The WAWG Blog

Will the country default by not raising the debt limit? The consensus, which is growing but does not include the political ‘adolescents’ in the Tea Party, is no, we won’t. It’s too dangerous. The real question is why are we being put through this ringer by the elected authoritarians and passive progressives in DC?

The whole debt/deficit situation is a manufactured distraction. The real issue, that is only given lip service, is getting the economy moving again and getting Americans back to work.

If the economy were improving now or next year before the 2012 elections and employment started rising, which political party would benefit at the 2012 polls? Which political party wants to make sure that benefit is not forthcoming?

Reducing the national debt won’t do it. Just look at what is happening at the state level. Reducing state debt has only resulted in more unemployed.

Thus we have all this distraction over the debt, deficit, and debt limit while ignoring both the economy and those Americans whose jobs were destroyed during the Great Recession.

It’s all about authoritarians regaining control of the Federal government and doing to the nation what has been done to Texas – creating a single party state that only benefits corporations. Yes, Texas is great for corporations, but look at what’s happening to their middle class. They are getting poorer as corporations get richer.

Texas statistics:

• death rate per 1,000: 9.06Tx/8.38US,
• teen pregnancy rate: 4th highest,
• life expectancy ranking: 31st,
• literacy ranking: 47th,
• high school graduation ranking: 43rd,
• home ownership ranking: 42nd,
• prisoners per capita: 2nd
• 23 states have lower unemployment rates
• Highest level of minimum wage earners
• Highest level of uninsured

This has to stop and if you want to help, sign-up with Rebuild the Dream.

Also, our national debt today needs a little historical perspective. It was much higher at the end of WWII and the Greatest Generation became the most prosperous middle class in the following 35 years. And that was with much higher income taxes than we have today.

Republicans Are Cheating Texas Minorities of Representation

• Texas received four new congressional districts only because of Hispanic and African American Population growth.
• The number of Hispanic Texans grew at 10 times the rate of Anglos. African American grew at 5 times the rate of Anglos.
• Anglos make up only 45 percent of the Texas population, but Perry and the Republicans broke up working class neighborhoods across Texas so that Anglo Republicans will hold over 70 percent of all Texas districts.

Weakening of Media Consolidation Rules Helped Murdoch Build U.S. Media Empire – The intense scrutiny on Rupert Murdoch and practices by News Corp. employees is also widening the spotlight on its vast media holdings in the United States. News Corp.’s standing in the U.S. received a major boost in the early 1990s when the FCC waived a regulation meant to curb media consolidation.

Black Ops Room Exists at Fox News According to Guy Who Says He Designed and Built It – A former Fox News executive has charged that Ailes had outfitted a highly secured “brain room” in Fox’s New York headquarters for “counterintelligence.” Rumors have floated in the press and on the Internet about possible phone hacking in that special-security-clearance-only bunker at Fox HQ for years.

Dan Cooper was one of the people who helped create the Fox News channel with Roger Ailes, and was fired in 1996. In 2008, Cooper wrote on his website that David Brock (now head of Media Matters) had used him as an anonymous, on-background-only source for an Ailes profile he was writing for New York magazine. Before the piece was published, on November 17, 1997, Cooper claims that his talent agent, Richard Leibner, told him he had received a call from Ailes, who identified Cooper as a source, and insisted that Leibner drop him as a client–or any client reels Leibner sent Fox would pile up in a corner and gather dust. Cooper continued:

“I made the connections. Ailes knew I had given Brock the interview. Certainly Brock didn’t tell him. Of course. Fox News had gotten Brock’s telephone records from the phone company, and my phone number was on the list. Deep in the bowels of 1211 Avenue of the Americas, News Corporation’s New York headquarters, was what Roger called the Brain Room. Most people thought it was simply the research department of Fox News. But unlike virtually everybody else, because I had to design and build the Brain Room, I knew it also housed a counterintelligence and black ops office. So accessing phone records was easy pie.”

New Oil Spill In Montana Wasn’t Reported By Drilling Company. Are We Surprised? – A newly discovered oil spill in northwestern Montana went unreported for a month before a neighboring landowner complained to the Blackfeet Indian Tribe, federal regulators said Monday.

FX Drilling Co. never reported the spill. A neighboring landowner notified the Blackfeet tribe last Tuesday, and the tribe in turn notified the EPA. Officials from the federal agency made the first contact with FX Drilling by calling the company, Vranka said.

Republicans Promise to Reject Anyone That the President Nominates to Head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – President Barack Obama has decided to nominate Richard Cordray instead of Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) doesn’t care. He says Republicans still plan to block the nomination.

“I would remind [President Obama] that Senate Republicans still aren’t interested in approving anyone to the position until the president agrees to make this massive government bureaucracy more accountable and transparent to the American people,” McConnell announced on the Senate floor Monday.

He continued: “Back on May 5 of this year, 44 Republican Senators signed a letter to the president stating — quote — ‘We will not support the consideration of any nominee, regardless of party affiliation, to be the CFPB director until the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is reformed.'”

For the Republicans, “reform” means “made worthless.” They think consumers don’t need no stinkin’ protection. Let the banks and credit card companies rip us off.

