Where The Fuck Was MSM Yesterday???

Thousands Rally in New York for Showdown with Wall St.
Over 10,000 protesters gathered in New York's financial district to demand financial reform.

April 30, 2010 |

After a year of what seemed like nonstop Tea Party coverage, it's easy to forget that Americans ever protested in anything but solid ethnic blocs, or that Americans ever gathered to express coherent grievances grounded in reality.

Yesterday's AFL-CIO-led protest on Wall Street was an overdue reminder.

More than 5,000 union members and others delivered a crisp message with their march from City Hall to the Bowling Green Bull. In contrast to recent protests on the right, the event was noticeably lacking in loaded and ahistorical symbols like Gadsen flags, and refrained from vilifying individuals in favor of calling out institutions. Of hundreds of signs hoisted, only one was branded with the Obama logo. The signs were non-partisan and dealt with real problems -- namely, this country's rogue, unregulated finance sector. There was only one puppet, a fanged vampire squid meant to symbolize Goldman Sachs. The banners declared "Wall Street: Never Again" and "Less Audis, More Audits." Almost to a one, they echoed the clear policy demands of the day: regulatory reform, new taxes on banks and speculators, and a jobs bill.

The afternoon began with direct action protests in the lobbies of Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase. Next came a series of speakers -- teachers, students, workers -- that put New York City faces on the nationwide hard times. Representing hundreds of labor, religious and community groups, they demanded Wall Street do its part to fix the mess it created. They railed against budget cuts in city housing, health and education, overseen by the city's billionaire mayor who opposes a financial transaction tax. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/action/146678/thousands_rally_i... .

republicans Are Buying Votes - How Low Will These Bastards Sink?

Mark Jacoby aka Star Petition Services is still going strong here in California, and he's operating in a fashion true to the form that got him a smack on the wrist and 30 days of CalTrans service last year, but he's not the only one. Why isn't anyone outraged about this?

Since I first wrote about Jacoby and his bogus voter slamming, the Orange County Register has gone digging. Guess what they found? Yep, more evidence of a focused effort to use the petition to add a marijuana legalization initiative as a pathway to add more voters to Republican Party rolls.

Since mid-March, at least 99 written complaints have been submitted to state elections officials by Orange County residents who say they were registered to vote Republican without their consent. The Register found an additional 74 voters who said they were duped or coerced into registering to vote as a Republican by signature gatherers who initially asked them to sign petitions for causes like legalizing marijuana, fighting cancer or cleaning up beaches.

California Democrats are calling on the US Attorney to investigate, as they should. The very same people who demonized ACORN and accused them of voter fraud are the ones actually committing voter fraud for $8 bucks per registration.

Their scheme is pretty simple. They approach people about to enter a WalMart or Target store and ask them to sign a petition to put the marijuana legalization measure on the ballot. When someone agrees to sign the petition, they also ask them to fill out a voter registration card just to make sure their current address is correct in Sacramento. What they fail to disclose, and what most people don't notice, is that they've just signed a card changing their party affiliation to the Republican party.

From December 2009 through March 2010, the California Republican Party paid Grassroots Outreach, LLC nearly $675,000 for "voter registration services".

Who is Grassroots Outreach, LLC?

The California Corporations database indicates that Grassroots Outreach, LLC: established in California on June 11, 2008 via a third-party registration agent, C T Corporation System. C T Corporation System is also the agent for legal process. The registered address is 1232 Q St., Sacramento, CA 95811. The third-party registrant leaves the true ownership in question, but follow along with me anyway.

Nathan Sproul, a Republican political operative with a long and storied history of voter suppression and voter fraud accusations, has an Arizona company called Sproul Grassroots Mobilization, LLC. The mailing address is 80 E Rio Salado Pkwy #814, Tempe, AZ.

On June 18, 2009 the Golden State Voter Registration Project paid $50,000 to Grassroots Outreach, LLC. The address on the check was 80 E. Rio Salado Parkway, Suite 814, Tempe, AZ 85281, and the stated purpose for the payment was "voter registration services." The reported mailing address is Nathan Sproul's office, and the registered address for Sproul Grassroots Mobilization, LLC. (More on the Golden State Voter Registration Project donors and expenses here.)

The mailing address for the California payment to Grassroots Mobilization LLC is 1317 N. San Fernando Blvd, #175, Burbank, CA 91504. That address is a Pak-N-Ship store with a post office box rental service. The main offices of the California Republican Party are located about six blocks down at 1903 W. Magnolia Blvd, Burbank, CA 91506.

If we had access to corporate records, I'd be willing to bet we could draw a straight, clear, unquestionable line between Star Petition Services and Grassroots Outreach, LLC. After all, Jacoby and Sproul have a long history of doing business together.

California's politics are being run off the rail by this kind of activity. The initiative process is completely broken because Republicans are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to put signatures they bought on ballot initiative petitions and voter registration cards. We seriously cannot afford to let this go unnoticed if we ever hope to have elections that truly are fair and free.

California is not Iraq. The United States is not Afghanistan. We either stand for clean, fair elections where one vote counts as one vote, or we let this kind of activity suppress the vote and the will of the people. I guarantee you this much: If it's going on here, it's ramping up nationwide.

It's really past time for us to take our country back.

Why isn't the media breaking this news like it matters? It's the core of our democracy.

Where Are YOUR Loyalties?

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Americans are more loyal to their favorite soft drink, television show or car brand than they are to their employer, according to a joint Reuters/Ipsos poll.

But they are most committed to their country, followed by their family and their doctor.

"The most surprising thing was that country, which is more abstract, was No. 1, ahead of your family or spouse," said Timothy Keininghan, the author of the poll and a co-author of the book, "Why Loyalty Matters."

"There's a general belief that the government is broken, and people want to fix it," he said.
Seventy percent of Americans questioned in the survey said they are more loyal to their country now than they were two years ago.

Companies did not fare well when it comes to allegiance. Most Americans said they are more committed to their favorite soft drink than the company they work for.

Keiningham said the findings may reflect the impact the U.S. recession and Wall Street banking crisis has had on broader U.S. sentiment.

The poll by market research company Ipsos showed that the majority of Americans do not believe that companies are doing a good job rewarding loyal employees or customers.

Only 55 percent of employees said they would stay at their job and turn down higher pay elsewhere, which suggests that 45 percent of workers would leave their job if offered a 10 percent hike in pay.

"Employers have real issues," Keiningham said. "This should be a wake-up call. The only way to grow your way out of a bad economy is to hold on to your customers and encourage both employee and customer loyalty."

When asked how companies could improve loyalty the top answers included offering cash awards to consumers, replacing automatic answering machines with real people, making good products and not raising prices.

(Reporting by Walden Siew; Editing by Patricia Reaney)

We The People Have Spoken

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/summary.php?cycle=200...

Individual contributions $656,357,572 88%
PAC contributions $1,830 0%
Candidate self-financing $0 0%
Federal Funds $0 0%
Other $88,626,223 12%

I don't know why certain people, even people that respect and admire like Michael Moore, are experiencing such a mental moment right now over the fact that certain individuals employed by Goldman Sachs, (which employs something like 32,000 people)were among the individual contributors (that includes myself and every single DUer that contributed to the Obama campaign). Its well known that your employer gets recorded when you contribute.

