The WAWG Blog

Invoking ‘Literacy Test,’ Tea Party Opening Speaker Suggests Blacks be Kept From Voting – The opening night speaker at the Tea Party convention suggested a return to a “literacy test” to protect America from presidents like Obama — a segregation-era method employed by southern US states to keep blacks from voting.

In his speech Thursday to attendees, former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo invoked the loaded pre-civil rights era buzzword, saying that President Barack Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

Southern states used literacy tests as part of an effort to deny suffrage to African American voters prior to Lyndon Johnson-era civil rights laws.

Michele Bachmann Says Obama ‘wants to annihilate us!’ (and other crazy stuff) – Michele Bachmann said in a fundraising letter which was sent out in late December, says, “Obama wants to use ACORN to radicalize America because he isn’t interested merely in defeating conservatives… …HE WANTS TO ANNIHILATE US! That’s the purpose behind ObamaCare, too.”

She also said in the letter, “What is happening in Washington right now is BIGGER than FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s “Great Society”…and far more dangerous to our freedoms than both combined! Obama’s plans will do nothing less than socialize our economy and turn every citizen into a ward of the state.“

Also, “Obama is advancing a far-left agenda of … empowerment of radical community groups.”

Then she asks the reader to send money to the “ACU STRIKEFORCE.”

(Strikeforce? Sounds like she’s the one into annihilation. – JLV)
(And check out the comments at the bottom of the linked Minnesota newspaper article. Wow! – JLV)

Sen. Richard Shelby Blocks Obama Nominees, Trying to Get Air-Tanker Contract for His State – Saying that the Obama administration must change its approach to an Air Force refueling tanker contract, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, moved Thursday to block Senate approval of at least four White House nominees for top federal jobs Thursday.

A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said via e-mail that Shelby had placed a “blanket hold” on administration nominees, a move that could affect dozens of candidates awaiting confirmation for a variety of posts.

“He is holding up all of the president’s nominations,” the spokeswoman, Regan Lachapelle, said.

Comcast/NBC Wants to be the Next “To Big to Fail” – Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBC President Jeff Zucker testified in front of House and Senate subcommittees Thursday as regulators decide whether to allow the proposed merger of the two media giants. Comcast is the largest cable TV and residential high-speed Internet company in the nation. NBC is one of the largest content providers.

The House hearing opened with several politicians waxing poetic about how the merger is great for America. While nobody in the room cracked a smile, their enthusiasm is laughable. The only people who could believe that the largest media merger in a generation is good for the public are either: 1) on the receiving end of the massive campaign contributions from said media companies; 2) bending to the phalanx of industry lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill; or 3) hoodwinked believers in the “all regulation is bad” approach that brought us Enron and the financial meltdown.

Watch Senator Al Franken (who used to work for NBC) tear into the Comcast CEO at the link. It seems that the CEO was less than truthful with Senator Franken and Franken caught him at it.

More Dumb Than Bad: Members of Subversive Groups in South Carolina Must Register – Terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina’s Secretary of State and declare their intentions — or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

The state’s “Subversive Activities Registration Act,” passed last year and now officially on the books, states that “every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States … shall register with the Secretary of State.”

There’s even a $5 filing fee.

By “subversive organization,” the law means “every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States [or] of this State.”

(While the intention of the law is apparently aimed at terrorists, it’s unclear in the law’s wording whether it can be applied to right-wing militias, or maybe the Tea Party, or people wanting their state to secede from the Union. _ JLV)

Tea Party Convention First-Day Hypocrisy – On the first day of the Tea Party convention, former congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) offered a fiery defense of Judeo-Christian faith, but there was no opening prayer. There was talk about traditional American values, but there was no Pledge of Allegiance to open the convention.
— nor was there an American flag in the convention hall. Oops!

New Senator Opens His Big Mouth Too Soon – When sworn into the U.S. Senate yesterday, Scott Brown said, “”The last stimulus bill didn’t create one new job.”

“It didn’t create one new job?” one reporter at the press conference repeated, incredulous.

“That’s correct. We lost another 85,000 jobs again, give or take, last month (January).”

The very next day, the unemployment figures for January were released, which showed a larger-than-expected decrease in unemployment. Oops!

