment for Democracy, revealed that more than $40 million USD annually is channeled to anti-Chavez groups, the majority from US agencies....

Venezuela stands out as the Latin American nation where NED has most invested funding in opposition groups during 2009, with $1,818,473 USD, more than double from the year before....Allen Weinstein, one of NED’s original founders, revealed once to the Washington Post, “What we do today was done clandestinely 25 years ago by the CIA…” (America's Covert "Civil Society Operations": US Interference in Venezuela Keeps Growing", Eva Golinger, Global Research)

On Monday, the Obama administration revoked the visa of Venezuela’s ambassador to Washington in retaliation for Chávez’s rejection of nominee Larry Palmer as American ambassador in Caracas. Palmer has been openly critical of Chavez saying there were clear ties between members of the Chavez administration and leftist guerrillas in neighboring Colombia. It's a roundabout way of accusing Chavez of terrorism. Even worse, Palmer's background and personal history suggest that his appointment might pose a threat to Venezuela's national security. Consider the comments of James Suggett of Venezuelanalysis on Axis of Logic:

"Take a look at Palmer's history, working with the U.S.-backed oligarchs in the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Sierra Leone, South Korea, Honduras, "promoting the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)." Just as the U.S. ruling class appointed an African-American, Barack Obama to replace George W. Bush with everything else intact, Obama in turn, appoints Palmer to replace Patrick Duddy who was involved in the attempted coup against President Chávez in 2002 and an enemy of Venezuelans throughout his term as U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela." (http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_60511.shtml)

Venezuela is already crawling with US spies and saboteurs. They don't need any help from agents working inside the embassy. Chavez did the right thing by giving Palmer the thumbs down.

The Palmer nomination is just "more of the same"; more interference, more subversion, more trouble-making. The State Dept was largely responsible for all of the so-called color-coded revolutions in Ukraine, Lebanon, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan etc; all of which were cookie cutter, made-for-TV events that pitted the interests of wealthy capitalists against those of the elected government. Now Hillary's throng want to try the same strategy in Venezuela. It's up to Chavez to stop them, which is why he's pushed through laws that "regulate, control or prohibit foreign funding for political activities". It's the only way he can defend against US meddling and protect Venezuelan sovereignty.

Chavez is also using his new powers to reform the financial sector. Here's an excerpt from an article titled "Venezuelan National Assembly Passes Law Making Banking a “Public Service”:

"Venezuela's National Assembly on Friday approved new legislation that defines banking as an industry “of public service,” requiring banks in Venezuela to contribute more to social programs, housing construction efforts, and other social needs while making government intervention easier when banks fail to comply with national priorities."...

The new law protects bank customers’ assets in the event of irregularities on the part of owners... and stipulates that the Superintendent of Banking Institutions take into account the best interest of bank customers – and not only stockholders... when making any decisions that affect a bank’s operations."

So why isn't Obama doing the same thing? Is he too afraid of real change or is he just Wall Street's lackey? Here's more from the same article:

"In an attempt to control speculation, the law limits the amount of credit that can be made available to individuals or private entities by making 20% the maximum amount of capital a bank can have out as credit. The law also limits the formation of financial groups and prohibits banks from having an interest in brokerage firms and insurance companies.

The law also stipulates that 5% of pre-tax profits of all banks be dedicated solely to projects elaborated by communal councils. 10% of a bank´s capital must also be put into a fund to pay for wages and pensions in case of bankruptcy.

According to 2009 figures provided by Softline Consultores, 5% of pre-tax profits in Venezuela's banking industry last year would have meant an additional 314 million bolivars, or $73.1 million dollars, for social programs to attend the needs of Venezuela’s poor majority." http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5880

"Control speculation"? Now there's a novel idea. Naturally, opposition leaders are calling the new laws "an attack on economic liberty", but that's pure baloney. Chavez is merely protecting the public from the predatory practices of bloodthirsty bankers. Most Americans wish that Obama would do the same thing.

According to the Wall Street Journal, "Chávez has threatened to expropriate large banks in the past if they don't increase loans to small-business owners and prospective home buyers, this time he is increasing the pressure publicly to show his concern for the lack of sufficient housing for Venezuela's 28 million people."

Caracas suffers from a massive housing shortage that's gotten much worse because of the flooding. Tens of thousands of people need shelter now, which is why Chavez is putting pressure on the banks to lend a hand. Of course, the banks don't want to help so they've slipped into crybaby mode. But Chavez has shrugged off their whining and put them "on notice". In fact, on Tuesday, he issued this terse warning:

"Any bank that slips up…I'm going to expropriate it, whether it's Banco Provincial, or Banesco or Banco Nacional de Crédito."

Bravo, Hugo. In Chavez's Venezuela the basic needs of ordinary working people take precedent over the profiteering of cutthroat banksters. Is it any wonder why Washington hates him?

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Mike Whitney

Mind Control A Reality

2011-01-01T07:14:00.000-08:00

The techniques are quite simple: short circuit the natural tendency of people to cooperate for their survival, and teach them to form teams bent on domination and winning.
Direct brain modification already has been packaged as "neuroengineering." A Wired article from early 2009 highlighted that direct brain manipulation via fiber optics is a bit messy, but once installed "it could make someone happy with the press of a button." Nanobots take the process to an automated level, rewiring the brain molecule by molecule.
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/12/10-modern-methods-of-mind-control.html
Friday, December 31, 201010 Modern Methods of Mind Control
Nicholas West
Activist Post

The more one researches mind control, the more one will come to the conclusion that there is a coordinated script that has been in place for a very long time with the goal to turn the human race into non-thinking automatons. For as long as man has pursued power over the masses, mind control has been orchestrated by those who study human behavior in order to bend large populations to the will of a small "elite" group. Today, we have entered a perilous phase where mind control has taken on a physical, scientific dimension that threatens to become a permanent state if we do not become aware of the tools at the disposal of the technocratic dictatorship unfolding on a worldwide scale.

