The WAWG Blog

How to be a One-Man Dictator in America – At a secret billionaires conference hosted by the Koch Brothers, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recalled discussing the 2009 budget with his aides shortly after taking office. He claimed to have told his aides, referring to the majority Democrats in the state Legislature as those people down the hall:

“Listen. We’ve got to fix this problem, but I do not want to deal with those people down the hall…

And so they told me, “If you declare a fiscal state of emergency, you can use your emergency powers as governor to impound $2.2 billion in planned spending and balance the budget. And you can do it by executive order.” I said, “Man, I love this state!”

So, I went in my office, all by myself, and set up the executive order, and I signed it. But I thought it would be rude for me not to go down and tell that coequal branch of government what I had just done. [Scattered chuckles.] So I asked them for a joint session speech…I basically said this: “You left me with a $2.2 billion problem. You want me to raise taxes. I’m not going to. I just impounded the money by executive order. I fixed your problem. Thanks, have a nice day.” And I walked out.”

Regards,

Jim

Republicans Determined to Hold FAA Reauthorization Hostage Again This Friday – Republicans in Congress will do anything they can to make it harder for workers to form unions.

Last month they shut down the FAA when they attempted to change union election rules to count non-voters as “no” voters. 74,000 workers were forced off the job, construction projects were halted, and the United States lost $30 million a day in uncollected airline taxes when the FAA authorization expired.

In 10 days, it could happen all over again.

Shameless lawmakers are determined to hold the FAA reauthorization hostage once more in their desperate attempt to annihilate workers’ rights – unless we do everything we can to stop them!

Right now, workers in the rail and airline industry can vote “yes” for a union or “no” against it. The ballots are counted, and the majority wins. Just like every other vote you’ve participated in, from class president to Congress.
That’s how a fair, democratic vote works.

But corporate-backed lawmakers are so determined to make union elections unfair – and to keep profits in the pockets of airline companies – that they would let the FAA shut down and lay off thousands of workers. Anti-union lawmakers like Rep. John Mica (R-FL) – who’s taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the airline industry – have signaled that this is their first priority when they return to Congress this week.

Send a clear message to lawmakers: Counting non-votes as “no” votes is unfair and undemocratic!

We can’t let anti-worker legislators pull another outrageous stunt that costs taxpayers millions and puts thousands of people out of work. If they win, it will legalize a practice any reasonable person would call “voter fraud.”

In order to prevent another shutdown, Congress has to act by next Friday – so we’ve got to ramp up our efforts immediately! It only takes a moment to tell to your member of Congress to drop the politics and do what’s right.

Tell your representative: Don’t allow anti-union provisions in the FAA bill.

Forty-Four Republican Senators Pledged to Block Any Nominee to Head the Consumer Protection Agency – The federal agency set up to protect you from credit card companies — the new federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — is without a director. Forty-four Republican Senators wrote President Obama pledging to block any nominee to head the consumer protection agency — unless its power to protect ordinary Americans from Wall Street games is gutted.

Help get Rich Cordray confirmed as the head of the federal Consumer Financial Protecting Bureau. Sign the petition and let Republican legislators know we want Cordray!

Arizona Republican Party Plans To Raffle Off Same Type of Gun As Giffords Was Shot With – The Pima County, AZ Republican Party is planning to hold a fundraiser where they raffle off a Glock handgun similar to the type that was used in the assassination attempt on Arizona Democrat Gabrielle Giffords in January.

Right-Wing Commentator Says Poor People Voting is ‘Un-American’ – Many conservatives appear to think badly of poor people, but Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center takes it a step further. According to the title of his latest article for American Thinker, he believes that “registering the poor to vote is un-American.” “Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals,” he continued.

Rick Perry Making Stuff Up, Again – U.S. Department of Transportation officials are disputing Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s statement at the Iowa State Fair today that federal administrators plan to require a farmer driving a tractor across a public road to obtain a commercial driver’s license.

“We are absolutely not requiring farmers” to obtain commercial licenses, such as those required of semi-trailer operators, said U.S. DOT spokeswoman Candice Tolliver in Washington, D.C.

Regards,

Jim

Cast your vote for the worst here.