Iran Seeking Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction 😉 – The United Nations Security Council met in an emergency session last night amid reports that Iran may be seeking to acquire a 2008 Toyota Camry. The Security Council’s latest concern was prompted by intelligence reports that Mr. Ahmadinejad himself had been quietly shopping for Toyota parts in recent weeks on the popular online site Craigslist.

Regards,

Jim

Fox Cuts Away in the Middle of Obama Town Hall Live Feed to Air Critic’s Views – For the second time in less than a week, Fox News on Tuesday cut away from a live broadcast of a presidential address to air comments from a critic of President Obama.

Speaking at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, the president laid out his argument that health care reform would actually save the government money in the long term by reducing health care costs.
“Well there you have it, a rather long answer to a question about health care from a recovering cancer patient,” said Fox News host Megyn Kelley, before introducing Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News contributor and critic of the president’s health care reform agenda.

During the wide-ranging debate that even some conservative commentators admitted the president won, Fox cut away mid-broadcast and went to a news-less interview with Rep. Peter King (R-NY).

Rush Limbaugh Says He Loves the Women’s Movement ‘Especially When Walking Behind It’ – Rush Limbaugh, the man credited with popularizing the term “feminazi,” says he’s a fan of the women’s movement — “especially when walking behind it.” Limbaugh made the comment to Fox News’ Gretchen Carlson on Wednesday, when Carlson asked him about his role as a judge in the 2010 Miss America contest, and noted that some critics say Limbaugh hasn’t “been a supporter of women in the past.”

Republican Strategist Gives Marching Orders on How to Kill Financial Regulatory Reform – Republican pollster and strategist Frank Luntz turned many heads this summer when he penned a report detailing how the GOP can sink health care reform. Now, a new document indicates he’s at it again, this time plotting to kill financial regulatory reform.

Like his health care paper, Luntz’ new 17-page memo dated January 2010, titled “The Language of Financial Reform,” — obtained by the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein — focuses on framing the issue in a way that generates distrust among constituents toward President Obama and Democrats’ reform proposals.

(Now you know what’s coming. Remember – They will say anything to gain control, no matter how much it may harm the principles of our nation – JLV).

Bank of America Approved Over $4 Billion in Pay for Investment Bankers and Traders – Bank of America Corp. approved more than $4 billion in 2009 pay for its investment bankers and traders, meaning those workers will collect an average of $300,000 to $500,000 for the year, according to a person familiar with the matter. The payout represents about 19% of the roughly $23 billion in revenue generated by investment-banking and capital-markets activities, this person said. The 2009 average will be close to what the bank paid during its peak compensation year of 2006, this person said. Unlike some rivals, Bank of America doesn’t disclose bonuses for its investment bankers, who typically are among the highest-paid employees at the nation’s largest bank in assets.

$100 Million Bonus Plan at A.I.G. – The American International Group has agreed to cut employee bonuses by $20 million and will distribute about $100 million on Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations. But the reductions may not be enough to appease the company’s critics, who do not accept the company’s argument that it has to honor contracts established before its government bailout. A.I.G. first promised the retention bonuses to keep people working at its financial products unit, which traded in the derivatives that imploded in September 2008, leading to the biggest government bailout in history.

The Problems with the Bush Vision for Space – Anyone shocked by the cancellation of the Bush Vision for Space (Constellation Program) did not pay attention to the warnings given in 2006 and 2007:

From a Statement by Joan Johnson-Freese, Chair, National Security Decision Making Department, Naval War College, Newport, RI, Testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Space, Aeronautics, and Related Sciences Subcommittee, May 7, 2007:

Politically, the 2004 Bush space vision was always a vision bordering on fantasy. Though perhaps well intended, it was effectively doomed from the start. The vision as announced was a very broad-brush outline of intent, describing a return manned mission to the moon, as well as manned missions to Mars and beyond. But the devil is in the details, and those details must be in some way attached to reality. Three major circumstantial realities predetermined the outcome of that new vision. First were the budget issues. The domestic budget has been, and will likely remain, an effective hostage to the war in Iraq, homeland security concerns, and clean-up for Hurricane Katrina – and like events in the future…

Then, and now, I believe the vision did not consider even the basic tenants of successful strategy execution; matching goals, strategy to achieve the goals, and the resources required to carry out the strategy. …

The shortsighted and unrealistic timetables included in the Vision, including acceptance of a gap in U.S. spaceflight capabilities between the retirement of the Shuttle and the new vehicle becoming operational, created the Rubic’s Cube that we are dealing with today.

