Toddstock

This is (pro parte) why I love this guy! Wish I'd been there.

Why I'm Voting Tea Party

A tip o' the Mirsky hat to I'm Voting Tea Party.

Even if Barack Obama is left-handed.

Now, go there and buy a T-Shirt to wear at the Oct. 30 Stop the Insanity rally in DC.

Finally, Something So Right

President Obama just appointed populist hero Elizabeth Warren to establish and lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau!!

This is the boldest step Obama's taken so far to rein in the big Wall Street banks. And it's a major victory for grassroots progressives who rallied for Warren.

The banks fought to keep her out of this job—and now that she has it, they'll do whatever they can to keep her from exercising her full authority. That's why we need to get the word out—to make sure she has the grassroots support she needs to aggressively police Wall Street.

Top Five Things You Should Know About Elizabeth Warren

1. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was her idea. Here's why she thinks this agency is so critical: "It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house. But it is possible to refinance your home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting your family out on the street."¹

2. The Republicans are so scared of her, they tried to pass a law blocking her from leading the agency. Republicans in Congress and the big Wall Street banks have always been against Warren leading the new consumer agency. Republicans even offered an amendment that was widely understood as designed to block Warren. That amendment failed.²

3. She is one of the most prominent, successful and fierce female lawyers in America. Coming from working-class roots, she graduated from high school as a debate star at 16. She finished law school when she was nine months pregnant. And she has repeatedly been named one of the 50 most influential female lawyers by the National Law Journal and was twice nominated as one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People (among other honors).³

4. She spoke truth to power about the failed foreclosure program. The Home Affordability Modification Program was supposed to save homeowners from losing their homes but has left many deeper in debt than they were before. Warren used her position on the Congressional Oversight Panel to bring the voices of these disaffected homeowners right to the decision makers in the administration and demand accountability. ⁴

5. She may have actual superpowers. She once calmed a crowd at an NBA game with her encyclopedic basketball knowledge. She explained the financial meltdown so clearly to Jon Stewart that he said it made him "want to make out with" her. And there's a viral cowboy rap video about her.⁵

Here is Elizabeth Warren's reaction to the news, with more information on her new role:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=90375&id=23486-630415-1N8frLx&t=4

Sources:

1. "Making Credit Safer: The Case for Regulation," Harvard Magazine, June 2008
http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/05/making-credit-safer-html

2. "GOP Tried To Block Elizabeth Warren From Heading Agency She Proposed," Huffington Post, October 27, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=90368&id=23486-630415-1N8frLx&t=5

3. "Elizabeth Warren," Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren

4. "Elizabeth Warren is Bostonian of the Year," The Boston Globe, December 20, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=90369&id=23486-630415-1N8frLx&t=6

5. "How HAMP Makes Elizabeth Warren The Only Choice For Consumer Protection," The New Deal 2.0, July 22, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=90370&id=23486-630415-1N8frLx&t=7

"Got a New Sheriff," Main Street Brigade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W0vCgMRX0o

"Elizabeth Warren is Bostonian of the Year," The Boston Globe, December 20, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=90369&id=23486-630415-1N8frLx&t=8

"Jon Stewart to Elizabeth Warren: Let's Make Out," Talking Points Memo, January 27, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=90371&id=23486-630415-1N8frLx&t=9

A tip of the Mirsky hat to Moveon.org for the above.

Who Are The Kings of Corporatocracy Bankrolling and Manipulating Half-Wit Tea-baggers?

"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of our country."
~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Logan. November 12, 1816

Their names are Koch (pronounced "Coke"), the third generation scions of Wichita-based Koch Industries, the largest privately-held corporation in America. While their wealth began with oil (and still provides a giant share of their billions), they are the owners of such familiar brands as Northern tissue, Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups and Vanity Fair napkins. Their held companies have also been frequently named in various incidences of industrial water and air pollution.

With personal wealth valued (each) at somewhere around 14 or 15 billion dollars (putting them somewhere around the 19th richest people on the planet), the philanthropic arm of their privately held mega-corporation, ensconced in three Koch Family Foundations, is used in ways largely byzantine and secretive to pursue a hard right-wing, corporatist agenda that ultimately serves their selfish interests.