Gov. Scott Walker
Wisconsin
Eliminated collective bargaining rights for most public employees
Enacted laws restricting voting rights
Passed a budget that cuts services and gives tax breaks to the wealthy
Turned down funding for high speed rail

Gov. Tom Corbett
Pennsylvania
Pushed budget with huge cuts to education
Refuses to tax wealthy natural gas drillers
Demanding state workers take pay cuts

Gov. Chris Christie
New Jersey
Cut $820 million from education
Signed bill removing healthcare from collective bargaining
Failed to pay into public pension funds

Gov. Rick Snyder
Michigan
Signed fiscal emergency bill that lets appointed manager take over local governments, dismiss elected officials, and cancel contracts
Sold off state property
Increased pension costs for public workers

Gov. Rick Scott
Florida
Wants to cut $4 billion in spending while lowering taxes for the rich
Increased retirement costs for state workers
Gave back billions of dollars for high speed rail
Attacking teachers and their unions

Gov. John Kasich
Ohio
Passed union busting law that restricts collective bargaining for public workers, bans strikes, and eliminates binding arbitration
Proposed a budget that would allow any service to be privatized
Publicly called a police officer who pulled him over an idiot

Gov. Rick Perry
Texas
Passed budget with $15 billion in cuts
Slashed education funding and laid off teachers
Signed voter ID bill making it harder for the elderly and students to vote

Gov. Paul LePage
Maine
Told the NAACP to “kiss my butt”
Removed a mural from the Department of Labor because he claimed it was too pro-worker
Trying to abolish child labor laws
Cutting taxes while slashing public services

Gov. Jan Brewer
Arizona
Cut children’s healthcare
Passed dangerous anti-immigrant law
Signed law limiting unions political activity

Regards,

Jim

Rick Perry Became a Millionaire While Serving in Office; Giving Favors to Chums – Since his first race for office more than a quarter century ago, Gov. Rick Perry has emphasized his roots as a rural farmer. Yet Perry’s bank account no longer reflects those humble beginnings as his bottom line has soared in recent years, records show, thanks largely to a handful of real estate deals that critics allege were achieved through the presidential candidates’s political connections.

Like many Texas farmers, Perry benefitted from federal agriculture subsidies. Between 1987 and 1998, Perry received over $80,000 from such programs. Either with his father or on his own, Perry had financial stakes in gas wells as well as some real estate. Through his wife, the couple had a small investment in a local bakery. Perry also found work during that period as a pilot.

Perry bought 10 acres of undeveloped land in 1993. That property drew interest from Michael Dell, a computer magnate who needed Perry’s tract to connect his new home to municipal sewer lines. Dell took the property off Perry’s hands for $465,000, more than triple what Perry had paid for it two years earlier. Perry reported a $342,994 profit on the sale in his 1995 tax return.

Texas Democrats have repeatedly questioned the sale over the years, in part because Mike Toomey – an influential lobbyist who would later become Perry’s chief of staff – closed the deal for Perry while Perry was out of town. Perry has always maintained he didn’t know that the land would be so valuable to Dell when he purchased the property.

The following year, Perry reported a $38,000 profit off selling stock in Kinetic Concepts, a medical bed and supply company founded by James Leininger, a long-time generous donor to Perry over the years.

Around the same time, Perry also invested in MKS Consulting, a Weatherford company started by Ric Williamson, a former state representative that Perry would later appoint Texas Transportation Commissioner. Williamson died in 2007. Last year, Democratic opponent Bill White questioned whether Perry’s investment showed he had used his political connections to profit off the Barnett Shale natural gas drilling boom while opposing stricter drilling regulations.

Perry purchased the land from state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, in 2001 for $314,770. Six years later, Perry sold it for $1.1 million, pulling a profit of $823,776. Critics, including the liberal watchdog group Texans for Public Justice, have suggested a dubious dealing considering that the man Fraser bought the land from and the man Perry sold the land to were business partners.

“We’re a pay-to-play state,” Texans for Public Justice Director Craig McDonald said.

Tea Party’s Favorite Snake Needs Government Aid – Since the tea party movement rose to prominence in early 2009, the yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag has been a ubiquitous presence at everything from health care protests to campaign stops. It features the Revolutionary War-era slogan, along with a coiled rattlesnake, because, as Benjamin Franklin explained, the rattler “never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders.”

