All Entries in the "Fascism, Police State, Authoritarianism" Category

Cash-Strapped State Governments Hike Traffic Fees

Shomari Jennings was willing to pay the $70 ticket he received for driving without a seatbelt, but not the slew of tacked-on fees and penalties that ballooned the cost more than tenfold.

Every $10 of his base fine triggered a $26 “penalty assessment” for courthouse construction, a DNA identification program, emergency medical services and other programs. Other fees ranged from $1 to $35.

“It’s the new tax,” Jennings, 30, complained while waiting in traffic court to contest a staggering bill compounded by a $500 fine for missing a court date.

Full Story: Cash-Strapped State Governments Hike Traffic Fees.

OPS: We are liable to start seeing more traffic stops for more obscure reasons. It’s nothing personal, it’s just business

Under Panetta, a more aggressive CIA

The plan was a standard one in the CIA’s war against extremists in Pakistan: The agency was using a Predator drone to monitor a residential compound; a Taliban leader was expected to arrive shortly; a CIA missile would kill him.

On the morning of Aug. 5, CIA Director Leon Panetta was informed that Baitullah Mehsud was about to reach his father-in-law’s home. Mehsud would be in the open, minimizing the risk that civilians would be injured or killed. Panetta authorized the strike, according to a senior intelligence official who described the sequence of events.

Some hours later, officials at CIA headquarters in Langley identified Mehsud on a feed from the Predator’s camera. He was seen resting on the roof of the house, hooked up to a drip to palliate a kidney problem. He was not alone.

Full Story: Under Panetta, a more aggressive CIA.

Temple Bomb Suspects: The Feds Put Us Up to It!

Defense attorneys say an alleged plot to bomb New York synagogues was hatched and directed by a federal informant.

Lawyers for four men from Newburgh have filed a motion to dismiss the terror indictment against them.

They said the informant badgered the defendants until they got involved in the plot.

They said the informant chose the targets, supplied fake bombs for the synagogues and a fake missile to shoot down planes. The motion said he also offered to pay the defendants, who attorneys alleged weren’t inclined toward any crime until the informant began recruiting them.

Full Story: Temple Bomb Suspects: The Feds Put Us Up to It! | NBC New York.

Cigna Gives $110.9 Million Compensation Package To Ex-CEO

The insurance giant Cigna last year gave compensation packages worth more than $120 million to two executives who left the company, according to a filing with the SEC on Friday.

The vast majority of that total went to former chairman and CEO H. Edward Hanway who left his post with a retirement package worth $110.9 million — which included $18.8 million in executive compensation for 2009, as well as a healthy pension plan, deferred compensation and stock options.

With more than $19 billion in revenues reported in 2008, Cigna remains one of the most profitable insurers in the country. Though, unlike some of its competitors, it does not appear to have raised premiums on customers in an effort to improve somewhat sagging recent profits.

Full Story: Cigna Gives $110.9 Million Compensation Package To Ex-CEO.

In choosing its battle names, the military must know its target audience

In the hypercharged rush of combat, the adrenaline flows and the rhetoric soars. After the “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq, many of the names the military gave early battles were pugnacious: Operation Scorpion Sting, Operation Iron Hammer, Operation Ivy Serpent.

But as the military changed tactics, trying to win over the local population with on-the-ground diplomacy, some nicknames started to soften. Hence Operation Glad Tidings of Benevolence and Operation Together Forward.

Names are important, especially in war. Like a good advertising jingle, war names must be catchy and concise. But above all else, they have to sell — all sorts of things, to all sorts of people: inspiration to the troops, righteousness to Americans at home, partnership to allied countries, peace and promise to non-combatant civilians.

And, to the enemy: We're-coming-to-kill-you aggression.

Full Story: In choosing its battle names, the military must know its target audience – washingtonpost.com.

Obama urges new powers for the Fed

US President Barack Obama on Saturday urged senators to grant the Federal Reserve a dramatic expansion of its’ regulatory powers and to establish a new consumer protection committee to help safeguard Americans from Wall Street’s excesses.

“These reforms are essential,” Obama said in his weekly radio address.

“As I’ve urged over the past year, we need common-sense rules that will allow our markets to function fairly and freely while reining in the worst practices of the financial industry.”

On Monday, the Senate banking committee will debate a proposal by Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd that is designed to halt what he sees as abuse and excess by financial firms.

Full Story: Obama urges Senate action on controversial finance reforms | Raw Story.

Nat’l ID card + microchip required by Immigration Bill

The NYT reported yesterday (3/18) that senators Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina have introduced:

“..a proposal to overhaul the immigration system, which would require illegal immigrants to admit they broke the law before they could gain legal status and require all workers in the United States to carry a biometric identity card to prove that they are eligible to work…..

The plan calls for a big increase in immigration agents patrolling workplaces, and would require all workers, including legal immigrants and American citizens, to present a tamper-proof Social Security card when they apply for jobs. Biometric identity information would be stored on the card and not in any government database, according to an explanatory document from the senators.”

Information about biometric ID cards is easier to find at British websites, since they are far advanced in civilian surveillance and control. The Biometric Identity Cards site opines:

What biometric information will be stored on the card?

Full Story: Nat’l ID card + microchip required by Immigration Bill « Wake-up Call.

15 Executives Who Get Paid Millions To Deny You Health Care Coverage

The business model of American health insurers is basically: try to get healthy customers as clients, and then resist as long as possible when it comes to paying out claims.

That’s actually not an indictment or a criticism.

It’s just the way our system works, and it’s screwed up.

Whatever you feel about Obamacare, you probably think our current system needs reform in some sense.

Below we present the posterboys of the problem. Top healthcare CEOs making millions, leading companies that deny you coverage.

Full Story: 15 Executives Who Get Paid Millions To Deny You Health Care Coverage.

Toyota used its ‘game plan’ to escape a major early recall

As congressional investigators learned last month, Toyota Motor lobbyists claimed last year to have saved the company $100 million by fending off a 2007 federal investigation into unintended acceleration.

Toyota and agency officials dismissed the claim as an idle boast.

But a closer look at the 2007 investigation, revealed in agency records and internal Toyota e-mails, shows that after federal investigators at the time diagnosed a number of potential dangers in Toyota cars and trucks, the automaker resisted the findings and in the end escaped a broad recall that could have cost millions of dollars.

Investigators with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told Toyota in 2007 that the design of Toyota pedals or floor pans could allow floor mats to entrap the accelerator. They saw a problem in Camrys, Priuses, Avalons and Lexus ES350s. Moreover, they believed that any type of floor mat could pose a danger

Full Story: Toyota used its ‘game plan’ to escape a major early recall – washingtonpost.com.

Glaxo funded backers of ‘danger’ drug

Pharmaceutical giant accused of skewing debate about diabetes treatment linked to heart attacks

Full Story: Glaxo funded backers of ‘danger’ drug – Health News, Health & Families – The Independent.

Obama’s US Top Cop for Banks Wants Less Regulation, Echoes Republican Wall St. Pals

Republicans are taking an unpopular stand with Wall Street. Dems need to have the guts to stand up against them both.

If you had any doubt about the bank lobby’s vice-grip on public policy, look no further than the meeting of the American Bankers Association currently taking place in Washington. In a shameless effort to curry favor with the deep-pocketed financial industry, House Minority Leader John Boenher, R-Ohio, urged lobbyists to fight hard against financial reform. And astonishingly, the nation’s top bank cop, Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, actually agreed with him.

The ABA is the top lobby group for the nation’s financiers, and has been fighting hard to prevent meaningful regulation of the industry that drove the global economy off a cliff in 2008. Their current conference is focused on “government relations,” known to the rest of the world as “shameless vote-buying.”

At Thursday’s meeting, Rep. Boehner made an impassioned plea for the bank lobby to keep up the fight, according to a report by Dow Jones NewsWires:

“Don’t let those little punk staffers take advantage of you and stand up for yourselves,” Boehner said. “All of us are hearing from our friends and constituents on lack of credit, you can’t get a loan, the more your government takes and taxes, the more regulations you have to comply with the more cost you have there and less amount you are going to have available to loan to customers.”

Full Story: Obama’s US Top Cop for Banks Wants Less Regulation, Echoes Republican Wall St. Pals | Economy | AlterNet.

Two Right-Wing Billionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit

Jim Hightower: -

How billionaires’ money took over Washington — and created the mobs who rant against reform.

Despite a constant racket from the forces of the far-out right (Fox television’s yackety-yackers, just-say-no GOP know-nothings, tea-bag howlers, Sarah Palinistas, et al.), the great majority of Americans support a bold progressive agenda for our country, ranging from Medicare for all to the decentralization and re-regulation of Wall Street. Indeed, in the elections of 2006 and 2008, people voted for a fundamental break from Washington’s 30-year push to enthrone a corporate kleptocracy.

Yet the economic and political thievery continues, as the White House, Congress, both parties, the courts, the media, much of academia, and other national institutions that shape our public policies reflexively shy away from any structural change. Instead, the first instinct of these entities is to soothe the fevered brow of corporate power by insisting that corporate primacy be the starting point of any “reform.” Thus, when Washington began its widely ballyhooed effort last year to reform our health-care system, step number one was to announce publicly that the monopolistic, bureaucratic insurance behemoths that cost us so much and deliver so little would retain their controlling position in the structure. Likewise, Wall Street barons who crashed America’s financial system were allowed to oversee the system’s remake–and (Big Surprise!) the same top-heavy structure and shaky practices that caused the crash are being kept in place.

Full Story: Hightower: Two Right-Wing Billionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit | Investigations | AlterNet.

McCain and Lieberman’s “Enemy Belligerent” Act Could Set U.S. on Path to Military Dictatorship

Glenn Greenwald calls the bill “probably the single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous bill introduced in the Senate in the last several decades.”

On March 4th, Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduced a bill called the “Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010″ that, if passed, would set this country on a course to become a military dictatorship.

The bill is only 12 pages long, but that is plenty of room to grant the president the power to order the arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment of anyone — including a U.S. citizen — indefinitely, on the sole suspicion that he or she is affiliated with terrorism, and on the president’s sole authority as commander in chief.

The Act begins with the following (convoluted) requirement:

Full Story: McCain and Lieberman’s “Enemy Belligerent” Act Could Set U.S. on Path to Military Dictatorship | Civil Liberties | AlterNet.

Bernanke footnote: Fed wants end to ‘minimum reserve requirements’

In the footnotes of a speech U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke would have given to the House Financial Services Committee on Feb. 10, lies a unique and startling disclosure.

Hosted on the Federal Reserve’s own servers, the written testimony of the bank’s chairman explains in plain text what expanding the Fed’s powers will do.

“The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system,” footnote number nine, at the bottom of the page, explains without additional qualification.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), who is not running for reelection, is currently pushing a financial reform bill that would grant the Fed unprecedented new powers to regulate financial markets, including insurance companies and small lenders, under the auspice of forcing such firms to lessen their exposure to risky investments.

