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New ChamberLeaks Presentation Emerges, Details More Plans To Sabotage Liberals
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/11/...ks-more-plans/
CoC of course receives anonymous $100Ms from Corporate-Americans, and is lobbying aggressively to allow contributions from foreign companies and sovereign funds, and to lift bans on Corporate-Americans using graft/kickbacks/corruption/payoffs to win foreign business.
Dirty tricks in politics? Say it ain't so!
Bullshit. Write this off as "business as usual" is ignorant and fake sophistication, as expected.
There is nothing on the side of Human-Americans to counter the organized, financed, disciplined, coordinated, multi-decade War on Human-Americans by Corporate-Americans.
Not writing it off. Business as usual, acknowledged.
I'll wait for the VLWC thread before I can form an educated opinion. But then again...
lol @ outsourced fundraising for elections being a bad thing. it's more money put into OUR economy and OUR rich people, which is what we need. sounds like a good pro-active solution from our conservative friends.
Corporate-Americans denying Human-Americans free choice:
whittle away at elements of his health care plan too:
The budget agreement also takes aim at two provisions of the new health care law.
It would cut more than $2 billion set aside for the creation of private nonprofit health insurance cooperatives.
It also eliminates a program that would have allowed hundreds of thousands of lower-income workers to opt out of employer-sponsored health plans and use the employer’s contribution to buy coverage on their own, through new insurance exchanges.
http://www.alternet.org/module/print...ndviews/555608
Holy fuck I can't believe how long this thread is.
Petered out before it even started. Pobrecito.
How the Koch Brothers Fund the Climate Change Denial Machine
Koch Industries is "now playing a quiet but dominant role in a high-profile national policy debate on global warming." Koch Industries, through its foundations, gave $24.9M to "organizations of the climate denial machine." Koch Industries also fought the climate change bill, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009.
The Koch brothers inherited Koch Industries, Inc. from their father, Fred. C. Koch who started the company. The brothers also inherited their conservative politics from their father. Fred Koch was an original member of the John Birch Society.
The Koch brothers have long been involved in conservatism. In 1977, Charles co-founded the Cato Institute, and David Koch was the 1980 vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party. In 1984, David created Citizens for a Sound Economy, and in 2004 the group split into FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity Foundations. "The Kochs remain active with Americans for Prosperity Foundation," according to a recent report by the Center for American Progress.
The Koch brothers have given at least $85.9 million to over 85 different conservative organizations over the last decade and a half. They also make contributions to candidates, and organize conferences "to review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it," as Charles Koch wrote in a letter.
http://www.care2.com/causes/global-w...enial-machine/
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Libertarianism isn't about anything but killing govt so the VRWC has no obstacles to, no regulations/enforcement against "destroying America (land, water, air, crops) as we know it"
The Contango Game: How Koch Industries Manipulates The Oil Market For Profit
As Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioner Bart Chilton has explained, rampant oil speculation, which is at its highest level on record right now, is to blame for current prices.
public knows very little about the oil speculation industry because a conservative majority on the CFTC has refused to implement a mandate from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill to curb abuses.
Republicans are pushing steep cuts to the CFTC, hampering any new rules on oil speculation that may be released later this summer.
the petrochemical conglomerate Koch Industries occupies a unique role in manipulating the oil market. Koch has little business in the extraction process. Instead, Koch focuses on shipping crude oil, refining it, distributing it to retailers — then speculating on the future price.
A recent presentation from Koch Supply & Trading, the Koch unit devoted to selling financial products, confirms that Koch has taken advantage of a lax regulatory environment to aggressively trade on future oil prices.
Koch as the “world’s top five crude oil traders and actively trades about 50 types of crude oil around the world.”
Koch lobbied aggressively against Obama’s financial reform bill, particularly on provisions related to transparency in the energy trading market.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/13/...price-gouging/
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Meanwhile,the VRWC propaganda machine says Barry HUSSEIN is to be blamed for $4 gas.
But somehow, dubya wasn't blamed for 2008's $150/barrel. That was simply supply below demand.
The VRWC's Corporate-American vote$ are the only ones counted by Congress. Human-American votes are a charade fooling the sheeple.
12 Tax-Dodging Corporations Spent $1 Billion To Influence Washington Over The Last Decade
EXXON MOBIL: The oil giant that was the world’s most profitable corporation in 2008 has spent $5.7 million in campaign contributions over the last ten years and $138 million in lobbying expenditures. Its federal corporate income tax liabilities for 2009? Absolutely nothing. Not only did it pay nothing, but it also received a tax rebate the same year of $156 million.
CHEVRON: Chevron spent $4.4 million in campaign contributions and $91 million in lobbying expenditures over the last decade. It received a tax refund of $19 million in 2009 while making $10 billion in profits and $324 million in government contracts in 2008.
CONOCOPHILLIPS: The Texas-based gasoline giant spent $2.5 million in campaign contributions and $63 million in lobbying expenditures over the last decade. It received “$451 million through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction,” a special tax break, between 2007 and 2009, despite $16 billion in profits over the same period of time.
VALERO ENERGY: Valero spent $4.1 million in campaign contributions and $4.8 million in lobbying expenditures from 2001 to 2010. It received a $157 million tax rebate in 2009 despite $68 billion in sales during the same year. It received “$134 million through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction” over the last three years.
BANK OF AMERICA: Bank of America employees contributed $11 million to federal political campaigns from 2001 to 2010 and spent $24 million lobbying over the same period of time. It made $4.4 billion in profits in 2010 while receiving a tax refund of $1.9 billion.
CITIGROUP: Citigroup employees contributed $15 million to federal political campaigns from 2001 to 2010 and spent $62 million lobbying over the same period of time. It made $4 billion in profits in 2010 while paying absolutely nothing in federal corporate income taxes. It also received a $1.9 billion tax refund.
GOLDMAN SACHS: The mega-bank Goldman Sachs, which is often called “Government Sachs” in insider circles because of its clout over Washington, spent $22 million in campaign contributions and $21 million in lobbying over the last decade. It paid an ultra-low tax rate of 1.1 percent in 2008, while also receiving $800 billion in governmentloans to help weather the financial crisis.
BOEING: The aviation and defense contractor giant gave $10 million in contributions and $115 million in lobbying expenditures over the last decade. It paid a grand total of nothing in federal corporate income taxes in 2010 and received a $124 million tax refund.
FEDEX: FedEx spent $8.7 million in campaign contributions and $71 million in lobbying expenditures from 2001 to 2010. It paid a .0005 percent effective tax rate recently, actually spending 42 times as much on lobbying Congress as it did paying taxes. To do this it utilizes 21 tax havens.
CARNIVAL: The cruise line paid $1.7 million in campaign contributions and $1.6 million in lobbying over the past ten years. Despite the relatively low amount of money it spent influencing Washington, it has gotten away with a super-low tax rate. Over the past five years, its federal corporate income tax rate has been an effective 1.1 percent.
VERIZON: Verizon spent $12 million in campaign contributions and $131 million in lobbying expenditures over the past decade. It paid absolutely nothing in federal corporate income taxes over the past two years and $488 million in government contracts in 2008; in 2010, it made $12 billion in profits.
GENERAL ELECTRIC: General Electric spent $13 million in campaign contributions and $205 million in lobbying expenditures over the last decade while netting a tax refund of $4.1 billion over the past five years. It made $26 billion in profits over the same time period.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/13/...ying-congress/
Walker And Prosser Crushed Regulations On Koch Industry’s Phosphorus Pollution In Wisconsin
Shortly after helping to elect Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), Koch Industries opened a new lobbying office in Madison near the state capitol. However, little has been disclosed about the Koch lobbying agenda in Madison. The New York Times reported that Koch political operatives privately pressured Walker to crush public employee unions. But Walker’s major payback to Koch relates to environmental deregulation.
ThinkProgress has learned that the Walker administration, along with state Supreme Court judge David Prosser, has quietly worked to allow Koch’s many Georgia Pacific paper plants to pollute Wisconsin by pouring thousands of pounds of phosphorus into the water.
To fight the challenge to the permit, as well as new regulations on phosphorus, Koch’s close allies in the Walker administration and the Wisconsin Supreme Court went into action:
– Rewriting Environmental Regulations For Koch: Last year, the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board called for strict numeric limits on phosphorus pollution. The regulations, which were supposed to be implemented in January, were delayed by Walker’s administration. Hidden inside his infamous budget bill passed in March, Walker then inserted a provision to revise and reduce the phosphorus limits proposed by the Natural Resources Board. Walker’s budget bill was rushed through the legislative process without public hearings.
– Ruling In Favor Of Koch And Other Polluters: In March, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, with Justice David Prosser voting with the majority, overturned the lower court decision allowing a public challenge to the permit giving Koch’s Georgia Pacific plants more leeway in dumping phosphorus into waterways.
– Delaying Environmental Regulations For Koch: Earlier this month, the Walker administration announced a two year delay of all phosphorus regulations passed last year. Not only has Walker’s administration called for reduced phosphorus dumping rules, they now have made it clear that no rules will be implemented until 2013.
During this three month period of Koch-enriching policy and legal action, the Koch political largesse has flowed to both Walker and Prosser. The Koch political machine spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in ads supporting Walker during the budget showdown, organized pro-Walker Tea Party rallies, and mobilized a pro-Walker bus tour. During his recent reelection campaign, Prosser too was boosted by two Koch-linked groups, Citizens for a Strong America and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which ran about $1 million in advertising. A top Georgia Pacific executive overseeing plants responsible for dumping phosphorus in the Fox River sits on the board of the pro-Posser group, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/13/...ch-phosphorus/
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Elected judges are politicized, corrupt judges.
Vague, one-two sentence commentaries on the VWRC followed by full length article repostings that are filled with random, unacknowledged bolded emphases. No explanation, we're simply supposed to "get it" by taking Boutons' exalted word for it.
How old are you again? Do you lack any sense of dignity or professionalism? Do you really believe ThinkProgress.org appreciates you reposting their articles in full or close to it while bolding what you want and commenting how you will, without even a by-line for the original writer to balance or compensate? And do you understand that we are smart enough to peruse thinkprogress.org on our own?
I realize this is a discussion board; what this thread encourages is not discussion, but mindless spamming, and further dissension.
GFY
acronym for
GO FUCK YOURSELF
Seems every conspiracy theorist gets mad when you call his antics plainly.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
This thread sucks. You know it, but like a child, you feel the forum is yours to pepper with conspiracy theories as you see fit. So it is, in practice. That does not protect you from criticism of your practice.
I'm ok with this thread being a collection area for boutons' VRWC linx. It's much preferable IMO to his endless OT derails, or separate threads for each repost.
Hope it gets as long as Methuselah's beard. :toast
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_financ...ulation_reportQuote:
Originally Posted by VRWC at work
SEC Delays Corporate Anti-Corruption Measure
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0...tml?view=print
America's Richest Taxpayers See Federal Taxes Dramatically Drop
The average income on those returns in 2007, the latest year for IRS data, was nearly $345 million. Their average federal income tax rate was 17 percent, down from 26 percent in 1992.
Over the same period, the average federal income tax rate for all taxpayers declined to 9.3 percent from 9.9 percent.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0...tml?view=print
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Seventeen-Percenter Warren Buffet says: "There is a Class War, and my Class is winning"
Offshore Banking and Tax Havens Have Become Heart of Global Economy
"Tax havens have grown so fast in the era of globalization, since the 1970s, that they are now right at the heart of the global economy and are absolutely huge," says our guest, British journalist Nicholas Shaxson. "There are anywhere between $10 and $20 trillion sitting offshore at the moment. Half of world trade is processed in one way or another through tax havens."
The United Kingdom, my country, is one of the world’s most important tax havens. And right now in Washington, D.C., I’m sitting in one of the world’s biggest tax havens, as well: the United States. So, this is something we need to really reappraise, the whole geography of the system, and understand how important it is. And when we’re hearing figures of $100-plus billion lost to the U.S. taxpayers, I would argue that is just one aspect of the problem. The problem is much, much bigger.
And looking at the history of this, Wall Street, after the Second World War, they were—after the Bretton Woods agreement, 1946, there was a cooperative international order set up where capital was tightly controlled around the world. Wall Street was very firmly put in its place. And, you know, there were very high taxes on the wealthy. And for about a quarter of a century, this system more or less worked out, and capital was quite tightly constrained. It was also an era of very high, broad-based economic growth, not just in the United States, but around the world. What happened during that period, though, was that the banks, Wall Street, in particular, didn’t—obviously didn’t like these curbs, didn’t like the Glass-Steagall Act that was separating commercial from investment banking, didn’t like interest rate caps, didn’t like these controls. And essentially, they went off to London. And in London, the Bank of England and the city of London said, basically, "You bring your money here, and you can do what you like. You don’t—we’re not going to worry about Glass-Steagall. We’re not going to worry about interest rate caps." And so, what happened is Wall Street piled into London from about the ’60s onwards, and that really marked the unraveling of—part of the unraveling of the Bretton Woods arrangements.
And Wall Street was able to grow incredibly fast offshore, much, much faster than it had been before. And this ability to grow offshore, first in London and then in a wider network of tax havens around the world, this has been one of the great reasons why it has been able to grow so fast. And now we have "too big to fail" banks and this offshore system, the ability of banks in the United States to go elsewhere to do things that allow them to grow faster and take more risks, away from the democratic curbs. It’s one of the reasons why they’ve grown so powerful and why we have got such a difficult situation today with Wall Street having such power over the politicians in this country and my country and others.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/1...ax_havens_have
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/...Rick-Scott.jpg
Florida’s GOP House Speaker Pushing Court-Packing Plan To Neutralize Democratic Justices
The measure would add three new justices to the court, all of whom would be named by Republican Gov. Rick Scott. Then it would go one step past Roosevelt by dividing the court in two. The three most senior justices — all, coincidentally, appointed by a Democratic governor — would be consigned to a new criminal division.
This would ensure a conservative-leaning majority on a new civil division, where pivotal cases involving the drawing of new voting districts will land next year. Republicans cite all sorts of reasons for expansion, such as needing to cut the court’s heavy caseload. They ignore the fact that the court’s caseload is now the lowest in a decade.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/18/...court-packing/
FCM fails to report indictment of Wall St, surprise!! Wall St is huge advertizer in the media.