But the flag doesn’t feature just any snake; it’s a eastern diamondback rattlesnake—and despite what the flag says, lots of people seem to be treading on its natural habitat. According to a new report from the Center for Biological Diversity, the species could be nearing extinction unless the federal government intervenes. Scientific American reports that the CBD, along with Protect All Living Species and the delightfully acronymed One More Generation, have petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service to classify the eastern diamondback rattlesnake as an endangered species. The rattler is down to 3 percent of its original habitat, and according to the CBD, its population has fallen from 3 million to 100,000.

Republican Representative Says Young People Are Not Worth the Minimum Wage – Republicans overrode Democratic Gov. John Lynch’s veto in June and stripped New Hampshire’s minimum wage law from the books.

The change takes effect Sunday, but it will have no consequence for employers or employees because New Hampshire’s minimum wage was the same as the federal wage, which remains in force.

State Rep. Carol McGuire, the Epsom Republican who sponsored the bill, acknowledges it changes little and could be restored by lawmakers at any time. She would have liked to have repealed the minimum wage entirely and let the free market dictate wages, she said. “It’s very discriminatory, particularly for young people. They’re not worth the minimum,” she said.

Republican House Majority Leader Holds Hurricane Irene’s Victims Hostage for Spending Cuts – Vermont is under water. New Jersey is reeling. North Carolina is just starting to pick up the pieces. But Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is already taking Hurricane Irene’s victims hostage.

It’s outrageous to take advantage of the urgent needs of hurricane survivors in order to advance his radical crusade to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. But that’s exactly what one of the top Republicans in Congressional leadership is doing with his refusal to allocate money to disaster relief unless Congress first offsets that money with cuts to vital government programs.

Tell Eric Cantor to release the hostages and stop blocking funds for urgently needed disaster relief.

Ron Paul Voted Against Hurricane Ike Aid, Forgets History – Rep. Ron Paul of Texas said the nation would be much better off without the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“I live on the Gulf Coast. We put up with hurricanes all the time,” the GOP presidential candidate told CNN after a New Hampshire campaign event Friday.

After Hurricane Ike demolished parts of the Texas coast in 2008, Paul voted against a bill that would funnel billions in aid to the area, which covers his congressional district.

Citing the Galveston hurricane in 1900 that obliterated much of the Texas coast, the libertarian-leaning congressman said Americans were able to rebuild their cities and put up a seawall without the federal government’s help. But Ron Paul forgets that only the original section of the Galveston seawall was built by the city government. Other sections were built by the Federal government including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Regards,

Jim

Republican Requests Funds From Program He Voted to Kill – Metrolink spokesperson Sherita Coffelt said the railroad crossing at Spring Road near High Street will be upgraded to enhance safety for rail, vehicles, pedestrians and commercial property patrons.

The improvements will include relocating a warning signal, installing a new one, and installing two vehicle exit gates, she said.”There will also be advanced reactions, which means that when a train is approaching, the warning lights will be coordinated with the traffic lights so that the traffic lights will never accidentally cause a car to get trapped on the tracks,” she said.

Requested by Rep. Elton Gallegly, the funding comes from the 2010 transportation/HUD appropriations bill as part of the Federal Railroad Administration’s High Speed Rail Corridor Improvements program, said Tom Pfeifer, spokesman for Gallegly’s Washington office.

Yeah. That would be the same high speed rail spending program Gallegly voted to kill, alongside his fellow Republicans in the House.

Keystone XL Pipeline is a Danger to the Whole Planet – The Keystone XL pipeline is planned to carry diluted bitumen — an acidic crude oil — from Canada’s Alberta tar sands to the Texas Gulf Coast. We have two main concerns: the risk of oil spills along the pipeline, which would traverse highly sensitive terrain, and the fact that the extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production does.

A new report from Canada’s environmental ministry shows how great the impact of the tar sands will be in the coming years.

It projects that Canada will double its current tar sands production over the next decade to more than 1.8 million barrels a day. That rate will mean cutting down some 740,000 acres of boreal forest — a natural carbon reservoir.

Extracting oil from tar sands is also much more complicated than pumping conventional crude oil out of the ground. It requires steam-heating the sands to produce a petroleum slurry, then further dilution. One result of this process, the ministry says, is that greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector as a whole will rise by nearly one-third from 2005 to 2020.

