The WAWG Blog

Conservatives without conscience (CWC) are imagining that the mega and ultra rich will create jobs if they are certain they can keep their excessive tax breaks. The only thing certain about job creation is – it’s not happening.

First of all, the few hundred billionaires in this segment of the population have had these tax breaks during the entire Great Recession and have had no impact on the nations unemployment. Even under G. W. Bush’s presidency, while these tax breaks were in place, only “375,000 jobs a year [were created], the most pitiful record since 1939 when the Bureau of Labor Statistics started collecting the numbers.”

The mega and ultra rich keep their money for themselves and their indulgences. They don’t care about creating jobs. They care about increasing their wealth.

Secondly, the work, which makes them rich, cannot produce the number of jobs the country needs. Billionaire hedge fund managers are mostly making deals with millionaires or asset managers who have access to millions. The deals these billionaires are making are ones most of us cannot afford and it takes only a few employees to make these large and relatively small number of deals. Millionaire celebrities in sports, media and entertainment employ very few people to justify their lopsided tax breaks. Corporate executives are finding that they don’t need to rehire employees – they are able to meet current demand without hiring while at the same time increasing their profits to record levels.

Most of these mega and ultra rich CWCs are all about ME, ME, and ME. Only a few like Warren Buffet and William H. Gates Sr. are concerned about WE and creating jobs.

Maintaining unreasonable tax breaks for the mega and ultra rich cannot, and has not, created the demand needed to replace the number of jobs lost by the Great Recession, which the selfish CWCs helped propogate while trying to get richer.

Here’s what does create jobs – the certainty of consumers purchasing goods and services. The economy is driven by hundreds of millions of consumers – not the richest 2 percent of them. The bottom 98 percent grows the economy and jobs by demanding goods and services. As these vast numbers of consumers demand more, businesses create jobs to make, sell, and service all the goods and services being purchased.

So, where is this demand going to come from if businesses are not hiring and unemployment is being dropped? The only place it can come from is the federal government. We need more federal stimulus to create new jobs which will increase consumer demand and cause American businesses to start hiring again.

To pay for this stimulus, the government needs to cancel the excessive tax breaks for the mega and ultra rich and return the corporate tax rates to where they were decades ago.

One last point: Why has unemployment gone up? Was it because 2.6 million mega and ultra rich had to pay more in taxes or because 260 million middle and low income consumers stopped buying?

Rick Perry, Who Doesn’t Like Federal Involvement, Wants the Federal Government to Invade Mexico – Speaking on MSNBC, Texas Governor Rick Perry said the United States ought to consider a military invasion of his neighbor to the south, Mexico, arguing that it was needed to fight the drug war as well as to secure the border between the two nations.

Perry, who is also the incoming chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said the Mexican government would have to approve the invasion, but didn’t see this as a serious obstacle, adding that the new war might be an important part of immigration reform.

Yes, nothing says “immigration reform” like invading a neighboring country. And another military operation is exactly what we need in light of the deficit.

Republican Obstruction of the START Treaty Impacts American Credibility – From the moment the president signed the nuclear arms reduction pact with the Russians, Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), have “kept moving the goal posts…”

Max Bergmann briefly laid out the history of Kyl’s delay tactics within his Nov. 16 Wonk Room post.

…Last summer, Kyl was whining immensely that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) was rushing the process and that a committee vote should not happen until after the August recess. After the SFRC delayed, Kyl spoke to Reuters who paraphrased Kyl:

It could be difficult to satisfy his [Kyl’s] demands before November and thus the vote on New START might need to take place during the lame duck session if the Senate wants to vote on the treaty this year…

The vote was delayed, and Kyl’s demands were met, but…

In September, after the SFRC did hold its vote, Kyl and Senate Republicans argued that having a vote before the election was impossible because it would politicize the process and that a vote should happen after the election…

Predictably, now that the election has passed, Kyl and Republicans say there isn’t enough time in the Senate calendar.

Of course, for Kyl and the Republicans, that was the plan all along, as it has been with every White House initiative since Obama took office. Playing this game with foreign policy commitments, however, has broader implications than it has with domestic legislation.