Modern mind control is both technological and psychological. Tests show that simply by exposing the methods of mind control, the effects can be reduced or eliminated, at least for mind control advertising and propaganda. More difficult to counter are the physical intrusions, which the military-industrial complex continues to develop and improve upon.

1. Education -- This is the most obvious, yet still remains the most insidious. It has always been a would-be dictator's ultimate fantasy to "educate" naturally impressionable children, thus it has been a central component to Communist and Fascist tyrannies throughout history. No one has been more instrumental in exposing the agenda of modern education than Charlotte Iserbyt -- one can begin research into this area by downloading a free PDF of her book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, which lays bare the role of Globalist foundations in shaping a future intended to produce servile drones lorded over by a fully educated, aware elite class.

2. Advertising and Propaganda -- Edward Bernays has been cited as the inventor of the consumerist culture that was designed primarily to target people's self-image (or lack thereof) in order to turn a want into a need. This was initially envisioned for products such as cigarettes, for example. However, Bernays also noted in his 1928 book, Propaganda, that "propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government." This can be seen most clearly in the modern police state and the growing citizen snitch culture, wrapped up in the pseudo-patriotic War on Terror. The increasing consolidation of media has enabled the entire corporate structure to merge with government, which now utilizes the concept of propaganda placement. Media; print, movies, television, and cable news can now work seamlessly to integrate an overall message which seems to have the ring of truth because it comes from so many sources, simultaneously. When one becomes attuned to identifying the main "message," one will see this imprinting everywhere. And this is not even to mention subliminal messaging.

3. Predictive Programming -- Many still deny that predictive programming is real. I would invite anyone to examine the range of documentation put together by Alan Watt and come to any other conclusion. Predictive programming has its origins in predominately elitist Hollywood, where the big screen can offer a big vision of where society is headed. Just look back at the books and movies which you thought were far-fetched, or "science fiction" and take a close look around at society today. For a detailed breakdown of specific examples, Vigilant Citizen is a great resource that will probably make you look at "entertainment" in a completely different light.

4. Sports, Politics, Religion -- Some might take offense at seeing religion, or even politics, put alongside sports as a method of mind control. The central theme is the same throughout: divide and conquer. The techniques are quite simple: short circuit the natural tendency of people to cooperate for their survival, and teach them to form teams bent on domination and winning. Sports has always had a role as a key distraction that corrals tribal tendencies into a non-important event, which in modern America has reached ridiculous proportions where protests will break out over a sport celebrity leaving their city, but essential human issues such as liberty are giggled away as inconsequential. Political discourse is strictly in a left-right paradigm of easily controlled opposition, while religion is the backdrop of nearly every war throughout history.

5. Food, Water, and Air -- Additives, toxins, and other food poisons literally alter brain chemistry to create docility and apathy. Fluoride in drinking water has been proven to lower IQ; Aspartame and MSG are excitotoxins which excite brain cells until they die; and easy access to the fast food that contains these poisons generally has created a population that lacks focus and motivation for any type of active lifestyle. Most of the modern world is perfectly groomed for passive receptiveness -- and acceptance -- of the dictatorial elite. And if you choose to diligently watch your diet, they are fully prepared to spray the population from the above.

6. Drugs -- This can be any addictive substance, but the mission of mind controllers is to be sure you are addicted to something. One major arm of the modern mind control agenda is psychiatry, which aims to define all people by their disorders, as opposed to their human potential. This was foreshadowed in books such as Brave New World. Today, it has been taken to even further extremes as a medical tyranny has taken hold where nearly everyone has some sort of disorder -- particularly those who question authority. The use of nerve drugs in the military has led to record numbers of suicides. Worst of all, the modern drug state now has over 25% of U.S. children on mind-numbing medication.

7. Military testing -- The military has a long history as the testing ground for mind control. The military mind is perhaps the most malleable, as those who pursue life in the military generally resonate to the structures of hierarchy, control, and the need for unchallenged obedience to a mission. For the increasing number of military personal questioning their indoctrination, a recent story highlighted DARPA's plans for transcranial mind control helmets that will keep them focused.

8. Electromagnetic spectrum -- An electromagnetic soup envelops us all, charged by modern devices of convenience which have been shown to have a direct impact on brain function. In a tacit admission of what is possible, one researcher has been working with a "god helmet" to induce visions by altering the electromagnetic field of the brain. Our modern soup has us passively bathed by potentially mind-altering waves, while a wide range of possibilities such as cell phone towers is now available to the would-be mind controller for more direct intervention.

9. Television, Computer, and "flicker rate"-- It's bad enough that what is "programmed" on your TV (accessed via remote "control") is engineered; it is all made easier by literally lulling you to sleep, making it a psycho-social weapon. Flicker rate tests show that alpha brain waves are altered, producing a type of hypnosis -- which doesn't portend well for the latest revelation that lights can transmit coded Internet data by "flickering faster than the eye can see." The computer's flicker rate is less, but through video games, social networks, and a basic structure which overloads the brain with information, the rapid pace of modern communication induces an ADHD state. A study of video games revealed that extended play can result in lower blood flow to the brain, sapping emotional control. Furthermore, role-playing games of lifelike war and police state scenarios serve to desensitize a connection to reality. One look at the WikiLeaks video Collateral Murder should be familiar to anyone who has seen a game like Call of Duty.

10. Nanobots -- From science fiction horror, directly to the modern brain; the nanobots are on the way. Direct brain modification already has been packaged as "neuroengineering." A Wired article from early 2009 highlighted that direct brain manipulation via fiber optics is a bit messy, but once installed "it could make someone happy with the press of a button." Nanobots take the process to an automated level, rewiring the brain molecule by molecule. Worse, these mini droids can self-replicate, forcing one to wonder how this genie would ever get back in the bottle once unleashed. Expected date of arrival? Early 2020s.