Criticizing policies that you don't like is one thing. But there is ZERO merit in the insinuation that Goldman Sachs as a company somehow funded the Obama campaign in any amount of significance. The Obama 2008 campaign was the biggest, most successful, most contributed to campaign in AMERICAN HISTORY. And it was funded undeniably by a grass roots effort, in small donations, coming from individuals just like myself and YOU. This isn't disputable in the least and it use to be a well known fact back during the campaign. I can't believe how soon some forget.

Lets put an end to this silly smear job now before the facts get lost in the foamy mouthed phony outrage. All policies aside, Barack Obama ran a clean campaign and it was the most truly publically funded campaign of all time (in that general public supporters like you and me overwhelmingly funded it). If you can't take pride in having supported Obama for any other reason, this alone was and always will be something to be proud of.

republicans Driving Themselves Off A Cliff

 You it see all too often -- a grisly news story about a kid who runs his car off a cliff. We ask, "How could he have done it, how could he have been so reckless?" The answer invariably comes back: because he was drunk.

The same thing just happened to the Republicans in the Senate. Last night, to a person, like lemmings, every Republican Senator followed their leadership over a political cliff. They all voted against even debating a bill to hold the big Wall Street banks accountable. And the reason: they were drunk on Wall Street money.

It's really quite remarkable. Polls show two-thirds of the electorate strongly in favor of legislation to hold the big Wall Street banks accountable. And its not surprising, since most Americans believe -- correctly -- that the recklessness of the big Wall Street banks cost eight million Americans their jobs -- and cost millions more their savings and pensions.

Americans are furious that -- after coming with tin cups in their hands to the taxpayer, and receiving the largest bailout in world history -- these same huge banks are gorging themselves on billions in profits. They are furious that their CEO's and traders are stuffing ten-million-dollar bonuses in their pockets and flying off to celebrate in the South of France, while millions of Americans are still struggling to replace the jobs that these "masters of the universe" destroyed.

Remember that this vote comes in the midst of daily news stories about how the Big Kahuna of the Wall Street banks -- Goldman Sachs -- made billions by betting against the American housing market, and selling investors securities that were selected to fail.

The thing that is so outrageous to most Americans about the Goldman Sachs story isn't their guilt or innocence of securities fraud. The whole story puts on public display what these big Wall Street banks actually do for a living. They don't make loans to businesses or individuals -- they gamble. People ask themselves, "We bailed these guys out so they could keep on gambling?" Might as well have bailed out a bunch of casinos or racetracks.

So in the midst of all of this, the Republicans vote as a block against holding the big Wall Street banks accountable? Many Democratic strategists are gleeful. This is like shooting fish in a barrel. The Washington Post headline read: "Financial overhaul blocked by GOP." 

You can generally count on politicians to do things that at least appear to be in their political interests -- but not when their judgment is distorted by drink. Not when they are so drunk on Wall Street's money.
Just two weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took Senator John Cornyn (the chief Senate Republican fundraiser) and went off to Wall Street to get their marching orders. Their big problem is that the transaction is right out in the open for everyone to see.

Let's face it, the spectacle of Senator Olympia Snowe being lead around with a ring in her nose by Mitch McConnell and his Wall Street buddies is just downright embarrassing.

And the unabashed hypocrisy of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown -- who was elected as a tribune of the middle class -- bowing and scraping to Wall Street is politically suicidal.

Now Senate Majority Leader Reid has made clear that the Senate will continue to take cloture votes on this issue until Republicans come to their political senses and vote to allow debate on this bill.

The bottom line is this: in the end, the Senate will pass a bill to hold the big Wall Street banks accountable. They will pass such a bill because the public demands it, and because the Obama Administration and Democratic leadership understand they have such high political ground on this issue that they have no incentive to compromise on anything material.

So the only question for the Republicans is how long will it take for them to get tired of being publicly dragged, kicking and screaming, to support reform. The longer it takes, the more their marriage to Wall Street will be seared into the mind of the voters. So much the better for Democrats.

But for the country, it's a different matter. Way back in 2002, mega-investor Warren Buffet warned that the lack of regulation of Wall Street bets on derivatives were "financial weapons of mass destruction... and time bombs (threatening) the whole economic system."

In 2008, those bombs exploded, wiping out 8 million American jobs and trillions of dollars in savings. The fallout from that explosion devastated most of America.

But after their taxpayer bailout, Wall Street bankers went right back to building new financial time bombs and giving out billions in bonuses.

Today the rest of us are once again in grave economic danger from unregulated derivatives capable of destroying the U.S. economy all over again.

The timebomb Buffett warned us of is still ticking. Every day the Republicans delay, they put America at risk.

ForAll You Poll Dancers Out There

Source: Washington Post

About two-thirds of Americans support stricter regulations on the way banks and other financial institutions conduct their business, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Majorities also back two main components of legislation congressional Democrats plan to bring to a vote in the Senate this week: greater federal oversight of consumer loans and a company-paid fund that would cover the costs of dismantling failed firms that put the broader economy at risk.

A third pillar of the reform effort draws a more even split: 43 percent support federal regulation of the derivatives market; 41 percent are opposed. Nearly one in five - 17 percent - express no opinion on this complicated topic.

* * *

But compared with congressional Republicans, Obama has a clear advantage. A slim majority - 52 percent - of all Americans says they trust Obama over the GOP on the issue, while 35 percent favor the Republicans in Congress. Independents prefer Obama 47 to 35 percent, with 16 percent trusting neither side on the issue.

Read more: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/201...

Dear World

Despite what may seem to be overwhelming evidence to the contrary, not all of my countrymen are bigoted, homophobic, whackjobs. Really.

The vast majority of us are decent, hard-working people – who don’t spend our time protesting government programs that we ourselves benefit from (and we actually know which programs are funded by tax dollars, and which aren’t). The vast majority of us don’t wear two-sizes-too-small American-flag stretch pants, or teabag-festooned hats – no, not even in the privacy of our own homes for laughs.

Most of us don’t look down our noses at immigrants. We remember the fact that our forebears were once immigrants here, too – and, truth be told, a lot of them weren’t “legal” when they arrived either. Most of us don’t use the term “them” when speaking of someone whose skin colour or accent is different from our own; we tend to think in terms of “us”.

The vast majority of us don’t live in constant fear that if the gay couple down the street is able to marry, our own heterosexual marriages will implode within seconds. In fact, the vast majority of us wonder who came up with such a lame-brained idea, and why anyone would believe it in the first place.

The overwhelming majority of us do not show up at the funerals of fallen soldiers armed with God hates Fags! placards. In fact, the overwhelming majority of us probably wish that God would “arrange” some funerals for those who do.

Most of us can speak coherently – in complete and grammatically-correct sentences. Most of us can actually spell.

Most of us think Rush Limbaugh is a tub-o’-lard with a mouth, and Glenn Beck is buffoon with a blackboard. Most of us think that Sarah Palin is a fifteen-minutes-of-fame punchline to an incredibly bad practical joke gone terribly awry.

Most of us don’t engage in histrionic displays of hysteria at the thought of our tax dollars being used to feed the hungry, or house the homeless. Most of us don’t believe that those who sometimes need a helping hand are just lazy no-accounts looking for a handout.

Most of us are pro-choice and anti-war; pro-separation of church-and-state, anti-torture; pro-live-and-let-live, anti-government in-anyone’s-bedroom. That doesn’t make us baby-killers, heathens, adulterers or wusses – that makes us who we are. And for the most part, we’re pretty decent people all around.