The consequences are already presenting themselves. Steve Benen, author of Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog, has been on this all week. Regarding the risks Republicans are running, Benen wrote (11/17), “They expect this to hurt the foreign policy power of the United States, but they’re fine with that since there’s a Democratic president…”

When it comes to Russia, inspection of the country’s long-range nuclear bases will remain suspended indefinitely; the country’s hard-liners will be emboldened; and Russia’s willingness to cooperate with U.S. on Iran or on Afghanistan will likely disappear.

But in the bigger picture, countries around the globe will see this as a reminder that negotiating with the United States is pointless, since the country is burdened with a Republican Party that puts partisan hatred above the country’s interests. It hurts American credibility in ways that are hard to even gauge.

A potential toxic nightmare is probably in your community – The bulk use and storage of chlorine and other poison gases at large waste water and drinking water plants puts millions of Americans at risk of a Bhopal, India magnitude chemical disaster. Approximately 70 of these plants each put 100,000 people at risk, some of them each put a million or more people at risk. But some communities no longer face these risks because they switched to safer chemical processes. For example, Washington, DC converted their waste water treatment plant 90 days after the 9/11 attacks. Before 9/11 their use of chlorine gas put 1.7 million people at risk.

Both the Department of Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency is asking for this authority in S. 3598. The U.S. House of Representatives passed similar legislation on November 6, 2009. If enacted this bill will help eliminate these catastrophic risks at water treatment plants and it will also create jobs.

Facebook Building Coal-Powered Data Centers – Facebook has gotten a lot of people on its back lately due to its plans to build a data center in Oregon that will be primarily powered by coal. Over half a million people are pushing it to negotiate a cleaner, better deal. Now, Facebook has announced it is planning to build its second data center in North Carolina, a coal-heavy state. Facebook isn’t living up to the clean energy standards being set by Yahoo!, Google, Verizon, Dell and many others. It’s time that it does. Help push Facebook to get more of its electricity from clean energy by signing the petition at the link.

George W. Bush Says, “What Recession?” – Former President George W. Bush is being paid $100,000 to speak at the University of North Texas. The money will be taken out of student-paid activities fees in the midst of university system-wide budget cuts.

Proposed flow standards for the Trinity & San Jacinto Rivers/Galveston Bay area are massively deficient – Blue crabs in Texas’ Galveston Bay and Sabine Lake estuaries depend on the freshwater flowing from the Trinity, San Jacinto, Sabine and Neches Rivers. Crabs, shrimp and oysters require the mix of fresh and saltwater to reproduce. Furthermore, migratory birds could be left hungry when there are fewer blue crabs and other species on which they feed.

Right now, the Trinity and San Jacinto Rivers that flow into Galveston Bay, and the Sabine and Neches Rivers that flow into Sabine Lake are in line to receive much needed protections. But, the currently proposed “protections” for the Trinity and San Jacinto/Galveston Bay area are so weak that the rivers could be reduced to a trickle, putting many aquatic species, and the birds and wildlife that depend on them at risk. In fact, the proposed flow standards for the Trinity & San Jacinto Rivers/Galveston Bay area are massively deficient and simply do not come close to supporting a sound ecological environment.

Republican health care hypocrites – Incoming House Republican freshman Andy Harris is already complaining that the affordable health care coverage he gets as a Member of Congress — the same coverage that Republicans want to repeal for hardworking families — doesn’t start soon enough!

That’s right. Despite having his own health care paid for by the taxpayers, this incoming House Republican wants to tell hardworking Americans who are struggling to make ends meet that they’re on their own when it comes to affording coverage for their own families.

A thought …

We face a party that has proclaimed its intention to roll back regulations that protect the American people from future financial crises, to escalate income inequality, to undermine the rights of victims of corporate greed, to expand job-offshoring trade deals, and to clutch desperately to outmoded and unsustainable energy structures.

We must not allow dismay to fester into indifference or inaction.

