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Dirty tricks in politics? Say it ain't so!
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!
Bull . 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 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 Ins ute, 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 mul ude 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 YOURSELF
Seems every conspiracy theorist gets mad when you call his antics plainly.
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.
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
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.
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