All of the above being said, I know what you’re thinking – those of you who only know us from what you see on your TV screens, brought to you by our beloved mainstream media. Having witnessed what you have, day-in and day-out, you are convinced that the crazy people are representative of my country – because they’re on TV, 24/7, spewing their nonsense into the cameras (between commercials for pharmaceuticals that may or may not be right for you, so please call your doctor and ask him, ‘cause why the fuck not?)

But here’s the thing. Remember I said up top that the vast majority of my fellow citizens are not bigoted, homophobic, whackjobs? Well, most of them aren’t. But those who are have control of the media. Hence (just threw that in there because I love using that word), we all look like on-screen idiots, because the lunatics who are running the MSM asylum tend to seek out their own, and give them as much air-time as possible.

Think about it. Do you honestly believe that we could maintain our nation’s position as a super-power if Wolf Blitzer was the best “journalist” we could come up with? Do you think the vast majority of us could hold down jobs, raise families, and contribute to society if we were all actually like the bat-shit crazy people you hear on FOX-News? Do you imagine we could dress ourselves, feed ourselves, and manage to function on a day-to-day basis if the best little political team on TV (aka the perpetually clueless) was representative of what we think, and who we really are?

I’m beggin’ you – please don’t judge my countrymen by what you see/hear being passed off as “news” on the boob-tube. Admittedly, we have some loonies runnin’ around – probably the same as wherever you live. But, unfortunately, most of our loonies have jobs as “news correspondents” – and them that don’t are politicians with an “R” after their names, busy promoting the bartering of live chickens as the definitive answer to our healthcare woes.

So the next time you tune in to any of our alleged “news networks” and see thirty people gathered together to scream about Inglish being our offical langage, no amnety, and the pubic option, I ask you to remember that this particular lunatic fringe is only half of a small (and exceedingly trying) portion of our citizenry. And those who broadcast their antics are the other half.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x278000

To Mitch "The Bitch"

TO: Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Sir:

Just as on the Recovery Act and Healthcare Reform, you and your party colleagues are now echoing the same mantra in respect of Wall Street Reform: “Let’s slow down and start over.”

I hope you appreciate that millions of Americans wish on a daily basis that it was possible to go back and start over – not with respect to the present initiatives of our President, but with respect to where we, as a nation, now find ourselves.

Many of us wish we could go back to November 2000, and slow down and start over. We can’t help but wonder how much better off we would all be now, had Al Gore been given his rightful role as president; had the powers-that-be in your party, sir, cried, “Let’s slow down and get this process right, and ensure that the will of the People is not circumvented through courtroom theatrics, nor a Supreme Court selection of our next president.” But you didn’t say that, sir.

We wish we could go back to the early days of the Bush administration, and hear you and your colleagues admonish the president to slow down and start over and heed the warnings of intelligence agents who predicted an imminent catastrophic event on our soil. We can only wonder if the attacks of 9-11 could have been avoided had you, or anyone of influence in your party, cautioned the buffoon you foisted on a nation to spend less time “clearing brush” and more time listening to those around him who knew whereof they spoke. But you didn’t do that, sir.

We wish we could go back to the lead-up of the invasion of Iraq, and witness you and your party members telling the aforementioned buffoon to “slow down and start over” before declaring that non-existent WMDs justified a call to war – a war which has resulted in ten of thousands of casualties among our troops, as well as innocent Iraqi civilians. But you never opened your mouth in that regard, sir.

We wish we could go back to the appointment of an inexperienced political crony as the head of FEMA, and applaud you and your cohorts as you railed against the idiocy of such a move. We will never know how many of our fellow citizens could have been saved – could have been spared the nightmare of watching their neighbors suffer and die as a result of such an irresponsible appointment. But you and yours were silent on the topic, sir.

We wish we could go back and listen, truly awestruck and of one mind, as you and your fellow GOPers railed incessantly against the lack of oversight of our financial institutions, along with the agencies that protect our environment, our food, the products we purchase, the toys we give our children. Again, sir, you and your political ilk never opened your mouths.

Yes, Mr. McConnell, a lot of us wish we could slow down and start over. We will always wonder how many of our troops, now dead in Iraq, would be living out their lives with their loved ones; how many Iraqi children would not be limbless orphans; how many NOLA residents would have survived; how many tortured innocents will now wage war against us; how many forests and waterways could have been saved from pollution; how many Americans would not be losing their homes; how many US citizens would still have their jobs; how many people would still have faith in a country that you and yours allowed to become the living embodiment of greed-is-good, war-is-everything, oversight-is-detrimental to the bottom line.

Yes, sir, we will wonder – and we will ponder the repercussions of your silence, your willful inability to say “let’s slow down and start over” when it actually mattered.

How sad – and extremely telling – that you and your party members suddenly find your voice, a voice now raised in faux concern.

A policy to advance financial recovery from the debacle you and your cronies contributed to? Let’s slow down and start over.

A policy to provide Americans with access to affordable healthcare? Let’s slow down and start over.

A policy to curb the excesses of the greedy who bilk American citizens in order to reward themselves with multi-million dollar bonuses? Let’s slow down and start over.

Mr. McConnell, with all due respect – and the respect that is due you is nil – you and your party have become as laughable as you are abhorrent.

Let’s slow down and start over indeed. Let’s rethink, revamp, revisit anything that even remotely sounds like it could be a step in the right direction; anything that puts power back into the hands of the citizenry who rightfully own it; anything that moves this country forward and out of the vast wasteland you and your party have created.

In closing, sir, I would just add this – in case you are, as I strongly suspect, too arrogant to read between all-too-obvious lines: You, and those who support your “let’s start over” diatribes, disgust me.

And I am not alone in that disgust.

Yours Truly,
Nance Greggs

bush Failures Coming Back To Haunt republicunts

During the eight-year nightmare that was the W administration, the Republicans – elected politicians, their spokespeople and their supporters, were the bane of my existence. I was typically enraged on a daily basis by the never-ending lies, deceit, hypocrisy and stupidity.

After little more than a year of Obama in office, and the Democrats in control of Congress, life seems a little more sane. I can watch the President meeting with world leaders, and not cringe at the thought he might do something immensely humiliating. I can listen to him speak, and hear reason and coherent thought being articulated. I can read about his accomplishments and what he yet hopes to achieve, and appreciate the feeling of movement – of a nation being put back on track, and a slow-but-sure undoing of the damage done by the previous idiots in charge.

And so the GOP has gone from being a thorn in my side to being an endless source of amusement, that is now bordering on unstoppable hilarity – their every statement or public appearance the most laugh-inducing “reality show” ever devised.

Honestly, you can’t make this shit up – and yet they persist in doing so, day after day, week after week. I just wonder when it’s going to dawn on them that, in light of recent events and pronouncements from their own, they would have been better off settling for irrelevance rather than persist in proving, beyond all doubt, what many of us have long suspected: they’re all batshit crazy.

It started with proffering a doddering old man as a presidential candidate, followed by his proffering of a brainless idiot as a viable vice-president. Yep, you betcha! A woman who couldn’t name a single newspaper she’s ever read was going to take up the reins of government and steer its course through already-troubled waters – or not, if she got bored with the job a few months in and opted for a TV show instead.

It should have ended there – an acceptance of humiliating defeat, and a collective vow to regroup and do better in future.

But, as we all know, it didn’t end there – not by a longshot.

Instead the craziness escalated.

We’ve heard about death panels that don’t exist, insistence on bipartisan efforts that you refuse to participate in, your ire at a rising national debt which you encouraged during the BushCo years.

