The Real Traitors to America

Goons in Gucci's So where does this sudden, multi-state offensive against the hard-won rights, protections, and democratic power of America's wage earners come from? From the top--from a relative handful of arrogantly rich, right-wing families and corporate chieftains who have long been dedicated to disarming labor, repealing the New Deal, and returning America to the glory days when robber barons ruled. These particular moneyed elites have not idly dreamed of going back to the future, they've been investing hundreds of millions of dollars during the past four decades to assemble a shadowy network of hired political thugs to get them there. [HISTORICAL FLASHBACK: In the fierce labor wars of the last century, industrial barons employed Pinkertons and other goons to bloody the heads of laborers or simply gun down those struggling for a share of economic and political power. It was brutal, but organized workers persevered and eventually gained a share of economic and political power. From their sweat and blood, America's middle class flowered.] Today, the bands of nouveau corporate royalists (with coats of arms bearing such names as Coors, DeVos, Koch, Scaife, and Walton) are determined to take back those middle-class gains of yesteryear. They are working to achieve this through a coordinated, long-term campaign to (1) crush the ability of working people to unionize, (2) bust America's middle-class wage structure, (3) eliminate job security, and (4) emasculate government as a force capable of controlling corporate avarice and arrogance. These latter-day royalists are employing a more sophisticated thuggery than brute force (though don't think they wouldn't resort to it). Instead, their goons are more likely to be in Gucci's than brogans, using dollars and computers rather than clubs and guns. They have been recruiting, financing, training, deploying, and coordinating thousands of political operatives to work through hundreds of front groups, law firms, think tanks, PACs, lobbying offices, media and PR consortiums, faux academic centers, astroturf campaigns, and--of course--compliant politicians. Among the compliant is our covey of hyperactive governors, all carrying basically the same anti-worker, anti-democratic policy ideas. Their unified agenda wasn't produced by telepathy or freakish happenstance, but by AFC, ALEC, IFL, SPN,* and other obscure organizational acronyms unknown to 99 percent of Americans. But Daniels of Indiana, Walker of Wisconsin, Kasich of Ohio, Scott of Florida, and the rest of the covey have these organizations on speed dial. Behind the non-descript acronyms are aggressive and insidious right-wing wonk shops that have been set up and richly financed by the corporatists to prepare and hand-deliver pro-corporate programs to compliant governors and key legislators. Once delivered, the organizations work (usually clandestinely) to get the programs enacted. Let's peek inside a couple of these acronyms. 2. AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL. "With nearly 2,000 members" explains a brochure of this secretive organization, "ALEC is the nation's largest nonpartisan, individual membership association of state legislators." Maybe your very own local lawmaker is one of them--but you won't get that information from ALEC, which hides its list of legislators from public view. Nonpartisan? Its website lists 22 legislators from around the country who serve as board members and officers of this tax-exempt legislative service organization. All are Republican. In fact, only token numbers of Democrats are allowed in the club, and all inductees are individually vetted to make sure they will adhere to ALEC's corporate dogma. Which brings us to the organization's pose as an association of legislators. The "exchange" in ALEC's name is not between lawmakers, but between lawmakers and such behind-the-scenes powers as Altria, AT&T, Bayer, Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, GlaxoSmithKline, Intuit, Johnson & Johnson, Koch Industries, Kraft Foods, Peabody Energy, Pfizer, Reynolds American, State Farm Insurance, UPS, and Walmart. These giants form ALEC's "private enterprise board," and they are among the self-interested corporations that put up its money and shape its agenda. State reps pay only a token $50 a year to be members of ALEC, while at least 82 percent of the $6 million yearly budget comes from corporations (ALEC demurely refuses to name its donors, much less report how much each gives, nor will it disclose how it spends the money). What do corporations get for their tax-deductible donations? A greased skid for sliding their wish list into the laws of multiple states. ALEC is something of a speed dating service. It holds three national conferences a year, plus convening issue-specific policy sessions in 20 to 30 state capitols annually. These are cozy sessions that conveniently gather groups of legislators to meet in private with corporate executives. The two groups schmooze together and develop bills to help extend corporate power over workers, consumers, environmentalists, and others--then the lawmakers go back home to pass the corporations' bills. ALEC is the ultimate back room for corporate-legislative collusion. Its promotional brochure describes it as a dynamic partnership "that will define the American political landscape of the 21st century." That's no empty threat. ALEC's tête-à-têtes result in about 1,000 bills being introduced across America every legislative session, and an ALEC official proudly adds, "We usually pass about 200 bills a year." And what pieces of work they are! For example: Even before Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took office this January, ALEC agents were