Bipartisan Senators Indict Wall Street, Media Yawns. Six Guys Push Stale Deficit Hype, Media Goes Wild
It should have been the lead story from coast to coast: A bipartisan panel of Senators, including some of that body's most conservative members, released a damning report that slammed bankers, regulators, and ratings agencies - and they made it clear that they'd like to see warrants issued against the CEO of Goldman Sachs and other financial executives.
This report was endorsed by all of its Republican members, including conservative co-chair Tom Coburn and Tea Party Senator Rand Paul. Hey, editors, how's this for a headline? "Libs and Tea Party Senators demand: 'Bring me the head of Goldman Sachs.'"
The media responded with a collective yawn.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-esk...tml?view=print
GOP Governors Trying to Kill Environmental Protection Laws
Since the midterm elections, the GOP has been doing more than decimating social programs and attacking women, the poor and the elderly. Emboldened by a coalition of toxic Republican governors, they\'ve been taking their offense to the state level, disabling infrastructure that potentially still has a wall of protection in the Senate. We\'ve seen this in both their union-busting tactics throughout the Midwest and their assault on women\'s reproductive health throughout the country, but the New York Times points out today that they\'re coming for another target: environmental protection. Citing environmental rollbacks in Maine, New Jersey, Florida and North Carolina as well as the Washington GOP\'s disdain for the EPA, the piece illustrates how Republicans are setting up a false dichotomy between jobs and the environment -- as though we\'ve got to choose one or the other.
Governor LePage summed up the animus while defending his program in a radio address. “Maine’s working families and small businesses are endangered,” he said. “It is time we start defending the interests of those who want to work and invest in Maine with the same vigor that we defend tree frogs and Canadian lynx.”
This is, of course, completely false. As Sarah Laskow wrote yesterday in The Mulch, \'comprehensive clean-energy and climate legislation could create 1.9 million jobs,\' while Ryan\'s budget plan not only sacrifices the EPA -- $1.6 billion in cuts -- it also decimates jobs.
http://www.alternet.org/module/print...ndviews/562406
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The conspiracy of KOCK BROS, API, and various other big polluters, land developers have paid the Repugs to kill/defund EPA, Clean Air, Clean Water, Species Protection, forests, wetland protection acts/regulations/rules.
I don't consider creating hundreds of thousands of new government jobs to be legitimate "job creation"...just another burden on an economy already stretched too thin with too much government spending coupled with too little government revenue.Quote:
This is, of course, completely false. As Sarah Laskow wrote yesterday in The Mulch, \'comprehensive clean-energy and climate legislation could create 1.9 million jobs,\' while Ryan\'s budget plan not only sacrifices the EPA -- $1.6 billion in cuts -- it also decimates jobs.
How many government jobs did it say that legislation would create?
it didn't. CC's knee jerked
Why Are We Letting Fossil-Fuel Billionaire Pickens Write Our Energy Policy and Push for More Dangerous Gas Drilling
Pickens has essentially written a bill called the NAT GAS Act (“New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions,” H.R. 1380), to switch fleet vehicles such as buses and interstate trucks to “natural” gas.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/150644
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If only natural gas were clean to extract, and didn't need dickhead's "Halliburton law" that excepted fracking from Clean Water statutes.
How many civilian jobs did it say would be created and how would those jobs be paid for? Federal grants? Subsidies? Tax credits?Quote:
Originally Posted by ChumpDumper
"Federal grants? Subsidies? Tax credits?"
All of those go to oil and gas co's, and $Ts go the military black hole, why not something to renewable, non-fossil energy development?
Taxpayers pay for oil/gas explorations costs!!
That was right there in the quote, and it had nothing to don with what you were talking about.Quote:
Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy
Please answer my question.
Koch Industries Coerced Employees During The 2010 Midterm Elections
Writing today in the Nation, Mark Ames and Mike Elk reveal that Koch Industries mailed a letters to 50,000 employees instructing them on who to vote for in the 2010 midterm elections. The Koch packet given to employees included candidate names, a letter from a Koch lobbyist, and a right-wing screed from the company and the Washington Examiner, an outlet owned by Phil Anschutz, a billionaire who is close to the Koch family. (View a copy of the packet here.)
Corporate coercion of employees is perhaps the most profound repercussion from the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year. The Nation spoke to several law experts who noted that “Citizens United frees Koch Industries and other corporations to propagandize their employees with their political preferences.” Before the decision, businesses were prohibited from instructing their employees to vote a certain way.
Not only was Koch active in helping push the Citizens United decision (several of the groups filing amicus briefs supporting unlimited corporate spending were funded by Koch), but Koch actively planned for exploiting the decision. When we exposed a memo outlining the 2010 secret Koch political strategy meeting with fellow right-wing donors, we noted that the summit included a presentation from Karl Crow. Crow is a Koch operative who had penned a memo calling for corporations to exploit Citizens United and aggressively use “employees, vendors, and customers” as tools for advancing business interests in the political sphere
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/20/...erm-elections/
===============
If KOCH BROS do it, you can expect other Corporate-Americans to propagandize their Human-Americans. I expect there will be quite a bit of pressure, making the workplace into a "closed shop" of politicized pressure.
If you don't play the employer's political games, you don't advance or even retain your job.
Capitalism's Crisis Within, and How Larry Summers Still Doesn't Get It
one of the most important economic policy players shaping the environment leading up to the financial crash did not. Former Treasury Secretary and avid deregulator Larry Summers said he wasn't convinced financial "innovation" caused the crisis, a convenient narrative for someone who allowed exotic derivatives to grow unchecked under his watch. (And a bit hard to square with what he said last year on PBS when asked if he had any responsibility for the crash. He said that credit default swaps were "the center of the issue now," and this financial innovation "barely existed [during his tenure at Treasury.]")
He also warned against the demonization of mainstream economics by people who "don't do math," and flagged the dangers of overregulating in the wake of a crisis. Summers suggested that a crisis mentality is what led Communists to create a planned economy, which eventually collapsed. To my ear, Summers himself sounded not unlike communist authorities who deflected blame by simply denying having agency or authority, and striking a disinterested, distancing voice. By the way, in that PBS interview, he said the word "mistakes", "error" or "failure" five times, with his finger pointed not at himself but squarely at Wall Street and corporate America. Arrogance and ignorance, meet evasion and avoidance.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janine...tml?view=print
Greenspan's Back to Lead the Charge Against Responsible Regulation
Wall Street bankers, with help from key Republicans in the House and Senate, have begun a major campaign across the country to kill the regulations currently being developed to enforce Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform. A recent speech by the leader of Wall Street bankers, JP Morgan's CEO Jamie Dimon, took direct aim at financial regulation and new, more rigorous capital standards.
The same week, Alan Greenspan -- just a year removed from his mea culpa on "self-regulation" -- said the Dodd-Frank legislation would create the "largest regulatory-induced market distortion" in the US since wage and price controls. Very shortly afterwards Senator DeMint introduced a bill to repeal Dodd-Frank. And House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus led 34 of the committee's Republicans in sening a letter to the six agency heads charged with implementing the Dodd-Frank Act stating that the members are "troubled by the volume and pace of rulemakings."
It is very hard to believe that anyone would propose going back to the policy of "self-regulation" on Wall Street and elsewhere. We tried that during the last 20 years, and it catastrophically resulted in the worst financial meltdown in 80 years, almost destroying the US and world financial systems. It caused more than 3 million homes to be repossessed, drove the unemployment rate over 10 percent, and left millions in economic, and emotional, shock.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-te...tml?view=print
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my bet: financial regulation will be gutted, Elizabeth Warren will accomplish nothing, and the next bubble will occur long before unemployment is down to 5% (it probably won't ever be down to 5% again, only by redefining that already-redefined number)
The New Corporate World Order: American Citizens Paying the Price for Tax-Dodging Companies
The debate over Republicans’ insistence on continued tax breaks for the superrich and the corporations they run should come to a screeching halt with the report in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal headlined “Big U.S. Firms Shift Hiring Abroad.” Those tax breaks over the past decade, leaving some corporations such as General Electric to pay no taxes at all, were supposed to lead to job creation, but just the opposite has occurred. As the WSJ put it, the multinational companies “cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million, new data from the U.S. Commerce Department show.”
No less important than U.S. military muscle is the power of the American government to construct and enforce a worldwide trade and finance structure to the advantage of U.S.-based multinational corporations. That is why the companies spend so much money lobbying Congress on matters ranging from regional trade agreements to international banking regulations. It is precisely the impact of trade agreements like NAFTA that has facilitated the erosion of well-paying jobs. And it was the deregulation of international banking standards, led by the U.S. Treasury Department under the past five presidents, that created the conditions for the recent disastrous housing and banking meltdown.
Big government, the devil that Republicans love to inveigh against, is big precisely because it is so active in so many costly ways in serving the interests of our biggest corporations. Corporate lobbyists attest with their every breath that big government and big business are bedmates in a bountiful venture that impoverishes the rest of us.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/150688
Beware of Vampire Squids and Their Stadium Schemes
As the Lexington Herald-Leader reported in a September 2010 editorial entitled “Arena Cautionary Tale,” public revenue from the stadium “isn’t living up to expectations in terms of paying off the debt incurred in building the facility.” As a result, Louisville’s already-strapped government “may be on the hook for an extra $3.3 million beginning in 2012.”
That’s because, as Goldman admits on its website, the deal was funded by a massive commitment of public revenues from taxpayers. If the arena isn’t generating tax receipts committed to funding this $200-million-plus “Tax Incremental Financing” scheme, then taxpayers have to come up with that public money from somewhere else—most likely, from cuts to social services or from tax hikes.
This is the kind of story the Vanity Fair ad is supposed to obscure—the kind of story that got Goldman its Rolling Stone magazine billing as a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” It’s a reputation the bank deserves—one that should make every local official in America hesitate the next time that squid slithers into their town.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/print...emes_20110421/
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/...4/medicare.jpg
The 46 Year-Long Republican War On Medicare
if Americans want to know why Republicans are so eager to kill Medicare, they should look to the party’s history with the popular program. Leading Republicans actually denounced the program as it was being designed, warning that it would take us down the road to totalitarianism or worse, and other leading Republicans were caught on record plotting to eliminate it after it was created:
- Ronald Reagan: Before he was president, Reagan actually lead a campaign against the creation of Medicare. He ominously warned: “[I]f you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” [1961]
- Barry Goldwater: Goldwater, a conservative icon, said that establishing Medicare would lead us down the slipper slope of subsidizing alcohol for all: “Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink.” [1964]
- George H.W. Bush: Bush, who would go on to be president after Reagan, said that Medicare shouldn’t be established because it was nothing more than “socialized medicine.” [1964]
- Bob Dole: In 1996, during his campaign for the Presidency, Dole openly bragged that he was one of 12 House members who voted against creating Medicare in 1965. “I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare . . . because we knew it wouldn’t work in 1965.” [1965]
- Sen. Carl Curtis (NE): During the debate over the creation of Medicare, Curtis said that the “insurance industry has a remarkable record” and that Medicare “is not public welfare. It is not charity. It is not kindness. It is socialism. Socialism is not the answer to anything.” [1965]
- Dick Armey: Armey told reporters in 1995 that “we need to wean our old people away from Medicare.” [1995]
- Newt Gingrich: Gingrich, who is now likely running for president, told a Blue Cross Blue Shield conference how he plans to eventually get rid of Medicare: “Now, we don’t get rid of it in round one because we don’t think that that’s politically smart, and we don’t think that’s the right way to go through a transition. But we believe it’s going to wither on the vine because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it — voluntarily.” [1996]
- Rep. Jeb Hensarling (TX): During an appearance on MSNBC last week, Hensarling referred to Medicare along with Social Security as “cruel Ponzi schemes.” [4/15/2011]
it is a single-payer health care system has little involvement from the private insurance industry that is both incredibly efficient and remarkably popular among the general public. It completely violates the conservative mantra that the market should be the arbiter of all things.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/23/...edicare-never/
Anybody got an "equivalent" Dem proposal as mean, and as racist as this Repug:
State Sen. Bruce Caswell's (R) budget proposal would force children in the state's foster care system to purchase clothing only in used clothing stores.
Children who are placed in foster care receive a state-funded clothing allowance. Under Caswell's plan, foster children would receive gift cards redeemable only at places like Goodwill and the Salvation Army. Caswell insists the proposal has nothing to do with stigmatizing poor children and everything to do with saving the state money.
http://www.care2.com/causes/politics...-used-clothes/
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The Repug idea of everybody sharing the pain for the criminal Banksters' Great Depression.
Corporpations win again, stomping on a poor community to get control of their community beach park for a golf course:
Benton Harbor's EFM suspends city officials' power
Benton Harbor's Emergency Financial Manager has suspended the decision-making powers of city officials, and Joseph Harris may be the first to do so under the new state legislation.
http://www.wndu.com/localnews/headli...119969374.html
Maddow specifically mentioned the Jean Klock Park situation, a story that the Messenger has been following closely for years — and most of the media in the state have been ignoring. A large chunk of that park, deeded to the city on the condition that it remain a public park forever, was leased to private developers to be made into a golf course.
http://michiganmessenger.com/48319/m...r-efm-takeover
EPA is a key target for corporations. Here's a criminal Governor attacking Clean Water Act for his state.
Governor to EPA: Water guidelines aren’t necessary here
Gov. Scott asks EPA to rescind federal water pollution control rules, saying the state already has guidelines in place that accomplish the same things.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/2...#ixzz1KS3Ca1ZF
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There's a reason for dickhead's Halliburton exception, exempting fracking pollution of ground and surface water from Clean Water act: more profits for fracking corporations.
Wall Street still spending against Wall Street reform
They couldn't stop the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform legislation, though they pretty effectively watered it down. That hasn't stopped the banksters from spending like, well, banksters who want to buy their own political system to water it down even more.
Wall Street and the financial industry spent more to lobby Washington in the first quarter of this year than a year ago when Congress was writing sweeping financial-overhaul legislation, according to a Wall Street Journal review of lobbying reports released Thursday. [...]
The disclosures show that 26 of the financial firms and trade associations that spent the most in 2010 collectively spent $27 million in the three months ending March 31, a 2.7% increase from the $26.3 million spent in the comparable period in 2010.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/0...28Daily+Kos%29
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The 100% falsity of the tea baggers is that they are trashing the Dems and ANY govt while leaving the financial and carbon-energy sectors untouched.