Without the pipeline, the tar sands don’t get exploited, and the tar sands pose a danger to the whole planet. After all, it’s the earth’s second-largest pool of carbon, and hence the second-largest potential source of global warming gases. As NASA climatologist James Hansen has made all too clear, if we do so it’s “essentially game over for the climate.”

The president, and the president alone, has the power either to sign the permit. Barack Obama has the power to stop it, and no one in Congress or elsewhere can prevent him from doing so.

Please sign this petition to President Obama. And this one, too. And this one, also.

Then call the White House and urge Pres. Obama to reject the pipeline. It’s best to call during regular business hours (M – F, 9 am – 5 pm EST).

Rick Perry’s Presidential Campaign Costing Texas Taxpayers – Since Rick Perry joined the presidential race this month, his campaign entourage has included not just the standard array of political advisers and aides, but a squad of Texas law enforcement agents.

The security forces scout and secure locations days in advance. Well before the governor’s visit to Tommy’s Country Ham House in Greenville, S.C., the weekend of Aug. 20, more than a half-dozen suited and armed agents were giving orders to the crowd of more than 400. How much is this ever-present phalanx of state policemen costing the taxpayers of Texas? They won’t know at least until after next year’s presidential election, thanks to a provision, tucked into a school finance bill in July, that will keep the governor’s travel records sealed for 18 months.

Democratic Economic Policies Were Working Well, Then the Obstructionist Republicans Stopped Progress – In 2009, Democrats had the super-majority in the Senate. During that time, President Obama and the Democrats were able to write their economic policies into law and we went from a -7% GDP to a +6.4% GDP, and from losing 800,000 jobs a month to an average of 150,000 new private sector jobs a month. Then, the Republicans won the legal power to block bills in the Senate. They blocked every job bill the Dems passed in the House in 2010. Result? The hugh progress made by the Dems in 2009 has been stopped, and we’ll remain in a horrible kind of status quo until the American people decide to give Congress back to the Democrats.

Boeing Overcharged U.S. Army 131.5 Percent for Helicopter Spare Parts – Boeing overcharged the United States Army by 131.5 percent, according to an unredacted Department of Defense Office of Inspector General audit released by Project on Government Oversight (POGO). According to the 142-page document, the Army should have only paid $10 million instead of the nearly $23 million it paid for spare parts for Boeing AH-64 Apache and Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters.

Colorado Congressman Refers to President Obama as a Tar Baby – Between the birth certificate “scandal” and the Kenya jokes, some arms of the Republican party have had no qualms about making thinly veiled racist comments regarding President Barack Obama.

Now we can add another.

Colorado Representative Doug Lamborn went onto a talk radio last week, where he referred to the president as a “tar baby,” claiming getting too near him will get you “stuck.”

Regards,

Jim

Rick Perry Traded the Health and Safety of Texans for Campaign Cash – Harold Simmons, a Dallas mega-billionaire industrialist who has donated well over a million dollars to Perry’s campaign committees recently. With Perry’s eager assistance — and despite warnings from Texas environmental officials — Simmons has gotten approval to build an enormous radioactive waste dump over a crucial underground water supply.

“We first had to change the law to where a private company can own a license, and we did that,” Simmons boasted in 2006, after the Texas legislature and the governor rubber-stamped initial legislation and approvals for the project. “Then we got another law passed that said (the state) can only issue one license. Of course, we were the only ones that applied.”

The Koch Brothers Are Trying to Bring Back Segregation and End Public Education – The Koch Brothers bought the school board election in Wake County, North Carolina, then brought back segregated schools until massive protests caused the board to halt the segregation policy. The Koch brothers were not born in, and do not live in North Carolina. They will try it again, maybe in your school district. Watch the video.

Report: Foundations Paid $42 Million to Spread Anti-Muslim Propaganda – The Center for American Progress has compiled a report in which seven foundations has been paid $42 million dollars to spread fear of Muslims in America.

“The report, titled “Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network In America,” documents which anti-Muslim organizations have played a part in the rise of Islamophobia throughout the country. The seven foundations include “Donors Capital Fund” and Richard Scaife Foundations, which received more than half of the $42 million spent.

The money has also been given to five key “scholars”, including Frank Gaffney, who are considered the masterminds of crafting anti-Muslim propaganda. Those scholars are assisted by the likes of Pamela Gellar and David Horowitz, who help pass off the negative information to Fox News, Allen West, and Newt Gingrich among others.