It’s almost astonishing to think back on W’s comments about human-animal hybrids as being the most ridiculous thing to come out of a GOPer’s mouth – a benchmark that has been surpassed – and then some.

We now have people on the crazy side of the aisle advocating bartering for healthcare services with live chickens – uh, no, really.

Like I said, you can’t make this shit up.

This is a heartfelt message to those on the Republican side: please, please, please go away. The truth is that as much as we, the sane, are amused by your antics, we’re embarrassed for you. As much as we’ve wanted to see your party, and everything it stands for, go down in flames – we really didn’t foresee this kind of suicide-by-self-humiliation being played out in public. It’s kind of pathetic – okay, extremely pathetic, and we’d rather you just moseyed on into the sunset, accompanied by Georgie playing the gee-tar, as he’s a wont to do when people are drowning.

Maybe you’re just hangin’ around like the Ghost of America past – the ogre that scared folks into buying duct-tape, terrorized the populace with tales of religious extremists at-the-ready to take over the local mall, frightened the fanatically-inclined with stories about death panels – and now you just want a few kudos for your efforts before fading into obscurity.

Okay, I hear ya – so here goes:

You were fantastic, wonderful, beyond imaginingly GRRREAT! The years you had control of the country will go down in history as the best we ever knew: the war predicated on WMDs that never existed, the surplus left by one president squandered – and then turned into a record-breaking deficit by your guy – OH, those were the TIMES!

In the worst of days, YOU never flinched. You watched, slack-jawed, as the WTC came down on your watch – and then bragged over and over about your proven record when it came to keeping the homeland safe!

You were SWELL – no, really!!! From day one to the Armageddon of your party, you never abandoned the thought that YOU were ridin’ high – and you’ve had a cheerleading MSM to tout your good works every step of the way!

Words fail. You. Were. Just. That. Awesome.

You were brilliant, we loved it – now go home. You’re done. You’re washed-up, washed-out, irrelevant, incomprehensible, over-tanned, over-spent, overwrought, a shadow of your former self, a mere smudge of ink in the history of a great nation, a never-to-be-forgotten scourge that just keeps hangin’ round like a stalker ex-boyfriend who breathes into your answering machine for fifteen minutes every night in the sincere belief that most people find that kind of behavior irresistible.

Really. I’m asking nicely.

Please take your we-know-illegals-by-their-clothes, good-Christians-condone-torture, I-can’t-spell-amnety-but-I-know-I’m-against-it, McVeigh-reference-applauding, FAUX-News-watching, tub-o’-lard-Limbaugh-listening, Teabaggin’ knuckle-draggers with you – AND GO AWAY.

It’s not for my sake. It’s for your own.

You’re embarrassing yourselves. And what’s more, you know it. And the fact that you don’t care that you know it says everything that needs to be said.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x276473
.
.
.

GOP Desperate to Sink Finance Reform — Sound Familiar? « SpeakEasy

GOP Desperate to Sink Finance Reform — Sound Familiar? « SpeakEasy

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) flew to New York two weeks ago for a private, behind-closed-doors meeting with hedge fund managers, bankers, and other Wall Street elites. It was after this meeting — where McConnell reportedly sought campaign contributions — that the Republican Senate leader returned to D.C. determined to kill the legislation that would bring some accountability to the same industry whose recklessness nearly destroyed the global financial system.

McConnell was asked on CNN this morning what, specifically, was said at the gathering about the Wall Street reform bill. The conservative Kentuckian was evasive — imagine that — and instead of answering the questions, he talked about scrapping the legislation altogether.

Anybodys Son Will Do

In 1983, the National Film Board of Canada produced a 57-m
inute film, "Anybody's Son Will Do". Arguably the best anti-war film ever made, and tailored for public television, it scared the hell out of the U.S. military machine, which has done its best to "disappear" it. For years it has been nearly impossible to find a copy, but some kind soul has posted it on YouTube where it can be seen in six segments.




The film shows the process by which young men become psychologically engineered to kill or die on command. While the model used is the U.S. Marine Corps, it's made clear that the modern techniques for creating soldiers are refined, dehumanizing and universal.

Military forces will take boys as young as the law allows, as witness African militias that, unrestrained by regulation, recruit children as young as ten. People into their twenties, having begun to think for themselves to too great a degree, tend not to be sufficiently malleable. In the U.S., recruitment below age 17 is not legal. However, as war has become ever more computerized, need is growing for tech-savvy recruits who can kill coolly and indiscriminately from great distances, as if playing video games. The military has become very good at video games.

What this leads to in the real world is exemplified by this recently publicized footage of the slaughter by U.S. military of 12 civilians. The video has been a much-needed awakening for many. But as distressing as the carnage itself is the callousness with which the people go about their work: "Alright, hahaha, I hit 'em... Nice, good shooting.... Thanks"

---snip---

Link: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Anybody-s-Son-Will-Do-...










.
.
.

teahadists And Their Fuzzy Math

As Tea Party favorite Karl Marx once said, historical events occur twice, first as tragedy, then as farce. And so it is with the Tea Party "Contract from America." But rather than following Newt Gingrich's gimmicky 1994 path to retaking control of Congress, the Tea Partiers sound more like Ronald Reagan circa 1980.

After all, the Gipper, too, promised to cut taxes, raise defense spending and balance the budget. Of course, what Reagan produced instead during his eight years in office was a tripling of the national debt and red ink as far as the eye can see.

Undeterred, today's Tea Baggers would condemn America to repeating that history of fiscal disaster, only on a far larger scale. Among the other inanities in their self-contradictory 10-point manifesto, three taken together represent the budgetary equivalent of declaring the sun rises in the west and that the law of gravity no longer applies:

(3) Demand a Balanced Budget: Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike.

(6) End Runaway Government Spending: Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth.

(10) Stop the Tax Hikes: Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011.

Sadly, the Tea Party's fuzzy math doesn't work. Put another way, you can't get there from here.

For starters, the Bush tax cuts the Tea Party wants to make permanent (10) are largely responsible for the expanding deficits in this decade and the next. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) detailed, the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 accounted for almost half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure. And as another recent CBPP analysis revealed, over the next 10 years, the Bush tax cuts will contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession - combined. (Ending the so-called "death tax," which impacts only 1 in 500 estates, will drain billions more per year from the U.S. Treasury.) An AP chart last fall of data from the Congress Budget Office show the explosion of federal debt that will ensue if the Tea Baggers and their Republicans get their way:

Continue reading »

How To Talk With A teahadist

Originally Published in The Nation, April 14, 2010

We’ll be hearing a lot about the tea party movement on tax day. They will be angry, and some of that anger at the tax system will be justified.

Like all social movements, the tea party wave is not monolithic. There are hard-core libertarians, white supremacists and partisan Republicans that are not interested in dialogue. But in my conversations with rank-and-file tea party activists, there are important points of common ground.

Many participants have seen their personal economic security devastated by the economic meltdown. They are worried about their tax bills, national debt and the economy their children will inherit. They feel isolated and the tea party is a community.

Here are a few conversation points I’ve found useful in talking with the open-minded participants at tea party activities:

We Agree

The middle class is overtaxed. After fifty years of major “tax reform” by both political parties, the middle class pays the same percent of income in taxes today as it did in 1960. The very rich (with incomes over $2 million) pay half as much as they did in 1960 and the richest 400 households pay two-thirds less. Big corporations like ExxonMobil and General Electric have gamed the system so that they pay zero or little taxes.

