Big Banks Try to Stop Help for Struggling Homeowners – Big banks, scrambling to prevent the government from forcing them to rewrite mortgages for struggling homeowners, are using their lobbying clout to press the Obama administration and Congress to scale back a key measure to rescue borrowers from foreclosures.

Rush Limbaugh Doesn’t Have a Clue (Why Women Don’t Like Him) – Women don’t really like Rush Limbaugh. On Feb. 23, Public Policy Polling released findings showing that only 37 percent of women hold a favorable opinion of the hate radio host. But Limbaugh says he can’t figure out why women don’t like him. So here’s his solution:

We’ll have a summit of all the women in this audience — or as many of them as we can get into breakout groups — and perhaps devote an hour in an upcoming program to calls only from women who genuinely want to talk to me. … I own the men, and what must I do now to own women? And who better to ask than women? Including some of those who may agree that that I’m unfavorable. So stand by for that.

Maybe it’s because women generally don’t like the sexist remarks that Limbaugh is so fond of.

Bobby Jindal is Falsely Portrayed as a Washington Outsider – Gov. Jindal is an outsider devoid of any connection to those unpopular Congressional Republicans. There’s one small problem with that description. It just isn’t true. If anyone in the media thinks for a minute that describing Gov. Jindal in this fashion is accurate, they should bear in mind the following:

Bobby Jindal was appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2001 to be Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation.

Bobby Jindal was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004 as a Republican, taking over for now-Senator David Vitter and serving until January of 2008. (Something even the right-wing Newsbusters felt important enough to point out, though they got the years of his service wrong.)
Bobby Jindal, upon coming to Congress in 2004, was elected Republican Freshman Class president by his GOP colleagues. How outsidery.

Bobby Jindal, while in Congress, voted with Congressional Republicans, the ones he is soooo far away from now, an average of nearly 89% of the time, according to Congressional Quarterly’s annual review (password required) of votes.

Bobby Jindal, while in Congress, collected campaign contributions from notorious sources like disgraced former Majority Leader and consummate GOP insider Tom Delay’s ARMPAC.

Bobby Jindal, as noted above, only left Congress last year when he became Governor of Louisiana — happy Mardi Gras!

With deep ties like these to Washington, former President Bush and Congressional Republicans, how anyone in the press could infer that Gov. Jindal is an “outsider” is beyond me.

Jindal’s Story About the Katrina Rescue Boats is Not True – Remember that story Bobby Jindal told in his big speech Tuesday night — about how during Katrina, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a local sheriff who was battling government red tape to try to rescue stranded victims? Turns out it wasn’t exactly true. Jindal overheard Lee talking about the episode to someone else by phone “days later.” The spokeswoman said she thought Lee, who died in 2007, was being interviewed about the incident at the time.

Secret Norm Coleman-Lawyer E-Mails Reveal Intentional Hiding Of Witness – On Wednesday, the Coleman team was caught having withheld notes given to them in early January by Pamela Howell, a Republican election worker in Minneapolis. (Note: Minnesota precinct workers are selected by partisan identification, and then buddied up across party lines to keep it running smoothly and honestly.) The court then struck the witness’ testimony, relating to double-counting of votes — but then turned around yesterday and reversed themselves, after the Coleman team said it had been an honest oversight — that there was no bad faith involved.

This morning, Franken lawyer David Lillehaug was restarting his cross-examination of Howell, and inquired as to whether there had been any further communications between herself and Coleman. The answer was yes — and Coleman lawyer Tony Trimble then had to cough up some private e-mails he’d sent to Howell in early January.

“Pam, the legal team and campaign have made a strategic litigation decision to hold off from having you sign and us file your affidavit at this time,” Trimble (or possibly his assistant, Matt Haapoja) wrote on January 6, saying this was being done “to avoid tying you down to any particular testimony and to avoid having to disclose your name and statement.”

Weighing Lives Against Money, Jindal Chooses Money – Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s swipe at federal spending to monitor volcanoes has the mayor of one city in the shadow of Mount St. Helens fuming. Jindal singled out a $140 million appropriation for the U.S. Geological Survey as an example of questionable government spending during the GOP response to President Obama’s address to Congress Tuesday night. The governor, a rising Republican star, questioned why “something called ‘volcano monitoring’ ” was included in the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus bill Obama signed earlier this month. “Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington,” Jindal said.

But Marianne Guffanti, a volcano researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey, said, “We don’t throw the money down the crater of the volcano and watch it burn up.” The USGS, which received the money Jindal criticized, is monitoring several active volcanoes across the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and Hawaii. One of those is Mount St. Helens, about 70 miles north of Vancouver, Washington, and neighboring Portland, Oregon. The volcano killed 57 people when it erupted in 1980 and sputters back into action periodically, most recently in late 2004 and early 2005, when it sent plumes of steam and ash thousands of feet into the air.

USGS researchers are also keeping a close eye on Alaska’s Mount Redoubt volcano, about 100 miles from Anchorage, which is predicted to go off again within a few months. Its last eruption, in 1989, disrupted air traffic and forced down a commercial jet that sucked ash into its engines. “If we can give good information about what’s happening, that system of diversions and cancellations all works much more efficiently,” Guffanti said. “And fewer people are delayed and standard business is resumed quickly.”

Growing Hate Groups Blame Obama, Economy – The number of hate groups grew by 54 percent since 2000, according to a study that identified 926 hate groups — defined as groups with beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people — active in 2008. That’s a 4 percent jump, adding 38 more than the year before. What makes this year’s report different is that hate groups have found two more things to be angry about — the nation’s first African-American president and an economy that is hemorrhaging jobs. For the past decade, Latino immigration has fueled the growth of hate groups.

Burris’ Son Got State Job From Blago – The son of embattled Sen. Roland Burris is a federal tax deadbeat who landed a $75,000-a-year state job under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich five months ago, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. Blagojevich’s administration hired Roland W. Burris II as a senior counsel for the state’s housing authority Sept. 10 — about six weeks after the Internal Revenue Service slapped a $34,163 tax lien on Burris II and three weeks after a mortgage company filed a foreclosure suit on his South Side house.

Alarm was Sounded About Stanford Financial Group in 2000, But was Ignored – When Federal agents raided the offices of Stanford Financial Group earlier this month, exposing a massive fraud and successfully preventing its perpetrator, Allen Stanford, from lamming it overseas, it was the culmination of more than an investigation into a despicable “mini-Madoff” Ponzi operation. It was also a neat little public relations moment for the beleaguered Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and their former head Mary Schapiro, who now heads up the equally beleaguered Securities and Exchange Commission. Despite what you may have thought about the way FINRA and the SEC seemed to be clueless to the ways of Bernie Madoff — and those agencies could have made use of both celebrated whistleblower Harry Markopolos and a timely article from Michael Ocrant at MAR Hedge — this new regulatory regime was serious about bringing scofflaws to justice, and those who were formerly asleep at the switch were going to get regular wake up calls.

It turns out that another forgotten reporter, in this case David Ivanovich of the Houston Chronicle, had raised some serious alarms about Stanford back in 2000. In an article entitled “Houston Banker Tries to Create Caribbean Empire, Runs into Problems with Feds” (July 16, 2000) Ivanovich chronicles Stanford’s wheeler-dealing in the nation of Antigua, painting a picture of Stanford that finds him waist deep in shadiness, even downright creepiness.

