City of Sacramento

Transcription

City of Sacramento

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2011-11-29 17:18
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City of Sacramento
LEGISLATIVE BODIES
REQUEST TO SPEAK
COMPLETE THIS FORM AND RETURN TO THE CITY CLERK
MEETING DATE: Anyentherm,20ii
COMMENTS MAY BE LIMITED TO A SPECIFIED TIME ALLOTMENT
0 Matters LISTED on the Agenda
Agenda Item No:
EilMatters NOT Listed on the Agenda
Subject: Brown Act - Ethical obligation
to follow the PUBLISHED AGENDA
Subject:
CAL. GOV . CODE § 54954.2 (a)(1)
Citizen exhibits included in public record
In Favor
In Oppose
Personal Information:
Except for your name, the information requested below is voluntary and used by staff to contact you if
necessary. When you request to speak before the legislative body, your name is included in the City's
official minutes.
Name: David Jenest
Address: 1818 H Street *1
Organization/Business Name: Citizens Community Watch - Crimewatch
Council District No.: 3
Phone: (916 )448-2619
(12 Not a City Resident
Email: [email protected]
NOTICE TO LOBBYISTS: In compliance with City Code Section 2,15.150 you
MUST identify yourself as a lobbyist and also verbally identify the client(s), business or
organization you are representing.
I am a
U Registered Lobbyist
°Unregistered Lobbyist and I represent:
11/29/2011
Council
Matters Not
On the Agenda
Dawn Bullwinkel
Subject:
Attachments:
FW: An apology and shared disappointment
Consent-11-22-11.pdf
From: Shirley Concolinq
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 9:33 AM
To: Dawn Bullwinkel
Subject: FW: An apology and shared disappointment
FYI
Complaint about last week's meeting He submitted after we'd adopted consent calendar ....
From: ILee Muller
Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2011 9:54 PM
To: John F. Shirey; Shirley Concolino; Amy Williams
Subject: FW: An apology and shared disappointment
FYI
From: National Public Safety Team [webmaster©npsthub.net ]
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2011 9:54 PM
To: NPST Chief Don Holton; LEO - J Mraz; JOSEPH SULLIVAN; IGU - Lori Wexler; Mike Sarkisian; 'NPST- Bret Daniels';
Rich Cable; Thomas M. Hogan, Esq; Undisclosed Recipients
Cc: ILee Muller; Angelique Ashby; Sandy Sheedy; Mayor Johnson; Jay Schenirer; Ronald Fong; Kevin McCarty; Darrell
Fong; Bonnie Pannell; Andrew Pettit; Rick Braziel; Lisa Nava; Jessica Equihua
Subject: An apology and shared disappointment
I must apologize to Bret, Mike, my neighbors, NPST and Crimewatch members who had contributed to the presentation
we intended to make at tonight's council session. While I'm at it, I should express my concern and disappointment that
th
emails to the Mayor and Council sent on October 14 th and 17 have gone unanswered.
For six or more weeks, we've been experiencing many residents arriving to speak on matters not on the agenda at the
beginning of Council Sessions. This usually takes from 20 to 45 minutes. For those of us who work later than 5pnn and
others who commute, that works in our favor.
Honestly, I did not anticipate City Council not following the published agenda and taking the Consent Calendar out of
order. That resulted in our being unable to arrive on time to make our presentation on items 5 through 7.
Lisa Nava, District Director for our representative Councilnnember Rob Fong confirmed: "We are happy to make sure
Councilmember Fong sees your email prior to the Council meeting this evening." I had earlier given Mr. Fong a heads up
about our hope for a dialogue tonight. I closed with this request:
"Mr. Fong, the last time I appeared before council, I asked for a report back on SPD sworn officer staffing levels
over the last decade. As our representative now and as has Mr. Cohn in the past, please support this request."
I have attached the overheads that would have been used. Perhaps Councilmember Fong will honor our request on
police staffing and the still outstanding Rental Housing Inspection Program report back.
The People, not government, should have the last word. If we don't take a stand, invite debate and demand answers, we shall become subjects of
tyranny. The Legislature made it Law! The Voters of California by 83% initiative affirmed it! "The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to
the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people
to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist they may retain control over the instruments they have created.". -
1
David Jenest
1818 H Street Unit 1
Sacramento, CA 95811-2146
(916) 448-2619 (Center Hotline)
(888) 848-2619 (Toll Free Hotline)
(916) 690-9954 (Cell)
(916) 444-0935 (Fax)
2
(a) (1) At least 72 hours before a regular meeting, the
54954.2.
legislative body of the local agency, or its designee, shall post an
agenda containing a brief general description of each item of
business to be transacted or discussed at the meeting, including
items to be discussed in closed session. A brief general description
of an item generally need not exceed 20 words. The agenda shall
specify the time and location of the regular meeting and shall be
posted in a location that is freely accessible to members of the
public. If requested, the agenda shall be made available in
appropriate alternative formats to persons with a disability, as
required by Section 202 of the Americans with Disabilities Act of
1990 (42 U.S.C. Sec. 12132), and the federal rules and regulations
adopted in implementation thereof. The agenda shall include
information regarding how, to whom, and when a request for disability
related modification or accommodation, including auxiliary aids or
services may be made by a person with a disability who requires a
modification or accommodation in order to participate in the public
meeting.
City of Sacramento
LEGISLATIVE BODIES
REQUEST TO SPEAK
MEETING DATE:
COMMENTS MAY BE LIMITED TO A SPE/CIFIED TIME ALLOTMENT
U Matters LISTED on the Agenda
Matters
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Subject:
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LEGISLATIVE BODIES
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Pay
Demolition Man Plot and Cast I Movies.com
1. .A1
Page 1 of 1
D'P44 ?VG"
Watch It
On DVD: Nowl On Blu-ray: Now
O_0
O
Demolition Man Details
•
•
•
•
•
Rated:
Runtime: 1 hr. 54 min.
Genres: Sci-Fi Action, Science Fiction, Action
Director:Marco Brambilla
Cast:Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, Nigel Hawthorne, Benjamin Bratt.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Main
Details
News
Trailers + Clips
Photos
Reviews
DVD
FULL SYNOPSIS
The plot of this action film begins in 1996, with Los Angeles in a violence-crazed conflagration. One of the
LAPD's most notorious cops, John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone), known as "the demolition man," is in hot
pursuit of blonde-haired psychopath Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes), who is so nasty he even kills sometimes
just because he feels cranky. John captures Simon, but not before Simon kills innocent hostages. John is blamed
for the deaths of the hostages, and both he and Simon are cryogenically frozen to remove their brand of ultraviolence from a society that is simply just too violent. The film shifts to the future world of 2032, where Los
Angeles has become a megalopolis called San Angeles. There is no poverty, Arnold Schwarzenegger was (at
one time) president of the United States, and Taco Bell is the sole survivor of the Franchise Wars. Into this
peaceful and bland society, Simon is summarily defrosted by reigning benevolent dictator Dr. Cocteau (Nigel
Hawthorne) to have Simon murder Edgar Friendly (Denis Leary), the leader of a group of underground rebels.
But Cocteau bites off more than he can chew when the melted-down Simon proceeds to go on a murder-andlooting spree. Reluctantly, Cocteau defrosts John to hunt down his old adversary. As John adjusts to self-driving
cars and having sex wearing helmets, he pairs up with Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock), a bored cop with a
nostalgic fascination for 20th-century culture. — Paul Brenner, Rovi
http://www.movies.comidemolition-man/details/m31667
11/29/2011
November 29, 2011
We were a little bit misguided when we asked for you to join us because the people
we should have been talking to are the Police Officers. They are also the 99%, so I submit to
them this, "Call to Action."
This, "Call to Action," is for every Police Officer in every city and every state to fight with us
and join us instead of arresting us and this is why; how many jobs have your brother and sisters
lost due to the Deregulation of Wall Street, the Bush tax cuts, and the Budget Cuts? If the
Corporations, the Republicans in the Capitol that would not let us vote to extend the taxes that
Schwarzenegger put in place, the Republicans on the Super Committee, Boehner, Cantor, and
McConnell get their way, more of your jobs are going to be cut. Our Police Department that is
supposed to, "Serve and Protect" us will be privatized. Just like they did to our military by
hiring Blackwater USA Contractors, (contractors is the politically correct way of saying,
mercenaries).
When we teach our children their history; we teach them about people whom we admire. Not,
people, who shirk their duties or flinch at the face of adversity. We teach them about people
whom we admire with courage and conviction. People who have fought and some died to make
this country what it was, not that many years ago. Just like our Heroes, before us, we have picked
our battle ground and we will not give in or give up until we have won. So, I appeal to you, look
into your Hearts and do what you know is right. Join us, fight with us in our, "Fight for Main
Street and not Wall Street!"
Thank You,
WAL*MART
the high cost of low prices
www.bravenewfilms.org
IRAQ FOR SALE
THE WAR PROFITEERS
iraqforsale.org/ or www.bravenewfilms.org
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
—George Santayana
Table of Contents
Section
Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion
1
Occupy Wall St
2
Police Arresting Lady Liberty
3
Prescott Bush, And The Golden Age Of War Profiteering
.4
10 Points of Modern Day Conservative Malfeasance (mal fe' zans)
5
New Poll Shows Republicans Have It All Wrong With Social Security
6
WHY AMERICA IS SEVERELY BROKEN
7
18 Newt Gingrich Quotes That Disqualify Him From Ever Being President
8
Herman Cain's Implausible 2012 Election Run: From Pizza Magnate to GOP Candidate
.9
Koch Lobbyist: Tea Party Designed to Elect GOP
.10
Dramatic Carbon Emission Reduction Goals Targeted By Koch Brothers
.11
Report: The Kochs, A Nazi Past, Oil & The Foundation of the Right
.12
What our Declaration really said
.13
20 Historical Facts That Republicans Distort Or Just Get Plain Wrong
14
14 Propaganda Techniques Fox "News" Uses to Brainwash Americans
15
From Zero to 20,000 On Wall Street
16
Rick, Romney, and the Country Club Republicans
17
Posted Prices and the Capitol Hill Stalemate Machine
18
THE SMART GIFT FOR YOUR INTELLIGENT FRIENDS
19
Seek Justice; Defend the Oppressed. Isa.1.17
20
Veterans stand between police and the people at #OccupyOakland
.21
Bank Of America Mortgage Modification Class Action Lawsuit
22
WHO INCREASED THE DEBT?
23
THERE ARE MORE THAN 4 PEOPLE UNEMPLOYED
24
These Gopers *Voted to Raise the Debt Limit 19 Times Under Bush
25
The only word these corporations know is more
26
Love one another, care for the sick and dying
27
A Pastoral letter to Congress: Super Committee failure is an opportunity to change course
28
Spartan King Leonidas
29
CC
r:
lii
Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion - Bloomberg
Page 1 of 12
Bloomberg
Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion
By Beth Ivry, Bradley Keonn and Phil Kuntz -:Nov 27, 20 I I
Bloomberg Markets Magazine
The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest
bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.
The Fed didn't tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2
trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn't mention that they took tens of
billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms
were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of
income by taking advantage of the Fed's below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports
in its January issue.
Saved by the bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the
Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more
money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.
httn://www.bloomberg.cominews/nrint/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-conar...
11/28/2011
Page 3 ot 12
'Motivate Others'
JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon told shareholders in a March 26, 2010, letter that his
bank used the Fed's Term Auction Facility "at the request of the Federal Reserve to help motivate
others to use the system." He didn't say that the New York-based bank's total TAF borrowings were
almost twice its cash holdings or that its peak borrowing of $48 billion on Feb. 26, 2009, came
more than a year after the program's creation.
Howard Opinsky, a spokesman for JPMorgan (JPM), declined to comment about Dimon's
statement or the company's Fed borrowings. Jerry Dubrowski, a spokesman for Bank of America,
also declined to comment.
The Fed has been lending money to banks through its so- called discount window since just after
its founding in 1913. Starting in August 2007, when confidence in banks began to wane, it created a
variety of ways to bolster the financial system with cash or easily traded securities. By the end of
2008, the central bank had established or expanded 11 lending facilities catering to banks,
securities firms and corporations that couldn't get short-term loans from their usual sources.
'Core Function'
"Supporting financial-market stability in times of extreme market stress is a core function of
central banks," says William B. English, director of the Fed's Division of Monetary Affairs. "Our
lending programs served to prevent a collapse of the financial system and to keep credit flowing to
American families and businesses."
The Fed has said that all loans were backed by appropriate collateral. That the central bank didn't
lose money should "lead to praise of the Fed, that they took this extraordinary step and they got it
right," says Phillip Swagel, a former assistant Treasury secretary under Henry M. Paulson and now
a professor of international economic policy at the University of Maryland.
The Fed initially released lending data in aggregate form only. Information on which banks
borrowed, when, how much and at what interest rate was kept from public view.
The secrecy extended even to members of President George W. Bush's administration who
managed TARP. Top aides to Paulson weren't privy to Fed lending details during the creation of
the program that provided crisis funding to more than 700 banks, say two former senior Treasury
officials who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak.
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Page 5 of 12
"I believe that the Fed should have independence in conducting highly technical monetary policy,
but when they are putting taxpayer resources at risk, we need transparency and accountability,"
says Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.
Judd Gregg, a former New Hampshire senator who was a lead Republican negotiator on TARP, and
Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who chaired the House Financial Services Committee,
both say they were kept in the dark.
"We didn't know the specifics," says Gregg, who's now an adviser to Goldman Sachs.
"We were aware emergency efforts were going on," Frank says. "We didn't know the specifics."
Disclose Lending
Frank co-sponsored the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, billed as a
fix for financial-industry excesses. Congress debated that legislation in
2010
without a full
understanding of how deeply the banks had depended on the Fed for survival.
It would have been "totally appropriate" to disclose the lending data by mid-2009, says David
Jones, a former economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York who has written four books
about the central bank.
"The Fed is the second-most-important appointed body in the U.S., next to the Supreme Court,.and
we're dealing with a democracy," Jones says. "Our representatives in Congress deserve to have this
kind of information so they can oversee the Fed."
The Dodd-Frank law required the Fed to release details of some emergency-lending programs in
December
2010.