We are borrowing recklessly from the future, from our children’s standard of living. We borrowed to give rich and global corporations tax breaks and fight two wars. In the last eight years, we borrowed $700 billion to give tax breaks to people with incomes over $250,000.

The middle class standard of living is under attack. For thirty years real wages have been flat and our economic security has declined. This was masked by people working more hours and taking on unprecedented amounts of personal debt. The economic crisis unmasked how our security was built on a bubble of debt. A job is no longer a source of health insurance or retirement security. We’ve been told: you are on your own.

Wall Street is squeezing us at every turn. In addition to the government, corporations are also “taxing” us, with their fees, charges and monopoly control over markets. We pay more and more to Visa, Verizon, AT&T, Blue CrossBlue Shield, ExxonMobil, US Airways, etc. These are forms of taxes paid to corporations. They won’t stop unless we organize to stop them.

Where We May Disagree:

President Obama is not the enemy. Both major parties have been hijacked by corporate overlords whose first priority is to protect Wall Street financiers and greedy corporations. President Obama is pushing back more than President Bush did, and he had an enormous mess to clean up (he inherited two wars, the Wall Street meltdown and a $10 trillion national debt). If we demand a government that protects Main Street and ordinary people against organized greed, he will respond.

Scapegoating folks is a dead end. Our economic problems were not caused by immigrants or low-income people. Wall Street greed in high places is what drove the economy over a cliff. Powerful elites want to distract us by having us fight among ourselves, with racial divides and class wars. Let’s not be distracted.

Weak government is not the answer. If we shrink government, who will defend us against Wall Street and the corporate looters? The parts of government that should protect us against Wall Street greed, speculation and the assaults on the middle class have been weakened under both political parties.

Solutions

A fair and accountable tax system. Wealthy people and corporations should pay their fair share and reduce the bite on middle-class taxpayers. We should eliminate tax dodges that create one tax system for the privileged and another for everyone else.

Reduce national debt and make real investments. We need to pay down our national debt and make long overdue investments in public infrastructure that our small businesses and communities depend on.

Oversight of Wall Street. The financial sector is incapable of policing itself. We need strong public institutions to oversee the financial markets so that the reckless, greedy and unregulated financial activities that wrecked our economy cannot happen again.

Rein in big corporations. We need a constitutional amendment to limit the power of corporations to dominate our political process including elections, campaigns and lobbying. This is key to preserving our democracy and liberties.

Looting Main Street

“Looting Main Street”–Matt Taibbi on How the Nation’s Biggest Banks Are Ripping Off American Cities with Predatory Deals:

In a new article in Rolling Stone magazine, journalist Matt Taibbi takes an in-depth look at the experience of one small Alabama town and its disastrous dealings with Wall Street. Taibbi writes, “The destruction of Jefferson County reveals the basic battle plan of these modern barbarians, the way that banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have systematically set out to pillage towns and cities from Pittsburgh to Athens.”

And from Rolling Stone Looting Main Street: How the nation's biggest banks are ripping off American cities with the same predatory deals that brought down Greece:

If you want to know what life in the Third World is like, just ask Lisa Pack, an administrative assistant who works in the roads and transportation department in Jefferson County, Alabama. Pack got rudely introduced to life in post-crisis America last August, when word came down that she and 1,000 of her fellow public employees would have to take a little unpaid vacation for a while. The county, it turned out, was more than $5 billion in debt — meaning that courthouses, jails and sheriff's precincts had to be closed so that Wall Street banks could be paid.

As public services in and around Birmingham were stripped to the bone, Pack struggled to support her family on a weekly unemployment check of $260. Nearly a fourth of that went to pay for her health insurance, which the county no longer covered. She also fielded calls from laid-off co-workers who had it even tougher. "I'd be on the phone sometimes until two in the morning," she says. "I had to talk more than one person out of suicide. For some of the men supporting families, it was so hard — foreclosure, bankruptcy. I'd go to bed at night, and I'd be in tears."

Read on...

STOP THE BLEEDING!

In the coming weeks, Congress will vote on spending billion of your money to send another 30,000 troops, plus many more contractors, to Afghanistan.

DefundWar.org logoWe are inflicting horrible suffering on the people of Afghanistan, making our own nation less safe, and spending resources we badly need.

Tell congress members we need them to publicly commit to voting No, and to urge their colleagues to do the same. Call your Representative at (202) 224-3121.

Here's a whip list tracking who has already committed to voting No and to publicly lobbying their colleagues to join them:
http://defundwar.org

Congressman Bill Delahunt is held a public forum on the question of war funding yesterday in Falmouth, Mass. See video:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/51398

David Swanson's prepared remarks for the forum offer a detailed argument for voting No on the billion.

On tax day, let people know where their tax dollars will be going. Here are some resources:

http://www.warresisters.org

http://nationalpriorities.org/taxday2010

And plan ahead for Brown Bag Vigils all over the country on April 21st!

ANOTHER Nail In bushies Cofin

The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.

Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defence Secretary knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”.

General Powell, who left the Bush Administration in 2005, angry about the misinformation that he unwittingly gave the world when he made the case for the invasion of Iraq at the UN, is understood to have backed Colonel Wilkerson’s declaration.

Colonel Wilkerson, a long-time critic of the Bush Administration’s approach to counter-terrorism and the war in Iraq, claimed that the majority of detainees — children as young as 12 and men as old as 93, he said — never saw a US soldier when they were captured. He said that many were turned over by Afghans and Pakistanis for up to $5,000. Little or no evidence was produced as to why they had been taken.

He also claimed that one reason Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld did not want the innocent detainees released was because “the detention efforts would be revealed as the incredibly confused operation that they were”. This was “not acceptable to the Administration and would have been severely detrimental to the leadership at DoD [Mr Rumsfeld at the Defence Department]”.

Referring to Mr Cheney, Colonel Wilkerson, who served 31 years in the US Army, asserted: “He had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent ... If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it.”

He alleged that for Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld “innocent people languishing in Guantánamo for years was justified by the broader War on Terror and the small number of terrorists who were responsible for the September 11 attacks”.

He added: “I discussed the issue of the Guantánamo detainees with Secretary Powell. I learnt that it was his view that it was not just Vice-President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld, but also President Bush who was involved in all of the Guantánamo decision making.”

Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld, Colonel Wilkerson said, deemed the incarceration of innocent men acceptable if some genuine militants were captured, leading to a better intelligence picture of Iraq at a time when the Bush Administration was desperate to find a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, “thus justifying the Administration’s plans for war with that country”.

He signed the declaration in support of Adel Hassan Hamad, a Sudanese man who was held at Guantánamo Bay from March 2003 until December 2007. Mr Hamad claims that he was tortured by US agents while in custody and yesterday filed a damages action against a list of American officials.

Defenders of Guantánamo said that detainees began to be released as early as September 2002, nine months after the first prisoners were sent to the jail at the US naval base in Cuba. By the time Mr Bush left office more than 530 detainees had been freed.

A spokesman for Mr Bush said of Colonel Wilkerson’s allegations: “We are not going to have any comment on that.” A former associate to Mr Rumsfeld said that Mr Wilkerson's assertions were completely untrue.
The associate said the former Defence Secretary had worked harder than anyone to get detainees released and worked assiduously to keep the prison population as small as possible. Mr Cheney’s office did not respond.

There are currently about 180 detainees left in the facility.
.
.
.