Rick Perry Speaks of God, Faith and Jesus, but Conveniently Ignores “the Least Amongst Us” – Rick Perry and his politics are determined to protect a child in the womb but they don’t do a hell of a lot for that kid once he or she starts walking in the world. According to the Texas on the Brink report, produced by State Senator Elliot Shapleigh and the Legislative Study Group of the Texas House of Representatives, the land south of the Red River has the highest percentage of children without health insurance of any state in the union. In fact, 6.1 million people, 28 percent of the state’s population, the largest share in the U.S., is uninsured. We are also 4th in the percentage of children living in poverty and 34th when it comes to full immunization.

There is no argument to be made that Rick Perry does not own this grim real estate. He has been governor for more than a decade. The fact that Texas ranks 50th among people over 25 with a high school diploma is his problem as much as it is the electorate’s that put him into office. Texas on the Brink indicates we are 45th in SAT scores and the way we got there is because Texas ranks 47th on the amount of money it spends on each public school student. Things will, however, get worse. To balance the state’s $27 billion dollar budget deficit, (why does that exist if we have made most of America’s new jobs?) Perry and the legislature cut $4 billion dollars from the two- year budget. An additional $1.4 billion was eliminated by ending grants for pre-kindergarten and at risk students while also reducing state contributions to teacher pensions and health care. A teachers’ group called the educational budget cuts a “planned failure” for children.

If you happen to be an ethnic child in Texas, you are in a tough situation living under Perry’s Lone Star. 66 percent of Latino children and 59 percent of black children live in low-income families, compared to 25 percent of white children. Texas offers almost no help to change these circumstances. Parents making even poverty level incomes do not qualify for Medicaid under state standards, if they have two children and earn more than $4,942.70 in one year, (less than $100 bucks a week for those of us slow with math). This is a big problem when 4.26 million people, almost a fifth of the state’s population, lives in poverty.

This, then, is Rick Perry’s theology: by word you can claim to be a man of faith and care for others but by actions your truth is known.

Regards,

Jim

House Republicans Move to Gut the Clean Water Act – On Thursday, the House passed a bill that effectively eliminates federal oversight on water standards. The bill rolls back the Clean Water Act, returning most oversight to the states, and passed with almost all Republicans and a handful of Democrats supporting it.

The measure has a title that sounds kind of pleasant—the “Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011″—but when you read it you realize it’s really just an effort to return us to the days of the Cuyahoga River fire and Love Canal.

The House passed the bill by a vote of 239 to 184 on Wednesday, but like many of the assaults on EPA authority this year, it’s unlikely to go anywhere in the Senate. Nearly every Republican supported the provision, along with 12 Democrats—most of them from coal states.

MAPLight.org crunched the numbers and found that interest groups that supported this motion—like the National Mining Association and the West Virginia Coal Association—gave 94 percent more money to House members who voted in favor of the bill than they did to those who voted against it. Those interest groups gave 61 times as much money ($13,588 total) to Democrats who voted for it as they gave to Dems who voted against it (just $224).

Michele Bachmann: The First 2012er to Get Koch Cash – The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, spread their money far and wide. They fund free-market think tanks, right-leaning academic organizations, and conservative political advocacy groups, such as the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which helped cultivate the tea party. The political action committee for the Kochs’ massive conglomerate, Koch Industries, has also given generously to big-name conservative politicians throughout the country at both the federal and state level. But when it comes to the 2012 presidential race, the Kochs have been more selective with their giving, with only one presidential candidate so far benefiting from their largesse: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). In 2010, the committee did give $50,000 to Texans for Rick Perry.

Corporate Media Serves the Billionaires Who Own It – The corporate media is a gigantic astroturfing operation: a fake grassroots crusade serving elite interests. In this respect the media companies resemble the Tea Party movement, which claims to be a spontaneous rising of blue-collar Americans against the elite but was founded with the help of the billionaire Koch brothers and promoted by Murdoch’s Fox News.

Journalism’s primary purpose is to hold power to account. This purpose has been perfectly inverted. Columnists and bloggers are employed as the enforcers of corporate power, denouncing people who criticise its interests, stamping on new ideas, bullying the powerless. The press barons allowed governments occasionally to promote the interests of the poor, but never to hamper the interests of the rich.

The rightwing papers run endless exposures of benefit cheats, yet say scarcely a word about the corporate tax cheats. They savage the trade unions and excoriate the BBC. They lambast the regulations that restrain corporate power. They school us in the extrinsic values – the worship of power, money, image and fame – which advertisers love but which make this a shallower, more selfish country. These are not the obsessions of working people. They are the obsessions thrust upon them by the multimillionaires who own these papers. They are fascinated by power struggles among the elite but have little interest in the conflict between the elite and those they dominate.

The Debt Ceiling is an Exercise in Bad Faith – The debt ceiling was first enacted in 1917. Why? The date tells all: we were about to enter the Great War. To fund that effort, the Wilson government needed to issue Liberty Bonds. This was controversial, and the debt ceiling was cover, passed to reassure the rubes that Congress would be “responsible” even while the country went to war. It was, from the beginning, an exercise in bad faith and has remained so every single second to the present day.

Today this bad-faith law is pressed to its absurd extreme, to force massive cuts in public programs as the price of not-reneging on the public debts of the United States. Never mind that to force default on the public obligations of the United States is plainly unconstitutional. Section 4 of the 14th amendment says in simple language that public debts, once duly authorized by law and including pensions, by the way, “shall not be questioned.” The purpose of this language was to foreclose, to put beyond politics, any possibility that the Union would renege on debts and pensions and bounties incurred to win the Civil War. But the application is very general and the courts have ruled that the principle extends to the present day.