Full Story: Bernanke footnote: Fed wants end to ‘minimum reserve requirements’ | Raw Story.

Indiana Homeowner Kicked Out Of HAMP For Early Payment Wins Reprieve

After losing one of her part-time jobs in the fall, Indiana law student Melissa Stuart applied for a mortgage modification in hopes of reducing her monthly payment. Her servicer, GMAC, deemed her eligible and put her in a trial modification under the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program. She said her monthly payment shrank to $874 from $1,108 — a huge relief.

“I would have had to live off my credit card,” said Stuart, 28. “Two-hundred bucks doesn’t sound like a lot but I had a premium increase on my health insurance… I went from $180 to $219.”

To keep people in their homes, HAMP gives servicers cash incentives to modify mortgage terms. Borrowers who meet eligibility requirements are put in trial modifications that typically last three months (Stuart’s was for four), and if they make their payments the modification is supposed to become permanent. But GMAC called Stuart with bad news in February.

Full Story: Indiana Homeowner Kicked Out Of HAMP For Early Payment Wins Reprieve.

Expect a False-Flag Attack Before an Attack on Iran

Paul Craig Roberts -

According to news reports, the U.S. military is shipping “bunker-buster” bombs to the U.S. Air Force base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The Herald Scotland reports that experts say the bombs are being assembled for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The newspaper quotes Dan Piesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London: “They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran.”

The next step will be a staged “terrorist attack,” a “false flag” operation as per Operation Northwoods, for which Iran will be blamed. As Iran and its leadership have already been demonized, the “false flag” attack will suffice to obtain US and European public support for bombing Iran. The bombing will include more than the nuclear facilities and will continue until the Iranians agree to regime change and the installation of a puppet government. The corrupt American media will present the new puppet as “freedom and democracy.”

If the past is a guide, Americans will fall for the deception. In the February issue of the American Behavioral Scientist, a scholarly journal, Professor Lance DeHaven-Smith writes that state crimes against democracy (SCAD) involve government officials, often in combination with private interests, that engage in covert activities in order to implement an agenda. Examples include McCarthyism or the fabrication of evidence of communist infiltration, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution based on false claims of President Johnson and Pentagon chief McNamara that North Vietnam attacked a U.S. naval vessel, the burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in order to discredit Ellsberg (the Pentagon Papers) as “disturbed,” and the falsified “intelligence” that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Full Story: Expect a False-Flag Attack Before an Attack on Iran — Signs of the Times News.

WellPoint Failed To Deliver Tens Of Millions Of Dollars It Promised To Help Uninsured Americans

Health insurance companies have always claimed that they support “affordable, high-quality health care for every American” and are supportive of health care reform efforts and not simply concerned with their profits. To try to project this image of compassion for the uninsured, WellPoint Inc. — which recently came under fire for planning double-digit rate hikes in at least eleven states — pledged three years ago to use its charitable foundation to spend $30 million to assist the uninsured receive care.

A new investigative report by the Los Angeles Times finds that WellPoint’s foundation has completely failed to meet its promise of spending $30 million to help the uninsured. Rather, the company spent $6.2 million — a paltry 11 percent of what the company promised:

WellPoint’s public records indicate that from 2007 to 2009 the foundation gave less than $6.2 million in grants targeted specifically at helping uninsured Americans get access to coverage and care — barely one-fifth of what was promised and just 11% of the charity’s total giving over the last three years.

Full Story: Think Progress » WellPoint Failed To Deliver Tens Of Millions Of Dollars It Promised To Help Uninsured Americans.

Loud sex enough for cops to search your home, court rules

For Brian McGacken of Farmingdale, New Jersey, an evening of loud sex resulted in a 10-year prison sentence for growing marijuana.

On Feb. 17, 2007, New Jersey state troopers arrived at McGacken’s home, responding to an anonymous 911 call complaining of screams coming from McGacken’s home. McGacken explained the noise was a bout of loud sex; his girlfriend appeared at the front door and corroborated his claim.

But officers searched his home anyway, and found enough marijuana — including potted plants — to put him away for 10 years on charges of producing a controlled substance.

Full Story: Loud sex enough for cops to search your home, court rules | Raw Story.

Official Documents Confirm Major Criminal Investigations of Turkish Operatives in Chicago

Newly Released FBI Documents Support Explosive Claims by Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds

Recently released FBI documents prove the existence of highly sensitive National Security and criminal investigations of “Turkish Activities” in Chicago prior to September 11, 2001. These documents add further support to many of the allegations that former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has claimed, in public and in Congress, since 2002. The documents were released under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request into an organization called the Turkish American Cultural Alliance (TACA), an organization repeatedly named by Ms. Edmonds as being complicit in the crimes that she became aware of when she was a translator at the FBI.

The documents released under FOIA are almost completely redacted, but they do support many of Edmonds’ claims, including:

There were a number of very serious FBI investigations into “Turkish activity in Chicago” involving a number of targets, including TACA

These investigations were related to “National Security” among other things.

These investigations were regarded as so sensitive that no files were to be uploaded to FBI’s computer system.

Congressional corruption was involved.

The FBI repeatedly conducted actual “physical surveillance” against Turkish and American targets.

Some of these investigations were shut down in 2001.

Full Story: Sibel Edmonds’ Boiling Frogs Post | Home of the Irate Minority.

Bosses in the Bedroom

Your Boss Can Secretly Film You in the Bathroom — The Countless Ways You Are Losing Privacy at Work

Privacy is dead. Get over it. So says Scott McNealy, former president of Sun Microsystems.

He’s right. Workplace privacy is dead and buried. Employers can and do read e-mail, eavesdrop on telephone calls, monitor Internet access and watch workers with hidden cameras (even in bathrooms and locker rooms). Virtually all of this is legal. Technically, employers aren’t supposed to listen to personal telephone calls, but it happens all the time and you have no way of knowing. Some judges have found bathroom cameras to be an invasion of privacy, but other judges allow it.

As bad as this is, it’s getting worse. Bosses are now spying on workers’ home lives. Millions of workers carry company-issued cell phones. Every one of these phones is equipped with GPS. The technology required to track cell phones is readily available and not very expensive. The cost of tracking an employee 24/7 is only $5 a month. Employers often keep GPS tracking a secret or tell the workers they can turn off the GPS when they go home and continue to track them. The National Workrights Institute (NWI) has already begun receiving complaints about GPS.

Even more serious are the problems created by company-issued laptops. Employers usually tell workers it’s OK to use them for personal purposes as well as business. It’s presented as a perk—now you don’t need to buy your own computer.

Full Story: Bosses in the Bedroom.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce sets sights on Democrats ahead of midterm elections

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, already one of Washington’s largest lobbying groups, is gearing up to play a major role in this year’s midterm elections on a scale that rivals the nation’s two main political parties.

Modeled in part on Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign juggernaut, the group has built a grass-roots operation known as Friends of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It has a member list of 6 million names, aimed at lobbying on legislation and swaying voters to back preferred candidates, primarily Republicans, in battleground areas, officials said.

The group will target vulnerable Democrats in up to two dozen states with ads, get-out-the-vote operations and other grass-roots efforts. The chamber plans to spend at least $50 million on political races and related activities this year, a 40 percent increase from 2008.

Full Story: U.S. Chamber of Commerce sets sights on Democrats ahead of midterm elections – washingtonpost.com.

HR 645 / U.S. Preparing For Civil Unrest

In their quest for the truth ~ over 60,000 infuriated Greek citizens take to the streets in central Athens because the cash strapped government faces a financial reckoning. The Obama administration has prepared itself for eventually the same demands for the truth with HR 645 which is, in essence, militarized FEMA internment camps: Allen L Roland

Recently, street clashes broke out on March11th between rioting youths and police in central Athens as tens of thousands demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government. Hundreds of masked and hooded youths punched and kicked motorcycle police, knocking several off their bikes, as police responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1257243/Greek-riots-Up-60-000-people-streets-protest-government.html

It’s only a matter of time before the American people take to the streets particularly when they realize the full extent of cash strapped America’s indebtedness as well as the financial backlash of Wall Street’s ponzi scheme of offshore derivatives which has also brought Greece to its knees. We are talking trillions of dollars here. Meanwhile the U.S. Defense budget for 2011 will go up 7.1% .

Full Story: Allen L Roland’s Weblog.

Beyond Orwell: The Electronic Police State, 2010

A truism perhaps, but before resorting to brute force and open repression to halt the “barbarians at the gates,” that would be us, the masters of declining empires (and the chattering classes who polish their boots) regale us with tales of “democracy on the march,” “hope” and other banalities before the mailed fist comes crashing down.

Putting it another way, as the late, great Situationist malcontent, Guy Debord did decades ago in his relentless call for revolt, The Society of the Spectacle:

“The reigning economic system is a vicious circle of isolation. Its technologies are based on isolation, and they contribute to that same isolation. From automobiles to television, the goods that the spectacular system chooses to produce also serve it as weapons for constantly reinforcing the conditions that engender ‘lonely crowds.’ With ever-increasing concreteness the spectacle recreates its own presuppositions.”

Full Story: Antifascist Calling…: Beyond Orwell: The Electronic Police State, 2010.

Protecting agencies from oversight, Obama threatens to veto intelligence funding

The White House is threatening to veto a key intelligence funding bill over what it considers to be a dangerous amount of oversight on covert agencies, according to published reports.

The 2010 Intelligence Budget has gone through a number of key changes over the past few months, with House Democrats and the Obama administration butting heads over a number of provisions. Key among them for the latest White House veto threat is a provision that would allow the Government Accountability Office to investigate intelligence agencies.

“Current law exempts intelligence and counterintelligence activities from GAO review, leaving oversight to the inspectors general at the various intelligence community agencies,” Politico reported.

Full Story: Protecting agencies from oversight, Obama threatens to veto intelligence funding | Raw Story.

Obama agencies invoking secrecy provision more often than under Bush

One day after being sworn into office, President Barack Obama instructed federal agencies to ensure government transparency by complying with the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act law.

“All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government,” Obama wrote in a memo to federal agencies Jan. 21, 2009. “The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.”

“The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public,” the newly-installed president continued. “They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and down by their Government. Disclosure should be timely.”

Full Story: Obama agencies invoking secrecy provision more often than under Bush | Raw Story.

Obama Supports DNA Sampling Upon Arrest

Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting.

Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.

When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.

Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.

Full Story: Obama Supports DNA Sampling Upon Arrest | Threat Level | Wired.com.

OPS: For this Obama can be considered a Fascist

Private Spies: DOD Investigating Use Of Contractors To Track, Kill Militants

A Defense Department official is under investigation for allegedly hiring private contractors to gather intelligence on suspected insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a U.S. official said Monday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case, told The Associated Press that Michael D. Furlong directed a defense contract to gather information about the region that could be shared with military units. After military officials suspected that he was using Defense Department money for an off-the-books spy operation, defense officials shut down that part of the contract, the official said.