Regards,

Jim

SMU’s George W. Bush Institute to put retired military personnel and others with no teacher training or experience as principals in U.S. public schools – The Bush Institute, the policy-making arm of the Presidential Library Center planned for Southern Methodist University, aims to have half the country’s public school principals trained under a new curriculum over the next 10 years.

“It is meant to be a very large project,” said James Glassman, the institute’s executive director. “We want to expand or augment the pipeline for those who will consider becoming principals.”

The idea is to develop a fast track into schools for experienced or promising leaders who don’t necessarily have training as educators – such as retired military personnel. After a brief training period, the new recruits would be assigned to campuses where they would have expanded powers to run the schools.

Corporate America Is Pushing Us All Off a Cliff – Corporate whistleblower Wendell Potter revealed that, when “Sicko” was being released in 2007, the health insurance industry’s PR firm, APCO Worldwide, discussed their Plan B: “Pushing Michael Moore off a cliff.”

But after looking into it, it turns out it’s nothing personal! APCO wants to push everyone off a cliff.

APCO was hatched in 1984 as a subsidiary of the Washington, D.C. law firm Arnold & Porter — best known for its years of representing the giant tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris. APCO set up fake “grassroots” organizations around the country to do the bidding of Big Tobacco. All of a sudden, “normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-Philip Morris Americans” were popping up everywhere. And it turned out they were outraged — outraged! — by exactly the things APCO’s clients hated (such as, the government telling tobacco companies what to do). In particular, they were “furious” that regular people had the right to sue big corporations…you know, like Philip Morris.

With this success under their belts, APCO created “The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition.” TASSC, funded partly by Exxon, had a leading role in a planned campaign by the fossil fuel industry to create doubt about global warming. The problem for Big Oil speaking out against global warming, according to the campaign’s own leaked documents, was that the public could see the “vested interest” that oil companies had in opposing environmental laws. APCO’s job was to help conceal those oil company interests.

And here we are in 2010. A lesser PR firm might be resting on its laurels at this point, content to sit back and watch hundreds of thousands of people continue to be pushed off the various cliffs they’ve built. But not APCO! Right now they’ve taken on their biggest challenge yet: leading a giant, multi-million dollar effort to help Wall Street “earn back the trust of the American people.”

If APCO and its Wall Street co-conspirators lull us into turning our backs on them again, we can be sure the next cliff — the next crash — will be much bigger.

Is your electricity provider naughty or nice? – What do naughty children get in their stocking? A lump of coal, of course! But you may want to avoid coal more often than just the holiday season. That dirty piece of coal is barely enough to run a 100-watt light bulb for 3 hours; in fact, you’d need about 714 pounds of coal to power the light bulb year round.

And you get more from that coal than just electricity. Burning 714 pounds of coal also puts about 5 pounds of sulfur dioxide into the air, which causes acid rain, and the same amount of nitrous oxide, which causes smog. Plus, don’t forget about the carbon dioxide emissions – about 1,850 pounds worth – that contribute to climate change. That’s not a very thoughtful present, is it?

Support clean, renewable energy which comes from non-polluting sources such as wind. Pick a clean electricity provider at the link:

Regards,

Jim

Richest Americans could buy a $83,000 Mercedes every year if Bush tax cuts are extended – Just how much money the top one percent of earners would keep if the Bush tax cuts were allowed to continue? $83,347 each year!

The Bush tax cuts reduce the top marginal federal income tax rate from 39.5 percent to 35 percent. The tax cuts are scheduled to expire this year, and Republicans in both the House and Senate want them extended.

The top one percent of earners in the United States make $1.4 million dollars or more. If the Bush tax cuts were allowed to continue, those who earn this sum would get a tax break of $83,347 a year.

The Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans would provide them with enough money to purchase an $83,000 Mercedes Benz E-Class car, not just once, but every single year for the next decade for which they will say to the Republican party, ‘Thank you very much.’”

The Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans would provide them with enough cash to buy a bottle of Chatteau d’Yquem wine bottled in 1787 for only $56,588, that will leave them loose change in their pocket of $25,000. They can buy a bottle of wine from 1787 every year for the next decade. Thank you Republican Party.