handing him model bills for clubbing teachers and other public employees. Pushing ALEC's attack from inside the legislature were Wisconsin state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, the rancorous, union-busting majority leader who was ALEC's state chairman last year, and state Rep. Robin Vos, the house budget slasher who heads ALEC's state organization this year. Likewise, governors in Indiana, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio have backed anti-union legislation this year that closely resembles ALEC's 'model' bills. In 2009, ALEC drew up the Voter ID Act to ban university students from using their college-issued ID's as proof of residency for voting. Seven states have adopted this model law, which is intended to bar eligible students from the voting booth. These kids must be disenfranchised, New Hampshire's house speaker bluntly said in February, because they're "voting liberal, voting their feelings, with no life experience." This model bill has been introduced in 18 other states this year in a rather obvious ploy to hold down the student vote in the 2012 presidential election. Arizona's infamous anti-Latino immigration law was crafted at an ALEC conference. The state senate leader who sponsored the bill was in the meeting, as was an eager executive from Corrections Corporation of America, the private prison operation that stands to get a nice business boost from Arizona's law. Numerous state bills have been filed to kill, dilute, or withdraw from Obama's universal healthcare reform. Many bear remarkably similar wording, perhaps because they were drawn from a special report churned out by the 'nonpartisan' ALEC, entitled "The State Legislators Guide to Repealing ObamaCare." One of ALEC's specialties is developing state laws to stop citizens from interfering with corporate whim. For example, when various communities began outlawing the use of genetically altered seeds in their area, ALEC rushed out a model bill to remove local control of seeds--11 states have passed it. Also with such climate-change deniers as Koch and Exxon funding ALEC and sitting on its board, you can guess why this corporate policy front has produced more than 800 draft measures against regulating global warming emissions--and, at least six states are considering bills nearly identical to ALEC's draft resolution for "state withdrawal from regional climate initiatives." The big lie Something unconscionable is at work here, something that is shameful, unworthy of our people, and directly contradictory to our country's founding ideals. The richest, most powerful, most privileged people in our land--in cahoots with a horde of the least principled, most venal political opportunists in civic life-- are intentionally savaging the well-being of America's majority and aggressively suppressing the democratic rights that make America America. And for what? Solely for themselves, for the aggrandizement of their own wealth and power. To pull off this grand political larceny, the narcissistic right has manufactured a huge lie that has largely been accepted as truth not only by the GOP and tea partiers, but also by the mass media, nearly all of the mainline pundit class, and too many fraidy-cat Democratic leaders, including the one in the oval office. The lie is that extreme budgetary measures (they call them "coura- geous") simply must be imposed now, this instant, in order to slay the looming deficit monster that is gorging itself on government spending at all levels. "In the name of your grandbabies," they cry, "teachers must be fired, rights smothered, pensions abrogated, Medicare tossed aside, little kids cut off from Head Start, and the bright promise of America's shared prosperity dimmed. We have no choice but to slash and burn." No choice? One hedge fund hustler pocketed $2.4 million last year. Not for the year--$2.4 million AN HOUR. Yet he and his ilk pay a much lower tax rate than you and I do. In recent years, huge corporations like GE, ExxonMobil, and Bank of America have pocketed billions of dollars in profit, yet paid not a dime in federal income taxes. Indeed, far from paying taxes, these three have even been handed millions of dollars in "refunds" from our public treasury in some of their profitable years. Sliding through loopholes created by their lobbyists, two-thirds of corporations in the US pay no income taxes to help cover the priceless benefits they get from our national government. America does not face a deficit crisis--we face a multi-billion dollar annual tax dodge by the most elite of moneyed elites. The money our society needs is right there--in the coffers of flagrantly rich Fortune 500 corporations and Wall Street banks, in the personal accounts of absurdly wealthy CEOs and fast-buck speculators. America is hardly a poor country. It's the richest in the history of the world, and it ought to have the very best public education program in the world, the most advanced infrastructure network, and the finest system of health care for all. Yet our 'leaders' only talk of what they can't do, of what must be cut, of how the middle class and the poor must sacrifice, of how Americans must adapt to the new normal of diminished expectations and shriveled democratic power. The ugly truth is that these despicable governors and lawmakers are willingly trashing teachers and butchering our public budgets simply to spare the privileged and plutocratic few from paying what they owe to sustain a just, democratic, and truly prosperous society. This is ridiculous. Let's tax the super-rich! We the People must join together, stand up, push back, and shift the focus in this fight from hardworking teachers to these disgusting deadbeats and their political puppets. - Jim Hightower

Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq

Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show. Graphic: Iraq's burgeoning oil industry The papers, revealed here for the first time, raise new questions over Britain's involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blair's cabinet and was voted through only after his claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time. The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK's involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as "highly inaccurate". BP denied that it had any "strategic interest" in Iraq, while Tony Blair described "the oil conspiracy theory" as "the most absurd". But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very different picture. Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change. The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms. Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: "Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis." The minister then promised to "report back to the companies before Christmas" on her lobbying efforts. The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq "post regime change". Its minutes state: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity." After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Office's Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: "Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in [Iraq] for the sake of their long-term future... We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq." Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had "no strategic interest" in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was "more important than anything we've seen for a long time". BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf's existing contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the world's leading oil company. BP told the Government it was willing to take "big risks" to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world. Over 1,000 documents were obtained under Freedom of Information over five years by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. They reveal that at least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP and Shell in late 2002. The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraq's reserves – 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq. Last week, Iraq raised its oil output to the highest level for almost decade, 2.7 million barrels a day – seen as especially important at the moment given the regional volatility and loss of Libyan output. Many opponents of the war suspected that one of Washington's main ambitions in invading Iraq was to secure a cheap and plentiful source of oil. Mr Muttitt, whose book Fuel on the Fire is published next week, said: "Before the war, the Government went to great lengths to insist it had no interest in Iraq's oil. These documents provide the evidence that give the lie to those claims. "We see that oil was in fact one of the Government's most important strategic considerations, and it secretly colluded with oil companies to give them access to that huge prize." Lady Symons, 59, later took up an advisory post with a UK merchant bank that cashed in on post-war Iraq reconstruction contracts. Last month she severed links as an unpaid adviser to Libya's National Economic Development Board after Colonel Gaddafi started firing on protesters. Last night, BP and Shell declined to comment. Not about oil? what they said before the invasion * Foreign Office memorandum, 13 November 2002, following meeting with BP: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP are desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity to compete. The long-term potential is enormous..." * Tony Blair, 6 February 2003: "Let me just deal with the oil thing because... the oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyse it. The fact is that, if the oil that Iraq has were our concern, I mean we could probably cut a deal with Saddam tomorrow in relation to the oil. It's not the oil that is the issue, it is the weapons..." * BP, 12 March 2003: "We have no strategic interest in Iraq. If whoever comes to power wants Western involvement post the war, if there is a war, all we have ever said is that it should be on a level playing field. We are certainly not pushing for involvement." * Lord Browne, the then-BP chief executive, 12 March 2003: "It is not in my or BP's opinion, a war about oil. Iraq is an important producer, but it must decide what to do with its patrimony and oil." * Shell, 12 March 2003, said reports that it had discussed oil opportunities with Downing Street were 'highly inaccurate', adding: "We have neither sought nor attended meetings with officials in the UK Government on the subject of Iraq. The subject has only come up during conversations during normal meetings we attend from time to time with officials... We have never asked for 'contracts'."

Pull up a chair and enjoy this video. Humans generally refer to "sexual orientation" as which gender a man or woman prefers for a personal and sexual relationship. This Republican Representative has a "slightly" broader definition:

Apparently the only thing that will save us will also destroy us. Good job, Fox Noose!

Fuck Chase Bank!

If anyone has a Chase credit card please beware... Chase is raising monthly minimum payments from 2% to 5% effective August 1st.

Like the average American I owe 10K on a Chase credit card, so my minimum monthly payments just jumped from 200 dollars to 500 dollars per month. They roped me in with a low 3.99% offer. I usually paid a 3% minimum monthly payment anyway, but forcing you to pay an extra 300 bucks a month is a backbreaker.

Chase is asking for too much, too soon from the American consumer.

So I have done the balance transfer offer, will be closing accounts and changing my banks very soon. Then transfer my mortgage to anyone other than Chase. Chase has lost a customer and I suggest to everyone, do not deal with Chase.

This is how Chase pays back the American people after we bailed them out with TARP money!

Fuckers!

OUR YOUNG CANNOT SUSTAIN THESE DEPLOYMENTS!!

"At least 128 U.S. soldiers killed themselves last year... Through April, (2009) 91 soldiers had committed suicide."