The story was first reported by The New York Times in Monday’s editions, quoting unnamed military and business sources as saying that Furlong, now a senior civilian employee at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, hired subcontractors who had former U.S. intelligence and special forces operatives on their payrolls. The newspaper said some of the information collected by the contractors was used to track down and attack militants.

Full Story: Private Spies: DOD Investigating Use Of Contractors To Track, Kill Militants.

OPS: Anyone really think that this hasn’t happen within US

Paper: Defense official ran private spy operation

A US official identified as Michael Furlong organized a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the purpose of finding and killing suspected Islamic militants, The New York Times reported Monday.

Citing unnamed military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States, the newspaper said Furlong, who works for the Defense Department, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former CIA and Special Forces members.

These people gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected Islamic militants and the location of insurgent camps, the report said.

Full Story: Paper: Defense official ran private spy operation | Raw Story.

According To The 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals, God Is “Patriotic” And No Longer “Religious”

Oh, I’m sure He will be so pleased to know that He’s not really a religious symbol:

The San Francisco Appeals court has ruled that “Under God” is not a prayer when used in the Pledge of Allegiance. In 2002, the court declared that the phrase was unconstitutional. The new 2-1 ruling from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals states it is a “recognition of our founders’ political philosophy that a power greater than the government gives the people their inalienable rights [...] Thus, the pledge is an endorsement of our form of government, not of religion or any particular sect.”

In a separate 3-0 ruling, the “In God We Trust” was also found to be non-religious; the motto is patriotic and ceremonial.

The ruling itself is not so much an issue with me; I don’t have a problem with saying “under God”. But I do have an issue with Judge Carlos Bea’s reasoning in his decision:

Bea wrote that the pledge is indeed a patriotic exercise, and the words “under God” must be viewed in that context.

Full Story: According To The 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals, God Is “Patriotic” And No Longer “Religious” | Crooks and Liars.

Fed gets new oversight powers under Dodd bill

The Federal Reserve would win sweeping new powers over nonbank financial firms and keep much of its authority over banks, under revised legislation to be unveiled on Monday by the chief architect of financial reform in the Senate.

Barack Obama

In a remarkable recovery by the U.S. central bank after a steep drop in its political popularity, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd was poised to release a bill that leans heavily on the Fed, sources said on Sunday.

Not only would a new government watchdog for financial consumers be housed within the Fed, but it would also retain much of its present authority over large bank holding companies and gain new authority over selected nonbank financial firms.

Dodd's bill would give the Fed authority to supervise bank holding companies with more than $50 billion in assets, down from an earlier threshold of $100 billion, sources said.

Full Story: Fed gets new oversight powers under Dodd bill | Reuters.

Food Sunday: Five Simple Ways To Fight Corporate Power

Sadly, it appears that Barack Obama is unwilling or unable to take on corporate America. He talks tough, but accommodates when the chips are really on the table – as the health care debate has conveniently demonstrated. More and more Americans are waking up to the fact that with a few notable exceptions, both Republicans and Democrats in Washington are basically employees of corporate lobbyists.

Perhaps one of the best ways to counter the stranglehold large corporations have on our economy and our government is to go underground. We can take the legs out from under the Wal-Marts, Exxons, Monsantos, and Coca-Colas of the world by finding alternatives to the corporate-consumer culture we have been raised in. Here’s a quick list of 5 ways we can get started:

1) Refuse to purchase anything from the three largest companies in any industry. This would eliminate the incentive to glean maximum profit no matter what the cost to human lives or the environment. For example, imagine how the oil business would change if all of a sudden Exxon, Shell, and BP were trying to be #4 instead of #1. If you’re feeling really daring, you can refuse to buy anything sold by a Fortune 500 company.

Full Story: Food Sunday: Five Simple Ways To Fight Corporate Power | The Seminal.

IRS visits Sacramento carwash in pursuit of 4 cents

It was every businessperson’s nightmare.

Arriving at Harv’s Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. “They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending,” says Harv’s owner, Aaron Zeff.

The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff’s on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was … 4 cents.

Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv’s with an obligation of $202.35.

Full Story: Bob Shallit: IRS visits Sacramento carwash in pursuit of 4 cents – Sacramento Business, Housing Market News | Sacramento Bee.

Texas approves radical right-wing history books | Raw Story

Change will impact students across country

Texas approves radical right wing history books For the next ten years, millions of students in Texas and across the country will read history textbooks suggesting that the actions of witch-hunt instigator Joseph McCarthy were justified. They will read about religious icon John Calvin instead of Thomas Jefferson. They will read a description of the US government that includes the words “constitutional republic” but not the word “democratic.”

These are just a few of the changes an ultra right-wing Texas Education Board has tentatively approved for the state’s history curriculum. There is one more stage for approval, but the board voted yes to the changes in a 10-5 vote. That’s 10 Republicans voting yes and 5 Democrats voting no, making the chances for reevaluation almost negligible.

Once fully approved, it will be a decade before the board reviews the curriculum again.

…snip…

Most of the board’s members make no secret of their intent to instill their own religious and political ideologies into public schools, and the consequences of their activism have far-reaching consequences.

Full Story: Texas approves radical right-wing history books | Raw Story.

Texas Education Board Approves Conservative Curriculum Changes By Far-Right

New Curriculum: ‘Democratic’ No More, Gold Standard, MORE Christianity

A far-right faction of the Texas State Board of Education succeeded Friday in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade.

Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a “constitutional republic,” rather than “democratic,” and students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.

“We have been about conservatism versus liberalism,” said Democrat Mavis Knight of Dallas, explaining her vote against the standards. “We have manipulated strands to insert what we want it to be in the document, regardless as to whether or not it's appropriate.”

Full Story: Texas Education Board Approves Conservative Curriculum Changes By Far-Right.

Michael Lewis 60 Minutes Interview: Wall Street Bonuses ‘A Very Elegant Form Of Theft’ (VIDEO)

Michael Lewis, author of one of the defining books about Wall Street excess, “Liar’s Poker,” told 60 Minutes that bonuses at banks bailed out by the government are akin to “a very elegant form of theft.”

[The big banks] have access to a zero percent loan in virtually unlimited quantities from the Federal Reserve. You can take that money and reinvest it in Treasury bonds or government agency securities and you will get the spread and you could do it over and over. You’re essentially borrowing from the government … and taking a cut.

Really what’s going on is the people on the top of the firm want to make a lot of money and if they’re going to make a lot of money, they have got to pay the people under them a lot of money

WATCH:

Full Story: Michael Lewis 60 Minutes Interview: Wall Street Bonuses ‘A Very Elegant Form Of Theft’ (VIDEO).

Corporate entity becomes ‘candidate’, kicks off bid for Congress

When the Supreme Court decided the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, henceforth allowing corporate soft money to influence U.S. elections, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) cynically opined that it would lead to the election of the “congressman from Wal-Mart.”

Turns out, he may be right.

Meet , the first corporation to run for Congress in the United States.

“Until now, corporations only influenced politics with high-paid lobbyists and backroom deals,” the company’s YouTube account declares. “But today, thanks to an enlightened supreme court, corporations now have all the rights the founding fathers meant for us. That’s why Murray Hill Incorporated is taking democracy’s next step– running for Congress.”

Full Story: Corporate entity becomes ‘candidate’, kicks off bid for Congress | Raw Story.

Top Insurance Lobbyist Says Industry Won’t Point Fingers, Then Blames Hospitals For Higher Premiums

During the AHIP’s insurance conference on Tuesday, AHIP President and CEO Karen Ignagni claimed that health insurers were “very concerned about insurance premiums and the trajectory” of health care spending and promised that the industry remained committed to controlling costs. “We understand that begins also with us. So we are fully committed to cost containment,” Ignagni said.

But just several hours later, on Fox Business’ Neil Cavuto, Ignagni blamed hospitals, doctors, and the pharmaceutical industry for rising costs. Ignangni also falsely claimed that insurers cannot negotiate prices with providers:

IGNAGNI AT 10 AM: “So we are fully committed to cost containment, not finger pointing to other sectors.”

IGNAGNI AT 6PM: “Health care costs are surging. We have our health plans Neil, that are getting quotes from hospitals of up to, they want 40% increases, we see pharmaceutical prices surging. We see tests increasing, exploding…we’ve had consolidation of the hospital arena.”

Watch a compilation:

Full Story: Think Progress » Top Insurance Lobbyist Says Industry Won’t Point Fingers, Then Blames Hospitals For Higher Premiums.

Ask the Chamber of Commerce: Why Is Too Much Not Enough?

by Bill Moyers & Michael Winship -

Living in these United States, there comes a point at which you throw your hands up in exasperation and despair and ask a fundamental question or two: how much excess profit does corporate America really need? How much bigger do executive salaries and bonuses have to be, how many houses or jets or artworks can be crammed into a life?

After all, as billionaire movie director Steven Spielberg is reported to have said, when all is said and done, “How much better can lunch get?”

But since greed is not self-governing, hardly anyone raking in the dough ever stops to say, “That’s it. Enough’s enough! How do we prevent it from sweeping up everything in its path, including us?”

Full Story: Ask the Chamber of Commerce: Why Is Too Much Not Enough? | CommonDreams.org.

Rove ‘never set the record straight’ about CIA leak case

Isikoff: -

Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame call Rove book ‘a hoax’

Former Bush senior adviser Karl Rove has a new book out, Courage and Consequence, in which he attempts to justify his years in the White House. Longtime investigative journalist Michael Isikoff, however, is not impressed.

“It is a selective cherry-picking of history,” Isikoff told MSNBC’s David Shuster on Thursday. “Rove picks out various parts of the record that make him and the Bush White House look great and omits and distorts everything that contradicts him.”

Isikoff is particularly irate over the “highly skewed” way in which Rove “portrays himself as an improbable Jean Valjean—an innocent man who, like the persecuted hero of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, is relentlessly hounded by an obsessed lawman determined to put him behind bars.”

Full Story: Isikoff: Rove ‘never set the record straight’ about CIA leak case | Raw Story.

Health Insurance Industry Spin: Funding Attack Ads And Newt Gingrich Is Consistent With Supporting Reform

In September, ThinkProgress reported that, despite its public support for health care reform, the insurance industry was engaged in a “duplicitous” campaign to undermine the effort. Recently, the National Journal confirmed our reporting by revealing that six of the top health insurance corporations had secretly pumped up to $20 million dollars into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for a $100-million-dollar attack ad campaign against health reform last year. This week, insurers purchased a new round of attack ads, again with millions laundered through the Chamber.

It’s not just the Chamber. As we have detailed, the health insurance industry also funds Newt Gingrich’s lobbying firm, which has helped to draft health legislation for Republican lawmakers — including bills aimed at deregulating the health insurance market — and advises GOP leaders on ways to kill reform.