Or they can buy 20,000 jars of their favorite mustard, Grey Poupon. 20,000 jars,” Grayson exclaimed. That’s certainly enough for them, their family, their friends, even a few poor people.

Thank you Republican Party!

Who are you going to believe? The American people or what Republicans say the American people are saying? – This week on CNN, host Wolf Blitzer confronted Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) with a recent poll that found Americans don’t want to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and wondered why Schock — who has made both extending all the tax cuts and listening to the American people a priority — isn’t exactly listening to what they want. But Schock simply ignored the poll, saying, “The American people reject” letting the tax cuts expire for the wealthy.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) got caught playing a similar game yesterday, also on CNN with Blitzer. Pence — who has also made listening to the American people a priority — argued that in order to reduce the deficit, the government should cut spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. But when Blitzer told Pence that a recent poll showed that Americans don’t want cuts to those programs, the Indiana congressman pulled a Schock:

PENCE: Well, I don’t know if they’re saying don’t touch it. I think they’re saying for people who are on Medicare and Social Security or depending on Medicaid today, let’s keep the promises we’ve made to seniors.

Perhaps it’s a congenital selective hearing disability among Republicans. Or to borrow from Gary Larson “Blah blah blah TAX CUTS! blah blah blah TAX CUTS! blah blah blah.”

Republican leaders reject separate vote to extend all but highest tax breaks – House Republicans showed little interest Friday in budging on their demand that all the expiring tax cuts be extended in a single vote.

The top two GOP officials, incoming Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), rejected a Democratic-led plan that would schedule a separate vote on extending tax cuts for households earning less than $250,000 per year and individuals earning less than $200,000 per year.

It’s not clear whether the Democratic proposal will have the votes to advance through Congress. If all 41 Republicans hold together in the Senate — something Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on Thursday was likely — they could block any move to separate the tax votes.

That’s also to assume that no Democrats defect on the issue of taxes. A number of centrists broke with party leadership in a symbolic vote on taxes before Congress adjourned earlier this fall.

Your chance to be on Glenn Beck’s blackboard – Glenn Beck has targeted many progressive groups, including Media Matters, Center for Constitutional Rights, the Ruckus Society, Color Of Change and the Ella Baker Center.

We have to send a strong message to Beck, that we progressives won’t be intimidated. And we’re not afraid to stand up for progressive values or
the groups who fight for them.

Join me and thousands of other CREDO members in telling Beck that he will not scare us into silence. For every person who signs, CREDO will donate $.25 to five groups Beck absolutely hates

Regards,

Jim

The President and Democrats Want to Give a Permanent Tax Cut to Everyone, but Republicans Want an Extra-Big Tax Cut for Millionaires

Under President Obama’s plan, all Americans would receive a tax cut on the first $250,000 of their income. Every middle class family would receive the immediate certainty and comfort of knowing their tax cuts were permanently extended. Every American making more than $250,000 per year they would receive a tax cut on the first $250,000 of their income.

Instead of working to give middle class families this immediate certainty and comfort, Congressional Republicans are continuing to hold that relief hostage in order to have our nation borrow $700 billion that we can’t afford to provide an average tax cut of $100,000 to millionaires and billionaires.

We simply can’t afford to give the wealthiest Americans these big tax cuts that would add to our deficit and, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, be just about the least effective way to grow our economy and help create jobs.

Watch the excellent video:

Massey Energy – This spring, a coal mine explosion killed 29 people in a West Virginia mine owned and operated by Massey Energy, in the worst coal mine disaster since 1970. The mine where the disaster occurred, Upper Big Branch, had received more than 1,300 safety violations since 2005.

Just seven months prior to the explosion, Massey’s CEO Don Blankenship dismissed climate change and safety regulations simultaneously at a Labor Day rally, saying: “I also know Washington and state politicians have no idea how to improve miner safety. The very idea that they care more about coal miner safety than we do is as silly as global warming.”