15 months after Iraq bloodbath, young veteran takes his life On March 7, 2007, Army Spc. Trevor Hogue was inside his barracks in Baghdad, describing his morning on the battlefield. "I saw things today that I think will mess me up for life," Hogue typed to his mother, Donna, as she sat at her computer thousands of miles away from Iraq, in Granite Bay. That day the young soldier, whose assignment included driving a Humvee through perhaps the most dangerous ZIP code on the globe, saw his sergeant blown to pieces. He saw the bodies of half of the men in his platoon torn apart. Heads were cut off and limbs severed. It happened 30 yards in front of him, and he had never been so afraid, he told his mom. "My arms are around you," Donna Hogue wrote. "You'll be alright." But Hogue never really recovered. Last week, he committed suicide by hanging himself in the backyard of his childhood home. He was 24 years old. According to the Army, soldiers are killing themselves at the highest rate in nearly three decades, surpassing the civilian suicide rate for the first time since the Vietnam War. At least 128 U.S. soldiers killed themselves last year, a number that has risen four years in a row. The death toll could be even higher this year. Through April, 91 soldiers had committed suicide. Hogue's death, because it occurred after he was discharged, is not included in those statistics. But his friends and loved ones believe he was a casualty of war as much as any soldier on active duty. "You think that they are safe when they get back home," Donna Hogue said, tearfully reading printed messages that she and her son exchanged while he was at war. "They're not. The reality of the things that they experienced continues to haunt them."

I don't know what to say... As a disabled Veteran who suffers from PTSD and Bi-Polar disorder, everyday is a struggle. My condolences to the family of Trevor Hogue and all the other military families who have lost loved ones to suicide. I truly believe they were killed on the battlefield... they just didn't know it yet.

I live today with similiar questions... I have to constantly remind myself there are no easy answers but viable alternatives. I will take my medicine daily, give myself a chance and call a V.A. Doctor if I need help. I have a family who loves me and I will not hurt their feelings.

Unions at Fault?

Creditors May Have Pushed For Chrysler Bankruptcy To Rake In Bailout Cash -- Ryan Grim The White House, auto executives and union representatives were all able to come to an agreement last week to keep Chrysler out of bankruptcy. But the car company's creditors -- Wall Street banks and hedge funds -- refused repeated compromises and drove the company under. The refusal doomed a major American auto company to bankruptcy, but it may have been a smart business move for the lenders. Many of the Wall Street firms holding Chrysler bonds may also own credit default swaps that they bought to hedge their bets. These swaps, which are essentially like an insurance policy on the bonds should Chrysler default, were likely mostly issued by AIG. AIG, thanks to the government bailout, has paid off swaps in the past at 100 cents on the dollar. Under the deal they would have had to accept with Chrysler, the bondholders would have received as little as 30 cents on the dollar, for example. Why take 30 or 35 cents on the dollar from Chrysler when you can get the whole buck from the American taxpayer? "The basic story is very simple," says economist Dean Baker of the liberal-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research. "If they hold credit default swaps on the bonds, they're totally happy with them defaulting." In what would rank as one of the great scams of this financial crisis, government bailouts may be colliding. Wall Street may be raking in taxpayer dollars through AIG and returning the favor by driving the auto industry into bankruptcy...

The Pope's Hypocrisy

The speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, went to visit the Pope... he proceded to lecture her on the morals of abortion and assisted suicide.

The Vatican says the pope lectured Pelosi about abortion and assisted suicide. Pelosi says they talked about poverty and global warming -- and she showed him pictures of her grandchildren. "His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death," the Holy See said in a statement. Benedict emphasized that "all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society" should work to create "a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development."

Before he preaches about "natural moral law" he should have thought twice about reinstating neo-Nazi Bishop Richard Williamson. I know of no higher "natural moral law" than the lesson we learned from the Holocaust.

"On the Edge"