In what follows a great family tradition (afterall, Papa Fred, from whom these self-espoused "self-made" men inherited their initial fortune, was one of the founders of the John Birch Society in 1958), the Koch Brothers have pumped millions of dollars into mass-producing fake grass-roots organizations all across the country, including Patients United Now (anti-health care reform), Hot Air Tour (anti-global warming), Free Our Energy (pro-offshore drilling), No Stimulus (tried to kill Obama's economic recovery plan) and Save My Ballot Tour (tries to keep workers from joining unions), via Americans for Prosperity, their umbrella front factory. These pseudo NGOs manufacture all sorts of hoked-up studies, alarmist talking points, deceptive attack ads, divisive hate messages, celebrity and religious endorsers, and a menagerie of media stunts, all meant to stymie any progressive legislation that would inconvenience their corporate agenda. Most recently, they are pouring millions into an effort to kill California's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB32) via a ballot proposition. And David Koch made a $15 million dollar gift to the Smithsonian Institution to fund a disingenuous display on climate change that whitewashes its industrial causes and devastating effects - in essence, more than flirting with junk science. And this is our National Museum of Natural History and science!

And it is Americans For Prosperity Foundation that bankrolled Glenn Beck's theater of the absurd tea bagger love fest two weeks ago in DC. While Charles Koch quietly minds the store at Koch Industries HQ in Wichita, the younger and flashier former playboy David lives high on the hog in New York City, where he has become something of a high-rolling patron of the arts and likes to deny any connection to the Tea Party.

Before Koch Bros. partner-in-slime Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation began providing a daily entourage of televised right wing enablers with the common touch, Charles Koch started the Cato Institute in 1977, the intellectual arm of libertarian corporatist blather.

While there are clearly some Tea Party members who applaud the Libertarian goals of ending all corporate regulation, and dismantling Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the vast majority of tea baggers are just ill-informed, easy to manipulate nitwits. They are utterly clueless to how they are being used to create an America that they probably would not want to live in. Blind them with religion, mesmerize them with televised ideological propaganda masquerading as fact, and like Pavlov's dogs, they will rally at your will to cut their own throats.

Now, someone try and "refudiate" that.

Know thine enemy; a Koch Brothers Bibliography:

Jane Mayers's New Yorker article: "Covert operations: the billionaire brothers who are waging a a war against Obama."

Yasha Levine's New York Observer article "7 Ways the Koch Bros. benefit from corporate welfare."

Jim Hightower: "Two Multibillionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit"

The coming attack on Social Security

You gotta love John Boehner, GOP House Minority Leader. For one, does anyone else on Planet Earth have orange-tinted skin? Bad tan, Johnny Boy. Sen Boner - opps, my bad - is leading the charge to do what Rethuglicans do so well - namely, insure that Bush's outrageous tax cuts for the rich remain in place, while raising the retirement age for us less wealthy joes and janes to ... ready? 70. Yeah, imagine waiting until you are 70 to collect full benefits. So, first, let's hear this George Hamilton wannabe avoid stating his true plans on Meet the Press:



Now, there's something you should know about Social Security. Everything the Teabaggers and their enablers on Fox News say about SS is JUST WRONG!

Top 5 Social Security Myths

Myth #1: Social Security is going broke.

Reality: There is no Social Security crisis. By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.6 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a 'T'). It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever.¹ After 2037, it'll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits—and again, that's without any changes. The program started preparing for the Baby Boomers' retirement decades ago.² Anyone who insists Social Security is broke probably wants to break it themselves.

Myth #2: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.

Reality: This is a red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than they did 70 years ago.³ What's more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly—since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half.⁴ But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.

Myth #3: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.

Reality: Social Security doesn't need to be fixed. But if we want to strengthen it, here's a better way: Make the rich pay their fair share. If the very rich paid taxes on all of their income, Social Security would be sustainable for decades to come.⁵ Right now, high earners only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,000 of their income.⁶ But conservatives insist benefit cuts are the only way because they want to protect the super-rich from paying their fair share.

Myth #4: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs

Reality: Not even close to true. The Social Security Trust Fund isn't full of IOUs, it's full of U.S. Treasury Bonds. And those bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.⁷ The reason Social Security holds only treasury bonds is the same reason many Americans do: The federal government has never missed a single interest payment on its debts. President Bush wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market—which would have been disastrous—but luckily, he failed. So the trillions of dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund, which are separate from the regular budget, are as safe as can be.