What is going on in Congress at this moment already violates that mandate. It is an effort to subvert the authority of the government to meet and therefore to incur obligations of every possible stripe. It is an attack on the concept of government itself – as the “Tea Party” by its very name would no doubt agree. It therefore paints those deficit hawks who are using the debt ceiling to take budget hostages as enemies of the United States Constitution.

People Are Losing Their Homes–Even If They Don’t Have Mortgages – Dr. Alan Schroit claims he got a “putrid” surprise when he arrived at his Galveston, Texas, vacation home last October after Bank of America (“with which he has neither a relationship nor a mortgage”) allegedly repossessed his home and turned off the utilities, leaving 75 pounds of frozen salmon and halibut to rot in the fridge. Schroit, who’d been planning to grill the fish for 30 guests the next night, is suing the bank. (For its part, BoA does “not believe the case will show merit.”)

According to ProPublica, a significant number of homeowners have been in for another nasty surprise when they lost their homes while the banks were telling them they were in the process of modifying their loans. In fact, some companies misinformed borrowers struggling to keep up with their payments that in order to be eligible for a loan modification, they first had to go into default on their mortgages. Lenders then added all sorts of late fees and penalties, then recouped those fattened balances by foreclosing.

Drug Company Maneuvers to Charge Outrageous Prices – After KV Pharmaceuticals obtained sole rights to a drug designed to stop women from going into labor early, the company increased the price from $10 per dose to $1500 per dose.

Republican House Cuts Nearly $1 Billion from the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s Weapons and Nonproliferation Programs – The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Friday approved spending legislation for the next budget cycle that would cut nearly $1 billion in proposed funding for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons and nonproliferation programs. The fiscal 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations bill would provide the nuclear agency, a semiautonomous branch of the Energy Department, $10.6 billion to carry out duties including conducting nonproliferation operations around the world.

Florida Tea Party Worries About Government’s Secret Manatee Conspiracy – After propelling Republican Rick Scott into the governor’s office last fall, Florida tea partiers have found a new target: manatees. The endangered species has joined the list of tea-party targets, along with taxes, high-speed rail, and socialized medicine. From the story:

A Citrus County tea party group has announced that it’s fighting new restrictions on boating and other human activities in Kings Bay that have been proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We cannot elevate nature above people,” explained Edna Mattos, 63, leader of the Citrus County Tea Party Patriots, in an interview. “That’s against the Bible and the Bill of Rights. … As most of us know, this all ties in to the United Nations’ Agenda 21 and Sustainability.”

Ah, that! Stephanie Mencimer has covered the UN-related conspiracy theories that a number of tea partiers and Glenn Beck fans believe underlie all sustainability-related initiatives. The Citrus County group’s website warns that that Agenda 21 is “designed to make humans into livestock.” Surely a one-world government run by manatees must be part of the agenda, too.

Regards,

Jim

Secret Alliance of Corporations and Conservative Legislators Have Been Predetermining Legislation for All 50 States – Behind the closed doors of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills for use at federal and state levels. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC’s operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year.

Many of the model bills benefit the corporations whose agents write them and vote to approve them. These are just a few such measures:

Altria/Philip Morris USA benefits from ALEC’s newest tobacco legislation — an extremely narrow tax break for moist tobacco that would make fruit flavored tobacco products cheaper and more attractive to youngsters.

Health insurance companies such as Humana and Golden Rule Insurance (United Healthcare), benefit directly from ALEC model bills, such as the Health Savings Account bill that just passed in Wisconsin.

Tobacco firms such as Reynolds and pharmaceutical firms such as Bayer benefit directly from ALEC tort reform measures that make it harder for Americans to sue when injured by dangerous products.

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) benefits directly from the anti-immigrant legislation introduced in Arizona and other states that requires expanded incarceration and housing of immigrants, along with other bills from ALEC’s crime task force.

Connections Academy, a large online education corporation and co-chair of the Education Task Force, benefits from ALEC measures to privatize public education and promote private on-line schools.

In other words, ALEC is your government, your overlord, and your owner.
Click the link above fore more detail. Then take action here. Then make sure that everyone you know understands what ALEC is up to.

Parent of Fox News May Have Hacked Cell Phones of 9/11 Families and Bribed a Former NYPD Officer to Help – With the bombshell that News of the World reporters may have sought to hack into the cell phone records and voice mails of 9/11 families, and to bribe a former NYPD officer to help, the US government finally decide to investigate News Corp., the parent corporation of Fox News. News Corp. may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (which prohibits the payment of bribes abroad by any company with any American operations) and the accounting rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission (by paying bribes abroad and covering them up). Convictions among News Corp employees could potentially endanger the company’s broadcast licences in the US and endanger the company’s reputation among once-loyal conservatives.