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts. It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated. Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what’s at stake — of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again. It’s hard to exaggerate how much economic trouble we’re in. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush-era housing bubble has set economic dominoes falling not just in the United States, but around the world. Consumers, their wealth decimated and their optimism shattered by collapsing home prices and a sliding stock market, have cut back their spending and sharply increased their saving — a good thing in the long run, but a huge blow to the economy right now. Developers of commercial real estate, watching rents fall and financing costs soar, are slashing their investment plans. Businesses are canceling plans to expand capacity, since they aren’t selling enough to use the capacity they have. And exports, which were one of the U.S. economy’s few areas of strength over the past couple of years, are now plunging as the financial crisis hits our trading partners. Meanwhile, our main line of defense against recessions — the Federal Reserve’s usual ability to support the economy by cutting interest rates — has already been overrun. The Fed has cut the rates it controls basically to zero, yet the economy is still in free fall. It’s no wonder, then, that most economic forecasts warn that in the absence of government action we’re headed for a deep, prolonged slump. Some private analysts predict double-digit unemployment. The Congressional Budget Office is slightly more sanguine, but its director, nonetheless, recently warned that “absent a change in fiscal policy ... the shortfall in the nation’s output relative to potential levels will be the largest — in duration and depth — since the Depression of the 1930s.” Worst of all is the possibility that the economy will, as it did in the ’30s, end up stuck in a prolonged deflationary trap. We’re already closer to outright deflation than at any point since the Great Depression. In particular, the private sector is experiencing widespread wage cuts for the first time since the 1930s, and there will be much more of that if the economy continues to weaken. As the great American economist Irving Fisher pointed out almost 80 years ago, deflation, once started, tends to feed on itself. As dollar incomes fall in the face of a depressed economy, the burden of debt becomes harder to bear, while the expectation of further price declines discourages investment spending. These effects of deflation depress the economy further, which leads to more deflation, and so on. And deflationary traps can go on for a long time. Japan experienced a “lost decade” of deflation and stagnation in the 1990s — and the only thing that let Japan escape from its trap was a global boom that boosted the nation’s exports. Who will rescue America from a similar trap now that the whole world is slumping at the same time? Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive. So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next. It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge. - Paul Krugman.

Time for a Spine

I am losing my patience with President Obama... quit kow-towing to everything GOP... they are not our friends... they will bury you if they get the chance... start going on the offensive. Please, get a spine!
From Theda Skocpol...

In response to what you are saying: Obama is, sadly, much to blame for giving the Republicans so much leverage. He defined the challenge as biparitsanship not saving the U.S. economy. Right now, he has only one chance to re-set this deteriorating debate: He needs to give a major speech on the economy, explain to Americans what is happening and what must be done. People will, as of now, still listen to him -- and what else is his political capital for? Speaking as a strong Obama supporter who put my energies and money into it, I am now very disillusioned with him. He spent the last two weeks empowering Republicans -- including negotiating with them to get more into Senate and his administration and giving them virtual veto-power over his agenda -- and also spending time on his personal cool-guy image (as in interview before the Super Bowl). The country is in danger and he ran for president to solve this crisis in a socially inclusionary way. He should be fighting on that front all the time with all his energies -- and he certainly should give a major speech to help educate the public and shape the agenda. That is the least he can and should do. Only that will bypass the media-conserative dynamic that is now in charge.

What do These Senate Republi-con Fools Have in Common?

Besides being male, Christian, white (sorry Martinez, you're about as Hispanic as Alberto Gonzales), right wing tools... they all voted against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.

A bill to amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and to modify the operation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, to clarify that a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice that is unlawful under such Acts occurs each time compensation is paid pursuant to the discriminatory compensation decision or other practice, and for other purposes.

Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hatch (R-UT) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Wicker (R-MS)

May your re-election loss come down to the women you refused to give equal pay too!

Top Stories of 2008?