A concerted effort is underway to manage and predict human behavior so that the social scientists and the dictatorial elite can control the masses and protect themselves from the fallout of a fully awake free humanity. Only by waking up to their attempts to put us to sleep do we stand a chance of preserving our free will.

The worsening journalistic disgrace at Wired - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

2010-12-29T10:46:00.000-08:00

The worsening journalistic disgrace at Wired - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

The worsening journalistic disgrace at Wired
By Glenn Greenwald
Wired/AP
Kevin Poulsen and Bradley Manning(updated below - Update II
For more than six months, Wired's Senior Editor Kevin Poulsen has possessed -- but refuses to publish -- the key evidence in one of the year's most significant political stories: the arrest of U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning for allegedly acting as WikiLeaks' source. In late May, Adrian Lamo -- at the same time he was working with the FBI as a government informant against Manning -- gave Poulsen what he purported to be the full chat logs between Manning and Lamo in which the Army Private allegedly confessed to having been the source for the various cables, documents and video that WikiLeaks released throughout this year. In interviews with me in June, both Poulsen and Lamo confirmed that Lamo placed no substantive restrictions on Poulsen with regard to the chat logs: Wired was and remains free to publish the logs in their entirety.

Despite that, on June 10, Wired published what it said was only "about 25 percent" of those logs, excerpts that it hand-picked. For the last six months, Poulsen has not only steadfastly refused to release any further excerpts, but worse, has refused to answer questions about what those logs do and do not contain. This is easily one of the worst journalistic disgraces of the year: it is just inconceivable that someone who claims to be a "journalist" -- or who wants to be regarded as one -- would actively conceal from the public, for months on end, the key evidence in a political story that has generated headlines around the world.

In June, I examined the long, strange and multi-layered relationship between Poulsen and Lamo, and in that piece raised the issue of Wired's severe journalistic malfeasance in withholding these chat logs. But this matter needs to be revisited now for three reasons:

(1) For the last six months, Adrian Lamo has been allowed to run around making increasingly sensationalistic claims about what Manning told him; journalists then prominently print Lamo's assertions, but Poulsen's refusal to release the logs or even verify Lamo's statements prevents anyone from knowing whether Lamo's claims about what Manning said are actually true.

(2) There are new, previously undisclosed facts about the long relationship between Wired/Poulsen and a key figure in Manning's arrest -- facts that Poulsen inexcusably concealed.

(3) Subsequent events gut Poulsen's rationale for concealing the logs and, in some cases, prove that his claims are false.

Much of the new evidence cited here has been found and compiled by Firedoglake in three valuable indices: the key WikiLeaks-Manning articles, a timeline of the key events and the various excerpts of the Manning/Lamo chat logs published by different parties.

Read the rest at the link above...

OpEdNews - Article: The Founding Fathers on the GOP's Anti-Constitutional "Repeal Amendment"

2010-12-29T10:40:00.000-08:00

To me, the GOP's 28th Amendment, the "Repeal Amendment", looks exactly like what the Founders were guarding against - States trying to align with each other to usurp the "supreme Law of the Land".
OpEdNews - Article: The Founding Fathers on the GOP's Anti-Constitutional "Repeal Amendment"
The Founding Fathers on the GOP's Anti-Constitutional "Repeal Amendment"

By Michael Chamberlin
Incoming House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, wants the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (H.R. 3590) repealed. It will not be easy. In fact, it will be almost impossible using conventional means. So, what is Mr. Cantor planning to do to get around that little "almost impossible" problem? He, and his fellow Republicans, plan to amend the Constitution.

Here's the current wording of the proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution:

The Repeal Amendment:

Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed."

Notice that there is no differentiation between "statutory" and "case" law. Notice that there is no exclusion of case law. Notice the broad, non-specificity of the "any provision of law or regulation" terminology. Notice the broad non-specificity of the "particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation" terminology.

Wow, the title that they gave it, doesn't seem to match those words. The title makes it sound like it's an amendment that would allow the States to repeal an existing Amendment. But, the words of the Amendment makes it sound like "two-thirds of the several states" can pretty much repeal anything in existing Federal Law, both statutory, and case.

Roe v Wade is established case law. Does that not qualify as a "provision of law"? I see nothing in that language that would prohibit "two-thirds of the several states" from getting together and deciding to repeal Roe v Wade. That is an incredibly immense "power" that Mr. Cantor wants to hand to the States. It is also, in my humble opinion, unconstitutional.

Before I explain why, here's what Mr. Cantor and his fellow Republicans, are so frustrated about. They are "Tenthers."

The 10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Why are Tenthers so frustrated? Over the years, the 10th Amendment has proven itself to be the joke that it was. Madison, under pressure, conceded to the States' demand for the 10th Amendment. Why did he, and the other Founders, allow for that concession? They believed, mistakenly, that the Constitution's "purpose" would trump the "several states" attempt to "rule" their individual kingdoms.

It was a terrible miscalculation. Hundreds of thousands of black humans suffered the indignities of slavery for 89 years. More than six hundred thousand Americans died, at the hands of their fellow citizens, when the Union split in half and battled over that mistake.

But we're stuck with it (the Tenth Amendment). It's a Catch-22. It would take the States, to take power away from the States. Pull the other leg. It was the worst mistake in Americas "founding" history. Period.

Further frustrating Mr. Cantor, and the Republicans, is Article 1. Section 8. They absolutely hate that Madison put the General Welfare clause in the Constitution.

Article 1. Section 8.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Let's look at how Article 1. Section 8 might look after a "provision of law" was repealed from it.