Madness: Right-Wingers Are Serious About Trying to Undermine Child Labor Laws
allow employers to pay anyone under 20 a six-month “training wage” that falls more than $2 per hour below the minimum wage, eliminate rules establishing a maximum number of hours kids 16 and over can work during school days, allow those under 16 to work up to four hours per school day, allow home-schooled kids to work during school hours and eliminate any limit on how many hours kids of any age can work in agriculture (with a signature from their parents or legal guardians). L.D. 516 would allow teens to work longer hours and later into the night than is allowed under current law.
Children under the age of 14 would no longer be barred from employment. They'd also be able to work all hours of the day, no longer need a work permit from their school and be able to work at motels and resorts so long as they're given a place to lay their weary heads each night. Moreover, businesses that employ children would no longer be subject to inspections from the Division of Labor Standards.
http://www.alternet.org/module/print...version/150709
===============
Repugs just being repugnant. The VRWC has destroyed millions of good paying jobs, and now needs super-low-cost, no-benefits labor to do the shit work of shitty jobs.
Right-Wing Network Behind the War on Unions
Behind the onslaught is a well-funded network of conservative think tanks that you've probably never heard of. Conceived by the same conservative ideologues who helped found the Heritage Foundation, the State Policy Network (SPN) is a little-known umbrella group with deep ties to the national conservative movement. Its mission is simple: to back a constellation of state-level think tanks loosely modeled after Heritage that promote free-market principles and rail against unions, regulation, and tax increases. By blasting out policy recommendations and shaping lawmakers' positions through briefings and private meetings, these think tanks cultivate cozy relationships with GOP politicians. And there's a long tradition of revolving door relationships between SPN staffers and state governments. While they bill themselves as independent think tanks, SPN's members frequently gather to swap ideas. "We're all comrades in arms," the network's board chairman told the National Review in 2007.
Advertise on MotherJones.com
Founded in 1992 by businessman and Reagan administration insider Thomas Roe—who also served on the Heritage Foundation's board of trustees for two decades—the group has grown to include 59 "freedom centers," or affiliated think tanks, in all 50 states. SPN's board includes officials from Heritage and right-wing charities such as the Adolph Coors and Jacqueline Hume foundations. Likewise, its deep-pocketed donors include all the usual heavy-hitting conservative benefactors: the Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation, which funds the Cato Institute and Heritage; the Castle Rock Foundation, a charity started with money from the conservative Coors Foundation; and the Bradley Foundation, a $540 million charity devoted to funding conservative causes. SPN uses their contributions to dole out annual grants to member groups, ranging from a few thousand dollars to $260,000, according to 2009 records.
According to SPN's website, Roe launched the conservative network "at the urging" of President Reagan himself as a way to shape state-level policy just as Heritage has influenced federal policy.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011...ion-bargaining
Another VRWC lie exposed:
Report knocks legs from under study saying regulations cost the economy $1.75 trillion
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/25/969321/-Report-knocks-legs-from-under-study-saying-regulations-cost-the-economy-$175-trillion?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm _campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29
the Tea Party Patriot Summit in Phoenix, Arizona. Prominently displayed was the new group "Dodd-Frank Exposed," with a big booth running this video in a continuous loop.
Although the organization is ostensibly hosted by the “Judicial Crisis Network” — a group that has no actual registration or office — Dodd Frank Exposed is actually run by two veteran astroturf lobbyists, Gary Marx and Robert Bork Jr. Marx is a vice president at Ralph Reed’s lobbying firm Century Strategies. Bork runs his own public relations company called the Bork Communication Group.
Bork, the son of famed Reagan Supreme Court nominee, has made a career coordinating front groups on behalf of corporations facing negative scrutiny.
He later clarified that he was receiving a monthly check from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a corporate-funded front with a long history of peddling industry-friendly studies.
Century Strategies, has a similar history as Bork. Century Strategies created Christian-themed front groups for Enron to lobby for energy deregulation, launched a religion-based direct mail campaign to maintain sweatshops in the Mariana Islands, and was caught up in a money laundering scheme with Jack Abramoff for his casino clients.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/0...28Daily+Kos%29
The Next Big Thing In Industry: Water Profiteering
the Global Water Summit 2011, a meet up for corporations that want to profit from water as it becomes scarcer. Sponsored by all the bad actors in the water industry, from Veolia to General Electric, the conference URL was WaterMeetsMoney.com. Even the Koch Brothers' empire was represented (Koch Industries helped pollute water with its fossil fuel operations, so why not profit also from cleaning up the mess?)
The conference started on a sour note with a keynote address from Michel Camdessus, former Managing Director of the IMF. Camdessus is one of the masterminds behind the scheme to force the 1.44 billion people who make $1.25 a day to pay for the full cost of water. It was also disappointing that Kofi Annan appears to be running interference for the water corporations, basically saying in his speech that the time for protest is over and that we all need to get along.
One of the most distasteful moments of the conference, which was held in a Five Star hotel in Berlin, was when Sanjay Bhatnagar, CEO of WaterHealth International, took the mic to brag about how his investors were making piles of money selling water in villages in Africa and India. WaterHealth issues smart cards that are used to fill jugs with water -- a 21st century "innovation" for redistributing wealth from the poor in the developing world to the "global investors" of the company. He is a vocal proponent of the poor paying for water, even as the audience used the hotel's excellent plumbing facilities that are linked to Berlin's sewage system -- a system built using public tax dollars. The irony seemed to escape the 400 plus people attending the meeting.
Another major theme of the meeting was making money from water technologies for mining. During a session chaired by John Veil, the audience heard how producing water for mining and cleaning it up after it's destroyed will be the promised land for the industry. They discussed with glee how fracked gas, known in Europe as shale gas, uses millions of gallons of water that can be produced through desalination or provided in other ways. And after it's horribly polluted, the industry can benefit from "processing" it so that it can be "reused" by the public. Sounds like a science fiction nightmare.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wenona...tml?view=print
The Corporate State Will Continue its Inexorable Advance Until We're Locked into a Permanent Underclass
Corporate capitalism—because it was trumpeted throughout the Cold War as a bulwark against communism—expanded with fewer and fewer government regulations and legal impediments. Capitalism was seen as an unalloyed good. It was not required to be socially responsible.
Any impediment to its growth, whether in the form of trust-busting, union activity or regulation, was condemned as a step toward socialism and capitulation. Every corporation is a despotic fiefdom, a mini-dictatorship. And by the end Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil and Goldman Sachs had grafted their totalitarian structures onto the state.
The Cold War also bequeathed to us the species of the neoliberal. The neoliberal enthusiastically embraces “national security” as the highest good. The neoliberal—composed of the gullible and cynical careerists—parrots back the mantra of endless war and corporate capitalism as an inevitable form of human progress. Globalization, the neoliberal assures us, is the route to a worldwide utopia. Empire and war are vehicles for lofty human values.
Those who hold actual power are the tiny elite who manage the corporations.
The massive redistribution of wealth, as Hacker and Pierson write, happened because lawmakers and public officials were, in essence, hired to permit it to happen. It was not a conspiracy. The process was transparent. It did not require the formation of a new political party or movement. It was the result of inertia by our political and intellectual class, which in the face of expanding corporate power found it personally profitable to facilitate it or look the other way. The armies of lobbyists, who write the legislation, bankroll political campaigns and disseminate propaganda, have been able to short-circuit the electorate.
The reconfiguration of American society into a form of neofeudalism will be cemented into place whether it is delivered by Democrats, who are pushing us there at 60 miles an hour, or Republicans, who are barreling toward it at 100 miles an hour. Wolin writes, “By fostering an illusion among the powerless classes” that it can make their interests a priority, the Democratic Party “pacifies and thereby defines the style of an opposition party in an inverted totalitarian system.” The Democrats are always able to offer up a least-worst alternative while, in fact, doing little or nothing to thwart the march toward corporate collectivism.
The game is over. We lost. The corporate state will continue its inexorable advance until two-thirds of the nation is locked into a desperate, permanent underclass. Most Americans will struggle to make a living while the Blankfeins and our political elites wallow in the decadence and greed of the Forbidden City and Versailles. These elites do not have a vision. They know only one word—more.
They will continue to exploit the nation, the global economy and the ecosystem. And they will use their money to hide in gated compounds when it all implodes
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/150790
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Anybody got any positives?
Did You Fall for It? America's Outrage Over TSA Naked Body Scanners Was Right-Wing PR to Prevent Workers from Unionizing
insight into the Republican playbook against public sector unions, which boils down to this:
1) Manufacture a fake budget crisis in order to frighten the state’s residents;
2) PR the false-crisis hard enough until it breaks out of the right-wing/libertarian pipeline and into the mainstream media;
3) Blame the fake crisis on a fake villain -- “greedy” state employee unions -- thereby pitting the public against state workers.
That way, when Republicans pass new laws destroying teachers and firefighters unions, they’ll come off as heroes defending the public from greedy unions, rather than as sleazy mercenaries carrying out their corporate sponsors’ dirty work.
If anyone is wondering why collective bargaining rights are so important to public sector workers, look no further than the TSA, whose employees suffer the lowest morale and highest attrition rates of any federal agency, year after year. Complaints and lawsuits abound, accusing TSA management of rampant sexual harassment, racism, bullying, wrongful termination and abuse of power. If that didn’t make working in the TSA difficult enough, the recent campaign demonizing TSA agents as modern-day Gestapo-agents turned them into the most hated of all federal employees; passengers, encouraged by incendiary PR, hurled abuses in TSA screeners’ faces, and in a few cases even physically attacked screeners.
, we published an article in The Nation questioning the media-driven anti-TSA campaign, which we argued smelled of AstroTurf.
we uncovered numerous Koch-linked libertarian activists spearheading the campaign to demonize TSA screeners, DC lobbyists specializing in fake-grassroots campaigns setting up “Opt Out” websites while posing as regular Joes, and sleazy Republican hacks who had shown little interest in protecting civil liberties suddenly getting their ACLU on over the TSA’s intrusive pat-downs and “porn scans.” Progressives were understandably drawn into the anti-TSA campaign and hysteria, as the PR campaign cleverly framed it not as a union-bashing operation, but rather, as a purely civil liberties issue.
homophobic Public Advocate of the United States, a Reagan-era anti-gay group, whose leader accused the TSA of pursuing a “homosexual agenda” with its enhanced pat-downs and scans, echoing charges by the leader of the Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, who called for a prohibition of gay TSA screeners because they “might get turned on” while patting down passengers.
If TSA employees are allowed to unionize with collective bargaining rights, it would represent perhaps the single largest pro-unionization drive in decades, adding tens of thousands of dues-paying members to the public sector union rolls, reversing decades of decline and, most importantly, funnel money to pro-labor and predominately Democratic candidates.
So the Republicans gave in and passed a law federalizing airport and baggage screeners, but with one unusual caveat: no collective bargaining rights for TSA employees, unless their boss, the appointed head of the TSA, gave the green light.
DeMint made no bones about which threat bothered him most; unions or terrorists:
"Unionizing the 43,000 security screeners at TSA could give labor unions a $17 million annual windfall in the form of new union dues,"
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/150767
OK, I'll be post #50...
Just have to point out that Boutons must be raving mad that this isn't a long post. He so far has 72% of the posts and has the last 17 consecutive posts. Winehole is in second place at 10%, but isn't enough to bring much desire for anyone to join in. Chump, Cosmic, and zOsa each have two posts at 4%. The rest of us stopped at one post.
The Global Economy's Corporate Crime Wave
The world is drowning in corporate fraud, and the problems are probably greatest in rich countries – those with supposedly “good governance.” Poor-country governments probably accept more bribes and commit more offenses, but it is rich countries that host the global companies that carry out the largest offenses. Money talks, and it is corrupting politics and markets all over the world.
Hardly a day passes without a new story of malfeasance. Every Wall Street firm has paid significant fines during the past decade for phony accounting, insider trading, securities fraud, Ponzi schemes, or outright embezzlement by CEOs. A massive insider-trading ring is currently on trial in New York, and has implicated some leading financial-industry figures. And it follows a series of fines paid by America’s biggest investment banks to settle charges of various securities violations.
There is, however, scant accountability. Two years after the biggest financial crisis in history, which was fueled by unscrupulous behavior by the biggest banks on Wall Street, not a single financial leader has faced jail. When companies are fined for malfeasance, their shareholders, not their CEOs and managers, pay the price. The fines are always a tiny fraction of the ill-gotten gains, implying to Wall Street that corrupt practices have a solid rate of return. Even today, the banking lobby runs roughshod over regulators and politicians.
Corruption pays in American politics as well. The current governor of Florida, Rick Scott, was CEO of a major health-care company known as Columbia/HCA. The company was charged with defrauding the United States government by overbilling for reimbursement, and eventually pled guilty to 14 felonies, paying a fine of $1.7 billion.
The FBI’s investigation forced Scott out of his job. But, a decade after the company’s guilty pleas, Scott is back, this time as a “free-market” Republican politician.
When Barack Obama wanted somebody to help with the bailout of the US automobile industry, he turned to a Wall Street “fixer,” Steven Rattner, even though Obama knew that Rattner was under investigation for giving kickbacks to government officials. After Rattner finished his work at the White House, he settled the case with a fine of a few million dollars.
http://www.truthout.org/print/1858
Citizens United Decision Profoundly Affects Political Landscape
An analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics reveals that the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court ruling of January 2010 has profoundly affected the nation's political landscape.
Corporations and unions both benefited from the ruling, being able to use their general treasuries to pay for independent expenditures for the first time.
Unions spent more than $17.3 million from their general treasuries on independent expenditures opposing Republican candidates such as Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and James Renacci (R-Ohio). The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees spent more than $7 million out of their general treasury, the most of any other union.
The National Education Association had a different strategy. It set up a so called "super PAC" and financed it with $3.3 million from its general treasury. Pre-Citizens United unions could only spend money on independent expenditures using funds that were voluntarily donated to their political action committee by union members. Now unions can tap into funds that come directly from union member's dues. Unions are still banned from using their treasuries to donate to congressional campaigns and party committees.
Corporations generally did not directly get involved in political spending but rather donated more than $15 million to a new type of political group known as a "super PAC". These groups may raise unlimited amounts of money from any source as long as the donors are disclosed and the groups only spend money on independent expenditures. The top two corporate donors in 2010 were TRT Holdings and Alliance Resource Partners, which each donated about $2.5 million to the 'super PAC' American Crossroads. Corporate donations are likely higher than reported as conservative non-profit groups spent $121 million without disclosing where the money came from.