The AP's Top 10 2008 stories:_1. U.S. ELECTION: Obama emerged from Election Night as a decisive victor and a symbol for the world of America's democratic promise. But he reached that point only after a grueling battle with Clinton for the Democratic nomination and then an often-nasty showdown with the McCain/Palin ticket in the run-up to the election. _2. ECONOMIC MELTDOWN: The bad news kept coming — collapses of Wall Street giants; huge stock market losses; plummeting home prices and a surge of foreclosures; desperate times for U.S. automakers. It added up to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and will cost the federal government well over $1 trillion in various rescue and stimulus packages. _3. OIL PRICES: The global economic angst produced hyper-volatile energy markets. The price of crude soared as high as $150 a barrel in July before crashing to $33 this month. In the U.S., the average price for a gallon of regular gas peaked at $4.11, then plunged below $1.70. _4. IRAQ: The much-debated "surge" of U.S. troops helped reduce violence after more than five years of war, but Iraq is still buffeted daily by bombings, ambushes, kidnappings and political uncertainty. A newly ratified U.S.-Iraqi security agreement sets a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal by 2012. _5. BEIJING OLYMPICS: China hosted the Olympics for first time, drawing praise for logistical mastery and condemnation for heavy-handed security measures. The games themselves were rated a success, highlighted by the record-shattering performances of swimmer Michael Phelps and sprinter Usain Bolt. _6. CHINESE EARTHQUAKE: A huge quake in May killed 70,000 people in Sichuan province and left 5 million homeless. Many thousands of children were among the victims — authorities said about 7,000 classrooms were destroyed in shoddily built schools. _7. SARAH PALIN: Few Americans outside Alaska knew much about its governor when Republican John McCain picked her as his running mate. That changed rapidly. To her conservative admirers, she was a feisty, refreshing change from most politicians; to her critics, she was in over her head, and worthy of all the lampooning she endured. _8. MUMBAI TERRORISM: Ten attackers allegedly sponsored by a Pakistan-based Islamic group terrorized India's financial capital in November, killing 164 people in coordinated attacks on hotels, markets and a train station. India's perennially uneasy relations with Pakistan were badly strained. _9. HILLARY CLINTON: She didn't win, but Clinton came closer than any other woman in U.S. history to becoming a major party's presidential nominee. Her determined primary campaign, waged vigorously even when it seemed a lost cause, inspired millions of women across the country — and helped persuade Obama to choose her as secretary of state. _10. RUSSIA-GEORGIA WAR: The two nations waged a five-day war in August ignited by a Georgian artillery barrage on the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Russia responded with a drive deep into Georgian territory, causing severe economic damage and aggravating already troubled Russia-US relations. Stories that almost made the Top 10 included Cyclone Nargis, which killed more than 84,000 people in Myanmar; Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, which wreaked deadly damage in the Caribbean and on the U.S. Gulf Coast; and the seesaw fate of same-sex marriage in California, where a court ruling approving it was later overturned by a ballot measure. Several write-in votes were cast for two developments that occurred too late to be included on the AP ballot — the indictment of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the efforts of struggling U.S. automakers to get a federal bailout. The alleged financial scam involving Bernard Madoff also was revealed too late to make the ballot...

Sarah Palin at 7? Maybe if you combine it with John McCain's failure to select a more qualified V/P pick.

I think the Environmental disaster in Tennessee should be in the top 10.

What are your top stories of 2008?

Plans tonight anyone? New Year Eve Open Thread.

Voter Suppression in Arizona

Yesterday, Mrs. Seven of Six and I voted early here in Arizona.

The Wife likes to get on me about my paranoia over voter suppression. Low and behold, "mi espousa", was almost ruled ineligible for voting because according to registration records, the year she was born didn't match her drivers license. She was born in 1957, somehow, in a week it miraculously changed to 1937. The thing is, last week I made sure to check, as per Anjha's orders, with the county recorders office to verify we were registered, at the time, all was copasetic.

The wife couldn't believe it, she told the fellow Hispanic female poll worker, "I've been voting in Arizona for 5 years now, all of a sudden there is a discrepancy with my date of birth?" I mumbled under my breath, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, "Voter Suppression!" The young poll worker made a call, then commented, "It must have been a typo." Right... we believe that.

Mrs. Seven was a little bit more pissed than usual. She ranted on, "What if I waited until election day to vote? Would they have been so kind as to make that phone call while hundreds waited in line?" Now my wife is convinced our Republi-con Secretary of State, Jan Brewer and Republi-con Maricopa County Recorder, Helen Purcell, are purging Hispanic Democratic voters from the rolls.

Then I pulled one of my high pitched Jon Stewart imitations, "Told you so!" She smacked me in the arm!

Cross posted at Low and Left Part Duex

Caption Contest

The Tongue Lasher!

Which man will be our next President?

Why can't I stop laughing... 7 of 6, get a hold of yourself!

"This is not a financial crisis... but a constitutional moment..."

From Stirling Newberry: (my highlights)

Let us speak of rights and reason. Of rights we have to begin from the final humiliation against a free people a proposal to grant dictatorial powers to an outgoing administration. In effect, the ability to hide all of the financial wrong doing of the last 8 years. However, what is important now is a solution. What we need now, is reason in action, as we already have reason to act... It would give Paulson not only the power to buy assets, but put terms in place which would make legal investigation of those arrangements impossible, and these contracts could not be questioned in a court of law. It is the Authorization for Use of Military Force, Protect America Act, and war spending votes all rolled into one. Having seen that it cannot assume the unitary executive since the Supreme Court rejected it, they are now turning to Article III to get a trembling Congress to accept it. There is a crisis, but there is no catastrophe. Even when the physical nexus of the financial world was directly attacked, there was no need for this kind of unlimited spending power. The outlines of that solution are beginning to be accepted. It is a simpler, and broader, solution than has yet penetrated the minds of the interiors of power, because it is not about how to pay for a clean up within a functioning system, but how to change the system itself. This is not a financial crisis in the end, as the Paulson Proposal shows, but a constitutional moment, where the very mandate of government is in play. Paulson wants the tax payer to be the fool of last resort, the group of people stupid enough to buy things that no one else on the planet is stupid enough to buy. We have reached the currency crisis which the election of 2000 implied would come. If we do not solve it now, it will only recur, in a worse form, soon enough. The gut reaction on the Paulson proposal is a resounding Hell No. The word reviled is not to strong...