From a 2007 interview with Carl Wunsch, a professor of physical oceanography at MIT: – In February of 2006, NASA quietly dropped from its mission statement the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet.” In a report from the National Research Council released in January of 2007, a committee appointed by the Council’s Space Studies Board warns that a number of measurements providing critical information about Earth processes will cease to be made over the next few years. By 2010, it says, the number of Earth-observing missions will drop dramatically, and the number of operating sensors and instruments on NASA spacecraft will decrease by 40 percent. “The United States’ extraordinary foundation of global observations is at great risk,” the report’s authors write. …But the change seems to be more than symbolic. These days (2007), it isn’t clear why a good engineer or scientist interested in the Earth would want to work for NASA.

(When you hear conservatives howl about the renewed emphasis on Earth science, remember that science is the friend of real progress and the enemy of the status-quo (conservatism). Conservatives may say we need more scientific knowledge before taking action on climate change or pollution, but they will oppose conducting that very science. – JLV)

‘Climate Gate’ Charges Were False; Scientists Did Not Suppress or Falsify Data – Michael Mann, of Penn State University, featured regularly in the more than 1000 emails that were hacked from the University of East Anglia in the UK last November. His emails and comments have since then featured in countless blogs and news articles. Some have claimed the emails reveal that mainstream climate scientists have massaged data in order to demonstrate that climate change is caused by human activities. The scientists in the emails, including Mann, have also been accused of seeking to prevent the publication of skeptical research in academic journals.

Penn State University opened an enquiry into Mann’s behavior in November, shortly after the emails were leaked into the public domain. After sifting through 1075 emails and focusing on 47 that were deemed relevant to public accusations of misconduct leveraged against Mann, they have, by and large cleared his name.

The internal enquiry has found that Mann did not “participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with an intent to suppress or to falsify data”. Nor did he “delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data” relating to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report.For the full report, click here (pdf).

Regards,

Jim

Neocon’s Idea of Successful Leadership: Bomb Someone Today – Neoconservative scholar Daniel Pipes references 9/11’s catalyzing impact on voter enthusiasm for former President George W. Bush, and says Obama could get the same boost by starting a new conflict with Iran. “Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush’s meandering early months, a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama’s feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene,” he writes.

“It would sideline health care,’ he continues, “prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, make netroots squeal, independents reconsider, and conservatives swoon.”

Wow , this is the man who George W. Bush nominated in 2003 to the board of the United States Institute of Peace.

Seven Republicans Who Co-Sponsored Fiscal Commission Vote Against It – Seven of the Republicans who co-sponsored the Conrad-Gregg fiscal commission turned around and voted against it. They are:

• Sam Brownback of Kansas,
• Mike Crapo of Idaho,
• John Ensign of Nevada,
• Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas,
• James Inhofe of Oklahoma,
• John McCain of Arizona,
• Robert Bennett of Utah

If this was such a good idea that they would cosponsor it, why would they then vote against it? See the video at the link to watch Mitch McConnell dance all around that question.

America’s Biggest Rip-offs:

• Text messages – 6,500% markup
• Hotel mini-bars – 1,300% markup
• Movie theater popcorn – 900% markup
• Wine at restaurants – 500% markup
• Hotel in-room movies – 200% markup
• Name-brand painkillers – 60% markup

Regards,

Jim

Republicans Signal Little [No] Willingness to Meet Obama, Democrats Halfway – Despite White House overtures for congressional Republicans to work with Democrats, GOP leaders indicated Sunday they were unwilling to accept much of what President Barack Obama and the Democrats are proposing.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell showed little willingness on CNN’s “State of the Union” program to seek common ground with Democrats on top legislative priorities such as health care, a jobs bill or creating a bipartisan statutory commission to come up with plans to reduce the federal deficit.
His counterpart in the House, Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, was more blunt.

“There aren’t that many places where we can come together,” Boehner, R-Ohio, told the NBC program Meet the Press.

Obama used his State of the Union address last Wednesday, as well as an unprecedented public meeting with House Republicans on Friday, to criticize the GOP for political intransigence while offering concessions on some issues in a bid to gain bipartisan support.