It also mandated disclosure of discount-window borrowers after a two- year lag.
Protecting TARP
TARP and the Fed lending programs went "hand in hand," says Sherrill Shaffer, a banking
professor at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and a former chief economist at the New York
Fed. While the TARP money helped insulate the central bank from losses, the Fed's willingness to
supply seemingly unlimited financing to the banks assured they wouldn't collapse, protecting the
Treasury's TARP investments, he says.
"Even though the Treasury was in the headlines, the Fed was really behind the scenes engineering
it," Shaffer says.
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1-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congr... 11/28/2011
Page 7 of 12
"Had people known about the hundreds of billions in loans to the biggest financial institutions,
they would have demanded Congress take much more courageous actions to stop the practices that
caused this near financial collapse," says Dorgan, who retired in January.
Getting Bigger
Instead, the Fed and its secret financing helped America's biggest financial firms get bigger and go
on to pay employees as much as they did at the height of the housing bubble.
Total assets held by the six biggest U.S. banks increased 39 percent to $9.5 trillion on Sept. 30,
2011,
from $6,8 trillion on the same day in 2006, according to Fed data.
For so few banks to hold so many assets is "un-American," says Richard W. Fisher, president of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. "All of these gargantuan institutions are too big to regulate. I'm in
favor of breaking them up and slimming them down."
Employees at the six biggest banks made twice the average for all U.S. workers in
2010,
based on
Bureau of Labor Statistics hourly compensation cost data. The banks spent $146.3 billion on
compensation in 2010, or an average of $126,342 per worker, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg. That's up almost 20 percent from five years earlier compared with less than 15 percent
for the average worker. Average pay at the banks 'in
bailouts.
2010 was
about the same as in 2007, before the
'Wanted to Pretend'
"The pay levels came back so fast at some of these firms that it appeared they really wanted to
pretend they hadn't been bailed out," says Anil Kashyap, a former Fed economist who's now a
professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. "They shouldn't be
surprised that a lot of people find some of the stuff that happened totally outrageous."
Bank of America took over Merrill Lynch 8E Co. at the urging of then-Treasury Secretary Paulson
after buying the biggest U.S. home lender, Countrywide Financial Corp. When the Merrill Lynch
purchase was announced on Sept. 15, 2008, Bank of America had $14.4 billion in emergency Fed
loans and Merrill Lynch had $8.1 billion. By the end of the month, Bank of America's loans had
reached $25 billion and Merrill Lynch's had exceeded $6o billion, helping both firms keep the deal
on track.
Prevent Collapse
Wells Fargo bought Wachovia Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. bank by deposits before the 2008
acquisition. Because depositors were pulling their money from Wachovia, the Fed channeled $50
littp://www.bloornberg.com/news/print/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-corigr.. . 11/28/2011
Page 9 of 12
Lobbying expenditures by the six banks that would have been affected by the legislation rose to
$29.4 million in 2010 compared with $22.1 million in 2006, the last full year before credit markets
seized up -- a gain of 33 percent, according to OpenSecrets.org , a research group that tracks money
in U.S. politics. Lobbying by the American Bankers Association, a trade organization, increased at
about the same rate, OpenSecrets.org reported.
Lobbyists argued the virtues of bigger banks. They're more stable, better able to serve large
companies and more competitive internationally, and breaking them up would cost jobs and cause
"long-term damage to the U.S. economy," according to a Nov. 13, 2009, letter to members of
Congress from the FSF.
The group's website cites Nobel Prize-winning economist Oliver E. Williamson, a professor
emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, for demonstrating the greater efficiency of large
companies.
'Serious Burden'
In an interview, Williamson says that the organization took his research out of context and that
efficiency is only one factor in deciding whether to preserve too-big-to-fail banks.
"The banks that were too big got even bigger, and the problems that we had to begin with are
magnified in the process," Williamson says. "The big banks have incentives to take risks they
wouldn't take if they didn't have government support. It's a serious burden on the rest of the
economy."
Deane says his group didn't mean to imply that Williamson endorsed big banks,
Top officials in President Barack Obama's administration sided with the FSF in arguing against
legislative curbs on the size of banks.
Geithner, Kaufman
On May 4,
2010,
Geithner visited Kaufman in his Capitol Hill office. As president of the New York
Fed in 2007 and 2008, Geithner helped design and run the central bank's lending programs. The
New York Fed supervised four of the six biggest U.S. banks and, during the credit crunch, put
together a daily confidential report on Wall Street's financial condition. Geithner was copied on
these reports, based on a sampling of e- mails released by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
At the meeting with Kaufman, Geithner argued that the issue of limiting bank size was too complex
for Congress and that people who know the markets should handle these decisions, Kaufman says.
http://www.bloomberg.cominews/print/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congr.. . 11/28/2011
LPUL.1CL
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1,uarts uave Banks $13 Billion - Bloomberg
Page 11 of 12
Banks report the difference between what they earn on loans and investments and their borrowing
expenses. The figure, known as net interest margin, provides a clue to how much profit the firms
turned on their Fed loans, the costs of which were included in those expenses. To calculate how
much banks stood to make, Bloomberg multiplied their tax-adjusted net interest margins by their
average Fed debt during reporting periods in which they took emergency loans.
Added Income
The 190 firms for which data were available would have produced income of $13 billion, assuming
all of the bailout funds were invested at the margins reported, the data show.
The six biggest U.S. banks' share of the estimated subsidy was $4.8 billion, or 23 percent of their
combined net income during the time they were borrowing from the Fed. Citigroup would have
taken in the most, with $1.8 billion.
"The net interest margin is an effective way of getting at the benefits that these large banks
received from the Fed," says Gerald A. Hanweck, a former Fed economist who's now a finance
professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
While the method isn't perfect, it's impossible to state the banks' exact profits or savings from their
Fed loans because -the numbers aren't disclosed and there isn't enough publicly available data to
figure it out.
Opinsky, the JPMorgan spokesman, says he doesn't think the calculation is fair because "in all
likelihood, such funds were likely invested in very short-term investments," which typically bring
lower returns.
Standing Access
Even without tapping the Fed, the banks get a subsidy by having standing access to the central
bank's money, says Viral Acharya, a New York University economics professor who has worked as
an academic adviser to the New York Fed.
"Banks don't give lines of credit to corporations for free," he says. "Why should all these
government guarantees and liquidity facilities be for free?"
In the September 2008 meeting at which Paulson and Bernanke briefed lawmakers on the need for
TARP, Bernanke said that if nothing was done, "unemployment would rise -- to 8 or 9 percent from
the prevailing 6.1 percent," Paulson wrote in "On the Brink" (Business Plus, 2010).
http://www.bloomberg.cpm/news/print/2011-11-28/secret-fecWoans-undisclosed-to-congr.. . 11/28/2011
o
Occupy Wall St.
Basically the banks are stealing our futures. We pay them so we can go to school. We
pay them for shelter. We die in wars for them. They destroy our environment, throw us
out our homes and they control the government. We cannot rely on government to
regulate them because they are the government. We live in an oligarchy. The good
news is more and more people realize this everyday. We are rising up to resist the
illegitimate corporate controlled government.
Details of upcoming actions coming soon. We are just getting started
Page 1 of 2
addictinginfo.org
http://www.addicti ng info.org/201 1/11 /26/prescotl-bush-and-t he-golden-a ge-of-war-proftteeri ng/
Prescott Bush, And The Golden Age Of War Profiteering
When the Remingtons, duPonts, Rockefeflers, Melions, J.P. Morgan, George
Herbert Walker, Samuel Bush and Prescott Bush, as well as other representatives
of America's corporate elite decided to overthrow the government of the United
States in 1934, they recruited retired Marine General Smedley Butler to lead it.
Butler was a two-time winner of the Medal of Honor, a man with a first-rate mind.
He intended from the outset to infiltrate the group and turn them in. He did so and
Congress held hearings, (the McCormack-Dickstein Hearings) headed by future
Speaker John McCormack.
The group had planned to replace President Franklin Roosevelt with someone
who would at first be called an "Assistant to the President" to take over the day-today operations of government. Remington would supply the arms, Smedley would
get the "bonus army"-a half million World War I veterans-to march on Washington
and Roosevelt would be shunted aside as Chancellor Hitler (much admired by
America's industrialists) had done to President Hindenburg in Germany.
The group intended to establish a Fascist regime that would send undesirables,
including the unemployed, the Jews and political opponents to concentration
and/or extermination camps.
Prescott Bush and his son, former President George
Herbert Walker Bush.
Portions of the coup were carried out. The group paid to "own" the editorial policy
of 25 major newspapers and sent fellow-plotters to help edit those papers.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce (co-founded by Samuel Bush) publicly proposed a plan to control "subversion" that would resemble the
Patriot Act of Bush's great-grandson's Presidency in 2001.
After General Butler collected names and details, he went public. The story was a sensation for a couple of days, but was quickly pushed
off the front pages by a "red scare"-stories of Communist infiltration of the IVVVV Union.
In the McCormack-Dickstein hearings, none of the powerful citizens involved in the plot was called to testify. They were above that sort of
thing.
Although Prescott Bush was a lowly tire salesman when he married Dorothy Walker, his fortunes had quickly improved. His father-in-law
George Herbert Walker elevated him to the vice-presidency of Brown Brothers Harriman, which financed exports of gold, steel, weapons
and people to Nazi Germany.
Bush ran Hamburg-American passenger line on which American Nazi sympathizers emigrated to Germany under the tutelage of a Nazi
"political director." Bush also helped organize and run UBC, a bank holding company that oversaw many of Hitler's worldwide
investments.
From tire salesman to Hitler's chief banker and exporter in America, Prescott Bush had come a long way by the time Hamburg-American
and UBC were confiscated by the U.S. government. Instead of being tried for treason, his name was kept out of the spotlight and he was
given 1.5 million dollars for his one share of stock in UBC.
',Five years after World War It, a Connecticut senator died. Prescott Bush who maintained residences in four different states ran for the
vacant seat and lost. Two years later another Connecticut senator died, and this time, Bush won.
He personally recruited Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president. He and his fellow war profiteers would be bitterly disappointed by
Eisenhower's warnings against the military-industrial complex... .but that was in the future.
Bush also pushed for Richard Nixon as Vice-President, and was a major donor to Nixon until well into the 1960's.
So there was a point in the 50's, when Prescott Bush must have felt like the king of the world:
• He had survived being implicated in a coup against a President of the United States.
• He had thrived even after the defeat of his major client, Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.
• He had avoided being tried for treason, though the Justice Department had considered it.
• Both the President and Vice-President of the United States were personally indebted to
him.
• His lawyer Allen Dulles was head of the CIA (and gave his boy George H.W. Bush a job.)
His business partner John Foster Dulles was Secretary of State.
• His business partner Averell Harriman was Governor of New York, later Ambassador to
http://www.addictinginfo.org,/2011/11/26/prescott-bush-and-the-golden-age-of-war-profit... 11/26/2011
Page 2 of 2
the Soviet Union.
• Best of all, wars were breaking out all over the globe.
It was the dawn of a golden age of war profiteering.
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•• • "There is no historic parallel that can be drawn, nothing compares with the accomplishments of the Bush family. No dictator or tyrant can
equal the suffering and destruction they have wrought on humanity, as they are not mere tyrants themselves, but the makers and
breakers of tyrants, the organizers and profiteers of war and death. They are not alone and solely responsible for creating the present day
military industrial complex, however since 1915 the Bush family has been directly involved in World War One and Two, the Korean War,
the Vietnam War, numerous CIA secret wars, the Gulf War, and now a "Never Ending War". The past four generations of this one family
have had a hand in promoting and profiting from most of the major wars that America has waged since the beginning of the industrialized
age." —Schuyler Ebbets, Globalresearch
"The Walker-Bush cabal's Nazi partners also helped finance—then profited from—the Auschwitz camp." —Chris Floyd
"Every great family has its scandal. The Bush family's scandal is that they funded Hitler and profited from the Holocaust." —John Loftus
"...newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather
of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war
machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his 'enemy national' partners." —John Buchanan
"...in 1942, the U.S. government seized the Walker-Bush Nazi assets under the Trading With the Enemy Act. But the well-connected clan
managed to bury the news in the back pages: brief mentions of the companies involved, but no names of the Establishment grandees
behind them. They also pulled strings to keep their American assets from being seized as well, even though the profits from these
enterprises were inextricably mixed with their Nazi loot. Prescott later cashed in these tainted assets for millions, a nest egg that helped
launch him into the Senate and his son and grandson into the White House." —Chris Floyd
"For six decades these historical facts have gone unreported by the mainstream U.S. media (except for the July 31, 1942 editions of the
New York Herald and Washington Post.) The essential facts have appeared on the Internet and in relatively obscure books, but were
dismissed by the media and Bush family as undocumented diatribes." —John Buchanan
http://digital-falcon.com/pipermail/toxickemail_digital-falcon.com/2005-September/000497.html
http://coat.naca/our_magazine/links/53/committee.html
http://www.carpenoctem.tv/cons/whitehouse.html
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazinellinks/54/bush.html
http://www.tarpley.net/bush2.htm
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd06102003.html
http://www.heatherwokusch.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=86
http://www.countercurrents.org/pringle110407.htm
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=EBB20061022&articleld=3558
Related posts:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/11/26/prescott-bush-and-the-golden-age-of-war-profit.. . 11/26/2011
Page 1 of 2
addictinginfo.org
http://www ,addictinginfo.org/2011/11/26/10-points-of-modern-day-coneeniative-malfeasancei
_
10 Points Of Modern Day Conservative Malfeasance
I often speak about my belief that the roots of modem conservatism back up to the run-up to
Ronald Reagan's inauguration in 1979. The only purpose for such comments is the need
to understand and rationalize the current depths of the American socio/political Right. After
Reagan's earlier failures in securing his party's nomination, he embarked a path of
Conservative thought manipulation unparalleled in our history. From newspaper columns to
radio shows, Reagan spoke the words that gave rise to his title of the 'Father of Modem
Conservatism.'
A nation that was "Left of Center for many years (post early 1960s), traversed through the
Nixon's (corruption) years, chugged through Ford's Administration, and landed squarely in
the camp of Ronald Reagan. It was then that faux conservatism became the seeds of the
GOP today.