What Would Nixon Do?

by Steven D

Pretend with me for a moment that the following events, some of which have already occurred and some of which are scheduled to occur this April 19, 2010, might have occurred during the Nixon Administration in the early 70's. Then ask yourself this question:

What Would Nixon Do?

Imagine for a moment it is 1970, not 2010. Imagine further (though as we know this never happened) a large group of radical protesters to the Nixon administration descended on a National Park just outside the District of Columbia, followed by a march on the Capitol. Imagine that these groups stated their intention to hold speeches and rallies to Restore the Constitution from the "tyranny" of the then current President, Richard M. Nixon.

Now imagine that the organizers of this group were encouraging every attendee to bring with them and openly carry their firearms as a signal to their government regarding the seriousness of their purpose. Imagine further that one of the main speakers at this event was to be the leader of a group of individuals dedicated to defying any order by the federal, state or local governments they consider, in their sole discretion, to be unconstitutional. Imagine further, that this rally was scheduled to be held days after the FBI raided and arrested members of a heavily armed anti-government group which had plans to kill and murder thousands of law enforcement officers in an attempt to spark a civil war and overthrow the government.

Now imagine that the date of this rally was the same day a domestic terrorist opposed to Nixon's policies and the policies of his administration, who was considered a hero to many of the individuals planning to attend these rallies, had killed over a hundred people, including children, and wounded hundreds more, by exploding a truck bomb outside a federal office building. Well Nixon is dead, so we can't ask him, but we do know what he did do to unarmed antiwar protesters in Washington in 1971.

He called in 10,000 military reinforcements, canceled a permit the protesters had been granted to hold a rock concert in Washington Potomac Park and in the early morning of May 2, 1971 had police attack the sleeping protesters by knocking down their tents and firing with tear gas causing most of them to scatter and eventually leave Washington, Of those who stayed. some of whom participated in non-violent acts of civil disobedience such as shutting down streets and blocking intersections, the police conducted massive sweeps in which they arrested over 7000 people. Nixon also secretly told his staff that he supported the use of Teamster "thugs" to attack and beat up anti-war demonstrators.

Of course, this was not as horrific as the events of the May. 1970 Kent State and Jackson State massacres in which unarmed civilians had been gunned down by National Guard units at Kent State and by police at Jackson State.

Andn I suppose we don;t need to go as far back as the early 70's to get an idea of how Republican officials might respond to protesters. All we need to do is recall the mass arrests of thousands of New Yorkers and others during the 2004 Republican National Convention at which President Bush was re-nominated.



Continued>>>
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2010/4/7/84530/00988

Remember This When You Vote - republicans Fucked Shit Up Real Good

Made In America

Back in the good old days there were the Ford, General Motors and Chrysler.

All made in America.

I can remember even as a kid we all loved our country and we only bought American made products.Back then we didn't want to purchase products coming out of sweat shops, made by underpaid, unappreciated workers from foreign lands. We cared about human conditions but most of all we cared about America.

Our country.

Our people.

Our neighbors, friends and family.



What got me to wondering about this was over hearing a conversation the other day when a man said that he refused to shop at Walmart because he couldn't find anything he needed there that was "Made in the USA". The vast bulk of the products being sold nationwide at Walmart stores are manufactured outside of American borders.

But in all fairness, most other retailers are just as guilty.

I am part of the problem also Looking around my house looking at he products that I use all have origins from manufacturing plants in other countries.

Laptop comuter- China. And if you have the time to look through the owners guide, and read through all the boring bits, you will find a warning stating that handling the power cables will expose you to lead. No joke.

My suit - Syria. Cowboy boots - Mexico. Hiking boots - China. Sneakers (both pair) - China. Dress shoes (Cole Haan) - Mexico. Wrangler denim jeans - Mexico and Costa rica. My road bike - Taiwan. Mountain bike - China.RCA radio - China. Epson all in one printer, on the box you only see a California address. Could it be? Nope - Thailand. Space heater - Italy.Blender - China. Coffee maker - Mexico. Roller blades - China. Coats/Jackets - China, Mexico, and Qiz Jordan. Digital Camera - Japan. Well here is a ray of hope, the pillow I am resting on was filled in the US. The casing was made in China tho. My Springfield Armory 40 cal. SW.Springfield Armory of Geneseo, IL. On the slide it even says Springfield Armory USA. Made in Croatia.

I thought of what company would represent Amrica the best and I immediately thought of Harley-Davidson. Nothing says "USA" like Harley right?

What I found was disturbing.

Harley riding boots - China. Harley gloves - China.The Harley key fob my girlfriend bought for me - China. The tee-shirt I got when I purchased the bike - St. Loius?? Nope, thats where the design was put on the shirt. The shirt was made in Honduras.

This is sad.

Is it even possible to have a totally "Made in the USA" household anymore?

So look around and see what is made here. Let me know what and where I can buy American.
.
.
.

republican Incompetence

If there is anything that the Republicans hate, it's losing. And when it came to the health care bill...Republicans lost big.

They had bet all the marbles on stopping health care reform cold and then convincing voters next fall that Obama's Democrats couldn't deliver. They were practically putting together the TV commercials: "Obama's Democrats promise change and deliver nothing..." "Democrats are all talk and no action..." "Even with big majorities in the House and Senate, Democrats couldn't convince Congress to support Obamacare." To their credit, they knew that if they stopped health care reform, they would cripple Obama's ability to pass anything in his program. But their strategy turned out to be a disaster.

The captains of the Republican ship -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader John Boehner, and the feckless Republican Chairman Michael Steele -- ran the Republican ship right into the rocks. Is it any wonder that the crew is beginning to mutter about mutiny? In recent days I have spoken to a number of Republican members of Congress who are not at all happy with the leadership of their party.

Of course you still hear pundits boldly predicting that the health care bill will be a hard sell with the American people. But I'll bet any one of them a steak dinner that by Election Day a vote for the health care bill will be a big plus in most contested districts. The reasons are simple:

* Because it's passed into law, Democrats are now the ones who will be in a position to demand that Republicans keep their "hands off our health care." And we can be very specific about provisions that go into effect right away.

Does Congressman Boehner really want to repeal the 35% tax credit that helps small business buy health care for their employees?

Does McConnell really want to repeal the provision that prevents insurance companies from denying benefits to children who have "pre-existing conditions?"

Does Steele really want to kick all the recent college grads off their parent's health insurance policies?

Does the Republican caucus really oppose closing the "donut hole" of coverage for senior citizen drug benefits -- or forcing seniors to send back the 250 check they will get this summer as a down payment on making drugs more affordable?

Do Republicans want to side with the big insurance companies and eliminate the provision that will limit the amount of our premium dollars that insurance companies can spend on CEO pay, armies of bureaucrats who do nothing but deny claims, TV ads and limousines full of lobbyists?

Doesn't sound like the high political ground to me - or to an increasing number of Republican Members of Congress.

* By Election Day, voters will understand that the campaign to gin up fear about health care reform was completely bogus. This is particularly true of seniors who will find that the bill did not - as the Republicans claimed -- cut their Medicare. In fact they will find that it has strengthened their Medicare - that the only thing cut was a subsidy to big private insurers.

* Let's face it -- after while it's hard to convince people that the sky is falling if pieces of the sky never crash through your roof.

Of course their management of the health care strategy isn't the only cause of alarm in the Republican cloak rooms. Their political operation is a mess.

Last week's disclosure of political expenditures for private jets and expensive hotels -- and the great bondage club after-party scandal -- are tough to explain for a party that claims to stand for fiscal restraint and "family values." And the return phone number on the Republican mailing that mistakenly went to a sex call-in line just made the RNC into a laughing stock. It's not good to be a laughing stock.