For example, Obama proposed tax breaks for small businesses championed by Republicans as part of a jobs bill he wants passed as quickly as possible. In the State of the Union, Obama mentioned nuclear power and some offshore oil and gas drilling – both longtime Republican favorites – as possible components of his energy policy. Earlier last week, Obama endorsed a Senate bill to create a deficit reduction commission proposed by members of both parties.

On a jobs bill, Democrats are offering ordinarily Republican-supported provisions such as ta cuts and credits for small businesses to spur hiring. That’s not enough for McConnell, R-Kentucky.

Asked about creating a deficit reduction panel, presumably a red-meat Republican issue, McConnell showed the politics of the moment at play.

Obama said Saturday that a Senate bill proposed by Democrats and Republicans to create such a commission was defeated by the Senate last week because seven of the GOP co-sponsors changed their mind and voted against it.

“Now, it’s one thing to have an honest difference of opinion about something. I will always respect those who take a principled stand for what they believe, even if I disagree with them,” Obama said in his weekly radio address. “But what I won’t accept is changing positions because it’s good politics. What I won’t accept is opposition for opposition’s sake. We cannot have a serious discussion and take meaningful action to create jobs and control our deficits if politicians just do what’s necessary to win the next election instead of what’s best for the next generation.”

Regards,

Jim

(This article is dedicated to the former Libertarian in our software development team who just retired and has provided the seed for other postings.)

To what extent should the government protect its citizens?

Conservatives without Conscience (CWCs), including Libertarians, want citizen protection by the government limited to national defense. CWCs even start wars on false pretenses and empower their enemies – anyone not like them – by exaggerating their capabilities and intensions. They also can’t say “9/11,” weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), or “war on terror” enough times in any given discussion about national security.

Beyond protection from foreign invaders, CWCs leave protection up to each individual citizen – “you’re on your own” and you deserve the consequences of ‘your’ failures not to get protection.

To give them some credit, however, the CWCs are very willing to provide a free enterprise solution for many forms of self protection. Insurance is one example. In fact, once in a while they even allow a government form of insurance. This is only for special situations where free enterprise can’t charge enough to make a profit – like flood insurance.

However, even here CWCs are more interesting in protecting free enterprise over the best interests of the citizen. They have allowed limited government-backed flood insurance. However, it’s a unanimous “NO” to limited government backed health insurance.

Leaving protection up to the individual also explains why CWCs are against gun control. Individuals must provide for their own defense. Remember, “you’re on your own.” Combine gun ownership with their desire to protect citizens from international terrorists and you get: Weapons are great but WMD’s are not. (This reminds me of a quote from comedian George Carlin back when ‘the enemy’ was communism, “Gabby Hayes had whiskers! Lenin had a beard!” Whiskers are good, a beard is bad.)

Progressives, on the other hand, know that there are factors in every individuals life that are beyond their control. Because progressives understand systemic causation, they realize that citizen protection by the government is much broader than national defense. Citizens not only need protection from actual – not imaginary – enemies of the state, they need protection from other forms of abuse that can grow out of concentrated power.

These abuses can exist in any manmade institution where no checks and balances exist to prevent them. Checks and balances are necessary to protect citizens from: any of our three branches of government, an abusive spouse, an abusive employer, an abusive preacher, an abusive producer or manufacturer that puts profit before the health and safety of citizens, banks too big to fail, or health insurance companies that deny coverage and drop citizens to maintain profit.

Despite popular dogma, progressives know that profit is necessary and vital to the success of the nation. That’s why the government must protect that ability by providing a court system. Combine the protection of profit with profit that abuses citizens and you get: Profits are great but PMDs, profits of mass destruction, are not.

And now with the recent decision by our activist United States Supreme Court and its five CWCs to eliminate the checks and balances on corporate political contributions, we also need protection from laws of mass destruction (LMDs). Add this decision to the actions of the GWB’s unitary presidency like wire tapping citizens, excessive signing statements that ignored Congressional law and the torture memos of John Yoo, and citizens have lost many of their hard won progressive protections.

Because of this broader view of protection of the citizenry, progressives not only want to protect citizens from WMDs, they want to protect citizens from PMDs, LMDs and many other elements of mass destruction.