Myth #5: Social Security adds to the deficit

Reality: It's not just wrong—it's impossible! By law, Social Security's funds are separate from the budget, and it must pay its own way. That means that Social Security can't add one penny to the deficit.⁸

Sources:

1."To Deficit Hawks: We the People Know Best on Social Security," New Deal 2.0, June 14, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89703&id=22140-630415-bWfTPFx&t=4

2. "The Straight Facts on Social Security," Economic Opportunity Institute, September 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89704&id=22140-630415-bWfTPFx&t=5

3. "Social Security and the Age of Retirement," Center for Economic and Policy Research, June 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89705&id=22140-630415-bWfTPFx&t=6

4. "More on raising the retirement age," Washington Post, July 8, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89706&id=22140-630415-bWfTPFx&t=7

5. "Social Security is sustainable," Economic and Policy Institute, May 27, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89707&id=22140-630415-bWfTPFx&t=8

6. "Maximum wage contribution and the amount for a credit in 2010," Social Security Administration, April 23, 2010
http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/240

7. "Trust Fund FAQs," Social Security Administration, February 18, 2010
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html

8."To Deficit Hawks: We the People Know Best on Social Security," New Deal 2.0, June 14, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89703&id=22140-630415-bWfTPFx&t=9


OK. So how do the people in the street feel about slicing and dicing their retirement safety net?



News Corp. (parent company of Fox News) has just made an over 1 million dollar contribution to the Republican war chest. If we let the bastards take back either house of congress, we will have only ourselves to blame.

A Sarah moment

That Sarah Palin has even an iota of momentum as a candidate for ANYTHING at once astounds, saddens and frightens me. Sure, I know that a resounding majority of voting age Americans find the thought of President Palin ridiculous, but that tea-bagging 25-30% (all armed to the teeth) who think she is some sort of "breath of fresh air;" how fucking stupid can they be? Every now and again, the real vacuum at the heart (and mind) of Barbie the Fascist reveals itself. Watch below as Ms. Palin interacts with one of her former constituents who actually thinks. Kathleen Gustafson placed a sign near a Palin rally in Alaska that said "Worst Governor Ever."



Isn't it amazing how the how the wingnuts invoke the "constitution" all the time, as if they have ever read the document? Did you notice Palin's reaction when her critic revealed that she was a teacher? That speaks volumes about the America people like Palin envision.

Oh, and by the way - the sign was torn down by one of Plain's entourage. So much for the constitution.

Sensible liberalism means never having to say you've been had

IHOTFM

Guess what? Corporations DO rule the world

The Gulf disaster, beyond the hideous truth revealed about our unwillingness to even begin to address our strung-out, monkey-on-its-back, petroleum-as-heroin, over consumptive economy; beyond the likely transformation of the Gulf of Mexico into one huge dead zone - makes it abundantly clear who is calling the shots across much of this tottering globe. David Korten called it in 1995 with the publication of his first book, "When Corporations Rule the World" (see below for excerpts from this prescient book). Fifteen years later, they do; they really do.

In his new Rolling Stone article, "The Spill, The Scandal and the President," subtitled "The inside story of how Obama failed to crack down on the corruption of the Bush years – and let the world's most dangerous oil company get away with murder," Tim Dickinson details how Obama's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar kept the Bush "Easy Oil" policies in place, failed to bring Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) into line, which continued to function like a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil industry, and ultimately give the green light to BP's deep water drilling.

Little has stemmed the tide of the corrupting influence of corporate lobbyists on the political process other the apportioning of the money along different party lines.

The BP disaster is just the the the most current "in your face" example of just how the rise of massive multi-nationals has had dire effects on our nation and on the planet itself. Whether it be AT&T's subversive campaign to end Net Neutrality, the right wing Supreme Court's decision that allows corporations to spend unlimited funds on partisan political advertising, the corporate agenda, enabled by Wall Street and facilitated media empires like Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., have become adept at manipulating "Main Street" rage to turn against the very forces that could potentially inhibit the continuing rise of unbridled corporate power.

Like the late, great George Carlin said: "That's why they call it the American Dream. You have to be asleep to believe it."

Earth's three socio-ecological classes
OVERCONSUMERS 1.1 billion > US$ 7,500 per capita (Cars-meat-disposables) SUSTAINERS 3.3 billion US$ 700 - 7,500 per capita (Living lightly) MARGINALS 1.1 billion Travel by car and air Eat high fat, high calory meat-based diets Drink bottled water and soft drinks Use throw-away products and discard substantial wastes Live in spacious, climate controlled, single family residences Maintain image conscious wardrobe Travel by bicycle and public surface transport Eat healthy diets of grains vegetables and some meat Drink clean water plus some tea and coffee Use unpackaged goods and durables and recycle wastes Live in modest naturally ventilated residences, with extended/multiple families Wear functional clothing Travel by foot, maybe donkey Eat nutritionally inadequate diets Drink contaminated water Use local biomass and produce negligible wastes Live in rudimentary shelters or in the open. Usually lack secure tenure Wear second hand clothing or scraps
Based on Alan Durning's How Much Is Enough, Worldwatch Institute.