1,342: Number of safety violations Massey received at the Upper Big Branch Mine alone since 2005.
$129.2 Million: The amount since 1999 Massey Coal’s CEO Don Blankenship has received in salary, bonuses, and perks.

$1,609,593: The amount Massey spent on ads in 2009 and 2010 (Kantar Media CMAG, accessed 10/12/10).

– In response to Massey’s record of safety violations, CEO Don Blankenship responded: “Violations are unfortunately a normal part of the mining process.”
– Blankenship has called members of Congress seeking climate change legislation “greeniacs” and “all crazy.”
– He called deadly mining accidents “statistically insignificant.”

American Petroleum Institute (API) – The American Petroleum Institute, or API as it is commonly called, is the main U.S. trade association for the oil and natural gas industry. API funds advertising and promotes government policies that many oil and gas companies support, even if the companies are embarrassed to associate themselves by name.

API stages public “Energy Citizens” rallies to provide the appearance of public support for the oil industry, even though many of the people who attend the rallies are energy company employees.

– API spent $66 million on ads in 2009 and 2010. [Kantar Media CMAG, accessed 10/20/10]
– API spent more than $14 million lobbying in the 111th Congress.
– API launched a “major lobbying campaign” aimed at opposing tax changes on oil companies and tougher drilling regulations.
– API was a member of the Global Climate Coalition, which “led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign” against climate science for more than a decade.

BP America – BP needs no introduction. Headquartered in London, its American division was responsible for the largest accidental oil spill the world has ever known. Between April and September 2010, this oil and gas conglomerate spent more than $123 million on advertising in response to plummeting public opinion. [Kantar Media CMAG, accessed 10/20/10]. On top of that, BP has spent more than $23.5 million lobbying Congress over the past two years.

Just one shut-off switch that could have prevented the oil spill from happening if BP had purchased it.
$225,000: Amount BP avoided paying each day for rent on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig, using a tax break.

Quotation from former BP CEO Tony Hayward after the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico: “I would like my life back.”

Koch Industries – Koch Industries is America’s second-biggest private company, with estimated annual revenues of $100 billion. Koch owns refineries from Alaska to Texas and a large number of subsidiaries that make things like Bounty paper towels and Dixie Cups.

But who are they, really? It is owned by two brothers, Charles and David, who have a long history of funding causes that benefit the oil industry. According to a New Yorker profile: “The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry — especially environmental regulation” The Koch brothers are also major funders of Americans for Prosperity, a prominent tea party group.

– Koch Industries is one of the top ten toxic air polluters in the U.S.

– Koch is responsible for over 300 oil spills in the U.S. and has leaked 3 million gallons of crude oil into fisheries and drinking waters.

– Koch admitted to stealing $31 million worth of crude oil from Indian reservations.

– Koch Industries was found by a jury to be guilty of negligence and malice in the deaths of two Texas teenagers in an explosion that resulted from a leaky underground butane pipeline. The plaintiff was awarded almost $300 million for the wrongful death.

– Koch Industries spent more than $48.5 million from 1997 to 2008 funding climate science opposition groups.

Regards,

Jim

House Republicans Warn SEC Against Implementing Financial Reform Regulations – Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee have been warning regulators implementing the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that the GOP is in no mood to see regulations that actually rein in the predatory and risky practices of the banks. Before Congress left for its pre-election recess, the federal bank regulators — including the SEC — requested funding to begin implementing Dodd-Frank, but Republicans balked and blocked it. And it’s becoming clearer that they intend to deny the agencies funding if the rule-making process isn’t to their liking. During the regulatory reform debate, Republicans consistently claimed that any profitable activity that a bank undertakes — even if the profits come via ripping off consumers — is not to be restricted.

Republican Senator Who Railed Against Healthcare and Earmarks Got $960,000 Healthcare Earmark – Republican John Ensign of Nevada, who voted against the Democrats’ sweeping health care bill, quietly got a healthcare stimulus of his own: $960,000 doled out to the University of Nevada for a Primary Care Residency Expansion program. What’s more, the senator, Republican John Ensign of Nevada, has also joined about a dozen Republican senators in a crusade to end earmarks in the federal budget. The special dispensation for the University of Nevada was created via an earmark, a legislative maneuver that directs funds to be spent on a specific project.