John McCain Pushed to Arm Gadhafi – A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable shows that Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain promised to help Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi obtain U.S. military hardware in 2009.

The cable, released by the open information group WikiLeaks, reveals the pledge came at meeting that was attended by other prominent members of Congress, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

In the meeting, Muatassim Qadhafi, the Libyan leader’s fifth son and national security adviser, requested U.S. assistance in obtaining military supplies, both lethal and non-lethal.

The cable indicates that McCain was the dominant voice among the congressional delegation in a push for military hardware for Qadhafi.

Regards,

Jim

Rick Perry Sought State Profits from Death Speculation on Teachers – According to the notes of a meeting in 2003, which were authenticated by a meeting participant, the Perry administration wanted to help Wall Street investors gamble on how long retired Texas teachers would live. Perry was promising the state big money in exchange for helping Swiss banking giant UBS set up a business of teacher death speculation. All they had to do was convince retirees to let UBS buy life insurance policies on them. When the retirees died, those policies would pay out benefits to Wall Street speculators, and the state, supposedly, would get paid for arranging the bets. The families of the deceased former teachers would get nothing.

The meeting notes offer the most direct evidence that the Perry administration was not only intimately involved with the insurance scheme, but a leading driver of the plan.

Hypocritical Teaparty Congressman Collects Disability From His Union Job – Rep. Chip Cravaack won the midterm election for Min­nesota in 2010, thanks in part to his extreme Teaparty platform. The newly elected congressman even voted for the Paul Ryan Teaparty backed budget, that will end medicare and replace it with a voucher program which seniors would be expected to use to satisfy their health needs.

Cravaack worked as a pilot for the Northwest Airlines and being a pilot means that you are a member of a Union, thus receiving the benefits of union negotiated salaries, vacations and ultimately, disability payments. Recent financial records released by Cravaack showed that he received $92,273 in 2010 from disability pay­ments he received from North­west. At this very same time Cravaack was receiving his checks, he was campaigning in Minnesota promising to end “big gov­ern­ment,” and often using the usual Republican talk­ing points of bashing unions.

Chip Cravaack is also a veteran, which means that in addition to his government provided health care in Congress, he also gets benefits from the VA, allowing him to go to any government-owned Veteran’s Administration facility in the nation and receive what he and Teaparty calls, “socialized medicine.”

BP Oil Spills Into The Gulf Of Mexico, Again. – Just days after BP publicly denied allegations that its Macondo well was leaking, chemists from Louisiana State University confirmed that samples from the water’s surface above the well are a chemical match for the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that spewed into the Gulf last summer.

On Tuesday, investigators from the Mobile Press-Register collected samples of oil floating on the surface and delivered them to Ed Overton and Scott Miles of LSU. Most of the oil was located in a patch about 50 yards wide and a quarter of a mile long, and reporters found a “pronounced and pungent petroleum smell,” the paper said. The scientists confirmed that the chemical fingerprint of the samples was identical to the the BP oil, known as MC252.

Fox News: ‘Facts Are Certainly’ On The Side Of Global Warming, But ‘It Doesn’t Matter’ – On Fox & Friends Sunday, anchor Clayton Morris admitted that Fox News factcheckers have confirmed that man-made global warming is “certainly” real, but argued that it “doesn’t matter” because climate denial is popular among Fox News-watching conservatives.

Eric Cantor Says No Earthquake Disaster Relief For His Home State Unless Spending Is Cut Elsewhere – As Virginians scramble to assess the damage, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) quickly returned from his trip in Israel to survey the damage done to his congressional district.

“There is an appropriate federal role in incidents like this,” Cantor said. That role? The bare minimum. Cantor insists that the relief be offset elsewhere in the federal budget.

But worse, Cantor surmised, “Obviously, the problem is that people in Virginia don’t have earthquake insurance.” So, for Cantor, the problem here is that Virginians didn’t have the foresight to predict an exceedingly rare natural disaster and pay out of their own pocket in advance, year after year.

If absolutely nothing else, Cantor is at least consistent in his callous attitude. When Americans were struggling to recover from the deadly tornado that tore through south in May, Cantor also demanded that any disaster relief be offset with cuts. Apparently, to Cantor, the “appropriate role” for public servants is to completely fail the public they serve.