In the quest for economic growth, free market ideology has been embraced around the world with the fervor of a fundamentalist religious faith.

Assault of the Corporate Libertarians

Proponents of corporate libertarianism regularly pay homage to Adam Smith as their intellectual patron saint... Ironically, Smith's epic work The Wealth of Nations, which was first published in 1776, presents a radical condemnation of business monopolies sustained and protected by the state.

The Betrayal Of Adam Smith

We should be more than skeptical of an economic model that calls on us to give up all loyalty to place and community, says we must give free reign to securities fraud and corporate monopolies and deny workers the right to organize, and tells the poor to run faster and faster after a train they have no chance of catching—so that a few hundred thousand people can become multi-millionaires by destroying nature and depriving others of a decent means of livelihood.

Economic Myths

Communism called for all power to the state. Market capitalism calls for all power to the market—which in a globalized economy means rule by global corporations and financial markets. Both ideologies lead to the concentration of power in distant and unaccountable institutions.

Markets are for People

So sacred have growth and free trade become in our modern culture that only rarely do we find the courage to ask why they should be given precedence over the needs of people and nature?

An Economic System Out Of Control

Needless to say, it hasn't been easy to create an economic system able to produce 358 billionaires while keeping another 1.3 billion people living in absolute deprivation. It took long and dedicated effort by legions of economists, lawyers, and politicians on the payrolls of monied interests to design and implement such a system. It required a radical altering of the dominant culture and the restructuring of many important institutions. It will take a similarly committed effort on the part of civil society to design and put in place an economic system supportive of economic justice and environmental sustainability.
A Citizen Agenda to Tame Corporate Power, Reclaim Citizen Sovereignty, and Restore Economic Sanity

Thanks to http://deoxy.org/korten_index.htm

Based on documents from http://treesandpeople.lbutv.slu.se/welcome.html

Also see:

Gangs Of America

The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy

The Corporation

Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power

Chris Hedges: The Christian Fascists Are Growing Stronger

Chris Hedges posted a piece at truthout.org today that I find alarming to say the least. The rise of the far Christian right wing, its influence in our military, in the halls of Congress, and the culture at large belies their numbers. While it is easy to marginalize the christofascist movement, they manage to to pack an extraordinary punch far beyond their demographics, in no small part through their opportunistic enablers like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. To wit, the recent decision of the Texas School Board to adopt "white-washed" history books and a curriculum that champions the likes of Sen. Joe McCarthy, Phyllis Schafly, and conveniently ignore Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, even Thomas Jefferson.

"Tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, have begun to dismantle the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment. They are creating a theocratic state based on "biblical law," and shutting out all those they define as the enemy. This movement, veering closer and closer to traditional fascism, seeks to force a recalcitrant world to submit before an imperial America. It champions the eradication of social deviants, beginning with homosexuals, and moving on to immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims and those they dismiss as "nominal Christians"—meaning Christians who do not embrace their perverted and heretical interpretation of the Bible. Those who defy the mass movement are condemned as posing a threat to the health and hygiene of the country and the family. All will be purged."

For example, The Family, of whom most Americans have never heard, is a secretive fellowship of powerful Christian politicians that centers on a Washington, D.C., townhouse. Investigative journalist Jeff Sharlet has written extensively about the influential group in his book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. From the book:

"Senator Sam Brownback (R., Kansas), chair of a weekly, off -the-record meeting of religious right groups called the Values Action Team (VAT), is an active member, as is Representative Joe Pitts (R., Pennsylvania), an avuncular would-be theocrat who chairs the House version of the VAT. Others referred to as members include senators Jim DeMint of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Steering Committee (the powerful conservative caucus co-founded back in 1974 by another Family associate, the late senator Carl Curtis of Nebraska); Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa); James Inhofe (R., Oklahoma); Tom Coburn (R., Oklahoma); John Thune (R., South Dakota); Mike Enzi (R., Wyoming); and John Ensign, the conservative casino heir elected to the Senate from Nevada, a brightly tanned, hapless figure who uses his Family connections to graft holiness to his gambling-fortune name. Some Democrats are involved: representatives Bart Stupak and Mike Doyle, leading anti-abortion Democrats, are longtime residents of the Family's C Street House, a former convent registered as a church and used to provide Family-subsidized housing for politicians supported by the Family. A centrist occasionally stumbles into the fold, but the Family is mostly conservative. Family stalwarts in the House include Representatives Frank Wolf (R., Virginia), Zach Wamp (R., Tennessee), and Mike McIntyre, a hard right North Carolina Democrat who believes that the Ten Commandments are "the fundamental legal code for the laws of the United States" and thus ought to be on display in schools and court houses."