A Little-Known Movement of Radical Christians and Self-Proclaimed Prophets Wants to Infiltrate Government, and Rick Perry Might Be Their Man – On September 28, 2009, at 1:40 p.m., God’s messengers arrived in the form of two Texas pastors, Tom Schlueter of Arlington and Bob Long of San Marcos, who called on Rick Perry in the governor’s office inside the state Capitol. Schlueter and Long consider themselves modern-day apostles and prophets, blessed with the same gifts as Old Testament prophets or New Testament apostles. The pastors told Perry of God’s grand plan for Texas. A chain of powerful prophecies had proclaimed that Texas was “The Prophet State,” anointed by God to lead the United States into revival and Godly government. And the governor would have a special role. The day before the meeting, Schlueter had received a prophetic message from Chuck Pierce, an influential prophet from Denton, Texas. God had apparently commanded Schlueter—through Pierce—to “pray by lifting the hand of the one I show you that is in the place of civil rule.” Gov. Perry, it seemed.

The movement’s top prophets and apostles believe they have a direct line to God. Through them, they say, He communicates specific instructions and warnings. When mankind fails to heed the prophecies, the results can be catastrophic: earthquakes in Japan, terrorist attacks in New York, and economic collapse. On the other hand, they believe their God-given decrees have produced rain in drought-stricken Texas and ended mad cow disease in Germany.

(If they can cure mad cows, just think what they could do for Rick Perry! – JLV)

Rick Perry Partners With ‘Apostle’ Who Thinks The Statue Of Liberty Is A ‘Demonic Idol’ – Texas Governor Rick Perry is working a number of radical preachers to plan his upcoming Christians-only prayer rally. Perry’s partners in the event include extremists who believe that tolerance for homosexuality caused the September 11th attacks, Oprah Winfrey is the harbinger of the Antichrist, the deadly Japanese earthquake was caused by the country’s Emperor having sex with a demon, the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell caused bird deaths in Arkansas and violence should be considered to overthrow President Obama, among many other extreme beliefs.

One self-described ‘Apostle’ who has signed on as an official endorser to Perry’s The Response prayer rally is John Benefiel of the Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network, a group affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation with ties to other The Response endorsers including Cindy Jacobs, C. Peter Wagner and Jay Swallow. In a sermon last August, Benefiel argued that America is under a curse from God because the country possesses monuments to pagan idols and that Americans needs to renounce those idols if not destroy them. Benefiel claims that the Statue of Liberty is in fact a “demonic idol” because it represents a “false goddess.”

Michele Bachmann’s Church Says the Pope Is the Antichrist – Former The conservative church that belonged to for many years believes that the Roman Catholic Pope is the Antichrist.

Regards,

Jim

If we are going to be forced to deal with the deficit/debt and ignore the economy and jobs, then getting the deficit/debt under control must be shared by all. Everyone must sacrifice, but some more than others.

It must be shared based on the degree to which citizens have suffered in recent decades as this deficit was created.

Those who suffered the most are the middle class and the poor. Their income has stayed even or fallen behind as their productivity gains were passed up to the corporate executives. They have gone into debt to make up the lost income, lost their homes, declared bankruptcy, been denied medical care, and lost union representation and their defined benefits retirement plans. They should now suffer the least to fix this fear-based problem.

Those who gained the most during recent decades should sacrifice the most now to fix the problem they helped create.

Personal debt is almost as large as it was prior to the Great Depression.

Middle class income hasn’t increased as income taxes
were dropped and their productivity rose.

The “empathy deficit” is larger now than when President Obama spoke of it in 2006 and has grown in direct proportion to the federal deficit. That needs to be reversed.

As we lessen our care for those among us who have the least, we sacrifice what makes this country honorable and admirable.

The national debt has been worse and the three decades after that
were our most prosperous for the middle class.

Our representatives should stand up for the poor and middle class. The middle class and poor should not be asked to suffer another blow to solve a problem they didn’t create.

Rick Perry’s Preacher Says Oprah is the Harbinger of the Anti-Christ – Governor of Texas and potential GOP 2012 candidate Rick Perry is touting a national prayer event in Texas in early August. Footage of the evangelical preacher he is running the event with, however, shows that he may be spouting some very unpopular ideas: He thinks Oprah is the forerunner of the anti-Christ.

Republican Budget Facts Don;t Match Republican Talking Points – Rep. Paul Ryan spreads some false and misleading information in a series of “Setting The Record Straight” web posts, in which he criticizes the president’s proposed budget and promotes his own. Here are some facts from Factcheck.org (contrary to the B.S that Republicans have been spreading):

Under the Republican/Ryan budget plan, the public debt would increase from $10 trillion in 2011 to $16 trillion in 2021, by Ryan’s own figures.

The 2012 deficit in the Republican/Ryan budget plan would be still be $995 billion, just shy of $1 trillion. It would drop to about $700 billion by 2013 — but that’s the same as President Obama’s’s budget projects, too.

The Republican/Ryan budget plan calls for slashing Medicaid below this year’s spending level for years to come.

The budget recommended by the bipartisan fiscal commission would raise $785 billion in new tax revenue from 2012 to 2020 for debt reduction. The Republican/Ryan budget plan does not.

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% – Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes overseas that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow.

A modern economy requires “collective action”—it needs government to invest in infrastructure, education, and technology. The United States and the world have benefited greatly from government-sponsored research that led to the Internet, to advances in public health, and so on. But America has long suffered from an under-investment in infrastructure (look at the condition of our highways and bridges, our railroads and airports), in basic research, and in education at all levels.