Regards,

Jim

Republican Congresspersons Charging Their Constituents to Attend Town Hall Meetings – Congressmen like Paul Ryan (R-WI) Ben Quayle (R-AZ) and Chip Cravaack (R-MN), instead of hosting their own constituent town hall meetings, are having events hosted for them by friendly organizations with a fee for attendance. These members of Congress are so desperate to shelter themselves from criticism that they are denying their constituents’ basic democratic access to their elected officials.

The First Amendment states that Americans have the right to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances” and does NOT include the words “only if they are willing and able to pay for that privilege.” What Ryan and his colleagues are doing is an affront to American democracy AND to the First Amendment.

Exercise YOUR First Amendment right and petition Congress now.

UPDATE: In response to Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) refusal to give his constituents free face time, some of them — many of whom are unemployed — have been protesting outside his district offices for the last several days, to demand a conversation with their elected representative about job creation. Ryan’s staff at his Kenosha office called the police in to block the protesters yesterday and protesters remain active at a sit-in at his Racine office. The chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee, and the architect of the GOP’s plan to end the guarantees of Medicare and Medicaid, Rep. Ryan owes all Americans answers, especially his constituents and especially those who are struggling.

Show your support for the protesters at Rep. Paul Ryan’s district offices by sharing our petition and helping to get more Americans to speak out for their demands to be able to meet with him free of charge!

Sen. Scott Brown Aide Caught Using Twitter ‘Sock Puppet’ Account to Mock Opponent – Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts has a so-called “sock puppet” Twitter account that has been impersonating and mocking his Democratic challenger, Alan Khazei, for nearly a month.

A “sock puppet” is an online persona used for deceptive purposes.

“I promise to devote all my time in office to making gay videos. Shame on Scott Brown for focusing on jobs!” said a July 31 tweet from the fake account.

The Blue Mass Group noticed that Sen. Brown and Mitt Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom accidentally sent out a tweet from his personal Twitter account that was intended for the fake account on Tuesday. By Wednesday night, Fehrnstrom had admitted to being behind the fake account, but did not apologize.

Charles Koch Buying Academic Freedom – Charles Koch has gone on a shopping spree for an invaluable bauble that most of us didn’t even know was for sale: academic freedom. And it’s surprisingly cheap!

For only $1.5 million, Koch bought a big chunk of the economics department of Florida State University a couple of years ago. His donation gives him control of a new “academic” program at this public institution to indoctrinate students in his self-serving political theories.

The billionaire gets to screen all applicants, veto any he deems insufficiently ideological, and sign off on all new hires. Also, the department head must submit yearly reports to Koch about the faculty’s speeches, publications and classes, and he evaluates the faculty based on “objectives” that he sets.

Charles has made similar purchases of academic freedom at two other state universities, Clemson and West Virginia. Also, in a May 20 piece at Alternet.org, investigative researcher Lee Fang reveals that Koch has paid $419,000 to buy into Brown University’s “political theory project,” $3.6 million to establish Troy University’s “center for political economy” and $700,000 for a piece of Utah State’s Huntsman School of Business, which now has the “Charles G. Koch Professor of Political Economy.”

Imagine the screams of outrage we’d hear from the Kochs if a labor union were doing this.

Koch Brothers Want to Sell Our National Assets – Some laissez-faire extremists at such Koch-funded corporate fronts as the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation are presently howling for the government to sell all of America’s gold stored in Fort Knox. Noting that we have billions worth of bullion in the vaults, a fellow from Heritage made this keen observation: “It’s just sort of sitting there.”

Uh, yeah, professor. Like Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, the Lincoln Memorial and other national assets — being there is the point.

Yet these ivory tower ideologues are using the current brouhaha over the budget deficit as an opening to push their loopiest fantasies of selling off all of America’s public properties, facilities, systems and treasures to create a no-government, plutocratic paradise. Just spread our public goods out on tables, like a flea market from hell, and invite the global rich to buy it all.

Koch Brothers Want to Privatize Our Highway System; Put Us on the Road to Hell – A fellow from another Koch-funded front, the American Enterprise Institute, observes that the government could raise billions of dollars to retire that pesky deficit simply by selling our interstate highway system. Americans would then have to pay tolls forever to the corporate owners, but hey, he exclaims, remember that tolls “work for the River Styx, why not the Beltway?”