Yesterday at the annual conference for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the lobbying juggernaut for the health insurance industry, the industry again falsely claimed that it is fully behind health reform. ThinkProgress spoke to industry spokesman Robert Zirkelbach, who refused to acknowledge any other attack groups the industry may be funding. He also oddly claimed that funding attack ads and Gingrich is somehow consistent with the industry’s promise “to play, to contribute and to help pass health-care reform”:

Full Story: Think Progress » Health Insurance Industry Spin: Funding Attack Ads And Newt Gingrich Is Consistent With Supporting Reform.

Pentagon Advisers Rake In Billions Off Their Own Advice

The same people who sell the Pentagon billions of dollars in technology are advising the Pentagon on what scientific and technical matters to focus on in the years to come.

On January 5, 2010 the U.S. Department of Defense announced the appointment of 39 new members, and 12 senior fellows, to the Defense Science Board (DSB) — a federal panel that provides “independent, informed advice and opinion on scientific, technical, manufacturing, acquisition process, and other matters of special interest to the Department of Defense.”

In a handout accompanying the Pentagon’s press release, new members — who serve one- to four-year terms — were identified mostly by their former government jobs and past employers, with only a few current affiliations given.

At a quick glance, the new roster of Defense Science Board consultants looks to be a select group of eminent former federal officials, top academics and a handful of industry executives. On further investigation, a more troubling picture emerges. While it often isn’t apparent in their short biographies, the people overseeing top defense contractors that sell the Pentagon billions of dollars in scientific and technical innovations each year, are, in fact, the very people advising the Pentagon on what scientific and technical matters to focus on in the years ahead.

Full Story: Pentagon Advisers Rake In Billions Off Their Own Advice | World | AlterNet.

The Business Roundtable: The Most Powerful Corporate Business Club Most Americans Have Never Heard of

The Business Roundtable, an organization representing Fortune 500 CEOs, is at the heart of the Economic Elite’s power center.

DeGraw writes in the introduction to his report:

“It has now become evident to a critical mass that the Republican and Democratic parties, along with all three branches of our government, have been bought off by a well-organized Economic Elite who are tactically destroying our way of life. The harsh truth is that 99% of the US population no longer has political representation. The US economy, government and tax system is now blatantly rigged against us.Current statistical societal indicators clearly demonstrate that a strategic attack has been launched and an analysis of current governmental policies prove that conditions for 99% of Americans will continue to deteriorate. The Economic Elite have engineered a financial coup and have brought war to our doorstep. . . and make no mistake, they have launched a war to eliminate the US middle class.”

***

Part III: Exposing Our Enemy: Meet the Economic Elite

I don’t view the Economic Elite as a small group of men who meet in secrecy to control the world. They do feature elements of conspiracy and are clearly composed of secretive organizations like the Bilderberg Group — this is not a conspiracy theory, this is a conspiracy fact – but as a whole the Economic Elite are primarily united by ideology. They’re made up of thousands of individuals who subscribe to an ideology of exploitation and the belief that wealth and resources need to be concentrated into the fewest hands possible (theirs), at the expense of the many.

That being said, there are some definite lead players in this group and it is important that we are not too vague and expose the individuals who publicly lead them. Focusing on the fundamental structure of the US economy, we have people like Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Alan Greenspan, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, John Mack, Vikram Pandit,and  John Thain.

Full Story: The Business Roundtable: The Most Powerful Corporate Business Club Most Americans Have Never Heard of | Economy | AlterNet.

SEC Drills a Peephole into Boardrooms

Imagine the Senate with no C-SPAN, no journalists, no public sessions, no transcripts, no voting records, and no accountability — that’s boardroom elections

Over half the world’s biggest economies are corporations. In America, business arguably exerts more influence over government than does government over business. Nominally, the 52 million American households that hold stocks own these firms vote for the boards of directors who are supposed to represent their interests. And now that boardroom negligence is being exposed as a major contributor to the recent economic meltdown–leading to taxpayers owning 80 percent of the shares of such bailed out companies as AIG–these directors should be more answerable both to shareholders and We the People.

If you think political democracy has its problems, wait until you see what goes on in our other elections. Imagine the Senate with no C-SPAN, no journalists, no public sessions, no transcripts, no voting records, no open nominating process, and no accountability. And all of them work for the President, who also happens to be a one-person Supreme Court. That’s about what we have in the American corporate boardroom.

Full Story: SEC Drills a Peephole into Boardrooms | Economy | AlterNet.

Health Insurance Lobby Leaves The Door Open To Supporting A GOP Repeal Of Health Reform

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the lobbying juggernaut for the health insurance industry, hosted its annual conference at the Ritz Carlton this week. As a vote on health legislation nears, the industry announced yesterday that it is funding a new round of national ads aimed at killing reform. The insurance industry has attacked every version of health reform thus far, from the Senate Finance bill, to the bill that passed the House already, to measures proposed by the White House. On a call with investors, Goldman Sachs detailed how health insurers would benefit the most from not passing any health reform all.

Even if reform passes, political attack groups funded by big business, like the Club for Growth, and Republicans are promising to repeal health legislation, rescinding coverage for over 30 million Americans and perpetuating widespread industry abuses. In addition to leaders like Newt Gingrich (who is funded by AHIP and other insurers), National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and dozens of GOP House and Senate leaders have pledged to repeal health reform if they are successful in the midterm elections.

ThinkProgress caught up with Robert Zirkelbach, the spokesman for AHIP, after a press briefing at the conference to ask about the GOP effort to repeal health reform. Zirkelbach carefully dodged the question directly, but left the door open to possibly supporting such an effort in the future:

Full Story: Think Progress » Health Insurance Lobby Leaves The Door Open To Supporting A GOP Repeal Of Health Reform.

Higher Corporate Spending on Election Ads Could Be All but Invisible

The Supreme Court recently freed corporations to spend more money on aggressive election ads. But if businesses take advantage of this new freedom, the public probably won’t know it, because it’s easy for them to legally hide their political spending.

Under current disclosure laws for federal elections, it’s virtually impossible for the public to track how much a business spends, what it’s spending on, or who ultimately benefits. Experts say the transparency problem extends to state and local races as well.

“There is no good way to gauge” how much any given company spends on elections, said Karl Sandstrom, a former vice chairman of the Federal Election Commission and counsel to the Center for Political Accountability. “There’s no central collection of the information, no monitoring.”

Full Story: On The Hill: Higher Corporate Spending on Election Ads Could Be All but Invisible.

A Consumer Bill Gives Exemption on Payday Loans

Senator Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who is playing a crucial role in bipartisan negotiations over financial regulation, pressed to remove a provision from draft legislation that would have empowered federal authorities to crack down on payday lenders, people involved in the talks said. The industry is politically influential in his home state and a significant contributor to his campaigns, records show.

The Senate Banking Committee’s chairman, Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, proposed legislation in November that would give a new consumer protection agency the power to write and enforce rules governing payday lenders, debt collectors and other financial companies that are not part of banks.

Late last month, Mr. Corker pressed Mr. Dodd to scale back substantially the power that the consumer protection agency would have over such companies, according to three people involved in the talks.

Full Story: Draft on Payday Rules Loses a Provision – NYTimes.com.

The Age of the ‘Unperson’

Len Hart -

Thanks to the increasingly absurd, bought-and-paid for Supreme Court, corporations are now people but real people can be declared Orwellian ‘un-persons’ with but a stroke of a pen. This is an unconstitutional power given POTUS by SCROTUS* but has no basis in law.

Everything you were told in school with respect to the Bill of Rights, habeas corpus, the rule of law, the right to trial, the right to be confronted by your accusers –all of that is by the boards, ‘repealed’, rendered moot, defunct with yet another idiotic, stupid and dead wrong decision by the most subversive, traitorous ‘Supreme Court’ in history.

Moreover, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that government officials are immune from lawsuits because –at the time –it was unclear whether abusing prisoners at Guantanamo was illegal. Let me help them out on this one: every ‘prisoner’ held in Guantanomo is held in violation of every treaty and international principle to which the U.S. is obliged by its agreement.

Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: The Age of the ‘Unperson’.

OPS:  *SCROTUS = Supreme Court Republicans Of The United States.

Hank Paulson’s Memoir: The Inside Job

a masterpiece of misdirection and disinformation.

If you’ve read, are reading, or plan to read Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big To Fail, you also need to pick up a copy of Hank Paulson’s memoir, On The Brink. Sorkin has the bankers’ story, in sordid yet compelling detail, of how they received the most generous bailout in the world financial history during fall 2008 — and set us up for great problems to come. Paulson tells us why, when, and how exactly he let them get away with this.

Hank Paulson does not, of course, intend to be candid. As I review in detail on The New Republic’s The Book site this morning, On The Brink is actually a masterpiece of misdirection and disinformation.

But still, he gives it all away — and if any details remain obscure, check them in Sorkin. Paulson honestly believes that the financial sector as constructed is productive, makes sense, and should continue to operate in roughly its current form.

Full Story: Simon Johnson: Hank Paulson’s Memoir: The Inside Job.

Who Runs America?

The Power of Private Monopolies

Why Teabaggers should be protesting Corporate Offices

Although some Americans worry about the growing power of the government, few understand the real power that controls their everyday lives.

Private monopolies determine the brand of breakfast cereal we eat, the type of car we drive, where we bank, the medical treatment we receive, the fashion of our clothes, and the kind of toothbrush we use, in addition to the beer we drink, the health insurance we buy, and what we feed our pets.

Under the guise of “the free market,” conglomerates merged and bought up smaller companies, until, today, they dominate their respective markets in every commodity offered for sale in the U.S.

In this race to consolidate, companies “rationalized” their offerings, in many cases dropping up to 40 percent of what they formerly produced. They buy from the same suppliers, use interchangeable parts and common ingredients, and re-name similar brands, essentially placing the same product in different packages. For example, one company produces all of the pet food under 150 different brands.

Full Story: Don Monkerud: Who Runs America?.

Senators Move To Make ALL U.S. Workers Carry Microchipped ID!

Video

Bipartisan Fascism. Police State

Health Insurance Industry Defends Massive Profits, Complains It Is Being ‘Vilified’

Insurers have responded to the administration’s campaign against recent rate hikes by blaming increasing health care costs, provider cost increases and adverse selection (healthier Americans are dropping coverage) for their premium increases. To hear them tell it, the insurance industry is a low-profit industry that spends just one cent of every premium dollar on administration and strives to reduce costs by encouraging efficiencies. Insurers “do not deserve to be vilified for political purposes,” Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) told the AP:

For every dollar spent on health care in America, less than one penny goes toward health plan profits. The focus needs to be on the other 99 cents.

But the argument that insurers run a tight ship is misleading, on several counts, not least of which is the fact that insurers are planning to spend “more than $1 million” not on health care claims — as their justification for the premium hikes would suggest — but “to run television ads on cable stations nationwide beginning in the next few days to push back on the attacks on insurers.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Health Insurance Industry Defends Massive Profits, Complains It Is Being ‘Vilified’.