Most Iodine Supplements Mislabeled, Study Says – Most multivitamin supplements that contain iodine carry less — and sometimes far less — of the element than stated on the label, possibly putting newborns at risk for developmental delays, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. The American Thyroid Association’s recommended daily dose for pregnant and lactating women is 150 micrograms per day. Among the 44 products that claimed to deliver that amount, one third had less than half that amount. Iodine deficiency affects more than 38 percent of the world’s population and is the leading cause of preventable mental retardation. )And Republicans say there is no need for government monitoring?)

John Bolton Suggests Nuking Chicago – Former UN Ambassador John Bolton believes the security of the United States is at dire risk under the Obama administration. And before a gathering of conservatives in Washington on Thursday morning, he suggested, as something of a joke, that President Barack Obama might learn a needed lesson if Chicago were destroyed by a nuclear bomb.

Laura Bush Really Cares About America, But Just Totally Forgot to Watch the President’s Speech – Despite the lack of newspaper delivery at their new home, the former first lady said they are keeping up with the news back in the nation’s capital but they certainly are not operating on Washington’s clock.

In fact, Mrs. Bush said she did not watch President Obama’s address to Congress on Tuesday night because she “totally forgot about it.”

“The next day I thought it was so ironic that for eight years I would be a nervous wreck before the State of the Union, and for days before, as George would be preparing his speech, worried about it and thinking about what was going to be in the speech. And this time it came and went and I didn’t even think about it.”

The GOP’s Next Anti-Pork Rallying Cry: Blueberries! – On Friday, Minority Leader John Boehner attacked the omnibus spending bill currently heading through Congress by honing in one particularly odd-sounding earmark: federal money for “blueberry research.” Absurdity was the effect that Boehner was hoping for, and the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference ate it up (not literally). But there was, as usual, another side to story: without the money, experts say, the blueberry industry could fall by the wayside; hundreds if not thousands of jobs could be at risk, and the U.S. government could deny itself serious advancements in medicine and cancer research.

Chrysler, GM at Bottom of List of Reliable Vehicles – Chrysler and General Motors took the bottom two spots, respectively, in Consumer Reports magazine’s new automaker for reliability, even as the pair seek billions more in federal loans to stay afloat. The third of Detroit’s Big 3 automakers, Ford Motor, fared better at fourth from the bottom, also beating Suzuki.

First place went to Honda for the third-consecutive year, followed by Subaru, Toyota and Mazda. Next came a tie by Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Volkswagen and BMW, among the 15 makers rated. They were followed by Hyundai, Volvo and Mitsubishi.

Stonewalling in Style: Bank of America – On Thursday, the president of Bank of America, Ken Lewis, refused to provide a list of bonus payments to the New York Attorney General, after arriving in New York in his $50 million corporate jet.

Republican Statements That Stimulus Money Can’t be Spent Soon Shown to be False – Less than a week after President Obama signed the economic stimulus bill into law, some states are moving quickly to take advantage of transportation funding. Missouri had construction crews working on a bridge replacement within minutes of Obama signing the bill. Iowa awarded contracts Feb. 20 on 19 projects ranging from bridge replacements to resurfacing roads worth $56.6 million. In Utah, transportation officials solicited bids for six highway repavement projects. Contracts will be awarded in early March, said Nile Easton, a spokesman for the state’s department of transportation. “Every Tuesday and Thursday for the next six to eight weeks we’ll advertise chunks of projects,” Easton said. He said all of the projects will be awarded contracts by late spring and the state’s entire list will be completed by the end of the calendar year.

Regards,

Jim

Republican Senator/Congressman:

You may be dependent on the voters in your state, but you are a senator in our nation’s congress. You don’t just represent your state. You represent all of we the people and that should have more weight in your congressional decisions than looking out for your state or your party. If you are only there for your state, then you need to consider changing jobs and get elected to your state’s congress.

With that said, you need to recognize that your conservative rhetoric on what is right for our economy is not what the nation voted for last November. We have learned from the mistakes of the conservative worldview that has brought us to this economic crisis. You should try and learn from it also.

You have supported years of borrow and spend. You have supported huge deficit spending for the war in Iraq. You have supported tax cut after tax cut while sending more and more. Your president Bush never vetoed any spending bill and pork reached record levels under conservative leadership. And now you are worried about spending and tax increases to cover some of that spending. Give us a break!!

We need to start paying for our way of life. We need to stop asking others, China, to pay for our mistakes. The Greatest Generation paid tax rates of up to 94 percent to help fund a war they all supported. On the other hand, all we were asked to do to support our wars was ‘shop.’

The “core membership” you are pandering to represents less than a quarter of the voting public. Please stop bowing to the Republican leadership under threat of “you’re on your own” come election time. Please, start working for the majority of the nation whom you represent.

From time to time I get emails about how our government is luring us into Socialism and slowly stealing our liberty, particularly now that we have a Democratically controlled Congress and a Democratic President. Well, with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy;

IF you have ever driven on a road that was built, maintained and patrolled for safety using public monies…. YOU may be a socialist.

IF you helped your elderly parents sign up for Medicare so you would not have to pay for the healthcare they need… YOU may be a socialist.

IF you sent your kids to a public school… YOU may be a socialist

IF you have ever invested in stock, held a bank account, owned or used American currency… YOU may be a socialist.

IF you drink water supplied by a utility that is tested to EPA guidelines… YOU may be a socialist.

IF you define socialism as any form of taking tax money from people to provide services and infrastructure, YOU really don’t understand what Socialism actually is. You are dependent on society and society takes care of many of your needs without you even thinking about it. Here are some other things I like about what some people call Socialism:

I like knowing that when I buy gas, I get a real gallon. (Bureau of Weights & Measures)

When I eat at a restaurant, I like being reasonably sure there isn’t a rat turd in my soup. (Health Dept.)

I like being reasonably sure that my airliner won’t crash into another. (FAA)

I like the knowledge that if my ship sinks, I can call someone to rescue me. (Coast Guard)

I like believing that when I take medicine for an illness, I’ll probably be OK. (FDA)

I like knowing that if my wife gets makeup in her eye, she probably won’t go blind. (FDA)

I like knowing that even if my bank president runs off with the money, I’ll still be able to get my savings. (FDIC)

I like knowing that if my neighbor starts dumping toxic waste in HIS yard, I can stop him. (EPA)

I like knowing when a hurricane or tornado is approaching. (Weather Bureau)

I like weekends off, overtime, vacation, and a 40hr work week. (Those evil Socialist Labor Unions)

I like it that McDonalds and Wal-Mart can’t exploit children. (Child Labor Laws)

I like knowing that someone is watching out for epidemics. (Center for Disease Control)

I like knowing that I can seek assistance if my employer creates a deadly work environment. (OSHA)

I like it when people who are too disabled to support themselves aren’t forced to be beggars. (SSI/SSDI)

I like being able to afford to educate my kids. (Public Education) (Pell Grants)

I like to see snake-pit nursing homes fined and shut-down. (State Inspections & Appeals)

I like it when a person injured on the job can get some financial help with retraining and job placement. (Unemployment/Vocational Rehabilitation)

I like knowing that if my house catches on fire, someone will come to put it out.

I like being able to call the Police if I need them.

If that makes me a Socialist, just call me Comrade.