What a perfect metaphor for privatization! In ancient mythology, dead souls must pay a toll to be ferried across the River Styx and enter the depths of hell.

Corporations Too Cheap to Pay Their Employees a Living Wage Expect Taxpayers to Make Up the Difference – Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world. It boasts of having 1.2 million Americans on their payroll. Its reported annual profits are around $13 billion. At the Progressive Caucus’ “Speak Out for Good Jobs Now” listening tour held in Minneapolis attended by Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) among others, the first audience member to speak was one Girsheila Green, a young mother from Compton, California, who has worked at Walmart for three years. Ms. Green told the crowded church how in her tenure with Walmart, she’s received two raises and is now a manager. She makes nine dollars an hour (one dollar above the laughably-low California minimum wage). She pulled from her pocket three cards she claimed most Walmart employees at her store have: a 10 percent Walmart employee discount card, her employee ID and her EBT card (what used to be called food stamps).She relayed that 80 percent of the workers at her store are on food stamps.

Since Walmart, the largest private employer in the country, generally doesn’t pay its “associates” or “Walmart family members” enough to live on – the giant multi-national corporation is relying on the taxpayers to feed its employees. We, as taxpayers, pay for Walmart’s cost-cutting tactics. Profit? Privatized. Nutrition? Socialized. And Walmart is not the only company doing this.

Regards,

Jim

Quake Sensors Removed Around Virginia Nuke Plant Due to Budget Cuts – A nuclear power plant that was shut down after an earthquake struck central Virginia Tuesday had seismographs removed due to budget cuts.

U.S. nuclear officials said that the North Anna Power Station, which has two nuclear reactors, had lost offsite power and was using diesel generators to maintain cooling operations after an 5.9 earthquake hit the region. The North Anna plant, which was near the epicenter of Tuesday’s quake, is reportedly located on a fault line. Republican Eric Cantor, who is all for budget cuts, represents district where the plant is located.

Earthquake Hits Cantor’s District After He Led Fight To Slash Funding – You may recall Republican Eric Cantor’s effort to slash the budget of the United States Geological Service (USGS). Who needs warning of an earthquake?

Cantor also defended cuts in the National Weather Service and NOAA — and now there is a hurricane approaching Washington.

Earthquake Does Less Damage to Washington than Eric Cantor Majority Leader’s Devastation Felt Across Nation – Seismologists said today that a 5.8 magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia did less damage to Washington, D.C. than House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, also centered in Virginia.

“The earthquake and Eric Cantor originate from almost the identical point,” said Dr. Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota’s Seismology Institute. “But while the earthquake caused some minor shaking, there’s only one word for Eric Cantor’s impact: devastation.”

As residents of Washington picked through the rubble left behind by Rep. Cantor, some questioned whether it made sense to rebuild.

“What’s the point? Congress will be back from recess in a few days and then he’ll just knock everything down again,” one resident said.

While rumbling from the quake extended to states as far-flung as New York and Ohio, Rep. Cantor’s path of destruction has wreaked damage on almost every state in the country, Dr. Logsdon said.

“The only state he hasn’t destroyed is Wisconsin,” he said. “That’s because there was nothing left of it after it was hit by Scott Walker.”

Congressional Republicans Want to Raise Your Taxes – At issue is a tax that the vast majority of workers pay, but many don’t recognize because they don’t read, or don’t understand their pay stubs. Workers normally pay 6.2 percent of their wages toward a tax designated for Social Security. Their employer pays an equal amount, for a total of 12.4 percent per worker. As part of a bipartisan spending deal last December, Congress approved Obama’s request to reduce the workers’ share to 4.2 percent for one year; employers’ rate did not change. Obama wants Congress to extend the reduction for an additional year. If not, the rate will return to 6.2 percent on Jan. 1.

Obama cited the payroll tax in his weekend radio and Internet address Saturday, when he urged Congress to work together on measures that help the economy and create jobs. “There are things we can do right now that will mean more customers for businesses and more jobs across the country. We can cut payroll taxes again, so families have an extra $1,000 to spend,” he said.

Social Security payroll taxes apply only to the first $106,800 of a worker’s wages, so high-income earners pay a smaller percentage. The great majority of Americans make less than $106,800 a year. Millions of middle-class and low-wage earners workers pay more in payroll taxes than in federal income taxes. However, Republicans want taxes cut on the rich by not letting the Bush tax breaks expire on the high earners and by reducing the top tax rates.