This is simply what happens when a society’s wealth distribution becomes lopsided. The more divided a society becomes in terms of wealth, the more reluctant the wealthy become to spend money on common needs. The rich don’t need to rely on government for parks or education or medical care or personal security—they can buy all these things for themselves. In the process, they become more distant from ordinary people, losing whatever empathy they may once have had. They also worry about strong government—one that could use its powers to adjust the balance, take some of their wealth, and invest it for the common good. The top 1 percent may complain about the kind of government we have in America, but in truth they like it just fine: too gridlocked to re-distribute, too divided to do anything but lower taxes.

Big Oil Gets $4 Billion in Tax Breaks This Year on Top of Over $900 Billion in Profits – While you’re feeling the heat, Big Oil is sitting pretty. Big Oil will pocket $4 billion in tax breaks this year alone. $4 billion in tax breaks…on top of over $900 billion in profits already!

It seems simple, right? We could help control the deficit by eliminating Big Oil tax breaks.

But Republicans say NO. They want to protect their cronies in the oil industry. They also want to put the lives of the elderly at risk by slashing benefits and cutting Medicare. While Big Oil executives are padding their wallets with cash, Republicans want seniors who have worked all their lives to go without medical care they can afford.

We need to stop Big Oil from running up the federal deficit, while our seniors need our help. Sign our petition to tell Republicans that Big Oil doesn’t deserve big tax loopholes while our seniors struggle.

Click Here to Sign Petition

Exxon Knew Yellowstone Pipeline Was Likely To Rupture – Recent reports show that ExxonMobil was warned over a year ago about safety violations along the Yellowstone River oil pipeline that put it at risk for rupture.

On July 2nd, over 100 residents of Laurel, Montana, had to be evacuated from their homes early Saturday morning due to an oil pipeline rupture that spilled around 40,000 gallons of crude into the Yellowstone River.

According to the Associated Press, “the U.S. Department of Transportation, which oversees pipelines, last year issued a warning letter to Exxon Mobil that cited seven safety violations along the ruptured Silvertip pipeline. Two of the warnings faulted the company for its emergency response and pipeline corrosion training.”

Republican Lawmaker Points Loaded Gun at Reporter’s Chest – Richard Ruelas, a reporter for The Arizona Republic, found himself staring down the barrel of Republican state Sen. Lori Klein’s raspberry-pink firearm during a recent interview at the Capitol.

“Oh, it’s so cute,” Klein said of the .380 Ruger that she carries in purse at all times.

While the loaded pistol had no safety and the laser pointer was centered on the reporter’s chest, Klein explained that there was no need to worry.

“I just didn’t have my hand on the trigger,” she said.

Regards,

Jim

New Republican Voter Suppression Tactic – The Republican-controlled Ohio House tweaked a bill to weaken a law mandating poll workers to direct voters in the wrong precinct to their correct voting location. Under the new language, a poll worker need not direct a voter to where they are eligible, adding that “it is the duty of the individual casting the ballot to ensure that the individual is casting that ballot in the correct precinct.”

Allowing poll workers to refuse to help those who are legitimately confused about where they should vote opens the door for increased voter suppression. As state Sen. Nina Turner (D) pointed out, “Voting in the wrong precinct led to over 14,000 registered voters statewide to lose their vote in 2008.” Rating the statement “true,” Politifact reports:

[T]he second most common reason the ballot was not counted was because while the person was properly registered to vote in Ohio, they cast the ballot in the wrong county or precinct. In all, 14,335 such ballots were not counted for this reason, according to the Brunner report.

Of those 14,000-plus ballots, 3,423 were cast in Cuyahoga County, home to Turner’s district and by far the county with the most uncounted provisional ballots during the November 2008 elections due to wrong place filings.

As the Cleveland Plain Dealer pointed out, mixing up precincts “most often occurs” in “urban and impoverished areas of the state,”

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Tries to Get Contribution From the Koch Brothers – While Democrats have criticized the Koch Brothers for their channeling gobs of money into political campaigns, that hasn’t stopped them from trying to get in on the action. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee reportedly has called Koch Industries to ask that it renew its $30,000 donation from last year. Koch Industries president Philip Ellender shot a letter back to DSCC chair Sen. Patty Murray highlighting the hypocrisy.

Koch Foreign Subsidiary Made Illegal Donations – Speaking of Koch Industries, a Luxembourg-based subsidiary of the company admitted this week to the Federal Election Commission that it has made illegal campaign contributions to political candidates and committees.

Coal Company Plans to Dig Coal Mine Beneath School – One of the largest coal companies in the United States, Arch Coal, wants to dig a coal mine directly underneath Buckhannon-Upshur High School, in Upshur County, West Virginia. The Upshur County Board of Education is leading the opposition to the proposed mine, citing concerns about the possibility of explosive methane gas leaking into the high school. The Board said last month it will “take all necessary steps to ensure the health and safety of its students and staff.

The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Have Cost About a Trillion Dollars More Than the Total Cost of the Space Shuttle Program – From the program’s inception in 1972 to its end almost 40 years later, the Space Shuttle program has cost $196.5 billion, only $14 billion more than the AIG bailout, or about a trillion dollars less than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Regards,

Jim

Republican: Only Millionaires “Actually Worked Hard” – Why are Republicans so intent on protecting the top .03 percent of Minnesotans from paying any increase in taxes, preferring instead to cut health care services for the poor, the sick and the elderly? According to Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer, the former Secretary of State under Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty, the state really doesn’t need revenue, it just wants to punish rich people. “It’s not about revenue,” Kiffmeyer said. “It’s about a tax increase, because they want to go after those who’ve actually worked hard.”