Under Reagan the nation took a sharp turn right and has never shaken the 'Black Hole'
gravitational pull of a conservative abyss.
Under Reagan...
*Race-Relations became a political pawn for winning votes in the South. Hate Crimes increased exponentially during his administration.
Lee Atwater, the most influential Republican political operative of the 1980s and Reagan's campaign manager in 1980,
called Reagan's subtle approach to white backlash voters the `New Southern Strategy." 31 Atwater acknowledged in 1981
that the strategy had been designed to appeal to "the racist side of the [George] Wallace voter" without antagonizing other
Americans who might be offended by ugly Wallace-style racism. As Atwater explained, "You start out in 1954 by saying,
'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger'—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like 'forced
busing,' 'states' rights,' and all these things that you're talking about are totally economic things and a by-product of them is
[that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it... because obviously sitting around
saying, We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing and a hell of a lot more abstract than
'Nigger, nigger.
"s3 2
*Reagan, despite campaigning as a fiscal conservative, started the nation's slide into (deep) deficit spending and budget malfeasance.
(Chart through 2006)
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http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/11/26/10--points-of-modern-day-conservative-ma1feas.. . 11/26/2011
Page 2 of 2
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"His administration featured corruption and international intrigue that was harmful to the Eastern and the Western Hemispheres. Through
Intel operatives and para-military' thugs like Oliver North, Reagan sold arms to Iran, sold VVMD technology to Iraq and funded an
evil para-military organization in Central America.
His years in office were not only the direct opposite of conventional conservatism, Reagan appears very much like the dreaded, "bigspending social liberal," he so adroitly railed against. Think Progress : 10 Things Conservatives Do Not Want You to Know About
Reagan.
As the Father of Modem Conservatism and one who is consistently used as the conservative model for political aspirants, I assert that
Reagan is singularly responsible for the birth of today's social and political divides.
•
After Reagan's political operatives, Karl Rove and Roger Ailes moved the GOP to the precipice of political indecency; and the party fell
into the crevice. George H.W. Bush's operatives led directly to the methods of Rove with George W. Bush.
Let's take a look at 10 Points Of Conservative Malfeasance
1. A cacophony of Americans are rebelling against increasing taxes to the nations' wealthy. They watch as the middle class shrinks and
as the income gap grows further apart. Yet, they sit in bewildering quiet.
2. Grover Norquist, an unelected Washington operative (funded by the Koch's and other sources) forces through political pressure, the
majority of GOP politicians to sign a pledge against any form of tax increases.
3. The Supreme Court of the United States decided in favor of Citizens United, thus opening the flood gate for corporate 'money-inpolitics,' on a secret basis. The SCOTUS considered corporations as people and money as speech.
4. Birth of organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC (Koch Brothers and other Right-Wing Millionaire Donor's
Club) which craft legislation for Federal and State Legislators. Why would a legislator involve him or herself with legislation crafted by selfserving segment of the population? Money?
5. "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell. What about serving as a U.S. Senator singularly focused on doing what is best for the nation?
6. A Tea Party (including many in Congress) who wanted to refuse raising the nation's spending limit, thus failing to live-up to America's
responsibility in paying its international debt.
7. State Governors who embarked on passing immigration legislation that is backfiring on one noted southern state: Alabama. Item: The
recent arrest of a very Caucasian foreign auto industry executive assigned to the Mercedes-Benz assembly facility in state. I am certain
that was not the focus of the law.
B. Attacks on and efforts to dismantle any entity that supports Democratic voting blocks. (ACORN, Public Service Unions, NPR)
9_ Defunding Planned Parenthood, thus denying critical women's services during a depressed economy (caused by the GOP).
10. "Ninety-Nine percent" support for presidential policies while the president perpetrated two simultaneous wars and while lowering taxes.
Of course, GOP Malfeasance spreads far further than 10 points of fife, if you like add to the list!
Related posts:
http://www.addietinginfo.org/2011/11/26/10-points-of-modern-day-conservative-malfeas.. . 11/26/2011
Page 1 of 1
G3 addictinginfo.org
_.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011,110101/new-poll-shows-republicans-have-it-all-wrong-with-social-security/
New Poll Shows Republicans Have It All Wrong With Social Security
According to a new CNN poll, 80% of Americans think Social Security has been positive for
the country, including 70% of young adults and over 90% of senior citizens, the group who
benefit the most from the program. Half of those surveyed said they would be open for a fix in
the programs long-term issues, but the only negative from the survey came when it showed
that 113 of Republicans actually believe that Social Security is unconstitutional. With big
money coming from the radical right-wing money machine, that statistic is not surprising.
Republicans have waged an all out war on the countries most popular and successful
program, Social Security. The program currently has a $2.6 trillion surplus and can pay 100%
of its benefits out until 2037 and nearly 80% of its benefits out until 2057. The Republicans
spew out down right lies about the program on a daily basis, claiming that the program is
broke, out of date and as GOP Presidential hopeful Rock Perry says, a "Ponzi Scheme," All
of these terms are based on what the Republicans do best, scare people. Fear mongering is
one of the central points of conservative propaganda. The bigwigs in the GOP try to place blame on everyone, so each American feels like
they are out for themselves in a race to the finish line with every other American. Currently, only the first $106,000 of a persons income is
taxed for Social Security, so a person earning an income of $1 million dollars is only taxed on around 10% of their income, where
someone making $40 thousand a year is taxed on 100% of their income. Raising or eliminating the cap completely is the simple and
effective way at solving the long-term issue for Social Security, but the Republicans would rather privatize the program and put it into the
hands of Wall Street or better yet, just get rid it completely.
While Republicans continue to cement their stance on being the party of big business and for the wealthy, the new CNN poll finds that
Americans overwhelmingly want them to stay away from Social Security. The Republicans don't care much for programs that the poor and
elderly benefit from, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, because those people aren't the ones funding their campaigns. The big
money donors don't rely on these programs, so according to Republicans, who needs them? The 2012 elections are only a year away,
and if the GOP and its conservative base continue to blast these essential programs with false claims and tainted facts, the results of
those elections won't be as pretty as 2010.
Edited by Wendy Gittleson
Related posts:
Big Business Loopholes and Bipartisanship
Of Cabbages and Kings: It's Not That Obama's Naive; It's Just That the President's Not White
Santomm Mixes Rhetoric, Says Big Government Should Ban Same-Sex Marriage
http://www.addietinginfo.org/2011/10/01/new-poll-shows-republicans-have-it-all-wrong-w.. . 10/3/2011
S SEVEY'ELY BROKEN
This is Alice Walton
Alice liAraltoti is worth $211. illiori dollars,
ivhile almost half of the Employees at her
family's Walmart Stores are e igible for
Food .Stamps.
.Americ-43 Tax bayers are expected to make 'up.:1Mriat . shei
would have paid in taxes because she's a "Job Creator."
American Tax ayers are also expected to pay for her
Employee's Food Stamps because the jobs she creates
won't pay enough to get by
Is it really so much to ask the "Job Creators" in the USA
to try and get by on a few Billion dollars less so that
American Tax Payers don't have to foot the bill for their
Emp oyee's Food Stamps?
Page 1 of 2
addictinginfo.org
_
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/11/26/18-newt-gingrich-quotes-that-disqualify-him-from-ever-being-president/
18 Newt Gingrich Quotes That Disqualify Him From Ever Being President
Newt Gingrich is currently the leader of the Republican field of presidential
candidates. So it's only fitting that the quotes come out of the skeleton
closet. Here are more than a dozen quotes from Newt Gingrich that reveal
his lies, his arrogance, his hatred, and his hypocrisy and disqualify him from
ever being President.
1. "I'm not a natural leader. I'm too intellectual; I'm too abstract; I think too
much."
–Newt Gingrich, admitting that he's an intellectual elite incapable of leading.
2. "If the Soviet empire still existed, I'd be terrified. The fact is, we can afford
a fairly ignorant presidency now."
–Newt Gingrich, saying that it's okay for the President to be ignorant.
3. "The idea that a congressman would be tainted by accepting money from
private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument."
–Newt Gingrich, arguing that it's okay for politicians to be bought and paid
for.
Potential GOP Presidential Nominee Newt
Gingrich. Image from
http://www.salon.com/2010/07/24/this_week_crazy_newt_gingrich/
4. "Give the park police more ammo." –Newt Gingrich, responding to a reporter who asked what to do about the homeless a few days
after the police shot a homeless man in front of the White House.
5. "The problem isn't too little money in political campaigns, but not enough."
–Newt Gingrich on campaign finance reform.
6. "I have enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I'm doing it. I am now a famous person. I represent real
power."
–Newt Gingrich, blowing his own horn.
7. "Gingrich – Primary mission, Advocate of civilization, Definer of civilization, Teacher of the rules of civilization, Leader of the civilizing
forces."
– Newt Gingrich, blowing his own horn.
8. "The most serious, systematic revolutionary of modem times."
–Newt Gingrich, blowing his own horn.
9. "It doesn't matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say. There's no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn't matter
what I live."
–Newt Gingrich, saying we should do as he says, regardless of what he actually does.
10. "This is one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration. The more successful they've been at intercepting and stopping bad
guys, the less proof there is that we're in danger.... It's almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through
just to remind us."
–Newt Gingrich, at a book talk in Huntington, NY, April 2008, saying that Republicans should allow terrorist attacks on American soil to
remind us of the dangers in the world.
11. "Now, we don't get rid of it in round one because we don't think that that's politically smart, and we don't think that's the right way to go
through a transition. But we believe it's going to wither on the vine because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it — voluntarily."
–Newt Gingrich, admitting that while they won't kill Medicare outright, Republicans will try to make it wither on the vine and die.
12. "She isn't young enough or pretty enough to be the President's wife."
–Newt Gingrich, talking about his first wife after divorcing her.
13. "I read Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them and I found frightening pieces that related to...my own life."
–Newt Gingrich, talking about his problems with women.
14. "It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in child laws which are truly stupid.. .These schools should
get rid of unionized janitors, have one master janitor, pay local students to take care of the school."
–Newt Gingrich, advocating for an end to child labor laws so businesses can fire union workers and replace them with cheap labor.
15. "We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn
the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto."
–Newt Gingrich. Two years later, Gingrich unveils a new Spanish-language website, The Americano.
16. "The left-wing Democrats will represent the party of total hedonism, total exhibitionism, total bizarreness, total weirdness, and the total
right to cripple innocent people in the name of letting hooligans loose."
–Newt Gingrich, smearing Democrats when in fact it's Republicans who want to cripple innocent people. Remember when they cheered
for letting a man without health insurance die? And speaking of exhibitionism and bizarreness, have you seen the Republican Presidential
field?
17. "These people are sick. They are so consumed by their own power, by a Mussolini-like ego, that their willingness to run over normal
http://wwvv.addictinginfo.org/2011/11/26/18-newt-gingrich-quotes-that-disqualify-him-fr.. . 11/26/2011
Page 2 of 2
human beings and to destroy honest institutions is unending."
-Newt Gingrich, once again smearing Democrats, but telling the complete truth about himself and the GOP. Repubficans want to kill
Medicare and Social Security, the EPA, and several other honest institutions that serve normal human beings. Speaking of running over
normal human beings, remember when Republicans cheered for letting a man without health insurance die?
18. "I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to
be neat, obedient, and loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words."
-Newt Gingrich, advocating for hateful rhetoric and smearing opponents with lies.
Obviously, we could fill a book with many more quotes by Newt Gingrich, so putting them all here would make for a very long read.
Hopefully, just by reading these quotes, you will get a good idea of what kind of person and politician Newt Gingrich is. He is a hateful,
vile, nasty, despicable, hypocritical, arrogant man and he is personally and professionally unqualified to be President.
Related posts:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/11/26/18-newt-gingrich-quotes-that-disqualify-him-fr.. . 11/26/2011
' Herman Cain's Implausible 2012 Election Run: From Pizza Magnate To GOP Candidate
Page I of 6
Herman Cain's Implausible 2012 Election
Run: From Pizza Magnate To GOP
Candidate
HELEN O'NEILL 11/26/11 01:28 PM ET Associated Press 411
React
TALLADEGA, Ala. — He's a mathematician, a minister, a former radio talk show host
and pizza magnate. But most of all, Herman Cain is a salesman.
And how he sells.
"The sleeping giant called we the people' has awakened," Cain thunders, pacing the
stage in his trademark dark suit, brown fedora and "lucky" gold tie, delivering a rollicking,
45-minute performance that evokes an old-fashioned church revival, complete with cries
of "Amen" from his audience.
Whether it's selling his book or his presidential aspirations, this is Cain at his best,
grinning and joking and wooing a crowd, soaking in the adulation as he vows to lead the
cheering masses to a promised land of "less regulation, less legislation and less
taxation."
That's simplistic, of course. But so is Cain's message, and he makes no apologies for it.
"They want to confuse you with comp-lex-city," booms the self-styled "Hermanator,"
accentuating every syllable. "I want to lead you with sim-pli-city."
In the end, he takes no questions, sweeping off to his next stop to the tune of "Rock You
Like a Hurricane." His smile disarms everyone whose hand he shakes along the way.
"Is he for real?" asks 75-year-old Jean Waggoner, a longtime Republican activist from
Montgomery.
hup://www. huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/26/hennan-cain-2012-gop-candidacy n 111414... 11/26/2011
Herman Cain's Implausible 2012 Election Run: From Piz 7a Magnate To GOP Candidate
Page 3 of 6
he says, who taught him never to expect a government handout, never to feel like a
victim and to "stay out of trouble."
"Not all blacks in the '60s were activists," says Cain, who labels himself an "ABC —
American, black, conservative — and proud of it."
Graduating with a degree in math, he married college sweetheart Gloria Etchison and
went to work as a civilian mathematician for the Department of the Navy.
Dreaming of success in corporate America (he wanted to be president of "something ...
somewhere," he writes) he left to work as an executive, first for Coca-Cola and then
Pillsbury, eventually moving to its Burger King subsidiary in 1982.
Impressed by his performance, Pillsbury chose Cain in 1986 to revive the foundering
Godfather's Pizza chain, based in Omaha, Neb.