Hedges suggests how the failures of traditional liberalism have opened the door to this movement. The diverse comments left by readers of the piece are as interesting as the article itself. Given the influence of Christian hyper-conservatism among the brass of our armed services (I have a family member who is a high ranking officer and the religious fervor of some his colleagues whom I have met is astounding), a quiet, militaristic coup in the future, especially if we continue to wallow in economic uncertainty, and as climate change transforms global politics and security suddenly becomes no longer unthinkable.

Paranoia? Perhaps so. But I agree with Hedges; we ignore the rise of this stealthy, serpentine and very unsilent minority at our peril.

The price of oil

East Grand Terre Island, LA, June 3, 2010.
There's a bird in there somewhere.

The cost of war

With a trillion dollars we could...

But some are more equal than others

Reading between the Republican Lines

Maybe we do live in the "post-truth" era. But ultimately, one has to conclude that the future of our republic depends on keeping the percentage of citizenry who willingly switch off their their higher brain functions to a manageable 18% (the estimated size of the worst components of Tea Party movement - the ones whose hatred of Barack Obama trumps any rationality, who rail against their "high taxes" when, in fact, Obama has LOWERED the tax burden on the middle class). A newly invigorated Democratic leadership (yes, health care reform was anything but universal health insurance, but give them some credit) is now going after the financial industry, and actually showing a modicum of teeth in the proposed legislation.

Both the Dem and GOP rhetoric positions both parties as being on the side of "Main Street" and their opponents as in the hip pocket of Wall Street. Well, in our post-modern age, is it possible that they are both right? Guess again. The Rethuglican leadership are following the line-by-line strategy of a rather odd-looking political consultant named Frank Luntz. In January, Mr. Luntz wrote in a memo widely circulated in GOP circles: “Frankly, the single best way to kill any legislation is to link it to the Big Bank Bailout.” Uhhh, anyone remember who was in power when the Big Bank Bailout was conceived?

In a 17-page memo titled, "The Language of Financial Reform," Luntz urged opponents of reform to frame the final product as filled with bank bailouts, lobbyist loopholes, and additional layers of complicated government bureaucracy.

"If there is one thing we can all agree on, it's that the bad decisions and harmful policies by Washington bureaucrats that in many ways led to the economic crash must never be repeated," Luntz wrote. "This is your critical advantage. Washington's incompetence is the common ground on which you can build support."

Luntz continued: "Ordinarily, calling for a new government program 'to protect consumers' would be extraordinary popular. But these are not ordinary times. The American people are not just saying 'no.' They are saying 'hell no' to more government agencies, more bureaucrats, and more legislation crafted by special interests."

In other words, take advantage of angry tea-baggers failure to look below the surface of Fox News' articulation of reality. Or, in one 3-letter word: LIE!!!!!!!!!!!! Just as they did with health care (position pieces courtesy of the same Mr. Luntz).

So of course, that stalwart senator from Kentucky, he of the weakest chin on Capitol Hill (and that ain't easy), Mitch McConnell, gets right out there spinning the rhetoric.

As Paul Krugman tells us: "It’s a truly shameless performance: Mr. McConnell is pretending to stand up for taxpayers against Wall Street while in fact doing just the opposite. In recent weeks, he and other Republican leaders have held meetings with Wall Street executives and lobbyists, in which the G.O.P. and the financial industry have sought to coordinate their political strategy.

"And let me assure you, Wall Street isn’t lobbying to prevent future bank bailouts. If anything, it’s trying to ensure that there will be more bailouts. By depriving regulators of the tools they need to seize failing financial firms, financial lobbyists increase the chances that when the next crisis strikes, taxpayers will end up paying a ransom to stockholders and executives as the price of avoiding collapse.