Those who’ve actually worked hard? For the GOP, the single mother holding down two jobs to try and make enough to pay her rent and still manage to bring home some food for her family doesn’t work hard? The middle class family who is losing their house because of an unexpected layoff and who found a new job but no longer has health insurance and must pay individual premiums out of pocket doesn’t work hard?

No, for the Republican party, the only proof that you “actually work hard” is if you bring over $1 million a year in earnings (running a hedge fund, doing leveraged buyouts, or foreclosing on homes). And if you do, you deserve all the protection the Republican party can offer.

Michele Bachmann Denounces Medicaid While Her Husband Got $137,000 in Medicaid Funds – While Rep. Michele Bachmann has forcefully denounced the Medicaid program for swelling the “welfare rolls,” the mental health clinic run by her husband has been collecting annual Medicaid payments totaling over $137,000 for the treatment of patients since 2005. The previously unreported payments are on top of the $24,000 in federal and state funds that Bachmann & Associates received in recent years under a state grant to train its employees, state records show.

Questions about the Bachmann family’s receipt of government funds arose this week after a Los Angeles Times story reported that a family farm in which Michelle Bachmann is a partner had received nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies.

When asked by anchor Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” about the story’s assertion that her husband’s counseling clinic had also gotten federal and state funds, Bachmann replied that it was “one-time training money that came from the federal government. And it certainly didn’t help our clinic.”

At another point, she said, “My husband and I did not get the money,” adding that it was “mental health training money that went to the employees.” But state records show that Bachmann & Associates has been collecting payments under the Minnesota’s Medicaid program every year for the past six years.

Reaching the Debt Ceiling Could Wipe Out Two Years of American Families’ 401K Gains and Reduce Jobs – Testifying before a Congressional committee on Thursday, economist Heather Boushey said that reaching the debt ceiling could trigger a stock market plunge that would wipe out nearly two years of 401(k) gains.

“Reaching the debt ceiling will, in all likelihood, trigger a sharp fall in the stock market, which also will likely reduce employment,” Boushey told the Congressional Democratic Policy and Steering Committee.

Republican Party Threatening To ‘Blow Your Brains Out’ Over Debt Ceiling According to Warren Buffet – Republicans are playing a dangerous game by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, according to Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. “We raised the debt ceiling seven times during the Bush Administration,” Buffett told CNBC on Thursday. Now, the Republican-controlled Congress is “trying to use the incentive now that we’re going to blow your brains out, America, in terms of your debt worthiness over time.” In May, Buffett stated at a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder’s meeting that if the Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling, it would constitute “the most asinine act” in the nation’s history.

Senate Bill Would Erode Our Liberties – Senate Bill S.1253, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA), includes several dangerous provisions that would erode our civil liberties by giving the military expanded powers to investigate and detain civilians both abroad and inside the United States. If enacted in its current form, sections 1031, 1032 and 1036 of the NDAA bill would:

Explicitly authorize the federal government to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial civilians arrested within the United States itself, including some U.S. citizens.
Mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including suspects arrested within the United States itself.

Transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal, and custodial authority and responsibility now held by the Department of Justice.

We need a full public examination of these dangerous measures before this bill reaches the Senate floor.

Latest Republican Thinking About Running for President: White Supremacist David Duke – Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke is launching a 25 state tour to drum up support for a presidential run, according to the The Daily Beast. While the presidential hopeful claims his views have evolved, he recently described himself as a “white civil rights advocate” to The Daily Beast’s Eve Conant. Duke last held office in 1992, when he served as a state representative in Louisana. Until 2000, he was Republican executive-committee chairman in his district.

“David Duke is launching a Duke for President exploratory committee, and will soon start a year long tour across America from his home base in Mandeville, LA,” Duke’s website claimed last year. “He plans to speak in every state and gauge the political response to his possible entry into the race for the Republican nomination.”

“Over the past few weeks, since the release of his, ‘David Duke Speaks to the Tea Party’ video, thousands of Tea Party activists have urged him to run for President.”

Rupert Murdoch’s Paper for Hacked Phones of Relatives of British Soldiers Killed in Action – A scandal rocking Rupert Murdoch’s media empire deepened on Thursday with claims his News of the World paper hacked the phones of relatives of British soldiers killed in action. The main accusations are that journalists, or their hired investigators, took advantage of often limited security on mobile phone voicemail boxes to listen in to messages left for celebrities, politicians or people involved in major stories. Disclosure that the practice involved victims of crime came when police said a private detective working for the News of the World in 2002 hacked into messages left on the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler while police were still looking for her. The Murdoch empire includes Fox television and the Wall Street Journal in the United States as well as four British newspapers, the second-largest British broadcaster and a monopoly on film rights and first-view movies.

Chase Bank Should be Chased Out of Town for This – Ikenna [Njoku], a 28-year old construction worker, went to deposit a $8,463.21 Chase cashier’s check at his local Chase branch, only for the teller to decide that neither he nor his check looked right and he got tossed in jail for forgery, KING 5 reports. The next day, a Friday, the bank realized its mistake and left a message with the detective. But it was her day off, so he spent the entire weekend in jail.