Do We Really Trust bu$h To Have Carte Blanche... Again?

Why don't I trust the bu$h administration on their rush to rescue our financial giants? Could it be that we were blindly hurried into the Patriot Act... or was it the fast moving attack on Iraq... hell, it's really both. And both have been huge blunders. The bu$h administration has a record of screwing the pooch on way too many items over the years... and we are supposed to just let him have Carte Blanche?
More after selections of the N.Y. Times article.

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration on Saturday formally proposed a vast bailout of financial institutions in the United States, requesting unfettered authority for the Treasury Department to buy up to $700 billion in distressed mortgage-related assets from the private firms. The proposal, not quite three pages long, was stunning for its stark simplicity. It would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt. “This is a big package, because it was a big problem,” President Bush said Saturday at a White House news conference... Some Congressional Republicans warned Democrats not to overreach... The administration’s plan would allow the Treasury to hire staff members and engage outside firms to help manage its purchases. And officials said that the administration envisioned enlisting several outside firms to help run the effort to buy up mortgage-related assets...

You have got to be kidding me right? "...unfettered authority...?" Like Cheney? Like Rummy? Like "heck of a job" Brownie? Sorry, I've been down this road before... you're incompetent bu$h and so is your staff. If Paulson was so great why has the problem gotten so huge?

bu$h telling me it's a "big problem" does not ease my fears or bode well with me... I don't trust the man, a man I call "King Midas in Reverse!" I can sense a real rip off of the American people here, name one thing he has successfully done for U.S. citizens. Or better yet, reel off all the things bu$h and his cronies have benefitted from when they expedite policy at the expense of the American public.

"Some Congressional Republicans warned Democrats not to overreach..." WTF? Who the fuck are they to tell our Democratic congressional leaders "not to overreach..." I hope they "overreach" and finally protect the electorate from bu$hco.

"...the administration envisioned enlisting several outside firms to help run the effort to buy up mortgage-related assets..." This sounds like outsourcing of jobs and special contracts to me, ala Iraq. How much will this cost? Who will be doing the work? The same schmoes who were working on Wall St. and got us into this mess?

In conclusion, I don't trust a fucking thing bu$h proposes, especially when he is trying to ramrod a plan down the American public's throat. We've been screwed too many times before.

Of course I'm no economist, but Paul Krugman is and he agrees with me: No Deal.

I hate to say this, but looking at the plan as leaked, I have to say no deal. Not unless Treasury explains, very clearly, why this is supposed to work, other than through having taxpayers pay premium prices for lousy assets... Here’s the thing: historically, financial system rescues have involved seizing the troubled institutions and guaranteeing their debts; only after that did the government try to repackage and sell their assets. The feds took over S&Ls first, protecting their depositors, then transferred their bad assets to the RTC. The Swedes took over troubled banks, again protecting their depositors, before transferring their assets to their equivalent institutions. The Treasury plan, by contrast, looks like an attempt to restore confidence in the financial system — that is, convince creditors of troubled institutions that everything’s OK — simply by buying assets off these institutions. This will only work if the prices Treasury pays are much higher than current market prices; that, in turn, can only be true either if this is mainly a liquidity problem — which seems doubtful — or if Treasury is going to be paying a huge premium, in effect throwing taxpayers’ money at the financial world. And there’s no quid pro quo here — nothing that gives taxpayers a stake in the upside, nothing that ensures that the money is used to stabilize the system rather than reward the undeserving. I hope I’m wrong about this. But let me say it again: Treasury needs to explain why this is supposed to work — not try to panic Congress into giving it a blank check. Otherwise, no deal.