"As a boss, he was demanding but fair. And he worked harder than anyone else," says
longtime friend Spencer Wiggins, whom Cain first recruited as director of human
resources for Burger King and then cajoled into joining him at Godfather's.
"But Herman, it's in Omaha, man!" Wiggins protested.
Cain's response: "Sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone if you want to make a
difference."
Former employees says Cain blew into Godfather's like the hurricane depicted in his
campaign song, shutting about 200 underperforming stores and eliminating hundreds of
jobs. At Burger King, he had launched the "beamer" program, encouraging employees to
smile at customers. At Godfathers, he started SIN — Solve It Now, a rapid response
program to deal with customers complaints.
"He was genuine, warm, demanding and funny; he was the best leader I ever met in my
life," says Paul Baird, his regional manager in Seattle. "And he sounded like a preacher!
Everyone was like, who IS this guy?"
At Godfather's, Cain regaled employees with motivational speeches, often ending with
the same folksy anecdotes he tells in the campaign.
When he was a boy, his grandfather hooked mules to a wagon to bring a load of
potatoes to town. Grandkids were scampering all over the place, until they heard the old
man roar.
"Them that's going, get on the wagon! Them that ain't, get out of the way!"
The chant was to become a campaign mantra.
In 1988 when Pillsbury decided to sell Godfather's, Cain put together a group that bought
the chain in a leveraged buyout. He remained its chief until 1996 when he moved to
Washington to become CEO of the National Restaurant Association, a lobbying
organization.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/26/herrnan-cain-2012-gop-candidacy_n_111414.. . 11/26/2011
Herman Cain's Implausible 2012 Election Run: From Pizza Magnate To GOP Candidate
Page 5 of 6
Partly to stoke his political ambitions, Cain started a career as a talk-radio host, where he
honed many of the ideas that later formed his platform and developed a loyal following of
fiercely anti-Obama listeners, some of whom would later work for his campaign.
He also worked as a motivational speaker, most notably for Americans for Prosperity, the
conservative anti-tax and regulation group founded with the support of billionaire
brothers Charles and David Koch.
Cain makes no apologies for his ties to big money. In a recent speech he joked, "I'm the
Koch brothers' brother from another mother."
And then, in 2006, as Cain tells it, "God rocked my world."
Diagnosed with colon cancer that had spread to his liver, he says doctors gave him a 30
percent chance of survival. Many supporters thought it was the end — something Cain
refused to believe.
Sustained by his faith, Cain says, he took solace in signs like the fact the surgeon's
incision resembled a "J" — as in Jesus. After a year of treatment, Cain says, he was
declared cancer free and remains so today. God, he says, had another plan.
So with Gloria at his side, Cain announced his candidacy to cheering throngs in Atlanta
on May 21.
Initially, the political establishment paid little attention, deeming him a fringe candidate
more interested in promoting his book. It wasn't until Cain began leading in the polls that
he came under serious scrutiny.
With that scrutiny came problems.
Cain provoked outrage with some early comments, such as that blacks had been
"brainwashed" into voting for Democrats and that he would electrify a fence along the
U.S. border with Mexico. Later he said he was joking.
He seemed muddled on abortion, saying while he opposed it under all circumstances,
"the government shouldn't be trying to tell people what to do."
He incensed the Occupy Wall Street protesters and their supporters by saying, "If you
don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself."
His shaky grasp of foreign policy has astounded seasoned commentators. In one
interview he didn't understand a question about the "right of return" for Palestinians. In
another he seemed unaware that China has nuclear weapons. In a third, he drew a blank
when asked about the Obama administration's actions in Libya.
His catchy "9-9-9" tax plan — a 9 percent income tax, 9 percent corporate tax and 9
percent national sales tax — has been picked apart by experts as one that will shift more
of the tax burden to the middle and lower classes and drastically reduce revenue.
"It's not just he hasn't thought it out ... he's winging it," conservative columnist Charles
Krauthammer said on Fox News. "And that's a real problem."
httn://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/26/herman-cain-2012-gop-candidacy n_111414... 11/26/2011
Page 1 of 2
Veterans News Now
• Latest Fasts:
• Post-9/11 Counterterrorism Policies Pose Major Threat to American Freedom
• American Jobs Act Helps Vetarans Get Jobs
D Disaster Aid
Cuts to First Responders
an
• On 9/11 Anniversary Eve
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011 I Posted by Veterans News Now
Koch Lobbyist: Tea Party Designed to
Elect GOP
Like 41
2
5
Burning down the
house – Tea Party
Dream
By Lee Fang
This morning, blogger Brad Friedman, writing in Mother Jones and BradBlog, revealed a
set of audio tapes from the last major donor meeting convened by the billionaire Koch
brothers. There are a number of startling revelations from the scoop — but the opening
remarks from Kevin Gentry, a Koch Industries executive at the firm's DC lobbying office,
blow the cover off the many Tea Party efforts underwritten by the billionaires in the Koch
network of donors.
A Tea Party rally organized in party by Koch's
Americans for Prosperity
Gentry, who doubles as the official responsible for doling out Koch charitable grants,
admits privately what ThinkProgress and others have noted for years: Americans for
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2011/09/06/koch-lobhyist-at-secret-retreat-tea-party-de.. . 9/10/2011
Dramatic Carbon Emission Reduction Goals Targeted By Koch Brothers Achievable, Stu... Page 1 of 3
Graves
Lucia
luciahuffingtonpost.com
Become a fan of this reporter
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Dramatic Carbon Emission Reduction Goals
Targeted By Koch Brothers Achievable, Study
Finds
First Posted: 11/28/11 10:28 AM ET Updated: 11128/11 11:38 AM ET
React
WASHINGTON -- California's ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals may be imminently
achievable using available technologies, a new study finds, although the virtual elimination of
fossil fuel to generate electricity is required.
The widespread electrification of transportation and other sectors within 40 years is a key
requirement to meet emission reduction targets, with residents plugging their electrical cars into
decarbonized grids, according to the paper, published online Friday by the journal Science.
Electricity would largely replace petroleum usage, growing from 15 percent to 55 percent of enduse as petroleum would fall from 45 percent to 15 percent between 2010 and 2050, according to
modeling. Reaching greenhouse gas reduction targets would also require the phaseout of all coal
power plants at the end of their 30-year lifespans, leaving only CO2-producing power plants that
use carbon capture sequestration, a yet unproven technology.
At the heart of the study is how a large-scale economy can meet the goals first set forth in an
unprecedented clean air and renewable energy law, California's Global Warming Solutions Act of
2006 (AB 32), which requires the reduction of emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020 and sets
a target for an additional 80 percent reduction by 2050.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/20 1 1 /1 1 /28/dramatic-carbon-emission-reduction-goals-k...
11/28/2011
Dramatic Carbon Emission Reduction Goals Targeted By Koch Brothers Achievable, Stu... Page 3 of 3
"This study is meant to guide decisions about how to invest in our future. Assuming plausible
technological advances, we find that it's possible for California to achieve deep greenhouse gas
reductions by 2050," said Margaret Torn, the corresponding author of the paper and a staff
scientist in the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Relying on solar and wind would require significant investment in energy storage, like improving
battery power technology or transferring water uphill with excess energy then using it to generate
power when it runs downhill through a turbine at a later time.
It would also come at a net cost of roughly $65 billion per year by 2050 -- the equivalent of 1.3
percent of gross state product, if the price of oil continues to rise as expected. Such costs, authors
have noted, would be somewhat offset by reduced health care costs due to cleaner air as well as
green jobs.
"It isn't a matter of technology alone," said Williams in a statement. "R&D, investment,
infrastructure planning, incentives for businesses, even behavior changes, all have to work in
tandem. This requires policy, and society needs to be behind it."
httu://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/28/dramatic-carbon-emission-reduction-goals-k.. . 11/28/2011
V Report: The Kochs, A Nazi Past, Oil & The Foundation of The Right << Unknown
Page 7 of 8
neo-cons want nothing more than to dismantle government and install corporations. The neocons also
explicitly incorporate the usefulness of right wing movements such as religious groups.
The media, the right wing media, is not playing a game: they are serious. On the left we have
recently argued and collectively seem to have decided to believe right wing media is not serious - is
only manipulating fears for profit. This is a mistake: this collective belief. There is a chink in the
logic — right wing media does actually believes its message at the level of the populace, those who
deliver and receive the message - and powerful right wing advocates are also manipulating fears for
profit we cannot even imagine: global domination in total. I think in our current collective summary
of these political battles, we (on the left) are not fully recognizing the reality.
To refuse to protest this hatred is a strange choice by the left — to me. Does it imply a deep complicity
with the right's xenophobia? There are many Reagan democrats who never admitted it, democrats
who wanted a return to the colonial policies of Kennedy.
"Are Neocons & radical Islamists cut from the same fundamentalist cloth?": To a degree but there is
a 3rd element - the political agendas supported by the neocons created the radical Islamist so there is
a catch tangling everything. Both sides are a violent protest against multiplicity and pluralism. More
confusing, the neocons are Kennedy liberals: liberal policies before postmodernism. Half of the US
left finds itself in agreement with neocon sentiment, foreign policy, domestic policy - US
colonialism - the half not connected to or influenced by postmodern ideas in some way. This is also
an international rupture: You see the effect of this split in France - the 'postmodern' left opposed
to banning the burkha is about 1/4 of the population.
Politics and war are the deadly mixtures of extremists on both sides — their target is a postmodern
world. Humanity is faced with the problem that America's true colors are appearing, are not hiding.
And the left in America is faced with the result of 30 years on inaction, of refusing to get dirty.
Worse, the left has to admit Obarna so far is just a friendlier neoconservative. We know his real
politics are more left, but Obama seems to have abandoned his own ethic.
If the Tea Party takes over America I expect the FBI to begin raiding the homes of anti-war activists
and I would expect new legislation making it easier for the corporate government to censor the
internet and I would expect a continuation of the Patriot Act and the Bush Doctrine. I also expect a
wave of xenophobia spreading that will be tolerated by the silence of the new president - I did not
expect Obama to do it first.
Unless Obama's move to fire Emmanuel signals a return to a forceful presidency (only implied
during the election) then I am done voting or being a US citizen. After Obama, yes, it will only be
worse and the Koch brothers will own our lives, which is why the President needs to make a stand
and stop protecting his next campaign.
In this war of purity - purity fought for by both dedicated extremists of Islam, dedicated defenders
of American colonialism, dedicated defenders of American corporate interest, an angry xenophobic
populace, a mob of extremist Christians and others - divergent groups have become the pawns of a
much deeper fascism that will do anything to protect its industrial empire.
The false writing of universals, projected from within a dominant community out towards another
community, is destroying everything that exists in supposed strangeness. The protection of
multiplicity and cultural pluralism becomes the spine of the death or life of all cities.
toff r% •
ihmlIrrictlamintirnaI we-% rri
nre.cs cnm /20
1 0/1 0/06/ V -renort-the-kochs-their-nazi-past-ame... 9/10/2011
meport: m e &oens, A Nazi Past, Oil & The Foundation of The Right « Unknown
Page 1 of 8
V Report: The Kochs, A Nazi Past, Oil & The
Foundation of The Right
10/06/2010
tags: Americans for Prosperity, Buchenwald, Charles de Ganahl Koch, Chevron, Citizens for a Sound
Economy, David fl. Koch, David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, death camps, Democratic
Leadership Council, Erich Koch, forced labor, Fred G. Koch, General Plenipotentiary for Labour
Deployment, Hitler, use Kohler, Ilse Koch, John Birch Society, Karl Otto Koch, Koch Family
Foundations, Koch Industries, Libertarian Party, National Museum of Health and Medicine, Nazi
Germany, Neoconservatism, New York City Ballet, Reason Magazine, Republican, Tea Party,
Texaco, the American Petroleum Institute, the Heartland Institute, the libertarian Cato Institute, the
Manhattan Institute
by Damien Crisp
KOCH ILSE
29 7340
Notorious Nazis use Koch, her husband Karl Otto Koch and Erich Koch are the ghosts of Koch
Industries, who seized the U.S. conservative political agenda years ago and seem capable of seizing
the government in total through the Tea Party. Ilse Koch was the Nazi's specialist in making objects
from human skin; was the only woman charged with war crimes; and along with her husband was in
charge of one of the most horrific horror camps in Nazi Germany.
http://unIcnownjournal.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/ V -report-the-kochs-their-nazi-nast-ame... 9/1 fion
• .mcpurt: m
e Kocns, A Nazi Past, Oil & The Foundation of The Right « Unknown
Page 3 of 8
growing number. Before once more getting away himself, by escaping through this Baltic Sea
port on April 23, 1945, on the icebreaker OstpreuBen. He faced charges of war crimes for the
extermination of 400,000 Poles, but was never indicted for his crimes in Ukraine. He was
sentenced to death on March 9, 1959 by the district court in Warsaw for having planned,
prepared and organised the mass murder of civilians. Russians thought he possessed information
about art looted by the Nazis during the war.
Years after the war, Koch stood trial in Poland and was convicted in 1959 of war crimes and
sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment a year later.
Brother of Erich Koch, Karl Otto Koch
....(August 2, 1897 — April 5, 1945), a Standartenfiihrer (Colonel) in the German Schutzstaffel
(SS), was the first commandant of the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald. On August 1,
1937 he was given command of the new concentration camp at Buchenwald. Investigation into
his improper conduct at Buchenwald included corruption, fraud, embezzlement, drunkenness,
sexual offences and a murder. Koch's orders to kill prisoners at the camp were revealed, as well
as embezzlement of property stolen from prisoners.
Ilse Koch
Koch married use Kohler with whom he had a son and two daughters. Kohler later became
known as "The ***** of Buchenwald. She was accused of taking souvenirs from the skin of
murdered inmates with distinctive tattoos. She built an indoor sports arena, which cost over
250,000 marks, most of which were taken from the inmates arrested by the Gestapo for
embezzlement of SS funds and the murder of certain inmates in an attempt to cover up these
crimes.
She was tried for war crimes by an American military tribunal in 1947. Prosecuting her was
future United States Court of Claims Judge Robert L. Kunzig. She was charged with
"participating in a criminal plan for aiding, abetting and participating in the murders at
Buchenwald." The tribunal found Koch guilty and sentenced her to life imprisonment.