The ruling allowed corporations and unions to use their general treasuries to pay for political advertisements that expressly call for the election or defeat of a candidate, also known as independent expenditures. This ruling subsequently allowed non-profit corporations under the tax code 501c to spend unlimited amounts of money running these political advertisements while not revealing their donors.
Influencing elections cannot, by law, be the primary purpose of the non-profits.
These nonprofits certainly took advantage of their new power, however, spending $61.3 million on independent expenditures in 2010.
Top findings of the Center's study include:
The percentage of spending coming from groups that do not disclose their donors has risen from 1 percent to 47 percent since the 2006 midterm elections
501c non-profit spending increased from zero percent of total spending by outside groups in 2006 to 42 percent in 2010.
Outside interest groups spent more on election season political advertising than party committees for the first time in at least two decades, besting party committees by about $105 million.
The amount of independent expenditure and electioneering communication spending by outside groups has quadrupled since 2006.
Seventy-two percent of political advertising spending by outside groups in 2010 came from sources that were prohibited from spending money in 2006
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011...andscape.html#
Repugs slam court house door in the faces of Human-Americans:
UM doctors get protection from lawsuits
A proposal to give UM doctors working at Jackson Memorial Hospital state lawsuit protection was approved.
By Patricia Mazzei
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- In a long-sought move, the University of Miami won a legislative victory on Wednesday when Florida lawmakers agreed to extend state lawsuit protection to university doctors working in public hospitals.
Gov. Rick Scott will likely sign the bill into law. Scott is also expected to sign another lawsuit-limitation bill that passed Wednesday that changes the way people can sue automobile makers.
The vote to give “sovereign immunity” to UM has been years in the making.
The state protects government hospital employees, residents and interns — including those at Miami’s Jackson Health System — from major medical malpractice judgments. But UM medical school doctors who teach at Jackson are not covered by the protected status.
For two decades, UM officials have pushed to receive the same benefit, saying patients often sue the university instead of Jackson because of UM’s deep pockets.
The university spends $40 million a year on malpractice cases, said Ron Book, one of UM’s lobbyists in the Capitol. State protection, he added, could cut that expense in half.
“This good bill will even the playing field,”
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/0...tion-from.html
======
no, You Repug Liar, it tilts the sick-care end of the playing field way up, so dead/maimed Human-Americans have to fight uphill for justice, or even to get a foot in the court house door.
Senate Republicans Plan to Block Consumer Bureau Nominee
U.S. Senate Republicans told President Barack Obama they will block any nominee to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unless Democrats agree to change the agency’s structure and funding.
The warning, delivered in a letter to the White House, adds to the uncertainty surrounding the agency, created by the Dodd- Frank Act last year over the objections of Republican lawmakers and financial-industry lobbyists.
Forty-four Republican senators, led by Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Banking Committee, signed the May 2 letter made public yesterday. They wrote that they want the agency’s director to be replaced by a board of directors, its funding brought under congressional control and its operations subject to more oversight from other bank regulators.
“No person should have the unfettered authority presently granted to the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” the senators said in the letter signed by Republicans including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “We believe that the Senate should not consider any nominee to be CFPB director until the CFPB is properly reformed.”
Democrats control 53 of the 100 votes in the Senate, so the 44 Republican signatures ensure they wouldn’t be able to garner the 60 needed to overcome objections to a nominee.
“Republicans fought the creation of a strong consumer watchdog from the start and now they are at it again,”
“For far too long, American consumers have fallen victim to fraud, misleading claims, and powerful special interests and the President believes that American families who were the hardest hit by this financial crisis deserve an independent watchdog to protect consumers and prevent predatory lending and other abuses in the future,”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/...hanges-1-.html
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Repug whores turning tricks for the Financial Sector Corporate-Americans to screw over Human-Americans.
After Citizens United, Conservative Undisclosed Donors Spent 10 Times As Much As Liberal Ones In 2010 Election
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/...011/05/cu5.jpg
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/06/...vatives-spent/
===========
And STILL the eliminationist Repugs/VRWC want to bust all unions because they support the Dems.
Thanks to Decades of Conservative Spin, Americans Are Hopelessly Confused About Taxes, Spending and the Deficit
By Joshua Holland,
http://www.alternet.org/story/150826...nd_the_deficit
A few weeks back, Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, felt compelled to take time out of what is presumably a busy schedule to explain that “taxes are, first and foremost, about paying for what the government buys.” That he felt compelled to do so is a sad reflection of the state of our economic discourse.
A good number of Americans are hopelessly confused about taxes, deficits and the debt. And it's no mystery why – conservatives have spent 30 years divorcing the taxes we pay from the services they finance. They've bent themselves into intellectual pretzels arguing that cutting taxes – on the wealthy – leads to more revenues in the coffers. They've invented narratives about taxes driving “producers” to sunnier climes, killing jobs by the bushel, and relentlessly spun the wholly false notion that we're facing “runaway spending” and are “taxed to death.”
And they've had great success. But they haven't done it alone – credit the media with an assist for muddying the waters around our fiscal situation. Consider a poll released this week by the highly respected Gallup organization. Their headline reads, “Americans Blame Wasteful Government Spending for Deficit.” Is that true? Well, here were the options – the only options – that respondents were offered:
Which do you think is more to blame for the federal budget deficit: Spending too much on government programs that are either not needed or wasteful, or not raising enough taxes to pay for needed programs? (Emphasis added.)
“Accordingly,” says Gallup, “Americans generally favor spending cuts rather than tax increases as the way for Congress to reduce the deficit going forward.” According to that distorted narrative – that false choice -- of course they do. I'm sure the results of a poll asking if people would prefer an ice cream sundae or a sharp stick in the eye would prove equally conclusive (not to mention bipartisan).
The problem is that after decades of anti-government rhetoric, there's very little in the way of “wasteful spending” left unless you look hard at the military budget, which neither party seems willing to do in any serious way.
We are, simply, under-taxed relative to the things we want the government to do. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the biggest driver of the projected deficits over the next ten years are not the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or social safety net programs; it's the Bush tax cuts.
Last year, the revenues collected by the federal government were the lowest since 1950 (as a share of our overall economic activity). But it's important to understand that back then, we had no medicare program. The population was younger, and health care costs were a fraction of what they are today – in 1960, just before Medicare was established, we spent 5 percent of GDP on health-care; today, we spend about 17 percent.
As economist Dean Baker noted, if we spent the same per person on health-care as any one of the 35 countries with longer average life expectancies, our deficits would turn into surpluses in a few short years.
Offering health-care to children, seniors and the poor is anything but “not needed.” Is it wasteful? Health-care costs have skyrocketed for years in this country, but more slowly in the public sector than in the private.
While we're clearly under-taxed, the right's anti-tax crusaders have largely had their way shaping the discourse. About 7 in 10 Americans want the deficit to be addressed. Many believe that running a large, short-term deficit is hurting the economy when the opposite is true. We lost $14 trillion in wealth in the financial crash, and that – along with high unemployment and an ongoing foreclosure nightmare – has led to a huge drop in consumer demand. Public spending has, to a painfully inadequate degree, filled some of the gap.
Give the conservative message machine its due credit. While Americans really like the specific things government does – they want low-cost student loans, having fire-fighters and cops on the beat and a whole slew of other services – the abstract idea of “limited government” is quite appealing.
The right's victory in separating taxes from the services they pay for is apparent when citizens are asked what they'd like to see cut in order to cut that deficit. In January, Gallup released a poll on those specifics. They asked which of nine areas of government services they'd like to see cut. Only cutting foreign aid – which represents about two percent of the federal budget – met with the approval of a majority of those surveyed. Even majorities of Republicans opposed cuts to everything but foreign aid and arts funding.
Taken together, this shows how difficult it is for law-makers to arrive at good public policies. Their constituents wants their cake, they want to eat it, but they don't think they need to pay the tab for it. Politicos offer tax cuts to get themselves elected, but then face outraged constituents when they try to cut services. Small wonder that we've only managed to balance the budget in one brief period during the boom years of the 1990s.
We do face serious issues in this country. We need a serious debate about how best to solve them. But we're having that debate in a democracy populated by citizens who have little or no clue where their tax dollars go. And you can credit the anti-tax crusaders and their habitual mendacity for that sorry state of affairs.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy (and Everything else the Right Doesn't Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America). Drop him an email or follow him on Twitter.
© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/150826/
[w2]
This WI guy is the Poster Child for the nastiest, undemocratic, pro-wealthy smash-mouth, elmininationest Repuglicanism
Curbing Voting Rights in Wisconsin
the law would end same-day registration, eliminate the straight-ticket voting option on ballots, and require voters to present a state-issued photo ID at the polls.
This last provision -- which includes strict guidelines as to what constitutes acceptable identification -- puts Wisconsin in league with more than two dozen other states where Republican lawmakers are pushing voter-ID bills that they claim address the phantom menace of "voter fraud." It has also fueled allegations that Gov. Scott Walker is less concerned with sound policy than with weakening the political power of key Democratic constituencies.
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?arti...s_in_wisconsin
Voter fraud, just another VRWC/Repug LIE to intimidate and disenfranchise Human-Americans, as if disenfranchisement by UCA lobbyists wasn't sufficient.
The DeVos Family: Meet the Super-Wealthy Right-Wingers Working With the Religious Right to Kill Public Education
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.
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."
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.”
Dick DeVos gave a speech on school choice at the Heritage Foundation. After an introduction by former Reagan Secretary of Education William Bennett, DeVos described a system of “rewards and consequences” to pressure state politicians to support vouchers. “That has got to be the battle. It will not be as visible,”
Dick DeVos also explained to his Heritage Foundation audience that they should no longer use the term public schools, but instead start calling them “government schools.” He noted that the role of wealthy conservatives would have to be obscured. “We need to be cautious about talking too much about these activities,” said DeVos,
Walker wants to expand vouchers in Milwaukee despite the program's failure, made clear by disappointing standardized test results. Walker’s response? To halt the testing. Pennsylvania voucher supporters have already taken care of the pesky issue of accountability by defeating an amendment that would require the students using vouchers to take standardized tests.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/150868
Criminal fraudster Scott doing VRWC bidding in FL:
Florida Cuts Unemployment Benefits To Pay For Corporate Tax Cut
A bill that would establish some of the deepest and most far-reaching cuts in unemployment benefits in the nation is heading for the desk of Gov. Rick Scott…The legislation would cut maximum state benefits to 23 weeks from 26 when the jobless rate is 10.5 percent or higher. If lower, the maximum would decline on a sliding scale until bottoming at 12 weeks if the jobless rate was 5 percent or less.
Florida will “go further than any other state in dismantling its unemployment insurance system.”
“encourages people to get back into the job market.” Research by the San Francisco Federal Reserve has found that workers who qualify for unemployment benefits stay unemployed just 1.6 weeks longer than those who do not qualify for such benefits.
Adding insult to injury, the money saved from cutting unemployment benefits will be used to reduce business taxes in a state where the corporate tax rate is already exceedingly low. Scott had been looking to cut corporate taxes even further, but was rebuffed by the legislature.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/08/...its-corporate/
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/08/...its-corporate/
Another Repug state to block non-Repug voters.
Florida GOP Passes Radical Overhaul Of Election Law, Jeopardizing Voting Rights Of Elderly, Military, Students
– Forces Provisional Ballots: The bill eliminates a long-standing provision that allows people to change their address or name at the polls. For four decades, Florida allowed those with proper photo ID whose name or address had changed due to marriage, or divorce, or a move by a military family to update that information on Election Day. Under HB 1355, those changes would only be allowed for voters moving within the same county. Otherwise, a voter will not have to cast a provisional ballot and later provide identification to the supervisor of elections. As one Florida supervisor of elections told the Florida Independent, the provision is “disturbing” as provisional ballots are often reserved for close races and thus “go uncounted.”
– Cuts Early Voting: HB 1355 also cuts the time for early voting from 14 days to eight. The early voting reform was among former Gov. Charlie Crist’s (R-FL) election reforms to “prevent embarrassments like the 2000 election.” As the Miami Herald’s Joy-Ann Reid notes, “It was a hard-won victory for working people who sometimes can’t get to the polls if they work odd hours, or run out of time to resolve a problem at the polls.” According to Reid, in 2008, black churches and college students “took full advantage of the extra time” — two groups that overwhelmingly voted for President Obama.
– Invalidates Absentee Ballots: The bill severely undercuts the absentee ballot. Under this bill, absentee ballots are determined illegal if the voter’s signature on the certificate does not match the signature on record.” As the Herald-Tribune notes, this will affect “voters who suffer from arthritis, strokes and other ailments that affect their handwriting. Those who fail to update their signatures in time would be out of luck.” The bill states that, if elections results are contested, a court cannot “consider any evidence other than the signatures on the voter’s certificate and the signature of the elector in the registration records” in determining the ballots validity.
– Fines Third Party Voting Groups: Third-party voter registration groups, such as the non-partisan League of Women voters, the NAACP, and the Boy Scouts are also targeted by HB 1355 by requiring these groups to turn in registration cards within 48 hours of signature or face fines. Voter groups note that “the requirement would be difficult to meet if they are registering thousands of voters at a time.” Because of the “undue burden” this provision places on “thousands of volunteers,” the League of Women Voters — an organization with a “91-year history of registering and educating voters” — announced today that it will “cease [its] voter registration efforts in this state” should HB 1355 become law
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/09/florida-voter-law/
Kock-blocked again, Repugs fuck over USA's Human-Americans to protect UCA's Corporate-Americans.
Texas GOP Rams Koch-Backed ‘Loser Pays’ Bill Through House, Making It Harder To Sue Corporations
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As ThinkProgress has reported, brothers Charles and David Koch and their corporate giant, Koch Industries, have played an extensive role in the corporate takeover of government, both at the state and federal level. This weekend, another of the Kochs’ projects surfaced in Texas, as the state’s Republican lawmakers rammed through a Koch-backed bill that would make it harder for consumers, workers, and small business owners to bring civil suits against corporations.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/09/...pays-lawsuits/
Koch Fueling Far Right Academic Centers At Universities Across The Country
Yesterday, ThinkProgress highlighted reports from the St. Petersburg Times and the Tallahassee Democrat regarding a Koch-funded economics department at Florida State University (FSU). FSU had accepted a $1.5 million grant from a foundation controlled by petrochemical billionaire Charles Koch on the condition that Koch’s operatives would have a free hand in selecting professors and approving publications.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/11/...sity-takeover/
Along with busting unions as a source of Dem $$, the VRWC has been in constant war since St Ronnie's union busting gave mgmt/investors the OK to bust all employees.