Article 1, Section8. (After provision repeal)

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Doesn't quite sound like the Founders anymore, does it? The GOP hates the way Madison finished Article 1, Section 8, too.

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

The language of Article 1. Section 8, makes it sound like the National government has the power to make all laws that are necessary to "provide for the general Welfare of the United States' citizenry.

And then there's the second clause of Article VI.

From Article VI

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwith-standing.
That clause gives conservative, states rights advocates, the eebie jeebies too. So much so, that I think that Article VI might look like this, after repeal.
From Article VI (After provision repeal)

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
That, is some serious "veto" power. But it's not just veto power, like the President has. The President has the authority to veto new legistation that comes to his desk to be "signed into Law". This veto power, according to the Repeal Amendment's current language, would give "the several States" line item, retroactive veto power of every Federal Law on the books, including the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the other 17 Amendments. Isn't, say, the 14th Amendment a "provision of law"?

This is a very slippery slope America.

But worry not. Luckily, the proposed "Repeal Amendment" is unconstitutional, and will never happen. Here's why. The Democratic Congress, will oppose this Trojan Horse move of the GOP, by using the words of the Constitution, and the words of the primary authors in the "Federalist Papers", to prove the Founders intent.

From the Constitution:

Article I, Section 10: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; . . .

To me, the GOP's 28th Amendment, the "Repeal Amendment", looks exactly like what the Founders were guarding against - States trying to align with each other to usurp the "supreme Law of the Land".

For a deeper understanding of the Founding Fathers fears about this, we seek the wisdom of Publius, in the Federalist Papers. The Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787 and distributed to the States for ratification. In the months that followed, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote a series of articles titled The Federalist, using the pseudonym "Publius". They were published, primarily, in two New York newspapers, The Independent Journal and The New York Packet, between October 1787 and August 1788. They came to an end just after New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution. It was official, the United States of America had replaced current law of the land (constitution), the Articles of Confederation, with the new, improved, United States Constitution.

On the surface, from the titles of the two constitutions, it sounds a bit like an intentional shift from a "confederation of states" to "one united nation", doesn't it? That's precisely what it was, and that truth can be easily ascertained in the writings of Publius. Keep in mind as you read the words of these great men, that the essays that they are from were compiled into a two volume set called "The Federalist". Now, in modern times, referred to as "The Federalist Papers", they are a primary source for interpretation of the United States Constitution.

Please note: All bolding emphasis in the excerpted essays are mine.

In the very first The Federalist essay, Alexander Hamilton identified the rage surrounding the disagreement over the balance of powers between "the Union" and "the several States".

The Federalist No. 1, by Publius (Alexander Hamilton)

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.

Hamilton understood from the start that the State legislators would recognise that the new Constitution was a "diminution of [their] power". The question now becomes, did the primary Founding Fathers, bend to this pressure from the States, or stick to their original intent, and make the Union, the "supreme Law of the Land"?

The second clause of Article VI was not amended by the "Article the Twelfth" (the 10th Amendment) of the Bill of Rights. The "powers", that the 10th abrogates to the State, are powers subordinate to the Union's "supreme Law of the Land" powers.

For the proof of that, the Justices of the Supreme need only look further into the "Publius" essays yet to come. Hamilton, again, identifies the "power" of the States issue.

The Federalist No. 33, by Publius (Alexander Hamilton)

THE residue of the argument against the provisions of the Constitution in respect to taxation is ingrafted upon the following clause. The last clause of the eighth section of the first article of the plan under consideration authorizes the national legislature "to make all laws which shall be NECESSARY and PROPER for carrying into execution THE POWERS by that Constitution vested in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof"; and the second clause of the sixth article declares, "that the Constitution and the laws of the United States made IN PURSUANCE THEREOF, and the treaties made by their authority shall be the SUPREME LAW of the land, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

He then asks, rhetorically, this about the "powers" clauses in question . . .

It conducts us to this palpable truth, that a power to lay and collect taxes must be a power to pass all laws NECESSARY and PROPER for the execution of that power; and what does the unfortunate and culumniated provision in question do more than declare the same truth, to wit, that the national legislature, to whom the power of laying and collecting taxes had been previously given, might, in the execution of that power, pass all laws NECESSARY and PROPER to carry it into effect?

He later repeats his concerns . . .

The answer is, that it could only have been done for greater caution, and to guard against all cavilling refinements in those who might hereafter feel a disposition to curtail and evade the legitimate authorities of the Union. The Convention probably foresaw, what it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate, that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is that the State governments will finally sap the foundations of the Union; and might therefore think it necessary, in so cardinal a point, to leave nothing to construction.

And then, puts a stake through the heart of "States Rights" . . .

But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such. Hence we perceive that the clause which declares the supremacy of the laws of the Union, like the one we have just before considered, only declares a truth, which flows immediately and necessarily from the institution of a federal government. It will not, I presume, have escaped observation, that it EXPRESSLY confines this supremacy to laws made PURSUANT TO THE CONSTITUTION; which I mention merely as an instance of caution in the convention; since that limitation would have been to be understood, though it had not been expressed.

Said another way (paraphrasing) . . . Any laws passed by the United States Congress, as long as it is Pursuant to its constitutional powers, will become supreme Law of the Land.

The Father of the Constitution, and two term fourth President of the United State, James Madison, makes an even stronger case that the primary Founding Fathers thought that the United States Congress was the "supreme" arbitrator of Federal Law. Madison's entire The Federalist No. 39 speaks to the subect of National vs Federal supremacy. It is well worth reading the entire essay, but here are some portions that a Justice of the Supreme Court would have to consider as compelling that the Founders leaned heavily in favor of a "National" supremacy.

Madison identifies the States opposition to to National supremacy . . .