Joe Barton Too Busy Tweeting to Pay Attention to President’s Speech; Blames It On a Staffer – During President Obama’s address to Congress, there was Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), in whose name this text message was sent at about the time the president spoke of the need to pull the country together: “Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren’t going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour.” A few minutes later, another message came through: “Disregard that last Tweet from a staffer.”

Let Them Sleep On The Street! Fox News Calls Troubled Homeowners “Deadbeats” – In a panel on Fox News in which nobody advocated for the homeowners in question, Fox repeatedly characterized them as “deadbeats” who would be profiting at the expense of working people. No statistics were provided to back up their inflammatory soundbites nor was there any information about the nature of the actual suffering of non-deadbeats who may have lost their only shelter as a result of a job loss or medical bills, etc. Statements made included, “We are incentivizing people not to pay their mortgages. These dead beats have no moral right to my money.” and “We have to let this thing purge itself. Let them fail. Let the houses come to market.” [Conservative without conscience worldview: You're on your own and you get what you deserver for being undisciplined and immoral.]

While Republicans Call People With Housing Problems “Losers” That Don’t Deserve Help, Military Families Are Affected Particularly Hard - The orders came while Navy Lt. Adam Diaz was winding down a one-year stint in Baghdad: Report to the Navy Annex in Arlington for a new assignment in April. — Given the military lifestyle, the prospect of a move came as no surprise to Diaz, 31, who has spent his adult life in the Navy. The shock came when he spoke with his wife, Stephanie Diaz, about the value of the Jacksonville, Fla., home they bought in June 2006, near the height of the housing bubble. — “Hey, by the way,” she recalls telling him. “The house has been valued for about 50 grand less than when we bought it.” The housing crisis is hitting military families particularly hard, according to real estate agents and service member advocacy groups. Many who bought during the boom and must now relocate because of fresh orders are faced with selling their homes at a big loss.

Bobby Jindal Tells the Las Vegas Train Lie Again – Last night, Bobby Jindal claimed that the stimulus bill is larded with wasteful spending such as $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a ‘magnetic levitation’ line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called volcano monitoring.” The claim that $8 billion is set aside for a “levitating train” between Las Vegas and Disneyland is untrue. That total is for unspecified high-speed rail projects. And isn’t it interesting that the governor of a state that depends on the U. S. government monitoring of natural disasters (hurricanes) would sneer at the idea of monitoring volcanoes?

Congressional Republicans Complain About Waste, But Won’t Cut Their Staffs – Congressional Republicans have been pouncing on any instance of wasteful spending they can find, but a ten percent increase in the budget for Congressional operations was needed because Senate Republicans wanted to retain previous staff levels despite having lost roughly 20 percent of their ranks in the 2008 elections.

Another Racial Reference to President Obama – The mayor of Los Alamitos, California, is coming under fire for an e-mail he sent out that depicts the White House lawn planted with watermelons, under the title “No Easter egg hunt this year.” Local businesswoman and city volunteer Keyanus Price, who is black, said Tuesday she received the e-mail from Mayor Dean Grose’s personal account on Sunday and wants a public apology. “I have had plenty of my share of chicken and watermelon and all those kinds of jokes,” Price told The Associated Press. “I honestly don’t even understand where he was coming from, sending this to me. As a black person receiving something like this from the city-freakin’-mayor – come on.” The mayor said he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelons. (Then why would he send it? Was he thinking, “I don’t know what this means, so I’ll just send it out?”)

Slave Farms in Florida - In December of last year, the Department of Justice concluded yet another farm labor slavery case in Florida. According to court documents, workers in this latest case were chained to poles, locked inside trucks, beaten, and robbed of their pay. When a reporter called the governor’s office for comment on the most recent case, your spokesperson, Terrence McElroy, gave the impression that one forced labor case per year is no cause for alarm.

Regards,

Jim

Hero Pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger To Congress: My Pay Has Been Cut 40 Percent In Recent Years, Pension Terminated – Sullenberger, a 58-year-old who joined a US Airways predecessor in 1980, told the House aviation subcommittee that his pay has been cut 40 percent in recent years and his pension has been terminated and replaced with a promise “worth pennies on the dollar.” He said the problems began with the deregulation of the industry in the 1970s. The reduced compensation has placed “pilots and their families in an untenable financial situation,” Sullenberger said. “I do not know a single professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps.” Sullenberger’s copilot Jeffrey B. Skiles said unless federal laws are revised to improve labor-management relations “experienced crews in the cockpit will be a thing of the past.” And Sullenberger added that without experienced pilots “we will see negative consequences to the flying public.”

Republican Congressman Repeats Lie About Train to Sin City as Part of Stimulus Bill – When California Congressman Darrell Issa brings up the right-wing stimulus lie du jour — the so-called “train to Sin City” — David Shuster delivers a well-deserved smackdown, practically laughing at Issa for spreading that lie on his show.
ISSA: When we see $8 billion into a train to Sin City as part of a stimulus, we reject it. SHUSTER:

But Congressman, there’s no project for a train from California to Las Vegas. You Republicans know better. It’s $8 billion that’s going to the Department of Transportation, and a Republican, Ray LaHood — he was a Republican in your Congress — he’s the Transportation Secretary who gets to decide where the money is spent! It is wrong to say there is a project from L.A. to Las Vegas. It’s not in the bill, Congressman.

CNBC “Reporter” Falsely Claims White House Threatened Him – White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the following about CNBC reporter Rick Santelli’s rant against the Obama housing plan:

GIBBS: I’ve watched Mr. Santelli on cable the past 24 hours or so. I’m not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives but the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgages, stay in their jobs, pay their bills, send their kids to school.

But on (convicted Nixon Watergate burglar) G. Gordon Liddy’s radio program, Santelli tried to make it sound very different:

SANTELLI: He started that press conference saying, “I don’t know where he lives, I don’t know where his house is.” This is the Press Secretary of the White House. Is that the kind of thing we want? Is that —
LIDDY: It’s a veiled threat.
SANTELLI: It really is. […] I don’t really want to be a spokesman, but I really am very proud of a) the response I’m getting, which is overwhelmingly positive, and b) discourse, that is debate. That if the pressure and the heat I’m taking from the White House – the fact my kids are nervous to go to school – I can take that, okay.

McCain Says Blame the Republican Party, Not Me – Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is the subject of a federal lawsuit that claims he violated the copyright of Jackson Browne’s 1977 hit song, “Running on Empty,” when it aired in one of his presidential campaign commercials. Does McCain take responsibility for his campaign ads? “I was not involved at all in any way in the writing, creation, production, distribution or dissemination of the video, nor do I have any knowledge whatsoever of how this video was written, created, produced or disseminated or who was involved in any aspect of the writing, creation, production, distribution or dissemination of the video,” McCain said in a statement acquired by Wired’s David Kravets. “I was completely unaware that this video even existed until I was informed of it after this lawsuit was filed.” McCain claims the Republican Party is solely responsible for his campaign ad, not him, and has asked that he be stripped from the case.A federal judge allowed the suit to move forward Friday.