"Even more important, however, the financial industry wants to avoid serious regulation; it wants to be left free to engage in the same behavior that created this crisis. It’s worth remembering that between the 1930s and the 1980s, there weren’t any really big financial bailouts, because strong regulation kept most banks out of trouble. It was only with Reagan-era deregulation that big bank disasters re-emerged. In fact, relative to the size of the economy, the taxpayer costs of the savings and loan disaster, which unfolded in the Reagan years, were much higher than anything likely to happen under President Obama.

"To understand what’s really at stake right now, watch the looming fight over derivatives, the complex financial instruments Warren Buffett famously described as “financial weapons of mass destruction.” The Obama administration wants tighter regulation of derivatives, while Republicans are opposed. And that tells you everything you need to know.

"So don’t be fooled. When Mitch McConnell denounces big bank bailouts, what he’s really trying to do is give the bankers everything they want."

Whose country is it anyway?

These sorts of facts seem to be the in the blindspot of your average teabagger. Read it and weep. Thank you, benarmbruster for posting this for all of us to see.

Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes last year. “Most egregious,” Forbes notes, is General Electric, which “generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.” Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS:

Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.

Mother Jones’ Adam Weinstein notes that, despite benefiting from corporate welfare in the U.S., Exxon complains about paying high taxes, claiming that it threatens energy innovation research. Pat Garofalo at the Wonk Room notes that big corporations’ tax shelter practices similar to Exxon’s shift a $100 billion annual tax burden onto U.S. taxpayers. In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005."

Meet The New Boss

Obama Authorizes New Gas Drilling Off US Coasts
President Obama has unveiled a new plan to open up large swaths of the Atlantic, Gulf and Alaskan coasts to offshore oil and gas drilling for the first time in decades. On Wednesday, Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said drilling permits would be issued along the East Coast from Delaware to the central coast of Florida. New areas of the southeast Gulf Coast will also be open to drilling, as will the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska. Speaking at Andrews Air Force Base, Obama said the plan would help lead the US toward energy independence.

Judge: NSA Wiretapping Program Illegal
A federal judge has ruled the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program was illegal and in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the federal district court in San Francisco ruled the government illegally intercepted the phone calls of an Oregon-based Islamic charity called Al Haramain in 2004. Both the Bush and Obama administrations had tried to dismiss the suit claiming a trial could result in the release of state secrets. But Judge Walker rejected the state secrets argument. Attorney Jon Eisenberg said the ruling marks an “implicit repudiation of the Bush-Cheney theory of executive power.”

Obama Appoints Pesticide Executive to Top Trade Post

And food justice advocates are criticizing President Obama’s recent appointment of a top pesticide industry executive to a key trade position. The executive, Islam Siddiqui, was named the US Trade Representative’s Chief Agricultural Negotiator in a spate of recent appointments. Siddiqui is a former vice president and lobbyist at CropLife America, a group of the major industrial players in the pesticide industry, including Syngenta, Monsanto and Dow Chemical. A coalition of over eighty environmental, family farm and consumer advocacy organizations had campaigned against his nomination.

Study: Homeowner Program Favoring White Borrowers
A new survey from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition has raised new questions about the Obama administration’s $75 billion Home Affordable Modification Program. The program is designed to provide financial incentives for mortgage lenders and servicers to reduce monthly payments for struggling homeowners. The survey found white homeowners are almost 50 percent more likely to receive a loan modification under the mortgage program than African Americans or Latinos. Meanwhile, loan servicers foreclose on delinquent African American borrowers more quickly than white or Latino borrowers.

News briefs courtesy of Democracy Now!

Mea culpa

OK, I know I haven't been very active here lately. I've been traveling - Ecuador, Netherlands, and am about to disappear into the Bahamas on field work (I love my job!).

If you are one of the few who like what I have to say, my apologies. I'll get back to it. Soon. (Note to self: "Don't make a liar out of me").

In the meantime, visit my favorite blogger, Tom Degan (that's Tom on the left, no irony intended). He's much more regular than me, always has something to say, and says it with a sublime mixture of humor, outrage and finesse.

Quote of the Day II

"Neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency."
-- Jared Diamond

Now, this is something Sarah Palin and all of her tea bagger contingent will never understand.

Quote of the Day

We are living in an increasingly individualistic, over-privatized, fragmented society, and it's not going to get any better any time soon.
-- Sam Benjamin

Those Rethugligan hypocrites

Thank you, Rachel.

Jon Stewart on Net Neutrality

AT&T is pulling out all the stops to try and defeat Net Neutrality. With a a new FCC seemingly dedicated to keeping the Internet the great, unfettered forum for all voices with equal access, the telecom giant is 1) encouraging its employees to lobby against Net Neutrality and 2) sending its K Street droids up to Capital Hill with plenty greenbacks to grease their corporate shills in Congress.