After she had served two years, General Lucius D. Clay, the interim military governor of the
American Zone in Germany, pardoned her. Owing to international condemnation, however,
Koch was re-arrested in 1949 and tried before a West German court for instigation to murder in
135 cases. She was sentenced to life imprisonment on January 15, 1951. She committed suicide
by hanging herself at Aichach women's prison on September 1, 1967
Fred Chase Koch
....(September 23, 1900 — November 17, 1967) chemical engineer and founded the TEXACO oil
refinery firm that later became Koch Industries (Chevron). Koch and its customers were sued for
patent infringement, process for turning crude oil into gasoline. Litigation effectively put
Winlder-Koch out of business in the U.S. for several years. Koch turned his focus to foreign
markets, including the Soviet Union and NAZI GERMANY, reportedly with the help of ERICH
KOCH.
http://unknovvnjournal.wordpress. corn/2010/10/06/ V -report-the-kochs-their-nazi-past-ame... 9/10/2011
ikupuri: me miens, A Nazi Past, Oil & The Foundation of The Right « Unknown
Page 5 of 8
Kansas?" that "Koch money flowed through Triad Management Services", an advisory service
to conservative donors groups and candidates, for the 1996 Senate campaign of Sam
Brownback. Other sources only hint at a connection of Koch family members and Triad
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch Industries
Koch outspends Exxon on climate and clean energy disinformation
Although Koch intentionally stays out of the public eye, it is now playing a quiet but dominant
role in a high-profile national policy debate on global warming Koch Industries has become a
financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition. This private, out-of
sight corporation is now a partner to Exxon Mobil, the American Petroleum Institute and other
donors that support organizations and front-groups opposing progressive clean energy and
climate policy. In fact, Koch has out-spent Exxon Mobil in funding these groups in recent years.
http://climateprogress.org/20 10/03/3 1/report-koch-industries-outspends-exxon-mobil-on-climateand cl ean-energy-di sinformati on/
-
Another example of Republican ties to Koch Industries
(...) If convicted, the company faced fines of up to $352 million, plus possible jail time for
company executives. After George W. Bush became president, however, the US. Justice
Departmentdropped 88 of the charges. Two days before the trial, John Ashcroft settled for a
plea bargain, in which Koch pled guilty to falsifying documents. All major charges were
dropped, and Koch and Ashcroft settled the lawsuit for a fraction of that amount. Koch had
contributed $800,000 to the Bush election campaign and other Republican candidates.
http://wwvv.soureewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch Industries
Koch family timeline from yahoo answers
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20 1009 16180207AAR3QoK
A new article on Nazi skin lamps — NY Magazine
use Koch was the most notorious for, among other things, her objects made from the skin of
murdered prisoners.
http://nymag.com/news/features/67963/
Also from yahoo answers:
http://unknownjournal.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/ -report-the-kochs-their-nazi-past-ame... 9/10/2011
rage i or z
What our Declaration really said - The Washington Post
What our Declaration really said
By E.J. Dionne Jr., Published: July 3
Our nation confronts a challenge this Fourth of July that we face but rarely: We are at odds over the
meaning of our history and why, to quote our Declaration of Independence, "governments are
instituted."
Only divisions this deep can explain why we are taking risks with our country's future that we're usually
wise enough to avoid. Arguments over how much government should tax and spend are the very stuff of
democracy's give-and-take. Now, the debate is shadowed by worries that if a willful faction does not get
what it wants, it might bring the nation to default.
This is, well, crazy. It makes sense only if politicians believe — or have convinced themselves — that
they are fighting over matters of principle so profound that any means to defeat their opponents is
defensible.
We are closer to that point than we think, and our friends in the Tea Party have offered a helpful clue by
naming their movement in honor of the 1773 revolt against tea taxes on that momentous night in Boston
Harbor.
Whether they intend it or not, their name suggests they believe that the current elected government in
Washington is as illegitimate as was a distant, unelected monarchy. It implies something fundamentally
wrong with taxes themselves or, at the least, that current levels of taxation (the lowest in decades) are
dangerously oppressive. And it hints that methods outside the normal political channels are justified in
confronting such oppression.
We need to recognize the deep flaws in this vision of our present and our past. A reading of the
Declaration of Independence makes clear that our forebears were not revolting against taxes as such —
and most certainly not against government as such.
In the long list of "abuses and usurpations" the Declaration documents, taxes don't come up until the
17th item, and that item is neither a complaint about tax rates nor an objection to the idea of taxation.
Our Founders remonstrated against the British crown "for imposing taxes on us without our consent."
They were concerned about "consent," i.e. popular rule, not taxes.
The very first item on their list condemned the king because he "refused his assent to laws, the most
wholesome and necessary for the public good." Note that the signers wanted to pass laws, not repeal
them, and they began by speaking of "the public good," not about individuals or "the private sector."
They knew that it takes public action — including effective and responsive government — to secure
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Their second grievance reinforced the first, accusing the king of having "forbidden his governors to pass
laws of immediate and pressing importance." Again, our forebears wanted to enact laws; they were not
anti-government zealots.
Abuses three through nine also referred in some way to how laws were passed or justice was
administered. The document doesn't really get to anything that looks like Big Government oppression
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Page 1 of 3
addictinginfo.org
httpl/www.addictinginfo.org/2011/09/19/20-historical-facts-that-republicans-distort-or-just-get-plain-wrongi
20 Historical Facts That Republicans Distort Or Just Get Plain Wrong
We all know at least one person that doesn't know much about history. And we all know that there
have been people who have tried to distort history. The Republican Party, however, does both. Over
these last two years, Republicans have a made a real effort to distort history as much as possible, to
the point where they are now seeking to rewrite school textbooks. The Republican Party has bent
over backwards to present their own twisted version of history and it's starting to look like that one
requirement to be a Republican is to be ignorant of historical facts and events. Below is a list of the
many historical fads that Republicans have either distorted or have just gotten plain wrong along
with corrections of their errors.
1. Did Paul Revere Ride To Warn The British?) Sarah Palinz made the dubious claim that Paul
Revere actually warned the British instead of the American colonists. Her supporters even made
attempts to edit the Paul Revere VVikipedia entry to make her claims sound correct. If she had taken
the time to read Longfellow's poem, Paul Revere's Ride, she would not have made this error, as the
great majority of school children know that Revere made his midnight ride to warn Americans, not
the enemy.
2. Was The Shot Heard 'Round The World Fired In New Hampshire?) Did you know that
Lexington and Concord are located in New Hampshire? I didn't. And the people in New Hampshire
and Massachusetts didn't either. When Michele Bachmann exclaimed to a New Hampshire crowd
that "the shot heard 'round the world" occurred in their state, I'm sure that Massachusetts let out a
roar of laughter. The sad but hilarious thing is that most American children know that the first shot of
the American Revolution occurred in the state of Massachusetts.
YOU KNOW IS
WRONG
3. Was John Quincy Adams A Founding Father?) Michele Bachmannz must have failed American History in school. Because she has
absolutely no knowledge of early American history. She once claimed that John Quincy Adams is a Founding Father of America when in
fact, JQA was just a child when the Revolution began. He was born in 1767 and was just 14 when the war ended. And like Palin's
supporters, Bachmann fans proceeded to edit the VVikipedia page of John Quincy Adams in an attempt to make her claim viable.
4. Did The Founding Fathers End Slavery?) Michelle Bachmann isn't through yet. During a speaking event she once claimed that the
Founding Fathers were the ones who ended slavery. That's a surprise to me since George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James
Madison, and James Monroez all owned slaves. In fad, 12 of the first 16 American Presidents owned slaves. But Bachmann's attempt to
paint the Founding Fathers as saints is also a denial of past Republican Party history since early Republicans rose to prominence by
fighting against slavery and the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, ended slavery altogether.
5. Was America Founded As A Christian State?) Ever heard of David Bartonz? He's the guy that Glenn Becicz goes to when he wants
to distort history. David Barton claims that the Founding Fathers intended the United States to be a Christian state. Many Republicans
have since picked up on this claim and have been shamelessly using it to court the Christian right-wing, and as a reason to end the
separation of church and state that has been part of this country since its founding. His claim can be trounced with one question. If the
Founding Fathers wanted America to be a Christian state why did they not say so in the Constitution? Instead, the Founders placed this in
the document.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
—First Amendment, Bill of Rights of the Constitution
In other words, there is to be absolutely NO state religion.
6. Did Benjamin Franklin Reject Evolution?) We continue with the lack of knowledge of the Founding Fathers among the right-wing.
Many Republicans have been making the claim that Benjamin Franklin rejected evolution. There are two problems with this daim. First,
the theory of evolution wasn't around until Charles Darwin published the theory in 1859, nearly 70 years AFTER Franklin died in 1790.
And secondly, Franklin was a man of science above all else. It is unlikely that he would have rejected a scientific theory in favor of
creationism. Franklin in fact, rejected the dogma and divinity of Christianity.
7. Was The American Revolution Fought To End Slavery?) Yet another claim that David Barton makes in an attempt to present the
founding generation as perfect, is that the American Revolution was waged to end slavery. Once again, Barton makes a claim that is
completely false. The American Revolution was fought to win American independence from Great Britain. And as I recall, the slaves were
certainly not freed before, during, or after the war. They remained as slaves and would be slaves until the Civil War.
8. Was The Civil War Fought Over State's Rights?) Republicans claim that it was all about state's rights and not about slavery. The
truth is, state's rights only played a small role. The South feared that President Lincolnz would end slavery, so they took preemptive
measures by seceding from the Union and attacked Fort Sumter without any provocation. Slavery was, without a doubt, the main cause of
the war between the states. Without slavery, white plantation owners would have to pick their own cotton, or, pay people to do it for them.
They also believed Africans to be inferior and would not tolerate their freedom. We should all keep that in mind as the South/Republican
home base continues to make claims that they aren't racist.
9. Do States Have The Right To Secede?) Atter President Obama took office, many Republican legislators and governors, particularly in
the South, began threatening secession. They say secession is a right but is it really? The answer is absolutely not. Not only did the Civil
War settle this dispute, James Madison and Andrew Jackson (both Southerners) also rejected this claim. Nowhere in the Constitution will
you find the right to secede. The Constitution was created by the people In order to form a more perfect union" and by seceding, a state
breaks up the nation, thus breaking a legally binding contract. And Andrew Jacksonz once threatened to march an army to South Carolina
after that state threatened to secede. In fact, Jackson felt that secession was treason. The Supreme Court has also weighed in on this
httn: //www_addi ctine info.or 020 1 1 /09/ 19/20-historical-facts-that-republicans-distort-or-jus... 9/19/2011
Page 3 of 3
the Tenth Amendment as proof of state supremacy but they're wrong about that too. After the Constitution was ratified, some wanted to
add an amendment limiting the federal government to powers 'expressly" delegated, which would have denied implied powers. However,
the word 'expressly" ultimately did not appear in the Tenth Amendment as ratified, and therefore the Tenth Amendment did not reject the
powers implied by the Necessary and Proper Clause. In other words, the federal government has the power to make laws about things
that are not found in the Constitution such as health care.
20. Were The Founding Fathers A Group Of Right Wingers?) Republicans have been crisscrossing the country trying to convince
Americans that the Founding Fathers were conservatives. But were they really? The answer to this question is absolutely not. If the
Founding Fathers were conservatives they would never have revolted against England. One can hardly call breaking away from the most
powerful nation on Earth at the time a conservative act. Plus, the Founding Fathers supported a strong federal government, believed in
civil rights, supported separation of church and state, despised corporations, and believed the government had the power to provide
health care and levy taxes. This is why the Supreme Court throughout American history has rarely ruled laws unconstitutional using the
Tenth Amendment.
Republicans and Americans in general need to get a firm grasp of history. The Republicans understand that the lack of education is the
key to controlling the electorate. All they need to do is distort and re-write history in their favor to win the votes of the ignorant. We must
learn our past history so that we do not go down the backwards road that Republicans are leading us down.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"
-George Santayana
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/09/19/20-historical-facts-that-republicans-distort-or-jus.. . 9/19/2011
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Published on Truthout (http://www.truth-outorq )
Home > 14 Propaganda Techniques Fox "News" Uses to Brainwash Americans
14 Propaganda Techniques Fox "News"
Uses to Brainwash Americans
By alexa
Created 2011-07-02 06:17
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14 Propaganda Techniques Fox
"News" Uses to Brainwash Americans
Saturday 2 July 2011
by: Dr. Cynthia Boaz, Truthout I News Analysis
There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of
democracy than a free press. Access to
comprehensive, accurate and quality information is
essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship the society characterized by a civically engaged, wellinformed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the
degree that access to quality information is willfully or
unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is
degraded.
It is ironic that in the era of 24-hour cable news
networks and "reality" programming, the news-to-fluff
ratio and overall veracity of information has declined
precipitously. Take the fact Americans now spend on
average about 50 hours a week using various forms
(Image:Lama Pam ltr ut bout pc
of media, while at the same time cultural literacy
Adapted: Adan Unitas q. ado tel, gaban
levels hover Just above the gutter. Not only does
W. pi)
mainstream media now tolerate gross
misrepresentations of fact and history by public
figures (highlighted most recently by Sarah Palin's ludicrous depiction of Paul Revere's
ride), but many media actually legitimize these displays. Pause for a moment and ask
yourself what it means that the world's largest, most profitable and most popular news
channel passes off as fact every whim, impulse and outrageously incompetent analysis of
its so-called reporters. How did we get here? Take the enormous amount of
misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein
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14 Propaganda Techniques Fox "News" Uses to Brainwash Amencans
rage J OI
reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their
interests. And they'll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted
to question what they knew as fact.
5. Scapegoating/Othering. This works best when people feel insecure or scared. It's
technically a form of both fear mongering and diversion, but it is so pervasive that it
deserves its own category. The simple idea is that if you can find a group to blame for
social or economic problems, you can then go on to a) justify violence/dehumanization of
them, and b) subvert responsibility for any harm that may befall them as a result.