McCain Tries to Blame President Obama for Costly Helicopters Ordered by Bush - McCain tried to put the president on the spot for he new presidential helicopters ordered by the Bush administration. “Your helicopter is now going to cost as much as Air Force One,” McCain told Obama. “I don’t think that there’s anymore graphic demonstration of how good ideas have cost taxpayers enormous amount of money.” But President Obama was both straightforward and cool with his answer: “This is going to be one of our highest priorities. By the way, I’ve already talked to [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates about a thorough review of the helicopter situation. The helicopter I have now seems perfectly adequate to me. Of course, I’ve never had a helicopter before. You know? Maybe — maybe I’ve been deprived and I didn’t know it. But I think it is an example of the procurement process gone amuck and we’re going to have to fix it.”

The Myth of Republican Fiscal Responsibility – One graph is worth a thousand words:

Republican vs. Democratic Debt

If Today’s Republicans Had Been Around at Key Points in Human Civilization… – By around 46BC, the Romans had sewage systems to drain waste from homes. In the 19th century major city governments undertook projects to create sewage systems for most homes.

Republicans: “Can you believe this? The government is actually going to spend money on connecting each home to a series of pipes just to take away human waste! Let’s just have some tax cuts and keep the government out of people’s homes!”

Also in the 19th century, city governments begin to develop water supply infrastructures, which also hark back to Roman times…

Republicans: “Leave the market to meet supply and demand. Why waste money on a crazy system of pipes when the wells we have are full and aren’t ever going to run out. Let those who can afford such systems pay for them, and the rest can trickle down to everyone else.”

The late 18th century – the idea of the steam locomotive starts to lead to the creation of a railway transport infrastructure and government invests in laying rails across the country.

Republicans: “Are we really going to waste money on some pie-in-the-sky scheme to connect far off places by building miles and miles of railway lines? Let’s just have some tax cuts and stick to horses!”

The notion of an education system for children and older students has existed since around 1500BC, perhaps earlier…

Republicans: “You want to take away my child for hours each day to be indoctrinated and controlled by government forces – and you want my tax dollars to pay for it? Then you’ve got a serious fight on your hands, mister! Tax cuts would allow families to spend more on educating their own children.”

In 1881, the world’s first electricity distribution system was established in Godalming, England when a generator supplied power to street lights. In the ensuing decades electricity grids spread throughout the world.

Republicans: “Am I hearing this right? You want to waste my money on some crazy scheme to connect each and every home with copper wires? Sounds like a communist mind-control plot. Count me out. Tax cuts would be far better.”

In the early 19th century, the invention of the electrical telegraph spurs the eventual invention of the telephone.

Republicans: “You want what?! A system of cables so that the government can listen to me in my home. You’ve got a fight on your hands, mister. Now let’s quit this crazy talk and pour ourselves a nice round of tax cuts instead.”

In 1936 the United States Government agreed to coordinate the Air Traffic Control System which built a series of radar stations and employees operators to keep airlines traveling upwards of 400 mph from colliding with each other.

Republicans: We don’t need to waste government money on some radar towers and people on the government dole, those pilots can just learn to fly better and if they have an accident the insurance company are willing to pay for the damage.

Trails lead to paths and they lead to roads. In 1956, Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower appropriates $25 billion for the construction of highways in the US. A similar boom takes place across much of the developed world folowing the success of the automobile.

Republicans: “$25 billion!?!?! Are you crazy? My taxpayer money is being spent on concrete? Are we living in communist Russia? Tax cuts would build far more…”

Today: Ideas for new grids to transport green energy; new kinds of green energy; electric cars that could be recharged just by plugging them in to your power socket at home…

Republicans: “No, no, no, no, NO!!!! This is socialism! I want a TAX CUT!!!”

Regards,

Jim

Diebold ‘Offices’ Turn Out to Mostly be Wal-Marts – To convince Utah decision-makers that Diebold (voting machine company) was a big company with a substantial presence, a company representative told the decision-makers in 2006 that Diebold “has about 20 offices in Utah.” However, when calls were made to all of these offices, only one picked up the phone. And when the addresses of offices listed under Diebold in the White Pages were visited, the addresses turned out to belong to either a Wal-Mart, a Sam’s Club, or no building at all. In the end, 16 of the 18 Diebold offices in Utah listed in the White Pages were false listings. A similar scam existed in New York, with another Diebold listing in Buffalo turning out to be a Wal-Mart. Out of 13 listings in Florida, 5 turned out to be Wal-Marts. Similar office listings have been uncovered in Alabama, Mississippi, and New Hampshire.

McDonalds Refuses Workers Comp for Employee Shot While Protecting Patron – Fast food giant McDonald’s has denied workers compensation benefits to a minimum wage employee who was shot when he ejected a customer who had been beating a woman inside the restaurant. Nigel Haskett, then aged 21, was working at a McDonald’s in Little Rock, Arkansas last summer when he saw a patron, later identified as Perry Kennon, smacking a woman in the face. A surveillance video of the incident, which had been posted to YouTube, was taken down after McDonald’s charged copyright infringement, but according to written descriptions of the video, Haskett tackled Kennon, threw him out, and then stood by the door to prevent him from reentering. Kennon, who has a long criminal record, was arrested a few days later and charged with first-degree battery. The judge at his arraignment praised Haskett as a hero.

Alabama Senator Still Pushing Rumor About Obama’s Citizenship – In a meeting with constituents, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby stated, “Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate,” Shelby said. “You have to be born in America to be president.” State officials in Hawaii checked health department records during the campaign and determined there was no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii.

McConnell Peddles Old Republican Party Lie About Small Business Taxes – On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Sunday fired the first salvo against President Obama’s plan to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans who need it least. Claiming that “a vast majority of American small businesses pay taxes as individual taxpayers.” But, as CNN concluded in October, “fewer than 2% of small business owners would pay more under Obama’s plan.”

Army Charity Hoards Millions Rather Than Aiding Troops – As soldiers stream home from Iraq and Afghanistan, the biggest charity inside the U.S. military has been stockpiling tens of millions of dollars meant to help put returning fighters back on their feet, an Associated Press investigation shows. Between 2003 and 2007 — as many military families dealt with long war deployments and increased numbers of home foreclosures — Army Emergency Relief grew into a $345 million behemoth. During those years, the charity packed away $117 million into its own reserves while spending just $64 million on direct aid, according to an AP analysis of its tax records.

TV News Treated Stimulus Plan Like a Political Battle Rather Than an Economic Issue – There were plenty of familiar faces on-screen during TV coverage of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan, people like James Carville, Laura Ingraham, Karl Rove, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Joe Trippi and Dick Morris. What it lacked, some critics suggest, were people with real expertise in what the $787 billion plan will mean for the economy and for communities and individuals. In short, it was treated like just another political battle. Of the 681 people who appeared as guests on a dozen cable news and four network Sunday morning talk shows in the three weeks that ended last Sunday, only 41, or 6 percent, were economists. the Center for Economic and Policy Research said the media had “badly failed” to inform the public about what the stimulus plan means. The group said news organizations also didn’t keep things in perspective, focusing on criticisms of the bill that were a very small part of the price tag.

New CBS News Executive Claimed That Democrats are Bad People – CBS News has named Jeff Ballabon, a New York Republican activist, to serve as the Senior Vice President of Communications. Ballabon claimed that, after his most recent job in Washington, he became convinced that Democrats are inherently bad people and Republicans are fundamentally good people. In fact, it is not atypical of Ballabon to use this kind of extreme partisan rhetoric. During the 2008 election, Ballabon said, “Obama is incredibly dangerous.”