The Federalist No. 39, by Publius (James Madison)

"But it was not sufficient," say the adversaries of the proposed Constitution, "for the convention to adhere to the republican form. They ought, with equal care, to have preserved the FEDERAL form, which regards the Union as a CONFEDERACY of sovereign states; instead of which, they have framed a NATIONAL government, which regards the Union as a CONSOLIDATION of the States." And it is asked by what authority this bold and radical innovation was undertaken? The handle which has been made of this objection requires that it should be examined with some precision.

From there, Madison proceeds with a detailed examination of the different aspects of the United States government, and whether they would be a "national" or "federal" feature, under the new Constitution. It's a brilliant, fascinating read. This is Madison's concluding paragraph:

The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; and, finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national.

Mind busting ain't it? Basically, he was walking a tightrope. He had to sell it to NATIONALISTS and FEDERALISTS. So, he brilliantly blurred the NATIONAL and FEDERAL features of the Constitution and painted the coming NATIONAL government as part FEDERAL. In the end it worked. Thirteen States fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. All he had to give them was a weakly worded Article the Twelfth.

If you're scratching your head, that's the 10th Amendment. Two got the boot.

And then, Madison put the nail in the coffin of States Rights, and . . . the Repeal Amendment too.

From Madison's Notes on Nullification (1835-36):

A political system which does not contain an effective provision for a peaceable decision of all controversies arising within itself, would be a Govt in name only. Such a provision is obviously essential; and it is equally obvious that it cannot be either peaceable or effective by making every part an authoritative umpire. The final appeal in such cases must be to the authority of the whole, not to that of the parts separately and independently. This was the view taken of the subject, whilst the Constitution was under the consideration of the people. [See Federalist No. 39.] It was this view of it which dictated the clause declaring that the Constitution & laws of the U. S. should be the supreme law of the Land, anything in the constn or laws of any of the States to the contrary notwithstanding. [See Art. VI.]

Bam! Nail number one. "See Federalist No. 39", says Madison. Take that Mr. Cantor, Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Beck, Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Romney, Mr. Huckabee, Mrs. Palin, etc.

It gets better. Look at these words from James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, in 1823.

Believing as I do that the General Convention regarded a provision within the Constitution for deciding in a peaceable & regular mode all cases arising in the course of its operation, as essential to an adequate System of Govt. that it intended the Authority vested in the Judicial Department as a final resort in relation to the States, for cases resulting to it in the exercise of its functions, (the concurrence of the Senate chosen by the State Legislatures, in appointing the Judges, and the oaths & official tenures of these, with the surveillance of public Opinion, being relied on as guarantying their impartiality); and that this intention is expressed by the articles declaring that the federal Constitution & laws shall be the supreme law of the land.

Bam! Nail number two. Please see Article V, of the Constitution, Mr. Cantor, Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Beck, Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Romney, Mr. Huckabee, Mrs. Palin, etc. There is already a constitutional amendment process, available to the States, written into the body of the supreme Law of the Land. And, there's that pesky reference to Article VI again, as well.

Here's the truth behind this "Repeal Amendment" nonsense. The Republicans hate about half the Constitution and want to go in there and slice and dice it. Article I, Section 8; Article V; Clause 2 of Article VI; Amendments 14, 16, and 17; are all in the Republican's crosshairs.

What are the chances that an amendment like this would ever make it through the United States Congress? None. Zero, zilch, nada. They should be calling this the Jim Crow Jr. Amendment. It's not just unconstitutional, it's retrogressively "anti-Constitutional".

But, nice try Mr. Cantor.

Case closed.

Robert L. Borosage: Bushwacking Obama: Conservatives Call for "Fixing" Social Security

2010-12-28T14:32:00.000-08:00

My take - Dammit, leave Social Security alone! The Penthouse Party and their masters, the Wall Streeters, are salivating at the thought of "managing" that Social Security trust. What most don't know, is that "private accounts" have "managers" who get a cut of the account every month. You would "get" to pay them every month to take care of your money! If they screw up, which they will, your retirement security is gone! The way it is now, the Old Age and Survivors Insurance program is guaranteed payment for the rest of your life. They want to take away that guarantee and make you think you have a chance at getting rich quick. LOL! Social Security is NOT an investment program, nor is it an entitlement program! It is an insurance program designed to make sure you're not penniless when you're most vulnerable in advanced years. Let them disappear my future security? - NO WAY!!

Of course, this is a Republican (Penthouse Party)conservative offering up this advice. Adopt a course that will not address our pressing problems, do nothing about growth and jobs, torpedo support among seniors and blue collar workers, alienate voters across the political spectrum, tear apart the Democratic Party, and fail to address either short, medium or long term deficits. Great advice from a former George Bush operative. Keep this poisoned chalice from thy lips, Mr. President.

Robert L. Borosage: Bushwacking Obama: Conservatives Call for "Fixing" Social Security

Beware of conservatives bearing gifts. Today in the Washington Post, former Bush policy advisor Michael Gerson echoes a growing chorus of conservative pundits in offering up "Social Security reform" as "the answer to Obama's problems." The advice is illogical on its face, pernicious in its consequence, and poisoned from its source. Read the rest of this article at the link above.

Swine flu pandemic outbreak sweeping through Britain even though 70 percent were vaccinated last year

2010-12-27T14:23:00.000-08:00

That flu vaccines simply don't work on 99 percent of people!
Swine flu pandemic outbreak sweeping through Britain even though 70 percent were vaccinated last year
NaturalNews) A swine flu pandemic is sweeping through Britain despite the fact that 70 percent of Britain's over-65 population was vaccinated against swine flu last year. This year, that number is nearly the same -- 68.5% -- but flu vaccine proponents insist that until everyone is vaccinated, the flu will continue to infect people.

What these vaccine advocates absolutely will not admit, however, is how many of those who are sick with the flu this year also got vaccinated last year. This little detail is left out of every mainstream media report on vaccines and the flu. They simply refuse to mention this all-important number, leaving readers to leap to the incorrect conclusion that only those who were not vaccinated get sick with the flu.