By the time he got out, he had been fired from his job for not showing up to work. His car had been towed as well. It ended up getting sold off at auction because he couldn’t afford to get it out of the pound. He had been relying on that cashier’s check for his money but it was taken as evidence and by the time he got it back it was auctioned off.

All this while the cashier’s check had been issued by the very bank he was trying to cash it at.

Chase didn’t even apologize, not even after a year. A lawyer volunteered to help write a strongly-worded letter requesting damages. After trying hard to get a response, they sent KING 5 a two-sentence reply: “We received the letter and are reviewing the situation. We’ll be reaching out to the customer.”

A Thought …

Never in history has cutting taxes resulted in an increase in jobs. The problem now is there is little consumer demand. Corporations have a lot of money now but they are not expanding due to no demand. How would giving corporations more money increase consumer demand?

We, the American taxpayers, have put a ton of resources on the table, creating a stable and highly productive environment for business people. They’re benefiting from our public schools, our roads, our courts and so much more that America provides to help them succeed. But they aren’t paying us — their real anchor investors — back. Simply put, it’s unpatriotic. “Those who do well IN America, should do well BY America.”

Instead we just keep seeing more tax shelters, tax breaks, and tax loopholes. Now some of these folks are even willing to put our entire country’s financial future at risk by using the debt ceiling crisis to push for more cuts to critical government programs—while refusing to consider closing some of those loopholes or raising tax rates on the wealthy.

This has to stop. You have to make it stop.

Regards,

Jim

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. – John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, January 20, 1961, 35th president of US 1961-1963 (1917 – 1963)

The Good Times For Chief Executives Just Keep Getting Better – But Not For the Rest of Us

Philippe Dauman of Viacom’s executive pay in 2010.

A study conducted by Equilar, an executive compensation data firm, shows that the median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million. That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009. Cash bonuses jumped by an astounding 38 percent.

According to a report released by GovernanceMetrics in June, the good times for chief executives just keep getting better. Many executives received stock options that were granted in 2008 and 2009, when the stock market was sinking.

Now that the market has recovered from its lows of the financial crisis, many executives are sitting on windfall profits, at least on paper. In addition, cash bonuses for the highest-paid C.E.O.’s are at three times prerecession levels, the report said.

Most ordinary Americans aren’t getting raises anywhere close to those of these chief executives. Many aren’t getting raises at all — or even regular paychecks. The average American worker was taking home $752 a week in late 2010, up a mere 0.5 percent from a year earlier. After inflation, workers were actually making less.

Somebody is Getting Richer Off Your Hard Work, and It’s Not You – Here’s what’s been happening to your wages and salaries:

Here’s what’s been happening to the profits of the corporations you work for[, which your producivity gains created]:

Once again we see that there is plenty of money. It’s just that the middle class and the government of “we, the people” aren’t getting much of it. It’s mostly going to a select few who intend to keep it that way.

BTW, the first graph also shows that in this current rigged game, if you are not already rich, you never will be. At least, not by working for the rich guys. Their club is very exclusive.

Congress Insists on Buying Things the Pentagon Doesn’t Want – Congress is ignoring one of outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ wishes – ending the C-17 military transport plane. Pentagon leaders dating all the way back to Dick Cheney have said we don’t need any more C-17s. But Congress is planning to vote NEXT WEEK on an appropriations bill that keeps our tax dollars buying more C-17s. Gates isn’t the only one who wants to end this plane. Even some Congressional Republicans have signed on to the idea of ending unnecessary Pentagon spending like this. And President Obama has promised to veto an appropriations bill that wastes more money on things like the C-17. But some in Congress are so beholden to the weapons-builders in their districts that they’re willing to buck the President, House leadership and the public in order to keep our tax dollars flowing to their corporate supporters.

The Pentagon should not be immune to budget cuts – especially when it comes to wasteful spending. Tell Congress to honor Gates’ last wish and end the C-17.

Rick Perry Chums it Up With Billionaire Koch Brothers – Two prominent Republican governors – Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Rick Perry of Texas – mingled with other GOP notables and some of the wealthiest conservative donors in the country at the annual summer retreat organized by the Koch brothers that began Sunday near Vail, Colo.

The Koch conferences are organized and paid for by the Koch brothers’ oil and chemical company, Koch Industries, and have taken place twice a year since 2003, with the winter meetings typically in the Palm Springs area, and the summer meetings in Colorado – so selected for their proximity to homes owned by the Koch brothers.

Those who attend are warned not to mention the meetings publicly, and – until January’s meeting in California – every previous meeting had gone off without a word in the press.

In the past, the meetings have drawn an A list of participants – politicians like Sens. John Cornyn (Tex.) and Jim DeMint (S.C.) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.), as well as leading free-market thinkers including American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks, talkers Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and even Supreme Court justices to mingle with wealthy donors who make up the bulk of the invite list.

The Koch conferences typically bring together about 200 conservative business titans and dignitaries hand-picked by the Koch brothers and their operatives to discuss free-enterprise conservative causes and raise millions of dollars in contributions to political groups such as Americans for Prosperity, and other non-profits favored by the Kochs.