Conservative Alan Keyes Calls President Obama a Radical Communist – Alan Keyes, in an interview with a reporter from KHAS-TV, filmed outside a fundraiser for the AAA Crisis Pregnancy Center in Hastings, Neb., said this:

Obama is a radical communist, and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it’s true,” said Keyes, who ran unsuccessfully against Obama for the state’s open Senate seat in 2004. “He is going to destroy this country, and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist.

Keyes also said that the military should think about not obeying their commander-in-chief because he is not rightly the president of the United States.

SEC Missed Numerous Red Flags Surrounding Stanford – Billionaire R. Allen Stanford managed to run his alleged scheme while the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators stood by, well after he arose on their radar screens. ample warning signs over the years suggested Stanford’s business wasn’t what it seemed. Among them:

• A finding by regulators in June 2007 that Stanford’s company lacked enough capital to function properly as a securities brokerage firm. The company paid $20,000 to settle charges by the National Association of Securities Dealers without admitting or denying them.
• Stanford’s businesses were inspected and investigated several times, starting in 2006 by the SEC and in 2004 by the NASD, the brokerage industry’s self-policing group, now called the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA. NASD’s scrutiny resulted in several disciplinary actions: the regulator fined his brokerage company four times, with penalties totaling $70,000, for violations that included misleading investors in sales materials about the risks of the CDs.
• A 2006 lawsuit by a former employee alleging that Stanford’s company ran a Ponzi scheme. Two other ex-employees asserted in a suit in January 2008 that Stanford’s Antigua bank, Stanford International Bank Ltd., sold CDs based on inflated returns and had destroyed documents.
• A board of directors that included Stanford’s father, his college roommate and a family friend who remained on the board years after suffering a debilitating stroke.
• The Antigua-based accounting firm that audited the offshore bank was tiny and little known.
• A 1999 Treasury Department advisory that warned U.S. banks to scrutinize transactions involving Antigua. It said a new regulator in Antigua was essentially a captive of offshore banks it was meant to supervise. (The advisory was lifted in 2001.)

Regards,

Jim

John Cornyn Introduces Bill That Would Require Home Owners To Retain Internet Access Logs – Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points, even hotels, local coffee shops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations. The legislation, which echoes a measure proposed by one of their Democratic colleagues three years ago, would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates.

“While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said at a press conference on Thursday. “Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level.”

Joining Cornyn was Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who said such a measure would let “law enforcement stay ahead of the criminals.”

Judge’s Office Wouldn’t Stay Open for Extra 20 Minutes to Spare Life – On September 25, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Sharon Keller refused to keep her clerk’s office open an extra 20 minutes to receive a last-gasp pleading from the attorneys for condemned inmate Michael Richard. Richard’s lawyers were having computer problems that prevented them from turning in their motion on time. The 49-year-old murderer was executed just hours after Keller locked the door. Keller’s decision to close her court at 5 p.m.—a move that has since been blasted by even her Republican colleagues—violated the court’s unwritten policies for handling executions. It also broke sharply from tradition. In Texas, it’s not unusual for judges and clerks to take last-minute pleadings at their homes. On execution day, the courts don’t have a strict closing time. (What are the chances that she labels herself “Pro-Life”?)

Here are some other cases concerning this judge.
And more information.

Limbaugh: Trying To Understand A Democrat is Like Trying To Understand A Murderer Or Rapist – Rush Limbaugh likens Democrats to murderers, rapists, and “this Muslim guy” that “offed his wife’s head. He also says that Democrats are now socialist liberals who will establish separate rules for themselves, such as not having to pay their taxes and not being subject to greenhouse gas laws. Hear the audio:

Sean Hannity Recommends Stanford Company – Mention ‘Sean Hannity’ to Stanford Coins & Bullion and get a free guidebook. Yup, that’s Stanford as in Stanford Financial Group, or Allen Stanford, the Texas billionaire who was apparently on the lam after being charged Tuesday in connection with a multi-billion-dollar fraud. “Stanford Coins & Bullion, a member of the Stanford Financial Group, their name as good as gold,” Hannity intones on advertisements that regularly run on his radio show.

How Industry and the EPA Failed To Stop the Growing Environmental Disaster of Coal Ash – Pat Nees never liked the water at the Moose Lodge. Almost everyone in tiny Colstrip, Montana, drank and dined at Lodge #2190, but the well water was notorious — it smelled like a sewer. It felt oily, gritty from sediment. Lodge members braving a drink — Nees among them — frequently doubled over from indigestion. Nees, 57, a board member at the lodge, fielded numerous complaints about the water. But he and fellow Moose members, many of them equipment operators and technicians at the nearby Colstrip Steam Electric Station, a giant coal-fired power plant, never thought twice about the massive waste ponds a half mile away. They never fathomed they were drinking water laced with coal ash.

Coal ash is the collective term for the various solid remnants left over from burning the black rock to produce electricity at more than 500 power plants nationwide. The ash amounts to dirty stuff, replete with toxic constituents — arsenic, chromium, lead, mercury, and many others — that can wreak havoc on the environment and human health. Exposure to its toxins can lead to cancer, birth defects, gastro-intestinal illnesses, and reproductive problems. For decades, the dangers of coal ash had largely been hidden from public view.

BP Guilty of Violating Clean Air Act – BP has plead guilty to violating the Clean Air Act and agreed to pay a separate fine of $50 million. The settlement addresses what the government identified as the company’s failure to comply with a 2001 consent decree requiring tight controls on benzene during the refining of petroleum. Benzene is a hazardous air pollutant known to cause cancer, damage the nerve and immune systems, and affect reproduction and development. The government says the new efforts will reduce emissions of benzene and other volatile organic compounds at the site by 6,000 pounds a year. BP has also agreed to eliminate roughly 51,000 pounds of ozone-depleting hydro-chlorofluorocarbons, often referred to as HCFC’s, by modernizing industrial cooling appliances at the refinery.

Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence (As He Tries to Rewrite History) – Richard Perle is known as the Prince of Darkness — so dubbed during his days opposing arms control in the Reagan Pentagon . He was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack. But at yesterday’s forum of foreign policy intellectuals, he created a fantastic world in which:

1. Perle is not a neoconservative.
2. Neoconservatives do not exist.
3. Even if neoconservatives did exist, they certainly couldn’t be blamed for the disasters of the past eight years.

“There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy,” Perle informed the gathering, hosted by National Interest magazine. “It is a left critique of what is believed by the commentator to be a right-wing policy.”
So what about the 1996 report he co-authored that is widely seen as the cornerstone of neoconservative foreign policy? “My name was on it because I signed up for the study group,” Perle explained. “I didn’t approve it. I didn’t read it.”

Mm-hmm. And the two letters to the president, signed by Perle, giving a “moral” basis to Middle East policy and demanding military means to remove Saddam Hussein? “I don’t have the letters in front of me,” Perle replied.
Right. And the Bush administration National Security Strategy, enshrining the neoconservative themes of preemptive war and using American power to spread freedom? “I don’t know whether President Bush ever read any of those statements,” Perle maintained. “My guess is he didn’t.”

Pearle had been a leading cheerleader for the Iraq war, predicting that the effort would take few troops and last only a few days, and that Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction. Perle was chairman of Bush’s Defense Policy Board — and the president clearly took the advice of Perle and his fellow neocons. And Perle, in turn, said back then that Bush “knows exactly what he’s doing.”