* Last week's PR disaster may turn out to be the tipping point that causes confidence in the Party apparatus to tank. Michael Steele has never been a popular RNC Chairman. He never did understand that the role of a Party Chair is to build the party organization -- not the Chairman's political profile.

Some politicians (think Ronald Reagan) were like Teflon -- nothing would stick. Steele is more like Velcro -- everything sticks to him. This is a real problem for the Party since it takes two thirds of the Republican National Committee to oust him in the midterm -- and it is especially difficult to do because he is the first African American Republican Chairman. All the Republicans need is to oust Steele and give the country one more example of how the Republican Party has been reduced to a narrow regional and racial enclave in a corner of America.

Of course, under Steele the RNC has spent like a drunken sailor (and not just at their favorite night spots). From July of last year to February of this year the RNC spent $78 million while they took in only $63 million. They spent 20% more than the Democratic National Committee over the period and their cash on hand dropped from $23.7 million last July 1st to $9.5 million at the end of February.

The RNC, National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) all had less cash on hand at the end of February than their Democratic counterparts -- and in the case of the House Committee the difference was enormous. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) had $20 million on hand while the NRSC had only $6.1 million. That's pretty amazing when you consider that Republicans in Congress spend all of their time defending America's wealthiest corporate special interests.

One key explanation is incompetence.

And that's one of the reasons Karl Rove, former RNC Chair Ed Gillespie, and other Republican heavyweights have set up a new, competing organization called American Crossroads.

But Republican disarray also has to do with the lack of skill with which their leaders have been able to hold together the major factions of the Republican base. Just last week Tony Perkins, head of the conservative Family Resource Council called publicly on conservatives to stop giving to the RNC. Referring to the bondage-club episode he wrote: "This latest incident is another indication to me the RNC is completely tone-deaf to the values and concerns of a large number of people they are seeking financial support from..."

The modern Republican Party has always been made up of two very different forces. The dominant partner has always been big business, Wall Street, the insurance industry -- and the wealthiest two percent of Americans. From a policy point of view, they have pretty much gotten what they've wanted when the Republicans were in power -- most notably a massive shift of wealth and income to them from everyone else in the country. They got the deregulation of the financial sector -- no matter that it led directly to the current economic recession. They got policies that reduced the power of organized labor to stop the flow of wealth to the very rich. And they got defense policies that generated hundreds of billions of contracts for their firms.

The weaker partner represented the rank and file of the Party: the conservative "movement" that cared about social issues like gay marriage and abortion, protecting their children from pornography and very often protecting their fragile sense of social status from the encroachment of minorities. The Republicans have done a great deal to give lip service to these groups, but these rank and file Republican soldiers don't feel that the party has really delivered for them. And, of course, like most middle-income Americans, they have lost ground economically in order to satisfy the demands of their big business partners in the Republican coalition.

That helps explain why many of the Tea Party activists are almost as unhappy with the Republican Party as they are with Obama and the Democrats.

As the social and geographic base of the Republican Party has shrunk over the last ten years, the "movement" portion of the Party has become more and more vocal -- especially among Members of the House.

We'll see a spotlight turned on this cleavage when immigration reform moves to center stage in the next few weeks. The business community has reached out across party lines and wants to fix the broken immigration system. And many Republican Party leaders realize that if they fail to compete for Latino voters - the fastest-growing minority in the country -- they will probably doom any chance the party has of ever returning as a national presence.

But much of the radical fringe of the Republican base does not like the growing presence of Latino culture in the United States, and that creates yet another critical problem for Republican leaders.

When it comes to immigration, the forces within the party favoring reform may find help from an unlikely source -- the evangelical religious community. Like the Catholic Church, evangelical churches have a massive institutional interest in appealing to Latinos, since the Hispanic community is the largest source of their own organizational growth. That may help tip the balance on immigration -- at least for some of the Republican leadership, like Senator Lindsey Graham, that understand the importance of this issue to the Party's future.

Of course you could have some sympathy for the difficulties of the McConnell, Boehner, Steele leadership team. Their own past record has saddled them with a very difficult long-term political problem. Increasingly, pundits tell us that the Republican Party has no program - they are just the party of "No." But this is really wrong.

The problem isn't that they don't have a program. The problem is that their programs led us into the worst economic and foreign policy catastrophes in half a century. Their problem isn't that they were unable to enact their policies. The problem is that they did enact their policies - and they were disasters.

The program of the Republican Party is the deregulation of Wall Street; it's the privatization of Social Security; it's doing away with Medicare and replacing it with vouchers. Their program is to stand up for the big Wall Street banks, the health insurance companies, the oil companies, and the very rich. Try running in the midterms on that program.

That's why they were reduced to being the "Party of No" in the first place. They couldn't very well offer their true policy alternatives, because they were politically radioactive.

But in times of difficulty, organizations need leaders who can rise to the occasion -- understand the building of coalitions -- take advantage of political opportunities -- and make the tough choices that are necessary for success in the long term. Clearly McConnell, Boehner and Steele were not those kinds of leaders. They've bungled every challenge they've faced, and that's why rank and file Republican officeholders are beginning to lose faith in their leadership.

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author

Video U.S. Intelligence Tried to Suppress Reveals U.S. Military Cover Up

In 2007, two Reuters employees — photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh — were killed by a U.S. helicopter strike in Baghdad. The U.S. military’s official response to the killings argued that the attack occurred after security forces came under fire from men accompanying the reporters, and that the rules of engagement were followed in returning fire. Skeptical of the military’s claim, Reuters filed a Freedom of Information Act request for video of the killings, but was unable to get the videos from the military, despite warnings from the Pentagon’s inspector general that future shootings were “likely to reoccur” if the event was not closely examined.


During an event this morning at the National Press Club, whistleblower website Wikileaks unveiled that it has a video, obtained from unnamed military sources, from one of the Apache helicopters involved in the attack. The video, which has now been uploaded to YouTube and placed on a Wikileaks website dedicated to the incident, appears to show that the military’s helicopters attacked the Reuters employees unprovoked, apparently mistaking their cameras and tripods for weapons. The video does not show the victims firing on U.S. military personnel, nor does it show that they were any apparent threat. Watch it (warning — contains violent imagery):



If the video is indeed an accurate portrayal of events, it would appear that the military’s official response to the events is inaccurate and that it has not been telling the truth when it claims that the Apache attack “occurred after security forces came under fire.” Additionally, it would appear that the Apache pilots in question violated the 2007 U.S. Rules of Engagement for Iraq, which permit the use of “deadly force” only against individuals who “pose a threat to Coalition Forces by committing a hostile act or demonstrating hostile intent.”

The Wikileaks’ revelation strengthens the case for a thorough and transparent investigation into the events that led to the killing of the Reuters employees and Iraqi civilians.

UPDATE
Last month, the New York Times revealed that Wikileaks has been targeted by the Pentagon and related intelligence agencies for its cooperation with military whistleblowers. In 2008, the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center put together a report outlining tactics to suppress whisteblowers, in which it cited Wikileaks by name as one organization it intends to “destroy [as] a center of gravity” for whisteblowing activity. Meanwhile, the Wikileaks founder has alleged that his organization is being intimidated and spied on by American intelligence agencies.

UPDATE
Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger released the following statement: “The deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh three years ago were tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones. We continue to work for journalist safety and call on all involved parties to recognise the important work that journalists do and the extreme danger that photographers and video journalists face in particular. The video released today via Wikileaks is graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result.”