OPS: If the bedpan fits…..

The Washington Post on ‘lunatic’ 9/11 ‘conspiracy theorists’

An editorial in the Washington Post yesterday slammed Japanese member of parliament Yukihisa Fujita because he “seems to think that America’s rendering of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, is a gigantic hoax.” His “ideas” about the terrorist attacks “are too bizarre, half-baked and intellectually bogus to merit serious discussion.”

Fujita, the editorial added, is a member of “the lunatic fringe” who “have spawned a thriving subculture of conspiracy theorists at home and abroad”, and “his views, rooted as they are in profound distrust of the United States, seem to reflect a strain of anti-American thought”. The piece closes by suggesting that the “fact-averse” Fujita should be removed from office.

Among Fujita’s “bizarre” views are “that shadowy forces with advance knowledge of the plot played the stock market to profit from it”, “the fantastic idea that eight of the 19 hijackers are alive and well”, and “that controlled demolition rather than fire or debris may be a more likely explanation for at least the collapse of the building at 7 World Trade Center”.

Full Story: The Washington Post on ‘lunatic’ 9/11 ‘conspiracy theorists’ | Foreign Policy Journal.

Showdown looms for financial reform

If there were any question that the stakes are high for financial reform, consider this: Even the Defense Department is getting into the fight.

Pentagon brass want a new consumer watchdog agency to regulate auto dealers so they don’t rip off troops with predatory sales and shady financing deals. Democrats are hoping it’ll be hard for Republicans to oppose something Pentagon leaders want, at a time when troops are in harm’s way.

And there’s more: Payday lenders, check-cashing outfits and rent-to-own stores operate, for all practical purposes, free from federal regulation — and President Barack Obama wants to change that with a consumer agency that spans the world of finance from high to low.

Full Story: Showdown looms for financial reform – Victoria McGrane – POLITICO.com.

BBC America: Palast Hunts the Vultures

Some vultures have feathers, but some have fancy offices and huge homes. Tonight, BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast follows the trail of one “vulture fund” chief, from a locked office door in New York to mud-brick houses in Africa.

How strange. When I arrive at the offices of Eric Hermann at hedge fund FH International, just outside New York City, the company’s corporate sign is unbolted from the wall and the suite number removed from the door.

But wait … I hear noises inside the office. Huh? I knock on the locked door and out steps the office building’s security manager.

“Guys, they don’t want to be interviewed. They don’t want to be seen. So we are going to have to ask you to leave the building.”

“And do you know why they took the sign off?”

His reply to our cameras, “I have no clue.”

But we do.

Mr. Hermann is the principle owner of a so-called “vulture fund” which attempted to seize more than $20 million from the war-wounded nation of Liberia.

Full Story: Greg Palast » BBC America: Palast Hunts the Vultures.

As Chamber Builds Up Political Operation, Treasury Officials Express Frustration With Group’s Distortions

The LA Times reports today on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s growing “large-scale grass-roots political operation” that is being “funded by record-setting amounts of money raised from corporations and wealthy individuals.” In 2009, the Chamber spent $144 million on lobbying and grassroots organizing, “well beyond the spending of individual labor unions or the Democratic or Republican national committees.” Some more details on its new initiative:

The chamber has signed up some 6 million individuals who are not chamber members and has begun asking them to help with lobbying and, soon, with get-out-the-vote efforts in upcoming congressional campaigns. [...]

The new grass-roots program, the brainchild of chamber political director Bill Miller, is concentrating on 22 states. Among them are Colorado, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is vulnerable; Arkansas, where Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces an uphill reelection battle; and Ohio, where the chamber sees opportunities in numerous House races and an open Senate seat.

Full Story: Think Progress » As Chamber Builds Up Political Operation, Treasury Officials Express Frustration With Group’s Distortions.

Joseph Stiglitz

Stiglitz: The Fed Is Corrupt And Dominated By Big Banks

The Elite vs. The American People

Mike Papantonio & David DeGraw -

Recently, Congress weighed whether or not to lower the tax rate for corporations in an attempt to leave them more money to create new jobs. This proposal would be great for businesses, but unfortunately it would do absolutely nothing to help fight unemployment. When it comes to the plight of the average American worker, Congress seems to consistently miss the mark. They cant quite wrap their heads around the fact that half of the children in this country are going to bed hungry, or that mothers and fathers working two jobs each are still having to live paycheck to paycheck. Mike Papantonio talks about the REAL America the one that those of us who arent CEOs of major corporations live in with author and blogger David DeGraw.

Full Story: YouTube – The Elite vs. The American People.

Why Google keeps your data forever, tracks you with ads

Not many companies could get away with defending controversial data retention practices by saying that the data is needed to “learn from good guys, fight off bad guys, [and] invent the future.” But that’s how Google sees itself and its practices—not surprising from a company that would give itself an unofficial motto like “don’t be evil.”

I had the chance recently to sit down with two of Google’s top privacy people: deputy general counsel Nicole Wong and security/privacy engineer Alma Whitten. While the “good guy/bad guy” and “don’t be evil” quotes may seem too cute by half to some, Wong and Whitten made a strong pitch for the truth of both slogans. In their view, Google really is fighting the good fight when it comes to your online privacy.

Full Story: Why Google keeps your data forever, tracks you with ads.

FDIC wants pension funds to prop up failed banks

Over 140 U.S. lenders folded in 2009 alone. To remedy the financial void left in their wake, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation wants public pension funds, which safeguard the retirement funds of millions, to buy in part or in whole the banks that couldn’t manage to keep their depositors’ funds.

“Direct investments may allow funds such as those in Oregon, New Jersey and California to cut fees for private-equity managers, and the agency to get better prices for distressed assets,” anonymous sources reportedly told Bloomberg News.

In a speech to the National Association for Business Economics Washington Policy Conference, FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair outlined what she called “a pre-funded resolution mechanism,” but did not specify what exactly that is. She instead said it would be “similar to the FDIC’s receivership authority for failed banks,” exposing only shareholders to risk, as opposed to the bank bailouts that saw billions of taxpayer dollars funneled into a near-crippled financial system.
Full Story: FDIC wants pension funds to prop up failed banks | Raw Story.

Tobacco lobby underwriting part of the conservative anti-tax rally tomorrow in Georgia.

Tomorrow, conservative groups Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and Americans for Tax Reform are organizing a rally at the Georgia State Capitol to protest the state’s upcoming budget. The protest, like many recent anti-tax protests, is cloaked in an ideological veneer of fiscal conservatism and limited government. The invitation presents the rally, where Grover Norquist is speaking, as an opportunity to “cut spending and encourage economic growth.” But the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jim Galloway notes that the fine print at the bottom of the invitation e-mail says the list serv was paid for “by Altria Clint Services on behalf of Philip Morris USA”:

Full Story: Think Progress » Tobacco lobby underwriting part of the conservative anti-tax rally tomorrow in Georgia..

Fed Audit Bitterly Opposed By Treasury

The Treasury Department is vigorously opposed to a House-passed measure that would open the Federal Reserve to an audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a senior Treasury official said Monday. Instead, the official said, the Treasury prefers a substitute offered by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), and would like to see it enacted as part of the Senate bill.

The Watt measure, however, while claiming to increase transparency, actually puts new restrictions on the GAO's ability to perform an audit.

Secretary Tim Geithner, Assistant Treasury Secretary Alan Krueger and Gene Sperling, a counselor to the secretary, held a briefing Monday with new media reporters and financial bloggers during which they discussed the Fed audit and other topics. Under the briefing's ground rules, the officials could be paraphrased but not quoted, and the paraphrase could not be connected to a specific official.

Full Story: Fed Audit Bitterly Opposed By Treasury.

The Imperial Origins of Feudal America

Len Hart,

The economic decline of America is behind and the result of U.S. imperialism,

Any politician can cook up a run o’ the mill recession, but it requires the GOP to revert an entire people to feudalism. Our status as vassal of China is the evidence and result of our feudal status. GOP policies from which a ruling elite of just one percent benefit are responsible; the results may be seen at the CIA’s ‘World Fact Book’ which lists China at the very top with the World’s largest positive Current Account Balance and the U.S. on bottom with the world’s largest negative Current Account Balance. Related to this is China’s support for the U.S. dollar, a situation that China tolerates so that American consumers can buy Chinese product at Wal-Mart. If China should find this arrangement inconvenient, as many have said it is becoming, then China may ‘pull the plug’ and the dollar will collapse.

The economic decline of America is behind and the result of U.S. imperialism, a path about which we were well warned by a man that I have called the ‘last honest Republican’ —Dwight David Eisenhower.

The way chosen by the United States was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs.

First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.

Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: The Imperial Origins of Feudal America.

Fed To Keep Bank Oversight

The Federal Reserve has won its battle to maintain singular regulatory oversight of America’s major financial institutions, the Financial Times reported Sunday night.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) gave up the fight for a new super-regulator over the weekend, and will propose financial reforms this week that leave the Fed in control of big banks and the rest of the major Wall Street players, sources told the FT.

The parties allegedly responsible for the Fed’s victory are easy to guess. The FT’s sources point the finger at Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who is unsurprisingly speaking up more loudly now that he’s won reconfirmation:

Full Story: Fed To Keep Bank Oversight.

OPS: Dodd just phucked Democracy. ALL of the conditions that led to the current Economic Collapse are ‘comfortably’ intact and Dodd has assured his place in Corporate America.

Scouts founder held talks with Nazis: UK secret files

Scouting founder Lord Robert Baden-Powell was invited to meet Adolf Hitler after friendly talks with the Hitler Youth about forming closer ties, secret British files released Monday showed.

Britain’s Baden-Powell, who started the Scouts in 1907, held talks with German ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop and Hitler Youth chief of staff Hartmann Lauterbacher on November 19, 1937.

Lauterbacher, then 28, was in Britain to foster closer relations with the Boy Scout movement and Ribbentrop invited Baden-Powell to tea with the Hitler Youth leader, newly declassified MI5 Security Service files revealed.

Full Story: Scouts founder held talks with Nazis: UK secret files | Raw Story.

Expanded use of body scanners slammed by ACLU

It was announced on Friday that the Transportation Security Administration plans to extend the use of full body scanners to eleven additional airports in the United States over the next two years.

The American Civil Liberties Union immediately condemned the plan as a grave infringement on civil liberties.

The ACLU’s Laura W. Murphy issued a statement warning of the risks in “these invasive search techniques” and suggesting that “It is far from clear whether this technology would have been able to foil the attempted Christmas Day attack and every resource we put into using these machines is a resource not spent on intelligence analysis or other law enforcement activity.”

Full Story: Expanded use of body scanners slammed by ACLU | Raw Story.