So, the concept is to paint Net Neutrality as "Government Control of the Internet," the great tea bagger bugaboo.

Thankfully, John Stewart puts it all into perspective in about 4 minutes. Sit back and watch. AT & T, you is gonna lose this one!

"He passed the test."

Endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan, collapse
of the economy created by bank fraud, gutting
of the Bill of Rights...

Bush Sr. thinks Jr. "passed the test."

And what's up with the creepy smile when he says "this [sic] 9/11?"



I agree: WTF?

Soupy Sales 1926-2009

Why I Love Michael Moore

I went to see "Capitalism: A Love Story" last weekend, and left the theater (which erupted into applause as the credits rolled) with a certain degree of awe.

Why awe? Well, for much the same reason that I am in awe of Greg Palast. Both Palast and Moore can always finds the smoking gun, the hidden memo, the little bit of evidence that renders the emperor with no clothes. In "capitalism" it was two things: 1) "Dead Peasant" insurance: secret insurance policies that corporations take out on low level employees (like the moniker that the insurance industry has given this little vehicle?), and from which the company can still collect after Joe or Sadie leaves the firm; and 2) that lovely leaked memo from Citibank, one of the great beneficiaries of involuntary taxpayer largess last year, celebrating the fact that the U.S. system is a “plutocracy” for the benefit of the super-rich — that 1 percent of the population that makes more than all of the bottom 95 percent combined. And, no, they didn't view this as a problem.

I also love the fact that Michael Moore sends the right into paroxysms of loathing beyond measure. Google "Michael Moore" and "hypocrite" for pages of Michael Moore assassination blogs. Do I care if Michael Moore owns stock or once owned stock? No. Do I care that he lives in a nice apartment in NYC? No.

What I care about is that he keeps making movies that mirror light into dark corners, and makes me laugh a few times, too. Laughter is good for the soul.

But most of all, Moore gives us hope. Hope that the 95% of Americans who do not share the wealth, are capable of taking their country back from the plutocrats who consider us little more than peasants.

American Hero V

The Honorable Rep. Alan Grayson D-FL (yes, Florida).

Why?

Watch below.

First aid

Need any further evidence that the Senate Health Reform bill is largely a sham and just a slightly reworked corporate welfare plan?

Think Progress' Igor Volsky reports that, "Following Baucus' announcement, HealthNet shares increased by 3%, United Health Group Inc shares rose by 2.7%, Humana Inc. grew by 2.6%, Wellpoint stock gained 1.7% and Aetna Inc rose 1.6%."

From Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post: "Max Baucus was paid handsomely (in campaign contributions) by the health care industry to deliver a health care reform bill that only the health care industry could possibly love. Well, mission accomplished! As Julie Hirschfield Davis reports for the Associated Press today, the Baucus plan 'gives health insurers, drug makers and large employers reasons to heave sighs of relief, sparing them the higher costs and more burdensome rules included in other Democratic-written alternatives.'"

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/health-care-stocks-soar-w_n_290125.html

Jason

Socialize the risk, privatize the profits.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/health-care-stocks-soar-w_n_290125.html

More culture

I couldn't resist.

We're Number 37!

From Paul Hipp: "Here is a song celebrating our proud ranking in the World Health Organization's list of world health systems for all the obstructionist hecklers to sing as they continue down the road to total irrelevance."

It's only rock n roll but I like it.

For Paul Hipp info and downloads please click on the links....

www.cdbaby.com/paulhipp

Paul on Twitter

Paul on Facebook

Paul on MySpace

www.paulhipp.com

E-mail Paul and join the mailing list at: hipptunes@gmail.com

War Is a Racket

In 1934 there was an attempted coup in the United States that was thwarted largely due to the efforts of U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler (ret., now deceased).

Butler was awarded the Medal of Honor twice and the only person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two different actions.

After it dawned on him how his heroism and the heroism of the troops under his command had been misused, he wrote a pamphlet called "War is a Racket" which has pretty much been expunged from our historical reading lists in school.

In the following video, an actor recreates the speech that Butler gave to many different audiences during the 1930s.

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Republican Asshole of the Month

And the winner is ...

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina.

(Normally these awards are annual, but there's just so many deserving candidates!)