Most infected patients were previously vaccinated
That assumption is false. In fact, of the 450 critical care beds in England that are now occupied by flu patients, I have no doubt that most of those infected patients are people who received flu vaccines in the past.

Such statistics are never made available to the public or the press, of course. To release such statistics would expose the Great Lie of the vaccine industry: That flu vaccines simply don't work on 99 percent of people!

In fact, the people who are most susceptible to catching the flu are precisely the very same people who get vaccinated. Why is that? Because vaccines weaken the immune system in the long run, leaving you more vulnerable to future infections. They deny your immune system the opportunity to practice its own adaptive response to invading microorganisms or viruses, thereby causing your immune system to atrophy in the same way that a wheelchair-bound person will experience leg muscle atrophy.

The immune system is a lot like a muscle: Use it or lose it!

But flu vaccines provide weakened viruses to the immune system (along with other preservative chemicals that can be extremely dangerous to neurological health). It's sort of like working out your muscles at the gym but having your trainer do all the heavy lifting for you. Obviously you're not going to have very strong muscles in the end because your body won't need to invoke a very strong adaptive response.

The same is true with vaccines and the flu: If your body is exposed to weakened flu viruses year after year, it gets lazy and weak, and when it one day comes into contact with a full-strength virus circulating in the wild, it's not in good enough shape to handle the challenge.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030845_Britain_swine_flu.html#ixzz19LyLV8W0

Expect more extreme winters thanks to global warming, say scientists - Science, News - The Independent

2010-12-27T14:14:00.000-08:00

Expect more extreme winters thanks to global warming, say scientists - Science, News - The Independent
Expect more extreme winters thanks to global warming, say scientists

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Friday, 24 December 2010
Some experts believe the Arctic ice cap will disappear completely in summer months within 20 to 30 years

Scientists have established a link between the cold, snowy winters in Britain and melting sea ice in the Arctic and have warned that long periods of freezing weather are likely to become more frequent in years to come.

An analysis of the ice-free regions of the Arctic Ocean has found that the higher temperatures there caused by global warming, which have melted the sea ice in the summer months, have paradoxically increased the chances of colder winters in Britain and the rest of northern Europe.

The findings are being assessed by British climate scientists, who have been asked by ministers for advice on whether the past two cold winters are part of a wider pattern of climate change that will cause further damaging disruption to the nation's creaking transport infrastructure.

Some climate scientists believe that the dramatic retreat of the Arctic sea ice over the past 30 years has begun to change the wind patterns over much of the northern hemisphere, causing cold, Arctic air to be funnelled over Britain during winter, replacing the mild westerly airstream that normally dominates the UK's weather.

The study was carried out in 2009, before last year's harsh winter started to bite, and is all the more prescient because of its prediction that cold, snowy winters will be about three times more frequent in the coming years compared to previous decades.

The researchers used computer models to assess the impact of the disappearing Arctic sea ice, particularly in the area of the Barents and Kara seas north of Scandinavia and Russia, which have experienced unprecedented losses of sea ice during summer.

Their models found that, as the ice cap over the ocean disappeared, this allowed the heat of the relatively warm seawater to escape into the much colder atmosphere above, creating an area of high pressure surrounded by clockwise-moving winds that sweep down from the polar region over Europe and the British Isles. Vladimir Petoukhov, who carried out the study at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said the computer simulations showed that the disappearing sea ice is likely to have widespread and unpredictable impacts on the climate of the northern hemisphere.

One of the principal predictions of the study was that the warming of the air over the ice-free seas is likely to bring bitterly cold air to Europe during the winter months, Dr Petoukhov said. "This is not what one would expect. Whoever thinks that the shrinking of some far away sea-ice won't bother him could be wrong. There are complex interconnections in the climate system, and in the Barents-Kara Sea we might have discovered a powerful feedback mechanism," he said.

In the paper, submitted in November 2009 but published last month in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Dr Petoukhov and his colleague Vladimir Semenov write: "Our results imply that several recent severe winters do not conflict with the global warming picture but rather supplement it."

Arctic sea ice has been in retreat over recent decades, with record lows recorded in September 2007. The normal recovery of the sea ice during winter has also been affected, especially in the Barents and Kara seas which have seen significant losses of ice cover over the past decade.

Stefan Rahmstorf, professor of physics of the oceans at the Potsdam Institute, said the floating sea ice in winter insulates the relatively warm seawater from the bitterly cold temperatures of the air above it, which can be around -20C or -30C.

"The Arctic sea ice is shrinking and at the moment it is at a record low for mid-to-late December, which provides a big heat source for the atmosphere," Professor Rahmstorf said. "The open ocean actually heats the atmosphere above because the ocean in the Arctic is about 0C, and that's much warmer than the atmosphere about it. This is a massive change compared with an ice-covered ocean, where the ice operates like a lid. You don't get that heating from below.

"The model simulations show that, when you don't get ice on the Barents and Kara seas, that promotes the formation of a high-pressure system there, and, because the airflow is clockwise around the high, it brings cold, polar air right into Europe, which leads to cold conditions here while it is unusually warm elsewhere, especially in the Arctic," he explained.

The scientists emphasised that the climate is complex and there were other factors at play. It is, they said, too early to be sure if the past two cold winters are due to the ice-free Arctic.
"I want to be cautious, but basically in the past couple of months the sea ice cover has been low and so, according to the model simulations, that would encourage this kind of weather pattern," Professor Rahmstorf said.

"The last winter of 2009-10 turned out to be fitting that pattern very well, and perhaps this winter as well, so that is three data points. I would say it's not definite confirmation of the mechanism, but it certainly fits the pattern," he said.