10 CEOs Who Got Rich By Squeezing Workers
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As a result, household income has stagnated for 30 years, and quality/good-paying jobs have declined.
Is Scholastic Selling Elementary School Kids on Coal
http://mjcdn.motherjones.com/preset_16/coal-kid.jpg
Environmental groups are going after the world's largest publisher of children's books for teaming up with the American Coal Foundation to produce "The United States of Energy," a lesson plan designed for fourth-graders. The foundation, online at Teachcoal.org, is devoted to creating "coal-related educational materials and programs designed for teachers and students."
"We hope that you and your students enjoy this energizing program!" proclaims the teaching guide. The materials use coal, oil, natural gas, and renewables as a starting point for lessons on geography, science, and math, and promise to teach students "that different types of energy (e.g., solar, fossil fuels) have different advantages and disadvantages." But the materials are decidedly lacking on that latter front. The worksheets ask kids to explore the question, "What are the benefits of this kind of energy?" without ever entertaining the possibility that there might be problems to consider as well.
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Like cigarette makers and NRA hooking kids on cigs and guns and killing, here's fossil fuel extractors trying to hook kids on their products.
Vampire squid banks now sucking in the dollars from already-skimpy unemployment funds.
Prepaid Cards Subject Jobless to Host of Fees
By ANN CARRNS
When you’re getting unemployment benefits, you by definition don’t have a lot of cash to spare. So it seems especially unfair that people who receive their jobless benefits on prepaid debit cards are subject to a variety of fees they can ill afford to pay.
A report out this week from the National Consumer Law Center lays out a host of ways in which banks nibble away at jobless benefits with fees the center called “junk.” The prepaid cards are most often used by jobless recipients who don’t have checking accounts, and so are ineligible for direct deposit. Practices vary from state to state because jobless benefits are distributed at the state level, and state governments negotiate the terms of agreements with card providers. In many states, charges apply for using A.T.M.’s, even if they’re in network; checking balances; and even for not using the card enough (inactivity fees, as high as $3).
The report is especially critical of a card issued in five states by U.S. Bank, which charges overdraft fees of $10 to $20 if recipients use more than the amount on their cards. Charging an overdraft fee to someone who doesn’t even have a bank account struck me as particularly ingenious — what are they overdrawing, exactly?
U.S. Bank is able to do this, the report explains, because jobless benefits are typically paid into pooled accounts that then have subaccounts designated for individual recipients. In most states, if a recipient uses the card to make a purchase that exceeds his or her benefits, the transaction is simply denied. But in five states — Arkansas, Idaho, Nebraska, Ohio and Oregon — U.S. Bank lets the transaction go through, and then deducts the amount, plus the overdraft fee, from the recipient’s next benefits check. (The bank issues cards without overdraft fees in several other states.) Those fees can make a big dent, considering that the typical weekly unemployment check is just $294.
Teri Charest, a spokeswoman for U.S. Bank, said in an e-mail that overdraft protection is an option that states can choose to add to their prepaid card programs. But even when it is offered, cardholders must opt in to overdraft coverage. “The terms are clearly disclosed so cardholders are aware of the fee should they need to use it,” she said.
Other banks don’t charge such hefty fees, but some do charge “denial” fees, ranging from 25 cents to $1.50, when an attempted A.T.M. or retail transaction fails for lack of funds. Some even charge for live customer service calls or withdrawing funds using a human teller.
The practice occurs despite a directive from the Department of Labor stating that deducting “overdraft, overdraft fee, or denial fee” from future unemployment payments is “inconsistent” with federal law.
( "We're the banks, we fuck the law every day before breakfast")
The “best” cards, offering free in-network A.T.M. withdrawals, at least two free out-of-network withdrawals, no balance inquiry fees and no inactivity fees, are offered in New York and New Jersey by Bank of America, the report found.
The worst for junk fees, in addition to the U.S. Bank version with overdraft fees, is the Tennessee card issued by JPMorgan Chase. It is one of only two states that fail to offer any free A.T.M. withdrawals.
The report recommends that smaller states band together for more clout when negotiating card terms with banks. And it urges the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to take up the cause of excessive fees on prepaid cards when it opens for business this summer. “We hope prepaid cards are high on the agenda,” said Lauren Saunders, managing attorney at the Consumer Law Center in Washington, and the primary author of the report.
http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/...pagemode=print
Bank Overdraft Fees Still Plague American Consumers
Seeing a threat to a multibillion-dollar revenue stream, the banks responded with pro-overdraft marketing campaigns that inappropriately targeted their customers
Bank of America (BAC) agreed to pay $410 million to settle a federal lawsuit alleging the bank charged excessive overdraft fees. That suit was just one of several filed against banks from plaintiffs in 14 states that were consolidated in a federal court in Florida. Other banks named in related suits include Wells Fargo (WFC) and Citibank (C). Banks have been taken to task for specifically processing payments from largest to smallest, a way designed to cause more overdrafts, rather than chronologically.
found that overdraft penalty fees are disproportionate to the size of the average overdraft amount, and that the penalties cost consumers tens of billions of dollars each year. In fact, these charges are estimated to cost Americans $38.5 billion in 2011, which is an increase of $18.6 billion since 2000,
the median overdraft penalty fee is $35, up from $27 in 2007. If overdrafts were considered like a short-term loan with a repayment period of seven days, then the annual percentage rate, or APR, on the typical overdraft would be over 5,000%. Additionally, Pew found that as of October 2010, when the data was collected, all 10 large banks it examined retained the right to re-order withdrawals from the highest to lowest amount, and eight out of the 10 banks reserved the right to post withdrawals before deposits -- both practices designed to manipulate account balances to produce the maximum number of overdrafts
The Center for Responsible Lending survey showed that most people don't want high-cost overdraft coverage for their checking accounts, and that opt-ins are largely based on aggressive and misleading marketing rather than clear and accurate information from banks.
I felt a safety blanket with my checking account until I found out that the savings account that I was required to open in order to sign up for overdraft protection cost me $25 a month. After about four months, I decided that the overdraft protection was not for me.
when he tried to cancel the overdraft protection, "I found that it was so difficult to do so because of the pressure that was put on me,"
banks' marketing materials often created the false impression that emergency action was needed on the account. Some examples from the bank letters on file with CRL include: "We Need to Hear From You ... To keep your account operating smoothly ... To avoid any interruptions in how we service your account, we need to hear from you." "Your Debit Card May Not Work the Same Way Anymore Even If You Just Made a Deposit," and "Save Money by Avoiding Retailers' Returned Check Fees."
etc, etc, etc.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/...can-consumers/
More brain-washing kids with VRWC lies and propaganda:
Huckabee’s ‘history’ cartoon teaches kids to idolize Reagan
Former Republican Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is hoping to earn a few extra bucks by teaching children his own special view of history.
The Fox News host has launched a series of cartoons that he hopes will correct the "blame America first" attitude.
"When it comes to American history, our nation is facing an epidemic," Huckabee said in his pitch on the Learn Our History website. "Schools across the country have turned their backs on our children by distorting facts, imposing political biases, and changing the messages behind the important lessons of our history."
In the first $15 episode, members of the Time Travel Academy use their time machine bicycle to go back and explore "The Reagan Revolution."
"Journey to a time when America suffered from a financial, international and moral crisis," the cartoon's trailer suggests.
To illustrate its point, the cartoon depicts a black man with a knife wearing a "disco" tank top. "Gimme yo' money!" he says.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/1...e+Raw+Story%29
Repugs "fixing" a false problem of voter fraud by disenfranchinsing 100Ks
South Carolina Republican Named ‘Legislator of the Year’ For Writing A Bill That Disenfranchises Voters
Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC) is expected to soon sign a Voter ID bill passed by both chambers of the South Carolina Legislature. When she does, South Carolina will become the second state in the country to pass such legislation this year, although Voter ID bills are being considered by GOP-led state legislatures nationwide. According to the ACLU, “nearly 180,000 voters in South Carolina – most of whom are elderly, student, minority or low-income voters – will be disenfranchised as a result of this discriminatory bill.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/14/...r-of-the-year/
Very easy to imagine which textbooks tea baggers will sell to private/charter schools, teaching LIES as history.
Legal Advocates Slam Tea Party Constitution Classes
Liberal lawyers were very unhappy to hear that the tea partiers wanted the public schools to teach the Constitution based on the writings of the late author of the 5,000 Year Leap, W. Cleon Skousen [2]. Skousen's views on the Constitution are considered well outside the mainstream, and they include ideas drawn from white supremacist dogma and other shady sources. One of his textbooks on constitutional history contained blatantly racist material suggesting that slaves were actually a happy bunch of folks. [3]
http://motherjones.com/print/113271
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Whether bullshit religion or bullshit politics or bullshit history, poison young, impressionable kids minds young enough with false world views, and you snared voters, and above contributor$$$, for life.
More voter disenfranchisement by Repugs, illegal signs intimidating voters BEFORE the photo ID is law:
Even Before NH Voter ID Bill Becomes Law, Illegal Signs Appear At Polling Stations To Disenfranchise Voters
Signs posted at the New Boston Elementary School, one of the five polling locations in the district, this morning read, “Per pending legislation you will be required to produce a photo ID in order to receive a ballot.” They were removed at the request of the New Hampshire Attorney General, but not before voters on their way into the polls turned saw them and turned around.
“Law abiding New Hampshire citizens were discouraged from voting this morning as a direct result of Speaker’s O’Brien terrible piece of legislation, SB129,” said Harrell Kirstein, press secretary for the New Hampshire Democratic Party. “Just moments before O’Brien defended this reckless bill in Concord, voters in his own district were walking away from the polls without having cast a vote.”
ThinkProgress has documented recent efforts by legislators in as many as 22 states, including South Carolina, Florida, and Wisconsin, to disenfranchise voters through voter identification laws and other methods. Republicans often justify these proposals by spreading fear about widespread voter fraud, but voter fraud is, in fact, extremely rare. For instance, in Kentucky, which is holding statewide primary elections today, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported that the state’s voting fraud hotline has not received a single call.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/17/...hire-voter-id/
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Since Repugs claim (LIE) to be America's Natural Party, why do they have to lie about voter frand and disenfranchise voters?
Because they can't win without cheating. Cheating Is The American Way.
Delta airlines votes itself $30M tax break
Delta Gave Georgia GOP Lawmakers Platinum Upgrades, Then Received $30 Million Tax Break
The bill Deal signed into law on Wednesday will save the Georgia-based airline up to $30 million on jet fuel taxes over two years.
The station found that Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle (R) and five Republican leaders in the legislature were given free “upgrades to platinum or gold frequent flyer status,” which include access to special security lines, far more frequent flyer miles, and free upgrades to first class in some circumstances.
While the company did register the upgrades as campaign contributions, the station argues that the company undervalued them. Delta said the upgrades were worth $1,600-$2,400, but renowned consumer reporter Clark Howard said the actual value of the upgrades was closer to $10,000-$15,000 a year, and that they should be registered as gifts from lobbyists, not simple contributions.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/20/...gop-lawmakers/
More tax expenditures to pander to "Christian" Taliban
While Cutting Social Services, Kentucky Gives $43 Million Tax Break To Bible-Themed Amusement Park
A group of private investors and religious organizations is hoping to build a Bible-themed amusement park in Kentucky, complete with a full-size 500-foot-by-75-foot reproduction of Noah’s Ark, a Tower of Babel, and other biblical exhibits on a 800-acre campus outside of Williamstown, KY.
the state approved $43 million in tax breaks for the project. In addition to the tax incentives, approved unanimously by the state’s tourism board, taxpayers may have to pony up another $11 million to improve a highway interchange near the site.
the tax breaks for an amusement park come at a time when state leaders are asking residents to sacrifice as they cut important social programs. “The state has gone through eight rounds of budget cuts over the past three years,” including cuts to “education at all levels” and a pay freeze for all teachers and state workers. Meanwhile, the state cut funding for Medicaid by shifting enrollees to managed care plans, which often make it more difficult for enrollees to access care while increasing administrative costs by up to 20 percent by adding a new “layer of bureaucracy between the Medicaid Department and providers.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/20/...rk-tax-breaks/
Just Doing God's Work :lol
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this theme park is a very old plan. Any moneys it is getting are likely already authorized from the past. Are you suggesting it be yanked after prior approval?
why not? conditions change. The criminal Banksters' Great Depression is quite a change, n'est-ce-pas?
If the for-profit "Christian" fantasy-land-for-ignorant-bubbas can't survive without several $10Ms tax expenditure, then it can't survive.
I thought you were against govt intervention to support private enterprise, bitch. Didn't you want GM and Chrysler to fold rather than be bailed out?
I a against subsidies, but isn't this a tax break? Isn't it the roll of government to make roads to places we as a society wish to go?Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
This is a huge expenditure, and the tax breaks ease it. My point was that I am laughing at you for attacking this old news.
"isn't this a tax break?"
It's a tax expenditure.
Old news? Cutting social services to KY hillbillies while maintaining tax expenditures for rich and "Christian" fucks is current.
Meet The Billonaires Who Are Trying To Privatize Our Schools And Kill Public Education
Two weeks ago, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) marked “a new era for education in Indiana” when he signed into law one of the most expansive school voucher laws in the country, opening up a huge fund of tax dollars for private schools. A few days later, the Wisconsin state Assembly vastly expanded school vouchers, freeing up tax dollars even for private religious schools. GOP legislators in the Pennsylvania Senate say they have the votes to pass a sweeping voucher bill of their own. And on Capitol Hill, House Republicans successfully revived Washington, D.C.’s voucher system after it was killed off two years ago.
This rapid expansion of voucher programs — which undermine and undercut public education by funnelling taxpayer money to private schools — is remarkable. After all, vouchers have been unpopular with the American public. Between 1966 and 2000, vouchers were put up for a vote in states 25 times, and voters rejected the program 24 of those times.