Black Ops Jungle: The Academy of Military-Industrial-Complex Studies

Dedicated to everything from architecture to sports medicine, “career academies” claim to offer high school kids focus, relevancy, and solid job prospects. Now add a new kind of program to the list: homeland security high. In late August, Maryland’s Joppatowne High School became the first school in the country dedicated to churning out would-be Jack Bauers. The 75 students in the Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness magnet program will study cybersecurity and geospatial intelligence, respond to mock terror attacks, and receive limited security clearances at the nearby Army chemical warfare lab.

The new school is funded and guided by a slew of federal, state, and local agencies, not to mention several defense firms. Officials say it will teach kids to understand the “new reality,” though they hasten to add that the school isn’t focused just on terrorism. School administrators, channeling Cheneyesque secrecy, refused to be interviewed for this story. But it’s no secret that the program is seen as a model for the rest of the country, with the Pentagon and other agencies watching closely.

Students will choose one of three specialized tracks: information and communication technology, criminal justice and law enforcement, or “homeland security science.” David Volrath, executive director of secondary education for Harford County Public Schools, says the school also hopes to offer “Arabic or some other nontraditional, Third World-type language.”

Full Story: Black Ops Jungle: The Academy of Military-Industrial-Complex Studies | Mother Jones.

Insurers Set To Raise Prices, Walk Away From Consumers: Goldman Report

The market concentration for health insurance is so monopolized in some areas that insurance companies are willing to raise prices and lose customers in an effort to improve their bottom line, a leading insurance broker told Wall Street analysts on Wednesday.

In a conference call organized by Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, Steve Lewis, a highly regarded broker at the world’s third largest insurance broker, Willis, painted a picture of the health insurance market in which employers seem likely to be priced out of coverage.

Noting that “price competition” between insurers was “down from a year ago,” Lewis relayed that “incumbent carriers seem more willing th

Full Story: Insurers Set To Raise Prices, Walk Away From Consumers: Goldman Report.

FBI paid racist shock jock Hal Turner ‘in excess of $100,000′

Turning informant on your fans can be lucrative, if you’re a shock jock by the name of Hal Turner.

Amid a trial where Turner faces criminal charges for making threats of violence against public servants, he disclosed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation paid him “in excess of $100,000″ over a five-year period.

Turner, a long-time racist radio host who attracted an audience of white supremacists and neonazis, was first revealed as an FBI informant in 2008. After becoming the subject of ridicule on infamous Internet forum 4chan, Turner was confronted by hackers on his site’s discussion boards with copies of e-mails he’d allegedly sent to the FBI, bragging about how he’d helped in “flush[ing] out another crazy.”

The arrest came after Turner called for the murder of three judges.

Full Story: FBI paid racist shock jock Hal Turner ‘in excess of $100,000′ | Raw Story.

Hal Turner says he feels betrayed by the FBI after spying on white supremacists. He now is facing charges of making threats against judges.

Christian Hate Group ‘Repent Amarillo’ Terrorizes Texas Town, Harassing Gays, Liberals, And Other ‘Sinners’

An evangelical Christian hate group called “Repent Amarillo” is reportedly terrorizing the town of Amarillo, Texas. Repent fashions itself as a sort of militia and targets a wide range of community members they deem offensive to their theology: gays, liberal Christians, Muslims, environmentalists, breast cancer events that do not highlight abortion, Halloween, “spring break events,” and pornography shops. On its website, Repent has posted a “Warfare Map” of its enemies in town.

Calling Repent an “American Taliban,” blogger Charles Johnson notes that the group’s moniker “Army of God” is a rough translation of “Hezbollah.” Led by a man named David Grisham, a security guard at a nuclear-bomb facility called Pantex, Repent first gained media attention in Texas following a campaign to boycott Houston for electing a gay mayor. The group, which is associated with Raven Ministries, collaborates with other Christian groups as well as forced pregnancy advocacy associations like “Bound 4 Life.”

According to a new exposé by the Texas Observer, Repent set out earlier this year to destroy a discreet club of swingers they discovered in town. On New Years eve, the harassment began, with Repent members, almost exclusively young men, showing up in military fatigues and bullhorns, blaring Christian music at the swingers’ club building. The swingers, made up of “regulars” of middle aged, working class couples, were then stalked at every following visit to the club. Repent not only took video of each member, but obtained the swingers’ license plates and dug through their trash, informing neighbors and coworkers of what was once private. Watch a Texas Observer report:

Full Story: Think Progress » Christian Hate Group ‘Repent Amarillo’ Terrorizes Texas Town, Harassing Gays, Liberals, And Other ‘Sinners’.

THE SUPREME COURT’S CORPORATE WONDERLAND

Jim Hightower -

As you’ve probably heard, corporations are now “people.”

While these inanimate paper constructs have no brain, heart, or soul, five ideological screwballs on our Supreme Court have created a new Frankenstein monster. The five Supremes decreed that corporations henceforth have a First Amendment right to “speak” in any and all of our elections by spending unlimited sums of corporate cash to elect or defeat candidates.

This will of course, have a disastrous impact on the democratic sovereignty of us actual people. But the Court’s idea of turning corporate entities into persons has also prompted a gusher of fun, irreverent ideas and questions from you human-type persons.

For example, will same-sex corporations be allowed to merge? And, if corporations are people, shouldn’t they have to face the possibility of getting drafted into the Army, just as people people are compelled to do?

Full Story: Jim Hightower | THE SUPREME COURT’S CORPORATE WONDERLAND.

Wall Street Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis

Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts.

As worries over Greece rattle world markets, records and interviews show that with Wall Street’s help, the nation engaged in a decade-long effort to skirt European debt limits. One deal created by Goldman Sachs helped obscure billions in debt from the budget overseers in Brussels.

Even as the crisis was nearing the flashpoint, banks were searching for ways to help Greece forestall the day of reckoning. In early November — three months before Athens became the epicenter of global financial anxiety — a team from Goldman Sachs arrived in the ancient city with a very modern proposition for a government struggling to pay its bills, according to two people who were briefed on the meeting.

The bankers, led by Goldman’s president, Gary D. Cohn, held out a financing instrument that would have pushed debt from Greece’s health care system far into the future, much as when strapped homeowners take out second mortgages to pay off their credit cards.

Full Story: Wall Street Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis.

RNC donors to gather at Blackwater compound

The Republican National Committee is planning to raise $60,000 at a fundraiser next month at the North Carolina compound owned by the company formerly known as Blackwater.

According to the RNC fundraising presentation I wrote about yesterday, the committee will hold a gathering of its “Young Eagles” — major donors under 40 — at the U.S. Training Center in Moyock, North Carolina April 16, an astute reader points out.

The center, which offers training courses to civilians, law enforcement, and the military, is owned by Xe Services, the embattled private military company formerly known as Blackwater, whose ties to the Republican Party helped made it central to the Bush Administration’s operations abroad.

Full Story: RNC donors to gather at Blackwater compound – Ben Smith – POLITICO.com.

OPS:  This really stinks for some reason

Max Keiser Report-The Economic Elite

This week Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert look at the scandals behind: the owner of Great Britain bouncing a $54 million check for a pile of dirt in the Persian Gulf; a currency speculator in Monaco moving currency markets with an accidental Jim Rogers press release while Colonel Gaddafi calls for jihad against Switzerland and receives zero market impact; and Alan Greenspan wins major award for causing global financial markets to explode. Keiser also talks to David DeGraw about his new book, “The Economic Elite versus the People of the United States of America.”

Obama, Congress Wink at Massive Surveillance Abuses

This week’s reauthorization of the Patriot Act comes on the heels of the revelation Obama’s Office of Legal Counsel granted fresh retroactive immunity for Bush-era telecommunication lawbreaking.

Here’s how it was supposed to be. Under his administration, candidate Barack Obama explained in 2007, America would abandon the “false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.” There would be “no more National Security Letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime” because “that is not who we are, and it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists.” Even after his disappointing vote for the execrable FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which expanded government surveillance power while retroactively immunizing telecoms for their role in George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping, civil libertarians held out hope that the erstwhile professor of constitutional law would begin to restore some of the checks on government surveillance power that had been demolished in the panicked aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

The serial betrayal of that hope reached its culmination last week, when a Democratic-controlled Congress quietly voted to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act without implementing a single one of the additional safeguards that had been under consideration — among them, more stringent limits on the national security letters (NSLs) Obama had once decried. Worse yet, the vote came on the heels of the revelation, in a blistering inspector general’s report, that Obama’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) had issued a secret opinion, once again granting retroactive immunity for systematic lawbreaking — and opening the door for the FBI to ignore even the current feeble limits on its power to vacuum up sensitive telecommunications records.

Full Story: Obama, Congress Wink at Massive Surveillance Abuses | The American Prospect.

OPS: …and further alienating his base.  Obama could easily be a one termer. He has acknowledged it. But in that term he has advanced the Reich’s agenda.  Just one of those gambits one accepts in chess.

Feds weigh expansion of Internet monitoring

Homeland Security and the National Security Agency may be taking a closer look at Internet communications in the future.

The Department of Homeland Security’s top cybersecurity official told CNET on Wednesday that the department may eventually extend its Einstein technology, which is designed to detect and prevent electronic attacks, to networks operated by the private sector. The technology was created for federal networks.

Greg Schaffer, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications, said in an interview that the department is evaluating whether Einstein “makes sense for expansion to critical infrastructure spaces” over time.

Not much is known about how Einstein works, and the House Intelligence Committee once charged that descriptions were overly “vague” because of “excessive classification.” The White House did confirm this week that the latest version, called Einstein 3, involves attempting to thwart in-progress cyberattacks by sharing information with the National Security Agency.

Full Story: Feds weigh expansion of Internet monitoring | Politics and Law – CNET News.

Angry Delaware Man Suggested Plane Attack On County Government

Police in Delaware say a man angry about his sewer bill was arrested after he suggested someone should crash a plane into a county government center.

New Castle County police say 45-year-old Darren Spayd of Newark got upset Tuesday after being assessed a late fee.

Police say he started cursing at county workers and threw the change he had received back at one. Police say several employees overheard him suggesting someone should fly a plane into the building.

Full Story: Darren Spayd Charged: Angry Delaware Man Suggested Plane Attack On County Government.

OPS: and what about the many republicans that have ’suggested’ killing elected officials?

Robert Rubin: ‘Virtually Nobody’ Saw Crisis Coming, Bush Deserves Much Of The Blame

Robert Rubin, the former Clinton-era Treasury Secretary and noted champion of deregulation, told a New York City audience last night that “virtually nobody” — himself included — foresaw the financial meltdown.

In a discussion at the 92nd Street Y cultural center, Rubin touched on the financial crisis, Obama’s economic policies and America’s potential in the new global economy — but not on financial reform or the deregulatory agenda of the 1990s. The former Citigroup director, gloomy about the country’s short-term economic prospects, cautioned against taking too seriously some recent positive economic indicators — such as the country’s 5.9 percent growth last quarter.