Poll Shows That Americans Are Pretty Clueless About Politics – In the latest installment of the Pew Research Center’s News IQ Quiz, just 32% know that the Senate passed its version of the legislation without a single Republican vote. And, in what proved to be the most difficult question on the quiz, only about a quarter (26%) knows that it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster in the Senate and force a vote on a bill.

In response to questions about terrorism and national security, half (50%) correctly identify Yemen as the country where intelligence officials believe the suspect in an attempted Christmas Day airline bombing received training and bomb materials. A slightly smaller percentage (43%) knows that during all of 2009 there were more American military fatalities in Afghanistan than in Iraq; 32% said more U.S. troops were killed in Iraq.

Only about four-in-ten (39%) know that Nevada Democrat Harry Reid is the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. About a third (32%) correctly pick Michael Steele as the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Interestingly, nearly half of Republicans (48%) are able to identify Reid as Senate majority leader compared with just a third (33%) of Democrats. More Republicans can identify Reid as majority leader than can identify Steel as chairman of the RNC (37%).

(Summary: Don’t expect people to vote intelligently if they are not knowledgeable. We need to educate. – JLV) [Education must be affordable and that requires funding the common wealth for the common good.]

Big Falsehoods: A Guide to Andrew Breitbart’s Lies, Smears, and Distortions – Andrew Breitbart’s “Big” websites — Big Hollywood, Big Government, and Big Journalism — as well as his breitbart.tv website, have in recent months laid claim to many “exclusives,” touting controversial and sensationalist storylines that have been picked up by other conservative media outlets, from Fox News on down. However, a closer examination reveals that many of Breitbart’s “scoops” have been based on speculation, gross distortions, and outright falsehoods. Many, many details at the link. [Also – Neocon Noble Lies]

Inequality Is Literally Killing Us – Over 200 studies since the early 1980s have now documented that people living in societies where wealth has concentrated at the top of the economic ladder live significantly shorter, less healthy lives than people who live in societies that spread their wealth more evenly.

And we’re not talking just poor folks here. All people in unequal societies do worse. Middle-income people in the United States, the world’s most unequal developed nation, have shorter lifespans than middle-income people in Japan, Sweden and a host of other more equal nations.

This same dynamic, Wilkinson and Pickett show in their new book, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, is operating on all our most basic yardsticks of social decency. On everything from homicides and teen pregnancies to drug addiction and levels of trust, people living in more equal nations do better — from three to 10 times better — than people in societies where treasure tilts to the top.

And that treasure, in the United States, is tilting top-bound as rapidly as ever. Seldom — if ever — have so few profited so profusely in the midst of a general economic collapse.

Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists Eye Tea Party for Recruiting – Tea parties are proving very attractive to both white supremacists and the militia movement. At 11:15 on Friday, in an online Patriot Caucus discussion forum, David E. Parsons wrote a post called “Militia Training Videos,” with links to videos by Mark Koernke, a leading figure in the American militia movement, and his followers.

But militants are not the only ones infiltrating the Tea Party movement. The white power movement views Tea Parties as opportunities to recruit as well as incite violence, as is evidenced by postings on the white power website Stormfront:

Whites Forward: “Go where our people are starting to stand up around symptoms of the problem, and INTERVENE to guide them. Just because these started as an anti-tax protest doesn’t mean that they must be limited and can’t be developed upward toward an explicitly racial mass struggle.”

Scottish: “I think the “tea party” is a good way to meet people with potential. Most people at this event will be white people who are fed up with the direction of things and they are ready to hear how we got into this mess.”

In the recent documentary, “White Power USA”, neo-Nazi J.T. Ready describes the Tea Party movement as “the beginning of a really good awakening.” White supremacists believe that they are only the tip of an iceberg, the visible aspect of a more universal hatred. The documentary suggests that white supremacists sees Tea Parties as “the best chance in decades to cross over into mainstream American politics.”

Regards,

Jim

Retired CIA Agent Made Up Waterboarding Details – Arguing that waterboarding — or simulated drowning — is actually effective in forcing prisoners to share secret information, retired CIA agent John Kiriakou told ABC News’ Nightline in April, “The next day [after his first time being waterboarded], he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate.”

“From that day on, he answered every question,” he said, according to ABC. “The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.”