All in the Neocon Family

Richard Perle, Neocon and Key Architect to Bush’s Iraq War – “It is victory or holocaust.”

Right-Wing Radio Host Repeatedly Replaces Female Congresswoman’s Name With Female Genital Reference – During a discussion about President Barack Obama’s signing of the economic recovery bill in Denver, Peter Boyles repeatedly referred to Democratic U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, who attended the ceremony, as “Vagina DeJet” and “Vagina DeGette.”

Conservative View of Bicycle Paths – OCCULT WITCHCRAFT – This bike path is used by people who are practicing a pagan ritual that involves an unholy avoidance of the use of fossil fuels. Adherents also believe “bicycling” will increase their health and lifespan, thus forestalling their eventual doom in the fires of Hell.

Regards,

Jim

In my previous posting, I provided a list of critical factors that compare the conservative and progressive worldviews. One of the key progressive principles mentioned several times in that posting was common wealth for the common good. As noted in that article, this principle was also mentioned in President Obama’s inaugural speech.

Unfortunately, this principle is totally absent from the strict-father, you’re-on-your-own, conservative-without-conscience, profit-first worldview because it requires empathy and responsibility to act on that empathy. This principle is also not broadly understood any more and is only documented in a few places on the internet like The Rockridge Institute. However, common wealth is critical to our democracy and here is why.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin were all concerned about the accumulation of great wealth and the disparities between wealth and poverty they observed in Europe. They attributed these inequities to the European “aristocratic system of land transfers, hereditary political power, and monopoly.” Rather than concentrating wealth in a very few, our founding fathers saw common wealth as necessary for creating equality of opportunity for creating self wealth.

In the following excerpt from Wealth And Our Commonwealth, William H. Gates (father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates) and Chuck Collins, an expert on U.S. economic inequality, document our founding father’s fear of aristocracy and their ideas on taxation for creating the common wealth for the common good. This excerpt was originally posted at TomPaine.com.

The essence of the American experiment is our collective rejection of European hereditary aristocracy and grotesque inequalities of wealth. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, he noted that equality of condition permeated the American spirit: “The American experiment presupposes a rejection of inherited privilege.” In the words of novelist John Dos Passos, “rejection of Europe is what America is all about.”

The nation’s founders and populace viewed excessive concentrations of wealth as incompatible with the ideals of the new nation. Revolutionary era visitors to Europe, including Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, John Adams, and Ben Franklin, were aghast at the wide disparities of wealth and poverty they observed. They surmised that these great European inequalities were the result of an aristocratic system of land transfers, hereditary political power, and monopoly.

Monarchies and hereditary aristocracies mocked the republican principle of self-government. Writing in Common Sense, Thomas Paine attacked the notion of hereditary government: “To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and imposition on posterity.”

In two other articles, “Rights of Man” and “Agrarian justice,” Paine extended his contempt of inherited political power to a critique of inherited economic power. Paine proposed an inheritance tax that would fund an early version of Social Security.

The distrust of concentrated wealth was so great that, in an extreme sentiment, Ben Franklin argued “that no man ought to own more property than needed for his livelihood; the rest, by right, belonged to the state.” One could not accumulate vast wealth, in the republican worldview, simply through one’s own labors. In small-scale agrarian freeholder society, where land ownership was more widely distributed among men of European ancestry, there was a “natural distribution of wealth.” Farmers, artisans, and other workers reaped the “fruits of their own labor.”

In 1776, artisans from Philadelphia put forward a provision for inclusion in the original state constitution of Pennsylvania. They advocated for a limit on the concentration of wealth. “An enormous Proportion of Property vested in a few Individuals is dangerous to the Rights, and destructive of the Common Happiness of Mankind; and therefore any free State hath a Right by its Laws to discourage the Possession of such Property.”

The provision was narrowly rejected. But the concern about inequality and accumulated wealth was present at the formation of our nation.

Indeed, central to American republicanism was the principle of a broad and fair distribution of wealth and property. Noah Webster, writing in favor of adopting the U.S. Constitution in 1787, expressed that “a general and tolerably equal distribution of landed property is the whole basis of national freedom” and wide spread distribution of property was “the very soul of a republic.” Too much inequality was a threat to a self-governing society. Without an equitable land distribution, the founders believed, the republic would not survive.

John Adams also viewed broad land ownership as a key ingredient in maintaining a balance of political power. He was greatly influenced by seventeenth-century philosopher James Harrington, who argued that the widespread distribution of property dispersed power. Adams believed that when “economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny.” In a 1776 letter to James Sullivan, Adams articulated his perspective that a balance in property owner ship was essential to liberty.

“The balance of power in a society, accompanies the balance of property in land. The only possible way, then, of preserving the balance of power on the side of equal liberty and public virtue, is to make the acquisition of land easy to every member of society; to make a division of land into small quantities, so that the multitude may he possessed of landed estates. If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude, in all acts of government.”

Thomas Jefferson, writing to James Madison in 1785 made the now famous statement that “the small land holders are the most precious part of a state.” He argued that legislators could not invent too many devices for subdividing property, “only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.”

In the republican worldview, European aristocrats created unbalanced distributions of wealth by controlling the land through inheritance, laws of primogeniture and entail. These land tenure systems allowed land transfers only to oldest male children, maintaining hereditary concentrations of land rather than broadly distributing it. In a conscious rejection of primogeniture, Jefferson wrote:

“The descent of property of every kind therefore to all children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree, is a politic measure and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”

The revolutionaries believed in equitability, a notion of relative equality and fairness, rather than rigid equality. Revolutionary writers and orators underscored that American society would have modest inequalities. “The utopian schemes of leveling, and a community of goods,” wrote Sam Adams, “are as visionary and impracticable, as those which vest all property in the Crown.” Rigid equality, according to Sam Adams, would be “arbitrary, despotic, and in our government unconstitutional.” Minor inequalities would exist as the result of differences in individual talent, effort, and modest variations in property ownership.

This equitability translated into a culture that was antiaristocratic in sentiment. To be labeled an aristocrat or to be accused of advocating for “aristocratic policies” was the ultimate political slander in revolutionary America. For instance, John Adams through much of his later years had to fight the whispers that he had “monarchist sympathies,” having spent so many years consorting with royalty in France and England.

The founders celebrated the exceptionalism of the American experiment and heartily rejected aristocratic politics and economic policy. “The economic agenda for a republic became clear,” writes James Huston. “Enact the opposite of aristocratic legislation.”

What made the new nation unique was its relative equality. Noah Webster exuded confidence in the justness of the American system: “Here the equalizing genius of the laws distributes property to every citizen.” In other words, no rent to an absentee landlord or land ownership monopolies.

In their enthusiasm, the revolutionaries glossed over some of the enormous inequalities that existed in colonial society, the most obvious of which was the existence of slavery. “American society was not egalitarian and some individuals possessed impressive amounts of wealth,” writes Huston. “An elite did exist, and much of its property had come from political favoritism, inheritance, or family connections.” At the same time, their prescriptions for addressing this inequality were overly simplistic. For instance, the founders thought that eliminating the aristocratic land laws of entails and primogeniture would institutionalize relative equality. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson wrote confidently that America’s land tenure system encouraged subdivision and a broader distribution of land ownership, preventing aristocratic concentrations of ownership. Our nation’s founders were blind to some of the inequalities in their midst. But our national creed — with its aspiration to greater equality and suspicion of accumulated wealth and power — was forged at the time of our nation’s independence.