Run for the Border, Steve King’s Coming! – Rep. Steve King has compared border-crossers to livestock, asserted that President Obama “favors the black person,” and described illegal immigration as a “slow-motion terrorist attack.” Last summer, the Iowa Republican proclaimed that he would support amnesty for illegal immigrants under just one condition—that “every time we give amnesty for an illegal alien, we deport a liberal.” Since Tom Tancredo left office in 2008, King has risen to take his place as the right’s biggest anti-immigration flamethrower. Now he’s preparing to wage an even bigger assault under Republican-controlled House. King is very likely to become the next chair of the House Judiciary’s subcommittee on immigration, working together with Judiciary’s incoming chairman, Lamar Smith—another immigration hawk who’s vowed to put a crackdown at the top of his agenda.

Immigration advocates say that King simply intends to create more rabble-rousing political theater and inflame the masses—particularly as nearly all of his proposals stand little chance of passing the House, let alone the Senate or the president’s desk. “A lot of it is theatrics, really using the bully pulpit of committee majority position to push these things out there and stir things up. It wouldn’t necessarily result in legislative [victories],” says Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center. She adds that the oversight hearings are meant to hammer home the message that “Obama has failed to enforce the law” on immigration—even though the current administration is deporting even more immigrants than under Bush, according to figures from the Department of Homeland Security.

Conservative Proposals on the Deficit Can’t be Serious – Here’s the long-term deficit situation, all contained in one handy chart from the Congressional Budget Office:

Here’s what the chart means:

• Discretionary spending (the light blue bottom chunk) isn’t a long-term deficit problem. It takes up about 10% of GDP forever. What’s more, pretending that it can be capped is just game playing: anything one Congress can do, another can undo. So if you want to recommend a few discretionary cuts, that’s fine. Beyond that, though, the discretionary budget should be left to Congress since it can be cut or expanded easily via the ordinary political process. That’s why it’s called “discretionary.”
• Social Security (the dark blue middle chunk) isn’t a long-term deficit problem. It goes up very slightly between now and 2030 and then flattens out forever. If Republicans were willing to get serious and knock off their puerile anti-tax jihad, it could be fixed easily.
• Medicare, and healthcare in general, is a huge problem. It is, in fact, our only real long-term spending problem.

To put this more succinctly: any serious long-term deficit plan will spend about 1% of its time on the discretionary budget, 1% on Social Security, and 98% on healthcare. Any proposal that doesn’t maintain approximately that ratio shouldn’t be considered serious.

Taxpayers Have Been Footing the Bill for Corn Ethanol for More than 30 Years – Right now, agribusiness lobbyists and the corporate corn industry are descending upon Congress, pressuring them to extend costly corporate bailouts to dirty corn ethanol. We’ve been working on your behalf, fighting to save your tax dollars from funding this industry that currently contributes more climate pollution than conventional gasoline.

You, the taxpayer, have been footing the bill for corn ethanol for more than 30 years. This year alone, more than $5 billion dollars landed in the pockets of the corn ethanol industry through the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC). This is an inexcusable corporate giveaway, considering that the Renewable Fuel Standard passed by Congress mandates the production of ethanol by law. Why are we paying these companies to play by the rules?

Please help us save tax dollars — and the planet. Tell your representative to end this credit now

Science Shows Antibacterial Chemicals are Dangerous to People and Environment – Triclosan and Triclocarbon are killers. That’s their job.

The antimicrobial chemicals are added to thousands of consumer products – from soap to toothpaste, public changing tables and even shoes – specifically to kill bacteria and viruses. Unfortunately, when the soap and other products wash down our drains, Triclosan and Triclocarbon end up in the aquatic environment and even on farms around the country where they keep doing their job, killing things.