“Now comes John Kiriakou, again, with a wholly different story,” Stein noted in Foreign Policy. “On the next-to-last page of a new memoir, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror (written with Michael Ruby), Kiriakou now rather off handedly admits that he basically made it all up.”

“But after his one-paragraph confession, Kiriakou adds that he didn’t have any firsthand knowledge of anything relating to CIA torture routines, and still doesn’t,” Stein continued. “And he claims that the disinformation he helped spread was a CIA dirty trick: “In retrospect, it was a valuable lesson in how the CIA uses the fine arts of deception even among its own.”

Conservative Paid ACORN Video Maker Who Tried to Bug Democratic Senator – James O’Keefe, the guy who made the ACORN pimp videos, was arrested Monday after allegedly attempting to wiretap the Louisiana offices of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA). After his interdiction by federal marshals, O’Keefe admitted to planning the operation.

In a statement, conservative heavyweight Andrew Breitbart — who helped O’Keefe become famous after posting videos of him posing as a pimp and chatting with ACORN employees and served as an editor for The Drudge Report and contributor to the Huffington Post — said he had “no knowledge about or connection to” any of the alleged buggers.

And yet, on a radio interview the same day, Breitbart told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that O’Keefe was all but an employee.

HH: Last question, in terms of his relationship with you not connected to this event, are you still, is he in your employ in any way?
AB…What he does for the site exclusively is he tells his life rights, basically. So when he puts a story out there, it’s on the Brietbart sites, the Big sites, that he can tell people what transpired. So…
HH: Do you pay him for that?
AB: Yes.
HH: And are you free to tell me how much you pay him?
AB: I’ll…perhaps at another date, but he’s paid a fair salary.

BTW, Congressman Pete Olson introduced a resolution to honor O’Keefe. Just like Conservatives honor Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy. Wow!

Bill O’Reilly Remarks: Kidnap Top Democrats, Waterboard Speaker Pelosi – During a recent stop of the Bold & Fresh Tour with fellow Fox News personality Glenn Beck, right-wing talker Bill O’Reilly said that if President Obama hired him as a presidential adviser, the first thing O’Reilly would do is lavishly decorate his office. Item two would be having the CIA director kidnap top Democrats and waterboard Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Poll Finds Americans Trust Fox News More Than Any Other Network – A look back at previous issues of the Bad Deeds shows that Fox News consistently misrepresents facts and quite often just flat-out lies. There’s also a list here.

However, a poll of 1,151 registered American voters, who were asked whether they trust each of the major television news networks ranked Fox News Channel number one. “49% of Americans say they trust Fox News to 37% who disagree,” the poll’s authors wrote. “Predictably there is a large party split on this with 74% of Republicans but only 30% of Democrats saying they trust the right leaning network.”

The summary of the poll states, “A generation ago you would have expected Americans to place their trust in the most neutral and unbiased conveyors of news,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “But the media landscape has really changed and now they’re turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.”

(Did you notice that 30% of Democrats trust Fox News most? Huh? We have some stupid (or very uninformed) Democrats. – JLV) [Their also referred to as “biconceptuals.”]

Why Are We Donating $2,000 Per Family to Wall Street Bonuses? – During the worst year since the Great Depression, with 30 million people out of work or forced into part-time jobs, Wall Street is awarding itself $150 billion in bonus money … and it comes from us!

That’s $500 for every man, women and child in the country — $2,000 for a family of four.

Regards,

Jim

Republican Party Sends Fundraising Letter Disguised as ‘Census’ Form – The Republican Party is seeking input and money from GOP voters — seemingly under the guise of the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Strengthening our Party for the 2010 elections is going to take a massive grass-roots effort all across America. That is why I have authorized a Census to be conducted of every Congressional District in the country,” GOP Chairman Michael Steele says in a letter mailed nationwide.

The letter was sent in plain white envelopes marked “Do Not Destroy, Official Document.” Labeled “2010 Congressional District Census,” the letter uses a capital “C,” the same as the Census Bureau. It also includes a “Census Tracking Code.”

The letter makes a plea for money and accompanies a form asking voters to identify their political leanings and issues important to them. There are no disclaimers that participation in the GOP effort is voluntary; participation in the government census is required by law. Failure to participate carries a $5,000 fine, though it is rarely enforced.