Rubin, who has also served as chairman of Goldman Sachs, said that while he became concerned about market “excesses” in 2005 and 2006, he failed to take account of all of the factors that would coalesce into the crisis. During his time at Citigroup, Rubin reportedly pushed the financial behemoth to take riskier bets, including investing in the subprime mortgage market, which imploded in 2007 and instigated the crisis. Next month, Rubin will be grilled by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which is investigating the causes of the economic slump, notes Bloomberg News.

Full Story: Robert Rubin: ‘Virtually Nobody’ Saw Crisis Coming, Bush Deserves Much Of The Blame.

OPS:  Does anybody believe BS like this any more? Rubino, Dean, Krugman and many others DID see it coming. And they saw it coming for years.

Is Taxpayer Money Being Funneled Through The Chamber Of Commerce To Kill Health Reform?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an umbrella lobbying organization for international corporations and big business, is one of the driving forces fighting to kill health reform. In 2009, the Chamber dropped $123 million in lobbying, much of it against health reform, and organized an attack ad campaign against health reform, spending another $100 million. Now, as health reform enters its final stages, the Chamber is gearing up to blanket critical districts across the country with a new series of attack ads.

While the Chamber refuses to publicly list its membership, several confirmed Chamber members are banks which were bailed out by taxpayers and still have not repaid the TARP funds. For instance, New York Private Bank & Trust received TARP funds and still owes $254,892,509 back to the government. Diana Cantor, the bank’s managing director, is a board member of the Chamber Foundation and wife of Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), two leading opponents of reform. How can taxpayers be reassured that Cantor’s bank, and other bailed out Chamber banks, are not using taxpayer dollars to fund the Chamber’s anti-reform activities? Here are the bailed out banks we know are funding the Chamber and have not paid back TARP:

Full Story: Think Progress » Is Taxpayer Money Being Funneled Through The Chamber Of Commerce To Kill Health Reform?.

Consumer Agency Within Fed Seen as Victory for Banking Industry

For consumer advocates, housing a new agency to protect Americans from financial-product abuse within the Federal Reserve would be a defeat after lobbying for an independent body. For banks, it would represent a victory.

Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, called a Senate plan to house the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency at the Fed “a joke.” Shielding consumers from harmful financial products is “the most conspicuous failure by the Fed,” Frank said in an interview yesterday.

Banks say placing the agency with the Fed alleviates their concern that an independent entity would ignore the health of the financial system. Consumer advocates say it’s a mistake because the Fed didn’t succeed in curbing abuses during the subprime lending boom that contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Full Story: Consumer Agency Within Fed Seen as Victory for Banking Industry – Bloomberg.com.

Some companies drop health insurance, don’t tell employees

Some getting nasty surprise on insurance

As if having to pay higher health insurance premiums each year isn’t bad enough, now workers have another worry: companies that drop their health insurance coverage and don’t bother to tell employees.

It’s a practice that’s on the rise, says Kristin Milam with the state Department of Insurance. State law requires that companies give their workers 45 days notice if they’re going to drop coverage. Milam says that employees of businesses that don’t follow the law often find out their coverage has lapsed when they go to the doctor’s office.

A lot of small business owners are hurting right now, and those that have managed to keep group coverage for their workers even as health costs have escalated should be commended. But I can also understand that some businesses can no longer afford to do so. I can even buy that some business owners might not understand the law, but there is such a thing as common decency. Can you imagine having a chronic illness or being pregnant, handing over your insurance card, only to have the receptionist hand it back and tell you your policy has been terminated?

Full Story: Some getting nasty surprise on insurance – Cornatzer – NewsObserver.com.

Germany unveils next generation ‘personal security card’

The new identity card isn’t just to verify who a person is. It’s now a matter of personal security, according to German officials who showed off the country’s newest ID technology at this year’s CeBIT conference.

According to reports from CeBIT, the new identity card will go into circulation for the first time in November 2010. It features an advanced biometric identification system and users have the option of associating a finger print with the card.

The user’s identity information and electronic signature is encrypted and broadcast by the card via radio frequency identity (RFID), which its creators believe will help facilitate e-commerce and e-government. The card could even be used to remember passwords on the Internet, according to a product description on the CeBIT Web site. Lost or stolen cards would be treated like credit cards today: once reported missing, they would no longer be accepted.

Full Story: Germany unveils next generation ‘personal security card’ | Raw Story.

OPS:  ….hey, it’s all for YOUR benefit……..

Who Legalized Bribery and Graft?

Corruption is a growth industry.

It’s nice to know that there are 8 lobbyists for each member of Congress.

If you take their money, you shouldn’t be able to vote on their damn bills. Maybe that’s the way to limit corporate influence- just pass a decent conflict of interest statute for Congress! What we have now amounts to legalized bribery.

Money Sure To Keep Health Care On The Agenda

But What Are Supporters And Opponents Getting For Those Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars?

1 Mar 2010 // It’s too early to say how the messy, protracted health care debate will end. But one thing is already clear: It’s generated record lobbying expenditures. And like health care itself, the lobbying battle over health reform just keeps costing more.

Full Story: Who Legalized Bribery and Graft? « Wake-up Call.

The Saddest Story: why and how the CIA assassinated John F. Kennedy.

Review by David Swanson -

One of the most unusual books and far-and-away the saddest I have ever read is James Douglass’s “JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.” This is the best documented account ever produced of why and how the CIA assassinated John F. Kennedy. That the CIA did this is beyond dispute, and that the first President Bush was involved is well established by Russ Baker’s book “Family of Secrets.” What separates Douglass’s book from the pack is his account of how Kennedy lived his final months, the actions he took that turned the CIA against him but saved the world from a nuclear holocaust and — had he lived — would probably have avoided the Vietnam War and brought the Cold War to a swift and peaceful conclusion.

Kennedy was a cold warrior who turned away from orthodoxy and became a heretic to those within the military industrial spook complex. He defied the demands of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA on the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, on Laos and Congo, on Berlin and Indonesia and — above all — on Vietnam, in opening up a dialogue with Khrushchev and with Castro, by creating a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union, by taking on the steel corporations, by firing the director of the CIA and other top officials, by planting a false story that his military advisors opposed escalation in Vietnam, by ordering a withdrawal from Vietnam, by selling wheat to the Soviet Union, by publicly and privately setting an agenda for peace and complete disarmament and world law, and by making plans to visit the Kremlin and declare the Cold War over.

This is not the Kennedy we think we know. It is certainly not the Kennedy the History Channel claims to document. But this is a Kennedy thoroughly researched and documented by the author. And if the History Channel’s portrait of a sex-obsessed president has any relevance to how Kennedy acted on the large issues of war and peace, then we have an absolute moral duty to get President Obama some girlfriends fast!

Full Story: The Saddest Story | The Smirking Chimp.

Treasury nominee: some swaps may stay off exchanges

The nominee for the U.S. Treasury’s top domestic post on Tuesday said he believed certain derivatives contracts, such as dollar swaps, could be exempted from being traded on exchanges under Obama administration proposals to boost market transparency.

Jeffrey Goldstein, who was named in July 2009 to become Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance, told the Senate Finance Committee that the administration’s market reform proposals would prevent abuse and promote transparency, but there were certain cases where derivatives might be better off not traded on exchanges.

“I think that the exemptions would be in certain markets where you could adversely affect the trading of some important securities — including the dollar swaps, and other things,” Goldstein said, answering a question during a confirmation hearing. He added that he looked forward to examining the issue further with lawmakers.

Full Story: UPDATE 1-Treasury nominee: some swaps may stay off exchanges | Reuters.

Rage on the Right

| Southern Poverty Law Center -

The Year in Hate and Extremism

The radical right caught fire last year, as broad-based populist anger at political, demographic and economic changes in America ignited an explosion of new extremist groups and activism across the nation.

Hate groups stayed at record levels — almost 1,000 — despite the total collapse of the second largest neo-Nazi group in America. Furious anti-immigrant vigilante groups soared by nearly 80%, adding some 136 new groups during 2009. And, most remarkably of all, so-called “Patriot” groups — militias and other organizations that see the federal government as part of a plot to impose “one-world government” on liberty-loving Americans — came roaring back after years out of the limelight.

The anger seething across the American political landscape — over racial changes in the population, soaring public debt and the terrible economy, the bailouts of bankers and other elites, and an array of initiatives by the relatively liberal Obama Administration that are seen as “socialist” or even “fascist” — goes beyond the radical right. The “tea parties” and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism.

Full Story: Rage on the Right | Southern Poverty Law Center.

Profiting From Recession, Payday Lenders Spend Big To Fight Regulation

The influential $42 billion-a-year payday lending industry, thriving from a surge in emergency loans to people struggling through the recession, is pouring record sums into lobbying, campaign contributions, and public relations – and getting results.

As the Senate prepares to take up financial reform, lobbyists are working to exempt companies that make short-term cash loans from proposed new federal regulations and policing. In state capitals around the country, payday companies have been fighting some 100 pieces of legislation aimed at safeguarding borrowers from high interest rates and from falling into excessive debt.

Last year, as the U.S. House drew up a financial reform bill, some lawmakers who were courted by the companies and received campaign contributions from them helped crush amendments seeking to restrict payday practices, a review by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund has found.

Full Story: Profiting From Recession, Payday Lenders Spend Big To Fight Regulation.

Workers Fired for Jaywalking

40 Employees Given Notice

More than 40 workers at a construction site at the Marathon Oil Refinery in Detroit have been told they no longer have a job.

The workers are contractors at the plant and they told Local 4 it's because they were jaywalking.

Workers who did not want to be identified said they were given termination papers because they crossed the public street in front of the refinery without using the crosswalk.

“I was floored. I was in awe. I couldn't believe I got terminated over it,” said the worker.

The company said it just had a safety meeting with the workers and talked specifically about crossing at the crosswalk.

Full Story: Workers Let Go Over Jaywalking – Detroit Local News Story – WDIV Detroit.

Why Leahy Is Afraid to Subpoena Yoo

We’re about to witness the pretense of war lawyer hearings without the war lawyers (commonly known as torture lawyers by those willing to ignore their role in “legalizing” aggressive war). This may highlight for many observers the little-known fact that Congress no longer has the power of subpoena.

During 2007-2008 Democratic congressional committees subpoenaed dozens of Bush officials, who simply refused to comply. Although any committee has the undisputed power to use the Capitol Police to enforce its subpoenas, none did. They asked the Bush Justice Department to do it. They sued the Bush Justice Department in court. But, with the exception of a weird deal for partial and secret compliance by Karl Rove in 2009, not a single one of the scofflaws has been compelled to show up.

During 2009-2010 none of the subpoenaed officials have been re-subpoenaed. When torture memos were made public in April 2009, Senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked memo author Jay Bybee to testify, and Bybee declined. Leahy did not issue a subpoena. Congressman John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, in 2009 and 2010 has impeached a judge for groping and another for petty corruption, but has not so much as asked Bybee (or Yoo) to appear.

Full Story: Why Leahy Is Afraid to Subpoena Yoo.