"(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)"

With a big hat tip to iamcoyote, the republi-con hyprocisy is in high gear. (my highlights)

MINNEAPOLIS-- As residents of New Orleans were fleeing Hurricane Gustav, top Republican party officials donned pink boas and swigged vodka shots at a wild whirl of corporate and lobbyist-paid parties this weekend in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Many corporate sponsors and their lobbyists carried through with plans for lavish entertainment of GOP lawmakers and others despite calls from the campaign of Sen. John McCain that Republicans should tone down the convention festivities. "We will be contacting corporations and others to ask them to be respectful of events in the gulf," McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said Sunday afternoon. Yet, last night lobbyists for the National Rifle Association, Lockheed Martin and the American Trucking Association put on a raucus six-hour party at a downtown bar featuring music by the band "Hookers and Blow." There was no evidence of any actual prostitutes or cocaine.

No night off for these republi-con party animals... I'm convinced they were glad the convention got curtailed by an act of God!

And yes, after what this country has been put through for the last 8 years, I'm an intolerant liberal blogger.

One observant Democratic challenger was ready to go... as pointed out by DvilleDem at Daily Kos.

Congressman Bill Shuster (R-PA), a GOP House deputy whip, was seen meeting with a group of lobbyists, who bemoaned McCain's call to tone down the parties which had already been paid for... On the Sept. 1st Broadcast of ABC’s World News Tonight however, the Congressman can be seen arguing with reporters, fighting for his right to party. Shuster’s opponent in the 9th Congressional district Tony Barr made the following statement. "We are saddened but not really all that shocked. At a time when the citizens of the Gulf Coast and literally running for their lives, and citizens here in the 9th District are feeling the pinch of an economy floundered by the policies of George Bush and Bill Shuster, where is our Congressman? Holding court with lobbyists who advocate the same failed polices that got us into this mess in the first place. At a time when drugs and drug related crime are the scourge of our streets, there’s Bill Shuster, partying with "hookers and blow!"

I can't wait for the pictures of this party.

UPDATE: Now we know why ATA was supporting a republi-con convention party. ATA (American Trucking Association) will support higher fuel taxes. The bastards...

That I live in a country that even considers using such evil technology is one thing that keeps me up at night:

Air Force touts laser weapon’s “who, us?” feature by John Murrell I know I’m just a crazy, naive idealist, but dammit, it still bothers me to see the U.S. military promoting a new weapon technology on the basis that it makes it easier for the government to lie. In PowerPoint presentations to technical audiences about the aircraft-mounted Advanced Tactical Laser (affectionately known as the “long-range blowtorch”), Air Force representatives like to include a slide listing the many advantages it has over conventional weapons. A briefing given to the 2007 Air Armament Symposium by the head of the Air Force’s Capabilities Integration Directorate lists the following benefits of the laser weapon: “Ultra-precision target engagement; speed of light engagement; reduced collateral damage; scalable effects; covert — plausible deniability; improved ISR supporting BMC4I; encompasses entire kill chain.” Back up a little to “plausible deniability.” The same advantage shows up on slide in a June briefing given to the New Mexico Optics Industry Association by Cynthia Kaiser, chief engineer of the US Air Force Research Laboratory’s Directed Energy Directorate. Plausible deniability is, of course, the slightly more polite way of saying we could use this thing, lie about it, and nobody could prove otherwise. As John Pike, analyst with defense think-tank Global Security, puts it, “The target would never know what hit them. Further, there would be no munition fragments that could be used to identify the source of the strike.” The less advantageous flip side of this, of course, is that if anything in the world ever gets blown up by a mysterious and intense heat source, we will be blamed and all denials will be deemed implausible. The precision, scalability and reduction of collateral damage claimed for this technology are impressive. Shame they didn’t include a moral compass in the specs.

It's True... Very, Very True

I heard on the radio about new prisons being built in Saudi Arabia to take the place of GITMO. I really thought I was hearing things but after searching the internet it's true: (my highlights)

Saudi Arabia is to build five modern prisons in the kingdom to replace US Guantanamo detention facility, a new report has revealed. Jordanian daily quoted unnamed sources as saying that US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Saudi officials are cooperating to construct the prisons which are to replace Guantanamo and US secret prisons in Europe. Riyadh is to spent about two billion Saudi Rials for the project which can accommodate up to 18000 inmates, they added. Bin laden firm and with the help of German engineers will build the prisons in the Saudi cities of Mecca, Haer, Demmam, and Qasim. The US has been under pressure due to violating individual rights in its detention camps in Europe and Guantanamo Bay. UN human rights investigators have urged the White House to shut down the Guantanamo camp.

Does anyone else find it ironic that the U.S. is doing business with the Bin Laden family construction firm?

I guess it's a relief to know that Halliburton did not get the contract!