In Search of Steve Ditko

I realize that this goes against the usual grain of Muttering Jam (i.e., it ain't political), but it IS cultural. Artist Steve Ditko was as much (if not more) a creator of the iconic modern comic book hero Spider-Man as Stan Lee, but abruptly departed the comic at the first zenith of its success, and has eschewed his rightful share of the megamillions that the franchise has raked in since. Now in his 80's, the reclusive artist singularly pursues his own vision, heavily influenced by the philosophy of Ann Rand (oy!). Join BBC commentator and comic fan boy Jonathan Ross as he, in turn, pursues the artist. If you are not an enthusiast of "sequential art," you may want to watch anyway, if only to glean why those of us who are, are.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Part 7

Another one bites the dust

Those of you who read this blog with any degree of modest regularity know that I am a big Van Jones fan.

I was ecstatic when he was appointed to be the "green jobs czar" for the Obama administration, and knowing the man's work ethic, I was confident that his low profile since that appointment was evidence that he was deep into the architecture of policy craft that would at once lead our country to a new energy future and empower the lost generation of inner city youth with a cornucopia of green collar opportunity.

But even a low profile cannot keep you safe from the roving eye of the petroleum-bloated corporate machine and their hell-spawned facilitators. No, all it took was a sorryass ex-top 40 DJ turned wingnut cheerleader named Glenn Beck.

If you can stomach it, here you can watch one chapter of this evil little man's week long character assassination of Van Jones.

Now, it should be mentioned that an organization that Van Jones founded called Color of Change successfully organized the advertiser boycott of Glenn Beck's show on FoxNews because of its scurrilous half-truths and racist-tinged attacks on the Obama administration. The boycott has cost Beck 57 sponsors, including Wal-Mart. No, you you won't find that little factoid on any of the myriad right wingnut web sites defending Beck's hideous little mind fuck. And of course that has NOTHING to do with Beck's pukesome crusade against Jones.

Among his other imagined sins, Van Jones DID have the temerity to call right wing Republicans "assholes." He also admitted that he can be one, too. I think he showed statesmanship restraint, don't you? Remember what former VP Dick Cheney, during a Senate session, told Sen. Patrick Leahy to do to himself? And Cheney, as we know, has never let an ounce of self-inspection tarnish his dream image of himself as some sort of white knight.

This weekend, Van Jones resigned from his post in the Obama administration.

Here is a great blog piece by St. Petersburg Times TV/media critic Eric Deggans on this subject.

And another great piece by Sharon Joy Kleitsch at creativeloafing.com.

The toxic minority

Let's face it.

Somewhere between 25 and 36% of the voting age American public are complete morons.

These are people who cannot think critically, whose pig-brained (and I genuinely apologize to all intelligent members of the genus Porcus) decision-making capabilities are molded exclusively by the latest, loudest, red-faced truth-defiling instrument of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, who willfully take for granted the past largess of the Federal government's experiments towards a civil society (and believe me, we have a long way to go), who often fail to even recognize that such inventions as social security and medicare are in fact government programs, whose grasp of the world stage ends five yards from their front door (or at best, the exit doors of their local shopping mall). These are the people who, right to the bitter end of November 4, 2008 insisted that history would redeem the administration of George W. Bush and his Svengali, Richard B. Cheney.

If the current voting age population of the United States is somewhere around 150 million, that means that 37.5-54 million of our fellow citizens have their heads situated firmly and irrevocably up their colons. That is no small number of pinheads. But they are still a minority. Now, breathing such fecund air does little for such already oxygen-starved brains. And yet, somehow, it is this sputtering minority that seems to rule the debate, at least within the strangled hallways of the mainstream media (what the wingnuts call the "liberal" media), when it comes to reforming the health insurance industry, shifting our energy paradigm to one much less reliant on fossil fuels, climate change, or literally any attempt at reform by our current moderate Democratic president. The reasons for this are manifold, intertwined, but not really very complex.

For one, spewing "tea-baggers" make for better press than quiet, reasoned, proponents of liberal causes. (Aside: "tea-bagger" has an interesting definition among the urban young that has nothing to do with politics - well, maybe sexual politics. Look it up. Personally, I feel like that's what's being done to me when I see some gonad-driven wingnut screaming at my congressional representative).

For two, the media is, for the most part, controlled by large corporations who, in case you haven't figured it out, are the main architects of "public" policy in America today (and times past, too). The status quo serves them very well, and projecting image after image of red-faced Sarah Palin facilitators is a bulwark against any reform that may suit them less.

And for three, the rest of us, by our conspiracy of silence, enable them.