This “suspicion of accumulated wealth and power” was a significant cause for our revolution against Great Britain. The majority of our earliest citizens rejected aristocracy in favor of democracy and wanted taxation to limit the accumulation of wealth. However, this limitation must be turned to the common good of the new nation by equality of opportunity.

Now, over two hundred and thirty years later, we are in the midst of another struggle over the concentration of excessive wealth and power. This struggle has evolved slowly by reducing the funding of our common wealth for the common good. It started in 1963 when our top personal tax rate of 91 percent, which had existed since the end of World War II, was reduced to 70 percent. In 1982 the top rate was dropped another 20 points to 50 percent. Since 1987, the top tax rate has varied between 39.6 and 28 percent.

Since 1963, we have been creating a new conservative-without-conscience (CWC) aristocracy which, as our forefathers feared, is a threat to our democracy. We have been conned into letting this happen by the CWCs who have been telling us for years that taxes are not good; government will not make proper use of it; only the free market works in the best interest of the nation’s citizens; if you are disciplined, it’s OK to be extremely rich; and there are those among us who do not deserve a helping hand because they are not moral.

This growing aristocracy is using their excessive wealth and power to pay tens of thousands of lobbyists to get their taxes reduced and their powers increased further. Looking back at our early history, I suggest that today’s CWCs represent the new American Empire. They are at least leftover “Loyalists” from our revolution for independence.

As the CWCs have grown their aristocracy, our infrastructure, our government and the rest of us have suffered. Our bridges and highways are decaying. Our schools are failing our children and only the very rich get a good education. Our air and water are poisoned. Our national resources are being pillaged for profit. Our right to vote is under threat to help keep the CWC minority in control. Our heath care is failing to care for all but the very rich CWCs and our climate may turn on us all like never before while the CWCs speed around in their luxury SUVs.

What all this means is that we are transferring the funding of our nation’s common wealth back to the Paris Hiltons, Rupert Murdochs and other powerful CWCs of the world through one tax reduction after another. Yes, you might get something back to help pay your bills that are piling up, but the CWCs get much much more and will buy another yacht or congressman with their spare change. The rest of the nation, on the other hand, struggles to get their kids a good education, find affordable transportation to get to work, keep themselves and their children healthy and wonder if their future is doomed to climatic cataclysm. In the mean while, the mega-rich continue to shop extravagantly, collect unreasonable bonuses and take corporate welfare while avoiding proportionately replenishing our common wealth through progressively higher taxation.

Common wealth is not what CWCs believe in. CWCs are moral by virtue of their disciplined nature and are thus more deserving of wealth and power than other citizens. Their individualistic, self disciplined, moralistic, authoritarian, direct-causation worldview means all the money they earn is theirs. They earned it all by themselves.

CWCs don’t recognize that the nations’ infrastructure helped create their wealth. Since it didn’t help them, there is no need for them to pay to maintain it. Thus, they believe that taxes to fund the common wealth are wrong regardless of its contribution to their self wealth.

In addition to our vanishing common wealth, our democratic government is disappearing courtesy of the CWC aristocracy. In the CWC worldview, the Government interferes with creating wealth and steals self wealth just to give it to undisciplined immoral slackers (Remember, direct causation blinds the CWCs to the intermediate common wealth that is managed by the democratic government to promote equal opportunity for all). So, to minimize government, stop funding it. Specifically, stop taxing the CWCs that gain the most from the infrastructure which was built from our common wealth. In addition, redirect what common wealth is left to privatize government functions and help maximize the CWC aristocracy.

Privatization is fine as long as the government responsibility to protect and empower is not part of the deal. Privatizing means there is no accountability to the voters and profit takes precedence over protecting and empowering citizens. Our democratic government is responsible for protecting and empowering its citizens. The free market is responsible for making profit and profit will trump protecting and empowering citizens every time.

Our democratic government must protect and empower all of us. Protection includes the police, firefighters, emergency services, public health, the military, and so on. Empowerment includes the infrastructure needed for business and everyday life: roads, communications systems, water supplies, public education, the banking system for loans and economic stability, the SEC for the stock market, the courts for enforcing contracts, air traffic control, support for basic science, our national parks and public buildings, and more.

Building the new CWC aristocracy is wrong. It robs us of our common wealth, redirects our protection toward war and away from civil rights, prevents building and maintaining our nation’s infrastructure and eliminates equal opportunity.

Many of us believe, like our American revolutionary heroes mentioned at the beginning of this post, that we need to be responsible for ourselves and others and do what is necessary to keep and continually improve our democracy. Our innate empathy tells us that as parents we must protect and empower our children and, likewise, our government must protect and empower its’ citizens. To do that, we must proportionally fund the nation’s common wealth for the sake of the nation’s common good.

The progressive worldview closely matches our Founding Fathers. Progressives support Paine’s inheritance tax and Jefferson’s progressive tax. We must fund the common wealth for the common good. We must fund the common wealth so the government can protect and empower we the people. We must fund the common wealth to promote equality of opportunity for creating self wealth which will replenish the common wealth. We must fund the common wealth to promote our American democracy and inhibit the new CWC aristocracy.

The CWC worldview is wrong. We can’t have a government to protect and empower us (infrastructure) while we let the very rich become the mega rich. Eventually, most of us will pay a very high price.

The Greatest Generation paid for World War II with income tax rates as high as 94 percent. All we were asked to do for Bush’s war was shop.

It’s time we pay our own way. It’s time to stop asking others (China, Japan, etc.) to pay our bills. It’s time for the very rich and corporations to contribute much more to our common wealth so they don’t succeed in turning our democracy into an aristocracy.

I close with a quote from another great American, an American that was not an aristocrat, Abraham Lincoln.

“This is essentially a people’s contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from their shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding to partial and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the government for whose existence we contend.” – Abraham Lincoln Address to Congress (4 July 1861)

“There’s class warfare, all right but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning,” Warren Buffet, CEO Berkshire Hathaway and third richest man in the United States. 
 
In 2006 Mr. Buffet compiled a spreadsheet on the taxes paid by himself and everyone in his office, mostly secretaries and clerks.  He found that he paid a tiny fraction of his income in taxes while those working for him paid much more of their income into taxes.  He asked the simple question, “How can this be fair?”   As far as I know he hasn’t found an answer. 
 
In 1970 the top 1% owned 13% of the wealth in the United States.  By 1993 they owned 40% of the total wealth.  Today they own close to 80% of the stocks, bonds and real estate in the country.  In 1992 the 400 richest people in the US averaged $24 million/year.  By 2000 that income grew to $174 million each. 
 
Did those 400 people work harder between ’92 and 2000?  Did they stay longer at the office?  Did they take on more responsibility?  Were they more productive?   Nope, the tax code changed.  Nothing else, just the tax code.
 
The really sick part of it is how they’ve recruited us, the working people, to fight the class war for them.   Somehow they’ve convinced us that if we just keep giving tax cuts to the wealthy we will someday become wealthy ourselves when in actuality the working men and women have seen their incomes decline over the last three decades.   Between 1969 and 1996 the middle quintile of incomes saw a decrease in disposable income of 1.5% and from 1996 to 2000 another 2% (measured in constant dollars adjusted for inflation, source: US Census Bureau).   We continually vote against our own best interests.  
 