Fox News Leaves False Report on Haiti Uncorrected – Fox News is staying silent after bloggers and commentators criticized the news network for a January 13 report on its Web site that stated Cuba was “absent” from global aid efforts in Haiti. In an online news story entitled “US Spearheads Global Response to Haiti Earthquake,” Fox reported that “one geographically close country is conspicuously absent from the roster of helping hands. Cuba, which had evacuated some of its residents as a precaution in case the earthquake triggered a tsunami, has so far not offered any assistance publicly to its devastated island neighbor.”

Observers note that the communist country was, in fact, one of the first to arrive after the earthquake that is now estimated to have taken the lives of 200,000 people. That has led some bloggers to accuse Fox of using the devastation in Haiti to propagandize against Cuba.

Republican State Rep. Says New Hampshire Selling Children To Gay Couples For $10,000 – New Hampshire State Rep. Alfred Baldasaro (R) said that the state “sold” children for $10,000 each when “they said that homosexual couples, not married, can adopt.” Baldasaro is one of the main sponsors of HB 1590, which aims to repeal a New Hampshire law allowing same-sex couples to marry. He also said, “What about the Muslims now?,” he asked.”Everyone’s praising the Muslims. They’re killing us. What about them, they want three, four wives. We’re discriminating against them.”

Regards,

Jim

Lt. Gov. of South Carolina Says “Don’t feed the poor. They’ll ‘breed.'” – A Republican vying to replace Mark Sanford as the next governor of South Carolina let one slip a couple of days ago, further embarrassing his state. During a town hall meeting Friday, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer said:

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed,” Bauer said, according to the Greenville News. “You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”

Blanche Lincoln Cosponsors Murkowski’s Dirty Air Act – Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) announced today she is co-sponsoring Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) resolution of disapproval to block regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Like Murkowski and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Lincoln is demonstrating a shocking disregard for her state’s interests, the health of her constituents, and a misunderstanding of why America has been losing jobs to China and India. Her support for the Dirty Air Act is an act of allegiance to polluters. Lincoln has taken nearly a million dollars in polluter cash, including $10,000 from the right-wing extremists at Koch Industries.

Regards,

Jim

Corporations can’t got to prison for illegal actions. We the people can.

We the people are left with PACs and what we can contribute to them to influence our elected representatives. Corporations are now their own PACs with their own funding and will now solidify their ownership of our representatives who will in turn outlaw our PACs.

Imagine the giddiness at the next board of directors meeting for the banks that are too big to fail. Now they can get as big as they want, take bigger risks, and they will make sure we pay for their irrational and unbounded exuberance.

Our Constitution goes to great lengths to protect the power of we the people over our government. The Supreme Court has now nullified all of them.

Support the Peace Team by signing their FAX petition to reconstitute the powers of we the people:

Corporations Are NOT The People

I call on Congress to confront and reverse, by means of whatever legislation is possible, the lawless Supreme Court decision granting full personhood rights to corporations to corrupt our elections.
In their haste to overturn all well-settled precedent, they deliberately left the United States of America exposed and vulnerable to the influence of any foreign interests with a corporate presence here. This decision by a rogue majority of the Supreme Court therefore represents nothing less than an act of TREASON against the people of the United States.

There are many actions Congress can take to ameliorate this judicial crime, up to and including a Constitutional amendment to affirmatively repudiate the outlaw interpretation of five right wing ideologues, recognizing in the first instance that any such interpretation was unfounded on its face. Representative Grayson has already propounded a number of creative ideas, to which we should add bringing back The Fairness Doctrine with real teeth, aggressive public financing of elections, and of course directly forbidding corporations with any foreign ownership interest from exercising this outrageous new privilege. Another idea would be for Congress to exercise its Constitutional power to increase the number of seats on the Supreme Court, to install corrective votes. Any action that can be taken to keep wealthy corporate interests from further drowning out the voice of the people MUST be taken.

We remind the Congress that under 1 U.S.C. §1 they have the right to determine what “persons”, to include corporations or not, are covered by particular acts of Congress. Any claim to the contrary now represents a Constitutional CRISIS of historic proportions whether we like it or not. And we expect our representatives in Congress to stand up and like it NOT, and to act accordingly.

Stop the prostitution of our democracy. Stop the authoritarians of our Supreme Court.