The computer model used by the scientists also predicted that, as the ice cover continues to be lost, the weather pattern is likely to shift back into a phase of warmer-than-usual winters. Global warming will also continue to warm the Arctic air mass, Professor Rahmstorf said.

"If you look ahead 40 or 50 years, these cold winters will be getting warmer because, even though you are getting an inflow of cold polar air, that air mass is getting warmer because of the greenhouse effect," he said. "So it's a transient phenomenon. In the long run, global warming wins out."

In Kenya, Huts Far Off the Grid Harness the Sun - NYTimes.com

2010-12-26T09:28:00.000-08:00

That wearying routine ended in February when the family sold some animals to buy a small Chinese-made solar power system for about $80. Now balanced precariously atop their tin roof, a lone solar panel provides enough electricity to charge the phone and run four bright overhead lights with switches.

In Kenya, Huts Far Off the Grid Harness the Sun - NYTimes.com
There is no reliable data on the spread of off-grid renewable energy on a small scale, in part because the projects are often installed by individuals or tiny nongovernmental organizations.

But Dana Younger, senior renewable energy adviser at the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank Group’s private lending arm, said there was no question that the trend was accelerating. “It’s a phenomenon that’s sweeping the world; a huge number of these systems are being installed,” Mr. Younger said.

With the advent of cheap solar panels and high-efficiency LED lights, which can light a room with just 4 watts of power instead of 60, these small solar systems now deliver useful electricity at a price that even the poor can afford, he noted. “You’re seeing herders in Inner Mongolia with solar cells on top of their yurts,” Mr. Younger said.

In Africa, nascent markets for the systems have sprung up in Ethiopia, Uganda, Malawi and Ghana as well as in Kenya, said Francis Hillman, an energy entrepreneur who recently shifted his Eritrea-based business, Phaesun Asmara, from large solar projects financed by nongovernmental organizations to a greater emphasis on tiny rooftop systems.

In addition to these small solar projects, renewable energy technologies designed for the poor include simple subterranean biogas chambers that make fuel and electricity from the manure of a few cows, and “mini” hydroelectric dams that can harness the power of a local river for an entire village.

Tea Partiers Hosting Lavish, Expensive, Bourgeois Swearing-In Party | AlterNet

2010-12-25T08:14:00.000-08:00

Ah, the utter hypocrisy! Those Tea Party elitists!
Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn. (Tea Party)

Tea Partiers Hosting Lavish, Expensive, Bourgeois Swearing-In Party AlterNet

Study: fluoridated water causes brain damage in children

2010-12-23T09:18:00.000-08:00

Study: fluoridated water causes brain damage in children
NaturalNews) A new study pre-published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives confirms that fluoridated water causes brain damage in children. The most recent among 23 others pertaining to fluoride and lowered IQ levels, the new study so strongly proves that fluoride is a dangerous, brain-destroying toxin that experts say it could be the one that finally ends water fluoridation.

"This is the 24th study that has found this association," explained Paul Connett, Ph.D., director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). "[B]ut this study is stronger than the rest because the authors have controlled for key confounding variables and in addition to correlating lowered IQ with levels of fluoride in the water, the authors found a correlation between lowered IQ and fluoride levels in children's blood."

For the study, researchers evaluated 512 children ages 8-13 in two Chinese villages, one village with higher than average fluoride levels and the other with lower than average fluoride levels. After accounting for external variables like lead exposure, iodine deficiency and other conditions that might affect brain health, the team still found that the number of higher intelligence children in the low fluoride community was 350 percent higher than the number in the high fluoride community.

"In this study we found a significant dose-response relation between fluoride level in serum and children's IQ," wrote the study authors.

Though there have been numerous studies over the years the identify fluoride as a neurotoxin, most mainstream medical professionals in the U.S. have ignored them and continue to support water fluoridation. But the evidence continues to mount, and sooner or later the medical community will have to come to grips with the truth about fluoride.

"This should be the study that finally ends water fluoridation," explained Tara Blank, Ph.D., Science and Health Officer at FAN. "Millions of American children are being exposed unnecessarily to this neurotoxin on a daily basis. Who in their right minds would risk lowering their child's intelligence in order to reduce a small amount of tooth decay, for which the evidence is very weak."

To learn more about the dangers of fluoride, visit:
www.fluorideaction.org

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030819_fluoride_brain_damage.html#ixzz18xLYFsvn

Insider Reveals Diabolical Secrets Of The Rand Corporation

2010-12-17T07:38:00.000-08:00

There is no place for love, empathy or selflessness in the new world order that RAND and the Ford Foundation are working to create, and patriotism and altruism are adversarial to their aims.

Insider Reveals Diabolical Secrets Of The Rand Corporation
Insider Reveals Diabolical Secrets Of The Rand Corporation .
Friday, 17 December 2010 09:36 .Cuban-born journalist and author Alex Abella was allowed exclusive access inside the RAND Corporation to view their archives. What he discovered was a plot driven by mad scientists, behaviorists, and generals who were intent on starting world war three and fleecing the American people in the process. Once he was a skeptic on the subject of conspiracy theories and the new world order, but after his work with the RAND Corporation he is now convinced that this top secret think tank has been pulling the strings of American government for at least 60 years.

RAND’s ultimate goal was to have technocrats running every aspect of society in pursuit of a one world government that would be administered under “the rule of reason,” a ruthless world where efficiency was king and men were little more than machines, which is why RAND studied the social sciences because they were at a loss to work out how to deal with people and how human beings did not always act in their own predictable self-interests. There is no place for love, empathy or selflessness in the new world order that RAND and the Ford Foundation are working to create, and patriotism and altruism are adversarial to their aims.