The facts are simple and unassailable; the outcome inarguable.  The economic policies of the last thirty years have increased the gap between the wealthy and all other income levels (wealthy being the top 5% of incomes; $250k adjusted gross income/individual, $500k agi for couples). 
 
The highest progressive tax rate in the ‘50s was 91% and un-earned income was taxed the same as wages.  During those decades the median income growth was 3.4%/year.  Beginning in 1980 with the change in economic policy to “supply side” or “trickle down” which cut top tax rates to 35% the median income growth rate dropped to 1.8%, not enough to keep up with inflation.  Corresponding to those income growth rates was the growth of the GDP.   Since the introduction of Reaganomics in 1980 all measures of growth, save one, have slowed.  That one measure is the growth of the Mega Rich.  Don’t take my word for it; see Alan Greenspan about it, he’s the one who gave me those numbers.
 
The change in tax code not only rewards the higher incomes but has shifted the burden of taxes from un-earned income to wages.  Un-earned income is money gained from investments, capitol gains and the like.  It’s called UN-EARNED income for a reason.  As a result of the tax policies begun under Reagan and brought to their fullest under Dubya the rich got richer, the poor got poorer and the middle got to shoulder most of the burden. 
 
While I don’t wish for a return to everything the ‘50s had to offer, like racism, xenophobia and sexual discrimination, the economic and tax policies were good for the whole country.   Like Reagan said, a rising tide raises all ships.  Let us go about the raising of the tide and stop building bigger ships.
 

John Boehner Complains About Non-Existent Stimulus Bill Las Vegas High-Speed Rail Project – The madness continues on the right-wing’s crusade against a mythical high-speed rail to Las Vegas project that Harry Reid is alleged to have snuck into the stimulus bill. “Tell me how spending $8 billion,” asked House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) on the floor, “in this bill to have a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is going to help the construction worker in my district.” But there’s no special plan for Las Vegas. The money will be spread all across the country. The areas that will get a leg up should be the Federal Railroad Administration’s officially designated high-speed rail corridors. As it happens, LA-Vegas doesn’t make the cut. But guess who does have such a corridor? John Boehner’s Ohio! Long story short, John Boehner doesn’t know what he’s talking about and his position on this issue would imperil both short term jobs for Ohioans and an opportunity to substantially improve Ohio’s long-run capacity for economic growth.

Michele Bachmann Complains, “We’re Running Out Of Rich People In This Country” – Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann told KLTK’s Chris Baker that she opposes she stimulus because we’re “running out of rich people in this country.”

She also said ACORN is “under federal indictment for voter fraud,” but the stimulus bill nevertheless gives ACORN “$5 billion.” (In reality, ACORN is not under federal indictment and isn’t mentioned in the stimulus bill at all.)
And she said the stimulus bill includes a measure to create a “rationing board” for health care, and after the bill becomes law, “your doctor will no longer be able to make your healthcare decisions with you.” But that has been widely de-bunked.

And just to be sure she gets committed to a small room in a big building, she said the “Community-Organizer-in-Chief” is also orchestrating a conspiracy involving the Census Bureau, which the president will use to redraw congressional lines to keep Democrats in power for up to “40 years.” When the host said he was confused, noting that congressional district lines are drawn at the state level, Bachmann said Obama’s non-existent plan is an “anti-constitutional move.”

Sarah Palin Owes Back Income Tax - Gov. Sarah Palin must pay income taxes on thousands of dollars in expense money she received while living at her Wasilla home, under a new determination by state officials. The governor’s office wouldn’t say this week how much she owes in back taxes for meal money, or whether she intends to continue to receive the per diem allowance. As of December, she was still charging the state for meals and incidentals.

Republicans Share Stage With Man Holding Anti-Obama Swastika Sign – Right wing virago Michelle Malkin appeared on stage at a Colorado anti-stimulus rally with Sate Senator Josh Penry, Congressman Mike Coffman, Colorado GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams, State Senator Dave Schultheis, former Congressman Tom Tancredo, and Independence Institute president Jon Caldara and this guy in the picture who carried a anti-Obama swastika sign. None of whom did anything about it, and in fact one person defended the guy saying that the swastika is not a Nazi symbol, but an honored Native American symbol.

Republicans Use Copyrighted Songs Without Permission Over and Over Again – Poor House Republicans. They were pretty psyched yesterday about that new troops-rallying video from Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) that used Aerosmith’s “Back in the Saddle” to declare that “The House GOP is back” thanks to the party’s unanimous opposition to the stimulus. But unfortunately, Aerosmith wasn’t feeling the love. Cantor’s clip has been pulled from YouTube after a copyright infringement claim made by Stage Three Music, which owns the rights to “Back in the Saddle.” Aerosmith did not approve of its use and also wanted to have it taken down.

Reagan uses “Born in the U.S.A.”; Springsteen says “Stop it!”
George H.W. Bush uses “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”; McFerrin says “Stop it!” Poppy Bush uses “This Land Is Your Land”; Woody Guthrie shakes an angry fist from Heaven, curses public domain laws. Arlo complains. Irony Meter explodes.

Bob Dole uses “Dole Man,” a brilliantly clever reworking of “Soul Man” sung by the only black Republican in Phoenix, Arizona, Mr. Sam Moore, of Sam and Dave; composer Isaac Hayes reportedly “upset.”

George W. Bush uses Orleans’ “Still The One”; composer/Rep. John Hall, D-NY, says “Stop it!”

McCain uses “Our Country”; Mellencamp says “Stop it!” McCain uses “Running On Empty”; Jackson Browne says “Stop it!”, sues. McCain uses “I Won’t Back Down”; Petty says “Stop it!”

Sarah Palin uses “Barracuda”; Heart says “Stop it!”

Republicans Say Obama is Off to a Bad Start Because He Wasn’t Able to Keep us From Acting Like Jerks – Top Republican lawmakers Sunday called on President Obama to change his political strategy, arguing that the passage of a massive stimulus bill on a party-line vote showed he has failed to deliver the “change” he promised. Even though Obama made an unprecedented effort to reach out to Republicans. Not just in meetings at the White House, but the president drove up to Capitol Hill to meet with Republicans where they work. Then the amendments asked for by House Republicans were put into the bill and the Republicans that asked for the amendments voted against the bill. The[n] we have the childish act of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) actually throwing the stimulus bill on the floor, hamming it up for CSPAN.

Property Seizures Gone Wild in Tenaha, Texas - A two-decade-old state law that grants authorities the power to seize property used in a crime is wielded by some agencies against people who are never charged with, much less convicted, of a crime. Law enforcement authorities in this East Texas town (Tenaha) of 1,000 people seized property from at least 140 motorists between 2006 and 2008, and, to date, filed criminal charges against fewer than half, according to a San Antonio Express-News review of court documents. Virtually anything of value was up for grabs: cash, cell phones, personal jewelry, a pair of sneakers, and often, the very car that was being driven through town. Some affidavits filed by officers relied on the presence of seemingly innocuous property as the only evidence that a crime had occurred. Linda Dorman, a great-grandmother from Akron, Ohio, had $4,000 in cash taken from her by local authorities when she was stopped while driving through town after visiting Houston in April 2007. Court records make no mention that anything illegal was found in her van and show no criminal charges filed in the case. She is still waiting for the return of what she calls “her life savings.”

Regards,

Jim