The thresholds for killing microbes are much higher than those for other, more fragile life forms, like algae, crustaceans and fish. ‘This explains why residual concentrations of antimicrobials found in aquatic environments are still sufficiently harmful to wipe out the small and sensitive crustaceans, which are critical to the aquatic life cycle and food web,’ Halden says.” Scientists have also found concentrations of the antimicrobial in the bodies of animals higher up on the food chain, such as dolphins, and even in . . . people.

George W. Bush’s Omission Points – When former British Prime Minister Tony Blair released his memoirs, he neglected to mention a key (and controversial) January 31, 2003, talk they held in the Oval Office. According to a memo written by a Blair aide documenting the meeting, Bush and Blair in that session each said they doubted any weapons of mass destruction would soon be discovered by the UN inspectors then searching for such arms in Iraq. Without any WMDs, it could be harder to win support for the war. But Bush had an idea—or two.

The memo—portions of which were published in the New York Times and in Philippe Sands’ Lawless World —noted that Bush raised the notion of provoking a confrontation with Saddam Hussein. “The US was thinking,” the memo said, “of flying US reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach” of UN resolutions. A retaliatory attack would then be fully justified; the war could begin. In other words, Bush raised the prospect of staging a phony event to justify a military attack on Iraq. Bush also discussed producing some “defector who could give a public presentation about Saddam’s WMD.” The two men also agreed that it was unlikely that “internecine warfare” would break out between “different religious and ethnic groups” after an invasion of Iraq.

Now, Bush, too, is keeping the cover-up alive. In his new book, Decision Points, Bush does write about this particular meeting. He notes that he and Blair discussed squeezing another resolution out of the UN Security Council that would declare that Iraq had failed to meet its disarmament obligations under a previous resolution—in effect, handing Washington and London a go-to-war-free card.

But Bush says nothing about his proposal to provoke the war through fraud.

It’s one thing to misinterpret facts; it’s another to pretend they don’t exist. The memo detailing Bush’s idea to con the world into war does exist. But that reality is not part of Bush’s story. This not only demonstrates that Bush’s account is neither candid nor accurate. It raises the question: what else is missing?

Regards,

Jim

Business May Soon be Allowed to Run Even Wilder – Today the Supreme Court heard arguments from AT&T that, if they adopt, would grant corporations the right to prevent consumers from joining class-action lawsuits. The case has so far flown under the radar, but the ramifications are enormous. AT&T wants the Court to adopt a ruling that would allow any business that issues a contract to consumers, including contracts for cellphones, cable TV, and even credit cards, from being barred as a matter of contract law, from joining in class-actions that allege, among other things, violations of consumer protection law.

And while AT&T doesn’t come right out and say so, the scope of the rule they are asking the Court to adopt would potentially also apply to employment agreements. This means those large class-action discrimination claims against retailers like WalMart and banking giants like Citigroup would become non-existent.

Republican Obstructionism Keeping Black Farmers From Getting Paid – For years, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) denied Black farmers loans and other aid easily approved for White farmers. Many Black farming families lost their land and livelihoods as a result. The farmers sued the government for damages and won — but only a fraction of them ever got paid.1

As a Senator, Barack Obama helped to secure a new settlement for the remaining Black farmers, but far-right Senate Republicans are committed to keeping the settlement from being paid out, and have repeatedly blocked funding for it over the last year.

It’s time for President Obama to bypass the Republican obstruction. The White House can directly address this injustice and pay these farmers what they’re owed out of administrative funds — and Congressional Black Caucus leaders have previously called for such a solution. 2

Please join us in calling on President Obama to do right by these farmers, and please ask your friends and family to do the same. It takes just a moment:

Co-Chairs of the Deficit Commission Out of Touch With Most Americans – The Co-Chairs of the Deficit Commission released their proposal. Here’s a quick sample of just some of what they’re calling for:

Cut Social Security benefits
Raise the retirement age
Cut funding to the National Park Service
Cut funding to PBS
When we say that the Deficit Commission doesn’t speak for the vast majority of Americans, we have the numbers to back it up.

On Election Day, Democracy for America polled voters nationwide and when asked about Social Security only four percent supported making cuts to Social Security. Over half support eliminating the Social Security tax cap for income over $106,000 a year and 31 percent said they wouldn’t change anything at all.