The End Of The republican Party

The End of the Republican Party

Posted by saberjet22 in General Discussion

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/saberjet22/38
Sun Apr 04th 2010, 05:07 PM

 

AN EMPTY CAN MAKES THE MOST NOISE

After watching the behavior of the Teabaggers for several months I have come to the inescapable conclusion that they are nothing more than a gang of fourth grade bullies. They are uneducated beyond rudimentary communication skills, which leads them to be bigoted and susceptible to mass delusions. They are easily programmed, as can be seen by their signs (many misspelled) and their chants, which are often ludicrous. (Health Care Equals Tyranny).

Their existence and apparent flourishing are symptoms of the dissolution of the Republican party. This process is not an overnight collapse. It began with Nixon and really hit its stride with the illegal accession to the presidency of George the Stupid in 2000. But it is clear; the Republican party is disintegrating before our eyes. They have no leaders, they have no morals, they have no platform and no constructive ideas. They do have plenty of perverts and hypocrites. Not a week goes by when the public is not presented with a new Republican sex scandal.

The party is desperately trying to hold on to its “base,” which at this point is anyone who’ll vote for them, which is why the Republicans are welcoming the Teabaggers, who have found a home among the desperate and corrupt political hacks, which is all the Republican party has left.

It seems that all the Republicans can do now is obstruct anything and everything Democratic, hoping to prevent any progress from being made, in order to make the claim that the Democrats are ineffective, therefore people should vote Republican in the next election. This tactic wouldn’t fool a five-year-old.

So who do they have left? Sarah Palin (a money-hungry fool), Rush Limbo (an overblown bigot) Glenn Beck (a crazy idiot), and Michele Bachmann (Hahahahaha). I don’t think any of them is capable of saving the Republican party.

What we’ll see eventually is a weakened Republican party, (having finally repudiated the Teabagger Klan) too damaged to do anything, trying desperately to get back to the middle of the road, and the formation of a third party for the Teabaggers and assorted nutjobs, conspiracy fans and tin-foil hatters .
.
.
.

Words Matter

Words matter to the GOP and apparently they matter even more when they are violent words. and the GOP seems to see it as a chance to turn out votes.

Sarah Palin told her Republican followers to "reload" and "aim for" Democrats, directing GOP activists to her website where they found a map of the country festooned with rifle scope cross-hairs over Congressional districts held by Democrats. Palin's rifle scope map is the kind of image one might expect to see in an ad for a violent, first-person shooter video game.

Chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele, issued a recent call to Republicans to put Nancy Pelosi on the "firing line" because of the health insurance reform bill. By using the phrase "firing line," Steele encourages Republican activists to think of the next election as an execution of the opposition or a violent killing.
These are just two examples of the picture republicans are trying to paint in the minds of those that make up their base, fueled by constant and never ending lies and mis-truths, they prey on the fears, weaknesses and insecurities of groups like the Tea Party or militias like the Hutaree.

An old joke says “The people are revolting” but revolting against what exactly? 

The role of the revolutionary is to have a vision. It is to overthrow a tired status quo, to liberate the enslaved – whether they are physically enslaved or whether they are bound to ideologies that no longer function. The revolutionary tends to be a free thinker, a liberal concerned with a fairer deal for all. The revolutionary wants to move us forward.

The new revolutionaries, however, have emerged from some freakish opposite dimension bizarro world. They are ultraconservatives, fighting for poorer health, poverty, ideological enslavement, wider gaps between the haves and have nots, the pre-eminence of ‘rights’ over needs, unlimited economic growth even if it leads to societal and planetary collapse and most incomprehensible of all believing that McShitstain/Palin was a good direction for America.

Their revolution is based in fear rather than vision. 

This ‘Tea Bagger’ revolution has nothing to do with what is really wrong, nor is it intended to fix anything. It is just a senseless acting out of what Robert Bly called the Sibling Society – a society populated by emotionally inarticulate adults of the late post-war generation who have come to be ruled by consumerism, professional, personal self interest and narcissism.

The end result?

Emotionally stunted or “half-grown adults”, intent on their own agendas, and incapable of fulfilling their parental, nurturing and leadership obligations to the next generation. In short, a society populated by a bunch of pseudo-adolescents who want everything all the time and who can’t think past their own childish tantrums to the damage they are doing.

So where are the real revolutionaries?

The ones who understand the complexity of modern life and the urgent need for change and are agitating to move us forward within that framework. The ones that give the average Joe common man a promise of hope.

The Republican Party is doing a great job in provoking a dangerous episode by making consensual governance impossible in a time of awful practical problems and challenges. They're in the process, right now, of transforming themselves from the party of "no" to the party of no decency, no common sense, no ideas, no conception of the public interest, and no respect for the traditions that they pretend to stand for, like due process of law.

In the days since the passage of health care reform, they've gone as far as inciting mobs to violence against their fellow congressmen and senators -- bricks thrown through windows, death threats made, coffins placed in the yards of their adversaries.






One day soon, somebody with a gun or an explosive device, someone with a very sketchy sense-of-self, and perhaps a recent record of personal failure and humiliation, is going to sacrifice himself by gong one step further to become the Tea Party's first martyr by shooting up a shopping mall or some other hate/fear induced act of violence spurred on by the terrorist republican party.

The consequences could be deadly.

.

.

.

Let The Arrests Begin!

The criminal NSA eavesdropping program
By Glenn Greenwald

While torture and aggressive war may have been the most serious crimes which the Bush administration committed, its warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens was its clearest and most undeniable lawbreaking. Federal District Judge Vaughn Walker yesterday became the third federal judge -- out of three who have considered the question -- to find that Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program was illegal (the other two are District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor and 6th Circuit Appellate Judge Ronald Gilman who, on appeal from Judge Taylor's decision, in dissent reached the merits of that question and adopted Taylor's conclusion that the NSA program was illegal).

That means that all 3 federal judges to consider the question have concluded that Bush's NSA program violated the criminal law (FISA). That law provides that anyone who violates it has committed a felony and shall be subject to 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for each offense. 

The law really does say that. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode50/usc_se... Just click on that link and you'll see. 

It's been obvious for more than four years that Bush, Cheney, NSA Director (and former CIA Director) Michael Hayden and many other Bush officials broke the law -- committed felonies -- in spying on Americans without warrants.

Yet another federal judge has now found their conduct illegal. If we were a country that actually lived under The Rule of Law, this would be a huge story, one that would produce the same consequences for the lawbreakers as a bank robbery, embezzlement or major drug dealing. But since we're not such a country, it isn't and it doesn't.

much more:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index...
.
.
.

WTF is There Left To Recover?

Recovery? What is there left to "recover"? - Democratic Underground

Will we recover our domestic manufacturing base?

Will we recover living wage jobs that contribute to society-wide prosperity?

Will we recover a strong unionized work force that guarantees fair wages and protections for all workers?

Will we recover a thriving middle class that not only provides for itself but also makes socio-economic upward mobility possible for those at the bottom?

Will we recover a time when seeking to buying products "made in the U.S.A." wasn't an exercise in futility?

Will we recover a progressive tax system that sees the wealthiest paying a share not less than the working class?

Will we recover a strongly regulated capitalism that guards against the abuses of the greediest among us?

When the powers-that-be speak of "recovery", just what exactly do they think this "recovery" will consist of?

.

.

.