Fracking Advisory Group Riddled With Financial Ties To Gas Industry – Six of the seven members of the Natural Gas Subcommittee of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board have current financial ties to the natural gas industry.

These conflicts of interest make it appear that the subcommittee is designed to serve industry at taxpayer expense rather than serving President Obama and the public with credible advice. Officially assembled in May 2011, the group was charged with addressing reports that hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, poses significant threats to environmental health and the public water supply.

Rick Perry: Investor In and Protector of Porn Films – Back in 1995, when his bouffant hairdo was barely all the rage, Rick Perry invested thousands of dollars into Movie Gallery, Inc, a porn distributor company. It was the largest distributor of porn movies, and was even opposed by the conservative American Family Association, the same organization that now claims to support Rick Perry after he showed up to host their prayer rally, The Response, in early August. Rick Perry later passed laws to help porn companies like Movie Gallery, Inc., avoid ‘tort suits’ for illegally distributing porn across state lines. Perry is also keeping the director of the Texas Film Commission in place who was found guilty of sexual harassment.

Regards,

Jim

“Pro-Life” Kansas Governor Cuts Funding for Dying Infants – Republican Governor Sam Brownback respond? He is gutting the agency responsible for child protective services, child support enforcement, and child, adult and family well being services, after a failed attempt to slash funding for Head Start. According to Keri Ann Rinker of Kansas NOW, “The state was on track to close 9 [Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services centers], citing agency cost savings. Public outcry has prevented one of those closures. The City Council of Lawrence, Kansas has agreed to pick up the state’s tab and fund their own office to serve the most needy within their community.”

Ironically enough, Brownback is still finding money to fund faith-based initiatives. This is despite the fact that pastors gathered to protest the proposed service center closings – apparently not the kind of interfaith cooperation that Brownback had in mind.

More Cuts and Another Bottle of Expensive Wine, Please -Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), a leading advocate of shrinking entitlement spending and the architect of the plan to privatize Medicare, spent Wednesday evening sipping $350 wine with two like-minded conservative economists at the swanky Capitol Hill eatery Bistro Bis. The $700 in wine the trio consumed over the course of 90 minutes amounted to more than the entire weekly income of a couple making minimum wage.

Romney Not His Old Self These Days – In 2004, when Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he lobbied S&P to raise his state’s credit rating in part because he had raised taxes during an economic downturn just two years earlier.

Those efforts were successful and the agency raised the state’s rating.

Romney has since taken the opportunity to spin the US downgrade, and his state’s own experience, to a campaign point, claiming that it was under Romney’s fiscal guidance the state improved its credit rating. And that may be so, but what Romney fails to recognize is that fiscal guidance included a series of tax increases, fees and the closing of multiple tax loopholes. On those issues Romney remains silent.

The fact that Republicans are so entrenched in an anti-tax, anti-revenue position thanks to Grover Norquist and his hard right revolution is becoming more absurd by the day. Romney’s record on both health care reform and taxes while governor of Massachusetts would likely play well to moderate, Independent voters, and the fact of the matter is, they are reasonable positions that Romney should not feel the need to distance himself from.

But his party is so far to the right and so out of touch with solutions for the common good of this country that he really has no choice but to play along if he hopes to get the nomination.

Republican Favors Racism Over Jobs – Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) was planning to use his House Judiciary Committee gavel this fall to promote a “jobs agenda.” This would represent a significant shift for a committee that has largely been focused on radical attacks on undocumented immigrants.

But later that day, the Obama administration announced that it would begin reviewing the cases of the 300,000 illegal immigrants currently awaiting deportation and prioritize the expulsion of the more dangerous criminal violators, rather than targeting low-level immigration offenders for deportation.

Smith quickly abandoned his “jobs agenda,” telling right-wing radio host Joe Pagliarulo that he was now planning to hold hearings on the subject with the avowed purpose of trying to “embarrass the President.” Smith also suggested that the House Appropriations Committee would defund the administration’s ability to implement their plan.

During his interview with Pagliarulo, Smith also repeatedly pushed the falsehood that the administration proposal constitutes “amnesty.” In fact, while immigrants who are not deported may apply for work permits, the plan does not provide them with citizenship or even a path to citizenship.

Regards,

Jim