B. Conflating Violence With Power and Opposition to Violence With Weakness. This
is more of what I'd call a "meta-frame" (a deeply held belief) than a media technique, but it
is manifested in the ways news is reported constantly. For example, terms like "show of
Strength" are often used to describe acts of repression, such as those by the Iranian
regime against the protesters in the summer of 2009. There are several concerning
consequences of this form of conflation. First, it has the potential to make people feel
falsely emboldened by shows of force - it can turn wars into sporting events. Secondly,
especially in the context of American politics, displays of violence - whether manifested in
war or debates about the Second Amendment - are seen as noble and (in an especially
surreal irony) moral. Violence become synonymous with power, patriotism and piety.
7. Bullying. This is a favorite technique of several Fox commentators. That it continues to
be employed demonstrates that it seems to have some efficacy. Bullying and yelling works
best on people who come to the conversation with a lack of confidence, either ifl
themselves or their grasp of the subject being discussed. The bully exploits this lack of
confidence by berating the guest into submission or compliance. Often, less selfpossessed people will feel shame and anxiety when being berated and the quickest way
to end the immediate discomfort is to cede authority to the bully. The bully is then able to
interpret that as a "win."
8. Confusion. As with the preceding technique, this one works best on an audience that is
less confident and setf-possessed. The idea is to deliberately confuse the argument, but
insist that the logic is airtight and imply that anyone who disagrees is either too dumb or
too fanatical to follow along. Less independent minds will interpret the confusion technique
as a form of sophisticated thinking, thereby giving the user's claims veracity in the viewer's
mind.
9. Populism. This is especially popular in election years. The speakers identifies
themselVes as one of "the people" and the target of their ire as an enemy of the people.
The opponent is always "elitist' or a "bureaucrat" or a "government insider" or some other
category that is not the people. The idea is to make the opponent harder to relate to and
harder to empathize with. It often goes hand in hand with scapegoating. A common logical
fallacy with populism bias when used by the right is that accused "elitists" are almost
always liberals - a category of political actors who, by definition, advocate for non-elite
groups.
10. Invdking the Christian God. This is similar to (tiering and populism. With morality
as patriots, Christians and "real
Americans" (those are inseparable-categories in this line of thinking) and anyone who
challenges them as not. Basically, God loves Fox and Republicans and America. And
hates taxes and anyone who doesn't love those other three things. Because the speaker
politics, the idea is to declare yourself and your allies
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iNews uses to Brainwash Americans
Page 5 of 5
bullying. This is because when a person has accessed a truth, they are not threatened by
the opposing views of others. This reality reveals the righteous indignation of people like
Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity as a symptom of untruth. These individuals are
hostile and angry precisely because they don't feel confident in their own veracity. And in
general, the more someone is losing their temper in a debate and the more intolerant they
are of listening to others, the more you can be certain they do not know what they're
talking about.
One final observation. Fox audiences, birthers and Tea Partiers often defend their
arguments by pointing to the fact that a lot of people share the sameperceptions. This is a
reasonable point to the extent that Murdoch's News Corporation reaches a far larger
audience than any other single media outlet. But, the fact that a lot of people believe
something is not necessarily a sign that it's true; it's just a sign that it's been effectively
marketed.
As honest, fair and truly intellectual debate degrades before the eyes of the global media
audience, the quality of American democracy degrades along with it.
[2]
11
http://www.trtith-out. org/print/3753
[7]
ashittOtt
November 1,.2011
prdaftit
Lou Dubose, Editor
(ISSN: 0887-428X)
©2011 The Public Concern Foundation Inc.
Volume 37, No. 19
THE DIN OF INEQUITY
From Zero to 20,000 On Wall Street
At 7:30 p.m. on October 4, two young women were
New York
addressing a general assembly of more than 200, while
uring the evening general assembly in Zuccotti
another 100 listened to music in the west end of the park.
Park on lower Broadway, a woman who appeared
Because electronic amplification is prohibited, Occupy
to be in her fifties addressed me in a soft voice.
Wall Street-organizers have-devised-a- system-that positions
"1--- think - there's a paradigm shift–going on
"human microphones" within hearing distance of those
here," she said. "This is not the old model of organizing. It's
speaking, to relay what is said to those too far away to hear,
a new model full of civility, cloaked in civility."
At times everyone standing near the speaker repeats what
"What really hit me," she said, "was the young woman at
was said, which results in a polyphonic fugue that is both
last night's general assembly, who said we are experiencing
maddening and compelling.
a paradigm change. That, and the civility."
The assembly began with one of the facilitators describing
The woman asked me not to use her name. She said she
the ground rules, then demonstrating hand gestures particistops by the Occupy Wall Street protest every day, after she
pants use to indicate agreement, disagreement, the need for a
leaves her office at a federal regulatory agency, where she
speaker to wrap it up, a point of information, a question.
works as a lawyer. She asked me not to name the agency she
works for.
Then she laid out an agenda that included working proposShe is convinced that what is happening in this small park
als, report-backs from working groups, general announcements, and individual remarks.
in lower Manhattan is important, and she hopes it can sustain
itself.
There's obviously a lot of organizational work behind
these general assemblies. I asked a man sitting at the press
"My fear is that it won't last," she said. "Oh, no, now I'm
crying."
center on the south side of
She composed herthe park how it happens.
self, told me to read Ross
Executive Impunity
"Everything is done by conSorkin's article in the Times,
sensus," he said. "In work"We've had no prosecutorial action at all from the last
and turned her attention to administration. And the new administration has had little time . ing groups."
the two young women leadThe two women running
to figure this out. We'll find out if anybody cares."
ing the general assembly.
the assembly, he explained,
—Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Michael Capuano,
After watching this moveFeb. 11,2009 are part of a facilitation
ment from up close for two
working group. Before the
days in October, as well as
two-hour assembly concluded, we heard from representatives from a medical group, a
from afar, I find myself in agreement with the government
regulator who feels compelled to spend her evenings with the
security group, an outreach group, and a media group.
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) activists.
Someone in some working group has even devised a proSomething is happening here: a critically important
cess that corrects the singular, endemic problem that drains
attempt to hold unaccountable power accountable.
the life from demonstrations on the political left: the endless,
This is a movement that only began on September 17,
stultifying, repetitive ideological speech.
as a response to an ad in Adbusters, a Vancouver, British
At the beginning of the assembly, one of the facilitators, a
young Asian woman, announced that anyone can speak. But
Columbia, magazine. The image on the ad is a dancer, elethere's a process, she said. "Give your name to the stackgantly poised on the back of the Wall Street Bull statue in the
Financial District. The text reads: What is our one demand?
keeper and he will call on so you can get on stack."
#Occupy Wall Street. September 17th. Bring Tent.
The stack-keeper is a gatekeeper, calling on individuals
One hundred fifty people showed up the first day. Then
to come to the front of the assembly to get "on stack" to
many more. Students who see a diminished future, recent
speak. Preference is given to women and minorities of color
college graduates who can neither find work nor start payand disability. On paper, the process appears precious and
ing off their student loans, chronically unemployed. In other
contrived. And it is easily caricatured by critics on the right.
words, surplus people, rendered unnecessary by an economy
On the ground, it is remarkably effective.
that no longer works — and activists supporting them.
The item that dominated the October 4 agenda was a
D
November 1,2011
3
THE WASHINGTON SPECTATOR
against unskilled workers at home, labor-saving technologies, the decline of unions.
And he touched on a few policy decisions that have made
the income gap and wealth gap greater. Lowering the tax
rates on capital gains, where the rich receive much of their
income, has concentrated wealth..
Regulators who programmatically ignore laws put in
place to make the economy work for everyone have also
contributed to greater inequity.
"Lax enforcement of anti-trust laws," Stiglitz wrote,
"especially during Republican administrations, has been a
godsend to the top 1 percent."
This is not the economic theory that earned Stiglitz the
Nobel Prize, but rather Economics of Inequality 101.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS—Even if, as Stiglitz writes,
income disparity increased most when Republican presidents
were in office, it required the election . of Barack Obama to
make this movement happen.
The economy had collapsed months before Obama took
the oath of office in January 2009.
The $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
was passed by Congress on October 3,2008, three days after
an initial House vote rejected it 228-205, sending the Dow
Jones Industrial Average into a 700-point decline — the biggest one-day loss ever.
The value of homes — where most Americans build most
of the equity they will ever own — had fallen by 30 percent.
At least $8.4 trillion had been wiped off the value of
American stocks, as people saw their retirement accounts
reduced by a third or more.
Lehman Brothers, an investment house founded before
the Civil War, was gone, after the largest bankruptcy filing
in U.S. history wiped out its shareholders and left creditors
in line to collect pennies on the dollar.
The government had seized control of American
International Group, extending an $85 billion loan that gave
American taxpayers a 79 percent equity stake in the world's
biggest insurer.
This occurred in the administration of George W. Bush,
who believed that markets should be left to regulate themSelves.
Ardent Obama supporters believed their new president
would resurrect the economy by summer. Outside that circle,
in the reality-based culture, there was an expectation that
help had arrived. And that the corporate executives who had
destroyed the economy would be held accountable.
I recall the kinetic energy at a House Financial Services
Committee hearing on February 11,2009.
The eight C.E.O.s whose banks had pushed the world
into recession did a perp walk into the hearing room: Jamie
Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Citi's Vikram Pandit, Lloyd
Blankfein from Goldman Sachs, et al.
America's Most Wanted C.E.O.s, under oath and seated at
the same witness table.
There was predictable ideological claptrap, such as
Alabama Republican Spencer Bachus's indictment of
Congress and defense of the bankers:
"Gentleman, we in Congress, I think, have screwed up
health care pretty badly, and K-through-12, through our
involvement. And now we're turning our attention to you.
May god help us, and help you, and all the American people
as we do that."
Bachus now chairs the Financial Services Committee.
But when Congress convened in 2009, he and other minority
members on the committee were outnumbered, as the majority party defined the agenda.
DEMOCRATIC SKEPTICS —California Democrat Brad
Sherman demanded an accounting of TARP money that
had been paid as dividends to shareholders and bonuses to
executives.
"Gentlemen, money is fungible," Sherman said. "It's a
rather silly claim to say, '[W]ell, we just used the depositors'
money or the investors' money to pay the dividends or bonuses, and then we put the taxpayers' money in our vault."
New York Democrat Gary Ackerman wanted the bank
executives to explain why, despite their. assurances_that they
were making loans, his constituents couldn't get home loans,
refinance their homes, buy automobiles, or borrow money to
send their children to college.
But what takes me back to a hearing held almost
three years ago was Massachusetts Congressman Michael
Capuano's questions, which began with the structured
investment vehicles that allowed bankers to borrow money
as low-interest short-term securities and lend it at long-term
high-interest rates.
"[T]he SWs, to me, are illegal," Capuano said. "But then
we've had no prosecutorial action at all from the last administration. And the new administration has had little time to
figure this out. We'll find out if anybody cares."
The answer to the question that Capuano framed in his last
sentence is what moved thousands of people to respond to an
ad that read "Occupy Wall Street ... Bring Tent."
Nobody cares.
Members of Congress might subject the eight perpetrators
of the largest bank heist in history to a ritual public humiliation. But at the end of the day, and the end of each subsequent year, the bankers remain unaccountable.
The people camped in the center of the Financial District
are looking for a way to make them accountable. —LD.
Don't Miss an Issue. Subscribe Today!
O Send me one full year of the Washington Spectator—that's
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Mail this coupon and your payment to: The Public Concern Foundation,
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ashiqfpin
October 1, 2011
Lou Dubose, Editor
Pertfafor.
(ISSN: 0887-428X)
Volume 37, No. 17
PRIMARY DILEMMA
Rick, Romney, and the Country Club
Republicans
W
believe he will sweep the primary and lose the general election, that he's a born-again Christian reincarnation of Barry
Goldwater.
Writing in _1964, Malcolm X described the JohnsonGoldwater race: "[T]he shrewd capitalists, the shrewd imperialists, knew that the only way the people would run towards
the fox would be if you showed them a wolf. So they created
a ghastly alternative."
Barbour and the other country club Republicans fear that
when confronted by the lupine Rick Perry, voters will run
toward the vulpine Barack Obama.
Yet Perry is their own creation.
In 1989 he was a telegenic Democratic legislator with a
bankable narrative: fifth-generation rancher in partnership
Remember, purity in politics is the enemy of victory.
with his father, Texas A&M graduate, a stint in the Air
Okay?
Force, owned and rode a horse, etc.
We can't start out with the idea as the Faith & Freedom
He was brought into a state party being built by Karl
Coalition that our candidate's got to agree with us on every
Rove, on the promise of a spot on a statewide ticket. In
single thing. We cannot expect our candidate to be pure.
1990 he upset incumbent Democratic Ag Commissioner
Winning is about unity. ...
Conservatives, religious
Jim Hightower, after raising
$1.3 million to Hightower's
people, small government
Jesus Won't Be Running
people, we are not going
$745,000.
"Conservatives, religious people, small government peoto have purity. We are not
Rove, at the time a
ple,
we are not going to have purity. We are not going to have
going to have a perfect canpolitical consultant, helped
a perfect candidate. There's been only one perfect person
didate. There's been only
Perry's campaign along by
that
has ever walked on this earth. And there ain't gonna be
announcing to reporters
one perfect person that has
another one in this election."
that Hightower's office was
ever walked on this earth.
—Haley Barbour, June 4, 2011
And there ain't gonna -be
under investigation by the
another one in this election.
Justice Department. Rove's
announcement was the initial release of information about
Barbour was addressing the party's evangelical base: the
Republican faithful who reject evolution, global warming,
an FBI investigation (which would result in prison sentences
and probably photosynthesis. In other words, a crowd wildly
for two Hightower aides). It was conducted by an FBI agent
enthusiastic about Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum
with whom Rove had a long history.
and only mildly enthusiastic about Mitt Romney. (Rick Perry
Rove was decidedly in the Perry camp.
was not yet officially in the race.)
Perry's election as lieutenant governor in 1998 was
There was no doubt about whom Barbour spoke. The first
critically important to George W. Bush, who needed a
question asked by a reporter as Barbour left the stage focused
Republican successor in place when he openly began campaigning for the presidency.
on his attempt to sell Mitt Romney to a Christian audience.