Let me say that again so Congress gets the message — We polled the exact same people who voted to put Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives and 85 percent of voters don’t want any cuts to Social Security.

This might be the only thing that 85 percent of Americans can agree on. Help make sure Congress gets the message.

Call on Congress to reject the Deficit Commission’s recommendations now.

And here’s another:

Shadowy Front Groups Will Make Passing New Transparency Laws Nearly Impossible Next Year – The “lame duck” session that starts next week is the last chance to pass the DISCLOSE Act before the new Congress arrives next year. Congress should be able to pass this bill no matter what party is in power – there are Democrats who benefited from secret money, and there are Republicans who support transparency. But the surge in new members of Congress who got elected because of money from shadowy front groups will make passing new transparency laws nearly impossible.

Take action:

Regards,

Jim

Texas School District Prefers Money Over Children’s Health – In some Texas districts, school is also a place children go to get sick.

Several schools—located on a figurative gold mine over the gas-rich Barnett Shale formation—are accepting money from drilling companies itching to tap deposits beneath and around their land. In one case, in return for leases that allow Hillwood and Williams Production to drill exploratory gas wells around Texas’s Argyle High School, the district has already received $680,000 in payments.

But while that money may be used to pay teachers’ salaries and run down a district deficit, the payoff for students is far less clear.

Since drilling recently began recently, kids have reported suffering asthma, nosebleeds, dizziness, disorientation, nausea and noxious smells, according to The Denton Record-Chronicle.

Now, a local activist organization, the Argyle-Bartonville Communities Alliance, has organized in the last year to collect health data and raise awareness in the parent community. The drilling of dozens more gas wells is already set to proceed on two sites within a half-mile of not only the high school but also the intermediate school and—getting them while they’re young—the elementary school as well.

You can support the work of the concerned community by telling the Argyle school board to do everything within its power to protect this district kids.

The school got the community into this mess in the first place, and should be fighting for the students’ overall welfare—not the welfare of its bank balance. Sign the petition at the link.

Government Prefers Dairy Profits Over People’s Health – Urged on by government warnings about saturated fat, Americans have been moving toward low-fat milk for decades, leaving a surplus of whole milk and milk fat. Yet the government, through Dairy Management, a marketing creation of the United States Department of Agriculture, is engaged in an effort to find ways to get dairy back into Americans’ diets, primarily through cheese.

Dairy Management spent millions of dollars on research to support a national advertising campaign promoting the notion that people could lose weight by consuming more dairy products, records and interviews show. The campaign went on for four years, ending in 2007, even though other researchers — one paid by Dairy Management itself — found no such weight-loss benefits.

When the campaign was challenged as false, government lawyers defended it, saying the Agriculture Department “reviewed, approved and continually oversaw” the effort.

Dr. Walter C. Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health and a former member of the federal government’s nutrition advisory committee, said: “The U.S.D.A. should not be involved in these programs that are promoting foods that we are consuming too much of already. A small amount of good-flavored cheese can be compatible with a healthy diet, but consumption in the U.S. is enormous and way beyond what is optimally healthy.” Americans now eat an average of 33 pounds of cheese a year, nearly triple the 1970 rate. Cheese has become the largest source of saturated fat; an ounce of many cheeses contains as much saturated fat as a glass of whole milk.

Regards,

Jim

Veterans fighting the enemy within – It seems a pity that during months of mid-term campaigning marked by heated battles over the size of government, there was no mention of the staggering costs, fiscal and otherwise, of two enduring wars. Nor any talk of doing more for those who come home in need of help.

The VA reports that in the 12-month period ending in September 2009, there were 1,868 suicide attempts — and 98 deaths — among men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among active duty personnel, a recent Department of Defense report found, an average of one active duty member committed suicide every 36 hours between 2005 and 2009.

The VA also reports that the suicide rate is lower for those in treatment.

Veterans Day is this Thursday. Read the rest of this article at the link.

Regards,

Jim