The Pledge of (Republi[Corp]) Allegiance – On this 4th of July weekend, I wanted to remind everyone to pause for a moment, put down those Cokes, and join with those other Kochs in reciting our sacred psalm of patriots.

So please rise. Hand over heart. Ready. Begin:

Regards,

Jim

Republican Eric Cantor is Betting Against America – When Eric Cantor shut down debt ceiling negotiations last week, it did more than just rekindle fears that the U.S. government might soon default on its debt obligations — it also brought him closer to reaping a financial windfall from his investment in a mutual fund whose performance is directly affected by debt ceiling brinkmanship.

Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, had between $1,000 and $15,000 invested in ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury EFT. The fund aggressively “shorts” long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, meaning that it performs well when U.S. debt is undesirable. (A short is when the trader hopes to profit from the decline in the value of an asset.)

According to his latest financial disclosure statement, which covers the year 2010 and has been publicly available since this spring, Cantor still has up to $15,000 in the same fund. Contacted by Salon this week, Cantor’s office gave no indication that the Virginia Republican, who has played a leading role in the debt ceiling negotiations, has divested himself of these holdings since his last filing. Unless an agreement can be reached, the U.S. could begin defaulting on its debt payments on Aug. 2. If that happens and Cantor is still invested in the fund, the value of his holdings would skyrocket.

How many other Republicans have a similar vested personal interest in making America fail?

Republicans In Pennsylvania Protect Corporations But Not the Environment or People – The Republican-dominated Pennsylvania state house approved their new budget last night, and thanks to a lot of tricky last-minute bills, amendments and little public input, it looks like a right wing Christmas list — with Gov. Tom “I’m Owned by The Gas Industry” Corbett as Santa Claus. The budget displaces many, many costs to the local municipalities under the guise of “preventing” tax increases.

Corbett got most of what he wanted – deep spending cuts, no new taxes on natural gas or anything else – but only after his administration pushed through a last-minute Senate measure to shift control of billions in welfare funding from the legislature to his administration. The budget cuts public welfare spending by $400 million from what the governor proposed in March and leaves an anticipated $700 million state tax revenue surplus mostly untouched.

The House rejected a parliamentary move to add $34.5 million to the state Department of Environmental Protection’s budget and cut a similar amount from the Commonwealth Financing Authority, an economic development arm. The plan does not address the “Delaware loophole,” so named because it allows more than 70 percent of corporations doing business in Pennsylvania to evade state taxes. Instead, it lowers corporate taxes and contains no severance tax on the Marcellus Shale gas boom. It fails to adequately fund the state’s environmental agency so that gas fracking can go on unsupervised.

Minnesota Republicans Make Sure Millionaires Don’t Suffer, But Kids With Autism Suffering is Just Fine – A heart-wrenching story from a father of two autistic children about losing therapy for his kids to budget cuts while millionaires go untouched.

Republican Governor of New Jersey Hurts Regular People But Protects Millionaires – On Friday, NJ Governor Chris Christie line-item vetoed the following:

• $7.5 million for family planning centers and funding for women’s health
• $493 million in school aid
• $17 million in salaries for mental health services and programs
• $1.5 million in services to the blind and visually impaired
• $10 million for a program providing legal representation for the poor in non-criminal cases (perhaps the governor finds this hard to believe, but not every one in NJ is a millionaire)
• $5 million in from the Children’s Behavioral Health (meaning that thousands of children with disabilities, including autism, and mental health issues will lose — if they haven’t already — funding for the early intervention therapies that everyone agrees is crucial to helping kids with disabilities succeed)
• a bill to fund schools and providing low-wage earners with tax relief
• a bill that would impose a “millionaires’ tax on those making more than $1 million

Corporations Profit Greatly While Workers Suffer, New Study Shows – To date, through the first quarter of 2011, the nation’s recovery from the 2007-2009 recession is both a jobless and a wageless recovery. Real hourly and weekly wages have been flat to modestly negative. The only major beneficiaries of the recovery have been corporate profits and the stock market and its shareholders. The absence of any positive share of national income growth due to wages and salaries received by American workers during the current economic recovery is historically unprecedented. The lack of any net job growth in the current recovery combined with stagnant real hourly and weekly wages is responsible for this unique, devastating outcome.

We are not broke. There’s plenty of money to pay for the things that have made America great in the past, but most of it is now going to big corporations, hedge fund managers, CEOs, and other millionaires/billionaires. Between the second quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2010, real national income in the U.S. increased by $528 billion. Pre-tax corporate profits by themselves had increased by $464 billion while aggregate real wages and salaries rose by only $7 billion or only .1%. Over this six quarter period, corporate profits captured 88% of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1% of the growth in real national income. The extraordinarily high share of national income (88%) received by corporate profits was by far the highest in the past five recoveries from national recessions.

Where is the shared sacrifice? It’s only being shared by the poor and middle class.

Please Sign This Letter About Shared Sacrifice – Tax breaks for millionaires got us into this mess and we won’t get out of it by tipping the scales even further in their favor. Our economy can’t prosper if the richest among us enjoy massive tax breaks while most American workers live paycheck to paycheck. It’s time to share the burden. It’s not sacrifice if it comes from their surplus wealth. Everyday Americans know the meaning of sacrifice when they have to reduce their food, clothing, heating and air conditioning, medical treatment and other items that millionaires don’t even think about.

Regards,

Jim