A tight-knit group of right-wing millionaires and billionaires, bankers, industrialists, lobby shops, and hardcore ideologues has been plotting this war on public education, quietly setting up front group after front group to promote the idea that the only way to save public education is to destroy it — disguising their movement with the innocent-sounding moniker of “school choice.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/21/...ize-education/
DeVos, Koch, Scaife, Walton, ALEC, AFC: The Corporate Royalists and Right-Wing Groups Propelling the GOP's Assault on the Middle Class
In January, a small group of Indiana schoolteachers encountered their governor, Mitch Daniels, in a hallway of the state capitol. They were part of an outpouring of Hoosiers who had come to Indianapolis that day to protest Daniels' almost-gleeful political attack on the pay and even the worthiness of public employees. Having the chance, this scrappy group dared to confront his eminence. Why, they asked, was he demonizing and so drastically under-cutting those who educate Indiana's children?
"You teachers are all making too much money," the governor snapped. He then lectured them with a prepackaged factoid: "You are all making 22 percent more than the taxpayers who are paying your salaries."
Hmmm, too much? Let's see--classroom teachers in Indiana earn a middle-class paycheck that averages $47,255 a year for handling a daily workload that would break the back (and haughtiness) of any pompous and pampered governor. Yet they are being belittled and their compensation is being slashed by this peacock of a public employee who sucks up more than twice what teachers get in annual salary, plus gold-plated benefits, assorted perks of office, and a barn full of personal staffers to help him make it through his day. Someone needs to buy Mitch a mirror.
Daniels is one of a flock of far right-wing governors who seem to have flown out of the same dark political hellhole in the past couple of years. Now ruling from the highest roosts of power in more than a dozen states, all of them are pushing vituperative measures designed to disempower and downsize not only public employees and unions, but also the entire workaday majority of their states --the middle class itself. Among other assaults, they are canceling collective bargaining contracts, suppressing union rights, arbitrarily eliminating hundreds of thousands of both public and private-sector jobs, turning over schools and other public functions to low-paying corporations, doing away with minimum wage protections, and cutting unemployment benefits and worker pensions (while simultaneously giving new tax cuts to corporations and millionaires).
Curiously, the governors all seem to have the same playbook. Not only are their agendas alike and the content of their proposals remarkably similar, but they're also parroting the same scripted rationale for their extremist actions: "The sky is falling on our Great State of [Blank], but luckily I was elected by the good voters of [Blank] to do the people's will, so I am taking these bold steps to balance [Blank's] budget."
What a crock! First, none of them campaigned on what they're now doing. Second, poll after poll shows that the public supports the workers, not the megalomaniacal governors. And, third, gutting the fundamental workplace rights of wage earners has nothing to do with balancing budgets.
Indeed, if a budgetary fix was really their goal, the governors could easily achieve it by setting up dunking tanks on their capitol grounds, putting their own ample butts on the dunking boards, and charging a dollar a pop for anyone wanting to dunk them. The lines would stretch for miles, and budget deficits could be quickly wiped out, one dunk at a time.
Goons in Gucci's
So where does this sudden, multi-state offensive against the hard-won rights, protections, and democratic power of America's wage earners come from? From the top--from a relative handful of arrogantly rich, right-wing families and corporate chieftains who have long been dedicated to disarming labor, repealing the New Deal, and returning America to the glory days when robber barons ruled. These particular moneyed elites have not idly dreamed of going back to the future, they've been investing hundreds of millions of dollars during the past four decades to assemble a shadowy network of hired political thugs to get them there.
[HISTORICAL FLASHBACK: In the fierce labor wars of the last century, industrial barons employed Pinkertons and other goons to bloody the heads of laborers or simply gun down those struggling for a share of economic and political power. It was brutal, but organized workers persevered and eventually gained a share of economic and political power. From their sweat and blood, America's middle class flowered.]
Today, the bands of nouveau corporate royalists (with coats of arms bearing such names as Coors, DeVos, Koch, Scaife, and Walton) are determined to take back those middle-class gains of yesteryear. They are working to achieve this through a coordinated, long-term campaign to (1) crush the ability of working people to unionize, (2) bust America's middle-class wage structure, (3) eliminate job security, and (4) emasculate government as a force capable of controlling corporate avarice and arrogance.
These latter-day royalists are employing a more sophisticated thuggery than brute force (though don't think they wouldn't resort to it). Instead, their goons are more likely to be in Gucci's than brogans, using dollars and computers rather than clubs and guns. They have been recruiting, financing, training, deploying, and coordinating thousands of political operatives to work through hundreds of front groups, law firms, think tanks, PACs, lobbying offices, media and PR consortiums, faux academic centers, astroturf campaigns, and--of course--compliant politicians.
Among the compliant is our covey of hyperactive governors, all carrying basically the same anti-worker, anti-democratic policy ideas. Their unified agenda wasn't produced by telepathy or freakish happenstance, but by AFC, ALEC, IFL, SPN,* and other obscure organizational acronyms unknown to 99 percent of Americans. But Daniels of Indiana, Walker of Wisconsin, Kasich of Ohio, Scott of Florida, and the rest of the covey have these organizations on speed dial. Behind the non-descript acronyms are aggressive and insidious right-wing wonk shops that have been set up and richly financed by the corporatists to prepare and hand-deliver pro-corporate programs to compliant governors and key legislators. Once delivered, the organizations work (usually clandestinely) to get the programs enacted. Let's peek inside a couple of these acronyms.
AMERICAN FEDERATION FOR CHILDREN.
Forget children, AFC is an astroturf organization spreading the gospel of public education privatization. It is a creature of Michigan's multi-billionaire DeVos family--daddy Richard founded Amway, ranks 62nd among the richest Americans, and owns the Orlando Magic basketball team.
AFC is ramrodded by Betsy DeVos, whose right-wing bona fides are rock solid. Raised in the wealthy, ueber-conservative Prince family (her brother is Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, the infamous private war corporation), she married Dick (son of Richard) and has been a major donor/fundraiser for the GOP, for religious-right political groups, and for a national web of school privatizers. Also, she and the larger DeVos klan are longtime co-conspirators in and co-funders of the Koch brothers' plutocratic political network. [Bonus tidbit: The DeVoses reportedly helped finance the Citizens United case that the Supreme Court used last year to unleash secret, unlimited corporate money on our elections.] Betsy is unabashed about using the family's vast fortune for, as she puts it, "buying influence" in government. In 1997 she bluntly declared, "We expect a return on our investment."
Eradication of public schools is her passion, and AFC is her machine. It's essentially a front group that funnels big money from a cadre of like-minded rich people into other front groups across the country. In turn, these groups funnel AFC's money into local privatization campaigns. Last year, for example, just one political action committee registered by AFC in Indiana amassed $4.6 million from only 13 donors--none from Indiana. The list included Alice and Jim Walton (two billionaire Walmart heirs), a trio of super-rich global speculators (who, interestingly, say they base their risky gambles on poker strategies), a multi-millionaire operator of a national chain of for-profit charter schools, and Betsy herself. Very little of the money stayed in Indiana--more than $4 million was flung out to pro- privatization front groups and candidates running campaigns in Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Wisconsin. This shell game is repeated in campaigns around the country, with the same core group of gabillionaires putting up the cash.
While you are not likely to have heard of Betsy DeVos, chances are she and her deep-pocket cohorts are behind efforts to privatize schools right where you live. By running money through their maze of shell organizations, they keep their own identities secret. Voters in the six states that got cash last year from the Indiana PAC, for example, might see that a group with the sweet-sounding name of the American Federation for Children is running campaign ads and funding candidates in their area--but there's no disclosure that Amway, Walmart, a trio of poker-guided speculators, and a charter school profiteer are the real source of the effort to undermine their public school system
In campaign after campaign, the 'local' demand for privatization turns out to be little more than AFC money creating the illusion of grassroots support (in fact, the steady infusion of millions of dollars from DeVos, the Waltons, et al. is often the only thing propping up many of the so-called 'school choice' organizations at the local, state, and national levels). AFC will gush money into state initiatives, legislative lobbying campaigns, and political races, especially in the crucial couple of weeks before a vote. The money buys glossy (and often nastily negative) media, creating the impression that there's a groundswell for taking public schools private. "Flooding the zone" is the phrase that AFC's cynical political operatives use to describe this astroturf tactic. Polls consistently show strong public opposition to using tax dollars to fund private and parochial schools, but a little thing like that doesn't deter DeVos and her tiny band of rich ideologues. Through their stealth campaigns, they have helped elect governors who are on board their corporatization crusade. In April, for example, Gov. Mitch Daniels rammed a sweeping, DeVos-backed voucher bill into law. This radical movement is out to eradicate public education (one group funded by DeVos, Koch, and company even calls itself the Alliance for the Separation of School and State, proudly proclaiming that it supports "ending gov- ernment involvement in education").
The vast majority of America's 310 million people adamantly supports public education, but DeVos intends to overwhelm those millions with her millions of dollars, strategically using untraceable money to pervert public policy to her will, one campaign at a time. Last year she launched the AFC Action Fund to focus on state legislative races across the country, with the intention of surreptitiously stacking legislatures with school privatizers.
2. AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL.
"With nearly 2,000 members" explains a brochure of this secretive organization, "ALEC is the nation's largest nonpartisan, individual membership association of state legislators." Maybe your very own local lawmaker is one of them--but you won't get that information from ALEC, which hides its list of legislators from public view.
Nonpartisan? Its website lists 22 legislators from around the country who serve as board members and officers of this tax-exempt legislative service organization. All are Republican. In fact, only token numbers of Democrats are allowed in the club, and all inductees are individually vetted to make sure they will adhere to ALEC's corporate dogma.
Which brings us to the organization's pose as an association of legislators. The "exchange" in ALEC's name is not between lawmakers, but between lawmakers and such behind-the-scenes powers as Altria, AT&T, Bayer, Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, GlaxoSmithKline, Intuit, Johnson & Johnson, Koch Industries, Kraft Foods, Peabody Energy, Pfizer, Reynolds American, State Farm Insurance, UPS, and Walmart. These giants form ALEC's "private enterprise board," and they are among the self-interested corporations that put up its money and shape its agenda.
State reps pay only a token $50 a year to be members of ALEC, while at least 82 percent of the $6 million yearly budget comes from corporations (ALEC demurely refuses to name its donors, much less report how much each gives, nor will it disclose how it spends the money).
What do corporations get for their tax-deductible donations? A greased skid for sliding their wish list into the laws of multiple states. ALEC is something of a speed dating service. It holds three national conferences a year, plus convening issue-specific policy sessions in 20 to 30 state capitols annually. These are cozy sessions that conveniently gather groups of legislators to meet in private with corporate executives. The two groups schmooze together and develop bills to help extend corporate power over workers, consumers, environmentalists, and others--then the lawmakers go back home to pass the corporations' bills.
ALEC is the ultimate back room for corporate-legislative collusion. Its promotional brochure describes it as a dynamic partnership "that will define the American political landscape of the 21st century."
That's no empty threat. ALEC's tête-à-têtes result in about 1,000 bills being introduced across America every legislative session, and an ALEC official proudly adds, "We usually pass about 200 bills a year." And what pieces of work they are! For example:
Even before Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took office this January, ALEC agents were handing him model bills for clubbing teachers and other public employees. Pushing ALEC's attack from inside the legislature were Wisconsin state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, the rancorous, union-busting majority leader who was ALEC's state chairman last year, and state Rep. Robin Vos, the house budget slasher who heads ALEC's state organization this year. Likewise, governors in Indiana, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio have backed anti-union legislation this year that closely resembles ALEC's 'model' bills.
In 2009, ALEC drew up the Voter ID Act to ban university students from using their college-issued ID's as proof of residency for voting. Seven states have adopted this model law, which is intended to bar eligible students from the voting booth. These kids must be disenfranchised, New Hampshire's house speaker bluntly said in February, because they're "voting liberal, voting their feelings, with no life experience." This model bill has been introduced in 18 other states this year in a rather obvious ploy to hold down the student vote in the 2012 presidential election.
Arizona's infamous anti-Latino immigration law was crafted at an ALEC conference. The state senate leader who sponsored the bill was in the meeting, as was an eager executive from Corrections Corporation of America, the private prison operation that stands to get a nice business boost from Arizona's law.
Numerous state bills have been filed to kill, dilute, or withdraw from Obama's universal healthcare reform. Many bear remarkably similar wording, perhaps because they were drawn from a special report churned out by the 'nonpartisan' ALEC, entitled "The State Legislators Guide to Repealing ObamaCare."
One of ALEC's specialties is developing state laws to stop citizens from interfering with corporate whim. For example, when various communities began outlawing the use of genetically altered seeds in their area, ALEC rushed out a model bill to remove local control of seeds--11 states have passed it. Also with such climate-change deniers as Koch and Exxon funding ALEC and sitting on its board, you can guess why this corporate policy front has produced more than 800 draft measures against regulating global warming emissions--and, at least six states are considering bills nearly identical to ALEC's draft resolution for "state withdrawal from regional climate initiatives."
The big lie
Something unconscionable is at work here, something that is shameful, unworthy of our people, and directly contradictory to our country's founding ideals. The richest, most powerful, most privileged people in our land--in cahoots with a horde of the least principled, most venal political opportunists in civic life-- are intentionally savaging the well-being of America's majority and aggressively suppressing the democratic rights that make America America. And for what? Solely for themselves, for the aggrandizement of their own wealth and power.
To pull off this grand political larceny, the narcissistic right has manufactured a huge lie that has largely been accepted as truth not only by the GOP and tea partiers, but also by the mass media, nearly all of the mainline pundit class, and too many fraidy-cat Democratic leaders, including the one in the oval office. The lie is that extreme budgetary measures (they call them "coura- geous") simply must be imposed now, this instant, in order to slay the looming deficit monster that is gorging itself on government spending at all levels.
"In the name of your grandbabies," they cry, "teachers must be fired, rights smothered, pensions abrogated, Medicare tossed aside, little kids cut off from Head Start, and the bright promise of America's shared prosperity dimmed. We have no choice but to slash and burn."
No choice? One hedge fund hustler pocketed $2.4 million last year. Not for the year--$2.4 million AN HOUR. Yet he and his ilk pay a much lower tax rate than you and I do. In recent years, huge corporations like GE, ExxonMobil, and Bank of America have pocketed billions of dollars in profit, yet paid not a dime in federal income taxes. Indeed, far from paying taxes, these three have even been handed millions of dollars in "refunds" from our public treasury in some of their profitable years. Sliding through loopholes created by their lobbyists, two-thirds of corporations in the US pay no income taxes to help cover the priceless benefits they get from our national government.