Barbour is the Republican establishment, with a pedigree
By 2010, Rove and the country club Republicans in Texas
that begins before the Reagan administration and a millionwanted Perry gone. He had done what they needed him to
dollar - assets portfolio he built lobbying for tobacco compado, backstop George W. Bush, and they wanted a predictnies. From 1993 to 1997, he was chairman of the Republican
able professional in the Governor's Mansion. So they went
to work for his opponent.
National Committee. He has run for the U.S. Senate, and
today is governor of Mississippi.
Rove, and former G.W. Bush aide Karen Hughes, helped
shape U.S Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's primary chalThe establishment that Barbour represents is deeply
here is the Republican presidential race headed, now that Texas Governor Rick Perry has
. rendered Michele Bachmann inconsequential
and Mitt Romney
scrambling to remain
. is_
competitive with Perry?
From here on out the Republican primary is a contest
between insurgent, extremist Tea Party/Evangelicals and
what remains of the party's pragmatic corporatists.
'This division was evident in June, when Ralph Reed invited Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour to Washington to
speak to the Faith & Freedom Coalition convention. In fact,
the only "news" to report at the June event was Barbour's
avuncular talk about pragmatism in politics:
concerned about Rick Perry. He scares them because they
lenge of Perry. Barbara Bush campaigned with Hutchison.
October 1, 2011
also acquired, as cash cows for Bain partners and investors.
The $791 million deal cost Bain $140 million up front,
plus $651 million borrowed against Sealy (which was ultimately forced into bankruptcy).
Under pressure from Bain, Sealy cut costs and increased
production to provide greater returns for investors. Research
and development were left to competitors, as Swiss mattress
company Tempur-Pedic began offering a better product and
cutting into Sealy's domestic market share.
Bain's response to its loss of market share recalls the
joke about the produce-stand operator who was buying
watermelons for $3.00 and selling them for $3.00, then realized he could solve his problem by buying a bigger truck.
After acquiring Sealy, then Simmons, in 2001 Bain tried to
vertically integrate its mattress operation. It bought the retail
outlet Mattress Discounters for $212 million — a deal that
quickly went sour when the company filed for bankruptcy
in 2002. - - • By 2004 Sealy's debt burden made the entire venture
unsustainable and Bain sold the company to another corporate raider, KKR. A decade after Bain's acquisition of Sealy,
the company had gone from 28 percent to 20 percent market
share, but was more profitable than ever, producing less and
charging much more for its products.
Along the way Bain had busted unions and reduced
Sealy's workforce in places like Tennessee, shipping some
jobs overseas. According to Kosman, job losses are hard
to quantify because Sealy often used Subcontractors. The
company today employs fewer workers and subcontracted
workers than it did in 1997. While Romney supporters continue to point to Sealy as a success, since the publication of
Kosman's book Romney no longer claims he saved jobs at
Sealy.
Ted Kennedy used Romney's history at Bain to take the
momentum out of Romney's well-funded campaign for the
U.S. Senate — at a time when the economy was in far better
shape than it is today. In an economy ravaged by the plundering class, Romney might be a hard sell.
BACHMANN'S BUNGLE—The best take-away from the
CNN-Tea Party Expressate last month was Rick Perry's
response to Michele Bachmann, when she accused him of
issuing an executive order requiring the Merck pharmaceutical company's HPV vaccine for pre-adolescent girls in
Texas, because he had received a contribution from Merck.
"If you're saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I'm
offended," Perry said.
It turns out that Perry received $28,500 from Merck.
Merck's Austin lobbyist, Mike Toomey, has given $48,000
to Perry's campaigns, more than his client gave Perry.
Merck also contributed $337,000 to the Republican
Governor's Association (RGA) since Perry began to coordinate the organization's fundraising in 2006, according to
Texans for Public Justice (TPJ).
TPJ, a good-government advocacy group, also reported
that the RGA is Perry's single largest donor, at $4 million.
Much of that $4 million, according to TPJ, was money that
Perry donors rerouted through the RGA. (See Rick and the
RGA on Page 4.)
And Mike Toomey is considerably more than Merck's
3
lobbyist. He is Perry's former chief of staff and a permanent
fixture at the Capitol in Austin, where he has made enormous
wealth off the business of government. (Although he makes
his money off government, Toomey is a zealous advocate of
limited government; he joined Perry and Americans for Tax
Reform anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist on a trip to the
Bahamas in 2004.)
GOVERNOR TOOMEY—I covered Toomey in the
Legislature in the '80s, when he was an ambitious and volatile junior member of the Republican minority in the House.
He was then, and has remained, obsessed with tort reform
— the closing of the courthouse door to individuals trying to
sue corporate defendants for damages.
Toomey went from the Legislature, to the lobby, then into
the administration of Bill Clements, a Karl Rove client who
was the first Republican to be elected governor of Texas
since Reconstruction:. • • •
Then it was back to the lobby, then two years, from
2002-2004, as Perry's chief of staff. When he is working
as a public servant, Toomey turns his client list over to his
partners, who immediately realize the added value of having
a colleague inside the governor's office.
Toomey doesn't just lobby for Merck. He has worked
for Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a pressure group that has
contributed $221,000 to Perry and millions to Republican
legislators in a successful effort to remake the State House.
He has also represented insurance interests.
Toomey is so influential, in fact, that reporters and lobbyists often refer to him as "Governor Toomey." He also
directs the Make Us Great Again Super PAC supporting
Rick Perry, one of the big-money combines made possible
by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Toomey
is also the co-owner, with Perry campaign consultant Dave
Carney, of a private 2.7-acre island on Lake Winnipesaukee
in New Hampshire.
Bachmann bungled the opportunity she created by shifting the focus of the post-debate discussion, with the absurd
claim that Merck's HPV vaccination can cause mental retardation. In a subsequent issue, we will refocus the discussion
on Perry's cronies and the influencethey are buying.— L. D.
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October 15, 2011
Lou Dubose, Editor
(ISSN: 0887-428X)
Volume 37, No. 18
WHY THEY JUST SAY NO
Posted Prices and the Capitol Hill
Stalemate• Machine
Under the new rules for the 2008 election cycle, the DCCC [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] asked rankand-file members to contribute $125,000 in dues and to raise an additional $75,000 for the party. Subcommittee chairpersons
must contribute $150,000 in dues and raise an additional $100,000. Members who sit on the most powerful committees ...
_must_contribute.$200,000 and raise-anadditional $250,000. Subcommittee chairs on power committees and committee chairs
of non-power committees must contribute $250,000 and raise $250,000. The five chairs of the power committees must contribute $500.000 and raise an additional $1 million. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Majority Whip James Clyburn, and
Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel must contribute $800,000 and raise $2.5 million. The four Democrats who serve as
part of the extended leadership must contribute $450,000 and raise $500,000, and the nine Chief Deputy Whips must contribute
$300,000 and raise $500,000. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi must contribute a staggering $800,000 and raise an additional
$25 million.
—Marian Currinder, Money in the House (2008)
Congress have taken a curious turn. Pundits talk nostalgiBy Thomas Ferguson
cally about the good old days, when representatives from the
he year is 1909. The U.S. income distribution is
two parties regularly played golf together and compromised
about as lopsided as it is today. J.P. Morgan is
their differences in the name of the larger national interest.
fine-tuning a tariff bill by telegraph from his yacht.
Today such outcomes are said to be impossible. But why,
Morgan and his fellow robber barons have for years
reliably tied Congress up in knots whenever anyone proposes
exactly?
regulating trusts, railroad rates, financial speculation, or
The rivers of political money that now swirl 24/7 around
labor disputes. A notoriously corrupt ring of U.S. senators,
Capitol Hill surely play a role in producing the great D.C.
the so-called "Millionaires Club," is on hand to bury in comstalemate machine. But tired recitations of astronomical
mittee any measures that the corporate titans frown upon.
campaign-finance spending totals don't tell the full story.
Fast-forward to 2011
Neither does the observaBeing a millionaire in
tion that since the 1990s,
The Price of Power
Congress is nothing speRepublican leaders both
Uniquely among legislatures in the developed world, our
cial — just about half of all
in Congress and out have
members are one. The leg- Congressional parties now post prices for key slots on comraised enormous amounts of
money from investor blocs
islative process workz_L.—a mittees. You want it — you buy it, runs the challenge.
operatically, but the result
that plainly hope toToll back
is pretty much the same: legislative gridlock punctuated
the New Deal as a whole. We need to look at the bigger
by occasional blatant special-interest legislation. Banks are
picture. The tidal wave of cash has structurally transformed
rescued; the unemployed are left to their own devices. The
Congress. It swept away the old seniority system that used
housing market is left in free fall, with the bailed-out banks
to govern leadership selection and committee assignments in
mostly still left to call the tune on foreclosures.
Congress. In its place, the parties copied practices of big-box
As national income stagnates, financiers submerge finanretailers like Walmart, Best Buy, or Target.
cial reforms and derivatives regulation under waves of camUniquely among legislatures in the developed world,
paign contributions. Meanwhile, a vast array of interested
our Congressional parties now post prices for key slots on
firms and investors dispatch armies of lobbyists to stymie
committees. You want it — you buy it, runs the challenge.
Congressional action on climate change, block the governThey even sell on the installment plan: You want to chair
ment from bargaining down prices of drugs paid for by
an important committee? That'll be $200,000 down and the
federal health programs, and keep tax increases forever off
same amount later, through fundraising. Unlike most retailthe national agenda.
ers, though, Congressional leaders selling committee posiWe watch the news to see if Congressional stalemates
tions never offer discounts. Prices only drift up over time.
over deficits will lead to a government default that would
This practice is perhaps the one case where bipartisanship
throw world financial markets into turmoil or force dracoflourishes in Congress today. The Democrats' 2008 price
nian, across-the-board budget cuts at Thanksgiving time.
schedules quoted in Currinder's Money in the House are
But while we hold our breath, popular discussions about
just variations on themes introduced by the Republicans in
T
October 15, 2011
leaders in Congress, even with all their advantages, have a
harder and harder time containing these groups. The leadership only just prevailed in the battle over the debt ceiling this
summer. In a globalized world that is increasingly nervous,
however irrationally, about budget deficits and sovereign
debt repayments, it would be a mistake to underestimate
how much havoc a small group of zealots could wreak in the
next few months, as taxes and the budget promise to redefine
American politics.
Thomas Ferguson is Professor of Political Science at the
University of Massachusetts, Boston and a Senior Fellow at
the Roosevelt Institute.
SUPERFUND SITE —The 12 members of the bicam-
eral/bipartisan Congressional Joint Committee on Deficit
Reduction (or "Supercommittee") are representative of the
Congress. Each of them raises huge sums of money from
donors
-- attempting to shape legislation. The_gra.pd_ total the 12
coMmittee members have raised since 1990, according to the
Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), is $592 million.
A figure so large that it is meaningless, falling into the
"astronomical campaign-finance spending totals don't tell
the full story" category that Thomas Ferguson refers to
above. It is also somewhat distorted; roughly half of the $592
million was money raised by Senator John Kerry in his presidential race against George W. Bush in 2004.
Nonetheless, a lot of money.
The Supercommittee is charged with delivering, by
November 23, recommendations for $1.5 trillion in cuts from
the federal budget over the next 10 years. The recommendations, if they are reported out, will be subject to a legislative
plebiscite in the House and Senate. That is, a "yea" or "nay"
vote with no amendments and no filibuster. If the committee
fails, "trigger cuts" will be imposed across the spectrum of
federal funding.
So it would be of interest to the public to know who is
contributing to and lobbying members of the committee.
Iowa Democratic Congressman Dave Loebsack is the principal author of a bill that would require disclosure of political
contributions, and member and staff meetings with lobbyists, within 48 hours of
occurrence. The bill is going
nowhere.
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry has suspended fundraising until the committee completes its work, a nice but
disingenuous gesture because checks based on previous
commitments can be written on November 24. Real-time
disclosure is far more useful.
The next filing date for political contributions is in
January, so the public will not know who is making political
contributions to members of the committee until more than a
month after its work is concluded.
The public is left to look at past contributions, and a good
place to look is the Center for Responsive Politics website,
which lists individual and aggregate contributions received
by committee members: http://www.opensecrets.org/newsreports/supercommittees .php?q12.
Beyond matching members to interest sectors supporting
them, there is a lot in the CRP's report.
Consider.
If Kerry has suspended fundraising, other committee
3
members are pressing on. Two hours after the leadership
released the names of Super Committee members, the
Investment Company Institute sent out an invitation for a
$1,500 fundraiser for California Democrat Xavier Becerra,
according to Politico. The trade group's pitch: "This will
be Mr. Becerra's first event since being named to the commission and may be one of the first for any of the twelve
members of the group."
And South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn, for
whom a new leadership position was created in 2010 when
he challenged Steny Hoyer in the race for minority whip, has
10 fundraisers scheduled between the time the committee
was created in August and its November 23 deadline.
Clybum is a member of the Democratic leadership. His 10
events are evenly divided between Friends of Jim Clybum,
his personal campaign fund, and BRIDGE PAC, his personal
leadership PAC.
At $1,500 to $5,000 a ticket, Clybum will need more than
10 fundraising events to . come close to what :Pennsylvania
Republican Senator Pat Toomey raised from one source in
2010. The anti-tax, anti-government Club for Growth, the
largest donor to Republican committee members, with a total
of $1,103,407, gave Toomey more than $800,000. Toomey
had previously served as the organization's director.
The second biggest giver to committee members is
EMILY's List, an advocacy group that works to elect prochoice Democratic women to Congress (and recently worked
to promote social issues such as education funding) with
$710,313. There is, however, only one woman on the committee — Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray,
who raises money for the Senate Democratic leadership.
The huge funding blocs on opposite sides of the central
issue of contention that committee members will have to
address — to raise taxes and cut spending or reduce the
deficits by spending cuts alone — suggest a deadlock that
committee members will not be able to break.
—LD.