Speaking on the topic of false flag attacks, Abella notes that the staged Gulf of Tonkin attack and the planned Operation Northwoods false flag were both initially proposed in RAND documents, highlighting the total immorality with which RAND war games its scenarios, many of which are ethically repugnant in that they nonchalantly promote the genocide of entire populations with little regard for the consequences. Abella explains how RAND truly is a shadow government because it serves as a revolving door between the two, and how RAND is the cradle of the military-industrial complex and the birthplace of the technocratic elite that we are now fighting against.

The End of Social Security | MyFDL

2010-12-12T08:57:00.000-08:00

Good bye, Social Security. You did a great job for 75 years. Apparently, the President is ready to pull the plug on you, if not on Grandma herself.

The End of Social Security MyFDL
Strengthen Social Security, Don’t Cut It
The End of Social Security
By: Nancy Altman Tuesday December 7, 2010 5:44 am

President Obama and the Republicans will say that the payroll tax holiday is all about stimulating the economy. But don’t be fooled. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities,extending the Making Work Pay Tax Credit, is a much better, more targeted stimulus. See “Payroll Tax Holiday a Poor Stimulus Idea,” available at this link.

And the Making Work Pay Tax Credit poses no threat to Social Security. The innocent-sounding payroll tax holiday, on the other hand, will lead inexorably to killing Social Security. Let me explain:

Sixty members of the Senate are unwilling to raise taxes by 3 percent on the $250,000 and first dollar (and all those dollars earned above $250.001) of those making over $250,000 and by 1.6 percent more (for a total of 4.6 percent) on the $384,860 and first dollar {and all those dollars earned above $384,861) of those making over $384,860. They are even unwilling to spare everyone making less that one million dollars any increased taxes and simply raise taxes by 4.6 percent on the $1 million and first dollar (and all those dollars earned above $1,000,001 of the nation’s multimillionaires and billionaires. (I say multimillionaires because anyone with a net worth of a few million dollars is not making an annual income of over one million dollars.)

Given that unwillingness to raise taxes by less than a nickel on every dollar earned over $1 million, I find it unfathomable that a more conservative Congress, in two years, in an election year, will increase the payroll tax by 2 percent on the very first dollar, and every other dollar up to the cap, earned by virtually every single worker in the country. Consequently, I think we have to assume that the payroll tax holiday will be extended beyond the two years the president is proposing and quite likely could become permanent.

That means that the federal government will have to continue to transfer $120 billion to the Social Security trust funds each and every year even as it has to transfer more and more interest payments as the trust funds continue to grow and as interest rates return to more normal levels. Unless Congress acts to restore Social Security to solvency, the Treasury bonds held in trust will have to be redeemed, again on top of that new $120 billion transfer from the general fund, starting fifteen years from now, assuming Congress even continues to make the $120 billion every year before that point. These dollars will be competing with dollars for defense, environmental protection, education, school lunches, Food Stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, SSI, Pell grants for low income college students, and every other good and service financed by the federal government.

A permanent two percent cut in Social Security contributions doubles the 75 year projected shortfall. Scrapping the cap (eliminating the $106,800 maximum on earnings), tonally eliminates the shortfall today. If FICA is cut by 2 percent, scrapping the cap gets Social Security only halfway there.

The pressure to cut Social Security in a slow, gradual way for younger workers will be enormous. Progressives will not want to cut benefits for the low-income – and they shouldn’t be cut; they should be increased. Despite the fact that there are few beneficiaries who do not desperately need their Social Security – 2/3rds of the elderly and 70 percent of people receiving disability benefits rely on Social Security for half or more of their income and most people think even more people will be dependent on it in the future – nonetheless, means-testing Social Security will become a viable option. (Eliminating the benefits of those who don’t need them will make no difference to the solvency of Social Security, but will introduce administrative complexity, because it will require everyone claiming benefits to reveal their income and assets, to show they are of insufficient means to get by without it, and will destroy the universal, insurance nature of Social Security.) Changing the benefit formula in the manner proposed by a majority of the Catfood Commission, will appear attractive, even though it would gradually and inexorably eviscerate the benefits of the middle class, and with it, their support for the program.

Conservatives, from the moment Social Security was introduced in 1935, resisted a highly redistributive middle-class program, based on insurance principles. Throughout the past 75 years, they pushed for a program that mainly helped only the very poorest Americans by providing either a means-tested program or a low level of benefits for everyone, if they had to, paid from general revenue, but Democratic politicians were too smart to fall for that. They recognized that, not only did the middle class, not just the very poor, need economic protection in a capitalist system, but also that only programs that had broad based support, which provided meaningful benefits to the middle class, could offer meaningful benefits to the poor, as well. They understood the adage that programs exclusively for the poor made poor programs. One Democrat who understood this all very clearly was the one who created Social Security: President Franklin Roosevelt.

FDR recognized that a visible dedicated contribution makes it both politically and morally difficult for future politicians to cut Social Security. When pressed about the impact of payroll taxes on the economy, FDR said:

“I guess you’re right on the economics. They are politics all the way through. We put those pay roll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program. Those taxes aren’t a matter of economics, they’re straight politics.”

The fact that the Republican idea of scrapping the payroll tax is being touted as a concession made to the Democrats by the Republicans, shows just how hapless and clueless President Obama and his advisers are. Today’s Democrats seem to be able to win electorally when the Republicans start two endless wars and destroy the economy but they seem incapable of presenting a compelling vision of what they are for. Social Security is the nation’s most progressive program, but it is not a progressive issue. It is overwhelmingly popular with the vast majority of the American people, including the Tea Partiers. Today’s Democrats fail to understand the program, and so are not only blind to subtle assaults against it, but seem to conspire in those assaults. All I can say is that with the Republicans and the Democratic President, perhaps unwittingly, conspiring to destroy Social Security, the American people don’t stand a chance.

Good bye, Social Security. You did a great job for 75 years. Apparently, the President is ready to pull the plug on you, if not on Grandma herself.

Nancy Altman is the co-director of Social Security Works.