America does not face a deficit crisis--we face a multi-billion dollar annual tax dodge by the most elite of moneyed elites. The money our society needs is right there--in the coffers of flagrantly rich Fortune 500 corporations and Wall Street banks, in the personal accounts of absurdly wealthy CEOs and fast-buck speculators. America is hardly a poor country. It's the richest in the history of the world, and it ought to have the very best public education program in the world, the most advanced infrastructure network, and the finest system of health care for all.
Yet our 'leaders' only talk of what they can't do, of what must be cut, of how the middle class and the poor must sacrifice, of how Americans must adapt to the new normal of diminished expectations and shriveled democratic power. The ugly truth is that these despicable governors and lawmakers are willingly trashing teachers and butchering our public budgets simply to spare the privileged and plutocratic few from paying what they owe to sustain a just, democratic, and truly prosperous society. This is ridiculous. Let's tax the super-rich! We the People must join together, stand up, push back, and shift the focus in this fight from hardworking teachers to these disgusting deadbeats and their political puppets.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/151213/
VRWC-packed SCOTUS ruling for VRWC-funded litigants
Blow To Public Financing At The Supreme Court Litigated By Koch and Walton-Funded Groups
– Institute for Justice: Founded with “initial seed money” from Charles Koch, the Institute for Justice is a nonprofit litigation group focused on bringing cases to decrease regulations on corporations and to remove clean election laws. Foundations connected to Koch Industries have given the Institute for Justice well over $2.6 million. The Walton Family Foundation, a foundation run by the three children of Walmart founder Sam Walton who have a controlling stake in the company, has donated $1.64 million, and is one of the Institute’s other top donors. Recent 990 disclosures from the group showcase amicus briefs filed in the Citizens United and the Arizona clean election case as top priorities for the Institute.
– The Goldwater Institute: The Goldwater Institute is one of the premiere right-wing think tanks on the state level. Most recently, the group has taken a leading role in challenging the constitutionality of health reform. The Goldwater Institute is funded by a number of conservative foundations. However, both the Walton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation are among its top donors.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...funded-groups/
Operating Instructions
The Supreme Court shows corporate America how to screw over its customers and employees without breaking the law.
Depending on how you count "big cases," the Supreme Court has just finished off either a great (according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) or spectacularly great (according to a new study by the Constitutional Accountability Center) term for big business. The measure of success here isn't just the win-loss record of the Chamber of Commerce, although that's certainly part of the story. Nor is it news that—in keeping with a recent trend—the court is systematically closing the courthouse doors to everyday litigants, though that's a tale that always bears retelling. The reason the Roberts Court has proven to be Christmas in July for big business is this: Slowly but surely, the Supreme Court is giving corporate America a handbook on how to engage in misconduct. In case after case, it seems big companies are being given the playbook on how to win even bigger the next time.
http://www.slate.com/id/2298330/pagenum/all/#p2
The Real Scandal of US Justice
Right-wing judges now dominate the American legal system, from the state level where corporate donations help elect them to the U.S. Supreme Court where ideologues tip the scales in favor of big business.
On the state level, with more than 80 percent of judges in this country elected and money, much of it corporate donations pouring into their campaigns — $200.4 million in the last decade — jurists, whether they admit it or not, are under constant pressure to favor their benefactors.
And on the federal level, take a look, for one, at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, covering Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, described by the progressive website ThinkProgress as “probably the most conservative court in the country.”
Among its 16 active judges, “Emilio Garza and Edith Clement were both on President George W. Bush’s ‘short list’ of potential Supreme Court nominees, and Clement serves on the board of the leading organization providing industry-funded junkets for judges.
“Garza, who recently suggested that undocumented immigrants have no right to be free from illegal searches and seizures, is best known as one of five Fifth Circuit judges who held that a death row defendant whose lawyer slept through much of his trial was not denied his constitutional right to counsel…
“[Judge] Priscilla Owen took thousands of dollars worth of campaign contributions from Enron and then wrote a key opinion reducing Enron’s taxes by $15 million when she sat on the Texas Supreme Court.”
These, by the way, are the three who ruled last year that a high school cheerleader had no case against her school when it required that she cheer for her alleged rapist and then ordered her to pay the school district’s more than $40,000 in legal fees.
It was also last year, ThinkProgress reports, that the Fifth Circuit “had to dismiss a case brought by Katrina victims against the energy industry because so many judges were required to recuse themselves that there weren’t enough judges left to hear an appeal.
“More recently, two Fifth Circuit judges, Jerry Smith and Eugene Davis, ruled in favor of the oil industry in a major drilling moratorium case, despite the fact that they both attended expense-paid ‘junkets for judges’ sponsored by an oil-industry funded organization.
“As of last year, a majority of the court’s active judges had oil investments, even though their court is frequently called upon to resolve questions involving the oil industry.” (One subsequently divested herself of up to $15,000 n BP stock, several weeks after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.)
In May, none of this gave House Republicans the slightest pause when they included in the “Putting the Gulf Back to Work Act” a provision requiring that civil lawsuits arising from drilling in the Gulf must be heard in, you guessed it, the Fifth Circuit.
But at least federal judges are supposed to be bound by a code of conduct. On the United States Supreme Court, adherence to the code is merely voluntary, flouted by Justice Clarence Thomas, whose conflicts of interest, along with his wife’s, have been widely reported; and Justices Scalia and Alioto, who have shown up at political events.
“The court cannot maintain its legitimacy as guardian of the rule of law when justices behave like politicians,” the July 1 New York Times editorialized. “Yet, in several instances, justices acted in ways that weakened the court’s reputation for being independent and impartial…
“Among the court’s 82 rulings this term, 16 were 5-to-4 decisions. Of those, 10 were split along ideological lines, with Justice Anthony Kennedy supplying the fifth conservative vote. These rulings reveal the court’s fundamental inclination to the right, with the conservative majority further expanding the ability of the wealthy to prevail in electoral politics and the prerogatives of businesses against the interests of consumers and workers.”
Stanford Law professor Jeffrey L. Fisher told the Times, “This is a court that is, oddly enough, very suspicious of the courts as a place to vindicate rights. The hostility is amped up when it’s a civil-rights-type claim.”
Next session, many say, could be “the term of the century.” With possible major decisions on affirmative action, same-sex marriage, immigration and health care reform, the devastating impact of this right-leaning, ideological court may only get worse.
So if you want to get mad about something, get mad about that.
http://www.readersupportednews.org/o...-of-us-justice
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If the Dems had ANY balls, they'd impeach C Thomas.
Like Fox Repug Network and all shit spewing from Murdoch's empire, Repug darling Thomas obliterates the bar for propriety and lowers the standing of the legal system, as do so many Repug radical, politicized judges.
Inside ALEC, The Koch-Funded Group Behind Right-Wing State Laws
ALEC contends that government agencies have an unfair monopoly on public goods and services.
Though the specifics are secret and "restricted to members," ALEC openly advocates privatizing public education, transportation and the regulation of public health, consumer safety and environmental quality including bringing in corporations to administer:
• Foster care, adoption services and child support payment processing.
• School support services such as cafeteria meals, custodial staff and transportation.
• Highway systems, with toll roads presented as a shining example.
• Surveiling and detaining convicted criminals.
• Ensuring the quality of wastewater treatment, drinking water, and solid waste services and facilities. (After all, when someone mentions a safe and secure public water supply, the voter's next immediate thought is: "Only if it's cost-effective!")
Playing Fast and Loose With Nonprofit Status
ALEC annually spends more than $1 million for corporate lobbyists to meet state lawmakers at lavish retreats--lawmakers who will return home and try to shepherd ALEC's corporate-sponsored "model legislation" into law.
However, through an accounting sleight of hand, ALEC hides the identity of the corporations that are paying for the lawmakers' junkets and backing the group's model legislation.
In recent years, ALEC has taken in about $6.5 million in tax-deductible donations: From 1999 through 2009, ALEC reported $743,446 in legislative ("public sector") membership dues, with a two-year membership at $100; during the same 10-year period, ALEC reported $54,504,702 in "gifts," "grants" and other contributions from its corporate and special interest members.
In 2009 alone, ALEC tax returns show that the group spent a combined $2,620,343 on organizing conferences and a membership services program that manages "the recruitment and retention of ALEC state legislator members" and "provides assistance to ALEC state chairs in raising state scholarship funds, tracking the expenditures of these funds, and ensuring that members of ALEC leadership are operating in accordance with ALEC policies and procedures." In 2009, ALEC held $1,042,629 as "scholarship" funds to reimburse lawmakers attending ALEC functions. That's listed on the tax returns not as an expenditure, but as a liability. Through this accounting trick, ALEC retains its tax-exempt status while simultaneously wining and dining thousands of the nation's state lawmakers--who then go on to introduce ALEC's legislation. In each state, ALEC has both a "public sector" and "private sector" chair.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/151627
ALEC Exposed
ALEC is a critical arm of the right-wing network of policy shops that, with infusions of corporate cash, has evolved to shape American politics. Inspired by Milton Friedman’s call for conservatives to “develop alternatives to existing policies [and] keep them alive and available,” ALEC’s model legislation reflects long-term goals: downsizing government, removing regulations on corporations and making it harder to hold the economically and politically powerful to account. Corporate donors retain veto power over the language, which is developed by the secretive task forces. The task forces cover issues from education to health policy. ALEC’s priorities for the 2011 session included bills to privatize education, break unions, deregulate major industries, pass voter ID laws and more. In states across the country they succeeded, with stacks of new laws signed by GOP governors like Ohio’s John Kasich and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, both ALEC alums.
The details of ALEC’s model bills have been available only to the group’s 2,000 legislative and 300 corporate members. But thanks to a leak to Aliya Rahman, an Ohio-based activist who helped organize protests at ALEC’s Spring Task Force meeting in Cincinnati, The Nation has obtained more than 800 documents representing decades of model legislation. Teaming up with the Center for Media and Democracy, The Nation asked policy experts to analyze this never-before-seen archive.
“Business Domination Inc. [2],” by Joel Rogers and Laura Dresser
“Sabotaging Healthcare [3],” by Wendell Potter
“The Koch Connection [4],” by Lisa Graves
“Starving Public Schools [5],” by Julie Underwood
“Rigging Elections [6],” by John Nichols
http://www.thenation.com/print/artic...8/alec-exposed
With ALEC Exposed, Common Cause Demands an IRS Audit of Corporate-Funded Group's Gaming of State Lawmaking
The American Legislative Exchange Council has since 1973 operated in relative secrecy, avoiding scrutiny from the media and watchdog groups as it has sought to impose a one-size-fits-all corporate agenda on all fifty states.
Now, however, ALEC’s scheming to game the lawmaking process [1]—with “model legislation” penned by corporation insiders and their legislative minions, and with resolutions that outline initiatives to protect polluters, privatize public education, break unions and undermine democracy—has been revealed [2].
And the nation’s premier watchdog group is asking the Internal Revenue Service to audit ALEC, an organization that counts among its alumni [3]House Speaker John Boehner, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Ohio Governor John Kasich and other key players in the current push to restructure federal and state government with tax breaks for the rich, regulatory breaks for corporations, privatization strategies and draconian “Voter ID” laws that threaten to make it harder for millions of Americans to cast ballots.
“ALEC spends most of its time developing and distributing model bills to state elected officials, with the intent those bills be introduced and passed in as many state legislatures as possible.” argues Common Cause President Bob Edgar. “It’s time for ALEC to stop masquerading as a nonpartisan public interest group.”
A leak of documents detailing the agenda and activities of the organization, and the influence of wealthy right-wing zealots such as the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch on the organization and its agenda, made it possible for The Nation [1] and the Center for Media and Democracy [4] to bring ALEC out of the shadows.
One day after the details of ALEC’s activities became public, Common Cause asked the IRS to investigate [5] evidence that suggests the group has under-reported its lobbying activities and may have engaged in federal tax law violations.
http://www.thenation.com/print/blog/...-state-lawmaki
St Ronnie'w War on Employees has paid off immensely (globalization was one of the thrusts)
JP Morgan: Wage reductions have driven corporate profit increases
If you were looking to blow holes in claims that the way to help workers is to make sure corporations are profitable, this report from JP Morgan (PDF) just about says it all (emphasis in original):
[P]rofit margins have reached levels not seen in decades. The challenge, which we have discussed many times before: what is driving these margins? One useful way to deconstruct profits is to measure them from peak to peak, and analyze what changed. As shown in the first chart, S&P 500 profit margins increased by 1.3% from 2000 to 2007. There are a lot of moving parts in the margin equation, but as shown in the second chart, reductions in wages and benefits explain the majority of the net improvement in margins. This trend has continued; as we have shown several times over the last two years, US labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and US GDP (see EoTM April 26, 2011).
ThinkProgress puts this into context in two key ways. First, "since 2009, 88 percent of income growth has gone to corporate profits, and only 1 percent has gone to wages," and second, "the JP Morgan report explains this behavior taking place between 2000 and 2007, meaning that it began long before the Great Recession."
So: Prior to the recession, increasing profit margins were overwhelmingly due to reductions in wages and benefits. Over the past two years, income growth has gone to corporate profit, not the workers who produced the income. And the outcome—as summarized by JP Morgan, not by some dirty hippie socialist—is that "US labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and US GDP."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/0...28Daily+Kos%29
ALEC's big this week
ALEC Exposed: State Legislative Bills Drafted by Secretive Corporate-Lawmaker Coalition
This week the Center for Media and Democracy released 800 model bills, legislation that is straight out of the corporate playbook and drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council. The group’s membership includes both state lawmakers and corporate executives who gather behind closed doors to discuss and vote on draft legislation. ALEC has come under increasing scrutiny in recent months for its role in crafting bills to attack worker rights, to roll back environmental regulations, privatize education, deregulate major industries, and pass voter ID laws. Thanks to ALEC, at least a dozen states have recently adopted a nearly identical resolution asking Congress to compel the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop regulating carbon emissions.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/1..._bills_drafted
The idea that ALEC isn't a charitable organization should be commonsensical but isn't, for some reason. I have no idea how many charitable organizations get by this way -- probably way more than one.
The Conservatives' ALEC Philosophy: Everything Related to Government Should Be Demonized, Starved or Privatized
In the world according to ALEC, competing firms in free markets are the only real source of social efficiency and wealth. Government contributes nothing but security. Outside of this function, it should be demonized, starved or privatized. Any force in civil society, especially labor, that contests the right of business to grab all social surplus for itself, and to treat people like roadkill and the earth like a sewer, should be crushed.