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ashittOn prrfatut
November 15, 2011
Lou Dubose, Editor
(ISSN: 0887428X)
Volume 37, No. 20
THE FOG OF WITHDRAWAL
How Will We Remember Operation
Iraqi Freedom?
should be three to one, is only one to one. The Red Cross
By John Tirman
also reports that health care delivery in rural areas is dire, and
ow will the war in Iraq be remembered? How will
"poor hygiene levels in many facilities have a . severe impact
it fit with our national narrative? And what will
on the qiiilftY-6rc-a–r6 -deliVefed.
welearn from it? ltaTir
sat- too soon to think about
dards of nursing, sterilization and waste management are not
how the history of Operation Iraqi Freedom will
respected owing to a lack of resources."
be represented. For we have a tendency, we Americans, of
Enrollment in schools has steadily declined since 1990.
neglecting and then forgetting much of what happens in war.
An estimated 3.5 million to 5 million Iraqis were displaced
In fact, our memory of war fits a pattern of what is discarded
by the war, either within Iraq (internally displaced persons,
and what is embraced. That in itself is a dangerous habit.
or TDPs) or in Syria, Jordan, and elsewhere. Between
Everything about the war—its origins, its course, its
2008 and last summer, only 622,000 displaced people had
failures and achievements — is contested. But it has already
returned, according to U.N. refugee officials. They somberly
been placed in a frame that portrays it, like U.S. wars in
noted last July that "an estimated 1.3 million IDPs are in Iraq;
Korea and Vietnam, as a mistake born of good intentions,
467,565 IDPs and destitute persons reside in 382 settlements
ennobled by brave soldiers and mangled by confused and
countrywide. The conditions in the settlements are extremely
self-interested politicians. A small number of neocons like
poor."
William Kristol and the Fox News crowd insist that it is
Shortages of clean water, sanitation, and electricity
a victory, but the American public and most political and
remain a problem, in some
opinion elites are not buying
places quite severe. In 2010,
that narrative. A CNN poll
Back to the Future
UNICEF estimated it needearly this year found two"At the end of this year, America's military operation in
ed $50 million to improve
thirds of Americans opposed
Iraq will be over. We will have a normal relationship with
health care access, sanitato the war, a consistent finda sovereign nation that is a member of the community of
tion, etc., for Iraqi children;
ing over several years.
nations. That equal partnership will be strengthened by our
it was able to raise only $7
The war — which really
support for Iraq — for its government and security forces; for
million.
began with Operation Desert
Thousands of womenand
Storm--in 1991 and contin- - its people and their aspirations."
—President
Barack
Obama,
girls
have been driven into
ued with the sanctions that
Speech to the U.N., September 21, 2011
prostitution, or kidnapped
constricted Iraq for 12 years
and forced into sexual slavmore until the coup de grace
ery; rising Islamic militancy has stripped the rights of milof regime change — has always been gauged by the American
lions more. The government reported in 2009 that 750,000
public in the metrics of blood and treasure, namely, our
widows are living in poverty.
blood and our treasure.
This autumn, the U.N. Special Representative for Iraq
How many Americans have died, or been wounded? How
described economic conditions as deteriorating and the status
much money has been spent? This is typically the sole meaof human rights activists in Iraq as "fragile and miserable."
sure of the costs of war — especially a war fought on false
More than half of all Iraqis live in "slum conditions," compremises — and these costs and false rationale in large part
pared with 17 percent in 2000. By a 2-to-1 margin, Iraqis told
account for the growing dissatisfaction with the conflict. But
a Gallup pollster this September that the economy is worsenthe tragic result for thousands of U.S. soldiers, contractors,
aid workers, and journalists is a thin slice of the fundamental
ing, and by a large margin they also said that their standard
reality of the war, which has been its colossal destructiveof living is crumbling.
ness.
The number of people who have died in Iraq as a result of
the war is a topic of some controversy, but virtually all indeCONSIDER A FEW STATISTICS—The provision of
pendent observers agree it is in the hundreds of thousands,
health care in Iraq is guaranteed in the Iraqi constitution, but
possibly as many as a Million. Two separate household
more than half the doctors in pre-war Iraq are gone (emisurveys conducted in the spring of 2006 found that between
grated or killed), and the ratio of nurses to doctors, which
400,000 and 650,000 "excess deaths" — the number above
November 15, 2011
on the experience of his White House foreign policy staff.
He's irrelevant, albeit amusing.
Who is advising the candidates who actually matter?
Let's begin with an e-mail sent on April 7,2003:
To:
Doug Feith
From:
Donald Rumsfeld
Subject:
Issues w/ Various Countries
We need more coercive diplomacy with respect to Syria
and Libya, and we need it fast. If they mess up Iraq, it will
delay bringing our troops home.
We also need to solve the Pakistan problem.
And Korea doesn't seem to be going well.
Are you coming up with proposals for me to send
around?
Thanks
„Both-the-sender and -the-retiptettraf-threr=thall -dre-Rick
Pefry's foreign-policy brain trust. That tells all we need to
know. The casual exchange between two American exceptionalists remaking the world recalls the arrogance that led
the nation into Iraq.
As a candidate, George W. Bush was home-schooled for
months on foreign policy. Perry is taking the short course,
coordinated by Rumsfeld and led by Feith, whom Iraq War
commander General Tommy Franks described as the "dumbest fucking man on the planet."
As Rumsfeld's No. 3 man in Foggy Bottom, Feith persuaded the Bush administration to make Saddam Hussein's
weapons of mass destruction the rationale for going to war
in Iraq. Feith also was in charge of Iraq's prisons when the
Abu Ghraib story broke.
Let's give Perry credit for the ideas he developed before
Feith was his tutor.
. "My faith requires me to support Israel," Perry said in
2009. No ambiguity there.
Perry has been a long-time critic of the United Nations, a
meme he began to work into speeches as soon as he entered
the race.
In August, he said, "We cannot concede the moral authority of our nation to multilateral debating societies." (Like the
U.N. and NATO.)
In the September 22 debate: "As a matter of fact, I think
it's time for us to have a very serious discussion about
defunding the United Nations."
He would also cut funding to the Palestinian Authority,
arguably boosting the influence of Hamas.
The Texas governor is eager to return to the go-it-alone,
muscular foreign policy that served the country so well in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
THE FIGHT CLUB —When Mitt Romney was running
for president four years ago, he called on the Brookings
Institution's Michael O'Hanlon for foreign policy advice.
O'Hanlon is a hawkish policy intellectual who focuses on
Iraq and Afghanistan. He's also a Democrat.
Romney won't be calling on O'Hanlon again. He has
turned to a team of veterans of the Bush administration, the
architects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cofer Black ran the CIA's counterterrorism center before
3
2001 — which in itself might disqualify him as an advisor.
Then he moved on to the private sector as vice chairman
of Blackwater USA (now Xe Services), the private security
contractor whose mercenaries ran amuck in Iraq, until the
killing of 14 unarmed civilians in 2007 cost the company
its contract. (Last month, four former Blackwater guards
charged with the massacre of civilians in Iraq in 2007
went to the Supreme Court with a procedural appeal to
block their prosecution. Black is now the chairman of an
intelligence-gathering firm that is a subsidiary of Blackwater
Worldwide.)
Robert Kagan, along with neocon celebrity Bill ICristol,
was one of the founders of the Project for the New American
Century, the small foreign-policy think-tank that promoted
full-scale military intervention in Iraq.
Kagan and Kristol were pushing the U.S. Army into Iraq
even before George W. Bush took the country there in 2003,
writing open létiéith Bill Clinton,irrgiiig him touse Military force to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The two neocons
also claimed that Hussein had links to al Qaeda and possessed weapons of mass destruction.
A more obscure Romney advisor is Walid Phares, best
known as a Fox News talking head, whose specialty is terrorism. In an earlier career, according to political scientist
As'ad AbuKhalil, Phares was allied with a right-wing sectarian Christian militia that Israel supported in Lebanon's civil
war, which began in the mid-'70s and continued for 15 years.
He was also the founder of a small Christian political party
in Lebanon. No blood on Phares's hands, but the militias
were responsible for a number of human-rights atrocities in
Lebanon.
Romney has recruited a few advisers who are closer to
the Republican Party's mainstream, such as John Danilovich,
former C.E.O. of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a
visionary foreign aid funding office established by George
W. Bush.
But with Dan Senor, Eliot Cohen, Paula Dobriansky — all
suits on the ground in Bush's Iraq and Afghan wars — teamed
up with Cofer, Kagan, et al, Romney has reunited the foreign
policy visionaries who led the country into Iraq —just as
Barack Obatna is bringing the troops home. —L.D.
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Rick Perry and the Father's Day Massacre
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"Seek justice; defend the oppressed ..." --- Isaiah 1.17 (this image uses the now-iconic "Maid of Manhattan" pic by
photographer Stephanie Keith, a picture of one of hundreds of pro-democracy Occupy Wall Street marchers who were
entrapped, then arrested, by the NYPD on the Brooklyn Bridge, Sept 2011).
Veterans stand between police and the people at #OccupyOakland. Via Occupy Democracy Resources (and thanks to Teresa
Albrecht for pointing us to the link). Please see the Occupy Democracy Resources page for lots of links to Occupy
movements and news from all over!
Bank Of America Mortgage Modification Class Action Lawsuit I Class Action Lawsuits I... Page 1 of 1
Bank Of America Mortgage Modification Class Action
Lawsuit
March 24, 2010
Homeowners File Class Action Lawsuit Against Bank Of America For Allegedly Failing To Modify Troubled Mortgages
A class action lawsuit was filed against Bank of America in U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington (Seattle), No. 1000488, on behalf of homeowners alleging that Bank of America reneged on a promise to modify troubled mortgages as a condition to
accepting twenty five billion dollars of federal bailout money, according to a class action news report.
The Bank of America class action lawsuit reportedly alleges that Bank of America agreed to take part in the U.S. Treasury
Department's $75 billion Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) since it accepted bailout funds from the Troubled Asset
Relief Program (TARP), but allegedly had an incentive not to modify loans because doing so might cause it to repurchase more loans,
collect lower servicing fees, or assess lower default charges because fewer payments would be deemed late.
hap:11cl assactionlawsuits inthenews. c om/class-action-lawsuits/bank-o f-america-mortgage-... 1 1 /1 /20 1 1
WHO INCREASED THE DEBT?
PRESINTREAGANf PRESIDENT G.H.W. BUSH PRESIDENT CLINTON
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1/19894/1993
OFFICE GI THE DEMOCRATIC LEADER,
5/19/11
PRESIDENT G.W. BUSH
1/20014/2009
OBAN1A
1/2009-4/2011
SOURCE; TREASURY DEPARTMENT
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Recommend
people recommend this. Be the first of your friends.
November 22, 2011
Today leaders of the United Church of Christ released a statement on the inability of the
Congressional Super Committee to reach a compromise on a deficit reduction proposal.
The Rev. Geoffrey A. Black
General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ
Mr. W Math Clark
Associate General Minister of the United Church of Christ
The Rev. Dr. J. Bennett Guess
Executive Minister of the United Church of Christ's Local Church Ministries
The Rev. M. Linda Jaramillo
Executive minister of the United Church of Christ's Justice and Witness Ministries
The Rev. James Moos
Executive Minister of the United Church of Christ's Wider Church Ministries
Our Christian faith speaks directly to public morality and the ways a nation should bring justice and compassion into its civic life. Pointedly, our current
fiscal debates, at their head, are nothing less than a struggle for the soul of the nation and its moral conscience. When budget lines and tax dollars are
valued over the lives of women, children, the elderly, and the disabled, it is time that we take a deep look at who we claim to be as a nation.
The failure of the Congressional Super Committee is just one symptom of two growing problems: the inability of our elected officials to put aside their
ideological differences and serve the people they are meant to represent; and, perhaps more importantly, the tragic shift in our nation away from the
basic understanding that we are all called to care for our neighbors.
In the words of General Synod 25, a just and good society balances individualism with the needs of the community. Our nation, as well as the people we
have elected to represent us, have moved too far in the direction of promoting individual self-interest at the expense of community responsibility. The
result has been a disregard for the common good.
As the Officers of the United Church of Christ, we are increasingly troubled by the brokenness we see in this world. It is our sincere hope and prayer that
in the days and months following the Super Committee's failure to reach a deficit reduction agreement, our leaders will find the moral strength to work
for the common good.
GS 25 resolution on the Common Good
http://www.ucc.org/news/a-pastoral-letter-to.html
11/26/2011
.300 Quotes - Movie Fanatic
Page 1 of 2
300
•
•
•
•
•
Home
Pictures
Quotes
Trailer
Cast
300 Quotes
Spartan King Leonidas: This is where we fight! This is where
they die!
Captain: On these shields, boys!
[Spartans cheer]
Spartan King Leon
ersiani fficer: SPARTANS! Lay down your weapons!
Spartan King Leonidas: Persians.. .COME AND GET THEM!
• Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
Spartan King Leonidas: We're in for one wild night.
• Rating: 5.0 /5.0
Spartan King Leonidas: We Spartans have s escended from Hercules himself. augho
he battlefield is the greatest glory he could achieve
: e Tinest so iers the world has ever known
in his life. p
• Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
Leonidas: [After Xerxes offered to make Leonidas Warlord of his Empire, if he would only kneel
before him] Wow. That is generous. But you see, there is a problem. After slaughtering so many of
your men today, I've got an awful cramp in my leg [stretches] and thus kneeling will be difficult.
• Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
Leonidas: [After being threatened with the deaths of the Spartan women] Clearly you don't know
our women. I might as well have marched them up here, judging by what I've seen.
• Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
http://vvwvv.moviefanatic.com/quotes/movies/300/
11/28/2011
300 Quotes Movie Fanatic
-
Page 2 of 2
rPirgtraityViitOhat
OfitirrAitigt rinWf
a
Leonidas: he
and before this battle was over, that even a god-king can blFea
• Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
Leonidas: [Dying words] My Queen! My Wife! My Love.
• Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
Dilios: Immortals. We put their name to the test.
• Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
Leonidas: Before you speak, Persian, know that in Sparta everyone, even a king's messenger, is
responsible for the words of their voice. Now...what message do you bring?
Persian Messenger: Earth and water.
Leonidas: [Laugh] You rode all the way from Persia for earth and water?
Gorgo: Do not be coy or stupid, Persian. You can afford neither in Sparta.
Persian Messenger: What makes this woman think she can speak among men?
Gorgo: Because only Spartan women give birth to real men.
• Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
http://www.moviefanatic.comlquotcs/movies/300/
11/28/2011

City of Sacramento

Transcription

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