How Goldman Sachs wins no matter what

The steady stream of revelations regarding the role Goldman Sachs has played in the fleecing of Europe should reinvigorate efforts in Congress to rein in the reckless trading that could send the global economy into another tailspin.

To recap, Greece and a number of other European Union countries are dangerously in debt. EU rules say member countries cannot have budget deficits that exceed 3 percent of their gross domestic product. The Greek government recently revealed that its debt is closer to 12 percent of GDP. Other countries including Spain, Ireland, Italy and Portugal are also in trouble. Like our behemoth banks, these countries are “too big to fail.” A default by any one of them would put an end to talks of “green shoots” and could lead to a double dip recession.

In early February, Der Spiegel (a German magazine) broke the story that Greece has been hiding the extent of its debt for years with the aid of U.S. investment banks. In 2001, Goldman was paid $300 million to structure a complex derivative deal that allowed Greece to borrow billions while hiding the true extent of its debt. Without this creative assist, Greece may not have been accepted into the common currency “Eurozone.”

Full Story: Mary Bottari: How Goldman Sachs wins no matter what.

Why Do Some Conservatives Play Footsie With Treason?

Wing nuts no longer: Right-wing celebs are helping anti-Obama militias go mainstream.

IN THE FALL of 1964, not long after Barry Goldwater had clinched the Republican nomination for president, historian Richard Hofstadter penned an essay for Harper’s called “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” It was an instant classic—not because it was so elegantly written, but because in just a few pages it described with deadly accuracy one of the major strains of our national dialogue.

“The paranoid spokesman,” Hofstadter wrote, “is always manning the barricades of civilization…Like religious millennialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date for the apocalypse…He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised…Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish.”

Oath Keepers, the group featured in our cover story, would seem the classic case in point. Its members are cops, sheriffs, and military men and women determined to resist the tyrannical orders they believe are imminent from the Obama administration. The fantasies they spin—a “globalist” leadership intent on declaring martial law, putting God-fearing Americans in detention camps, and asking UN blue helmets to keep order while it imposes health care reform and who knows what else—replicate almost exactly the fears far-right cranks have peddled for generations. Replace “socialism” with “communism” and you are pretty much back to 1964 (or 1934 or 1884, for that matter).

Full Story: Why Do Some Conservatives Play Footsie With Treason? | Mother Jones.

FreeCreditReport.com Commercials To Be Curbed, But Not Till September

Among the merciful provisions of the landmark credit card reform signed into law last year is the requirement that purveyors of phony “free” credit reports put the following admission in all of their ads: “This is not the free credit report provided for by Federal law.”

While credit card companies have had nine months — from May 2009 until February 22 — to come up with a business model less reliant on abusing customers, Experian, the credit reporting company behind FreeCreditReport.com, will have until September before it has to inject some honesty into its ubiquitous TV spots.

The ads, in case you somehow haven’t seen them, say you can get a free credit report if you go to FreeCreditReport.com. You can, but only if you enroll in a $14.95-a-month credit-monitoring service and then cancel it within a week. The site for truly free credit reports is

Full Story: FreeCreditReport.com Commercials To Be Curbed, But Not Till September.

Top Treasury Official Leaves For Lobbying Firm

Just as Congress enters the final stretch of the financial regulatory reform effort, one of the Treasury Department’s leading liaisons to the Hill, Damon Munchus, is bailing out to go work for a financial services lobbying and consulting firm.

Munchus was one of Treasury’s chief negotiators with the House Financial Services Committee.

“This is not a mid-season trade in the NBA, where players just change jerseys and play the same way,” said Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), a member of the committee. “There should be at least some kind of cooling off period.”

Full Story: Top Treasury Official Leaves For Lobbying Firm.

OPS: When the hell are they going to make this illegal?

Goldman Board Rejects Shareholder Demands on Pay

Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s (GS.N) board has rejected demands from shareholders that the firm investigate recent compensation awards, recoup excessive compensation and reform pay practices.

Wall Street’s dominant bank, criticized for paying billions of dollars in bonuses soon after the taxpayer bailout of the banking industry, reported the board’s decision in a regulatory filing on Monday.

Goldman reported the shareholder demands last year and said at the time that its board was considering them. The firm did not name the shareholders who made the demands.

Goldman could not be immediately reached for comment.

Full Story: Goldman Board Rejects Shareholder Demands on Pay | CommonDreams.org.

Heads Up: Prayer Warriors and Sarah Palin Are Organizing Spiritual Warfare to Take Over America

The New Apostolic Reformation, the largest religious movement you’ve never heard of, aims to take control of communities through ‘prayer warriors.’

Imagine a religious movement that makes geographic maps of where demons reside and claims among its adherents the Republican Party’s most recent vice presidential nominee and whose leaders have presided over prayer sessions (one aimed at putting the kibosh on health-care reform) with a host of leading GOP figures.

It’s a movement whose followers played a significant role in the battle over Proposition 8, California’s anti-same-sex marriage initiative, and Uganda’s infamous proposed Anti-Homosexuality Law, more commonly associated with the Family, a religious network of elites drawn from the ranks of business and government throughout the world. But the movement we’re imagining encompasses the humble and the elite alike, supporting a network of “prayer warriors” in all 50 states, within the ranks of the U.S. military, and at the far reaches of the globe — all guided by an entire genre of books, texts, videos and other media.

Imagine that, and you’ve just dreamed up the New Apostolic Reformation, the largest religious movement you’ve never heard of.

Full Story: Heads Up: Prayer Warriors and Sarah Palin Are Organizing Spiritual Warfare to Take Over America | News & Politics | AlterNet.

“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
- Sinclair Lewis

Will Foreign Drones One Day Attack the U.S.?

How our new favorite weapon in the war on terror could soon be turned against us.

The unmanned spy plane that Lebanon’s Hizbullah sent buzzing over Israeli towns in 2005 was loud and weaponless, and carried only a rudimentary camera. But the surprise flight by a regional terror group still worried U.S. analysts, who saw it as a sign that the unmanned vehicles were falling into the wrong hands.

Today that concern appears to have been well founded. At least 40 other countries—from Belarus and Georgia to India, Pakistan, and Russia—have begun to build, buy, and deploy unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, showcasing their efforts at international weapons expos ranging from the premier Paris Air Show to smaller events in Singapore and Bahrain. In the last six months alone, Iran has begun production on a pair of weapons-ready surveillance drones, while China has debuted the Pterodactyl and Sour Dragon, rivals to America’s Predator and Global Hawk. All told, two thirds of worldwide investment in unmanned planes in 2010 will be spent by countries other than the United States.

Full Story: Will Foreign Drones One Day Attack the U.S.? – Newsweek.com.

Apple admits using child labour

Apple has admitted that child labour was used at the factories that build its computers, iPods and mobile phones.

At least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple.

The company did not name the offending factories, or say where they were based, but the majority of its goods are assembled in China.

Full Story: Apple admits using child labour – Telegraph.

Hedge-Fund Assets Offshore Exempt From Reporting Rule

U.S. investors don’t have to report large holdings in offshore hedge funds and private-equity firms this year under disclosure rules designed to detect offshore tax evasion and money laundering, the Internal Revenue Service said.

The IRS announcement followed the issuance of proposed regulations yesterday by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a Treasury agency, that effectively spare fund investors from a June 30 deadline to report offshore accounts that exceed $10,000. Failure to file the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, or FBAR, when required can result in penalties that exceed the value of the account.

In a notice today, the IRS said it “will not apply its enforcement authority adversely in the case” where people are invested in foreign hedge funds or private-equity funds “with respect to that account for calendar year 2009 and earlier calendar years.”

Full Story: Hedge-Fund Assets Offshore Exempt From Reporting Rule (Update1) – Bloomberg.com.

SIBEL EDMONDS: THE TRAITORS AMONG US

by Brad Friedman for Hustler Magazine

Sibel Edmonds has named names. Why isn’t the Media reporting the Story?

SIBEL EDMONDS, a former FBI translator, claims that the following government officials have committed what amount to acts of treason. They are lawmakers Dennis Hastert, Bob Livingston, Dan Burton, Roy Blunt, Stephen Solarz and Tom Lantos, as well as at least three members of George W. Bush’s inner circle: Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Marc Grossman. But is Sibel Edmonds credible?

“Absolutely, she’s credible,” Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told CBS’s 60 Minutes when he was asked about her in 2002. “The reason I feel she’s very credible is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of her story.” Edmonds’s remarkable allegations of bribery, blackmail, infiltration of the U.S. government and the theft of nuclear secrets by foreign allies and enemies alike rocked the Bush Administration. In fact, Bush and company actually prevented Edmonds from telling the American people what she knew—up until now.

John M. Cole, an 18-year veteran of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Counterespionage departments, revealed the panic of upper-echelon officials when Edmonds originally started talking back in 2002. “Well, the Bureau is gonna have to try to work something out with Sibel,” Cole said an FBI executive assistant told him at the time, “because they don’t want this to go out and become public.”

Full Story: LarryFlynt.com » Blog Archive » SIBEL EDMONDS: THE TRAITORS AMONG US.

The Road to Armageddon: The Insane Drive for American Hegemony Threatens Life on Earth

Paul Craig Roberts -

The Washington Times is a newspaper that looks with favor upon the Bush/Cheney/Obama/neocon wars of aggression in the Middle East and favors making terrorists pay for 9/11. Therefore, I was surprised to learn on February 24 that the most popular story on the paper’s website for the past three days was the “Inside the Beltway” report, “Explosive News,” about the 31 press conferences in cities in the US and abroad on February 19 held by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, an organization of professionals which now has 1,000 members.

I was even more surprised that the news report treated the press conference seriously.

How did three World Trade Center skyscrapers suddenly disintegrate into fine dust? How did massive steel beams in three skyscrapers suddenly fail as a result of short-lived, isolated, and low temperature fires? “A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7,” reports the Washington Times.

The paper reports that the architects and engineers have concluded that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology provided “insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers’ destruction” and are “calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials.”

Full Story: The Road to Armageddon: The Insane Drive for American Hegemony Threatens Life on Earth.

GOP Rep Steve King Defends K Street: ‘Somebody Needs To Stand Up For The Lobby’ (VIDEO)

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) took to the House floor on Friday afternoon to come to the defense of that beleaguered band of First-Amendment exercisers operating from their K Street redoubt.

“Yes, lobbyists do a very effective and useful job on this hill,” King promised. “Somebody needs to stand up for the lobby. It is a matter of providing a lot of valuable information.”

King qualified that if a lobbyist lied to him, he'd end the relationship. “If anyone gave me information that wasn't accurate or honest, if they found out about it, they would bring it back and correct it to me first. If I thought they were doing so intentionally, they would not come back to talk to me ever. There is a credibility there in that arena,” he said.

WATCH:

Full Story: GOP Rep Steve King Defends K Street: ‘Somebody Needs To Stand Up For The Lobby’ (VIDEO).