This view of the world dominated the legislative sessions that began in January. GOP leaders, fresh from their blowout victory in November, pushed a consistent message—“We’re broke”; “Public sector workers are to blame”; “If we tax the rich we’ll face economic extinction”—and deployed legislative tools inspired by ALEC to enact their vision. They faced pushback, but they also made great progress—and will be back again soon.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/151662
ALEC: Democracy's Arch-Nemesis
n an 1864 letter to Col. William F. Elkins, Abraham Lincoln warned, "... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
In the buildup to the bloodiest war of the 20th century, Benito Mussolini said, "Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." He is one of history's most reviled characters for good reason.
Now, corporations like Koch Industries are funneling money into the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a shadowy partnership between Republican legislators and corporate lobbyists. Essentially, ALEC's purpose is to pass laws that enrich corporate profits and investor returns by starving the government of revenue, rigging elections and union-busting.
98% of ALEC's funding comes from corporations
ALEC provides "model bills" to state legislatures, all of which are previously seen by ALEC's corporate board. These model bills are aimed at taking the teeth out of government regulation, giving lavish tax breaks to the wealthy, and using the resulting budget deficits to privatize institutions like schools and prisons. These bills are introduced in multiple statehouses with no required disclosure about an outside group of corporate lobbyists originally crafting the legislation. Some of ALEC's notable alumni include Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Governor Scott Walker.
Some of ALEC's model budget bills would repeal capital gains taxes and estate taxes, fattening the pockets of millionaire hedge-fund managers and trust-fund brats while putting public goods and services under the knife. ALEC's 1995 "Sound Federal Fiscal Policy Resolution" falsely antagonizes higher taxes as the source of higher deficits (instead of the aforementioned tax breaks for the wealthy). This would steer lawmakers toward needless budget cuts that systematically starve the states of jobs and tax dollars, blow massive holes in the budget and create whopping revenue shortfalls.
http://readersupportednews.org/opini...s-arch-nemesis
Repugs, always advancing the country to the rear
Dirty Money For Dirty Water: Groups Supporting Bill to Gut Clean Water Act Outspend Opposition 23 To 1
The president of the West Virginia Coal Association, Bill Raney, praised the bill’s passage:
HR 2018 is a bipartisan bill that would rein in the Obama EPA and end the agency’s destructive abuse of authority and restore the balance needed to get America working again.
But the West Virginia Coal Association did much more than offer written support for the act; the organization is one of 44 such groups who donated a combined $28.9 million to House lawmakers in a push to secure the bill’s passing and thus limit the EPA’s role in the making, promulgation, and enforcement of clean-water regulations.
Lobbyist money played a pivotal part in what Earth Justice calls the fight of “clean water versus dirty water.” Interest groups working in support of the bill spent 23 times more money than did the opposition. In some instances, lawmakers received as much as $100,000 from lobbyists in support of the measure and not a cent from those opposed.
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/...ition-23-to-1/
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Corporate-Americans Votes Count, Human-Americans Screwed Again, Again, and Again.
COC is (or was) badass. My favorite CD's are Deliverance and Wiseblood. I hope the money doesn't make them lazy.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
http://www.cagle.com/working/110720/bagley.jpg
How Murdoch’s Times of London and Fox News Coordinate Their Deceitful Reporting on Climate Change
If you wondered whether Murdoch’s various news outlets operate in sync when they misrepresent the facts about climate change, consider the deceitful reporting done by Ben Webster, the Environmental Editor for The Times of London. His smears against the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were immediately amplified and embellished by Fox News in New York. Both Webster’s story and its Fox News incarnation were used to defame the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and to lend an air of legitimacy to the phony “Climate-gate” scandal that had already been debunked by scientific journals and scientific inquiries .
Today we know that one of the Murdoch employees arrested in Britain, Neil Wallis, was deeply implicated in two hacking scandals, the first pertaining to the News of the World, and the second pertaining to the invasion of computers at the University of East Anglia, the victim of the phony Climate-gate scandal touted by Fox News. So it may be worthwhile to take another look at how deceitful reporting within the Murdoch empire can spread like a virus. Look at the opening paragraphs in The Times of London story:
Climate scientists at the centre of the row over stolen e-mails acted with integrity and made no attempt to manipulate their research on global temperatures, an external inquiry has found.
Their research was, however, misrepresented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which failed to reflect uncertainties the scientists had reported concerning the raw temperature data.
An inquiry panel of leading scientists, nominated by the Royal Society, said that the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit may not have used the best methods for analyzing temperature records.
Webster’s second and third paragraphs distort the panel’s findings beyond all recognition.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/0...limate-change/
Koch And Exxon Pay To Write State Legislation Repealing Climate Change Laws
According to tax records and other materials acquired by Bloomberg News, Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, and numerous other corporations paid tens of thousands of dollars to write legislation for lawmakers that would repeal carbon pollution reduction programs in various states around the U.S.
These companies working to dismantle environmental programs are members of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which allows private-sector parties to “pay-to-play” – charging thousands of dollars to sit at the table with legislators and craft bills.
According to Bloomberg News, Exxon Mobil donated $39,000 to ALEC last year and the Koch Charitable Foundation donated $75,858 in 2009, the final year in which tax documents were available. Both companies, along with BP, the American Petroleum Institute and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy helped draft legislation that has been introduced in Oregon, New Hampshire, Washington State and New Mexico designed to take those states out of regional cap and trade programs:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/0...e-change-laws/
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That's how the UCA rolls, they own government.
shock/crony/pay-to-play capitalism at work by the PIC:
Florida Looks for the Lowest Bidder as It Privatizes 30 State Prisons
GEO Group already manages two of the state's seven private prisons and is a "prime financier of the Republican Party [6]" that gave more than $400,000 to GOP in the 2010 election cycle alone and gave the maximum $25,000 to Scott's inaugural fund.
The Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest corrections company, also has close connections [7] to GOP statehouses across the country. The company has spent $373,000 in political contributions [5] in Florida since 2003, over 60 percent of which have gone to Republicans.
And the private prison industry isn't just lobbying to take over state prisons; it's also "working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences." According to a report by the Justice Policy Institute (JPI), private prisons spend millions on lobbying [8] to put more people in jail, which translates to more profits for them. Last year, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group made over $2.9 billion in revenue.
http://www.truth-out.org/print/4544
More the VRWC ALEC conspiracy:
Six Extreme Right-Wing Attacks by ALEC in State Governments
Disenfranchising American Citizens Through Voter ID
Union-Busting
Undoing Efforts to Address Climate Change
Filling For-Profit Prisons Through Anti-Immigrant Bills
Opposing Health Insurance Reform
Privatizing K-12 Education
http://www.truth-out.org/print/4542
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An amazing, surprising paper from AEI on decarbonization:
http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Clim...matism_web.pdf
Corporate tax evasion/avoidance for the predatory, abusive monopoly in your PC
Microsoft's Use Of Lox-Tax Havens Drives Tax Bill To 7 Percent Of Profit
But Microsoft is straightforward about the core reason for its lower tax bill: It is increasingly channeling earnings from sales to customers throughout the world through the low-tax havens of Ireland, Puerto Rico and Singapore.
Microsoft's pre-tax profits booked overseas nearly tripled over the past six years, to $19.2 billion in the fiscal year that just ended, from $6.8 billion in the year ended in June 2006, according to company filings. By contrast, its U.S. earnings have dropped, to $8.9 billion from $11.4 billion in the same period. Foreign earnings now make up 68 percent of overall income.
The change is fueling its shrinking tax bills. According to its 2010 annual report, by keeping a good chunk of foreign earnings away from the U.S., Microsoft has accumulated $29.5 billion overseas -- and that is before the impact of its last financial year.
In theory, the company has saved $9.2 billion in U.S. federal taxes on that figure, though if it brought the entire $29.5 billion back home tomorrow its tax bill would be lower because of credits for foreign taxes paid and other U.S. deductions.
Microsoft's effective worldwide tax rate fell to 17.5 percent in the last fiscal year, down from 25 percent the previous year and 31 percent in the year to June 30, 2006. The company said it expects to owe tax at an effective rate in the next year of between 19 percent and 22 percent.
Few companies, including Thomson Reuters, pay the standard U.S. corporate rate of 35 percent thanks to loopholes and deductions but the Microsoft tax rate is still at the low end when compared with other large technology companies.
In their last reported fiscal years, Google Inc's effective tax rate was 21 percent, Apple Inc's 24 pct, and IBM's was 25 percent.
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The UCA loves the tax policies it pays for.
How Shadowy Right-Wing Front Groups Engineered Our National Embrace Of Debt Reduction Over Job Creation
– Founded in 2010 by former Bush admin flak Gretchen Hamel, the group Public Notice has quietly pumped millions into advertising about debt reduction: Public Notice sponsored at least $3 million on a debt ad called “Shovel” that falsely claims the spending doesn’t create jobs, an undisclosed amount for online ads promoting a highly produced web series on the evils of government spending, a debt pledge that features pop singer Justin Bieber, and what is believed to be another multimillion dollar ad buy recently for a commercial, appearing like a PSA, that warns that government spending is akin to cocaine addiction. To warp elite opinion, the group sponsored billboard ads at Reagan National Airport and on buses and bus shelters near Capitol Hill. Although Hamel does not reveal her donors, she is connected closely with the Koch network of billionaire and investors. Last year at a right-wing donor conference attended by top hedge fund manager Steve Schwarzman and Charles Koch, Hamel gave a presentation on “Framing the Debate on Spending.”
– Retired investor Pete Peterson has dedicated $1 billion of his personal wealth to reducing government spending; much of that money has gone to a multifaceted marketing campaign: The Peterson Institute has spent $1 million underwriting a movie about the debt, at least $1,010,232 developing a children’s debt sports game that also directs users to a Econ4U, a front group created by infamous lobbyist Rick Berman, and millions more for a TV ad campaign called “Hugh Jidette,” an MTV-U cable television series that misleadingly conflates personal debt with the national debt, a newspaper partnered with the Washington Post, and even a program at Columbia University to develop a national debt-related K-12 curriculum.
– Corporate astroturf lobbyist Rick Berman has spent large amounts orchestrating a scare-mongering campaign over the national debt. Along with his connections to the Peterson network mentioned above, Berman has set up a campaign called “Defeat the Debt” to push the public into believing the national debt is the country’s top priority. He has run ads on television, purchased billboards throughout the Washington D.C. metro area, and aggressively marketed his campaign to Capitol Hill staffers. Last year, Berman purchased an ad during the Super Bowl — spending approximately $3 million — that showed schoolchildren pledging allegiance “to America’s debt, and to the Chinese government that lends us money.”
– A network of other right-wing groups have used a series of public relations gimmicks — like barnstorming bus tours filled with highly paid GOP operatives posing as Tea Party activists — to orchestrate an astroturf effort to build support for cutting spending over creating jobs. Groups like Americans for Prosperity and Americans for Tax Reform sponsored a group called Spending Revolt that toured the country organizing debt-related rallies with Republican candidates last year. The group, which has organized events with the Ohio Coal Association, gained countless local press hits appearing as a genuine citizens groups, despite the fact its sponsors are corporate lobbyists. This year, Americans for Prosperity has continued a separate effort to organize debt-themed rallies. American Majority, a group founded after Obama’s election by two GOP operatives, has quietly provided training efforts across the country to mobilize around the issue of the national debt.
This is only a snapshot of the debt-related public relations campaign; millions more have been spent by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, FreedomWorks, Club for Growth, and other big business advocacy groups.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/20...-job-creation/
UCA never sleeps:
U.S. Chamber To Rank Politicians On Whether They Vote To Keep Contractor Donations Secret
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has written a letter to members of the House telling them that voting for federal contractors to be more transparent about their political spending will negatively impact their legislative scorecard.
"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce strongly supports legislative proposals to ensure that political spending -- or the lack thereof -- continues to play no role in federal contracting decisions," the Chamber's R. Bruce Josten wrote in the letter sent on Wednesday.
"Therefore, the Chamber supports amendments that have been offered by Rep. Cole to several Fiscal Year 2012 appropriations bills considered by the full House, and any similar amendments should they be offered to the remaining FY 2012 appropriations bills," he wrote.
http://www.readersupportednews.org/o...uiet-on-donors
Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding ALEC’s Influence On Your State Laws
http://www.propublica.org/article/ou...our-state-laws
Koch Joins Wellpoint to Help Fight Wisconsin Recalls in Battle With Labor
Republican and Democratic groups are pouring money into Wisconsin with eight legislative recalls scheduled this month and control of the state Senate hanging in the balance.
The Republican State Leadership Committee, based in Alexandria, Virginia, has spent about $370,000 on the special elections, while the Washington-based Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has spent about $250,000, according to documents filed with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board in Madison.
Wellpoint Inc. (WLP), an Indianapolis-based health insurer that has been critical of the new federal health-care law, is among the top donors to Republican organizations active in the contests, including $450,000 to the RSLC and $250,000 to the Republican Governors Association.
Wellpoint gave $842,000 to the RSLC for the 2010 elections. State officials are playing a key role in implementing -- or fighting -- the new health law. Kristin Binns, a Wellpoint spokeswoman, didn’t return a phone call seeking comment.
“Big Labor has made Wisconsin their Waterloo,” the RSLC states on its Website, seeking donations to help the Republican lawmakers facing recall elections following their support of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s legislation to take away bargaining rights of state workers. Walker said the law was necessary to trim spending and balance the state budget.
Republican Cash Advantage
Overall, the national groups trying to elect Republican governors, legislators and other state officials almost doubled Democratic fundraising, new Internal Revenue Service records show.
The Republican groups reported raising $28 million between Jan. 1 and June 30, compared with $15 million for their Democratic counterparts. Unlike the national political parties, these committees can accept contributions from corporate and union treasuries, and unlimited donations from individuals.
The RSLC’s chairman, Ed Gillespie, is a former aide to President George W. Bush. Gillespie worked with former Bush political strategist Karl Rove in 2010 to create American Crossroads. American Crossroads and its related organization Crossroads GPS spent $38 million last year in support of Republican congressional candidates. In March, Crossroads GPS spent $750,000 in ads supporting Walker’s new anti-labor law, according to the Center for Media and Democracy.
“Wisconsin is a huge priority,” said Carolyn Fiddler, a DLCC spokeswoman.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/...e-recalls.html